My question for you is, how do you know Google employees aren't working hard? Just because they have "frivolous" benifits that traditional companies don't have doesn't make them lazy.
Also, it seems from my Google fanboy perspective, Google not delivering services you want in the way you want them right now does not mean they aren't working on a whole lot of good technology. The way they seem to work is they try a lot of things, with a lot of smart people, and a lot of computer resources just to see what happens.
I suppose my point is that I believe in their alternative way of running a corporation, especially since a lot of the stuff I've been reading describes the problems in traditional corporations with bloat and bureaucracy.
I'm giving up moderation to comment on this rediculous protectionism.
I'll suggest some answers to your problems that would make everything in the US, seeing as that is what is most important to you.
1)We will be making the products, you will take a test before entering college determining your exact skills. For the rest of your life you will do those jobs, farmer? doctor? teacher? lawyer? Every American will be in the value stream
2)A national economy will mean equality for everybody. You have an equal chance of being a gas pumper or a driver. Everyone can afford a car.
3)We all pay taxes to the state, the state provides us with housing. It's fair.
4)All American workers compete by taking a standardized test to get their jobs.
5)All US dollars will end up in US hands. We will not trade with any country, no matter how innefficient, we are Americans!
6)US children will have some of the best elementary education, 98% literacy rate (see Cuba), they will all learn math, science, history and how to study for the college entrance exams.
7)Those whos exams lead them to military school will design necessary defense equipment. No foreigners will come onto our borders!
8)All Americans will be investors, right Comrade?
Why is it people think protectionism works? The only reason free trade doesn't work is because of protectionism. Subsidies, tarrifs, quotas, and nationalism. It's all just short sighted thinking, spurred by personal emotional investment in the status quo. Yeah, keeping things local will guarantee you a job, but its gonna be shitty. You will have to live off what your community makes, and if they don't make it, too bad! With a global community you have access to what everyone makes.
The whole idea behind it is comparitive advantage, you make what you are good at, I make what I am good at. The Indians are good at programming for cheaper, you should take advantage of the wealth of resources available in America to be good at something worth more money.
I think this is an example of a social "power law" problem. That's when only a few people are doing the most damage, meth labs are an example, so are other major illicit drug producers, and its the same thing with piracy. You have a few dedicated pirates or groups of pirates supplying everyone with files, DRM and broad lawsuits don't curb the problem because the large amount of people being affected by those aren't causing near the damage as the few bad actors.
Approaches are different for different problems, but the best way to solve these is no broad laws that treat everyone like criminals, its to make it inneficient or unprofitable for the bad actors. In piracy and marijuana, it might be better to create legal competition that will take the money out of the hands of the bad actors and let a market control things. In the case of methlabs and homelessness , you need to let the government come in and take care of the worst offenders.
That's really the problem with a lot of this legislation, you are trying to treat a power-law distribution of a problem with a linear approach, bringing everyone down on the y-axis a little bit does very little to the few at the end of the curve.
The problem is, Google doesn't want to be limited by these nickel-and-diming authors. They want to make all information available. No matter how big we think Google is, they won't be able to spite their way to success. I really don't think an internet company could last by abusing its supposed monopoly powers on people it disagrees with, someone else will come along and do what they were to "good" to do. What google needs is to prove that what they are doing is fairuse, which is still a big question.
If you want to spur debate you should posit some of your own theories for people to argue with or agree with. This is probably the only repsonse you will get, and I'm not talking about Google. You could also try reading all of the hundreds of/. threads about Google and peoples sane and insane theories.
They could just put out a press release along the lines:
Samsung is issuing a recall for all model HD841 because it easily allows users to strip DRM and other content control measures from DVDS. Please return your model and we will replace it with a more restrictive one.
you lose. ITYM 'loose'.
What exactly does "you loose" mean? Maybe he has some screws loose, but we can't really tell.
I wish I could remember one of those handy phrases to describe the difference between lose and loose, but lose is the opposite of win and loose is the opposite of tight.
