I'm not bitching about it. I don't even pay it... I'm a "yank".
But I do recognize that its business model enables it to add something very valuable to the media mix. For that reason, I'd like to see whatever transition they make in ennumerating their fees to be a good solid one.
If BBC is gonna try to collect the license fee on any conceivable receiver such as IP-based players, then they are putting themselves on shaky ground.
The BBC provides the public (if not you, then your family, neighbors, town and nation) with programs that are generally true to its funding model. Fees are not collected with taxes and they are a flat amount so essentially, it's independant and populist. The programming indirectly affects you regardless, by making available content that is relatively educational and critical of government and private corporations. So you benefit by living in a better-informed society, just as childless people benefit when others' children have access to public education.
Compare this with progressive taxation: The programming then follows the interests that fund the rest of the government. In fact, the network will be at the mercy of politicians each and every year. That is basically state-run media.
Commercial media we all know about. They also create programming that skews toward the interests of their funding model (for-profit corporations). This is the model that completely dominates the USA, and even has a hand in our "public" broadcasting system. People generally don't trust the broadcast news here, BTW.
That's why I agree with the system we now have in The Netherlands were the necessary monies for the public broadcasters are paid from regular taxes.
But then the broadcaster has a very low level of insulation from political influence. It could even be considered "state-run media", as opposed to a relatively independant public corporation like the BBC.
American PBS is a different example: Its revenue comes from charity, government budget, and corporate sponsors. The charity part is supposed to qualify them "public", but it strikes me that those most able to donate are those who are relatively comfortable. This is a network which, after all, does not break any major news stories on its own. If there are any revelations, they are broadcast months after its too late to matter.
On the one hand, they strenghten their monopoly, and on the other hand they squeeze out Linux.
This won't really strengthen the MS monopoly, unless most vendors want free and limitless legal protection. (Then again...)
Why did the US DOJ decide to stop pursuing the monopoly suit again?
I don't even recall why. But last Fall the Bush admin just smacked (foreign) Samsung with the second-largest penalty ever for "monopoly" behavior (price-fixing). The AG pronounced it as "proof" that the Bush admin is serious about protecting America from "monopoly abuses".
Sure its the culture that's dying. With the possible exception of Canada, none of the Pan-Anglo countries are net exporters anymore. World opinion shifted almost entirely against the US resulting from the relatively small Iraqi conflict. So people all over the planet are asking, "What do we need them for? To crack a whip?" Can you say "chronic bloodsuckers?" I knew you could...
Raw population numbers don't matter as much as you probably think in terms of influence. India would be the world's superpower right now if that were so vitally important.
The environmental benefits alone from a gradually-declining population will offset much of the burden of an aging demographic.
As for becoming more or less Christian, who cares? I can't think of any engineers, say, from the far east who are Christian. What matters more than their religion is their education, ethics, regard for science and discovery. Europe has this in spades.
The United States OTOH, is bereft of real leadership. What remain are insular bufoons, criminals and religious fundamentalists at the level of corruption only a "superpower" can attract. It has an extremist political ideology, where everything must be privatized or effectively placed within the control of corporations-- even elections and ideas.
So while Europe can muster a real debate over IP and essentially unite its voice against the Iraq invasion, for the Kyoto treaty, against unscreened GMOs, etc... the US squabbles about stem cells and Intelligent Design, can no longer organize itself enough to protect its cities from chronic from dessication in the desert, nor from oblitteration by a category 3 hurricane. Our defacto industrial 'leaders' prevaricate over their stance on IP and their committment to human rights.
How many EU cities have been oblitterated lately?
I guess the US is a pretty "dynamic" place after all; The same way an old woman seems "dynamic" as she falls down a flight of steps. The extent to which the other Anglo countries will continue following our path remains to be seen; I for one hope they come to their senses.
In the end, shouting about someone else's supposed "decline" is not a very good smokescreen for what is going down in our own back yard.
Much the same holds true for white people living in North America.
Its just as easy to say that pan-Anglo culture is dying, and throwing a tantrum in the process.
As for "Old Europe" it is serving as the intellectual and ethical leader for the time being... and it still has an export economy to boot. That's a difficult pill indeed for neocons fighting for their political careers in the US.
(BTW, Opinion Journal is crud and its no wonder the WSJ likes to run it under a different publication name. They would rather put oil-industry shills on a pedestal than accept the global warming phenomenon as fact.)
