1) Two million people is actually two million correspondences.
2) There are three methods of correspondence - Phone, Email, snail mail.
3) Activists manufacture support by corresponding repeatedly using all methods available. Let's say 4 emails, 4 calls, and 4 letters.
So you've got each person generating a set of 12 correspondences.
2,000,000 / 12 = a little less than one million people.
And your prood is...? Oh yeah, you have none, only assumptions. I provide an article for proof but that is not good enough for you but you provide assumptions and expect me to beleive you? Get real.
Less than one million actual people is far less than one percent of the American population. Even if the actual numbers were truly 2 million, it would still be less than one percent of the population.
The point from the beginning is that people do care. If you are willing to say 2 million people don't mean a thing then you need to get your head checked.
Read the article this time. I did get the 97% wrong. It was 99%.
he urged Americans to send him, the other commissioners, and members of Congress their thoughts via post, telephone and email. According to the FCC's Adelstein nearly two million people have done so. And by the FCC's own calculations, over 99.9 percent of these citizens demand that the FCC keep the existing media ownership rules, or tighten them.
It's funny how you claim an independent magazine is a "lunatic fringe news source" because it holds views that you do not. The Nation is a liberal magazine but "by the FCC's own calculations 99.9 percent of these citizens (the two million that contacted the FCC) demand that the FCC keep the existing rules or tighten them.
Do you honestly think most people are interested in who is delivering television content?
Apparently the 2 million people who contacted the FCC concerning this decision are interested in who delivers their television content.
The fact of the matter is that none of the amendments listed in the parent post are discussed anywhere in the press. Frankly, neither is this FCC amendment.
That's funny because I've seen the FCC decision all over the news. I guess it's just where you look.
Actually you are wrong. There was public outrage at the decision and the FCC received more correspondence concerning this issue than any other issue ever. 97% of the people who contacted the FCC were against the decision.
In reality, the media are less concentrated and more competitive today than they were 30 years ago. And consumers are unambiguously better off. Consider two families, circa 1973 versus 2003, and the media and entertainment options available to them. The 1973 family could flip through three major network television stations, or tune in to a PBS station or a UHF channel or two. By comparison, today's families can take advantage of a 500-plus channel universe of cable and satellite-delivered options, order movies on demand, and check out a variety of specialized news, sports, or entertainment programming -- in addition to those same three networks.
This is not a sound argument. First of all most of those "500-plus" channels are all owned by a few conglomerates. There is FOX, FOX NEWS, FOX SPORTS, and there are 5 HBO's and 5 Showtimes, and then there is AOL Time Warner and so on and so forth. There were only a few stations in 1973 because the technology was still in its infancy and the demand was not as high as it is today. It is important to notice that those stations were all owned by different companies so in that respect it was more diverse not less. More stations != more diversity.
Not necessarily. If it wasn't for diverse and independent media we might not even hear of some of these things that you mention. I believe the consolidation of media is a very important issue. We need to worry about this because it will affect all of us.
The rules only hindered business and were not 'protecting' anyone.
I'd have to disagree. Allowing huge media conglomerates to own more media outlets is not a good thing. The media has been, from the beginning of this country, the watchdog of government. It's changed, for the worse, into more of a cheerleading outfit these days and that's not a good thing and consolidation can only make it worse by allowing for less diversity and less opposing opinions. The media is supposed to keep the public informed and keep the government in check but that is less likely to happen with local issues and opposing views when the media becomes more national and less diverse. This is bound to happen when a small number of corporations own most of the media outlets across the country.
The media as a watchdog is much more important than the media as a business.
It wasn't obvious (din't want to tip off Saddam), but if you go back and look at the reports, you can see a bunch of indicators pointing at about that day. So, basically, if we didn't go in right then, it would have been a huge waste of money.
Well of course! We wouldn't want to waste any money! We'd much rather kill innocent civilians than waste some money. I really hope this post was sarcastic and not an argument on why we had to go. Besides we would have saved a lot more money not going. By your statement it is obvious that the money was already spent. In economics you cannot use that as a determining factor because you cannot recoup that money. So you must look to the future. No war would have meant no money spent on weapons and no money spent on rebuilding. So if you weren't being sarcastic then I don't really see you point.
