If you don't like "Stage I", you definitely will not like either "Stage II" or "Stage III".
Stage II -- the RFID tag is embedded under the skin of the visitor to the USA.
Stage III -- a GPS transponder is attached to the leg of the visitor to the USA, including a small charge of C4 sufficient to incapacitate the wearer as part of the anti-tamper mechanism.
But even as the point of "Stage III", the USA still will not have secure borders or seaports. There still will be no concerted effort to round up and deport illegal aliens from the interior. With sufficient courage and stamena, you will still be welcome to cross the USA's borders illegally and stay as long as you like, for any purpose that you like. (You just might not particularly like the choice of "charter group" travelling companions during your crossing, and you might be asked to carry a rather large package -- no questions asked.)
Like they say in Washington, DC, and in Guadalajara (translated here) "The blow must flow."
More like, "Warms up a place next to MSFT in hell".
Let me see if I got this right... the very same MSFT that has initiated a multi-year multi-prong attack against linux and F/OSS, including but not limited to financing SCO's attack && their "Shared Source" NDA-poisoned project && their not-so-veiled threats regarding their often dubious software patents && their many MSFT-funded "white-paper" disinformation campaigns NOW think that MSFT and linux and F/OSS can co-exist?
Well of course linux and F/OSS can co-exist with MSFT, just so long as MSFT "plays nice". The odds are better at the roulette wheel in Las Vegas that that will happen. MSFT is an unrepentant convicted monopolist that cannot, under any circumstances, be trusted to do anything that is in the interests of the IT industry as a whole, rather than MSFT itself.
MSFT's "Shared Source" -- nothing to see here. MSFT's "white paper" propaganda -- okay only for the bottom of the bird cage. MSFT's new "cooperative" initiative -- only known bullshit that is also toxic waste.
It was during the investigation of the SST Columbia disaster that it was made known that NASA had changed the formulation of the foam insulation on the external tank just a year or so prior. The CFC-based (freon) foam was replaced with more environmentally "friendly" foam that (apparently) falls off for unknown reasons. Of course, burning up an SST during descent into the atmosphere is far more harmful to the environment than the CFC-based foam that was replaced.
I wonder if NASA has even considered switching the foam formulation back to the original?
I sure hope they get a handle on the solution to this problem soon -- numerous missions to the ISS are at risk without the SST. The follow-on transport, I understand, was supposed to use the same external tank and twin solid rockets, so that will also have to be re-thought.
The neo-Con(artists) in control of the Executive and Legislative branch of government have been promoting the equivalent of "strip mining" the US economy:
(a) lowered taxes for the top 0.5% of taxpayers (b) lowered taxes for the corporations (c) corporate welfare for the energy industry (d) corporate welfare for the airline industry (e) corporate welfare for the drug industry (f) encourage corporations to move offshore (g) engage in costly optional war beneficial only to govt contractors (h) encourage downward pressure on domestic jobs (i) promote illegal immigration (amnesty & SS benefits promised) (j) cut social safety net in favor of religious charities (k) encourage/fail to discourage massive trade deficits (l) "war on terror" welfare for govt contractors' gee-whiz technology (m) SS "reform" via brokerage welfare and bankrupting US Treasury...
I am certain that I missed a few points, but the hour is late, and I am tired...
"...will also save costs by reducing the number of times computers will have to be rebooted."
Unless MSFT intends to make extensive use of a VM (Virtual Machine) as a Boot/PROM monitor to avoid rebooting through a BIOS/EFI equivalent, every monthly application of security patches requires a reboot. Unless, of course, MSFT decides that only paid subscribers of their WinVista "security updates" will find the need to reboot. That would certainly limit the number of machines that need to be rebooted monthly (if not weekly) to primarily corporate adopters of WinVista.
Would that it were only greater emphasis upon core primary/secondary school subjects, more money to fund university education, or even more scientific R&D. For 20 plus years, the focus of government has been away from infrastructure (including health care and higher education) and towards catering to the needs/wants of corporate America.
USA's tax and monetary policy, regulation of business, and trade policy has been tailored to business. The closer the USA has moved toward a totally "free market" economy, the more blatant excesses of corporate greed have become. The savings&loan fiasco has merged with the dotcom bomb and the accounting fiascos to make the USA's taxpayers numb. Yet to come are the Iraqi war contractor fiascos, the collapse of corporate pension funds fiasco, and the national campaign finance influence peddling fiascos.
At the very same time that a larger portion of the shrinking tax base is being shouldered by the poor and middle class, many major corporations have negotiated tax break sweetheart deals with the Congress. (One growing regional bank, Wachovia, has paid no Federal taxes for more than four years on yearly profits of over $3 Billion USD.)
And since one of the key concerns of the neo-Con(artists) in charge of the Executive and Legislative and Judicial branches is the forced reduction in domestic labor costs, the elimination of trade unions has gone hand-in-hand with "globalization", NAFTA, CAFTA, the increase of L1-A and H1-B visa holders to replace American workers at lower wages, and the wide open US borders and non-enforcement of immigration laws designed to force the trades-based wages down.
A dirty little secret about statistics is that they are so very easy to manipulate, and the government has been doing so for years. With college education and healthcare costs rising annually at double digit rates, and heating/energy costs rising at nearly the same rate, why is the CPI (Consumer Price Index) only 3-1/2 percent? Those items are not included, because Federal pay raises, Medicare and Social Security increases are tied to the "fictional" CPI, instead of the true cost of living.
When the wages of American workers are forced down to the greatest common denominator of "globalized" wages, there will be no middle class in the USA. An economy based upon "Walmart" wages will not support an American-based manufacturing economy, let alone the USA's university system, or even its current healthcare or pharmacutical prowness. And as Americans continue to earn less, and manufacturing jobs shift overseas, the tax base will continue to shrink -- to the point that the USA will face default on its current trade balance and its Treasury notes. The critical mass needed for this outcome has already been cast by the current regime's irrational tax policy in the face of continued "Iraq war" and "war on terror" expenditures.
