I know exactly what you're saying, but I think the real problem is elsewhere, not just in someone creating a market for something.
You could say ideas/information should be free. But I could sell you the shit in my brain if *you* thought it was worth it. That's a natural transaction of perceived value. Is it greed? Of course, in a way. I could ask for more than you want to pay. Greed, yes, but if I find a buyer, it's suddenly sensible. Greed is a natural behaviour which, just by itself, doesn't do any harm (though any behaviour, if obsessive, is potentially harmful).
*Other* behaviours, like lying, deceiving you out of your money, do harm. But that's not greed. That's leveraging another behaviour - deception - to achieve the goal. You could say deception is natural too, and necessary.
So I think the problem is not in any particular market, it's in how that market *encourages people to behave*. Take prostitution. In many places it's legal, because who's to say a man (or woman - sorry Reg) can't offer someone money for sex, leaving it up to the other person to decide if it's worth it?
However a problem arises when the exchange of money dictates behaviour. When someone is so impoverished that their only option is to sell sex when, all things being equal, they would rather not, then there's a real problem. The market is dictating behaviour. One would think it was the responsibility of government not to let things get to that stage. What else is government for, if not protecting people from themselves?
For better or worse, most of us make a living now via the movements of small green pieces of paper. As opposed to small green things they can grow and eat, as well as sell. Maybe we should invent edible money?
The failures are not in any market per se. The failures arise when the human beings engaged in a market are not properly cared for.
What a wonderful idea, well done. This should be advertised on the radio or something.. see if you can get some attention from the ABC!
I'm sure everyone has suggestions for you.:) Here are mine.. mainly directed at the idea of this becoming a tool for the *average* voter, so they consider voting below the line, not just to make it easier for those who do it anyway. If it catches on, democracy benefits. Either that, or we realise we did need saving from ourselves.:)
1. A link in each party's box to that party's site - anything to get some information about their policies. I have no idea who the Secular Party, Carers Alliance, etc. is.. I think people would benefit from seeing how many choices there are out there and to easily see what they're about.
2. A page to visually represent all the preference deals. It's too hard clicking each party name on the ballot view and trying to work out how the numbers change below the line. Something simple, easy to interpret would be excellent and very helpful for people.
3. A bit more work, but perhaps a list of several major issues which are on the agenda in the election. People tick "like" or "don't like" for each issue, then it shows you which parties you had best vote for to get that result. Examples: a) Current National Broadband Network (Labor) vs Starting again (Liberal) b) Internet Filtering - Yes (Lab/Lib) or No (Greens) c) Carbon Tax yes/no d) Selling off Medibank Private (Liberal) etc. etc. That would also help people realise there's more to the election than the pale agendas set by the two individuals hogging the airwaves and debating crap like who is more "real" and "unleashed". No wonder people draw dicks on their ballots.
Once again, well done, I believe this is the start of a more aware and savvy electorate! The internet rides again.
We're already talking about the time when humans will have replaceable parts or theoretically live forever (not sure how the brain will deal but anyway). The point is, if you're a civilisation of essentially deathless entities, going about your unfathomable purposes with your friends from other essentially deathless civilisations, you would obviously know there are many, many budding new species out there. And you'd be like, so what?
Those aliens might document us, but communicating would be pointless. We can't imagine what kind of mind evolves to psychologically survive for even hundreds of years, let alone thousands or more. What could they say which would have any meaning for us or them? We naturally think we're fabulous, unique and worthwhile, of course we do.
That's why vampire stories are so silly; alive for hundreds of years and still exhibiting the same psychology as most people? Not likely. At least Hancock was suitably depressed after living so long.:)
when [Abrahamic Holy Book] was written, science as we know it didn't exist
Not so! Science is, and has always been, simply the pursuit of knowledge and prediction through observation and deduction. It's a basic human trait, hardwired into our brains. Science "as we know it" is exactly the same as the science that enabled us to start farming tens of thousands of years ago. Knowledge has grown but the methodology is the same.
