The anti-American, who started this thread, was particularly joyful about the fact, that the bomb will only kill Americans.
Uh, the first post in this thread was by Dolson, who just pointed out that US citizens would have a hard time blending in in Asia anyway, even without RFID passports.
If you mean the AC follow-up that said:
Americans aren't the only caucasians out there. RFID nicely allows somebody to identify the hated Americans from the nice Canadians (and most Europeans).
I took that to mean from the terrorists' point of view Americans were hated and Canadians/Europeans were "nice" (or at least, nicer).
Either way, it doesn't seem particularly "joyful", so try strapping down that jerking knee. And if it was meant as baldly as you suspect it would have to be an obvious troll. Please don't feed the trolls...
If it is set in a crowded place, or, indeed, is triggered to go off by a detector independent of who is near it at the moment, then it sets the terrorists back to what they already have -- an indiscriminate mass-killing device.
Sigh. You mean you don't see the difference between a bomb which goes off randomly and kills tens of people and a bomb which is set off by the presence of an American and kills tens of people?
It doesn't have to be a surgical strike picking US citizens out from a crowd - all you need to damage your international reputation is the perception that US citizens are walking detonators and you won't be welcome anywhere.
Do you honestly not see the difference in public perception between a bomb set off randomly and bombs which target american citizens, whose very presence in a "liberated" country causes (or at least contributes to) an atrocity?
America has not placed that bomb... It happens almost daily in Baghdad today -- people die in explosions intended to kill Americans...
And that, right there, is why you're losing Iraq, you've lost the "hearts and minds" of Iraq and Afghanistan and your international reputation is going down the tubes.
Picture the scene - there's a busy market street in Iraq, India, wherever. People are shopping, kids are laughing and chasing one another through the streets. A US drone appears over the square and begins broadcasting[1]. Within seconds a bomb goes off, killing tens of native people and injuring hundreds more. The drone flies off.
The bomb could have sat there for days or even weeks, and no-one was harmed. The US army pro-actively sets it off, directly causing harm to tens or hundreds of local people, all in case a US citizen ever happened to walk past it.
Sure, someone else planted the bomb, but the US set it off, directly causing an atrocity that might otherwise never have happened.
How many "hearts and minds" do you think that'll win you, exactly? Not counting the ones raining down on horrified locals after the explosion?
And to a lesser extent this applies even to bombs set off by detected US passports. Sure, the fact of US forces being in a country means terrorists plant bombs - it's a fairly disconnected sequence of events, but you still get people protesting that the "US go home" because of it.
Now imagine that a US citizens walks down a busy street and immediately a bomb goes off - it should also later be relatively easy to determine from fragments that the bomb was RFID-triggered, and that's two, much stronger connections between the two events. People could argue that the US citizen's presence not only contributed to, but directly caused the atrocity - after all, regardless of the bomb there if the citizen hadn't triggered it it would never have gone off.
Lovely. Wonderful. Nevertheless, the mere act of opening my passport now identifies me and my nationality to anyone in the vicinity who's interested, potentially making me a target for anything from pickpocketing to terrorist bombing.
All because it's vital the USA and UK have to have an RFID chip in our passports... because... y'know... erm... well, anyway.
Passports are a mechanism for me to identify myself, not for any random mugger/secret policeman/terrorist to cherry-pick me out of a crowd. Or do you habitually carry your passport in one hand, waving it over your head and loudly proclaiming "Look at me, I'm an American citizen!"?
Seriously though, I hope by now you have seen that there is a sheild in the cover that prevents this type of skimming.
There may be, yes, and that would be a good start. However, it still means that the simple act of opening your passport for any reason immediately announces to anyone nearby that you're a US citizen, in case they might be interested.
Frankly, the day when the act of opening my passport in my bag potentially identifies me and/or my nationality to anyone within up to tens of metres is the day I staple the blooody thing shut, and I'm not even a US citizen (with all the attendant antipathy that carries with it across the world).
An American aircraft (a pilotless drone) could hover above with sensitive electronics listening for these inquiry signal made by the bombs.
Just to be clear I've got this right, your "kills it flat" solution to RFID-triggered bombs is to task a multimillion dollar drone to hover over (or even just patrol) every busy American-frequented area in every nation on earth which could conceivably hve a terrorist problem?
Genius.
Frankly, even if you restrict the application to just Iraq/Afghanistan/wherever we're currently fighting (and, y'know, fuck all the US tourists elsewhere in the world), all the reader has to do is randomly query every x minutes, and the drone will likely never find it.
The typical RFID chip is not very sensitive, so the signal of the inquiring device (in a card-reader or a bomb alike) would have to be fairly strong.
Who says? First off, by changing the strength of the query broadcast you can change the RFID-detection radius, and so also the radius within which the IED could be detected. Stick a bomb in a barrel or bag in a busy shopping street and someone could well brush past the damn thing to set it off - what chance does a drone hundreds or thousands of feet up in the air have of detecting that?
The aircraft's sensors will pick it up and respond quickly -- enough times for it to explode, even it is smart enough to not do it on the first time.
Genius. Again, even if your zero-cost drones manage to somehow magically detect the infrequently-querying bomb, your best solution to terrorists setting up hidden bombs in highly-populated areas is to automatically explode them?
Way to do the terrorists' job for them. You'll really win the hearts and minds of the liberated Iraqis/Afghanis/whoever with that kind of consideration.
Yeah, because American Soldiers always carry their US Passports with them on patrol in Iraq.
