The best part? The Tab 229 example includes a define for RTLD_GLOBAL but in the SCO code it's value is 4 instead of the 0x100 used in Linux. Why the discrepancy? Well, probably because the FSF was cloning BSD, not Unix (as BSD was probably more popular and readily available to many than one of the myriad Unix forks). Oops.
Perhaps McBride is unaware of the BSD lawsuit? Certainly, if anyone has any room to complain, it'd be Berkley. However, given that the examples seem to repeatedly have jumbled lines or inconsistent values, I'd imagine that regular reverse-engineering was employed in the construction of most of the headers. Ie, it just further highlights how unlikely there was copyright infringement.
No. One great reason for the case to change if people started acting rationally. If Russia or some other national-level foe wipes out the US, there's really little reason to counterattack. Revenge, btw, isn't a good reason.
The only problem I see here is with your concept of "rational". Getting wiped out by a nuclear/other attack is generally considered very bad. The retaliation policy is rational precisely because it gives vast disincentive to an enemy that might otherwise do so.
Except that if one actually succeeds in a nuclear/other attack, there is no longer a rational basis to counterattack (the disincentive clearly failed and there is nothing to be gained from an attack). Hence, the rational thing to do is to strike first.
at least it'd remove the hypocrisy of trying to look like a purely reactionary, defensive move
Hypocrisy is not the worst thing that can happen in a nuclear war.
No, but hypocrisy is precisely what can lead to a nuclear war. If we didn't have nuclear weapons "for defense", it'd be rather hard to use them. The same is true for massive biological or chemical stockpiles. If it were to be acknowledged that the real intention of producing those stockpiles was for their actual use, most people would actually be against their production and stockpiling. In the end, even that might not be enough to stop their production and stockpiling, so that hypocrisy may be pragmatically moot. It doesn't appear to be moot, though. My reaction against hypocrisy is not merely an ideological one but also a pragmatic one.
The post-Cold War case remains the same as the pre-Cold War case. The purpose is to retain enough nuclear strike capability to be able to take out Russia or some other nation-level foe, if the US gets wiped in a nuclear (or other technology) attack.
Ie, the pre-Cold War case was just as bullshit as the current post-Cold War case.
There's no reason for the case to change until there is no longer a potential enemy with the ability to do this.
No. One great reason for the case to change if people started acting rationally. If Russia or some other national-level foe wipes out the US, there's really little reason to counterattack. Revenge, btw, isn't a good reason.
Whether the justification warrants the bill mentioned above is another story.
Personally, I'm less bothered in throwing away the $8 Billion as much as the mindset that tries to justify it. If, on the other hand, the US would admit "we have these nuclear submarines so the US can be the first to strike, if we desire", at least it'd remove the hypocrisy of trying to look like a purely reactionary, defensive move because of others instead of the [evil] warhawkish behavior that would lead to the death of billions (because there are those in Russia and other nations who are just as warhawkish and willing to strike even after one's own side lost; and that justifies nothing just like terrorists blowing up civilians doesn't justify us doing it).
Look, if you want to build a distribution to do something in particular, you're doing it wrong.
Find me a distro that is both usable for the desktop and doesn't require a lot of legwork to create a 20MB micro-Linux rescue system and I'd agree with you.
And then what's going to happen once we've got this data mapped in realtime? We're just going to look at the maps and say wow, that's a lot of genocide? Is somebody supposed to act on that data? Or is it just supposed to provide awareness?
Pretty much. In the last twenty years, there's been multiple examples of genocide in which while the genocide was still in progress, the international community was made well aware of it. In general, the result has been awareness and an unwillingness to commit troops to stop the slaughter. While I'd inclined to believe it's in part the repugnant it's not my problem, I generally think it's because most countries are afraid to commit troops and be the only ones who actually act; meanwhile, negotiating how many troops from each country and when to send each countries troops can take years to settle. That is, there simply isn't enough shame in knowing about and being a silent non-participant in the ending of a genocide.
The saddest part? That all those who have suffered or parents/grandparents have suffered under genocide, so very few seem quickly to invest themselves to the cause of stopping happening to others what they were unable to stop happening to themselves. Perhaps it's the regression of victim-hood. Perhaps it's the fear of being really wiped out to be invested in such causes. But, I think most of all it's the self-centeredness to see one's worst pain and not empathize with another that their pain could ever be nearly as great. If that could mindset could be overcome, I think genocide would be less a repeatedly media spectacle and more the famous and shushed last words of a tyrant.
Speaking about the IMF bit, there's actually some later news since the whole Greek debt crisis. Basically, since the Euro isn't stable either, the IMF has pushed for an even newer idea of a new sort of security note that allows one to at a later date to effectively buy a value in a basket of currencies (ie, many different ones) to allow for large countries, like China and a lot of other countries that currently buy up a lot of US dollars, to obtain a bit more stability in the value of that cash reserve. Personally, it sounds like a combination of a futures exchange and the currency exchange, but run through the IMF.
Considering that currency futures already exist, I'm not entirely sure I see the point, though, except that perhaps there exists no companys large enough to dare hedging currencies for a whole country. But, to that end, one is basically left with the point that IMF would probably be basically forced to provide such a service. In any case, none of this really translates into "global currency" any more than US hedge funds have resulted in the entire conglomeration of all publicly traded US companies.
Nah, I think Max Planck is acknowledging that people are general dogmatic about their own lives. When two scientists create two different but equally provable theories neither side is interested in unifying their theory precisely because each scientist believes their theory is right. If one theory is proven wrong in the lifetime of the two scientists, it's rather human nature to continue to cling to what might be a life's work and work hard to fix one's own theory, not merely give up on it for the readily available alternative. But, finally, when everyone else without a vested interest is exposed to the two theories, they can choose the one that's yet to be disproven. Hence, upon deaths of it's creators, the last of a theory's believers may well die.
So, yes, those with a vested interest may be dogmatic. But, it's through a long-term filtering process (the scientific method) that what approaches truth is discovered. And of course, if we're all wrong about many of the theories we learned, the next generation can learn from our mistaken beliefs. Hence, science may be shrouded in dogma, but it avoids the real sin of dogma: unquestioning multi-generational dogma.
The problem is that right wing bloggers trumpet these up to raise doubts about the basic science
Oh there's a far greater problem, it's people like you willing to whitewash inaccuracies and the inability for people to review the data used to reach the conclusion they claim is accurate. To just blow past that and still claim there's even science going on, much less that it is sound,...
Wow, that's amazing. Except for the "right wing bloggers" part, you did exactly what he said. Because of inaccuracies in some calculations in the IPCC report (aka non-base science) and inappropriate quoting from a non-report, you're attacking the underlying (aka base science) reports. At best what can be proven is that those who worked on the IPCC report either failed in their duties in writing the report or had some underlying intent to deceive. Either way, the base science stands.
...is pretty incredible to me on a site where people are otherwise very level-headed about technical matters.
I'm not sure how pandering to us about our "very level-headed about technical matters" really matters in this discussion. Or are you simply trying to imply that/. is just as crazy as all the anti-AGW groups? That sort of gross guilt-by-association (or praise-by-association) is personally bullshit to me.
If you can't peer review, it's not science.
