That's a valid point on a philosophical level. When there's no universally recognized moral authority (such as a supernatural being of some kind), there's no way to tell right from wrong that is beyond contestation.
From a more down-to-earth political viewpoint however, there are such things as universal human rights, which include, amongst others, freedom of thought and freedom of expression. Chinese law is in violation of those human rights, just like law in nazi-Germany and Japan during WWII, or laws in the former GDR that allowed people to be shot on the spot if they tried to flee the country.
Although it remains a controversial issue, human rights related international law is increasingly considered jus cogens, meaning it applies universally, regardless of a countries national laws or whether it has actually signed a human rights treaty or not. This is especially true for issues like slavery or torture, that are illegal in all cases. Regretfully, censorship law is probably in a somewhat greyer area, though.
Apart from all that legal mumbo jumbo, the question what gives the Chinese government the right to decide what's to be published and what's not, is just as valid as yours.
For this reason, I'm glad that the French and Dutch citizens have managed to halt the process at least for the moment, to give Europe a time for reflection.
I agree that the constitution was only a small step forward, but to me it was still a step forward. The choice wasn't between this constitution and a more democratic alternative, but between the (modest, but still significant) improvements of the constitution and the highly undemocratic status quo.
Regretfully, right now "reflection" on the future of the EU (at least in the Netherlands) doesn't seem to concern democratic procedures as much as it does backward nationalism, scapegoating Brussels for everything that's going wrong at the national level, and petty fights over money...
This thing is being railroaded through by big business, and there is very little that a crowd of 1 million people can do to stop it - short of tearing down the EU parliament building before the vote.
Actually, no. The EU Parliament, however insignificant it often remains within the current EU legislative framework, is still the most important and powerful ally the opponents of the proposal have. And if my fellow Dutchmen (and the French) hadn't dismissed the EU Constitution, the EU Parliament would have gained a lot of strength vis-à-vis the Commission and the Council, and it would have been in a far better position to stop this kind of legislation in the future.
Yes I am aware of that, and I wasn't claiming otherwise.
Like many Europeans (or Africans, or Asians, for that matter) I wouldn't care a bit about Americans boasting about the sizes of their dicks, if only they were remotely aware that we have dicks too;-)
[rant]If you "generally consider the internet as USA only", that probably says a whole lot more about you than it does about the internet. Are you aware you wouldn't even be reading/. if it weren't for the Swiss CERN, creating the WWW? Do you know that broadband penetration is as high (if not higher) in many EU countries as it is in the US? Don't you think it's about time for many Americans to drop the conceited attitude, and to look around and notice they're not alone on the planet?[/rant]
That being said, according to TFA, The origin of the zombie machines may change on a daily basis as machines can be infected anywhere in the world. CipherTrust has found that during April and May, the largest percent of zombie originations have alternated between China and the United States. In addition, during the first three weeks of May, approximately 26% of daily new zombies originated in the European Union, so let's not jump to any conclusions about Europe's supposed backwardness here. The figures may very likely show an entirely different picture again tomorrow, as they apparentely did just a few weeks ago.
And if you remember, the Mozilla team got the original code for Firefox (the Gecko Engine) from...yes, Netscape!
That's not entirely correct, actually. According to this Wikipedia entry, "the initial Communicator open source release did not even build cleanly, much less run." Because of that, the Mozilla developers eventually decided to write Gecko from scratch.
Because this problem isn't restricted to Google, and it can be very annoying indeed. For example, if you're trying to connect to a server on your local network (say, http://somehost/) that doesn't resolve for some reason, Mozilla/FF will take you to www.somehost.com instead.
I'm not sure about the US, but where I live (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), advertising accounts for nearly fifty percent of a newspaper's revenue. The other half comes from subscriptions and newsstand sales (source, in Dutch). Having worked for a local newspaper for some time, I can assure you advertising was not nearly our only source of income. We certainly needed readers to pay for content as well as deliverery, or at least half my colleagues would have lost their jobs.
The people who deliver newspapers actually get paid very little, which is why most of them are fifteen year old schoolkids, and newspapers have a hard time recruiting them, these days.
My boss often fires up Word and selects File -> Open, just to browse his hard disk for some file. To him, Windows, MS Office and Explorer are the same thing.
I guess emacs isn't the only OS out there...
Most of the time, when MS Word, for some obscure reason, chokes opening an MS Word Document (generally either because it got screwed up by MS Word itself, or because it was created using a different version of MS Office), you can still open it flawlessly in OpenOffice.org...
What... MS patented the up and down arrow keys, too?
So that's where the Mozilla developers stole the idea from. They can expect a cease-and-desist letter any time now!
You'll often find this task is accomplished by "web bugs", tiny 1x1.GIF images that have no purpose other than to go to a third party to indicate the page was viewed, by what IP address, etc. They'll frequently try to give you cookies, too, in order to study browser habits. (I always block these cookies when requested, just to be obstinate.)
I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I'm pretty sure that Firefox users are a lot more likely to block these cookies, web bugs and tracking scripts than your avarage IE user. If anything, Nielsen will underestimate Firefox's market share.
Slashdot Mirror
Then don't post AC.
That's a valid point on a philosophical level. When there's no universally recognized moral authority (such as a supernatural being of some kind), there's no way to tell right from wrong that is beyond contestation.
From a more down-to-earth political viewpoint however, there are such things as universal human rights, which include, amongst others, freedom of thought and freedom of expression. Chinese law is in violation of those human rights, just like law in nazi-Germany and Japan during WWII, or laws in the former GDR that allowed people to be shot on the spot if they tried to flee the country.
