The scale of censorship is much smaller. The US has minor problems with censorship. The US has not, for example, blocked major news sites. Nor has it blocked Wikipedia and made its own version that the government likes. The comparison is simply not accurate.
Smaller? Maybe, certainly softer. Instead of outright censorship, they engage in manipulation. Deny access to the battlefield for all but embedded reporters who see everything from the perspective of the soldiers in their unit but never get a chance to spend more than a few minutes talking to the "enemy" and then almost never in an open situation. Similarly control access to other sources of news like interviews with high ranking officials so that you only get the interview if you only pitch'em slowballs. There is also the hiring of private individuals to promote the government's point of view.
So no, technically its not censorship under the absolute strictest definition of the word, but the goals are exactly the same and the means are just as, if not even more, underhanded.
Really curious - can any slashdotters enlighten me as to why the Cuba / USA situation continues? I would have thought it's all long gone cold war history and both countries would benefit from getting over it. Or has the Cuban leadership said something that the USA doesn't find acceptable and won't back down until they apologise?
Basically, yes. When Castro took over he nationalized the assets left behind by all the rich cubanos who fled to the USA. They weren't happy about that so they capitalized on the political situation and used their influence to get the US government to "punish" Castro in return. Those cubanos and their descendants living in Miami and other parts of the US are still pretty rich and still pretty pissed, so they make use of whatever they can to continue to pressure/lobby the US government to keep those policies in place against Cuba.
Not that it helps much, they're trying to plug things into themselves all the time anyway. It's like aggressive plug-n-play with a range of several meters.
And once they are teenagers half of them spend all their time trying to plug into the other half, it is a never-ending cycle.
You know, I hate what's going on in America but your cowardly post is bullshit. I traveled to Canada (Winnipeg via North Dakota to be exact) in 2006 and while I had absolutely ZERO issues getting back into the US (I was actually surprised--weren't we trying to keep terrorists out?) getting into Canada was a fucking pain in the ass.
Do you see him saying Canada is better? If Canada was better, then why did he want to join the US 10 years ago? Obviously Canada sucked then too, just now the US sucks as well.
I am quite aware of such charities, I have given them every single phone I've ever discarded.
That does not change basic economics. SOMEBODY has to pay for the phones. If the price is increased due to government mandates, then LESS phones are purchased and probably even LESS phones are handed down to those charities because people can't afford to upgrade as frequently and thus even LESS people have cell phones.
Do a modicum of research before you decide to spout off.
You have so clearly demonstrated your fail at math and simple economics that such a command from you is rather humorous. In your lalaland it all runs on good intentions, those same intentions being the ones that pave a certain road you probably never heard of.
You could say that money spent on anything might kill someone because it isn't spent on something else.
No, YOU could say that if YOU weren't paying attention. There difference between your bullshit understanding of what I said and what I actually said is one key phrase - MORE LIVES PER DOLLAR.
but try telling that to the people whose lives are saved because an ambulance got to them in time.
Try telling that to the families of people whose lives were lost because there wasn't enough medical staff in the ER. There you go again with the emotional think of the children bullshit. Just like I predicted you would, funny how I understand your own arguments better than you do.
Since I'm out of mod points, I'm plagiarizing the above AC post. Mod him up if you agree:
This same attitude showed up in the Zune HD story. I find it an idiotic viewpoint. Because one company has done something really well, nobody else should try? Do you seriously want people to stop trying to compete and trying to one-up other companies, just because the existing product or service seems to be all you could ever want?
You want things to stagnate?
Granted, we know MS will fail. But suggesting that they shouldn't try seems positively idiotic.
with a webpage, you know you see what everyone else sees. well, you can make scripts to modify pages for certain users, but this is done when you are purposefully attempting to exclude someone, not draw them further into a subculture.
Right. That's why there are whole communities for stylish and greasemonkey script sharing, its all about excluding people.
this observation of mine applies most especially to subcultures: small splinter groups that are outside the mainstream and proudly so. their desire to see the same thing the rest of the subculture sees is accelerated due to the fact that it takes more effort to be part of a subculture than be part of the mainstream,
And you think that installing an additional set of subculture-specific page transforming filters won't take effort? That subculture members won't pride themselves on their ability to tweak the way those filters work for that subculture and that the other members of that subculture won't reward them with attention and accolades for helping to further delineate their subculture from the mainstream?
