Yes and according to your own source central Afrika has only 15% muslims and south only 1,5%.... but I'm guessing these don't fit in your picture so you'll just ommit them.
Also, you'd help yourself with a less offensive style of discussing these things. Not everyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid or uninformed. Try listening with an open mind sometimes you might find yourself surprised.
That's a pretty broad stroke you're painting with, cowboy. I know it's probably far from your bed, but Africa is a continent and the Middle East isn't part of it. Parts of the Middle East are in Africa, yes, and you might even say that parts of Africa are in this unstable moslim only region you speak of, but calling Africa mostly muslim is pretty far fetched.
If you're American, you're probably paying round about at least $5000 but more likely $10000 yearly on the upkeep of your armed forces.
This is just roughly calculated based on $600,000,000,000 annual defense budget (last figure I heard of) and an estimated population of 300,000,000 in the states.
Arguably, the money spent on defense lowers the price of gas, food and some of the more important daily commodoties.
"Preservation of freedom of expression is worth offending billions of people."
You state this as a fact, but it isn't one. There's a fine line somewhere, which even in the US, is set in law, e.g. defamation laws. There is no such thing as an absolute freedom of expression.
So allowing insults against someones religious figures has everything to do with what a society thinks should be regarded as reasonable freedom of expression.
So? What do you suggest for punishing these companies?
It's all nice and fine to bitch and whine but I don't hear you proposing a decent solution.
I, for one, at least am happy that someone is doing someone about breaking these kind of price-fixing sceme's. But please, keep on enjoying you 'free market' over there on the other side of the pond.
"But current versions of Firefox are fine - at least on Linux, Mac and BSD."
I've seen especially startup times on Firefox degrading over the last few months... which is, I admit, not a problem for any reasonably powered desktop or laptop but is for a netbook like mine. In the latest versions I have to wait up to ten seconds for the firefox window to pop up and frankly that annoys me enough to consider the switch to chrome.
Which I haven't made yet, because google probably knows quite enough about me as it is, but that's another story.
Sorry to hear you had a bad start in life. Nobody should be brought up by a person as troubled as your father.
That said, I would like to severly protest your statement that if societies would follow the 10 commandments, they would be better and fairer and juster etc. That's just naieve and short-sighted, sorry to say so.
For one, what you are saying is "If everybody would convert to my religion, the world would be a better place." That's commandment 1,2,3 for you, the exclusion of other religions and God and philosophies even.
Moreover, some of the commandments are just plain preference... e.g. some people are quite fine commiting 'adultery', married people can do this by consent, and be quite happy for ever after.
Remains 'You shall not steal, you shall not murder'. Sensible stuff, already implemented in almost all societies. However what is stealing exactly? If you have more than enough to eat, and your neighbour has nothing and is starving, are you stealing? Some would think so. Others think that killing animals, with or without a purpose, should count as murder.
And finally, you should honor your father and mother. Let me ask you, do you honor yours? You've just called him mentally ill. Should you even honor him?
And don't get me started on the pathetic 'If you don't follow the rules, we'll throw you in HELL!'. That's just plain evil, especially for Christians who believe their God to be one of forgiveness, not revenge.
And I think you the more naieve for thinking that everything was roses and moonshine in the old Hebrew societies. No, that's not only naieve, that's shows lack of education and lack of interest in truth, unless you think stoning people to death for petty crimes (like adultery) and fighting wars against anything non-jew (just because your God says 'there shall be no other Gods' are pretty stuff and commendable to use in modern days.
Yeah, that's about as reasonable as classifying every inhabitant of a country that disguises soldiers as civilians as legitimate military targets.
Way to go, Rambo! Keep shooting those goodwill bullets!
Oh, and by the way, if you're an American... even your own generals now realize that half of winning the war is in winning the trust of people, not shooting them...
Yeah, that's about as reasonable as classifying every inhabitant of a country that disguises soldiers as civilians as legitimate military targets.
Way to go, Rambo! Keep shooting those goodwill bullets!
Oh, and by the way, if you're an American... even your own generals now realize that half of winning the war is in winning the trust of people, not shooting them.
