I fully believe in Voltaire's classic quotation on freedom of speech and belief. But in this instance, I find myself thoroughly unwilling to defend the "Creation Museum's" right to make up whatever crazy "facts" they want. It's the first time I find myself wanting to "think of the children" who may very well grow up into the willfully ignorant bible beaters that are founding this "museum."
And yet there I am, suddenly the intolerant monster I have never been able to stand. Yet I tremble to imagine a future dark ages in America, where real science -- the search for the evidence of the reality of the universe -- is stoned in the streets and systematically rubbed out.
I understand your worry. What reassures me is the thought that this isn't the first time this conflict of worldviews has happened. It first happened hundreds of years ago: the proponents of a naturalistic worldview were very much in the minority, and the dogmatic proponents of religious orthodoxy were very much more integrated with the powers of government than they are today. The tools of communication were all slanted to benefit religion and against science.
And yet we got where we are today.
Does that help? Just keep working as best you can. The truth will win.
Now, given that you've been shown in error about President Clinton and his authorization of regime change, I guess we can can consider you a liar as well? Since the standard appears to be that an error qualifies as a deliberate act of misleading people... Or so the standard seems to be in your accusation of lying about President Bush.
Your standard of accuracy in reading text evidently does not extend to slashdot... GP was my first post related to this article. And I've "been shown in error", considered "a liar as well", and allegedly made "an accusation of lying", all for asking a question. If I felt combative, I would draw a longer parallel between your tendentious readings of texts, and those of the current administration.
All I did was point out that your initial excerpt did not answer the question that was asked, and that Clinton's interpretation of 'bringing about regime change' was markedly different than Bush's. If Clinton had signed an act with the intent of going to war, he had two years to do it, and I imagine then he would have had your full and vocal support.
Oh wait, when Clinton sent far fewer US troops to Kosovo, he was attacked as a militaristic tyrant by Republicans, despite 1) the eventual success of the mission and 2) the lack of American casualties. And of course, the delicious phrase from a Republican representative: "We can support the troops without supporting the president". Of course, since January of 2001, Republicans have been telling us in vocal terms that not supporting the president's policies is equivalent not only to not supporting the troops, but to treason. I call that shameless hypocrisy, but I'm sure you have some magical justification for it.
Look it up. The Iraq Liberation Act. Passed by both houses and signed by Clinton in 98. One of the findings of the act:
Since March 1996, Iraq has systematically sought to deny weapons inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) access to key facilities and documents, has on several occasions endangered the safe operation of UNSCOM helicopters transporting UNSCOM personnel in Iraq, and has persisted in a pattern of deception and concealment regarding the history of its weapons of mass destruction programs.
No, you misunderstood. We want to see the part where Clinton 'authorized regime change'.
There are a few intentional confusions here. First of all, saying 'Saddam persisted in a pattern of deception and concealment' does not prove he had WMDs, and does not even SAY so. All it says is that he was refusing to cooperate, and we now know that he was bluffing.
Secondly, even if Clinton 'authorized regime change', providing funding and information to a few political groups working from London and Jordan is a long distance from Bush's idea of 'bringing about regime change'. We've been living with the blowback of his bright idea for a few years now.
Yes, I realize the WWII era SeaBees were older than the average recruit. The point I was trying to make, that seems to be lost in the noise of ACs flaming me for the dramatic license I took, is that there's a similarity of perspective between the 'can do' philosophy of the SeaBees and FOSS. If someone was to refute me, a better argument would be to say that the Navy has been overrun with the same overspending philosophy as the rest of the military since WWII.
I'm amazed at the number of people asking for cost comparisons and going on about how there are also training costs, blah blah blah. RTFA and we see:
misconceptions about whether or not open source software qualifies as COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) or GOTS (government off-the-shelf) software has hindered the Navy's ability to fully utilize open source software.
