If Europe "knew" WMD claims were crap, then why did they vote for all of the UN resolutions that insisted on weapons inspectors and promised grave consequences if Iraq didn't follow through?
The inspections are precisely why everyone could know the claims of the US government were crap. I never said the inspections were bad. Quite the contrary. Such international inspections should be the order of the day in all countries that have the capability to develop nuclear weapons (including the US).
How many European stories have there been on
You'd be surprised. Unfortunately, in most European countries the citizens are just as incapable of influencing their government as in the US. Why, I am from the Netherlands, and the Netherlands supports the US in the Iraqi invasion. That was a decision by the government, despite the fact that 80% of the Dutch citizens is totally against it. And why does the government do that? Because there is nothing any prime minister of the government craves so much as appearing on TV next to the US president (i.e., posing as the president's lapdog). It's absolutely disgusting. However, contrary to the US, the Netherlands is a powerless speck of land. Stupid activities we perform have little or no impact on the world.
Europeans always present themselves as high and mighty, knowing the right thing for America to do, but they don't do it themselves.
Maybe that's your impression, but it is not true. Europeans usually feel frustrated and powerless. But the average European is better informed than the average American. And while I personally don't think I know what is good for the US, most certainly it is not attacking a powerless country without reason.
You take no risks and then blame us for our bad decisions. You have no POWER, no SPIRIT, no YOUTH, no CONVICTION.
I agree to the lack of (military) power. I certainly disagree with the rest. [Donning flameproof suit] I don't think the only way to express SPIRIT is by attacking a weak country while shouting hail to the flag. I don't think YOUTH is expressed by voting into office a bunch of gray balding hate-mongering money-grubbing bastards. I don't think CONVICTION is expressed by refusing to think about your actions.
Let's assume for the moment that you are not flamebaiting.
The point is not that the US removed a dictator.
The point is that the US government lied about their reasons to remove a dictator. They lied about the danger to the US. They lied about their oil interests. They lied about the prognosis of the situation after the first attacks.
Really, if the point was to remove horrible dictators from the face of the Earth, the US would have much better results by invading some African countries, where anarchy reigns and genocide is the order of the day.
Sure, Hussein killed huge masses of people to create a stable situation in his country (namely everyone supporting him). However, if you supported Saddam, you had little to fear. True, it is not a great situation, and I wouldn't want to live there, but the majority of the people of Iraq was quite content, and the situation, as far as foreign politics was concerned, was fairly stable and safe. The current situation is not.
Iraq was no danger when the US invaded. After spending hundreds of billions of dollars (which would have gone a loooooong way in bringing third-world countries the welfare they need to be able to afford becoming democracies), and losing tens of thousands of lives, there is quite a dangerous situation now.
But, as an informed American citizen, you are surely aware of that.
I know what a lot of you are thinking. Where do I get all this stuff? I got it by READING THE NEWS for the last three years. It's surprising what you get when you read, especially if you stop getting your "facts" from the thoroughly whipped American mainstream news and reading, well, news from anywhere else but here.
I live in Europe. What surprises me is that news like this comes as a shock to US citizens. In Europe, we have known this for years, from the moment Iraq was invaded.
I had the same experience with Fahrenheit 911. I thought, "Nothing new here. Don't tell me the average American didn't know this?!"
Seriously, the world would be a much better place if the citizens of the US, arguably the most powerful country in the world, would be better informed about what's going on in their own country and in the rest of the world.
Since the US has so much influence on the world, I sometimes think it would be fair if every human being in the world was allowed to vote in the US elections (at least as far as foreign affairs are concerned). The republicans would be wiped out.
I am currently finishing my PhD thesis. In it, there are a couple of new ideas (which I have empirically verified) in the field of software engineering. These ideas are clearly more serious than many of the software patents that have been granted in the past few years.
When I talk about my work at conferences, it occasionally happens (especially when "business people" are in the audience) that someone eagerly asks, whether I have already patented those ideas.
