The west has frowned on (publicly) sending young people on suicide missions for a while now. It could be considered more palatable to send middle-aged persons, who want to "give back to this great nation that gave them so much" I image the spin would go, than to send kids and wait for them to inevitably expire.
It has a horrible, crappy interface though. I've mostly abandoned it on my mac for Movist, also open source and plays everything I've thrown at it with a nicer GUI to boot.
There was a time (ask your parents if you're under 40) when you rented your telephone from the phone company. No different than today you rent your cable box. The only phone that was allowed to plug into the wall jack was the one you rented from the phone company.
That was a protected monopoly, Apple is no such thing. Eventually the monopoly was broken and people came up with better solutions and wiped the old model away. That's not happening in this case because no-one has created a better solution yet. And they won't for a while because most of other players in this market are bumbling idiots who want to lock everything down even tighter than Apple does.
Maybe I'm dense but what was stopping the app developer from putting a link to his site, offering the source or part of it, in the description on the AppStore ? The distributer has to offer the source code but he doesn't have to host it does he ?
Yeah, who do Apple think they are respecting a complaint made by the original developers of the VLC code (!) I'd think this is a win for open source developers ? A third party creates an app that contains GPL code but isn't distributed according to the GPL's terms, the original authors complain and Apple complies and removes the infringing app.
The lack of a stable ABI keeps Linux source-based rather than binary-based. Linux is all about having driver source available!
This is the main problem I have with Linux. Choices made for philosophical reasons rather than practical considerations. You have this in other places too (eg. business concerns trump practicality) but Linux takes the cake.
The iMac has a displayport output. So he could in fact hook up a second monitor while waiting for a replacement to be shipped in if the retailer allowed it.
Reality does seem to become disconnected from fact whenever there is an issue which is as polarizing as this one with each side setting up a straw-man version of the other side and an idealised version of themselves. I would argue that it is to early to judge Assange and Wikileaks. Currently it is an organization under siege, the necessity of fending off attacks is the main factor shaping how it is operating and the personality cult I think also springs mostly out of the romanticism of the circumstance. Of course that doesn't mean that Wikileaks should be exempt from criticism or shouldn't be closely scrutinized but they do deserve some leeway.
I don't get how people, especially geeks, are surprised by that. It's a story we've seen with a thousand projects out there:
- guy starts project - geeks of all kinds, exited by the projects' potential, pile in - project leader moves project in one direction - when some geeks complain project leader tells them where they can stick their complaints - a fork is started without any of the leadership, momentum or funding
Nothing different about Wikileaks, just geeks doing their normal rituals.
It looks like Assange is trying to set up Wikileaks as a Reuters-like news agency for leaks. That does seem like the best way to guarantee global coverage but it's also pretty far from the original concept which might explain the recent disillusionment of Some of Wikileaks' collaborators
This is Slashdot. Only company we are allowed to indiscriminately hate and make fun of is Microsoft. Sorry... Micro$oft.
Other corporate entities are free game from time to time - but never Apple. Also, badmouthing Linux, penguins in general and in some cases Natalie Portman will almost certainly get you in serious trouble.
Where have you been? Apple is in the dog house, all the cool kids are turning a blind eye to Google's bullshit now.
Theft is a minor problem in affluent societies. We've all got a lot more stuff. So much stuff that when a bit of your stuff gets stolen you still have more stuff than you know what to do with. And it's easily replaceable too. Big difference from the days where you could fit all your things in a small suitcase and most people couldn't afford the trip to the store let alone to replace what got stolen.
Will they publish the blacklist publicly ? If not, there's no telling what they could block, especially since there don't appear to be any checks or oversight.
For example : "The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android. The same security issues that have led to piracy concerns on the Android platform have made it difficult for us to secure a common Digital Rights Management (DRM) system on these devices. [...] Although we don’t have a common platform security mechanism and DRM, we are able to work with individual handset manufacturers to add content protection to their devices. Unfortunately, this is a much slower approach and leads to a fragmented experience on Android, in which some handsets will have access to Netflix and others won’t. This clearly is not the preferred solution, and we regret the confusion it might create for consumers."
It's the revenge of the Applet: you load an application over the net (only from the Appstore instead of directly from a website) and you use it to manipulate remote data. It'll never be truly cloud though until the processing is also done remotely and that'll never happen for most applications. It's cheaper, faster and easier for all involved to do the processing locally.
Those companies cutting off Wikileaks isn't free speech, it's an old fashioned black balling. They won't be happy until Wikileaks can only accept cash given to them in person. In our modern society that's like cutting off an organizations' oxygen. Without due process, without even being charged of a crime, this organization is being attacked by the exertion of political pressure on companies either directly or indirectly (eg. the fear of potential political reprisals.) The DDOS attacks are civil disobedience, kind of technological sit-ins, designed to temporarily stop business as usual to make sure it is understood that there are a lot of people out there who won't stand for this sort of thing and, let's face it, a minor disruption at best.
