You are a little short sighted, my GF (yes!) has a 600 mHz PIII Packard Bell Le Diva with only 128 Mb of memory and although it's running fine on W98 we'll be damned to spend money on upgrading it to XP.
Still it's nice to have the latest FF browser if only because we know it gives some of the security that Windows never had.
(I'm typing this from a 500 mHz Compaq PIII that was to upgraded to Xubuntu with FF2.0 including Flash9b)
You ask a good question, the fact this (public broadcasting) system continues in Europe is because few people object to the inherent price for quality programs.
Of course we are not just 'socialists' that want everything done by a super government but many of us have over the years seen the problems with what effectively is a profit-oriented monopoly on information (and amusement!) like the US is 'suffering'.
Without taking away my admiration for what the BBC does I have to concur with your listing of the German system.
Personally I find many of the shows and news as done by ARD and ZDF of a very high quality.
Many countries that are not afraid of airing German language programs (with subtitles) do so and the public likes it.
It is rare to see German programs on British or US TV, probably because their public is unable to handle the language, subtitling is unpopular, dubbing the same.
It seems many commenter's think TV is primarily for amusement but the laws on which public broadcasting are based are more concerned with providing independent news and education for the masses, something the public broadcasters in Europe are still market leaders in.
At home in Holland I can, by choice, only receive the Dutch language public stations.
Whenever I find myself at another place and am confronted with the mindlessness of the commercial broadcasters I am within minutes of being exposed to this drivel reminded why I won't buy the equipment to receive them at home. And the German commercial stations are hardly any better.
Until a few years ago there was a licensing system in The Netherlands similar to the one in the surrounding countries.
Because the administration of such a system is taking a lot of money it was decided to have the broadcasters paid from general taxation.
This has been a great success in lowering the cost for the government and less trouble for the TV owners.
The fact that now people without a TV or radio are paying is true but hardly relevant as they are so few of them.
And of course taxation pays other ventures that are not used by all.
About the old licensing system, it was licensed based on the presence of a HF detector so a video monitor or audio amplifier was not taxable.
To be honest, I do not think it is censorship at all. The rules are set, they are not being imposed by a third party, they are self governing rules for everyone to abide by.
This is censorship, the.ie registry is a monopoly put in place by a democratically elected government.
The Irish government does presently not outlaw pornography so where the hell do these civil servants think they do have this authority in their own little(?) corner of Irish society??
There is nothing wrong with keeping society prim, proper, polite and personable on the surface.
Oh come on, you're one hell of a superficial shit, so as long as it's done (you can do it) in dark corners you're OK!
Besides, the example given of alowing murder.ie invalidates your silly reasoning rather exquisitly...
Another delay won't matter one bit, it's been delayed enough already that I'm sure any computer manufacturers already have contingency plans made in case the release is not ready.
You can say that again!
Have you also noticed the number of new (not just top of the line) computers being offered with standard 2 Gb of memory?
That's surely not because of the applications that the average person is running.
All that memory was ordered months ago expecting it to be mated with Vista around now.
Microsoft is "probably getting a bit tired" of the European Union's stance, suggested Mitchell-Smith. "It's not unreasonable to think so."
And Europe is getting a bit tired of Microsoft's attitude.
These guys in Redmond know damn well what is required to get a smooth introduction of their software in Europe, and unlike at home it can't be bought in a court or congress.
Of course Europe has it's own shortcomings, for one they should have demanded a noticeable price difference between XP and XP-N, surely the development of MS Media Player was not for free.
For another Europe should have insisted on more interoperability like full access to the specs of NTFS.
Just to name a few issues with the de-facto monopoly.
Over all software piracy is about missed sales, not cost.
In real life a very large part of those who pirate software would not have bought it at all had they to pay the full price.
So the even 'missed sales' is mainly bull.
You don't really believe,say MS, would lower the price of their software when less of it was pirated?
There are systems (hashes) to give confidence in the code on a chip or disk.
There are ways to assure only approved compilers are used to create that chip or disk.
It's not necessarily all available to the every single member of the public in any and every voting station but the process can be witnessed by members of the public.
Such simple things as seals should be visible to all and the leader of a voting station should be able to show a check list (with signatures) of all having been involved with the equipment, the type of accountability you would expect with any sensitive system.
