Relative prosperity - is that the new name for envy?
Yes and no. "Relative prosperity" is another way of saying "standard of living". There was an article a few years back talking about millionaires who were working themselves to death, because their neighborhood was full of whatever you call 10x- and 100x-millionaires. By the neighborhood standard, these millionaires were "poor". (IIRC, many moved away to areas where they didn't feel the need to try and keep up with the Hiltons).
It's the same logic that sends Americans to poorer countries for vacations - when your dollar quadruples in spending power, you suddenly feel a whole lot richer, don't you?
Also worth noting that you can be making "a living" and be legitimately pissed that the government that just cut services to you because "the country can't afford it" happily gives the cash to bankers and corporate barons who are making 100 times your wage.
Expect to see child kicked out of class due to Facebook posts.
Already happening. Fortunately the Supreme Court told the school to smeg off.
And in the "grown up" world, a person who brings a camera to any event now ruins the night as far as I'm concerned. Social web and beer doesn't mix.
Here, I'm just waiting for social mores to catch up - people drink and do stupid shit in bars. Have for centuries. Seeing a picture of a person doing stupid shit in a bar is not noteworthy. (Cringeworthy, maybe.)
If you want to cut down teacher-student nookie, a much saner solution is to stop new grads from teaching high school. (Say, enforce a 8-10 year gap between Teacher Age and Student Age).
Which brings up another important distinction (at least for me): Facebook seems to be happy to sell my details wholesale to anyone who asks for it. Google (who does know everything about me) doesn't sell the information, only the access.
Put another way: Facebook hands Site X everything about me and let's them do whatever they want with it. Google asks Site X who they want to talk to, and passes the news along. The difference is that I only have to worry about Google screwing up, rather than Facebook *and* every half-baked site they decide to hand my info to.
Google+ is a non-starter for me until/unless they stop locking out people who need to be anonymous. Facebook is too, but I never had any expectation that Facebook would do anything right -- Google, frankly, I would like to see get back to at least attempting to "do no evil."
I think they're waiting for someone to give a use case for why anonymous people need Google+ specifically.
Frankly, if you're in a position to need anonymity (as opposed to just wanting it), you should be staying off social networks in general.
If you don't enjoy mowing, but like the big outdoor space there are some alternatives.
Like a park.
No, seriously - my house doesn't have much lawn (and since we're raised three feet or so from the sidewalk, the runoff ensures it doesn't grow fast). It's enough to sit out on the patio and for my four-year-old to run around in.
But if we're looking for big outdoor space? Walk two blocks to the local school ground - all the room you could need to throw a ball around.
What these so called "Slashdot commentators" don't understand is that he's talking about blocking individuals from social networks, not blocking the social networks themselves. But why let the facts get in the way of a good YRO bullshit rant?
From TFA:
Although the Old Etonian didn't give any clue as to how he intends to block use of the likes of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry messenger - which have all been implicated in the mob's ability to stay 17 steps ahead of the cops as they turn up hours after the nation's shops and businesses have been picked clean by gangs of feral teenagers - but the only way we can see it working is if the entire cellular network is turned off in affected areas.
No, they're not talking about turning off one guy. They're talking about blacking out communications. And let's be honest - they're not going to just turn off the cell network; to do this right you'll have to kill landlines as well.
Now, let's stop and think about this - which is more likely:
1. That the police want to cut off some of the most obvious eavedropping tools available (if you can't find a mob broadcasting on Twitter, you need better cops), which at best removes easy intel, and at worst drives them to harder-to-track means of communication (walky-talkies still work, folks)
2. Cameron and the cops like the idea of being able to completely cut off an area from communication with the outside world, thus preventing any pictures or other evidence of... let's call it unfortunate activities. (Read: we can break a few heads, withdraw, and say "there's no proof the police did any of this!")
Where I think the counter to sockpuppets is in sites like Stack Exchange, where everything is based around your "reputation" (really just a score of how much you've done, and what other experienced users think of your contributions).
From a purely "let's keep the jackasses out" perspective, it works well - it beats the sock puppets by requiring them to invest enough in the system before they have access to do anything too annoying. Creating a second account when you're banned? Sure - but you have to rebuild your reputation from scratch.
