Its backlit, and it only has one UI element - the click wheel, which has different textures based on where you are. I can position my finger accurately by feel. And once I've selected a play list I can operate it effortlessly [skip, pause, volume...] with my eyes closed, and without taking it out of my pocket.
This is more about taking the easy road to success than creating something.
Do you hate biographies, documentaries, and books about history? I mean, because those authors also 'took the easy' road... their work practically wrote itself... all they had to do was write it down. They're leeches on society I tell you, LEECHES! And they must be stopped.
A fact book about harry potter is no different than a fact book about New York City, Coca-Cola, Britney Spears, or Star Trek.
Tyranny of the majority is how democratic government works. Especially in a first past the post voting system. The only real restraint on tyranny of the majority is the judicial system, which can prevent egregious stuff that would violate existing and difficult to change laws. e.g. something tyrannical has a decent shot at being ruled unconstitutional, and getting a constitutional amendment is fairly hard.
Christianity would be the state religion
It probably would be if the constitution allowed it. The law specifically prevents it, and it would be extremely hard to change that law, even if the majority wanted to. And I'm not sure the US really even wants it... sure Christianity is the dominant religion, but I suspect there are a lot of moderate Christians who agree with the separation of church and state.
I'm not convinced the fundies really outnumber the moderates plus all the non-christians.
homosexuals would be rounded up and "re-educated"
And yet they are denied the right to marry. Gay sex is illegal in many states. And there's no chance America would elect a gay president were one to run. Its not re-education, but they are clearly being oppressed.
and all sorts of other horrible things
Which unfortunately happens all the time. But fortunately a lot of the worst stuff is prevented by the constution and other laws which can override the wishes of a majority. (But nothing will stop a great majority that's determined to put something through, the constitution can be amended or even dissolved if enough people agree to it.)
Again, this is a power the USSR had only because the U.S. let atomic bombs exist in other countries rather than blowing them up and preserving U.S. dominance; it has much less to do with Soviet spies. The point is, we had atomic dominance for years and _chose_ not to use these weapons to retain that dominance.
No, I understand that, but it only "chose" not to use those weapons and allow the the weapons to spread for a short while. After that it was too late. And whether or not you give credit to a russian spy or the first couple post WW2 US presidents makes no difference to me.
The important thing is that the weapons spread, because there is no way the US would have continued to -choose- not to use them indefinately. Sooner or later we'd have elected an aggressive war mongering president, and... kaboom. With M-A-D all but the a complete lunatic would be held in check.
It's interesting that many people will not enjoy considering this since liberal education in most of our public schools has ironically become predominantly anti-American, but it's true..
If Russian wants to celebrate the spy who brought them nuclear weapons. Why not? So its a half truth or less at best.
America celebrates the first "discovery" by a white guy on behalf of a european superpower, despite America being visited by Asians, Vikings, and even Portuguese fishermen prior to Columbus' discovery of the bahamas. Never mind that columbus was an immoral greedy racist mass murdering rapist who used torture routinely. Even by the standards of the day he was pretty vile.
But history loves heroes. America is full of them, and most of them don't deserve the accolades heaped upon them. From Columbus onwards.
It doesn't matter who we celebrate for spreading nukes, what matters is that they got spread.
So what? One or two presidents were either smart enough or lacked the motivation to use them or both. How long do you really think that would have kept up? How long before we had a dim bulb in power with an enemy to provoke him? We'd have never lasted until now, without using them.
Remember, the US was involved in several wars after WW2, and one the the big reasons it refrained from using nukes, or even fully committing to those wars for that matter was the threat of nuclear retaliation from the USSR if they pushed too hard.
I mean, they've already decided not to prosecute for amounts for personal use. If they extended that to not prosecuting for growing amounts to personal use, but left it illegal to traffic in it, what effect woudl that have?
You can grow your own if you want it, in small quantities. And you can share what you grow with friends if you want. But if you start trafficking in it it becomes illegal and garners the attention of the law.
Frankly that's EXACTLY how both pot and music infringment should be dealt with. If its a small personal use/non-commercial situation no problem... if you are trafficing/selling/distributing the stuff however, you get busted for it.
And I think its the best solution, because having the government legalize it entirely and selling it next to cigarettes at 7-11 isn't really doing society any favors either. But setting it up so that you can grow and smoke your own without interference from the government strikes a good balance.
