You're nuts. You or I don't have enough money for them to notice us, and if we did, we'd have lobbyists go to the white house and make the points -- and campaign donations -- for us; not use a web feedback form.
More likely simply that different companies/organizations are responsible for.org vs.com vs.net vs.whatever, and each of those had different plans (or no plans) and acted on them at various speeds.
Service goes one place, billing goes another. Guess which one they use when they sell their subscriber list? Yep. Billing. Which doesn't even happen to be in the same state.
I don't think my ISP is competent enough to do targeted ads on the zip+4 for the service address when they've got a different address that gets them money.
Oh, so very, very wrong. I don't watch movies because most of them just aren't interesting to me. I will watch the occasional Pixar film just to see what they're doing with computer animation. I'll also watch documentaries. As for TV, I watch other shows, I've just not seen anything on any of the mentioned NBC-owned channels that's grabbed my attention. I'd trade FOX for NBC in a heartbeat if I could, but FOX is the only source of F1 racing in the states, so I'm stuck watching some of that network's stuff, as much as I hate everything that Murdoch and Fox News stand for -- if NBC snags that contract the next time it's up, I'll be watching stuff from NBC. Pretty much everything else I watch is from PBS or the BBC. News, well, that's what the internet is for, and I generally read it directly from AP or Reuters, as well as numerous overseas sources.
I pity you if the only discussion in your workplace is driven by TV & movies. Discussion around the office here tends towards a variety of topics including racing of all kinds during the summer, from the local kart and dirt track to IRL, nascar, F1, and German and British Touring Cars; vacations / trips; what the kids are up to; local sports; TV / movies; football (world cup, specifically); golf; and, well, work. Everyone knows that not everyone is interested in everything. Many, many eyes in the office glaze over when people start talking golf, for example. Or about their kids. Or about their vacation. Or about TV. No one thinks any less of someone because of what they do or do not enjoy discussing at work.
As to the original post I was responding to, I find it hard to believe that so many people find it impossible to live their lives without being constantly entertained by a bunch of dots on a screen to the point that they can't conceive that someone could avoid one single entertainment company's products. In typical slashdot fashion, that got turned into "I never watch any movies or any TV", when that wasn't at all what I said.
But on that note, go outside. Go camping. Or fishing. Or golfing. Or running. Or biking. Or go work on that hot-rod, painting, knitting project, beer-fetching robot, car-throwing trebuchet, or whatever pet project you happen to prefer. Mow the yard, do some gardening, learn to cook a new type of food. Read a book -- you know, those things made of paper that contain either facts or stories, don't have commercials, and aren't limited by needing to fit into a time slot or production budget. You don't have to live in front of the TV, and I'll be the first to encourage people to cut WAY back on the TV watching -- not to cut it out completely, just don't live in front of the damned thing.
NBC - nope Universal Studios - nope NBC Universal Television Group - nope NBC News - no need, it's all from AP or Reuters USA Network - nope Syfy - nope CNBC - no need, it's all from AP or Reuters MSNBC Cable TV - no need, it's all from AP or Reuters NBC.com - hell no MSNBC.com - hell no iVillage - WTF? no Bravo - nope qubo - WTF? no Telemundo Television Studios - no The Weather Channel - nope, better and more accurate forecasts elsewehre Hulu - nope A&E Television Networks - nope
Of course, I watch very little TV, and virtually no movies. It's not hard to avoid a company when you're not part of their target audience.
That's pretty much my point. Why would someone say that Google using the GPL would have avoided the issue? It was an open project that got forked when one party did something others didn't like. With or without the GPL, there'd be a fork if someone added that much extra stuff to what was a very lightweight and fast addon, and there was, no GPL needed.
OK, that's pretty much my understanding as well. GPL or not, there most likely would have been a fork anyway at this point when it got so much un-wanted stuff added to it, so Google using GPL instead of the Apache 2.0 license wouldn't have avoided anything.
Google released theirs with the Apache 2.0 license. Someone else took that, re-wrote (apparently significant) portions and released it with a different name. THAT PERSON then sold it to a company, who then decided to bundle a bunch of for-pay stuff with it. People didn't like it, and forked the previous version.
Exactly HOW would the GPL have been better? There's still a fork of the last "good" version, which you can use if you like.
And that somewhat-mirror-shaped chunk of glass then required a LOT of grinding and polishing, and then coating, and then (sometimes) polishing that coating.
