How exactly do you control spam posting more easily by abandoning usenet and stick to a web forum? After all, usenet is nothing but an interface to the data. There are plenty of cases where organizations, including private companies, manage fending off spam just fine although they offer support through not only newsgroups but also mailing lists and web forums. For example, Trolltech offers usenet and mailing list access to it's discussion forum and you don't get a drop of spam on it. So why does Microsoft declares itself incompetent and ignorant by claiming that spam is forcing the company to drop support for usenet access?
I built my desktop and I will build the next one when I finally upgrade. I build my desktop computers because I end up getting exactly what I want, the compatibility that I need and I end up getting it cheaper than anything Dell throws my way. For example, I've managed to build my desktop 4 years ago and not only it cost me 300 euros to build an Athlon X2 4000+ system with 2GB of RAM and with a 19'' monitor but it also gave me zero problems up to this day.
Knowing that, I've took a peek at Dell's low bid offerings. You may be right, as it sells 270 dollar systems. Yet, they are measly intel celerons with intel graphics that come no monitor and whose life expectancy isn't exactly bragging material. That means that your 270 dollar desktop that you can buy from Dell is outperformed, outdated and outclassed by a computer assembled 4 years ago for less money.
So, who buys a PC anymore? Those who know what they want, know what they are doing and know a ripoff when they see one, that's why.
You went forward with an epic rhetoric on self-reliance and independence, trying to prove that social security or national healthcare service are useless and only good to tie him down and support the ignorant and irresponsible masses, but then you went on claiming that you "pay a premium on your health insurance". That alone contradicts everything you said because you either:
Acknowledge you aren't and cannot be self-reliant if you wish to be safe from any calamity or
Practice exactly the opposite that you preach, by claiming self-reliance and then go on spending your money on a system where you rely on some private entity to save you from your own problems
The thing is, no one in their right mind believes that social security in any form, such as unemployment compensation, along with national healthcare service are services that are in place to take away any semblance of personal responsibility. That is perfectly false and entirely baseless. In fact, if you look at countries who have implemented social programs such as the ones pointed out, you will always find people saving up for a rainy day and caring for their future. Social security and national healthcare doesn't take that away from anyone. After all, the purpose of those social programs is to act as a complement to each and every measure you yourself put in place in order to be safe in case of a disaster hitting, so that you avoid having your life go into shambles. And how easy it is for your life to get accidentally flipped over. Take, for example, the vast number of US citizens that, when the economic crisis started to be felt, were forced to live in tent cities. Do you believe that those folks were all irresponsible or indigents?
To put it in perspective, social security and national health care are nothing more than insurance services that are implemented to grant each and every citizen a set of resources (a financial buffer, if you will) which can be mobilized in times of need. As the system encompasses millions of people and can only be mobilized under specific circumstances (unemployment, health problems, etc..) then, in practice, that financial buffer ends up being practically limitless for each individual's needs. That is exactly opposite what you get from a private service, as it imposes restrictions on your compensation and forces each and every medical act to be under the scrutiny of an accountant and lawyer instead of a medical doctor, where it should be. Moreover, as it's a public service then you benefit from a service which doesn't have to support needless waste such as generating profits to shareholders (i.e., syphoning your contributions to investor's pockets) and supporting a large number of high maintenance executives and their bonuses. In short, social programs are nothing more than insurance programs but without any profit-driven restrictions, arbitrary limits and needless waste.
That doesn't make any sense. You are trying to describe a false dilemma. No one in their right mind would ever claim that the choice is between usability and being held hostage by Apple. Nothing forces Apple to lock down their platforms besides their intentional drive to lock you on a platform so that it makes it impossible for you to either exert your rights to control any product you purchased with your hard-earned money and even migrate to some other platform you see fit. There is no technical limitation that makes it only possible to have an UI with shiny buttons with nifty graphical effects if a corporation controls what software you may or may not install. So, what twisted train of thought forced you to claim such nonsense?
So in essence what the lobbyists are forcing the US government to claim is that the entire world is horribly wrong while only the US legal system, which they bought with their own hard-earned money, along with other jurisdictions which were bought out, are the only instances which may be seen as somewhat decent remotely fair.
Meanwhile, the world has enjoyed centuries of cultural and scientific progress and an amazing economic progress, all happening without this sort of totalitarian and draconian type of legislation which is profoundly anti-democratic. In fact, humanity saw great progress being achieved whenever someone found a way to facilitate the dissemination of cultural and educational works, whether by inventions such as writing and the printing press. The internet is the modern day's version of the printing press but can only be a modern day's revolution if the freedom to freely access copyrighted works without the copyright owner's authorization is acknowledged, respected and defended, something which these industry idiots are on a mission to undermine.
