>can we rule out it was a very powerful >experimental chess computer
Probably. Many people make the assumption that
the internet chess servers are filled with people who are using chess computers and
software to cheat. They are there, but
they are easy to spot. Very advanced players
can easily tell when they are playing against
a machine, and they can often tell you after
only a few games which one they are playing against. People who try to cheat with computers, are in for a shock when they find out how easily it is detected. Kasparov claimed that Deep Blue was "insightful", but, that machine wouldn't play like Fischer. It may be insightful, but if it has a genuine sense of humor, it might pass the Turing Test... I really don't think a chess computer is going to fool a grandmaster into believing it's Bobby Fischer.
>or a very talented and reclusive chess star?
This isn't the first unconfirmed Fischer sigting. I'd say it is far more likely that a very talented person is out there, than someone has a machine that can fool even a recreational player (let's say 1700 level) into believing he is playing against a human. Whether that person Fischer or not is something we have to decide for ourselves, depending on how romantic we are about the whole thing. Consider there is no evidence presented. Let's see a double blind study, by chess historians and players, and find out if anyone else comes to the same conclusion.
According to Mr. Short's story, that should be possible.
I haven't noticed a ref to the specific games, which had better be recorded or else this is a ufo sighting (without the fuzzy photos even).
I would find it unironic that the least of my lost-in-20-moves games is archived indefinitely on FICS, while Bobby Fischer is playing on some ICC server with no record of the games?!
I hope for the sake of Mr. Short's reputation and his sanity, that he has recorded the moves in these games by the anonymous, enigmatic, ephimeral Bobby Fischer.
One of my books covers all of Fischer's games from 1965 to 1972. In the preface, the author points out that "[Fischer's] carrer is still in its early stages..." Seems I need to add some more annotated games. I'd especially like to see the "odds-all-pawns-to-3" line.
I have often wondered whether Fischer's, a.k.a. Robert D. James' reclusiveness originates not from being a primadonna, but from fear of the
mindless bureaucracy of the US. During a time period when the FBI seemed to take special interest in celebrities, he publicly provoked the State Department by playing in Yugoslavia while US sanctions were in force, and even admitted publicly that he had not paid his income taxes, and wasn't going to.
He is rumored to have had a number of run-ins with the police, and claimed to have been subjected to police brutality in Los Angeles, but that story may also be a hoax. Still, he has a dark enough history with Uncle Sam that maybe it's understandable he would want to live in seclusion, almost certainly outside the United States, its territories, assigns, and protectorates.
As for the chess games he is said to be playing, I'm from Missouri, until the chess moves are shown to the community. If someone claimed to have found a lost Mozart piano concerto, it had damned well better stand up to peer review and the consensus process.
>1. Red Hat will refuse to incorporate this copy
>protection code, will be sued
It's worse than that. The officers of the company will be threatened with criminal prosecution, federal fines and jail time.
My biggest problem with DMCA has always been
that it moves civil matters into the criminal
realm. There might be case law somewhere that
amounts to an achilles heel for the DMCA on the
basis that copyright is a civil matter and should have civil remedies. But, America is
a police state now. Maybe we need more ugly laws
to be passed like this, so that more people will realize they live in a police state. Seems that today it's quite possible to live in blissful ignorance of this fact. US law is ultimately enforced by the most technologically advanced military force that the world has ever known.
>Because they only use that OS for PIRACY.
It's our own fault that if by then there aren't
a few heavy players who would rally against that argument. If big companies with a stake in Linux
or anything else sit on their hands during this,
the WE DESERVE to be "forced to run windows" or
even to have computers outlawed.
Except for the fact that life would be wretched for the forseeable future, I'd really enjoy seeing things get far, far worse so that people would be motivated to put an end to the oppression. But as long as they're well fed, doped up, busy, and think they have something to lose, they'll never take up arms against the lawful authority. There's already a science built around the strategy of determining how far a government can push a populace before they realize they can't take it anymore. USA is nowhere near that point, but the fall of currency would be a good start. Bring on the $360.00/bbl oil! Let's have more abject poverty! (The more poverty the people enjoy, the less taxes the government has to build their war machine to use against their own people. The weaker the war machine gets, the better chances the people have against it.)
