That every desktop user in the world should move over the FreeBSD, and learn a whole new environment?
Actually, I thought my point was fairly clear. The poster I was replying to was in effect saying that Windows vulnerabilities are only apparent because there are so many Windows systems out there.
I was pointing out that the Windows development methodolgy never has emphasized security, and that there are therefore fundamental differences in Windows that make it a more vulnerable platform.
That doesn't mean that I think the world should move over to FreeBSD or Linux or BeOS or OS X. It just means that Microsoft's record on security is pathetic. Offer up any number of excuses you like, but I think it's difficult to argue that Microsoft has a sterling track record on security.
As an aside, I agree completely with you about ease of use being of primary importance. That's why I use OS X.
Since there are no 2.5GHz machines *now*, does that mean we shouldn't be excited that IBM is offering a much faster chip than what Apple is currently using?
We will see 4GHz Intel and AMD chips soon, but a jump from just under 1.5GHz to something around 50% faster seems like good news to me.
Plus, the 970 offers more than just raw clock speed increases. It'll be interesting to see how it stacks up in real-world performance to the Intel and AMD chips.
If as many people tried as hard to find security holes in OSX or Linux, there'd be reports for those daily as well.
That's patently untrue. It's a well-known fact that Microsoft's security problems are not due to exposure alone.
Microsoft's development model is fundamentally flawed from a security perspective, because it squarely places featureset additions above security. The corporate culture at Microsoft is and always has been more about gaining marketshare than about anything else.
It seems that there are differences in security, above and beyond the monopoly domination Microsoft enjoys. How many ISPs use FreeBSD to run their servers? Hmm.. I wonder if there's more to it than just speed and the fact that FreeBSD is Open Source.
I'm not alone in my assesment. There's this security guru named Bruce Schneier. Perhaps his name has crossed your desktop at some point. He's contemplating getting a Mac, because he is tired of hassling with security problems on his Windows machines.
whether you like it or not. Unless you absolutely, positively never use anything but Google, you'll likely bump into Overture.
The trick is to remember that search engines for some time now have been intertwined in a bizarre series of relationships that mostly go on behind the scenes.
For example, Overture is utilized by Excite, Go, InfoSpace, Yahoo, Netscape, MSN, NBCi, and Ask Jeeves. AllTheWeb is utilized by Excite and Lycos.
Some search engines incorporate results from three or more other engines, and synthesize the results before spitting them out to the end user. Excite, for example, uses data from FindWhat, LookSmart, Inktomi, AllTheWeb, and Overture.
The above relationships are based on a six-month old chart I made to help myself keep the search engine world straight in my own head. Things change quickly, as we've seen of late, in the search engine world. But even though there is consolidation in the market, there are a few niche players that could continue to stay viable.
My friends and I used figures with D&D to AD&D, Traveller, Runequest, Aftermath!, Space Opera, Bushido, Twilight:2000 (a future simulation that is now history, that's something), Shadowrun, and some I've certainly forgotten.
For us, the selection, painting, and use of figures was an integral part of the gaming experience. The "dumb figurines" when combined with the battlemats made by Berkeley Games added a lot. They were particularly handy in instances where players had an imperfect mental picture: "My Aldryami Rune Lord *can* duck around the corner, get off a shot with his wonder bow, and duck back before the broos see him!"
I guess my biases as a game master (or DM, if you prefer the TSR-centric term;-) are revealed.
In my day, Radeon 9000 cards were called FIGURES, and we liked it that way!
America has turned into a nation of fucking whimps. It seems these days that there's nothing that can't provoke us into paroxyms of fear. I saw the cover of Newsweek magazine at the checkout stand yesterday, and the cover story was about anxiety. The graphic was a faux-cutaway of a man's brain, and the two big looming "anxieties" were pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Give me a break. Why not show a picture of a Chevy Cavalier? The odds are far greater that the car will run your ass over in the parking lot, than that any terrorist-related act will impact you.
Does anyone actually take Tom Ridge seriously? Tape up your windows and keep a first aid kit at hand? That reminds me of the "nuclear attack" drill in the Army: Lie down in the the lowest spot you can find and cover your eyes.
Canada has more guns per person than the United States, but they have less than 50 gun-related deaths per year. Why is that? It's because the Canadians don't live in fear. Yoda had it right, fear *does* lead to hate, and to violence as well.
