We all know Al Gore is all about Global Warming (See Here), and we also know there is a direct link between the number of pirates and the average temperature of the earth! (See Here)
This cannot be an accident - it's fate!
Why not. It's certainly no more ridiculous than the way the issue has been handled to date anyway.
I expect that they'll probably find people to come work for them. Not because of any automobile inspired conversion on the road to Damascus, but just because some people will be desperate enough to work for someone they hate. But they'd have to be desperate.
I'm sure that they might get some desperate people, but I also think they'll get some ignorant people, and some people who share their lack of ethics.
Google lights up all that dark fiber they are rumored to have been buying over the last few years to build GoogleNet.
All that fiber is useless if it doesn't cover the last mile to people's homes. If a monopoly (or duopoly) still controls that (which they do, pretty much everywhere) then Google is screwed.
Certainly - but why push for more of the same. Fight for deregulation of those areas not more of it.
What does deregulation mean in those areas though? Some phone or cable company owns the lines for the last mile. Deregulation means they own then and nobody else can run lines (unless we want a spagheti mess going to every house). So then, where is the competition? Last mile needs to be considered something like a municipal service. It needs to be fiber, and then we can connect up to whomever we choose at the hubs. There really isn't any other way to do it that I can see that doesn't involve some corporation owning the lines and therefore having a monopoly. At least we have some more direct control over the city officials.
Bottom line is. Will efficient age verification process protect anyone from being assaulted? Any girl could be raped by a bloke her own age for all I know. Further more it (efficient age verification) would give a false feeling of security and trust. Online Dating? not an easy problem at all.
Right. This girl thought she was going out with a HS senior, so about 18 probably. Turns out he was 19. I don't really see the difference here, or how MySpace is at fault for anything. It was simply bad judgement on her part, and lack of proper supervision from her parents. The guy that assaulted her should be on trial for that. End of story.
However, what if the South Korea were taken over by a dictator like North Korea? the supreme leader has access to everyone's personal information. That kind of information is very handy when you want to crack down on political prisoners, and have political enemies 'disappear'.
Depends on what the information is. If it's just name, address, DOB kind of stuff, then it's probably not a problem. If they abuse this system (which I feel would inevitably happen here in the US) by tying in all sorts of other info, then you have problems.
Why should the state legislate favoritism toward open source software? Aren't they supposed to be unbiased and viewing IT policies from a strictly pragmatic point of view?
Pragmatically, OSS doesn't require citizens to purchase proprietary software in order to interact with their government.
You are making two very large claims: one, that America is fundamentally corrupt, and two, that this is a function of the institution. You need to prove both of these. I don't believe you, and I don't see much evidence that would lend your argument much weight, but if you've got proof, I'd love to hear it.
I didn't say that America is fundamentally corrupt. I said our state and national political systems are corrupt. If you want to equate the two, that's your call. I just don't agree with it. Second, if you can explain the difference between corporations giving millions to political candidates and parties to help them get their people elected and paying for expensive trips and amenities for politicians and their staffs, and bribery, I'll consider that I need to rethink my opinion. Before you start pointing to quid pro quo issues, let me say that I'm aware that it's difficult at best to prove that something was done in return for money, but that's the "beauty" of this system. It spreads the money out and doesn't make the direct connection between funds and political action clear to those on the outside. The Abramoff thing seems to be a case of them getting very overconfident and sloppy. The bottom line is that these corporations and special interest groups aren't giving these politicians money out of the goodness of their hearts. They expect something from them. As I see it, that's bribery, albeit in a legalized form. Hence, institutionalized corruption.
This point rests entirely on whether or not you think every piece of Congressional legislation is a direct result of high-level bribery.
Why does it have to be every piece of legislation? Some things do get passed for other reasons. I'm not disputing that.
I really don't think most people that post on Slashdot know what true corruption is, and as a result are overly quick to accuse America of crimes that it is very far from committing.
