Maybe you were reaching for humour, but if not, then you're dead wrong. With one exception I can think of, all terrorists in the US, came into the US from overseas using valid passports. Not from Canada.
I use GMail and have Thunderbird set to poll the GMail account for messages via pop. It works nicely and I have a copy on my own computer and one in All Mail via GMail. It's a good solution for me as I avail myself of the excellent spam filter technology deployed by GMail. I'm reasonably comfortable with the safety of my mail.
The only thing that really concerned me in the article and the dialogue in Google Groups was the apparent stone walling tactics by Google of an agitated client who had lost all of their data. The guy got a robotic reply, then silence. This is simply not good enough. Google fell all over themselves to reassure the folks at Techcrunch.com that they were working hard to fix the problem. The lesson appears to be that single users don't merit consideration, but techcrunch.com does. At the very least, this is discourteous.
In addition to "Do no evil", maybe they could add, "Mind your manners".
"But if he was providing illegal services to U.S. citizens then he put himself at risk. Why that is such a shock to you people I don't know, unless you just need another excuse to America-bash."
Need an excuse? Hell no! We do it freely, joyfully, unabashedly and gleefully with malice aforethought!
It's enough to simply aim a kick anywhere in the room and hit your great, wide, wobbly American ass that's bent over with a congress-applied Kick-me sticker in day-glo orange. Americans are now totally vulnerable to any vengeful comments by anyone whose cornflakes this current administration has peed into - most of the rest of the planet. Let's start with the Dutch.
First, my claim to impartiality: I am a liberal, or sometimes a 'small c' conservative and do not have any party affiliations either in Canada or in the US.
Being a Republican, your loyalty is to your party above your country, your fellow citizens and most especially above any sense of integrity. That has been repeatedly demonstrated over the last 30 years or so.
Nobody is "demonizing" Republicans.
First you demonize the person, then in the very next breath you say you aren't demonizing them, then in the breath after, you call them a liar!
I dunno, maybe the clear, cold air up here clears the head and lowers the blood pressure. From up here it appears that there is actual hatred between Democrats and Republicans.
I am coming to despise both sides equally. Al Gore recently said he knew almost nothing about Canada and so didn't feel qualified to comment. This from a man who was the vice president of our biggest trading parter and closest ally. Jesus fucking Christ, what ignorance! The last democratic candidate for president was incapable of issuing a simple subject-predicate-object sentence if his life depended on it. Is it any wonder people didn't vote for him in droves? George Bush immediately turned his closest ally into an enemy by saying "either you are with us or you're with the terrorists", then proceeded to attack a secular country with few or no ties to terrorism.
At almost every turn in the process, the US electoral administration is linked to political parties which guarantees electoral fraud by one party or the other, or both.
Unless I misread the original article, some of the disenfranchised were the very people who were in Iraq fighting for their country.
Americans seem to accept the voting problems of the last two presidential elections with a degree of equanimity that amazes many of us who watch this from the outside. I'm hearing people on the Republican side pooh-poohing voting irregularities and claiming sour grapes on the part of the Democrats. The large media companies seem to be ignoring the problems and this is incomprehensible to outsiders as well.
Canadian servicemen vote in pre-election polls and we expend considerable effort to ensure that every last person in uniform exercises their franchise no matter where on the planet they might be - no excuses. I can't conceive of a set of circumstances where a politician or government functionary might conspire to deprive a serviceman of their vote, and were they to try, the country would be outraged. Hell, even our prisoners vote!
Even if there were no voting fraud, and if every government functionary and elections official acted in perfect faith, there can be no excuse for denying any United States citizen their entitlement to vote. There is a social contract at work here and it defines the US republic. Every citizen must know that their vote counts for something and that when they choose to, they may vote without hindrance. If this fundamental element in the social contract fails, the republic stands for nothing and cannot survive.
It amounts to this; when you vote for the president, vote for the president. Put the other races aside for another time. Make it a simple vote with pencil and paper - one voter, one ballot, one pencil and a choice of candidates. Do not allow anybody into the polling station but voters and non-affiliated election officials. Do not allow challenges or any other kind of intimidation. If the United States feel they would be unable to conduct a straight forward, honest, no bull-shit election, I'm pretty sure they could ask for teams from Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Mexico to oversee the festivities and ensure a fair election.
We'd all like to know the guy who is running things down there was elected fairly and represents the majority of the voters.