Sorry, who mentioned soldiers? I just said "Americans" - you know, tourists, contractors, ex-pats, you name it. Where did "soldiers" come from?
I'm fairly certain it'd take one, and only one, RFID-based IED to go off before all soldiers were told to stop carrying whatever RFID item was triggering the bomb.
Indeed, and I would hope so too (in fact I'd hope it took no RFID IEDs to go off)... but again I wasn't talking about soldiers. And if you generalise this to "all americans" (which I was talking about):
Try to stop tourists carrying their passports around, especially in the type of middle eastern/asian foreign country where they don't feel safe leaving them in their hotel rooms.
What's the point of a passport that you can't carry around safely? In fact, what's the point of a passport that makes you a target?
It's only passive until you bring it within range of a receiver.
That's secure in the same way as an object that's only invisible until you look at it, or a door that's only locked until you try the handle.
Passive RFID chips are likely harder to detect at range than active ones (for obvious reasons), but no-one's answered the question yet: Why do we need ranged querying at all?
Much, much safer would be a normal smart-card chip (like the one in your credit card) that requires physical contact to read anything. Frankly, once somone's got their hands on your passport it doesn't matter if it's a smart-card or normal paper one - they can easily find out things about you from it (or just nick it) at that point.
Allowing ranged querying seems to offer no really compelling benefits, and opens up a whole can of worms on issues like personal security, remotely tracking/identifying people without their knowledge, you name it.
The only way to make any compter system perfectly hack-proof is to disconnect it from any external network, switch it off, lock it in a very secure room and then destroy the only key. And even then it's susceptible to lock-pickers and social engineering.
And you're right - if they can be hacked they will be. And then what're the government going to do - upgrade the security and re-issue every citizen's passport all at once? Pffft...
And while I hate to be a bring-down, how long until we start seeing discrete RFID readers attached to personnel-sized IEDs in Iraq/Afghanistan/wherever the US invades/liberates next?
You can have a thousand native citizens walk down a busy street, and the bomb doesn't go off until an American (or possibly, even a native with US embassy employee-ID) walks right past it.
I know it's an essential part of the whole "keep 'em fat, stupid, scared and easily-trackable" agenda the US/UK governments have going, but I find it hard to believe the USA (especially!) is actually making it easier to identify its tourists and overseas personnel.
These pseudoPolitical figures are the allowed proxy for the overclass/elite. The true overclass is really more embodied in the false history that is pumped into our heads.
Ohhh right - conspiracy nut. Sorry, I understand now.
If you try to advance non-establishment interpretations of historical figures or institutions or events, then wikipedia will shut you down.
Well clearly. And it's totally because your heresy is simply too dangerous and true to be promulgated, and not at all because Wikipedia's striving to be a factual source reflecting consensus reality... and not just the collected ramblings of demented conspiracy weirdos.
Criticism of majoritarian institutions is confined to certain bounds on internet sites that are well known.
Oh yes, everyone on the net's already signed up to the Evil Ruling Overclass Acceptable Limits of Criticism Agreement, wherein we agree to all stick to certain interpretations of events, and only debate and disagree within sharply delineated (and officially sanctioned) limits.
Didn't you get the memo?
Personally I signed it because they threatened my pet gerbil. My neighbour Bob doesn't have a gerbil so they had to offer him $50 instead. Stupid gerbil.
Of course, otherwise the main stream media will not publicize such sites.
If you want to protray it like that then yes, the MSM does only tend to publicise sites that conform to the majority worldview - it's part of that whole "trying to be generally objective/popularly entertaining/sane" thing.
Here's a clue: Start a website detailing your favourite "interpretation" of history. Publicise it on nice, neutral, content-sanity-agnostic Google. Attract visitors, and the site will get bigger.
If a significant proportion of people whare (or are convinced by) your worldview, then the site will become popular and will garner MSM attention - probably more-so because of its controversial nature.
If, on the other hand, your site is badly put-together and doesn't attract visitors, then maybe... just maybe it's because it's the unpersuasive demented ravings of a nutter.
Just because yourviews are important and interesting to you, that doesn't necessarily make them important or interesting to the rest of the world. If that's the case then I'm sorry, but we live in a free world - the MSM is shooting for the largest audience they can get, so no, they won't bother covering interpretations or opinions only shared by a tiny minority of the "differently-sane".
If the MSM does not mention your site, you cannot sell it or use it to obtain lucrative speaking or consulting fees via a high MSM profile.
And yet, somehow David Icke has a moderate-high media profile, despite the fact he spends half his time whittering on about the shape-shifting blood-drinking reptilian lizard overlords (overclass?) who secretly rule the world.
Go figure.
I have had ALL my edits reversed, despite have each one referenced by a published book. Even current PHOTOS have been removed because such were used to support anti-overclass sentiment.
I'd like to take you on a hypothetical journey.
Imagine you help run or edit a large, extremely popular website. This website is dedicated to collecting and making available factual information. Since it's impossible to ever prove for certain that something is completely factual, as humans we have to go on "what may be demonstrated to us personally" and "what is believed as fact by the overwhelming majority of the rest of humanity".
Onto this website comes someone who edits a number of articles. They post their own personal interpretations of events, which are often at odds with the beliefs of the rest of humanity
Sorry - did I miss something... did Wikipedia publish a hatchet-job indictment of AP?
No, wait, it was yet another example of Old Media going after New Media.
And proving in the process that while New Media may have its flaws, they aren't anything that Old Media doesn't also often suffer from. And that one of the true major differences between the two is that New Media tends to be more visible, transparent and honest about them when they occur.
