Yes, but Echelon only provides as much intelligence (on US citizens in the USA) as Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand [1] can gather electronically. This will allow the (US) Three Letter Agencies to gather much more intel, much more freely.
[1] Echelon is the UKUSA nations - USA, and the 4 listed above. It's a neat way to for the five nations to avoid spying on their own citizens - by getting their allies to do it.
If.us is for the US, shouldn't all those.gov and.mil and.edu domains be under.us?
Optional. The UK's Labour Party use labour.org.uk because they're a unionist (pro-United Kingdom) party; the Scottish National party use snp.org, because they're anti-union/pro-independance and consequently don't wish to be seen as a UK party.
I'd guess Tony Blair could register number10.gov quite easily, but he [1] chooses not to. By the same token the US might (I have no idea) have some agency that wishes to be associated more with.us than.gov. Any conclusions drawn by the predominance of.gov and.mil TLDs within Washington DC is left as a exercise to the historically minded (or the tinfoil-hatters).
This site were/are providing download facilities for an album in aid of Oxfam's campaign for Darfur.
Apparently, because the DRMed-album is in Windows-only format, people with browsers like Firefox are forbidden - presumably our use of Firefox proves we're going to try and use Winamp to bypass DRM...or something.
You're right though - there are precious few web-developers stupid enough to build for IE and IE alone these days.
What's wrong with the power button on the front? I know it's not exactly the same as the physical switch on the back, but I've literally have never used that switch beyond the first time I ever turned my PS2 on (I got it a week after the original launch).
I was told that the biggest problem with PS2s is that the power supply burns out, if you leave it on standby all the time. I've no idea how true this is; my girlfriend prohibits LEDs from glowing...;)
Does this include computers being mauled by worms and spyware because the user is John Q. Clicksyesalot?
I'd guess yes. According to the article approx. 1000 companies averaged 1000 seats: I'd guess most users at each site were "your typical spyware accumulators". Europe simply doesn't have 1000 mega-IT companies.
(Disclaimer: working for a tiny-ickle European IT company)
Aye, I suspected something stupid like that. Daft logic - "if you use Firefox you must be planing to use Winamp". Daft. Still, their loss. It's just a pity "they" in this case is a charity (Oxfam) and a cause (Darfur) I support.
What sites are these? People keep saying this but I haven't encountered any site that "only works in IE" for years.
this one? (It's a link to download the Oxfam album in aid of Darfur; apparently only IE users may contribute).
You're broadly right, though. This is pretty much the only site I've seen in at least a year that doesn't render in the mighty 'fox.
(Incidentally, I mailed the site admin to tell them my woes, and was told "I am sorry that the service is not of use to you because Firefox is unfortunately not a compatible browser." So there you have it: Firefox isn't compatible! That's me told! Dang those standards-supporting Mozilla folk!)
I fact, I've been waiting for free-download Oracle/DB2 "personal database" or some limited opensource release of Oracle/DB2 for a while.
I may be way off-base here, so apologies if I've missed the point, but Oracle have allowed free-downloads for at least a couple of years: Linux version of Oracle 10g.
Not free-as-in-speech, and if you want to deploy it commercially it's not even free-as-in-beer, but it does seem to meet your "personal database" criteria: it's the reason I've more Oracle experience[1] that SQL Server experience (though MSDE briefly threatned to change that - to some extent).
I'd need to check, but a few years back DB2 was also a free download, with the no-commercial-depolyment caveat. I'd be surpirsed if it still isn't; it's a neat trick to get developers hooked on cheap/free versions so that their organisations then migrate.
Earlier today the same poster (SlashdotHiveMind) posted a long diatribe about problems with Mandrake - to a discussion about VoIP in the UK. I have a feeling this rant may have been pre-composed by a site with a curious dislike for slashdot. But hey! Prove me wrong, SlashdotHiveMind!
That I'll be able to get a London Telephone number, while I remain in the US?
The BBC just mention 056 numbers in their article, but I'm sure my morning coffee-and-teletext session suggested that there'd be geographic numbers as well. I'm guessing you'd only be allowed an 0207/0208 number if your billing address was in London. Maybe you could get a friend or relative to... assist you?