In Canada it's a wee bit better, but keep in mind that most dial-up users use it because there is nothing else. I had to go to a Credit Union shareholder's meeting to get my bank to change their login page. The programmer had broadband, but a hand count of shareholders revealed that only 30 percent of us had fast access, and we were all sick of waiting for the stupid flash-encumbered page to load.
If it's a business, then it would seem to pay the budding entrepeneur to enable their website for everybody, including those who are visually impaired. So often these websites are programmed by 25 year old anti-social dweebs.
For dial-up users it's not great at all, it's slooooooooooooooooooow.
My page at yahoo.ca isn't working very well either. News is always four days old, the calendar, notes and briefcase all say they're unavailable. It's been like this for months.:-(
I dunno much about horoscopes, but change is good. The names of the constellations in the Zodiac were always great for me. Laying out back on the lawn and watching the stars and planets sweep by always made me feel closer to those old guys who dreamed up the stories to explain their behaviour. The fact that the planets moved through those constellations made it all seem like a spectacular procession. Apparently Pluto didn't follow the usual crowd though.
I never learned the names of the planets and moons using acronyms or mnemonics - they just were what they were, like the names for the numbers uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto, nove and so on. It was the stories of the Zodiac that cemented the knowledge of the names into an easily remembered framework. The asteroid Ceres was never real to me until I read a story by Heinlein in which it was featured fairly prominently.
Now I'll have to check the motherload to see when they update the names for dear old UB313 and her faithful follower.
If you haven't tried Celestia, I recommend it. It's probably the closest I'll ever get to planetary travel.
Okay, if you're annoyed, you're not invited and no popcorn for you.
For what it's worth, I have a 27 inch JVC that will not die and until it does, that's my TeeVee. I don't watch it much, because even with satellite, there is very little on except BBC or PBS. The only two network shows I like are House and The Closer. Wasteland hardly covers it.
It's likely I'll get a projector setup and watch movies on that. You still won't be invited, complainer.
There are some series of movies and TV that I wouldn't mind having in my library, but with this gabble about anamorphic/non-anamorphic which I still don't understand, maybe it would be better to let someone else buy it and ask them if it's any good.
I used the term nym as shorthand for pseudonym, which is defined here .
Somebody famous once said that small towns were wonderful: show up at school with a runny nose and be called sniffy for the rest of your life, fart at a picnic and be known as stinky until death. It's true.
There are a great many reasons to want to keep our names secret on the internet and most of them are logical and non-criminal. People insist on privacy as a defence against spammers, other marketers, scammers, phishers and psychopaths. People sometimes dirty their internet persona to such an extent that they'd like to start over with a new name and a fresh history. The internet is a frontier society like the old west or Australia or many parts of Africa or South America. People often left everything behind and popped up with a fresh slate.
soapbox off.
You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay or you can call me Ray_Jay or....
As it says a little later in the discussion, it's another twenty bucks to register yourself in someone's database.
Supposedly it gives you a permanent internet identity that could be useful for ID and shipping purposes.
See the article in Wikipedia, it has a good explanation and lots of useful links.
They've been trying to get a successful launch of this for some time now and it has so far failed miserably. I'd say it's because many folks on the internet like being anonymous or hiding behind a nym.
"- what do you do when people democratically elect extremely objectionable leaders?"
Ah yes, we've pondered that question at some length up here, north of the 49th. And then when they do it twice in a row! We are in hopes that the two-terms-only rule holds, otherwise there could be a president/emperor.
That's off the top of my head. Check out The World Factbook or The CIA World Factbook, although I mistrust the CIA since they moved to black pages. I think it says something about their intent.:-)
It seems to me that there are two sides to a contractual agreement in university education:
The student pays tuition and any other costs deemed mutually appropriate,
The student buys the books and textual materials required,
The student undertakes not to interfere with the professor's lectures, nor to interfere with the learning attempts of other students.
The university undertakes to hire good professors who are qualified to teach the subject matter and who can teach,
The university provides a venue where the teaching process can take place,
The university undertakes to provide access to all of the courses the student pays for.
It isn't the university's job to make sure the student attends all lectures, nor is it within their purview to punish truants, or 'naughty' students. It is the university's job to conduct an examination process to ensure competence in subject matter in accordance with state/provincial educational standards.
