psst! I built scratch made black powder rockets at age 12 with items I got at the local drug store and empty toilet paper or cigar tubes. And there are plenty of more effective and a lot more nasty things that can be built from VERY common items. American civilians have access to a lot more materials that may be used as weapons than the resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Industrial and agricultural product supply houses would be at the top of the list, the local hardware or grocery store at the bottom. Take the average automobile: gasoline, oil/grease, sulfuric acid, lead, ceramics, antifreeze, rubber, vinyls, plastics, aluminum, glass, steel, and even platinum, you would probably be surprised to learn that there are plenty of materials in your automobile for several really nasty weapons. The stuff under your kitchen sink, in your laundry room, garden shed or beside your propane grill is very likely to be just as useful. Hell your own body provides excellent weapons materials most every day, spit, feces and urine can be used chemically or biologically as weapons. All it takes is: (A) A reason for one to do so (B) Basic knowledge of chemistry/biology and a little elbow grease (C) there is no C, see how easy it is! Not to mention that the nasty effects of a lot of these improvised devices/methods would make getting shot with a hunting rifle sound like a good way to go.
Not to disparage the value of quality firearms in skilled hands, but even if such are not available a determined group or even individual can act in very effective and devastating ways. The chemicals at the base of many commonly used, and necessary, products can be easily be isolated, concentrated and/or combined to make really nasty things. Even if such products were heavily regulated and thus scarce there are plenty of naturally occurring elements and compounds that would be impossible to control in less than a generation or two, if ever. Taking and maintaining control of a nation all actually hinges on some very elusive stuff like cultural inclinations and philosophical ideals. Given the cultural and philosophical nature of its citizens the USA would be pretty much impossible to hold as a single martial controlled state. That being said if the federal state were broken and it devolved into many smaller feudal states, say 50 or more, some local areas may see long term martial rule. As always all it takes is a determined group or sometimes an individual to shift the balance. Oh and BTW I would bet my grandfathers 45/70 Sharps would still be a most effective sniping tool, but I would still prefer my 30-30 carbine and 12 gauge for close in urban or brushy stuff. As for tanks I wonder how the long the occupants would be effective with a dose of concentrated poison-oak and jabenero pepper oils. Chem suits you say, they had better be prepared to live in em. As for automatic weapons, it only takes one shot for a kill, or in case of a shotgun well enough said.
Wabi-Sabi Matthew
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.." Samuel Adams
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." Benjamin Franklin
When the people fear their Government, there is tyranny. When the Government fears it's people, there is liberty.." Thomas Paine
"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own." Thomas Jefferson
.. if they read such hogwash and believe it, kinda like the FOX "News" fanboys deserve to be misinformed. Anyone who would believe they have developed a well informed opinion about something as complex as the GPL and the surrounding legal issues from such a small data set deserves to be misinformed regardless of the bias in the information. However bias is the reason that such people go through life with a warped view of the world. This is somewhat analogous to the idea of a self full filling prophecy. Their less than nimble minds already had the kernel of misinformed or warped view and thus seek only sources that reinforce such fantasy. A spiritually and mentally slothful and thus dangerous way to live, this is. Ahh Karma!
"because other people who don't know anything about the GPL read this shit, and then they think that they do"
Your observation reminds me of one of my favorite quotes...
"It ain't what folks don't know thats gets them in the most trouble, it's the things they think they know that ain't so" Will Rodgers (or a close paraphrase of something he said anyway)
Wabi-Sabi Matthew
How about a fork - FreeSuSe the Karma Khameleon , as an icon I kinda like the twisted little lizard-like navigator/engineer character off of "Trippin The Rift", I know he was a bit of a perv, but none the less a kool one, don't ya think! It seems to me he would fit in well on/.
"What I think we should be serious about is sequestering a percentage of fossil fuel production and make sure it is set aside for those industries that produce secondary products that are not possible without petroleum - e.g. pharmaceuticals, plastics, various advanced materials.
You might be able to build a clean-burning coal-fired automobile, given the NECESSITY of doing so (in the not-so-distant future), but can you imagine the difficulty of doing so with no plastics?"
Not to dispute most of your post but coal is a fossil fuel itself and very similar in composition to oil. If you look about you will find that pharmaceuticals, plastics and many industrial base products can be and have been manufactured from coal as well. I seem to remember that high sulfur coal is the preferred raw material for some pharmaceuticals. My father was a coal miner for most his life, the last company he worked for (Mapco) at one time gave its employees a set of outdoor furniture made from a combination of unburnt coal products and fly ash - a burnt coal product. It looked very much like plastic to me and was extremely tough and durable. The practice of using coal as a replacement for oil is mostly a question of economics. It rests not only on the question of which is cheapest at any specific time, but also on infrastructure costs and the old "who gets to make the money issue". All these questions today favor oil. Two, ten or twenty years from now that might not be the case especially considering the US and Canada have huge coal and oil shale/sand reserves. Despite these facts I do agree that the preservation of certain oil reserves might be a good idea.
