Oh boy. Twenty years ago, I was 19. And that's probably around that time that I bought my Amiga (a short while after I bought an Atari ST). And, yes, I played the Bard's Tale on it. *sigh*
I am just an old fart. There, I said it. Thanks for listening.
If you have to criticize the French, you should at least pick a different subject. Here is the beginning of the Wikipedia article -- and I can confirm most of it, since the cooperation described was well known in France at the time:
French president François Mitterrand gave full support to the UK in the Falklands war. As a large part of Argentina's military equipment was French-made, French support was crucial. France provided aircraft, identical to the ones it supplied to Argentina, for British pilots to train against. France provided intelligence to help sabotage the Exocet missiles it sold to Argentina. In her memoirs Margaret Thatcher says of Mitterrand that "I never forgot the debt we owed him for his personal support...throughout the Falklands crisis". Sir John Nott, who was Secretary of State for Defence during the conflict later acknowledged: "In so many ways Mitterrand and the French were our greatest allies".
Sad to see traditional knee-jerk anti-french feelings are alive and well on/.
Small size, for smaller radar image, and/or better survivability.
And all of this for crop surveillance? Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I think our good friends at the NRO are going to get some competition from... ahem... "friends and allies" or something like this. Even if I am just being paranoid, the military potential is there, and don't forget that SPOT (European space imaging project, led by France) has been denounced often by the USA as a "dual-use" project...
I am sorry, but what exactly does this prove? That ZDNet is wrong? That Mac OS X is secure?
It proves neither: every operating system on the face of this earth has been hacked, cracked, and 0wned. Numerous times. Get over it.
Instead of inane, immature competitions such as this one, I'd rather have a nice manual (RTNM -- Read The Nice Manual) on how to improve/lock down an OS X machine. Even better, make that two manuals: one for the average joe, with nice color screenshots for every step that has to be taken, and another for people like me, who manage systems for a living. THAT would be a valuable contribution to the field of computer security, instead of this stupid challenge.
Based on the antics of megacorps like AOL and Bell South. It goes like this:
1. Invest large amounts of $$$ into dark fiber to create independent network. 2. Advertise your service as: the last truly free (as in speech) Internet. (no DRM, no censorship, no [bittorrent|skype|other] filtering, no stupid ideas... EVER!) 3. ??? 4. Profit!
I believe step 3 has something to do with advertising on Slashdot, but I am not sure.
Step 2 could also be named: "We have common carrier status and we want to keep it, bobdammit!".
It's either that or we all run back to fidonet, really. And fidonet seems more and more appealing every day.:-(
What I'd like to see is the European Commission slap a huge fine on Microsoft for publishing these documents, as well as drag a couple of European Microsoft Executives to courts for breach of confidentiality. Add a couple of cotempt of court proceedings against the lawyers who handled the documents, and we are all set for a big legal fight.
I am not joking: Europe has some fairly strict laws concerning the confidentiality of judicial proceedings. For instance, in France, journalists can be convicted for publishing documents related to an ongoing investigation, and I think it's the same in Germany and in the UK. (And before American citizens out there start screaming: "Freedom of Speech!", please remember that these rules have been edicted to protect the "innocence" of a person/company until proven guilty).
So, this little spat between Microsoft and the EU could become interesting quite quickly...
... but, frankly, can't anybody think of something better?
(I can imagine the dialog right now: wait, is the oboe a sign something is wrong, or is it the violin? Err...)
After a couple of weeks installing and configuring net-snmp, cacti and nagios, I seriously think music is NOT the way to go. Real-time graphics are a lot more informative and easier to understand. Music is fun, sure, but way too complex to understand.
Besides, I don't really like music entirely made by computers. And I am a Kraftwerk fan. Go figure.
Whether Peak Oil will happen in 2020 (or sooner/or later) does not mean Oil will disappear overnight. What will happen is what happened in the 1970s: an "Oil Shock".
An Oil Shock, in turn, means there will be tremendous economic problems to be solved, but it does not mean the End of the World. I suspect a lot of people will adapt to the new circumstances. They won't like it, but they will adapt, because this is what humans do best.
