This hasn't been "wartime spending" that's part of the problem. Very little of the money is going into the economy, mostly soldiers basic wages....and as a huge percentage are National Guard, being pulled from higher paying jobs are a good portion of the folks losing their houses, and making companies harder to run. The majority is going to maintain what's getting broken and we're basically "depreciating" the military. The big checks are going to local rebuilding projects (with multinational teams) and "private" security like Blackwater all that take the profits overseas to tax havens like Dubai and keep them there.
The last wars we had involved serious drafting and rationing or curtailing domestic business resources. As the "business" president Bush didn't want to do any of that... it's telling the capitalists what to do! Even the war money was "off budget" borrowing just like the bailout everybody cries about now to keep the real cost under the radar.
someone is correct. if the program was done as a "community" project without copyright assignment then we have a standard GPL violation here once this software goes on proprietary game discs and they don't cough up the code. The issue is not the license that's already done, but if the project got copyright assignment from contributors or not... They sure as heck don't have ID's assignment if any original Quake code is still there ID's agreement specifically doesn't allow what they're doing in addition to being GPL.
It comes back to the pragmatic vs. theory... are contributors "donating" their code, or do they retain their copyright even for a small piece. This goes all the way back to when Paul and Bill were dumpster diving for Basic code.
I like the numbers. I thought Michigan was worse off...
problem here is that we've been losing 2-3% money for the last 10 years and we're out of things to cut.... we don't have enough money to keep people in Prison their whole term (that might be a good thing... think about it). We've cut school spending 2-3% every year my kids have been in school. Also, 2010 budget shortfalls will kick in as the dust settles from 2009. All those business losses and bankrupt Automakers will really hit the books hard next year... worse if people don't go back to work and their houses sit empty.
$1.2Billion sounds like a lot, but my company division got sold two years ago for just a bit more than that.... and that's just 15 factories or so. There's a lot more business in this state then my little company.... it should be easier to make up that money. Of course my division lost 40%-60% of it's revenue during the peak of last year's downturn...somewhere in the neighborhood of half what the state is short. The state doesn't have the luxury of laying off 40% of it's workforce either... that would be recklessly negligent. The problem here is that we're at the tipping point. Things simply can't function without "critical mass". They're going to have to start closing down agencies and making people drive to the next city (20-30 miles) for basic services like Family aid or Secretary of State. The fire department is so short there's not enough employees to drive all the firetrucks and safely man the truck to put out a fire.... They're cutting police patrols in the country from routine to "as called" We're another bad year or two from making hard cuts. That's not entirely bad... but becomes a problem when our state has had to "bite the bullet" and any other state can borrow recklessly to steal the businesses... businesses are POOR Customers of states services, we should focus on what PEOPLE need and work is ONE OF those things, but not the ONLY thing or even the most important.
but states and cities aren't often in the position to borrow money with "revolving credit" like the Feds do.
There's two ways to get money... tax property and tax commerce. The goal of many states is to bring enough business in that will also bring people... people that will build new houses and buy shiny cars. States can reduce business taxes as a "loss leader" if it results in more commerce. You can tax profits, and you can tax buying and selling (sales tax), You'll note PEOPLE get charged a higher tax rate on their INCOME not their "profit" like companies do. If you tax PEOPLE too high, bosses won't move there because it will push out cheap employees. So it's a balance.
The South became a popular business spot because they had no mechanisms to deal with large-scale enterprises moving money around..... they're still in the "honeymoon" stage because more companies are opening than closing. They can keep borrowing against future taxes. In CA, NY, or MI the opposite is true. There's a minimum amount the government needs to deliver services to it's geographic area... Unfortunately we didn't build suburbs that are efficient to have police, fire, ambulance or public transit available so automotive costs eat up 30%+ of most people's income (tags, maintenance, gas, insurance, BEFORE car payments). There's not enough money to sustain the cities, individual schools or even the roads because the tax base has moved elsewhere and businesses are too spread out. The good thing is that we're in a state to be more like Northern Europe where population settles and things are small, but nice, but it will be really painful to get there.
Unfortunately, it's the other way around... the economy is SO BAD real estate taxes are down, employees are laid off and not shopping, and companies have closed meaning they're paying no employee, worker's comp, unemployment, inspection, or property taxes. The states are simply not getting 6%-10% less revenue from existing taxes... because nobody has anything to tax!!!
The "Reganomics" Worked like this.... cut taxes at the top, companies spend money hiring people to do stuff, then you collect MORE taxes from little people at the same rates as before. A person may not pay much income tax, but there's about 20% MANDATORY wage taxes tossed in there... the more people working, the more the govt. gets. Then you have things like Luxury tax (over 39K) and sales tax so the government makes out well cutting taxes on companies just a bit. Regan's cuts actually collected MORE money than was cut because of this effect.
