Every newly released model (inbetween the major updates) still often has different hardware, sometimes totally different. These "minor" updates include such things as batteries, RAM, etc. So really, even the 2nd gen version of a particular Apple product could have issues, maybe not the same ones. I don't think we can really say more things will be reliable in the next version, as more new things have been added that could break. As with any computer, ya toss the dice, and ya gets what ya gets. If you want a Macbook, get one.
These moons, and those newly discovered ones around Saturn obviously did not just come into existence in recent history, we merely detected them finally, and gave them names. To extrapolate, there will be many more that we haven't detected yet, most likely around the last three: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, simply because detailed analysis by dedicated spacecraft hasn't been done yet. I think the Voyagers did a fairly thorough job, though, so whatever is left should be quite small, but may merit the classification of "moon" none-the-less (not sure what the criteria is...Saturn has billions of "moonlets" in its rings).
This sort of begs the question, how many names are we gonna have to come up with. Surely Classical mythology has a finite supply...
It's VOIP! And instead of bypassing the telco, it requires a telco! And instead of working on every computer, it only works on Windows computers. And instead of being free, it costs money! And instead of working with every IM system, it only works with MSN! And instead of rendering it in HTML, we decided to give Adobe/Macromedia a cut and do the whole web page in Flash!
Couldn't have put it better myself, although when my computer goes to the messenger website, it detects that I am coming from a mac, and offers me the mac version, so I guess it's not limited only to Windows. However, since the website won't even let me see the page for the windows version, I can't compare the differences. Perhaps the mac version has yet to offer full VOIP functionality.
FTA:...hotline at 01-12321 for spam-related tip-offs and is preparing to send out one million anti-spam notices. The report said that professional training will be offered for 1,000 email administrators and that 20,000 anti-spam volunteers will be recruited
This sounds a lot like their all-volunteer internet morality police at their universities and internet cafes. Self-proclaimed enforcers will tip off the authorities to something they don't like, maybe spam, maybe just free speech. The article doesn't offer much detail, but this program is run by the ministry of information, ironically the ministry in charge of suppressing information.
ABC's use of the web to stream their most popular shows online worked out well because it was done well. It offers what it promises -- the latest shows, soon after they air, with minimally intrusive advertising. I found myself watching shows that I had missed and forgotten to tape, shows while I was staying late at work waiting for stuff to finish up, or shows that I wanted to rewatch parts of (remember the accidental boob-grope of evangeline lilly in the last episode of lost...that was wierd). I would not go there exclusively because 1) The quality is better on TV, or even better, on HDTV and 2) The website design is still a bit sluggish. I think there is plenty of room for improvement, but it appears atleast one network is on the right track.
The Nazis thought as you do. At some point, one can no longer dignify your remarks with responses. It's pretty clear where you stand: "crapping out children" is what you think of 3rd world nations.
That's a little harsh don't you think? The point was that these energy leaks are totally unnecessary. It's not a controversial subject -- almost nobody would argue that it would be nice to have fewer leaked energy.
I don't care much for your cherry-picked comparison to "Hollywood fatcats". I'm sure there are probably many MORE conservative/Republican/oil-wealthy/corporate "fatcats" out there as well (you were trying to make a selective attack on "liberals" right?).
As for the people in third world countries, I'm embarrassed than an obviously educated person such as yourself would compare energy leaks in rich-people's houses to family size in third world countries. That is blatantly racist, elitist, and pretty much wrong. I came from a 3rd world country, one of two children. We were fortunate, as are you and most Western families. It has been shown over and over again, that family size often does not follow "rational" patters that should in theory correlate with wealth. In fact, more often it correlates with religion, need for able-bodied workers, and lack of family planning assistance (at this point, the US only offers family assistance in 3rd world countries through abstinance-only programs, rather than the far more effective total approach including contraception). For a more eloquent and clear explanation on birth rate and the factors that effect it, see this wiki article.
In short, people in 3rd world countries will do what they feel is right, or necessary, to survive and live as enriched lives as they can. Your 12 children case is highly exaggerated, as the highest average rate in the world is Niger, with 7.6 children/woman. Now you honestly think we're going to see exponential growth of these families in Niger? How many of those children are going to go on to reproduce, let alone survive their first year? In fact the majority of the top-50 countries in the world for birth rate are in Africa. You think we're seeing exponential growth in population there? In reality, most of the continent is devastated in terms of the death rate.
