Of course NAT and IPv4 are better if you are interested in fragmenting the internet (eg. the upcoming TLD war between the USA and EU/UN). The same old Clausowitz (sp?)/Sun Tzu principle of "divide and conquer" applies to IP address space just as much as to conflicts between nation states. And what better way to control the flow of information than to fragment the internet?
The PRC may have the "Great Firewall of China", but at least they are well on the way to full support internally for IPv6. One billion potential customers in the PRC, and another billion in India, all needing (at some point) a Class C network address space to cover all their personal internet-attached devices -- what is the biggest holdup for IPv6 implimentation?
It wouldn't/couldn't be the USA's US Patriot Act, Echelon, "MATRIX", or the 1994 Telecommunications Act? More address space means a big jump in the size of the government's databases to keep a watchful eye on its' citizens.
More code readily available LOCALLY (not via D/L) would be nice. With the exception of old RedHat "Power Tools" kit, I have not seen any ISO images of Perl code or a way to CVS anapshot all the latest code.
It would be very nice to have a local repository of perl code available, without having to get out on the internet to D/L it a chunk at a time. Not everyone who uses perl has a full-time broadband connection.
Senator Lugar is only one among many politicians (eg. Senator Hatch) that I label as neo(Con)artists". While they proclaim to be conservatives, they are in fact shills for their corporate masters. Nothing more. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights never defined the term journalist, or press, or for that matter, militia. What these founding documents did establish was that the Federal government has limited powers versus those of the States, and that all powers not freely granted to those entities properly belong to the governed people themselves.
A basic problem with representative democracy is the continually chipping away at the rights of the governed people in favor of the State. Those politicians that proport to represent "we the people" in actuality represent those that pay them the most, which are the corporations. They confuse the broad rights of corporations as entities from whom all of the State's rights are derived, rather than "we the people". Until such time as these (largely self-serving) politicians are dissuaded from their mistaken beliefs, the State will continue increase in its power over "we the people" in support of their corporate masters.
Voting is a vital exercise of the rights of the governed. That power has been subborned by such actions as untraceable electronic voting machines, which puts increasing power in the hands of a few corporations. It has also been corrupted by the corporate entities that largely control the "free press" in this country. Control the flow of information to the governed, and you can control the governed. Unfortunately, the press has increasingly made use of the innate patriotism of "we the people" though what used to be referred to as "yellow journalism" or "jingoism". A State at war has a far easier time convincing the governed peoples that sacrifice of some of their rights is necessary.
This legislation is just one more attempt to chip away at the rights of the governed, and increase the power of the State, and their corporate masters.
Actually, I expect that by the time the Chinese make it to the Moon they will find neo(Con)artist GOP real estate developers already there, ready and waiting for them. They will have flashy 6 color real estate brochures already printed up, with all the fine print in Chinese and English.
Blame Bush? Bush is an idiot. Bush is a sock-puppet to his minders like Karl Rove and "Tricky Dick" Cheney. And they all get their marching orders from their corporate sponsers.
But it is those corporate sponsers who have grown so rich and powerful at the trough of government acquiescence in the USA that they can now extend their power to Canada (like they have already done in the UK and Australia). One need only look at the extended duration of copyright priviledge, and the crushing of "fair use" through DMCA, etcetera.
It is more the fault of the USA's neo(Con)artists in the US Congress who are to blame. And it all started with the GOP's "Contract With America" (, or rather "Contract on the Constitution and the Middle Class".)
You Canadians didn't really think that there was not a down side to NAFTA, did you?
I considered the very same question myself -- where, indeed, to flee to for personal rights once Canada adopts USA's new fascist program? I thought about England or Australia, but they have already yielded their citizens' rights.
It then occurred to me that I needed to think "outside the box". In a few more years under the GW Bush "amnesty" and SS "Realization" programs, nearly all the Mexicans and half of Central America will be living in the USA. I have decided to acclimatize myself to a much hotter environment, and learn Spanish. Of course, once global warming reaches the critical tipping point, the mass migration of people into the USA will be proceeding into Canada as well.