Um, it was peer reviewed. Perhaps you don't understand what peer review means? Peer reviews is review done by peers (think something like "jury of one's peers). Ie, it is presumed that what data is reported is accurate to the best abilities of the submitter, the testing methodology was followed, and the only issue is things like verifying the correctness of equations and the conclusion (as well as possibly duplicate testing to see if there were failings in the methodology such as too small of samples, the environment, faulty equipment, etc). So, the only reasonable basis that there'd be such consistent data and conclusions between various peers while the data and conclusions are actually wrong are either (a) a grand conspiracy to deceive, (b) consistently faulty equipment, (c) not enough samples, or (d) a fundamental lack of understanding of the methodology and how it would produce results of the kind seen. None of the above mentioned seem very probably because work has been done for decades to try to see if any hold true, and there have consistently failed to be any remotely strong leads to suggest any hold true. The only thing really left much is (a) and that seems more based in those with an agenda than any real search for truth (with claims that data is manipulated yet without giving a reason why everyone in the field would either not notice it (perhaps they're all idiot savants) or would willfully conspire to achieve it (odd why we should believe from one group with an agenda and no actual evidence how the other group has an agenda too, but they're the wrong ones (because no matter what evidence they provide, it's still not enough to clear them that they're not somehow hiding something))).
If you're theory cannot actually predict anything but the past, that's not a good theory and you need to go back to the drawing board.
True enough. And, oddly enough, global warming does and has predicted the future. Global warming suggests a simple point: more greenhouse gases, all other things been equal, results in an overall rise in temperature of the planet. And the data bears that out.
One generation doesn't have the right to determine the availability forever.
Like property rights, why should land only be able to be sold by those who got to it first (or bought it from those who did) - I wasn't able to compete with them and doesn't seem fair that my ancestors lack of ability to "win" should deprive me.
And the same thing for all the minerals that have already been mined from the earth. And in fact, every single thing on the entire planet, ever.
You're examples are interesting, and they do illustrate a point. One generation does have the right to determine the availability forever. But, it also has the responsibility and obligation to wisely use those resources. This comes not only in not trivially forever consuming resources but also, as you point out, providing for future generations to inherent that which is available in a fair way. Oligarchies makes sense in a gene pool, but in the short term humanity exists much more in a meme pool where ideas have much more weight than genetic mutation.
The long-term survival of the meme pool to maintain and progress requires, then, the opportunity for everyone to grow so that those most capable, willing, and involved actually continue the meme pool. To facilitate this requires many things, including the availability of quality education and a mechanism of reallocating rival resources (property taxes and death taxes come to mind). This also can translate into absorbing into monetary costs the externalities of pollution or the warpings of other externalities. Just because a right trumps an obligation in the axioms of law doesn't mean a law cannot be created or a society can willfully choose to act individually to fulfill an obligation and withhold from the exercising of a right. Recognizing that this can and should be so is something too few seeming willing to acknowledge, so I do congratulate you on noting the difference.
1. If you want to make a living creating works that exist in a data format (music, books, video) just accept the fact that nobody owes you a dime for your time. If some people choose to drop some money in your hat, that's awesome - but don't count on it.
The world doesn't owe you a living. This doesn't change just because you decided to write a novel. Certainly, a large part of making a living when you alone are a business is convincing people to buy your product.
2. If your music is so great, tour and make money that way. If you get moderately successful locally, each band member might be able to clear $80 a night! Of course you'll need a huge cash infusion (i.e. debt) to start touring big, but I'm sure the banks will be happy to help you with loans for such a riskless endeavour.
Welcome to the world of self-entrepreneurship. The rewards can be amazingly great, but there's an amazing amount of risk. In fact, most such businesses fail precisely because of the great risk. It can happen no matter how great your music is because of a lack of experience and because life isn't fair.
3. Always remember - costs like studio time, special effects, actors, musicians, props, sets, insurance, essentially every cost involved in the production of your work magically disconnect from the work itself at the moment it is finalized. A ripped copy of that work has absolutely no moral, legal, or implied connection to any of those costs.
Welcome to globalization, where just about anything can be made at dirty-cheap prices in China at virtually the cost of the raw materials (all R&D costs sunk only on the inventors). Yes, you might have a legal right to step in and stop piracy (or trademark infringement), but that's probably not going to really help unless you're a large, well-established company that can spend years to actually see law suits through and law/government changed to actually force existing laws to be executed.
In short, copyright holders actually get a leg up compared to most businesses. They get an actual legal monopoly on the production of a good. While it might be hard to legally enforce at the start, once you're a large well-established, it becomes much easier to actually pursue those who would infringe your legal rights. If you never become large or well-established, then you're sadly probably shit-out-of-luck. You're left to the same arena most small business owners are; you try to convince people to keep buying and hope you have enough profit to continue on. While I might weep for you a little, there's a lot more people probably a lot more deserving of sympathies than you (a lot more crushing debt, for example).
The people you bash as "deniers" are actually not denying climate change, but are instead debating the following points that you seem to be ignoring. They argue that:
Climate change is happening, but the primary source of the change is not necessarily human activity. A common argument is that the sun is the main driver of the change.
Yep, well, you're wrong. Definitely the change in the sun's output is a factor, but it's not the primary source of change on Earth. Beyond that, CO2 exacerbates any increases in sun output.
Climate change is happening, but it may not longer be global warming. In other words, a lot of temperature data shows that we have flat-lined or cooled since 1998, though industrial output increased, especially in China. Some worry that with the absence of sunspots, we may be looking at the beginning of a new Maunder minimum, which could lead to another mini-ice age. I think a lot of people, including politicians, are starting to notice this point, because if you look at the late 90's the debate was all about the crisis of global warming, but now they've suddenly changed the name to "climate change" instead.
Um, no there isn't "a lot of temperature data [showing] that we have flat-lined or cooled since 1998". Yes, global temperature hasn't constantly risen because of, among other things, solar cycles. That's one reason the debate changed to "climate change" because people didn't understand that "global warming" didn't mean every year must be absolutely hotter than the last. Climate change means that decades and centuries of weather are warmer; ie, the globe is not merely warming but the climate is changing. And the trend has held. The 90s were hotter than the 80s. The 00s have been hotter than the 90s (which plenty of record or near record years).
Climate change is happening, but considering that the climate has always changed, it is no reason to shutter our industries and destroy our economies. And it is also not a reason to give the government more control of our lives.
Talk about fear mongering. Yes, there are those who speak of catastrophe when it comes to climate change. But, they're not talking about millions dying or economies collapsing (film directors and idiot politicians withstanding). They're talking about increased flooding and desertification over the course of decades. The words they use might be somewhat superlative, but that is because they recognize that our great grandchildren will inherent a rather different Earth if we simply do nothing. To counter that possibility doesn't mean "[shuttering] our industries". It means internalizing the externalities of climate change. If doing that causes industries to collapse, it means that the harm industries were doing to our world was so horrible, they really shouldn't have existed. I emphatically don't believe that's the case, however. Industry, like most groups, just doesn't want to have to pay for the damages they cause if they don't have to.
So you are right that the debate isn't over, but not for the reasons you describe. The debate will continue because people like you don't understand what the debate is about (you seem to think it's about whether or not climate change is happening), and because people like you are making a crisis out of nothing.
If you believe burning oil is nothing, I'd suggest you light a barrel of the stuff in a closed room and see how that works out for you. Me? I think burning oil has some clear negatives. The answer to those negatives probably isn't "burn no oil". But ignoring those negatives under some claim that people are "making a crisis out of nothing" is even more absurd.
If man-made global warming is happening, is that a crisis? It may be, if it can be proven that human activity is truly the primary cause. But is climate change in and of
I don't know where this myth came from (probably people trying to make moral rather than legal or logical arguments about piracy). There are federal criminal laws regarding copyright and trademark infringement. Many, many states have their own versions.
I could be wrong, but I think the discussion was about Swedish law. In any case, until quite recently (1997), all US federal copyright criminal law only covered commercial infringement; I haven't heard of any changes to state law to make non-commercial infringement a crime. Since the Swedish Pirate Party has specifically stated its action are non-commercial, I would presume Swedish law still makes a distinction between commercial and non-commercial infringement. I'm not sure how trademark law enters into the discussion, unless you believe that people are mistaking various seeders as trademark holders of torrented items when they're not.
