I know...bad form to reply to one's own reply but I felt I didn't properly explain something here.
So long as they donate something to the cause, they have fulfilled their legal obligation. This is true even with major non-profits like Red Cross.
...and...
In fact, many non-profits donate exceptionally little to their causes, frequently as little as 10%-20% of their income. IIRC, with Red Cross, as much as 60-70% (I'm pretty fuzzy on that number but the point is, a good chunk does help others) of what is donated actually helps people outside of the Red Cross organization.
When I say 60%-70%, or whatever the actual number is, I don't mean 60%-70% of your donation to the Japanese cause actually goes to Japan. What I mean is, 60%-70% actually goes to help people - any people - not necessarily the Japanese. More often than not, a fraction of your donation actually goes to that specific cause to which you donated.
As a example, after 9/11, something between 500 million and 750 million dollars were donated to the Red Cross. They planned on dishing out something like 100 million of that. Congress had to move in to force them to move all of that money as they planned on keeping the rest. It really pissed the Red Cross off who actively fought not to have to make those payouts.
Also, even at 70%, which is considered exceptionally good for charities, at these scales, its actually pretty vulgar. Think about that. It doesn't cost Red Cross $225 million dollars to write checks to orphans and windows. So while the Red Cross absolutely is one of the better organizations out there, they have a very long ways to go before they should be viewed without disgust.
First and foremost, you need to understand, Dr. Who absolutely is NOT science fiction. Dr. Who is science fantasy. Dr. Who has almost no elements required for good science fiction. That's not to mean Dr. Who can't be enjoyed. Its just that it can't be enjoyed on the basis of science fiction.
I agree with you, Firefly is so-so, but at least its actually science fiction. Babylon 5 actually had a story to tell, which means it has far, far more to offer than most mainstream entertainment and is a polar opposite of anything J.J. Abrams has to offer. Which is not to say everyone must enjoy B5 either.
I assert that being a geek doesn't mean having to like *everything* associated with geek life. And if you have to FORCE yourself to get into it, you're probably going to take all the fun out of it anyway.
I completely agree. A lot of extremely geeky humor is not the least bit funny. Often its a three year old's humor which is supposed to funny because its to the exclusion of non-intellectuals. That to me isn't humor, its a poor attempt at creating an exclusive club. Which explains a lot since many Geeks have been socially excluded so its their one up attempt at righting the world.
People are also suffering from massive ignorance about how things work here too. Firstly, texting DOES NOT donate money. Period. End of discussion. Texting actually PLEDGES to donate. Your carrier will never release uncollected funds based on a pledge, to which they legally could hope to recover transaction fees (which is far less than the pledge).
So, once you pledge, via texting, that's all you've done. You've not actually donated any money. When you pay your billing, at the end of the billing cycle in which you pledged money, you actually have the option to fulfill your pledge. After the money is collected, your carrier will likely pay their collections at the end of their billing cycle. So right there, you're very reasonably out 30-60-days out.
Once your carrier releases their funds, you're now looking at roughly another thirty days before that party actually gets organized, commits, and releases the funds to the cause.
Also, what appears to be part of the confusion is traditionally, when you donate to a cause, you are not actually donating to a cause. Traditionally, you are donating to an organization in the name of a cause; whereby, the organization is free to do what it likes with the money it receives. So long as they donate something to the cause, they have fulfilled their legal obligation. This is true even with major non-profits like Red Cross.
What also seems like a likely source of confusion is non-profit does not mean what most people believe it means. For whatever reason people tend to associate non-profit as being the preferred form of company for these types of things because all of their money goes toward the underlying cause. Realistically, nothing could be father from the truth. A non-profit only requires their profits to be re-invested into the corporation. That doesn't mean employees work cheaply or even for fair market prices. That doesn't mean executives are not paid huge salaries and receive massive bonuses and benefits. In fact, many non-profits donate exceptionally little to their causes, frequently as little as 10%-20% of their income. IIRC, with Red Cross, as much as 60-70% (I'm pretty fuzzy on that number but the point is, a good chunk does help others) of what is donated actually helps people outside of the Red Cross organization.
Really this article should be called, "Damn you Net-30!"
They could dynamically move (or at least have times where they were there and not) rather than statically persist. It would actually make the game more enjoyable by giving a sense of a real world with real people rather than a static, inflexible, unchanging, unyielding world.
He's a jump master. That means he was probably in something like a C-130. A jump master is typically the last guy you see before you jump out of an aircraft.
Extremely long copyright terms rob the public of their culture
How? In what way? The likes of the LotR is very much protected by copyright but it most definitely is part of our culture. I honestly don't see how they are the least bit related or how there's even a hint of truth to that statement.
Copyrights are not the natural state of things, never were
And neither is artistic creation for the sake of artistic creation. You basically have two choices. One, the copyright model. Two, are you willing to pay a couple million for the creation of new music? And then have extremely limited audiences where it can be heard in concert only? Realistically, two isn't a viable option for the masses in this day and age. Which means if artistic creation is really important to you, you absolutely must support copyright protection.
A copyright is only there to grant a temporary, artificial monopoly to allow the creator to make some money.
I completely agree.
If the creator's long retired, dead and buried then why aren't their works in the public domain?
I don't have a complete answer but in part, it stems from the fact creators take a significant reduction in upfront earnings. This in turn means both them and their family earns less than what would otherwise be possible without copyright schemes. As such, it allows for that incremental money to realized of a reasonably long term, which is likely to be beyond the life span of the creator.
Most people, when they speak of striking down the terms, offer up ridiculously short terms, all too frequently because it benefits the individual's selfishness, which are insanely non-viable. So what's a reasonable term if the current are too long?
I guess I didn't communicate it clearly. Android now exposes its API via C++. With the latest release of the NDK, you can now create applications completely in C++. Even better it includes template support, exceptions, and RTTI and they even include a port of STLport.
