Well, it's never gonna be that simple. I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC would ultimately want to do that, they've been making noises about opening up the archives for a while now. The independent channels don't want this though, as it would undermine their DVD business. (if you can get loads of content for free from the BBC why pay for other channels' content? There's only a limited number of viewing hours in the day)
There's also the issue of BBC likely not holding copyright on everything they show. Then you've got the choice of negotiating with the third party, and they're gonna be a bit more protective. Do you exclude them from the service, or include them with some sort of DRM? Just because there is DRM available doesn't mean it will be used all the time. It's tricky, and I doubt the issue is as clear and horrendous as some/.ers will have you believe.
Ah, suck it up. It's a tax, always has been a tax. Finding a random situation where you personally believe you pay enough doesn't change the fact that you're paying for a public broadcaster. The BBC is a useful thing to have around, like schools and hospitals and welfare it's a good thing even if you might not use it personally.
Pay your licence and be happy that not everything in Britain is driven by commercial interests.
Re:The GPL: Intellectual Theft
on
GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
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· Score: 3, Informative
What annoys me most about this sort of study is there very rarely seems to be any sort of effort made to determine cause-and-effect. ie isn't it unsurprising that people who enjoy driving are more likely to be bending the rules on the road? Who plays driving games... young men. Who is the most aggressive / risktaking demographic who will end up taking risks... young men.
Cause and effect are all the wrong way round here.
Errr... how long ago were you here?! The sort of Soviet-styled three-rectangular-pin has been mandated by law for a *long* time now, and has been dominant on everything for atleast 20 years. I've never seen a wall socket with round pins (though have occasionally seen the odd round 2-pin plugs and adaptors for very old tech). The electric razor 115v socket is only really seen in hotels.
Not buying products that we don't need from these countries would have an immediate economic impact because these countries would have massive unemployment which would probably cause the people to demand changes.Fine, I don't disagree in principal. But it is a massive task for any one person to educate themselves as to the source of everything they may need (or want) to buy, and the working conditions there, mitigating circumstances, whatever, and make an appropriate decision. It is a huge duplication of effort and (let's be honest) never going to happen in any big way since most people do not have time. I know this is an unpopular point-of-view here.... but this is what we have governments for. To put appropriate pressure and do the leg-work on behalf of the people.
The OP is correct. We buy tons of crap we don't need. But my point in my previous post is where do you draw the line? What don't you need? Do you need a computer? a car? hot running water? hair products? new shoes? We don't want to live in poverty, but we *could*, we don't *need* these things.
Go outside. Take a walk. Work off the extra pounds you put on stuffing yourself with obscene amounts of food last Thursday. And while you're out there, walking around, contemplate the fact that our nation is in an unwinnable war, the gap between rich and poor is expanding at a record rate (partly due to the fact that our jobs are being sold to the lowest overseas bidder), our national savings rate is negative, and we're likely funding our economic "expansion" with home loans and credit-card debt.Oh get off your high-horse. I find it somewhat unlikely that the problems of the world are going to be solved by buying less stuff, infact the immediate economic impact would be highly damaging if 'we stop buying stuff we don't need'. High savings can be just as damaging to the economy as high borrowings, cause if people aren't spending then nobody's being paid to provide the goods.
What do you deem unnecessary crap exactly? You're writing that post on a computer, do you own a computer? Do you really need it? What about your car, how big is it? Do you really need a vehicle that powerful, or at all?
We all buy stuff we don't need, it's the spoils of being lucky enough to be in a part of the world and a job where we can. Get over it.
With this step, SUN has became the largest commercial contributor to the free and open source software pool. OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris, now JAVA - well, kudos!
NFS... Netbeans... JXTA...
Sun has been the biggest commercial contributor to Open Source for some time now... this just makes it even more so.
If you don't agree with the movie industry, don't support them.
I've never really been convinced by this as an argument, because the stakes are quite high for the individual for little or no effect on the company the action is supposed to be against.
Culture is not replacable, it's not like cheese where you just buy a different brand, and they're all much the same. If you don't go see the films made by companies in the MPAA then pretty much don't go to the cinema. Which makes you separated from society (a little, but it is important) because you have to make a point and you don't have the knowledge to bond with other humans by talking about that common experience... And you don't get to have the pleasure of seeing the film that you probably quite want to see.
