Since the Justice Department had no problem getting the search records of MSN and Yahoo!, they ought to be able to prove their case without the Google records.
And what they are trying to do is to invalidate a Supreme Court decision all ready made in hopes that this new Court will rule their way when their case comes up again (as it will).
Firstly, I note that it was the Wall Street Journal that lead the way in saying the Apple was doomed. This was pre-Jobs and was when their stock was selling for about $14 per share. I bought Apple stock that year.
I made my purchase thinking that the sale of the technology in the company, assuming a bankruptcy, would cover a $14 share price. The industrial design was what saved it.
Now Jobs is back. The WSJ is hacked because their bets didn't pay off.
So they go searching for a bedfellow -- let's see, someone like Symantec who hasn't been able to made any good code at all for Apple Macintosh computers since the dawn of OS X to analyze their system
Now this is probably the hallmark of the WSJ's reporting on Apple: "Let's get someone who absolutely cannot understand's Apple's operating system to comment on it. Then, let's publish what they say as if they actually had standing in the Mac community like they still do in the pee cee community and see if we can confuse the issue even more."
Better yet: "Let's go out and rewrite and publish a press release put out by that company as if it were our own story (which is much of what you read about companies in the WSJ) without checking up on their bona-fides. After all, we need filler because our ad people have just sold another three or four more pages of ads and we're running out of copy."
There has been one incident of malware noted in the wild that ran on Apple's OS X (assuming you discount Sony's DRM scam) and it warned you. Since Windoze XP has come out, how many incidents of malware have been noted?
Apple's OS isn't absolutely impregnable -- hardly anything is -- but that does not give Symantec or the Wall Street Urinal (sic.) license to fabricate.
So they're trying to justify the illegal spying on US Citizens (who have special rights under US law within their own country) in terms of spying on foreign nationals (not illegal). Essentially, this is an attempt at obfuscation.
So here are my questions:
When you say "We want to know who Al Qaida is calling" do you mean the real terrorist organization or "a person with an opposing political view that you don't like and that you would like to spy on." In other words, just because you call the caller Al Qaida doesn't make the caller Al Qaida.
Since the judge who generally handles these warrants can almost always be counted on to rubber-stamp any request made by the NSA, what exactly is it that is so illegal that you want to hide it from her?
Why are you refusing to even enumerate those you have spied on? Is the number so large that there might be an unfavorable reaction?
If there are no checks and balances on your spy operation, how can you prove to the American people that it is not illegal with no oversight? Are we supposed to just blindly trust your word after it was proven false so many times in the past (I'm thinking about the rationale for starting an illegal war in Iraq here)?
Why is it you say that a law, passed by Congress to prevent the illegal spying the Nixon Administration did on its political opponents is outdated? Is it due to the unlikliness that a Republican House of Representatives probably won't pass a bill of impeachment?
I have a Palm T|X and regularly play the solitare game that comes with it but also like Chess Genius, which on the T|X is much more challenging than it was on my m505, which had an older processor.
I also like Space Trader, though it may grow a bit stale after a few playings.
If anyone here has any suggestions for good Palm games that keep you coming back, I'd love to entertain them. Lots of my former monochrome games for the older Palm OSs break under the new one.
I don't know that you truly understand what is meant by second-guess in the context of the Justice's opinion.
If a legislature writes a law that lets a government do something and that law is in keeping with the Constitution and Bill of Rights (as well as our amendments, then judges are duty bound to affirm the law. The judge may not personally agree with the law but, assuming the law was written in a manner that does not violate the constitution and is stated clearly and completely, there really isn't any "wiggle room" for a judge to strike the law down.
There are laws that are unconstitutional on their face. For example, the State of Connecticut could require that all persons voting have to pay their taxes in full before doing so. And that is not constitutional because the Supreme Court has all ready settled on the proposition that there is to be no poll tax that could be used to disenfranchise the voter. So there is what you could call a check on a law.
The whole concept of "activist" judge comes out of rulings like Roe v Wade. The Supreme Court decided the case that allows abortion across the United States not on the basis that the medical procedure was needed, not needed, life affirming or life threatening (which is the argument proposed by both sides) but, rather because "what passes between a woman and her doctor is and ought to be private." In doing this, the Supreme Court "invented" a new right: the right to privacy.
There is no right to privacy in our Bill or Rights or any amendment to our Constitution or in the language of the Constitution itself.
Quite frankly, I agree the the Supreme Court ought to create a right to privacy for citizens -- or Congress and the States should enshrine that right into another amendment (which would probably not ever be ratified). But that has not happened.
I deeply appreciate Roe v Wade. because of that right to privacy. Overturning it would deny that right, created by an activist judge who saw a wrong and tried to right it.
The patents HAVE been granted and the courts are obligated to protect them. It's like making up rules for a game and then in the middle deciding which rules are and are not going to be enforced.
This is exactly the same as the Supreme Court deciding in favor of the City of New London, Connecticut in Kelo v. City of New London which has raised considerable furor and activism in one Justice's home town. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the majority opinion: "The court should not 'second-guess' local governments..." and neither ought it to "second-guess" the federal government in this case.
