I am pleased to say that I now, once again, have an office with a door. I got it because I got promoted to management and there's a perception that managers need an office with a door so that they can conduct private discussions with employees and other managers. To be honest, my old cube was right smack dab alongside the cubes of the people I now manage and I miss having that close contact. I didn't really want to move until it was explained that I really had to move. In the old cube I could back up from my desk and be able to look out the window of the cube opposite me (belonging to one of the guys on my team) and I liked that. Most of the time I got some natural lighting in there and it worked well for me.
My current office is windowless and roughly 9x11 feet and since it used to be an EMF interference testing area (a.k.a. "closet") for medical equipment, has copper mesh on the back of all the drywall and covering all of the ceiling tiles. Yes, I work in a faraday cage. Radio reception sucks and company policy is that no streaming is allowed over the network so I have to be sneaky. One of these days I'm going to run an antenna out into the place where the normal people work and I'll finally be able to get a signal.
My best. office. evar. was when I was still a developer 5 years ago and my company (a midsize VOIP startup) had just moved into a new building with room to grow. Almost everyone got their own office. Mine was east-facing, approximately 20x50 feet, big wide window across the 20-foot side, with a 40-foot walk to the kitchen and an outdoor 2nd floor balcony. I had room for my fishtank plus having the other half of the office for a test area. It was XANADU. The company ping-pong table was on the other side of my office wall, so I'd get periodic crashes into the wall during particularly energetic games, but it wasn't bad. I could crank the tunes and I'd be set.
I doubt that I'll ever get an office like that again, but it was great while it lasted.
The only other observation I have about office space is that when I was working a 4-week stint in Germany (Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart), all the developers had to share offices, but there were only 3-4 in a room. All offices had -=openable=- windows and everyone was seated facing into the center of the room so that nobody could see anyone else's monitor. No cube partitions, just plenty of desk space. It was lovely... very calm. There was a rule that quiet was preferred and that energetic discussions should take place in conference rooms and common areas. At the time, the German parliament was debating workplace rules with an eye to avoiding sealed buildings and cube farms, oddly enough. We were quite fortunate, there.
Out here, we used to get a fairly neat mix of historical documentaries about a lot of different topics, but I just seem to notice that I see more war-mercials (30 minute commercials for modern war) when public opinion for war is at a real ebb, and also when nationalism is at its peak. It's hard to know if the programming moves to the tune of public opinion or if it works the other way.
If there would some kind of programming influence, it'd be secret anyhow, right?
-=sigh=-
I promised I wouldn't parse people this year, but I didn't want to let half of these topics go.
You say Clinton was under attack constantly by republicans?
Yes, I do say that. The congress set more investigations of independent counsel upon the clinton presidency (and administration) than I can recall for any other. Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted on it. The last one finally concluded only this year.
Look at the Dems going against bush. It's just as bad if not far worse. The Rep's didn't have the 88% of the media backing them like the Dem's do. (That's right, 12% of the media can be considered more conservative than liberal. Explanation is in the rebuttal by fox to the "documentary" called "out foxed" if you want my source. It's pretty undeniable so don't write it off just because you don't like fox.)
How is it worse? The TV news media networks have been steered and manupulated by the administration like no other time in history. "Embedded Journalists" are pentagon shills. Millions of our tax dollars go to write produce and distribute favorable new stories both here and abroad. Oh, I just checked and "the hippie liberal moonbat lefty commie media" doesn't have a seat in congress... yet. Until that time, let's focus on the house, senate, SCOTUS and the executive, OK?
And as far as Clinton Purjuring himself, that was plenty documented and shown in news... He lied under oath. That's called Purjury. Duh. Just because he wasn't tried for it doesnt mean it wasn't true.
Wow. Just because cold fusion has yet to be proven to produce energy doesn't mean it can't. Just because you say my bear-resistant wristwatch doesn't work doesn't change the fact that I haven't been attacked by bears because of it. Your logic is flawless and your perception true, oh brilliant one.
The whole thing was pretty stupid anyway. Everyone wanted to impeach him and then, what, one person actually voted to remove him from office? It was all just a big "lets see how bad we can embarrass Clinton" ordeal. They SHOULD have stuck to the issues like purjury IMO. Having an affair in office isn't exactly illegal in any sense. Maybe it's against the code of conduct and maybe morally it's sick (anyone who cheats on their wife should have their manhood removed IMO), but it wasn't "illegal" per`se.
I can't argue with any of that. I want the government to stay out of everybody's bedroom.
Until anyone can prove somethign Bush did was illegal, he is innocent and that's the way it works. The closest thing to actually "illegal" he did was ordering the wiretapping and it's yet to be seen if that even WAS illegal. If it was, then he should deal with the consequences because otherwise every president from now on will have the authority to violate our rights. If it wasn't illegal then he "wasn't violating" our rights. There are circumstances laid out that call for measures like this to be taken, it just needs to be proved that this was one of those circumstances. They need to show exactly who it was done to and justify every single one of them and prove it was probably cause or something to that effect. There shouldn't be any blanket statements involved.
Now you're seeing my point. I'm all for evidence and showing proof, but it's all secret and the administration wants to keep it that way. This is why there's a lot of pressure within the senate (on behalf of the administration) to have the questions and subsequent investigation proceed under the aegis of the intelligence committee, where the debate is kept secret, rather than under the judiciary committee, where any evidence of legality would have to be publically-reported. Apparently you don't want to know the answer to the questions. I do, regardless of the outcome.
