Keep in mind that before the US declared Iran as a member of the "Axis of Evil", Iran declared the US "The Great Satan."
Another lovely phrase lost in translation. Ayatollah Khomeini labeled the US the great 'Shaitan', referring to a particular manifestation of the Devil: the Tempter.
Specifically, he meant that US culture was tempting the people of Iran into decadence and materialism. That's evil, to be sure, but not generically Evil.
Iran has been fighting a low-grade dirty war against the US and Israel since the 1980s. They have sponsored many of the most effective guerrila and terrorist organisations in the region and in the world. Their goal is definitely to reduce US influence in the region in order to allow fundamentalist Islamism to spread. In that sense, they are most definitely a threat that, occasionally, requires an armed response.
That said, nobody's interests are served when we speak in broad terms, deliberately mischaracterising the nature and the scope of the threat. It's generic terms like 'Evil' that make it difficult to engage the other levers that the US (and other nations) could usefully bring to bear on Iran to reduce the threat they present.
Diplomacy, economic engagement - both positive and negative - as well as armed deterrence all play a role. But as long as Iran is just plain old Evil, offensive measures are the only ones palatable to otherwise uninformed American voters.
The real problem here at Slashdot is that the people don't seem to understand the principle of party-line votes.
It's true that, with only a dozen votes to gather in order to pass a bill, the Conservatives might go shopping for - forgive me - the odd maverick willing to go along with them on just that one vote.
And that might happen, but I really doubt it. The Canadian party system (and consequently the parliamentary system) is predicated on bloc voting. That's not going to change now, because it's the only leverage the parties (as opposed to the MPs) have on the Conservatives. Expect party discipline to be stronger than ever.
Until the number needed for a majority drops to 1 or 2, the size of the minority means almost nothing. The fact of the minority is enough to force the government to behave differently than it would if it had a majority.
Also, with a superquick Google not turning up anything obvious, does anyone have links to good case studies where other governments have attempted something like this with disastrous results?
You're looking for the wrong kind of evidence. What you want is proof that it works....
... And works too well.
Everybody has something to hide, something they'd rather not share with their neighbours, their colleagues, even their chums. Make it clear that all of this will be visible to their government. Government censorship necessarily means that they can monitor everything.
Then work the problem from the bottom up. This is how Canada's anti-DMCA movement has done it: With loud, credible voices like Michael Geist backed by legions of well informed and activist people. It's no accident that the Canadian bill has died on the order table at least 3 times so far.
It's hard to imagine how a measure like this would be possible without enabling legislation. Get people organised, inform them about the exposure this creates for them as individuals, then target those few senators that you need to keep this from ever seeing the light of day.
Give the children technology that they, and their teachers don't understand and the laptops will end up gathering dust.
That's not what experience teaches us.
I'm of an age (born in '64) to remember when the pupils were the only ones who really knew how the computer systems worked. It was a time when 'hacking' was a positive term, and those happy few who had access to their systems became the people who have driven this whole technological revolution.
I'm a perfect example. I have exactly zero formal computer training, and am in the process of negotiating a director's position for an online company.
In my experience - and I have applied this method countless times - all you need to do is identify the bright, curious ones and give them time in front of the keyboard. The rest takes care of itself. A cultural effect sets in, in which bragging rights go to the most innovative, and the whole process takes on its own momentum.
I've spent the last 5 years working in a part of the world where academic opportunities are very limited, and even here every single one of my apprentices (only one of whom had any post-secondary experience) has gainful employment in IT.
Courses are all well and good. They serve a definite purpose. Teacher training serves an important role as well. But your premise that any shortfall in this regard will result in systematic failure is demonstrably false.
I've been in the business since 98. Are these 5 year cycles normal?
Short answer: Yes. If by normal you mean recurrent.
Slightly longer answer: The number has in the past been greater than 5 years, but recently we seem to be tightening the loop between boom and bust. Likewise, many of the past booms and busts have not appeared to be quite so catastrophic as this one.
