Because the ordinary flu is predictable. With the flu vaccine and a decent enough immune system, you won't get any near fatal seasonal flu. Most flu deaths come from children and the elderly. The seasonal flu follows a distinct season and is quickly and easily tracked and has a low mortality rate. On the other hand this type of Swine Flu is not predictable. There is no current vaccine and it seems to target and kill people who are otherwise healthy. This is in sharp contrast with the seasonal flu where it kills only the elderly and those with weak immune systems. Also, unlike the seasonal flu most people don't have any resistance to this form of swine flu.
Sure, the seasonal flu is deadly, but we know who it is deadly to and how to prevent and treat it. We don't with this swine flu plus the swine flu could easily mutate come this fall in time for an even deadlier flu season.
Um, on/. its not a good idea to ask for images... because most of the images on/. are Goatse, and I don't think you want Goatse, unless the President Madagascar is really the Goatse guy...
That's not helpful. It makes your party look like a bunch of nutcase radicals. Think of ELF: it is true that taking care of the environment is good, but setting fires and destroying property as a way to get your point across doesn't help at all.
Whenever laws are unjust, about the only way to change them is through "radical" ideas. Just look at blacks in America after the civil war, they sought to maintain the old order of things in the south and nothing really was done that improved the lives of black Americans, until the civil rights movement where a few "radicals" were needed to bring about change. Same thing with copyright. And no one is going to have any property burned or lives lost with the abolition of copyright, save for perhaps the publishers who were on the way out anyways and served no real purpose.
A reactionary party that goes to the opposite extreme is as bad as the original evil. If you want to change copyright, you are going to need at least some of those pro-copyright lawmakers to help you (unless you can completely take over the legislature, which if that is your goal, looking like a nutcase radical won't help you much either). To get those lawmakers on your side, you're going to come up with something reasonable.
But if the Pirate Party can get enough seats, it would prove that many people do care about copyright and the end result would be copyright is weakened or at least not strengthened. If you have a small to medium amount of people who are willing to shoot down any proposed legislation that strengthens or doesn't weaken copyright, you will have no choice but to try to work with them or face many, many, many angry letters/calls/e-mails.
They have banned the Scientologists too, which is good btw.
What are you saying? That someone can't believe in Scientology? The arguments against Scientology are Not whether someone can believe in whatever L. Ron Hubbard came up with, but rather are they really a non-profit religion, and then criticising the censorship within Scientology. By banning them, you effectively become them in your censorship of belief.
but given Germany's history, I can't say it's such a crazy policy.
Um, looking at Germany's history I can say that it is not only crazy, but insane. Had Hitler not been imprisoned and seemingly "martyred" for his beliefs, he wouldn't have written Mein Kampf, and the Nazi party, unable to find a martyr to rally behind would slowly fade away (that is not to say that another dictator wouldn't have sized power, but it wouldn't have been Hitler). Same reasoning applies today (just look at the Stresint effect).
For the most part I agree with the platform of the Pirate Party, but it gives the impression that their primary purpose for existing is to support piracy of songs, software and movies, which I don't support. Their marketing department could probably use some work.
The Pirate Party is simply a reaction to unjust copyright laws. Considering the majority of lawmakers in all parties are pro-copyright and pro-copyright lobbies, the Pirate Bay wants to be as anti-copyright as possible to take down a lot of the copyright laws. A few years down the line, I can see copyright being restored but in a sane manner (until about 100 years from now when we will be in the same situation and another Pirate Party is needed to restore copyright to sanity)
A) Can't edit documents
B) No Flash
C) Requires a computer to sync with if you want music, movies, etc.
D) Requires $$$ for things that are freeware on Linux/Windows
E) Low battery life
F) Little to no software or abilities to do some basic financial things (e-file taxes, etc)
Sure, for some people it might work, but for most people, it doesn't, not in the least.
Users will never learn if they're locked in a sandbox all day.
