Re:Why some of us are excited about iPhone
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All Things iPhone
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Are you telling me that if you bought a new anything (phone, notebook PC, TV, whatever) and you noticed from day one that it was faulty that you think that it would be better to persevere with a sub-par unit than it would be to call the manufacturer and have them replace it with a brand new unit that works properly?
If you answered "yes" then, sorry, but to me and most observers your logic is flawed.
In the case of this guy and his Treo 700p, if you read the post that he made he clearly states that he so wanted it to work, etc. It just amazes me that he didn't ask for his unit to be replaced if it was clearly faulty when he bought it.
Re:Why some of us are excited about iPhone
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All Things iPhone
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· Score: 1
I'm curious. If your Treo 700p was faulty "right out of the box" then why didn't you return it for a replacement right away?
Ever consider that some of the other problems that you experienced were at least partially caused by your decision to accept a faulty unit from day one?
I can't say that it would have solved all your problems but, speaking from personal experience - one soft reset every three months or so, and one hard reset a year - and from the evidence offered by others, I can't but help come to the conclusion that yours was not a typical experience.
Nobody ships 100,000s of units without shipping some that aren't perfect out of the box so I guess that you were unlucky enough to have one of those units that should have been returned right away. Why you didn't do that perplexes me.
I really don't give a damn what servers are driving their websites. I give a damn about what their policies would be, and what hopes, ideals and dreams they intend to realise.
As a non-American, I don't get to vote for one of these people next year (heck, for that matter, neither do disenfranchised Americans) but that doesn't mean that this election doesn't effect me. In many ways (the "War on Terror", climate change, etc), those of us outside the US are just as effected by White House policy as Americans themselves.
So, I implore those of you that can vote to a) do so; b) encourage everybody you know to do so; and c) vote for the candidate that will do the most to repair the damage done in the last six years by the current incumbent.
Please, the last anybody needs is another head-in-the-sand US administration. We're not exactly at the last chance saloon just yet but four more years of politics ad absurdum isn't going to help make things better.
Is is unfortunate that people use articles like this to try to prove some political point (i.e. Republicans are evil).
It is unfortunate that people use the power invested in them to try to prove that they are indeed evil (i.e. the present US administration).
Seeing Dick Cheney trying to avoid legal checks and balances by claiming that the office of the Vice Presidency doesn't fall under the Executive Branch is just the latest disgraceful act of a morally corrupt administration. I wonder how long before they start using that line for the President himself?
I wonder what the Founding Fathers would have thought of the current occupants of the White House. Not only will they lie and cheat, but they'll lie and cheat about their lying and cheating, even when the whole world can see that they're doing it.
The fact that 29 percent or so of Americans still approve of the job that the President is shocking. Presumably these people would need to see their leader sprout horns and a forked tail, slip George Michael the tongue at a pro-choice rally, and see him waste the land with seven plagues before finding any fault in his job performance.
But returning to the article...
If this is the kind of shit that they will admit to, albeit decades later, doesn't it make you think about what stuff they won't admit to that's happening right now? Remember, that's your government and your tax dollars at work.
Uh, if you read my initial post more closely then you would have noticed that I said "So, a large chunk of the pollution caused by China, etc is due to the US (and other consumer nations) as well."
However, as the country that consumes 25-30 percent of the world's goods, despite only having 5 percent of the world's population, it is imperative that we all recognise that the US is a major part of the problem and therefore must do its part to become a major part of the solution.
Of course the US sells some goods to China, but if you look at the net sales then the overwhelming majority of goods that pass between the two nations go from China to the US.
I'm aware of the legal ages for drinking and signing up in the UK. It's the principle that I was saying was the same, not the exact ages.
If there is any criteria that prevents under 18s from going into combat then I'm unaware of it, but my point still applies - even an 18 year-old soldier would be expected to die for Queen and country before he was considered old (and presumably mature) enough to do some other things. Until last year, that included becoming an MP.
By that rationale, any law that prevents one person giving another person permission to do him/her serious bodily harm (or even commit his/her murder) would be fascism. Are you OK with that? Comfortable with the idea that some mentally deranged person could let himself be harmed because to stop him from doing so would be a restriction of his "rights"?
