It would have been much more effective to simply have the guy killed.
I'm sure, they've tried that already and, for some reason, it did not work...
Or, perhaps, the new "cool kidz" generation in KGB wanted to show, what it can do and won over the old-timers this time...
Re:I'm unmoved (Re:making progress)
on
KDE 4.3 Released
·
· Score: 1
There is no reason to follow the settings of a different environment.
It is not "a different environment". Gnome is a different environment. KDE4 is a new version — number 4, to be precise — of KDE, and ought to use the settings of the previous version(s), certainly of the immediately preceding version KDE3.
The various apps should follow the old settings, depending on whether your distro
I build from source, using ports-system, thank you very much. But kmail, kopete, and knotes had no idea, what to do. My friend on Kubuntu had the same problem — their old ~/.kde was ignored in favor of the newly-created, virgin ~/.kde4. Which means, it is KDE's problem, nothing to do with "distro". There may be reasons to create a new settings-directory, but there ought to be an official migration tool for copying the relevant settings from the old one.
KDE3 security bugs are still accepted and fixed. Feature requests no.
Nothing was accepted, as long as the KDE-version is reported as below 4.x, when I tried last week. One may not want to accept feature requests for an old version, but bug-reports (both, security and non-security), ought to be accepted. Seems like the site (bugs.kde.org) is fixed now — maybe, even in response to criticism. This is good...
When the migration tool arrives, I'll try switching to KDE-4 one more time...
I'm unmoved (Re:making progress)
on
KDE 4.3 Released
·
· Score: 1
bigger/clunky/unpolished when compared to Windows / KDE3.5 applications?
I did not even analyze the design or look/feel — as soon as I realized, that none of the KDE-3.x settings are preserved, I went right back to 3.5.10.
Yes, I suppose, one could bite the bullet and change everything once. But by the time I'm done, KDE-5 will require an all new effort. Unless there is an official "settings migration tool" of some kind, I'm sticking to KDE-3.x, despite KDE Project's arm-twisting (they would not even accept bug-reports for KDE-3.x any more). And if I do get the feeling later on, that KDE-3 is really obsolete, I am just as likely to move to a non-KDE environment
Aren't domain names imaginary property? Certainly can't touch them. Somebody thinks of them first and boom, he gets to control it for eternity — not even for 75 years (or whatever the hated music copyright lasts nowadays)... So, why don't we see objections to the use of the term "theft" in this discussion?
Is it because many more slashdotters own domain-names, which they dread losing, than those, who have written a song worth copying?
In a slowly-moving traffic, a running A/C will really eat into battery life... Somebody working, say, 40 miles from home — not that unusual — will need the charge to last 80 miles plus whatever extra for the air conditioning... Depending on how hot it is, they may or may not be able to pick kids from school on the way home...
Unless it is really cheap, I don't see, why many people would rush to buy it. "Normal" cars last about 300 miles and can be "recharged" (to 100%) in 3 minutes, instead of 80% in 30...
More like "if people make assumptions based on your ethnicity, and that screws you over, you're likelier to end up with a chip on your shoulder, and feeling that society owes you more than what you're being given (which is quite right -- you should be given a chance based on who you are, not on who you're stereotyped as). Once you find yourself in those circumstances, criminality is a short hop away.
No, it is not. For one example, Blacks frequently target Asians and Latino with abuse — I've witnessed it myself on a number of occasions in NYC subway. But there are far fewer Asians (and even Latinos) in prisons.
Also, Jews were routinely targeted for discrimination in the "Old Europe", Soviet Union, and even in the US (Ivy League colleges were biased against them, for example, up until 30ies, or so). But there was no higher rate of crime among Jews in any of the locales.
So, no, whatever it is, that's causing a crime-inducing "chip on the shoulder", discrimination ain't it. Or, at least, it is not an excuse.
TFA discusses the opening of the route to COMMERCIAL traffic - not specially-suited vehicles.
Commercial traffic was what Soviets used it for — as much as "commerce" was possible in the USSR, of course. The ships carried goods of all sorts. Some of them were a little hardened to withstand an occasional encounter with an ice-field, but most were of regular kind...
