Slashback: Vaidhyanathan, Oregon, Opteron 629
'It would become impossible to have Open Source implementations of key pieces of the infrastructure. This would be harmful, perhaps fatal, to the grand plans of those who want to deploy Web services everywhere,' Bray is reported as saying, in XML Industry Newsletter ."
Waiting for the low-power version. Jethro writes "Ace's hardware Opteron review was a very interesting read which shows some real Java webserver benchmarks on SUSE and Debian Linux, and real world database performance in MySQL and MS SQL server 2000. A lot better than those synthetic mysql benchmarks that Tom's hardware served up."
And Distinguished Hero writes "[H]ardocp.com ([H]ardNews 1oth Edition) is reporting that the Opteron processor does not actually have an integrated dual channel controller. This explains why all the Opteron reviews only used a single channel configuration. While the integrated memory controlled is not dual channel, it can be bypassed by an external (Northbridge) memory controller connected to the processor via the HyperTransport bus."
One more: EconolineCrush writes "Yesterday's Opteron launch gave us all glimpse at AMD's new 64-bit platform, but the Opteron is a server and workstation chip that will be out of reach for the majority of consumers. AMD's upcoming Athlon 64, however, will bring 64-bit computing to the desktop. Drawing heavily from what we've seen of the Opteron's performance thus far, Tech-Report has posted its thoughts on what it will take for the Athlon 64 to succeed. It's an interesting read for anyone salivating at the thought of an affordable 64-bit desktop platform."
Ma'am, can you please ask those anarchists in the carrels to pipe down a bit? BrianWCarver writes "Readers may recall a Slashdot interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor at NYU, and author of Copyrights and Copywrongs. Vaidhyanathan is working on a new book, The Anarchist in the Library, and was interviewed on the blog, Eyeteeth. This is a brilliant and amazing interview where Vaidhyanathan discusses how creative communities share, the DMCA, the American industrial production of culture, the USA Patriot Act, the importance of libraries and librarians, and the policies of the FCC. It is a must-read for those who care about the future of creative and democratic culture."
Technically, Oregon is not Washington. Daniel Phillips is among the many folks who have been following the progress of a bill in Oregon (HB 2892) to encourage open source software, and he points out this Register story (picked up from NewsForge, actually), writing "Apparently, moving Oregon's open source bill forward comes down to convincing the house speaker."
Reader PotatoHead fleshes that out just a bit: " Despite reports detailing the demise of HB 2982, this bill continues to be a topic at the Oregon Legislature. We have broad support for HB 2892, but need everyone to continue showing support in the form of your phone calls, e-mails, faxes and snail-mail to your Oregon Representatives. We have the attention of the Oregon Legislature in a pretty big way and need to keep up the good work if HB 2892 is to move forward against the constant efforts of the usual industry lobbyists. If you don't already know, here is how you contact your representative. Please take a moment --right now-- and show your support for HB 2982. Every contact matters as we continue to move forward with HB 2892!"
Sir, can you direct me to the nearest buggy whip store so I can beat this dead horse? If $98 billion seems to you a bit much for the music cartel to charge students for even the most indiscriminant file swapping, you may be interested in following the chilling effects that it generates, too: PL_2003 writes "A follow up on a previous slashdot article. It really seems like the recording industry is determined to continue its fight.Check this NYTimes article (free reg. required). My Take: Couldn't they use their brains for a better business model?"
OK, here are the rules ... Grub (mentioned previously) is apparently causing consternation among many webmasters. Though they claim the client honors robots.txt , it seems that only the central servers check it (and don't honor it properly) and that grub clients don't don't check it at all. Ooops.
Time to round up and segregate the arrogant. jtheory writes "There's an AP story today here on Yahoo news) that the Justice department has dropped its probe into the recommendation policy of a Texas Tech bio professor. It's encouraging that all he had to do to stop the investigation was make some very minor changes in his policy, but it's still horrifying to me that he got into trouble in the first place. Is it even safe to encourage strict Creationists (or others with strong anti-scientific beliefs) to become doctors? Would they ignore animal research results, etc?"
Opteron memory controller details (Score:5, Insightful)
The various motherboard photos seem to indicate that their are DIMM sockets to accomodate 128-bit memory. I would hope that the various benchmarks have been done with this configuration, since it obviously increases the memory bandwidth considerably.