Right now, everybody is declaring losses and closing factories. In state govt, property tax, sales tax, and "business" fees are the big generators of cash. People take fewer vacations, sell an extra car, and factories ship close their plants take the machinery (capital items pay property tax) and basically default on property tax for the empty shell leaving the city with empty, rusty buildings.
I know right now Michigan is really hurting. Obviously auto parts makers were shuttered most of 2009, unemployment is 15% (not counting the people that fell off BEFORE 2009), and nobody is posting profits (or paying bonuses). According to our state's constitutions, our government MUST balance it's budget, so it's find the money by cutting spending or raising taxes. The worst part is that the "fixed" property taxes during the real estate boom because assessed values were rising on homes making taxes higher than some retirees had as income. Unfortunately, it also prevents the localities from raising their OWN tax rates for things like schools.... and the state takes a cut of the property taxes "for schools" so it's a double whammy. The good thing is that they're not cutting "sweetheart" tax deals very often... businesses that want to be here will figure out how to afford it, just like New York or California. I'm waiting for the end of the 30-year cycle when the tax rebates (that took my dad's jobs) run out down and companies "cut-n-run" again.
Back to the original topic, Washington needs to run the numbers for a post-Microsoft economy. Like other posters have pointed out, this new tax specifically excludes "boxed" software like Microsoft sells and taxes the small business that implement solutions or write Open Source software. It needs to be the exact opposite. Tax the hell out of Microsoft, encourage Open Source in government and schools, encourage small businesses to step out..... then when Microsoft pull up stakes a good portion of the people will stay and carve out a new business climate better for the state.
But Mozilla "owns" the source code. They request contributions of code be signed over to them to be in the official tree... that way they can legally prove they "own" every line, and can adjust the license at will. Each contributor gets the choice UP FRONT to agree or not to sign off to Mozilla.
This is the same problem the Linux Kernel has moving from GPL2 to GPL3. Linus specifically didn't include an "or later version" clause, and some contributors are even DEAD. There's no way to change the license... Unless this game had code assignment too, I can't see how they can do this.
I think Google is growing balls. They've been policing YouTube for a long time.... we all know media companies are hiring contractors to "poison the well" in many cases, then the parent swoops in and sues. Google's not stupid. You can't surf anywhere and not have them keep tabs.... Google has ways of knowing who's connected and probably has enough evidence at this point to start taking these companies with threats to the mats now.
HTML5 video is about adding a basic functional type of media to a standard browser. We don't need plugins for png, jpeg, gif, etc... But some how Audio is stuck at.WAV and there is no basic video support after 10 years without "signing away" your rights to a proprietary player that does "god knows what". In the case of Flash it is the easiest Vector of infection on EVERY OS it runs on, even secure ones like Linux.
The real situation is that the big advertising houses and marketing firms like things being tied to Flash because it lets them do all sorts of sneaky stuff that the READER may not agree with. Flash will not go away any time soon... but it won't be REQUIRED for basic viewing.... only for ADS. Even cheap hosting companies and ISPs are hijacking pages with Flash ads now. HTML5 means I drop an video on my page and the browser just plays it with basic controls, no special servers or plugins needed.
I never understood all the hate for HTML5 video anyway. The idea is to give people options, those are never bad. We have all sorts of other crap bolted on to HTML because Netscape or Microsoft just felt like it and hyped it. Basic Video playing without plugins is way overdue, considering how advanced everything else in HTML5 is. For people that brag about bolting on kitchen sinks and coffee makers to Emacs I'd expect better from this crowd. The performance isn't the issue, never has been... it's about options that YOU AND I can use and not promise fealty via EULA.
That's only half the story though. The "press" in that country is rich, and connected to other countries. They managed to stay "just out of reach" during the last coup attempt, but it's an open secret they planned, funded and used their TV and media to hide what was happening from the citizens. They are the ones that announced "success" of the coup and had the USA on speed dial to accept.
These guys are far more corrupt than Chavez is.... their control of media makes guys like Hurst and Murdoch look like absolute amateurs. They're all buddies and all in on what gets published and most of the courts are in their pocket too. (like if Cheney and is PNAC could ever get their way) If it came back that somebody like Google's founders directly manipulated an election by tanking searchs for candidates they didn't like or programming Google searches for only THEIR agenda there would be big trouble over here... although it's technically not illegal. Imagine if NBC/ABC/FOX got together on voting day and simply lied about the results...simply started saying at noon that their guy was "winning". Look at the chaos the 2000 Bush/Gore vote caused simply because they "reported" a winner before actually COUNTING the votes. These guys have the balls to pull that crap on purpose and enough judges and generals in their pockets not to go to prison/or worse.
