Iraq was not a real threat to the United States. Therefore, "just war theory" does not come into play.
We have also gained neither treasure nor territory. Without spoils, conquest is also nil.
I can therefore think of no legitimate reason why we are in Iraq, expending money, lives and resources, for absolutely no tangible benefit to the United States.
It's a tragedy when soldiers die, sure. However, when they die for nothing, it's a travesty and that is what we have now.
FDR was alright as a war leader (his fiscal policy may or may not have prolonged the depression). Truman put the boot down to end WW2, but fucked up Korea. Korea is a lot like Iraq in that way, but at least a valid case can be made for checking Soviet expansion, directly or by proxy.
We have in Iraq unseated a secular leader whom Bin Laden himself hated, and instead opened up a vacuum for sectarian extremism to take hold. We fucked up bad.
I currently have LinuxMint on my Dell d830 laptop, but tried bringing up Fedora 8 on it the other day. However, following explicitly the directions for using bcm43xx-fwcutter, using the firmware file that I was using with LinuxMint, it kept telling me that it would not work.
Is 9 going to be any better or what? I have used RH 4.2, 5.0, 5.2, 6.0-CORE and 7.2 in the past, and quite frankly I prefer that setup to the Debian variaty (despite my nickname, RH 5.2 was the most pleasant OS experience I have ever had. I did cut my teeth on FreeBSD 2.2.8 and am quite fond of the *BSDs though).
Its erally a hassle because the apartment that I live at right now gives free wifi, but I don't have hard ethernet to plug into in order to sort things out like I wish I could.
Well, if we make it based in the US, then we need to fill out the forms to make a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation, which means also appointing a board of directors and stuff... the key then would be who to put on the board.
We would want relatively high-profile individuals in order to attract the most funding, as people will feel that it is a safe venture with a reasonable chance of actually doing something -- however, not people who are likely to grandstand or try and take over the organization.
We also would have to have an Executive Director -- someone who could manage the day-to-day goings on.
Once we had the Board and stuff, we would then have to figure out what, exactly, we were trying to accomplish and then decide what milestones we would need to mark progress.
We'd then probably want to get a few big-name, deep-pocket donors on board. People like Paul Allen (who, iirc, helps to fund scaled composites or one of those x-prize competitors) would be a good source.
That's where we get the money to pay the primary engineers, gain materials, etc.
As to the software side of things, definately, the open source model would be excellent, but I think that we'd have to run it in a sort of BSD-fashion, where there is a core team that directs quality control and does the heavy lifting - especially on systems where lives may depend on it. It's not the sort of thing that you want some random dude tossing a few hundred lines up in his spare time and no one checking it against anything.
I'm just sort of brainstorming though. Its the sort of thing that does bare serious consideration though, and I'd be more than willing to help get it off the ground (so to speak) -- however, figuring out that board of directors is the key.
I'm not defending the Iraq war. I'm just saying that on the scale of national tragedy, the number of dead soldiers doesn't even really register. The terrible leadership we have that got us into the mess in the first place is the bigger tragedy.
Kennedy may have gotten us into Vietnam, but at least he also gave us the inspiration to go to the moon - statim.
"we choose to go to the moon, and do these other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard" is a far cry from no child left behind (the only way that works, is if no one else gets to go forward).
The standards for success/victory in America are so low these days that minor failures seem even more egregious by comparison. It's all about scale.
In a little over a month I'll be 24. I already don't have it as good as I did when I was 12, and unless things drastically change, I cannot assume that my children will have it as easy as my parents expected that I would.
All of that which is my fault, I am changing -- getting another degree in MechE (majoring in English is good for learning how to talk to girls, but when you can't afford to marry one, it doesn't really matter...), for starters.
However, it doesn't change the fact that free trade, outsourcing, and stupid leadership from the doped-up baby-boomer generation has seriously run the ship of state aground.
Sometimes I think the best way to deal with the government is just to ignore them until they go away.
So, Public Domain is the best and closed source is the worst, but BSD-license is better than GPL?
But doesn't that mean, then, that PD/OSS software is "more free" than the "free software?" I might tend to agree, as I cut my UNIX teeth with FreeBSD 2.2.8 and still love the system, however - I think that "more free than Free" might just lead even greater confusions.
If I had a big brother, I'm sure that he, too, would want to "keep [me] safe and help [me] graduate."
However, I don't, and I did quite fine all by my self. The government can't even keep track of laptops, how are they supposed to keep track of kids?
It's total bull, just like airport security, only more intrusive. Why do all these "tracking" programs get tested on school kids? Just to get them used to the idea so by the time they're adults, they don't know any better...