Which, if you use your critical reading skills, would tell you that the Navy is already trying to use FOSS, but is having trouble doing so. We all know about military spending -- they don't give a rat's ass about saving 10% off the fully loaded cost. What we're talking about is Naval Engineering:
The term Seabee Ingenuity grew from deeds recorded during the Solomon campaign. A Seabee Warrant Officer repurchased equipment from customers to set up shop. Bulldozer head gaskets were fashioned from scraps of metal and paper. Waxed paper and tinfoil from cigarette packages served as condensers while 55-gallon drums replaced worn-out radiators. Tires were filled with sawdust and concrete. One Seabee turned his dozer into a piece of combat equipment and wiped out a gun emplacement in the Treasury Islands. The work accomplished by these new Construction Battalions seemed almost impossible and yet the CAN DO standards set the precedence for the battalions that followed.
Now, imagine a similar situation involving software. Your control system is acting up while you're on patrol in the South China Sea -- do you send an email to Redmond and wait for the response, or do you open the hood and fix it yourself? As the pdf memorandum said:
As with any COTS solution, the use of OSS must adhere to all Federal, DoD, and DON policies and be based on open standards to support the DoD's goals of net-centricity and interoperability.
Take for example the new EU member countries, Bulgaria and Romania. They're on a much lower level, financially-wise and technologically-wise, than the rest of the EU.
Hey, don't sell yourself short! There's a Porsche dealership right next to the airport, and Bulgarians are widely respected as some of the craftiest virus-writers around...
As in 'volunteer army', yes. The opposite of 'volunteer' is not 'paid', it is 'obliged' or 'forced'. An employee working under contract is obliged by the contract. An at-will employee could be described as a volunteer, but we tend not to use the term that way. See http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid =Mozilla-search&va=volunteer.
Umm, your friend is probably naive about how funded research works. It is common practice for a university lab to charge a 'carrying cost' to all stipends paying for research done in that lab (functionally, this is calculated according to whether or not the individual is affiliated with the lab). This covers everything from administrative/technical support to general lab fixtures, and could very likely be credited to 'general lab funds'. Without more detail, it sounds like either you or he are sensationalizing this common practice.
You are absolutely right; that leapt out at me too. I thought it was much too optimistic, then I realized that whoever wrote the question was bending over backwards to make Vista sales numbers seem bigger.
My theory is that the 25% of companies who say they're currently 'using' Vista mean something like, "Brad Gladhand, VP Sales, called us the day after release and insisted he needed a new laptop with Vista installed so he could play DVD videos during sales presentations and not feel embarassed by out of date hardware... so yes, I guess we're using Vista already".
The real question that should have been asked would be something like "Is Vista currently the OS on your standard desktop build?" (i.e. that all new hires get, or that replacement machines come with). And possibly, "If it is not currently, will Vista become part of your standard desktop build within the next 12 months?". My guess is that the answer to the first question is less than 3%. Our shop is so conservative that we only went up to XPSP2 in the last 12 months; before that we just got SP1+targeted patches.
The incident involving the stage setting for "Stonehenge" demonstrates the importance of making sure everyone involved with a project is using the same units of measure. This is an invaluable lesson that all programmers should absorb.
Somehow this thread proves that the programmers working on the Mars Climate Orbiter are not Spinal Tap fans...
Technically, perhaps not, but this sort of conduct isn't likely to pass the smell test with voters. And it's especially risky with judges, who are often elected in off-cycle (non-presidential or even non-congressional) elections, which attract only the most well-informed and conscientious voters.
I see your point... but just as the intent of the US is relevant (i.e., not intending total subjugation), so is the intent of the Chinese. No one is interested in having the mideast turn into a smoking crater, least of all the Chinese, who need the oil too. And the logistics of getting those 100 million soldiers anywhere outide of China are pretty daunting -- look at the difficulties the US had logistically inside Iraq. This may lead them to decide against a 'full subjugation' objective.
