I suppose it makes sense if they're afraid of the US withdrawing support and subsequently doing to them what we did to Saddam later on.
I still don't think the US has the capacity to invade Iran. Or rather, we have the capacity to invade, but we don't have the capacity to hold the country afterwards.
I never said that suppressing dissent was a good thing. In fact, if you read till the end of my post you'll see that I forecast that the autocratic nature of China's government will only give the power in the short-to-medium term, at the expense of power over the long term.
Unless China opens up its political decision-making system, we'll never see a "Chinese century" like we saw an "American century".
Frankly, I agree. The Chinese these days seem to be doing everything right in terms of expanding their power and influence on the world stage.
They're focusing on growing their economy and ensuring that their colleges produce lots of scientists and engineers to ensure that they catch up technologically. Their military is huge and is becoming better equipped by the month, and, more importantly, its not bogged down in a faraway land. They've suppressed political dissent, allowing their leaders to ignore domestic problems and focus on China's international status.
In the long run the lack of democracy and rural resentment against urban elites will probably do them in, but, in the meantime, we'll probably see a good 30 to 40 years of Chinese domination of Asia.
Sure, we may have a justification to attack Iran, but, given the amount of resources Iraq is tying up, I'm not sure we have the ability. I don't think we can stop Iran's nuclear progression with airstrikes alone.
Given the fact that most of these countries' ruling classes are propped up by US money and arms, I somehow don't think they're as afraid of us as they are of their own people.
Actually, "regulations" are used to implement the law, not make it. The regulations (CFR, as opposed to USC) fill in the gaps in the law so that the law can actually be executed (the whole "Executive Branch" thing).
That is how things ought to be. However, the lack of congressional and judicial oversight, coupled with the sweeping nature of certain laws, such as the DMCA and PATRIOT Act, allows the Executive branch to make new law.
They have to be for the purpose of carrying out the law enacted by the Legislature.
Again, that's how things ought to be. In an ideal world we'd have only enough regulation to clarify the actual enforcement of law, and these regulations would be subject to swift judicial oversight so that errors in enforcement would be corrected before much harm occured. However, in the real world, the judiciary is overburdened, allowing the executive to get away with creation of new law for years without any sort of punitive action. The legislature passes vague laws, allowing the executive a wide "grey area" within which it can draft policy within the existing legislative framework. Your statements assume perfection on the part of the legislature and judiciary to keep the imperfection of the executive in check. I'm pointing out that the imperfections of the judiciary and legislature are allowing the executive to run rampant.
firefox kicked their assess with the better browser. Mac could do the same with the better platform.
How has Firefox "kicked their ass"? I'm not trying to defend IE, but last I saw, it still had nearly 90% of the marketshare. That's the kind of market domination that many companies would kill for.
That's like saying, "Only a tiny percentage of criminals use guns. But one hundred percent of the cops they shoot will be injured or killed unless they have third-party protection (in the form of a bullet-proof vest). Therefore the fault lies with cops for not wearing bullet-proof vests."
It doesn't matter that Windows is vulnerable. Its still Apple's fault that they shipped a product that will damage the data on my PC. The responsibility lies on Apple's poor QA process that allowed this kind of damaging infection to get on their product.
It's a fact: 95% of everything you learn in school is useless to you, and you'll soon have it forgotten.
Yeah, but its funny how that 95% you "forget" happens to be the basis for almost all of the technology that you use on a daily basis. Face it, the world is growing increasingly technological. Technology is dependent on scientific principles, which are themselves dependent on mathematical principles. As the importance of technology grows, so does the importance of mathematics.
How often you do compute volume of irregular 3D objects, or do matrix determinants or solve system of equations of third power...
As a CS major going into cryptography, probably not very often. I'll be using much more number theory. However, if you're in electrical, mechanical, aeronautical, or any other type of engineering where you have to deal with multiple forces/currents/whatever going on at once, you have to deal with systems of equations. Usually you'll have a computer to solve those systems. Even still, the ability to crank out rough ballpark figures with pen and paper is a valuable one.