In Latin, libertas is free as in liberty and gratis means without charge.
This used to be a pretty common method of clarification -- of course, many of the same people who are confused in the first place also didn't take Latin, so I'm not sure if it'd really do to make it standard.
Precisely. We lost more people landing on D-Day than we have in 5 years in Iraq. Vastly more.
It was also during Vietnam. I suspect that most people figured that 3 astronauts dying for the cause of advancing human knowledge and reach was worth a lot more than what more people were dying for in indochina.
It's all about perspective. The fact is that we now handle people with kid gloves until they're 30, and then some. No risk is acceptable anymore, which is why we haven't really had anything to show for it in so long.
Where there congressional hearings after the Apollo 1 fire? I don't know -- but they sure dragged out after Columbia, as if Congress can fix an engineering problem. They can't even fix the voting system (not that they'd want to...).
It's tragic, really. Fear over every little thing. "Oh noes!! dirty bombs!!" -- take an iodide tablet and shut up. People would get more radiation exposure flying across country, but just try and convince them of it...
If we as a society are no longer willing to take risks, then we just have to accept that we are not going to get anymore huge payoffs.
The original astronauts were all fighter pilots (with engineerign degrees) who got to wear Omega Speedmaster watches and drive free Corvettes.
In fact, the original astronauts were a lot like James Bond.
I was at the NASM last week to check out that UAV exhibit and there were some astronauts there doing a talk about the ISS. It was a bunch of crap from some chunky, balding scientists about how much fun it is to play with your food in 0g.
Seriously.
Bring back the seat-of-your-pants, high-adventure space program and people will be totally into it. Columbus didn't cross the Atlantic to see if whipped cream worked the same in America as it did in Europe -- he did it for fortune and the fame that comes with just getting somewhere before anyone else.
Do the stupid science experiments later. If you want the funding and the future scientist corps to get there, you have to get people interested first. Fat bald guys in blue jump suits are not the way to inspire a generation.
Seriously -- the Government isn't taking it seriously, and just like immigration that leaves an opening for citizens who recognize a problem, and a lack of response, to do something about it themselves.
Like in Jules Verene's "From the Earth to the Moon" -- open the project up to subscription, so to speak. seek donations from individuals, as well as from large donors, organizations and governments world wide.
Release all of the schematics and source code, take submissions from volunteers but try and maintain a budget high enough to ensure that high-quality engineers can be maintained on staff and that hard devices can actually get built.
Turn a manned mission to Mars into a world-wide, grass-roots endeavor. We all have a stake in getting off this rock and its clear that the powers that be aren't going to actually bother.
I have some experience in non-profit management and fund raising. Anyone want to help start an Open Space Foundation?
Are you familiar with the persecutions? Nero, Domitian, etc... first the Romans persecuted the Christians. Once the Christians came to power, they persecuted pagans.
That takes care of Greece and Italy.
I can't speak to Australia and New Zealand -- mileages for their indigenous populations may vary, however, like the US and Canada, 'conversion" was never a declared goal of colonization.
Look at Latin America for what I'm really talking about.
Ireland got off easy (at first)... no one had to die, unless you count when St Patrick made Oisin dismount his horse after he returned from Tir na nOg aftere 1000 years, and then he turned to dust...
but there was no blood involved in that story, just dust.
I didn't read the article...
on
DDR3 RAM Explained
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Someone explain to me why more RAM in Dance Dance Revolution version 3 machines is such a big deal?
methodology is one thing, intent is another. The intent is to gain as much of the market as possible. You can either make a better product, or resort to underhanded business tactics. Alternatively, you can just sit on the sidelines and assume everyone who is going to use your product is going to know matter what.
Christianity is like Linux, Islam is like Vista, and folk religions (Celtic, Norse, Judaism, etc) are like GNU HURD.
They're all competing for their slice of the pie (OS market, religion market), they're just going about it differently.
The fact of the matter is, though, that they all have to grow or die -- just like capitalism requires ever-growing markets and communism can't be stabilized in a contained implementation.
No, I'm not kidding. I also didn't say that Christianity requires killing people. Fact of the matter is, though -- Ireland is the only country where Christianity came without bloodshed... but in the long run, that backfired as well.
Muslims are planning to take over the West, just like Christians planned to take over the West, Capitalist and Communists planned to take over the west, etc.
Just because we're currently dominated by a certain ideological set doesn't mean that it's native or natural in anyway.
However, "universal" ideologies by their very nature need to spread or perish. There is a reason that Asataru and Judaism don't evangelize -- it's cause you're either one of them or you're not. period.
However, people can be "converted" to Christianity, Islam, Capitalism or Communism... and those that won't buy in, clearly just need to be gotten rid of.
