I don't believe that's the case. According to this report, "So far, 324 MPs have signed the proposal, or the written declaration that it called on European languages". It also mentions that "When more than half, ie 369 members signed up, it can be adopted and thus becomes its official position, but are not legislative in themselves."
So, although it isn't quite the same thing as signing a law, it is in fact a bit more than "one MEP thinking about this insane idea", even when including the fact hat Written Declaration 29 is authored by two MEPs, Tiziano MOTTI and Anna ZÁBORSKÁ.
Actually, it isn't "one ignorant guy". It's at least two ignorant MEPs: from Italy and Anna Záborská from Slovakia. They co-authored the Written Declaration 29, where they state quite bluntly that they want every european citizen being constantly monitored by the police to avoid putting some hypothetical nasty criminal "on the same footing as honest citizens and making it difficult for the authorities to trace them".
Actually, it isn't "one ignorant guy". It's at least two ignorant MEPs: from Italy and Anna Záborská from Slovakia. They co-authored the Written Declaration 29, where they state quite bluntly that they want every european citizen being constantly monitored by the police to avoid putting some hypothetical nasty criminal "on the same footing as honest citizens and making it difficult for the authorities to trace them".
. Do you really believe executives at Columbia and 20th Century-Fox are being caught "flat-footed" by Lolcats, 40 minute reviews of Star Wars movies and time-lapse photography of flowers blooming on Vimeo?
No, they were caught "flat-footed" by a distribution medium which has obsoleted the television medium. The only thing that nowadays TV still has that the internet doesn't is the industrialized content, but with the advent of sites such as http://www.southparkstudios.com/, http://www.thedailyshow.com/ and http://www.colbertnation.com/, not to mention the unauthorized distribution of tv series, it's quite obvious that TV is destined to go the way of the dodo.
This iswhy god invented hobbies, and why working more than 8hours/day is an entirely stupid thing to do. If you spend your life trying to climb the corporate ladder then you will die never having lived at all.
'Here in my country the "Occupy.+ street" event was lead by the local communist party`, GreatBunzinni Would you please stop typing that kind of bullshit here on slashdot..
You may not like to hear it but just because you mindlessly claim it is bullshit it doesn't make it so. If you are interested in learning more about this then go learn about the "indignados" protest in Portugal, and how it has been organized, led and manipulated by the portuguese communist party. And then go on to learn how mysteriously those protesters organized in popular assemblies, organized a vote and decided that somehow those protesters would be a part of another protest organized by the portuguese communist party to be held on October 18th, along with a union that's also notoriously controlled by the communists. Don't take my word for it. Take the portuguese communist party's general secretary's word on it here
But I will say once again that these attempts to hijack these movements doesn't mean that protests such as those taking place in Spain's Plaza del Sol and in the US of A's Wall Street don't have any merit. They do, and a lot of it. Yet, just because they have merit and they have a purpose it doesn't mean that everyone should just jump on any bandwagon that comes up. That would be very dangerous, and it could lead to a lot more problems than those which the protests are intended to fix.
A bunch of patchoulli-stinking young adults polluting a sidewalk in front of some financial buildings is going to accomplish nothing, particularly when their gross hypocrisy is so evident (campaigning against greedy corporations? Organize that on your iPhone did you? Or maybe on Facebook?). They're nothing more than the bachelor lions yowling in the night because THEY don't get a comfortable place to sleep and nobody to breed with.
Your accusations regarding the protesters' hygiene habits and the crass lack of consideration for others that you are exhibiting does absolutely nothing to refute the point which is being made by these protests. In fact, the only thing you are accomplishing is to portray yourself as a modern-day version of Archie Bunker, with all the considerations that goes for his intelligence and insight on social affairs.
Regarding your meaningless abuse of the worn-out cliché of "OMG THEY USE IPHONES!!1!1!ONE!", just because someone is against the racketeering and ponzi schemes that defines the financial institution, along with all the corruption and manipulation of the democratic process, it doesn't mean that everyone should suddenly avoid using any tool at their disposal, go Luddite and protest wearing nothing but something they built out of hemp and straw. the civil rights movement also wasn't a hypocrite for using the telephone system, no matter ho big Ma' Bell was.
