If you haven't, I suggest you do, so that you understand what I am saying. If we do continue down the path we seem to be on now and we don't develop that "something" I alluded to, which results in the vast majority of people choosing to numb themselves past coherence, then that future is scary to me.
Scary because Huxley was right, and scary because I'm not ready to accept that the fate of most people should be to, as you put it, "stay out of the way."
To me, that thinking is elitist and condescending.
I'm happy for people to have choices in their lives. I want for them to feel that the choices they make have some meaning, and that they, themselves, have meaning above and beyond simply being the consumer of whatever happens to be shoved their direction.
I'm not talking about "neophobes" here--people who fear the new or otherwise make the choice to not be productive or challenged. I'm talking about people who have no choice but to be mindless zombies throughout their lives.
Read the book. It's really quite thought-provoking.
You know, while many people worry about a "1984"-style future overwhelming us, I really think Huxley was truly on the money. We already have a significant portion of our workforce and economy involved in entertainment that doesn't contribute anything "productive". This doesn't seem too far-fetched to me.
How we cope when a significant portion of the able-bodied isn't needed to produce anything is a big question. Either we'll really get off our butts and create something so fabulous that we can't even imagine it yet, or we will continue to drug or otherwise numb our senses a majority of the time.
That's interesting. I wouldn't have thought that even an SUV could get over the benefits of momentum on the highway, but if you've got research to that effect, I'll defer to you.
I think planning can help, definitely, but it's not a panacea. People change jobs, and sometimes they don't want to or can't move. People move, and sometimes they don't want to or can't change jobs. There goes the perfect plan, unfortunately, even in a brand new city.
You were the one who felt that an incremental approach was preferable to a radical one, and I'm agreeing with you. There's a place for planning, and some cities (many in the Western US) are victims of sprawl... but often sprawl is the result of economic and demographic realities, not lack of planning.
Was that a serious question about the job you wanting not existing where you want to live? I assume you don't really need an answer to that. If you do, let me know.
I think you make a lot of sensible points. Some thoughts:
I think you meant to say "SUVs with 30 mpg city, 40 mpg hwy are feasible too"--unless these hypothetical diesel electric engines are less efficient on the highway than in stop-and-go traffic?
As far as "hooking into the grid", this is already happening in some places. I know that in New Mexico if you put up some sort of generator--windmill, solar panel--PNM, the electric company, has to buy all of your unused power from you, at above market rates. This is a state law from at least 15 years ago. So I don't think the infrastructure is stopping anyone from doing this right now.
You're right that it seems insane for people to accept 50 mile commutes, but it's also their choice. Most people could probably live closer to work, or work closer to home, than they do right now, but there are tradeoffs to make, and I don't think this can be solved by planning. Sometimes the job you want just doesn't exist near where you want to live, and for most people (nearly all) the prospect of working from home or telecommuting is unreasonable. Sometimes people become dissatisfied with their job, for some reason. Let's not limit their job choices because of proximity to their home; we've been there, and we don't want to go back. Talk about mass transit if you want, but I don't think planning or zoning are the primary problems. Infrastructure is important and expensive. Let's leverage the infrastructure we already have rather than dreaming up some newly planned one.
The Chinese government may not "follow all the same patent and copyright issues as other countries," but you can bet your bottom dollar that if any Chinese firms try to sell copyrighted or patented products in the US or Europe without a license they'll get sued out of existence.
Besides, with China now a member of the WTO, you won't see the "advantage" of stealing other people's intellectual property continuing in China much longer.
Which is certainly one of several routes that way. Unfortunately there aren't any options when trying to go to Oz or NZ, and users down there are treated like second-class citizens of the 'net.
It's been fun, but I think we've killed this thread. Cheers.
