The only real solution is to get this lousy policy repealed.
Or move to a country that actually has personal freedom and liberty instead of living in one that loudly touts what it in the process of crushing.
Where would that be? The Internet has, unfortunately, frightened a number of otherwise relatively sane governments. The world is going downhill fairly quickly in this respect.
How are you to prove to your employer/big brother that you don't have one?
So, you have one. Doesn't mean you have to use it. They're looking for a tool to see what kind of a person you are. Doesn't mean you have to give them one.
Put it this way: what is the prime purpose of the credit system? It's for organizations (businesses) to insulate themselves from the risks of doing business with individuals and other businesses. What is the purpose of requiring that a job candidate turn over his confidential passwords? Pretty much the same reason: in both cases, there is potential economic benefit to kowtowing, as well as the likelihood of harm due to the use (or misuse) of the information that is acquired. That doesn't make it right, but in both situations there are steps you can take.
Better yet, I suppose, would be regulation preventing any such organization from requiring that anyone turn over confidential information and passwords just to get a job. This is patently amoral behavior on the face of it: what next, are they going to want to log in to my bank records to see how I spend my money? It's called "personal and confidential" for a reason. Fuckers.
You want to go out there and look up what I've written, well, that's one thing, I suppose. Demanding my password(s) is an entirely different kettle of fish, and sets a very bad precedent.
DuPont is not an oil company. They are a chemical company. They have lots of patents and lots of lawyers, but DuPont has always been good at making money by advancing science and technology, not suppressing it.
Oh, there's no question that a large corporation, with the resources of a Du Pont or a British Petroleum, can do both. Matter of fact, it's the companies that have large R&D investments that are most into the "suppression" business. Why do you think they file for so many patents? It's to suppress anyone and anything that might want to compete with them. Now, the patent system is intended to permit just that, but because the patent system is so broken, and because it permits so much patent abuse, more and more companies are using overbroad patents to suppress legitimate competition.
There is certainly an argument to be made that the fact that the current patent system allows them to do this is contrary to the public interest.
The government would appear to disagree with that argument, because environmentally-beneficial inventions are one of the few kinds of inventions where patent applicants can request for free that their application be made "special" and therefore get examined sooner.
The government may disagree, but Congress and the United States Patent Office do not, and they're the ones that count. The problems with the patent system in the United States are very real.
Protecting a properly granted patent is not technology suppression.
Nonsense. You've obviously not been following what Congress and the USPTO have done and are doing with the patent system in the United States. The unfortunate truth is that quantity is far more important that quality nowadays, and the current position of the Patent Office is that patents should be granted without much examination and that it is up to the courts to decided if a patent is valid.
That's just wrong, on so many levels, but it makes IP lawyers billions of dollars. And that's the point.
It used to be seventeen, now it's twenty... and don't forget that travesty that is copyright. If big money can by effectively infinite copyright, it can do the same with patents. It will be harder, but given that Congress has been exhibiting an unprecedented degree of naked corruption in recent years, I wouldn't say it's impossible.
They don't really care one way or the other, they just want to make money.
They apparently fund the bulk of photovoltaic research too, for that matter. They're like Microsoft or Google in a way... they have a core competency, and will milk it to the very last drop. That doesn't mean they aren't casting about for something, anything, that can be used to maintain their hegemony when their current money maker is gone.
Everyone is concerned about the americans; most of them are very ripe for the psych ward.
Ignorance on a grand scale, I'm impressed. "Most of them". How many is that? A hundred and fifty million? Two hundred million? Three hundred million? You really think that 300 million crazy people managed to accomplish what we have, managed to become the threat that you imagine us to be? Grow up, dude, otherwise you really come off like a pissed-off peon suffering from sour grapes.
So yes such a contraption in orbit would actually give them total dominion over the world, which is of course what they would like...
No, we wouldn't. Why ignorant people like you insist upon attributing to the United States the sort of evil grandiosity more correctly placed upon old-school Russia, (or maybe modern China once the United States is no longer a major player, hard to say what their long-term plans are) is beyond me. We've fought in a number of conflicts since World War II, some on ideological grounds, others for purely utilitarian or economic reasons. However, America is not now, and never will be, an Empire in the sense that the Soviets were. Empires are incredibly expensive and frankly, you're fooling yourself if you believe that we care enough about you to want to occupy your country, that (with only a few exception) you have anything we want. Other than your women. Yes, we do want your women, but we'd much, much rather buy your oil at inflated prices and sell you iTunes tracks.