So, your pathetic attacks on the protesters only goes to show how full of blind hate you have become, and how you are letting your stereotypical bigotry cloud your judgement.
And if you're really going to protest - I mean seriously try to bring the system down - understand that the full weight and force of our government, well, every government, business, and the bulk of the populace will be against you (violently so, in direct proportion to your success) as they have every reason to protect the status quo.
Well, I can see how the government and corporations will do their best to derail this movement, but I seriously doubt that "the bulk of the populace will be against you". Only the useful idiots among us, which includes the little archie bunkers such as yourself, will believe that violent suppression of a political movement does anyone any good, let alone be compatible with a democratic system of government. But in order to do that, you first need to explicitly and blatantly violate your countrymen's rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and even freedom of petition. That means that in order to enact your "violent" opposition of a political movement you first will have to violate the very core of what defines your country. To put it in simple terms for you to understand, the actions you are suggesting are blatantly un-american, and against everything your country stands for.
So, guess who is screwing up your country, mr Bunker?
I didn't say that nonsense. Even the US protesters are firmly placed in the right-wing of the political spectrum. I referred specifically to the protests which are now being organized around the world. The one in my home country is being manipulated by the local communist party to try to opportunistically appropriate public support for a cause which isn't theirs, and abuse us to defend a cause which isn't ours.
You failed reading comprehension. I've explicitly referred to established political organizations which are opportunistically trying to take advantage of these protests to impose their agenda. This does not mean, nor can any intelligent person understand, that these protests are controlled by them, let alone that they are "all about" a single, unpopular issue. They are not. And the point of my post was that we should not let them be. The logical fallacy you are trying to point out was created by yourself.
This is not true. Here in my country the "Occupy.+ street" event was lead by the local communist party, and among the statements some participants said that that protest was organized because "capitalism was dead, and we are here to bury it". The protest isn't a big homogeneous mass, and there are established political organizations which are opportunistically trying to take advantage of this to impose their agenda. So, although it is in everyone's best interests to jumpstart some change, we should pay attention to what change some want to impose. After all, the change they are trying to impose may not be in our best interests.
Not so fast, buddy. I mean, the way the world is governed doesn't help any of us, except the ones who profit from the status quo. Yet, after following the "Occopy.+ street" in my home town (not the US), it became quite clear that it has been organized by the local communist party. That, in itself, isn't anything to worry about. Yet, what they were demanding was a revolution which changed my country's regime from a social state managed by a republican government to a non-demopcratic one-party system where small, shady organizations dictated which legislation to impose. Their care for the pensioners and jobless didn't went beyond their vague chants and flags; all they wanted is to "bury capitalism" and impose a new form of government.
The thing is, the current status quo is giving the shaft to everyone except a small minority, and we should fight to make the world a better place to live in. Yet, we should fight for our best interests. If we all simply "better join them", as you suggested, without knowing who "them" are and what they want to put in place then we end up with the danger of supporting a group of "them" whose idea of an ideal society is based on the total absence of personal freedom, access to a free market and the right to private property. This is not a better deal than that we currently have. So, yes, we must act but we should also keep an eye out for our best interests, because those who are pulling the strings from either side sure don't keep an eye out for them.
Maybe not, as a practical matter, but the tools are there. It is quite wrong to say the US allows its citizens access to only press release style propaganda when CSPAN transmits the unedited goings on on the Senate floor, for instance. That people don't care to tune in is another matter.
The tools may be there but the way the access to them is being managed makes it impossible to have a free and open debate on any issue. Even when considering CSPAN and it's unedited coverage right on the US senate floor, just keep in mind that the only people which are able to take part in that debate are those who managed to be there because they were hand-picked by one of the two parties which controls the US's political scene. This means that the cards are stacked right from the beginning. The only opinions that people are exposed to are those which were hand-picked by propagandists which are on the payroll of one of the two main parties. You don't hear any opinion from anyone which hasn't been carefully selected by one of those two groups, and this is a very efficient way to manipulate public opinion to their favour and against anyone's best interests.
