Because if Virgin Atlantic have bought SS1-derived spaceplanes, then there's an opportunity for a hell of a fast trip to Europe. There's a runway in Spain capable of taking the Space Shuttle; though it's never been used, it's a factor in various abort scenarios.
Lifting off from Canaveral in a SpaceShip 2 and landing in Spain would make the old Concorde record time look pretty pathetic.
The only case of google censorship in the U.S. I've ever seen demonstrated was on Google Video, which this engine doesn't cover.
If it's the same one that's been going all around the net as an example of Oh Noes Google r t3h 3vil!!!!1!!!111!! then that's not Google censorship; apparently the person who uploaded it set those restrictions, and Google just honoured them.
After all, some material might be public domain in one country and copyright in another; or it might contain footage from the BBC Creative Archive and thereby be restricted to UK only. Plenty of legitimate reasons why the person uploading something might wish to restrict its distribution.
In any case, it's hard to imagine an alternative to commerical services like Google and Yahoo. I doubt there'd be much enthusiasm to a taxpayer-funded, publicly accountable search engine.
It could be done, but it probably wouldn't work. The nice thing about the search engine business is that it doesn't lend itself to monopolies. The moment Google stops being a reliable search engine, the moment it censors enough that it's no longer the best source of information around - that's the moment it vanishes. It costs us nothing to type in a different URL in our browsers. We abandoned Yahoo! quickly enough, didn't we?
We can probably trust the market to look after this one for us. The search engines have to return the results that best match the search criteria, regardless of political or editorial pressures, or the users will go elsewhere. The chief problem at present is that most of the search engines are American, and subject to the US government; if they really wanted to abuse that power, they could, and they could do it to them all simultaneously...
News media can't report on messages that the government deems as critical to national security. And now we are finding the same thing with google. And people are suprised?
Sure. The point of the internet is that it's an international resource. Suppose that, say, the son of a cabinet minister has been caught offering to supply an undercover reporter from the Daily Mirror with a small quantity of cannabis. And, continuing this entirely hypothetical situation, let us suppose that the Government has hurriedly set about preventing this story getting out, by legal means.
Now, we expect to be able to go to the foreign media via the internet and find out the truth of what's going on. We do not expect the search engine to come back and say 'Sorry, but your local authorities don't want you to know that. Best to suck it up and learn to love Big Brother.'
I assume you're referring to the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, published in Jylland-Posten, and later circulated in the Middle-East by some imams trying to whip up an artificial controversy?
If so, then I have to ask whether you've actually seen them. Here they are. I can't see anything there that's racist. Some are critical of Jylland-Posten itself, referring to the whole thing as a publicity stunt. Some are critical of militant Islam. One - with the schoolboy, whose name apparently happens to be Muhammad - seems quite optimistic about integration and multicultural coexistence.
The only ones that anyone could conceivably take offence at are the ones criticising Islam or certain sects of Islam. But Islam is not a race, it's a religion, an ideology. Ideologies can never be said to be beyond criticism. Was it racist against Russians to criticise the ideas, the founders, and the results of Communism?
and the games makers since running homebrew over Linux and through different APIs effectively kills any notions of piracy.
It would slaughter the game makers.
PSP games are doing badly enough anyway. Look at the PSP shelves, it's mostly UMD movies, at least in the stores where I am.
Suddenly there's a homebrew kit, and people can load MAME or Z-SNES or something onto the PSP, along with hundreds of roms. Illegal, perhaps, but certainly not to be caught by Sony's protection.
I'd buy a PSP at that point, certainly, but I'd never buy a single game. I'd load the thing full of roms.
However, though encrypting your VoIP communications might make them more secure, they're also much more likely to be flagged by systems like ECHELON, which automatically tag traffic that is encrypted as suspicious.
