I was under the impression that the antarctic was protected land, by international treaty, the worlds biggest nature reserve, or something of the sort. How can there be a land rush in land that is internationally protected? I mean under all that ice there are plenty of resources etc., but its not going to do much good when it's patrolled by satellites looking for settlers...
Looking at your posting history, this is your first post! Congratulations! I'm glad I can inspire you to not only make your first post, but to make it a troll! And a shit one, too! Second account anyone?:D I'd take you up on that bet, but I don't really want an unopenable wankmag collection and the keys to your mothers basement. Don't forget, if you stick your hand in the freezer for a minute or two, it feels like someone elses!
even have stupid graphical smileys and sounds if you want
Oops, sounds like someone doesn't have a girlfriend... Seriously tho, girls love that stuff, and when I say girls I don't meant the traumatised, hairy hellbeasts that pass as geek girls, I mean volleyball playing, active social life, shopping loving women.
:D
Like my 17 year old cheerleader girlfriend.
:D:D
Yeah yeah, okay, heres my geek badge and pda... sniff...
Hey this is like dawn of the dead, with our online civilisation being torn apart, undead (or passably resembling) politicians shambling about, eating servers... fuckit, I'm stockpiling pr0n and MP3s, ripping tiava and askjolene as we speak, and my klite client is starting to smoke, gonna barricade myself in the basement with some buckets and burgers until the last of em decompose... Its every man for himself! Seeya on the other side!
Whoa that was quick. Well I've used both gaim and trillian, and they just don't hold a candle to yahoo, IMHO. I'd rather have the option to use features and not use them, than not have them at all. If you want to use yahoo as a bare chat client, its as easy as 1-2-3, no need to use any other features. Besides neither gaim nor trillian have their own servers, and believe me thats a useful option. Besides its got lil animated yeller faces. How can you not love the lil yeller faces?
Free, eh? Tell me, what software besides Yahoo IM are you running? Is it Windows? Is Windows free? If so, please be quiet, and listen to was the Free Software guys are talking about, when they talk about open protocols, and Free (really) software.
On the whole, I would say for most businesses, this guy is right. Someone is paid to create something, it better do what it says on the tin, no more and certainly no less. In software however, developing for the windows platform at least, its practically impossible to know if in a given scenario a certain program when given certain inputs, for example, will crash, since its closed source and developers often have to work with what they are given, in terms of APIs etc.
But this is where open source shines, developers have access to the whole operation from top to bottom, and can actually see the tiny cogs where things interact on a basic level. So its not the developers' fault if code has bugs, once it went through QA and reasonable care was taken. How can it be when they are working blind half the time? The ones held liable should be MS, but unfortunately that can't happen since they are just protecting their intellectual property. Which leads us to the inescapable conclusion that IP laws, with regard to software at least, are terribly flawed. I wonder where this guy stands on that issue?
Honestly, I think the only way to go about this is to completely outlaw all campaign contributions. There should be a complete overhaul of the voting system, whereby candidates wil have to present their views and ideas in a public forum, open to challenges from their opposition and from the public. This would scale up nicely, with higher level debates being opposed by defeated candidates from previous rounds. The main reason this doesn't exist already is because the current political systems all eveolved pre-tv and mass media. In fact we could remove politicians from the equation entirely by just setting up a secure network and having advocates argue for and against certain bills, and the public voting for it directly, every evening...
And how much did you fucking pay for it? I seriously don't know why everyone here is so down on yahoo. Besides overcommercialising everything, they provide absoloutely great services for free, the best of which is their yahoo messenger. Its the only place where the relatively uninitiated can log in and chat to complete strangers a planet away. MSN won't let you do it without paying them. And don't talk to me about the IRC channels; yahoo is to them what a concorde is to a guy jumping off his house.
Trillian, jabber, all of these might be technically slightly better under the hood, but in terms of end user experience, the slick and FREE package offered by yahoo is so far ahead that these chat clients will in all probability never catch up.
