Nice to see some of your examples of personal freedom. I for one would love to live in a country where my manager could fire me because they arbitrarily decided that I was not performing. Fortunately in the UK they would at least have to go through a formal procedure of a verbal warning and written warning before doing so, i.e. let me know if I was not doing my job and give me the chance to rectify the problem. I have friends working in the US who have been hit in the downturn and have been fired with a weeks salary because their company is losing business, whereas over here the standard is a month's salary.
I think the main diference is that generally in Europe people believe that the freedom of companies to decide how they run their business must be balanced with the freedom of the work force to have some sense of security. We believe less in the dog eat dog form of capitalism that you have in the US. And being democracies we all voted for governments that would provide the approaches that we have.
With respect to the shop's opening hours, most Germans are perfectly happy with this. If you don't like it you can exercise your freedom to go back to the US.
Interestingly many studies of the press around the world have rated most northern European countries as having more freedom of expression than the US - this was worked out by assuming that the number of diferent viewpoints presented in the press was proportional to the freedom of the press. The press in the US is controlled by several large nationwide corporations in Europe it tends to be more fragmented.
The common anti-privacy argument, i.e. only those people that are engaged in illegal or morally questionable activities want privacy.
However what this argument relies on is an ethical organisation controlling the data that will not be prepared to use it against you, e.g. making a strikers address available to those looking to break a strike or publishing the shopping habits (i.e. locations) of a witness in a criminal trial would be intimidating.
I, for one, am not prepared to trust that the individuals running these organisations will do so in an ethical manner especially given big business's track record.
I know we have some dodgy stuff going on here as well but at least our privacy legislation is far more developed over here. Particularly with respect to an individuals rights over the data kept on them.
We also have a government and judicary who is more likely to take on and prosecute big business than in the US. If you want to see some examples (relating to food safety) then read Fast Food Nation to see how big business in the US can literally get away with murder or occasionally have to pay a ridiculously small fine...
But why should anyone have to stay a number and remain anonymous? Couldn't that lead to the situation where only those supported by the companies/organisations can afford to be noticed? Isn't that rather like the way the Stasi used to behave in East Germany, or the KGB in Russia?
You are correct about upholding the law, it would be very dificult, however that doesn't mean that it is not worth persuing. It is much easier to fight a legal battle against a government or corporation if the legislation is on your side. It also makes the activity less attractive to an organisation as no company or government agency wants to be associated with breaking the law.
Nice to see how the neo-conservatives are eroding the rights of individuals by refusing to legislate any controls over corporaions, and all in the name of freedom.
Makes me glad I live in the EU where at least the governments will take on multi-nationals if it is in the public interest. In the US it seems as though most of the Republicans are in the pockets of corporate America and cracking down on any kind of social rights where-ever it will help the multinationals.
What it really does is prevent the legislature from protecting the little guy against large and powerful organisations. Claiming that all these things are done in the name of reduced government intervention, i.e. freedom, is the master stroke though. Unfortunately a large enough proportion of the population believe this and therefore vote for what is really an erosion of their rights.
Can you not respond to any points with anything except "The US is the world's boss"?
And Americans wonder why even most Europeans are becomming anti-American. If America were to tell me what to do my first response would be to give them the finger, as would most people. If, like Rumsfeld has, their government tells mine what to do then I would expect my government to give them the finger as Chirac has done.
First time I've ever used a swear word on Slashdot and I apologise for it in advance.
Here goes-
Fuck you. The US is not my boss, I live in a western liberal democracy and I choose my own government - not some fat tosser in middle America who wants to go to war so that he can drive his barge sized (and crap) American SUV for a dollar a gallon, feel good about getting revenge on those damn muslim terrorists and wants to kick off the second coming of Christ.
As for benevolent, this is the same country who responded to my country's support after 9/11 and in Afghanistan by imposing steel tariffs.
How many times do we have to hear self-righteous Americans complaining about lack of free speech in other countries? Interestingly a recent survey on freedom of the press (demonstrated by the breadth of viewpoints espoused in articles) showed the US 14th worldwide, below Germany, France, the UK and the leaders (suprise, suprise) Holland.
"Hate" speech is the same kind of thing that any civilised country cracks down on - i.e. racism, sexism, anti-semitism, attacks on gay people etc.
Currently out of the Western liberal democracies the one that seems to be cracking down the most on alternative viewpoints is the US, examples include the Patriot act, that bloke that got arrested in a mall for wearing an anti-war T-shirt, etc.
Founded by ignorant, religious extremists who thought sex was evil and were extremely self-righteous.
No change there then... except now millions of them get to spout self-righteous attacks on other nations on line.
I'm not German or French but I find many of the "patriotic" comments on these pages offensive. Do any of you understand the diference between patriotism and nationalism? Do you understand that you seem to be crossing into the second category?
Somebody dared to limit sales of US software in their liberal democracy!
How dare any other country excericise their right to do what they want within their own borders. They only banned it because they hate Americans and because they are all a bunch of Nazis. And I hate the French. Let's nuke them. God bless America the home of the free! We have never supported any terrorists - only freedom fighters like in Northern Ireland.