Anyway, to get back to the point of this thread (which you usurped to make your racist view points public), the grandparent post was attempting to state that on a global scale, energy leaks may make a totally unnecessary (albeit small, and calculable) impact on the environment. I challenge you try and compare children of 3rd world countries as equally unnecessary impacts on the world.
I think you're looking way too hard for a reasonable link between human activities and global warming. Let's get away from the metaphor's then, and back to real examples. Los Angeles, in the 70s and 80s used to be a terribly smoggy city. Really, it still is. It was not too hard for people to swallow that human factors were the cause, as one could SEE the pollution in the air. The grapevine is part of a highway that runs out of LA through some mountains. You used to be able to look down on the city and see the haze of air pollution. Stricter (and more strictly enforced) clean air regulations in California dramatically changed the way LA looks -- these were the worst pollutants mind you, to say nothing of CO2. So we saw that something was happening (and really, go to a newly-industrial centers in India, or China, or parts of Africa and you will not be doubting that humans can really change their environment), and made a hypothesis as to what it was based on some good data, and came up with some reasonable solutions. Once those solutions were implement, modest changes were observed annually, but kept getting incrementally better. CO2 is a much trickier beast -- people will not believe what they cannot see, not matter how much scientific data is there to support it. There is no "ego" behind this to think that people can the environment. One merely has to imagine what the Earth looked like from space 50 thousand years ago, and see it today to see that man has exerted significant control over the environment.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, his politicization of the topic will prevent any real science from being conducted, because no one will take it seriously. People will/(do?)think it's just another thing for politicians to get soundbytes and money.
Real science HAS been conducted, IS being conducted, and is STILL being ignored. I guess the politicians got to you.
Right on man. This posting has incited a lot of strong comments because it was presented incorrectly by ArthurDent. The media has been presenting the debate for the sake of "fair and balanced" reporting, and in fact have been presenting it as a controversy when it is not so in the minds of most scientists (as opposed to the other way around that Arthurdent made it sound like). This smells like Republicans again, pretending there's a liberal bias in the media set themselves up as fair and balanced. Same thing with the evolution "debate". There is virtually NO debate among scientists that evolution is the most accurate theory we have to describe the variety of life on the planet, but it is often presented as a "controversy."
During the 4 billion years this planet has been here, the most changes have happened in the last ~50 thousand. Even more dramatic ones have happened even more recently. It's called an exponential, and it is strongly correlated with human activities. To assume that anything that could alter the Earth must take geological time scales is incredibly naive. We could turn it into a giant radioactive pile devoid of most life within 1 hour. Seems to me that when you plug in the human factor, anything is possible.
The devil can quote scripture to suit his purpose. Same thing goes for think tanks quoting "scientists". Take the Discovery Institute, for example, which tried to put a scientist up on the stand to defend intelligent design. Even the judge, who had no formal scientific training, could see right through the sham. In this case, a couple of non-peer reviewed scientific claims seem to refute the well-documented evidence behind global warming and are used to bash Gore. Not his theories really, since many other scientists hold the similar beliefs about global warming, but the man personally. Now that just brings it right back to the polical arena, where the data is the first casualty. I think the data to support global warming is highly persuasive, but there is data that goes both ways. Why not just focus on the data rather than one politician's attempt to shed some light on the subject to the masses?
"If you are interested in reading on Duke Nukem Forever, make sure to visit our Web Forums. Several Duke Nukem Forever team members drop in from time to time and say things. You can also join in and add your own thoughts about the game. Visit our Web Forums here.
No, you cannot pre-order the game. If you see some online store saying "We are taking pre-orders", they're just trying to get your money (they usually also make up their own supposed "insider release date info", too). There is no release date set, we are not taking pre-orders for the game. End of story.
Once we begin taking pre-orders, believe us, you'll know about it.:)
The release date of this game is "When it's done". Anything else, and we mean anything else is someone's speculation. There is no date. We don't know any date. If you have a friend who claims they have "inside info", or there's some game news site, or some computer store at the mall who claims they know - they do not. They are making it up. There is no date. Period.
