Except how it really works is that Google has become the one and only place most people go. It is who they trust, who they seek out, etc. What this means is that effectively, there is a nearly insurmountable barrier to entry. You have to make people aware of your site, and convince them to use it. Very hard. Could potentially be harder still since of course people find sites through Google, and Google controls a large amount of online ads. They could black list you quite effectively if they wanted to.
I'd argue that to have the pernicious type of monopoly, you must actively try to stifle competitors.
If you're selling cars, and virtually -everyone- is buying your cars, I could agree to call that monopoly. If your cars are the only ones sold because you made it impossible for any other cars to be made, that's a bad monopoly. If your cars are the only ones sold entirely because they cost half of what any other car costs and runs on tap water, that's not a bad monopoly.
Prove to me that google stifled other search engines or blocked them and I'll grant that google has done something wrong. If they're just the ones everyone goes to because everyone trusts and knows google, and they get relevant results, that monopoly can be tolerated.
That MS isn't capable of making a better service or marketing doesn't mean this is an issue.
Rampant cynicism, typical of slashdot. A large company that makes a profit cannot be good. No politician who is part of one of the two parties can ever have a good idea. That type of thing mostly. And maybe a little bit of the "Google signed a deal to kill net neutrality!!!" story that came out a week or two ago followed closely by the "Oh wait, no, that was a false rumor" that was less reported.
We need better schools and incompetent bureaucrats in Washington are not the way to improve schools.
I don't think the bureaucrats at the state level are any less incompetent. Look at the textbooks Texas is writing.
Since the UN wants to always extort money from the US for every project under the sun and constantly tries to weaken the sovereignty of the US, we'd be much better off if we pulled out
Social Security does not work, hence why it's bankrupt.
Social security is bankrupt because politicians think we're too greedy to pay enough into it to support the elderly.
It's a -politically- complicated issue. The economics and morals of it, on the other hand, are extremely simple. We pay more into it and reduce the benefits, to keep the generations that raised us from dying in the streets.
I'm going to need some type of citation that it doesn't work and has never worked, because I'm pretty sure I've seen it work firsthand.
Sorry, but one thing that's always pissed me off is how Democrats get up and say "We need to stop relying on foreign oil!" and then at the same time support laws preventing us from using the oil on our own soil.
I don't get why we'd ruin ANWR forever for, what, a years worth of domestic oil.
I was indeed overstating the global warming issue (conspiracy is quite a bit kookier than thinking something is just wrong) and I did misread the quote on the IRS, which does state she wants to abolish the code and not the IRS itself. Those were both my fault.
To kind of hedge on that, I don't think there's much difference on the global warming issue. She's still ignoring scientific conclusions in favor of economics, presumably she would vote against restricting the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted or moving to cleaner technology. The page mentions she's a proponent of cheaper gas and more coal power.
So she's not crazy, but she is still in favor of screwing everyone over so various industries can make more money.
Abortion and pot regulation are frankly silly issues
Rape, incest, and unwanted pregnancies are not silly issues.
That Wikipedia article is actually pretty biased and most of the citations come from hit pieces in liberal newspapers on behalf of Harry Reid's campaign. The quotes from Las Vegas Sun are particularly laughable as the Sun is practically a part of Reid's campaign team and it's a "newspaper" with tiny circulation even though it's given away for free.
I have no idea how biased they are or aren't, but is anything on the wiki page -wrong-?
So because a copyright troll sued a conservative it is somehow benign or OK?
Don't malign conservatives like that and don't malign slashdotters like that either. This woman is not conservative. She says she is, but a more precise classification would be "delusional." And those slashdotters like myself who find this a little amusing aren't saying it's okay, this is still a symptom of an incredibly broken copyright system and overly litigious society. Still, it sure as shit ain't sad when slightly bad things happen to dangerous politicians. She's going to a fraction of her warchest to this. If Fox news picks this up, it will probably be spun as a conspiracy to keep it down, will rally her supporters, and she'll come out ahead.
Maybe they're scared that Sharon Angle will actually get elected. I mean, a look at her positions SHOULD scare even copyright trolls.
Lets see... Thinks rape and incest should not be an exception for abortion? Check. Thinks global warming is a conspiracy? Check. Eliminating the IRS (like, actually eliminating it, not just grumbling at tax time)? Check. Wants to continue the failed prohibition of marijuana? Check, and possibly wants to restart the prohibition on alcohol. Etc..