Bill Gates, a university dropout and convicted monopolist, is hardly the person to take advice from regarding investment in higher education, let alone his company's need for more CS graduates. A high school senior facing four or five years of college education, and student loan debt of $100K USD or more, will think twice before selecting a career path that is destined to continued downward wage pressure or a profession orphaned by offshore outsourcing. Whatever that high school senior does decide to pursue in higher education, a strong minor in a language like Mandarin will have a better payoff than assembly or C++ or Java.
"When Windows becomes too restrictive my friends will convert."
And what, exactly, will your friends convert to -- insurgents?
With the exception of those OEMs that build computers on spec & to order, all the major PC OEMs pay the MSFT tax, and ship with MSFT OS preinstalled. MSFT, through Trusted Computing & Intel DRMed processor/chipsets & EFI, will have their OEMs safeguard MSFTs revenue stream by forcing limits on their customers. Considering MSFT's market share, there will be very few MB OEMs that will produce anything but MSFT's approved Trusted Computing platform. The BYO (Build Your Own) computer OEMs will be using the same/similar motherboards as their larger competitors -- motherboard and BIOS design require substantial financial resources that can only be recouped through volume sales.
The EFI bootstrap is the cornerstone of Trusted Computing -- without it Intel and other processor/chipset manufacturers embedding DRM would be vulnerable to actually being turned off. Any hacking of the Trusted Computing platform will require enough resources to attract the ire of not only the MB manufacturers and MSFT, but also the government. And the US government already considers violations of the DMCA to be "acts of terrorism".
In 18 months, when MSFT's Windows Vista hits the streets, their TC platform will already be there, already waiting for the preimaged harddisks. I suspect that MSFT's new security motto will be "Break our trust if you can, and win an extended vacation at Gitmo."
I find it interesting that you believe Apple will rely on nothing more than their EULA to keep OS/X-x86 off of commodity Wintel machines. The processor/chipset that Intel wowed Apple with may not appear in every Wintel box, but there will be a large (and growing) number on the market. And DRM that is as closely linked between the processor and the chipset that hacking/breaking the DRM will be difficult, if not impossible. The "Palladium"/"Trusted Computing" hardware platform is not only a MSFT wet dream - it is an industry standard that will be the norm, rather than the exception. MSFT has been pushing back delivery of their new OS, slashing many touted "features" along the way. But HD video content DRM has made it into their beta release, and is tied to specific hardware. Media/content industry associations, including Apple and MSFT, will make use of embedded DRM in order to protect the content industry, as well as their own products.
Intel's new processor & chipset that Apple covets has embedded DRM, both in the processor AND the chipset, and it is made to be cheap, easy, and secure to impliment. And so it will be implimented, including by Apple. Apple has relied upon incompatible hardware to preserve their OS and software market, especially after the ass-kicking they got from the Mac clone makers. I am more inclinded to believe that the sun will continue to rise in the East and set in the West, and that Apple will continue to rely upon incompatible hardware to preserve their market share, even on x86 hardware. That implies Apple's adoption and use of embedded DRM. The alternative, reliance upon an unenforcable EULA, implies that Apple is ready to challenge MSFT in their main playing field, the desktop. They aren't ready; they cannot compete against the commodity Wintel market; and they sure aren't going to give up their profit margins to the likes of Dell.
The parent poster has provided a nice explanation of what Apple x86 machines "might" do, but it rather misses the point of what Apple is in business for.
Apple sells complete hardware/software IT solutions, not just hardware and not just software. You can be certain that Apple will make certain that their commercial release of OS/X-x86 will not run on commodity Wintel hardware, by design. The only way that Apple can ascertain that their new software will run on only their new x86 hardware is through the use of embedded DRM. The Intel hardware roadmap that Apple has "bought into" is both processor AND chipset (including video), and has sufficient embedded DRM to limit OS/X-x86 from running on a cheap clone. Apple tried getting along with cheap clones years ago, and nearly went broke at that time.
I am not privy to contracts between Microsoft and Apple, but I would be willing to wager that MSFT would NOT like to see OEM WinXP/WinVista running on Apple x86 hardware. Multiple MSFT software products would immediately become obsolete or orphaned, including VirtualPC and Mac Office. I would definitely expect to see Apple employ the use of Intel DRM to limit this possibility.
Disclaimer: I am not an Apple insider, nor have I conversed with Apple insiders regarding company confidential information covered under NDA. The conclusions that I have drawn are merely based upon (1) common sense and (2) some familiarity with Apple's business model.
Owning either a "short piece of wire" or a Pringles cantenna is not (AFAIK) a violation of criminal law. In which case, the LA law officer quoted has absolutely no business interfering in the actions of private citizens. Of course, if he were both an LA law officer AND a deputized FCC representative, then he might have "just cause". Somehow, I rather doubt that an LA law officer has been granted such authority by the FCC.
While IANAL, I do know that law officers routinely ignore violations of civil law not within their perview. That is one of the really big problems with enforcing immigration laws on the local or state level -- improper/missing visas are considered violations of civil Federal law, not local/state criminal law. (Possession and presentation of fake/fraudulent identity documents does violate criminal law.) The US Patriot Act does seem to provide a wide latitude to all law enforcement personnel, so I may have missed something.
Unless the owner of a Pringles cantenna does something else in public that breaks criminal law, local law enforcement have no business interfering.
The action that Telus is taking in blocking the TWU website is censorship, no ifs ands or buts about it. If this were an American company and an American union, Telus could be prosecuted under Federal law for violating the (collective) union members' First Amendment rights to free speech. IANAL, but there must be some equivalence in Canadian law, or an alternative legal action to take, such as "breech of contract".
Unfortunately, the current regime in power in the USA (and their neo-Con(artist) allies in the Congress and Supreme Court) have been busy hacking away at the US Constitution and Bill of Rights with such legislation as US Patriot Act and DMCA. Considering that the GOP is now basically nothing more than a tool of corporate America, is it possible that Telus has taken a page out of the GOP dirty tricks handbook, and placed the TWU in the equivalent of a Dubya "Free Speech Zone"?
