...as spontaneous genesis caused by an unlikely event of random chemical reactions...
Ah. This is the crux of the misunderstanding.
The assumption that "spontaneous genesis" is unlikely is just that: an assumption. We have exactly one data point, our own existence. If we were to draw any (premature) assumptions from that single data point, the indication is that, under favorable conditions, life is probable.
But again, that assumption is entirely premature. We don't have a clue how life really began, so any speculation is just that: speculation. This includes the probability distribution of spontaneous creation of life.
First, you have to recognize the target, which is *not* Linux. It's Flash.
Right now, Flash is a cross-platform delivery system for highly interactive content. (READ: unstable piece of shit that is not a real standard.) It's very popular for media players (Youtube), ads, and cheezy games. It basically made ActiveX irrelevent, and Microsoft is still a little peeved.
So, by helping the Mono folks make Silverlight available cross-platform, they get to look like the good guys, as well as give Adobe a full-frontal assault on Flash.
Right now, we are in the "embrace" stage.
Once Silverlight takes off and displaces Flash as the delivery system of choice for shitty-assed content, Microsoft will be free to extend Silverlight in any way they desire, without passing those changes on to the Mac or to Mono. So, they get to extinguish Java and Flash, and then once Silverlight is the only delivery system on the internet, they get to displace the web, as well.
This is just like their bid with ActiveX. The main difference is, they learned their lesson the first time. Don't make it MS-Windows-only until *after* it is perceived as the only system available.
Yes, this is paranoid ranting. But after you've been kicked in the balls four or five times by someone, you get a little antsy around them.
House of the dead was a *great* freakin' movie. It was the least scary, most unintentionally funny bad movie since Deep Blue Sea. And that's saying a lot. I mean, come one! Who else would include actual game footage every time someone bit it? That was brilliant! It was so brilliant, Doom copied it, only they didn't include actual game footage, and it wasn't when the hero died (damnit).
Okay, "Alone in the Dark" shat. I refused to see BloodRayne, 'cause it had a stupid title, and I hated the game. But House of the Dead was at least as good as either Fantastic 4 movie (and I'm not talkin' the Roger Corman movie from the 80s, either).
For bad movie night, there're only three movies: Deep Blue Sea, Reign of Fire, and House of the Dead. Well, unless you want to go old school, and watch Psychomania or Frogs.
...could it take the same patent lawsuit against Linux that SCO attempted, while using it's rightful ownership?
The SCO lawsuit was not about patents, it was about contract violation and copyright infringement. Patents were never mentioned by SCO.
Novell now has legal standing with respect to Unix copyrights. However, they distribute an entire GNU/Linux distribution, much of which (including the Linux kernel) is under the GPL. Therefore, they can't even attack Linux for copyright infringement. So Novell has no "trump card" when it comes to Linux.
That said, Karl Rove's handling of the 2000 presidential election was excellent...
If Rove's tactics are considered "excellent," no wonder the political scene in the US is so fucked up. Rove successfully manipulated public opinion, yes, but he did so with innuendo, lies, and manipulation. I'm not saying Presidential campaigns are known for their insightful debate and mutual respect, but Rove brought it all to a whole new level.
His handling of the 2004 election might've been "masterful," in the same way that a monkey with particularly accurate aim is masterful at shit-flinging.
Then you're fucking stupid. Without 98 and definitely XP, PC use in the home wouldn't be as widespread as it is now and you'd have sod all chance of getting Linux on the desktop because, as with IBM back in the 80's, nobody ever got fired for installing Windows.
Bullshit.
Microsoft did not create the personal computer wave. They merely rode the wave better than anyone else. Computers would be different now without Microsoft, that's true. I suspect they'd be better, but I can't prove it.
But, let me repeat one more time, in case you are hard of hearing, or just don't grasp cause and effect: Microsoft did not cause widespread use of computers. They were simply in the right place at the right time, and were ruthless enough to destroy competition at any cost.
