Freedom of the press, is the freedom of choice. Print or don't print, that is the whole idea. If on the other side of the coin they feel forced to print something they would rather not, that is not very good either.
Here in Canada it is a bit interesting as most of the Francophone media is printing it, while most of the Anglophone media is not. Sort of highlights some interesting cultural differences within our own country.
Heinlein wrote a lot of stuff I wouldn't want to see in a movie, mostly because the themes are the same and outdated now, and would make about as good a movie as Atlas Shrugged. Though I suppose some inventive film maker could probably make an entertaining parody of them that might be more meaningful than the books themselves.
That said, I agree that I would like to see Stranger in a Strange Land into a movie, it was one of his better ones I think.
Another one that I think would probably make a good movie, along the same time traveling lines would be Ubik by Phillip K Dick.
From what source? Industry? From what I can tell, Ruters just vomited up what the Progressive Policy Institute postulated. Usually "Think Tanks" are simply political shills, but this one is supposedly "independent" or so says their website and Wiki. However from the PPI article, they list about zero details as to how they arrived at their numbers other than to say "we calculated".
All I know from similar discussions on Slashdot, people have posted about various countries around the world that have moved to the treating of ISP's as public utilities, and there wasn't one that didn't offer better faster more inclusive internet service at much lower costs than the US or Canada. Unless the PPI is unintentionally identifying the corruption, and political influence leading to favorable legislation towards telecommunication companies to keep the status quo.
There is crazy, and then there is Crazy. This is one of the things I dislike about the "i'm insane" defense in judicial systems. Just because you do something so abhorrent, by default it is "Crazy" to normal people.
"Crazy" would be if a carrot told these people to attack cartoonists with spoons and forks. Clearly mentally disturbed crazy.
Here you have multiple people that are motivated by dogma and ideology, identify with a group of radical violent people, who identify themselves with a particular religion. They are not crazy, they react with intent and planning, determination and commitment. They are dangerous criminals and terrorists.
The question isn't about all of those who practice Islam falling into this category, it is about why so many people seem to become radicalized. Is it culturally about where much of Islam is located, or does it have more to do fundamentally with the religion itself?
It seems these events are pretty common, the perpetrators condemned by the peaceful Islamic community, but then find out they attended the same mosques as the peaceful condemners. That is when this "crazy" terminology starts getting thrown around to diminish the relevance of it all. It isn't like these people are attending some secret evil underground mosques... Though some do seem to go travelling for "training" abroad, you have to be pretty much already committed to do that however.
#1) We are all made of stars. #2) We all derive all our energy either directly or indirectly from the sun. #3) We all consume one another. #4) We are all cannibals. #5) We all are Sun Eaters, Stellervores, starivores, etc...
"They're assholes. They're anti-consumer. They're constantly trying to achieve vendor lock in. They treat the security of their consumers data as an afterthought."
1) Hubris. It also could be that over time, Apple management has been filled with "yes men" at the expense of and lack of staff with technical expertise. Where someone that knows a bit about something might say "no, that is a horrible idea, perhaps we should go in a different direction", you get people that say "YES! We'll make it work somehow!". They also have a rabid fanboy market, and they think that can pretty much get away with anything (and they largely can, but over time, it will creep up to bite them). It is like the Toronto Maple Leafs selling tickets, it really doesn't matter how horrible the team is and they will still sell the tickets every year, even if they keep raising prices. A great example of this is the whole iMap fiasco. They had a licence with Google for the Google Maps application, it was very specific about what that included. Google made a new version of the application that included Text-to-Voice directions (which is pretty great). Apple wanted it. Google said no, that was not part of our current licence, however if you wish to licence this new version we would want better Google branding on it so people know who made it. Apple then threw a petulant fit and said fine we'll make our own! Whoever though that they could come out with something in a few months to compete with a product that Google had been perfecting for the better part of a decade must have been high. They even bought Nokia map data, but it isn't as easy as that either. Anyway Apple is probably more subject to Hubris than any company I can think of, though it is also one of the most profitable of all time also, so perhaps some of it is deserved if you look at it from that perspective...
2) It just works? Everything you just said plus more, software bugs real and intentioned... My girlfriend does Apple support. Every night (yea!) I get an update of all the issues she had that day (if I want one or not). That said I do get to know second hand some of the issues Apple products are currently having and how prevalent they are (calls upon calls etc...). The Apple ID one for example is one have have heard a lot of. Parents complaining about their 300$ bill, and having to explain to them that little Jimmy has a Clash of Clans in game purchase addiction or whatever, and it all goes to your credit card. Also instances of romance gone wrong and Apple ID access, ouch. Let me tell you the day OS8 come out, was also a busy day for support... The list of things goes on far more than I am willing to type here. Many of which should not exist in the first place if any real thought was put into it like Apple would like the public to believe.
3) Private Garden + Profits. This makes Apple a lot of money. You basically corner and lock in an entire market, then rape it for more and more profits every way you can, and Apple has been very successful at it. However Apple's focus has not been consumer centric for a long time. It's focus is locking you in, keeping you, and making you pay in every conceivable way. This does not lend itself to good software, from the perspective of giving the consumer what it wants. iTunes has had its problems. Part of which is that it is everything plus the kitchen sink, has legacy issues, and is bloated as hell. One such example was that of breaking links to non-iTunes acquired songs making them not playable or syncable. Apple's solution was to make iTunes capable of fixing a single link, one at a time. However iTunes would regularly break hundreds or even thousands at a time making it basically useless. It was so prevalent at one time an opensource group took it on itself to create a java application that would fix the links for you. However each time Apple did an update, they would "accidentally" break the 3rd party software. The developers would fix it, then Apple would break it again, until finally the group gave up. This went on for years, and was a known issue to Apple who could have easily fixed it. However Apple would much rather you buy all your music from their iTunes store, which co-incidentally never
It is in their best interests to have the impression that they are complying, and the plausibility that they are, so that content owners continue to maintain licence agreements with them, and don't sue or would have a hard time proving that Netflix isn't doing as much as it should be doing to prohibit access where required. That said, it is also in their best interest to do the bare minimum so as to allow some users to do this if they really want to so as to keep using the service.
Last year for example in Canada the CRTC in a thinly veiled attack (Competing services coming out from Bell and Rogers the same year) being largely in the pocket of the two primary Canadian media companies, demanded that Netflix release their customer list and assorted information under the guise of complying with Canadian Content laws. Netflix basically gave them the finger, and said that they are not subject to the same laws as TV and radio, and that even if they were, that they were compliant anyway. I am assuming that on the face of it, that the titles available in the Canada version of Netflix makes them compliant, and not the actual usage, or in the context of this particular conversation, the number of Canadian subscribers that access the US version of Netflix to bypass it altogether.
In other words they maintain a facade and plausibility, and enough legal wiggle room should it ever come to it, that they could make a very good case in court that they are indeed doing everything "reasonably" possible to protect the rights of content holders with licence agreements and to meet local law requirements.
When I used to get Netflix though my xbox 360, I used to switch back and forth between Canadian/USA versions of Netflix all the time. Manually editing your DNS takes 2 minutes and that is all you need to do. I was always perplexed by some of the differences in content. In some instances I can understand, but others it seemed some arcane methodology must be in play... The US version had all the Star Trek TV, Canada had just had the movies for example. However when a new season of Top Gear was added, it was available in Canada, but not in the US... I also recall starting to watch "Workaholics", and it vanishing from the library, presumably because they couldn't come to licencing terms...
Media companies are just shooting themselves in the foot making doing the legal thing so difficult. Of course Netflix is not alone in this, just the other day, when trying to watch an SNL clip on YouTube, I get the message about it not being allowed because I live in Canada. Really?
1) Internets and Computer Science are dominated by English. 2) Traditional Science is dominated by English. http://science.slashdot.org/st... 3) Globalization has promoted English into other markets (Indian tech companies, Chinese manufactures). 4) Wealthy tend towards it globally. 5) If online video games have taught me anything it is that any 12 year old can learn enough English to at least say nasty things or mock me. 6) Ease of travel has also inordinately promoted English at least in tourist locals. 7) USA media and Hollywood. Media creators in the US for TV and movies also promote English. Why Canada has Canadian content laws, and Quebec, Canada has Language laws.
So give current trends, I would say that English will continue to increase it's domination. That said, it isn't to say that as a result that English may change dramatically as other cultures make it their own. Also that isn't to say that many of the more "primary" languages aren't going anywhere anytime soon, but perhaps more of a multilingualism going on, and bastardization of local languages. Look at Quebec and French for example in Canada. I took French immersion in school, but driving across Quebec I have heard things like "Le Tire" at a gas station for example...
Of course all of this could change if something drastic happens, but it would be on the level of Robotic Overlords subjugating the Human race forcing us to learn binary or something...
Getting up to speed in any time to get someplace in a reasonable amount of time takes an enormous amount of fuel to maintain constant acceleration half way, and constant deceleration the other half. I remember seeing a graphic that the mount of hydrogen it would take to do this for our nearest solar system was somewhere in the realm of the entire mass of our Sun... So unless you having something that can collect enough material such as the aforementioned ramjet, effectively impossible. This is where things like ion drives come into play, however current (untested other than in a lab) technology, is so slow a rate of acceleration to be much use for anything unless improvements can be made. Again things like solar sails (I believe the Japanese were looking at possibly testing that), might work, however once you get far enough away from a solar source (and solar "winds"), its effectiveness probably isn't so great at interstellar travel.
Best to wait for warp travel:). Presuming that as time goes on better technology is developed, we would be in the weird situation that each new method might mean that newer travel would be constantly overtaking older travel...
No one has had a bigger impact on the world and affected so many people. He is also the only one if you say any of those names on the street that anyone will recognize. He is basically living in exile for what he did. He is probably the most controversial (as I am sure this forum will illustrate). He has even been turned into a verb on the new TV show Ascension "...going to go full Snowden..." in regards to telling the world about something kept secret that they believe is very wrong.
I'll try not to have a spoiler, but it doesn't end very well for the character that uttered that phrase...
Having your name basically associated as a martyr for the truth is aligned with the principles of Slashdot, and besides, it pretty much validates all the tinfoil hats we've all been wearing as more than just a fashion statement.
WTF does the aircraft flight ceiling have to do with anything? 20,000, 40,000, or 60,0000... The article seems to indicate that the rise in UFO's was due to spyplanes that flew at 60,000 feet. Sorry, if a spy plane is flying at 60,000 feet you won't even see it, that is kind of the point (and the fact that they are harder to detect and intercept). The only time UFO sightings would even be possible, would be when they come in to land or take off. Which would make sense if the sighting were situated around a military base with an airfield.
Besides if Aliens can figure out how to magically travel between the stars, I am pretty sure they can figure out a way not to be seen if they do not want to be.
We're saying the same thing. Those people that require a PC, are not going to be influenced by Tablets. However I have a PC, a Phone, a Netbook, a Laptop, etc... that all can also do what a Tablet can do... and I also don't need to go out and buy a bunch of other stuff in order to do it.
Anyway as I say, likely the biggest thing is Phones getting bigger and more "Tablet-like" reducing demand. In addition to netbooks, there are also a lot more ultrabooks (Apple Air, etc...) that can do everything, but are much smaller, thinner, have a longer battery life than normal laptops, and are ultimately much more capable than a Tablet. They can be expensive, but there is enough market overlap to impinge on sales I'm sure.
I bought my Dad a Samsung ultrabook with a 128GB SSD for 800$, and I see the Apple iPad2 128GB is 769$, so pretty much the same price. The ultrabook also has a touch screen. So it is better in pretty much every way that matters, other than it weighs a few grams more, and is a few mm thicker, and the battery lasts a few hours less... If given a choice I would take the ultrabook 10 times out of 10, unless I already had one.
Anyway, if I won a Tablet or if it was given as a gift, I would probably keep it, but I doubt I would ever buy one myself. I don't see them as all that particularly useful.
This is likely China trying to exert its muscle to support Baidu the dominate search engine in China. China and Google have already butted heads about censorship in the past and Google withdrew services from China as a result.
However the actions here go beyond the borders of China, in that it influences international trade, in that if I can't use Gmail to contact my clients in China, I would be forced to use something different.
I would suspect that Google as a result highlighted this very fact to several jurisdictions heavily involved with trade with China, including the US, who no doubt sent very carefully worded messages to the Chinese government regarding what they thought of this trade influencing practice and how it relates to current treaties. To which I am sure China said, "Whoops!", blamed it on Google not meeting their laws, and promptly flipped the switch to turn it back on.
What did this all accomplish? Not much. However China made it pretty clear that it has the capability to flip a switch and totally cut off someone from their market if they so choose... Which is a pretty nice stick to wave about belligerently.
Firstly the summery is ridiculous for a number of reasons. One being to compare them to the same losers who look only to the next quarter and what profits they can rape. This is great for short term success and CEO bonuses, but long term is ultimately self defeating. Second, is judging Google, which is one of the biggest, most successful companies in the WORLD, and chastising them about their "mistakes".
Here is a perfect, real example. Take "YouTube". Google bought it for a BILLION dollars. This was before all the crazy valuations, and buying spree of things barely being able to be called companies or technologies. Critics at the time, laughed and derided Google for its foolish decision. They said they would never ever make their money back. Would anyone care to valuate YouTube today? I would bet it is worth MANY times that now (you can argue if that is really realistic or not). Not only that, but it is THE dominate force, and is well on its way to making money. Has it paid for itself in cash profits yet? Likely not. However I am not so sure that it won't soon. If you recall (for those that were around), there used to be tons of search engines, and then meta search engines on top of that. Sure MS is trying to get Bing out there, and Yahoo is still sort of hanging around somehow, however Google is a VERB now, it is that ubiquitous. YouTube is pretty much also now. Gmail is for many. Google Maps is as well (Mapquest anyone?).
Google knows to play the long game, you only new a few dominate winners. They can throw away the losers, and perhaps leverage them later if you can. They can do this easily now because of vast reserves of cash, and steady annual profit. They have so many things going on, that it only takes a few to totally dominate (mostly bc no one else is doing it, or even close to doing it), to be hugely successful.
Everything you just said. In addition Tablets are a niche product. Unlike personal computers, or phones, they are a "nice to have", but not really all that necessary. All that hyperbole about them replacing PC's are exactly that. They are not powerful enough, flexible enough, nor practical enough to do so.
In addition, to all that, likely more recently the big thing killing the Tablet market is the size creep of phones. With the new iPhone 6 Plus Gigantor, the previous version of Galaxy McHuge, or even the Galaxy MegaNote the distinction between what is a "Tablet" and what is a "Phone" is a bit more blurry. What was normally an iPad Mini is really like an 6 Plus, minus phone capability, that isn't subsidized... Sooo why am I buying it again? Also many like myself probably realized, do I really need a full sized Tablet when I have a 5.5" smartphone?
So no, I am not surprised that the market is a bit saturated, and really neither should the makers of these devices, as they are the makers of their own downfall (i.e. they make all the devices that are competing with and defeating their own Tablet sales).
To use the age old Slashdottian car analogy, it was thought that within the Nissan car portfolio, that because the Sentra and the Altima were so similar, and were only sized slightly different, that the Sentra ate into the Altima sales because of it. There was not enough differentiation between brands to justify the price purchase. Now consider that in this analogy to be totally accurate, it would be Nissan complaining about why you are not buying a Sentra AND an Altima... (While also having a Maxima at home for long trips).:)
This is the same people that tried to sue Limewire for Trillions of dollars, is anyone surprised? I didn't see any mention of that settlement in the summary, but I believe it was eventually in the 10's of millions of dollars, and I remember thinking, that even that value was pointless, as they will never see any real part of that, as with any civil lawsuit, if they can't pay it, it is rather moot. It might as well have been for a Bazillion dollars for their ability to pay it.
In most reasonable cases, the plaintiff wouldn't bother, as the lawyer would tell them it is pointless, as your likelihood of recovering even your legal costs is remote. You can't get blood from a stone. However for them, it is more about sending a message and PR, so they likely justify it, and if you can then fraudulently report the damages even higher, then all the better... Most settlement agreements have wording associated with not talking about the settlement as the company doesn't want the public to know how much they payed out. In this case I wouldn't be surprised if the wording was such to inflate the actual value as it would be in their best interests to do so... This also likely falls into the category of justifying their existence, and their fees that companies pay into MPAA, where they can point to such "successes" and keep the fees, and their existence going.
Slashdot Mirror
Freedom of the press, is the freedom of choice. Print or don't print, that is the whole idea. If on the other side of the coin they feel forced to print something they would rather not, that is not very good either.
Here in Canada it is a bit interesting as most of the Francophone media is printing it, while most of the Anglophone media is not. Sort of highlights some interesting cultural differences within our own country.
Heinlein wrote a lot of stuff I wouldn't want to see in a movie, mostly because the themes are the same and outdated now, and would make about as good a movie as Atlas Shrugged. Though I suppose some inventive film maker could probably make an entertaining parody of them that might be more meaningful than the books themselves.
That said, I agree that I would like to see Stranger in a Strange Land into a movie, it was one of his better ones I think.
Another one that I think would probably make a good movie, along the same time traveling lines would be Ubik by Phillip K Dick.
Assassination apparently. So it was in Looper and every Terminator movie anyway. I'm sure there are others...
From what source? Industry? From what I can tell, Ruters just vomited up what the Progressive Policy Institute postulated. Usually "Think Tanks" are simply political shills, but this one is supposedly "independent" or so says their website and Wiki. However from the PPI article, they list about zero details as to how they arrived at their numbers other than to say "we calculated".
All I know from similar discussions on Slashdot, people have posted about various countries around the world that have moved to the treating of ISP's as public utilities, and there wasn't one that didn't offer better faster more inclusive internet service at much lower costs than the US or Canada. Unless the PPI is unintentionally identifying the corruption, and political influence leading to favorable legislation towards telecommunication companies to keep the status quo.
There is crazy, and then there is Crazy. This is one of the things I dislike about the "i'm insane" defense in judicial systems. Just because you do something so abhorrent, by default it is "Crazy" to normal people.
"Crazy" would be if a carrot told these people to attack cartoonists with spoons and forks. Clearly mentally disturbed crazy.
Here you have multiple people that are motivated by dogma and ideology, identify with a group of radical violent people, who identify themselves with a particular religion. They are not crazy, they react with intent and planning, determination and commitment. They are dangerous criminals and terrorists.
The question isn't about all of those who practice Islam falling into this category, it is about why so many people seem to become radicalized. Is it culturally about where much of Islam is located, or does it have more to do fundamentally with the religion itself?
It seems these events are pretty common, the perpetrators condemned by the peaceful Islamic community, but then find out they attended the same mosques as the peaceful condemners. That is when this "crazy" terminology starts getting thrown around to diminish the relevance of it all. It isn't like these people are attending some secret evil underground mosques... Though some do seem to go travelling for "training" abroad, you have to be pretty much already committed to do that however.
#1) We are all made of stars.
#2) We all derive all our energy either directly or indirectly from the sun.
#3) We all consume one another.
#4) We are all cannibals.
#5) We all are Sun Eaters, Stellervores, starivores, etc...
"They're assholes. They're anti-consumer. They're constantly trying to achieve vendor lock in. They treat the security of their consumers data as an afterthought."
You sure you're not talking about Apple?
1) Hubris. It also could be that over time, Apple management has been filled with "yes men" at the expense of and lack of staff with technical expertise. Where someone that knows a bit about something might say "no, that is a horrible idea, perhaps we should go in a different direction", you get people that say "YES! We'll make it work somehow!". They also have a rabid fanboy market, and they think that can pretty much get away with anything (and they largely can, but over time, it will creep up to bite them). It is like the Toronto Maple Leafs selling tickets, it really doesn't matter how horrible the team is and they will still sell the tickets every year, even if they keep raising prices. A great example of this is the whole iMap fiasco. They had a licence with Google for the Google Maps application, it was very specific about what that included. Google made a new version of the application that included Text-to-Voice directions (which is pretty great). Apple wanted it. Google said no, that was not part of our current licence, however if you wish to licence this new version we would want better Google branding on it so people know who made it. Apple then threw a petulant fit and said fine we'll make our own! Whoever though that they could come out with something in a few months to compete with a product that Google had been perfecting for the better part of a decade must have been high. They even bought Nokia map data, but it isn't as easy as that either. Anyway Apple is probably more subject to Hubris than any company I can think of, though it is also one of the most profitable of all time also, so perhaps some of it is deserved if you look at it from that perspective...
2) It just works? Everything you just said plus more, software bugs real and intentioned... My girlfriend does Apple support. Every night (yea!) I get an update of all the issues she had that day (if I want one or not). That said I do get to know second hand some of the issues Apple products are currently having and how prevalent they are (calls upon calls etc...). The Apple ID one for example is one have have heard a lot of. Parents complaining about their 300$ bill, and having to explain to them that little Jimmy has a Clash of Clans in game purchase addiction or whatever, and it all goes to your credit card. Also instances of romance gone wrong and Apple ID access, ouch. Let me tell you the day OS8 come out, was also a busy day for support... The list of things goes on far more than I am willing to type here. Many of which should not exist in the first place if any real thought was put into it like Apple would like the public to believe.
3) Private Garden + Profits. This makes Apple a lot of money. You basically corner and lock in an entire market, then rape it for more and more profits every way you can, and Apple has been very successful at it. However Apple's focus has not been consumer centric for a long time. It's focus is locking you in, keeping you, and making you pay in every conceivable way. This does not lend itself to good software, from the perspective of giving the consumer what it wants. iTunes has had its problems. Part of which is that it is everything plus the kitchen sink, has legacy issues, and is bloated as hell. One such example was that of breaking links to non-iTunes acquired songs making them not playable or syncable. Apple's solution was to make iTunes capable of fixing a single link, one at a time. However iTunes would regularly break hundreds or even thousands at a time making it basically useless. It was so prevalent at one time an opensource group took it on itself to create a java application that would fix the links for you. However each time Apple did an update, they would "accidentally" break the 3rd party software. The developers would fix it, then Apple would break it again, until finally the group gave up. This went on for years, and was a known issue to Apple who could have easily fixed it. However Apple would much rather you buy all your music from their iTunes store, which co-incidentally never
It is in their best interests to have the impression that they are complying, and the plausibility that they are, so that content owners continue to maintain licence agreements with them, and don't sue or would have a hard time proving that Netflix isn't doing as much as it should be doing to prohibit access where required. That said, it is also in their best interest to do the bare minimum so as to allow some users to do this if they really want to so as to keep using the service.
Last year for example in Canada the CRTC in a thinly veiled attack (Competing services coming out from Bell and Rogers the same year) being largely in the pocket of the two primary Canadian media companies, demanded that Netflix release their customer list and assorted information under the guise of complying with Canadian Content laws. Netflix basically gave them the finger, and said that they are not subject to the same laws as TV and radio, and that even if they were, that they were compliant anyway. I am assuming that on the face of it, that the titles available in the Canada version of Netflix makes them compliant, and not the actual usage, or in the context of this particular conversation, the number of Canadian subscribers that access the US version of Netflix to bypass it altogether.
In other words they maintain a facade and plausibility, and enough legal wiggle room should it ever come to it, that they could make a very good case in court that they are indeed doing everything "reasonably" possible to protect the rights of content holders with licence agreements and to meet local law requirements.
It is probably the abundance of Labatt 50 that is drunk in Quebec that throws people off.
When I used to get Netflix though my xbox 360, I used to switch back and forth between Canadian/USA versions of Netflix all the time. Manually editing your DNS takes 2 minutes and that is all you need to do. I was always perplexed by some of the differences in content. In some instances I can understand, but others it seemed some arcane methodology must be in play... The US version had all the Star Trek TV, Canada had just had the movies for example. However when a new season of Top Gear was added, it was available in Canada, but not in the US... I also recall starting to watch "Workaholics", and it vanishing from the library, presumably because they couldn't come to licencing terms...
Media companies are just shooting themselves in the foot making doing the legal thing so difficult. Of course Netflix is not alone in this, just the other day, when trying to watch an SNL clip on YouTube, I get the message about it not being allowed because I live in Canada. Really?
1) Internets and Computer Science are dominated by English.
2) Traditional Science is dominated by English. http://science.slashdot.org/st...
3) Globalization has promoted English into other markets (Indian tech companies, Chinese manufactures).
4) Wealthy tend towards it globally.
5) If online video games have taught me anything it is that any 12 year old can learn enough English to at least say nasty things or mock me.
6) Ease of travel has also inordinately promoted English at least in tourist locals.
7) USA media and Hollywood. Media creators in the US for TV and movies also promote English. Why Canada has Canadian content laws, and Quebec, Canada has Language laws.
So give current trends, I would say that English will continue to increase it's domination. That said, it isn't to say that as a result that English may change dramatically as other cultures make it their own. Also that isn't to say that many of the more "primary" languages aren't going anywhere anytime soon, but perhaps more of a multilingualism going on, and bastardization of local languages. Look at Quebec and French for example in Canada. I took French immersion in school, but driving across Quebec I have heard things like "Le Tire" at a gas station for example...
Of course all of this could change if something drastic happens, but it would be on the level of Robotic Overlords subjugating the Human race forcing us to learn binary or something...
Getting up to speed in any time to get someplace in a reasonable amount of time takes an enormous amount of fuel to maintain constant acceleration half way, and constant deceleration the other half. I remember seeing a graphic that the mount of hydrogen it would take to do this for our nearest solar system was somewhere in the realm of the entire mass of our Sun... So unless you having something that can collect enough material such as the aforementioned ramjet, effectively impossible. This is where things like ion drives come into play, however current (untested other than in a lab) technology, is so slow a rate of acceleration to be much use for anything unless improvements can be made. Again things like solar sails (I believe the Japanese were looking at possibly testing that), might work, however once you get far enough away from a solar source (and solar "winds"), its effectiveness probably isn't so great at interstellar travel.
Best to wait for warp travel :). Presuming that as time goes on better technology is developed, we would be in the weird situation that each new method might mean that newer travel would be constantly overtaking older travel...
Were the first to do it, that should tell you something.
For me it is Edward Snowden.
No one has had a bigger impact on the world and affected so many people.
He is also the only one if you say any of those names on the street that anyone will recognize.
He is basically living in exile for what he did.
He is probably the most controversial (as I am sure this forum will illustrate).
He has even been turned into a verb on the new TV show Ascension "...going to go full Snowden..." in regards to telling the world about something kept secret that they believe is very wrong.
I'll try not to have a spoiler, but it doesn't end very well for the character that uttered that phrase...
Having your name basically associated as a martyr for the truth is aligned with the principles of Slashdot, and besides, it pretty much validates all the tinfoil hats we've all been wearing as more than just a fashion statement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
WTF does the aircraft flight ceiling have to do with anything? 20,000, 40,000, or 60,0000... The article seems to indicate that the rise in UFO's was due to spyplanes that flew at 60,000 feet. Sorry, if a spy plane is flying at 60,000 feet you won't even see it, that is kind of the point (and the fact that they are harder to detect and intercept). The only time UFO sightings would even be possible, would be when they come in to land or take off. Which would make sense if the sighting were situated around a military base with an airfield.
Besides if Aliens can figure out how to magically travel between the stars, I am pretty sure they can figure out a way not to be seen if they do not want to be.
We're saying the same thing. Those people that require a PC, are not going to be influenced by Tablets. However I have a PC, a Phone, a Netbook, a Laptop, etc... that all can also do what a Tablet can do... and I also don't need to go out and buy a bunch of other stuff in order to do it.
Anyway as I say, likely the biggest thing is Phones getting bigger and more "Tablet-like" reducing demand. In addition to netbooks, there are also a lot more ultrabooks (Apple Air, etc...) that can do everything, but are much smaller, thinner, have a longer battery life than normal laptops, and are ultimately much more capable than a Tablet. They can be expensive, but there is enough market overlap to impinge on sales I'm sure.
I bought my Dad a Samsung ultrabook with a 128GB SSD for 800$, and I see the Apple iPad2 128GB is 769$, so pretty much the same price. The ultrabook also has a touch screen. So it is better in pretty much every way that matters, other than it weighs a few grams more, and is a few mm thicker, and the battery lasts a few hours less... If given a choice I would take the ultrabook 10 times out of 10, unless I already had one.
Anyway, if I won a Tablet or if it was given as a gift, I would probably keep it, but I doubt I would ever buy one myself. I don't see them as all that particularly useful.
This is likely China trying to exert its muscle to support Baidu the dominate search engine in China. China and Google have already butted heads about censorship in the past and Google withdrew services from China as a result.
However the actions here go beyond the borders of China, in that it influences international trade, in that if I can't use Gmail to contact my clients in China, I would be forced to use something different.
I would suspect that Google as a result highlighted this very fact to several jurisdictions heavily involved with trade with China, including the US, who no doubt sent very carefully worded messages to the Chinese government regarding what they thought of this trade influencing practice and how it relates to current treaties. To which I am sure China said, "Whoops!", blamed it on Google not meeting their laws, and promptly flipped the switch to turn it back on.
What did this all accomplish? Not much. However China made it pretty clear that it has the capability to flip a switch and totally cut off someone from their market if they so choose... Which is a pretty nice stick to wave about belligerently.