I found out, through personal experience with a dial-up ISP based in Ohio (COPPER.NET) that American ISPs do not fall under "common carrier" rules, and are in fact ESPs. They routinely violated their posted TOS regarding (1) duration of connection time (5 hours STATED vs 3.5 hours ACTUAL), (2) number of hours per month connection time (200 hours STATED vs 190 hours ACTUAL), and (3) abbrogated my pre-paid annual contract by cancelling it without providing a refund.
The underlying point is that all of my troubles with this particular "ESP" began with a long, supportive email that I sent to Michael Moore, the director of the "Fahrenheit 9-11" documentary (which "copper.net" blocked). US corporate interests have trumped US citizens' interests for years. It is just becoming far more blatent these days. And the red tide of neo-Con(artist) fascism has now infected our neighbors to the North.
The neo-Con(artists) in the Dubya regime, including the Congress, have aptly demonstrated in the past that they were perfectly willing to alter facts to fit their agenda. To reiterate all of those instances in which either foreign policy or legislation concerning economic and energy policy have been corrupted by "political requirements" is an exercise I will leave, this time, to others.
The Dubya regime would decree that "global warming" is nonsense, and codify its refute, but that does not change the conclusions drawn by a Pentagon study that not only affirms the reality of "global warming", but also projects the need for men and ships to patrol the open Arctic Ocean in less than ten years, due to climate change there. The Arctic ice pack is melting, global warming is changing forever 15,000 years of Inuit lifestyle and tradition, and our politicians are in a state of denial.
The neo-Con(artists) will find that they may, indeed, invoke a new "inquisition" to suppress the truth, but they do not as yet hold dominion over the environment to legislate global warming away. Moses may have parted the seas with his staff and Almighty God -- our Congress-critters are decidedly not in the same league, or with the same influence.
Changes - they are a'coming. One can only hope that political changes in the USA follow events on the ground.
The USA has far more laws than the government is willing to enforce equally. The discretion the government takes in regard to enforcement winds up being attributed to "we don't have enough money" or "we don't have enough manpower" instead of "these laws interfere with our latest policy position" or "these laws hinder our friends in business".
In the year 2000, the Clinton administration prosecuted over 300 employers who knowingly and willingly broke the law to hire illegal aliens. In 2003, the Bush administration prosecuted exactly 13. Do you really think that this specific problem has gone away in three years, or is it more likely that the Bush administration, in keeping with the "amnesty program", offering SS benefits to illegal aliens, or failing to seal our borders against both illegal aliens (and terrorists) finds these laws "anti-business"?
"I'd suggest rolling some heads this coming election, but that requires a spine- I'm not sure American voters are up to the task."
And exactly how many of those American voters who do have a spine and are up to the task will it be in 2006 who are disenfranchised by either (1) politicians using fraudulent & bloated lists of ex-felons to strike eligible voters from the rolls, OR (2) the use of electronic voting machines with no paper trail, security audit, or clue?
Personally, I would like to see Diebold and the other GOP neo-Con(artist)-leaning OEMs of electronic voting machines have ALL of their equipment returned to them, for a full refund to the taxpayers. Even switching over to a hand-written paper ballot would do more for real democracy in the USA than current prevailing methods of voting.
Check out "www.blackboxvoting.org" for details, and if you can afford to, buy the book they sell. Or better yet, make a contribution to the cause...
While the attitude you expressed is unhelpful to educating people who have their collective heads up their asses, all your points are right on target!
One hundred years of the American government meddling in the internal affairs of other countries (TR's "Big Stick" onwards), and the first time the USA gets "bitch-slapped", we have a self-rightious puppet of the oil industry and the military-industrial complex in the White House, and a bunch of national socialists in Congress.
"...no worse than the nobles in the monarchies of europe."
The old world nobility didn't really care for such notions as a "middle class" either -- it was a matter of "us" and "them", with "them" being the serfs. It was so much easier to control the entire economy with all the economic power held in the hands of the nobility. The "middle class" arose with the need for skilled workers apprenticed to trades controlled by guilds. Todays "guilds" are the universities AND the trade unions -- the unions are disappearing, and the universities cannot generate enough jobs for their "apprentices". The "trades" of the "middle class" are rapidly being exported overseas, while those skilled jobs that remain are being filled by cheaper foreign (L1-A & H1-B visa, and illegal alien) workers.
"The only way to be safe from greed is to be greedy yourself."
That notion certainly would work, if only the playing field were level and the rules of the game not fixed by the corporations. It used to be that companies needed to offer incentives beyond salary in order to attract and keep good workers, so they bundled a company pension plan and medical benefits into the package. But long time workers and retirees are now finding that their company pension plans are being raided for (1) operating expenses and/or (2) corporate officer compensation packages. Oh, and let the government (eg. taxpayer) pick up the tab for those pension plans. Todays workers are only offered (at best) employee-contributed pension plans, and (maybe) health care benefits. But many of those 401K plans are wrought with new risks for those employees -- many of these plans use employee investments to fund the employer's move offshore. Effectively, the 401K plans are turned into the equivalent of flim-flam pyramid schemes, and the employee/retiree profits (a little) from losing their jobs overseas -- just not enough to survive.
"20th century economics has taught us that governments cannot control the economy, they can only guide it."
Patently incorrect. 20th century governments have found that the "edicts from the socialist ivory towers" cannot control the economy. Which is why everything from tax rates, trade agreements, immigration policies, funding of higher education, energy policies, war & welfare to the military-industrial complex, interest rates & growth of available capital, and even how government statisticians fudge inflation and GDP figures are all now placed under government control. It is also why most legislation now originates from corporate-funded private think tanks instead of populist-minded legislators. The government has evolved from representing the people and the public interest into representing the corporate interest. "What's good for General Motors is good for the country" has been replaced with "What's good for corporate interests is good for the country". Democracy has been replaced in the USA in all but name into (corporate) national socialism.