That's a good question. I'd assume that you don't pay packet costs in Asia because you can route through Europe and across the Atlantic, which is much, much, much better served by cable than the North America to Oceania route. Or there are simply more cables across the ocean in that direction, and the traffic's more even. There are only two cables to New Zealand and then two from there to Australia. It's not economically viable to build more, because there's only 22 million people in Australia and New Zealand combined and almost all of the traffic is one-way. So they get a bad deal, unlike Europe and Asia which have more leverage. It might make sense to lay a cable from Perth to Singapore, but I'm not sure anyone wants to eat that cost right now.
Do remember that the packet costs aren't the hugest concern. I think Optus started charging AU$.05/megabyte for every megabyte over 200MB per month, right after I moved and canceled my cable modem. Telstra's monthly limit on DSL, in the dozen or so neighbo[u]rhoods where it was available, was lower, somewhere between 100-150 megabytes per month, with the same charge after that. Not terrible for casual surfers, but a real pain for anyone doing serious work. And of course, they charged you the same whether you were downloading from Australian sites or overseas sites, just to really get your goat. (Heck, Telstra charges you AU$.25 every time you dial the phone, so it was a bargain to pay broadband costs, except that performance on overseas sites was terrible, and not worth having broadband for.)
None of my friends in the UK have broadband, so I can't compare there. Probably for DSL, Canada's a better option, except for the taxes.
Not my feelings, the fact that my rent, food, and other expenses were just as high in Sydney as they were in San Diego. Sure, there are cheap places to live in Sydney, just as there are anywhere, but that doesn't change the fact that the cost of housing in most parts of Sydney is quite comparable to anywhere in the US. Add in the fact that you're making less money and paying higher taxes on that money (top marginal tax rate in Oz is nearly 50%), and you're putting less money in your pocket at the end of the month. That's a fact, and I'm sorry your source doesn't agree. I think they're oversimplifying their averages, but what do I know? I only lived there and have many friends who are still there, and I know how much more money I have these days.
Read my message about private insurance again: it's not available at any price if you're there more than a couple of months. It's intended for travelers, not temporary residents. Trust me, I lived there, and I tried to buy insurance for myself and could not do it (Actually, they did let me pay for it, and then told me I wasn't covered by my policy. And no, I couldn't get my money back.). Maybe a US company would cover you, that's great, but make sure you know what the coverage actually provides, because paying your own way through the health care system in most Australian states is still pretty expensive.
All I'm trying to do is show you that DSL isn't the make-or-break item when determining where to live, and that simply fixing the availability of DSL wouldn't suddenly make Australia or New Zealand or Canada or the UK an instant high-tech magnet. If those countries were to fix their tax systems, privatize their communications infrastructure (Canada's done this, I think.), lower import tariffs, and a whole host of other problems, then maybe you could worry about DSL.
And even then, you'd find that it would be impractical to "work from home" for a North American company because the download speeds are too slow for any serious Internet access across the Pacific, and you have to pay for your packet use. And they can't change that latter point, because the companies that own the trans-Pacific cables have to not only pay back the banks for the cable itself, they have to pay for hooking up to the US backbone and for every bit they take off the backbone. It's really not a simple issue, nor is it one that's likely to be resolved any time soon.
So, long story short, don't get your hopes up for the threat of some mass geek migration to change the Baby Bells' stance on DSL. But it was a nice thought experiment.
I'm not going to trust your source on cost of living, because I, in fact, have lived in Sydney, and many places in the US, and I can assure you that living in Sydney is every bit as expensive as living in any US city I've lived in, including San Diego and Seattle. Additionally, salaries and contract rates are much lower in Australia, which also adds to the cost of living there.
Medibank's health coverage for temporary residents is incredibly expensive, and is not available for long-term stays of more than a few months. If your provider will cover you, that's great, but check into what that coverage actually entails.
Look, I lived in Sydney for three years, my father lives permanently in New Zealand, and I know very well what I'm talking about. If your priorities are such that the DSL situation where you live makes you want to move to Australia or anywhere else, do it. But keep in mind that DSL is just one tiny facet of all the things you need to take into consideration.