I think you missunderstand the argument. The parent's argument is that for each shift in medium there were people fearful that losing the old way would be disastrous for the students of the day. This is the same argument you hear about calculators and math. Your points do not refute the parent's argument because he was arguing AGAINST the shortsightedness of these doomsayers.
Your quotes illustrate that there were also people looking to the future, which is nice to know, but not really relevant to the parent's argument.
Not doing so very well, I'd have to say.
It's an uphill battle, I am probably taking TOO much of a side with China, but the fact remains that today's government is not the government of 40 or 30 years ago. I suppose I just have a little too much faith in the people over there to keep making progress working towards freedom. It is my *opinion* that Google and the big techs are helping. I'd go further and say that doing business in countries with bad regimes is actually good, but then I'm arguing a belief system that I can't even back up.
Not in China, they don't.
Have you been, because I saw Mao merchandise everywhere, and people could say whatever they wanted. It's almost fashionable to critisize him now.
Sure I can... Since I'm not Chinese, they can't throw me in a cell with tuberculosis sufferers to deliberately infect me and then let me die. I was talking about Chinese people not being allowed to. My fault for being confusing and saying "you"
Look, I am not saying violating human rights is a good thing. What I am argueing against is this Red Dynasty comment. I also believe foreign pressure for better human rights and civil liberties is good. I just don't think removing our support for their people out of essentially spite is the solution.
Also it is not fair to cliam Mao is part of modern day China's government. The Government OPENLY ADMITS that the cultural revolution was bad, people mock and criticize Mao all they want. The problem is that you cannot criticize the current government. This IS a bad thing, but the current government is NOT responsible for Mao's cultural revolution and has been moving away from that since 78 and Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms.
Yes, they need more freedom, No, the current government is NOT comparable to Hitler's Nazis.
Here we go again with the oversimplifying history again.
Fine, lets review some history. We will keep it pretty simple too, and we will see how these broad generalizations are not a good way to judge China as a nation.
The Germans were crushed in spirit and reality because of the Treaty of Versailles. All of their neighboring countries had taken a piece out of them and they saw it every day in their inflation and indignation. Part of the reason Hitler could inflame such blind nationalism was because the German people as a whole were down in the dumps. As you may see I am oversimplifying a lot here.
Now lets look at China from the 1910s shall we?
I'll outline things taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China#Political_histo ry because I don't know everything off the top of my head:
On January 1, 1912, the Republic of China (ROC) was established, signaling the end of the Manchu-dominated Qing Empire.
Soon after Yuan, who had taken control as president, died China became fragmented and controlled by many warlords. (cultural note: Many Chinese people look back at this with distaste and regret)
In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang, under Chiang Kai-shek, was able to reunify the country under its own control. I believe this was the "Nationalist party". It began to rival the CPC or the Communist Party of China and they had a bloody civil war that lasted into the late 1940's.
What do we have in the first half of the century so far? Dynasty rule ends, war lords, a nationalist party officially in control but fighting a bloody civil war with the communists. So far it sounds way different from Germany, let alone the Nazis. Perhaps you want to equate the Nationalists with the Nazi's, there are many external similarities such as anti-Communist dictatorship. But we still have 50 more years of history before we can compare todays China to Hitler!
lets keep going then
So by the early 50's the CPC had pretty much beat the Nationalists who then retreated to Taiwan to set up shop. In 1949 Mao Zedong sets up the Peoples Republic of China as a one party communist dictatorship.
Unfortunately wikipedia skips out a bunch of history which I'm just going to summarize off the top of my head (thats what we are all doing here right, generalizing)
Mao fucks up, he gives actual leadership to someone else for a while and becomes party spokesman and controls policy. In the late 60's he takes power back, and he does it with a vengeance. He institutes the Cultural Revolution. Everything old is to be destroyed, colleges are stopped. People are supposed to WORK not LEARN. Millions of people starve todeath because the entire economy is redone from the top down. Professors are supposed to hit the fields like everyone else. To make a ten year story short its a big failure and Mao dies in '77, and so does the Cultural revolution.
So now you can see how there is no "Red Dynasty". Those 80 years are filled with turmoil and radicall ideological shifts. But wait, we arent done, there is one more ideological shift to consider, capitalism!