What has happened to/.?
How many of us would support a version of a flight simulator where you could fly planes into the WTC towers?
One of the things that used to impress me about/. was the fairly balanced viewpoints portrayed on this site. Unlike the Fray on Slate, there were very few racists and very few people making derogatory comments about other nations.
Now I see posts talking about invading Germany, blaming all Germans for Hitler and abusing the French.
Have you all suddenly become "patriots"? Or do we just have an invasion of 14 year olds getting over excited about seeing the war on TV?
How would you Americans have felt if in October 2001 a German company had released a flight simulator that simulated a plane crashing into the World Trade Centre towers?
Electronic Arts have been insensitive and are guilty or using the "patriotic" fervour that is very evident in the US at the moment to try and increase sales. What next? A Comand and Conquer that has an invasion of Mecca?
Nope - although the company I work for(Three) has just put our 3G phones on the market.
You may not be able to play Doom, but you can have a live video call (at a decent 200k/sec bandwidth), download video clips and more! Have a look at www.three.co.uk.
The main reason was lack of sales - mainly due to appalling marketing by Tivo.
I would love to have bought one but the only advertising I had seen was for one that supported satellite TV - I have cable and didn't realise it would have worked with that. I imagine that this lack of understanding of it's compatibility with both broadcast and cable put many people off.
And if you try and relocate to the UK I will hit you with my lawyers as I built a website for my university as part of a degree project in February 1995 that used images in a menu bar linking to articles for the main frame...
Doh! I didn't patent it because I assumed that that's what frames with links were for and because many online tutorials suggested that.
That's the problem with us Brits - we invent all these things and never make any money out of it.
Iain Banks is definiteley one of the best writers of his generation.
The sci-fi stuff (under Iain M. Banks), particularly the culture novels are miles ahead of anyone else. Personally I like his unusual approach to sci-fi in that it is about characters, societies and plot rather than the usual rubbish of who has the biggest/most technically advanced weapons/spaceships. The technology is just used as a way to get the characters involved in more interesting and unusual situations. And as a bonus it has a sense of humour.
Some of his non-sci-fi books are also extremely good, Complicity stands out for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice to see some of your examples of personal freedom. I for one would love to live in a country where my manager could fire me because they arbitrarily decided that I was not performing. Fortunately in the UK they would at least have to go through a formal procedure of a verbal warning and written warning before doing so, i.e. let me know if I was not doing my job and give me the chance to rectify the problem. I have friends working in the US who have been hit in the downturn and have been fired with a weeks salary because their company is losing business, whereas over here the standard is a month's salary.
I think the main diference is that generally in Europe people believe that the freedom of companies to decide how they run their business must be balanced with the freedom of the work force to have some sense of security. We believe less in the dog eat dog form of capitalism that you have in the US. And being democracies we all voted for governments that would provide the approaches that we have.
With respect to the shop's opening hours, most Germans are perfectly happy with this. If you don't like it you can exercise your freedom to go back to the US.
Interestingly many studies of the press around the world have rated most northern European countries as having more freedom of expression than the US - this was worked out by assuming that the number of diferent viewpoints presented in the press was proportional to the freedom of the press. The press in the US is controlled by several large nationwide corporations in Europe it tends to be more fragmented.
The common anti-privacy argument, i.e. only those people that are engaged in illegal or morally questionable activities want privacy.
However what this argument relies on is an ethical organisation controlling the data that will not be prepared to use it against you, e.g. making a strikers address available to those looking to break a strike or publishing the shopping habits (i.e. locations) of a witness in a criminal trial would be intimidating.
I, for one, am not prepared to trust that the individuals running these organisations will do so in an ethical manner especially given big business's track record.
I am.
I know we have some dodgy stuff going on here as well but at least our privacy legislation is far more developed over here. Particularly with respect to an individuals rights over the data kept on them.
We also have a government and judicary who is more likely to take on and prosecute big business than in the US. If you want to see some examples (relating to food safety) then read Fast Food Nation to see how big business in the US can literally get away with murder or occasionally have to pay a ridiculously small fine...
But why should anyone have to stay a number and remain anonymous? Couldn't that lead to the situation where only those supported by the companies/organisations can afford to be noticed? Isn't that rather like the way the Stasi used to behave in East Germany, or the KGB in Russia?
You are correct about upholding the law, it would be very dificult, however that doesn't mean that it is not worth persuing. It is much easier to fight a legal battle against a government or corporation if the legislation is on your side. It also makes the activity less attractive to an organisation as no company or government agency wants to be associated with breaking the law.
Nice to see how the neo-conservatives are eroding the rights of individuals by refusing to legislate any controls over corporaions, and all in the name of freedom.
Makes me glad I live in the EU where at least the governments will take on multi-nationals if it is in the public interest. In the US it seems as though most of the Republicans are in the pockets of corporate America and cracking down on any kind of social rights where-ever it will help the multinationals.