My answer is no. First, patenting is expensive. I don't have the money. Second, I want my ideas to benefit the world (that's what science is about, I think). I do not want to hoard them for myself. Third, if I want to patent my ideas, I have to spend a lot of time on legal stuff. I am a computer scientist, not a lawyer. I rather not do that.
But now there is a problem. If I do not patent my ideas, what withholds someone else from patenting them? It is not a requirement that you are the originator of an idea to patent it!
Prior art? Sure, I can bring that forward. In court. Which is not what I would like to do, because, (1) as I said, I am not a lawyer, and I hate spending time on legal matters, and (2) if I attempt to sue company X which has patented my ideas, for which prior art exists, no doubt that during the case, the expensive lawyers of X (which I can't afford) will have turned the case around and start sueing me for something, anything. Prior art is no defense. Basically, there is no defense if you are not rich enough to be able to afford expensive lawyers.
What I would really like to have, is a possibility to say, without all kinds of legal hassles, "Here are my ideas, they are for the world, anyone can use them, for free, forever." This should protect my ideas from being misused in patent form.
Guess what, that is impossible. I have a choice to either claim sole ownership of my ideas, and become a 50% of a lawyer, or to throw my ideas out to the world, close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, and hope that the vultures leave something of my ideas for the world, and for me, to use.
If you look at it objectively, that is ridiculous. Patently ridiculous.
One only need to look at what is happening with patent law in Europe.
In Europe, software patents were strictly forbidden. The Commission wanted to streamline patent law between European countries, and drafted a proposal for a new patent law that allows software patents even to a further extent than in the US. This is only in the interests of big business, in particular, American big business. Then the Parliament had its say and changed the proposal, so that it, again, forbade software patents. At that point, the Commission showed its true face. Commissioner Bolkestein (who had actually been a forefighter for freedom, democracy, liberty, and less governmental meddling when he was a politician in The Netherlands) said that the Parliament's proposal was unacceptable, and the Commission would reject it, and either would force through a proposal that would allow software patents, or would dump the proposal completely and get the individual countries to accept laws that allow software patents.
Now tell me, don't you think it is quite obvious that a Commission that rejects a democratically accepted (with a huge majority) proposal, to drive through a completely opposite proposal that only benefits big business, actually has a hidden agenda of its own? An agenda it shares with big business? Such as Microsoft? Which has a lot to gain from software patents? Sure, I can't prove anything, but it looks and sounds and even smells like a duck.
The patent system is NOT for allowing someone exclusive rights to something trivial, obvious, or abstract. It is to allow someone limited exclusiveness on something that is non-trivial, non-obvious, and concrete.
Unfortunately, the patent offices do not seem to understand what the system is for, OR they are unable to judge what is trivial, obvious, or abstract. Probably the last.
So far as the display goes, my idea would be to use the "smart window" technology to have a small screen embedded between two panels of glass or plastic. These could be worn as eyeglasses. The application of a small amount of voltage causes these panels to become opaque or clear, depending on the setting.
For digital media, however, it's a whole different game, as everyone who's followed the fights over dominant DRM-standards can see.
True, DRM is a horse of a different colour. But forcing DRM on the populace will not be through WMP, but through Windows. At the moment, WMP is too easy to replace. Of course, that might become different in the future, and from that prospect the current ruling might be considered a victory. Although I doubt MS is restrained in any way at all by it as far as DRM is concerned.
Of course they are. They gave Ballmer such a warm welcome when he arrived to make his 11th hour plea for leniency last time, after all
A lot of it is just for show. I am talking about the Commission, which is a small group of people, many of whom are MS buddies. Of course they have to keep up a stern front for the Parliament and related institutes. But in the end, MS gets off easy.
Umm, WMP is simply a DirectShow front end. It will play anything that DirectShow has a filter for decoding which, on Windows, is more or less anything except some QuickTime-specific things (Sorenson springs to mind).