We have a Constitutional right to petition our government for redress in this area of patent. We are grumbling about this presently but I don't see any marches on Washington by geeks like us who want to demand changes to the law.
I also don't see an amicus brief on our behalf, either.
The State of Kansas, acting under orders of its school board, has now banned the journal "Science," stating that it does not fit the definition that will be used from now on in Kansas education of its title.
Educators are ordered to immediately remove the journal from all libraries, collections and classrooms.
I agree with your sentiments but, unfortunately for many, it is the victors who write history and stand in judgement of the vanquished.
More likely, "Gee Whiz" Bush will be noted for buildings, schools and other monuments of a "grateful" nation erected in his honor.
I also note that nobody mentioned Abu Graib prison, where Bush's intelligence officers and hired hands tortured and killed Iraqi citizens with impunity (similar to the manner in which Saddam Hussein's regime is alleged to have done). Bush, in a speech "took responsibility" for the "unfortunate acts" of "misguided" members of the military, without acknowledging that his administration hired goons and former CIA agents as independent contractors to "expedite" quick "confessions" from Iraqi taxicab drivers, unemployed mechanics and felaffel stand vendors.
This is the same type of official incompetence practiced under Saddam Hussein in the 1990s (after the first Gulf War). The only difference here is that in one case it was incompetence on the part of Hussein's secret police, aided by his sons, Uday and Kusay and in the other, incompetence on supposedly professionally-trained former CIA agents and operatives.
The link in the Slashdot article to the video takes you to a website that says you cannot link directly. Following their link takes you to a web page that says that the video has been taken down due to "copyright, pornography or objectionable content" issues.
I hate to rumor-monger conspiracy theories here (oh, what the heck, this is slashdot for ghod's sake) but I wonder if Microsoft got to them...
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In AO-Hell's defense, my Aunt Jeanne started out on AOL and it gave her the confidence over a number of years of hand-holding by AOL people and help from her grandson. She is able to keep in touch with her entire family, including cousins, nephews, nieces brothers and sister.
So I am thankful for AOL's ability to give those who have basic computer literacy problems access.
But the cultural clash between Usenet and AOL was absolutely horrible and killed Usenet's previously wonderful "signal-to-noise" ratio.
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In two words, AOL users.
AOL allowed their users with AOL's own particular culture, language and mores complete access to what had been, until then, an arena for persons with a great deal of education, many of whom were still working at colleges and universities.
I was there. AOL members would tell people to "IM" or "im" them. Usenet people, having a different real-time chat experience would suggest that someone/msg them. AOL members would talk about their "profiles" where Usenet people would refer to "whois" and their ".plan" file (two things that have gone away).
AOL users were not computer literate. None had any experience with the Internet as it had been before it was commercialized. Many were seriously less educated than the University crowd who thought that they pretty much "owned" the newsgroups.
The culture clash seemed to me to be akin to being overrun by a horde. I have occasionally used Usenet since then but within six months, I felt it was not worth my time.
I note a whole lot of comments about how Apple "ought to do clones so that I could homebuild my own Mac," and Apple sux or Apple rox or whatever.
The real interest in this article is that Apple is moving forward to increase its market share. They're a hardware company and they also write software that makes their hardware really sparkle, though I have read a number of articles that suggest that their OS software created so much overhead that it's not a great server for a back-office application
But from the user's perspective -- a GUI tool to partition a hard drive, imagine that! Easy installation that starts out with a simple GUI, gosh, that's neat! -- Apple's operating system generates a user experience that sets it above many others. Apple has "done design" on its hardware and they have also "done design" on their software.
A great follow-on article to this would be a research project to teach 10 students to use Windows, 10 to use Apple's OS X, 10 to use a popular and easy-to-use distro of Linux, 10 to use BSD, etc. Then submit a survey to them after they're up and running on their computers and try to elicit how each user feels about the experience of using the operating system and the applications they would use to do regular work, like write term papers, do finances, research things on the Internet and so on.
From my own experience of having used Windows and Apple's System 7, 8 and 9 as well as OS X, I'd say my personal experience on a Mac is an easier one. I think I am more relaxed on it. I think less about computer problems than I used to and now think only in terms of getting the sork accomplished.
Apple won't allow clones because when they had clones, it almost took down the company. They need the high income stream to continue to innovate. Sorry about all of you homebrew computer enthusiasts out there who want to build your own Mac but this cannot be helped.
And there are cheaper Macs out there; the Mac Mini is being sold for as little as $499, "nicely outfitted" at $998, plus the cost of a monitor. But remember, you're not buying "homebrew." You're not buying an Acer heapy-cheapy clone from some box assembler that does not innovate. Apple should be compared to HP in terms of price because HP actually does put innovation in their computers. IBM used to but they sold out to Lenovo and now they'll fast besmirch the name. So price comparisons need to take reality into consideration -- one should not rank Apple's price with a lower-tier manufacturer.