I appreciate your even-handedness re Tibet and Taiwan -- note also their willingness to use the client-state model (various flavors) in Vietnam, N. Korea, etc., during the latter half of the last century.
So I dont expect any serious confrontation between China and Islam. Only if Islamists decide to attack China and try to take it over there will be a problem.
Don't forget the Chinese repression of their Uighur (Muslim) minority in western China. The Islamists tend to get very upset about forced deconversion and other forms of repression of Muslims.
And China will react with violence which the Islamists understand very well.
The American military reacted with violence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that didn't seem to cool the Islamist's jets any. what makes you think the Chinese are any more prepared for asymmetric warfare now than the American army was four years ago?
Note that they also buy used albums, so they are not bailing out on their stock. In fact, "...Please Note: We do not currently handle mail orders, list our inventory or sell online mainly because our inventory changes greatly from day to day."
So it's a hardcopy music store that buys stuff back and refuses to do mailorder/online. Tell me, RIAA Cassandras, how are they managing it?
Thanks for your sympathy, friend. But the good news is, I didn't actually buy a Dell, that discussion was hypothetical. Like any good Jedi, I build my own lightsaber... either from salvaged machines, or parts from Newegg or aberdeeininc.com. I just wanted to bring that Vista booster (GP?) back to reality some. And since you mention it, "HD Ready" is even more of a scam, trying to gloss over the fact that there's no HD tuner included.
I think you are buying far too much into the negative hype around Vista. The only way you'll be having problems with your Vista laptop is if you plan on buying a bargan basement no frills machine that has minimal hardware specs.
You're bending over backwards to be tolerant, here. Remember how Dell was selling 'Vista-capable' machines that were "Great for... Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games" [ yes, caps in the original, like the os was some sort of deity...]. Sorry, it's flash, but this is the original -- click on 'Hardware' then on 'View Hardware Requirements'.
So Dell is willing to call such a machine 'Vista-capable', and Microsoft was willing to certify it as such. What the hell do I want with an os that does nothing but boot? Dell and Microsoft conspired to screw us both: Dell wanted to unload low-end overstock hardware, MS wanted to limit the availability of pre-installed XP to boost Vista's numbers. Not everyone wants a gamer machine -- if I buy a low-end box that is 'Vista capable', I shouldn't end up feeling like a fraud victim.
So I'd be glad to have something that's KDE based that I can recommend to anyone, but if it's Kubuntu based, I'm very weary.
I'm in exactly your position -- I am auditioning desktops for the next home install I'm doing for family. I lean towards KDE, and I'm looking for something appropriate for the non-tech-savvy. The problem with avoiding Kubuntu is that the *buntu distribution model is taking over the distro world; it's just too damn easy to ride piggyback on that distribution infrastructure for those building their own distro. (What are the better alternatives? *buntu became popular as a response to rpm hell; SuSe is what I'm replacing, for technical as well as ideological reasons, gentoo isn't appropriate for a non-savvy user, and is starting to have political issues as well...)
If you're willing to try a non-Kubuntu distro that still uses *buntu update, then you might want to look at my two leading current candidates: Linux Mint is coming out with a KDE edition, but it appears to still be in beta. Also, consider Mepis. Both are well-placed on distrowatch, if you want to consider that a measure of community support: Mint is #12; Mepis is #5. Good luck!
No, other countries handle it quite well by having Ombudsman take complaints for those times when elected representatives will not take action.
In a nation where we have to worry about 94 federal attorneys being replaced for reasons of political expediency, I shudder to think how easy it would be to taint an ombudsman system here. Maybe it works in Sweden, but I don't see it working here. And the courts are generally a means of recourse that are quicker and more accessible to the people than the 'elected representatives'. If you can only go to the ombudsman after a 'good faith' effort to get the elected representatives to do something fails, most of the interested parties would be dead before anything happens -- you've basically recreated Bleak House.
In any case, this kind of thing cannot be allowed. Companies should not be able to sue the government every time they lose a bid for a contract.