Yes. He's the CEO (?) of CNN, and married to Jane Fonda. He's the only major player in the US media who I could say, hand on heart, isn't a Republican. However, he's still a conservative - does the People's Republic of China mean anything to you?
Now, can you name me any other major media moguls - or, indeed, any minor media moguls - that might be described as liberal?
Sorry, but there's still a leftist slant in the general media...People very far on the left generally don't see it for the same reason people on the right think Fox is "fair and balanced".
I suspect you could easily swap "right-wing" for "leftist" and be just as correct: the media is amorphous and populist; it'll promote certain stories to sell newspapers, even if those stories are not in the interest of the proprietor or shareholders. Likewise other - controversial - stories might be promoted when the proprietor or shareholders might benefit. I certainly agree with your comment that "One [explanation for under-reporting] may be that the stories are ones that are against the interests of large media conglomerates to print."
Another possibility is that these stories are ones that no respectable news organization takes seriously, and the writer of the article is a bit of an extremist nut-job.
Possibly, but many of the stories have been reported in Britain by the mainstream press (I don't read the Guardian, before I get accused of basing mainstream press on the left-most broadsheet!)
The fact that anyone is printing these means it's not "censored" by the government, but, if anything, under-reported.
I thought this was sloppy headline-writing, but I still agree with the basic premise: under-reporting is a form of censorship. On September 11th 2001 an advisor to a British minister suggested that that day would be "a good day to bury bad news". It was disgusting, and she (eventually) resigned, but I'm sure politicians and PR departments do this every day of every year. A slightly more obvious example: is it censorship when a journalist decides not to publish a story because he fears reprisals? I'd suggest yes, but I accept it is debateable.
Liberal journalists report to sub-editors who report to editors who report to directors who report to boards who report to shareholders. You think the board of any major news-gathering organisation consist of Socialist Party members - or Republicans? Or at least people on salaries that would benefit more from a Republican economic policy than a Democrat one?
Maybe political power rests with the "right" but the last time I checked the balance of power in the Senate and House was pretty evenly matched. Take off your tin-foil hat.
The Senate and House serve as a balance to the Office of the President; I'd suggest if they're split evenly if gives greater power (opportunity, whatever) to the President. You neglected to mention the Legislative branch; however, I'll concede that there, too, there are balances. It doesn't alter the fact that - right now - most people would acknowledge that it would be more accurate to describe the USA as "right-wing", compared to, say, 5 years ago (which most people, in the US at least[1], would probably class as "left-wing").
And I resent the implication in the tin-foil hat comment. I made a comment about political reality, not some half-baked fear that "those damn Republicans are out to draft my daughter".
[1] I'm not a US resident: I regard Clinton as a centrist politican, albeit slightly left-of-centre.
...how all of these 'censored' stories reflect a left-leaning viewpoint.
It's not that interesting. Power right now rests with the right; stories with a right-wing slant are promoted, left-leaning stories demoted or censored. The time to complain about a left-wing slant in when power rests with the left.
This site does appear to be a bit to the left, though.
Agreed, but... there's probably a limit to how much blue-pencilling the left can do right now. It'd be interesting (once their server recovers...) to see what their slant was during the Clinton years.
Article doesn't address whether or not we can turn DBFS off and use the more traditional hierarchical method of file placement.
I would imagine the article author thought it was a given: we currently have choices of various file-systems, with no one FS requiring it be used to the exclusion of all others. I'd be highly surprised if DBFS was any different: people who want to use it will use it, and people who want to use Reiser4 will use that, and people who want to ext2 will use that.
If some "Operator" [http://brew.qualcomm.com/brew/en/operator/op_dire ctory.html] were to post the Operator Gudelines [https://brewx.qualcomm.com/brew/sdk/authdownload. jsp?page=dx/operatorguidelines], then there'd be a lot more items to discuss.
Top tip: if some operator posted a valid username and password, then we'd have a lot more to discuss:
Access to page has not been authorized.
This server could not verify that you are authorized to access the document requested. Either you supplied the wrong credentials (ex: bad password) or your browser doesn't understand how to supply the credentials required.
