Copyright is the identification of the individual legally responsible for content. Everyone has implicit copyright on what they say, should they choose to identify themselves when they say it. You can also claim explicit copyright over a phrase by simply making a public statement of claim. It's a perfectly valid legal construct.
An access license to the copyright content is another matter entirely. When you post to a website, you're agreeing to grant them and their readers a grant of license to view what you've written. You did that when you accepted their terms of use and conduct.
But you still retain your original copyright, and you have the legal right to change your mind about licensing at any time unless someone can somehow demonstrate that their copyright and licensing agreements conflict with yours and that they don't agree with the change (witness the difficulty of getting the thousands of contributors to the Linux kernel to even vote on something so serious as a change from the GPLv2 license they originally agreed to work together under.)
Now if someone chose to quote you while you had granted an access license, you can't chase them down to remove the copy of the content they quoted because they've exercised a right to reasonable use of publicly accessible media. But I believe you have EVERY right to expect that a website respect your copyright and your right to determine what license that copyrighted information is to be available under, if at all.
Don't get me wrong -- that doesn't mean the website owner has to actually delete all records of the original post. That could get difficult if it's been archived and backed up. But you as a website owner should be held responsible for allowing the user to remove the content from view, as Google+ and Facebook do when you delete a comment.
If a site doesn't allow deletion by the poster, they should be reminded of that every single time they post so they're aware that it's going to be out there for all time. I think of the Slashdot "Preview" button as that reminder that what you're about to post is going to be there forever -- here's one last chance to review it and make any edits before you've committed yourself to....
A statement.
Once you click that final approval, you've given birth to an independent thought and shared it with the world. Your only future recourse on slashdot is to clarify and argue with detractors when they respond to what you've said.
In the same situation, how hard would it be to have the Slashdot editors remove a post that you changed your mind about?
Funny. Most of the sites I visit have specific disclaimers that the comments are the property of the poster and that the site takes no responsibility for what it's posters say. It's been a long time since I've seen a website be so foolish as to accept the responsibility for the legal risks of user's content by claiming ownership of that content.
That depends. I've been very public on internet forums and websites for years. Most of my profiles are intentionally wide open so the general public can read my opinions without me ever having to give them permission to do so. I think you'll find many Slashdotters and techies have the same disdain for what most people think of as "privacy." We'd rather argue our points with the public and hope to win over a few hearts and minds to our way of thinking than worry about whether someone might get an understanding of who we are.
I never have seen how you could possibly work to influence society and government without people knowing who you are. If no one knows who you are, what audience are you reaching? How can you hope to influence any changes without an audience?
I don't understand what anyone would be trying to accomplish by flipping the bird at their friends, families, relatives, the public, and complete strangers without even sharing a mutal "Hello" first.
What does such rudeness protest or demonstrate except a nasty and immature attitude to society at large?
It's a sad state of society we've come to in the name of free speech. Somewhere along the way, the freedom to speak your mind was misinterpreted as the right to offend everyone for no reason at all. Yet at the same time, I strongly believe that the fact someone might be offended by another's beliefs or actions does not give them the right to suppress the beliefs and actions of that individual.
The right to freedom of speech is the guarantee that someone is going to offend you. But while I have all the respect in the world for someone who stands up for their beliefs, even if I disagree with them and find their beliefs distasteful or offensive, I just can't bring myself to respect anyone who introduces themselves to the world by flipping the bird.
You should have outgrown such angst before you finished high school.
I like the idea of them officially enabling unlocking their phones. They really do stand at polar opposites to the Apple walled garden. No wonder the two companies are battling so fiercely -- they completely disagree with each other's business models.
But don't forget Sony was once the darling of the tech world for letting you run Linux on a PS/3.
The fact that the people of the United States not only tolerate but encourage chicken little security theatre over respecting their own Constitutional rights is a sad testament to a people who've forgotten who they were before 9/11.
Who've they stopped so far? An underwear bomber whose bomb wouldn't go off. Some guy with a car dealership who was theoretically contacted and working for an unbelievably incompetent and mismanaged foreign nation's security forces.
Yet they didn't stop the homegrown terrorism of that fellow who shot and killed a half dozen people or so recently. They haven't stopped the terrorism of gangs that control entire cities. They haven't leashed the horrors of oxycadone addiction in the general population. People in Iraq are still being blown up by crazed lunatics who fantasize of being rewarded by their God for murder and suicide. The Afghanistan conflict shows no signs of ending soon.
