The tone of the article suggest something that not really the case.
First of all they won't suddenly start keeping a single, giant 1984 record. What they are proposing is to link the existing records of different agencies.
Second, while the road the hell is paved with good intentions they do have a good reason for this step: in many cases tragedy could have been avoided if agencies had known important information that others had. An example is the rise of loverboys in the Netherlands: young men who use the emotional fragility of teenage girls to get them in to prostitution. Often the police knows about the men, but doesn't know what or who are the likely targets, while child protection services knows the girls but has no clue about the men.
Thirdly: the right to privacy is protected much stronger in the Netherlands that in the US. As a result identity theft is almost never a problem and there are very few cases known of clear abuse of government databases.
It's certainly something to be watchfull about but the step in itself isn't too worrying.
I've never understood why it is legal to license patents only to a single company (or for a company to keep a patent for itself). Seems to me that the fundamental advantage of patents (making invents more profitable and spreading knowledge) would be served better by giving inventors the rights to inventions but also the requirement to licence them for a fair price.
Yes, because two wrongs make a right. And whenever the government/army of a country does anything wrong it's completely fair and morally just do whatever you live with its citizens.
To say dropping the bombs was justified/necessary is one thing. I disagree but I can see the point. To say it's all right to do evil things to people who do evil things..... not so much
They had to. Japan was already amassing forces in expectation of an invasion, forces that outnumbered American ones. Women and Children were being trained to fight. And all were expected to fight to the death and not surrender. A ground invasion would have led to the total annihilation of the Japanese people, or a large majority of them.
So? Let them have their amassed forces (not exactly crack troops by the way). My point is that by this stage of the war Japan had lost most of its transportation and a large part of its production capability. Since the Japanese islands are resource poor, this meant no possibility of doing anything against the US forces (No new planes or ships and even if they could build them: no fuel to run them). Meanwhile the population is slowly starving and the Russians might invade any minute. Seems like a good time to surrender (something that, despite stereotypes nad common knowledge, *was* discussed at high levels)
I refer you to the fact that the Japanese did not surrender after the first bomb, but the second. The fact that they did not surrender after such an awesome display of raw power would point to the fact that they had never intended to surrender, but, as afore mentioned, fight to the last man, woman, and child.
Then why did they surrender after the second? Beside the fact that it took time to get a clear picture of what had actually happened in Hiroshima and the fact that the US didn't really give them a lot of time to do this, my point was that it still isn't clear what was most important in triggering the surrender: the military importance of the bombs (resistance is futile), the excuse this gave the surrender faction of the government, the Russian declaration of war or the guarantee given that the Emperor would remain. If they 'never intended to surrender' why did they after the second bomb?
Both of the cities were also military targets, and the civilian populations were mobilized to give resistance, i.e., fight to the death. Hiroshima had Army Headquarters and the HQ for Southern Japan's defense. Nagasaki was a strategically vital seaport and ordinance factory.
Military significance is unimportant. The goal of the bombings wasn't to hit the military; it was to demonstrate the new weapon. Why choose a target with civilians at all? The power of the new weapon could have been amply demonstrated by removing some landscape. Arguing that civilians who have been mobilised to resist invaders count as military targets is a very slippery slope by the way. By that reasoning you could very easily declare *everyone* a combatant
It's partly cultural. During the Second World War, there were still a vast majority of persons in Japan, pretty much the whole population, that believe in "Death Before Dishonor." Surrender was shameful, and they would have died first. Many of them did on outlying islands, after they had been routed to caves and, when soldiers called for their surrender, they generally fired back, and when they didn't they just stayed in there.
I call bullshit. Yes, that's the racist argument used at the time, but the higher echelons knew that certain factions within the Japanese government had been trying to make a deal for years. Hell, that was the whole war plan: to cripple the US, build a strong position, then negotiate a great deal. As the war turned sour the ambitions were tuned down (though they were still unrealistically high: they expected to keep at least Korea and Manchuria). Japanese soldiers where a special breed: indoctrination started immideatly after grammar school and was brutal. And even then there were plent of surrenders.
The problem was on the US side. The United States has always had a dislike for compromises at the end of a war. This was increased by the German nazi propaganda, which stated Germany hadn't been *really* lost
1) Who said they *had* to invade Japan to get a surrender? At this point of the war the Japanese had almost no reserve stocks or transport capability needed to keep the economy going (and the population fed).
