Everyone. There have always been people who have wanted to silence "the other side". Not just politics, but religion and science and pretty much every other field of human endeavour where people disagree.
Maybe of all the intelligent races we are retards. Look at what we're doing to our own planet.
Maybe we're the smart ones. Even with fairly favourable conditions, it still took 4 billion years to evolve a single (semi) intelligent species. It took almost 3 1/2 billion years just to get beyond the slime mold stage.
What if most of the life in the Galaxy is still little more than slime mold?
A scientist saying things are a certain way based on a theory cannot be right until the theory is proven true and absolutely correct
Theories are rarely (if ever) "proven to be true" as it's a lot easier to show that something is false rather than absolutely 100% true and correct. Science is more about finding the best model to fit the data than a quest for certainty. Even experiments don't prove theories, they just add to the evidence that a model is the best explanation for a certain phenomenon.
Microsoft never prevented me from installing another browser, either.
No, but they did do their best to stop OEMs installing other browsers. And there were issues with API disclosure and "sharp" business practices. Microsoft were basically abusing their monopoly. Lowering the index ranking of a site because that site has temporarily been spammed is not abusing Google's near monopoly - especially as there is every chance that a cleaned up JavaLobby could rise back up the rankings.
Even if Google was the only search engine, why does JavaLobby assume that they have a right to be near the top of the results? Their site had poor content on it and Google indexed them appropriately. It's the spammers that are at fault, not Google.
But most phones on the market (at least in the UK, and I suspect the rest of Europe), have an open architecture for 3rd party apps, thanks to Java. And the masses are used to installing 3rd party apps on their phones (java games are regularly advertised along with ringtones and background pictures on TV). Even phones that sell for £35 have Java - it's what, the 4th most common feature on a phone (after the ability to make phonecalls, the ability to send SMS and the inclusion of a phonebook).
Plenty of dumb phones can run J2ME apps - so the ability to run arbitrary 3rd party apps isn't the separator between smart phones and phones. The ability to run 3rd party apps is almost a universal feature - about the only phones that can't run 3rd party apps (at least in the UK) are the really, really low end phones (which tend to have black and white screens and, for some reason, are often targeted at older consumers who apparently just want a simple phone) and the iPhone.
The Greenphone is part of a development kit - it's not meant for day to day use (that's why it's only ever sold with an SDK) nor the mass market. Saying that the Greenphone isn't ready for general use is no great secret.
I think it'll have a tougher time in Europe if it doesn't at least have Java 3rd party apps. Even most of the fairly low end dumb phones allow 3rd party Java apps, so I would think it'll be a more glaring omission here. Consumers have become accustomed to installing Java games and such like (they're advertised all the time on TV), so I think they'll wonder why they can't install them on the iPhone.
While it's not what responsible for kids turning into little shits (I actually think kids have always tended to be little shits, the current crop might be worse than usual but I think a lot of the anxiety around today's youth is because their shitiness is better reported), I do think the "Ban It!" culture that has developed in the UK is making things worse, because the more stuff you ban, the greater likelyhood of somebody breaking the ban, and once someone breaks one ban, breaking other bans becomes easier, and for some people that means breaking bans/rules/laws becomes a normal way of life. And not just with kids - I think adults are getting worse too.
I don't understand why certain parts of society (and the media in particular) have become so afraid of personal freedom. Look at the reaction to the easing up of licencing laws - according to the media, the "world was going to end". That didn't happen, but any chance to bash the new laws is front page news, but any news that lends support to the new laws is a single paragraph, buried somewhere deep inside. The smoking ban is being wildly praised - but I bet that there will be some serious issues afterwards (such as having large numbers of drunk people hanging around outside pubs), that will just result in more calls for more things to be banned.
The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers
I really think they should have a - between the NAS and UWT, as it is a somewhat odd sounding name.
There are a couple of teacher unions in the UK, with NUT (National Union Of Teachers) being the other one. If you include the union for university lectures, the UCU ( University and College Union - which is the recent merger of AUT and NATFHE unions) there are (at least) 3 unions concerned with teachers.
