Translation: I don't need a car to feel free or justify the size of my dick. When I need a car, I rent one or hire a driver. Most of the chicks I hook up with don't have cars either. I'm guessing you live somewhere that you couldn't possibly commute without one. Not everyone lives in such a place. Much like New York and Chicago, a car can be a hinderance for us in certain places.
And even if I needed one and lived in a city where a car was convenient, I wouldn't own one. By not wasting a lot of money on a car each month, I'm able to justify my less than necessary purchase. Things like my second 30" Apple Cinema Display and my Omega Xbox 360 bundle on reserve at Gamestop.
You might be surprised how little chicks care if you don't have a car when you have a driver taking you both out to an expensive exotic dinner.
Anyway, I guess I can see the appeal of a car to your typical American male. I just don't get off on it. I'd rather have someone else do the driving while I do some work or read the newspaper or run through some documents for a meeting later in the day.
Doesn't it seem a little pathetic though? Should you really have to educate a parent that letting your kid chat with strangers, run off to meet them and even buy plane tickets to go visit them is a pretty bad idea? For that matter, should children really need to be educated on that?
Maybe parents are a lot different than two decades ago, but when I was a little kid, it was pretty obvious that you don't just talk to strangers, much less wander off with them... even less fly across the country to be with them. If you were too dumb for that kind of common sense, your parents drilled it into your head and so did your school and every children's program on television.
Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean you don't have to apply the same common sense. "Oh, I met them over the internet, so it's okay to wander off with them even though they're 30 years older than me and I just learned to tie my shoes". What the hell?!
I really hate blaming the victims, but jesus christ it takes an incredible amount of stupidity to do something like that and nobody should have to be "educated" that it's a bad idea. And if they do, then parents should do the educating and the limiting.. and the parents most certainly should not need to be educated themselves that it's a bad idea to let their kids do those things.
Why is it that whenever you bring in the word "internet" or "computer", everyone just gets really stupid suddenly? If your car was on fire, you'd get an extinguisher and spray it on there. If your house was on fire, you'd run the hell out and call 911. If your computer was on fire, people would just stare at it, completely baffled, and wonder what they should do until it exploded and set everything else ablaze.
So, this advertisement in Business Week gets mentioned on Slashdot for more advertsing, huh? Business Week - the heralded scientific publication that it is. *yawn*
The concept of "love mapping" is just dumb. I'll tell you what is required - a good looking chick and a good looking guy - preferably with money, power or fame - all three in best of circumstances.
All the other bullshit is just that - bullshit. People can justify their attractions or what they desire in someone all they want, but guys deep down don't want the smart witty girl - unless she also happens to be totally hot. The girl doesn't want the sensitive feminine guy - she wants the hot guy with money or power and charisma.
It's really not that hard to figure out. I guess if you're ugly and have no money, power or charisma, then you try to hope there is some other random element involved, but you know deep down that you're kidding yourselves.
Under the same premise that because SOME children are too stupid to use the internet without giving their information out to total strangers, flying out to meet them and getting raped so we should just ban all children -- why not ban all parents from being around their children to prevent the few stupid parents that abuse their children?
If we're going to use the "avoid athlete's feet by cutting off your foot" solution to things involving children, why stop at the internet or videogames?
Why didn't it go over well? The entire country outsources tech work and is rewarded for it while the students are bright enough to emulate that strategy to their own benefit and they're considers cheats?
You should look into those envelope-stuffing careers. Or buying crappy houses, repainting them and reselling them. Or placing ads in classifieds across the country. I hear you can get rich from those with only a couple hours of work per week, in your own home, wearing nothing but your underwear.
And exactly how do we know that? How many ice ages has "recorded history" gone through? None, I'm pretty sure. Didn't we just discover fire before the last ice-age? We don't even have weather statistics for the entire past century - but we somehow know for sure that global warming is real, is entirely caused by humans and is going to kill us all?
There's nothing wrong with playing it safe. There's certainly no reason for society not to conserve and live clean, but let's not jump to conclusions, either.