Nationalized media was the "least" Chavez could do in response to flat out rebellion. If he had any aspirations as a real dictator and not a good leader he would have simply had the top 1% richest and all his generals put against the wall within the week....and broadcast THAT on their precious "free media". he DIDN'T do that and tried to let the people use their courts to handle things shows character.
Like his politics or not, he is the scariest leader in the western hemisphere because he really is trying to use proper government channels and trying to help his people, not just the upper class. The rich and connected didn't toss him aside when the USA said "jump", his people stuck up for him, that makes him untouchable now. There's no UN "grounds" to start a war against him like Iraq or Afghanistan.Messing with him at this point is an act of unprovoked war and I'd be certain he has the names of people in the US to back him up. He's out there, trying to groom his neighbors that are under threat of being deposed by drug loads and the CIA so they don't have to constantly be afraid either.
He's trying to abolish the Monroe Doctrine the US government has kept up the entire 1900's that Latin/South America is our "banana republic" to boss around.
but OGG is here, OGG is now, and OGG is part of the spec.. until a bunch of whiners decided they didn't want FREE competition. Ogg may not be great, but it's "good enough". There are many "standards" web browsers support that haven't been used on modern pages for ages.
The article completely misses the point that Ogg would be just fine for the little snips from my iPod Nano, or from my little hand recorder, or for my SCA how-to videos. The day is coming when people will have to PAY to host all these popular video and audio formats on their own sites. With the new IP rules coming ISPs will be forced to lock out anybody that doesn't pay first.. there's no "fair use" for patents. Meaning you will be forced to pay a large fee, or host ALL your material thru Apple or Google (and force your visitors to watch THEIR ads) who will have a choke-hold on everything interesting on the Internet.
But I can FREELY MAKE clothes that I want to. I can FREELY MAKE an AM/FM radio. I can FREELY BUILD whatever house I want as long as I follow the laws, etc, etc.
The whole issue for OGG is that the FREELY option is being specifically excluded on a large scale. After all the lawsuits, all the various IP infractions nobody wants people to PRODUCE content FREELY. If the gatekeepers can make enough selling items like computers, electricity, and clothes, they'll take away the RIGHT to do things yourself unless you pay them...
Imagine having to pay "rent" to sew your own clothes, to have permission to change a broken part on your car, to have to pay royalty to LISTEN to "free" radio... The current Supreme Court Justices have no problem blasting "property rights" back to the age of Charles Dickens where a rich man could injure and maim in the streets... then charge the family to clean the blood off the wheels.
but why all the Ogg hate? Why can't a browser support two more simple little formats? What's so hard about that? We have 7 versions of HTML, multiple versions of AVI, JPEG, MPEG, XVID, DVIX,Flash, Real, WMP etc. OGG is positively SIMPLE compared to the rest of what an average PC user has to manage. Sure, it's a bit slow, but it's FREE... why all the HATE-ON-FREE that simple people want?
Exactly, why is there all the hate AGAINST having a patent free method of encoding audio and video that EVERYBODY can share? We're long past the time these things should be FREE just like HTML is. In the next 18 months nearly every codex becomes not-free as in dollars... h.264 even "reserves" the right to charge VIEWERS for watching each time! In the words of famous Admiral Ackbar "it's a Trap!".
There's a big setup going on to have end-to-end DRM and end-to-end ownership of the content pipeline. Companies like Apple don't want Ogg simply because they charge a premium and the license fee is no "big deal", they got there first and got the best deal, why help anybody else. Even Microsoft is pushing it's own agenda from hard drive formats, to SD cards, to media codex... You won't be able to "publish" a picture or video from your own camera without registering with somebody to take care of the royalties for recording, editing, uploading, and downloading. In the next 24 months the "internet" is going to become very expensive for anything except plain HTML in the "western" world... the rest (Asia) will be laughing their asses off!
But SOMEBODY has to tend those tapes. It's not a REAL backup unless you can prove it works. The big problem with tapes is that "* proper environment" condition. If you're only worried about 2-3 TB, then you're not going to be putting these in "guaranteed" conditions 100% of the time... hence you can't guarantee their useful shelf life. So you need several more TB to periodically restore and re-backup the data every 6 months or so so that you have multiple "known-good" copies.
Then the company has to pay somebody that understands the setup and will follow it thru for years. Like most companies the whole thing goes to heck when you leave and they don't replace you for 6 months.... nobody follows the plan and tapes are hosed.... the "people" factor is by far the most expensive problem.
