But go through the attached Discussion page and the History of the article, and you will usually get a very good and thorough overview of the controversy and the positions of the involved parties.
You have a valid point but you will also get random vandalism and arguments which are of so little worth, or thought to be so, that they are simply deleted/reverted without debate. If Wikipedia was set up to handle such arguments better then it might well have more utility than it does now.
Well, exactly what did stop alternate systems from being implimented? I don't recall reading about the US threatening missile strikes against sites planning to launch their own satellites
Well, in the end the EU have decided to go ahead with their system. America does not threaten to bomb other white countries; it just threatens to pull out their investments or support opposition parties. America has never knowingly allied with any other country. It forms business relationships instead (like in WWII), and charges for them. Unfortunately, other countries have been slow to realise this and have been caught out by believing that the relationship is one of mutual aid and support. It is, so long as "mutual" means "America's advantage". Whether it's stealing friendly nations' technology, supporting the murder of elected representatives who are annoying US companies, or installing and arming dictators like Saddam (take a bow, Mr Rumsfeld), America can be relied on to be in the front line doing its thing and then to be surly and dangerous when it's told to clean up its own mess as it has over Iraq, a country invaded because the President apparently hears voices in his head.
BTW, what country are you from, I'd like to know so that I might have a chuckle at your expense as well.
Northern Ireland, which is itself a classic example of America being happy to interfere with other people's lives while whining about anyone taking an interest in what they're doing around the world.
As to what you might want to chuckle about in the case of Northern Ireland, I realy don't care because when I go to bed I know that, no matter what else is wrong with my country, it's still not America, and that makes up for all the rest.
TWW
Note: naturally, all these sweeping generalisations above are about the American aristocracy, not the normal man-in-the-street. As far as I can tell, if they didn't live under massive censorship and propaganda, they would by and large condemn their government too, as they mostly seem decent enough people when I meet them.
If the DVD box was a contract it could certainly benefit the consumer. As you pointed out, if it said "the best film of the year" on it and it was not the best film, you would be entitled to a refund.
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant that "if a DVD box was really a contract and not what the media companies want you to think is a contract, ie something that grants only one party extra rights and restricts only the other party..."
This is where the fraud comes in. The word "contract" which is used a lot in the current discussions is a veneer to disguise a much less reasonable idea in practice.
As long as it is clearly stated on the CD, DVD, or software what the limitations are of the contract under which it is offered, then it falls to the consumer to either fully accept or refuse it.
No. It is not enough to say that anything printed on a DVD case becomes a contract. There must be clear limits on what you can impose on someone when you are acting as if you are selling them something. If someone prints "Must send us first-born child" on a box it is ridiculous to imagine that anyone should be held to that. Similarly, the idea that I buy the physical media, and not the content, is not something the law should uphold no matter what it says on the box.
Text printed on a box is not a contract or a license: it is blurb.
Indeed, it is painfully obvious that anything printed on the box is not a contract if you attempt to take back a game because its not "The greatest FPS ever" or whatever it says in lurid letters on the front. The same companies that want their tiny print on the back treated like a signed, considered, negotiated contract would be fucked if they were held to the same standard that they want to hold the consumer. And, since we mention the consumer, where does he/she go to register additional conditions on the seller? Where do I write in "must not require patching for basic game functions on pain of 200% refund"? How odd! There doesn't seem to be a place for that. Again, the idea that a DVD box is some sort of contract benefits only one party: the seller.
EULAs and the rest of it are just varieties of fraud, pure and simple. They exist only to make the consumer give up rights and safeguards that should be, and actually often are, protected by law.
If you make the Top Tiers a government-controlled service, expect long term problems like censorship, taxation and regulations on sub-level tiers.
All of which can, and have been, imposed anyway.
Let the free market provide and we'll be safer in the long run.
There is no such thing. It is an impossibility. Communism and Capitalism both have these utopian ideas at their hearts; that's why neither of them work in practice the way they're supposed to on paper.
