Thanks for that, I'll try it out sometime. The author of the program says that there wont be much added security using this, but that's okay by me. I just want to mess with a few people's printers and Photoshop.
The first pdf on that euronize page shows the pattern very nicely. It's interesting to actually see it.
Just why is this stupid? Counterfiting is illegal and undesirable. Please explain your opinion.
I'm neither the original poster, nor do I necessarily agree with him. But I think I can do a good job as advocate for the Devil.
The obstensible objection to the hardware and software currency detection would probably be that it does nothing to catch actual counterfeiters but does inconveniance legitimate users. Do you really think that people such as these are going to be bothered by such little measures. In order to procure the equipment, inks and papers to forge modern currency (at least in Europe), you have to be a professional. The only remaining result of this technology is the inconveniance to legitimate users.
Now that said, there is a secondary reasoning behind objecting to the law which is less commonly stated, but often underlies such arguments.
You stated that Counterfeiting is illegal and undesirable. Placed in a criticism, this indicates that you feel the law is essentially a good thing and that legality is an indication that something is acceptable. There are many who would agree that counterfeiting is undesirable (it reduces the value of their own / family's money) but would not instinctively add illegal as a criticism. This is because many now feel the government is an adversary, especially in recent times and especially in the US and the UK. They are heavily concerned about increasingly unjust laws and this is colouring their view of the entire legal process. The relation of something as large as this to something as small as the anti-counterfeiting technology is twofold. Firstly, in foisting this technology on innocent people, they naturally resent the presumption of wrong-doing. Much the same as you would feel about having people come around to search your home for stolen goods without grounds for suspicion, or having someone wire your car so that it couldn't go over 70mph to prevent speeding, or outlawing firearms (in the US). It's insulting to many people who no longer feel the government is their friend. It's especially insulting that this redundant technology was diseminated secretly and sneakily amongst people who did not know that what they bought had that it had been fiddled with by government agencies. Remember, many people no longer regard the government as friendly.
The second secret reason behind the objection may be that in order for this technology to work there has to be some subversion of people's computer systems. It can't be implemented in The Gimp and if Photoshop or Lexxmark is calling the FBI when it detects a banknote, then this is basically taking control away from the user. He can no longer trust his computer. Who knows what information it's providing to other parties. This will be especially true with technologies enabled by Trusted Computing. The issue about the anti-counterfeiting technology is not the thing in isolation, but that is part of a broader sweep of taking power away from the user and making their computers work for someone else, not their owner.
Okay, that's my analysis. Of course, the OP may not think this way at all, purely basing his comment on the fact that the technology is flawed (which it is) and inconveniances innocents (which it can do); but I think that many people do feel the way that I've described.
For myself, I just want someone to post the pattern so that I can mix it into my own images and mess with people's heads.
I didn't see anything in the Grandparent poster that indicated Amazon's helpfulness was a result of the amount he bought from them, I'd be slightly surprised if it were. Nor did I make any comment about it. I just observed that Amazon's good service was now rewarded by being broadcast at a popular site like slashdot.
For what it's worth, I'm wary of too much tracking as it's independant of what use it is put to - good or bad - and I tend to err on the side of paranoia.
I emailed & wanted to return the book, but they said don't worry about it, we'll just send you a new copy brand new expedited. It arrived a few days later. I was absolutely stunned.
Well, I think you've just proved the value of treating your customers well. How many people have read this story and this comment; and how much does advertising normally cost?
My first reaction when I read the story was to actually check it for myself as it didn't seem likely. Sadly the idea that it could be indexed from being in the news temporarily and then drop out requiring time to be re-indexed did not occur to me.
It's great to see both that Google keeps in touch with the community; and that it employs people with 4-digit/. ids.
I'll have to occasionally do my image searches on Yahoo until it's fixed though.
I'm not decided on this one way or another, but maybe this is worth questioning. It seems to fall lower down, but on the same scale as, a news station that deliberately broadcast false information. That would be wrong, it would lying to people. Deliberately hiding information is a lesser cousin of that.
Now it seems like this may be a non-story in that Google is simply terribly slack about updating it's image database. But were it so and Google were concealing information from us, then that would be doing us harm in the form of keeping us ignorant and they have no right to do that.
