It doesn't hurt to speak a second language. Even though English is the most universal language on the planet, knowing another can be very useful. You never know what life has in store for you.
There's too many people out there who think people should learn their language, if they want to communicate with them. If we want to be a global society, we need to act and think globally as well...
No! I personally detest that woman for what she did. But if we allow her to be convicted based on "using a fake ID on the net", then we are creating a precedent that will in the long run screw us all over big time. The consequences for millions of people could potentially be devastating and I do not think it is worth it.
But hey, the US government is working hard to apply laws in retrospect (Telco immunity anyone?), so why not create a law against certain types of cyber bullying that can be applied to this case?
...is the question: How did anyone bar the user herself know she was using a fake name? How did MySpace, the prosecutors or whoever initiated the whole thing, get the information?
This is yet another example of political correctness gone out of hand.
I personally find political correctness offensive. Now I insist on my right to not be offended and demand an instant end of this insanity.
Without this ridiculous pc-crap, the world would be a much better place and if we were to put just as much effort in making this world better as we put in finding things that could be deemed offensive by somebody, this world would so cool, it would make Paradise look like a slum.
I for my part am not, never was and never will be pc. I call a shovel a shovel and not "a device designed to dig holes into a surface by utilising the upper extremities".
It is indeed a bit surprising, considering the trademark in question is not "gmail" but "G-Mail...und die Post geht richtig ab" (the translation is of no importance here). The "gmail"-part isn't even spelt the same way. I can't really see people confusing one with the other.
Are we that paranoid already? Do we really see a terrorist behind every tree? Don't we have more important things to do with our lives than look for terrorists?
What's so new about terrorists anyway? It's the buzzword of the decade(s to come)! Where were the handbooks, when the IRA was most active? Or the German RAF or the Italian Brigardi Rossi? Nowhere! Terrorists have been around pretty much since the beginnings of society. But nowadays we need handbooks to identify them? Sorry guys but this sounds like a big wank to me.
If you want to see terrorists, look towards your capital city. That's where a lot of them are. They are called politicians! They fan the terrorist paranoia and the fear in the people for their own agenda. Or do you really, really think, that all these anti terror laws and surveillance programs would have stood a snowball's chance in hell, if it wasn't for politicians putting fear in our minds? Would you have accepted laws like that without fear? Have you ever noticed that there's always a new message from Osama, when there's new laws to be pushed through and it is clear that people will resist?
If you think about it, the terrorists have already won. We're scared and we give up our freedom. Yes, our freedom. Or do you call it freedom, if your every move is watched, logged and whatnot? Do you call it freedom, if all the information about your flight, including your dietary needs on the plane and your religion(!), are not only recorded but transmitted to authorities in other countries and stored for decades? Do you call it freedom, if you visit a foreign country and get treated like a criminal?
Sorry guys but we really don't need a handbook to recognise a terrorist. What we need is to bloody wake up, kick our politicians in the arse and give these pricks the finger.
Sorry Guys but Metallica is dead for me. I can and will not forgive the way they acted during the "Napster issue". Especially the hypocracy, when they write in the booklet of Garage days that Mr. Hettfield always hung out at Mr. Ulrich's place to copy the latest NWOBHM imports. Bloody losers!
Besides that, they haven't released an album worth buying since "Justice" and that was 20 Years ago. After that, the sellout started...
Is it? Are you sure? Considering you're asking, I guess you aren't sure at all.
The DMCA is pretty much the biggest pain in the arse that was ever put on paper. But the worst thing is not that it exists. It's that despite all the problems it caused, your government still tries to export it to the rest of the world. As if Mickey Mouse, Coke and Maccas wasn't enough already. And to top it all off, the leaders of the rest of the world are just as stupid, ignorant and salting the pretzels of the "Content Mafia" like those responsible for the DMCA.
The Article is talking about the cockpit voice recorder, not the flight data recorder. That's two different things. The flight data recorder naturally has to have enough instruments built in but what "tons of instruments that actually measure certain parameters about the flight" do you need in the cockpit voice recorder?
