The cell providers make you sign the same contract whether you buy a phone or not.
SIM-only contracts are cheaper than contracts with phones. But the ideal for networks would be that you buy an expensive subscription with an expensive phone for free, and then forget about renewing your subscription after 2 years, so you keep paying your inflated subscription price.
Why didn't Google put a clause in the manufacturer/provider contract "The user will always be allowed full access to the device being managed by this operating system"?
It's open source. Other developers are free to do with it whatever they want.
Google could enforce the Android trademark, however. Mozilla does the same thing with Firefox.
"It contains a call from Google to handset manufacturers to open up their phones to give users choice. But will this ever happen in a market dominated by lock-'em-down cellular networks?"
No. The only solution is for Google to roll out their own infrastructure and run their own telecommunications network. They're big enough to compete with the other big boys like At&t.
The devices are locked. The only solution is for Google to produce their own devices. Like the Nexus S, I guess.
I'm not tied to any particular network, but my Motorola Milestone still has an encrypted bootloader. There's no good way around it.
Yearh, let's also stop using Mastercard and Visa. Ah, shit, how am I going to pay by credit card now???
That's the real problem that's been exposed by this issue, IMO. They have a monopoly, and when they start wielding it as a political weapon, we don't really have the option to boycott them. I need a credit card for online payments. I'd absolutely love to switch to another, but there is no other anywhere in the same league as Visa and MasterCard.
I like to think of homeopathy as optimized placebo effect.
Yeah, optimized for the profits of those selling these pills with nothing in them.
Also for the health of the people who are inexplicably benefitting from them.
but nevertheless there's something going on which deserves investigation.
There is nothing going on. No scientific study has demonstrated homeopathic preparations to have an effect greater than a placebo.
Scientific study has proven that expensive placebos are more effective than cheap placebos, however. So even if it's expensive snake oil, it can still be more effective than cheap snake oil, if the patient believes in it.
What might make for an interesting study, is whether this particular placebo effect is stronger in people who believe in homeopathy than in people who don't. Personally, I expect it is. And also whether it's more effective than other kinds of placebo, which might still be true for some people (probably not for me, though).
Don't forget the Christmas trees. It's a heathen festival with a thin religious sauce over it.
(Mind you, I'm Christian and intend to go to church on Christmas anyway. It may be an unhistorical perversion, but it's still nice to do something with it.)
It was never a tradition here, it was imprinted on us by US television, just like Halloween and other customs like it. Here the tradition is to give gifts on St. Nikolaus day, on 6th of December and only to kids.
Where is that? I thought only Netherland and Belgium celebrated Sinterklaas (but on 5 December, rather than 6). My guess is northern Germany.
So yeah, gift-giving stress ends after 5 December. And more importantly: the poem-making and surprise-gift-crafting stress also ends there.
The only thing on this list that really held any interest for me was those speakers,
And they're by far the cheapest thing on the list too. Not just that, but high quality speakers really can be that expensive. Whether these speakers are any good, I have no idea, but if they are, I wouldn't mind owning a set. I need some new speakers anyway. And something unobtrusive that you hardly see would be just perfect. Something that doesn't take up any space would be even better. My house isn't big.
Mastercard has 1st amendment rights, too. One of those is the right to disassociate themselves from speech they don't approve of. If they think whatever hit they'd take by cutting off the KKK is worth it, that's their call. 1st amendment protections only mean you get to say whatever you want. It's not a magic shield that should render you immune from criticism or consequences. After all, those criticisms and consequences are just other people exercising exactly the same rights.
Exactly. That's why it's important that we do criticize MasterCard for their support of racism and disapproval of free press. They have the right to their opinion, but we have the right to ours. And we have the right to make sure customers are aware of MasterCard's opinion on racism and free press.
As a practical note, Mastercard can't afford to cut off very many organizations - pretty much what a government asks them too. If they open it up any wider, then they face constant pressures to cut off ever more organizations, as we see here from the RIAA.
That's why it would have been smarter of them to not cut off anyone unless compelled to do so by a court order. Now they're opening themselves up to criticism that they disapprove of free press, and approve of racism and pedophilia.
They shouldn't be closing accounts for the KKK. As much as I despise the KKK, they currently are acting within the 1st amendment of the constitution, and imho, businesses like Mastercard shouldn't discriminate against companies whose politics they disagree with, like the KKK or Wikileaks. It sets a bad precedent, and while legal, isn't cricket.
But they chose to set that precedent anyway. And then it makes me wonder why they like racism so much more than free press.
The US prison system makes very little effort to rehabilitate; contrary to popular myth. Its well known for making prisoners more violent and more proficient criminals.
Contrary to popular myth? I thought that's exactly what the popular myth was: US prisons are university for career criminals.