If it took effort to bring us each website then perhaps they might have a stronger argument, but rather it takes effort to filter out the unapproved content. They may be privately owned, but so is your fist and there are still legal restrictions on what you can do to people with it. So do they really have that right?
Google is playing the game safer than most of the internet
The implication of what you've just said is that it would be risky for Google to help people find this information. And the implication of THAT is that if you criticise the Government you're going to get stomped.
The number of people who read the parent post and didn't think there was something inherantly flawed in the reasoning shows how generally accepted this viewpoint is.
And of course, they may well be right, but how far has society fallen if they are?
Well, I've just tried this with each of the listed search engines and it does appear to be correct for the first five pages that Google returns.
That's not good. I don't want a search engine deciding what I have access to. And know doubt this thread will turn into a troll-fest about the American invasion of Iraq and whether people are better off or not under US rule rather than Saddam, but surely neither side of the argument thinks we'll benefit from hiding the truth. That can only benefit those in the US administration.
And you can be sure that this will be picked up by the Arab world and will look bad on the US and Western Europe.
Just to bring a further humour to this election (God knows, it needs it), have a look here. In amongst the photos of easy to make Halloween costumes, is this:
"Give Democrats in your neighborhood the chills with this adorable re-creation of a computerized, touch-screen voting machine!"
Nonono! Do The Independent. It's by far the best quality UK newspaper and thus read by intelligent and progressive people who might notice the ad and install Firefox.
The Daily Mail has huge circulation though and would reach a big audience. Regardless, if they repeat this with a UK newspaper, then I'm donating. I would even have donated to this if I'd noticed it before it closed.
Mozzie people reading this - please organize one for the UK!
Has anyone noticed that the RIAA employed slashdot posters seem to have Saturday off?
That's a very acute observation. Now that you've pointed it out, I think you might be right. It would be interesting to go through a few posts and have a look-see.
Of course, the/. admins would be in a better position to check poster times en masse to see who is posting from work and from where. This shouldn't be publicly disclosed, but if I were in their position, it's something I'd be curious enough to devote a little time to.
P2P was around in some ways before Napster. I remember first reading articles on it in New Scientist back in, oh, '97? Which probably meant that conceptually it had been around for quite some time already.
My point is simply that when I read about it, the greatest applications were to do with distributing the hosting load and preserving data that others would like to censor. P2P matters for much more than sharing MP3s (and why not Oggs?) and your list talks about P2P purely in terms of this.
I want P2P to be widely available for the sake of freedom or information and anonymity. Please don't forget these aspects.
Agreed. I hate to use the mouse when typing, but haven't yet quite managed to avoid it entirely. For the next laptop I buy a clitmouse may well be the deciding factor. Unfortunately, I hear that IBM holds a patent on them.
The old FT was best. I haven't bought it for a while so I don't know if it still has that softer, pink paper. Any of the papers will be improved after being kept for a week however. This allows them to absorb a little moisture and thus become softer on the bottom.
that makes sense, but how do you find someone who exports personal data? and how do you setup a system that tracks the sale of the illegally exported information? it sounds great, just not very enforceable
It's not always a big deal. I work in an area where we have to have quite strong controls over the data we hold. I like to think that we take care over it because it would be wrong to share the data with others. But we also keep control of it because we'd be breaking laws if we shared it. Avoiding breaking laws can be quite an incentive for a company. You don't have to have a system that keeps track of and anticipates data export violations. You just need to be able to prosecute once you notice it's going on. Cuts down on the majority of violations instantly, and prevents formal ways of doing it, e.g. outsourcing for money as in this story.
I believe that in the UK, some supermarkets
(maybe all?) have "Price per 100g" (where relevant) to allow customers to compare the 825g packet to the 525g packet or brands who don't match sizes (440g vs 400g, etc).
Yes, we have those and they're very useful. Not perfect though - watch them shift quantities sometimes from packet to packet - e.g. one says £1.49 per 150g and another £2.12 per 250g. Fortunately, I learnt to calculate this sort of thing rapidly in my head during my student days. Except then I'd be working out how many KCal I got per £x.xx.