Also, the Apple computer I purchased in 1999 is still going strong and very useful. I know of no pee cees that can last that long. This probably cuts into the perceived market share for Apple computers because, if you buy a good one, it'll last longer than the equivelant pee cee. Look at the user-installed base to see Apple's true market share. I even know of people who are still using Apple's old System software and have not transitioned to OS X. One, in particular, does audio mixing with Digidesign's Pro Tools and not Avid's because the old software that ran under the old OS meets all current and future needs -- until his Mac finally bites the dust.
Intel makes processors and motherboards. Apple went with Intel, presumably because they had something more to offer than IBM.
Former President James Earl Carter mentions this in his most recent book. He was quite public in 2000 with his departure from the SBC's dictate on what constitutes a believer.
I am a former Kansan. Grew up in the Kansas City area and was taught in one of the best school districts in the country at the time, as measures in SAT and ACT scores. I live in the East and work in NYC. And I'm horrified about what I see the Kansas Department of Education doing, which is to attempt to redefine the word "science" as used within the State for educational purposes to allow "hunches" "conjecture" and the non-observable to be used in the expression of "scientific theory."
Twice, Kansans have elected these fools to control how education would be run in the state. I don't know what promises were made during the election but I'm sure the teaching of Creationism, "Creation Science" "Intelligent Design" and Designer-ism was a hidden agenda of those who ran.
Only problem is that the voters in Kansas didn't realize what these fools would do once they got into office, based on what they did last time they ran things.
The Vatican has a long record of being anti-science that Pope John-Paul II tried to "clean up" a bit. There were the excommunications of Copernicus and Galilleo, burnings at the stake of "witches," prohibitions of the use of cadavers to explore the mystery of the human body, delaying the course of the development of modern surgery and so on. I still have problems with the prohibition of condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS and bishops who order priests to deny communion to any person who is a politician in the United States who does not think Roe v. Wade ought to be overturned (singling out Democrats and ignoring Republicans, like Giuliani who are Pro-Choice).
This is simply more of the same. The Vatican is trying to support science in a new way so that they can appropriately repent for past sins.
Now, come the Fundamentalists in the US who feel that any compromise is sinful. I should mention here that I recently saw an interview with one of their number who stated that Evangelicals don't have a Pope and so are less potentially "harmful" than the Catholics. What he didn't say (and what the reporter failed to ask about) is that in 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention changed their philosophy on the interpretation of Scripture from one where the scriptures were to be interpreted on the basis of the acts and words of Jesus Christ to one where the scriptures are to be interpreted on the basis of the dictates of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Exactly how does this differ from the Pope putting on a certain hat and declaring himself "infallible."
Nowadays, in order to be a good Christian, you have no "wiggle room." You either believe the way you are told, or you have sinned in the eyes of a small group, in the case of the SBC, or in the eyes of the Pope, both of whom subscribe to a "top-down" dictation of proper belief.
Where does this leave the average Kansan -- or American?
"Science" doesn't suffer from having the wrong definition. Science began to be developed some 6,000 years before Christ in Ionia by philosophers who saw that there could be logical explanations for everyday things that did not include the gods of the Persians or the gods of the Romans. Plato and his pupil Aristotle initiated a reaction to that by retreating into the perfection of the mind. Christianity picked up on that, transferring that to the Divine. But all the while, there was science. Science survived because it was heuristic. You could perform an experiment and state a hypothesis and repeat the experiment to assure yourself that the hypothesis held true. When a hypothesis was widely accepted, it graduated to the status of a Theory -- but nothing could be said to be cast in stone, in case observable events proved these understandings wrong.
Sir Isaac Newton's theories of gravitation were completely shattered by Einstein. Nonetheless, we still regularly use Newton to explain things because Einstein's theories are harder to describe.
These fundamentalists have initiated another definition of the word "Theory" which casts doubt on the
Frankly, these laws are "Nanny State" laws, where the government is seen as being your parental unit or a substitute for that (hence, "Nanny"). If you are in the back of a limousine and you're playing porn movies with the partition rolled up, nobody is distracted, nobody on the road sees your monitor (as limos generally have their windows heavily tinted) and nobody cares. But I can just see someone being driven along and a cop stopping them because he sees the driver doing something wrong (or thinks he sees wrongness) then arrests the couple in the back watching porn after popping open the back door.
Sensible people who ride motorcycles wear helmets. Helmet laws in various states are seen as "too restrictive." Yet states with no helmet laws have seatbelt laws and those same laws -- designed to protect -- are not seen as too restrictive.
I don't drive with any movie, porn or Disney, in the car. I don't want to. This is the same as not riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Law or no law, both to me don't seem sensible.
And you think that is not going to distract the driver?
Frankly, I'm against children watching disney movies in the car. I can see the lawsuits now for the soiled carpets and carseats as they all upchuck because they're getting carsick.
Motion sickness is easily reduced, if not eliminated by looking at the horizon. It may be induced by reading or watching something using close vision in a moving vehicle that is noticeably moving
Carsickness is a serious driver distraction. Been there, done that.