There are fine lines with everything. It's easy to shout "fascist" in my direction but you need to realise that all I've done is pointed out that lines do exist and, perhaps, in the case of Manhunt 2, that fine line was crossed. Not having played the game or seen all of its content, how can you be so certain that this game didn't cross the BBFC's commonly accepted line?
Do try to remember that most laws aren't made to hinder or benefit an individual, they're made to benefit society as a whole.
Let me illustrate what I mean with another simple example. Professional racing drivers would have no trouble zooming along a road at 200 miles per hour even in the rain. However, the average guy would just get himself killed in those same conditions. Is it asking the pro has to stick to the speed limits that will keep the average guy from becoming a grease spot a form of fascism? Or is it just common sense?
That's the kind of situation we have here, one where dedicated professionals that have studied the content at depth and come to the conclusion that it exceeds the levels of acceptable violence for a computer game for public consumption, as described by the under the current guidelines.
I don't think that I'll convince you of anything, to be honest. And, to a certain extent, I admire your idealism. But, in the real world, pragmatism trumps idealism, and sometimes that's a good thing. Personally, I'm of the opinion that this might be one of those times but, of course, you're free to disagree.
There are a great many things you can't do while still being able to die for your country.
For example, in the US you can die for your country but you can't drink a beer - service personnel don't have to be at least 21 years old to enlist, but you do have to be 21 to drink legally. And the same is true in the UK and most other countries. And it's not just buying a beer, it's stuff like being able to smoke, being able to drive, being able to vote, being able to stand for election, being able to marry without parental consent, etc.
In fact, I bet that there are very few nations (if any) that give you every adult right before they'll willingly let you die for your country.
But back to the topic at hand...
There is nothing wrong with society in general deciding which forms of entertainment are acceptable and which aren't. In some places cock-fighting is legal, in others it's not. In some places certain sexual acts between consenting adults is legal, in others it's not. In some places portraying certain historical figures as heroes is legal, in others it's not. Somewhere out there, using your neighbours kids for target practice might be legal, but (thankfully) most places it's not. In many aspects, this is no different.
At least in the BBFC's case, those deciding what's acceptable and what's not are following certain criteria in making their judgements, rather than handing down arbitrary decisions. Every film shown in the UK goes through their hands for classification and I don't see film makers complaining that the BBFC is over-zealous about its job, so why assume that this case is any different?
You might not like the idea of any watchdogs but at least the BBFC is a publicly accountable watchdog and will tell you why a certain classification was merited. In the case of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, well, who knows how they decide what's OK and what's not.
Every society has rules. We don't always like them all (Please tell me why I should have to endure others poisoning me with their tobacco smoke when I wait for my train?) but it's the price we pay for being members of our communities.
If you really feel so strongly about it then I suggest you do something concrete about it: take part in the BBFC's appeals process or write to Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft and express your concerns.
Great post. If you want to hide your head in the sand, that is. Let me just shatter the myth that you're perpetuating in your first paragraph.
1. The US is by far the biggest polluter per capita.
Compare apples with apples, instead of of apples with oranges, by looking at per capita figures. The CIA World Factbook lists the population of China as 1,321,851,888 (July 2007 est.) and the population of the US as 301,139,947 (July 2007 est.).
You wouldn't compare the carbon dioxide emissions output of the US with that of a tiny nation like Bermuda, so play fair and use the most sensible measure to compare who's contributing how much.
A quick mental calculation will show you that, in carbon dioxide terms alone, the US produces four times as much domestically as China does.
2. China makes goods for the US, not the other way around.
All those goods that China makes that the US consumes (clothing, electronics, etc) have an associated cost in terms of carbon dioxide and other pollution. But, of course, the figures that you've latched onto don't attribute those to the country of consumption, only to the country of origin.
Put simply, when a Chinese factory makes something that an American will buy, it's at least partially (if not fully) pollution caused by the American consumer. So, a large chunk of the pollution caused by China, etc is due to the US (and other consumer nations) as well.
The US has five percent of the world's population. The US consumes roughly 25-30 percent of the world's goods, and hence is responsible for 25-30 percent of the pollution. To sustain everybody on the planet at the current US level of consumption would take five to six Earth's worth of resources and create a similar amount of pollution.
