Higher end "gamer" motherboards come with default overclock settings, it doesn't require anything more then leaving the default settings as they are for the motherboard to attempt optimal settings rather then purely the settings your CPU/Memory themselves report. Going even further is also pretty easy requiring little more then selecting performance mode from a nice graphical screen.
Yes, extreme overclocking is still for enthousiasts but running your hardware slightly faster then recommended by you CPU/Memory maker is childsplay today on anything beyond an office computer.
Planetside 2 has the same problems as all SEO and PvP games. Bugs and rampant cheating. Aimbots and people using exploits to get stuck in walls were they can shoot others but can't be hit. Oh, you can report people and some do get banned but in a F2P game, a new account is a few clicks away and they are right back, exploiting again.
Balance is also completely absent from the game, possibly the worst mistake they made is including friendly fire. There will be idiots who drive over their own side with a tank. Oh, they might get scolded for it by the game but even if it gets them banned, a new account is just a few clicks away.
THIS IS THE INTERNET developers. Expect assholes. Any F2P game is going to have the community from hell and any bug is going to be exploited. You can talk though about it but you need to have dealt with this BEFORE the game launches, not by releasing interviews afterwards. When youtube has dozens of videos showing cheating, your game is done for.
1500 points cost 15 dollars, a basic gun costs 500 points. You figure it out from there.
That is the problem I have with micro transactions in games, there is NOTHING micro about it. You can play for free... you just will die a lot unable to kill others because your gun does half the damage. If your lucky.
As for buying things with in game currency, that requires either cheating (rampant) or an amount of time few adults are likely to have.
Is the game itself any good? Not really. While tactics could exist, the real problem is that one cheater can earn enough certificates to totally upgrade himself and go havoc.
Most multiplayer shooters fail because they are to open, you can't do tactics if enemies can litterally come jumping from ANYWHERE with a big tank. Oh, they might get killed in a second by a group but if they respawn and rush straight back in, tactics tend to go the way of the dodo. You end up with a large open counterstrike server. Endless battles around the same central points. Played it for a few days and then stopped. It just ain't fun to play in a good team and then a cheater blows everyone away from across the map.
This is the big difference between the US and the EU. The US got stronger protection of freedom of speech... from the government. The EU got stronger protection of freedom... from business. In the US, your hate group is safe from government interference and it is totally by accident that all the big corps seem to follow party lines. But hey, no censorship from the state, you just won't be able to bank, rent, work or buy. But total freedom otherwise.
In the EU, hate groups are not as safe from state influence but most countries got a national bank that is obligated to give an account to anyone. Well until the right-wingers privatized them with "pledges" that no-one would go without a bank account... unless the bank objected to them in some way or wanted more money for an account. But hey, you are free to bank with any bank, not their fault their are only a handful of banks and they all got the same policy. Dutch banks refused to bank for Martijn, pedo support group that promotes child love but not rape. The same banks do NOT cancel the accounts of actual child molesters. So according to Dutch banks it is okay to rape kids but not to talk about it. Same banks neither ban any hate group from using their services. Just pure coincedence that the government wanted Martijn gone and the banks wanted the same thing.
The A-Team had this as a regular plot, were a farmer or something was being forced out of business by restricting their access to say a sales platform or refusing to sell seed or other equipment. It is a ploy as old as time, you are free to buy your stuff elsewhere, just not from MY store and that other stores are not practical... well that is just to bad.
Real freedom comes not just from a line on a piece of parchment saying your are free to speak and think what you want but from the ability to EXERCISE said freedom. The right to own property is a big one in the west, it is one of the defining difference between capitalism and communism. Yet am I free to own property if nobody will sell it to me? Blacks in the US were legally allowed to buy a house LONG before they actually COULD buy a house if their white neighbors didn't want to. Freedom without the ability to exercise it, is meaningless.
The reason the EU used to have more protection in place to force essential services to serve EVERYONE is that we have had a far longer, history of NOT doing it. And well... done to people who got more of a say. "Kein Juden" was NOT official German policy for a long time, shops were free to do what they pleased just if they didn't do it, they windows would mysteriously be smashed in. The American south segregation was not entirely different in idea but its support was different and lets face it, on slashdot there are few black people, segregation happened to other people. The holocaust also but it is unthinkable to have a popular kids show with a car painted with the nazi flag. What flag is painted on the General Lee again? A flag that symbolizes what?
Exclusing undesirables is a very old EU practice, it practically defines the middle ages and even the enlightenment and then it culminated in the Holocaust and most human rights laws in the EU were written with that horrific image in mind. The US human right laws were written by slave owners whose own women couldn't vote. The US protects high level free speech for those who can afford it. The EU tries/tried to protect it for everyone, EVEN undesirables because the alternative... well... you know... the Germans had to be stopped from electing Hitler as their greatest German by excluding him from the list (despite being Austrian and the list allowing Austrians with would be like Britains biggest hero including Americans). Our old leaders had seen our worst and wrote laws to protect us.
The old Dutch Postbank (national bank part of the postal service including telephone service) HAD to give EVERYONE a bank account. For FREE! Yes Americans, reliable banking WITH interest and pay services. FOR FREE! ZERO COST. To ANYONE! And yet Yanks wonder
The LDP has indeed been in the driving seat for a LONG time. Both during the rise AND fall of Japan in fact. The reason they got kicked out was NOT because people really liked the alternative but because they were fucking sick of the LDP. Same as Labour with Blair got back after the Brits were totally fed up with Tory sleeze and to an extent even how Obama was elected because he was not Bush.
And then it turned out the new guys couldn't fix a decade and longer of mis management and the honey moon ended. So... to punish the new guy for not instantly fixing the world, lets elect the old guys, that will show that new guy! Talk about cutting of your nose to spite your face.
The LDP are the guys who created Fukushima, not the accident but the corruption surrounding it. This is the party that wants to take a though line over China, despite the fact that all the meaningless rhetoric is hurting the already fragile Japanese economy because the Chinese are no longer buying Japanese. This is the party that tried to spend its way out of the depression with endless borrowing and countless construction projects to nowhere. It is recognized by respectable economists that cutting all spending isn't a good way to fight a recession but uncontrolled spending doesn't work either.
These guys made a mess of Japan, do you really think they learned their lesson? I doubt it. Japan should stop antagonizing an enemy that has good reason to hate their guts while reminding all other "western" asian countries they got a common enemy (South Korea doesn't like to reminded of WW2 Japan anymore then China does. Neither does India for that matter. Don't forget that where the Germans have spend their time since WW2 mostly apologizing (although not actually to the point of prosecuting their war criminals until they are likely to drop dead before the trial) the Japanese have not. Japan has no good will in the area, just a failing economy and US backing. They are tolerated, not loved. And nobody wants to see Japan get imperialistic ideas again.
No, electing the LDP is a stupid move by the Japanese voter. These guys only know how to spend, create cartels and antagonize their far more powerful neighbours and stop them from buying Japanese exports.
Call me a skeptic but somehow the very fact that MS feels the need to say this, shows people are NOT picking up Windows 8. Yeah, so early adapters of the new MS vision who are so in love with the company they allow it to see everything they do, are sticking with it... and? Fans of a dog food company eat their favorite companies dog food. Doesn't mean it doesn't tastes like... well like nothing actually, animal food lacks spicing.
If Windows 8 adoption was really good, MS would be crowing about actual sales figures. They are not. For the truth NEVER listen to what a spokesman says, listen for what he doesn't say.