911 doesn't kill people. People (and disease, war, drugs, etc) kill people. I've never heard of anyone dying because they called 911.
Gee, you haven't paid attention to a word I wrote. What's the problem, too mesmerized thinking of the children?
911 kills people because the money spent on it almost certainly can better spent on other things that save more lives per dollar - like better nutrition in public schools or cheaper medicines or broader health coverage or even just cheaper cell phones - what good is a cell phone with federally mandated E911 gps location if, because of the cost of all that extra mandatory functionality the price is too high for someone to purchase in the first place? Which is better - a great E911 system and a victim with no cell phone at all, or a scaled back system and a victim with a cell phone that doesn't automatically send location data?
Based on all you've written so far, I'm sure that paragraph went right over your head. No need for you to respond, I'll just think of the children for you this time.
The point is that any percentage is simply too much. We're talking about the possibility of saving human lives here (even one more life saved is a victory), not arguing over statistical expetancies.
You think this shit is FREE? How many other lives are lost because the resources to save them were spent on E911 calls about non immediately life-threatening situations?
And I can tell from your responses that you are not in the medical field. You wouldn't understand unless you worked in a hospital.
You keep digging that hole deeper. I wouldn't understand the numbers because I'm not emotionally invested? What, do you think the E911 system runs on happy feelings? That if we just wish hard enough everybody will be saved? Can we wish just a little bit harder for extra ambulance-only lanes to make sure nothing impedes victims getting to the hospital as quickly as possible? Maybe we should just wish all the ambulances into medivac units while we are it.
False dichotomy - there are all kinds of life-or-death situations that we don't spend hundreds of millions of infrastructure money on in each state and interfere with the market for related devices.
Or to put it in Slashdot terms: I don't keep backups because I expect my hard drives to crash all the time, I keep them because just one crash would be very, very bad.
Nor does the government require every hard disk you buy to come with a second one just for backups of the first.
VLC isn't supported very well and should be your last-resort if all else fails.
Media Player Classic Home Cinema is a much superior player that also has built-in playback codecs.
What does "isn't supported very well" mean? VLC's got a lot more active a community behind it - just compare the size of the forums for each. The big thing that VLC has over MPC and most other DVD players on windows is that it is completely independent of Microsoft's DirectShow filter system which is pretty much the equivalent of DLL hell, but for codecs.
VLC may not have the slickest user interface and it may not be the most efficient media player since it has virtually no support for hardware acceleration, but it in its current form it is pretty much bullet proof - no matter what kind of system configuration problems you've got, it usually "just works." It isn't my player of choice, but it is my last ditch player because it pretty much plays anything.
And, as I emphasized in my original post, how many would have died if they were just 5 minutes later getting to the hospital? That's the key - is the cost and worry about all the infrastructure really worth the results?
The choice is not between emergency services and no emergency services, it is between getting emergency service and getting emergency service a few minutes sooner.
None of the pro-E911 information I could find ever bothers to frame the question in that manner, its always one-sided statistics about all the calls that came in or at best all the cases where an ambulance took someone to the hospital. Never is it about the actual trade-offs that have been made in the real world.
well done, President Obama. You picked a scientist to run an agency. You gave him a mission to better humanity through reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption. You gave him a platform where he would be heard.
I'm curious -- how did you get that global warming is reversible out of: "'This does not make the problem of global warming go away. But we can buy ourselves some time.'"
Slashdot Mirror
The dingoo ate my penguin!
The scale of censorship is much smaller. The US has minor problems with censorship. The US has not, for example, blocked major news sites. Nor has it blocked Wikipedia and made its own version that the government likes. The comparison is simply not accurate.
Smaller? Maybe, certainly softer. Instead of outright censorship, they engage in manipulation. Deny access to the battlefield for all but embedded reporters who see everything from the perspective of the soldiers in their unit but never get a chance to spend more than a few minutes talking to the "enemy" and then almost never in an open situation. Similarly control access to other sources of news like interviews with high ranking officials so that you only get the interview if you only pitch'em slowballs. There is also the hiring of private individuals to promote the government's point of view.
