"Experience in the market" basically means "we think your music will/will not make a shitload of money in a very short period of time", while "connections in the industry" are necessary only as long as a few guys in expensive suits decide which bands can earn them maximum profit at minimum investment (which is natural in any business but doesn't mean that they are right and the bands they reject would not become huge hits)
The us govt claims there might be child pr0n on the Megaupload servers. I remember when they had proven beyond any doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction so excuse me if I'm inclined to doubt their judgement.
The actual problem is not whether I agree with tax cuts for the poor or not. The problem here was that the three bills were a package, which was supposed to introduce a comprehensive tax reform. The president blocked one of them just to piss off people in order to lower the prime minister's party chances for re-election (I didn't support any of the two parties, since we have more than just two;) ). Remember that this was an election year so it's hard to believe that he had anything else in mind, especially since it was way before the 2008 crisis so our economy was in relatively good shape (it still is, actually). I believe this means that the system was abused the same way it's often abused when one of the political parties in the US kills one act or another just to make the president look bad and the country be damned.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid this presents a whole new set of problems. I live in a country with a similar system and the first problem is you've got a bazillion different acts, bills and whatnot, quite often contradictory because even the legislators are lost and forget which bill regulates what. The other problem can be explained by the following example: a few years ago the government here (the prime minister and his ministers) proposed a tax reform comprising of three separate bills. Two raised taxes for the richest, indirect taxes (like VAT and excise tax) etc. The third one lowered the taxes for people from lower-middle class and lower on the social ladder. Since it was at the beginning of an election year and the president was from the opposition and the ruling coalition was too weak to overrule his veto he vetoed the bill which was supposed to compensate "the poor" for the tax hike and let the other two pass. This effectively meant that the taxes were raised across the board and the poorest were the ones who really suffered. As always, any political system is only as good as the guys we elect and the elections (be it in the US, South America or here in Europe) look more and more like popularity contests. The candidates say what they're going to do and people stopped asking "How the hell are you going to do that with economy in the gutter and exorbitant deficit?"
An industry's decline due to changing market factors is not necessarily a problem - it's just the natural way of things.
I think this particular industry is not declining due to changing market conditions - after all they change in all the industries all the time. The difference is most other industries adapt to market, while the entertainment industry tried to force the market to adapt to its model. With rise of digital media (lossless copies) and fast internet (instant worldwide distribution) they lost control of their distribution channels. Now they're trying to change the situation by lobbying for crap like SOPA/ACTA et al. and freedom of speech/civil liberties be damned. It's time they went the way of the dodo. This system cannot be changed, it needs to be rebuilt from scratch, including copyrights.
If revealing what they're discussing is likely to cause protests and riots, than clearly keeping it secret is in the best interest of public. See, they're learning from the ACTA debacle.
In a few more words, it should be noted that Thomas Jefferson got to be President without being a Christian.
I think Jefferson would disagree with you. He was a Christian even if he defined the term differently than most people.
A few quotes from the wikipedia article on Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson believed that Natives should give up their own cultures, religions, and lifestyles to assimilate to western European culture, Christian religion, and a European-style agriculture, which he believed to be superior.
As a landowner he played a role in governing his local Episcopal Church; in terms of belief he was inclined toward Deism and the moral philosophy of Christianity.
In a private letter to Benjamin Rush, Jefferson refers to himself as "Christian" (1803): "To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence..."
Yep, the video captchas by NuCaptcha have already been decoded with 90% efficiency. I know it's too much to ask but I think we'd all really appreciate you checking if you hadn't posted something thoroughly discrediting some technology before you post something praising it...
Re:I've been observing Stratfor since its inceptio
on
Is Stratfor a "Joke"?
·
· Score: 1
It's not meaningful unless you can compare it to other ratings for other news services.
We really need to keep up on what's going through Congress and other governmental agencies and kill them long before they are days from a vote.