Basically, people that haven't given up on Windows 8 or refused to even start using it or didn't mind MS watching over their shoulder, haven't given up in large volumes. Damned by faint praise? If this is the best press release they could come up with, the truth is far more dire.
Want proof? Go back in history and read MS press release on Bob, ME and Vista.
Won't someone like Patriot Riders be there to prevent just such a thing? I don't know if they still exist or are active but I find it hard to imagine that this won't motivate a LOT of people to place themselves between the mourners and the filth.
And from what I seen as a European of this, there are a LOT more guys on bikes then filth. And as long as that is the case, the world ain't gone to hell yet.
The content industry has no reputation left to loose, the days people liked a record label as much as an artist is long gone.
Furthermore, the case would be fought by a proxy, not by a restaurant chain people have to physically enter to buy stuff from.
McDonald's has lots of competition for food pounds, the content industry controls ALL content, they are united. If people wanted to boycott McDonald's (and how many did that anyway?) they can still go to Burger King. If they want to boycott the record labels, they got to stop listening to music. Even just listening to the radio is supporting the record industry and all their evil. And people aren't going to stop doing that. Not because they entirely disagree, they might even think that SOMEONE has to do something but that someone is NOT them!
Want some proof? The Simspons and Futurama are usually shows that are quick to point out how evil business is, yet on copyright infringement, they tout the party line WITHOUT question. Liberal lefty show my ass not when the creators income is on the line. The show made light of outsourcing by showing the show being created under horrible conditions but have you seen a single scene were copyright infringement is shown as ANYTHING but evil stealing?
THAT is the big difference.
McDonald's relies on the media for its reputation. Big content IS the media. They will make certain the plebs are not disturbed by confusing ideas about right and wrong. They will tell them and the plebs will listen. They always have, they always will.
E-Readers suffer the same fate as MP3 players, new user experience from maker to maker and model to model. The iPod changed that by selling millions of devices that all worked the same. Well, more so then previous MP3 players.
There are two tablet OS'es and they are remarkably similar. Not so with E-Readers. They offer a different UI, many designs never used before for very good reasons, and that makes each one a learning experience. A learning experience to read a book is not what most people look for. Especially when experimenting with your new device is dreadfully slow. PC's are lightening fast nowadays... well except until you ask Windows to deal with a directory with a 10k files in it but hey, that is like REALLY difficult you know so don't bitch. Anyway, searching through a text, or even several is pretty fast on a modern PC. On a tablet... not so much. Oh it is workable but if you got a choice, you do it on a PC. On an E-reader: FORGET ABOUT IT. Entering text is slow and akward and searching takes forever. Flipping back and forth through a text to collect information is only achievable by those with the patience you need to train a cat (which involves waiting for the cat to do something and then give it a treat while claiming that is what you wanted it to do).
E-readers are designed by people who wish they were designing tablets, a browser has no place on a E-ink device, it is just to slow and wifi drains the battery ruining one advantage E-Readers have. But worse, all the effort spend on adding features that don't fit on the device take away from effort that could be spend on making the device REALLY REALLY good at the few simple tasks where it does excel.
E-readers are good at one thing and one thing only. Reading novels. I say novel instead of books because books could include color photobooks or manuals were information spreads across two pages.
Right there, you have the biggest limitation of E-Readers vs books of all sorts. 1 page vs 2 pages side by side. While manga sounds ideal for an E-Reader (black and white mostly) many manga's feature art that spreads across 2 pages and that is hard to display easily on an E-reader. Or rather, you can display a wide image but the resolution takes a nose dive, or you have to flip the image.
It is not a disaster but it does show the limits. Tablets have the same limitation of course BUT they allow you to quickly flip between pages, or go into settings and change display for just this page and then switch back. E-Readers don't.
E-Readers are best for simple novels you read from cover to cover. Then their long battery life, easy viewing in outside lighting (and newer models have internal lights to allow reading in the dark) and calmer image help.
Help. But if you already got a tablet anyway and are not a really heavy reader and recharge your tablet constantly anyway, then the advantages of an E-reader are rather trivial.
If your book reading includes color, 2 page layout, searching, flipping back and forth, multiple books at the same time a tablet is the better tool.
In fact, books are the better tool over E-Readers except on the issue of weight.
I got two E-readers, one big and one small and tablet and use them all but I am a gadget freak. The E-readers work for me but they have a very narrow usability range.
What E-Readers need is greater speed, faster page loads (and I really mean it should be possible to scroll, that fast), faster processing speed (it shouldn't take seconds to open a book) and better ways for dealing with odd layouts (2 page layouts). A higher resolution also wouldn't hurt, the simple fact is that the iPad3 displays text with more detail then most E-readers.
I still see people using E-Readers on my train commute in fact more then tablets BUT most are using their mobile phones to entertain themselves. But I also see that the E-Readers are often old models. For simple reading, they suffice and for complex reading tasks, the new ones ain't much better anyway.
It is circular logic because of kiddies like TFAFalcon, he acts like a child, then complains about being treated like one, so he acts like a child and gets treated like one.
This idea has been tried around the world and all have the same flaw, the number of signatures is WAAAAAAAY to low and with no cost. See the election of Kim "Let them eat grass" Jong Un by the Times reader poll.
Kickstarter works because a vote for a project carries a price. It would be MEANINGLESS to take a free vote as measurement of how well your product will sell. It is well known in MMORPG's that people claim to want to play game X but when it comes to actually paying for it, they don't.
I wonder how many people would have signed the death star petition if they had to give their real identity AND pledge to pay for looking into a possibility of a Death Star with a tax increase. Because that is what they are asking for right?
How about all those secession petitions actually be legally bound to move to a state that was going to secede even if it was some poor state that couldn't survive on its own for a day? Wanna bet far fewer people are willing to put their money were their mouth is?
We have the same thing in Holland and it has become glaringly obvious that people who submit and sign for things are NOT willing to pay for them, or be bound by them or do anything else then feel morally superior for signing things they know are impossible.
Wanna bet the Times person of the year election would NOT have been messed with if it could be arranged that all those who vote on a leader, have to go live there? No consequence makes any poll worthless because people lie their ass off in them. Hell even in real elections people lie to the world and themselves. They might want a better world but vote for the mortage (Dutch tax law allows mortages to be deducted from taxes, a gigantic subsidy on housing and an easy vote winner for anyone who says they are not going to touch it and leave it hanging over the economy like a sword of some greek guy I am to lazy to google) and then bitch the government didn't listen to them. They did, they just heard "we voters are morons" and treat you as such.
Voters have power but no accountability. What is it about power without accountability again? Anyone?
In the Ewok battle, it was AT-ST, NOT AT-AT that bit the dust. (AT-ST two legs, AT-AT four legs)
Oh and this is CLASSIC Sci-Fi, retold countless times. Hugely advanced civilization sends soldiers in high tech suits to conquer planet after planet, final result: they lie dead as primitive humans dance around them, arrows sticking out of the advanced battle suits joints. A version is in War of the Worlds, the unstoppable enemy killed by the sniffles. The story is good, problem is that Lucas tried to funny it up with slapstick action. Had it been portrayed as brutal combat, it would have gone better but then he would have been accused of being racist with the whole noble savage idea.
In China, man knifed 22 kids, wounding them. NOT killing them. US man kills 27 people, 18 kids.
Nutters exist around the world and around the world we suck at dealing with them.