What it really does is prevent the legislature from protecting the little guy against large and powerful organisations. Claiming that all these things are done in the name of reduced government intervention, i.e. freedom, is the master stroke though. Unfortunately a large enough proportion of the population believe this and therefore vote for what is really an erosion of their rights.
Can you not respond to any points with anything except "The US is the world's boss"?
And Americans wonder why even most Europeans are becomming anti-American. If America were to tell me what to do my first response would be to give them the finger, as would most people. If, like Rumsfeld has, their government tells mine what to do then I would expect my government to give them the finger as Chirac has done.
First time I've ever used a swear word on Slashdot and I apologise for it in advance.
Here goes-
Fuck you. The US is not my boss, I live in a western liberal democracy and I choose my own government - not some fat tosser in middle America who wants to go to war so that he can drive his barge sized (and crap) American SUV for a dollar a gallon, feel good about getting revenge on those damn muslim terrorists and wants to kick off the second coming of Christ.
As for benevolent, this is the same country who responded to my country's support after 9/11 and in Afghanistan by imposing steel tariffs.
"Will we find a way to create an Iraqi government that is acceptable to the Iraqis AND to the United States?"
... :(
What have the Iraqis got to do with this? As long as it is accpeptable to the US that is all that matters.
I wish I was joking
Would one of the rules be that the Bush administration are incapable of using the "diplomat" piece?
How many times do we have to hear self-righteous Americans complaining about lack of free speech in other countries? Interestingly a recent survey on freedom of the press (demonstrated by the breadth of viewpoints espoused in articles) showed the US 14th worldwide, below Germany, France, the UK and the leaders (suprise, suprise) Holland.
"Hate" speech is the same kind of thing that any civilised country cracks down on - i.e. racism, sexism, anti-semitism, attacks on gay people etc.
Currently out of the Western liberal democracies the one that seems to be cracking down the most on alternative viewpoints is the US, examples include the Patriot act, that bloke that got arrested in a mall for wearing an anti-war T-shirt, etc.
US:
Founded by ignorant, religious extremists who thought sex was evil and were extremely self-righteous.
No change there then... except now millions of them get to spout self-righteous attacks on other nations on line.
I'm not German or French but I find many of the "patriotic" comments on these pages offensive. Do any of you understand the diference between patriotism and nationalism? Do you understand that you seem to be crossing into the second category?
Synopsis of some of the posts on this site:
/.?
Somebody dared to limit sales of US software in their liberal democracy!
How dare any other country excericise their right to do what they want within their own borders. They only banned it because they hate Americans and because they are all a bunch of Nazis. And I hate the French. Let's nuke them. God bless America the home of the free! We have never supported any terrorists - only freedom fighters like in Northern Ireland.
What has happened to
How many of us would support a version of a flight simulator where you could fly planes into the WTC towers?
One of the things that used to impress me about /. was the fairly balanced viewpoints portrayed on this site. Unlike the Fray on Slate, there were very few racists and very few people making derogatory comments about other nations.
Now I see posts talking about invading Germany, blaming all Germans for Hitler and abusing the French.
Have you all suddenly become "patriots"? Or do we just have an invasion of 14 year olds getting over excited about seeing the war on TV?
How would you Americans have felt if in October 2001 a German company had released a flight simulator that simulated a plane crashing into the World Trade Centre towers?
Electronic Arts have been insensitive and are guilty or using the "patriotic" fervour that is very evident in the US at the moment to try and increase sales. What next? A Comand and Conquer that has an invasion of Mecca?
Nope - although the company I work for(Three) has just put our 3G phones on the market. You may not be able to play Doom, but you can have a live video call (at a decent 200k/sec bandwidth), download video clips and more! Have a look at www.three.co.uk.
The main reason was lack of sales - mainly due to appalling marketing by Tivo.
I would love to have bought one but the only advertising I had seen was for one that supported satellite TV - I have cable and didn't realise it would have worked with that. I imagine that this lack of understanding of it's compatibility with both broadcast and cable put many people off.
Does www..com/index.html (i.e. the default that Mosaic looked for) not count as a static link?
In which case any website that linked to any dynamic content prior to this is prior art.
Furthermore if the address bar on a browser counts as a link then any dynamic web page prior to this patent makes it invalid.
And if you try and relocate to the UK I will hit you with my lawyers as I built a website for my university as part of a degree project in February 1995 that used images in a menu bar linking to articles for the main frame... Doh! I didn't patent it because I assumed that that's what frames with links were for and because many online tutorials suggested that. That's the problem with us Brits - we invent all these things and never make any money out of it.
Iain Banks is definiteley one of the best writers of his generation. The sci-fi stuff (under Iain M. Banks), particularly the culture novels are miles ahead of anyone else. Personally I like his unusual approach to sci-fi in that it is about characters, societies and plot rather than the usual rubbish of who has the biggest/most technically advanced weapons/spaceships. The technology is just used as a way to get the characters involved in more interesting and unusual situations. And as a bonus it has a sense of humour. Some of his non-sci-fi books are also extremely good, Complicity stands out for me.