And you know what we are going to do about it if it happens? NOTHING, we are just once again going to bend over for the US and take it up the back passage,
Yep. That's the first reasonable thing you've said. And if so, WHOSE FAULT IS THAT? Are you blaming us for your greed and stupidity?
in the name of the "almighty" dollar (which nowadays is really a joke, if possible avoid getting paid in dollars, it is Monopoly money, it is basically worthless)
I can see you failed basic economics. Well, no-one ever said that America-bashing had to be rational, but you'll probably gain a few mod points from people just as ignorant as you.
If lasers ever become a serious threat against naval vessels, you could attach mirrors to divert the beams.
Can you? No mirror is perfect, there is always some absorption, and given a beam powerful enough the leakage is going to melt the mirror. Nor do optical mirrors reflect all wavelengths equally: if your laser is tunable you can give the enemy a lot of grief by fiddling with the frequency.
There's also the issue of specular reflections: the slightest touch of a beam that powerful is going to permanently blind anyone in the vicinity, friend or foe. The collateral damage from a high-powered laser used on the battlefield is likely to be spectacular.
Your complaints are stupid. The opening scene showed that the laser was a secret project without any oversight -- hidden from the president and any anyone outside their group -- and when one member of the group in charge decided he couldn't be party to this type of activity, the group ordered his execution (via a thin euphemism). It wasn't that a laser couldn't be used for a reduction in losses, it was that they were obviously going to use it to take out whomever they wanted.
Correct, which is why a group of college students interfering with a top-secret military project was entirely justifiable within the film's plotline.
It's hard to believe that peace lovers would be opposed to the very kind of weapon that would reduce the bloodshed and put pressure on the very causes of wars...
That's because it isn't. If you start assassinating the enemy's leadership (whether it be with baseball bats or orbiting laser projectors), you're going to start World War III. And, because you've killed off all the people who had the power to say "stop", it will continue until we're all dead.
I wonder if this announcement has anything to do with the recent Chinese parade showing off their new anti-aircraft carrier missile?
I dunno. On the one hand, it gains some political points but on the other... it's the kind of think you'd probably want to keep secret so the other side doesn't spend time and money working on countermeasures.
the humans of earth are a jealous lot, full of hate and mistrust, and belief that their way is the only way to live, and that all other ways must be eliminated
Suddenly the foreign policy and economically destructive wars perpetuated by the United States make sense.
Uh... what? Do you really believe that the United States is hell-bent on eliminating other ways of life? Do you really believe that (because if so, that's just bizarre) or are you just America-bashing for fun? I'd say the Soviets did a hell of a lot more in that regard than the United States ever did. Many of our previous conflicts were ostensibly driven by ideological differences (although, if you dig a little deeper you'll usually find that there was more to it than that) but since the Cold War is over we're far more focused on the economic benefit of our overseas campaigns. Which isn't necessarily better, but it still has nothing to do with converting everyone to our brand of representative republicanism. We don't really care how you want to live: just buy our stuff and sell us your oil. Oh, and listen to our music and buy a lot of our DVDs.
but the truth is that the United States is not paying for a defensive military.
Why would you ever have thought that? More to the point, what do you mean by "defensive"? Not all conflicts have to be fought on one's own territory to be considered "defensive", and sometimes investments have to be made because of obligations to allied nations. Hell, World War II, if you have the ability to grasp the big picture, was in fact a defensive war. The reality is, though, that we've cut back substantially on our military capability since the end of the Cold War. Why? Because (so it was believed at the highest levels of our government) the world is now safe because the Soviet Empire collapsed, and we don't need all these men and machines. So this idea that America is continuing to build this ever more massive military is just wrong. Period. Furthermore, the current Iraq conflict is stretching our ability to deploy personnel: we just don't have the manpower or equipment that we used to have, even going back to the first Gulf war.