And yes, we know the game has taken a long time. There's no possible joke you could make about the game's development time that we haven't already heard.:)"
So basically a lot of smiley faces and some suppressed irritability. I think we should all send them our best joke and test their theory that they've heard it all already.
I guess this is just a case of what is far far away and what is very very near. Honestly, I think Hawking truly feels the solution to global warming, nuclear war, or a bad bio-bug is to ensure we have seeds elsewhere in the stars. I totally agree that this would be the solution to the sun expiring. That is 4 billion years away. The rest of those problems could cause major headaches to say the least within 100 years. I'm not really arguing against the spirit of exploration and full steam ahead on any and all valid space research. I'm only arguing that to think of interstellar technology as the answer to Earth's CURRENT problems is a bit like dreaming about Europe-to-America teleportation while you're going down with the Titanic.
Thanks, you've really clarified the problem and offered some sound solutions (/sarcasm). No matter how much hopin' and wishin' you wanna do, we don't live in a Star Trek world. Getting "resources" from "elsewhere" doesn't get you very far in terms of practicality. Welcome to "reality". Instead of responding to your personal attacks, I'd rather focus on the article. Hawking says potential disasters include "sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus..." I fully agree with him on that point, but the reality is that it is not practical to abandon this planet or even plant seeds elsewhere, or even rely on "resources coming in from elsewhere." Although those options may be all we have in the very long future, there isn't even a hint of any of that being possible right now. It doesn't take an "enviro-weenie" to realize that many current threats, be they biological, geophysical, or nuclear (geopolical), any solution begins with an attitude adjustment, and continues into some serious focus on how to deal with them given what we have on hand, not what we wish we had.
FTA: "We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system..."
Sounds like his solution isn't necessarily based on developing habitats in the solar system (though he did say moon and Mars were the first steps). This seems like an ultra-long term scenario for which the technology doesn't even exist yet. It's almost like he's saying the Earth is screwed, so let's get off this hunk of rock. I think, considering we could be here for a very very long time, the better solution is to develop technology or philosophies dedicated to helping us live where we are. Can't just give up on Earth...we have no other options no matter how many sci-fi shows we watch.
I think they were all computers, like you said. The PS3 may have a better shot at it if an OS such as Linux, rather than some proprietary crap, could be loaded onto it. Hell, isn't it gonna have USB ports and stuff anyway? I bet some brilliant cracker can make a dual boot PS3/Linux box out of a PS3 without any help from Sony. That said, great post on the history of old-school gaming consoles. Takes me back to the days of Intellivision -- loved that thing actually.
Michael Crichton has great, highly entertaining books. Or used to. Now he's one of the worst misinterpreters or out-right abusers of science out there. In some ways he's worse than the politicians because he's popular. It got really bad with "Prey" where he basically demonized nanotech. Then with his latest book about how global warming is a huge conspiracy of environmentalists. I used to like his books, but more so than the current administration, I think Crichton has done a great deal to hurt the image of science in the public eye. Shame on him.
There is a party in power NOW, in the white house, the judiciary, and congress. At it's most basic, my point is that there is someone to blame right NOW, and it is the Republican party. I disagree with those who say the dems would do the same -- so much of what has happened is the last 6 years is totally unprecedented even in analogy. GW has used signing statements to basically set himself up as a dictator who does not have to be subject to the constitution, who thinks it's "just a piece of paper." Saying "well the dems would have been worse" is a pathetic cop out. That is just conjecture. What we know for sure is that the reps are bad NOW. Vote them out, or we WILL be putting up with more of this, if not worse.
I know that people are a bit disillusioned right now with the going-ons in government, and feel waiting until Nov 2006 or 2008 to vote is not enough to deal with the immediate threats and violations of the constitution. A unoffical poll of Slashdot posters would demonstrate a near-unanimous discomfort with the wiretapping, but some of the same people would not be willing to vote out the perpetrators. I ask that everyone here put their money where there mouth is. In this particular matter, there is one party that is thrilled to be spying on Americans and questioning our patriotism, the party of "with us or against us": the Republicans. Though it seems almost certain that the violation of the bill of rights offends most republicans (just look at gun-control attempts), in this case the mob mentality has overruled just about any one Republican's personal moral choices. The solution is to not vote Republican: if you are truly uncomfortable with the way the country is headed, it is necessary to realize that the neo-con movement has usurped the moral authority the Republicans once had.