It seems to me that students are more sinned against than they are sinners. Very often, there are labour conflicts in universities that deny the student the opportunity to take courses within the academic year. Very often, universities hire professors based simply on their demonstrated understanding of the subject matter. They do NOT require any demonstrated ability to teach or to manage a class.
I'm not sure about the Excited States, but Canada has Advertising Standards Canada. It is mostly self-regulating and doesn't have much in the way of teeth. There is a consumer complaint procedure, but it is so hedged in with whereases and whereformoreovers that complainants could grow old waiting for results.
The family wouldn't be suing for the damage done by whomever AOL got to do the digging; rather they would be suing for damages done to their safety and property by the quite possibly unfounded accusation that there was a treasure buried on their property.
Mere mention of such a thing would bring out every nut in the boonies. The principle is that if your actions place someone else at hazard - you are responsible. "You" being the corporate you of course.
It isn't a large point, but I was interested because AOL sponsors the Open Directory Project that I support and edit for; and they are also a part of Time-Warner. As every Slashdotter takes T-W's evil and malignance as an article of faith with their morning cheerios........
"And even if AOL lose they've marked the spot with a big X."
Yes, they did, didn't they? AOL has nice deep pockets which makes them pretty vulnerable to a suit for damages. Wouldn't it be fun to be the lawyer arguing for the parents' right to damages for the obvious damage AOL has done to their property, now and in the future?
Maybe the Goodness and Niceness of Google will infect Time-Warner so that they'll stop beating up widows and orphans through the RIAA lawyers.
Naaa. I think if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Bye-bye Google.
"Theoretically you are right. But in practice Linux 2.6 is 6 million lines of code and a typical microkernel is less than 10k. It can already take up to a year to check the correctness of a 8k lines of code microkernel and there will be an exponential demand for resources as the code size increases. So in reality it will not be possible to check the linux kernel for correctness."
Is there a way to get this done with a distributed processing system such as is used by SETI and other projects?
This sort of project seems to be tailor made for the FOSS community - giving up some CPU time to prove our flagship is correct.
I realize that Linux is a moving target, but we would need to start somewhere, then once proven, prove additions/amendments.
"I'm guessing you aren't a physicist. And that you have no training what so ever in general relativity, so let me see if I can enlighten you. Imagine the universe as a surface, parameterised by some co-ordinates.
From there on it gets a bit muddy, buddy.
If that was intended as a joke, it took too long to get to the punch line. If it was intended as a rational, understandable explanation, it failed by a wide margin. If it was an exercise in masturbation, I hope it was good for you. Wanna smoke?
This is your cue to reply in very patronising tones, belittling my intelligence and inability to comprehend even the simplest English. Fire away.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you were reaching for humour, but if not, then you're dead wrong. With one exception I can think of, all terrorists in the US, came into the US from overseas using valid passports. Not from Canada.
I use GMail and have Thunderbird set to poll the GMail account for messages via pop. It works nicely and I have a copy on my own computer and one in All Mail via GMail. It's a good solution for me as I avail myself of the excellent spam filter technology deployed by GMail. I'm reasonably comfortable with the safety of my mail.
The only thing that really concerned me in the article and the dialogue in Google Groups was the apparent stone walling tactics by Google of an agitated client who had lost all of their data. The guy got a robotic reply, then silence. This is simply not good enough. Google fell all over themselves to reassure the folks at Techcrunch.com that they were working hard to fix the problem. The lesson appears to be that single users don't merit consideration, but techcrunch.com does. At the very least, this is discourteous.
In addition to "Do no evil", maybe they could add, "Mind your manners".
It seems doubtful that we will be using the space elevator to put people into orbit. See Van Allen Belts. Shielding looks like a big problem.
Need an excuse? Hell no! We do it freely, joyfully, unabashedly and gleefully with malice aforethought!
It's enough to simply aim a kick anywhere in the room and hit your great, wide, wobbly American ass that's bent over with a congress-applied Kick-me sticker in day-glo orange. Americans are now totally vulnerable to any vengeful comments by anyone whose cornflakes this current administration has peed into - most of the rest of the planet. Let's start with the Dutch.
It's likely that either the Canadians, the Brits, the Dutch or the Pakistanis will get Osama long before the Wolfowitz Wonders ever do.
I didn't vote for Bush either. :-)
First, my claim to impartiality: I am a liberal, or sometimes a 'small c' conservative and do not have any party affiliations either in Canada or in the US.