Why teachers in the UK need so many unions is beyond me.
I'm really starting to think that there should be a "common Slashdot myths and misconceptions about the UK" page somewhere.
"No such explicit, written right to free speech as the First Amendment", would be one of the first items, along with "the people are subjects, not citizens", "the UK legal system" and several other common fallacies about the UK that I see regularly popping up on Slashdot. That way, people could just point to the relevant reference like they do with Wikipedia.
Absolute Nonsense! Pretty much every industry is in private hands in the UK (pretty much everything has been privatized, from telecoms to water over the last 30 years - it's expected that even the Post Office will be privatized at some point - which is something that I doubt even the "capitalist" American government has seriously considered). About the only taint of socialism left is a comparatively (with the US) generous welfare system and a national health service (and there we also have private health available and the NHS is constantly undergoing part privatization).
You obviously know fuck all about the UK and it's economy, and I doubt you even have a clue about what socialism really is. Your statements might have had some validity in the late 60's and early 70's, but then there was this Prime Minister called Margret Thatcher who stared the privatization ball rolling, which was continued by Prime Ministers Major and Blair after her (and Blair's a member of the "left-wing" Labour - and even they are now for private industry).
Print to WebA major newspaper gives up printing on paper to publish exclusively online.
Not sure that this'll happen, unless you want to stretch the definition of "a major newpaper".
I'd bet what is more likely to happen would be a that a major metropolitan newspaper will switch to a smaller, free "commuter" edition, that would be backed by a bigger online presence. In the UK, this has already sort of started happening, with the publishers of the Evening Standard now publishing a smaller, free version called London Lite, alongside the larger, non-free Evening Standard. Both the Evening Standard and London Lite share the same backing website - www.thisislondon.co.uk, though it's more entertainment than news focused.
But... to be back on topic... I too was of the opinion that Starbucks was a 'good' company, and it somewhat baffles me why organizations like Oxfam pick on them when there are truly BAD companies doing BAD things that they should be spending their time on.
I think to some organizations, any global corporation is "bad" - there's no rationality behind it, and no amount of social responsibility will be enough to satisfy them, even if the corporation in question is giving a positive benefit to the world. Starbucks' perfectly legitimate disagreement with Ethiopian farmers is more than enough "justification" for people who are not being entirely rational to start protesting.
The first words out of his mouth should be "let me take a look at this," followed a half-hour later by "this can't be done with this hardware and software. We need to do Y."
Isn't that what he did? He looked at it, had a go with what was available and when that wasn't working out he went with Ubuntu.
Yeah, but he did he have relations of a sexual nature with someone who his not his wife and then lie about it? No? Then he won't face impeachment. Remember, sex is bad but violence is ok.
Exactly, Global Warming gets all the press, but tangible pollution is neglected. If anything, that's what causes the paranoid skeptic in me to question global warming - why are the world's politicians and psuedopoliticians going out of their way to call for draconian measures to stop one form of pollution thats effects will mainly be felt in the future (and then, allegedly, mostly by the the third world) and where the level of anthropogenic involvement in the process is debatable, while doing little if anything to combat other, more obviously toxic pollutants that are affecting us here and now in the first world? Surely we should start by getting rid of those pollutants first.
I know I'm a bit cynical, but I really think most of reasons for the hype around global warming stems from a desire for greater government control and taxation than from any real desire to protect the environment.
Perhaps you can explain how cameras on every corner Yep, that's the UK. Though the US is slowly catching up.
the national banning of any trade involving anything that might sort of be Nazi related I'm not aware of any such law in any part of the UK - sounds more like France and Germany.
attempts to censor search content of international corporations I think you're confusing the UK with France.
or a copyright system where you can be sued, and billed, by someone not involved are improvements Germany, not the UK.
Only one of your comments relates to UK and none relate to the EU as a whole.
No one lives "in the land of the free". Every country has their own peculiar restraints on freedom that other countries would find absurd.
Slashdot Mirror
Who wants to limit the freedom of the press?
Everyone. There have always been people who have wanted to silence "the other side". Not just politics, but religion and science and pretty much every other field of human endeavour where people disagree.
