The broadband providers are looking at tiering as a way of increasing revenue. They may have all sorts of different ways of representing it, but basically they want to sort their customer base into a few tiers based on amount of usage, support requirements, etc. Then they will charge different amounts for different tiers.
Compare this to cable TV packages. There you typically have a base rate, and then all sorts of higher tiers. It doesn't cost them more to send you the additional programs (except in some aggregate way) but they charge more.
Another example: toothpaste. It costs nothing and is basically all the same stuff. The only difference between brands is the marketing, the package, and maybe the color or flavor.
This is standard marketing. Take a product, then differentiate it into several products, give them different images, and charge differently for them. I expect some will tier by bandwidth, some by support for NAT's ("small business rate"), some by uplink CCIR, etc.
It isn't a matter of fairness. Unless you want to socialize bandwidth, don't expect it to be "fair."
Of course we could socialize it. You can then wait 14 months to get it installed, have a 3 week wait to get an outage fixed, and be insulted by all service personnel. But hey, it would be fair! We would all get the same lousy treatment. .
Re:One that we did - killing long distance nighty
on
Debug your Code, or Else!
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· Score: 3, Informative
No, it was a we. Someone else knew about the number of lines. They didn't give me the number.
One that we did - killing long distance nighty
on
Debug your Code, or Else!
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Back in 1973 we built a system for hotel reservations that had over 1000 mini-computers distributed in hotels all over the US. These computers periodically dialed an 800 number in to get outstanding messages (it was cheaper for them to dial in than for us to dial out to them).
I wrote the algorithm that scheduled the dialins. It used a pseudo-random approach during the day, weighted by outstanding traffic.
But at night, there was period during which we had to unload all messages before the next day's processing. During this time, the pseudo-random algorithm was replaced by a deterministic one that assigned computers time slots.
The computers also had auto-rety in the case of failure, so each call could result in several if it were blocked.
Unfortunately, during coding I had put in the number of modems answering phones at 20 (as an arbitrary number for testing). During the hectic rollout, this never was changed to the actual number which was much smaller.
Once the system came on line, every night at 1AM portions of Omaha (which included lots of call centers) would lose all long distance service for a couple of hours, as all these computers called in and retried several times.
Eventually the phone company figured it out and contacted us, and we discovered and corrected the discrepancy.
Another issue was that we had a number of hotels that were using pulse dialing (this was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away). Sometimes these would be off by one due to the inherent unreliability of pulse dialing, and the result was a lot of calls to certain numbers related to the 800 number, all in the middle of the night.
BTW... as far as I know, this was the first large widely distributed commercial computing system to use switched telephone circuits for communications (but no doubt some other grey-haired slashdotter knows of another).
Plan9 removes the distinction between operating system, library, and application. These are things that an OS researcher cares about but a user doesn't.
Isn't removing this distinction exactly what Microsoft wants to do? Then they can sell anything and call it Windows...err... I guess they do that now. Sigh.
A related argument is that Microsoft Windows / Office EULA's are invalid because the contracts are entered under duress. Any contract which you are forced to enter is clearly invalid by US and English common law.
In the case of Micro$oft, the contract could be deemed entered under duress because they have been adjudicated a monopoly. Thus if you *need* to do something that only their software can do, you have no choice but to accept the EULA. No choice = no binding contract.
In Arizona you can use deadly force to stop First Degree Burglary (burglary of an occupied residence) and First Degree Arson (arson of an occupied building). You are presumed to be threatened in such situations.
Needless to say, those two crimes are very rare in this state. Burglars enter only unoccupied residences, as they value their lives.
1) It is not true that credit card companies make most of their money on interest charges. Visa and Mastercard are not-for-profit associations of banks. They make their fees (when I worked for Visa, they called them "taxes") based on the authorization and clearing services.
2) Banks make no money on the interest - on average. You may have noticed that late fees and over-limits fees, etc have skyrocketed. You may also have noticed that you now get your bill only a short time before it is due. This is because the banks lose so much money to fraud that they make all of their profit on the "fines" they asses!
BTW... I know of one very large bank which intentionally mails their credit card bills from whatever mailing service has the *slowest* delivery to the customer's zip code. This enhances the likelyhood that they will collect late fees.
BTW(2) Some number of late fees may make you *more* attractive to credit card issues.
I run the TV-Wonder-Radeon on WinXP. At this point, it works pretty well - but only since I got the latest download of the media center and the latest drivers. It is possible to get it tangled up, but in normal circumstances it just seems to work. I normally run it in the mode where it continuously records in a loop, and you can go back in time with a slider.
I do want to use it for time lapse during the storm season, and I can't figure out how to do that other than writing my own DirectX Filters (ugh). Also, it works with the newest DirectX capture architecture, and every shareware/freeware windows program that I have tried fails.
The problem is that real RF devices do not behave like ideal RF devices. In particular, the wideband amplifiers (or receive detectors if there are no amps) can be saturated by a single frequency of high enough power. In that case, the system is unable to do the time-domain filtering because the desired signal is highly attenuated. In a receiver, this phenomenon is called "blocking".
Furthermore, the lower power the receiver uses, the more sensitive it is to blocking, and the UWB applications many have been talking about are would require low power consumption.