As you've eluded to it's not a level playing field, MS already owns the market. I happen to believe that OS X is better than the current versions of Windows, in general. So OS X could compete with Windows, but Window's intertia alone would ultimately beat OS X.
That's more or less exactly my opinion. I haven't used OSX enough to state it as fact, but certainly the majority I've heard (and everything I've seen) leads me to believe it's far superior to Windows, particularly in the "it just works" arena.
On the hardware front, again I agree, it's commodity. I think Apple realized this too, hence the change to Intel. Why continue with the whole "our hardware is better" campaign when it's both debatable and people simply don't care? So instead of trying to beat em, they join em. Apple has effectively removed the debate over hardware. Not only did they remove the debate, they also added value and security by saying... The hardware is the same but our comptuers are the only computers that can run Mac OS X or Windows.
Indeed. It was a risky busines move breaking backwards-compatibility, but it certainly strengthens Apple as a brand - you couldn't wish for a better "anything you can do I can do better" taunt for Microsoft/Dell.
We'll see how much value that actually creates, but it can only be a postive thing for Apple. Beyong that though, Apple's hardware, OS, and bundled software create a unified/compelling offering. The Dells attempt to compete but their offerings are generally a hodgepodge of me-too's.
Indeed. That tight integration between hard- and software is what keeps Apple a viable choice - it influences wavering users who appreciate the "it just works" appeal or Apples, and prevents budget-conscious users from nickle-and-dimeing them to bankruptcy by picking and choosing what they want - either you buy the whole (profitable) package, or none of it.
Now it's Apple's package VS Dell's. You can get a Dell or equivilent from anybody, but you can only get a Mac from Apple. That by itself creates bit of elitism, which is a value to some. (not for me, but it's there nontheless)
It's a good point. They lose the geek-elitism of the PPC architecture, but retain the popular elitism of the stylish boutique shops and funky adverts.
I suppose another way to look at it, a great many people have lost faith/trust with American car companies (I'm in that camp.) Same goes for MS and the Dells.
MS is indeed less dynamic than it was, and this can only be a good thing. However, I'm still sketchy as to how long it would take to die off, or whether it would at all.
When you've got literally billions in the bank it takes a long time for the lack of growth to seriously affect you. Look at IBM - they were the Microsoft of their day, and even now (what, fifteen, twenty years after they dominated the PC market?) they're still around, albeit in a quieter, less-visible more "services" role. I see the same thing happening to MS, eventually - they're just too big to roll over and die like SCO (for example).
As a side note, I really like Linux and all it offers. Though it always starts a flame war I don't believe it is or will ever be major desktop player. Though if it were, I wouldn't mind one bit.
I've only just started experimenting with Linux on the desktop myself - I've been very impressed with the Kubuntu live CD a friend gave me, but I agree it's going to take a lot of consolidation and massively improved consistency before it's ready for Joe Sixpack and his family.
Sorry - I should have been clearer - with that point I was only responding to the original author's blithe waving away of the whole driver/legacy hardware problem.
TBH, I think the biggest problem with releasing OSX-for-PC would be the loss of control of the hardware spec. Apples then stop being all-in-one package deals, with each section having to compete on its own merits.
Now, I'm not suggesting for a minute that PC/Windows is "better" than Mac/OSX, but the PC harware is cheaper (which, given computer hardware is a commodity these days is all the majority of consumers care about), and OSX won't compete with Windows while Windows owns 90%+ of the desktop market (and has more drivers/third party hardware currently available).
Basically, in the current market conditions if Apple unlinks the hardware and software, both would sink - it's only by keeping them together they have a chance to stave off Dell and Microsoft (respectively).
Now it's a commodity, the most important thing about computer hardware for most "normal" users is that it's cheap. Apple hardware just isn't cheap, so it loses.
For software, the most important thing is that it's compatible with whatever the default/most popular/market leader software is. Windows has the desktop/end-user market sewn up, so OSX loses there, too.
I will give you a personal reason, if not for believing in god I would be a violent criminal.
I don't see anything wrong with raping someone, or stealing from them - after all they are just a bunch of meat, with no real existance - they sure think that they are real, but what do I care? They are just a bunch of nerves blinking, no different then a computer. So what if I hurt them, they'll die eventually, and then it's gone, so who cares.
So what you're saying is, you have no functioning sense of empathy - you're a functional sociopath who requires a giant daddy-beard in the sky and the constant threat of a smacked hand to prevent you doing exactly what you want.
Non-religious people (hell, also most religious people I know) don't need this - we have a functioning superego which means we don't need the threat of punishment to not indulge our every whim.
Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but (in no particular order) the following things prevent me from killing anyone who annoys me even slightly:
Empathy (1). I can imagine how I would subjectively feel if someone killed me, and I wouldn't wish it one anyone else.
Empathy (2). I can imagine how relatives and friends of the victim would feel, and have no desire to inflict suffering on people who are innocent of any crime.
Proportionate response. Very few people have ever done anything to me that would warrant murder as a justified, proportionate response. What's the point in putting in the effort to kill someone if it's not required?
Unretractable action. If I kill someone, I could well end up needing their help or advice later. If I don't kill anyone but rather try to tolerate people and cultivate as many friendships as possible, my entire life becomes easier as a result. What does a smile and an exchanged "hello" a day cost when it can get you your oil changed, aid with your DIY projects, advice on buying a pension, etc, etc, etc?