Heck, you expect computer users today to learn??? I've had people call me because their icons in XP somehow got out of order and they couldn't function with the system because rather then actually learning what an icon is and how to read them, they knew to click the first icon down from the left for internet, and the second icon down from the right for Word. I've had people who were self-proclaimed computer "experts" who didn't know what a partition was. I've had many people do the exact thing I tell them never to do, then they blame me when what I said happened. Users don't seem to care about learning anything, and they won't. Most people don't even Google for a solution, they just call their tech-savvy friend to help them with such things as plugging in a USB cable.
Not every problem in the world is amenable to "free market" solutions. Deal with it.
I disagree, just about every single problem in the world is amendable with free market solutions, but usually the markets are not free enough. If Iran was a 100% free market economy, we wouldn't have this problem because ISPs would route around the government's servers. Problems that can't be solved with a free market solution are few and far between.
The counter point is that letting almost everyone pick this option destroys the environment EVERYONE shares,
Then create a better alternative. Whenever we have something better, cheaper, more reliable then a gas powered engine that will fit in an SUV sized car tell me, and I will buy it. Unfortunately as of May 1st, 2009, we don't. The alternatives we have are generally less reliable, require more maintenance and are a ton more expensive, plus they are tiny.
If enough people want "greener" cars, they can either pay extra or wait for the technology to become avalible to make cheap, decent, "green" cars and SUVs.
and drives up prices of gas for people that don't actually buy large cars
Um... I don't really understand your reasoning, but assuming that Mega Oil Company wants to make $5 billion in profit this year, if everyone drives cars that get 50 MPG, and drives the same amount of miles, they will have to raise oil prices in order to make that $5 billion. If everyone drives cars that get 20 MPG, they can afford to cut back the price some because there is much more demand.
So allowing things unrestricted negatively affects everyone. I suppose you could say your right to a big SUV ends at might right to breathe (cleaner) air.
That would be true, but outside most large cities, it is rather clean (at least here in the USA), and it isn't too hard to move to a pristine suburb and commute to work in your ultra-clean car.
I might agree with you if it wasn't for that fact. Get out of the larger cities and you have nearly no air pollution. If you need less work from your home in some wilderness area where there are no paved roads.
And we all know how well the 360 ended up turning out. Lets see, drives that scratched disks, red rings of death, etc. Sure, they have fixed most of their problems now, but at the start of the 360 lifetime it was a total mess. On the other hand, the PS3 and Wii consoles had little to no issues (about the only one I can think of is that some Wii units could have a dirty optical lens because of smoke, dust, etc. that made it hard to read some dual-layer disks but that is mostly all fixed now)
I was unclear when I reffered to building another OS on top of Windows Mobile, what I meant to say is they practically have to build another OS on top of Windows Mobile with the GUI, programs, features, etc.
The difference is, MS, by nature does not really innovate, they emulate. Apple, while not 100% innovative, usually ends up taking a cutting-edge idea and comes up with a polished product.
Exactly, things always end up on a larger scale later in life. The sooner you have certain life experiences the better you are. Think about chicken pox, when you are 4 or 5 chicken pox is just a few days sick, a few oatmeal baths and some lotion, on the other hand, when you are 40, chicken pox can get you hospitalised rather quickly. Or think about drinking, the kid who drinks a bit when he is 15, throws up and then only occasionally drinks compared to the kid who is 21 and drinks enough to have alcohol poisoning because he doesn't know when to quit.
Early exposure to things almost always leads to better handling of it and less severe consequences then later in life.
And remember the Sony rootkit fiasco? That's no better or worse than something you might catch from popping a pirated CD or DVD (the ones you buy for $1 off the streets).
Except for the fact the Antivirus you paid $80 for will catch the malware that came off the CDs and DVDs but believes that the Sony Rootkit is "legitimate" and leaves it alone.
Because on Facebook, there are a multitude of ways that they can discriminate against you. Your religion, political beliefs, age, marital status, sexual preference, all are on someone's Facebook profile. Whenever someone looks at one on the basis of deciding whether or not to hire you, its easy to convince a courtroom that you were discriminated against. And it doesn't really help that these are poor economic times where a job is quite important to have and hard to come by.