In the present world a certification system would be the least to ask for, it does not yet exist.
Not really, the weaknesses presented can only be exploited on a per-machine basis and there are some 8000 of them.
Of course on longer term these machines need to be replaced by a inherently secure system.
What I find more worrying is the closed source software running the machines and tallying the results, this has to be replaced by an open source system that can be checked by any one.
Dutch elections are simple, just a single vote per citizen and the required software would be equally simple.
The only complicating factor could be that there are typically as many as 20 or even 30 parties, each with a whole list of candidates that all need to show up on the large touch screen.
Sooner or later all of eastern europe will have to realise that Democracy is no better than Communism was. All it provides is the illusion of having a say in who runs your country so nobody starts a revolution. The people who run every country are the people with the the money.
This statement shows you were most definitely not around before the fall of the Soviet Union!
"Communism as it was" was probably together with Nazism one of the most evil forms of social engineering.
(That's not to say that the present Western way of running a democracy is without fault).
Some replies here made suggestions about who is cooperating in this project, what about the US Department of Homeland Security who is funding this AI search of foreign (yeah right) press for threats to the US?
I don't think you understand (Communist) Chinese political culture.
Their leaders are not at all attempting to be truthful to their people, all they want is to be effective.
You know, the stuff diplomats make their money with, hmm maybe with the exception of a certain John R. Bolton.
What the EU wants is irrelavent. Microsoft added security features to the OS in response to customer feedback.
Wrong.
It might have been dissatisfaction of the users that finally persuaded MS to start working on security.
But we see this security is not superior code of the OS but it is a separate application.
And that's where the regulators have to step in, the market for applications should be free but MS is by means of it's monopoly on the OS and the bundeling of the securety features shutting out others. This will result in permeating the MS monoculture with all it's inherent dangers.
That's what the EU is trying to adress.
And I hope they (the EU) have learned from the media player fiasco and insist that there should be a realistic price difference between the fully loaded offering vs. the 'light' version.
Slashdot Mirror
Still it's nice to have the latest FF browser if only because we know it gives some of the security that Windows never had.
(I'm typing this from a 500 mHz Compaq PIII that was to upgraded to Xubuntu with FF2.0 including Flash9b)
Shows you which browser is leading the pack :)
I'll get the Linux version tomorrow, oh and by the way it is already the 24th. here in Europe.
OK.
I lost them when I loved,
Can you talk about it in public?
So what did I do?
Please tell us all about it!
You ask a good question, the fact this (public broadcasting) system continues in Europe is because few people object to the inherent price for quality programs.
Of course we are not just 'socialists' that want everything done by a super government but many of us have over the years seen the problems with what effectively is a profit-oriented monopoly on information (and amusement!) like the US is 'suffering'.
British.
Possibly, but very few sober drivers are killed by drunk pedestrians.
Personally I find many of the shows and news as done by ARD and ZDF of a very high quality.
Many countries that are not afraid of airing German language programs (with subtitles) do so and the public likes it.
It is rare to see German programs on British or US TV, probably because their public is unable to handle the language, subtitling is unpopular, dubbing the same.
It seems many commenter's think TV is primarily for amusement but the laws on which public broadcasting are based are more concerned with providing independent news and education for the masses, something the public broadcasters in Europe are still market leaders in.
At home in Holland I can, by choice, only receive the Dutch language public stations.
Whenever I find myself at another place and am confronted with the mindlessness of the commercial broadcasters I am within minutes of being exposed to this drivel reminded why I won't buy the equipment to receive them at home.
And the German commercial stations are hardly any better.
Because the administration of such a system is taking a lot of money it was decided to have the broadcasters paid from general taxation.
This has been a great success in lowering the cost for the government and less trouble for the TV owners.
The fact that now people without a TV or radio are paying is true but hardly relevant as they are so few of them.
And of course taxation pays other ventures that are not used by all.
About the old licensing system, it was licensed based on the presence of a HF detector so a video monitor or audio amplifier was not taxable.
I had understood differently, I'm quite shocked by the way you discribe the situation.
This is censorship, the .ie registry is a monopoly put in place by a democratically elected government.