I think you are just saying that corruption isn't as pervasive in the US as it is in other countries. We don't really have nearly as much of it in the lower levels of government and industry as a lot of other countries. Here, we seem to have refined it into something that is hard for most people to see or explain. It's really a much more efficient way to do it. It's not nearly as visible as the day-to-day low-level corruption that you speak of, and it's more complicated than simply passing cash to a politician (usually), so it's a lot easier for people to simply accept it as something they can't do much about.
I see slashdot's prevalence towards "ZOMG CORRUPTION" claims as the functional equivalent as charging a man guilty of assault with first-degree murder: the man is guilty of assault and should be punished for it, but he didn't commit murder and thus shouldn't be treated as though he has.
I agree that people sometimes rush to judgement, especially in forums like this. I don't agree with your analogy though. There's a big difference in the people's ability to prove a bribery or corruption charge and their ability to prove a murder charge. When you have a system like ours that allows corporations and others to give money to politicians, then you are forced to prove that a politician engaged in a quid pro quo agreement with the contributor. Only the politician and the contributor are likely to know this for sure, and neither is going to admit it. So, we're stuck in a situation where the money flows freely and very liberally from corporations to politicians, and we see a lot of pork in the legislation benefitting many of these contributors, and we see a lot of legislation passed that benefits them, often in defiance of logic, history, and common sense. Yet we can't prove the link. So, I feel that where there's smoke, there's probably fire, and we're seeing a hell of a lot of smoke.
you might take my post for what it is: a renunciation of the idea that America is fundamentally corrupt. To prove this point, I quoted many other countries that I've been to and shown that they are much further along than the US is.
Our political system, at least at the state and national levels IS fundamentally corrupt. It is set up in such a way as to institutionalize bribery on a massive scale. I don't particularly care how bad other countries are. That's their problem to deal with. I'm concerned with dealing with the problems here.
America has its share of corruption, and we should fight it, (do you honestly believe I would sit here and say corruption is a-ok?)
No, but your attitude is one of complacency. It is attitudes like that that allow corruption to grow unnopposed as long as we have some other country to point to and say, "Well, it could be worse."
When corruption affects your daily life, then it's widespread.
Ahh, now I understand. You're saying that Congressional legislation doesn't affect us in our daily lives. I get it now. Oh wait.. I think you're the one that's not getting it.
Furthermore, show me where the hell corruption entered this particular case? You really think that Microsoft supplying software licenses for a state educational system is corrupt? I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say you don't.
I'm not sure yet whether this is a case of corruption or not. I think it's quite possible that there was some backroom dealing on this one, given the fact that they seem to be trying to sneak an amendment through that would benefit only Microsoft. But I'll wait and see how it plays out before rendering final judgement.
Actual value of the media and stamping costs = ~$75. Maybe more if they throw in some of those nifty nylon binders. This is just Microsoft conceding that they can't compete in the MA education market with OSS. They simply priced themselves out. So, recognizing that since they lost that fight, they could make an investment in making sure that the kids learn MS software instead of OSS, and therefore fear anything that is not Windows/Office, they jumped at that as the next best thing. Schools paying for MS software is nothing but subsidised advertising for MS. If we can't get them to use OSS instead, we can at least take some comfort in the fact that MS can pay for its own damn advertising.
I've been to Japan, Turkey, Hungary, Romania (where policemen are beaten for reporting police brutality), Bulgaria, the UK, France, and let me assure you, bribery and corruption are everywhere. I'm by no means a nationalist, but I know a good thing when I see it, and you have no idea how much better the US is when it comes to the rule of law.
So the gist of your argument is that corruption here in the US is ok because it's not as bad as some other places? That's got to be the weakest argument I've ever heard. Corruption should be fought whenever it is found. Yes, maybe things are better here, but they could be better still if we'd fight this kind of thing whenever it rears its ugly head. That's how we keep things better here.
On a news program a few months back, the reporter interviewed a group of Chinese college students. All all grew up in the time since Tiananmen. Shown the famous "tank man" photo, it was the first time any of them had seen it, none knew what it was about.