If you are comfortable with C++ development, I encourage developers to move directly to C++ rather than bother with Java/Dalvik. The result is frequently smaller and considerably faster. The major down side to doing this is its not multiplatform and can create the need for large apks and multiple compiles per target down the road. But, for now, its really a no brainer.
Why is it people always make these silly calculations. It really doesn't matter in the least and is completely ignoring important aspects behind much of tort law. The fact you broke it out per person in the US makes your post even more ridiculous than the numbers being demanded.
If you don't believe the damages the law allows for are reasonable, demand either new laws or in the least, demand a modification of the existing law. The simple fact is, the law was broken. Under existing law, that's the damages allowed for which has absolutely ZERO bearing on the amount the industry has ever made, what the value of the industry is, and it especially has absolutely nothing to do with the amount per person in the USA. Maybe next you'll tell me the amount per banana in the world in 1812 - as it is of equal significance and relevance.
Here's the facts, contrary to the retarded hyperbole which is all too often put forward with these types of articles. They knowingly and willfully violated the law. Period. The law has financial implications when violated which are not directly tied to the value of the works. Using the factors relevant under the law, willful violators can face incredibly huge monetary losses - as is completely intended by the law. The law is designed to impose such massive financial loss that people are to reconsider their actions before it gets to this point. Limewire understood what they were doing and decided that they'd be willing to face such huge numbers. This shouldn't be the least bit surprising to anyone. And I don't hear anyone acknowledging how completely, insanely, utterly stupid, they were for doing this. Any discussion which doesn't at least acknowledging Limewire's complete stupidity and begging to be sued for such massive numbers is either dishonest or ignorant.
The real story here is, fucking idiots sued for knowingly violating the law with full awareness of the massive financial implications possible under the existing law.
Advocating piracy (not saying you, specifically, are advocating) only re-enforces the need for these laws and actually encourages yet more draconian copyright laws. The simple fact is, the vast majority of pro-pirates I've had discussion literally have no idea what they are talking about. They typically parrot absolutely distorted and detached, and unreasonable idealism which have absolutely no bearing in the real world. All too often they refuse to acknowledge artists deserve to make a living. They refuse to acknowledge they deserve some protection under the law, just as everyone else receives. The ignorantly advocate socialism - but only so long as the discussion doesn't include their income. And worse, most discussions go so far south they are not even in the real world - rather they are just left of unicorns and pixie dust, and have no clue how truly stupid, ignorant, and uneducated they sound. And these is frequently from people are otherwise seem fairly well educated.
If you're truly outraged, stop with the ignorant promotion of socialism, unicorns, pixie dust, and utopian discussions and deal with the real world. The world has recourse here. Contact your representatives and make an effort to change things rather that actively work to re-enforce the strength of these laws and legitimize their needs. Until you do so, its just one more reason why pirates are hypocritical and delusional.
Oh, one last thing - stop conflating everything together, usually though complete ignorance, into one huge bucket. Its yet another reason why pirates constantly sounds like complete idiots.
Well, Android's framework makes leaks trivially easy. Read the developer blogs and the various other tidbits they provide. They are full of donts to prevent leaks left and right. Hmmm...was suppose to be a feature of Java and a major one-up over C++ and other languages. Not with Android...
As an android developer who didn't originally have much background in Java (years ago), I can tell you I pine for C++ or python. Java tries to be a better C++ but fails. Its like the libraries were created by purists who had never actually done anything OO. Everything is painful to use because its never been normalized for how people actually do things. As such, its frequently far more verbose and tedious or on par with C++. Which always raises the question; why am I not doing this in C++ already. And then on the other side, there is something like Python. I've literally written several pages of Java code to do what a half dozen lines of python code is able to do. So Java isn't really as high level as everyone would have us to believe. And the size is largely driven by the fact it was designed by purest who seemingly, didn't have the experience to be writing something like Java. Which means it doesn't really challenge C++ and its far from challenging the likes of Python.
So in a nut shell, there absolutely are very strong reasons why many people were in a hurry to rush to the NDK once it actually supported C++ (exceptions, templates, RTTI; contrary to Google's assertions, they didn't actually support C++ for a long, long time ) and the ability to develop full blown android applications. The lack of Dalvik performance was only part of the rush developers had for the NDK. Of course it didn't help that literally, Google thinks C++ is C with a couple of extra features; which is why C++ on Android was originally so screwed up and crippled.
Long story short, I absolutely agree with you. If you're interested in Android development and do not absolutely love, love, love Java, and feel even moderately comfortable with C++, skip Java/Dalvik completely.
Sadly, most slashdotters here these days have no clue whatsoever about the things they post. They have an opinion, regardless of how learned that opinion is, they share. That wasn't always the case. Even worse, troll moderation seems to be on par with valid moderation. Which means its a coin toss if a reasonable comment will be punished or promoted - or both. Even worse, while MS does deserve critical comments for their extremely long history of illegal and unethetical behavior, many brainlessly hold a grudge and attempt to punish any post which mentions Microsoft in anything other than a negative light. Even worse, many troll moderations are made strictly on the basis of who posted rather than the merits of the post.
If you want to read truthful or factual posts, especially on provocative articles (like copyright, anti-FOSS, piracy, etc.), you have to read at -1 else you've likely been censored by those attempting to hide the truth of mislead those who may not be fully aware or on the fence. The pro-piracy crowd is especially bad at censoring anything which conflicts with their propaganda war.
Sadly, it seems, most people either don't meta moderate or have such poor reading comprehension skills, they can't even follow simple instructions and do it properly. Of course, the same is also true for moderating in the first place.
So how is a statement of fact "playing math games." Its well known the number was purposely designed to vary based on societal needs; which are fully expected to change and evolve over time. That's entirely its point. We're talking about the classic, "living document."