I personally prefer Wikipedia to stay the way it is. It is also the more trivial things that make Wikipedia a very handy tool. You want to look something up? Who needs Google if there's a good chance you will find info in Wikipedia? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such it contains knowledge. It doesn't matter if that knowledge is trivial or not. What's trivial for one person is important to the next. Who decides what's trivial and not worthy of an encyclopedia?
The big difference is: Cuba doesn't have nukes. Do you think the US would snuggle up to China if they wouldn't have nukes? The US know they can't really apply any real pressure on China. They could have in the 60s through to the late 80s but that time they were too busy with the USSR and by now, thanks to globalisation, they're economically dependent on China, so economic or political pressure doesn't work and thanks to the nukes, there's no chance for military pressure either. As the saying goes: If you can't beat them, join them. Uzbekistan has "inherited" some nukes from the USSR and as a fairly "unstable" nation, it's best to make friends with them. Especially because of the country's muslim population it is important to befriend them to avoind nukes falling into the hands of fanatics.
Cuba has no means of defending itself against any step the US take. That makes them the ideal target. But nobody expected Castro's stamina in that matter. He's conviced that his way is the right one and nothing can change his mind. Not even a US embargo. Besides that, if the US were really interested in the oppressed cuban people, they wouldn't have the embargo to start with. The embargo doesn't really make things better for the people does it?
Yeah sure, we all want unlimited volume, at least 1Gbit data rate and of course we all want it for under 20 bucks, preferably for free. Dream on matey!
WTF do you do if 60GB will "cripple" you? Download 10 TV shows/day? Where do you put all the stuff?
There's limited bandwidth that's shared amongst all users. Sure bandwidth can be increased but that costs money and who do you think pays for it? Do you think any ISP can invest billions in infrastructure and not charge anybody for the extra cost? Last time I checked ISPs were businesses whose purpose is to make money and not hand it out. Put yourself into the shoes of an ISP? What would you do? I'm sure you wouldn't mind investing a crap load of money and not get anything in return.
I'm not applauding the move but I call what I have reasonable. Before this plan I'm on, I had a so called "unlimited" plan. Unlimited? Yeah right! The fineprint said unlimited subject to an "acceptable use policy", stating that if my volume is more than 10 times the average usage (where average meant take the top and bottom 5% away and calculate the average from what's left...), I get cut off 'til the end of the month. The deal I have now not only costs less, it also gives me substantially more traffic than the "unlimited" deal.
Limited bandwidth and unlimited traffic don't go too well together. But of course ISPs shouldn't advertise unlimited plans if they can't keep their promises.
Btw. what made you think I'm American? Believe it or not, there are other countries out there who offer cable as well. Amazing isn't it?
Not sure what's wrong with the approach chosen. To me, this looks like it's been handled by my ISP (and others) for quite a while now. My cable provider has tiered plans and for me, it works fine. I get 20GB/month "peak" volume (12pm-12am) and 40GB/month "off peak" (12am-12pm). If used smart, it gives me 60GB/month. There are no excess fees but the speed will be capped to 64kbit. The imposed cap sucks a bit cos it also affects the IP-phone and I think they should give at least 128kbit. But to be honest, I've only reached the speed cap once and that was about 5 hours before the new month started.
Sure it isn't ideal but anything bar a REAL flat rate isn't ideal.
"Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product..."
Ermmmm WMA? Ermmm desirable? Really?
Dunno about you guys but to me, WMA isn't really a desirable feature. I avoid WMA whereever I can. Since the introduction of the Zune, we know that WMA isn't the same as WMA, which in turn isn't the same as WMA. What it means? Well, there's the not DRMed WMA, then there's the "Plays for sure"-WMA and of course there's the Zune-WMA. "Plays for sure" doesn't really play for sure anymore, since it isn't compatible to the Zune-DRM-bull and the Zune-stuff doesn't play anywhere but the Zune. Do we really want this Microsoft mess? With Apple's DRM, at least I know that it will work on any iPod, no matter what generation or model. If I buy a WMA-enabled player, I do not have a guarantee that any given WMA-file will play. Do we really want this WMA-mess on the iPod too?