One does not have the right to use a whole work. And it is the whole work, a publication by the NSTA that the Kansas State Bord of Education wanted to use.
Children of Kansas do not deserve the actions of the Kansas Board of Education which wants teachers in Kansas to teach non-scientific methodology and call it "science." I was raised in Kansas. Back when I went to school, my school district was one of the top schools in the country -- public or private. I recieved an outstanding education that, back then, I took largely for granted.
Clear and simple, this is the National Science Teachers Association refusing to board the bus that these nutcases at the Kansas Board of Education are driving. I think they have a right to do this.
At issue here is not a quotation, but a complete work. Copyright law does not allow the use of a complete work -- even if it is a brochure.
You are getting the issue wrong here and it is understandable, as the letter does not necessarily make it clear.
The Kansas State Board of Education wants to quote a copyrighted document produced by the National Science Teachers Association in their statement about how science will be taught in Kansas. As the copyright holder, they have a right to deny the use of a quotation of their material for as long as they hold a copyright.
This would be the same as me asking to quote one of your copyrighted documents and you deciding that, due to something reprehensible I might have done in the past, like misquoting you or plagerizing from your work, you refusing me permission.
In this case, the NSTA feels that the KSBE has done something reprehensible, so the KSBE will not be allowed to quote from the National Science Teachers Association in their mission statement that describes why they want to introduce another form of "creationism" into the classrooms in that state.
Nothing is being held back from the students here in this refusal of permission to use a copyright. Instead, the NSTA is refusing to be seen as sanctioning the statement by the Kansas State Board of Education's rationale for teaching something that the NSTA sees as unscientific.
... pornographers eagerly jump on new technology long before it goes mainstream
One could argue that the iPod is mainstream and the liklyhood of the Video iPod being mainstream from the outset. It is very easy to convert any video from Quicktime to the codecs that the video iPod will work with and, if one has the right compression tool, like Sorensen's tools, one could convert from WMF or just about anything else.
People in the porn industry are pretty happy with the money they're making presently off of girlie pictures and salacious downloadable movies of sex acts from the routine to the insane. The codecs that the video iPod wants to use are not really high quality so pornographers are counting on the individual to do their own converting from the higher-quality that they sell to the lower quality usable on the video iPod.
I have heard some discussion from friends of mine in the television industry about putting one's demo reel on a video iPod and most prefer a larger screen, like the one on the Play Station Portable. I believe it can play back a wider range of codecs and plays in much higher quality.
There all ready exist portable pr0n playback devices. They are called "laptops." I have seen people using them to play back DVD movies. I have never seen anyone playing back anything other than a general-release film. And one can fully understand why they are not playing back the gigabytes of pr0n (undoubtedly) on their laptops because they are not in the privacy of their own home. One tends to think of sexual acts in private, not public.
I occasionally wince at the laws being passed by the various states that are designed to prevent the playing of pornographic material in cars. When I'm in a car, I'm thinking about the road and the scenery around the road. And if I'm driving, I'm really just not going to watch anything than the road and my mirrors. That's pretty much it. I suppose there are kooks out there that think they can drive while watching something but I think they would quickly wind up in the hospital -- either excited or not excited about the video they just watched (probably not excited if they were badly injured). I think this is yet another example about how the attentions of our legislatures have been diverted from the service of the public to some strange obsessions.
iPods are great portable music devices. Not great video devices because the screens are low resolution and tiny. Porn is something that is generally consumed in the privacy of one's home. Kind of reduces the whole enjoyment factor if one is out in public.
As I stated in my initial post, These titles may be mistaken for actual rank earned in the game.
I don't play any MMORPG -- or any RPGs either. I don't have time. I just barely have time to occasinally (very) post here. But whether or not there is an actual title within the World of Warcraft by that name isn't so much the issue as the violation and then the management's position that they will not answer any questions or clarify their position in the case of someone who may be an asset to the company (I'm talking about the kind of person who holds sway over a number of opinions).
What it comes down to in my opinion is this is poor PR and poor customer service. It may be caused by people who lose their names going all ballistic on the company and getting unreasonably hostile but I doubt that CmdrTaco is liable to do that.
I have a problem with your recent requirement that students at your school not post their faces and personal diaries on weblogs on their own time and from home. I have no problem with you restricting their use of the Internet while at your school or advising their parents that their posting on these blogs may endanger them, warning those parents that there are predators out there on the Internet.
I have a four-year-old daughter that I am presently sending to our local Catholic elementary school in our Pre-K program and I am happy to support my school and church. I am well aware of both the usefulness and the dangers in using the Internet and my daughter will use it while under parental supervision only as long as she lives under my roof.
But in threatening to expel students for expressing themselves on their own time from their homes, you are usurping the role of their parents. As a parent I believe that is inappropriate behavior.