I think killing the Congress and local equivalents in all the EU countries might be a bit difficult, but definitely worth it. Stopping ACTA would just be killing two birds with one stone
The only thing I can say is: Good, maybe the people living in countries with censorship will finally move and do something about it. It has happened before, you know
Why not? I thought the corporations in the US had personhood. Doesn't it mean they should have nationalities? Doesn't it mean we should be able to put them in jail? Or is it all rights without any of the obligations?/sarcasm
The Polish PM boasted in December that pushing the adoption of ACTA was one of the greatest successes of Polish presidency of the EU. They have recently removed this info from his website
Actually most of those who died were responsible for stalling the process of adoption of software patents in the EU. They had a different approach to freedom than the current government, which treats it as a commodity for sale
Not sure if it's a good idea. Look at SCO as an example of what might happen. They used to count, but when their business started shrinking they just became a patent troll suing Linux right and left. Insignificant as they are now they managed to some damage. Apple probably has many more patents (some of them imaginary like the one for a rectangle with rounded corners) so the temptation to start living off litigations might so much more tempting
Not really, it's 'on' by default if you're logged in. However, if you want to turn off personalized search there is a nice button right under the search box so I don't see a problem here. And while I believe Google's "don't be evil" motto has been only for show for a few years I don't think Twitter's arguments hold water. They killed the deal with Google, signed a new one with MS and now they complain their results don't show in Google search? C'mon, at least have someone intelligent read the press release before you send it to the media.
While I agree that governments should not be allowed to kill TV shows arbitrarily, state owned TV stations should be about something more than just ratings. At least in countries with television license, where the state-owned stations are funded by general public, the money should be spent more carefully.
And nothing of value was lost? Frankly, I'd love to see the TV stations where I live to kill 2/3 of the reality/talent shows and replace them with something worthwhile. When I was a kid, the national TV (2 channels at that time) had several science programs targeted at kids and teenagers. Now we have access several hundred national and private TV channels and not a single show which would try to explain how lasers work to a 10 year old but plenty of the "pew pew pew KABOOM!" variety...
Slashdot Mirror
"Experience in the market" basically means "we think your music will/will not make a shitload of money in a very short period of time", while "connections in the industry" are necessary only as long as a few guys in expensive suits decide which bands can earn them maximum profit at minimum investment (which is natural in any business but doesn't mean that they are right and the bands they reject would not become huge hits)
The us govt claims there might be child pr0n on the Megaupload servers. I remember when they had proven beyond any doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction so excuse me if I'm inclined to doubt their judgement.
That's a really bad example, since McCarthy was right.
Yeah, why bother knowing what you're talking about. The third sentence from the wikipedia article:
The committee's anti-Communist investigations are often confused with those of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
The actual problem is not whether I agree with tax cuts for the poor or not. The problem here was that the three bills were a package, which was supposed to introduce a comprehensive tax reform. The president blocked one of them just to piss off people in order to lower the prime minister's party chances for re-election (I didn't support any of the two parties, since we have more than just two ;) ). Remember that this was an election year so it's hard to believe that he had anything else in mind, especially since it was way before the 2008 crisis so our economy was in relatively good shape (it still is, actually). I believe this means that the system was abused the same way it's often abused when one of the political parties in the US kills one act or another just to make the president look bad and the country be damned.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid this presents a whole new set of problems. I live in a country with a similar system and the first problem is you've got a bazillion different acts, bills and whatnot, quite often contradictory because even the legislators are lost and forget which bill regulates what. The other problem can be explained by the following example: a few years ago the government here (the prime minister and his ministers) proposed a tax reform comprising of three separate bills. Two raised taxes for the richest, indirect taxes (like VAT and excise tax) etc. The third one lowered the taxes for people from lower-middle class and lower on the social ladder. Since it was at the beginning of an election year and the president was from the opposition and the ruling coalition was too weak to overrule his veto he vetoed the bill which was supposed to compensate "the poor" for the tax hike and let the other two pass. This effectively meant that the taxes were raised across the board and the poorest were the ones who really suffered. As always, any political system is only as good as the guys we elect and the elections (be it in the US, South America or here in Europe) look more and more like popularity contests. The candidates say what they're going to do and people stopped asking "How the hell are you going to do that with economy in the gutter and exorbitant deficit?"
An industry's decline due to changing market factors is not necessarily a problem - it's just the natural way of things.