(web error 401)
I get the impression that the majority of people who vehemently oppose surveillance cameras live in nice, affluent suburbs lined with picket fences and friendly neighbours
...so you're going to generalise. Speaking for myself, I live in inner-city Glasgow (15 years), I've previously posted in this thread about my father-in-law (lives in a Coatbridge scheme), and, for the record, prior to living in Glasgow I lived in central and North London (Hackney - you may have heard of it).
My opposition to ubiquitous CCTV is that it doesn't work. Did the police catch the car bombers you mentioned? Do cameras prevent or deter hand-grenandes being thrown through windows?
Additionally, I really don't care if my pixellated face is seen by Joe Q Security Guard. I do object to same security guard zooming in on my partner "because she's a babe", and currently I have no assurances that this doesn't happen. Who watches the watchers? I have no idea - no one will tell me.
Echelon is the name of NSA's communication surveillance system. It has nothing to do with the British government or cameras
You're thinking, I presume, of CARNIVORE. Echelon is most certainly a British project, along with the USA, Canada, Australia and (hang my head in shame) New Zealand. What little we know about Echelon has largely come from the European Union, who, understandably, are slightly concerned that an EU member may be passing intelligence on, say, Germany or Italy, to, say, the US or Australia. Of course, other EU states (<ahem>France</ahem>) have been known to spy on their neighbours too...
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but Echelon only provides as much intelligence (on US citizens in the USA) as Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand [1] can gather electronically. This will allow the (US) Three Letter Agencies to gather much more intel, much more freely.
[1] Echelon is the UKUSA nations - USA, and the 4 listed above. It's a neat way to for the five nations to avoid spying on their own citizens - by getting their allies to do it.
If .us is for the US, shouldn't all those .gov and .mil and .edu domains be under .us?
Optional. The UK's Labour Party use labour.org.uk because they're a unionist (pro-United Kingdom) party; the Scottish National party use snp.org, because they're anti-union/pro-independance and consequently don't wish to be seen as a UK party.
I'd guess Tony Blair could register number10.gov quite easily, but he [1] chooses not to. By the same token the US might (I have no idea) have some agency that wishes to be associated more with .us than .gov. Any conclusions drawn by the predominance of .gov and .mil TLDs within Washington DC is left as a exercise to the historically minded (or the tinfoil-hatters).
[1] Or some faceless Whitehall mandarin.
Punnery is the lowest humor.
Yeah, right. I think you'll find it's sarcasm.
;)
This site were/are providing download facilities for an album in aid of Oxfam's campaign for Darfur.
Apparently, because the DRMed-album is in Windows-only format, people with browsers like Firefox are forbidden - presumably our use of Firefox proves we're going to try and use Winamp to bypass DRM...or something.
You're right though - there are precious few web-developers stupid enough to build for IE and IE alone these days.
What's wrong with the power button on the front? I know it's not exactly the same as the physical switch on the back, but I've literally have never used that switch beyond the first time I ever turned my PS2 on (I got it a week after the original launch).
I was told that the biggest problem with PS2s is that the power supply burns out, if you leave it on standby all the time. I've no idea how true this is; my girlfriend prohibits LEDs from glowing... ;)
Next thing you know Microsoft will start asking Windows pirates to come forward on their own volition.
Never gonna happen.
(Sheesh, this is like the time I discovered that there were 13 months in the year, according to Java, or bytes didn't necessarily have 8 bits)
Does this include computers being mauled by worms and spyware because the user is John Q. Clicksyesalot?
I'd guess yes. According to the article approx. 1000 companies averaged 1000 seats: I'd guess most users at each site were "your typical spyware accumulators". Europe simply doesn't have 1000 mega-IT companies.
(Disclaimer: working for a tiny-ickle European IT company)
Aye, I suspected something stupid like that. Daft logic - "if you use Firefox you must be planing to use Winamp". Daft. Still, their loss. It's just a pity "they" in this case is a charity (Oxfam) and a cause (Darfur) I support.