Now if the terms were measured in hundreds or thousands of years, I'd agree they need to be adjusted. But to date, ignoring unreasoned and extremely irrational rants, I've NEVER heard a reason why the current terms are so horrible. Not one. Not one even close to reasonable. They all seem to boil down to...but *I* want to take it/use - just because *I* want to take and use it. Or even worse, I'm a loser scumbag and *I* deserve to be able to take anything *I* want without any regard for anyone else.
So seriously, given that you're own acknowledgement implies its as Constitutionally intended; what's broken here?
It doesn't make me happy. Winning isn't the issue.
But frankly, I KNEW I was right when I posted. Its not like the subject hasn't already been researched. The research is all pretty clear on this. The really sad thing is, stupid people like you... Yes, you are sad.
The truth is, you know you're stupid or you wouldn't be trolling with your posts which imply you don't care...and yet the fact you did post not only means you do care, but you know I'm right.
These Amateur Race Drivers that you speak of, are they the ones that mainly drive in a circle, you know, go fast turn left, repeat.
You really need to get out more. There is a huge world of motor sports completely outside of NASCAR.
Why is it they have things like roll cages, wear helmets, fire retardant suits, have crash crews and ambulances standing by for these highly skilled amateur drivers, oh sorry, Amateur Race Drivers.
Okay, clearly you are retarded and had to boast this to the world. And in proving to the world you are retarded, you the entire point went completely over your head.
The fact of the matter is, "highly trained" police drivers is like saying, "expert shooter" because you once saw a firearm at a gun show. Expert police driver, with extremely few exceptions, actually means dip shit that knows how to press a brake and gas pedal.
And to come full circle back to your remarks, yes accidents happen when people drive extremely aggressively and fast. That's not what the topic was about, but it largely does describe police chasing people for petty crimes. Generally, the police officer creates a risk several orders of magnitude higher than the danger he's supposedly saving us from.
So despite you proving you are retarded, you actually proved the point - police ARE a danger, greater than what they are writing a ticket for, to everyone when they are chasing people to give them a ticket.
I can see people not liking such an odd show, but the outright hostility baffled me. I enjoyed myself with it and moved on.
Likely its because the show raised odd questions which demanded to be answered and which grabbed people. In exchange for watching, people felt those questions should have been answered since the entire show was about the questions constantly being raise. The show ended with a bug "fuck you" and a laugh, having never answered almost all the questions it painfully went about forcing in their face and asking.
When people are treated poorly likely this they tend to feel tricked, played, screwed, so on and so, and in the very least, feel like they've wasted massive amounts of time on a show that never delivered.
Its pretty normal for people to get angry when massive amounts of time have been wasted.
Most call this poor writing. Some call it J.J. Abrams' style. I call it both. Abrams has a long history of creating significant disappointment with most of the projects he touches.
I'm very happy to say, I didn't bother watching Lost because it was obvious from the first episode it was going to be a massive disappointment and a complete waste of time. Hopefully people have learned their Abrams lesson.
Same here. The performance difference for me is huge. Its so big, its instantly obvious from the second it starts, which even includes a much faster start for all my tabs. Its instantly snappy and I'm an extremely heavy tab user too. Flash sites are slightly more responsive and now I'm even running greasemonkey (didn't before) which should further slow things. And yet, things are definitely faster. I'm even observing a reduce memory footprint, which I didn't expect, of roughly 200M for the same tabs. I'm extremely impressed. Version 4.0, by far, exceeds my expectations.
As for plugins and add-ons, everything I use is already available for 4.0 so I'm pretty pleased. The only gotcha I've run into is the default linux release is 32-bit and you have to dig to find the 64-bit download. If any cares, you download the 64-bit linux release here.
Oh ya, am observing an extremely annoying issue with 4.0 and slashdot in that entry fields get pushed past the bottom of the screen when making posts, with the new slashdot interface abomination, truly a pain in the ass. Yet another reason to continue to use the old interface. Works great with the old interface. New interface is broken with 4.0.
Bullshit. People create for the joy of creation, not for profit.
Yes and no and is so disingenuous such that you're clearly attempting to distort reality if not a complete lie.
All too often, people may enjoy creating but simply can't because they can't earn a living doing so. Its a cliche that, "I used to ______, but then I had to grow up and earn a living." That's the real world. The simple fact is, the "joy of creation" is all too often stiffed BECAUSE there is no money to be had. Sure, a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, fraction of creation would still occur in spare time as a hobby, but it would almost completely gut creation in of itself. It would pale in comparison to what is possible when economics support it.
You're also ignorantly forgetting that in years past, almost all creation took place because of a rich financier existed to fund the work. Without this funding, almost everything we treasure from yesterday would simple not exist.
So factually, one need only look at history to say you're delusional and full of shit.
Then again, many studies have show a large number of accidents are from drivers reacting to the sight of an unexpected police officer. Reports typically associate it to excessive speed but in reality, the accident would have been extremely unlikely had the police officer not been there or had the driver known where he was at and leisurely correct speed before he got there.
I do believe DWI check points should not be reported as that likely does endanger the public. Just the same, study after study proves the majority of ticket income comes from speed traps where the speed limit is unsafely set too low for the sole purpose of generating revenue. Furthermore, driver error and distraction is, the vast majority of the time, attributed to excessive speed. Whereas, excessive speed is actually a contributing factor whereas driver distraction is believed to be the primary cause.
In a nut shell, unless drivers are speeding in neighborhoods,high traffic or high pedestrian areas, which largely prevent excessive speed because of the traffic and high pedestrian densities, reasonable speeding is typically not creating an undue hazard to the public and as an offense, primarily serves to generate revenue for police departments and courts. The sad truth is, most speeding tickets are about revenue and has absolutely nothing to do with public safety.