I have met some fascinating people and turned up a great deal of commercial opportunity by the use of yahoo. Where else can you click a button and chat to people from Vietnam to Africa to Brazil to the US? I was talking to an Iranian woman there the last day. She astounded me with her quick witted and very together responses. Not at all what I expected from what I assumed would be a trampled-upon muslim female. Then again, she was astounded to hear the US was threatening to invade her country, so you live and learn, eh...
Yahoo isn't sharp enough to be google, and its not evil enough to be microsoft. Its like the bumbling uncle of the internet. Yahoo mail is solid as a rock, and so simple to use that it beats most client side interfaces hands down. And did I mention free? Honestly, most of the crying about yahoo comes back to their use of advertising. If you don't like advertising, give back your TV. Because its not much use without any programming. And you may as well return your DVD collection too. And polish up your credit cards for slashdot's coffers, because you can bet Taco and co aren't going to fork over the fees for bandwidth so you can whine publicly about advertising and its evils. And google, everyone's favourite, would not be here tomorrow if you turned off the advertising (unlike M$).
artists cannot sell anything they record with a label themselves, so unfortunately, the site idea (which I would love) can't work.
Actually the site idea comes from the mess that various artists have landed themselves in with the record companies. What you'd have to do is get those new bands and artists that aren't yet signed up with a record company on board, and those artists that are well established that have managed to wrestle free of them, and get the ball rolling with them. Its not an overnight fix, but it would restore the balance of power somewhat, and eventually would spell the practical end for the mass music conglomerates. A lost cause that isn't?
I have a suggestion... what about artists each set up their own website (yes yes I know many have, bear with me), and offer simple MP3 downloads for a buck apiece, similar to itunes except they keep all save the bandwidth. Not going to work? If you think about it though, is a person who is going to pay for the music in the first place going to share the music on edonkey or klite? Probably not. But then you run into problems with people who swap their MP3 collections with their friends, friends who have no compunction about putting their entire collection on the file sharing networks, or kids who used their parents' credit cards to buy the song or songs, and share them for the kudos.
So basically you have one or two months before your song downloads start dropping, and of course then you will still have the fans that are willing to pay the dollar. And don't forget, many people patronise itunes, even though they could almost certainly get the songs on p2p networks.
Therefore to maintain this kind of business, bands would need to release a new song every month or so. The rest is just marketing (very cheap online, if you pick your keywords right), maybe a bit of touring... nothing to it really. This would mean the really good artists would gain the fame they deserve, not the bought and paid for fame of the record companies. And those with dreams of vast riches would be well advised to steer clear of the RIAA et al anyway.
(the intuative ability to know where your body parts are)
Well when you think about it, a car is just an exoskeleton really, and we can manage to drive them around without too much trouble. I doubt maneuvering a real exo around will be any more difficult than wearing a coat two sizes too large...
I think you're so focused on your anti-American sentiment
Actually I quite like Americans, in as much as one could be said to like any large group of people.
I don't know where you got the idea that the U.S. economy has been on a "war footing"
Tell me, what percentage of the US GNP goes to "defence"? And while we're on it, defence against what, exactly... Its not like anyone will ever invade a nuclear armed state. Heck, you could get rid of your entire army and still stay safe and happy with just the nukes.
(and loss of life, dude there are a lot of us buried in Europe)
Well I do believe you just invoked the recently created "Melissa's law", which states that any American claiming credit for winning WWII for Europe without having actually fought in said war automatically loses the argument by default, or words to that effect. But thats neither here nor there. Ho hum. And lets not forget, a couple of centuries ago, most of "you" were "us".
given the general instability of the world since the breakup of the Soviet Empire
Legendary point, I must say. And how much of this instability do you think is the fault of the US?
that would be just happy as clams to just annex your happy little complacent ass: the only reason they don't is because they know we might intervene
And when these mighty totalitarians return home to the ticking glass oceans that were their homes, I can only hope that their aggression was worth it. Wake up, you idiot, no one with nukes needs an army. And if the US thinks an army means anything to a nuclear armed state, well they need only invade North Korea for a swift education.
Superpowers are like elephants in china shops in that regard: stuff gets broken.
So you have to break some eggs to make an omelette? Impressive, thats almost... totalitarian.
if they thought about it for a minute or two (people like you, perhaps) would realize that the only thing between them and an occupying force is the United States
That and the nukes. How is it that you keep forgetting the nukes? They are hard to forget. The same nukes which, by the way, the rest of the world is very glad stand between them and the US right now.