Cookies are not, in and of themselves, evil. Or, at least, that isn't the way the cookie began life on the web. But having cookies enabled also invites spyware -- every time I leave cookies on in my browser for a couple of hours, I can scan/find/delete at least half a dozen cookies that are identified as spyware. And some of that is downright malicious.
If website builders and/or administrators insist on spreading spyware for fun and profit, then I say "fsck 'em all!"
I never watched so much TV to see "Jerry Seinfeld" before it went into syndication, but there was one program that I did see that really made an impression.
When receiving an unwanted call from a telemarketer, ask for their name and home number to call them back when it's more convenient (preferably at their most inopportune time.)
Paying a little extra (extortion?) to the local phone monopoly in order to have an unlisted number also seems to help somewhat.
"But in states where the incumbent Bell owns the whole E-911 system they'll throw up every roadblock they can think of."
Exactly so!
And the recent FCC ruling allowing the "baby bells" to limit access to their infrastructure is designed to curtail/limit VoIP competition with their long distance service. In most locations, that CO switch and that last mile is owned by the "baby bells", and not the municipality.
"...perhaps the founding fathers should have brushed up on their mathematics first."
The founding fathers did not place such restrictions on the number of terms that a president may serve. That bit was done by a Constitutional amendment after Democrat FDR was elected to four consecutive four year terms. The extra two years was added as a "grace period" for, for instance a vice president that must assume the powers and office of the president in the middle of the president's term of office.
The same amendment also established a chain of seccession in case both president and vice president were no longer able to serve in office. These provisions were basically an artifact of the Cold War (and Mutual Assured Destruction). The Speaker of the House of Representative (Hassert these days) is third in line to be president.
The USA's first (and hopefully only) unelected President was Gerald Ford, who replaced Spiro Agnew as Vice President when he resigned (after misdeeds as Mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland came back to haunt him.) The resignation of Richard Nixon as President after the Watergate break-in and subsequent pending obstruction of justice charges made him vulnerable to impeachment by the Congress.
At that time, no one could have imagined that a minor state crime of B&E could possibly have turned into a possible Federal obstruction of justice charge. Far worst crimes have been committed since that time by those close to the office of the President, or his wing of the party -- like the electronic break-in of Senate Democrat file servers (several Federal crimes here), and then releasing information stolen from those computers to their friends/allies in the press. Or, the outing of the identity of a covert CIA operative to the press, for short term political gain (, and now the subsequent cover-up).
If a sitting US President were to invoke martial law in the months leading up to a national election, the amendment would give him the leeway to remain in office for up to ten years. And I will stand by my statement that the current regime in power is not beyond such actions, based upon (1) how they came to power to begin with, and (2) the falsification of data and lying to the US Congress, the American people, and the Security Council of the United Nations in order to justify the war in Iraq.
With the (literally) tons of money being spent on the Iraq war, including new "high technology" answers to the wrong geopolitical questions, there is a convergence of "Rumsfeld" technology coming.
Picture 20 or 30 thousand less American troops in Iraq in 2006, replaced with remote controlled DARPA challenge robots with these microwave "rayguns" mounted aboard. Along with the already effective and deadly remotely piloted UAVs riding "shotgun" overhead. All being controlled by US military (or contractors) in nicely air conditioned facilities in Qatar. Everything from "crowd control" to "riot dispersal" to killing insurgents, all without the loss of American solder's lives protested in silent memorial on PBS.
Considering the penchant for the Dubya regime to "cookie cutter" patch the same problems in different venues, I would expect this very same technology to be applied to the control of domestic American insurg^H^H^H^H^H^Hprotestors in the same time-frame.
Methinks you need to turn the clock back just a bit more.
Think about the Republican Eisenhower/Nixon plan for the liberation of Communist Cuba, AKA the Bay of Pigs Fiasco that "failed" because Democrat JFK wouldn't furnish "air support". The Republicans have made use of Cuban-American expatriates in covert operations ever since that time, including terrorist bombings and air piracy against Cuban civilian aircraft. They played a part in repeated attempts to assassinate Castro, which may have been a direct cause of JFK's death. The Cuban-Americans were also part of the CREEP "team" that buglarized the Watergate offices of the DNC. They were called upon again as part of the "tiger teams" that got directly involved in the war against the Sandanistas. And it was a Cuban-American on the IT staff of the Senate Republicans that "broke into" the Senate Democrats' fileservers, and then released damaging emails and "position papers" to the press in 2002.
So, it really is all the same players, and with similar but updated playbooks, but the same dirty tricks. With brother Jeb Bush as the governator of Florida , is it any wonder that President George Bush has promised amnesty and SS benefits to illegal aliens who have increasingly flooded across our still unsecured after 9/11/2001 southern border. The Cuban-Americans have proven to be capable and willing covert partners of neo-Con(artist) Republicans. No doubt Dubya&Co. expect similar support from the illegal Mexicans.
"...in time for the 2008 Republican National Convention."
I consider you to be an optimist.
First of all, if this device will be made available in Iraq in 2006, it will also be deployed here in the USA in time for the 2006 mid-term national elections.
Secondly, you make the presumption that the two (identical as peas in a pod) major political parties will actually still engage in the public facade of national conventions in 2008. And by logical extention, that there will be national elections in 2008.
The FEC (Federal Election Commission) let loose a "trial balloon" in the public press in the weeks leading up to the 2004 national elections that the elections "might need to be postponed" due to considerations of possible terrorist attacks. This is something that has never been done before, not during the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WW-I, WW-II, the Korean Conflict, or the Vietnam "Police Action". I predict that there will be one or more major terrorist attacks in the USA conveniently timed to instill new fear and calls for martial law just prior to the 2008 national elections. The US Constitution limits a president to two four-year terms or 10 years, whichever is more. You don't really think that Dubya and the neo-Con(artists) would willingly give up power before they absolutely must, do you?
Do you really think that the American people will be ready, by 2008, for the succession of the office of President to Jeb Bush? I don't.
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't like "Stage I", you definitely will not like either "Stage II" or "Stage III".
Stage II -- the RFID tag is embedded under the skin of the visitor to the USA.
