you didn't *just* post evidence, you posted a claim with supporting evidence. i don't know for sure what the other guy was thinking, but i guess he's responding to your claim that the US admitted to it (iran downing a spy drone). see above for your quote. your evidence does not support that claim.
I think you fail to realize just how crappy places like Uzbekistan actually are.
sorry, i missed where anyone was claiming that iraq is the worst place on earth.
Discrimination based on religion and gender isn't anything unique to Muslim countries either; such discrimination defines life in the US for millions of people.
difference: discrimination based on gender / religion isn't state sanctioned in the USA. i realize that discrimination happens at all levels of US society, but at least we declare at an official level that it's wrong (and illegal). that's a pretty good first step, and it's light years ahead of iraq.
so a few pictures of semi-skyscraper buildings and colorful lights proves tehran, and the rest of iran, is first world? you could go to almost any nation in the world and take a few selective photos and make it look like a place where we'd all like to settle down with our families.
So, given the demographic that most often uses credit, they're going to steal from the poor to give to the poor?
i don't think credit card ownership is related to wealth... credit cards are a convenience in most facets of life and required for life online.
credit card limits and available credit are related to wealth. poor folks will have lower limits and hence less available credit to be stolen. rich folks will have higher limits and higher available credit, all the more to be stolen.
Remove all exemptions, mortgage interest, charitable donations, educational expenses blah blah, and give a blanket exemption of something like two or three time poverty line. Use the exemption to buy a home or live in rented home and spend it on clothes. Your choice. This would simplify tax code further.
taxes do not simply provide incoming for the govt... they allow the govt to influence people's behavior. that's an important thing. education, charitable giving are benefits to society that should be encouraged. if you respond to this by saying that the govt shouldn't be able to influence your behavior... well, you live in a society and that means sometimes doing what's best for the society in general. giving folks a break on taxes at least is only encouraging the behavior, not forcing it.
as for mortgage interest... i think the idea is that it distributes wealth. in stead of the property being owned by a few rich landlords, it's spread out across home owners. this is a true perk for the middle class. when it comes to owning a home, the most cost-effective thing to do is simply pay cash, and that is what the truly wealthy will do.
anyone that is today, running around trying to keep their data private is at best fighting a losing battle. for an average person living an average life, it's impossible. i imagine there are people here that are tech-savvy enough to pull it off, but the curtain is drawing even for them.
in stead of focusing on how to keep data private, i'd rather see data be free... but with strict regulations on how it can be used. for example, i don't care if my insurance carrier can find my complete medical history... as long as they aren't allowed to discriminate against me based on it. i don't care if a company uses my data to target advertising to me, as long as we have laws allowing us to opt-out. anyway, they are already spamming me with untargeted advertising. could targeted advertising be worse?
But hey - Google doesn't give a shit, because they're working towards two goals: Market domination and stock price.
yup, just like every other public company, by definition. if they aren't doing that, they are called a non-profit. you should get used to this concept.
because it's not a valid grievance. google didn't sign some binding agreement with the users of the world to make all android open source, all the time, immediately. compared to apple or msft they are freaking saints (w/ regard to OSS), but it's never good enough huh? can't you be just as little positive about the fact that a company is pouring millions of dollars of resources into a platform and then just giving it away? of course not, because they aren't going about it on your time table.
OSS is *expensive* for a company. it's not just throwing it over the fence. they have to manage the community, manage contributions, keep the code clean and clear and keep everything perfectly documented for moron consumption. it's much, much more expensive for a company to open source their code than to just keep it internal.
there are good reason why they didn't release 3.0. for one, there were in the middle of restructuring the source code merging the 2.x and 3.x branches. releasing the code in this state would have been confusing to users, but mainly, cause them more work and resources in the long run. that's their prerogative- they are a public company that reserves the right to make make financial decisions.
