US TV is phemonmenally bland, there is also a marked lack of decent media to really question goverment and business. What has been built up is a system where it is okay for someone to stand up on national TV and say "Evolution is rubbish" but someone who stands up and says "God doesn't exist" is liable to get lynched.
This is hardly a fair criticism of US freedoms. In the US you certainly do have the right to stand up and say "God doesn't exist." What is not guaranteed is that you will have a receptive audience. Nobody is assured that others will agree with their particular point of view. Yes, depending on who you address your comments to, you might suffer a figurative lynching. You may suffer very heated rubuttals, be shouted down, bycotted, whatever. But you are still guaranteed that you cannot be forced to keep your mouth shut.
In other countries people fight for freedom, the US clings to the 1st ammendment as if it solves the need to fight.
Think of the 1st Ammendment as the legal embodiment of the concept "information wants to be free.":) That is the basic principle, really, that ideas should be freely exchanged and the government should have no power to suppress them.
While your point is a good one, call me pedantic but the loss of life in China is not the responsibility of the Nazis. It is Japan's.
Also, it would be interesting to see how they arrived at the number for the civilian deaths in Poland, Finland, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet's were far from innocent in slaughtering innocents during WWII.
This hardly absolves the Nazis. They were certainly evil and have tremendous blood on their hands.
It does make you wonder about the wisdom of appeasing Hitler by France and Britain during his rise to power, though. They were loath to enter into an armed confict with him, even when they had far superior armies, because they wanted to preserve the peace. The peace was not preserved and the loss of life was astronomical. Timely action would not have preserved the peace, but would have saved millions of lives.
So by your logic I suppose the US can blow it out its arse when it tries to stop US citisens from downloading material illegal in the US from sites in countries where such material is legal because these countries do not feel bound by US laws??
Huh? His logic advocates that the US does have the right to attempt to stop its citizens from accessing illegal material. He does not contend that the US has the right to close down sites in other countries as the remedy to stop its own citizens from violating its own laws.
So, yeah, the US can blow it out its arse if it attempts to shut down sites located in France, Sweden, wherever-the-hell outide its borders, because US citizens would violate US laws by accessing them. And I'm a US citizen.
Nothing new here, either, as the US is really no different from any other country. This is why we are separate countries rather than one large global nation.
Countries have self interests. Surprise, surprise.
Actually, you are the one in error here. You have grossly misread my posting and I think it is almost certainly because you "blindly see things along republican/democrat lines"!
It is a given that Nixon is a jerk. It is almost an immutable mantra. He is virtually always painted in near-Hitleresque terms as a man with no redeeming qualities. And yet he did have some. He got us out of Vietnam and he opened up China. I dared to point that out in a lighthearted way. I also threw in Dem vs. Rep angle because the post I was responding to headed down that path.
Now you fault Nixon for, among other things, putting more troops into Vietnam. Then I surely expect you to have the same contempt for Kennedy and LBJ, and indeed a great deal of contempt for LBJ who vastly escalated our involvement there. And, since abusing power and lying to the people is the deepest sin from which no politician can be redeemed, I imagine you must rank Clinton about equal to Nixen, right?
Nixon was indeed very wrong to lie to us and deceive us and he deserved to be run out of office for it. But there are more shades than black and white and he was not all black. Give the man credit where it is due.
Ever hear of OPEC? They decided to lower production and -- surprise! -- gas prices went up. More recently (and especially after the events of 09-11), they decided to ramp up production and -- surprise! -- gas prices went down.
Uh, yeah, I've heard of OPEC. And, yeah, they can impact gas prices by acting as a cartel (i.e. a monopoly) and artificially restricting oil supplies and/or colluding to set prices per barrel. That does not invalidate my point. Prices go up and down for a variety of reasons, as a function of supply and demand. The events of 9/11 have caused a tremendous slackening of demand for oil due to people's increased fear of flying. That resulted in huge financial loses to the airlines, which then had to lay off something on the order of 100,000 people combined. In an already weakening economy, this created an even greater pessimism amongst consumers, who consequently are not buying at the high rates companies had hoped for. This means less demand for goods in general, which translates to a reduced need to manufacture and ship goods, which also means less demand for gas. The point? OPEC can impact the price of gas, but so can other factors. My original point still stands and is correct: increasing prices are not proof of monopolistic behaviour.
But more than anything, we are now seeing the most obvious, direct, and "see, they are clearly a monopoly" harm: raised prices [cnet.com].
