At least the Sun doesn't even pretend to try and the Mirror would be half decent if it wasn't so pro-Labour in it's political stance. Even the Express is better quality than the Mail, despite it's Diana fixation. Name a worse tabloid.
[we]pick wire stories based on what people are interested in and what folks need to stay informed.
The first part of that sentence is certainly true, whilst I can't speak for your newspaper the second part doesn't necessarily follow. People tend to be interested in the latest celebrity gossip, so papers print celebrity gossip because it sells newspapers. I don't call that keeping people informed (note: I'm from the UK that's how it works here if the USA is different then I apologise).
Of course the obvious pitfall is that the data will now be held by private companies which are (in theory at least) less secure than the government.
You're talking about a government that loses records on a weekly basis. I trust my ISP (or indeed most private companies) with my data far more than I do the government.
GM plans to start mass producing the plug in Volt by the end of next year, assuming they don't go under before then.
GM will also be producing this by the end of next year (at least according to that article), so they're not betting solely on batteries, they also want in on hydrogen (I just like the Honda better). And sockets in garages are ok in a big country with lots of space like the USA, but over here in the UK, most residential parking is on-road; re-charging cars would require extension from your house, onto the street. It's impractical for most people. Hydrogen doesn't have this problem.
Is hydrogen economy scrapped or still under development?
It's well under development, to the point where Honda put this into production last year, IIRC you can buy one now but I'd advise you get a hydrogen station near you first. Personally I think hydrogen fuel cell vehicles like the one linked will arrive before battery powered ones because they require less change to current infrastructure. All you need is an extra pump selling hydrogen instead of petrol at your local petrol pump as opposed to a whole new network.
>Which is exactly why it won't happen. Car companies make a killing selling parts that they only allow themselves to sell. This is why most parts for new cars can only be purchased at a dealership or junkyard. While standardization would be great for the consumer, it would cost the car companies dearly. Since the car companies make the decisions, don't expect to see this happen.
All cars run on the same petrol, don't they? This should be just a logical extension of the same concept. That said, the cynic in me thinks you're probably right...
At least it's not an MS product, or we'd have clippy going: "Hi it looks like you're trying to prosecute the War on Terror(TM), would you like help to:
*Lie to the public
*Ignore the UN or
*Make unconstitutional laws
The distinction is more subtle than that, but GP is more wrongerist then you.
I understand that, hence the wiki link for more detail. However as the two forms tend to be called "American style" and "British Style" I simplified. Furthermore British style was the one taught to me growing up here in Britain, I assume (especially given the link that the GGP gave) that American style is taught to American students. It's only as adults that the subtleties become appreciated, and different styles used for different circumstances. Personally I stick with British style unless it causes ambiguity, which it does less frequently than American style (again, for those who want more detail see the above wiki link).
But then there are still socialists around even after miserable failures that system brought to every country where it was tried so I guess some people just can't be convinced.
In the states "Socialist" might be an insult. Here in the EU it's the name of the second largest grouping in the Europian parliament. I don't support their ideology, but I find it hard to call them "massive failures".
If I understand correctly, you are proposing to tax everybody and pass on the money to the artists
You sound as if you think that's a bad idea.
I don't care about the rest of the discussion in this thread, but this particular idea is terrible from my perspective. I don't listen to music (really, even when I listen to AM radio it's for talk shows, but never music), the only movies I watch are those I buy on DVDs.
From my POV any tax on me is a terrible idea because I never ever use these stupid products. It's bad enough there are income and property taxes, where I already have to pay for services I never ever use, what the hell is this shit?
I don't really agree with the idea either, but it could be implemented as a tax on media, so you only pay it when you buy those DVDs or that CD (even if you're only buying blank ones). I think Canada has something similar to this.
That was my point. I was asking a retorical question, I wasn't suggesting that people use TPB for things that could be considered "fair game" (i.e. out of print books), but that they don't.
No the real bummer is that so many people like you think that they are not criminals. Last time I checked, its illegal to take something that is not yours and you didn't pay for. And it has been that way for thousands of years.
