The problem isn't that people haven't figured out ways of dividing by zero, the problem is that there are many different ways in which you could reasonably define division by zero, and they are not mutually consistent. Wikipedia lists some of them.
"Twenty years from now, experts doubt that America will remain a dominant force in science [CC] as it was during the last century.
Maybe a good place to start would be with better writing. The sentence above incorrectly suggests that experts will, in 20 years, make such a prediction.
In any case, the US has never been able to produce the number of highly skilled graduates necessary to maintain its dominance in science. America's dominance in science is largely due easy immigration, an open society, and a high living standard in the US relative to other nations. It seems pretty clear that all of those factors are changing for the worse.
I don't see anything that can be done about it. If Americans aren't willing to maintain a high standard of living, a rational and secular society, and a meritocracy for the direct benefits that those policies bring, they aren't going to do it in order to attract foreign scientists either.
Yes, I know what you were referring to. My point is that I think your implied argument is flawed. (1) Microsoft making heaps of money is largely unrelated to the intelligence of their technical employees, and (2) Microsoft's technical employees really do have the goal of making great software, but they simply aren't able to do it.
For example, tobacco and fast-food companies are making lots of money, too, but that doesn't mean that their products are good or that most of their employees are smart. Big businesses succeed because of a small number of ruthless and smart business and marketing people at the top; the rest of the employees are little more than hamburger flippers, at Microsoft as much as at MacDonalds. Companies where the technical skill of employees can make a difference are small and medium companies, as well as startups.
private users should be allowed to copy music from a CD to their MP3 player'
They already can and do.
and further 'recommends the 50-year copyright protection for recorded music should not be extended,' saying, 'The ideal IP system creates incentives for innovation, without unduly limiting access for consumers and follow-on innovators.'
50 years is not "balanced"; "balanced" copyright, in today's world would be 10-20 years. Furthermore, copyright should go back to applying only when the work has been explicitly registered, so that things actually can fall into the public domain and people can determine ownership.
No, that's not what I said. I said that Microsoft RESEARCH is good.
only "bandwagon riders" and fools hate microsoft for their intelligence...they hate them for their buisness practices.
Except for some shrewd business people, the rest of Microsoft doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent. In addition, intelligence is not sufficient for producing good software-skill and experience matter just as much-and those are badly lacking in Microsoft's incestuous environment. Many long-time Microsoft employees don't even know how bad they are at what they do because they have never even seen anything else, and they think that the fact that they have been able to piggy-back some shitty software onto Windows and thereby ship it to a few hundred million customers means that they are good.
Regardless of your opinion of them, you cannot deny that they are highly successful in their goals.
Are you kidding? Microsoft's goal is to deliver great software, and they have failed miserably at that. Given the resources and power they have, something like Vista is an embarrassment.
I don't know of anybody criticizing Microsoft Research: there are lots of good people doing good work there. People are criticizing Microsoft's business practices and products. Good research doesn't necessarily translate into good products, in particular if a company's primary goal is market dominance through lock-in and other tricks.
Um, why? MS has already indicated that they "agree to disagree" on the patent issue
It doesn't matter what Microsoft believes, the question is what Novell knows.
Scenario: Novell generates code which it believes to be unencumbered by MS patents. Novell then contributes the code to, say Linux or Openoffice.org, at which point Microsoft publicly "agrees to disagree" with Novell again and claims that said code does violate their patents. What would happen?
What would happen is that nobody could use the software anymore because the GPL prohibits distributing such software. In particular, Novell would have to stop distributing the software.
Novell has bought freedom from liability for infringing on Microsoft's patents THROUGH THIS VERY AGREEMENT!
No, Novell bought freedom from liability for their customers, not for themselves; they can't buy freedom for themselves because that would violate the GPL.
And the major risk for their customers is not getting sued by Microsoft, the major risk for their customers is not being able to use the software anymore. It doesn't matter what Microsoft says or does or agrees or disagrees about, if Microsoft holds a patent on something and Novell knows about it, then Novell must stop distributing the software to their customers.
