Yea, and then they'll price discriminate. For an extra $100, the business/first class traveller get's to have his print read by the Ultra-Sterile biometric scanner, as opposed to the regular semi-bacteria-filled Economy Class scanner. Ah, the luxuries....
If your aim is to use the plane as a suicide bomb, will it matter to you if are fingerprinted?
The people who were behiond 9/11 weren't known terrorists/criminals. They were quiet people, under the radar....
Well I dunno about the guy above, but I was planning on get a mobile phone implanted in my head with an interface to my brain...I thought it was a great idea until those fscking telemarketers started calling....And boy did I get accidentally dial a bunch of wrong numbers!
I'm one of the privileged few who got an invite..ok maybe "few" ain't correct...anyhoo I have to say that I'm in love with Gmail too cuz it's superfast...but a few things...
Could it be superfast simply because there are limited users right now? And I disagree with the inituitive part... some e-mails do flow like conversations, but there are whole bunch that don't....plus the logic behind the conversation is simply e-mails from the same senders with the same subject are grouped into a conversation. So it's possible that some mails which are a part of the conversation are marked as separate if I decide to change subject midway through the 'conversation'... but I suppose once everybody becomes a part of gmail, people will change their mailing habits to conform to that logic...and 1 GB is 1GB, is 1GB...
I wouldn't say all along. America has been capitalist for most of its history, IMHO. But yes, there is definitely a small gradual trend towards socialism these days (ignoring the current buffoons in power). But I think this is a natural trend in all the rich countries. First y'all go thru a phase of hard-core intense capitalism and then when you've finally started reaching a certain level of wealth, the upper crust starts giving back to society, even if it is a trickle. But I think starting out socialist is a BAAAAAD idea for any new nation - i.e. India. It started out socialist and is NOW moving to the fre-market. Try breaking the entrenched attitude that the Government is there to do everything for you, and that you must accept what is given. The one thing that a capitalist economy will give its citizens is a good work ethic - i.e. work hard, and only deal with the govt. when things go wrong. But in socialist countries, people develop a dependent mindset, and this totally screws you over. "If you give a man a fish, he doesn't go hungry today. If you teach a man to fish, he never goes hungry..."
Yep, Democracy and Communism co-exist very easily in the Indian State of West Bengal. The State Government of West Bengal holds the distinction of being the ONLY democratically elected Communist government anywhere (and also happens to be the only one that goes peacefully whenever it loses the elections). That being said, I still think communism is inherently evil, no matter how good it sounds 'in principle'. All men may have been created equal, but they aren't born that way. Some are rich, the others poor, some talented, the others not-so talented. A free-market system is the only one that will eventually take care of all these disparities(with SOME, MINIMAL government regulation/legislation). Let's face it, the richest country in the world is a capitalist country, not a communist one, and saying that this is only true because communism has never been correctly implemented doesn't hold, because it's not like capitalism has been implemented "correctly" either, and yet it's still very successful wherever it is in force.
I agree whole-heartedly. If Windows came installed 'Bare-Bones', there'd be a lot less annoyed people out there (but I'm sure we'd all miss Clippy)....however, that's one of the issues - who do you decide what should be an inherent part of the OS, and what shouldn't. Although you won't find anybody on slashdot propounding the beauty of having IE tied into Explorer, I know lots of AverageJoes who like the fact that they can just have that address bar on the TaskBar, and type a webaddress into it or a file path. Maybe "Where The Line Should Be Drawn" can be future Ask Slashdot article....
Pathetic excuse for a keyboard my left foot. T9 works just fine for most messages (in English at least, can't say about other languages). I wouldn't even mind having T9 for use with a computer. It's 5 taps to get 'hello' with a normal keyboard, and 5 taps on a phone with T9. If you've got the need for a keyboard, get the Nokia 6810....
(yawn). You must be new here....
In Soviet Russia, the Mobile rings YOU!...oh never mind. I'm just wondering how long it would take somebody to "wave" 'All of your base station are belong to us' on their new 'nifty' mobile...It would be a great way to increase your chances of carpal tunnel for sure...
Yer right, they do, the Smallest Continent to be precise(or Largest Island, take your pick), but I think there's a lot less 'motorable' area in Oz. As for that video, I second the motion!