As I said, only at the beginning and end of each summer season were the ships herded into convoys headed by an icebreaker to pass through certain spots.
It [the law -mi] is supposed to ensure that the parties negotiating a contract are on an equal standing.
Where did you find this interesting interpretation of the contract law?
It makes no sense, of course, without clear definition of what "equal standing" means. If it means, what I think you imply, then the vast majority of existing contracts are void in your opinion, because parties are almost never in perfectly equal standing...
If one party is in a position where they can effectively dictate terms to the other, then the law sides with the other to ensure balance.
Well, cell-phone companies are not in that position, so let's not get distracted, shall we?
Together, the major companies are a monopoly in that they don't allow competition. They're effectively one company, they all offer the same crappy service and weak sauce features for the SAME PRICE. They agree between each other how deep to stick it in our asses.
Very colorful, but completely unsubstantiated. Try getting an iPhone for Verizon — Apple wouldn't make it, because AT&T wouldn't let them. Fellow members of cartel wouldn't do that to each other...
Try paying less than 30$ a month for a cell phone service.
By pulling an arbitrary number out of the air, you can "prove" that any service or product is peddled by a cartel...
Other countries have more competition so they strive to offer better services
I am not sure about Japan, but the quality of European cellular service failed to impress me, to be perfectly honest. Maybe, it is because I expected much more after reading excited comments like yours...
I'm with you on the value of competition — it is the best way to get lower prices for higher quality. I'm just not convinced, the existing cell-phone companies aren't competing, and are illegally preventing new players from appearing (one such new player has just opened up two blocks away from me, actually).
I believe the GP is suggesting that Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and Cingular all act as a cartel in the US to artificially control prices
Well, if that's what he meant, he didn't substantiate it. I have seen these guys compete with each other both on the street and higher — witness, for example, AT&T-Apple deal — if, indeed, AT&T and Verizon were fellow members of the same cartel, they wouldn't be doing this to each other. I have also seen some new-comers pop-up...
Big companies can afford to risk loosing a small amount more for legal fees.
Whether or not the above is true, the "big companies'" costs would rise with my solution. Even if they can still afford them, they'll be bringing fewer such lawsuits. In fact, the companies' costs would more than double (if they keep losing), because they buy their lawyers in bulk (many employ lawyers on staff), whereas their opponents will cost them "retail".
The "poor", on the other hand, are already disadvantaged, supposedly, by being unable to afford a lawyer. My way, at least, they will be able to recoup those costs automatically, should they prevail — and some lawyers will, likely, be willing to work on contingency.
As things currently stand, you, pretty much, need to double your efforts, if, in addition to winning the original case, you wish to be compensated for your legal fees.
Lastly, unless you are a class warrior, you ought to drop the rhetoric, that revolves around inherently unequal sides in the courtroom.
The law is your tool to protect you from that. Don't give up your rights too easily.
The law is (or ought to be, unless, maybe, interpreted by 9 "wise Latina women") blind. It is supposed to protect all parties of a contract agreement fairly and equally. The only inequality is when an unclear item is found in the contract — such items are interpreted against the party, that originally crafted the contract.
I'll believe that *these* contracts fall under free market provisions of binding legal exchange of promises between two equal parties when *they* acknowledge the changes that I had written into the contract before sending it
If they began providing you with service without objecting to your changes, then they accepted them — even if you may have to go to court to prove it. Do so — someone, who implores others to "not give up rights so easily", really ought to...
Oh look, they've updated the terms again.
Either you gave them a permission to do that, or you have a right to discontinue service. Seriously, this is not rocket science...
Lastly, just in case this thread leads to an opinion, that private companies are particularly evil with changing contracts on the fly, here are the terms of governmental quasi-business monopoly in one of the most Illiberal States of the Union:
12. MODIFICATIONS
a) The MTA may change the "FAST LANE Program Terms and Conditions" at any time by giving customers notice thereof. The terms and conditions shall become effective seven (7) days after such notice has been given. No written notice is required, and you hereby waive any requirement that written notice be provided. Such notice may be given through any means, including, but not limited to, advertising such notice in the media, posting such notice on message boards along the MTA's toll roadways, or otherwise, as determined by the MTA. If you have provided an electronic mailing address to the MTA with your application, you authorize that such notice may be provided by sending such notice to that electronic mail address, in the MTA's discretion.
