| Thursday,
May 15, 2003
Subject: 36GB Optical Disc
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/
story/0,10801,81095,00.html?nas=HW-81095
Tracy
Walters
We have been waiting a while for this one. When
it's available that will solve some backup problems...
====================
Subject: Dangerous
Experiment
You are frustrated with the procedural antics of the
minority political party. I understand. I disagree that the antics are
new. Orrin Hatch rails against the filibuster of judicial appointments.
But it was not long ago, that Hatch's committee was blocking Democratic
Party Monsters from the courts. The rules of the Senate were designed to
frustrate. Washington said, that drink which was hot in the cup of the
House would cool in the saucer of the Senate. My grandparents slurped
coffee from saucers, I know what that means.
Lloyd Arnold Winterville, North Carolina
You may be right; but in this age I still believe
the sort of pre-emptive attacks you see on the Democratic National
Committee web page, in which Bush is accused of "packing the supreme
court" before he has named any nominees, and in general gearing the
country for a complete stalemate in judicial appointments, is dangerous.
The danger comes from medium intelligence people
giving up on the whole notion of democracy. "We are giving the
government into the hands of the stupid; and they do not abide by the
rules we are supposed to play under. Why let them set any rules at all? I
will set my own."
It doesn't take a lot of people with that
attitude to bring down the entire social fabric of government. Democrats
in Texas are hiding in Oklahoma since they don't have a majority, but they
can prevent a quorum. This is legal, it is even amusing, but it is also
very much against the whole spirit of democratic rule. Being a state
matter it is a matter for Texas, and the outcome is not vital to begin
with. Preemptive attacks on the whole institution of judicial appointment
at the Federal level is another story.
Most Warren Court decisions including Miranda
were 5:4. Arguably the best thing we could do to end some of the problems
in this country would be to return many matters to the states: as in the
evidentiary exclusion rules, which were not a Constitutional matter as
late as 1970: they were merely imposed on the Federal Courts by the US
Supreme Court in its supervisory capacity. Of the states, about half had
adopted such rules by law and about half had not. Then suddenly there were
discovered Fresh New Rights in the Constitution. The result was part of
the pattern of Federalization of "rights", and the paradox that
as the courts discovered more fresh new rights the Framers and Ammenders
of the Constitution had never thought of, we had less personal freedom.
Do you feel more free now than in the 60's? Some
will, of course; but the Congress always did (well since the Civil War
Ammendments) have the power to end legal segregation and enforce voting
rights in the States. The fact that it did not do so is testimony to your
observations above.
But ending Congressional power while building
regulatory power and attacking the powers of the system to change the
courts is not a way to increase freedoms.
Judicial appointments are influenced by two recent
trends, the Bork Thing and the Secrecy Thing. Judge Bork's ideas were
available during his nomination process. His writings were available, and
he answered questions. When he was not nominated, it was decided that
different tactics were needed. Writings would not be available, questions
would not be answered. The nominee would be a pig in a poke. If senators
balked at this, the senators were portrayed as a frustration to the
president. They should be embarrassed to exercise the constitutional power
to advise and consent. This suits the current president, who already had a
predilection for secrecy. He is secret about his records as governor,
about the presidential records of his father, about the energy records of
his vice president, about the bids of contractors for rebuilding Iraq.
Bork Thing, Secrecy Thing, Senate Rules: how frustrating.
Lloyd Arnold Winterville, North Carolina
Well, that is one view. It may even be correct;
and it does show that there are plenty of people ready to justify
political means to reach political ends. But I would have thought that the
records of the people being held up now are fairly open? And that internal
memos of the Solicitor General are in fact executive papers, not really
suitable for leaking to the National Equirer, or some New York Time
Pulitzer-seeking reporter?
Your remarks about the Texas Democrates are unfair
and their actions are supported by the majority of Texans.
The problem is that Ken Delay wants more republicans
in Washington. They came up with a bad redistricting plan and are using
their new majority to stuff it down the throats of the Democrates. It's
bad because it delutes rural interests with suburban interests. There are
other reported flaws. Traditionally, redistricting is down after the
census and has already been done and this one is unprecedented and will
almost certainly be litigated; money we can't really afford. Texas has a
great many problems in need of attentions; redistricting is not one of
them. The democrates claim this is their only reason for their walkout.
