I dearly wish someone would do a sequel for Alpha Centauri, preferably with the guy that did the first one (which wasn't really Sid Meier) on the staff.
That is a great game, and I'm ticked it doesn't seem to run on my AMD CPU, says it doesn't recognize the CPU, play at your own risk and then just exits.
Wish it had much better AI's and revived online play or maybe even move to more real-time instead of turn based.
I really wish they would open source it to keep it alive. I know there is Freeciv and all but I don't like Civilization nearly as much as Alpha Centauri.
FPS and MMORPG's get old. I like games with really involved strategy.
I'm skeptical it would be that simple especially in ones with sensitive data on them. I'm assuming you have to send them a somewhat more complex signal to get them to respond.
Just curious.... I'm thinking from a hackers perspective....
Are their semi universal RFID detectors that I could buy that would help me locate any RFID tags in things I own and potentially destroy them, or can they have protocols in them so they only respond to readers that know how to talk the given kind of chip. I'm interested in something that will just spot them and help locate them, not necessarily read the data on them, though reading the data would be cool.
What kinds of secure logins and encryption are available on these things and could DVD Jon crack it in about an hour with the proper equipment?
"Good news for TI, pretty much meaningless for everyone else."
Exactly, if all you're talking about is the cost. The cost of the monthly service overwhelms the cost of the handset. Maybe in underdeveloped countries, like Inida, this might be significant assuming the monthly service is low cost too, with government sponsorship for example. Lots of rural areas still have no phone service and cell is a lot cheaper than running copper or fiber.
Not having RTFA, a benefit that might be in the TI chip set is it might reduce power consumption. Anything that reduces power consuption is a big win in my book in any portable device.
My ideal phone is probably a black and white LED with a simple , easy to use phone book and which is obsessed with:
- Minimum power consumption and maximum battery life - Best possible reception especially in areas with poor coverage.
You can take the cameras, web browser, ring tones and pretty much everything else cell companies are pushing and shove it.
I could maybe take reading email, if the service didn't cost and arm and a leg, but composing email is pure misery unless you have a really innovative keyboard that is both easy to use and not bulky.
I kind of like voice recognition but not if it costs anything in power consumption.
Exactly. They've been doing live 2 way audio and video from space for a while. I guess they were desperate for a first for this mission so recording MP3 somehow rates NEWS.For some reason this mission has acquired an INCREDIBLE amount of hype for a mission that didn't actually do much.
Its good in that it increases lagging interest in space, its bad because it been so overdone people are getting tired of it. Then they start tuning it out for subsequent missions, kind of like major hype Apollo 11, some hype 12 and everyone was tired of it by 13 until of course there was an accident.
In the article 3 hours ago I posted how glad I was the mission was over so we wouldn't see a post about it every 4 hours on slashdot. I was wrong it took only 3 hours until this one came along.
Don't suppose it occurred to you that the Nation's leading neocons, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Kristol, etc. are the ones giving neocons the bad name?
You can paint them as all foreign policy, and "Freedom and Democracy" but the fact is unless they are in power they are impotent. To get power and keep it they play domestic politics to the hilt and manipulate the American public, all politicians do. Its pretty naive or disingenuous or your part to think there are politicians that don't play POLITICS.
Yea, but they totally suck at propagandizing them at least for the last decade or so. If they were any good at it they wouldn't be completely disempowered.
" people who make money and don't feel guilty about it"
You shouldn't feel guilty about it if you made it honestly. Unfortunately its a LOT easier to make money dishonestly and by screwing someone else than it is to sell something valuable at a fair price.
Today there is special irony in the news in that the Republican's passed an Energy bill that includes interest free loans and tax subsidies to encourage oil companies to search for oil, at the same time oil is $64 dollars a barrel and oil company profits doubled and tripled last quarter:
Why exactly do these supposed free marketeer Republicans need to use our tax dollars to encourage these fat cats to search for oil, $64 a barrel should be all the incentive they need.
"Incredible. Flawless. Heroic."... and more importantly its OVER. Not the mission, the articles posted on Slashdot every four hours with people struggling to find something new to say every four hours.
On this side you the people struggling to find new superlatives singing praises of the Shuttle likes it God's gift to mankind, that its "Incredible", "Flawless", "Heroic", "Amazing", a "Remarkable Engineering Achievement", acting like it hasn't flown 114 times and they are just now trying to get it right.
And on this side you have the people pointing out its "A Waste of Money", "A Waste of Time", "Dangerous", "Risky", "Pointless", "A Senseless Diversion", "Boring".
Maybe now we can return to our regularly scheduled programming of duped articles, shameless plugs, stupid Ask Slashdot questions, Microsoft and SCO bashing, Linux and Google worshiping.
Not sure satellites are nearly important to war fighting as you think these days. GPS is pretty important but spy satellites I'm not so sure any more. Personally I think the military should retain the ability to navigate without GPS or they deserve to get lost. Similarly they should maintain precision weapons that don't rely on GPS. Putting all your eggs in the GPS basket would be pretty stupid.
RPV's are rapidly gaining the ability to provide most of the visual and electronic intelligence gathering you need on a battlefield. They are developing great endurance, they are getting stealthy, they are really cheap compared to satellites, can be deployed in large numbers and put no pilot at risk. RPV's fly unpredictable trajectories while satellites tend to be predictable, unpredictable is definitely better since you can hide things from predictable.
Spy satellites had their place in the sun when it became difficult to overfly the Soviet Union with manned U-2's and SR-71's but if you have stealthy RPV's, with great endurance the need for satellites isn't what it once was. Lower flying RPV's are actually better for taking pictures, plus you can change payloads to suit the mission, you can repair them and you can send them where you want, when you want.
With every major new satellite program over budget and behind schedule I'd say its increasingly time to rethink how much is wasted on them. Proposing massive spending to try to defend them is pretty insane. You do want them to do things like detect missile launches and do electronic intelligence gathering in peace time, but if a major shooting war erupts between superpowers I'm inclined to think the military should be ready to switch to RPV's and old fashioned navigation rather than be completely dependent on fragile space assets that are really hard to defend.