Has the US public school system officially implemented a strategy to not only cover up those abuses but also protect those who perpetrated the abuses and maintain them in a position where they can abuse children with impunity?
Isn't the Vatican one of the more reasonable major religions when it comes to science and technology? Obviously, you can't expect any religious group to completely dismiss any role for God to play (if they did they wouldn't be a religion), but they've gone on record saying that Evolution is correct.
The Catholic church is largely an European institution and europe has become (thankfully) a very secular society. The folks who happen to reach the Catholic church's higher ranks tend to be born and raised in a very secular society, which is very pro-science, very pro-technology and although they also accept religion they don't take kindly to fundamentalist crackpots. If you have an organization who is led by people who grew up in that environment then those values tend to rub down on your entire organization.
And remember, the Vatican is nonetheless the organization which brought us the inquisition and the crusades, which mean that the organization has been shown to be more than able to not only match the unspeakable atrocities and barbaric acts that other religions commit but also raise them up a notch.
It's the folks that read a few Bible verses and then take them as the 100% literal History Of The World that really oppose all things science (as opposed to being a book that man needs to interpret).
Not really. That aspect of religion doesn't have much to do with orthodoxy and everything to do about control. Science doesn't affect religion in any way, as it's only a method to explain how God's universe works. On the other hand, it pisses off those who rely on God's invocation to gain and preserve authority within a social group. Those idiots believe that science is somehow a bad thing because it tends to provide irrefutable ways to demonstrate that they are full of shit and don't know what they are talking about. I mean, boobs cause earthquakes?. WTF?
So, as you see, it's pretty reasonable to assume that a major threat that is capable of rendering one of your main branch of your armed forces completely useless is simply not a thread. Just dig your head into the sand and let's keep mindlessly hammering on the "we are invulnerable" mantra. That does wonders, all right.
Nobody that pirates is a "potential customer". The end goal of the piracy movement is that it is all free or it isn't even made, and we are about 50% along the way towards that now.
You are wrong. The goal of the "piracy movement" (does that even exist? why do you make stuff up?) is not to "get stuff for free". "Piracy" refers to the unauthorized commercial distribution of copyrighted works. By definition it makes it impossible for a goal of a "pirate" to be the free distribution of copyrighted works. You need to have commercial distribution to have piracy, no exception. Whatever imaginative blurb that may be said beyond that is nothing more than fictional, laughable name-tagging done in order to desperately try to put a negative label on fair use.
The U.S. by and large was made of immigrants. That means those guys went through hardships and came to the U.S. You would think they would have minimum common sense of how to treat other people.
Quite the contrary. The US started off as a place where no rules applied, where the law (and not justice) was dictated by whoever had the power, whether by violence or by economic control. The propaganda skit may have been "the land of opportunity" and "land of the free" but those propaganda bits are only useful to attract more naive, vulnerable people and then, once there, be in a position to be abused by the ones in power. After all, it's the land of opportunity because the absence of rules, the ones which force people to deal with others fairly and with respect, they weren't there. It was the land of the free because you were free to do onto others whatever crossed your mind and do it with impunity. So you had your massive influx of "tired and huddled masses" and when they arrived there they were forced to accept whatever working and living condition anyone saw fit to offer. There was no social security, there was no public healthcare service, there was no state-imposed labour justice. It was complete freedom, short of indentured service. It was the at-will philosophy doing it's job, the one which states that "or you willingly accept working 16 hour shifts for pennies or you get kicked out the door and find you and your kids homeless and starving".
And if you find yourself in such a destructive, abusive and dangerous climate where everyone is free to fuck over anyone if it's beneficial and profitable, then the only way you can move on top and stay on top is if you yourself take advantage of that very same freedom and find a way to profit by screwing other vulnerable people. It is said that you have to step over lots of people if you want to move up in life and if you find yourself desperately needing to move up then there was no better place than the land of opportunity and of the free. You enjoyed complete freedom to abuse other people as you saw fit and if helped your venture to be profitable.
And that leads us to your comment. There was a lot of hardship and there was a lot of injustice. There was and still is that way. The thing is, if you went through those hardships and you succeeded keeping yourself afloat or even succeeded moving up in life then you will not look kindly in others benefiting from social programs implemented by civilized groups with the aim of progressing. If you were forced to go through hardships, you will cringe if you saw people which would go through the same pains you went through benefiting from "free rides" and more opportunities than you. If you profited from abusing your equals then you will cringe if you saw the most vulnerable being offered opportunities to better themselves and break free from the same subservient life which you avoided, which you impose on others for your profit and which they would otherwise be forced to have.
