Seems like those are exactly the kind of documents we want indexed. If it is a security matter, it will be classified and handling procedures ought to keep any classified documents off the public web. If it's not a security matter, then there ain't much justification for trying to hide it, the government is supposed to be accountable to the people. Informal investigations via google-hacking seems like the modern equivalent of the "surprise" audit.
By the same token, why should I trust Joe Linux Distribution when sending an error report?
Because the contents aren't locked up inside some proprietary software - you, and more importantly, a million other people some of whom know enough to check, can see what the code actually sends.
No it can't if my firewall doesn't normally let it. Unless MS is smart enough to pull the proxy out of the firefox configuration, Windows can't normally get out to the internet.
Who in their right mind would submit crash reports to MS?
First off, you have no control over the data going to MS. I presume they tell you that it is only driver-specific and doesn't reveal anything about you, but do you really believe it? They lied about what their mediaplayer reports when it phones home - they could be lying about what goes into a crash report.
Presuming they are honest - they could still be mistaken, would not be first time that the marketing side didn't talk to the technical side either. It might hold passwords and logins in i/o buffers - it might hold chunks of spreadsheets or any other application data too.
Either way - what do you think the chances are that they do anything to protect the data they receive? Especially if they don't think it is at all security critical? They certainly don't make any promises about using good security practices.
Its entirely possible that MS and/or some big brother like the NSA uses crash reports for espionage - industrial or political. Even if they don't, if someone within MS is able to get easy access to the data, he might be selling it to your competitors - or to credit-card fraudsters in Slovenia.
Sure - your chances of being personally effed over by sending in crash reports to MS are probably miniscule. But the benefits to you are even smaller, so why even bother?
To be fair this can happen in open source world as well (well, in the so called "commercial open source world").
Yes, it can happen with any business that doesn't manage their support organization very well.
But, overall, in general probability of fixing an issue quickly is higher when using open source software.
And that is because OSS opens the support market up to competition. Proprietary code can only be (well) supported by someone with proprietary access - making proprietary code a gynormous barrier to entry for the support market. Free software has no such barrier, thus enabling competition so support organizations have to compete directly on the quality of their produce (the support they provide).
So you are suggesting that the vast majority of FSF fans are idiots?
No, you are.
I am the one who said that, "those people chose him and his cause." You are the one who said that they, "had no idea who the man at the helm was." I have all the faith in the world that those petition signers knew who RMS was and the kinds of tactics he uses.
RMS should be true to the cause. And that cause can be BEST SERVED by playing the political game.
In your opinion only. I am pretty sure that RMS is a little bit closer to the action than you are. Let me say this for the 3rd time now, maybe it will sink in - RMS got where he is today by NOT playing the political game.
And how many 'McArthur "genius grant"' recipients are elected officials or have independently sponsored successful bills? My guess would be a scant few.
And this is relevant, how? RMS ain't running for elected office, he can't sponsor a bill. On the flip-side, how many politicians have had anywhere near the personal impact on society that RMS has already had? Most of them are just figureheads for their campaign backers
All insults aside
Funny, you sure can't seem to put them aside, here comes another one...
Point being, if you want the FSF and related movement to move forward and have a hand in the political process you need to decouple your face from RMS's crotch and learn the game.
Oh, I know the game. As an independent I play it all the time with my clients - though I do find myself less and less willing to play as my bank account gets fatter and fatter. I play the game for personal gain, not as one of the people most responsible for a sea-change in the computing industry. RMS doesn't have to play the game - not just because of his accomplishments, but because of the inevitability of the change that he represents.
By following protocol not only are you respecting the person you are visiting, but you are showing that your believe is important enough that you are willing to follow someone else's procedures for presenting it.
Like submitting an official meeting request weeks beforehand with the expectation of an acknlowedgement, either accepting or denying it? Protocol like that, maybe? Or is grooming really the deciding factor for the scheduling of meetings? I mean, I would not be surprised if it were, so much of politics is just bullshit, that would fit right in as SOP.
Nope, my example was exactly as I intended.