We also have the ability to do what the Greeks considered essential to Democracy, which is allow every citizen to witness the debate over every subject.
I don't believe that the US has this ability. The debate is forced to be centered on and limited to the issues chosen by specific people associated with two parties, and the dialogue is selected, manipulated and edited by only a hand-full of people, politicians and talking heads. The political discourse doesn't stray beyond any of the issues the elite doesn't want to touch, and by this the viewer is manipulated in a desperately narrow view on politics which is only serves the interests of those who already hold power and influence.
There is a reason why the US, with all it's democratic history, education, population and culture, only manages to elect people selected by only two parties although no one really trusts them and knows about how corrupt they are. And there is a reason why important political events, such as a two-week-long and still ongoing political protest against how the US's society and economic system is being managed, simply isn't covered by the media.
So, no, the US does not have the ability to allow every citizen to witness the debate over every subject. The US only allows every citizen to witness the press releases put forth by the propagandists on the payroll of two political parties. And this is a totalitarian state masquerading as a constitutional republic.
I don't believe that it is a reasonable idea to hold how private companies tend to deal with freedom of speech as a reference of how everyone should also deal with it. Private companies are inherently totalitarian, from the way they are organized internally to the way they operate. The only reason that leads a private company to be open about freedom of speech is if it happens to serve the company's self interests, and it is as seriously bad idea to model our view on the ability to speak our minds and stand up for what we believe from the actions organizations that actively engage in suppressing that right.
How many times have they tried to silence *any* dissent outside of the most batshit crazy Che-Guevara-t-shirt-wearing hippies screaming about oppressive capitalism?
I don't know. Do you? I mean, do you actually have any evidence that anyone actually tried to do what you've just accused some random, faceless group of actually perpetrating, or are you just rambling incoherently?
How many times have they taken liberal stances on matters that shouldn't even be a university's business (like wars, union organizing, etc.)? You're talking about a conglomeration of tens-of-thousands of smug trust-fund liberals pushing each other out of the way to tell you how anti-corporation they are--and then tweeting about it on their band-new Macs and iPads (with absolutely no sense of irony).
I am not an american citizen, nor I ever set foot near it, but from all the Hollywood movies I've been exposed to and from all the political posturing that some US citizens are responsible for in online forums such as this one, I assumed that the US of A was supposed to be a constitutional republic whose citizens enjoyed a set of rights as encoded in the United States Bill of Rights. Among this set of rights, there was supposed to be this right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the right to petition. If this is supposed to be true then it would mean that it was everyone's business, including "conglomeration of tens-of-thousands of smug trust-fund liberals", to take stances, "liberal" or not, on any issue anyone sees fit, which includes wars and union organizing.
But, somehow, it appears that you disagree with this, that you somehow believe that a specific group of people which are a part of your society should be barred from exercising these rights which supposedly people like you hold as fundamental for your very own society.
What strikes me as odd is that you haven't posted any complaints on the "Drunken Parrot Season Starts in Australia" story which immediately preceded this one. In fact, your previous comment dates back to August 31. So, you either believe that parrots acting drunk is "nerdy, techy, geeky news" and that until now Slashdot has been posting strictly nerdy stories, or somehow this story regarding a potentially dangerous social movement which shakes the idea that you live in a free and open society makes you a bit uncomfortable.
Personally, I'm glad slashdot posted this story. If it wasn't for slashdot I wouldn't know that this was going on, because I haven't seen anything regarding this in any media channel. If it wasn't for slashdot I would never have searched for the videos in youtube or read the article in wikipedia, and due to slashdot I was able to do just that, and for that I'm thankful. And frankly you should be too.
I fail to see how this new tech will become a problem. The hardware makers want to sell hardware. Given their already thin margins, it would be stupid of them to agree to limit their boards to any one particular OS.