Ever since Deng Xiaoping said "To get Rich is Glorious" (something most of us money-loving Americans dont even want to admit) Things have changed even more. Communist hamlets became small villages where people produced and sold on a free market what they used to sell to the party at fixed prices. Granted nothing is as pretty as it sounds, things have gotten steadily more capitalistic. I went last year and everything I bought was from shops, nothing government issued about it.
This is where this government differs most drastically from pre-Nazi Germany. They are in a position of economic control, steadily moving towards stability. Apparently if they wanted to they could do some crazy stuff to the dollar. They are not pinned down by any neighbors, and their nationalism is not zealous but philosophical.
I hope we have all enjoyed the simple yet slightly less
Or you could realize that you are not helping yourself or the Chinese people by cutting down your access to information. This is the whole point I am trying to make about Google et al doing GOOD. By increasing access to information and expanding the possibilities of education they are HELPING the Chinese people. So you want to cut all the Chinese people off from those companies, I commend you for trying to see what its like first!
You are also oversimplifying. I think what the parent is saying is that China may not want democracy right now. Do you know how many people live in that country? How many people need to eat? Not everyone lives one block from a mcdonalds you know, there are people trying to survive.
I think it is important for American's to understand a fundamental thing about Chinese culture (at least as I have heard from Chinese people). That is that Chinese people feel that China needs to stay together. In their 5000 year history the country has been united and divided, and it is part of their culture to want to stay united. Americans can recognize that with the civil war, but our country was 100 years old, not thousands of years. This is important when talking about democracy and the current state of things. This is a higher priority than the bill of rights, try to understand that Chinese people KNOW what freedom is, they WANT it, but many just know that the country cannot handle a sudden change like that. So take this as you will, but just try to understand that people in that country don't have the same views on life or society, and that is partially why things are the way they are.
The funny thing is it's already becoming a free-market economy. There are 4 major cities that are the Chinese-equivalent of Washington D.C. meaning they are governed directly by the federal government. These cities have relaxed economic regulations, and have entire sections that are "new economic zones" where foreign companies come and set up base.
This congressman is trying to limit the free market because he claims these companies are doing something bad. These 4 relatively insignificant companies (google is great, but chinese people use baidu.com) are in those special economic zones along side EVERY OTHER MAJOR INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION. You name it they got it. We are not living in a nationalized world anymore, you can't just have things from one place or another. People are going to have to let go and accept that the world has to work together, especially as capitalism does spread.
The Nazi Regime and the "Red Dynasty" are totally different. Do you know how many changes have happened in China in the last 100 years? Do you know how many civil wars cost millions of lives? The Cultural revolution and the resulting death toll is NOT part of the same government that rules today. Have you heard of the capitalism going on in many parts of the country? How could that possibly be the same as the extreme communist rule of Chairman Mao? This oversimplifying of history gets in the way of pragmatic thinking. You want to throw around numbers of how many died, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't know the context.
The very fact that you call it the Red Dynasty shows an aversion to fact. I suggest you and the mods that modded you informative read wikipedia and find out WHY China has the government it has now, and why they see stability as more important than democracy. (Not that I see it that way, just why many Chinese people do)
Yeah, or maybe some corporations want to do whats right? Perhaps these companies don't have shame because they think they are doing the right thing? All of us armchair-revolutionaries like to think freedom comes from the top down, Americans know what freedom is and they can tell the rest of the world how to run things. Funny thing is I am American and I DO think that we have something pretty good going on. At the same time I don't think moral absolutism is what is going to bring China around. People talk here as if Chinese people don't know what is going on or can't find out if they look, but that's just wrong. The corporations are HELPING the people by supplying an increasingly free market with goods it wants.
Is it evil? Is it even a monopoly on MP3 players? When I go to Best Buy I see a few iPods sitting next to a bunch of ugly, cheaper MP3 players.
I guess I see what the problem your pointing out is, Apple won't license out FairPlay, and it refuses to license DRM from other companies. So other companies have to go no DRM to get on the iPod, effectively locking them out. Now, I'm not so sure I'm seeing an abuse of monopoly here. Does Apple really have to open up the iPod to everyone's DRM, or do they have to license FairPlay to everyone? Is that the right train of thought to be taking?