This whole business of "signing" is ridiculous. It's no safer than the current model. Perhaps even less safe, as it gives both the OS programmers and the end-users a false sense of security. "You can trust a signed driver."
No, you can't.
The only way I can see to make a truly safe system is to run each driver in its own VM, and create a virtual network between the drivers and the core OS. Each user-end program would also run in its own VM, and IPC would occur via the system network, rather than direct system calls. Each IPC message would have to have a signature for types of input (data type, string length, etc) and a common, well-audited message dispatcher would have to validate each message for conformance.
This is microkernel architecture on steroids, meaning it's big and slow and dumb, but solid. Even then, a single security flaw in the VM system would compromise the entire system.
Uhm... the bills signed into law determine what is "legal" and "illegal." Something isn't legal just because the president says it is.
There were laws put in place regulating surveillance. These laws are very clear in what is allowed, and what is not. This program completely ignored those laws, and sidestepped the oversight mandated by those laws. There are laws regulating what can and cannot be secret. This program fell outside the bounds of all those established laws.
It isn't partisan BS. This is between those who believe the US is based on the Constitution, and those who believe the President should hold powers above all others.
And public servants should do the "moral" thing in any administration, even the nicest, bunny-loving, thriving economy, no-war-abroad President. We should all do the moral thing, including monitoring the activities of the government (including the President), and holding them to a higher standard of ethics. They are, after all, representing all of us. Their actions reflect our own morality by proxy.
This is only a partisan issue because the PR has spun it into a partisan issue. If this had happened during the Clinton years, those who defend the current president would've been at the head of the lynch mob. Let's stop caring to which party these immoral, selfish sons-of-bitches belong, and start holding them all accountable.
This was not a case of civil disobedience. The leaker released details on an unlawful program. This is no different (from a legal standpoint) from an informer giving the police information on a drug ring, or providing information about corporate malfeasance.
The only difference was he released information damning to the government. This is just one more bit of evidence that the government of the United States believes it is above the law, above the constitution, and above the best interest of the citizens they have sworn to serve.
The administration is getting back at him, just like they did Joseph Wilson. This is pure vindictiveness.
First, there's a danger in keeping all your genetic eggs in one basket. Secondly, I don't know about you, but I have a strong yen to stride among the stars. I do know there are many like me. Why climb everest? Why colonize the moon? Or Mars? Why *not* travel to the far reaches of the universe?
Humans are, by and large, creatures with a great curiosity. In the face of a utopia, I'd hope that at least some would wish to explore, and perhaps settle, the great unknown.
How long have we had radio here on earth? A hundred years? Given the pervasiveness of digital communication and the advancement of communication, how long will radio remain a primary communication medium?
Radio is a very inefficient method of communication. As you point out, a lot of energy is wasted, and bled off into space to radiate around the universe. So, how long will radio be important?
My guess is, not long. So, our total use of radio as a primary communication medium will last a total of 200 years.
There might be intelligently-modulated radio waves flitting around the galaxy. But, they will be very small timeslices compared to the dead quiet. And considering how much electromagnetic noise damned near everything in the universe emits, it'd be a tough job to pinpoint and extract information from a radio transmission even if we were lucky enough to be in the middle of one.
The lack of radio waves hardly constitutes evidence for lack of other intelligent life in the universe. Even if almost every star in the galaxy spawned intelligent life, the chances that the beginning of our ability to detect radio signals would coincide with the passing of a radio signal through earth is very, very small. I imagine we'd have to listen for thousands of years before we'd pick up somebody's "Have Gun, Will Travel" equivalent.
Including both formats and letting users choose seems quite reasonable.
In this case, the standards process was to be about government storage, retrieval, and disbursement of documents. Mr. Quinn tried to move MA to support a single open standard with guaranteed longevity. This was *not* about individual users, who are always free to choose whichever standard or product they desire.