In the worst possible case, I think governments will strongly intervene -- they will have to -- to guarantee (and subsidize) oil supplies to the most crucial consumers (food producers, electricity producers, emergency responders, armed forces) while the rest of us will have to use mass transportation and convert ASAP to a regimen of energy efficiency and renewable energy.
That really sucks if you live in a country with poor mass transportation like, uh... 90% of the United States. It's going to be mostly OK in many European countries, where mass transportation (including high-speed trains) is already a fact of life and renewable energies are being increasingly adopted. I am not saying it will be a walk in the park, because it won't be, but most wealthy countries consume too much energy and waste so much of it.
Other things that will be very dodgy will be the survival of airlines and of most cargo ships. But, even there, there are solutions: blimps, for instance, are much more efficient than airplanes energy-wise, and can cross the Atlantic in a couple of days at most. Clipper ships, that are powered by wind, the ultimate renewable energy, can be brought back from the dead and maintain vital commercial links between continents. I also strongly suspect that nuclear-powered giant cargoes will be used in the near future, if Peak Oil becomes a reality.
Sure, these are slow methods of transcontinental transportation, but it's better than no transportation at all.
And, of course, it is a lot more efficient to organize teleconferences and email links than it is to send people from one end of the world to the other anyway.
Finally, don't forget that an Oil Shock will make all other sources of energy economically viable. Wind, Solar, Sea Tides, Geothermal, etc. will all become competitive once the price of Oil goes through the roof. And that's a good thing as far as I am concerned, since Oil consumption is also one of the major reasons Global Warming is taking place...
For more information on this, I do recommend the many documents published by the Rocky Mountain Institute, including "Winning the Oil End Game". Recommended readings before you start to panic.
Would be genetically-engineering plants -- including edible plants -- to use climate-changing gases to grow, and release less of them into the atmosphere.
If, for instance, useful trees (fruit trees, oaks, pine and birch for instance) could be engineered to use more CO2 and release less methane (which they seem to be doing right now), that would be a fantastic incentive to plant more trees and therefore absorb more carbon into forests instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.
With a lot of work and a bit of luck, that could be enough to slow and eventually reverse global warming, to return the Earth to more normal weather patterns.
Find an ISP -- preferably a small, mom-and-pop operation, or at least a customer friendly, yes-we-do-have-a-clue company -- and switch.
I mean it, vote with your dollars and with your feet, so to speak, and leave Bell $outh behind for good. Send a clear message to the extortionists that they are: we won't tolerate this, we won't accept this and you will pay the price for your stupidity.
I just hope Bell South will understand the message when they see their customers desert in droves.
The lower-lying countries of the world, and see what happens to them when sea level rises a few feet.
Actually, the Netherlands has been looking at this scenario, and they agree it could have some pretty serious consequences. They intend to mitigate the problem by basically allowing the sea (and several rivers) to flood what used to be an "inner sea" that existed in the Middle Ages. That means, of course, that these lands will have to evacuated. They also have built houses on stilts, that can go up and down with the tides. (Sorry, no link right now).
I agree that poor countries -- like, say, Bangladesh -- will be hit very very hard. But, unfortunately, these countries are already hit very hard, even with "normal" weather patterns.
The fisheries. Over the past week or so, I began hearing about deep-sea fish being threatened with extinction [...]
True, but there has been cases of massive extinction and over-fishing before, and most of the species threatened can be brought back from the brink, provided fishing is regulated and organized. One of the best example is a fairly large fish, which exist only off the northern coasts of Canada and the United States. It was fished almost to extinction. But an agreement between Canada and the USA saved it, and it is now considered very abundant and, within a couple of years, will be fished commercially again (with quotas for both countries).
This is also true of many species of whales, that were slowly starting to recover... until Japan and Norway decided to begin hunting them again recently.
I actually think you are proving my point with these two examples: if we keep a cool head and reason in the long-term, there are very few problems that cannot be solved by international cooperation. The only problem is, reasoning in the long-term about possible impacts is not something most of us do every day.