Try this, about a year ago, a pedophile in court testified that he had asked his doctor BEFORE the offense, for voluntary castration. His doctor refused. Why? Because the doctor felt uneasy doing it, probably doing the leg crossing men do when castration is discussed. BUT it is NOT your penis about the removed, it is someone who has feelings he hates but can't stop and he wants to be stopped. All it takes is a snip. Or even just pills. But the doctor refused because the DOCTOR couldn't imagine being castrated being in that situation, that not being a "man" anymore might be better for the patient, for society then the doctor having to do something he is uncomfortable with.
To stop people from committing crimes, you must take actions on thoughts. That is scary and easy to be scared off. But if you are a hero for saving someone from commiting the crime of suicide, why aren't you a hero if you stop someone from comitting another crime? If I take you car keys away when you try to drink drive, people will cheer. If I lock you up in a mental ward where you can be cured instead of acting on your paranoia, it is a thought crime?
There are some deranged people who really need to be locked up, to protect us but also to protect them. But to do so is EXTREMELY expensive, this guy might have been saved and all his victims BUT would YOU have been willing to start paying say 5 years ago for counseling to stop today? Considering most of the west has been CLOSING mental hospitals, the answer is rather obviously: NO.
Right now, it is NOT possible for pedophiles to get voluntary help let alone castration. It is NOT possible to have yourself committed for an extended time, hell even getting locked up for a single night is hard.
We, the "normal" people like to believe everyone can be cured. MUST be cured. That for some people a decent jail cell is just the better option, for their own happiness and ours. We seem to have no problem locking insane people up for life in a hellish jail that will only increase their problems AFTER a crime but NOT protecting themselves BEFORE the crime when it is obvious they are an accident waiting to happen.
Of course, thought crimes, that is scary as hell... but so is letting people who are in obvious need in help fall ever deeper into trouble because WE want to be free.
There is no easy answer to this, it ain't right to punish the obviously insane but locking all of them up also goes against our ideas of justice.
Don't think this is just a US problem. Netherlands saw 2 recent incidents with students killing themselves because of bullying and a while ago, a mass shooting by a nutcase who got a gun permit despite being known to be insane.
It is a world wide issue and it is NOT about guns, guns just make the killings larger, it is about inadequate mental care for those who need it.
US seeks to embrace ALL cultures? So... that includes fundamentalist Muslims right? And Nazi's? And child love advocates?
Oh all cultures you approve off by recognizing them as a culture, not cultures you don't recognize. Gotcha.
Western culture, the enlightened society, only happened because we both forced religion to take a backseat while not allowing science into the frontseat. So, NORAD tracks Santa Claus and all is well. AND that is a MONO-culture. Only SUB-cultures can exist within it peacefully, not full-fledged cultures of their own because they would naturally be in conflict. If you put fresh water in a container and then add salt, you would like a bloody fool trying to claim the container contained fresh water and salt. It contains SALT WATER. A new thing. You can have Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindoes and even Catholics exist happily in the "western" culture BUT ONLY if they are part of the culture and are not their own independent culture.
To get this, take a look at soccer. People often talk of a soccer culture but no such thing exists. How soccer fits into each country, into each culture defines that local soccer culture. It is experienced very differently from say Holland, Brazil and the USA. It is the countries culture that defines the soccer culture. Jews in the west are FIRST their own country, then westerners and THEN Jews. Same for other integrated believe systems. Just look at the difference between Dutch Catholics and Italian Catholics. I chose the Dutch specifically since when the Pope visited Holland several decades ago, he was basically told by the majority of Catholics to piss of and keep his fundamentalist message to himself. In the US, nuns are in open rebellion and that is not a state one normally associates with nuns. The US nuns are more part of the US culture then the catholic culture and have come to interpret their belief in a radically different way then the way Rome sees it (US nuns see their role as doing good, Rome sees their role as in keeping the faith).
The conflict with Islam is not about individual faith but in portions of that culture going against the flow of the countries culture they are in. This is not just in the west, most of the now replaced or under attack leaders (Arab "Spring") were SECULAR in nature, the rebels, Islamist. Yes boys and girls, Syria is SECULAR. So was Libya. Saudi Arabia is under SHARIA law. And in Egypt Sharia law is forming the basis of the new constitution. The real issue here is of course is that Sharia law is NOT desired by all in said countries, not even all Muslims. The desire for sharia law belongs to a sub-culture of a sub-culture in Islam that however seeks to impose its will on everyone else. See Sudan, see the various Sharia4[European country] movements.
The core of the issue lies with how modern, western democracies work. It requires EVERYONE to abide by the compromise made of the wishes of the majority. If you put 100 people in a room and tell them to come up with their wish on the subject of abortion, each will write something different. A government then has to reach a compromise, something like "only until X weeks and after a cooldown period and consultation of a doctor". Practically nobody will find THEIR wish to match that compromise completely, yet if the system is to work, ALL must accept it as being the way things are. Both those who wish for stricter and looser terms MUST tolerate the compromise and life with it.
It comes as no surprise that people don't. People have illegal abortions AND people bomb abortion clinics. And BOTH are dangerous attacks on the principle of democracy. Same with people who refuse to pay taxes because they don't agree with how they are spent. Sorry. NOT YOUR CALL. The majority rules. Anyone who disagrees through anything else then the normal political process, is an enemy of democracy. Yes, it SUCKS that Christmas is a day off and not say Life Day but that is the way it is. You can run a political campaign to eliminate Christmass but in the likely case you lo
Remember that it was Sony who fought AGAINST the content industry over the home video recorder. It was when Sony bought into the content industry that their attitudes changed.
Philips went the opposite way, they used to own a content branch, when they sold it, they produced DVD copiers (rip to HD), something that the content industry was definitely not happy with.
Of course, the rest of the content industry was happy for Sony to change its attitude but they couldn't force it to. Remember that so far all the DRM has been added voluntary, not through court orders. That is why you can buy from Sharp (or could) mini-disc portable recorders which allowed digital copies (something Sony only allowed on its industry gear, because that branch of Sony has other interests then the consumer branch).
A lot of people have had issues with MS going the walled garden route but the true reason to fear it a bit more complex.
Up until quite recent, MS didn't really care about piracy of its own products and not at all about piracy of 3rd party products. After all, illegal copies helped MS software spread to the home, so people got used to it and demanded it in the office where they didn't need retraining. Then MS just made its money from office installs and everyone was happy. It worked VERY well for MS.
MS cared even less for what happened to 3rd party applications, after all, the more usable a Dos/Windows install was, the more it would become the dominant force. Adobe itself also doesn't really care about amateurs/students using illegal copies of Photoshop, just as long as you become a paying customer once you make money with it, they do fine.
But with a payed walled garden, MS has a stake in 3rd party sales. Piracy hurts its bottom line. The only way to stop this is Trusted Computing. Before the payed walled garden, MS had no real need of its own for Trusted Computing. Now it does. So it will push for it even harder.
It is the same reason why MS going into hardware is a bad thing. Before, MS had no reason to fear people installing Linux on a Dell. But installing Linux on a subsidized MS piece of hardware? NO!
Consider this, a pure data ISP doesn't care what goes over its lines, hence why Skype on the PC was never an issue. But a ISP that sells other services, like voice calls for a fee, DOES care. See the ban on Skype by many mobile providers.
And a ISP that sells music/movies has itself an interest in stopping people from getting them elsewhere.
Sony is a prime example of how such conflicting interests can even hurt the company itself, Sony crippled the otherwise quite decent Mini-disc because it feared piracy more then lost hardware sales.
My worry about Windows 8 app store isn't in how it performs but in that it is turning what was a remarkably open system into a closed one. With no benefit to me.
