I really appreciate the WSJ link. I was hoping for a news report,
instead of a op-ed or commentary piece. You see, I have several
journalist friends who worked in newspapers and magazines and
back then when I used to send them op-ed pieces (from what
you probably would consider liberal sources) trying to support my view point, they didn't accept those op-ed pieces. I didn't seem to understand it at first. However, later I understood the style of writing is different and in terms of journalism reporting, op-ed don't need to follow the same practices. I've read the commentary you sent, and I'll keep it in mind. As for myself, I'll read
op-ed or commentaries and bookmark a few if I like the piece for myself
to refer back in the future, to refresh the line of thought or reasoning. However, I've learnt not to forward op-ed as my proof of my argument in itself. Opinion and commentary can not be proven wrong, which is why one can say anything they want to and doesn't fall under news reporting or investigative journalism.
Anyway, The Price of Loyalty looks like a good read. Thanks for recommending it.
You are welcome. I forgot to mention one book that looks
interesting, but I haven't looked through it myself yet. Hence,
I can't endorse it, although it looks like an interesting read.
I'm still trying to track down a paper written by a PhD student at our university, who spent time with the Pakistani military elite and picked up a great game of squash (like racquetball) while he was there. He is of German,Pakistani, Indian decent and his paper was about how Pakistan or any country has the ability to control other countries or other's politics through religion. Or in Pakistan's case, the religious madrassas that are unregulated/unchecked spread which spread Wahhabism in a viral manner, giving birth to the Taliban. Which the Pakistani ISI (Intelligence like CIA, FSB, Mossad,M16) then the used the Taliban to have
complete influence over Afghanistan. The Taliban as you
already know where the stubborn hosts and harborers of al-Qaeda. Until we attacked the Taliban and which I highly approve of.
I only sadden that we did not keep the pressure up and got distracted in other unnecessary wars. Resulting in a reemergence of Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Speaking of books. Should you get the inkling to read these
books.
American Dynasty by Kevin Phillipsformer
Nixon analyst and as a former principal electoral theoretician.
He was key as a Republican strategist.
The Price of Loyalty by Paul O'Neill former Treasury Secretary, who was made to leave after correctly stating the cost of the Iraq war was going to cost $200 billion.
Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward reveals in Plan of Attack, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were part of a group leading the charge to war while Secretary of State Colin Powell, General Tommy Franks, and others actively questioned the plan to invade a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks while war in Afghanistan was still being waged
Finally that brings me to your book suggestion
by Jayna Davis. Seen to be drinking beer with an former Iraqi soldier is one hell of a poor connection to state that Iraq had something to do with the OKC bombing. In fact in this country evidence like that is thrown out of court in this country. Did you know that
Dr. Ahmed Chalabi the man who fed information of the fictitious WMDs and the administration used to him as their primary source invade Iraq (even though the State Dept didn't trust him) and the man who sat with Laura Bush during George Bush's state of the union speech last year, is now under criminal investigation for wrong doing in Iraq? Should I tie the president in Chalabi's dirty deeds if I was to use your high standards of guilty by association? Look, the
authors listed above have a lot more credentials in their pinky than this Davis person you recommend. One should have better standards and scrutinize the source of your information if you want to have some credibility when you make those claims.
I'm sorry I don't remember links from every story I've ever read. Perhaps when I get a few hundred hours of free time I'll provide you with links to every news report I ever read on the subject.
Thats a shame. I have 3100+ bookmarks of topics that interest me, but not everything I read. I have 300+ links from solid sources on Bush-Iraq issue itself. Comes in handy for those occasions when I run into an extremist on Slashdot suffering from delusions:)
As for your "mainstream" comments, well my interpretation is that you shy away from well known and respected sources of news that have standards in journalism. Come on, give me something from the WSJ or its respected conservative equivalent. If you can't then your argument holds no water and just sounds like a wacko getting high on some conspiracy theory, reading news from very dubious sources.
At one time Wolfowitz mentioned that the Iraq connection was worth looking into
Of course Wolfowitz one of the "Vulcans" would say something like that, but what is his proof?
Even before the current administration took to power,
Wolfowitz has always been eyeing to get back into Iraq, for the oil and to finish off Saddam. Hey, I not Saddam fan, but I would have rather spend $200 billion dollars and all those troops searching through East Afghanistan and West Pakistan looking for Osama bin Laden. Remember him? He's the guy directly responsible for 9/11. How come the at the RNC convention they didn't mention much of the "O" name?
Please provide news sources and links (from credible and
well respected) from conservative (e.g. WSJ) and non-conservative sources you are drawing claims from your
last reply. You quote that the New York Times said "
According to the New York Times, in Afghanistan there were documents about bomb recipes, one of which was marked "the kind used in Oklahoma City". They had more information on the recipe for the bomb than we do." Please show the link.
Secondly, the CIA trained the Mujahideen in making bombs and
also kindly provided them with stinger missiles, so that explains the bomb making recipes. Storing a bunch
of fertilizer in a truck as in OKC bombing is not exactly the most
high tech method. In fact any one with some basic chemistry or watches enough episodes of Macgyver will be able to make
their own low tech explosive. Your argument falls way short of a smoking gun.
Previous comments: "On O'Reilly anyone expressing their views to forcefully will have their microphones cut or ask to "Shut up" in a stunningly unprofessional way. "
This is complete BS. I've seen O'Reilly quite a few times, and the only times he's cut someone's mike is when either (a) they were passing off completely unsubstantiated lies or (b) they were completely dodging O'Reilly's questions.
