The western system will grind you to dust if it gets you into its gears but it is still a million times better even for the pile of dust then the pure anarchy of the libertarian.
I think, as a test of the freedom of speech, this person should now receive death threats for the rest of his life. As a joke. For fun.
The whole "joke" bit just sounds like the usual scumbag escape clause to me, of course it was a joke, it wouldn't look good in court if he said "I made that tweet because I am a self-entitled asshole who threatens senseless violence at the drop of a hat".
10 to 1 that everyone who defends this guy, is the type who go screaming to the police if someone even looks at them funny. Oh wait, Stephen Fry? Isn't he the one who ran out of play that people had payed him for because he didn't like a review? Guess reviews aren't free speech. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Mates_(play)
Ah no, that was bipolar disorder, another standard excuse when people realize they did something that they don't want to be hold accountable for.
When do normal people at home open office documents? I never have the need or the desire. You do? Well, that says a lot about you that at home on your game machine, you have a burning desire for some edge case document formatting or love that challenge of creating a truly disastrous spreadsheet.
For most people, wordpad is more then enough. The proof? That so few computers are sold with Office installed.
Why don't you try another one? How about CAD software? Financial software?
Come on, surely you can come up with something better then Office for software people don't use on game machines at home?
Idiots like you who refuse to read the manual. High-rez monitors require dual link DVI. You used old single link DVI cables instead of the supplied dual link cable.
Rather then just think or do some research, you cost the company support costs that everyone has to pay for even if they are not as stupid as you.
I really wish support costs were simply done through the costs of the phone call or paid for emails, so people who can read don't have to pay for the terminally stupid.
It is the main reason Dell isn't really cheap, all the support costs people generate is what separates hardware costs from the selling price. Yes, your printer doesn't work? Did you plug in the power? No? That will be ten dollars please to pay the poor guy having to deal with it.
You are the one aren't you, the "won't someone please think of the children" trailer trash?
Well, guns kill far more kids, including guns that kids even toddlers get a hold on. Get guns banned first, then I will help you getting harmless toys that have not killed anyone banned in your quest to make the world totally safe for irresponsible morons.
And if something is sold in a store, it makes it difficult not to have it in the house? Because the store owner forces you to buy it? Because you are incapable of thinking "mmm this toy clearly has a warning on it to keep it away from all kids, so lets not buy it for my kids".
Didn't you child proof the house when you got a kid? Use those childproof plastic stickers on all your outlets? Lock the cabinet with chemicals? Keep power tools out of reach? Close the front door so the kid can't escape? Not boil water without keeping an eye on it?
Parenting is hard work, don't want to do it, don't get a kid.
The kid in the story was 4 years old and swallowed three magnets, claiming he thought they were chocolate...
Which to anyone who knows anything about kids, knows this is complete and utter bullshit. Kids that age don't think, they put anything in their mouth and 99% of parenting is trying to stop them doing that. Dog owners know what I am talking about.
So, we ban anything that kids can swallow that is bad for them. In Europe, the new thing in laundry is small pouches with enough liquid inside for one wash. You just drop them in the washing machine. They are not that common in America I read because kids keep eating them. Tells you a bit about the difference between the EU and the US. Even handling these things makes your hands smell strongly of soap, so no kid could possibly think they are candy. Only an animal (compare toddler IQ to that of a dog) that just tries anything in case it might be food would eat it. So parents have a simple job, keep everything that is harmful, out of harms way. That is why toys like Lego are not for toddlers and instead toddlers get Duplo which has blocks so large even the dumbest kid can't swallow them.
Yet at the same time, stories of toddlers killing themselves or others with guns NEVER result in gun control. It isn't just maniacs buying guns to slaughter people, it is "normal" (by American standards where standards are low) gun owners who don't lock their gun away, who result in these regular stories of kids finding guns and firing them.
Yet, buckyballs are banned, guns are not.
This is the US in a nutshell. Buckyballs should just have spend its money on lobbyists like the gun companies have.
GW2 is for kids who think X-box 360 graphics are cutting edge. Who really liked that RPG from an athele company that went bust despite it looking like crap and having all the fun of a tutorial level of WoW. The new event system? You don't pick up quests anymore by going to spot X, you go to spot X and wait a few minutes for the event to start. Woot!
Planetside 2, FPS MMO don't work. That is because although you think you might be hardcore for having played counterstrike 16 hours straight, that will be just the first boss out of a 32 boss raid. And that entire fight is against players and scripts so bad, they make they make you long for the AI from wolvenstein.