Having two choices of document format muddies the water more than a bit. Now, different government agencies in MA can choose to use whichever format they desire. Since only one of those two standards is cross-platform and cross-product (ODF), this will eventually force everyone to OOXML and MS-Office, since it will be the only product that will be able to accurately handle these documents.
This does not increase choice. It restricts it, and Microsoft knows it. They have worked hard to restrict choice, and they have one this battle.
A window manager is not a desktop environment; it is but one part of a desktop environment. GNUStep is an implementation of OpenStep, an open API that is based closely on the old NeXTStep environment from the old NeXT computers.
GNUStep is a decent implementation, though it's slow in development. It is based on Objective-C, which is (in MNSHO) a much better OO language than C++, Java, or C#. The foundation libraries are a little primitive by modern standards, but pretty clean and powerful nonetheless.
The window manager is the least of the operating environment.
Microsoft's advantage in the US and the rest of the world is based on one thing: their early success during the explosion of personal computers. The explosion was happening with or without Microsoft. Microsoft did not *cause* the explosion. They simply took advantage of it. Their deal with IBM put them at an advantage when Compaq created the first clone, and so they were able to make deals with every other clone maker, making MS-DOS the de-facto OS on all PC-type computers.
This allowed them to put commercial pressure on the PC manufacturers as other competitors popped up. They have successfully used this advantage of scale over every competitor since.
In China, they currently have no such advantage. As the Chinese PC market is about where the US was in the mid-80s (with respect to growth and penetration), Microsoft has to get their OS on every sold computer, by hook or by crook. It's better they make a few pennies and make every copy legal than it is to crack down on piracy. This way everyone is happy.
Once China has reached saturation with PC deployment, MS can afford to raise the price again. By that point, they'll have their anti-piracy methodology honed to an exact science, and they won't have to worry about piracy nearly enough.
Remember: the first dose is always free. After that, you're at the mercy of your supplier.
The interesting thing is, this shows that China chooses US-style corporatism (a corrupt form of capitalism) over true communism.
What if there were child terrorists! We could get the best of both worlds. Wouldn't that be great? "We need to bomb Venezuela to protect ourselves against gay atheist pornographic child terrorists! With potty-mouths!"
The entire point of the bridge *is* the airport. Yes, there are generally only six flights a day, and yes, the ferry between the airport and Ketchikan generally only runs half-filled.
Except during the summer.
Ketchikan is one of Alaska's primary tourist destinations, especially for fishing and hunting. Tens of thousands of tourists come to Ketchikan each year. During the summer months, the ferry is very full. If you drive (many of these tourists have hundreds of pounds of baggage), you often have to wait several ferry cycles during peak times.
During the summer, tourist congestion makes travel to and from the airport very painful. I mean, tourists make life in Alaska painful anyway, but in Ketchikan especially. And those tourists complain. They complain about the airport. They complain about the ferry. They complain about the limited flights in and out, and how full the flights always are, and how they can't tote their heavy baggage all the way down to the ferry.
Basically, the bridge is to get tourists to shut the fuck up. Quit your bitching. Suck it up, buttercup.
If you had to listen to tens of thousands of tourists complain about the airport, you'd want to spend millions of dollars of other people's money on this bridge, too.
As long as there are terrorists who hate our freedom, we must keep freedom safe.
So, we shall take our freedom, stuff it in a lead box, pour a concrete casing around it (eight or ten yards^3 should do it), dig a big hole on G.W. Bush's ranch, and bury it there, where our President can keep it safe. He'll watch it for us while it's hidden away all snug-like, and then the terrorists won't have any reason to attack us, because it's our freedom they hate.
Actually, I suspect terrorists really *do* hate our freedoms, but that's mostly because the only American freedoms they've experienced are the ones in Iraq, and we only gave Iraqis the worst freedoms so far: the freedom to get their asses blown up.