"If they were to take hostages among the passengers and demand this armored cockpit to be opened, there is no person with a conscience who would keep the cockpit locked down."
That is completely not the case since 9/11. The policy now is if there is a hijacking in the passenger space the door stays closed. Opening the door accomplishes absolutely nothing except allowing the airplane to be turned in to a weapon and doing more damage than just killing the passengers.
Conventional wisdom since 9/11 is also the passengers and air marshall are going to fight back immediately anyway because the probability of successfully waiting out a hijacking are now considered poor since 9/11.
"Secondly, the doors would have to be opened for other reasons(runs to the john and for refreshments) which could be exploited to gain entry."
Pretty tough to time an attack for these instances. Last time I flew they explicitly prevent people from forming a line at the front john so there is never a crowd near the cockpit. Not sure they have, but if they haven't, you put a closed circuit camera on the door so the crew can insure they only open it when there is no one near it.
"Pakistan - Yes, it's a huge problem, a global center of terrorism and radical Islam. Attacking them now would be foolish, especially when they (much against their will) have a somewhat pro-US leader."
I didn't say "attack" them. I said deal with them. That is a tough nut to crack but one example would have been to apply as much pressure as it took to get troops, from where TBD, in to the tribal areas of Pakistan, pacify them and eliminate them as a safe heaven which is what they've been since the 1970's and the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. When you have a place operating with no law or roder is it surprising it is a lawless region and a haven.
Another example would have been to arrest and detain all the ISI agents Pakistan had in Afghanistan working with the Taliban and Al Qaeda instead of flying them back to Pakistan unhindered. The U.S. should have gotten creative and broken the back of the ISI. They are probably the single biggest danger in the region. Musharef can't control them and they are a massive danger to any pro West Pakistani leader.
A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation was simply unacceptable. For him to get off with no punishment is unacceptable too. It send the message proliferating nukes is A-OK. Either Pakistan should have been pressured to jail him, or the assumption is Pakistan in fact endorsed what he did(or at least the ISI did).
If Pakistan doesn't reform I'm inclined to think they should be cut off, isolated and treated like the imminent danger they are.
"I don't think you can defeat Jihad with purely defensive measures"
I didn't say armored doors were a solution to the whole problem. They were just the sensible solution to the ingenious mode of attack used on 9/11. Armored doors make a lot more sense than the expensive insanity that is the TSA and airports today.
Fact is other forms of attack are still there, they always will be there. The point is to take simple measures to prevent attacks that are preventable, instead of running amok and extreme measures or trying to prevent every possible attack. You can't, the economic damage is massive and you end up in a police state which is where the U.S. and U.K. are heading.
And of course that is classic arms race mentality. Arms races always start because someone says, if we don't develop them our enemies will. And when your enemies hear you saying that they naturally conclude that if they don't develop them you will. And the race is off. And of course once you both start deploying them, then you need countermeasures to each others space weapons, and counter-countermeasures and you need more satellites and weapons in case your enemy takes out all of yours.
What do you end up with, well in the case of the nuclear arms race we ended up with tens of thousands of nukes, that cost a vast fortune to build and that are pretty much useless because the cost of using them is so high.
Fact is as long as the U.S., China and Russia have nuclear weapons they aren't very likely to start taking pot shots at each other or each others satellites. The Chinese are winning their war against the West using economics. The chances are not great many other countries are going to sink the money in to developing space weapons. Chances of asymmetric threats like Islamic fundamentalists developing them are essentially zero.
This is mostly cold warrior thinking, especially from Space Command trying to justify bigger budgets.
A better and cheaper strategy is non proliferation treaties with a strong trust but verify component and to diversify so you aren't completely dependent on space assets.
I can certainly see the military planning for the possibility of their satellites being attacked, hardening them, giving them manuever capability, stealthing them as much as possible, planning for quick replacements and most importantly refraining from being coming completely dependent on them. Maybe its a good idea to retain old fashioned inertial guidance and navigation skills as a backup so you aren't helpless if GPS satellites get wiped, keep laser guided weapons instead of completely depending on GPS guided ones. Maybe its a good idea to retain SR-71 or GlobalHawk class recon capability. Spy satellites have their value but they are to predictable and rigid to be good in a real, modern war against an equivalent opponent. They are great in cold wars and when fighting opponents that are completely outmatched like Iraq.
Long range, stealthed, RPV's are getting so good at recon its open to debate if spy satellites are worth whats being spent on them. Nearly every current spy satellite program is way overbudget and behind schedule due to bad management and contractors like Lockheed milking them for all their worth.
$10 billion here, $10 billion there, before you know it you are talking about some real money.
I'll grant you NASA is pretty inconsequential in the larger scheme of things, but the manned space program has just become so damn good at spending money and having nothing to show for it, that they are like shooting fish in a barrel.
Reality is when the Republicans are in charge they squander lots of the money on military/intelligence spending and subsidies for big corporations who don't need them. When the Democrats are in charge they squander it on social programs and subsidies for big corporations who don't need them.
Neither party can seem to resist the temptation to dish out large helpings of pork that accomplish very little of real value which would be the first obvious place to start reining in spending. Until there is a third party that is fiscally responsible, and has a chance of winning politicians know they can waste money and get away with it as long as they both do it. They can get away with it that is, until the U.S. debt burden leads to an economic calamity, but at that point its to late.
"I cannot concede that Bush tried to convince anyone to "be afraid of gays""
Obviously Bush didn't, he has henchman that did that dirty work, with Karl Rove as their fearless leader. In particular state party machines that got initiatives to their state ballots to outlaw gay marriage which were designed to get out the vote among Christian fundamentalists and homophobes all of whom just happened to vote for the Republicans too in large numbers. There was some pretty scary anonymous propaganda being circulated in various conservative states picturing gays at the altar, gays destroying the bible, dogs marrying cats.... carnage.
"And, now that you've mentioned it"
And at this point I don't know why I'm arguing with you because you just admitted the obvious. The neocons demonized gays in the 2004 election to solidify their support, just like they demonized the Russians, and Jimmy Carter and the Clintons and Saddam and Al Qaeda.