The problem I see is that we're far too willing to believe 100 people we've never heard of over 10 who you can see have been around for a while.
You have a lot of people, young people, who notice that they do not have a job, have no chance to ever have one that's worth having, have no perspective and no outlook in life and essentially have no future. And their present isn't too stunning either.
Then add in the fact that they can see the same people who have the well-paying jobs and bright futures actively cutting services that might help them get a leg up. That's the rub - you get poorer while you watch the rich get richer. At some point it's not a stretch to decide that Working Within The System is not going to end well for you.
I don't break the law so I am all for it being used on everyone who does. Why aren't you?
Because they don't use it on "everyone who breaks the law". They use it on "everyone, period".
And once that false positive decides that you're the guy who robbed the LiquorMart that night, you might decide that you're not so fond of the infallable tech.
On a practical note, we spend $X on these fancy-dancy technological gizmos; why don't we spend $X on officers? Create jobs, all that good stuff.
I think it brings up a good point, though - and one that's being ignored
The argument isn't about what software Linux will support - it's supporting all the choices listed in the article already. The problem is that we're fighting over the default, and in many cases the user just doesn't care.
The email client (Thunderbird vs Evolution) is the perfect example. This is fighting to be the last dinosaur in the tar pit - Joe Average User is already on some sort of web based mail, so at this point *neither* should be the "default". Maybe put an option up during install.
The rest suffer the same thing - instead of having "Linux" to fight against "Mac" and "Windows", you have twenty different Linux flavors, and they're fighting with each other instead of against the actual competition. And when Joe User tries out Linux on a USB stick, he neither knows nor cares whether the client is Evolution and the desktop is KDE - it's just "Linux".
And oddly, I'm at the other extreme - I can easily see myself buying another desktop or tablet, but not another laptop.
If I'm at home, I want the full available horsepower, screen size, not to mention the ability to upgrade easily. Not to mention the ability to leave it running (either for calculations or downloads or whatever). That's a desktop machine. I've done the "bring laptop home, plug in various peripherals" trick in the past - it's frankly more effort than I want.
If I'm out and about, I want something light with crazy good battery life. That's a netbook or a tablet. (And I think they're really synonymous functionally - it's just a matter of whether you need/want a physical keyboard. My wife uses a Eee Netbook for writing, I have an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard for the times I need to actually type). Again, the laptop gets squeezed out - I can't do much more with it than I can with the netbook/tablet, but I get horrible battery life and huge weight in exchange.
That said, my brother swears by his laptop - but he also travels a lot (and thus his "home computer" needs to be portable). Also, considering how often he has to replace it, I think he spends as much time swearing *at* the laptop.
The default assumption should be that the user knows what he wants.
No, the default assumption from a profitability standpoint should be "let me help you with that".
It's far easier to give the smart users a way to specify that they do know what they're talking about than trying to convince the rest to switch to "dumb mode".
I think you're a bit confused. The "you're violating our patents, but we're not telling you which ones" is what is being done *to* Android.
What Google is trying is the "all your patents are stupid and won't stand up in court" line, which is still BS, but slightly better (since you can legitimately say that you think a patent is balls, but you don't want to spend the years and millions to try and invalidate it).
They could have easily joined the pool, and saved a few billion dollars, if their goal was simply to secure rights to the technology covered by those patents. Instead, they decided they'd rather own them outright, rather than share, and they lost the bidding.
You miss the point - those patents aren't what Google wants. The patents are ammunition. Right now Google is outgunned because Microsoft and Apple and whoever else can keep dragging them into court to defend against (for instance) Apple's patent on being able to dial a phone number that you received in an email. Then it can do it again, and again, and again, and again, ad nauseum.
Keep in mind that these patents are almost all entirely garbage - they exist solely to extort money out of their competition. And the big players all have enough of these players for detente - Apple can sue MS, but MS has their own arsenal to sue Apple back.
Joining the patent pool doesn't give Google anything useful, because they don't need permission; they need ammunition.
