Lets drive the greenhorn OUT! No filthy high UID's with their spelling and gramar and solid well researched non-sensationlist writing. I want my editors to rape the language (bonus points if it is several languages at once) and sent my heart racing by raising my bile and fear of the unknown and known.
Headlines sell adverts. Truth, accuracy, honesty do not. Accept it, you are reading slashdot, it works.
And then someone puts lead in the paint for kids toys or weedkiller in toothpaste or forgets to sterilize medical supplies.
We know JUST what happens when you don't regulate the shit out of everything, private industry does a runner. They always have, always will. Even if they risk getting a bullet for it like in China.
It is very fine to say regulation isn't needed, when you grew up safe because of regulation. But without it, do you REALLY think private business would follow any self imposed safety guidelines?
But the article is the typical right wing scare mongering they do so well. Nothing has been banned. They just refused to give these companies a default pass to include the most crap materials they could outsource to China.
Anti-regulation == American car industry making cars with spikes aimed straight at your heart. They didn't make collapsable steering wheels because they wanted to, they were forced to.
Funny how people who are anti-regulation never seems to be able recall the horror stories of absent regulation... until it comes time to sue.
You got plenty of people here who are permanant residents of the state of denial. So why not ask them?
Ask the idiots who year after year come up with "reclaim a handful, that will delay the inevitable for a couple more weeks, so nothing needs to be done" or "NAT, I heard that solves everything! Yeah, I nat my windows XP machine and everything is windows XP so that is the solution!"
People HATE change and HATE having to learn new stuff.
And the longer they put it off, the more they got to keep denying it, else they look silly.
If Stuxnet is CLAIMED to be attacking Iran by Iran, you bet on Israel... wow, swallowed the pill whole didn't you?
Stuxnet spies on Iran. So who has motives to spy on Iranian CITIZENS? Oooh, Iran? And then when it is found out, they blaim it on outsiders. Just as they blamed the shooting of the girl during the violent supression of peaceful protests on outside agents as well. Very handy outside agents, you can blame anything on them.
And people like you swallow it whole.
And why would Israel spy on Indonesia?
No, I get the feeling the truth will be far simpler. Someone created a worm, released it, techies think "well I couldn't do it, therefor nobody could, therefor is must be CIA or Mossad". People claim that it was impossible for an individual to write because it involved keys from very very cheap hardware makers. Right at the same time that the master key from Intel was leaked...
Connect the dots.
I am willing to bet good money there is no conspiracy. Just a virus outbreak in a country were IT is backward (oh and call me a racist if you want but if you want to see truly horrific computer security go to countries like Iran and Brazil) and run by people raised to obey without thinking, not question everything, the hallmark of a good system admin.
The conspiracy allows you think someone is in charge and nuclear reactors are safe... not that an entire countries network could be at risk, including nuclear reactors because they don't know squat about security.
Odd that Iran was so quick at being able to determine the origins and just how sophisticated it was, yet NOW, days later has to ask for western help... with what? Didn't they already know how it worked? What more is there to know?
Isn't the very fact that they now got to ask for outside help a very good explenation of why the worm was so succesfull?
Similar bet, a new worm that is 100% effective at attacking windows 7 will totally disable MS campus. Gosh... the conspiracy!!! All Iran's affected systems were of a similar origin. Monoculture. Any single succesful attack on a common system will have a massive impact.
Lets not forget that this is the country whose leaders claimed earthquakes are caused by skirts. Very handy, to be able to blaim everything on someone else. Personally, I don't take their word for anything. Nor from anyone who takes an Iranian's official words for anything.
She will not survive. Nobody does. What counts is how long you manage to put off the dying.
Live, it is a killer.
Lucky that hospital is in England, in the US they would have their ass sued off for telling the mother it was nothing. And rightly so.
Remember US, when you complain about law suits, in the EU we have no means of putting the fear of god (or rather dollars, which doctor worship) into doctors.
Small government! The state should stay out of my business! Private industry can take care of everything!
Waah, something is happening, the state should step in! Save us oh mighty government! Regulate them! Control our every action and thought!
You can't have it both ways. Remember a while back when the US government announced that it could under emergency rules take control of networks? 99% of Slashdot was up in arms. No government spooks on your private network.
So, now the demand is that Australian soldiers walk into private business and secure the network?
So, bad for US soldiers to take control over private networks, bad for AU soldiers not to take control over private networks?
Or maybe they should put up a firewall around Australia to protect business, but not to actually filter anything because an internet filter is bad?
And people wonder why politicians don't listen to their voters. Because it is IMPOSSIBLE. The very same voter will insist that the speed limit be dropped and mile high speed bumps be raised in front of the fire station to stop those devils from driving to fast. The same voter will want green power but no wind mills, tidal station, solar farm or hydro dams because they don't look nice.
We want cheap labor to pick fruit but no immigrants. Free markets to sell OUR goods, import tariffs on THEIR goods.
It is impossible and so politicians stop listening and listen to the lobbyist instead who at least know to be consistent within each single plea.
Or as Douglas Adams said: People are a problem.
I say we nuke them from orbit. It is the only way to be sure.
And why do Americans tolerate a secret police with secret jails and people imprisoned without trial by soldiers in a communist country?
Yes, I am of course talking about the CIA. Do I need to explain the rest?
There is a comic I am to lazy to look up with Obama refusing to destroy the one ring at mount doom after obtaining it from the dark lord. Gost, Guatanomo Bay still hasn't been closed has it. Mighty handy all those new secret powers Bush game himself. To tempting to give up.
People want certainty. On the whole, the masses want to believe that there is someone in charge who knows what he is doing. Religion is the simplest answer to all this. We are born, we die. Why? God controls it all according to a plan so no worries how little sense it makes, there is a plan.
You can see this in places like Syria. It is, oddly enough a secular nation, where the leadership after decades of mismanagement and leaning to radical Islam is not starting to fear radical Islam because people distrustful of the ruling elite see in radical Islam a new savior, a new certainty. How do you think Hamas came into power? Because Fatah was just not believed anymore. Billions have been donated and the elite live in luxury (check were the wive of Arafar lives, how much its costs and who pays for it) and the population does not. So they seek the next promiser of salvation. Hamas has absolutely nothing to offer. It hates democracy (which is why no arab nation has ever offered to hose the palestinians, they are to western from contact with Israel and might demand elections), women and anything modern. But people wanted to get rid of the untrusted/uncertain leaders and looked for anything better.