Thanks. You just confirmed that O'Reilly does say "Shut up"
to his guests in a unprofessional manner. All you did is try
and justify it with your weak and twisted reasoning. O'Reilly
isn't a man who can listen to facts or reason. He just likes
to shout and cause a lot of drama. I have very little regard to
people like O'Reilly. I'd rather see two intelligent well informed
and respectful opponents debate things out. With O'Reilly its about him shouting and getting in the last word. You can't take an immature guy like him seriously
Yes. The fact that you aren't aware of them just means that you don't pay enough attention. The fact that Fox News watchers probably have other sources of news as well (other than Fox or the traditional media) is not what the traditional media wants. For information on Iraq's WMD finds, see here and here, not to mention the WMD that were shipped to Syria and used in an attempted assassination of King Hussein of Jordan.
You really buy into this don't you. Look, go read a real newspaper or something that has standards in journalism.
Quote me something from the Wall Street Jounral or another
conservative newspaper that has similar standards, not the
radical news sources you've quoted me. Both
Colin Powell and
David Kelly have both said that WMDs
will probably never be found in Iraq.
Fresh doubts over Iraq's arsenal. Its a shame and tragic that Hans Blix
was not allowed to finish his job and the administration was just
itching to get into Iraq, damn the consequences.
Rice "We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either direction or control of 9-11."
Bush said there was no attempt by the administration to try to confuse people about any link between Saddam and Sept. 11
"No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," Bush said. "What the vice president said was is that he (Saddam) has been involved with al-Qaida
Previous comment: "Is there a connection between Iraq and 9/11 ?"
Yes! Hussein Al-Hussany, who helped McVeigh in the OKC bombing, was a member of the Republican Guard, and after the OKC bombing went to work for Logan national airport. Hussein Al-Hussany sued Jayna Davis for slander for publishing reports about this, AND LOST. Ramzi Youssef, one of the ones who carried out the first WTC bombing, was being employed by Iraq at the time. Anyway, it's a long connection, but the imminent connection is between the larger war on terror and Iraq, and between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, which noone denies exist
Apparently, I'm separated from the President by two people from
two different sets of people. Guess what? It doesn't mean much. John Walker Lindh (American Taliban) and Richard Reed (shoe bomber) are citizens of the U.S. and the U.K. yet do we claim that our country and others harbor terrorists? What kind of
asinine argument are you trying to pull when you say that a country is responsible for terror because the terrorist lived there. Well, didn't Mohammad Atta live in Hamburg, Germany. Maybe, we should invade Germany, just in case they forgot their lesson right? Listen buddy, maybe you should take a closer look at Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, instead of barking up the wrong tree
(or country so to speak) and lay of the crack. The irony of me arguing this with you is that you are the polar opposite of a
Islamic fundamentalist. You'r
You are obviously some who has fallen for the "Fair and Balanced" and "No Spin Zone" marketing that Fox claims to be.
I'm not complaining that Fox news is conservative, but that it has ZERO standards when it comes to journalism and not much different from Al-Jazeera. The Fox network under Rupert Murdoch's extremely pro-Republician agenda to promote the right wing politicians and vilify left wing politics.
I suppose you are an independant just as Bill O'Reilly claims to be independant. LOL. I guess I can claim to be platform agnostic
like Rob Enderle.
Lets start with your claim of Hannity & Colmes. They have Hannity as the strong right wing person and a weak squirrely little agreeable left wing guy for Hannity's counter part. A former Fox news producer has clearly stated that when it comes to their
guest speakers they get strong Republicans and pseudo-Democrats or ones that can agree with the host. On O'Reilly anyone expressing their views to forcefully will have their microphones
cut or ask to "Shut up" in a stunningly unprofessional way.
So much for the professionalism, guess you don't find any
Walter Cronkite, Peter Jenning or Larry King on Fox.
Fox also doesn't invite people back who expressed strong difference of opinion back to the Fox network and they weed out strong Democratic voices. The number of times Fox invites Republicians to a Democrat is a 6 to 1 ratio. Of those Democrats Fox tends to get weak and agreeable Democrats
Fox news will allow their reporter who covers Bush in the
2000 election continue with his coverage even though the
reporter's wife is campaigning with members of the Bush family.
When CNN had a simliar reporter cover Gore and CNN found
out that the reporter's spose was working with the Democrats,
they pulled that reporter. Why? Because CNN didn't want a conflict of interest, something Fox doesn't really care about
because they have NO standards when it comes to journalism.
Then there is that whole paradoxical reference by Fox News
host to "some people say". Quite often you'll hear people on Fox News quote "some people say" as a news source, this in journalism is an odd and not really acceptable because you are supposed to quote your source of information. What Fox News folks do is state their own opinion by saying "some people say....". In journalism you are supposed to source your reference, yet Fox News network blatantly violate this basic doctrine for jounalism.
When broadcast news networks like NBC, ABC, CBS broadcast
the election 2004 coverage or count down the days. They
don't have a Hannity telling you "180 more days before George
Bush gets relected". You can't do that in journalism, one ought
to say "180 more days for the 2004 election". I laught when
I hear Fox's "We report. You decide". Whatever...
Another point I'd like to state is that Fox News is an
expert in character assasination and political vilification.
Take Richard C Clarke, when he came out to apologize
to the 9/11 families Fox News worked overtime to project
Clarke as a man who wanted to sell a book, instead of
a man who worked closely with the president and was
able in very clear terms show that the president priorities
and agenda on Iraq where misleading and based on inaccurate
information. When Fox News shows John Kerry they play comical French music in the background and their staff state and I
quote "John Kerry looks French". WTF is that all about? First
its a baseless attack on Kerry, to make him look less American
and there by make him look not to be a patriot. Second, I think
its racist to the French use those terms and language. Why doesn't the the Fox News use the same music and tone and
state "John Kerry looks African" or "John Kerry looks Communist", because they'd be taken to the cleaners. The French are just an easy target of American ire and who is going to stand up for the French right? It just goes to show the conservative mind set that the Fox News folks have with other people of differenent cultures and opinions.