Since WWII, the international community has developed an international legal framework to protect basic human rights independent of national law. There's, for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Although it remains a controversial issue, human rights related international law is increasingly considered jus cogens, meaning it applies universally, regardless of a countries national laws or whether it has actually signed a human rights treaty or not. This is especially true for issues like slavery or torture, that are illegal in all cases. Regretfully, censorship law is probably in a somewhat greyer area, though.
Apart from all that legal mumbo jumbo, the question what gives the Chinese government the right to decide what's to be published and what's not, is just as valid as yours.
For this reason, I'm glad that the French and Dutch citizens have managed to halt the process at least for the moment, to give Europe a time for reflection.
I agree that the constitution was only a small step forward, but to me it was still a step forward. The choice wasn't between this constitution and a more democratic alternative, but between the (modest, but still significant) improvements of the constitution and the highly undemocratic status quo.
Regretfully, right now "reflection" on the future of the EU (at least in the Netherlands) doesn't seem to concern democratic procedures as much as it does backward nationalism, scapegoating Brussels for everything that's going wrong at the national level, and petty fights over money...
This thing is being railroaded through by big business, and there is very little that a crowd of 1 million people can do to stop it - short of tearing down the EU parliament building before the vote.
Actually, no. The EU Parliament, however insignificant it often remains within the current EU legislative framework, is still the most important and powerful ally the opponents of the proposal have. And if my fellow Dutchmen (and the French) hadn't dismissed the EU Constitution, the EU Parliament would have gained a lot of strength vis-à-vis the Commission and the Council, and it would have been in a far better position to stop this kind of legislation in the future.
Yes I am aware of that, and I wasn't claiming otherwise.
;-)
Like many Europeans (or Africans, or Asians, for that matter) I wouldn't care a bit about Americans boasting about the sizes of their dicks, if only they were remotely aware that we have dicks too
[rant]If you "generally consider the internet as USA only", that probably says a whole lot more about you than it does about the internet. Are you aware you wouldn't even be reading /. if it weren't for the Swiss CERN, creating the WWW? Do you know that broadband penetration is as high (if not higher) in many EU countries as it is in the US? Don't you think it's about time for many Americans to drop the conceited attitude, and to look around and notice they're not alone on the planet?[/rant]
That being said, according to TFA, The origin of the zombie machines may change on a daily basis as machines can be infected anywhere in the world. CipherTrust has found that during April and May, the largest percent of zombie originations have alternated between China and the United States. In addition, during the first three weeks of May, approximately 26% of daily new zombies originated in the European Union, so let's not jump to any conclusions about Europe's supposed backwardness here. The figures may very likely show an entirely different picture again tomorrow, as they apparentely did just a few weeks ago.
IIRC, MS changed the meaning of the S from "Server" to "Services" in version 5 and up.
"Internet Information Services Web Server" still sounds like shit, though.
And if you remember, the Mozilla team got the original code for Firefox (the Gecko Engine) from...yes, Netscape!
That's not entirely correct, actually. According to this Wikipedia entry, "the initial Communicator open source release did not even build cleanly, much less run." Because of that, the Mozilla developers eventually decided to write Gecko from scratch.
OTOH, for some people personalized ads could very well be about enlarging certain parts of their bodies...
How ironic: an AC asking for names.
Because this problem isn't restricted to Google, and it can be very annoying indeed. For example, if you're trying to connect to a server on your local network (say, http://somehost/) that doesn't resolve for some reason, Mozilla/FF will take you to www.somehost.com instead.
Mozilla Suite: Edit -> Preferences -> Navigator -> Smart Browsing -> Domain Guessing
Firefox: Go to about:config and set user_pref("browser.fixup.alternate.enabled", false);
No we wouldn't. During his second term, Thomas Jefferson spend most of his time keeping the US out of the Napoleontic wars.
If it weren't for the US, most of Europe (including the French!) would probably be speaking either German or Russian, though.
I'm not sure about the US, but where I live (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), advertising accounts for nearly fifty percent of a newspaper's revenue. The other half comes from subscriptions and newsstand sales (source, in Dutch). Having worked for a local newspaper for some time, I can assure you advertising was not nearly our only source of income. We certainly needed readers to pay for content as well as deliverery, or at least half my colleagues would have lost their jobs.
The people who deliver newspapers actually get paid very little, which is why most of them are fifteen year old schoolkids, and newspapers have a hard time recruiting them, these days.
My boss often fires up Word and selects File -> Open, just to browse his hard disk for some file. To him, Windows, MS Office and Explorer are the same thing. I guess emacs isn't the only OS out there...
Most of the time, when MS Word, for some obscure reason, chokes opening an MS Word Document (generally either because it got screwed up by MS Word itself, or because it was created using a different version of MS Office), you can still open it flawlessly in OpenOffice.org...
According to TFA, they're allowing graphic ads om their partners sites only, not on google.com. I too will be blocking it, though.
Sorry, I hadn't noticed the "errors" in great-grandparent.
Actually, Google comes up with "about 706,000" results for Anonymous Coward...
What... MS patented the up and down arrow keys, too? So that's where the Mozilla developers stole the idea from. They can expect a cease-and-desist letter any time now!
...nothing beats GNU find.
(It can even compete with MS in terms of bloat...)
Contribute to society: punch the monkey!
So basically you're saying it's indecent to take a leak during commercial breaks?
Well, there is the DRM-less music store Michael Robertson started some time ago.
You'll often find this task is accomplished by "web bugs", tiny 1x1 .GIF images that have no purpose other than to go to a third party to indicate the page was viewed, by what IP address, etc. They'll frequently try to give you cookies, too, in order to study browser habits. (I always block these cookies when requested, just to be obstinate.)
I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I'm pretty sure that Firefox users are a lot more likely to block these cookies, web bugs and tracking scripts than your avarage IE user. If anything, Nielsen will underestimate Firefox's market share.