I believe it cuts both ways, in that the propensity for believing in "outside forces" influencing our world is also hardwired into our brains. That is to say "belief" is as basic to our nature as "science".
I think it's for our psychological health that we need to balance these two notions: 1) I know how shit works.. hm, seems kinda deterministic and arbitrary, so why am I here? 2) I'm alive for some kind of reason.. I just know it.. (enter fate, karma, god, etc)
The problem is when dogma rules - both in science and religion. Many scientists in the past have only known recognition 100's of years after their deaths, because their ideas weren't accepted by the science of the time. Einstein had a fundamental problem with quantum uncertainty till the day he died.
Many scientists are deeply religious and do excellent work. Darwin had weird beliefs in strange medical cures. Our minds are often at odds between belief and reason. It's really no big deal, it's part of the wonder of human existence.
But at least science knows how to disagree and (more or less) get along. Feelings are hurt but nobody is stoned. I think it's time we pulled religions into line, as we can plainly see that in many cases it encourages bigotry and persecution. We are just beginning, as a world, to address the negatives and extremes of religion. There's a long way to go yet, until we are all living in relative peace with each other's way of life.
Since I am a swinging voter I will not be voting for Labour this coming Federal election the problem is I am not to keen on the opposition either.
Why is that a problem exactly? I hear people saying this all the time, as if we only have 2 parties in this country!! There is this little party called the Greens, you know. Oh I don't like Labor or Liberal either, zomgbbq what do I do???
No, sorry but I think you're falling into the classic "bad drivers" trap (to use a car analogy). Most drivers behave on the road and generally do the right thing. But if we encounter *enough* bad drivers in particular city, we say "god, Sydney drivers suck!" So just because, out of thousands of drivers we pass every day, one or two get up our nose each day, it feels "common". Common enough to us personally, but not common in the general population.
So no... most police officers DO want to do a good job, most politicians DO expect to make some improvements.. all you have to do is ask them and see. The bad apples spoil the meal.
Also, another bad-driver effect is that road rules are often made to accommodate bad drivers. Speed humps are there often because *some* people don't slow down enough. Most probably do. Thing is we don't really know, but seeing the speed humps (ie. the accommodation of the worst drivers) gives the impression that most people don't follow the rules. Whether that impression is correct is not really my point.
What if we turn this around and consider that maybe those who apply for jobs to screen the internet already have an unhealthy fascination with weird and/or illegal content?
Thinking about it, that's actually a great way to attract those sorts of people for the purpose of counselling and so save the rest of society from the various ills they'll eventually inflict.
Then again, if they drown they probably weren't witches anyway.
True. I recall being asked to develop a "multimedia product with interactive, animated instructional material that can be centrally updated". IE4 was THE BEST solution and it really was quite the revolution in browsers at the time. IE4 rocked everyone's socks off. After IE6, however, it was clear everyone else was moving in a different direction and IE just didn't seem interested - or maybe thought they could still win. So instead of making life better, as IE4 did, they doggedly made life worse.
But the W3C is also guilty of being closed-minded and making life difficult for us devs. While saying "don't use tables for layout", they failed to provide alternatives - vertical centering, dynamic % height, ie. stuff that tables did very well. And still no real separation of layout and content. Using
is layout, not content. Having to nest several DIVs to make something work is layout, not content. So why are tables any different? W3C seems to think the web is only for one thing: mass media distribution. Sorry, no it's not. It's also for writing very specific applications for very specific uses and audiences. We need the tools to do both efficiently.
Facebook's slowness in addressing simple web-standard accessibility issues didn't slow down its growth. Not saying that's right, just saying not every web site in the world is there for the same reason or needs to adhere to every single standard. If you don't never complain or do anything different from the crowd, nothing ever changes.
Disclosure: I still think IE's box model made more sense.:)
Remember, there's a difference between "web developer" and "developer". People getting jobs in web dev houses are often encouraged to make use of flash and work with IE6 because that's where the business clients are for their employers.
"Developers", however, usually have more say in the direction their projects take. That is, there's a big attitude difference (I find) in developing a "web presence" as opposed to a web application.