Nah, I played ehough starcraft to know that all you need to make your carrier fleet unstoppable is a few Arbiters to keep it properly cloaked, and a few observers to reaveal any enemy cloaked units. The carriers or more accurately their complement of fighters brings death to everything under sun. So what if your arbiters are visible nothing can get close enough to take them out and expose your carriers.
Rounding the force out with a few scouts or corsairs adds versatility, but can be considered a secondary priority.
I can understand that subs could compromise their stealth by actively "pinging" their sonars, but why would surface ships not be doing this as a SOP?. (Unless that would give away friendly sub positions...)
Couple possible reasons.
1) Yes, it could give away friendly sub positions in the area.
2) Active Sonar disrupts whale navigation, and may impact other aquatic creatures. I'm sure in a war, the whales will be left to fend for themselves, but the sonar may have been off because the risk of having it off was deemed minimal while the downside to having it on is definate.
On the other this is a bad precedent, they are essentially saying that "if you can't beat them, ignore them".
Um no. This is fantastic precedent. It is actual democracy. If society overwhelmingly commits an action in defiance of 'the law' then society accepts and approves of that action. What else *should* government do but respect the wishes of the majority of its citizens?
Illegal file-sharing is not proper theft but it is without a doubt a fraud, as you are getting a service (entertainment) without paying for it.
Really? I have MTV, Much Music, Commercial Free Digital Music via my Cable Service, Commercial Free XM Satellite Radio... if its a current Top 40 track I can hear it dozens of times a day, and I *do*. So, if I decide to download that track instead of record it off the radio or TV, what is the real difference? And 90% of the infringing p2p music traffic is top40 crud and fits into the category.
I already have the right to record it myself any number of the dozens of times I hear it per week, but suddenly I'm committing a fraud if I download the track over the internet instead? And storing it on media I paid a music levy on? (And I pay that levy even if I store my own digital photos on the discs instead??)
The RCMP resources are stretched thin like any police force anywhere. Its good to see that they have decided / realized that they have far more important things to do with those resources. Its the right move. I want violent crimes, family abuse, gang related issues, grow ops & drug related crime, and corporate fraud investigated, not children and families who listening to music they downloaded over the internet. I don't need my tax dollars protecting the interests of American megacorporations from children.
Note that this doesn't mean filesharers now get a free pass; the recording industry is still free to prosecute what it views are attacks on its business, but it never should have been allowed to the use the RCMP to do it for them. And its good to see the RCMP come around.
Your post has pretty much summed up what this book [Confessions of an Economic Hitman - John Perkins] is about, meaning you may have read this already. But, if not, check it out and keep it in mind when reading international news. It makes a lot of sense.
I have read it, but I find that book... difficult. I thought it was interesting, and I think there is a lot of validity to the socio-economic scenarios presented, but I wasn't convinced by the narrative itself.
I found John Perkins came across as a 'simple' man. I also seriously question the degree to which any conspiracy existed vs being a figment of his own imagination. Finally, I find my already shaky view of his credibility as a rational person further damaged by his previous books... "Shapeshifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation", "Psyconavigation", and "The World is as you dream it" which read pretty much like the new age claptrap it sounds like albeit minus the magic candles and energy crystals.
So while I think he may have hit the nail on the head in terms of the -effects- of globalisation on the 2nd and 3rd world, I'm not convinced it came about by the grand designs he laid out. And utterly he lacks the credibility to convince me otherwise.
In other words, I would read that book with a large block of salt.
A roadable flying car is highly unlikely to ever happen for one simple reason, winter and road salt,
You do realize a signficant portion of the world doesn't actually get snow in the winter. And a great many regions get winters so short and brief its a non issue. They just wouldn't drive the flying car that week. Lots of people won't drive their Porsches if its not perfect sunny summer weather... and they sell remarkably well... surely a 'fair weather' flying car has a big enough market.
Do you understand what an Islamic fundamentalist is?
Yes I do. They are tiny fraction of all muslims. They are largely whack-jobs. Most fundamentalists are, and there are nutter "christian" ones too, who have the ear of Americans, and even the ear of the President. I put christian in quotes because they represent christians the way Osama represents muslims.
If Iraq were prosperous and its people comfortable, the number of them that the fundamentalists could motivate to blow themselves up in foreign countries would be utterly minimal. The poorer and more desperate you are the more important religion becomes to you, and the more vulnerable you are to religious exploitation.