Not only that: Given how artificial this round of rioting turned out to be, I think France would more than justified in suspecting a provocatuer at work in the Paris riots.
Who stands to gain by provoking Europeans into an anti-Muslim stance?
Granted. But the only real difference from this in the Christian world is that many Christians hold the Old Testament in low regard compared to the NT.
That's a pretty thin excuse for moral superiority.
Also, there is that small detail called history. Looking back, Muslims can be called peace-loving by any standard you would care to be judged by yourself.
So then what am I left with? Statistics. Who racks-up the most demerits for the casualties, the murders, the runaway incarceration rate and commonplace-yet-extremist laws and political speech like "zero-tolerance", "there is no alternative", and this year's new "unending" war-on-something??
Is it us or them?
No, I think what it boils down to is this: Arabs and Muslims seem alien, and rightwing elements on both sides of the conflict increase their political and monetary capital by playing-up the differences in each others' failings. Their misdeeds seem wanton and tribal, while ours are just embarassing mistakes and institutionally impersonal. Its "infidel" vs "enemy combatant". This allows our chickenhawks to generate mass hysteria with little more than misunderstandings, fabrication and the misdeeds of rogue elements.
And besides, there's plenty of viruses that can't be stoped by good security (iloveyou.jpg.exe).
All it would take to eventually turn such trojans into endangered species is to always overlay a red circle (or some other standard symbol) over any and all icons for executable files. Thus users would learn that a red circle with a supposed.jpg file was 'not normal' and probably dangerous.
Really, I don't get why desktop environments have to engender such confusion. Making apps and their data files appear totally interchangable to users may seem neato-cool from a 1993 architectural standpoint, but its not even useful. In some cases, data files are shown with the SAME icon as their associated app.
Didn't BeOS automatically make this distinction with a "!" prefix?
This differs from premeditated murder in that, yes, ultimately, premeditation is a thought.. but the key difference is that you were planning a crime. Planning to kill someone is not an opinion. Hating a group of people is an opinion.
What a stupid, dipshit rationalization. Considering a whole group of people worthy of punishment or death, and then ADVERTISING IT with slurs while you're attacking them is tantamount to declaring open-season on said group.
The justice system in this country factors-in criminal movtives whenever possible. When those motives hinge on whole groups of people and traits that have nothing to do with the content of their character (i.e. race, gender, etc.) then the perpetrator should expect the crime to be treated more seriously than random violence.
Not every aspect of our society can be moulded toward assuaging the conscience of WASPy suburbanites. Too bad.
IBM bought Rational Software for their LIFECYCLE tools, and makes money selling them as Eclipse/WSAD integrations.
Far as I can tell, they are copying this model: Ditching the OLD IDEs, and standardizing on the goodies (much of it better than Rational's) that they got through their acquisition of Together-J.
So it will be Borland's lifecycle moneymakers competing against IBM's lifecycle moneymakers, all on the Eclipse platform. I think Borland management smells weakness in what IBM has done to the Rational product line (for example, the way they balkanized and blinkered their UML tools).
Maybe the Borland execs sense a gap here between MS and IBM, and they hope to get bought-out by MS (the way Rational hoped for some time to get bought by IBM)!
It was the US Navy that came up with an anonymizing-proxy system so they (and presumably their best patrons) could frequent any website without detection.
(BTW that proxy system is now open-sourced as the 'tor' project.)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not bitching about it. I don't even pay it... I'm a "yank".
But I do recognize that its business model enables it to add something very valuable to the media mix. For that reason, I'd like to see whatever transition they make in ennumerating their fees to be a good solid one.
If BBC is gonna try to collect the license fee on any conceivable receiver such as IP-based players, then they are putting themselves on shaky ground.
I don't know why. But it makes me wonder if there is any relation to U.S. plans to "Fight the Internet".
IF nothing else, it seems like a cheap and hypocritical way to gain political capital as "pro-freedom" while you trample people Chickenhawk style.
The funding model determines the business model.
The BBC provides the public (if not you, then your family, neighbors, town and nation) with programs that are generally true to its funding model. Fees are not collected with taxes and they are a flat amount so essentially, it's independant and populist. The programming indirectly affects you regardless, by making available content that is relatively educational and critical of government and private corporations. So you benefit by living in a better-informed society, just as childless people benefit when others' children have access to public education.