Whether or not we made the correct choice in downsizing our military machine remains to be seen. But it is most definitely not what it once was.
he is a smart guy, I am sure anything important is truecrypted
So what? A lot of smart guys (and gals) smoke, have risky sex, drive recklessly and perform a thousand other stupid activities because they're convinced that, whatever happens to other people who do such things, it won't happen to them.
Most of us think we're untouchable. Until we get that lab result, hit that tree... or receive that subpoena.
Perhaps one that overheated, and ate cd drives, then sony refused to fix the laptop even though it was under warranty.
That's right Sony, I remember you screwing me with that laptop. Ive avoided most of your crap for the past 7 years... Don't worry after continuing stunts like this, I will probably never purchase anything that has the bad luck to bear the sony badge
"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck."
Here in Europe we prefer european Nokia to chinese junk (e.g. ifone) or korean junk (samsung). On my Nokias everything just works, I can't say the same thing about asian appliances.
Funny, I have a Samsung DLP TV set, and it's a nice piece of hardware. Solid and works well. But I'd never buy a Samsung Android phone. As I browse around the Market, about 90+% of complaints about apps not working on a specific phone seem to be from Samsung owners. Several people I know that have owned them have had issues of one sort or another that I've never seen on, for example, HTC's devices. From what I've heard around Slashdot, Samsung doesn't update their Android releases very often either.
Re:As much as I wanted Nokia to adopt Android...
on
Why Nokia Is Toast
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· Score: 1
Nokias best way forward would have been to simply acquire android capabilities for the meego platform to cater to the app crowd and run a mixed platform on the lower end.
Re:As much as I wanted Nokia to adopt Android...
on
Why Nokia Is Toast
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· Score: 1
Ten times better than no chance is still no chance.
Nokia could have saved itself by going with an Android + MeeGo strategy.
Microsoft's phone efforts are DOA. It doesn't even matter anymore whether they are technically any good; WP has the stink of failure attached to it. And that stink won't disappear by hooking up with a failing phone company.
Apple as a company had the stink of failure attached to it. Big time. Markets change.
Yes, but Apple came back with a charismatic sociopath at its helm, who made some correct decisions (I give him credit for learning from past mistakes. I still don't like him.)
Only is you care more about your phone looking "cool" (that is bough last month, or so) instead of having really good reception/battery life, will you buy the phones which are popular in NA.
That's kind of a silly thing to say. Yeah, there are a lot of iPhone owners that fall into that category (okay, most of them I suppose) but if you look at iPhone sales compared to sales of just Android handsets alone, you'll find that the bulk of smartphone users here in "NA" don't have much use for Apple. There are tons of really good phones available here, and people buy them in huge quantities. Personally, I never even considered any of of Apple's offerings, and my current phone an HTC model. I'm very happy with it.
But it's true: given the nature of Microsoft, and its history, I don't see this as being a good long-term deal for Nokia. Oh well.
BTW; you might be somewhat too optimistic about laws of physics or market realities (of all of them)
You're right there. I doubt we'll see anything as capable as, say, my HTC Vision available for $60. Although, at that price point I'd pick 'em up for the whole family.
Re:In that case, MS has failed beyond belief
on
Why Nokia Is Toast
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· Score: 3, Informative
Nokia could have done other things: (1)Push Meego. (2)Push Symbian. (3)Adopt Android. (4)Develop their own OS.
(1) Tried, it's not ready enough yet.
(2) That platform is a zombie walking around asking for more brains... I mean, R&D budget millions to gobble.
(3) Join the race to the bottom, compete in services with Google who happen to control your platform. Feel the fragmentation.
(4) What? Create another R&D sinkhole, while MeeGo is still around? Just what Nokia needs now.
True, but making a deal like this with Microsoft isn't a viable No. 5, when you get right down to it. Pact with the Devil and all that. And the GP is correct when he says, "like most companies, MS is only really interested in how the Nokia deal serves them." And that's okay... the question is, is Nokia's leadership interested in how the deal serves Nokia, or just in how it serves Nokia's leadership? Something smells here, but I can't put my finger on it.
Slashdot Mirror
my.lawn->get_off(you);
You should change your nick to "ground_floor". Were they offering stock options back then?
The only real solution is to get this lousy policy repealed.
Or move to a country that actually has personal freedom and liberty instead of living in one that loudly touts what it in the process of crushing.