They don't hate the west because of its freedoms. They may disagree with the west, even condemn the west, but they wouldn't get off their butts and come kill us over it... except that we provoke them.
Their will ALWAYS be nutters on both sides who want the other side dead, but they only have power and influence over the people if the people are poor and desperate, and the other side provokes them.
There are religious maniacs out there that hate our culture, hate 'our freedoms'. And they want to impose their islamic law upon the world. They would kill us if they could.
Yes there are. So what. There are American's who want every muslim dead too. As long as we the masses are comfortable and happy we aren't going to bother doing squat about it. Look how easily we ignore the ongoing genocides and atrocities throughout the world, as long as it doesn't affect us personally we just don't really care that much.
Christians are supposed to care, and they don't really, they pray in church on Sundays for 2 minutes , "Dear God, please bring peace to the wars of the world, let their leaders find Jesus and let him into their hearts." And then they sing some hymns and hand off to the Christmas nativity scene planning committee. And that's about it for most of them.
Muslims are exactly the same. The only reason they are so much more violent is that they AREN'T as comfortable or wealthy to start with so they are more vulnerable to religious fundamentalism, and America presents itself as a ready target - its meddling in their governments, and lording its prosperity over them.
If the positions were reverse and Iraq was exploiting Texas for its oil, while propping up some Iraqi puppet in the whitehouse to keep the oil and money flowing, all the while exporting its culture wholesale, while lording their prosperty over us, guess what, Fundamentalist Christian Terrorist groups would have no trouble recruiting Christian Americans to fight.
Christiantity has loads of precedent for comitting atrocities. You put Christians in the same conditions Iraqi's are in, and militant extremist groups will sprout up like weeds quoting passages of Old Testament and calling for the death of their enemies, and their judgement by God. And their recruiting efforts will appeal greatly to the disenfranchised.
But alas, they don't hate us for our freedom and never have. So we're very busily and efficiently solving the wrong problem.
They hate us because we've been meddling in their governments, undermining their sovereignty, propping up dictators favorable to us, invading them when those propped up dictators fall out favor, all for our own national self interests.
I know your post was intended to be funny, and was, but the irony of situation is even worse.
Taking away our freedoms will never stop foreign terrorists from hating us for jerking their countries around. But it might well spawn an outbreak of domestic terrorism if they keep at it. The Unabomber was just a prelude, as the very type of stuff he lashed out about is coming to pass.
Upon reviewing your response, and rethinking the issue, I agree that my dismissal of your theory was incorrect.
That said I still think its the wrong approach. One glaring flaw is that they aren't pretending to be *you*, they are pretending to be *your computer*.
Clearly in many cases, one could imagine impersonating you through your computer, where the two are equivalent -- e.g. to send a forged email, or to fraudulently access your online bank accounts they might do BOTH. But in THIS case, I think their is a distinction, and that they are not impersonating you, just your computer.
That's correct, but I have to assume that you at least read the title of this article "Dvorak Says gPhone is Doomed" and know that we are discussing in that context. The market for smart phones is huge, that it's a subset of an even larger market is not particularly interesting in that given context.
The bottom line is that the public isn't flocking to smartphones, even if it is a fairly large market. The exotic car market is "HUGE" too, but the public isn't flocking to buy Porsches and it would be incorrect to say so. That is all I'm saying.
I agree cellphone culture outside of north america is different. I'm not sure Europe that much better for smartphones, but I concede Asia is a whole other ballgame. We also agree the gphone is likely to crater in the US.
That said, google is an american company, and I'm not sure whether its even planning a launch in Asia. Do you? (Apple's iphone launched in the US, and still isn't available in Asia, for example.)
FTFA: The beginning of the email read: 'Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian.'
The translation was flawed as Babelfish confused 'ha'im', the Hebrew word for 'if', with 'ha'ima', which means 'mother'.
Oh!!! Of course, that makes sense. Lets fix that right up: s/mother/if
Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The if your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian.
I don't know about you, but I suspect there might be additional flaws.
Why has no one sued comcast for their forged RST's under this yet?
1) Why don't you be the first?
2) I think most people would agree its a very stupid legal theory.
2a) What drugs make you think a forged rst is "your name or likeness" (you do know what your name is and what you look like right? Does an RST packet use your name or your face?)
2b) What drugs make you think sending an RST packet is an invastion of your privacy? Do you get offended and litigious when your ISP pings your IP address too? When the construction company down the street cuts your phone lines... are you out on the lawn screaming privacy invasion?