Were you to be in touch with the parents of these children about the dangers of the Internet and make specific recommendations as to how they may feel more secure about their children's usage of this resource, I would consider that part of your role in furthering the education of children and their parents on how to be a good Catholic and how to be a good student. But it is inappropriate to usurp the role of a parent.
Slashdot Mirror
Since the Justice Department had no problem getting the search records of MSN and Yahoo!, they ought to be able to prove their case without the Google records.
And what they are trying to do is to invalidate a Supreme Court decision all ready made in hopes that this new Court will rule their way when their case comes up again (as it will).
Firstly, I note that it was the Wall Street Journal that lead the way in saying the Apple was doomed. This was pre-Jobs and was when their stock was selling for about $14 per share. I bought Apple stock that year.
I made my purchase thinking that the sale of the technology in the company, assuming a bankruptcy, would cover a $14 share price. The industrial design was what saved it.
Now Jobs is back. The WSJ is hacked because their bets didn't pay off.
So they go searching for a bedfellow -- let's see, someone like Symantec who hasn't been able to made any good code at all for Apple Macintosh computers since the dawn of OS X to analyze their system
Now this is probably the hallmark of the WSJ's reporting on Apple: "Let's get someone who absolutely cannot understand's Apple's operating system to comment on it. Then, let's publish what they say as if they actually had standing in the Mac community like they still do in the pee cee community and see if we can confuse the issue even more."
Better yet: "Let's go out and rewrite and publish a press release put out by that company as if it were our own story (which is much of what you read about companies in the WSJ) without checking up on their bona-fides. After all, we need filler because our ad people have just sold another three or four more pages of ads and we're running out of copy."
There has been one incident of malware noted in the wild that ran on Apple's OS X (assuming you discount Sony's DRM scam) and it warned you. Since Windoze XP has come out, how many incidents of malware have been noted?
Apple's OS isn't absolutely impregnable -- hardly anything is -- but that does not give Symantec or the Wall Street Urinal (sic.) license to fabricate.
So they're trying to justify the illegal spying on US Citizens (who have special rights under US law within their own country) in terms of spying on foreign nationals (not illegal). Essentially, this is an attempt at obfuscation.
So here are my questions:
I have a Palm T|X and regularly play the solitare game that comes with it but also like Chess Genius, which on the T|X is much more challenging than it was on my m505, which had an older processor.
I also like Space Trader, though it may grow a bit stale after a few playings.
If anyone here has any suggestions for good Palm games that keep you coming back, I'd love to entertain them. Lots of my former monochrome games for the older Palm OSs break under the new one.
I don't know that you truly understand what is meant by second-guess in the context of the Justice's opinion.
If a legislature writes a law that lets a government do something and that law is in keeping with the Constitution and Bill of Rights (as well as our amendments, then judges are duty bound to affirm the law. The judge may not personally agree with the law but, assuming the law was written in a manner that does not violate the constitution and is stated clearly and completely, there really isn't any "wiggle room" for a judge to strike the law down.
There are laws that are unconstitutional on their face. For example, the State of Connecticut could require that all persons voting have to pay their taxes in full before doing so. And that is not constitutional because the Supreme Court has all ready settled on the proposition that there is to be no poll tax that could be used to disenfranchise the voter. So there is what you could call a check on a law.
The whole concept of "activist" judge comes out of rulings like Roe v Wade. The Supreme Court decided the case that allows abortion across the United States not on the basis that the medical procedure was needed, not needed, life affirming or life threatening (which is the argument proposed by both sides) but, rather because "what passes between a woman and her doctor is and ought to be private." In doing this, the Supreme Court "invented" a new right: the right to privacy.
There is no right to privacy in our Bill or Rights or any amendment to our Constitution or in the language of the Constitution itself.
Quite frankly, I agree the the Supreme Court ought to create a right to privacy for citizens -- or Congress and the States should enshrine that right into another amendment (which would probably not ever be ratified). But that has not happened.
I deeply appreciate Roe v Wade. because of that right to privacy. Overturning it would deny that right, created by an activist judge who saw a wrong and tried to right it.
This is a truly insightful comment:
The patents HAVE been granted and the courts are obligated to protect them. It's like making up rules for a game and then in the middle deciding which rules are and are not going to be enforced.
This is exactly the same as the Supreme Court deciding in favor of the City of New London, Connecticut in Kelo v. City of New London which has raised considerable furor and activism in one Justice's home town. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the majority opinion: "The court should not 'second-guess' local governments ..." and neither ought it to "second-guess" the federal government in this case.
We have a Constitutional right to petition our government for redress in this area of patent. We are grumbling about this presently but I don't see any marches on Washington by geeks like us who want to demand changes to the law.
I also don't see an amicus brief on our behalf, either.
According to the article: USB audio / video products are not supported at this time.
The Ultra Wideband Technology of the Belkin/Freescale product would appear to include this kind of media.They must have started getting tired of all of the Apple aficionados wearing t-shirts and ball caps saying, "Evil Inside."
The Apple move may have encouraged this...
The State of Kansas, acting under orders of its school board, has now banned the journal "Science," stating that it does not fit the definition that will be used from now on in Kansas education of its title.