You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain these tactics. Its standard propaganda and its been used by governments and political parties for as long as we have had governments and political parties. The neocons and the New Republican party are just being extraordinarily blatant about it and its been extraordinarily successful with the exception of Iraq where the reality collided with the fiction and fiction lost. Still the neocons have the massive, unfettered military presence they wanted in the Middle East on the borders of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia and it was spectacularly popular when there were glorious tank charges through the desert and not many Americans were being killed. Now you have 1800 hundred dead and thousands more maimed for life based on fiction, certain to not be very popular.
You can Google John Chambers and China and read his own statements on China. He has explicitly said he is making Cisco in to a Chinese company and he is making investments in China based on guidance from the Chinese government. They are moving big chunks of their R&D there and presumably all of their manufacturing. Chambers is Cisco's CEO in case you didn't know.
My theory of Cisco/China buying Nokia has about as much chance at validity as Cisco buying Nokia which is very little.
It didn't work that well but it was almost certainly timed to produce a victory in time for the election. As you recall the neocons were planning to be met with roses in Iraq and for it it to be a flowering U.S. dominated Democracy by election time. The neocons aren't flawless supermen. As I said Iraq backfired on them, which is a real danger of basing policy on the fictions they are manufacturing.
Most of the people who disapproved of Iraq weren't voting for Bush anyway. By the time the neocons finished with the "you can trust us to keep you safe" and "be afraid of gays" rhetoric they sewed up their base in spite of the fact Iraq turned in to a screwup.
"E. Listening to bad pop music is not torture. Being kept awake is not torture"
There is a case in the courts now where an Iraqi general was severely beaten, shoved in a closed sleeping bag and sat on until he died of suffocation. They are charging the grunts who where there as usual, but as usual they conveniently forget to mention the CIA and Delta Force people who are there and running the torture programs The CIA apparently created a secret force of Iraqi's called the "Scorpions" who are starting to resemble a classic CIA trained death squad. They may have been the ones who actually beat and killed the general while their CIA handlers watched.
"So lack of proof of his dastardly plan is itself proof of the insidious nature of his dastardly plan?"
Oops, forgot this one. Like I said the proof is in the behavior of the people he taught, his disciples, in particular Wolfowitz, Perle and the Kristol's. Blair has the look of a classic neocon though I don't think he studied with Strauss. Blair looks like a liberal who has given up on liberalism and now favors whacking people.
I'd sure like to hear a better rationale for the blatant fabrication the neocons indulged in over Iraq, and especially the Office of Special Plans. You have a better one?
"Care to provide some evidence that any legitimate websites or bookstores that have been censored by the UK?"
Yo, dumbass, he just made this speech last week. It is a proposed agenda. I listened to the whole thing. It was quite scary. The UK courts have frustrated most of their previous efforts to institute a police state. In the wake of the London bombing Blair insisted "things have changed". And no doubt they have. Nothing like a terrorist attack to open up the flood gates of repression. Thats why terrorists do it because they want the targeted government to destroy itself with the overreaction, and to persecute Muslims so moderates will abandon the West and join the fundamentalists ranks.
"Providing detailed instructions..."
As I heard Blair's speech it is well beyond censoring website with instructions, its anyone who condones or sympathizes with "terrorism" and that broad bush will be applied as Blair's government see fit.
"May well soon? What kind of fantasy are you constructing? The British people are far more liberal than us Americans. They especially would never stand for that kind of political censorship."
You should have heard Blair's speech and news conference last week because you don't know what you are talking about. Whats the saying, "everthing changed" last week. One of the reporters asked precisely this question, is what he is proposing destroying the very liberty and fairness which is the U.K.'s hallmark, you know, letting the terroists win. The basic tone was Blair's government has had enough of Islamic fundamentalism in their midsts, either assimilate and become good loyal Brits or get whacked. You can hope the courts will frustrate Blair's plan but in the wake of the London bombing I wouldn't count on it.
The scariest thing you hear out of Britain in recent weeks is they are exercising the new law which make it illegal to withhold information from a terrorism information. If you have no information you go to jail, if you have information and reveal it you self incriminate and go to jail, so the best strategy is to make stuff up and falsely incriminate someone innocent.
To be honest I really don't care if you don't mind all this intrusion. I mind. Not being able to go out in public places without the risk that some guy in a uniform who doesn't like the look of you, can stop you at random, shake you down, grope you, exert his power trip over you, demand your papers, look at your private possesions is simply not what supposedly free countries are about. Thats what police states do and it used to be how you differentiated the U.S. from the U.S.S.R, China and Nazi Germany. You could travel and go out in public without having thugs demanding your papers, questioning what you are doing and searching you.
I think all you established in your post is that as long as the erosion of rights is slow and steady you wont notice or mind.
" Further, to assert that searches are an invasion because someone might get caught transporting an illicit substance is what I like to call ridiculous"
Well thats probably because I don't think recreational drug use should be a crime. I pass on them myself but I see no value in turning people in to criminals, and destroying their lives with a criminal record, because they took the subway to a party carrying a couple joints and some guy with a crew cut decided to hassle the guy with the long hair and he had authorization to shake him down thanks to "terrorism". Our prisons are already overflowing with recreational drug users who aren't criminals, until of course they spend time in prison and get turned in to one.
Its just basic libertarianism. I only want law enforcement intervening when one person actually does something that adversely affects another person. When law enforcement starts attempting preemption using random searches it is both scary and ineffective.
If they want to use explosive sniffers and they get a positive then they have a probable cause to search, go for it. Just leave drug sniffing out of it.
"Then again, when have communist states ever been tourist destinations?"
Cuba is a big tourist destination for people who aren't American's. I have a Canadian friends that love going there, and probably do it partially to stick a thumb America's eye. Most Communist countries aren't lush, beautiful tropical isles. I'm sure if it weren't embargoed it, and if the tourist infrastructure were in a little better shape it would still be a major destination for American tourists, though that is more of a curse than a blessing if you've ever seen American tourists in high concentrations.
"Cuba is able to make a peaceful transition into some sort of situation that preserves what gains they have made, rids them of the political prisons, and keeps them in control of their own destiny."