Gandhi is a particular hero of mine. I doubt I have the strength to act as he did however. I'd like to take an easier path to justice. I appreciate what you're saying in a Devil's Advocate way, but do you genuinely believe this bit:
Police bringing cameras to a protest "intimidates" protestors in the same way that a cop on the corner intimidates pedestrians. It inconveniences you if you want to smash a window; otherwise it is--or should be--moot.
At a protest you are challenging the powers that be which takes courage. The police (especially when they chase a protestor down a street with dogs, as happened to someone very close to me) are representatives of these powers. They want, in fact need to establish their authority. This can only be done through intimidation. Filming someone, saying "we're watching you, we have power over you," is extremely intimidating. But I think you know that.
Historically and in some countries this has been the case. Is there evidence to support this statement now, in Britain?
Numerous cases, extant and recent. But beyond these, on principle I think citizens of a country should be free to state their mind and refuse to co-operate with the government (e.g. sell salt). Secret political files that have nothing to do with a crime, but only on whether someone has dared to criticise the powerful is far far too reminiscent of certain historical events for me to be comfortable with it.
No it's not. Taking photographs of demonstrators is an intimidation tactic.
Definitely! If you've ever been on a protest in the UK then see how you like it when a policeman starts jamming camcorders at you and efficiently recording everyone's faces. They especially zoom in on anyone who is particularly vocal. And they are conspicuously overt in doing so.
Point one back at them and you'll likely get your phone/camera/camcorder seized. They sure don't like the same medicine. And as to the poster elsewhere who said that undercover officers lives could be in danger - these aren't undercover officers in this instance, and what about our freedom from harrasment. Being on government subversive files can become a health hazard.
I recommend mass deployment of those cheap disposable cameras at the next march.
The 'leader' of the largest Christian sect did say not to go to war. It was the Pope. Other religious leaders in the USA, GB and Europe have spoken out against the war.
And please tell me again how the USA qualifies as a heavly Christian nation.
Second point first, as it's a quick one. The CIA Factbook for the USA gives the following religious breakdown:
Protestant 56%, Roman Catholic 28%, Jewish 2%, other 4%, none 10% (1989)
The USA is and is percieved as a heavily Christian nation, though whether Christ would agree is a point of debate.
With the first point you are correct but so am I. The pope is the leader of the largest Christian sect in the world. However, Bush makes heavy use of his Christianity politically. Blair is also quite pronounced in his religious views. In this sense, and it is a sense that is quite real as I was talking about how the muslim world might see them, they are Christian leaders in charge of a large body of Christian people, especially in the case of Bush.
The pope did speak out against the war, as did many other Christian leaders. Equally many very prominent muslim leaders speak out against the acts of terrorism perpetrated by supposed muslims. On both sides of the divide however, we see that religious leaders are ignored and false perceptions of the other grow.
In my original post, I wished to show what a muslim might see if he chose (understandably) to regard Bush and Blair's actions as religiously motivated. Happily for the pope and all other Christians who are against the war, I think most muslims understand that Christianity is just a pretext in this case and see Oil as being the true reason for the invasion.
As has been pointed out very eloquently by another poster, even if every terrorist called himself or herself a muslim, that would still leave many millions of muslims that were not terrorists. Hardly statistically significant.
On the other hand, a very high percentage of people in the UK and the USA voted for, and even support the US invasion of the middle east.
Till the major Islamic leaders stop saying that the DIRECT, DELIBERATE targeting of women and kids is OK people will think that MUSLIM = TERRORISM.
Till the major Christian leaders stop saying that the PRE-EMPTIVE and ECONOMICALLY MOTIVATED invasion of middle-eastern countries is OK, people in those regions will continue to think that WESTERN = IMPERIALISM.
Just holding up the mirror here. How do you think millions of muslims see the governments of Bush and Blair? Both of whom profess christianity and in the case of Bush, lead a heavily christian nation?
Truth to tell though, most of the muslims I've met or know, wouldn't regard Bush as an example of Christianity however.
Dude. Who paid for the Internet in the first place? Who paid for all the research, conferences, all the meetings etc. It was all state funded.