In essence, whether you are the exploited one or the exploiter, you not only don't see the point in giving that "luxury treatment" to others. If you haven't benefited from it then why would you go through the trouble of freely providing it onto others? In fact, it is against your best interests. You know vulnerability, you lived through vulnerability and, more importantly, all you know is how moving up in life is only possible by exploiting that vulnerability. So, why would you even care if people are less vulnerable? You live in a egotistical culture, where the will of the individual outweighs the will of the collective. It's you who must move up in life, not the others. You don't provide those opportunities to others because you see it as giving the competition a leg up. And screw the competition, it's you who must come out ahead. Let them suffer to get a basic education, let them suffer to be able to hold a job, let them suffer if they have the bad luck of needing healthcare. The other's misfortune is just an opportunity for you to take advantage. So, why would you bother yourself eliminating that source of opportunity?
You don't quite get it. Let me explain. Let's take slashdot's example. It's a commercial blog which employs a fair share of people and actively works to start new discussions, usually in an inflamatory way, in order to incite people to reply and read the discussions. Although it's "news for nerds", it tends to have a broad, mainstream editorial line. And what do we get from that? Discussions which manage to generate an average around 100 posts.
Now, look into the usenet's traffic. Those newsgroups I've pointed out generate a considerable amount of posts (some with an average of 100 new posts a day) although their topic is extremelly technical and very specific, topicality is enforced and valued and there is no team of editors enticing people to post. And that's the stats regarding a single specific newsgroup. There are countless usenet newsgroups dedicated to linux, of which a fair share do carry a considerable volume.
So, as you can see, that baseless comment on usenet's post volume is not only baseless but also badly thought out.
Re:Buying ARM for a leg?
on
Apple To Buy ARM?
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· Score: 1, Insightful
I don't see it that way. The mobile computing market, the one which is envisioned to eclipse the personal computing market in favour of that "cloud" marketing crap on small, expendable, ultra-portable, increasingly more powerful and increasingly locked down and controlled by mega-corporations is easily worth more than 8 billion dollars. So if you manage to buy your way into the position of gatekeeper to a market which is constantly and rapidly growning and that you are already the leader... Well, you just guarantee your future. So, Apple may not "kill" the sales to other customers but, as Intel is known for doing, it can just as easily price their products out of the market, redirect ARM's product development to where they see fit. After all, do you actually believe that Apple will finance chip research and development which may put competition ahead or at least on par with what they put into their iPhones and the like? Obviously they won't. They will most certainly keep their high-end stuff inhouse for them to keep.
And that's very scary. Apple has a long history of active and desperately trying to lock down and monopolize markets and market segments and this buyout has the potential of forcing Apple's brand of totalitarian capitalism right into our faces. And I can't possibly see that threat as a good thing, even in the eyes of the most hard-core Apple cheerleader/fanatic.
There's so many better, richer alternatives out there now for connecting with masses of people with the same interests.
Name one and I'll explain to you how it sucks and how in contrast usenet is far better and has been for decades.
Besides, usenet has become a huge pornography distribution network with a few anecdotal, non-porn topics anyway
That's very odd. I've been a faithful usenet user for around 5 years and I never saw porn on the newsgroups I subscribe. On the other hand, newsgroups such as comp.lang.c constantly get over 3 thousand posts a month, comp.lang.python also gets around 2500 post a month, comp.lang.c++ gets over 1500 posts a month and those are one of many newsgroups dedicated to specific details regarding a measly programming language. There are countless newsgroups dedicated to APIs, protocols, programming paradigms and any sort of hobby you can imagine and some of them do keep a pretty respectable post count. And yet, with zero porn on it. How is that possible?
who really gives a sh*t if isp's are getting a little tired of carrying it.
I would, if that was my ISP. Thankfully, my ISP has been providing usenet access since I've started using the net. I really hope they don't discontinue it.
There's better ways to distribute porn than usenet as well.
All you do is yap about porn. What a fixation you got there. That's all you do online? How did you got the time to take a pause from it to browse slashdot?
Usenet was one of those great protocols that came with this new-fangled internet thingy. Now its a little passed its prime and ready for pasture. Let it go.
How exactly does a protocol "passed it's prime"? And even if that made any sense at all, the Network News Transfer Protocol specifications were released in 1986 while the world wide web, along with the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) arrived in 1990. Does that mean that HTTP has already "passed it's prime"?
Please at least try to claim what you really wanted to claim: you don't use usenet (at least for something other than feeding your porn habits) and as you don't use it you believe it somehow sucks. Yet, that doesn't make it true, does it?
Honest question here. I understand why people would prefer to use a real news reader as opposed to mailing lists or web forums, as they are much better tools for the job.