In short, I think the whole commercial/non-commercial aspect is what confuses most people who think we live in a pre-1997 world. Having said that, I don't think I've heard of anyone prosecuted in the US for non-commercial infringement.
Exactly. As a greybeard old enough to have used 98Lite to "hot rod" systems I can say that even back then you could remove it easy enough, but without MSHTML.dll and related files on the system many programs that were not made by MSFT simply wouldn't run or would die hard.
Funny you should mention that, actually. As someone who uses Xubuntu (and heavily IceWM under it), I've installed various parts of both Gnome and KDE for the few apps under each that I use. But, because I didn't simply install kubuntu-desktop or ubuntu-desktop, lots of various bits and pieces aren't installed which ends up breaking some apps that just assume everything is there (really, this is may be a problem with Ubuntu not keeping proper dependencies with running external apps (hard to tell since it's not trivial to figure out all how many of the "recommended" packages aren't installed and really should be)). So, I'd say that's a general problem with any complex enough system when you start wanting to remove/leave out parts.
In the days of dialup it was simply better to have a rendering engine built into the OS because as anyone on the dialup back then would tell you, even small downloads were slooooow buddy.
Even if that were the case, that doesn't explain why Trident was the rendering engine built into the OS. If you'll recall, Trident in Outlook Express turned into a massive security nightmare for years because instead of having a simple HTML renderer available, a massively complex web rendering engine was made accessible in a fashion that coupled to all sorts of applications which simply weren't written with security in mind. Admittedly, a large part of this problem was with developers too quick to simply throw the neat "web control" into their program without much thought about all the risks that'd entail (a strong argument that a readily accessible web control in the OS is more trouble than it's worth). But MS itself really didn't put a lot of forethought into the problem either (if you're reading email that was downloaded, then I guess that means the rendering engine can treat the data as "local" which likely means "trusted data"; yep, can't see how that'd go bad).
I frankly never understood why so much focus was on IE during the trail, when IMHO there were much better smoking guns, such as tying OEM licenses to PCs sold, not copies of Windows sold. That little trick effectively killed BeOS and made sure the only thing you were getting from an OEM was Windows.
That's pretty easy. One, when the investigation for the trial started, Netscape was the dominant web browser. When some OEMs were told not to include Netscape, MS tried to pretend their inclusion of IE in Windows was a necessary and they weren't specifically acting to lock-in IE and lock-out Netscape. In short, it appeared to be a very clear example of MS using their position in one market (OSs/Windows) to obtain the same position in another (Web Browsers/IE). Trying to argue that BeOS didn't become popular because of anticompetitive practices is a lot harder to argue than arguing Netscape became less popular because of anticompetitive practices. Two, the whole deal with charging per PC was itself a settlement that the government agreed to (in 1995, IIRC). So, it'd be rather hard for the DOJ to argue against its own agreement.
Now that they can no longer do that trick (and I personally hope Intel gets busted for their OEMs backroom dealing) frankly I think MSFT should be able to put whatever programs they want into their OS. After all it isn't like you have to buy Windows, there is OSX, Linux, BSD, etc, and plenty of places like System76 that will be happy to sell non-MSFT equipment to you, just as there is FF, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Kmeleon, Flock, etc.
I'd agree, sort of, but not entirely. Dial-up is still something a lot of people have and installing an OS, no matter how free, is still
European companies are really hesitant to hire people because it's so damn hard to get rid of people.
Compared to the US, where they'll hire anyone at the drop of a hat. Oh, no, US companies are still rather hesitant to hire people too; the degree difference to Europo doesn't seem to be that great. It's because of...
Places that think they can get away with it will particularly avoid those who seem likely to take advantage of the benefits.
Like a wage/salary for not doing the work. Once you're convinced you need a person to work, the benefits cost are shifted into the price of goods, just like taxes, increases in the price of raw goods, etc. All of that appears as a loss on the companies balance sheets, but...
WTF is with people thinking they should get paid for nothing and/or have a right to get back a job they abandoned for half a year?
They're not being "paid for nothing". Society, as a whole, benefits as a result of having such benefits applied to its citizenry. It's functionally no different than taxes. Now, one can argue whether or not and how much these specific maternity benefits help society and hence whether they should or should not be lengthened/shortened, but clearly the objective of us laws is for the utilitarian good of society. Of course...
Everybody else at that company gets hurt, especially the substitute worker who'd really like to keep the job.
Rather true. Such a scheme tends to create more temp workers who migrate from company to company filling job positions, probably more poorly than the original worker. But, so long as every company is in the same general boat, then they all suffer equally. In the end, btw, nearly all companies are there precisely because they benefit others: in the production of goods, the employment of people, and the benefits those companies provide. If legislation breaks a company where it can no longer function, then clearly all those benefits are lost. But, as a company is a means to an end and not an end in itself, the core concern should be all the people who are effected, not merely the health of one company or its owners.
Of course, if your concern is merely that companies are run by people and the liberty of people are interfered with to be forced to provide such benefit, then I can understand your position of disliking such things. But, from a utilitarian perspective, I'm not quite sure what the real concern is. Perhaps it's because most companies are, again, specifically designed to effect others. Is it any wonder then that society would wish to regulate what those companies end up doing?
So really, it's the city of Detroit versus the state of Michigan, here. I wonder why Detroit just doesn't sue the state in the first place?
Probably because Detroit wouldn't having standing to sue the state of Michigan, directly. Directly, though, they can show that Comcast trying to follow the state law does give them standing to challenge the law. Admittedly Comcast is in something of a rock and hard place, anyways (if they had ignored the state law the state of Michigan probably would have sued them). Of course, I guess Comcast could have just sued the state for trying to impose unconstitutional law. Perhaps they were betting on no city or township trying to sue them.
Just to FTFY: Free software should be able to compete and it does, unfortunately most... software is usually around 5 years behind the state of the art.
When proprietary software innovates, it's usually one group/person. When free software innovates, it's usually one group/person. Most simply copy others because why not copy a good idea? (There's also the obvious point that few if any groups or people are oracles of all the good ideas, so they're left copying a lot of good ideas from others even if they have a few of their own; good idea oracles only tend to happen when they have a monopoly, they exist in a niche, or they just have really good marketing which makes you think their ideas are good.)
Having said all that, if I had a good idea which I thought could make me a lot of money, greed might very well make me "sell out" to proprietary software. If that point is a general truth and proprietary software tends to have more innovation/good ideas sooner, then they obviously come at the cost of more money (the premium of early adoption). So, it's obviously a trade-off of whether to wait for others, proprietary and free, to copy or to pay the money upfront and hope one obtains enough in return for being an early adopter. However, most software is pretty standard and generic and the value of software depreciates so quickly (as you suggest, only 5 years for state of the art to become zero price) precisely through heavy competition (nearly infinite supply of a digital good does that).
In short, I'm not really sure how any of that is unfortunate or how one could say free software is in any way not competitive for most practical purposes. Perhaps that's what Linus meant when Linux would have the unintended consequence of destroying Windows; eventually Linux, as a platform, will become "good enough" and do to Windows what Windows did to its even more proprietary fore bearers. Don't be surprised if that takes a few decades in total, though.
Yea, um, you don't bring freedom and democracy with a gun any more than you bring religion with a sword.
Bringing religion with the sword has been wildly successful. Islam, for example, is the largest religion in the world today precisely because of its military efforts in the first few centuries of its existence.
Funny how you left out the next line which quite explains that.
That is, while it might eventually have that effect, you do so only through amoral means and potentially leaving a multi-generational grudge against its foundation which is likely to eventually unshackle people from that imposed following/belief once they become enlightened to just what was done to make so many people follow along.
