If someone's spelling and/or grammar corrected how does that negatively affect the story that they are trying to bring to everyone's attention?
And whoever said that Slashdot was a forum for free speech? If that was the case then every story would submission would always be accepted and people (even the first posters and the trolls) wouldn't get automatically moderated into oblivion by scripts that the editors have available to them.
The number of times I've seen the name of a company, product or person misspelt alone justifies some basic checking.
Of course, you're assuming that story submitters that mistype words, spell poorly and/or have bad command of grammar wouldn't want their mistakes to be corrected. If it was you, would you rather suffer the embarrassment of everyone knowing that you can't differentiate between "there" and "their" or be offended that your submission was tidied up without anyone else ever knowing about it?
Regardless of all these arguments, each of which has enough merit on its own, there's one overriding reason that stories should be checked for spelling and grammar: because Slashdot is supposed to be a professional (for-profit) website, and picking up basic mistakes is what editors of professional websites do.
Great Britain (.gb) and the United Kingdom (.uk) are, for all intents and purposes, synonymous.
The IRA and other paramilitary organisations don't think so, and have spent the well over 30 years killing people because of those beliefs. A great many other people that haven't resorted to violence would also take offense at that statement.
To those that don't know - and I realise that this probably doesn't apply to you Uart - Great Britain comprises of England, Scotland and Wales, whereas the United Kingdom comprises of those three countries and Northern Ireland too.
Too much has happened over the issue of Northern Ireland's sovreignty - too much blood has been shed, too many lives have been lost - for anyone to ever equate Great Britain and United Kingdom.
I agree, it does seem that in everyday speech the two seem to be used as interchangeable terms but that's got more to do with the an acceptable level of lazyness than anything else.
By that I mean it's generally accepted to says "Britain" when you really mean the United Kingdom, or to call someone "British", even if they're Northern Irish (although they might take serious offense depending on their political persuasion), just as it's generally accepted that the term "America" refers to the United States of America specifically, and that "American" refers to one of its citizens, rather than the broader but more accurate definitions of those labels.
You couldn't be more right. But if someone's going to call.la the TLD for Los Angeles, then perhaps they should also consider these other "city-specific" TLDs, most of which have been around far longer than the Laotian domain:.au - Austin, Texas, USA (actually Australia).ca - Cardiff, Wales (Canada).be - Berlin, Germany (Belgium).br - Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA (Brazil).br - Brussels, Belgium (Brazil).lv - Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (Latvia).no - New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (Norway).pa - Paris, France (Panama).pe - Perth, Australia (Peru)
Just blows the "Los Angeles is first" argument out of the water doesn't it?
Spelling error in posts are to be expected, and I wouldn't even think for a split second that worrying about them there is worthy of the editors time.
But spelling errors in the original story submissions? Well that's inexcusable. Slashdot editors have a duty, to the readers, the Andover shareholders and themselves, to make sure that the site is professionally run, and making sure that what they publish (ie, the stories themselves) is clearly written and makes sense is a part of that.
It doesn't take too much to run each submission through a spelling and grammar checker so why shouldn't they do it?
I'm not going to be able to make it to this tonight (whenever "tonight" is for the editors, it's going to be really late in the night here), so could someone please bring up the following:
1. Congratulate the editors on finally cutting down on the number of dupes posted - it's been ages since I've seen one.
How has this been acheived: via technology or a more human factor?
2. Ask the editors when they plan to:
i) start checking story submissions for basic spelling and grammar errors; ii) start checking that the actual stories aren't well-known hoaxes; iii) start editing the story titles so that they are more easily found via searches (eg, a chess story should have some chess reference in the story title, rather than being called "Man Last Stand vs Machine" or whatever); and iv) start offering bittorrents straight off the bat when it's relevant (eg, a story on a new movie trailer being made available for download, latest patch for a popular game, new distro launch).
3. Ask the editors to update polls more frequently.
Now that ChrisD's left, polls seem to linger well past their sell-by-dates. Chris said once that he posted new polls after x number of days or y number of votes, whichever came first. If I remember correctly, x was about 3-4 and y was roughly 25,000-30,000, so the recent poll about "Favorite fictitious drink" went on for far too long (7 days, nearly 60,000 votes). I'm sure some sort of automation could be used here.
Anyone else get the feeling that going after other UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems via what appear to be tenuous legal arguments is SCO's new business model?
I guess SCO thinks that calling in the lawyers beats actually trying to compete on the merits of its products and services.
How is this that different from a cop going under cover to bust a drugs operation or a fraudster?
If they use every dirty trick in the book and think nothing of emailing paedophilic pictures to anybody and everybody, don't spammers deserve the same level of attention as other criminals? Why should they be any different from other people who openly break the law for personal profit?
3G is a pathetic disappointment...
on
Is 3G Irrelevant?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
At least that's the view here in the UK, where the 3G services available here so far are being sold on the strength of picture messaging and video phone calls.
Unsurprisingly, sending a picture message or making a video call costs a lot more than sending a text message or making a regular call. New services generally command a price premium, so I guess that's to be expected, but what really gets my goat is how utterly useless (beyond the novelty factor) picture messaging and video calls are. Why use a picture message when a text message is so much clearer and 10-30 times cheaper? Why make a video call when a voice one will suffice at a fraction of the cost?
I'm sorry, but I want more from my next generation handset than just postage stamp sized pictures. And, if the current take up of 3G phones here and elsewhere is anything to go by, so does everyone else.