You are exactly wrong. This kind of thing must be allowed. Companies (or persons) should be able to sue the government, or whoever else, for whatever reason they wish. Then, when their frivolous lawsuits come up before a judge, the suits are dismissed with prejudice, and the plaintiffs have to pay the defendant's costs.
That will just create chaos and we will get even less accomplished through the government than we already do.
Your implication being that selectively denying access to justice (according to principles chosen by whom? you?) will not create chaos? And that 'getting more accomplished' is a a value we should place higher than justice? I'm no lover of Diebold, but show me a place freer than the US that accomplishes that freedom via restricting access to the courts.
...if a person came on here complaining that the FSF was after him for violating the GPL, and that person said "yes, I included the code, but I forgot it was there", that there would be much sympathy....
To run with your analogy, Eben Moglen has given us a rather detailed discussion of what happens when exactly this issue comes up with GPL'd code. Key phrase:
"A quiet initial contact is usually sufficient to resolve the problem. Parties thought they were complying with GPL, and are pleased to follow advice on the correction of an error."
It looks like the original question involved someone who corrected an error after a not-so-quiet initial contact, but they still want money. As might be expected from a for-profit enterprise.
Slashdot Mirror
Are these bionic AMD-64 running mutant radioactive wildlife critters, or something?
And yet we got where we are today.
Does that help? Just keep working as best you can. The truth will win.
Get me rewrite! We'll use your scene, but have ESR parachuting in, guns blazing!
That would work even better! Pleasure working with you, your check's in the mail, see you at the premiere....
All I did was point out that your initial excerpt did not answer the question that was asked, and that Clinton's interpretation of 'bringing about regime change' was markedly different than Bush's. If Clinton had signed an act with the intent of going to war, he had two years to do it, and I imagine then he would have had your full and vocal support.
Oh wait, when Clinton sent far fewer US troops to Kosovo, he was attacked as a militaristic tyrant by Republicans, despite 1) the eventual success of the mission and 2) the lack of American casualties. And of course, the delicious phrase from a Republican representative: "We can support the troops without supporting the president". Of course, since January of 2001, Republicans have been telling us in vocal terms that not supporting the president's policies is equivalent not only to not supporting the troops, but to treason. I call that shameless hypocrisy, but I'm sure you have some magical justification for it.
There are a few intentional confusions here. First of all, saying 'Saddam persisted in a pattern of deception and concealment' does not prove he had WMDs, and does not even SAY so. All it says is that he was refusing to cooperate, and we now know that he was bluffing.
Secondly, even if Clinton 'authorized regime change', providing funding and information to a few political groups working from London and Jordan is a long distance from Bush's idea of 'bringing about regime change'. We've been living with the blowback of his bright idea for a few years now.
Yes, I realize the WWII era SeaBees were older than the average recruit. The point I was trying to make, that seems to be lost in the noise of ACs flaming me for the dramatic license I took, is that there's a similarity of perspective between the 'can do' philosophy of the SeaBees and FOSS. If someone was to refute me, a better argument would be to say that the Navy has been overrun with the same overspending philosophy as the rest of the military since WWII.
As in 'volunteer army', yes. The opposite of 'volunteer' is not 'paid', it is 'obliged' or 'forced'. An employee working under contract is obliged by the contract. An at-will employee could be described as a volunteer, but we tend not to use the term that way. See http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid =Mozilla-search&va=volunteer.
Umm, your friend is probably naive about how funded research works. It is common practice for a university lab to charge a 'carrying cost' to all stipends paying for research done in that lab (functionally, this is calculated according to whether or not the individual is affiliated with the lab). This covers everything from administrative/technical support to general lab fixtures, and could very likely be credited to 'general lab funds'. Without more detail, it sounds like either you or he are sensationalizing this common practice.