While that reference to "enlightened" was in specific reference to the European Enlightenment, I predict that those areas converted to Islam by force will be enlightened in the future as well. It won't be because someone from the outside forced that enlightenment but, just like the European Enlightenment, people will realize the corruption of an institution meant more to suppress dissent for the purpose of control than to actually support what is claimed. Part of this is the inherent problem that you can't make people believe what you want them to believe.
Bringing freedom and democracy doesn't work as well because those things require voluntary participation of the group you're "freeing". If they don't want it collectively, then it won't stick.
So you'll just have forced participation. I mean, if Australia is a democracy....
Okay, so the agricultural application is a recent development. And the military-industrial complex is full of greed.
You might not realize this, but very few people in the US still seem to have an issue with greed (or sloth and gluttony, for that matter). No, the real issue people tend to have with the military-industrial complex tends to be the whole killing people for money (again, very few people in the US seem to per se have an issue with the military killing people). The fact that "killing people" has changed to "defrosting oranges" doesn't really change the amorality of it, any more than the various unethical WW2 German and Japanese medical experiments being collected and used by Allied doctors after the war (fruit of the poison tree and all). In short, that's why there's a question of morality in this instance.
But if your question is whether anyone at all can work for a defense contractor with a clear conscience, there arebelieve it or notstill people who hold onto the hope that the American military is in fact capable of bringing about more freedom and democracy in the world, no matter how poorly it may have been used recently.
Yea, um, you don't bring freedom and democracy with a gun any more than you bring religion with a sword. That is, while it might eventually have that effect, you do so only through amoral means and potentially leaving a multi-generational grudge against its foundation which is likely to eventually unshackle people from that imposed following/belief once they become enlightened to just what was done to make so many people follow along. If there does exist any real long-standing system of belief that can and should be followed, subjugating people to follow it isn't the way for that system to exist. Of course, I like how you use the word "freedom" instead of liberty. Considering one of the main tenets of liberty is a lack of outside coercion, it'd be clear why we couldn't spread that through force even if we wanted to.
Not to mention, there are also people with enough knowledge of history to understand that, even if defending our home soil from invasion by a conventional foreign military is a farfetched idea right now, the only reason it stays that way is because our military is so damned powerful.
That'd be a point, if that's what we were developing the technology for. But, clearly this sort of technology is more a "what if" of technology in that regard; if it came down to defending the border, I'm pretty sure the military would prefer killing the armed invaders, not merely causing them pain. So, instead, the technology seems only well suited for other military and non-military applications, directed at unarmed civilians (this agricultural benefit seems in the same scope of university researchers who claim just about anything they do, no matter how mundane, has military application). In short, yes conceptually a need for a military is prudent. But, unless a person has joined the military or defense contracting in some fashion with the mind to change the military towards that just end, then simply riding along with the colossus with some lofty ideals rings quite hollow. Those who are working for change, though, I can see being, if not with a clear conscience, at least with one that's a lot less murky than those who would first excuse the military or defense contractors' actions and only perhaps later acknowledging that in a very limited circumstance, those actions might have been not entirely warranted.
The lawyer's assertion that the petition signers are at risk of harm or retribution is ridiculous.
Actually, I agree with the lawyer's assertion. It's just not necessarily a justification for keeping the signatures hidden. After all, petitions really should only be used and/or be necessary on issues where there is a certain amount of public debate about the right course of action--everything else where people actually agree should be something the legislature should be able to pass alone, unless it's dysfunctional. The real issue then isn't whether there's a risk but whether that risk translates into either (a) significant and belligerent harm from many parties which while legal may be devastating to the signers (eg. being blackballed from working nearly anywhere in the state) or (b) significant criminal harm from one or more parties for which the government is unwilling or unable to adequately respond to or actively takes part in. The key point then isn't whether there's any risk of harm but really whether or not that harm is civil enough that it can be dealt with. If not, then there can be argued to be reason to provide some level of protection to the signers.
In an effort to make the IE a critical part of Windows, all sorts of components of Windows (like the help system) have been shoehorned into IE.
How is using HTML for documentation "shoehorning" ? A help system is pretty much a textbook example of where hyperlinking is a good idea.
The Windows help system does more than "document". It also provides a mechanism to troubleshoot problems, which includes the loading of external dlls/programs. If all the help system and hcp were was a documentation system using HTML, then there'd be no real need to worry per se about HTML pages being displayed through the protocol. The problem is, hcp does more than that and that's the fundamental problem.
In short, I never said HTML was the problem. IE and HTML aren't equivalent. Admittedly blaming IE is partially improper since the document handler existing is the fundamental issue. But, then, IE (and Firefox and Opera) should block access to such handlers because there's no good reason to treat some HTML with more privilege than other HTML in a web browser; all HTML and objects in a web browser should be sandboxed from authority to automatically change the system or harassing a user into changing the system. If such special privilege HTML should exist, it should be restricted to a separate program to avoid these sorts of attacks. Of course, had MS done that, the web probably would have been a lot less polluted with MS-specific HTML as it was the large push in intranet sites that convinced so many HTML developers to use IE rather exclusively.
In an effort to make the IE a critical part of Windows, all sorts of components of Windows (like the help system) have been shoehorned into IE.
Wrong, wrong wrong. Trident is the component that renders HTML content (like HTML help) and that's as integrated into the system as KHTML is to KDE, and WebKit is to Mac OS X.
You do realize when I say "critical part of Windows", I mean in the "and if we remove it now, people might actually stop using our platform", right? IE was pushed as a central place to do all sorts of things and, with the magic of ActiveX (aka COM objects) and protocol handlers, do it relatively easily. Intranet sites heavily exploited that fact and several companies are now hooked on IE6; it was also their goal to have many "Trusted" internet web sites to heavily use ActiveX and be Whitelisted for lock-in there too, but that didn't work out that well except in South Korea. That was very much the reason MS created the whole Zone feature in IE as well as why they're still quite unwilling to give up on the idea.
I'm so sick of hearing bullshit like that spouted all over the place.
Yea, well, go complain somewhere else where someone is actually making the argument you're trying to refute.
It's not just Microsoft...the point I think you're trying to make is that one shouldn't be able to force a browser to open a help file and execute arbitrary stuff..
No, I'm pretty sure his point was Microsoft has created "a rube-goldbergian monster" where one has to even *worry* about whether the browser can automatically open a help file and execute arbitrary stuff. Microsoft's seeming mindset in the 90s was very much one of "oh, I'm sure no one would try to do anything malicious" as they slap yet another large, buggy component into another one. Now that all sorts of software is dependent on that interconnectivity, Microsoft can't simply scrap the concept without losing tons of customers and they can't reasonably audit the whole OS because it's simply too complex. Instead, Microsoft is left to try to create large whitelists, zones, and patches. In short, it's very much a Microsoft problem.
well, can't disagree with you, but shit happens. It's exploits like this that have made the point, over and over again, that there is nothing on your computer that is not "online" when you are online.
Not exactly true. The risk on most other platforms is accessing stuff you got online when you're not (ie, malicious zip files, or whatever) that exploit flaws in a decompressor or decoder. Those are isolated enough, though, to be provably correct at some point.
You can't say "oh, that application isn't connected to the network, it doesn't need to be secure". Everything needs to be written with the highest level of security in mind.
Granted. While something might not be online today and all its inputs might be from safe sources, nothing is to stop someone else from using it later in an online app or unsafe data (the issues with the reference jpeg code being buggy comes to mind). It's this disregard for security that got Microsoft in the mess it is today. Thankfully, almost every other company is sane enough to be willing to break backwards compatibility, even on a large scale, if it's the best approach to avoiding complexity issues that are near unresolvable. The real shame is Microsoft doesn't have the sense to do the same; but then, Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft if they had.
... and he then went on to release a hotfix which didn't actually fix the bug.