Doubtful. When the counterrevolution comes they will be turned in to a bankrupt culture chasing the beloved buck, with a Starbucks and McDonalds on every corner, organized crime and exploitation artists dominating the economy and getting rich, while average people struggle to put food on the table, just like all of the other former Communist states.
Strauss's writings were mostly on Greek philosophers. He didn't write that much about his theories on the modern world he injected in to neoconservatism. He mostly shunned speaking engagements, interviews, etc. When he did give interviews he didn't share the heart of his doctrine. Strauss's approach to immortality was to surround himself with a cadre of trusted and gifted students, to train them in his world view and then to have his impact on the world be made through them. Stauss's students are his real writings, not his writings. Would have been pretty stupid and counterproductive to give TV interviews describing his plans for training national leaders to manipulate the American public and to take away their excessive freedom. Duh.
"So how, pray tell, did Saddam wind up in jail?"
Dude that is so easy....
At the point Saddam was taken down Al Qaeda had displaced Saddam as the long term, persisten, evil. The problem with Al Qaeda is they are extremely hard to whack. The neocons needed an enemy they could vanquish with a blitzkrieg with their conventional military. They need a stunning victory with smart bombs, tanks racing through the desert, and "Shock and Awe" so Americans could feel good about their awesome power and like they had won a victory against the perpetrators of 9/11, that something was being done. It also was conveniently timed to help insure reelection. Iraq was a convenient conventional target.
Rousting some Al Qaeda operative out of bed in Pakistan and putting him in a dungeon now and then isn't very good theater.
Al Qaeda is going to be the long term shadow evil and danger that never goes away. Iraq, Iran and Syria are going to be the places that get whacked with conventional forces at regular intervals to make good theatre and so the necons can declare victories.
"And yet here you are, posting away on their evil and secret plans, and they haven't even kicked down your door yet, have they? How do you do it?"
Dude its early yet. If you saw Blair's speech last week he is starting the first concerted wave of outlawing websites and bookstores carrying a message the government decides it disapproves of. It will be a crime to frequent or maybe to have frequented these websites and stores.
If I lived in the U.K. some of the stuff I post here seeking to provide understanding for why Palestinians and Muslims might rationalize what they do, may well soon be illegal in the U.K. and grounds for deportation or arrest, assuming Blair rams through the laws he proposed this week.
If the U.K establishes this next step in repression then the U.S. can follow suit and leap frog it and justify it by saying see, the U.K. is already doing it so its OK if we do too.
"Learn a little history, and do a little reading on your own"
Actually I did a while ago after first seeing the BBC documentary. I was totally unaware of Team B because its never been widely advertised. I remember at the time seeing DoD security training films on this massive Soviet arms build up and imminent threat and wondering where all this propaganda was coming from. In part it was Team B, which I didn't know at the time. When you see the parallels between Team B and the Office of Special Plans, suddenly what happened in Iraq makes a whole lot more sense than it did if you don't know the historical context. Before I knew about Team B I used to rant about how crazy all the WMD and Al Qaida ties to Iraq were, and wonder how those people could be that stupid or deceitful. When you see it as long running policy to fabricate, demonize and exaggerate enemies it makes a whole lot more sense.
It also makes a lot a of sense out of the Reagan through Bush "evil empire" and "axis of evil" rhetoric.
This brand of propaganda isn't new or anything, most war time and oppressive governments indulge in it, its just enlightening to see it happening in a supposedly "Free and Democratic" country that doesn't "do such things".
"the inability of socialist states to function in absence of ongoing revolution proved to be their downfall."
I think Cuba's main downfall was they were an island nation with limited resources and they had little chance to succeed once they were embargoed by the nation that economically dominated the region. Especially since their main industry was tourism from America before the revolution. Once the lifeline from the Soviet Union was gone they were doomed but for the fact that Castro holds it together. It would have been interesting to see how Cuba would have faired if it hadn't been in the cross hairs of the U.S. Its hard to say Communism failed due to its own inadequacy when in fact it was fighting a battle for its existence against counter revolution and the Capitalist West and the U.S. in particular played hard ball.
Not having been there I can't say how good or bad life in Cuba is. There certainly isn't any spare affluence, but then too they have truly great health care and education and its available based on need and ability respectively instead of affluence. I imagine I would hate the extent of government intrusion in life being pretty Libertarian, but I can understand why there was a revolution there. The Cuba prior to the Communists was a totally corrupted and exploited place, a repressive strongman running the place while it dominate by the U.S. and U.S. organized crime that used it as an offshore hotbed of vice and corruption where American East Coast could go to party and escape America's puritanical ways. Unfortunately it turned Cuba in to a place dominate by vice, gambling and prostitution which aren't particularly noble pursuits and I could see why the Cuban people might aspire to something different.
Well you are quite correct. Necons and the religious right have in fact marginalized everyone who isn't buying in to their plan. You have to look no further than news organization. Fox News has bought in to neoconservatism, are a leading propagator of their myths, and they are flying high. William Kristol is one of their stars and both he and his dad are famous or infamous neoconservative superstars which is a fact beyond dispute.
I'm willing to believe that, in fact, the Strauss school may well be right. Most people can't cope with Western liberalism, moral relativism, and the complexity of the world stage. Many people need a religion and or government to tell them how to live, and need a government to simplify world affairs in to good versus evil theater. Strauss was a huge fan of Gunsmoke because it always came down to the good guys in the white hats vanquishing the bad guys in the black hats and thats how he wanted the nations leaders to frame every issue for the American public. The neocons theater seldom has any connection to reality but most people don't have the knowledge or the will to figure out the reality for themselves and they probably don't want to know the truth even if they could figure it out. For example most Americans want to believe that America is always right, God's gift to the world, and never does anything bad. They will always refuse to believe otherwise even when the evidence is overwhelming to the contrary.
So yes people like me are being marginalized and being made inconsequential day by day. I wish someone could lobotomize me, that I could be born again, and start believing everything my government and Fox News tells me. Life would be a lot easier and more pleasant.
Slashdot Mirror
I dearly wish someone would do a sequel for Alpha Centauri, preferably with the guy that did the first one (which wasn't really Sid Meier) on the staff.