I might be confused then. Are we talking about "whiteboard" systems similar to WebEX? Or are we talking about "whiteboard systems" such as the actual physical whiteboards that a lot of schools have in the classroom where the whiteboard is illuminated and accepts input both from a stylus-like tool and a computer?
Since we were mentioning educational institutions (real ones, not those crappy "Pheonix Online" things), I presumed we were talking about actually attending classes. Or does MIT and Brown University offer study-from-home masters degrees now?
Plus, who would have kids to never see them again?
Hi, you must be new to this country . . .;)
Well, let's see.. plenty of "fathers". Drug users. Mental cases. I'm sure we all know people who put drugs, sex, stripping or any other number of selfish things above their own children...
I'm just tired of seeing people praise jesus and talk about the sins and risks of the internet or any other "evil" and then dress up their 4 year old to look like a 30 year old bar-slut and enter her into pageants or put their teenage daughter into cheer-leading so she can tramp around half naked toentice all the old men who come to football games to watch their sons play ball.
If you rape a coworker, girlfriend or a stranger - it's a violent crime. If you rape a child, it's a violent crime. If you rape YOUR child, you're a troubled person who needs therapy (assuming anyone even turns you in).
If you beat-up a coworker, girlfriend or a stranger, it's a violent crime and you'll do time. If you beat-up a child, you're a horrid criminal and a monster. If you beat-up your child by the fist or belt or two-by-fours or a hose or any random objects routinely, you're someone with "anger problems" and you need to get therapy.
So yeah, I would say that the least safe place a lot of children could be is with their parents. Especially since the way we treat parents who mistreat their own children is to such a lesser degree than how we treat parents who mistreat anyone else in the world.
You should also look into the stats on biological mothers. The most likely group of people to murder their children (by something like ten to one).
So the same busy body trying to NERF-ify the entire world out there to protect their children is probably putting their children at risk just by letting them be around family members - if not themselves.
But it's interesting how all the scaremongering goes towards games and the internet rather than parents. Or hell, even priests. The internet and videogames get an even worse wrap than god's own henchmen.
As an average citizen, I don't even care. I'll be dead before it ever impacts me. That's not a very nice thing to say - I know - but it's practical.
How many hundreds of people will have to nit-pick their entire lives over every purchase they make, every item they reuse, every thing they throw away, every little thing they consume, washing out tin cans to reuse them for... whatever... -- just to compensate for one illegally dumped barrel or government legitimized "waste disposal"?
Anyway, I figure I've already done my part. I don't drive or own a car and I don't intend to have any kids.
Frankly, I'm not sold on "man is killing the planet and causing it to heat up!". I'm open to it, but not sold on it. Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt for people, businesses and governments to take precautions anyway. Just because we may not be directly responsible for any global warming or cooling wouldn't mean that we shouldn't try to keep our planet clean and habitable for all on it anyway.
If this trend continues though, I'll just start wearing whatever the appropriate colored ribbon is that shows I care about the environment. Look at all the people with aids that red ribbons have helped. It's almost like fricking prayer beads! Ooh!
Fox News does a decent job, imho - it doesn't pretend that Anne Coulter et al are doing anything other than editorializing. NPR is a different story, however. I find it very hard to tell when they are playing news content and playing editorial content.
Why call it the fox NEWS channel if all you're going to do is have hour after hour of editorializing? That's like listening to someone's cranky old grandfather bitch about current events in his rocking chair and calling it a "news hour".
I didn't like him when he was on Hard Copy / Inside Edition and I don't like him now. He used to work in Portland. He also used to be a teacher. How frightening is that? I think I'd kill myself if I were his student.
Being an international student in the US, I use audio and/or video conversation to talk to my family almost every weekends. This is one of the cheapest if no the most convenient way of holding video conversatons with those that are far far away from you. Does that answer your question?
Strange. I always thought that email and instant messaging were free. I didn't realize they were more expensive than videoconferencing.
How in the hell would some of you people have managed to live 50 years ago when all you had was a telephone? Or worse, a hundred years ago when you would have had to write letters? Now everyone's all heartbroken and bawling because they can't see people's lips moving in real time in cruddy webcam quality video from across the country or globe.