At midyear 2008, there were 4,777 black male inmates per 100,000 black males held in state and federal prisons and local jails, compared to 1,760 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 727 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.
If, as you suggest, the Whites are lagging merely because they are less often stopped, there ought to be about 6.5 times more whites in prison, than there are now. There are over 200 million Whites in the US, so, that "6.5 times more" would translate into 8.1 million new prisoners. Do you honestly believe, there are so many more criminals in the US — all of them White?
Soviet's have regularly sailed through the Northern Sea Route in summer since, at least, the middle of the last century. There is some great prose written with such sailing as a backdrop, in fact (in Russian, not sure about translations).
The sailing was not easy and the airplanes were occasionally required to investigate movement of ice-fields. At the beginning and the end of the season, the ships were organized in convoys, that were headed by icebreakers. (USSR even had a few nuclear-powered ones, first one built in 1959). But in the middle of the summer a regular ship could make the trip on its own...
Maybe, there is less ice there now, but it is not like the trip has only just become possible.
Yeah, it used to be that racists like Landor would successfully conceal themselves for years, never coming out of the woodwork. With Twitter and Facebook, these people's true feelings come out and it's a lot easier to out racists. Long live the internet!:)
Remember, when Whoopi Goldberg lost her contract with some advertisers (private companies, mind you, not governmental organizations) over really crude remarks involving word-play on the previous President's last name and Whoopi's genitals, the Slashdot was all outraged. Was she a — a black woman dissing a White President — racist, in your opinion?
No? Why, then, is the white woman, who vented her opinion in private blog (rather than, as Goldberg did, while doing her job as an entertainer) dissing a Black President?
In other words, you were occupying a rent-controlled apartment relying on a confiscatory law, that — introduced as a temporary measure during WW2 — still forces NYC landlords to charge some tenants ridiculously low rents. Sorry. No sympathy...
They will lie to you, rip you off, and are other wise shifty individuals.
I wonder, how people/companies with such habits stay in business... Maybe, it is the breakdown of the free market in real estate, that government meddling inevitably brings with it? Rent control and "rent-stabilization" are sure to do that — with the government dictating their prices, honest businessmen either leave town, or become dishonest...
And, in all fairness, if the larger unions hadn't become as corrupt as the corporate machines they were supposed to be protecting their workers from in the mid 20th century, Right to Work legislation wouldn't have got very far.
All unions seek to become and larger unions achieve the goal of becoming a monopolistic source of their members' services. This is precisely, what the anti-trust laws were created for, and they do ought to apply to unions. They don't even hide their aims of keeping the services' prices steady and rising and eliminating competition...
That is what's wrong with them and why the American opinion is slowly turning against them...
Maybe it's just because Americans are dumber than the average citizen?
That's nice, but it doesn't take-away my right of free speech.
Free Speech does not allow libel (nor lying in advertising, nor promoting health benefits of your product, nor a bunch of other things). When someone feels, you've libeled them, they can sue you and you have to defend yourself... It sucks, but there is no other way, really.
The only obvious improvement is to change our legal system to ensure, that the loser in a lawsuit automatically pays the winner's costs.
ignoring the power asymmetries between parties is a formula for misunderstanding a situation.
The artist can publish on his own. The label can not sing on their own. The asymmetry is thus in the artist's favor. The artist is not compelled to sell to a particular label any more than you are compelled to work for a particular employer.
Either way, this is moot, because abandoning the copyright will not improve the artist's lot. On the contrary. Whereas now artists can sell their wares (either directly or through middlemen), without copyright the music will be unsellable at all. The artists will only be able to get paid for live performances. Literature is full of sad stories of hungry musicians, painters, and other artists (creators) dying from cold and hunger in the mansard apartments of European capitals, because they are unable to profit from their creations' popularity.