Find this hard to grasp? Then look no futher then the teabaggers. Glen Beck as the salvation of the US of A? My god. Just how delusional can you get?
Or for the dutch, Geert Wilders. The guy HAS raised some intresting issues that need to be addressed, but who in their right mind thinks an VVDer can solve the dutch problems? His kind got only one mantra "CUT SPENDING, LOWER TAXES" and yet he got elected by claiming to be against spending custs. My my, he sure couldn't drop that fast enough once it became time to negiotate about a cabinet. If it is was all a masterful plot by the VVD to capture the hard left (people who believe in social projects but only for the right/white people) then it couldn't have gone better.
Democracy for the Russians has brought the end to them being the number two power (and if you know your military power, a war between the US and USSR might not have gone as Americans might have hoped) to a nation riddled with crime, reduced to a backwards nation once again with all the certainties of a state run economy gone. So, they got freedom. freedom to have you tiny business taken over by the mafia is not better then not being allowed to run a tiny business at all.
For the average person pretty much anywhere in the world, live is not all that splendid and filled with opportunity. Most live very simple lives, hopefully holding on to a job long enough to retire and have a pension that last long enough till the cold dark grave delivers them from this hell.
Yes, HELL. Why do you think some versions of Christianity make heaven out to be such a big reward. Why do you think Islamic suicide bombers want to commit suicide?
But to these people, democracy, economic freedom don't really mean anything. they are not the ones send to the goulags or stoned to death or lynched by people in bedsheets. They are the baker who delivers bread to that barbed prison camps where they take care not to notice all the people arriving yet none ever leaving. And if you give them a choice between all these uncertainties and problems and a ruler who says "do this, and I will provide", they listen.
THAT was the big failure of the west. We believed that once the iron curtain fell, everything would be well. Iraq, Afghanistan are just the same. Just holding elections and thinking everything is fixed i
This entire thread has been filled with rants about companies abusing the DMCA and lousy quality and the walmart-effect etc etc. But HERE we have an ACTUAL real customer who is upset. He is upset and wants to force action! He has dollars in his pocket. Dollars another company wants. WILL he withhold them unless they stop doing business with this DMCA abuser and maker of shoddy products?
Yes, when pigs fly, the devil goes to work on a snowplough and cheerleaders chase slashdotters with demands for sex.
We all do it (no, not chase slashdotters demanding sex), blow high and mighty about how we want quality products and ethical products and then forget all about it when it is time to go shopping and hand over our hard earned money.
And the companies know this. Oh, MickyTheIdiot (his own nick, not me ridiculing him) might not buy buckyballs from Thinkgeek today, maybe not even next week, but he will buy from Thinkgeek again, maybe even buckyballs. Just give it a little bit of time. So the company does nothing, doesn't take a stand out of fear of losing its customers because it won't loose any.
Be 100% honest with yourself, how often have you made a stand in your entire life that actually caused you the slightest bit of inconvenience. Anyone living near a BP station stopped pumping there? Anyone take any effort not to buy bio-engineered food or avoid patented crops? How about refusing to use any oil obtained through the war your think was started for it?
Did you cancel your bank account to protest the bail outs?
No... we are the slaves of the companies because we choose to be so. It was easier. But you are allowed to huff and puff on the internet. They know that it will only be a matter of time before you donate your wages again. Christmas shopping is coming up after all.
Lets see, in the decades after the US became a democracy, it had no votes for women. Had legal slavery based on color of the skin. Denied citizenship to asians and the natives. Slaughtered millions of the natives and deported the survivors to concentration camps where they were expected to slowly die with no natural or mineral resources.
The former USSR nations are not doing great, but most have NOT yet slipped as low as the past of the US of A.
Why do you compare the US after 2 centuries of freedom with newly freed states?
A US airforce commander, Bomber Harris sent US nuclear bombers on recon flights over the USSR with no way for russians to know wether they were there on a recon flight or an attack.
The rules don't mean much when you get insane people making their own policies.
Intel provides currently the highest buyable performance. But AMD provides the best performance for value. If you buy a 200euro amd you get the best bang for your buck. If you buy a 800 euro Intel you get more bang but pay more bucks per bang.
Intel offers no chip that provides the same bang for buck ratio as AMD. Hasn't done so in a long time.
That is why AMD is the choice for price concious buyers who want high performance on a budget and Intel for the rich people who simply want the most powerful CPU.
There are plenty of reviews comparing AMD vs Intel, Intel comes out ahead often but only by a small margin and for a HUGE price difference. Your choice wether you pay top money for minor gains.
Just as a super car costing 10x as much as a regular one isn't going to go ten times as fast. By that logic the Shuttle would have to break the speed of light.
Gosh, MS, which backed HD-DVD and didn't include a next generation disc format in its game console proclaims the next generation disc format of its major competitor is death... gee whiz. What a surprise!
And Apple also got clear reasons NOT to want blue-ray because physical media compete direct with its online media outlet... gosh... no conflict of intrest there either. 100% unbiased opinion, get it while it is hot!
Next up:
Shell doesn't think electrical cars will be it in 2011!
McDonalds thinks fastfood isn't a cancer in our society that needs to be routed out!
Pope does not think being a hitlerjugend or a pedo should be grounds for immediate dismissal in clergy!
Slashdotters think being a nerd should not turn women off!
Bears think the woods are there for shitting in!
Sky proclaims blue is the new black!
And tomorrow:
Sony declares Blue-Ray is booming!
Gosh, the death of physical media... how long have I heard this? It might become true one day. But then, vinyl still sells. Newspapers are death yet there are competing and viable free newspapers everywhere.
I will start believing the death of X stories when they deliver my flying car.
The web is no longer just a static place. It houses many applications and applications often need to be state aware. Users wouldn't accept that on slashdot, each post requires their login credentials or their session key posted in a form or get request.
So the cookie is the tool to turn the web state aware. Sadly a really useful tool can also be used for other practices.
NOT that it is to hard to defend against this. BLOCK third party cookies. If I am on slashdot, why am I getting cookies from site X.X? Why am I accepting them? I don't need them for slashdot to function (try, it, block third party cookies and see just how few sites seize to function).
