Slashback: Heat, Thought, Time 204
It's the incredible edible, heavy-investment waffle double gainer! steevo.com writes: "Intel has decided to stay with Rambus. Say it ain't so! Details are at C-NET.
Time was when ... wilkinsm writes: "When I tuned my shortwave to 5 Mhz today, I learned that NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) is currently doing a open survey on the time and frequency user community. I encourage all of you unix admins that use the network time protocol to show your support and fill the online survey out."
Has the code been tossed out with the bathwater? nonAI writes: "The Israeli company, which promoted a competition against an AI, closed its gates, as reported by an Israeli economic magazine (sorry, babelfish doesn't help). That's the end for the Child Machine HAL."
Now imagine you know of a freewheeling, opinionated discussion board ... Wael Islam, a member and volunteer with IslamWay.com, writes with some words on the objections B'nai Brith Canada raised to postings on IslamWay's message boards.
"In IslamWay.com discussion board we've more than 4000 Member and at the time of the media attack there was more than 28,000 posts!! Bnai Brith didn't only take one of the posts, but even took a statement out of context to prove that IslamWay.com is a terrorist website! ...
... The discussion post was between two people who were fighting each others by words, one called the other one that you are a hypocrite, so the other one was very angry so he told him - I'm just giving the meaning- : Let's see who is the hypocrite, Come with me to Afghanistan and let's train ourselves there .. so the person meant that army exercises will be a way to prove who is the coward and who is the brave!"
The people who attacked IslamWay.com based on the Discussion Board post didn't clarify that it was mentioned in the discussion board, and they just said a post on IslamWay.com."
Of course, we could require that all public communications be approved in advance, licensed, and inoffensive.
Please resume watching your educational audio-visual materials. echoSpades writes: "I guess I wasn't the only one to be annoyed with Apple's DVD playback. Apple's website has a small text link to info about a class action suit against them: 'There is a proposed settlement of a class action lawsuit against Apple Computer, Inc. involving issues with DVD playback in earlier models of the Apple iMac DV, iMac DV SE and Power Mac G4 computers."
As long as Intel gives us the choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot is a hacker site (Score:2, Insightful)
The stigma of these accusations will live long in the minds of the frightened citizens of the world. That is more damage than any legislation would have done. The Islam Way's credibility is shot, and the B'nai Brith walks away unscathed, and with a positive image to boot.
The whole incident was fear-mongering to reach a desired result, and no amount of explanations will set that right now.
Re:As long as Intel gives us the choice (Score:2, Insightful)
No, expect Via to come out with the real cost/price performer based on DDR SDRAM, which is of course why Intel is suing Via so that Intel can keep control of of the P4 platform and thereby increase it's revenues.
For more info, read the i845 review on Tom's Hardware: http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q3/010702 / [tomshardware.com]
But let me save you your time: The i845 sucks. Really sucks.
Canadian Parliament says no liberty crackdown (Score:2, Insightful)
Jean Cretien: We will not curtail freedoms in this country in order to stop terrorism. Airport inconveniances, sure, but he very strongly said that we could not benefit from a reaction out of fear and hate, and that while a responce was deserved, we would not let anyone force us into an action that was not well thought out.
Stockwell Day: This action must be resolved, and it will be resolved (quoting Sir Winston Churchill) through 'blood, toil, sweat, and tears', but we will not give up our way of life, because when terror is allowed to flourish, the terrorists have won.
Alexa McDonough: Terrorists thrive on martyrs, and we must provide a measured, thought-out, and diplomatic action to counter this threat of terrorism.
Joe Who?: We must seriously reconsider things in this country, and not hold anything over if it needs to be changed - including funding for areas of government, laws, and so forth.
All in all, some quite rousing speeches (considering who was giving them), and definitely a lot that made me feel proud to be Canadian. What Ottawa's responce will actually be, we will have to wait and see.
--Dan
Re:Slashdot is a hacker site (Score:3, Insightful)
For that matter, when bin Laden was attacking Soviets, he was a "good guy", now he's a "bad guy". Ditto Saddam Hussein and the Iran-Iraq war.
None of the US millitary or government officials supplying Iran with weapons, a country then considered a rogue state backing terrorism by the US, recieved more than a slap on the wrist. And when they supplied the Contras with weapons, they weren't supplying terrorists, they were supplying freedom fighters. Apparently freedom fighters massacre villages full of peasants, but aren't terrorists.
When Mossad murdered a Swedish diplomat, the USA didn't launch cruise missiles at Israel for acts of government-sponsored terrorism, nor when Ariel Sharon arranged for the massacre of unarmed Lebanese (a war crime he was convicted for in Israel).
For that matter, attacks on off-duty servicemen resulted in the bombing of Libya. The French Resistancce did the same thing, and I don't see too many people lining up to condemn them.
Whether someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter is often a question of who you ask, not what they do, sadly. There'd probably be fewer dead innocents if that wasn't the case.
What Bnai Brith is really after... (Score:3, Insightful)
What If IslamWay.com Really Was A Terrorist Board? (Score:3, Insightful)
What If IslamWay.com Really Was A Terrorist Board? Wouldn't it be better to leave it in place and have the CIA monitor it?
In the wake of the attacks, there are just far too many people letting their emotions do the driving.
Take the attacks on Arab-Americans for instance. Not only are these vigilante idiots mistaking Sihks for Moslems, they are totally forgetting what Arab-Americans (even if persecuted) will probably end up doing for us in ways that we can only begin to imagine and may never know about becase many operations will be secret.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about the Tuskeegee Airmen, The Navajo Code Talkers, and the Japanese "Nisei" who fought in Europe.
If you don't understand the last paragraph, do some reading and get back to me. Then let me know if it still makes sense to vandalize Mosques and shoot people who look like Arabs.
open letter to B'Nai Brith Canada (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm deeply disturbed at the news I'm reading on the tech websites that B'Nai Brith Canada is treating a single incident of exagerrated speech as a call to terrorism, and in turn accusing the website where such speech occurred as itself encouraging terrorism and thus liable to hate speech controls.
As an avid internet user for the past ten years, I have grown used to childish excesses of speech. These are a small cost to pay for genuine free exchange of ideas. Any effort to require editorial control of public exchanges on the internet is tantamount to the elimination of the new freedom that the internet affords every individual, to be a publisher as well as a consumer of information. No one can police any facility that allows people to say what they will - there are too many people.
In these grim times, it is good to remember that there are good people and bad people in every community. I don't want all Jews to have to shut up because one Jew may say something offensive, however offensive it may be. I can't see how we can rightfully do anything but extend the same right to every other community.
The internet allows people to contact people, to break out of the narrow constraints of the mass media. If we are to ever learn to live together in peace, there is hardly a better tool. The new freedom of speech that the internet affords has its costs, but its potential is enormous. This is a delicate time in the history of the internet, as many people are focussing on the difficulties and ignoring the immense potential.
The tragic events of the last year and especially the last week result from too little communication, not too much. Please don't join the forces that want to limit communication to the few and the powerful.
sincerely
Michael Tobis, Ph.D.