Hard drives do not store well, that's not how they are designed or warranted by the manufactures. The physical Tape media is designed to be stored in a safety deposit box a long time. I wouldn't believe their 50+ year claims (and who would have a drive from even 10 years ago?) but Tape is probably the best.
The problem with tape is that it's pushing $15K to get the proper server with the proper capacity set up.. that's a lot of months of paying Amazon... and then in 5 years your hardware warranty runs out and you buy it all again! The key thing will be how stable Amazon runs their S3 business. Like many big companies throwing cash around what happens in two years when they get "bored" because they aren't raking in 30% profits from that business. Also remember, as a company they have to pay YOU $4000 per MONTH to babysit the set up for them as well as have a contingency plan for whatever happens to you.
LTO4 tapes are reasonably price.. but the DRIVES push $5k. For long term even the drives go obsolete too quickly, then become MORE expensive in 5 - 10 years when you really need them.
The best thing is probably what Google does, simply keep 3 "live" copies of the data. Then the data is always on current hardware. The data is on "production" hardware along with other stuff so it is properly monitored by the OS and database for integrity, and hardware is maintained with support. Drive arrays are cheap enough in large scale just to keep moving things over to one that's twice the size in half the space every few years. The problem of course is when you are a Small or Medium business keeping even $50k in hardware around you don't really NEED for operational purposes is a big money sink... way to much for "insurance". But unless you keep one copy of the data live and verify/refresh your tapes every year you really don't have "securely" stored data.
THIS is a very specific case and not very many regular folks can publish tens of thousands of pictures in a week. This comes down to the difference between CORPORATIONS and PEOPLE that's been lost. Corporations don't have rights, they are chartered to do a task. The right to take pictures of EVERYBODY is not the same as MY right to take pictures of ANYBODY that happens to be on my street.
The problem is that Google is simply dumping their video (trying to drive fast enough they don't get stopped for stalking!) and not doing a good job of vetting for things that shouldn't be published. If they were a Newspaper, for example, they would be taking a beating for that behavior. Using the "it's automated collection" isn't an excuse.. doesn't work when somebody hides a camera in a room they own either.
I'm legally married, so that means I can have the Sex with my wife. I wouldn't like somebody driving by posting pics of us practicing (badly) Kama Sutra positions, even though I'm legally allowed to do them. The "right to privacy" is not so much to be "private" but not to have your business broadcast all over by just anybody... especially commercially.
Like the guy naked in his yard or girl at a nude beach. In that country those are LEGAL things to be doing. That doesn't mean putting pictures of them on the Internet is ethically right especially when you're not even part of the social group or asking permission to photograph.
The basic issue is that Google is SEVERELY IRRESPONSIBLE in their implementation of Street View. Driving around taking pictures isn't "illegal" but Google is running a BUSINESS with these picks, and they don't seem to do even basic vetting of the pictures before loading them for the whole internet to see.
If you or I drove around routinely putting up pictures of people like this we'd get in big trouble and "it's an automatic process" wouldn't help US at all. I think they should go after the individual drivers (probably "private contractors") for taking money for the un-censored pictures. That might scare them into censoring their own work.. like normal people have to.
I have had many bills this last year, but my problem is that MY DOCTOR hasn't raised his prices 20% (he raises prices $5 and the insurance cries too much), and medications haven't gone up that much (some generics came out this year making it cheaper) I know the local hospital tries to control costs as well. The insurance company nicks doctor's offices and hospitals about 30% right off the top to be "in network", I'd love to know where the 20% increase is actually coming from! Not to mention they nicked my company for 15% premiums, and I paid co-pays for office and scripts pushing 30% of the costs as well.
My opinion is that is part of an industry plan to force the health care changes through without actually changing their business models. I have noticed a marked increase in the number of people that turn 65 and are REMOVED from company insurance, even though they continue to work. It flies in the face of those that are going to have to work until 70+ that the health insurance we WORK for doesn't have to pay for us anymore.
You have a point. We publicly declare enemy snipers holding a street or planting IEDs in the path of armed soldiers to be cowards... yet we're actively working on technology to launch drones from ships at sea and control them from plain office buildings in the USA. How are drone pilots any DIFFERENT than snipers hiding in the bushes shooting at women and children, how many "lives" is the drone pilot allowed to take to save is MACHINE? Even enemy snipers are putting THEIR lives on the line for battle, our people go to lengths to avoid it.