Reference: page 15 of the AMD Opteron Processor data sheet, AMD document 23932 rev 3.00 dated April 2003.
Alienating their customers (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would the record industry want to constantly go after their own best customers and future customers? Im no longer in college myself, don't buy much music anymore cause I prefer 80s music. I do buy a ton of DVDs though. The reaso nbeing there is great value in DVDs. I get superior picture quality and sound, a nice keep case, art work, special features, comentaries, interactive content, all for $14-$21.
If the record industry could offer such great content at a reasonable price, sales would skyrocket.
Instead they charge far too much for far too little, and on top of it, they constantly attack their own customers with threats and lawsuits and bullshit like CDs that wont play on their computer. Then they lobby for laws that punish not just music pirates but all people who wish to use the internet without restrictions. It's really quite amazing how a group of billionaires can be so ass backwards.
Im hoping their is a major backlash from the millions of students in this country.
I see... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it's right to exclude someone from medical practice just because they don't ascribe to the theory of evolution. They're still capable of observation and understanding the scientific process, perhaps even more so than those who blindly adhere to a theory because they keep their minds open to the possibility that it is wrong. Science isn't about religious prejudice.
64 bit desktops... (Score:3, Insightful)
grrrr (Score:3, Insightful)
Right. For example, it would be completely beyond the pail were a state-run university to require that medical students believe in... medicine.
Faulty reasoning? (Score:5, Insightful)
How exactly do you make that connection between Creationism and ignoring animal research? I hate to break it to you, but the people who typically believe that animals should not be researched upon are the ones who believe they evolved (and thus, are no differnt from humans and deserve the same treatment). Creationism by its very nature puts humans above and beyond other animals, and thus animals are to be utilized by humans.
Re:creationists (Score:5, Insightful)
I work with plenty of devout Hindus, and their beliefs are complete foreign to me (don't eat cows because they are sacred animals, they believe in not just one god, but many different gods, etc). Personally, I don't subscribe to any of it, but that's just my own personal belief, they are completely free to believe whatever they want, and who knows, they could be right and I could be wrong!
Why is it that creationists are so looked down upon, but other religions that, for example, believe that the world is sitting on an elephant that is sitting on a turtle are okay? Is it because it is expected that white people in North America should know better, but non-whites are free to believe whatever they want?!? That to me seems at the very least bigotted.
Re:creationists (Score:3, Insightful)
I would have to say that I don't care what my doctor's beliefs are... As long as his/her beliefs do not affect the job. Someone can freely believe that the world was created 5000 years ago, that dinosaurs never existed, and that there is no such thing as evolution; yet still believe enough of modern biological thinking to believe in germs, virii, and assorted other medical beliefs.
But, the moment that a persons beliefs interfere with scientific thinking (such as denying the existence of germs,) then I have a problem.
Re:Where do they come up with these names? (Score:2, Insightful)
I Know an Astronomer Who's a Creationist (Score:4, Insightful)
Didn't seem to interfere with his work.
Re:No kidding (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Faulty reasoning? (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, vegetarians kill plants.
Re:I see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Creationists often try to pass themselves off as scientists and their dogma as yet another scientific theory which should be given a fair shake, but because creationism does not lend itself to testing and thus prediction, that tells the world that they either willfully misunderstand the scientific process or don't get it at all.
It boils down to the fact that we have an obligation to protect the ignorant from pseudoscience.
Oh, and religion has no place in science whatsoever, not until god manifests himself as something observable/testable at any rate.
Grub Fools and Slashdot Editors (Score:5, Insightful)
"People who choose to download and run the client will assist in building the Web's largest, most accurate database of URLs."
Already I find myself rolling my eyes.
Then I click through to the site. Aha. I will volunteer my machine on a non-profit basis for a for-profit company. This is just like distributed.net and SETI? Give me a break, these guys were bought out by Looksmart, a paid for placement ad company.
Google didn't succeed by getting slashdot editors to post stories saying they are building the most useful search engine out there, they succeeded by actually building it.
I just hope grub keeps the fools who want to regulate google away. Google succeeded because they didn't have to listen to self-important analysts.
Re:I see... (Score:1, Insightful)
C'mon atheistic anti-creationist
Re:I see... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an idea. you want to be a programmer but, you don't believe in Arabic numerals. I leave the rest as an exercise for the reader.