And to any response saying "But they are only providing the links". Give me a fucking break. You fully well know what they are trying to accomplish with their site. Don't pretend like its something its not. It is for encouraging piracy plain and simple.
I don't use TPB or illegal torrents myself, but from my understanding TPB is effectively a torrent search engine. This sets a bad president, what's next suing Google because their image search has got thumbnails of copyrighted pictures, and points to places where you can acquire said unlawful material. It's the individual copyright infringers that are the problem*, if there was no demand for TPB it wouldn't exist.
*IMO the bigger problem is unreasonable copyright laws, but how many people are going to TPB to download out of print works that they can't get hold of in any other way, or works that any sane person thinks should have been made public domain a decade ago?
I wonder what the Office of Fair Trading or Trading Standards would have to say about Amazon UK banning people's accounts for returning defective goods.
I know companies are free to serve people or not at their own discretion, but that right is not absolute (racial discrimination etc.).
If a company were explicitly banning a person because they were a victim of that company's repeated shipping of defective goods, I'd like to think that would be unlawful. Perhaps I'm being too idealistic.
We have great consumer protection laws, it's just a shame not enough people know what they're entitled to. If you make sure you know the Sale of Goods act along with the Distance selling regulations, and sales staff tend to cower in fear of you, instead of trying to bully you into buying $_Product
I'd like to think that would be unlawful. Perhaps I'm being too idealistic.
You are being too idealistic. Who do you think is going to have more influence in the legal system, a single consumer or a multi-national corporation? Who do you think is better equipped to afford the expense of being successful in a "free-market" legal system?
Now if somebody came out with a device that inspired consumer lust, and priced it comparably to a similar iPod, then we'd see some market position turmoil and Apple would have to either tweak its products or its prices. But Zune wasn't the device to make them do it.
Nintendo had a chance to do this with the DSi, in fact looking at the whole DSiWare store setup they still have a chance. That's what they could be planning with the next iteration of the DS. Music channel for the Wii and DS anyone?
I already use my DSi as my mp3 player. Well music player: it only plays AACs. Ironically I had to use itunes to re-rip my CDs so that I could play them on my DSi (despite never having owned an ipod), Nintendo missed a trick by not allowing mp3 playback.
Don't assume option 2 will ever work. There's always a younger naive generation coming into the polls. The UK, over 800 years of parliamentary protocol, fast forward to today, the "3rd" party are the Liberal Democrats. They've been the 3rd party for decades are are not getting anywhere near into power.
We've had liberal Prime Ministers before, it was the rise of the labour party that all but killed the liberals. The current Liberal Democrat party is it's successor and was only founded in 1988, when they merged with the Social Democrat Party (SDP), who were break-aways from the Labour party.
I'd hardly call that "decades" (ok, it's more than one decade, but still not a particularly long time)
Besides it can be argued that the SDP won the argument, even though it never held power. Labour aren't certainly socialists any more.
Slashdot Mirror
Some?
http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/
At least the Sun doesn't even pretend to try and the Mirror would be half decent if it wasn't so pro-Labour in it's political stance. Even the Express is better quality than the Mail, despite it's Diana fixation. Name a worse tabloid.
Only to the average Daily Mail reader.
Fucking socialist.
Socialist isn't an insult on this side of the Atlantic. Indeed the Socialists are the second biggest grouping in the European Parliament
Only if the company getting a lot of influence is a non-EU company. If that company is an EU company, this would not happen.
Nope, the EU is happy to take on EU companies, for example it took on Nokia last year: http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1206717427.67
What's next, a seven-bladed razor?
Maybe you should suggest that to this guy.
Life already decided to imitate the Onion: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fusion-Manual-Razor-Gillette/dp/B000GE5712 (for what it's worth, it's actually a good razor)
[we]pick wire stories based on what people are interested in and what folks need to stay informed.