I've been in the workforce since the late 70s, and paying attention since a little before that. I've seen downturns of various kinds in every decade.
And yes, the US economy is more or less predicated on a boom/bust cycle. But don't take my word on it; greater minds than mine have looked at the phenomenon. Start with wikipedia and keep going from there.
Basic communications (voice) is the first step here.
So its good that its being done, but it would be nice to see one of these high profile cases actually support an existing approach that is working rather than always going after the "everyone must have a computer" scenario that makes sense for people sitting in an office in California.
There's some wisdom in what you're saying. SMS-based interfaces to online services are way easier to deploy and use in developing countries.
The big stumbling block is not so much cost as power, by the way. There's always someone willing to fund a computer - and if you can get one, you should, because the value proposition is much more compelling. Computers do so much more than a mobile can (at least for now).
But what good's a computer if you can't run it? Unless you have reliable, low-cost local power generation, you can forget about running them. A mobile phone, on the other hand, can be charged using a small solar panel, a hand charger, or a small business that charges mobile phones for a fee. I've seen all of these at work.
Building SMS-based application interfaces is a very straightforward task, and the rewards are immense. The interface is not as rich as the web, but in many ways that's a good thing. It takes away the temptation to do anything but provide functionality. No value-added cruft imposed by marketing.
In significant parts of the world, SMS-based credit transfer has replaced cash. A owes B money. A transfers phone credit to B, who then on-sells it in small chunks to C and D. The phone credit retains its face value, so it works as ad hoc currency. There you have it: simple, efficient banking services in areas without roads, power or, in many cases, rule of law.
With many african states effectively landlocked and with poor or insecure infrastructure this could be the data boom that africa has been waiting for. That is if it isn't choked off by self serving governments.
Governments are a problem, true. But in my experience, the problem is the telcos. I've spent the last five years helping out in a collective effort to improve communications by liberalising the telecoms market in a developing country. Once we got even the threat of competition into the market, prices dropped through the floor.
Two years ago, about 30% of the country I live in had access to telephone services. That number is now 85%. The next step is Internet. No sooner did the government announce a new round of licenses for ISPs then the local telco dropped prices by 50%.
Governments can be the problem sometimes. It's true that without the political will, there's very little you can do to improve communications. But more often than not, the officials blocking any movement in that regard are in the pocket of the companies sucking the country dry.
Not all telecoms companies are created equal. Denis O'Brien and Digicel have based their entire business on supplying services in areas that other companies couldn't or wouldn't bother with. They turned $505 million in operating profit on $1.6 billion in business last year.
These days I spend most of my time convincing people that ubiquitous coverage works. Network Effects (using the right technologies) can make even the most cash-poor areas profitable, because wealthy familiy members always call home to the village. Or they would, if they could. In short, you don't make your money by originating connections in marginal areas, you make your money terminating them there.
Creating ubiquitous LEO-based satellite service in tropical regions is a great idea. If the idea is implemented properly, it will be revolutionary. The best part is, the other telcos can't block you from deploying the network. Which means that governments have no incentives (or means) to nationalise your infrastructure, skim off your profits or regulate you out of existence. Just focus on the countries where the regulatory environment is good and let the others come online in their own good time.
read carefully what Net Neutrality for Obama is. There's no blanket ban on offering better service; the ban is on contracts that offer different terms to different providers for that better service. And there's no promise to police what's under the technical hood (beyond the commitment already articulated by Chairman Powell): This is a sensible and valuable Net Neutrality policy that shows a team keen to get it right -- which includes making it enforceable in an efficient way, even if not as radical as some possible friends would like.
Second, on the important: As you'll read, Obama has committed himself to a technology policy for government that could radically change how government works. The small part of that is simple efficiency -- the appointment with broad power of a CTO for the government, making the insanely backwards technology systems of government actually work.
