Actually it does give me the right to harass someone as long as I tell the truth about said person
No it doesn't.
You are pushing a blatantly fraudulent analogy between criminal prosecution for harassment and the truth as a defense in a civil suit for libel.
The bully is deep into games of power and submission. He wants something from his victim - if only a show of pain. This isn't speech, it is a merciless physical and pyschological assault.
Remember, lawyers won't wait until you've clearly crossed the line before they drag you into court, they'll sue you at the drop of a hat and regardless of guilt
There is no finding of guilt or innocence in a civil trial.
The issues are framed narrowly in terns of legal and financial responsibility.
Criminal prosecutions are initiated by the state in the name of the people of the state.
There is a moral imperative in the punishment of crime. But there is also the simple desire to maintain the public peace and order.
Free speech in the americam context has its deepest roots in a sense of what is mature and appropriate behavior in the civil life of a Republic.
You confront the issues openly and honestly.
You do not defame your opponent. You do not shout him down. You do not send in thugs to brutalize his supporters. You abandon the podium gracefully so that others can have their say,
I think the key problem was once the adventure game genre dried up, Lucas arts couldn't reinvent themselves and ended up with just the Star Wars franchise to exploit.
Would it have been so impossible to bring to a story oriented RPG or shooter the originality and imagination of Grim Fandango?
People are paying for broadband to the home at a mass market price.
The question is whether everyone who wants standard and HD video streams at 9 PM Eastern Time can get them without being bumped up to a higher tier of service.
I sign up with MLB to watch games which are not in my local television area, should I expect to get throttled by my local cable company because for 3hrs a week, I use a lot of bandwidth.
The short answer is yes.
You won't be the only one maxing out their link when the Yankees play at home.
The premium level service includes standard-def video, Player Tracker Live-At-Bat and up to six live game feeds. To me this screams "hard-core fan who will be sucking up all the bandwidth he can get at peak usage hours."
The project had more or less failed, but the sponsors cannot afford to admit it politically
everyone...who asks gets an exception so they can run windows or macs or anything they need to actually get their work done.
All-in-all not a pretty picture.
But not an unfamiliar one.
The geek is enamored with the top-down, ideologically driven, politically correct, solution.
"Resistance is futile."
OLPC predicts millions of sales and when they fail to materialize and Win XP and MS Office become an option he feels lost and betrayed.
Perhaps a Borg icon sums him up rather better than Bill Gates.
1000 workstations migrated tp LiMux 6000 work stations using OpenOffice.org
90% work stations using Firefox and Thunderbird
It doesn't strike me as a ringing endorsement of OpenOffice.org when migration to other marquee open source projects like Firefox has been so successful.
Who hasn't already written off both of these companies? Anyone holding either of them for the long term simply does not grok where the internet and personal computing are going, or how desperately inept these two companies have become due to their size and age
60% of Microsoft's revenues come from outside the US.
Microsoft is long past the point where it can be significantly wounded by a recession in the states.
Microsoft is building a $300 million dollar research campus for 5,000 engineers in Beijing's "Silicon Valley."
Microsoft is very, very strongly positioned in emerging markets. Windows XP and MS Office on the OLPC should have taught the geek that much.
Microsoft's asset is an OS that people are still locked into, but becoming violently sick of.
There is little evidence for this beyond the geek's own fantasies.
In these familiar webstats, OSX holds a familiar, quite comfortable niche, but still only a niche.
MS Vista should reach a 20% share in the Net Applications stats by late summer. Mostly through OEM consumer sales of Vista Premium - which means mostly as a sucessfull competitor to the Mac.
But all of those games have exactly the same problem with them: they're linear.
Half-Life is also linear - but what a journey it makes!
The linear form allows you to build your characters, environments and environments with great care.
You can change the pace - moving from intense physical action through more problem or puzzle oriented scenarios, or moments of comic relief. Side trails can be explored without losing momentum.
The non-linear form will - in time - betray its own illusions. Stage sets and the extras that populate them persist. However artfully disguised, a loop remains a loop.