Linux propietary?
on
Saving the Net
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· Score: 2, Informative
And I'm hearing from people who insist that Linux is not exactly ownerless, either. "Linux is a registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds" appears on 268,000 Web documents, Google tells me. In at least one sense, these folks say, Linus owns Linux. That means it is, in a limited sense, proprietary.
This statement is ludicrous. Linus owns the name Linux, not the operating system. There is a very big difference. He owns none of the code. He only has control over what can be called Linux. So far he seems to have been pretty lenient with that trademark as there are over a hundred distros and most, if not all of them, use the word Linux in some part of their name.
How is anyone who is sharing mp3s supposed to know whether or not the person downloading the song has or has not bought the cd already. So in effect these kids could be getting sued for sharing songs that are already legally owned by both the person sharing the songs and the person downloading the songs. I know it's highly unlikely that that is the case but how does the RIAA know that? It reminds me of the time I had the police called on me for trying to climb in through the window of my own apartment. I had locked myself out on accident and I was almost arrested for trying to enter my own apartment! The groundskeeper hadn't recognized me from a distance and because of my actions that would have been illegal otherwise I had cops knocking at my door about to bust the door down. I had to explain the whole thing to them and show them my license to prove I lived there. The point is that although their actions can be illegal they can also be legal based on the circumstances. The tragedy as someone already pointed out is the lack of due process. If you think someone is doing something illegal then get the authorities involved. Get a search warrant. Wiretap legally. Collect evidence.
rant
Suing kids thousands upon thousands of dollars is just a scare tactic. There is no way it can be proven that the amount of money the RIAA is suing for is even justifiable. Legally maybe, but definitely not realistically, ethically, or morally, not that anyone ever thought the RIAA was realistic, ethical, or moral anyway.
I've got a better idea. How about lowering the price of cd's from 17-18 dollars to 11-12 dollars. The price of CD's is rape nowadays. Most of the money doesn't even go to the artist. We're just paying for the record company's pockets to get fatter. To be honest I do download songs occasionally but usually just to preview them before I buy the CD. My old roomate would only buy a CD if it was 10 dollars or less. Everything else he just downloaded. I can't really blame him either. The record companies love the current setup. All they need is one hit on the radio and then they can sell you a full CD that has only one good song on the whole thing. Singles are pretty much a thing of that past. It's more profitable for them to sell you a whole bunch of crap that you don't want.
According to the right, both here in Aus and abroad, affirmative action is right up there with state-sponsored medical care and unemployment benefits in the stakes of Ultimate Idealogical Evil.
For a lot of us in the US those things are wanted/needed. I would love to have free healthcare provided by the government. Presently I cannot get health insurance from my employer until I've been employed there for a year (I've only been at this job for six months). Prescriptions and doctor's visits really drain my bank account. Unemployment benefits certainly helped my parents out when both my mother and father lost their long time jobs after years of hard work and dedication. Affirmative action does not help me any and I have a hard time justifying it to myself sometimes but that's because I'm not in that position. America is still very racist, especially in certain parts. I'm from the northeast where it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue but I've lived in the south for a while and it's damn near hard to tell that civil rights ever happened in this country sometimes. You're correct though, the right isn't very fond of these programs but I've had enough life experience to realize the need for them. People don't seem to understand that not everyone is rich or has the luck to keep there head above the water for their entire life. Shit happens sometimes and most of us that use and need these programs do not abuse them. We get what we need and get back on our feet again.
I don't think I could recommend it to Sally Secretary quite yet. Its still got a bit more polishing to do. In Gnome, for example, I occasionally get a dialog box that says " occurred. For more information, click on the help button." Naturally there is no help button.
So what do secretaries do when the get the BSOD or the "out of memory" screen? No one is asking secretaries to install Linux on their computers so I don't really see it as that big of a deal. As long as there is an icon on the desktop for the programs they need there shouldn't be an issue.