Well they definitely aren't being taught about it in school. And they aren't going to learn about it on TV, or the Net. If you're a parent, you probably don't want to talk to them about it either as kids tend to run their mouths all the time and could get themselves and you in a lot of trouble. So I'd say that the censorship has been pretty effective.
China is a right-wing fantasy country. Activists automatically get beaten and arrested, blind loyalty to the government and its leaders is heavily promoted, businesses are allowed to run amok, the military is doted on, workers are exploited to their limits, and information is completely regulated by the government. Republicans must be dying of envy.
Umm.. close but not likely. They aren't allowed to own guns, and most of them aren't too keen to worship our lord-n-savior. Those are generally republican deal-breakers.
The truth is, I think that both games suffered from the fact that they lack multiplayer modes, not so much because of the other factors. Half Life is in the same general story-driven genre and succeeds largely because of its extensive multiplayer community. Take it out, and I think that HL/HL2 would be in the same boat as these other games.
Gotta disagree on this one. Sure, HL benefitted greatly from its online multiplayer community, but that was almost a completely separate thing from the game itself, which was one of the best singleplayer games ever in its day. It set the bar pretty high for future FPS games, and it took a while before any met the challenge. I think Deus Ex was really the first to match (and exceed) it in story and gameplay. So these games stand on their own very well. The multiplayer is just gravy. I'd rather they focus on one or the other, and I'm glad they chose to focus on singleplayer.
Ugh. Everytime I hear about Invisible War I can't help but cringe.
I really don't know what they were smoking when they decided to make that game and call it a sequel to perhaps one of the best FPS/RPG games ever made (IMO).
I almost cried when I played it, I was that disappointed.:(
Yeah, I felt the same way. Deus Ex is among my top 3 favorite games of all time. IW was just a horrible, dumb, consoley mess.
I haven't felt so cheated by a game since then, that is until I found out about the new Shadowrun game that Microsoft is putting out. Turns out it's a tragic abuse of the Shadowrun license. It must have been designed by a bunch of retarded monkeys to screw up so badly with a license that has so much potential.
You (and most slashdotters from my mod point suicide here) may not agree with their conclusions but why not rebut their findings instead of attacking their credibility? It's the very definition of Ad Hominem.
Because they never cite any actual published studies that we can rebutt.
Are you claiming Carter doesn't publish in peer review journals? You must read them all, huh? And you've done a complete search? Because Carter certainly hasn't published RSNZ [rsnz.org], huh? Or he's never published in Sedimentary Geology? Or he's never published in National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research?
None of those are on the topic that he's commenting on. Why doesn't the article mention any studies by him? What research has he done to back up his statements? That's what's missing from this article and pretty much every other article that makes claims like, "Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change." How come they never cite actual peer-reviewed studies by these guys?
With all due respect, that's simply an ad hominem attack. What are the criticisms of the content of his findings? It seems to me he clearly cites named sources, instead of "climate experts". I don't know where the truth lies with global warming. I suspect it lies somewhere in the middle of the crusaders on both sides.
No it's not. He cites a few sources, and uses phrases such as, "Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change" to puff up the claims. Claims coming from a source who doesn't seem to even publish his own research for peer review. How is he even remotely considered a credible source? This is what the industries who pollute the most want everyone to believe. They have all sorts of "scientists" making statements to the press about how their research doesn't support global warming theories, yadda yadda. But since they aren't allowing their research to be peer reviewed (assuming they've even done any research) why should we believe them over the ones that are peer reviewed?
Sometimes it's easier to come right out and say that you're not giving the client that because it really sucked.
If you're going to do that, you do it up front when the requirements are being laid out. You don't agree to it and then back out later. The GP post said requirements got cut. If you're cutting requirements that you've already agreed to, then you better hope you have a REALLY forgiving client.
De-feature-creeping, and retroactively calling something a prototype are *good* things.
Not if you promised your client a working application. The client didn't pay for a prototype. Also, note that he didn't say anything about feature creep. Just features being cut because they didn't work.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not. It's certainly no more ridiculous than the way the issue has been handled to date anyway.