What, precisely, have the American people gained by giving up their right to be protected from unlawful searches and seizures? Even the Nazis only asked for papers at checkpoints; the police can harass you anytime, anywhere in the states to identify yourself and explain why you're where you are, and no one says boo about it.
How sad to see a nation fall prey to the manipulation of those who instill fear and distrust of a vaguely identified "other" to justify their abuses of the rights of the people.
I think this would be an absolutely fascinating job for any geek. Far more so than getting to work with the Disney robotics team or NASA's engineers.
Caregivers for the ill are almost always underpaid. The fact that you'd be feeding his computer systems instead of changing his sheets still leaves you in the unenviably low paid position of home care giver.
Imagine being able to work with him on new ideas for assistance technology that would help not only the professor, but other people who face severe communications challenges. There are more of them in the world than you think.
The more I think about it, the more I think this would be an intensely rewarding and satisfying position for someone on many levels. As long as it pays enough to survive, I'd think the experience would be irreplaceable.
After all, do missionaries get paid a lot of money to help people out in foreign nations? There's more to job satisfaction than money -- a lot more.
Show us something we haven't seen, with actors we haven't seen.
It worked for Star Wars. None of the cast members for the first movie was well known when it came out; their fame came FROM that movie.
Instead of regurgitating old movie titles with a plot and presentation that insults the story of the original telling, I'd like to see the studios digging through the wealth of books that have been written by many fantastic authors and adapting them to the screen.
I'd dearly love to see C. J. Cherryh's books given proper treatment. Why has no one ever done a "Dragonriders" movie? I can't even begin to catalogue the possibilities out there after literally reading thousands of books during the course of a lifetime.
I'd much rather enjoy an honest B-movie attempt at some of those stories than a big-budget blockbuster littered with the names of stars. I grew up enjoying movies with laughably bad special effects because they told good stories and had intriguing characters, or raised thoughtful issues. In the zeal for perfect video, Hollywood has forgotten how to entertain.
China's space program has already made major breakthroughs in a relatively short time, although it lags far behind the United States and Russia in space technology and experience.
Other than the considerations of zero gravity environmental safety, radiation protection, and atmospheric preservation, I can't think of anything special about "space technology." Sound engineering practices and safety standards come from long established research and experience and are applied to space exploration by NASA and others.
It seems trite, but even rocket science isn't rocket science any more. The nations have shared too much data and information for anyone to really be starting from scratch.
China has some pretty aggressive schedules tabled. It's interesting how much more can be done by a government which supports a space program than one that lets the bean counters cut such budgets. But it's not surprising -- China has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to tackle huge long term projects that would never even get approved in the US or Canada over the bleating of NIMBYs and environmentalists.
It's a subtle difference, but Chinese society has always emphasized the importance of the nation over the rights of an individual. I realize it's shocking to North Americans, but the Chinese immigrants and exchange workers I've talked with over the years think it's a good idea for the government to restrict the activities of protesters to quell dissent and social unrest. Most seem to consider it an honour to make a personal sacrifice in support of a big government program, rather than doing their best to stop the government from proceeding because it would inconvenience them.
Isn't it the user who posted the comment the one who's asking to have it taken down?
I fail to see how respecting the poster's implicit copyright over their statement allows the web site operator to refuse to remove the comment.
By insisting on keeping the defamatory post up despite the wishes of the poster, I would argue that the web site owners are assuming responsibility for that content, and are therefore liable for future lawsuits. They are not liable for the opinions of their users, but once they claim ownership of the content by refusing to take it down at the poster's request, that "who's responsible" game shifts focus rather dramatically.
I know this is going to get voted down by offended Americans, but...
After 9/11, the US government began dismantling support for Constitutional rights in favour of anti-terrorist security theatre. They invested billions in surveillance, security, police, staff, and computer systems. Yet despite that huge investment, they couldn't stop the domestic terrorism of the fellow in Texas who recently took out a half dozen people.
They claim to have stopped a few terrorists over the years, but when they've presented the "evidence" against those who were planning attacks, it turned out that the attackers were using ineffective techniques that were unlikely to kill anyone (e.g. The underwear bomber.)
Now they've stepped it up and officially denied the Constitutional rights of anyone the government deems a "terrorist", without having the nasty hassle of proving it to a judge and/or jury. They can just "hold" someone for years without charges or court cases while they "investigate".