That is a great game, and I'm ticked it doesn't seem to run on my AMD CPU, says it doesn't recognize the CPU, play at your own risk and then just exits.
Wish it had much better AI's and revived online play or maybe even move to more real-time instead of turn based.
I really wish they would open source it to keep it alive. I know there is Freeciv and all but I don't like Civilization nearly as much as Alpha Centauri.
FPS and MMORPG's get old. I like games with really involved strategy.
I'm skeptical it would be that simple especially in ones with sensitive data on them. I'm assuming you have to send them a somewhat more complex signal to get them to respond.
Just curious .... I'm thinking from a hackers perspective....
Are their semi universal RFID detectors that I could buy that would help me locate any RFID tags in things I own and potentially destroy them, or can they have protocols in them so they only respond to readers that know how to talk the given kind of chip. I'm interested in something that will just spot them and help locate them, not necessarily read the data on them, though reading the data would be cool.
What kinds of secure logins and encryption are available on these things and could DVD Jon crack it in about an hour with the proper equipment?
"Good news for TI, pretty much meaningless for everyone else."
Exactly, if all you're talking about is the cost. The cost of the monthly service overwhelms the cost of the handset. Maybe in underdeveloped countries, like Inida, this might be significant assuming the monthly service is low cost too, with government sponsorship for example. Lots of rural areas still have no phone service and cell is a lot cheaper than running copper or fiber.
Not having RTFA, a benefit that might be in the TI chip set is it might reduce power consumption. Anything that reduces power consuption is a big win in my book in any portable device.
My ideal phone is probably a black and white LED with a simple , easy to use phone book and which is obsessed with:
- Minimum power consumption and maximum battery life
- Best possible reception especially in areas with poor coverage.
You can take the cameras, web browser, ring tones and pretty much everything else cell companies are pushing and shove it.
I could maybe take reading email, if the service didn't cost and arm and a leg, but composing email is pure misery unless you have a really innovative keyboard that is both easy to use and not bulky.
I kind of like voice recognition but not if it costs anything in power consumption.
Exactly. They've been doing live 2 way audio and video from space for a while. I guess they were desperate for a first for this mission so recording MP3 somehow rates NEWS.For some reason this mission has acquired an INCREDIBLE amount of hype for a mission that didn't actually do much.
Its good in that it increases lagging interest in space, its bad because it been so overdone people are getting tired of it. Then they start tuning it out for subsequent missions, kind of like major hype Apollo 11, some hype 12 and everyone was tired of it by 13 until of course there was an accident.
In the article 3 hours ago I posted how glad I was the mission was over so we wouldn't see a post about it every 4 hours on slashdot. I was wrong it took only 3 hours until this one came along.
Don't suppose it occurred to you that the Nation's leading neocons, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Kristol, etc. are the ones giving neocons the bad name?
You can paint them as all foreign policy, and "Freedom and Democracy" but the fact is unless they are in power they are impotent. To get power and keep it they play domestic politics to the hilt and manipulate the American public, all politicians do. Its pretty naive or disingenuous or your part to think there are politicians that don't play POLITICS.
"and liberals have their own mythic boogie men"
Yea, but they totally suck at propagandizing them at least for the last decade or so. If they were any good at it they wouldn't be completely disempowered.
" people who make money and don't feel guilty about it"
You shouldn't feel guilty about it if you made it honestly. Unfortunately its a LOT easier to make money dishonestly and by screwing someone else than it is to sell something valuable at a fair price.
Today there is special irony in the news in that the Republican's passed an Energy bill that includes interest free loans and tax subsidies to encourage oil companies to search for oil, at the same time oil is $64 dollars a barrel and oil company profits doubled and tripled last quarter:
Exxon $7+ billion
Shell $5+ billion
Conoco $3+ billion
Why exactly do these supposed free marketeer Republicans need to use our tax dollars to encourage these fat cats to search for oil, $64 a barrel should be all the incentive they need.
"Incredible. Flawless. Heroic." ... and more importantly its OVER. Not the mission, the articles posted on Slashdot every four hours with people struggling to find something new to say every four hours.
On this side you the people struggling to find new superlatives singing praises of the Shuttle likes it God's gift to mankind, that its "Incredible", "Flawless", "Heroic", "Amazing", a "Remarkable Engineering Achievement", acting like it hasn't flown 114 times and they are just now trying to get it right.
And on this side you have the people pointing out its "A Waste of Money", "A Waste of Time", "Dangerous", "Risky", "Pointless", "A Senseless Diversion", "Boring".
Maybe now we can return to our regularly scheduled programming of duped articles, shameless plugs, stupid Ask Slashdot questions, Microsoft and SCO bashing, Linux and Google worshiping.
Not sure satellites are nearly important to war fighting as you think these days. GPS is pretty important but spy satellites I'm not so sure any more. Personally I think the military should retain the ability to navigate without GPS or they deserve to get lost. Similarly they should maintain precision weapons that don't rely on GPS. Putting all your eggs in the GPS basket would be pretty stupid.
RPV's are rapidly gaining the ability to provide most of the visual and electronic intelligence gathering you need on a battlefield. They are developing great endurance, they are getting stealthy, they are really cheap compared to satellites, can be deployed in large numbers and put no pilot at risk. RPV's fly unpredictable trajectories while satellites tend to be predictable, unpredictable is definitely better since you can hide things from predictable.
Spy satellites had their place in the sun when it became difficult to overfly the Soviet Union with manned U-2's and SR-71's but if you have stealthy RPV's, with great endurance the need for satellites isn't what it once was. Lower flying RPV's are actually better for taking pictures, plus you can change payloads to suit the mission, you can repair them and you can send them where you want, when you want.
With every major new satellite program over budget and behind schedule I'd say its increasingly time to rethink how much is wasted on them. Proposing massive spending to try to defend them is pretty insane. You do want them to do things like detect missile launches and do electronic intelligence gathering in peace time, but if a major shooting war erupts between superpowers I'm inclined to think the military should be ready to switch to RPV's and old fashioned navigation rather than be completely dependent on fragile space assets that are really hard to defend.
"If they were to take hostages among the passengers and demand this armored cockpit to be opened, there is no person with a conscience who would keep the cockpit locked down."
