And you wonder why European countries lost their power and influence? Whatever happened to the famed hard work ethic of European countries (well, except France)?
Well, actually it looks like I can answer my own question - that hard work ethic was legislated away by laws preventing people from needing to put out real effort (such as the ridiculous labor laws that make it virtually impossible to fire a bad employee).
You've obviously never worked at a large company. While those things may be valuable to a small business, but unless you're one of the executives at a large business, a large business doesn't care about your views (so rhetoric is out) and they definitely do not like logic, because then you'll realize what utter morons the people in management are.
Real government for the people is there to put up regulation that increases competition. That is exactly what is and has always been the norm in the EU.
Really? You mean like the EU law that states that any job (unless in extreme circumstances) MUST be given to an EU citizen, regardless of if a non-EU citizen wanting to move to the EU is higher qualified? Yea, that really increases competition. That's why it pisses me off when people from Europe complain about Americans wanting to get rid of illegal aliens - the EU is so horribly xenophobic and anti-immigration, yet they have the nerve to tell the US that they should just let illegals run rampant.
In the past ten years, for me, the cost has remained static in absolute terms (which actually declining in real terms) *and* the product has been increased by a factor of 10. What else do I buy that's anywhere near that good? Can I buy 10x food I used to for the same money as 10 years ago? Energy? Clothes?
How does government involvement improve on this?
Whoa whoa whoa, this is Slashdot! You can't just use your fancy "facts" to disprove the need for government control of everything! Don't you read your daily readings from the Ministry of Truth? Government is good and profit is bad!
I'm quite a big fan of philosophy, but if you're looking for a degree to help your career (as the submitter is), then stay far, far away from the philosophy department. The fact of the matter is that, while it's interesting, it doesn't teach any skills that a business finds worthwhile.
He called on the government to devote time and resources to making sure Americans have the broadband access they need to stay competitive in the 21st century global economy.
That's true, but many (possibly all?) of those countries subsidize their ISP through tax dollars to get lower rates - so you're still paying for it, it's just that the monthly bill the ISP sends you is lower but the amount the government takes out of your paycheck is higher.
Has anyone ever done a study of the real cost of internet in countries where it's partially funded by taxes? Then you'd have more accurate numbers for a comparison.
But how sustainable is the current paradigm? . I'm asking a sincere question, as the journalists really do have to get paid eventually.
The problem is that right now, there are too many newspapers and too many "journalists". The overwhelming majority of news is the same, regardless of which reporter writes it or which paper / news site you get it from. The ones that actually offer something more than just the same news 1,000 other people are offering will stay in business and many of the other papers that have nothing unique will close. As the ones who don't offer anything unique shut down, more people will go to the sources offering something worthwhile, which means more ad revenue for them.
If you want a very easy and relevant example, read slashdot, lifehacker, gizmodo, and engadget - 95% of the articles are identical on each site, so if one site starts charging, people will just move to one of the others (who will then get more ad revenue).
Except the bailouts to companies like GM weren't about number of employees, but about the fact that they were union employees. If I'm not mistaken, most people in the music industry are part of some type of union, and as such, matter much more to politicians than us peasants.
Wow, pull your head out of Skype's ass for a second and think about it. How does "temporarily reducing" the number of people using Skype on Fring equate to Fring eliminating it entirely, hm? That's right - it doesn't.
Fring is free (as in beer) and has nothing to gain by cutting off Skype support and lying about it. Skype on the other hand is a for profit company and has plenty of reasons to lie about cutting off Fring.
Skype cut them off entirely" is NOT a "fact" as you so claim -- it is an unproven accusation, one that Skype totally rejects.
Yes, because guilty people (or companies) are always so eager to admit to being guilty. Oh, and since apparently you have a really hard time with basic reasoning, I should point out that I was being sarcastic there.
Skype firmly claims the direct opposite of this accusation. Not a downplaying like "they were using functionality that was not supported", but a firm denial, "they removed their support THEMSELVES". Again, I'd rather believe them than you.