Did you expect him to release a patch to uninstall Windows? It is, after all, pretty much a mindset flaw in design that allows for the exploit. In an effort to make the IE a critical part of Windows, all sorts of components of Windows (like the help system) have been shoehorned into IE. Given that IE is very much an outward facing system, this means that vast parts of Windows which would otherwise be protected with simple security considerations now have to contend with otherwise irrelevant exploits. And because these extensions are grouped together, anyone who takes advantage of any one feature offered becomes vulnerable to any vulnerability in any extension (hence, Firefox and Opera are vulnerable because they apparently take advantage of Windows' protocol handling).
And what has Microsoft's response been to these problems? Whitelists. Zones. Javascript smudging to try to avoid XSS exploits. Some extra compilation options and stack protection. It's like trying to turn a strainer into a boat by patching all the holes.
How exactly is throwing different nouns in the same sentence absent any contextual connection an argument?
Comparing Southerners to Afghans, or throwing the very country that's compared into the comparison sentence, or comparing US Christians to Middle-Eastern Islamics, or the poor people of the Middle East to the poor people of the US is just ridiculous. In the context we're discussing, they're simply not comparable. If you think they are, that would explain why you make such a poor argument.
The main points were simple: (1) taking a very broad region and making stereotypes about their capacity to act and their preference of action is stupid, (2) outsiders buying and exploiting the natural resources of an area is offensive to those who live there, (3) calling a place a "nasty little place" forgets that millions live there and many almost certainly think otherwise, and (4) religious preference, especially "secular freethinkers", are not the norm in virtually any area and aren't really connected to first world status (religious tolerance, however, generally is).
Also, how exactly is 100 years of GDP in wealth not of great worth? You don't think that will change a country? Really? $1 Trillion of found wealth would be a huge thing for the US, for Afghanistan it's an absolute game-changer. They will never, ever get the big countries fingers out of there now, and should be planning how to survive being the towel between two dogs.
I guess that'd be part of my point, though. Big countries will step in, they'll fight over the area like, as you put it, a "towel between two dogs", and in the long-term without some other force at play, the minerals will dry up and Afghanistan will be treated again like an outsider and worthless nation. Maybe I'd feel differently if the resource extraction were to take so longs (hundreds of years) that the probability of sufficient general unrest to usurp the foreign powers would be near certain. But, then, maybe Afghanistan will luck out.
Somebody savvy enough could turn that into as much profit as the minerals themselves are worth, somebody foolish will practically pack it up and ship it out at their own cost just trying to curry favor.
And that'd be the root of corruption. The mindset is not "how can we use this wealth for the development of the nation" but "how can I advantage best myself, personally". That's hardly GDP related except in the "and the ten richest men in the country effectively are the GDP, even though they don't really contribute much in taxes and whatnot to the country".
On discovering silver mines in the Southern United States...
'The Southerners should get rich, but the wealth extraction requires expertise they don't have (killing each other has been more fun down the centuries).
Expect leases to go up for bid as in Afghanistan. This is probably for the best, as competing major nations can buy in rather than fight over the nasty little place.
Absent international intervention, what we know would happen is that the Christians would take over and we'd ave "rich Christians". Money wouldn't turn these people into secular freethinkers overnight, they'd just be rich rednecks.'
Feel free to twist the point into basically any situation you like where natural resources are found. Mind you, I'm not particularly happy with the prospects of Afghanistan getting the money either, really; sudden influxes of wealth from just about anything tend to exacerbate corruption issues--a fact evident repeatedly in history. Hell, even when it's an external country siphoning off the riches, it can backfire horribly. Consider Spain of the past as it relied upon gold in the New World to fund its military, eventually leading to its collapse as the eminent world power.
In the end, I imagine the wealth will be squandered by all parties involved in some fashion, be it liquor and smokes or some sort of war, religious or purely political. The locals will almost certainly be effectively suppressed, anyways. The real sad part, to me, is how the summary acts like the $1 Trillion in minerals is of great worth. In the long term, that only equates to ~100 years of GDP.
Once Afghanistan has its minerals liquidated, what do you think are the odds of the country not quickly reverting to "the nasty littler place" it started out as? I'd probably think of living it up today, too, if the future appeared so bleak. And as much as outsiders or even insiders to Afghanistan may work to break the monopolistic industry, the simple fact is that even in the best case nation (and economy) building is still too much an art and not a science.
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The best part? The Tab 229 example includes a define for RTLD_GLOBAL but in the SCO code it's value is 4 instead of the 0x100 used in Linux. Why the discrepancy? Well, probably because the FSF was cloning BSD, not Unix (as BSD was probably more popular and readily available to many than one of the myriad Unix forks). Oops.
Perhaps McBride is unaware of the BSD lawsuit? Certainly, if anyone has any room to complain, it'd be Berkley. However, given that the examples seem to repeatedly have jumbled lines or inconsistent values, I'd imagine that regular reverse-engineering was employed in the construction of most of the headers. Ie, it just further highlights how unlikely there was copyright infringement.
Except that if one actually succeeds in a nuclear/other attack, there is no longer a rational basis to counterattack (the disincentive clearly failed and there is nothing to be gained from an attack). Hence, the rational thing to do is to strike first.
No, but hypocrisy is precisely what can lead to a nuclear war. If we didn't have nuclear weapons "for defense", it'd be rather hard to use them. The same is true for massive biological or chemical stockpiles. If it were to be acknowledged that the real intention of producing those stockpiles was for their actual use, most people would actually be against their production and stockpiling. In the end, even that might not be enough to stop their production and stockpiling, so that hypocrisy may be pragmatically moot. It doesn't appear to be moot, though. My reaction against hypocrisy is not merely an ideological one but also a pragmatic one.
Ie, the pre-Cold War case was just as bullshit as the current post-Cold War case.
No. One great reason for the case to change if people started acting rationally. If Russia or some other national-level foe wipes out the US, there's really little reason to counterattack. Revenge, btw, isn't a good reason.
Personally, I'm less bothered in throwing away the $8 Billion as much as the mindset that tries to justify it. If, on the other hand, the US would admit "we have these nuclear submarines so the US can be the first to strike, if we desire", at least it'd remove the hypocrisy of trying to look like a purely reactionary, defensive move because of others instead of the [evil] warhawkish behavior that would lead to the death of billions (because there are those in Russia and other nations who are just as warhawkish and willing to strike even after one's own side lost; and that justifies nothing just like terrorists blowing up civilians doesn't justify us doing it).
Find me a distro that is both usable for the desktop and doesn't require a lot of legwork to create a 20MB micro-Linux rescue system and I'd agree with you.
Pretty much. In the last twenty years, there's been multiple examples of genocide in which while the genocide was still in progress, the international community was made well aware of it. In general, the result has been awareness and an unwillingness to commit troops to stop the slaughter. While I'd inclined to believe it's in part the repugnant it's not my problem, I generally think it's because most countries are afraid to commit troops and be the only ones who actually act; meanwhile, negotiating how many troops from each country and when to send each countries troops can take years to settle. That is, there simply isn't enough shame in knowing about and being a silent non-participant in the ending of a genocide.
The saddest part? That all those who have suffered or parents/grandparents have suffered under genocide, so very few seem quickly to invest themselves to the cause of stopping happening to others what they were unable to stop happening to themselves. Perhaps it's the regression of victim-hood. Perhaps it's the fear of being really wiped out to be invested in such causes. But, I think most of all it's the self-centeredness to see one's worst pain and not empathize with another that their pain could ever be nearly as great. If that could mindset could be overcome, I think genocide would be less a repeatedly media spectacle and more the famous and shushed last words of a tyrant.