But the big part of this is a commitment to making data about the government (as well as government data) publicly available in standard machine readable formats. The promise isn't just the naive promise that government websites will work better and reveal more. It is the really powerful promise to feed the data necessary for the Sunlights and the Maplights of the world to make government work better. Atomize (or RSS-ify) government data (votes, contributions, Members of Congress's calendars) and you enable the rest of us to make clear the economy of influence that is Washington.
I'm not trying to Appeal to Authority here. What I'm saying is that if you perform a bit of analysis, you will find that not all presidential candidates are created equal where technology matters are concerned.
But here's the part where I agree with you: The two major parties are the ones who craft the law, and there's no guarantee that they'll agree with their president on issues such as these.
I thought the same thing. Sisyphean makes is sound like he just can't win. Of course, that might be accurate.
Given that Microsoft has traditionally played the eagle[*] to FOSS' Prometheus, I'd guess that there are more than a few people who don't want Microsoft ever to win.
-----
[*] Microsoft actually thinks it's Zeus in this legend, but that's a whole 'nother story.
Seriously. It's actually pretty nice out there, or at least it was the few times I've had to go out.
And to avoid exercising in public, find a nicely wooded area to bike, hike, canoe or cross-country ski in, depending on your location.
I am also one of those people who needs to spend a fairly large part of my time alone in order to retain an even keel. I've find few things better for body and soul than tracking deer through the bush, or learning how to approach within 10 metres or so of a herd of caribou. It demands a remarkable amount of mental and physical discipline, and the rewards are tremendous.
If you run the forum, the best solution is to ban him, and ban him with every new account he makes.
A friend of mine came up with a much more clever solution to recurrent trolls. Simply create a user profile that hides his posts from everyone but the troll himself. This way, he keeps ranting away, confident that he's being heard, until he gets disillusioned by the lack of interest and leaves of his own volition.
In Pangirtung on Baffin, the airport is secured with steel cables anchored to the baserock. In the 70's watched a DC3 while taxing get airborne as the wind caught it. The wind across the Davis Straits can put a basic hurricane to shame.
Ah, good times.... Pilots servicing that air strip call their passengers 'Pang Pukers'. I'll never forget walking into an Iqaluit bar and hearing the end of a conversation between two bush pilots: "So I turned around and said to her, 'Lady, do you mind not screaming so loud? I'm trying to land the plane here.'"
I've landed about three times in Pangnirtung, and everything they say is true. But it's worth the trip. It's one of most forbiddingly beautiful places in the world.
Back on topic: Solar is right out in places like Pang. It's not worth the effort of bringing the equipment in. Wind, on the other hand....
Smells like something funny on the provider side. I assume the satellite was geostationnary (35786 km from earth). So given that the signal travels at the speed of light, a RTT between you and the provider hub should be:
35786 / c * 4 * 1000000 = 477ms
I lived and worked in the Eastern Arctic between 1994-97, so my information is somewhat dated, but at that time, 1.2 seconds was an average round trip time, because in order to reach our Internet backbone in Yellowknife, we had a double satellite hop. For reasons that the Northwestel techs were never able to explain, traffic coming from Baffin Island landed in Northern Ontario, then got shot back onto a satellite in order to send it to Yellowknife.
Back when we created what was at the time one of the most remote commercial ISPs in the world, we paid the telco CAD 3000/month for the privilege of a 56Kb digital connection. I asked about T1 (or equivalent) and was quoted CAD 100,000/month.
Nonetheless, we managed to provide service to about 1000 customers, creating a few IRC junkies in the process. Believe me, any service at all was better than none out there.
More on topic: Jeff Phillipp and the guys at SSI Micro (based in Fort Providence, but with a presence in Yellowknife) are the best people in the region for Internet connectivity. They did pioneering work getting the diamond mines' communications systems up and running, and have since developed processes that have been used everywhere from the Arctic to Africa to the South Pacific. They know exactly how to squeeze value out of any Internet connection. I can't recommend them more highly.