I expect your referring to ARPAnet - the military project? This formed an important part of what is now the Internet, but it was not the only part. Usenet formed a big chunk of it. There was also NSFnet, which was funded by a non-profit corporation formed by public universities, and a host of other little entities. They all came together to form the present day incarnation. ARPAnet originally ran the NCP protocol and I would say that only when it went to TCP/IP could you say that it was really becoming the Internet as we know it, and I'm not sure that TCP and IP were state funded - I'd be interested if anyone can tell me about that.
All of the above is really just to show that the US government did not have a lock on internets (small 'i') and were far from solely responsible for their development. BBS's were already popular and the increasing usage of graphics on them was driving the development of modem speed. Computers were becoming more prevalent. Basically, the Internet had multiple origins once the technology was there. To paraphrase Charles Fort, when it's Internet time, you get Internets.
And it cannot be denied that the Internet has grown massively and differently since the days of ARPAnet. Was it state funding that brought about this growth. Hardly - it was the millions of businesses and home users and academics who took what it was and ran with it.
They're still running, and faster all the time. Centralizing the control of the internet would hamstring it. In fact, I'd like to see it less centralized. I'd like to wrest control of the DNS out of the hands of the likes of Verizon and shake up ICANN.
The development of the Internet was not and is not a shining example of central development. It's a case study in synergy and everyone on/. is part of it.
FINALLY! Someone who knows how to use the word "comprise" correctly. Notice the complete absence of the word "of" following it. Usage barbarians take note!
But to the military, a plan is just that, a plan. The general staff spends its time thinking of hypothetical scenarios, writing down what they think should be done if said scenario actually happens, then putting the plan in a filing cabinet.
I'm not convinced that it's possible to effectively strive for peace at the same time that you prepare for war. Two factors here are that once designed, there is yet more money to be made on the part of the military-industrial complex by making these weapons. This leads on to the likelyhood of these weapons being deployed at least once by generals eager to flex their muscles.
The second factor is that the design and / or construction of these weapons is inherantly a threat to everyone else who will then respond. Houston, we have proliferation.
If the USA turned away from space based warfare then it may well be that no-one else would pursue it either. After all you have a powerful and belligerant nation just ready to respond in kind if anyone made moves in that direction. The USA could be squandering our species chance to stop warfare from spreading into space right at the outset. US hegemony wont last forever and putting guns in space wont make the economic and scientific changes necessary for it to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh... I rather enjoyed your post. No need to bash one's self over a good, knowledgeable post. Really.
eah, me too. Anone that nowledgeable is worth coping. The clearl now stuff.
Thanks for that, I'll try it out sometime. The author of the program says that there wont be much added security using this, but that's okay by me. I just want to mess with a few people's printers and Photoshop.
The first pdf on that euronize page shows the pattern very nicely. It's interesting to actually see it.
Just why is this stupid? Counterfiting is illegal and undesirable. Please explain your opinion.
I'm neither the original poster, nor do I necessarily agree with him. But I think I can do a good job as advocate for the Devil.
The obstensible objection to the hardware and software currency detection would probably be that it does nothing to catch actual counterfeiters but does inconveniance legitimate users. Do you really think that people such as these are going to be bothered by such little measures. In order to procure the equipment, inks and papers to forge modern currency (at least in Europe), you have to be a professional. The only remaining result of this technology is the inconveniance to legitimate users.
Now that said, there is a secondary reasoning behind objecting to the law which is less commonly stated, but often underlies such arguments.
You stated that Counterfeiting is illegal and undesirable. Placed in a criticism, this indicates that you feel the law is essentially a good thing and that legality is an indication that something is acceptable. There are many who would agree that counterfeiting is undesirable (it reduces the value of their own / family's money) but would not instinctively add illegal as a criticism. This is because many now feel the government is an adversary, especially in recent times and especially in the US and the UK. They are heavily concerned about increasingly unjust laws and this is colouring their view of the entire legal process. The relation of something as large as this to something as small as the anti-counterfeiting technology is twofold. Firstly, in foisting this technology on innocent people, they naturally resent the presumption of wrong-doing. Much the same as you would feel about having people come around to search your home for stolen goods without grounds for suspicion, or having someone wire your car so that it couldn't go over 70mph to prevent speeding, or outlawing firearms (in the US). It's insulting to many people who no longer feel the government is their friend. It's especially insulting that this redundant technology was diseminated secretly and sneakily amongst people who did not know that what they bought had that it had been fiddled with by government agencies. Remember, many people no longer regard the government as friendly.