Of course the privatized prison system profits from having more criminals to lock up, so to the prison system, it's a system that works very well. Only it's society that pays the cost.
No directly, unfortunately. But according to Wikipedia, Goebbels and some other Nazis considered Stalin a fascist and wanted an alliance. Of course that's politics rather than political science.
I'll see if I can find a more direct and recent quote and post it here. But googling for "stalinism fascism" turns up a bit too much to make such a search easy.
Unfortunately, that's true. As long as corporations wield large amounts of money, they're able to buy influence with people in government. We need a government composed of people who can't be bought off.
What would also help is if that kind of corruption was a bit more taboo than it currently is in the US. Everybody knows that money buys you power. All congressmen are rich. Lobbyists have the best access. Big campaign contributions from large corporations are common and legal. And all major media are invested in the current system. As long as that's the situation, you know that the system will remain corrupt.
In comparison, a reasonable number of newspapers and TV stations in Europe are reasonably neutral (hardly any in Italy, but a lot more in northern Europe, obviously), campaign contributions (and therefore budgets) are often limited, and while MPs are never really poor, they're not automatically millionaires either. Lobbyists still have the best access to them, though, so it's not all perfect either. But I dare say that most European governments are less corrupt than the US government (though there are a few notable exceptions).
Fascism: A political/economic theory with corporations at the centre, with the government wielding power on their behalf.
This is one of two definitions that I encounter a lot. The other one is about society structured along concentric circles around the great leader and his inner circle. They're different, but they both get used.
Note that according to your definition, the US is also arguably fascist. (Not so much according to the second definition, though.)
But there is no possible way to describe the Soviet Union as fascist. It's just plain wrong.
It's not merely about killing people and being authoritarian. It's about how society is structured. You're right that Stalinism had completely different roots than German or Italian fascism, and they were ideologically at odds with each other, but in the end, Stalinism wasn't so different. Through a completely different route, it got to pretty much the same location. It wasn't structured bottom-up, like communism should be, but very hierarchically top-down, with an almost divine leader, the politbureau as his inner circle, and around that the party and the regular people are expected to sacrifice their lives for the Party, the leader or for Mother Russia.
It was not a legal court order or anything like that. No law requiring them to do anything like this. It was most likely an informal request, and one that's being denied by the government.
What would you say if Visa and MasterCard decided not to do business with various human rights organizations because the Chinese government asked them not to? That's essentially what we're talking about here.
WikiLeaks is not illegal in any way, and a lot of people appreciate what they're doing. But one government considers the leaks embarrassing, and the credit card companies are volunteering to be their hitman.
Why is it a political weapon? Why are so many people convinced it's a Government conspiracy?
Didn't MasterCard say they did this under US government pressure (though the government denied it)? Don't forget that the US government uses its political clout on behalf of Visa and MasterCard on the Russian credit card market. Looks like companies and government are pretty closely tied together here.
Could it just be, that a company feels someone is an asshole and doesn't wish to do business with them?
Of course, we're talking about two companies that together have a monopoly on the online payment infrastructure, and the "asshole" they don't want to do business with is a controversial press organization, whereas they do want to do business with racist organizations. That definitely sends a political message, and not one I agree with. Nor, I would hope, anyone else who cares about free press, free speech, and democracy.
I would like to think that if I thought someone was an asshole, I could throw them out of my shop without hesitation.
Sure, but if you accept other scum in your shop, then maybe it's not the kind of shop I want to do business with. And certainly not a shop that should control an important part of the economy.
Personally I think MasterCard and Visa should be required to be politically neutral, and accept anyone as customer, unless forced not to by a court order.
The problem here is lack of competition. Lack of alternatives. It's a harmful monopoly exactly because it chooses not to be neutral.
Isn't that what the various inter-bank electronic transfer systems do? I can transfer money to any UK account for free, and any account worldwide for a fee. The fee (£10 or so) is so high I've never used it though.
That's exactly the problem. It's expensive and inconvenient. It's in no way a competitor to credit cards. We need something that's at least as cheap, practical and convenient as credit card transactions, but more reliable.
This is exactly what I mean. I expected Visa and MasterCard to have some sort of common carrier status, but it turns out they can use their business as a political weapon. And that's wrong for something that's fundamental infrastructure. The lesson is that we cannot rely on them.
Have you considered that banks can do international payments too? Using IBAN numbers, etc, you can make payments to any bank account on the planet. Only it's expensive and cumbersome, and not integrated with an easy payment system. But I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to do just that.
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The cell providers make you sign the same contract whether you buy a phone or not.
SIM-only contracts are cheaper than contracts with phones. But the ideal for networks would be that you buy an expensive subscription with an expensive phone for free, and then forget about renewing your subscription after 2 years, so you keep paying your inflated subscription price.
Why didn't Google put a clause in the manufacturer/provider contract "The user will always be allowed full access to the device being managed by this operating system"?