Stage III -- a GPS transponder is attached to the leg of the visitor to the USA, including a small charge of C4 sufficient to incapacitate the wearer as part of the anti-tamper mechanism.
But even as the point of "Stage III", the USA still will not have secure borders or seaports. There still will be no concerted effort to round up and deport illegal aliens from the interior. With sufficient courage and stamena, you will still be welcome to cross the USA's borders illegally and stay as long as you like, for any purpose that you like. (You just might not particularly like the choice of "charter group" travelling companions during your crossing, and you might be asked to carry a rather large package -- no questions asked.)
Like they say in Washington, DC, and in Guadalajara (translated here) "The blow must flow."
More like, "Warms up a place next to MSFT in hell".
... the very same MSFT that has initiated a multi-year multi-prong attack against linux and F/OSS, including but not limited to financing SCO's attack && their "Shared Source" NDA-poisoned project && their not-so-veiled threats regarding their often dubious software patents && their many MSFT-funded "white-paper" disinformation campaigns NOW think that MSFT and linux and F/OSS can co-exist?
Let me see if I got this right
Well of course linux and F/OSS can co-exist with MSFT, just so long as MSFT "plays nice". The odds are better at the roulette wheel in Las Vegas that that will happen. MSFT is an unrepentant convicted monopolist that cannot, under any circumstances, be trusted to do anything that is in the interests of the IT industry as a whole, rather than MSFT itself.
MSFT's "Shared Source" -- nothing to see here.
MSFT's "white paper" propaganda -- okay only for the bottom of the bird cage.
MSFT's new "cooperative" initiative -- only known bullshit that is also toxic waste.
It was during the investigation of the SST Columbia disaster that it was made known that NASA had changed the formulation of the foam insulation on the external tank just a year or so prior. The CFC-based (freon) foam was replaced with more environmentally "friendly" foam that (apparently) falls off for unknown reasons. Of course, burning up an SST during descent into the atmosphere is far more harmful to the environment than the CFC-based foam that was replaced.
I wonder if NASA has even considered switching the foam formulation back to the original?
I sure hope they get a handle on the solution to this problem soon -- numerous missions to the ISS are at risk without the SST. The follow-on transport, I understand, was supposed to use the same external tank and twin solid rockets, so that will also have to be re-thought.
"* What else is there..."
...
...
The neo-Con(artists) in control of the Executive and Legislative branch of government have been promoting the equivalent of "strip mining" the US economy:
(a) lowered taxes for the top 0.5% of taxpayers
(b) lowered taxes for the corporations
(c) corporate welfare for the energy industry
(d) corporate welfare for the airline industry
(e) corporate welfare for the drug industry
(f) encourage corporations to move offshore
(g) engage in costly optional war beneficial only to govt contractors
(h) encourage downward pressure on domestic jobs
(i) promote illegal immigration (amnesty & SS benefits promised)
(j) cut social safety net in favor of religious charities
(k) encourage/fail to discourage massive trade deficits
(l) "war on terror" welfare for govt contractors' gee-whiz technology
(m) SS "reform" via brokerage welfare and bankrupting US Treasury
I am certain that I missed a few points, but the hour is late, and I am tired
"...will also save costs by reducing the number of times computers will have to be rebooted."
Unless MSFT intends to make extensive use of a VM (Virtual Machine) as a Boot/PROM monitor to avoid rebooting through a BIOS/EFI equivalent, every monthly application of security patches requires a reboot. Unless, of course, MSFT decides that only paid subscribers of their WinVista "security updates" will find the need to reboot. That would certainly limit the number of machines that need to be rebooted monthly (if not weekly) to primarily corporate adopters of WinVista.
Would that it were only greater emphasis upon core primary/secondary school subjects, more money to fund university education, or even more scientific R&D. For 20 plus years, the focus of government has been away from infrastructure (including health care and higher education) and towards catering to the needs/wants of corporate America.
USA's tax and monetary policy, regulation of business, and trade policy has been tailored to business. The closer the USA has moved toward a totally "free market" economy, the more blatant excesses of corporate greed have become. The savings&loan fiasco has merged with the dotcom bomb and the accounting fiascos to make the USA's taxpayers numb. Yet to come are the Iraqi war contractor fiascos, the collapse of corporate pension funds fiasco, and the national campaign finance influence peddling fiascos.
At the very same time that a larger portion of the shrinking tax base is being shouldered by the poor and middle class, many major corporations have negotiated tax break sweetheart deals with the Congress. (One growing regional bank, Wachovia, has paid no Federal taxes for more than four years on yearly profits of over $3 Billion USD.)
And since one of the key concerns of the neo-Con(artists) in charge of the Executive and Legislative and Judicial branches is the forced reduction in domestic labor costs, the elimination of trade unions has gone hand-in-hand with "globalization", NAFTA, CAFTA, the increase of L1-A and H1-B visa holders to replace American workers at lower wages, and the wide open US borders and non-enforcement of immigration laws designed to force the trades-based wages down.
A dirty little secret about statistics is that they are so very easy to manipulate, and the government has been doing so for years. With college education and healthcare costs rising annually at double digit rates, and heating/energy costs rising at nearly the same rate, why is the CPI (Consumer Price Index) only 3-1/2 percent? Those items are not included, because Federal pay raises, Medicare and Social Security increases are tied to the "fictional" CPI, instead of the true cost of living.
When the wages of American workers are forced down to the greatest common denominator of "globalized" wages, there will be no middle class in the USA. An economy based upon "Walmart" wages will not support an American-based manufacturing economy, let alone the USA's university system, or even its current healthcare or pharmacutical prowness. And as Americans continue to earn less, and manufacturing jobs shift overseas, the tax base will continue to shrink -- to the point that the USA will face default on its current trade balance and its Treasury notes. The critical mass needed for this outcome has already been cast by the current regime's irrational tax policy in the face of continued "Iraq war" and "war on terror" expenditures.