Sure, but a Facebook profile, in the eyes of the masses isn't a billboard. Most people view it as a place for friends and family, similar to a house. Looking at someone's Facebook profile is (in the minds of many) equivalent to watching you in your house and listening to your conversations while you are eating dinner. Or following you and your friends to the bar and making a discussion to hire you or not based on that conversation with your friends. It is the opinion of many (including myself) that you are hired to do a certain job for certain hours (such as 9-5), by the time 5:15 rolls around, the company should have no real control or concern for you, save that you return back at 9 the next morning to do your job. Can't do the job? Then fire them. Can do the job well? Hire and keep them. This is taking micromanagement to a new level in my opinion, and while, yes, anyone can read your Facebook, that does not mean you should (or should legally be able to) make decisions on hiring/firing people based on it without prior consent (such as someone saying check Facebook for a list of projects I worked on).
Because it is one of those things that they believe they shouldn't be judged on. While most people are fine telling others what their religion is, most would be appalled if they couldn't get a job because of it. For example, this is the digital equivlent of this conversation:
Boss: What is your religion?
Guy: Well, I'm Catholic
Boss: Well, we only hire Protestants here, so you don't get the job.
In the case the guy was perfectly fine telling others what his religion was unless it would be used to judge him. Social networking is a lot like that, people don't really care that you know that they went to such and such party unless it would be used to judge them. And its becoming increasingly common and most people don't think that it is right.
While the government has done a few good things by dabbling in the private market, there are plenty of things that the government screws up in by attempting to regulate free market things. For example in order to wage the "war on drugs" they decided to make it a pain to buy decongestants, so what happens? Most changed their formula to one that doesn't hardly work in order to stay over-the-counter. Such things are things that the government should stay out of (I honestly don't care if someone can buy drugs, or use them, they don't affect me). Just look at our postal system something that due to a government-granted monopoly stays in business. How many times have you had to deal with the nightmare that is the USPS? For example, whenever the city decided to plow snow close to my mailbox (the mailbox was still easily accessible, even from the road) the mailman decided to yell at me because apparently its my fault for what the city did without my consent. Then the USPS decided to change my address not once but three times in the 10 years I have been living at my current residence. Not to mention the insane prices they charge on delivery (go on, say that the free market couldn't do better, but due to the monopoly they have on delivering letters, we won't ever know), and how many things get lost in the mail. Not to mention their taxpayer funded workers are overpaid and they think that the only way of cutting costs is to reduce the days mail is delivered (its bad enough not delivering it on Sunday).
And the government managed to screw that up without anyone's life hanging in the balance. How much more so will it be with government run healthcare? Heck! Look at the crappiness of the veterans hospitals we have now. Government involvement in healthcare ends up screwing everyone over.
Apple isn't a monopoly though, the competition just plain sucks. Ok, so there are some pretty nice MP3 players that aren't iPods, but they are few and far between, and even then many don't have the features that an iPod does, and then there's no MP3 player that comes close to the iPod Touch (aside from game/music hybrids like PSPs and the GP2x). For smart phones, Windows Mobile plain sucks (seriously, you shouldn't have random freeze ups and vendors shouldn't be forced to create another OS on top of WinMo in order to make it usable), Android, while nice and usable (and will undoubtedly be better in the long run) just doesn't have the polish of the iPhone OS in April of 2009, Symbian doesn't really excel in anything, and BlackBerry is devoid of innovation (but I can't really fault Blackberries for that, they after all are more an ultra-reliable corporate phone rather then a geek plaything).
Now while this may be funny, it actually could work in MS's favour. For example, if they can make a big enough deal about this they can perhaps persuade other, smaller vendors to pay the patent extortion money and when the patent is invalidated it really doesn't matter because MS already has the money.
Thats assuming a lot of factors. Primarily the software support on the Pre. If the Pre doesn't have a good, solid, cheap/free official application base, it won't thrive. Much like the Apple commercial says, there really is an app to do almost anything you want on the iPhone* and really, the number of good games and developers on the iPhone is really impressive, Namco, Square-Enix, Konami and a lot of others really have some decent games on there.