You are talking about China and North-Korea. BOTH countries have in their recent history not given a fucking shit about how many of their citizens starve. We are not even talking Africa style hunger but MILLIONS dying in a short period of time.
"The North Korean famine, known as the Arduous March (Hangul: Chosn'gl: ) in North Korea, was a famine that occurred in North Korea from 1994 to 1998.[5] Estimates of the death toll vary widely. Out of a total population of approximately 22 million, somewhere between 240,000 and 3,500,000 people died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses, with the deaths peaking in 1997.[6][7]"
"The Dutch famine of 1944, known as the Hongerwinter ("Hunger winter") in Dutch, was a famine that took place in the German-occupied part of the Netherlands, especially in the densely populated western provinces above the great rivers, during the winter of 1944-1945, near the end of World War II. A German blockade cut off food and fuel shipments from farm areas to punish the reluctance of the Dutch to aid the Nazi war effort. Some 4.5 million were affected and survived because of soup kitchens. About 22,000 died because of the famine.[1][2] Most vulnerable according to the death reports were elderly men.[3]"
COMPARE the figures. Granted, Holland was a LOT smaller and the figures are far more accurate but still, when your regime incurs a worse death ratio then the Germans, the most evil country on earth, you are NOT nice people. And your actions won't be affected by the loss of food imports.
The Chinese aren't much better
According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in this period.[1] Unofficial estimates vary, but scholars have estimated the number of famine victims to be between 20 and 43 million.[2] Historian Frank Dikötter, having been granted special access to Chinese archival materials, estimates that there were at least 45 million premature deaths from 1958 to 1962.[3][4] Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng concluded there were 36 million deaths due to starvation, while another 40 million others failed to be born, so that “China’s total population loss during the Great Famine then comes to 76 million.”[5] The phrase "Three Bitter Years" is often used by Chinese peasants to describe this period.
Now granted, China has a HUGE population but we are talking a death toll equal or even exceeding that of the ENTIRE second world war.
Oh but MODERN China would revolt... why? Old China didn't. People don't revolt when they are hungry, ESPECIALLY when they can see the hunger is happening to THEM, not US. Check history, it is when people have full bellies, that they revolt. Oh, when the revolution has started rolling, the hungry might join in, or be forced to join but it NEVER starts with the hungry. Anyway, all you need is to feed the soldiers and their immediate family. Kill some hungry grumblers and your family eats. It works very well.
No. China and NK have maintained their system long enough to know how to keep it. Make it very clear to the people they got a choice. Live under the system or die under it. A few million deaths from starvation aren't going to chance that.
And the US NEEDS China's toys, because US citizens are NOT close to starvation, their bellies are full and they got more weapons then their own army. The US couldn't afford for Walmart to go out of business because there are no more cheap imports.
But nothing will happen because on both sides, the powers that be WANT to keep their luxury lifestyles. The real risk for war is NOT when the masses have nothing to eat, or to much to eat but when a leader decided that some ideology is more important then luxury. That is the time to get scared.
You are aware that the US has active invasion plans for The Netherlands? It is home to the internation court in The Hague and the US has plans to invade a friendly nation if ever a US citizen goes on trial for war crimes.
So... what was your point again? The US does not even respect sovereign nations that have been friendly for centuries.
In The Netherlands, some broadcasters still have in their name "vereniging" (society/club). They were originally founded by people with a similar interest who wanted to make programs according to their world view for others. It was a sharing caring thing. NOT pure commerce. The US might have had the same but now it doesn't and BOY does it show. Dutch broadcasters had to be forced by law to stop just buying American shows to get ratings and instead make TV accordin to their individual mision statement. It is TV nobody wants to watch for the betterment of all...
So... which is better? The mega corps must watch TV or the educational TV? The answer is probably the BBC which is a bit of both.
Where are the baby steps? American TV didn't start out as interludes between the commercials but with every annual report financial report, the need for ad revenue to go up, the ads got more intrusive till a Fox CEO claimed going out of the room during commercials is the same as stealing. Now ads are not just before during and after the show or worked into it but actually overlaying the TV image. Every step people said "oh well, this isn't to bad, I just go to the toilet or zap" and every step it got worse.
The problem is that that this amazon unity lens, is advertising and advertisers NEVER EVER STOP. Give them they finger, they abuct your family and sell them for parts. Searching for your files in realtime is so 90's, why not index your files for faster searches? Why not send the index database to the cloud so you know all your files no matter where you are on whatever device? And why not pay for it with allowing someone to search for it for keywords they can link ads to? And just a link to a web page, why not upload the ads for faster viewing? Why not allow executable content as ads? Why not allow third parties to serve advertising?
Unlikely? Their are countless events were ordinary 3rd party browser ads have infected hundreds of thousands peoples PC because the perfectly normal safe site you visited decided a fraction of a cent for a banner was worth more then your computer security and their reputation.
Oh... but surely Ubuntu wouldn't... no of course not. And the same was said by newspapers like NRC quite recently, just before they infected their readers.
I am reminded of Mint. Mozilla Firefox ALREADY pushed advertising by installing google search by default, then Mint took over and made it hard to remove, ruining the search page in the process. They slightly improved their act but this is just baby steps. Whats next?
Stallman mentions in his response that he expected this of MS and MS has repeatedly been found sending data home in its various media players. Oh they removed it once people found out, claiming bugs or debug or whatever. But they keep on trying.
When you buy a Windows PC, you fork over a ton of cash and nobody involved cares because they shovel it full of crapware because that gives them a bit extra. MS did this too, even the pure Windows no OEM disc fully priced came with links to shopping sites and expensive ISP's. Sure, to help me... of course.
I really don't want my computing to turn into an airline experience were everything costs money, especially not since I switched to Linux years ago. I even tried OSX but was put of by the fact that tools that are free for Linux are all shareware on OSX. Yes, you might call me a cheap bastard but I grew up in a world were there were no ads on tv on sunday. I have been to the US for long enough to know advertising EVERYWHERE does NOT make the world a better place.
Ubuntu got big over the principles of free software and now is betraying it all for a few bucks and it gives everyone an excuse to stay with Windows and OSX because well, right now, neither of THEM sell your privacy quite so openly to the highest bidder.
Yes, you can remove it for now. Sure... baby steps. If this fails and it will, they will just try again and again and again. And that gets really old after a while.
And if you make sure everyone in the production of a good earns a fair sustainable wage, the product ends up more expensive. It is so limiting to respect human rights in your production process. Far easier if you can just say you think human rights are right but walk all over them in practice.
RMS is not saying that closed software doesn't have its attractions but that ultimately you may regret your choice. It remains funny to me that it took Apple to proof that Android didn't really need to bend over for the closed source security risk that is Flash after all. So much for iOS being limiting because it excluded a closed source piece of software.
RMS is not talking about the easy way out, he is telling you that the easy way out might end up costing you. You are free to ignore him but it keeps amazing me how many people who are normally privacy nutters scream and rage against RMS for telling them what they themselves rant about.
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Higher end "gamer" motherboards come with default overclock settings, it doesn't require anything more then leaving the default settings as they are for the motherboard to attempt optimal settings rather then purely the settings your CPU/Memory themselves report. Going even further is also pretty easy requiring little more then selecting performance mode from a nice graphical screen.
Yes, extreme overclocking is still for enthousiasts but running your hardware slightly faster then recommended by you CPU/Memory maker is childsplay today on anything beyond an office computer.
