Look, I don't care if you're playing Minesweeper during the lecture. If I were a professor, I wouldn't care either. It's your education. I don't understand why you bothered showing up---personally, if I'm really interested in writing comments on Slashdot, I just skip class, and I stopped bringing my laptop to class a long time ago because of the easy distraction it provides. So bring one, don't bring one, whatever. Some people actually do use them to take notes or do academically relevant things. (Not very many, but some.) All I ask is that if you do bring a laptop, try to sit in one of the back rows so that the people behind you aren't tempted to go, "Oooh, shiny!" every time you knock a few rows off in Tetris.
Banning the use of laptops is draconian. Having a class policy of sending the laptop-users to the back row is a courtesy for the rest of the class. I think that's the rule of thumb instructors should adopt.
You know, I don't really care if my classmates are checking their friends' status updates, playing Tetris, or chatting on AIM. I usually sit near the middle or back of the class, though, and someone's ZSNES can become a bit distracting at times. I stopped bringing my laptop to class precisely for the reason that Minesweeper was too easy of a distraction. I don't really understand the point of going to class if you're not going to be focused on the lecture, but to each his own. I don't think laptops should be banned---occasionally someone will actually use one for a real academic purpose, and I've known people with disabilities who can only take proper notes with their MacBook---but I do think, as a common courtesy, that if you do bring a laptop, you should try to sit as near to the back of the classroom as possible, just so that you're not distracting the people behind you.
If I were teaching a college class, that would certainly be my policy: "I don't care if you play Farmville during the lecture, it's your education, but please, if you have a laptop, try to sit in the back row."
Drag the entire EU with it? If you're going to try to get a government to investigate this stuff, the German government is probably the best place to start. One, because US courts, even if they could, aren't going to do shit. Two, because Germany, besides being an important and relatively large country in its own right, really is the big dog in the EU.
You know, I just got finished telling a bunch of uber-conservative nitwits that only half-literate idiots use terms like "leftist".
I don't really want to jump into this argument, but generally the problem with uber-conservative nitwits isn't that they use terms like "leftist," it's that they misapply, or over-apply them. Specifically, a liberal, even of the welfare-state capitalist variety, isn't really a leftist. But it's appropriate to use the term for guys like Che Guevara or a large portion of whoever is out in the South American jungles at any given point in time. (I would add, "and isn't a drug cartel," but groups like Shining Path and FARC really are both.)
I don't think Iraq is the model you're looking for. Iraq's democracy is questionable at best. How about looking at Japan, Germany, and Italy as the counterexamples? (All three of which had a history of democratic institutions, although Japan's was considerably more limited than the other two.)
I have long subscribed to the notion that sometime in the 21st century, we will see "holistic" tech support. Your computer has bad chakras. We must induce it towards happiness with healing jingling orbs.
It's the natural result of increasingly complex technology, coupled with a large number of people, even in the West, who still believe in magic.
Linux is better than Windows, and people will eventually demand open-source. But people don't care about open-source, they don't have time for all that geek stuff, they just care that they can check their email.
By the way, it's GNU/Linux, because it's the GNU system that Linux Torvalds hacked to add his kernel onto, not the other way around. But, nobody cares about that stuff, how many syllables can you muster in a name?
The GPL is a viral piece of software. I get the freedom thing, but it seems like if your software were really free, people would be able to use it as they wish---including in a commercial product. But freedom isn't free, we're well within our rights to exercise certain restrictions over our code, and those are to promote freedom.
Google is a brilliant and inspiring company. Google is an insidious Big Brother.
Apple makes superior products. that are overpriced, locked-down crap that I wouldn't give to my retarded dog.
People who say that Barack Obama is a socialist don't know what socialism means, but Barack Obama is a socialist.
Microsoft is greedy and imperialistic. (Nobody argues with this one on Slashdot.)
Usually it will work. However, if you're whoring for a "Funny" mod, I can't help you, though, because I think that was friggin hilarious, and nobody else will think so.