Bill Gates, a university dropout and convicted monopolist, is hardly the person to take advice from regarding investment in higher education, let alone his company's need for more CS graduates. A high school senior facing four or five years of college education, and student loan debt of $100K USD or more, will think twice before selecting a career path that is destined to continued downward wage pressure or a profession orphaned by offshore outsourcing. Whatever that high school senior does decide to pursue in higher education, a strong minor in a language like Mandarin will have a better payoff than assembly or C++ or Java.
"When Windows becomes too restrictive my friends will convert."
And what, exactly, will your friends convert to -- insurgents?
With the exception of those OEMs that build computers on spec & to order, all the major PC OEMs pay the MSFT tax, and ship with MSFT OS preinstalled. MSFT, through Trusted Computing & Intel DRMed processor/chipsets & EFI, will have their OEMs safeguard MSFTs revenue stream by forcing limits on their customers. Considering MSFT's market share, there will be very few MB OEMs that will produce anything but MSFT's approved Trusted Computing platform. The BYO (Build Your Own) computer OEMs will be using the same/similar motherboards as their larger competitors -- motherboard and BIOS design require substantial financial resources that can only be recouped through volume sales.
The EFI bootstrap is the cornerstone of Trusted Computing -- without it Intel and other processor/chipset manufacturers embedding DRM would be vulnerable to actually being turned off. Any hacking of the Trusted Computing platform will require enough resources to attract the ire of not only the MB manufacturers and MSFT, but also the government. And the US government already considers violations of the DMCA to be "acts of terrorism".
In 18 months, when MSFT's Windows Vista hits the streets, their TC platform will already be there, already waiting for the preimaged harddisks. I suspect that MSFT's new security motto will be "Break our trust if you can, and win an extended vacation at Gitmo."
"...those sci fi B movies from the 50's!"
I seem to vaguely remember an old sci fi B movie called "The Sirens of Saturn".
I find it interesting that you believe Apple will rely on nothing more than their EULA to keep OS/X-x86 off of commodity Wintel machines. The processor/chipset that Intel wowed Apple with may not appear in every Wintel box, but there will be a large (and growing) number on the market. And DRM that is as closely linked between the processor and the chipset that hacking/breaking the DRM will be difficult, if not impossible. The "Palladium"/"Trusted Computing" hardware platform is not only a MSFT wet dream - it is an industry standard that will be the norm, rather than the exception. MSFT has been pushing back delivery of their new OS, slashing many touted "features" along the way. But HD video content DRM has made it into their beta release, and is tied to specific hardware. Media/content industry associations, including Apple and MSFT, will make use of embedded DRM in order to protect the content industry, as well as their own products.
Intel's new processor & chipset that Apple covets has embedded DRM, both in the processor AND the chipset, and it is made to be cheap, easy, and secure to impliment. And so it will be implimented, including by Apple. Apple has relied upon incompatible hardware to preserve their OS and software market, especially after the ass-kicking they got from the Mac clone makers. I am more inclinded to believe that the sun will continue to rise in the East and set in the West, and that Apple will continue to rely upon incompatible hardware to preserve their market share, even on x86 hardware. That implies Apple's adoption and use of embedded DRM. The alternative, reliance upon an unenforcable EULA, implies that Apple is ready to challenge MSFT in their main playing field, the desktop. They aren't ready; they cannot compete against the commodity Wintel market; and they sure aren't going to give up their profit margins to the likes of Dell.
The parent poster has provided a nice explanation of what Apple x86 machines "might" do, but it rather misses the point of what Apple is in business for.
Apple sells complete hardware/software IT solutions, not just hardware and not just software. You can be certain that Apple will make certain that their commercial release of OS/X-x86 will not run on commodity Wintel hardware, by design. The only way that Apple can ascertain that their new software will run on only their new x86 hardware is through the use of embedded DRM. The Intel hardware roadmap that Apple has "bought into" is both processor AND chipset (including video), and has sufficient embedded DRM to limit OS/X-x86 from running on a cheap clone. Apple tried getting along with cheap clones years ago, and nearly went broke at that time.
I am not privy to contracts between Microsoft and Apple, but I would be willing to wager that MSFT would NOT like to see OEM WinXP/WinVista running on Apple x86 hardware. Multiple MSFT software products would immediately become obsolete or orphaned, including VirtualPC and Mac Office. I would definitely expect to see Apple employ the use of Intel DRM to limit this possibility.
Disclaimer: I am not an Apple insider, nor have I conversed with Apple insiders regarding company confidential information covered under NDA. The conclusions that I have drawn are merely based upon (1) common sense and (2) some familiarity with Apple's business model.
Owning either a "short piece of wire" or a Pringles cantenna is not (AFAIK) a violation of criminal law. In which case, the LA law officer quoted has absolutely no business interfering in the actions of private citizens. Of course, if he were both an LA law officer AND a deputized FCC representative, then he might have "just cause". Somehow, I rather doubt that an LA law officer has been granted such authority by the FCC.
While IANAL, I do know that law officers routinely ignore violations of civil law not within their perview. That is one of the really big problems with enforcing immigration laws on the local or state level -- improper/missing visas are considered violations of civil Federal law, not local/state criminal law. (Possession and presentation of fake/fraudulent identity documents does violate criminal law.) The US Patriot Act does seem to provide a wide latitude to all law enforcement personnel, so I may have missed something.
Unless the owner of a Pringles cantenna does something else in public that breaks criminal law, local law enforcement have no business interfering.
The action that Telus is taking in blocking the TWU website is censorship, no ifs ands or buts about it. If this were an American company and an American union, Telus could be prosecuted under Federal law for violating the (collective) union members' First Amendment rights to free speech. IANAL, but there must be some equivalence in Canadian law, or an alternative legal action to take, such as "breech of contract".
Unfortunately, the current regime in power in the USA (and their neo-Con(artist) allies in the Congress and Supreme Court) have been busy hacking away at the US Constitution and Bill of Rights with such legislation as US Patriot Act and DMCA. Considering that the GOP is now basically nothing more than a tool of corporate America, is it possible that Telus has taken a page out of the GOP dirty tricks handbook, and placed the TWU in the equivalent of a Dubya "Free Speech Zone"?
