This also doesn't have anything to do with the article. The article is about bullying, not the "assault" on fiscal conservatism.
Just to be clear, the right wing in the US is not advocating for fiscal conservatism. Conservatism is keeping with historical norms. Rather, they are advocating for fiscal extremism, levels of taxation progressiveness lower than anything in the last 50 years. That's the opposite of conservative.
I'm a Republican and I'm not whiny. Let's look at it from my perspective. The colleges are indoctrinating the youth with no opposition.
Why does your perspective have to be so absolute? That seems to be the problem. Nothing prevents universities from bringing in any speakers they want so long as they do so within the bounds of the constitution and if they allow/pay one religion to speak they do the same for all. That seems to be the fundamental disconnect in my mind. When everyone is given equal opportunity, why do you whine about not being given more than equal opportunity?
Harassment of women: This is strictly about abortion.
Actually if you read the article and the actual policies at the university it claims to cite, this is about no employee making grades or employment based upon requirement that people have the same views. So no, it isn't about abortion... but lets continue.
For sake of argument pretend you believe life begins at conception. Would you be OK with a form of birth control that ended a human life each time it was used? You can argue that life doesn't begin at conception but that's not the point. The point is, if yo believe life DOES begin at conception then how could you act any different than the Republicans do?
You see I believe in freedom. For example, I believe 99% of people who shoot pigeons are jackasses. They're hunting for sport, wasting good meat, and they mostly are macho dickheads trying to compensate for their own inadequacy. I voted to give them the freedom to choose to continue this sport, even though I disapprove.
Even if I believed life began at conception I can still rationally demonstrate that that is just an opinion and unprovable. Further I can logically demonstrate it is a faith based opinion not supported by science. So even if I believe it, I would still support the right of other individuals to make their own choices based on their own beliefs and if there is a god, let him judge them.
It's called "freedom" and it's not just a bumper sticker or a campaign slogan. Maybe you should try believing in it instead of just saying it like a parrot.
Other than that, there is no harassment of women from Republicans.
Umm, yeah. Except all the other harassment about things like homosexuality, subservience to men, etc.
Minorities: Affirmative action, you can't make up for past discrimination by enforcing racial discrimination upon everyone.
Is that truly what you believe the purpose of affirmative action is, punitive? Maybe you should read something that isn't from the right wing. Try reading how affirmative action changed, for example, politics and business in northern Europe removing in a few generations the prejudice of centuries.
Gays: All about marriage. I had a gay room mate. I have many friends who are gay, I live in California. I am against gay marriage.
Please. Before gay marriage Republicans fought against homosexuality being legal at all and after they lose gay marriage they'll still be fighting against the rights of gays to adopt children. Why do you hate freedom? For a party who opposes "big government" you sure do believe in the government making choices for other people and getting in people's personal business. Here's an idea, don't like gay marriage? Don't marry any gay people and shut the hell up and mind your own business.
Muslims: sorry, I can't give you a rational argument you will accept (not that I expect you to accept my point of view on any of these). Muslims are responsible for 99% of all terrorist attacks in the world.
Have you considered learning facts? They make decision making much more accurate.
...as for "anyone else not like them" pure bullshit. You people on the left chastise and berate anyone who is a Republican.
If the WSJ is excluding details to make a point, it is the epitome of triviality to argue against those points by showing what was excluded. If the WSJ is wrong about something, prove it.
I think other posters have already covered that pretty well. The WSJ clearly was trying to misconstrue the facts and sensationalize.
Otherwise, just stuff it, because your cheerleading for the NYT at the expense of the WSJ won't convince anyone.
This isn't about "cheerleading". I'm not particularly a fan of the NYT, but I certainly recognize them as a a normal, reputable newspaper that does research, vets their sources, makes an attempt not to print outright falsehoods, and prints retractions. Newscorp owned properties are something else. To pretend they should be given equal weight on their face is just absurd at this point. It really isn't news, it's an attempt to persuade.
Those who are "uniformed idiots" because they read the WSJ certainly won't be convinced (the name calling is a nice touch - really brings people to your way of thinking).
If you get your news from a source that went to court to defend their constitutional right to lie to their readers/viewers, what else would such a person be called? You pretty much have to be uninformed and/or an idiot to trust such a "news" source.
And those who already agree with you don't need convincing.
Here's where you mistake. I'm not trying to convince people. That's rhetoric. I'm presenting a logical argument. Frankly, I don't expect people to change their minds as most people are just looking for anything to justify what they already believe. Instead I'm writing to respond to those that can still argue logically and really, fuck the rest of you. This is Slashdot, news for nerds. If you can't handle logic why would I care about your opinion?
Rational thinkers will not be convinced, and those are the only ones you can possibly hope to sway.
Rational thinkers ignore the rhetoric you endorse. Wasting time coddling people who insist on believing things written by a propaganda company proven to repeatedly lie are the ones beyond hope.
Nothing to do with free speech necessarily, but the comment about racist are the only ones who disagree with affirmative action comment. Because every time a comment is made that liberals disagree with and they can't debate facts their defacto response is to call the other person racist.
Can you provide some examples of this?I read a lot of news and while I've certainly heard comments taken out of context by politicians used to insinuate racism. I don't recall seeing the vast majority of political and social issues being framed in terms of one position being racist. This sounds a lot more like the kind of inflammatory talking point you hear on "news commentary" shows and never backed up with any sort of facts.
Pretty much anything critical of the tea party mentions racism. Thats one simple example.