Another thing that often works is to express a popular point of view as if it's an unpopular point of view. For instance, "I know I'll get modded down for this, but I think teddy bears are soft and cuddly."
There are some nice buildings in central Pyongyang. I like the blue roofs you see on a number of them. On the other hand, maybe that' just because everything else in the city, except the trees, is a kind of washed-out gray.
Of course, most of the houses look like prison colonies. Makes me think of the houses in "A Wrinkle in Time," with all of the kids in the front yards bouncing their balls in unision....
By far, the roads are the creepiest part. Like the entire city was hit by a neutron bomb, and was left standing, as a skeleton of the civilization that once lived there.
That's not particularly opaque, especially not compared with the French stuff, or even most of the other German stuff you passed over. Try Heidegger sometime. (IMHO, a complete tool. States fairly inane things like, "being is defined by its opposition to not-being" and then blames language itself for not properly conveying the subtleties of his meaning. Also, a Nazi.)
Netflix doesn't open source its client. This is not something that they control. They have various deals with various content providers that stipulate that they use DRM in their streaming solution. If they made an open-source client, it would defeat the purpose of the DRM. (Yes, DRM doesn't work and blah blah blah, but this is a business requirement, not a technical requirement. If you want to get mad at them about it, get mad at Hollywood instead.)
AFAIK, Netflix generally doesn't implement its own DRM, but instead uses the DRM from whatever platform they distribute on. The do have a "Linux" version if you count Android, but the company has claimed that they've had difficulty using it due to platform fragmentation and because it doesn't implement all of the features they need to satisfy their studio agreements. They've said they have to develop for one device at a time.
And that's with Android's libraries. So when you're asking for a Linux client for Netflix, you're not just asking for a port of their Windows or Mac clients, you're asking them to spend a lot of extra dollars to develop a closed-source DRM solution for a small market that hates DRM (and closed-sourced, to a lesser extent). Where is the sense in that? If Netflix did make a Linux client, submitters would be crawling on top of each other screaming, "Netflix Trying to Destroy Linux With Evil Client From Hell."
On the other hand, it's nice that they contribute to other projects.
In the specific case, Omega wins, because they had won in the lower court.
However, this case doesn't have any precedential value going forward. It's basically a pass, the legal issues involved have not been decided by SCOTUS. The justices did not even write down their reasons, or say who voted which way. The judgment was literally something like, "We're split 50-50, so we're not deciding anything, whatever Ninth Circuit said is what we're going with, peace out." If another case exactly like this one reaches the Supreme Court next year, then assuming Kagan doesn't recuse herself again, we'll get a real decision. All we can really say about that is that it will probably be a 5-4 decision either way, since the justices are split 4-4 without Kagan.
Not if you stood outside a McDonald's and bought them the hamburger personally. Most people would feel like they owed you, even if it was only a hamburger, and feel bad if they were dishonest about it. Like, all you wanted to do was buy them a hamburger, it's the least they can do!
Put it on a sign-up sheet, you know? Makes it look less seedy.
Of course I'm one to talk...I would lie. (And I have, in exactly that situation, except with better sandwiches.) Maybe not about my name. But everything else, yeah.
Are they criminals? If this were a small group of people with a large botnet of virus-ridden machines doing the attack, I'm sure there would be no question. In this case, IANAL, but it seems like it would be difficult to convict someone of the "crime" of making numerous requests from their home computer, even if there are a whole lot of people doing the same thing. If Slashdot links to a page on my puny home server (on a residential connection with terrible upload), even if they know I'm not prepared for it, does the FBI really need to haul CmdrTaco's ass off to jail?