And since Novell has an agreement with Microsoft, Novell is in the best position to know what patents Microsoft holds. That means that they are at the greatest risk of being sued for patent violations by Microsoft and GPL violations by the copyright holders of the GPL software.
I think it's worth pointing out that we only have Novell's assurances that their future code contributions will be MS-patent free. We do NOT have Microsoft's assurance of that. It's Microsoft who's making threatening noises towards Linux on the patent issue, not Novell.
That's correct. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Microsoft genuinely believes that they have patents. And that is annoying and a problem that needs to be resolved. But that doesn't just affect Novell, it affects the entire industry.
Nevertheless, the Novell/Microsoft agreement doesn't affect any of that; it doesn't help their customers, and it doesn't give Microsoft any more legal ammunition. So why did Novell make that agreement? Because Microsoft ended up giving them several hundred million dollars.
And why did Microsoft make the agreement? Because the FUD, press coverage of their patent strategy, and controversy is worth it to them.
What can you do? Ignore it; all these heated discussions just serve Microsoft's FUD machine. Nothing has changed. Microsoft's patents are as much and as little of a threat as before. Until they sue anybody, there is no point losing sleep over it. And Java, Solaris, Macintosh, or other platforms are no safer from Microsoft patent claims than Mono or SuSE Linux.
No, they can't. Novell can't distribute code under the GPL if they know that it violates patents.
1) What if you are using redhat?
Novell's protection is meaningless because if there is actually a patent that some GPL'ed project violates, then nobody can use the GPL'ed software in question, not RedHat customers and not Novell's customers.
4) Why should novell be given exclusive rights to a public resource?
They aren't; their agreement with Microsoft is meaningless.
How different is it than MSFT placing its products (Internet Explorer) in a premium marketing position (embedded in the OS)?'"
It's different because it's ad placement--they offer a service, but using something else is as easy as using Google. Microsoft's bundled applications, on the other hand, are actually bundled: some of them, you can't replace at all, and others are hard to replace.
Besides, why would it have to be different? Microsoft has been doing this for many years and they are still getting away with it. Good or bad, if Microsoft does it, their competitors have to do it, even if they preferred that sort of behavior to be illegal.
1. Novell agrees to violate the clear intent and spirit of the GPL in an attempt to comply literally with the words but not with the actual known purpose of the license to make money off of code Novell didn't write and doesn't own. So instead of trying to prove the GPL isn't binding, they just kick it to the curb and step over it and dare the community to do something about it?
2. puts a FUD legal cloud over Linux (this time a patent cloud) or in any case an "IP" cloud, as per Steve Ballmer's vague wording -- and was Darl McBride's less vague?
Actually, this makes GPL software from Novell safer, not less safe, for others to use. Why? Because Novell cannot distribute software under the (L)GPL if that software is covered by patents. Since Novell has negotiated a legal agreement with Microsoft, they can be presumed to know what patents apply, and Novell has to be extra careful about patent violations when distributing software, since they would be liable for willful commercial infringement.
3. makes Novell's Linux cost more, because it has agreed to pay Microsoft royalties, whereas SCO asked for money for its license;
Novell made a huge net profit on the deal, so Novell Linux won't cost more.
And since Microsoft paid Novell and not the other way around, the logical conclusion is that Microsoft does not have IP of any value related to Linux or Mono, and instead is using this as a marketing gimmick. And courts probably won't see that any different either.
Microsoft has the best virtual machine with.NET, the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs
In Microsoft's mind, anyway. I frankly see nothing that Vista, VisualStudio, and Mono have over Linux, X11, Gnome, Eclipse, and MonoDevelop, or Macintosh, for that matter. If anything, after slowly catching up for a few years, Microsoft is falling behind again, with release delays, security problems, bloat, and lack of ideas. If they win this round, it will be through dirty tricks and monopolistic practices again.
how can you hear all the details of masterfull technique or all the shades of expression in a singer's voice? Isn't that (at least in part) what genius music-making is about?