As for some countries that choose to allow only open source within the governement, I don't see a problem with that either. I understand that there should be a choice but requiring open source is often a security issue more than a monetary one. I'm not going to say Linux is inherently more secure (although I personally believe it so) but any security issue that may be present can be secured immediately by a government employee instead of having to wait around for Microsoft to supply a patch.
Oh, you poor thing. I hope you'll be able to save enough to buy decent software some time.
Opera is better than Explorer (tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking)
Gaim is better than MSN (supports multiple protocols)
Winamp is much better than Media Player (simple, fast, elegant; compared to slow, ugly, bloatware)
I cannot speak for The Bat because I have never used it but I hate Outlook (virus anyone?). I'd much rather use sylpheed.
The rest of the story is that coke still holds a tangible advantage (about 10 percentage points) in the US market while it has about 90% marketshare in the rest of the world. So, while Pepsi may be a big company, Coke still isn't really threatened by it.
what's wrong with communism...it's only failed because of pressure from capitalist countries...it might have worked quite well without the tension caused by the juxtaposition of two competing ideologies...it's underlying principles are quite sound
On paper it is a good system and so is unregulated capitalism. The problem is when you introduce either of them to reality. Look at Russia for an example of both. The middle path seems to be the best option as it usually is. Motivation by success but regulation of greed.
Computers evolved from being tools to becoming a source of entertainment. Not only did the internet help with this, but the processors had become poweful enough to do things like play video. CD-ROMS stored enough information to make that viable. The missing piece was an OS to tie it all together, simple enough for anybody to use. Windows 95 was the choice. That's it. There's no arguing it. Yeah, it was unstable and buggy etc, but it still made a computer worth having.
Not true. Plenty of operating systems could do all that. Other operating systems were more advanced than Windows even. You just didn't know about them because you had no exposure to them because of...guess who...Bill Gates and his monopoly.
MS couldn't possibly have ever attained a monopoly if the market hadn't decided that they were providing what it wanted. MS would have dominated even if they did it 100% legally. (Pity they didn't, really.)
That's a pretty big supposition. "Had Microsoft not obliterated it's opponents by illegal means they would still have had a monopoly". Hmm...somehow I don't think so. In fact it is the sole reason they have a monopoly. Besides that Microsoft had already instituted it's MS tax and that meant that virtually all computers that ran on commodity hardware came preinstalled with Windows.
If you don't want to pay extra for a PC with Windows, then buy one of the alternatives (such as the PC's offered by WalMart or an Apple).
But not everyone wants crappy hardware and crappy support.
They are- you can't walk into a Toyota dealership and demand to buy a Corolla with a 5.0 liter V8- they don't offer that (just as Dell doesn't offer a PC without Windows). If you want a car with a V8, you have to shop for a car that does offer it.
That's not a valid comparison. Linux was made for PC's. V8's were never made for Corrola's. I think a better comparison is the BBC TV license. If you buy a TV you have to pay the TV license even if you never watch the BBC. Also, similarly, if they believe you own a TV and are not paying the tax they track you down and try to force you to pay it.
My point is, the fact that we haven't found anything yet, and that the weapons inspectors found nothing, doesn't mean anything. Obviously these things were so well hidden that we should not expect to be finding them.
You're proving my point for me. If everything was that well hidden then we had no proof at all that Iraq possesed WMD. You're basically admitting the government lied to the people about it's evidence. All the photos and the intelligence they have shown as evidence has not amounted to a god damn thing. What will the next lie bring?
My poingt being: You cannot justify a war after the fact. Even if you could, this war has yet to be justified.
Most of the Iraqi people were happy to see Saddam removed
Don't be so sure of that. 7000 people were killed. Their lives are much harder right now. No matter how much we promise that things will get better, it is still hard for them right now. They are not any more happy under foreign rule than they are a local tyrant.