I'm sorry but you pass an opinion whilst knowing very little.
Case 4: Tear gas Case 5: Water cannon Case 6: Ultrasonics (or Cliff Richard for emergency use only) Case 7: Rubber bullets Case 8: Mounted police (smaller crowds) Case 9: French CRS tactic of marching into crowd in several places to split them up. Case 10: Snatch squad
There are more. Options abound for those who look for them.
I cannot understand the technogeek arrogance (and cultural ignorance) of "well you were using technology you don't understand so suck it and reap the consequences of your techno noobity."
I'm in IT and I find that attitude worse than banal, and insulting to my profession which, in the end, is about *people* not computers. Otherwise what kind of society are we inventing all this crap for?
By the same logic, people "intentionally" install viruses, so by definition viruses are ok and users have no cause for complaint. And yes, should we apply that rule to unlocked doors and windows? Or, more accurately, a woman wearing a skirt expecting a level of privacy where guys don't have cameras on their shoes? Same thing.
The point is the privacy you can reasonably expect, not the technology. Technology informs culture, but it doesn't automatically define it. Except may in Japan.:)
Probably because the artists, and their music, aren't remarkable enough. Mainstream, commercial-radio music is terrible. I can't imagine paying for their CDs let alone a concert.
Here, in Oz, Bill Bailey has come to tour, and he has to put on extra shows because they're all selling out. True, times are tough, so maybe artists are being judged by their real worth and talent.
I think these two things are related. What happens to journalists' sources, if the sources feel anonymity is a problem? What happens to your "identity" online, if someone wants to discredit you for some joke or stupid remark in a context completely unrelated to your profession?
Having *one identity*, whether OpenID or this, is undesirable at best. At least OpenID is optional. As I don't want one shopkeeper knowing what other shops I bought stuff from, I don't want one web site knowing who I am on other web sites. Why do I want that? Why is that good for *me*?
If they want to talk about what this "ecosystem enables", compare that to what an ecosystem of anonymity and privacy has enabled throughout history, and what we may lose in the process of everyone being able to be identified online. This trend is quite worrisome.
The problem of authenticating yourself many times to different websites is solved by OpenID.
Actually I never had a problem with this, since it was solved by browsers remembering my passwords, oh ten years ago or something. On top of that, Firefox has a password Master Password - so you only really need to remember one, for when you first start up.
For an extra yummy added layer of security goodness, your private passwords are *not* stored on some server somewhere.
Of course I am using the word "security" in terms of my private one, not anyone else's or the government's. And that, as far as I am concerned as an individual in a democratic country, is perfectly reasonable.
I think Firefox, as a FOSS project, is suffering from the "someone else's boring tasks" syndrome.
There are three major issues which have been outstanding for *over a year* which I, as a user, would rather have had fixed than all the fancy and I'm sure fun work being done on speed, OOP plugins, tabs and "features". Let's not even mention the AwesomeBar.
1. Bug 505455. Mouse events firing on background tabs. A year old, not fixed. 2. Bug 461483. Including "www." when searching in the the url bar. Over 18 months old, not fixed. 3. Non-standard Windows file dialogs, making FF3 incompatible with utilities like Direct Folders.
These things are why I went back to FF2, which works properly in all three respects, though it renders slower. Big deal. I use Chrome as needed for more advanced sites or when speed is a big issue. It's usability I'm interested in and why, sadly, I simply cannot use FF3.
But I like Firefox, as a product. And not just for the plugins, which have given FF a lead which, in my option, is being squandered by messing with usability and ignoring important but boring-to-work-on bugs.
I would assume they already knew about Afg's mineral wealth before going in there. But who knows.
Phase 1: Find a reason for legitimate military presence. Phase 2: Establish a government over which some influence can be exerted. Phase 3: Ooh, we found some stuff we didn't know was there before. Phase 4: We can "help" your country's future by "protecting" (y)our mining companies with continued military presence. Phase 5: Profit.
See how something unexpectedly worked out for phase 4.