Over-fishing can be corrected using fishing quotas, global warming by greenhouse gases quotas, etc. If we want to survive -- and I believe survival is a strong urge in most of us -- we will learn how to manage the environment, and reduce our impact on it.
It's not a "suddenly it's doomsday" scenario. Instead, we're all frogs in the pan of water, and the real question is how hot will the burner get turned up to.
Please note that we are not frogs, we have a lot more grey matter than they do, and that we are conscious that the burner is getting turned up. The boiling frog scenario only works if we are unaware there is a burner under the pot.
But we -- at least the entire world minus the current US administration -- now know the burner is on. Working together, we can, hopefully, stop its progression and slowly ease it back to normal. Or, at least, as close to normal as we can.
That's my position -- cautiously optimistic. In the worst possible case, we will have to take drastic measures and renounce a good deal of comfort to bring the situation back under control. For instance, private cars and vehicles may have to be banned, along with air travel, if we want to save our planet and our civilization (if Peak Oil does not take care of that before we do). But, ultimately, I believe we will find a way to survive.
It seems to me that humanity has a tendency to fall into two intellectual traps:
Either the future is rosy and beautiful, and the best is ahead of us (for instance: Nanotechnologies and nano-factories will save the world! Fusion power is right around the corner!),
Or The End of the World and Civilization As We Know It is right around the corner (for instance: Peak Oil! Planet Warming! Bird Flu! Grey Goo! Killer Asteroids!).
I do believe both attitudes are just wrong. The future holds a lot of promises, but also a lot of challenges. There are international mechanisms in place to deal with global warming, for instance: that's what the Kyoto Protocol is all about.
Peak Oil may be very bad -- I do expect a lot of economic suffering ahead -- but it may also be our best chance to get rid of polluting hydrocarbons, and turn to ultra-efficiency and renewable energies. These, in turn, will have the added effect of lowering global warming and overall pollution.
Another example of this is nuclear war and MAD: it did not happen, probably because intelligent people on both sides understood the terrifying consequences. That also means we are stuck with thousands and thousands of nukes that need to be decommissioned and possibilities of proliferation, but that, too, can be taken care of.
So: ignoring problems is just as bad as putting your head in the sand and pretending everything is A-OK. What Winston Churchill used to say about Americans really apply to the whole human race: "They will always choose the right solution... but only after trying every other one". We may suffer in the short run, but the nimbleness, adaptability and intelligence of human beings mean they will come out all right in the end. Our problem is that we always take the short view and the easy solution first, instead of the long-term view and making the necessary sacrifices right now, instead of tomorrow.
Rejoice! And while we are at it, we have some fantastic investment opportunity for you, as well as dirt-cheap brand name software, the cheapest meds you'll ever find, (including potency meds, hint, hint, nudge, nudge) and the addresses and phone numbers of thousands of sexy singles in your area!
So don't hesitate and click on this link NOW! You won't regret it, your satisfaction is guaranteed and your personal data is safe with us!!
2. Join a church or community group focused on family. Help your neighbors with kids and they'll help you.
Except, of course, that some of the worst sex offenders can be found in the clergy. And if you think that it's something only Catholic priests do, I have a bridge made out of solid gold to sell you for an unbeatable price!
And, of course, nothing says that nice, conservative, Mr Simpson around the corner, you know, the one who has six kids, is not a child rapist. He may even be one who is going to sell pictures of your kid after the dirty deed is done. But he is such a great dad, and his kids are so nice and polite!
Sorry about the rant, but trusting other people -- and, especially, large organizations full of other people -- with the education (and care) of your own children seems to me one of the reasons we are in this mess in the first place... Churches won't fix this problem. You, as a parent, will fix this problem.
If there is something interesting in the code, Microsoft won't release it, because they don't want to help the competition (Firefox or Opera).
If there are huge bugs in the code, Microfost won't release it, because that would be helping hackers.
If IE/Mac and IE/Windows share code, Microsoft won't release it, because that would be even more help for hackers.