Your suspicions surprisingly didn't need much confirming then... for all you can say about the EU with all its behemoth bureaucracy, babylonian confusion and unsurpassed contradictory aims, economically its been a great success, allowing formerly national companies to operate on a European scale and stimulating growth and properity.
Forcing monopolies to break up or killing bad business practices is just part of keeping the internal European market healthy and consumer friendly.
It has nothing to do with "punishing success". That's just a sad meme if you think, as most people do, success to the disadvantage of all but the shareholders is a good thing.
"Why is it surprising? The EU has been jumping down the throats of successful American businesses for years. After they got through with Microsoft, it only makes sense that they would shake down Google as their next target."
Firstly, EU != European Union government in this article, only the EU ISPs.
Secondly, you make it sound like the EU is picking American businesses on purpose.
I guess you're American and thus only hear about the US businesses fined by Neelie Kroes, but believe me, more European companies have been hit than American ones by the anti-monopoly and anti-kartel legislation.
Thirdly, the ISPs are greedy and wrong on this count. They have paying customers. Don't like it that they actually use all of the bandwidth you promised them? Tough luck, find another business model or don't promise something you can't deliver.
Wait, didn't I just say it didn't do anything particulary useful?
Re:Finally. Proper audio support
on
Apple iPad Reviewed
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Also, you'd be a pretty poor excuse of an audiophile if you'd been praying for less bass from shitty speakers in portable rigs.
Re:Slashdot is becoming a failure..
on
Apple iPad Reviewed
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Apple has been receiving an extraordinary amount of attention on/. these last years. Apparantly some of \.'s editors are serious Apple fans. Just mod the article binspam or better yet, ignore Apple stories and move on with your life.
Yes, only in most developed countries you don't get a free license with a box of cereals.
This creates some kind of a threshold for the most stupid specimens. E.g. here in the Netherlands, most people take at least 40 driving lessons (half hour each) and the number of people (just anecdotal evidence here) passing the exam in one try is less than half.
Some people with no feeling for cars or driving just give up after 5 fails. Which is a good thing, I guess, as some people just shouldn't be on the road.
This is why you should just make it illegal to hold the phone while driving. It's a distraction even if you are not texting, calling, emailing or whatever, just drooling over your new iPhone or whatever.
If the war in Iraq was a war for oil, the term 'war for oil' is an abbreviation of 'war for low oil prices'. See, the supply of oil to the states was never endangered, however the price of the oil is constantly under upward pressure making the American lifestyle, which is obviously very energy intensive, too expensive for a large portion of the citizens with all the civic unrest etc. as a result.
There was never any binary outcome; win the war, get oil, lose the war, do not get oil. Basically, it's all about Americans being used to an abundant lifestyle at the expense of other nations. Same goes for Europe and Australia, it's just that these continents do not have the military power or will to force issues so for them the apparant answer is to change the fuel sources providing in their energy needs _and_ in the case of Europe, a more moderate level of consumption as Europeans, on a average, consume about half of the energy of your average American or Australian.
Your theory fails on account of it assuming some centralized leadership that is actually able to coordinate all these manoeuvres so as to make the false impression that they are acting on behalf of the people of the EU, at least for the time being.
You have to take my word for it that 'the' EU as such does not exist, nor that it is lead in such a coherent fashion.
First they shot down the forced SWIFT bank transactions monitoring by the US of EU citizens (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/06/1836221/EU-Committee-Says-No-To-Bank-Data-Sharing) and now they're (trying to) blow the lid on all the secrecy surrounding this ACTA agreement.
Maybe the EU Lisbon treaty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon) has really given th European Parlement some teeth. At least they are probing the limits of their power, in the right direction.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes and according to your own source central Afrika has only 15% muslims and south only 1,5% .... but I'm guessing these don't fit in your picture so you'll just ommit them.
Also, you'd help yourself with a less offensive style of discussing these things. Not everyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid or uninformed. Try listening with an open mind sometimes you might find yourself surprised.
