Windows XP (no SP) or XP-SP1 machines to be turned off. These are the ones that after being (easily) infected by botnets, spread spam and perform DDOS attacks.
Given that, what does "Separation of church and state" really mean, anyway?
It means that there should be no official religion for a country - since a religion is chosen by the people (or by their parents), and can't be enforced. Clergy should not occupy state offices (i.e. governor, senator, etc). Religion should be excempt from taxes.
I live in Mexico, and we have this distinction very clear. There's also been an "anticatholicism" idea in the government, because for more than 70 years (until 2000), it was the freemasons who were presidents and ruled the country. So more than a separation between Church and State, we have a Church persecuted by the State. The most agressive attack against the Catholic Church was when Plutarco Elias Calles became president and declared religion illegal in 1926, and temples were destroyed or taken by the state to become public libraries. This led to the famous "cristero war". Not surprisingly, all references of the cristero war taught in official history books portrayed the movement as some kind of anarchy - and the people who fought this war in favor of the Church, were portrayed as "savage indians" controlled by the catholic hierarchy. The official books did not mention how many innocent people were slaughtered, and how many priests and religious people were persecuted.
Since then, religion is forbidden to do public acts of worship outside churches (except when permitted explicitly by the State), and priests are forbidden from wearing religious outfits in the street. Even Pope John Paul II could not use his tiara when he visited Mexico for the first time in 1979.
All this changed when president Carlos Salinas (independently from the corruption of his regime followed by an economic crisis) modified the freedom of religion laws.
As you can see, religion is a touchy subject, and so is politics. But it becomes much worse when these two are mixed together. For example, the traditionally opposing party in Mexico (PAN), which was founded by compromised catholics, is labelled as "the right-wing" by the freemasonry-founded party (PRI), and they use that name, "the right-wing" to portray PAN as some kind of religious fundamentalists who are intolerant of anything. Insert rumours of secret catholic societies, murders of famous members of the clergy, and it all becomes more and more blurry.
Oh c'mon, I can't believe it. This is the communist, big-brother like China which keeps a very strict control over its citizens. Or is it???
I think that somewhere, somehow we lost a bit of touch about China's reality. Perhaps the government isn't as powerful as we thought...
If I was the chinese govt, I would issue ID cards with photograph and fingerprint to all people over 12, and then over 18, and use that to verify that the teenagers can't REALLY access internet cafes.
joke aside, I *DID* have nightmares after playing Silent Hill 1. Curiously, they were not about the monsters but about the possibility of the monsters being real people that only looked like monsters in your head (This was after I ended up killing sybil - it really shocked me). Total mindf***er, if you ask me.
It's fear of the KNOWN dangers. Because you KNOW that whenever you enter that basement, an ugly bloody looking thing is going to follow you making screeching noises.
So you step in, and suddenly your radio begins generating static. You ran out of health drinks, and then you hear the screeching noises. You turn to the left, and it's a dead end. On the other side of the fence there's these arachnid creatures, and you only got your gun. Shoot the wrong target, and you'll get slain. Ah, isn't that beautiful... more dogs cut in half and they just started howling.
But wait, the horror's not finished. The horror only starts when you turn off the game and go to sleep, and notice how your clothes mysteriously resemble a beheaded bloody mannequin, and the noises out the street remind you of the radio static ringing. You try to sleep, read a book, and slowly you get tired.
But wait, the horror's not finished. Because you start dreaming about the game you were just playing a few hours ago...
You wake up and try to sleep again and have a heck of a stomach ache.
But wait, the horror's not finished. You remember that your mother asked you to show her your school grades, and you get them today.
(begin nightmare) *Grabs rifle* Rifle: "Hello, there! Looks like you want to go hunting!"
:'(
Now *THIS* is a good application for biometrics
on
Encrypted Ammunition?
·
· Score: 1
The gun only responds to its owner. This is a great sci-fi element I had thought about. Of course, the only problem is, criminals can always hack the guns, but who cares? They always have guns anyway.
But little children aren't criminals, and they won't be able to activate the gun by accident. Here i find a good balance between protecting your family from burglars and protecting your family from themselves.
If Microsoft is fined, their stock value will lower. And maybe it will continue to lower the more time they delay it. Eventually, they will have to finally release the documentation and competing products will arise.
(Note: I'm not saying Mexico is better or worse than the U.S. or Canada in terms of political corruption.)
Of course it's not. There are different flaws in both electoral systems, and they need different solutions. While in the US you need to go back to the popular vote, in here we need a 2nd pass election, so independent candidates and other parties can enjoy a greater quantity of votes, and at the same time, people can unite and vote against the "bad guy" if there is one.
When Div-X came out, I felt like the companies had to update to use the format ASAP. It allowed more content, and more definition at the same time. Five years later, we're still stuck to MPEG-2 DVD's. Guess Who's at fault?
Why should we be treating this as a criminal act when it's clearly a civil issue?
Because when laws change, copyright infringement will become a criminal act.
And speaking about lobbying, let me tell you about elections in my country.