Now do you see why the US plays such a big part in this and should be taking positive, proactive steps to try to address the issues instead of trying to shift the blame to others?
As for your closing complaint that "This is more government micromanagement that will do nothing but further bring us down", well, I could not disagree more. The free market alone will never make the necessary steps to do what's necessary by itself, no matter what you might think. Want an example? Then just look at how car manufacturers fought tooth and nail against mandatory installation of seatbelts in cars. Same shit, different decade, that's all.
Please take your head out of the sand for a minute to think about it.
Which, from a certain point of view, makes Novell, Xandros and Linspire just one rung down the ladder from Microsoft.
Microsoft may be right on this, and they may be wrong. Would it be too much for them to produce evidence to back up their claims before demanding that everybody jumps into bed with them?
It's saying that they're willing to stand up to Microsoft's aggressive anti-OSS tactics.
And, as the biggest name in enterprise Linux (correct me if I'm wrong) that says a hell of a lot both to the OSS development and support community as well as the community's growing customer base.
If you support OSS then this is a positive step that can only build confidence in Linux and OSS in general. The alternative would, I'd argue, have been devastating.
I really don't see the reason for your negativity. Did someone at Red Hat murder your family or something?
First of all, I'll point out the blindingly obvious. Something can be legal yet still be unsafe.
In the case of driving, you could quite easily be driving along the road and be in danger, not least of all because you don't drive in isolation: all those other cars and other vehicles around you are only a split-second away from presenting you with a multi-ton hazard that could potentially end your life.
When you're driving from A to B, your priority should be to get their safely:
1. without causing a hazard to yourself and others; and 2. without falling foul of any hazards that others might cause you.
It doesn't take a genius to see that anything that distracts your attention from anything that might fall into the second category, or that decreases your reaction time, could potentially kill you.
Anybody who thinks that a hands-free kit will mitigate the risks of driving whilst talking on a phone is deluded. Multiple studies have been carried out on this subject and, to my knowledge, all have clearly shown that the ability of a driver to deal with road hazards is just as impeded when he's talking via a hands-free kit as it would be if he was cradling the phone next to his head. (Which, by the way, is about the same level of impairment that you'd experience if you were drunk.)
If you want to test this yourself then try this out. Fire up your favourite RTS, FPS or MMORPG and get busy killing. Then make a hands-free call to a friend whilst attempting to play the game at your usual tempo. Keep talking and listening to the other person as you would do if you weren't playing the game (obviously, don't talk about the game, talk about something different!) and I guarantee you that you gameplay will suffer, simply because you react to things less quickly than you would have .
Now translate that loss of performance to the road. And then work out what matters most, that phone call or your personal safety.
Do yourselves, your passengers and those around you all a favour. Save the phone calls for when you get there.
As for TBL being the most significant person alive , I think you need to re-adjust your set. The Web isn't even close to being a daily relevance for the majority of the worlds population and even in the west a large proportion of the population couldn't care less about it. Most significant person alive , jeez , get a grip... Try looking up the names of some doctors who are battling diseases , or engineers who are helping design more efficient engines or 101 other things. Not some guy who made it possible to skip around some pages of text and pictures via a network connection. BFD.
Well, those doctors and engineers don't exactly work in isolation, do they? Yes, there have been peer review texts around for centuries but there's no doubt that the web has made research on all levels easier to conduct by facilitating faster flow of information.
Gutenberg didn't print any "magic" new text. His bibles had the same content as other bibles of the time. Gutenberg's magic was the process, which made things faster, cheaper, and thus revolutionised access to and availability of the printed word.
The web (way more so than any other portion of the Internet) has done the same thing for the digital word, and that's it's magic. Hence the grandparent poster's assertion, which, I think, you dismissed rather without considering the true merits of his argument.
And, yes, before someone decides to educate me about (D)ARPANET, etc, I do know that there's more to the Internet than the world wide web.
My point was that what Gutenberg did to the printed word (made it faster, easier and thus more accessible to all), Berners-Lee did to the online word (put together a system that made it simple to use and thus acheived the same feat).
Simply put, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the Johannes Gutenberg of the Internet.