Finally, Microsoft won't release the code because that would be helping Apple. And helping Apple (and/or Open Source) is helping the enemy that stands between Microsoft and Total World Domination(tm).
Here is something really funny for you: I also travel with several CDs (music and/or data) in my luggage. I have never been stopped, not just once, by the US customs.
I mean, seriously, what's to prevent me from slipping the Symantec CD-ROM in a little Case Logic CD folder, among dozens of other CDs? Do you really think the customs officer are going to check me? Do you think they are going to review each and every CD in my little folder, looking for the illegal-to-export LC5 CD? (short answer: NO).
What about copying an image of the CD on the hard disk of my laptop? Sure, they check laptops, but only to make sure that this is really a computer and not a disguised bomb.
Of course, if the NSA (hi, guys, and thanks for reading this!) decides I am an international terrorist, I am in trouble the next time I set foot in the USA. But I think right now, they are too busy spying on US citizens to bother with me...;-)
I travel regularly between the USA and Europe... What's to prevent me from buying several copies of this tool and take them back with me to Europe? Do you think Symantec and/or the shop owner will ask me for my passport before selling me this software?
For that matter, there is a good chance that there are mirrors and/or legal copies of this tool in Europe already. So what's the point? This type of restriction is ridiculous.
Oh, and by the way, I have a copy of O'Reilly's 'Knoppix Hacks' on my desk somewhere. I think there is a recipe in that book to remove or replace the administrator password of a Windows machine using Knoppix. Again, what's the point behind this restriction?
I remember a time -- I think it was around the release of Windows 95 -- when the dream of every little startup was to get bought by Microsoft.
Now, they have strangled the competition so much that the dream of many little startups is to fold, hold onto their 'Intellectual Property' for a while, then sue the heck out of Microsoft.
Which, by the way, is not a bad strategy at all, since Bill Gates & Co. have billions and billions of dollars in the bank and are very willing to buy their way out of legal troubles (monopoly problems with DoJ and all that).
Slashdot Mirror
Oh boy. Twenty years ago, I was 19. And that's probably around that time that I bought my Amiga (a short while after I bought an Atari ST). And, yes, I played the Bard's Tale on it. *sigh*
I am just an old fart. There, I said it. Thanks for listening.
... That the US are trillions of dollars into debt.
Broadband for all? I think not.
If you have to criticize the French, you should at least pick a different subject. Here is the beginning of the Wikipedia article -- and I can confirm most of it, since the cooperation described was well known in France at the time:
/.
French president François Mitterrand gave full support to the UK in the Falklands war. As a large part of Argentina's military equipment was French-made, French support was crucial. France provided aircraft, identical to the ones it supplied to Argentina, for British pilots to train against. France provided intelligence to help sabotage the Exocet missiles it sold to Argentina. In her memoirs Margaret Thatcher says of Mitterrand that "I never forgot the debt we owed him for his personal support...throughout the Falklands crisis". Sir John Nott, who was Secretary of State for Defence during the conflict later acknowledged: "In so many ways Mitterrand and the French were our greatest allies".
Sad to see traditional knee-jerk anti-french feelings are alive and well on
And all of this for crop surveillance? Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I think our good friends at the NRO are going to get some competition from... ahem... "friends and allies" or something like this. Even if I am just being paranoid, the military potential is there, and don't forget that SPOT (European space imaging project, led by France) has been denounced often by the USA as a "dual-use" project...
I am sorry, but what exactly does this prove? That ZDNet is wrong? That Mac OS X is secure?
It proves neither: every operating system on the face of this earth has been hacked, cracked, and 0wned. Numerous times. Get over it.
Instead of inane, immature competitions such as this one, I'd rather have a nice manual (RTNM -- Read The Nice Manual) on how to improve/lock down an OS X machine. Even better, make that two manuals: one for the average joe, with nice color screenshots for every step that has to be taken, and another for people like me, who manage systems for a living. THAT would be a valuable contribution to the field of computer security, instead of this stupid challenge.
... Somewhere ...