Why was Google collecting any data at all? If they were trying to log locations of WiFi hotspots, surely they'd have asked themselves "what are the privacy issues of doing this"? I mean they are somewhat tech-savvy, and would know what information WiFi networks can send. So what could possibly be the legitimate reason for this? Not everyone (I'd say hardly anyone) would actually want their WiFi hotspot published on Google Maps, even businesses who give it free to customers.
Secondly, all I see is tech-heads saying "well don't transmit it, if you don't want it used!" That's pure hypocrisy, particularly from techies, who would be the first to protest if someone used a photograph they took for some commercial use. "That's copyrighted!" they would scream, and rightly so. So *who does your network data belong to*, even if it is open transmitted, as is that photo you uploaded? Isn't *any* data I create (an email, a password, an SSID) also copyrighted by my creating it? If not, why not?
You assert there's no causal relationship between sexual or violent media and crime, then you say the way to reduce crime is to encourage the use of such media. You also relate the use of it in other countries directly to their low crime rates.
So is there a causal link or not? I don't think you know.
Apart from that, if you are certain there is only ONE factor involved in anti-social interactions in a society, then by all means go claim your Nobel prize. I'm sorry, but your argument is simplistic at best and backed up by nothing at all. Go do a proper study before embarking on such a dissertation.
The word "tweet" is culture-specific slang so yes, it shouldn't be used in the context of serious news, except to illustrate the term itself. It's the tech-culture equivalent of Seinlanguage.
Take Facebook.. due to the flood of usage and forcing people to use what is a *web app* as opposed to just a web site/blog, I think it's made a lot of people becomes more web-savvy and aware of things like "settings".
In that way, I think FB has, however inadvertently, done the general public a great service. It's also, inadvertently, made people think more about "technology issues" like privacy and security, and what "data" actually means.
Slashdot Mirror
I know exactly what you're saying, but I think the real problem is elsewhere, not just in someone creating a market for something.
You could say ideas/information should be free. But I could sell you the shit in my brain if *you* thought it was worth it. That's a natural transaction of perceived value. Is it greed? Of course, in a way. I could ask for more than you want to pay. Greed, yes, but if I find a buyer, it's suddenly sensible. Greed is a natural behaviour which, just by itself, doesn't do any harm (though any behaviour, if obsessive, is potentially harmful).
*Other* behaviours, like lying, deceiving you out of your money, do harm. But that's not greed. That's leveraging another behaviour - deception - to achieve the goal. You could say deception is natural too, and necessary.
So I think the problem is not in any particular market, it's in how that market *encourages people to behave*. Take prostitution. In many places it's legal, because who's to say a man (or woman - sorry Reg) can't offer someone money for sex, leaving it up to the other person to decide if it's worth it?
However a problem arises when the exchange of money dictates behaviour. When someone is so impoverished that their only option is to sell sex when, all things being equal, they would rather not, then there's a real problem. The market is dictating behaviour. One would think it was the responsibility of government not to let things get to that stage. What else is government for, if not protecting people from themselves?
For better or worse, most of us make a living now via the movements of small green pieces of paper. As opposed to small green things they can grow and eat, as well as sell. Maybe we should invent edible money?
The failures are not in any market per se. The failures arise when the human beings engaged in a market are not properly cared for.
before spreading your load is very messy, believe me.
What a wonderful idea, well done. This should be advertised on the radio or something.. see if you can get some attention from the ABC!
I'm sure everyone has suggestions for you. :) Here are mine.. mainly directed at the idea of this becoming a tool for the *average* voter, so they consider voting below the line, not just to make it easier for those who do it anyway. If it catches on, democracy benefits. Either that, or we realise we did need saving from ourselves. :)
1. A link in each party's box to that party's site - anything to get some information about their policies. I have no idea who the Secular Party, Carers Alliance, etc. is.. I think people would benefit from seeing how many choices there are out there and to easily see what they're about.
2. A page to visually represent all the preference deals. It's too hard clicking each party name on the ballot view and trying to work out how the numbers change below the line. Something simple, easy to interpret would be excellent and very helpful for people.