I found out, through personal experience with a dial-up ISP based in Ohio (COPPER.NET) that American ISPs do not fall under "common carrier" rules, and are in fact ESPs. They routinely violated their posted TOS regarding (1) duration of connection time (5 hours STATED vs 3.5 hours ACTUAL), (2) number of hours per month connection time (200 hours STATED vs 190 hours ACTUAL), and (3) abbrogated my pre-paid annual contract by cancelling it without providing a refund.
The underlying point is that all of my troubles with this particular "ESP" began with a long, supportive email that I sent to Michael Moore, the director of the "Fahrenheit 9-11" documentary (which "copper.net" blocked). US corporate interests have trumped US citizens' interests for years. It is just becoming far more blatent these days. And the red tide of neo-Con(artist) fascism has now infected our neighbors to the North.
The neo-Con(artists) in the Dubya regime, including the Congress, have aptly demonstrated in the past that they were perfectly willing to alter facts to fit their agenda. To reiterate all of those instances in which either foreign policy or legislation concerning economic and energy policy have been corrupted by "political requirements" is an exercise I will leave, this time, to others.
The Dubya regime would decree that "global warming" is nonsense, and codify its refute, but that does not change the conclusions drawn by a Pentagon study that not only affirms the reality of "global warming", but also projects the need for men and ships to patrol the open Arctic Ocean in less than ten years, due to climate change there. The Arctic ice pack is melting, global warming is changing forever 15,000 years of Inuit lifestyle and tradition, and our politicians are in a state of denial.
The neo-Con(artists) will find that they may, indeed, invoke a new "inquisition" to suppress the truth, but they do not as yet hold dominion over the environment to legislate global warming away. Moses may have parted the seas with his staff and Almighty God -- our Congress-critters are decidedly not in the same league, or with the same influence.
Changes - they are a'coming. One can only hope that political changes in the USA follow events on the ground.
"The point is - that's why we have laws."
The USA has far more laws than the government is willing to enforce equally. The discretion the government takes in regard to enforcement winds up being attributed to "we don't have enough money" or "we don't have enough manpower" instead of "these laws interfere with our latest policy position" or "these laws hinder our friends in business".
In the year 2000, the Clinton administration prosecuted over 300 employers who knowingly and willingly broke the law to hire illegal aliens. In 2003, the Bush administration prosecuted exactly 13. Do you really think that this specific problem has gone away in three years, or is it more likely that the Bush administration, in keeping with the "amnesty program", offering SS benefits to illegal aliens, or failing to seal our borders against both illegal aliens (and terrorists) finds these laws "anti-business"?
"I'd suggest rolling some heads this coming election, but that requires a spine- I'm not sure American voters are up to the task."
...
And exactly how many of those American voters who do have a spine and are up to the task will it be in 2006 who are disenfranchised by either (1) politicians using fraudulent & bloated lists of ex-felons to strike eligible voters from the rolls, OR (2) the use of electronic voting machines with no paper trail, security audit, or clue?
Personally, I would like to see Diebold and the other GOP neo-Con(artist)-leaning OEMs of electronic voting machines have ALL of their equipment returned to them, for a full refund to the taxpayers. Even switching over to a hand-written paper ballot would do more for real democracy in the USA than current prevailing methods of voting.
Check out "www.blackboxvoting.org" for details, and if you can afford to, buy the book they sell. Or better yet, make a contribution to the cause
But is a new, rather onerous law really necessary?
The Brits have (or did) Bletchley Park for dealing with encryption/decryption. Or they could always outsource the work to the USA's NSA.
Holy shit, Batman!
While the attitude you expressed is unhelpful to
educating people who have their collective heads
up their asses, all your points are right on target!
One hundred years of the American government meddling in the internal affairs of other countries (TR's "Big Stick" onwards), and the first time the USA gets "bitch-slapped", we have a self-rightious puppet of the oil industry and the military-industrial complex in the White House, and a bunch of national socialists in Congress.
"...no worse than the nobles in the monarchies of europe."
The old world nobility didn't really care for such notions as a "middle class" either -- it was a matter of "us" and "them", with "them" being the serfs. It was so much easier to control the entire economy with all the economic power held in the hands of the nobility. The "middle class" arose with the need for skilled workers apprenticed to trades controlled by guilds. Todays "guilds" are the universities AND the trade unions -- the unions are disappearing, and the universities cannot generate enough jobs for their "apprentices". The "trades" of the "middle class" are rapidly being exported overseas, while those skilled jobs that remain are being filled by cheaper foreign (L1-A & H1-B visa, and illegal alien) workers.
"The only way to be safe from greed is to be greedy yourself."
That notion certainly would work, if only the playing field were level and the rules of the game not fixed by the corporations. It used to be that companies needed to offer incentives beyond salary in order to attract and keep good workers, so they bundled a company pension plan and medical benefits into the package. But long time workers and retirees are now finding that their company pension plans are being raided for (1) operating expenses and/or (2) corporate officer compensation packages. Oh, and let the government (eg. taxpayer) pick up the tab for those pension plans. Todays workers are only offered (at best) employee-contributed pension plans, and (maybe) health care benefits. But many of those 401K plans are wrought with new risks for those employees -- many of these plans use employee investments to fund the employer's move offshore. Effectively, the 401K plans are turned into the equivalent of flim-flam pyramid schemes, and the employee/retiree profits (a little) from losing their jobs overseas -- just not enough to survive.
"20th century economics has taught us that governments cannot control the economy, they can only guide it."
Patently incorrect. 20th century governments have found that the "edicts from the socialist ivory towers" cannot control the economy. Which is why everything from tax rates, trade agreements, immigration policies, funding of higher education, energy policies, war & welfare to the military-industrial complex, interest rates & growth of available capital, and even how government statisticians fudge inflation and GDP figures are all now placed under government control. It is also why most legislation now originates from corporate-funded private think tanks instead of populist-minded legislators. The government has evolved from representing the people and the public interest into representing the corporate interest. "What's good for General Motors is good for the country" has been replaced with "What's good for corporate interests is good for the country". Democracy has been replaced in the USA in all but name into (corporate) national socialism.