I, for one, am happy to be back in the US, happy to have my Earthlink DSL (much happier than I ever was with Optus' cable modem service, and certainly far happier than I was trying to get DSL when I moved out of Optus' cable modem coverage area, considering noone would sell me DSL service at any price), happy to have health insurance again, happy to be in a country where I can buy property (foreigners are no longer able to purchase property in Australia), and tremendously happy not to be paid in Australian dollars.
I really don't see how DSL availability plays whatsoever into a local situation being conducive to a tech industry. It does impact the happiness of tech workers at home, perhaps, but last time I checked very few serious tech companies depend on DSL for their internet service.
And when I said you can't get health coverage, I wasn't just talking about not being eligible for the public health service. You can't get private health coverage in Australia if you're a temporary resident. It's not available.
That should be about 5 million times more important than stinking DSL availability from a monopoly over a sloooooooooow trans-Pacific cable that they charge you by the megabyte for.
Besides the fact that the broadband situation in Australia and New Zealand is actually worse than it is here (In Australia, the only company that can offer DSL is Telstra, the 51% state-owned phone company, and they want to charge AU$200/month... plus per-megabyte fees. And you can't run a server. And many of the sites you want to see are hosted in the US, so you won't do justice to your DSL line. You can get a cable modem from Optus in some parts of Sydney and Melbourne, for a hefty fee, plus per megabyte fees. In New Zealand, the dominant broadband providers are Telcom and Saturn--the latter owned in part by, ta-da, Telstra! Plus per-megabyte fees and slow connections across the Pacific.), do you really think it's worth some 20-30% of your salary to receive broadband? And then not be able to get health coverage, if you're a temporary (H1-B-type) resident?
Where do you get your information that Palm developed Grafitti for the Newton? They may have developed their Grafitti engine on a Newton, though I doubt even that. As far as I can recall, and I was developing for Magic Cap devices at the time, the first commercial release of Grafitti was on the original Palm Pilot.
Except that it's a felony for someone other than a Postal Service employee to put anything in a US mail box.
Which is a good thing, as I can attest after living in Australia for three years. I had to recycle at least an order of magnitude more physical junk mail each week in Sydney than I've ever had to anywhere in the US, because every shop, big or small, paid some kid to put junk in my box, and most of them couldn't or wouldn't read the "no unsolicited mail" sign I put on my box.
Doesn't anyone remember that you had to pay to upgrade iMovie to iMovie 2, unless you'd bought a new Mac within a certain period of time before the upgrade came out?
I know I remember it... I paid for the upgrade, and it was well worth it.
Sheesh, the way people carry on, you'd think Apple was going to charge them for their own software.
Who says, "boy am I glad that there is both and enter and return on this keyboard - I couldn't get by without it."
Well, I do, for one. Return performs a carriage return... great for typing long passages in text boxes, such as this one, with actual paragraphs.
Enter performs a function, such as executing the default button on the page... to submit a form on a web page, send an email, etc.
It's really a much more elegant idea than having two return keys, like every PC keyboard with a numeric keypad does. If more software developers were aware of the difference between return and enter and wrote their programs to take advantage of it, such as the way Claris Emailer did, you might see the significance, too.:)
What about the little words on those green pieces of paper in our wallets?
This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private
FedEx not accepting cash may be a great security device for their delivery drivers, but it would seem to be against the law to me, especially if you give the driver exact change... the fact that someone has already shipped the goods to you implies that you're in their debt.
Anyone have more information on this? Has this been taken to court yet?
You're right, I did misquote you. I apologize for that.
You did say, however, that "[b]ecause of Bono, some small counties have been able to remain in existence."
Name one.
I'm not saying Bono's not a great guy, and he's certainly taken on a lot of philanthropic activities. But I believe you've exaggerated his accomplishments in this particular area.
I know Bono has been actively campaigning on behalf of debt relief for a while now, and his actions have resulted in some limited forms of debt relief for a few countries.
But your claim that "dozens" of countries are in existence because of Bono is outright wrong. I like the guy, and his heart is in the right place, but his main impact has been in raising awareness of the debt problems of many countries, not in resolving those issues.