*That is, of course if you don't want to do things that Apple says that you can't do such as emulators, using "undocumented" features, or "obscene" applications, but that is what jailbreaking is for, right?
Exactly. In the USA there are no perfect phones. The perfect phone would be:
Full Keyboard and Captive touchscreen
Decent enough resolution camera with built-in video recording
Copy/Paste
Bluetooth Tethering
Full Bluetooth features
Built-in GPS
An OS with the ability to easily add in software from any source (and the official source must not have stupid restrictions like the app store on the iPhone)
A decent media player with all major codecs supported
Flash, and if not Flash then YouTube and other video site viewers as applications
Wi-Fi MMS Not painful to use browser
Standard USB port Standard headphone jack
As of yet no phone even comes close to that. Sure, the G1 is a great phone, yet it has so many easy to fix flaws such as the lack of a standard headphone jack. The iPhone is a great phone, but it has the stupidest design issues such as the lack of basic features like MMS, copy/paste, multiple codecs for audio and video (OGG is a no brainer), lack of Flash along with usability issues such as the application "approval" process and the lack of a decent camera (with no zoom or video recording features).
So...it is censorship because Google is the only one who has the rights and you expect them to use that right the way you demand?
When its my government that gave them the exclusive rights, heck yes. This has the same effect as the government censoring books because because of the government, google has this monopoly.
So...Google pays for the bandwidth. Google pays for the storage. Google pays for the lawyers that even allow them to post *ANYTHING*...and because they don't post everything they are guilty of censorship?
Yes, I don't think you understood how this works. Google got the rights from our government has a government granted monopoly, has the rights for all these books, but won't publish them. Yes, this is in fact censorship. If the government did this directly everyone would cry foul, but because the government has let a corporation do it instead its perfectly ok? I agree, if not for the government granted monopoly this would be a non-issue, but because of the government granted monopoly this is censorship.
Slashdot Mirror
Because the ordinary flu is predictable. With the flu vaccine and a decent enough immune system, you won't get any near fatal seasonal flu. Most flu deaths come from children and the elderly. The seasonal flu follows a distinct season and is quickly and easily tracked and has a low mortality rate. On the other hand this type of Swine Flu is not predictable. There is no current vaccine and it seems to target and kill people who are otherwise healthy. This is in sharp contrast with the seasonal flu where it kills only the elderly and those with weak immune systems. Also, unlike the seasonal flu most people don't have any resistance to this form of swine flu.
Sure, the seasonal flu is deadly, but we know who it is deadly to and how to prevent and treat it. We don't with this swine flu plus the swine flu could easily mutate come this fall in time for an even deadlier flu season.
(someone link to the image, thanks in advance)
Um, on /. its not a good idea to ask for images... because most of the images on /. are Goatse, and I don't think you want Goatse, unless the President Madagascar is really the Goatse guy...
That's not helpful. It makes your party look like a bunch of nutcase radicals. Think of ELF: it is true that taking care of the environment is good, but setting fires and destroying property as a way to get your point across doesn't help at all.
Whenever laws are unjust, about the only way to change them is through "radical" ideas. Just look at blacks in America after the civil war, they sought to maintain the old order of things in the south and nothing really was done that improved the lives of black Americans, until the civil rights movement where a few "radicals" were needed to bring about change. Same thing with copyright. And no one is going to have any property burned or lives lost with the abolition of copyright, save for perhaps the publishers who were on the way out anyways and served no real purpose.
A reactionary party that goes to the opposite extreme is as bad as the original evil. If you want to change copyright, you are going to need at least some of those pro-copyright lawmakers to help you (unless you can completely take over the legislature, which if that is your goal, looking like a nutcase radical won't help you much either). To get those lawmakers on your side, you're going to come up with something reasonable.
But if the Pirate Party can get enough seats, it would prove that many people do care about copyright and the end result would be copyright is weakened or at least not strengthened. If you have a small to medium amount of people who are willing to shoot down any proposed legislation that strengthens or doesn't weaken copyright, you will have no choice but to try to work with them or face many, many, many angry letters/calls/e-mails.