Sure, she's a republican, and so I'm going to disagree with her on a lot of things (like eliminating all federal influence over education and letting half the states teach that evolution is a lie made up by the devil), but I think her platform goes beyond reasonable. Is copyright trolling against dangerously out-of-touch politicians justified? Probably not, and it's not going to stop her, but this is really more funny in my book for now than an outrage.
Hmm... I think good PR could spin a lot of their actions as "nice." Their efforts to combat the dangerous cult calling itself "Scientology" for instance aren't exactly greedy and evil. Maybe they're motivated more by a sense of superiority than a sense of justice, but they're still attacking an evil organization.
I haven't heard of 4chan, say, killing puppies or disrupting the flow of natural disaster relief supplies or flooding the gulf of mexico with crude oil. Whether that's because they don't do it or because I haven't heard of it, or because no one has yet realized they were behind the deepwater horizon spill, I don't know. It just seems to me (having never visited 4chan) that while they might be mostly rude, crude, and immature, they're not -evil-.
I wish. First I misread the title and thought yogi bear was skateboarding in the pacific and "shredding some wicked air." Then I though "WE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" Then I thought about eating some more pringles. Forgot to take my medication today. What were we talking about?
It's true, if you get headaches from 3d, you will never be forced to get a 3d TV, since consumers are never forced into upgrading their equipment ever.
Now if you excuse me, I have to go buy "Inception" on VHS...
Strange, I would expect to see the AG of the failed state of California to be opening this kind of investigations then, not Texas which is doing pretty well these days.
Kind of sounds like you're saying the pot is not black because the kettle is also black. Anyway, the California budget may be absurd, but I blame that on the voters who decided, shortsightedly, that there was probably no reason taxes should ever go up, so it should be impossible to raise them when revenue goes down, costs go up, and you can't cut all the fat immediately.
Texas, however, I don't know who to blame. Of the states, they have the second highest percentage of their population locked up in prison. They're one of the states at the forefront of "Hey, lets not teach science in schools."
Both California and Texas have their problems, but I find myself a little more understanding of California's problems.
Some politician says ban this section and it will all go away...
Now the personals section is going to get even more polluted.
Guess what's next on the chopping block. The "americans who believe that sex is unnatural and wrong yet somehow always have an assload of kids" lobby isn't exactly concerned with a clean personals section. At least, they won't admit to it.
More like "When you can't fix the real problems plaguing your shitty state, distract attention by opening up a pointless investigation on a very well known, big company."
I'd be 100% in favor of Google opening up their own investigation of Texas. Start with the Texas revolution. That was questionable.
If that's not addiction, then I don't know what it is.
You bring up a point there (jokingly, but the point is important I think): what is addiction?
I'm going to suggest the following standard for judging if something is actual addiction or not, it should probably be a legally recognized standard. Let's call it the "Bob Saget in Half Baked standard," because I'm taking this from Bob Saget's character in Half Baked.
If the person in question has performed fellatio for his or her "addiction," then it is an addiction. If he or she has not performed fellatio, then it's not an addiction and he or she should be booed....
A few religious people do that so you blame all religions? There are atheists who have started wars, are racist, are homophobes, are sexist, indoctrinate children, reject science they don't agree with, ignore reason, and spread STDs directly.
Guess that leaves us agnostics as the only true saints.
No, it's the homeopathic approach to internet policy. If you want X to happen, what you do is to do almost the opposite of X. Very effective application of the homeopathic theory, I might add. It actually works even more often than homeopathic medicine does!
Slashdot Mirror
Try finding three major tech companies that aren't linked with Microsoft in some way.
I'd argue that demonstrates that the wrong company is being investigated for anti-competitive dealings.
Except how it really works is that Google has become the one and only place most people go. It is who they trust, who they seek out, etc. What this means is that effectively, there is a nearly insurmountable barrier to entry. You have to make people aware of your site, and convince them to use it. Very hard. Could potentially be harder still since of course people find sites through Google, and Google controls a large amount of online ads. They could black list you quite effectively if they wanted to.
I'd argue that to have the pernicious type of monopoly, you must actively try to stifle competitors.
If you're selling cars, and virtually -everyone- is buying your cars, I could agree to call that monopoly. If your cars are the only ones sold because you made it impossible for any other cars to be made, that's a bad monopoly. If your cars are the only ones sold entirely because they cost half of what any other car costs and runs on tap water, that's not a bad monopoly.