Funny, what you 'intended' and what you wrote the first time around are more than just a little contradictory. Kind of like all your back-tracking and circular reasoning on conformist "respectin' mah authoritae" - you've got a tribal mentality that defers to hierarchy and can't quite grasp that fundamental goal of Freedom which motivates RMS. You've got just enough of it to feel that it threatens part of that hierarchy so you disparage RMS and his contributions by criticisizing him for being non-conformist - which is kind of like criticisizing Ford for building autos instead of carriages or Luther for writing his 95 theses instead of following Church protocols.
You may say "Well, if they care about that, then they're nobody I want to work for anyway", but the fact remains that you still didn't get the job because of your appearance, and your statement would amount to sour grapes.
All this presumes that one needs the job. In this case it is the reverse - whether he knows it or not, the PM is the one who needs to hear from RMS.
I would be willing to bet most of those people chose his CAUSE and had no idea who the man at the helm was.
Even if true, whose fault is that? RMS should stop being true to himself because some other people screwed up?
No, I am saying that if RMS wants to win by the game, they need to learn how to play. You don't win at Monopoly by pissing on the other players, and you don't get legislation passed by looking like a hooligan trying to interrupt the PM.
I don't think he does want to "win by the game" - refer to previous posts where I pointed out that RMS would not be where he is today if he had been trying to, "win by the game." They don't hand out McArthur "genius grants" to people who are conventional and mainstream.
In either case, dressing in one's everyday attire is one hell of a far cry from being as disrespectful as either pissing on someone or acting like a hooligan. Aren't you the one who said, "dressing up isn't a sign of respect for the person you're visiting," anyway?
The president of India is a completely different situation. But if an American, a Brit, and an Indian tried to interrupt the President with a petition with 500,000 signatures requesting and end to out sourcing of western jobs, he probably wouldn't stop either.
You do realize that your example is backwards? Unless you are talking about the President of the US. Unlike India deriving all kinds of benefits from outsourcing, starting with an increased tax base, more local working capital, etc -- for France, the only benefit to adopting draconian DRM is in keeping on the good side of the US state department. Unless, that is, France plans on making their own locally produced entertainment DRM-free and thus letting hollywood cripple themselves in their local market. I doubt that's the case, its far too insightful for a politician to have worked out on his own.
For starters, he is representing 165,000 people, so in addition to himself, he needs to be true to those 165,000 people.
He is representing them as himself. He didn't come along after the fact - those people chose him and his cause as he was, not as someone else.
They have to sell the idea to the PM. And in this position, your previous point is partially true, if the PM doesn't think you look respectable, he won't respect you. You could have the greatest issue ever, with the whole country supporting you, but if you send someone who looks like a pressure washed street bum in to talk to the PM, your spokes person won't likely get a word in.
With the whole country behind him, it wouldn't matter what he looks like. The PM would be calling RMS for an appointment to lick his boots.
So RMS doesn't have quite so many people as that, but as long as the PM is going to evaluate ideas by a person's manner of dress, it is the PM who stands to lose. He can either get on the train or ignore it and get run over by it.
The PM of France probably gets thousands of requests similar to the ones that RMS sent in. Some undersecretary flips through them and determines who gets in. Will that person schedule some of the PM's limited time to 3 guys with a petition which would likely have little gain for the country, or schedule some time with the leader of an international software firm that employees thousands and provides software and services to a huge portion of the economy? It's a no brain-er.
Yes, definitely a no-brainer to ignore your constituents. Although I sincerely doubt that the PM gets 'thousands' of requests from people with at least 165,000 names on their petitions - I do have to say that you are right, that's the way modern business, er, politics, is done, francs before brains.
They should hire a lobbyist to at least teach them the etiquette of the position so they can use the system to their advantage in stead of parading about like a bunch of college kids on a crusade
Basically, you are saying that RMS needs to "respect mah authoritae!" - but if he were the type to be so obeisant in the first place, he would never be where he is today. The president of India seemed to have no such qualms about meeting with RMS. The French PM blows him and his ideas off at his own peril.