"We've known planes were considered as weapons for years."
Exactly so!
Prior to the first Gulf War when Saddam bin Laden invaded Kuwait and King George 1st retaliated, the Islamic Republic of Iran was busy making mischief in the Persian Gulf -- mining the waterways used by the oil tankers sailing out of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, as well as threatening the NATO ships in the region with Chinese supplied Silkworm missles. The US Navy shot down an Iranian commercial aircraft over the Persian Gulf because it was percieved as a threat against the Sixth Fleet's aircraft carriers. As it turned out, it was not a "manned flying bomb" but an airplane full of pilgrams to Mecca.
Any mumbo-jumbo from the USA's top politicians and bureaucrats about "not understanding" the potential risk of commercial aircraft piracy is pure, unadulterated bullshit. It all boiled down to (a) incompetence, (b) the risk-cost equation, and (c) providing a new "Pearl Harbor" to justify shredding the Bill of Rights and consolidate power in the Executive branch. 9/11/2001 provided the perfect excuse for these fascists to sieze power.
Your other point about a valid rationale to establish voluntary Federal guidelines for cybersecurity is also on target, except for the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has proven itself to be an oxymoron. DHS is incapable of providing border or seaport security, or of providing a rapid response to man-made or natural disasters, let alone provide the shining example of secure and integrated IT.
Bureaucracy is bad enough without interference from "Tammany Hall" style political nepotism, especially when tempered with an unhealthy dose of absolute incompetence.
"Except in the United States the media does not seriously question the government."
The Bush administration was able to quite quickly attribute the 9/11/2001 debacle to Saddam bin Laden. The 10/2001 Metro DC sniper team was relatively quickly captured, considering the population and traffic density. But the perpetrators of the deadly anthrax letters of 11/2001 have never been caught.
Those deadly anthrax letters were not directed to members of the Bush administration, nor to their neo(Con)artist supporters in the Congress. They were directed at the liberal Eastern establishment media, and at the GOP's "loyal opposition" in the US Senate. The anthrax was a direct DNA match (including typical generational mutations) to the anthrax stored at the US Army's bioweapons lab at Ft. Dettrick, MD. One might presume that the liberal press and Bush's political opposition had the "wind taken out of their sails" after the anthrax letters were mailed.
"Just imagine tracking every single good sold every year in just the US - that's like 1 trillion items per year. That's one insane database you're talking about."
The whole problem with your scenario is that you are visualizing a single gargantuan database of RFID data. This is totally unworkable. Instead, think about each retail store, each manufacturer, and each service provider maintaining their own RFID datasets, and then making such data available to whichever marketing company (or government) pays the fees for access to that data. The USA government, under the aspices of the DHS and MATRIX (Poindexter's successor to TIA) the sharing of commercial databases with the governnment is already happening. That little nugget of info, plus the recent history of data collection companies like "Checkpoint" should bring images of Orwell's "1984" and "Minority Report" into proper perspective.
The concerns about the invasion of personal privacy are not "being paranoid", and the prospect of RFID tags being nearly ubiquitous in the future is not some "Reality Distortion Field" paranoid delusion.
It would seem that the USA made a big mistake in forwarding the PRC membership in the WTO. Instead of opening up the potential market of 1.3 billion Chinese, their government has been taking steps to lock out any foreign competition that do not ally themselves with a PRC-based company.
The PRC government has looked at the MSFT OS source code and decided to use a homegrown "Red Dragon" linux.
The PRC government has looked at the WiFi standards, and decided to build their own version of WiFi (, much to the chagrin of Intel and their Centrino processor).
This is just one more example of using the "power of their market" to dictate to outside suppiers what standards will be used. Those outside suppiers must also license the PRC technology from PRC-based companies, frequently as "minority partners". Many western companies (and governments) are becoming increasingly concerned about the growth of technology transfers to the PRC, but severly limiting outsdie market access. While every country uses some mechanisms to protect their domestic markets from foreign competition, the PRC government has demonstrated an early uncanny agility as a newcomer to the WTO.