Cookies are not, in and of themselves, evil. Or, at least, that isn't the way the cookie began life on the web. But having cookies enabled also invites spyware -- every time I leave cookies on in my browser for a couple of hours, I can scan/find/delete at least half a dozen cookies that are identified as spyware. And some of that is downright malicious.
If website builders and/or administrators insist on spreading spyware for fun and profit, then I say "fsck 'em all!"
I never watched so much TV to see "Jerry Seinfeld" before it went into syndication, but there was one program that I did see that really made an impression.
When receiving an unwanted call from a telemarketer, ask for their name and home number to call them back when it's more convenient (preferably at their most inopportune time.)
Paying a little extra (extortion?) to the local phone monopoly in order to have an unlisted number also seems to help somewhat.
"But in states where the incumbent Bell owns the whole E-911 system they'll throw up every roadblock they can think of."
Exactly so!
And the recent FCC ruling allowing the "baby bells" to limit access to their infrastructure is designed to curtail/limit VoIP competition with their long distance service. In most locations, that CO switch and that last mile is owned by the "baby bells", and not the municipality.
"...perhaps the founding fathers should have brushed up on their mathematics first."
The founding fathers did not place such restrictions on the number of terms that a president may serve. That bit was done by a Constitutional amendment after Democrat FDR was elected to four consecutive four year terms. The extra two years was added as a "grace period" for, for instance a vice president that must assume the powers and office of the president in the middle of the president's term of office.
The same amendment also established a chain of seccession in case both president and vice president were no longer able to serve in office. These provisions were basically an artifact of the Cold War (and Mutual Assured Destruction). The Speaker of the House of Representative (Hassert these days) is third in line to be president.
The USA's first (and hopefully only) unelected President was Gerald Ford, who replaced Spiro Agnew as Vice President when he resigned (after misdeeds as Mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland came back to haunt him.) The resignation of Richard Nixon as President after the Watergate break-in and subsequent pending obstruction of justice charges made him vulnerable to impeachment by the Congress.
At that time, no one could have imagined that a minor state crime of B&E could possibly have turned into a possible Federal obstruction of justice charge. Far worst crimes have been committed since that time by those close to the office of the President, or his wing of the party -- like the electronic break-in of Senate Democrat file servers (several Federal crimes here), and then releasing information stolen from those computers to their friends/allies in the press. Or, the outing of the identity of a covert CIA operative to the press, for short term political gain (, and now the subsequent cover-up).
If a sitting US President were to invoke martial law in the months leading up to a national election, the amendment would give him the leeway to remain in office for up to ten years. And I will stand by my statement that the current regime in power is not beyond such actions, based upon (1) how they came to power to begin with, and (2) the falsification of data and lying to the US Congress, the American people, and the Security Council of the United Nations in order to justify the war in Iraq.
With the (literally) tons of money being spent on the Iraq war, including new "high technology" answers to the wrong geopolitical questions, there is a convergence of "Rumsfeld" technology coming.
Picture 20 or 30 thousand less American troops in Iraq in 2006, replaced with remote controlled DARPA challenge robots with these microwave "rayguns" mounted aboard. Along with the already effective and deadly remotely piloted UAVs riding "shotgun" overhead. All being controlled by US military (or contractors) in nicely air conditioned facilities in Qatar. Everything from "crowd control" to "riot dispersal" to killing insurgents, all without the loss of American solder's lives protested in silent memorial on PBS.
Considering the penchant for the Dubya regime to "cookie cutter" patch the same problems in different venues, I would expect this very same technology to be applied to the control of domestic American insurg^H^H^H^H^H^Hprotestors in the same time-frame.
Methinks you need to turn the clock back just a bit more.
Think about the Republican Eisenhower/Nixon plan for the liberation of Communist Cuba, AKA the Bay of Pigs Fiasco that "failed" because Democrat JFK wouldn't furnish "air support". The Republicans have made use of Cuban-American expatriates in covert operations ever since that time, including terrorist bombings and air piracy against Cuban civilian aircraft. They played a part in repeated attempts to assassinate Castro, which may have been a direct cause of JFK's death. The Cuban-Americans were also part of the CREEP "team" that buglarized the Watergate offices of the DNC. They were called upon again as part of the "tiger teams" that got directly involved in the war against the Sandanistas. And it was a Cuban-American on the IT staff of the Senate Republicans that "broke into" the Senate Democrats' fileservers, and then released damaging emails and "position papers" to the press in 2002.
So, it really is all the same players, and with similar but updated playbooks, but the same dirty tricks. With brother Jeb Bush as the governator of Florida , is it any wonder that President George Bush has promised amnesty and SS benefits to illegal aliens who have increasingly flooded across our still unsecured after 9/11/2001 southern border. The Cuban-Americans have proven to be capable and willing covert partners of neo-Con(artist) Republicans. No doubt Dubya&Co. expect similar support from the illegal Mexicans.
"...in time for the 2008 Republican National Convention."
I consider you to be an optimist.
First of all, if this device will be made available in Iraq in 2006, it will also be deployed here in the USA in time for the 2006 mid-term national elections.
Secondly, you make the presumption that the two (identical as peas in a pod) major political parties will actually still engage in the public facade of national conventions in 2008. And by logical extention, that there will be national elections in 2008.
The FEC (Federal Election Commission) let loose a "trial balloon" in the public press in the weeks leading up to the 2004 national elections that the elections "might need to be postponed" due to considerations of possible terrorist attacks. This is something that has never been done before, not during the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WW-I, WW-II, the Korean Conflict, or the Vietnam "Police Action". I predict that there will be one or more major terrorist attacks in the USA conveniently timed to instill new fear and calls for martial law just prior to the 2008 national elections. The US Constitution limits a president to two four-year terms or 10 years, whichever is more. You don't really think that Dubya and the neo-Con(artists) would willingly give up power before they absolutely must, do you?
Do you really think that the American people will be ready, by 2008, for the succession of the office of President to Jeb Bush? I don't.