And what's the effect on the film studio? They just put your loss down to piracy and go on complaining and lobbying for new measures.
I don't really know the solution, but I would think that focussed counter-lobbying is going to be far more effective and less ambiguous (and less personally damaging) than "vote with your wallet"....Carl
For council tax and tv license, I can't pay for six months, I have to pay the whole amount, and apply for a refund when I finish
Why is that so odd? How is that not a normal tax system? Anyway, TV Licence and Council tax are (or can be) paid monthly *anyway*, so I have no idea what you're bitching about.
Ah, hang on, we have a "separated by a common language" issue here. UK manslaughter is (roughly, I believe) equivalentin to 2nd degree murder in the States. UK murder only refers 1st degree murder in the states.
Since the GGP post was from the UK I was being pedantic in British-English...
I realise I'm getting a bit pedantic here but that's the definition of manslaughter, not murder. Murder is *by definition* pre-planned.
Also, I would disagree that someone who is unstable enough to kill someone during the course of an argument is not a danger to society. What about the next time someone spills their pint on him?
Right, so you agree with the point I'm trying to make then that speech shouldn't be free if it causes others harm.
No, what I actually said was causes *direct* harm, and is *also* irresponsible and factually incorrect. If you shout "Bomb" in a shopping centre when there isn't one, that would be all those things. Obviously the harm from shouting that outweighs the non-existent good. This is an extreme, but as soon as you get away from the extreme, supressing things is very very dangerous.
Your other examples are very woolly, "could be used by terrorists" "might cause a violent revolution" when there are also non-harmful conclusions to those actions and the likely positive effects are so much bigger anyway.
You say you think all antagonising isn't necessarily bad, but I would say that's incompatible with this statement from your previous post:
It is also my responsibility to society to show some sensibilty and not antagonise my fellow man.
Of course a line is drawn somewhere, but I would argue that where isn't up for debate (if I can do that non-recursively). Anything can be justified as harmful speech if you aren't specific about what to prohibit.
Does the right to free speach then give me the right to walk into a crowded mall and shout "BOMB!"?
A poor example, shouting "fire" in a theatre is doing something factually incorrect, irresponsible and likely to cause direct physical harm. Free speech has this proviso, but this is a world away from what we're talking about here.
Suppose I had a habit of finding the biggest jock on the field and saying "You American Footballer's are wusses for wearing all that armour - play a proper sport like rugby and stop being a girl hiding behind that padding". Would I expect the police to protect me from that guy kicking 7 bells of $h*t out of me?
Well, actually, in a peaceful society, yes you would. You would be stupid to think that the police have time to do so, but in theory atleast, you have not started violence so sould be able to expect none back. Even if we assume that you have incited violence by your words, you're talking about an unconsidered responce from an individual, not a considered responce from an institution! We should expect a responsible organisation to react in a more measured way!
I've come to the conclusion that free speach is about the right to express opinions, as opposed to the right to say anything anywhere. It is also my responsibility to society to show some sensibilty and not antagonise my fellow man.
Rubbish, sometimes people need antagonising to break them out of their complacency. What would have happened if the Sufferogettes decided not to antagonise, or perhaps Martin Luther King thought he'd better allow the status quo to continue. History is littered with people who have the guts to say "this isn't right, I'm going to do something" and it's up to *every* person to guide their own life and what happens around them in an ethical way.
This is about a person having their whole future thrown into question because they feel they have been badly treated, and said so.
I have to admit I let my licence slip this year, after having not used it for several. It's one of those social things that needs a critical mass of people to be interesting, and despite living in a fairly densely propulated area of the UK, I found very few people my age (at that time ~17) to talk to. The internet provided a much greater population density... so i went there.
From a techincal perspective it's still cool, but if you want to talk to people it's easier to go on the net......Carl (ex 2E1FNC)
Fine & great... if it all worked. Visual Studio is still horrendously buggy, the more integration and features they put in the less time seems to be spend making the damn thing work. I'm all for stuff being added that's useful, but considering the constant inconvenience of having to restart because it's decided to randomly lock previously compiled dlls, or that you lose GUI work because the form designer has got confused and deleted controls, the frustration and time wasted far outweighs the minor benefits.
Does anyone else think that Microsoft's obsession with integrating every damn piece of software that they release is actually hurting their software rather than making it easier to use?