First party cookies, the cookies from the site you visit have relative little impact. CNN.com is NOT going to request them (can't even) and hardly going to join in a scheme with slashdot to share data. Block the third party cookies by the ad agencies and you are golden.
Cookies, first party cookies, are integral to web apps (stateful browsing) because that is what they are for and the alternative (they exist) suck. In fact with the initial dislike gone, I don't think most people bother anymore with non-cookie capability of their site. Just like javascript and flash, if you don't have it, you can just go somewhere else.
It is almost impossible to store session data in the browser and not have it somehow abused. I could even think of ways of doing it by giving you a specific JS file with a generic url request, then see if I get a cached version or a new one.
The only way to stop this is to block the abusers. But how many here use ad-blockers and such to make a stand? No, many in fact oppose them because we "rob" those poor invaders of our privacy of their illgotten gains. Until that mentality changes, ad agencies will continue to find ever more devious ways to track us.
See Rudy Park, it the txt generation, which believes that instant information, no matter how shallow, is a good thing and actually faster then the old fashioned slow media... like when an aircraft crashed in Holland, twitterers were very proud that twitter reported it first. Except it didn't. The radio did.
It fits with a generation raised on txt and very short attention spans. For many, this rant is already far to long. And I say generation, but really mean a group because not all young people are twitter nuts and not all old people have escaped it. It is more of a culture. The current MTV crowd, shallow as hell but lots of meaningless info that gives the appearance of depth with actually containing any. It is CNN, they shout very loud they got the most and the latest news so it must be true despite that the actual news content is a single sentence repeated a hundred times over. Even ex-science channels got it with documentaries that are along the lines of "Shark got big teeth, see this big teethed shard which has big teeth. It is known that shark got big teeth and these teeth the shark got are big and etc etc". Yes thank you. 1 hour, 2-3 lines of zero content repeated in as many ways possible.
Twitter is for people that think every thought in their head should be instantly broadcast to the world and others who actually FOLLOW this. Don't know which is sadder. Writing about my breakfast or reading about someone elses.
BUT it is NOTHING new. Countless cafeteria's have seen similar vapid discussions. We are the chattering monkey.
I yesterday was faced with a discussion about online games for women. Is there a market? One person did not get it. SHE did not want to play games AFTER a hard day at the work... no indeed. BUT the market for that is HOME-MAKERS. NOT women with intresting jobs.
Twitter ain't for you. You got other methods of airing your thoughts including maybe not airing them at all. Some people choose differently.
Let them.
I live happily with twitter by not using it. It doesn't disturb me that someone else tweets about his bowel movements. Because it does not affect me. At least they are not loudly proclaiming about their operation in the seat next to me. MTV might be the most moronic thing ever, but I simply removed it from the list and never have to deal with it. The txt generation mostly passes me by. Why are you so upset with them?
I thought I would make a lot of money selling my sexual services to women. Then it turns out you do it for FREE! STOP stealing the money out of my mouth!
And you are a car mechanic. How many inn's have you put out of business were people used to stop during coach travels to rest for the night?
The point (yes I got one) is that YOUR business plan is NOT sacred. Just because YOU think that the world is waiting for you deliver a service they will pay money for, doesn't mean the world is obliged to do this.
A simple example? A street performer. I can WATCH and NOT pay. There is no law, could be no law, that says you got to reward a street performer with money.
Sucks for street performers? Why yes, but that is life.
Yes, someone can pirate your video. So don't rely on video to make a living. Does that mean no more video's are produced? It might. So?
There are more more coaching inns, no more pony express. I can't get goal delivered. My dreams of a career as a gas-lamp lighter were cruelly dashed.
Why don't we have allows that force YOU to stop by EVERY new road-side diner. In fact lets ban home cooking to save the dreams of everyone who wants to own a restaurant?
This is very hard to grasp for some, the entire media industry for instance. But the world does NOT owe you a living of your choosing. Yes, that is mean. Suck it up. If it did, we would not just still be using lamp lighters, but have businesses unable to move because the local eatery depends on the business it generates. We would be forever stagnant for fear of someone somewhere loosing out.
You worked years on something without figuring out if your business plan was viable in the real world.
It is like you spent a million on a eatery beside a railroad station, without checking the plans for the closing of said railroad station.
Your business dream simply wasn't viable because others can copy the idea cheaply. It is all to common.
Everyone knew the iPad wouldn't do flash. If you move into my house, you can't claim I abducted you, even if you chain yourself to my railing and refuse to be moved.
and gosh, since the iPad sells millions, maybe a lot of those buyers who knew they wouldn't be able to use flash didn't mind? Maybe the only outrage is with windows lusers who are jealous of the iPad and idiots who buy a petrol car then complain it doesn't run on diesel are complaining and the rest don't care?
The stats are just idiotic by the way. Silverlight is pushed by MS so installed doesn't mean a concious choice and installing flash for youtube hardly means that people want flash. They want youtube. iPad got youtube, so who needs flash?
Some people need to seperate what people WANT from meaningless statistics.
Countless PC's have got malware installed. Conclusion: people want malware. No? Then why do you think flash installs mean people want flash? Most people probably don't care. It is just a popup they auto-accept that they don't get on the iPad.
Geert Wilders didn't have that many votes at the start either. Now he is dictating the next government of Holland.
Oh2, you are one of the ruling elite I am talking about. Totally incapable of accepting that things are changing differently then you wish them to change. Go ahead, ignore those 6% of the voters. They are a minority, but how many agree with them quietly?
Islam is just the latest to be blamed, the Roma example made this clear, a new target can be found in seconds to blame all societies woes on. You need to target those woes, not by going after the scapegoat but after the underlying causes. Once the hunt for the scapegoat has started it is often to late.
If you owe the bank $10.000.000, it is their problem.
If the bank owns society $10.000.000.000, it is your problem. Pay up you horrible little taxpayer! Free money for everyone who gets million dollar bonuses!
A slashdot nerd AND a trainspotter. The only man in history to have a negative amount of sex:p
Anyway, first time I got on an aircraft I already became a convert to rail travel. Nobody ever told me airliners CREAK! Used to trains where the fuselage/body is a solid bit of steel that does NOT twist and shake and rattle.