That is hardly proof that they are a monopoly. Gas prices have gone up (and now lately back down) over the past few months. When they went up, was that proof that the company I buy gas from is a monopoly? Prices for products change for a variety of reasons. When they go up, that is not proof that there is a monopoly.
It's even worse than just raised prices; it's clear that the advances in Windows and Office are really slowing down, so Microsoft is essentially forcing you to pay more for less.
How so? Are you really compelled to go out and buy Windows XP? I know I am not planning on buying it. On the other hand, if I change my mind and decide I want its features bad enough, I will go out and buy it if I think the price is fair. The decision rests with me.
This is absolutely dead on. The appeasement toward Hitler & Germany by Britain, France, Belgium, America, et. al. in the years prior to WWII was absolutely criminal. There can be no doubt that had these countries taken decisive action early to stop the Nazi aggression, far, far more lives would have been SAVED than were, in fact, lost by following the course of action they did.
While it is commendable to appeal to reason and attempt to negotiate peaceful settlements, there comes a point where you have to recognize what you are dealing with for what it is. In the case of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, reason isn't even an option. These people believe God wants them to destroy Western Civilization! They have acted and continue to act on that belief. There can be no peaceful settlement short of giving them everything they want because they will never "sell-out" to their God. It is time for us to stop them before they can do greater harm.
So your point is that the US should make decisions on whether to attack Afganistan based on the desire for revenge amongst New Yorkers? Should they also consider the feelings of those in D.C.? What about the family members of those on board the 4 airplanes?
Please don't forget that it was the United States that was attacked, not just New York. There is no single American opinion on how to respond to the attacks against us. You will be able to find strong backing for a military response everywhere, including N.Y. and D.C. Likewise, you will be able to find strong opinions against such a response in the same places.
This is not a media war. It is a well-considered response to terrorist attacks on American soil.
I think the difference is that an aircraft is designed to transport passengers and cargo through the air, and in this case was transformed into a destructive tool.
Ok, consider how things change if the hijackers had somehow been able to commandeer a B-52 and fly it in the WTC. This aircraft was designed as a destructive tool. The aircraft designers planned for it to be used in a particlar way (to drop bombs, among others). They did not design it to be flown into buildings, although they would have to admit it could be used that way.
PGP was designed to ensure privacy between individuals. It was not designed to provide terrorists with a secure means to coordinate their attacks, although you have to admit it could be used that way.
The use the tool was put to is where the moral judgements come in.
No, they govern very different usages of software, but they both govern. The GPL governs how software can be redistributed and how modifications to software must be handled. It is aimed at developers, not end users. The GPL's users are developers and it certainly does govern the use of the software it covers.
The two licenses are not fundamentally different: both are contracts. The intended users are fundamentally different. But the contacts themselves each give permissions to use products, with certain restrictions.
The qualitative difference between the two licenses seems to be defined by you. Why not:
GPL: Do whatever you like with this software so long as you don't violate the restrictions specified.
MS: Do whatever you like with this software so long as you don't violate the restrictions specified.
They are licenses defining your rights. All you are saying is you find one more odious than the other. The correct response is to bitch and to not buy the software (or return it if you did buy it).
MS is clearly stupid to include this in their EULA. However, they are not violating your rights to free speech. Since the terms for this product are so odious, don't buy it. And make a stink agout the EULA so they get bad press over it. But you still have the ability to express yourself through web pages. That has not been lost. Your rights are still intact.
Using completely fabricated numbers, say in this year 10,000 marriages were started (10,000 couples got married). Also, in this year, 5,000 marriages were ended (in divorce). Then half of the marriages ended in divorce? Assume there were already 1,000,000 marriages formed though. Then in this year 5,000 of 1,010,000 marriages ended in divorce -- a divorce rate of.5%, not 50%.
I wonder if the NY Times has to separately license content for inclusion into their microfiche archives? If not, why should the format of the achive dictate the need for additional licensing? It looks like there is now legal standing for freelancers to seek compensation for being included in any type of repository that is not a warehouse of old newspapers.
Railroad companies needed subsurface rights too!
on
Make Way for Fiber
·
· Score: 1
Didn't the railroad companies need to have subsurface rights in order to drive their railroad spikes into the ground?:)
Slashdot Mirror
Volkswagen is making T.V. shows now?
:)
Oh, wait. Nevermind...
Some of us saw Star Wars originally as adults and have yet to grow up! :)
Chicken Little ought not be the standard tone of every Slashdot story.
No, just the standard tone of every Slashdot MS story.
US TV is phemonmenally bland, there is also a marked lack of decent media to really question goverment and business. What has been built up is a system where it is okay for someone to stand up on national TV and say "Evolution is rubbish" but someone who stands up and says "God doesn't exist" is liable to get lynched.