I worked in Visual Studio 2003 for 2 years and waited with baited breath for 2005 (and all the bugs and new features it was promised to bring), it slipped back more than a year because SQLServer 2005 wasn't ready, then Team System wasn't ready... Now it's finally released and it isn't the fantastic piece of software we thought it would be, partly I recon because the focus wasn't on the IDE, it was on making it and a ridiculous amount of satellite software all work together and integrate seemlessly. Can't help thinking Microsoft would be better off if they *weren't* able to work so closely together!
What sort of argument is that? If Intel disappeared then AMD would not be able to cope with the gap? Well duh... things don't change that quickly, AMD are always going to have time to ramp up their production as market share shifts. For that matter, if AMD disappeared then I'd bet even the great and bountiful Intel would have a hard time filling that 20% or so.
Plus if Intel closed up shop, suddenly there'd be lots of fabs and extra supplies up for sale...
Nobody claims that Intel should not exist, but their squeezing over the last few years has been good for everybody. (well, except Intel maybe)
Obviously you haven't had to look for a job recently. It's a hell of a lot more annoying to be the "good" person that is lost... and often it is a non-trivial exercise to get to interviews. That "45 minute interview" can typically take a good few hours to travel to, meaning time off work and all the costs associated with that. Whatever company it is, there's a finite number of times most people can afford to travel to interviews, and lets be honest, any interviewer worth his salt will be able to size up an employee fairly quickly, I find it difficult to understand why more than 2 interviews is ever necessary.
I did look into this as a sort of half-way house between total openness and total closed, think it's been on/. before. You're supposed to be able to limit how much is available to the outside world.
Would be cool if it took off, though when I tried it the firmware didn't seem to work particularly well, it wouldn't let my Palm connect so I gave up. Perhaps when it's had more time to mature this could be a compromise...
I've often thought about openning my AP, but I just know that after a week or two some jerk is going to use my DSL connection as his own personal torrent link. If I was using someone's DSL connection I'd limit myself to just normal browsing and light email. Those morons ruin it for everyone else.
Ye gods, what sort of cynical attitude is that?! You haven't opened up your connection, so actually have no idea whether "those morons" will ruin it or not. Plenty of other people have posted here that people are polite and don't cause problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it's never gonna be that simple. I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC would ultimately want to do that, they've been making noises about opening up the archives for a while now. The independent channels don't want this though, as it would undermine their DVD business. (if you can get loads of content for free from the BBC why pay for other channels' content? There's only a limited number of viewing hours in the day)
/.ers will have you believe.
There's also the issue of BBC likely not holding copyright on everything they show. Then you've got the choice of negotiating with the third party, and they're gonna be a bit more protective. Do you exclude them from the service, or include them with some sort of DRM? Just because there is DRM available doesn't mean it will be used all the time. It's tricky, and I doubt the issue is as clear and horrendous as some
Ah, suck it up. It's a tax, always has been a tax. Finding a random situation where you personally believe you pay enough doesn't change the fact that you're paying for a public broadcaster. The BBC is a useful thing to have around, like schools and hospitals and welfare it's a good thing even if you might not use it personally.
Pay your licence and be happy that not everything in Britain is driven by commercial interests.
Hehe, it's a good troll, but it is old...
t hreshold=3&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=18399837o ld=3&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=13343214
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=227167&
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=159323&thresh
What annoys me most about this sort of study is there very rarely seems to be any sort of effort made to determine cause-and-effect. ie isn't it unsurprising that people who enjoy driving are more likely to be bending the rules on the road? Who plays driving games... young men. Who is the most aggressive / risktaking demographic who will end up taking risks... young men.
Cause and effect are all the wrong way round here.
Errr... how long ago were you here?! The sort of Soviet-styled three-rectangular-pin has been mandated by law for a *long* time now, and has been dominant on everything for atleast 20 years. I've never seen a wall socket with round pins (though have occasionally seen the odd round 2-pin plugs and adaptors for very old tech). The electric razor 115v socket is only really seen in hotels.
Not buying products that we don't need from these countries would have an immediate economic impact because these countries would have massive unemployment which would probably cause the people to demand changes.Fine, I don't disagree in principal. But it is a massive task for any one person to educate themselves as to the source of everything they may need (or want) to buy, and the working conditions there, mitigating circumstances, whatever, and make an appropriate decision. It is a huge duplication of effort and (let's be honest) never going to happen in any big way since most people do not have time.