The republicans dispute this but refuse to pull this one item from the
floor. Based on that, most of us are inclinded to believe the Republicans
are acting as bullies and need to get real.
Greg Brewer
Well, I certainly can't speak for the majority of
Texans. I have never lived there. But I would think that every 2 years the
majority of Texans has an opportunity to express its views at elections.
In any event I don't intend to get involved in this one other than to
point at it. There will be another election in Texas, and one suspects
this one will be taken care of one way or another.
My concern is with tactics that bring into
question the whole notion of submitting to the rule of law. If enough
people see those rules as unfair, or not being kept by one party to those
rules, then the notion that obedience even against personal interest
breaks down; and when the habit of submission breaks down, then submission
must be compelled. The mechanisms of compulsion have been multiplied much
of late.
But we were born free. We were also born in a
society that believed in its own rules. For a while, the struggles were
two: expansion of those participating, which is to say, implementing the
Civil War Amendments to the Constitution and extending "equal
protection of the laws" to everyone; and expanding the benefits of
those protections, often without much regard to the effect of doing that:
which is to say the creation of the Welfare State.
Some of those struggles were settled in the
proper way. The Voting Rights Act, onerous as it was to many in the South,
was an act of Congress. Some were settled in questionable ways, by Courts
imposing their views of what the law ought to be rather than interpreting
the laws as they existed. In some cases the expansions were vast and far
reaching: the Great Society. And in some cases they should have been and
some were repealed, as in Welfare Reform in the Clinton Administration.
This is the way things are supposed to work.
My observation in Texas is that the Republicans
(my party, known among many of us as The Stupid Party) have got in for the
first time in a century, and now the Democrats are teaching them how they
should have acted all along. But that may be, as you say, unfair. If I
want to know more about the insides of Texas politics I have friends there
who have been there a long time and seem to be well connected. I haven't
much availed myself of those resources. One can't be an expert at
everything.
My observations of Texas may be wrong, but I
can't help finding it amusing when I see a bunch of Democrat legislators
fleeing the state pursued by the Texas Rangers.
====
"incompetent
18-year-olds and remarkably competent 30-year-olds"
Michael Barone says that this
is due to the lack of responsibilities faced by US teens. But the mere
statement of the situation inspires another comparison. The history of
brain evolution as expressed in primates and especially in humans is an
absurdly long extension of incompetent childhood. Perhaps the analogy runs
deeper here? Mr. Barone points out that the US has extended human
childhood by another half decade beyond where most cultures cut it off.
And he never addresses why US 30 year olds are more competent than those
in other cultures. That half of his statement vanishes after being used to
illustrate how poorly the teens are doing.
I cannot make my version of the analogy gel
properly. My attempts to impose a cause and effect onto it fails all
plausibility checks. But I find the analogy itself to still be worth
examining.
Greg Goss gossg@gossg.org
Now a number of Roland's finds:
Subject: Buying the business.
http://www.iht.com/articles/96289.html
----- Roland Dobbins
Subject: Astonishing they didn't have this power in the first place . .
.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/14/international
/worldspecial/14IRAQ.html?ex=1053489600&en=
10344ce7fd8c89b2&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
----- Roland Dobbins
Subject: Transportation Insecurity Agency
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
news/articles/0511security11.html
---------- Roland Dobbins
Subject: Web hosting kills.
http://www.cleveland.com/ohio/plaindealer/index.ssf?
/base/news/1052645497257250.xml
---------- Roland Dobbins
Subject: Laser warfare.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030513-47005.htm
------------ Roland Dobbins
Subject: Any guesses as to who supplied the OS in this instance?
http://rss.com.com/2110-1041_3-1000960.html?
type=pt&part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news
---------------- Roland Dobbins
Subject: Updating the stockpile.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/
c/a/2003/05/11/MN16775.DTL
------------------ Roland Dobbins
Subject: Good overview of the state of the
industry.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/
technology/rocketmen_tech_030507.html
---------------- Roland Dobbins
Which ought to be enough for today, and no, I
don't know how he finds time to read so much.