Maybe of all the intelligent races we are retards. Look at what we're doing to our own planet.
Maybe we're the smart ones. Even with fairly favourable conditions, it still took 4 billion years to evolve a single (semi) intelligent species. It took almost 3 1/2 billion years just to get beyond the slime mold stage.
What if most of the life in the Galaxy is still little more than slime mold?
where is the "fun" in finding another dead rock just like so many others?
For some geologists, theres lots of fun to be had with yet another dead rock.
A scientist saying things are a certain way based on a theory cannot be right until the theory is proven true and absolutely correct
Theories are rarely (if ever) "proven to be true" as it's a lot easier to show that something is false rather than absolutely 100% true and correct. Science is more about finding the best model to fit the data than a quest for certainty. Even experiments don't prove theories, they just add to the evidence that a model is the best explanation for a certain phenomenon.
Microsoft never prevented me from installing another browser, either.
No, but they did do their best to stop OEMs installing other browsers. And there were issues with API disclosure and "sharp" business practices. Microsoft were basically abusing their monopoly. Lowering the index ranking of a site because that site has temporarily been spammed is not abusing Google's near monopoly - especially as there is every chance that a cleaned up JavaLobby could rise back up the rankings.
Even if Google was the only search engine, why does JavaLobby assume that they have a right to be near the top of the results? Their site had poor content on it and Google indexed them appropriately. It's the spammers that are at fault, not Google.
But how are Google preventing you from going to other search engines? Being successful is not against the law.
On what grounds? Google isn't stifling competition.
But most phones on the market (at least in the UK, and I suspect the rest of Europe), have an open architecture for 3rd party apps, thanks to Java. And the masses are used to installing 3rd party apps on their phones (java games are regularly advertised along with ringtones and background pictures on TV). Even phones that sell for £35 have Java - it's what, the 4th most common feature on a phone (after the ability to make phonecalls, the ability to send SMS and the inclusion of a phonebook).
but more like an iPod that happens to also have a phone in it
But if that's all it is, it hardly seems worth the price they want for it.
Plenty of dumb phones can run J2ME apps - so the ability to run arbitrary 3rd party apps isn't the separator between smart phones and phones. The ability to run 3rd party apps is almost a universal feature - about the only phones that can't run 3rd party apps (at least in the UK) are the really, really low end phones (which tend to have black and white screens and, for some reason, are often targeted at older consumers who apparently just want a simple phone) and the iPhone.
The Greenphone is part of a development kit - it's not meant for day to day use (that's why it's only ever sold with an SDK) nor the mass market. Saying that the Greenphone isn't ready for general use is no great secret.
it could actually run a VoIP wifi app,
The Nokia N80i already runs a voip app - Gizmo
I think it'll have a tougher time in Europe if it doesn't at least have Java 3rd party apps. Even most of the fairly low end dumb phones allow 3rd party Java apps, so I would think it'll be a more glaring omission here. Consumers have become accustomed to installing Java games and such like (they're advertised all the time on TV), so I think they'll wonder why they can't install them on the iPhone.
While it's not what responsible for kids turning into little shits (I actually think kids have always tended to be little shits, the current crop might be worse than usual but I think a lot of the anxiety around today's youth is because their shitiness is better reported), I do think the "Ban It!" culture that has developed in the UK is making things worse, because the more stuff you ban, the greater likelyhood of somebody breaking the ban, and once someone breaks one ban, breaking other bans becomes easier, and for some people that means breaking bans/rules/laws becomes a normal way of life. And not just with kids - I think adults are getting worse too.
I don't understand why certain parts of society (and the media in particular) have become so afraid of personal freedom. Look at the reaction to the easing up of licencing laws - according to the media, the "world was going to end". That didn't happen, but any chance to bash the new laws is front page news, but any news that lends support to the new laws is a single paragraph, buried somewhere deep inside. The smoking ban is being wildly praised - but I bet that there will be some serious issues afterwards (such as having large numbers of drunk people hanging around outside pubs), that will just result in more calls for more things to be banned.