I don't think "the tea party" qualifies as a comment nor as a topic of debate. You said whenever there was a comment liberals disagree with. What comments? So no, that's not even close to an example.
Further, while the Tea Party has certainly been criticized for various racist remarks made by members I don't think that is a major criticism of the Tea Party. If you to a search for "tea party criticism" the first hits have to do with: their criticism of Mitt Romney, requiring land to vote, Islam not being protected by the first amendment, mischaracterization of Jared Lee Loughner as "a liberal extremist", lack of compassion when lauding the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords", blasphemy by members, and that they can't create a coherent platform for voters. Racism doesn't even make the first two pages in Google. Perhaps you have a skewed perception of reality?
You shouldn't need to be pointed to examples...
Yes, for heaven's sake. Let's just scream rhetoric and never try to address real facts or real world cases. Then we'd have to support our hyperbolic nonsense. If it is so easy, cite a few examples. Are you lazy or lying?
Some in a softer manner (How DARE you suggest that affirmative action is racist, you racist).
Your second example, however, is about someone exercising their free speech to criticize someone else's speech. It is an example of free speech, not an example of free speech being restricted.
It is an example of free speech, not an example of free speech being restricted.
Understand this: Free speech is not a just a law. It is an ideal. Because of the circular point you just made, we can not outlaw private restrictions to speech, but that does not mean they are morally right.
First, you don't seem to know what a "circular point" is. Second, we're not talking about a private organization "outlawing" free speech. Private organizations can't outlaw anything because only the government can create laws. We're not even talking about a private organization censoring speech in a location. We're talking about someone citing free speech criticizing them and their opinion on affirmative action, as though somehow they have a right to prevent people from talking about how they disagree with said person. That's not censorship it's the epitome of free speech.
Nothing to do with free speech necessarily, but the comment about racist are the only ones who disagree with affirmative action comment. Because every time a comment is made that liberals disagree with and they can't debate facts their defacto response is to call the other person racist.
Can you provide some examples of this? I read a lot of news and while I've certainly heard comments taken out of context by politicians used to insinuate racism. I don't recall seeing the vast majority of political and social issues being framed in terms of one position being racist. This sounds a lot more like the kind of inflammatory talking point you hear on "news commentary" shows and never backed up with any sort of facts.
Hell, just look at Allen West election in Florida. Al Sharpton thinks West doesn't deserve a recount with his election loss being so close to the automatic recount level. That may ACTUALLY be a racist comment by Sharpton...
I don't understand your argument. How is saying someone doesn't deserve a recount a potentially racist comment? What quote from Sharpton do you think is racist?
If West was a Democrat Sharpton would be all over the news complaining that West isn't getting a recount because he is black and people who think he shouldn't get a recount are racist. See, a perfect example of how calls of being racist has NOTHING to do with race, but more to do with political affiliation.
Umm, your perfect example is a hypothetical what you think Al Sharpton would do if a candidate was a democrat? That's not an example its a supposition. Your argument seems to be about people not talking about race, as an example of people talking about racism inappropriately. I guess I'm just not buying your argument. If you want to convince me you need to support it much more strongly than that. Have you really considered this objectively and come to this conclusion and if so, what convinced you of your opinion?
Forget political parties. Forget Democrat or Republican, or WSJ vs. NYT. If speech is being curtailed, that should concern you.
You make a very good point. If free speech is being infringed by the government we should all be concerned, regardless of who brings that issue to our attention or if the act is being done by a specific political party. I think, however, you go a little too far in your equivocation. The trustworthiness of our sources of information are important and by excluding particular details or simply misrepresenting the facts an issue of speech not being subsidized by a specific organization can be misrepresented as that speech being censored, and make no mistake these are very different things.
When you write, "WSJ vs. NYT" red flags go off in my mind. You're presenting not just publications favored by political parties, but one publication with a very solid history of integrity and factual presentation of information with a publication owned by a very deceptive corporation. The Newscorp organization is a big fan of free speech, insomuch as they went to court to defend their free speech rights to publish news stories they knew were untrue and to fire the reporters who refused to present them. And hey, they're correct. They do have the right to tell complete untruths to their viewers and readers. But at the same time their actions make it abhorrent to mention them in the same breath as the NYT and make me think anyone who believes anything they read in Newscorp publications is an uninformed idiot.
The fact is that free speech in America has been getting more and more curtailed. Some in a very overt manner (free speech zones). Some in a softer manner (How DARE you suggest that affirmative action is racist, you racist).
You seem to have a misconception about what free speech is. Your first example is about restricting people to particular locations in order to prevent their speech from being heard... all good so far. Your second example, however, is about someone exercising their free speech to criticize someone else's speech. It is an example of free speech, not an example of free speech being restricted.
Nice ad hominem. Instead of reading the source and arguing with the points made, you drool on yourself and blabber on about Murdoch.
You make a good point that we should be judging articles on their merit, however, technically it was not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is the informal fallacy of claiming some argument is wrong based upon some characteristic of the person making the argument. The previous poster made no claim that the argument was wrong, but merely pointed out the untrustworthy nature of the publication and exposited on what they thought the content was likely to be. I highly encourage you to read a book on informal logic as it is a very useful tool/method and will help you not only argue with more precision, but refine your understanding of logically determining truths.
A lot of people seem wrongheaded about FRAND patents and I think it is because they are trying to justify pre-existing beliefs born of like or dislike of one of the litigants involved in this case. So lets just talk about FRAND in general terms using current developments in the auto industry.