Yes, Fring just decided to remove one of it's biggest features and piss off it's entire user base (probably killing off it's user base)for no reason. Which is more likely - a company willingly choosing to self-destruct, or another company sabotaging them and then lying about it?
Fring is a program that lets you connect to other chat clients (IM or video) - it's no different than the countless other multi-client chat programs out there except that this one also included Skype and you could do video calls from a phone to Skype. It's been around for quite awhile, yet it was never an issue until now, when Fring has more features than Skype for iPhone - then all of the sudden Skype bans them.
Fring was the app that would make it easy for everyone to video chat, regardless of what client or hardware they were using. That's not possible now. Nice going, Skype assholes. Society suffers just because you can't accept that your programmers suck.
.Ok, so what do -you- think we should be sending the third world? $999 Macbooks? $300 Celeron 900 cheap laptops? A $1,200 Core i7 notebook?
*puts on flame retardant suit*
Honestly? I think we should send the third world some papers explaining why their constant violence and lack of everyone being held accountable by the law keeps them from being able to move up, no matter how much technology they get.
If they just cut the constant violence and crime, companies would start building factories there and would start bringing technology with them. No sane company is going to build a new factory in the middle of a war zone.
People have to check to see if they meet requirements? I haven't done that since.....'98 when I started building my own computers. I've never had the $5,000 top of the line gaming systems - they're reasonably priced ($500-$700) and they're good enough to run any game on the market for at least four years. Drop down another $100 on a new video card and it's good to go for at least another two years.
The only reason why it's an "issue" is that too many companies push crap video cards in their systems just to make the price another $50 less. Part of that could probably be fixed by having somewhat honest salesmen (go ahead a laugh at the thought, I laughed while typing "honest salesmen") who just say "If you want to play games, the video card on this thing isn't going to cut it - you'll need to get a system with a better card. On the other hand, video cards are becoming so obscenely over-powered now that even crappy low end cards should be good enough to play a lot of games out there.
I'm sorry that you've had issues with your computers that caused you to go console only. Each controller system has it's own merit (though you can use gamepads on a PC) depending on what type of game is being played. Also, I don't know about you, but I don't have unlimited finances, and as such, it's hard to justify $2,500+ in console hardware alone (all three consoles plus four controllers for each) as opposed to $700-ish for a PC that games and does everything else that a PC does.
I really think that most console-only gamers would change their mind if they just knew more about a PC....(and no, I don't mean change their mind as in become PC-only gamers, I mean change against their hatred of PC gaming).
He also owns the words "George", "Lucas", "license" and "word". That means you owe him $1 million in royalties for using those four words in your post.
"These references make it clear that the public is being led to believe that the Pro Arctic Laser is an official lightsaber device and/or copied from our design," the Lucasfilm letter said.
Which is blatantly false. The company never tries to claim that their laser is a "lightsaber", nor do they ever make any comparisons to one. It's all people OUTSIDE of the company seeing that it's a high powered laser that looks futuristic and going "Dude, it's a frakkin lightsaber!!"
Wow, way to do a very bad job of reading the summary (let alone RTFA). Monsanto is NOT trying to label people who are picky eaters as having a psychiatric disorder, it's a group of Psychiatrists who are wanting to label picky eaters as having a disorder.
Just remember though, you're dead no matter what you eat - might as well eat what tastes good and / or is cheap.
That's why I don't understand the people who say "Don't do X, it's bad for you!" - you're not getting out of life alive, so you might as well enjoy yourself while you can.
But everything is wrapped in DRM these days, and wishing that it wasn't so is not going to change the world. Sure, we could start boycotting and lobbying and whatever else... But the fact of the matter is that DRM is a part of the game industry these days.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. If being wrong was a felony offense, you'd be sentenced to thirty consecutive life sentences for how wrong you are. Not everything uses DRM - I don't buy any games with DRM and yet I still find plenty of great (and popular) games to play. DRM is only used by the asshole companies that normally (but not always) make crappy games. The fact that you think that people should just stop caring about their rights to the property they purchase and just take it up the ass is exactly what's wrong with people these days.