:) That is the basic principle, really, that ideas should be freely exchanged and the government should have no power to suppress them.
This is hardly a fair criticism of US freedoms. In the US you certainly do have the right to stand up and say "God doesn't exist." What is not guaranteed is that you will have a receptive audience. Nobody is assured that others will agree with their particular point of view. Yes, depending on who you address your comments to, you might suffer a figurative lynching. You may suffer very heated rubuttals, be shouted down, bycotted, whatever. But you are still guaranteed that you cannot be forced to keep your mouth shut.
In other countries people fight for freedom, the US clings to the 1st ammendment as if it solves the need to fight.
Think of the 1st Ammendment as the legal embodiment of the concept "information wants to be free."
While your point is a good one, call me pedantic but the loss of life in China is not the responsibility of the Nazis. It is Japan's.
Also, it would be interesting to see how they arrived at the number for the civilian deaths in Poland, Finland, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet's were far from innocent in slaughtering innocents during WWII.
This hardly absolves the Nazis. They were certainly evil and have tremendous blood on their hands.
It does make you wonder about the wisdom of appeasing Hitler by France and Britain during his rise to power, though. They were loath to enter into an armed confict with him, even when they had far superior armies, because they wanted to preserve the peace. The peace was not preserved and the loss of life was astronomical. Timely action would not have preserved the peace, but would have saved millions of lives.
So by your logic I suppose the US can blow it out its arse when it tries to stop US citisens from downloading material illegal in the US from sites in countries where such material is legal because these countries do not feel bound by US laws??
Huh? His logic advocates that the US does have the right to attempt to stop its citizens from accessing illegal material. He does not contend that the US has the right to close down sites in other countries as the remedy to stop its own citizens from violating its own laws.
So, yeah, the US can blow it out its arse if it attempts to shut down sites located in France, Sweden, wherever-the-hell outide its borders, because US citizens would violate US laws by accessing them. And I'm a US citizen.
Nothing new here, either, as the US is really no different from any other country. This is why we are separate countries rather than one large global nation.
Countries have self interests. Surprise, surprise.
Actually, you are the one in error here. You have grossly misread my posting and I think it is almost certainly because you "blindly see things along republican/democrat lines"!
It is a given that Nixon is a jerk. It is almost an immutable mantra. He is virtually always painted in near-Hitleresque terms as a man with no redeeming qualities. And yet he did have some. He got us out of Vietnam and he opened up China. I dared to point that out in a lighthearted way. I also threw in Dem vs. Rep angle because the post I was responding to headed down that path.
Now you fault Nixon for, among other things, putting more troops into Vietnam. Then I surely expect you to have the same contempt for Kennedy and LBJ, and indeed a great deal of contempt for LBJ who vastly escalated our involvement there. And, since abusing power and lying to the people is the deepest sin from which no politician can be redeemed, I imagine you must rank Clinton about equal to Nixen, right?
Nixon was indeed very wrong to lie to us and deceive us and he deserved to be run out of office for it. But there are more shades than black and white and he was not all black. Give the man credit where it is due.
And was the only state to vote against Nixon in 1972.
Oh, you mean that President who got us out of Vietnam? He was a jerk, wasn't he. Not like that other President who buried us deeply IN Vietnam -- LBJ.
The Don Quixote State!
Ever hear of OPEC? They decided to lower production and -- surprise! -- gas prices went up. More recently (and especially after the events of 09-11), they decided to ramp up production and -- surprise! -- gas prices went down.
Uh, yeah, I've heard of OPEC. And, yeah, they can impact gas prices by acting as a cartel (i.e. a monopoly) and artificially restricting oil supplies and/or colluding to set prices per barrel. That does not invalidate my point. Prices go up and down for a variety of reasons, as a function of supply and demand. The events of 9/11 have caused a tremendous slackening of demand for oil due to people's increased fear of flying. That resulted in huge financial loses to the airlines, which then had to lay off something on the order of 100,000 people combined. In an already weakening economy, this created an even greater pessimism amongst consumers, who consequently are not buying at the high rates companies had hoped for. This means less demand for goods in general, which translates to a reduced need to manufacture and ship goods, which also means less demand for gas. The point? OPEC can impact the price of gas, but so can other factors. My original point still stands and is correct: increasing prices are not proof of monopolistic behaviour.
Next time, think your examples through.
Next time, follow your own advice.
But more than anything, we are now seeing the most obvious, direct, and "see, they are clearly a monopoly" harm: raised prices [cnet.com].