LOL, I'm just glad this country doesnt operate on trial-by-opinion though because it's sure true that every president would be removed from office if that were the case.
I'm inclined, however, to take a lie about sex (because I can understand and generally forgive lies about sex since they're really about bedroom relationships) at a less serious level than the assumption (or at least the assumed use) of the power to submit americans to surveillance -=as terrorists=- under the basic context of international teleommunications.
Let me get back on topic. Slick Willie can defend himself.
Yeah, there are some technological advancements that make that type of surveillance more challenging than they were back in the early 80s, but the fact that these warrants can be obtained after the fact and that the FISA warrant issuing process is vrtually rubber-stamp tells me that there's just no good reason to not have the investigations covered by warrant. Heck, having documented instances of warrant invocation would be a great paper trail to use to validate the importance and usefulness of the kind of wiretap powers being used. Rather than let the sun shine in by complying with a law that's sooo easy to comply with (or even making an easier one), the administration not only defends the warrantlessness of the conduct, but says that it simply doesn't need the legal background to track and legitimize the activity. How appalling!
The fact that "most of the country" (read: most of the vast right wing conspiracy) thought clinton was wagging the dog with his attacks in the sudan and afghanistan shows that most conservatives actually support OBL and were softies on reports of biological weapons development in AlQaida nations. OBL supports Bush after all... he said it right before the 2004 election and look who won. Most conservatives are late to the table on the fight againist terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and so they like to wave their little clinton hankies to make King George look better.
I don't think we disagree on the point of my earlier post, but I'm trying to show that the scale and circumstances of the legality of presidential conduct for Slick Willie and King George are situationally different and not comparable.
I've been noticing for a few years that whenever there's any kind of lull in the good news on the war on terror or whenever there's an administration official on the hot seat, that the History Channel tends to start running more flag-waving "modern marvels of desert storm" and "engineering marvels: saddams death palace of doom" programming. In addition, there seems to be an uptick in the WWII "documentary" frequency.
My ex wife used to call the history channel "the nazi channel" because of the endless number of shows about WWII germany, but that faded out in the late 90s. You didn't see so much modern-day flag-waving pro-war content until after 9-11. The odd thing is that the "neato war machine" shows are now being broadcast on both the history and military channels, whereas they used to be a lot more at home on the military channel.
Has anyone else noticed something of the sort?
I think the cable channels are not only being used to propagandize to those outside the country but also to steer/stir a kind of popular patriotism here at home. That it's being controlled by the pentagon now just makes it seem all the more reasonable.
-= itch scratch itch scratch =- My darm tinfoil hat is chafing again.
I wasn't aware that Clinton was convicted of perjury. Just reading this, it seems like the counts were all unsupported when it came time for the republican-led congress to vote. Clinton's biggest distortions were about an affair he had. It's worth noting that he came clean on travelgate and whitewater and a couple of other very loudly-trumpeted purported transgressions, too.
The guy wasn't a saint by any stretch, but he was continuously attacked by the right and the most they could get was some pretty misleading statements about some "sexual relations" he had. I think there are a lot more serious questions about the current administration, and while they get trumpeted just as loudly as those made against clinton, it would be a mistake to assume that they have a similar lack of substance as those made against clinton.
As a side note, it's interesting that you think illegal search and seizure isn't that serious. Maybe it isn't that serious to rebublicans, I dunno. It is, however, rooted in the constitution (see "warrantless searches") -- the same constitution that this president took an oath to protect and defend.
Sadly, I think that GWB is even more of a "slick willie" than the original Slick Willie. He'll get away with it like he's gotten away with everything else... by making it secret, linking it with the war on terror, and accusing his inquisitors of being unpatriotic and and aiding the enemy. Turdblossom tactics all the way. Viva La Rove-alution!
I've heard the topic of evidence raised a few times, and I think that it's only natural that regular folks assume that there is evidence and that the evidence will indicate wrongdoing or the absence thereof.
If you're looking for evidence in this case, there are some pretty big barriers to getting it, and not because it isn't there but rather because it's -=secret=-. What this means is that only a handful of elected officials even get to know about the program, legal or not. If they know, and it's illegal, they can't say anything about it -- because it's secret.
The whole thing has been very cleverly arranged such that secrecy (in the name of national security and a presumed state of war) prevents the evaluation or assessment of legality. Where that evaluation is possible, it's concentrated in the hands of unelected administration officials who (it can be assumed) will not be impartial.
Secrecy is really at the root of the issue of evidence, much in the same way that nobody can find out exactly which suspected terrorists are being held in custody (in cuba or elsewhere). I heard an interview with Hamdi's lawyer the other day where he said that Hamdi was the first person he ever defended with whom he could not meet and could not see the charges against him or see any of the evidence.... it was all secret.
I'm all for secrecy in general, especially where it applies to foreign intelligence, war planning and the like. What's disturbing is that the current administration makes almost everything classified or secret, and is able to umbrella these classifications under the aegis of national security. At some point, having some kind of FISA record of the wiretaps and associated warrants is valuable, even if it's only post-facto.
Let's face it, Aibo was a dumb idea at a really high price point, but Qrio -- I mean, able to run and dance and throw stuff -- Qrio was cool. Cool enough for a Beck video, even.
I was hoping that Sony'd be able to make Qrios for retail sale, but no dice. All they were able to produce was something like six of them -- pretty depressing. I think I paid a little over a hundred bills for my robosapien. I'd pay upwards of twice that for a qrio.
-= Sigh =-
Well, maybe some other company will take up the walking-running-dancing robot franchise and balance will be restored to the universe once again.