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This hasn't been "wartime spending" that's part of the problem. Very little of the money is going into the economy, mostly soldiers basic wages....and as a huge percentage are National Guard, being pulled from higher paying jobs are a good portion of the folks losing their houses, and making companies harder to run. The majority is going to maintain what's getting broken and we're basically "depreciating" the military. The big checks are going to local rebuilding projects (with multinational teams) and "private" security like Blackwater all that take the profits overseas to tax havens like Dubai and keep them there.
The last wars we had involved serious drafting and rationing or curtailing domestic business resources. As the "business" president Bush didn't want to do any of that... it's telling the capitalists what to do! Even the war money was "off budget" borrowing just like the bailout everybody cries about now to keep the real cost under the radar.
someone is correct. if the program was done as a "community" project without copyright assignment then we have a standard GPL violation here once this software goes on proprietary game discs and they don't cough up the code. The issue is not the license that's already done, but if the project got copyright assignment from contributors or not... They sure as heck don't have ID's assignment if any original Quake code is still there ID's agreement specifically doesn't allow what they're doing in addition to being GPL.
It comes back to the pragmatic vs. theory... are contributors "donating" their code, or do they retain their copyright even for a small piece. This goes all the way back to when Paul and Bill were dumpster diving for Basic code.
I like the numbers. I thought Michigan was worse off...
problem here is that we've been losing 2-3% money for the last 10 years and we're out of things to cut.... we don't have enough money to keep people in Prison their whole term (that might be a good thing... think about it). We've cut school spending 2-3% every year my kids have been in school. Also, 2010 budget shortfalls will kick in as the dust settles from 2009. All those business losses and bankrupt Automakers will really hit the books hard next year... worse if people don't go back to work and their houses sit empty.
$1.2Billion sounds like a lot, but my company division got sold two years ago for just a bit more than that.... and that's just 15 factories or so. There's a lot more business in this state then my little company.... it should be easier to make up that money. Of course my division lost 40%-60% of it's revenue during the peak of last year's downturn...somewhere in the neighborhood of half what the state is short. The state doesn't have the luxury of laying off 40% of it's workforce either... that would be recklessly negligent. The problem here is that we're at the tipping point. Things simply can't function without "critical mass". They're going to have to start closing down agencies and making people drive to the next city (20-30 miles) for basic services like Family aid or Secretary of State. The fire department is so short there's not enough employees to drive all the firetrucks and safely man the truck to put out a fire.... They're cutting police patrols in the country from routine to "as called" We're another bad year or two from making hard cuts. That's not entirely bad... but becomes a problem when our state has had to "bite the bullet" and any other state can borrow recklessly to steal the businesses... businesses are POOR Customers of states services, we should focus on what PEOPLE need and work is ONE OF those things, but not the ONLY thing or even the most important.
but states and cities aren't often in the position to borrow money with "revolving credit" like the Feds do.
There's two ways to get money... tax property and tax commerce. The goal of many states is to bring enough business in that will also bring people... people that will build new houses and buy shiny cars. States can reduce business taxes as a "loss leader" if it results in more commerce. You can tax profits, and you can tax buying and selling (sales tax), You'll note PEOPLE get charged a higher tax rate on their INCOME not their "profit" like companies do. If you tax PEOPLE too high, bosses won't move there because it will push out cheap employees. So it's a balance.
The South became a popular business spot because they had no mechanisms to deal with large-scale enterprises moving money around..... they're still in the "honeymoon" stage because more companies are opening than closing. They can keep borrowing against future taxes. In CA, NY, or MI the opposite is true. There's a minimum amount the government needs to deliver services to it's geographic area... Unfortunately we didn't build suburbs that are efficient to have police, fire, ambulance or public transit available so automotive costs eat up 30%+ of most people's income (tags, maintenance, gas, insurance, BEFORE car payments). There's not enough money to sustain the cities, individual schools or even the roads because the tax base has moved elsewhere and businesses are too spread out. The good thing is that we're in a state to be more like Northern Europe where population settles and things are small, but nice, but it will be really painful to get there.
Unfortunately, it's the other way around... the economy is SO BAD real estate taxes are down, employees are laid off and not shopping, and companies have closed meaning they're paying no employee, worker's comp, unemployment, inspection, or property taxes. The states are simply not getting 6%-10% less revenue from existing taxes... because nobody has anything to tax!!!
The "Reganomics" Worked like this.... cut taxes at the top, companies spend money hiring people to do stuff, then you collect MORE taxes from little people at the same rates as before. A person may not pay much income tax, but there's about 20% MANDATORY wage taxes tossed in there... the more people working, the more the govt. gets. Then you have things like Luxury tax (over 39K) and sales tax so the government makes out well cutting taxes on companies just a bit. Regan's cuts actually collected MORE money than was cut because of this effect.
