Dude, he was illustrating your point with relevant examples from history and the movies (I would have chosen more history, myself, but I suppose more people are into Star Wars;).
You've made some massive, idiotic leaps and assumptions about the parent's position that simply are not implied.
He was simply saying that using a crisis to enact "crisis measures" which become permanent is an old political trick. He was not speaking for or against one way or another (though, frankly, your idea is no better than that of the dirty politicians IMO).
Once we've got a treaty, there is huge pressure to enact it into law.
And treaties of this type aren't simply ratified, laws must be written to bring the country into compliance. That's where the pressure lies - we've got the treaty, now we have to change our laws to match.
Current copyright law is a perfect example of how this process works - look up the Berne Convention.
Politically, I'm pretty conservative, diverging from folks like Glen Beck on only a few of the more extreme views and attitudes, and I just have to say that site is so obviously biased that it can't possibly be taken seriously. I know Wikipedia has a lot of "liberals" who edit it, that's to be expected - there are a lot of liberals in the world (about as many conservatives, really), but Wikipedia doesn't feel biased one way or another. Sure some articles definitely are, but the site as a whole isn't pushing some liberal agenda any more than the Encyclopedia Britannica is.
One perfect example that I've been reading through is Conservapedia's list of counter-examples to relativity - which is evil because it "is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world". Many of the examples were specifically addressed by Einstein and have already been addressed in other fields (action at a distance problems, for instance), some we still have no clue what may be the cause, and don't really know if relativity is fundamentally flawed in that regard or just needs a tweak (pioneer anomaly and flyby anomaly), and some are just plain ignorant (relativity hasn't offered any insights? Really?).
To top it all off, all of the counterexamples are explained much more thoroughly, with the implications regarding relativity described much more in depth, on Wikipedia.
There is nothing stopping a competitor from coming in and wiping the floor with Google, they just need to have a better search to do it.
And that's the rub - so far, nobody has been able to compete with Google on a purely competitive basis. There would be an argument here for a lack of diversity among search engines if there was a better search engine, but because of Google's dominance was not able to compete.
That isn't the case though, nobody has been able to produce a better search than Google, so no matter what you do, until there is a better product than Google they will always be the #1 search. Google got to their position legitimately, and have held on to their position legitimately. The fact that all the other search engines are still around (do a google search for them, you'll see all the old shitty searches still there, plus some new players) is proof of that. They are still there, and they still suck. Bing is better than the others, but they still just aren't as good as Google, and Microsoft definitely puts their products ahead of others in the rankings.
We already have choice, and we've all chosen Google. Either give us something better or shut the hell up and quit complaining.
Just nit-picking here, but in America we call them "Attorney's General" after, somewhat ironically, the French style.
Texas can claim jurisdiction if all parties do business in Texas, and the internet being what it is, of course they all do business in Texas. The Texas AG will be bringing the suit on behalf of the citizens of Texas, and everyone who does business with Google in Texas (that would include all of the non-Texas based companies who have customers or at least attempt to have customers in Texas).
The state where the incident occurs receives jurisdiction. It doesn't matter where anybody is from unless it is a contractual issue with a stated home-court.
Really, given the nature of Google's business, these companies could have (and probably did) gone to any AG in the country, they would all have authority to bring such a case forward - it would just be done on behalf of their own citizenry, not anybody else's.
Google has had filtering since day one, see the section "But don't show pages that have..."
Put in the "add your own review" in that section and those pages won't show up. Done, easy. I'm sure they have a special character for that (like the + or the quotes) but I haven't bothered to find it.
Bullshit, the reason Google is the number one internet advertiser is because they are the number one search provider. The reason they are the number one search provider is because they give more relevant results than any other search engine. Google's "evil" practices have made the internet much nicer to use (do you remember how bad banner ads were at the turn of the century?), and they have consistently followed the business strategy of providing their customers the best experience possible in order to generate ad revenue. To think they will change what has worked so well for them in the past for no reason other than the fact that they are big is borderline insanity.
There is nothing at all wrong with a monopoly. The problem is anti-competitive behavior (that's why we have anti-trust laws instead of anti-monopoly laws). That can happen at any level, but it is more dangerous with a monopoly or near monopoly. On the other hand, a monopoly is in a position to provide the absolute best service to a customer at the absolute lowest cost. So far that's exactly what they have been doing, and it has been very, very good for the internet. Most of the lawsuits Google receives revolve around them providing a free service that is as good or better than their competitor's paid service, for example.