See, I understand Microsoft's point of view. I just don't see why the hardware people would acquiesce to this crap. Their success so far as shown that they don't need Microsoft. People are buying them anyway.
I'm still mostly taken aback that an iMac would do a better job of running Vista with 1GB of RAM than a PC did with 2, even though they had the same processor and whatnot. That OS X would trounce vista head-to-head on their own hardware was no surprise at all.
Then again, in high school I would build my own systems, pick every piece of hardware, then build FreeBSD from source with a custom kernel stripped of everything I wasn't going to be using. I always good very good performance out of them... except trying to print.
In this month's print edition of Popular Mechanics they do head-to-head comparisions of Mac and similar PCs (iMac vs Gateway One, for instance).
The Mac's smoked the PCs in pretty much everything, despite the PCs having more RAM. More telling was that the Macs ran Vista faster under Bootcamp than the PCs did.
The morale of the story is, Windows fails even in its native market. I think they're hoping that by getting into this market, they'll make the products so unattractive that no one will buy them (and clearly, if no one wants the EEE running Windows, then no one will want the EEE running Linux, right? *sigh*) at all anyway.
Note, I am not a Mac user -- I'm just saying that there are serious deficiencies in the Windows/PC platform from the get go, and they need to cover that up by making something even worse.
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Good thing if Phoenix crashes, it'll just rise from the dead and reassemble itself, thereby completing its mission, good as new.
Very good strategy on behalf of NASA, I'd say.
So, then you'll have a country full of managers without anyone around to actually make products?
South Africa has enough problems of its own without trying to imitate America in the current race to the bottom.
You need both engineers and business people, or you have nothing.
Iraq was not a real threat to the United States. Therefore, "just war theory" does not come into play.
We have also gained neither treasure nor territory. Without spoils, conquest is also nil.
I can therefore think of no legitimate reason why we are in Iraq, expending money, lives and resources, for absolutely no tangible benefit to the United States.
It's a tragedy when soldiers die, sure. However, when they die for nothing, it's a travesty and that is what we have now.
FDR was alright as a war leader (his fiscal policy may or may not have prolonged the depression). Truman put the boot down to end WW2, but fucked up Korea. Korea is a lot like Iraq in that way, but at least a valid case can be made for checking Soviet expansion, directly or by proxy.
We have in Iraq unseated a secular leader whom Bin Laden himself hated, and instead opened up a vacuum for sectarian extremism to take hold. We fucked up bad.
I currently have LinuxMint on my Dell d830 laptop, but tried bringing up Fedora 8 on it the other day. However, following explicitly the directions for using bcm43xx-fwcutter, using the firmware file that I was using with LinuxMint, it kept telling me that it would not work.
Is 9 going to be any better or what? I have used RH 4.2, 5.0, 5.2, 6.0-CORE and 7.2 in the past, and quite frankly I prefer that setup to the Debian variaty (despite my nickname, RH 5.2 was the most pleasant OS experience I have ever had. I did cut my teeth on FreeBSD 2.2.8 and am quite fond of the *BSDs though).
Its erally a hassle because the apartment that I live at right now gives free wifi, but I don't have hard ethernet to plug into in order to sort things out like I wish I could.
Marxists or Ted Kennedy? But I repeat myself...
At least, that is how I except H. Ross Perot's company to approach those monikers.
The bigger question is, would I have been "created" or "intelligently designed?" Though, I'm not sure I see the difference in that case...
Well, if we make it based in the US, then we need to fill out the forms to make a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation, which means also appointing a board of directors and stuff... the key then would be who to put on the board.
We would want relatively high-profile individuals in order to attract the most funding, as people will feel that it is a safe venture with a reasonable chance of actually doing something -- however, not people who are likely to grandstand or try and take over the organization.
We also would have to have an Executive Director -- someone who could manage the day-to-day goings on.
Once we had the Board and stuff, we would then have to figure out what, exactly, we were trying to accomplish and then decide what milestones we would need to mark progress.
We'd then probably want to get a few big-name, deep-pocket donors on board. People like Paul Allen (who, iirc, helps to fund scaled composites or one of those x-prize competitors) would be a good source.
That's where we get the money to pay the primary engineers, gain materials, etc.
As to the software side of things, definately, the open source model would be excellent, but I think that we'd have to run it in a sort of BSD-fashion, where there is a core team that directs quality control and does the heavy lifting - especially on systems where lives may depend on it. It's not the sort of thing that you want some random dude tossing a few hundred lines up in his spare time and no one checking it against anything.