Well the roads are a lot wider because they do have pretty much a whole continent to themselves, and only about 260 Million people to populate it with. Some people have all the luck. Try driving in India. 1/4 the area of USA, and 4 times the population, and yes, they do own cars in India.
I think that might be of continuous usage, i.e. power on all the time. If you don't leave it on continuously, I'm sure you can at least double the life..if not more...
None of you have still answered my question - why is it ok for the Music Industry to push albums on you? Why? Just because they hide behind 200 year old legislation doesn't make them paragons of virtuosity! Just because it's the law doesn't make it gospel. Stupid laws weren't meant to be obeyed, it's really that simple, and their current set of laws are behind the times. In a democracy there are laws that make sense, and laws that don't. And when the majority finds a particular bunch to be stupid, they'll simply disobey. But in this case, despite the majority disobeying, the Music Industry isn't getting it. Gay Marriages are banned, but a whole section of people who found that to be stupid, went ahead with them anyway.
Now your next comment is going to be: "Oh so if the majority of this country condoned murder, they'd start disobeying the law against murder?" - Yes, and then that would force people to change the laws, or basically fight their case out in court justifying murder.
Finally, yes, what we're doing is stealing. It's stealing, because that's how the current law is defined. But only in America. There are other places with less stringent copyright laws, so basically one man's thief is another man's mp3-user. Try thinking out of the box for a change. These laws were written way back when. You think they foresaw p2p or the Net? New times demand new laws, and I'm not referring to the DMCA. That's just reinforcement of the status quo.
Sorry have to take that one apart. MS has been on back-foot/reactive since its inception. It's never been a "pioneer" in any of its fields...well maybe Office...I said MAYBE! All Microsoft does is wait for somebody to do the hard work of finding the Next Big Thing, then moves in for the kill - first offer to buy out, and if they can't, they develop their own version, and toss it in with the OS. Works everytime, and has been for about 20 years now... So yea, they probably fear Linux (and have for a long long time now), but that's basically what drives them. They used to fear Netscape....
Sorry beg to differ. Win XP is tons more stable than Win98...this is provided you're working on a fresh install of course...even Microsoft can't guarantee what happens in an upgrade..and don't get me started on security. At least hitting esc on the WinXP logon screen doesn't start up your machine! Now having said all that, I'm going close Wine now.. HA HA!
Nope, I'm just gonna download the 2/3 songs of Zep that I like, until somebody realizes there's some sense in selling those songs individually. Also, ok so in their case, they consider their music a work of art. But can you say that all artists do? I mean surely there might be one artist out to make a quick buck? Or another artist who thinks each of his/her songs stands out individually? But they can't do anything about that if they're tied into the RIAA. they have go about it the regular way. Anybody who tries to beat the RIAA, including artists has a tough job on their hands. That's where the monopoly comes in. The RIAA decides how and when and where you can appreciate music. Is there any authority which prevents you from viewing paintings at your friend's place? Documented usage of scupltures? If we're looking at this from an Art point of view, then everything the RIAA has done has nothing to do with furthering the 'art'. And if we look at it from a commercial point of view, this is simply a case of an industry which is bullying its consumers. And only in a monopoly situation can that occur.
Obviously you didn't follow my logic very well, and used a worse analogy to boot.
Suppose car 1 gives you 100 mpg. But it's not sold separately. It comes with two trucks and a bulldozer. Why should you be forced to pay for those additional items? You have no use for them, you don't want them, but you aren't given any option. If car 1 was sold separately you _would_ buy it, but you aren't given that choice. Simply because there are no other dealers in the market, and everybody follows this convention of bundling.
I don't like all of Norah Jones' songs. I like one. And I like it a lot. And since I think that she did some really creative work for that ONE song, as a consumer I would signal to her to make more songs like that one by paying for _that_ one song, and not paying for the other ones that I think are crap. But I don't have that choice. I have to buy the whole 13-song CD, and pray that the next one will have good songs too. Now u have iTunes e.t.c, so this problem is partly alleviated. What about all those old songs that are not on iTunes' list? They'd need a massive database to hold every song released since 1950 (or maybe the 1800s even?). And it wouldn't be commercially viable for them to do so, no matter how cheap storage gets. Piracy is only going to go away when they finally start listening to the consumer. They're only halfway there presently.