The war for independence was also against the most technologically sophisticated armed force that the world had ever seen. And you can see the same phenomenon in the war between the states.
We are generally to well taken care of to consider aggression against the lawful authority. We also aren't yet willing to give up our lives, limbs, senses, and minds, because things haven't gotten bad enough yet, we think we have more to lose than that. I do think that many Americans have lost some faith in the democratic process in recent years. Even those who had steadfastly believed it was an infallible institution had a wakeup call last November when even Bush supporters got upset about Florida. If something big like social security fails, the myth that the USA is financially solvent may start to unravel for a lot of folks. If the consumer debt (which dwarfs the national debt) suddenly can't be paid (let's say, 40% unemployment) financial institutions would start to fail. These are the types of incidents that would be stepping stones to urban skirmish, if not outright civil war or revolution. It's hard to see copy control getting people's backs up enough to engender change.
>politics is largely a waste of time here it
>seems.
When politics fail, the American people are
required to reform the government, and they
are required to take up arms against the lawful
authority if that becomes necessary.
This is not a privilege, as we pretend, but an
obligation.
The implications of that obligation are too ugly for the current generation to stomach, so the leadership gets more oppressive with fewer checks and balances on the system. But a breaking point exists, no matter how soft, apathetic, or disarmed the American people have become. Eventually down this road, Joe Sixpack
won't be allowed to buy his sixpack, won't be
able to watch wrestling matches and NASCAR, and
maybe then he will understand.
Before an issue can truly spark a revolution, it
needs rise to the level that would affect every man woman and child in the nation. If such an issue were to present itself, entire military divisions would align themselves with the cause against the oppressive lawful authority.
I just don't think this will happen over anything related to entertainment or even publishing.
Sure, why not?
It makes as much sense as them learning Excel,
far simpler than that really.
Business users routinely deal with processes that make no sense whatsoever, like accounting forms or voice mail systems. Why would you assume they can't deal with something simple, rational, and effective, like CVS?
If I, as a manager, required people to use CVS for their document revisions, and they failed,
I'd suggest that they can be replaced by people who can follow directions.
> And what, exactly, has decades of protesting
>China's occupation of Tibet accomplished?
It has created an awareness among many, that the
Chinese government is opressive. There are plenty of people who wouldn't know this, if they
weren't told.
As a result of this awareness, the nation's policies for trade with China have been observed and commented on.
No, it hasn't done much good. China is still an oppressive, totalitarian regime with some policies that are abhorrent to Western sensibilities. But at least the social and political issues are being discussed!
>I know I should strive to make my code
>"readable", but the irresistible urge to type:
>join(" ", map { ucfirst } split(//, shift));
The presumption that your code is somehow
"unreadable" bothers me. I find your transformation to be okay, although I don't
like the bareword ucfirst. If I were maintaining your code, I'd probably do away with
your use of the $_, or at least, explicitly use
$_ instead of implying it.
But there's nothing in this example that should
be a problem for even a beginning perl coder, in
my opinion. You've used a common perl idiom in
a very efficient, clear, understandable way.
Now, if an ADA or VB programmer can't understand
your program, that's an unreasonable criticism.
>I'd also advise any Dutch people who may have
>legally smoked pot not to enter the USA as
>you're logically as much a target.
Not as far fetched as you might think. Smoke pot legally in Holland or anywhere else where it's legal, and get on a plane to Reno NV. Nevada, where it's against the law to be under the influence of MJ, could prosecute you on the
basis of a drug test weeks afterwards.
>He certainly didn't have to come
>all the way from Russia, and risked getting
>arrested himself to do so.
I think it would be reasonable to demand that he
is also arrested, regardless of where you stand on the DMCA. Equal protection of the law is not served by selectively enforcing it.