SOPA is just the next step of that change in American policy. Instead of championing the legal system, they want to be the arbitrary judge and jury over the world.
Sorry, but the American government does not deserve that level of trust from the world when they can't even follow their own rules for governing a country.
And don't get me started about the persecution of medical cannabis users south of the border and the denial by the US government that cannabis has any medical use.
And yet some people can't understand why so many in the world hate the US and what it's done to their nations in the defense of "freedom" and "democracy." You can't go around invading people, ignoring their laws, ignoring your own laws, and expect to receive any measure of respect on the international stage.
But I bet not ONE of the Congressmen who support SOPA have ever even thought about how this bad legislation is going to be received by the rest of the world.
The only hard-nosed "dictator" manager I ever had was actually my shop-floor customer in one of my early jobs working at Northern Telecom. But it turned out it was just how he measured people's skills and knowledge -- if you weren't willing to defend your ideas against his "attack", he felt you hadn't thought things through and needed to go back to the drawing board.
Once you earned his respect by arguing your ideas successfully a few times, he became a real joy to work with because he respected your opinion without you having to prove you were willing to defend it again.
Maybe if more IT staff took and applied their courses in logical discourse and philosophical arguments, they'd be better prepared for dealing with such management styles. Too many of my co-workers over the years were lousy speakers and presenters, and couldn't convince anyone they were right about anything, so they were always frustrated and claiming that everyone was against them.
Try Toastmasters or sign up for some philosophy courses at your local university. If you need the practice at presenting an argument, it's invaluable and a lot of fun.
Don't blame people for "not understanding" if you don't know how to express yourself.
They're just a bunch of kids trying to use sex to sell their viewpoint. How can you take a movement that announced plans to do softcore porn on their planned.xxx website within weeks of.xxx becoming available?
Do you seriously suggest that they're acting in a way that deserves respect of women? My attitude gives them what they want -- attentive stares.
I treat ladies with respect, but the PETA protestors are not "ladies" -- they're shameless tramps who can't get attention except by flashing their titties.
With a brand as loved and popular as Apple's, a boycott by a few concerned geeks isn't going to even register as a rounding error on their profits.
If you want change, work to demand patent reform to prevent anti-competitive abuses of the patent system by not only Apple, but all tech companies existing and future. Apple is just the most recent poster child for patent abuse -- the problem is that the patent system is broken, not that Apple is "evil."
Apple is just leveraging the tools they see at their disposal to maximize profits. Any corporation run by an MBA team instead of an idealistic family founder does the same.
But a computing machine is actually far more straight-forward than the way an electronic computer works. It would be much slower, but I don't think it would be any more prone to breakdown than the vacuum tube machines were to burned-out tubes. Compare a mechanical desk-top adding machine of old to the earliest calculators -- they really weren't that much bulkier near the end of the era of the adding machines.
And the odds are, if you find one, the adding machine will still work.
Anyone who's ever dealt with sheep, cattle, pigs, and other livestock on a farm knows damn well they're not intelligent, aware, emotional creatures like the higher life forms I mentioned. Don't be an idiot.
Oh? And when do the South Americans, the Africans, and some regions of Europe get their turn to be the "cheap labour provider to the world"?
China and India are leveraging their way out of dismal economies, but that's changing the very nature of their societies and economies in the process. Neither is a third-world nation by any stretch of the imagination any more.
If I ever buy a tablet device, it'll most likely be Android based because of the Java-based programming core. With an iDevice, I'd have to buy a Mac and Apple software to play with it.
Isn't there an international standard of a 200 mile influence from a nation's shores, subject to negotiation of overlapping districts?
Regardless, the Japanese claims of "scientific research" seem like a flimsy excuse for the slaughter. Whales are intelligent, emotional creatures like dolphins. They communicate over vast distances. Just because they're not human doesn't mean we should be slaughtering them any more than we should primates.
They're too far up the evolutionary chain to be treated as common food animals.
It has nothing to do with an "American Centric" viewpoint. ANSI was an established standard, it worked, and it worked well. I could care less whether ANSI or ISO certifies a standard provided that it's serving sane goals, and I don't see these "extensions" as sane.
C was literally a very nice macro assembler for the PDP-11 instruction set, with the way the language handled pointers, addressing, and instructions like "++" mapped directly to opcodes, making for a very simpler compiler. It got more complex after those K&R beginnings, and ANSI tried to clean up the specifications to handle generic neuman architectures, not just PDP and VAX.