Perhaps I just don't want to see the iPod as a monopoly, even though I will concede its obvious popularity, I don't see this as a problem that needs legal fixing. The whole reason it is a problem is because of DRM and entrenched old-media. Maybe I'm just one of those crazies thats anti-DRM and think its funny that DRM is what seems to be hurting profits. Besides, what kind of competition are we gonna get for "selling songs for the iPod", you can't go any cheaper then the RIAA will let you.
What kind of prize are they going to offer for education? I can see easily quantifiable results in the other areas, but does anyone know what they are thinking about in education?
The problem with that is it look extremely uncomfortable to use. Using your thumbs on the numbers would leave the rest unbalanced. I think some1 could design a more ergonomic phone than that.
I guess that kinda furthers the point I was trying to make about not understanding how it could work. It is so contorted because there are no direct metrics, and a host of complicated methods have been invented to measure broadcast. Thanks for clearing that up though, because my introduction to the rating system was really elementary.
I only recently found out what Nielson ratings and statistics where, and boy was I surprised.
I guess growing up on the web (Im only 20) and the constant understanding that things can be logged and searched, voluntary demographics seems so silly. I always wondered how radio and tv (broadcast) ads could be measured. I finally heard that they just arent, except for some surveys.
Things really will change when broadcasting is 2-way. That's really what the internet is all about.
Common carrier baby. Lets regulate the infrastructure in America so that it WORKS. We NEED the internet, so lets make sure the infrastructure is there and works. Lets NOT interfere with whats ON the internet, just like we shouldn't interfere with whats happening on the phone. Like other things the internet will self regulate because of innovation (giving parents power to control the access, not the government). I think there needs to be a distinction between the internet and the infrastructure it travels upon.
Slashdot Mirror
My question for you is, how do you know Google employees aren't working hard? Just because they have "frivolous" benifits that traditional companies don't have doesn't make them lazy.
Also, it seems from my Google fanboy perspective, Google not delivering services you want in the way you want them right now does not mean they aren't working on a whole lot of good technology. The way they seem to work is they try a lot of things, with a lot of smart people, and a lot of computer resources just to see what happens.
I suppose my point is that I believe in their alternative way of running a corporation, especially since a lot of the stuff I've been reading describes the problems in traditional corporations with bloat and bureaucracy.
...but they're forecasts are just in Beta? ;)
Yeah! The Brits have all kinds of good food, they got Viet food, Chinese food, Indonesian food, Indian food, etc. :)
I'm giving up moderation to comment on this rediculous protectionism.
I'll suggest some answers to your problems that would make everything in the US, seeing as that is what is most important to you.
1)We will be making the products, you will take a test before entering college determining your exact skills. For the rest of your life you will do those jobs, farmer? doctor? teacher? lawyer? Every American will be in the value stream
2)A national economy will mean equality for everybody. You have an equal chance of being a gas pumper or a driver. Everyone can afford a car.
3)We all pay taxes to the state, the state provides us with housing. It's fair.
4)All American workers compete by taking a standardized test to get their jobs.
5)All US dollars will end up in US hands. We will not trade with any country, no matter how innefficient, we are Americans!
6)US children will have some of the best elementary education, 98% literacy rate (see Cuba), they will all learn math, science, history and how to study for the college entrance exams.
7)Those whos exams lead them to military school will design necessary defense equipment. No foreigners will come onto our borders!
8)All Americans will be investors, right Comrade?
Why is it people think protectionism works? The only reason free trade doesn't work is because of protectionism. Subsidies, tarrifs, quotas, and nationalism. It's all just short sighted thinking, spurred by personal emotional investment in the status quo. Yeah, keeping things local will guarantee you a job, but its gonna be shitty. You will have to live off what your community makes, and if they don't make it, too bad! With a global community you have access to what everyone makes.
The whole idea behind it is comparitive advantage, you make what you are good at, I make what I am good at. The Indians are good at programming for cheaper, you should take advantage of the wealth of resources available in America to be good at something worth more money.