Where would that be? The Internet has, unfortunately, frightened a number of otherwise relatively sane governments. The world is going downhill fairly quickly in this respect.
How are you to prove to your employer/big brother that you don't have one?
So, you have one. Doesn't mean you have to use it. They're looking for a tool to see what kind of a person you are. Doesn't mean you have to give them one.
Put it this way: what is the prime purpose of the credit system? It's for organizations (businesses) to insulate themselves from the risks of doing business with individuals and other businesses. What is the purpose of requiring that a job candidate turn over his confidential passwords? Pretty much the same reason: in both cases, there is potential economic benefit to kowtowing, as well as the likelihood of harm due to the use (or misuse) of the information that is acquired. That doesn't make it right, but in both situations there are steps you can take.
Better yet, I suppose, would be regulation preventing any such organization from requiring that anyone turn over confidential information and passwords just to get a job. This is patently amoral behavior on the face of it: what next, are they going to want to log in to my bank records to see how I spend my money? It's called "personal and confidential" for a reason. Fuckers.
You want to go out there and look up what I've written, well, that's one thing, I suppose. Demanding my password(s) is an entirely different kettle of fish, and sets a very bad precedent.
DuPont is not an oil company. They are a chemical company. They have lots of patents and lots of lawyers, but DuPont has always been good at making money by advancing science and technology, not suppressing it.
Oh, there's no question that a large corporation, with the resources of a Du Pont or a British Petroleum, can do both. Matter of fact, it's the companies that have large R&D investments that are most into the "suppression" business. Why do you think they file for so many patents? It's to suppress anyone and anything that might want to compete with them. Now, the patent system is intended to permit just that, but because the patent system is so broken, and because it permits so much patent abuse, more and more companies are using overbroad patents to suppress legitimate competition.
There is certainly an argument to be made that the fact that the current patent system allows them to do this is contrary to the public interest.
The government would appear to disagree with that argument, because environmentally-beneficial inventions are one of the few kinds of inventions where patent applicants can request for free that their application be made "special" and therefore get examined sooner.
The government may disagree, but Congress and the United States Patent Office do not, and they're the ones that count. The problems with the patent system in the United States are very real.
Protecting a properly granted patent is not technology suppression.
Nonsense. You've obviously not been following what Congress and the USPTO have done and are doing with the patent system in the United States. The unfortunate truth is that quantity is far more important that quality nowadays, and the current position of the Patent Office is that patents should be granted without much examination and that it is up to the courts to decided if a patent is valid.
That's just wrong, on so many levels, but it makes IP lawyers billions of dollars. And that's the point.
Patents only last for 20 years.
It used to be seventeen, now it's twenty ... and don't forget that travesty that is copyright. If big money can by effectively infinite copyright, it can do the same with patents. It will be harder, but given that Congress has been exhibiting an unprecedented degree of naked corruption in recent years, I wouldn't say it's impossible.
They don't really care one way or the other, they just want to make money.
They apparently fund the bulk of photovoltaic research too, for that matter. They're like Microsoft or Google in a way ... they have a core competency, and will milk it to the very last drop. That doesn't mean they aren't casting about for something, anything, that can be used to maintain their hegemony when their current money maker is gone.
Everyone is concerned about the americans; most of them are very ripe for the psych ward.
Ignorance on a grand scale, I'm impressed. "Most of them". How many is that? A hundred and fifty million? Two hundred million? Three hundred million? You really think that 300 million crazy people managed to accomplish what we have, managed to become the threat that you imagine us to be? Grow up, dude, otherwise you really come off like a pissed-off peon suffering from sour grapes.
So yes such a contraption in orbit would actually give them total dominion over the world, which is of course what they would like ...
No, we wouldn't. Why ignorant people like you insist upon attributing to the United States the sort of evil grandiosity more correctly placed upon old-school Russia, (or maybe modern China once the United States is no longer a major player, hard to say what their long-term plans are) is beyond me. We've fought in a number of conflicts since World War II, some on ideological grounds, others for purely utilitarian or economic reasons. However, America is not now, and never will be, an Empire in the sense that the Soviets were. Empires are incredibly expensive and frankly, you're fooling yourself if you believe that we care enough about you to want to occupy your country, that (with only a few exception) you have anything we want. Other than your women. Yes, we do want your women, but we'd much, much rather buy your oil at inflated prices and sell you iTunes tracks.