How would one know anyway, whats to stop Microsoft from stealing and inserting GPL'ed source code into Windows source code base and claiming they wrote it first? Does any independent third party hold Microsoft source code in some sort of a legal proof copy? If so how often is the base updated and re-certified, with the constant evolution/bug fixes of the code base? The way I see it there is no way for closed source software to prove it's copyright short of such a method, even a check sum value of the packages can be manipulated with comments and such. It seems to me that closed source code should never have been granted any form of copyright protection since issues such as this prevent it's being clearly provable as legitimate. Things like a book, digital document, schematic or blueprint are certainly easy enough to prove as legitimate first copy, but closed source code, how?
Another thing, just how much GPL'ed IP is Microsoft Infringing upon? How is anyone to know? You can't compare the code because it one party keeps its code closed. As of yet another issue, just what IP are they discussing anyway, that subject to the law in the USA?
Now this is an example of a IP issue where copyrights are concerned. The other IP issue is patent infringement which is just as stinky a mess due to reckless patent grants. Way to many patents have been issued for obvious fundamental computing concepts, business methods, research methods, technological concepts, etc. Software patents are an especially way too generalized in application. I have looked at a few and the way they are written makes me wonder who the idiots were that thought issuing patents for such a nasty mess was a good idea. I am surprised that no one has managed to patent gravity yet. Political/corporate USA has a huge interest in sequestering and protecting IP since it is about all they can look forward to now that they have sold off/out virtually all of its value added services like materials processing and manufacturing for short term gains.
"Those who are too ethical or intelligent to engage in political endeavors ironically are doomed to suffer a self inflicted curse of rule and domination by those who are not similarly restrained by conscience or enlightened by gnosis." Socrates*
*This is a paraphrase of my rendering of something that I understand he had spoken, possibly repeated/recorded by his student Plato in a similar form.
"Computers aren't going to keep improving geometrically forever, so people will stop replacing their computers every couple of years, and that means less bundled copies of windows being sold."
Forever is a long time, the view you see seems to me an extremely shortsighted one. The recently arrived at relative plateau of mhz speeds may seem to indicate this, however the next generation of fab plants are not online yet. As new fab plants come online you will see decreases in component size and thus increases in speed. As the hardware and software architecture matures for, then later exceeds, the 64bit address space you will see a dramatic increase in performance as well.
But even more important in the future will be the move to parallel processing (multi-core) and virtualization (vmware/xen)technology. Efficant parallel processing has been the holy grail for computing for years and is more of what makes a super computer a super computer than raw speed of the individual components. Recent advances in multi-core CPU's will bring this type of power to the desktop. Expect massively multi-cored CPU's in the near future. The main bottleneck will then be the softwares ability to make use of this power. The consumer level desktop OS's of today even the multiprocessor variants are just not up to the scaling process control and interprocess communication tasks that will be needed to effectively harness the power of massively paralleled hardware.
So there will be the need for continued development of the desktop OS, to the point of reinvention. In the short run the new power will allow the use of virtual machines that will deliver neat things to the user. However in the longer run I think virtualization technologies will be seen as keys in the solution of many problems like scaling issues, process management and interprocess communication.
All in all the evolution of desktop computing is far from over, in fact we are only in its infancy. I expect to see more advances,with increases in the exponential growth rate, in computing power in the next ten years than in the sum of all to this date. The only real stumbling blocks I see are political and legal, the limitation of internetwork bandwidth and the throttling of implementation of new technologies by those trying to hold on to or grow their piece of the pie, ie: Microsoft, IBM, ATT/Bell, and RIAA type folks. New computers are going to be capable of things we can barely imagine now. Some of these things such as better user interfaces like real functional voice I/O interface, intelligent interactive agents or whole body AVATAR generation and control/feedback devices, better visual interfaces like CA generated virtual 3d worlds on Super High Definition displays, comm media and entertainment convergence and home automation are going to be so handy that I am sure I will want one and I think you probably will to, and so will Joe sixpak and maybe your grandmaw. Microsoft can and will probably will be a major player in this, hopefully a company of better ethics and vision or of lesser influence than today since they, like many others, seem intent on holding back progress wherever it threatens their ever increasing stake in the game.
What is needed are political/legal solutions that allows for as open as possible "free" market forces but establishes a legal framework tilted towards the most efficant advancement of technology. This in the long run will by its nature be the most beneficial solution for the stakeholders (all of us) and the well diversified share holders (more of us than you might think). Patent, copyright, and digital rights management are at this time be biggest impediments to technological progress. Materials and implementation sciences are constantly being restrained by legal devices setup to encourage progress. This is not to say they all need to dumped, that is A: not possible B: not an efficant solution anyway. However a lot of laws need to be readdressed and refined, enforced, created, extended or simply eliminated. I s
Put your hands over your head, stick your tongue out, don't swallow! I SAID DON'T SWALLOW! BANG! Damn spit suckers!
On the other hand: Yea honey read this. See, it's just like I told you all along, this is why a nice sloppy wet BJ is better for your PMS & cramps than Tylenol PM.