Going back to that, as abolishing copyrights will ensure, will not only be sad, but also unfair. Makers of things tangible do enjoy the right to own their creations (or pre-sell them, as most workers do). Why should the creators of "imaginary" property be cursed with their works being unsellable, as anyone able to copy them gets the same rights as the author?
and at least part of the job a label does will *never* be obsolete.
And neither will the job of supermarket and other shops be. The middlemen, although frequently cursed, sometimes do add genuine value to both sides, and that's why they continue to exist and prosper. Nothing particularly appalling there.
I think, the GP's point was not so much that labels are obsolete, as that they would've been, if, indeed, they were as evil and oppressive as frequently alleged on this forum.
If you split a sentence into shorter parts then you lose both the context and the meaning of bigger entities (idioms, compound words/adjectives, phrasal/prepositional verbs).
Splitting into overlapping pieces may eliminate most of these problems. And you can't eliminate them all anyway as new idioms and clique-speak appear every day and plenty of people's speech can be deciphered only by their close associates anyway due to defects.
As for homophones et. al — well, some of the inevitable mistakes there may be caught by the software grammar checkers applied after the transcribed pieces are glued back together. And, it may even be possible, that some questionable cases get forwarded (in entirety) to a better-paid human being in the same country.
Finally, neither of us knows, how good the overall transcription really is. It may well be suffering from mis-transcribed homophones and other "tricky" pieces...
My "solution" is, of course, inferior to having one person parse the entire message, but it was not even proposed as anything more than speculation on how the system could be set up to work as advertised...
Slashdot Mirror
youtube-dl is what I use. A command-line (python) script, that can be used to build one's collection of YouTube clips without a GUI...
I'm sure, they've tried that already and, for some reason, it did not work...
Or, perhaps, the new "cool kidz" generation in KGB wanted to show, what it can do and won over the old-timers this time...
It is not "a different environment". Gnome is a different environment. KDE4 is a new version — number 4, to be precise — of KDE, and ought to use the settings of the previous version(s), certainly of the immediately preceding version KDE3.
I build from source, using ports-system, thank you very much. But kmail, kopete, and knotes had no idea, what to do. My friend on Kubuntu had the same problem — their old ~/.kde was ignored in favor of the newly-created, virgin ~/.kde4. Which means, it is KDE's problem, nothing to do with "distro". There may be reasons to create a new settings-directory, but there ought to be an official migration tool for copying the relevant settings from the old one.
Nothing was accepted, as long as the KDE-version is reported as below 4.x, when I tried last week. One may not want to accept feature requests for an old version, but bug-reports (both, security and non-security), ought to be accepted. Seems like the site (bugs.kde.org) is fixed now — maybe, even in response to criticism. This is good...
When the migration tool arrives, I'll try switching to KDE-4 one more time...
I did not even analyze the design or look/feel — as soon as I realized, that none of the KDE-3.x settings are preserved, I went right back to 3.5.10.
Yes, I suppose, one could bite the bullet and change everything once. But by the time I'm done, KDE-5 will require an all new effort. Unless there is an official "settings migration tool" of some kind, I'm sticking to KDE-3.x, despite KDE Project's arm-twisting (they would not even accept bug-reports for KDE-3.x any more). And if I do get the feeling later on, that KDE-3 is really obsolete, I am just as likely to move to a non-KDE environment
Aren't domain names imaginary property? Certainly can't touch them. Somebody thinks of them first and boom, he gets to control it for eternity — not even for 75 years (or whatever the hated music copyright lasts nowadays)... So, why don't we see objections to the use of the term "theft" in this discussion?
Is it because many more slashdotters own domain-names, which they dread losing, than those, who have written a song worth copying?
In a slowly-moving traffic, a running A/C will really eat into battery life... Somebody working, say, 40 miles from home — not that unusual — will need the charge to last 80 miles plus whatever extra for the air conditioning... Depending on how hot it is, they may or may not be able to pick kids from school on the way home...
Unless it is really cheap, I don't see, why many people would rush to buy it. "Normal" cars last about 300 miles and can be "recharged" (to 100%) in 3 minutes, instead of 80% in 30...
There are cases, where everything needed is said in eleven words — or even less...