Besides that, I can't remember reading anywhere, that my iTunes purchases will work on a Zune or iRiver or any other player. So if they insist on Apple making iPods WMA capable, how about making ALL other players out there capable of playing Apple's DRMed songs? Sure, Apple runs the show but nobody forced the others to use WMA. They just heard it comes from MS and instantly jumped on the bandwagon, expecting it to be THE format because MS will manage to force it upon everybody as usual. Fortunately for us, this didn't happen, despite Microsoft's relentless efforts.
Yes, I agree it would be nice to have all players compatible to all purchases. But we don't need a lawsuit for that. All we need is musicstores to give DRM the boot and switch to MP3. Then EVERY player can handle EVERY purchase. But of course this would mean MS won't get royalties, Apple won't get any and the lawyers responsible for the suit won't get a hell of a lot of money either and that's what it is all about: Money!
Generally, there's nothing wrong with copyrights. If somebody writes a song, a script or a book, then the person should have the right to say who can do what with it. Otherwise somebody stronger comes along, takes the song and makes money with it, leaving the writer with nothing. But I do not see, why they should have this right for 50, 100 or even more years. Just like with patents, give them a few years headstart (where patents are running for too long as well). I'd say 5 to 10 years and that's it. Copyrights should also expire once the creator is dead. Why should we pay for some artist's heir's livelyhood? When I'm gone, do my children get my pension? Did the heirs of the artist do anything creative?
Nope, keep the copyrights but stricktly limit them. I don't see why the Disney-Shareholders should reap the fruit of Walt Disney's work from 80 years ago. That's just ridiculous. 5 Years sounds good, 10 years would be a compromise and then copyrighted Material goes into the public domain. Imagine we'd have to pay everytime somebody takes a photo of some 10,000 years old cave paintings just because one of our early ancestors had a good lawyer and could persuade the tribal elders that his work deserves exclusive rights forever.
Isn't trying to find things we think might be out there what science is all about? Is looking for intelligent life in space a bigger waste of money than finding new suns, planets, black holes, galaxies etc? Yes, if we should happen to find little green men, we most likely won't be able to communicate but if we find a new planet, we're also most likely not able to get there, so where's the point?
If one questions SETI as such, one must question science in general too. Without science, we wouldn't be posting here. We wouldn't have to worry about SETI cos there would bei neither SETI nor Computers nor radio telescopes. We'd still live in caves and freeze our bums off eating plants and berries, grunting along.
Isn't trying to find things we think might be out there what science is all about? Is looking for intelligent life in space a bigger waste of money than finding new suns, planets, black holes, galaxies etc? Yes, if we should happen to find little green men, we most likely won't be able to communicate but if we find a new planet, we're also most likely not able to get there, so where's the point?
If one questions SETI as such, one must question science in general too. Without science, we wouldn't be posting here. We wouldn't have to worry about SETI cos there would bei neither SETI nor Computers nor radio telescopes. We'd still live in caves and freeze our bums off eating plants and berries, grunting along.
Do we poor fellas on the southern hemisphere miss out AGAIN or are we lucky for once? All the exciting stuff seems to happen on the northern hemisphere. I'm rather astronomically challenged, so I have no clue where to find Perseus and if it is even visible down here.
Nah I don't think cockies will survive a nuclear armageddon. Everybody knows that there's only one being that will survive a nuclear war: Lemmy from Motörhead!:)
Slashdot Mirror
GWB, I can understand but excuse my ignorance: Who or what the heck is Denny's???
It doesn't hurt to speak a second language. Even though English is the most universal language on the planet, knowing another can be very useful. You never know what life has in store for you.
There's too many people out there who think people should learn their language, if they want to communicate with them. If we want to be a global society, we need to act and think globally as well...
No! I personally detest that woman for what she did. But if we allow her to be convicted based on "using a fake ID on the net", then we are creating a precedent that will in the long run screw us all over big time. The consequences for millions of people could potentially be devastating and I do not think it is worth it.