I would agree that something important like this should not be patented if
wide spread adoption of a new standard is the goal,
but if Microsoft manages to have a process that is unique,
is non-obvious and finally has commercial value, then it is
patentable according to the USPTO guidelines.
To most propellor heads in Slashdot would find
quite a few inventions that are patented at the USPTO, to be obvious
and not unique, by drawing some parallel to a lesser known
technology one of our readers knew about and unearthing similar prior art. Thats because
the readership here is large and the technology prowess of
most of the/. folks as a collective fairly high. The patent examiner doesn't have the time nor resources to study all of the claims throughly enough, unlike thousands of/. readers, who are general predisposed to be anti-Intellectual Propertry and pro-Open Source and freeware. As one patent lawyer put it to me, the USPTO
and companies rely on the courts to settle patent disputes and
the merits of the patent itself. Leaving the both legal teams rich and with a large source of future income as IP claims keep rising.
I saw a article on how the Japanese can't keep up with patent lawyers and schools are springing up all over the place.
I guess its a natural evolution of their and our economy, as manfacturing and other low tech service jobs are done cheaply abroad.
If one considers how much money Microsoft and others will
save by have Sender ID work (in addition to DomainKeys) implemented sooner instead of another year or two from now after all the legal and IP issues are resolved,
its easy to see it not worth delaying implementation because
of patent issues. AOL spends an inordinate (tens of millions) amount of money on SPAM and my guess is so does Hotmail (a Microsoft subsidary) and for Sender ID to work, all the major players need to participate. So why not go the IBM route?
Following the United States Patent and Trademarks Office granting of a patent for IBM last year, IBM has relinquished its rights to the patent it received on a method for determining who gets next use of a toilet. The relinquishment came in February after a petition was filed asking the patent of office to re-examine it. The patent was described as a system run by a computer that would assign customers numbers on a first-come-fist-served basis. The system would allow customers an estimate of their waiting time and notify them when the toilet was available - ending waits in the aisles. An IBM representative said the company was unable to explain why the company had thought it was worth while to patent the computer system in the first place.
That method of toilet scheduling is now in public domain. Great,
I don't think it would have changed my life either way. However, this issue of creating a unified standard of authenicating the sender and server is too important to have IP claims all over it.
Why do you need three admins for a Mac? Why can't
you use one fulltime? In fact, why don't you grab two of
your current PC guys and train them to use OSX and
Apple Remote Desktop? I bet they would become
become proficient with in a week's time.
I'm sorry I don't see your argument or it doesn't hold water. Deploying software on a Mac and
maintaining updates and administration on a Mac OSX is
far lower than any other computer I've come across.
We have a hetrogenous enviroment in our department.
Aside from Windows PCs we have SGI Irix, Sun Solaris,
HP-UX, Linux and Mac OSX.
I hope my reply
here answers most of your question. I know that a 40 - 60 GB
drive will suffice for the next 4-5 yrs, even with software updates to the OS and the increased size of new versions of
productivity software. On the other hand future updates of
the OS and productivity software will demand more CPU resources and RAM to run. I try to get a better CPU (not the best because of the premium price for the fastest clock speed) and a decent amount of RAM, so they can run several apps at one time
comfortably.
Your points are well taken. From my observations over the past few years being the sys admin for my dept, future OS updates and upgrades to the rest of the productivity apps, tend to need more CPU power and more RAM. However, even with a full loadset of applications and OS (of course), it doesn't go over 5-7 GBs. With the user typically generating a maximum of
5 GBs. I always see computers we own that are 3-4 years old
for our administrative and secreatarial to have mostly unused diskspace. There is alot of unused space in most of our computers and sticking in 80 - 160 GB drives and Superdrives is
unnecessarily driving up costs. I would rather see more CPU speed and RAM , than disk space, because I know over the 4-5 year life span of that machine 40GB or 60 GB will be more than enough accounting for software to bloat in size. What seems to me a greater issue is the increasing CPU cycles and RAM software has been using lately.
Speaking for myself on my own laptop with 60GB, I use more diskspace with audio files and digital images than our typical secretarial staff use and my HDD capacity is enough for me. They typically generate Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF files and occasionally
deal with some images. So their needs are modest for diskspace,
but speed and memory are always useful for them.
The one thing which doesn't help Apple is that
the lack of configuration option severly
limits the flexibilty I need to order from their
website. I need that flexibilty to configure machines
to fit into my department's budget.
e.g. Our department specs maybe something like this
1.8 GHz G5 processor
40 GB harddrive
CD-RW drive
512 MB to 1 GB RAM
3 Year service
My department doesn't need the secretarial staff to have
80GB drive nor a DVD-R burning SuperDrive. Yet, I'm forced
to buy those components if I want the 1.8GHz machine instead
of the 1.6GHz. I don't expect Apple to be able to customize like Dell does (penny pinching moves like excluding a $2.41 mouse pad) , but I just feel that I lack the ability to squeeze the most out, by not being able to configure the machines to our needs hampers purchasing sometimes. For administrative and coporate jobs and people who need a basic terminal a 40GB HDD and a CD-RW burner are great. Our users typical need enough processor power, for 3-4 years down the road and enough RAM to run 5-8 concurrent applications as they typically do.