Wikileaks Targets USDA New York Times Staff Writer
Fresh off the release of thousands of private State Department diplomatic cables, Wikileaks has announced that it has obtained over 35,000 confidential records from the US Department of Agriculture. According to spokesman Julian Assange, Wikileaks has been reviewing the documents for the past several months, and intends to release them on Sunday, following the Superbowl halftime commercial break. Assange, who has recently battled charges of sexual assault in Sweden, pedophilia in Britain, adultery in Saudi Arabia, male prostitution in Sri Lanka, public masturbation in Mozambique, and felony jaywalking in Turkmenistan, claims that these new leaks are "among the most important we've ever released."
The New York Times received advance copies of the leaked documents from a third party. From a preliminary review of the documents, here are some highlights:
* In November of 2009, a USDA investigator discovered that despite advertising claims, the ingredients of Snapple's chilled tea beverages were not, in fact, "the best stuff on Earth." The USDA pressured Snapple to improve the quality of its ingredients,
* Investigators discovered in June 2010 that a cattle ranch in Chugwater, Wyoming did not have any signs of mad cow disease, despite neighbors' claims that, "Ol' Bill cows make crazy, crazy good barbeque."
* In the minutes from private discussions, Secretary of Agricultre Tom Vilsack is on the record as saying, "Man, that Lindsay Lohan is too skinny. Way too skinny. She's drinking slim milk, she should be dirnking 2%." Key officials alleged that the white "mustache" below Ms. Lohan's nose was not, in fact, milk.
Although the source for the leak is not known, analysts suspect that Wikileaks obtained the documents when a team of hackers, operating out of a suburban basement filled with toy miniatures and Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks, was able to break into the USDA's cloud hosting service. The service, which is maintained by Microsoft, is reported to have suffered from a fatal security vulnerability when all of its servers simultaneously crashed with a "blue screen of death."
The government has already issued a release to all federal employees stating that, "these documents are not to be read during work hours" and that they remain confidential, despite the fact that they are no longer confidential.
The Justice Department would not make any official statements on the new leak, claiming that it is "part of an ongoing federal investigation that we're serious about, no, really, we're not kidding around, we're actually serious, please stop laughing." However, a source from within the Justice Department, who spoke under condition of anonymity, said that, "We will [expletive] murder Julian Assange. We will slice his [expletive] neck open and drink his blood to give us power over our enemies. Then we're gonna drag his corpse into the office, and beat it with out [expletives] like a pinata, and [expletive] on it. Whoever [expletives] last has to buy a round of drinks for the rest of the guys."
Said Assange, "With this release, we come ever closer to overthrowing the despotic American government and its unjust, tyrannical, wicked form of mixed capitalism and representative democracy. The people shall rise up against the machine, and at last seize the means of production! The revolution is nigh, dear comrades, for victory will come to those who spread Truth to the masses! Death to America! Death to Smoochy! AI-YEEE!!!"
What would have happened if americans would have just left the peninsula alone?
Here's my stab at it:
It would still be ruled by the Japanese? Doubtful. More likely, the Russians would have taken it and there would be no North Korea or South Korea, just one Korea that was governed by the Soviet satellites who were governing North Korea at the time (the DPRK). Or if you want to say, "Well, that was WWII, that doesn't count," it would have been a unified Korea under DPRK control sometime after 1950, when the North invaded the South.
It would have been a Soviet/Chinese satellite, at least at the beginning. With the Sino-Soviet split, it probably would have picked one over the other, I would guess the Chinese, as North Korea did in real history.
Would it have really been a one-nation North Korea? Probably, at least at the beginning. There's the question of whether the United States, in this alternate history, would have given up on the whole "Cold War" thing, and its non-involvement in the Korean Peninsula was part of a general strategy of...not doing anything. In that case, all of Asia would likely be Communist. Not a very believable scenario given the past 60 years of history. So let's say that the US fought the Cold War, and won, but for some reason never got involved in Korea, which would, as I've said, entirely under DPRK control.