Hardly. Dressing up isn't a sign of respect for the person you're visiting, it's a sign of respect of your self, and for the people you represent.
Considering that he has rarely, if ever, dressed that way in the past - changing his ways now would hardly be a sign of respect for himself or for the people he is representing.
Being true to yourself is the only source of respect here, conformity to someone else's standards, particularly a set of standards that are themselves an embodiment of artificial conformity, is hardly an admirable behaviour.
I mean, you're going to meet the Prime Minister, don't you think a tie is in order? Or at least a step up from khakis and a polo shirt?
Why? Because the guy deserves to be treated like someone special? He's better than these guys so they need to, "dress to impress?"
Hardly. The prime minister works for the people, not the other way around.
It is people like you who actually believe that toadying up to politicians, "showimg respect for the office," etc, etc is important, letting them forget who they work for and ultimately results in the kind of blow-off, you can't even get a response to your request for an appointment, behaviour that Stallman was faced with.
With the most strictist of definitions you are correct. However, modern usage is more flexible. For example - Standard Oil had "only" 64% of the market, yet they were considered a monopoly because all of the other competitors held, at most, single digits of market share.
Wouldn't it be more arty to keep the women clothed and the men naked?
Uh, no. Art is entertainment. Whether the entertainment is base or thought-provoking doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme. People - men and even straight women - like to see decent looking women naked. The demand for decent looking naked men is much smaller. The straight women like seeing other women because they can at least do the comparison thing if nothing else, the men like it for obvious reasons. Naked men? No straight guy cares how good looking the guy is, they aren't interested, period.
Any chick good looking enough to have people asking her to get naked implicitly knows this. That's why the girls are always naked and the men hardly ever are.
If Intel really wanted a benchmark they should ask AMD for engineering samples of next year's cores and they could pit them together.
ring...ring...ring... AMD: Hello? Intel: Hello, AMD? AMD: Yes? Intel: Intel here. We've had to cut back on our industrial espionage budget this year, seems we've had an unexpected revenue shortfall and can't afford that group any more AMD: Have you considered outsourcing it to India? Intel: Well, no, not really. We were hoping you could just send us some samples of your lab prototypes. AMD: Sure, sure, say no more. We'll send those over right away via courier. You'll have them on your desk first thing in the morning.
This is why it really pays to have your own severance package set aside in a savings account.
That's not the only reason. Having 6-12 months of expenses in the bank is power. Power to say no. No to I won't train someone so you can lay me off with disrupting your business - but also - No, your salary offer is not high enough - when a new employer makes you an offer.
Ultimately, the power to say no is your only leverage in the game of life. If you are living hand-to-mouth, then you pretty much have to bend over and take it whenever the guy with the money feels like making you squirm.
Although she didn't quite mean it this way, Janis Joplin got it right when she sang, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." She also sang, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a mercedes benz, all my friends drive porsches and I must make amends," but that's a whole different topic.
Most dvd players just use a set of standard chips, and the standard chips keep incorporating more and more functionality. So you get stuff like DVD-A (and mp3, and sometimes even divx, etc) for "free." Even some of the el-cheapo players have it too, just depends on what chipset they use.
OTOH, hardly anyone buys DVDA. I don't even know anyone with a player for it.
Most DVD players above the "el-cheapo wal-mart" grade sold over the last 4-5 years include support for DVD-A - except for Sony because they have their own format, SACD. So chances are you do know plenty of people with DVD-A players, you may even be one yourself. Just nobody cares because, as you mention, nobody actually buys DVD-A discs.
As long as we have professional politicians, we are going to have this problem. Like all organizations, the #1 priority of government is to increase its size/power/influence. Meanwhile, most of the rest of us have real jobs and lives to worry about.
So you end up with politicians who have a full-time job of growing the government's power versus a bunch of people who are at best amatuers in fighting those power-grabs.
People like Gilmore have enough resources that they can be anti-politicians - they don't need to worry about their day job, supporting their families, etc. They can make fighting those power-grabs their day job.