"Making it more compatible with C++" is bullshit. C++ calls C, not the other way around. And if you need to expose C++ code to C invokers, it's a matter of using the appropriate C++ syntax to define the function signatures necessary. You don't need to change C to achieve that, because it's been done and working for over 20 years!
This is another example of a bad "standard" coming out of biased committee on the wrong mission, not a US vs the world problem.
If the device does not support corporate network encryption, it's not allowed to connect to the corporate network (because it can't, and security holes will not be opened to enable insecure devices.)
If the device does not support encryption of local data, no applications which require local data storage will be allowed to run on that device.
If the device does not integrate with existing network management tools, it will not be supported. We're not redoing the network infrastructure to support your iShiny.
The same goes for your pet software, your pet tools, and anything else that isn't already approved and part of the corporate standard.
It's not a question of what the user wants, but what the company systems administrators have to do to comply with federal and provincial data security regulations. Compliance is not an option if you want to serve certain markets, and it would be wise for any company which has customer data of any kind to look to those privacy standards when implementing their corporate systems. It is better to design the infrastructure to support future markets and exceed mandated standards than to risk lawsuits from customers in the event the corporate systems are penetrated.
Patents are supposed to be for inventions and implementations, not theories and generic "business ideas."
The US patent system is so stacked against the individual developer and in favour of the established conglomerate that I decided a long time ago that I would never open a US office for my business. Instead, I'll let US companies establish partnerships to deliver services to the US market under their own branding, and let them deal with the US legal nightmare. All contracts will be signed on Canadian soil under Canadian law, where I have some hope of defending myself against the patent trolls.
Better to delay a month re-checking everything than to blow up the whole shipment. NASA may have often been late, but they didn't lose very many launches as a result.
It'll be interesting to see how some of the newer private lift companies fare -- is their rethinking and updated engineering going to result in more reliable delivery, or more failures?
I'm also curious to see how the Chinese fare as they step forth into space -- so far they're doing pretty good.
Slashdot Mirror
Copyright is the identification of the individual legally responsible for content. Everyone has implicit copyright on what they say, should they choose to identify themselves when they say it. You can also claim explicit copyright over a phrase by simply making a public statement of claim. It's a perfectly valid legal construct.
An access license to the copyright content is another matter entirely. When you post to a website, you're agreeing to grant them and their readers a grant of license to view what you've written. You did that when you accepted their terms of use and conduct.
But you still retain your original copyright, and you have the legal right to change your mind about licensing at any time unless someone can somehow demonstrate that their copyright and licensing agreements conflict with yours and that they don't agree with the change (witness the difficulty of getting the thousands of contributors to the Linux kernel to even vote on something so serious as a change from the GPLv2 license they originally agreed to work together under.)
Now if someone chose to quote you while you had granted an access license, you can't chase them down to remove the copy of the content they quoted because they've exercised a right to reasonable use of publicly accessible media. But I believe you have EVERY right to expect that a website respect your copyright and your right to determine what license that copyrighted information is to be available under, if at all.
Don't get me wrong -- that doesn't mean the website owner has to actually delete all records of the original post. That could get difficult if it's been archived and backed up. But you as a website owner should be held responsible for allowing the user to remove the content from view, as Google+ and Facebook do when you delete a comment.
If a site doesn't allow deletion by the poster, they should be reminded of that every single time they post so they're aware that it's going to be out there for all time. I think of the Slashdot "Preview" button as that reminder that what you're about to post is going to be there forever -- here's one last chance to review it and make any edits before you've committed yourself to....
A statement.
Once you click that final approval, you've given birth to an independent thought and shared it with the world. Your only future recourse on slashdot is to clarify and argue with detractors when they respond to what you've said.
In the same situation, how hard would it be to have the Slashdot editors remove a post that you changed your mind about?
Funny. Most of the sites I visit have specific disclaimers that the comments are the property of the poster and that the site takes no responsibility for what it's posters say. It's been a long time since I've seen a website be so foolish as to accept the responsibility for the legal risks of user's content by claiming ownership of that content.
That depends. I've been very public on internet forums and websites for years. Most of my profiles are intentionally wide open so the general public can read my opinions without me ever having to give them permission to do so. I think you'll find many Slashdotters and techies have the same disdain for what most people think of as "privacy." We'd rather argue our points with the public and hope to win over a few hearts and minds to our way of thinking than worry about whether someone might get an understanding of who we are.