Planetside 2 has the same problems as all SEO and PvP games. Bugs and rampant cheating. Aimbots and people using exploits to get stuck in walls were they can shoot others but can't be hit. Oh, you can report people and some do get banned but in a F2P game, a new account is a few clicks away and they are right back, exploiting again.
Balance is also completely absent from the game, possibly the worst mistake they made is including friendly fire. There will be idiots who drive over their own side with a tank. Oh, they might get scolded for it by the game but even if it gets them banned, a new account is just a few clicks away.
THIS IS THE INTERNET developers. Expect assholes. Any F2P game is going to have the community from hell and any bug is going to be exploited. You can talk though about it but you need to have dealt with this BEFORE the game launches, not by releasing interviews afterwards. When youtube has dozens of videos showing cheating, your game is done for.
1500 points cost 15 dollars, a basic gun costs 500 points. You figure it out from there.
That is the problem I have with micro transactions in games, there is NOTHING micro about it. You can play for free... you just will die a lot unable to kill others because your gun does half the damage. If your lucky.
As for buying things with in game currency, that requires either cheating (rampant) or an amount of time few adults are likely to have.
Is the game itself any good? Not really. While tactics could exist, the real problem is that one cheater can earn enough certificates to totally upgrade himself and go havoc.
Most multiplayer shooters fail because they are to open, you can't do tactics if enemies can litterally come jumping from ANYWHERE with a big tank. Oh, they might get killed in a second by a group but if they respawn and rush straight back in, tactics tend to go the way of the dodo. You end up with a large open counterstrike server. Endless battles around the same central points. Played it for a few days and then stopped. It just ain't fun to play in a good team and then a cheater blows everyone away from across the map.
This is the big difference between the US and the EU. The US got stronger protection of freedom of speech... from the government. The EU got stronger protection of freedom... from business. In the US, your hate group is safe from government interference and it is totally by accident that all the big corps seem to follow party lines. But hey, no censorship from the state, you just won't be able to bank, rent, work or buy. But total freedom otherwise.
In the EU, hate groups are not as safe from state influence but most countries got a national bank that is obligated to give an account to anyone. Well until the right-wingers privatized them with "pledges" that no-one would go without a bank account... unless the bank objected to them in some way or wanted more money for an account. But hey, you are free to bank with any bank, not their fault their are only a handful of banks and they all got the same policy. Dutch banks refused to bank for Martijn, pedo support group that promotes child love but not rape. The same banks do NOT cancel the accounts of actual child molesters. So according to Dutch banks it is okay to rape kids but not to talk about it. Same banks neither ban any hate group from using their services. Just pure coincedence that the government wanted Martijn gone and the banks wanted the same thing.
The A-Team had this as a regular plot, were a farmer or something was being forced out of business by restricting their access to say a sales platform or refusing to sell seed or other equipment. It is a ploy as old as time, you are free to buy your stuff elsewhere, just not from MY store and that other stores are not practical... well that is just to bad.
Real freedom comes not just from a line on a piece of parchment saying your are free to speak and think what you want but from the ability to EXERCISE said freedom. The right to own property is a big one in the west, it is one of the defining difference between capitalism and communism. Yet am I free to own property if nobody will sell it to me? Blacks in the US were legally allowed to buy a house LONG before they actually COULD buy a house if their white neighbors didn't want to. Freedom without the ability to exercise it, is meaningless.
The reason the EU used to have more protection in place to force essential services to serve EVERYONE is that we have had a far longer, history of NOT doing it. And well... done to people who got more of a say. "Kein Juden" was NOT official German policy for a long time, shops were free to do what they pleased just if they didn't do it, they windows would mysteriously be smashed in. The American south segregation was not entirely different in idea but its support was different and lets face it, on slashdot there are few black people, segregation happened to other people. The holocaust also but it is unthinkable to have a popular kids show with a car painted with the nazi flag. What flag is painted on the General Lee again? A flag that symbolizes what?
Exclusing undesirables is a very old EU practice, it practically defines the middle ages and even the enlightenment and then it culminated in the Holocaust and most human rights laws in the EU were written with that horrific image in mind. The US human right laws were written by slave owners whose own women couldn't vote. The US protects high level free speech for those who can afford it. The EU tries/tried to protect it for everyone, EVEN undesirables because the alternative... well... you know... the Germans had to be stopped from electing Hitler as their greatest German by excluding him from the list (despite being Austrian and the list allowing Austrians with would be like Britains biggest hero including Americans). Our old leaders had seen our worst and wrote laws to protect us.
The old Dutch Postbank (national bank part of the postal service including telephone service) HAD to give EVERYONE a bank account. For FREE! Yes Americans, reliable banking WITH interest and pay services. FOR FREE! ZERO COST. To ANYONE! And yet Yanks wonder
Seriously kid, stop watching fox, your bain is rotting away. Australia and Europe both got lower crime rates.
Australia banned automatic rifles after several mass shootings and since then, they have had none.
But hey, why let actual facts stand in the way of you rant.
What is missing her, what was her major malfunction?
You see, you can claim to want a gun for self defense but how many do you need? What did she need that arsenal for? Why so much ammo?
Ten to one the mother is the answer to this drama.
The LDP has indeed been in the driving seat for a LONG time. Both during the rise AND fall of Japan in fact. The reason they got kicked out was NOT because people really liked the alternative but because they were fucking sick of the LDP. Same as Labour with Blair got back after the Brits were totally fed up with Tory sleeze and to an extent even how Obama was elected because he was not Bush.
And then it turned out the new guys couldn't fix a decade and longer of mis management and the honey moon ended. So... to punish the new guy for not instantly fixing the world, lets elect the old guys, that will show that new guy! Talk about cutting of your nose to spite your face.
The LDP are the guys who created Fukushima, not the accident but the corruption surrounding it. This is the party that wants to take a though line over China, despite the fact that all the meaningless rhetoric is hurting the already fragile Japanese economy because the Chinese are no longer buying Japanese. This is the party that tried to spend its way out of the depression with endless borrowing and countless construction projects to nowhere. It is recognized by respectable economists that cutting all spending isn't a good way to fight a recession but uncontrolled spending doesn't work either.
These guys made a mess of Japan, do you really think they learned their lesson? I doubt it. Japan should stop antagonizing an enemy that has good reason to hate their guts while reminding all other "western" asian countries they got a common enemy (South Korea doesn't like to reminded of WW2 Japan anymore then China does. Neither does India for that matter. Don't forget that where the Germans have spend their time since WW2 mostly apologizing (although not actually to the point of prosecuting their war criminals until they are likely to drop dead before the trial) the Japanese have not. Japan has no good will in the area, just a failing economy and US backing. They are tolerated, not loved. And nobody wants to see Japan get imperialistic ideas again.
No, electing the LDP is a stupid move by the Japanese voter. These guys only know how to spend, create cartels and antagonize their far more powerful neighbours and stop them from buying Japanese exports.
Call me a skeptic but somehow the very fact that MS feels the need to say this, shows people are NOT picking up Windows 8. Yeah, so early adapters of the new MS vision who are so in love with the company they allow it to see everything they do, are sticking with it... and? Fans of a dog food company eat their favorite companies dog food. Doesn't mean it doesn't tastes like... well like nothing actually, animal food lacks spicing.
If Windows 8 adoption was really good, MS would be crowing about actual sales figures. They are not. For the truth NEVER listen to what a spokesman says, listen for what he doesn't say.