Seriously, think about it. If its as dangerous as the revenue generating propaganda wants us all to believe, you would be arrested and not ticketed. If you wave a firearm in public, you will be arrested. Please note, the propaganda typically compares speeding with firearms. If you drink too much and are on foot, you will be arrested. If you commit any number of other minor infractions, you will be arrested. And yet for something which is actively promoted as being akin to satin and killers of thousands every year, you simply get a ticket. The truth is, reasonable speeding in many (that's clearly not all) environments is simply not anywhere as dangerous as the propaganda says. In fact, if safety was their primary concern, you'd see a lot more neighborhood patrols and far less speed traps on highways.
Lastly, I'll point out, most "highly trained" police drivers completed a weekend course, a week course, or extremely rarely, a two week course. Which means, they are less skilled to driving at high speeds than most amateur drivers. Not to mention, police, when they speed, account for a disproportionate number of accidents, injuries, and deaths - and yet they get a blank check. If this is truly safe, why can't amateur race drivers get wavers to speed? Ask yourself, is a police officer driver 100mph in heavy traffic to stop and ticket a driver doing ten miles per hour over the speed limit really creating public safety, or is this really about, "Do what I say and not what I do while I cash this check. Move along."?
I also forgot to add that wall warts continue to consume power even when they are not in use; which is the vast majority of their effective lifetime. Thusly, having a centralized unit along with DC electronics in the house, in of itself means vast amounts of power are no longer being wasted for the sole purpose of wasting energy.
Do you unplug your converters when not charging your electronics? Something like 90%+ of the industrialized world doesn't. That accounts for massive energy waste.
Imagine having two runs of wires to each outlet, one for AC appliances,
You completely missed the point. Whooosh! Actually you would need two for only a number of years. Once electronics starting being build within AC/DC convertor, the need for parallel receptacles all but goes away. Unless you're arguing people need to plug OTHER appliances into their central air or home dryer. Meaning, houses built five years from now wouldn't need but a tiny few number of A/C plugs.
You can't expect Joe Sixpack to understand that... or keep him from replacing the power plug on a DC appliance to try to run it from the 120VAC output, because he's out of DC outlets.
Reality disproves your contrary position. Different plugs have existed for exactly these reasons and have proven to be a widely successful tool at maintaining safety. And frankly, isn't any different from the world we live in today. Thusly, reality disproves your contrary position.
All this in the name of "efficiency"? Try harder guys. Fusion power has more future than this bullshit.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, they continue to throw money at projects which have decades of proven failure and are completely ignoring new techniques which show real promise and are almost completely untested via experimentation. Until such time the world becomes utopian, real ideas such as the one I put forward, which can actually save vast amounts of energy, are the real solutions we have in hand.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Unfortunately, vast numbers of idiots on slashdot have no fucking clue what that means. I've literally had endless "debate" with these idiots who seemingly, sincerely believe that means society has the right to benefit and the creator can go fuck themselves. Basically stating the author has no right to benefit.
I'm constantly amazed at how many people with serious reading comprehension issues insist on asserting their dimwitted and distorted view of reality on the rest of the world.
And upon what do you base your expert knowledge of EVERY non-US culture?
Ahhh....that's what this all boils down to - you're failure to comprehend and your personal bias. Stating a FACTUAL statement of one culture does not elevate all other cultures; as you ignorantly insist on asserting. This isn't about yaaa...western culture rules - its about middle eastern culture largely sucks. There's a huge difference. And if you can't understand all this, you're so ignorant of the world you have absolutely no reasonable basis to even be commenting.
The fact is, most middle eastern cultures have much dogma which prevents learning from foreigners while within their our culture. Period. End of discussion. Absolutely fact. If you don't believe me, well you're not the least bit in a position to actually comment. Shut up and learn. Funny how we keep coming back to that.
That means, if its not invented there, and you don't leave your country, the chances of truly having subject matter experts available to teach is extremely unlikely. Period. End of discussion. If you don't understand how not having subject matter experts available to create other subject matter experts works, well, that explains your completely irrational and biased posts. Furthermore, as a cultural norm, those who are well educated outside the country and do go back, frequently see it as a stepping stone to become upwardly mobile within their society. That means native subject matter experts frequently do not stay around to create other subject matter experts. This is what the world calls a "brain drain." Middle eastern countries are actually well documented to suffer from brain drain which is why the wealthier countries are well known for hosting vast numbers of brainy and specialized foreigners - because they largely don't exist otherwise.
To be absolutely clear here, many cultures have unhealthy aspects to them. It just so happens, most middle eastern cultures have vastly more dogma which more sane cultures have already shed over the last thousand years. This lack of societal growth, which is EXTREMELY well documented for anyone who's bothered in the least, manages to oppress these countries socially and economically.
Again, everything I'm saying is EXTREMELY well documented and widely known. I just happen to bring it together into a single conversation. The fact you seem so obviously ignorant of all of these facts raises the question, why the hell is someone so obviously ignorant of the subject inserting their ignorant opinion, which is contrary to endless facts...oh that's right, it offended your personal bias and ignorant opinion.
I really don't know why people keep talking about the G1. From what I've read elsewhere, the G1 wasn't the big seller for TM. The accounts I've read over time place Android as being a major, major draw for TM in general. TM sold far more Android models than just the G1. In fact, from what I recall, the MyTouch3G was their big mover and iPhone competitor. And in fact, unless TM has been lying, Android actually powered considerable subscriber growth.
Also, from a merger perspective, this is very, very bad for Android owners as AT&T has an established history of restricting application installation on their phones. Which means many applications, especially non-market applications, are simply not available for these devices. Basically, no third party application installation permitted.
At the end of the day, I do not find it the least bit credible that the lack of the iPhone on TM is the cause of the TM's sale to AT&T. Seems more like a press release to further promote AT&T and greasing of the merger wheels.
Slashdot Mirror
I know...bad form to reply to one's own reply but I felt I didn't properly explain something here.
So long as they donate something to the cause, they have fulfilled their legal obligation. This is true even with major non-profits like Red Cross.
...and...