And you know what we are going to do about it if it happens? NOTHING, we are just once again going to bend over for the US and take it up the back passage,
Yep. That's the first reasonable thing you've said. And if so, WHOSE FAULT IS THAT? Are you blaming us for your greed and stupidity?
in the name of the "almighty" dollar (which nowadays is really a joke, if possible avoid getting paid in dollars, it is Monopoly money, it is basically worthless)
I can see you failed basic economics. Well, no-one ever said that America-bashing had to be rational, but you'll probably gain a few mod points from people just as ignorant as you.
If lasers ever become a serious threat against naval vessels, you could attach mirrors to divert the beams.
Can you? No mirror is perfect, there is always some absorption, and given a beam powerful enough the leakage is going to melt the mirror. Nor do optical mirrors reflect all wavelengths equally: if your laser is tunable you can give the enemy a lot of grief by fiddling with the frequency.
There's also the issue of specular reflections: the slightest touch of a beam that powerful is going to permanently blind anyone in the vicinity, friend or foe. The collateral damage from a high-powered laser used on the battlefield is likely to be spectacular.
It's possible that anyone with the data to give you a more precise answer would have to kill you if he told you.
I've always wondered if that would hold up in court.
"Yes, Your Honor, once I told him, I had to kill him. It was a moral imperative."
"So then why did you tell him?"
I'm not sure you understand what "whoosh" means.
Yeah ... the GP is a real genius, let me tell you.
Your complaints are stupid. The opening scene showed that the laser was a secret project without any oversight -- hidden from the president and any anyone outside their group -- and when one member of the group in charge decided he couldn't be party to this type of activity, the group ordered his execution (via a thin euphemism). It wasn't that a laser couldn't be used for a reduction in losses, it was that they were obviously going to use it to take out whomever they wanted.
Correct, which is why a group of college students interfering with a top-secret military project was entirely justifiable within the film's plotline.
It's hard to believe that peace lovers would be opposed to the very kind of weapon that would reduce the bloodshed and put pressure on the very causes of wars...
That's because it isn't. If you start assassinating the enemy's leadership (whether it be with baseball bats or orbiting laser projectors), you're going to start World War III. And, because you've killed off all the people who had the power to say "stop", it will continue until we're all dead.
I wonder if this announcement has anything to do with the recent Chinese parade showing off their new anti-aircraft carrier missile?
I dunno. On the one hand, it gains some political points but on the other ... it's the kind of think you'd probably want to keep secret so the other side doesn't spend time and money working on countermeasures.
the humans of earth are a jealous lot, full of hate and mistrust, and belief that their way is the only way to live, and that all other ways must be eliminated
Suddenly the foreign policy and economically destructive wars perpetuated by the United States make sense.
Uh ... what? Do you really believe that the United States is hell-bent on eliminating other ways of life? Do you really believe that (because if so, that's just bizarre) or are you just America-bashing for fun? I'd say the Soviets did a hell of a lot more in that regard than the United States ever did. Many of our previous conflicts were ostensibly driven by ideological differences (although, if you dig a little deeper you'll usually find that there was more to it than that) but since the Cold War is over we're far more focused on the economic benefit of our overseas campaigns. Which isn't necessarily better, but it still has nothing to do with converting everyone to our brand of representative republicanism. We don't really care how you want to live: just buy our stuff and sell us your oil. Oh, and listen to our music and buy a lot of our DVDs.
but the truth is that the United States is not paying for a defensive military.
Why would you ever have thought that? More to the point, what do you mean by "defensive"? Not all conflicts have to be fought on one's own territory to be considered "defensive", and sometimes investments have to be made because of obligations to allied nations. Hell, World War II, if you have the ability to grasp the big picture, was in fact a defensive war. The reality is, though, that we've cut back substantially on our military capability since the end of the Cold War. Why? Because (so it was believed at the highest levels of our government) the world is now safe because the Soviet Empire collapsed, and we don't need all these men and machines. So this idea that America is continuing to build this ever more massive military is just wrong. Period. Furthermore, the current Iraq conflict is stretching our ability to deploy personnel: we just don't have the manpower or equipment that we used to have, even going back to the first Gulf war.