I'm not saying what comcast is doing is legal, nor even that it should be, but this isn't the right law to construct a case around.
I'm not a fan of Apple and won't get an iPhone for myself, but people are buying those, right?
So what? People are buying Zunes too. You wouldn't say people are flocking to those, would you?
So "public has not been flocking to smartphones" - yeah if you live under a rock somewhere that may be true...
Maybe not under a rock, but on top of one like, say, Earth, then yes, its true. The smartphones are a tiny tiny fraction of the market.
The public *has* flocked to camera phones and text messaging, but smartphones? No. Not by a long shot.
The interest is there, but they find the UI clumsy (the iphone is great compared to other smartphones, but its still not as 'easy' as a regular phone), and they balk at the price.
Its still a niche market. Its a growing market to be sure, but it hasn't spilled over into mass appeal, at least not yet.
Nobody has ever called Dark Ages "Doh Ack" ever, because that isn't how the abbreviation is spelt. So its hardly a minor correction. And in fact, I've never heard anyone call it "Day ock" either, for that matter. Most people just call it "Dark Age" or "Dark Ages" as in "Want to play Dark Age tonight?"
As for star wars, people just call it galaxies, I've never heard anyone ever say: "swig".
Lots of international criminals, terrorists, and war criminals have been "brought to justice" over the years. But this isn't historically conducted with air strikes, bombs, and invading other countries.
When the objective is to kill terrorist leaders without trials by conducting airstrikes against their residences, with the intent to kill them, and incidently killing their families, and children, their is no justice. Only revenge.
Consider Zarqawi, from Time (www.time.com):
"When Abdul-Rahman surfaced near Baqubah last week--apparently in the same location as the Jordanians' Mr. X--the commandos moved in for the kill. "We had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Zarqawi was in the house," Army Major General William Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad the day after the strike. The Jordanian security official told TIME that the bombing killed Abdul-Rahman and Mr. X, in addition to al-Zarqawi's 16-year-old wife."
And from another article:
"Al-Zarqawi's second wife Israa, in her late teens, and their 18-month-old baby died in the strike."
If 'they' had done that to 'us', by say, bombing Dick Cheney's home killing his daughters and grandchildren the media, politicians, and even the public would proclaim it as the worst kind of cowardly, vengeful, terrorist attack.
And that is exactly what it was. And when the US does it to them, calling it "an attempt to bring justice" is just a hypocritical mockery of justice and everything it stands for.
But Iran has rockets that can reach US personnel and allies (like say... Europe, Israel, India, Japan and so on... May I suggest you read up on NATO also). Do we wait until they have nuclear tipped rockets that can reach the US? Do we do nothing until NY glows in the dark?
The US has rockets that can reach anywhere in the world. Europe, Israel, India, Japan, and so on. May I suggest you read up on your own country. Does the rest of the world wait until the US has nuclear tipped rockets that can reach elsewhere? Oh wait... they already do! Do they do nothing until the US uses a nuke to destroy a city? Oh wait... they already did. (granted it was world war 2, but since the dawn of nuclear technology the only country that has ever attacked with a nuclear warheads is the US.)
"Yeah but the President of Iran is a crazy religious idiot." you might say. Fair comment, but then the same can be said about George Bush. And what about your next president, the republican front runner is currently "Mayor 9/11". That doesn't exactly bode well.
As much as I despise the guy for his wacko ideas the President of the US is just as out of touch with reality, and unlike the Iranians, Bush is actively prosecuting multiple wars without much regard for the fact that its costing countless innocent civilians their lives. The thousands of innocent civilians killed by American's in these wars far outweighs any moral right they might have appealed to. 2000 deaths 6 years ago is a tragedgy. "Incidently" Killing thousands of innocent civilians per year for the next 6 years while seeking revenge on the perpetrators is utter madness.
Besides, certain terror groups didn't have rockets that could reach the USA from Afghanistan either and look how that turned out.
That's easy. Some terrorists hijacked a few planes and rammed them into buildings. So what are you suggesting? The US should bomb any foreign country with pilots? Good luck with that.
Slashdot Mirror
The UI is nice but it is hard to use in the dark.
Its backlit, and it only has one UI element - the click wheel, which has different textures based on where you are. I can position my finger accurately by feel. And once I've selected a play list I can operate it effortlessly [skip, pause, volume...] with my eyes closed, and without taking it out of my pocket.