Sorry to embarrass you but your "1337 math skills" aren't very "1337". The figure is £17.63, as I originally stated.
£15.00 * 1.175 = £17.63 (after rounding up the 0.5 pence)
Ie, you are charged 17.5 percent on top of the untaxed price. Or, put another way, for every pound you spend, you have to pay another 17.5 pence in VAT.
15 * 17.5 = 262.5
So, if you spend $15.00 exclusive of VAT, you have to pay 262.5 pence, or £2.625 in VAT. Since we no longer have half pennies, this rounds up to £2.63.
There's an error in your logic. To get from the VAT exclusive price to VAT inclusive one, you have to multiply by 1.175. To get from the VAT inclusive price to the VAT exclusive one, you have to divide by 1.175. Or put another way:
x = 1.175 * y
where x is the VAT inclusive price and y is the VAT exclusive price.
What you've assumed, which is that 17.5 percent of the VAT inclusive price is the VAT component is completely wrong. The actual figure (if you really want to look at it that way) is 0.175/1.175, which is a tad under 14.9 percent of the final price you pay.
AOL UK is, on paper at least, based outside the EU. Therefore, when it sells goods (in this case, internet access) to customers within the EU it isn't required to collect the taxation due (in this case, VAT) at the time of purchase. That tax can be collected by the purchaser's home country at the point of entry, but where do you define the point of entry to be in this case?
AOL UK uses the same setup as other UK ISPs - the same infrastructure, hardware, backbone, etc - and an AOL customer's experience is the same as that of a non-AOL customer. The only difference between AOL and the rest of the pack is that AOL UK isn't registered in the UK. It's this "offshore" quality that gives it its advantage.
Of course, that shouldn't exist and it's great to see that it's finally being looked at. But a similar situation exists in the US, when a customer State A has to pay State A tax to buy a PC shipped by a State A company but doesn't pay a penny in tax if that same PC is bought from a company based in State B.
At least in the US case, what a company in State A loses in local sales it can make up for in out of state sales from customers in State B and elsewhere. In the end, the playing field is pretty even (even accounting for states that have negligible or no sales taxes). But in AOL UK's case, it's a win-win for AOL and a loss-loss for everyone else.
AOL is one of the UK's largest ISPs. They got into the UK market early, at the time when most UK ISPs were small private companies, and have continued to be a major player in the UK market ever since.
But, because AOL UK is based outside the UK, AOL doesn't have to charge its customers VAT.
Good thing right? No. Bad thing. Very bad thing.
Whereas the UK-based companies, including almost all of the small private startups (many started by people who had previously run bulletin boards, etc), had to charge their customers VAT and then pass on that tax to the government, AOL used loopholes in the VAT legislation to avoid having to charge VAT yet it charged its customers the same amount that the tax-paying ISPs did.
In effect, AOL was able to charge its customers more for its services yet compete at the same level as everyone else - whereas the competition's prices included 17.5 percent VAT, AOL's prices included 17.5 percent extra profit.
Clearly, this has provided AOL with an artificial competitive advantage.
Breaking down the costs shows this more clearly:
AOL: £15.00/month charge, £15.00/month to AOL, £0.00 VAT to government.
UK-based ISP: £15.00/month charge, £12.76 to ISP, £2.24 VAT to government.
To make the same amount of money from each customer, the UK-based ISPs would have to charge £17.63 (£15.00 plus 17.5 percent).
Obviously, providing internet access costs money, and it's the difference between what you can charge and what it costs you that generates your profit. Well, in this case, it's like AOL has an extra £2.24 per customer for free. This isn't so much of a problem if operating costs are small, but it's a pretty big one when costs and charges are almost similar - and we all know just how cut-throat the ISP industry is don't we?
It's clearly ridiculous that two companies both providing the same service to the same customers in the same country should be effected by taxation so differently. And, of course, this point has been made by many within the UK internet community many times. However, until now, nothing's been done about it.
Some of the larger ISPs disadvantaged by this situation have threatened to take their operations overseas too, so as to put themselves in AOL's priviledged position, but this has never really been an option for the smaller guys that have been around from day one and that have hung on in there - relocating your business overseas isn't cheap and easy.
Even if AOL starts paying VAT now, the damage has already been done. Almost a decade of tax-free operation has allowed it to become one of the most dominant UK ISPs - all that extra cash has bought it a lot of extra TV and radio advertising as well as CDs.
I'm not in favour of taxation for taxation's sake but I am in favour of a level playing field. And, in AOL's case, the field's finally being levelled out.
Hey, it's late here (2.00am) and when I first looked at that story headline I misread Vendor as Vader.
For a split second, I could just see Vader (SCO) throttling the commander of the Rebel blockade runner (Linus, representing the Linux community) at the start of SW:ANH:
Vader squeezes the neck of the Rebel Officer, who struggles in vain.
VADER (SCO): Where are those transmissions you intercepted?
Vader lifts the Rebel off his feet by his throat.
VADER: What have you done with those plans?
REBEL OFFICER (Linus): We intercepted no transmissions. Aaah....This is a consular ship. Were on a diplomatic mission.
VADER: If this is a consular ship...were is the Ambassador?
The Rebel refuses to speak but eventually cries out as the Dark Lord begins to squeeze the officer's throat, creating a gruesome snapping and choking, until the soldier goes limp. Vader tosses the dead soldier against the wall and turns to his troops (SCO lawyers).