First you demonize the person, then in the very next breath you say you aren't demonizing them, then in the breath after, you call them a liar!
I dunno, maybe the clear, cold air up here clears the head and lowers the blood pressure. From up here it appears that there is actual hatred between Democrats and Republicans.
I am coming to despise both sides equally. Al Gore recently said he knew almost nothing about Canada and so didn't feel qualified to comment. This from a man who was the vice president of our biggest trading parter and closest ally. Jesus fucking Christ, what ignorance! The last democratic candidate for president was incapable of issuing a simple subject-predicate-object sentence if his life depended on it. Is it any wonder people didn't vote for him in droves? George Bush immediately turned his closest ally into an enemy by saying "either you are with us or you're with the terrorists", then proceeded to attack a secular country with few or no ties to terrorism.
At almost every turn in the process, the US electoral administration is linked to political parties which guarantees electoral fraud by one party or the other, or both.
Unless I misread the original article, some of the disenfranchised were the very people who were in Iraq fighting for their country.
It ain't right, guys.
Americans seem to accept the voting problems of the last two presidential elections with a degree of equanimity that amazes many of us who watch this from the outside. I'm hearing people on the Republican side pooh-poohing voting irregularities and claiming sour grapes on the part of the Democrats. The large media companies seem to be ignoring the problems and this is incomprehensible to outsiders as well.
Canadian servicemen vote in pre-election polls and we expend considerable effort to ensure that every last person in uniform exercises their franchise no matter where on the planet they might be - no excuses. I can't conceive of a set of circumstances where a politician or government functionary might conspire to deprive a serviceman of their vote, and were they to try, the country would be outraged. Hell, even our prisoners vote!
Even if there were no voting fraud, and if every government functionary and elections official acted in perfect faith, there can be no excuse for denying any United States citizen their entitlement to vote. There is a social contract at work here and it defines the US republic. Every citizen must know that their vote counts for something and that when they choose to, they may vote without hindrance. If this fundamental element in the social contract fails, the republic stands for nothing and cannot survive.
It amounts to this; when you vote for the president, vote for the president. Put the other races aside for another time. Make it a simple vote with pencil and paper - one voter, one ballot, one pencil and a choice of candidates. Do not allow anybody into the polling station but voters and non-affiliated election officials. Do not allow challenges or any other kind of intimidation. If the United States feel they would be unable to conduct a straight forward, honest, no bull-shit election, I'm pretty sure they could ask for teams from Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Mexico to oversee the festivities and ensure a fair election.
We'd all like to know the guy who is running things down there was elected fairly and represents the majority of the voters.
In Canada it's a wee bit better, but keep in mind that most dial-up users use it because there is nothing else. I had to go to a Credit Union shareholder's meeting to get my bank to change their login page. The programmer had broadband, but a hand count of shareholders revealed that only 30 percent of us had fast access, and we were all sick of waiting for the stupid flash-encumbered page to load.
If it's a business, then it would seem to pay the budding entrepeneur to enable their website for everybody, including those who are visually impaired. So often these websites are programmed by 25 year old anti-social dweebs.
For dial-up users it's not great at all, it's slooooooooooooooooooow.
My page at yahoo.ca isn't working very well either. News is always four days old, the calendar, notes and briefcase all say they're unavailable. It's been like this for months. :-(
I dunno much about horoscopes, but change is good. The names of the constellations in the Zodiac were always great for me. Laying out back on the lawn and watching the stars and planets sweep by always made me feel closer to those old guys who dreamed up the stories to explain their behaviour. The fact that the planets moved through those constellations made it all seem like a spectacular procession. Apparently Pluto didn't follow the usual crowd though.
I never learned the names of the planets and moons using acronyms or mnemonics - they just were what they were, like the names for the numbers uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto, nove and so on. It was the stories of the Zodiac that cemented the knowledge of the names into an easily remembered framework. The asteroid Ceres was never real to me until I read a story by Heinlein in which it was featured fairly prominently.
Now I'll have to check the motherload to see when they update the names for dear old UB313 and her faithful follower.
If you haven't tried Celestia, I recommend it. It's probably the closest I'll ever get to planetary travel.
Okay, if you're annoyed, you're not invited and no popcorn for you.
For what it's worth, I have a 27 inch JVC that will not die and until it does, that's my TeeVee. I don't watch it much, because even with satellite, there is very little on except BBC or PBS. The only two network shows I like are House and The Closer. Wasteland hardly covers it.