The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers
I really think they should have a - between the NAS and UWT, as it is a somewhat odd sounding name.
There are a couple of teacher unions in the UK, with NUT (National Union Of Teachers) being the other one. If you include the union for university lectures, the UCU ( University and College Union - which is the recent merger of AUT and NATFHE unions) there are (at least) 3 unions concerned with teachers.
Why teachers in the UK need so many unions is beyond me.
I'm really starting to think that there should be a "common Slashdot myths and misconceptions about the UK" page somewhere.
"No such explicit, written right to free speech as the First Amendment", would be one of the first items, along with "the people are subjects, not citizens", "the UK legal system" and several other common fallacies about the UK that I see regularly popping up on Slashdot. That way, people could just point to the relevant reference like they do with Wikipedia.
Absolute Nonsense! Pretty much every industry is in private hands in the UK (pretty much everything has been privatized, from telecoms to water over the last 30 years - it's expected that even the Post Office will be privatized at some point - which is something that I doubt even the "capitalist" American government has seriously considered). About the only taint of socialism left is a comparatively (with the US) generous welfare system and a national health service (and there we also have private health available and the NHS is constantly undergoing part privatization).
You obviously know fuck all about the UK and it's economy, and I doubt you even have a clue about what socialism really is. Your statements might have had some validity in the late 60's and early 70's, but then there was this Prime Minister called Margret Thatcher who stared the privatization ball rolling, which was continued by Prime Ministers Major and Blair after her (and Blair's a member of the "left-wing" Labour - and even they are now for private industry).
I'd bet what is more likely to happen would be a that a major metropolitan newspaper will switch to a smaller, free "commuter" edition, that would be backed by a bigger online presence. In the UK, this has already sort of started happening, with the publishers of the Evening Standard now publishing a smaller, free version called London Lite, alongside the larger, non-free Evening Standard. Both the Evening Standard and London Lite share the same backing website - www.thisislondon.co.uk, though it's more entertainment than news focused.
But... to be back on topic... I too was of the opinion that Starbucks was a 'good' company, and it somewhat baffles me why organizations like Oxfam pick on them when there are truly BAD companies doing BAD things that they should be spending their time on.
I think to some organizations, any global corporation is "bad" - there's no rationality behind it, and no amount of social responsibility will be enough to satisfy them, even if the corporation in question is giving a positive benefit to the world. Starbucks' perfectly legitimate disagreement with Ethiopian farmers is more than enough "justification" for people who are not being entirely rational to start protesting.
The first words out of his mouth should be "let me take a look at this," followed a half-hour later by "this can't be done with this hardware and software. We need to do Y."
Isn't that what he did? He looked at it, had a go with what was available and when that wasn't working out he went with Ubuntu.
Yeah, but he did he have relations of a sexual nature with someone who his not his wife and then lie about it? No? Then he won't face impeachment. Remember, sex is bad but violence is ok.
Exactly, Global Warming gets all the press, but tangible pollution is neglected. If anything, that's what causes the paranoid skeptic in me to question global warming - why are the world's politicians and psuedopoliticians going out of their way to call for draconian measures to stop one form of pollution thats effects will mainly be felt in the future (and then, allegedly, mostly by the the third world) and where the level of anthropogenic involvement in the process is debatable, while doing little if anything to combat other, more obviously toxic pollutants that are affecting us here and now in the first world? Surely we should start by getting rid of those pollutants first.
I know I'm a bit cynical, but I really think most of reasons for the hype around global warming stems from a desire for greater government control and taxation than from any real desire to protect the environment.
Perhaps you can explain how cameras on every corner
Yep, that's the UK. Though the US is slowly catching up.
the national banning of any trade involving anything that might sort of be Nazi related
I'm not aware of any such law in any part of the UK - sounds more like France and Germany.
attempts to censor search content of international corporations
I think you're confusing the UK with France.
or a copyright system where you can be sued, and billed, by someone not involved are improvements
Germany, not the UK.
Only one of your comments relates to UK and none relate to the EU as a whole.
No one lives "in the land of the free". Every country has their own peculiar restraints on freedom that other countries would find absurd.