That reminds me: A TV show about movies in Norway recently proclaimed Star Wars to be the "best double sci-fi movie trilogy ever". And what's the competition?
Well, I never said MTV. What I was saying is that it isn't just know-how that's stopping developing countries from becoming developed countries. They probably know a lot more about building houses and crowing crops in their area than we will ever know, and certainly more than google will tell you.
Although internet access is nice to have for everyone, information is not the major blocker for developing regions. The structural, economic hurdles are the most important blocker.
What my reply had to do with everyone becoming americanish consumers, I don't know. My points still stand. Africa (for instance) isn't a bunch of uncivilized, primitive tribes who throw magical spells instead of fertilizer on their crops. Their development is stopped by structural hurdles, unstable political situations, and direct exploitation from western countries.
Depends on the definition of "the people". "The people" could very well be defined as only those who haven't committed felonies. It's actually a difficult definition. Who are the people?
You know IMHO means "in my humble opinion", right? How many innocent people who are behind bars is not a matter of opinion - it's a matter of fact. Therefore, "as far as I know" would be what you're looking for. It even comes with an acronym, AFAIK.
I disagree with that point. Imprisonment is the punishment. When you've been to jail, you are free to go - you've had your punishment, and you do not owe society anything.
Excluding everyone who has committed a felony from society - like you say - only adds to the "pull" to make them commit another.
Uh.. the entire concept of imprisonment is to take away your freedom because you've broken laws, presumably causing problems for the rest of the society. Although I think I agree that prisoners should be allowed to have websites, most of the concept of taking away your freedom disappears if you're allowed to communicate freely.
Development isn't a waterfall where one thing comes after the other. A few internet based companies doing great business could bring around the initiative needed for a better power infrastructure. It makes more sense to invest money in power when it also generates more dividends, in terms of new businesses paying taxes and employing people.
We, the western world, do not exactly develop in a particularily streamlined way. It would be strange if the developing countries were suppose to follow a different recipe than we have.
I think you have a pretty naive image of the world. You seem to believe that if poor people only knew how good it is to be rich, they will start making changes to become rich? So, what do you suppose they are doing right now? Do you think the problem of starvation is due to lack of motivation for agriculture?
I'm sorry for bashing you this hard, but I often meet people in western countries who seem to think that the developing world could become rich if they only knew or only tried harder. I believe there are quite a few structural hurdles as well. Western companies' interest in keeping a low-pay workforce for coffee, shoes, cocoa etc. is one of those hurdles. Tax barriers in developed regions is another hurdle. And lacking economic strength makes it in itself hard to develop a stronger economy (ironically), because it makes it extremely hard to defend your currency, interest rate and your companies from hostile foreign takeovers.
Your point is correct, and it is a general concern of aid. However, some situations aren't covered by this concern. When people starve, the market is distorted anyway (the demand is many, many times the supply, and theoretically this would make prices almost infinitely high. Ethical concerns and active goverments obviously stop that by giving food away or selling it under market price).
Giving food to starving people is not an (macro)economical problem. Obviously it is better to give a man fishing tools than giving him a fish, but only if there are any fish left. Dumping food in self-contained countries could, on the other hand, be a problem.
a) Obviously, not every developing country has general starvation and only ad-hoc schools. In fact, none of them have.
b) Obviously, a 100 laptop is "not needed". Nothing except food and water is "needed".
c) Obviously, technology and communication are essential parts of making a "developing country" into a "developed country"
Obviously, the poster of parent has watched too much TV. The "developing world" is not all starvation, flies and wars. There are cities! And food! And (*gasp*) telephones! And computers!
It is a _world_ of difference between _looking_ unstable and unpredictable, and actually being unstable and unpredictable. If companies think public discussions on important topics concerning development looks unstable and unpredictable, they are making bad business decisions.
From scheduler changes in the middle of a kernel series, to changes in fucking "source code management" software. What Version Control software does Microsoft use for Windows? The correct answer for the people outside of microsoft is: Who fucking cares?
What are you suggesting here? That the source code management software debate makes linux as such less predictable? This makes no sense. Just because every decision concerning linux is public, doesn't make it less predictable. I'm sure Microsoft people discuss tools as well.
You argue that the ethics of linux developers hamper development. Well, maybe. I think recent history proves otherwise. However, it doesn't harm predictability. Windows isn't particularily predictable - it doesn't even have a standard as platform. Linux is POSIX-like. That will never change.
If you go back to a linux system anno 1996, and a Windows system anno 1996 (Win95), I think it's quite clear that linux (the kernel and base-tools, not the user level programs) have changed far less than Windows. In other words, more predictable.
In high school, I had a classmate who wore a shirt with the text "Know Thyself" and a drawing of a guy who was sticking his head up his own ass. _That_ is gay.
Technically, it's the GPL that's incompatible with the CDDL, not the other way around.
No. The CDDL is incompatible with the GPL, and vice versa. Incompatibility isn't a one-way street, and which way is which depends on your viewpoint.