However, since the project (to date) is GPLed, there is always the possibility of the project forking. AFAIK, this is the primary reason why MSFT (and SCO Group) hate F/OSS and the GPL -- the MSFT-invented (patented?) business process of "embrace, extend, extinguish" cannot be used to kill off competition.
No F/OSS or GPLed software project can ever be orphaned into non-existance. This gives the organization using F/OSS or GPLed software the power to control its own destiny -- a point alluded to by the MA. OpenDocument Initiative.
The only problem with the Pringles can antenna is that USA law enforcement agencies in at least 2 jurisdictions (Tampa, FL and Los Angeles, CA) consider it to be illegal (not just a violation of FCC regulations).
I will leave it to the reader to search through Slashdot from about April, 2005 onward for the relevant articles. But you have been warned!
By widening the parameters from only software (like Clippy), MSFT's true innovation becomes apparent -- a business process called "embrace, extend, extinguish".
Thank you. Thank you. Please be sure to tip your waitresses. And I will be here all week. Thank you.
10-B) The company's 401-K plan has 3 of 5 investments in "emerging markets", which also happens to be where their overseas offices are opening up. Hint: you are helping to fund the company's move to offshore outsource. The 4th investment is an employee stock purchase plan, but the stock has decreased in value for 7 or 8 quarters in a row. The 5th is a money market account that barely keeps up with inflation.
And this makes just as much sense as the TSA/DHS banning toenail clippers and boxcutters from the USA's commercial aircraft. Once the flying public became aware of the possible use of a commandeered commercial aircraft, such methods become obsolete. The deliberate crash of Flight 93 into a field in Pennsylvania proved that.
Actually, you are only half right. Back during the Vietnam conflict, the US Army SF had a "silenced" 12 gage shotgun. (Check "Small Arms of The World" for details.) There is only one thing that the classic "silencer" is designed to do -- attenuate to the greatest degree possible the muzzle blast. Any firearm round that travels at greater than the speed of sound will be audibly detected downrange. This can be circumvented by either using special subsonic rounds, or by the use of a highly customized firearm that bleeds off (in the barrel) enough propellant gases (quietly) to reduce the bullet speed to subsonic. Really good snipers can get within 50 meters of their target, making the use of subsonic rounds feasible.
Thank goodness for modern technology, which does have an answer called "active suppression". A computerized DSP used in conjunction with a transportable "PA" system can be used to store the characteristic noise made by a standard (like the.308 or 7.62x47mm) round. A sniper need only pre-scan an arc in front of him/her that covers the target, and calculate the equal power but opposite waveform to "actively" cancel the sound of the muzzle blast, as well as greatly minimizing the noise of the supersonic round downrange. Since a sniper normally only fires once from any one location, active suppression is a possible solution.
Not unlike a $500 Million USD Neutron Backscatter Detector built and deployed to detect nuclear material entering US seaports being totally overwhelmed by kitty litter.
The Dubya regime loves high tech toys from their contractor allies in the defense industry, but abhores putting enough GI "boots on the ground" to do the job right. How does a Predator-D UAV interdict terrorists crossing a USA border? Those civilian government employees have a tendency to want benefits, and to join into associations (unions) -- all antithema to the neo(Con)artists currently in power. To them, the term "homeland security" only includes their homes, and their bank accounts.
And the juggernaut rushing at the American people that threatens to roll over their rights and freedoms is Corporate National Socialism.
(1) conspire with brother, news corporations, big business, and USSC to steal an election
(2) start unjustified and costly war
(3) profit!