Besides, Apple could not get enough g5's to supply even 15% of the total corp market
I agree with you with this point. Apple historically has always
been behind on the supply side. They never seem to be able to
estimate demand or scale up when well when it rises, resulting
in delayed orders. Its a shame.
No, you just need to lock down the config tight enough so that can't happen
We have an entire team of guys at our college that specialize
in one and only thing. Windows PCs. Yet, they have trouble locking down the computer because Windows and Windows programmers have picked up alot of bad habits over the years.
Allowing Limited Userby default to even write to the root of the C:\ drive, the root of Program Files, last but not least the root of the Windows directory. Even after locking down most things. Our computers where hit by NetSky.
Here is a short example
C:\Program Files\Common Files\McNeel Shared\Teen Porn 16.jpg.pif has been deleted.
C:\Program Files\Common Files\McNeel Shared\Virii Sourcecode.scr
Found the W32/Netsky.c@MM virus !!!
C:\Program Files\Common Files\McNeel Shared\Virii Sourcecode.scr has been deleted.
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr
Found the W32/Netsky.c@MM virus !!!
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr has been deleted.
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CDO\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr
Found the W32/Netsky.c@MM virus !!!
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CDO\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr has been deleted.
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CDO\Dark Angels.pif
It just goes to show that the Windows OS is inherited from a single user
system, and doesn't think about where and how a user can
install malware and virii..etc throughout the system, infecting other users. We've been using Unix and now Linux for the last 20 years and I've never as many problems on Windows on other
platforms like Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux and Mac OSX.
I'm a current Treo 180 user and the list of things I need the
new Treo 600 plus to have are;
Bluetooth so I can iSync without a cable
320x320 screen
If they're going to leave that damn camera,
then let it take video. MPEG-4 or H.264 clips.
Last but not least expansion with SDIO for
GPS, WiFi,...etc.
Found a great Treo 600
holster from Seidio, that would protect the
screen well. Just like my Treo 180 (which is one reason
I like it, but the flip phone part is susceptable to breakage).
Asked McNeel and Assoc. about a Rhino port
on
XCode Roundup
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I've been trying to get several software vendors to
port various program I still have to use on the PC side.
One of them was McNeel and Assoc. Their webpage FAQs
suggest using Virtual PC for Rhino 3D, which I thought
was ridiculous. Here was tech@mcneel.com reply to my intial request,
We don't think we are missing out on much at all. I'm sorry but it is
not at all likely that there will ever be a MAC version of Rhino. We do our
software development in Microsoft Developer Studio. There is no MAC based
equivalent for this product and it's resources. This is the first problem.
Secondly, it is nearly impossible to find MAC programmers with the PhD level
math skills needed for this kind of programming at any price. Thirdly,
there are not enough potential sales of a MAC based product to keep it
affordable. At present projections, assuming we could find the programmers
and they could co-develop a product similar enough to the Windows based
product to make it viable, each copy would have to be priced over $20,000
per seat. At that price, a $1,000 Windows computer running Windows based
Rhino makes a lot more sense. Don't you think?
Reply to point #2
Need I mention products like Mathworks [Matlab] and Wolfram [Mathematica] ?
Our department, the Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering department
graduates several PhDs specializing in surfacing math, several of whom
I have worked with. They eventually get hired into the automotive and
marine industries.
Several of them now work for companies like Dassault [Catia], EAI
(now Unigraphics), Imageware Surfacer (now Unigraphics) all doing work
on CAD and advanced surfacing, based on their PhD work. PhD's with
programming knowledge are platform agnostic. Equations and algorithms
that work on a Windows PC can be ported to a Mac, or any other
platform for that matter.
I don't believe that any programmer can't pick up a Mac OSX development
environment, especially when academic institutions teach on platform
neutral environments. C, C++, OpenGL, Java,...etc.
Reply to point #3
Apparently, companies like Alias [Maya], NewTek [Lightwave], Microsoft [Office],
Mathworks [Matlab], Adobe....don't concur with your hypothesis. Nor do they
charge 20 time more per seat for their Mac OSX ports.
The $20,000 per seat cost using the percentage of total sales
of PC vs Macs is clearly a red herring. A much better example would be
the fact that Alias' sales of Maya make up over %25 of their total
revenue stream, even though Macs sales are less than 5% of total
computer sales. The reason for Maya's success on Mac OSX, as well as
other similar software, is because Macs are used in the computer graphics,
video, scientific and engineering community. Applications that cater to
3D modeling, 2D imaging, video are used to a greater proportion on Macs
than that found in the Windows community. Hence, sales of the Mac OSX
Rhino 3D port would not be 19 to 1 (Windows vs Macs), a more realistic
ratio would be 3 to 1 ( Windows vs Macs, based on the Alias Maya example).
The question is would McNeel & Associates want to keep trying to growing
in just a PC market, or experience the potential of increasing sales
(as Alias did when they made their Mac OSX port) another 30% - 25% ?
I procrastinate at work by starting my morning reading Slashdot, Wired, OSNews, BBC news, NY Times, Washington Post, The Economist, Google World News, The Register, LA Times, and more....shit its lunch time already...
If the author/artist of the song is alive then their copyright claims will be valid in court and 70 years after their death, by inheritors of their property and estate.
However, since Jibjab did not make any money directly or
indirectly by advertising, the copyright owners may not be able to get much monetary damages, aside from a seize and desist order.
What are people's opinion of comparisions
on
OpenGL Shading Language
·
· Score: 4, Informative
"The final chapter of the book (chapter seventeen) is a language comparison with other high-level shading languages such as the RenderMan Shading Language, SGI's Interactive Shading Language from the OpenGL Shader package, Microsoft's HLSL, and NVIDIA's Cg.." Not to forget ATI's RenderMonkey.