His simple invention, and his polite, modest manner should make him the IT icon of our time. I wonder, though, how many people could even tell you what he's done or recognise him by his picture?
Good for him. He deserves all the recognition that he can get.
Firstly, I didn't mention censorship, you've done that by yourself. Having said that, it's not too much a reach to describe discrimination as a form of censorship, is it?
But, hey, if you're willing to tolerate discrimination in your "perfect" US society that "gets" freedom of speech, well, good for you, buddy.
Secondly, if, six years on from September 11th, you need me to point out clear examples of how political debate and dissent was stifled in the aftermath of those attacks then you're practically a lost cause.
I'm not a true aethiest. I'm an agnostic who tends towards aethiesm. And one who regularly attended church, went to Sunday School and played one of the three wise men more than once in the nativity play.
The first point relates to religion, specifically how not being of a given faith is a career killer in US politics. And it's not just true of the Presidency, it's true of many lesser posts.
If you don't think that is a worry, well, imagine if it was impossible to get elected in Canada unless you were a Bhuddist. Or imagine that people were effectively barred from office for, say, being left-handed. Get the picture yet?
The second point, well, I suggest you look up what "figuratively" means because you clearly have no idea what it means and have it confused with another word.
Dear, AC, thanks for your concern about my mental health. For your information, I'm not retarded. Bravo for not only hiding behind the AC option but for starting your reply with an ad hominem attack.
The US, whether you like it or not, is one of the few countries in the world where someone's religion dictates whether or not they can seriously run for office.
Polls have been taken on the subject and, when asked, something like 52 percent of Americans have said that they would not vote for an aethiest. That alone shows how much of a ceiling your religion (or lack thereof) poses in the US. Neither of the two main political parties would even consider nominating a non-Christian candidate because his/her religion alone would lose them the race: policies and job suitability wouldn't even factor into it.
Compare that to anywhere else in the developed world. I live in the UK, and I can tell you that we wouldn't give a fig what religion someone was before voting for or against them. We certainly wouldn't be using religious litmus tests as you do in the US.
Creationism? Abortion? Seperation of church and state but "One nation under God", and with the motto "In God we trust"?
As for politics and policies, I can give you clear examples of how serious political debate has been stifled in the US post-September 11th. Perhaps you missed the instances of TV shows being cancelled because of comments people made questioning what was going on and why it was happening? Or how any voice raised in dissent was shouted down as anti-American? Don't you remember any of that?
What was wrong with asking why the US was attacked in the first place? Are you seriously telling me that that's been questioned by anybody outside the fringes?
It's only now that this shit has been going on for years and it's cost the lives of over 3,000 US troops (hey, let's not think about the 100,000s of dead Iraqi civilians - they clearly don't count) that serious questions are given more than short shrift by the mainstream media.
(Still, though, the lunatics running the asylum see nothing wrong. And the lunatics wanting to replace them aren't any better: the eight Republican nominees were asked whether knowing what they know now if they would have done anything differently in Iraq, to which none of them had the common sense to say "yes". Even after seeing the disasterous consequences of the path that they've travelled, they'd still go down that road again.)
Elsewhere, District Attorneys are being fired for political purposes. But, of course, when it's discovered, the people in charge have "no recollection" of what happened.
I won't even talk about voter disenfranchisement. Go read up on that before you comment again though.
Of course, I'm sure you'll say that none of that counts. To be honest, if it wasn't helping to screw the rest of us, I wouldn't give a shit. But it does, so I'm telling you, as a friend, this shit is happening, and it does you no favours to be lecturing the world on religious and political freedoms when your own country's record in that area is far from perfect.
The politics of the US aren't any better than that of anywhere else. If you, like the person who I initially replied to, truly consider the US to be a place where religious and political freedoms are respected then you're looking through rose-tinted glasses.
Feel free to tell me I'm wrong and how. Just save the "retard" tag, OK?
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Are you telling me that if you bought a new anything (phone, notebook PC, TV, whatever) and you noticed from day one that it was faulty that you think that it would be better to persevere with a sub-par unit than it would be to call the manufacturer and have them replace it with a brand new unit that works properly?
If you answered "yes" then, sorry, but to me and most observers your logic is flawed.