(4) reroute some profits back into election cycle, collaborate with news corporations, big business, and tamper with electronic voting machines to steal a second election
(5) don't prepare for a predictable natural distasters, allow hundreds to perish, and cut a huge taxpayer check to go to same Iraqi no-bid contractors
I would make the counter claim that it is only because of the GPL that GNU/linux has succeeded as well as it has. How long has Netcraft confirmed that BSD is dead? The BSD license allows big software companies to reuse code without contributing back to the larger community, and often without even an acknowlegement. The effect has been the use of a virtual army of unpaid programmers.
One large (unnamed) software company has even resorted to paying other companies to attack both GNU/linux and the GPL. That, and funding countless self-aggrandizing TCO studies that, were GNU/linux a corporate entity itself, GNU/linux would already have gone to court with said company with slander charges.
The Communist Chinese have taken one imperialist action after another since gaining power (invasion of Korea, Nepal, India, Tibet, Laos, Vietnam) as well as being involved up to their necks in nuclear proliferation to North Korea and Pakistan. Rewarding the PRC with membership in the WTO was a gargantuan geopolitical mistake, which they have used for economic warfare and industrial/military espionage against the West.
Since the West (and the rest of the UN Security Council) have largely abandoned Taiwan to their fate, it is only a matter of time before the PRC overruns Taiwan. The PRC has downed US recon aircraft over international waters, and threatened to nuke the USA if it should interfere in the PRC's "internal affairs, including Taiwan".
I hate to sound like a raving nutcase, but perhaps it is time that South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan become members of the "nuclear club". Somehow, I don't think that the USA will be around to stand up to it's number one creditor when the PRC decides to take Taiwan.
The government (and certain lobby groups) have focused on firearms, but the nearly ubiquitous automobile (USA) is a far greater cause of death here. It would make far more sense to equip all motor vehicles with (1) a breath-alyzer switch and (2) a teenager switch. This would save many many more lives. Possession of kitchen knives, machetes, and baseball bats should all be required to be registered, with owner/operator photo IDs approved by local law enforcement, as well.
Of course I have exaggerated this issue to the point of ridicule, but to make a point. Proper upbringing, like respect for other people's rights, and the golden rule, as well as teaching responsibility for one's own behaviour would go a long way toward a more civil society. Figure the odds of this actually happening...
Unfortunately, HP has selected a single platform (MS Windows) alternate browser, since AOL/Time Warner has yet to introduce Netscape 8 (8.02) on any platform besides MS Windows. As one who uses multiple platforms (MS Windows, Mac OSX, x86 linux, Solaris 10, and x86/ppc BSD), I refuse to use a browser that is platform-centric (I don't use Safari, either.)
While it would be nice to see HP put money and resources behind Mozilla (the suite) and distribute that as a multiplatform alternative, there is another browser available that is (now) free and cross-platform -- Opera. It would appear that HP cut too much "meat" off the bone under the Fiorina regime, since such a choice should have been a no-brainer.
The (evil) SCO Group made "Auto Zone" world famous when Darryl sued them. They switched from SCO unix to linux with (I think) IBM's help.
A (small?) clothing retailer called "Burlington Coat Factory" uses linux POS terminals with an IBM mainframe backend.
Linux-based POS terminals tied to a linux backend should work quite well, also. MSFT licensing costs could easily exceed the NR engineering costs associated with switching to a linux solution in anything but a MSFT-funded TCO study.
You can put me on that same "buyers list". Except that the biodiesel hybrid can be electric AWD (please!), with the engine used only for the charging circuits, including the ability as a backup generator for the home/construction site.
A convertible SUV/pickup/delivery van somewhat larger than the Toyota/Scion mX (but with better ground clearance) would be ideal. The Japanese don't like diesels much, so a European (or Brasilian?) manufacturer is more likely. The USA's General Electric Co. is more likely to build a domestic biodiesel hybrid than General Motors is -- they seem to be hung up on Federal grants that push H2 technology instead.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course NAT and IPv4 are better if you are interested in fragmenting the internet (eg. the upcoming TLD war between the USA and EU/UN). The same old Clausowitz (sp?)/Sun Tzu principle of "divide and conquer" applies to IP address space just as much as to conflicts between nation states. And what better way to control the flow of information than to fragment the internet?