IANARN (I Am Not A Religious Nut) but I can't wonder if such issues are not at the root of the ban on consumption by the religions of Abraham of "unclean" animals like swine. Of course the really interesting direction this quickly leads questions like "how was this knowledge acquired".
"Why does only the Federal Govt. decide things like National Security & minting of currency. Becuse these are matters of vital, national importance."
I am too tired tonight to recall enough or research the details but the dizzying array or often disparate election procedures and laws in the US is mostly related to local governmental autonomy and states rights issues. Due to the nature of the USA origins and peoples there has always been a certain level of distrust for a monolithic federal government. Remember there are also state and local elections often concurrent with federal elections. I agree that I think more openness in processes, uniformity in technology and regulation and much better legal oversight would be generally a great idea. However I can also relate with some who have concerns about issues of too much federal power in general. The governing of the population in the US despite some national and international opinion has always been an exercise akin to herding cats, IMHO this is how it should be.
Yea, I had a polyp removed from my tongue a few years back. The following cauterization procedure, with believe it or not a Craftsman 110v arc welder as a power source, smelled to me a lot like a nice rib eye on the grill. Maybe if I had not been so terrified and pain wrecked I might have discerned that it smelled more like pork loin.
I read enough of this topic to see the Free Market mantra coming up over and over and over. I am fed up with hearing about "free market" this and that. Listen close now! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE MARKET! The markets are anything but free! Global corporations have bought the legislation to ensure such. This has always been the case to some extent, there has never been a truly free market anywhere on as a grand scale as a nation. I doubt that there has ever been one larger that a individual Quaker community. Today the manipulation of markets for the gain of the privileged few are happening very effectively all over the world, it is just a bit father along in the USA than in say Europe. Anywhere national or state level legislation doesn't work out they just bribe or coerce local officials. Wonder why so many in the third world hate us? They see us in the light of these "business leaders" and our rah-rah support of these "free market heroes" and their propaganda.
As for free markets I am not even sure we want really free markets, as they are probably just too volatile to support a stable society the size we have today. What annoys me is all these business and political types running around shouting the free market mantra and holding up a free market as some sort of holy rule that we cannot muck with, when such does not even exist. I wish I had all the answers, I would be most pleased to share them. I can share this much, DO NOT believe the propaganda that we have a free market economy in the USA! The professed aspirations of such aside it is not and never has been such and getting less and less free with every congress. The big difference between today and recent history in the USA is that the balance of power, political influence and wealth distribution between those that produce via their physical labor, creative ability's or information juggling/processing skills and the parasites that exist upon such has gotten out of hand, again. Not that is has ever been fair. sheezz!
"I'm really forced to wonder if the Slashdot group-think would hate Diebold as much as they do if Gore won in 2000 or Kerry won in 2004"
Come on now, if, IF! Are you really that dense? Why is it so hard for some to understand the importance of the election process being trustworthy? In your glee that your preferred pilferer is in power can you not wrap your mind around what the consequences of wholesale subversion could be?
ie: Quit frickin' whinin', up against the wall you traitorous wuss!
Look I know it's poor form to bitch about mods, but "Funny"? What the hell is funny about the post folks? Maybe I am dense myself but I don't get the joke. Unless it is a sick type of funny like the "hire the handicapped their fun to watch" line? I think the poster is serious, and that's, well, it's just pitiful, and you folks should be ashamed for finding humor in it.;)
Ok so you can't code worth a hoot. Are you any good at artistic stuff? Maybe your really great at organizing things logically. Maybe even those of us who are totally clueless about source code can finally find a way to contribute. I realize there are quite a few talented people doing this, but the effort could always use more.
As for the idea that there has to be a standardized desktop for all distros. This would totally wreck what I see as the most powerful asset of FOSS like Linux distros. The richness of the diversity in Linux distros IMHO is what I like the most about it, and I suspect such attributes may very well be crucial to its survival. To get a substantial market share distros need to be created that target user types with lower skill levels. The modular nature of Linux would mean that it could still be capable of being expanded as that skill level increases.
I do agree with the basic premise that a pretty and easy to use interface would probably do more to draw in new users that anything except maybe better compatibility with main stream (new & cheap) hardware. However I am not sure this is where most current Linux users and developers want to go. Most users, even those of moderate skills like belonging to what most of us consider a elite group and would not consider the inclusion of Joe sixpak and Grandmaw into this group a good thing. Star programmers and commercial developers might be interested if there were a reward/profit path, which is not impossible but is certainly not as clear a thing as Windows or OSX.
I do think that by producing an easy (remember Mandrakes example) and pretty (the Ubuntu Splash) that a distro can gain in market share, especially with new low skilled users. I also believe that such would actually be a good thing even for those using "elite" power distros simply due to the increase in interest from hardware vendors and commercial development houses.
Pretty is going to make a difference, especially in the coming 3D desktop. You can rail against it all you want, but with increases in processing power and display/quality size it will happen. The FOSS community should embrace the better uses of it and extend it in the same manner they have other technology. Linux has many benefits that I do not have to regurgitate to the readers here. The new desktop interfaces will be more not less about eye candy and artwork than ever. They will require new ideas about the organization of information and the ergonomics of accessing such. I see a lot of areas where non coders will be able contribute, will be NEEDED than ever before. Think about it.