Social responsibility. Society requires that we agree on a common set of rules that frame our interactions (eg, no murder). If I break those rules then others may do so more commonely. If this happens anough, society breaks down and we lose the benefits it brings (e.g., I am then more likely to be killed or injured by someone myself). Therefore it is in my own best interest (comfort, luxury, security) that society continues to function.
Fear of punishment. If I break society's rules I may be caught. If I am caught I will be imprisoned for a significant fraction of my remaining life. Since I value my freedom and self-determination, I choose not to risk incurring the wrath of society.
And, for example, why would you be afraid of the indeterminate consequences from a giant mythical(?) person in the sky, when you wouldn't be worried about very real, very provable, law enforcement. Like, you believe in the existence of god but not in the existence of police?
In addition, if the belief an individual lacks a soul means the individual has no worth (even subjective worth), why don't all athiests have a death-wish? After all, they're just mindless meat-robots filled with blinkennerves, right? Clearly, your analysis is fatally flawed.
But, then there's my religion which says that people have souls, they are real, and eternal. And their soul is no different from mine.
That's lovely. But given you (presumably) believe in the subjective experience of your own sensations, why do people have to have a soul for you to feel empathy for them? Even if we're all just meat-robots, this particular meat-robot knows what "pain" or "loss" feels like to him, and doesn't desire to inflict the same subjective sensations on other meat-robots unnecessarily.
I hope you don't think I'm a troll, because I'm quite serious. I do know that I'm not the only one who feels this way
It is absolutely and utterly moot that these things have been true for a while, if the positions of the involved companies positions one better to leverage this difference and positions the other to be more succeptible to this perception. THAT is the point.
I had to read that about three times, but I think I understand what you're getting at, and you have a point.
You're right. Any reasonable person would expect the next OS X release to have features toned-down and removed and arbitrary wait-loops thrown in just to keep people guessing. Good thing you called him on that.
I wasn't commenting on the accuracy of his assertion here, merely the tragically breathless-fanboy way it was expressed. If the author wants people to take him seriously he's going to have to learn to at least fake some kind of detachment...
I know everyone in our art department at work is thinking: "Let's keep buying Mac's. I love that they use that fabulous PPC architecture." The percentage of people that know or care about the underlying architecture of the hardward is barely measurable.
Granted, but it contributes to their (to steal a phrase from David Brin) "otherness". And to be fair, most of the Mac users I know tend to be (on average) a little more technically adept/knowledgeable than the average PC user I know.
In addition, Apple's strength is that their machines are a package - hardware, software and a decent selection of apps all in one - mentally users don't even really distinguish between the components (even many technically adept ones). Changing one aspect reminds you they're actually separable, and OS/X running officially/commonly on PC hardware totally breaks this package deal.
When people think things are a "package" they'll generally settle for the whole thing, as it's an all-or-nothing approach. The minute it becomes "a loose collection of separate components", they're encouraged to shop around for the cheapest alternative for each, and it isn't hard to find decent hardware cheaper than from Apple.
Few problems here. First, some people buy Mac hardware explicitly because it is more expensive and in their minds is of a higher quality.
Some, sure, but the overwhelming majority of Mac users I know buy it because:
(Technically adept:) They love Macs and dislike (or like less) PCs - either because Macs are "special" or "different", or simply because they believe they're designed better. Blurring the lines between Mac and PC directly works against this perception.
(Non-technical:) Macs are friendlier and Just Work. Allowing Macs to run on generic PC hardware inevitably introduces all the compatibility problems that Windows suffers from, which means more unfriendly errors, and less Just Working.
Second, you are assuming that there will be no "value-add" to running on Apple's hardware.
I assumed so, yes, but if it was officially launched on PC hardware OSX would be going head-to-head with Windows, and by voluntarily giving up control of their hardware specs Apple would have to go go balls-out to compete with MS. Releasing a crippled/cut-down version of OSX (or even one just missing a few "nice" features) just says "OSX on PC is second-best", which isn't the message you need to send when you're trying to challenge an entrenched monopoly.
Basically, if they were going to treat OSX-on-PC as a redheaded stepchild they'd be better off just not releasing it at all and retaining control of their hardware specs.
I thought it was a fair assumption.
Third, you are assuming that Mac hardware is and will continue to be "over priced" relative to some absurd benchmark such as the cheapest Dell machine you can rangle up.
Did I say overpriced? I said "expensive". And as a clueless consumer looking to buy My Firs
I think this statement I take issue with - Windows has always had pretty good performance as things go.
As someone who's used every version of windows since 3.0, I'd dispute that historical analysis. And having seen reports of WINE running some Windows apps faster than they run natively in Windows... well... I'm not so sure.
Windows XP boots pretty fast, it took a long time for Apple to match it, Linux still hasn't.
Indeed, because Linux isn't designed to be shut down every night and started up every morning, so improving bootup speed is pretty much a non-priority. Windows improved their boot speed because if you take the average user's Windows XP PC and leave it on all week, it crashes and burns by about day four.
I know it's possible to run Windows XP for days on end with relatively few problems, but have you tried it on the average user's PC? Dodgy drivers, malware and memory leaks will slow it to a crawl within a couple of days of normal use.
Windows 95 ran in only 4mb of RAM, an astonishing feat of optimisation given how much it did. And when MacOS X first came out, it was slow as molasses - even to this day it has the occasional problem with the spinning beach ball of doom.
Having not used OS/X enough I can't comment on this, but I certainly remember Windows 95 coming out, and while it was an impressive-looking bit of software, "astonishing" or "speedy" it wasn't.