But, I personally dont really hold google responsible for any of this. They make an OS. Did microsoft get blamed when sony had that drm root-kit flooding cd's?
people generally don't get the relationship between AOSP and what is on their phones. first, phone manufacturers take the code from AOSP, and customize the hell out of it and add their special hooks and software. then the carrier gets it, and again customizes the hell out of it and *their* special software. in both cases they can add and modify software at any level in the OS. they can modify the kernel, whatever.
google has no control over any of that. "android" is just a code base that carriers and manufacturers start from when building the operating system they will put on their phones. when it comes to production level shipping software, there's no one thing called "android". to be correct we should be referring to things as htc+at&t android or samsung+sprint android, etc.
android is open source, it's just that you don't know the definition of open source. OSS is software where the source is available, period. it doesn't mean users of the OSS are bound to GLP-like agreements, unless the OSS is GPL (which android is not). if you don't like the non-OSS that carriers are adding to their android dists, then switch carriers. oh wait, they ALL add their own non-OSS software.
p.s., *all* smart phones from all manufacturer across all carriers spy on you.
you are being modded down for saying stupid things like companies should be broken up because they are performing consistently, in a recession no less.
could they have done better? sure, a few have. could they have done worse? yes, *many* have. i'd be really, really damn happy if my completely diversified, "low risk" 401k had at least held it's value thus far in the recession. i would be much better off if i was entirely invested in MSFT.
You guys are pussies really when it comes down to protesting. The PD's will use their less-than-lethal weapons on you and you let it happen.
no, not if we "use [our] freaking guns". in the USA, police shoot to kill. if they have their gun out, it's to kill you, period. there's no aiming to injure. if they even suspect we have a lethal weapon (including things like a knife) we have a good chance of being killed by them. people are killed by police every day.
If you guys are *serious* about staying there and doing something then get a GOAL. Something you can actually achieve.
the issue is that the "problem" is completely nebulous in itself and completely ingrained in our system. the problem is that the USA is run by corporations / the rich for corporations / the rick. how do you make an achievable goal out that? you can't. anything you could come up with to counter that would be labeled unachievable. and, that is just how the corporations like it. the solution is so complicated and hard to grasp that people don't even know where to start.
If you do not come up with a concrete goal soon the 'man' will get tired of your BS and toss you on your ear.
we the people, tens of millions of us, angry. you can't stop that. if you think you can, go get your history book. i sure hope it doesn't come to that, but it's a mistake of monumental proportion to underestimate the problem, expect that it can be swept away with the removal of a few tents.
yes, they are, but it's common knowledge that the bulk of the tax burden lies with the middle class. if you are rich, you have lots of fancy tax loop holes and offshore accounts and are able to pay someone that knows how to hide your money.
banks are already regulated
yes, that's why they all, even the big ones like well's fargo and bank of america, made millions of home loans to people that couldn't afford it and are now teetering on bankruptcy. sure, free market and all, but banks failing effects every one of us.
they're lobbying for an end to lobbying
lobbying is paying a professional "salesman" to push your agenda to the people who make laws. i can't see how that's anything like an organized protest.
yes, and if it was up to you, i'd still be carrying around an MP3 player, a dedicated cell phone, a laptop, a portable DVD player, and a dedicated GPS every where i go.
No one listens to music on their TV,
did you know, that modern TVs have audio out? my google TV even has optical out.
if your TV's hooked into your home ent system, which of course it will be, why not? pretty slick to have pandora, iheartradio, pandora, podcasts, your google music collection, and every other streaming audio source available from android.
Mail, Calendar? To hard to read.
they are not if you provide a TV-optimized interface. there are quite a few TV-optimized web pages and they work well. check out http://www.google.com/tv/spotlight-gallery.html to see what i mean.
if it has a keyboard, there's no reason it can't function as well as and in place of a PC for general purpose computing tasks. there's nothing about the display being bigger that makes it unsuitable... but you do need a TV optimized interface.
Curiously, the fix is rather simple, but they just don't do it: Let the browser ID itself as any stock PC browser rather than reveal that it is Google TV. Then the user could play the content that they want on it. Treating this as different than any other computer is stupid.
you can set the user agent in the android browser. i don't know the issue, but i recall that this was not enough to fool hulu et al. i have no idea what else would be required though, either.
i have one (the sony version), and while the new software is much cleaner and consistent, it's seriously lacking applications. it has the standard stuff like netflix and pandora, but it doesn't have *any* google applications... like gmail, maps, calendar, google music. how can it not have google music? combine this with the overall lack of really *any* compelling 3rd party applications, and it really hurts the overall package.
maybe they figure you can go to the browser to get all the apps, but that gives you more of a desktop / laptop experience that expects you to be 20-30cm from the display.