VADER: Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans and bring me the Ambassador. I want her alive!
while the OS is becoming more and more bloated, a virus scanner seems to be one of the things that would actually be a welcome addition.
Gee, well I'd like to see the OS an integrated dictionary that could be used by all applications but that would be too much like a useful feature. Why doesn't Microsoft include one? Because it would put a severe dent in sales of Microsoft Word - beyond the spelling checker, there are few killer features in Word that 90 percent of home users will ever want to use.
Let's face it, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless features and applets that Microsoft could include in its OS but continually chooses to ignore simply because including them could hurt sales of its other products.
On the other hand, where there is the real threat of a competitor's product gaining a position of near-dominance, or of a product potentially reducing users' reliance on Microsoft products, Microsoft does everything it can to smash the competition and bring them back into the fold. The Netscape/IE browser war is an example of the former, Java and Microsoft's flawed JVM is an example of the latter.
I'm guessing that Microsoft will simply kill off this product. After all, the very words "cross-platform" are considered blasphemy to the folks at Redmond. The last thing it'll do is further develop a product that promotes secure computing on non-Microsoft platforms.
I think you got the wrong end of the stick with my original post. I'm not suggesting that Apple could transition to Intel/AMD tomorrow, or at the drop of a hat. What I'm saying is that it could do it, and that doing it has some real pluses.
1. I never suggested that Apple has blistering fast Intel/AMD code at this moment in time. Heck, they'd be mad to have spent too much time optimising that code up until now - why spend more money squeezing extra performance out of code that you're not planning to use? But, if the time comes, Apple is more than capable of optimising it's code to run as fast as it can on another processor.
2. If Motorola were to stop development of PowerPC CPUs, Apple would have to start looking elsewhere for a chip supplier. Motorola churning out another PowerPC processor means that search is going to be put off for a while.
Perhaps Motorola will carry on developing PowerPC CPUs until the end of time, perhaps not. But if it were to throw in the PowerPC towel, Apple would be forced to make a change.
Of course Apple could transition without being forced to. It's just that Motorola killing PowerPC development would demand a switch. Ergo, " the longer Apple uses the PowerPC platform, the less likely the possibility of it switching to an Intel/AMD platform becomes".
3. I'm not saying that greater chip speed is the be all and end all of performance. What I said is that the Intel/AMD transition would probably lead to cheaper and faster machines. "Probably" as in "highly likely to".
Why cheaper? Cheaper for many reasons, not least because Apple would have a choice of chip partners, and both AMD and Intel would bend over backwards to sign the company up to a favourable deal, similar to the one between Intel and Dell. Cheaper CPUs means lower manufacturing costs, which means cheaper Macs if Apple wants to pass along some of the savings.
Why faster? Well, PowerPC development seems to have peaked and reached a plateau. The same can't be said of 64-bit Intel/AMD offerings, which are still being developed.
4. I said that Apple could offer non-Mac users a chance to "upgrade" their PCs to run the Mac OS if Apple wanted to allow it to happen. Personally, I don't think that they do, but if Apple can charge its current user base a few hundred dollars for an OS upgrade, then why can't it charge non-Apple customers a few hundred dollars for the same software?
It's not like Windows users aren't already paying Microsoft for a new OS every couple of years already is it? Rather than upgrade to Windows XP's successor, why wouldn't some of those users fork out the same amount to switch to a friendlier OS?
As for the "ROMs" that you make a joke out of, I'm well aware that Mac Plus ROM trading is a thing of the past but Apple would clearly take some measures to try and combat mass piracy of Mac OS for Intel/AMD, and that might well be by selling the software with some sort of hardware authentication. In the past, Apple ROMs have been that authentication, hence my usage of the word. Perhaps I should have said dongle. Would that have made you more comfortable?
Also, a hardware card could be used to provide the sort of ports that you wouldn't automatically find on a generic PC - AirPort Extreme, etc.
5. OS/2 had a near-zero user-base compared to Windows on the desktop. Worse, because it could run Windows applications, there was very little incentive for software companies to produce OS/2 versions of their software. Without any native software OS/2 floundered, and the whole thing was a catch 22 situation. And you're wrong to suggest that OS/2 didn't have driver support from third parties - there was some, but it obviously wasn't as widespread as that for Windows.
Mac OS already has an installed user base, and a dedicated transition to Intel/AMD would be guaranteed to increase rather than decrease the level of third party support.
6. You're right, using a particular chipset doesn't guarentee great performance or
I can't help thinking that this is a bad thing for Apple and its customers. Here's why.
We know that, for internal development reasons, Apple has a version of Mac OSX that runs on Intel/AMD hardware. (It's been widely discussed in the past, both on Slashdot and elsewhere.)
We know that the longer Apple uses the PowerPC platform, the less likely the possibility of it switching to an Intel/AMD platform becomes.
We know that an Intel/AMD platform Apple Mac would probably cost less than a PowerPC platform Mac currently does, and run faster too. (Please, I'm a big Apple fan too, but I'm not blinded by Apples-sponsored benchmarks that use applications that have been optimised for their current hardware but ignore more popular software that hasn't been optimised in their favour.)
We know that if they could upgrade their Windows PCs to Apple Macs - say, by installing an Apple upgrade card that contained any necessary Apple ROMs, etc and then installing the new OS - millions of users would be tempted to abandon Windows and convert to the Mac OS. (Obviously, whether allowing non-Apple customers to convert their machines in this way is something that Apple may or may not want to put into practice, for competitive reasons. Remember, one of the first things that Steve Jobs did on his return to Apple was kill off the authorised Apple clones businesses.)