The Irish government does presently not outlaw pornography so where the hell do these civil servants think they do have this authority in their own little(?) corner of Irish society??
There is nothing wrong with keeping society prim, proper, polite and personable on the surface.
Oh come on, you're one hell of a superficial shit, so as long as it's done (you can do it) in dark corners you're OK!
Besides, the example given of alowing murder.ie invalidates your silly reasoning rather exquisitly...
I hope that after some healthy reflection you're now wishing for an edit function on /.
The fact that a Mod could not see this link is scary in itself...
Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story?
Not everybody nows the US press landscape that well, so for me it was a constructive note.
You can say that again!
Have you also noticed the number of new (not just top of the line) computers being offered with standard 2 Gb of memory? That's surely not because of the applications that the average person is running.
All that memory was ordered months ago expecting it to be mated with Vista around now.
And Europe is getting a bit tired of Microsoft's attitude.
These guys in Redmond know damn well what is required to get a smooth introduction of their software in Europe, and unlike at home it can't be bought in a court or congress.
Of course Europe has it's own shortcomings, for one they should have demanded a noticeable price difference between XP and XP-N, surely the development of MS Media Player was not for free.
For another Europe should have insisted on more interoperability like full access to the specs of NTFS.
Just to name a few issues with the de-facto monopoly.
Over all software piracy is about missed sales, not cost.
In real life a very large part of those who pirate software would not have bought it at all had they to pay the full price.
So the even 'missed sales' is mainly bull.
You don't really believe ,say MS, would lower the price of their software when less of it was pirated?
There are ways to assure only approved compilers are used to create that chip or disk.
It's not necessarily all available to the every single member of the public in any and every voting station but the process can be witnessed by members of the public.
Such simple things as seals should be visible to all and the leader of a voting station should be able to show a check list (with signatures) of all having been involved with the equipment, the type of accountability you would expect with any sensitive system.
In the present world a certification system would be the least to ask for, it does not yet exist.
Not really, the weaknesses presented can only be exploited on a per-machine basis and there are some 8000 of them.
Of course on longer term these machines need to be replaced by a inherently secure system.
What I find more worrying is the closed source software running the machines and tallying the results, this has to be replaced by an open source system that can be checked by any one.
Dutch elections are simple, just a single vote per citizen and the required software would be equally simple.
The only complicating factor could be that there are typically as many as 20 or even 30 parties, each with a whole list of candidates that all need to show up on the large touch screen.
This statement shows you were most definitely not around before the fall of the Soviet Union!
"Communism as it was" was probably together with Nazism one of the most evil forms of social engineering.
(That's not to say that the present Western way of running a democracy is without fault).
But an amusing rag.
The good thing about it is that the stories it prints in lieu of news are still amusing when you just found the paper(*) say a year late.
B.t.w, you just gave a nice example of why their readers prefer pictures over words :)
(*) As in dead tree.
Some replies here made suggestions about who is cooperating in this project, what about the US Department of Homeland Security who is funding this AI search of foreign (yeah right) press for threats to the US?
Their leaders are not at all attempting to be truthful to their people, all they want is to be effective.
You know, the stuff diplomats make their money with, hmm maybe with the exception of a certain John R. Bolton.
That shows the use of Artificial Intelligence.
The Real Stuff would have pointed at Dick Cheney.
Donal Rumsfeld is just the living proof of the disappearance of Human Intelligence.
Ignoring the semantics of 'arbitrary code' I would say even 1st. or 2nd. party support is wrong.
The code should by design be resistant to mallicious processes.
And untill such time the monopoly called MS should allow any one (company) to help the users to combat the inherent weaknesses in the OS.
A security monoculture by MS (or any one else!) would be a wreck waiting to happen.
Wrong.
It might have been dissatisfaction of the users that finally persuaded MS to start working on security.
But we see this security is not superior code of the OS but it is a separate application.
And that's where the regulators have to step in, the market for applications should be free but MS is by means of it's monopoly on the OS and the bundeling of the securety features shutting out others.
This will result in permeating the MS monoculture with all it's inherent dangers.
That's what the EU is trying to adress.
And I hope they (the EU) have learned from the media player fiasco and insist that there should be a realistic price difference between the fully loaded offering vs. the 'light' version.