In the case of this guy and his Treo 700p, if you read the post that he made he clearly states that he so wanted it to work, etc. It just amazes me that he didn't ask for his unit to be replaced if it was clearly faulty when he bought it.
I'm curious. If your Treo 700p was faulty "right out of the box" then why didn't you return it for a replacement right away?
Ever consider that some of the other problems that you experienced were at least partially caused by your decision to accept a faulty unit from day one?
I can't say that it would have solved all your problems but, speaking from personal experience - one soft reset every three months or so, and one hard reset a year - and from the evidence offered by others, I can't but help come to the conclusion that yours was not a typical experience.
Nobody ships 100,000s of units without shipping some that aren't perfect out of the box so I guess that you were unlucky enough to have one of those units that should have been returned right away. Why you didn't do that perplexes me.
I really don't give a damn what servers are driving their websites. I give a damn about what their policies would be, and what hopes, ideals and dreams they intend to realise.
As a non-American, I don't get to vote for one of these people next year (heck, for that matter, neither do disenfranchised Americans) but that doesn't mean that this election doesn't effect me. In many ways (the "War on Terror", climate change, etc), those of us outside the US are just as effected by White House policy as Americans themselves.
So, I implore those of you that can vote to a) do so; b) encourage everybody you know to do so; and c) vote for the candidate that will do the most to repair the damage done in the last six years by the current incumbent.
Please, the last anybody needs is another head-in-the-sand US administration. We're not exactly at the last chance saloon just yet but four more years of politics ad absurdum isn't going to help make things better.
Is is unfortunate that people use articles like this to try to prove some political point (i.e. Republicans are evil).
It is unfortunate that people use the power invested in them to try to prove that they are indeed evil (i.e. the present US administration).
Seeing Dick Cheney trying to avoid legal checks and balances by claiming that the office of the Vice Presidency doesn't fall under the Executive Branch is just the latest disgraceful act of a morally corrupt administration. I wonder how long before they start using that line for the President himself?
I wonder what the Founding Fathers would have thought of the current occupants of the White House. Not only will they lie and cheat, but they'll lie and cheat about their lying and cheating, even when the whole world can see that they're doing it.
The fact that 29 percent or so of Americans still approve of the job that the President is shocking. Presumably these people would need to see their leader sprout horns and a forked tail, slip George Michael the tongue at a pro-choice rally, and see him waste the land with seven plagues before finding any fault in his job performance.
But returning to the article...
If this is the kind of shit that they will admit to, albeit decades later, doesn't it make you think about what stuff they won't admit to that's happening right now? Remember, that's your government and your tax dollars at work.
"No wireless. Fewer buttons than a Logitech MX610. Lame."
Uh, if you read my initial post more closely then you would have noticed that I said "So, a large chunk of the pollution caused by China, etc is due to the US (and other consumer nations) as well."
However, as the country that consumes 25-30 percent of the world's goods, despite only having 5 percent of the world's population, it is imperative that we all recognise that the US is a major part of the problem and therefore must do its part to become a major part of the solution.
Of course the US sells some goods to China, but if you look at the net sales then the overwhelming majority of goods that pass between the two nations go from China to the US.
Pedantry aside, I'm sure you realised that.
I'm aware of the legal ages for drinking and signing up in the UK. It's the principle that I was saying was the same, not the exact ages.
If there is any criteria that prevents under 18s from going into combat then I'm unaware of it, but my point still applies - even an 18 year-old soldier would be expected to die for Queen and country before he was considered old (and presumably mature) enough to do some other things. Until last year, that included becoming an MP.
By that rationale, any law that prevents one person giving another person permission to do him/her serious bodily harm (or even commit his/her murder) would be fascism. Are you OK with that? Comfortable with the idea that some mentally deranged person could let himself be harmed because to stop him from doing so would be a restriction of his "rights"?
There are fine lines with everything. It's easy to shout "fascist" in my direction but you need to realise that all I've done is pointed out that lines do exist and, perhaps, in the case of Manhunt 2, that fine line was crossed. Not having played the game or seen all of its content, how can you be so certain that this game didn't cross the BBFC's commonly accepted line?
Do try to remember that most laws aren't made to hinder or benefit an individual, they're made to benefit society as a whole.