Yeah, that should be the case. However, for some strange reason WMP 9 and 10 crash on or refuse to play many movies which classic WMP (not available from MS) just plays fine, as do many alternative players.
I completely agree with the sentiment that IE is the thing that should be removed.
Really, who cares about the media player? WMP s*cks d*nkey b*lls! It is slow, it is invasive, and it has such bad codec support that it cannot play many common formats. No-one who is really interested in playing movies or music will stick to WMP. It simply does not do the job required.
IE, on the other hand, seems to do a good job on the surface, and is totally entrenched in the system. Furthermore, IE allows MS to really dominate an important infrastructure. IE should go.
Of course, the probable reason that MS does not fight so hard against the current ruling, is that they themselves know it is not an important fight. I also expect that the ruling has been agreed upon by the Commission in conversations with MS. Many members of the Commission are really close buddies with MS, you know.
In 1990 I started evening courses to get my Master's while having a full-time job and an SO. I had to gain time somewhere, so I decided to stop watching teevee. I haven't watched any teevee since, and I haven't missed it a day. Although occasionally, I discover in the morning papers a huge story which everyone has been watching on the tube last night (e.g., 9/11). I also often encounter names in the paper of people which seem to be famous, but I've never heard of, always 'television personalities'. I don't think I miss anything not knowing who these people are.
The University of Alberta does a lot of work on poker programs. One of their aims is to create a program that can compete in the World Series of Poker. However, poker is such a complex game (for computers, that is) that at the moment the research group would be satisfied if their program would survive the first round. You see, poker is more about beating another person, than about calculations. The best poker players win because they can entice their opponents to make mistakes. This is psychology, not math. Computers are notoriously bad at psychology.
As mentioned by previous answers, it's for PC too.
However, this brings up the question again, for which system it is developed first, and how the port is going to be made. While I loved Morrowind, the interface was awful. Obviously a straight console port. For instance, to cast a spell, you had to go to the menu screen, select the spell you wanted to cast by scrolling down, down, down, and clicking, then go back to the main screen, press R to select spellcasting, and then click to fire the spell. Absolutely ridiculous! What happened to assignable shortcut keys? O, right, you don't have those on a console.
(Granted, you had nine shortcut keys, but you had to use those for weapon selection, probe selection, lockpick selection, armour selection, item selection, and spells, which is completely inadequate).
KotOR was redesigned for PC, to exploit the possibilities of PC flexibility. Good call! Now if TES4 would learn something from BioWare's example...
I immediately realised such a business would never thrive, because:
Businesses would never allow an outside firm to scan potentially sensitive emails.
Even for humans it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish spam from real mail, especially if you are not an insider to the business.
It could not be supported by an automated mechanism, because you could be sued if you would filter out real mail as spam, even if it happens rarely.
If it takes about 10 seconds to scan a piece of mail, any human could scan a maximum of about 300 mails an hour. Since this is the amount of spam I receive in a single day, I have to pay at least an hour's fee per day to scan my mail, or probably something like $3000 a month. Nobody will pay this.
Yes, it's a hoax. Which could be immediately deduced from the fact that it is not viable business (especially with the price they quote).
This sounds remarkably like the affair around the Sloot Digital Coding System (link is in Dutch, while there are plenty Dutch links on this issue, it seems this affair has stayed in our little country).
Sloot had created a system which allowed any movie to be encoded in 1 kilobyte of data, using a group of five algorithms that were stored on a hard disk of less than 400 Mb. He demonstrated this system on several occasions, but didn't allow anyone to open his machine. Roel Pieper, one of Holland's most notorious IT professors (who basically became notorious because he had been a sportsman in the US, not because he knew a lot about IT) invested quite heavily (we're talking millions here) in Sloot's company. When Sloot died, taking his secret with him to the grave, they opened his magic box and found a big hard disk inside on which many movies were stored - using their regular space.