EU was going to simply seize ownership of assets that do not belong to it,
Okay this whole paragraph is fairly demented, so I'll just deal with it quickly. If the EU wants to "seize power", they don't need to seize any assets at all. The EU has probably more assets than the US, in terms of infrastructure. All they need to do is set up their own servers and tell everyone to use them. No seizure required. I do believe many posters pointed this out in a previous discussion. Given the unpopularity of the US right now and its recent actions, I doubt the world would need much convincing. I also doubt there would be much disparity at first between US and EU servers. But population and popularity would definetely be with the Europeans. If you want to see EU websites, or the rest of the world's websites, just set your machines to treat those nameservers as authoritative. If not, stick to US net.
To summarise, in your amazingly tangential defence of the US, you missed the whole point of my post. I am not trying to say good or bad, right or wrong. I am just pointing out the motives behind the current brouhaha. This is why the UN and EU are even bothering to make a fuss, and using deliberately provocative terms like "capitulate" (these are professional diplomats by the way, no word is chosen at random). They don't need to, they could just go ahead and do it. But they are making a large public point to punish the US leadership, in a public fashion. The reasons for this are that the US has been behaving like an empire for the last while, and squandering with incredible facility the enormous amounts of international goodwill and sympathy that were built up after 9-11.
We have not done so, have expressed zero intentions of ever doing so, and are simply not interested in doing so.
You're only focusing on one facet of a large issue, and in doing so you are missing the point. Its not about control of the internet, or control of what colour shoes you wear, or control at all. Its just the rest of the world throwing a spanner in the works of what they see as an increasingly belligerent and terrifyingly detached from reality America. The motions being taken by non-US governments to mess with the US are increasing across the board, because they are very worried about the religious right wing and its influence on the chief executive officer of US-corp, who by coincidence has his chubby pink finger on an awful lot of nuclear weapons.
Thats still myopic and short term, however. Zooming out a bit, the situation the world finds itself in at this time has been seen before, its not new. Two large and powerful nations struggle, and finally one collapses into utter defeat. The victor is left with a superbly trained, massive, and extremely aggressive army. What are you going to do with your milion trained killers, fire them? Perhaps they can find gainful employment at the local walmart... Oh yes, and lets not forget that the US economy has been on a war footing for quite some time. One might almost say they are dependant on it by now.
The result, uniformly throughout history, has been an empire, all the way from Rome vs Carthage to today. Except today things are a little different, because serious empire building has a few problems riding along with it, the main one of which is a nuclear holocaust. So instead, the US has been battling with third world states and generally kicking over the tables of anyone to weak too defend themselves, in an effort to keep its armed forces occupied.
What you are seeing now is the backlash, the forced reduction of US influence and power worldwide by those with equal power, if not so much influence. I mean, think about it; if the EU really wanted to, they could set up their own Domain Name Servers and mandate that all EU states use them as authoritative. Thats easy, and easily done. So why aren't they doing it? That's not what they are trying to achieve. They are trying to publicly and diplomatically drag the US through the mud, poke the tiger with impunity, and express their displeasure with both the leadership of the only world superpower and the clowns that elected him.
Its helpful to see the big picture.
Re:This sort of thing...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
At the moment all you are is a thief with (IMO) a piss-weak justification.
You want to wake up, son. These coke sniffing, hooker humping, lawyer loving, backhander taking, oozing cankers on the arse of humanity are threatening to take away a woman's child because she downloaded some MP3s. I don't know what you would call a strong justification. Maybe they should ritually defile her while chanting verses of the copyright law?
If these wee shites want to play hardball, I suggest that we return the favour. Hire a private detective or five to take pictures of them on their weekends. Track down the mistresses, the drug connections, the dirty laundry. Filter through their trash. Compile a tasty dossier on each and every one of them, and the record company execs, too. It can't be that hard. And then, well, downloaded music will be the very least of their worries.
So lets say I have an idea. Its a good idea, maybe a great idea. And lets say I hire a couple of people who know what they are doing to research it, check out the competition. Then I put in the money to get a premises, get equipment installed, and get some HR people to find and hire some engineers to implement the idea. Using their training and skills to complete it, while collecting a healthy wage every week, and being instructed on what exactly these ideas are. When the work is done, the marketing and sales people swing into action, to let others know about my good and valuable idea, and advertisements are paid for on a wide variety of media.
Before I can get the last part going though, some nimrod middle manager decides he isn't getting enough attention and power, and takes the whole kit and kaboodle to a much larger and more powerful company, with marginal interest in my field. In fact, I had been negotiating with them to licence my idea. This fucknuts then decides that since he by himself doesn't really know a thing, he needs to pull along some others to pump up his wages, and circulates around an email. Since these people are used to doing what he tells them anyway, its easy to just go with the herd.
And this is what has happened here.
Now what you are saying has merit, no doubt. But if you want to play the game of doing the work on the projects and then skating off to the competition, you won't get work with me or anyone else. Here's what I suggest you do. Get your own ideas, pay for your own research, plant, and equipment, do your idea yourself, if you can, and then pay to market it. Then you can tell anyone you like to fuck off. Until then, fuck off.
What I'm more bothered by is that the average tech person still desires to be above everyone else in some way or another.
Its not us. Its the damn computers. Knowledge is power, and computers are information technology. We have our hands in a stream of pure information every day of our lives, we get the view from 20,000 feet 24-7, baby. Its not so much that we know it all, just that we have access to it all, which is the next best thing. It might take a conscious act of will on the part of most people to step back from that perspective.
Besides, everybody wants to above everyone else in some way or another.
-1 Troll, and about time too. Still, I can see this one coming up again and again, so heres a little perspective for you, cully. Heres a little snippet of conversation I had with an Iranian woman.
######: imagine
######: with one
######: just one
######: bomb they kill our wishes
######: our sense our lifes
######: our thinking
...
######: but
######: they can
######: launch bomb
######: cause we dont have
######: powerfull bombs like
######: theirs
Then she went on to tell me about her fear and distress, becoming more upset as the conversation went on. And just in case you thought Iran was another Afghanistan, my extraordinarily ignorant american friend, heres a wee taste of culture for you...
######: we have own musical instrument
######: iranian
######: u dont know them
######: we have tar
######: setar
######: tonbak
######: santoor
######: nei
######: daf
######: they r great
Well lets take it to its logical conclusion... what would a unified space program do, exactly? First thing I would do is set up a space station with an actual functional purpose, as a launch point for probes and a gathering point for data and samples, and expandable of course.
Next a methodical automated probe search of the whole system, with certain goals in mind, such as habitability, mineral value, and exisitng life forms. The emphasis should be on redundancy, with thousands of cheap probes sent to each planetary body, to investigate from orbit, in the atmosphere, and the surface, as well as below, where applicable, with each wave of probes designed specifically for it's environment. Sort of like MIRVs but without the nuclear payload. We can probably expect to lose the first couple of waves until we pin down exactly what is survivable in alien environments.
Once we have half an idea whats really out there, automated stations and robotic remotes should be sent to establish footholds on and around these locations, to get them self sustaining first, possibly for further scientific investigation or to prepare for human inhabitants, or to extract valuable minerals, and set up a manufacturing base (farming base too?). Then finally actual human colonists should be sent out to take over the stations. For interstellar expansion, just repeat the process.
And while we're at it, we could move essentially all manufacturing to near the sun. Set up some enormous stations near the sun, to gather that energy blasting out, and just launch raw materials to them for processing. When done, they get launched back. All you need is raw materials and abundant energy.
Slashdot Mirror
I was under the impression that the antarctic was protected land, by international treaty, the worlds biggest nature reserve, or something of the sort. How can there be a land rush in land that is internationally protected? I mean under all that ice there are plenty of resources etc., but its not going to do much good when it's patrolled by satellites looking for settlers...
Looking at your posting history, this is your first post! Congratulations! I'm glad I can inspire you to not only make your first post, but to make it a troll! And a shit one, too! Second account anyone? :D I'd take you up on that bet, but I don't really want an unopenable wankmag collection and the keys to your mothers basement. Don't forget, if you stick your hand in the freezer for a minute or two, it feels like someone elses!
even have stupid graphical smileys and sounds if you want
:D
:D :D
Oops, sounds like someone doesn't have a girlfriend... Seriously tho, girls love that stuff, and when I say girls I don't meant the traumatised, hairy hellbeasts that pass as geek girls, I mean volleyball playing, active social life, shopping loving women.
Like my 17 year old cheerleader girlfriend.
Yeah yeah, okay, heres my geek badge and pda... sniff...
Hey this is like dawn of the dead, with our online civilisation being torn apart, undead (or passably resembling) politicians shambling about, eating servers... fuckit, I'm stockpiling pr0n and MP3s, ripping tiava and askjolene as we speak, and my klite client is starting to smoke, gonna barricade myself in the basement with some buckets and burgers until the last of em decompose... Its every man for himself! Seeya on the other side!
No, if I tell anyone, it might get back to Them. At least thats what the voices tell me.
Whoa that was quick. Well I've used both gaim and trillian, and they just don't hold a candle to yahoo, IMHO. I'd rather have the option to use features and not use them, than not have them at all. If you want to use yahoo as a bare chat client, its as easy as 1-2-3, no need to use any other features. Besides neither gaim nor trillian have their own servers, and believe me thats a useful option. Besides its got lil animated yeller faces. How can you not love the lil yeller faces?
That was more of a rant really, and you can't pwn a rant. You can 0wnz0r a rant, but pwning is just not an option.
All right, then I'll talk to you in his place.
That looks really suspicious, you know.
Free, eh? Tell me, what software besides Yahoo IM are you running? Is it Windows? Is Windows free? If so, please be quiet, and listen to was the Free Software guys are talking about, when they talk about open protocols, and Free (really) software.
Sense you are making not, young jedi...
And Jedi you will not be, until sense you make!
Better like the code is better commented, or better like the user has more fun and can use it more easily?
Second, "because it's free" is no excuse when the free competition does it better already.
Couldn't have said it better myself...
Um, check again, I've never had to pay for access to hotmail or MSN Messenger.
Well unless you have friends or contacts already using MSN, lets just say its relatively worthless.
On the whole, I would say for most businesses, this guy is right. Someone is paid to create something, it better do what it says on the tin, no more and certainly no less. In software however, developing for the windows platform at least, its practically impossible to know if in a given scenario a certain program when given certain inputs, for example, will crash, since its closed source and developers often have to work with what they are given, in terms of APIs etc.
But this is where open source shines, developers have access to the whole operation from top to bottom, and can actually see the tiny cogs where things interact on a basic level. So its not the developers' fault if code has bugs, once it went through QA and reasonable care was taken. How can it be when they are working blind half the time? The ones held liable should be MS, but unfortunately that can't happen since they are just protecting their intellectual property. Which leads us to the inescapable conclusion that IP laws, with regard to software at least, are terribly flawed. I wonder where this guy stands on that issue?
Honestly, I think the only way to go about this is to completely outlaw all campaign contributions. There should be a complete overhaul of the voting system, whereby candidates wil have to present their views and ideas in a public forum, open to challenges from their opposition and from the public. This would scale up nicely, with higher level debates being opposed by defeated candidates from previous rounds. The main reason this doesn't exist already is because the current political systems all eveolved pre-tv and mass media. In fact we could remove politicians from the equation entirely by just setting up a secure network and having advocates argue for and against certain bills, and the public voting for it directly, every evening...
Now you look like an ass-hat.
Grow some balls and sign in, son. Then maybe we can talk.
The yahoo transport sucks donkeyballs.
And how much did you fucking pay for it? I seriously don't know why everyone here is so down on yahoo. Besides overcommercialising everything, they provide absoloutely great services for free, the best of which is their yahoo messenger. Its the only place where the relatively uninitiated can log in and chat to complete strangers a planet away. MSN won't let you do it without paying them. And don't talk to me about the IRC channels; yahoo is to them what a concorde is to a guy jumping off his house.
Trillian, jabber, all of these might be technically slightly better under the hood, but in terms of end user experience, the slick and FREE package offered by yahoo is so far ahead that these chat clients will in all probability never catch up.
I have met some fascinating people and turned up a great deal of commercial opportunity by the use of yahoo. Where else can you click a button and chat to people from Vietnam to Africa to Brazil to the US? I was talking to an Iranian woman there the last day. She astounded me with her quick witted and very together responses. Not at all what I expected from what I assumed would be a trampled-upon muslim female. Then again, she was astounded to hear the US was threatening to invade her country, so you live and learn, eh...
Yahoo isn't sharp enough to be google, and its not evil enough to be microsoft. Its like the bumbling uncle of the internet. Yahoo mail is solid as a rock, and so simple to use that it beats most client side interfaces hands down. And did I mention free? Honestly, most of the crying about yahoo comes back to their use of advertising. If you don't like advertising, give back your TV. Because its not much use without any programming. And you may as well return your DVD collection too. And polish up your credit cards for slashdot's coffers, because you can bet Taco and co aren't going to fork over the fees for bandwidth so you can whine publicly about advertising and its evils. And google, everyone's favourite, would not be here tomorrow if you turned off the advertising (unlike M$).
artists cannot sell anything they record with a label themselves, so unfortunately, the site idea (which I would love) can't work.
Actually the site idea comes from the mess that various artists have landed themselves in with the record companies. What you'd have to do is get those new bands and artists that aren't yet signed up with a record company on board, and those artists that are well established that have managed to wrestle free of them, and get the ball rolling with them. Its not an overnight fix, but it would restore the balance of power somewhat, and eventually would spell the practical end for the mass music conglomerates. A lost cause that isn't?
I have a suggestion... what about artists each set up their own website (yes yes I know many have, bear with me), and offer simple MP3 downloads for a buck apiece, similar to itunes except they keep all save the bandwidth. Not going to work? If you think about it though, is a person who is going to pay for the music in the first place going to share the music on edonkey or klite? Probably not. But then you run into problems with people who swap their MP3 collections with their friends, friends who have no compunction about putting their entire collection on the file sharing networks, or kids who used their parents' credit cards to buy the song or songs, and share them for the kudos.
So basically you have one or two months before your song downloads start dropping, and of course then you will still have the fans that are willing to pay the dollar. And don't forget, many people patronise itunes, even though they could almost certainly get the songs on p2p networks.
Therefore to maintain this kind of business, bands would need to release a new song every month or so. The rest is just marketing (very cheap online, if you pick your keywords right), maybe a bit of touring... nothing to it really. This would mean the really good artists would gain the fame they deserve, not the bought and paid for fame of the record companies. And those with dreams of vast riches would be well advised to steer clear of the RIAA et al anyway.
(the intuative ability to know where your body parts are)
Well when you think about it, a car is just an exoskeleton really, and we can manage to drive them around without too much trouble. I doubt maneuvering a real exo around will be any more difficult than wearing a coat two sizes too large...
I think you're so focused on your anti-American sentiment
Actually I quite like Americans, in as much as one could be said to like any large group of people.
I don't know where you got the idea that the U.S. economy has been on a "war footing"
Tell me, what percentage of the US GNP goes to "defence"? And while we're on it, defence against what, exactly... Its not like anyone will ever invade a nuclear armed state. Heck, you could get rid of your entire army and still stay safe and happy with just the nukes.
(and loss of life, dude there are a lot of us buried in Europe)
Well I do believe you just invoked the recently created "Melissa's law", which states that any American claiming credit for winning WWII for Europe without having actually fought in said war automatically loses the argument by default, or words to that effect. But thats neither here nor there. Ho hum. And lets not forget, a couple of centuries ago, most of "you" were "us".
given the general instability of the world since the breakup of the Soviet Empire
Legendary point, I must say. And how much of this instability do you think is the fault of the US?
that would be just happy as clams to just annex your happy little complacent ass: the only reason they don't is because they know we might intervene
And when these mighty totalitarians return home to the ticking glass oceans that were their homes, I can only hope that their aggression was worth it. Wake up, you idiot, no one with nukes needs an army. And if the US thinks an army means anything to a nuclear armed state, well they need only invade North Korea for a swift education.
Superpowers are like elephants in china shops in that regard: stuff gets broken.
So you have to break some eggs to make an omelette? Impressive, thats almost... totalitarian.
if they thought about it for a minute or two (people like you, perhaps) would realize that the only thing between them and an occupying force is the United States
That and the nukes. How is it that you keep forgetting the nukes? They are hard to forget. The same nukes which, by the way, the rest of the world is very glad stand between them and the US right now.
EU was going to simply seize ownership of assets that do not belong to it,
Okay this whole paragraph is fairly demented, so I'll just deal with it quickly. If the EU wants to "seize power", they don't need to seize any assets at all. The EU has probably more assets than the US, in terms of infrastructure. All they need to do is set up their own servers and tell everyone to use them. No seizure required. I do believe many posters pointed this out in a previous discussion. Given the unpopularity of the US right now and its recent actions, I doubt the world would need much convincing. I also doubt there would be much disparity at first between US and EU servers. But population and popularity would definetely be with the Europeans. If you want to see EU websites, or the rest of the world's websites, just set your machines to treat those nameservers as authoritative. If not, stick to US net.
To summarise, in your amazingly tangential defence of the US, you missed the whole point of my post. I am not trying to say good or bad, right or wrong. I am just pointing out the motives behind the current brouhaha. This is why the UN and EU are even bothering to make a fuss, and using deliberately provocative terms like "capitulate" (these are professional diplomats by the way, no word is chosen at random). They don't need to, they could just go ahead and do it. But they are making a large public point to punish the US leadership, in a public fashion. The reasons for this are that the US has been behaving like an empire for the last while, and squandering with incredible facility the enormous amounts of international goodwill and sympathy that were built up after 9-11.
I don't care, e
We have not done so, have expressed zero intentions of ever doing so, and are simply not interested in doing so.
You're only focusing on one facet of a large issue, and in doing so you are missing the point. Its not about control of the internet, or control of what colour shoes you wear, or control at all. Its just the rest of the world throwing a spanner in the works of what they see as an increasingly belligerent and terrifyingly detached from reality America. The motions being taken by non-US governments to mess with the US are increasing across the board, because they are very worried about the religious right wing and its influence on the chief executive officer of US-corp, who by coincidence has his chubby pink finger on an awful lot of nuclear weapons.
Thats still myopic and short term, however. Zooming out a bit, the situation the world finds itself in at this time has been seen before, its not new. Two large and powerful nations struggle, and finally one collapses into utter defeat. The victor is left with a superbly trained, massive, and extremely aggressive army. What are you going to do with your milion trained killers, fire them? Perhaps they can find gainful employment at the local walmart... Oh yes, and lets not forget that the US economy has been on a war footing for quite some time. One might almost say they are dependant on it by now.
The result, uniformly throughout history, has been an empire, all the way from Rome vs Carthage to today. Except today things are a little different, because serious empire building has a few problems riding along with it, the main one of which is a nuclear holocaust. So instead, the US has been battling with third world states and generally kicking over the tables of anyone to weak too defend themselves, in an effort to keep its armed forces occupied.
What you are seeing now is the backlash, the forced reduction of US influence and power worldwide by those with equal power, if not so much influence. I mean, think about it; if the EU really wanted to, they could set up their own Domain Name Servers and mandate that all EU states use them as authoritative. Thats easy, and easily done. So why aren't they doing it? That's not what they are trying to achieve. They are trying to publicly and diplomatically drag the US through the mud, poke the tiger with impunity, and express their displeasure with both the leadership of the only world superpower and the clowns that elected him.
Its helpful to see the big picture.
At the moment all you are is a thief with (IMO) a piss-weak justification.
You want to wake up, son. These coke sniffing, hooker humping, lawyer loving, backhander taking, oozing cankers on the arse of humanity are threatening to take away a woman's child because she downloaded some MP3s. I don't know what you would call a strong justification. Maybe they should ritually defile her while chanting verses of the copyright law?