It still does not answer the question of why it should be bundled as a standard feature of a chat client. As the original person was saying "now I don't have to deal with getting people to install netmeeting!". Well, if video chatting is that important to you, then what's so difficult about installing a special application for that?
Is this not what most of us refer to as bloat and feature creep? Why is it that suddenly in this one instance, it's the holy fucking grail and the best thing to ever happen in the world?! Hell, why not cram videoconferencing into OpenOffice and AbiWord, too? Those are communication devices and sometimes I'd rather talk face to face with someoen than send them a spreadsheet, you know?
How about the father whose infant son is growing up without him because he's off fighting in Iraq... do you think that he considers seeing his kid a stupid addition that has no benefit over a text message? How about having his kid see and hear him, even if the best at that time is over the screen?
It's a valid example of why videoconferencing is useful in some situations. it is not a compelling example of why it needs to be part of the standard, typical instant messaging client. There are a lot of things that are useful to a lot of people, individually. That doesn't mean they all need to be crammed into the same utility just to please everyone. If videoconferencing is really that important to you - go get a videoconferencing application and use it. Do't try to replace instant messaging or gag the clients with more bundled crap and protocols.
And while I'm not in the military, I sincerely doubt the armed forces use AOL Instant Messenger's video chat functionality to facilitate the communication.
Also an example of the stupidity of knocking some chick up when you know you're not going to be around. But I'll save that karma burning for another day.
Anyway - seriously - what is wrong with you people?! Are you all the same people who watch Comcast commercials where they talk about how awesome it is to "go willy nilly all over the internet with careless abandon" and "video email is the best thing ever!" and think they're "right on"?
If video instant messaging is so important, why hasn't video email gone anywhere? Because it's a hassle and unnecessary. And no matter what, it's always going to be a hassle and unnecessary for the majority of users.
As for the long distance dating thing... uh... whatever. If video conferencing makes up for not having an actual significant other on the same half of the continent with you, then more power to you.
Okay, I'll put aside the fact that seeing people animated on a screen doesn't make them any closer than typing to them or talking ot them on the phone.
The point still stands that even by most people's admission, the frequency of occasions where videoconferencing is needed is very limited. You do not spend most of your time talking to long lost familiy. You do not spend most of your time having to visually show someone some pottery you sculpted in real-time. You do not spend most of your work day in conferences where you need video the entire time.
Most people chat briefly with family, friends or colleagues in ways which text is more than sufficient. The times you would need video are big expections. Does that mean we shouldn't have video conferencing? Of course not. But let's not get ahead of ourselves and act like it's going to replace instant messaging or like every bit of communication - from blogs to wikipedia to asking your coworker what time the staff meeting is to asking your best friend when they want to go see a movie - needs to be done over video.
It might be nifty and trendy for a few times, but then like a lot of these things, people will get tired of it, get frustrated, find it doesn't add much and stop using it except for those few rare occasions where it is actually beneficial.
Most instant messaging does not involve someone across the globe chatting with a loved one while they hitchhike through a continent. These are exceptions that justify videoconferencing - they don't justify replacing instant messaging or cramming conferencing *into* instant messaging clients.
The ONLY reason anyone would consider cramming video conferencing into simple chat clients is because they want to capitalize on the existing user-base. Period. It could just as well be (and should be) a separate entity.
Nobody said that TV and Telephones and CDs and DVD players are not an "improvement". But just because each of those things are useful in their own way at their own times to certain people in certain situations does not mean I need a DVD-playing, television broadcasting receiving, CD playing, voice-recording, etch-a-ketch-enabled single device.
Likewise, if you want a videchat client - get one. make one. Sell one. Whatever. But why does everything have to be crammed into one little ball? Most of our communication does *not* need to be visual. Some, perhaps - but not most. Not even a lot. So why cram the kitchen sink into something that's fine as it is?