I spoke to a friend who is a developer for visualization applications. He feels that with Open GL 1.5 and some of the
new ratified standards from the OpenGL ARB, OpenGL is back on par with Direct X 9.0.
You ever see a large body builder run...well they can't do it well. Their inner thighs collide with each other giving them a bow legged stance, which is less than ideal posture for our structure.
This reminds me of is a photo I saw of a cat with overly large muscles I saw a year ago, who couldn't closed his mouth because the tongue (which is a big muscle) was too large.
The cat suffered throughout its life, they might have eventually put it to sleep, because it had so many medical complications. Hope the kid ends up being healthy and not a guinea pig for the curious scientists.
As your new commander in chief, I will pass legislation to...
Convert all industry and govt. agencies to the
metric system
Change the paper standard to
A series. i.e. 8 1/2" x 11" to A4
Change Month/Day/Year to Day/Month/Year on all forms
and databases.
Use only open source software in all govt. agencies.
Invest much more research and support renewable energy
Invade countries that drive on the wrong side of the road
and bring those evil doers to justice.
My policies will create jobs for the thousands of unemployed programmers sitting idle since the Millennium bug scare and allow our fellow Americans to drive anywhere around the world, without the fear of driving into on coming traffic.
Net/Free/OpenBSD are great server OSes and in the case of Net BSD the widest multi-platform hardware support ( I know of). Apple probably sells many more PowerMac G5 and Xserves than Sun units. I know that not everyone uses a OS X as a Unix workstation or server replacement, but there are a growing number of users who are doing this. Including a few in my department who no longer want to replace their aging HP-UX workstations or Sun Ultras. Porting Fluent which runs on a variety of Unix flavors and Linux, should be 'fairly' easy to port to OS X and using the X11 window system.
If you get a chance you can read an article on E-Commerce news. The market for OS X users in engineering, research and defense in growing. Its just a matter of time for the marketing and sales folks to realize that.
Slashdot Mirror
I really appreciate the WSJ link. I was hoping for a news report, instead of a op-ed or commentary piece. You see, I have several journalist friends who worked in newspapers and magazines and back then when I used to send them op-ed pieces (from what you probably would consider liberal sources) trying to support my view point, they didn't accept those op-ed pieces. I didn't seem to understand it at first. However, later I understood the style of writing is different and in terms of journalism reporting, op-ed don't need to follow the same practices. I've read the commentary you sent, and I'll keep it in mind. As for myself, I'll read op-ed or commentaries and bookmark a few if I like the piece for myself to refer back in the future, to refresh the line of thought or reasoning. However, I've learnt not to forward op-ed as my proof of my argument in itself. Opinion and commentary can not be proven wrong, which is why one can say anything they want to and doesn't fall under news reporting or investigative journalism.
You are welcome. I forgot to mention one book that looks interesting, but I haven't looked through it myself yet. Hence, I can't endorse it, although it looks like an interesting read.
Pakistan : In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan
I'm still trying to track down a paper written by a PhD student at our university, who spent time with the Pakistani military elite and picked up a great game of squash (like racquetball) while he was there. He is of German,Pakistani, Indian decent and his paper was about how Pakistan or any country has the ability to control other countries or other's politics through religion. Or in Pakistan's case, the religious madrassas that are unregulated/unchecked spread which spread Wahhabism in a viral manner, giving birth to the Taliban. Which the Pakistani ISI (Intelligence like CIA, FSB, Mossad,M16) then the used the Taliban to have complete influence over Afghanistan. The Taliban as you already know where the stubborn hosts and harborers of al-Qaeda. Until we attacked the Taliban and which I highly approve of. I only sadden that we did not keep the pressure up and got distracted in other unnecessary wars. Resulting in a reemergence of Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
American Dynasty by Kevin Phillipsformer Nixon analyst and as a former principal electoral theoretician. He was key as a Republican strategist.
The Price of Loyalty by Paul O'Neill former Treasury Secretary, who was made to leave after correctly stating the cost of the Iraq war was going to cost $200 billion.
Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward Bob Woodward reveals in Plan of Attack, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were part of a group leading the charge to war while Secretary of State Colin Powell, General Tommy Franks, and others actively questioned the plan to invade a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks while war in Afghanistan was still being waged
Against All Enemies by Richard C Clarke by former terrorism czar in several administrations including the recent one.
Finally that brings me to your book suggestion by Jayna Davis. Seen to be drinking beer with an former Iraqi soldier is one hell of a poor connection to state that Iraq had something to do with the OKC bombing. In fact in this country evidence like that is thrown out of court in this country. Did you know that Dr. Ahmed Chalabi the man who fed information of the fictitious WMDs and the administration used to him as their primary source invade Iraq (even though the State Dept didn't trust him) and the man who sat with Laura Bush during George Bush's state of the union speech last year, is now under criminal investigation for wrong doing in Iraq? Should I tie the president in Chalabi's dirty deeds if I was to use your high standards of guilty by association? Look, the authors listed above have a lot more credentials in their pinky than this Davis person you recommend. One should have better standards and scrutinize the source of your information if you want to have some credibility when you make those claims.
I'm sorry I don't remember links from every story I've ever read. Perhaps when I get a few hundred hours of free time I'll provide you with links to every news report I ever read on the subject.
Thats a shame. I have 3100+ bookmarks of topics that interest me, but not everything I read. I have 300+ links from solid sources on Bush-Iraq issue itself. Comes in handy for those occasions when I run into an extremist on Slashdot suffering from delusions :)
As for your "mainstream" comments, well my interpretation is that you shy away from well known and respected sources of news that have standards in journalism. Come on, give me something from the WSJ or its respected conservative equivalent. If you can't then your argument holds no water and just sounds like a wacko getting high on some conspiracy theory, reading news from very dubious sources.