This might be true if the market for personal computer operating systems wasn't controlled by a single corporation. As practically all personal computers are sold either with windows preinstalled or with an accompanying windows installation disk, and as other operating systems such as linux are used only by a fringe minority, then in practice if hardware makers want to sell hardware then they are pressured into blindly accepting whatever terms MS wants to shove down their throats. And, as a consequence, ours too.
You are talking about the same Microsoft which, for decades, has been unwilling to implement install processes for their OS that accepts any pre-existing boot loader on any computer, rewriting it with one which forces the PC to become a windows-only computer. If Microsoft is so unwilling to even accept that other OSs, non-MS operating systems, may be available to the user who rightfully bought his computer and software licenses then why do you expect that this "we are trying to figure out how to allow dual-boot" claim is being given any consideration beyond lip service?
In chess, the necessary condition to checkmate the adversary is to strategically place your pieces on the board. Once the pieces are set, your opponent gets the power to do anything he sees fit, including screwing you, and the only thing that stops the opponent from checkmating you is his will to do so.
This move will grant Microsoft the power over what OS you can use on a computer you've purchase. Google's case is the exact same one, and in both cases we have multinational companies gaining the power to dictate which operating system you can use, and therefore restrict your freedom of choice. The only difference between Google's case and Microsoft's is the influence which each company has on the personal computer market. Microsoft happens to sell the OS which practically ships with every computer sold. This means that Microsoft has a considerable greater influence on the personal computer industry, if not even control over it. In fact, even without having UEFI as leverage, Microsoft already tried to pressure companies into dumping linux in favour of any half-baked version of windows. So, as you see, it isn't such an innocuous and innocent move at all.
I'm more worried that this taxes people on their way to becoming rich.
Taken FTFFSoTA (From the fucking first sentence of the article):
Barack Obama, the US president, is expected to seek a new minimum tax rate for the wealthy to ensure they pay at least the same percentage as middle-income taxpayers.
Do you actually believe that paying the same income percentage as middle-income taxpayers will tax anyone on their way to becoming rich?
It comes from the US law that medical devices and drugs cannot be marketed without FDA clearance. 21 CFR 820 and so on. That takes a lot of time and money.
You make it sound like the EU is a libertarian paradise, and that no EU member has it's FDA counterpart. This is false. Even cash-strapped Portugal, which has a population of around 11 million (that's less than 4% the US population), has it's own version of FDA in the form of infarmed.
Next, the best way to eliminate "creative accounting" in regard to taxes is to make the system simple. A national sales tax, for example, would eliminate any benefit from basing your companies off shore. The only way around a sales tax is to buy stuff off the black market or move yourself off shore.
This idea that tax evasion in the form of "creative accounting" is eliminated by simplifying the tax system (that is, remove some rules from what is currently enforced) is naive and out of touch with reality. You must understand that rules are imposed to restrict types of behaviour which are deemed harmful. If rules are eliminated then the ability to restrict bad behaviour is hindered, if not eliminated. If you change a system so that it is no longer capable of hindering specific forms of harmful behaviour then, obviously, you won't get an improved system. Instead, you get a system whose actors are free to commit a series of harmful acts, but now with complete impunity and absolutely no pressure to stop that behaviour.
To put it shortly, if you "simplify the system" then what you are effectively doing is urging people to conduct harmful actions with complete impunity. It's like saying that if stealing was suddenly made legal then the crime rate would go down because any thief would be completely free to steal whatever he wished, as his actions would no longer be considered a crime.
Rules, whether complex or simple, are placed for one reason alone: restrict behaviour deemed harmful. If a considerable number of taxpayers are evading their responsibilities by employing legal tricks and ploys then you get them to stop defrauding the state by imposing rules that fight that sort of behaviour. Otherwise you are only fooling yourself in believing that you are doing society any good at all.
Oh, so you just looked at a map. Have you ever been there in person?