It's a given that any professional performer is going to have an excellent sound and technique; people don't need the recording to verify that. What distinguishes great performances is the interpretation, and those are usually not-very-subtle variations in timing, pitch, and volume, variations that any reasonable recording can easily capture.
Incidentally, most studio recordings have little to do with actual performances; they are really artificially created, synthetic assemblages of snippets and tracks. They are the TV dinner of music: taste-enhanced, reproducible, and convenient, but far removed from a natural, high-quality product.
Also, listening to live music is quite often worse than listening to a well-made recording - take pieces like Beethoven's Missa Solemnis or Mahler's 8th symphony - you'd have to be pretty lucky to hear it live as well balanced as it comes on a good recording.
To me, within reasonable limits, the balance is of no interest; it's the music and its interpretation that matters.
On the one hand, people are trying to sell Web 2.0 as the "semantic web", on the other hand, AJAX is a big part of Web 2.0 apps and makes it harder and harder to actually get at other people's semantic data.
In the end, the whole thing is just marketing hype. Web 2.0 is just the haphazard collection of messy technologies people happen to be using on the web in 2006, and don't expect things to get any better in the next few years either: the W3C, Adobe, and Microsoft will see to it that things remain messy and complex, because, heck, if we actually made the technologies clean and simple, how would these companies and the swarm of overpaid and underqualified consultants make a living?
In my experience, it's only pretentious audiophiles that really care about uncompressed music. For a serious classical musician, the primary problem with a recording is not any slight--or imagined--differences in quality, it's the fact that it isn't live. And any serious classical musician will prefer even a noisy 78rpm shellac recording by a great artist to a technically perfect recording by a second rate modern musician.
MP3's at 160kbps are more than good enough for anybody. And they are way overkill for any kind of portable player, given the kind of suboptimal listening environments portable players are used in.
He wants freedom for software users to use software as they wish, but not for consumers or businessmen.
Where the hell do you get that from? Free software gives consumers and businesses a choice. You can use it commercially, you can make money with it, whatever you want. All you have to do is make the source available under the same license you got it.
He seems to be further proof of the oft-believed link between insanity and genius
RMS may be annoying and overly intellectual for your taste, but he is in no sense of the word "insane".
Freedom, freedom, freedom is all we hear, but heaven forbid you want to use an easy name for the software instead of a difficult one, then there's a problem?
Giving proper credit is part of both correct public and academic conduct. RMS is perfectly justified to insist on this.
The GPLv3 can be formulated in such a way as to be compatible with GPLv2. So, all you have to do is start incorporating some bits and pieces into the kernel under GPLv3.
As a result, people can still run the GPLv2 bits of the kernel under the provisions of the GPLv2, but that won't do them much good since they need the GPLv3 bits to have an entire, functioning kernel.
So, getting the kernel "under GPLv3" is simple: just put some major pieces under GPLv3 and be done with it. You only need to convince Linus, and maybe one or two major contributors to do it and it's a done deal.
Doesn't seem logical but Novell won't discuss it preferring, it says, to wait and see what happens in the GPL3 negotiations, clinging to the notion that Stallman and company - anarchist fanatics said to be cut from the same all-or-nothing cloth as suicide bombers - won't do anything to derail Linux.
This statement is ambiguous; is it saying that Novell made these statements about Stallman, or is it the journalist's own statement?
Either way, likening someone who takes a principled stand on intellectual property to "suicide bombers" is highly irresponsible. By the same reasoning, you might liken the Founding Fathers, Microsoft Management, or the US Supreme Court to "anarchist fanatics... suicide bombers".
This sort of shitty journalism shouldn't be rewarded with ad impressions.
American public education must be stopped. The high school I graduated from recently enforced school uniforms, suspending students who refuse to conform.