In fact, many non-profits donate exceptionally little to their causes, frequently as little as 10%-20% of their income. IIRC, with Red Cross, as much as 60-70% (I'm pretty fuzzy on that number but the point is, a good chunk does help others) of what is donated actually helps people outside of the Red Cross organization.
When I say 60%-70%, or whatever the actual number is, I don't mean 60%-70% of your donation to the Japanese cause actually goes to Japan. What I mean is, 60%-70% actually goes to help people - any people - not necessarily the Japanese. More often than not, a fraction of your donation actually goes to that specific cause to which you donated.
As a example, after 9/11, something between 500 million and 750 million dollars were donated to the Red Cross. They planned on dishing out something like 100 million of that. Congress had to move in to force them to move all of that money as they planned on keeping the rest. It really pissed the Red Cross off who actively fought not to have to make those payouts.
Also, even at 70%, which is considered exceptionally good for charities, at these scales, its actually pretty vulgar. Think about that. It doesn't cost Red Cross $225 million dollars to write checks to orphans and windows. So while the Red Cross absolutely is one of the better organizations out there, they have a very long ways to go before they should be viewed without disgust.
First and foremost, you need to understand, Dr. Who absolutely is NOT science fiction. Dr. Who is science fantasy. Dr. Who has almost no elements required for good science fiction. That's not to mean Dr. Who can't be enjoyed. Its just that it can't be enjoyed on the basis of science fiction.
I agree with you, Firefly is so-so, but at least its actually science fiction. Babylon 5 actually had a story to tell, which means it has far, far more to offer than most mainstream entertainment and is a polar opposite of anything J.J. Abrams has to offer. Which is not to say everyone must enjoy B5 either.
I assert that being a geek doesn't mean having to like *everything* associated with geek life. And if you have to FORCE yourself to get into it, you're probably going to take all the fun out of it anyway.
I completely agree. A lot of extremely geeky humor is not the least bit funny. Often its a three year old's humor which is supposed to funny because its to the exclusion of non-intellectuals. That to me isn't humor, its a poor attempt at creating an exclusive club. Which explains a lot since many Geeks have been socially excluded so its their one up attempt at righting the world.
Exactly.
People are also suffering from massive ignorance about how things work here too. Firstly, texting DOES NOT donate money. Period. End of discussion. Texting actually PLEDGES to donate. Your carrier will never release uncollected funds based on a pledge, to which they legally could hope to recover transaction fees (which is far less than the pledge).
So, once you pledge, via texting, that's all you've done. You've not actually donated any money. When you pay your billing, at the end of the billing cycle in which you pledged money, you actually have the option to fulfill your pledge. After the money is collected, your carrier will likely pay their collections at the end of their billing cycle. So right there, you're very reasonably out 30-60-days out.
Once your carrier releases their funds, you're now looking at roughly another thirty days before that party actually gets organized, commits, and releases the funds to the cause.
Also, what appears to be part of the confusion is traditionally, when you donate to a cause, you are not actually donating to a cause. Traditionally, you are donating to an organization in the name of a cause; whereby, the organization is free to do what it likes with the money it receives. So long as they donate something to the cause, they have fulfilled their legal obligation. This is true even with major non-profits like Red Cross.
What also seems like a likely source of confusion is non-profit does not mean what most people believe it means. For whatever reason people tend to associate non-profit as being the preferred form of company for these types of things because all of their money goes toward the underlying cause. Realistically, nothing could be father from the truth. A non-profit only requires their profits to be re-invested into the corporation. That doesn't mean employees work cheaply or even for fair market prices. That doesn't mean executives are not paid huge salaries and receive massive bonuses and benefits. In fact, many non-profits donate exceptionally little to their causes, frequently as little as 10%-20% of their income. IIRC, with Red Cross, as much as 60-70% (I'm pretty fuzzy on that number but the point is, a good chunk does help others) of what is donated actually helps people outside of the Red Cross organization.
Really this article should be called, "Damn you Net-30!"
Wish I had mod points. Very informative.
What do you propose as an alternative?
They could dynamically move (or at least have times where they were there and not) rather than statically persist. It would actually make the game more enjoyable by giving a sense of a real world with real people rather than a static, inflexible, unchanging, unyielding world.
He's a jump master. That means he was probably in something like a C-130. A jump master is typically the last guy you see before you jump out of an aircraft.
Extremely long copyright terms rob the public of their culture
How? In what way? The likes of the LotR is very much protected by copyright but it most definitely is part of our culture. I honestly don't see how they are the least bit related or how there's even a hint of truth to that statement.
Copyrights are not the natural state of things, never were
And neither is artistic creation for the sake of artistic creation. You basically have two choices. One, the copyright model. Two, are you willing to pay a couple million for the creation of new music? And then have extremely limited audiences where it can be heard in concert only? Realistically, two isn't a viable option for the masses in this day and age. Which means if artistic creation is really important to you, you absolutely must support copyright protection.
A copyright is only there to grant a temporary, artificial monopoly to allow the creator to make some money.
I completely agree.
If the creator's long retired, dead and buried then why aren't their works in the public domain?
I don't have a complete answer but in part, it stems from the fact creators take a significant reduction in upfront earnings. This in turn means both them and their family earns less than what would otherwise be possible without copyright schemes. As such, it allows for that incremental money to realized of a reasonably long term, which is likely to be beyond the life span of the creator.
Most people, when they speak of striking down the terms, offer up ridiculously short terms, all too frequently because it benefits the individual's selfishness, which are insanely non-viable. So what's a reasonable term if the current are too long?
I guess I didn't communicate it clearly. Android now exposes its API via C++. With the latest release of the NDK, you can now create applications completely in C++. Even better it includes template support, exceptions, and RTTI and they even include a port of STLport.
If you are comfortable with C++ development, I encourage developers to move directly to C++ rather than bother with Java/Dalvik. The result is frequently smaller and considerably faster. The major down side to doing this is its not multiplatform and can create the need for large apks and multiple compiles per target down the road. But, for now, its really a no brainer.