The problem is the medium. Everyone "knows" censuring books is wrong, it is presented as such often enough in popular culture: evil Nazis burn books, we don't. Meanwhile the Internet in pop culture is being presented as a thing to be used to perform illegal acts and evade the police, causing them to have to "backtrace" you with VB GUI's, and therefor something which it is completely appropriate to censure. This is a very worrying trend.
There is no conflict. Government and corporate interests are one. The lines between the two have blurred so much that the same people are running them and neither of them has to be told what to do by the other, it's implicitly understood.
Oh well, they though he was a terrorist. I guess that's alright then. Your argument boils down to the fact that the US is the best of a bad lot, morality on a sliding scale. I don't accept that. You either stand for liberty and don't do this kind of thing or you wade in the shit with the rest of the totalitarians.
No if you cross the US they just kidnap you and send you to some shithole to be tortured. Then, if it turns out you're not the one they're looking for, they'll dump you out in the middle of nowhere and pressure your government to forget the whole thing ever happened. This is what happened to a German of Lebanese descent and that's a case we know of, god knows what else the CIA is up to where nobody's looking.
Do we have a right to know this stuff? No. It is nothing more than titillating information like what you would find in tabloids concerning celebrities. It is not our right to know private information about either celebrities or diplomats. What is said behind closed doors off the record is supposed to stay private.
Yeah except when a country like Saudi Arabia with close ties to US elites, like the bush family for example, urge the US to attack Iran then the population has a right to know that. They have a right to know that the reasons they are being given by their politicians might not be the whole story, for better or worse. Remember that $60 billion US-Saudi arms deal, the larget ever ? How's that looking in light of this information ?
Their early leaks contained things about Somalia, Cayman Islands, Great Britain, etc. Surely you remember the "climategate" emails ? Those were from a UK university. Sure their latest leaks have been US centric but they're just releasing the most high profile, inflammatory, stuff they have. Oh, and as a EU citizen I would also like to read more of "our" leaked documents. Get to it,whistle blowers !
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The west has frowned on (publicly) sending young people on suicide missions for a while now. It could be considered more palatable to send middle-aged persons, who want to "give back to this great nation that gave them so much" I image the spin would go, than to send kids and wait for them to inevitably expire.
It has a horrible, crappy interface though. I've mostly abandoned it on my mac for Movist, also open source and plays everything I've thrown at it with a nicer GUI to boot.
There was a time (ask your parents if you're under 40) when you rented your telephone from the phone company. No different than today you rent your cable box. The only phone that was allowed to plug into the wall jack was the one you rented from the phone company.
That was a protected monopoly, Apple is no such thing. Eventually the monopoly was broken and people came up with better solutions and wiped the old model away. That's not happening in this case because no-one has created a better solution yet. And they won't for a while because most of other players in this market are bumbling idiots who want to lock everything down even tighter than Apple does.
Maybe I'm dense but what was stopping the app developer from putting a link to his site, offering the source or part of it, in the description on the AppStore ? The distributer has to offer the source code but he doesn't have to host it does he ?
Yeah, who do Apple think they are respecting a complaint made by the original developers of the VLC code (!) I'd think this is a win for open source developers ? A third party creates an app that contains GPL code but isn't distributed according to the GPL's terms, the original authors complain and Apple complies and removes the infringing app.
The lack of a stable ABI keeps Linux source-based rather than binary-based. Linux is all about having driver source available!
This is the main problem I have with Linux. Choices made for philosophical reasons rather than practical considerations. You have this in other places too (eg. business concerns trump practicality) but Linux takes the cake.
It's been tried before by the OpenDarwin project. I hope there's enough interest to sustain it this time.
The iMac has a displayport output. So he could in fact hook up a second monitor while waiting for a replacement to be shipped in if the retailer allowed it.
Reality does seem to become disconnected from fact whenever there is an issue which is as polarizing as this one with each side setting up a straw-man version of the other side and an idealised version of themselves. I would argue that it is to early to judge Assange and Wikileaks. Currently it is an organization under siege, the necessity of fending off attacks is the main factor shaping how it is operating and the personality cult I think also springs mostly out of the romanticism of the circumstance. Of course that doesn't mean that Wikileaks should be exempt from criticism or shouldn't be closely scrutinized but they do deserve some leeway.