This is more about taking the easy road to success than creating something.
Do you hate biographies, documentaries, and books about history? I mean, because those authors also 'took the easy' road... their work practically wrote itself... all they had to do was write it down. They're leeches on society I tell you, LEECHES! And they must be stopped.
A fact book about harry potter is no different than a fact book about New York City, Coca-Cola, Britney Spears, or Star Trek.
Tyranny of the majority is how democratic government works. Especially in a first past the post voting system.
The only real restraint on tyranny of the majority is the judicial system, which can prevent egregious stuff that would violate existing and difficult to change laws. e.g. something tyrannical has a decent shot at being ruled unconstitutional, and getting a constitutional amendment is fairly hard.
Christianity would be the state religion
It probably would be if the constitution allowed it. The law specifically prevents it, and it would be extremely hard to change that law, even if the majority wanted to. And I'm not sure the US really even wants it... sure Christianity is the dominant religion, but I suspect there are a lot of moderate Christians who agree with the separation of church and state.
I'm not convinced the fundies really outnumber the moderates plus all the non-christians.
homosexuals would be rounded up and "re-educated"
And yet they are denied the right to marry. Gay sex is illegal in many states. And there's no chance America would elect a gay president were one to run. Its not re-education, but they are clearly being oppressed.
and all sorts of other horrible things
Which unfortunately happens all the time. But fortunately a lot of the worst stuff is prevented by the constution and other laws which can override the wishes of a majority. (But nothing will stop a great majority that's determined to put something through, the constitution can be amended or even dissolved if enough people agree to it.)
Unfortunately, the majority of people are stupid.
On this we agree.
Again, this is a power the USSR had only because the U.S. let atomic bombs exist in other countries rather than blowing them up and preserving U.S. dominance; it has much less to do with Soviet spies. The point is, we had atomic dominance for years and _chose_ not to use these weapons to retain that dominance.
... kaboom. With M-A-D all but the a complete lunatic would be held in check.
No, I understand that, but it only "chose" not to use those weapons and allow the the weapons to spread for a short while. After that it was too late. And whether or not you give credit to a russian spy or the first couple post WW2 US presidents makes no difference to me.
The important thing is that the weapons spread, because there is no way the US would have continued to -choose- not to use them indefinately. Sooner or later we'd have elected an aggressive war mongering president, and
It's interesting that many people will not enjoy considering this since liberal education in most of our public schools has ironically become predominantly anti-American, but it's true..
If Russian wants to celebrate the spy who brought them nuclear weapons. Why not? So its a half truth or less at best.
America celebrates the first "discovery" by a white guy on behalf of a european superpower, despite America being visited by Asians, Vikings, and even Portuguese fishermen prior to Columbus' discovery of the bahamas. Never mind that columbus was an immoral greedy racist mass murdering rapist who used torture routinely. Even by the standards of the day he was pretty vile.
But history loves heroes. America is full of them, and most of them don't deserve the accolades heaped upon them. From Columbus onwards.
It doesn't matter who we celebrate for spreading nukes, what matters is that they got spread.
It refrained from doing so.
So what? One or two presidents were either smart enough or lacked the motivation to use them or both. How long do you really think that would have kept up? How long before we had a dim bulb in power with an enemy to provoke him? We'd have never lasted until now, without using them.
Remember, the US was involved in several wars after WW2, and one the the big reasons it refrained from using nukes, or even fully committing to those wars for that matter was the threat of nuclear retaliation from the USSR if they pushed too hard.
Side effects of which law though?
I mean, they've already decided not to prosecute for amounts for personal use. If they extended that to not prosecuting for growing amounts to personal use, but left it illegal to traffic in it, what effect woudl that have?
You can grow your own if you want it, in small quantities. And you can share what you grow with friends if you want. But if you start trafficking in it it becomes illegal and garners the attention of the law.
Frankly that's EXACTLY how both pot and music infringment should be dealt with. If its a small personal use/non-commercial situation no problem... if you are trafficing/selling/distributing the stuff however, you get busted for it.
And I think its the best solution, because having the government legalize it entirely and selling it next to cigarettes at 7-11 isn't really doing society any favors either. But setting it up so that you can grow and smoke your own without interference from the government strikes a good balance.