The European countries, primarily Britain, Germany, and Italy, have faced their share of terrorism over the years. None of those countries became police states.
We're all blissfully driving our SUVs around, fat, dumb and happy, and wondering why so many people think of us as spoiled, scared, pathetic, naiive idiots. In a similar fashion, our children will grow up and wonder why everyone else around the world laughs at us when we call ourselves the "land of the free and the home of the brave."
Before you jump to conclusions, I was an infantry officer in the US Army, I'm not a liberal, and I don't eat granola for breakfast. I'm just sick of watching this country slide further into slack-jawed idiocy.
I don't see this as a flame-war. I'm actually quite intrigued by your comments, even if I don't necessarily agree with them. I honestly haven't ever had a discussion with anyone who feels that our biological selves should be discarded in favor of machine bodies.
Your dismissal of emotion and the appeal to a more logic-derived interaction with the world is actually a bit chilling. I mean, do you honestly think that it's merely your brain that makes you human? I suppose a better question would be whether you consider being human necessary. It sounds as though if given the chance, you'd gladly discard the biologic trappings of your humanity in exchange for a "better-designed" manufactured set of atoms to do your brain's bidding.
If we could weed out greed and lust and fear and love and hate and all of the other pesky emotions through some sort of replicatable process, what would we be? I'd personally rather not go through "life" as a glorified assembly-line robot, interacting with a world full of similarly inhuman individuals. Sure, we wouldn't be beholden to the ruthless DNA that is trying to keep the species alive, but would a life composed purely of abstract reasoning and problem-solving truly be worth living?
As a side-note, I still don't buy the argument about how vulnerable we are in meat-form. I mean, we're the most successful critters on earth (bacteria, cockroaches, yes, yes, but using technology we can already live in extremes that no other earth critter can match), and although diseases still affect humans, in the industrialized world death by disease is statistically minimal. Predators that can actually hunt humans? You proved my point. The fact that they won't attack humans means that humans with our puny meat-bodies have successfully defeated such predators through technology (most of which is no more advanced than a pole with something sharp at the end). You could argue that without technology to enhance our puny bodies, we'd be unable to do this, but that same argument would apply to the notion of "manufactured" human bodies. When's the last time your found a car, server, bicycle, space shuttle, etc., that was free of defects and self-sustaining?
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you've never been an athlete, or pushed your body to extremes in order to overcome a challenge. I know, I know, it doesn't fit the geek credo, but using your body for more than just punching keys and moving joysticks (he said "joysticks") can be fun, you know.
Plus, what's with the "considered lunch for pretty much everything on this earth..." comment? I mean, when's the last time ANY creature other than a human was a threat to you?
Cyborg sex? Uh... if you're into airbrushed Japanese dorm art, I guess it's appealing, but I'll take the good old fashioned organic variety any day.:-)
I'd say there's an even 50/50 chance that you're just leg-pulling with this whole "who needs biology" notion, but due to the lack of emoticonifcation, I'm left wondering.
There are plenty of laptop manufacturers out there that provide just as high quality laptops as Apple.
Except that oddly enough, when people compare the price of PC laptops to the price of Apple laptops, they almost invariably compare the lowest-priced PCs they can find to the Apple laptop.
When you compare solid, reliable, long-lasting PC laptops to their Apple equivalents, the "Apple Tax" disappears. If you want to buy a cheap Dell and replace it in 18 months, that's fine, but if you want 3+ years out of your laptop, you'll have a tough time beating an Apple laptop for durability and reliability.
I'm not sure how using marketing to trumpet the value of Linux means that the "revolution" is over. Hasn't Red Hat been marking the crap out of Linux? Haven't VA and IBM? Would Linux be as popular, would the "revolution" have spread as far as it has without organizations out in front making decisionmakers aware of Linux?
Marketing may be a distasteful exercise to you, but I'd be willing to bet that that without the marketing that Linux has received so far, the great explosion of Linux distros, books about Linux, software tools, Linux-optimized hardware, Linux drivers, and so on would simply not exist.
If the "revolution" means Linux as a hobbyist's OS, or as a geeks-only OS, then you're right. The revolution IS over. But isn't the point of a revolution to bring your ideas into the mainstream?
I don't see how a certification process, which will 'certify' one binary distribution of Linux, validates Linux.
Think like a marketer, and you'll get the point of all this. Remember, the folks at your local government agency who actually run the IT systems are seldom the folks who determine which systems enter the selection process.