My brother has a great idea. Instead of dropping bombs, we should be dropping hot tubs and cold beer and reruns of American Gladiator. It's hard to plan ultra-violence when you're sitting in a hot tub drinking cold beer watching stupid 15-year-old American television.
I'd love to be a libertarian, but it seems I'd have to believe that the free market works, and corporations are free to do business however they wish.
I wouldn't mind, assuming we returned corporations to a public charter system, in which a corporation may have its charter revoked if it is found to behave illegally. And, I'd like to see some vengeance against the to executives, and make it so if Kenneth Lay dies, we get to see his body so all the ex-Enron employees who were fleeced out of their retirement funds can piss in his cold dead mouth.
'Cause I don't think he's dead.
If the libertarians can promise me that, I'm a convert. 'Cause except for the whole trust-in-the-free-market thing, I'm mostly there.
Actually, I'm a liberal anarcho-constitutionalist. But that's pretty damned close.
...even if 'science' holds objective truth, 'scientists' don't: they are as prone to pride and bribery as anyone.
Very true.
However, if scientists become the mouthpieces of government simply to support bad policy, *everybody* loses. If a scientist is bribed to make wild claims ("what global warming?"), the objective truth eventually wins out.
So, we are still better off with science not constrained by government mandate. It's not like scientists have much power. When was the last time Fox News complained about rogue scientists, they way they talk about rogue judges?
If anything, these events can only reinforce his views that he wants "to see Microsoft broken on the wheel not by government fiat but by enlightened consumer choice".
Uhm... I'd like everyone in the world to realize that getting along together is the only hope of making it out alive. How likely is *that*?
"Enlightened consumer choice" is an oxymoron. There tain't no such thing.
SCO was a trial balloon for Microsoft. Though Microsoft's pipe fairy, SCO got a hot cash injection. They started making wild claims, which drove their stock up quite nicely, thank you.
Then they started suing, and everything went downhill. SCO discovered they actually had to *prove* something. So, we've been fortunate enough to witness a corporation spinning faster and faster until rotational velocity rips it apart. It's kinda cool.
Here's what Microsoft learned from SCO: *accusations work.* They work very, very well. Make vague, unsubstantiated claims. Oh, don't go as far as Darl McBride. He's an ass. Instead, insinuate. Make a few direct claims, let those claims disappear, then play on the doubt those claims left behind.
It's working surprisingly well. The one thing that's backfiring, though, is that Microsoft has associated their name with Linux, in a strange approving sort of way. This is PR that Linux couldn't buy. I have non-geek people asking me about Linux these days, people who'd never heard of it before.
Anyway, Microsoft will never take this to court. They would be complete fools to disregard the SCO effect.
A Microsoft contract limits what you can do with what they perceive to be their property.
This is the crux of the matter.
They do *not* "perceive [it] to be their property." They *claim* it is their property, but refuse to prove in any way, shape, or form that it *is* their property.
So.
The rest of your post is essentially mumbling about contract law, of which you come close to admitting you know almost nothing. You are saying your opinion is worth more than someone who actually knows something about contract law?
There was no misinformation about the Groklaw post. PJ stated that the Linspire/Microsoft deal, which was touted as something good for the customer, is in fact *bad* for the customer. The customer is actually purchasing a product that is hobbled, and actually *using* the product pretty much voids the whole Linspire/Microsoft "value-add."
It was actually a very good dissection of the agreement, as it affects the customer. It shows that Microsoft most definitely got the better of the deal, and Linspire and their customers kinda got shafted.
But, anyone who deals with Microsoft ends up getting shafted.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait for SP2 before wasting your time.
Yes. After SP2, you can waste your time much more efficiently.
...as spontaneous genesis caused by an unlikely event of random chemical reactions...
Ah. This is the crux of the misunderstanding.
The assumption that "spontaneous genesis" is unlikely is just that: an assumption. We have exactly one data point, our own existence. If we were to draw any (premature) assumptions from that single data point, the indication is that, under favorable conditions, life is probable.