Nah, I played ehough starcraft to know that all you need to make your carrier fleet unstoppable is a few Arbiters to keep it properly cloaked, and a few observers to reaveal any enemy cloaked units. The carriers or more accurately their complement of fighters brings death to everything under sun. So what if your arbiters are visible nothing can get close enough to take them out and expose your carriers.
Rounding the force out with a few scouts or corsairs adds versatility, but can be considered a secondary priority.
I can understand that subs could compromise their stealth by actively "pinging" their sonars, but why would surface ships not be doing this as a SOP?. (Unless that would give away friendly sub positions...)
Couple possible reasons.
1) Yes, it could give away friendly sub positions in the area.
2) Active Sonar disrupts whale navigation, and may impact other aquatic creatures. I'm sure in a war, the whales will be left to fend for themselves, but the sonar may have been off because the risk of having it off was deemed minimal while the downside to having it on is definate.
On the other this is a bad precedent, they are essentially saying that "if you can't beat them, ignore them".
Um no. This is fantastic precedent. It is actual democracy. If society overwhelmingly commits an action in defiance of 'the law' then society accepts and approves of that action. What else *should* government do but respect the wishes of the majority of its citizens?
Illegal file-sharing is not proper theft but it is without a doubt a fraud, as you are getting a service (entertainment) without paying for it.
Really? I have MTV, Much Music, Commercial Free Digital Music via my Cable Service, Commercial Free XM Satellite Radio... if its a current Top 40 track I can hear it dozens of times a day, and I *do*. So, if I decide to download that track instead of record it off the radio or TV, what is the real difference? And 90% of the infringing p2p music traffic is top40 crud and fits into the category.
I already have the right to record it myself any number of the dozens of times I hear it per week, but suddenly I'm committing a fraud if I download the track over the internet instead? And storing it on media I paid a music levy on? (And I pay that levy even if I store my own digital photos on the discs instead??)
The RCMP resources are stretched thin like any police force anywhere. Its good to see that they have decided / realized that they have far more important things to do with those resources. Its the right move. I want violent crimes, family abuse, gang related issues, grow ops & drug related crime, and corporate fraud investigated, not children and families who listening to music they downloaded over the internet. I don't need my tax dollars protecting the interests of American megacorporations from children.
Note that this doesn't mean filesharers now get a free pass; the recording industry is still free to prosecute what it views are attacks on its business, but it never should have been allowed to the use the RCMP to do it for them. And its good to see the RCMP come around.
Your post has pretty much summed up what this book [Confessions of an Economic Hitman - John Perkins] is about, meaning you may have read this already. But, if not, check it out and keep it in mind when reading international news. It makes a lot of sense.
... difficult. I thought it was interesting, and I think there is a lot of validity to the socio-economic scenarios presented, but I wasn't convinced by the narrative itself.
I have read it, but I find that book
I found John Perkins came across as a 'simple' man. I also seriously question the degree to which any conspiracy existed vs being a figment of his own imagination. Finally, I find my already shaky view of his credibility as a rational person further damaged by his previous books... "Shapeshifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation", "Psyconavigation", and "The World is as you dream it" which read pretty much like the new age claptrap it sounds like albeit minus the magic candles and energy crystals.
So while I think he may have hit the nail on the head in terms of the -effects- of globalisation on the 2nd and 3rd world, I'm not convinced it came about by the grand designs he laid out. And utterly he lacks the credibility to convince me otherwise.
In other words, I would read that book with a large block of salt.
A roadable flying car is highly unlikely to ever happen for one simple reason, winter and road salt,
You do realize a signficant portion of the world doesn't actually get snow in the winter. And a great many regions get winters so short and brief its a non issue. They just wouldn't drive the flying car that week. Lots of people won't drive their Porsches if its not perfect sunny summer weather... and they sell remarkably well... surely a 'fair weather' flying car has a big enough market.
Do you understand what an Islamic fundamentalist is?
Yes I do. They are tiny fraction of all muslims. They are largely whack-jobs. Most fundamentalists are, and there are nutter "christian" ones too, who have the ear of Americans, and even the ear of the President. I put christian in quotes because they represent christians the way Osama represents muslims.
If Iraq were prosperous and its people comfortable, the number of them that the fundamentalists could motivate to blow themselves up in foreign countries would be utterly minimal. The poorer and more desperate you are the more important religion becomes to you, and the more vulnerable you are to religious exploitation.
They don't hate the west because of its freedoms. They may disagree with the west, even condemn the west, but they wouldn't get off their butts and come kill us over it... except that we provoke them.