On a side note, I feel that its this whole "I'm never going to use it, so I don't need to learn it." attitude to knowledge that is pushing American society (and education in particular) on its downward spiral.
No, the analogy isn't off at all. As long as this "IceWeasel" or whatever uses the same Gecko rendering engine as Firefox, it'll be able to display all of the same things that Firefox does. Unless the Debian folk deliberately go and screw with the rendering engine or the plugin manager, IceWeasel will maintain perfect compatibility with Firefox.
Because you wouldn't be making the clean modules. Your company would be purchasing the modules, and then offshoring the "glue programming" for cost savings at the cost of reliability, as suggested by the sibling post.
My point is that Microsoft goes out of its way to make the cost of switching platforms high. It uses its domination of the desktop market to ensure priority in software development and device drivers. Its proprietary document formats are accepted as de facto standards, even though they can only be fully supported by one set of programs. There is always a nonzero cost to switching platforms, but the cost would be a lot lower without Microsoft's monopolistic business practices.
In a free market you can choose what to buy, Windows, Mac or Linux.
This is true. In a free market, I could choose whatever operating system worked best for me. However, the operating system market is not free. It is a monopoly owned by Microsoft. When you have Microsoft successfully threatening hardware manufacturers with higher costs if they start offering Linux PCs, creating proprietary standards to leverage their domination of desktops, illegally bundling components to drive competitors out of business, you do not have a free market.
There is not a free market, therefore I am not free to choose operating systems as I see fit. There is a significant cost to switching to Linux, a cost that Microsoft is committed to increasing whenever possible.
Cryptographic checksums would only tell you if the text is letter for letter identical. It would not catch cases where the student copies a large portion of work without citing and adds a small bit of original material at the end. Checksums can be foiled with even a minor bit of obfuscation, such as adding an extra space, or deliberately misspelling a certain word.
1) If you can permanently store and use it, it's as good as owning it. The end effect is the same to the user.
Wrong. One of the key characteristics is the ability to resell. If this goes the way it appears to be going, those add-ons will be locked to me, not my copy of the game. Therefore, when I sell the game, I probably will not be able to sell the tracks that go with it, significantly reducing the game's resale value. This isn't a problem when you plan on permanently keeping every game you buy. But there is a significant number of users who play games and resell after finishing. I'm thinking that these users won't be very happy with such a business model.
On a side note, I'm waiting for the reactions of EBGames/Gamespot on this issue. If Sony succeeds in killing the used game market for PS3 titles, then it'll cut into the revenue of videogame-only retailers, who make a lot of profit per used title than new title.
The problem (especially with Texas Instruments calculators) is that they've actually wormed their way into the educational system. I know in school, that, rather than teach us how to draw graphs by hand the teachers went over the Ti-83 and Ti-89 commands for drawing graphs. Anyone without a graphing calculator (or even an non-Texas Instruments calculator) was out of luck, as there was no explanation of how to do things by hand, or any aid with any "non-standard" calculators. Texas Instruments gives away calculators to middle (grades 6 - 8) and high (grades 9 - 12) schools in order to preserve an unofficial monopoly. Students are allowed to use other graphing calculators, but the school warns them that the teachers will offer no help with technical issues.
I encountered the same issue in my first college calculus course. The problems were all designed with large numbers, and were intended to require a calculator to solve. Fortunately, the university has two parallel math tracks, one allowing calculators and one prohibiting, so I was able to switch to a course where students competed on their own merits.
The title really says it all. Does webmail (GMail, Yahoo Mail, etc.) count as e-mail? Or does it count as part of the web? If I give up web access, will I lose access to webmail sites?
I believe that e-mail and the web are so intertwined, what with HTML e-mails and HTML interfaces to e-mail inboxes (aka webmail) that to eliminate access to one would cripple access to the other?
To answer the question, I would have to say I would rather lose access to e-mail. I'd still have access to my cell phone, and, like others, I would probably be able to set up a discussion board of some sort in order to handle electronic textual communication.