Right now, everybody is declaring losses and closing factories. In state govt, property tax, sales tax, and "business" fees are the big generators of cash. People take fewer vacations, sell an extra car, and factories ship close their plants take the machinery (capital items pay property tax) and basically default on property tax for the empty shell leaving the city with empty, rusty buildings.
I know right now Michigan is really hurting. Obviously auto parts makers were shuttered most of 2009, unemployment is 15% (not counting the people that fell off BEFORE 2009), and nobody is posting profits (or paying bonuses). According to our state's constitutions, our government MUST balance it's budget, so it's find the money by cutting spending or raising taxes. The worst part is that the "fixed" property taxes during the real estate boom because assessed values were rising on homes making taxes higher than some retirees had as income. Unfortunately, it also prevents the localities from raising their OWN tax rates for things like schools.... and the state takes a cut of the property taxes "for schools" so it's a double whammy. The good thing is that they're not cutting "sweetheart" tax deals very often... businesses that want to be here will figure out how to afford it, just like New York or California. I'm waiting for the end of the 30-year cycle when the tax rebates (that took my dad's jobs) run out down and companies "cut-n-run" again.
Back to the original topic, Washington needs to run the numbers for a post-Microsoft economy. Like other posters have pointed out, this new tax specifically excludes "boxed" software like Microsoft sells and taxes the small business that implement solutions or write Open Source software. It needs to be the exact opposite. Tax the hell out of Microsoft, encourage Open Source in government and schools, encourage small businesses to step out..... then when Microsoft pull up stakes a good portion of the people will stay and carve out a new business climate better for the state.
But Mozilla "owns" the source code. They request contributions of code be signed over to them to be in the official tree... that way they can legally prove they "own" every line, and can adjust the license at will. Each contributor gets the choice UP FRONT to agree or not to sign off to Mozilla.
This is the same problem the Linux Kernel has moving from GPL2 to GPL3. Linus specifically didn't include an "or later version" clause, and some contributors are even DEAD. There's no way to change the license... Unless this game had code assignment too, I can't see how they can do this.
I think Google is growing balls. They've been policing YouTube for a long time.... we all know media companies are hiring contractors to "poison the well" in many cases, then the parent swoops in and sues. Google's not stupid. You can't surf anywhere and not have them keep tabs.... Google has ways of knowing who's connected and probably has enough evidence at this point to start taking these companies with threats to the mats now.
it's only one count of computer invasion. Just happened to piss off a bunch of people, hell Virus writers don't even spend 200 years in prison.
At worst disabling the cars is "criminal nuisance" because they inconvenienced people, but the feature was already installed and it was easy to undo.
so is a gruntle a good thing or bad thing?
We know disgruntled employees are a problem... what causes grunteling in the first place?
HTML5 video is about adding a basic functional type of media to a standard browser. We don't need plugins for png, jpeg, gif, etc... But some how Audio is stuck at .WAV and there is no basic video support after 10 years without "signing away" your rights to a proprietary player that does "god knows what". In the case of Flash it is the easiest Vector of infection on EVERY OS it runs on, even secure ones like Linux.
The real situation is that the big advertising houses and marketing firms like things being tied to Flash because it lets them do all sorts of sneaky stuff that the READER may not agree with. Flash will not go away any time soon... but it won't be REQUIRED for basic viewing.... only for ADS. Even cheap hosting companies and ISPs are hijacking pages with Flash ads now. HTML5 means I drop an video on my page and the browser just plays it with basic controls, no special servers or plugins needed.
I never understood all the hate for HTML5 video anyway. The idea is to give people options, those are never bad. We have all sorts of other crap bolted on to HTML because Netscape or Microsoft just felt like it and hyped it. Basic Video playing without plugins is way overdue, considering how advanced everything else in HTML5 is. For people that brag about bolting on kitchen sinks and coffee makers to Emacs I'd expect better from this crowd. The performance isn't the issue, never has been... it's about options that YOU AND I can use and not promise fealty via EULA.
That's only half the story though. The "press" in that country is rich, and connected to other countries. They managed to stay "just out of reach" during the last coup attempt, but it's an open secret they planned, funded and used their TV and media to hide what was happening from the citizens. They are the ones that announced "success" of the coup and had the USA on speed dial to accept.
These guys are far more corrupt than Chavez is.... their control of media makes guys like Hurst and Murdoch look like absolute amateurs. They're all buddies and all in on what gets published and most of the courts are in their pocket too. (like if Cheney and is PNAC could ever get their way) If it came back that somebody like Google's founders directly manipulated an election by tanking searchs for candidates they didn't like or programming Google searches for only THEIR agenda there would be big trouble over here... although it's technically not illegal. Imagine if NBC/ABC/FOX got together on voting day and simply lied about the results...simply started saying at noon that their guy was "winning". Look at the chaos the 2000 Bush/Gore vote caused simply because they "reported" a winner before actually COUNTING the votes. These guys have the balls to pull that crap on purpose and enough judges and generals in their pockets not to go to prison/or worse.