Their will ALWAYS be nutters on both sides who want the other side dead, but they only have power and influence over the people if the people are poor and desperate, and the other side provokes them.
There are religious maniacs out there that hate our culture, hate 'our freedoms'. And they want to impose their islamic law upon the world. They would kill us if they could.
Yes there are. So what. There are American's who want every muslim dead too. As long as we the masses are comfortable and happy we aren't going to bother doing squat about it. Look how easily we ignore the ongoing genocides and atrocities throughout the world, as long as it doesn't affect us personally we just don't really care that much.
Christians are supposed to care, and they don't really, they pray in church on Sundays for 2 minutes , "Dear God, please bring peace to the wars of the world, let their leaders find Jesus and let him into their hearts." And then they sing some hymns and hand off to the Christmas nativity scene planning committee. And that's about it for most of them.
Muslims are exactly the same. The only reason they are so much more violent is that they AREN'T as comfortable or wealthy to start with so they are more vulnerable to religious fundamentalism, and America presents itself as a ready target - its meddling in their governments, and lording its prosperity over them.
If the positions were reverse and Iraq was exploiting Texas for its oil, while propping up some Iraqi puppet in the whitehouse to keep the oil and money flowing, all the while exporting its culture wholesale, while lording their prosperty over us, guess what, Fundamentalist Christian Terrorist groups would have no trouble recruiting Christian Americans to fight.
Christiantity has loads of precedent for comitting atrocities. You put Christians in the same conditions Iraqi's are in, and militant extremist groups will sprout up like weeds quoting passages of Old Testament and calling for the death of their enemies, and their judgement by God. And their recruiting efforts will appeal greatly to the disenfranchised.
But alas, they don't hate us for our freedom and never have. So we're very busily and efficiently solving the wrong problem.
They hate us because we've been meddling in their governments, undermining their sovereignty, propping up dictators favorable to us, invading them when those propped up dictators fall out favor, all for our own national self interests.
I know your post was intended to be funny, and was, but the irony of situation is even worse.
Taking away our freedoms will never stop foreign terrorists from hating us for jerking their countries around. But it might well spawn an outbreak of domestic terrorism if they keep at it. The Unabomber was just a prelude, as the very type of stuff he lashed out about is coming to pass.
Upon reviewing your response, and rethinking the issue, I agree that my dismissal of your theory was incorrect.
That said I still think its the wrong approach. One glaring flaw is that they aren't pretending to be *you*, they are pretending to be *your computer*.
Clearly in many cases, one could imagine impersonating you through your computer, where the two are equivalent -- e.g. to send a forged email, or to fraudulently access your online bank accounts they might do BOTH. But in THIS case, I think their is a distinction, and that they are not impersonating you, just your computer.
That's correct, but I have to assume that you at least read the title of this article "Dvorak Says gPhone is Doomed" and know that we are discussing in that context. The market for smart phones is huge, that it's a subset of an even larger market is not particularly interesting in that given context.
The bottom line is that the public isn't flocking to smartphones, even if it is a fairly large market. The exotic car market is "HUGE" too, but the public isn't flocking to buy Porsches and it would be incorrect to say so. That is all I'm saying.
Good points.
I agree cellphone culture outside of north america is different. I'm not sure Europe that much better for smartphones, but I concede Asia is a whole other ballgame. We also agree the gphone is likely to crater in the US.
That said, google is an american company, and I'm not sure whether its even planning a launch in Asia. Do you? (Apple's iphone launched in the US, and still isn't available in Asia, for example.)
FTFA:
The beginning of the email read: 'Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian.'
The translation was flawed as Babelfish confused 'ha'im', the Hebrew word for 'if', with 'ha'ima', which means 'mother'.
Oh!!! Of course, that makes sense. Lets fix that right up: s/mother/if
Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The if your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian.
I don't know about you, but I suspect there might be additional flaws.
Why has no one sued comcast for their forged RST's under this yet?
1) Why don't you be the first?
2) I think most people would agree its a very stupid legal theory.
2a) What drugs make you think a forged rst is "your name or likeness" (you do know what your name is and what you look like right? Does an RST packet use your name or your face?)
2b) What drugs make you think sending an RST packet is an invastion of your privacy? Do you get offended and litigious when your ISP pings your IP address too? When the construction company down the street cuts your phone lines... are you out on the lawn screaming privacy invasion?