Electric cars, the next big thing and they need to be able to charge the batteries. So, having many different connectors is inefficient and a standard for plugs is needed if we're ever going to build out infrastructure. But wait there are many ways to do it and many companies that already have patents on lots of potential solutions. Should we:
Refuse to base the standard on any patented technology at all even if it makes the systems worse.
Base it on existing, patented technologies resulting in a better standard technologically, but make sure any patents required to implement the new standard are licenses FRAND such that any auto company for a small fee can make electric cars that comply with the standard?
Generally, because it is industry players, we go with the second option, but does that mean auto-makers that were not making electric cars at the time the standard was made and who don't have patents involved in the standard should be forever frozen out of the market? Does that mean no new car companies will ever be allowed into the market? Because to make a new charging standard there are likely hundreds of patents and even if each one only demands.5% of the sale price of a vehicle, that quickly adds up to 100% for all companies that don't have patents in the pool. Does anyone here think that is reasonable for a standard or in any way good for innovation or society as a whole?
Standards are supposed to be about collaboration and reducing just this kind of bullshit and FRAND licensing is a necessary part of that, which is why you aren't allowed to price things discriminatorily in the first place. Google/Motorola is free to license or not license any non-FRAND patents to Apple or anyone else and charge any rate they damn well please. Apple is likewise free to license or not license any non-FRAND patents they damn well please. People conflating the two issues are missing the point and are cheering on abuse of the standard creation process and the end of the ability of any upstart company to engage in using standards. It's cheering on forcing the industry into stagnation and preventing the competitive marketplace and consumers from determining what is the best device... but maybe that's secretly what some people want. They don't want competition to result in the best product. They just want their "team" to win so they feel better about their purchase. Shame.
You mean like if someone had dominance in the smartphone/tablet market and affected other markets through bundling native applications and rejecting competing applications from entering their walled garden. Curious.
You mean dominance as in Apple's 35% smartphone marketshare in the US or Google's 65% search marketshare in the US?
I've read alot about companies saying win8 is bad for gaming yet very few are actually willing to put their money where their mouth is and actually produce linux native games...
Monopolies undermine competition in markets, thus what is best for consumers can still be worse for participants in the market. That's the whole reason we regulate monopolies and cartels, because our entire economy is based on the assumption of competition and it just takes one dominated market, leveraged into other markets to undermine the system.
You should not expect companies to act against their own best economic interests even if that is what is best for the industry. You should instead be pressuring your congresscritters to step in and get our existing antitrust laws effectively enforced.
You'd like to think that Apples dominance is in question, but at least in the states, you can pretty safely bet that if it's a smart phone, it's an iDevice.
With about 34% of the US smartphone market I'll take those odds any day. The probability is it's not an iDevice; two to one odds. Don't ever go to Vegas.
You can go Linux or MacOS if you feel you have no choice. One has no support and the other is more nazi than Windows.
Niether has locked down the OS so that some APIs are only available to apps that pay a fee to the OS maker. Neither has support for the same number of applications that Windows does because after taking 90% of the desktop OS market then breaking the law to freeze out other players the market is broken broken broken. And just to be clear, this machine runs Windows, MacOS, and Linux because I'm a computer geek.
I guess I don't see how your comments are relevant to whether or not what MS is doing is legal or good for developers or consumers.
Now, Microsoft is focussing on providing a strongly-preferred application distribution system for Windows and extracting a share of the revenues that go to application distributors
Hmm, so similar to Apple's strategy. And nobody is developing apps for iOS huh?
Apple extracts a minimal fee used just to cover costs because they can make up their money in hardware sales. Apple on the desktop does not prefer App store apps by limiting access to APIs based upon whether or not the developer paid a fee to Apple. Apple on mobile devices is not dominant in the industry such that ignoring that market means not having a viable market, so Apple can't jerk developers around as much or they just go to Android.
Linux users want things F.O.S.S. The first letter stands for "FREE". Companies don't make money giving away their products, unless it's a dump to attract users to another product or service the company has.
Lets see there are hardware manufacturers that are selling computers and tablets (Android seems to be doing well giving away the OS). There are software developers that want a good platform for development (and already plenty that contribute to Linux although not many from the gaming genre). The real problem is gaining momentum in a market completely dominated by a single monopoly. Maybe the convergence of the desktop and the tablet/phone market will upset this, but Windows 8 is MS's attempt to stop that from happening and make tablet/phone/desktop one market with one set of applications, controlled by MS and without any room for Linux as a real player.
Agreed, I had no issue with Steam in Windows 8. Valve simply doesn't want competition; they seemed to have no issue using MacOS with its app store.
Apps in the Mac App Store are not given access to APIs that applications loaded from the internet or from disks are not. With the Windows store, it is a requirement to pay MS if your application is going to have access to the APIs necessary to use the touchscreen interface, etc. with the native functionality. Additionally, Apple does not have any sort of undue influence on the desktop OS application market so vendors selling applications are not beholden to Apple. They can just say, "Apple, you make the OS for like 20% of our customers, screw you we're selling on DVD at Best Buy. If, however, MS restricts what you can do on Windows more than your competitors because they're selling through the Windows store and giving MS a cut, it's hard to tell MS to screw off and may become increasingly harder as tablets and hybrids take up larger shares of said customers (assuming the trend continues).
Windows 8 isn't had for gaming, it's just bad for Valve.