Educators are ordered to immediately remove the journal from all libraries, collections and classrooms.
I agree with your sentiments but, unfortunately for many, it is the victors who write history and stand in judgement of the vanquished.
More likely, "Gee Whiz" Bush will be noted for buildings, schools and other monuments of a "grateful" nation erected in his honor.
I also note that nobody mentioned Abu Graib prison, where Bush's intelligence officers and hired hands tortured and killed Iraqi citizens with impunity (similar to the manner in which Saddam Hussein's regime is alleged to have done). Bush, in a speech "took responsibility" for the "unfortunate acts" of "misguided" members of the military, without acknowledging that his administration hired goons and former CIA agents as independent contractors to "expedite" quick "confessions" from Iraqi taxicab drivers, unemployed mechanics and felaffel stand vendors.
This is the same type of official incompetence practiced under Saddam Hussein in the 1990s (after the first Gulf War). The only difference here is that in one case it was incompetence on the part of Hussein's secret police, aided by his sons, Uday and Kusay and in the other, incompetence on supposedly professionally-trained former CIA agents and operatives.
To quote Will Rogers, "Be happy you don't get all the government you're paying for."
The link in the Slashdot article to the video takes you to a website that says you cannot link directly. Following their link takes you to a web page that says that the video has been taken down due to "copyright, pornography or objectionable content" issues.
I hate to rumor-monger conspiracy theories here (oh, what the heck, this is slashdot for ghod's sake) but I wonder if Microsoft got to them...
In AO-Hell's defense, my Aunt Jeanne started out on AOL and it gave her the confidence over a number of years of hand-holding by AOL people and help from her grandson. She is able to keep in touch with her entire family, including cousins, nephews, nieces brothers and sister.
So I am thankful for AOL's ability to give those who have basic computer literacy problems access.
But the cultural clash between Usenet and AOL was absolutely horrible and killed Usenet's previously wonderful "signal-to-noise" ratio.
In two words, AOL users.
AOL allowed their users with AOL's own particular culture, language and mores complete access to what had been, until then, an arena for persons with a great deal of education, many of whom were still working at colleges and universities.
I was there. AOL members would tell people to "IM" or "im" them. Usenet people, having a different real-time chat experience would suggest that someone /msg them. AOL members would talk about their "profiles" where Usenet people would refer to "whois" and their ".plan" file (two things that have gone away).
AOL users were not computer literate. None had any experience with the Internet as it had been before it was commercialized. Many were seriously less educated than the University crowd who thought that they pretty much "owned" the newsgroups.
The culture clash seemed to me to be akin to being overrun by a horde. I have occasionally used Usenet since then but within six months, I felt it was not worth my time.
It does not work and cannot work when it warns the user, as the Rootkit DRM program has to ask for an administrator password before you install.
On a Macintosh running OS X.
I note a whole lot of comments about how Apple "ought to do clones so that I could homebuild my own Mac," and Apple sux or Apple rox or whatever.
The real interest in this article is that Apple is moving forward to increase its market share. They're a hardware company and they also write software that makes their hardware really sparkle, though I have read a number of articles that suggest that their OS software created so much overhead that it's not a great server for a back-office application
But from the user's perspective -- a GUI tool to partition a hard drive, imagine that! Easy installation that starts out with a simple GUI, gosh, that's neat! -- Apple's operating system generates a user experience that sets it above many others. Apple has "done design" on its hardware and they have also "done design" on their software.
A great follow-on article to this would be a research project to teach 10 students to use Windows, 10 to use Apple's OS X, 10 to use a popular and easy-to-use distro of Linux, 10 to use BSD, etc. Then submit a survey to them after they're up and running on their computers and try to elicit how each user feels about the experience of using the operating system and the applications they would use to do regular work, like write term papers, do finances, research things on the Internet and so on.
From my own experience of having used Windows and Apple's System 7, 8 and 9 as well as OS X, I'd say my personal experience on a Mac is an easier one. I think I am more relaxed on it. I think less about computer problems than I used to and now think only in terms of getting the sork accomplished.
Apple won't allow clones because when they had clones, it almost took down the company. They need the high income stream to continue to innovate. Sorry about all of you homebrew computer enthusiasts out there who want to build your own Mac but this cannot be helped.
And there are cheaper Macs out there; the Mac Mini is being sold for as little as $499, "nicely outfitted" at $998, plus the cost of a monitor. But remember, you're not buying "homebrew." You're not buying an Acer heapy-cheapy clone from some box assembler that does not innovate. Apple should be compared to HP in terms of price because HP actually does put innovation in their computers. IBM used to but they sold out to Lenovo and now they'll fast besmirch the name. So price comparisons need to take reality into consideration -- one should not rank Apple's price with a lower-tier manufacturer.