Nonsense. It's hard, but it can be done.
I've done it. I know at least one person who's
done it in a production capacity while working for Cygnus. My question referred to the development of technology that would help facilitate this type of work. It certainly seems more appropriate that whining about how something can't be done, or won't be done because it's too hard.
>How are you going to modify windows to suit
>your needs? You can't, because there's no
>source code.
I wonder why this situation hasn't driven the innovation of better, simpler ways of dealing with object code. Rather than throw up our hands in despair, claiming "it can't be done!",
why aren't we doing it?
Re:Wow... this should piss Russia off
on
Sklyarov Indicted
·
· Score: 2
>Can you say "Revolution Calling?"
But things have to get a lot worse. Evidently,
they need to get a whole hell of a lot worse before the constitional issues even get noticed.
It speaks volumes of the tolerance of Americans that the 20th century only produced ONE unabomber, and ONE Timothy McVeigh. How much more will we take? Can you think of a scenario
that would lead to military divisions separating and turning against the lawful authority? (This has happened twice in the nation's history, so I don't doubt it could happen again).
The existence of nuclear weapons throws a kink in the historical pattern that has never been tested, or even discussed openly, very much. But it is clear that the people in control of nuclear weapons would prefer to destroy civilization than to surrender their power.
I hope it doesn't come to that, but history and human nature say that it will, eventually.
Hopefully it will not be an aspect of the entertainment industry that sets off the revolution. That would be just plain silly.
Re:Wow... this should piss Russia off
on
Sklyarov Indicted
·
· Score: 2
I have a somewhat bleaker picture than
simply the "eventual demise of an empire".
The eroding of the constitutional framework
brings heavy responsibilites to the nation.
It saddens me to realize that we will probably
be fighting another civil war this century,
because of the activities of the entertainment industry.
At least the last civil war was brought about by
something closer to life -- agriculture. Fighting for the constitution over *entertainment* will be disgusting, but we are
required to do it.
>NASDAQ is a Windows shop [microsoft.com],
>mainly in order to keep MS from deserting for
>the NYSE: reportedly the NYSE has the symbol
>"M" reserved for Microsoft, should they ever
> get itchy feet.
This sounds like an enormous conflict of interest to me. At the very least, a
delicious opportunity for a conflict of interest to develop.
>The judge thought just like you do, that under
>certain circumstances defendents can be denied
>their rights.
Yes, perjury and obstruction of justice are among these circumstances. How can you provide due process to a party who refuses to accept the process to begin with? I was exaggerating with
"heads on platters", referring to the contempt of court proceedings that should have ensued from the trial. I'm still confused about why they got away with the faked testimony. Does this mean that now I have the same right to present fake testimony if I'm involved in a trial? After all, equal protection of the law implies that I have the same rights they do.
>0.8 seconds is an eternity on any processor
>made in the last ten years.
On the *processor*, yes, but not on memory chips, address decoders, rom's, the things that are being checked and read during POST. Those devices are still slow.
To get a very good indication of how slow your memory is, try this memory diagnostic (x86 only):
http://www.teresaudio.com/memtest86/
Not only will this debug certain classes of problems that are otherwise hard to track down, but it will make you realize that the fast processor is not the whole story.
> with memory being DIRT FSCKING CHEAP... half
>gig isn't that out-of-this-world anymore, eh??
NVRam is not "dirt fscking" or any other kind of cheap. Also, RAM for embedded devices is not always cheap like it is for consumer devices.
Since we're talking about embedded devices, I think it's fair to point this out.
>Umm, yes, a totally stripped down and trimmed
>version of linux could run in 16MB, but a fully
>fledged and usable version?
It depends on what you mean by "usable"
I have a notebook I use all the time with only 16MB. It's nothing like "totally" stripped down.
Trimmed, as you'd do for any notebook install, but not as much as you seem to think. The same notebook runs windows95 just fine too.