But hey, the US government is working hard to apply laws in retrospect (Telco immunity anyone?), so why not create a law against certain types of cyber bullying that can be applied to this case?
...is the question: How did anyone bar the user herself know she was using a fake name? How did MySpace, the prosecutors or whoever initiated the whole thing, get the information?
Dunno about you but it scares me quite a bit.
WTF?
This is yet another example of political correctness gone out of hand.
I personally find political correctness offensive. Now I insist on my right to not be offended and demand an instant end of this insanity.
Without this ridiculous pc-crap, the world would be a much better place and if we were to put just as much effort in making this world better as we put in finding things that could be deemed offensive by somebody, this world would so cool, it would make Paradise look like a slum.
I for my part am not, never was and never will be pc. I call a shovel a shovel and not "a device designed to dig holes into a surface by utilising the upper extremities".
...it's a pitty the Chinese have no oil but nukes?
Dunno about you but I pronounce "gmail" and "G-Mail...und die Post geht richtig ab" VERY differently.
It is indeed a bit surprising, considering the trademark in question is not "gmail" but "G-Mail...und die Post geht richtig ab" (the translation is of no importance here). The "gmail"-part isn't even spelt the same way. I can't really see people confusing one with the other.
Don't work. Just sit around and read /. or similar sites. Then you are not an "IT not-worker" and you're not affected :)
I didn't say they are not there. But the whole thing is hyped out to the max.
How many people die every year due to:
starvation
smoking
alcohol
guns
traffic accidents
obesity
and in contrast, how many people die a year due to terrorist attacks?
Don't you think we need to get our priorities right?
Are we that paranoid already? Do we really see a terrorist behind every tree? Don't we have more important things to do with our lives than look for terrorists?
What's so new about terrorists anyway? It's the buzzword of the decade(s to come)! Where were the handbooks, when the IRA was most active? Or the German RAF or the Italian Brigardi Rossi? Nowhere! Terrorists have been around pretty much since the beginnings of society. But nowadays we need handbooks to identify them? Sorry guys but this sounds like a big wank to me.
If you want to see terrorists, look towards your capital city. That's where a lot of them are. They are called politicians! They fan the terrorist paranoia and the fear in the people for their own agenda. Or do you really, really think, that all these anti terror laws and surveillance programs would have stood a snowball's chance in hell, if it wasn't for politicians putting fear in our minds? Would you have accepted laws like that without fear? Have you ever noticed that there's always a new message from Osama, when there's new laws to be pushed through and it is clear that people will resist?
If you think about it, the terrorists have already won. We're scared and we give up our freedom. Yes, our freedom. Or do you call it freedom, if your every move is watched, logged and whatnot? Do you call it freedom, if all the information about your flight, including your dietary needs on the plane and your religion(!), are not only recorded but transmitted to authorities in other countries and stored for decades? Do you call it freedom, if you visit a foreign country and get treated like a criminal?
Sorry guys but we really don't need a handbook to recognise a terrorist. What we need is to bloody wake up, kick our politicians in the arse and give these pricks the finger.
Sorry Guys but Metallica is dead for me. I can and will not forgive the way they acted during the "Napster issue". Especially the hypocracy, when they write in the booklet of Garage days that Mr. Hettfield always hung out at Mr. Ulrich's place to copy the latest NWOBHM imports. Bloody losers!
Besides that, they haven't released an album worth buying since "Justice" and that was 20 Years ago. After that, the sellout started...
Metallica, go to hell!
Is it? Are you sure? Considering you're asking, I guess you aren't sure at all.
The DMCA is pretty much the biggest pain in the arse that was ever put on paper. But the worst thing is not that it exists. It's that despite all the problems it caused, your government still tries to export it to the rest of the world. As if Mickey Mouse, Coke and Maccas wasn't enough already. And to top it all off, the leaders of the rest of the world are just as stupid, ignorant and salting the pretzels of the "Content Mafia" like those responsible for the DMCA.