That is completely not the case since 9/11. The policy now is if there is a hijacking in the passenger space the door stays closed. Opening the door accomplishes absolutely nothing except allowing the airplane to be turned in to a weapon and doing more damage than just killing the passengers.
Conventional wisdom since 9/11 is also the passengers and air marshall are going to fight back immediately anyway because the probability of successfully waiting out a hijacking are now considered poor since 9/11.
"Secondly, the doors would have to be opened for other reasons(runs to the john and for refreshments) which could be exploited to gain entry."
Pretty tough to time an attack for these instances. Last time I flew they explicitly prevent people from forming a line at the front john so there is never a crowd near the cockpit. Not sure they have, but if they haven't, you put a closed circuit camera on the door so the crew can insure they only open it when there is no one near it.
"Pakistan - Yes, it's a huge problem, a global center of terrorism and radical Islam. Attacking them now would be foolish, especially when they (much against their will) have a somewhat pro-US leader."
I didn't say "attack" them. I said deal with them. That is a tough nut to crack but one example would have been to apply as much pressure as it took to get troops, from where TBD, in to the tribal areas of Pakistan, pacify them and eliminate them as a safe heaven which is what they've been since the 1970's and the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. When you have a place operating with no law or roder is it surprising it is a lawless region and a haven.
Another example would have been to arrest and detain all the ISI agents Pakistan had in Afghanistan working with the Taliban and Al Qaeda instead of flying them back to Pakistan unhindered. The U.S. should have gotten creative and broken the back of the ISI. They are probably the single biggest danger in the region. Musharef can't control them and they are a massive danger to any pro West Pakistani leader.
A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation was simply unacceptable. For him to get off with no punishment is unacceptable too. It send the message proliferating nukes is A-OK. Either Pakistan should have been pressured to jail him, or the assumption is Pakistan in fact endorsed what he did(or at least the ISI did).
If Pakistan doesn't reform I'm inclined to think they should be cut off, isolated and treated like the imminent danger they are.
"I don't think you can defeat Jihad with purely defensive measures"
I didn't say armored doors were a solution to the whole problem. They were just the sensible solution to the ingenious mode of attack used on 9/11. Armored doors make a lot more sense than the expensive insanity that is the TSA and airports today.
Fact is other forms of attack are still there, they always will be there. The point is to take simple measures to prevent attacks that are preventable, instead of running amok and extreme measures or trying to prevent every possible attack. You can't, the economic damage is massive and you end up in a police state which is where the U.S. and U.K. are heading.
And of course that is classic arms race mentality. Arms races always start because someone says, if we don't develop them our enemies will. And when your enemies hear you saying that they naturally conclude that if they don't develop them you will. And the race is off. And of course once you both start deploying them, then you need countermeasures to each others space weapons, and counter-countermeasures and you need more satellites and weapons in case your enemy takes out all of yours.
What do you end up with, well in the case of the nuclear arms race we ended up with tens of thousands of nukes, that cost a vast fortune to build and that are pretty much useless because the cost of using them is so high.
Fact is as long as the U.S., China and Russia have nuclear weapons they aren't very likely to start taking pot shots at each other or each others satellites. The Chinese are winning their war against the West using economics. The chances are not great many other countries are going to sink the money in to developing space weapons. Chances of asymmetric threats like Islamic fundamentalists developing them are essentially zero.
This is mostly cold warrior thinking, especially from Space Command trying to justify bigger budgets.
A better and cheaper strategy is non proliferation treaties with a strong trust but verify component and to diversify so you aren't completely dependent on space assets.
I can certainly see the military planning for the possibility of their satellites being attacked, hardening them, giving them manuever capability, stealthing them as much as possible, planning for quick replacements and most importantly refraining from being coming completely dependent on them. Maybe its a good idea to retain old fashioned inertial guidance and navigation skills as a backup so you aren't helpless if GPS satellites get wiped, keep laser guided weapons instead of completely depending on GPS guided ones. Maybe its a good idea to retain SR-71 or GlobalHawk class recon capability. Spy satellites have their value but they are to predictable and rigid to be good in a real, modern war against an equivalent opponent. They are great in cold wars and when fighting opponents that are completely outmatched like Iraq.
Long range, stealthed, RPV's are getting so good at recon its open to debate if spy satellites are worth whats being spent on them. Nearly every current spy satellite program is way overbudget and behind schedule due to bad management and contractors like Lockheed milking them for all their worth.
$10 billion here, $10 billion there, before you know it you are talking about some real money.
I'll grant you NASA is pretty inconsequential in the larger scheme of things, but the manned space program has just become so damn good at spending money and having nothing to show for it, that they are like shooting fish in a barrel.
Reality is when the Republicans are in charge they squander lots of the money on military/intelligence spending and subsidies for big corporations who don't need them. When the Democrats are in charge they squander it on social programs and subsidies for big corporations who don't need them.
Neither party can seem to resist the temptation to dish out large helpings of pork that accomplish very little of real value which would be the first obvious place to start reining in spending. Until there is a third party that is fiscally responsible, and has a chance of winning politicians know they can waste money and get away with it as long as they both do it. They can get away with it that is, until the U.S. debt burden leads to an economic calamity, but at that point its to late.
"I cannot concede that Bush tried to convince anyone to "be afraid of gays""
.... carnage.
Obviously Bush didn't, he has henchman that did that dirty work, with Karl Rove as their fearless leader. In particular state party machines that got initiatives to their state ballots to outlaw gay marriage which were designed to get out the vote among Christian fundamentalists and homophobes all of whom just happened to vote for the Republicans too in large numbers. There was some pretty scary anonymous propaganda being circulated in various conservative states picturing gays at the altar, gays destroying the bible, dogs marrying cats
"And, now that you've mentioned it"
And at this point I don't know why I'm arguing with you because you just admitted the obvious. The neocons demonized gays in the 2004 election to solidify their support, just like they demonized the Russians, and Jimmy Carter and the Clintons and Saddam and Al Qaeda.