I'm just sort of brainstorming though. Its the sort of thing that does bare serious consideration though, and I'd be more than willing to help get it off the ground (so to speak) -- however, figuring out that board of directors is the key.
Of course, if I were German I would be compelled to say "greated vastly more liberators with tea and cakes," lest I risk a prison sentence.
I'm not defending the Iraq war. I'm just saying that on the scale of national tragedy, the number of dead soldiers doesn't even really register. The terrible leadership we have that got us into the mess in the first place is the bigger tragedy.
Kennedy may have gotten us into Vietnam, but at least he also gave us the inspiration to go to the moon - statim.
"we choose to go to the moon, and do these other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard" is a far cry from no child left behind (the only way that works, is if no one else gets to go forward).
The standards for success/victory in America are so low these days that minor failures seem even more egregious by comparison. It's all about scale.
In a little over a month I'll be 24. I already don't have it as good as I did when I was 12, and unless things drastically change, I cannot assume that my children will have it as easy as my parents expected that I would.
All of that which is my fault, I am changing -- getting another degree in MechE (majoring in English is good for learning how to talk to girls, but when you can't afford to marry one, it doesn't really matter...), for starters.
However, it doesn't change the fact that free trade, outsourcing, and stupid leadership from the doped-up baby-boomer generation has seriously run the ship of state aground.
Sometimes I think the best way to deal with the government is just to ignore them until they go away.
That's what happens when cautionary tales become cultural cliches... I guess people have just cried wolf too many times...
So, Public Domain is the best and closed source is the worst, but BSD-license is better than GPL?
But doesn't that mean, then, that PD/OSS software is "more free" than the "free software?" I might tend to agree, as I cut my UNIX teeth with FreeBSD 2.2.8 and still love the system, however - I think that "more free than Free" might just lead even greater confusions.
If I had a big brother, I'm sure that he, too, would want to "keep [me] safe and help [me] graduate."
However, I don't, and I did quite fine all by my self. The government can't even keep track of laptops, how are they supposed to keep track of kids?
It's total bull, just like airport security, only more intrusive. Why do all these "tracking" programs get tested on school kids? Just to get them used to the idea so by the time they're adults, they don't know any better...
It's shameful.
In Latin, libertas is free as in liberty and gratis means without charge.
This used to be a pretty common method of clarification -- of course, many of the same people who are confused in the first place also didn't take Latin, so I'm not sure if it'd really do to make it standard.
Precisely. We lost more people landing on D-Day than we have in 5 years in Iraq. Vastly more.
It was also during Vietnam. I suspect that most people figured that 3 astronauts dying for the cause of advancing human knowledge and reach was worth a lot more than what more people were dying for in indochina.
It's all about perspective. The fact is that we now handle people with kid gloves until they're 30, and then some. No risk is acceptable anymore, which is why we haven't really had anything to show for it in so long.
Where there congressional hearings after the Apollo 1 fire? I don't know -- but they sure dragged out after Columbia, as if Congress can fix an engineering problem. They can't even fix the voting system (not that they'd want to...).
It's tragic, really. Fear over every little thing. "Oh noes!! dirty bombs!!" -- take an iodide tablet and shut up. People would get more radiation exposure flying across country, but just try and convince them of it...
If we as a society are no longer willing to take risks, then we just have to accept that we are not going to get anymore huge payoffs.
Personally, I'm not willing to accept it.
The original astronauts were all fighter pilots (with engineerign degrees) who got to wear Omega Speedmaster watches and drive free Corvettes.
In fact, the original astronauts were a lot like James Bond.
I was at the NASM last week to check out that UAV exhibit and there were some astronauts there doing a talk about the ISS. It was a bunch of crap from some chunky, balding scientists about how much fun it is to play with your food in 0g.
Seriously.
Bring back the seat-of-your-pants, high-adventure space program and people will be totally into it. Columbus didn't cross the Atlantic to see if whipped cream worked the same in America as it did in Europe -- he did it for fortune and the fame that comes with just getting somewhere before anyone else.
Do the stupid science experiments later. If you want the funding and the future scientist corps to get there, you have to get people interested first. Fat bald guys in blue jump suits are not the way to inspire a generation.
Apollo was the generation of The Duke... this is the generation of Kevin Bacon.
We don't even let kids play dodge ball in school anymore, then we wonder why we're losing wars.
Frankly, I think America has become pussified, and it happened by design.
Seriously -- the Government isn't taking it seriously, and just like immigration that leaves an opening for citizens who recognize a problem, and a lack of response, to do something about it themselves.
Like in Jules Verene's "From the Earth to the Moon" -- open the project up to subscription, so to speak. seek donations from individuals, as well as from large donors, organizations and governments world wide.