But not quite. It's too easy to vandalise subtly. It's very hard to work out the inbuilt bias of any article on any given day - something we all take for granted in print articles, broadcasts, and newspapers. Finally, any "live" political topic such as the IRA, Israel, etc. is effectively a waste of space due to the polarities of opinion.
On the other hand, its often quite good for looking up dates and other similarly objective data.
As a research tool, well, as long as your subject is not historical or political it is a good start. If those are your subjects then it's worse than useless and you'd be a fool to use it.
But since you bring it up, GPS is another American (MILITARY) invention that while we may share usage of it with the rest of the world, the rest of the world is certainly not entitled to it. In fact, if you don't like the fact that it can be turned off by the American Government, then DO NOT USE IT. Anybody who has put themself in a situation intentionally, that could harm their life, had better damn well know how to use a map and compass.
You obviously read as well as you type. I specifically pointed out that the US attempted to PREVENT anyone else implimenting a similar GPS system, thereby forcing them to use the US or resort to the compass. You can't have it both ways: you can't say "you don't have to use ours" AND "You can't make your own".
A very similar situation exists with DNS: the US is saying that as long as we want to use it we have to play by their rules, but they also don't want to let us run our own domains and be able to make our own rules. That's just hypocracy, which I'll admit is the normal MO for American governments.
In a broader sense, I think that history will ultimately tell the tale of America and show us to be good stewards of invention, and how our wealth has always overflowed and been shared for the common good of man, and not just ourselves.
Should the world go back to text-only Lynx? Becasue that's the "web" as it existed until American scientists and entrepreneurs embraced and improved it.
Oh, I see. So what you're saying is "I know absolutely fuck-all about this but I want to shoot my mouth off anyway."
Basically, american tax dollars funded and built this network,
Funded and started this network. I doubt that the US contribution to the total amount spent on all the Internet infrastructure in the world is a very large percentage. Plus, of course the "We built it" argument ignores the Web, which is not an American invention. Should the US go back to Gopher?
. I don't think that the US has shown any cause or reason (shutting people out) that the UN or EU has any standing to present this to anyone.
The US has shown a very causual attitude to switching off GPS when it suits it. Doing so is a life-threatening action for many people. How can the rest of the world trust the US with the Internet when it shows such disregard for the realities of global structures? They even opposed the rest of us building a backup system rather than, for example, saying "If you don't like our rules you're free to make your own system."
As an American, I would honestly like to know, "what has the UN done for the USA?"
If you mean, and I think a lot of Americans do mean this when askig that question, "What has the UN given the American economy that our armed forces couldn't have just taken when we wanted to", then the answer is "nothing". It has been involved in preventing several wars which may have ultimately resulted in the deaths of every American citizen, however. Some people might think that was of some value.
Then I would, in the same vain ask, "What has the USA done for teh UN?"
Vain indeed! I don't know what the US has done for the UN other than refuse to pay its dues, and vetoed more motions and blocked more actions than any other member. If the UN was a normal sort of club the US would have been asked to leave decades ago. But it's not - it's much more important than that even with the number of handicaps the US imposses on it.
When you go to the cinema do you expect that you'll own the film afterwards?
There's a difference: if I go to the cinema then I've paid towards the cost of the film (and the profits if it takes that much). If I don't watch a BBC programme, I still pay for it. Ownership is a fair return for the compulsory nature of the paying, IMHO.
Given how many commercial, fully spec'ed projects fail or are not even delivered, or are delivered late and over budget, is there really that much evidence that anyone knows how to write complex software at all?
Maybe "what works" is the best approach, especially for an open-ended project like Linux.
Given that in its early days the A320 would occasionally just dive into the ground or start doing loops and Airbus's response was to have the test crew certified insane, this isn't really new. This was even after they were caught on film switching black boxes after a crash. There's details here but it was covered by the channel 4 news at the time.
The problem is that so many European governments are involved in the project, and so many politicians are getting "benefits" from it that it simply isn't allowed to criticise Airbus.
Why do people rely on electricity and running water?
So you think all these web-service companies will have legal requirements about quality of service, not to mention some sort of magical system for continuing the service if they go bust?