Windows 8's store is quite probably a violation of antitrust laws, but they're managing to break into grey area by locking it down only for "tablet" style apps. Here's how it works, Microsoft is doing exactly what Valve is doing but tying it to their existing desktop OS monopoly such that regardless of if Valve produces a better product for end users, Valve will still lose in the market. They way Microsoft is doing this is by making it impossible for end users to load "Metro" apps that use the tablet interface unless they are purchased through MS's built in store. This means while Steam can still sell apps that use the existing Windows UI, they won't be able to sell apps that work with the other half of of the UI APIs including touch screen capable apps and apps that target both touch screen and keyboard. This provides MS a huge advantage (and of course the Windows store is pre-installed just like IE) without being a direct violation of existing antitrust rulings.
The fun thing is, they can drag this out for years in the US courts because they previously defined the market in terms of desktop OS's and what MS is trying to do is simultaneously merge the desktop and tablet OS markets, while taking an action that is only legal if the markets are already the same. The EU will probably slap them down and may or may not take any sort of effective action before another market loses all competition.
Valve's just concerned with their potential market being at risk.
True, but free competition in the market is a huge concern to us consumers as well. I like the innovation, lower prices, and better quality that comes from having multiple vendors competing for my business instead of being stuck with the one and only vendor that can treat me like crap and make me pay through the nose for the privilege.
For example, documentation of HTML video doesn't mention the difficulties inflicted upon it by different encoding policies by different competing companies.
That's the whole point here. None of these companies has a monopoly on Web video and they all have stakes in what protocols and formats are used. Apple wants something hardware supported to make their mobile devices have longer battery life. Google wants something that they can use across a large array of phones and that won't require them to re-encode the youtube library of video into multiple formats. Mozilla wants something that will let them avoid patent issues. MS and Apple both want something that can be wrapped in DRM to keep mainstream content providers on board.
So we can have protocol wars as we have for the last few years which divide the Web up into fiefdoms and cause lots of user headaches, none of which actually helps any of these companies, or they can try to collaborate and come up with a solution that will work for everyone and hopefully reduce the barrier between their respective solutions.
Documentation by corporate committee is unreliable because at any point it can be corrupted.
Why would they? Unless one of the players gains dominance, screwing with documentation or being incompatible just hurts that one company more than everyone else. Five years ago Adobe was betting on locking everyone into Flash and MS planned to leverage their desktop OS monopoly to force every to use WMA. Apple wanted nothing to do with either, even if it made them incompatible with the mainstream. Now, they all stand to gain by playing nice, for now.
"Final" and "Latest" both have specific, though different, meanings. "Final" indicates that a particular build is considered the official release for a specific version of a piece of software; contrast "final" with "alpha", "beta", and "release candidate". "Latest" indicates that there is no more recent version of the software available.
"Final" is a modifier on "Firefox 16". "16" is a modifier on Firefox. The phrase you interpreted this as would have another comma ala: "Today Mozilla released the final version of Firefox, 16". The gods know there is plenty of crappy grammar in tech release notes and news articles about them, but this seems to be a case of proper punctuation misinterpreted by those who don't know it well enough.
Not that they haven't contributed (some more than others) to open source projects, but... why exactly do we need the corporate technical powerhouses to create a definitive resource on open technologies?
Because together those companies create much of the software and hardware that is interpreting open web protocols and formats. This is hopefully a step towards recognizing that proprietary technologies that only work on one vendor's platform are detrimental rather than beneficial for lock in. Maybe the next time you notice browser C is interpreting that HTML tag differently than everyone else there will be a place to point to that the maker of browser C has their name up as a collaborator.
I would say that slapping Google with draconian restraints is stifling innovation.
Google is free to make the best maps or best social network they can. No one is stifling innovation. The only thing they can't do is win in the market not by making the best product, but by tying it to a product that is dominant in a separate market. They can even integrate their maps or social network with their search provided they offer the same functionality to competing maps and social network service providers. How exactly does this prevent innovation in any way?
It is not as clear cut as that though - defining how specific a particular market is and how dominant a product is in relation to that market
I do believe Google's search market share has already been legally recognized as dominant in the EU, not that there is really any doubt in anyone's mind. Nor do I think we are in gray area with regard to separation of the search and social network or mapping services markets. Sure there is plenty to argue, but I don't think either of those arguments will get Google anywhere. The real question is if they are actually favoring their own services in a meaningful way, which I have not seen anyone yet establish (with the exception of a few smaller instances over the last few years and which have been corrected).
The point is that with google there can be no lock-in, so they cannot abuse their monopoly in the same way e.g microsoft can because people are free to go to a competitor search engine at the drop of a hat.
That's not good enough. The point of antitrust law is to keep all markets competitive and driving innovation. For that to happen people have to be free to choose the best search engine for them and the best social network and the best maps, etc. It's not sufficient that they choose the best bundle of those together because it might mean that while we end up with real competition in one market, the other markets are abandoned by innovators because there is no realistic way a better product can win against something tied to the best search platform.
Bing does this as well, I do not think it is particularly fair to start fining people for doing something that has been going on and in the open since internet searches were first born.
In the early days no one had monopoly influence on the market. Antitrust laws have been on the books since the 1800's without much change. If Google doesn't have lawyers and businessmen that understand them they should dissolve the company now as their incompetence is staggering. If Google did go ahead and leverage their influence in search, they knew what they were doing and deserve to be smacked down for it because they were breaking the law and hoping to lawyer their way out of it.