The problem is that it's not even really an anti-Google article. It's a MadLibs:
(Company) has enjoyed massive success with (product), bringing them to the top of (field) after (setback, startup, other bad news). But could it be that (new product) will be their downfall? Buy (magazine) and find out!
It reminds me of the old You Don't Know Jack ads - The Sun: Source of Life or Fiery Death? Find out tonight!
Suppose I write software in a proprietary language. Using a non-free compiler, I can build binaries -- whether they're executables or some other source language, the GPL considers them binaries. If I release the source and the binaries under the GPL, but not the compiler, I presume that this doesn't suffice for the GPL. (Ignoring the fact that there's no copyright infringement if I'm the sole author.) People can't modify the source and build new versions because they don't have the compiler.
Actually, I think that's OK - fairly sure I don't get a copy of gcc with every GPLed program I download.
I suppose there might be a problem if you release it in BobWare5 that only you own (and don't sell), but then I'd wonder what benefit *you're* getting from GPL at that point.
The big problem i see is weight the more ya got the more the fuel you use, hence this means there's gonna be a lot of very lite cars on the road, when it's 5 below 0 F,8" of snow how's an electric car weighing under 2,000 gonna handel the weather? Pray it doesn't meat a loaded 18 wheeler , because all the air bags in the world will not help.
My Echo (not electric, but certainly a small car) handles just fine in Canadian winters. Starts up no problems, drives well, and being light means you can actually push yourself out of unplowed parking lots if you need to.
Also, as someone who has worked in the trucking industry - fully loaded 18-wheeler beats pretty much everything. An extra ton of metal just means that much more metal squished into you.
Slashdot Mirror
Relative prosperity - is that the new name for envy?
Yes and no. "Relative prosperity" is another way of saying "standard of living". There was an article a few years back talking about millionaires who were working themselves to death, because their neighborhood was full of whatever you call 10x- and 100x-millionaires. By the neighborhood standard, these millionaires were "poor". (IIRC, many moved away to areas where they didn't feel the need to try and keep up with the Hiltons).
It's the same logic that sends Americans to poorer countries for vacations - when your dollar quadruples in spending power, you suddenly feel a whole lot richer, don't you?
Also worth noting that you can be making "a living" and be legitimately pissed that the government that just cut services to you because "the country can't afford it" happily gives the cash to bankers and corporate barons who are making 100 times your wage.
Expect to see child kicked out of class due to Facebook posts.
Already happening. Fortunately the Supreme Court told the school to smeg off.
And in the "grown up" world, a person who brings a camera to any event now ruins the night as far as I'm concerned. Social web and beer doesn't mix.
Here, I'm just waiting for social mores to catch up - people drink and do stupid shit in bars. Have for centuries. Seeing a picture of a person doing stupid shit in a bar is not noteworthy. (Cringeworthy, maybe.)
+1 Sanity
If you want to cut down teacher-student nookie, a much saner solution is to stop new grads from teaching high school. (Say, enforce a 8-10 year gap between Teacher Age and Student Age).
With Google same bullshit only it's in-house.
Which brings up another important distinction (at least for me): Facebook seems to be happy to sell my details wholesale to anyone who asks for it. Google (who does know everything about me) doesn't sell the information, only the access.
Put another way: Facebook hands Site X everything about me and let's them do whatever they want with it. Google asks Site X who they want to talk to, and passes the news along. The difference is that I only have to worry about Google screwing up, rather than Facebook *and* every half-baked site they decide to hand my info to.
Google+ is a non-starter for me until/unless they stop locking out people who need to be anonymous. Facebook is too, but I never had any expectation that Facebook would do anything right -- Google, frankly, I would like to see get back to at least attempting to "do no evil."
I think they're waiting for someone to give a use case for why anonymous people need Google+ specifically.
Frankly, if you're in a position to need anonymity (as opposed to just wanting it), you should be staying off social networks in general.
Can see the headline now: Police amputate protester, lays charges of carrying concealed recording device.
>
If you don't enjoy mowing, but like the big outdoor space there are some alternatives.
Like a park.