They have banned the Scientologists too, which is good btw.
What are you saying? That someone can't believe in Scientology? The arguments against Scientology are Not whether someone can believe in whatever L. Ron Hubbard came up with, but rather are they really a non-profit religion, and then criticising the censorship within Scientology. By banning them, you effectively become them in your censorship of belief.
but given Germany's history, I can't say it's such a crazy policy.
Um, looking at Germany's history I can say that it is not only crazy, but insane. Had Hitler not been imprisoned and seemingly "martyred" for his beliefs, he wouldn't have written Mein Kampf, and the Nazi party, unable to find a martyr to rally behind would slowly fade away (that is not to say that another dictator wouldn't have sized power, but it wouldn't have been Hitler). Same reasoning applies today (just look at the Stresint effect).
For the most part I agree with the platform of the Pirate Party, but it gives the impression that their primary purpose for existing is to support piracy of songs, software and movies, which I don't support. Their marketing department could probably use some work.
The Pirate Party is simply a reaction to unjust copyright laws. Considering the majority of lawmakers in all parties are pro-copyright and pro-copyright lobbies, the Pirate Bay wants to be as anti-copyright as possible to take down a lot of the copyright laws. A few years down the line, I can see copyright being restored but in a sane manner (until about 100 years from now when we will be in the same situation and another Pirate Party is needed to restore copyright to sanity)
Its a good computer replacement except....
A) Can't edit documents
B) No Flash
C) Requires a computer to sync with if you want music, movies, etc.
D) Requires $$$ for things that are freeware on Linux/Windows
E) Low battery life
F) Little to no software or abilities to do some basic financial things (e-file taxes, etc)
Sure, for some people it might work, but for most people, it doesn't, not in the least.
Users will never learn if they're locked in a sandbox all day.
Heck, you expect computer users today to learn??? I've had people call me because their icons in XP somehow got out of order and they couldn't function with the system because rather then actually learning what an icon is and how to read them, they knew to click the first icon down from the left for internet, and the second icon down from the right for Word. I've had people who were self-proclaimed computer "experts" who didn't know what a partition was. I've had many people do the exact thing I tell them never to do, then they blame me when what I said happened. Users don't seem to care about learning anything, and they won't. Most people don't even Google for a solution, they just call their tech-savvy friend to help them with such things as plugging in a USB cable.
Not every problem in the world is amenable to "free market" solutions. Deal with it.
I disagree, just about every single problem in the world is amendable with free market solutions, but usually the markets are not free enough. If Iran was a 100% free market economy, we wouldn't have this problem because ISPs would route around the government's servers. Problems that can't be solved with a free market solution are few and far between.
The counter point is that letting almost everyone pick this option destroys the environment EVERYONE shares,
Then create a better alternative. Whenever we have something better, cheaper, more reliable then a gas powered engine that will fit in an SUV sized car tell me, and I will buy it. Unfortunately as of May 1st, 2009, we don't. The alternatives we have are generally less reliable, require more maintenance and are a ton more expensive, plus they are tiny.
If enough people want "greener" cars, they can either pay extra or wait for the technology to become avalible to make cheap, decent, "green" cars and SUVs.
and drives up prices of gas for people that don't actually buy large cars
Um... I don't really understand your reasoning, but assuming that Mega Oil Company wants to make $5 billion in profit this year, if everyone drives cars that get 50 MPG, and drives the same amount of miles, they will have to raise oil prices in order to make that $5 billion. If everyone drives cars that get 20 MPG, they can afford to cut back the price some because there is much more demand.
So allowing things unrestricted negatively affects everyone. I suppose you could say your right to a big SUV ends at might right to breathe (cleaner) air.
That would be true, but outside most large cities, it is rather clean (at least here in the USA), and it isn't too hard to move to a pristine suburb and commute to work in your ultra-clean car.
I might agree with you if it wasn't for that fact. Get out of the larger cities and you have nearly no air pollution. If you need less work from your home in some wilderness area where there are no paved roads.