Doesn't sound so ancient... How about the kerchunking of the 029 Keypunch? The roar of the output card punch on the old 635. The clank of the mechanism on the Teletype model 15? The whoshing of 28 tape drives doing a big sort? The ice cold air freezing your feet in the 100db noisy raised floor machine room? The 8 foot thick assembly listings of the operating system?
The clicking of switches on the 1620 control panel? The soft wobble of output scopes on an analog computer? The paper-tape rolls on the floor of the Maniac room, lit up by the tube filaments?
The paper fountain of a 7094 when you put the wrong skip code in column one of your Fortan output...
And which small country do we occupy and claim as our own?
No, it doesn't ignore everything prior to 1975. Installing a tyrant in Iran was hardly noble (although it was an attempt to stop the communists from installing their own).
We did NOT wage war on Korea. Where did you learn history? North Korea, under the direction of Stalin, suddenly invaded South Korea. The US repelled that invasion at the cost of 50000 lives. We kept South Korea free.
We did not wage war on Vietnam. We waged war on North Vietnam. In fact, if you are so beloved of UN resolutions and treaties, you should recognize that North Vietnam invaded and attacked South Vietnam in violation of treaties. As a Vietnam Veteran I reject your attempt to paint our actions there as evil. Likewise, Laos was being used by the NVA to run supplies into SVN. Oh, BTW, none of these countries were exactly bastions of freedom and self determination! Cambodia was under communist subversion led by China, and eastern Cambodia was again used by the NVA (interestingly a historical enemy of Cambodia) to move supplies to their invasion in SVN.
And of course it is a standard, if idiotic, trick to blame the communist genocide in Cambodia on the US bombing, as if the US somehow magically turned Cambodia into a nation of sociopaths! Funny, our bombing of Germany didn't cause them to slaughter a major percentage of thei population. Neither did our bombing of Vietnam, or Japan. But it would too painful for you to admit that in fact Pol Pot, a Mao supported communist, in fact committed those atrocities as part of his pure communist vision. I don't think our bombs gave him the idea that anyone with any book learning should be killed. Do you think it did? We must have had some magical bombs? Perhaps we can get some more idea bombs and use them on Saddam - we can turn him into Mother Theresa.
Israel has refused to withdraw from lands they were repeated attacked from. And yes, some Israeli's have attempted to expand there - Israel has extremist groups also (although when those groups use terrorism the Israeli's do the right thing - capture them, try them, imprison them, and don't turn them loose).
Re:Misconceptions on "Wahabism" and Arabs
on
Globalism Post 9/11
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· Score: 2
Extremism - far from the common behavior/beliefs.
Israeli's are not perfect and I do not consider them so. But when you have to go back to 1947 for atrocities, that's stretching it. And you don't mention that some (all) of those atrocities were committed by the Irgun, an extremist group rejected by the rest of the Israeli's. It is true that later on, an Irgun leader (Begin) was freely elected president. This is far different from the PA sanctioned atrocities.
Then we can discuss 1982. Did Israel kill anyone at Sabra and Shatila? No, they didn't. Did they knowingly allow others to do so? There is considerable disagreement on those issues.
BTW... I don't think you can go on abaout Israeli atrocities. But I could come up with as many Palestinian atrocities in the last two weeks as you came up with in 55 years!
Israel is not perfect. Nobody is. But Israel is not active engaged in targetting innocents. The Palestinians are. And the Arab world refuses to condemn them for it or even recognize it as wrong. Israel has been active for years in trying to get rid of the territories. Israel wants peace - it is a democracy and its people can and do vote out war mongers. The only reason Sharon is in power is that the Israeli's realized that the Palestinians would not agree to peace with the previous government, even after that government made major (and in my opinion) dangerous offers to the PA.
Violence against innocents is bad, but what is abhorrent is intentional violence against innocents. In any war, innocents die, but this is not terrorism or evil unless those who do the killing do it intentionally, or carelessly, or do it in an unjust (non-defensive) war. And this is where the Israeli government is radically different from the Palestinian Authority. The IDF, as an organization, does its best to avoid killing civilians (this is not to say that every IDF soldier does HIS best). The Israeli morality does not allow the targeting of innocents, and even if it did, the IDF is under constant and detailed scrutiny by hostile journalists.
You might also be interested to know that the US media, in general, has been far more hostile to Israel than the PA - at least until the suicide bombers started blowing up innocents on a regular basis. The US media has two faults in this area:
- It believes that every story has two equally valid sides, and tries to report both.
- It is saturated with US liberals, who side with the Palestinians because they are the "oppressed" - and liberals always side with those who can best appear oppressed.
CNN, in particular, has been very hostile to Israel for many years. For that manner, many of us consider it to be very hostile to the United States. Such is freedom! Tell me, how many newspapers are there in the Arab world which can be hostile or even critical of the regimes in their country? The US has many. Israel, which is the size of a large US city, has several - there is one in English that I read, for example.
And we are not punishing Saddam's people, as I told you before. Did you miss the fact that it is Saddam himself who is diverting the monies away from the people who need them?
As far as democracy... your attack on US democracy is as naive as it is outrageous. The Supreme Court did not elect our president. The Supreme Court did rule on procedural issues. But the fact is that the election was too close to say in any way who actually one. That is a rare but possible occurrence in a free vote. And it was too close because, despite anyone's protestations, any election process will have some degree of error - like any other human counting process. Oh, and btw, as far as the official vote goes, every analysis of the Florida vote indicates that even without the Supreme Court, Bush would have won.