Politics and marketing trump technical merits, as our friends and Microsoft know so well.
Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 12 years [google.com].
1) Did you think Apple should cater first and foremost to the huge market of UNIX users clamoring for Mac hardware, or to their existing customers? Seems to me that by taking care of Mac users and getting them to switch to OS X is a pretty high priority.
2) Even so, Apple seems to be doing a fair job of paying attention to the UNIX market. I mean, OS X is an implementation of UNIX, which makes Apple the largest volume distributor of UNIX boxes in the world. If that equates to ignoring the UNIX market, I'm not sure if our definitions of "the UNIX market" are the same.
Macs don't have the keyboard layout you'd like, which is a shame. Hopefully Apple will soon fix the situation to your satisfaction. But I think it's something of an overstatement and a distortion to say that Apple is not paying attention to the UNIX market, simply because of these keyboard issues.
I stick my neck out and risk being "wrong", because to explore can be absolutely worth it.
Now that's a philosophy I can get behind. More power to you, Steeltoe. Seriously. Far too many people in this world are unwilling to take a chance for fear of looking foolish. Now I understand where you're coming from.
Reading Steeltoe's entry made me wonder if he was serious, tongue-in-cheek, self-mocking, or some sort of crazy amalgam of all three. Maybe you have to been in the crop-circle "circle" to understand....
I attended a meeting of the Intellectual Property Society, at which Robin Gross spoke. She seemed very well-versed in intellectual property matters, and passionate about redressing current imbalances that favor corporate entities at the expense of us commoners. Her speech started with a brief history of IP laws in the United States, going back to the founding fathers.
Robin illuminated the important notion that IP laws were developed *for the good of society*. That's an important item to keep in mind as we struggle back and forth with arguments about whether IP laws are supposed to protect individual inventors or big companies. In fact, they're to help the well-being of society as a whole.
I'm glad to see that Robin has started this group, and I expect that she'll draw some talented and smart people with her.
What if the technology companies actually figure that DRM would stifle the growth of their own industry? It *may* just be that some of the people who run some of these companies have a clue.
I know, that's not part of the SAW (Slashdot Accepted Wisdom). We all know Slashdotters are far more intelligent than any of these suits, but maybe some of the folks whose companies provide us with technology we can't live without are actually not brain-dead.
Is their composite track record on DRM really long enough for us to make any sort of valid assumptions about what this consortium will do? They may see the hopelessly backwards media tycoons as an impediment to the continued progression of computer technology.
While conspiracy theories are well and good on the X-Files and Fox News Specials, I'm inclined to give the technology companies the benefit of the doubt until their actions indicate their true intentions.
According to stats in the February issue of Business 2.0, recorded music's share of entertainment spending in the US has been dropping since 1996. Total spending has grown during the same period, but recorded music made up 24% of the buying public's expendatures in 1996, and only 17% in 2002.
Maybe this says something about the viability of recorded music in comparison with filmed entertainment and interactive entertainment. How long can a medium that has been around as long as recorded music ever hope to maintain a lofty position in the face of much more addictive and immersive media that incorporate music, visual stimulation and in the case of games, interactivity?
I'm not saying that nobody wants to listen to recorded music, but perhaps its time we realized that all of these arguments about who gets the money, how the music gets distributed, and so on are missing the point that while consumers will still shell out big bucks to go to a live concert, they are no longer willing to spend as much disposable income on recorded music. It has become a commodity in the minds of consumers, whether the recording industry realizes it or not.
I've seen a lot of revolting appliances
on
When Appliances Revolt
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Is it me, or is that dark-urine yellow that was so popular in the 1970s not the most disgusting color you've ever seen?
If Creative Commons is so useless/pointless/stupid/whatever, why not let the market decide? It seems like this guy is just knifing the baby. Let's give CC some exposure and see if consumers (aka the public) and content producers (aka artists and writers) like the approach.
Sharpshooting CC in its infancy makes me think this guy is just afraid of change.
Much of the reason social science academics aren't taken more seriously is that an overwhelming number of them seem to be mired in the Marxist dogma that they were first exposed to in their undergraduate days.
Go to most universities across the United States, and you'll find a class of individuals who are very much outside the mainstream of American thought. This doesn't mean that their views are unimportant, but it does mean that in order for their views to be heard, they need to frame their arguments in a way that the average American will grok, rather than in post-modernist lingo or Marxist rhetoric.