Debating the existence of the disks or examinations of the same is a waste of time, none of this is relevant. Even if Diebold uploaded this "source code" to SourceForge tomorrow, there is no way to know that is it the same source that will be used in the machines during an election, or that there is not an issue with the compilation of such code, or that it has not been infected with other code after installation, or that a swap or flash of the firmware on the machines is not an issue.
There might be a way to use electronic voting if the whole process was open enough, both in design and implementation and the equipment was physically secure enough. However at this time the only effective way I can see to ensure the elections are accurate is to dump the whole effort and go back to paper and pencil. While we are at it make the voting period longer, several days would make sense to me.
I actually prefer the idea of runoff type of election that would allow for 1st and 2nd and etc choices. This would go a long way toward eliminating the stranglehold of the good cop/bad cops mess we get from a two or even three party system. But at the very least we must make sure people that eligible can vote and that they have a confidence that their vote will be counted accurately.
On other issues, the gerrymandering of voting districts is probably as serious a problem or worse. We need to clean this up before we have a chance at having representation that we are able to hold accountable. This along with actual serious efforts to do something about the ways money is involved in elections AND influences over the voting of our representatives must be addressed.
Wabi-Sabi Matthew
Running Firefox 2.0, man the built in spell checking is sweet, and the hangs on tab switching during page loading I got on the last version seems fixed. Thanks Mozilla Folks!!!!!
"I was amused when in the USA to be with a silver haired retired friend who was asked for his ID as well. I think he was quite amused and pleased that they were checking him in case he was under 21...."
Its more likely they suspected him as possibly being someone with an outstanding tab or bounced check/card charge.
"...then 2,800 dead over three years in a "war zone" is...what?"
I believe your numbers are a bit off, try 2,800 US soldiers dead PLUS 300,000 to 600,000+ others (mostly civilians) . Oh and BTW you also failed to mention the 30,000 or so US soldiers maimed, who knows how many others maimed as well.
"What level of mass death is statistically significant to merit a response?"
The answer to your question is ONE. The real questions should have been; what level of response is logical and ethical, and how do we implement the response in a effective and judicial manner. Listen close now, 99%+ of the 300,000 to 600,000 more or less that have died in Iraq had NOTHING to do with the 3,000 that died on 9/11.
"100,000 dead in a nuclear attack? That's only 2.5 years of car accidents in the US"
Do you really believe that the mess in Iraq has rendered such an event less likely? How would you feel if your child, lover, sibling, parent or close friend was blown in half before your eyes? Then you get to see the persons responsible smiling and strutting around using such actions to make political hay, now how would you feel? How many more thousands of persons with a vengeful hatred for the US are there today just because of this war?
A lot of what he does that seems over the top like instances where Bill O Reilly seem to me to be simply ratings driven. At least he seems to have a bit of fun in his engagements with the numb nuts at FOX. As for his, mostly recent, op-eds on the Bush administration, well as I see it he was dead on in the assessments. So whenever someone aggressively criticizes the powers that be it makes them a demagogue and a puppet for the opposing party? In my view Oberman is perhaps the most courageous and honest op-ed host on TV news who is not a party and/or corporate shill and/or pathological liar. I respect many other folks like Chris Matthews, Jim Leirer, Charlie Rose or Tim Russert, even Joe Scarbourgh, but they have been failing in their lack of aggressive questions or stance given the current all to common flagrant disregard for the truth by those in power.
I knew there would be someway to reply with a M$ related troll in this topic if read down far enough. I see someone already managed to get a Al Gore related comment in, lets see that leaves Bush, at least one Clinton, Linux, Beowulf, Nazi's, p0rn, and oh yea "In Soviet Russia....". Oh well I'm not to the bottom yet.
I have been investing a higher % than your 12% into a 401 or 403 account for about 20 years, admittedly mostly in the higher risk funds. Things did look pretty good during most of the 90's. However in the last six years or so things don't look so well. I am not sure one can trust such "managed" accounts. I suspect that I like most those falling in the later 25-30% of the baby boom will work till they die. I put my trust of being able to stay comfortable and well fed into the home I am building and my hands on living skills as well as my marketable knowledge. The home is designed to be inexpensive to heat and cool, and intentionally designed to not to fit within standard market definitions. This may make for a lower market value but it will thus also have a lower taxable value as well. The house will be a mostly buried steel reinforced concrete over steel quonset form. It is being built on a very rural tract without a mortgage and will survive just fine without insurance.
