However, to answer your question: Iran is a sovereign nation and while some people would like us to simply "put a stop" to their plans, at least as many people would be very upset with us if we did. Iran claims their nuclear technology is for peaceful use. Iraq claimed it had no weapons of mass destruction... we didn't believe that and invaded anyway and now everyone hates us for it. So what's a mother to do? If we exercise our economic and military might to deal with "rogue" nations we get accused of being imperialists and warmongers, and if we don't we're accused of being a. complicit or b. irresponsible and uncaring. Odd that no-one else seems to want to role of global cop... certainly the U.N. hasn't been very effective in limiting the proliferation of atomic weapons. Either way, blame for all the world's ills keeps getting laid at our feet. Should we occupy Iran? North Korea? Are we responsible for every goddamn dictator and/or religious fanatic that comes to power, anywhere, anytime? Get real. It's too bad nobody remembers all the bad things that Russia and China (to name just two) have done in the past half century, or for that matter all the good things the U.S. has accomplished in spite of our economic "imperialism". Isn't selective memory a wonderful thing?
However. I wasn't referring to America's utility as a superpower and global cop. What I am talking about are things such as the damage done to our educational system, the patent and copyright systems, and other issues whose immediate impact doesn't appear too serious but will undoubtedly have negative consequences for decades to come. Technic civilization is one of humanity's more fragile inventions, and it really won't take much to break it. I hope that doesn't happen: I would really like us to become a starfaring race, or at least become capable of effectively exploiting the Solar System's resources. None of that will happen if we send ourselves back to the Stone Age, or simply become incapable of major technological advancement.
No, the question is if. As in, "we can go to the stars, if we remain a high-technology civilization long enough to do it." I'm not convinced that we're going to be able to do that. We're making a lot of fundamental mistakes right now, mistakes with very long-term consequences.
Well, I'm not particularly religious myself, but if you look at the current state of American society, it could just as easily be said that the ongoing failure of organized religion to maintain the effective forms of social control it exerted for centuries is more of an issue than their "crazy belief system." If you are referring to the conflicts that inevitably occur when fundamentalist groups of any stripe butt heads I might agree... but America is, by and large, becoming less religious as time goes on. Don't confuse the copious quantities of white noise being generated by the more vocal subcultures as being a reflection of more mainstream value systems.
They are pure... five-nines pure. Pristine. AOL's motives are completely untainted by even the slightest hint of reason or business ethic, or for that matter any semblance of good business sense. I guess some people like AOL's "walled garden", "sandbox" environment, or whatever you want to call it. But once this starts costing those folks real money (in addition to AOL's already-outrageous monthly fees), AOL may realize they've made a mistake. Or maybe not. I don't have much confidence in AOL's management.
True enough, I suppose... but I'd rather have our brand of democracy (actually, we aren't a democracy and were never meant to be but I've given up trying to convince anyone of that) than, say, China's.
Too bad, so sad. Patents are about implementations of ideas, not the ideas themselves. It does not matter how great an idea you think you have: if you cannot show that it has any validity in the real world then your idea should remain that... an idea. Certainly you should not receive patent protection simply because you thought something up. The recent refusal of the Patent Office to grant a patent for an interstellar warp drive is a good example. You should receive patent protection when you can prove that you actually have something worthwhile. The removal of the "demonstrable prototype" requirement caused most of the current problems with the patent system, and if you look at most of the ills with that system it all comes back to people patenting ideas, not implementations. There are generally many ways to implement any given invention: you get to patent the ones you figure out how to implement. The other ways to accomplish something are left to other inventors. That's the way it always worked, and worked very well. This idea that you can get a "basic patent" that is so broad, so sweeping, that it can cover all possible implementations is wrong and it is causing serious damage.
The patent system is malfunctioning, the changes that brought about those malfunctions were performed deliberately and with malice aforethought. Congress did this, and it is up to Congress to undo it. The old patent system is a large part (among other cultural attributes) of why America became an industrial and technological juggernaut the likes of which the world had never seen. Congress saw fit to throw that away so that large, existing corporate interests could more easily control any disruptive technologies that might come along. Nobody wants to play the part of the blacksmith.
