Exactly, that's why the government in the US is far more honest than the one in, say, Denmark. Don't make me laugh. Your government is the most corporate-owned in the world. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the DMCA was passed to benefit corporate cartels, so does this mean you're going to Washington to shoot up Congress.
I'm talking about the UK, where all the PSX2s were preordered and sold out in days. So the demand was just as great as in the US, it's just a case of the UK (and European) consumer being screwed again.
With VAT at 17.5%, even if the US version had no sales tax on it at all, the price would be $352.50, so where does the rest of it go? Import taxes? As if import taxes on Japanese goods to the US are low. This is just exploitation of the PAL/SECAM/NTSC differences to grab extra profits from consumers whose only other choice is not to buy at all (and that applies to TVs, VCRs, DVDs and VHS movies too).
Re:Reproduction crippling can be a good thing.
on
Golden Rice
·
· Score: 2
The idea that genetically modified crops are going to "contaminate" and "cripple" organic farmers is just another way of propagating the "technology/science is bad...natural is good" meme.
Considering the problems that new science (especially in conjunction with profit before people concepts) has caused before, from thalidomide babies to CFC pollution, it's hardly surprising that GMO is viewed with suspicion. The need to keep the shareholders happy has led to incomplete testing before on many things, scientists and technologists should not be hassling those that are justifiably nervous about screwing around with the ecosystem, they should be hassling the money men that cause corners to be cut in the name of higher share prices. But of course that would be unAmerican.
Re:Neo-Luddites and /,
on
Golden Rice
·
· Score: 2
The newer OS ideas also seem to be copies of the older one. BeOS with it's Unix-like OS, Microsoft poaching any good ideas, adding Visual/Active in front of them and then claiming innovation, Apple using a hacked version of BSD as the core of their next release, need I go on. And in my experience, Unix people hate mainframes because they still haven't managed to get their favourite OS-type to do I/O as fast as an IBM mainframe can.
Old doesn't necessarily mean useless though, unless you're driving about in an electric car, have a solar-powered house with low-power lightbulbs in every room and a widescreen plasma TV. I'm not a neo-Luddite, but I am dubious of corporations telling me their product is wonderful, being the cynical almost-thirtysomething I am.My cynicism on GMO being no different to that on cars, computers, drugs, operating systems etc etc.
The EU do a lot of things right, like being able to work anywhere I want in the EU, it's just that the little-Englander press in the UK write lies rather than the truth. And our government is every bit as corrupt as the European parliament, it's just not reported on.
Geeks don't like large corporations controlling the way technology goes, they prefer the most talented to win, and neither Intel or Microsoft are the most talented in their fields, merely the best at selling things to suckers.
I think the poster is talking about home computers. I didn't pay for the OS on my ZX Spectrum, Amiga 500 or Amiga 1200. And the Amiga was doing 32-bit pre-emptive multitasking when Windows 2.0 was choking on more than one process.
The Microsoft story is one of luck and good marketing, not superior software.
Well in the UK market forces cannot yet decide the price, our obnoxious local monopoly does it. Our telecoms regulator has done very little about it. But of course that's OK, because it's not regulated and therefore customers are getting a better deal. I want my ADSL and I want it now, not whenever BT can be bothered to spend the money.
Amazing, prejudice against MS on/. This always happens when an MS story gets posted, anti-MS folks go ape and MS folks complain about it. If you don't like it, why do you come here?
That's not strictly true. I had my tape deck eat a tape a while ago and sent it back to Polygram and about a month later I got a new tape with an apology. It just depends how patient you are.
Only because they've got Linux snapping at their heels. I doubt Win2K would have been anything like as good otherwise, and it still has problems in my experience, such as the need to completely redesign your network if you want to take full advantage of it.
That's of course why Holland has the fourth largest banking sector in the world despite only having 7 million people living there. Holland is the perfect example of a country run for it's people rather than the profit of a few old men. Probably not having to fork out for unnecessary nuclear weapons helps as well.
I couldn't care less if my parents can't use Linux. I've advised them not to, because it has a steep learning curve. Having said that though, a lot of very intelligent people ask me to help out with their Windows setups, so the conclusion I've come to is that Windows isn't paticularly easy either for the computer non-literate, it just has more software and prettier pictures.
I thought the US government focussed primarily on the needs of those who were paying them the most.
If true democracy doesn't work and a republic does, why are there far fewer people begging on the streets of Amsterdam than Washington. America may have the wealthiest people in the world, but they also have the highest poverty rate in the first world too.
What, like the Boston Tea Party, or the UK democracy protesters in the 1830s, or the US War of Independence. What you're saying is that people should put up with the crappy status-quo, rather than make a bit of noise and try and get things changed. Welcome back to the British Empire. Don't forget to kneel when the local lord goes past.
With KDE/Qt, they need to pay $1500/developer; that's more than people pay for a very complete, industry-standard Microsoft development environment.
You're forgetting the cost of the OS license, the Client Access License, the Office 97 license, the Anti-virus software license, the time wasted on crashes, and the fact that you can only develop for one platform. $1500 is all you'll pay for a true cross-platform toolkit which GTK is not.
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http://www.eactivism.org/decss/
Because the DMCA doesn't stifle anything does it? Isn't the US great?
Exactly, that's why the government in the US is far more honest than the one in, say, Denmark. Don't make me laugh. Your government is the most corporate-owned in the world. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the DMCA was passed to benefit corporate cartels, so does this mean you're going to Washington to shoot up Congress.
