No. They're just making information available. The voters will still be not be informed.
Yes, to inform is "to officially tell someone something, or to give them information about something".
Ignorance is based around ignoring facts, not being unable to access them.
Now you partially understand it. People are being informed but it's up to them as to what they do with it, whether that be ignore it or to make a more informed decision.
No, but I said that, and you responded with something totally irrelevant about reinstalling Windows. Hence my question: what does reinstalling Windows have to do with Apple's bad software engineering?
I guess you don't understand simple English. Yes you brought up Apple's bad engineering so I asked if it is so bad then why have I had problems with Apple's competitors' product but not Apple's products? Again I have not had problems with any Apple engineered products but I have had problems with products engineered by Apple's competitors. How stupid can you get?
I also need something that has coverage through at least the five states I usually travel through; no insane roaming rates for leaving those five states; and consistent, quality service.
Actually In think that's pretty easy to handle, it's done now and has been done since land-line phones were installed. I am company A in your state and I make an agreement with cellphone service providers in the states that surround me so that when you are in their coverage area they relay your calls. Now I may cover their costs, or I can charge you a roaming charge then pass it along to them. If the traffic is pretty much equal, I would relay calls for their customers as much as they relay my customers' calls then we could say one cancels the other, much like Interconnect or peering agreements work on the net.
I can't see a startup offering that any time soon
The higher the demand the faster it would happen. Just 15 years ago how many people would have believed we'd have always connected faster than 56k baud internet connections today? I stopped paying for by the minute connections more than 10n years ago.
unfortunately, we don't have a free market... nor is there any chance of fewer regulations coming along...
Unfortunately I agree with you, there is no free market and the odds of there being one in the next decade are less than slim, and none. Actually I aspect more regulations not less, which as long as they are about net neutrality it's okay. But if they make monopolies more powerful then it is not okay.
Let's say that I have a Mastercard credit card issued by Seven Eighths Bank NA. Every month, a couple of days before the deadline , I pay off the balance by reviewing my charges, making sure that I recognize the merchants and transferring money from the appropriate accounts.
You can only do that on the credit card issuer's website. You can't do that on your bank's website, unless the bank is the issuer. If the bank is not the issuer it should not have a single record of any purchases made with the card.
I had a credit card by issuer X and ever month I logged into my account at X, not at my bank. I reviewed all the charges and payments, and checked the balance then I scheduled a payment. It was directed deducted from my bank account then credited to my balance.
Well I did log into my account at the bank too, to check my balance there before scheduling a credit card payment. I did that for years. With Firefox I had one tab open with my bank account and another open for my credit card issuer. But I scheduled payments on my credit card issuer's website not from my bank's website.
I call out businesses I think are doing something wrong, whether it be Apple, Microsoft, or ComCast. But ComCast is not doing that to me and my access is through ComCast.
You are partially right, and wrong. This is about free speech. But it is also about voters knowing what their government is doing in their names. As a US citizen, one who served in the US military unlike so many other chicken hawks, and a voter I want to know what my government is doing. You may trust your government but I do not trust mine. Government scares me more than anything else, whether it is terrorists or not.
I really don't see this as a productive response by their supporters.
I see it as a legitimate form of protest, one that will hopefully hit them where it counts, on their bottom line. And it is not criminal to protest. Nor are they using violence, I dare you to provide 1 example where they physically attacked another person, tortured, and killed them. I can however provide links showing US employees did those as well as authorizations to do such by those in the White House. Oh and I'm also still waiting to see all those WMDs Saddam had.
WikiLeaks were collecting donations using MasterCards and VISA as forms of payment on their website, up until the two giants pulled away because they didn't want to be associated with the website.
Even if mastercard says they have changed their ways and suddenly become gods gift to the US first amendment, they really won't have done this - they exist to make money. If theres no money in it,
You don't know how credit card work do you? MasterCard and every other credit card that Wikileaks accepted does profit from that acceptance. They get a set fee for each transaction, whether it be a $10 or a $1000 transaction. Then they get a percentage of the total transaction amount.
As for most of your post, I agree. A new way to make payments, donations, could be set up. Where I disagree is where you say MasterCard is a business, sure it is but as it already has be said the government asked businesses to stop processing donations.
Except the first amendment only applies to the government. If a company wants to impend your speech they can.
Really? The government can just threaten companies to get them to stop providing services to people whose speech the government doesn't like? And that's not a free speech issue?