I would always prefer in an ideal world for market forces to drive the way a company works. If a company's product or business model is not liked by the consumer, then it will not prosper. What France wants to do, is to single out and punish the most successful business in a given market, entirely because of its success and ubiquity. I wish Apple would open up their particular DRM methodology, but why the hell should they? They are selling iPod + iTunes as one product and most people continue to buy it anyway, even though there are other ways of achieving the same goal: to listen to online-purchased music on a digital player. I believe that is the major caveat for France: There is NO monopoly here because people can get the exact same music on any player they want (the easiest thing to do is to rip it off your CD). I feel that if the consumer truly feels cheated by Apple, then they should not be buying Apple products. It just seems like the French government wants custom offerings from the private sector without paying anything.
"...Beta, MD, Memory Sticks, and UMD -- all of which failed to get any support..."
That's a very good point, and quite amazing when you think about it. The implication is that with that kind of track record, Blu-Ray will also fail miserably (by which I mean a very slow, prolonged death that will hurt consumers and hardware manufacturers alike).
The blurb is very misleading. There was no "intercourse between humans and chimps" because THERE WERE NO humans or chimps back then. We did not evolve from chimps, humans and chimps simply had COMMON ancestry, a very long time ago. What this means is that the ancient ancestor of humans was able to, for a period of time, interbreed with the ancient ancestor of chimps. They were NOT that different back then. They may not have even looked very different. However, the genetic code was beginning to diverge because they had formed into two isolated populations, and then came back together briefly, before diverging forever into the lineages we can observe today. This "messy" split theory is still not entirely proven, but is an interesting analysis based on genetic sequence divergance data obtained from hundreds of specimens.
Not sure why you got labelled a troll. This is an absolutely true but difficult to swall truth for some people: Neo-cons like Bush have done way more kill Americans than any terrorist ever did. Not just the Iraq war, which is obvious, but also subtler things, the poor, the elderly, victems of gun violence, Katrina.
As you so vividly wrote out in bold: "there is no evidence the government is tapping or listening in..."
Without any accounting from ANY branch of the government, the press is the only estate left to do any real investigating. They rolled over once leading up to the Iraq war. I believe they hae learned their lesson: NEVER let government butt-likers like yourself keep them from doing their job.
With congress rolling over to whatever the presidents says, and a judiciary appointed by same president, the importance of journalists is greater that it has been since the days of Vietnam or Nixon. Your post smacks of Republican Neo-con.
BTW, "merely looking at who's talking to whom" may well be proven to be illegal. Don't pretend that debate is over already.
Slashdot Mirror
Every newly released model (inbetween the major updates) still often has different hardware, sometimes totally different. These "minor" updates include such things as batteries, RAM, etc. So really, even the 2nd gen version of a particular Apple product could have issues, maybe not the same ones. I don't think we can really say more things will be reliable in the next version, as more new things have been added that could break. As with any computer, ya toss the dice, and ya gets what ya gets. If you want a Macbook, get one.
These moons, and those newly discovered ones around Saturn obviously did not just come into existence in recent history, we merely detected them finally, and gave them names. To extrapolate, there will be many more that we haven't detected yet, most likely around the last three: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, simply because detailed analysis by dedicated spacecraft hasn't been done yet. I think the Voyagers did a fairly thorough job, though, so whatever is left should be quite small, but may merit the classification of "moon" none-the-less (not sure what the criteria is...Saturn has billions of "moonlets" in its rings).
This sort of begs the question, how many names are we gonna have to come up with. Surely Classical mythology has a finite supply...
It's VOIP! And instead of bypassing the telco, it requires a telco! And instead of working on every computer, it only works on Windows computers. And instead of being free, it costs money! And instead of working with every IM system, it only works with MSN! And instead of rendering it in HTML, we decided to give Adobe/Macromedia a cut and do the whole web page in Flash!