Public education is what has made democracy possible. If it's being hijacked by political extremists, then it needs to be returned to its roots.
Stopping public education is the quickest way to destroying our democracy.
Hey, it's not my fault that the two biggest presidential sleazeballs in the last 100 years have been Republican. And you're absolutely right that the president that puts together both desire and ability in the abuse of power may be of either party. Nevertheless, it is this Congress and this President that will go down in history of having created the means for it.
Europe doesn't stop dealing with allies just because those allies engage in a little extraterritorial assassination. I mean, c'mon, the US has been assassinating people it doesn't like around the world for decades, and I'd be really surprised if the UK and France didn't do the same in their heyday. It's the way big powers operate.
"The Bush administration has shown they ignore the law" is a different argument. If the law is followed, it's only the tech that has changed.
It's not a different argument at all; my point is that if you make it easy to do these things, the government will invariably abuse the technology sooner or later. Nixon showed that there was the desire (but not the ability), Bush showed that there was the ability (but perhaps not the desire), and sooner or later, both ability and desire will meet in the same administration.
And according to the article, this new tech still requires physical access first...........
You misread the article; in fact, the article was pretty clear that (1) this can be done without physical access, and (2) the government is probably doing it without physical access but just doesn't want to admit it.
It is the job of the courts to assure the public that this does not occur without probable cause.
Well, as the Bush administration has shown, it's not the job of the courts to do this. And if spying becomes as simple as pushing a bunch of buttons, you can be certain that people will do it without a court order.
This is all just a rehash of the same old story from back in the days when they were first tapping phone lines across the street from Ma Bell's switchboard.
Well, no, it isn't. That required physical access and had significant costs associated with it. Now, the costs are considerably lower, and surveillance follows the person around. That changes things considerably.
Overall, it's a question of balance, not black-or-white-it's-all-the-same style arguments, like you're making.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem isn't that people haven't figured out ways of dividing by zero, the problem is that there are many different ways in which you could reasonably define division by zero, and they are not mutually consistent. Wikipedia lists some of them.
"Twenty years from now, experts doubt that America will remain a dominant force in science [CC] as it was during the last century.
Maybe a good place to start would be with better writing. The sentence above incorrectly suggests that experts will, in 20 years, make such a prediction.
In any case, the US has never been able to produce the number of highly skilled graduates necessary to maintain its dominance in science. America's dominance in science is largely due easy immigration, an open society, and a high living standard in the US relative to other nations. It seems pretty clear that all of those factors are changing for the worse.
I don't see anything that can be done about it. If Americans aren't willing to maintain a high standard of living, a rational and secular society, and a meritocracy for the direct benefits that those policies bring, they aren't going to do it in order to attract foreign scientists either.
Yes, I know what you were referring to. My point is that I think your implied argument is flawed. (1) Microsoft making heaps of money is largely unrelated to the intelligence of their technical employees, and (2) Microsoft's technical employees really do have the goal of making great software, but they simply aren't able to do it.
For example, tobacco and fast-food companies are making lots of money, too, but that doesn't mean that their products are good or that most of their employees are smart. Big businesses succeed because of a small number of ruthless and smart business and marketing people at the top; the rest of the employees are little more than hamburger flippers, at Microsoft as much as at MacDonalds. Companies where the technical skill of employees can make a difference are small and medium companies, as well as startups.
private users should be allowed to copy music from a CD to their MP3 player'
They already can and do.
and further 'recommends the 50-year copyright protection for recorded music should not be extended,' saying, 'The ideal IP system creates incentives for innovation, without unduly limiting access for consumers and follow-on innovators.'
50 years is not "balanced"; "balanced" copyright, in today's world would be 10-20 years. Furthermore, copyright should go back to applying only when the work has been explicitly registered, so that things actually can fall into the public domain and people can determine ownership.
