What happens when the few remaining telecoms merge, and there's but one route to the 'net?
Or if not merge, decide to act in collusion to control content?
The 'net in many ways is like a utility for speech, just as a water company is a utility for potable water. At some point, the rights of the individual must trump the rights of the corporation.
The question, really, is whether it would be constitutional for Congress to make it illegal to sell arms to non-military citizens, or to make their manufacture illegal.
The extreme and silly case would be that it is legal to say whatever you want, but you have to put a pillow over your face when doing so.
Here's how you get rid of it: you demonitize elections.
This means that you force TV and the 'net to provide certain free services: specifically, access for candidates to air time and a certain amount of bandwidth for their websites. You force the ad placement companies to put political ads into their rotation. Then you make it illegal to give money to a candidate if you're a corporation, and cap individual contributions.
Of course, the Roberts court basically made this practically impossible at this point, but there are systems that would work. Perhaps not perfectly, but well enough to massively diminish the legalized institutionalized bribery system that we call lobbying.
An open platform will always have a certain level of fragmentation. It's part of the cost you pay for having an open platform. The benefit is that you get more apps and options. The downside is that they don't always play nice. So - I admit that there are negatives to so-called fragmentation.
With this said, if you honestly parse the OP's post, look at the structure, language, word choice and links, not to mention the timing of it's posting, and consider modern marketing techniques as they pertain to blogs and social networks, it seems to be at least a reasonable to at least suspect that the author has either professional or monetary ties to Apple, or that he is a true Holy Warrior for The One True Platform.
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Except that they don't have the same rate of success, as evidenced by the fact that all the hosts on AWS and Google and so forth haven't been turned into bot farms and all the data exposed to the world.
You persist in using desktop numbers, not internet server farm numbers. Which don't get published so much; they're mostly considered proprietary information. But it is easily verifiable that Google, Facebook, eBay, Amazon (including AWS), and pretty much all the other big names use Linux for their server farms, not Windows.
Yes, I concede that for desktops, Linux has a tiny market share.
For the internet backbones, server farms, research farms, and so forth, Windows doesn't get used all that much. And that's where the real concentration of data is.
Also, you don't take into consideration the value of a compromise. The value of compromising J Random Luser's home PC is far, far less than that of compromising say a Facebook server with personal information or getting into some company's AWS virtual hosts.
Well, maybe desktop. But internet backbone? Facebook/Amazon/Google/etc server farms? Hate to break it to you, but those are almost all Linux. And that's where the real data is.
I'd argue that his definition is that of a broken government. The definition of a functional, western democracy is, IMO, that of the instrument of the people; the collective power of the citizenry to offset other powers, both internal and external to the nation in question.
I'm all for second amendment rights (to the chagrin of my rather liberal friends, often) - but nevertheless, a well trained, disciplined military force will rip through a disorganized militia.
Absolutely an armed citizenship can be subdued and conquered. Especially when you throw in the propaganda/advertising techniques that we've got these days to turn folks against themselves.
And regardless of this, you can't always be tearing down all organization - that is anarchy, and that road leads to extinction. No, there has to exist some entity that maintains justice and balance. And that entity is government. The people have been persuaded (again) that government is evil by the very folks that would see their own private power increased - that is, by the uber rich and the corporations.
If the tool of the people is broken and corrupt, then it needs to be fixed. But you can't do away with it completely. To quote Jefferson:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
For example, will it be illegal to tamper with such a white cell virus that's on your system? To reverse engineer it? To release your own distributed anti-virus system that might view such a white cell virus as a threat, and hunt it down and destroy it across multiple networks?
Part of the idea of a constitution is to act as a governor for change.
It's supposed to be a set of agreed upon rules that are intentionally hard to change.
We look back to what the founders said so that we know what we've all agreed to.
What happens when the few remaining telecoms merge, and there's but one route to the 'net?
Or if not merge, decide to act in collusion to control content?
The 'net in many ways is like a utility for speech, just as a water company is a utility for potable water. At some point, the rights of the individual must trump the rights of the corporation.
Sorry, but you'll have to take this train of thought to a Free Speech Zone.
It's the legal test of a right in this country, and that's the only one that matters at the end of the day.
The question, really, is whether it would be constitutional for Congress to make it illegal to sell arms to non-military citizens, or to make their manufacture illegal.
The extreme and silly case would be that it is legal to say whatever you want, but you have to put a pillow over your face when doing so.
So, then, you'd say that it is constitutional for congress to make internet access illegal?
So, what. You have a right to run a Gutenberg press, but not to publish a blog?
Sure they did. That's why freedom of the press is also guaranteed.
Here's how you get rid of it: you demonitize elections.