Who says usenet and other media such as mailing lists and web forums are mutually exclusive? They aren't. They are nothing more than interfaces to access data. After all, there are services which offer access to the same content wether through mailing lists, web forums and also usenet server. For example, take a look at Trolltech's Qt lists. Every web forum and mailing list could as easily be accessible through a usenet interface. After all, in the end it's just that: an interface.
That's quite a simplistic, overreaching definition of art. By that standard wrestling is also an art, along with pro sports and even racing. And there's quite a lot of people who get their emotions inspired by reality TV. And a couple of millennia ago the citizens of Rome got very emotional with the coliseum events. Does that mean it's art? No, it's all just entertainment, pure and simple. But not art.
On the other hand, your fanboy blinders don't let you see the difference between art and entertainment. Some films aren't art. Some music isn't art. Some books aren't art. Some plays aren't art. So why would you believe that a computer game, in this case a shoot'em up or a RPG, has any relation to art? Do you also believe that a pinball machine is art or even one of those amusement park rides? Heck, just as you claim that video games are art, some people also defend that football is art. Does that mean that it's art?
Just because you think something is very cool it doesn't mean it is the next Mona Lisa or the next David. It's entertainment, pure and simple. But art? That's quite a long stretch.
Could you please show me the weapons? All I see is a wide-lens photographic camera, the sort which everyone who ever saw a football/soccer match is tired of seeing from all different angles.
Meh. It happens to every army. Didn't some German Peacekeepers in Afghanistan waste a truckload of local soldiers?
I don't see how an hypothetical screw-up justifies every screw-up, particularly one so gruesome and so blatantly unjustified as this one.
It isn't good, but every soldier everywhere lives in a Kill or Be Killed situation.
How exactly is a AH-64 crew threatened by an unarmed group of men including journalists carrying cameras walking calmly in a street? And let's supposed that those imaginary RPGs and AK47s that aren't seen but are mentioned were indeed there. How exactly is a AH-64 threatened by an man wielding one of those, calmly walking around in a street without the faintest hint that he is even aware that a helicopter is in that general area? In the radio chat it is explicitly mentioned that no US ground force is present in that area and it took at least over 10 minutes for a ground crew to intentionally get there while rushing. Who exactly was threatened by those imaginary weapons?
And what about the "bongo van"? How exactly is a AH-64 crew threatened by a "bongo truck"? The AH-64 crew clearly noticed that the people leaving the truck were intentionally aiding those poor souls who got shot by the AH-64's 30mm autocannon. The AH-64 crew explicitly stated that the people from the truck were aiding the injured men and "picking up bodies". How exactly does that threaten a AH-64 calmly flying around? And the AH-64 crew repeatedly state that they wish that the injured reported "picked up a weapon" for them to kill him. How exactly is a AH-64 crew threatened by a man who was just shot by a 30mm autocannon, is squirming on the ground and wasn't carrying any weapon to begin with?
The truth is they aren't threatened. The truth is that this was by far no "Kill or Be Killed situation". Is this a screw-up? Clearly it is. Nonetheless, no one in their right mind can seriously claim that what happened in this case was remotely a "Kill or Be Killed situation". This was a trigger-happy crew who was never threatened and desperately wanted to shoot at people. They didn't even flinched when they were told that they shot at children. "They shouldn't have brought them into a battle". What battle?
It is not uncommon for the enemy to drive up in vans and jump out. In fact, in places like Palestine (and previously in Iraq, when they had more resources) it is not unusual for jihadis to use ambulances to transport fighters.
Was this the case? Did you saw the video? If you saw it you would know that a) no armed group jumped out of the van, b) the only people leaving the van did so to pick up the wounded journalist, c) no one on that van was carrying weapons, let alone seen carrying anything, d) no one in that van represented a threat to anyone.
So why exactly are you so keen to associate the poor people that was murdered in that video with palestinian gunmen and "jihadis" when absolutely nothing in that scene has any shread of connection with them? Does driving a van makes you a "terrorist"?
If you read what I wrote you will notice that I'm referring to the allegation that linux isn't a "worthwhile market segment", not where the drivers came from.
Are you considering graphics cards as gaming accessories or graphics cards as parallel math coprocessors for the medium-end number crunching on a budget market? If you consider the latter then drivers for graphics card, which bring support for OpenCL, will make linux a worthwhile market segment. Where do you find people crunching numbers? Windows? OSX? No. All the cool kids crunch numbers with linux.
Mind you, airplane autopilots only need to pay attention to other airplanes, which not only carry a transponder but also are monitored 24/7 by ground control crews, which make a damned good job at placing the airplane somewhere where it can't screw things up. Moreover, on top of all those security systems in place an airplane also carries two or three blokes who dedicate themselves monitoring all those security systems in real time.