I guess the fact that Iraq was home to numerous (admittedly non-Al Qaeda) terrorist camps and that the regime openly funded the families of suicide bombers in Israel means nothing to you. It's funny how terrorism suddenly becomes "resistance" when it's just Jews being killed. It's also rather interesting that despite all the cries that the Iraq (and Afghani) war would increase terrorism in the US, there haven't been any attacks since 9-11. I guess killing terrorists actually prevents them from striking. Who'd a thunk?
Who'd a thunk we are aiding state sponsored genocide by supporting Israel. Everyone always talks about the suicide bombers but what about the Israeli military that does much more damage to Palestinians. They're only suidice bombing because they don't have the means to stand up to a real war with Israel. It's the only real productive weapon they have. Desperate people do desperate things, especially when attacked.
I also hope you don't think the terrorism has ended. There have been many bombings in other countries. There is no doubt it will happen here again. Security is still very lax.
Nothing is preventing terrorist from striking. Bin Laden is still alive. Terrorists are still in the US. They will strike when they want to. Planning a real strike takes time. It took them years to come up with the 9/11 attacks. You're a fool if you think the terrorism has ended because of war. It only breeds more hate and more terror.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Two million people is actually two million correspondences.
2) There are three methods of correspondence - Phone, Email, snail mail.
3) Activists manufacture support by corresponding repeatedly using all methods available. Let's say 4 emails, 4 calls, and 4 letters.
So you've got each person generating a set of 12 correspondences.
2,000,000 / 12 = a little less than one million people.
And your prood is...? Oh yeah, you have none, only assumptions. I provide an article for proof but that is not good enough for you but you provide assumptions and expect me to beleive you? Get real.
Less than one million actual people is far less than one percent of the American population. Even if the actual numbers were truly 2 million, it would still be less than one percent of the population.
The point from the beginning is that people do care. If you are willing to say 2 million people don't mean a thing then you need to get your head checked.
he urged Americans to send him, the other commissioners, and members of Congress their thoughts via post, telephone and email. According to the FCC's Adelstein nearly two million people have done so. And by the FCC's own calculations, over 99.9 percent of these citizens demand that the FCC keep the existing media ownership rules, or tighten them.
It's funny how you claim an independent magazine is a "lunatic fringe news source" because it holds views that you do not. The Nation is a liberal magazine but "by the FCC's own calculations 99.9 percent of these citizens (the two million that contacted the FCC) demand that the FCC keep the existing rules or tighten them.
proof
Next time you should look up the facts before you post.
Apparently the 2 million people who contacted the FCC concerning this decision are interested in who delivers their television content.
The fact of the matter is that none of the amendments listed in the parent post are discussed anywhere in the press. Frankly, neither is this FCC amendment.
That's funny because I've seen the FCC decision all over the news. I guess it's just where you look.
I just found the stat. Over 2 million people called or emailed the FCC concerning their decision.
Actually you are wrong. There was public outrage at the decision and the FCC received more correspondence concerning this issue than any other issue ever. 97% of the people who contacted the FCC were against the decision.
Do you honestly believe that most people look at the congressional record for their news?
This is not a sound argument. First of all most of those "500-plus" channels are all owned by a few conglomerates. There is FOX, FOX NEWS, FOX SPORTS, and there are 5 HBO's and 5 Showtimes, and then there is AOL Time Warner and so on and so forth. There were only a few stations in 1973 because the technology was still in its infancy and the demand was not as high as it is today. It is important to notice that those stations were all owned by different companies so in that respect it was more diverse not less. More stations != more diversity.
Not necessarily. If it wasn't for diverse and independent media we might not even hear of some of these things that you mention. I believe the consolidation of media is a very important issue. We need to worry about this because it will affect all of us.
I'd have to disagree. Allowing huge media conglomerates to own more media outlets is not a good thing. The media has been, from the beginning of this country, the watchdog of government. It's changed, for the worse, into more of a cheerleading outfit these days and that's not a good thing and consolidation can only make it worse by allowing for less diversity and less opposing opinions. The media is supposed to keep the public informed and keep the government in check but that is less likely to happen with local issues and opposing views when the media becomes more national and less diverse. This is bound to happen when a small number of corporations own most of the media outlets across the country.