This means that you force TV and the 'net to provide certain free services: specifically, access for candidates to air time and a certain amount of bandwidth for their websites. You force the ad placement companies to put political ads into their rotation. Then you make it illegal to give money to a candidate if you're a corporation, and cap individual contributions.
Of course, the Roberts court basically made this practically impossible at this point, but there are systems that would work. Perhaps not perfectly, but well enough to massively diminish the legalized institutionalized bribery system that we call lobbying.
99% of the population doesn't understand dns, http, tcp/ip - yet they use a web browser.
If it can be coded at all, it can be given a point and click interface.
You manage to make the car analogy even more terrible than usual.
Gas not being equivalent to electricity?
And just try putting an oil filter from a BMW into a pinto.
And absolutely fascinating that the other quoted comment is also a first comment in this story:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/12/28/1536257/samsung-reconsidering-android-40-on-the-galaxy-s
If so, Blackboard.... ermm... Clipboard Monitor Vimes would have to be their antichrist...
An open platform will always have a certain level of fragmentation. It's part of the cost you pay for having an open platform. The benefit is that you get more apps and options. The downside is that they don't always play nice. So - I admit that there are negatives to so-called fragmentation.
With this said, if you honestly parse the OP's post, look at the structure, language, word choice and links, not to mention the timing of it's posting, and consider modern marketing techniques as they pertain to blogs and social networks, it seems to be at least a reasonable to at least suspect that the author has either professional or monetary ties to Apple, or that he is a true Holy Warrior for The One True Platform.
It's the stock phrases, such as "Seamless experiences win out in the long term." They're pretty much copy-paste.
And this from an extremely unhappy Samsung Galaxy S phone, complete with busted GPS and no ICS.
Parody (tm) was retroactively patented last week, and the name trademarked and copyrighted. Use of the word Parody in it's verb form ("Parodying") is now an actionable civil offense.
You can be sued for applying unlicensed Parody (tm) to any situation.
You must have a valid license to apply Parody (tm). Furthermore, you need Parody Enterprise (tm) for any published, non-personal application of Parody. Parody Student Edition (tm) may only be used in an educational environment. Release of Parody (tm) works under GPL is prohibited.
Note that a Parody (tm) license does not allow you to publish Satire (c); a separate license is required for such publications.
Except that they don't have the same rate of success, as evidenced by the fact that all the hosts on AWS and Google and so forth haven't been turned into bot farms and all the data exposed to the world.
You persist in using desktop numbers, not internet server farm numbers. Which don't get published so much; they're mostly considered proprietary information. But it is easily verifiable that Google, Facebook, eBay, Amazon (including AWS), and pretty much all the other big names use Linux for their server farms, not Windows.
Yes, I concede that for desktops, Linux has a tiny market share.
For the internet backbones, server farms, research farms, and so forth, Windows doesn't get used all that much. And that's where the real concentration of data is.
Also, you don't take into consideration the value of a compromise. The value of compromising J Random Luser's home PC is far, far less than that of compromising say a Facebook server with personal information or getting into some company's AWS virtual hosts.
Sorry, but the rate of success is nowhere near as good. If it were, ALL of your data would already be completely out in the open.
Also, you quote the 1% figure as though it were gospel - which it is not.
Both your logic and your presentation/writing are flawed.
Linux 1% market share?
Well, maybe desktop. But internet backbone? Facebook/Amazon/Google/etc server farms? Hate to break it to you, but those are almost all Linux. And that's where the real data is.
It's inherent in his definition of government.
I'd argue that his definition is that of a broken government. The definition of a functional, western democracy is, IMO, that of the instrument of the people; the collective power of the citizenry to offset other powers, both internal and external to the nation in question.
I'm all for second amendment rights (to the chagrin of my rather liberal friends, often) - but nevertheless, a well trained, disciplined military force will rip through a disorganized militia.
Absolutely an armed citizenship can be subdued and conquered. Especially when you throw in the propaganda/advertising techniques that we've got these days to turn folks against themselves.
And regardless of this, you can't always be tearing down all organization - that is anarchy, and that road leads to extinction. No, there has to exist some entity that maintains justice and balance. And that entity is government. The people have been persuaded (again) that government is evil by the very folks that would see their own private power increased - that is, by the uber rich and the corporations.
If the tool of the people is broken and corrupt, then it needs to be fixed. But you can't do away with it completely. To quote Jefferson:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
... the white cells from the attacking entities.
And the ramifications could get interesting.
For example, will it be illegal to tamper with such a white cell virus that's on your system? To reverse engineer it? To release your own distributed anti-virus system that might view such a white cell virus as a threat, and hunt it down and destroy it across multiple networks?
Perhaps more to the point, what's to prevent the RIAA participants and telecoms from shutting them down?
When the telecoms and copyright house corporations decide they want to get rid of it, they'll be gone with a quickness.
There, fixed that for ya.