3. A bit more work, but perhaps a list of several major issues which are on the agenda in the election. People tick "like" or "don't like" for each issue, then it shows you which parties you had best vote for to get that result. Examples:
a) Current National Broadband Network (Labor) vs Starting again (Liberal)
b) Internet Filtering - Yes (Lab/Lib) or No (Greens)
c) Carbon Tax yes/no
d) Selling off Medibank Private (Liberal)
etc. etc.
That would also help people realise there's more to the election than the pale agendas set by the two individuals hogging the airwaves and debating crap like who is more "real" and "unleashed". No wonder people draw dicks on their ballots.
Once again, well done, I believe this is the start of a more aware and savvy electorate! The internet rides again.
That's the joke, but it's probably true.
We're already talking about the time when humans will have replaceable parts or theoretically live forever (not sure how the brain will deal but anyway). The point is, if you're a civilisation of essentially deathless entities, going about your unfathomable purposes with your friends from other essentially deathless civilisations, you would obviously know there are many, many budding new species out there. And you'd be like, so what?
The "Meat" story by Terry Bisson says it all.
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.shtml
Those aliens might document us, but communicating would be pointless. We can't imagine what kind of mind evolves to psychologically survive for even hundreds of years, let alone thousands or more. What could they say which would have any meaning for us or them? We naturally think we're fabulous, unique and worthwhile, of course we do.
That's why vampire stories are so silly; alive for hundreds of years and still exhibiting the same psychology as most people? Not likely. At least Hancock was suitably depressed after living so long. :)
when [Abrahamic Holy Book] was written, science as we know it didn't exist
Not so! Science is, and has always been, simply the pursuit of knowledge and prediction through observation and deduction. It's a basic human trait, hardwired into our brains. Science "as we know it" is exactly the same as the science that enabled us to start farming tens of thousands of years ago. Knowledge has grown but the methodology is the same.
I believe it cuts both ways, in that the propensity for believing in "outside forces" influencing our world is also hardwired into our brains. That is to say "belief" is as basic to our nature as "science".
I think it's for our psychological health that we need to balance these two notions:
1) I know how shit works.. hm, seems kinda deterministic and arbitrary, so why am I here?
2) I'm alive for some kind of reason.. I just know it.. (enter fate, karma, god, etc)
The problem is when dogma rules - both in science and religion. Many scientists in the past have only known recognition 100's of years after their deaths, because their ideas weren't accepted by the science of the time. Einstein had a fundamental problem with quantum uncertainty till the day he died.
Many scientists are deeply religious and do excellent work. Darwin had weird beliefs in strange medical cures. Our minds are often at odds between belief and reason. It's really no big deal, it's part of the wonder of human existence.
But at least science knows how to disagree and (more or less) get along. Feelings are hurt but nobody is stoned. I think it's time we pulled religions into line, as we can plainly see that in many cases it encourages bigotry and persecution. We are just beginning, as a world, to address the negatives and extremes of religion. There's a long way to go yet, until we are all living in relative peace with each other's way of life.
Since I am a swinging voter I will not be voting for Labour this coming Federal election the problem is I am not to keen on the opposition either.
Why is that a problem exactly? I hear people saying this all the time, as if we only have 2 parties in this country!! There is this little party called the Greens, you know. Oh I don't like Labor or Liberal either, zomgbbq what do I do???
Jesus... just loading the Home Depot site made my laptop emit more radiation!
No, sorry but I think you're falling into the classic "bad drivers" trap (to use a car analogy). Most drivers behave on the road and generally do the right thing. But if we encounter *enough* bad drivers in particular city, we say "god, Sydney drivers suck!" So just because, out of thousands of drivers we pass every day, one or two get up our nose each day, it feels "common". Common enough to us personally, but not common in the general population.
So no... most police officers DO want to do a good job, most politicians DO expect to make some improvements.. all you have to do is ask them and see. The bad apples spoil the meal.
Also, another bad-driver effect is that road rules are often made to accommodate bad drivers. Speed humps are there often because *some* people don't slow down enough. Most probably do. Thing is we don't really know, but seeing the speed humps (ie. the accommodation of the worst drivers) gives the impression that most people don't follow the rules. Whether that impression is correct is not really my point.