2) Who said the *US* had to invade? On August 8th the Soviet Union declared war on the Japanese. Sure that might have meant a communist Japan, but that's a whole different argument than millions of dead. And besides the Japanese Army had quit a healthy respect for the Red Army. Perhaps they would have surrendered anyway.
3) Why did they drop the bombs on a heavily populated civilian area? They could have at least started by bombing some small, unpopulated island. One of the reasons the Manhattan project was so expensive is that they didn't just build a bomb, they build the entire infrastructure to mass-produce bombs.
4) Why did they need *unconditional* surrender? It's clear that Japan was quite aware of its unwinnable position quite early on. By the end of the war a serious offer to negotiate might have worked a lot better than clinging to the unconditional line, which in the end wasn't even achieved (the armed forces surrendered unconditionally, the Japanese nation didn't.
But he's suing *Marvel*, not the movie companies. Marvel simply gets a bag of cash (no expenses for letting others use your source material). And I assume that Marvel has a better ability to make sure the actually get what they deserve.
Most of the invested money was "borrowed" from the governments of France, Germany UK, and Spain. The terms of the "loans" specify that if the market projections were wrong, then the "loan" doesn't have to be paid back.
No. In accordance with the aviation treaty with the US, up to 1/3 of the development cost can be covered by government loans. It is true that the loans don't have to be paid back in full if the plane doesn't sell (which hasn't happened with any Airbus plane yet, and considering they have sold more than half the number of A380's needed to break even, is unlikely to happen now)
If the loan is paid back, it is at an extremely low interest rate, far below the prevailing commercial rates. Why can't you and I get a loan like that?
Actually there's more to it. When the loan is paid back, the governments continue to receive money for each plane sold. (see for example this article) The development aid for the A320 for example was quite a good investment for the countries involved. It also somewhat explains the low interest rates. Of course the deal good enough to draw private investors (otherwise who needs the governments) but it's not simply throwing tax money down a hole either.
The wingspan of the 747-400 is 64.4 m, and the wingspan of the A380 is 79.8 m, not to mention that the max takeoff weight of the A380 is 50% more than a 747. Airports are definitely going to need to do some checking to make sure those extra 15m and 400,000 lbs aren't going to clip or crush something in the taxiway.
Depends. Officially the A380 fits within the parameters set down for the 747, so airports should be fine on the specifications (well baring the upgrade needed to the terminals for disembarking 550-800 passengers).
Of course this logic means that in a worst case scenario the pilot of an A380 has about 10 cm wriggling room on either side of the wings......
Boeing and Airbus have different philosophies regarding air travel. Airbus sees big planes going hub to hub, while Boeing envisions smaller planes going point to point. With more point to point travel, you can avoid so called mega hubs such as Chicago O'Hare and Atlanta.
This gets thrown around in almost all news articles about Boeing vs. Airbus but I'm not sure it's actually true. Airbus *has* a complete range of aircraft, including the medium sized, long range point to point.
If the 7E7 can fulfil it's promises of greatly reduced operating cost (and anyone wanting a competitive aeroplane market should hope so) it could certainly keep Boeing in the game.
However it's really not such a big bet for Airbus to assume there will be a significant market for large hub-to-hub aircraft. Especially since for the foreseeable future it's likely to be the only game in town (the 747 being heavily outdated in comparison). A lot of travel will continue to be between large hubs, either because it's cheaper/easier, or because a lot of people want to go from London to New York or from LA to Tokyo.
It's also to important to note that Southwest Airlines is one of the more profitable airlines today, and they run a mostly point to point network. Guess which system the legacies run?
The budget airlines are more profitable because they standardise planes, cherry pick lines and have cheaper staff. Beyond that, they generally *can't* fly the big routes because of slot scarcity. (Just try to get a slot, any slot at Heathrow).
Don't you hate it when you correct a mistake with a mistake?:)
Actually the only institution that can propose legislation is the European Commission. Both the council and the parliament can amend though.
What I'm wondering is how they think to get this past parliament. "sneaking" it into the text or not, the subject is one where the EP has co-decision right. Which means it's shouldn't become law until the EP has voted on it
Actually, not all 156 million voters in the EP elections voted using pen and paper. In the Netherlands for example almost al voters used electronic voting machines.
Having said that, you have to wonder about the unnecessary complexity of many US voting machined. Especially the connection to the internet seems to be asking for trouble. And why? For speed? How much more time would it take to bring the memory cores to a central county polling point and read them there?
The "size" problem is rather silly since voting is done by precinct/county. The "speed" problem concerning paper ballots is rather difficult to defend when compared to British elections.