Aye. I'm inclined to agree with your assessment of hype. The kid's fresh-faced and young enough to be photogenic, too, which helps.
I was talking about it with a guy at work today. His son's team won the CS prize at the LAN game this past weekend. Got a bunch of cool stuff for it -- about $800 worth of gear. The kid wants to make a living as a pro if he can, or just have some sponsor pay for all kinds of travel if that's all it ends up as. I can't say it's a bad idea, but it seems like if that's your career path, you should have a day job just in case.
Fatality is just the most obvious example of people that make money at playing games. There are people that play madden in $$ tourneys that would qualify just as much for the exposure. I have to say that I like the fact that they picked a PC gamer as their example over a console player, but to really flesh it out they should have had a group of pros of mixed ages and genders, who play a variety of games. They way it got pigeonholed as a CS-on-PC thing in the story wasn't all that great.
... seeing this in some documentary awhile back. It looked pretty neat. One thing that I wasn't so sure about is how the tubes that carry the circulating algae solution can be kept clean and leak free in any number of climates where it might be useful.
Actually, the predecessor to the Segway was Kamen's four-wheel-drive (6 wheels, though) wheelchair -- the IBOT --it can climb stairs and permits the user to sit at eye-level with the non-disabled.
Here's a somewhat froo-froo link, but one that has a picture.
If you google for IBOT you'll see a lot of coverage, but I have not seen any of these things around. Maybe there are still some approvals to work out. I wonder how much power they require, too.
Anyhow, if the item can be costed such that a disabled person can get one at a reasonable price (or subsidized), I could see it as being a great use of the technology.
I get your point. I agree with your assessment of targeted advertising as a plus. The non-intrusiveness of sponsored links and text ads makes me less irritated by them as opposed to hideous flashing banners.
As for making the distinction between google charging people who want my business and people who want my time, I see it as a bit of a wash. If a business doesn't get a bit of my time, by seeing a text ad or sponsored link and making some kind of evaluation of it, they're unlikely to get my business. One begets the other, so I see it as part of the same basket. Companies pay for efforts (in the form of advertising) that increase the chance of getting my business, so while it sounds illogical, it's a fundamental part of how businesses work. Spontaneous word of mouth only goes so far, and not so far at all or younger businesses without an established customer base. If a business funds google's many offerings as a part of trying to get my time and interest in their product or service, I think that's a good idea, and it'll probably cement my relationship with google as a portal, too.
I saw that someone expressed concern in this thread over google tracking information about me and my browsing habits. I'd echo that concern, but until I see that my browsing info is being used to steer my attention -=exclusively=- to certain sites or vendors, it's not so much a bother to me. Watchful waiting seems prudent. I'm certainly not going to assume that google will stay the same, and your note about keeping an eye on google management is a pretty good idea -- and a pretty good idea with regard to lots of other companies that people interact with.
I think you're referring to Call of Duty. Is that correct?
What I'm referring to by co-op mode is multiplayer where you're not hooked up to the 'net (like on a LAN) and bots can fill in the teams. BF-V and BF1942 used to have this option. You have it in UT2K4, even if the balancing doesn't always work very well. In my game group, we frequently like to play all on one side or another, and every now and again one guy will jump to the opposition for a bit. By having bots to cooperate, you can still get a full army on either side.
Just curious about something... the description of SW-BF2 multiplayer didn't say anything about a co-op mode. Is there co-op?
Just as a bit of opinioneering, I have been kinda miffed lately at the lack of co-op modes in games that have multi-player capability. Call of Duty would have been great with co-op. BF2 has a hacky kind of co-op, but not really. What gives? Is it a question of the quality of the AI or what?
Actually, I used to work at a firm that did automotive products liability defense, assembling documents and exhibits for discovery and trial. One tactic is to simply provide -=everything=-, even if it may not be directly related. For example, providing any and all documents that have the word "Linux kernel" in them. In this way, opposing counsel has to review -=everything =- and determine relevance. It'd take a clerk less than an hour to evaluate a shipment of blank paper. What you want is a shipment that demands hundreds and hundreds of billable atty/paralegal hours.
At one point, I recall shipping some 20-odd file boxes full of car company documents. We had to narrow things a little bit, but if it was a case about passive restraints, you'd have to enclose everything about door pillars, seat belt materials, mount points, seat design, buckle design and testing, relevant government regulations, FARS data, NHTSA rulings, Fed Reg decisions, etc. It can be enough to send a personal injury lawyer to the looney bin, or at least force them to hire very expensive experts that will eat up a sizable chunk of the eventual settlement, if any.
Aye, your strategy is my own -- works great, too. I did this with Socket A years back and again with socket 478.
As a side note, I've found that I get better longevity out of a build (or "assembly", for those who are picky about terminology) if I wait for a board that has a combination of well-developed solid features on it, too.... sound, on-board VGA, SATA, SPDIF support, etc.
What it probably comes down to is letting enough time go by such that all the major moboard manufacturers have the opportunity to make competing offerings. If I buy too early in the introduction of a new socket/processor type, I find that there are still little tweaks or driver oddities to deal with. Seems like the magic time starts at about 6 mos after introduction.
Oddly enough, I've probably let the start of the window go by for Athlon 64, and with my next build (er, "assembly") slated for mid-next year, I'll have too much to choose from. Oh well, maybe next time.
You've made some good obervations, and I think I can help you a little bit with your confusion about how Americans describe themselves.