What if we turn this around and consider that maybe those who apply for jobs to screen the internet already have an unhealthy fascination with weird and/or illegal content?
Thinking about it, that's actually a great way to attract those sorts of people for the purpose of counselling and so save the rest of society from the various ills they'll eventually inflict.
Then again, if they drown they probably weren't witches anyway.
argh, /. removed the html.. that was meant to say "using [div style="clear:both"] is layout not content".
True. I recall being asked to develop a "multimedia product with interactive, animated instructional material that can be centrally updated". IE4 was THE BEST solution and it really was quite the revolution in browsers at the time. IE4 rocked everyone's socks off. After IE6, however, it was clear everyone else was moving in a different direction and IE just didn't seem interested - or maybe thought they could still win. So instead of making life better, as IE4 did, they doggedly made life worse.
But the W3C is also guilty of being closed-minded and making life difficult for us devs. While saying "don't use tables for layout", they failed to provide alternatives - vertical centering, dynamic % height, ie. stuff that tables did very well. And still no real separation of layout and content. Using
is layout, not content. Having to nest several DIVs to make something work is layout, not content. So why are tables any different? W3C seems to think the web is only for one thing: mass media distribution. Sorry, no it's not. It's also for writing very specific applications for very specific uses and audiences. We need the tools to do both efficiently.
Facebook's slowness in addressing simple web-standard accessibility issues didn't slow down its growth. Not saying that's right, just saying not every web site in the world is there for the same reason or needs to adhere to every single standard. If you don't never complain or do anything different from the crowd, nothing ever changes.
Disclosure: I still think IE's box model made more sense. :)
Remember, there's a difference between "web developer" and "developer". People getting jobs in web dev houses are often encouraged to make use of flash and work with IE6 because that's where the business clients are for their employers.
"Developers", however, usually have more say in the direction their projects take. That is, there's a big attitude difference (I find) in developing a "web presence" as opposed to a web application.
I'm sorry but you pass an opinion whilst knowing very little.
Case 4: Tear gas
Case 5: Water cannon
Case 6: Ultrasonics (or Cliff Richard for emergency use only)
Case 7: Rubber bullets
Case 8: Mounted police (smaller crowds)
Case 9: French CRS tactic of marching into crowd in several places to split them up.
Case 10: Snatch squad
There are more. Options abound for those who look for them.
Finally, I can stop having to reboot my laptop every Tuesday.
I cannot understand the technogeek arrogance (and cultural ignorance) of "well you were using technology you don't understand so suck it and reap the consequences of your techno noobity."
I'm in IT and I find that attitude worse than banal, and insulting to my profession which, in the end, is about *people* not computers. Otherwise what kind of society are we inventing all this crap for?
By the same logic, people "intentionally" install viruses, so by definition viruses are ok and users have no cause for complaint. And yes, should we apply that rule to unlocked doors and windows? Or, more accurately, a woman wearing a skirt expecting a level of privacy where guys don't have cameras on their shoes? Same thing.
The point is the privacy you can reasonably expect, not the technology. Technology informs culture, but it doesn't automatically define it. Except may in Japan. :)
Probably because the artists, and their music, aren't remarkable enough. Mainstream, commercial-radio music is terrible. I can't imagine paying for their CDs let alone a concert.
Here, in Oz, Bill Bailey has come to tour, and he has to put on extra shows because they're all selling out. True, times are tough, so maybe artists are being judged by their real worth and talent.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/26/157211/Reporters-Without-Borders-Fight-Web-Censorship
I think these two things are related. What happens to journalists' sources, if the sources feel anonymity is a problem? What happens to your "identity" online, if someone wants to discredit you for some joke or stupid remark in a context completely unrelated to your profession?
Having *one identity*, whether OpenID or this, is undesirable at best. At least OpenID is optional. As I don't want one shopkeeper knowing what other shops I bought stuff from, I don't want one web site knowing who I am on other web sites. Why do I want that? Why is that good for *me*?