What sites are these? People keep saying this but I haven't encountered any site that "only works in IE" for years.
this one? (It's a link to download the Oxfam album in aid of Darfur; apparently only IE users may contribute).
You're broadly right, though. This is pretty much the only site I've seen in at least a year that doesn't render in the mighty 'fox.
(Incidentally, I mailed the site admin to tell them my woes, and was told "I am sorry that the service is not of use to you because Firefox is unfortunately not a compatible browser." So there you have it: Firefox isn't compatible! That's me told! Dang those standards-supporting Mozilla folk!)
I fact, I've been waiting for free-download Oracle/DB2 "personal database" or some limited opensource release of Oracle/DB2 for a while.
I may be way off-base here, so apologies if I've missed the point, but Oracle have allowed free-downloads for at least a couple of years: Linux version of Oracle 10g.
Not free-as-in-speech, and if you want to deploy it commercially it's not even free-as-in-beer, but it does seem to meet your "personal database" criteria: it's the reason I've more Oracle experience[1] that SQL Server experience (though MSDE briefly threatned to change that - to some extent).
I'd need to check, but a few years back DB2 was also a free download, with the no-commercial-depolyment caveat. I'd be surpirsed if it still isn't; it's a neat trick to get developers hooked on cheap/free versions so that their organisations then migrate.
[1] Twice as much - a whole extra week ;)
could this be some sort of script that searches the internet for rants and matches them with slashdot topics ?
It wouldn't surprise me. I stumbled into the anti-/. world a while back, and it appears that no task is too trivial for these kiddies.
Earlier today the same poster (SlashdotHiveMind) posted a long diatribe about problems with Mandrake - to a discussion about VoIP in the UK. I have a feeling this rant may have been pre-composed by a site with a curious dislike for slashdot. But hey! Prove me wrong, SlashdotHiveMind!
That I'll be able to get a London Telephone number, while I remain in the US?
The BBC just mention 056 numbers in their article, but I'm sure my morning coffee-and-teletext session suggested that there'd be geographic numbers as well. I'm guessing you'd only be allowed an 0207/0208 number if your billing address was in London. Maybe you could get a friend or relative to ... assist you?
We will now truly be able to figure out how many New Zealanders it takes to change a light bulb.
Just one, but he won't change the bulb - he'll fix it using bind-a-twine and 8-guage fencing wire.
(Disclaimer: exiled Kiwi)
1 000 000 000 is one billion in America and primarily one thousand million elsewhere.
Currently this meaning [10^9 == 1 billion] is the preferred meaning in financial world (it looks more); therefore most English-speaking countries, such as the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Australia, now use this value.
I'm with the USA on this one. Now if we can just get you guys to put a "u" in color, and we'll be sorted ;)
does the name Ted Turner mean anything to you?
Yes. He's the CEO (?) of CNN, and married to Jane Fonda. He's the only major player in the US media who I could say, hand on heart, isn't a Republican. However, he's still a conservative - does the People's Republic of China mean anything to you?
Now, can you name me any other major media moguls - or, indeed, any minor media moguls - that might be described as liberal?
Sorry, but there's still a leftist slant in the general media...People very far on the left generally don't see it for the same reason people on the right think Fox is "fair and balanced".
I suspect you could easily swap "right-wing" for "leftist" and be just as correct: the media is amorphous and populist; it'll promote certain stories to sell newspapers, even if those stories are not in the interest of the proprietor or shareholders. Likewise other - controversial - stories might be promoted when the proprietor or shareholders might benefit. I certainly agree with your comment that "One [explanation for under-reporting] may be that the stories are ones that are against the interests of large media conglomerates to print."
Another possibility is that these stories are ones that no respectable news organization takes seriously, and the writer of the article is a bit of an extremist nut-job.
Possibly, but many of the stories have been reported in Britain by the mainstream press (I don't read the Guardian, before I get accused of basing mainstream press on the left-most broadsheet!)
The fact that anyone is printing these means it's not "censored" by the government, but, if anything, under-reported.