You are absolutely right; that leapt out at me too. I thought it was much too optimistic, then I realized that whoever wrote the question was bending over backwards to make Vista sales numbers seem bigger.
My theory is that the 25% of companies who say they're currently 'using' Vista mean something like, "Brad Gladhand, VP Sales, called us the day after release and insisted he needed a new laptop with Vista installed so he could play DVD videos during sales presentations and not feel embarassed by out of date hardware... so yes, I guess we're using Vista already".
The real question that should have been asked would be something like "Is Vista currently the OS on your standard desktop build?" (i.e. that all new hires get, or that replacement machines come with). And possibly, "If it is not currently, will Vista become part of your standard desktop build within the next 12 months?". My guess is that the answer to the first question is less than 3%. Our shop is so conservative that we only went up to XPSP2 in the last 12 months; before that we just got SP1+targeted patches.
Perhaps so, but it's highly unlikely he was the originator...."Robin Williams, comedy's most notorious joke rustler, was in the house...." ...
You're forgetting, it's a TEXAS court...
Technically, perhaps not, but this sort of conduct isn't likely to pass the smell test with voters. And it's especially risky with judges, who are often elected in off-cycle (non-presidential or even non-congressional) elections, which attract only the most well-informed and conscientious voters.
I see your point ... but just as the intent of the US is relevant (i.e., not intending total subjugation), so is the intent of the Chinese. No one is interested in having the mideast turn into a smoking crater, least of all the Chinese, who need the oil too. And the logistics of getting those 100 million soldiers anywhere outide of China are pretty daunting -- look at the difficulties the US had logistically inside Iraq. This may lead them to decide against a 'full subjugation' objective.
I appreciate your even-handedness re Tibet and Taiwan -- note also their willingness to use the client-state model (various flavors) in Vietnam, N. Korea, etc., during the latter half of the last century.
Here's a record store that is near a much smaller university; it is not only surviving but doing well:
Princeton Record Exchange
Note that they also buy used albums, so they are not bailing out on their stock. In fact, "...Please Note: We do not currently handle mail orders, list our inventory or sell online mainly because our inventory changes greatly from day to day."
So it's a hardcopy music store that buys stuff back and refuses to do mailorder/online. Tell me, RIAA Cassandras, how are they managing it?
Thanks for your sympathy, friend. But the good news is, I didn't actually buy a Dell, that discussion was hypothetical. Like any good Jedi, I build my own lightsaber... either from salvaged machines, or parts from Newegg or aberdeeininc.com. I just wanted to bring that Vista booster (GP?) back to reality some. And since you mention it, "HD Ready" is even more of a scam, trying to gloss over the fact that there's no HD tuner included.
So Dell is willing to call such a machine 'Vista-capable', and Microsoft was willing to certify it as such. What the hell do I want with an os that does nothing but boot? Dell and Microsoft conspired to screw us both: Dell wanted to unload low-end overstock hardware, MS wanted to limit the availability of pre-installed XP to boost Vista's numbers. Not everyone wants a gamer machine -- if I buy a low-end box that is 'Vista capable', I shouldn't end up feeling like a fraud victim.
Ah, thanks, that clears it up. I'd imagine that very few shared files are actually about Pirates.
To the person who modded Parent 'troll': you are a clueless git. Read it again, it's a slam on bad headline writing, it's not anti- or pro-piracy.
If you're willing to try a non-Kubuntu distro that still uses *buntu update, then you might want to look at my two leading current candidates: Linux Mint is coming out with a KDE edition, but it appears to still be in beta. Also, consider Mepis. Both are well-placed on distrowatch, if you want to consider that a measure of community support: Mint is #12; Mepis is #5. Good luck!
"A quiet initial contact is usually sufficient to resolve the problem. Parties thought they were complying with GPL, and are pleased to follow advice on the correction of an error."
It looks like the original question involved someone who corrected an error after a not-so-quiet initial contact, but they still want money. As might be expected from a for-profit enterprise.