If they want to talk about what this "ecosystem enables", compare that to what an ecosystem of anonymity and privacy has enabled throughout history, and what we may lose in the process of everyone being able to be identified online. This trend is quite worrisome.
The problem of authenticating yourself many times to different websites is solved by OpenID.
Actually I never had a problem with this, since it was solved by browsers remembering my passwords, oh ten years ago or something. On top of that, Firefox has a password Master Password - so you only really need to remember one, for when you first start up.
For an extra yummy added layer of security goodness, your private passwords are *not* stored on some server somewhere.
Of course I am using the word "security" in terms of my private one, not anyone else's or the government's. And that, as far as I am concerned as an individual in a democratic country, is perfectly reasonable.
I think Firefox, as a FOSS project, is suffering from the "someone else's boring tasks" syndrome.
There are three major issues which have been outstanding for *over a year* which I, as a user, would rather have had fixed than all the fancy and I'm sure fun work being done on speed, OOP plugins, tabs and "features". Let's not even mention the AwesomeBar.
1. Bug 505455. Mouse events firing on background tabs. A year old, not fixed.
2. Bug 461483. Including "www." when searching in the the url bar. Over 18 months old, not fixed.
3. Non-standard Windows file dialogs, making FF3 incompatible with utilities like Direct Folders.
These things are why I went back to FF2, which works properly in all three respects, though it renders slower. Big deal. I use Chrome as needed for more advanced sites or when speed is a big issue. It's usability I'm interested in and why, sadly, I simply cannot use FF3.
But I like Firefox, as a product. And not just for the plugins, which have given FF a lead which, in my option, is being squandered by messing with usability and ignoring important but boring-to-work-on bugs.
I would assume they already knew about Afg's mineral wealth before going in there. But who knows.
Phase 1: Find a reason for legitimate military presence.
Phase 2: Establish a government over which some influence can be exerted.
Phase 3: Ooh, we found some stuff we didn't know was there before.
Phase 4: We can "help" your country's future by "protecting" (y)our mining companies with continued military presence.
Phase 5: Profit.
See how something unexpectedly worked out for phase 4.
Why was Google collecting any data at all? If they were trying to log locations of WiFi hotspots, surely they'd have asked themselves "what are the privacy issues of doing this"? I mean they are somewhat tech-savvy, and would know what information WiFi networks can send. So what could possibly be the legitimate reason for this? Not everyone (I'd say hardly anyone) would actually want their WiFi hotspot published on Google Maps, even businesses who give it free to customers.
Secondly, all I see is tech-heads saying "well don't transmit it, if you don't want it used!" That's pure hypocrisy, particularly from techies, who would be the first to protest if someone used a photograph they took for some commercial use. "That's copyrighted!" they would scream, and rightly so. So *who does your network data belong to*, even if it is open transmitted, as is that photo you uploaded? Isn't *any* data I create (an email, a password, an SSID) also copyrighted by my creating it? If not, why not?
You assert there's no causal relationship between sexual or violent media and crime, then you say the way to reduce crime is to encourage the use of such media. You also relate the use of it in other countries directly to their low crime rates.
So is there a causal link or not? I don't think you know.
Apart from that, if you are certain there is only ONE factor involved in anti-social interactions in a society, then by all means go claim your Nobel prize. I'm sorry, but your argument is simplistic at best and backed up by nothing at all. Go do a proper study before embarking on such a dissertation.
with informative article titles like Bing Gets A Foursquare Badge For The World Cup With Thrillist Tips
I read the article and still don't know what it means.
The word "tweet" is culture-specific slang so yes, it shouldn't be used in the context of serious news, except to illustrate the term itself. It's the tech-culture equivalent of Seinlanguage.
Take Facebook.. due to the flood of usage and forcing people to use what is a *web app* as opposed to just a web site/blog, I think it's made a lot of people becomes more web-savvy and aware of things like "settings".
In that way, I think FB has, however inadvertently, done the general public a great service. It's also, inadvertently, made people think more about "technology issues" like privacy and security, and what "data" actually means.