Back in the surface, kids don't carry transponder units, nor do other cars, and you wish to rely on the car alone to navigate and evade any objects which may be thrown your way. And if all hell breaks loose the bloke who you are relying to save the day is yourself.
Knowing that, throwing computers at something won't make the problem go away. So as you can see things don't tend to be all that easy.
Slashdot Mirror
How exactly do you control spam posting more easily by abandoning usenet and stick to a web forum? After all, usenet is nothing but an interface to the data. There are plenty of cases where organizations, including private companies, manage fending off spam just fine although they offer support through not only newsgroups but also mailing lists and web forums. For example, Trolltech offers usenet and mailing list access to it's discussion forum and you don't get a drop of spam on it. So why does Microsoft declares itself incompetent and ignorant by claiming that spam is forcing the company to drop support for usenet access?
I built my desktop and I will build the next one when I finally upgrade. I build my desktop computers because I end up getting exactly what I want, the compatibility that I need and I end up getting it cheaper than anything Dell throws my way. For example, I've managed to build my desktop 4 years ago and not only it cost me 300 euros to build an Athlon X2 4000+ system with 2GB of RAM and with a 19'' monitor but it also gave me zero problems up to this day.
Knowing that, I've took a peek at Dell's low bid offerings. You may be right, as it sells 270 dollar systems. Yet, they are measly intel celerons with intel graphics that come no monitor and whose life expectancy isn't exactly bragging material. That means that your 270 dollar desktop that you can buy from Dell is outperformed, outdated and outclassed by a computer assembled 4 years ago for less money.
So, who buys a PC anymore? Those who know what they want, know what they are doing and know a ripoff when they see one, that's why.
You went forward with an epic rhetoric on self-reliance and independence, trying to prove that social security or national healthcare service are useless and only good to tie him down and support the ignorant and irresponsible masses, but then you went on claiming that you "pay a premium on your health insurance". That alone contradicts everything you said because you either:
The thing is, no one in their right mind believes that social security in any form, such as unemployment compensation, along with national healthcare service are services that are in place to take away any semblance of personal responsibility. That is perfectly false and entirely baseless. In fact, if you look at countries who have implemented social programs such as the ones pointed out, you will always find people saving up for a rainy day and caring for their future. Social security and national healthcare doesn't take that away from anyone. After all, the purpose of those social programs is to act as a complement to each and every measure you yourself put in place in order to be safe in case of a disaster hitting, so that you avoid having your life go into shambles. And how easy it is for your life to get accidentally flipped over. Take, for example, the vast number of US citizens that, when the economic crisis started to be felt, were forced to live in tent cities. Do you believe that those folks were all irresponsible or indigents?
To put it in perspective, social security and national health care are nothing more than insurance services that are implemented to grant each and every citizen a set of resources (a financial buffer, if you will) which can be mobilized in times of need. As the system encompasses millions of people and can only be mobilized under specific circumstances (unemployment, health problems, etc..) then, in practice, that financial buffer ends up being practically limitless for each individual's needs. That is exactly opposite what you get from a private service, as it imposes restrictions on your compensation and forces each and every medical act to be under the scrutiny of an accountant and lawyer instead of a medical doctor, where it should be. Moreover, as it's a public service then you benefit from a service which doesn't have to support needless waste such as generating profits to shareholders (i.e., syphoning your contributions to investor's pockets) and supporting a large number of high maintenance executives and their bonuses. In short, social programs are nothing more than insurance programs but without any profit-driven restrictions, arbitrary limits and needless waste.
So, where's the need for so much FUD?
That doesn't make any sense. You are trying to describe a false dilemma. No one in their right mind would ever claim that the choice is between usability and being held hostage by Apple. Nothing forces Apple to lock down their platforms besides their intentional drive to lock you on a platform so that it makes it impossible for you to either exert your rights to control any product you purchased with your hard-earned money and even migrate to some other platform you see fit. There is no technical limitation that makes it only possible to have an UI with shiny buttons with nifty graphical effects if a corporation controls what software you may or may not install. So, what twisted train of thought forced you to claim such nonsense?
So in essence what the lobbyists are forcing the US government to claim is that the entire world is horribly wrong while only the US legal system, which they bought with their own hard-earned money, along with other jurisdictions which were bought out, are the only instances which may be seen as somewhat decent remotely fair.
Meanwhile, the world has enjoyed centuries of cultural and scientific progress and an amazing economic progress, all happening without this sort of totalitarian and draconian type of legislation which is profoundly anti-democratic. In fact, humanity saw great progress being achieved whenever someone found a way to facilitate the dissemination of cultural and educational works, whether by inventions such as writing and the printing press. The internet is the modern day's version of the printing press but can only be a modern day's revolution if the freedom to freely access copyrighted works without the copyright owner's authorization is acknowledged, respected and defended, something which these industry idiots are on a mission to undermine.