The PRC may have the "Great Firewall of China", but at least they are well on the way to full support internally for IPv6. One billion potential customers in the PRC, and another billion in India, all needing (at some point) a Class C network address space to cover all their personal internet-attached devices -- what is the biggest holdup for IPv6 implimentation?
It wouldn't/couldn't be the USA's US Patriot Act, Echelon, "MATRIX", or the 1994 Telecommunications Act? More address space means a big jump in the size of the government's databases to keep a watchful eye on its' citizens.
More code readily available LOCALLY (not via D/L) would be nice. With the exception of old RedHat "Power Tools" kit, I have not seen any ISO images of Perl code or a way to CVS anapshot all the latest code.
It would be very nice to have a local repository of perl code available, without having to get out on the internet to D/L it a chunk at a time. Not everyone who uses perl has a full-time broadband connection.
Senator Lugar is only one among many politicians (eg. Senator Hatch) that I label as neo(Con)artists". While they proclaim to be conservatives, they are in fact shills for their corporate masters. Nothing more. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights never defined the term journalist, or press, or for that matter, militia. What these founding documents did establish was that the Federal government has limited powers versus those of the States, and that all powers not freely granted to those entities properly belong to the governed people themselves.
A basic problem with representative democracy is the continually chipping away at the rights of the governed people in favor of the State. Those politicians that proport to represent "we the people" in actuality represent those that pay them the most, which are the corporations. They confuse the broad rights of corporations as entities from whom all of the State's rights are derived, rather than "we the people". Until such time as these (largely self-serving) politicians are dissuaded from their mistaken beliefs, the State will continue increase in its power over "we the people" in support of their corporate masters.
Voting is a vital exercise of the rights of the governed. That power has been subborned by such actions as untraceable electronic voting machines, which puts increasing power in the hands of a few corporations. It has also been corrupted by the corporate entities that largely control the "free press" in this country. Control the flow of information to the governed, and you can control the governed. Unfortunately, the press has increasingly made use of the innate patriotism of "we the people" though what used to be referred to as "yellow journalism" or "jingoism". A State at war has a far easier time convincing the governed peoples that sacrifice of some of their rights is necessary.
This legislation is just one more attempt to chip away at the rights of the governed, and increase the power of the State, and their corporate masters.
Actually, I expect that by the time the Chinese make it to the Moon they will find neo(Con)artist GOP real estate developers already there, ready and waiting for them. They will have flashy 6 color real estate brochures already printed up, with all the fine print in Chinese and English.
Blame Bush? Bush is an idiot. Bush is a sock-puppet to his minders like Karl Rove and "Tricky Dick" Cheney. And they all get their marching orders from their corporate sponsers.
But it is those corporate sponsers who have grown so rich and powerful at the trough of government acquiescence in the USA that they can now extend their power to Canada (like they have already done in the UK and Australia). One need only look at the extended duration of copyright priviledge, and the crushing of "fair use" through DMCA, etcetera.
It is more the fault of the USA's neo(Con)artists in the US Congress who are to blame. And it all started with the GOP's "Contract With America" (, or rather "Contract on the Constitution and the Middle Class".)
You Canadians didn't really think that there was not a down side to NAFTA, did you?
I considered the very same question myself -- where, indeed, to flee to for personal rights once Canada adopts USA's new fascist program? I thought about England or Australia, but they have already yielded their citizens' rights.
It then occurred to me that I needed to think "outside the box". In a few more years under the GW Bush "amnesty" and SS "Realization" programs, nearly all the Mexicans and half of Central America will be living in the USA. I have decided to acclimatize myself to a much hotter environment, and learn Spanish. Of course, once global warming reaches the critical tipping point, the mass migration of people into the USA will be proceeding into Canada as well.
See you South of the Border!
"We've known planes were considered as weapons for years."
Exactly so!