Do you want Slashdot comments to be replaced with 100,000 video clips of people leaving comments about the article? Come on. Video is not an improvement in all areas and it shouldn't just be thrown in because we all want to live like the Jetsons.
Do you read books? Why are you reading books when there's television, you fucking luddite?
When have you actually see "video conferencing" used on a regular basis in a corporate environment? That is, in a day to day way that is actually *necessary*? I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to hit up the guy on a campus on the other side of the country and face-to-face with him when I could just paste in a defect number in Jabber and say "Hey, what's the news on this?" or something.
Video is largely overkill and jamming it into an instant messaging client is definitely overkill. They should be two separate things and left that way.
If it was such an important aspect, videophones would be selling like wild. They're not. Nobody cares. Nobody uses them. You'll just end up with a bunch of networked MySpace and LiveJournal dorks bombarding the networks with huge quantities of data tryinig to hit on each other and desparate chicks flashign their breasts and pathetic "couples" having "virtual dates" with people they've still never met. This sort of thing won't be put to much use, just like voice chat online hasnt' been put to much use. Do you do most of your commmunication online via jabber and email -- or do you actually do most of it via voice and video? Because if you do, I would be extremely surprised.
Again, not everything is more productive or efficient or effective or useful just because you slap video into it.
I would also doubt that "most people" use jabber to "communicate with their loved ones".
So let me understand. Person A creates something. Person A manages something. Person B comes along and gets all pissy and wants Person A to give up shop and let Person B run it.
The internet is a global thing now, but let's just remember that the root servers are in this country, contracted by this militar for a *reason*. It's not like we just went to some other country and took control of their root servers. They're *our* root servers for *our* internet.
Or is the whole DARPA thing just a figment of my imagination?
Slashdot Mirror
Home filter will clean out the chlorine. I can't drink regular unfiltered tap water. I can smell the chlorine in it from ten feet away.
Translation: I don't need a car to feel free or justify the size of my dick. When I need a car, I rent one or hire a driver. Most of the chicks I hook up with don't have cars either. I'm guessing you live somewhere that you couldn't possibly commute without one. Not everyone lives in such a place. Much like New York and Chicago, a car can be a hinderance for us in certain places.
And even if I needed one and lived in a city where a car was convenient, I wouldn't own one. By not wasting a lot of money on a car each month, I'm able to justify my less than necessary purchase. Things like my second 30" Apple Cinema Display and my Omega Xbox 360 bundle on reserve at Gamestop.
You might be surprised how little chicks care if you don't have a car when you have a driver taking you both out to an expensive exotic dinner.
Anyway, I guess I can see the appeal of a car to your typical American male. I just don't get off on it. I'd rather have someone else do the driving while I do some work or read the newspaper or run through some documents for a meeting later in the day.
Doesn't it seem a little pathetic though? Should you really have to educate a parent that letting your kid chat with strangers, run off to meet them and even buy plane tickets to go visit them is a pretty bad idea? For that matter, should children really need to be educated on that?
Maybe parents are a lot different than two decades ago, but when I was a little kid, it was pretty obvious that you don't just talk to strangers, much less wander off with them... even less fly across the country to be with them. If you were too dumb for that kind of common sense, your parents drilled it into your head and so did your school and every children's program on television.
Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean you don't have to apply the same common sense. "Oh, I met them over the internet, so it's okay to wander off with them even though they're 30 years older than me and I just learned to tie my shoes". What the hell?!
I really hate blaming the victims, but jesus christ it takes an incredible amount of stupidity to do something like that and nobody should have to be "educated" that it's a bad idea. And if they do, then parents should do the educating and the limiting.. and the parents most certainly should not need to be educated themselves that it's a bad idea to let their kids do those things.
Why is it that whenever you bring in the word "internet" or "computer", everyone just gets really stupid suddenly? If your car was on fire, you'd get an extinguisher and spray it on there. If your house was on fire, you'd run the hell out and call 911. If your computer was on fire, people would just stare at it, completely baffled, and wonder what they should do until it exploded and set everything else ablaze.