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This also doesn't have anything to do with the article. The article is about bullying, not the "assault" on fiscal conservatism.
Just to be clear, the right wing in the US is not advocating for fiscal conservatism. Conservatism is keeping with historical norms. Rather, they are advocating for fiscal extremism, levels of taxation progressiveness lower than anything in the last 50 years. That's the opposite of conservative.
I'm a Republican and I'm not whiny. Let's look at it from my perspective. The colleges are indoctrinating the youth with no opposition.
Why does your perspective have to be so absolute? That seems to be the problem. Nothing prevents universities from bringing in any speakers they want so long as they do so within the bounds of the constitution and if they allow/pay one religion to speak they do the same for all. That seems to be the fundamental disconnect in my mind. When everyone is given equal opportunity, why do you whine about not being given more than equal opportunity?
Harassment of women: This is strictly about abortion.
Actually if you read the article and the actual policies at the university it claims to cite, this is about no employee making grades or employment based upon requirement that people have the same views. So no, it isn't about abortion... but lets continue.
For sake of argument pretend you believe life begins at conception. Would you be OK with a form of birth control that ended a human life each time it was used? You can argue that life doesn't begin at conception but that's not the point. The point is, if yo believe life DOES begin at conception then how could you act any different than the Republicans do?
You see I believe in freedom. For example, I believe 99% of people who shoot pigeons are jackasses. They're hunting for sport, wasting good meat, and they mostly are macho dickheads trying to compensate for their own inadequacy. I voted to give them the freedom to choose to continue this sport, even though I disapprove.
Even if I believed life began at conception I can still rationally demonstrate that that is just an opinion and unprovable. Further I can logically demonstrate it is a faith based opinion not supported by science. So even if I believe it, I would still support the right of other individuals to make their own choices based on their own beliefs and if there is a god, let him judge them.
It's called "freedom" and it's not just a bumper sticker or a campaign slogan. Maybe you should try believing in it instead of just saying it like a parrot.
Other than that, there is no harassment of women from Republicans.
Umm, yeah. Except all the other harassment about things like homosexuality, subservience to men, etc.
Minorities: Affirmative action, you can't make up for past discrimination by enforcing racial discrimination upon everyone.
Is that truly what you believe the purpose of affirmative action is, punitive? Maybe you should read something that isn't from the right wing. Try reading how affirmative action changed, for example, politics and business in northern Europe removing in a few generations the prejudice of centuries.
Gays: All about marriage. I had a gay room mate. I have many friends who are gay, I live in California. I am against gay marriage.
Please. Before gay marriage Republicans fought against homosexuality being legal at all and after they lose gay marriage they'll still be fighting against the rights of gays to adopt children. Why do you hate freedom? For a party who opposes "big government" you sure do believe in the government making choices for other people and getting in people's personal business. Here's an idea, don't like gay marriage? Don't marry any gay people and shut the hell up and mind your own business.
Muslims: sorry, I can't give you a rational argument you will accept (not that I expect you to accept my point of view on any of these). Muslims are responsible for 99% of all terrorist attacks in the world.
Have you considered learning facts? They make decision making much more accurate.
...as for "anyone else not like them" pure bullshit. You people on the left chastise and berate anyone who is a Republican.
If the WSJ is excluding details to make a point, it is the epitome of triviality to argue against those points by showing what was excluded. If the WSJ is wrong about something, prove it.
I think other posters have already covered that pretty well. The WSJ clearly was trying to misconstrue the facts and sensationalize.
Otherwise, just stuff it, because your cheerleading for the NYT at the expense of the WSJ won't convince anyone.
This isn't about "cheerleading". I'm not particularly a fan of the NYT, but I certainly recognize them as a a normal, reputable newspaper that does research, vets their sources, makes an attempt not to print outright falsehoods, and prints retractions. Newscorp owned properties are something else. To pretend they should be given equal weight on their face is just absurd at this point. It really isn't news, it's an attempt to persuade.
Those who are "uniformed idiots" because they read the WSJ certainly won't be convinced (the name calling is a nice touch - really brings people to your way of thinking).
If you get your news from a source that went to court to defend their constitutional right to lie to their readers/viewers, what else would such a person be called? You pretty much have to be uninformed and/or an idiot to trust such a "news" source.
And those who already agree with you don't need convincing.
Here's where you mistake. I'm not trying to convince people. That's rhetoric. I'm presenting a logical argument. Frankly, I don't expect people to change their minds as most people are just looking for anything to justify what they already believe. Instead I'm writing to respond to those that can still argue logically and really, fuck the rest of you. This is Slashdot, news for nerds. If you can't handle logic why would I care about your opinion?
Rational thinkers will not be convinced, and those are the only ones you can possibly hope to sway.
Rational thinkers ignore the rhetoric you endorse. Wasting time coddling people who insist on believing things written by a propaganda company proven to repeatedly lie are the ones beyond hope.
Nothing to do with free speech necessarily, but the comment about racist are the only ones who disagree with affirmative action comment. Because every time a comment is made that liberals disagree with and they can't debate facts their defacto response is to call the other person racist.
Can you provide some examples of this?I read a lot of news and while I've certainly heard comments taken out of context by politicians used to insinuate racism. I don't recall seeing the vast majority of political and social issues being framed in terms of one position being racist. This sounds a lot more like the kind of inflammatory talking point you hear on "news commentary" shows and never backed up with any sort of facts.