I know this is an unpopular point-of-view here.... but this is what we have governments for. To put appropriate pressure and do the leg-work on behalf of the people. The OP is correct. We buy tons of crap we don't need. But my point in my previous post is where do you draw the line? What don't you need? Do you need a computer? a car? hot running water? hair products? new shoes? We don't want to live in poverty, but we *could*, we don't *need* these things.
Go outside. Take a walk. Work off the extra pounds you put on stuffing yourself with obscene amounts of food last Thursday. And while you're out there, walking around, contemplate the fact that our nation is in an unwinnable war, the gap between rich and poor is expanding at a record rate (partly due to the fact that our jobs are being sold to the lowest overseas bidder), our national savings rate is negative, and we're likely funding our economic "expansion" with home loans and credit-card debt.Oh get off your high-horse. I find it somewhat unlikely that the problems of the world are going to be solved by buying less stuff, infact the immediate economic impact would be highly damaging if 'we stop buying stuff we don't need'. High savings can be just as damaging to the economy as high borrowings, cause if people aren't spending then nobody's being paid to provide the goods.
What do you deem unnecessary crap exactly? You're writing that post on a computer, do you own a computer? Do you really need it? What about your car, how big is it? Do you really need a vehicle that powerful, or at all?
We all buy stuff we don't need, it's the spoils of being lucky enough to be in a part of the world and a job where we can. Get over it.
With this step, SUN has became the largest commercial contributor to the free and open source software pool. OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris, now JAVA - well, kudos!
NFS... Netbeans... JXTA...
Sun has been the biggest commercial contributor to Open Source for some time now... this just makes it even more so.
If you don't agree with the movie industry, don't support them.
...Carl
I've never really been convinced by this as an argument, because the stakes are quite high for the individual for little or no effect on the company the action is supposed to be against.
Culture is not replacable, it's not like cheese where you just buy a different brand, and they're all much the same. If you don't go see the films made by companies in the MPAA then pretty much don't go to the cinema. Which makes you separated from society (a little, but it is important) because you have to make a point and you don't have the knowledge to bond with other humans by talking about that common experience... And you don't get to have the pleasure of seeing the film that you probably quite want to see.
And what's the effect on the film studio? They just put your loss down to piracy and go on complaining and lobbying for new measures.
I don't really know the solution, but I would think that focussed counter-lobbying is going to be far more effective and less ambiguous (and less personally damaging) than "vote with your wallet".
For council tax and tv license, I can't pay for six months, I have to pay the whole amount, and apply for a refund when I finish
Why is that so odd? How is that not a normal tax system? Anyway, TV Licence and Council tax are (or can be) paid monthly *anyway*, so I have no idea what you're bitching about.
Ah, hang on, we have a "separated by a common language" issue here. UK manslaughter is (roughly, I believe) equivalentin to 2nd degree murder in the States. UK murder only refers 1st degree murder in the states.
Since the GGP post was from the UK I was being pedantic in British-English...
I realise I'm getting a bit pedantic here but that's the definition of manslaughter, not murder. Murder is *by definition* pre-planned.
Also, I would disagree that someone who is unstable enough to kill someone during the course of an argument is not a danger to society. What about the next time someone spills their pint on him?
No, what I actually said was causes *direct* harm, and is *also* irresponsible and factually incorrect. If you shout "Bomb" in a shopping centre when there isn't one, that would be all those things. Obviously the harm from shouting that outweighs the non-existent good. This is an extreme, but as soon as you get away from the extreme, supressing things is very very dangerous.
Your other examples are very woolly, "could be used by terrorists" "might cause a violent revolution" when there are also non-harmful conclusions to those actions and the likely positive effects are so much bigger anyway.
You say you think all antagonising isn't necessarily bad, but I would say that's incompatible with this statement from your previous post:
Of course a line is drawn somewhere, but I would argue that where isn't up for debate (if I can do that non-recursively). Anything can be justified as harmful speech if you aren't specific about what to prohibit.
A poor example, shouting "fire" in a theatre is doing something factually incorrect, irresponsible and likely to cause direct physical harm. Free speech has this proviso, but this is a world away from what we're talking about here.