Of course, any first-year IT student realises that it is mathematically impossible to store any movie in just 1K of data, since it puts an upper limit to the number of movies that can exist, while it is obvious that the number of movies is infinite (although you wouldn't say so if you examine Hollywood's output).
The same seems to be happening with this universal translator. Of course it is mathematically impossible to create such a thing. The creators hype it up. They get loads of money. And then, I predict we will never hear from this again.
Some people get rich, others lose wads of money, the world keeps turning.
Slashdot Mirror
The inspections are precisely why everyone could know the claims of the US government were crap. I never said the inspections were bad. Quite the contrary. Such international inspections should be the order of the day in all countries that have the capability to develop nuclear weapons (including the US).
How many European stories have there been on
You'd be surprised. Unfortunately, in most European countries the citizens are just as incapable of influencing their government as in the US. Why, I am from the Netherlands, and the Netherlands supports the US in the Iraqi invasion. That was a decision by the government, despite the fact that 80% of the Dutch citizens is totally against it. And why does the government do that? Because there is nothing any prime minister of the government craves so much as appearing on TV next to the US president (i.e., posing as the president's lapdog). It's absolutely disgusting. However, contrary to the US, the Netherlands is a powerless speck of land. Stupid activities we perform have little or no impact on the world.
For you maybe. But that just indicates what sort of company you prefer.
Maybe that's your impression, but it is not true. Europeans usually feel frustrated and powerless. But the average European is better informed than the average American. And while I personally don't think I know what is good for the US, most certainly it is not attacking a powerless country without reason.
You take no risks and then blame us for our bad decisions. You have no POWER, no SPIRIT, no YOUTH, no CONVICTION.
I agree to the lack of (military) power. I certainly disagree with the rest. [Donning flameproof suit] I don't think the only way to express SPIRIT is by attacking a weak country while shouting hail to the flag. I don't think YOUTH is expressed by voting into office a bunch of gray balding hate-mongering money-grubbing bastards. I don't think CONVICTION is expressed by refusing to think about your actions.
The point is not that the US removed a dictator.
The point is that the US government lied about their reasons to remove a dictator. They lied about the danger to the US. They lied about their oil interests. They lied about the prognosis of the situation after the first attacks.
Really, if the point was to remove horrible dictators from the face of the Earth, the US would have much better results by invading some African countries, where anarchy reigns and genocide is the order of the day.
Sure, Hussein killed huge masses of people to create a stable situation in his country (namely everyone supporting him). However, if you supported Saddam, you had little to fear. True, it is not a great situation, and I wouldn't want to live there, but the majority of the people of Iraq was quite content, and the situation, as far as foreign politics was concerned, was fairly stable and safe. The current situation is not.
Iraq was no danger when the US invaded. After spending hundreds of billions of dollars (which would have gone a loooooong way in bringing third-world countries the welfare they need to be able to afford becoming democracies), and losing tens of thousands of lives, there is quite a dangerous situation now.
But, as an informed American citizen, you are surely aware of that.
I live in Europe. What surprises me is that news like this comes as a shock to US citizens. In Europe, we have known this for years, from the moment Iraq was invaded.
I had the same experience with Fahrenheit 911. I thought, "Nothing new here. Don't tell me the average American didn't know this?!"
Seriously, the world would be a much better place if the citizens of the US, arguably the most powerful country in the world, would be better informed about what's going on in their own country and in the rest of the world.
Since the US has so much influence on the world, I sometimes think it would be fair if every human being in the world was allowed to vote in the US elections (at least as far as foreign affairs are concerned). The republicans would be wiped out.
Me: Your honor, the patent awarded to X is actually a patent on an idea that originated with me!
X: Well, I thought of it myself at exactly the same time.
Judge: Nothing provable. Case dismissed.
Nice, but that only works if you file a patent afterwards. As I said, that is exactly what I do not want to do.