To rehash what you said,
No, that's not what I said. I said that Microsoft RESEARCH is good.
only "bandwagon riders" and fools hate microsoft for their intelligence...they hate them for their buisness practices.
Except for some shrewd business people, the rest of Microsoft doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent. In addition, intelligence is not sufficient for producing good software-skill and experience matter just as much-and those are badly lacking in Microsoft's incestuous environment. Many long-time Microsoft employees don't even know how bad they are at what they do because they have never even seen anything else, and they think that the fact that they have been able to piggy-back some shitty software onto Windows and thereby ship it to a few hundred million customers means that they are good.
Regardless of your opinion of them, you cannot deny that they are highly successful in their goals.
Are you kidding? Microsoft's goal is to deliver great software, and they have failed miserably at that. Given the resources and power they have, something like Vista is an embarrassment.
I don't know of anybody criticizing Microsoft Research: there are lots of good people doing good work there. People are criticizing Microsoft's business practices and products. Good research doesn't necessarily translate into good products, in particular if a company's primary goal is market dominance through lock-in and other tricks.
Um, why? MS has already indicated that they "agree to disagree" on the patent issue
It doesn't matter what Microsoft believes, the question is what Novell knows.
Scenario: Novell generates code which it believes to be unencumbered by MS patents. Novell then contributes the code to, say Linux or Openoffice.org, at which point Microsoft publicly "agrees to disagree" with Novell again and claims that said code does violate their patents. What would happen?
What would happen is that nobody could use the software anymore because the GPL prohibits distributing such software. In particular, Novell would have to stop distributing the software.
Novell has bought freedom from liability for infringing on Microsoft's patents THROUGH THIS VERY AGREEMENT!
No, Novell bought freedom from liability for their customers, not for themselves; they can't buy freedom for themselves because that would violate the GPL.
And the major risk for their customers is not getting sued by Microsoft, the major risk for their customers is not being able to use the software anymore. It doesn't matter what Microsoft says or does or agrees or disagrees about, if Microsoft holds a patent on something and Novell knows about it, then Novell must stop distributing the software to their customers.
And since Novell has an agreement with Microsoft, Novell is in the best position to know what patents Microsoft holds. That means that they are at the greatest risk of being sued for patent violations by Microsoft and GPL violations by the copyright holders of the GPL software.
I think it's worth pointing out that we only have Novell's assurances that their future code contributions will be MS-patent free. We do NOT have Microsoft's assurance of that. It's Microsoft who's making threatening noises towards Linux on the patent issue, not Novell.
That's correct. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Microsoft genuinely believes that they have patents. And that is annoying and a problem that needs to be resolved. But that doesn't just affect Novell, it affects the entire industry.
Nevertheless, the Novell/Microsoft agreement doesn't affect any of that; it doesn't help their customers, and it doesn't give Microsoft any more legal ammunition. So why did Novell make that agreement? Because Microsoft ended up giving them several hundred million dollars.
And why did Microsoft make the agreement? Because the FUD, press coverage of their patent strategy, and controversy is worth it to them.
What can you do? Ignore it; all these heated discussions just serve Microsoft's FUD machine. Nothing has changed. Microsoft's patents are as much and as little of a threat as before. Until they sue anybody, there is no point losing sleep over it. And Java, Solaris, Macintosh, or other platforms are no safer from Microsoft patent claims than Mono or SuSE Linux.
2) Novell can already distribute 100% legal GPL code, can't they?
No, they can't. Novell can't distribute code under the GPL if they know that it violates patents.
1) What if you are using redhat?
Novell's protection is meaningless because if there is actually a patent that some GPL'ed project violates, then nobody can use the GPL'ed software in question, not RedHat customers and not Novell's customers.
4) Why should novell be given exclusive rights to a public resource?
They aren't; their agreement with Microsoft is meaningless.
How different is it than MSFT placing its products (Internet Explorer) in a premium marketing position (embedded in the OS)?'"