No, seriously - my house doesn't have much lawn (and since we're raised three feet or so from the sidewalk, the runoff ensures it doesn't grow fast). It's enough to sit out on the patio and for my four-year-old to run around in.
But if we're looking for big outdoor space? Walk two blocks to the local school ground - all the room you could need to throw a ball around.
What these so called "Slashdot commentators" don't understand is that he's talking about blocking individuals from social networks, not blocking the social networks themselves. But why let the facts get in the way of a good YRO bullshit rant?
From TFA:
No, they're not talking about turning off one guy. They're talking about blacking out communications. And let's be honest - they're not going to just turn off the cell network; to do this right you'll have to kill landlines as well.
Now, let's stop and think about this - which is more likely:
1. That the police want to cut off some of the most obvious eavedropping tools available (if you can't find a mob broadcasting on Twitter, you need better cops), which at best removes easy intel, and at worst drives them to harder-to-track means of communication (walky-talkies still work, folks)
2. Cameron and the cops like the idea of being able to completely cut off an area from communication with the outside world, thus preventing any pictures or other evidence of... let's call it unfortunate activities. (Read: we can break a few heads, withdraw, and say "there's no proof the police did any of this!")
Where I think the counter to sockpuppets is in sites like Stack Exchange, where everything is based around your "reputation" (really just a score of how much you've done, and what other experienced users think of your contributions).
From a purely "let's keep the jackasses out" perspective, it works well - it beats the sock puppets by requiring them to invest enough in the system before they have access to do anything too annoying. Creating a second account when you're banned? Sure - but you have to rebuild your reputation from scratch.
The problem I see is that we're far too willing to believe 100 people we've never heard of over 10 who you can see have been around for a while.
You have a lot of people, young people, who notice that they do not have a job, have no chance to ever have one that's worth having, have no perspective and no outlook in life and essentially have no future. And their present isn't too stunning either.
Then add in the fact that they can see the same people who have the well-paying jobs and bright futures actively cutting services that might help them get a leg up. That's the rub - you get poorer while you watch the rich get richer. At some point it's not a stretch to decide that Working Within The System is not going to end well for you.
I don't break the law so I am all for it being used on everyone who does. Why aren't you?
Because they don't use it on "everyone who breaks the law". They use it on "everyone, period".
And once that false positive decides that you're the guy who robbed the LiquorMart that night, you might decide that you're not so fond of the infallable tech.
On a practical note, we spend $X on these fancy-dancy technological gizmos; why don't we spend $X on officers? Create jobs, all that good stuff.
It's only a loaded term if you have a belief that vigilantism is always inherently bad.
To law enforcement, it is always bad - you're cutting into their monopoly.
I would say I'm being sarcastic, except that the cops are actually complaining about citizen groups that are defending houses and stores.
1: police ask the public to send in pictures of the riot to help identify "criminals"
2: it is astoundingly easy to make decent Photoshops these days.
3: how long before faked pictures start being submitted, showing politicians/businessmen/celebrities/enemies of the hacker at the riot scenes?
Probably a bit of both. The trick is to make them popular enough that it can't be used as "proof you were planning something".
On a lower-tech note, a nice wide-brimmed hat does a good job of obscuring your face as well. A return of the sombrero?
Now, you upgrade my car to an AI Beetle, and then we can talk.
I was more concerned about things like "Hello, your current tires do not support TURNING_LEFT. Please upgrade."
I think it brings up a good point, though - and one that's being ignored
The argument isn't about what software Linux will support - it's supporting all the choices listed in the article already. The problem is that we're fighting over the default, and in many cases the user just doesn't care.
The email client (Thunderbird vs Evolution) is the perfect example. This is fighting to be the last dinosaur in the tar pit - Joe Average User is already on some sort of web based mail, so at this point *neither* should be the "default". Maybe put an option up during install.
The rest suffer the same thing - instead of having "Linux" to fight against "Mac" and "Windows", you have twenty different Linux flavors, and they're fighting with each other instead of against the actual competition. And when Joe User tries out Linux on a USB stick, he neither knows nor cares whether the client is Evolution and the desktop is KDE - it's just "Linux".