So no, technically its not censorship under the absolute strictest definition of the word, but the goals are exactly the same and the means are just as, if not even more, underhanded.
Really curious - can any slashdotters enlighten me as to why the Cuba / USA situation continues? I would have thought it's all long gone cold war history and both countries would benefit from getting over it. Or has the Cuban leadership said something that the USA doesn't find acceptable and won't back down until they apologise?
Basically, yes. When Castro took over he nationalized the assets left behind by all the rich cubanos who fled to the USA. They weren't happy about that so they capitalized on the political situation and used their influence to get the US government to "punish" Castro in return. Those cubanos and their descendants living in Miami and other parts of the US are still pretty rich and still pretty pissed, so they make use of whatever they can to continue to pressure/lobby the US government to keep those policies in place against Cuba.
Not that it helps much, they're trying to plug things into themselves all the time anyway. It's like aggressive plug-n-play with a range of several meters.
And once they are teenagers half of them spend all their time trying to plug into the other half, it is a never-ending cycle.
You know, I hate what's going on in America but your cowardly post is bullshit. I traveled to Canada (Winnipeg via North Dakota to be exact) in 2006 and while I had absolutely ZERO issues getting back into the US (I was actually surprised--weren't we trying to keep terrorists out?) getting into Canada was a fucking pain in the ass.
Do you see him saying Canada is better? If Canada was better, then why did he want to join the US 10 years ago? Obviously Canada sucked then too, just now the US sucks as well.
I am quite aware of such charities, I have given them every single phone I've ever discarded.
That does not change basic economics. SOMEBODY has to pay for the phones. If the price is increased due to government mandates, then LESS phones are purchased and probably even LESS phones are handed down to those charities because people can't afford to upgrade as frequently and thus even LESS people have cell phones.
Do a modicum of research before you decide to spout off.
You have so clearly demonstrated your fail at math and simple economics that such a command from you is rather humorous. In your lalaland it all runs on good intentions, those same intentions being the ones that pave a certain road you probably never heard of.
You could say that money spent on anything might kill someone because it isn't spent on something else.
No, YOU could say that if YOU weren't paying attention. There difference between your bullshit understanding of what I said and what I actually said is one key phrase - MORE LIVES PER DOLLAR.
but try telling that to the people whose lives are saved because an ambulance got to them in time.
Try telling that to the families of people whose lives were lost because there wasn't enough medical staff in the ER. There you go again with the emotional think of the children bullshit. Just like I predicted you would, funny how I understand your own arguments better than you do.
Since I'm out of mod points, I'm plagiarizing the above AC post.
Mod him up if you agree:
This same attitude showed up in the Zune HD story. I find it an idiotic viewpoint. Because one company has done something really well, nobody else should try? Do you seriously want people to stop trying to compete and trying to one-up other companies, just because the existing product or service seems to be all you could ever want?
You want things to stagnate?
Granted, we know MS will fail. But suggesting that they shouldn't try seems positively idiotic.
So what's the new branding going to be after this one fails? Bong?
Chandler.
That guy hasn't had much work recently, he's probably available to promote it too.
with a webpage, you know you see what everyone else sees. well, you can make scripts to modify pages for certain users, but this is done when you are purposefully attempting to exclude someone, not draw them further into a subculture.
Right. That's why there are whole communities for stylish and greasemonkey script sharing, its all about excluding people.
This has Monty Python written all over it.
this observation of mine applies most especially to subcultures: small splinter groups that are outside the mainstream and proudly so. their desire to see the same thing the rest of the subculture sees is accelerated due to the fact that it takes more effort to be part of a subculture than be part of the mainstream,
And you think that installing an additional set of subculture-specific page transforming filters won't take effort? That subculture members won't pride themselves on their ability to tweak the way those filters work for that subculture and that the other members of that subculture won't reward them with attention and accolades for helping to further delineate their subculture from the mainstream?