The US and UK do not have clean hands in toppling democracies - especially through the 1960's. But it wasn't just about oil (since it occurred other places) - it was part of a vast undeclared covert war between the US and the USSR, with every other country in the middle. The only difference between this and World War II was that the war was covert.
Arabs themselves do not have clean hands with regards to the Palestinians either. For example, after the Gulf War, Kuwait expelled 600,000 Palestinians - almost every Palestinian in the country! That is more than the Israeli's ever expelled.
Millions of Palestinians have been kept in refugee camps in host countries since 1947. If those societies assimilated the Palestinians the same way the US assimilates millions of people (including Palestinians) every year, those Palestinians would be much better off!
And you are right, democracy will not solve everything. At least the following are required for a free and prosperous society (and please don't point out that the US isn't perfect here - perfection is something not achieved in the affairs of man):
1) Democratic government 2) The equality of all citizens under the law 3) Basic civil rights including especially the right to property.
Without these, a system will over time become corrupt, and corrupt systems do not produce long term economic growth.
Saudi Arabia demonstrates how vast wealth can be misused in a way that leaves many of its citizens poor.
I would be happy to see democracy in the Arab (really, the Moslem world - Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan are not Arab) that was as good as that in India. In fact, I would be overjoyed to see democracy in all countries in the world, because democracy is the most just system we have yet discovered, and it is the most peaceful (with exceptions: Hitler was elected democratically). It is also the most productive. And the reason for this is that democracy recognizes the *natural rights* of man and builds on them.
BTW... if the US and the UK were as bad as they were made out to be by many in the mideast, we would have long ago captured all the oil and we would keep it. But we didn't do that, and the reason is that we (and belatedly the UK) are against colonialism.
However, If the states in the mideast don't mend their ways with regard to terrorism, we may redraw a few of the lines in the middle east! For example, perhaps we could give the North of Iraq to Turkey, the middle to Jordan ( one of the most benign monarchies) and the south to a newly democratic Iran. Perhaps we should create a Shia state in eastern Saudia Arabia (where the oil fields happen to be:-)
I am afraid that what we are seeing now is the start of a major war - a war of civilization vs. barbarism. A war of sanity against irrational hate. And I would expect this to be a terrible war - with the US for the first time suffering major casualties on its own soil (from biological and radiological weapons attacks).
If you look at what the US/UK did to their vanquished enemies after World War II, it was beneficial to the world AND to those enemies. We de-nazified Germany and built an anti-Nazi culture there by teaching all germans (of that era) the shame that they should feel for the behavior of their government. We de-militarized Japan, and forced them to adopt a constitutional democracy, which has been working since them. We gave massive economic aid to Germany (and Europe in general).
The result is that today both Germany and Japan are peaceful democracies. Not perfect, but good.
The decolonialization did not go nearly as well. Britain was tired of colonialization, and basically just pulled out. Note, BTW, that Britain was significantly anti-Israeli in 1947, and the US did nothing to help. Israel's early partners were the US enemy - USSR was the FIRST country to recognize Israel as a nation. But Israel's democratic nature was stronger than her socialist nature, so she ultimately became more aligned with the US when she couldn't be used as a Russian puppet. The Russians then chose to try to destroy Israel by arming their Arab enemies.
I believe its occupation is not illegal, since the land was conquered in self defense. But even if it is, their behavior is hardly terrorism.
A terrorist act is violence intentionally targetted at innocent civilians with a political purpose.
The word *intentionally* is critical here.
Also, history should be a guide... Israel was attacked (in violation of international law) from the occupied territories in three major wars. It took those territories in 1967 to prevent those attacks from continuing. It has been trying to get rid of them for some years now, but cannot do so without adequate security guarantees, which it is not getting.
The word "terrorism" has been misdefined by many for their own causes, but the english word itself should give anyone an understanding of it.
But let me put it another way:
Terrorism is uncivilized. Anyone who engages in terrorism *for any reason* is a barbarian.
Re:Misconceptions on "Wahabism" and Arabs
on
Globalism Post 9/11
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Nothing you have said denies that Wahabism (as it is called in the west) is an extreme sect of Islam (which is different from saying Islam is extreme). You appear to have misunderstood me. And anyone who has seen how religion works in Saudi Arabia (and I am not talking from what the media says here) recognizes extremism there. And since, as you point out, the Saudi's have embraced it. The movement has hardly snowballed until recently with Saudi funding of Wahabi teaching throughout the world.
And I do not consider my support of Israel to be blind. I have read in depth about the subject and I find your statements to be distortions. Israel does not threaten the world, as does Saddam. Iraq gets cruise missiles and bombs because it is ruled by a dangerous maniac who has demonstrated his willingness to kill innocent people in large numbers. We did not confront him until he invaded Kuwait, in case you do not remember. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia asked for our help, as they feared him (and do so today). BTW, are you aware that Saddam is not truly a muslim, and only recently has claimed to be one because it is convenient to him. The Baathist movement (which rules Syria and Iraq) are secular anti-religious movements.
The Iraqi children accusation is one of the most outrageous lies. Yes, they are dying. No, we are not killing them. Saddam is killing them. Do you know that he has built 40 palaces since the Gulf war. Don't you think that money might help those children? We do not embargo medicines or food, so the fate of those children is directly caused by Saddam and his greed and evil.
As far as Israel goes, they are not innocent. I do not think they should have the settlements, and many Israeli's don't either.