Anyway, has anyone given a thought to the people on the ground. I do not want to see upskirt shots or Ryan Air passengers.
And the revolution has already happened with music. In the times of Napster only a fraction of the population had access to reliable internet with acceptable speeds. The music industry did NOT adapt to the changing times and instead sued and then sat back congratualiting themselves on their achievement... and the times kept changing and now an entire generation has grown up were downloading is the norm.
And NO, iTunes is NOT the counter revolution. Selling the songs for the same price but without the production and distribution costs is just cynical money grabbing rather then the capitalists "passing savings on to the customer".
The elite thought they could stop the changing times and didn't. Nothing new there. Trying to change back the clock is far to late. The music industry should have switched business models pre-2000. Like the dutch Free Record Store wanted to do. Remove CD's, instead have a computer with all music loaded on it and burn or upload it to a MP3 player on demand for a low fee. The advantages are HUGE. Every song on sale in the smallest retail location. No surplus stock, no damaged stock, no theft, full listening of songs in the store without wear and tear. If you know the rental costs of a highstreet location, being able to skip on endless racks of CD's would save a fortune. Lower the costs of music and increase the earning for everyone involved while giving customer the service they want and all the music ever recorded... what did the music industry say? No, and if you try it, we will sue you.
The revolution in France wasn't about telling people going hungry to eat cake. It was about an elite totally unable to grasp the reality of the day.
It must be something in the champagne the elite drink that makes them blind.
The swedish Democrats (read anti-immigrant party) did make it in. Intresting prediction by Gerald Celente in a dutch free newspaper today. "Hate of Islam can no longer be stopped". When even Sweden starts going natiolistic, you know things are bad.
So, freedom of information. NO.
No to immigrants. Yes.
Sad. And yes there are issues, but the problem goes deeper then just Islam, you can see that with the Roma in France. There is a clash of cultures going on and a ruling elite that is totally in capable of dealing or even acknowledging this.
The same free newspaper ran a story last week on the Roma being deported. It said the troubles started after Roma attacked a police station after police has shot one of them. Then it goes on to make the claim that this decision was totally wrong and ill thought out... NO, not the decision of the Roma to attack a police station in a country were there reputation already sucks, no, it is the FRENCH reaction to one of its police stations being attack in protest of the legal shooting of a criminal by foreigners that gets attacked.
Talk about NOT getting the point.
And no I am NOT going off-topic. The same applies to copyright infringement. The ruling elite would LOVE to make out that this is people stealing music from hard working artists who are begging for bread. What it is REALLY about is a mother scrubbing floors for a living putting a song performed by a multi-biljonair behind a video of child and uploading it on youtube to share with friends. If the copyright extortion industry had its way, we would have to pay a performance fee for singing "Happy birthday" and pay for having our earphones on to loud or if we whistle a tune. Any tune because every country has a collection agency that collects for every song regardless of whether the author wants it to be collected.
Times are changing. The internet has changed the rules of copying and mass imigration has changed the rules about cultures meeting. And either we act on those changes or ignore them until things blow up. Remember the last time the ruling elite were unable to deal with a changing reality? I think it was about 1932 that it came to a boil. Read up on that era. There is plenty writting about the years after but far less about before. You can't stop it when it has happened, so how about learning from history how to stop it happening again?
Copyright infringement is performed by millions, perhaps when so many do it, you just got to accept it as reality rather then try to protect the out of date business practices of a few filthy rich.
If you look at the politicians who are pro-copyright, pro-internet filtering and pro-immigration, you notice that they all try to claim that their methods are working have worked for decades and any problems are just radical extremists. And if you are not careful a real radical will stand up and claim to have the answer and be listened to.
What do they really want to do about filesharing? Create a war on filesharing? That went so well with the war on drugs. Put every filesharer in jail? Give every kid a criminal record for sharing Celine Dion? No, that is impossible especially since the police is undergoing budget cuts throughout Europe and has plenty of calls on its man power for the war on drugs and war on terror.
And if you ask the current elite WHY they side with the copyright industry, you often don't get any better answer then 'eh, because that is how it always was'. No, copyright is a new thing. It was changed because of new tech, so why not change it again because of even newer tech?
Either politicians change with the changing world, or they find themselves changed. Right now all parties in sweden have declared they won't work the new Swedish Democrats. Sure sure, we heard that before. Next election they will become far far larger because the current elite won't actually change anything and then they will have to work with them. And still they won't change a thing.
The Roma were kicked out of France. It is to late to stop the revolution, it has already happened. 10 years ago, this would have been unthinkable. So the ruling elite didn't think about it.
What you got to remember is that the world is filled with people with very small penisses who can only think of the world as them vs the state and everyone else.
They think their car is a source of income for the state when even the simplest look at the figures will show that cars COST the state far more then they pay in road taxes and such things. This in itself is not a problem. Society needs roads and transport but if you start to base your political outlook on a basic misconception (road taxes meet the costs of road construction and maintenance) it all goes wrong. Because then you start thinking that public transport, school and medical facilities must be paid for by their users as well. And not by your traffic fines.
Even if traffic fines were a serious source of income, as in not just meeting the costs of police but deliviring more! then who cares? What do I care for a tax for assholes. Don't be an asshole and you are not taxed.
But as you see from the majority of reactions, a lot of people are assholes and come up with bizarre explanations of why they should be allowed to speed.
It has been proven time and time again that if everybody drove the same speed, as indicated by people who are smarter then you, traffic would flow a lot more smoothly. The ultimate example was given a few years ago in a simulation with cars crossing each other on a busy level intersection with no trouble whatsoever.
The problem with speeding is NOT wether you can or cannot handle it, but if everyone else on the same road can. Considering cars are the biggest killer out there, it seems clear that people can't.
But don't worry, the police are all corrupt, you can drive 50 miles over the speed limit and when you kill someone you just shrug it off as an accident.
Because nobody is reponsible for their own actions and should never face the consequences. Oh and if someone dares to slam their car door in front of your house, the swat team should be called out and a speedbump the height of everest installed to slow those demons down.
Slashdot Mirror
Lets drive the greenhorn OUT! No filthy high UID's with their spelling and gramar and solid well researched non-sensationlist writing. I want my editors to rape the language (bonus points if it is several languages at once) and sent my heart racing by raising my bile and fear of the unknown and known.