Let me illustrate what I mean with another simple example. Professional racing drivers would have no trouble zooming along a road at 200 miles per hour even in the rain. However, the average guy would just get himself killed in those same conditions. Is it asking the pro has to stick to the speed limits that will keep the average guy from becoming a grease spot a form of fascism? Or is it just common sense?
That's the kind of situation we have here, one where dedicated professionals that have studied the content at depth and come to the conclusion that it exceeds the levels of acceptable violence for a computer game for public consumption, as described by the under the current guidelines.
I don't think that I'll convince you of anything, to be honest. And, to a certain extent, I admire your idealism. But, in the real world, pragmatism trumps idealism, and sometimes that's a good thing. Personally, I'm of the opinion that this might be one of those times but, of course, you're free to disagree.
There are a great many things you can't do while still being able to die for your country.
For example, in the US you can die for your country but you can't drink a beer - service personnel don't have to be at least 21 years old to enlist, but you do have to be 21 to drink legally. And the same is true in the UK and most other countries. And it's not just buying a beer, it's stuff like being able to smoke, being able to drive, being able to vote, being able to stand for election, being able to marry without parental consent, etc.
In fact, I bet that there are very few nations (if any) that give you every adult right before they'll willingly let you die for your country.
But back to the topic at hand...
There is nothing wrong with society in general deciding which forms of entertainment are acceptable and which aren't. In some places cock-fighting is legal, in others it's not. In some places certain sexual acts between consenting adults is legal, in others it's not. In some places portraying certain historical figures as heroes is legal, in others it's not. Somewhere out there, using your neighbours kids for target practice might be legal, but (thankfully) most places it's not. In many aspects, this is no different.
At least in the BBFC's case, those deciding what's acceptable and what's not are following certain criteria in making their judgements, rather than handing down arbitrary decisions. Every film shown in the UK goes through their hands for classification and I don't see film makers complaining that the BBFC is over-zealous about its job, so why assume that this case is any different?
You might not like the idea of any watchdogs but at least the BBFC is a publicly accountable watchdog and will tell you why a certain classification was merited. In the case of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, well, who knows how they decide what's OK and what's not.
Every society has rules. We don't always like them all (Please tell me why I should have to endure others poisoning me with their tobacco smoke when I wait for my train?) but it's the price we pay for being members of our communities.
If you really feel so strongly about it then I suggest you do something concrete about it: take part in the BBFC's appeals process or write to Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft and express your concerns.
Great post. If you want to hide your head in the sand, that is. Let me just shatter the myth that you're perpetuating in your first paragraph.
1. The US is by far the biggest polluter per capita.
Compare apples with apples, instead of of apples with oranges, by looking at per capita figures. The CIA World Factbook lists the population of China as 1,321,851,888 (July 2007 est.) and the population of the US as 301,139,947 (July 2007 est.).
You wouldn't compare the carbon dioxide emissions output of the US with that of a tiny nation like Bermuda, so play fair and use the most sensible measure to compare who's contributing how much.
A quick mental calculation will show you that, in carbon dioxide terms alone, the US produces four times as much domestically as China does.
2. China makes goods for the US, not the other way around.
All those goods that China makes that the US consumes (clothing, electronics, etc) have an associated cost in terms of carbon dioxide and other pollution. But, of course, the figures that you've latched onto don't attribute those to the country of consumption, only to the country of origin.
Put simply, when a Chinese factory makes something that an American will buy, it's at least partially (if not fully) pollution caused by the American consumer. So, a large chunk of the pollution caused by China, etc is due to the US (and other consumer nations) as well.
The US has five percent of the world's population. The US consumes roughly 25-30 percent of the world's goods, and hence is responsible for 25-30 percent of the pollution. To sustain everybody on the planet at the current US level of consumption would take five to six Earth's worth of resources and create a similar amount of pollution.
Now do you see why the US plays such a big part in this and should be taking positive, proactive steps to try to address the issues instead of trying to shift the blame to others?
As for your closing complaint that "This is more government micromanagement that will do nothing but further bring us down", well, I could not disagree more. The free market alone will never make the necessary steps to do what's necessary by itself, no matter what you might think. Want an example? Then just look at how car manufacturers fought tooth and nail against mandatory installation of seatbelts in cars. Same shit, different decade, that's all.