But again, that assumption is entirely premature. We don't have a clue how life really began, so any speculation is just that: speculation. This includes the probability distribution of spontaneous creation of life.
First, you have to recognize the target, which is *not* Linux. It's Flash.
Right now, Flash is a cross-platform delivery system for highly interactive content. (READ: unstable piece of shit that is not a real standard.) It's very popular for media players (Youtube), ads, and cheezy games. It basically made ActiveX irrelevent, and Microsoft is still a little peeved.
So, by helping the Mono folks make Silverlight available cross-platform, they get to look like the good guys, as well as give Adobe a full-frontal assault on Flash.
Right now, we are in the "embrace" stage.
Once Silverlight takes off and displaces Flash as the delivery system of choice for shitty-assed content, Microsoft will be free to extend Silverlight in any way they desire, without passing those changes on to the Mac or to Mono. So, they get to extinguish Java and Flash, and then once Silverlight is the only delivery system on the internet, they get to displace the web, as well.
This is just like their bid with ActiveX. The main difference is, they learned their lesson the first time. Don't make it MS-Windows-only until *after* it is perceived as the only system available.
Yes, this is paranoid ranting. But after you've been kicked in the balls four or five times by someone, you get a little antsy around them.
House of the dead was a *great* freakin' movie. It was the least scary, most unintentionally funny bad movie since Deep Blue Sea. And that's saying a lot. I mean, come one! Who else would include actual game footage every time someone bit it? That was brilliant! It was so brilliant, Doom copied it, only they didn't include actual game footage, and it wasn't when the hero died (damnit).
Okay, "Alone in the Dark" shat. I refused to see BloodRayne, 'cause it had a stupid title, and I hated the game. But House of the Dead was at least as good as either Fantastic 4 movie (and I'm not talkin' the Roger Corman movie from the 80s, either).
For bad movie night, there're only three movies: Deep Blue Sea, Reign of Fire, and House of the Dead. Well, unless you want to go old school, and watch Psychomania or Frogs.
...could it take the same patent lawsuit against Linux that SCO attempted, while using it's rightful ownership?
The SCO lawsuit was not about patents, it was about contract violation and copyright infringement. Patents were never mentioned by SCO.
Novell now has legal standing with respect to Unix copyrights. However, they distribute an entire GNU/Linux distribution, much of which (including the Linux kernel) is under the GPL. Therefore, they can't even attack Linux for copyright infringement. So Novell has no "trump card" when it comes to Linux.
That said, Karl Rove's handling of the 2000 presidential election was excellent...
If Rove's tactics are considered "excellent," no wonder the political scene in the US is so fucked up. Rove successfully manipulated public opinion, yes, but he did so with innuendo, lies, and manipulation. I'm not saying Presidential campaigns are known for their insightful debate and mutual respect, but Rove brought it all to a whole new level.
His handling of the 2004 election might've been "masterful," in the same way that a monkey with particularly accurate aim is masterful at shit-flinging.
Come to think of it, that's a rather apt analogy.
Then you're fucking stupid. Without 98 and definitely XP, PC use in the home wouldn't be as widespread as it is now and you'd have sod all chance of getting Linux on the desktop because, as with IBM back in the 80's, nobody ever got fired for installing Windows.
Bullshit.
Microsoft did not create the personal computer wave. They merely rode the wave better than anyone else. Computers would be different now without Microsoft, that's true. I suspect they'd be better, but I can't prove it.
But, let me repeat one more time, in case you are hard of hearing, or just don't grasp cause and effect: Microsoft did not cause widespread use of computers. They were simply in the right place at the right time, and were ruthless enough to destroy competition at any cost.
How long before a signing tool comes out?
This whole business of "signing" is ridiculous. It's no safer than the current model. Perhaps even less safe, as it gives both the OS programmers and the end-users a false sense of security. "You can trust a signed driver."
No, you can't.