We definitely need more anti-politicians like that. Unfortunately, the same process that creates people like Gilmore tends to create people who decide that increased government power is in their own interest too. The ones who fight the system instead of joining the system are few and far between.
Why should a white family be harassed when the people on the watch lists are usually non-white? It has nothing to do with being racist, but it has everything to do with being efficient.
Efficent, or lazy?
If the screeners don't pay attention to white people, how long do you think it will take before the bad guys figure out a way to look white?
You think it can't be done? I say bullshit. $2000 and 3 years and I can turn almost any middle-eastern or pakistani into a blonde, blue-eyed, lilly-white Biff McWhitey.
The drug to permanently bleach the skin is readily available - topical monobenzone aka "benoquin." 3 years of treatments with benoquin is enough to fully bleach out anyone. If you only need to do visible parts of the body like face/neck and hands, it's only about 9 months.
Bleach the hair blonde.
Blue contacts for the eyes.
That's how easy it is to exploit your so-called "efficiency."
Do it to a guy with a small frame with asian genes and he could easily pass as a woman too.
Now the ISP's infrastructure is private, and there seems to be a competition among ISPs
What is your definition of an ISP? My definition is a company that provides internet connectivity to residential customers - like Verizon and Comcast.
These companies like to claim that all their "investments" in infrastructure are private - but that is a load of bullshit. They all rely on government granted right of way to string their wires around, thus they are all public utilities. In many cases they also rely on public subsidies of one form or another - tax breaks, etc. They are also almost always monopoly or duopoloy markets. All are reasons for regulation because either way, they are not free markets to begin with.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems like those are exactly the kind of documents we want indexed. If it is a security matter, it will be classified and handling procedures ought to keep any classified documents off the public web. If it's not a security matter, then there ain't much justification for trying to hide it, the government is supposed to be accountable to the people. Informal investigations via google-hacking seems like the modern equivalent of the "surprise" audit.
I don't know how much espionage you're going to be carrying out with a stack trace. That's the bulk of the actual content in those reports.
Why the deliberate choice to ignore my clearly stated point that you can't know that it is only a stack trace?
of course having the internet connection behind a proxy, which most users don't have
I think you underestimate those numbers - any corporation of decent size is probably running with exactly that configuration.
By the same token, why should I trust Joe Linux Distribution when sending an error report?
Because the contents aren't locked up inside some proprietary software - you, and more importantly, a million other people some of whom know enough to check, can see what the code actually sends.
No it can't if my firewall doesn't normally let it. Unless MS is smart enough to pull the proxy out of the firefox configuration, Windows can't normally get out to the internet.
Who in their right mind would submit crash reports to MS?
First off, you have no control over the data going to MS. I presume they tell you that it is only driver-specific and doesn't reveal anything about you, but do you really believe it? They lied about what their mediaplayer reports when it phones home - they could be lying about what goes into a crash report.
Presuming they are honest - they could still be mistaken, would not be first time that the marketing side didn't talk to the technical side either. It might hold passwords and logins in i/o buffers - it might hold chunks of spreadsheets or any other application data too.
Either way - what do you think the chances are that they do anything to protect the data they receive? Especially if they don't think it is at all security critical? They certainly don't make any promises about using good security practices.
Its entirely possible that MS and/or some big brother like the NSA uses crash reports for espionage - industrial or political. Even if they don't, if someone within MS is able to get easy access to the data, he might be selling it to your competitors - or to credit-card fraudsters in Slovenia.
Sure - your chances of being personally effed over by sending in crash reports to MS are probably miniscule. But the benefits to you are even smaller, so why even bother?
To be fair this can happen in open source world as well (well, in the so called "commercial open source world").
Yes, it can happen with any business that doesn't manage their support organization very well.
But, overall, in general probability of fixing an issue quickly is higher when using open source software.
And that is because OSS opens the support market up to competition. Proprietary code can only be (well) supported by someone with proprietary access - making proprietary code a gynormous barrier to entry for the support market. Free software has no such barrier, thus enabling competition so support organizations have to compete directly on the quality of their produce (the support they provide).