You must be stupendously young to not have heard of large companies going bust overnight because their staff did something stupid and/or criminal. It can happen to any company, and then of course there's the question of what happens when the company simply decides to turn the service off or tripple the price or any one of a hundred other things you will have no say in.
Also I think back in the days of centralized computing on supercomputers and mainframe were an issue because we werent, at the time, blessed with highspeed fiber optic lines like we are today, where latency is barely an issue when working on a remote server, somewhere.
You are forgetting how little data went down those links - graphics were not often an option!
Wake me up when Google can deliver a good search engine (I know they currently deliver the best search engine, that's not the same thing at all).
To say nothing of the fact that Microsoft got a free ride from IBM to their current position; I can't see MS doing the same favour for Google, can you?
And finally, why would anyone want to rely on a net connection to be able to write a letter, or trust a remote company to hold their data, or basically use any of these web-technologies pundits keep claiming are the next big thing? The world of users was ebullient when it shook off the shackels of having to connect to a mainframe to do work; why would they want to give that freedom up? Normal users, that is - I can see some attractions for stupid PHBs in companies. Google Maps is good, but would I rather have it running on my machine? Damn right I would!
So I guess you didn't get your venture funded, huh?
Actually, I did.
I'm not saying that what they give you (cash) is worthless - far from it, but many people get excited by the idea that because they've got a VC on-board means they must have a good idea; it's not that easy.
VC's generally know only one thing: what other investments other VCs have made that paid off. Consequently they chase the "next big thing". That's what made the.com bubble: VC's chasing the few success stories and pumping huge amounts of cash into things because they looked good. Anyone with any sense wouldn't have touched many of these ideas with a barge-pole.
VC's are gamblers, pure and simple. They study the odds and the conditions, sure, but at the end of the day, it's not their money and they really don't care as long as the odd gamble comes home big, which is why they always want such a huge slice of the companies they back.
As to taking risks, no. VC's never risk anything. They generally use other people's money. Very very few VC's I met were risking even their own money on their office space. They are usually spending pension-fund money. Which, sadly, is another reason they really don't need to know anything about what they're doing.
As I said: getting a VC on-board means you're good at talking to VCs, nothing more. The money they give you may well get you over hurdles that you would have floundered at before but their expertise and the people they put on your board to "guide" you basically are just ballast and ideally you want to get them off to a golf-course somewhere rather than interfering with your company. They generally do know about golf, so if your company is related to golf or golf supplies, you might find them of some help, but otherwise take the money and ignore everything else they say. If they knew anything about business, they'd be in business.
Remember this important fact: depending on the VC company, they have a success rate of between 1 in 12 and 1 in 15. VCs know nothing about what is a good investment (if they did, they wouldn't invest in those 11 to 14 duds).
So getting money from a VC is in no way, shape, or form, an endorsement of your idea or your business plan. It just means you're good at talking to VCs.
GWB just imagined that whole 11 September 2001 thing
And that has what to do with Iraq? You know, Iraq, BinLaden's biggest enemy in the Middle East (maybe apart from Isreal).
Maybe then they'd get off their asses and clean up the mess he was making, essentially, in their own back yard.
The mess America was making in their back yard, you mean. America installed Saddam, Rumsfeld armed him with bio-weapons, the CIA under GB Snr helped him "calibrate" those weapons. Why the hell shouldn't the US sort out the mess? Well, one reason is that they're incompetent and made it worse.
why is it that piece of shit liberals like you blame GWB for everything you perceive as wrong in the world? "Wah! My toast burned! GWB's fault!" "Wah! My radio won't pick up that station 80 miles away! GWB's fault!"
Wah! George invaded a country that wasn't bothering him so he could get its oil* and now people in my country are being killed by the lunatics recruited as a direct result of his greed. Christ, yeah, that's very unreasonable. I mean, fair enough, the 3000-odd people that died in the UK because of US-backed terrorists in Ireland, everyone agreed that was just a bit of fun, but complaining that your people are dying to support American economic policy. Why, that's almost anti-business!
Why is it that apologists for Bush and his bastards talk so much about action and doing things and never responsibility or consequences?