Of course Wolfowitz one of the "Vulcans" would say something like that, but what is his proof? Even before the current administration took to power, Wolfowitz has always been eyeing to get back into Iraq, for the oil and to finish off Saddam. Hey, I not Saddam fan, but I would have rather spend $200 billion dollars and all those troops searching through East Afghanistan and West Pakistan looking for Osama bin Laden. Remember him? He's the guy directly responsible for 9/11. How come the at the RNC convention they didn't mention much of the "O" name?
Please provide news sources and links (from credible and well respected) from conservative (e.g. WSJ) and non-conservative sources you are drawing claims from your last reply. You quote that the New York Times said " According to the New York Times, in Afghanistan there were documents about bomb recipes, one of which was marked "the kind used in Oklahoma City". They had more information on the recipe for the bomb than we do." Please show the link. Secondly, the CIA trained the Mujahideen in making bombs and also kindly provided them with stinger missiles, so that explains the bomb making recipes. Storing a bunch of fertilizer in a truck as in OKC bombing is not exactly the most high tech method. In fact any one with some basic chemistry or watches enough episodes of Macgyver will be able to make their own low tech explosive. Your argument falls way short of a smoking gun.
This is complete BS. I've seen O'Reilly quite a few times, and the only times he's cut someone's mike is when either (a) they were passing off completely unsubstantiated lies or (b) they were completely dodging O'Reilly's questions.
Thanks. You just confirmed that O'Reilly does say "Shut up" to his guests in a unprofessional manner. All you did is try and justify it with your weak and twisted reasoning. O'Reilly isn't a man who can listen to facts or reason. He just likes to shout and cause a lot of drama. I have very little regard to people like O'Reilly. I'd rather see two intelligent well informed and respectful opponents debate things out. With O'Reilly its about him shouting and getting in the last word. You can't take an immature guy like him seriously
Yes. The fact that you aren't aware of them just means that you don't pay enough attention. The fact that Fox News watchers probably have other sources of news as well (other than Fox or the traditional media) is not what the traditional media wants. For information on Iraq's WMD finds, see here and here, not to mention the WMD that were shipped to Syria and used in an attempted assassination of King Hussein of Jordan.
You really buy into this don't you. Look, go read a real newspaper or something that has standards in journalism. Quote me something from the Wall Street Jounral or another conservative newspaper that has similar standards, not the radical news sources you've quoted me. Both Colin Powell and David Kelly have both said that WMDs will probably never be found in Iraq. Fresh doubts over Iraq's arsenal. Its a shame and tragic that Hans Blix was not allowed to finish his job and the administration was just itching to get into Iraq, damn the consequences.
Rice "We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either direction or control of 9-11."
Bush said there was no attempt by the administration to try to confuse people about any link between Saddam and Sept. 11 "No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," Bush said. "What the vice president said was is that he (Saddam) has been involved with al-Qaida
Previous comment: "Is there a connection between Iraq and 9/11 ?"
Yes! Hussein Al-Hussany, who helped McVeigh in the OKC bombing, was a member of the Republican Guard, and after the OKC bombing went to work for Logan national airport. Hussein Al-Hussany sued Jayna Davis for slander for publishing reports about this, AND LOST. Ramzi Youssef, one of the ones who carried out the first WTC bombing, was being employed by Iraq at the time. Anyway, it's a long connection, but the imminent connection is between the larger war on terror and Iraq, and between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, which noone denies exist
Apparently, I'm separated from the President by two people from two different sets of people. Guess what? It doesn't mean much. John Walker Lindh (American Taliban) and Richard Reed (shoe bomber) are citizens of the U.S. and the U.K. yet do we claim that our country and others harbor terrorists? What kind of asinine argument are you trying to pull when you say that a country is responsible for terror because the terrorist lived there. Well, didn't Mohammad Atta live in Hamburg, Germany. Maybe, we should invade Germany, just in case they forgot their lesson right? Listen buddy, maybe you should take a closer look at Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, instead of barking up the wrong tree (or country so to speak) and lay of the crack. The irony of me arguing this with you is that you are the polar opposite of a Islamic fundamentalist. You'r
Please refer to my previous statement
I'm not complaining that Fox news is conservative, but that it has ZERO standards when it comes to journalism and not much different from Al-Jazeera. The Fox network under Rupert Murdoch's extremely pro-Republician agenda to promote the right wing politicians and vilify left wing politics.
I suppose you are an independant just as Bill O'Reilly claims to be independant. LOL. I guess I can claim to be platform agnostic like Rob Enderle.
Lets start with your claim of Hannity & Colmes. They have Hannity as the strong right wing person and a weak squirrely little agreeable left wing guy for Hannity's counter part. A former Fox news producer has clearly stated that when it comes to their guest speakers they get strong Republicans and pseudo-Democrats or ones that can agree with the host. On O'Reilly anyone expressing their views to forcefully will have their microphones cut or ask to "Shut up" in a stunningly unprofessional way. So much for the professionalism, guess you don't find any Walter Cronkite, Peter Jenning or Larry King on Fox. Fox also doesn't invite people back who expressed strong difference of opinion back to the Fox network and they weed out strong Democratic voices. The number of times Fox invites Republicians to a Democrat is a 6 to 1 ratio. Of those Democrats Fox tends to get weak and agreeable Democrats
Fox news will allow their reporter who covers Bush in the 2000 election continue with his coverage even though the reporter's wife is campaigning with members of the Bush family. When CNN had a simliar reporter cover Gore and CNN found out that the reporter's spose was working with the Democrats, they pulled that reporter. Why? Because CNN didn't want a conflict of interest, something Fox doesn't really care about because they have NO standards when it comes to journalism. Then there is that whole paradoxical reference by Fox News host to "some people say". Quite often you'll hear people on Fox News quote "some people say" as a news source, this in journalism is an odd and not really acceptable because you are supposed to quote your source of information. What Fox News folks do is state their own opinion by saying "some people say ....". In journalism you are supposed to source your reference, yet Fox News network blatantly violate this basic doctrine for jounalism.