I'm not saying what comcast is doing is legal, nor even that it should be, but this isn't the right law to construct a case around.
I'm not a fan of Apple and won't get an iPhone for myself, but people are buying those, right?
So what? People are buying Zunes too. You wouldn't say people are flocking to those, would you?
So "public has not been flocking to smartphones" - yeah if you live under a rock somewhere that may be true...
Maybe not under a rock, but on top of one like, say, Earth, then yes, its true. The smartphones are a tiny tiny fraction of the market.
The public *has* flocked to camera phones and text messaging, but smartphones? No. Not by a long shot.
The interest is there, but they find the UI clumsy (the iphone is great compared to other smartphones, but its still not as 'easy' as a regular phone), and they balk at the price.
Its still a niche market. Its a growing market to be sure, but it hasn't spilled over into mass appeal, at least not yet.
replying with a minor correction
Nobody has ever called Dark Ages "Doh Ack" ever, because that isn't how the abbreviation is spelt. So its hardly a minor correction. And in fact, I've never heard anyone call it "Day ock" either, for that matter. Most people just call it "Dark Age" or "Dark Ages" as in "Want to play Dark Age tonight?"
As for star wars, people just call it galaxies, I've never heard anyone ever say: "swig".
DOAC (Doh-Ahk)
Dark Ages of Camelot
DaoC.
Maybe you should check the news about our failures more often.
I think we've been here before. Once bitten twice shy and all that.
Indeed, this press release, for example is *very* encouraging:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html
I'm sure glad its almost over... again.
Indulge me:
I'm sorry. I can't do that.
Lots of international criminals, terrorists, and war criminals have been "brought to justice" over the years. But this isn't historically conducted with air strikes, bombs, and invading other countries.
When the objective is to kill terrorist leaders without trials by conducting airstrikes against their residences, with the intent to kill them, and incidently killing their families, and children, their is no justice. Only revenge.
Consider Zarqawi, from Time (www.time.com):
"When Abdul-Rahman surfaced near Baqubah last week--apparently in the same location as the Jordanians' Mr. X--the commandos moved in for the kill. "We had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Zarqawi was in the house," Army Major General William Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad the day after the strike. The Jordanian security official told TIME that the bombing killed Abdul-Rahman and Mr. X, in addition to al-Zarqawi's 16-year-old wife."
And from another article:
"Al-Zarqawi's second wife Israa, in her late teens, and their 18-month-old baby died in the strike."
If 'they' had done that to 'us', by say, bombing Dick Cheney's home killing his daughters and grandchildren the media, politicians, and even the public would proclaim it as the worst kind of cowardly, vengeful, terrorist attack.
And that is exactly what it was. And when the US does it to them, calling it "an attempt to bring justice" is just a hypocritical mockery of justice and everything it stands for.
But Iran has rockets that can reach US personnel and allies (like say... Europe, Israel, India, Japan and so on... May I suggest you read up on NATO also). Do we wait until they have nuclear tipped rockets that can reach the US? Do we do nothing until NY glows in the dark?
The US has rockets that can reach anywhere in the world. Europe, Israel, India, Japan, and so on. May I suggest you read up on your own country. Does the rest of the world wait until the US has nuclear tipped rockets that can reach elsewhere? Oh wait... they already do! Do they do nothing until the US uses a nuke to destroy a city? Oh wait... they already did. (granted it was world war 2, but since the dawn of nuclear technology the only country that has ever attacked with a nuclear warheads is the US.)
"Yeah but the President of Iran is a crazy religious idiot." you might say. Fair comment, but then the same can be said about George Bush. And what about your next president, the republican front runner is currently "Mayor 9/11". That doesn't exactly bode well.
As much as I despise the guy for his wacko ideas the President of the US is just as out of touch with reality, and unlike the Iranians, Bush is actively prosecuting multiple wars without much regard for the fact that its costing countless innocent civilians their lives. The thousands of innocent civilians killed by American's in these wars far outweighs any moral right they might have appealed to. 2000 deaths 6 years ago is a tragedgy. "Incidently" Killing thousands of innocent civilians per year for the next 6 years while seeking revenge on the perpetrators is utter madness.
Besides, certain terror groups didn't have rockets that could reach the USA from Afghanistan either and look how that turned out.
That's easy. Some terrorists hijacked a few planes and rammed them into buildings. So what are you suggesting? The US should bomb any foreign country with pilots? Good luck with that.