TWW
* I'm being generous here, it seems increasingly likely that George invaded Iraq simply because he's fucking moron and Dick "Haliburton" Cheney and Donald "The Russians have Invisible Submarines - You Can Tell Because You Can't See Them Anywhere" Rumsfeld told him to. At least invading for the oil would be in America's interest, if rather petty and short-sighted.
But when he looked up canceling his TiVo, he found out that under the terms of his "agreement" with TiVo (e.g., the crap he clicked through when get got set up), he was obliged to pay a $150 "early cancellation" fee.
Irrelevant. You don't have to pay to break a contract the other party has already broken.
How do you know? The glories of closed-source development means that we have no idea howmany old bugs they have fixed and how many are still active.
That's nice, but unfortunately you can also get infected if you use something that has a "superior design"
Yes, because execution of any design can go awry, IE's design, however, is deeply flawed and can not be fixed while achieving MS's goals for it. Even if MS's programmers were good or motivated there's nothing they can do about disasters like ActiveX and OS-integration.
I posted a much longer reply than this but it seems to have not made it onto the system somehow.
The reason MS got spaghetti code was because of their stupid nightly-build scheme. Do you want to be the team that prevented the Juggernaut from compiling tonight? No, didn't think so, so slap in any old code that lets it compile and run and fix it later when you have time, say in 2045 when you've retired.
Slashdot Mirror
You have a valid point but you will also get random vandalism and arguments which are of so little worth, or thought to be so, that they are simply deleted/reverted without debate. If Wikipedia was set up to handle such arguments better then it might well have more utility than it does now.
TWW
Well, in the end the EU have decided to go ahead with their system. America does not threaten to bomb other white countries; it just threatens to pull out their investments or support opposition parties. America has never knowingly allied with any other country. It forms business relationships instead (like in WWII), and charges for them. Unfortunately, other countries have been slow to realise this and have been caught out by believing that the relationship is one of mutual aid and support. It is, so long as "mutual" means "America's advantage". Whether it's stealing friendly nations' technology, supporting the murder of elected representatives who are annoying US companies, or installing and arming dictators like Saddam (take a bow, Mr Rumsfeld), America can be relied on to be in the front line doing its thing and then to be surly and dangerous when it's told to clean up its own mess as it has over Iraq, a country invaded because the President apparently hears voices in his head.
BTW, what country are you from, I'd like to know so that I might have a chuckle at your expense as well.
Northern Ireland, which is itself a classic example of America being happy to interfere with other people's lives while whining about anyone taking an interest in what they're doing around the world.
As to what you might want to chuckle about in the case of Northern Ireland, I realy don't care because when I go to bed I know that, no matter what else is wrong with my country, it's still not America, and that makes up for all the rest.
TWW
Note: naturally, all these sweeping generalisations above are about the American aristocracy, not the normal man-in-the-street. As far as I can tell, if they didn't live under massive censorship and propaganda, they would by and large condemn their government too, as they mostly seem decent enough people when I meet them.
I like it, actually.
What does "TWW" mean?
They're my real initials.
TWW
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant that "if a DVD box was really a contract and not what the media companies want you to think is a contract, ie something that grants only one party extra rights and restricts only the other party..."
This is where the fraud comes in. The word "contract" which is used a lot in the current discussions is a veneer to disguise a much less reasonable idea in practice.
TWW
No. It is not enough to say that anything printed on a DVD case becomes a contract. There must be clear limits on what you can impose on someone when you are acting as if you are selling them something. If someone prints "Must send us first-born child" on a box it is ridiculous to imagine that anyone should be held to that. Similarly, the idea that I buy the physical media, and not the content, is not something the law should uphold no matter what it says on the box.
Text printed on a box is not a contract or a license: it is blurb.
Indeed, it is painfully obvious that anything printed on the box is not a contract if you attempt to take back a game because its not "The greatest FPS ever" or whatever it says in lurid letters on the front. The same companies that want their tiny print on the back treated like a signed, considered, negotiated contract would be fucked if they were held to the same standard that they want to hold the consumer. And, since we mention the consumer, where does he/she go to register additional conditions on the seller? Where do I write in "must not require patching for basic game functions on pain of 200% refund"? How odd! There doesn't seem to be a place for that. Again, the idea that a DVD box is some sort of contract benefits only one party: the seller.