I think this particular industry is not declining due to changing market conditions - after all they change in all the industries all the time. The difference is most other industries adapt to market, while the entertainment industry tried to force the market to adapt to its model. With rise of digital media (lossless copies) and fast internet (instant worldwide distribution) they lost control of their distribution channels. Now they're trying to change the situation by lobbying for crap like SOPA/ACTA et al. and freedom of speech/civil liberties be damned. It's time they went the way of the dodo. This system cannot be changed, it needs to be rebuilt from scratch, including copyrights.
commenting to counter a mod mistake :/
If revealing what they're discussing is likely to cause protests and riots, than clearly keeping it secret is in the best interest of public. See, they're learning from the ACTA debacle.
In a few more words, it should be noted that Thomas Jefferson got to be President without being a Christian.
I think Jefferson would disagree with you. He was a Christian even if he defined the term differently than most people. A few quotes from the wikipedia article on Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson believed that Natives should give up their own cultures, religions, and lifestyles to assimilate to western European culture, Christian religion, and a European-style agriculture, which he believed to be superior.
As a landowner he played a role in governing his local Episcopal Church; in terms of belief he was inclined toward Deism and the moral philosophy of Christianity.
In a private letter to Benjamin Rush, Jefferson refers to himself as "Christian" (1803): "To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence..."
The question is: would a declared and outspoken atheist have a remote chance of getting voted into some important office? Since atheists in the US are trusted just about as much as rapists and hated more than any other "minority" I think the answer is no way in hell
Not only that but it's likely to violate EU competition laws.
Yep, the video captchas by NuCaptcha have already been decoded with 90% efficiency. I know it's too much to ask but I think we'd all really appreciate you checking if you hadn't posted something thoroughly discrediting some technology before you post something praising it...
It's not meaningful unless you can compare it to other ratings for other news services.
As long as their accuracy is well below 50% you might just as well flip a coin. And political "experts" usually don't know what they're talking about anyway
We really need to keep up on what's going through Congress and other governmental agencies and kill them long before they are days from a vote.
I think killing the Congress and local equivalents in all the EU countries might be a bit difficult, but definitely worth it. Stopping ACTA would just be killing two birds with one stone
The only thing I can say is: Good, maybe the people living in countries with censorship will finally move and do something about it. It has happened before, you know
Why not? I thought the corporations in the US had personhood. Doesn't it mean they should have nationalities? Doesn't it mean we should be able to put them in jail? Or is it all rights without any of the obligations? /sarcasm
The problem is that most of them do and just ask "Would you like some lube with that?"
Captain Jack Sparrow if you please!
The Polish PM boasted in December that pushing the adoption of ACTA was one of the greatest successes of Polish presidency of the EU. They have recently removed this info from his website
Actually most of those who died were responsible for stalling the process of adoption of software patents in the EU. They had a different approach to freedom than the current government, which treats it as a commodity for sale
Not sure if it's a good idea. Look at SCO as an example of what might happen. They used to count, but when their business started shrinking they just became a patent troll suing Linux right and left. Insignificant as they are now they managed to some damage. Apple probably has many more patents (some of them imaginary like the one for a rectangle with rounded corners) so the temptation to start living off litigations might so much more tempting
Not really, it's 'on' by default if you're logged in. However, if you want to turn off personalized search there is a nice button right under the search box so I don't see a problem here. And while I believe Google's "don't be evil" motto has been only for show for a few years I don't think Twitter's arguments hold water. They killed the deal with Google, signed a new one with MS and now they complain their results don't show in Google search? C'mon, at least have someone intelligent read the press release before you send it to the media.
I'm not surprised by the strange names on the list considering that some companies didn't even know they were listed as SOPA supporters
While I agree that governments should not be allowed to kill TV shows arbitrarily, state owned TV stations should be about something more than just ratings. At least in countries with television license, where the state-owned stations are funded by general public, the money should be spent more carefully.
And nothing of value was lost? Frankly, I'd love to see the TV stations where I live to kill 2/3 of the reality/talent shows and replace them with something worthwhile. When I was a kid, the national TV (2 channels at that time) had several science programs targeted at kids and teenagers. Now we have access several hundred national and private TV channels and not a single show which would try to explain how lasers work to a 10 year old but plenty of the "pew pew pew KABOOM!" variety...
Nonono! Not the movies. Hollywood hasn't made anything original in years. It's all remakes/prequels/sequels/comic book adaptations...