There was a time, around the mid-1800s, when Americans would identify themselves as just that -- Americans. This was back in the early days of the republic, and there was still a cultural (and sometimes a real) memory of the war of independence. Self-identification as American was part of the pride.
Now, back then, there were self-identified Americans who were actually born in France or England or Germany. To anyone else, they were French or British or German. Their kids, not having any personal experience of the family-homeland, also identified themselves as Americans, though saying you were British-American or French-American or German-American wasn't really an option, since all American families actually hailed from somewhere else in the past. Assimilation (the melting pot) was a very powerful force for white Americans. In a social sense, blacks of the era simply didn't have the social power to self-identify, and their identity was further stripped by having to take their master's surname. Native Americans (or North American aboriginals, if you prefer that appelation) had their own tribal identification, which still remains to this day.
As you get closer to 1900, there were huge waves of immigrants from all over the world, and these were people who wanted a clean slate. They wanted nothing more than to be assimilated. In some families, the language of the homeland was forbidden. Educational institutions sought to have kids learn and speak english without accent. The pride of the immigrant American at the turn of 1900 buried the notion of self-identification of the homeland. My four great grandfathers and mothers (on both mom and dad's sides) spoke very little english because they came to the country when they were too old for schooling, but their kids (my grandmas and grandpas) all spoke English in the upper-midwestern American accent, and while they could understand some of the old languages and maybe speak and read a bit, they were Americans and identified themselves as such.
Consider, then, the melting pot. By the time it got around to me, the national heritage of my family was Belorussian, Lithuanian, French and Norwegian. I only speak one of those languages, but how could I possibly self-identify with any of those nations? I can't, and I don't, but mustly because I still take some pride in being an American, regardless of how my country seems to be perceived at present.
However, their are groups who have been marginalized over time, who seek to re-enforce their sense of identity to elevate their pride. Some black Americans prefer to align themselves with their African roots. Some Irish-Americans identify themselves that way because they seek a tie to their family heritage that may have been repressed as a part of assimilation. Interestingly, the force of assimilation has decreased in American culture. We're a much more multi-lingual, multi-cultural nation, now, and that's also being reflected in the way certain people self-identify. In America, you are free to identify yourself in any way that you prefer, and that's what people do.
What cover was that, pray tell? She hadn't been an operative for the five years previous to people finding out in the press that she worked for the CIA! There was no cover to blow!
It looks like the prosecutor thinks that she was under non-official cover after all, and didn't ever tip her hat either now or before the Assistant to the President of the United States of America revealed her identity to the New York Times.
I would never have thought that a sitting republican presidency would actually leak -=the truth=- to the New York Times. Jesus must be coming to my house for dinner tomorrow night, I'm sure.
So he misrepresented his findings to the New York Times? Who hasn't in Washington politics? In diplomacy, you never tell the whole story to the press. He didn't misrepresent the facts to his superiors, and he's quite outspoken about that. He was presented with a document describing an agreement that could not have taken place and he said as much... nobody in Niger's need-to-know community knew about the deal. It was a fake, kind of like the FAX Dan Rather got. Remember that Niger happens to trade in uranium with lots of nations, and it's all above-board. Joe Wilson knew all the people that would know about any possible deal and he reported that nobody even knew about, or had been considering such a deal. Remember that Iraq was under no-fly zones (and bombed a few times) for the years between Iraq War I and Iraq War II. What nation wants to get hooked into that? The people in Niger wanted as little to do with Iraq as possible. Joe Wilson got the read and reported it. The man was an exemplar representative of our country -- on a beat that is the armpit of the foreign service. If George Herbert Walker Bush is any barometer, he's probably worth a medal of freedom.
Yeah, Joe Wilson's wife put him on a list -- along with a few other names for recommendation, partly because he was the United States Ambassador to Niger years before. He knew the people to talk to, just like a lot of other people, and he had great experience in the region, which probably set him apart. When George Herbert Walker Bush is your buddy (Remember that GHWB was once the director of the CIA and has an intimate understanding of what Wilson was trying to determine, from an intelligence perspective.), you're a known quantity and not some kind of intelligence bullshit artist. After Valerie was outed, former President Bush wrote to express his condolences to the Wilsons. It's in writing
Oh, and your article is from July, and is a description of a committee report that was issued by a republican-controlled legislature, with a conservative supreme court on the bench, and a conservative republican executive. Funny what it says, huh? Apparently Mr. Fitzgerald, a GWB-sanctioned investigator, feels it was something worth looking into. The cost of this investigation runs at less than a million dollars. The cost of whitewater was 50 million. Cases that have merit are always cheaper to prosecute than shams, btw.
From the article:
"... the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address."
When the Vice President of the United States of America goes to the CIA with Scooter in tow and tells them what he wants to hear, it's no wonder the White House didn't hear the qualms.
The "American Dream" (which, I might add, shifts with every generation that re-invents it) seems to be most consistently based around doing better than your parents did.
My great grandpa came from what's now Belarus to get out of forced conscription by the Czar. For him, the American Dream was about having a tailoring business and a place to build a house. He never learned much english, but he was very concerned that all his kids go to school at least through 8th grade so that they could get jobs and have families of their own.
For my grandpa, the American Dream was about having a car and being able to feed his kids and get them through high school. He worked for 35 years for the UP railroad and was able to retire comfortably. He grew up in the depression, so "looking down" on people meant what you saw at eye level.
For my dad, the American Dream was about running his own successful business and having me and my sister go to college and maybe grad school if we wanted, and to see that we had as many opportunities and choices as possible in terms of the lives we wanted to lead. Dad also liked to go 4-wheeling and take vacations to civil war battlefields. Not much looking down on people there, nope.