It's open source. Other developers are free to do with it whatever they want.
Google could enforce the Android trademark, however. Mozilla does the same thing with Firefox.
"It contains a call from Google to handset manufacturers to open up their phones to give users choice. But will this ever happen in a market dominated by lock-'em-down cellular networks?"
No. The only solution is for Google to roll out their own infrastructure and run their own telecommunications network. They're big enough to compete with the other big boys like At&t.
The devices are locked. The only solution is for Google to produce their own devices. Like the Nexus S, I guess.
I'm not tied to any particular network, but my Motorola Milestone still has an encrypted bootloader. There's no good way around it.
Yearh, let's also stop using Mastercard and Visa. Ah, shit, how am I going to pay by credit card now???
That's the real problem that's been exposed by this issue, IMO. They have a monopoly, and when they start wielding it as a political weapon, we don't really have the option to boycott them. I need a credit card for online payments. I'd absolutely love to switch to another, but there is no other anywhere in the same league as Visa and MasterCard.
I like to think of homeopathy as optimized placebo effect.
Yeah, optimized for the profits of those selling these pills with nothing in them.
Also for the health of the people who are inexplicably benefitting from them.
but nevertheless there's something going on which deserves investigation.
There is nothing going on. No scientific study has demonstrated homeopathic preparations to have an effect greater than a placebo.
Scientific study has proven that expensive placebos are more effective than cheap placebos, however. So even if it's expensive snake oil, it can still be more effective than cheap snake oil, if the patient believes in it.
What might make for an interesting study, is whether this particular placebo effect is stronger in people who believe in homeopathy than in people who don't. Personally, I expect it is. And also whether it's more effective than other kinds of placebo, which might still be true for some people (probably not for me, though).
Don't forget the Christmas trees. It's a heathen festival with a thin religious sauce over it.
(Mind you, I'm Christian and intend to go to church on Christmas anyway. It may be an unhistorical perversion, but it's still nice to do something with it.)
It was never a tradition here, it was imprinted on us by US television, just like Halloween and other customs like it.
Here the tradition is to give gifts on St. Nikolaus day, on 6th of December and only to kids.
Where is that? I thought only Netherland and Belgium celebrated Sinterklaas (but on 5 December, rather than 6). My guess is northern Germany.
So yeah, gift-giving stress ends after 5 December. And more importantly: the poem-making and surprise-gift-crafting stress also ends there.
The only thing on this list that really held any interest for me was those speakers,
And they're by far the cheapest thing on the list too. Not just that, but high quality speakers really can be that expensive. Whether these speakers are any good, I have no idea, but if they are, I wouldn't mind owning a set. I need some new speakers anyway. And something unobtrusive that you hardly see would be just perfect. Something that doesn't take up any space would be even better. My house isn't big.
Yes, you are missing the point that they don't use their brain, they use their money.
Or possibly our money. If only they'd taken our brains!
Mastercard has 1st amendment rights, too. One of those is the right to disassociate themselves from speech they don't approve of. If they think whatever hit they'd take by cutting off the KKK is worth it, that's their call.
1st amendment protections only mean you get to say whatever you want. It's not a magic shield that should render you immune from criticism or consequences. After all, those criticisms and consequences are just other people exercising exactly the same rights.
Exactly. That's why it's important that we do criticize MasterCard for their support of racism and disapproval of free press. They have the right to their opinion, but we have the right to ours. And we have the right to make sure customers are aware of MasterCard's opinion on racism and free press.
As a practical note, Mastercard can't afford to cut off very many organizations - pretty much what a government asks them too. If they open it up any wider, then they face constant pressures to cut off ever more organizations, as we see here from the RIAA.
That's why it would have been smarter of them to not cut off anyone unless compelled to do so by a court order. Now they're opening themselves up to criticism that they disapprove of free press, and approve of racism and pedophilia.
They shouldn't be closing accounts for the KKK. As much as I despise the KKK, they currently are acting within the 1st amendment of the constitution, and imho, businesses like Mastercard shouldn't discriminate against companies whose politics they disagree with, like the KKK or Wikileaks. It sets a bad precedent, and while legal, isn't cricket.
But they chose to set that precedent anyway. And then it makes me wonder why they like racism so much more than free press.
The US prison system makes very little effort to rehabilitate; contrary to popular myth. Its well known for making prisoners more violent and more proficient criminals.
Contrary to popular myth? I thought that's exactly what the popular myth was: US prisons are university for career criminals.
Of course the privatized prison system profits from having more criminals to lock up, so to the prison system, it's a system that works very well. Only it's society that pays the cost.
Got a name?
No directly, unfortunately. But according to Wikipedia, Goebbels and some other Nazis considered Stalin a fascist and wanted an alliance. Of course that's politics rather than political science.