When broadcast news networks like NBC, ABC, CBS broadcast the election 2004 coverage or count down the days. They don't have a Hannity telling you "180 more days before George Bush gets relected". You can't do that in journalism, one ought to say "180 more days for the 2004 election". I laught when I hear Fox's "We report. You decide". Whatever...
Another point I'd like to state is that Fox News is an expert in character assasination and political vilification. Take Richard C Clarke, when he came out to apologize to the 9/11 families Fox News worked overtime to project Clarke as a man who wanted to sell a book, instead of a man who worked closely with the president and was able in very clear terms show that the president priorities and agenda on Iraq where misleading and based on inaccurate information. When Fox News shows John Kerry they play comical French music in the background and their staff state and I quote "John Kerry looks French". WTF is that all about? First its a baseless attack on Kerry, to make him look less American and there by make him look not to be a patriot. Second, I think its racist to the French use those terms and language. Why doesn't the the Fox News use the same music and tone and state "John Kerry looks African" or "John Kerry looks Communist", because they'd be taken to the cleaners. The French are just an easy target of American ire and who is going to stand up for the French right? It just goes to show the conservative mind set that the Fox News folks have with other people of differenent cultures and opinions.
Fox ne
To most propellor heads in Slashdot would find quite a few inventions that are patented at the USPTO, to be obvious and not unique, by drawing some parallel to a lesser known technology one of our readers knew about and unearthing similar prior art. Thats because the readership here is large and the technology prowess of most of the /. folks as a collective fairly high. The patent examiner doesn't have the time nor resources to study all of the claims throughly enough, unlike thousands of /. readers, who are general predisposed to be anti-Intellectual Propertry and pro-Open Source and freeware. As one patent lawyer put it to me, the USPTO
and companies rely on the courts to settle patent disputes and
the merits of the patent itself. Leaving the both legal teams rich and with a large source of future income as IP claims keep rising.
I saw a article on how the Japanese can't keep up with patent lawyers and schools are springing up all over the place. I guess its a natural evolution of their and our economy, as manfacturing and other low tech service jobs are done cheaply abroad.
Following the United States Patent and Trademarks Office granting of a patent for IBM last year, IBM has relinquished its rights to the patent it received on a method for determining who gets next use of a toilet. The relinquishment came in February after a petition was filed asking the patent of office to re-examine it. The patent was described as a system run by a computer that would assign customers numbers on a first-come-fist-served basis. The system would allow customers an estimate of their waiting time and notify them when the toilet was available - ending waits in the aisles. An IBM representative said the company was unable to explain why the company had thought it was worth while to patent the computer system in the first place.
That method of toilet scheduling is now in public domain. Great, I don't think it would have changed my life either way. However, this issue of creating a unified standard of authenicating the sender and server is too important to have IP claims all over it.
I'm sorry I don't see your argument or it doesn't hold water. Deploying software on a Mac and maintaining updates and administration on a Mac OSX is far lower than any other computer I've come across. We have a hetrogenous enviroment in our department. Aside from Windows PCs we have SGI Irix, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Linux and Mac OSX.
Please refer to this link
I hope my reply here answers most of your question. I know that a 40 - 60 GB drive will suffice for the next 4-5 yrs, even with software updates to the OS and the increased size of new versions of productivity software. On the other hand future updates of the OS and productivity software will demand more CPU resources and RAM to run. I try to get a better CPU (not the best because of the premium price for the fastest clock speed) and a decent amount of RAM, so they can run several apps at one time comfortably.
Speaking for myself on my own laptop with 60GB, I use more diskspace with audio files and digital images than our typical secretarial staff use and my HDD capacity is enough for me. They typically generate Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF files and occasionally deal with some images. So their needs are modest for diskspace, but speed and memory are always useful for them.
e.g. Our department specs maybe something like this
1.8 GHz G5 processor
40 GB harddrive
CD-RW drive
512 MB to 1 GB RAM
3 Year service
My department doesn't need the secretarial staff to have 80GB drive nor a DVD-R burning SuperDrive. Yet, I'm forced to buy those components if I want the 1.8GHz machine instead of the 1.6GHz. I don't expect Apple to be able to customize like Dell does (penny pinching moves like excluding a $2.41 mouse pad) , but I just feel that I lack the ability to squeeze the most out, by not being able to configure the machines to our needs hampers purchasing sometimes. For administrative and coporate jobs and people who need a basic terminal a 40GB HDD and a CD-RW burner are great. Our users typical need enough processor power, for 3-4 years down the road and enough RAM to run 5-8 concurrent applications as they typically do.
I agree with you with this point. Apple historically has always been behind on the supply side. They never seem to be able to estimate demand or scale up when well when it rises, resulting in delayed orders. Its a shame.
No, you just need to lock down the config tight enough so that can't happen
We have an entire team of guys at our college that specialize in one and only thing. Windows PCs. Yet, they have trouble locking down the computer because Windows and Windows programmers have picked up alot of bad habits over the years. Allowing Limited Userby default to even write to the root of the C:\ drive, the root of Program Files, last but not least the root of the Windows directory. Even after locking down most things. Our computers where hit by NetSky.