If you wanted a non-dumbed down WoW you would be playing Everquest. WoW has ALWAYS been dumbed down. It was Everquest-light and it sold like hot-cakes to the twelve year olds that couldn't handle WoW or were spit out by the community.
Hence you got Barren-chat, a type of chat that would have had the ban-hammers flying in any hardcore game but is the staple for WoW.
Complaining that WoW got dumbed down is like complaining teletubbies lost their hard satirical edge. That Full House lost its black humor. That reality TV became boring.
It might very well be true on an absolute scale but when you are the bottom, digging down doesn't really make a difference anymore. When you are last in a race, stopping won't make you drop any more places.
Go play a real game. Here is a hint, if you encounter barren-chat, that ain't a real game. Real games have a population of 200k, 300k at most. WoW has 10 million.
For some odd reason, since the iPhone scored big, and then Android did, EVERYONE seems to be running scared thinking that their old but tested software must change. It is near idiotic.
I use a linux desktop for work and Windows for gaming. And Gnome 3.0 and Unity were VERY unwelcome surprises. From that fact that Mint sprung up over night from nothing to near replacing Ubuntu (okay a bit to much but you get the idea, and it isn't a very clear line, you can install Ubuntu and then use mint packages to reclaim the desktop), I am not alone.
The x-windows system, maybe from the design at Xerox has been pretty much the same for a LONG time. And ALL THAT GODDAMN TIME people have tried to turn it into something more "fun", "easier", lets face it, turn it into a fisher price OS. We had Bob, I have briefly supported a system for companies selling white and brown goods to order things that was much the same (picture of real desktop, your files going into an animated file cabinat, real notebook etc) and THEY SUCKED!
But for some reason, some designers keep dreaming of an OS that is, exciting, informative, good looking for the movies and totally and utterly unusable.
Metro is the active desktop brought back to live. Let it rest already, it is dead, it died, and if not, we should kill it.
The idea was simple, you got your desktop and it was active, RSS feeds, rotating image, clock. Lots of stuff...
And? When I am not working behind me PC, I turn it off, at least the monitor. When I am working on my computer, I got windows open, covering the desktop. I NEVER SEE THE DESKTOP!
Metro is this "launch" screen that has all this stuff of it, that you can't see because whatever you are doing, will be in front of it. The only people who could think of this as useful are the types who have empty desks because they got nothing better to do then come up with useless designs.
Proof? Show me a screenshot of an iPhone with more widgets, or even 50% widgets instead of boring icons for boringly opening fullscreen applications.
It is not as if the active desktop (95 or 98) was the first or last time this was attempted. Gadgets anyone? Vista I believe. They were SO popular... try to find some. No, there is no store for them, nobody wants them. How many did you install?
For years, real users and real developers have come up with ways to notify the user of things WITHOUT taking up loads of screen space. Right bottom of the screen. That is all that is needed for a weather widget if you really want it. And when the fuck would you click for more info? it is sunny. Nice. Thank you. I do NOT need a complete weather report and if I did, I can just open it in my browser.
Metro reminds me of when people first get a smartphone, they download farts apps and rss widgets and then after a month or two, it has become just another boring computer where people just want to get things done fast and not be distracted let alone delayed.
MS has a point with Metro and the fisher price idea. If done right (video from parent shows metro ain't done right) it is very easy for complete novices.
Problem?
People don't stay a novice for long. As a parent, you might love Fisher Price, praise it to high heaven but tell me. Is YOUR computer a "my first computer" do you bake in an easy bake oven? Is your HIFI a play and speak?
No? Well it figures, making a device for novices only is a very good way of making sure you never have to worry about loyal customers, customer retention is ZERO.
Metro is just another hair brained attempt to turn computers from tools into entertainment systems that are so cool in the commercial. Pity that this sillyness isn't confined to just MS.
This is a German order affecting Samsungs EU distribution center in Germany. It is going to be moved. They might have moved it sooner but all the trucks were busy moving MS to Holland for pretty much the same reason.
As a dutch person. Go germans! Lets ban some more! The dutch and british courts have already thrown this out, so no worries here. I know in fact that the previous ban was like a wet dream for dutch web retailers. All the devices that were supposed to go to germany just stayed in Holland and were distributed from there by mail.
If MS was this evil, it would have tried to sue over windows (not the OS) being rectangular. It never did. Even Bill Gates is NOT that evil. He is nasty, he a is a very hard businessman and thinks money is the only thing that matters, but he NEVER would use a handicapped parking space or use a car without license plates to avoid tickets.