If you read up on the internals of Windows and blogs like Raymond Chens you can see the ways in which the Windows team often bent over backwards to speed things up. Some of the weirdest and worst hacks inside Windows are there for performance reasons in fact.
Indeed. However, that in itself doesn't say anything about how it compares to the competition. In fact, I'd be more likely to spend time on nasty workaround speed hacks if my fundamental architecture was dog-slow to begin with. If it already ran pretty speedily I'd be more tempted to spend the time on security or features.
Meanwhile OS X usually gets its ass handed to it on a plate in any kind of serious benchmark.
Again, only having used OS/X on others' machines I'm not qualified to comment, so I won't. Nevertheless, I've always found it fairly responsive compared to Windows (again, "normal use" rather than "theoretical capability if administrated just right").
To be honest I can't see either Apple nor Linux really making a dent in Windows in their current forms. Apple has glitz and style going for it, Linux has price and enterprise respectability. Neither has any particularly compelling "must have" features over Windows so both are promoting security.
I should have been more clear - I'm not saying Linux is going to make a serious dent in Microsoft any time soon (perhaps ever). However, the OP was claiming Apple was the biggest and scariest threat to Microsoft around, and that's clearly fanboy BS.
OS X is not significantly more secure in its architecture than Windows
Despite being based on *BSD, one of the most secure out-of-the-box operating systems around? And having the full *nix permissions system, rather than mandating everyone runs as superuser? Hmmm.
and despite being much younger already has dumb hacks like the first-time application launch warning.
If warnings like this bother you, I don't think you should use Windows XP SP2 - it seemed to "fix" a lot of its security problems simply by turning off $Feature and asking the user to confirm (or manually enable it) via a dialogue box when they tried to use it.
The usability of this is terrible. There is no ASLR, a feature Linux has had for a year or so and Microsoft introduced with Vista.
Erm, cheers, but I'm a bit confused - I was saying the same thing: Apple will never (at least not in the forseeable future) release OS/X for beige boxes.
Aside: Why do so many people responding to my post seem to have problems with the conditional?
"IF x happens then it will cause y" doesn't mean I think x will actually happen - it's a thought experiment. That's what the "if" is for...
Heh, except that I run Windows at home, always have, have never owned a Mac, and have only in the last week or so started experimenting with a Kubuntu live CD that a friend gave me (which, annoyingly, doesn't recognise my sound card).
I have a great deal of respect for Linux/*BSD, but I think one has to at least regularly use an OS before one can become a fanboy for it, right?
"Are you talking about OSX (Tiger, Leopard, what have you) just RUNNING on commodity PCs or Apple supporting it?"
I thought the author's phrase
Some think this would never happen, but I have a feeling that it will. When Microsoft attributes a bunch of its Vista problems to backwards compatibility issues Apple would not suffer the same when expanding to PC platform.
made it pretty clear he was talking about a supported beige-box version. As you point out, unsupported versions are already out there.
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Uh, the first post in this thread was by Dolson, who just pointed out that US citizens would have a hard time blending in in Asia anyway, even without RFID passports.
If you mean the AC follow-up that said:
I took that to mean from the terrorists' point of view Americans were hated and Canadians/Europeans were "nice" (or at least, nicer).
Either way, it doesn't seem particularly "joyful", so try strapping down that jerking knee. And if it was meant as baldly as you suspect it would have to be an obvious troll. Please don't feed the trolls...
Sigh. You mean you don't see the difference between a bomb which goes off randomly and kills tens of people and a bomb which is set off by the presence of an American and kills tens of people?
It doesn't have to be a surgical strike picking US citizens out from a crowd - all you need to damage your international reputation is the perception that US citizens are walking detonators and you won't be welcome anywhere.
Do you honestly not see the difference in public perception between a bomb set off randomly and bombs which target american citizens, whose very presence in a "liberated" country causes (or at least contributes to) an atrocity?
And that, right there, is why you're losing Iraq, you've lost the "hearts and minds" of Iraq and Afghanistan and your international reputation is going down the tubes.
Picture the scene - there's a busy market street in Iraq, India, wherever. People are shopping, kids are laughing and chasing one another through the streets. A US drone appears over the square and begins broadcasting[1]. Within seconds a bomb goes off, killing tens of native people and injuring hundreds more. The drone flies off.
The bomb could have sat there for days or even weeks, and no-one was harmed. The US army pro-actively sets it off, directly causing harm to tens or hundreds of local people, all in case a US citizen ever happened to walk past it.
Sure, someone else planted the bomb, but the US set it off, directly causing an atrocity that might otherwise never have happened.
How many "hearts and minds" do you think that'll win you, exactly? Not counting the ones raining down on horrified locals after the explosion?
And to a lesser extent this applies even to bombs set off by detected US passports. Sure, the fact of US forces being in a country means terrorists plant bombs - it's a fairly disconnected sequence of events, but you still get people protesting that the "US go home" because of it.
Now imagine that a US citizens walks down a busy street and immediately a bomb goes off - it should also later be relatively easy to determine from fragments that the bomb was RFID-triggered, and that's two, much stronger connections between the two events. People could argue that the US citizen's presence not only contributed to, but directly caused the atrocity - after all, regardless of the bomb there if the citizen hadn't triggered it it would never have gone off.
And if
Lovely. Wonderful. Nevertheless, the mere act of opening my passport now identifies me and my nationality to anyone in the vicinity who's interested, potentially making me a target for anything from pickpocketing to terrorist bombing.