The only way I can see to make a truly safe system is to run each driver in its own VM, and create a virtual network between the drivers and the core OS. Each user-end program would also run in its own VM, and IPC would occur via the system network, rather than direct system calls. Each IPC message would have to have a signature for types of input (data type, string length, etc) and a common, well-audited message dispatcher would have to validate each message for conformance.
This is microkernel architecture on steroids, meaning it's big and slow and dumb, but solid. Even then, a single security flaw in the VM system would compromise the entire system.
(yes, there's Linux, there's MacOS, but what company would switch?)
Ernie Ball
Wotif.com
Burlington Coat Factory
Peugeot
Just to name a few.
And of course IBM and Novell, but they don't count, as they are strong GNU/Linux players.
Of course, Siemens was a bit off in their prediction of 20% market share by 2008. But I'd say there's the chance we might make 20% some day.
Uhm... the bills signed into law determine what is "legal" and "illegal." Something isn't legal just because the president says it is.
There were laws put in place regulating surveillance. These laws are very clear in what is allowed, and what is not. This program completely ignored those laws, and sidestepped the oversight mandated by those laws. There are laws regulating what can and cannot be secret. This program fell outside the bounds of all those established laws.
It isn't partisan BS. This is between those who believe the US is based on the Constitution, and those who believe the President should hold powers above all others.
And public servants should do the "moral" thing in any administration, even the nicest, bunny-loving, thriving economy, no-war-abroad President. We should all do the moral thing, including monitoring the activities of the government (including the President), and holding them to a higher standard of ethics. They are, after all, representing all of us. Their actions reflect our own morality by proxy.
This is only a partisan issue because the PR has spun it into a partisan issue. If this had happened during the Clinton years, those who defend the current president would've been at the head of the lynch mob. Let's stop caring to which party these immoral, selfish sons-of-bitches belong, and start holding them all accountable.
This was not a case of civil disobedience. The leaker released details on an unlawful program. This is no different (from a legal standpoint) from an informer giving the police information on a drug ring, or providing information about corporate malfeasance.
The only difference was he released information damning to the government. This is just one more bit of evidence that the government of the United States believes it is above the law, above the constitution, and above the best interest of the citizens they have sworn to serve.
The administration is getting back at him, just like they did Joseph Wilson. This is pure vindictiveness.
Why go anywhere else?
Why *not* go anywhere else?
First, there's a danger in keeping all your genetic eggs in one basket. Secondly, I don't know about you, but I have a strong yen to stride among the stars. I do know there are many like me. Why climb everest? Why colonize the moon? Or Mars? Why *not* travel to the far reaches of the universe?
Humans are, by and large, creatures with a great curiosity. In the face of a utopia, I'd hope that at least some would wish to explore, and perhaps settle, the great unknown.
How long have we had radio here on earth? A hundred years? Given the pervasiveness of digital communication and the advancement of communication, how long will radio remain a primary communication medium?
Radio is a very inefficient method of communication. As you point out, a lot of energy is wasted, and bled off into space to radiate around the universe. So, how long will radio be important?
My guess is, not long. So, our total use of radio as a primary communication medium will last a total of 200 years.
There might be intelligently-modulated radio waves flitting around the galaxy. But, they will be very small timeslices compared to the dead quiet. And considering how much electromagnetic noise damned near everything in the universe emits, it'd be a tough job to pinpoint and extract information from a radio transmission even if we were lucky enough to be in the middle of one.
The lack of radio waves hardly constitutes evidence for lack of other intelligent life in the universe. Even if almost every star in the galaxy spawned intelligent life, the chances that the beginning of our ability to detect radio signals would coincide with the passing of a radio signal through earth is very, very small. I imagine we'd have to listen for thousands of years before we'd pick up somebody's "Have Gun, Will Travel" equivalent.
Including both formats and letting users choose seems quite reasonable.