Compare this with progressive taxation: The programming then follows the interests that fund the rest of the government. In fact, the network will be at the mercy of politicians each and every year. That is basically state-run media.
Commercial media we all know about. They also create programming that skews toward the interests of their funding model (for-profit corporations). This is the model that completely dominates the USA, and even has a hand in our "public" broadcasting system. People generally don't trust the broadcast news here, BTW.
That's why I agree with the system we now have in The Netherlands were the necessary monies for the public broadcasters are paid from regular taxes.
But then the broadcaster has a very low level of insulation from political influence. It could even be considered "state-run media", as opposed to a relatively independant public corporation like the BBC.
American PBS is a different example: Its revenue comes from charity, government budget, and corporate sponsors. The charity part is supposed to qualify them "public", but it strikes me that those most able to donate are those who are relatively comfortable. This is a network which, after all, does not break any major news stories on its own. If there are any revelations, they are broadcast months after its too late to matter.
So you're saying they must charge a fee for each broadcast tuner device in order to fund their service to the public?
Well I don't know if that's a good idea or not, because then it would depend on how you define 'tuner' or 'receiver'.
On the one hand, they strenghten their monopoly, and on the other hand they squeeze out Linux.
This won't really strengthen the MS monopoly, unless most vendors want free and limitless legal protection. (Then again...)
Why did the US DOJ decide to stop pursuing the monopoly suit again?
I don't even recall why. But last Fall the Bush admin just smacked (foreign) Samsung with the second-largest penalty ever for "monopoly" behavior (price-fixing). The AG pronounced it as "proof" that the Bush admin is serious about protecting America from "monopoly abuses".
If by "service" you mean a Mafia-like protection racket.
Sure its the culture that's dying. With the possible exception of Canada, none of the Pan-Anglo countries are net exporters anymore. World opinion shifted almost entirely against the US resulting from the relatively small Iraqi conflict. So people all over the planet are asking, "What do we need them for? To crack a whip?" Can you say "chronic bloodsuckers?" I knew you could...
Raw population numbers don't matter as much as you probably think in terms of influence. India would be the world's superpower right now if that were so vitally important.
The environmental benefits alone from a gradually-declining population will offset much of the burden of an aging demographic.
As for becoming more or less Christian, who cares? I can't think of any engineers, say, from the far east who are Christian. What matters more than their religion is their education, ethics, regard for science and discovery. Europe has this in spades.
The United States OTOH, is bereft of real leadership. What remain are insular bufoons, criminals and religious fundamentalists at the level of corruption only a "superpower" can attract. It has an extremist political ideology, where everything must be privatized or effectively placed within the control of corporations-- even elections and ideas.
So while Europe can muster a real debate over IP and essentially unite its voice against the Iraq invasion, for the Kyoto treaty, against unscreened GMOs, etc... the US squabbles about stem cells and Intelligent Design, can no longer organize itself enough to protect its cities from chronic from dessication in the desert, nor from oblitteration by a category 3 hurricane. Our defacto industrial 'leaders' prevaricate over their stance on IP and their committment to human rights.
How many EU cities have been oblitterated lately?
I guess the US is a pretty "dynamic" place after all; The same way an old woman seems "dynamic" as she falls down a flight of steps. The extent to which the other Anglo countries will continue following our path remains to be seen; I for one hope they come to their senses.
In the end, shouting about someone else's supposed "decline" is not a very good smokescreen for what is going down in our own back yard.
So who else thinks that Apple is about to do something really uncool in the eyes of the FOSS community?
And then there are trends which aren't shared at all, like the rapidly escalating prison population in the US.
Much the same holds true for white people living in North America.
Its just as easy to say that pan-Anglo culture is dying, and throwing a tantrum in the process.
As for "Old Europe" it is serving as the intellectual and ethical leader for the time being... and it still has an export economy to boot. That's a difficult pill indeed for neocons fighting for their political careers in the US.
(BTW, Opinion Journal is crud and its no wonder the WSJ likes to run it under a different publication name. They would rather put oil-industry shills on a pedestal than accept the global warming phenomenon as fact.)
Rioters riot for fun and profit.
Not only that: Given how artificial this round of rioting turned out to be, I think France would more than justified in suspecting a provocatuer at work in the Paris riots.