Are you aware that you provided a link to Google maps, where you can access an interesting feature which they named "street view"? Nevertheless, here is a challenge for you: describe in your own words every remotely interesting points in all that vast area. All you can come up with. Anything at all. If you are hard pressed to come up with more than half a dozen interesting points per km without using vague terms then you prove my point.
Where do you propose Apple build? They want to stay in Cupertino which is commendable for them as they could easily move to some state in no man's land. HP is getting rid of the site so it's a win-win for Apple, HP, and the city of Cupertino.
You don't get it, do you? The fundamental point isn't where they will build it, it's how they've designed it. Their design is fundamentally flawed because it represents a wasteful sprawl of nothing that isolates their workersfrom the outside world and the outside world from their workers, but which happens to be shiny at it. A shiny segregated sprawl such as the one which has been proposed has the nasty effect of being a soulless prision which happens to be nice to look at. It's isolated from the world, segregates itself and their workers from the community, it represents an immense psychological barrier to those who work in it and live around it... It may even risk being a sociopath factory, designed to shield their workers from the outside world and to stop them from acknowledging that there is life outside their work. This is a major problem which is caused by Apple's design and how it interacts with it's surroundings.
Slashdot Mirror
Correction: along with the two ignorant MEPs who authored Written Declaration 29, currently 371 MEPs have signed this proposition. Here is a list of all signatories.
I don't believe that's the case. According to this report, "So far, 324 MPs have signed the proposal, or the written declaration that it called on European languages". It also mentions that "When more than half, ie 369 members signed up, it can be adopted and thus becomes its official position, but are not legislative in themselves."
So, although it isn't quite the same thing as signing a law, it is in fact a bit more than "one MEP thinking about this insane idea", even when including the fact hat Written Declaration 29 is authored by two MEPs, Tiziano MOTTI and Anna ZÁBORSKÁ.
Actually, it isn't "one ignorant guy". It's at least two ignorant MEPs: from Italy and Anna Záborská from Slovakia. They co-authored the Written Declaration 29, where they state quite bluntly that they want every european citizen being constantly monitored by the police to avoid putting some hypothetical nasty criminal "on the same footing as honest citizens and making it difficult for the authorities to trace them".
More on this in:
Actually, it isn't "one ignorant guy". It's at least two ignorant MEPs: from Italy and Anna Záborská from Slovakia. They co-authored the Written Declaration 29, where they state quite bluntly that they want every european citizen being constantly monitored by the police to avoid putting some hypothetical nasty criminal "on the same footing as honest citizens and making it difficult for the authorities to trace them".
More on this in:
No, they were caught "flat-footed" by a distribution medium which has obsoleted the television medium. The only thing that nowadays TV still has that the internet doesn't is the industrialized content, but with the advent of sites such as http://www.southparkstudios.com/, http://www.thedailyshow.com/ and http://www.colbertnation.com/, not to mention the unauthorized distribution of tv series, it's quite obvious that TV is destined to go the way of the dodo.
This iswhy god invented hobbies, and why working more than 8hours/day is an entirely stupid thing to do. If you spend your life trying to climb the corporate ladder then you will die never having lived at all.
'Here in my country the "Occupy .+ street" event was lead by the local communist party`, GreatBunzinni ..
Would you please stop typing that kind of bullshit here on slashdot
You may not like to hear it but just because you mindlessly claim it is bullshit it doesn't make it so. If you are interested in learning more about this then go learn about the "indignados" protest in Portugal, and how it has been organized, led and manipulated by the portuguese communist party. And then go on to learn how mysteriously those protesters organized in popular assemblies, organized a vote and decided that somehow those protesters would be a part of another protest organized by the portuguese communist party to be held on October 18th, along with a union that's also notoriously controlled by the communists. Don't take my word for it. Take the portuguese communist party's general secretary's word on it here
But I will say once again that these attempts to hijack these movements doesn't mean that protests such as those taking place in Spain's Plaza del Sol and in the US of A's Wall Street don't have any merit. They do, and a lot of it. Yet, just because they have merit and they have a purpose it doesn't mean that everyone should just jump on any bandwagon that comes up. That would be very dangerous, and it could lead to a lot more problems than those which the protests are intended to fix.