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose it makes sense if they're afraid of the US withdrawing support and subsequently doing to them what we did to Saddam later on.
I still don't think the US has the capacity to invade Iran. Or rather, we have the capacity to invade, but we don't have the capacity to hold the country afterwards.
I never said that suppressing dissent was a good thing. In fact, if you read till the end of my post you'll see that I forecast that the autocratic nature of China's government will only give the power in the short-to-medium term, at the expense of power over the long term.
Unless China opens up its political decision-making system, we'll never see a "Chinese century" like we saw an "American century".
Frankly, I agree. The Chinese these days seem to be doing everything right in terms of expanding their power and influence on the world stage.
They're focusing on growing their economy and ensuring that their colleges produce lots of scientists and engineers to ensure that they catch up technologically. Their military is huge and is becoming better equipped by the month, and, more importantly, its not bogged down in a faraway land. They've suppressed political dissent, allowing their leaders to ignore domestic problems and focus on China's international status.
In the long run the lack of democracy and rural resentment against urban elites will probably do them in, but, in the meantime, we'll probably see a good 30 to 40 years of Chinese domination of Asia.
Sure, we may have a justification to attack Iran, but, given the amount of resources Iraq is tying up, I'm not sure we have the ability. I don't think we can stop Iran's nuclear progression with airstrikes alone.
Given the fact that most of these countries' ruling classes are propped up by US money and arms, I somehow don't think they're as afraid of us as they are of their own people.
God forbid I should be allowed to choose what I support.
That is how things ought to be. However, the lack of congressional and judicial oversight, coupled with the sweeping nature of certain laws, such as the DMCA and PATRIOT Act, allows the Executive branch to make new law.
Again, that's how things ought to be. In an ideal world we'd have only enough regulation to clarify the actual enforcement of law, and these regulations would be subject to swift judicial oversight so that errors in enforcement would be corrected before much harm occured. However, in the real world, the judiciary is overburdened, allowing the executive to get away with creation of new law for years without any sort of punitive action. The legislature passes vague laws, allowing the executive a wide "grey area" within which it can draft policy within the existing legislative framework. Your statements assume perfection on the part of the legislature and judiciary to keep the imperfection of the executive in check. I'm pointing out that the imperfections of the judiciary and legislature are allowing the executive to run rampant.
firefox kicked their assess with the better browser. Mac could do the same with the better platform.
How has Firefox "kicked their ass"? I'm not trying to defend IE, but last I saw, it still had nearly 90% of the marketshare. That's the kind of market domination that many companies would kill for.
What!?
That's like saying, "Only a tiny percentage of criminals use guns. But one hundred percent of the cops they shoot will be injured or killed unless they have third-party protection (in the form of a bullet-proof vest). Therefore the fault lies with cops for not wearing bullet-proof vests."
It doesn't matter that Windows is vulnerable. Its still Apple's fault that they shipped a product that will damage the data on my PC. The responsibility lies on Apple's poor QA process that allowed this kind of damaging infection to get on their product.
I agree with most of your points, but, I do have to point out one exception:
Antibiotic resistant microbes: Win for ecosystem.
Yeah, but its funny how that 95% you "forget" happens to be the basis for almost all of the technology that you use on a daily basis. Face it, the world is growing increasingly technological. Technology is dependent on scientific principles, which are themselves dependent on mathematical principles. As the importance of technology grows, so does the importance of mathematics.
As a CS major going into cryptography, probably not very often. I'll be using much more number theory. However, if you're in electrical, mechanical, aeronautical, or any other type of engineering where you have to deal with multiple forces/currents/whatever going on at once, you have to deal with systems of equations. Usually you'll have a computer to solve those systems. Even still, the ability to crank out rough ballpark figures with pen and paper is a valuable one.
On a side note, I feel that its this whole "I'm never going to use it, so I don't need to learn it." attitude to knowledge that is pushing American society (and education in particular) on its downward spiral.