Now that you mention OpenBSD, I recall an email from Theo de Raadt (2007-06-27 17:08:16 - source):
As I said before, hiding in this list are 20-30 bugs that cannot be
worked around by operating systems, and will be potentially
exploitable. I would bet a lot of money that at least 2-3 of them
are.
IE has actually provided several critical technologies which have expanded and improved the capabilities of the environment, including XMLHttpRequest without which interactive apps today would be rather difficult.
What, exactly, does XMLHTTPRequest have to do with MSIE? It's implemented entirely on the server side. Full credit to Microsoft for inventing this, but the fact that they did has exactly nothing to do with Internet Explorer.
w3c is too slow and it is too ignorant of the importance in providing highly flexible mechanism that gives as much control and capability as possible to the web developer.
The W3C is an industry consortium. If it doesn't move quickly enough, it's because the industry members (like Microsoft, Adobe et alia) don't want it to.
Using the W3C's inefficiencies to defend its own membership is, er, not entirely useful. What bears discussing is why the W3C hasn't been successful in getting movement on important standards. That would help us understand the dynamics of the industry - who's playing nice and who's not.
I don't know why EWeek is specifically highlighting open source software. I don't see how closed source software is immune from this concern.
Indeed. One of the fringe benefits of introducing FOSS to the tiny Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu was when I showed local geeks that they could actually choose the 'Pacific/Efate' time zone setting. (Efate is the island where the capital of Vanuatu is located.)
Windows and Mac OS X both display either Noumea (capital of New Caledonia to the South) or Honiara (capital of the Solomon Islands to the North). This creates a very real sense that, as far as the Big Boys are concerned, we don't exist. Worse still, Mac OS X thinks that Vanuatu uses Daylight Savings Time, like the adjacent time zone in Australia. My clock has been off by an hour for months now.
That may not sound like much, but believe me, that tiny little bit of tzdata goodness has created the impression among many local geeks that this software is designed not just for office drones in some distant country, but with them in mind.
And I'm saying that an environment of 5 million machines WOULD be exploited if it COULD be exploited. We have proof of that: just look at the unpatched Linux servers (running crappy forum software which has been exploited) controlling botnets etc (chosen because they have good network connections and aren't often turned off).
And my counterpoint would be Debian's borked SSL implementation, which (apparently) went undiscovered by crackers for over a year, despite the ease with which it could be exploited and the immense payoff that would come from exploiting it.
Slashdot Mirror
Is there an acronym for "woooosh"?
IMHO: no. YMMV.
HTH HAND
8^)
Another lovely phrase lost in translation. Ayatollah Khomeini labeled the US the great 'Shaitan', referring to a particular manifestation of the Devil: the Tempter.
Specifically, he meant that US culture was tempting the people of Iran into decadence and materialism. That's evil, to be sure, but not generically Evil.
Iran has been fighting a low-grade dirty war against the US and Israel since the 1980s. They have sponsored many of the most effective guerrila and terrorist organisations in the region and in the world. Their goal is definitely to reduce US influence in the region in order to allow fundamentalist Islamism to spread. In that sense, they are most definitely a threat that, occasionally, requires an armed response.
That said, nobody's interests are served when we speak in broad terms, deliberately mischaracterising the nature and the scope of the threat. It's generic terms like 'Evil' that make it difficult to engage the other levers that the US (and other nations) could usefully bring to bear on Iran to reduce the threat they present.
Diplomacy, economic engagement - both positive and negative - as well as armed deterrence all play a role. But as long as Iran is just plain old Evil, offensive measures are the only ones palatable to otherwise uninformed American voters.
The real problem here at Slashdot is that the people don't seem to understand the principle of party-line votes.
It's true that, with only a dozen votes to gather in order to pass a bill, the Conservatives might go shopping for - forgive me - the odd maverick willing to go along with them on just that one vote.