have you used one? it's actually a good remote- provides easy access to common things and have a full kb that doesn't get in the way of the common things.
but then my linux buddy switched back to Windows 7
i did the same thing. every 5 years or so i give linux a shot. my last attempt was about 2.5 years ago. got my brand spanking new laptop and proudly wiped windows and installed linux first thing. let's just say i had lots of issues... some strange network delay in every browser connection (something to do w/ ipv6), my DVD writer didn't work, my volume keys didn't work, media keys didn't work, no driver for fingerprint reader, display would never sleep... the list goes on. through numerous friday night sessions i managed to fix some of the things, and not others.
not exactly the experience you want after plunking down top dollar for a new system. i mess w/ software all day and the last thing i want to do is edit config files and comb linux forums when i get home.
the whole virus / anti virus issue has been moot for me since MSFT released their own anti virus. gets updated with the OS, unobtrusive, and just works. i haven't had a virus in years (that i know of anyway...).
if you have a modern computer, you are better of installing linux as a guest OS and leaving windows as the host. linux is or can be configured to be sparse enough to run pretty well in this environment.
I understand that Flash/Silverlight can also make annoying ads, poorly constructed websites that would be much better serviced by AJAX, and crappy games the world can do without
either HTML5 can replace flash, or it can't. if it can, then it can be used to create annoying ads and poorly designed websites as well. the people that are writing your sh*t-sandwich websites using flash can surely write them with HTML5.
or, maybe there is something in the spec that actually *prevents* it being used to present ads and animations to the user. oh wait, there isn't. maybe it inherently disallows poor website design. nope, it doesn't.
Slashdot Mirror
I so hope I see the fall of the US in my life time,
so true. me, i can't wait until my house burns down. i'll be roasting hot dogs on the coals.
i'll be at the Canadian border
it's going to be a rude awakening for you i think when you discover that leaders are corrupt where ever you go.
Really? You mean besides the US admitting to it?
you didn't *just* post evidence, you posted a claim with supporting evidence. i don't know for sure what the other guy was thinking, but i guess he's responding to your claim that the US admitted to it (iran downing a spy drone). see above for your quote. your evidence does not support that claim.
I think you fail to realize just how crappy places like Uzbekistan actually are.
sorry, i missed where anyone was claiming that iraq is the worst place on earth.
Discrimination based on religion and gender isn't anything unique to Muslim countries either; such discrimination defines life in the US for millions of people.
difference: discrimination based on gender / religion isn't state sanctioned in the USA. i realize that discrimination happens at all levels of US society, but at least we declare at an official level that it's wrong (and illegal). that's a pretty good first step, and it's light years ahead of iraq.
Not this:
http://tehranlive.org/ [tehranlive.org]
so a few pictures of semi-skyscraper buildings and colorful lights proves tehran, and the rest of iran, is first world? you could go to almost any nation in the world and take a few selective photos and make it look like a place where we'd all like to settle down with our families.
So, given the demographic that most often uses credit, they're going to steal from the poor to give to the poor?
i don't think credit card ownership is related to wealth ... credit cards are a convenience in most facets of life and required for life online.
credit card limits and available credit are related to wealth. poor folks will have lower limits and hence less available credit to be stolen. rich folks will have higher limits and higher available credit, all the more to be stolen.
just saying ...
Remove all exemptions, mortgage interest, charitable donations, educational expenses blah blah, and give a blanket exemption of something like two or three time poverty line. Use the exemption to buy a home or live in rented home and spend it on clothes. Your choice. This would simplify tax code further.
taxes do not simply provide incoming for the govt ... they allow the govt to influence people's behavior. that's an important thing. education, charitable giving are benefits to society that should be encouraged. if you respond to this by saying that the govt shouldn't be able to influence your behavior ... well, you live in a society and that means sometimes doing what's best for the society in general. giving folks a break on taxes at least is only encouraging the behavior, not forcing it.
as for mortgage interest ... i think the idea is that it distributes wealth. in stead of the property being owned by a few rich landlords, it's spread out across home owners. this is a true perk for the middle class. when it comes to owning a home, the most cost-effective thing to do is simply pay cash, and that is what the truly wealthy will do.
anyone that is today, running around trying to keep their data private is at best fighting a losing battle. for an average person living an average life, it's impossible. i imagine there are people here that are tech-savvy enough to pull it off, but the curtain is drawing even for them.
in stead of focusing on how to keep data private, i'd rather see data be free ... but with strict regulations on how it can be used. for example, i don't care if my insurance carrier can find my complete medical history ... as long as they aren't allowed to discriminate against me based on it. i don't care if a company uses my data to target advertising to me, as long as we have laws allowing us to opt-out. anyway, they are already spamming me with untargeted advertising. could targeted advertising be worse?