No, the analogy isn't off at all. As long as this "IceWeasel" or whatever uses the same Gecko rendering engine as Firefox, it'll be able to display all of the same things that Firefox does. Unless the Debian folk deliberately go and screw with the rendering engine or the plugin manager, IceWeasel will maintain perfect compatibility with Firefox.
What's the difference between the Library of Congress and Congress?
The Library doesn't let you lick the pages.
Instead of upgrading to Vista, why don't your clients upgrade to XP?
Because you wouldn't be making the clean modules. Your company would be purchasing the modules, and then offshoring the "glue programming" for cost savings at the cost of reliability, as suggested by the sibling post.
My point is that Microsoft goes out of its way to make the cost of switching platforms high. It uses its domination of the desktop market to ensure priority in software development and device drivers. Its proprietary document formats are accepted as de facto standards, even though they can only be fully supported by one set of programs. There is always a nonzero cost to switching platforms, but the cost would be a lot lower without Microsoft's monopolistic business practices.
This is true. In a free market, I could choose whatever operating system worked best for me. However, the operating system market is not free. It is a monopoly owned by Microsoft. When you have Microsoft successfully threatening hardware manufacturers with higher costs if they start offering Linux PCs, creating proprietary standards to leverage their domination of desktops, illegally bundling components to drive competitors out of business, you do not have a free market.
There is not a free market, therefore I am not free to choose operating systems as I see fit. There is a significant cost to switching to Linux, a cost that Microsoft is committed to increasing whenever possible.
Cryptographic checksums would only tell you if the text is letter for letter identical. It would not catch cases where the student copies a large portion of work without citing and adds a small bit of original material at the end. Checksums can be foiled with even a minor bit of obfuscation, such as adding an extra space, or deliberately misspelling a certain word.
Wrong. One of the key characteristics is the ability to resell. If this goes the way it appears to be going, those add-ons will be locked to me, not my copy of the game. Therefore, when I sell the game, I probably will not be able to sell the tracks that go with it, significantly reducing the game's resale value. This isn't a problem when you plan on permanently keeping every game you buy. But there is a significant number of users who play games and resell after finishing. I'm thinking that these users won't be very happy with such a business model.
On a side note, I'm waiting for the reactions of EBGames/Gamespot on this issue. If Sony succeeds in killing the used game market for PS3 titles, then it'll cut into the revenue of videogame-only retailers, who make a lot of profit per used title than new title.
In that case, why did singles released on CDs fail?
Last time I looked Norton used more resources and was harder to uninstall than most virii.
The problem (especially with Texas Instruments calculators) is that they've actually wormed their way into the educational system. I know in school, that, rather than teach us how to draw graphs by hand the teachers went over the Ti-83 and Ti-89 commands for drawing graphs. Anyone without a graphing calculator (or even an non-Texas Instruments calculator) was out of luck, as there was no explanation of how to do things by hand, or any aid with any "non-standard" calculators. Texas Instruments gives away calculators to middle (grades 6 - 8) and high (grades 9 - 12) schools in order to preserve an unofficial monopoly. Students are allowed to use other graphing calculators, but the school warns them that the teachers will offer no help with technical issues.
I encountered the same issue in my first college calculus course. The problems were all designed with large numbers, and were intended to require a calculator to solve. Fortunately, the university has two parallel math tracks, one allowing calculators and one prohibiting, so I was able to switch to a course where students competed on their own merits.
I thought the Scheme language had been standardized by the IEEE a while back. Is this a revision of the standard, then?
The comment above should read "To eliminate access to one would cripple access to the other.
Spell checkers can't catch grammar errors...
The title really says it all. Does webmail (GMail, Yahoo Mail, etc.) count as e-mail? Or does it count as part of the web? If I give up web access, will I lose access to webmail sites?
I believe that e-mail and the web are so intertwined, what with HTML e-mails and HTML interfaces to e-mail inboxes (aka webmail) that to eliminate access to one would cripple access to the other?
To answer the question, I would have to say I would rather lose access to e-mail. I'd still have access to my cell phone, and, like others, I would probably be able to set up a discussion board of some sort in order to handle electronic textual communication.