As for me, my American Dream is one where I don't have to work for my entire life. I'd like to travel the world a little bit and learn a couple more languages before I die. I hope I don't get stuck behind a desk for the rest of my days -- I save money for that reason, not so that I can gleefully wave my IRA report in the face of my neighbors. I'm not going to have much time or resources for retirement if I'm only making 53K per annum, so aspiring to a higher salary is my way of getting what I want out of my life.
I think that what entitles me to higher pay is my performance and expertise in a pretty obscure little corner of software development. I don't know many people that do what I do, or are as good at it as I am. Sure, I have peers, and their strengths don't necessarily match up 1:1 with mine, but that means we complement each other. Lately, I've been tapped for management, so my job is shifting in different areas and I have a lot to learn in those new contexts, but I was picked because I'm adaptable. We'll see how far I go. Is it looking down on others to see my career and compensation in that light -- maybe, but I'm also my worst critic -- there's a balance to strike.
Whether you were just trying to be funny or not, I think there's this kind of hippy-dippy snobbishness that says "Americans are sooo, like materialistic and like capitalistic and, um, wasteful and hard on the environment. We should all just work at low paying jobs and use eco-friendly products and wear Guatemalan clothing because you just don't need money to be happy and have spiritual fulfillment, yunno." I think it's a fine point of view to have, but I think that people need to find their own path -- if having a nice new porsche every year really jazzes you to the max and that's what makes you aspire to a better job or a better salary, then great. If wanting a huge house to live in makes you feel comfortable and safe, then good on ye. To say that the American Dream is about looking down on people and engaging in conspicuous consumption is using a bit of a broad brush, methinks.
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My current office is windowless and roughly 9x11 feet and since it used to be an EMF interference testing area (a.k.a. "closet") for medical equipment, has copper mesh on the back of all the drywall and covering all of the ceiling tiles. Yes, I work in a faraday cage. Radio reception sucks and company policy is that no streaming is allowed over the network so I have to be sneaky. One of these days I'm going to run an antenna out into the place where the normal people work and I'll finally be able to get a signal.
My best. office. evar. was when I was still a developer 5 years ago and my company (a midsize VOIP startup) had just moved into a new building with room to grow. Almost everyone got their own office. Mine was east-facing, approximately 20x50 feet, big wide window across the 20-foot side, with a 40-foot walk to the kitchen and an outdoor 2nd floor balcony. I had room for my fishtank plus having the other half of the office for a test area. It was XANADU. The company ping-pong table was on the other side of my office wall, so I'd get periodic crashes into the wall during particularly energetic games, but it wasn't bad. I could crank the tunes and I'd be set.
I doubt that I'll ever get an office like that again, but it was great while it lasted.
The only other observation I have about office space is that when I was working a 4-week stint in Germany (Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart), all the developers had to share offices, but there were only 3-4 in a room. All offices had -=openable=- windows and everyone was seated facing into the center of the room so that nobody could see anyone else's monitor. No cube partitions, just plenty of desk space. It was lovely... very calm. There was a rule that quiet was preferred and that energetic discussions should take place in conference rooms and common areas. At the time, the German parliament was debating workplace rules with an eye to avoiding sealed buildings and cube farms, oddly enough. We were quite fortunate, there.
If there would some kind of programming influence, it'd be secret anyhow, right?
+_ re-seats tinfoil hat _+
Aye. Good point.
I promised I wouldn't parse people this year, but I didn't want to let half of these topics go.
You say Clinton was under attack constantly by republicans?
Yes, I do say that. The congress set more investigations of independent counsel upon the clinton presidency (and administration) than I can recall for any other. Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted on it. The last one finally concluded only this year.
Look at the Dems going against bush. It's just as bad if not far worse. The Rep's didn't have the 88% of the media backing them like the Dem's do. (That's right, 12% of the media can be considered more conservative than liberal. Explanation is in the rebuttal by fox to the "documentary" called "out foxed" if you want my source. It's pretty undeniable so don't write it off just because you don't like fox.)
How is it worse? The TV news media networks have been steered and manupulated by the administration like no other time in history. "Embedded Journalists" are pentagon shills. Millions of our tax dollars go to write produce and distribute favorable new stories both here and abroad. Oh, I just checked and "the hippie liberal moonbat lefty commie media" doesn't have a seat in congress... yet. Until that time, let's focus on the house, senate, SCOTUS and the executive, OK?
And as far as Clinton Purjuring himself, that was plenty documented and shown in news... He lied under oath. That's called Purjury. Duh. Just because he wasn't tried for it doesnt mean it wasn't true.
Wow. Just because cold fusion has yet to be proven to produce energy doesn't mean it can't. Just because you say my bear-resistant wristwatch doesn't work doesn't change the fact that I haven't been attacked by bears because of it. Your logic is flawless and your perception true, oh brilliant one.
The whole thing was pretty stupid anyway. Everyone wanted to impeach him and then, what, one person actually voted to remove him from office? It was all just a big "lets see how bad we can embarrass Clinton" ordeal. They SHOULD have stuck to the issues like purjury IMO. Having an affair in office isn't exactly illegal in any sense. Maybe it's against the code of conduct and maybe morally it's sick (anyone who cheats on their wife should have their manhood removed IMO), but it wasn't "illegal" per`se.
I can't argue with any of that. I want the government to stay out of everybody's bedroom.