Re:creationists (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe because those who believe the world is sitting on an elephant on a turtle aren't making nuisances of themselves. I haven't heard turtle believers arguing loudly and often in front of legislatures that we need to throw out all of the astronomy and geology books. Incidentally, biology isn't the only science on the creationists' shit list; even physics would have to be...ah....modified to not state inconvienient facts.
This isn't Western bigotry. If large numbers of turtle believers in our midsts were doing their damndest to drag us back to the 14th century, they'd be looked down on too. Every culture on this planet has problems with religious luddites. The creationists just happen to be ours.
Re:No kidding (Score:4, Insightful)
That's simply not true. There are scientists out there, who are not "creationists" who don't believe in biological macroevolution. They don't disbelieve it because of religious dogma. Here's one example: there are many biological constructs that are complex to the point that intermediate steps would not be beneficial to the organism. Now I realize there is effort underway to explain such constructs, but that is one example of the type of scientific thinking that one can use to argue against biological macroevolution. You may want to look into the theory of "intelligent design".
Pure flamebait, but I'll respond anyway. I've had plenty of doctor's that I know were Christians. Now, I don't know if they believed in evolution or not, but they were extremely caring and knowledgable doctors who took care of me and my family. And as for prayer, I know there has been at least one recent study that was showing that prayer does have affect on health. I believe it was in Wired. I unfortunately don't have the link, nor the time right now to look it up.
Re:No kidding (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you name one?
Re:I see... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure I understand the last line. Do you mean that there's no proof that the earth is 4-5 Billion years old? [talkorigins.org] Or do you mean there's never been an observed instance of speciation [talkorigins.org]?
Re:I see... (Score:5, Insightful)
My views are tempered by the knowledge that before we had the means to detect microwaves or X-Rays, as just a couple of examples, for all intents and purposes they were as "real" as 'God' or 'Allah', nevertheless they have existed since way before humans did. Likewise, if I get up in the morning and there is snow on the ground, I don't have to have seen it snowing to believe it.
Suckers Lining Up For The "New Religion" [xnewswire.com]
Re:No kidding (Score:2, Insightful)
The people under discussion get their ideas on cosmology and the origins and history of the earth from their church, or the ICR, or their parents, and rarely directly from the Bible although they'll claim this is the case. They refuse to accept that science is a valid source of knowledge, and they feel threatened by it, because they don't believe their religion could be true if it's possible to gain knowledge directly from nature, rather than from God. They often confuse astronomy with evolution. They are rarely informed about the evidence for any scientific theory, least of all evolution. They have no business practicing medicine.
Why are Opteron's out of reach? vs Athlon64? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because it says 'server' on the box the chip comes in?
thad
Re:I see... (Score:2, Insightful)
1- a demonstration of excellence (you had to get an "A" in one of his classes) and
2- he had to know you personally.
Obviously he believes that a recommendation is something more than a simple statement that the person knows the subject matter. He obviously feels it's a personal endorsement that reflects on him.
I don't think it's too much of stretch for him to say you also have conform to beliefs that he personally holds as extremely important to the subject he teaches to get that personal endorsement. I don't think it shows intolerance of any belief, but rather says that he can't personally endorse you if you haven't really absorbed his teaching in the manner in which he intended it.
Put another way, would you require a Black Studies professor to write a letter of recommendation to a KKK member just because he was capable of explaining what racism is? Would that be "intolerant" of the professor? I think you could require him to give the "A" in the class, but the letter.... I don't think so.
TW
Re:No kidding (Score:2, Insightful)
And btw, there are many many instances where evolution results in something that is not only not useful but quite deadly, think dwarfism, progeria, etc... and other genetic mutations. It is not relevant whether or not any particular biological construct is immediately useful or detrimental, only whether the organism as a whole manages to survive. Evolution is not a neat, quick, or orderly process.
Prayer, like placebos, are all in the mind so your study is irrelevant to the discussion if it does not detail the type of people which these prayers are helpful for. Never mind the fact that you cannot do a proper scientific experiment without a control group. What are you going to do, tell the religious people in the control group that they cannot pray for themselves?
robots.txt (Score:3, Insightful)
What punishment is there for not honoring it?
Instead there should be a technological solution, rather than a legal or social solution (the current solution, I believe, is social).
The answer? Look to Slashdot. Create artificial "delays" in access times. Slashdot has 2 minutes between posts and 20 seconds between clicking "Reply" and "Submit".