Who stands to gain by provoking Europeans into an anti-Muslim stance?
Granted. But the only real difference from this in the Christian world is that many Christians hold the Old Testament in low regard compared to the NT.
That's a pretty thin excuse for moral superiority.
Also, there is that small detail called history. Looking back, Muslims can be called peace-loving by any standard you would care to be judged by yourself.
So then what am I left with? Statistics. Who racks-up the most demerits for the casualties, the murders, the runaway incarceration rate and commonplace-yet-extremist laws and political speech like "zero-tolerance", "there is no alternative", and this year's new "unending" war-on-something??
Is it us or them?
No, I think what it boils down to is this: Arabs and Muslims seem alien, and rightwing elements on both sides of the conflict increase their political and monetary capital by playing-up the differences in each others' failings. Their misdeeds seem wanton and tribal, while ours are just embarassing mistakes and institutionally impersonal. Its "infidel" vs "enemy combatant". This allows our chickenhawks to generate mass hysteria with little more than misunderstandings, fabrication and the misdeeds of rogue elements.
And besides, there's plenty of viruses that can't be stoped by good security (iloveyou.jpg.exe).
.jpg file was 'not normal' and probably dangerous.
All it would take to eventually turn such trojans into endangered species is to always overlay a red circle (or some other standard symbol) over any and all icons for executable files. Thus users would learn that a red circle with a supposed
Really, I don't get why desktop environments have to engender such confusion. Making apps and their data files appear totally interchangable to users may seem neato-cool from a 1993 architectural standpoint, but its not even useful. In some cases, data files are shown with the SAME icon as their associated app.
Didn't BeOS automatically make this distinction with a "!" prefix?
No kidding. But it should be obvious that the government has its own onion proxy system.
It even seems like the government is retaliating against media outlets because the latter will no longer cover for the former.
This differs from premeditated murder in that, yes, ultimately, premeditation is a thought.. but the key difference is that you were planning a crime. Planning to kill someone is not an opinion. Hating a group of people is an opinion.
What a stupid, dipshit rationalization. Considering a whole group of people worthy of punishment or death, and then ADVERTISING IT with slurs while you're attacking them is tantamount to declaring open-season on said group.
The justice system in this country factors-in criminal movtives whenever possible. When those motives hinge on whole groups of people and traits that have nothing to do with the content of their character (i.e. race, gender, etc.) then the perpetrator should expect the crime to be treated more seriously than random violence.
Not every aspect of our society can be moulded toward assuaging the conscience of WASPy suburbanites. Too bad.
The next best thing to "CareFree".
But it still won't detect a rootkit, I'll wager.
Or DRM.
IBM bought Rational Software for their LIFECYCLE tools, and makes money selling them as Eclipse/WSAD integrations.
Far as I can tell, they are copying this model: Ditching the OLD IDEs, and standardizing on the goodies (much of it better than Rational's) that they got through their acquisition of Together-J.
So it will be Borland's lifecycle moneymakers competing against IBM's lifecycle moneymakers, all on the Eclipse platform. I think Borland management smells weakness in what IBM has done to the Rational product line (for example, the way they balkanized and blinkered their UML tools).
This will be interesting.
...those lifecycle tools were made options for Websphere development and became a big money-maker for IBM's "IDE Business".
And with IBM now giving away their base IDE, it seems Borland wants to go in the same direction.
Its like the stuff that Rational Software (now an IBM division) purveys:
UML tools, RUP, requirements tools, bug tracking, version control, automated testing.
Maybe the Borland execs sense a gap here between MS and IBM, and they hope to get bought-out by MS (the way Rational hoped for some time to get bought by IBM)!
It was the US Navy that came up with an anonymizing-proxy system so they (and presumably their best patrons) could frequent any website without detection.
(BTW that proxy system is now open-sourced as the 'tor' project.)
However, I'd say the proportion of truth represented by each cicle is often lopsided.
But you're right... having only two doesn't help us in the least.
Let's look at how this works in a free market:
Oh Jesus! Not this preening libertarian numbskull again.
Please... do shock us with some commentary on other subjects from time to time. Your fan club might even appreciate it.
What bothers me is that the FOSS community didn't seem to take this technology seriously until Microsoft announced it was going into Vista.
Here's hoping the result isn't half-baked.