Pretty much anything critical of the tea party mentions racism. Thats one simple example.
I don't think "the tea party" qualifies as a comment nor as a topic of debate. You said whenever there was a comment liberals disagree with. What comments? So no, that's not even close to an example.
Further, while the Tea Party has certainly been criticized for various racist remarks made by members I don't think that is a major criticism of the Tea Party. If you to a search for "tea party criticism" the first hits have to do with: their criticism of Mitt Romney, requiring land to vote, Islam not being protected by the first amendment, mischaracterization of Jared Lee Loughner as "a liberal extremist", lack of compassion when lauding the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords", blasphemy by members, and that they can't create a coherent platform for voters. Racism doesn't even make the first two pages in Google. Perhaps you have a skewed perception of reality?
You shouldn't need to be pointed to examples...
Yes, for heaven's sake. Let's just scream rhetoric and never try to address real facts or real world cases. Then we'd have to support our hyperbolic nonsense. If it is so easy, cite a few examples. Are you lazy or lying?
Some in a softer manner (How DARE you suggest that affirmative action is racist, you racist).
Your second example, however, is about someone exercising their free speech to criticize someone else's speech. It is an example of free speech, not an example of free speech being restricted.
It is an example of free speech, not an example of free speech being restricted.
Understand this: Free speech is not a just a law. It is an ideal. Because of the circular point you just made, we can not outlaw private restrictions to speech, but that does not mean they are morally right.
First, you don't seem to know what a "circular point" is. Second, we're not talking about a private organization "outlawing" free speech. Private organizations can't outlaw anything because only the government can create laws. We're not even talking about a private organization censoring speech in a location. We're talking about someone citing free speech criticizing them and their opinion on affirmative action, as though somehow they have a right to prevent people from talking about how they disagree with said person. That's not censorship it's the epitome of free speech.
Nothing to do with free speech necessarily, but the comment about racist are the only ones who disagree with affirmative action comment. Because every time a comment is made that liberals disagree with and they can't debate facts their defacto response is to call the other person racist.
Can you provide some examples of this? I read a lot of news and while I've certainly heard comments taken out of context by politicians used to insinuate racism. I don't recall seeing the vast majority of political and social issues being framed in terms of one position being racist. This sounds a lot more like the kind of inflammatory talking point you hear on "news commentary" shows and never backed up with any sort of facts.
Hell, just look at Allen West election in Florida. Al Sharpton thinks West doesn't deserve a recount with his election loss being so close to the automatic recount level. That may ACTUALLY be a racist comment by Sharpton...
I don't understand your argument. How is saying someone doesn't deserve a recount a potentially racist comment? What quote from Sharpton do you think is racist?
If West was a Democrat Sharpton would be all over the news complaining that West isn't getting a recount because he is black and people who think he shouldn't get a recount are racist. See, a perfect example of how calls of being racist has NOTHING to do with race, but more to do with political affiliation.
Umm, your perfect example is a hypothetical what you think Al Sharpton would do if a candidate was a democrat? That's not an example its a supposition. Your argument seems to be about people not talking about race, as an example of people talking about racism inappropriately. I guess I'm just not buying your argument. If you want to convince me you need to support it much more strongly than that. Have you really considered this objectively and come to this conclusion and if so, what convinced you of your opinion?
Forget political parties. Forget Democrat or Republican, or WSJ vs. NYT. If speech is being curtailed, that should concern you.
You make a very good point. If free speech is being infringed by the government we should all be concerned, regardless of who brings that issue to our attention or if the act is being done by a specific political party. I think, however, you go a little too far in your equivocation. The trustworthiness of our sources of information are important and by excluding particular details or simply misrepresenting the facts an issue of speech not being subsidized by a specific organization can be misrepresented as that speech being censored, and make no mistake these are very different things.
When you write, "WSJ vs. NYT" red flags go off in my mind. You're presenting not just publications favored by political parties, but one publication with a very solid history of integrity and factual presentation of information with a publication owned by a very deceptive corporation. The Newscorp organization is a big fan of free speech, insomuch as they went to court to defend their free speech rights to publish news stories they knew were untrue and to fire the reporters who refused to present them. And hey, they're correct. They do have the right to tell complete untruths to their viewers and readers. But at the same time their actions make it abhorrent to mention them in the same breath as the NYT and make me think anyone who believes anything they read in Newscorp publications is an uninformed idiot.
The fact is that free speech in America has been getting more and more curtailed. Some in a very overt manner (free speech zones). Some in a softer manner (How DARE you suggest that affirmative action is racist, you racist).
You seem to have a misconception about what free speech is. Your first example is about restricting people to particular locations in order to prevent their speech from being heard... all good so far. Your second example, however, is about someone exercising their free speech to criticize someone else's speech. It is an example of free speech, not an example of free speech being restricted.
Nice ad hominem. Instead of reading the source and arguing with the points made, you drool on yourself and blabber on about Murdoch.
You make a good point that we should be judging articles on their merit, however, technically it was not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is the informal fallacy of claiming some argument is wrong based upon some characteristic of the person making the argument. The previous poster made no claim that the argument was wrong, but merely pointed out the untrustworthy nature of the publication and exposited on what they thought the content was likely to be. I highly encourage you to read a book on informal logic as it is a very useful tool/method and will help you not only argue with more precision, but refine your understanding of logically determining truths.
