rc3.org

Java 5.0 (1.5) is out. Now in only two or three years we’ll start deploying applications based on the new JVM.

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Republicans in Congress are trying to pass a law that fits the very definition of evil — legalizing extraordinary rendition. I’ve written about that practice a number of times. It involves placing someone in US custody in the custody of another country that will torture them to extract information, and is morally equivalent to torturing [...]

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Google has posted an explanation for their decision to aid and abet the Chinese government’s censorship by removing certain news sources from the Chinese version of Google News. The fact that Google and many other Internet companies are willing to bend over to help the Chinese government keep its citizens in the dark is quite [...]

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Today William Saletan hits President Bush for something I’ve been complaining about for ages — the fact that he frames his stances in such a way that they’re unfalsifiable. Anything that happens proves he was right all along. That is perhaps the ultimate demonstration of his contempt for science.

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Yesterday I cited positively some discussions in favor of sprawl. There’s another side to the story, though, which I touched on in a discussion last week of global warming. In defending sprawl and car culture, John Tierney eloquently defends sprawl in terms of land use, but sort of waves his hands when it comes to [...]

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The Washington Post has a long story today on the Bush administration’s record on missile defense. The other day I was having a conversation with a Bush supporter who says that the missile defense system we’re deploying has been fully tested and will protect us from nuclear attack. That was depressing.

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I’m finding a lot of interesting writing about the suburbs today. Here’s Jane Galt on how the idea of smart growth clashes with real life. Inspired by John Tierney’s article in this weekends NY Times Magazine, The Autonomist Manifesto. I grew up in something approximating the suburbs, and I live in the suburbs now. (I’m [...]

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Another aspect of the Presidential campaign that has been on my mind lately is the factor to which building a cult of personality plays into it. To be blunt, there is no John Kerry cult of personality. There are people who are trying to create one — for example, I’m seeing pro-Kerry web sites refer [...]

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Microsoft is not going to backport the new version of Internet Explorer from Windows XP SP2 to previous versions of Windows, so if you want a “secure” browser, you have to cough up the cash to upgrade your operating system. The article points out that 200 million people are using older versions of Windows. On [...]

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I’m a huge fan of The Daily Show, and I was gratified to learn this morning that viewers of that show are more informed about the Presidential candidates than people who don’t watch it.

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