Your accusations regarding the protesters' hygiene habits and the crass lack of consideration for others that you are exhibiting does absolutely nothing to refute the point which is being made by these protests. In fact, the only thing you are accomplishing is to portray yourself as a modern-day version of Archie Bunker, with all the considerations that goes for his intelligence and insight on social affairs.
Regarding your meaningless abuse of the worn-out cliché of "OMG THEY USE IPHONES!!1!1!ONE!", just because someone is against the racketeering and ponzi schemes that defines the financial institution, along with all the corruption and manipulation of the democratic process, it doesn't mean that everyone should suddenly avoid using any tool at their disposal, go Luddite and protest wearing nothing but something they built out of hemp and straw. the civil rights movement also wasn't a hypocrite for using the telephone system, no matter ho big Ma' Bell was.
So, your pathetic attacks on the protesters only goes to show how full of blind hate you have become, and how you are letting your stereotypical bigotry cloud your judgement.
Well, I can see how the government and corporations will do their best to derail this movement, but I seriously doubt that "the bulk of the populace will be against you". Only the useful idiots among us, which includes the little archie bunkers such as yourself, will believe that violent suppression of a political movement does anyone any good, let alone be compatible with a democratic system of government. But in order to do that, you first need to explicitly and blatantly violate your countrymen's rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and even freedom of petition. That means that in order to enact your "violent" opposition of a political movement you first will have to violate the very core of what defines your country. To put it in simple terms for you to understand, the actions you are suggesting are blatantly un-american, and against everything your country stands for.
So, guess who is screwing up your country, mr Bunker?
I didn't say that nonsense. Even the US protesters are firmly placed in the right-wing of the political spectrum. I referred specifically to the protests which are now being organized around the world. The one in my home country is being manipulated by the local communist party to try to opportunistically appropriate public support for a cause which isn't theirs, and abuse us to defend a cause which isn't ours.
You failed reading comprehension. I've explicitly referred to established political organizations which are opportunistically trying to take advantage of these protests to impose their agenda. This does not mean, nor can any intelligent person understand, that these protests are controlled by them, let alone that they are "all about" a single, unpopular issue. They are not. And the point of my post was that we should not let them be. The logical fallacy you are trying to point out was created by yourself.
This is not true. Here in my country the "Occupy .+ street" event was lead by the local communist party, and among the statements some participants said that that protest was organized because "capitalism was dead, and we are here to bury it". The protest isn't a big homogeneous mass, and there are established political organizations which are opportunistically trying to take advantage of this to impose their agenda. So, although it is in everyone's best interests to jumpstart some change, we should pay attention to what change some want to impose. After all, the change they are trying to impose may not be in our best interests.
Not so fast, buddy. I mean, the way the world is governed doesn't help any of us, except the ones who profit from the status quo. Yet, after following the "Occopy .+ street" in my home town (not the US), it became quite clear that it has been organized by the local communist party. That, in itself, isn't anything to worry about. Yet, what they were demanding was a revolution which changed my country's regime from a social state managed by a republican government to a non-demopcratic one-party system where small, shady organizations dictated which legislation to impose. Their care for the pensioners and jobless didn't went beyond their vague chants and flags; all they wanted is to "bury capitalism" and impose a new form of government.
The thing is, the current status quo is giving the shaft to everyone except a small minority, and we should fight to make the world a better place to live in. Yet, we should fight for our best interests. If we all simply "better join them", as you suggested, without knowing who "them" are and what they want to put in place then we end up with the danger of supporting a group of "them" whose idea of an ideal society is based on the total absence of personal freedom, access to a free market and the right to private property. This is not a better deal than that we currently have. So, yes, we must act but we should also keep an eye out for our best interests, because those who are pulling the strings from either side sure don't keep an eye out for them.