Battered, hell. They got a free pass on some of their worst behavior even after being convicted of illegal monopolism. And they've pretty much continued with business-as-usual since then. So far as being battered on all sides... the only battering going seems to be from the open source crowd. The EU can huff-and-puff and posture all it wants, but neither the United States nor the European Union has had the balls to truly penalize Microsoft for its illegal activities. At this point, I'm not sure anyone can. We'll probably have to wait for Microsoft to implode of its own accord, but that will take decades and they will continue to do a lot of damage in the process.
There is one difference between pre-antitrust and post-antitrust Microsoft: they have one of the biggest lobbying presences in Washington now, whereas prior to that they had almost none. Microsoft doesn't need any more help from the U.S. Federal Government... they're getting plenty already.
Why is the Federal Government even involved in enforcing copyright? These are private-sector outfits that have every right to protect their rights in court at their own expense... I simply object to the Feds (and my tax dollars!) being conscripted to serve as the enforcement arm of the RIAA. The FCC has overstepped its bounds pretty regularly these past few years: I think it's time to take a hard look at just how much power the FCC needs to do its job, and to more firmly define what that job actually is. For that matter, Congress needs to be brought to heel and start taking notice of what the voting public wants and stop "balancing" our rights out of existence.
Don't worry, there's no debate down here either. Just a bunch of ignorant squeaking wheels fueled by an equally ignorant and sensationalist media. Most of us just try to ignore the whole thing.
Well, I think if you look at this rationally you'd realize that a. the United States has taken a remarkably hands-off approach to DNS governance. I mean... come on. We set up a global communications medium, let anyone connect to it and set up any domain they want with very little interference. Other than the assholes at Verisign, of course, but that's not a government issue... it's a private-sector one. The truth is, complaints about U.S. operation of the root servers have nothing whatsoever to do with our supposed heavy-handedness, but instead have to do with our even-handedness. If the U.S. had kowtowed to the totalitarian bastards running the show in China, and had allowed them to corrupt DNS at whim, would they be splitting off at this point? Of course not, they wouldn't need to set up a separate network to enforce their policies if they had us to do it for them! And Europe, much the same thing. Oh sure, there's all that whining about.XXX and other uselessness, but when you get right down to it a lot of people don't want the U.S. running things because we won't let them screw things up for everyone else, or to further their political goals or because they want to show that their dicks are just as big as George Bush's.
China is about to make a mistake, I think. This may cost them more than it's worth. But one should never expect a bunch of totalitarians to think about what's best for everyone, just what best serves their megalomania.
A very nice sentiment that unfortunately doesn't acknowledge the fact that we are consistently presented with Presidential candidates that do not stand for freedom. Sure... they all say they do but when you look at the laws they allow to be signed into law (or directly lobby for themselves!) it becomes obvious that freedom is something that is being tolerated less and less by our leaders as time goes on.
With a little help from the French that militia removed Great Britain from ownership of this country. Laugh if you wish. And I don't know about us shooting each other, but more of us die in car accidents every year than shootings. Personally, I don't even own a gun. But I want that right in case I decide that I should.
Sorry to contradict, but the right to bear arms has as much to do with the defense of the citizenry from our own government as defending the country from any external aggressor. It was to provide the citizenry with a last-ditch defense against their own government, and as a long-term deterrent to negative action by that government. Before commenting on what purpose our Founders intended our various rights to serve, read some of Jefferson or Franklin's writings. It might open your eyes a little. There were (and are!) damn good reasons for that right, and the fact that our government has finally begun to follow the road to hell as predicted by Thomas Jefferson does little to convince me otherwise. He pointed out that, from a legal perspective, the United States Federal Government at its inception was about as good as it was going to get, and and that it was all downhill from there. As usual, he was right.
The people that speak out against gun ownership by law-abiding citizens forget that it's a fine line between peaceful governance and armed rebellion. Look around the world to see how true that is. Our government is right on course for a significant internecine conflict, and would very much like us to be completely unable to defend ourselves should the need arise. The government has not, to date, been able to justify that stance with anything resembling logic and reason, instead appealing to illogic and emotion. Not to mention large numbers of manufactured "statistics."
It is interesting to me that, prior to the rise of the Hitler and the Nazi Party in pre-World War II Germany, the Weimar republic had a remarkably modern gun control law. Hitler had to do very little, from a legal perspective, to continue disarming those whom he wished defenseless against his militia. Even more interesting, during the early pogroms against the Jews, the few that had refused to turn over their weapons were able to fight off the Nazis and escape. Had the rest of the Jews been as heavily armed there would have been no Holocaust... but because they obeyed the law and turned in their weapons they died en-masse.