Slashdot Mirror
psst! I built scratch made black powder rockets at age 12 with items I got at the local drug store and empty toilet paper or cigar tubes. And there are plenty of more effective and a lot more nasty things that can be built from VERY common items. American civilians have access to a lot more materials that may be used as weapons than the resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Industrial and agricultural product supply houses would be at the top of the list, the local hardware or grocery store at the bottom. Take the average automobile: gasoline, oil/grease, sulfuric acid, lead, ceramics, antifreeze, rubber, vinyls, plastics, aluminum, glass, steel, and even platinum, you would probably be surprised to learn that there are plenty of materials in your automobile for several really nasty weapons. The stuff under your kitchen sink, in your laundry room, garden shed or beside your propane grill is very likely to be just as useful. Hell your own body provides excellent weapons materials most every day, spit, feces and urine can be used chemically or biologically as weapons. All it takes is: (A) A reason for one to do so (B) Basic knowledge of chemistry/biology and a little elbow grease (C) there is no C, see how easy it is! Not to mention that the nasty effects of a lot of these improvised devices/methods would make getting shot with a hunting rifle sound like a good way to go.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
http://hypersynergy.com/
Not to disparage the value of quality firearms in skilled hands, but even if such are not available a determined group or even individual can act in very effective and devastating ways. The chemicals at the base of many commonly used, and necessary, products can be easily be isolated, concentrated and/or combined to make really nasty things. Even if such products were heavily regulated and thus scarce there are plenty of naturally occurring elements and compounds that would be impossible to control in less than a generation or two, if ever. Taking and maintaining control of a nation all actually hinges on some very elusive stuff like cultural inclinations and philosophical ideals. Given the cultural and philosophical nature of its citizens the USA would be pretty much impossible to hold as a single martial controlled state. That being said if the federal state were broken and it devolved into many smaller feudal states, say 50 or more, some local areas may see long term martial rule. As always all it takes is a determined group or sometimes an individual to shift the balance. Oh and BTW I would bet my grandfathers 45/70 Sharps would still be a most effective sniping tool, but I would still prefer my 30-30 carbine and 12 gauge for close in urban or brushy stuff. As for tanks I wonder how the long the occupants would be effective with a dose of concentrated poison-oak and jabenero pepper oils. Chem suits you say, they had better be prepared to live in em. As for automatic weapons, it only takes one shot for a kill, or in case of a shotgun well enough said.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.." Samuel Adams
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." Benjamin Franklin
When the people fear their Government, there is tyranny. When the Government fears it's people, there is liberty.." Thomas Paine
"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own." Thomas Jefferson
And only natural sourced fertilizer, a common form is bullshit.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
.. if they read such hogwash and believe it, kinda like the FOX "News" fanboys deserve to be misinformed. Anyone who would believe they have developed a well informed opinion about something as complex as the GPL and the surrounding legal issues from such a small data set deserves to be misinformed regardless of the bias in the information. However bias is the reason that such people go through life with a warped view of the world. This is somewhat analogous to the idea of a self full filling prophecy. Their less than nimble minds already had the kernel of misinformed or warped view and thus seek only sources that reinforce such fantasy. A spiritually and mentally slothful and thus dangerous way to live, this is. Ahh Karma!
/.
"because other people who don't know anything about the GPL read this shit, and then they think that they do"
Your observation reminds me of one of my favorite quotes...
"It ain't what folks don't know thats gets them in the most trouble, it's the things they think they know that ain't so"
Will Rodgers (or a close paraphrase of something he said anyway)
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
How about a fork - FreeSuSe the Karma Khameleon , as an icon I kinda like the twisted little lizard-like navigator/engineer character off of "Trippin The Rift", I know he was a bit of a perv, but none the less a kool one, don't ya think! It seems to me he would fit in well on
"What I think we should be serious about is sequestering a percentage of fossil fuel production and make sure it is set aside for those industries that produce secondary products that are not possible without petroleum - e.g. pharmaceuticals, plastics, various advanced materials.
I .htm
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P HENANTHRAQUINONE.htm
You might be able to build a clean-burning coal-fired automobile, given the NECESSITY of doing so (in the not-so-distant future), but can you imagine the difficulty of doing so with no plastics?"
Not to dispute most of your post but coal is a fossil fuel itself and very similar in composition to oil. If you look about you will find that pharmaceuticals, plastics and many industrial base products can be and have been manufactured from coal as well. I seem to remember that high sulfur coal is the preferred raw material for some pharmaceuticals. My father was a coal miner for most his life, the last company he worked for (Mapco) at one time gave its employees a set of outdoor furniture made from a combination of unburnt coal products and fly ash - a burnt coal product. It looked very much like plastic to me and was extremely tough and durable. The practice of using coal as a replacement for oil is mostly a question of economics. It rests not only on the question of which is cheapest at any specific time, but also on infrastructure costs and the old "who gets to make the money issue". All these questions today favor oil. Two, ten or twenty years from now that might not be the case especially considering the US and Canada have huge coal and oil shale/sand reserves. Despite these facts I do agree that the preservation of certain oil reserves might be a good idea.