Again, if you truly believe debt relief is the major issue, feel free to send them money, or to the IMF and World Bank on their behalf. Just leave my taxes out of it.
If something malfunctioned and the rightful owner was not able to fire the gun, then they could take it back to the store and replace it.
Or the rightful, law-abiding citizen of the gun might be dead. Or in jail. Or living under tyranny. Or suffering whatever fate the second freaking amendment is supposed to protect US from. Damn, we Westerners are spoiled.
Again, New Jersey cannot prevent a resident of that state from selling the gun to anyone outside of the state, because that would be unconstitutional. Therefore, a New Jersey resident could not be limited to selling a "safe" gun to a dealer; that resident would have to be able to sell it to anyone out of state unencoded, meaning that there would be no technical limitation prohibiting sale to any individual, even a New Jersey resident, unencoded.
This is not an issue to be resolved technologically!! I agree with a poster above: the real solution is education, not technology. All you Europeans and other non-Americans (*cough* Canadians *cough*) need not apply: this is an area with very delicate Constitutional protection, for very deliberate reasons.
Gun control is not the answer; we have only to look to the UK to see that. Law enforcement, proper sentencing, appropriate jail time... these are areas that can make a difference in the murder rate. And please understand, the murder rate is the only significant issue here. The number of accidental deaths by handguns in the US annually is actually pretty small, despite media portrayals to the contrary. (Yes, any accidental deaths are too many, but if you want to start a crusade that will do some good, look at cars before targeting guns, okay?)
I don't expect these issues to be resolved on Slashdot, however I'm disappointed that the elected officials of New Jersey have missed the real issues in exchange for pandering for votes.
Bono went on a tour of Africa with [now-former] US Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill earlier this year, to promote his [Bono's] debt-relief goals. AFAIK, the only result of this tour was a slight swaying of O'Neill's beliefs away from an "all debtor countries must repay their loans" stance.
In most cases, actual debt relief depends on the World Bank or International Monetary Fund, which are not [quite] US governmental agencies.
Claiming that Bono has extended the very existence of any countries is a bit of an exaggeration. He has made a lot of noise, though. [Moderators: Know at least one or two facts before falling for this type of stuff.]
If you really want to help those countries facing huge debt repayments, why don't you send them some money directly, rather than engaging a middle-aged rock star to petition Western governments to take even more tax dollars from the rest of us on their behalf? I don't know about you, but I work for my money.
About a year ago, Cingular started running flash ads on ESPN.com that automatically vomited themselves over the content of whatever article you were reading... this was a new thing in my experience, and was far, far worse than the Oracle and HP ads that Yahoo runs, where the ad grows to consume your screen when you inadvertently run your mouse over a small area.
Rather than complaining to Slashdot, however, I popped open my email and sent off two very nasty letters, one to ESPN.com informing them that if they kept up the practice I would find my sports news elsewhere, and another to Cingular's customer service department. I told Cingular that I would never, ever purchase any product from them, directly as a result of their advertising practices.
Two things of note:
Simply finding ESPN.com's service email took about half an hour of searching on their website, and I only received an automated "Thank you for your comment" email in reply.
Cingular wrote back a very sincere apology for the ads, and since then I've never seen another ad like that from them.
Now, I'm not claiming to have changed Cingular's behavior single-handedly; I'm sure many other people wrote or called them as well. I'm simply reiterating the fact that these people are in business to earn our business, and that rather than whining or pompously proclaiming our superiority amongst ourselves, we can be much more effective by voting with our wallets and voicing our beliefs to the company/ies directly.
ESPN.com, incidentally, has only run one other Flash ad that appeared over the content since then, in my experience. We have power, people. Let's use it more effectively!
I agree completely with your points, especially the fact that the airwaves do belong to the public, not the government, and I approve whole-heartedly with the FCC's recognition of this fact.