Headlines sell adverts. Truth, accuracy, honesty do not. Accept it, you are reading slashdot, it works.
And then someone puts lead in the paint for kids toys or weedkiller in toothpaste or forgets to sterilize medical supplies.
We know JUST what happens when you don't regulate the shit out of everything, private industry does a runner. They always have, always will. Even if they risk getting a bullet for it like in China.
It is very fine to say regulation isn't needed, when you grew up safe because of regulation. But without it, do you REALLY think private business would follow any self imposed safety guidelines?
But the article is the typical right wing scare mongering they do so well. Nothing has been banned. They just refused to give these companies a default pass to include the most crap materials they could outsource to China.
Anti-regulation == American car industry making cars with spikes aimed straight at your heart. They didn't make collapsable steering wheels because they wanted to, they were forced to.
Funny how people who are anti-regulation never seems to be able recall the horror stories of absent regulation... until it comes time to sue.
You got plenty of people here who are permanant residents of the state of denial. So why not ask them?
Ask the idiots who year after year come up with "reclaim a handful, that will delay the inevitable for a couple more weeks, so nothing needs to be done" or "NAT, I heard that solves everything! Yeah, I nat my windows XP machine and everything is windows XP so that is the solution!"
People HATE change and HATE having to learn new stuff.
And the longer they put it off, the more they got to keep denying it, else they look silly.
We got the technology. The bankers got our money, we shoot the bankers and then we CAN do it! We can make a 6 million dollar Langur Monkey!
Who is with me gentlemen?
If Stuxnet is CLAIMED to be attacking Iran by Iran, you bet on Israel... wow, swallowed the pill whole didn't you?
Stuxnet spies on Iran. So who has motives to spy on Iranian CITIZENS? Oooh, Iran? And then when it is found out, they blaim it on outsiders. Just as they blamed the shooting of the girl during the violent supression of peaceful protests on outside agents as well. Very handy outside agents, you can blame anything on them.
And people like you swallow it whole.
And why would Israel spy on Indonesia?
No, I get the feeling the truth will be far simpler. Someone created a worm, released it, techies think "well I couldn't do it, therefor nobody could, therefor is must be CIA or Mossad". People claim that it was impossible for an individual to write because it involved keys from very very cheap hardware makers. Right at the same time that the master key from Intel was leaked...
Connect the dots.
I am willing to bet good money there is no conspiracy. Just a virus outbreak in a country were IT is backward (oh and call me a racist if you want but if you want to see truly horrific computer security go to countries like Iran and Brazil) and run by people raised to obey without thinking, not question everything, the hallmark of a good system admin.
The conspiracy allows you think someone is in charge and nuclear reactors are safe... not that an entire countries network could be at risk, including nuclear reactors because they don't know squat about security.
Odd that Iran was so quick at being able to determine the origins and just how sophisticated it was, yet NOW, days later has to ask for western help... with what? Didn't they already know how it worked? What more is there to know?
Isn't the very fact that they now got to ask for outside help a very good explenation of why the worm was so succesfull?
Similar bet, a new worm that is 100% effective at attacking windows 7 will totally disable MS campus. Gosh... the conspiracy!!! All Iran's affected systems were of a similar origin. Monoculture. Any single succesful attack on a common system will have a massive impact.
Lets not forget that this is the country whose leaders claimed earthquakes are caused by skirts. Very handy, to be able to blaim everything on someone else. Personally, I don't take their word for anything. Nor from anyone who takes an Iranian's official words for anything.
She will not survive. Nobody does. What counts is how long you manage to put off the dying.
Live, it is a killer.
Lucky that hospital is in England, in the US they would have their ass sued off for telling the mother it was nothing. And rightly so.
Remember US, when you complain about law suits, in the EU we have no means of putting the fear of god (or rather dollars, which doctor worship) into doctors.
You don't buy gold from an ATM if you trust BANKS. And if you don't trust banks, you don't trust certificates from banks.
You do trust that worthless metal will be worth anything once society collapses because when the 4 horse men are riding, my first need is gold...
Small government! The state should stay out of my business! Private industry can take care of everything!
Waah, something is happening, the state should step in! Save us oh mighty government! Regulate them! Control our every action and thought!
You can't have it both ways. Remember a while back when the US government announced that it could under emergency rules take control of networks? 99% of Slashdot was up in arms. No government spooks on your private network.
So, now the demand is that Australian soldiers walk into private business and secure the network?
So, bad for US soldiers to take control over private networks, bad for AU soldiers not to take control over private networks?
Or maybe they should put up a firewall around Australia to protect business, but not to actually filter anything because an internet filter is bad?
And people wonder why politicians don't listen to their voters. Because it is IMPOSSIBLE. The very same voter will insist that the speed limit be dropped and mile high speed bumps be raised in front of the fire station to stop those devils from driving to fast. The same voter will want green power but no wind mills, tidal station, solar farm or hydro dams because they don't look nice.
We want cheap labor to pick fruit but no immigrants. Free markets to sell OUR goods, import tariffs on THEIR goods.
It is impossible and so politicians stop listening and listen to the lobbyist instead who at least know to be consistent within each single plea.
Or as Douglas Adams said: People are a problem.
I say we nuke them from orbit. It is the only way to be sure.
And why do Americans tolerate a secret police with secret jails and people imprisoned without trial by soldiers in a communist country?
Yes, I am of course talking about the CIA. Do I need to explain the rest?
There is a comic I am to lazy to look up with Obama refusing to destroy the one ring at mount doom after obtaining it from the dark lord. Gost, Guatanomo Bay still hasn't been closed has it. Mighty handy all those new secret powers Bush game himself. To tempting to give up.
People want certainty. On the whole, the masses want to believe that there is someone in charge who knows what he is doing. Religion is the simplest answer to all this. We are born, we die. Why? God controls it all according to a plan so no worries how little sense it makes, there is a plan.
You can see this in places like Syria. It is, oddly enough a secular nation, where the leadership after decades of mismanagement and leaning to radical Islam is not starting to fear radical Islam because people distrustful of the ruling elite see in radical Islam a new savior, a new certainty. How do you think Hamas came into power? Because Fatah was just not believed anymore. Billions have been donated and the elite live in luxury (check were the wive of Arafar lives, how much its costs and who pays for it) and the population does not. So they seek the next promiser of salvation. Hamas has absolutely nothing to offer. It hates democracy (which is why no arab nation has ever offered to hose the palestinians, they are to western from contact with Israel and might demand elections), women and anything modern. But people wanted to get rid of the untrusted/uncertain leaders and looked for anything better.