All because it's vital the USA and UK have to have an RFID chip in our passports... because... y'know... erm... well, anyway.
How long are passports valid for? 10? 25 years?
How long does the average encryption scheme or key-length last between widespread introduction and being basically trivial to crack?
And what happens when (oh, ok, if) someone cracks it? Recall every passport ever issued and upgrade them?
How about "remotely-patchable" passports? Ooooh, that doesn't sound remotely exploitable or dangerous.
Completely impractical.
Jesus, really? Still, neither does RFID, yet - why phase in one insecure, potentially-dangerous technology over a safer, tried-and-tested one?
Passports are a mechanism for me to identify myself, not for any random mugger/secret policeman/terrorist to cherry-pick me out of a crowd. Or do you habitually carry your passport in one hand, waving it over your head and loudly proclaiming "Look at me, I'm an American citizen!"?
There may be, yes, and that would be a good start. However, it still means that the simple act of opening your passport for any reason immediately announces to anyone nearby that you're a US citizen, in case they might be interested.
Frankly, the day when the act of opening my passport in my bag potentially identifies me and/or my nationality to anyone within up to tens of metres is the day I staple the blooody thing shut, and I'm not even a US citizen (with all the attendant antipathy that carries with it across the world).
Just to be clear I've got this right, your "kills it flat" solution to RFID-triggered bombs is to task a multimillion dollar drone to hover over (or even just patrol) every busy American-frequented area in every nation on earth which could conceivably hve a terrorist problem?
Genius.
Frankly, even if you restrict the application to just Iraq/Afghanistan/wherever we're currently fighting (and, y'know, fuck all the US tourists elsewhere in the world), all the reader has to do is randomly query every x minutes, and the drone will likely never find it.
Who says? First off, by changing the strength of the query broadcast you can change the RFID-detection radius, and so also the radius within which the IED could be detected. Stick a bomb in a barrel or bag in a busy shopping street and someone could well brush past the damn thing to set it off - what chance does a drone hundreds or thousands of feet up in the air have of detecting that?
Genius. Again, even if your zero-cost drones manage to somehow magically detect the infrequently-querying bomb, your best solution to terrorists setting up hidden bombs in highly-populated areas is to automatically explode them?
Way to do the terrorists' job for them. You'll really win the hearts and minds of the liberated Iraqis/Afghanis/whoever with that kind of consideration.
Sorry, who mentioned soldiers? I just said "Americans" - you know, tourists, contractors, ex-pats, you name it. Where did "soldiers" come from?
Indeed, and I would hope so too (in fact I'd hope it took no RFID IEDs to go off)... but again I wasn't talking about soldiers. And if you generalise this to "all americans" (which I was talking about):
It's only passive until you bring it within range of a receiver.
That's secure in the same way as an object that's only invisible until you look at it, or a door that's only locked until you try the handle.
Passive RFID chips are likely harder to detect at range than active ones (for obvious reasons), but no-one's answered the question yet: Why do we need ranged querying at all?
Much, much safer would be a normal smart-card chip (like the one in your credit card) that requires physical contact to read anything. Frankly, once somone's got their hands on your passport it doesn't matter if it's a smart-card or normal paper one - they can easily find out things about you from it (or just nick it) at that point.
Allowing ranged querying seems to offer no really compelling benefits, and opens up a whole can of worms on issues like personal security, remotely tracking/identifying people without their knowledge, you name it.
The only way to make any compter system perfectly hack-proof is to disconnect it from any external network, switch it off, lock it in a very secure room and then destroy the only key. And even then it's susceptible to lock-pickers and social engineering.
And you're right - if they can be hacked they will be. And then what're the government going to do - upgrade the security and re-issue every citizen's passport all at once? Pffft...
And while I hate to be a bring-down, how long until we start seeing discrete RFID readers attached to personnel-sized IEDs in Iraq/Afghanistan/wherever the US invades/liberates next?
You can have a thousand native citizens walk down a busy street, and the bomb doesn't go off until an American (or possibly, even a native with US embassy employee-ID) walks right past it.
I know it's an essential part of the whole "keep 'em fat, stupid, scared and easily-trackable" agenda the US/UK governments have going, but I find it hard to believe the USA (especially!) is actually making it easier to identify its tourists and overseas personnel.
Ohhh right - conspiracy nut. Sorry, I understand now.
Well clearly. And it's totally because your heresy is simply too dangerous and true to be promulgated, and not at all because Wikipedia's striving to be a factual source reflecting consensus reality... and not just the collected ramblings of demented conspiracy weirdos.
Oh yes, everyone on the net's already signed up to the Evil Ruling Overclass Acceptable Limits of Criticism Agreement, wherein we agree to all stick to certain interpretations of events, and only debate and disagree within sharply delineated (and officially sanctioned) limits.
Didn't you get the memo?
Personally I signed it because they threatened my pet gerbil. My neighbour Bob doesn't have a gerbil so they had to offer him $50 instead. Stupid gerbil.
If you want to protray it like that then yes, the MSM does only tend to publicise sites that conform to the majority worldview - it's part of that whole "trying to be generally objective/popularly entertaining/sane" thing.
Here's a clue: Start a website detailing your favourite "interpretation" of history. Publicise it on nice, neutral, content-sanity-agnostic Google. Attract visitors, and the site will get bigger.
If a significant proportion of people whare (or are convinced by) your worldview, then the site will become popular and will garner MSM attention - probably more-so because of its controversial nature.
If, on the other hand, your site is badly put-together and doesn't attract visitors, then maybe... just maybe it's because it's the unpersuasive demented ravings of a nutter.