Basically, people that haven't given up on Windows 8 or refused to even start using it or didn't mind MS watching over their shoulder, haven't given up in large volumes. Damned by faint praise? If this is the best press release they could come up with, the truth is far more dire.
Want proof? Go back in history and read MS press release on Bob, ME and Vista.
Won't someone like Patriot Riders be there to prevent just such a thing? I don't know if they still exist or are active but I find it hard to imagine that this won't motivate a LOT of people to place themselves between the mourners and the filth.
And from what I seen as a European of this, there are a LOT more guys on bikes then filth. And as long as that is the case, the world ain't gone to hell yet.
The content industry has no reputation left to loose, the days people liked a record label as much as an artist is long gone.
Furthermore, the case would be fought by a proxy, not by a restaurant chain people have to physically enter to buy stuff from.
McDonald's has lots of competition for food pounds, the content industry controls ALL content, they are united. If people wanted to boycott McDonald's (and how many did that anyway?) they can still go to Burger King. If they want to boycott the record labels, they got to stop listening to music. Even just listening to the radio is supporting the record industry and all their evil. And people aren't going to stop doing that. Not because they entirely disagree, they might even think that SOMEONE has to do something but that someone is NOT them!
Want some proof? The Simspons and Futurama are usually shows that are quick to point out how evil business is, yet on copyright infringement, they tout the party line WITHOUT question. Liberal lefty show my ass not when the creators income is on the line. The show made light of outsourcing by showing the show being created under horrible conditions but have you seen a single scene were copyright infringement is shown as ANYTHING but evil stealing?
THAT is the big difference.
McDonald's relies on the media for its reputation. Big content IS the media. They will make certain the plebs are not disturbed by confusing ideas about right and wrong. They will tell them and the plebs will listen. They always have, they always will.
E-Readers suffer the same fate as MP3 players, new user experience from maker to maker and model to model. The iPod changed that by selling millions of devices that all worked the same. Well, more so then previous MP3 players.
There are two tablet OS'es and they are remarkably similar. Not so with E-Readers. They offer a different UI, many designs never used before for very good reasons, and that makes each one a learning experience. A learning experience to read a book is not what most people look for. Especially when experimenting with your new device is dreadfully slow. PC's are lightening fast nowadays... well except until you ask Windows to deal with a directory with a 10k files in it but hey, that is like REALLY difficult you know so don't bitch. Anyway, searching through a text, or even several is pretty fast on a modern PC. On a tablet... not so much. Oh it is workable but if you got a choice, you do it on a PC. On an E-reader: FORGET ABOUT IT. Entering text is slow and akward and searching takes forever. Flipping back and forth through a text to collect information is only achievable by those with the patience you need to train a cat (which involves waiting for the cat to do something and then give it a treat while claiming that is what you wanted it to do).
E-readers are designed by people who wish they were designing tablets, a browser has no place on a E-ink device, it is just to slow and wifi drains the battery ruining one advantage E-Readers have. But worse, all the effort spend on adding features that don't fit on the device take away from effort that could be spend on making the device REALLY REALLY good at the few simple tasks where it does excel.
E-readers are good at one thing and one thing only. Reading novels. I say novel instead of books because books could include color photobooks or manuals were information spreads across two pages.
Right there, you have the biggest limitation of E-Readers vs books of all sorts. 1 page vs 2 pages side by side. While manga sounds ideal for an E-Reader (black and white mostly) many manga's feature art that spreads across 2 pages and that is hard to display easily on an E-reader. Or rather, you can display a wide image but the resolution takes a nose dive, or you have to flip the image.
It is not a disaster but it does show the limits. Tablets have the same limitation of course BUT they allow you to quickly flip between pages, or go into settings and change display for just this page and then switch back. E-Readers don't.
E-Readers are best for simple novels you read from cover to cover. Then their long battery life, easy viewing in outside lighting (and newer models have internal lights to allow reading in the dark) and calmer image help.
Help. But if you already got a tablet anyway and are not a really heavy reader and recharge your tablet constantly anyway, then the advantages of an E-reader are rather trivial.
If your book reading includes color, 2 page layout, searching, flipping back and forth, multiple books at the same time a tablet is the better tool.
In fact, books are the better tool over E-Readers except on the issue of weight.
I got two E-readers, one big and one small and tablet and use them all but I am a gadget freak. The E-readers work for me but they have a very narrow usability range.
What E-Readers need is greater speed, faster page loads (and I really mean it should be possible to scroll, that fast), faster processing speed (it shouldn't take seconds to open a book) and better ways for dealing with odd layouts (2 page layouts). A higher resolution also wouldn't hurt, the simple fact is that the iPad3 displays text with more detail then most E-readers.
I still see people using E-Readers on my train commute in fact more then tablets BUT most are using their mobile phones to entertain themselves. But I also see that the E-Readers are often old models. For simple reading, they suffice and for complex reading tasks, the new ones ain't much better anyway.
THA
It is circular logic because of kiddies like TFAFalcon, he acts like a child, then complains about being treated like one, so he acts like a child and gets treated like one.
This idea has been tried around the world and all have the same flaw, the number of signatures is WAAAAAAAY to low and with no cost. See the election of Kim "Let them eat grass" Jong Un by the Times reader poll.
Kickstarter works because a vote for a project carries a price. It would be MEANINGLESS to take a free vote as measurement of how well your product will sell. It is well known in MMORPG's that people claim to want to play game X but when it comes to actually paying for it, they don't.
I wonder how many people would have signed the death star petition if they had to give their real identity AND pledge to pay for looking into a possibility of a Death Star with a tax increase. Because that is what they are asking for right?
How about all those secession petitions actually be legally bound to move to a state that was going to secede even if it was some poor state that couldn't survive on its own for a day? Wanna bet far fewer people are willing to put their money were their mouth is?
We have the same thing in Holland and it has become glaringly obvious that people who submit and sign for things are NOT willing to pay for them, or be bound by them or do anything else then feel morally superior for signing things they know are impossible.
Wanna bet the Times person of the year election would NOT have been messed with if it could be arranged that all those who vote on a leader, have to go live there? No consequence makes any poll worthless because people lie their ass off in them. Hell even in real elections people lie to the world and themselves. They might want a better world but vote for the mortage (Dutch tax law allows mortages to be deducted from taxes, a gigantic subsidy on housing and an easy vote winner for anyone who says they are not going to touch it and leave it hanging over the economy like a sword of some greek guy I am to lazy to google) and then bitch the government didn't listen to them. They did, they just heard "we voters are morons" and treat you as such.
Voters have power but no accountability. What is it about power without accountability again? Anyone?
In the Ewok battle, it was AT-ST, NOT AT-AT that bit the dust. (AT-ST two legs, AT-AT four legs)
Oh and this is CLASSIC Sci-Fi, retold countless times. Hugely advanced civilization sends soldiers in high tech suits to conquer planet after planet, final result: they lie dead as primitive humans dance around them, arrows sticking out of the advanced battle suits joints. A version is in War of the Worlds, the unstoppable enemy killed by the sniffles. The story is good, problem is that Lucas tried to funny it up with slapstick action. Had it been portrayed as brutal combat, it would have gone better but then he would have been accused of being racist with the whole noble savage idea.
The difference that gun control makes is obvious: http://nos.nl/artikel/451509-22-chinese-kinderen-neergestoken.html
In China, man knifed 22 kids, wounding them. NOT killing them. US man kills 27 people, 18 kids.
Nutters exist around the world and around the world we suck at dealing with them.