Release all of the schematics and source code, take submissions from volunteers but try and maintain a budget high enough to ensure that high-quality engineers can be maintained on staff and that hard devices can actually get built.
Turn a manned mission to Mars into a world-wide, grass-roots endeavor. We all have a stake in getting off this rock and its clear that the powers that be aren't going to actually bother.
I have some experience in non-profit management and fund raising. Anyone want to help start an Open Space Foundation?
Are you familiar with the persecutions? Nero, Domitian, etc... first the Romans persecuted the Christians. Once the Christians came to power, they persecuted pagans.
That takes care of Greece and Italy.
I can't speak to Australia and New Zealand -- mileages for their indigenous populations may vary, however, like the US and Canada, 'conversion" was never a declared goal of colonization.
Look at Latin America for what I'm really talking about.
Ireland got off easy (at first)... no one had to die, unless you count when St Patrick made Oisin dismount his horse after he returned from Tir na nOg aftere 1000 years, and then he turned to dust...
but there was no blood involved in that story, just dust.
Someone explain to me why more RAM in Dance Dance Revolution version 3 machines is such a big deal?
methodology is one thing, intent is another. The intent is to gain as much of the market as possible. You can either make a better product, or resort to underhanded business tactics. Alternatively, you can just sit on the sidelines and assume everyone who is going to use your product is going to know matter what.
Christianity is like Linux, Islam is like Vista, and folk religions (Celtic, Norse, Judaism, etc) are like GNU HURD.
They're all competing for their slice of the pie (OS market, religion market), they're just going about it differently.
The fact of the matter is, though, that they all have to grow or die -- just like capitalism requires ever-growing markets and communism can't be stabilized in a contained implementation.
No, I'm not kidding. I also didn't say that Christianity requires killing people. Fact of the matter is, though -- Ireland is the only country where Christianity came without bloodshed... but in the long run, that backfired as well.
Muslims are planning to take over the West, just like Christians planned to take over the West, Capitalist and Communists planned to take over the west, etc.
Just because we're currently dominated by a certain ideological set doesn't mean that it's native or natural in anyway.
However, "universal" ideologies by their very nature need to spread or perish. There is a reason that Asataru and Judaism don't evangelize -- it's cause you're either one of them or you're not. period.
However, people can be "converted" to Christianity, Islam, Capitalism or Communism... and those that won't buy in, clearly just need to be gotten rid of.
See, I understand Microsoft's point of view. I just don't see why the hardware people would acquiesce to this crap. Their success so far as shown that they don't need Microsoft. People are buying them anyway.
Looking at the article now:
a 20" iMac with 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo 1GB of RAM, 320GB HDD, w/ built in bluetooth, wifi, super drive, Radeon HD 2600 ($1499)
a Gateway One with 19" screen, 2.0Ghz Core2 Duo, 3GB of RAM, 500GB hard disk, wifi, super drive, Radeon HD 2600.
the laptops they looked at were:
macbook 13.3" with 2.2ghz core 2 duo, 1gb of ram, 120gb hard disk and un-named graphics card.
vs
15.5" ausus m51sr w/ 2.2ghz core 2 duo, 2gb of ram, 250gb hard disk, and a radeon hd 2400
---------
They're pretty damned close -- even though the iMac had a faster processor, the PC had 3x the RAM.
Someone else posted the link to the article in the thread, so you can check it out.
They don't discuss how much speed was gained running Vista on the Macs, so not sure how much difference we're talking as far as that goes.
I'm still mostly taken aback that an iMac would do a better job of running Vista with 1GB of RAM than a PC did with 2, even though they had the same processor and whatnot. That OS X would trounce vista head-to-head on their own hardware was no surprise at all.
Then again, in high school I would build my own systems, pick every piece of hardware, then build FreeBSD from source with a custom kernel stripped of everything I wasn't going to be using. I always good very good performance out of them... except trying to print.
Printers and I don't get along.
In this month's print edition of Popular Mechanics they do head-to-head comparisions of Mac and similar PCs (iMac vs Gateway One, for instance).
The Mac's smoked the PCs in pretty much everything, despite the PCs having more RAM. More telling was that the Macs ran Vista faster under Bootcamp than the PCs did.
The morale of the story is, Windows fails even in its native market. I think they're hoping that by getting into this market, they'll make the products so unattractive that no one will buy them (and clearly, if no one wants the EEE running Windows, then no one will want the EEE running Linux, right? *sigh*) at all anyway.
Note, I am not a Mac user -- I'm just saying that there are serious deficiencies in the Windows/PC platform from the get go, and they need to cover that up by making something even worse.