That's a pretty broad stroke you're painting with, cowboy. I know it's probably far from your bed, but Africa is a continent and the Middle East isn't part of it. Parts of the Middle East are in Africa, yes, and you might even say that parts of Africa are in this unstable moslim only region you speak of, but calling Africa mostly muslim is pretty far fetched.
If you're American, you're probably paying round about at least $5000 but more likely $10000 yearly on the upkeep of your armed forces.
This is just roughly calculated based on $600,000,000,000 annual defense budget (last figure I heard of) and an estimated population of 300,000,000 in the states.
Arguably, the money spent on defense lowers the price of gas, food and some of the more important daily commodoties.
I'm not falling for your tricks bud! Calling him Earnest instead of Ernest will not make his point more valid!
"Preservation of freedom of expression is worth offending billions of people."
You state this as a fact, but it isn't one. There's a fine line somewhere, which even in the US, is set in law, e.g. defamation laws. There is no such thing as an absolute freedom of expression.
So allowing insults against someones religious figures has everything to do with what a society thinks should be regarded as reasonable freedom of expression.
So? What do you suggest for punishing these companies?
It's all nice and fine to bitch and whine but I don't hear you proposing a decent solution.
I, for one, at least am happy that someone is doing someone about breaking these kind of price-fixing sceme's. But please, keep on enjoying you 'free market' over there on the other side of the pond.
"But current versions of Firefox are fine - at least on Linux, Mac and BSD."
I've seen especially startup times on Firefox degrading over the last few months ... which is, I admit, not a problem for any reasonably powered desktop or laptop but is for a netbook like mine. In the latest versions I have to wait up to ten seconds for the firefox window to pop up and frankly that annoys me enough to consider the switch to chrome.
Which I haven't made yet, because google probably knows quite enough about me as it is, but that's another story.
Sorry to hear you had a bad start in life. Nobody should be brought up by a person as troubled as your father.
That said, I would like to severly protest your statement that if societies would follow the 10 commandments, they would be better and fairer and juster etc. That's just naieve and short-sighted, sorry to say so.
For one, what you are saying is "If everybody would convert to my religion, the world would be a better place." That's commandment 1,2,3 for you, the exclusion of other religions and God and philosophies even.
Moreover, some of the commandments are just plain preference ... e.g. some people are quite fine commiting 'adultery', married people can do this by consent, and be quite happy for ever after.
Remains 'You shall not steal, you shall not murder'. Sensible stuff, already implemented in almost all societies. However what is stealing exactly? If you have more than enough to eat, and your neighbour has nothing and is starving, are you stealing? Some would think so. Others think that killing animals, with or without a purpose, should count as murder.
And finally, you should honor your father and mother. Let me ask you, do you honor yours? You've just called him mentally ill. Should you even honor him?
And don't get me started on the pathetic 'If you don't follow the rules, we'll throw you in HELL!'. That's just plain evil, especially for Christians who believe their God to be one of forgiveness, not revenge.
And I think you the more naieve for thinking that everything was roses and moonshine in the old Hebrew societies. No, that's not only naieve, that's shows lack of education and lack of interest in truth, unless you think stoning people to death for petty crimes (like adultery) and fighting wars against anything non-jew (just because your God says 'there shall be no other Gods' are pretty stuff and commendable to use in modern days.
Darn sorry replied to wrong comment please disregard.
Yeah, that's about as reasonable as classifying every inhabitant of a country that disguises soldiers as civilians as legitimate military targets.
Way to go, Rambo! Keep shooting those goodwill bullets!
Oh, and by the way, if you're an American ... even your own generals now realize that half of winning the war is in winning the trust of people, not shooting them...
Yeah, that's about as reasonable as classifying every inhabitant of a country that disguises soldiers as civilians as legitimate military targets.
Way to go, Rambo! Keep shooting those goodwill bullets!
Oh, and by the way, if you're an American ... even your own generals now realize that half of winning the war is in winning the trust of people, not shooting them.
You should change your name in BadAnalogIESGuy .... four analogies mostly unrelated to the problem at hand ... I salute you sir ... nomen est omen.
that datacenterknowledge.com should utilize a bigger datacenter for their soon to be expanded server park?