I never have seen how you could possibly work to influence society and government without people knowing who you are. If no one knows who you are, what audience are you reaching? How can you hope to influence any changes without an audience?
I don't understand what anyone would be trying to accomplish by flipping the bird at their friends, families, relatives, the public, and complete strangers without even sharing a mutal "Hello" first.
What does such rudeness protest or demonstrate except a nasty and immature attitude to society at large?
It's a sad state of society we've come to in the name of free speech. Somewhere along the way, the freedom to speak your mind was misinterpreted as the right to offend everyone for no reason at all. Yet at the same time, I strongly believe that the fact someone might be offended by another's beliefs or actions does not give them the right to suppress the beliefs and actions of that individual.
The right to freedom of speech is the guarantee that someone is going to offend you. But while I have all the respect in the world for someone who stands up for their beliefs, even if I disagree with them and find their beliefs distasteful or offensive, I just can't bring myself to respect anyone who introduces themselves to the world by flipping the bird.
You should have outgrown such angst before you finished high school.
I like the idea of them officially enabling unlocking their phones. They really do stand at polar opposites to the Apple walled garden. No wonder the two companies are battling so fiercely -- they completely disagree with each other's business models.
But don't forget Sony was once the darling of the tech world for letting you run Linux on a PS/3.
George Orwell was an optimist.
The fact that the people of the United States not only tolerate but encourage chicken little security theatre over respecting their own Constitutional rights is a sad testament to a people who've forgotten who they were before 9/11.
Who've they stopped so far? An underwear bomber whose bomb wouldn't go off. Some guy with a car dealership who was theoretically contacted and working for an unbelievably incompetent and mismanaged foreign nation's security forces.
Yet they didn't stop the homegrown terrorism of that fellow who shot and killed a half dozen people or so recently. They haven't stopped the terrorism of gangs that control entire cities. They haven't leashed the horrors of oxycadone addiction in the general population. People in Iraq are still being blown up by crazed lunatics who fantasize of being rewarded by their God for murder and suicide. The Afghanistan conflict shows no signs of ending soon.
What, precisely, have the American people gained by giving up their right to be protected from unlawful searches and seizures? Even the Nazis only asked for papers at checkpoints; the police can harass you anytime, anywhere in the states to identify yourself and explain why you're where you are, and no one says boo about it.
How sad to see a nation fall prey to the manipulation of those who instill fear and distrust of a vaguely identified "other" to justify their abuses of the rights of the people.
I think this would be an absolutely fascinating job for any geek. Far more so than getting to work with the Disney robotics team or NASA's engineers.
Caregivers for the ill are almost always underpaid. The fact that you'd be feeding his computer systems instead of changing his sheets still leaves you in the unenviably low paid position of home care giver.
Imagine being able to work with him on new ideas for assistance technology that would help not only the professor, but other people who face severe communications challenges. There are more of them in the world than you think.
The more I think about it, the more I think this would be an intensely rewarding and satisfying position for someone on many levels. As long as it pays enough to survive, I'd think the experience would be irreplaceable.
After all, do missionaries get paid a lot of money to help people out in foreign nations? There's more to job satisfaction than money -- a lot more.
It worked for Star Wars. None of the cast members for the first movie was well known when it came out; their fame came FROM that movie.
Instead of regurgitating old movie titles with a plot and presentation that insults the story of the original telling, I'd like to see the studios digging through the wealth of books that have been written by many fantastic authors and adapting them to the screen.
I'd dearly love to see C. J. Cherryh's books given proper treatment. Why has no one ever done a "Dragonriders" movie? I can't even begin to catalogue the possibilities out there after literally reading thousands of books during the course of a lifetime.
I'd much rather enjoy an honest B-movie attempt at some of those stories than a big-budget blockbuster littered with the names of stars. I grew up enjoying movies with laughably bad special effects because they told good stories and had intriguing characters, or raised thoughtful issues. In the zeal for perfect video, Hollywood has forgotten how to entertain.
Other than the considerations of zero gravity environmental safety, radiation protection, and atmospheric preservation, I can't think of anything special about "space technology." Sound engineering practices and safety standards come from long established research and experience and are applied to space exploration by NASA and others.
It seems trite, but even rocket science isn't rocket science any more. The nations have shared too much data and information for anyone to really be starting from scratch.