The web sites could have an artificial 2- or 3-second delay between accesses, so for instance if a "robot" was scanning the site it would experience slow-downs. And it could increase the delay upon multiple accesses, by (say) 1 second each access within the limit, so that the spider would end up taking a very long time to get each page.
This would require no change in laws, or in "social" behavior to punish the spiders. People generally don't click on a new link that quickly anyway (they tend to read some of the page before clicking on a link on that page), so this would be very non-intrusive for regular users but would slow down a spider.
Of course, then the spiders would be written such that they scan multiple sites, so a slowdown on one (or every) site wouldn't slow the spider down much. But that's the price we pay for putting information on the internet.
I seriously think the practice of using "robots.txt" is silly.
Re:No kidding (Score:3, Insightful)
The placebo effect. Psych 101, boy. And it doesn't work if someone else prays for you, only if *you* pray for you. God has nothing to do with it.
Of course, if you can produce a empirical, scientific study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal supporting the idea that prayer affects the health of others, please do so.
Max
Re:No kidding (Score:3, Insightful)
But that is the very definition of evoluion. Any change in the allele frequency of a population over time is evolution. "Species" is a useful concept for taxonomy but has little meaning at the genetic level. In addition, your claim "evolution on the otherhand would have generated a new species" gets it backward, evolution needn't necessarily do any such thing: evolution does not imply speciation. Rather, speciation implies evolution.
An additional quibble, as you seem to be reading straight from the Creationist playbook: the moth example is not an argument for evolution, but an example often cited (because it's much easier for laymen to visualize than the active-site kinetics of CPSase III in X. laevis, say). Selecting this or that oft-cited example and pounding on it makes for good rhetoric but as scientific discussion goes it's like using "Macgruder the Friendly Computer" to debate cryptographic algorithms.
Re:No kidding (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I see... (Score:2, Insightful)
Take, for instance, the actual fossil record. According to the theory, there should be a definite, traceable record of evolutionary change continuing more or less unbroken all the way back to the beginning, recorded in stone, especially in areas that were formerly lake/ocean beds, where sedimentation is a rapid process, and much more likely to result in the entombment and fossilization of a wide variety of organisms. However, study of such geological formations reveals a definite lack of such a definitive record. To quote Niles Eldredge, a leading expert on invertebrate fossils--
" No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff facces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change-- over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution."
In light of such a dearth of hard physical evidence, and also in light of such "anomalies" as the Precambrian Explosion, what are we to believe about the theory of evolution in general, and the claims of arrogant professors who ignorantly claim that the evidence is sufficient to claim human evolution as "fact"?
Not only is evidence lacking in the fossil record, but the theory breaks down on the level of microbiology as well. Pick up any scientific text attempting to detail the possible evolutionary sequence of, say, basic vision and eyesight, and you will be subjected to a great number of "supposes" and "possiblies" and blatant glossing over of a lot of very tricky problems. Even the most basic of vision systems-- the simple ability to differentiate light from dark-- involves a large number of highly specialized proteins acting in extremely complex ways. None of those texts can give any valid precursors for most of the chemicals and proteins involved, or any explanation as to how dozens of highly specialized proteins could suddenly appear between one evolutionary "step" and the next. Remove one chemical or protein from the chain, and the entire system breaks down. And since no valid precursors can be found, or even hypothesized, for many of the involved substances, they all must have "evolved" or come about in one single step, or they must necessarily have been culled from the genetic record as useless wastes of substance and energy that do not contribute to the survival of the organism.
And eyesight is simply one of hundreds of such "irreducibly complex" systems for which microbiologists struggle, vainly, to find an evolutionary explanation.
Of course, this doesn't in and of itself completely invalidate the theory of evolution. It is mathematically possible (if astronomically improbable) that such a complex system could evolve in one step as a result of a wildly coincidental set of wide-ranging genetic mutations. (The tired old infinite number of monkeys given an infinite number of typewriters analogy). Further complicate the math by adding hundreds of other complex systems that must evolve against the odds, and you are talking about an occurrence of such extreme mathematical improbability as to verge upon the impossible, especially given the relatively short time period it must have occurred within (only a few billion years, not much time next to the sheer number of mathematical permutations), and the vast number of separate evolutiona
I disagree (Religion, Science, and Philosophy) (Score:3, Insightful)
Creationsist (and inteligent design believers) do not play by these rules, hence they are not in the business of science.