The Article is talking about the cockpit voice recorder, not the flight data recorder. That's two different things. The flight data recorder naturally has to have enough instruments built in but what "tons of instruments that actually measure certain parameters about the flight" do you need in the cockpit voice recorder?
I personally prefer Wikipedia to stay the way it is. It is also the more trivial things that make Wikipedia a very handy tool. You want to look something up? Who needs Google if there's a good chance you will find info in Wikipedia? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such it contains knowledge. It doesn't matter if that knowledge is trivial or not. What's trivial for one person is important to the next. Who decides what's trivial and not worthy of an encyclopedia?
Leave Wikipedia as it is.
Just my 2c.
The big difference is: Cuba doesn't have nukes. Do you think the US would snuggle up to China if they wouldn't have nukes? The US know they can't really apply any real pressure on China. They could have in the 60s through to the late 80s but that time they were too busy with the USSR and by now, thanks to globalisation, they're economically dependent on China, so economic or political pressure doesn't work and thanks to the nukes, there's no chance for military pressure either. As the saying goes: If you can't beat them, join them. Uzbekistan has "inherited" some nukes from the USSR and as a fairly "unstable" nation, it's best to make friends with them. Especially because of the country's muslim population it is important to befriend them to avoind nukes falling into the hands of fanatics.
Cuba has no means of defending itself against any step the US take. That makes them the ideal target. But nobody expected Castro's stamina in that matter. He's conviced that his way is the right one and nothing can change his mind. Not even a US embargo. Besides that, if the US were really interested in the oppressed cuban people, they wouldn't have the embargo to start with. The embargo doesn't really make things better for the people does it?
60GB is my d/l limit. Uploads are "unlimited", which is easy to say at 256kbit (nice contrast to the 9.9mbit downstream)
Yeah sure, we all want unlimited volume, at least 1Gbit data rate and of course we all want it for under 20 bucks, preferably for free. Dream on matey!
WTF do you do if 60GB will "cripple" you? Download 10 TV shows/day? Where do you put all the stuff?
There's limited bandwidth that's shared amongst all users. Sure bandwidth can be increased but that costs money and who do you think pays for it? Do you think any ISP can invest billions in infrastructure and not charge anybody for the extra cost? Last time I checked ISPs were businesses whose purpose is to make money and not hand it out. Put yourself into the shoes of an ISP? What would you do? I'm sure you wouldn't mind investing a crap load of money and not get anything in return.
I'm not applauding the move but I call what I have reasonable. Before this plan I'm on, I had a so called "unlimited" plan. Unlimited? Yeah right! The fineprint said unlimited subject to an "acceptable use policy", stating that if my volume is more than 10 times the average usage (where average meant take the top and bottom 5% away and calculate the average from what's left...), I get cut off 'til the end of the month. The deal I have now not only costs less, it also gives me substantially more traffic than the "unlimited" deal.
Limited bandwidth and unlimited traffic don't go too well together. But of course ISPs shouldn't advertise unlimited plans if they can't keep their promises.
Btw. what made you think I'm American? Believe it or not, there are other countries out there who offer cable as well. Amazing isn't it?
Not sure what's wrong with the approach chosen. To me, this looks like it's been handled by my ISP (and others) for quite a while now. My cable provider has tiered plans and for me, it works fine. I get 20GB/month "peak" volume (12pm-12am) and 40GB/month "off peak" (12am-12pm). If used smart, it gives me 60GB/month. There are no excess fees but the speed will be capped to 64kbit. The imposed cap sucks a bit cos it also affects the IP-phone and I think they should give at least 128kbit. But to be honest, I've only reached the speed cap once and that was about 5 hours before the new month started.
Sure it isn't ideal but anything bar a REAL flat rate isn't ideal.
"Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product..."
Ermmmm WMA? Ermmm desirable? Really?