People get on Slashdot, and I wouldn't be surprised if you yourself do this, and cry about the "evil companies" and how they screw people over, yet you gladly line up to take it in the ass from companies using DRM to give you an inferior gaming experience at a higher cost just because you might have to actually have some principles and say "No, I'm not buying Bioshock because it has DRM" and "give up" (like you're actually losing anything) playing that game. Playing the latest "Cool New Game 3" is not a need and you are in no way harmed by not playing it because you refuse to support unjust practices by companies.
If for some reason you feel that you have to play Cool New Game 3, despite it's DRM, then buy it used for a console. That way you still get the game, but the asshole company that put the DRM in there won't get a cent.
Sorry, but there's no such thing as "DRM done right". All DRM takes away your rights to use the game in some way, and as such, I'll never touch a game with DRM.
Sure, Steam may be better than other forms of DRM, but Valve is still in control of your games. Just read the TOS - if they go out of business / decide to stop hosting a particular game / cancel your account for whatever reason they state that they MIGHT give you a refund or MIGHT give you a non-Steam version of the game, but they don't guarantee it. That's why I won't use Steam - because another party is in complete control of my access to my games. If they ever go out of business (and don't use the BS "that'll never happen!" line - plenty of companies have gone bust that people thought were invincible), then you lose all of your games.
Slashdot Mirror
Job market is not a place to foster competition
And you wonder why European countries lost their power and influence? Whatever happened to the famed hard work ethic of European countries (well, except France)?
Well, actually it looks like I can answer my own question - that hard work ethic was legislated away by laws preventing people from needing to put out real effort (such as the ridiculous labor laws that make it virtually impossible to fire a bad employee).
You've obviously never worked at a large company. While those things may be valuable to a small business, but unless you're one of the executives at a large business, a large business doesn't care about your views (so rhetoric is out) and they definitely do not like logic, because then you'll realize what utter morons the people in management are.
Real government for the people is there to put up regulation that increases competition. That is exactly what is and has always been the norm in the EU.
Really? You mean like the EU law that states that any job (unless in extreme circumstances) MUST be given to an EU citizen, regardless of if a non-EU citizen wanting to move to the EU is higher qualified? Yea, that really increases competition. That's why it pisses me off when people from Europe complain about Americans wanting to get rid of illegal aliens - the EU is so horribly xenophobic and anti-immigration, yet they have the nerve to tell the US that they should just let illegals run rampant.
In the past ten years, for me, the cost has remained static in absolute terms (which actually declining in real terms) *and* the product has been increased by a factor of 10. What else do I buy that's anywhere near that good? Can I buy 10x food I used to for the same money as 10 years ago? Energy? Clothes?
How does government involvement improve on this?
Whoa whoa whoa, this is Slashdot! You can't just use your fancy "facts" to disprove the need for government control of everything! Don't you read your daily readings from the Ministry of Truth? Government is good and profit is bad!
I'm quite a big fan of philosophy, but if you're looking for a degree to help your career (as the submitter is), then stay far, far away from the philosophy department. The fact of the matter is that, while it's interesting, it doesn't teach any skills that a business finds worthwhile.
It's "obligatory" because the guy mentioned "X in a plane".
And no, I've never seen the movie because it looked like crap - yet that line is still so well known, which reinforces why it's obligatory.
He called on the government to devote time and resources to making sure Americans have the broadband access they need to stay competitive in the 21st century global economy.
That's true, but many (possibly all?) of those countries subsidize their ISP through tax dollars to get lower rates - so you're still paying for it, it's just that the monthly bill the ISP sends you is lower but the amount the government takes out of your paycheck is higher.
Has anyone ever done a study of the real cost of internet in countries where it's partially funded by taxes? Then you'd have more accurate numbers for a comparison.