On the other hand, we all need to refresh our memories on the meaning of the term "cash cow":
a consistently profitable business, property, or product whose profits are used to finance a company's investments in other areas.
(emphasis mine)
Single-time license fees for a band of spectrum are not a cash cow. If the fees were on-going, that would be a different story.
Not really. Bell Canada isn't one of the top 10 telecom companies in terms of market capitalization (http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/top10/15.html) or in terms of sales (http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/42.html).
Just as a point of comparison, AT&T--which basically only offers long distance service and wireless--had sales of over $12 billion for the quarter ending June 30, and $11 billion of that was profit. AT&T has about $16 billion in current assets and $137 billion in total assets.
And that's just one of the telecom companies here.
Don't get me wrong, I think companies like Bell Canada, Telstra (Australia), and Telcom ZA (South Africa) are doing some pretty interesting and creative things. But even with their explicit or de facto monopolies in their home countries they don't compare with NTT, AT&T, and Deutsche Telecom in terms of size.
That said, it's about time more recognition was given to wireless as the appropriate solution to "last mile" issues. Local phone companies worldwide really need to look past their monopoly status to recognize that they have a tremendous, lucrative, cheap, and relatively risk-free opportunity to use their infrastructure (lots and lots of poles, already wired to the network--and usually right next to a power line, too) to make pervasive wireless happen. Forget thinking of wireless as just a phenomenon for business (and other) travelers, it needs to be pervasive, much like the idea Metricom had, oh so long ago...
I still miss the Metricom modem I had in Seattle six years ago. Metricom didn't have the money to make this happen. The Baby Bells do, except Qwest, and they're just a bunch of idiots who should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes, in my book.;)
Just my two cents.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's insulting to imply that people who don't fit into the "elite" professions are (mostly, apparently) "idiots" and should "get out of the way".
If you haven't, I suggest you do, so that you understand what I am saying. If we do continue down the path we seem to be on now and we don't develop that "something" I alluded to, which results in the vast majority of people choosing to numb themselves past coherence, then that future is scary to me.
Scary because Huxley was right, and scary because I'm not ready to accept that the fate of most people should be to, as you put it, "stay out of the way."
To me, that thinking is elitist and condescending.
I'm happy for people to have choices in their lives. I want for them to feel that the choices they make have some meaning, and that they, themselves, have meaning above and beyond simply being the consumer of whatever happens to be shoved their direction.
I'm not talking about "neophobes" here--people who fear the new or otherwise make the choice to not be productive or challenged. I'm talking about people who have no choice but to be mindless zombies throughout their lives.
Read the book. It's really quite thought-provoking.
How we cope when a significant portion of the able-bodied isn't needed to produce anything is a big question. Either we'll really get off our butts and create something so fabulous that we can't even imagine it yet, or we will continue to drug or otherwise numb our senses a majority of the time.
Scary thoughts.
I think planning can help, definitely, but it's not a panacea. People change jobs, and sometimes they don't want to or can't move. People move, and sometimes they don't want to or can't change jobs. There goes the perfect plan, unfortunately, even in a brand new city.
You were the one who felt that an incremental approach was preferable to a radical one, and I'm agreeing with you. There's a place for planning, and some cities (many in the Western US) are victims of sprawl... but often sprawl is the result of economic and demographic realities, not lack of planning.
Was that a serious question about the job you wanting not existing where you want to live? I assume you don't really need an answer to that. If you do, let me know.
I think you meant to say "SUVs with 30 mpg city, 40 mpg hwy are feasible too"--unless these hypothetical diesel electric engines are less efficient on the highway than in stop-and-go traffic?
As far as "hooking into the grid", this is already happening in some places. I know that in New Mexico if you put up some sort of generator--windmill, solar panel--PNM, the electric company, has to buy all of your unused power from you, at above market rates. This is a state law from at least 15 years ago. So I don't think the infrastructure is stopping anyone from doing this right now.