Just because yourviews are important and interesting to you, that doesn't necessarily make them important or interesting to the rest of the world. If that's the case then I'm sorry, but we live in a free world - the MSM is shooting for the largest audience they can get, so no, they won't bother covering interpretations or opinions only shared by a tiny minority of the "differently-sane".
And yet, somehow David Icke has a moderate-high media profile, despite the fact he spends half his time whittering on about the shape-shifting blood-drinking reptilian lizard overlords (overclass?) who secretly rule the world.
Go figure.
I'd like to take you on a hypothetical journey.
Imagine you help run or edit a large, extremely popular website. This website is dedicated to collecting and making available factual information. Since it's impossible to ever prove for certain that something is completely factual, as humans we have to go on "what may be demonstrated to us personally" and "what is believed as fact by the overwhelming majority of the rest of humanity".
Onto this website comes someone who edits a number of articles. They post their own personal interpretations of events, which are often at odds with the beliefs of the rest of humanity
How can you DENY the obvious SIMPLE TRUTH of the timecube? Are you one of the EVIL ACADEMIC SINGULARITY BASTARDS and evil stupid word gods?
I invoke a curse upon you and your BASTARD Singularity Brotherhood of Bastardism.
(Ahem.
Sorry - did I miss something... did Wikipedia publish a hatchet-job indictment of AP?
No, wait, it was yet another example of Old Media going after New Media.
And proving in the process that while New Media may have its flaws, they aren't anything that Old Media doesn't also often suffer from. And that one of the true major differences between the two is that New Media tends to be more visible, transparent and honest about them when they occur.
What was your point again?
I'm not sure if you're taking the piss or being serious, but in case you're being serious, you might want to look at the George W. Bush entry.
Hell, they even record (without endorsing, striving to maintain that NPOV) criticisms against Ghandi , FFS.
Forgive me, but from the tone of your post alone it sounds more like you violated the NPOV rule and had your edits reverted.
What exactly were the "evidence" and "good sources" you used, and what were your additions?
That's more or less exactly my opinion. I haven't used OSX enough to state it as fact, but certainly the majority I've heard (and everything I've seen) leads me to believe it's far superior to Windows, particularly in the "it just works" arena.
Indeed. It was a risky busines move breaking backwards-compatibility, but it certainly strengthens Apple as a brand - you couldn't wish for a better "anything you can do I can do better" taunt for Microsoft/Dell.
Indeed. That tight integration between hard- and software is what keeps Apple a viable choice - it influences wavering users who appreciate the "it just works" appeal or Apples, and prevents budget-conscious users from nickle-and-dimeing them to bankruptcy by picking and choosing what they want - either you buy the whole (profitable) package, or none of it.
It's a good point. They lose the geek-elitism of the PPC architecture, but retain the popular elitism of the stylish boutique shops and funky adverts.
MS is indeed less dynamic than it was, and this can only be a good thing. However, I'm still sketchy as to how long it would take to die off, or whether it would at all.
When you've got literally billions in the bank it takes a long time for the lack of growth to seriously affect you. Look at IBM - they were the Microsoft of their day, and even now (what, fifteen, twenty years after they dominated the PC market?) they're still around, albeit in a quieter, less-visible more "services" role. I see the same thing happening to MS, eventually - they're just too big to roll over and die like SCO (for example).
I've only just started experimenting with Linux on the desktop myself - I've been very impressed with the Kubuntu live CD a friend gave me, but I agree it's going to take a lot of consolidation and massively improved consistency before it's ready for Joe Sixpack and his family.
Sorry - I should have been clearer - with that point I was only responding to the original author's blithe waving away of the whole driver/legacy hardware problem.
TBH, I think the biggest problem with releasing OSX-for-PC would be the loss of control of the hardware spec. Apples then stop being all-in-one package deals, with each section having to compete on its own merits.
Now, I'm not suggesting for a minute that PC/Windows is "better" than Mac/OSX, but the PC harware is cheaper (which, given computer hardware is a commodity these days is all the majority of consumers care about), and OSX won't compete with Windows while Windows owns 90%+ of the desktop market (and has more drivers/third party hardware currently available).
Basically, in the current market conditions if Apple unlinks the hardware and software, both would sink - it's only by keeping them together they have a chance to stave off Dell and Microsoft (respectively).
Now it's a commodity, the most important thing about computer hardware for most "normal" users is that it's cheap. Apple hardware just isn't cheap, so it loses.
For software, the most important thing is that it's compatible with whatever the default/most popular/market leader software is. Windows has the desktop/end-user market sewn up, so OSX loses there, too.
So what you're saying is, you have no functioning sense of empathy - you're a functional sociopath who requires a giant daddy-beard in the sky and the constant threat of a smacked hand to prevent you doing exactly what you want.
Non-religious people (hell, also most religious people I know) don't need this - we have a functioning superego which means we don't need the threat of punishment to not indulge our every whim.
Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but (in no particular order) the following things prevent me from killing anyone who annoys me even slightly:
And, for example, why would you be afraid of the indeterminate consequences from a giant mythical(?) person in the sky, when you wouldn't be worried about very real, very provable, law enforcement. Like, you believe in the existence of god but not in the existence of police?
In addition, if the belief an individual lacks a soul means the individual has no worth (even subjective worth), why don't all athiests have a death-wish? After all, they're just mindless meat-robots filled with blinkennerves, right? Clearly, your analysis is fatally flawed.