We know that this Intel/AMD platform Apple Mac would get much better support from hardware and software manufacturers. An Apple Mac running the newest hardware would never be significantly disadvantaged performance-wise, and Apple would attract a lot of users who previously considered Macs bad value for money.
We know that this would make Apple a force to be reckoned with once more, make Microsoft very anxious and millions of customers delighted.
Unfortunately...
We know that Apple (for whatever reasons) won't go down this route.
Anybody knows if FCC has some advisories about wireless devices touching your body for long periods of time? A booklet I have (from my wireless router) states that "The FCC with its action in ET Docket 96-8 has adopted safety standard for human exposure to RF energy emitted: 1) Do not touch or move antennas while unit is transmitting or receiving."
You bring up a very good point. But, when has any military (US or otherwise) really cared about the long-term welfare of its soldiers?
Look at the evidence over the years: soldiers acting as guinea pigs during the post World War II atomic bomb tests, chemical stimulants used on US soldiers in Vietnam (and bromide tea given to troops in World War I), antitodes that have lead to serious side-effects being administered during the first Gulf War, who knows how many instances of post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.
It has been said that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Politicians aren't exactly reknowned for looking beyond the short-term, and the use (or, more accurately, misuse) of soldiers throughout the ages is fact, not fiction.
Yes, they needed a licence in order to be able to broadcast, but I had the freedom to listen to that frequency before the company ever existed.
You Had that freedom. Your government sold that frequency to DirecTV, just as it sold other frequencies to other companies (mobile phone operators, etc) for various purposes. It's not like you're not benefitting from that sale is it?
If you don't like the situation, address the issue with your government. Don't try and justify signal theft* by using that "hey, it's out there so why can't I do what I like with the signal?" line. Because if you go down that route, you're accepting that your government (and anyone else for that matter) is just as entitled to spy on your communications using Echelon and other technologies.
Do you really want that for your phone conversations and internet traffic? No, I don't think so.
See where that slippery slope goes?
(*Or whatever you want to call it. I use the term signal theft because it's clearly understood, not because I want to label people as thieves.)
Highly attractive cover-girl? No. Pointless? Yes
on
Aimee Deep Interview
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Highly attractive? Well, that's open to debate. Let's just say that I wouldn't look twice at her but, from the posts I've seen so far, there are obviously some people out there who would kill their mothers to meet this girl.
Speaking of "girl", that's exactly what she is: a girl and not a woman. If a thinly-veiled opportunity to lust over someone who's not even out of her teens is considered "News for Nerds" or "Stuff that matters" then is it any wonder that Slashdot is often laughed at by more mainstream news outlets and (IIRC) blocked by some parental control software? And I haven't even mentioned sexism.
Anyhow, all that could be excused if she had something useful (informative, insightful, interesting, funny or any combination thereof) to say. But, clearly, she doesn't. What next: interviews with Cameron Diaz on her favourite websites?
Seriously, between this story and the earlier story about (shock, horror) a review of a mobile phone, this must have been a seriously slow news day. Personally, I think it's sad that the Slashdot editors haven't yet grasped the concept that publishing for publishing's sake is a mistake rather than a necessity.
You're on the right track but not quite there...
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Nokia 5100 Reviewed
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· Score: 2, Insightful
These features aren't aimed at women, they're aimed at teenagers.
Teenagers are far more fashion-concious than any other demographic grouping, and are far more likely to upgrade their handsets for cosmetic reasons than adults who'll use a phone until it breaks down of they have a compelling reason to upgrade (eg, Bluetooth).
I just don't get how intercepting a signal that is located in my own yard, using equiptment that I own, that would just go into the dirt anyway, could be considered theft. Cable theft I can understand. They have physical equiptment that they own that is used to get the signal directly to my tv. The satellite signal is going to be there whether I use it or not.
That's one argument. DirecTV's counterargument would be that it's licensed that portion of the radio spectrum from the government specifically for the broadcast of encrypted television signals, and therefore, if you intercept and decode those signals then you are violating their product and the law.
What's that you say? Why can't you do what you like with the signal? It's there, so receiving it and decrypting it so that you can receive their product for free is free game?
But what if we start talking about police frequencies? Governmental organisations? The military? Don't you, your neighbour, your local anti-government militia or a terrorist cell have the same "right" to intercept and decrypt those signals too?
Face facts, it's a private frequency and if you're not authorised to be using it (ie, if you're not DirecTV, one of their representatives, agents or customers then you're breaking the law. Not my law, DirecTV's law, but the government's law.
If you don't like it, then do something to change ir - write to your Congressman, etc.
And getting run over by a speeding driver is just a penalty for not having a car?
Yeah, right.
Speeding is dangerous. Excessive speeding, especially when combined with intoxication, kills just as many Americans every month as the September 11th attacks.
What they really should be looking for is unsafe drivers. It would be nice if a combination of technology and new police priorities could push people to drive more safely.
Speeding drivers are unsafe drivers. Stopping them speeding is prevention. What would you do; let everyone speed around like maniacs until they've caused a major crash or killed somebody?
Slashdot Mirror
And posting anonymously doesn't make you any less of a fool.
Got anything else to add?
