Most of what you say about the US mobile phone system vs the european is true, but you miss some things though.
In Europe you pay phone calls per minute - it's the same with cell phones. Flat rate basically doesn't exist. For example, my cell phone subscription (in Sweden) costs me the equivalent of $8 per month. That includes 0 minutes. I pay per minute, and it gets added to my phone bill. It's 35c per minute daytime, evenings and weekends 2.5c. If I don't use all the minutes on my american account, the swedish/european system might be cheaper. Most months I run a bill of about $25-$30.
Then, the next BIG difference that most people seems not to be aware of is that in Europe you don't pay for incoming calls. (When I lived in the US there was a fax machine that called me every now and then... and it cost me money/minutes to answer and hear the screeeech sound...:-( )
To me the most frustrating thing about living in the US and the cellphones and all was to see the ads online of the cool phones that were out in Sweden and knowing that it wouldn't be in the US for another six months or so - if at all. I suspect this is changing now.
I don't want to say that either system is better or worse, to me, it's just different.
I used to feel at least a small pang of guilt when listening to downloaded music - if I like it, I feel like I should give the musician something back somehow.
Nowadays, with the recording companies trying to force me into buying worse products at higher prices (now there's a way of competing you won't learn in school!) I'm getting so annoyed that I *really* don't want to buy anything. If I do, some of my money will go into things like crappy CD's and lawsuits, which I don't want to support.
It's becoming a political statement for me not to buy CD's or copy protected music. At least not at full price.
And that will of course make the record companies think there's even more DL'ing going on, with more efforts on their part to stop me... and if I buy they will conclude that their strategies worked...
Strangely, it seems like we'll both loose. They won't get my money and I won't get the music that I want. Oh bummer. What's needed is a new business idea, where the middleman is either gone or doing something else.
Speaking about making things because it's fun...
on
Decentralization
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
This reminds me of the Japanese art of Chindogu. This is the art of making inventions because it can be done and because it is fun, and has nothing to do with usefulness. In fact, to be a true Chindogu ("weird tool") it's not allowed to be useful!
In general, a good chindogu solves a real problem but creates a new one at the same time.
Like one of my favorites: The solar powered flashlight.
Well... Interesting points but doesn't work. This kind of law would never pass in Europe, where in general the governments are much stronger than in the US. So the power of the government doesn't really have much to do with it.
It's actually funny how some Americans seems to miss that there are other countries, trying out other ways for good and for bad. There is nothing wrong in learning from each other instead of guessing. But that's another issue.
This is interesting. This kind of law could only be passed in the US, and would certainly not kill off open source in other parts of the world. In Germany there were recently a law proposed that would mandate use of Opern Source in state-owned computers. (Don't know what happened to that, though...) In Europe and Asia people will still be using Linux. If enforced, this would be really bad for the information technology industry in the US.
On the other hand - if the rest of the world uses open source it'll be really hard for the US to enforce this kind of law. Should americans not be allowed the same freedoms? And what will the EU do when the FBI starts arresting Europeans on vacation who are running Linux on their laptops?
In essence, it is unenforceable and will create the same kind of situations as the Dimitri Sklyarov thing did this summer. So I wouldn't worry to much about OSS in this situation - but then again, passing laws that are not intended to be enforced is just plain nonsense.
In Europe laws are being created by the governing bodies, not by precedents in court. So decisions by (potentially) uninformed judges does not have the same importance as in the US. Thus lawyers does not rule the different countries, democratically elected governments do. If you ask me (not that anybody did, I'm just giving my two cents anyway) the US courts have way to much power.... that way simply doesn't work in Europe.
Since Intel is mainly a hardware producer, you'd think they would give away their compiler and even open up the source for it - and thereby boost their chip sales.
Apparently, a program sold today is more worth to intel than 10 P4's in a week. Of course, they will have to offer support and maintain the compiler as well - which will cost money in the future. They're making a lot of strange decisions over in Santa Clara these days.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of what you say about the US mobile phone system vs the european is true, but you miss some things though.
... and it cost me money/minutes to answer and hear the screeeech sound... :-( )
In Europe you pay phone calls per minute - it's the same with cell phones. Flat rate basically doesn't exist. For example, my cell phone subscription (in Sweden) costs me the equivalent of $8 per month. That includes 0 minutes. I pay per minute, and it gets added to my phone bill. It's 35c per minute daytime, evenings and weekends 2.5c. If I don't use all the minutes on my american account, the swedish/european system might be cheaper. Most months I run a bill of about $25-$30.
Then, the next BIG difference that most people seems not to be aware of is that in Europe you don't pay for incoming calls. (When I lived in the US there was a fax machine that called me every now and then
To me the most frustrating thing about living in the US and the cellphones and all was to see the ads online of the cool phones that were out in Sweden and knowing that it wouldn't be in the US for another six months or so - if at all. I suspect this is changing now.
I don't want to say that either system is better or worse, to me, it's just different.
I used to feel at least a small pang of guilt when listening to downloaded music - if I like it, I feel like I should give the musician something back somehow.
... and if I buy they will conclude that their strategies worked...
Nowadays, with the recording companies trying to force me into buying worse products at higher prices (now there's a way of competing you won't learn in school!) I'm getting so annoyed that I *really* don't want to buy anything. If I do, some of my money will go into things like crappy CD's and lawsuits, which I don't want to support.
It's becoming a political statement for me not to buy CD's or copy protected music. At least not at full price.
And that will of course make the record companies think there's even more DL'ing going on, with more efforts on their part to stop me
Strangely, it seems like we'll both loose. They won't get my money and I won't get the music that I want. Oh bummer. What's needed is a new business idea, where the middleman is either gone or doing something else.
In general, a good chindogu solves a real problem but creates a new one at the same time.
Like one of my favorites: The solar powered flashlight.
Well... Interesting points but doesn't work. This kind of law would never pass in Europe, where in general the governments are much stronger than in the US. So the power of the government doesn't really have much to do with it.
It's actually funny how some Americans seems to miss that there are other countries, trying out other ways for good and for bad. There is nothing wrong in learning from each other instead of guessing. But that's another issue.
This is interesting. This kind of law could only be passed in the US, and would certainly not kill off open source in other parts of the world. In Germany there were recently a law proposed that would mandate use of Opern Source in state-owned computers. (Don't know what happened to that, though...) In Europe and Asia people will still be using Linux. If enforced, this would be really bad for the information technology industry in the US.
On the other hand - if the rest of the world uses open source it'll be really hard for the US to enforce this kind of law. Should americans not be allowed the same freedoms? And what will the EU do when the FBI starts arresting Europeans on vacation who are running Linux on their laptops?
In essence, it is unenforceable and will create the same kind of situations as the Dimitri Sklyarov thing did this summer. So I wouldn't worry to much about OSS in this situation - but then again, passing laws that are not intended to be enforced is just plain nonsense.
In Europe laws are being created by the governing bodies, not by precedents in court. So decisions by (potentially) uninformed judges does not have the same importance as in the US. Thus lawyers does not rule the different countries, democratically elected governments do. If you ask me (not that anybody did, I'm just giving my two cents anyway) the US courts have way to much power .... that way simply doesn't work in Europe.
Since Intel is mainly a hardware producer, you'd think they would give away their compiler and even open up the source for it - and thereby boost their chip sales. Apparently, a program sold today is more worth to intel than 10 P4's in a week. Of course, they will have to offer support and maintain the compiler as well - which will cost money in the future. They're making a lot of strange decisions over in Santa Clara these days.