I also take issue with the statement that academics have "little to no regard for anything outside the subject." That's pure bullshit. Anyone who has ever worked at a university will tell you that internal departmental politics plays a *huge* role in what gets published and who gets listened to in academia.
It's also important to note that academics are exceedingly good at analyzing and critiquing the actions of others, but do not have to make decisions of any consequence themselves. There's a huge difference between sharpshooting from the shadows, and taking responsbility for an actual *plan* to do something. The American public understands this. One of my issues with Chomsky is just that - it's easy for him to knock away at The System, but anyone can do that, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. When he starts offering truly considered and coherent plans to affect some real change, then his rants will morph into something of actual utility.
Academia has a lot to offer in the current American poltical and societal reality, but it has always been and may always be an elitist environment more interested in learning for the sake of learning and self-congratulation, rather than in the effective dissemination of ideas to the wider population. Until that changes, don't expect Joe Ford to start watching televised MIT debates on the TV every night.
I'm not shooting the messenger at all. Just because he's "trying to save my ass" doesn't mean I should read his works uncritically, does it? Uncritical acceptance is the very thing he rails against.
Whether you agree with his views or not, Noam Chomsky never fails to make you think, even if it's just to formulate a response to his arguments.
If you're interested in the effects of media consolidation and government propaganda, check out this short summary of a pamphlet Chomsky put out during the Gulf War.
I disagree with huge chunks of what he says in this pamphlet and subsequent pronouncements. But he has been writing about the consolidation and manipulation of the American media for many years, and if current trends continue, his annoying rants may mirror the truth more closely than any of us would like.
since they've got such a good grip on what's going on, and have for such a long time. Anyone else remember the tragically optimistic "Push" issue of Wired Magazine? I quote: "The Web browser itself is about to croak."
I couldn't help it. Dammit, I'm already accruing coal in my stocking for 2003...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I thought my point was fairly clear. The poster I was replying to was in effect saying that Windows vulnerabilities are only apparent because there are so many Windows systems out there.
I was pointing out that the Windows development methodolgy never has emphasized security, and that there are therefore fundamental differences in Windows that make it a more vulnerable platform.
That doesn't mean that I think the world should move over to FreeBSD or Linux or BeOS or OS X. It just means that Microsoft's record on security is pathetic. Offer up any number of excuses you like, but I think it's difficult to argue that Microsoft has a sterling track record on security.
As an aside, I agree completely with you about ease of use being of primary importance. That's why I use OS X.
We will see 4GHz Intel and AMD chips soon, but a jump from just under 1.5GHz to something around 50% faster seems like good news to me.
Plus, the 970 offers more than just raw clock speed increases. It'll be interesting to see how it stacks up in real-world performance to the Intel and AMD chips.
That's patently untrue. It's a well-known fact that Microsoft's security problems are not due to exposure alone.
Microsoft's development model is fundamentally flawed from a security perspective, because it squarely places featureset additions above security. The corporate culture at Microsoft is and always has been more about gaining marketshare than about anything else.
It seems that there are differences in security, above and beyond the monopoly domination Microsoft enjoys. How many ISPs use FreeBSD to run their servers? Hmm.. I wonder if there's more to it than just speed and the fact that FreeBSD is Open Source.
I'm not alone in my assesment. There's this security guru named Bruce Schneier. Perhaps his name has crossed your desktop at some point. He's contemplating getting a Mac, because he is tired of hassling with security problems on his Windows machines.
Can you say "erectile disfunction"?
The trick is to remember that search engines for some time now have been intertwined in a bizarre series of relationships that mostly go on behind the scenes.
For example, Overture is utilized by Excite, Go, InfoSpace, Yahoo, Netscape, MSN, NBCi, and Ask Jeeves. AllTheWeb is utilized by Excite and Lycos.
Some search engines incorporate results from three or more other engines, and synthesize the results before spitting them out to the end user. Excite, for example, uses data from FindWhat, LookSmart, Inktomi, AllTheWeb, and Overture.
The above relationships are based on a six-month old chart I made to help myself keep the search engine world straight in my own head. Things change quickly, as we've seen of late, in the search engine world. But even though there is consolidation in the market, there are a few niche players that could continue to stay viable.
For us, the selection, painting, and use of figures was an integral part of the gaming experience. The "dumb figurines" when combined with the battlemats made by Berkeley Games added a lot. They were particularly handy in instances where players had an imperfect mental picture: "My Aldryami Rune Lord *can* duck around the corner, get off a shot with his wonder bow, and duck back before the broos see him!"