Steve Jobs is or rather, thank god, was a dirty scumbag of a pile of refuse who nobody misses, who screwed his supposed friends and threw a hissy fit if everything he didn't get his way. Steve Ballmer is a well adjusted person compared to him. But Apple fanboys love to tell about chair throwing and forget the countless stories of rage of Jobs. Hell, he even dealt in illegal organs. Who was killed so he could live? This was a man who thought he deserved an organ more then someone else because of his money.
Lego has a rather distincive design for keeping its blocks together. They asked a patent for that design. But they also patented all the other possible designs they could think of that could work, so nobody else could make anything similar.
Apple has done this as well, they made many varying designs with no intention of using them and submitted them.
Patents have not been used for their original goal for a long time.
It is getting laughed out of court, it HAS been laughed out of court in England and Holland, Australia also reacted today with a judge saying "this is stupid".
This German judge is like that texan district all the patent trolls go to. A well known soft touch on this kinda stuff.
If I was Samsung, I would suggest to Apple that they need to seek even stronger measures. Then when the case is thrown out in a higher court, use the demands by Apple to claim their own damages.
If this judge ain't fired before. The Germans have now lost Samsung EU distribution to Holland and MS distribution. Not something that is going to win this judge a lot of political friends. And when those warehouses close, the protesting workers will make those politicians very eager to find someone else to blame.
Brein is the music mafiaa in Holland where they forced a ban on thepiratebay.org. They then claimed this worked and reduced piracy. The ISP then said they could see no reduction in network traffic, neither has there been an increase in online purchases. Now, I am willing to entertain the thought that Ziggo (ISP) is lying but KPN? Their network engineers are the kind who drive volvo's. They can't lie, it does not fit in their world.
But Brein lying? I can't even conceive of the idea of them telling the truth.
There are various forms of corruption. There is the obvious south European method where every action requires a financial payment. This is obvious and the reason those countries are in such trouble from Greece to Mexico. But right in that same area, you got another kind. The corruption of the Catholic church that until quite recently claimed the Mafia was an invention of the communist to discredit the government. That was not just about rather generous kickbacks, it was a corruption of spirit. The Catholic church found that the accumulation of wealth by individuals at all costs was more wholesome then sharing the wealth, just like Christ teaches... oops oh wait.
You have to remember that being a politician is not a position of logic but of faith. Politicians believe, doesn't matter what their religion is, communism, socialism or capitalism, they all believe and any doubt cast on their faith is treated in much the same way as most religious believers deal with it. Heretic, unbeliever!
Japan is still ruled by very old men and they are old men that believe that their policies work. They did work, Japan had a huge economic miracle. Then the world changed and the old men didn't. They couldn't because their ideas and policies were not based on reality but on their fate in a system.
The real problem with ruling a nation is that what is required at anyone time might change and even contradict itself. You would need to adopt to the facts rather then attempt to force you ideology on facts that don't listen. Take patents, they are both desperately needed and something that needs to be abolished. You can't rule this with absolutes, you need to compromise, go to extremes and then re-balance. ALL THE FUCKING TIME!
The job market goes in direction X, balance it out with Y then re-balance with Z and do a bit of W just to test a theory out. Sometimes you need strong unions, sometimes you need them to give in and that can happen on the same day.
But you can't run a party election system with that. How can you run a campaign with "I will do whatever the country requires at a particular point even if it hurts a group that can hurt me bad".
So... we get politicians that grew up in a system, got their world view decades ago from teachers who couldn't do and making promises they can't keep.
So, now that I got your attention. In Holland there was a young girl who wanted to sail around the world. Big fucking deal except the carebears thought she shouldn't. Turns out now she was stalked by several pedo's one of who has now been convicted. So, sailing around the word: to dangerous. Leaving pedo's running free, well, that is the risk you got to take for living in a "free" society.
However, the one convicted turned himself in. What to do? Lock away for life as some pedo's themselves have suggested? NO! Not for human rights. To costly.
Every early release, pre-release, test-release etc etc is not motivated by carrying for human beings but because long term stay either voluntary or mandatory costs a LOT of money. In Holland the right complained the left was to lax in sending people to prison, then there first act in power? To close prisons!
Some people need to be locked up for life. This doesn't need to be terrible, you can make such a stay very humane, just not optional. I talk about pedo's for a reason. Some WANT exactly this, to be taken away from the normal world where they are afraid to give into temptation and be allowed to live in peace? Why not? Arrange an island somewhere and create a gated community that locks from the outside. The not-yet dangerous pedo can live in peace and safety and so can the rest of society.