I can't say whether or not things in alternate-history "big" DPRK would be as bad as they are now in real North Korea. They might well be, if the same sort of people were involved; if a Kim Il-Sun took power subsequently. But, you know, the butterfly effect. Maybe it would not have militarized to the point it did in the absence of paranoia about the South. Maybe it would have anyway, as a method of maintaining control, and with an eye on Japan, and it seems likely that the Chinese and Russians would still be interested. The economy would probably be depressed, but if it made attempts at outreach and trade (and I can't see why, in real history the DPRK seems to have abandoned such notions) then the best it could hope for would be to be another Vietnam, a minor outsourcer for the Chinese for all the stuff that even Chinese firms think could be outsourced.
So best case scenario is that Korea would be modern-day Vietnam, worst-case is that Korea would be modern-day North Korea. And there would be no Korean Starcraft Superstars, that's for sure.
Addendum: existing rights to stars' likenesses held by the major movie studios will be grandfathered in as applying indefinitely. We're just talking about newly dead stars, who may have signed their contracts with knowledge of this technology.
If everything is so peachy when you "just use the browser," then why have apps (or an app store) in the first place? Could it be that iPad apps provide services or user experiences that web pages (with or without HTML5 or Flash) don't?
You know, I'll be the first to say that Apple doesn't have to sell any apps in its store that it doesn't want to. If they're not interested in taking their cut from nudie pic apps (or nudie streaming video apps, or h-games, or what-have-you, the Next Big Thing in Porn), then that's their prerogative. But to say that there is only One True Retailer for apps, and that jailbreaking is against their Terms of Service, well, that's what stinks to high heaven.
I agree, but I think I wrote that poorly. What I meant to say was that "they don't see what they're doing as illegal" is a different statement from "they don't see what they're doing as immoral." And that the latter was the applicable clause.
Slashdot Mirror
Look, I don't care if you're playing Minesweeper during the lecture. If I were a professor, I wouldn't care either. It's your education. I don't understand why you bothered showing up---personally, if I'm really interested in writing comments on Slashdot, I just skip class, and I stopped bringing my laptop to class a long time ago because of the easy distraction it provides. So bring one, don't bring one, whatever. Some people actually do use them to take notes or do academically relevant things. (Not very many, but some.) All I ask is that if you do bring a laptop, try to sit in one of the back rows so that the people behind you aren't tempted to go, "Oooh, shiny!" every time you knock a few rows off in Tetris.
Banning the use of laptops is draconian. Having a class policy of sending the laptop-users to the back row is a courtesy for the rest of the class. I think that's the rule of thumb instructors should adopt.
You know, I don't really care if my classmates are checking their friends' status updates, playing Tetris, or chatting on AIM. I usually sit near the middle or back of the class, though, and someone's ZSNES can become a bit distracting at times. I stopped bringing my laptop to class precisely for the reason that Minesweeper was too easy of a distraction. I don't really understand the point of going to class if you're not going to be focused on the lecture, but to each his own. I don't think laptops should be banned---occasionally someone will actually use one for a real academic purpose, and I've known people with disabilities who can only take proper notes with their MacBook---but I do think, as a common courtesy, that if you do bring a laptop, you should try to sit as near to the back of the classroom as possible, just so that you're not distracting the people behind you.
If I were teaching a college class, that would certainly be my policy: "I don't care if you play Farmville during the lecture, it's your education, but please, if you have a laptop, try to sit in the back row."
Drag the entire EU with it? If you're going to try to get a government to investigate this stuff, the German government is probably the best place to start. One, because US courts, even if they could, aren't going to do shit. Two, because Germany, besides being an important and relatively large country in its own right, really is the big dog in the EU.
You know, I just got finished telling a bunch of uber-conservative nitwits that only half-literate idiots use terms like "leftist".
I don't really want to jump into this argument, but generally the problem with uber-conservative nitwits isn't that they use terms like "leftist," it's that they misapply, or over-apply them. Specifically, a liberal, even of the welfare-state capitalist variety, isn't really a leftist. But it's appropriate to use the term for guys like Che Guevara or a large portion of whoever is out in the South American jungles at any given point in time. (I would add, "and isn't a drug cartel," but groups like Shining Path and FARC really are both.)