Speaking about the IMF bit, there's actually some later news since the whole Greek debt crisis. Basically, since the Euro isn't stable either, the IMF has pushed for an even newer idea of a new sort of security note that allows one to at a later date to effectively buy a value in a basket of currencies (ie, many different ones) to allow for large countries, like China and a lot of other countries that currently buy up a lot of US dollars, to obtain a bit more stability in the value of that cash reserve. Personally, it sounds like a combination of a futures exchange and the currency exchange, but run through the IMF.
Considering that currency futures already exist, I'm not entirely sure I see the point, though, except that perhaps there exists no companys large enough to dare hedging currencies for a whole country. But, to that end, one is basically left with the point that IMF would probably be basically forced to provide such a service. In any case, none of this really translates into "global currency" any more than US hedge funds have resulted in the entire conglomeration of all publicly traded US companies.
Nah, I think Max Planck is acknowledging that people are general dogmatic about their own lives. When two scientists create two different but equally provable theories neither side is interested in unifying their theory precisely because each scientist believes their theory is right. If one theory is proven wrong in the lifetime of the two scientists, it's rather human nature to continue to cling to what might be a life's work and work hard to fix one's own theory, not merely give up on it for the readily available alternative. But, finally, when everyone else without a vested interest is exposed to the two theories, they can choose the one that's yet to be disproven. Hence, upon deaths of it's creators, the last of a theory's believers may well die.
So, yes, those with a vested interest may be dogmatic. But, it's through a long-term filtering process (the scientific method) that what approaches truth is discovered. And of course, if we're all wrong about many of the theories we learned, the next generation can learn from our mistaken beliefs. Hence, science may be shrouded in dogma, but it avoids the real sin of dogma: unquestioning multi-generational dogma.
Wow, that's amazing. Except for the "right wing bloggers" part, you did exactly what he said. Because of inaccuracies in some calculations in the IPCC report (aka non-base science) and inappropriate quoting from a non-report, you're attacking the underlying (aka base science) reports. At best what can be proven is that those who worked on the IPCC report either failed in their duties in writing the report or had some underlying intent to deceive. Either way, the base science stands.
I'm not sure how pandering to us about our "very level-headed about technical matters" really matters in this discussion. Or are you simply trying to imply that /. is just as crazy as all the anti-AGW groups? That sort of gross guilt-by-association (or praise-by-association) is personally bullshit to me.
Um, it was peer reviewed. Perhaps you don't understand what peer review means? Peer reviews is review done by peers (think something like "jury of one's peers). Ie, it is presumed that what data is reported is accurate to the best abilities of the submitter, the testing methodology was followed, and the only issue is things like verifying the correctness of equations and the conclusion (as well as possibly duplicate testing to see if there were failings in the methodology such as too small of samples, the environment, faulty equipment, etc). So, the only reasonable basis that there'd be such consistent data and conclusions between various peers while the data and conclusions are actually wrong are either (a) a grand conspiracy to deceive, (b) consistently faulty equipment, (c) not enough samples, or (d) a fundamental lack of understanding of the methodology and how it would produce results of the kind seen. None of the above mentioned seem very probably because work has been done for decades to try to see if any hold true, and there have consistently failed to be any remotely strong leads to suggest any hold true. The only thing really left much is (a) and that seems more based in those with an agenda than any real search for truth (with claims that data is manipulated yet without giving a reason why everyone in the field would either not notice it (perhaps they're all idiot savants) or would willfully conspire to achieve it (odd why we should believe from one group with an agenda and no actual evidence how the other group has an agenda too, but they're the wrong ones (because no matter what evidence they provide, it's still not enough to clear them that they're not somehow hiding something))).
True enough. And, oddly enough, global warming does and has predicted the future. Global warming suggests a simple point: more greenhouse gases, all other things been equal, results in an overall rise in temperature of the planet. And the data bears that out.
You're examples are interesting, and they do illustrate a point. One generation does have the right to determine the availability forever. But, it also has the responsibility and obligation to wisely use those resources. This comes not only in not trivially forever consuming resources but also, as you point out, providing for future generations to inherent that which is available in a fair way. Oligarchies makes sense in a gene pool, but in the short term humanity exists much more in a meme pool where ideas have much more weight than genetic mutation.
The long-term survival of the meme pool to maintain and progress requires, then, the opportunity for everyone to grow so that those most capable, willing, and involved actually continue the meme pool. To facilitate this requires many things, including the availability of quality education and a mechanism of reallocating rival resources (property taxes and death taxes come to mind). This also can translate into absorbing into monetary costs the externalities of pollution or the warpings of other externalities. Just because a right trumps an obligation in the axioms of law doesn't mean a law cannot be created or a society can willfully choose to act individually to fulfill an obligation and withhold from the exercising of a right. Recognizing that this can and should be so is something too few seeming willing to acknowledge, so I do congratulate you on noting the difference.
The world doesn't owe you a living. This doesn't change just because you decided to write a novel. Certainly, a large part of making a living when you alone are a business is convincing people to buy your product.
Welcome to the world of self-entrepreneurship. The rewards can be amazingly great, but there's an amazing amount of risk. In fact, most such businesses fail precisely because of the great risk. It can happen no matter how great your music is because of a lack of experience and because life isn't fair.
Welcome to globalization, where just about anything can be made at dirty-cheap prices in China at virtually the cost of the raw materials (all R&D costs sunk only on the inventors). Yes, you might have a legal right to step in and stop piracy (or trademark infringement), but that's probably not going to really help unless you're a large, well-established company that can spend years to actually see law suits through and law/government changed to actually force existing laws to be executed.
In short, copyright holders actually get a leg up compared to most businesses. They get an actual legal monopoly on the production of a good. While it might be hard to legally enforce at the start, once you're a large well-established, it becomes much easier to actually pursue those who would infringe your legal rights. If you never become large or well-established, then you're sadly probably shit-out-of-luck. You're left to the same arena most small business owners are; you try to convince people to keep buying and hope you have enough profit to continue on. While I might weep for you a little, there's a lot more people probably a lot more deserving of sympathies than you (a lot more crushing debt, for example).
Yep, well, you're wrong. Definitely the change in the sun's output is a factor, but it's not the primary source of change on Earth. Beyond that, CO2 exacerbates any increases in sun output.
Um, no there isn't "a lot of temperature data [showing] that we have flat-lined or cooled since 1998". Yes, global temperature hasn't constantly risen because of, among other things, solar cycles. That's one reason the debate changed to "climate change" because people didn't understand that "global warming" didn't mean every year must be absolutely hotter than the last. Climate change means that decades and centuries of weather are warmer; ie, the globe is not merely warming but the climate is changing. And the trend has held. The 90s were hotter than the 80s. The 00s have been hotter than the 90s (which plenty of record or near record years).
Talk about fear mongering. Yes, there are those who speak of catastrophe when it comes to climate change. But, they're not talking about millions dying or economies collapsing (film directors and idiot politicians withstanding). They're talking about increased flooding and desertification over the course of decades. The words they use might be somewhat superlative, but that is because they recognize that our great grandchildren will inherent a rather different Earth if we simply do nothing. To counter that possibility doesn't mean "[shuttering] our industries". It means internalizing the externalities of climate change. If doing that causes industries to collapse, it means that the harm industries were doing to our world was so horrible, they really shouldn't have existed. I emphatically don't believe that's the case, however. Industry, like most groups, just doesn't want to have to pay for the damages they cause if they don't have to.
If you believe burning oil is nothing, I'd suggest you light a barrel of the stuff in a closed room and see how that works out for you. Me? I think burning oil has some clear negatives. The answer to those negatives probably isn't "burn no oil". But ignoring those negatives under some claim that people are "making a crisis out of nothing" is even more absurd.