Am I the only one here who remembers DOS3.3 machines that had DOS in ROM? By the time you took your finger off the power button, you were at the prompt, or your autoexec had run.
My parents and grandparents were involved in WWII. So were my teachers. But, that was a previous generation, and I am part of a previous generation.
The current crop has been raised and "educated" in an entirely different manner. They aren't taught the meaning behind the development of the USA the same way we were.
There's a whole generation of folks that just don't know, just don't care, and can't be bothered with understanding. And they're making more babies than the postwar baby boomers did, and THOSE kids have even bleaker prospects of being educated.
>Companies often have a
>hard time catching shoplifters, because, 1)
>they acn't (legally) restrain a person before
>they've left the store.
I don't know what the laws are in your state,
but at least in Texas (the only state where I've
worked retail) the law is based on the point of
concealment. You don't have to wait for the perp to leave the store at all. They only need to conceal the merchandise in such a way to make you suspicious.
I think you are missing my point, that executives
of a corporation doing Federal time for perjury and obstruction of justice will be far more damaging to the company than anything else the DOJ can do.
The judge could have asked for heads on a platter and had them delivered. The fact that he did not do that shows great restraint. I would like to have seen them busted hard though.
You give up your right to a fair trial when you are proven to have lied to a court of law. I still want to see heads on stakes over that one.
While you're at it, bring me the head of William Jefferson Clinton, on the same principle. In Clinton's case even more severely so -- Attorneys are held to an even higher standard of integrity and honesty.
Slashdot Mirror
>can we rule out it was a very powerful >experimental chess computer
Probably. Many people make the assumption that
the internet chess servers are filled with people who are using chess computers and
software to cheat. They are there, but
they are easy to spot. Very advanced players
can easily tell when they are playing against
a machine, and they can often tell you after
only a few games which one they are playing against. People who try to cheat with computers, are in for a shock when they find out how easily it is detected. Kasparov claimed that Deep Blue was "insightful", but, that machine wouldn't play like Fischer. It may be insightful, but if it has a genuine sense of humor, it might pass the Turing Test... I really don't think a chess computer is going to fool a grandmaster into believing it's Bobby Fischer.
>or a very talented and reclusive chess star?
This isn't the first unconfirmed Fischer sigting. I'd say it is far more likely that a very talented person is out there, than someone has a machine that can fool even a recreational player (let's say 1700 level) into believing he is playing against a human. Whether that person Fischer or not is something we have to decide for ourselves, depending on how romantic we are about the whole thing. Consider there is no evidence presented. Let's see a double blind study, by chess historians and players, and find out if anyone else comes to the same conclusion.
According to Mr. Short's story, that should be possible.
I haven't noticed a ref to the specific games, which had better be recorded or else this is a ufo sighting (without the fuzzy photos even).
I would find it unironic that the least of my lost-in-20-moves games is archived indefinitely on FICS, while Bobby Fischer is playing on some ICC server with no record of the games?!
I hope for the sake of Mr. Short's reputation and his sanity, that he has recorded the moves in these games by the anonymous, enigmatic, ephimeral Bobby Fischer.
One of my books covers all of Fischer's games from 1965 to 1972. In the preface, the author points out that "[Fischer's] carrer is still in its early stages..." Seems I need to add some more annotated games. I'd especially like to see the "odds-all-pawns-to-3" line.
I have often wondered whether Fischer's, a.k.a. Robert D. James' reclusiveness originates not from being a primadonna, but from fear of the
mindless bureaucracy of the US. During a time period when the FBI seemed to take special interest in celebrities, he publicly provoked the State Department by playing in Yugoslavia while US sanctions were in force, and even admitted publicly that he had not paid his income taxes, and wasn't going to.
He is rumored to have had a number of run-ins with the police, and claimed to have been subjected to police brutality in Los Angeles, but that story may also be a hoax. Still, he has a dark enough history with Uncle Sam that maybe it's understandable he would want to live in seclusion, almost certainly outside the United States, its territories, assigns, and protectorates.