Switzerland was the only country in Europe at the time where every man had a military rifle at home. The Nazi leadership acknowledged this fact in their invasion plans, and pretty much left Switzerland alone. Just goes to show that an armed population makes a remarkable deterrent to invasion. Actually, genocidal actions by numerous governments around the world are largely enabled by successful efforts to disarm local populations. It's really easy to control or eliminate unarmed people... it's a lot different when they can shoot back.
By any ordinary measure, America already is a police state. One that is far more technologically-advanced (and thus potentially far more invasive) than any that have preceeded it, with the possible exception of Great Britain. The fact that the abuses that invariably occur with the arrogation of such power haven't reached the level of, say, the old East German government is irrelevant. America is a police state held in check by tradition and the tattered remnants of our Constitution, and once our educational system has finished removing any sense of history, or understanding of what it once meant to be an American, that pesky document with its "inalienable rights" and other inconveniences can be eliminated once and for all.
I doubt I will want to live here then. I doubt they will let me leave.
Thirty-five million dollars, eh? Wow, what a horrendous penalty. That'll throw the fear of God into Gates and Ballmer for sure. No doubt about it, their days are numbered.
Re:PayPal have dug their own grave...
on
Google vs. eBay/PayPal
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I just don't trust excessively concentrated anything. Power, money... information. If it can be collected and stored in can be accessed, and since I, as a consumer, have zero control over where that information ends up, it bothers me. Sure, I suspect Google will probably have better security in place than, say, Choicepoint... but it's still a risk that people should think twice about.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I was thinking of something else.
... we didn't believe that and invaded anyway and now everyone hates us for it. So what's a mother to do? If we exercise our economic and military might to deal with "rogue" nations we get accused of being imperialists and warmongers, and if we don't we're accused of being a. complicit or b. irresponsible and uncaring. Odd that no-one else seems to want to role of global cop ... certainly the U.N. hasn't been very effective in limiting the proliferation of atomic weapons. Either way, blame for all the world's ills keeps getting laid at our feet. Should we occupy Iran? North Korea? Are we responsible for every goddamn dictator and/or religious fanatic that comes to power, anywhere, anytime? Get real. It's too bad nobody remembers all the bad things that Russia and China (to name just two) have done in the past half century, or for that matter all the good things the U.S. has accomplished in spite of our economic "imperialism". Isn't selective memory a wonderful thing?
However, to answer your question: Iran is a sovereign nation and while some people would like us to simply "put a stop" to their plans, at least as many people would be very upset with us if we did. Iran claims their nuclear technology is for peaceful use. Iraq claimed it had no weapons of mass destruction
However. I wasn't referring to America's utility as a superpower and global cop. What I am talking about are things such as the damage done to our educational system, the patent and copyright systems, and other issues whose immediate impact doesn't appear too serious but will undoubtedly have negative consequences for decades to come. Technic civilization is one of humanity's more fragile inventions, and it really won't take much to break it. I hope that doesn't happen: I would really like us to become a starfaring race, or at least become capable of effectively exploiting the Solar System's resources. None of that will happen if we send ourselves back to the Stone Age, or simply become incapable of major technological advancement.
Nah ... forget Putty. I recommend Spackle.
No, the question is if. As in, "we can go to the stars, if we remain a high-technology civilization long enough to do it." I'm not convinced that we're going to be able to do that. We're making a lot of fundamental mistakes right now, mistakes with very long-term consequences.
Well, I'm not particularly religious myself, but if you look at the current state of American society, it could just as easily be said that the ongoing failure of organized religion to maintain the effective forms of social control it exerted for centuries is more of an issue than their "crazy belief system." If you are referring to the conflicts that inevitably occur when fundamentalist groups of any stripe butt heads I might agree ... but America is, by and large, becoming less religious as time goes on. Don't confuse the copious quantities of white noise being generated by the more vocal subcultures as being a reflection of more mainstream value systems.
They are pure ... five-nines pure. Pristine. AOL's motives are completely untainted by even the slightest hint of reason or business ethic, or for that matter any semblance of good business sense. I guess some people like AOL's "walled garden", "sandbox" environment, or whatever you want to call it. But once this starts costing those folks real money (in addition to AOL's already-outrageous monthly fees), AOL may realize they've made a mistake. Or maybe not. I don't have much confidence in AOL's management.