You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain these tactics. Its standard propaganda and its been used by governments and political parties for as long as we have had governments and political parties. The neocons and the New Republican party are just being extraordinarily blatant about it and its been extraordinarily successful with the exception of Iraq where the reality collided with the fiction and fiction lost. Still the neocons have the massive, unfettered military presence they wanted in the Middle East on the borders of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia and it was spectacularly popular when there were glorious tank charges through the desert and not many Americans were being killed. Now you have 1800 hundred dead and thousands more maimed for life based on fiction, certain to not be very popular.
That is spelled Chinophobia, dumbass.
You can Google John Chambers and China and read his own statements on China. He has explicitly said he is making Cisco in to a Chinese company and he is making investments in China based on guidance from the Chinese government. They are moving big chunks of their R&D there and presumably all of their manufacturing. Chambers is Cisco's CEO in case you didn't know.
My theory of Cisco/China buying Nokia has about as much chance at validity as Cisco buying Nokia which is very little.
It didn't work that well but it was almost certainly timed to produce a victory in time for the election. As you recall the neocons were planning to be met with roses in Iraq and for it it to be a flowering U.S. dominated Democracy by election time. The neocons aren't flawless supermen. As I said Iraq backfired on them, which is a real danger of basing policy on the fictions they are manufacturing.
Most of the people who disapproved of Iraq weren't voting for Bush anyway. By the time the neocons finished with the "you can trust us to keep you safe" and "be afraid of gays" rhetoric they sewed up their base in spite of the fact Iraq turned in to a screwup.
"E. Listening to bad pop music is not torture. Being kept awake is not torture"
There is a case in the courts now where an Iraqi general was severely beaten, shoved in a closed sleeping bag and sat on until he died of suffocation. They are charging the grunts who where there as usual, but as usual they conveniently forget to mention the CIA and Delta Force people who are there and running the torture programs The CIA apparently created a secret force of Iraqi's called the "Scorpions" who are starting to resemble a classic CIA trained death squad. They may have been the ones who actually beat and killed the general while their CIA handlers watched.
I didn't know Mugabe was a a religious fanatic, I just though he was a corrupt dictator, so know it wasn't him I was thinking of :)
"So lack of proof of his dastardly plan is itself proof of the insidious nature of his dastardly plan?"
Oops, forgot this one. Like I said the proof is in the behavior of the people he taught, his disciples, in particular Wolfowitz, Perle and the Kristol's. Blair has the look of a classic neocon though I don't think he studied with Strauss. Blair looks like a liberal who has given up on liberalism and now favors whacking people.
I'd sure like to hear a better rationale for the blatant fabrication the neocons indulged in over Iraq, and especially the Office of Special Plans. You have a better one?
"Care to provide some evidence that any legitimate websites or bookstores that have been censored by the UK?"
Yo, dumbass, he just made this speech last week. It is a proposed agenda. I listened to the whole thing. It was quite scary. The UK courts have frustrated most of their previous efforts to institute a police state. In the wake of the London bombing Blair insisted "things have changed". And no doubt they have. Nothing like a terrorist attack to open up the flood gates of repression. Thats why terrorists do it because they want the targeted government to destroy itself with the overreaction, and to persecute Muslims so moderates will abandon the West and join the fundamentalists ranks.
"Providing detailed instructions..."
As I heard Blair's speech it is well beyond censoring website with instructions, its anyone who condones or sympathizes with "terrorism" and that broad bush will be applied as Blair's government see fit.
"May well soon? What kind of fantasy are you constructing? The British people are far more liberal than us Americans. They especially would never stand for that kind of political censorship."
You should have heard Blair's speech and news conference last week because you don't know what you are talking about. Whats the saying, "everthing changed" last week. One of the reporters asked precisely this question, is what he is proposing destroying the very liberty and fairness which is the U.K.'s hallmark, you know, letting the terroists win. The basic tone was Blair's government has had enough of Islamic fundamentalism in their midsts, either assimilate and become good loyal Brits or get whacked. You can hope the courts will frustrate Blair's plan but in the wake of the London bombing I wouldn't count on it.
The scariest thing you hear out of Britain in recent weeks is they are exercising the new law which make it illegal to withhold information from a terrorism information. If you have no information you go to jail, if you have information and reveal it you self incriminate and go to jail, so the best strategy is to make stuff up and falsely incriminate someone innocent.
To be honest I really don't care if you don't mind all this intrusion. I mind. Not being able to go out in public places without the risk that some guy in a uniform who doesn't like the look of you, can stop you at random, shake you down, grope you, exert his power trip over you, demand your papers, look at your private possesions is simply not what supposedly free countries are about. Thats what police states do and it used to be how you differentiated the U.S. from the U.S.S.R, China and Nazi Germany. You could travel and go out in public without having thugs demanding your papers, questioning what you are doing and searching you.
I think all you established in your post is that as long as the erosion of rights is slow and steady you wont notice or mind.
" Further, to assert that searches are an invasion because someone might get caught transporting an illicit substance is what I like to call ridiculous"
Well thats probably because I don't think recreational drug use should be a crime. I pass on them myself but I see no value in turning people in to criminals, and destroying their lives with a criminal record, because they took the subway to a party carrying a couple joints and some guy with a crew cut decided to hassle the guy with the long hair and he had authorization to shake him down thanks to "terrorism". Our prisons are already overflowing with recreational drug users who aren't criminals, until of course they spend time in prison and get turned in to one.
Its just basic libertarianism. I only want law enforcement intervening when one person actually does something that adversely affects another person. When law enforcement starts attempting preemption using random searches it is both scary and ineffective.
If they want to use explosive sniffers and they get a positive then they have a probable cause to search, go for it. Just leave drug sniffing out of it.
"Then again, when have communist states ever been tourist destinations?"
Cuba is a big tourist destination for people who aren't American's. I have a Canadian friends that love going there, and probably do it partially to stick a thumb America's eye. Most Communist countries aren't lush, beautiful tropical isles. I'm sure if it weren't embargoed it, and if the tourist infrastructure were in a little better shape it would still be a major destination for American tourists, though that is more of a curse than a blessing if you've ever seen American tourists in high concentrations.