And that might happen, but I really doubt it. The Canadian party system (and consequently the parliamentary system) is predicated on bloc voting. That's not going to change now, because it's the only leverage the parties (as opposed to the MPs) have on the Conservatives. Expect party discipline to be stronger than ever.
Until the number needed for a majority drops to 1 or 2, the size of the minority means almost nothing. The fact of the minority is enough to force the government to behave differently than it would if it had a majority.
You're looking for the wrong kind of evidence. What you want is proof that it works....
... And works too well.
Everybody has something to hide, something they'd rather not share with their neighbours, their colleagues, even their chums. Make it clear that all of this will be visible to their government. Government censorship necessarily means that they can monitor everything.
Then work the problem from the bottom up. This is how Canada's anti-DMCA movement has done it: With loud, credible voices like Michael Geist backed by legions of well informed and activist people. It's no accident that the Canadian bill has died on the order table at least 3 times so far.
It's hard to imagine how a measure like this would be possible without enabling legislation. Get people organised, inform them about the exposure this creates for them as individuals, then target those few senators that you need to keep this from ever seeing the light of day.
Er...
"Bruce Schneier knows the state of Schroedinger's cat?"
Actually, he remains ambivalent until someone asks him.
That's not what experience teaches us.
I'm of an age (born in '64) to remember when the pupils were the only ones who really knew how the computer systems worked. It was a time when 'hacking' was a positive term, and those happy few who had access to their systems became the people who have driven this whole technological revolution.
I'm a perfect example. I have exactly zero formal computer training, and am in the process of negotiating a director's position for an online company.
In my experience - and I have applied this method countless times - all you need to do is identify the bright, curious ones and give them time in front of the keyboard. The rest takes care of itself. A cultural effect sets in, in which bragging rights go to the most innovative, and the whole process takes on its own momentum.
I've spent the last 5 years working in a part of the world where academic opportunities are very limited, and even here every single one of my apprentices (only one of whom had any post-secondary experience) has gainful employment in IT.
Courses are all well and good. They serve a definite purpose. Teacher training serves an important role as well. But your premise that any shortfall in this regard will result in systematic failure is demonstrably false.
Jeez, you mean Perot was right? There really is a giant sucking sound?
Now you're really scaring me.
Short answer: Yes. If by normal you mean recurrent.
Slightly longer answer: The number has in the past been greater than 5 years, but recently we seem to be tightening the loop between boom and bust. Likewise, many of the past booms and busts have not appeared to be quite so catastrophic as this one.
I've been in the workforce since the late 70s, and paying attention since a little before that. I've seen downturns of various kinds in every decade.
And yes, the US economy is more or less predicated on a boom/bust cycle. But don't take my word on it; greater minds than mine have looked at the phenomenon. Start with wikipedia and keep going from there.
Basic communications (voice) is the first step here.
So its good that its being done, but it would be nice to see one of these high profile cases actually support an existing approach that is working rather than always going after the "everyone must have a computer" scenario that makes sense for people sitting in an office in California.
There's some wisdom in what you're saying. SMS-based interfaces to online services are way easier to deploy and use in developing countries.
The big stumbling block is not so much cost as power, by the way. There's always someone willing to fund a computer - and if you can get one, you should, because the value proposition is much more compelling. Computers do so much more than a mobile can (at least for now).
But what good's a computer if you can't run it? Unless you have reliable, low-cost local power generation, you can forget about running them. A mobile phone, on the other hand, can be charged using a small solar panel, a hand charger, or a small business that charges mobile phones for a fee. I've seen all of these at work.
Building SMS-based application interfaces is a very straightforward task, and the rewards are immense. The interface is not as rich as the web, but in many ways that's a good thing. It takes away the temptation to do anything but provide functionality. No value-added cruft imposed by marketing.