Perhaps, but bear in mind that if you can get your conversation with your mother about the cat's appendix operation flagged up by ECHELON as 'Possible terrorist, for further investigation' then you waste enormous amounts of their time and money, and render the system a little less useful. By drawing their attention to your irrelevant blather, you help protect those who actually do have something to hide.
And if everyone encrypts, then ECHELON becomes completely and entirely useless.
As a troublesome schoolboy, you'll laugh and cringe as you stand up to bullies, get picked on by teachers, play pranks on malicious kids, win or lose the girl, and ultimately learn to navigate the obstacles of the fictitious reform school, Bullworth Academy.
I've played this game before. It was 20 years ago, and it was called Skool Daze, and it was perhaps the best game there had ever been at the time. Utterly, utterly amazing.
I've thought for years that Skool Daze could be remade today and be something special. If Rockstar's description here is accurate, I'm really, really looking forward to this game.
This from a high school senior? What is wrong with teenagers today? I'm appalled by this clear decline in standards. A high school senior is... happy... to be helping... the Man... crack down on drugs? FOR FUCK'S SAKE! Someone get this kid to a fucking party already!
I weep for the future if this is typical of kids today. It's horrifying.
Similarly, English people can be directly and personally blamed for many of the same things, because they voted Tony Blair back in.
Quite so; although in our defence, I might point out that while the outcome of the 2001 election was nearly as good for Blair as the 1997 election in which he came to power, his party lost many seats in 2005, largely as a result of his misbehaviour alongside the White House crew.
The American electorate, OTOH, increased Bush's share of the vote after the Iraq adventure.
Nonetheless, there's no escaping it: in a democracy, we get the governments we deserve, and we are responsible for their actions. Politicians do the evil that they do because they think they'll get away with it, and they think they'll get away with it because their electorates mostly don't care to exercise any responsibility.
Zooming all the way out, it seems the entrie southern hmisphere has a greater elevation than the northern one. Doesn't that just mean they've got the center wrong?
That can happen. Look at Earth for comparison: the great majority of the land is in the northern hemisphere. Drain away the oceans and you have something looking quite similar to what we see on Mars.
There are a few differences in capabilities. The US has high-tech weapons, whereas the middle-east has oil.
And in the Middle East they have plenty of people who are willing - and indeed eager - to die for what they believe in. In the US they have people who are willing - and indeed eager - to give up everything they believe in to avoid the risk of dying.
And, googling further, it seems to have earned a +5 every time it's been used in a political discussion on/. ever since. I suppose it's too late now to ask about royalties...:-)
Most of it, no. For reference, the southernmost point of Great Britain is about level with the northernmost point of the USA (not counting Alaska, obviously...). Most of the population of Europe is further south than this.
I used to believe that. I used to say to people that the Americans weren't so bad. You couldn't blame the American people for the actions of their president - after all, they voted for the other guy. I didn't have any quarrel with America itself or with the American people - I just supported regime change.
Then... 2004. Having been lumbered with that idiot for a president, with his cabal of fascist hangers-on pulling the strings, and having seen the horrors they perpetrated together on America, and on America's global standing, and on the world in general, what did the American people do?
They voted him in. For real this time. No question about it, Bush won that election. They looked at the record of Bush's first term and said 'Yes. This is what we want from our Presidents. We like Bush and approve of what he has done, and want four more years of the same.'
At which point you can't blame a corrupt fascist takeover. The fascists sneaked into office via a very dodgy election, but you had the chance to get them out. But you endorsed them and voted them in again with an authentic mandate.
It's your own stupid fault now. And the world knows it. What America does now, the ordinary American people can be directly and personally blamed for.
And is there an advantage to making a browser that doesn't comply?
Well, there is one possible advantage. Forcing out competition. Suppose there are a number of browsers out there, all complying with an open set of standards. You release your broken browser, which behaves rather oddly and renders things differently. Crucially, however, you bundle it along with another product of yours which already has near 100% marketshare. As a result, your broken browser immediately becomes a major player by default.