Characters and missions are resurrected in very thin disguise.
The Matrix might be a fun place to visit, but do you really want to live there?
"History does not repeat itself exactly - but it rhymes." - with apologies to Mark Twain.
What's particularly interesting is that China will be a huge proponent of OSS, as the government is very suspicious of closed-source software, especially ones developed in the US (*cough* Microsoft *cough*).
Microsoft is building a $300 million dollar research campus in Beijing.
Zhongguancun, known as Beijing's "Silicon Valley," was approved by the Chinese government as the first national level high-tech industrial development zone in 1988.
The area houses thousands of high-tech companies, about 40 universities such as Peking University and more than 200 science institutions.Microsoft breaks ground for 5,000-person Beijing R&D center
Well, communism works great, if there is abundance. And in case of software, there is abundance.
Where do you find abundance?
OpenOffice.org is essentially a creation of Sun. Staffing. Finance. Administration. Sun has spent megabucks on Star Office and OpenOffice.org and is still playing catch-up.
The GIMP isn't competitive in Photoshop's core markets.
You can find second and third tier apps easily enough. But how many are serious candidates for "best of breed?"
They are educating and employing an army of young scientists end engineer who would otherwise fuck off to the US, Japan and Germany and work for the high-tech companies there. It's a loss in the short-term, but it is the only way to develop a homebrewed high-tech industry.
Japan started by making inferior knockoffs of Western products.
After World War II Japan made the decison to shed its reputation for cheap knock-offs. In optics. Machine tools. Steel. Automobiles. Electronics...
In 2008, the home-brewed high-tech industry is a geek fantasy. There is simply too much to be gained by moving quickly and efficiently into world markets.
There is very good chance a Chinese engineer will be working for a western owned lab in China.
When China joined the WTO, Microsoft was the first western company to become a menber of China's software trade association.
Microsoft is building a big new campus in Beijing, slated to employ 5,000 people and become Microsoft's largest research center outside the U.S.
- and Oak is unquestionably arguing for corporate governance enforced through legislation:
we must make corporate entities accountable to the citizenry of the United States. We must realize not only can we do precisely that, we must do precisely that. We must hold and make these US based corporations responsible and responsive to the United States national interest.
In order to convince lawmakers to pass legislation and enact policy we desperately need and also to console [sic] legislators, to assure such new legislation and policy would not be overturned in the courts...
Can someone give a brief summary as to why it is NOT ok to use radio waves permeating my property however I see fit? Even if that means decrypting commercial programing?
The law defines where your rights end and others begin.
The content is protected. You can use the energy of the carrier wave for any purpose you damn well please.
the convenience of getting all machines to work seems most important now, but free software is not about convenience, it's about ethics. If we stop caring about proprietary drivers then the hardware manufacturers will think we don't care.
Who is this "we" you speak of?
It isn't dear old dad shopping for a graduation gift at his favorite big box retailer.
It's hard to imagine a single movie on a 1 TB disc.
Not so hard to imagine it being easier to find shelf space for the 68 episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs, or the 161 episodes of The Avengers. It's not easy to beat that shinny plastic disk as a distribution and storage media for video.
Returning windows does so many good things: increases the cost of selling Windows. Reduces the cost of buying a machine for Linux. Ensures MS don't get their MSTax...
The geek ridiculously overstates his significance in the mass consumer market.
His returns will be lost in the statistical noise. He can't even drive Linux beyond a 0.6% market share in a webstat. Operating System Market Share
Windows Vista alone has 15% of the market in the Net Applications stats. If the geek believes his own propaganda all of that has to come from OEM consumer sales of Vista.
The geek isn't asking about returns of the Linux box.
This is never street theater. It is an ordinary guy who thought the OS was for real.
The geek needs to be reminded that maintaining a dual inventory and support structure costs a retailer serious money. If he can write you off and save a few bucks he will do it in a heartbeat.
Why should I buy a PC preloaded with Linux?' They are more expensive.