Dunno about you guys but to me, WMA isn't really a desirable feature. I avoid WMA whereever I can. Since the introduction of the Zune, we know that WMA isn't the same as WMA, which in turn isn't the same as WMA. What it means? Well, there's the not DRMed WMA, then there's the "Plays for sure"-WMA and of course there's the Zune-WMA. "Plays for sure" doesn't really play for sure anymore, since it isn't compatible to the Zune-DRM-bull and the Zune-stuff doesn't play anywhere but the Zune. Do we really want this Microsoft mess? With Apple's DRM, at least I know that it will work on any iPod, no matter what generation or model. If I buy a WMA-enabled player, I do not have a guarantee that any given WMA-file will play. Do we really want this WMA-mess on the iPod too?
Besides that, I can't remember reading anywhere, that my iTunes purchases will work on a Zune or iRiver or any other player. So if they insist on Apple making iPods WMA capable, how about making ALL other players out there capable of playing Apple's DRMed songs? Sure, Apple runs the show but nobody forced the others to use WMA. They just heard it comes from MS and instantly jumped on the bandwagon, expecting it to be THE format because MS will manage to force it upon everybody as usual. Fortunately for us, this didn't happen, despite Microsoft's relentless efforts.
Yes, I agree it would be nice to have all players compatible to all purchases. But we don't need a lawsuit for that. All we need is musicstores to give DRM the boot and switch to MP3. Then EVERY player can handle EVERY purchase. But of course this would mean MS won't get royalties, Apple won't get any and the lawyers responsible for the suit won't get a hell of a lot of money either and that's what it is all about: Money!
Generally, there's nothing wrong with copyrights. If somebody writes a song, a script or a book, then the person should have the right to say who can do what with it. Otherwise somebody stronger comes along, takes the song and makes money with it, leaving the writer with nothing. But I do not see, why they should have this right for 50, 100 or even more years. Just like with patents, give them a few years headstart (where patents are running for too long as well). I'd say 5 to 10 years and that's it. Copyrights should also expire once the creator is dead. Why should we pay for some artist's heir's livelyhood? When I'm gone, do my children get my pension? Did the heirs of the artist do anything creative?
Nope, keep the copyrights but stricktly limit them. I don't see why the Disney-Shareholders should reap the fruit of Walt Disney's work from 80 years ago. That's just ridiculous. 5 Years sounds good, 10 years would be a compromise and then copyrighted Material goes into the public domain. Imagine we'd have to pay everytime somebody takes a photo of some 10,000 years old cave paintings just because one of our early ancestors had a good lawyer and could persuade the tribal elders that his work deserves exclusive rights forever.
Isn't trying to find things we think might be out there what science is all about? Is looking for intelligent life in space a bigger waste of money than finding new suns, planets, black holes, galaxies etc? Yes, if we should happen to find little green men, we most likely won't be able to communicate but if we find a new planet, we're also most likely not able to get there, so where's the point?
If one questions SETI as such, one must question science in general too. Without science, we wouldn't be posting here. We wouldn't have to worry about SETI cos there would bei neither SETI nor Computers nor radio telescopes. We'd still live in caves and freeze our bums off eating plants and berries, grunting along.
Isn't trying to find things we think might be out there what science is all about? Is looking for intelligent life in space a bigger waste of money than finding new suns, planets, black holes, galaxies etc? Yes, if we should happen to find little green men, we most likely won't be able to communicate but if we find a new planet, we're also most likely not able to get there, so where's the point?
If one questions SETI as such, one must question science in general too. Without science, we wouldn't be posting here. We wouldn't have to worry about SETI cos there would bei neither SETI nor Computers nor radio telescopes. We'd still live in caves and freeze our bums off eating plants and berries, grunting along.
Do we poor fellas on the southern hemisphere miss out AGAIN or are we lucky for once? All the exciting stuff seems to happen on the northern hemisphere. I'm rather astronomically challenged, so I have no clue where to find Perseus and if it is even visible down here.
Nah I don't think cockies will survive a nuclear armageddon. Everybody knows that there's only one being that will survive a nuclear war: Lemmy from Motörhead! :)
And maybe some Lawyers of course...