Firstly the summery is ridiculous for a number of reasons. One being to compare them to the same losers who look only to the next quarter and what profits they can rape. This is great for short term success and CEO bonuses, but long term is ultimately self defeating. Second, is judging Google, which is one of the biggest, most successful companies in the WORLD, and chastising them about their "mistakes".
Here is a perfect, real example. Take "YouTube". Google bought it for a BILLION dollars. This was before all the crazy valuations, and buying spree of things barely being able to be called companies or technologies. Critics at the time, laughed and derided Google for its foolish decision. They said they would never ever make their money back. Would anyone care to valuate YouTube today? I would bet it is worth MANY times that now (you can argue if that is really realistic or not). Not only that, but it is THE dominate force, and is well on its way to making money. Has it paid for itself in cash profits yet? Likely not. However I am not so sure that it won't soon. If you recall (for those that were around), there used to be tons of search engines, and then meta search engines on top of that. Sure MS is trying to get Bing out there, and Yahoo is still sort of hanging around somehow, however Google is a VERB now, it is that ubiquitous. YouTube is pretty much also now. Gmail is for many. Google Maps is as well (Mapquest anyone?).
Google knows to play the long game, you only new a few dominate winners. They can throw away the losers, and perhaps leverage them later if you can. They can do this easily now because of vast reserves of cash, and steady annual profit. They have so many things going on, that it only takes a few to totally dominate (mostly bc no one else is doing it, or even close to doing it), to be hugely successful.
Anyway I think Google is doing just fine.
Everything you just said. In addition Tablets are a niche product. Unlike personal computers, or phones, they are a "nice to have", but not really all that necessary. All that hyperbole about them replacing PC's are exactly that. They are not powerful enough, flexible enough, nor practical enough to do so.
In addition, to all that, likely more recently the big thing killing the Tablet market is the size creep of phones. With the new iPhone 6 Plus Gigantor, the previous version of Galaxy McHuge, or even the Galaxy MegaNote the distinction between what is a "Tablet" and what is a "Phone" is a bit more blurry. What was normally an iPad Mini is really like an 6 Plus, minus phone capability, that isn't subsidized... Sooo why am I buying it again? Also many like myself probably realized, do I really need a full sized Tablet when I have a 5.5" smartphone?
So no, I am not surprised that the market is a bit saturated, and really neither should the makers of these devices, as they are the makers of their own downfall (i.e. they make all the devices that are competing with and defeating their own Tablet sales).
To use the age old Slashdottian car analogy, it was thought that within the Nissan car portfolio, that because the Sentra and the Altima were so similar, and were only sized slightly different, that the Sentra ate into the Altima sales because of it. There was not enough differentiation between brands to justify the price purchase. Now consider that in this analogy to be totally accurate, it would be Nissan complaining about why you are not buying a Sentra AND an Altima... (While also having a Maxima at home for long trips). :)
It will be like Mad Max, except set on the Ocean, and with Senior Citizens...
Somewhere there is a super intelligent robot making jokes about our 3D printer inadequacy and size...
This is the same people that tried to sue Limewire for Trillions of dollars, is anyone surprised? I didn't see any mention of that settlement in the summary, but I believe it was eventually in the 10's of millions of dollars, and I remember thinking, that even that value was pointless, as they will never see any real part of that, as with any civil lawsuit, if they can't pay it, it is rather moot. It might as well have been for a Bazillion dollars for their ability to pay it.
In most reasonable cases, the plaintiff wouldn't bother, as the lawyer would tell them it is pointless, as your likelihood of recovering even your legal costs is remote. You can't get blood from a stone. However for them, it is more about sending a message and PR, so they likely justify it, and if you can then fraudulently report the damages even higher, then all the better... Most settlement agreements have wording associated with not talking about the settlement as the company doesn't want the public to know how much they payed out. In this case I wouldn't be surprised if the wording was such to inflate the actual value as it would be in their best interests to do so... This also likely falls into the category of justifying their existence, and their fees that companies pay into MPAA, where they can point to such "successes" and keep the fees, and their existence going.
Because NOTHING attracts the best and the brightest to an industry like driving down salaries...
OK. Maybe Canada should sue the USA for all the gun crimes that occur in Canada because the US gun laws suck.