Overall I'd say the problem is one on organisation; the US really needs more independent, qualified officials who guide the voting process.
Firstly, it defeats the entire purpose of the electoral system--which was carefully designed by the founders to ensure that the majority (large states) could not trample the opinions of the minority (small states).
That's what the senate is for.
To essentially reduce the state battle to a purely popular vote will make campaigning in that state useless--as very few voters are truly undecided, the most you will gain is one EV, since the rest will vote along party lines no matter what.
That's a somewhat curious statement. According to this almost all campaigning is useless since most people will vote along party lines. I'd say that it would actually make campaigning more competitive. Candidates might have less incentive to sop to a specific state (say bio diesel subsidies in Iowa) and more to specific groups.
For those who argue about voting power, division of the vote into progressively smaller arenas in actuality increases your voting power. In a close election, if the tally were tied in a state, one vote in one district could switch the outcome of the election. Whereas a non-EV system would require a NATIONAL TIE for one vote to make the difference.
The point being, voting power grows in direct proportion to the likeliness of a tie. The more you divide the election arena, the more likely your one vote will break a tie and directly affect the election's outcome.
Erm... that isn't a good thing. Yes, if you voted in Florida in 2000, your vote had much more power. But it was so at the expense of a lot of votes in other "safe" states, like NY or TX.
While the stockpile is down, it's still gigantic. Even the second link seems to be talking about a reduction to some five thousand nuclear warheads.
Also the important part isn't being able to "to nuke somebody before they can nuke us" since that only works if your the first to attack. The theoretical idea behind the massive numbers was the "assured destruction" part of mad. i.e. the ability to nuke the rest of the world not once but several times over, so that some intercepted warheads wouldn't mean survival of the enemy.
In a post cold war area, when even Russia could most likely only launch a small percentage of it's inventory it very much seems like overkill (even more so if you take into account that the most likely attackers, China and North Korea, could at best land half a dozen missiles on the continental USA.
But the problem are those ministers, not the system. Beyond that (if I'm not mistaken) the parliament still has to agree to the changed directive. If they don't it dies.
1. Which of the two browsers is simpler / less bulky, Mozilla, or Firebox? I don't want something slow loading, bloated with features, and overcomplicated. You know, IE.
Mozilla's the suite, Firefox the stand alone browser. So unless you want to replace outlook as well Firefox is the one for you.
2. Can either of them merge with Windows the way IE does? Running URLs from the Run box, for instance. I don't want to accidentally launch IE by the old methods.
When you first boot up Mozilla/Firefox you can choose to set te browser to default. That works for run links and such, but I'm not sure how deep it goes. This is MS we're talking about after all.
3. Does Mozilla still have that stupid "download manager"? How do I turn it off? Every time I wanted to save a file that thing would pop up when I just wanted the simple windows of an IE download that go away when done.
Yes, but it has always(?) been a setting. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Navigator -> Downloads -> and choose "open a progress dialog". Done.
You, me, everyone has a right to profit from their labors. Microsoft can charge whatever it wants for it's crap. If you are stupid enough to pay for it, that's your problem.
1) Everyone has a right to be paid for their labour. In the case of a company that would be revenue. Profit is what you make after you've received your payment.
2) Microsoft is a (near) monopoly.... blabla....., you need it to communicated with other companies/make sure your employees can use your computers etc. etc..... see the other 6 billion MS discussions on Slashdot.
Very true. However traffic tickets also work because they accumulate. Lots of people shrug at the first one, and only get worked up (usually about 'government thieves' rather than their own law breaking) when they get their nth ticket.
What I'm trying to say is: a) the more important part is still the rest of the verdict and b) how soon could a simmilar fine be impossed if MS continues to break rules (which they'll undoubtbly do)? If it's next year, the fine seems usable. If it is in 10 years, not so much.
While You say this in irony (I assume) you'rer actually very much right. Ideally most of those products would be seperated from the OS, allowing the buyer to actually choose the ones s/he thinks are best.
Also important to remember is that it's not just about the individual consumer. A lot of the abuses MS commited happened against PC vendors. Even if only the mass-retailers where a llowed to pick and choose which Browser/Multimedia player/backup tool was added to new computers that would already mean true competition, while the idiviual used would be none the poorer.
But isn't there usually a cap on the amount? Plus the assumption that the lawyer(s) get a normal rate? I can't imagine you'd have to pay for a crack squad of 20 lawyers in a case that doesn't require them.