But you CAN'T! Because the bleeding hearts cannot accept that all people cannot be molded into the same one size fits all shape and the right refuses to pay for it.
Mental care for dangerous people is possible but is a long and costly process with no guarantee the person ever returns to a "normal" safe condition. Putting someone away for life is just not on anymore. A recent high-profile pedo case in holland revealed that the man in question had asked his doctor for chemical castration. The doctor refused. Didn't fit with his world view, so some kids had to be tortured instead because the bleeding heart thought the pedo didn't know himself well enough.
And it is not about money, that is just another sort of insanity.
It is that those in power have dreams and those dreams cannot deal with reality. Reality that some people just don't fit in society and the only answer is to remove them in time and that this is going to cost a fortune! But we find it more humane to send a person with severe mental issues home with an aspirin and an appointment and then send them to a hellish jail when they snap, rather then send them to a nice hospital for long stay.
In theory, if everyone was armed, a single armed person would have little chance to have a long killing streak.
In theory. Theory doesn't do well in reality.
Then again, neither does the theory of gun control. To ban guns follows the theory that if nobody has a gun, nobody can go on a killing spree. It works, to a certain degree. It is certainly true that countries with tighter gun control have FEWER incidents like this. Fewer. Not none. Because so far, it has been proven anything but impossible for those who are even slightly determined, to get hold of firearms. Even love boys who never did anything wrong and are totally innocent can somehow magically get hold of a complete arsenal without their mommy and daddy finding out. See every single youth criminal and their parents claim.
In for instance the shooting of Pim Fortuyn or the French attacks on Jews, it is not considered of any interest how these non-professional terrorists managed to get a gun so easily.
American anti-gun control advocates are however happy to point this out with "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns". They seem to have a point.
BUT America does allow a lot of personal gun ownership. So are victims of gun crime in the US more likely to defend themselves? You certainly don't hear much about it. Has any shooting like this been ended by a civilian carrying a gun? Any? Ever? I don't know. Not saying because I don't know it has never happened, just that I would expect gun nuts to never stop talking about such cases.
In Israel however several terrorists have been stopped by armed civilians. But then again, most Israeli's have done military service and military service in Israel really does mean something. So, it can work. If you give everyone a two year combat training and keep the religious wacko's out. (Excused from service).
BUT there are only a tiny number of circumstances. How come?
In India, there was an attack a few years ago by Muslim terrorists and during that fully trained and higly experienced armed police were slaughtered as they ran into a Muslim. The reason is that normal people have hesitations, compulsions and morals. Muslims do not, so in the split second it would have taken these officers to determine they had run into an animal, they had already died. The evil can always act faster and quicker because they don't have to think.
You are in a crowded theater, the lights are out, an action movie is playing with flashes, loud noises and gunshots and lots of screaming both on screen and in the audience. Suddenly shit happens. Before you have even realized what has happened, let alone identified the attacker, grasped your gun, unlocked the safety, aimed and made a shot that would not put others in danger... you are already dead on the floor.
It is why terrorists can attack on army bases, because normal people are not, cannot be, constantly ready for instant action all the time. The attacker ALWAYS has first mover advantage.
Some of the victims in this shooting were hit by bullets coming through the walls. How do you defend against this? You would need a superhero to be able to dodge a bullet in a split second and start returning fire through a wall without ending up killing innocents on the other side.
I remember an old TV movie that explored the idea of gunowner ship and in it, it is allowed in one town for everyone to carry a gun. A couple of outside robbers come into a supermarket, try to rob it and find dozens of guns aimed at them. They surrender.
Proof? No... The robbers weren't insane or had a death wish. If they were real people, they wouldn't want to kill anyone, just go in, get money, get out. That kind of crime CAN be prevented with gun owner ship. HOWEVER, in Belgium there was a case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijvel_gang which showed a different kind of criminal, someone who wants to kill, not use threats to steal.
The gun man in this theater started shooting without warning. Ho
Slashdot Mirror
Like anarchy? Move to Somalia.
The western system will grind you to dust if it gets you into its gears but it is still a million times better even for the pile of dust then the pure anarchy of the libertarian.
I think, as a test of the freedom of speech, this person should now receive death threats for the rest of his life. As a joke. For fun.
The whole "joke" bit just sounds like the usual scumbag escape clause to me, of course it was a joke, it wouldn't look good in court if he said "I made that tweet because I am a self-entitled asshole who threatens senseless violence at the drop of a hat".
