In Swedens constitution there is a law stating that every single document that the government issues or receives must be (made) available to the public (a truly great law, imo). A Swedish civil-rights advocate, Zenon Parnoussis, filed several secret CoS OT-level documents to the Swedish parliament to expose the idiocy of the cult of Scientology. The documents were thus available to read at the parliament.
Since the 'church' of scientology strongly witholds the copyright of exactly everything they do they sued the Parliament for copyright infringement.
But get this - Swedish scientologers also actually infiltrated the Parliament. They took turns at the front desk occupying all copies of the OT-papers to prevent people (ie media) from reading them. I went there to read them myself and managed to get hold of a copy that the receptionist had hidden from the CoSers (he recognized i wasn't a Scientologist). There were several CoSers sitting there pretending to read looking really disturbed. The OTs themselves were completely insane writings.
All of this was big news in Sweden.
Moreover, in the US, CoS produced ridiculous (complete jokes) propaganda commercials trying to smear the entire coutry of Sweden, because of this. They got one of their members, a congressman, to threaten the Swedish government. Certainly, if it had been Windows source-code or something submitting it to parliament should not justify rendering the documents public. But here we were talking about a crazy cult movement that calls itself a church and its message one of universal truth. How can such religous teachings not be allowed public?
This law is part of Swedens constitution, it is one of the oldest laws Sweden has and extremly highly regarded. It should have precedence over any other regulation.
Yet, quietly when the buzz had settled down - half a year later - the OT-papers were retracted and the constitutionsl law amended.
US congressmen are obviuosly not powerless. For other countries it can be difficult to understand just who has what power and what national policy is when it comes to officials on that level. The Swedish government also sucks, obviously, they didn't _have_ to do this. But all we know about is that letter, of what else has been said we don't know.
I think you might become very, very surpised if you learn what your government is really doing abroad and the influence they can have. And I don't mean surprised in a good way.
I am disgusted at your comparison between this and previous horrible mistreatment of the Jews. In what way is that relevant?
Continuing with this sort of nazi-references every time anything German is mentioned or seriously implying that Germans or the German government are antisemitic is prejudiced (even if it is ridiculous as well) crap. Try to think about what you are implying. Do you know just how sensitive this can be to many Germans today?
Not only many americans habitually do this, but englishmen as well. Germany has super-strong laws regarding antisemitism and nazism and has suffered through years of collective guilt. Compared to the US and England German post-war foreign policy has been examplatory peaceful. Common Germans today have no responsibility for actions taken by their parents and grandparents. They do in no way deserve this prejudice.
The PSX2 is very likely to become a huge success. This split is a move that makes that even more likely. This is why:
1. As many have already pointed out, this split does of course not risk much for Sony. However, since it lowers the price of each stock it makes it more available to small/private investors. This could lead to an increased stock price (this is likely because of the recent great increase in Sony stock price and because of 2-6, below), especially if momentum builds up after Sony/PSX2 success.
2. They say tech stocks are risky, but when they say that they're talking about.coms that have little or no income. The (western) world economy is continuing to boom - people have money to buy both PSX2s and Sony stock. Sony is likely not to be affected by bursting.com bubbles.
3. The hardware of the PSX2 is nothing short of amazing. It managed to exceed even the huge expectations of the game-developers. The PSX1 was a great success that no one really expected and it made(still makes!) some developers/publishers loads of money - it has a developer base larger than any console has ever seen. Developers and publishers will DIE to make games for the PSX2! Believe me, they will. I used to be a PlayStation developer myself so I know. Sony already have signed many, many great developers. Many PC-only developers are expected to start making games for the PSX2 also - that is something extremely rare.
4. Because of the excellent hardware and the huge interest from game developers the games will be great.
5. Because the hardware and games are/will be good and because the PlayStation brand is so strong when it comes to games Sony has little to risk when they try to market the thing as set-top box also. Gamers won't care - they will just use it for games. Others might not care about the set-top stuff, but that doesn't really matter. (Personally, I think if anything has potential to become a sucessfull set-top type thing the PSX2 is it. I sure will buy one just for the DVD-player).
6. The cost of building the PSX2 is very high, Sony will lose money for each unit. It will (initially) be expensive to consumers. But it worked great the last time - it was just the same with the PSX(1). Also, many of the technologies that Sony use for the PSX2 are very expensive now but are expected to become industry-standard in a few years (.18 micron process, USB, IEEE 1394...) - their cost will go down. It did cost Sony much to develop PSX2 but they had buckloads of money from PlayStation profits to spend.
It's not correct that Americans are the majority of internet users - they used to but that changed a few weeks ago (if i'm not mistaken). However, Americans use the net more because american users in average spend more time online than other users.
Comparing three representatives for Europe against one for the US isn't fair - Europe consists of more than 40 nations and most of them don't have any representative at all. Europe is a continent - not a country!
The board members are to be heading ICANN for some time and in that time the rest of the world - and Europe in particaular - will catch up on the US and Scandinavia who currently lead in internet usage.
Democracy isn't only about representative sharing of power - it's also about making sure as many different views as possible are represented. This is good if you want to be able to find as many solutions to problems as possible. It is especially important with global issues such as the internet.
Besides, Americans have already claimed almost all of the international domain.com as a US-one..com is for international commercial sites. Most US.coms are not internationally targeted at all. Adding to the confusion companies in other countries continue in the american footsteps and use the.com-domain with national sites in their own national languages and with no international intent.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately it is completely true.