What a Hox gene might be
The tools may be there but the way the access to them is being managed makes it impossible to have a free and open debate on any issue. Even when considering CSPAN and it's unedited coverage right on the US senate floor, just keep in mind that the only people which are able to take part in that debate are those who managed to be there because they were hand-picked by one of the two parties which controls the US's political scene. This means that the cards are stacked right from the beginning. The only opinions that people are exposed to are those which were hand-picked by propagandists which are on the payroll of one of the two main parties. You don't hear any opinion from anyone which hasn't been carefully selected by one of those two groups, and this is a very efficient way to manipulate public opinion to their favour and against anyone's best interests.
I don't believe that the US has this ability. The debate is forced to be centered on and limited to the issues chosen by specific people associated with two parties, and the dialogue is selected, manipulated and edited by only a hand-full of people, politicians and talking heads. The political discourse doesn't stray beyond any of the issues the elite doesn't want to touch, and by this the viewer is manipulated in a desperately narrow view on politics which is only serves the interests of those who already hold power and influence.
There is a reason why the US, with all it's democratic history, education, population and culture, only manages to elect people selected by only two parties although no one really trusts them and knows about how corrupt they are. And there is a reason why important political events, such as a two-week-long and still ongoing political protest against how the US's society and economic system is being managed, simply isn't covered by the media.
So, no, the US does not have the ability to allow every citizen to witness the debate over every subject. The US only allows every citizen to witness the press releases put forth by the propagandists on the payroll of two political parties. And this is a totalitarian state masquerading as a constitutional republic.
I don't believe that it is a reasonable idea to hold how private companies tend to deal with freedom of speech as a reference of how everyone should also deal with it. Private companies are inherently totalitarian, from the way they are organized internally to the way they operate. The only reason that leads a private company to be open about freedom of speech is if it happens to serve the company's self interests, and it is as seriously bad idea to model our view on the ability to speak our minds and stand up for what we believe from the actions organizations that actively engage in suppressing that right.
I don't know. Do you? I mean, do you actually have any evidence that anyone actually tried to do what you've just accused some random, faceless group of actually perpetrating, or are you just rambling incoherently?
I am not an american citizen, nor I ever set foot near it, but from all the Hollywood movies I've been exposed to and from all the political posturing that some US citizens are responsible for in online forums such as this one, I assumed that the US of A was supposed to be a constitutional republic whose citizens enjoyed a set of rights as encoded in the United States Bill of Rights. Among this set of rights, there was supposed to be this right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the right to petition. If this is supposed to be true then it would mean that it was everyone's business, including "conglomeration of tens-of-thousands of smug trust-fund liberals", to take stances, "liberal" or not, on any issue anyone sees fit, which includes wars and union organizing.
But, somehow, it appears that you disagree with this, that you somehow believe that a specific group of people which are a part of your society should be barred from exercising these rights which supposedly people like you hold as fundamental for your very own society.
So, how do you explain your stance on this issue?
What strikes me as odd is that you haven't posted any complaints on the "Drunken Parrot Season Starts in Australia" story which immediately preceded this one. In fact, your previous comment dates back to August 31. So, you either believe that parrots acting drunk is "nerdy, techy, geeky news" and that until now Slashdot has been posting strictly nerdy stories, or somehow this story regarding a potentially dangerous social movement which shakes the idea that you live in a free and open society makes you a bit uncomfortable.
Personally, I'm glad slashdot posted this story. If it wasn't for slashdot I wouldn't know that this was going on, because I haven't seen anything regarding this in any media channel. If it wasn't for slashdot I would never have searched for the videos in youtube or read the article in wikipedia, and due to slashdot I was able to do just that, and for that I'm thankful. And frankly you should be too.
This might be true if the market for personal computer operating systems wasn't controlled by a single corporation. As practically all personal computers are sold either with windows preinstalled or with an accompanying windows installation disk, and as other operating systems such as linux are used only by a fringe minority, then in practice if hardware makers want to sell hardware then they are pressured into blindly accepting whatever terms MS wants to shove down their throats. And, as a consequence, ours too.