If someone's spelling and/or grammar corrected how does that negatively affect the story that they are trying to bring to everyone's attention?
And whoever said that Slashdot was a forum for free speech? If that was the case then every story would submission would always be accepted and people (even the first posters and the trolls) wouldn't get automatically moderated into oblivion by scripts that the editors have available to them.
The number of times I've seen the name of a company, product or person misspelt alone justifies some basic checking.
Of course, you're assuming that story submitters that mistype words, spell poorly and/or have bad command of grammar wouldn't want their mistakes to be corrected. If it was you, would you rather suffer the embarrassment of everyone knowing that you can't differentiate between "there" and "their" or be offended that your submission was tidied up without anyone else ever knowing about it?
Regardless of all these arguments, each of which has enough merit on its own, there's one overriding reason that stories should be checked for spelling and grammar: because Slashdot is supposed to be a professional (for-profit) website, and picking up basic mistakes is what editors of professional websites do.
Great Britain (.gb) and the United Kingdom (.uk) are, for all intents and purposes, synonymous.
The IRA and other paramilitary organisations don't think so, and have spent the well over 30 years killing people because of those beliefs. A great many other people that haven't resorted to violence would also take offense at that statement.
To those that don't know - and I realise that this probably doesn't apply to you Uart - Great Britain comprises of England, Scotland and Wales, whereas the United Kingdom comprises of those three countries and Northern Ireland too.
Too much has happened over the issue of Northern Ireland's sovreignty - too much blood has been shed, too many lives have been lost - for anyone to ever equate Great Britain and United Kingdom.
I agree, it does seem that in everyday speech the two seem to be used as interchangeable terms but that's got more to do with the an acceptable level of lazyness than anything else.
By that I mean it's generally accepted to says "Britain" when you really mean the United Kingdom, or to call someone "British", even if they're Northern Irish (although they might take serious offense depending on their political persuasion), just as it's generally accepted that the term "America" refers to the United States of America specifically, and that "American" refers to one of its citizens, rather than the broader but more accurate definitions of those labels.
My, my, aren't you the eloquent one?
You couldn't be more right. But if someone's going to call .la the TLD for Los Angeles, then perhaps they should also consider these other "city-specific" TLDs, most of which have been around far longer than the Laotian domain: .au - Austin, Texas, USA (actually Australia) .ca - Cardiff, Wales (Canada) .be - Berlin, Germany (Belgium) .br - Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA (Brazil) .br - Brussels, Belgium (Brazil) .lv - Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (Latvia) .no - New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (Norway) .pa - Paris, France (Panama) .pe - Perth, Australia (Peru)
Just blows the "Los Angeles is first" argument out of the water doesn't it?
Spelling error in posts are to be expected, and I wouldn't even think for a split second that worrying about them there is worthy of the editors time.
But spelling errors in the original story submissions? Well that's inexcusable. Slashdot editors have a duty, to the readers, the Andover shareholders and themselves, to make sure that the site is professionally run, and making sure that what they publish (ie, the stories themselves) is clearly written and makes sense is a part of that.
It doesn't take too much to run each submission through a spelling and grammar checker so why shouldn't they do it?
Careful, or you'll have RIAA on your ass. Have your life savings ready and be prepared to sell your first born.
I'm not going to be able to make it to this tonight (whenever "tonight" is for the editors, it's going to be really late in the night here), so could someone please bring up the following:
1. Congratulate the editors on finally cutting down on the number of dupes posted - it's been ages since I've seen one.
How has this been acheived: via technology or a more human factor?
2. Ask the editors when they plan to:
i) start checking story submissions for basic spelling and grammar errors;
ii) start checking that the actual stories aren't well-known hoaxes;
iii) start editing the story titles so that they are more easily found via searches (eg, a chess story should have some chess reference in the story title, rather than being called "Man Last Stand vs Machine" or whatever); and
iv) start offering bittorrents straight off the bat when it's relevant (eg, a story on a new movie trailer being made available for download, latest patch for a popular game, new distro launch).
3. Ask the editors to update polls more frequently.
Now that ChrisD's left, polls seem to linger well past their sell-by-dates. Chris said once that he posted new polls after x number of days or y number of votes, whichever came first. If I remember correctly, x was about 3-4 and y was roughly 25,000-30,000, so the recent poll about "Favorite fictitious drink" went on for far too long (7 days, nearly 60,000 votes). I'm sure some sort of automation could be used here.
That's it really.
Anyone else get the feeling that going after other UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems via what appear to be tenuous legal arguments is SCO's new business model?
I guess SCO thinks that calling in the lawyers beats actually trying to compete on the merits of its products and services.
How is this that different from a cop going under cover to bust a drugs operation or a fraudster?
If they use every dirty trick in the book and think nothing of emailing paedophilic pictures to anybody and everybody, don't spammers deserve the same level of attention as other criminals? Why should they be any different from other people who openly break the law for personal profit?
At least that's the view here in the UK, where the 3G services available here so far are being sold on the strength of picture messaging and video phone calls.
Unsurprisingly, sending a picture message or making a video call costs a lot more than sending a text message or making a regular call. New services generally command a price premium, so I guess that's to be expected, but what really gets my goat is how utterly useless (beyond the novelty factor) picture messaging and video calls are. Why use a picture message when a text message is so much clearer and 10-30 times cheaper? Why make a video call when a voice one will suffice at a fraction of the cost?