No, it is not. For one example, Blacks frequently target Asians and Latino with abuse — I've witnessed it myself on a number of occasions in NYC subway. But there are far fewer Asians (and even Latinos) in prisons.
Also, Jews were routinely targeted for discrimination in the "Old Europe", Soviet Union, and even in the US (Ivy League colleges were biased against them, for example, up until 30ies, or so). But there was no higher rate of crime among Jews in any of the locales.
So, no, whatever it is, that's causing a crime-inducing "chip on the shoulder", discrimination ain't it. Or, at least, it is not an excuse.
Commercial traffic was what Soviets used it for — as much as "commerce" was possible in the USSR, of course. The ships carried goods of all sorts. Some of them were a little hardened to withstand an occasional encounter with an ice-field, but most were of regular kind...
As I said, only at the beginning and end of each summer season were the ships herded into convoys headed by an icebreaker to pass through certain spots.
Where did you find this interesting interpretation of the contract law?
It makes no sense, of course, without clear definition of what "equal standing" means. If it means, what I think you imply, then the vast majority of existing contracts are void in your opinion, because parties are almost never in perfectly equal standing...
Well, cell-phone companies are not in that position, so let's not get distracted, shall we?
Very colorful, but completely unsubstantiated. Try getting an iPhone for Verizon — Apple wouldn't make it, because AT&T wouldn't let them. Fellow members of cartel wouldn't do that to each other...
By pulling an arbitrary number out of the air, you can "prove" that any service or product is peddled by a cartel...
I am not sure about Japan, but the quality of European cellular service failed to impress me, to be perfectly honest. Maybe, it is because I expected much more after reading excited comments like yours...
I'm with you on the value of competition — it is the best way to get lower prices for higher quality. I'm just not convinced, the existing cell-phone companies aren't competing, and are illegally preventing new players from appearing (one such new player has just opened up two blocks away from me, actually).
Well, if that's what he meant, he didn't substantiate it. I have seen these guys compete with each other both on the street and higher — witness, for example, AT&T-Apple deal — if, indeed, AT&T and Verizon were fellow members of the same cartel, they wouldn't be doing this to each other. I have also seen some new-comers pop-up...
Thanks.
Whether or not the above is true, the "big companies'" costs would rise with my solution. Even if they can still afford them, they'll be bringing fewer such lawsuits. In fact, the companies' costs would more than double (if they keep losing), because they buy their lawyers in bulk (many employ lawyers on staff), whereas their opponents will cost them "retail".
The "poor", on the other hand, are already disadvantaged, supposedly, by being unable to afford a lawyer. My way, at least, they will be able to recoup those costs automatically, should they prevail — and some lawyers will, likely, be willing to work on contingency.
As things currently stand, you, pretty much, need to double your efforts, if, in addition to winning the original case, you wish to be compensated for your legal fees.
Lastly, unless you are a class warrior, you ought to drop the rhetoric, that revolves around inherently unequal sides in the courtroom.
The law is (or ought to be, unless, maybe, interpreted by 9 "wise Latina women") blind. It is supposed to protect all parties of a contract agreement fairly and equally. The only inequality is when an unclear item is found in the contract — such items are interpreted against the party, that originally crafted the contract.
If they began providing you with service without objecting to your changes, then they accepted them — even if you may have to go to court to prove it. Do so — someone, who implores others to "not give up rights so easily", really ought to...
Either you gave them a permission to do that, or you have a right to discontinue service. Seriously, this is not rocket science...
Lastly, just in case this thread leads to an opinion, that private companies are particularly evil with changing contracts on the fly, here are the terms of governmental quasi-business monopoly in one of the most Illiberal States of the Union:
I don't understand, what you are talking about. Maybe, you need to put some more work into your postings, rather than argue in one-liners. Thanks.
No wireless company today has a monopoly. Certainly not Sprint, which was the OP's example.
No, you should have to pay whatever the contract, which you signed voluntarily, in good health and sound mind, stipulates.
Well, here are the recent stats:
If, as you suggest, the Whites are lagging merely because they are less often stopped, there ought to be about 6.5 times more whites in prison, than there are now. There are over 200 million Whites in the US, so, that "6.5 times more" would translate into 8.1 million new prisoners. Do you honestly believe, there are so many more criminals in the US — all of them White?