Prior to the first Gulf War when Saddam bin Laden invaded Kuwait and King George 1st retaliated, the Islamic Republic of Iran was busy making mischief in the Persian Gulf -- mining the waterways used by the oil tankers sailing out of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, as well as threatening the NATO ships in the region with Chinese supplied Silkworm missles. The US Navy shot down an Iranian commercial aircraft over the Persian Gulf because it was percieved as a threat against the Sixth Fleet's aircraft carriers. As it turned out, it was not a "manned flying bomb" but an airplane full of pilgrams to Mecca.
Any mumbo-jumbo from the USA's top politicians and bureaucrats about "not understanding" the potential risk of commercial aircraft piracy is pure, unadulterated bullshit. It all boiled down to (a) incompetence, (b) the risk-cost equation, and (c) providing a new "Pearl Harbor" to justify shredding the Bill of Rights and consolidate power in the Executive branch. 9/11/2001 provided the perfect excuse for these fascists to sieze power.
Your other point about a valid rationale to establish voluntary Federal guidelines for cybersecurity is also on target, except for the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has proven itself to be an oxymoron. DHS is incapable of providing border or seaport security, or of providing a rapid response to man-made or natural disasters, let alone provide the shining example of secure and integrated IT.
Bureaucracy is bad enough without interference from "Tammany Hall" style political nepotism, especially when tempered with an unhealthy dose of absolute incompetence.
"Except in the United States the media does not seriously question the government."
The Bush administration was able to quite quickly attribute the 9/11/2001 debacle to Saddam bin Laden. The 10/2001 Metro DC sniper team was relatively quickly captured, considering the population and traffic density. But the perpetrators of the deadly anthrax letters of 11/2001 have never been caught.
Those deadly anthrax letters were not directed to members of the Bush administration, nor to their neo(Con)artist supporters in the Congress. They were directed at the liberal Eastern establishment media, and at the GOP's "loyal opposition" in the US Senate. The anthrax was a direct DNA match (including typical generational mutations) to the anthrax stored at the US Army's bioweapons lab at Ft. Dettrick, MD. One might presume that the liberal press and Bush's political opposition had the "wind taken out of their sails" after the anthrax letters were mailed.
"Just imagine tracking every single good sold every year in just the US - that's like 1 trillion items per year. That's one insane database you're talking about."
The whole problem with your scenario is that you are visualizing a single gargantuan database of RFID data. This is totally unworkable. Instead, think about each retail store, each manufacturer, and each service provider maintaining their own RFID datasets, and then making such data available to whichever marketing company (or government) pays the fees for access to that data. The USA government, under the aspices of the DHS and MATRIX (Poindexter's successor to TIA) the sharing of commercial databases with the governnment is already happening. That little nugget of info, plus the recent history of data collection companies like "Checkpoint" should bring images of Orwell's "1984" and "Minority Report" into proper perspective.
The concerns about the invasion of personal privacy are not "being paranoid", and the prospect of RFID tags being nearly ubiquitous in the future is not some "Reality Distortion Field" paranoid delusion.
It would seem that the USA made a big mistake in forwarding the PRC membership in the WTO. Instead of opening up the potential market of 1.3 billion Chinese, their government has been taking steps to lock out any foreign competition that do not ally themselves with a PRC-based company.
The PRC government has looked at the MSFT OS source code and decided to use a homegrown "Red Dragon" linux.
The PRC government has looked at the WiFi standards, and decided to build their own version of WiFi (, much to the chagrin of Intel and their Centrino processor).
This is just one more example of using the "power of their market" to dictate to outside suppiers what standards will be used. Those outside suppiers must also license the PRC technology from PRC-based companies, frequently as "minority partners". Many western companies (and governments) are becoming increasingly concerned about the growth of technology transfers to the PRC, but severly limiting outsdie market access. While every country uses some mechanisms to protect their domestic markets from foreign competition, the PRC government has demonstrated an early uncanny agility as a newcomer to the WTO.