Wabi Sabi
Matthew
Some quickly Googled links on this topic:
http://www.heritageresearch.com/manufactured_gas_
http://acswebcontent.acs.org/landmarks/industrial
http://chemicalland21.com/specialtychem/finechem/
How would one know anyway, whats to stop Microsoft from stealing and inserting GPL'ed source code into Windows source code base and claiming they wrote it first? Does any independent third party hold Microsoft source code in some sort of a legal proof copy? If so how often is the base updated and re-certified, with the constant evolution/bug fixes of the code base? The way I see it there is no way for closed source software to prove it's copyright short of such a method, even a check sum value of the packages can be manipulated with comments and such. It seems to me that closed source code should never have been granted any form of copyright protection since issues such as this prevent it's being clearly provable as legitimate. Things like a book, digital document, schematic or blueprint are certainly easy enough to prove as legitimate first copy, but closed source code, how?
Another thing, just how much GPL'ed IP is Microsoft Infringing upon? How is anyone to know? You can't compare the code because it one party keeps its code closed. As of yet another issue, just what IP are they discussing anyway, that subject to the law in the USA?
Now this is an example of a IP issue where copyrights are concerned. The other IP issue is patent infringement which is just as stinky a mess due to reckless patent grants. Way to many patents have been issued for obvious fundamental computing concepts, business methods, research methods, technological concepts, etc. Software patents are an especially way too generalized in application. I have looked at a few and the way they are written makes me wonder who the idiots were that thought issuing patents for such a nasty mess was a good idea. I am surprised that no one has managed to patent gravity yet. Political/corporate USA has a huge interest in sequestering and protecting IP since it is about all they can look forward to now that they have sold off/out virtually all of its value added services like materials processing and manufacturing for short term gains.
The next 50 years should be interesting.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
"And his hands would plait the priest's entrails, For want of a rope, to strangle kings."
Denis Diderot
"Those who are too ethical or intelligent to engage in political
endeavors ironically are doomed to suffer a self inflicted curse of rule
and domination by those who are not similarly restrained by conscience
or enlightened by gnosis." Socrates*
*This is a paraphrase of my rendering of something that I understand he had spoken,
possibly repeated/recorded by his student Plato in a similar form.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"Computers aren't going to keep improving geometrically forever, so people will stop replacing their computers every couple of years, and that means less bundled copies of windows being sold."
,with increases in the exponential growth rate, in computing power in the next ten years than in the sum of all to this date. The only real stumbling blocks I see are political and legal, the limitation of internetwork bandwidth and the throttling of implementation of new technologies by those trying to hold on to or grow their piece of the pie, ie: Microsoft, IBM, ATT/Bell, and RIAA type folks. New computers are going to be capable of things we can barely imagine now. Some of these things such as better user interfaces like real functional voice I/O interface, intelligent interactive agents or whole body AVATAR generation and control/feedback devices, better visual interfaces like CA generated virtual 3d worlds on Super High Definition displays, comm media and entertainment convergence and home automation are going to be so handy that I am sure I will want one and I think you probably will to, and so will Joe sixpak and maybe your grandmaw. Microsoft can and will probably will be a major player in this, hopefully a company of better ethics and vision or of lesser influence than today since they, like many others, seem intent on holding back progress wherever it threatens their ever increasing stake in the game.
Forever is a long time, the view you see seems to me an extremely shortsighted one. The recently arrived at relative plateau of mhz speeds may seem to indicate this, however the next generation of fab plants are not online yet. As new fab plants come online you will see decreases in component size and thus increases in speed. As the hardware and software architecture matures for, then later exceeds, the 64bit address space you will see a dramatic increase in performance as well.
But even more important in the future will be the move to parallel processing (multi-core) and virtualization (vmware/xen)technology. Efficant parallel processing has been the holy grail for computing for years and is more of what makes a super computer a super computer than raw speed of the individual components. Recent advances in multi-core CPU's will bring this type of power to the desktop. Expect massively multi-cored CPU's in the near future. The main bottleneck will then be the softwares ability to make use of this power. The consumer level desktop OS's of today even the multiprocessor variants are just not up to the scaling process control and interprocess communication tasks that will be needed to effectively harness the power of massively paralleled hardware.
So there will be the need for continued development of the desktop OS, to the point of reinvention. In the short run the new power will allow the use of virtual machines that will deliver neat things to the user. However in the longer run I think virtualization technologies will be seen as keys in the solution of many problems like scaling issues, process management and interprocess communication.
All in all the evolution of desktop computing is far from over, in fact we are only in its infancy. I expect to see more advances
What is needed are political/legal solutions that allows for as open as possible "free" market forces but establishes a legal framework tilted towards the most efficant advancement of technology. This in the long run will by its nature be the most beneficial solution for the stakeholders (all of us) and the well diversified share holders (more of us than you might think). Patent, copyright, and digital rights management are at this time be biggest impediments to technological progress. Materials and implementation sciences are constantly being restrained by legal devices setup to encourage progress. This is not to say they all need to dumped, that is A: not possible B: not an efficant solution anyway. However a lot of laws need to be readdressed and refined, enforced, created, extended or simply eliminated. I s
"The expression on their face after that first bite is priceless"
Try peanut butter snacks for some real fun. BTW one of my chocolate labs favorite treats is cheese curls or nips, perfect for a spat of pb.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Put your hands over your head, stick your tongue out, don't swallow! I SAID DON'T SWALLOW! BANG! Damn spit suckers!