BUT... they do not kill children on purpose. They do not target families at religious ceremonies and blow them up. They do not say one thing in english (condemning terrorism) and the opposite in their native language (as Arafat does). They do not oppress those Muslims who are their own citizens, and they fight the Palestinians only because they are being attacked.
If you were to poll Israeli's, you would find all but a small minority who want nothing other than to live in peace, and are willing to return the West Bank and Gaza to get it. If you look at official PA statements, they want nothing other than to drive the Israeli's into the sea, and are willing to target and intentionally kill women and children in order to do so.
As far as I am concerned. Yasser Arafat is an evil man and always has been. He used terrorism against innocents for decades. He has stolen much of the money that the west (including the US) gave the PA.
However, all of this is mute. I will never convince you of any of this. What will happen is that the despots and dictators of the middle east who allow terrorists will be swept away by our military power. And this is as it should be... well not really. It would be better if you would get rid of them, instead of making excuses for monsters like Saddam. BTW... can you explain why there are no true democracies in all of Araby? Why Iran is suppressing its own citizens who want freedom?
There are certain moral issues that are simple, and others that are very difficult. In my opinion, he who intentionoally targets women and children in warfare is evil. It is wrong. And I include the US and Britain in this in their WW-II bombing campaigns - even though they were in retaliation for similar behavior by Germany.
You can argue about Palestinians all you want, but until the civilized Palestinians are in power, I am not interested. Civilized human beings do not target innocents. Civilized human beings do not send their young out to kill innocents while killing themselves. In fact, most interpretations of Islam condemn suicide for any purpose!
I am truly amused. We have killed "hundreds of thousands of people over there." WHO?
Oh, the Iraqi's? The invaders of Kuwait - a country which ASKED us for help to repell them? And we didn't kill hundreds of thousands.
No, the anti-US feelings in SA are caused by what I said. Anyone who looks at the history of US use of force since WW-II, and especially since the '70s, has to be deluded to see it as anything but beneficial to the world as a whole. The first nation to recognize the state of Israel after it's UN proclaimed independence.
And as far as supporting Israel. Israel is supported by UN resolutions and international treaties dating in some cases back to the turn of the 20th century. Israel is the ONLY democratic state in the region, which is one reason we support them.
Why is there no resentment for Australia or Germany? Well, there is resentment for Germany, but maybe you haven't been there to hear it. But the main resentment is against the US because we are the most successful country in history, and therefore anyone who is unhappy and envious sees us as someone to hate. Also because the vicious regimes of the area have used totalitarian propaganda to convince their people that all of their problems are due to Israel and the US. It is the old trick that dictators have used since time immemorial: distract the population from your brutality and corruption by blaming it on a some other country.
And Israel has not done ethnic cleansing. Perhaps it is time they did so! Israel has accepted Muslims and Arabs as voting citizens in their democracy - perhaps you didn't know that, but there are about 1,000,000 voting Israeli muslims. Tell me how many voting Jews there are in Arab countries? In fact, tell me how many Jews there arer even alive in Arab countries?
Israel have been rewarded by 3 major wars of aggression (1947, 1967, 1973) with their Arab neighbors and the Palestinians. In 1967 they were attacked from the West Bank, so they took it as a military buffer. Liewise the Golan Heights. Israel isn't perfect, but compared to their neighbors they are extremely good.
Because Israel is a democracy, its citizens voted in a "peacenik" government a few years ago. That government agreed to give the Palestinians almost everything they wanted, even at considerable risk to Israel. They permitted the people who engaged in international terrorism to have their own government, their own police, their own schools. That government, supported economically by, among others, the US, has looted the funds to the point it is bankrupt. The money has gone into the pockets of Arafat and his friends. Those police, armed with AK-47s now kill Israeli's. Those schools teach little children that they should martyr themselves by killing the families of the Jews.
The Israeli's have been paid back for their foolishness in attempting to make peace with the Palestinians. Only fools believe that you can make peace with vicious terrorists like Arafat through a show of weakness.
If there were justice in the world, Arafat would be tried and hung. But that isn't practical, so instead he will be marginalized.
Yes, Wahhibism is one of the most extreme muslim sects, and is the official religion of Saudi Arabia.
Re:Its about -concentration- of wealth
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Globalism Post 9/11
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· Score: 4, Insightful
This is irrelevant to the issue of terrorism, because the terrorists themselves were not poor. They had a very good standard of living by world standards.
The issues pushing theocracy are much less economic in SA. These issues include:
-The despotic, repressive monarchy which itself is hedonistic while requiring its citizens to adhere to strict wahhabism.
-The extremist nature of Wahhibism, and its vicious ideas.
-a general Arab resentment of the West because the West has replaced Arabia as the center of progress and culture. This is made worse by the obvious popularity of western culture - even as that culture insults all religions and religious ideas.
If the men involved in terrorism had been from poor families, one could pay more attention to the economic motive. But they were not. Many were quite well off, in fact.
a little nonsense, but hey - it's near April Fools
on
Globalism Post 9/11
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· Score: 4, Insightful
It's no accident that nations who can't or won't [attract capital] are also incubators for political discontent and terrorism
The kerosine burned out mostly within the first 10 minutes. It served as the lighter fluid for the major fuel mass of the building: furniture, paper, etc. Sprinklers might very well have been able to cool or extinguish this secondary fire which in fact was what finally brought the buildings down.