In significant parts of the world, SMS-based credit transfer has replaced cash. A owes B money. A transfers phone credit to B, who then on-sells it in small chunks to C and D. The phone credit retains its face value, so it works as ad hoc currency. There you have it: simple, efficient banking services in areas without roads, power or, in many cases, rule of law.
With many african states effectively landlocked and with poor or insecure infrastructure this could be the data boom that africa has been waiting for. That is if it isn't choked off by self serving governments.
Governments are a problem, true. But in my experience, the problem is the telcos. I've spent the last five years helping out in a collective effort to improve communications by liberalising the telecoms market in a developing country. Once we got even the threat of competition into the market, prices dropped through the floor.
Two years ago, about 30% of the country I live in had access to telephone services. That number is now 85%. The next step is Internet. No sooner did the government announce a new round of licenses for ISPs then the local telco dropped prices by 50%.
Governments can be the problem sometimes. It's true that without the political will, there's very little you can do to improve communications. But more often than not, the officials blocking any movement in that regard are in the pocket of the companies sucking the country dry.
Not all telecoms companies are created equal. Denis O'Brien and Digicel have based their entire business on supplying services in areas that other companies couldn't or wouldn't bother with. They turned $505 million in operating profit on $1.6 billion in business last year.
These days I spend most of my time convincing people that ubiquitous coverage works. Network Effects (using the right technologies) can make even the most cash-poor areas profitable, because wealthy familiy members always call home to the village. Or they would, if they could. In short, you don't make your money by originating connections in marginal areas, you make your money terminating them there.
Creating ubiquitous LEO-based satellite service in tropical regions is a great idea. If the idea is implemented properly, it will be revolutionary. The best part is, the other telcos can't block you from deploying the network. Which means that governments have no incentives (or means) to nationalise your infrastructure, skim off your profits or regulate you out of existence. Just focus on the countries where the regulatory environment is good and let the others come online in their own good time.
i'm thinking cm is "contact me", so contact me via the fscked organisation
Er, cm == 'Cookie Monster', I think.
He's likely using a hyphenated address which allows for filtering using scripted mail tools.
I don't entirely disagree with what you're saying, but it does bear mentioning that Lawrence Lessig endorses someone whom he thinks is worth supporting precisely because of his stance on technology issues:
I'm not trying to Appeal to Authority here. What I'm saying is that if you perform a bit of analysis, you will find that not all presidential candidates are created equal where technology matters are concerned.
But here's the part where I agree with you: The two major parties are the ones who craft the law, and there's no guarantee that they'll agree with their president on issues such as these.
I thought the same thing. Sisyphean makes is sound like he just can't win. Of course, that might be accurate.
Given that Microsoft has traditionally played the eagle[*] to FOSS' Prometheus, I'd guess that there are more than a few people who don't want Microsoft ever to win.
-----
[*] Microsoft actually thinks it's Zeus in this legend, but that's a whole 'nother story.
Seriously. It's actually pretty nice out there, or at least it was the few times I've had to go out.
And to avoid exercising in public, find a nicely wooded area to bike, hike, canoe or cross-country ski in, depending on your location.
I am also one of those people who needs to spend a fairly large part of my time alone in order to retain an even keel. I've find few things better for body and soul than tracking deer through the bush, or learning how to approach within 10 metres or so of a herd of caribou. It demands a remarkable amount of mental and physical discipline, and the rewards are tremendous.
The only guaranteed period is the games - theres no guarantee the campus will be reused, even if that is the plan.
Yes, there is. A TV news report just this evening explained that every single unit in the entire complex had already been sold.
He meant to, but kept forgetting.
A friend of mine came up with a much more clever solution to recurrent trolls. Simply create a user profile that hides his posts from everyone but the troll himself. This way, he keeps ranting away, confident that he's being heard, until he gets disillusioned by the lack of interest and leaves of his own volition.
Genius, if you ask me.
I'll wait for the Tdium.
Won't that get boring?