It's different because it's ad placement--they offer a service, but using something else is as easy as using Google. Microsoft's bundled applications, on the other hand, are actually bundled: some of them, you can't replace at all, and others are hard to replace.
Besides, why would it have to be different? Microsoft has been doing this for many years and they are still getting away with it. Good or bad, if Microsoft does it, their competitors have to do it, even if they preferred that sort of behavior to be illegal.
1. Novell agrees to violate the clear intent and spirit of the GPL in an attempt to comply literally with the words but not with the actual known purpose of the license to make money off of code Novell didn't write and doesn't own. So instead of trying to prove the GPL isn't binding, they just kick it to the curb and step over it and dare the community to do something about it?
2. puts a FUD legal cloud over Linux (this time a patent cloud) or in any case an "IP" cloud, as per Steve Ballmer's vague wording -- and was Darl McBride's less vague?
Actually, this makes GPL software from Novell safer, not less safe, for others to use. Why? Because Novell cannot distribute software under the (L)GPL if that software is covered by patents. Since Novell has negotiated a legal agreement with Microsoft, they can be presumed to know what patents apply, and Novell has to be extra careful about patent violations when distributing software, since they would be liable for willful commercial infringement.
3. makes Novell's Linux cost more, because it has agreed to pay Microsoft royalties, whereas SCO asked for money for its license;
Novell made a huge net profit on the deal, so Novell Linux won't cost more.
And since Microsoft paid Novell and not the other way around, the logical conclusion is that Microsoft does not have IP of any value related to Linux or Mono, and instead is using this as a marketing gimmick. And courts probably won't see that any different either.
In Microsoft's mind, anyway. I frankly see nothing that Vista, VisualStudio, and Mono have over Linux, X11, Gnome, Eclipse, and MonoDevelop, or Macintosh, for that matter. If anything, after slowly catching up for a few years, Microsoft is falling behind again, with release delays, security problems, bloat, and lack of ideas. If they win this round, it will be through dirty tricks and monopolistic practices again.
how can you hear all the details of masterfull technique or all the shades of expression in a singer's voice? Isn't that (at least in part) what genius music-making is about?
It's a given that any professional performer is going to have an excellent sound and technique; people don't need the recording to verify that. What distinguishes great performances is the interpretation, and those are usually not-very-subtle variations in timing, pitch, and volume, variations that any reasonable recording can easily capture.
Incidentally, most studio recordings have little to do with actual performances; they are really artificially created, synthetic assemblages of snippets and tracks. They are the TV dinner of music: taste-enhanced, reproducible, and convenient, but far removed from a natural, high-quality product.
Also, listening to live music is quite often worse than listening to a well-made recording - take pieces like Beethoven's Missa Solemnis or Mahler's 8th symphony - you'd have to be pretty lucky to hear it live as well balanced as it comes on a good recording.
To me, within reasonable limits, the balance is of no interest; it's the music and its interpretation that matters.
On the one hand, people are trying to sell Web 2.0 as the "semantic web", on the other hand, AJAX is a big part of Web 2.0 apps and makes it harder and harder to actually get at other people's semantic data.
In the end, the whole thing is just marketing hype. Web 2.0 is just the haphazard collection of messy technologies people happen to be using on the web in 2006, and don't expect things to get any better in the next few years either: the W3C, Adobe, and Microsoft will see to it that things remain messy and complex, because, heck, if we actually made the technologies clean and simple, how would these companies and the swarm of overpaid and underqualified consultants make a living?
In my experience, it's only pretentious audiophiles that really care about uncompressed music. For a serious classical musician, the primary problem with a recording is not any slight--or imagined--differences in quality, it's the fact that it isn't live. And any serious classical musician will prefer even a noisy 78rpm shellac recording by a great artist to a technically perfect recording by a second rate modern musician.
MP3's at 160kbps are more than good enough for anybody. And they are way overkill for any kind of portable player, given the kind of suboptimal listening environments portable players are used in.