Nationalized media was the "least" Chavez could do in response to flat out rebellion. If he had any aspirations as a real dictator and not a good leader he would have simply had the top 1% richest and all his generals put against the wall within the week....and broadcast THAT on their precious "free media". he DIDN'T do that and tried to let the people use their courts to handle things shows character.
Like his politics or not, he is the scariest leader in the western hemisphere because he really is trying to use proper government channels and trying to help his people, not just the upper class. The rich and connected didn't toss him aside when the USA said "jump", his people stuck up for him, that makes him untouchable now. There's no UN "grounds" to start a war against him like Iraq or Afghanistan.Messing with him at this point is an act of unprovoked war and I'd be certain he has the names of people in the US to back him up. He's out there, trying to groom his neighbors that are under threat of being deposed by drug loads and the CIA so they don't have to constantly be afraid either.
He's trying to abolish the Monroe Doctrine the US government has kept up the entire 1900's that Latin/South America is our "banana republic" to boss around.
but OGG is here, OGG is now, and OGG is part of the spec.. until a bunch of whiners decided they didn't want FREE competition. Ogg may not be great, but it's "good enough". There are many "standards" web browsers support that haven't been used on modern pages for ages.
The article completely misses the point that Ogg would be just fine for the little snips from my iPod Nano, or from my little hand recorder, or for my SCA how-to videos. The day is coming when people will have to PAY to host all these popular video and audio formats on their own sites. With the new IP rules coming ISPs will be forced to lock out anybody that doesn't pay first.. there's no "fair use" for patents. Meaning you will be forced to pay a large fee, or host ALL your material thru Apple or Google (and force your visitors to watch THEIR ads) who will have a choke-hold on everything interesting on the Internet.
So your saying ALL of that subsidy shouldn't go into programming operations? Why should the license money go anywhere else?
But I can FREELY MAKE clothes that I want to. I can FREELY MAKE an AM/FM radio. I can FREELY BUILD whatever house I want as long as I follow the laws, etc, etc.
The whole issue for OGG is that the FREELY option is being specifically excluded on a large scale. After all the lawsuits, all the various IP infractions nobody wants people to PRODUCE content FREELY. If the gatekeepers can make enough selling items like computers, electricity, and clothes, they'll take away the RIGHT to do things yourself unless you pay them...
Imagine having to pay "rent" to sew your own clothes, to have permission to change a broken part on your car, to have to pay royalty to LISTEN to "free" radio... The current Supreme Court Justices have no problem blasting "property rights" back to the age of Charles Dickens where a rich man could injure and maim in the streets... then charge the family to clean the blood off the wheels.
but why all the Ogg hate? Why can't a browser support two more simple little formats? What's so hard about that? We have 7 versions of HTML, multiple versions of AVI, JPEG, MPEG, XVID, DVIX,Flash, Real, WMP etc. OGG is positively SIMPLE compared to the rest of what an average PC user has to manage. Sure, it's a bit slow, but it's FREE... why all the HATE-ON-FREE that simple people want?
Exactly, why is there all the hate AGAINST having a patent free method of encoding audio and video that EVERYBODY can share? We're long past the time these things should be FREE just like HTML is. In the next 18 months nearly every codex becomes not-free as in dollars... h.264 even "reserves" the right to charge VIEWERS for watching each time! In the words of famous Admiral Ackbar "it's a Trap!".
There's a big setup going on to have end-to-end DRM and end-to-end ownership of the content pipeline. Companies like Apple don't want Ogg simply because they charge a premium and the license fee is no "big deal", they got there first and got the best deal, why help anybody else. Even Microsoft is pushing it's own agenda from hard drive formats, to SD cards, to media codex... You won't be able to "publish" a picture or video from your own camera without registering with somebody to take care of the royalties for recording, editing, uploading, and downloading. In the next 24 months the "internet" is going to become very expensive for anything except plain HTML in the "western" world... the rest (Asia) will be laughing their asses off!
But SOMEBODY has to tend those tapes. It's not a REAL backup unless you can prove it works. The big problem with tapes is that "* proper environment" condition. If you're only worried about 2-3 TB, then you're not going to be putting these in "guaranteed" conditions 100% of the time... hence you can't guarantee their useful shelf life. So you need several more TB to periodically restore and re-backup the data every 6 months or so so that you have multiple "known-good" copies.