True enough, I suppose ... but I'd rather have our brand of democracy (actually, we aren't a democracy and were never meant to be but I've given up trying to convince anyone of that) than, say, China's.
Too bad, so sad. Patents are about implementations of ideas, not the ideas themselves. It does not matter how great an idea you think you have: if you cannot show that it has any validity in the real world then your idea should remain that ... an idea. Certainly you should not receive patent protection simply because you thought something up. The recent refusal of the Patent Office to grant a patent for an interstellar warp drive is a good example. You should receive patent protection when you can prove that you actually have something worthwhile. The removal of the "demonstrable prototype" requirement caused most of the current problems with the patent system, and if you look at most of the ills with that system it all comes back to people patenting ideas, not implementations. There are generally many ways to implement any given invention: you get to patent the ones you figure out how to implement. The other ways to accomplish something are left to other inventors. That's the way it always worked, and worked very well. This idea that you can get a "basic patent" that is so broad, so sweeping, that it can cover all possible implementations is wrong and it is causing serious damage.
The patent system is malfunctioning, the changes that brought about those malfunctions were performed deliberately and with malice aforethought. Congress did this, and it is up to Congress to undo it. The old patent system is a large part (among other cultural attributes) of why America became an industrial and technological juggernaut the likes of which the world had never seen. Congress saw fit to throw that away so that large, existing corporate interests could more easily control any disruptive technologies that might come along. Nobody wants to play the part of the blacksmith.
Battered, hell. They got a free pass on some of their worst behavior even after being convicted of illegal monopolism. And they've pretty much continued with business-as-usual since then. So far as being battered on all sides ... the only battering going seems to be from the open source crowd. The EU can huff-and-puff and posture all it wants, but neither the United States nor the European Union has had the balls to truly penalize Microsoft for its illegal activities. At this point, I'm not sure anyone can. We'll probably have to wait for Microsoft to implode of its own accord, but that will take decades and they will continue to do a lot of damage in the process.
... they're getting plenty already.
There is one difference between pre-antitrust and post-antitrust Microsoft: they have one of the biggest lobbying presences in Washington now, whereas prior to that they had almost none. Microsoft doesn't need any more help from the U.S. Federal Government
"Your proposal is acceptable."
Why is the Federal Government even involved in enforcing copyright? These are private-sector outfits that have every right to protect their rights in court at their own expense ... I simply object to the Feds (and my tax dollars!) being conscripted to serve as the enforcement arm of the RIAA. The FCC has overstepped its bounds pretty regularly these past few years: I think it's time to take a hard look at just how much power the FCC needs to do its job, and to more firmly define what that job actually is. For that matter, Congress needs to be brought to heel and start taking notice of what the voting public wants and stop "balancing" our rights out of existence.
if ninety-nine percent of everything is, truly, crud ... the yes, I can see the Web being full of worthless content, original or otherwise.
Of course, five minutes with a search engine will tell you that.
Or, as Zaphod Beeblebrox once said ... "It's AMAZINGLY amazing!"
Don't worry, there's no debate down here either. Just a bunch of ignorant squeaking wheels fueled by an equally ignorant and sensationalist media. Most of us just try to ignore the whole thing.
Well, I think if you look at this rationally you'd realize that a. the United States has taken a remarkably hands-off approach to DNS governance. I mean ... come on. We set up a global communications medium, let anyone connect to it and set up any domain they want with very little interference. Other than the assholes at Verisign, of course, but that's not a government issue ... it's a private-sector one. The truth is, complaints about U.S. operation of the root servers have nothing whatsoever to do with our supposed heavy-handedness, but instead have to do with our even-handedness. If the U.S. had kowtowed to the totalitarian bastards running the show in China, and had allowed them to corrupt DNS at whim, would they be splitting off at this point? Of course not, they wouldn't need to set up a separate network to enforce their policies if they had us to do it for them! And Europe, much the same thing. Oh sure, there's all that whining about .XXX and other uselessness, but when you get right down to it a lot of people don't want the U.S. running things because we won't let them screw things up for everyone else, or to further their political goals or because they want to show that their dicks are just as big as George Bush's.