Couldn't have put it better myself, although when my computer goes to the messenger website, it detects that I am coming from a mac, and offers me the mac version, so I guess it's not limited only to Windows. However, since the website won't even let me see the page for the windows version, I can't compare the differences. Perhaps the mac version has yet to offer full VOIP functionality.
This sounds a lot like their all-volunteer internet morality police at their universities and internet cafes. Self-proclaimed enforcers will tip off the authorities to something they don't like, maybe spam, maybe just free speech. The article doesn't offer much detail, but this program is run by the ministry of information, ironically the ministry in charge of suppressing information.
ABC's use of the web to stream their most popular shows online worked out well because it was done well. It offers what it promises -- the latest shows, soon after they air, with minimally intrusive advertising. I found myself watching shows that I had missed and forgotten to tape, shows while I was staying late at work waiting for stuff to finish up, or shows that I wanted to rewatch parts of (remember the accidental boob-grope of evangeline lilly in the last episode of lost...that was wierd). I would not go there exclusively because 1) The quality is better on TV, or even better, on HDTV and 2) The website design is still a bit sluggish. I think there is plenty of room for improvement, but it appears atleast one network is on the right track.
The Nazis thought as you do. At some point, one can no longer dignify your remarks with responses. It's pretty clear where you stand: "crapping out children" is what you think of 3rd world nations.
I don't care much for your cherry-picked comparison to "Hollywood fatcats". I'm sure there are probably many MORE conservative/Republican/oil-wealthy/corporate "fatcats" out there as well (you were trying to make a selective attack on "liberals" right?).
As for the people in third world countries, I'm embarrassed than an obviously educated person such as yourself would compare energy leaks in rich-people's houses to family size in third world countries. That is blatantly racist, elitist, and pretty much wrong. I came from a 3rd world country, one of two children. We were fortunate, as are you and most Western families. It has been shown over and over again, that family size often does not follow "rational" patters that should in theory correlate with wealth. In fact, more often it correlates with religion, need for able-bodied workers, and lack of family planning assistance (at this point, the US only offers family assistance in 3rd world countries through abstinance-only programs, rather than the far more effective total approach including contraception). For a more eloquent and clear explanation on birth rate and the factors that effect it, see this wiki article.
In short, people in 3rd world countries will do what they feel is right, or necessary, to survive and live as enriched lives as they can. Your 12 children case is highly exaggerated, as the highest average rate in the world is Niger, with 7.6 children/woman. Now you honestly think we're going to see exponential growth of these families in Niger? How many of those children are going to go on to reproduce, let alone survive their first year? In fact the majority of the top-50 countries in the world for birth rate are in Africa. You think we're seeing exponential growth in population there? In reality, most of the continent is devastated in terms of the death rate.
Anyway, to get back to the point of this thread (which you usurped to make your racist view points public), the grandparent post was attempting to state that on a global scale, energy leaks may make a totally unnecessary (albeit small, and calculable) impact on the environment. I challenge you try and compare children of 3rd world countries as equally unnecessary impacts on the world.
Lots of cover sheets for TPS reports type stuff when you search for "top secret" http://www.google.com/search?site=unclesam&restric t=unclesam&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&output=unclesam&q=%2 2top+secret%22&btnG=Search
Unfortunately for the rest of us, his politicization of the topic will prevent any real science from being conducted, because no one will take it seriously. People will/(do?)think it's just another thing for politicians to get soundbytes and money.
Real science HAS been conducted, IS being conducted, and is STILL being ignored. I guess the politicians got to you.
Right on man. This posting has incited a lot of strong comments because it was presented incorrectly by ArthurDent. The media has been presenting the debate for the sake of "fair and balanced" reporting, and in fact have been presenting it as a controversy when it is not so in the minds of most scientists (as opposed to the other way around that Arthurdent made it sound like). This smells like Republicans again, pretending there's a liberal bias in the media set themselves up as fair and balanced. Same thing with the evolution "debate". There is virtually NO debate among scientists that evolution is the most accurate theory we have to describe the variety of life on the planet, but it is often presented as a "controversy."