And not really listed because it isn't a desktop OS because just about 99.9999% of people with iPhones use another computer primarily.
And we all know how well the 360 ended up turning out. Lets see, drives that scratched disks, red rings of death, etc. Sure, they have fixed most of their problems now, but at the start of the 360 lifetime it was a total mess. On the other hand, the PS3 and Wii consoles had little to no issues (about the only one I can think of is that some Wii units could have a dirty optical lens because of smoke, dust, etc. that made it hard to read some dual-layer disks but that is mostly all fixed now)
I was unclear when I reffered to building another OS on top of Windows Mobile, what I meant to say is they practically have to build another OS on top of Windows Mobile with the GUI, programs, features, etc.
The difference is, MS, by nature does not really innovate, they emulate. Apple, while not 100% innovative, usually ends up taking a cutting-edge idea and comes up with a polished product.
Exactly, things always end up on a larger scale later in life. The sooner you have certain life experiences the better you are. Think about chicken pox, when you are 4 or 5 chicken pox is just a few days sick, a few oatmeal baths and some lotion, on the other hand, when you are 40, chicken pox can get you hospitalised rather quickly. Or think about drinking, the kid who drinks a bit when he is 15, throws up and then only occasionally drinks compared to the kid who is 21 and drinks enough to have alcohol poisoning because he doesn't know when to quit.
Early exposure to things almost always leads to better handling of it and less severe consequences then later in life.
And remember the Sony rootkit fiasco? That's no better or worse than something you might catch from popping a pirated CD or DVD (the ones you buy for $1 off the streets).
Except for the fact the Antivirus you paid $80 for will catch the malware that came off the CDs and DVDs but believes that the Sony Rootkit is "legitimate" and leaves it alone.
Because on Facebook, there are a multitude of ways that they can discriminate against you. Your religion, political beliefs, age, marital status, sexual preference, all are on someone's Facebook profile. Whenever someone looks at one on the basis of deciding whether or not to hire you, its easy to convince a courtroom that you were discriminated against. And it doesn't really help that these are poor economic times where a job is quite important to have and hard to come by.
Sure, but a Facebook profile, in the eyes of the masses isn't a billboard. Most people view it as a place for friends and family, similar to a house. Looking at someone's Facebook profile is (in the minds of many) equivalent to watching you in your house and listening to your conversations while you are eating dinner. Or following you and your friends to the bar and making a discussion to hire you or not based on that conversation with your friends. It is the opinion of many (including myself) that you are hired to do a certain job for certain hours (such as 9-5), by the time 5:15 rolls around, the company should have no real control or concern for you, save that you return back at 9 the next morning to do your job. Can't do the job? Then fire them. Can do the job well? Hire and keep them. This is taking micromanagement to a new level in my opinion, and while, yes, anyone can read your Facebook, that does not mean you should (or should legally be able to) make decisions on hiring/firing people based on it without prior consent (such as someone saying check Facebook for a list of projects I worked on).
Because it is one of those things that they believe they shouldn't be judged on. While most people are fine telling others what their religion is, most would be appalled if they couldn't get a job because of it. For example, this is the digital equivlent of this conversation:
Boss: What is your religion?
Guy: Well, I'm Catholic
Boss: Well, we only hire Protestants here, so you don't get the job.
In the case the guy was perfectly fine telling others what his religion was unless it would be used to judge him. Social networking is a lot like that, people don't really care that you know that they went to such and such party unless it would be used to judge them. And its becoming increasingly common and most people don't think that it is right.