You're right that it seems insane for people to accept 50 mile commutes, but it's also their choice. Most people could probably live closer to work, or work closer to home, than they do right now, but there are tradeoffs to make, and I don't think this can be solved by planning. Sometimes the job you want just doesn't exist near where you want to live, and for most people (nearly all) the prospect of working from home or telecommuting is unreasonable. Sometimes people become dissatisfied with their job, for some reason. Let's not limit their job choices because of proximity to their home; we've been there, and we don't want to go back. Talk about mass transit if you want, but I don't think planning or zoning are the primary problems. Infrastructure is important and expensive. Let's leverage the infrastructure we already have rather than dreaming up some newly planned one.
Cheers.
Besides, with China now a member of the WTO, you won't see the "advantage" of stealing other people's intellectual property continuing in China much longer.
It's been fun, but I think we've killed this thread. Cheers.
Do remember that the packet costs aren't the hugest concern. I think Optus started charging AU$.05/megabyte for every megabyte over 200MB per month, right after I moved and canceled my cable modem. Telstra's monthly limit on DSL, in the dozen or so neighbo[u]rhoods where it was available, was lower, somewhere between 100-150 megabytes per month, with the same charge after that. Not terrible for casual surfers, but a real pain for anyone doing serious work. And of course, they charged you the same whether you were downloading from Australian sites or overseas sites, just to really get your goat. (Heck, Telstra charges you AU$.25 every time you dial the phone, so it was a bargain to pay broadband costs, except that performance on overseas sites was terrible, and not worth having broadband for.)
None of my friends in the UK have broadband, so I can't compare there. Probably for DSL, Canada's a better option, except for the taxes.
Read my message about private insurance again: it's not available at any price if you're there more than a couple of months. It's intended for travelers, not temporary residents. Trust me, I lived there, and I tried to buy insurance for myself and could not do it (Actually, they did let me pay for it, and then told me I wasn't covered by my policy. And no, I couldn't get my money back.). Maybe a US company would cover you, that's great, but make sure you know what the coverage actually provides, because paying your own way through the health care system in most Australian states is still pretty expensive.
All I'm trying to do is show you that DSL isn't the make-or-break item when determining where to live, and that simply fixing the availability of DSL wouldn't suddenly make Australia or New Zealand or Canada or the UK an instant high-tech magnet. If those countries were to fix their tax systems, privatize their communications infrastructure (Canada's done this, I think.), lower import tariffs, and a whole host of other problems, then maybe you could worry about DSL.
And even then, you'd find that it would be impractical to "work from home" for a North American company because the download speeds are too slow for any serious Internet access across the Pacific, and you have to pay for your packet use. And they can't change that latter point, because the companies that own the trans-Pacific cables have to not only pay back the banks for the cable itself, they have to pay for hooking up to the US backbone and for every bit they take off the backbone. It's really not a simple issue, nor is it one that's likely to be resolved any time soon.
So, long story short, don't get your hopes up for the threat of some mass geek migration to change the Baby Bells' stance on DSL. But it was a nice thought experiment.
Medibank's health coverage for temporary residents is incredibly expensive, and is not available for long-term stays of more than a few months. If your provider will cover you, that's great, but check into what that coverage actually entails.
Look, I lived in Sydney for three years, my father lives permanently in New Zealand, and I know very well what I'm talking about. If your priorities are such that the DSL situation where you live makes you want to move to Australia or anywhere else, do it. But keep in mind that DSL is just one tiny facet of all the things you need to take into consideration.
I, for one, am happy to be back in the US, happy to have my Earthlink DSL (much happier than I ever was with Optus' cable modem service, and certainly far happier than I was trying to get DSL when I moved out of Optus' cable modem coverage area, considering noone would sell me DSL service at any price), happy to have health insurance again, happy to be in a country where I can buy property (foreigners are no longer able to purchase property in Australia), and tremendously happy not to be paid in Australian dollars.
I really don't see how DSL availability plays whatsoever into a local situation being conducive to a tech industry. It does impact the happiness of tech workers at home, perhaps, but last time I checked very few serious tech companies depend on DSL for their internet service.