Here in Mexico, money for political campaigns is provided by taxes. It is scandalous because too much money is given to the parties - but in a way it's still healthier than lobbying. Because with lobbying, it's corporate interests which determine who gets advertised (and therefore, elected).
A much better idea (IMHO) for an electoral process is to spend equal amount of money in propaganda for all parties involved, to promote their platforms and ideas. Then do obligatory (for the parties) debates and let the public decide.
As computers in China and other asian countries are infested with botnet software, DNS servers and ISPs in general still don't block IP-spoofed packets.
This makes the US a perfect target for a massive DDOS attack. And don't get me started on pirated windows machines in the US, with no patches applied .
Not only that, the "democracy" way of moderation in digg is vulnerable to astroturfing. I posted it on my journal.
HOWEVER, I agree that the story submission system on digg is nice - it avoids much bureaucracy that currently exists on/. . It's not unusual for slashdot to publish stories that were posted on digg 2 days earlier. Perhaps there could be a way to make high karma users to accept or reject (or even vote on) pending stories?
Regarding scientology, what we're seeing on digg is some kind of "gossip" phenomenon - with echoes. Digg could be used as a measure of what the geeks are thinking about today. It's like some kind of social laboratory with nerds as rats and stories as the maze.
I wouldn't say digg is going to replace slashdot. But it's a very nice complement. As someone said in digg, "I read digg for the stories, and slashdot for the comments". This could be an indicator of what is good on slashdot and what needs to be improved.
Apart from that, digg is becoming not exactly a technology website but a nerd website. The stories on scientology and global warming are representative of it.
The real problem with digg competing vs. slashdot is that, as i said before, real technology stories typically posted on slashdot are posted much faster on digg. I used to read slashdot on a daily basis to find out "what's new" on the tech world. Today i read digg for that (and not the published, but the pending stories).
In conclusion, I'd say digg is much broader than slashdot, and appeals to a less specialized public. Perhaps changing the submission method for slashdot would help us regain some popularity.
Slashdot Mirror
That's like selling me a car and telling me that if I refuse to put a spoiler on the back that I won't be allowed to drive it.
:)
Well, that's what EULA's are for. Surprise!
Windows XP (no SP) or XP-SP1 machines to be turned off. These are the ones that after being (easily) infected by botnets, spread spam and perform DDOS attacks.
And the "most obvious shameless plug" award goes to...
Given that, what does "Separation of church and state" really mean, anyway?
It means that there should be no official religion for a country - since a religion is chosen by the people (or by their parents), and can't be enforced. Clergy should not occupy state offices (i.e. governor, senator, etc). Religion should be excempt from taxes.
I live in Mexico, and we have this distinction very clear. There's also been an "anticatholicism" idea in the government, because for more than 70 years (until 2000), it was the freemasons who were presidents and ruled the country. So more than a separation between Church and State, we have a Church persecuted by the State. The most agressive attack against the Catholic Church was when Plutarco Elias Calles became president and declared religion illegal in 1926, and temples were destroyed or taken by the state to become public libraries. This led to the famous "cristero war". Not surprisingly, all references of the cristero war taught in official history books portrayed the movement as some kind of anarchy - and the people who fought this war in favor of the Church, were portrayed as "savage indians" controlled by the catholic hierarchy. The official books did not mention how many innocent people were slaughtered, and how many priests and religious people were persecuted.
Since then, religion is forbidden to do public acts of worship outside churches (except when permitted explicitly by the State), and priests are forbidden from wearing religious outfits in the street. Even Pope John Paul II could not use his tiara when he visited Mexico for the first time in 1979.
All this changed when president Carlos Salinas (independently from the corruption of his regime followed by an economic crisis) modified the freedom of religion laws.
As you can see, religion is a touchy subject, and so is politics. But it becomes much worse when these two are mixed together. For example, the traditionally opposing party in Mexico (PAN), which was founded by compromised catholics, is labelled as "the right-wing" by the freemasonry-founded party (PRI), and they use that name, "the right-wing" to portray PAN as some kind of religious fundamentalists who are intolerant of anything. Insert rumours of secret catholic societies, murders of famous members of the clergy, and it all becomes more and more blurry.
They turned off their automatic lawsuit generator.
Oh c'mon, I can't believe it. This is the communist, big-brother like China which keeps a very strict control over its citizens. Or is it???
I think that somewhere, somehow we lost a bit of touch about China's reality. Perhaps the government isn't as powerful as we thought...
If I was the chinese govt, I would issue ID cards with photograph and fingerprint to all people over 12, and then over 18, and use that to verify that the teenagers can't REALLY access internet cafes.
Oh well.
start your encryptors.
Change the headline a little
:)
"Big Brother eyes make the U.S. govt act more honestly"
joke aside, I *DID* have nightmares after playing Silent Hill 1. Curiously, they were not about the monsters but about the possibility of the monsters being real people that only looked like monsters in your head (This was after I ended up killing sybil - it really shocked me). Total mindf***er, if you ask me.