I could be wrong, but I think the discussion was about Swedish law. In any case, until quite recently (1997), all US federal copyright criminal law only covered commercial infringement; I haven't heard of any changes to state law to make non-commercial infringement a crime. Since the Swedish Pirate Party has specifically stated its action are non-commercial, I would presume Swedish law still makes a distinction between commercial and non-commercial infringement. I'm not sure how trademark law enters into the discussion, unless you believe that people are mistaking various seeders as trademark holders of torrented items when they're not.
In short, I think the whole commercial/non-commercial aspect is what confuses most people who think we live in a pre-1997 world. Having said that, I don't think I've heard of anyone prosecuted in the US for non-commercial infringement.
Funny you should mention that, actually. As someone who uses Xubuntu (and heavily IceWM under it), I've installed various parts of both Gnome and KDE for the few apps under each that I use. But, because I didn't simply install kubuntu-desktop or ubuntu-desktop, lots of various bits and pieces aren't installed which ends up breaking some apps that just assume everything is there (really, this is may be a problem with Ubuntu not keeping proper dependencies with running external apps (hard to tell since it's not trivial to figure out all how many of the "recommended" packages aren't installed and really should be)). So, I'd say that's a general problem with any complex enough system when you start wanting to remove/leave out parts.
Even if that were the case, that doesn't explain why Trident was the rendering engine built into the OS. If you'll recall, Trident in Outlook Express turned into a massive security nightmare for years because instead of having a simple HTML renderer available, a massively complex web rendering engine was made accessible in a fashion that coupled to all sorts of applications which simply weren't written with security in mind. Admittedly, a large part of this problem was with developers too quick to simply throw the neat "web control" into their program without much thought about all the risks that'd entail (a strong argument that a readily accessible web control in the OS is more trouble than it's worth). But MS itself really didn't put a lot of forethought into the problem either (if you're reading email that was downloaded, then I guess that means the rendering engine can treat the data as "local" which likely means "trusted data"; yep, can't see how that'd go bad).
That's pretty easy. One, when the investigation for the trial started, Netscape was the dominant web browser. When some OEMs were told not to include Netscape, MS tried to pretend their inclusion of IE in Windows was a necessary and they weren't specifically acting to lock-in IE and lock-out Netscape. In short, it appeared to be a very clear example of MS using their position in one market (OSs/Windows) to obtain the same position in another (Web Browsers/IE). Trying to argue that BeOS didn't become popular because of anticompetitive practices is a lot harder to argue than arguing Netscape became less popular because of anticompetitive practices. Two, the whole deal with charging per PC was itself a settlement that the government agreed to (in 1995, IIRC). So, it'd be rather hard for the DOJ to argue against its own agreement.
I'd agree, sort of, but not entirely. Dial-up is still something a lot of people have and installing an OS, no matter how free, is still
Compared to the US, where they'll hire anyone at the drop of a hat. Oh, no, US companies are still rather hesitant to hire people too; the degree difference to Europo doesn't seem to be that great. It's because of...
Like a wage/salary for not doing the work. Once you're convinced you need a person to work, the benefits cost are shifted into the price of goods, just like taxes, increases in the price of raw goods, etc. All of that appears as a loss on the companies balance sheets, but...
They're not being "paid for nothing". Society, as a whole, benefits as a result of having such benefits applied to its citizenry. It's functionally no different than taxes. Now, one can argue whether or not and how much these specific maternity benefits help society and hence whether they should or should not be lengthened/shortened, but clearly the objective of us laws is for the utilitarian good of society. Of course...
Rather true. Such a scheme tends to create more temp workers who migrate from company to company filling job positions, probably more poorly than the original worker. But, so long as every company is in the same general boat, then they all suffer equally. In the end, btw, nearly all companies are there precisely because they benefit others: in the production of goods, the employment of people, and the benefits those companies provide. If legislation breaks a company where it can no longer function, then clearly all those benefits are lost. But, as a company is a means to an end and not an end in itself, the core concern should be all the people who are effected, not merely the health of one company or its owners.
Of course, if your concern is merely that companies are run by people and the liberty of people are interfered with to be forced to provide such benefit, then I can understand your position of disliking such things. But, from a utilitarian perspective, I'm not quite sure what the real concern is. Perhaps it's because most companies are, again, specifically designed to effect others. Is it any wonder then that society would wish to regulate what those companies end up doing?
Probably because Detroit wouldn't having standing to sue the state of Michigan, directly. Directly, though, they can show that Comcast trying to follow the state law does give them standing to challenge the law. Admittedly Comcast is in something of a rock and hard place, anyways (if they had ignored the state law the state of Michigan probably would have sued them). Of course, I guess Comcast could have just sued the state for trying to impose unconstitutional law. Perhaps they were betting on no city or township trying to sue them.
Just to FTFY: Free software should be able to compete and it does, unfortunately most ... software is usually around 5 years behind the state of the art.
When proprietary software innovates, it's usually one group/person. When free software innovates, it's usually one group/person. Most simply copy others because why not copy a good idea? (There's also the obvious point that few if any groups or people are oracles of all the good ideas, so they're left copying a lot of good ideas from others even if they have a few of their own; good idea oracles only tend to happen when they have a monopoly, they exist in a niche, or they just have really good marketing which makes you think their ideas are good.)
Having said all that, if I had a good idea which I thought could make me a lot of money, greed might very well make me "sell out" to proprietary software. If that point is a general truth and proprietary software tends to have more innovation/good ideas sooner, then they obviously come at the cost of more money (the premium of early adoption). So, it's obviously a trade-off of whether to wait for others, proprietary and free, to copy or to pay the money upfront and hope one obtains enough in return for being an early adopter. However, most software is pretty standard and generic and the value of software depreciates so quickly (as you suggest, only 5 years for state of the art to become zero price) precisely through heavy competition (nearly infinite supply of a digital good does that).
In short, I'm not really sure how any of that is unfortunate or how one could say free software is in any way not competitive for most practical purposes. Perhaps that's what Linus meant when Linux would have the unintended consequence of destroying Windows; eventually Linux, as a platform, will become "good enough" and do to Windows what Windows did to its even more proprietary fore bearers. Don't be surprised if that takes a few decades in total, though.
Funny how you left out the next line which quite explains that.
While that reference to "enlightened" was in specific reference to the European Enlightenment, I predict that those areas converted to Islam by force will be enlightened in the future as well. It won't be because someone from the outside forced that enlightenment but, just like the European Enlightenment, people will realize the corruption of an institution meant more to suppress dissent for the purpose of control than to actually support what is claimed. Part of this is the inherent problem that you can't make people believe what you want them to believe.
So you'll just have forced participation. I mean, if Australia is a democracy....
You might not realize this, but very few people in the US still seem to have an issue with greed (or sloth and gluttony, for that matter). No, the real issue people tend to have with the military-industrial complex tends to be the whole killing people for money (again, very few people in the US seem to per se have an issue with the military killing people). The fact that "killing people" has changed to "defrosting oranges" doesn't really change the amorality of it, any more than the various unethical WW2 German and Japanese medical experiments being collected and used by Allied doctors after the war (fruit of the poison tree and all). In short, that's why there's a question of morality in this instance.
Yea, um, you don't bring freedom and democracy with a gun any more than you bring religion with a sword. That is, while it might eventually have that effect, you do so only through amoral means and potentially leaving a multi-generational grudge against its foundation which is likely to eventually unshackle people from that imposed following/belief once they become enlightened to just what was done to make so many people follow along. If there does exist any real long-standing system of belief that can and should be followed, subjugating people to follow it isn't the way for that system to exist. Of course, I like how you use the word "freedom" instead of liberty. Considering one of the main tenets of liberty is a lack of outside coercion, it'd be clear why we couldn't spread that through force even if we wanted to.