So you are suggesting that the vast majority of FSF fans are idiots?
No, you are.
I am the one who said that, "those people chose him and his cause."
You are the one who said that they, "had no idea who the man at the helm was."
I have all the faith in the world that those petition signers knew who RMS was and the kinds of tactics he uses.
RMS should be true to the cause. And that cause can be BEST SERVED by playing the political game.
In your opinion only. I am pretty sure that RMS is a little bit closer to the action than you are. Let me say this for the 3rd time now, maybe it will sink in - RMS got where he is today by NOT playing the political game.
And how many 'McArthur "genius grant"' recipients are elected officials or have independently sponsored successful bills? My guess would be a scant few.
And this is relevant, how? RMS ain't running for elected office, he can't sponsor a bill. On the flip-side, how many politicians have had anywhere near the personal impact on society that RMS has already had? Most of them are just figureheads for their campaign backers
All insults aside
Funny, you sure can't seem to put them aside, here comes another one...
Point being, if you want the FSF and related movement to move forward and have a hand in the political process you need to decouple your face from RMS's crotch and learn the game.
Oh, I know the game. As an independent I play it all the time with my clients - though I do find myself less and less willing to play as my bank account gets fatter and fatter. I play the game for personal gain, not as one of the people most responsible for a sea-change in the computing industry. RMS doesn't have to play the game - not just because of his accomplishments, but because of the inevitability of the change that he represents.
By following protocol not only are you respecting the person you are visiting, but you are showing that your believe is important enough that you are willing to follow someone else's procedures for presenting it.
Like submitting an official meeting request weeks beforehand with the expectation of an acknlowedgement, either accepting or denying it? Protocol like that, maybe? Or is grooming really the deciding factor for the scheduling of meetings? I mean, I would not be surprised if it were, so much of politics is just bullshit, that would fit right in as SOP.
Nope, my example was exactly as I intended.
Funny, what you 'intended' and what you wrote the first time around are more than just a little contradictory. Kind of like all your back-tracking and circular reasoning on conformist "respectin' mah authoritae" - you've got a tribal mentality that defers to hierarchy and can't quite grasp that fundamental goal of Freedom which motivates RMS. You've got just enough of it to feel that it threatens part of that hierarchy so you disparage RMS and his contributions by criticisizing him for being non-conformist - which is kind of like criticisizing Ford for building autos instead of carriages or Luther for writing his 95 theses instead of following Church protocols.
You may say "Well, if they care about that, then they're nobody I want to work for anyway", but the fact remains that you still didn't get the job because of your appearance, and your statement would amount to sour grapes.
All this presumes that one needs the job. In this case it is the reverse - whether he knows it or not, the PM is the one who needs to hear from RMS.
I would be willing to bet most of those people chose his CAUSE and had no idea who the man at the helm was.
Even if true, whose fault is that? RMS should stop being true to himself because some other people screwed up?
No, I am saying that if RMS wants to win by the game, they need to learn how to play. You don't win at Monopoly by pissing on the other players, and you don't get legislation passed by looking like a hooligan trying to interrupt the PM.
I don't think he does want to "win by the game" - refer to previous posts where I pointed out that RMS would not be where he is today if he had been trying to, "win by the game." They don't hand out McArthur "genius grants" to people who are conventional and mainstream.
In either case, dressing in one's everyday attire is one hell of a far cry from being as disrespectful as either pissing on someone or acting like a hooligan. Aren't you the one who said, "dressing up isn't a sign of respect for the person you're visiting," anyway?
The president of India is a completely different situation. But if an American, a Brit, and an Indian tried to interrupt the President with a petition with 500,000 signatures requesting and end to out sourcing of western jobs, he probably wouldn't stop either.
You do realize that your example is backwards? Unless you are talking about the President of the US. Unlike India deriving all kinds of benefits from outsourcing, starting with an increased tax base, more local working capital, etc -- for France, the only benefit to adopting draconian DRM is in keeping on the good side of the US state department. Unless, that is, France plans on making their own locally produced entertainment DRM-free and thus letting hollywood cripple themselves in their local market. I doubt that's the case, its far too insightful for a politician to have worked out on his own.