You're correct, I liked ONE song, and I WOULD have paid for it, if only that ONE song was available. I have the right to reward the artist for the music that I think is good. Why should finance mediocrity. That's called the fucking free-market. Make lots of good songs and people will buy them. Make one good song + 13 works of crap just to make some money does not deserve recognition. If MS can be sued to bundle an internet browser with an OS, a music comapny should be sued for bundling 13 songs of crap with one good one. Just because you're brainwashed into following monopolist conventions doesn't mean the rest of us are.
High-tech technology is exactly what will help out these places. Simple example. Before the advent of mobile phones in India, there was a waiting list of upto 4 years to get a landline. This bred lots of courruption and black-marketeering. Even once you got a landline, you were at the mercy of the local linesman, who would disconnect your line if you didn't pay him his additional monthly salary (usually a bottle of cheap, local rum/scotch). Further, everytime it would rain, your line would go dead. That meant another bribe. Then one day they decided to launch mobile phone service in India.
Average time to get a mobile phone connection: 24 hours
Major Network outages (affecting more than one telecom circle - one circle is roughly the size of a city): ZERO
Look on linesman's face when he realizes HE's going have to chase after YOU to sell his shitty landline connection: Priceless
That's one example, since I'm into feeding the Trolls, here's another:
Electronic Voting in India, which has already been covered in slashdot.
Technology helps everybody, especially the poor. No you can't feed a honeless person a microchip, but I can promise you that it helps ensure that food reaches that person cheaper and faster than before.
Yea I totally agree with you... besides the mobile phones are getting bigger and more PDA-ish. The latest phones from Nokia are pretty out there - Why not go for something which was built to handle phone calls, and then some? I guess the PDAs and Mobiles are morphing to the same thing, from opposite directions, though..
Slashdot Mirror
Yea, and then they'll price discriminate. For an extra $100, the business/first class traveller get's to have his print read by the Ultra-Sterile biometric scanner, as opposed to the regular semi-bacteria-filled Economy Class scanner. Ah, the luxuries....
If your aim is to use the plane as a suicide bomb, will it matter to you if are fingerprinted? The people who were behiond 9/11 weren't known terrorists/criminals. They were quiet people, under the radar....
Well I dunno about the guy above, but I was planning on get a mobile phone implanted in my head with an interface to my brain...I thought it was a great idea until those fscking telemarketers started calling....And boy did I get accidentally dial a bunch of wrong numbers!
I'm one of the privileged few who got an invite..ok maybe "few" ain't correct...anyhoo I have to say that I'm in love with Gmail too cuz it's superfast...but a few things... Could it be superfast simply because there are limited users right now? And I disagree with the inituitive part... some e-mails do flow like conversations, but there are whole bunch that don't....plus the logic behind the conversation is simply e-mails from the same senders with the same subject are grouped into a conversation. So it's possible that some mails which are a part of the conversation are marked as separate if I decide to change subject midway through the 'conversation'... but I suppose once everybody becomes a part of gmail, people will change their mailing habits to conform to that logic...and 1 GB is 1GB, is 1GB...
I wouldn't say all along. America has been capitalist for most of its history, IMHO. But yes, there is definitely a small gradual trend towards socialism these days (ignoring the current buffoons in power). But I think this is a natural trend in all the rich countries. First y'all go thru a phase of hard-core intense capitalism and then when you've finally started reaching a certain level of wealth, the upper crust starts giving back to society, even if it is a trickle. But I think starting out socialist is a BAAAAAD idea for any new nation - i.e. India. It started out socialist and is NOW moving to the fre-market. Try breaking the entrenched attitude that the Government is there to do everything for you, and that you must accept what is given. The one thing that a capitalist economy will give its citizens is a good work ethic - i.e. work hard, and only deal with the govt. when things go wrong. But in socialist countries, people develop a dependent mindset, and this totally screws you over. "If you give a man a fish, he doesn't go hungry today. If you teach a man to fish, he never goes hungry..."