But hey - Google doesn't give a shit, because they're working towards two goals: Market domination and stock price.
yup, just like every other public company, by definition. if they aren't doing that, they are called a non-profit. you should get used to this concept.
Why should I drop it?
because it's not a valid grievance. google didn't sign some binding agreement with the users of the world to make all android open source, all the time, immediately. compared to apple or msft they are freaking saints (w/ regard to OSS), but it's never good enough huh? can't you be just as little positive about the fact that a company is pouring millions of dollars of resources into a platform and then just giving it away? of course not, because they aren't going about it on your time table.
OSS is *expensive* for a company. it's not just throwing it over the fence. they have to manage the community, manage contributions, keep the code clean and clear and keep everything perfectly documented for moron consumption. it's much, much more expensive for a company to open source their code than to just keep it internal.
there are good reason why they didn't release 3.0. for one, there were in the middle of restructuring the source code merging the 2.x and 3.x branches. releasing the code in this state would have been confusing to users, but mainly, cause them more work and resources in the long run. that's their prerogative- they are a public company that reserves the right to make make financial decisions.
But, I personally dont really hold google responsible for any of this. They make an OS. Did microsoft get blamed when sony had that drm root-kit flooding cd's?
people generally don't get the relationship between AOSP and what is on their phones. first, phone manufacturers take the code from AOSP, and customize the hell out of it and add their special hooks and software. then the carrier gets it, and again customizes the hell out of it and *their* special software. in both cases they can add and modify software at any level in the OS. they can modify the kernel, whatever.
google has no control over any of that. "android" is just a code base that carriers and manufacturers start from when building the operating system they will put on their phones. when it comes to production level shipping software, there's no one thing called "android". to be correct we should be referring to things as htc+at&t android or samsung+sprint android, etc.
leading to every Android Honeycomb tablet that shipped this year being a closed platform until this week.
yes, so can you drop it then?
android is open source, it's just that you don't know the definition of open source. OSS is software where the source is available, period. it doesn't mean users of the OSS are bound to GLP-like agreements, unless the OSS is GPL (which android is not). if you don't like the non-OSS that carriers are adding to their android dists, then switch carriers. oh wait, they ALL add their own non-OSS software.
p.s., *all* smart phones from all manufacturer across all carriers spy on you.
you are being modded down for saying stupid things like companies should be broken up because they are performing consistently, in a recession no less.
could they have done better? sure, a few have. could they have done worse? yes, *many* have. i'd be really, really damn happy if my completely diversified, "low risk" 401k had at least held it's value thus far in the recession. i would be much better off if i was entirely invested in MSFT.
according to this,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
windows has about 75% market share. the next highest is OSX at 7%. if nothing else, that's pretty massive potential.
You guys are pussies really when it comes down to protesting. The PD's will use their less-than-lethal weapons on you and you let it happen.
no, not if we "use [our] freaking guns". in the USA, police shoot to kill. if they have their gun out, it's to kill you, period. there's no aiming to injure. if they even suspect we have a lethal weapon (including things like a knife) we have a good chance of being killed by them. people are killed by police every day.
If you guys are *serious* about staying there and doing something then get a GOAL. Something you can actually achieve.
the issue is that the "problem" is completely nebulous in itself and completely ingrained in our system. the problem is that the USA is run by corporations / the rich for corporations / the rick. how do you make an achievable goal out that? you can't. anything you could come up with to counter that would be labeled unachievable. and, that is just how the corporations like it. the solution is so complicated and hard to grasp that people don't even know where to start.