In this case, the standards process was to be about government storage, retrieval, and disbursement of documents. Mr. Quinn tried to move MA to support a single open standard with guaranteed longevity. This was *not* about individual users, who are always free to choose whichever standard or product they desire.
Having two choices of document format muddies the water more than a bit. Now, different government agencies in MA can choose to use whichever format they desire. Since only one of those two standards is cross-platform and cross-product (ODF), this will eventually force everyone to OOXML and MS-Office, since it will be the only product that will be able to accurately handle these documents.
This does not increase choice. It restricts it, and Microsoft knows it. They have worked hard to restrict choice, and they have one this battle.
Fuckers.
A window manager is not a desktop environment; it is but one part of a desktop environment. GNUStep is an implementation of OpenStep, an open API that is based closely on the old NeXTStep environment from the old NeXT computers.
GNUStep is a decent implementation, though it's slow in development. It is based on Objective-C, which is (in MNSHO) a much better OO language than C++, Java, or C#. The foundation libraries are a little primitive by modern standards, but pretty clean and powerful nonetheless.
The window manager is the least of the operating environment.
This is an excellent strategy.
Microsoft's advantage in the US and the rest of the world is based on one thing: their early success during the explosion of personal computers. The explosion was happening with or without Microsoft. Microsoft did not *cause* the explosion. They simply took advantage of it. Their deal with IBM put them at an advantage when Compaq created the first clone, and so they were able to make deals with every other clone maker, making MS-DOS the de-facto OS on all PC-type computers.
This allowed them to put commercial pressure on the PC manufacturers as other competitors popped up. They have successfully used this advantage of scale over every competitor since.
In China, they currently have no such advantage. As the Chinese PC market is about where the US was in the mid-80s (with respect to growth and penetration), Microsoft has to get their OS on every sold computer, by hook or by crook. It's better they make a few pennies and make every copy legal than it is to crack down on piracy. This way everyone is happy.
Once China has reached saturation with PC deployment, MS can afford to raise the price again. By that point, they'll have their anti-piracy methodology honed to an exact science, and they won't have to worry about piracy nearly enough.
Remember: the first dose is always free. After that, you're at the mercy of your supplier.
The interesting thing is, this shows that China chooses US-style corporatism (a corrupt form of capitalism) over true communism.
Wait! I've got it!
What if there were child terrorists! We could get the best of both worlds. Wouldn't that be great? "We need to bomb Venezuela to protect ourselves against gay atheist pornographic child terrorists! With potty-mouths!"
That's even better.
The article is misleading.
The entire point of the bridge *is* the airport. Yes, there are generally only six flights a day, and yes, the ferry between the airport and Ketchikan generally only runs half-filled.
Except during the summer.
Ketchikan is one of Alaska's primary tourist destinations, especially for fishing and hunting. Tens of thousands of tourists come to Ketchikan each year. During the summer months, the ferry is very full. If you drive (many of these tourists have hundreds of pounds of baggage), you often have to wait several ferry cycles during peak times.
During the summer, tourist congestion makes travel to and from the airport very painful. I mean, tourists make life in Alaska painful anyway, but in Ketchikan especially. And those tourists complain. They complain about the airport. They complain about the ferry. They complain about the limited flights in and out, and how full the flights always are, and how they can't tote their heavy baggage all the way down to the ferry.
Basically, the bridge is to get tourists to shut the fuck up. Quit your bitching. Suck it up, buttercup.
If you had to listen to tens of thousands of tourists complain about the airport, you'd want to spend millions of dollars of other people's money on this bridge, too.
As long as there are terrorists who hate our freedom, we must keep freedom safe.
So, we shall take our freedom, stuff it in a lead box, pour a concrete casing around it (eight or ten yards^3 should do it), dig a big hole on G.W. Bush's ranch, and bury it there, where our President can keep it safe. He'll watch it for us while it's hidden away all snug-like, and then the terrorists won't have any reason to attack us, because it's our freedom they hate.