China has some pretty aggressive schedules tabled. It's interesting how much more can be done by a government which supports a space program than one that lets the bean counters cut such budgets. But it's not surprising -- China has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to tackle huge long term projects that would never even get approved in the US or Canada over the bleating of NIMBYs and environmentalists.
It's a subtle difference, but Chinese society has always emphasized the importance of the nation over the rights of an individual. I realize it's shocking to North Americans, but the Chinese immigrants and exchange workers I've talked with over the years think it's a good idea for the government to restrict the activities of protesters to quell dissent and social unrest. Most seem to consider it an honour to make a personal sacrifice in support of a big government program, rather than doing their best to stop the government from proceeding because it would inconvenience them.
Isn't it the user who posted the comment the one who's asking to have it taken down?
I fail to see how respecting the poster's implicit copyright over their statement allows the web site operator to refuse to remove the comment.
By insisting on keeping the defamatory post up despite the wishes of the poster, I would argue that the web site owners are assuming responsibility for that content, and are therefore liable for future lawsuits. They are not liable for the opinions of their users, but once they claim ownership of the content by refusing to take it down at the poster's request, that "who's responsible" game shifts focus rather dramatically.
I know this is going to get voted down by offended Americans, but...
After 9/11, the US government began dismantling support for Constitutional rights in favour of anti-terrorist security theatre. They invested billions in surveillance, security, police, staff, and computer systems. Yet despite that huge investment, they couldn't stop the domestic terrorism of the fellow in Texas who recently took out a half dozen people.
They claim to have stopped a few terrorists over the years, but when they've presented the "evidence" against those who were planning attacks, it turned out that the attackers were using ineffective techniques that were unlikely to kill anyone (e.g. The underwear bomber.)
Now they've stepped it up and officially denied the Constitutional rights of anyone the government deems a "terrorist", without having the nasty hassle of proving it to a judge and/or jury. They can just "hold" someone for years without charges or court cases while they "investigate".
SOPA is just the next step of that change in American policy. Instead of championing the legal system, they want to be the arbitrary judge and jury over the world.
Sorry, but the American government does not deserve that level of trust from the world when they can't even follow their own rules for governing a country.
And don't get me started about the persecution of medical cannabis users south of the border and the denial by the US government that cannabis has any medical use.
And yet some people can't understand why so many in the world hate the US and what it's done to their nations in the defense of "freedom" and "democracy." You can't go around invading people, ignoring their laws, ignoring your own laws, and expect to receive any measure of respect on the international stage.
But I bet not ONE of the Congressmen who support SOPA have ever even thought about how this bad legislation is going to be received by the rest of the world.
The only hard-nosed "dictator" manager I ever had was actually my shop-floor customer in one of my early jobs working at Northern Telecom. But it turned out it was just how he measured people's skills and knowledge -- if you weren't willing to defend your ideas against his "attack", he felt you hadn't thought things through and needed to go back to the drawing board.
Once you earned his respect by arguing your ideas successfully a few times, he became a real joy to work with because he respected your opinion without you having to prove you were willing to defend it again.
Maybe if more IT staff took and applied their courses in logical discourse and philosophical arguments, they'd be better prepared for dealing with such management styles. Too many of my co-workers over the years were lousy speakers and presenters, and couldn't convince anyone they were right about anything, so they were always frustrated and claiming that everyone was against them.
Try Toastmasters or sign up for some philosophy courses at your local university. If you need the practice at presenting an argument, it's invaluable and a lot of fun.
Don't blame people for "not understanding" if you don't know how to express yourself.
Sorry, Dude, but I've got no respect for PETA.
They're just a bunch of kids trying to use sex to sell their viewpoint. How can you take a movement that announced plans to do softcore porn on their planned .xxx website within weeks of .xxx becoming available?
Do you seriously suggest that they're acting in a way that deserves respect of women? My attitude gives them what they want -- attentive stares.
I treat ladies with respect, but the PETA protestors are not "ladies" -- they're shameless tramps who can't get attention except by flashing their titties.
With a brand as loved and popular as Apple's, a boycott by a few concerned geeks isn't going to even register as a rounding error on their profits.
If you want change, work to demand patent reform to prevent anti-competitive abuses of the patent system by not only Apple, but all tech companies existing and future. Apple is just the most recent poster child for patent abuse -- the problem is that the patent system is broken, not that Apple is "evil."
Apple is just leveraging the tools they see at their disposal to maximize profits. Any corporation run by an MBA team instead of an idealistic family founder does the same.