So, this advertisement in Business Week gets mentioned on Slashdot for more advertsing, huh? Business Week - the heralded scientific publication that it is. *yawn*
The concept of "love mapping" is just dumb. I'll tell you what is required - a good looking chick and a good looking guy - preferably with money, power or fame - all three in best of circumstances.
All the other bullshit is just that - bullshit. People can justify their attractions or what they desire in someone all they want, but guys deep down don't want the smart witty girl - unless she also happens to be totally hot. The girl doesn't want the sensitive feminine guy - she wants the hot guy with money or power and charisma.
It's really not that hard to figure out. I guess if you're ugly and have no money, power or charisma, then you try to hope there is some other random element involved, but you know deep down that you're kidding yourselves.
Under the same premise that because SOME children are too stupid to use the internet without giving their information out to total strangers, flying out to meet them and getting raped so we should just ban all children -- why not ban all parents from being around their children to prevent the few stupid parents that abuse their children?
If we're going to use the "avoid athlete's feet by cutting off your foot" solution to things involving children, why stop at the internet or videogames?
Why didn't it go over well? The entire country outsources tech work and is rewarded for it while the students are bright enough to emulate that strategy to their own benefit and they're considers cheats?
That's why I move to a new part of the country every decade or two. HAH! Now who's short-sighted, huh?
Oh, also, my water goes through a filtration process since I live in a city and not a little hick town. Then there's the home filtration process, too.
You should look into those envelope-stuffing careers. Or buying crappy houses, repainting them and reselling them. Or placing ads in classifieds across the country. I hear you can get rich from those with only a couple hours of work per week, in your own home, wearing nothing but your underwear.
And exactly how do we know that? How many ice ages has "recorded history" gone through? None, I'm pretty sure. Didn't we just discover fire before the last ice-age? We don't even have weather statistics for the entire past century - but we somehow know for sure that global warming is real, is entirely caused by humans and is going to kill us all?
There's nothing wrong with playing it safe. There's certainly no reason for society not to conserve and live clean, but let's not jump to conclusions, either.
I might be confused then. Are we talking about "whiteboard" systems similar to WebEX? Or are we talking about "whiteboard systems" such as the actual physical whiteboards that a lot of schools have in the classroom where the whiteboard is illuminated and accepts input both from a stylus-like tool and a computer?
Since we were mentioning educational institutions (real ones, not those crappy "Pheonix Online" things), I presumed we were talking about actually attending classes. Or does MIT and Brown University offer study-from-home masters degrees now?
Plus, who would have kids to never see them again?
;)
Hi, you must be new to this country . . .
Well, let's see.. plenty of "fathers". Drug users. Mental cases. I'm sure we all know people who put drugs, sex, stripping or any other number of selfish things above their own children...
I'm just tired of seeing people praise jesus and talk about the sins and risks of the internet or any other "evil" and then dress up their 4 year old to look like a 30 year old bar-slut and enter her into pageants or put their teenage daughter into cheer-leading so she can tramp around half naked toentice all the old men who come to football games to watch their sons play ball.
Let me put it this way.
If you rape a coworker, girlfriend or a stranger - it's a violent crime. If you rape a child, it's a violent crime. If you rape YOUR child, you're a troubled person who needs therapy (assuming anyone even turns you in).
If you beat-up a coworker, girlfriend or a stranger, it's a violent crime and you'll do time. If you beat-up a child, you're a horrid criminal and a monster. If you beat-up your child by the fist or belt or two-by-fours or a hose or any random objects routinely, you're someone with "anger problems" and you need to get therapy.
So yeah, I would say that the least safe place a lot of children could be is with their parents. Especially since the way we treat parents who mistreat their own children is to such a lesser degree than how we treat parents who mistreat anyone else in the world.
You should also look into the stats on biological mothers. The most likely group of people to murder their children (by something like ten to one).
So the same busy body trying to NERF-ify the entire world out there to protect their children is probably putting their children at risk just by letting them be around family members - if not themselves.
But it's interesting how all the scaremongering goes towards games and the internet rather than parents. Or hell, even priests. The internet and videogames get an even worse wrap than god's own henchmen.