The second secret reason behind the objection may be that in order for this technology to work there has to be some subversion of people's computer systems. It can't be implemented in The Gimp and if Photoshop or Lexxmark is calling the FBI when it detects a banknote, then this is basically taking control away from the user. He can no longer trust his computer. Who knows what information it's providing to other parties. This will be especially true with technologies enabled by Trusted Computing. The issue about the anti-counterfeiting technology is not the thing in isolation, but that is part of a broader sweep of taking power away from the user and making their computers work for someone else, not their owner.
Okay, that's my analysis. Of course, the OP may not think this way at all, purely basing his comment on the fact that the technology is flawed (which it is) and inconveniances innocents (which it can do); but I think that many people do feel the way that I've described.
For myself, I just want someone to post the pattern so that I can mix it into my own images and mess with people's heads.
I didn't see anything in the Grandparent poster that indicated Amazon's helpfulness was a result of the amount he bought from them, I'd be slightly surprised if it were. Nor did I make any comment about it. I just observed that Amazon's good service was now rewarded by being broadcast at a popular site like slashdot.
For what it's worth, I'm wary of too much tracking as it's independant of what use it is put to - good or bad - and I tend to err on the side of paranoia.
I emailed & wanted to return the book, but they said don't worry about it, we'll just send you a new copy brand new expedited. It arrived a few days later. I was absolutely stunned.
Well, I think you've just proved the value of treating your customers well. How many people have read this story and this comment; and how much does advertising normally cost?
My first reaction when I read the story was to actually check it for myself as it didn't seem likely. Sadly the idea that it could be indexed from being in the news temporarily and then drop out requiring time to be re-indexed did not occur to me.
It's great to see both that Google keeps in touch with the community; and that it employs people with 4-digit
I'll have to occasionally do my image searches on Yahoo until it's fixed though.
Sure they have the right to
I'm not decided on this one way or another, but maybe this is worth questioning. It seems to fall lower down, but on the same scale as, a news station that deliberately broadcast false information. That would be wrong, it would lying to people. Deliberately hiding information is a lesser cousin of that.
Now it seems like this may be a non-story in that Google is simply terribly slack about updating it's image database. But were it so and Google were concealing information from us, then that would be doing us harm in the form of keeping us ignorant and they have no right to do that.
If it took effort to bring us each website then perhaps they might have a stronger argument, but rather it takes effort to filter out the unapproved content. They may be privately owned, but so is your fist and there are still legal restrictions on what you can do to people with it. So do they really have that right?
Google is playing the game safer than most of the internet
The implication of what you've just said is that it would be risky for Google to help people find this information. And the implication of THAT is that if you criticise the Government you're going to get stomped.
The number of people who read the parent post and didn't think there was something inherantly flawed in the reasoning shows how generally accepted this viewpoint is.
And of course, they may well be right, but how far has society fallen if they are?
Well, I've just tried this with each of the listed search engines and it does appear to be correct for the first five pages that Google returns.
That's not good. I don't want a search engine deciding what I have access to. And know doubt this thread will turn into a troll-fest about the American invasion of Iraq and whether people are better off or not under US rule rather than Saddam, but surely neither side of the argument thinks we'll benefit from hiding the truth. That can only benefit those in the US administration.
And you can be sure that this will be picked up by the Arab world and will look bad on the US and Western Europe.
Just to bring a further humour to this election (God knows, it needs it), have a look here. In amongst the photos of easy to make Halloween costumes, is this:
Nonono! Do The Independent. It's by far the best quality UK newspaper and thus read by intelligent and progressive people who might notice the ad and install Firefox.
The Daily Mail has huge circulation though and would reach a big audience. Regardless, if they repeat this with a UK newspaper, then I'm donating. I would even have donated to this if I'd noticed it before it closed.
Mozzie people reading this - please organize one for the UK!
Has anyone noticed that the RIAA employed slashdot posters seem to have Saturday off?
That's a very acute observation. Now that you've pointed it out, I think you might be right. It would be interesting to go through a few posts and have a look-see.
Of course, the
P2P was around in some ways before Napster. I remember first reading articles on it in New Scientist back in, oh, '97? Which probably meant that conceptually it had been around for quite some time already.