Slashdot Mirror
Why single out business? Society also has laws to regulate individual behavior.
It's all just human behavior, and human behavior leaves a lot to be desired.
The broadband providers are looking at tiering as a way of increasing revenue. They may have all sorts of different ways of representing it, but basically they want to sort their customer base into a few tiers based on amount of usage, support requirements, etc. Then they will charge different amounts for different tiers.
Compare this to cable TV packages. There you typically have a base rate, and then all sorts of higher tiers. It doesn't cost them more to send you the additional programs (except in some aggregate way) but they charge more.
Another example: toothpaste. It costs nothing and is basically all the same stuff. The only difference between brands is the marketing, the package, and maybe the color or flavor.
This is standard marketing. Take a product, then differentiate it into several products, give them different images, and charge differently for them. I expect some will tier by bandwidth, some by support for NAT's ("small business rate"), some by uplink CCIR, etc.
It isn't a matter of fairness. Unless you want to socialize bandwidth, don't expect it to be "fair."
Of course we could socialize it. You can then wait 14 months to get it installed, have a 3 week wait to get an outage fixed, and be insulted by all service personnel. But hey, it would be fair! We would all get the same lousy treatment.
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No, it was a we. Someone else knew about the number of lines. They didn't give me the number.
I wrote the algorithm that scheduled the dialins. It used a pseudo-random approach during the day, weighted by outstanding traffic.
But at night, there was period during which we had to unload all messages before the next day's processing. During this time, the pseudo-random algorithm was replaced by a deterministic one that assigned computers time slots.
The computers also had auto-rety in the case of failure, so each call could result in several if it were blocked.
Unfortunately, during coding I had put in the number of modems answering phones at 20 (as an arbitrary number for testing). During the hectic rollout, this never was changed to the actual number which was much smaller.
Once the system came on line, every night at 1AM portions of Omaha (which included lots of call centers) would lose all long distance service for a couple of hours, as all these computers called in and retried several times.
Eventually the phone company figured it out and contacted us, and we discovered and corrected the discrepancy.
Another issue was that we had a number of hotels that were using pulse dialing (this was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away). Sometimes these would be off by one due to the inherent unreliability of pulse dialing, and the result was a lot of calls to certain numbers related to the 800 number, all in the middle of the night.
BTW... as far as I know, this was the first large widely distributed commercial computing system to use switched telephone circuits for communications (but no doubt some other grey-haired slashdotter knows of another).
Isn't removing this distinction exactly what Microsoft wants to do? Then they can sell anything and call it Windows
A related argument is that Microsoft Windows / Office EULA's are invalid because the contracts are entered under duress. Any contract which you are forced to enter is clearly invalid by US and English common law.
In the case of Micro$oft, the contract could be deemed entered under duress because they have been adjudicated a monopoly. Thus if you *need* to do something that only their software can do, you have no choice but to accept the EULA. No choice = no binding contract.
Needless to say, those two crimes are very rare in this state. Burglars enter only unoccupied residences, as they value their lives.
UNIX was on PC's and the desktop before MMU's were there. My first Unix was some IBM thing that ran on a PC-XT. MMU? Hah!
It worked just fine.
People overrate memory mapping for single user machines. It is a very good idea, but it simply is not necessary for a multitasking system.
Wrong twice...
1) It is not true that credit card companies make most of their money on interest charges. Visa and Mastercard are not-for-profit associations of banks. They make their fees (when I worked for Visa, they called them "taxes") based on the authorization and clearing services.
2) Banks make no money on the interest - on average. You may have noticed that late fees and over-limits fees, etc have skyrocketed. You may also have noticed that you now get your bill only a short time before it is due. This is because the banks lose so much money to fraud that they make all of their profit on the "fines" they asses!
BTW... I know of one very large bank which intentionally mails their credit card bills from whatever mailing service has the *slowest* delivery to the customer's zip code. This enhances the likelyhood that they will collect late fees.
BTW(2) Some number of late fees may make you *more* attractive to credit card issues.
So, is your Prius priapic?
I run the TV-Wonder-Radeon on WinXP. At this point, it works pretty well - but only since I got the latest download of the media center and the latest drivers. It is possible to get it tangled up, but in normal circumstances it just seems to work. I normally run it in the mode where it continuously records in a loop, and you can go back in time with a slider.
I do want to use it for time lapse during the storm season, and I can't figure out how to do that other than writing my own DirectX Filters (ugh). Also, it works with the newest DirectX capture architecture, and every shareware/freeware windows program that I have tried fails.
The problem is that real RF devices do not behave like ideal RF devices. In particular, the wideband amplifiers (or receive detectors if there are no amps) can be saturated by a single frequency of high enough power. In that case, the system is unable to do the time-domain filtering because the desired signal is highly attenuated. In a receiver, this phenomenon is called "blocking".
Furthermore, the lower power the receiver uses, the more sensitive it is to blocking, and the UWB applications many have been talking about are would require low power consumption.
If you don't have to clean the card-edge connectors daily, it ain't an accurate trash-80 simulation!
Doesn't sound so ancient... How about the kerchunking of the 029 Keypunch? The roar of the output card punch on the old 635. The clank of the mechanism on the Teletype model 15? The whoshing of 28 tape drives doing a big sort? The ice cold air freezing your feet in the 100db noisy raised floor machine room? The 8 foot thick assembly listings of the operating system?