This is what the 17 inch $1000 HP widescreen laptop looks like at Walmart.com:
64 Bit MS Vista Premium SP1
64 Bit AMD Turion Dual Core CPU
4 GB RAM
NVIDIA DX9 GeForce Go Graphics [Shared RAM]
DVD LightScribe Burner
250 GB HDD
Integrated Webcam, WiFi, Etc., Etc.
64 Bit Vista Premium SP1
Intel Core 2 Dual CPU 4 GB RAM
Combo Blu-Ray Drive and DVD Burner. HD tuner card.
NVIDIA 8600M GS DX10 Graphics with 256 MB RAM
320 GB HDD
It doesn't matter what price point you look at.
The mass market Windows PC is always nipping at your heels. On price. On specs. On a recognizable brand name.
Walmart has taken to posting prominent disclaimers with its gOS systems:
This is a Linux based PC and will not perform completely like a Windows based machine.
And how exactly does that allow a treaty to remove a part of the constitution?
By making it explicit that treaties with foreign powers are no less the "supreme law" of the land than the Constitution itself.
In the simplest terms, the federal government is and always has been supreme in international affairs.
You may be able to argue that you being treated unfairly, that too much is being exposed, that you being asked to asked to accept more, much more, than the treaty requires.
But if the government simply frames the issues as a border search for contraband - which it will - you are in for an uphill slog.
To a court, your laptop is simply another container, part of your luggage,
You get "Ice IV" bridges on Jupiter, "spindizzies" and "Cities in Flight"?
If I remember rightly, the big-tech Jupiter project in They Shall Have Stars was a bit of political misdirection, entirely predictable and of no likely consequence.
But a good opportunity to quietly nail down the theory behind the FTL drive.
Do you think an assistant can draft and sign an emergency order when the Governor is on vacation?
In New York the elected Lieutenant Governor becomes acting governor when the governor is out of the state, physically incapacitated, etc. You need to have a structure like this in place even if it is only rarely invoked.
It's a bit of an exaggeration, I suppose. But AM radio has been broadcasting "drive time" weather and traffic reports collected from local bus drivers since the fifties.
I've come to believe that such a mass of raw data is less vivid and meaningful than the word picture created in a single sentence by a human interpreter.
In terms of media specifically...well that's all disposable income anyways. People only spend money on movie/music when have spare change to spend on entertainment.
In the Depression of the 1930s and throughout World War Two about the only relief you had from work and worry was radio and the movies. Travel restrictions. Rationing of every kind.
Entertainment becomes more important not less when people are under stress.
Slashdot Mirror
No it doesn't.
You are pushing a blatantly fraudulent analogy between criminal prosecution for harassment and the truth as a defense in a civil suit for libel.
The bully is deep into games of power and submission. He wants something from his victim - if only a show of pain. This isn't speech, it is a merciless physical and pyschological assault.
Remember, lawyers won't wait until you've clearly crossed the line before they drag you into court, they'll sue you at the drop of a hat and regardless of guilt
There is no finding of guilt or innocence in a civil trial.
The issues are framed narrowly in terns of legal and financial responsibility.
Criminal prosecutions are initiated by the state in the name of the people of the state.
There is a moral imperative in the punishment of crime. But there is also the simple desire to maintain the public peace and order.
Free speech in the americam context has its deepest roots in a sense of what is mature and appropriate behavior in the civil life of a Republic.
You confront the issues openly and honestly.
You do not defame your opponent. You do not shout him down. You do not send in thugs to brutalize his supporters. You abandon the podium gracefully so that others can have their say,
Would it have been so impossible to bring to a story oriented RPG or shooter the originality and imagination of Grim Fandango?
People are paying for broadband to the home at a mass market price.
The question is whether everyone who wants standard and HD video streams at 9 PM Eastern Time can get them without being bumped up to a higher tier of service.
The short answer is yes.
You won't be the only one maxing out their link when the Yankees play at home.
MLB.TV video is $60-$90 a year.