Try this, about a year ago, a pedophile in court testified that he had asked his doctor BEFORE the offense, for voluntary castration. His doctor refused. Why? Because the doctor felt uneasy doing it, probably doing the leg crossing men do when castration is discussed. BUT it is NOT your penis about the removed, it is someone who has feelings he hates but can't stop and he wants to be stopped. All it takes is a snip. Or even just pills. But the doctor refused because the DOCTOR couldn't imagine being castrated being in that situation, that not being a "man" anymore might be better for the patient, for society then the doctor having to do something he is uncomfortable with.
To stop people from committing crimes, you must take actions on thoughts. That is scary and easy to be scared off. But if you are a hero for saving someone from commiting the crime of suicide, why aren't you a hero if you stop someone from comitting another crime? If I take you car keys away when you try to drink drive, people will cheer. If I lock you up in a mental ward where you can be cured instead of acting on your paranoia, it is a thought crime?
There are some deranged people who really need to be locked up, to protect us but also to protect them. But to do so is EXTREMELY expensive, this guy might have been saved and all his victims BUT would YOU have been willing to start paying say 5 years ago for counseling to stop today? Considering most of the west has been CLOSING mental hospitals, the answer is rather obviously: NO.
Right now, it is NOT possible for pedophiles to get voluntary help let alone castration. It is NOT possible to have yourself committed for an extended time, hell even getting locked up for a single night is hard.
We, the "normal" people like to believe everyone can be cured. MUST be cured. That for some people a decent jail cell is just the better option, for their own happiness and ours. We seem to have no problem locking insane people up for life in a hellish jail that will only increase their problems AFTER a crime but NOT protecting themselves BEFORE the crime when it is obvious they are an accident waiting to happen.
Of course, thought crimes, that is scary as hell... but so is letting people who are in obvious need in help fall ever deeper into trouble because WE want to be free.
There is no easy answer to this, it ain't right to punish the obviously insane but locking all of them up also goes against our ideas of justice.
Don't think this is just a US problem. Netherlands saw 2 recent incidents with students killing themselves because of bullying and a while ago, a mass shooting by a nutcase who got a gun permit despite being known to be insane.
It is a world wide issue and it is NOT about guns, guns just make the killings larger, it is about inadequate mental care for those who need it.
US seeks to embrace ALL cultures? So... that includes fundamentalist Muslims right? And Nazi's? And child love advocates?
Oh all cultures you approve off by recognizing them as a culture, not cultures you don't recognize. Gotcha.
Western culture, the enlightened society, only happened because we both forced religion to take a backseat while not allowing science into the frontseat. So, NORAD tracks Santa Claus and all is well. AND that is a MONO-culture. Only SUB-cultures can exist within it peacefully, not full-fledged cultures of their own because they would naturally be in conflict. If you put fresh water in a container and then add salt, you would like a bloody fool trying to claim the container contained fresh water and salt. It contains SALT WATER. A new thing. You can have Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindoes and even Catholics exist happily in the "western" culture BUT ONLY if they are part of the culture and are not their own independent culture.
To get this, take a look at soccer. People often talk of a soccer culture but no such thing exists. How soccer fits into each country, into each culture defines that local soccer culture. It is experienced very differently from say Holland, Brazil and the USA. It is the countries culture that defines the soccer culture. Jews in the west are FIRST their own country, then westerners and THEN Jews. Same for other integrated believe systems. Just look at the difference between Dutch Catholics and Italian Catholics. I chose the Dutch specifically since when the Pope visited Holland several decades ago, he was basically told by the majority of Catholics to piss of and keep his fundamentalist message to himself. In the US, nuns are in open rebellion and that is not a state one normally associates with nuns. The US nuns are more part of the US culture then the catholic culture and have come to interpret their belief in a radically different way then the way Rome sees it (US nuns see their role as doing good, Rome sees their role as in keeping the faith).
The conflict with Islam is not about individual faith but in portions of that culture going against the flow of the countries culture they are in. This is not just in the west, most of the now replaced or under attack leaders (Arab "Spring") were SECULAR in nature, the rebels, Islamist. Yes boys and girls, Syria is SECULAR. So was Libya. Saudi Arabia is under SHARIA law. And in Egypt Sharia law is forming the basis of the new constitution. The real issue here is of course is that Sharia law is NOT desired by all in said countries, not even all Muslims. The desire for sharia law belongs to a sub-culture of a sub-culture in Islam that however seeks to impose its will on everyone else. See Sudan, see the various Sharia4[European country] movements.
The core of the issue lies with how modern, western democracies work. It requires EVERYONE to abide by the compromise made of the wishes of the majority. If you put 100 people in a room and tell them to come up with their wish on the subject of abortion, each will write something different. A government then has to reach a compromise, something like "only until X weeks and after a cooldown period and consultation of a doctor". Practically nobody will find THEIR wish to match that compromise completely, yet if the system is to work, ALL must accept it as being the way things are. Both those who wish for stricter and looser terms MUST tolerate the compromise and life with it.
It comes as no surprise that people don't. People have illegal abortions AND people bomb abortion clinics. And BOTH are dangerous attacks on the principle of democracy. Same with people who refuse to pay taxes because they don't agree with how they are spent. Sorry. NOT YOUR CALL. The majority rules. Anyone who disagrees through anything else then the normal political process, is an enemy of democracy. Yes, it SUCKS that Christmas is a day off and not say Life Day but that is the way it is. You can run a political campaign to eliminate Christmass but in the likely case you lo
Remember that it was Sony who fought AGAINST the content industry over the home video recorder. It was when Sony bought into the content industry that their attitudes changed.
Philips went the opposite way, they used to own a content branch, when they sold it, they produced DVD copiers (rip to HD), something that the content industry was definitely not happy with.
Of course, the rest of the content industry was happy for Sony to change its attitude but they couldn't force it to. Remember that so far all the DRM has been added voluntary, not through court orders. That is why you can buy from Sharp (or could) mini-disc portable recorders which allowed digital copies (something Sony only allowed on its industry gear, because that branch of Sony has other interests then the consumer branch).
Mass murderers, child molesters and republicans also blend in.
Just sayin'
"Since no one could make a rational case that the major use of disk drives was to store and distribute pirates music, "
You poor silly deluded fool. This case has BEEN made AND has been accepted in at least Holland (Hardware companies are suing over it).
You are forgetting just how corrupt politicians are.
If he wanted to go to the US, why didn't he go there immediately?
A lot of people have had issues with MS going the walled garden route but the true reason to fear it a bit more complex.
Up until quite recent, MS didn't really care about piracy of its own products and not at all about piracy of 3rd party products. After all, illegal copies helped MS software spread to the home, so people got used to it and demanded it in the office where they didn't need retraining. Then MS just made its money from office installs and everyone was happy. It worked VERY well for MS.
MS cared even less for what happened to 3rd party applications, after all, the more usable a Dos/Windows install was, the more it would become the dominant force. Adobe itself also doesn't really care about amateurs/students using illegal copies of Photoshop, just as long as you become a paying customer once you make money with it, they do fine.
But with a payed walled garden, MS has a stake in 3rd party sales. Piracy hurts its bottom line. The only way to stop this is Trusted Computing. Before the payed walled garden, MS had no real need of its own for Trusted Computing. Now it does. So it will push for it even harder.
It is the same reason why MS going into hardware is a bad thing. Before, MS had no reason to fear people installing Linux on a Dell. But installing Linux on a subsidized MS piece of hardware? NO!