I don't think Iraq is the model you're looking for. Iraq's democracy is questionable at best. How about looking at Japan, Germany, and Italy as the counterexamples? (All three of which had a history of democratic institutions, although Japan's was considerably more limited than the other two.)
I have long subscribed to the notion that sometime in the 21st century, we will see "holistic" tech support. Your computer has bad chakras. We must induce it towards happiness with healing jingling orbs.
It's the natural result of increasingly complex technology, coupled with a large number of people, even in the West, who still believe in magic.
As an English major, what I find interesting is that slashdot's grammar nazis are never one of us
Well, there's your problem. You're the only English major on Slashdot. ;-)
Post early, then post one of the following:
Linux is better than Windows, and people will eventually demand open-source. But people don't care about open-source, they don't have time for all that geek stuff, they just care that they can check their email.
By the way, it's GNU/Linux, because it's the GNU system that Linux Torvalds hacked to add his kernel onto, not the other way around. But, nobody cares about that stuff, how many syllables can you muster in a name?
The GPL is a viral piece of software. I get the freedom thing, but it seems like if your software were really free, people would be able to use it as they wish---including in a commercial product. But freedom isn't free, we're well within our rights to exercise certain restrictions over our code, and those are to promote freedom.
Google is a brilliant and inspiring company. Google is an insidious Big Brother.
Apple makes superior products. that are overpriced, locked-down crap that I wouldn't give to my retarded dog.
People who say that Barack Obama is a socialist don't know what socialism means, but Barack Obama is a socialist.
Microsoft is greedy and imperialistic. (Nobody argues with this one on Slashdot.)
Usually it will work. However, if you're whoring for a "Funny" mod, I can't help you, though, because I think that was friggin hilarious, and nobody else will think so.
Another thing that often works is to express a popular point of view as if it's an unpopular point of view. For instance, "I know I'll get modded down for this, but I think teddy bears are soft and cuddly."
There are some nice buildings in central Pyongyang. I like the blue roofs you see on a number of them. On the other hand, maybe that' just because everything else in the city, except the trees, is a kind of washed-out gray.
Of course, most of the houses look like prison colonies. Makes me think of the houses in "A Wrinkle in Time," with all of the kids in the front yards bouncing their balls in unision....
By far, the roads are the creepiest part. Like the entire city was hit by a neutron bomb, and was left standing, as a skeleton of the civilization that once lived there.
That's not particularly opaque, especially not compared with the French stuff, or even most of the other German stuff you passed over. Try Heidegger sometime. (IMHO, a complete tool. States fairly inane things like, "being is defined by its opposition to not-being" and then blames language itself for not properly conveying the subtleties of his meaning. Also, a Nazi.)
Netflix doesn't open source its client. This is not something that they control. They have various deals with various content providers that stipulate that they use DRM in their streaming solution. If they made an open-source client, it would defeat the purpose of the DRM. (Yes, DRM doesn't work and blah blah blah, but this is a business requirement, not a technical requirement. If you want to get mad at them about it, get mad at Hollywood instead.)
AFAIK, Netflix generally doesn't implement its own DRM, but instead uses the DRM from whatever platform they distribute on. The do have a "Linux" version if you count Android, but the company has claimed that they've had difficulty using it due to platform fragmentation and because it doesn't implement all of the features they need to satisfy their studio agreements. They've said they have to develop for one device at a time.
And that's with Android's libraries. So when you're asking for a Linux client for Netflix, you're not just asking for a port of their Windows or Mac clients, you're asking them to spend a lot of extra dollars to develop a closed-source DRM solution for a small market that hates DRM (and closed-sourced, to a lesser extent). Where is the sense in that? If Netflix did make a Linux client, submitters would be crawling on top of each other screaming, "Netflix Trying to Destroy Linux With Evil Client From Hell."
On the other hand, it's nice that they contribute to other projects.
In the specific case, Omega wins, because they had won in the lower court.