The premium level service includes standard-def video, Player Tracker Live-At-Bat and up to six live game feeds. To me this screams "hard-core fan who will be sucking up all the bandwidth he can get at peak usage hours."
everyone...who asks gets an exception so they can run windows or macs or anything they need to actually get their work done.
All-in-all not a pretty picture.
But not an unfamiliar one.
The geek is enamored with the top-down, ideologically driven, politically correct, solution.
"Resistance is futile."
OLPC predicts millions of sales and when they fail to materialize and Win XP and MS Office become an option he feels lost and betrayed.
Perhaps a Borg icon sums him up rather better than Bill Gates.
6000 work stations using OpenOffice.org
90% work stations using Firefox and Thunderbird
It doesn't strike me as a ringing endorsement of OpenOffice.org when migration to other marquee open source projects like Firefox has been so successful.
60% of Microsoft's revenues come from outside the US.
Microsoft is long past the point where it can be significantly wounded by a recession in the states.
Microsoft is building a $300 million dollar research campus for 5,000 engineers in Beijing's "Silicon Valley."
Microsoft is very, very strongly positioned in emerging markets. Windows XP and MS Office on the OLPC should have taught the geek that much.
Microsoft's asset is an OS that people are still locked into, but becoming violently sick of.
There is little evidence for this beyond the geek's own fantasies.
Top Operating System Share Trend {By Versions], Operating System Market Share. [June 3, 2008] OS Platform Statistics
In these familiar webstats, OSX holds a familiar, quite comfortable niche, but still only a niche.
MS Vista should reach a 20% share in the Net Applications stats by late summer. Mostly through OEM consumer sales of Vista Premium - which means mostly as a sucessfull competitor to the Mac.
Linux bringing up the rear as always.
For a view of this 19th Century tech; Facsimile and SSTV
Have patience. The elegance and precision of these of these old engravings are well worth the time they take to load.
Half-Life is also linear - but what a journey it makes!
The linear form allows you to build your characters, environments and environments with great care.
You can change the pace - moving from intense physical action through more problem or puzzle oriented scenarios, or moments of comic relief. Side trails can be explored without losing momentum.
The non-linear form will - in time - betray its own illusions. Stage sets and the extras that populate them persist. However artfully disguised, a loop remains a loop.
Characters and missions are resurrected in very thin disguise.
The Matrix might be a fun place to visit, but do you really want to live there?
"History does not repeat itself exactly - but it rhymes." - with apologies to Mark Twain.
Microsoft is building a $300 million dollar research campus in Beijing.
Zhongguancun, known as Beijing's "Silicon Valley," was approved by the Chinese government as the first national level high-tech industrial development zone in 1988.
The area houses thousands of high-tech companies, about 40 universities such as Peking University and more than 200 science institutions. Microsoft breaks ground for 5,000-person Beijing R&D center
Where do you find abundance?
OpenOffice.org is essentially a creation of Sun. Staffing. Finance. Administration. Sun has spent megabucks on Star Office and OpenOffice.org and is still playing catch-up.
The GIMP isn't competitive in Photoshop's core markets.
You can find second and third tier apps easily enough. But how many are serious candidates for "best of breed?"
Japan started by making inferior knockoffs of Western products.
After World War II Japan made the decison to shed its reputation for cheap knock-offs. In optics. Machine tools. Steel. Automobiles. Electronics...
In 2008, the home-brewed high-tech industry is a geek fantasy. There is simply too much to be gained by moving quickly and efficiently into world markets.
There is very good chance a Chinese engineer will be working for a western owned lab in China.
When China joined the WTO, Microsoft was the first western company to become a menber of China's software trade association.
Microsoft is building a big new campus in Beijing, slated to employ 5,000 people and become Microsoft's largest research center outside the U.S.
Microsoft to build $280mln R&D center in Beijing
The primary link is to Robert Oak's blog
- and Oak is unquestionably arguing for corporate governance enforced through legislation:
we must make corporate entities accountable to the citizenry of the United States. We must realize not only can we do precisely that, we must do precisely that. We must hold and make these US based corporations responsible and responsive to the United States national interest.