It's too bad they're afraid to rely on the quality of their products instead of abusing the patent system to blockade competition.
But a computing machine is actually far more straight-forward than the way an electronic computer works. It would be much slower, but I don't think it would be any more prone to breakdown than the vacuum tube machines were to burned-out tubes. Compare a mechanical desk-top adding machine of old to the earliest calculators -- they really weren't that much bulkier near the end of the era of the adding machines.
And the odds are, if you find one, the adding machine will still work.
Pretty Emotional Tits and Ass. Ever notice that PETA protests are always held by half naked young women?
Where are the grandmothers? The aunts and uncles? The people who might have a little experience in life and with animals? Are there any PETA farmers?
PETA amuses me. And most of them are cute.
Yep, I'm a hetero male. I look, I drool, and I'm not ashamed of it.
Anyone who's ever dealt with sheep, cattle, pigs, and other livestock on a farm knows damn well they're not intelligent, aware, emotional creatures like the higher life forms I mentioned. Don't be an idiot.
Oh? And when do the South Americans, the Africans, and some regions of Europe get their turn to be the "cheap labour provider to the world"?
China and India are leveraging their way out of dismal economies, but that's changing the very nature of their societies and economies in the process. Neither is a third-world nation by any stretch of the imagination any more.
If I ever buy a tablet device, it'll most likely be Android based because of the Java-based programming core. With an iDevice, I'd have to buy a Mac and Apple software to play with it.
Isn't there an international standard of a 200 mile influence from a nation's shores, subject to negotiation of overlapping districts?
Regardless, the Japanese claims of "scientific research" seem like a flimsy excuse for the slaughter. Whales are intelligent, emotional creatures like dolphins. They communicate over vast distances. Just because they're not human doesn't mean we should be slaughtering them any more than we should primates.
They're too far up the evolutionary chain to be treated as common food animals.
It has nothing to do with an "American Centric" viewpoint. ANSI was an established standard, it worked, and it worked well. I could care less whether ANSI or ISO certifies a standard provided that it's serving sane goals, and I don't see these "extensions" as sane.
C was literally a very nice macro assembler for the PDP-11 instruction set, with the way the language handled pointers, addressing, and instructions like "++" mapped directly to opcodes, making for a very simpler compiler. It got more complex after those K&R beginnings, and ANSI tried to clean up the specifications to handle generic neuman architectures, not just PDP and VAX.
"Making it more compatible with C++" is bullshit. C++ calls C, not the other way around. And if you need to expose C++ code to C invokers, it's a matter of using the appropriate C++ syntax to define the function signatures necessary. You don't need to change C to achieve that, because it's been done and working for over 20 years!
This is another example of a bad "standard" coming out of biased committee on the wrong mission, not a US vs the world problem.
If the device does not support corporate network encryption, it's not allowed to connect to the corporate network (because it can't, and security holes will not be opened to enable insecure devices.)
If the device does not support encryption of local data, no applications which require local data storage will be allowed to run on that device.
If the device does not integrate with existing network management tools, it will not be supported. We're not redoing the network infrastructure to support your iShiny.
The same goes for your pet software, your pet tools, and anything else that isn't already approved and part of the corporate standard.
It's not a question of what the user wants, but what the company systems administrators have to do to comply with federal and provincial data security regulations. Compliance is not an option if you want to serve certain markets, and it would be wise for any company which has customer data of any kind to look to those privacy standards when implementing their corporate systems. It is better to design the infrastructure to support future markets and exceed mandated standards than to risk lawsuits from customers in the event the corporate systems are penetrated.
Patents are supposed to be for inventions and implementations, not theories and generic "business ideas."
The US patent system is so stacked against the individual developer and in favour of the established conglomerate that I decided a long time ago that I would never open a US office for my business. Instead, I'll let US companies establish partnerships to deliver services to the US market under their own branding, and let them deal with the US legal nightmare. All contracts will be signed on Canadian soil under Canadian law, where I have some hope of defending myself against the patent trolls.
Better to delay a month re-checking everything than to blow up the whole shipment. NASA may have often been late, but they didn't lose very many launches as a result.
It'll be interesting to see how some of the newer private lift companies fare -- is their rethinking and updated engineering going to result in more reliable delivery, or more failures?
I'm also curious to see how the Chinese fare as they step forth into space -- so far they're doing pretty good.