Why is it people always make these silly calculations. It really doesn't matter in the least and is completely ignoring important aspects behind much of tort law. The fact you broke it out per person in the US makes your post even more ridiculous than the numbers being demanded.
If you don't believe the damages the law allows for are reasonable, demand either new laws or in the least, demand a modification of the existing law. The simple fact is, the law was broken. Under existing law, that's the damages allowed for which has absolutely ZERO bearing on the amount the industry has ever made, what the value of the industry is, and it especially has absolutely nothing to do with the amount per person in the USA. Maybe next you'll tell me the amount per banana in the world in 1812 - as it is of equal significance and relevance.
Here's the facts, contrary to the retarded hyperbole which is all too often put forward with these types of articles. They knowingly and willfully violated the law. Period. The law has financial implications when violated which are not directly tied to the value of the works. Using the factors relevant under the law, willful violators can face incredibly huge monetary losses - as is completely intended by the law. The law is designed to impose such massive financial loss that people are to reconsider their actions before it gets to this point. Limewire understood what they were doing and decided that they'd be willing to face such huge numbers. This shouldn't be the least bit surprising to anyone. And I don't hear anyone acknowledging how completely, insanely, utterly stupid, they were for doing this. Any discussion which doesn't at least acknowledging Limewire's complete stupidity and begging to be sued for such massive numbers is either dishonest or ignorant.
The real story here is, fucking idiots sued for knowingly violating the law with full awareness of the massive financial implications possible under the existing law.
Advocating piracy (not saying you, specifically, are advocating) only re-enforces the need for these laws and actually encourages yet more draconian copyright laws. The simple fact is, the vast majority of pro-pirates I've had discussion literally have no idea what they are talking about. They typically parrot absolutely distorted and detached, and unreasonable idealism which have absolutely no bearing in the real world. All too often they refuse to acknowledge artists deserve to make a living. They refuse to acknowledge they deserve some protection under the law, just as everyone else receives. The ignorantly advocate socialism - but only so long as the discussion doesn't include their income. And worse, most discussions go so far south they are not even in the real world - rather they are just left of unicorns and pixie dust, and have no clue how truly stupid, ignorant, and uneducated they sound. And these is frequently from people are otherwise seem fairly well educated.
If you're truly outraged, stop with the ignorant promotion of socialism, unicorns, pixie dust, and utopian discussions and deal with the real world. The world has recourse here. Contact your representatives and make an effort to change things rather that actively work to re-enforce the strength of these laws and legitimize their needs. Until you do so, its just one more reason why pirates are hypocritical and delusional.
Oh, one last thing - stop conflating everything together, usually though complete ignorance, into one huge bucket. Its yet another reason why pirates constantly sounds like complete idiots.
Well, Android's framework makes leaks trivially easy. Read the developer blogs and the various other tidbits they provide. They are full of donts to prevent leaks left and right. Hmmm...was suppose to be a feature of Java and a major one-up over C++ and other languages. Not with Android...
As an android developer who didn't originally have much background in Java (years ago), I can tell you I pine for C++ or python. Java tries to be a better C++ but fails. Its like the libraries were created by purists who had never actually done anything OO. Everything is painful to use because its never been normalized for how people actually do things. As such, its frequently far more verbose and tedious or on par with C++. Which always raises the question; why am I not doing this in C++ already. And then on the other side, there is something like Python. I've literally written several pages of Java code to do what a half dozen lines of python code is able to do. So Java isn't really as high level as everyone would have us to believe. And the size is largely driven by the fact it was designed by purest who seemingly, didn't have the experience to be writing something like Java. Which means it doesn't really challenge C++ and its far from challenging the likes of Python.
So in a nut shell, there absolutely are very strong reasons why many people were in a hurry to rush to the NDK once it actually supported C++ (exceptions, templates, RTTI; contrary to Google's assertions, they didn't actually support C++ for a long, long time ) and the ability to develop full blown android applications. The lack of Dalvik performance was only part of the rush developers had for the NDK. Of course it didn't help that literally, Google thinks C++ is C with a couple of extra features; which is why C++ on Android was originally so screwed up and crippled.
Long story short, I absolutely agree with you. If you're interested in Android development and do not absolutely love, love, love Java, and feel even moderately comfortable with C++, skip Java/Dalvik completely.
As the other poster said, welcome to slashdot.
Sadly, most slashdotters here these days have no clue whatsoever about the things they post. They have an opinion, regardless of how learned that opinion is, they share. That wasn't always the case. Even worse, troll moderation seems to be on par with valid moderation. Which means its a coin toss if a reasonable comment will be punished or promoted - or both. Even worse, while MS does deserve critical comments for their extremely long history of illegal and unethetical behavior, many brainlessly hold a grudge and attempt to punish any post which mentions Microsoft in anything other than a negative light. Even worse, many troll moderations are made strictly on the basis of who posted rather than the merits of the post.
If you want to read truthful or factual posts, especially on provocative articles (like copyright, anti-FOSS, piracy, etc.), you have to read at -1 else you've likely been censored by those attempting to hide the truth of mislead those who may not be fully aware or on the fence. The pro-piracy crowd is especially bad at censoring anything which conflicts with their propaganda war.
Sadly, it seems, most people either don't meta moderate or have such poor reading comprehension skills, they can't even follow simple instructions and do it properly. Of course, the same is also true for moderating in the first place.
Oh how slashdot has fallen...
So how is a statement of fact "playing math games." Its well known the number was purposely designed to vary based on societal needs; which are fully expected to change and evolve over time. That's entirely its point. We're talking about the classic, "living document."