They used their own definition of year, the same one which makes them say that the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
Has the US public school system officially implemented a strategy to not only cover up those abuses but also protect those who perpetrated the abuses and maintain them in a position where they can abuse children with impunity?
Isn't the Vatican one of the more reasonable major religions when it comes to science and technology? Obviously, you can't expect any religious group to completely dismiss any role for God to play (if they did they wouldn't be a religion), but they've gone on record saying that Evolution is correct.
The Catholic church is largely an European institution and europe has become (thankfully) a very secular society. The folks who happen to reach the Catholic church's higher ranks tend to be born and raised in a very secular society, which is very pro-science, very pro-technology and although they also accept religion they don't take kindly to fundamentalist crackpots. If you have an organization who is led by people who grew up in that environment then those values tend to rub down on your entire organization.
And remember, the Vatican is nonetheless the organization which brought us the inquisition and the crusades, which mean that the organization has been shown to be more than able to not only match the unspeakable atrocities and barbaric acts that other religions commit but also raise them up a notch.
It's the folks that read a few Bible verses and then take them as the 100% literal History Of The World that really oppose all things science (as opposed to being a book that man needs to interpret).
Not really. That aspect of religion doesn't have much to do with orthodoxy and everything to do about control. Science doesn't affect religion in any way, as it's only a method to explain how God's universe works. On the other hand, it pisses off those who rely on God's invocation to gain and preserve authority within a social group. Those idiots believe that science is somehow a bad thing because it tends to provide irrefutable ways to demonstrate that they are full of shit and don't know what they are talking about. I mean, boobs cause earthquakes?. WTF?
Does the Vatican intend to store their Pedo files in such a way that future generations will keep discovering their fantastic secrets?
Indeed. You know what else will never happen any time soon? Taking down a brand new 1.1 Billion dollar guided missile destroyer with a mere rubber dinghy. That is a preposterous idea, isn't it? Perfectly impossible. If it's impossible for a diesel sub to make on your major carrier group then what are the odds for that to happen? Impossible, I say.
So, as you see, it's pretty reasonable to assume that a major threat that is capable of rendering one of your main branch of your armed forces completely useless is simply not a thread. Just dig your head into the sand and let's keep mindlessly hammering on the "we are invulnerable" mantra. That does wonders, all right.
You are wrong. The goal of the "piracy movement" (does that even exist? why do you make stuff up?) is not to "get stuff for free". "Piracy" refers to the unauthorized commercial distribution of copyrighted works. By definition it makes it impossible for a goal of a "pirate" to be the free distribution of copyrighted works. You need to have commercial distribution to have piracy, no exception. Whatever imaginative blurb that may be said beyond that is nothing more than fictional, laughable name-tagging done in order to desperately try to put a negative label on fair use.
Quite the contrary. The US started off as a place where no rules applied, where the law (and not justice) was dictated by whoever had the power, whether by violence or by economic control. The propaganda skit may have been "the land of opportunity" and "land of the free" but those propaganda bits are only useful to attract more naive, vulnerable people and then, once there, be in a position to be abused by the ones in power. After all, it's the land of opportunity because the absence of rules, the ones which force people to deal with others fairly and with respect, they weren't there. It was the land of the free because you were free to do onto others whatever crossed your mind and do it with impunity. So you had your massive influx of "tired and huddled masses" and when they arrived there they were forced to accept whatever working and living condition anyone saw fit to offer. There was no social security, there was no public healthcare service, there was no state-imposed labour justice. It was complete freedom, short of indentured service. It was the at-will philosophy doing it's job, the one which states that "or you willingly accept working 16 hour shifts for pennies or you get kicked out the door and find you and your kids homeless and starving".
And if you find yourself in such a destructive, abusive and dangerous climate where everyone is free to fuck over anyone if it's beneficial and profitable, then the only way you can move on top and stay on top is if you yourself take advantage of that very same freedom and find a way to profit by screwing other vulnerable people. It is said that you have to step over lots of people if you want to move up in life and if you find yourself desperately needing to move up then there was no better place than the land of opportunity and of the free. You enjoyed complete freedom to abuse other people as you saw fit and if helped your venture to be profitable.
And that leads us to your comment. There was a lot of hardship and there was a lot of injustice. There was and still is that way. The thing is, if you went through those hardships and you succeeded keeping yourself afloat or even succeeded moving up in life then you will not look kindly in others benefiting from social programs implemented by civilized groups with the aim of progressing. If you were forced to go through hardships, you will cringe if you saw people which would go through the same pains you went through benefiting from "free rides" and more opportunities than you. If you profited from abusing your equals then you will cringe if you saw the most vulnerable being offered opportunities to better themselves and break free from the same subservient life which you avoided, which you impose on others for your profit and which they would otherwise be forced to have.