This AG is basically rolling the dice here. He's got some complaints, and Google is big enough that despite their track record there may be a bit of funny business. So the AG is going for it. If he can make anything stick on Google, he's automatically one of the most famous AG's in the country, and it sets him up for all sorts of political advancement. If he can't, he makes a fool of himself, but probably not so much as to seriously damage his career. It's probably stuck without such a bold move anyway, so why not go for it?
Frankly, I don't believe Google is doing anything wrong, but I think it's time for them to go through this sort of test anyway. Trial by fire, you know? Either way I think it's a good thing for Google's customers that this case go forward. If Google wins then trust in them is strengthened, if they lose it will be shaken quite a bit, and will open the door for more competition.
The trouble with competition though, is you do actually need to have a better product than your competitor to succeed.
It's like every site owner has to sit in front of their PC all day long building links to compete
The good websites don't have this problem, they get links because people like them, and link to them. If you have to spend all day building links, maybe you should look at your website's content/service first. That could be where the problem lies.
Don't you mean "Shame on you Mr. President and US Congress. You are pathetic."
I mean, it only seems fair, since the only reason VISA is doing this is the anti-laundering provisions in the Credit Card Act of 2009. Do you think VISA wants to stop making money or something?
P.S.: If you can bother to hit the shift key for ATM, why can't you bother to hit it for the first letter in every sentence? It isn't hard, and you'll come off as less immature if you do. Just saying.
I don't know if you know this, but there is a difference between an organization and individuals in an organization, even when those individuals are at the very top. In some cases, they are effectively the same, for instance when the leader of that organization is in near complete control, he can directly speak for the organization. The White House is an example of this. Even then, though, the President often uses a spokesperson. In that case, the President didn't say it, but it is also definitely not the spokesperson's position - he's just a mouthpiece. In that case, the appropriate phraseology is "The White House said".
In organizations where the power is more distributed, no one person takes a position for the entire company - this is like most government agencies and most public corporations. NASA is a real good example of this. No matter who does the actually speaking in this case, when they speak for the organization as a whole, they are nothing more than a spokesperson. Thus, the most appropriate way to phrase NASA's position in a matter is to use the phraseology: "NASA said".
But the iPhone 2 was "iPhone 3G", and iPhone 3 was "iPhone 3GS".
I imagine the only reason Apple didn't call it "iPhone 4G" is because almost nobody has AT&T "4G" service available. Few enough have 3G service available with AT&T as it is.
Indeed, I'm supposed to have EVDO available (about 1mbps), and I do often see my phone switch to "EV" mode, but I don't think I've been able to transfer a single bit of data in EVDO mode. It always hangs and switches back to 1x mode (56k'ish).
Also note that "At times" and "his average play session" are contradictory. It's either "at times his play session would persist over 11 hours" or it's "his average play session would persist over 11 hours" and the "at times" bit would be some number higher than 11 hours (probably 20 hours on occasion).
Since we can do basic math, we know it's the average play session that was 11 hours.:)
I heard of a guy who played that stupid Pirate MMORPG for 22 hours a day, and most people agree that game sucked. That's twice the hours Smallwood put in.
With that much cash (billions in in-game currency) there would be nothing he couldn't buy, and the game would start to suck.
Maybe.
However if he really has no life and just fills it with Lineage (instead of filling his life with Lineage, causing him to have no life), it won't work.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course! How else is liberalism supposed to work?
Dude, he was illustrating your point with relevant examples from history and the movies (I would have chosen more history, myself, but I suppose more people are into Star Wars ;).
You've made some massive, idiotic leaps and assumptions about the parent's position that simply are not implied.
He was simply saying that using a crisis to enact "crisis measures" which become permanent is an old political trick. He was not speaking for or against one way or another (though, frankly, your idea is no better than that of the dirty politicians IMO).
There were several alternatives that would not have, we just chose to completely ignore them.
Once we've got a treaty, there is huge pressure to enact it into law.
And treaties of this type aren't simply ratified, laws must be written to bring the country into compliance. That's where the pressure lies - we've got the treaty, now we have to change our laws to match.