.......and the typos there are exactly why you shouldn't post when you only have 2 hours of sleep.......
I can think of plenty of situations:
- LAN party in a plane/quote>
I'm tired of all these mother fucking LAN parties on this mother fucking plane!
But how sustainable is the current paradigm? . I'm asking a sincere question, as the journalists really do have to get paid eventually.
The problem is that right now, there are too many newspapers and too many "journalists". The overwhelming majority of news is the same, regardless of which reporter writes it or which paper / news site you get it from. The ones that actually offer something more than just the same news 1,000 other people are offering will stay in business and many of the other papers that have nothing unique will close. As the ones who don't offer anything unique shut down, more people will go to the sources offering something worthwhile, which means more ad revenue for them.
If you want a very easy and relevant example, read slashdot, lifehacker, gizmodo, and engadget - 95% of the articles are identical on each site, so if one site starts charging, people will just move to one of the others (who will then get more ad revenue).
Except the bailouts to companies like GM weren't about number of employees, but about the fact that they were union employees. If I'm not mistaken, most people in the music industry are part of some type of union, and as such, matter much more to politicians than us peasants.
Wow, pull your head out of Skype's ass for a second and think about it. How does "temporarily reducing" the number of people using Skype on Fring equate to Fring eliminating it entirely, hm? That's right - it doesn't.
Fring is free (as in beer) and has nothing to gain by cutting off Skype support and lying about it. Skype on the other hand is a for profit company and has plenty of reasons to lie about cutting off Fring.
Skype cut them off entirely" is NOT a "fact" as you so claim -- it is an unproven accusation, one that Skype totally rejects.
Yes, because guilty people (or companies) are always so eager to admit to being guilty. Oh, and since apparently you have a really hard time with basic reasoning, I should point out that I was being sarcastic there.
Except that, if you read more, you'd know that Fring temporarily limited Skype use - then Skype cut it off entirely.
THAT is what the ruckus is about - the fact that Skype cut them off entirely.
Skype firmly claims the direct opposite of this accusation. Not a downplaying like "they were using functionality that was not supported", but a firm denial, "they removed their support THEMSELVES". Again, I'd rather believe them than you.
Yes, Fring just decided to remove one of it's biggest features and piss off it's entire user base (probably killing off it's user base)for no reason. Which is more likely - a company willingly choosing to self-destruct, or another company sabotaging them and then lying about it?
Use a little common sense here...
Fring is a program that lets you connect to other chat clients (IM or video) - it's no different than the countless other multi-client chat programs out there except that this one also included Skype and you could do video calls from a phone to Skype. It's been around for quite awhile, yet it was never an issue until now, when Fring has more features than Skype for iPhone - then all of the sudden Skype bans them.
Fring was the app that would make it easy for everyone to video chat, regardless of what client or hardware they were using. That's not possible now. Nice going, Skype assholes. Society suffers just because you can't accept that your programmers suck.
.Ok, so what do -you- think we should be sending the third world? $999 Macbooks? $300 Celeron 900 cheap laptops? A $1,200 Core i7 notebook?
*puts on flame retardant suit*
Honestly? I think we should send the third world some papers explaining why their constant violence and lack of everyone being held accountable by the law keeps them from being able to move up, no matter how much technology they get.
If they just cut the constant violence and crime, companies would start building factories there and would start bringing technology with them. No sane company is going to build a new factory in the middle of a war zone.
People have to check to see if they meet requirements? I haven't done that since.....'98 when I started building my own computers. I've never had the $5,000 top of the line gaming systems - they're reasonably priced ($500-$700) and they're good enough to run any game on the market for at least four years. Drop down another $100 on a new video card and it's good to go for at least another two years.