I guess my biases as a game master (or DM, if you prefer the TSR-centric term ;-) are revealed.
In my day, Radeon 9000 cards were called FIGURES, and we liked it that way!
Give me a break. Why not show a picture of a Chevy Cavalier? The odds are far greater that the car will run your ass over in the parking lot, than that any terrorist-related act will impact you.
Does anyone actually take Tom Ridge seriously? Tape up your windows and keep a first aid kit at hand? That reminds me of the "nuclear attack" drill in the Army: Lie down in the the lowest spot you can find and cover your eyes.
Canada has more guns per person than the United States, but they have less than 50 gun-related deaths per year. Why is that? It's because the Canadians don't live in fear. Yoda had it right, fear *does* lead to hate, and to violence as well.
The European countries, primarily Britain, Germany, and Italy, have faced their share of terrorism over the years. None of those countries became police states.
We're all blissfully driving our SUVs around, fat, dumb and happy, and wondering why so many people think of us as spoiled, scared, pathetic, naiive idiots. In a similar fashion, our children will grow up and wonder why everyone else around the world laughs at us when we call ourselves the "land of the free and the home of the brave."
Before you jump to conclusions, I was an infantry officer in the US Army, I'm not a liberal, and I don't eat granola for breakfast. I'm just sick of watching this country slide further into slack-jawed idiocy.
Your dismissal of emotion and the appeal to a more logic-derived interaction with the world is actually a bit chilling. I mean, do you honestly think that it's merely your brain that makes you human? I suppose a better question would be whether you consider being human necessary. It sounds as though if given the chance, you'd gladly discard the biologic trappings of your humanity in exchange for a "better-designed" manufactured set of atoms to do your brain's bidding.
If we could weed out greed and lust and fear and love and hate and all of the other pesky emotions through some sort of replicatable process, what would we be? I'd personally rather not go through "life" as a glorified assembly-line robot, interacting with a world full of similarly inhuman individuals. Sure, we wouldn't be beholden to the ruthless DNA that is trying to keep the species alive, but would a life composed purely of abstract reasoning and problem-solving truly be worth living?
As a side-note, I still don't buy the argument about how vulnerable we are in meat-form. I mean, we're the most successful critters on earth (bacteria, cockroaches, yes, yes, but using technology we can already live in extremes that no other earth critter can match), and although diseases still affect humans, in the industrialized world death by disease is statistically minimal. Predators that can actually hunt humans? You proved my point. The fact that they won't attack humans means that humans with our puny meat-bodies have successfully defeated such predators through technology (most of which is no more advanced than a pole with something sharp at the end). You could argue that without technology to enhance our puny bodies, we'd be unable to do this, but that same argument would apply to the notion of "manufactured" human bodies. When's the last time your found a car, server, bicycle, space shuttle, etc., that was free of defects and self-sustaining?
Plus, what's with the "considered lunch for pretty much everything on this earth..." comment? I mean, when's the last time ANY creature other than a human was a threat to you?
Cyborg sex? Uh... if you're into airbrushed Japanese dorm art, I guess it's appealing, but I'll take the good old fashioned organic variety any day. :-)
I'd say there's an even 50/50 chance that you're just leg-pulling with this whole "who needs biology" notion, but due to the lack of emoticonifcation, I'm left wondering.
Except that oddly enough, when people compare the price of PC laptops to the price of Apple laptops, they almost invariably compare the lowest-priced PCs they can find to the Apple laptop.
When you compare solid, reliable, long-lasting PC laptops to their Apple equivalents, the "Apple Tax" disappears. If you want to buy a cheap Dell and replace it in 18 months, that's fine, but if you want 3+ years out of your laptop, you'll have a tough time beating an Apple laptop for durability and reliability.
Marketing may be a distasteful exercise to you, but I'd be willing to bet that that without the marketing that Linux has received so far, the great explosion of Linux distros, books about Linux, software tools, Linux-optimized hardware, Linux drivers, and so on would simply not exist.
If the "revolution" means Linux as a hobbyist's OS, or as a geeks-only OS, then you're right. The revolution IS over. But isn't the point of a revolution to bring your ideas into the mainstream?
Think like a marketer, and you'll get the point of all this. Remember, the folks at your local government agency who actually run the IT systems are seldom the folks who determine which systems enter the selection process.