You'll see how silly this is by rephrasing every sentence that begins with "GPL is incompatible with CDDL because X". It can always be rephrased into "CDDL is incompatible with GPL beacuse X". X is the difference between the licenses, and therefore not part of any one of them.
Agreed. I've never been a huge fan of "plain" Debain. I used Slackware "in the beginning", then RedHat for years, more recently Knoppix and this weekend I just converted my last remaining Knoppix box to Kubuntu.
You agree, and then you list every distro you've used - a list which doesn't include debian. Why did you post this? Your "argument" isn't worth the bandwith!
The Norwegian courts' decision-making system/process is not based on precedence
That's true, but considering the fact that the first Johansen case was concluded in the supreme court, the ruling has significant importance as the supreme court will never change its mind before the law changes. Therefore, no lower court in its right mind will go against the supreme court's decision, and if they do, all it takes is to appeal to the supreme court every time.
What? Without import duties, smuggling wouldn't exist, because you can bring with you whatever. You could say that it is the "import duties" that encourage smuggling, because it wouldn't be smuggling without the duties, but I believe it would benefit the discussion if we didn't consider the amount of goods smuggled, but the amount of goods transported across a border - including smuggling.
Then we can agree that less transportation occurs with import taxes than without, even if you include the smuggling.
Then we can conclude that often (but not always) import taxes work as intended for a protectionist government.
Censorship and import tax aren't equal (jeez, imagine I would ever have to make this point). Import tax isn't a way to diminish people's rights, it is a way of protecting your own businesses from businesses in countries with lower costs. It is an artificial defence from a (admittedly rather brutal) free market. Norway, which has a higher living standard and more well-spread wealth than most countries, has higher prices as well. Without any income taxes, no-one would buy anything in Norway - cars, agricultural products, ships or anything else. That would render most of our industries broke. I can't quite see why avoiding that is such a terrible abuse of power from the norwegian government.
They might need to support it, because when a lot of people start using OASIS standards, it would be an easy point for the FOSS enthusiasts ("Look! Our OO.o can open documents in open standards AND MSOs proprietary standards, while MSO can only open its own standard"). At least in the home market, that might be a major "selling" point for OpenOffice. I'm beginning to receive OpenOffice documents from completely computer illiterate people.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, Gov. Schwarzenegger will be there pushing him back in the water telling him the borders are closed.
Uhm.. I doubt he's gonna land in California. Check your world map :-)
A cruise ship which does stop on Iceland, that is.
OS X probably uses
under the hood.That reminds me: A TV show about movies in Norway recently proclaimed Star Wars to be the "best double sci-fi movie trilogy ever". And what's the competition?
Well, I never said MTV. What I was saying is that it isn't just know-how that's stopping developing countries from becoming developed countries. They probably know a lot more about building houses and crowing crops in their area than we will ever know, and certainly more than google will tell you.
Although internet access is nice to have for everyone, information is not the major blocker for developing regions. The structural, economic hurdles are the most important blocker.
What my reply had to do with everyone becoming americanish consumers, I don't know. My points still stand. Africa (for instance) isn't a bunch of uncivilized, primitive tribes who throw magical spells instead of fertilizer on their crops. Their development is stopped by structural hurdles, unstable political situations, and direct exploitation from western countries.
Depends on the definition of "the people". "The people" could very well be defined as only those who haven't committed felonies. It's actually a difficult definition. Who are the people?
As I said, "IMHO".
You know IMHO means "in my humble opinion", right? How many innocent people who are behind bars is not a matter of opinion - it's a matter of fact. Therefore, "as far as I know" would be what you're looking for. It even comes with an acronym, AFAIK.
I disagree with that point. Imprisonment is the punishment. When you've been to jail, you are free to go - you've had your punishment, and you do not owe society anything.
Excluding everyone who has committed a felony from society - like you say - only adds to the "pull" to make them commit another.
Uh.. the entire concept of imprisonment is to take away your freedom because you've broken laws, presumably causing problems for the rest of the society. Although I think I agree that prisoners should be allowed to have websites, most of the concept of taking away your freedom disappears if you're allowed to communicate freely.
I don't think they plan to make it obligatory to use it. Besides, we have echelon to monitor everything anyway.
Development isn't a waterfall where one thing comes after the other. A few internet based companies doing great business could bring around the initiative needed for a better power infrastructure. It makes more sense to invest money in power when it also generates more dividends, in terms of new businesses paying taxes and employing people.
We, the western world, do not exactly develop in a particularily streamlined way. It would be strange if the developing countries were suppose to follow a different recipe than we have.
I think you have a pretty naive image of the world. You seem to believe that if poor people only knew how good it is to be rich, they will start making changes to become rich? So, what do you suppose they are doing right now? Do you think the problem of starvation is due to lack of motivation for agriculture?
I'm sorry for bashing you this hard, but I often meet people in western countries who seem to think that the developing world could become rich if they only knew or only tried harder. I believe there are quite a few structural hurdles as well. Western companies' interest in keeping a low-pay workforce for coffee, shoes, cocoa etc. is one of those hurdles. Tax barriers in developed regions is another hurdle. And lacking economic strength makes it in itself hard to develop a stronger economy (ironically), because it makes it extremely hard to defend your currency, interest rate and your companies from hostile foreign takeovers.