What happens then? Everyone's forced to modify their websites to work with your broken browser - and as a result, to work rather oddly, and in some cases not at all, with the standards-compliant browsers. You thereby muscle out the competition and extend your existing monopoly into a new market.
Of course, no company would ever behave so grossly unethically. And if they did, there's no way the government would let them get away with it; the anti-trust lawsuit would surely rip them to shreds. So it's a purely academic concern.
as if it's the first time that the EU has ever been in a staring match with a big arrogant multi-national that refused point blank to obey the law. The EU commission, not long ago, smacked huge European drug companies with massive fines for anti-competitive behaviour... that's EUROPEAN DRUG FIRMS.
The EU isn't a nation. There's no real government in Brussels except the one that runs Belgium. The EU is fundamentally a trading bloc. It's all about free trade within the Union, about common standards throughout the Single Market, and about acting as a representative of the collective member states in dealing with outside nations (e.g. the EU vs. the US in a trade war, rather than the US vs. 25 small countries, gets better results for us.)
So, when the US government gets on Microsoft's back over some trading standards issue, it's only part of their mandate. The US government has other things on its mind, like raising or lowering taxes, like foreign wars, like its policy on violent crime. The EU, on the other hand, doesn't have any of this other stuff. That's the business of the member state governments. Brussels is about trade and only trade - and so fighting with monopolists is not something it's going to go halves on.
Thus I do not expect the EU to cave in on this. They aren't a real government, and they don't have that much real power - but on this particular issue, they're exactly the ones for the job.
I fully agree with your sentiments - however I would like to point out that the EU is far greater than a mere 300 million people! It's more like 459 million people!
But he did say 'Last time I checked'. He should probably check more frequently; presumably he last checked on the EU's population a few years ago. Since then ten more countries have joined the Union.
It's an easy mistake to make. Geographical expansion on that scale is pretty rare these days, and the EU's organic population growth is minimal...
It's still amazing, though. Ten countries, and something like 150 million people, added to the Union overnight. Without a war. Without anyone getting hurt. Peacefully, voluntarily. Imperfect though the Union is, corrupt and undemocratic throughout and spending far, far too much on the bloody Common Agricultural Policy - that's fantastic.
Although the Daily Mail might view it more like the Maquis prisoner from DS9... for whom the Federation was worse than the Borg, because at least the Borg just came in shooting and didn't bullshit about their intentions, while the Federation cajoled and bribed and propagandised and assimilated you without you even realising that was what was happening:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Because if Virgin Atlantic have bought SS1-derived spaceplanes, then there's an opportunity for a hell of a fast trip to Europe. There's a runway in Spain capable of taking the Space Shuttle; though it's never been used, it's a factor in various abort scenarios.
Lifting off from Canaveral in a SpaceShip 2 and landing in Spain would make the old Concorde record time look pretty pathetic.
If it's the same one that's been going all around the net as an example of Oh Noes Google r t3h 3vil!!!!1!!!111!! then that's not Google censorship; apparently the person who uploaded it set those restrictions, and Google just honoured them.
After all, some material might be public domain in one country and copyright in another; or it might contain footage from the BBC Creative Archive and thereby be restricted to UK only. Plenty of legitimate reasons why the person uploading something might wish to restrict its distribution.
It could be done, but it probably wouldn't work. The nice thing about the search engine business is that it doesn't lend itself to monopolies. The moment Google stops being a reliable search engine, the moment it censors enough that it's no longer the best source of information around - that's the moment it vanishes. It costs us nothing to type in a different URL in our browsers. We abandoned Yahoo! quickly enough, didn't we?
We can probably trust the market to look after this one for us. The search engines have to return the results that best match the search criteria, regardless of political or editorial pressures, or the users will go elsewhere. The chief problem at present is that most of the search engines are American, and subject to the US government; if they really wanted to abuse that power, they could, and they could do it to them all simultaneously...