What you have described is what I call the "religion of science" and is as much a departure from strict empiricism as any religion. Which is perhaps why many anthropologists call Science a sort of religion. My own feeling is that by denying that scientific theories are rooted in philosophical assumptions is at best naive, and at worst self-delusional.
Many may fault me from quoting such an old book, but I think "Physics and Philosophy" by Werner Heisenberg (yes, that Heisenberg!) is well worth referring to, Heisenberg (and for that matter Einstein wrote on this as well) held that a set of data does not imply a single correct scientific explenation. Instead, valid scientific theory arises from the combination of data and pre-existing philosophical assumptions which inform the interpretation of this data.
Scientists put a great deal of faith in the idea that eventually the discussion will settle on the Truth about a certain theory, but this hasn't happened. Instead every scientist brings to the table a unique set of assumptions which inform their interpretation of the data and so the discussion continues. For example we have seen a fierce debate rage over nearly a century regarding the nature of wave-like behavior of electrons. That debate has changed many times, but has never gone away. At heart-- how can an electron interfere with itself and still strike a target as a single particle? Many people have different ideas (including many which place an almost supernatural power on such things as observation or consciousness).
In fact, the neoplatonist, while admitting to the supernatural in a sort of empiricist manner, probably has more in common with the scientist than with the creationist because the former two place a great deal of importance on dialogue and intellectual search, while I think that most people are content with ignorant faith.
Re:Answer from a creationist (Score:3, Insightful)
> because the theistic portion is not falsifiable.
That depends entirely on where you set the bar for
falsification. For example, if you were to say that
the generation of a theory adequate to explain all
observed facts of the fossil record without reference
to design, with a demonstrable high degree of
probable success is a falsification of the theistic
model, then it is falsifiable in principle.
If it is not falsifiable in practice, that may
be because it is not false, or it may be because
practice hasn't caught up to the theory.
Alive! (Score:3, Insightful)
You all must remember, the process is fluid. There are many ways this bill can continue to move through the legislature.
If this is something we *really* want, and they understand that, then the bill stands a chance. They can move any issue they want to in any number of ways. If this were a sweetheart bill, you can bet it would find a way to move through the house. This bill can too.
The Oregon Legislature is getting a lot of calls and mail on this, and we need to keep it up.
Basically, we have money on one side and political creedence on the other. If enough people continue to remain involved, it remains harder to quietly kill the bill.
The issue of Open Source is alive in the Legislature right now. Getting a work session is important because the objections can be ironed out.
By making Open Source and Open Standards an issue, we at least bring awareness of the problems to a level that is hard any other way.
Just keep your perspective. The other bills died as quickly as the headlines went up. This one is still around with support in the Legislature. That is a WIN, not a loss by any measure!
If you have called, you might wait a day and ask for an update. Its another reason to call and the type of thing that demands a response which clearly shows interest.
Preparing responses takes time. Ask good questions, who when why how? That way a simple form letter does not cover the issue well enough to be considered a response.
If you get a form letter, make a quick phone call. You will get an answer and a chance to take someones time. That matters.
Representitives who simply say it's over do not support the bill. This does not mean it's over, it means you can stop calling now.
Don't do that.
This is what the lobbyists want. They want it because that keeps the status quo.
Take a good look at who opposes the bill. All those companies consider this a direct threat to one of their largest customers; namely, the state of Oregon.
Here is what I got from my Rep. (Encouraging.)
Dear Mr. Potatohead,
Thank you for your email in support of HB 2892. Rep. Dingfelder supports
the concept of this bill and realizes the cost savings that it would
bring about. At present, the bill is undergoing a few amendments so I am
unable to commit to her vote for the bill until the final versions come
out. However, my guess is that she will support it. I have passed along
your comments to her. In addition, I will place a copy of your email in
the bill file. This will assure that she again sees your comments prior
to voting on the bill on the house floor.
Thanks for taking the time to contact our office regarding this issue.
The representative greatly appreciates your input! Please feel free to
contact out office at any time we can be of assistance to you.
Sincerly,
(!?!)
Legislative Assistant to Rep. Jackie Dingfelder
House District 45
(Phone)
Re:Opteron memory controller details (Score:3, Insightful)
But claiming that it has two channels is like claiming that a Ferarri is two cars, because it's twice as fast as a Honda. If it were two cars, it could go to two different places at once.
Re:No kidding (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, it has [talkorigins.org].
