This article shows how out-of-sync/. is. It is not even funny, just another piece of M$ bashing. Am I the only one who looks for "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters" and feels tired of reading stories like these?
It is so strange that the ridiculous monolith story has earned two articles, while the latest PR tech-hype, Ginger/IT, was never mentioned. This is a subject that can bring lots of funny material, as The Register is showing us.
Maybe the main reason for publishing the article was that little phrase "Slashdot, which will be closing despite its remarkable growth and popularity". Shameless self-promotion?
-How does the US government (or the responsible office for elections) choose the voting system? From what I understood, each state in US has its owns regulations. In Brazil, the federal government started a bidding proccess, with detailed requirements on how the system would work. Obviously, the source code of all the supplied programs had to be open for the government, and there were strict accuracy requirements on all the components, hw and sw.
-Although you may consider it less liberal, a unified (as it happened in Brazil) voting system helps easying the proccess. Is this legally possible in the US?
Now, some comments:
-Brazil doesn't have an Internet voting system, it is electronic regarding data collection and storage, but still there is human control (presence lists, which must be signed by the voter, and the mandatory showing of an official document id). The Brazilian Electoral Rulers have already declared that Internet voting is not going to happen soon, because of the security issues.
-The fact that M$ is one of the proposers does not make the system automatically bad. If M$ is chosen to develop the system, it would surely adopt a higher quality requirement than the one they have today, as any noticeable failure on the system would hurt its reputation forever.
I sincerely don't understand what types of freedom you are being excluded from. Freedom to walk from one place to another? Freedom to express your ideas and opinions? Freedom to choose among many different alternatives? Freedom to criticise the government?
I live in a Third World country where, 25 years ago, you couldn't say you disagreed with the government without the risk of being jailed, or being considered a communist, an enemy of the state. Those were terrible days, but now we have a democratic ruling, and still there are difficult problems which freedom, simply put, couldn't help solving.
If you are complaining about freedom to get free/gratis products or services, well, you should go to a country where accumulating goods wouldn't be the primary concern of their people. The only problem is that this place doesn't exist yet.
Please, pay more attention to the world, and instead of looking for "better places for freedom", remember that there are hungry people in Africa, there are very poor people in Asia, there are billions of people that live under a pseudo-communist ruling in China. Those people don't give a damn about this "freedom" you say you don't have, they just want to live their lives with a little decency. Now look at your country, and you will see a consumer-oriented society, which gives value to competition and money accumulation, but, on the other hand, cares about quality of life. Are you living in a horrible place? And how does this "lack of freedom" you say makes it more horrid?
Think deep, and you will finally see: You have *never* lived in a totally Free country! There's always been a ruling, good or bad, and it will take centuries (if ever) until the entire human race can be considered Free.
Although I understand that we are discussing Rights and Privacy, I would also like to add a point regarding functionality. I read all the disclaimers at Google's site, and I installed the toolbar. It has very useful features, and for a frequent search engine user like myself, it is a tool that has its value.
As it was pointed out, there are many disguised ways to obtain personal information, and since Google warned twice during installation about the privacy issues, I was very aware of the risks I was taking. For me, it was worth the download.
Slashdot Mirror
This article shows how out-of-sync /. is. It is not even funny, just another piece of M$ bashing. Am I the only one who looks for "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters" and feels tired of reading stories like these?
It is so strange that the ridiculous monolith story has earned two articles, while the latest PR tech-hype, Ginger/IT, was never mentioned. This is a subject that can bring lots of funny material, as The Register is showing us.
Maybe the main reason for publishing the article was that little phrase "Slashdot, which will be closing despite its remarkable growth and popularity". Shameless self-promotion?
I live in Brazil and I would like to ask you:
Now, some comments:
I sincerely don't understand what types of freedom you are being excluded from. Freedom to walk from one place to another? Freedom to express your ideas and opinions? Freedom to choose among many different alternatives? Freedom to criticise the government?
I live in a Third World country where, 25 years ago, you couldn't say you disagreed with the government without the risk of being jailed, or being considered a communist, an enemy of the state. Those were terrible days, but now we have a democratic ruling, and still there are difficult problems which freedom, simply put, couldn't help solving.
If you are complaining about freedom to get free/gratis products or services, well, you should go to a country where accumulating goods wouldn't be the primary concern of their people. The only problem is that this place doesn't exist yet.
Please, pay more attention to the world, and instead of looking for "better places for freedom", remember that there are hungry people in Africa, there are very poor people in Asia, there are billions of people that live under a pseudo-communist ruling in China. Those people don't give a damn about this "freedom" you say you don't have, they just want to live their lives with a little decency. Now look at your country, and you will see a consumer-oriented society, which gives value to competition and money accumulation, but, on the other hand, cares about quality of life. Are you living in a horrible place? And how does this "lack of freedom" you say makes it more horrid?
Think deep, and you will finally see: You have *never* lived in a totally Free country! There's always been a ruling, good or bad, and it will take centuries (if ever) until the entire human race can be considered Free.
Suggestion for a new poll:
In your oppinion, cmdrTaco published the Apple Suing FreeType story because:
we love reading Apple-bashing stories
he's on a hangover
he's still drinking the New Year's champagne
he suffered the effects of the Y2K1 Bug
CowboyNeal told him the link was OK
Sorry, but I couldn't resist...
Although I understand that we are discussing Rights and Privacy, I would also like to add a point regarding functionality. I read all the disclaimers at Google's site, and I installed the toolbar. It has very useful features, and for a frequent search engine user like myself, it is a tool that has its value.
As it was pointed out, there are many disguised ways to obtain personal information, and since Google warned twice during installation about the privacy issues, I was very aware of the risks I was taking. For me, it was worth the download.