Thats what's that tax WAS for. Now it's just another tax ending up in the general fund. I also think you underestimate the number of people that are cell-only. I've been POTS free for the last 8 years (cell only for the last 6, and phone free for two before that), and I don't know too many people younger than me that have a POTS phone anymore, and I'm in my early 30s.
As for the wires existing already -- most new construction around here is wired internally for phone (some "custom" ($$$) homes aren't, but they're generally wired for a lot more than phone anyway), but they're not running wires out to the telco's box. That's up to the buyer to have done if they want (and the telco's method is a trencher through the new yard, driveway, and the occasional sprinkler system -- and it's up to the homeowner to repair the damage). There's a new development I pass on the way to work that doesn't have any telco wires past their box at the entrance -- the telco may be required to lay wires if people want service, but so far, no one's asking. Time-Warner has been very busy in there with a pipe-pusher though and a pretty aggressively priced VOIP package. I also know a lot of people that are pulling old phone wiring out when remodeling (interior wiring) and/or landscaping (the run from the telco's box by the curb to the box on the wall -- "rip it out, don't need it, don't want it, screw ma-bell") and not replacing it, as it's not needed.
In short, yes, there's a lot of wiring that could be used. At this point, an awful lot of it would need to be replaced in order to be "upgraded" because it's either been removed, or it's too old and too poor quality to handle DSL. If you're going to be mandate re-laying a lot of wire, why not just lay fiber?
A proper budget for one person, a family, or a nation of hundreds of millions still boils down to one simple thing. Don't spend more than you have. If you fail at that, nothing else matters because it's a bad budget.
Capped plans -- I'm saying its a NON ISSUE. I'm not capped currently, and don't plan on changing data plans because I don't want to restart the clock on my contract, but even if I did, the only impact would be a savings of $5/month.
Option for flash -- personally, I don't give a shit whether the option is there or not, I won't use it. So having the option isn't an advantage to me.
Censorship in apps / choices for apps -- again, for me, the existing choices are more than enough for my needs. All the "censored" apps are garbage I don't want anyway, so in this case, I don't mind. I can also always roll my own.
As for a usable UI, again, I prefer it to other options.
You obviously have different opinions, but for me I don't see them as disadvantages. If you think that makes me a fanboy, well, that's your opinion too. I'm not a blind apple-hater, nor do I love everything that apple makes. I tolerate OSX. I think the ipad is completely useless. I think most of their hardware is overpriced. But hey, I like the iphone, so I must be a fanboy.
So you can go ahead and finish labeling me: AT&T sucks. Verizon sucks a little less. Sprint sucks more than I thought was possible. I haven't found a linux distro I like. I like BSD. I like Windows. I absolutely HATE the GPL. I like the BSD, MIT, and Apache licenses. I cannot stand Richard Stallman, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs. Woz is wacky enough that I don't mind him. The term "Open Source" is bullshit. I can't stand the republican or democratic parties, or most of their supporters. The RIAA and MPAA can go fark themselves, but I think copyright serves a purpose and should be kept around. Lawyers are useful, politicians are useless.
Labels are nice. They usually don't work well with people.
iphone: Capped data. Evo: Unlimited 3g and 4g iphone: costly tethering Evo: Free USB tethering, again unlimited iphone: walled garden Evo: open market, install apk files from anywhere iphone: at&t 3g Evo: 4G iphone: no flash Evo: HTC mobile flash, Froyo full flash in a couple months
So, are you willing to take all those downside for slightly cheaper flash memory? Your call.
Data: The cap, if I switch plans, is still far higher than my 3g data useage. Tethering: I'm rarely without wifi, so I don't care about it Walled Garden: 99% of the stuff out there, in or out of the garden, is crap anyway. 3G vs 4G: I have decent 3G coverage with ATT. Sprint's coverage is dismal at best, and 4G is nonexistant in my market. Flash: I hate flash. Always have. Always will. Having flash on my phone isn't something I want.
As a result, when I needed a phone 20 months ago, I bought an iphone. Your "disadvantages" aren't disadvantages to me, and I'll pick a well thought out and useable UI pretty much any day.
Labor costs might be 5x higher, but if you can automate 80% of the work, it comes out even. That might not be possible, but put another way, they now have 5x the motivation to automate everything they can.
Slashdot Mirror
A ham call sign ("handle") masks the personal identity of the user.
No. No it doesn't. Those call signs (in the USA) are assigned by the FCC and anyone can go look up a name and address of the person using it.
You're nuts. You or I don't have enough money for them to notice us, and if we did, we'd have lobbyists go to the white house and make the points -- and campaign donations -- for us; not use a web feedback form.