Also, the Apple computer I purchased in 1999 is still going strong and very useful. I know of no pee cees that can last that long. This probably cuts into the perceived market share for Apple computers because, if you buy a good one, it'll last longer than the equivelant pee cee. Look at the user-installed base to see Apple's true market share. I even know of people who are still using Apple's old System software and have not transitioned to OS X. One, in particular, does audio mixing with Digidesign's Pro Tools and not Avid's because the old software that ran under the old OS meets all current and future needs -- until his Mac finally bites the dust.
Intel makes processors and motherboards. Apple went with Intel, presumably because they had something more to offer than IBM.
Former President James Earl Carter mentions this in his most recent book. He was quite public in 2000 with his departure from the SBC's dictate on what constitutes a believer.
I am a former Kansan. Grew up in the Kansas City area and was taught in one of the best school districts in the country at the time, as measures in SAT and ACT scores. I live in the East and work in NYC. And I'm horrified about what I see the Kansas Department of Education doing, which is to attempt to redefine the word "science" as used within the State for educational purposes to allow "hunches" "conjecture" and the non-observable to be used in the expression of "scientific theory."
Twice, Kansans have elected these fools to control how education would be run in the state. I don't know what promises were made during the election but I'm sure the teaching of Creationism, "Creation Science" "Intelligent Design" and Designer-ism was a hidden agenda of those who ran.
Only problem is that the voters in Kansas didn't realize what these fools would do once they got into office, based on what they did last time they ran things.
The Vatican has a long record of being anti-science that Pope John-Paul II tried to "clean up" a bit. There were the excommunications of Copernicus and Galilleo, burnings at the stake of "witches," prohibitions of the use of cadavers to explore the mystery of the human body, delaying the course of the development of modern surgery and so on. I still have problems with the prohibition of condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS and bishops who order priests to deny communion to any person who is a politician in the United States who does not think Roe v. Wade ought to be overturned (singling out Democrats and ignoring Republicans, like Giuliani who are Pro-Choice).
This is simply more of the same. The Vatican is trying to support science in a new way so that they can appropriately repent for past sins.
Now, come the Fundamentalists in the US who feel that any compromise is sinful. I should mention here that I recently saw an interview with one of their number who stated that Evangelicals don't have a Pope and so are less potentially "harmful" than the Catholics. What he didn't say (and what the reporter failed to ask about) is that in 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention changed their philosophy on the interpretation of Scripture from one where the scriptures were to be interpreted on the basis of the acts and words of Jesus Christ to one where the scriptures are to be interpreted on the basis of the dictates of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Exactly how does this differ from the Pope putting on a certain hat and declaring himself "infallible."
Nowadays, in order to be a good Christian, you have no "wiggle room." You either believe the way you are told, or you have sinned in the eyes of a small group, in the case of the SBC, or in the eyes of the Pope, both of whom subscribe to a "top-down" dictation of proper belief.
Where does this leave the average Kansan -- or American?
"Science" doesn't suffer from having the wrong definition. Science began to be developed some 6,000 years before Christ in Ionia by philosophers who saw that there could be logical explanations for everyday things that did not include the gods of the Persians or the gods of the Romans. Plato and his pupil Aristotle initiated a reaction to that by retreating into the perfection of the mind. Christianity picked up on that, transferring that to the Divine. But all the while, there was science. Science survived because it was heuristic. You could perform an experiment and state a hypothesis and repeat the experiment to assure yourself that the hypothesis held true. When a hypothesis was widely accepted, it graduated to the status of a Theory -- but nothing could be said to be cast in stone, in case observable events proved these understandings wrong.
Sir Isaac Newton's theories of gravitation were completely shattered by Einstein. Nonetheless, we still regularly use Newton to explain things because Einstein's theories are harder to describe.
These fundamentalists have initiated another definition of the word "Theory" which casts doubt on the
Frankly, these laws are "Nanny State" laws, where the government is seen as being your parental unit or a substitute for that (hence, "Nanny"). If you are in the back of a limousine and you're playing porn movies with the partition rolled up, nobody is distracted, nobody on the road sees your monitor (as limos generally have their windows heavily tinted) and nobody cares. But I can just see someone being driven along and a cop stopping them because he sees the driver doing something wrong (or thinks he sees wrongness) then arrests the couple in the back watching porn after popping open the back door.
Sensible people who ride motorcycles wear helmets. Helmet laws in various states are seen as "too restrictive." Yet states with no helmet laws have seatbelt laws and those same laws -- designed to protect -- are not seen as too restrictive.
I don't drive with any movie, porn or Disney, in the car. I don't want to. This is the same as not riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Law or no law, both to me don't seem sensible.
And you think that is not going to distract the driver?
Frankly, I'm against children watching disney movies in the car. I can see the lawsuits now for the soiled carpets and carseats as they all upchuck because they're getting carsick.
Motion sickness is easily reduced, if not eliminated by looking at the horizon. It may be induced by reading or watching something using close vision in a moving vehicle that is noticeably moving
Carsickness is a serious driver distraction. Been there, done that.
One does not have the right to use a whole work. And it is the whole work, a publication by the NSTA that the Kansas State Bord of Education wanted to use.