I don't get how people, especially geeks, are surprised by that. It's a story we've seen with a thousand projects out there:
- guy starts project
- geeks of all kinds, exited by the projects' potential, pile in
- project leader moves project in one direction
- when some geeks complain project leader tells them where they can stick their complaints
- a fork is started without any of the leadership, momentum or funding
Nothing different about Wikileaks, just geeks doing their normal rituals.
It looks like Assange is trying to set up Wikileaks as a Reuters-like news agency for leaks. That does seem like the best way to guarantee global coverage but it's also pretty far from the original concept which might explain the recent disillusionment of Some of Wikileaks' collaborators
This is Slashdot.
Only company we are allowed to indiscriminately hate and make fun of is Microsoft. Sorry... Micro$oft.
Other corporate entities are free game from time to time - but never Apple.
Also, badmouthing Linux, penguins in general and in some cases Natalie Portman will almost certainly get you in serious trouble.
Where have you been? Apple is in the dog house, all the cool kids are turning a blind eye to Google's bullshit now.
Theft is a minor problem in affluent societies. We've all got a lot more stuff. So much stuff that when a bit of your stuff gets stolen you still have more stuff than you know what to do with. And it's easily replaceable too. Big difference from the days where you could fit all your things in a small suitcase and most people couldn't afford the trip to the store let alone to replace what got stolen.
The leads are weak.
Will they publish the blacklist publicly ? If not, there's no telling what they could block, especially since there don't appear to be any checks or oversight.
For example : "The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android. The same security issues that have led to piracy concerns on the Android platform have made it difficult for us to secure a common Digital Rights Management (DRM) system on these devices. [...] Although we don’t have a common platform security mechanism and DRM, we are able to work with individual handset manufacturers to add content protection to their devices. Unfortunately, this is a much slower approach and leads to a fragmented experience on Android, in which some handsets will have access to Netflix and others won’t. This clearly is not the preferred solution, and we regret the confusion it might create for consumers."
It's the revenge of the Applet: you load an application over the net (only from the Appstore instead of directly from a website) and you use it to manipulate remote data. It'll never be truly cloud though until the processing is also done remotely and that'll never happen for most applications. It's cheaper, faster and easier for all involved to do the processing locally.
Those companies cutting off Wikileaks isn't free speech, it's an old fashioned black balling. They won't be happy until Wikileaks can only accept cash given to them in person. In our modern society that's like cutting off an organizations' oxygen. Without due process, without even being charged of a crime, this organization is being attacked by the exertion of political pressure on companies either directly or indirectly (eg. the fear of potential political reprisals.) The DDOS attacks are civil disobedience, kind of technological sit-ins, designed to temporarily stop business as usual to make sure it is understood that there are a lot of people out there who won't stand for this sort of thing and, let's face it, a minor disruption at best.
The problem is the medium. Everyone "knows" censuring books is wrong, it is presented as such often enough in popular culture: evil Nazis burn books, we don't. Meanwhile the Internet in pop culture is being presented as a thing to be used to perform illegal acts and evade the police, causing them to have to "backtrace" you with VB GUI's, and therefor something which it is completely appropriate to censure. This is a very worrying trend.
There is no conflict. Government and corporate interests are one. The lines between the two have blurred so much that the same people are running them and neither of them has to be told what to do by the other, it's implicitly understood.
Don't be sexist. Chicks hate that.
Oh well, they though he was a terrorist. I guess that's alright then. Your argument boils down to the fact that the US is the best of a bad lot, morality on a sliding scale. I don't accept that. You either stand for liberty and don't do this kind of thing or you wade in the shit with the rest of the totalitarians.
No if you cross the US they just kidnap you and send you to some shithole to be tortured. Then, if it turns out you're not the one they're looking for, they'll dump you out in the middle of nowhere and pressure your government to forget the whole thing ever happened. This is what happened to a German of Lebanese descent and that's a case we know of, god knows what else the CIA is up to where nobody's looking.
Do we have a right to know this stuff? No. It is nothing more than titillating information like what you would find in tabloids concerning celebrities. It is not our right to know private information about either celebrities or diplomats. What is said behind closed doors off the record is supposed to stay private.
Yeah except when a country like Saudi Arabia with close ties to US elites, like the bush family for example, urge the US to attack Iran then the population has a right to know that. They have a right to know that the reasons they are being given by their politicians might not be the whole story, for better or worse. Remember that $60 billion US-Saudi arms deal, the larget ever ? How's that looking in light of this information ?
Their early leaks contained things about Somalia, Cayman Islands, Great Britain, etc. Surely you remember the "climategate" emails ? Those were from a UK university. Sure their latest leaks have been US centric but they're just releasing the most high profile, inflammatory, stuff they have. Oh, and as a EU citizen I would also like to read more of "our" leaked documents. Get to it ,whistle blowers !