The clicking of switches on the 1620 control panel? The soft wobble of output scopes on an analog computer? The paper-tape rolls on the floor of the Maniac room, lit up by the tube filaments?
The paper fountain of a 7094 when you put the wrong skip code in column one of your Fortan output...
And which small country do we occupy and claim as our own?
No, it doesn't ignore everything prior to 1975. Installing a tyrant in Iran was hardly noble (although it was an attempt to stop the communists from installing their own).
We did NOT wage war on Korea. Where did you learn history? North Korea, under the direction of Stalin, suddenly invaded South Korea. The US repelled that invasion at the cost of 50000 lives. We kept South Korea free.
We did not wage war on Vietnam. We waged war on North Vietnam. In fact, if you are so beloved of UN resolutions and treaties, you should recognize that North Vietnam invaded and attacked South Vietnam in violation of treaties. As a Vietnam Veteran I reject your attempt to paint our actions there as evil. Likewise, Laos was being used by the NVA to run supplies into SVN. Oh, BTW, none of these countries were exactly bastions of freedom and self determination! Cambodia was under communist subversion led by China, and eastern Cambodia was again used by the NVA (interestingly a historical enemy of Cambodia) to move supplies to their invasion in SVN.
And of course it is a standard, if idiotic, trick to blame the communist genocide in Cambodia on the US bombing, as if the US somehow magically turned Cambodia into a nation of sociopaths! Funny, our bombing of Germany didn't cause them to slaughter a major percentage of thei population. Neither did our bombing of Vietnam, or Japan. But it would too painful for you to admit that in fact Pol Pot, a Mao supported communist, in fact committed those atrocities as part of his pure communist vision. I don't think our bombs gave him the idea that anyone with any book learning should be killed. Do you think it did? We must have had some magical bombs? Perhaps we can get some more idea bombs and use them on Saddam - we can turn him into Mother Theresa.
Israel has refused to withdraw from lands they were repeated attacked from. And yes, some Israeli's have attempted to expand there - Israel has extremist groups also (although when those groups use terrorism the Israeli's do the right thing - capture them, try them, imprison them, and don't turn them loose).
Extremism - far from the common behavior/beliefs.
:-)
Israeli's are not perfect and I do not consider them so. But when you have to go back to 1947 for atrocities, that's stretching it. And you don't mention that some (all) of those atrocities were committed by the Irgun, an extremist group rejected by the rest of the Israeli's. It is true that later on, an Irgun leader (Begin) was freely elected president. This is far different from the PA sanctioned atrocities.
Then we can discuss 1982. Did Israel kill anyone at Sabra and Shatila? No, they didn't. Did they knowingly allow others to do so? There is considerable disagreement on those issues.
BTW... I don't think you can go on abaout Israeli atrocities. But I could come up with as many Palestinian atrocities in the last two weeks as you came up with in 55 years!
Israel is not perfect. Nobody is. But Israel is not active engaged in targetting innocents. The Palestinians are. And the Arab world refuses to condemn them for it or even recognize it as wrong. Israel has been active for years in trying to get rid of the territories. Israel wants peace - it is a democracy and its people can and do vote out war mongers. The only reason Sharon is in power is that the Israeli's realized that the Palestinians would not agree to peace with the previous government, even after that government made major (and in my opinion) dangerous offers to the PA.
Violence against innocents is bad, but what is abhorrent is intentional violence against innocents. In any war, innocents die, but this is not terrorism or evil unless those who do the killing do it intentionally, or carelessly, or do it in an unjust (non-defensive) war. And this is where the Israeli government is radically different from the Palestinian Authority. The IDF, as an organization, does its best to avoid killing civilians (this is not to say that every IDF soldier does HIS best). The Israeli morality does not allow the targeting of innocents, and even if it did, the IDF is under constant and detailed scrutiny by hostile journalists.
You might also be interested to know that the US media, in general, has been far more hostile to Israel than the PA - at least until the suicide bombers started blowing up innocents on a regular basis. The US media has two faults in this area:
- It believes that every story has two equally valid sides, and tries to report both.
- It is saturated with US liberals, who side with the Palestinians because they are the "oppressed" - and liberals always side with those who can best appear oppressed.
CNN, in particular, has been very hostile to Israel for many years. For that manner, many of us consider it to be very hostile to the United States. Such is freedom! Tell me, how many newspapers are there in the Arab world which can be hostile or even critical of the regimes in their country? The US has many. Israel, which is the size of a large US city, has several - there is one in English that I read, for example.
And we are not punishing Saddam's people, as I told you before. Did you miss the fact that it is Saddam himself who is diverting the monies away from the people who need them?
As far as democracy... your attack on US democracy is as naive as it is outrageous. The Supreme Court did not elect our president. The Supreme Court did rule on procedural issues. But the fact is that the election was too close to say in any way who actually one. That is a rare but possible occurrence in a free vote. And it was too close because, despite anyone's protestations, any election process will have some degree of error - like any other human counting process. Oh, and btw, as far as the official vote goes, every analysis of the Florida vote indicates that even without the Supreme Court, Bush would have won.
The US and UK do not have clean hands in toppling democracies - especially through the 1960's. But it wasn't just about oil (since it occurred other places) - it was part of a vast undeclared covert war between the US and the USSR, with every other country in the middle. The only difference between this and World War II was that the war was covert.