The media as a watchdog is much more important than the media as a business.
Well of course! We wouldn't want to waste any money! We'd much rather kill innocent civilians than waste some money. I really hope this post was sarcastic and not an argument on why we had to go. Besides we would have saved a lot more money not going. By your statement it is obvious that the money was already spent. In economics you cannot use that as a determining factor because you cannot recoup that money. So you must look to the future. No war would have meant no money spent on weapons and no money spent on rebuilding. So if you weren't being sarcastic then I don't really see you point.
This statement is ludicrous. Linus owns the name Linux, not the operating system. There is a very big difference. He owns none of the code. He only has control over what can be called Linux. So far he seems to have been pretty lenient with that trademark as there are over a hundred distros and most, if not all of them, use the word Linux in some part of their name.
How is anyone who is sharing mp3s supposed to know whether or not the person downloading the song has or has not bought the cd already. So in effect these kids could be getting sued for sharing songs that are already legally owned by both the person sharing the songs and the person downloading the songs. I know it's highly unlikely that that is the case but how does the RIAA know that? It reminds me of the time I had the police called on me for trying to climb in through the window of my own apartment. I had locked myself out on accident and I was almost arrested for trying to enter my own apartment! The groundskeeper hadn't recognized me from a distance and because of my actions that would have been illegal otherwise I had cops knocking at my door about to bust the door down. I had to explain the whole thing to them and show them my license to prove I lived there. The point is that although their actions can be illegal they can also be legal based on the circumstances. The tragedy as someone already pointed out is the lack of due process. If you think someone is doing something illegal then get the authorities involved. Get a search warrant. Wiretap legally. Collect evidence.
rant
Suing kids thousands upon thousands of dollars is just a scare tactic. There is no way it can be proven that the amount of money the RIAA is suing for is even justifiable. Legally maybe, but definitely not realistically, ethically, or morally, not that anyone ever thought the RIAA was realistic, ethical, or moral anyway.
I've got a better idea. How about lowering the price of cd's from 17-18 dollars to 11-12 dollars. The price of CD's is rape nowadays. Most of the money doesn't even go to the artist. We're just paying for the record company's pockets to get fatter. To be honest I do download songs occasionally but usually just to preview them before I buy the CD. My old roomate would only buy a CD if it was 10 dollars or less. Everything else he just downloaded. I can't really blame him either. The record companies love the current setup. All they need is one hit on the radio and then they can sell you a full CD that has only one good song on the whole thing. Singles are pretty much a thing of that past. It's more profitable for them to sell you a whole bunch of crap that you don't want.
For a lot of us in the US those things are wanted/needed. I would love to have free healthcare provided by the government. Presently I cannot get health insurance from my employer until I've been employed there for a year (I've only been at this job for six months). Prescriptions and doctor's visits really drain my bank account. Unemployment benefits certainly helped my parents out when both my mother and father lost their long time jobs after years of hard work and dedication. Affirmative action does not help me any and I have a hard time justifying it to myself sometimes but that's because I'm not in that position. America is still very racist, especially in certain parts. I'm from the northeast where it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue but I've lived in the south for a while and it's damn near hard to tell that civil rights ever happened in this country sometimes. You're correct though, the right isn't very fond of these programs but I've had enough life experience to realize the need for them. People don't seem to understand that not everyone is rich or has the luck to keep there head above the water for their entire life. Shit happens sometimes and most of us that use and need these programs do not abuse them. We get what we need and get back on our feet again.
So what do secretaries do when the get the BSOD or the "out of memory" screen? No one is asking secretaries to install Linux on their computers so I don't really see it as that big of a deal. As long as there is an icon on the desktop for the programs they need there shouldn't be an issue.
As for some countries that choose to allow only open source within the governement, I don't see a problem with that either. I understand that there should be a choice but requiring open source is often a security issue more than a monetary one. I'm not going to say Linux is inherently more secure (although I personally believe it so) but any security issue that may be present can be secured immediately by a government employee instead of having to wait around for Microsoft to supply a patch.