China is about to make a mistake, I think. This may cost them more than it's worth. But one should never expect a bunch of totalitarians to think about what's best for everyone, just what best serves their megalomania.
No, it will be supplied as a driver for Windows Vista. Don't bother looking, it won't show up in Task Manager.
any word on when Edenite is going to be invented? It would make subocean research much easier.
A very nice sentiment that unfortunately doesn't acknowledge the fact that we are consistently presented with Presidential candidates that do not stand for freedom. Sure ... they all say they do but when you look at the laws they allow to be signed into law (or directly lobby for themselves!) it becomes obvious that freedom is something that is being tolerated less and less by our leaders as time goes on.
With a little help from the French that militia removed Great Britain from ownership of this country. Laugh if you wish. And I don't know about us shooting each other, but more of us die in car accidents every year than shootings. Personally, I don't even own a gun. But I want that right in case I decide that I should.
... but because they obeyed the law and turned in their weapons they died en-masse.
... it's a lot different when they can shoot back.
Sorry to contradict, but the right to bear arms has as much to do with the defense of the citizenry from our own government as defending the country from any external aggressor. It was to provide the citizenry with a last-ditch defense against their own government, and as a long-term deterrent to negative action by that government. Before commenting on what purpose our Founders intended our various rights to serve, read some of Jefferson or Franklin's writings. It might open your eyes a little. There were (and are!) damn good reasons for that right, and the fact that our government has finally begun to follow the road to hell as predicted by Thomas Jefferson does little to convince me otherwise. He pointed out that, from a legal perspective, the United States Federal Government at its inception was about as good as it was going to get, and and that it was all downhill from there. As usual, he was right.
The people that speak out against gun ownership by law-abiding citizens forget that it's a fine line between peaceful governance and armed rebellion. Look around the world to see how true that is. Our government is right on course for a significant internecine conflict, and would very much like us to be completely unable to defend ourselves should the need arise. The government has not, to date, been able to justify that stance with anything resembling logic and reason, instead appealing to illogic and emotion. Not to mention large numbers of manufactured "statistics."
It is interesting to me that, prior to the rise of the Hitler and the Nazi Party in pre-World War II Germany, the Weimar republic had a remarkably modern gun control law. Hitler had to do very little, from a legal perspective, to continue disarming those whom he wished defenseless against his militia. Even more interesting, during the early pogroms against the Jews, the few that had refused to turn over their weapons were able to fight off the Nazis and escape. Had the rest of the Jews been as heavily armed there would have been no Holocaust
Switzerland was the only country in Europe at the time where every man had a military rifle at home. The Nazi leadership acknowledged this fact in their invasion plans, and pretty much left Switzerland alone. Just goes to show that an armed population makes a remarkable deterrent to invasion. Actually, genocidal actions by numerous governments around the world are largely enabled by successful efforts to disarm local populations. It's really easy to control or eliminate unarmed people
Well, there's always hope ... just hope I don't wait too long.
Yes, but they run really really fast.
Hire "Real Programmers". You know, the ones that only code in Assembler, and if they can't do it in Assembler then it isn't worth doing.
By any ordinary measure, America already is a police state. One that is far more technologically-advanced (and thus potentially far more invasive) than any that have preceeded it, with the possible exception of Great Britain. The fact that the abuses that invariably occur with the arrogation of such power haven't reached the level of, say, the old East German government is irrelevant. America is a police state held in check by tradition and the tattered remnants of our Constitution, and once our educational system has finished removing any sense of history, or understanding of what it once meant to be an American, that pesky document with its "inalienable rights" and other inconveniences can be eliminated once and for all.
I doubt I will want to live here then. I doubt they will let me leave.
... but there is still the danger that in the middle of a Disney Movie you suddenly get to see ...
George Carlin!
"Fuck Mickey Mouse! Fuck him in the ass with a big rubber dick! And then break it off and beat him with it!"
Thirty-five million dollars, eh? Wow, what a horrendous penalty. That'll throw the fear of God into Gates and Ballmer for sure. No doubt about it, their days are numbered.
I just don't trust excessively concentrated anything. Power, money ... information. If it can be collected and stored in can be accessed, and since I, as a consumer, have zero control over where that information ends up, it bothers me. Sure, I suspect Google will probably have better security in place than, say, Choicepoint ... but it's still a risk that people should think twice about.