That is hardly proof that they are a monopoly. Gas prices have gone up (and now lately back down) over the past few months. When they went up, was that proof that the company I buy gas from is a monopoly? Prices for products change for a variety of reasons. When they go up, that is not proof that there is a monopoly.
It's even worse than just raised prices; it's clear that the advances in Windows and Office are really slowing down, so Microsoft is essentially forcing you to pay more for less.
How so? Are you really compelled to go out and buy Windows XP? I know I am not planning on buying it. On the other hand, if I change my mind and decide I want its features bad enough, I will go out and buy it if I think the price is fair. The decision rests with me.
This is absolutely dead on. The appeasement toward Hitler & Germany by Britain, France, Belgium, America, et. al. in the years prior to WWII was absolutely criminal. There can be no doubt that had these countries taken decisive action early to stop the Nazi aggression, far, far more lives would have been SAVED than were, in fact, lost by following the course of action they did.
While it is commendable to appeal to reason and attempt to negotiate peaceful settlements, there comes a point where you have to recognize what you are dealing with for what it is. In the case of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, reason isn't even an option. These people believe God wants them to destroy Western Civilization! They have acted and continue to act on that belief. There can be no peaceful settlement short of giving them everything they want because they will never "sell-out" to their God. It is time for us to stop them before they can do greater harm.
Someone committed a crime, not and act of war, and the US is responding by making war.
If that is how you prefer to frame the situation, then no, the US is NOT responding by making war. The US is involved in a police action.
Your ignorance on America's policies toward Muslims is staggering.
So your point is that the US should make decisions on whether to attack Afganistan based on the desire for revenge amongst New Yorkers? Should they also consider the feelings of those in D.C.? What about the family members of those on board the 4 airplanes?
Please don't forget that it was the United States that was attacked, not just New York. There is no single American opinion on how to respond to the attacks against us. You will be able to find strong backing for a military response everywhere, including N.Y. and D.C. Likewise, you will be able to find strong opinions against such a response in the same places.
This is not a media war. It is a well-considered response to terrorist attacks on American soil.
I've read a lot about the various fun ways it can kill you through history books.
Best to stay away from those history books then!
:)
I think the difference is that an aircraft is designed to transport passengers and cargo through the air, and in this case was transformed into a destructive tool.
Ok, consider how things change if the hijackers had somehow been able to commandeer a B-52 and fly it in the WTC. This aircraft was designed as a destructive tool. The aircraft designers planned for it to be used in a particlar way (to drop bombs, among others). They did not design it to be flown into buildings, although they would have to admit it could be used that way.
PGP was designed to ensure privacy between individuals. It was not designed to provide terrorists with a secure means to coordinate their attacks, although you have to admit it could be used that way.
The use the tool was put to is where the moral judgements come in.
No, they govern very different usages of software, but they both govern. The GPL governs how software can be redistributed and how modifications to software must be handled. It is aimed at developers, not end users. The GPL's users are developers and it certainly does govern the use of the software it covers.
The two licenses are not fundamentally different: both are contracts. The intended users are fundamentally different. But the contacts themselves each give permissions to use products, with certain restrictions.
The qualitative difference between the two licenses seems to be defined by you. Why not:
GPL: Do whatever you like with this software so long as you don't violate the restrictions specified.
MS: Do whatever you like with this software so long as you don't violate the restrictions specified.
They are licenses defining your rights. All you are saying is you find one more odious than the other. The correct response is to bitch and to not buy the software (or return it if you did buy it).
MS is clearly stupid to include this in their EULA. However, they are not violating your rights to free speech. Since the terms for this product are so odious, don't buy it. And make a stink agout the EULA so they get bad press over it. But you still have the ability to express yourself through web pages. That has not been lost. Your rights are still intact.
Right, so your last point is that America went to war in WWII to improve its economy?
What a dip...
Right. In effect, "a gun to your head."
Using completely fabricated numbers, say in this year 10,000 marriages were started (10,000 couples got married). Also, in this year, 5,000 marriages were ended (in divorce). Then half of the marriages ended in divorce? Assume there were already 1,000,000 marriages formed though. Then in this year 5,000 of 1,010,000 marriages ended in divorce -- a divorce rate of .5%, not 50%.
I wonder if the NY Times has to separately license content for inclusion into their microfiche archives? If not, why should the format of the achive dictate the need for additional licensing? It looks like there is now legal standing for freelancers to seek compensation for being included in any type of repository that is not a warehouse of old newspapers.
Didn't the railroad companies need to have subsurface rights in order to drive their railroad spikes into the ground? :)