Have fun.
The cost of living isn't 20-30% lower. Trust me.
And when I said you can't get health coverage, I wasn't just talking about not being eligible for the public health service. You can't get private health coverage in Australia if you're a temporary resident. It's not available.
That should be about 5 million times more important than stinking DSL availability from a monopoly over a sloooooooooow trans-Pacific cable that they charge you by the megabyte for.
Your priorities are seriously messed up.
Besides the fact that the broadband situation in Australia and New Zealand is actually worse than it is here (In Australia, the only company that can offer DSL is Telstra, the 51% state-owned phone company, and they want to charge AU$200/month... plus per-megabyte fees. And you can't run a server. And many of the sites you want to see are hosted in the US, so you won't do justice to your DSL line. You can get a cable modem from Optus in some parts of Sydney and Melbourne, for a hefty fee, plus per megabyte fees. In New Zealand, the dominant broadband providers are Telcom and Saturn--the latter owned in part by, ta-da, Telstra! Plus per-megabyte fees and slow connections across the Pacific.), do you really think it's worth some 20-30% of your salary to receive broadband? And then not be able to get health coverage, if you're a temporary (H1-B-type) resident?
No, I didn't think so.
I'm still not completely sure about the timing of the whole thing, but it doesn't really matter.
Where do you get your information that Palm developed Grafitti for the Newton? They may have developed their Grafitti engine on a Newton, though I doubt even that. As far as I can recall, and I was developing for Magic Cap devices at the time, the first commercial release of Grafitti was on the original Palm Pilot.
Which is a good thing, as I can attest after living in Australia for three years. I had to recycle at least an order of magnitude more physical junk mail each week in Sydney than I've ever had to anywhere in the US, because every shop, big or small, paid some kid to put junk in my box, and most of them couldn't or wouldn't read the "no unsolicited mail" sign I put on my box.
I know I remember it... I paid for the upgrade, and it was well worth it.
Sheesh, the way people carry on, you'd think Apple was going to charge them for their own software.
Well, I do, for one. Return performs a carriage return... great for typing long passages in text boxes, such as this one, with actual paragraphs.
Enter performs a function, such as executing the default button on the page... to submit a form on a web page, send an email, etc.
It's really a much more elegant idea than having two return keys, like every PC keyboard with a numeric keypad does. If more software developers were aware of the difference between return and enter and wrote their programs to take advantage of it, such as the way Claris Emailer did, you might see the significance, too. :)
Anyone have more information on this? Has this been taken to court yet?
You did say, however, that "[b]ecause of Bono, some small counties have been able to remain in existence."
Name one.
I'm not saying Bono's not a great guy, and he's certainly taken on a lot of philanthropic activities. But I believe you've exaggerated his accomplishments in this particular area.
But your claim that "dozens" of countries are in existence because of Bono is outright wrong. I like the guy, and his heart is in the right place, but his main impact has been in raising awareness of the debt problems of many countries, not in resolving those issues.
Again, if you truly believe debt relief is the major issue, feel free to send them money, or to the IMF and World Bank on their behalf. Just leave my taxes out of it.
May Peace be with you this Christmas.
Or the rightful, law-abiding citizen of the gun might be dead. Or in jail. Or living under tyranny. Or suffering whatever fate the second freaking amendment is supposed to protect US from. Damn, we Westerners are spoiled.
Again, New Jersey cannot prevent a resident of that state from selling the gun to anyone outside of the state, because that would be unconstitutional. Therefore, a New Jersey resident could not be limited to selling a "safe" gun to a dealer; that resident would have to be able to sell it to anyone out of state unencoded, meaning that there would be no technical limitation prohibiting sale to any individual, even a New Jersey resident, unencoded.
This is not an issue to be resolved technologically!! I agree with a poster above: the real solution is education, not technology. All you Europeans and other non-Americans (*cough* Canadians *cough*) need not apply: this is an area with very delicate Constitutional protection, for very deliberate reasons.