Current copyright law is a perfect example of how this process works - look up the Berne Convention.
Fortunately the only copyright law that applies to the US is US copyright law.
Duh.
Wow, just wow.
Politically, I'm pretty conservative, diverging from folks like Glen Beck on only a few of the more extreme views and attitudes, and I just have to say that site is so obviously biased that it can't possibly be taken seriously. I know Wikipedia has a lot of "liberals" who edit it, that's to be expected - there are a lot of liberals in the world (about as many conservatives, really), but Wikipedia doesn't feel biased one way or another. Sure some articles definitely are, but the site as a whole isn't pushing some liberal agenda any more than the Encyclopedia Britannica is.
One perfect example that I've been reading through is Conservapedia's list of counter-examples to relativity - which is evil because it "is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world". Many of the examples were specifically addressed by Einstein and have already been addressed in other fields (action at a distance problems, for instance), some we still have no clue what may be the cause, and don't really know if relativity is fundamentally flawed in that regard or just needs a tweak (pioneer anomaly and flyby anomaly), and some are just plain ignorant (relativity hasn't offered any insights? Really?).
To top it all off, all of the counterexamples are explained much more thoroughly, with the implications regarding relativity described much more in depth, on Wikipedia.
Conservapedia makes me want to puke, it's so bad.
There is nothing stopping a competitor from coming in and wiping the floor with Google, they just need to have a better search to do it.
And that's the rub - so far, nobody has been able to compete with Google on a purely competitive basis. There would be an argument here for a lack of diversity among search engines if there was a better search engine, but because of Google's dominance was not able to compete.
That isn't the case though, nobody has been able to produce a better search than Google, so no matter what you do, until there is a better product than Google they will always be the #1 search. Google got to their position legitimately, and have held on to their position legitimately. The fact that all the other search engines are still around (do a google search for them, you'll see all the old shitty searches still there, plus some new players) is proof of that. They are still there, and they still suck. Bing is better than the others, but they still just aren't as good as Google, and Microsoft definitely puts their products ahead of others in the rankings.
We already have choice, and we've all chosen Google. Either give us something better or shut the hell up and quit complaining.
Just nit-picking here, but in America we call them "Attorney's General" after, somewhat ironically, the French style.
Texas can claim jurisdiction if all parties do business in Texas, and the internet being what it is, of course they all do business in Texas. The Texas AG will be bringing the suit on behalf of the citizens of Texas, and everyone who does business with Google in Texas (that would include all of the non-Texas based companies who have customers or at least attempt to have customers in Texas).
The state where the incident occurs receives jurisdiction. It doesn't matter where anybody is from unless it is a contractual issue with a stated home-court.
Really, given the nature of Google's business, these companies could have (and probably did) gone to any AG in the country, they would all have authority to bring such a case forward - it would just be done on behalf of their own citizenry, not anybody else's.
Have you tried the advanced search option?
Google has had filtering since day one, see the section "But don't show pages that have..."
Put in the "add your own review" in that section and those pages won't show up. Done, easy. I'm sure they have a special character for that (like the + or the quotes) but I haven't bothered to find it.
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
Bullshit, the reason Google is the number one internet advertiser is because they are the number one search provider. The reason they are the number one search provider is because they give more relevant results than any other search engine. Google's "evil" practices have made the internet much nicer to use (do you remember how bad banner ads were at the turn of the century?), and they have consistently followed the business strategy of providing their customers the best experience possible in order to generate ad revenue. To think they will change what has worked so well for them in the past for no reason other than the fact that they are big is borderline insanity.
There is nothing at all wrong with a monopoly. The problem is anti-competitive behavior (that's why we have anti-trust laws instead of anti-monopoly laws). That can happen at any level, but it is more dangerous with a monopoly or near monopoly. On the other hand, a monopoly is in a position to provide the absolute best service to a customer at the absolute lowest cost. So far that's exactly what they have been doing, and it has been very, very good for the internet. Most of the lawsuits Google receives revolve around them providing a free service that is as good or better than their competitor's paid service, for example.