During the 4 billion years this planet has been here, the most changes have happened in the last ~50 thousand. Even more dramatic ones have happened even more recently. It's called an exponential, and it is strongly correlated with human activities. To assume that anything that could alter the Earth must take geological time scales is incredibly naive. We could turn it into a giant radioactive pile devoid of most life within 1 hour. Seems to me that when you plug in the human factor, anything is possible.
The devil can quote scripture to suit his purpose. Same thing goes for think tanks quoting "scientists". Take the Discovery Institute, for example, which tried to put a scientist up on the stand to defend intelligent design. Even the judge, who had no formal scientific training, could see right through the sham. In this case, a couple of non-peer reviewed scientific claims seem to refute the well-documented evidence behind global warming and are used to bash Gore. Not his theories really, since many other scientists hold the similar beliefs about global warming, but the man personally. Now that just brings it right back to the polical arena, where the data is the first casualty. I think the data to support global warming is highly persuasive, but there is data that goes both ways. Why not just focus on the data rather than one politician's attempt to shed some light on the subject to the masses?
No, you cannot pre-order the game. If you see some online store saying "We are taking pre-orders", they're just trying to get your money (they usually also make up their own supposed "insider release date info", too). There is no release date set, we are not taking pre-orders for the game. End of story.
Once we begin taking pre-orders, believe us, you'll know about it. :)
The release date of this game is "When it's done". Anything else, and we mean anything else is someone's speculation. There is no date. We don't know any date. If you have a friend who claims they have "inside info", or there's some game news site, or some computer store at the mall who claims they know - they do not. They are making it up. There is no date. Period.
And yes, we know the game has taken a long time. There's no possible joke you could make about the game's development time that we haven't already heard. :)"
So basically a lot of smiley faces and some suppressed irritability. I think we should all send them our best joke and test their theory that they've heard it all already.
I guess this is just a case of what is far far away and what is very very near. Honestly, I think Hawking truly feels the solution to global warming, nuclear war, or a bad bio-bug is to ensure we have seeds elsewhere in the stars. I totally agree that this would be the solution to the sun expiring. That is 4 billion years away. The rest of those problems could cause major headaches to say the least within 100 years. I'm not really arguing against the spirit of exploration and full steam ahead on any and all valid space research. I'm only arguing that to think of interstellar technology as the answer to Earth's CURRENT problems is a bit like dreaming about Europe-to-America teleportation while you're going down with the Titanic.
Thanks, you've really clarified the problem and offered some sound solutions (/sarcasm). No matter how much hopin' and wishin' you wanna do, we don't live in a Star Trek world. Getting "resources" from "elsewhere" doesn't get you very far in terms of practicality. Welcome to "reality". Instead of responding to your personal attacks, I'd rather focus on the article. Hawking says potential disasters include "sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus..." I fully agree with him on that point, but the reality is that it is not practical to abandon this planet or even plant seeds elsewhere, or even rely on "resources coming in from elsewhere." Although those options may be all we have in the very long future, there isn't even a hint of any of that being possible right now. It doesn't take an "enviro-weenie" to realize that many current threats, be they biological, geophysical, or nuclear (geopolical), any solution begins with an attitude adjustment, and continues into some serious focus on how to deal with them given what we have on hand, not what we wish we had.
Sounds like his solution isn't necessarily based on developing habitats in the solar system (though he did say moon and Mars were the first steps). This seems like an ultra-long term scenario for which the technology doesn't even exist yet. It's almost like he's saying the Earth is screwed, so let's get off this hunk of rock. I think, considering we could be here for a very very long time, the better solution is to develop technology or philosophies dedicated to helping us live where we are. Can't just give up on Earth...we have no other options no matter how many sci-fi shows we watch.
I think they were all computers, like you said. The PS3 may have a better shot at it if an OS such as Linux, rather than some proprietary crap, could be loaded onto it. Hell, isn't it gonna have USB ports and stuff anyway? I bet some brilliant cracker can make a dual boot PS3/Linux box out of a PS3 without any help from Sony. That said, great post on the history of old-school gaming consoles. Takes me back to the days of Intellivision -- loved that thing actually.