Yes really. And no the government can't threaten a company for providing a legal service to another party, in this case that is abridging speech. We saw something like this a few years ago under the Bush admin. When his admin demanded phone companies allow the government to see and access callers' phone records Qwest asked for a judge signed warrant before the company would comply with the request. This is what MasterCard, PayPal, and Visa should have done too.
financially supporting an organization deemed "terrorist" by the government is not a function of free speech.
It is free speech when government can declare an organization a terrorist group without having to prove it in a court of law. I haven't heard of any US court, whether a federal district court or the US Supreme Court, rule Wikileaks is a terrorist group.
By the same logic of the courts, this should be an issue of free speech. Mastercard et al are impeding free speech.
Actually it's not unconstitutional for MasterCard or any other private business to "impede speech". The First Amendment specifically applies to the US government impeding speech.
I actually like this idea. Have a voluntary botnet where people can sign up for DDOS attacks on a website, and have the botnet client actually execute the DDOS automatically to the user's wishes. Have the list updated periodically to reflect current "most hated" status.
That's what the software Operation Payback is asking people to download and install does:
"The LOIC tool connects to an IRC server and joins an invite-only 'hive' channel, where it can be updated with the current attack target. This allows Operation Payback to automatically reconfigure the entire botnet to switch to a different target at any time. "
I know it's too hard for some but RTFA! "To muster the necessary volume of traffic to take sites offline, they are inviting people to take part in a 'voluntary' botnet by installing a tool called LOIC".
If the hackers wanted to be really nasty, they wouldn't target Mastercard's website, but instead, the websites of the major banks-- so that when concientious cardholders log in to pay their bills, they can't.
Access the bank isn't the only way to pay credit card bills online. You can also access the credit card issuer's website.
mastercard doesn't care about freedom of speech etc
Credit card companies don't care about freedom of speech but they do care about making money and if by denying access to servers through DDOS attacks MasterCard and Visa lose money they will pay attention. As you also say business can be taken elsewhere too but how many retailers, online and offline, accept other forms of payment? Of course there's cold hard currency, which is how I prefer to pay for things, but you can't make online payments with it.
That's a problem. I'm quite willing to drop MasterCard is there's a good alternative. The main requirement is that it needs to be accepted by all web shops. So that restricts my options to PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, I think.
Besides PayPal there are other micro-payment services. They are getting to be popular with photographers, with a smartphone such as the iPhone photographers can make a sell virtually anywhere. Of course Wikileaks would have to be signed up with them.
Even if true, probably much of that is the result of Apple's exposure through iPhone and iPod. Historically, Apple market share is 3-5%, and that's what they're likely going to go back to in a competitive market.
As if there's not a competitive market now. Gee, with all the stores and websites selling PCs I'd never know there was no competition, it certainly looks like there is competition.
Not only did I have my PC hardware fail a number of tymes, I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes which each PC.
And that has to do with Apple's bad software engineering... what?
How stupid can you get? I never said Apple's engineering was bad, my point was the exact opposite, I have not had problems with my Mac like I did with my PCs. I do see where I did mess up though, where I said "I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes which each PC." It should be "I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes on my PCs."
there are some great economic studies that are critical of the patent system -- but there's no shortage of studies supporting it (and of companies funding such studies). So the only way that politicians would act is that businesses themselves exercise effective pressure against the patent system.
Yea there isn't a shortage of studies, and a bunch of companies support them, however how many are not biased to begin with? Yes there are studies that conclude patents are not good that start with a bias too. And businesses, some of them that is, support patents because it reduces their competition. Reduced competition means less progress. Without government granted monopolies, which is what patents are, I believe and many economic studies support it there will be more progress. Is if businesses have to compeat to stay in business they'll innovate more. Sure another business may use their innovation, or the business can make use of trade secrets. That even works for the individual inventor who has no financing for manufacturing. What they can do is go to a contract manufacturer have have them sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, NDA, which are frequently brought up here on Slashdot.
So the only way that politicians would act is that businesses themselves exercise effective pressure against the patent system.
That's true if only businesses pressure politicians. If however voters apply pressure politicians will have to listen.
As I see it though there's a huge problem, international trade and trade agreements like World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and World Trade Organization (WTO). As it's name suggests WIPO was created to protect "intellectual property", IP. Every nation would have to agree to eliminate IP and that is close to being impossible I think short term. As Billy Holiday sang The impossible will take a little while.