However, this case doesn't have any precedential value going forward. It's basically a pass, the legal issues involved have not been decided by SCOTUS. The justices did not even write down their reasons, or say who voted which way. The judgment was literally something like, "We're split 50-50, so we're not deciding anything, whatever Ninth Circuit said is what we're going with, peace out." If another case exactly like this one reaches the Supreme Court next year, then assuming Kagan doesn't recuse herself again, we'll get a real decision. All we can really say about that is that it will probably be a 5-4 decision either way, since the justices are split 4-4 without Kagan.
Not if you stood outside a McDonald's and bought them the hamburger personally. Most people would feel like they owed you, even if it was only a hamburger, and feel bad if they were dishonest about it. Like, all you wanted to do was buy them a hamburger, it's the least they can do!
Put it on a sign-up sheet, you know? Makes it look less seedy.
Of course I'm one to talk...I would lie. (And I have, in exactly that situation, except with better sandwiches.) Maybe not about my name. But everything else, yeah.
Man, anyone else notice China drop like a rock circa 1960 and say, "Holy hell!"?
Are they criminals? If this were a small group of people with a large botnet of virus-ridden machines doing the attack, I'm sure there would be no question. In this case, IANAL, but it seems like it would be difficult to convict someone of the "crime" of making numerous requests from their home computer, even if there are a whole lot of people doing the same thing. If Slashdot links to a page on my puny home server (on a residential connection with terrible upload), even if they know I'm not prepared for it, does the FBI really need to haul CmdrTaco's ass off to jail?
Maybe more people eat tomatoes, but there's probably more money in tobacco.
I've been staying away from 4th edition, so we're going by 3.5 edition nomenclature....erm....sorry my mom's calling me.....brb to overthrow USA.
Wikileaks Targets USDA
New York Times Staff Writer
Fresh off the release of thousands of private State Department diplomatic cables, Wikileaks has announced that it has obtained over 35,000 confidential records from the US Department of Agriculture. According to spokesman Julian Assange, Wikileaks has been reviewing the documents for the past several months, and intends to release them on Sunday, following the Superbowl halftime commercial break. Assange, who has recently battled charges of sexual assault in Sweden, pedophilia in Britain, adultery in Saudi Arabia, male prostitution in Sri Lanka, public masturbation in Mozambique, and felony jaywalking in Turkmenistan, claims that these new leaks are "among the most important we've ever released."
The New York Times received advance copies of the leaked documents from a third party. From a preliminary review of the documents, here are some highlights:
* In November of 2009, a USDA investigator discovered that despite advertising claims, the ingredients of Snapple's chilled tea beverages were not, in fact, "the best stuff on Earth." The USDA pressured Snapple to improve the quality of its ingredients,
* Investigators discovered in June 2010 that a cattle ranch in Chugwater, Wyoming did not have any signs of mad cow disease, despite neighbors' claims that, "Ol' Bill cows make crazy, crazy good barbeque."
* In the minutes from private discussions, Secretary of Agricultre Tom Vilsack is on the record as saying, "Man, that Lindsay Lohan is too skinny. Way too skinny. She's drinking slim milk, she should be dirnking 2%." Key officials alleged that the white "mustache" below Ms. Lohan's nose was not, in fact, milk.
Although the source for the leak is not known, analysts suspect that Wikileaks obtained the documents when a team of hackers, operating out of a suburban basement filled with toy miniatures and Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks, was able to break into the USDA's cloud hosting service. The service, which is maintained by Microsoft, is reported to have suffered from a fatal security vulnerability when all of its servers simultaneously crashed with a "blue screen of death."
The government has already issued a release to all federal employees stating that, "these documents are not to be read during work hours" and that they remain confidential, despite the fact that they are no longer confidential.