Whether or not we made the correct choice in downsizing our military machine remains to be seen. But it is most definitely not what it once was.
he is a smart guy, I am sure anything important is truecrypted
So what? A lot of smart guys (and gals) smoke, have risky sex, drive recklessly and perform a thousand other stupid activities because they're convinced that, whatever happens to other people who do such things, it won't happen to them.
... or receive that subpoena.
Most of us think we're untouchable. Until we get that lab result, hit that tree
Perhaps one that overheated, and ate cd drives, then sony refused to fix the laptop even though it was under warranty.
That's right Sony, I remember you screwing me with that laptop. Ive avoided most of your crap for the past 7 years... Don't worry after continuing stunts like this, I will probably never purchase anything that has the bad luck to bear the sony badge
"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck."
Here in Europe we prefer european Nokia to chinese junk (e.g. ifone) or korean junk (samsung). On my Nokias everything just works, I can't say the same thing about asian appliances.
Funny, I have a Samsung DLP TV set, and it's a nice piece of hardware. Solid and works well. But I'd never buy a Samsung Android phone. As I browse around the Market, about 90+% of complaints about apps not working on a specific phone seem to be from Samsung owners. Several people I know that have owned them have had issues of one sort or another that I've never seen on, for example, HTC's devices. From what I've heard around Slashdot, Samsung doesn't update their Android releases very often either.
Nokias best way forward would have been to simply acquire android capabilities for the meego platform to cater to the app crowd and run a mixed platform on the lower end.
You mean like RIM is apparently doing?
Ten times better than no chance is still no chance.
Nokia could have saved itself by going with an Android + MeeGo strategy.
Microsoft's phone efforts are DOA. It doesn't even matter anymore whether they are technically any good; WP has the stink of failure attached to it. And that stink won't disappear by hooking up with a failing phone company.
Apple as a company had the stink of failure attached to it. Big time. Markets change.
Yes, but Apple came back with a charismatic sociopath at its helm, who made some correct decisions (I give him credit for learning from past mistakes. I still don't like him.)
Microsoft, on the other hand, has Ballmer.
If they can get a pubic perception of having some vaguely cool smartphones to help drive the brand, they have no problems really.
...
Don't write Nokia off yet.
If they have a great 'vibrate' feature then the reports of their demise are definitely, um, premature?
Thanks for that.
Only is you care more about your phone looking "cool" (that is bough last month, or so) instead of having really good reception/battery life, will you buy the phones which are popular in NA.
That's kind of a silly thing to say. Yeah, there are a lot of iPhone owners that fall into that category (okay, most of them I suppose) but if you look at iPhone sales compared to sales of just Android handsets alone, you'll find that the bulk of smartphone users here in "NA" don't have much use for Apple. There are tons of really good phones available here, and people buy them in huge quantities. Personally, I never even considered any of of Apple's offerings, and my current phone an HTC model. I'm very happy with it.
But it's true: given the nature of Microsoft, and its history, I don't see this as being a good long-term deal for Nokia. Oh well.
BTW; you might be somewhat too optimistic about laws of physics or market realities (of all of them)
You're right there. I doubt we'll see anything as capable as, say, my HTC Vision available for $60. Although, at that price point I'd pick 'em up for the whole family.
Nokia could have done other things: (1)Push Meego. (2)Push Symbian. (3)Adopt Android. (4)Develop their own OS.
(1) Tried, it's not ready enough yet. (2) That platform is a zombie walking around asking for more brains... I mean, R&D budget millions to gobble. (3) Join the race to the bottom, compete in services with Google who happen to control your platform. Feel the fragmentation. (4) What? Create another R&D sinkhole, while MeeGo is still around? Just what Nokia needs now.
True, but making a deal like this with Microsoft isn't a viable No. 5, when you get right down to it. Pact with the Devil and all that. And the GP is correct when he says, "like most companies, MS is only really interested in how the Nokia deal serves them." And that's okay ... the question is, is Nokia's leadership interested in how the deal serves Nokia, or just in how it serves Nokia's leadership? Something smells here, but I can't put my finger on it.