So can we expect the S.S. Moustrek?
on
Mice In Space
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· Score: 1
ANNOUNCER: Now it's time for:
Mice!... In!... Spaaaaaaace!
I'm confused and interested. Care to explain why they dropped their suit? No troll, honest.
Scottish law probably states that whoever uses a name first gets ownership*. Likely the restaurant predated the fast-food chain's arrival in Scotland, which would give the chieftain the legal right to forbid the use by the chain. The same thing that happened with Budweiser in the Czech republic.
Slashdot Mirror
The tone of the article suggest something that not really the case.
First of all they won't suddenly start keeping a single, giant 1984 record. What they are proposing is to link the existing records of different agencies.
Second, while the road the hell is paved with good intentions they do have a good reason for this step: in many cases tragedy could have been avoided if agencies had known important information that others had. An example is the rise of loverboys in the Netherlands: young men who use the emotional fragility of teenage girls to get them in to prostitution. Often the police knows about the men, but doesn't know what or who are the likely targets, while child protection services knows the girls but has no clue about the men.
Thirdly: the right to privacy is protected much stronger in the Netherlands that in the US. As a result identity theft is almost never a problem and there are very few cases known of clear abuse of government databases.
It's certainly something to be watchfull about but the step in itself isn't too worrying.
I've never understood why it is legal to license patents only to a single company (or for a company to keep a patent for itself). Seems to me that the fundamental advantage of patents (making invents more profitable and spreading knowledge) would be served better by giving inventors the rights to inventions but also the requirement to licence them for a fair price.
Yes, because two wrongs make a right. And whenever the government/army of a country does anything wrong it's completely fair and morally just do whatever you live with its citizens.
To say dropping the bombs was justified/necessary is one thing. I disagree but I can see the point. To say it's all right to do evil things to people who do evil things..... not so much
Seems like a silly vanity decision. If the changes are not big enough for a 2.0 just make it 1.1.
Especially a piece of software that in its 1.x.x run so far hasn't even done a .1 change.
This will only confuse people. "Oh No! I missed versions 1.1-1.4!"
So? Let them have their amassed forces (not exactly crack troops by the way). My point is that by this stage of the war Japan had lost most of its transportation and a large part of its production capability. Since the Japanese islands are resource poor, this meant no possibility of doing anything against the US forces (No new planes or ships and even if they could build them: no fuel to run them). Meanwhile the population is slowly starving and the Russians might invade any minute. Seems like a good time to surrender (something that, despite stereotypes nad common knowledge, *was* discussed at high levels)
Then why did they surrender after the second? Beside the fact that it took time to get a clear picture of what had actually happened in Hiroshima and the fact that the US didn't really give them a lot of time to do this, my point was that it still isn't clear what was most important in triggering the surrender: the military importance of the bombs (resistance is futile), the excuse this gave the surrender faction of the government, the Russian declaration of war or the guarantee given that the Emperor would remain. If they 'never intended to surrender' why did they after the second bomb?
Military significance is unimportant. The goal of the bombings wasn't to hit the military; it was to demonstrate the new weapon. Why choose a target with civilians at all? The power of the new weapon could have been amply demonstrated by removing some landscape. Arguing that civilians who have been mobilised to resist invaders count as military targets is a very slippery slope by the way. By that reasoning you could very easily declare *everyone* a combatant
I call bullshit. Yes, that's the racist argument used at the time, but the higher echelons knew that certain factions within the Japanese government had been trying to make a deal for years. Hell, that was the whole war plan: to cripple the US, build a strong position, then negotiate a great deal. As the war turned sour the ambitions were tuned down (though they were still unrealistically high: they expected to keep at least Korea and Manchuria). Japanese soldiers where a special breed: indoctrination started immideatly after grammar school and was brutal. And even then there were plent of surrenders.
The problem was on the US side. The United States has always had a dislike for compromises at the end of a war. This was increased by the German nazi propaganda, which stated Germany hadn't been *really* lost
1) Who said they *had* to invade Japan to get a surrender? At this point of the war the Japanese had almost no reserve stocks or transport capability needed to keep the economy going (and the population fed).
2) Who said the *US* had to invade? On August 8th the Soviet Union declared war on the Japanese. Sure that might have meant a communist Japan, but that's a whole different argument than millions of dead. And besides the Japanese Army had quit a healthy respect for the Red Army. Perhaps they would have surrendered anyway.
3) Why did they drop the bombs on a heavily populated civilian area? They could have at least started by bombing some small, unpopulated island. One of the reasons the Manhattan project was so expensive is that they didn't just build a bomb, they build the entire infrastructure to mass-produce bombs.