Find this hard to grasp? Then look no futher then the teabaggers. Glen Beck as the salvation of the US of A? My god. Just how delusional can you get?
Or for the dutch, Geert Wilders. The guy HAS raised some intresting issues that need to be addressed, but who in their right mind thinks an VVDer can solve the dutch problems? His kind got only one mantra "CUT SPENDING, LOWER TAXES" and yet he got elected by claiming to be against spending custs. My my, he sure couldn't drop that fast enough once it became time to negiotate about a cabinet. If it is was all a masterful plot by the VVD to capture the hard left (people who believe in social projects but only for the right/white people) then it couldn't have gone better.
Democracy for the Russians has brought the end to them being the number two power (and if you know your military power, a war between the US and USSR might not have gone as Americans might have hoped) to a nation riddled with crime, reduced to a backwards nation once again with all the certainties of a state run economy gone. So, they got freedom. freedom to have you tiny business taken over by the mafia is not better then not being allowed to run a tiny business at all.
For the average person pretty much anywhere in the world, live is not all that splendid and filled with opportunity. Most live very simple lives, hopefully holding on to a job long enough to retire and have a pension that last long enough till the cold dark grave delivers them from this hell.
Yes, HELL. Why do you think some versions of Christianity make heaven out to be such a big reward. Why do you think Islamic suicide bombers want to commit suicide?
But to these people, democracy, economic freedom don't really mean anything. they are not the ones send to the goulags or stoned to death or lynched by people in bedsheets. They are the baker who delivers bread to that barbed prison camps where they take care not to notice all the people arriving yet none ever leaving. And if you give them a choice between all these uncertainties and problems and a ruler who says "do this, and I will provide", they listen.
THAT was the big failure of the west. We believed that once the iron curtain fell, everything would be well. Iraq, Afghanistan are just the same. Just holding elections and thinking everything is fixed i
This entire thread has been filled with rants about companies abusing the DMCA and lousy quality and the walmart-effect etc etc. But HERE we have an ACTUAL real customer who is upset. He is upset and wants to force action! He has dollars in his pocket. Dollars another company wants. WILL he withhold them unless they stop doing business with this DMCA abuser and maker of shoddy products?
Yes, when pigs fly, the devil goes to work on a snowplough and cheerleaders chase slashdotters with demands for sex.
We all do it (no, not chase slashdotters demanding sex), blow high and mighty about how we want quality products and ethical products and then forget all about it when it is time to go shopping and hand over our hard earned money.
And the companies know this. Oh, MickyTheIdiot (his own nick, not me ridiculing him) might not buy buckyballs from Thinkgeek today, maybe not even next week, but he will buy from Thinkgeek again, maybe even buckyballs. Just give it a little bit of time. So the company does nothing, doesn't take a stand out of fear of losing its customers because it won't loose any.
Be 100% honest with yourself, how often have you made a stand in your entire life that actually caused you the slightest bit of inconvenience. Anyone living near a BP station stopped pumping there? Anyone take any effort not to buy bio-engineered food or avoid patented crops? How about refusing to use any oil obtained through the war your think was started for it?
Did you cancel your bank account to protest the bail outs?
No... we are the slaves of the companies because we choose to be so. It was easier. But you are allowed to huff and puff on the internet. They know that it will only be a matter of time before you donate your wages again. Christmas shopping is coming up after all.
Now if you excuse me, I must go out and consume.
Lets see, in the decades after the US became a democracy, it had no votes for women. Had legal slavery based on color of the skin. Denied citizenship to asians and the natives. Slaughtered millions of the natives and deported the survivors to concentration camps where they were expected to slowly die with no natural or mineral resources.
The former USSR nations are not doing great, but most have NOT yet slipped as low as the past of the US of A.
Why do you compare the US after 2 centuries of freedom with newly freed states?
A US airforce commander, Bomber Harris sent US nuclear bombers on recon flights over the USSR with no way for russians to know wether they were there on a recon flight or an attack.
The rules don't mean much when you get insane people making their own policies.
Intel provides currently the highest buyable performance. But AMD provides the best performance for value. If you buy a 200euro amd you get the best bang for your buck. If you buy a 800 euro Intel you get more bang but pay more bucks per bang.
Intel offers no chip that provides the same bang for buck ratio as AMD. Hasn't done so in a long time.
That is why AMD is the choice for price concious buyers who want high performance on a budget and Intel for the rich people who simply want the most powerful CPU.
There are plenty of reviews comparing AMD vs Intel, Intel comes out ahead often but only by a small margin and for a HUGE price difference. Your choice wether you pay top money for minor gains.
Just as a super car costing 10x as much as a regular one isn't going to go ten times as fast. By that logic the Shuttle would have to break the speed of light.
Gosh, MS, which backed HD-DVD and didn't include a next generation disc format in its game console proclaims the next generation disc format of its major competitor is death... gee whiz. What a surprise!
And Apple also got clear reasons NOT to want blue-ray because physical media compete direct with its online media outlet... gosh... no conflict of intrest there either. 100% unbiased opinion, get it while it is hot!
Next up:
Shell doesn't think electrical cars will be it in 2011!
McDonalds thinks fastfood isn't a cancer in our society that needs to be routed out!
Pope does not think being a hitlerjugend or a pedo should be grounds for immediate dismissal in clergy!
Slashdotters think being a nerd should not turn women off!
Bears think the woods are there for shitting in!
Sky proclaims blue is the new black!
And tomorrow:
Sony declares Blue-Ray is booming!
Gosh, the death of physical media... how long have I heard this? It might become true one day. But then, vinyl still sells. Newspapers are death yet there are competing and viable free newspapers everywhere.
I will start believing the death of X stories when they deliver my flying car.
The web is no longer just a static place. It houses many applications and applications often need to be state aware. Users wouldn't accept that on slashdot, each post requires their login credentials or their session key posted in a form or get request.
So the cookie is the tool to turn the web state aware. Sadly a really useful tool can also be used for other practices.