I think this is an example of a social "power law" problem. That's when only a few people are doing the most damage, meth labs are an example, so are other major illicit drug producers, and its the same thing with piracy. You have a few dedicated pirates or groups of pirates supplying everyone with files, DRM and broad lawsuits don't curb the problem because the large amount of people being affected by those aren't causing near the damage as the few bad actors.
Approaches are different for different problems, but the best way to solve these is no broad laws that treat everyone like criminals, its to make it inneficient or unprofitable for the bad actors. In piracy and marijuana, it might be better to create legal competition that will take the money out of the hands of the bad actors and let a market control things. In the case of methlabs and homelessness , you need to let the government come in and take care of the worst offenders.
That's really the problem with a lot of this legislation, you are trying to treat a power-law distribution of a problem with a linear approach, bringing everyone down on the y-axis a little bit does very little to the few at the end of the curve.
The problem is, Google doesn't want to be limited by these nickel-and-diming authors. They want to make all information available. No matter how big we think Google is, they won't be able to spite their way to success. I really don't think an internet company could last by abusing its supposed monopoly powers on people it disagrees with, someone else will come along and do what they were to "good" to do. What google needs is to prove that what they are doing is fairuse, which is still a big question.
If you want to spur debate you should posit some of your own theories for people to argue with or agree with. This is probably the only repsonse you will get, and I'm not talking about Google. You could also try reading all of the hundreds of /. threads about Google and peoples sane and insane theories.
They could just put out a press release along the lines:
Samsung is issuing a recall for all model HD841 because it easily allows users to strip DRM and other content control measures from DVDS. Please return your model and we will replace it with a more restrictive one.
you lose.
ITYM 'loose'.
What exactly does "you loose" mean? Maybe he has some screws loose, but we can't really tell.
I wish I could remember one of those handy phrases to describe the difference between lose and loose, but lose is the opposite of win and loose is the opposite of tight.
I think you missunderstand the argument. The parent's argument is that for each shift in medium there were people fearful that losing the old way would be disastrous for the students of the day. This is the same argument you hear about calculators and math. Your points do not refute the parent's argument because he was arguing AGAINST the shortsightedness of these doomsayers.
Your quotes illustrate that there were also people looking to the future, which is nice to know, but not really relevant to the parent's argument.
Not doing so very well, I'd have to say.
It's an uphill battle, I am probably taking TOO much of a side with China, but the fact remains that today's government is not the government of 40 or 30 years ago. I suppose I just have a little too much faith in the people over there to keep making progress working towards freedom. It is my *opinion* that Google and the big techs are helping. I'd go further and say that doing business in countries with bad regimes is actually good, but then I'm arguing a belief system that I can't even back up.
Not in China, they don't.
Have you been, because I saw Mao merchandise everywhere, and people could say whatever they wanted. It's almost fashionable to critisize him now.
Sure I can... Since I'm not Chinese, they can't throw me in a cell with tuberculosis sufferers to deliberately infect me and then let me die.
I was talking about Chinese people not being allowed to. My fault for being confusing and saying "you"
Look, I am not saying violating human rights is a good thing. What I am argueing against is this Red Dynasty comment. I also believe foreign pressure for better human rights and civil liberties is good. I just don't think removing our support for their people out of essentially spite is the solution.
Also it is not fair to cliam Mao is part of modern day China's government. The Government OPENLY ADMITS that the cultural revolution was bad, people mock and criticize Mao all they want. The problem is that you cannot criticize the current government. This IS a bad thing, but the current government is NOT responsible for Mao's cultural revolution and has been moving away from that since 78 and Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms.
Yes, they need more freedom, No, the current government is NOT comparable to Hitler's Nazis.
Here we go again with the oversimplifying history again.
Fine, lets review some history. We will keep it pretty simple too, and we will see how these broad generalizations are not a good way to judge China as a nation.
The Germans were crushed in spirit and reality because of the Treaty of Versailles. All of their neighboring countries had taken a piece out of them and they saw it every day in their inflation and indignation. Part of the reason Hitler could inflame such blind nationalism was because the German people as a whole were down in the dumps. As you may see I am oversimplifying a lot here.