"Cuba is able to make a peaceful transition into some sort of situation that preserves what gains they have made, rids them of the political prisons, and keeps them in control of their own destiny."
Doubtful. When the counterrevolution comes they will be turned in to a bankrupt culture chasing the beloved buck, with a Starbucks and McDonalds on every corner, organized crime and exploitation artists dominating the economy and getting rich, while average people struggle to put food on the table, just like all of the other former Communist states.
"yet purposefully misrepresents his writings"
Strauss's writings were mostly on Greek philosophers. He didn't write that much about his theories on the modern world he injected in to neoconservatism. He mostly shunned speaking engagements, interviews, etc. When he did give interviews he didn't share the heart of his doctrine. Strauss's approach to immortality was to surround himself with a cadre of trusted and gifted students, to train them in his world view and then to have his impact on the world be made through them. Stauss's students are his real writings, not his writings. Would have been pretty stupid and counterproductive to give TV interviews describing his plans for training national leaders to manipulate the American public and to take away their excessive freedom. Duh.
"So how, pray tell, did Saddam wind up in jail?"
Dude that is so easy....
At the point Saddam was taken down Al Qaeda had displaced Saddam as the long term, persisten, evil. The problem with Al Qaeda is they are extremely hard to whack. The neocons needed an enemy they could vanquish with a blitzkrieg with their conventional military. They need a stunning victory with smart bombs, tanks racing through the desert, and "Shock and Awe" so Americans could feel good about their awesome power and like they had won a victory against the perpetrators of 9/11, that something was being done. It also was conveniently timed to help insure reelection. Iraq was a convenient conventional target.
Rousting some Al Qaeda operative out of bed in Pakistan and putting him in a dungeon now and then isn't very good theater.
Al Qaeda is going to be the long term shadow evil and danger that never goes away. Iraq, Iran and Syria are going to be the places that get whacked with conventional forces at regular intervals to make good theatre and so the necons can declare victories.
"And yet here you are, posting away on their evil and secret plans, and they haven't even kicked down your door yet, have they? How do you do it?"
Dude its early yet. If you saw Blair's speech last week he is starting the first concerted wave of outlawing websites and bookstores carrying a message the government decides it disapproves of. It will be a crime to frequent or maybe to have frequented these websites and stores.
If I lived in the U.K. some of the stuff I post here seeking to provide understanding for why Palestinians and Muslims might rationalize what they do, may well soon be illegal in the U.K. and grounds for deportation or arrest, assuming Blair rams through the laws he proposed this week.
If the U.K establishes this next step in repression then the U.S. can follow suit and leap frog it and justify it by saying see, the U.K. is already doing it so its OK if we do too.
"Learn a little history, and do a little reading on your own"
Actually I did a while ago after first seeing the BBC documentary. I was totally unaware of Team B because its never been widely advertised. I remember at the time seeing DoD security training films on this massive Soviet arms build up and imminent threat and wondering where all this propaganda was coming from. In part it was Team B, which I didn't know at the time. When you see the parallels between Team B and the Office of Special Plans, suddenly what happened in Iraq makes a whole lot more sense than it did if you don't know the historical context. Before I knew about Team B I used to rant about how crazy all the WMD and Al Qaida ties to Iraq were, and wonder how those people could be that stupid or deceitful. When you see it as long running policy to fabricate, demonize and exaggerate enemies it makes a whole lot more sense.
It also makes a lot a of sense out of the Reagan through Bush "evil empire" and "axis of evil" rhetoric.
This brand of propaganda isn't new or anything, most war time and oppressive governments indulge in it, its just enlightening to see it happening in a supposedly "Free and Democratic" country that doesn't "do such things".
"the inability of socialist states to function in absence of ongoing revolution proved to be their downfall."
I think Cuba's main downfall was they were an island nation with limited resources and they had little chance to succeed once they were embargoed by the nation that economically dominated the region. Especially since their main industry was tourism from America before the revolution. Once the lifeline from the Soviet Union was gone they were doomed but for the fact that Castro holds it together. It would have been interesting to see how Cuba would have faired if it hadn't been in the cross hairs of the U.S. Its hard to say Communism failed due to its own inadequacy when in fact it was fighting a battle for its existence against counter revolution and the Capitalist West and the U.S. in particular played hard ball.
Not having been there I can't say how good or bad life in Cuba is. There certainly isn't any spare affluence, but then too they have truly great health care and education and its available based on need and ability respectively instead of affluence. I imagine I would hate the extent of government intrusion in life being pretty Libertarian, but I can understand why there was a revolution there. The Cuba prior to the Communists was a totally corrupted and exploited place, a repressive strongman running the place while it dominate by the U.S. and U.S. organized crime that used it as an offshore hotbed of vice and corruption where American East Coast could go to party and escape America's puritanical ways. Unfortunately it turned Cuba in to a place dominate by vice, gambling and prostitution which aren't particularly noble pursuits and I could see why the Cuban people might aspire to something different.
Well you are quite correct. Necons and the religious right have in fact marginalized everyone who isn't buying in to their plan. You have to look no further than news organization. Fox News has bought in to neoconservatism, are a leading propagator of their myths, and they are flying high. William Kristol is one of their stars and both he and his dad are famous or infamous neoconservative superstars which is a fact beyond dispute.
I'm willing to believe that, in fact, the Strauss school may well be right. Most people can't cope with Western liberalism, moral relativism, and the complexity of the world stage. Many people need a religion and or government to tell them how to live, and need a government to simplify world affairs in to good versus evil theater. Strauss was a huge fan of Gunsmoke because it always came down to the good guys in the white hats vanquishing the bad guys in the black hats and thats how he wanted the nations leaders to frame every issue for the American public. The neocons theater seldom has any connection to reality but most people don't have the knowledge or the will to figure out the reality for themselves and they probably don't want to know the truth even if they could figure it out. For example most Americans want to believe that America is always right, God's gift to the world, and never does anything bad. They will always refuse to believe otherwise even when the evidence is overwhelming to the contrary.
So yes people like me are being marginalized and being made inconsequential day by day. I wish someone could lobotomize me, that I could be born again, and start believing everything my government and Fox News tells me. Life would be a lot easier and more pleasant.