On the other hand: Yea honey read this. See, it's just like I told you all along, this is why a nice sloppy wet BJ is better for your PMS & cramps than Tylenol PM.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
IANARN (I Am Not A Religious Nut) but I can't wonder if such issues are not at the root of the ban on consumption by the religions of Abraham of "unclean" animals like swine. Of course the really interesting direction this quickly leads questions like "how was this knowledge acquired".
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"Why does only the Federal Govt. decide things like National Security & minting of currency. Becuse these are matters of vital, national importance."
I am too tired tonight to recall enough or research the details but the dizzying array or often disparate election procedures and laws in the US is mostly related to local governmental autonomy and states rights issues. Due to the nature of the USA origins and peoples there has always been a certain level of distrust for a monolithic federal government. Remember there are also state and local elections often concurrent with federal elections. I agree that I think more openness in processes, uniformity in technology and regulation and much better legal oversight would be generally a great idea. However I can also relate with some who have concerns about issues of too much federal power in general. The governing of the population in the US despite some national and international opinion has always been an exercise akin to herding cats, IMHO this is how it should be.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Yea, I had a polyp removed from my tongue a few years back. The following cauterization procedure, with believe it or not a Craftsman 110v arc welder as a power source, smelled to me a lot like a nice rib eye on the grill. Maybe if I had not been so terrified and pain wrecked I might have discerned that it smelled more like pork loin.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
I read enough of this topic to see the Free Market mantra coming up over and over and over. I am fed up with hearing about "free market" this and that. Listen close now! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE MARKET! The markets are anything but free! Global corporations have bought the legislation to ensure such. This has always been the case to some extent, there has never been a truly free market anywhere on as a grand scale as a nation. I doubt that there has ever been one larger that a individual Quaker community. Today the manipulation of markets for the gain of the privileged few are happening very effectively all over the world, it is just a bit father along in the USA than in say Europe. Anywhere national or state level legislation doesn't work out they just bribe or coerce local officials. Wonder why so many in the third world hate us? They see us in the light of these "business leaders" and our rah-rah support of these "free market heroes" and their propaganda.
As for free markets I am not even sure we want really free markets, as they are probably just too volatile to support a stable society the size we have today. What annoys me is all these business and political types running around shouting the free market mantra and holding up a free market as some sort of holy rule that we cannot muck with, when such does not even exist. I wish I had all the answers, I would be most pleased to share them. I can share this much, DO NOT believe the propaganda that we have a free market economy in the USA! The professed aspirations of such aside it is not and never has been such and getting less and less free with every congress. The big difference between today and recent history in the USA is that the balance of power, political influence and wealth distribution between those that produce via their physical labor, creative ability's or information juggling/processing skills and the parasites that exist upon such has gotten out of hand, again. Not that is has ever been fair. sheezz!
Wabi-sabi
Matthew
Come on now, if, IF! Are you really that dense? Why is it so hard for some to understand the importance of the election process being trustworthy? In your glee that your preferred pilferer is in power can you not wrap your mind around what the consequences of wholesale subversion could be?
ie: Quit frickin' whinin', up against the wall you traitorous wuss!
Look I know it's poor form to bitch about mods, but "Funny"? What the hell is funny about the post folks? Maybe I am dense myself but I don't get the joke. Unless it is a sick type of funny like the "hire the handicapped their fun to watch" line? I think the poster is serious, and that's, well, it's just pitiful, and you folks should be ashamed for finding humor in it. ;)
sheezzzz Matthew"THE Google please."
Which of the "Internets" is "The Google" on anyways?
Sorry I couldn't help myself.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Ok so you can't code worth a hoot. Are you any good at artistic stuff? Maybe your really great at organizing things logically. Maybe even those of us who are totally clueless about source code can finally find a way to contribute. I realize there are quite a few talented people doing this, but the effort could always use more.
As for the idea that there has to be a standardized desktop for all distros. This would totally wreck what I see as the most powerful asset of FOSS like Linux distros. The richness of the diversity in Linux distros IMHO is what I like the most about it, and I suspect such attributes may very well be crucial to its survival. To get a substantial market share distros need to be created that target user types with lower skill levels. The modular nature of Linux would mean that it could still be capable of being expanded as that skill level increases.
I do agree with the basic premise that a pretty and easy to use interface would probably do more to draw in new users that anything except maybe better compatibility with main stream (new & cheap) hardware. However I am not sure this is where most current Linux users and developers want to go. Most users, even those of moderate skills like belonging to what most of us consider a elite group and would not consider the inclusion of Joe sixpak and Grandmaw into this group a good thing. Star programmers and commercial developers might be interested if there were a reward/profit path, which is not impossible but is certainly not as clear a thing as Windows or OSX.
I do think that by producing an easy (remember Mandrakes example) and pretty (the Ubuntu Splash) that a distro can gain in market share, especially with new low skilled users. I also believe that such would actually be a good thing even for those using "elite" power distros simply due to the increase in interest from hardware vendors and commercial development houses.