Realistically, there's nothing we can do.
More likely simply that different companies/organizations are responsible for .org vs .com vs .net vs .whatever, and each of those had different plans (or no plans) and acted on them at various speeds.
And when you're working on the equivalent of "hello world" (ie, that specific file is never going to be used again), it doesn't matter.
Service goes one place, billing goes another. Guess which one they use when they sell their subscriber list? Yep. Billing. Which doesn't even happen to be in the same state.
I don't think my ISP is competent enough to do targeted ads on the zip+4 for the service address when they've got a different address that gets them money.
Oh, so very, very wrong. I don't watch movies because most of them just aren't interesting to me. I will watch the occasional Pixar film just to see what they're doing with computer animation. I'll also watch documentaries. As for TV, I watch other shows, I've just not seen anything on any of the mentioned NBC-owned channels that's grabbed my attention. I'd trade FOX for NBC in a heartbeat if I could, but FOX is the only source of F1 racing in the states, so I'm stuck watching some of that network's stuff, as much as I hate everything that Murdoch and Fox News stand for -- if NBC snags that contract the next time it's up, I'll be watching stuff from NBC. Pretty much everything else I watch is from PBS or the BBC. News, well, that's what the internet is for, and I generally read it directly from AP or Reuters, as well as numerous overseas sources.
I pity you if the only discussion in your workplace is driven by TV & movies. Discussion around the office here tends towards a variety of topics including racing of all kinds during the summer, from the local kart and dirt track to IRL, nascar, F1, and German and British Touring Cars; vacations / trips; what the kids are up to; local sports; TV / movies; football (world cup, specifically); golf; and, well, work. Everyone knows that not everyone is interested in everything. Many, many eyes in the office glaze over when people start talking golf, for example. Or about their kids. Or about their vacation. Or about TV. No one thinks any less of someone because of what they do or do not enjoy discussing at work.
As to the original post I was responding to, I find it hard to believe that so many people find it impossible to live their lives without being constantly entertained by a bunch of dots on a screen to the point that they can't conceive that someone could avoid one single entertainment company's products. In typical slashdot fashion, that got turned into "I never watch any movies or any TV", when that wasn't at all what I said.
But on that note, go outside. Go camping. Or fishing. Or golfing. Or running. Or biking. Or go work on that hot-rod, painting, knitting project, beer-fetching robot, car-throwing trebuchet, or whatever pet project you happen to prefer. Mow the yard, do some gardening, learn to cook a new type of food. Read a book -- you know, those things made of paper that contain either facts or stories, don't have commercials, and aren't limited by needing to fit into a time slot or production budget. You don't have to live in front of the TV, and I'll be the first to encourage people to cut WAY back on the TV watching -- not to cut it out completely, just don't live in front of the damned thing.
I've got a TV, I just don't spend all evening camped out in front of it. Nice try though.
And I've got enough friends, thank you.
Yes, I'm fine with missing all of the olympics, regardless of the year. I don't find sports all that interesting.
NBC - nope
Universal Studios - nope
NBC Universal Television Group - nope
NBC News - no need, it's all from AP or Reuters
USA Network - nope
Syfy - nope
CNBC - no need, it's all from AP or Reuters
MSNBC Cable TV - no need, it's all from AP or Reuters
NBC.com - hell no
MSNBC.com - hell no
iVillage - WTF? no
Bravo - nope
qubo - WTF? no
Telemundo Television Studios - no
The Weather Channel - nope, better and more accurate forecasts elsewehre
Hulu - nope
A&E Television Networks - nope
Of course, I watch very little TV, and virtually no movies. It's not hard to avoid a company when you're not part of their target audience.
That's pretty much my point. Why would someone say that Google using the GPL would have avoided the issue? It was an open project that got forked when one party did something others didn't like. With or without the GPL, there'd be a fork if someone added that much extra stuff to what was a very lightweight and fast addon, and there was, no GPL needed.
OK, that's pretty much my understanding as well. GPL or not, there most likely would have been a fork anyway at this point when it got so much un-wanted stuff added to it, so Google using GPL instead of the Apache 2.0 license wouldn't have avoided anything.
Except the people who wrote the original work didn't feel that way, so why is it even an issue?
Google released theirs with the Apache 2.0 license. Someone else took that, re-wrote (apparently significant) portions and released it with a different name. THAT PERSON then sold it to a company, who then decided to bundle a bunch of for-pay stuff with it. People didn't like it, and forked the previous version.
Exactly HOW would the GPL have been better? There's still a fork of the last "good" version, which you can use if you like.
And that somewhat-mirror-shaped chunk of glass then required a LOT of grinding and polishing, and then coating, and then (sometimes) polishing that coating.
Thats what's that tax WAS for. Now it's just another tax ending up in the general fund. I also think you underestimate the number of people that are cell-only. I've been POTS free for the last 8 years (cell only for the last 6, and phone free for two before that), and I don't know too many people younger than me that have a POTS phone anymore, and I'm in my early 30s.
As for the wires existing already -- most new construction around here is wired internally for phone (some "custom" ($$$) homes aren't, but they're generally wired for a lot more than phone anyway), but they're not running wires out to the telco's box. That's up to the buyer to have done if they want (and the telco's method is a trencher through the new yard, driveway, and the occasional sprinkler system -- and it's up to the homeowner to repair the damage). There's a new development I pass on the way to work that doesn't have any telco wires past their box at the entrance -- the telco may be required to lay wires if people want service, but so far, no one's asking. Time-Warner has been very busy in there with a pipe-pusher though and a pretty aggressively priced VOIP package. I also know a lot of people that are pulling old phone wiring out when remodeling (interior wiring) and/or landscaping (the run from the telco's box by the curb to the box on the wall -- "rip it out, don't need it, don't want it, screw ma-bell") and not replacing it, as it's not needed.
In short, yes, there's a lot of wiring that could be used. At this point, an awful lot of it would need to be replaced in order to be "upgraded" because it's either been removed, or it's too old and too poor quality to handle DSL. If you're going to be mandate re-laying a lot of wire, why not just lay fiber?
Freezing liquids changes their density. In a spinning environment, that causes movement, and there goes your perfectly uniform surface.
There's a hell of a lot of people that do not have a POTS phone anymore.
A proper budget for one person, a family, or a nation of hundreds of millions still boils down to one simple thing. Don't spend more than you have. If you fail at that, nothing else matters because it's a bad budget.
Capped plans -- I'm saying its a NON ISSUE. I'm not capped currently, and don't plan on changing data plans because I don't want to restart the clock on my contract, but even if I did, the only impact would be a savings of $5/month.
Option for flash -- personally, I don't give a shit whether the option is there or not, I won't use it. So having the option isn't an advantage to me.
Censorship in apps / choices for apps -- again, for me, the existing choices are more than enough for my needs. All the "censored" apps are garbage I don't want anyway, so in this case, I don't mind. I can also always roll my own.
As for a usable UI, again, I prefer it to other options.
You obviously have different opinions, but for me I don't see them as disadvantages. If you think that makes me a fanboy, well, that's your opinion too. I'm not a blind apple-hater, nor do I love everything that apple makes. I tolerate OSX. I think the ipad is completely useless. I think most of their hardware is overpriced. But hey, I like the iphone, so I must be a fanboy.
So you can go ahead and finish labeling me:
AT&T sucks. Verizon sucks a little less. Sprint sucks more than I thought was possible.
I haven't found a linux distro I like.
I like BSD.
I like Windows.
I absolutely HATE the GPL.
I like the BSD, MIT, and Apache licenses.
I cannot stand Richard Stallman, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs. Woz is wacky enough that I don't mind him.
The term "Open Source" is bullshit.
I can't stand the republican or democratic parties, or most of their supporters.
The RIAA and MPAA can go fark themselves, but I think copyright serves a purpose and should be kept around.
Lawyers are useful, politicians are useless.
Labels are nice. They usually don't work well with people.
Ah, MicroProse. Some of the best games available at the time came from them.
Thanks for bringing back those memories.
Data: The cap, if I switch plans, is still far higher than my 3g data useage.
Tethering: I'm rarely without wifi, so I don't care about it
Walled Garden: 99% of the stuff out there, in or out of the garden, is crap anyway.
3G vs 4G: I have decent 3G coverage with ATT. Sprint's coverage is dismal at best, and 4G is nonexistant in my market.
Flash: I hate flash. Always have. Always will. Having flash on my phone isn't something I want.
As a result, when I needed a phone 20 months ago, I bought an iphone. Your "disadvantages" aren't disadvantages to me, and I'll pick a well thought out and useable UI pretty much any day.
Well, more profitable, or with less of a PR problem, which amounts to the same thing in the long run.
Labor costs might be 5x higher, but if you can automate 80% of the work, it comes out even. That might not be possible, but put another way, they now have 5x the motivation to automate everything they can.
Probably not.
Sounds like you don't need laws, you need more bandwidth.