Prove to me that google stifled other search engines or blocked them and I'll grant that google has done something wrong. If they're just the ones everyone goes to because everyone trusts and knows google, and they get relevant results, that monopoly can be tolerated.
That MS isn't capable of making a better service or marketing doesn't mean this is an issue.
Why do people keep saying that?
Rampant cynicism, typical of slashdot. A large company that makes a profit cannot be good. No politician who is part of one of the two parties can ever have a good idea. That type of thing mostly. And maybe a little bit of the "Google signed a deal to kill net neutrality!!!" story that came out a week or two ago followed closely by the "Oh wait, no, that was a false rumor" that was less reported.
It's slow, so either there's been some damage or it's slashdotted. Was that really too hard to check, Slashditors?
Clearly this was an ingenious plot by the MAFIAA to shut down pirate bay: with the slashdot effect!
And guessing that Timothy's password was "password" was another brilliant move.
What's the point of a 250GB drive it all I have on it are dinky PSN games?
Bragging rights over 360 console owners.
So, abortion is murdering babies, unless their fathers are assholes?
No. It's not murder and they're not babies.
Talk about moral relativity.
We live in the real world and are talking about government policies, so yes, we are talking about moral relativity.
We need better schools and incompetent bureaucrats in Washington are not the way to improve schools.
I don't think the bureaucrats at the state level are any less incompetent. Look at the textbooks Texas is writing.
Since the UN wants to always extort money from the US for every project under the sun and constantly tries to weaken the sovereignty of the US, we'd be much better off if we pulled out
After what we did to Iraq, I can't blame them. And it doesn't look like we're paying the "extortion."
Social Security does not work, hence why it's bankrupt.
Social security is bankrupt because politicians think we're too greedy to pay enough into it to support the elderly.
It's a -politically- complicated issue. The economics and morals of it, on the other hand, are extremely simple. We pay more into it and reduce the benefits, to keep the generations that raised us from dying in the streets.
I'm going to need some type of citation that it doesn't work and has never worked, because I'm pretty sure I've seen it work firsthand.
Sorry, but one thing that's always pissed me off is how Democrats get up and say "We need to stop relying on foreign oil!" and then at the same time support laws preventing us from using the oil on our own soil.
I don't get why we'd ruin ANWR forever for, what, a years worth of domestic oil.
I was indeed overstating the global warming issue (conspiracy is quite a bit kookier than thinking something is just wrong) and I did misread the quote on the IRS, which does state she wants to abolish the code and not the IRS itself. Those were both my fault.
To kind of hedge on that, I don't think there's much difference on the global warming issue. She's still ignoring scientific conclusions in favor of economics, presumably she would vote against restricting the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted or moving to cleaner technology. The page mentions she's a proponent of cheaper gas and more coal power.
So she's not crazy, but she is still in favor of screwing everyone over so various industries can make more money.
Abortion and pot regulation are frankly silly issues
Rape, incest, and unwanted pregnancies are not silly issues.
That Wikipedia article is actually pretty biased and most of the citations come from hit pieces in liberal newspapers on behalf of Harry Reid's campaign. The quotes from Las Vegas Sun are particularly laughable as the Sun is practically a part of Reid's campaign team and it's a "newspaper" with tiny circulation even though it's given away for free.
I have no idea how biased they are or aren't, but is anything on the wiki page -wrong-?
So because a copyright troll sued a conservative it is somehow benign or OK?
Don't malign conservatives like that and don't malign slashdotters like that either. This woman is not conservative. She says she is, but a more precise classification would be "delusional." And those slashdotters like myself who find this a little amusing aren't saying it's okay, this is still a symptom of an incredibly broken copyright system and overly litigious society. Still, it sure as shit ain't sad when slightly bad things happen to dangerous politicians. She's going to a fraction of her warchest to this. If Fox news picks this up, it will probably be spun as a conspiracy to keep it down, will rally her supporters, and she'll come out ahead.
Maybe they're scared that Sharon Angle will actually get elected. I mean, a look at her positions SHOULD scare even copyright trolls.
Lets see... Thinks rape and incest should not be an exception for abortion? Check. Thinks global warming is a conspiracy? Check. Eliminating the IRS (like, actually eliminating it, not just grumbling at tax time)? Check. Wants to continue the failed prohibition of marijuana? Check, and possibly wants to restart the prohibition on alcohol. Etc..