No he didn't, he was arrested due to pressure from the global cartel and has since received an official apology from the Norwegian government.
but at least we'll never see crap like this.
No you have software patents, the DMCA and possibly the UCITA instead. America has just as many crap laws as Europe.
I'm talking about the UK, where all the PSX2s were preordered and sold out in days. So the demand was just as great as in the US, it's just a case of the UK (and European) consumer being screwed again.
With VAT at 17.5%, even if the US version had no sales tax on it at all, the price would be $352.50, so where does the rest of it go? Import taxes? As if import taxes on Japanese goods to the US are low. This is just exploitation of the PAL/SECAM/NTSC differences to grab extra profits from consumers whose only other choice is not to buy at all (and that applies to TVs, VCRs, DVDs and VHS movies too).
The idea that genetically modified crops are going to "contaminate" and "cripple" organic farmers is just another way of propagating the "technology/science is bad...natural is good" meme.
Considering the problems that new science (especially in conjunction with profit before people concepts) has caused before, from thalidomide babies to CFC pollution, it's hardly surprising that GMO is viewed with suspicion. The need to keep the shareholders happy has led to incomplete testing before on many things, scientists and technologists should not be hassling those that are justifiably nervous about screwing around with the ecosystem, they should be hassling the money men that cause corners to be cut in the name of higher share prices. But of course that would be unAmerican.
The newer OS ideas also seem to be copies of the older one. BeOS with it's Unix-like OS, Microsoft poaching any good ideas, adding Visual/Active in front of them and then claiming innovation, Apple using a hacked version of BSD as the core of their next release, need I go on. And in my experience, Unix people hate mainframes because they still haven't managed to get their favourite OS-type to do I/O as fast as an IBM mainframe can.
Old doesn't necessarily mean useless though, unless you're driving about in an electric car, have a solar-powered house with low-power lightbulbs in every room and a widescreen plasma TV. I'm not a neo-Luddite, but I am dubious of corporations telling me their product is wonderful, being the cynical almost-thirtysomething I am.My cynicism on GMO being no different to that on cars, computers, drugs, operating systems etc etc.
No it doesn't in 2.2, but does in 2.4, so it will probably be in the next round of distro releases.
The EU do a lot of things right, like being able to work anywhere I want in the EU, it's just that the little-Englander press in the UK write lies rather than the truth. And our government is every bit as corrupt as the European parliament, it's just not reported on.
Geeks don't like large corporations controlling the way technology goes, they prefer the most talented to win, and neither Intel or Microsoft are the most talented in their fields, merely the best at selling things to suckers.
I think the poster is talking about home computers. I didn't pay for the OS on my ZX Spectrum, Amiga 500 or Amiga 1200. And the Amiga was doing 32-bit pre-emptive multitasking when Windows 2.0 was choking on more than one process.
The Microsoft story is one of luck and good marketing, not superior software.
That's why most of the other Western countries have had an ADSL service available for sometime now, and the BT one has only just arrived.
Federally-subsidised? Sounds like pinko socialism to me.
Well in the UK market forces cannot yet decide the price, our obnoxious local monopoly does it. Our telecoms regulator has done very little about it. But of course that's OK, because it's not regulated and therefore customers are getting a better deal. I want my ADSL and I want it now, not whenever BT can be bothered to spend the money.
Amazing, prejudice against MS on /. This always happens when an MS story gets posted, anti-MS folks go ape and MS folks complain about it. If you don't like it, why do you come here?
That's not strictly true. I had my tape deck eat a tape a while ago and sent it back to Polygram and about a month later I got a new tape with an apology. It just depends how patient you are.
Only because they've got Linux snapping at their heels. I doubt Win2K would have been anything like as good otherwise, and it still has problems in my experience, such as the need to completely redesign your network if you want to take full advantage of it.
That's of course why Holland has the fourth largest banking sector in the world despite only having 7 million people living there. Holland is the perfect example of a country run for it's people rather than the profit of a few old men. Probably not having to fork out for unnecessary nuclear weapons helps as well.
I couldn't care less if my parents can't use Linux. I've advised them not to, because it has a steep learning curve. Having said that though, a lot of very intelligent people ask me to help out with their Windows setups, so the conclusion I've come to is that Windows isn't paticularly easy either for the computer non-literate, it just has more software and prettier pictures.
I thought the US government focussed primarily on the needs of those who were paying them the most.
If true democracy doesn't work and a republic does, why are there far fewer people begging on the streets of Amsterdam than Washington. America may have the wealthiest people in the world, but they also have the highest poverty rate in the first world too.
uhhhhhmmmmm kind o' metal ain't it, boy?
What, like the Boston Tea Party, or the UK democracy protesters in the 1830s, or the US War of Independence. What you're saying is that people should put up with the crappy status-quo, rather than make a bit of noise and try and get things changed. Welcome back to the British Empire. Don't forget to kneel when the local lord goes past.
With KDE/Qt, they need to pay $1500/developer; that's more than people pay for a very complete, industry-standard Microsoft development environment.
You're forgetting the cost of the OS license, the Client Access License, the Office 97 license, the Anti-virus software license, the time wasted on crashes, and the fact that you can only develop for one platform. $1500 is all you'll pay for a true cross-platform toolkit which GTK is not.