Michael Crichton has great, highly entertaining books. Or used to. Now he's one of the worst misinterpreters or out-right abusers of science out there. In some ways he's worse than the politicians because he's popular. It got really bad with "Prey" where he basically demonized nanotech. Then with his latest book about how global warming is a huge conspiracy of environmentalists. I used to like his books, but more so than the current administration, I think Crichton has done a great deal to hurt the image of science in the public eye. Shame on him.
There is a party in power NOW, in the white house, the judiciary, and congress. At it's most basic, my point is that there is someone to blame right NOW, and it is the Republican party. I disagree with those who say the dems would do the same -- so much of what has happened is the last 6 years is totally unprecedented even in analogy. GW has used signing statements to basically set himself up as a dictator who does not have to be subject to the constitution, who thinks it's "just a piece of paper." Saying "well the dems would have been worse" is a pathetic cop out. That is just conjecture. What we know for sure is that the reps are bad NOW. Vote them out, or we WILL be putting up with more of this, if not worse.
I know that people are a bit disillusioned right now with the going-ons in government, and feel waiting until Nov 2006 or 2008 to vote is not enough to deal with the immediate threats and violations of the constitution. A unoffical poll of Slashdot posters would demonstrate a near-unanimous discomfort with the wiretapping, but some of the same people would not be willing to vote out the perpetrators. I ask that everyone here put their money where there mouth is. In this particular matter, there is one party that is thrilled to be spying on Americans and questioning our patriotism, the party of "with us or against us": the Republicans. Though it seems almost certain that the violation of the bill of rights offends most republicans (just look at gun-control attempts), in this case the mob mentality has overruled just about any one Republican's personal moral choices. The solution is to not vote Republican: if you are truly uncomfortable with the way the country is headed, it is necessary to realize that the neo-con movement has usurped the moral authority the Republicans once had.
I would always prefer in an ideal world for market forces to drive the way a company works. If a company's product or business model is not liked by the consumer, then it will not prosper. What France wants to do, is to single out and punish the most successful business in a given market, entirely because of its success and ubiquity. I wish Apple would open up their particular DRM methodology, but why the hell should they? They are selling iPod + iTunes as one product and most people continue to buy it anyway, even though there are other ways of achieving the same goal: to listen to online-purchased music on a digital player. I believe that is the major caveat for France: There is NO monopoly here because people can get the exact same music on any player they want (the easiest thing to do is to rip it off your CD). I feel that if the consumer truly feels cheated by Apple, then they should not be buying Apple products. It just seems like the French government wants custom offerings from the private sector without paying anything.
That's a very good point, and quite amazing when you think about it. The implication is that with that kind of track record, Blu-Ray will also fail miserably (by which I mean a very slow, prolonged death that will hurt consumers and hardware manufacturers alike).
The blurb is very misleading. There was no "intercourse between humans and chimps" because THERE WERE NO humans or chimps back then. We did not evolve from chimps, humans and chimps simply had COMMON ancestry, a very long time ago. What this means is that the ancient ancestor of humans was able to, for a period of time, interbreed with the ancient ancestor of chimps. They were NOT that different back then. They may not have even looked very different. However, the genetic code was beginning to diverge because they had formed into two isolated populations, and then came back together briefly, before diverging forever into the lineages we can observe today. This "messy" split theory is still not entirely proven, but is an interesting analysis based on genetic sequence divergance data obtained from hundreds of specimens.
Not sure why you got labelled a troll. This is an absolutely true but difficult to swall truth for some people: Neo-cons like Bush have done way more kill Americans than any terrorist ever did. Not just the Iraq war, which is obvious, but also subtler things, the poor, the elderly, victems of gun violence, Katrina.
As you so vividly wrote out in bold: "there is no evidence the government is tapping or listening in..."
Without any accounting from ANY branch of the government, the press is the only estate left to do any real investigating. They rolled over once leading up to the Iraq war. I believe they hae learned their lesson: NEVER let government butt-likers like yourself keep them from doing their job.
With congress rolling over to whatever the presidents says, and a judiciary appointed by same president, the importance of journalists is greater that it has been since the days of Vietnam or Nixon. Your post smacks of Republican Neo-con.
BTW, "merely looking at who's talking to whom" may well be proven to be illegal. Don't pretend that debate is over already.