It has not been demonstrated, nor will it ever be, that this is how a given species in the world today came about. (unless time machines are invented) This may or may not be relevant.
Creationism is hard to argue for around here, and it's great that you've chosen to do so, but arguing with false statements does not help.
Re:No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
Banging on a tree is a good method to get the insect inhabitants out. It works marvelously for termites and ants. Don't believe me? Try it sometime on a bees nest.
I'm sure you've seen videos of monkeys hanging out, they are nearly always doing one thing in particular, picking fleas/ticks off of each other. Humans don't have the same difficulty becuase fleas have a hard time hanging onto hairless beasts.
Why does a giraffe have a long neck? Because thats where the leaves are. There are many reasons for walking upright, most notably it frees your hands up. I've seen videos of monkeys walking around holding something in one hand. It's rather awkward looking. Carry any more and you have to walk upright.
I am not listing this as proof of anything, the fact is that there are many possible reasons for your questions. It doesn't seem like you've looked very hard for answers.
When you say that no one can describe how the evolution of any creature has occured (which is false), I'm sure you really meant to say that no one can describe how even the simplest microbe was created from non-living material. That is a much more difficult question and the theory of evolution does not hinge on this question.
Evolution is not equivalent to random motion. I've also heard this as "tornado hitting a junkyard and making a 747". Evolution has a selection process and you do not start from scratch, you always build on what came before you. If evolution was only random, then it would be like browinian motion, it would never make any progress in any particular direction.
Also the burden of proof probably would not matter to you. If I told you which book to read that would prove evolution to you, would you read it? Have you ever read anything about evolution that was not written by a religous person?
I think it does affect your ability to study or understand because you do not look for "why" since you assume the answer to "why" is because god made it that way. Have you ever honestly tried to research why a woodpecker would begin banging its head on things? You have already assumed that certain aspects of this world are beyond your grasp as a non-god being. That type of attitude clearly shows that you will never have the level of understanding of other people who are going to try, even if it takes them their whole lives to understand the world around them.
This is still the case, except you have to remove the references to God. People are still exploring the beauty of the world with all its intricacies. Speak for yourself, I do not think I am nothing, I will continue to try to create something that will last forever. If the only people who are affected by what I have done in this world are my future children, then that will have been enough to make it all worthwhileMySQL vs MS SQL Server?? (Score:2, Insightful)
MySQL doesn't do as much as MS SQL Server, forcing much logic onto the application and not scaling as well. The valid comparision would have been PostgreSQL.
Re:robots.txt (Score:3, Insightful)
If it becomes commonplace that spiders break the social contract, then web sites will have to get better weapons. This means development time spent on something that ultimately benefits noone. Some of the measures that could be used would in fact harm innocent bystanders. Take the 2-second delay as an example. Now implement it on a big web site, and imagine what happens when a big proxy tries to access several times a second. Perhaps you just cut yourself off from AOL. So more wasted development time to fix that problem...
At the same time the legitimate spiders that upheld the social contract before may have to try to masquerade as normal users. Where do we end up? "In order to access this site, type the letters that appear in the picture below."
Re:No kidding (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, so that is why the Dixie Chicks have recieved death threats [bbc.co.uk]?
Re:Three Times Quickly... (Score:3, Insightful)
How is Siva Vaidyanathan any more difficult than Norman Schwarzkopf, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Condaleeza Rice?
I expect disparaging condescension from Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. Not here.
Magnus.
US Christian Fundies and NeoCrusades (Score:3, Insightful)
From the Republican Senators (the racist/homophobe), Ashcroft's prayer meetings, Ashcroft's draping a nude statue w/ a drape (!), bush's "faith based" BS... etc etc etc.
The seperation between church and state, and the ability for people to understand that ALL these things are instances of Fundemental (Reconstructionist even) Christian goals/acts/efforts is very scary.
Even Bush believes God is on his side [bbc.co.uk] in Iraq - you'd think someone in his position, a leader of a secular USA, wouldnt be a delluded cultist.
From that article above:
One in three American Christians call themselves evangelicals and many evangelicals believe the second coming of Christ will occur in the Middle East after a titanic battle with the anti-Christ.
Does the president believe he is playing a part in the final events of Armageddon?
If true, it is an alarming thought.
But he would not be alone, as 59% of all Americans believe that what is written in the Bible's Book of Revelation will come to pass.