So basically you're pissed because people value THEIR liberty more than they value the chunk of flesh you squirted out into the world? Tough.
I just throw my stuff in the trash and it's still someone else's problem.
So does that mean that fat asses like myself are beneficial to the climate, because we block out plenty of sun, too?
As an average citizen, I don't even care. I'll be dead before it ever impacts me. That's not a very nice thing to say - I know - but it's practical.
How many hundreds of people will have to nit-pick their entire lives over every purchase they make, every item they reuse, every thing they throw away, every little thing they consume, washing out tin cans to reuse them for... whatever... -- just to compensate for one illegally dumped barrel or government legitimized "waste disposal"?
Anyway, I figure I've already done my part. I don't drive or own a car and I don't intend to have any kids.
Frankly, I'm not sold on "man is killing the planet and causing it to heat up!". I'm open to it, but not sold on it. Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt for people, businesses and governments to take precautions anyway. Just because we may not be directly responsible for any global warming or cooling wouldn't mean that we shouldn't try to keep our planet clean and habitable for all on it anyway.
If this trend continues though, I'll just start wearing whatever the appropriate colored ribbon is that shows I care about the environment. Look at all the people with aids that red ribbons have helped. It's almost like fricking prayer beads! Ooh!
Fox News does a decent job, imho - it doesn't pretend that Anne Coulter et al are doing anything other than editorializing. NPR is a different story, however. I find it very hard to tell when they are playing news content and playing editorial content.
Why call it the fox NEWS channel if all you're going to do is have hour after hour of editorializing? That's like listening to someone's cranky old grandfather bitch about current events in his rocking chair and calling it a "news hour".
I didn't like him when he was on Hard Copy / Inside Edition and I don't like him now. He used to work in Portland. He also used to be a teacher. How frightening is that? I think I'd kill myself if I were his student.
Being an international student in the US, I use audio and/or video conversation to talk to my family almost every weekends. This is one of the cheapest if no the most convenient way of holding video conversatons with those that are far far away from you. Does that answer your question?
Strange. I always thought that email and instant messaging were free. I didn't realize they were more expensive than videoconferencing.
How in the hell would some of you people have managed to live 50 years ago when all you had was a telephone? Or worse, a hundred years ago when you would have had to write letters? Now everyone's all heartbroken and bawling because they can't see people's lips moving in real time in cruddy webcam quality video from across the country or globe.
It still does not answer the question of why it should be bundled as a standard feature of a chat client. As the original person was saying "now I don't have to deal with getting people to install netmeeting!". Well, if video chatting is that important to you, then what's so difficult about installing a special application for that?
Is this not what most of us refer to as bloat and feature creep? Why is it that suddenly in this one instance, it's the holy fucking grail and the best thing to ever happen in the world?! Hell, why not cram videoconferencing into OpenOffice and AbiWord, too? Those are communication devices and sometimes I'd rather talk face to face with someoen than send them a spreadsheet, you know?
How about the father whose infant son is growing up without him because he's off fighting in Iraq... do you think that he considers seeing his kid a stupid addition that has no benefit over a text message? How about having his kid see and hear him, even if the best at that time is over the screen?
It's a valid example of why videoconferencing is useful in some situations. it is not a compelling example of why it needs to be part of the standard, typical instant messaging client. There are a lot of things that are useful to a lot of people, individually. That doesn't mean they all need to be crammed into the same utility just to please everyone. If videoconferencing is really that important to you - go get a videoconferencing application and use it. Do't try to replace instant messaging or gag the clients with more bundled crap and protocols.
And while I'm not in the military, I sincerely doubt the armed forces use AOL Instant Messenger's video chat functionality to facilitate the communication.
Also an example of the stupidity of knocking some chick up when you know you're not going to be around. But I'll save that karma burning for another day.
Anyway - seriously - what is wrong with you people?! Are you all the same people who watch Comcast commercials where they talk about how awesome it is to "go willy nilly all over the internet with careless abandon" and "video email is the best thing ever!" and think they're "right on"?