That'd be a point, if that's what we were developing the technology for. But, clearly this sort of technology is more a "what if" of technology in that regard; if it came down to defending the border, I'm pretty sure the military would prefer killing the armed invaders, not merely causing them pain. So, instead, the technology seems only well suited for other military and non-military applications, directed at unarmed civilians (this agricultural benefit seems in the same scope of university researchers who claim just about anything they do, no matter how mundane, has military application). In short, yes conceptually a need for a military is prudent. But, unless a person has joined the military or defense contracting in some fashion with the mind to change the military towards that just end, then simply riding along with the colossus with some lofty ideals rings quite hollow. Those who are working for change, though, I can see being, if not with a clear conscience, at least with one that's a lot less murky than those who would first excuse the military or defense contractors' actions and only perhaps later acknowledging that in a very limited circumstance, those actions might have been not entirely warranted.
Actually, I agree with the lawyer's assertion. It's just not necessarily a justification for keeping the signatures hidden. After all, petitions really should only be used and/or be necessary on issues where there is a certain amount of public debate about the right course of action--everything else where people actually agree should be something the legislature should be able to pass alone, unless it's dysfunctional. The real issue then isn't whether there's a risk but whether that risk translates into either (a) significant and belligerent harm from many parties which while legal may be devastating to the signers (eg. being blackballed from working nearly anywhere in the state) or (b) significant criminal harm from one or more parties for which the government is unwilling or unable to adequately respond to or actively takes part in. The key point then isn't whether there's any risk of harm but really whether or not that harm is civil enough that it can be dealt with. If not, then there can be argued to be reason to provide some level of protection to the signers.
The Windows help system does more than "document". It also provides a mechanism to troubleshoot problems, which includes the loading of external dlls/programs. If all the help system and hcp were was a documentation system using HTML, then there'd be no real need to worry per se about HTML pages being displayed through the protocol. The problem is, hcp does more than that and that's the fundamental problem.
In short, I never said HTML was the problem. IE and HTML aren't equivalent. Admittedly blaming IE is partially improper since the document handler existing is the fundamental issue. But, then, IE (and Firefox and Opera) should block access to such handlers because there's no good reason to treat some HTML with more privilege than other HTML in a web browser; all HTML and objects in a web browser should be sandboxed from authority to automatically change the system or harassing a user into changing the system. If such special privilege HTML should exist, it should be restricted to a separate program to avoid these sorts of attacks. Of course, had MS done that, the web probably would have been a lot less polluted with MS-specific HTML as it was the large push in intranet sites that convinced so many HTML developers to use IE rather exclusively.
You do realize when I say "critical part of Windows", I mean in the "and if we remove it now, people might actually stop using our platform", right? IE was pushed as a central place to do all sorts of things and, with the magic of ActiveX (aka COM objects) and protocol handlers, do it relatively easily. Intranet sites heavily exploited that fact and several companies are now hooked on IE6; it was also their goal to have many "Trusted" internet web sites to heavily use ActiveX and be Whitelisted for lock-in there too, but that didn't work out that well except in South Korea. That was very much the reason MS created the whole Zone feature in IE as well as why they're still quite unwilling to give up on the idea.
Yea, well, go complain somewhere else where someone is actually making the argument you're trying to refute.
No, I'm pretty sure his point was Microsoft has created "a rube-goldbergian monster" where one has to even *worry* about whether the browser can automatically open a help file and execute arbitrary stuff. Microsoft's seeming mindset in the 90s was very much one of "oh, I'm sure no one would try to do anything malicious" as they slap yet another large, buggy component into another one. Now that all sorts of software is dependent on that interconnectivity, Microsoft can't simply scrap the concept without losing tons of customers and they can't reasonably audit the whole OS because it's simply too complex. Instead, Microsoft is left to try to create large whitelists, zones, and patches. In short, it's very much a Microsoft problem.
Not exactly true. The risk on most other platforms is accessing stuff you got online when you're not (ie, malicious zip files, or whatever) that exploit flaws in a decompressor or decoder. Those are isolated enough, though, to be provably correct at some point.
Granted. While something might not be online today and all its inputs might be from safe sources, nothing is to stop someone else from using it later in an online app or unsafe data (the issues with the reference jpeg code being buggy comes to mind). It's this disregard for security that got Microsoft in the mess it is today. Thankfully, almost every other company is sane enough to be willing to break backwards compatibility, even on a large scale, if it's the best approach to avoiding complexity issues that are near unresolvable. The real shame is Microsoft doesn't have the sense to do the same; but then, Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft if they had.
Did you expect him to release a patch to uninstall Windows? It is, after all, pretty much a mindset flaw in design that allows for the exploit. In an effort to make the IE a critical part of Windows, all sorts of components of Windows (like the help system) have been shoehorned into IE. Given that IE is very much an outward facing system, this means that vast parts of Windows which would otherwise be protected with simple security considerations now have to contend with otherwise irrelevant exploits. And because these extensions are grouped together, anyone who takes advantage of any one feature offered becomes vulnerable to any vulnerability in any extension (hence, Firefox and Opera are vulnerable because they apparently take advantage of Windows' protocol handling).
And what has Microsoft's response been to these problems? Whitelists. Zones. Javascript smudging to try to avoid XSS exploits. Some extra compilation options and stack protection. It's like trying to turn a strainer into a boat by patching all the holes.
The main points were simple: (1) taking a very broad region and making stereotypes about their capacity to act and their preference of action is stupid, (2) outsiders buying and exploiting the natural resources of an area is offensive to those who live there, (3) calling a place a "nasty little place" forgets that millions live there and many almost certainly think otherwise, and (4) religious preference, especially "secular freethinkers", are not the norm in virtually any area and aren't really connected to first world status (religious tolerance, however, generally is).
I guess that'd be part of my point, though. Big countries will step in, they'll fight over the area like, as you put it, a "towel between two dogs", and in the long-term without some other force at play, the minerals will dry up and Afghanistan will be treated again like an outsider and worthless nation. Maybe I'd feel differently if the resource extraction were to take so longs (hundreds of years) that the probability of sufficient general unrest to usurp the foreign powers would be near certain. But, then, maybe Afghanistan will luck out.
And that'd be the root of corruption. The mindset is not "how can we use this wealth for the development of the nation" but "how can I advantage best myself, personally". That's hardly GDP related except in the "and the ten richest men in the country effectively are the GDP, even though they don't really contribute much in taxes and whatnot to the country".
On discovering silver mines in the Southern United States...
'The Southerners should get rich, but the wealth extraction requires expertise they don't have (killing each other has been more fun down the centuries).
Expect leases to go up for bid as in Afghanistan. This is probably for the best, as competing major nations can buy in rather than fight over the nasty little place.
Absent international intervention, what we know would happen is that the Christians would take over and we'd ave "rich Christians". Money wouldn't turn these people into secular freethinkers overnight, they'd just be rich rednecks.'
Feel free to twist the point into basically any situation you like where natural resources are found. Mind you, I'm not particularly happy with the prospects of Afghanistan getting the money either, really; sudden influxes of wealth from just about anything tend to exacerbate corruption issues--a fact evident repeatedly in history. Hell, even when it's an external country siphoning off the riches, it can backfire horribly. Consider Spain of the past as it relied upon gold in the New World to fund its military, eventually leading to its collapse as the eminent world power.
In the end, I imagine the wealth will be squandered by all parties involved in some fashion, be it liquor and smokes or some sort of war, religious or purely political. The locals will almost certainly be effectively suppressed, anyways. The real sad part, to me, is how the summary acts like the $1 Trillion in minerals is of great worth. In the long term, that only equates to ~100 years of GDP.
Once Afghanistan has its minerals liquidated, what do you think are the odds of the country not quickly reverting to "the nasty littler place" it started out as? I'd probably think of living it up today, too, if the future appeared so bleak. And as much as outsiders or even insiders to Afghanistan may work to break the monopolistic industry, the simple fact is that even in the best case nation (and economy) building is still too much an art and not a science.