EULAs and the rest of it are just varieties of fraud, pure and simple. They exist only to make the consumer give up rights and safeguards that should be, and actually often are, protected by law.
TWW
All of which can, and have been, imposed anyway.
Let the free market provide and we'll be safer in the long run.
There is no such thing. It is an impossibility. Communism and Capitalism both have these utopian ideas at their hearts; that's why neither of them work in practice the way they're supposed to on paper.
TWW
On the other hand, its often quite good for looking up dates and other similarly objective data.
As a research tool, well, as long as your subject is not historical or political it is a good start. If those are your subjects then it's worse than useless and you'd be a fool to use it.
TWW
Let's not leave the clergy out of that list.
TWW
You obviously read as well as you type. I specifically pointed out that the US attempted to PREVENT anyone else implimenting a similar GPS system, thereby forcing them to use the US or resort to the compass. You can't have it both ways: you can't say "you don't have to use ours" AND "You can't make your own".
A very similar situation exists with DNS: the US is saying that as long as we want to use it we have to play by their rules, but they also don't want to let us run our own domains and be able to make our own rules. That's just hypocracy, which I'll admit is the normal MO for American governments.
In a broader sense, I think that history will ultimately tell the tale of America and show us to be good stewards of invention, and how our wealth has always overflowed and been shared for the common good of man, and not just ourselves.
Well, I enjoyed the laugh anyway, thanks.
TWW
Oh, I see. So what you're saying is "I know absolutely fuck-all about this but I want to shoot my mouth off anyway."
Interesting point.
TWW
If you'd seen Office for Mac, you'd know there was 0% focus on it.
TWW
. I don't think that the US has shown any cause or reason (shutting people out) that the UN or EU has any standing to present this to anyone.
The US has shown a very causual attitude to switching off GPS when it suits it. Doing so is a life-threatening action for many people. How can the rest of the world trust the US with the Internet when it shows such disregard for the realities of global structures? They even opposed the rest of us building a backup system rather than, for example, saying "If you don't like our rules you're free to make your own system."
As an American, I would honestly like to know, "what has the UN done for the USA?"
If you mean, and I think a lot of Americans do mean this when askig that question, "What has the UN given the American economy that our armed forces couldn't have just taken when we wanted to", then the answer is "nothing". It has been involved in preventing several wars which may have ultimately resulted in the deaths of every American citizen, however. Some people might think that was of some value.
Then I would, in the same vain ask, "What has the USA done for teh UN?"
Vain indeed! I don't know what the US has done for the UN other than refuse to pay its dues, and vetoed more motions and blocked more actions than any other member. If the UN was a normal sort of club the US would have been asked to leave decades ago. But it's not - it's much more important than that even with the number of handicaps the US imposses on it.
TWW
There's a difference: if I go to the cinema then I've paid towards the cost of the film (and the profits if it takes that much). If I don't watch a BBC programme, I still pay for it. Ownership is a fair return for the compulsory nature of the paying, IMHO.
TWW
Maybe "what works" is the best approach, especially for an open-ended project like Linux.
TWW
The problem is that so many European governments are involved in the project, and so many politicians are getting "benefits" from it that it simply isn't allowed to criticise Airbus.
TWW
So you think all these web-service companies will have legal requirements about quality of service, not to mention some sort of magical system for continuing the service if they go bust?
TWW
Also I think back in the days of centralized computing on supercomputers and mainframe were an issue because we werent, at the time, blessed with highspeed fiber optic lines like we are today, where latency is barely an issue when working on a remote server, somewhere.
You are forgetting how little data went down those links - graphics were not often an option!
TWW
To say nothing of the fact that Microsoft got a free ride from IBM to their current position; I can't see MS doing the same favour for Google, can you?