If video instant messaging is so important, why hasn't video email gone anywhere? Because it's a hassle and unnecessary. And no matter what, it's always going to be a hassle and unnecessary for the majority of users.
As for the long distance dating thing... uh... whatever. If video conferencing makes up for not having an actual significant other on the same half of the continent with you, then more power to you.
Okay, I'll put aside the fact that seeing people animated on a screen doesn't make them any closer than typing to them or talking ot them on the phone.
The point still stands that even by most people's admission, the frequency of occasions where videoconferencing is needed is very limited. You do not spend most of your time talking to long lost familiy. You do not spend most of your time having to visually show someone some pottery you sculpted in real-time. You do not spend most of your work day in conferences where you need video the entire time.
Most people chat briefly with family, friends or colleagues in ways which text is more than sufficient. The times you would need video are big expections. Does that mean we shouldn't have video conferencing? Of course not. But let's not get ahead of ourselves and act like it's going to replace instant messaging or like every bit of communication - from blogs to wikipedia to asking your coworker what time the staff meeting is to asking your best friend when they want to go see a movie - needs to be done over video.
It might be nifty and trendy for a few times, but then like a lot of these things, people will get tired of it, get frustrated, find it doesn't add much and stop using it except for those few rare occasions where it is actually beneficial.
Most instant messaging does not involve someone across the globe chatting with a loved one while they hitchhike through a continent. These are exceptions that justify videoconferencing - they don't justify replacing instant messaging or cramming conferencing *into* instant messaging clients.
The ONLY reason anyone would consider cramming video conferencing into simple chat clients is because they want to capitalize on the existing user-base. Period. It could just as well be (and should be) a separate entity.
Nobody said that TV and Telephones and CDs and DVD players are not an "improvement". But just because each of those things are useful in their own way at their own times to certain people in certain situations does not mean I need a DVD-playing, television broadcasting receiving, CD playing, voice-recording, etch-a-ketch-enabled single device.
Likewise, if you want a videchat client - get one. make one. Sell one. Whatever. But why does everything have to be crammed into one little ball? Most of our communication does *not* need to be visual. Some, perhaps - but not most. Not even a lot. So why cram the kitchen sink into something that's fine as it is?
Do you want Slashdot comments to be replaced with 100,000 video clips of people leaving comments about the article? Come on. Video is not an improvement in all areas and it shouldn't just be thrown in because we all want to live like the Jetsons.
Do you read books? Why are you reading books when there's television, you fucking luddite?
Just because people like you want every medium to turn into "television" doesn't me that it should be implemented.
When have you actually see "video conferencing" used on a regular basis in a corporate environment? That is, in a day to day way that is actually *necessary*? I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to hit up the guy on a campus on the other side of the country and face-to-face with him when I could just paste in a defect number in Jabber and say "Hey, what's the news on this?" or something.
Video is largely overkill and jamming it into an instant messaging client is definitely overkill. They should be two separate things and left that way.
If it was such an important aspect, videophones would be selling like wild. They're not. Nobody cares. Nobody uses them. You'll just end up with a bunch of networked MySpace and LiveJournal dorks bombarding the networks with huge quantities of data tryinig to hit on each other and desparate chicks flashign their breasts and pathetic "couples" having "virtual dates" with people they've still never met. This sort of thing won't be put to much use, just like voice chat online hasnt' been put to much use. Do you do most of your commmunication online via jabber and email -- or do you actually do most of it via voice and video? Because if you do, I would be extremely surprised.
Again, not everything is more productive or efficient or effective or useful just because you slap video into it.
I would also doubt that "most people" use jabber to "communicate with their loved ones".
So let me understand. Person A creates something. Person A manages something. Person B comes along and gets all pissy and wants Person A to give up shop and let Person B run it.
The internet is a global thing now, but let's just remember that the root servers are in this country, contracted by this militar for a *reason*. It's not like we just went to some other country and took control of their root servers. They're *our* root servers for *our* internet.
Or is the whole DARPA thing just a figment of my imagination?