I call those one-way adaptations that primarily either make Windows software work on Linux, or Windows connect to a Linux server.
You might want to read up on cygwin before making such pronouncements.
For starters, he is representing 165,000 people, so in addition to himself, he needs to be true to those 165,000 people.
He is representing them as himself. He didn't come along after the fact - those people chose him and his cause as he was, not as someone else.
They have to sell the idea to the PM. And in this position, your previous point is partially true, if the PM doesn't think you look respectable, he won't respect you. You could have the greatest issue ever, with the whole country supporting you, but if you send someone who looks like a pressure washed street bum in to talk to the PM, your spokes person won't likely get a word in.
With the whole country behind him, it wouldn't matter what he looks like. The PM would be calling RMS for an appointment to lick his boots.
So RMS doesn't have quite so many people as that, but as long as the PM is going to evaluate ideas by a person's manner of dress, it is the PM who stands to lose. He can either get on the train or ignore it and get run over by it.
The PM of France probably gets thousands of requests similar to the ones that RMS sent in. Some undersecretary flips through them and determines who gets in. Will that person schedule some of the PM's limited time to 3 guys with a petition which would likely have little gain for the country, or schedule some time with the leader of an international software firm that employees thousands and provides software and services to a huge portion of the economy? It's a no brain-er.
Yes, definitely a no-brainer to ignore your constituents. Although I sincerely doubt that the PM gets 'thousands' of requests from people with at least 165,000 names on their petitions - I do have to say that you are right, that's the way modern business, er, politics, is done, francs before brains.
They should hire a lobbyist to at least teach them the etiquette of the position so they can use the system to their advantage in stead of parading about like a bunch of college kids on a crusade
Basically, you are saying that RMS needs to "respect mah authoritae!" - but if he were the type to be so obeisant in the first place, he would never be where he is today. The president of India seemed to have no such qualms about meeting with RMS. The French PM blows him and his ideas off at his own peril.
Hardly. Dressing up isn't a sign of respect for the person you're visiting, it's a sign of respect of your self, and for the people you represent.
Considering that he has rarely, if ever, dressed that way in the past - changing his ways now would hardly be a sign of respect for himself or for the people he is representing.
Being true to yourself is the only source of respect here, conformity to someone else's standards, particularly a set of standards that are themselves an embodiment of artificial conformity, is hardly an admirable behaviour.
Its all your fault. If you had just kept your nose where it belongs, this would have never happened.
I mean, you're going to meet the Prime Minister, don't you think a tie is in order? Or at least a step up from khakis and a polo shirt?
Why? Because the guy deserves to be treated like someone special? He's better than these guys so they need to, "dress to impress?"
Hardly. The prime minister works for the people, not the other way around.
It is people like you who actually believe that toadying up to politicians, "showimg respect for the office," etc, etc is important, letting them forget who they work for and ultimately results in the kind of blow-off, you can't even get a response to your request for an appointment, behaviour that Stallman was faced with.
With the most strictist of definitions you are correct. However, modern usage is more flexible. For example - Standard Oil had "only" 64% of the market, yet they were considered a monopoly because all of the other competitors held, at most, single digits of market share.
Wouldn't it be more arty to keep the women clothed and the men naked?
Uh, no. Art is entertainment. Whether the entertainment is base or thought-provoking doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme. People - men and even straight women - like to see decent looking women naked. The demand for decent looking naked men is much smaller. The straight women like seeing other women because they can at least do the comparison thing if nothing else, the men like it for obvious reasons. Naked men? No straight guy cares how good looking the guy is, they aren't interested, period.
Any chick good looking enough to have people asking her to get naked implicitly knows this. That's why the girls are always naked and the men hardly ever are.
DDR2-800 is not generally available to the retail world.
http://www.pricewatch.com/memory/845489-1.htm
If Intel really wanted a benchmark they should ask AMD for engineering samples of next year's cores and they could pit them together.
ring...ring...ring...