You are talking about the same Microsoft which, for decades, has been unwilling to implement install processes for their OS that accepts any pre-existing boot loader on any computer, rewriting it with one which forces the PC to become a windows-only computer. If Microsoft is so unwilling to even accept that other OSs, non-MS operating systems, may be available to the user who rightfully bought his computer and software licenses then why do you expect that this "we are trying to figure out how to allow dual-boot" claim is being given any consideration beyond lip service?
In chess, the necessary condition to checkmate the adversary is to strategically place your pieces on the board. Once the pieces are set, your opponent gets the power to do anything he sees fit, including screwing you, and the only thing that stops the opponent from checkmating you is his will to do so.
This move will grant Microsoft the power over what OS you can use on a computer you've purchase. Google's case is the exact same one, and in both cases we have multinational companies gaining the power to dictate which operating system you can use, and therefore restrict your freedom of choice. The only difference between Google's case and Microsoft's is the influence which each company has on the personal computer market. Microsoft happens to sell the OS which practically ships with every computer sold. This means that Microsoft has a considerable greater influence on the personal computer industry, if not even control over it. In fact, even without having UEFI as leverage, Microsoft already tried to pressure companies into dumping linux in favour of any half-baked version of windows. So, as you see, it isn't such an innocuous and innocent move at all.
Taken FTFFSoTA (From the fucking first sentence of the article):
Do you actually believe that paying the same income percentage as middle-income taxpayers will tax anyone on their way to becoming rich?
You make it sound like the EU is a libertarian paradise, and that no EU member has it's FDA counterpart. This is false. Even cash-strapped Portugal, which has a population of around 11 million (that's less than 4% the US population), has it's own version of FDA in the form of infarmed.
This idea that tax evasion in the form of "creative accounting" is eliminated by simplifying the tax system (that is, remove some rules from what is currently enforced) is naive and out of touch with reality. You must understand that rules are imposed to restrict types of behaviour which are deemed harmful. If rules are eliminated then the ability to restrict bad behaviour is hindered, if not eliminated. If you change a system so that it is no longer capable of hindering specific forms of harmful behaviour then, obviously, you won't get an improved system. Instead, you get a system whose actors are free to commit a series of harmful acts, but now with complete impunity and absolutely no pressure to stop that behaviour.
To put it shortly, if you "simplify the system" then what you are effectively doing is urging people to conduct harmful actions with complete impunity. It's like saying that if stealing was suddenly made legal then the crime rate would go down because any thief would be completely free to steal whatever he wished, as his actions would no longer be considered a crime.
Rules, whether complex or simple, are placed for one reason alone: restrict behaviour deemed harmful. If a considerable number of taxpayers are evading their responsibilities by employing legal tricks and ploys then you get them to stop defrauding the state by imposing rules that fight that sort of behaviour. Otherwise you are only fooling yourself in believing that you are doing society any good at all.
Oh, so you just looked at a map. Have you ever been there in person?
Are you aware that you provided a link to Google maps, where you can access an interesting feature which they named "street view"? Nevertheless, here is a challenge for you: describe in your own words every remotely interesting points in all that vast area. All you can come up with. Anything at all. If you are hard pressed to come up with more than half a dozen interesting points per km without using vague terms then you prove my point.
Where do you propose Apple build? They want to stay in Cupertino which is commendable for them as they could easily move to some state in no man's land. HP is getting rid of the site so it's a win-win for Apple, HP, and the city of Cupertino.
You don't get it, do you? The fundamental point isn't where they will build it, it's how they've designed it. Their design is fundamentally flawed because it represents a wasteful sprawl of nothing that isolates their workersfrom the outside world and the outside world from their workers, but which happens to be shiny at it. A shiny segregated sprawl such as the one which has been proposed has the nasty effect of being a soulless prision which happens to be nice to look at. It's isolated from the world, segregates itself and their workers from the community, it represents an immense psychological barrier to those who work in it and live around it... It may even risk being a sociopath factory, designed to shield their workers from the outside world and to stop them from acknowledging that there is life outside their work. This is a major problem which is caused by Apple's design and how it interacts with it's surroundings.