Apple's marketshare is more than that. It's several months old but AppleInsider has the article Apple sells estimated 1.4M Macs in US to capture 8% market share. That 8% puts Apple's marketshare in 5th place, behind HP, Dell, Acer, and Toshiba. More recently, October, Gartner and IDC say Apple marketshare broke 10%. That puts Apple's marketshare in 3rd, ahead of Acer and Toshiba and behind "Others". The only named companies with higher shares are HP and Dell.
the rest of us can go back to ignoring them, except for occasionally making fun of their bad software engineering and pompous commercials.
HAHA!!! I switched from Windows PCs more than 3 years ago after using PC for more than 10 years. My one regret is that I didn't switch sooner. Of 3 new Windows and one new Linux PC, only one did not need to be repaired in less than 1 year. In the more than 3 years I've had the Mac I'm typing this on I've only had to have it repaired once, about a year and a half after I got it.
Not only did I have my PC hardware fail a number of tymes, I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes which each PC.
An algorithm for accurately locating and identifying the faces of individuals in photographs, in mixed-light conditions, with compensation for noise and motion-blur.
What is being patented, a general idea or a specific method? General ideas should not be patentable. And is that specific method based on math? Math shouldn't be patentable either.
Yeah motorola filles patent claims agains apple and so it is apple fault! How did you wrap your head against that one ?
How did you miss "Apple is squaring off this week against Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest mobile-phone maker, before the International Trade Commission. The dispute, in which each side alleges intellectual property violations, is also a precursor to Apple patent battles with Motorola Inc. and HTC Corp"? I know, you're an Apple fanbois who doesn't like the truth.
Slashdot Mirror
No. They're just making information available. The voters will still be not be informed.
Yes, to inform is "to officially tell someone something, or to give them information about something".
Ignorance is based around ignoring facts, not being unable to access them.
Now you partially understand it. People are being informed but it's up to them as to what they do with it, whether that be ignore it or to make a more informed decision.
Falcon
As if there's not a competitive market now.
Not for iPhone, iPod, and iPad
So this is a lie: The iPhone 4 faces stiff competition? As is The Year of the Tablet: The iPad's Competition and Ipod Vs Competitors? And there are no businesses looking for Android developers?
I never said Apple's engineering was bad
No, but I said that, and you responded with something totally irrelevant about reinstalling Windows. Hence my question: what does reinstalling Windows have to do with Apple's bad software engineering?
I guess you don't understand simple English. Yes you brought up Apple's bad engineering so I asked if it is so bad then why have I had problems with Apple's competitors' product but not Apple's products? Again I have not had problems with any Apple engineered products but I have had problems with products engineered by Apple's competitors. How stupid can you get?
Falcon
I also need something that has coverage through at least the five states I usually travel through; no insane roaming rates for leaving those five states; and consistent, quality service.
Actually In think that's pretty easy to handle, it's done now and has been done since land-line phones were installed. I am company A in your state and I make an agreement with cellphone service providers in the states that surround me so that when you are in their coverage area they relay your calls. Now I may cover their costs, or I can charge you a roaming charge then pass it along to them. If the traffic is pretty much equal, I would relay calls for their customers as much as they relay my customers' calls then we could say one cancels the other, much like Interconnect or peering agreements work on the net.
I can't see a startup offering that any time soon
The higher the demand the faster it would happen. Just 15 years ago how many people would have believed we'd have always connected faster than 56k baud internet connections today? I stopped paying for by the minute connections more than 10n years ago.
unfortunately, we don't have a free market... nor is there any chance of fewer regulations coming along...
Unfortunately I agree with you, there is no free market and the odds of there being one in the next decade are less than slim, and none. Actually I aspect more regulations not less, which as long as they are about net neutrality it's okay. But if they make monopolies more powerful then it is not okay.
Falcon
Let's say that I have a Mastercard credit card issued by Seven Eighths Bank NA. Every month, a couple of days before the deadline , I pay off the balance by reviewing my charges, making sure that I recognize the merchants and transferring money from the appropriate accounts.
You can only do that on the credit card issuer's website. You can't do that on your bank's website, unless the bank is the issuer. If the bank is not the issuer it should not have a single record of any purchases made with the card.
I had a credit card by issuer X and ever month I logged into my account at X, not at my bank. I reviewed all the charges and payments, and checked the balance then I scheduled a payment. It was directed deducted from my bank account then credited to my balance.
Well I did log into my account at the bank too, to check my balance there before scheduling a credit card payment. I did that for years. With Firefox I had one tab open with my bank account and another open for my credit card issuer. But I scheduled payments on my credit card issuer's website not from my bank's website.