Actually, I suspect terrorists really *do* hate our freedoms, but that's mostly because the only American freedoms they've experienced are the ones in Iraq, and we only gave Iraqis the worst freedoms so far: the freedom to get their asses blown up.
My brother has a great idea. Instead of dropping bombs, we should be dropping hot tubs and cold beer and reruns of American Gladiator. It's hard to plan ultra-violence when you're sitting in a hot tub drinking cold beer watching stupid 15-year-old American television.
I'd love to be a libertarian, but it seems I'd have to believe that the free market works, and corporations are free to do business however they wish.
I wouldn't mind, assuming we returned corporations to a public charter system, in which a corporation may have its charter revoked if it is found to behave illegally. And, I'd like to see some vengeance against the to executives, and make it so if Kenneth Lay dies, we get to see his body so all the ex-Enron employees who were fleeced out of their retirement funds can piss in his cold dead mouth.
'Cause I don't think he's dead.
If the libertarians can promise me that, I'm a convert. 'Cause except for the whole trust-in-the-free-market thing, I'm mostly there.
Actually, I'm a liberal anarcho-constitutionalist. But that's pretty damned close.
...even if 'science' holds objective truth, 'scientists' don't: they are as prone to pride and bribery as anyone.
Very true.
However, if scientists become the mouthpieces of government simply to support bad policy, *everybody* loses. If a scientist is bribed to make wild claims ("what global warming?"), the objective truth eventually wins out.
So, we are still better off with science not constrained by government mandate. It's not like scientists have much power. When was the last time Fox News complained about rogue scientists, they way they talk about rogue judges?
If anything, these events can only reinforce his views that he wants "to see Microsoft broken on the wheel not by government fiat but by enlightened consumer choice".
Uhm... I'd like everyone in the world to realize that getting along together is the only hope of making it out alive. How likely is *that*?
"Enlightened consumer choice" is an oxymoron. There tain't no such thing.
Who do you think started the SCO lawsuits?
SCO was a trial balloon for Microsoft. Though Microsoft's pipe fairy, SCO got a hot cash injection. They started making wild claims, which drove their stock up quite nicely, thank you.
Then they started suing, and everything went downhill. SCO discovered they actually had to *prove* something. So, we've been fortunate enough to witness a corporation spinning faster and faster until rotational velocity rips it apart. It's kinda cool.
Here's what Microsoft learned from SCO: *accusations work.* They work very, very well. Make vague, unsubstantiated claims. Oh, don't go as far as Darl McBride. He's an ass. Instead, insinuate. Make a few direct claims, let those claims disappear, then play on the doubt those claims left behind.
It's working surprisingly well. The one thing that's backfiring, though, is that Microsoft has associated their name with Linux, in a strange approving sort of way. This is PR that Linux couldn't buy. I have non-geek people asking me about Linux these days, people who'd never heard of it before.
Anyway, Microsoft will never take this to court. They would be complete fools to disregard the SCO effect.
Yeah. Because we *hate* when people back up their opinions with facts.
A Microsoft contract limits what you can do with what they perceive to be their property.
This is the crux of the matter.
They do *not* "perceive [it] to be their property." They *claim* it is their property, but refuse to prove in any way, shape, or form that it *is* their property.
So.
The rest of your post is essentially mumbling about contract law, of which you come close to admitting you know almost nothing. You are saying your opinion is worth more than someone who actually knows something about contract law?
There was no misinformation about the Groklaw post. PJ stated that the Linspire/Microsoft deal, which was touted as something good for the customer, is in fact *bad* for the customer. The customer is actually purchasing a product that is hobbled, and actually *using* the product pretty much voids the whole Linspire/Microsoft "value-add."
It was actually a very good dissection of the agreement, as it affects the customer. It shows that Microsoft most definitely got the better of the deal, and Linspire and their customers kinda got shafted.
But, anyone who deals with Microsoft ends up getting shafted.