Politics and marketing trump technical merits, as our friends and Microsoft know so well.
1) Did you think Apple should cater first and foremost to the huge market of UNIX users clamoring for Mac hardware, or to their existing customers? Seems to me that by taking care of Mac users and getting them to switch to OS X is a pretty high priority.
2) Even so, Apple seems to be doing a fair job of paying attention to the UNIX market. I mean, OS X is an implementation of UNIX, which makes Apple the largest volume distributor of UNIX boxes in the world. If that equates to ignoring the UNIX market, I'm not sure if our definitions of "the UNIX market" are the same.
Macs don't have the keyboard layout you'd like, which is a shame. Hopefully Apple will soon fix the situation to your satisfaction. But I think it's something of an overstatement and a distortion to say that Apple is not paying attention to the UNIX market, simply because of these keyboard issues.
Now that's a philosophy I can get behind. More power to you, Steeltoe. Seriously. Far too many people in this world are unwilling to take a chance for fear of looking foolish. Now I understand where you're coming from.
Rock on!
Robin illuminated the important notion that IP laws were developed *for the good of society*. That's an important item to keep in mind as we struggle back and forth with arguments about whether IP laws are supposed to protect individual inventors or big companies. In fact, they're to help the well-being of society as a whole.
I'm glad to see that Robin has started this group, and I expect that she'll draw some talented and smart people with her.
I know, that's not part of the SAW (Slashdot Accepted Wisdom). We all know Slashdotters are far more intelligent than any of these suits, but maybe some of the folks whose companies provide us with technology we can't live without are actually not brain-dead.
Is their composite track record on DRM really long enough for us to make any sort of valid assumptions about what this consortium will do? They may see the hopelessly backwards media tycoons as an impediment to the continued progression of computer technology.
While conspiracy theories are well and good on the X-Files and Fox News Specials, I'm inclined to give the technology companies the benefit of the doubt until their actions indicate their true intentions.
Maybe this says something about the viability of recorded music in comparison with filmed entertainment and interactive entertainment. How long can a medium that has been around as long as recorded music ever hope to maintain a lofty position in the face of much more addictive and immersive media that incorporate music, visual stimulation and in the case of games, interactivity?
I'm not saying that nobody wants to listen to recorded music, but perhaps its time we realized that all of these arguments about who gets the money, how the music gets distributed, and so on are missing the point that while consumers will still shell out big bucks to go to a live concert, they are no longer willing to spend as much disposable income on recorded music. It has become a commodity in the minds of consumers, whether the recording industry realizes it or not.
Sharpshooting CC in its infancy makes me think this guy is just afraid of change.
Who's afraid of the Creative Commons?
Go to most universities across the United States, and you'll find a class of individuals who are very much outside the mainstream of American thought. This doesn't mean that their views are unimportant, but it does mean that in order for their views to be heard, they need to frame their arguments in a way that the average American will grok, rather than in post-modernist lingo or Marxist rhetoric.
I also take issue with the statement that academics have "little to no regard for anything outside the subject." That's pure bullshit. Anyone who has ever worked at a university will tell you that internal departmental politics plays a *huge* role in what gets published and who gets listened to in academia.
It's also important to note that academics are exceedingly good at analyzing and critiquing the actions of others, but do not have to make decisions of any consequence themselves. There's a huge difference between sharpshooting from the shadows, and taking responsbility for an actual *plan* to do something. The American public understands this. One of my issues with Chomsky is just that - it's easy for him to knock away at The System, but anyone can do that, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. When he starts offering truly considered and coherent plans to affect some real change, then his rants will morph into something of actual utility.
Academia has a lot to offer in the current American poltical and societal reality, but it has always been and may always be an elitist environment more interested in learning for the sake of learning and self-congratulation, rather than in the effective dissemination of ideas to the wider population. Until that changes, don't expect Joe Ford to start watching televised MIT debates on the TV every night.
If you're interested in the effects of media consolidation and government propaganda, check out this short summary of a pamphlet Chomsky put out during the Gulf War.
I disagree with huge chunks of what he says in this pamphlet and subsequent pronouncements. But he has been writing about the consolidation and manipulation of the American media for many years, and if current trends continue, his annoying rants may mirror the truth more closely than any of us would like.
I couldn't help it. Dammit, I'm already accruing coal in my stocking for 2003...