It's likely I'll get a projector setup and watch movies on that. You still won't be invited, complainer.
Not even if you bring your own popcorn.
There are some series of movies and TV that I wouldn't mind having in my library, but with this gabble about anamorphic/non-anamorphic which I still don't understand, maybe it would be better to let someone else buy it and ask them if it's any good.
Grump.
Sorry, that was not clear at all, was it?
I used the term nym as shorthand for pseudonym, which is defined here .
Somebody famous once said that small towns were wonderful: show up at school with a runny nose and be called sniffy for the rest of your life, fart at a picnic and be known as stinky until death. It's true.
There are a great many reasons to want to keep our names secret on the internet and most of them are logical and non-criminal. People insist on privacy as a defence against spammers, other marketers, scammers, phishers and psychopaths. People sometimes dirty their internet persona to such an extent that they'd like to start over with a new name and a fresh history. The internet is a frontier society like the old west or Australia or many parts of Africa or South America. People often left everything behind and popped up with a fresh slate.
soapbox off.
You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay or you can call me Ray_Jay or ....
As it says a little later in the discussion, it's another twenty bucks to register yourself in someone's database.
Supposedly it gives you a permanent internet identity that could be useful for ID and shipping purposes.
See the article in Wikipedia, it has a good explanation and lots of useful links.
They've been trying to get a successful launch of this for some time now and it has so far failed miserably. I'd say it's because many folks on the internet like being anonymous or hiding behind a nym.
Do you light a candle or curse the darkness?
- Canada
- New Zealand
- Australia
- South Africa
- Republic of Ireland
- Costa Rica
- Brazil
- Norway
- Sweden
- Denmark
That's off the top of my head. Check out The World Factbook or The CIA World Factbook, although I mistrust the CIA since they moved to black pages. I think it says something about their intent.- The university undertakes to hire good professors who are qualified to teach the subject matter and who can teach,
- The university provides a venue where the teaching process can take place,
- The university undertakes to provide access to all of the courses the student pays for.
It isn't the university's job to make sure the student attends all lectures, nor is it within their purview to punish truants, or 'naughty' students. It is the university's job to conduct an examination process to ensure competence in subject matter in accordance with state/provincial educational standards.It seems to me that students are more sinned against than they are sinners. Very often, there are labour conflicts in universities that deny the student the opportunity to take courses within the academic year. Very often, universities hire professors based simply on their demonstrated understanding of the subject matter. They do NOT require any demonstrated ability to teach or to manage a class.
Or so it seems to me.
I'm not sure about the Excited States, but Canada has Advertising Standards Canada. It is mostly self-regulating and doesn't have much in the way of teeth. There is a consumer complaint procedure, but it is so hedged in with whereases and whereformoreovers that complainants could grow old waiting for results.
For an in-depth discussion of the ramifications, imperfections and significance of the electronic toilet, see the recent Slashdot discussion here.
The family wouldn't be suing for the damage done by whomever AOL got to do the digging; rather they would be suing for damages done to their safety and property by the quite possibly unfounded accusation that there was a treasure buried on their property.
Mere mention of such a thing would bring out every nut in the boonies. The principle is that if your actions place someone else at hazard - you are responsible. "You" being the corporate you of course.
It isn't a large point, but I was interested because AOL sponsors the Open Directory Project that I support and edit for; and they are also a part of Time-Warner. As every Slashdotter takes T-W's evil and malignance as an article of faith with their morning cheerios........
Yes, they did, didn't they? AOL has nice deep pockets which makes them pretty vulnerable to a suit for damages. Wouldn't it be fun to be the lawyer arguing for the parents' right to damages for the obvious damage AOL has done to their property, now and in the future?
Oh boy!
Maybe the Goodness and Niceness of Google will infect Time-Warner so that they'll stop beating up widows and orphans through the RIAA lawyers. Naaa. I think if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Bye-bye Google.
Is there a way to get this done with a distributed processing system such as is used by SETI and other projects?
This sort of project seems to be tailor made for the FOSS community - giving up some CPU time to prove our flagship is correct.
I realize that Linux is a moving target, but we would need to start somewhere, then once proven, prove additions/amendments.
This is your cue to reply in very patronising tones, belittling my intelligence and inability to comprehend even the simplest English. Fire away.