I'll see if I can find a more direct and recent quote and post it here. But googling for "stalinism fascism" turns up a bit too much to make such a search easy.
Unfortunately, that's true. As long as corporations wield large amounts of money, they're able to buy influence with people in government. We need a government composed of people who can't be bought off.
What would also help is if that kind of corruption was a bit more taboo than it currently is in the US. Everybody knows that money buys you power. All congressmen are rich. Lobbyists have the best access. Big campaign contributions from large corporations are common and legal. And all major media are invested in the current system. As long as that's the situation, you know that the system will remain corrupt.
In comparison, a reasonable number of newspapers and TV stations in Europe are reasonably neutral (hardly any in Italy, but a lot more in northern Europe, obviously), campaign contributions (and therefore budgets) are often limited, and while MPs are never really poor, they're not automatically millionaires either. Lobbyists still have the best access to them, though, so it's not all perfect either. But I dare say that most European governments are less corrupt than the US government (though there are a few notable exceptions).
Fascism: A political/economic theory with corporations at the centre, with the government wielding power on their behalf.
This is one of two definitions that I encounter a lot. The other one is about society structured along concentric circles around the great leader and his inner circle. They're different, but they both get used.
Note that according to your definition, the US is also arguably fascist. (Not so much according to the second definition, though.)
But there is no possible way to describe the Soviet Union as fascist. It's just plain wrong.
Well, some experts disagree with you on that.
It's not merely about killing people and being authoritarian. It's about how society is structured. You're right that Stalinism had completely different roots than German or Italian fascism, and they were ideologically at odds with each other, but in the end, Stalinism wasn't so different. Through a completely different route, it got to pretty much the same location. It wasn't structured bottom-up, like communism should be, but very hierarchically top-down, with an almost divine leader, the politbureau as his inner circle, and around that the party and the regular people are expected to sacrifice their lives for the Party, the leader or for Mother Russia.
Authoritarian != fascist. Soviet Russia was authoratarian, but not fascist.
Not every aspect of Soviet Russia, perhaps, but Stalinism was an excellent example of fascism. Possibly more fascist than nazism, even.
But seriously, this sounds like a much more sensible approach than many other US responses we've seen so far.
It was not a legal court order or anything like that. No law requiring them to do anything like this. It was most likely an informal request, and one that's being denied by the government.
What would you say if Visa and MasterCard decided not to do business with various human rights organizations because the Chinese government asked them not to? That's essentially what we're talking about here.
WikiLeaks is not illegal in any way, and a lot of people appreciate what they're doing. But one government considers the leaks embarrassing, and the credit card companies are volunteering to be their hitman.
Mail a cheque?
Too insecure, it takes way too long, and there's no immediate check on whether payment succeeded or not. Webshops and their customers need that.
Why is it a political weapon? Why are so many people convinced it's a Government conspiracy?
Didn't MasterCard say they did this under US government pressure (though the government denied it)? Don't forget that the US government uses its political clout on behalf of Visa and MasterCard on the Russian credit card market. Looks like companies and government are pretty closely tied together here.
Could it just be, that a company feels someone is an asshole and doesn't wish to do business with them?
Of course, we're talking about two companies that together have a monopoly on the online payment infrastructure, and the "asshole" they don't want to do business with is a controversial press organization, whereas they do want to do business with racist organizations. That definitely sends a political message, and not one I agree with. Nor, I would hope, anyone else who cares about free press, free speech, and democracy.
I would like to think that if I thought someone was an asshole, I could throw them out of my shop without hesitation.
Sure, but if you accept other scum in your shop, then maybe it's not the kind of shop I want to do business with. And certainly not a shop that should control an important part of the economy.
Personally I think MasterCard and Visa should be required to be politically neutral, and accept anyone as customer, unless forced not to by a court order.
The problem here is lack of competition. Lack of alternatives. It's a harmful monopoly exactly because it chooses not to be neutral.
Isn't that what the various inter-bank electronic transfer systems do? I can transfer money to any UK account for free, and any account worldwide for a fee. The fee (£10 or so) is so high I've never used it though.
That's exactly the problem. It's expensive and inconvenient. It's in no way a competitor to credit cards. We need something that's at least as cheap, practical and convenient as credit card transactions, but more reliable.
This is exactly what I mean. I expected Visa and MasterCard to have some sort of common carrier status, but it turns out they can use their business as a political weapon. And that's wrong for something that's fundamental infrastructure. The lesson is that we cannot rely on them.
Bitcoins serve exactly this purpose. See www.bitcoin.org
Interesting. Do most webshops accept it? Because without that, it's still useless.
Have you considered that banks can do international payments too? Using IBAN numbers, etc, you can make payments to any bank account on the planet. Only it's expensive and cumbersome, and not integrated with an easy payment system. But I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to do just that.