In Swedens constitution there is a law stating that every single document that the government issues or receives must be (made) available to the public (a truly great law, imo). A Swedish civil-rights advocate, Zenon Parnoussis, filed several secret CoS OT-level documents to the Swedish parliament to expose the idiocy of the cult of Scientology. The documents were thus available to read at the parliament.
Since the 'church' of scientology strongly witholds the copyright of exactly everything they do they sued the Parliament for copyright infringement. But get this - Swedish scientologers also actually infiltrated the Parliament. They took turns at the front desk occupying all copies of the OT-papers to prevent people (ie media) from reading them. I went there to read them myself and managed to get hold of a copy that the receptionist had hidden from the CoSers (he recognized i wasn't a Scientologist). There were several CoSers sitting there pretending to read looking really disturbed. The OTs themselves were completely insane writings.
All of this was big news in Sweden.
Moreover, in the US, CoS produced ridiculous (complete jokes) propaganda commercials trying to smear the entire coutry of Sweden, because of this. They got one of their members, a congressman, to threaten the Swedish government. Certainly, if it had been Windows source-code or something submitting it to parliament should not justify rendering the documents public. But here we were talking about a crazy cult movement that calls itself a church and its message one of universal truth. How can such religous teachings not be allowed public?
This law is part of Swedens constitution, it is one of the oldest laws Sweden has and extremly highly regarded. It should have precedence over any other regulation.
Yet, quietly when the buzz had settled down - half a year later - the OT-papers were retracted and the constitutionsl law amended.
US congressmen are obviuosly not powerless. For other countries it can be difficult to understand just who has what power and what national policy is when it comes to officials on that level. The Swedish government also sucks, obviously, they didn't _have_ to do this. But all we know about is that letter, of what else has been said we don't know.
I think you might become very, very surpised if you learn what your government is really doing abroad and the influence they can have. And I don't mean surprised in a good way.
I am disgusted at your comparison between this and previous horrible mistreatment of the Jews. In what way is that relevant?
Continuing with this sort of nazi-references every time anything German is mentioned or seriously implying that Germans or the German government are antisemitic is prejudiced (even if it is ridiculous as well) crap. Try to think about what you are implying. Do you know just how sensitive this can be to many Germans today?
Not only many americans habitually do this, but englishmen as well. Germany has super-strong laws regarding antisemitism and nazism and has suffered through years of collective guilt. Compared to the US and England German post-war foreign policy has been examplatory peaceful. Common Germans today have no responsibility for actions taken by their parents and grandparents. They do in no way deserve this prejudice.
And no, i'm not German.
1. As many have already pointed out, this split does of course not risk much for Sony. However, since it lowers the price of each stock it makes it more available to small/private investors. This could lead to an increased stock price (this is likely because of the recent great increase in Sony stock price and because of 2-6, below), especially if momentum builds up after Sony/PSX2 success.
2. They say tech stocks are risky, but when they say that they're talking about .coms that have little or no income. The (western) world economy is continuing to boom - people have money to buy both PSX2s and Sony stock. Sony is likely not to be affected by bursting .com bubbles.
3. The hardware of the PSX2 is nothing short of amazing. It managed to exceed even the huge expectations of the game-developers. The PSX1 was a great success that no one really expected and it made(still makes!) some developers/publishers loads of money - it has a developer base larger than any console has ever seen. Developers and publishers will DIE to make games for the PSX2! Believe me, they will. I used to be a PlayStation developer myself so I know. Sony already have signed many, many great developers. Many PC-only developers are expected to start making games for the PSX2 also - that is something extremely rare.
4. Because of the excellent hardware and the huge interest from game developers the games will be great.
5. Because the hardware and games are/will be good and because the PlayStation brand is so strong when it comes to games Sony has little to risk when they try to market the thing as set-top box also. Gamers won't care - they will just use it for games. Others might not care about the set-top stuff, but that doesn't really matter. (Personally, I think if anything has potential to become a sucessfull set-top type thing the PSX2 is it. I sure will buy one just for the DVD-player).
6. The cost of building the PSX2 is very high, Sony will lose money for each unit. It will (initially) be expensive to consumers. But it worked great the last time - it was just the same with the PSX(1). Also, many of the technologies that Sony use for the PSX2 are very expensive now but are expected to become industry-standard in a few years (.18 micron process, USB, IEEE 1394...) - their cost will go down. It did cost Sony much to develop PSX2 but they had buckloads of money from PlayStation profits to spend.
Ulf Pettersson
It's not correct that Americans are the majority of internet users - they used to but that changed a few weeks ago (if i'm not mistaken). However, Americans use the net more because american users in average spend more time online than other users.
Comparing three representatives for Europe against one for the US isn't fair - Europe consists of more than 40 nations and most of them don't have any representative at all. Europe is a continent - not a country!
The board members are to be heading ICANN for some time and in that time the rest of the world - and Europe in particaular - will catch up on the US and Scandinavia who currently lead in internet usage.
Democracy isn't only about representative sharing of power - it's also about making sure as many different views as possible are represented. This is good if you want to be able to find as many solutions to problems as possible. It is especially important with global issues such as the internet.
Besides, Americans have already claimed almost all of the international domain .com as a US-one. .com is for international commercial sites. Most US .coms are not internationally targeted at all. Adding to the confusion companies in other countries continue in the american footsteps and use the .com-domain with national sites in their own national languages and with no international intent.
Ulf