Pretty is going to make a difference, especially in the coming 3D desktop. You can rail against it all you want, but with increases in processing power and display/quality size it will happen. The FOSS community should embrace the better uses of it and extend it in the same manner they have other technology. Linux has many benefits that I do not have to regurgitate to the readers here. The new desktop interfaces will be more not less about eye candy and artwork than ever. They will require new ideas about the organization of information and the ergonomics of accessing such. I see a lot of areas where non coders will be able contribute, will be NEEDED than ever before. Think about it.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Debating the existence of the disks or examinations of the same is a waste of time, none of this is relevant. Even if Diebold uploaded this "source code" to SourceForge tomorrow, there is no way to know that is it the same source that will be used in the machines during an election, or that there is not an issue with the compilation of such code, or that it has not been infected with other code after installation, or that a swap or flash of the firmware on the machines is not an issue.
There might be a way to use electronic voting if the whole process was open enough, both in design and implementation and the equipment was physically secure enough. However at this time the only effective way I can see to ensure the elections are accurate is to dump the whole effort and go back to paper and pencil. While we are at it make the voting period longer, several days would make sense to me.
I actually prefer the idea of runoff type of election that would allow for 1st and 2nd and etc choices. This would go a long way toward eliminating the stranglehold of the good cop/bad cops mess we get from a two or even three party system. But at the very least we must make sure people that eligible can vote and that they have a confidence that their vote will be counted accurately.
On other issues, the gerrymandering of voting districts is probably as serious a problem or worse. We need to clean this up before we have a chance at having representation that we are able to hold accountable. This along with actual serious efforts to do something about the ways money is involved in elections AND influences over the voting of our representatives must be addressed.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Running Firefox 2.0, man the built in spell checking is sweet, and the hangs on tab switching during page loading I got on the last version seems fixed. Thanks Mozilla Folks!!!!!
"I was amused when in the USA to be with a silver haired retired friend who was asked for his ID as well. I think he was quite amused and pleased that they were checking him in case he was under 21...."
Its more likely they suspected him as possibly being someone with an outstanding tab or bounced check/card charge.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"...then 2,800 dead over three years in a "war zone" is...what?"
I believe your numbers are a bit off, try 2,800 US soldiers dead PLUS 300,000 to 600,000+ others (mostly civilians) . Oh and BTW you also failed to mention the 30,000 or so US soldiers maimed, who knows how many others maimed as well.
"What level of mass death is statistically significant to merit a response?"
The answer to your question is ONE. The real questions should have been; what level of response is logical and ethical, and how do we implement the response in a effective and judicial manner. Listen close now, 99%+ of the 300,000 to 600,000 more or less that have died in Iraq had NOTHING to do with the 3,000 that died on 9/11.
"100,000 dead in a nuclear attack? That's only 2.5 years of car accidents in the US"
Do you really believe that the mess in Iraq has rendered such an event less likely? How would you feel if your child, lover, sibling, parent or close friend was blown in half before your eyes? Then you get to see the persons responsible smiling and strutting around using such actions to make political hay, now how would you feel? How many more thousands of persons with a vengeful hatred for the US are there today just because of this war?
"Oh well, just another statistic, right?"
Think about it....
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
A lot of what he does that seems over the top like instances where Bill O Reilly seem to me to be simply ratings driven. At least he seems to have a bit of fun in his engagements with the numb nuts at FOX. As for his, mostly recent, op-eds on the Bush administration, well as I see it he was dead on in the assessments. So whenever someone aggressively criticizes the powers that be it makes them a demagogue and a puppet for the opposing party? In my view Oberman is perhaps the most courageous and honest op-ed host on TV news who is not a party and/or corporate shill and/or pathological liar. I respect many other folks like Chris Matthews, Jim Leirer, Charlie Rose or Tim Russert, even Joe Scarbourgh, but they have been failing in their lack of aggressive questions or stance given the current all to common flagrant disregard for the truth by those in power.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"Did they find any evidence of ManPolarBearPig?"
What would Steve Ballmer be doing there?
I knew there would be someway to reply with a M$ related troll in this topic if read down far enough. I see someone already managed to get a Al Gore related comment in, lets see that leaves Bush, at least one Clinton, Linux, Beowulf, Nazi's, p0rn, and oh yea "In Soviet Russia....". Oh well I'm not to the bottom yet.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
I have been investing a higher % than your 12% into a 401 or 403 account for about 20 years, admittedly mostly in the higher risk funds. Things did look pretty good during most of the 90's. However in the last six years or so things don't look so well. I am not sure one can trust such "managed" accounts. I suspect that I like most those falling in the later 25-30% of the baby boom will work till they die. I put my trust of being able to stay comfortable and well fed into the home I am building and my hands on living skills as well as my marketable knowledge. The home is designed to be inexpensive to heat and cool, and intentionally designed to not to fit within standard market definitions. This may make for a lower market value but it will thus also have a lower taxable value as well. The house will be a mostly buried steel reinforced concrete over steel quonset form. It is being built on a very rural tract without a mortgage and will survive just fine without insurance.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"In Soviet Russia, the government controls the commerce."
So? In the USA the commerce controls the goverment.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew