Would Microsoft have had a right to control the market for applications which could run on Windows? In fact, isn't that exactly what they were slammed for (actually, for far less - for simply bundling a web browser?)
I hadn't thought of this, and this is exactly right. I don't even think they need to find an email: this seems (perhaps illegally) anti-competitive on its face.
Re:unemployment and homelessness
on
The Laidoff Ninja
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It is one thing to couch-surf when you are single. When you have a family (and even in your case, perhaps one medical emergency away from wiping out a year's savings) one becomes less sanguine about it.
In terms of a moral thought-experiment, I agree with you. In practical terms, in first-world societies, however, it is very rare that committing a crime - or, what is more likely, starting a career as a criminal until circumstances improve - is a better alternative than accepting the existing safety nets (as low as they might be), entering a homeless shelter, getting subsidized housing, going to food banks, etc.
People often confuse a certain down-migration - moving from upper-middle-class to lower-middle-class - with destitution. Yes, it's humiliating and involves a lot of frustration and shame, but it is easier to move from an unemployed shelter-dweller without a criminal record back to a member of the middle class than it is to move from convict with a criminal record back to the middle class.
"This post is written in English. Would you like to translate it into RDF?"
"The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a standard for peripheral devices. It began development in 1994 by a group of seven companies: Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple and Apple."
And far bigger than either of those are conditions related to diet: heart disease and diabetes in particular. If we were serious about saving American lives, Ronald McDonald would be the first on the no-fly list.
Um, Europe has been a war zone for most of its history, too. The EU is - what - 30-some years old? And we still had that conflict in Serbia/Kosovo, the Basque autonomy movement, and the IRA. The only time you get peace is when you have a big, stable state that keeps the peace, and the Middle East has had centuries in which it had those.
No, it's just that "there are just as many" is a worn-out cliche that isn't even close to being true, a false "truism" that's trotted out without any thinking whatsoever. I'm not anti-Islam and I recognize it as a rich and complicated tradition, like Christianity. But contemporary Islamic fundamentalism is different is kind, scale and scope from Christian fundamentalism, partially for reasons that have to do with world history for the past few hundred years.
"There are just as many x as y" is repeated as a lame bromide, meant to reassure that really everyone is all the same, and prevent any real critical thought. It's stupid, and I had seen it just one time too many.
Really? That's some pretty amazing quantitative research you did there. And what an amazing coincidence: despite each religious traditions having over a billion adherents, the number of self-justified, ill-informed ones is exactly the same!
Please tell me more about the nature, origins and transmission of this self-justification and ill-information.
I was waiting for someone to make the "it's only censorship if the government does it" bullshit line, because this situation shows just how asinine that line of reasoning is. Apparently, the threat of getting fined or not being allowed to sell your stuff to kids is censorship (if the government does it), the threat of getting fired or blown up isn't (if the government isn't doing it.)
So, you are implicitly agreeing with every act of atrocity that you haven't explicitly come out and opposed that was sponsored by the US, or its allies? Your failure to condemn Matthew Shephard''s death in this post means you're a homicidal homophobe?
My God, the stupidity and chauvinism in your post is so thick, I don't know how to dispel it. Here's a start: vaguely-defined regions over millennia are not very good units for historical analysis.
The Old Testament condones violence (and sometimes incredible brutality). So do early Vedic texts.
Do you know why?
Those religious texts, like the Koran, were formed when those religions were developing in a relative political vacuum. Pacifistic religions, like Buddhism and Christianity, formed in the context of strong empires and kingdoms, so they don't include a lot of "nation-building" rhetoric in their scriptures. They treat the practice of creating, expanding and organizing a polity as an external event, as "nature." All the violent stuff, all the calls for force, are then taken up in extra-religious discourse.
Judaism, the Vedic religions, and Islam included the political dimension out of necessity. When Christianity made a transition from essentially being a minoritarian religion to being the religion of empire (and then the religion of an isolated, besieged, increasingly agricultural Europe) it managed to find its war-voice, hence the various campaigns of violent conversion against pagans, the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the pogroms, etc.
I am point out that an argument used to deflect criticism of Apple's control of the app market could be applied to criticisms that were made of Microsoft. The other reply has been well-dealt with by others.
And when Microsoft Windows was declared a monopoly, you were perfectly free to go buy a Macintosh. By your description, you weren't locked in to Windows. (In fact, you were less locked in than you are with the iPhone, because you always could install OS/2 or Linux on your PC hardware - while there is no viable alternate OS for the iPhone.)
The problem is the chilling effect when few organizations control many media channels.
You lose when thousands of people self-censor, because otherwise they'd be unable to reach the iPhone market. You lose when you have no chance of reaching the iPhone market. This is not an all-or-nothing winning or losing, but a graded one. But communication and expression is not isolated: it occurs in the context of networks of people and platforms. If the population of iPhone customers is big enough to affect when does and does not get made and distributed, then it affects you even if you aren't an iPhone customer.
There's a difference between wanting to see a few naked bodies and being determined enough to do it that they'll start downloading porn (and, likely, malware) onto your computer. What good web controls do is make it harder to do so on impulse: it's the old saw about locks being important to keep honest people honest.
When my kid wants to see naked bodies and people having sex, I'll take him to see French paintings from the rococo through the 19th century. Some paintings from Ingres and Courbet's L'Origine du monde should do.
Why do I suspect you are much closer to being a kid than to having one?
Restrictions can tell a kid "I give a fuck about you," not just "I don't trust you." A lack of restrictions can mean "I either don't give a shit about you or have given up." If a kid already has a dogged determination to see porn and shock sites, then yes, it's probably shutting the barn doors after the cows have gotten out. But that's seldom the issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Would Microsoft have had a right to control the market for applications which could run on Windows? In fact, isn't that exactly what they were slammed for (actually, for far less - for simply bundling a web browser?)
They are controlling the market for applications which can run on iPhones. Literally, controlling the market itself.
Yes, there are other smart-phones. But an installed base means lock-in.
I hadn't thought of this, and this is exactly right. I don't even think they need to find an email: this seems (perhaps illegally) anti-competitive on its face.
It is one thing to couch-surf when you are single. When you have a family (and even in your case, perhaps one medical emergency away from wiping out a year's savings) one becomes less sanguine about it.
In terms of a moral thought-experiment, I agree with you. In practical terms, in first-world societies, however, it is very rare that committing a crime - or, what is more likely, starting a career as a criminal until circumstances improve - is a better alternative than accepting the existing safety nets (as low as they might be), entering a homeless shelter, getting subsidized housing, going to food banks, etc.
People often confuse a certain down-migration - moving from upper-middle-class to lower-middle-class - with destitution. Yes, it's humiliating and involves a lot of frustration and shame, but it is easier to move from an unemployed shelter-dweller without a criminal record back to a member of the middle class than it is to move from convict with a criminal record back to the middle class.
"This post is written in English. Would you like to translate it into RDF?"
And far bigger than either of those are conditions related to diet: heart disease and diabetes in particular. If we were serious about saving American lives, Ronald McDonald would be the first on the no-fly list.
Um, Europe has been a war zone for most of its history, too. The EU is - what - 30-some years old? And we still had that conflict in Serbia/Kosovo, the Basque autonomy movement, and the IRA. The only time you get peace is when you have a big, stable state that keeps the peace, and the Middle East has had centuries in which it had those.
No, it's just that "there are just as many" is a worn-out cliche that isn't even close to being true, a false "truism" that's trotted out without any thinking whatsoever. I'm not anti-Islam and I recognize it as a rich and complicated tradition, like Christianity. But contemporary Islamic fundamentalism is different is kind, scale and scope from Christian fundamentalism, partially for reasons that have to do with world history for the past few hundred years.
"There are just as many x as y" is repeated as a lame bromide, meant to reassure that really everyone is all the same, and prevent any real critical thought. It's stupid, and I had seen it just one time too many.