Consider this, a pure data ISP doesn't care what goes over its lines, hence why Skype on the PC was never an issue. But a ISP that sells other services, like voice calls for a fee, DOES care. See the ban on Skype by many mobile providers.
And a ISP that sells music/movies has itself an interest in stopping people from getting them elsewhere.
Sony is a prime example of how such conflicting interests can even hurt the company itself, Sony crippled the otherwise quite decent Mini-disc because it feared piracy more then lost hardware sales.
My worry about Windows 8 app store isn't in how it performs but in that it is turning what was a remarkably open system into a closed one. With no benefit to me.
You are talking about China and North-Korea. BOTH countries have in their recent history not given a fucking shit about how many of their citizens starve. We are not even talking Africa style hunger but MILLIONS dying in a short period of time.
"The North Korean famine, known as the Arduous March (Hangul: Chosn'gl: ) in North Korea, was a famine that occurred in North Korea from 1994 to 1998.[5] Estimates of the death toll vary widely. Out of a total population of approximately 22 million, somewhere between 240,000 and 3,500,000 people died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses, with the deaths peaking in 1997.[6][7]"
"The Dutch famine of 1944, known as the Hongerwinter ("Hunger winter") in Dutch, was a famine that took place in the German-occupied part of the Netherlands, especially in the densely populated western provinces above the great rivers, during the winter of 1944-1945, near the end of World War II. A German blockade cut off food and fuel shipments from farm areas to punish the reluctance of the Dutch to aid the Nazi war effort. Some 4.5 million were affected and survived because of soup kitchens. About 22,000 died because of the famine.[1][2] Most vulnerable according to the death reports were elderly men.[3]"
COMPARE the figures. Granted, Holland was a LOT smaller and the figures are far more accurate but still, when your regime incurs a worse death ratio then the Germans, the most evil country on earth, you are NOT nice people. And your actions won't be affected by the loss of food imports.
The Chinese aren't much better
According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in this period.[1] Unofficial estimates vary, but scholars have estimated the number of famine victims to be between 20 and 43 million.[2] Historian Frank Dikötter, having been granted special access to Chinese archival materials, estimates that there were at least 45 million premature deaths from 1958 to 1962.[3][4] Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng concluded there were 36 million deaths due to starvation, while another 40 million others failed to be born, so that “China’s total population loss during the Great Famine then comes to 76 million.”[5] The phrase "Three Bitter Years" is often used by Chinese peasants to describe this period.
Now granted, China has a HUGE population but we are talking a death toll equal or even exceeding that of the ENTIRE second world war.
Oh but MODERN China would revolt... why? Old China didn't. People don't revolt when they are hungry, ESPECIALLY when they can see the hunger is happening to THEM, not US. Check history, it is when people have full bellies, that they revolt. Oh, when the revolution has started rolling, the hungry might join in, or be forced to join but it NEVER starts with the hungry. Anyway, all you need is to feed the soldiers and their immediate family. Kill some hungry grumblers and your family eats. It works very well.
No. China and NK have maintained their system long enough to know how to keep it. Make it very clear to the people they got a choice. Live under the system or die under it. A few million deaths from starvation aren't going to chance that.
And the US NEEDS China's toys, because US citizens are NOT close to starvation, their bellies are full and they got more weapons then their own army. The US couldn't afford for Walmart to go out of business because there are no more cheap imports.
But nothing will happen because on both sides, the powers that be WANT to keep their luxury lifestyles. The real risk for war is NOT when the masses have nothing to eat, or to much to eat but when a leader decided that some ideology is more important then luxury. That is the time to get scared.
You are aware that the US has active invasion plans for The Netherlands? It is home to the internation court in The Hague and the US has plans to invade a friendly nation if ever a US citizen goes on trial for war crimes.
So... what was your point again? The US does not even respect sovereign nations that have been friendly for centuries.
In The Netherlands, some broadcasters still have in their name "vereniging" (society/club). They were originally founded by people with a similar interest who wanted to make programs according to their world view for others. It was a sharing caring thing. NOT pure commerce. The US might have had the same but now it doesn't and BOY does it show. Dutch broadcasters had to be forced by law to stop just buying American shows to get ratings and instead make TV accordin to their individual mision statement. It is TV nobody wants to watch for the betterment of all...
So... which is better? The mega corps must watch TV or the educational TV? The answer is probably the BBC which is a bit of both.
Where are the baby steps? American TV didn't start out as interludes between the commercials but with every annual report financial report, the need for ad revenue to go up, the ads got more intrusive till a Fox CEO claimed going out of the room during commercials is the same as stealing. Now ads are not just before during and after the show or worked into it but actually overlaying the TV image. Every step people said "oh well, this isn't to bad, I just go to the toilet or zap" and every step it got worse.
The problem is that that this amazon unity lens, is advertising and advertisers NEVER EVER STOP. Give them they finger, they abuct your family and sell them for parts. Searching for your files in realtime is so 90's, why not index your files for faster searches? Why not send the index database to the cloud so you know all your files no matter where you are on whatever device? And why not pay for it with allowing someone to search for it for keywords they can link ads to? And just a link to a web page, why not upload the ads for faster viewing? Why not allow executable content as ads? Why not allow third parties to serve advertising?
Unlikely? Their are countless events were ordinary 3rd party browser ads have infected hundreds of thousands peoples PC because the perfectly normal safe site you visited decided a fraction of a cent for a banner was worth more then your computer security and their reputation.
Oh... but surely Ubuntu wouldn't... no of course not. And the same was said by newspapers like NRC quite recently, just before they infected their readers.
I am reminded of Mint. Mozilla Firefox ALREADY pushed advertising by installing google search by default, then Mint took over and made it hard to remove, ruining the search page in the process. They slightly improved their act but this is just baby steps. Whats next?
Stallman mentions in his response that he expected this of MS and MS has repeatedly been found sending data home in its various media players. Oh they removed it once people found out, claiming bugs or debug or whatever. But they keep on trying.
When you buy a Windows PC, you fork over a ton of cash and nobody involved cares because they shovel it full of crapware because that gives them a bit extra. MS did this too, even the pure Windows no OEM disc fully priced came with links to shopping sites and expensive ISP's. Sure, to help me... of course.
I really don't want my computing to turn into an airline experience were everything costs money, especially not since I switched to Linux years ago. I even tried OSX but was put of by the fact that tools that are free for Linux are all shareware on OSX. Yes, you might call me a cheap bastard but I grew up in a world were there were no ads on tv on sunday. I have been to the US for long enough to know advertising EVERYWHERE does NOT make the world a better place.
Ubuntu got big over the principles of free software and now is betraying it all for a few bucks and it gives everyone an excuse to stay with Windows and OSX because well, right now, neither of THEM sell your privacy quite so openly to the highest bidder.
Yes, you can remove it for now. Sure... baby steps. If this fails and it will, they will just try again and again and again. And that gets really old after a while.
And if you make sure everyone in the production of a good earns a fair sustainable wage, the product ends up more expensive. It is so limiting to respect human rights in your production process. Far easier if you can just say you think human rights are right but walk all over them in practice.
RMS is not saying that closed software doesn't have its attractions but that ultimately you may regret your choice. It remains funny to me that it took Apple to proof that Android didn't really need to bend over for the closed source security risk that is Flash after all. So much for iOS being limiting because it excluded a closed source piece of software.
RMS is not talking about the easy way out, he is telling you that the easy way out might end up costing you. You are free to ignore him but it keeps amazing me how many people who are normally privacy nutters scream and rage against RMS for telling them what they themselves rant about.