Sure. The point of the internet is that it's an international resource. Suppose that, say, the son of a cabinet minister has been caught offering to supply an undercover reporter from the Daily Mirror with a small quantity of cannabis. And, continuing this entirely hypothetical situation, let us suppose that the Government has hurriedly set about preventing this story getting out, by legal means.
Now, we expect to be able to go to the foreign media via the internet and find out the truth of what's going on. We do not expect the search engine to come back and say 'Sorry, but your local authorities don't want you to know that. Best to suck it up and learn to love Big Brother.'
I assume you're referring to the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, published in Jylland-Posten, and later circulated in the Middle-East by some imams trying to whip up an artificial controversy?
If so, then I have to ask whether you've actually seen them. Here they are. I can't see anything there that's racist. Some are critical of Jylland-Posten itself, referring to the whole thing as a publicity stunt. Some are critical of militant Islam. One - with the schoolboy, whose name apparently happens to be Muhammad - seems quite optimistic about integration and multicultural coexistence.
The only ones that anyone could conceivably take offence at are the ones criticising Islam or certain sects of Islam. But Islam is not a race, it's a religion, an ideology. Ideologies can never be said to be beyond criticism. Was it racist against Russians to criticise the ideas, the founders, and the results of Communism?
It would slaughter the game makers.
PSP games are doing badly enough anyway. Look at the PSP shelves, it's mostly UMD movies, at least in the stores where I am.
Suddenly there's a homebrew kit, and people can load MAME or Z-SNES or something onto the PSP, along with hundreds of roms. Illegal, perhaps, but certainly not to be caught by Sony's protection.
I'd buy a PSP at that point, certainly, but I'd never buy a single game. I'd load the thing full of roms.
Perhaps, but bear in mind that if you can get your conversation with your mother about the cat's appendix operation flagged up by ECHELON as 'Possible terrorist, for further investigation' then you waste enormous amounts of their time and money, and render the system a little less useful. By drawing their attention to your irrelevant blather, you help protect those who actually do have something to hide.
And if everyone encrypts, then ECHELON becomes completely and entirely useless.
So do your bit for liberty. Jam ECHELON today!
WTF? Nethack consists almost entirely of text!
I've played this game before. It was 20 years ago, and it was called Skool Daze, and it was perhaps the best game there had ever been at the time. Utterly, utterly amazing.
I've thought for years that Skool Daze could be remade today and be something special. If Rockstar's description here is accurate, I'm really, really looking forward to this game.
Heh heh heh. Oh boy. It's in a cartoon style, so it's intended for kids. Rrrrriiiggghht.
Anyone tries that'n, let me know. Now, if you'll excuse me...
$ mplayer /home/media/video/anime/hentai/la blue girl 1.avi
That, I think, was Fozzie Bear. Pac-Man said 'Wacca Wacca Wacca Wacca'.
Surely it's not THAT hard to get the icons of the early eighties straight?
This from a high school senior? What is wrong with teenagers today? I'm appalled by this clear decline in standards. A high school senior is... happy... to be helping... the Man... crack down on drugs? FOR FUCK'S SAKE! Someone get this kid to a fucking party already!
I weep for the future if this is typical of kids today. It's horrifying.
Well, there's always the possibility of unconscious plagiarism, but as far as I know I just made it up...
Quite so; although in our defence, I might point out that while the outcome of the 2001 election was nearly as good for Blair as the 1997 election in which he came to power, his party lost many seats in 2005, largely as a result of his misbehaviour alongside the White House crew.
The American electorate, OTOH, increased Bush's share of the vote after the Iraq adventure.
Nonetheless, there's no escaping it: in a democracy, we get the governments we deserve, and we are responsible for their actions. Politicians do the evil that they do because they think they'll get away with it, and they think they'll get away with it because their electorates mostly don't care to exercise any responsibility.
More to the point, what's he doing pluralising 'kamikaze' in the first place? It being a Japanese word and all...