Sure, she's a republican, and so I'm going to disagree with her on a lot of things (like eliminating all federal influence over education and letting half the states teach that evolution is a lie made up by the devil), but I think her platform goes beyond reasonable. Is copyright trolling against dangerously out-of-touch politicians justified? Probably not, and it's not going to stop her, but this is really more funny in my book for now than an outrage.
There's a reason he was the ruler for so long.
Anyway, take comfort in the fact that Bush still probably refuses to read the newspaper.
4chan being nice?!?
Hmm... I think good PR could spin a lot of their actions as "nice." Their efforts to combat the dangerous cult calling itself "Scientology" for instance aren't exactly greedy and evil. Maybe they're motivated more by a sense of superiority than a sense of justice, but they're still attacking an evil organization.
I haven't heard of 4chan, say, killing puppies or disrupting the flow of natural disaster relief supplies or flooding the gulf of mexico with crude oil. Whether that's because they don't do it or because I haven't heard of it, or because no one has yet realized they were behind the deepwater horizon spill, I don't know. It just seems to me (having never visited 4chan) that while they might be mostly rude, crude, and immature, they're not -evil-.
Shutting down his website a week after every other news blog has featured it? Probably, assuming he has a website.
I wish. First I misread the title and thought yogi bear was skateboarding in the pacific and "shredding some wicked air." Then I though "WE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" Then I thought about eating some more pringles. Forgot to take my medication today. What were we talking about?
No-one is forcing you to buy it anyways
It's true, if you get headaches from 3d, you will never be forced to get a 3d TV, since consumers are never forced into upgrading their equipment ever.
Now if you excuse me, I have to go buy "Inception" on VHS...
Strange, I would expect to see the AG of the failed state of California to be opening this kind of investigations then, not Texas which is doing pretty well these days.
Kind of sounds like you're saying the pot is not black because the kettle is also black. Anyway, the California budget may be absurd, but I blame that on the voters who decided, shortsightedly, that there was probably no reason taxes should ever go up, so it should be impossible to raise them when revenue goes down, costs go up, and you can't cut all the fat immediately.
Texas, however, I don't know who to blame. Of the states, they have the second highest percentage of their population locked up in prison. They're one of the states at the forefront of "Hey, lets not teach science in schools."
Both California and Texas have their problems, but I find myself a little more understanding of California's problems.
Some politician says ban this section and it will all go away...
Now the personals section is going to get even more polluted.
Guess what's next on the chopping block. The "americans who believe that sex is unnatural and wrong yet somehow always have an assload of kids" lobby isn't exactly concerned with a clean personals section. At least, they won't admit to it.
And what's wrong with prostitution anyway? In the end all girls cost money, many times much more than if you just get to the point right away.
I'm pretty sure the people who object to prostitution don't object to it on the grounds that you get less bang for your buck.
More like "When you can't fix the real problems plaguing your shitty state, distract attention by opening up a pointless investigation on a very well known, big company."
I'd be 100% in favor of Google opening up their own investigation of Texas. Start with the Texas revolution. That was questionable.
Your own contract posted on some random website??? Not a chance in hell it'll be upheld.
Sure, but that really would depend entirely on the ratio of money he spends on lawyers to money they spend on lawyers, not on the netscape thing.
it does not mean that sub-threshold comments are, deep down, really made of apples.
Youtube comments would be oranges.
If I had mod points, I'd mod you plus phfor insightful.
(See, the bad guys in Marathon were called... you know what, never mind)
Hopefully Bungie, now done with Halo, will go back to the franchise.
If that's not addiction, then I don't know what it is.
You bring up a point there (jokingly, but the point is important I think): what is addiction?
I'm going to suggest the following standard for judging if something is actual addiction or not, it should probably be a legally recognized standard. Let's call it the "Bob Saget in Half Baked standard," because I'm taking this from Bob Saget's character in Half Baked.
If the person in question has performed fellatio for his or her "addiction," then it is an addiction. If he or she has not performed fellatio, then it's not an addiction and he or she should be booed. ...
So I have to ask, what is your job exactly, ZeRu?
A few religious people do that so you blame all religions? There are atheists who have started wars, are racist, are homophobes, are sexist, indoctrinate children, reject science they don't agree with, ignore reason, and spread STDs directly.
Guess that leaves us agnostics as the only true saints.
No, it's the homeopathic approach to internet policy. If you want X to happen, what you do is to do almost the opposite of X. Very effective application of the homeopathic theory, I might add. It actually works even more often than homeopathic medicine does!