Yep, Democracy and Communism co-exist very easily in the Indian State of West Bengal. The State Government of West Bengal holds the distinction of being the ONLY democratically elected Communist government anywhere (and also happens to be the only one that goes peacefully whenever it loses the elections). That being said, I still think communism is inherently evil, no matter how good it sounds 'in principle'. All men may have been created equal, but they aren't born that way. Some are rich, the others poor, some talented, the others not-so talented. A free-market system is the only one that will eventually take care of all these disparities(with SOME, MINIMAL government regulation/legislation). Let's face it, the richest country in the world is a capitalist country, not a communist one, and saying that this is only true because communism has never been correctly implemented doesn't hold, because it's not like capitalism has been implemented "correctly" either, and yet it's still very successful wherever it is in force.
I agree whole-heartedly. If Windows came installed 'Bare-Bones', there'd be a lot less annoyed people out there (but I'm sure we'd all miss Clippy)....however, that's one of the issues - who do you decide what should be an inherent part of the OS, and what shouldn't. Although you won't find anybody on slashdot propounding the beauty of having IE tied into Explorer, I know lots of AverageJoes who like the fact that they can just have that address bar on the TaskBar, and type a webaddress into it or a file path. Maybe "Where The Line Should Be Drawn" can be future Ask Slashdot article....
Pathetic excuse for a keyboard my left foot. T9 works just fine for most messages (in English at least, can't say about other languages). I wouldn't even mind having T9 for use with a computer. It's 5 taps to get 'hello' with a normal keyboard, and 5 taps on a phone with T9. If you've got the need for a keyboard, get the Nokia 6810....
(yawn). You must be new here....
In Soviet Russia, the Mobile rings YOU!...oh never mind.
I'm just wondering how long it would take somebody to "wave" 'All of your base station are belong to us' on their new 'nifty' mobile...It would be a great way to increase your chances of carpal tunnel for sure...
Yer right, they do, the Smallest Continent to be precise(or Largest Island, take your pick), but I think there's a lot less 'motorable' area in Oz. As for that video, I second the motion!
Well the roads are a lot wider because they do have pretty much a whole continent to themselves, and only about 260 Million people to populate it with. Some people have all the luck. Try driving in India. 1/4 the area of USA, and 4 times the population, and yes, they do own cars in India.
I think that might be of continuous usage, i.e. power on all the time. If you don't leave it on continuously, I'm sure you can at least double the life..if not more...
I was about to contradict you...until I googled and saw This
Yea even condoms...
None of you have still answered my question - why is it ok for the Music Industry to push albums on you? Why? Just because they hide behind 200 year old legislation doesn't make them paragons of virtuosity! Just because it's the law doesn't make it gospel. Stupid laws weren't meant to be obeyed, it's really that simple, and their current set of laws are behind the times. In a democracy there are laws that make sense, and laws that don't. And when the majority finds a particular bunch to be stupid, they'll simply disobey. But in this case, despite the majority disobeying, the Music Industry isn't getting it. Gay Marriages are banned, but a whole section of people who found that to be stupid, went ahead with them anyway.
Now your next comment is going to be: "Oh so if the majority of this country condoned murder, they'd start disobeying the law against murder?" - Yes, and then that would force people to change the laws, or basically fight their case out in court justifying murder.
Finally, yes, what we're doing is stealing. It's stealing, because that's how the current law is defined. But only in America. There are other places with less stringent copyright laws, so basically one man's thief is another man's mp3-user. Try thinking out of the box for a change. These laws were written way back when. You think they foresaw p2p or the Net? New times demand new laws, and I'm not referring to the DMCA. That's just reinforcement of the status quo.
MS seems to be on the back-foot for now.
Sorry have to take that one apart. MS has been on back-foot/reactive since its inception. It's never been a "pioneer" in any of its fields...well maybe Office...I said MAYBE! All Microsoft does is wait for somebody to do the hard work of finding the Next Big Thing, then moves in for the kill - first offer to buy out, and if they can't, they develop their own version, and toss it in with the OS. Works everytime, and has been for about 20 years now... So yea, they probably fear Linux (and have for a long long time now), but that's basically what drives them. They used to fear Netscape....
Oh yea? Well I'll outsource my free support to India, and then my free will be cheaper than your homegrown, domestic, higly-subsidised free, so THERE!