While the government has done a few good things by dabbling in the private market, there are plenty of things that the government screws up in by attempting to regulate free market things. For example in order to wage the "war on drugs" they decided to make it a pain to buy decongestants, so what happens? Most changed their formula to one that doesn't hardly work in order to stay over-the-counter. Such things are things that the government should stay out of (I honestly don't care if someone can buy drugs, or use them, they don't affect me). Just look at our postal system something that due to a government-granted monopoly stays in business. How many times have you had to deal with the nightmare that is the USPS? For example, whenever the city decided to plow snow close to my mailbox (the mailbox was still easily accessible, even from the road) the mailman decided to yell at me because apparently its my fault for what the city did without my consent. Then the USPS decided to change my address not once but three times in the 10 years I have been living at my current residence. Not to mention the insane prices they charge on delivery (go on, say that the free market couldn't do better, but due to the monopoly they have on delivering letters, we won't ever know), and how many things get lost in the mail. Not to mention their taxpayer funded workers are overpaid and they think that the only way of cutting costs is to reduce the days mail is delivered (its bad enough not delivering it on Sunday).
And the government managed to screw that up without anyone's life hanging in the balance. How much more so will it be with government run healthcare? Heck! Look at the crappiness of the veterans hospitals we have now. Government involvement in healthcare ends up screwing everyone over.
Apple isn't a monopoly though, the competition just plain sucks. Ok, so there are some pretty nice MP3 players that aren't iPods, but they are few and far between, and even then many don't have the features that an iPod does, and then there's no MP3 player that comes close to the iPod Touch (aside from game/music hybrids like PSPs and the GP2x). For smart phones, Windows Mobile plain sucks (seriously, you shouldn't have random freeze ups and vendors shouldn't be forced to create another OS on top of WinMo in order to make it usable), Android, while nice and usable (and will undoubtedly be better in the long run) just doesn't have the polish of the iPhone OS in April of 2009, Symbian doesn't really excel in anything, and BlackBerry is devoid of innovation (but I can't really fault Blackberries for that, they after all are more an ultra-reliable corporate phone rather then a geek plaything).
Now while this may be funny, it actually could work in MS's favour. For example, if they can make a big enough deal about this they can perhaps persuade other, smaller vendors to pay the patent extortion money and when the patent is invalidated it really doesn't matter because MS already has the money.
Thats assuming a lot of factors. Primarily the software support on the Pre. If the Pre doesn't have a good, solid, cheap/free official application base, it won't thrive. Much like the Apple commercial says, there really is an app to do almost anything you want on the iPhone* and really, the number of good games and developers on the iPhone is really impressive, Namco, Square-Enix, Konami and a lot of others really have some decent games on there.
*That is, of course if you don't want to do things that Apple says that you can't do such as emulators, using "undocumented" features, or "obscene" applications, but that is what jailbreaking is for, right?
Exactly. In the USA there are no perfect phones. The perfect phone would be:
Full Keyboard and Captive touchscreen
Decent enough resolution camera with built-in video recording
Copy/Paste
Bluetooth Tethering
Full Bluetooth features
Built-in GPS
An OS with the ability to easily add in software from any source (and the official source must not have stupid restrictions like the app store on the iPhone)
A decent media player with all major codecs supported
Flash, and if not Flash then YouTube and other video site viewers as applications
Wi-Fi
MMS
Not painful to use browser
Standard USB port
Standard headphone jack
As of yet no phone even comes close to that. Sure, the G1 is a great phone, yet it has so many easy to fix flaws such as the lack of a standard headphone jack. The iPhone is a great phone, but it has the stupidest design issues such as the lack of basic features like MMS, copy/paste, multiple codecs for audio and video (OGG is a no brainer), lack of Flash along with usability issues such as the application "approval" process and the lack of a decent camera (with no zoom or video recording features).
So...it is censorship because Google is the only one who has the rights and you expect them to use that right the way you demand?
When its my government that gave them the exclusive rights, heck yes. This has the same effect as the government censoring books because because of the government, google has this monopoly.
So...Google pays for the bandwidth. Google pays for the storage. Google pays for the lawyers that even allow them to post *ANYTHING*...and because they don't post everything they are guilty of censorship?
Yes, I don't think you understood how this works. Google got the rights from our government has a government granted monopoly, has the rights for all these books, but won't publish them. Yes, this is in fact censorship. If the government did this directly everyone would cry foul, but because the government has let a corporation do it instead its perfectly ok? I agree, if not for the government granted monopoly this would be a non-issue, but because of the government granted monopoly this is censorship.