10 to 1 that everyone who defends this guy, is the type who go screaming to the police if someone even looks at them funny. Oh wait, Stephen Fry? Isn't he the one who ran out of play that people had payed him for because he didn't like a review? Guess reviews aren't free speech. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Mates_(play)
Ah no, that was bipolar disorder, another standard excuse when people realize they did something that they don't want to be hold accountable for.
When do normal people at home open office documents? I never have the need or the desire. You do? Well, that says a lot about you that at home on your game machine, you have a burning desire for some edge case document formatting or love that challenge of creating a truly disastrous spreadsheet.
For most people, wordpad is more then enough. The proof? That so few computers are sold with Office installed.
Why don't you try another one? How about CAD software? Financial software?
Come on, surely you can come up with something better then Office for software people don't use on game machines at home?
Idiots like you who refuse to read the manual. High-rez monitors require dual link DVI. You used old single link DVI cables instead of the supplied dual link cable.
Rather then just think or do some research, you cost the company support costs that everyone has to pay for even if they are not as stupid as you.
I really wish support costs were simply done through the costs of the phone call or paid for emails, so people who can read don't have to pay for the terminally stupid.
It is the main reason Dell isn't really cheap, all the support costs people generate is what separates hardware costs from the selling price. Yes, your printer doesn't work? Did you plug in the power? No? That will be ten dollars please to pay the poor guy having to deal with it.
You are the one aren't you, the "won't someone please think of the children" trailer trash?
Well, guns kill far more kids, including guns that kids even toddlers get a hold on. Get guns banned first, then I will help you getting harmless toys that have not killed anyone banned in your quest to make the world totally safe for irresponsible morons.
This kid was 4
You argument?
And if something is sold in a store, it makes it difficult not to have it in the house? Because the store owner forces you to buy it? Because you are incapable of thinking "mmm this toy clearly has a warning on it to keep it away from all kids, so lets not buy it for my kids".
Didn't you child proof the house when you got a kid? Use those childproof plastic stickers on all your outlets? Lock the cabinet with chemicals? Keep power tools out of reach? Close the front door so the kid can't escape? Not boil water without keeping an eye on it?
Parenting is hard work, don't want to do it, don't get a kid.
The kid in the story was 4 years old and swallowed three magnets, claiming he thought they were chocolate...
Which to anyone who knows anything about kids, knows this is complete and utter bullshit. Kids that age don't think, they put anything in their mouth and 99% of parenting is trying to stop them doing that. Dog owners know what I am talking about.
So, we ban anything that kids can swallow that is bad for them. In Europe, the new thing in laundry is small pouches with enough liquid inside for one wash. You just drop them in the washing machine. They are not that common in America I read because kids keep eating them. Tells you a bit about the difference between the EU and the US. Even handling these things makes your hands smell strongly of soap, so no kid could possibly think they are candy. Only an animal (compare toddler IQ to that of a dog) that just tries anything in case it might be food would eat it. So parents have a simple job, keep everything that is harmful, out of harms way. That is why toys like Lego are not for toddlers and instead toddlers get Duplo which has blocks so large even the dumbest kid can't swallow them.
Yet at the same time, stories of toddlers killing themselves or others with guns NEVER result in gun control. It isn't just maniacs buying guns to slaughter people, it is "normal" (by American standards where standards are low) gun owners who don't lock their gun away, who result in these regular stories of kids finding guns and firing them.
Yet, buckyballs are banned, guns are not.
This is the US in a nutshell. Buckyballs should just have spend its money on lobbyists like the gun companies have.
GW2 is for kids who think X-box 360 graphics are cutting edge. Who really liked that RPG from an athele company that went bust despite it looking like crap and having all the fun of a tutorial level of WoW. The new event system? You don't pick up quests anymore by going to spot X, you go to spot X and wait a few minutes for the event to start. Woot!
Planetside 2, FPS MMO don't work. That is because although you think you might be hardcore for having played counterstrike 16 hours straight, that will be just the first boss out of a 32 boss raid. And that entire fight is against players and scripts so bad, they make they make you long for the AI from wolvenstein.
If you wanted a non-dumbed down WoW you would be playing Everquest. WoW has ALWAYS been dumbed down. It was Everquest-light and it sold like hot-cakes to the twelve year olds that couldn't handle WoW or were spit out by the community.
Hence you got Barren-chat, a type of chat that would have had the ban-hammers flying in any hardcore game but is the staple for WoW.
Complaining that WoW got dumbed down is like complaining teletubbies lost their hard satirical edge. That Full House lost its black humor. That reality TV became boring.