The Justice Department would not make any official statements on the new leak, claiming that it is "part of an ongoing federal investigation that we're serious about, no, really, we're not kidding around, we're actually serious, please stop laughing." However, a source from within the Justice Department, who spoke under condition of anonymity, said that, "We will [expletive] murder Julian Assange. We will slice his [expletive] neck open and drink his blood to give us power over our enemies. Then we're gonna drag his corpse into the office, and beat it with out [expletives] like a pinata, and [expletive] on it. Whoever [expletives] last has to buy a round of drinks for the rest of the guys."
Said Assange, "With this release, we come ever closer to overthrowing the despotic American government and its unjust, tyrannical, wicked form of mixed capitalism and representative democracy. The people shall rise up against the machine, and at last seize the means of production! The revolution is nigh, dear comrades, for victory will come to those who spread Truth to the masses! Death to America! Death to Smoochy! AI-YEEE!!!"
What would have happened if americans would have just left the peninsula alone?
Here's my stab at it:
It would still be ruled by the Japanese? Doubtful. More likely, the Russians would have taken it and there would be no North Korea or South Korea, just one Korea that was governed by the Soviet satellites who were governing North Korea at the time (the DPRK). Or if you want to say, "Well, that was WWII, that doesn't count," it would have been a unified Korea under DPRK control sometime after 1950, when the North invaded the South.
It would have been a Soviet/Chinese satellite, at least at the beginning. With the Sino-Soviet split, it probably would have picked one over the other, I would guess the Chinese, as North Korea did in real history.
Would it have really been a one-nation North Korea? Probably, at least at the beginning. There's the question of whether the United States, in this alternate history, would have given up on the whole "Cold War" thing, and its non-involvement in the Korean Peninsula was part of a general strategy of...not doing anything. In that case, all of Asia would likely be Communist. Not a very believable scenario given the past 60 years of history. So let's say that the US fought the Cold War, and won, but for some reason never got involved in Korea, which would, as I've said, entirely under DPRK control.
I can't say whether or not things in alternate-history "big" DPRK would be as bad as they are now in real North Korea. They might well be, if the same sort of people were involved; if a Kim Il-Sun took power subsequently. But, you know, the butterfly effect. Maybe it would not have militarized to the point it did in the absence of paranoia about the South. Maybe it would have anyway, as a method of maintaining control, and with an eye on Japan, and it seems likely that the Chinese and Russians would still be interested. The economy would probably be depressed, but if it made attempts at outreach and trade (and I can't see why, in real history the DPRK seems to have abandoned such notions) then the best it could hope for would be to be another Vietnam, a minor outsourcer for the Chinese for all the stuff that even Chinese firms think could be outsourced.
So best case scenario is that Korea would be modern-day Vietnam, worst-case is that Korea would be modern-day North Korea. And there would be no Korean Starcraft Superstars, that's for sure.
'Course I could be totally off-base here.
Addendum: existing rights to stars' likenesses held by the major movie studios will be grandfathered in as applying indefinitely. We're just talking about newly dead stars, who may have signed their contracts with knowledge of this technology.
No, no, no. The MPAA is the studios. They will lobby to make any "likeness" of a star enter the public domain after said star's death.
After all, it's for the public good, right?
If everything is so peachy when you "just use the browser," then why have apps (or an app store) in the first place? Could it be that iPad apps provide services or user experiences that web pages (with or without HTML5 or Flash) don't?
You know, I'll be the first to say that Apple doesn't have to sell any apps in its store that it doesn't want to. If they're not interested in taking their cut from nudie pic apps (or nudie streaming video apps, or h-games, or what-have-you, the Next Big Thing in Porn), then that's their prerogative. But to say that there is only One True Retailer for apps, and that jailbreaking is against their Terms of Service, well, that's what stinks to high heaven.
Chevy Volt?
Honestly that's the only thing I've heard out of an American car company in the past two years other than, "We're fucked."
Car analogy fail. The hype is "it's greener."
I agree, but I think I wrote that poorly. What I meant to say was that "they don't see what they're doing as illegal" is a different statement from "they don't see what they're doing as immoral." And that the latter was the applicable clause.