Arabs themselves do not have clean hands with regards to the Palestinians either. For example, after the Gulf War, Kuwait expelled 600,000 Palestinians - almost every Palestinian in the country! That is more than the Israeli's ever expelled.
Millions of Palestinians have been kept in refugee camps in host countries since 1947. If those societies assimilated the Palestinians the same way the US assimilates millions of people (including Palestinians) every year, those Palestinians would be much better off!
And you are right, democracy will not solve everything. At least the following are required for a free and prosperous society (and please don't point out that the US isn't perfect here - perfection is something not achieved in the affairs of man):
1) Democratic government
2) The equality of all citizens under the law
3) Basic civil rights including especially the right to property.
Without these, a system will over time become corrupt, and corrupt systems do not produce long term economic growth.
Saudi Arabia demonstrates how vast wealth can be misused in a way that leaves many of its citizens poor.
I would be happy to see democracy in the Arab (really, the Moslem world - Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan are not Arab) that was as good as that in India. In fact, I would be overjoyed to see democracy in all countries in the world, because democracy is the most just system we have yet discovered, and it is the most peaceful (with exceptions: Hitler was elected democratically). It is also the most productive. And the reason for this is that democracy recognizes the *natural rights* of man and builds on them.
BTW... if the US and the UK were as bad as they were made out to be by many in the mideast, we would have long ago captured all the oil and we would keep it. But we didn't do that, and the reason is that we (and belatedly the UK) are against colonialism.
However, If the states in the mideast don't mend their ways with regard to terrorism, we may redraw a few of the lines in the middle east! For example, perhaps we could give the North of Iraq to Turkey, the middle to Jordan ( one of the most benign monarchies) and the south to a newly democratic Iran. Perhaps we should create a Shia state in eastern Saudia Arabia (where the oil fields happen to be
I am afraid that what we are seeing now is the start of a major war - a war of civilization vs. barbarism. A war of sanity against irrational hate. And I would expect this to be a terrible war - with the US for the first time suffering major casualties on its own soil (from biological and radiological weapons attacks).
If you look at what the US/UK did to their vanquished enemies after World War II, it was beneficial to the world AND to those enemies. We de-nazified Germany and built an anti-Nazi culture there by teaching all germans (of that era) the shame that they should feel for the behavior of their government. We de-militarized Japan, and forced them to adopt a constitutional democracy, which has been working since them. We gave massive economic aid to Germany (and Europe in general).
The result is that today both Germany and Japan are peaceful democracies. Not perfect, but good.
The decolonialization did not go nearly as well. Britain was tired of colonialization, and basically just pulled out. Note, BTW, that Britain was significantly anti-Israeli in 1947, and the US did nothing to help. Israel's early partners were the US enemy - USSR was the FIRST country to recognize Israel as a nation. But Israel's democratic nature was stronger than her socialist nature, so she ultimately became more aligned with the US when she couldn't be used as a Russian puppet. The Russians then chose to try to destroy Israel by arming their Arab enemies.
Such is history.
I believe its occupation is not illegal, since the land was conquered in self defense. But even if it is, their behavior is hardly terrorism.
A terrorist act is violence intentionally targetted at innocent civilians with a political purpose.
The word *intentionally* is critical here.
Also, history should be a guide... Israel was attacked (in violation of international law) from the occupied territories in three major wars. It took those territories in 1967 to prevent those attacks from continuing. It has been trying to get rid of them for some years now, but cannot do so without adequate security guarantees, which it is not getting.
The word "terrorism" has been misdefined by many for their own causes, but the english word itself should give anyone an understanding of it.
But let me put it another way:
Terrorism is uncivilized. Anyone who engages in terrorism *for any reason* is a barbarian.
Nothing you have said denies that Wahabism (as it is called in the west) is an extreme sect of Islam (which is different from saying Islam is extreme). You appear to have misunderstood me. And anyone who has seen how religion works in Saudi Arabia (and I am not talking from what the media says here) recognizes extremism there. And since, as you point out, the Saudi's have embraced it. The movement has hardly snowballed until recently with Saudi funding of Wahabi teaching throughout the world.
And I do not consider my support of Israel to be blind. I have read in depth about the subject and I find your statements to be distortions. Israel does not threaten the world, as does Saddam. Iraq gets cruise missiles and bombs because it is ruled by a dangerous maniac who has demonstrated his willingness to kill innocent people in large numbers. We did not confront him until he invaded Kuwait, in case you do not remember. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia asked for our help, as they feared him (and do so today). BTW, are you aware that Saddam is not truly a muslim, and only recently has claimed to be one because it is convenient to him. The Baathist movement (which rules Syria and Iraq) are secular anti-religious movements.
The Iraqi children accusation is one of the most outrageous lies. Yes, they are dying. No, we are not killing them. Saddam is killing them. Do you know that he has built 40 palaces since the Gulf war. Don't you think that money might help those children? We do not embargo medicines or food, so the fate of those children is directly caused by Saddam and his greed and evil.
As far as Israel goes, they are not innocent. I do not think they should have the settlements, and many Israeli's don't either.
BUT... they do not kill children on purpose. They do not target families at religious ceremonies and blow them up. They do not say one thing in english (condemning terrorism) and the opposite in their native language (as Arafat does). They do not oppress those Muslims who are their own citizens, and they fight the Palestinians only because they are being attacked.