That can happen. Look at Earth for comparison: the great majority of the land is in the northern hemisphere. Drain away the oceans and you have something looking quite similar to what we see on Mars.
A +5 Informative moderation to the first Slashdotter poring over these Mars maps to find out where the hell Beagle II got to!
Holy crap. Somebody call Dr Manhattan! It's a thermodynamic miracle...
And in the Middle East they have plenty of people who are willing - and indeed eager - to die for what they believe in. In the US they have people who are willing - and indeed eager - to give up everything they believe in to avoid the risk of dying.
And, googling further, it seems to have earned a +5 every time it's been used in a political discussion on /. ever since. I suppose it's too late now to ask about royalties... :-)
Most of it, no. For reference, the southernmost point of Great Britain is about level with the northernmost point of the USA (not counting Alaska, obviously...). Most of the population of Europe is further south than this.
Then... 2004. Having been lumbered with that idiot for a president, with his cabal of fascist hangers-on pulling the strings, and having seen the horrors they perpetrated together on America, and on America's global standing, and on the world in general, what did the American people do?
They voted him in. For real this time. No question about it, Bush won that election. They looked at the record of Bush's first term and said 'Yes. This is what we want from our Presidents. We like Bush and approve of what he has done, and want four more years of the same.'
At which point you can't blame a corrupt fascist takeover. The fascists sneaked into office via a very dodgy election, but you had the chance to get them out. But you endorsed them and voted them in again with an authentic mandate.
It's your own stupid fault now. And the world knows it. What America does now, the ordinary American people can be directly and personally blamed for.
Well, there is one possible advantage. Forcing out competition. Suppose there are a number of browsers out there, all complying with an open set of standards. You release your broken browser, which behaves rather oddly and renders things differently. Crucially, however, you bundle it along with another product of yours which already has near 100% marketshare. As a result, your broken browser immediately becomes a major player by default.
What happens then? Everyone's forced to modify their websites to work with your broken browser - and as a result, to work rather oddly, and in some cases not at all, with the standards-compliant browsers. You thereby muscle out the competition and extend your existing monopoly into a new market.
Of course, no company would ever behave so grossly unethically. And if they did, there's no way the government would let them get away with it; the anti-trust lawsuit would surely rip them to shreds. So it's a purely academic concern.
The EU isn't a nation. There's no real government in Brussels except the one that runs Belgium. The EU is fundamentally a trading bloc. It's all about free trade within the Union, about common standards throughout the Single Market, and about acting as a representative of the collective member states in dealing with outside nations (e.g. the EU vs. the US in a trade war, rather than the US vs. 25 small countries, gets better results for us.)
So, when the US government gets on Microsoft's back over some trading standards issue, it's only part of their mandate. The US government has other things on its mind, like raising or lowering taxes, like foreign wars, like its policy on violent crime. The EU, on the other hand, doesn't have any of this other stuff. That's the business of the member state governments. Brussels is about trade and only trade - and so fighting with monopolists is not something it's going to go halves on.
Thus I do not expect the EU to cave in on this. They aren't a real government, and they don't have that much real power - but on this particular issue, they're exactly the ones for the job.
But he did say 'Last time I checked'. He should probably check more frequently; presumably he last checked on the EU's population a few years ago. Since then ten more countries have joined the Union.
It's an easy mistake to make. Geographical expansion on that scale is pretty rare these days, and the EU's organic population growth is minimal...
It's still amazing, though. Ten countries, and something like 150 million people, added to the Union overnight. Without a war. Without anyone getting hurt. Peacefully, voluntarily. Imperfect though the Union is, corrupt and undemocratic throughout and spending far, far too much on the bloody Common Agricultural Policy - that's fantastic.
Although the Daily Mail might view it more like the Maquis prisoner from DS9... for whom the Federation was worse than the Borg, because at least the Borg just came in shooting and didn't bullshit about their intentions, while the Federation cajoled and bribed and propagandised and assimilated you without you even realising that was what was happening :-)