It might very well be true on an absolute scale but when you are the bottom, digging down doesn't really make a difference anymore. When you are last in a race, stopping won't make you drop any more places.
Go play a real game. Here is a hint, if you encounter barren-chat, that ain't a real game. Real games have a population of 200k, 300k at most. WoW has 10 million.
And people wonder why democracy sucks.
So basically, your evil overlord stops Android companies to implement search, then you support the evil lord for it.
Amazing, I never knew someone could actually fuck themselves with such a tiny dick.
If I can make 5 bucks a day, or 5000 in 2000 days, I take the 5 bucks a day thank you very much.
Or in other words, numbers pulled out of your ass have no value.
For some odd reason, since the iPhone scored big, and then Android did, EVERYONE seems to be running scared thinking that their old but tested software must change. It is near idiotic.
I use a linux desktop for work and Windows for gaming. And Gnome 3.0 and Unity were VERY unwelcome surprises. From that fact that Mint sprung up over night from nothing to near replacing Ubuntu (okay a bit to much but you get the idea, and it isn't a very clear line, you can install Ubuntu and then use mint packages to reclaim the desktop), I am not alone.
The x-windows system, maybe from the design at Xerox has been pretty much the same for a LONG time. And ALL THAT GODDAMN TIME people have tried to turn it into something more "fun", "easier", lets face it, turn it into a fisher price OS. We had Bob, I have briefly supported a system for companies selling white and brown goods to order things that was much the same (picture of real desktop, your files going into an animated file cabinat, real notebook etc) and THEY SUCKED!
But for some reason, some designers keep dreaming of an OS that is, exciting, informative, good looking for the movies and totally and utterly unusable.
Metro is the active desktop brought back to live. Let it rest already, it is dead, it died, and if not, we should kill it.
The idea was simple, you got your desktop and it was active, RSS feeds, rotating image, clock. Lots of stuff...
And? When I am not working behind me PC, I turn it off, at least the monitor. When I am working on my computer, I got windows open, covering the desktop. I NEVER SEE THE DESKTOP!
Metro is this "launch" screen that has all this stuff of it, that you can't see because whatever you are doing, will be in front of it. The only people who could think of this as useful are the types who have empty desks because they got nothing better to do then come up with useless designs.
Proof? Show me a screenshot of an iPhone with more widgets, or even 50% widgets instead of boring icons for boringly opening fullscreen applications.
It is not as if the active desktop (95 or 98) was the first or last time this was attempted. Gadgets anyone? Vista I believe. They were SO popular... try to find some. No, there is no store for them, nobody wants them. How many did you install?
For years, real users and real developers have come up with ways to notify the user of things WITHOUT taking up loads of screen space. Right bottom of the screen. That is all that is needed for a weather widget if you really want it. And when the fuck would you click for more info? it is sunny. Nice. Thank you. I do NOT need a complete weather report and if I did, I can just open it in my browser.
Metro reminds me of when people first get a smartphone, they download farts apps and rss widgets and then after a month or two, it has become just another boring computer where people just want to get things done fast and not be distracted let alone delayed.
MS has a point with Metro and the fisher price idea. If done right (video from parent shows metro ain't done right) it is very easy for complete novices.
Problem?
People don't stay a novice for long. As a parent, you might love Fisher Price, praise it to high heaven but tell me. Is YOUR computer a "my first computer" do you bake in an easy bake oven? Is your HIFI a play and speak?
No? Well it figures, making a device for novices only is a very good way of making sure you never have to worry about loyal customers, customer retention is ZERO.
Metro is just another hair brained attempt to turn computers from tools into entertainment systems that are so cool in the commercial. Pity that this sillyness isn't confined to just MS.
This is a German order affecting Samsungs EU distribution center in Germany. It is going to be moved. They might have moved it sooner but all the trucks were busy moving MS to Holland for pretty much the same reason.
As a dutch person. Go germans! Lets ban some more! The dutch and british courts have already thrown this out, so no worries here. I know in fact that the previous ban was like a wet dream for dutch web retailers. All the devices that were supposed to go to germany just stayed in Holland and were distributed from there by mail.
PROFIT!
Jobs was on the board of Disney and sells tons of music.
They are not copying the content industry, they ARE the content industry.
Why do you think so many trailers were MOV files?
If MS was this evil, it would have tried to sue over windows (not the OS) being rectangular. It never did. Even Bill Gates is NOT that evil. He is nasty, he a is a very hard businessman and thinks money is the only thing that matters, but he NEVER would use a handicapped parking space or use a car without license plates to avoid tickets.