Your point is correct, and it is a general concern of aid. However, some situations aren't covered by this concern. When people starve, the market is distorted anyway (the demand is many, many times the supply, and theoretically this would make prices almost infinitely high. Ethical concerns and active goverments obviously stop that by giving food away or selling it under market price).
Giving food to starving people is not an (macro)economical problem. Obviously it is better to give a man fishing tools than giving him a fish, but only if there are any fish left. Dumping food in self-contained countries could, on the other hand, be a problem.
Mods! INSIGHTFUL?
a) Obviously, not every developing country has general starvation and only ad-hoc schools. In fact, none of them have.
b) Obviously, a 100 laptop is "not needed". Nothing except food and water is "needed".
c) Obviously, technology and communication are essential parts of making a "developing country" into a "developed country"
Obviously, the poster of parent has watched too much TV. The "developing world" is not all starvation, flies and wars. There are cities! And food! And (*gasp*) telephones! And computers!
It is a _world_ of difference between _looking_ unstable and unpredictable, and actually being unstable and unpredictable. If companies think public discussions on important topics concerning development looks unstable and unpredictable, they are making bad business decisions.
From scheduler changes in the middle of a kernel series, to changes in fucking "source code management" software. What Version Control software does Microsoft use for Windows? The correct answer for the people outside of microsoft is: Who fucking cares?
What are you suggesting here? That the source code management software debate makes linux as such less predictable? This makes no sense. Just because every decision concerning linux is public, doesn't make it less predictable. I'm sure Microsoft people discuss tools as well.
You argue that the ethics of linux developers hamper development. Well, maybe. I think recent history proves otherwise. However, it doesn't harm predictability. Windows isn't particularily predictable - it doesn't even have a standard as platform. Linux is POSIX-like. That will never change.
If you go back to a linux system anno 1996, and a Windows system anno 1996 (Win95), I think it's quite clear that linux (the kernel and base-tools, not the user level programs) have changed far less than Windows. In other words, more predictable.
In high school, I had a classmate who wore a shirt with the text "Know Thyself" and a drawing of a guy who was sticking his head up his own ass. _That_ is gay.
Technically, it's the GPL that's incompatible with the CDDL, not the other way around.
No. The CDDL is incompatible with the GPL, and vice versa. Incompatibility isn't a one-way street, and which way is which depends on your viewpoint.
You'll see how silly this is by rephrasing every sentence that begins with "GPL is incompatible with CDDL because X". It can always be rephrased into "CDDL is incompatible with GPL beacuse X". X is the difference between the licenses, and therefore not part of any one of them.
Agreed. I've never been a huge fan of "plain" Debain. I used Slackware "in the beginning", then RedHat for years, more recently Knoppix and this weekend I just converted my last remaining Knoppix box to Kubuntu.
You agree, and then you list every distro you've used - a list which doesn't include debian. Why did you post this? Your "argument" isn't worth the bandwith!
10-18c/kWh is getting to me
I can imagine! Here in Norway, the market spot price is 4c/kWh at the moment - and that is rather high.
The Norwegian courts' decision-making system/process is not based on precedence
That's true, but considering the fact that the first Johansen case was concluded in the supreme court, the ruling has significant importance as the supreme court will never change its mind before the law changes. Therefore, no lower court in its right mind will go against the supreme court's decision, and if they do, all it takes is to appeal to the supreme court every time.
Uhm? APB is not a government institution. It's a private group sponsored by different companies.
import duties encourage smuggling
What? Without import duties, smuggling wouldn't exist, because you can bring with you whatever. You could say that it is the "import duties" that encourage smuggling, because it wouldn't be smuggling without the duties, but I believe it would benefit the discussion if we didn't consider the amount of goods smuggled, but the amount of goods transported across a border - including smuggling.
Then we can agree that less transportation occurs with import taxes than without, even if you include the smuggling.
Then we can conclude that often (but not always) import taxes work as intended for a protectionist government.
Censorship and import tax aren't equal (jeez, imagine I would ever have to make this point). Import tax isn't a way to diminish people's rights, it is a way of protecting your own businesses from businesses in countries with lower costs. It is an artificial defence from a (admittedly rather brutal) free market. Norway, which has a higher living standard and more well-spread wealth than most countries, has higher prices as well. Without any income taxes, no-one would buy anything in Norway - cars, agricultural products, ships or anything else. That would render most of our industries broke. I can't quite see why avoiding that is such a terrible abuse of power from the norwegian government.
If you ever went to Arabia,
Heh, that's funny, I thought that country didn't exist!
They might need to support it, because when a lot of people start using OASIS standards, it would be an easy point for the FOSS enthusiasts ("Look! Our OO.o can open documents in open standards AND MSOs proprietary standards, while MSO can only open its own standard"). At least in the home market, that might be a major "selling" point for OpenOffice. I'm beginning to receive OpenOffice documents from completely computer illiterate people.