Sorry beg to differ. Win XP is tons more stable than Win98...this is provided you're working on a fresh install of course...even Microsoft can't guarantee what happens in an upgrade..and don't get me started on security. At least hitting esc on the WinXP logon screen doesn't start up your machine! Now having said all that, I'm going close Wine now.. HA HA!
Nope, I'm just gonna download the 2/3 songs of Zep that I like, until somebody realizes there's some sense in selling those songs individually. Also, ok so in their case, they consider their music a work of art. But can you say that all artists do? I mean surely there might be one artist out to make a quick buck? Or another artist who thinks each of his/her songs stands out individually? But they can't do anything about that if they're tied into the RIAA. they have go about it the regular way. Anybody who tries to beat the RIAA, including artists has a tough job on their hands. That's where the monopoly comes in. The RIAA decides how and when and where you can appreciate music. Is there any authority which prevents you from viewing paintings at your friend's place? Documented usage of scupltures? If we're looking at this from an Art point of view, then everything the RIAA has done has nothing to do with furthering the 'art'. And if we look at it from a commercial point of view, this is simply a case of an industry which is bullying its consumers. And only in a monopoly situation can that occur.
Obviously you didn't follow my logic very well, and used a worse analogy to boot.
Suppose car 1 gives you 100 mpg. But it's not sold separately. It comes with two trucks and a bulldozer. Why should you be forced to pay for those additional items? You have no use for them, you don't want them, but you aren't given any option. If car 1 was sold separately you _would_ buy it, but you aren't given that choice. Simply because there are no other dealers in the market, and everybody follows this convention of bundling.
I don't like all of Norah Jones' songs. I like one. And I like it a lot. And since I think that she did some really creative work for that ONE song, as a consumer I would signal to her to make more songs like that one by paying for _that_ one song, and not paying for the other ones that I think are crap. But I don't have that choice. I have to buy the whole 13-song CD, and pray that the next one will have good songs too. Now u have iTunes e.t.c, so this problem is partly alleviated. What about all those old songs that are not on iTunes' list? They'd need a massive database to hold every song released since 1950 (or maybe the 1800s even?). And it wouldn't be commercially viable for them to do so, no matter how cheap storage gets. Piracy is only going to go away when they finally start listening to the consumer. They're only halfway there presently.
You're correct, I liked ONE song, and I WOULD have paid for it, if only that ONE song was available. I have the right to reward the artist for the music that I think is good. Why should finance mediocrity. That's called the fucking free-market. Make lots of good songs and people will buy them. Make one good song + 13 works of crap just to make some money does not deserve recognition. If MS can be sued to bundle an internet browser with an OS, a music comapny should be sued for bundling 13 songs of crap with one good one. Just because you're brainwashed into following monopolist conventions doesn't mean the rest of us are.
High-tech technology is exactly what will help out these places. Simple example. Before the advent of mobile phones in India, there was a waiting list of upto 4 years to get a landline. This bred lots of courruption and black-marketeering. Even once you got a landline, you were at the mercy of the local linesman, who would disconnect your line if you didn't pay him his additional monthly salary (usually a bottle of cheap, local rum/scotch). Further, everytime it would rain, your line would go dead. That meant another bribe. Then one day they decided to launch mobile phone service in India.
Average time to get a mobile phone connection: 24 hours
Major Network outages (affecting more than one telecom circle - one circle is roughly the size of a city): ZERO
Look on linesman's face when he realizes HE's going have to chase after YOU to sell his shitty landline connection: Priceless
That's one example, since I'm into feeding the Trolls, here's another:
Electronic Voting in India, which has already been covered in slashdot.
Technology helps everybody, especially the poor. No you can't feed a honeless person a microchip, but I can promise you that it helps ensure that food reaches that person cheaper and faster than before.
Tipex is the non-American word for White-Out. Biro is another name for ballpen, one of those brand names that became generic
and this one's much cheaper, and yes, it runs Linux. Simputer
Yea I totally agree with you... besides the mobile phones are getting bigger and more PDA-ish. The latest phones from Nokia are pretty out there - Why not go for something which was built to handle phone calls, and then some? I guess the PDAs and Mobiles are morphing to the same thing, from opposite directions, though..