Falcon
I call out businesses I think are doing something wrong, whether it be Apple, Microsoft, or ComCast. But ComCast is not doing that to me and my access is through ComCast.
Falcon
You are partially right, and wrong. This is about free speech. But it is also about voters knowing what their government is doing in their names. As a US citizen, one who served in the US military unlike so many other chicken hawks, and a voter I want to know what my government is doing. You may trust your government but I do not trust mine. Government scares me more than anything else, whether it is terrorists or not.
Falcon
I really don't see this as a productive response by their supporters.
I see it as a legitimate form of protest, one that will hopefully hit them where it counts, on their bottom line. And it is not criminal to protest. Nor are they using violence, I dare you to provide 1 example where they physically attacked another person, tortured, and killed them. I can however provide links showing US employees did those as well as authorizations to do such by those in the White House. Oh and I'm also still waiting to see all those WMDs Saddam had.
Falcon
Visa, and Mastercard are not caving in to the government pressure.
You're behind the tymes: PayPal admits US pressure over WikiLeaks account freeze.
Falcon
So some are more equal than others.
Falcon
WikiLeaks were collecting donations using MasterCards and VISA as forms of payment on their website, up until the two giants pulled away because they didn't want to be associated with the website.
Did they not want to be associated with Wikileaks, or where they bpressured by the government? PayPal admits US pressure over WikiLeaks account freeze. US targets groups with ties to website. WikiLeaks cables: US 'lobbied Russia on behalf of Visa and MasterCard'
Falcon
Even if mastercard says they have changed their ways and suddenly become gods gift to the US first amendment, they really won't have done this - they exist to make money. If theres no money in it,
You don't know how credit card work do you? MasterCard and every other credit card that Wikileaks accepted does profit from that acceptance. They get a set fee for each transaction, whether it be a $10 or a $1000 transaction. Then they get a percentage of the total transaction amount.
As for most of your post, I agree. A new way to make payments, donations, could be set up. Where I disagree is where you say MasterCard is a business, sure it is but as it already has be said the government asked businesses to stop processing donations.
Falcon
Except the first amendment only applies to the government. If a company wants to impend your speech they can.
Really? The government can just threaten companies to get them to stop providing services to people whose speech the government doesn't like? And that's not a free speech issue?
Yes really. And no the government can't threaten a company for providing a legal service to another party, in this case that is abridging speech. We saw something like this a few years ago under the Bush admin. When his admin demanded phone companies allow the government to see and access callers' phone records Qwest asked for a judge signed warrant before the company would comply with the request. This is what MasterCard, PayPal, and Visa should have done too.
Falcon
financially supporting an organization deemed "terrorist" by the government is not a function of free speech.
It is free speech when government can declare an organization a terrorist group without having to prove it in a court of law. I haven't heard of any US court, whether a federal district court or the US Supreme Court, rule Wikileaks is a terrorist group.
By the same logic of the courts, this should be an issue of free speech. Mastercard et al are impeding free speech.
Actually it's not unconstitutional for MasterCard or any other private business to "impede speech". The First Amendment specifically applies to the US government impeding speech.
Falcon
I actually like this idea. Have a voluntary botnet where people can sign up for DDOS attacks on a website, and have the botnet client actually execute the DDOS automatically to the user's wishes. Have the list updated periodically to reflect current "most hated" status.
That's what the software Operation Payback is asking people to download and install does:
"The LOIC tool connects to an IRC server and joins an invite-only 'hive' channel, where it can be updated with the current attack target. This allows Operation Payback to automatically reconfigure the entire botnet to switch to a different target at any time. "
Falcon
why does such a thing even exist??
I know it's too hard for some but RTFA! "To muster the necessary volume of traffic to take sites offline, they are inviting people to take part in a 'voluntary' botnet by installing a tool called LOIC".
Falcon
If the hackers wanted to be really nasty, they wouldn't target Mastercard's website, but instead, the websites of the major banks-- so that when concientious cardholders log in to pay their bills, they can't.
Access the bank isn't the only way to pay credit card bills online. You can also access the credit card issuer's website.
Falcon
you're comparing this to anti-segregation protests???
Who needs to get a grip, one who equates one protest with another or one who ridicules such comparisons?
Quite frankly voters can not make informed decisions when they are not informed. Wikileaks is informing voters of what their government is doing.