My point is simply that when I read about it, the greatest applications were to do with distributing the hosting load and preserving data that others would like to censor. P2P matters for much more than sharing MP3s (and why not Oggs?) and your list talks about P2P purely in terms of this.
I want P2P to be widely available for the sake of freedom or information and anonymity. Please don't forget these aspects.
Agreed. I hate to use the mouse when typing, but haven't yet quite managed to avoid it entirely. For the next laptop I buy a clitmouse may well be the deciding factor. Unfortunately, I hear that IBM holds a patent on them.
The old FT was best. I haven't bought it for a while so I don't know if it still has that softer, pink paper. Any of the papers will be improved after being kept for a week however. This allows them to absorb a little moisture and thus become softer on the bottom.
that makes sense, but how do you find someone who exports personal data? and how do you setup a system that tracks the sale of the illegally exported information? it sounds great, just not very enforceable
It's not always a big deal. I work in an area where we have to have quite strong controls over the data we hold. I like to think that we take care over it because it would be wrong to share the data with others. But we also keep control of it because we'd be breaking laws if we shared it. Avoiding breaking laws can be quite an incentive for a company. You don't have to have a system that keeps track of and anticipates data export violations. You just need to be able to prosecute once you notice it's going on. Cuts down on the majority of violations instantly, and prevents formal ways of doing it, e.g. outsourcing for money as in this story.
I believe that in the UK, some supermarkets (maybe all?) have "Price per 100g" (where relevant) to allow customers to compare the 825g packet to the 525g packet or brands who don't match sizes (440g vs 400g, etc).
Yes, we have those and they're very useful. Not perfect though - watch them shift quantities sometimes from packet to packet - e.g. one says £1.49 per 150g and another £2.12 per 250g. Fortunately, I learnt to calculate this sort of thing rapidly in my head during my student days. Except then I'd be working out how many KCal I got per £x.xx.
s/month/afternoon
Gandhi did it.
Gandhi is a particular hero of mine. I doubt I have the strength to act as he did however. I'd like to take an easier path to justice. I appreciate what you're saying in a Devil's Advocate way, but do you genuinely believe this bit:
Police bringing cameras to a protest "intimidates" protestors in the same way that a cop on the corner intimidates pedestrians. It inconveniences you if you want to smash a window; otherwise it is--or should be--moot.
At a protest you are challenging the powers that be which takes courage. The police (especially when they chase a protestor down a street with dogs, as happened to someone very close to me) are representatives of these powers. They want, in fact need to establish their authority. This can only be done through intimidation. Filming someone, saying "we're watching you, we have power over you," is extremely intimidating. But I think you know that.
Historically and in some countries this has been the case. Is there evidence to support this statement now, in Britain?
Numerous cases, extant and recent. But beyond these, on principle I think citizens of a country should be free to state their mind and refuse to co-operate with the government (e.g. sell salt). Secret political files that have nothing to do with a crime, but only on whether someone has dared to criticise the powerful is far far too reminiscent of certain historical events for me to be comfortable with it.
Power to the people, eh?
No it's not. Taking photographs of demonstrators is an intimidation tactic.
Definitely! If you've ever been on a protest in the UK then see how you like it when a policeman starts jamming camcorders at you and efficiently recording everyone's faces. They especially zoom in on anyone who is particularly vocal. And they are conspicuously overt in doing so.
Point one back at them and you'll likely get your phone/camera/camcorder seized. They sure don't like the same medicine. And as to the poster elsewhere who said that undercover officers lives could be in danger - these aren't undercover officers in this instance, and what about our freedom from harrasment. Being on government subversive files can become a health hazard.
I recommend mass deployment of those cheap disposable cameras at the next march.
The 'leader' of the largest Christian sect did say not to go to war. It was the Pope. Other religious leaders in the USA, GB and Europe have spoken out against the war.
And please tell me again how the USA qualifies as a heavly Christian nation.
Second point first, as it's a quick one. The CIA Factbook for the USA gives the following religious breakdown: The USA is and is percieved as a heavily Christian nation, though whether Christ would agree is a point of debate.