Then the company has to pay somebody that understands the setup and will follow it thru for years. Like most companies the whole thing goes to heck when you leave and they don't replace you for 6 months.... nobody follows the plan and tapes are hosed.... the "people" factor is by far the most expensive problem.
Hard drives do not store well, that's not how they are designed or warranted by the manufactures. The physical Tape media is designed to be stored in a safety deposit box a long time. I wouldn't believe their 50+ year claims (and who would have a drive from even 10 years ago?) but Tape is probably the best.
The problem with tape is that it's pushing $15K to get the proper server with the proper capacity set up.. that's a lot of months of paying Amazon... and then in 5 years your hardware warranty runs out and you buy it all again! The key thing will be how stable Amazon runs their S3 business. Like many big companies throwing cash around what happens in two years when they get "bored" because they aren't raking in 30% profits from that business. Also remember, as a company they have to pay YOU $4000 per MONTH to babysit the set up for them as well as have a contingency plan for whatever happens to you.
LTO4 tapes are reasonably price.. but the DRIVES push $5k. For long term even the drives go obsolete too quickly, then become MORE expensive in 5 - 10 years when you really need them.
The best thing is probably what Google does, simply keep 3 "live" copies of the data. Then the data is always on current hardware. The data is on "production" hardware along with other stuff so it is properly monitored by the OS and database for integrity, and hardware is maintained with support. Drive arrays are cheap enough in large scale just to keep moving things over to one that's twice the size in half the space every few years. The problem of course is when you are a Small or Medium business keeping even $50k in hardware around you don't really NEED for operational purposes is a big money sink... way to much for "insurance". But unless you keep one copy of the data live and verify/refresh your tapes every year you really don't have "securely" stored data.
THIS is a very specific case and not very many regular folks can publish tens of thousands of pictures in a week. This comes down to the difference between CORPORATIONS and PEOPLE that's been lost. Corporations don't have rights, they are chartered to do a task. The right to take pictures of EVERYBODY is not the same as MY right to take pictures of ANYBODY that happens to be on my street.
The problem is that Google is simply dumping their video (trying to drive fast enough they don't get stopped for stalking!) and not doing a good job of vetting for things that shouldn't be published. If they were a Newspaper, for example, they would be taking a beating for that behavior. Using the "it's automated collection" isn't an excuse.. doesn't work when somebody hides a camera in a room they own either.
I'm legally married, so that means I can have the Sex with my wife. I wouldn't like somebody driving by posting pics of us practicing (badly) Kama Sutra positions, even though I'm legally allowed to do them. The "right to privacy" is not so much to be "private" but not to have your business broadcast all over by just anybody... especially commercially.
Like the guy naked in his yard or girl at a nude beach. In that country those are LEGAL things to be doing. That doesn't mean putting pictures of them on the Internet is ethically right especially when you're not even part of the social group or asking permission to photograph.
The basic issue is that Google is SEVERELY IRRESPONSIBLE in their implementation of Street View. Driving around taking pictures isn't "illegal" but Google is running a BUSINESS with these picks, and they don't seem to do even basic vetting of the pictures before loading them for the whole internet to see.
If you or I drove around routinely putting up pictures of people like this we'd get in big trouble and "it's an automatic process" wouldn't help US at all. I think they should go after the individual drivers (probably "private contractors") for taking money for the un-censored pictures. That might scare them into censoring their own work.. like normal people have to.
I have had many bills this last year, but my problem is that MY DOCTOR hasn't raised his prices 20% (he raises prices $5 and the insurance cries too much), and medications haven't gone up that much (some generics came out this year making it cheaper) I know the local hospital tries to control costs as well. The insurance company nicks doctor's offices and hospitals about 30% right off the top to be "in network", I'd love to know where the 20% increase is actually coming from! Not to mention they nicked my company for 15% premiums, and I paid co-pays for office and scripts pushing 30% of the costs as well.
My opinion is that is part of an industry plan to force the health care changes through without actually changing their business models. I have noticed a marked increase in the number of people that turn 65 and are REMOVED from company insurance, even though they continue to work. It flies in the face of those that are going to have to work until 70+ that the health insurance we WORK for doesn't have to pay for us anymore.
You have a point. We publicly declare enemy snipers holding a street or planting IEDs in the path of armed soldiers to be cowards... yet we're actively working on technology to launch drones from ships at sea and control them from plain office buildings in the USA. How are drone pilots any DIFFERENT than snipers hiding in the bushes shooting at women and children, how many "lives" is the drone pilot allowed to take to save is MACHINE? Even enemy snipers are putting THEIR lives on the line for battle, our people go to lengths to avoid it.