4) Why did they need *unconditional* surrender? It's clear that Japan was quite aware of its unwinnable position quite early on. By the end of the war a serious offer to negotiate might have worked a lot better than clinging to the unconditional line, which in the end wasn't even achieved (the armed forces surrendered unconditionally, the Japanese nation didn't.
But he's suing *Marvel*, not the movie companies. Marvel simply gets a bag of cash (no expenses for letting others use your source material). And I assume that Marvel has a better ability to make sure the actually get what they deserve.
Depends. Officially the A380 fits within the parameters set down for the 747, so airports should be fine on the specifications (well baring the upgrade needed to the terminals for disembarking 550-800 passengers).
Of course this logic means that in a worst case scenario the pilot of an A380 has about 10 cm wriggling room on either side of the wings......
Don't you hate it when you correct a mistake with a mistake? :)
Actually the only institution that can propose legislation is the European Commission. Both the council and the parliament can amend though.
What I'm wondering is how they think to get this past parliament. "sneaking" it into the text or not, the subject is one where the EP has co-decision right. Which means it's shouldn't become law until the EP has voted on it
Actually, not all 156 million voters in the EP elections voted using pen and paper. In the Netherlands for example almost al voters used electronic voting machines.
Having said that, you have to wonder about the unnecessary complexity of many US voting machined. Especially the connection to the internet seems to be asking for trouble. And why? For speed? How much more time would it take to bring the memory cores to a central county polling point and read them there?
The "size" problem is rather silly since voting is done by precinct/county. The "speed" problem concerning paper ballots is rather difficult to defend when compared to British elections. Overall I'd say the problem is one on organisation; the US really needs more independent, qualified officials who guide the voting process.
As I understand it, the high per-share price is meant to discourage short term investors.
While the stockpile is down, it's still gigantic. Even the second link seems to be talking about a reduction to some five thousand nuclear warheads.
Also the important part isn't being able to "to nuke somebody before they can nuke us" since that only works if your the first to attack. The theoretical idea behind the massive numbers was the "assured destruction" part of mad. i.e. the ability to nuke the rest of the world not once but several times over, so that some intercepted warheads wouldn't mean survival of the enemy.
In a post cold war area, when even Russia could most likely only launch a small percentage of it's inventory it very much seems like overkill (even more so if you take into account that the most likely attackers, China and North Korea, could at best land half a dozen missiles on the continental USA.
What? bring them back after they've altered the course of the astroid? Now why would you want to do that?
But the problem are those ministers, not the system. Beyond that (if I'm not mistaken) the parliament still has to agree to the changed directive. If they don't it dies.
You do realise that the problem in this situation was the coucil, that is the gouvernements of the member countries? Not "Eurocrats in Brussels".
1) Everyone has a right to be paid for their labour. In the case of a company that would be revenue. Profit is what you make after you've received your payment.
2) Microsoft is a (near) monopoly.... blabla....., you need it to communicated with other companies/make sure your employees can use your computers etc. etc. .... see the other 6 billion MS discussions on Slashdot.
Very true. However traffic tickets also work because they accumulate. Lots of people shrug at the first one, and only get worked up (usually about 'government thieves' rather than their own law breaking) when they get their nth ticket.
What I'm trying to say is: a) the more important part is still the rest of the verdict and b) how soon could a simmilar fine be impossed if MS continues to break rules (which they'll undoubtbly do)? If it's next year, the fine seems usable. If it is in 10 years, not so much.
While You say this in irony (I assume) you'rer actually very much right. Ideally most of those products would be seperated from the OS, allowing the buyer to actually choose the ones s/he thinks are best.
Also important to remember is that it's not just about the individual consumer. A lot of the abuses MS commited happened against PC vendors. Even if only the mass-retailers where a llowed to pick and choose which Browser/Multimedia player/backup tool was added to new computers that would already mean true competition, while the idiviual used would be none the poorer.
But isn't there usually a cap on the amount? Plus the assumption that the lawyer(s) get a normal rate? I can't imagine you'd have to pay for a crack squad of 20 lawyers in a case that doesn't require them.
ANNOUNCER: Now it's time for: Mice!... In!... Spaaaaaaace!
Scottish law probably states that whoever uses a name first gets ownership*. Likely the restaurant predated the fast-food chain's arrival in Scotland, which would give the chieftain the legal right to forbid the use by the chain. The same thing that happened with Budweiser in the Czech republic.
* I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on /.