A lot of people seem wrongheaded about FRAND patents and I think it is because they are trying to justify pre-existing beliefs born of like or dislike of one of the litigants involved in this case. So lets just talk about FRAND in general terms using current developments in the auto industry.
Electric cars, the next big thing and they need to be able to charge the batteries. So, having many different connectors is inefficient and a standard for plugs is needed if we're ever going to build out infrastructure. But wait there are many ways to do it and many companies that already have patents on lots of potential solutions. Should we:
Generally, because it is industry players, we go with the second option, but does that mean auto-makers that were not making electric cars at the time the standard was made and who don't have patents involved in the standard should be forever frozen out of the market? Does that mean no new car companies will ever be allowed into the market? Because to make a new charging standard there are likely hundreds of patents and even if each one only demands .5% of the sale price of a vehicle, that quickly adds up to 100% for all companies that don't have patents in the pool. Does anyone here think that is reasonable for a standard or in any way good for innovation or society as a whole?
Standards are supposed to be about collaboration and reducing just this kind of bullshit and FRAND licensing is a necessary part of that, which is why you aren't allowed to price things discriminatorily in the first place. Google/Motorola is free to license or not license any non-FRAND patents to Apple or anyone else and charge any rate they damn well please. Apple is likewise free to license or not license any non-FRAND patents they damn well please. People conflating the two issues are missing the point and are cheering on abuse of the standard creation process and the end of the ability of any upstart company to engage in using standards. It's cheering on forcing the industry into stagnation and preventing the competitive marketplace and consumers from determining what is the best device... but maybe that's secretly what some people want. They don't want competition to result in the best product. They just want their "team" to win so they feel better about their purchase. Shame.
You mean like if someone had dominance in the smartphone/tablet market and affected other markets through bundling native applications and rejecting competing applications from entering their walled garden. Curious.
You mean dominance as in Apple's 35% smartphone marketshare in the US or Google's 65% search marketshare in the US?
I've read alot about companies saying win8 is bad for gaming yet very few are actually willing to put their money where their mouth is and actually produce linux native games...
Monopolies undermine competition in markets, thus what is best for consumers can still be worse for participants in the market. That's the whole reason we regulate monopolies and cartels, because our entire economy is based on the assumption of competition and it just takes one dominated market, leveraged into other markets to undermine the system.
You should not expect companies to act against their own best economic interests even if that is what is best for the industry. You should instead be pressuring your congresscritters to step in and get our existing antitrust laws effectively enforced.
You'd like to think that Apples dominance is in question, but at least in the states, you can pretty safely bet that if it's a smart phone, it's an iDevice.
With about 34% of the US smartphone market I'll take those odds any day. The probability is it's not an iDevice; two to one odds. Don't ever go to Vegas.
You can go Linux or MacOS if you feel you have no choice. One has no support and the other is more nazi than Windows.
Niether has locked down the OS so that some APIs are only available to apps that pay a fee to the OS maker. Neither has support for the same number of applications that Windows does because after taking 90% of the desktop OS market then breaking the law to freeze out other players the market is broken broken broken. And just to be clear, this machine runs Windows, MacOS, and Linux because I'm a computer geek.
I guess I don't see how your comments are relevant to whether or not what MS is doing is legal or good for developers or consumers.
Now, Microsoft is focussing on providing a strongly-preferred application distribution system for Windows and extracting a share of the revenues that go to application distributors
Hmm, so similar to Apple's strategy. And nobody is developing apps for iOS huh?
Apple extracts a minimal fee used just to cover costs because they can make up their money in hardware sales. Apple on the desktop does not prefer App store apps by limiting access to APIs based upon whether or not the developer paid a fee to Apple. Apple on mobile devices is not dominant in the industry such that ignoring that market means not having a viable market, so Apple can't jerk developers around as much or they just go to Android.
Linux users want things F.O.S.S. The first letter stands for "FREE". Companies don't make money giving away their products, unless it's a dump to attract users to another product or service the company has.
Lets see there are hardware manufacturers that are selling computers and tablets (Android seems to be doing well giving away the OS). There are software developers that want a good platform for development (and already plenty that contribute to Linux although not many from the gaming genre). The real problem is gaining momentum in a market completely dominated by a single monopoly. Maybe the convergence of the desktop and the tablet/phone market will upset this, but Windows 8 is MS's attempt to stop that from happening and make tablet/phone/desktop one market with one set of applications, controlled by MS and without any room for Linux as a real player.
Agreed, I had no issue with Steam in Windows 8. Valve simply doesn't want competition; they seemed to have no issue using MacOS with its app store.
Apps in the Mac App Store are not given access to APIs that applications loaded from the internet or from disks are not. With the Windows store, it is a requirement to pay MS if your application is going to have access to the APIs necessary to use the touchscreen interface, etc. with the native functionality. Additionally, Apple does not have any sort of undue influence on the desktop OS application market so vendors selling applications are not beholden to Apple. They can just say, "Apple, you make the OS for like 20% of our customers, screw you we're selling on DVD at Best Buy. If, however, MS restricts what you can do on Windows more than your competitors because they're selling through the Windows store and giving MS a cut, it's hard to tell MS to screw off and may become increasingly harder as tablets and hybrids take up larger shares of said customers (assuming the trend continues).
Windows 8 isn't had for gaming, it's just bad for Valve.