True, but an overwhelming marketshare in the rest of the world is very similar to a near-monopoly.
Opera is better than Explorer (tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking)
Gaim is better than MSN (supports multiple protocols)
Winamp is much better than Media Player (simple, fast, elegant; compared to slow, ugly, bloatware)
I cannot speak for The Bat because I have never used it but I hate Outlook (virus anyone?). I'd much rather use sylpheed.
The rest of the story is that coke still holds a tangible advantage (about 10 percentage points) in the US market while it has about 90% marketshare in the rest of the world. So, while Pepsi may be a big company, Coke still isn't really threatened by it.
I believe you mean ignorant, not agnostic.
agnostic ( P ) Pronunciation Key (g-nstk) n.
1.
- One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God
- One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.ignorant ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gnr-nt) adj.
1. Lacking education or knowledge.
2. Showing or arising from a lack of education or knowledge: an ignorant mistake.
3. Unaware or uninformed.
I don't see how a filesystem can be doubtful and noncommittal. I do beleive it can be unaware or uninformed though.
On paper it is a good system and so is unregulated capitalism. The problem is when you introduce either of them to reality. Look at Russia for an example of both. The middle path seems to be the best option as it usually is. Motivation by success but regulation of greed.
Not true. Plenty of operating systems could do all that. Other operating systems were more advanced than Windows even. You just didn't know about them because you had no exposure to them because of...guess who...Bill Gates and his monopoly.
MS couldn't possibly have ever attained a monopoly if the market hadn't decided that they were providing what it wanted. MS would have dominated even if they did it 100% legally. (Pity they didn't, really.)
That's a pretty big supposition. "Had Microsoft not obliterated it's opponents by illegal means they would still have had a monopoly". Hmm...somehow I don't think so. In fact it is the sole reason they have a monopoly. Besides that Microsoft had already instituted it's MS tax and that meant that virtually all computers that ran on commodity hardware came preinstalled with Windows.
But not everyone wants crappy hardware and crappy support.
They are- you can't walk into a Toyota dealership and demand to buy a Corolla with a 5.0 liter V8- they don't offer that (just as Dell doesn't offer a PC without Windows). If you want a car with a V8, you have to shop for a car that does offer it.
That's not a valid comparison. Linux was made for PC's. V8's were never made for Corrola's. I think a better comparison is the BBC TV license. If you buy a TV you have to pay the TV license even if you never watch the BBC. Also, similarly, if they believe you own a TV and are not paying the tax they track you down and try to force you to pay it.
Is that a euphamism for "reformating and reinstalling"?
You're proving my point for me. If everything was that well hidden then we had no proof at all that Iraq possesed WMD. You're basically admitting the government lied to the people about it's evidence. All the photos and the intelligence they have shown as evidence has not amounted to a god damn thing. What will the next lie bring?
My poingt being: You cannot justify a war after the fact. Even if you could, this war has yet to be justified.
Most of the Iraqi people were happy to see Saddam removed
Don't be so sure of that. 7000 people were killed. Their lives are much harder right now. No matter how much we promise that things will get better, it is still hard for them right now. They are not any more happy under foreign rule than they are a local tyrant.
Who'd a thunk we are aiding state sponsored genocide by supporting Israel. Everyone always talks about the suicide bombers but what about the Israeli military that does much more damage to Palestinians. They're only suidice bombing because they don't have the means to stand up to a real war with Israel. It's the only real productive weapon they have. Desperate people do desperate things, especially when attacked.
I also hope you don't think the terrorism has ended. There have been many bombings in other countries. There is no doubt it will happen here again. Security is still very lax.
Nothing is preventing terrorist from striking. Bin Laden is still alive. Terrorists are still in the US. They will strike when they want to. Planning a real strike takes time. It took them years to come up with the 9/11 attacks. You're a fool if you think the terrorism has ended because of war. It only breeds more hate and more terror.