I thought this was sloppy headline-writing, but I still agree with the basic premise: under-reporting is a form of censorship. On September 11th 2001 an advisor to a British minister suggested that that day would be "a good day to bury bad news". It was disgusting, and she (eventually) resigned, but I'm sure politicians and PR departments do this every day of every year. A slightly more obvious example: is it censorship when a journalist decides not to publish a story because he fears reprisals? I'd suggest yes, but I accept it is debateable.
Who controls the media in this country?
Corporations and shareholders?
But seriously, how naive are you?
Liberal journalists report to sub-editors who report to editors who report to directors who report to boards who report to shareholders. You think the board of any major news-gathering organisation consist of Socialist Party members - or Republicans? Or at least people on salaries that would benefit more from a Republican economic policy than a Democrat one?
Maybe political power rests with the "right" but the last time I checked the balance of power in the Senate and House was pretty evenly matched. Take off your tin-foil hat.
The Senate and House serve as a balance to the Office of the President; I'd suggest if they're split evenly if gives greater power (opportunity, whatever) to the President. You neglected to mention the Legislative branch; however, I'll concede that there, too, there are balances. It doesn't alter the fact that - right now - most people would acknowledge that it would be more accurate to describe the USA as "right-wing", compared to, say, 5 years ago (which most people, in the US at least[1], would probably class as "left-wing").
And I resent the implication in the tin-foil hat comment. I made a comment about political reality, not some half-baked fear that "those damn Republicans are out to draft my daughter".
[1] I'm not a US resident: I regard Clinton as a centrist politican, albeit slightly left-of-centre.
It's not that interesting. Power right now rests with the right; stories with a right-wing slant are promoted, left-leaning stories demoted or censored. The time to complain about a left-wing slant in when power rests with the left.
This site does appear to be a bit to the left, though.
Agreed, but... there's probably a limit to how much blue-pencilling the left can do right now. It'd be interesting (once their server recovers...) to see what their slant was during the Clinton years.
Article doesn't address whether or not we can turn DBFS off and use the more traditional hierarchical method of file placement.
I would imagine the article author thought it was a given: we currently have choices of various file-systems, with no one FS requiring it be used to the exclusion of all others. I'd be highly surprised if DBFS was any different: people who want to use it will use it, and people who want to use Reiser4 will use that, and people who want to ext2 will use that.
If some "Operator" [http://brew.qualcomm.com/brew/en/operator/op_dire ctory.html] were to post the Operator Gudelines [https://brewx.qualcomm.com/brew/sdk/authdownload. jsp?page=dx/operatorguidelines], then there'd be a lot more items to discuss.
Top tip: if some operator posted a valid username and password, then we'd have a lot more to discuss:
I like Firefox as much as the next guy, I'm using it right now, but Reverence? Please.
To misquote the late, great, Bill Shankly -
Some people think using Firefox is a life of death issue. It's not. It's much more important than that.
;)
I get the impression that the majority of people who vehemently oppose surveillance cameras live in nice, affluent suburbs lined with picket fences and friendly neighbours
...so you're going to generalise. Speaking for myself, I live in inner-city Glasgow (15 years), I've previously posted in this thread about my father-in-law (lives in a Coatbridge scheme), and, for the record, prior to living in Glasgow I lived in central and North London (Hackney - you may have heard of it).
My opposition to ubiquitous CCTV is that it doesn't work. Did the police catch the car bombers you mentioned? Do cameras prevent or deter hand-grenandes being thrown through windows?
Additionally, I really don't care if my pixellated face is seen by Joe Q Security Guard. I do object to same security guard zooming in on my partner "because she's a babe", and currently I have no assurances that this doesn't happen. Who watches the watchers? I have no idea - no one will tell me.
Echelon is the name of NSA's communication surveillance system. It has nothing to do with the British government or cameras
You're thinking, I presume, of CARNIVORE. Echelon is most certainly a British project, along with the USA, Canada, Australia and (hang my head in shame) New Zealand. What little we know about Echelon has largely come from the European Union, who, understandably, are slightly concerned that an EU member may be passing intelligence on, say, Germany or Italy, to, say, the US or Australia. Of course, other EU states (<ahem>France</ahem>) have been known to spy on their neighbours too...