:-(
Based on the antics of megacorps like AOL and Bell South. It goes like this:
1. Invest large amounts of $$$ into dark fiber to create independent network.
2. Advertise your service as: the last truly free (as in speech) Internet.
(no DRM, no censorship, no [bittorrent|skype|other] filtering, no stupid ideas... EVER!)
3. ???
4. Profit!
I believe step 3 has something to do with advertising on Slashdot, but I am not sure.
Step 2 could also be named: "We have common carrier status and we want to keep it, bobdammit!".
It's either that or we all run back to fidonet, really. And fidonet seems more and more appealing every day.
Let me guess... (peers into crystal ball)... Oh yeah, that law firm represented Microsoft in New Zealand. They even cite Intellectual Property as one of their area of expertise.
Case closed. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
What I'd like to see is the European Commission slap a huge fine on Microsoft for publishing these documents, as well as drag a couple of European Microsoft Executives to courts for breach of confidentiality. Add a couple of cotempt of court proceedings against the lawyers who handled the documents, and we are all set for a big legal fight.
I am not joking: Europe has some fairly strict laws concerning the confidentiality of judicial proceedings. For instance, in France, journalists can be convicted for publishing documents related to an ongoing investigation, and I think it's the same in Germany and in the UK. (And before American citizens out there start screaming: "Freedom of Speech!", please remember that these rules have been edicted to protect the "innocence" of a person/company until proven guilty).
So, this little spat between Microsoft and the EU could become interesting quite quickly...
The computer says the answer is 42.
;-)
All we need to do now is program the question...
Duh. The question was: "An African, or a European Swallow?".
Think about THAT for a second.
... but, frankly, can't anybody think of something better?
(I can imagine the dialog right now: wait, is the oboe a sign something is wrong, or is it the violin? Err...)
After a couple of weeks installing and configuring net-snmp, cacti and nagios, I seriously think music is NOT the way to go. Real-time graphics are a lot more informative and easier to understand. Music is fun, sure, but way too complex to understand.
Besides, I don't really like music entirely made by computers. And I am a Kraftwerk fan. Go figure.
... a hard-working Republican young man who worked hard to re-elect our President ...
:-)
Sorry, just thought I'd correct that...
Finally, some sense in the P2P/RIAA/MPAA wars!
If this works well for Warner, I am willing to bet they will extend this program to the rest of the world, pronto. At least, I hope so.
Whether Peak Oil will happen in 2020 (or sooner/or later) does not mean Oil will disappear overnight. What will happen is what happened in the 1970s: an "Oil Shock".
An Oil Shock, in turn, means there will be tremendous economic problems to be solved, but it does not mean the End of the World. I suspect a lot of people will adapt to the new circumstances. They won't like it, but they will adapt, because this is what humans do best.
In the worst possible case, I think governments will strongly intervene -- they will have to -- to guarantee (and subsidize) oil supplies to the most crucial consumers (food producers, electricity producers, emergency responders, armed forces) while the rest of us will have to use mass transportation and convert ASAP to a regimen of energy efficiency and renewable energy.
That really sucks if you live in a country with poor mass transportation like, uh... 90% of the United States. It's going to be mostly OK in many European countries, where mass transportation (including high-speed trains) is already a fact of life and renewable energies are being increasingly adopted. I am not saying it will be a walk in the park, because it won't be, but most wealthy countries consume too much energy and waste so much of it.
Other things that will be very dodgy will be the survival of airlines and of most cargo ships. But, even there, there are solutions: blimps, for instance, are much more efficient than airplanes energy-wise, and can cross the Atlantic in a couple of days at most. Clipper ships, that are powered by wind, the ultimate renewable energy, can be brought back from the dead and maintain vital commercial links between continents. I also strongly suspect that nuclear-powered giant cargoes will be used in the near future, if Peak Oil becomes a reality.
Sure, these are slow methods of transcontinental transportation, but it's better than no transportation at all.
And, of course, it is a lot more efficient to organize teleconferences and email links than it is to send people from one end of the world to the other anyway.