In essence, whether you are the exploited one or the exploiter, you not only don't see the point in giving that "luxury treatment" to others. If you haven't benefited from it then why would you go through the trouble of freely providing it onto others? In fact, it is against your best interests. You know vulnerability, you lived through vulnerability and, more importantly, all you know is how moving up in life is only possible by exploiting that vulnerability. So, why would you even care if people are less vulnerable? You live in a egotistical culture, where the will of the individual outweighs the will of the collective. It's you who must move up in life, not the others. You don't provide those opportunities to others because you see it as giving the competition a leg up. And screw the competition, it's you who must come out ahead. Let them suffer to get a basic education, let them suffer to be able to hold a job, let them suffer if they have the bad luck of needing healthcare. The other's misfortune is just an opportunity for you to take advantage. So, why would you bother yourself eliminating that source of opportunity?
You don't quite get it. Let me explain. Let's take slashdot's example. It's a commercial blog which employs a fair share of people and actively works to start new discussions, usually in an inflamatory way, in order to incite people to reply and read the discussions. Although it's "news for nerds", it tends to have a broad, mainstream editorial line. And what do we get from that? Discussions which manage to generate an average around 100 posts.
Now, look into the usenet's traffic. Those newsgroups I've pointed out generate a considerable amount of posts (some with an average of 100 new posts a day) although their topic is extremelly technical and very specific, topicality is enforced and valued and there is no team of editors enticing people to post. And that's the stats regarding a single specific newsgroup. There are countless usenet newsgroups dedicated to linux, of which a fair share do carry a considerable volume.
So, as you can see, that baseless comment on usenet's post volume is not only baseless but also badly thought out.
I don't see it that way. The mobile computing market, the one which is envisioned to eclipse the personal computing market in favour of that "cloud" marketing crap on small, expendable, ultra-portable, increasingly more powerful and increasingly locked down and controlled by mega-corporations is easily worth more than 8 billion dollars. So if you manage to buy your way into the position of gatekeeper to a market which is constantly and rapidly growning and that you are already the leader... Well, you just guarantee your future. So, Apple may not "kill" the sales to other customers but, as Intel is known for doing, it can just as easily price their products out of the market, redirect ARM's product development to where they see fit. After all, do you actually believe that Apple will finance chip research and development which may put competition ahead or at least on par with what they put into their iPhones and the like? Obviously they won't. They will most certainly keep their high-end stuff inhouse for them to keep.
And that's very scary. Apple has a long history of active and desperately trying to lock down and monopolize markets and market segments and this buyout has the potential of forcing Apple's brand of totalitarian capitalism right into our faces. And I can't possibly see that threat as a good thing, even in the eyes of the most hard-core Apple cheerleader/fanatic.
Name one and I'll explain to you how it sucks and how in contrast usenet is far better and has been for decades.
That's very odd. I've been a faithful usenet user for around 5 years and I never saw porn on the newsgroups I subscribe. On the other hand, newsgroups such as comp.lang.c constantly get over 3 thousand posts a month, comp.lang.python also gets around 2500 post a month, comp.lang.c++ gets over 1500 posts a month and those are one of many newsgroups dedicated to specific details regarding a measly programming language. There are countless newsgroups dedicated to APIs, protocols, programming paradigms and any sort of hobby you can imagine and some of them do keep a pretty respectable post count. And yet, with zero porn on it. How is that possible?
I would, if that was my ISP. Thankfully, my ISP has been providing usenet access since I've started using the net. I really hope they don't discontinue it.
All you do is yap about porn. What a fixation you got there. That's all you do online? How did you got the time to take a pause from it to browse slashdot?
How exactly does a protocol "passed it's prime"? And even if that made any sense at all, the Network News Transfer Protocol specifications were released in 1986 while the world wide web, along with the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) arrived in 1990. Does that mean that HTTP has already "passed it's prime"?
Please at least try to claim what you really wanted to claim: you don't use usenet (at least for something other than feeding your porn habits) and as you don't use it you believe it somehow sucks. Yet, that doesn't make it true, does it?
Who says usenet and other media such as mailing lists and web forums are mutually exclusive? They aren't. They are nothing more than interfaces to access data. After all, there are services which offer access to the same content wether through mailing lists, web forums and also usenet server. For example, take a look at Trolltech's Qt lists. Every web forum and mailing list could as easily be accessible through a usenet interface. After all, in the end it's just that: an interface.