Windows 8's store is quite probably a violation of antitrust laws, but they're managing to break into grey area by locking it down only for "tablet" style apps. Here's how it works, Microsoft is doing exactly what Valve is doing but tying it to their existing desktop OS monopoly such that regardless of if Valve produces a better product for end users, Valve will still lose in the market. They way Microsoft is doing this is by making it impossible for end users to load "Metro" apps that use the tablet interface unless they are purchased through MS's built in store. This means while Steam can still sell apps that use the existing Windows UI, they won't be able to sell apps that work with the other half of of the UI APIs including touch screen capable apps and apps that target both touch screen and keyboard. This provides MS a huge advantage (and of course the Windows store is pre-installed just like IE) without being a direct violation of existing antitrust rulings.
The fun thing is, they can drag this out for years in the US courts because they previously defined the market in terms of desktop OS's and what MS is trying to do is simultaneously merge the desktop and tablet OS markets, while taking an action that is only legal if the markets are already the same. The EU will probably slap them down and may or may not take any sort of effective action before another market loses all competition.
Valve's just concerned with their potential market being at risk.
True, but free competition in the market is a huge concern to us consumers as well. I like the innovation, lower prices, and better quality that comes from having multiple vendors competing for my business instead of being stuck with the one and only vendor that can treat me like crap and make me pay through the nose for the privilege.
For example, documentation of HTML video doesn't mention the difficulties inflicted upon it by different encoding policies by different competing companies.
That's the whole point here. None of these companies has a monopoly on Web video and they all have stakes in what protocols and formats are used. Apple wants something hardware supported to make their mobile devices have longer battery life. Google wants something that they can use across a large array of phones and that won't require them to re-encode the youtube library of video into multiple formats. Mozilla wants something that will let them avoid patent issues. MS and Apple both want something that can be wrapped in DRM to keep mainstream content providers on board.
So we can have protocol wars as we have for the last few years which divide the Web up into fiefdoms and cause lots of user headaches, none of which actually helps any of these companies, or they can try to collaborate and come up with a solution that will work for everyone and hopefully reduce the barrier between their respective solutions.
Documentation by corporate committee is unreliable because at any point it can be corrupted.
Why would they? Unless one of the players gains dominance, screwing with documentation or being incompatible just hurts that one company more than everyone else. Five years ago Adobe was betting on locking everyone into Flash and MS planned to leverage their desktop OS monopoly to force every to use WMA. Apple wanted nothing to do with either, even if it made them incompatible with the mainstream. Now, they all stand to gain by playing nice, for now.
"Final" and "Latest" both have specific, though different, meanings. "Final" indicates that a particular build is considered the official release for a specific version of a piece of software; contrast "final" with "alpha", "beta", and "release candidate". "Latest" indicates that there is no more recent version of the software available.
"Final" is a modifier on "Firefox 16". "16" is a modifier on Firefox. The phrase you interpreted this as would have another comma ala: "Today Mozilla released the final version of Firefox, 16". The gods know there is plenty of crappy grammar in tech release notes and news articles about them, but this seems to be a case of proper punctuation misinterpreted by those who don't know it well enough.
Not that they haven't contributed (some more than others) to open source projects, but ... why exactly do we need the corporate technical powerhouses to create a definitive resource on open technologies?
Because together those companies create much of the software and hardware that is interpreting open web protocols and formats. This is hopefully a step towards recognizing that proprietary technologies that only work on one vendor's platform are detrimental rather than beneficial for lock in. Maybe the next time you notice browser C is interpreting that HTML tag differently than everyone else there will be a place to point to that the maker of browser C has their name up as a collaborator.
I would say that slapping Google with draconian restraints is stifling innovation.
Google is free to make the best maps or best social network they can. No one is stifling innovation. The only thing they can't do is win in the market not by making the best product, but by tying it to a product that is dominant in a separate market. They can even integrate their maps or social network with their search provided they offer the same functionality to competing maps and social network service providers. How exactly does this prevent innovation in any way?
It is not as clear cut as that though - defining how specific a particular market is and how dominant a product is in relation to that market
I do believe Google's search market share has already been legally recognized as dominant in the EU, not that there is really any doubt in anyone's mind. Nor do I think we are in gray area with regard to separation of the search and social network or mapping services markets. Sure there is plenty to argue, but I don't think either of those arguments will get Google anywhere. The real question is if they are actually favoring their own services in a meaningful way, which I have not seen anyone yet establish (with the exception of a few smaller instances over the last few years and which have been corrected).
Is the web search a different product than the maps search?
In terms of markets and thus the law, absolutely. There are companies that sell each of those services and not the other.
The point is that with google there can be no lock-in, so they cannot abuse their monopoly in the same way e.g microsoft can because people are free to go to a competitor search engine at the drop of a hat.
That's not good enough. The point of antitrust law is to keep all markets competitive and driving innovation. For that to happen people have to be free to choose the best search engine for them and the best social network and the best maps, etc. It's not sufficient that they choose the best bundle of those together because it might mean that while we end up with real competition in one market, the other markets are abandoned by innovators because there is no realistic way a better product can win against something tied to the best search platform.
Bing does this as well, I do not think it is particularly fair to start fining people for doing something that has been going on and in the open since internet searches were first born.
In the early days no one had monopoly influence on the market. Antitrust laws have been on the books since the 1800's without much change. If Google doesn't have lawyers and businessmen that understand them they should dissolve the company now as their incompetence is staggering. If Google did go ahead and leverage their influence in search, they knew what they were doing and deserve to be smacked down for it because they were breaking the law and hoping to lawyer their way out of it.