Finally, don't forget that an Oil Shock will make all other sources of energy economically viable. Wind, Solar, Sea Tides, Geothermal, etc. will all become competitive once the price of Oil goes through the roof. And that's a good thing as far as I am concerned, since Oil consumption is also one of the major reasons Global Warming is taking place...
For more information on this, I do recommend the many documents published by the Rocky Mountain Institute, including "Winning the Oil End Game". Recommended readings before you start to panic.
Would be genetically-engineering plants -- including edible plants -- to use climate-changing gases to grow, and release less of them into the atmosphere.
If, for instance, useful trees (fruit trees, oaks, pine and birch for instance) could be engineered to use more CO2 and release less methane (which they seem to be doing right now), that would be a fantastic incentive to plant more trees and therefore absorb more carbon into forests instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.
With a lot of work and a bit of luck, that could be enough to slow and eventually reverse global warming, to return the Earth to more normal weather patterns.
Find an ISP -- preferably a small, mom-and-pop operation, or at least a customer friendly, yes-we-do-have-a-clue company -- and switch.
I mean it, vote with your dollars and with your feet, so to speak, and leave Bell $outh behind for good. Send a clear message to the extortionists that they are: we won't tolerate this, we won't accept this and you will pay the price for your stupidity.
I just hope Bell South will understand the message when they see their customers desert in droves.
I'd begin by looking at...
The lower-lying countries of the world, and see what happens to them when sea level rises a few feet.
Actually, the Netherlands has been looking at this scenario, and they agree it could have some pretty serious consequences. They intend to mitigate the problem by basically allowing the sea (and several rivers) to flood what used to be an "inner sea" that existed in the Middle Ages. That means, of course, that these lands will have to evacuated. They also have built houses on stilts, that can go up and down with the tides. (Sorry, no link right now).
I agree that poor countries -- like, say, Bangladesh -- will be hit very very hard. But, unfortunately, these countries are already hit very hard, even with "normal" weather patterns.
The fisheries. Over the past week or so, I began hearing about deep-sea fish being threatened with extinction [...]
True, but there has been cases of massive extinction and over-fishing before, and most of the species threatened can be brought back from the brink, provided fishing is regulated and organized. One of the best example is a fairly large fish, which exist only off the northern coasts of Canada and the United States. It was fished almost to extinction. But an agreement between Canada and the USA saved it, and it is now considered very abundant and, within a couple of years, will be fished commercially again (with quotas for both countries).
This is also true of many species of whales, that were slowly starting to recover... until Japan and Norway decided to begin hunting them again recently.
I actually think you are proving my point with these two examples: if we keep a cool head and reason in the long-term , there are very few problems that cannot be solved by international cooperation. The only problem is, reasoning in the long-term about possible impacts is not something most of us do every day.
Over-fishing can be corrected using fishing quotas, global warming by greenhouse gases quotas, etc. If we want to survive -- and I believe survival is a strong urge in most of us -- we will learn how to manage the environment, and reduce our impact on it.
It's not a "suddenly it's doomsday" scenario. Instead, we're all frogs in the pan of water, and the real question is how hot will the burner get turned up to.
Please note that we are not frogs, we have a lot more grey matter than they do, and that we are conscious that the burner is getting turned up. The boiling frog scenario only works if we are unaware there is a burner under the pot.
But we -- at least the entire world minus the current US administration -- now know the burner is on. Working together, we can, hopefully, stop its progression and slowly ease it back to normal. Or, at least, as close to normal as we can.
That's my position -- cautiously optimistic. In the worst possible case, we will have to take drastic measures and renounce a good deal of comfort to bring the situation back under control. For instance, private cars and vehicles may have to be banned, along with air travel, if we want to save our planet and our civilization (if Peak Oil does not take care of that before we do). But, ultimately, I believe we will find a way to survive.
It seems to me that humanity has a tendency to fall into two intellectual traps:
I do believe both attitudes are just wrong. The future holds a lot of promises, but also a lot of challenges. There are international mechanisms in place to deal with global warming, for instance: that's what the Kyoto Protocol is all about.