I'm sorry, but I want more from my next generation handset than just postage stamp sized pictures. And, if the current take up of 3G phones here and elsewhere is anything to go by, so does everyone else.
Sorry to embarrass you but your "1337 math skills" aren't very "1337". The figure is £17.63, as I originally stated.
£15.00 * 1.175 = £17.63 (after rounding up the 0.5 pence)
Ie, you are charged 17.5 percent on top of the untaxed price. Or, put another way, for every pound you spend, you have to pay another 17.5 pence in VAT.
15 * 17.5 = 262.5
So, if you spend $15.00 exclusive of VAT, you have to pay 262.5 pence, or £2.625 in VAT. Since we no longer have half pennies, this rounds up to £2.63.
There's an error in your logic. To get from the VAT exclusive price to VAT inclusive one, you have to multiply by 1.175. To get from the VAT inclusive price to the VAT exclusive one, you have to divide by 1.175. Or put another way:
x = 1.175 * y
where x is the VAT inclusive price and y is the VAT exclusive price.
What you've assumed, which is that 17.5 percent of the VAT inclusive price is the VAT component is completely wrong. The actual figure (if you really want to look at it that way) is 0.175/1.175, which is a tad under 14.9 percent of the final price you pay.
Check it out elsewhere if you don't believe me.
AOL UK is, on paper at least, based outside the EU. Therefore, when it sells goods (in this case, internet access) to customers within the EU it isn't required to collect the taxation due (in this case, VAT) at the time of purchase. That tax can be collected by the purchaser's home country at the point of entry, but where do you define the point of entry to be in this case?
AOL UK uses the same setup as other UK ISPs - the same infrastructure, hardware, backbone, etc - and an AOL customer's experience is the same as that of a non-AOL customer. The only difference between AOL and the rest of the pack is that AOL UK isn't registered in the UK. It's this "offshore" quality that gives it its advantage.
Of course, that shouldn't exist and it's great to see that it's finally being looked at. But a similar situation exists in the US, when a customer State A has to pay State A tax to buy a PC shipped by a State A company but doesn't pay a penny in tax if that same PC is bought from a company based in State B.
At least in the US case, what a company in State A loses in local sales it can make up for in out of state sales from customers in State B and elsewhere. In the end, the playing field is pretty even (even accounting for states that have negligible or no sales taxes). But in AOL UK's case, it's a win-win for AOL and a loss-loss for everyone else.
AOL is one of the UK's largest ISPs. They got into the UK market early, at the time when most UK ISPs were small private companies, and have continued to be a major player in the UK market ever since.
But, because AOL UK is based outside the UK, AOL doesn't have to charge its customers VAT.
Good thing right? No. Bad thing. Very bad thing.
Whereas the UK-based companies, including almost all of the small private startups (many started by people who had previously run bulletin boards, etc), had to charge their customers VAT and then pass on that tax to the government, AOL used loopholes in the VAT legislation to avoid having to charge VAT yet it charged its customers the same amount that the tax-paying ISPs did.
In effect, AOL was able to charge its customers more for its services yet compete at the same level as everyone else - whereas the competition's prices included 17.5 percent VAT, AOL's prices included 17.5 percent extra profit.
Clearly, this has provided AOL with an artificial competitive advantage.
Breaking down the costs shows this more clearly:
AOL: £15.00/month charge, £15.00/month to AOL, £0.00 VAT to government.
UK-based ISP: £15.00/month charge, £12.76 to ISP, £2.24 VAT to government.
To make the same amount of money from each customer, the UK-based ISPs would have to charge £17.63 (£15.00 plus 17.5 percent).
Obviously, providing internet access costs money, and it's the difference between what you can charge and what it costs you that generates your profit. Well, in this case, it's like AOL has an extra £2.24 per customer for free. This isn't so much of a problem if operating costs are small, but it's a pretty big one when costs and charges are almost similar - and we all know just how cut-throat the ISP industry is don't we?
It's clearly ridiculous that two companies both providing the same service to the same customers in the same country should be effected by taxation so differently. And, of course, this point has been made by many within the UK internet community many times. However, until now, nothing's been done about it.
Some of the larger ISPs disadvantaged by this situation have threatened to take their operations overseas too, so as to put themselves in AOL's priviledged position, but this has never really been an option for the smaller guys that have been around from day one and that have hung on in there - relocating your business overseas isn't cheap and easy.
Even if AOL starts paying VAT now, the damage has already been done. Almost a decade of tax-free operation has allowed it to become one of the most dominant UK ISPs - all that extra cash has bought it a lot of extra TV and radio advertising as well as CDs.
I'm not in favour of taxation for taxation's sake but I am in favour of a level playing field. And, in AOL's case, the field's finally being levelled out.
Hey, it's late here (2.00am) and when I first looked at that story headline I misread Vendor as Vader.
For a split second, I could just see Vader (SCO) throttling the commander of the Rebel blockade runner (Linus, representing the Linux community) at the start of SW:ANH:
Vader squeezes the neck of the Rebel Officer, who struggles in vain.
VADER (SCO): Where are those transmissions you intercepted?
Vader lifts the Rebel off his feet by his throat.
VADER: What have you done with those plans?
REBEL OFFICER (Linus): We intercepted no transmissions. Aaah....This is a
consular ship. Were on a diplomatic mission.
VADER: If this is a consular ship...were is the Ambassador?