911 doesn't kill people. People (and disease, war, drugs, etc) kill people. I've never heard of anyone dying because they called 911.
Gee, you haven't paid attention to a word I wrote. What's the problem, too mesmerized thinking of the children?
911 kills people because the money spent on it almost certainly can better spent on other things that save more lives per dollar - like better nutrition in public schools or cheaper medicines or broader health coverage or even just cheaper cell phones - what good is a cell phone with federally mandated E911 gps location if, because of the cost of all that extra mandatory functionality the price is too high for someone to purchase in the first place? Which is better - a great E911 system and a victim with no cell phone at all, or a scaled back system and a victim with a cell phone that doesn't automatically send location data?
Based on all you've written so far, I'm sure that paragraph went right over your head. No need for you to respond, I'll just think of the children for you this time.
Remember Windows 3.0 ? I don't. I do remember 3.1
And what about Windows NT 1.0 - or 2.0 or even 3.0 for that matter?
911 saves lives. Period. You can keep trying to talk around that fact, but it's not going to change it.
911 kills people. Period. You can keep trying to talk around that fact, but it's not going to change it.
Could you please be a little MORE irrational in your next response?
The point is that any percentage is simply too much. We're talking about the possibility of saving human lives here (even one more life saved is a victory), not arguing over statistical expetancies.
You think this shit is FREE? How many other lives are lost because the resources to save them were spent on E911 calls about non immediately life-threatening situations?
And I can tell from your responses that you are not in the medical field. You wouldn't understand unless you worked in a hospital.
You keep digging that hole deeper. I wouldn't understand the numbers because I'm not emotionally invested? What, do you think the E911 system runs on happy feelings? That if we just wish hard enough everybody will be saved? Can we wish just a little bit harder for extra ambulance-only lanes to make sure nothing impedes victims getting to the hospital as quickly as possible? Maybe we should just wish all the ambulances into medivac units while we are it.
Yeah, but when you do, it's life-or-death.
False dichotomy - there are all kinds of life-or-death situations that we don't spend hundreds of millions of infrastructure money on in each state and interfere with the market for related devices.
Or to put it in Slashdot terms: I don't keep backups because I expect my hard drives to crash all the time, I keep them because just one crash would be very, very bad.
Nor does the government require every hard disk you buy to come with a second one just for backups of the first.
So basically your data pretty much doesn't support your argument.
Kinda expected there would be a couple of those kinds of responses.
VLC isn't supported very well and should be your last-resort if all else fails.
Media Player Classic Home Cinema is a much superior player that also has built-in playback codecs.
What does "isn't supported very well" mean? VLC's got a lot more active a community behind it - just compare the size of the forums for each.
The big thing that VLC has over MPC and most other DVD players on windows is that it is completely independent of Microsoft's DirectShow filter system which is pretty much the equivalent of DLL hell, but for codecs.
VLC may not have the slickest user interface and it may not be the most efficient media player since it has virtually no support for hardware acceleration, but it in its current form it is pretty much bullet proof - no matter what kind of system configuration problems you've got, it usually "just works." It isn't my player of choice, but it is my last ditch player because it pretty much plays anything.
No current hard disk or even SSD can do 3Gb/sec so what is the point?
Oh yeah?
Sorry, what percentage does "all too fucking common" work to?
and most of the time these people live.
And, as I emphasized in my original post, how many would have died if they were just 5 minutes later getting to the hospital?
That's the key - is the cost and worry about all the infrastructure really worth the results?
The choice is not between emergency services and no emergency services, it is between getting emergency service and getting emergency service a few minutes sooner.
None of the pro-E911 information I could find ever bothers to frame the question in that manner, its always one-sided statistics about all the calls that came in or at best all the cases where an ambulance took someone to the hospital. Never is it about the actual trade-offs that have been made in the real world.
well done, President Obama. You picked a scientist to run an agency. You gave him a mission to better humanity through reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption. You gave him a platform where he would be heard.
Heard, but will he be heeded?
Cynic says no.
I'm curious -- how did you get that global warming is reversible out of: "'This does not make the problem of global warming go away. But we can buy ourselves some time.'"