If you do not come up with a concrete goal soon the 'man' will get tired of your BS and toss you on your ear.
we the people, tens of millions of us, angry. you can't stop that. if you think you can, go get your history book. i sure hope it doesn't come to that, but it's a mistake of monumental proportion to underestimate the problem, expect that it can be swept away with the removal of a few tents.
the wealthy are already taxed
yes, they are, but it's common knowledge that the bulk of the tax burden lies with the middle class. if you are rich, you have lots of fancy tax loop holes and offshore accounts and are able to pay someone that knows how to hide your money.
banks are already regulated
yes, that's why they all, even the big ones like well's fargo and bank of america, made millions of home loans to people that couldn't afford it and are now teetering on bankruptcy. sure, free market and all, but banks failing effects every one of us.
they're lobbying for an end to lobbying
lobbying is paying a professional "salesman" to push your agenda to the people who make laws. i can't see how that's anything like an organized protest.
we have other devices far better at it than that.
yes, and if it was up to you, i'd still be carrying around an MP3 player, a dedicated cell phone, a laptop, a portable DVD player, and a dedicated GPS every where i go.
No one listens to music on their TV,
did you know, that modern TVs have audio out? my google TV even has optical out.
if your TV's hooked into your home ent system, which of course it will be, why not? pretty slick to have pandora, iheartradio, pandora, podcasts, your google music collection, and every other streaming audio source available from android.
Mail, Calendar? To hard to read.
they are not if you provide a TV-optimized interface. there are quite a few TV-optimized web pages and they work well. check out http://www.google.com/tv/spotlight-gallery.html to see what i mean.
if it has a keyboard, there's no reason it can't function as well as and in place of a PC for general purpose computing tasks. there's nothing about the display being bigger that makes it unsuitable ... but you do need a TV optimized interface.
Curiously, the fix is rather simple, but they just don't do it: Let the browser ID itself as any stock PC browser rather than reveal that it is Google TV. Then the user could play the content that they want on it. Treating this as different than any other computer is stupid.
you can set the user agent in the android browser. i don't know the issue, but i recall that this was not enough to fool hulu et al. i have no idea what else would be required though, either.
who's blocking it besides hulu? you have crackle, amazon instant video, netflix, youtube, for movies.
i have one (the sony version), and while the new software is much cleaner and consistent, it's seriously lacking applications. it has the standard stuff like netflix and pandora, but it doesn't have *any* google applications ... like gmail, maps, calendar, google music. how can it not have google music? combine this with the overall lack of really *any* compelling 3rd party applications, and it really hurts the overall package.
maybe they figure you can go to the browser to get all the apps, but that gives you more of a desktop / laptop experience that expects you to be 20-30cm from the display.
Is this what you expect people to use control the TV? http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/sonygtv1.jpeg?w=588&h=332 [wordpress.com]
have you used one? it's actually a good remote- provides easy access to common things and have a full kb that doesn't get in the way of the common things.
but then my linux buddy switched back to Windows 7
i did the same thing. every 5 years or so i give linux a shot. my last attempt was about 2.5 years ago. got my brand spanking new laptop and proudly wiped windows and installed linux first thing. let's just say i had lots of issues ... some strange network delay in every browser connection (something to do w/ ipv6), my DVD writer didn't work, my volume keys didn't work, media keys didn't work, no driver for fingerprint reader, display would never sleep ... the list goes on. through numerous friday night sessions i managed to fix some of the things, and not others.
not exactly the experience you want after plunking down top dollar for a new system. i mess w/ software all day and the last thing i want to do is edit config files and comb linux forums when i get home.
the whole virus / anti virus issue has been moot for me since MSFT released their own anti virus. gets updated with the OS, unobtrusive, and just works. i haven't had a virus in years (that i know of anyway ...).
if you have a modern computer, you are better of installing linux as a guest OS and leaving windows as the host. linux is or can be configured to be sparse enough to run pretty well in this environment.
yeah i agree, i recently gouged my eyes out when i realized how many friday nights i had wasted watching movies.
I understand that Flash/Silverlight can also make annoying ads, poorly constructed websites that would be much better serviced by AJAX, and crappy games the world can do without
either HTML5 can replace flash, or it can't. if it can, then it can be used to create annoying ads and poorly designed websites as well. the people that are writing your sh*t-sandwich websites using flash can surely write them with HTML5.
or, maybe there is something in the spec that actually *prevents* it being used to present ads and animations to the user. oh wait, there isn't.
maybe it inherently disallows poor website design. nope, it doesn't.