The Rebel refuses to speak but eventually cries out as the Dark Lord begins to squeeze the officer's throat, creating a gruesome snapping and choking, until the soldier goes limp. Vader tosses the dead soldier against the wall and turns to his troops (SCO lawyers).
VADER: Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans and bring me the Ambassador. I want her alive!
The stormtroopers scurry into the subhallways.
Like I said, it's late.
while the OS is becoming more and more bloated, a virus scanner seems to be one of the things that would actually be a welcome addition.
Gee, well I'd like to see the OS an integrated dictionary that could be used by all applications but that would be too much like a useful feature. Why doesn't Microsoft include one? Because it would put a severe dent in sales of Microsoft Word - beyond the spelling checker, there are few killer features in Word that 90 percent of home users will ever want to use.
Let's face it, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless features and applets that Microsoft could include in its OS but continually chooses to ignore simply because including them could hurt sales of its other products.
On the other hand, where there is the real threat of a competitor's product gaining a position of near-dominance, or of a product potentially reducing users' reliance on Microsoft products, Microsoft does everything it can to smash the competition and bring them back into the fold. The Netscape/IE browser war is an example of the former, Java and Microsoft's flawed JVM is an example of the latter.
I'm guessing that Microsoft will simply kill off this product. After all, the very words "cross-platform" are considered blasphemy to the folks at Redmond. The last thing it'll do is further develop a product that promotes secure computing on non-Microsoft platforms.
Is publishing this code a contravention of the DCMA?
I think you got the wrong end of the stick with my original post. I'm not suggesting that Apple could transition to Intel/AMD tomorrow, or at the drop of a hat. What I'm saying is that it could do it, and that doing it has some real pluses.
1. I never suggested that Apple has blistering fast Intel/AMD code at this moment in time. Heck, they'd be mad to have spent too much time optimising that code up until now - why spend more money squeezing extra performance out of code that you're not planning to use? But, if the time comes, Apple is more than capable of optimising it's code to run as fast as it can on another processor.
2. If Motorola were to stop development of PowerPC CPUs, Apple would have to start looking elsewhere for a chip supplier. Motorola churning out another PowerPC processor means that search is going to be put off for a while.
Perhaps Motorola will carry on developing PowerPC CPUs until the end of time, perhaps not. But if it were to throw in the PowerPC towel, Apple would be forced to make a change.
Of course Apple could transition without being forced to. It's just that Motorola killing PowerPC development would demand a switch. Ergo, " the longer Apple uses the PowerPC platform, the less likely the possibility of it switching to an Intel/AMD platform becomes".
3. I'm not saying that greater chip speed is the be all and end all of performance. What I said is that the Intel/AMD transition would probably lead to cheaper and faster machines. "Probably" as in "highly likely to".
Why cheaper? Cheaper for many reasons, not least because Apple would have a choice of chip partners, and both AMD and Intel would bend over backwards to sign the company up to a favourable deal, similar to the one between Intel and Dell. Cheaper CPUs means lower manufacturing costs, which means cheaper Macs if Apple wants to pass along some of the savings.
Why faster? Well, PowerPC development seems to have peaked and reached a plateau. The same can't be said of 64-bit Intel/AMD offerings, which are still being developed.
4. I said that Apple could offer non-Mac users a chance to "upgrade" their PCs to run the Mac OS if Apple wanted to allow it to happen. Personally, I don't think that they do, but if Apple can charge its current user base a few hundred dollars for an OS upgrade, then why can't it charge non-Apple customers a few hundred dollars for the same software?
It's not like Windows users aren't already paying Microsoft for a new OS every couple of years already is it? Rather than upgrade to Windows XP's successor, why wouldn't some of those users fork out the same amount to switch to a friendlier OS?
As for the "ROMs" that you make a joke out of, I'm well aware that Mac Plus ROM trading is a thing of the past but Apple would clearly take some measures to try and combat mass piracy of Mac OS for Intel/AMD, and that might well be by selling the software with some sort of hardware authentication. In the past, Apple ROMs have been that authentication, hence my usage of the word. Perhaps I should have said dongle. Would that have made you more comfortable?
Also, a hardware card could be used to provide the sort of ports that you wouldn't automatically find on a generic PC - AirPort Extreme, etc.
5. OS/2 had a near-zero user-base compared to Windows on the desktop. Worse, because it could run Windows applications, there was very little incentive for software companies to produce OS/2 versions of their software. Without any native software OS/2 floundered, and the whole thing was a catch 22 situation. And you're wrong to suggest that OS/2 didn't have driver support from third parties - there was some, but it obviously wasn't as widespread as that for Windows.
Mac OS already has an installed user base, and a dedicated transition to Intel/AMD would be guaranteed to increase rather than decrease the level of third party support.
6. You're right, using a particular chipset doesn't guarentee great performance or
I can't help thinking that this is a bad thing for Apple and its customers. Here's why.
We know that, for internal development reasons, Apple has a version of Mac OSX that runs on Intel/AMD hardware. (It's been widely discussed in the past, both on Slashdot and elsewhere.)
We know that the longer Apple uses the PowerPC platform, the less likely the possibility of it switching to an Intel/AMD platform becomes.
We know that an Intel/AMD platform Apple Mac would probably cost less than a PowerPC platform Mac currently does, and run faster too. (Please, I'm a big Apple fan too, but I'm not blinded by Apples-sponsored benchmarks that use applications that have been optimised for their current hardware but ignore more popular software that hasn't been optimised in their favour.)