Steve Jobs is or rather, thank god, was a dirty scumbag of a pile of refuse who nobody misses, who screwed his supposed friends and threw a hissy fit if everything he didn't get his way. Steve Ballmer is a well adjusted person compared to him. But Apple fanboys love to tell about chair throwing and forget the countless stories of rage of Jobs. Hell, he even dealt in illegal organs. Who was killed so he could live? This was a man who thought he deserved an organ more then someone else because of his money.
Lego has a rather distincive design for keeping its blocks together. They asked a patent for that design. But they also patented all the other possible designs they could think of that could work, so nobody else could make anything similar.
Apple has done this as well, they made many varying designs with no intention of using them and submitted them.
Patents have not been used for their original goal for a long time.
It is getting laughed out of court, it HAS been laughed out of court in England and Holland, Australia also reacted today with a judge saying "this is stupid".
This German judge is like that texan district all the patent trolls go to. A well known soft touch on this kinda stuff.
If I was Samsung, I would suggest to Apple that they need to seek even stronger measures. Then when the case is thrown out in a higher court, use the demands by Apple to claim their own damages.
If this judge ain't fired before. The Germans have now lost Samsung EU distribution to Holland and MS distribution. Not something that is going to win this judge a lot of political friends. And when those warehouses close, the protesting workers will make those politicians very eager to find someone else to blame.
Me: Mom, do we have some candy!
Mom: Yes, we do.
Me: Can I have some?
Mom: No, if you have some then we won't have any any more.
Me: Oh... (I know there is a hole in this argument but I can't quite put it into words). I guess you don't need logic when you got "because".
Brein is the music mafiaa in Holland where they forced a ban on thepiratebay.org. They then claimed this worked and reduced piracy. The ISP then said they could see no reduction in network traffic, neither has there been an increase in online purchases. Now, I am willing to entertain the thought that Ziggo (ISP) is lying but KPN? Their network engineers are the kind who drive volvo's. They can't lie, it does not fit in their world.
But Brein lying? I can't even conceive of the idea of them telling the truth.
There are various forms of corruption. There is the obvious south European method where every action requires a financial payment. This is obvious and the reason those countries are in such trouble from Greece to Mexico. But right in that same area, you got another kind. The corruption of the Catholic church that until quite recently claimed the Mafia was an invention of the communist to discredit the government. That was not just about rather generous kickbacks, it was a corruption of spirit. The Catholic church found that the accumulation of wealth by individuals at all costs was more wholesome then sharing the wealth, just like Christ teaches... oops oh wait.
You have to remember that being a politician is not a position of logic but of faith. Politicians believe, doesn't matter what their religion is, communism, socialism or capitalism, they all believe and any doubt cast on their faith is treated in much the same way as most religious believers deal with it. Heretic, unbeliever!
Japan is still ruled by very old men and they are old men that believe that their policies work. They did work, Japan had a huge economic miracle. Then the world changed and the old men didn't. They couldn't because their ideas and policies were not based on reality but on their fate in a system.
The real problem with ruling a nation is that what is required at anyone time might change and even contradict itself. You would need to adopt to the facts rather then attempt to force you ideology on facts that don't listen. Take patents, they are both desperately needed and something that needs to be abolished. You can't rule this with absolutes, you need to compromise, go to extremes and then re-balance. ALL THE FUCKING TIME!
The job market goes in direction X, balance it out with Y then re-balance with Z and do a bit of W just to test a theory out. Sometimes you need strong unions, sometimes you need them to give in and that can happen on the same day.
But you can't run a party election system with that. How can you run a campaign with "I will do whatever the country requires at a particular point even if it hurts a group that can hurt me bad".
So... we get politicians that grew up in a system, got their world view decades ago from teachers who couldn't do and making promises they can't keep.
Luckily for Japan, the people are sheep.
It should be perfectly fine in a perfectly sealed box for 25 years. Or not.
Note how I did not use "purrfectly". There is still some sanity left!
So, now that I got your attention. In Holland there was a young girl who wanted to sail around the world. Big fucking deal except the carebears thought she shouldn't. Turns out now she was stalked by several pedo's one of who has now been convicted. So, sailing around the word: to dangerous. Leaving pedo's running free, well, that is the risk you got to take for living in a "free" society.
However, the one convicted turned himself in. What to do? Lock away for life as some pedo's themselves have suggested? NO! Not for human rights. To costly.
Every early release, pre-release, test-release etc etc is not motivated by carrying for human beings but because long term stay either voluntary or mandatory costs a LOT of money. In Holland the right complained the left was to lax in sending people to prison, then there first act in power? To close prisons!