As for the chess games he is said to be playing, I'm from Missouri, until the chess moves are shown to the community. If someone claimed to have found a lost Mozart piano concerto, it had damned well better stand up to peer review and the consensus process.
Regards,
James, who is lousy at chess (1300+)
>1. Red Hat will refuse to incorporate this copy
>protection code, will be sued
It's worse than that. The officers of the company will be threatened with criminal prosecution, federal fines and jail time.
My biggest problem with DMCA has always been
that it moves civil matters into the criminal
realm. There might be case law somewhere that
amounts to an achilles heel for the DMCA on the
basis that copyright is a civil matter and should have civil remedies. But, America is
a police state now. Maybe we need more ugly laws
to be passed like this, so that more people will realize they live in a police state. Seems that today it's quite possible to live in blissful ignorance of this fact. US law is ultimately enforced by the most technologically advanced military force that the world has ever known.
>Because they only use that OS for PIRACY.
It's our own fault that if by then there aren't
a few heavy players who would rally against that argument. If big companies with a stake in Linux
or anything else sit on their hands during this,
the WE DESERVE to be "forced to run windows" or
even to have computers outlawed.
Except for the fact that life would be wretched for the forseeable future, I'd really enjoy seeing things get far, far worse so that people would be motivated to put an end to the oppression. But as long as they're well fed, doped up, busy, and think they have something to lose, they'll never take up arms against the lawful authority. There's already a science built around the strategy of determining how far a government can push a populace before they realize they can't take it anymore. USA is nowhere near that point, but the fall of currency would be a good start. Bring on the $360.00/bbl oil! Let's have more abject poverty! (The more poverty the people enjoy, the less taxes the government has to build their war machine to use against their own people. The weaker the war machine gets, the better chances the people have against it.)
The war for independence was also against the most technologically sophisticated armed force that the world had ever seen. And you can see the same phenomenon in the war between the states.
We are generally to well taken care of to consider aggression against the lawful authority. We also aren't yet willing to give up our lives, limbs, senses, and minds, because things haven't gotten bad enough yet, we think we have more to lose than that. I do think that many Americans have lost some faith in the democratic process in recent years. Even those who had steadfastly believed it was an infallible institution had a wakeup call last November when even Bush supporters got upset about Florida. If something big like social security fails, the myth that the USA is financially solvent may start to unravel for a lot of folks. If the consumer debt (which dwarfs the national debt) suddenly can't be paid (let's say, 40% unemployment) financial institutions would start to fail. These are the types of incidents that would be stepping stones to urban skirmish, if not outright civil war or revolution. It's hard to see copy control getting people's backs up enough to engender change.
>Your letter is a bit draconian
Draconian? Telling your congressman in one
paragraph how he can lose your vote, is polite.
Chances are, this congressman's mailbox isn't
full of letters from individuals in support of this law that they haven't heard of.
>politics is largely a waste of time here it
>seems.
When politics fail, the American people are
required to reform the government, and they
are required to take up arms against the lawful
authority if that becomes necessary.
This is not a privilege, as we pretend, but an
obligation.
The implications of that obligation are too ugly for the current generation to stomach, so the leadership gets more oppressive with fewer checks and balances on the system. But a breaking point exists, no matter how soft, apathetic, or disarmed the American people have become. Eventually down this road, Joe Sixpack
won't be allowed to buy his sixpack, won't be
able to watch wrestling matches and NASCAR, and
maybe then he will understand.
Before an issue can truly spark a revolution, it
needs rise to the level that would affect every man woman and child in the nation. If such an issue were to present itself, entire military divisions would align themselves with the cause against the oppressive lawful authority.
I just don't think this will happen over anything related to entertainment or even publishing.
I think they should ban coffee, with the same force of prohibition that they ban marijuana.
It makes exactly as much sense.
>Business users...CVS??
Sure, why not?
It makes as much sense as them learning Excel,
far simpler than that really.