In other words, slashdotted!
Your suspicions surprisingly didn't need much confirming then ... for all you can say about the EU with all its behemoth bureaucracy, babylonian confusion and unsurpassed contradictory aims, economically its been a great success, allowing formerly national companies to operate on a European scale and stimulating growth and properity.
Forcing monopolies to break up or killing bad business practices is just part of keeping the internal European market healthy and consumer friendly.
It has nothing to do with "punishing success". That's just a sad meme if you think, as most people do, success to the disadvantage of all but the shareholders is a good thing.
"Also, if Google end up having to pay ISPs in Europe, you can bet lobbyists will use that as a reason to reopen the debate stateside."
Estimated chance of that happening: nil to none at all.
Estimated chance of ISPs being clobbered over promising bandwidth they can't reasonably supply to all their customers: better than average.
"Why is it surprising? The EU has been jumping down the throats of successful American businesses for years. After they got through with Microsoft, it only makes sense that they would shake down Google as their next target."
Firstly, EU != European Union government in this article, only the EU ISPs.
Secondly, you make it sound like the EU is picking American businesses on purpose.
I guess you're American and thus only hear about the US businesses fined by Neelie Kroes, but believe me, more European companies have been hit than American ones by the anti-monopoly and anti-kartel legislation.
Thirdly, the ISPs are greedy and wrong on this count. They have paying customers. Don't like it that they actually use all of the bandwidth you promised them? Tough luck, find another business model or don't promise something you can't deliver.
Wait, didn't I just say it didn't do anything particulary useful?
Also, you'd be a pretty poor excuse of an audiophile if you'd been praying for less bass from shitty speakers in portable rigs.
Apple has been receiving an extraordinary amount of attention on /. these last years. Apparantly some of \.'s editors are serious Apple fans. Just mod the article binspam or better yet, ignore Apple stories and move on with your life.
For all I care it can have a Ferrarri F1 car under its skin ... I mean, who cares if it doesn't do anything particulary usefull?
Yes, only in most developed countries you don't get a free license with a box of cereals.
This creates some kind of a threshold for the most stupid specimens. E.g. here in the Netherlands, most people take at least 40 driving lessons (half hour each) and the number of people (just anecdotal evidence here) passing the exam in one try is less than half.
Some people with no feeling for cars or driving just give up after 5 fails. Which is a good thing, I guess, as some people just shouldn't be on the road.
This is why you should just make it illegal to hold the phone while driving. It's a distraction even if you are not texting, calling, emailing or whatever, just drooling over your new iPhone or whatever.
If the war in Iraq was a war for oil, the term 'war for oil' is an abbreviation of 'war for low oil prices'. See, the supply of oil to the states was never endangered, however the price of the oil is constantly under upward pressure making the American lifestyle, which is obviously very energy intensive, too expensive for a large portion of the citizens with all the civic unrest etc. as a result.
There was never any binary outcome; win the war, get oil, lose the war, do not get oil. Basically, it's all about Americans being used to an abundant lifestyle at the expense of other nations. Same goes for Europe and Australia, it's just that these continents do not have the military power or will to force issues so for them the apparant answer is to change the fuel sources providing in their energy needs _and_ in the case of Europe, a more moderate level of consumption as Europeans, on a average, consume about half of the energy of your average American or Australian.
Your theory fails on account of it assuming some centralized leadership that is actually able to coordinate all these manoeuvres so as to make the false impression that they are acting on behalf of the people of the EU, at least for the time being.
You have to take my word for it that 'the' EU as such does not exist, nor that it is lead in such a coherent fashion.
First they shot down the forced SWIFT bank transactions monitoring by the US of EU citizens (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/06/1836221/EU-Committee-Says-No-To-Bank-Data-Sharing) and now they're (trying to) blow the lid on all the secrecy surrounding this ACTA agreement.
Maybe the EU Lisbon treaty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon) has really given th European Parlement some teeth. At least they are probing the limits of their power, in the right direction.