Peak Oil may be very bad -- I do expect a lot of economic suffering ahead -- but it may also be our best chance to get rid of polluting hydrocarbons, and turn to ultra-efficiency and renewable energies. These, in turn, will have the added effect of lowering global warming and overall pollution.
Another example of this is nuclear war and MAD: it did not happen, probably because intelligent people on both sides understood the terrifying consequences. That also means we are stuck with thousands and thousands of nukes that need to be decommissioned and possibilities of proliferation, but that, too, can be taken care of.
So: ignoring problems is just as bad as putting your head in the sand and pretending everything is A-OK. What Winston Churchill used to say about Americans really apply to the whole human race: "They will always choose the right solution... but only after trying every other one". We may suffer in the short run, but the nimbleness, adaptability and intelligence of human beings mean they will come out all right in the end. Our problem is that we always take the short view and the easy solution first, instead of the long-term view and making the necessary sacrifices right now, instead of tomorrow.
Rejoice! And while we are at it, we have some fantastic investment opportunity for you, as well as dirt-cheap brand name software, the cheapest meds you'll ever find, (including potency meds, hint, hint, nudge, nudge) and the addresses and phone numbers of thousands of sexy singles in your area!
So don't hesitate and click on this link NOW! You won't regret it, your satisfaction is guaranteed and your personal data is safe with us!!
2. Join a church or community group focused on family. Help your neighbors with kids and they'll help you.
Except, of course, that some of the worst sex offenders can be found in the clergy. And if you think that it's something only Catholic priests do, I have a bridge made out of solid gold to sell you for an unbeatable price!
And, of course, nothing says that nice, conservative, Mr Simpson around the corner, you know, the one who has six kids, is not a child rapist. He may even be one who is going to sell pictures of your kid after the dirty deed is done. But he is such a great dad, and his kids are so nice and polite!
Sorry about the rant, but trusting other people -- and, especially, large organizations full of other people -- with the education (and care) of your own children seems to me one of the reasons we are in this mess in the first place... Churches won't fix this problem. You, as a parent, will fix this problem.
[Gosh, I love the smell of napalm... Early in the morning... in the Slashdot discussions...]
Of course, number 11 is Google, Google, and Google. But that's neither software nor open-source.
Not gonna happen. Not in my lifetime anyway.
Here is something really funny for you: I also travel with several CDs (music and/or data) in my luggage. I have never been stopped, not just once, by the US customs.
;-)
I mean, seriously, what's to prevent me from slipping the Symantec CD-ROM in a little Case Logic CD folder, among dozens of other CDs? Do you really think the customs officer are going to check me? Do you think they are going to review each and every CD in my little folder, looking for the illegal-to-export LC5 CD? (short answer: NO).
What about copying an image of the CD on the hard disk of my laptop? Sure, they check laptops, but only to make sure that this is really a computer and not a disguised bomb.
Of course, if the NSA (hi, guys, and thanks for reading this!) decides I am an international terrorist, I am in trouble the next time I set foot in the USA. But I think right now, they are too busy spying on US citizens to bother with me...
I travel regularly between the USA and Europe... What's to prevent me from buying several copies of this tool and take them back with me to Europe? Do you think Symantec and/or the shop owner will ask me for my passport before selling me this software?
For that matter, there is a good chance that there are mirrors and/or legal copies of this tool in Europe already. So what's the point? This type of restriction is ridiculous.
Oh, and by the way, I have a copy of O'Reilly's 'Knoppix Hacks' on my desk somewhere. I think there is a recipe in that book to remove or replace the administrator password of a Windows machine using Knoppix. Again, what's the point behind this restriction?
I remember a time -- I think it was around the release of Windows 95 -- when the dream of every little startup was to get bought by Microsoft.
Now, they have strangled the competition so much that the dream of many little startups is to fold, hold onto their 'Intellectual Property' for a while, then sue the heck out of Microsoft.
Which, by the way, is not a bad strategy at all, since Bill Gates & Co. have billions and billions of dollars in the bank and are very willing to buy their way out of legal troubles (monopoly problems with DoJ and all that).