Children of Kansas do not deserve the actions of the Kansas Board of Education which wants teachers in Kansas to teach non-scientific methodology and call it "science." I was raised in Kansas. Back when I went to school, my school district was one of the top schools in the country -- public or private. I recieved an outstanding education that, back then, I took largely for granted.
Clear and simple, this is the National Science Teachers Association refusing to board the bus that these nutcases at the Kansas Board of Education are driving. I think they have a right to do this.
At issue here is not a quotation, but a complete work. Copyright law does not allow the use of a complete work -- even if it is a brochure.
You are getting the issue wrong here and it is understandable, as the letter does not necessarily make it clear.
The Kansas State Board of Education wants to quote a copyrighted document produced by the National Science Teachers Association in their statement about how science will be taught in Kansas. As the copyright holder, they have a right to deny the use of a quotation of their material for as long as they hold a copyright.
This would be the same as me asking to quote one of your copyrighted documents and you deciding that, due to something reprehensible I might have done in the past, like misquoting you or plagerizing from your work, you refusing me permission.
In this case, the NSTA feels that the KSBE has done something reprehensible, so the KSBE will not be allowed to quote from the National Science Teachers Association in their mission statement that describes why they want to introduce another form of "creationism" into the classrooms in that state.
Nothing is being held back from the students here in this refusal of permission to use a copyright. Instead, the NSTA is refusing to be seen as sanctioning the statement by the Kansas State Board of Education's rationale for teaching something that the NSTA sees as unscientific.
From the article:
... pornographers eagerly jump on new technology long before it goes mainstream
One could argue that the iPod is mainstream and the liklyhood of the Video iPod being mainstream from the outset. It is very easy to convert any video from Quicktime to the codecs that the video iPod will work with and, if one has the right compression tool, like Sorensen's tools, one could convert from WMF or just about anything else.
People in the porn industry are pretty happy with the money they're making presently off of girlie pictures and salacious downloadable movies of sex acts from the routine to the insane. The codecs that the video iPod wants to use are not really high quality so pornographers are counting on the individual to do their own converting from the higher-quality that they sell to the lower quality usable on the video iPod.
I have heard some discussion from friends of mine in the television industry about putting one's demo reel on a video iPod and most prefer a larger screen, like the one on the Play Station Portable. I believe it can play back a wider range of codecs and plays in much higher quality.
There all ready exist portable pr0n playback devices. They are called "laptops." I have seen people using them to play back DVD movies. I have never seen anyone playing back anything other than a general-release film. And one can fully understand why they are not playing back the gigabytes of pr0n (undoubtedly) on their laptops because they are not in the privacy of their own home. One tends to think of sexual acts in private, not public.
I occasionally wince at the laws being passed by the various states that are designed to prevent the playing of pornographic material in cars. When I'm in a car, I'm thinking about the road and the scenery around the road. And if I'm driving, I'm really just not going to watch anything than the road and my mirrors. That's pretty much it. I suppose there are kooks out there that think they can drive while watching something but I think they would quickly wind up in the hospital -- either excited or not excited about the video they just watched (probably not excited if they were badly injured). I think this is yet another example about how the attentions of our legislatures have been diverted from the service of the public to some strange obsessions.
iPods are great portable music devices. Not great video devices because the screens are low resolution and tiny. Porn is something that is generally consumed in the privacy of one's home. Kind of reduces the whole enjoyment factor if one is out in public.
As I stated in my initial post, These titles may be mistaken for actual rank earned in the game.
I don't play any MMORPG -- or any RPGs either. I don't have time. I just barely have time to occasinally (very) post here. But whether or not there is an actual title within the World of Warcraft by that name isn't so much the issue as the violation and then the management's position that they will not answer any questions or clarify their position in the case of someone who may be an asset to the company (I'm talking about the kind of person who holds sway over a number of opinions).
What it comes down to in my opinion is this is poor PR and poor customer service. It may be caused by people who lose their names going all ballistic on the company and getting unreasonably hostile but I doubt that CmdrTaco is liable to do that.
The parent should be modded up.
I wrote the following:
I have a problem with your recent requirement that students at your school not post their faces and personal diaries on weblogs on their own time and from home. I have no problem with you restricting their use of the Internet while at your school or advising their parents that their posting on these blogs may endanger them, warning those parents that there are predators out there on the Internet.
I have a four-year-old daughter that I am presently sending to our local Catholic elementary school in our Pre-K program and I am happy to support my school and church. I am well aware of both the usefulness and the dangers in using the Internet and my daughter will use it while under parental supervision only as long as she lives under my roof.
But in threatening to expel students for expressing themselves on their own time from their homes, you are usurping the role of their parents. As a parent I believe that is inappropriate behavior.
Were you to be in touch with the parents of these children about the dangers of the Internet and make specific recommendations as to how they may feel more secure about their children's usage of this resource, I would consider that part of your role in furthering the education of children and their parents on how to be a good Catholic and how to be a good student. But it is inappropriate to usurp the role of a parent.