Cool, it works! :D
Don't you mean...
Firewall 1,306,313,812; Haxors 1 ?
It's fear of the KNOWN dangers. Because you KNOW that whenever you enter that basement, an ugly bloody looking thing is going to follow you making screeching noises.
So you step in, and suddenly your radio begins generating static. You ran out of health drinks, and then you hear the screeching noises. You turn to the left, and it's a dead end. On the other side of the fence there's these arachnid creatures, and you only got your gun. Shoot the wrong target, and you'll get slain. Ah, isn't that beautiful... more dogs cut in half and they just started howling.
But wait, the horror's not finished. The horror only starts when you turn off the game and go to sleep, and notice how your clothes mysteriously resemble a beheaded bloody mannequin, and the noises out the street remind you of the radio static ringing. You try to sleep, read a book, and slowly you get tired.
But wait, the horror's not finished. Because you start dreaming about the game you were just playing a few hours ago...
You wake up and try to sleep again and have a heck of a stomach ache.
But wait, the horror's not finished. You remember that your mother asked you to show her your school grades, and you get them today.
now you got this nightmare into my head!
:'(
(begin nightmare)
*Grabs rifle*
Rifle: "Hello, there! Looks like you want to go hunting!"
The gun only responds to its owner. This is a great sci-fi element I had thought about. Of course, the only problem is, criminals can always hack the guns, but who cares? They always have guns anyway.
But little children aren't criminals, and they won't be able to activate the gun by accident. Here i find a good balance between protecting your family from burglars and protecting your family from themselves.
If Microsoft is fined, their stock value will lower. And maybe it will continue to lower the more time they delay it. Eventually, they will have to finally release the documentation and competing products will arise.
Microsoft was just delaying the inevitable.
It's Microsoft - what did you expect? They won't pay until they have no legal choice.
Is it really worth the money?
Is Open Source worth the investment in thousands of hours of programming?
It's the same question, but different currency.
(Note: I'm not saying Mexico is better or worse than the U.S. or Canada in terms of political corruption.)
Of course it's not. There are different flaws in both electoral systems, and they need different solutions. While in the US you need to go back to the popular vote, in here we need a 2nd pass election, so independent candidates and other parties can enjoy a greater quantity of votes, and at the same time, people can unite and vote against the "bad guy" if there is one.
The simulated buzzer sound thingy in writing trumps all logic and automatically wins any dispute.
Bzzzt. Wrong! Oh, wait...
Digg: "Mods on crack" to the Nth power :P
When Div-X came out, I felt like the companies had to update to use the format ASAP. It allowed more content, and more definition at the same time. Five years later, we're still stuck to MPEG-2 DVD's. Guess Who's at fault?
Why should we be treating this as a criminal act when it's clearly a civil issue?
Because when laws change, copyright infringement will become a criminal act.
And speaking about lobbying, let me tell you about elections in my country.
Here in Mexico, money for political campaigns is provided by taxes. It is scandalous because too much money is given to the parties - but in a way it's still healthier than lobbying. Because with lobbying, it's corporate interests which determine who gets advertised (and therefore, elected).
A much better idea (IMHO) for an electoral process is to spend equal amount of money in propaganda for all parties involved, to promote their platforms and ideas. Then do obligatory (for the parties) debates and let the public decide.
they're using the taxpayers' money to provide the *AA money so they can lobby for parties following their lines?
O.o This is sick, man! It's way more serious than the *AA. It's more like electoral fraud.
As computers in China and other asian countries are infested with botnet software, DNS servers and ISPs in general still don't block IP-spoofed packets.
This makes the US a perfect target for a massive DDOS attack. And don't get me started on pirated windows machines in the US, with no patches applied .
Not only that, the "democracy" way of moderation in digg is vulnerable to astroturfing. I posted it on my journal.
/. . It's not unusual for slashdot to publish stories that were posted on digg 2 days earlier. Perhaps there could be a way to make high karma users to accept or reject (or even vote on) pending stories?
HOWEVER, I agree that the story submission system on digg is nice - it avoids much bureaucracy that currently exists on
Regarding scientology, what we're seeing on digg is some kind of "gossip" phenomenon - with echoes. Digg could be used as a measure of what the geeks are thinking about today. It's like some kind of social laboratory with nerds as rats and stories as the maze.
I wouldn't say digg is going to replace slashdot. But it's a very nice complement. As someone said in digg, "I read digg for the stories, and slashdot for the comments". This could be an indicator of what is good on slashdot and what needs to be improved.
Apart from that, digg is becoming not exactly a technology website but a nerd website. The stories on scientology and global warming are representative of it.
The real problem with digg competing vs. slashdot is that, as i said before, real technology stories typically posted on slashdot are posted much faster on digg. I used to read slashdot on a daily basis to find out "what's new" on the tech world. Today i read digg for that (and not the published, but the pending stories).
In conclusion, I'd say digg is much broader than slashdot, and appeals to a less specialized public. Perhaps changing the submission method for slashdot would help us regain some popularity.