I have a feeling that Comedy Central is going to be getting nothing by Muhammad jokes for the rest of its contract with Stone and Parker.
Really? That's some pretty amazing quantitative research you did there. And what an amazing coincidence: despite each religious traditions having over a billion adherents, the number of self-justified, ill-informed ones is exactly the same!
Please tell me more about the nature, origins and transmission of this self-justification and ill-information.
I was waiting for someone to make the "it's only censorship if the government does it" bullshit line, because this situation shows just how asinine that line of reasoning is. Apparently, the threat of getting fined or not being allowed to sell your stuff to kids is censorship (if the government does it), the threat of getting fired or blown up isn't (if the government isn't doing it.)
Connected, of course, by GStrings.
So, you are implicitly agreeing with every act of atrocity that you haven't explicitly come out and opposed that was sponsored by the US, or its allies? Your failure to condemn Matthew Shephard''s death in this post means you're a homicidal homophobe?
"Modernize." Do you know what that really means?
My God, the stupidity and chauvinism in your post is so thick, I don't know how to dispel it. Here's a start: vaguely-defined regions over millennia are not very good units for historical analysis.
The Old Testament condones violence (and sometimes incredible brutality). So do early Vedic texts.
Do you know why?
Those religious texts, like the Koran, were formed when those religions were developing in a relative political vacuum. Pacifistic religions, like Buddhism and Christianity, formed in the context of strong empires and kingdoms, so they don't include a lot of "nation-building" rhetoric in their scriptures. They treat the practice of creating, expanding and organizing a polity as an external event, as "nature." All the violent stuff, all the calls for force, are then taken up in extra-religious discourse.
Judaism, the Vedic religions, and Islam included the political dimension out of necessity. When Christianity made a transition from essentially being a minoritarian religion to being the religion of empire (and then the religion of an isolated, besieged, increasingly agricultural Europe) it managed to find its war-voice, hence the various campaigns of violent conversion against pagans, the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the pogroms, etc.
I am point out that an argument used to deflect criticism of Apple's control of the app market could be applied to criticisms that were made of Microsoft. The other reply has been well-dealt with by others.
Where did I state that it was declared a monopoly? By the way, how's the angry-angry-fanboy thing working out for you?
And when Microsoft Windows was declared a monopoly, you were perfectly free to go buy a Macintosh. By your description, you weren't locked in to Windows. (In fact, you were less locked in than you are with the iPhone, because you always could install OS/2 or Linux on your PC hardware - while there is no viable alternate OS for the iPhone.)
Apple doesn't have a monopoly on smart phones. But it does have an effective monopoly/control on applications for the major smartphone platform.
Your argument is like saying that Standard Oil didn't have a monopoly, because people could still walk and use horses.
The problem is the chilling effect when few organizations control many media channels.
You lose when thousands of people self-censor, because otherwise they'd be unable to reach the iPhone market. You lose when you have no chance of reaching the iPhone market. This is not an all-or-nothing winning or losing, but a graded one. But communication and expression is not isolated: it occurs in the context of networks of people and platforms. If the population of iPhone customers is big enough to affect when does and does not get made and distributed, then it affects you even if you aren't an iPhone customer.
There's a difference between wanting to see a few naked bodies and being determined enough to do it that they'll start downloading porn (and, likely, malware) onto your computer. What good web controls do is make it harder to do so on impulse: it's the old saw about locks being important to keep honest people honest.
When my kid wants to see naked bodies and people having sex, I'll take him to see French paintings from the rococo through the 19th century. Some paintings from Ingres and Courbet's L'Origine du monde should do.
Why do I suspect you are much closer to being a kid than to having one?
Restrictions can tell a kid "I give a fuck about you," not just "I don't trust you." A lack of restrictions can mean "I either don't give a shit about you or have given up." If a kid already has a dogged determination to see porn and shock sites, then yes, it's probably shutting the barn doors after the cows have gotten out. But that's seldom the issue.
I.e., 'gina-cologists.
There is a difference between being more dangerous and seeming more dangerous. What matters is driver perception.