Falcon
Now as for "informed voters" that is another subject.
mastercard doesn't care about freedom of speech etc
Credit card companies don't care about freedom of speech but they do care about making money and if by denying access to servers through DDOS attacks MasterCard and Visa lose money they will pay attention. As you also say business can be taken elsewhere too but how many retailers, online and offline, accept other forms of payment? Of course there's cold hard currency, which is how I prefer to pay for things, but you can't make online payments with it.
Falcon
That's a problem. I'm quite willing to drop MasterCard is there's a good alternative. The main requirement is that it needs to be accepted by all web shops. So that restricts my options to PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, I think.
Besides PayPal there are other micro-payment services. They are getting to be popular with photographers, with a smartphone such as the iPhone photographers can make a sell virtually anywhere. Of course Wikileaks would have to be signed up with them.
Falcon
Even if true, probably much of that is the result of Apple's exposure through iPhone and iPod. Historically, Apple market share is 3-5%, and that's what they're likely going to go back to in a competitive market.
As if there's not a competitive market now. Gee, with all the stores and websites selling PCs I'd never know there was no competition, it certainly looks like there is competition.
Not only did I have my PC hardware fail a number of tymes, I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes which each PC.
And that has to do with Apple's bad software engineering... what?
How stupid can you get? I never said Apple's engineering was bad, my point was the exact opposite, I have not had problems with my Mac like I did with my PCs. I do see where I did mess up though, where I said "I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes which each PC." It should be "I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes on my PCs."
Falcon
there are some great economic studies that are critical of the patent system -- but there's no shortage of studies supporting it (and of companies funding such studies). So the only way that politicians would act is that businesses themselves exercise effective pressure against the patent system.
Yea there isn't a shortage of studies, and a bunch of companies support them, however how many are not biased to begin with? Yes there are studies that conclude patents are not good that start with a bias too. And businesses, some of them that is, support patents because it reduces their competition. Reduced competition means less progress. Without government granted monopolies, which is what patents are, I believe and many economic studies support it there will be more progress. Is if businesses have to compeat to stay in business they'll innovate more. Sure another business may use their innovation, or the business can make use of trade secrets. That even works for the individual inventor who has no financing for manufacturing. What they can do is go to a contract manufacturer have have them sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, NDA, which are frequently brought up here on Slashdot.
So the only way that politicians would act is that businesses themselves exercise effective pressure against the patent system.
That's true if only businesses pressure politicians. If however voters apply pressure politicians will have to listen.
As I see it though there's a huge problem, international trade and trade agreements like World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and World Trade Organization (WTO). As it's name suggests WIPO was created to protect "intellectual property", IP. Every nation would have to agree to eliminate IP and that is close to being impossible I think short term. As Billy Holiday sang The impossible will take a little while.
Falcon
Apple's marketshare is more than that. It's several months old but AppleInsider has the article Apple sells estimated 1.4M Macs in US to capture 8% market share. That 8% puts Apple's marketshare in 5th place, behind HP, Dell, Acer, and Toshiba. More recently, October, Gartner and IDC say Apple marketshare broke 10%. That puts Apple's marketshare in 3rd, ahead of Acer and Toshiba and behind "Others". The only named companies with higher shares are HP and Dell.
the rest of us can go back to ignoring them, except for occasionally making fun of their bad software engineering and pompous commercials.
HAHA!!! I switched from Windows PCs more than 3 years ago after using PC for more than 10 years. My one regret is that I didn't switch sooner. Of 3 new Windows and one new Linux PC, only one did not need to be repaired in less than 1 year. In the more than 3 years I've had the Mac I'm typing this on I've only had to have it repaired once, about a year and a half after I got it.
Not only did I have my PC hardware fail a number of tymes, I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes which each PC.
An algorithm for accurately locating and identifying the faces of individuals in photographs, in mixed-light conditions, with compensation for noise and motion-blur.
What is being patented, a general idea or a specific method? General ideas should not be patentable. And is that specific method based on math? Math shouldn't be patentable either.
Falcon
Yeah motorola filles patent claims agains apple and so it is apple fault! How did you wrap your head against that one ?
How did you miss "Apple is squaring off this week against Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest mobile-phone maker, before the International Trade Commission. The dispute, in which each side alleges intellectual property violations, is also a precursor to Apple patent battles with Motorola Inc. and HTC Corp"? I know, you're an Apple fanbois who doesn't like the truth.
Falcon
Motorola knew Apple was going to sue, so they sued first.
And 90 procent of the posts will go about how apple is in fault here....
Whereas Apple fanbois will say Apple is not at fault.
Falcon