If these wee shites want to play hardball, I suggest that we return the favour. Hire a private detective or five to take pictures of them on their weekends. Track down the mistresses, the drug connections, the dirty laundry. Filter through their trash. Compile a tasty dossier on each and every one of them, and the record company execs, too. It can't be that hard. And then, well, downloaded music will be the very least of their worries.
So lets say I have an idea. Its a good idea, maybe a great idea. And lets say I hire a couple of people who know what they are doing to research it, check out the competition. Then I put in the money to get a premises, get equipment installed, and get some HR people to find and hire some engineers to implement the idea. Using their training and skills to complete it, while collecting a healthy wage every week, and being instructed on what exactly these ideas are. When the work is done, the marketing and sales people swing into action, to let others know about my good and valuable idea, and advertisements are paid for on a wide variety of media.
Before I can get the last part going though, some nimrod middle manager decides he isn't getting enough attention and power, and takes the whole kit and kaboodle to a much larger and more powerful company, with marginal interest in my field. In fact, I had been negotiating with them to licence my idea. This fucknuts then decides that since he by himself doesn't really know a thing, he needs to pull along some others to pump up his wages, and circulates around an email. Since these people are used to doing what he tells them anyway, its easy to just go with the herd.
And this is what has happened here.
Now what you are saying has merit, no doubt. But if you want to play the game of doing the work on the projects and then skating off to the competition, you won't get work with me or anyone else. Here's what I suggest you do. Get your own ideas, pay for your own research, plant, and equipment, do your idea yourself, if you can, and then pay to market it. Then you can tell anyone you like to fuck off. Until then, fuck off.
What I'm more bothered by is that the average tech person still desires to be above everyone else in some way or another.
Its not us. Its the damn computers. Knowledge is power, and computers are information technology. We have our hands in a stream of pure information every day of our lives, we get the view from 20,000 feet 24-7, baby. Its not so much that we know it all, just that we have access to it all, which is the next best thing. It might take a conscious act of will on the part of most people to step back from that perspective.
Besides, everybody wants to above everyone else in some way or another.
-1 Troll, and about time too. Still, I can see this one coming up again and again, so heres a little perspective for you, cully. Heres a little snippet of conversation I had with an Iranian woman.
...
######: imagine
######: with one
######: just one
######: bomb they kill our wishes
######: our sense our lifes
######: our thinking
######: but
######: they can
######: launch bomb
######: cause we dont have
######: powerfull bombs like
######: theirs
Then she went on to tell me about her fear and distress, becoming more upset as the conversation went on. And just in case you thought Iran was another Afghanistan, my extraordinarily ignorant american friend, heres a wee taste of culture for you...
######: we have own musical instrument
######: iranian
######: u dont know them
######: we have tar
######: setar
######: tonbak
######: santoor
######: nei
######: daf
######: they r great
Fucking yanks.
Well lets take it to its logical conclusion... what would a unified space program do, exactly? First thing I would do is set up a space station with an actual functional purpose, as a launch point for probes and a gathering point for data and samples, and expandable of course.
Next a methodical automated probe search of the whole system, with certain goals in mind, such as habitability, mineral value, and exisitng life forms. The emphasis should be on redundancy, with thousands of cheap probes sent to each planetary body, to investigate from orbit, in the atmosphere, and the surface, as well as below, where applicable, with each wave of probes designed specifically for it's environment. Sort of like MIRVs but without the nuclear payload. We can probably expect to lose the first couple of waves until we pin down exactly what is survivable in alien environments.
Once we have half an idea whats really out there, automated stations and robotic remotes should be sent to establish footholds on and around these locations, to get them self sustaining first, possibly for further scientific investigation or to prepare for human inhabitants, or to extract valuable minerals, and set up a manufacturing base (farming base too?). Then finally actual human colonists should be sent out to take over the stations. For interstellar expansion, just repeat the process.
And while we're at it, we could move essentially all manufacturing to near the sun. Set up some enormous stations near the sun, to gather that energy blasting out, and just launch raw materials to them for processing. When done, they get launched back. All you need is raw materials and abundant energy.
Now thats what I call a space program.
Your computer might get pwn3d, but your browser won't!
Amazing. You managed to try to turn that into a positive point. I'm not pro or anti anything, the right tools for the job is my motto, but wow.