Until anyone can prove somethign Bush did was illegal, he is innocent and that's the way it works. The closest thing to actually "illegal" he did was ordering the wiretapping and it's yet to be seen if that even WAS illegal. If it was, then he should deal with the consequences because otherwise every president from now on will have the authority to violate our rights. If it wasn't illegal then he "wasn't violating" our rights. There are circumstances laid out that call for measures like this to be taken, it just needs to be proved that this was one of those circumstances. They need to show exactly who it was done to and justify every single one of them and prove it was probably cause or something to that effect. There shouldn't be any blanket statements involved.
Now you're seeing my point. I'm all for evidence and showing proof, but it's all secret and the administration wants to keep it that way. This is why there's a lot of pressure within the senate (on behalf of the administration) to have the questions and subsequent investigation proceed under the aegis of the intelligence committee, where the debate is kept secret, rather than under the judiciary committee, where any evidence of legality would have to be publically-reported. Apparently you don't want to know the answer to the questions. I do, regardless of the outcome.
LOL, I'm just glad this country doesnt operate on trial-by-opinion though because it's sure true that every president would be removed from office if that were the case.
We agree on this, too.
I'm inclined, however, to take a lie about sex (because I can understand and generally forgive lies about sex since they're really about bedroom relationships) at a less serious level than the assumption (or at least the assumed use) of the power to submit americans to surveillance -=as terrorists=- under the basic context of international teleommunications.
Let me get back on topic. Slick Willie can defend himself.
Yeah, there are some technological advancements that make that type of surveillance more challenging than they were back in the early 80s, but the fact that these warrants can be obtained after the fact and that the FISA warrant issuing process is vrtually rubber-stamp tells me that there's just no good reason to not have the investigations covered by warrant. Heck, having documented instances of warrant invocation would be a great paper trail to use to validate the importance and usefulness of the kind of wiretap powers being used. Rather than let the sun shine in by complying with a law that's sooo easy to comply with (or even making an easier one), the administration not only defends the warrantlessness of the conduct, but says that it simply doesn't need the legal background to track and legitimize the activity. How appalling!
The fact that "most of the country" (read: most of the vast right wing conspiracy) thought clinton was wagging the dog with his attacks in the sudan and afghanistan shows that most conservatives actually support OBL and were softies on reports of biological weapons development in AlQaida nations. OBL supports Bush after all... he said it right before the 2004 election and look who won. Most conservatives are late to the table on the fight againist terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and so they like to wave their little clinton hankies to make King George look better.
I don't think we disagree on the point of my earlier post, but I'm trying to show that the scale and circumstances of the legality of presidential conduct for Slick Willie and King George are situationally different and not comparable.
My ex wife used to call the history channel "the nazi channel" because of the endless number of shows about WWII germany, but that faded out in the late 90s. You didn't see so much modern-day flag-waving pro-war content until after 9-11. The odd thing is that the "neato war machine" shows are now being broadcast on both the history and military channels, whereas they used to be a lot more at home on the military channel.
Has anyone else noticed something of the sort?
I think the cable channels are not only being used to propagandize to those outside the country but also to steer/stir a kind of popular patriotism here at home. That it's being controlled by the pentagon now just makes it seem all the more reasonable.
-= itch scratch itch scratch =- My darm tinfoil hat is chafing again.
The guy wasn't a saint by any stretch, but he was continuously attacked by the right and the most they could get was some pretty misleading statements about some "sexual relations" he had. I think there are a lot more serious questions about the current administration, and while they get trumpeted just as loudly as those made against clinton, it would be a mistake to assume that they have a similar lack of substance as those made against clinton.
As a side note, it's interesting that you think illegal search and seizure isn't that serious. Maybe it isn't that serious to rebublicans, I dunno. It is, however, rooted in the constitution (see "warrantless searches") -- the same constitution that this president took an oath to protect and defend.
Sadly, I think that GWB is even more of a "slick willie" than the original Slick Willie. He'll get away with it like he's gotten away with everything else... by making it secret, linking it with the war on terror, and accusing his inquisitors of being unpatriotic and and aiding the enemy. Turdblossom tactics all the way. Viva La Rove-alution!
If you're looking for evidence in this case, there are some pretty big barriers to getting it, and not because it isn't there but rather because it's -=secret=-. What this means is that only a handful of elected officials even get to know about the program, legal or not. If they know, and it's illegal, they can't say anything about it -- because it's secret.
The whole thing has been very cleverly arranged such that secrecy (in the name of national security and a presumed state of war) prevents the evaluation or assessment of legality. Where that evaluation is possible, it's concentrated in the hands of unelected administration officials who (it can be assumed) will not be impartial.
Secrecy is really at the root of the issue of evidence, much in the same way that nobody can find out exactly which suspected terrorists are being held in custody (in cuba or elsewhere). I heard an interview with Hamdi's lawyer the other day where he said that Hamdi was the first person he ever defended with whom he could not meet and could not see the charges against him or see any of the evidence.... it was all secret.
I'm all for secrecy in general, especially where it applies to foreign intelligence, war planning and the like. What's disturbing is that the current administration makes almost everything classified or secret, and is able to umbrella these classifications under the aegis of national security. At some point, having some kind of FISA record of the wiretaps and associated warrants is valuable, even if it's only post-facto.
Let's face it, Aibo was a dumb idea at a really high price point, but Qrio -- I mean, able to run and dance and throw stuff -- Qrio was cool. Cool enough for a Beck video, even.
I was hoping that Sony'd be able to make Qrios for retail sale, but no dice. All they were able to produce was something like six of them -- pretty depressing. I think I paid a little over a hundred bills for my robosapien. I'd pay upwards of twice that for a qrio.