When I talk about my work at conferences, it occasionally happens (especially when "business people" are in the audience) that someone eagerly asks, whether I have already patented those ideas.
My answer is no. First, patenting is expensive. I don't have the money. Second, I want my ideas to benefit the world (that's what science is about, I think). I do not want to hoard them for myself. Third, if I want to patent my ideas, I have to spend a lot of time on legal stuff. I am a computer scientist, not a lawyer. I rather not do that.
But now there is a problem. If I do not patent my ideas, what withholds someone else from patenting them? It is not a requirement that you are the originator of an idea to patent it!
Prior art? Sure, I can bring that forward. In court. Which is not what I would like to do, because, (1) as I said, I am not a lawyer, and I hate spending time on legal matters, and (2) if I attempt to sue company X which has patented my ideas, for which prior art exists, no doubt that during the case, the expensive lawyers of X (which I can't afford) will have turned the case around and start sueing me for something, anything. Prior art is no defense. Basically, there is no defense if you are not rich enough to be able to afford expensive lawyers.
What I would really like to have, is a possibility to say, without all kinds of legal hassles, "Here are my ideas, they are for the world, anyone can use them, for free, forever." This should protect my ideas from being misused in patent form.
Guess what, that is impossible. I have a choice to either claim sole ownership of my ideas, and become a 50% of a lawyer, or to throw my ideas out to the world, close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, and hope that the vultures leave something of my ideas for the world, and for me, to use.
If you look at it objectively, that is ridiculous. Patently ridiculous.
From the man who failed to predict the Internet revolution half a year before it happened, we now get a 10-year prediction...
If there is one thing Microsoft is good at, it is running AFTER the facts, and throwing a lot of money at them to catch up.
I did. I just think it would kind-of suck to play it nowadays.
Or maybe you're looking for something a little different than the current crop of RPG games? Then check out Devil Whiskey for both Linux and Windows.
Look at screenshots. Medieval city. Check. Knight. Check. Orc. Check. Elf. Check. Big sword. Check.
How is that a little different from the current crop of RPGs? I would really like game developers of RPGs to step beyond the world of Fantasy. Please!
(KotOR was a good start. Now step away from Fantasy AND Science Fiction, please.)
In Europe, software patents were strictly forbidden. The Commission wanted to streamline patent law between European countries, and drafted a proposal for a new patent law that allows software patents even to a further extent than in the US. This is only in the interests of big business, in particular, American big business. Then the Parliament had its say and changed the proposal, so that it, again, forbade software patents. At that point, the Commission showed its true face. Commissioner Bolkestein (who had actually been a forefighter for freedom, democracy, liberty, and less governmental meddling when he was a politician in The Netherlands) said that the Parliament's proposal was unacceptable, and the Commission would reject it, and either would force through a proposal that would allow software patents, or would dump the proposal completely and get the individual countries to accept laws that allow software patents.
Now tell me, don't you think it is quite obvious that a Commission that rejects a democratically accepted (with a huge majority) proposal, to drive through a completely opposite proposal that only benefits big business, actually has a hidden agenda of its own? An agenda it shares with big business? Such as Microsoft? Which has a lot to gain from software patents? Sure, I can't prove anything, but it looks and sounds and even smells like a duck.
The patent system is NOT for allowing someone exclusive rights to something trivial, obvious, or abstract. It is to allow someone limited exclusiveness on something that is non-trivial, non-obvious, and concrete.
Unfortunately, the patent offices do not seem to understand what the system is for, OR they are unable to judge what is trivial, obvious, or abstract. Probably the last.
And I wrote to all my representatives less than a year ago.
GREAT IDEA!
* runs to patent office *
True, DRM is a horse of a different colour. But forcing DRM on the populace will not be through WMP, but through Windows. At the moment, WMP is too easy to replace. Of course, that might become different in the future, and from that prospect the current ruling might be considered a victory. Although I doubt MS is restrained in any way at all by it as far as DRM is concerned.