This AG is basically rolling the dice here. He's got some complaints, and Google is big enough that despite their track record there may be a bit of funny business. So the AG is going for it. If he can make anything stick on Google, he's automatically one of the most famous AG's in the country, and it sets him up for all sorts of political advancement. If he can't, he makes a fool of himself, but probably not so much as to seriously damage his career. It's probably stuck without such a bold move anyway, so why not go for it?
Frankly, I don't believe Google is doing anything wrong, but I think it's time for them to go through this sort of test anyway. Trial by fire, you know? Either way I think it's a good thing for Google's customers that this case go forward. If Google wins then trust in them is strengthened, if they lose it will be shaken quite a bit, and will open the door for more competition.
The trouble with competition though, is you do actually need to have a better product than your competitor to succeed.
It's like every site owner has to sit in front of their PC all day long building links to compete
The good websites don't have this problem, they get links because people like them, and link to them. If you have to spend all day building links, maybe you should look at your website's content/service first. That could be where the problem lies.
Amazingly creative these people are.
Ok Yoda, whatever you say.
shame on you visa. you are pathetic.
Don't you mean "Shame on you Mr. President and US Congress. You are pathetic."
I mean, it only seems fair, since the only reason VISA is doing this is the anti-laundering provisions in the Credit Card Act of 2009. Do you think VISA wants to stop making money or something?
P.S.: If you can bother to hit the shift key for ATM, why can't you bother to hit it for the first letter in every sentence? It isn't hard, and you'll come off as less immature if you do. Just saying.
I don't know if you know this, but there is a difference between an organization and individuals in an organization, even when those individuals are at the very top. In some cases, they are effectively the same, for instance when the leader of that organization is in near complete control, he can directly speak for the organization. The White House is an example of this. Even then, though, the President often uses a spokesperson. In that case, the President didn't say it, but it is also definitely not the spokesperson's position - he's just a mouthpiece. In that case, the appropriate phraseology is "The White House said".
In organizations where the power is more distributed, no one person takes a position for the entire company - this is like most government agencies and most public corporations. NASA is a real good example of this. No matter who does the actually speaking in this case, when they speak for the organization as a whole, they are nothing more than a spokesperson. Thus, the most appropriate way to phrase NASA's position in a matter is to use the phraseology: "NASA said".
Get it?
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!
Yup.
But the iPhone 2 was "iPhone 3G", and iPhone 3 was "iPhone 3GS".
I imagine the only reason Apple didn't call it "iPhone 4G" is because almost nobody has AT&T "4G" service available. Few enough have 3G service available with AT&T as it is.
Indeed, I'm supposed to have EVDO available (about 1mbps), and I do often see my phone switch to "EV" mode, but I don't think I've been able to transfer a single bit of data in EVDO mode. It always hangs and switches back to 1x mode (56k'ish).
It sucks.
It's a very loose set of standards. When the standards are loose, things get fudged a long, long way.
and noone
Who the hell is Noone, and why didn't you capitalize his name?
Also note that "At times" and "his average play session" are contradictory. It's either "at times his play session would persist over 11 hours" or it's "his average play session would persist over 11 hours" and the "at times" bit would be some number higher than 11 hours (probably 20 hours on occasion).
Since we can do basic math, we know it's the average play session that was 11 hours. :)
Nah, it doesn't mean anything.
I heard of a guy who played that stupid Pirate MMORPG for 22 hours a day, and most people agree that game sucked. That's twice the hours Smallwood put in.
Worse, your employer obviously feeds your addiction far more than a video game company ever could.
I mean, they pay you by the hour for something as precious as your soul.
If Smallwood gets millions, I think you could get billions man.
Actually, I think that would cure his addiction.
With that much cash (billions in in-game currency) there would be nothing he couldn't buy, and the game would start to suck.
Maybe.
However if he really has no life and just fills it with Lineage (instead of filling his life with Lineage, causing him to have no life), it won't work.
Yeah, he could have worked two full-time jobs in the time he played.
With his obvious natural talent, that would mean he could have been raking in at least $500 a week instead of paying $4 a week to play that game.
There is no doubt the game cost him $140,000 dollars, minimum.
Why's he suing for $3 million again?
I also want the logs so I can see which moderators continue to mod me up so I can add defendants to my lawsuit!
*rubs hands together menacingly because he has mod points*
I will mod you straight to insanity!!
*submit*
Shit! I can't mod now! Un-submit! Un-submit!