And oddly, I'm at the other extreme - I can easily see myself buying another desktop or tablet, but not another laptop.
If I'm at home, I want the full available horsepower, screen size, not to mention the ability to upgrade easily. Not to mention the ability to leave it running (either for calculations or downloads or whatever). That's a desktop machine. I've done the "bring laptop home, plug in various peripherals" trick in the past - it's frankly more effort than I want.
If I'm out and about, I want something light with crazy good battery life. That's a netbook or a tablet. (And I think they're really synonymous functionally - it's just a matter of whether you need/want a physical keyboard. My wife uses a Eee Netbook for writing, I have an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard for the times I need to actually type). Again, the laptop gets squeezed out - I can't do much more with it than I can with the netbook/tablet, but I get horrible battery life and huge weight in exchange.
That said, my brother swears by his laptop - but he also travels a lot (and thus his "home computer" needs to be portable). Also, considering how often he has to replace it, I think he spends as much time swearing *at* the laptop.
Hey, it works for Fox News and they're rich, rich, rich!
Nah, if Fox was running this headline it would be: Google on Downturn as Growth Slows.
The default assumption should be that the user knows what he wants.
No, the default assumption from a profitability standpoint should be "let me help you with that".
It's far easier to give the smart users a way to specify that they do know what they're talking about than trying to convince the rest to switch to "dumb mode".
I think you're a bit confused. The "you're violating our patents, but we're not telling you which ones" is what is being done *to* Android.
What Google is trying is the "all your patents are stupid and won't stand up in court" line, which is still BS, but slightly better (since you can legitimately say that you think a patent is balls, but you don't want to spend the years and millions to try and invalidate it).
They could have easily joined the pool, and saved a few billion dollars, if their goal was simply to secure rights to the technology covered by those patents. Instead, they decided they'd rather own them outright, rather than share, and they lost the bidding.
You miss the point - those patents aren't what Google wants. The patents are ammunition. Right now Google is outgunned because Microsoft and Apple and whoever else can keep dragging them into court to defend against (for instance) Apple's patent on being able to dial a phone number that you received in an email. Then it can do it again, and again, and again, and again, ad nauseum.
Keep in mind that these patents are almost all entirely garbage - they exist solely to extort money out of their competition. And the big players all have enough of these players for detente - Apple can sue MS, but MS has their own arsenal to sue Apple back.
Joining the patent pool doesn't give Google anything useful, because they don't need permission; they need ammunition.
The problem is that it's not even really an anti-Google article. It's a MadLibs:
(Company) has enjoyed massive success with (product), bringing them to the top of (field) after (setback, startup, other bad news). But could it be that (new product) will be their downfall? Buy (magazine) and find out!
It reminds me of the old You Don't Know Jack ads - The Sun: Source of Life or Fiery Death? Find out tonight!
Suppose I write software in a proprietary language. Using a non-free compiler, I can build binaries -- whether they're executables or some other source language, the GPL considers them binaries. If I release the source and the binaries under the GPL, but not the compiler, I presume that this doesn't suffice for the GPL. (Ignoring the fact that there's no copyright infringement if I'm the sole author.) People can't modify the source and build new versions because they don't have the compiler.
Actually, I think that's OK - fairly sure I don't get a copy of gcc with every GPLed program I download.
I suppose there might be a problem if you release it in BobWare5 that only you own (and don't sell), but then I'd wonder what benefit *you're* getting from GPL at that point.
The big problem i see is weight the more ya got the more the fuel you use, hence this means there's gonna be a lot of very lite cars on the road, when it's 5 below 0 F,8" of snow how's an electric car weighing under 2,000 gonna handel the weather? Pray it doesn't meat a loaded 18 wheeler , because all the air bags in the world will not help.
My Echo (not electric, but certainly a small car) handles just fine in Canadian winters. Starts up no problems, drives well, and being light means you can actually push yourself out of unplowed parking lots if you need to.
Also, as someone who has worked in the trucking industry - fully loaded 18-wheeler beats pretty much everything. An extra ton of metal just means that much more metal squished into you.