We know that if they could upgrade their Windows PCs to Apple Macs - say, by installing an Apple upgrade card that contained any necessary Apple ROMs, etc and then installing the new OS - millions of users would be tempted to abandon Windows and convert to the Mac OS. (Obviously, whether allowing non-Apple customers to convert their machines in this way is something that Apple may or may not want to put into practice, for competitive reasons. Remember, one of the first things that Steve Jobs did on his return to Apple was kill off the authorised Apple clones businesses.)
We know that this Intel/AMD platform Apple Mac would get much better support from hardware and software manufacturers. An Apple Mac running the newest hardware would never be significantly disadvantaged performance-wise, and Apple would attract a lot of users who previously considered Macs bad value for money.
We know that this would make Apple a force to be reckoned with once more, make Microsoft very anxious and millions of customers delighted.
Unfortunately...
We know that Apple (for whatever reasons) won't go down this route.
Oh well. We can all dream.
Anybody knows if FCC has some advisories about wireless devices touching your body for long periods of time? A booklet I have (from my wireless router) states that "The FCC with its action in ET Docket 96-8 has adopted safety standard for human exposure to RF energy emitted: 1) Do not touch or move antennas while unit is transmitting or receiving."
You bring up a very good point. But, when has any military (US or otherwise) really cared about the long-term welfare of its soldiers?
Look at the evidence over the years: soldiers acting as guinea pigs during the post World War II atomic bomb tests, chemical stimulants used on US soldiers in Vietnam (and bromide tea given to troops in World War I), antitodes that have lead to serious side-effects being administered during the first Gulf War, who knows how many instances of post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.
It has been said that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Politicians aren't exactly reknowned for looking beyond the short-term, and the use (or, more accurately, misuse) of soldiers throughout the ages is fact, not fiction.
Yes, they needed a licence in order to be able to broadcast, but I had the freedom to listen to that frequency before the company ever existed.
You Had that freedom. Your government sold that frequency to DirecTV, just as it sold other frequencies to other companies (mobile phone operators, etc) for various purposes. It's not like you're not benefitting from that sale is it?
If you don't like the situation, address the issue with your government. Don't try and justify signal theft* by using that "hey, it's out there so why can't I do what I like with the signal?" line. Because if you go down that route, you're accepting that your government (and anyone else for that matter) is just as entitled to spy on your communications using Echelon and other technologies.
Do you really want that for your phone conversations and internet traffic? No, I don't think so.
See where that slippery slope goes?
(*Or whatever you want to call it. I use the term signal theft because it's clearly understood, not because I want to label people as thieves.)
Highly attractive? Well, that's open to debate. Let's just say that I wouldn't look twice at her but, from the posts I've seen so far, there are obviously some people out there who would kill their mothers to meet this girl.
Speaking of "girl", that's exactly what she is: a girl and not a woman. If a thinly-veiled opportunity to lust over someone who's not even out of her teens is considered "News for Nerds" or "Stuff that matters" then is it any wonder that Slashdot is often laughed at by more mainstream news outlets and (IIRC) blocked by some parental control software? And I haven't even mentioned sexism.
Anyhow, all that could be excused if she had something useful (informative, insightful, interesting, funny or any combination thereof) to say. But, clearly, she doesn't. What next: interviews with Cameron Diaz on her favourite websites?
Seriously, between this story and the earlier story about (shock, horror) a review of a mobile phone, this must have been a seriously slow news day. Personally, I think it's sad that the Slashdot editors haven't yet grasped the concept that publishing for publishing's sake is a mistake rather than a necessity.
These features aren't aimed at women, they're aimed at teenagers.
Teenagers are far more fashion-concious than any other demographic grouping, and are far more likely to upgrade their handsets for cosmetic reasons than adults who'll use a phone until it breaks down of they have a compelling reason to upgrade (eg, Bluetooth).
I just don't get how intercepting a signal that is located in my own yard, using equiptment that I own, that would just go into the dirt anyway, could be considered theft. Cable theft I can understand. They have physical equiptment that they own that is used to get the signal directly to my tv. The satellite signal is going to be there whether I use it or not.
That's one argument. DirecTV's counterargument would be that it's licensed that portion of the radio spectrum from the government specifically for the broadcast of encrypted television signals, and therefore, if you intercept and decode those signals then you are violating their product and the law.
What's that you say? Why can't you do what you like with the signal? It's there, so receiving it and decrypting it so that you can receive their product for free is free game?
But what if we start talking about police frequencies? Governmental organisations? The military? Don't you, your neighbour, your local anti-government militia or a terrorist cell have the same "right" to intercept and decrypt those signals too?
Face facts, it's a private frequency and if you're not authorised to be using it (ie, if you're not DirecTV, one of their representatives, agents or customers then you're breaking the law. Not my law, DirecTV's law, but the government's law.
If you don't like it, then do something to change ir - write to your Congressman, etc.
Speeding tickets really are just a "road tax."
And getting run over by a speeding driver is just a penalty for not having a car?
Yeah, right.
Speeding is dangerous. Excessive speeding, especially when combined with intoxication, kills just as many Americans every month as the September 11th attacks.
What they really should be looking for is unsafe drivers. It would be nice if a combination of technology and new police priorities could push people to drive more safely.
Speeding drivers are unsafe drivers. Stopping them speeding is prevention. What would you do; let everyone speed around like maniacs until they've caused a major crash or killed somebody?
Get real.