With the first point you are correct but so am I. The pope is the leader of the largest Christian sect in the world. However, Bush makes heavy use of his Christianity politically. Blair is also quite pronounced in his religious views. In this sense, and it is a sense that is quite real as I was talking about how the muslim world might see them, they are Christian leaders in charge of a large body of Christian people, especially in the case of Bush.
The pope did speak out against the war, as did many other Christian leaders. Equally many very prominent muslim leaders speak out against the acts of terrorism perpetrated by supposed muslims. On both sides of the divide however, we see that religious leaders are ignored and false perceptions of the other grow.
In my original post, I wished to show what a muslim might see if he chose (understandably) to regard Bush and Blair's actions as religiously motivated. Happily for the pope and all other Christians who are against the war, I think most muslims understand that Christianity is just a pretext in this case and see Oil as being the true reason for the invasion.
As has been pointed out very eloquently by another poster, even if every terrorist called himself or herself a muslim, that would still leave many millions of muslims that were not terrorists. Hardly statistically significant.
On the other hand, a very high percentage of people in the UK and the USA voted for, and even support the US invasion of the middle east.
Till the major Islamic leaders stop saying that the DIRECT, DELIBERATE targeting of women and kids is OK people will think that MUSLIM = TERRORISM.
Till the major Christian leaders stop saying that the PRE-EMPTIVE and ECONOMICALLY MOTIVATED invasion of middle-eastern countries is OK, people in those regions will continue to think that WESTERN = IMPERIALISM.
Just holding up the mirror here. How do you think millions of muslims see the governments of Bush and Blair? Both of whom profess christianity and in the case of Bush, lead a heavily christian nation?
Truth to tell though, most of the muslims I've met or know, wouldn't regard Bush as an example of Christianity however.
Dude. Who paid for the Internet in the first place? Who paid for all the research, conferences, all the meetings etc. It was all state funded.
I expect your referring to ARPAnet - the military project? This formed an important part of what is now the Internet, but it was not the only part. Usenet formed a big chunk of it. There was also NSFnet, which was funded by a non-profit corporation formed by public universities, and a host of other little entities. They all came together to form the present day incarnation. ARPAnet originally ran the NCP protocol and I would say that only when it went to TCP/IP could you say that it was really becoming the Internet as we know it, and I'm not sure that TCP and IP were state funded - I'd be interested if anyone can tell me about that.
All of the above is really just to show that the US government did not have a lock on internets (small 'i') and were far from solely responsible for their development. BBS's were already popular and the increasing usage of graphics on them was driving the development of modem speed. Computers were becoming more prevalent. Basically, the Internet had multiple origins once the technology was there. To paraphrase Charles Fort, when it's Internet time, you get Internets.
And it cannot be denied that the Internet has grown massively and differently since the days of ARPAnet. Was it state funding that brought about this growth. Hardly - it was the millions of businesses and home users and academics who took what it was and ran with it.
They're still running, and faster all the time. Centralizing the control of the internet would hamstring it. In fact, I'd like to see it less centralized. I'd like to wrest control of the DNS out of the hands of the likes of Verizon and shake up ICANN.
The development of the Internet was not and is not a shining example of central development. It's a case study in synergy and everyone on
Even the AC's like yourself.
FINALLY! Someone who knows how to use the word "comprise" correctly. Notice the complete absence of the word "of" following it. Usage barbarians take note!
Glad to have helped.
But to the military, a plan is just that, a plan. The general staff spends its time thinking of hypothetical scenarios, writing down what they think should be done if said scenario actually happens, then putting the plan in a filing cabinet.
I'm not convinced that it's possible to effectively strive for peace at the same time that you prepare for war. Two factors here are that once designed, there is yet more money to be made on the part of the military-industrial complex by making these weapons. This leads on to the likelyhood of these weapons being deployed at least once by generals eager to flex their muscles.
The second factor is that the design and / or construction of these weapons is inherantly a threat to everyone else who will then respond. Houston, we have proliferation.
If the USA turned away from space based warfare then it may well be that no-one else would pursue it either. After all you have a powerful and belligerant nation just ready to respond in kind if anyone made moves in that direction. The USA could be squandering our species chance to stop warfare from spreading into space right at the outset. US hegemony wont last forever and putting guns in space wont make the economic and scientific changes necessary for it to do so.