And finally, why would anyone want to rely on a net connection to be able to write a letter, or trust a remote company to hold their data, or basically use any of these web-technologies pundits keep claiming are the next big thing? The world of users was ebullient when it shook off the shackels of having to connect to a mainframe to do work; why would they want to give that freedom up? Normal users, that is - I can see some attractions for stupid PHBs in companies. Google Maps is good, but would I rather have it running on my machine? Damn right I would!
TWW
Actually, I did.
I'm not saying that what they give you (cash) is worthless - far from it, but many people get excited by the idea that because they've got a VC on-board means they must have a good idea; it's not that easy.
VC's generally know only one thing: what other investments other VCs have made that paid off. Consequently they chase the "next big thing". That's what made the .com bubble: VC's chasing the few success stories and pumping huge amounts of cash into things because they looked good. Anyone with any sense wouldn't have touched many of these ideas with a barge-pole.
VC's are gamblers, pure and simple. They study the odds and the conditions, sure, but at the end of the day, it's not their money and they really don't care as long as the odd gamble comes home big, which is why they always want such a huge slice of the companies they back.
As to taking risks, no. VC's never risk anything. They generally use other people's money. Very very few VC's I met were risking even their own money on their office space. They are usually spending pension-fund money. Which, sadly, is another reason they really don't need to know anything about what they're doing.
As I said: getting a VC on-board means you're good at talking to VCs, nothing more. The money they give you may well get you over hurdles that you would have floundered at before but their expertise and the people they put on your board to "guide" you basically are just ballast and ideally you want to get them off to a golf-course somewhere rather than interfering with your company. They generally do know about golf, so if your company is related to golf or golf supplies, you might find them of some help, but otherwise take the money and ignore everything else they say. If they knew anything about business, they'd be in business.
TWW
So getting money from a VC is in no way, shape, or form, an endorsement of your idea or your business plan. It just means you're good at talking to VCs.
TWW
And that has what to do with Iraq? You know, Iraq, BinLaden's biggest enemy in the Middle East (maybe apart from Isreal).
Maybe then they'd get off their asses and clean up the mess he was making, essentially, in their own back yard.
The mess America was making in their back yard, you mean. America installed Saddam, Rumsfeld armed him with bio-weapons, the CIA under GB Snr helped him "calibrate" those weapons. Why the hell shouldn't the US sort out the mess? Well, one reason is that they're incompetent and made it worse.
why is it that piece of shit liberals like you blame GWB for everything you perceive as wrong in the world? "Wah! My toast burned! GWB's fault!" "Wah! My radio won't pick up that station 80 miles away! GWB's fault!"
Wah! George invaded a country that wasn't bothering him so he could get its oil* and now people in my country are being killed by the lunatics recruited as a direct result of his greed. Christ, yeah, that's very unreasonable. I mean, fair enough, the 3000-odd people that died in the UK because of US-backed terrorists in Ireland, everyone agreed that was just a bit of fun, but complaining that your people are dying to support American economic policy. Why, that's almost anti-business!
Why is it that apologists for Bush and his bastards talk so much about action and doing things and never responsibility or consequences?
TWW
* I'm being generous here, it seems increasingly likely that George invaded Iraq simply because he's fucking moron and Dick "Haliburton" Cheney and Donald "The Russians have Invisible Submarines - You Can Tell Because You Can't See Them Anywhere" Rumsfeld told him to. At least invading for the oil would be in America's interest, if rather petty and short-sighted.
Irrelevant. You don't have to pay to break a contract the other party has already broken.
TWW
Since when did the music industry's price-fixing cartel know, or give a damn, about the market?
TWW
How do you know? The glories of closed-source development means that we have no idea howmany old bugs they have fixed and how many are still active.
That's nice, but unfortunately you can also get infected if you use something that has a "superior design"
Yes, because execution of any design can go awry, IE's design, however, is deeply flawed and can not be fixed while achieving MS's goals for it. Even if MS's programmers were good or motivated there's nothing they can do about disasters like ActiveX and OS-integration.
I posted a much longer reply than this but it seems to have not made it onto the system somehow.
TWW
TWW