The only reason why it's an "issue" is that too many companies push crap video cards in their systems just to make the price another $50 less. Part of that could probably be fixed by having somewhat honest salesmen (go ahead a laugh at the thought, I laughed while typing "honest salesmen") who just say "If you want to play games, the video card on this thing isn't going to cut it - you'll need to get a system with a better card. On the other hand, video cards are becoming so obscenely over-powered now that even crappy low end cards should be good enough to play a lot of games out there.
I'm sorry that you've had issues with your computers that caused you to go console only. Each controller system has it's own merit (though you can use gamepads on a PC) depending on what type of game is being played. Also, I don't know about you, but I don't have unlimited finances, and as such, it's hard to justify $2,500+ in console hardware alone (all three consoles plus four controllers for each) as opposed to $700-ish for a PC that games and does everything else that a PC does.
I really think that most console-only gamers would change their mind if they just knew more about a PC....(and no, I don't mean change their mind as in become PC-only gamers, I mean change against their hatred of PC gaming).
He also owns the words "George", "Lucas", "license" and "word". That means you owe him $1 million in royalties for using those four words in your post.
Crap....I used them too...
"These references make it clear that the public is being led to believe that the Pro Arctic Laser is an official lightsaber device and/or copied from our design," the Lucasfilm letter said.
Which is blatantly false. The company never tries to claim that their laser is a "lightsaber", nor do they ever make any comparisons to one. It's all people OUTSIDE of the company seeing that it's a high powered laser that looks futuristic and going "Dude, it's a frakkin lightsaber!!"
I think George is heading down the path of the Dark Side....
Heading down? I guess you didn't see episodes 1-3. Clearly they were part of his dark plan to bring pain and suffering to the galaxy.
Wow, way to do a very bad job of reading the summary (let alone RTFA). Monsanto is NOT trying to label people who are picky eaters as having a psychiatric disorder, it's a group of Psychiatrists who are wanting to label picky eaters as having a disorder.
Just remember though, you're dead no matter what you eat - might as well eat what tastes good and / or is cheap.
That's why I don't understand the people who say "Don't do X, it's bad for you!" - you're not getting out of life alive, so you might as well enjoy yourself while you can.
Thank you, Dr. Sheldon Cooper.
But everything is wrapped in DRM these days, and wishing that it wasn't so is not going to change the world. Sure, we could start boycotting and lobbying and whatever else... But the fact of the matter is that DRM is a part of the game industry these days.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. If being wrong was a felony offense, you'd be sentenced to thirty consecutive life sentences for how wrong you are. Not everything uses DRM - I don't buy any games with DRM and yet I still find plenty of great (and popular) games to play. DRM is only used by the asshole companies that normally (but not always) make crappy games. The fact that you think that people should just stop caring about their rights to the property they purchase and just take it up the ass is exactly what's wrong with people these days.
People get on Slashdot, and I wouldn't be surprised if you yourself do this, and cry about the "evil companies" and how they screw people over, yet you gladly line up to take it in the ass from companies using DRM to give you an inferior gaming experience at a higher cost just because you might have to actually have some principles and say "No, I'm not buying Bioshock because it has DRM" and "give up" (like you're actually losing anything) playing that game. Playing the latest "Cool New Game 3" is not a need and you are in no way harmed by not playing it because you refuse to support unjust practices by companies.
If for some reason you feel that you have to play Cool New Game 3, despite it's DRM, then buy it used for a console. That way you still get the game, but the asshole company that put the DRM in there won't get a cent.
Steam is DRM done right
Sorry, but there's no such thing as "DRM done right". All DRM takes away your rights to use the game in some way, and as such, I'll never touch a game with DRM.
Sure, Steam may be better than other forms of DRM, but Valve is still in control of your games. Just read the TOS - if they go out of business / decide to stop hosting a particular game / cancel your account for whatever reason they state that they MIGHT give you a refund or MIGHT give you a non-Steam version of the game, but they don't guarantee it. That's why I won't use Steam - because another party is in complete control of my access to my games. If they ever go out of business (and don't use the BS "that'll never happen!" line - plenty of companies have gone bust that people thought were invincible), then you lose all of your games.