In order to convince lawmakers to pass legislation and enact policy we desperately need and also to console [sic] legislators, to assure such new legislation and policy would not be overturned in the courts...
- recalling the downfall of the National Recovery Administration {The Blue Eagle of the NRA] in 1935.
I am also uncomfortably reminded of the economic nationalism - or populism, if you prefer, of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff
The law defines where your rights end and others begin.
The content is protected. You can use the energy of the carrier wave for any purpose you damn well please.
Who is this "we" you speak of?
It isn't dear old dad shopping for a graduation gift at his favorite big box retailer.
Not so hard to imagine it being easier to find shelf space for the 68 episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs, or the 161 episodes of The Avengers. It's not easy to beat that shinny plastic disk as a distribution and storage media for video.
The geek ridiculously overstates his significance in the mass consumer market.
His returns will be lost in the statistical noise. He can't even drive Linux beyond a 0.6% market share in a webstat. Operating System Market Share
Windows Vista alone has 15% of the market in the Net Applications stats. If the geek believes his own propaganda all of that has to come from OEM consumer sales of Vista.
The geek isn't asking about returns of the Linux box.
This is never street theater. It is an ordinary guy who thought the OS was for real.
The geek needs to be reminded that maintaining a dual inventory and support structure costs a retailer serious money. If he can write you off and save a few bucks he will do it in a heartbeat.
This is what the 17 inch $1000 HP widescreen laptop looks like at Walmart.com:
64 Bit MS Vista Premium SP1
64 Bit AMD Turion Dual Core CPU 4 GB RAM
NVIDIA DX9 GeForce Go Graphics [Shared RAM]
DVD LightScribe Burner
250 GB HDD
Integrated Webcam, WiFi, Etc., Etc.
HP Pavilion Laptop
For $400 more:
64 Bit Vista Premium SP1
Intel Core 2 Dual CPU 4 GB RAM
Combo Blu-Ray Drive and DVD Burner. HD tuner card.
NVIDIA 8600M GS DX10 Graphics with 256 MB RAM
320 GB HDD
It doesn't matter what price point you look at.
The mass market Windows PC is always nipping at your heels. On price. On specs. On a recognizable brand name.
Walmart has taken to posting prominent disclaimers with its gOS systems:
This is a Linux based PC and will not perform completely like a Windows based machine.
To me that signals an early exit from the market.
By making it explicit that treaties with foreign powers are no less the "supreme law" of the land than the Constitution itself.
In the simplest terms, the federal government is and always has been supreme in international affairs.
You may be able to argue that you being treated unfairly, that too much is being exposed, that you being asked to asked to accept more, much more, than the treaty requires.
But if the government simply frames the issues as a border search for contraband - which it will - you are in for an uphill slog.
To a court, your laptop is simply another container, part of your luggage,
If I remember rightly, the big-tech Jupiter project in They Shall Have Stars was a bit of political misdirection, entirely predictable and of no likely consequence.
But a good opportunity to quietly nail down the theory behind the FTL drive.
that would seem to depend on the goal you were trying to achieve and the materials with which you had to work.
it suggests an implicit value judgment.
the simplicity of a pure geometric form may appeal to the engineer, but does that make a triangle a compelling work of art?
perhaps chaos and complexity can have a beauty and perfection of its own.
In New York the elected Lieutenant Governor becomes acting governor when the governor is out of the state, physically incapacitated, etc. You need to have a structure like this in place even if it is only rarely invoked.
I've come to believe that such a mass of raw data is less vivid and meaningful than the word picture created in a single sentence by a human interpreter.
In the Depression of the 1930s and throughout World War Two about the only relief you had from work and worry was radio and the movies. Travel restrictions. Rationing of every kind.
Entertainment becomes more important not less when people are under stress.
Th standard of perfection among elders in my family was and remains Ma Bell. 100 years of practical experience.