-= Sigh =-
Well, maybe some other company will take up the walking-running-dancing robot franchise and balance will be restored to the universe once again.
I was talking about it with a guy at work today. His son's team won the CS prize at the LAN game this past weekend. Got a bunch of cool stuff for it -- about $800 worth of gear. The kid wants to make a living as a pro if he can, or just have some sponsor pay for all kinds of travel if that's all it ends up as. I can't say it's a bad idea, but it seems like if that's your career path, you should have a day job just in case.
Fatality is just the most obvious example of people that make money at playing games. There are people that play madden in $$ tourneys that would qualify just as much for the exposure. I have to say that I like the fact that they picked a PC gamer as their example over a console player, but to really flesh it out they should have had a group of pros of mixed ages and genders, who play a variety of games. They way it got pigeonholed as a CS-on-PC thing in the story wasn't all that great.
Still, very neat.
Here's a somewhat froo-froo link, but one that has a picture.
If you google for IBOT you'll see a lot of coverage, but I have not seen any of these things around. Maybe there are still some approvals to work out. I wonder how much power they require, too.
Anyhow, if the item can be costed such that a disabled person can get one at a reasonable price (or subsidized), I could see it as being a great use of the technology.
Cheers.
I see trust as subjective -- something for me alone to measure. I see privacy as similar, but more widely-defined and agreed-on.
Either way, I think you've hit on the elements I look for in a portal/service provider.
"Trust, but verify.", was it?
As for making the distinction between google charging people who want my business and people who want my time, I see it as a bit of a wash. If a business doesn't get a bit of my time, by seeing a text ad or sponsored link and making some kind of evaluation of it, they're unlikely to get my business. One begets the other, so I see it as part of the same basket. Companies pay for efforts (in the form of advertising) that increase the chance of getting my business, so while it sounds illogical, it's a fundamental part of how businesses work. Spontaneous word of mouth only goes so far, and not so far at all or younger businesses without an established customer base. If a business funds google's many offerings as a part of trying to get my time and interest in their product or service, I think that's a good idea, and it'll probably cement my relationship with google as a portal, too.
I saw that someone expressed concern in this thread over google tracking information about me and my browsing habits. I'd echo that concern, but until I see that my browsing info is being used to steer my attention -=exclusively=- to certain sites or vendors, it's not so much a bother to me. Watchful waiting seems prudent. I'm certainly not going to assume that google will stay the same, and your note about keeping an eye on google management is a pretty good idea -- and a pretty good idea with regard to lots of other companies that people interact with.
Maybe I'm alone in this, but I haven't had much reason to feel like they were the type of company to be afraid of, unlike SCO or M$oft.
Chime in if you think I'm smoking crack.
What I'm referring to by co-op mode is multiplayer where you're not hooked up to the 'net (like on a LAN) and bots can fill in the teams. BF-V and BF1942 used to have this option. You have it in UT2K4, even if the balancing doesn't always work very well. In my game group, we frequently like to play all on one side or another, and every now and again one guy will jump to the opposition for a bit. By having bots to cooperate, you can still get a full army on either side.
Just as a bit of opinioneering, I have been kinda miffed lately at the lack of co-op modes in games that have multi-player capability. Call of Duty would have been great with co-op. BF2 has a hacky kind of co-op, but not really. What gives? Is it a question of the quality of the AI or what?
At one point, I recall shipping some 20-odd file boxes full of car company documents. We had to narrow things a little bit, but if it was a case about passive restraints, you'd have to enclose everything about door pillars, seat belt materials, mount points, seat design, buckle design and testing, relevant government regulations, FARS data, NHTSA rulings, Fed Reg decisions, etc. It can be enough to send a personal injury lawyer to the looney bin, or at least force them to hire very expensive experts that will eat up a sizable chunk of the eventual settlement, if any.
As a side note, I've found that I get better longevity out of a build (or "assembly", for those who are picky about terminology) if I wait for a board that has a combination of well-developed solid features on it, too.... sound, on-board VGA, SATA, SPDIF support, etc.
What it probably comes down to is letting enough time go by such that all the major moboard manufacturers have the opportunity to make competing offerings. If I buy too early in the introduction of a new socket/processor type, I find that there are still little tweaks or driver oddities to deal with. Seems like the magic time starts at about 6 mos after introduction.
Oddly enough, I've probably let the start of the window go by for Athlon 64, and with my next build (er, "assembly") slated for mid-next year, I'll have too much to choose from. Oh well, maybe next time.
There was a time, around the mid-1800s, when Americans would identify themselves as just that -- Americans. This was back in the early days of the republic, and there was still a cultural (and sometimes a real) memory of the war of independence. Self-identification as American was part of the pride.
Now, back then, there were self-identified Americans who were actually born in France or England or Germany. To anyone else, they were French or British or German. Their kids, not having any personal experience of the family-homeland, also identified themselves as Americans, though saying you were British-American or French-American or German-American wasn't really an option, since all American families actually hailed from somewhere else in the past. Assimilation (the melting pot) was a very powerful force for white Americans. In a social sense, blacks of the era simply didn't have the social power to self-identify, and their identity was further stripped by having to take their master's surname. Native Americans (or North American aboriginals, if you prefer that appelation) had their own tribal identification, which still remains to this day.