Jeffords switched to independent after he had been in Congress for a while as a Republican. I don't think that counts.
I'm sure that they might get some desperate people, but I also think they'll get some ignorant people, and some people who share their lack of ethics.
The same could be said for pretty much every version since 95. Yet we still have seen a ton of piracy out there. How do you reconcile that?
That's great and all, but I was kind of hoping we might see some decent speeds and competition within 10 years. That's not gonna happen at this rate.
All that fiber is useless if it doesn't cover the last mile to people's homes. If a monopoly (or duopoly) still controls that (which they do, pretty much everywhere) then Google is screwed.
What does deregulation mean in those areas though? Some phone or cable company owns the lines for the last mile. Deregulation means they own then and nobody else can run lines (unless we want a spagheti mess going to every house). So then, where is the competition? Last mile needs to be considered something like a municipal service. It needs to be fiber, and then we can connect up to whomever we choose at the hubs. There really isn't any other way to do it that I can see that doesn't involve some corporation owning the lines and therefore having a monopoly. At least we have some more direct control over the city officials.
No, "market" is not the same thing as "free market".
Right. This girl thought she was going out with a HS senior, so about 18 probably. Turns out he was 19. I don't really see the difference here, or how MySpace is at fault for anything. It was simply bad judgement on her part, and lack of proper supervision from her parents. The guy that assaulted her should be on trial for that. End of story.
Depends on what the information is. If it's just name, address, DOB kind of stuff, then it's probably not a problem. If they abuse this system (which I feel would inevitably happen here in the US) by tying in all sorts of other info, then you have problems.
Pragmatically, OSS doesn't require citizens to purchase proprietary software in order to interact with their government.
I didn't say that America is fundamentally corrupt. I said our state and national political systems are corrupt. If you want to equate the two, that's your call. I just don't agree with it. Second, if you can explain the difference between corporations giving millions to political candidates and parties to help them get their people elected and paying for expensive trips and amenities for politicians and their staffs, and bribery, I'll consider that I need to rethink my opinion. Before you start pointing to quid pro quo issues, let me say that I'm aware that it's difficult at best to prove that something was done in return for money, but that's the "beauty" of this system. It spreads the money out and doesn't make the direct connection between funds and political action clear to those on the outside. The Abramoff thing seems to be a case of them getting very overconfident and sloppy. The bottom line is that these corporations and special interest groups aren't giving these politicians money out of the goodness of their hearts. They expect something from them. As I see it, that's bribery, albeit in a legalized form. Hence, institutionalized corruption.
Why does it have to be every piece of legislation? Some things do get passed for other reasons. I'm not disputing that.
I think you are just saying that corruption isn't as pervasive in the US as it is in other countries. We don't really have nearly as much of it in the lower levels of government and industry as a lot of other countries. Here, we seem to have refined it into something that is hard for most people to see or explain. It's really a much more efficient way to do it. It's not nearly as visible as the day-to-day low-level corruption that you speak of, and it's more complicated than simply passing cash to a politician (usually), so it's a lot easier for people to simply accept it as something they can't do much about.
I agree that people sometimes rush to judgement, especially in forums like this. I don't agree with your analogy though. There's a big difference in the people's ability to prove a bribery or corruption charge and their ability to prove a murder charge. When you have a system like ours that allows corporations and others to give money to politicians, then you are forced to prove that a politician engaged in a quid pro quo agreement with the contributor. Only the politician and the contributor are likely to know this for sure, and neither is going to admit it. So, we're stuck in a situation where the money flows freely and very liberally from corporations to politicians, and we see a lot of pork in the legislation benefitting many of these contributors, and we see a lot of legislation passed that benefits them, often in defiance of logic, history, and common sense. Yet we can't prove the link. So, I feel that where there's smoke, there's probably fire, and we're seeing a hell of a lot of smoke.
The best co
Our political system, at least at the state and national levels IS fundamentally corrupt. It is set up in such a way as to institutionalize bribery on a massive scale. I don't particularly care how bad other countries are. That's their problem to deal with. I'm concerned with dealing with the problems here.