Here is a short example C:\Program Files\Common Files\McNeel Shared\Teen Porn 16.jpg.pif has been deleted. C:\Program Files\Common Files\McNeel Shared\Virii Sourcecode.scr Found the W32/Netsky.c@MM virus !!! C:\Program Files\Common Files\McNeel Shared\Virii Sourcecode.scr has been deleted. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr Found the W32/Netsky.c@MM virus !!! C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr has been deleted. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CDO\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr Found the W32/Netsky.c@MM virus !!! C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CDO\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr has been deleted. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CDO\Dark Angels.pif
It just goes to show that the Windows OS is inherited from a single user system, and doesn't think about where and how a user can install malware and virii ..etc throughout the system, infecting other users. We've been using Unix and now Linux for the last 20 years and I've never as many problems on Windows on other
platforms like Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux and Mac OSX.
Bluetooth so I can iSync without a cable
320x320 screen
If they're going to leave that damn camera, then let it take video. MPEG-4 or H.264 clips.
Last but not least expansion with SDIO for GPS, WiFi, ...etc.
Found a great Treo 600 holster from Seidio, that would protect the screen well. Just like my Treo 180 (which is one reason I like it, but the flip phone part is susceptable to breakage).
We don't think we are missing out on much at all. I'm sorry but it is not at all likely that there will ever be a MAC version of Rhino. We do our software development in Microsoft Developer Studio. There is no MAC based equivalent for this product and it's resources. This is the first problem. Secondly, it is nearly impossible to find MAC programmers with the PhD level math skills needed for this kind of programming at any price. Thirdly, there are not enough potential sales of a MAC based product to keep it affordable. At present projections, assuming we could find the programmers and they could co-develop a product similar enough to the Windows based product to make it viable, each copy would have to be priced over $20,000 per seat. At that price, a $1,000 Windows computer running Windows based Rhino makes a lot more sense. Don't you think?
Reply to Point #1
Xcode and Codewarrior
Reply to point #2
Need I mention products like Mathworks [Matlab] and Wolfram [Mathematica] ?
Our department, the Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering department graduates several PhDs specializing in surfacing math, several of whom I have worked with. They eventually get hired into the automotive and marine industries. Several of them now work for companies like Dassault [Catia], EAI (now Unigraphics), Imageware Surfacer (now Unigraphics) all doing work on CAD and advanced surfacing, based on their PhD work. PhD's with programming knowledge are platform agnostic. Equations and algorithms that work on a Windows PC can be ported to a Mac, or any other platform for that matter.
I don't believe that any programmer can't pick up a Mac OSX development environment, especially when academic institutions teach on platform neutral environments. C, C++, OpenGL, Java, ...etc.
Reply to point #3
Apparently, companies like Alias [Maya], NewTek [Lightwave], Microsoft [Office], Mathworks [Matlab], Adobe....don't concur with your hypothesis. Nor do they charge 20 time more per seat for their Mac OSX ports.
The $20,000 per seat cost using the percentage of total sales of PC vs Macs is clearly a red herring. A much better example would be the fact that Alias' sales of Maya make up over %25 of their total revenue stream, even though Macs sales are less than 5% of total computer sales. The reason for Maya's success on Mac OSX, as well as other similar software, is because Macs are used in the computer graphics, video, scientific and engineering community. Applications that cater to 3D modeling, 2D imaging, video are used to a greater proportion on Macs than that found in the Windows community. Hence, sales of the Mac OSX Rhino 3D port would not be 19 to 1 (Windows vs Macs), a more realistic ratio would be 3 to 1 ( Windows vs Macs, based on the Alias Maya example).
The question is would McNeel & Associates want to keep trying to growing in just a PC market, or experience the potential of increasing sales (as Alias did when they made their Mac OSX port) another 30% - 25% ?
I procrastinate at work by starting my morning reading Slashdot, Wired, OSNews, BBC news, NY Times, Washington Post, The Economist, Google World News, The Register, LA Times, and more ....shit its lunch time already...
However, since Jibjab did not make any money directly or indirectly by advertising, the copyright owners may not be able to get much monetary damages, aside from a seize and desist order.
I spoke to a friend who is a developer for visualization applications. He feels that with Open GL 1.5 and some of the new ratified standards from the OpenGL ARB, OpenGL is back on par with Direct X 9.0.
Anyone have other insights ?
M$FT vaporware, FUD and hollow promises. Nothing to see here folks, lets move along.
You ever see a large body builder run...well they can't do it well. Their inner thighs collide with each other giving them a bow legged stance, which is less than ideal posture for our structure.
This reminds me of is a photo I saw of a cat with overly large muscles I saw a year ago, who couldn't closed his mouth because the tongue (which is a big muscle) was too large. The cat suffered throughout its life, they might have eventually put it to sleep, because it had so many medical complications. Hope the kid ends up being healthy and not a guinea pig for the curious scientists.
Posted 20040623T190431Z
Convert all industry and govt. agencies to the metric system
Change the paper standard to A series. i.e. 8 1/2" x 11" to A4
Change Month/Day/Year to Day/Month/Year on all forms and databases.
Use only open source software in all govt. agencies.
Invest much more research and support renewable energy
Invade countries that drive on the wrong side of the road and bring those evil doers to justice.
My policies will create jobs for the thousands of unemployed programmers sitting idle since the Millennium bug scare and allow our fellow Americans to drive anywhere around the world, without the fear of driving into on coming traffic.
If you get a chance you can read an article on E-Commerce news. The market for OS X users in engineering, research and defense in growing. Its just a matter of time for the marketing and sales folks to realize that.