NOT that it is to hard to defend against this. BLOCK third party cookies. If I am on slashdot, why am I getting cookies from site X.X? Why am I accepting them? I don't need them for slashdot to function (try, it, block third party cookies and see just how few sites seize to function).
First party cookies, the cookies from the site you visit have relative little impact. CNN.com is NOT going to request them (can't even) and hardly going to join in a scheme with slashdot to share data. Block the third party cookies by the ad agencies and you are golden.
Cookies, first party cookies, are integral to web apps (stateful browsing) because that is what they are for and the alternative (they exist) suck. In fact with the initial dislike gone, I don't think most people bother anymore with non-cookie capability of their site. Just like javascript and flash, if you don't have it, you can just go somewhere else.
It is almost impossible to store session data in the browser and not have it somehow abused. I could even think of ways of doing it by giving you a specific JS file with a generic url request, then see if I get a cached version or a new one.
The only way to stop this is to block the abusers. But how many here use ad-blockers and such to make a stand? No, many in fact oppose them because we "rob" those poor invaders of our privacy of their illgotten gains. Until that mentality changes, ad agencies will continue to find ever more devious ways to track us.
See Rudy Park, it the txt generation, which believes that instant information, no matter how shallow, is a good thing and actually faster then the old fashioned slow media... like when an aircraft crashed in Holland, twitterers were very proud that twitter reported it first. Except it didn't. The radio did.
It fits with a generation raised on txt and very short attention spans. For many, this rant is already far to long. And I say generation, but really mean a group because not all young people are twitter nuts and not all old people have escaped it. It is more of a culture. The current MTV crowd, shallow as hell but lots of meaningless info that gives the appearance of depth with actually containing any. It is CNN, they shout very loud they got the most and the latest news so it must be true despite that the actual news content is a single sentence repeated a hundred times over. Even ex-science channels got it with documentaries that are along the lines of "Shark got big teeth, see this big teethed shard which has big teeth. It is known that shark got big teeth and these teeth the shark got are big and etc etc". Yes thank you. 1 hour, 2-3 lines of zero content repeated in as many ways possible.
Twitter is for people that think every thought in their head should be instantly broadcast to the world and others who actually FOLLOW this. Don't know which is sadder. Writing about my breakfast or reading about someone elses.
BUT it is NOTHING new. Countless cafeteria's have seen similar vapid discussions. We are the chattering monkey.
I yesterday was faced with a discussion about online games for women. Is there a market? One person did not get it. SHE did not want to play games AFTER a hard day at the work... no indeed. BUT the market for that is HOME-MAKERS. NOT women with intresting jobs.
Twitter ain't for you. You got other methods of airing your thoughts including maybe not airing them at all. Some people choose differently.
Let them.
I live happily with twitter by not using it. It doesn't disturb me that someone else tweets about his bowel movements. Because it does not affect me. At least they are not loudly proclaiming about their operation in the seat next to me. MTV might be the most moronic thing ever, but I simply removed it from the list and never have to deal with it. The txt generation mostly passes me by. Why are you so upset with them?
I thought I would make a lot of money selling my sexual services to women. Then it turns out you do it for FREE! STOP stealing the money out of my mouth!
And you are a car mechanic. How many inn's have you put out of business were people used to stop during coach travels to rest for the night?
The point (yes I got one) is that YOUR business plan is NOT sacred. Just because YOU think that the world is waiting for you deliver a service they will pay money for, doesn't mean the world is obliged to do this.
A simple example? A street performer. I can WATCH and NOT pay. There is no law, could be no law, that says you got to reward a street performer with money.
Sucks for street performers? Why yes, but that is life.
Yes, someone can pirate your video. So don't rely on video to make a living. Does that mean no more video's are produced? It might. So?
There are more more coaching inns, no more pony express. I can't get goal delivered. My dreams of a career as a gas-lamp lighter were cruelly dashed.
Why don't we have allows that force YOU to stop by EVERY new road-side diner. In fact lets ban home cooking to save the dreams of everyone who wants to own a restaurant?
This is very hard to grasp for some, the entire media industry for instance. But the world does NOT owe you a living of your choosing. Yes, that is mean. Suck it up. If it did, we would not just still be using lamp lighters, but have businesses unable to move because the local eatery depends on the business it generates. We would be forever stagnant for fear of someone somewhere loosing out.
You worked years on something without figuring out if your business plan was viable in the real world.
It is like you spent a million on a eatery beside a railroad station, without checking the plans for the closing of said railroad station.
Your business dream simply wasn't viable because others can copy the idea cheaply. It is all to common.
Everyone knew the iPad wouldn't do flash. If you move into my house, you can't claim I abducted you, even if you chain yourself to my railing and refuse to be moved.
and gosh, since the iPad sells millions, maybe a lot of those buyers who knew they wouldn't be able to use flash didn't mind? Maybe the only outrage is with windows lusers who are jealous of the iPad and idiots who buy a petrol car then complain it doesn't run on diesel are complaining and the rest don't care?
The stats are just idiotic by the way. Silverlight is pushed by MS so installed doesn't mean a concious choice and installing flash for youtube hardly means that people want flash. They want youtube. iPad got youtube, so who needs flash?
Some people need to seperate what people WANT from meaningless statistics.
Countless PC's have got malware installed. Conclusion: people want malware. No? Then why do you think flash installs mean people want flash? Most people probably don't care. It is just a popup they auto-accept that they don't get on the iPad.
NO absolutely NOT under NO circumstance,
Signed, the man who killed your father.
Geert Wilders didn't have that many votes at the start either. Now he is dictating the next government of Holland.
Oh2, you are one of the ruling elite I am talking about. Totally incapable of accepting that things are changing differently then you wish them to change. Go ahead, ignore those 6% of the voters. They are a minority, but how many agree with them quietly?
Islam is just the latest to be blamed, the Roma example made this clear, a new target can be found in seconds to blame all societies woes on. You need to target those woes, not by going after the scapegoat but after the underlying causes. Once the hunt for the scapegoat has started it is often to late.
If you owe the bank $10.000, it is your problem.
If you owe the bank $10.000.000, it is their problem.
If the bank owns society $10.000.000.000, it is your problem. Pay up you horrible little taxpayer! Free money for everyone who gets million dollar bonuses!