Business users routinely deal with processes that make no sense whatsoever, like accounting forms or voice mail systems. Why would you assume they can't deal with something simple, rational, and effective, like CVS?
If I, as a manager, required people to use CVS for their document revisions, and they failed,
I'd suggest that they can be replaced by people who can follow directions.
>How about thousands on terminals and network
>cables so there can be one big LAN fest for the
>war?
Well, until somebody cheats, and/or the "wrong"
side wins, that's great. Afterwards, out come the guns and nuclear weapons...
> And what, exactly, has decades of protesting
>China's occupation of Tibet accomplished?
It has created an awareness among many, that the
Chinese government is opressive. There are plenty of people who wouldn't know this, if they
weren't told.
As a result of this awareness, the nation's policies for trade with China have been observed and commented on.
No, it hasn't done much good. China is still an oppressive, totalitarian regime with some policies that are abhorrent to Western sensibilities. But at least the social and political issues are being discussed!
>I know I should strive to make my code /, shift));
>"readable", but the irresistible urge to type:
>join(" ", map { ucfirst } split(/
The presumption that your code is somehow
"unreadable" bothers me. I find your transformation to be okay, although I don't
like the bareword ucfirst. If I were maintaining your code, I'd probably do away with
your use of the $_, or at least, explicitly use
$_ instead of implying it.
But there's nothing in this example that should
be a problem for even a beginning perl coder, in
my opinion. You've used a common perl idiom in
a very efficient, clear, understandable way.
Now, if an ADA or VB programmer can't understand
your program, that's an unreasonable criticism.
> Sad? yes. But that's the way it is out in the
>trenches.
I too have worked for a Big Oil Company.
The real problem in IT that leads to this type of complaint is something more fundamental.
People with knowledge, experience, and skills are rarely, if ever, placed in positions of authority to make decisions.
What is "political correctness?"
Nobody ever died defending Harry Potter...
No country's borders have been redrawn by a
totalitarian regime due to Harry Potter.
Next you'll be suggesting that we replace the
Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall with a Budweiser
billboard?
>I'd also advise any Dutch people who may have
>legally smoked pot not to enter the USA as
>you're logically as much a target.
Not as far fetched as you might think. Smoke pot legally in Holland or anywhere else where it's legal, and get on a plane to Reno NV. Nevada, where it's against the law to be under the influence of MJ, could prosecute you on the
basis of a drug test weeks afterwards.
>He certainly didn't have to come
>all the way from Russia, and risked getting
>arrested himself to do so.
I think it would be reasonable to demand that he
is also arrested, regardless of where you stand on the DMCA. Equal protection of the law is not served by selectively enforcing it.
> Because it really can't be done.
Nonsense. It's hard, but it can be done.
I've done it. I know at least one person who's
done it in a production capacity while working for Cygnus. My question referred to the development of technology that would help facilitate this type of work. It certainly seems more appropriate that whining about how something can't be done, or won't be done because it's too hard.
>How are you going to modify windows to suit
>your needs? You can't, because there's no
>source code.
I wonder why this situation hasn't driven the innovation of better, simpler ways of dealing with object code. Rather than throw up our hands in despair, claiming "it can't be done!",
why aren't we doing it?
>Can you say "Revolution Calling?"
But things have to get a lot worse. Evidently,
they need to get a whole hell of a lot worse before the constitional issues even get noticed.
It speaks volumes of the tolerance of Americans that the 20th century only produced ONE unabomber, and ONE Timothy McVeigh. How much more will we take? Can you think of a scenario
that would lead to military divisions separating and turning against the lawful authority? (This has happened twice in the nation's history, so I don't doubt it could happen again).
The existence of nuclear weapons throws a kink in the historical pattern that has never been tested, or even discussed openly, very much. But it is clear that the people in control of nuclear weapons would prefer to destroy civilization than to surrender their power.
I hope it doesn't come to that, but history and human nature say that it will, eventually.