Now lets look at China from the 1910s shall we?
I'll outline things taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China#Political_histo ry because I don't know everything off the top of my head:
On January 1, 1912, the Republic of China (ROC) was established, signaling the end of the Manchu-dominated Qing Empire.
Soon after Yuan, who had taken control as president, died China became fragmented and controlled by many warlords. (cultural note: Many Chinese people look back at this with distaste and regret)
In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang, under Chiang Kai-shek, was able to reunify the country under its own control. I believe this was the "Nationalist party". It began to rival the CPC or the Communist Party of China and they had a bloody civil war that lasted into the late 1940's.
What do we have in the first half of the century so far? Dynasty rule ends, war lords, a nationalist party officially in control but fighting a bloody civil war with the communists. So far it sounds way different from Germany, let alone the Nazis. Perhaps you want to equate the Nationalists with the Nazi's, there are many external similarities such as anti-Communist dictatorship. But we still have 50 more years of history before we can compare todays China to Hitler!
lets keep going then
So by the early 50's the CPC had pretty much beat the Nationalists who then retreated to Taiwan to set up shop. In 1949 Mao Zedong sets up the Peoples Republic of China as a one party communist dictatorship.
Unfortunately wikipedia skips out a bunch of history which I'm just going to summarize off the top of my head (thats what we are all doing here right, generalizing)
Mao fucks up, he gives actual leadership to someone else for a while and becomes party spokesman and controls policy. In the late 60's he takes power back, and he does it with a vengeance. He institutes the Cultural Revolution. Everything old is to be destroyed, colleges are stopped. People are supposed to WORK not LEARN. Millions of people starve todeath because the entire economy is redone from the top down. Professors are supposed to hit the fields like everyone else. To make a ten year story short its a big failure and Mao dies in '77, and so does the Cultural revolution.
So now you can see how there is no "Red Dynasty". Those 80 years are filled with turmoil and radicall ideological shifts. But wait, we arent done, there is one more ideological shift to consider, capitalism!
Ever since Deng Xiaoping said "To get Rich is Glorious" (something most of us money-loving Americans dont even want to admit) Things have changed even more. Communist hamlets became small villages where people produced and sold on a free market what they used to sell to the party at fixed prices. Granted nothing is as pretty as it sounds, things have gotten steadily more capitalistic. I went last year and everything I bought was from shops, nothing government issued about it.
This is where this government differs most drastically from pre-Nazi Germany. They are in a position of economic control, steadily moving towards stability. Apparently if they wanted to they could do some crazy stuff to the dollar. They are not pinned down by any neighbors, and their nationalism is not zealous but philosophical.
I hope we have all enjoyed the simple yet slightly less
baidu.com
Or you could realize that you are not helping yourself or the Chinese people by cutting down your access to information. This is the whole point I am trying to make about Google et al doing GOOD. By increasing access to information and expanding the possibilities of education they are HELPING the Chinese people. So you want to cut all the Chinese people off from those companies, I commend you for trying to see what its like first!
You are also oversimplifying. I think what the parent is saying is that China may not want democracy right now. Do you know how many people live in that country? How many people need to eat? Not everyone lives one block from a mcdonalds you know, there are people trying to survive.
I think it is important for American's to understand a fundamental thing about Chinese culture (at least as I have heard from Chinese people). That is that Chinese people feel that China needs to stay together. In their 5000 year history the country has been united and divided, and it is part of their culture to want to stay united. Americans can recognize that with the civil war, but our country was 100 years old, not thousands of years. This is important when talking about democracy and the current state of things. This is a higher priority than the bill of rights, try to understand that Chinese people KNOW what freedom is, they WANT it, but many just know that the country cannot handle a sudden change like that. So take this as you will, but just try to understand that people in that country don't have the same views on life or society, and that is partially why things are the way they are.
The funny thing is it's already becoming a free-market economy. There are 4 major cities that are the Chinese-equivalent of Washington D.C. meaning they are governed directly by the federal government. These cities have relaxed economic regulations, and have entire sections that are "new economic zones" where foreign companies come and set up base.