Gun control is not the answer; we have only to look to the UK to see that. Law enforcement, proper sentencing, appropriate jail time... these are areas that can make a difference in the murder rate. And please understand, the murder rate is the only significant issue here. The number of accidental deaths by handguns in the US annually is actually pretty small, despite media portrayals to the contrary. (Yes, any accidental deaths are too many, but if you want to start a crusade that will do some good, look at cars before targeting guns, okay?)
I don't expect these issues to be resolved on Slashdot, however I'm disappointed that the elected officials of New Jersey have missed the real issues in exchange for pandering for votes.
Bono went on a tour of Africa with [now-former] US Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill earlier this year, to promote his [Bono's] debt-relief goals. AFAIK, the only result of this tour was a slight swaying of O'Neill's beliefs away from an "all debtor countries must repay their loans" stance.
In most cases, actual debt relief depends on the World Bank or International Monetary Fund, which are not [quite] US governmental agencies.
Claiming that Bono has extended the very existence of any countries is a bit of an exaggeration. He has made a lot of noise, though. [Moderators: Know at least one or two facts before falling for this type of stuff.]
If you really want to help those countries facing huge debt repayments, why don't you send them some money directly, rather than engaging a middle-aged rock star to petition Western governments to take even more tax dollars from the rest of us on their behalf? I don't know about you, but I work for my money.
Rather than complaining to Slashdot, however, I popped open my email and sent off two very nasty letters, one to ESPN.com informing them that if they kept up the practice I would find my sports news elsewhere, and another to Cingular's customer service department. I told Cingular that I would never, ever purchase any product from them, directly as a result of their advertising practices.
Two things of note:
- Simply finding ESPN.com's service email took about half an hour of searching on their website, and I only received an automated "Thank you for your comment" email in reply.
- Cingular wrote back a very sincere apology for the ads, and since then I've never seen another ad like that from them.
Now, I'm not claiming to have changed Cingular's behavior single-handedly; I'm sure many other people wrote or called them as well. I'm simply reiterating the fact that these people are in business to earn our business, and that rather than whining or pompously proclaiming our superiority amongst ourselves, we can be much more effective by voting with our wallets and voicing our beliefs to the company/ies directly.ESPN.com, incidentally, has only run one other Flash ad that appeared over the content since then, in my experience. We have power, people. Let's use it more effectively!
On the other hand, we all need to refresh our memories on the meaning of the term "cash cow":
(emphasis mine)Single-time license fees for a band of spectrum are not a cash cow. If the fees were on-going, that would be a different story.
Not really. Bell Canada isn't one of the top 10 telecom companies in terms of market capitalization (http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/top10/15.html) or in terms of sales (http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/42.html). Just as a point of comparison, AT&T--which basically only offers long distance service and wireless--had sales of over $12 billion for the quarter ending June 30, and $11 billion of that was profit. AT&T has about $16 billion in current assets and $137 billion in total assets. And that's just one of the telecom companies here. Don't get me wrong, I think companies like Bell Canada, Telstra (Australia), and Telcom ZA (South Africa) are doing some pretty interesting and creative things. But even with their explicit or de facto monopolies in their home countries they don't compare with NTT, AT&T, and Deutsche Telecom in terms of size. That said, it's about time more recognition was given to wireless as the appropriate solution to "last mile" issues. Local phone companies worldwide really need to look past their monopoly status to recognize that they have a tremendous, lucrative, cheap, and relatively risk-free opportunity to use their infrastructure (lots and lots of poles, already wired to the network--and usually right next to a power line, too) to make pervasive wireless happen. Forget thinking of wireless as just a phenomenon for business (and other) travelers, it needs to be pervasive, much like the idea Metricom had, oh so long ago... I still miss the Metricom modem I had in Seattle six years ago. Metricom didn't have the money to make this happen. The Baby Bells do, except Qwest, and they're just a bunch of idiots who should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes, in my book. ;)
Just my two cents.