Hopefully it will not be an aspect of the entertainment industry that sets off the revolution. That would be just plain silly.
I have a somewhat bleaker picture than
simply the "eventual demise of an empire".
The eroding of the constitutional framework
brings heavy responsibilites to the nation.
It saddens me to realize that we will probably
be fighting another civil war this century,
because of the activities of the entertainment industry.
At least the last civil war was brought about by
something closer to life -- agriculture. Fighting for the constitution over *entertainment* will be disgusting, but we are
required to do it.
>NASDAQ is a Windows shop [microsoft.com],
>mainly in order to keep MS from deserting for
>the NYSE: reportedly the NYSE has the symbol
>"M" reserved for Microsoft, should they ever
> get itchy feet.
This sounds like an enormous conflict of interest to me. At the very least, a
delicious opportunity for a conflict of interest to develop.
>The judge thought just like you do, that under
>certain circumstances defendents can be denied
>their rights.
Yes, perjury and obstruction of justice are among these circumstances. How can you provide due process to a party who refuses to accept the process to begin with? I was exaggerating with
"heads on platters", referring to the contempt of court proceedings that should have ensued from the trial. I'm still confused about why they got away with the faked testimony. Does this mean that now I have the same right to present fake testimony if I'm involved in a trial? After all, equal protection of the law implies that I have the same rights they do.
>0.8 seconds is an eternity on any processor
>made in the last ten years.
On the *processor*, yes, but not on memory chips, address decoders, rom's, the things that are being checked and read during POST. Those devices are still slow.
To get a very good indication of how slow your memory is, try this memory diagnostic (x86 only):
http://www.teresaudio.com/memtest86/
Not only will this debug certain classes of problems that are otherwise hard to track down, but it will make you realize that the fast processor is not the whole story.
> with memory being DIRT FSCKING CHEAP... half
>gig isn't that out-of-this-world anymore, eh??
NVRam is not "dirt fscking" or any other kind of cheap. Also, RAM for embedded devices is not always cheap like it is for consumer devices.
Since we're talking about embedded devices, I think it's fair to point this out.
>Umm, yes, a totally stripped down and trimmed
>version of linux could run in 16MB, but a fully
>fledged and usable version?
It depends on what you mean by "usable"
I have a notebook I use all the time with only 16MB. It's nothing like "totally" stripped down.
Trimmed, as you'd do for any notebook install, but not as much as you seem to think. The same notebook runs windows95 just fine too.
Am I the only one here who remembers DOS3.3 machines that had DOS in ROM? By the time you took your finger off the power button, you were at the prompt, or your autoexec had run.
> but now people ignore those lessons
They aren't taught them.
My parents and grandparents were involved in WWII. So were my teachers. But, that was a previous generation, and I am part of a previous generation.
The current crop has been raised and "educated" in an entirely different manner. They aren't taught the meaning behind the development of the USA the same way we were.
There's a whole generation of folks that just don't know, just don't care, and can't be bothered with understanding. And they're making more babies than the postwar baby boomers did, and THOSE kids have even bleaker prospects of being educated.
>Companies often have a
>hard time catching shoplifters, because, 1)
>they acn't (legally) restrain a person before
>they've left the store.
I don't know what the laws are in your state,
but at least in Texas (the only state where I've
worked retail) the law is based on the point of
concealment. You don't have to wait for the perp to leave the store at all. They only need to conceal the merchandise in such a way to make you suspicious.
I think you are missing my point, that executives
of a corporation doing Federal time for perjury and obstruction of justice will be far more damaging to the company than anything else the DOJ can do.
The judge could have asked for heads on a platter and had them delivered. The fact that he did not do that shows great restraint. I would like to have seen them busted hard though.
You give up your right to a fair trial when you are proven to have lied to a court of law. I still want to see heads on stakes over that one.
While you're at it, bring me the head of William Jefferson Clinton, on the same principle. In Clinton's case even more severely so -- Attorneys are held to an even higher standard of integrity and honesty.