That's lovely. But given you (presumably) believe in the subjective experience of your own sensations, why do people have to have a soul for you to feel empathy for them? Even if we're all just meat-robots, this particular meat-robot knows what "pain" or "loss" feels like to him, and doesn't desire to inflict the same subjective sensations on other meat-robots unnecessarily.
Only if it was, y'know... funny. ;-)
I had to read that about three times, but I think I understand what you're getting at, and you have a point.
I wasn't commenting on the accuracy of his assertion here, merely the tragically breathless-fanboy way it was expressed. If the author wants people to take him seriously he's going to have to learn to at least fake some kind of detachment...
Granted, but it contributes to their (to steal a phrase from David Brin) "otherness". And to be fair, most of the Mac users I know tend to be (on average) a little more technically adept/knowledgeable than the average PC user I know.
In addition, Apple's strength is that their machines are a package - hardware, software and a decent selection of apps all in one - mentally users don't even really distinguish between the components (even many technically adept ones). Changing one aspect reminds you they're actually separable, and OS/X running officially/commonly on PC hardware totally breaks this package deal.
When people think things are a "package" they'll generally settle for the whole thing, as it's an all-or-nothing approach. The minute it becomes "a loose collection of separate components", they're encouraged to shop around for the cheapest alternative for each, and it isn't hard to find decent hardware cheaper than from Apple.
Some, sure, but the overwhelming majority of Mac users I know buy it because:
(Technically adept:) They love Macs and dislike (or like less) PCs - either because Macs are "special" or "different", or simply because they believe they're designed better. Blurring the lines between Mac and PC directly works against this perception.
(Non-technical:) Macs are friendlier and Just Work. Allowing Macs to run on generic PC hardware inevitably introduces all the compatibility problems that Windows suffers from, which means more unfriendly errors, and less Just Working.
I assumed so, yes, but if it was officially launched on PC hardware OSX would be going head-to-head with Windows, and by voluntarily giving up control of their hardware specs Apple would have to go go balls-out to compete with MS. Releasing a crippled/cut-down version of OSX (or even one just missing a few "nice" features) just says "OSX on PC is second-best", which isn't the message you need to send when you're trying to challenge an entrenched monopoly.
Basically, if they were going to treat OSX-on-PC as a redheaded stepchild they'd be better off just not releasing it at all and retaining control of their hardware specs.
I thought it was a fair assumption.
Did I say overpriced? I said "expensive". And as a clueless consumer looking to buy My Firs
As someone who's used every version of windows since 3.0, I'd dispute that historical analysis. And having seen reports of WINE running some Windows apps faster than they run natively in Windows... well... I'm not so sure.
Indeed, because Linux isn't designed to be shut down every night and started up every morning, so improving bootup speed is pretty much a non-priority. Windows improved their boot speed because if you take the average user's Windows XP PC and leave it on all week, it crashes and burns by about day four.
I know it's possible to run Windows XP for days on end with relatively few problems, but have you tried it on the average user's PC? Dodgy drivers, malware and memory leaks will slow it to a crawl within a couple of days of normal use.
Having not used OS/X enough I can't comment on this, but I certainly remember Windows 95 coming out, and while it was an impressive-looking bit of software, "astonishing" or "speedy" it wasn't.
Indeed. However, that in itself doesn't say anything about how it compares to the competition. In fact, I'd be more likely to spend time on nasty workaround speed hacks if my fundamental architecture was dog-slow to begin with. If it already ran pretty speedily I'd be more tempted to spend the time on security or features.
Again, only having used OS/X on others' machines I'm not qualified to comment, so I won't. Nevertheless, I've always found it fairly responsive compared to Windows (again, "normal use" rather than "theoretical capability if administrated just right").
I should have been more clear - I'm not saying Linux is going to make a serious dent in Microsoft any time soon (perhaps ever). However, the OP was claiming Apple was the biggest and scariest threat to Microsoft around, and that's clearly fanboy BS.
Despite being based on *BSD, one of the most secure out-of-the-box operating systems around? And having the full *nix permissions system, rather than mandating everyone runs as superuser? Hmmm.
If warnings like this bother you, I don't think you should use Windows XP SP2 - it seemed to "fix" a lot of its security problems simply by turning off $Feature and asking the user to confirm (or manually enable it) via a dialogue box when they tried to use it.
Erm, cheers, but I'm a bit confused - I was saying the same thing: Apple will never (at least not in the forseeable future) release OS/X for beige boxes.
Aside: Why do so many people responding to my post seem to have problems with the conditional?
"IF x happens then it will cause y" doesn't mean I think x will actually happen - it's a thought experiment. That's what the "if" is for...
Heh, except that I run Windows at home, always have, have never owned a Mac, and have only in the last week or so started experimenting with a Kubuntu live CD that a friend gave me (which, annoyingly, doesn't recognise my sound card).
I have a great deal of respect for Linux/*BSD, but I think one has to at least regularly use an OS before one can become a fanboy for it, right?
I thought the author's phrase
made it pretty clear he was talking about a supported beige-box version. As you point out, unsupported versions are already out there.
Purely subjective assessment based on using Windows for years, and having spent some time on Mac OS/X on various friends' machines.
Yes, yes, that's lovely, but who mentioned Linux?
My comparison was between Windows and OS/X.
So... what was your point again?
Well, y'know... the original article author, for one.
If they "expanded OS/X to the PC platform", that's exactly what they'd be doing. Or do Apple now control the PC specs as well?
Not to be rude, but did you read the original article? Or even the portions I helpfully quoted?