A slashdot nerd AND a trainspotter. The only man in history to have a negative amount of sex :p
Anyway, first time I got on an aircraft I already became a convert to rail travel. Nobody ever told me airliners CREAK! Used to trains where the fuselage/body is a solid bit of steel that does NOT twist and shake and rattle.
Anyway, has anyone given a thought to the people on the ground. I do not want to see upskirt shots or Ryan Air passengers.
And the revolution has already happened with music. In the times of Napster only a fraction of the population had access to reliable internet with acceptable speeds. The music industry did NOT adapt to the changing times and instead sued and then sat back congratualiting themselves on their achievement... and the times kept changing and now an entire generation has grown up were downloading is the norm.
And NO, iTunes is NOT the counter revolution. Selling the songs for the same price but without the production and distribution costs is just cynical money grabbing rather then the capitalists "passing savings on to the customer".
The elite thought they could stop the changing times and didn't. Nothing new there. Trying to change back the clock is far to late. The music industry should have switched business models pre-2000. Like the dutch Free Record Store wanted to do. Remove CD's, instead have a computer with all music loaded on it and burn or upload it to a MP3 player on demand for a low fee. The advantages are HUGE. Every song on sale in the smallest retail location. No surplus stock, no damaged stock, no theft, full listening of songs in the store without wear and tear. If you know the rental costs of a highstreet location, being able to skip on endless racks of CD's would save a fortune. Lower the costs of music and increase the earning for everyone involved while giving customer the service they want and all the music ever recorded... what did the music industry say? No, and if you try it, we will sue you.
The revolution in France wasn't about telling people going hungry to eat cake. It was about an elite totally unable to grasp the reality of the day.
It must be something in the champagne the elite drink that makes them blind.
The swedish Democrats (read anti-immigrant party) did make it in. Intresting prediction by Gerald Celente in a dutch free newspaper today. "Hate of Islam can no longer be stopped". When even Sweden starts going natiolistic, you know things are bad.
So, freedom of information. NO.
No to immigrants. Yes.
Sad. And yes there are issues, but the problem goes deeper then just Islam, you can see that with the Roma in France. There is a clash of cultures going on and a ruling elite that is totally in capable of dealing or even acknowledging this.
The same free newspaper ran a story last week on the Roma being deported. It said the troubles started after Roma attacked a police station after police has shot one of them. Then it goes on to make the claim that this decision was totally wrong and ill thought out... NO, not the decision of the Roma to attack a police station in a country were there reputation already sucks, no, it is the FRENCH reaction to one of its police stations being attack in protest of the legal shooting of a criminal by foreigners that gets attacked.
Talk about NOT getting the point.
And no I am NOT going off-topic. The same applies to copyright infringement. The ruling elite would LOVE to make out that this is people stealing music from hard working artists who are begging for bread. What it is REALLY about is a mother scrubbing floors for a living putting a song performed by a multi-biljonair behind a video of child and uploading it on youtube to share with friends. If the copyright extortion industry had its way, we would have to pay a performance fee for singing "Happy birthday" and pay for having our earphones on to loud or if we whistle a tune. Any tune because every country has a collection agency that collects for every song regardless of whether the author wants it to be collected.
Times are changing. The internet has changed the rules of copying and mass imigration has changed the rules about cultures meeting. And either we act on those changes or ignore them until things blow up. Remember the last time the ruling elite were unable to deal with a changing reality? I think it was about 1932 that it came to a boil. Read up on that era. There is plenty writting about the years after but far less about before. You can't stop it when it has happened, so how about learning from history how to stop it happening again?
Copyright infringement is performed by millions, perhaps when so many do it, you just got to accept it as reality rather then try to protect the out of date business practices of a few filthy rich.
If you look at the politicians who are pro-copyright, pro-internet filtering and pro-immigration, you notice that they all try to claim that their methods are working have worked for decades and any problems are just radical extremists. And if you are not careful a real radical will stand up and claim to have the answer and be listened to.
What do they really want to do about filesharing? Create a war on filesharing? That went so well with the war on drugs. Put every filesharer in jail? Give every kid a criminal record for sharing Celine Dion? No, that is impossible especially since the police is undergoing budget cuts throughout Europe and has plenty of calls on its man power for the war on drugs and war on terror.
And if you ask the current elite WHY they side with the copyright industry, you often don't get any better answer then 'eh, because that is how it always was'. No, copyright is a new thing. It was changed because of new tech, so why not change it again because of even newer tech?
Either politicians change with the changing world, or they find themselves changed. Right now all parties in sweden have declared they won't work the new Swedish Democrats. Sure sure, we heard that before. Next election they will become far far larger because the current elite won't actually change anything and then they will have to work with them. And still they won't change a thing.
The Roma were kicked out of France. It is to late to stop the revolution, it has already happened. 10 years ago, this would have been unthinkable. So the ruling elite didn't think about it.
What you got to remember is that the world is filled with people with very small penisses who can only think of the world as them vs the state and everyone else.
They think their car is a source of income for the state when even the simplest look at the figures will show that cars COST the state far more then they pay in road taxes and such things. This in itself is not a problem. Society needs roads and transport but if you start to base your political outlook on a basic misconception (road taxes meet the costs of road construction and maintenance) it all goes wrong. Because then you start thinking that public transport, school and medical facilities must be paid for by their users as well. And not by your traffic fines.
Even if traffic fines were a serious source of income, as in not just meeting the costs of police but deliviring more! then who cares? What do I care for a tax for assholes. Don't be an asshole and you are not taxed.
But as you see from the majority of reactions, a lot of people are assholes and come up with bizarre explanations of why they should be allowed to speed.
It has been proven time and time again that if everybody drove the same speed, as indicated by people who are smarter then you, traffic would flow a lot more smoothly. The ultimate example was given a few years ago in a simulation with cars crossing each other on a busy level intersection with no trouble whatsoever.
The problem with speeding is NOT wether you can or cannot handle it, but if everyone else on the same road can. Considering cars are the biggest killer out there, it seems clear that people can't.
But don't worry, the police are all corrupt, you can drive 50 miles over the speed limit and when you kill someone you just shrug it off as an accident.
Because nobody is reponsible for their own actions and should never face the consequences. Oh and if someone dares to slam their car door in front of your house, the swat team should be called out and a speedbump the height of everest installed to slow those demons down.