Some people need to be locked up for life. This doesn't need to be terrible, you can make such a stay very humane, just not optional. I talk about pedo's for a reason. Some WANT exactly this, to be taken away from the normal world where they are afraid to give into temptation and be allowed to live in peace? Why not? Arrange an island somewhere and create a gated community that locks from the outside. The not-yet dangerous pedo can live in peace and safety and so can the rest of society.
But you CAN'T! Because the bleeding hearts cannot accept that all people cannot be molded into the same one size fits all shape and the right refuses to pay for it.
Mental care for dangerous people is possible but is a long and costly process with no guarantee the person ever returns to a "normal" safe condition. Putting someone away for life is just not on anymore. A recent high-profile pedo case in holland revealed that the man in question had asked his doctor for chemical castration. The doctor refused. Didn't fit with his world view, so some kids had to be tortured instead because the bleeding heart thought the pedo didn't know himself well enough.
And it is not about money, that is just another sort of insanity.
It is that those in power have dreams and those dreams cannot deal with reality. Reality that some people just don't fit in society and the only answer is to remove them in time and that this is going to cost a fortune! But we find it more humane to send a person with severe mental issues home with an aspirin and an appointment and then send them to a hellish jail when they snap, rather then send them to a nice hospital for long stay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijvel_gang
In theory, if everyone was armed, a single armed person would have little chance to have a long killing streak.
In theory. Theory doesn't do well in reality.
Then again, neither does the theory of gun control. To ban guns follows the theory that if nobody has a gun, nobody can go on a killing spree. It works, to a certain degree. It is certainly true that countries with tighter gun control have FEWER incidents like this. Fewer. Not none. Because so far, it has been proven anything but impossible for those who are even slightly determined, to get hold of firearms. Even love boys who never did anything wrong and are totally innocent can somehow magically get hold of a complete arsenal without their mommy and daddy finding out. See every single youth criminal and their parents claim.
In for instance the shooting of Pim Fortuyn or the French attacks on Jews, it is not considered of any interest how these non-professional terrorists managed to get a gun so easily.
American anti-gun control advocates are however happy to point this out with "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns". They seem to have a point.
BUT America does allow a lot of personal gun ownership. So are victims of gun crime in the US more likely to defend themselves? You certainly don't hear much about it. Has any shooting like this been ended by a civilian carrying a gun? Any? Ever? I don't know. Not saying because I don't know it has never happened, just that I would expect gun nuts to never stop talking about such cases.
In Israel however several terrorists have been stopped by armed civilians. But then again, most Israeli's have done military service and military service in Israel really does mean something. So, it can work. If you give everyone a two year combat training and keep the religious wacko's out. (Excused from service).
BUT there are only a tiny number of circumstances. How come?
In India, there was an attack a few years ago by Muslim terrorists and during that fully trained and higly experienced armed police were slaughtered as they ran into a Muslim. The reason is that normal people have hesitations, compulsions and morals. Muslims do not, so in the split second it would have taken these officers to determine they had run into an animal, they had already died. The evil can always act faster and quicker because they don't have to think.
You are in a crowded theater, the lights are out, an action movie is playing with flashes, loud noises and gunshots and lots of screaming both on screen and in the audience. Suddenly shit happens. Before you have even realized what has happened, let alone identified the attacker, grasped your gun, unlocked the safety, aimed and made a shot that would not put others in danger... you are already dead on the floor.
It is why terrorists can attack on army bases, because normal people are not, cannot be, constantly ready for instant action all the time. The attacker ALWAYS has first mover advantage.
Some of the victims in this shooting were hit by bullets coming through the walls. How do you defend against this? You would need a superhero to be able to dodge a bullet in a split second and start returning fire through a wall without ending up killing innocents on the other side.
I remember an old TV movie that explored the idea of gunowner ship and in it, it is allowed in one town for everyone to carry a gun. A couple of outside robbers come into a supermarket, try to rob it and find dozens of guns aimed at them. They surrender.
Proof? No... The robbers weren't insane or had a death wish. If they were real people, they wouldn't want to kill anyone, just go in, get money, get out. That kind of crime CAN be prevented with gun owner ship. HOWEVER, in Belgium there was a case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijvel_gang which showed a different kind of criminal, someone who wants to kill, not use threats to steal.
The gun man in this theater started shooting without warning. Ho
Being gay != not having sex with women.
Being gay == having sex with men.
You are on slashdot, you are not gay or hetero.
Eunuch you probably would have noticed but the life style is much the same.