Exactly so.
However, since the project (to date) is GPLed, there is always the possibility of the project forking. AFAIK, this is the primary reason why MSFT (and SCO Group) hate F/OSS and the GPL -- the MSFT-invented (patented?) business process of "embrace, extend, extinguish" cannot be used to kill off competition.
No F/OSS or GPLed software project can ever be orphaned into non-existance. This gives the organization using F/OSS or GPLed software the power to control its own destiny -- a point alluded to by the MA. OpenDocument Initiative.
The only problem with the Pringles can antenna is that USA law enforcement agencies in at least 2 jurisdictions (Tampa, FL and Los Angeles, CA) consider it to be illegal (not just a violation of FCC regulations).
I will leave it to the reader to search through Slashdot from about April, 2005 onward for the relevant articles. But you have been warned!
By widening the parameters from only software (like Clippy), MSFT's true innovation becomes apparent -- a business process called "embrace, extend, extinguish".
Thank you. Thank you. Please be sure to tip your waitresses. And I will be here all week. Thank you.
10-B) The company's 401-K plan has 3 of 5 investments in "emerging markets", which also happens to be where their overseas offices are opening up. Hint: you are helping to fund the company's move to offshore outsource. The 4th investment is an employee stock purchase plan, but the stock has decreased in value for 7 or 8 quarters in a row. The 5th is a money market account that barely keeps up with inflation.
Exactly so.
And this makes just as much sense as the TSA/DHS banning toenail clippers and boxcutters from the USA's commercial aircraft. Once the flying public became aware of the possible use of a commandeered commercial aircraft, such methods become obsolete. The deliberate crash of Flight 93 into a field in Pennsylvania proved that.
Sniper robots are already a reality. The Predator UAV equipped with a Hellfire missle has been in active military use for at least 5 years.
Actually, you are only half right. Back during the Vietnam conflict, the US Army SF had a "silenced" 12 gage shotgun. (Check "Small Arms of The World" for details.) There is only one thing that the classic "silencer" is designed to do -- attenuate to the greatest degree possible the muzzle blast. Any firearm round that travels at greater than the speed of sound will be audibly detected downrange. This can be circumvented by either using special subsonic rounds, or by the use of a highly customized firearm that bleeds off (in the barrel) enough propellant gases (quietly) to reduce the bullet speed to subsonic. Really good snipers can get within 50 meters of their target, making the use of subsonic rounds feasible.
.308 or 7.62x47mm) round. A sniper need only pre-scan an arc in front of him/her that covers the target, and calculate the equal power but opposite waveform to "actively" cancel the sound of the muzzle blast, as well as greatly minimizing the noise of the supersonic round downrange. Since a sniper normally only fires once from any one location, active suppression is a possible solution.
Thank goodness for modern technology, which does have an answer called "active suppression". A computerized DSP used in conjunction with a transportable "PA" system can be used to store the characteristic noise made by a standard (like the
You betcha!
Not unlike a $500 Million USD Neutron Backscatter Detector built and deployed to detect nuclear material entering US seaports being totally overwhelmed by kitty litter.
The Dubya regime loves high tech toys from their contractor allies in the defense industry, but abhores putting enough GI "boots on the ground" to do the job right. How does a Predator-D UAV interdict terrorists crossing a USA border? Those civilian government employees have a tendency to want benefits, and to join into associations (unions) -- all antithema to the neo(Con)artists currently in power. To them, the term "homeland security" only includes their homes, and their bank accounts.
may be closer than you think.
...
And the juggernaut rushing at the American people that threatens to roll over their rights and freedoms is Corporate National Socialism.
(1) conspire with brother, news corporations, big business, and USSC to steal an election
(2) start unjustified and costly war
(3) profit!
(4) reroute some profits back into election cycle, collaborate with news corporations, big business, and tamper with electronic voting machines to steal a second election
(5) don't prepare for a predictable natural distasters, allow hundreds to perish, and cut a huge taxpayer check to go to same Iraqi no-bid contractors
(6) profit even more!