Soviet's have regularly sailed through the Northern Sea Route in summer since, at least, the middle of the last century. There is some great prose written with such sailing as a backdrop, in fact (in Russian, not sure about translations).
The sailing was not easy and the airplanes were occasionally required to investigate movement of ice-fields. At the beginning and the end of the season, the ships were organized in convoys, that were headed by icebreakers. (USSR even had a few nuclear-powered ones, first one built in 1959). But in the middle of the summer a regular ship could make the trip on its own...
Maybe, there is less ice there now, but it is not like the trip has only just become possible.
Remember, when Whoopi Goldberg lost her contract with some advertisers (private companies, mind you, not governmental organizations) over really crude remarks involving word-play on the previous President's last name and Whoopi's genitals, the Slashdot was all outraged. Was she a — a black woman dissing a White President — racist, in your opinion?
No? Why, then, is the white woman, who vented her opinion in private blog (rather than, as Goldberg did, while doing her job as an entertainer) dissing a Black President?
In other words, you were occupying a rent-controlled apartment relying on a confiscatory law, that — introduced as a temporary measure during WW2 — still forces NYC landlords to charge some tenants ridiculously low rents. Sorry. No sympathy...
I wonder, how people/companies with such habits stay in business... Maybe, it is the breakdown of the free market in real estate, that government meddling inevitably brings with it? Rent control and "rent-stabilization" are sure to do that — with the government dictating their prices, honest businessmen either leave town, or become dishonest...
All unions seek to become and larger unions achieve the goal of becoming a monopolistic source of their members' services. This is precisely, what the anti-trust laws were created for, and they do ought to apply to unions. They don't even hide their aims of keeping the services' prices steady and rising and eliminating competition...
That is what's wrong with them and why the American opinion is slowly turning against them...
Average citizen of what?
Free Speech does not allow libel (nor lying in advertising, nor promoting health benefits of your product, nor a bunch of other things). When someone feels, you've libeled them, they can sue you and you have to defend yourself... It sucks, but there is no other way, really.
The only obvious improvement is to change our legal system to ensure, that the loser in a lawsuit automatically pays the winner's costs.
The artist can publish on his own. The label can not sing on their own. The asymmetry is thus in the artist's favor. The artist is not compelled to sell to a particular label any more than you are compelled to work for a particular employer.
Either way, this is moot, because abandoning the copyright will not improve the artist's lot. On the contrary. Whereas now artists can sell their wares (either directly or through middlemen), without copyright the music will be unsellable at all. The artists will only be able to get paid for live performances. Literature is full of sad stories of hungry musicians, painters, and other artists (creators) dying from cold and hunger in the mansard apartments of European capitals, because they are unable to profit from their creations' popularity.
Going back to that, as abolishing copyrights will ensure, will not only be sad, but also unfair. Makers of things tangible do enjoy the right to own their creations (or pre-sell them, as most workers do). Why should the creators of "imaginary" property be cursed with their works being unsellable, as anyone able to copy them gets the same rights as the author?
And neither will the job of supermarket and other shops be. The middlemen, although frequently cursed, sometimes do add genuine value to both sides, and that's why they continue to exist and prosper. Nothing particularly appalling there.
I think, the GP's point was not so much that labels are obsolete, as that they would've been, if, indeed, they were as evil and oppressive as frequently alleged on this forum.
Splitting into overlapping pieces may eliminate most of these problems. And you can't eliminate them all anyway as new idioms and clique-speak appear every day and plenty of people's speech can be deciphered only by their close associates anyway due to defects.
As for homophones et. al — well, some of the inevitable mistakes there may be caught by the software grammar checkers applied after the transcribed pieces are glued back together. And, it may even be possible, that some questionable cases get forwarded (in entirety) to a better-paid human being in the same country.
Finally, neither of us knows, how good the overall transcription really is. It may well be suffering from mis-transcribed homophones and other "tricky" pieces...
My "solution" is, of course, inferior to having one person parse the entire message, but it was not even proposed as anything more than speculation on how the system could be set up to work as advertised...