As Churchill said: "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
He wants freedom for software users to use software as they wish, but not for consumers or businessmen.
Where the hell do you get that from? Free software gives consumers and businesses a choice. You can use it commercially, you can make money with it, whatever you want. All you have to do is make the source available under the same license you got it.
He seems to be further proof of the oft-believed link between insanity and genius
RMS may be annoying and overly intellectual for your taste, but he is in no sense of the word "insane".
Freedom, freedom, freedom is all we hear, but heaven forbid you want to use an easy name for the software instead of a difficult one, then there's a problem?
Giving proper credit is part of both correct public and academic conduct. RMS is perfectly justified to insist on this.
The GPLv3 can be formulated in such a way as to be compatible with GPLv2. So, all you have to do is start incorporating some bits and pieces into the kernel under GPLv3.
As a result, people can still run the GPLv2 bits of the kernel under the provisions of the GPLv2, but that won't do them much good since they need the GPLv3 bits to have an entire, functioning kernel.
So, getting the kernel "under GPLv3" is simple: just put some major pieces under GPLv3 and be done with it. You only need to convince Linus, and maybe one or two major contributors to do it and it's a done deal.
Doesn't seem logical but Novell won't discuss it preferring, it says, to wait and see what happens in the GPL3 negotiations, clinging to the notion that Stallman and company - anarchist fanatics said to be cut from the same all-or-nothing cloth as suicide bombers - won't do anything to derail Linux.
... suicide bombers".
This statement is ambiguous; is it saying that Novell made these statements about Stallman, or is it the journalist's own statement?
Either way, likening someone who takes a principled stand on intellectual property to "suicide bombers" is highly irresponsible. By the same reasoning, you might liken the Founding Fathers, Microsoft Management, or the US Supreme Court to "anarchist fanatics
This sort of shitty journalism shouldn't be rewarded with ad impressions.
American public education must be stopped. The high school I graduated from recently enforced school uniforms, suspending students who refuse to conform.
Public education is what has made democracy possible. If it's being hijacked by political extremists, then it needs to be returned to its roots.
Stopping public education is the quickest way to destroying our democracy.
Hey, it's not my fault that the two biggest presidential sleazeballs in the last 100 years have been Republican. And you're absolutely right that the president that puts together both desire and ability in the abuse of power may be of either party. Nevertheless, it is this Congress and this President that will go down in history of having created the means for it.
Europe doesn't stop dealing with allies just because those allies engage in a little extraterritorial assassination. I mean, c'mon, the US has been assassinating people it doesn't like around the world for decades, and I'd be really surprised if the UK and France didn't do the same in their heyday. It's the way big powers operate.
"The Bush administration has shown they ignore the law" is a different argument. If the law is followed, it's only the tech that has changed.
It's not a different argument at all; my point is that if you make it easy to do these things, the government will invariably abuse the technology sooner or later. Nixon showed that there was the desire (but not the ability), Bush showed that there was the ability (but perhaps not the desire), and sooner or later, both ability and desire will meet in the same administration.
And according to the article, this new tech still requires physical access first...........
You misread the article; in fact, the article was pretty clear that (1) this can be done without physical access, and (2) the government is probably doing it without physical access but just doesn't want to admit it.
It is the job of the courts to assure the public that this does not occur without probable cause.
Well, as the Bush administration has shown, it's not the job of the courts to do this. And if spying becomes as simple as pushing a bunch of buttons, you can be certain that people will do it without a court order.
This is all just a rehash of the same old story from back in the days when they were first tapping phone lines across the street from Ma Bell's switchboard.
Well, no, it isn't. That required physical access and had significant costs associated with it. Now, the costs are considerably lower, and surveillance follows the person around. That changes things considerably.
Overall, it's a question of balance, not black-or-white-it's-all-the-same style arguments, like you're making.
My cell phone and my laptop broadcast where I am and who I am all day long; what difference does it make if my shoes do the same thing?