Well, actually, in a peaceful society, yes you would. You would be stupid to think that the police have time to do so, but in theory atleast, you have not started violence so sould be able to expect none back. Even if we assume that you have incited violence by your words, you're talking about an unconsidered responce from an individual, not a considered responce from an institution! We should expect a responsible organisation to react in a more measured way!
Rubbish, sometimes people need antagonising to break them out of their complacency. What would have happened if the Sufferogettes decided not to antagonise, or perhaps Martin Luther King thought he'd better allow the status quo to continue. History is littered with people who have the guts to say "this isn't right, I'm going to do something" and it's up to *every* person to guide their own life and what happens around them in an ethical way.
This is about a person having their whole future thrown into question because they feel they have been badly treated, and said so.
I have to admit I let my licence slip this year, after having not used it for several. It's one of those social things that needs a critical mass of people to be interesting, and despite living in a fairly densely propulated area of the UK, I found very few people my age (at that time ~17) to talk to. The internet provided a much greater population density... so i went there.
...Carl (ex 2E1FNC)
From a techincal perspective it's still cool, but if you want to talk to people it's easier to go on the net...
Wow, you're monumentally stupid. The right to free speech is *exactly* that, it's being able to expect no punishment from exercising your right.
If they're pornographic, presumably you would have to pay less...?
Hell, that's a bit of an exaggeration isn't it? There's still atleast 9 months assuming no more delays!
C'mon dude, what does it matter? You understood my meaning perfectly.
Anyway, 'bated' isn't ever used outside that phrase, and 'baited' is pretty much acceptable by force of common usage.
Language doesn't stand still, it adapts with common (mis-)usage. Roll with it.
Fine & great... if it all worked. Visual Studio is still horrendously buggy, the more integration and features they put in the less time seems to be spend making the damn thing work. I'm all for stuff being added that's useful, but considering the constant inconvenience of having to restart because it's decided to randomly lock previously compiled dlls, or that you lose GUI work because the form designer has got confused and deleted controls, the frustration and time wasted far outweighs the minor benefits.
I just want the thing to work!
Does anyone else think that Microsoft's obsession with integrating every damn piece of software that they release is actually hurting their software rather than making it easier to use?
I worked in Visual Studio 2003 for 2 years and waited with baited breath for 2005 (and all the bugs and new features it was promised to bring), it slipped back more than a year because SQLServer 2005 wasn't ready, then Team System wasn't ready... Now it's finally released and it isn't the fantastic piece of software we thought it would be, partly I recon because the focus wasn't on the IDE, it was on making it and a ridiculous amount of satellite software all work together and integrate seemlessly. Can't help thinking Microsoft would be better off if they *weren't* able to work so closely together!
What sort of argument is that? If Intel disappeared then AMD would not be able to cope with the gap? Well duh... things don't change that quickly, AMD are always going to have time to ramp up their production as market share shifts. For that matter, if AMD disappeared then I'd bet even the great and bountiful Intel would have a hard time filling that 20% or so.
Plus if Intel closed up shop, suddenly there'd be lots of fabs and extra supplies up for sale...
Nobody claims that Intel should not exist, but their squeezing over the last few years has been good for everybody. (well, except Intel maybe)
Obviously you haven't had to look for a job recently. It's a hell of a lot more annoying to be the "good" person that is lost... and often it is a non-trivial exercise to get to interviews. That "45 minute interview" can typically take a good few hours to travel to, meaning time off work and all the costs associated with that. Whatever company it is, there's a finite number of times most people can afford to travel to interviews, and lets be honest, any interviewer worth his salt will be able to size up an employee fairly quickly, I find it difficult to understand why more than 2 interviews is ever necessary.
I did look into this as a sort of half-way house between total openness and total closed, think it's been on /. before. You're supposed to be able to limit how much is available to the outside world.
http://en.fon.com/info/what-is-fon.php
Would be cool if it took off, though when I tried it the firmware didn't seem to work particularly well, it wouldn't let my Palm connect so I gave up. Perhaps when it's had more time to mature this could be a compromise...
Ye gods, what sort of cynical attitude is that?! You haven't opened up your connection, so actually have no idea whether "those morons" will ruin it or not. Plenty of other people have posted here that people are polite and don't cause problems.