If you were to poll Israeli's, you would find all but a small minority who want nothing other than to live in peace, and are willing to return the West Bank and Gaza to get it. If you look at official PA statements, they want nothing other than to drive the Israeli's into the sea, and are willing to target and intentionally kill women and children in order to do so.
As far as I am concerned. Yasser Arafat is an evil man and always has been. He used terrorism against innocents for decades. He has stolen much of the money that the west (including the US) gave the PA.
However, all of this is mute. I will never convince you of any of this. What will happen is that the despots and dictators of the middle east who allow terrorists will be swept away by our military power. And this is as it should be... well not really. It would be better if you would get rid of them, instead of making excuses for monsters like Saddam. BTW... can you explain why there are no true democracies in all of Araby? Why Iran is suppressing its own citizens who want freedom?
There are certain moral issues that are simple, and others that are very difficult. In my opinion, he who intentionoally targets women and children in warfare is evil. It is wrong. And I include the US and Britain in this in their WW-II bombing campaigns - even though they were in retaliation for similar behavior by Germany.
You can argue about Palestinians all you want, but until the civilized Palestinians are in power, I am not interested. Civilized human beings do not target innocents. Civilized human beings do not send their young out to kill innocents while killing themselves. In fact, most interpretations of Islam condemn suicide for any purpose!
The word "partial" is rather important here.
For example, compare the democratic freedoms an Israeli arab has vs. an Iranian Jew (if any are left).
Or compare the democratic freedoms any Iranian has compared to an Israeli arab.
There is a huge difference between a "partial" democracy and a real democracy.
Some degree of democracy does not a democracy make.
Actually, Turkey is an exception. Funny... they are an Israeli ally. Could there be a pattern forming here?
I am truly amused. We have killed "hundreds of thousands of people over there." WHO?
Oh, the Iraqi's? The invaders of Kuwait - a country which ASKED us for help to repell them? And we didn't kill hundreds of thousands.
No, the anti-US feelings in SA are caused by what I said. Anyone who looks at the history of US use of force since WW-II, and especially since the '70s, has to be deluded to see it as anything but beneficial to the world as a whole. The first nation to recognize the state of Israel after it's UN proclaimed independence.
And as far as supporting Israel. Israel is supported by UN resolutions and international treaties dating in some cases back to the turn of the 20th century. Israel is the ONLY democratic state in the region, which is one reason we support them.
Why is there no resentment for Australia or Germany? Well, there is resentment for Germany, but maybe you haven't been there to hear it. But the main resentment is against the US because we are the most successful country in history, and therefore anyone who is unhappy and envious sees us as someone to hate. Also because the vicious regimes of the area have used totalitarian propaganda to convince their people that all of their problems are due to Israel and the US. It is the old trick that dictators have used since time immemorial: distract the population from your brutality and corruption by blaming it on a some other country.
And Israel has not done ethnic cleansing. Perhaps it is time they did so! Israel has accepted Muslims and Arabs as voting citizens in their democracy - perhaps you didn't know that, but there are about 1,000,000 voting Israeli muslims. Tell me how many voting Jews there are in Arab countries? In fact, tell me how many Jews there arer even alive in Arab countries?
Israel have been rewarded by 3 major wars of aggression (1947, 1967, 1973) with their Arab neighbors and the Palestinians. In 1967 they were attacked from the West Bank, so they took it as a military buffer. Liewise the Golan Heights. Israel isn't perfect, but compared to their neighbors they are extremely good.
Because Israel is a democracy, its citizens voted in a "peacenik" government a few years ago. That government agreed to give the Palestinians almost everything they wanted, even at considerable risk to Israel. They permitted the people who engaged in international terrorism to have their own government, their own police, their own schools. That government, supported economically by, among others, the US, has looted the funds to the point it is bankrupt. The money has gone into the pockets of Arafat and his friends. Those police, armed with AK-47s now kill Israeli's. Those schools teach little children that they should martyr themselves by killing the families of the Jews.
The Israeli's have been paid back for their foolishness in attempting to make peace with the Palestinians. Only fools believe that you can make peace with vicious terrorists like Arafat through a show of weakness.
If there were justice in the world, Arafat would be tried and hung. But that isn't practical, so instead he will be marginalized.
Yes, Wahhibism is one of the most extreme muslim sects, and is the official religion of Saudi Arabia.
The issues pushing theocracy are much less economic in SA. These issues include:
-The despotic, repressive monarchy which itself is hedonistic while requiring its citizens to adhere to strict wahhabism.
-The extremist nature of Wahhibism, and its vicious ideas.
-a general Arab resentment of the West because the West has replaced Arabia as the center of progress and culture. This is made worse by the obvious popularity of western culture - even as that culture insults all religions and religious ideas.
If the men involved in terrorism had been from poor families, one could pay more attention to the economic motive. But they were not. Many were quite well off, in fact.
It's no accident that nations who can't or won't [attract capital] are also incubators for political discontent and terrorism
Oh - you're right. Poor Saudi Arabia.
The kerosine burned out mostly within the first 10 minutes. It served as the lighter fluid for the major fuel mass of the building: furniture, paper, etc. Sprinklers might very well have been able to cool or extinguish this secondary fire which in fact was what finally brought the buildings down.
Not true, when you are dealing with GUI's. There are zillions of different GUI commands that weren't around in the past.
But even so, cryptic is cryptic.