AMD: Hello?
Intel: Hello, AMD?
AMD: Yes?
Intel: Intel here. We've had to cut back on our industrial espionage budget this year, seems we've had an unexpected revenue shortfall and can't afford that group any more
AMD: Have you considered outsourcing it to India?
Intel: Well, no, not really. We were hoping you could just send us some samples of your lab prototypes.
AMD: Sure, sure, say no more. We'll send those over right away via courier. You'll have them on your desk first thing in the morning.
Somehow, I just don't see that happening...
This is why it really pays to have your own severance package set aside in a savings account.
That's not the only reason. Having 6-12 months of expenses in the bank is power. Power to say no. No to I won't train someone so you can lay me off with disrupting your business - but also - No, your salary offer is not high enough - when a new employer makes you an offer.
Ultimately, the power to say no is your only leverage in the game of life. If you are living hand-to-mouth, then you pretty much have to bend over and take it whenever the guy with the money feels like making you squirm.
Although she didn't quite mean it this way, Janis Joplin got it right when she sang, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." She also sang, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a mercedes benz, all my friends drive porsches and I must make amends," but that's a whole different topic.
Most dvd players just use a set of standard chips, and the standard chips keep incorporating more and more functionality. So you get stuff like DVD-A (and mp3, and sometimes even divx, etc) for "free." Even some of the el-cheapo players have it too, just depends on what chipset they use.
(it's a fact that none of the legislators take them seriously any more),
You got anything citeable to back up that claim?
OTOH, hardly anyone buys DVDA. I don't even know anyone with a player for it.
Most DVD players above the "el-cheapo wal-mart" grade sold over the last 4-5 years include support for DVD-A - except for Sony because they have their own format, SACD. So chances are you do know plenty of people with DVD-A players, you may even be one yourself. Just nobody cares because, as you mention, nobody actually buys DVD-A discs.
Absolutely.
The problem is a mismatch of resources.
As long as we have professional politicians, we are going to have this problem. Like all organizations, the #1 priority of government is to increase its size/power/influence. Meanwhile, most of the rest of us have real jobs and lives to worry about.
So you end up with politicians who have a full-time job of growing the government's power versus a bunch of people who are at best amatuers in fighting those power-grabs.
People like Gilmore have enough resources that they can be anti-politicians - they don't need to worry about their day job, supporting their families, etc. They can make fighting those power-grabs their day job.
We definitely need more anti-politicians like that. Unfortunately, the same process that creates people like Gilmore tends to create people who decide that increased government power is in their own interest too. The ones who fight the system instead of joining the system are few and far between.
Why should a white family be harassed when the people on the watch lists are usually non-white? It has nothing to do with being racist, but it has everything to do with being efficient.
Efficent, or lazy?
If the screeners don't pay attention to white people, how long do you think it will take before the bad guys figure out a way to look white?
You think it can't be done? I say bullshit. $2000 and 3 years and I can turn almost any middle-eastern or pakistani into a blonde, blue-eyed, lilly-white Biff McWhitey.
The drug to permanently bleach the skin is readily available - topical monobenzone aka "benoquin." 3 years of treatments with benoquin is enough to fully bleach out anyone. If you only need to do visible parts of the body like face/neck and hands, it's only about 9 months.
Bleach the hair blonde.
Blue contacts for the eyes.
That's how easy it is to exploit your so-called "efficiency."
Do it to a guy with a small frame with asian genes and he could easily pass as a woman too.
Feel safe now?
Now the ISP's infrastructure is private, and there seems to be a competition among ISPs
What is your definition of an ISP? My definition is a company that provides internet connectivity to residential customers - like Verizon and Comcast.
These companies like to claim that all their "investments" in infrastructure are private - but that is a load of bullshit. They all rely on government granted right of way to string their wires around, thus they are all public utilities. In many cases they also rely on public subsidies of one form or another - tax breaks, etc. They are also almost always monopoly or duopoloy markets. All are reasons for regulation because either way, they are not free markets to begin with.