This comment, found at TechCentralStation, regarding
Dyson's review of the Smil book, raised a grin:
And, speaking of climate change, what about a new
ice age? Dyson reminds us that "a natural cycle has been operating
for the last eight hundred thousand years. In each hundred-thousand-year
period, there is an ice age that lasts about ninety thousand years and a
warm interglacial period that lasts about ten thousand years. We are at
present in a warm period that began twelve thousand years ago, so the
onset of the next ice age is overdue." Perhaps human activity has
prolonged the interglacial period - which, all things considered, sounds
pretty good.
-- Mike Flynn
And for those who don't have it, Fallen Angels by
Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn is back in print...
We have many messages alluding to this:
Subject: SCO = Silly Contentious Organization
Jerry,
It's not enough to tackle IBM, now they have to take
on the rest of the world? http://www.crn.com/components/
Nl/direct/article.asp?ArticleID=41970
This would be really silly if the FUD didn't hurt
Linux.
===
Mark Gosdin
Subject: SCO in death spiral
SCO sued IBM for <Dr. Evil voice>one billion
dollars!</Dr. Evil Voice>.
Their legal theory is that Linux is too good;
clearly it couldn't be this good if a bunch of random guys around the
world work on it, so it must be IBM's fault. IBM *must* have taken bits of
AIX and pasted them into Linux.
There are many problems with this theory. One
problem is that SCO was selling Linux. The GPL doesn't permit you to
distribute code under the GPL if that code is non-free IP; since SCO is
asserting that parts of Linux are non-free IP belonging to SCO, they
automatically lose permission under the GPL to distribute all the parts of
Linux they don't claim to own. In short, SCO can't legally distribute
Linux anymore.
As of today, they solved that one: they are no
longer selling Linux! Whoa.
http://www.sco.com/scosource/letter_to_linux_customers.html
I have to say this looks like a company in a death
spiral. They weren't making money on SCO's flavors of UNIX. They clearly
weren't making money on Linux if they are so eager to stop selling it. I
think the lawsuit was an attempt to get IBM (or anyone else) to pay them
to go away, or buy them to make them go away. It now looks like IBM would
rather pay lawyers to crush SCO in court.
Unless the executives at SCO are drinking their own
Kool-Aid, they can't possibly hope to actually win if this actually goes
to court.
P.S. Here is a devastating rebuttal to SCO's claims:
http://www.opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html
Very much worth the time to read it. -- Steve R.
Hastings "Vita est" steve@hastings.org http://www.blarg.net/~steveha
It used to be called the protection racket but I
guess it's legal now. Ain't Rule Of Law wonderful when it matures?
Dear Dr Pournelle,
Just a thought on the comments
passed by Rick Stilson and yourself, which in so many ways are an
accurate analysis (in my humble opinion).
But, I remember a certain Dr. Pournelle providing
the answer; “rich people don’t believe in thunder gods”, pardon me
if the quote is paraphrased.
Education only comes when a people can afford it, it
isn’t in the interest of the people in power (fundamentalist, ie
terrorist. Governments, ie non elected but want to cling to power; same
difference really). Make the people rich, they don’t believe in “Thunder
Gods” anymore and don’t blindly follow the loudest “evangelical”
voice on the block.
The people of the Middle East should be rich;
financially, medically and educated by virtue of the money from their
oil). Their rulers don’t want an intelligent electorate (they don’t
want an electorate full stop!). The fanatics don’t want one either,
intelligent people don’t become human bombs!
Cheap power for all equals wealth, you can spend
your money on learning, expanding your horizons, health care, and
eventually social services and a guilt trip on how rich you are! The curse
of the western world!!
If only some of the ideas you postulated and I read
in the early 80’s had happened then the world would be a better place.
Perhaps for the US it still can be.
I wonder what would happen if the solar satellites
were operational now, the US all operated electric cars and no Middle East
oil was imported. How would those “govts” survive and how then cold
they explain to their people that the US invaded x y or z for the oil,
when they didn’t need it!
Just a thought
Yours truly,
Ian Innes (BSc. Geology and Mineralogy)
Scotland
Subject: Microsoft
Confidential
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/15/technology/15SOFT.html
-------- Roland Dobbins
I am not at all sure this needs commenting. IBM
used to use similar tactics. Whether this sort of thing works is another
story.
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Hello Jerry, 