This congressman is trying to limit the free market because he claims these companies are doing something bad. These 4 relatively insignificant companies (google is great, but chinese people use baidu.com) are in those special economic zones along side EVERY OTHER MAJOR INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION. You name it they got it. We are not living in a nationalized world anymore, you can't just have things from one place or another. People are going to have to let go and accept that the world has to work together, especially as capitalism does spread.
The Nazi Regime and the "Red Dynasty" are totally different. Do you know how many changes have happened in China in the last 100 years? Do you know how many civil wars cost millions of lives? The Cultural revolution and the resulting death toll is NOT part of the same government that rules today. Have you heard of the capitalism going on in many parts of the country? How could that possibly be the same as the extreme communist rule of Chairman Mao? This oversimplifying of history gets in the way of pragmatic thinking. You want to throw around numbers of how many died, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't know the context.
The very fact that you call it the Red Dynasty shows an aversion to fact. I suggest you and the mods that modded you informative read wikipedia and find out WHY China has the government it has now, and why they see stability as more important than democracy. (Not that I see it that way, just why many Chinese people do)
Yeah, or maybe some corporations want to do whats right? Perhaps these companies don't have shame because they think they are doing the right thing? All of us armchair-revolutionaries like to think freedom comes from the top down, Americans know what freedom is and they can tell the rest of the world how to run things. Funny thing is I am American and I DO think that we have something pretty good going on. At the same time I don't think moral absolutism is what is going to bring China around. People talk here as if Chinese people don't know what is going on or can't find out if they look, but that's just wrong. The corporations are HELPING the people by supplying an increasingly free market with goods it wants.
Is it evil? Is it even a monopoly on MP3 players? When I go to Best Buy I see a few iPods sitting next to a bunch of ugly, cheaper MP3 players.
I guess I see what the problem your pointing out is, Apple won't license out FairPlay, and it refuses to license DRM from other companies. So other companies have to go no DRM to get on the iPod, effectively locking them out. Now, I'm not so sure I'm seeing an abuse of monopoly here. Does Apple really have to open up the iPod to everyone's DRM, or do they have to license FairPlay to everyone? Is that the right train of thought to be taking?
Perhaps I just don't want to see the iPod as a monopoly, even though I will concede its obvious popularity, I don't see this as a problem that needs legal fixing. The whole reason it is a problem is because of DRM and entrenched old-media. Maybe I'm just one of those crazies thats anti-DRM and think its funny that DRM is what seems to be hurting profits. Besides, what kind of competition are we gonna get for "selling songs for the iPod", you can't go any cheaper then the RIAA will let you.
Maybe an X Prize for the first one to invent a way to get rid of standardized tests?
What kind of prize are they going to offer for education? I can see easily quantifiable results in the other areas, but does anyone know what they are thinking about in education?
The problem with that is it look extremely uncomfortable to use. Using your thumbs on the numbers would leave the rest unbalanced. I think some1 could design a more ergonomic phone than that.
I guess that kinda furthers the point I was trying to make about not understanding how it could work. It is so contorted because there are no direct metrics, and a host of complicated methods have been invented to measure broadcast. Thanks for clearing that up though, because my introduction to the rating system was really elementary.
I only recently found out what Nielson ratings and statistics where, and boy was I surprised.
I guess growing up on the web (Im only 20) and the constant understanding that things can be logged and searched, voluntary demographics seems so silly. I always wondered how radio and tv (broadcast) ads could be measured. I finally heard that they just arent, except for some surveys.
Things really will change when broadcasting is 2-way. That's really what the internet is all about.
Dont regulate to make it NOT work.
Common carrier baby. Lets regulate the infrastructure in America so that it WORKS. We NEED the internet, so lets make sure the infrastructure is there and works. Lets NOT interfere with whats ON the internet, just like we shouldn't interfere with whats happening on the phone. Like other things the internet will self regulate because of innovation (giving parents power to control the access, not the government). I think there needs to be a distinction between the internet and the infrastructure it travels upon.