(7) lather, rinse, and repeat
I would make the counter claim that it is only because of the GPL that GNU/linux has succeeded as well as it has. How long has Netcraft confirmed that BSD is dead? The BSD license allows big software companies to reuse code without contributing back to the larger community, and often without even an acknowlegement. The effect has been the use of a virtual army of unpaid programmers.
One large (unnamed) software company has even resorted to paying other companies to attack both GNU/linux and the GPL. That, and funding countless self-aggrandizing TCO studies that, were GNU/linux a corporate entity itself, GNU/linux would already have gone to court with said company with slander charges.
Just more FUD. Stop feeding the trolls.
Amen!
The Communist Chinese have taken one imperialist action after another since gaining power (invasion of Korea, Nepal, India, Tibet, Laos, Vietnam) as well as being involved up to their necks in nuclear proliferation to North Korea and Pakistan.
Rewarding the PRC with membership in the WTO was a gargantuan geopolitical mistake, which they have used for economic warfare and industrial/military espionage against the West.
Since the West (and the rest of the UN Security Council) have largely abandoned Taiwan to their fate, it is only a matter of time before the PRC overruns Taiwan. The PRC has downed US recon aircraft over international waters, and threatened to nuke the USA if it should interfere in the PRC's "internal affairs, including Taiwan".
I hate to sound like a raving nutcase, but perhaps it is time that South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan become members of the "nuclear club". Somehow, I don't think that the USA will be around to stand up to it's number one creditor when the PRC decides to take Taiwan.
Amen!
The government (and certain lobby groups) have focused on firearms, but the nearly ubiquitous automobile (USA) is a far greater cause of death here. It would make far more sense to equip all motor vehicles with (1) a breath-alyzer switch and (2) a teenager switch. This would save many many more lives. Possession of kitchen knives, machetes, and baseball bats should all be required to be registered, with owner/operator photo IDs approved by local law enforcement, as well.
Of course I have exaggerated this issue to the point of ridicule, but to make a point. Proper upbringing, like respect for other people's rights, and the golden rule, as well as teaching responsibility for one's own behaviour would go a long way toward a more civil society. Figure the odds of this actually happening...
Unfortunately, HP has selected a single platform (MS Windows) alternate browser, since AOL/Time Warner has yet to introduce Netscape 8 (8.02) on any platform besides MS Windows. As one who uses multiple platforms (MS Windows, Mac OSX, x86 linux, Solaris 10, and x86/ppc BSD), I refuse to use a browser that is platform-centric (I don't use Safari, either.)
While it would be nice to see HP put money and resources behind Mozilla (the suite) and distribute that as a multiplatform alternative,
there is another browser available that is (now) free and cross-platform -- Opera. It would appear that HP cut too much "meat" off the bone under the Fiorina regime, since such a choice should have been a no-brainer.
actually use linux for their POS terminals.
The (evil) SCO Group made "Auto Zone" world famous when Darryl sued them. They switched from SCO unix to linux with (I think) IBM's help.
A (small?) clothing retailer called "Burlington Coat Factory" uses linux POS terminals with an IBM mainframe backend.
Linux-based POS terminals tied to a linux backend should work quite well, also. MSFT licensing costs could easily exceed the NR engineering costs associated with switching to a linux solution in anything but a MSFT-funded TCO study.
Amen!
You can put me on that same "buyers list". Except that the biodiesel hybrid can be electric AWD (please!), with the engine used only for the charging circuits, including the ability as a backup generator for the home/construction site.
A convertible SUV/pickup/delivery van somewhat larger than the Toyota/Scion mX (but with better ground clearance) would be ideal. The Japanese don't like diesels much, so a European (or Brasilian?) manufacturer is more likely. The USA's General Electric Co. is more likely to build a domestic biodiesel hybrid than General Motors is -- they seem to be hung up on Federal grants that push H2 technology instead.