Who says that all movies are art? Do you believe that any of the police academy, "ernest goes to..." movies or even the "Carry on" movies are art?
Just because a medium is used it doesn't mean something constitutes art. It's entertainment. Pure and simple.
That's quite a simplistic, overreaching definition of art. By that standard wrestling is also an art, along with pro sports and even racing. And there's quite a lot of people who get their emotions inspired by reality TV. And a couple of millennia ago the citizens of Rome got very emotional with the coliseum events. Does that mean it's art? No, it's all just entertainment, pure and simple. But not art.
On the other hand, your fanboy blinders don't let you see the difference between art and entertainment. Some films aren't art. Some music isn't art. Some books aren't art. Some plays aren't art. So why would you believe that a computer game, in this case a shoot'em up or a RPG, has any relation to art? Do you also believe that a pinball machine is art or even one of those amusement park rides? Heck, just as you claim that video games are art, some people also defend that football is art. Does that mean that it's art?
Just because you think something is very cool it doesn't mean it is the next Mona Lisa or the next David. It's entertainment, pure and simple. But art? That's quite a long stretch.
Could you please show me the weapons? All I see is a wide-lens photographic camera, the sort which everyone who ever saw a football/soccer match is tired of seeing from all different angles.
Meh. It happens to every army. Didn't some German Peacekeepers in Afghanistan waste a truckload of local soldiers?
I don't see how an hypothetical screw-up justifies every screw-up, particularly one so gruesome and so blatantly unjustified as this one.
It isn't good, but every soldier everywhere lives in a Kill or Be Killed situation.
How exactly is a AH-64 crew threatened by an unarmed group of men including journalists carrying cameras walking calmly in a street? And let's supposed that those imaginary RPGs and AK47s that aren't seen but are mentioned were indeed there. How exactly is a AH-64 threatened by an man wielding one of those, calmly walking around in a street without the faintest hint that he is even aware that a helicopter is in that general area? In the radio chat it is explicitly mentioned that no US ground force is present in that area and it took at least over 10 minutes for a ground crew to intentionally get there while rushing. Who exactly was threatened by those imaginary weapons?
And what about the "bongo van"? How exactly is a AH-64 crew threatened by a "bongo truck"? The AH-64 crew clearly noticed that the people leaving the truck were intentionally aiding those poor souls who got shot by the AH-64's 30mm autocannon. The AH-64 crew explicitly stated that the people from the truck were aiding the injured men and "picking up bodies". How exactly does that threaten a AH-64 calmly flying around? And the AH-64 crew repeatedly state that they wish that the injured reported "picked up a weapon" for them to kill him. How exactly is a AH-64 crew threatened by a man who was just shot by a 30mm autocannon, is squirming on the ground and wasn't carrying any weapon to begin with?
The truth is they aren't threatened. The truth is that this was by far no "Kill or Be Killed situation". Is this a screw-up? Clearly it is. Nonetheless, no one in their right mind can seriously claim that what happened in this case was remotely a "Kill or Be Killed situation". This was a trigger-happy crew who was never threatened and desperately wanted to shoot at people. They didn't even flinched when they were told that they shot at children. "They shouldn't have brought them into a battle". What battle?
Was this the case? Did you saw the video? If you saw it you would know that a) no armed group jumped out of the van, b) the only people leaving the van did so to pick up the wounded journalist, c) no one on that van was carrying weapons, let alone seen carrying anything, d) no one in that van represented a threat to anyone.
So why exactly are you so keen to associate the poor people that was murdered in that video with palestinian gunmen and "jihadis" when absolutely nothing in that scene has any shread of connection with them? Does driving a van makes you a "terrorist"?
If you read what I wrote you will notice that I'm referring to the allegation that linux isn't a "worthwhile market segment", not where the drivers came from.
Are you considering graphics cards as gaming accessories or graphics cards as parallel math coprocessors for the medium-end number crunching on a budget market? If you consider the latter then drivers for graphics card, which bring support for OpenCL, will make linux a worthwhile market segment. Where do you find people crunching numbers? Windows? OSX? No. All the cool kids crunch numbers with linux.
Mind you, airplane autopilots only need to pay attention to other airplanes, which not only carry a transponder but also are monitored 24/7 by ground control crews, which make a damned good job at placing the airplane somewhere where it can't screw things up. Moreover, on top of all those security systems in place an airplane also carries two or three blokes who dedicate themselves monitoring all those security systems in real time.
Back in the surface, kids don't carry transponder units, nor do other cars, and you wish to rely on the car alone to navigate and evade any objects which may be thrown your way. And if all hell breaks loose the bloke who you are relying to save the day is yourself.
Knowing that, throwing computers at something won't make the problem go away. So as you can see things don't tend to be all that easy.