Now if the terms were measured in hundreds or thousands of years, I'd agree they need to be adjusted. But to date, ignoring unreasoned and extremely irrational rants, I've NEVER heard a reason why the current terms are so horrible. Not one. Not one even close to reasonable. They all seem to boil down to...but *I* want to take it/use - just because *I* want to take and use it. Or even worse, I'm a loser scumbag and *I* deserve to be able to take anything *I* want without any regard for anyone else.
So seriously, given that you're own acknowledgement implies its as Constitutionally intended; what's broken here?
It doesn't make me happy. Winning isn't the issue.
But frankly, I KNEW I was right when I posted. Its not like the subject hasn't already been researched. The research is all pretty clear on this. The really sad thing is, stupid people like you... Yes, you are sad.
The truth is, you know you're stupid or you wouldn't be trolling with your posts which imply you don't care...and yet the fact you did post not only means you do care, but you know I'm right.
What a douche.
I assume you meant Amateur Race Drivers
Yes, that's what I mean.
These Amateur Race Drivers that you speak of, are they the ones that mainly drive in a circle, you know, go fast turn left, repeat.
You really need to get out more. There is a huge world of motor sports completely outside of NASCAR.
Why is it they have things like roll cages, wear helmets, fire retardant suits, have crash crews and ambulances standing by for these highly skilled amateur drivers, oh sorry, Amateur Race Drivers.
Okay, clearly you are retarded and had to boast this to the world. And in proving to the world you are retarded, you the entire point went completely over your head.
The fact of the matter is, "highly trained" police drivers is like saying, "expert shooter" because you once saw a firearm at a gun show. Expert police driver, with extremely few exceptions, actually means dip shit that knows how to press a brake and gas pedal.
And to come full circle back to your remarks, yes accidents happen when people drive extremely aggressively and fast. That's not what the topic was about, but it largely does describe police chasing people for petty crimes. Generally, the police officer creates a risk several orders of magnitude higher than the danger he's supposedly saving us from.
So despite you proving you are retarded, you actually proved the point - police ARE a danger, greater than what they are writing a ticket for, to everyone when they are chasing people to give them a ticket.
I can see people not liking such an odd show, but the outright hostility baffled me. I enjoyed myself with it and moved on.
Likely its because the show raised odd questions which demanded to be answered and which grabbed people. In exchange for watching, people felt those questions should have been answered since the entire show was about the questions constantly being raise. The show ended with a bug "fuck you" and a laugh, having never answered almost all the questions it painfully went about forcing in their face and asking.
When people are treated poorly likely this they tend to feel tricked, played, screwed, so on and so, and in the very least, feel like they've wasted massive amounts of time on a show that never delivered.
Its pretty normal for people to get angry when massive amounts of time have been wasted.
Most call this poor writing. Some call it J.J. Abrams' style. I call it both. Abrams has a long history of creating significant disappointment with most of the projects he touches.
I'm very happy to say, I didn't bother watching Lost because it was obvious from the first episode it was going to be a massive disappointment and a complete waste of time. Hopefully people have learned their Abrams lesson.
Same here. The performance difference for me is huge. Its so big, its instantly obvious from the second it starts, which even includes a much faster start for all my tabs. Its instantly snappy and I'm an extremely heavy tab user too. Flash sites are slightly more responsive and now I'm even running greasemonkey (didn't before) which should further slow things. And yet, things are definitely faster. I'm even observing a reduce memory footprint, which I didn't expect, of roughly 200M for the same tabs. I'm extremely impressed. Version 4.0, by far, exceeds my expectations.
As for plugins and add-ons, everything I use is already available for 4.0 so I'm pretty pleased. The only gotcha I've run into is the default linux release is 32-bit and you have to dig to find the 64-bit download. If any cares, you download the 64-bit linux release here.
Oh ya, am observing an extremely annoying issue with 4.0 and slashdot in that entry fields get pushed past the bottom of the screen when making posts, with the new slashdot interface abomination, truly a pain in the ass. Yet another reason to continue to use the old interface. Works great with the old interface. New interface is broken with 4.0.
Bullshit. People create for the joy of creation, not for profit.
Yes and no and is so disingenuous such that you're clearly attempting to distort reality if not a complete lie.
All too often, people may enjoy creating but simply can't because they can't earn a living doing so. Its a cliche that, "I used to ______, but then I had to grow up and earn a living." That's the real world. The simple fact is, the "joy of creation" is all too often stiffed BECAUSE there is no money to be had. Sure, a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, fraction of creation would still occur in spare time as a hobby, but it would almost completely gut creation in of itself. It would pale in comparison to what is possible when economics support it.
You're also ignorantly forgetting that in years past, almost all creation took place because of a rich financier existed to fund the work. Without this funding, almost everything we treasure from yesterday would simple not exist.
So factually, one need only look at history to say you're delusional and full of shit.
It's too bad nobody seems to be reading that "limited time" part anymore
Please show me where infinite copyright exists. I'm not aware of any place where perpetual copyright exists.
It's too bad nobody seems to be reading that "limited time" part anymore
Please point me to a reference where copyright is held infinitely long.
Then again, many studies have show a large number of accidents are from drivers reacting to the sight of an unexpected police officer. Reports typically associate it to excessive speed but in reality, the accident would have been extremely unlikely had the police officer not been there or had the driver known where he was at and leisurely correct speed before he got there.
I do believe DWI check points should not be reported as that likely does endanger the public. Just the same, study after study proves the majority of ticket income comes from speed traps where the speed limit is unsafely set too low for the sole purpose of generating revenue. Furthermore, driver error and distraction is, the vast majority of the time, attributed to excessive speed. Whereas, excessive speed is actually a contributing factor whereas driver distraction is believed to be the primary cause.
In a nut shell, unless drivers are speeding in neighborhoods,high traffic or high pedestrian areas, which largely prevent excessive speed because of the traffic and high pedestrian densities, reasonable speeding is typically not creating an undue hazard to the public and as an offense, primarily serves to generate revenue for police departments and courts. The sad truth is, most speeding tickets are about revenue and has absolutely nothing to do with public safety.
Seriously, think about it. If its as dangerous as the revenue generating propaganda wants us all to believe, you would be arrested and not ticketed. If you wave a firearm in public, you will be arrested. Please note, the propaganda typically compares speeding with firearms. If you drink too much and are on foot, you will be arrested. If you commit any number of other minor infractions, you will be arrested. And yet for something which is actively promoted as being akin to satin and killers of thousands every year, you simply get a ticket. The truth is, reasonable speeding in many (that's clearly not all) environments is simply not anywhere as dangerous as the propaganda says. In fact, if safety was their primary concern, you'd see a lot more neighborhood patrols and far less speed traps on highways.
Lastly, I'll point out, most "highly trained" police drivers completed a weekend course, a week course, or extremely rarely, a two week course. Which means, they are less skilled to driving at high speeds than most amateur drivers. Not to mention, police, when they speed, account for a disproportionate number of accidents, injuries, and deaths - and yet they get a blank check. If this is truly safe, why can't amateur race drivers get wavers to speed? Ask yourself, is a police officer driver 100mph in heavy traffic to stop and ticket a driver doing ten miles per hour over the speed limit really creating public safety, or is this really about, "Do what I say and not what I do while I cash this check. Move along."?
I also forgot to add that wall warts continue to consume power even when they are not in use; which is the vast majority of their effective lifetime. Thusly, having a centralized unit along with DC electronics in the house, in of itself means vast amounts of power are no longer being wasted for the sole purpose of wasting energy.
Do you unplug your converters when not charging your electronics? Something like 90%+ of the industrialized world doesn't. That accounts for massive energy waste.
Imagine having two runs of wires to each outlet, one for AC appliances,
You completely missed the point. Whooosh! Actually you would need two for only a number of years. Once electronics starting being build within AC/DC convertor, the need for parallel receptacles all but goes away. Unless you're arguing people need to plug OTHER appliances into their central air or home dryer. Meaning, houses built five years from now wouldn't need but a tiny few number of A/C plugs.
You can't expect Joe Sixpack to understand that... or keep him from replacing the power plug on a DC appliance to try to run it from the 120VAC output, because he's out of DC outlets.
Reality disproves your contrary position. Different plugs have existed for exactly these reasons and have proven to be a widely successful tool at maintaining safety. And frankly, isn't any different from the world we live in today. Thusly, reality disproves your contrary position.
All this in the name of "efficiency"? Try harder guys. Fusion power has more future than this bullshit.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, they continue to throw money at projects which have decades of proven failure and are completely ignoring new techniques which show real promise and are almost completely untested via experimentation. Until such time the world becomes utopian, real ideas such as the one I put forward, which can actually save vast amounts of energy, are the real solutions we have in hand.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Unfortunately, vast numbers of idiots on slashdot have no fucking clue what that means. I've literally had endless "debate" with these idiots who seemingly, sincerely believe that means society has the right to benefit and the creator can go fuck themselves. Basically stating the author has no right to benefit.
I'm constantly amazed at how many people with serious reading comprehension issues insist on asserting their dimwitted and distorted view of reality on the rest of the world.
And upon what do you base your expert knowledge of EVERY non-US culture?
Ahhh....that's what this all boils down to - you're failure to comprehend and your personal bias. Stating a FACTUAL statement of one culture does not elevate all other cultures; as you ignorantly insist on asserting. This isn't about yaaa...western culture rules - its about middle eastern culture largely sucks. There's a huge difference. And if you can't understand all this, you're so ignorant of the world you have absolutely no reasonable basis to even be commenting.
The fact is, most middle eastern cultures have much dogma which prevents learning from foreigners while within their our culture. Period. End of discussion. Absolutely fact. If you don't believe me, well you're not the least bit in a position to actually comment. Shut up and learn. Funny how we keep coming back to that.
That means, if its not invented there, and you don't leave your country, the chances of truly having subject matter experts available to teach is extremely unlikely. Period. End of discussion. If you don't understand how not having subject matter experts available to create other subject matter experts works, well, that explains your completely irrational and biased posts. Furthermore, as a cultural norm, those who are well educated outside the country and do go back, frequently see it as a stepping stone to become upwardly mobile within their society. That means native subject matter experts frequently do not stay around to create other subject matter experts. This is what the world calls a "brain drain." Middle eastern countries are actually well documented to suffer from brain drain which is why the wealthier countries are well known for hosting vast numbers of brainy and specialized foreigners - because they largely don't exist otherwise.
To be absolutely clear here, many cultures have unhealthy aspects to them. It just so happens, most middle eastern cultures have vastly more dogma which more sane cultures have already shed over the last thousand years. This lack of societal growth, which is EXTREMELY well documented for anyone who's bothered in the least, manages to oppress these countries socially and economically.
Again, everything I'm saying is EXTREMELY well documented and widely known. I just happen to bring it together into a single conversation. The fact you seem so obviously ignorant of all of these facts raises the question, why the hell is someone so obviously ignorant of the subject inserting their ignorant opinion, which is contrary to endless facts...oh that's right, it offended your personal bias and ignorant opinion.
I really don't know why people keep talking about the G1. From what I've read elsewhere, the G1 wasn't the big seller for TM. The accounts I've read over time place Android as being a major, major draw for TM in general. TM sold far more Android models than just the G1. In fact, from what I recall, the MyTouch3G was their big mover and iPhone competitor. And in fact, unless TM has been lying, Android actually powered considerable subscriber growth.
Also, from a merger perspective, this is very, very bad for Android owners as AT&T has an established history of restricting application installation on their phones. Which means many applications, especially non-market applications, are simply not available for these devices. Basically, no third party application installation permitted.
At the end of the day, I do not find it the least bit credible that the lack of the iPhone on TM is the cause of the TM's sale to AT&T. Seems more like a press release to further promote AT&T and greasing of the merger wheels.