Please take your head out of the sand for a minute to think about it.
Which, from a certain point of view, makes Novell, Xandros and Linspire just one rung down the ladder from Microsoft.
Microsoft may be right on this, and they may be wrong. Would it be too much for them to produce evidence to back up their claims before demanding that everybody jumps into bed with them?
It's saying that they're willing to stand up to Microsoft's aggressive anti-OSS tactics.
And, as the biggest name in enterprise Linux (correct me if I'm wrong) that says a hell of a lot both to the OSS development and support community as well as the community's growing customer base.
If you support OSS then this is a positive step that can only build confidence in Linux and OSS in general. The alternative would, I'd argue, have been devastating.
I really don't see the reason for your negativity. Did someone at Red Hat murder your family or something?
I love Britain, and have visited many times; but they look like they are heading down the slow road to Hell.
We're trying hard, I tell you but, gosh, darnit, you Americans are hogging the fast lanes in your SUVs.
That sounds like an awesome pick-up line. Mind if I use it some time?
First of all, I'll point out the blindingly obvious. Something can be legal yet still be unsafe.
In the case of driving, you could quite easily be driving along the road and be in danger, not least of all because you don't drive in isolation: all those other cars and other vehicles around you are only a split-second away from presenting you with a multi-ton hazard that could potentially end your life.
When you're driving from A to B, your priority should be to get their safely:
1. without causing a hazard to yourself and others; and
2. without falling foul of any hazards that others might cause you.
It doesn't take a genius to see that anything that distracts your attention from anything that might fall into the second category, or that decreases your reaction time, could potentially kill you.
Anybody who thinks that a hands-free kit will mitigate the risks of driving whilst talking on a phone is deluded. Multiple studies have been carried out on this subject and, to my knowledge, all have clearly shown that the ability of a driver to deal with road hazards is just as impeded when he's talking via a hands-free kit as it would be if he was cradling the phone next to his head. (Which, by the way, is about the same level of impairment that you'd experience if you were drunk.)
If you want to test this yourself then try this out. Fire up your favourite RTS, FPS or MMORPG and get busy killing. Then make a hands-free call to a friend whilst attempting to play the game at your usual tempo. Keep talking and listening to the other person as you would do if you weren't playing the game (obviously, don't talk about the game, talk about something different!) and I guarantee you that you gameplay will suffer, simply because you react to things less quickly than you would have .
Now translate that loss of performance to the road. And then work out what matters most, that phone call or your personal safety.
Do yourselves, your passengers and those around you all a favour. Save the phone calls for when you get there.
As for TBL being the most significant person alive , I think you need to re-adjust your set. The Web isn't even close to being a daily relevance for the majority of the worlds population and even in the west a large proportion of the population couldn't care less about it. Most significant person alive , jeez , get a grip... Try looking up the names of some doctors who are battling diseases , or engineers who are helping design more efficient engines or 101 other things. Not some guy who made it possible to skip around some pages of text and pictures via a network connection. BFD.
Well, those doctors and engineers don't exactly work in isolation, do they? Yes, there have been peer review texts around for centuries but there's no doubt that the web has made research on all levels easier to conduct by facilitating faster flow of information.
Gutenberg didn't print any "magic" new text. His bibles had the same content as other bibles of the time. Gutenberg's magic was the process, which made things faster, cheaper, and thus revolutionised access to and availability of the printed word.
The web (way more so than any other portion of the Internet) has done the same thing for the digital word, and that's it's magic. Hence the grandparent poster's assertion, which, I think, you dismissed rather without considering the true merits of his argument.
And, yes, before someone decides to educate me about (D)ARPANET, etc, I do know that there's more to the Internet than the world wide web.
My point was that what Gutenberg did to the printed word (made it faster, easier and thus more accessible to all), Berners-Lee did to the online word (put together a system that made it simple to use and thus acheived the same feat).
Simply put, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the Johannes Gutenberg of the Internet.
His simple invention, and his polite, modest manner should make him the IT icon of our time. I wonder, though, how many people could even tell you what he's done or recognise him by his picture?