No, but your attitude is one of complacency. It is attitudes like that that allow corruption to grow unnopposed as long as we have some other country to point to and say, "Well, it could be worse."
Ahh, now I understand. You're saying that Congressional legislation doesn't affect us in our daily lives. I get it now. Oh wait.. I think you're the one that's not getting it.
I'm not sure yet whether this is a case of corruption or not. I think it's quite possible that there was some backroom dealing on this one, given the fact that they seem to be trying to sneak an amendment through that would benefit only Microsoft. But I'll wait and see how it plays out before rendering final judgement.
Actual value of the media and stamping costs = ~$75. Maybe more if they throw in some of those nifty nylon binders. This is just Microsoft conceding that they can't compete in the MA education market with OSS. They simply priced themselves out. So, recognizing that since they lost that fight, they could make an investment in making sure that the kids learn MS software instead of OSS, and therefore fear anything that is not Windows/Office, they jumped at that as the next best thing. Schools paying for MS software is nothing but subsidised advertising for MS. If we can't get them to use OSS instead, we can at least take some comfort in the fact that MS can pay for its own damn advertising.
So the gist of your argument is that corruption here in the US is ok because it's not as bad as some other places? That's got to be the weakest argument I've ever heard. Corruption should be fought whenever it is found. Yes, maybe things are better here, but they could be better still if we'd fight this kind of thing whenever it rears its ugly head. That's how we keep things better here.
Well they definitely aren't being taught about it in school. And they aren't going to learn about it on TV, or the Net. If you're a parent, you probably don't want to talk to them about it either as kids tend to run their mouths all the time and could get themselves and you in a lot of trouble. So I'd say that the censorship has been pretty effective.
Umm.. close but not likely. They aren't allowed to own guns, and most of them aren't too keen to worship our lord-n-savior. Those are generally republican deal-breakers.
Gotta disagree on this one. Sure, HL benefitted greatly from its online multiplayer community, but that was almost a completely separate thing from the game itself, which was one of the best singleplayer games ever in its day. It set the bar pretty high for future FPS games, and it took a while before any met the challenge. I think Deus Ex was really the first to match (and exceed) it in story and gameplay. So these games stand on their own very well. The multiplayer is just gravy. I'd rather they focus on one or the other, and I'm glad they chose to focus on singleplayer.
Yeah, I felt the same way. Deus Ex is among my top 3 favorite games of all time. IW was just a horrible, dumb, consoley mess.
I haven't felt so cheated by a game since then, that is until I found out about the new Shadowrun game that Microsoft is putting out. Turns out it's a tragic abuse of the Shadowrun license. It must have been designed by a bunch of retarded monkeys to screw up so badly with a license that has so much potential.
Yeah. I want to see Zoolander edition phones. When are we gonna get those?
Because they never cite any actual published studies that we can rebutt.
None of those are on the topic that he's commenting on. Why doesn't the article mention any studies by him? What research has he done to back up his statements? That's what's missing from this article and pretty much every other article that makes claims like, "Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change." How come they never cite actual peer-reviewed studies by these guys?
No it's not. He cites a few sources, and uses phrases such as, "Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change" to puff up the claims. Claims coming from a source who doesn't seem to even publish his own research for peer review. How is he even remotely considered a credible source? This is what the industries who pollute the most want everyone to believe. They have all sorts of "scientists" making statements to the press about how their research doesn't support global warming theories, yadda yadda. But since they aren't allowing their research to be peer reviewed (assuming they've even done any research) why should we believe them over the ones that are peer reviewed?
If you're going to do that, you do it up front when the requirements are being laid out. You don't agree to it and then back out later. The GP post said requirements got cut. If you're cutting requirements that you've already agreed to, then you better hope you have a REALLY forgiving client.
Not if you promised your client a working application. The client didn't pay for a prototype. Also, note that he didn't say anything about feature creep. Just features being cut because they didn't work.