Ah, good times.... Pilots servicing that air strip call their passengers 'Pang Pukers'. I'll never forget walking into an Iqaluit bar and hearing the end of a conversation between two bush pilots: "So I turned around and said to her, 'Lady, do you mind not screaming so loud? I'm trying to land the plane here.'"
I've landed about three times in Pangnirtung, and everything they say is true. But it's worth the trip. It's one of most forbiddingly beautiful places in the world.
Back on topic: Solar is right out in places like Pang. It's not worth the effort of bringing the equipment in. Wind, on the other hand....
I lived and worked in the Eastern Arctic between 1994-97, so my information is somewhat dated, but at that time, 1.2 seconds was an average round trip time, because in order to reach our Internet backbone in Yellowknife, we had a double satellite hop. For reasons that the Northwestel techs were never able to explain, traffic coming from Baffin Island landed in Northern Ontario, then got shot back onto a satellite in order to send it to Yellowknife.
Back when we created what was at the time one of the most remote commercial ISPs in the world, we paid the telco CAD 3000/month for the privilege of a 56Kb digital connection. I asked about T1 (or equivalent) and was quoted CAD 100,000/month.
Nonetheless, we managed to provide service to about 1000 customers, creating a few IRC junkies in the process. Believe me, any service at all was better than none out there.
More on topic: Jeff Phillipp and the guys at SSI Micro (based in Fort Providence, but with a presence in Yellowknife) are the best people in the region for Internet connectivity. They did pioneering work getting the diamond mines' communications systems up and running, and have since developed processes that have been used everywhere from the Arctic to Africa to the South Pacific. They know exactly how to squeeze value out of any Internet connection. I can't recommend them more highly.
Now that you mention OpenBSD, I recall an email from Theo de Raadt (2007-06-27 17:08:16 - source):
As I said before, hiding in this list are 20-30 bugs that cannot be worked around by operating systems, and will be potentially exploitable. I would bet a lot of money that at least 2-3 of them are.
People have been aware that microprocessor bugs are potentially quite dangerous for some time now. Here's a write-up of Adi Shamir's report to RISKS about using processing bugs to steal private encryption keys.
What, exactly, does XMLHTTPRequest have to do with MSIE? It's implemented entirely on the server side. Full credit to Microsoft for inventing this, but the fact that they did has exactly nothing to do with Internet Explorer.
The W3C is an industry consortium. If it doesn't move quickly enough, it's because the industry members (like Microsoft, Adobe et alia) don't want it to.
Using the W3C's inefficiencies to defend its own membership is, er, not entirely useful. What bears discussing is why the W3C hasn't been successful in getting movement on important standards. That would help us understand the dynamics of the industry - who's playing nice and who's not.
Intercal has nothing on Brainfuck. Brainfuck makes every other spoof programming language look like a joke.
Not sure whether that was intentionally humourous or not, but well done, nonetheless.
But seriously[*] kids, nothing holds a candle to ACME. All the programming foolishness you'll ever need, implemented in glorious Perl!
--------
[*] Whatever....
Indeed. One of the fringe benefits of introducing FOSS to the tiny Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu was when I showed local geeks that they could actually choose the 'Pacific/Efate' time zone setting. (Efate is the island where the capital of Vanuatu is located.)
Windows and Mac OS X both display either Noumea (capital of New Caledonia to the South) or Honiara (capital of the Solomon Islands to the North). This creates a very real sense that, as far as the Big Boys are concerned, we don't exist. Worse still, Mac OS X thinks that Vanuatu uses Daylight Savings Time, like the adjacent time zone in Australia. My clock has been off by an hour for months now.
That may not sound like much, but believe me, that tiny little bit of tzdata goodness has created the impression among many local geeks that this software is designed not just for office drones in some distant country, but with them in mind.
And my counterpoint would be Debian's borked SSL implementation, which (apparently) went undiscovered by crackers for over a year, despite the ease with which it could be exploited and the immense payoff that would come from exploiting it.
See my previous comment above for details