Good for him. He deserves all the recognition that he can get.
No shit. There's even a historical IT precedence for this that's defines such a boneheaded move.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Osborne Effect.
Firstly, I didn't mention censorship, you've done that by yourself. Having said that, it's not too much a reach to describe discrimination as a form of censorship, is it?
But, hey, if you're willing to tolerate discrimination in your "perfect" US society that "gets" freedom of speech, well, good for you, buddy.
Secondly, if, six years on from September 11th, you need me to point out clear examples of how political debate and dissent was stifled in the aftermath of those attacks then you're practically a lost cause.
But if you truly want examples, here's the first link I found from a quick Google search: http://www.ncac.org/issues/freeex911.cfm.
I hope you learn something beyond what "figuratively" means from this exercise.
Actually, let me clarify that.
I'm not a true aethiest. I'm an agnostic who tends towards aethiesm. And one who regularly attended church, went to Sunday School and played one of the three wise men more than once in the nativity play.
Thanks for playing, though.
The first point relates to religion, specifically how not being of a given faith is a career killer in US politics. And it's not just true of the Presidency, it's true of many lesser posts.
If you don't think that is a worry, well, imagine if it was impossible to get elected in Canada unless you were a Bhuddist. Or imagine that people were effectively barred from office for, say, being left-handed. Get the picture yet?
The second point, well, I suggest you look up what "figuratively" means because you clearly have no idea what it means and have it confused with another word.
Uh, I'm neither Indian or a Hindu. I'm an English aethiest.
You're not just an AC, you're a stupid, ignorant, racist AC.
Dear, AC, thanks for your concern about my mental health. For your information, I'm not retarded. Bravo for not only hiding behind the AC option but for starting your reply with an ad hominem attack.
The US, whether you like it or not, is one of the few countries in the world where someone's religion dictates whether or not they can seriously run for office.
Polls have been taken on the subject and, when asked, something like 52 percent of Americans have said that they would not vote for an aethiest. That alone shows how much of a ceiling your religion (or lack thereof) poses in the US. Neither of the two main political parties would even consider nominating a non-Christian candidate because his/her religion alone would lose them the race: policies and job suitability wouldn't even factor into it.
Compare that to anywhere else in the developed world. I live in the UK, and I can tell you that we wouldn't give a fig what religion someone was before voting for or against them. We certainly wouldn't be using religious litmus tests as you do in the US.
Creationism? Abortion? Seperation of church and state but "One nation under God", and with the motto "In God we trust"?
As for politics and policies, I can give you clear examples of how serious political debate has been stifled in the US post-September 11th. Perhaps you missed the instances of TV shows being cancelled because of comments people made questioning what was going on and why it was happening? Or how any voice raised in dissent was shouted down as anti-American? Don't you remember any of that?
What was wrong with asking why the US was attacked in the first place? Are you seriously telling me that that's been questioned by anybody outside the fringes?
It's only now that this shit has been going on for years and it's cost the lives of over 3,000 US troops (hey, let's not think about the 100,000s of dead Iraqi civilians - they clearly don't count) that serious questions are given more than short shrift by the mainstream media.
(Still, though, the lunatics running the asylum see nothing wrong. And the lunatics wanting to replace them aren't any better: the eight Republican nominees were asked whether knowing what they know now if they would have done anything differently in Iraq, to which none of them had the common sense to say "yes". Even after seeing the disasterous consequences of the path that they've travelled, they'd still go down that road again.)
Elsewhere, District Attorneys are being fired for political purposes. But, of course, when it's discovered, the people in charge have "no recollection" of what happened.
I won't even talk about voter disenfranchisement. Go read up on that before you comment again though.
Of course, I'm sure you'll say that none of that counts. To be honest, if it wasn't helping to screw the rest of us, I wouldn't give a shit. But it does, so I'm telling you, as a friend, this shit is happening, and it does you no favours to be lecturing the world on religious and political freedoms when your own country's record in that area is far from perfect.
The politics of the US aren't any better than that of anywhere else. If you, like the person who I initially replied to, truly consider the US to be a place where religious and political freedoms are respected then you're looking through rose-tinted glasses.
Feel free to tell me I'm wrong and how. Just save the "retard" tag, OK?