A lot of it is just for show. I am talking about the Commission, which is a small group of people, many of whom are MS buddies. Of course they have to keep up a stern front for the Parliament and related institutes. But in the end, MS gets off easy.
Yeah, that should be the case. However, for some strange reason WMP 9 and 10 crash on or refuse to play many movies which classic WMP (not available from MS) just plays fine, as do many alternative players.
Probably the lawyers cost millions. The programmer who right-clicks on "mplayer.exe" and picks "Delete" is dirt-cheap.
Really, who cares about the media player? WMP s*cks d*nkey b*lls! It is slow, it is invasive, and it has such bad codec support that it cannot play many common formats. No-one who is really interested in playing movies or music will stick to WMP. It simply does not do the job required.
IE, on the other hand, seems to do a good job on the surface, and is totally entrenched in the system. Furthermore, IE allows MS to really dominate an important infrastructure. IE should go.
Of course, the probable reason that MS does not fight so hard against the current ruling, is that they themselves know it is not an important fight. I also expect that the ruling has been agreed upon by the Commission in conversations with MS. Many members of the Commission are really close buddies with MS, you know.
In 1990 I started evening courses to get my Master's while having a full-time job and an SO. I had to gain time somewhere, so I decided to stop watching teevee. I haven't watched any teevee since, and I haven't missed it a day. Although occasionally, I discover in the morning papers a huge story which everyone has been watching on the tube last night (e.g., 9/11). I also often encounter names in the paper of people which seem to be famous, but I've never heard of, always 'television personalities'. I don't think I miss anything not knowing who these people are.
Isn't a pinball machine a lot like that?
The University of Alberta does a lot of work on poker programs. One of their aims is to create a program that can compete in the World Series of Poker. However, poker is such a complex game (for computers, that is) that at the moment the research group would be satisfied if their program would survive the first round. You see, poker is more about beating another person, than about calculations. The best poker players win because they can entice their opponents to make mistakes. This is psychology, not math. Computers are notoriously bad at psychology.
However, this brings up the question again, for which system it is developed first, and how the port is going to be made. While I loved Morrowind, the interface was awful. Obviously a straight console port. For instance, to cast a spell, you had to go to the menu screen, select the spell you wanted to cast by scrolling down, down, down, and clicking, then go back to the main screen, press R to select spellcasting, and then click to fire the spell. Absolutely ridiculous! What happened to assignable shortcut keys? O, right, you don't have those on a console.
(Granted, you had nine shortcut keys, but you had to use those for weapon selection, probe selection, lockpick selection, armour selection, item selection, and spells, which is completely inadequate).
KotOR was redesigned for PC, to exploit the possibilities of PC flexibility. Good call! Now if TES4 would learn something from BioWare's example...
I immediately realised such a business would never thrive, because:
Yes, it's a hoax. Which could be immediately deduced from the fact that it is not viable business (especially with the price they quote).
Sloot had created a system which allowed any movie to be encoded in 1 kilobyte of data, using a group of five algorithms that were stored on a hard disk of less than 400 Mb. He demonstrated this system on several occasions, but didn't allow anyone to open his machine. Roel Pieper, one of Holland's most notorious IT professors (who basically became notorious because he had been a sportsman in the US, not because he knew a lot about IT) invested quite heavily (we're talking millions here) in Sloot's company. When Sloot died, taking his secret with him to the grave, they opened his magic box and found a big hard disk inside on which many movies were stored - using their regular space.
Of course, any first-year IT student realises that it is mathematically impossible to store any movie in just 1K of data, since it puts an upper limit to the number of movies that can exist, while it is obvious that the number of movies is infinite (although you wouldn't say so if you examine Hollywood's output).
The same seems to be happening with this universal translator. Of course it is mathematically impossible to create such a thing. The creators hype it up. They get loads of money. And then, I predict we will never hear from this again.
Some people get rich, others lose wads of money, the world keeps turning.