As you get closer to 1900, there were huge waves of immigrants from all over the world, and these were people who wanted a clean slate. They wanted nothing more than to be assimilated. In some families, the language of the homeland was forbidden. Educational institutions sought to have kids learn and speak english without accent. The pride of the immigrant American at the turn of 1900 buried the notion of self-identification of the homeland. My four great grandfathers and mothers (on both mom and dad's sides) spoke very little english because they came to the country when they were too old for schooling, but their kids (my grandmas and grandpas) all spoke English in the upper-midwestern American accent, and while they could understand some of the old languages and maybe speak and read a bit, they were Americans and identified themselves as such.
Consider, then, the melting pot. By the time it got around to me, the national heritage of my family was Belorussian, Lithuanian, French and Norwegian. I only speak one of those languages, but how could I possibly self-identify with any of those nations? I can't, and I don't, but mustly because I still take some pride in being an American, regardless of how my country seems to be perceived at present.
However, their are groups who have been marginalized over time, who seek to re-enforce their sense of identity to elevate their pride. Some black Americans prefer to align themselves with their African roots. Some Irish-Americans identify themselves that way because they seek a tie to their family heritage that may have been repressed as a part of assimilation. Interestingly, the force of assimilation has decreased in American culture. We're a much more multi-lingual, multi-cultural nation, now, and that's also being reflected in the way certain people self-identify. In America, you are free to identify yourself in any way that you prefer, and that's what people do.
Hope it helps.
I love slashdot.
It looks like the prosecutor thinks that she was under non-official cover after all, and didn't ever tip her hat either now or before the Assistant to the President of the United States of America revealed her identity to the New York Times.
I would never have thought that a sitting republican presidency would actually leak -=the truth=- to the New York Times. Jesus must be coming to my house for dinner tomorrow night, I'm sure.
I wanted to set the record straight, after doing some more homework.
I was wrong about Joseph C Wilson being the ambassador to Niger.
He was the United States Ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome et Principe, the latter of which borders Niger.
My mistake. I was thinking more about Niger than I could support.
Yeah, Joe Wilson's wife put him on a list -- along with a few other names for recommendation, partly because he was the United States Ambassador to Niger years before. He knew the people to talk to, just like a lot of other people, and he had great experience in the region, which probably set him apart. When George Herbert Walker Bush is your buddy (Remember that GHWB was once the director of the CIA and has an intimate understanding of what Wilson was trying to determine, from an intelligence perspective.), you're a known quantity and not some kind of intelligence bullshit artist. After Valerie was outed, former President Bush wrote to express his condolences to the Wilsons. It's in writing
Oh, and your article is from July, and is a description of a committee report that was issued by a republican-controlled legislature, with a conservative supreme court on the bench, and a conservative republican executive. Funny what it says, huh? Apparently Mr. Fitzgerald, a GWB-sanctioned investigator, feels it was something worth looking into. The cost of this investigation runs at less than a million dollars. The cost of whitewater was 50 million. Cases that have merit are always cheaper to prosecute than shams, btw.
From the article:
"... the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address."
When the Vice President of the United States of America goes to the CIA with Scooter in tow and tells them what he wants to hear, it's no wonder the White House didn't hear the qualms.
Do your homework. Think about what you learn.
The "American Dream" (which, I might add, shifts with every generation that re-invents it) seems to be most consistently based around doing better than your parents did.
My great grandpa came from what's now Belarus to get out of forced conscription by the Czar. For him, the American Dream was about having a tailoring business and a place to build a house. He never learned much english, but he was very concerned that all his kids go to school at least through 8th grade so that they could get jobs and have families of their own.
For my grandpa, the American Dream was about having a car and being able to feed his kids and get them through high school. He worked for 35 years for the UP railroad and was able to retire comfortably. He grew up in the depression, so "looking down" on people meant what you saw at eye level.
For my dad, the American Dream was about running his own successful business and having me and my sister go to college and maybe grad school if we wanted, and to see that we had as many opportunities and choices as possible in terms of the lives we wanted to lead. Dad also liked to go 4-wheeling and take vacations to civil war battlefields. Not much looking down on people there, nope.
As for me, my American Dream is one where I don't have to work for my entire life. I'd like to travel the world a little bit and learn a couple more languages before I die. I hope I don't get stuck behind a desk for the rest of my days -- I save money for that reason, not so that I can gleefully wave my IRA report in the face of my neighbors. I'm not going to have much time or resources for retirement if I'm only making 53K per annum, so aspiring to a higher salary is my way of getting what I want out of my life.
I think that what entitles me to higher pay is my performance and expertise in a pretty obscure little corner of software development. I don't know many people that do what I do, or are as good at it as I am. Sure, I have peers, and their strengths don't necessarily match up 1:1 with mine, but that means we complement each other. Lately, I've been tapped for management, so my job is shifting in different areas and I have a lot to learn in those new contexts, but I was picked because I'm adaptable. We'll see how far I go. Is it looking down on others to see my career and compensation in that light -- maybe, but I'm also my worst critic -- there's a balance to strike.
Whether you were just trying to be funny or not, I think there's this kind of hippy-dippy snobbishness that says "Americans are sooo, like materialistic and like capitalistic and, um, wasteful and hard on the environment. We should all just work at low paying jobs and use eco-friendly products and wear Guatemalan clothing because you just don't need money to be happy and have spiritual fulfillment, yunno." I think it's a fine point of view to have, but I think that people need to find their own path -- if having a nice new porsche every year really jazzes you to the max and that's what makes you aspire to a better job or a better salary, then great. If wanting a huge house to live in makes you feel comfortable and safe, then good on ye. To say that the American Dream is about looking down on people and engaging in conspicuous consumption is using a bit of a broad brush, methinks.