The first part of that sentence is certainly true, whilst I can't speak for your newspaper the second part doesn't necessarily follow. People tend to be interested in the latest celebrity gossip, so papers print celebrity gossip because it sells newspapers. I don't call that keeping people informed (note: I'm from the UK that's how it works here if the USA is different then I apologise).
Of course the obvious pitfall is that the data will now be held by private companies which are (in theory at least) less secure than the government.
You're talking about a government that loses records on a weekly basis. I trust my ISP (or indeed most private companies) with my data far more than I do the government.
GM plans to start mass producing the plug in Volt by the end of next year, assuming they don't go under before then.
GM will also be producing this by the end of next year (at least according to that article), so they're not betting solely on batteries, they also want in on hydrogen (I just like the Honda better). And sockets in garages are ok in a big country with lots of space like the USA, but over here in the UK, most residential parking is on-road; re-charging cars would require extension from your house, onto the street. It's impractical for most people. Hydrogen doesn't have this problem.
Is hydrogen economy scrapped or still under development?
It's well under development, to the point where Honda put this into production last year, IIRC you can buy one now but I'd advise you get a hydrogen station near you first. Personally I think hydrogen fuel cell vehicles like the one linked will arrive before battery powered ones because they require less change to current infrastructure. All you need is an extra pump selling hydrogen instead of petrol at your local petrol pump as opposed to a whole new network.
>Which is exactly why it won't happen. Car companies make a killing selling parts that they only allow themselves to sell. This is why most parts for new cars can only be purchased at a dealership or junkyard. While standardization would be great for the consumer, it would cost the car companies dearly. Since the car companies make the decisions, don't expect to see this happen.
All cars run on the same petrol, don't they? This should be just a logical extension of the same concept. That said, the cynic in me thinks you're probably right...
At least it's not an MS product, or we'd have clippy going:
"Hi it looks like you're trying to prosecute the War on Terror(TM), would you like help to:
*Lie to the public
*Ignore the UN or
*Make unconstitutional laws
The distinction is more subtle than that, but GP is more wrongerist then you.
I understand that, hence the wiki link for more detail. However as the two forms tend to be called "American style" and "British Style" I simplified. Furthermore British style was the one taught to me growing up here in Britain, I assume (especially given the link that the GGP gave) that American style is taught to American students. It's only as adults that the subtleties become appreciated, and different styles used for different circumstances. Personally I stick with British style unless it causes ambiguity, which it does less frequently than American style (again, for those who want more detail see the above wiki link).
Presumably you know who the Borg are, these are replicators. Watch more Stargate!
"Should've" = "Should have".
Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks, even inside single quotes.
That depends which country you're from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Punctuation
Here's my IP: 192.168.1.42 Good luck!
Yeah! well my IP address is 127.0.0.1, hack that!
But then there are still socialists around even after miserable failures that system brought to every country where it was tried so I guess some people just can't be convinced.
In the states "Socialist" might be an insult. Here in the EU it's the name of the second largest grouping in the Europian parliament. I don't support their ideology, but I find it hard to call them "massive failures".
If I understand correctly, you are proposing to tax everybody and pass on the money to the artists
You sound as if you think that's a bad idea.
I don't care about the rest of the discussion in this thread, but this particular idea is terrible from my perspective. I don't listen to music (really, even when I listen to AM radio it's for talk shows, but never music), the only movies I watch are those I buy on DVDs.
From my POV any tax on me is a terrible idea because I never ever use these stupid products. It's bad enough there are income and property taxes, where I already have to pay for services I never ever use, what the hell is this shit?
I don't really agree with the idea either, but it could be implemented as a tax on media, so you only pay it when you buy those DVDs or that CD (even if you're only buying blank ones). I think Canada has something similar to this.
That was my point. I was asking a retorical question, I wasn't suggesting that people use TPB for things that could be considered "fair game" (i.e. out of print books), but that they don't.
As does your literacy.
Hay! mi spelng is verry goode!
No the real bummer is that so many people like you think that they are not criminals. Last time I checked, its illegal to take something that is not yours and you didn't pay for. And it has been that way for thousands of years.
And to any response saying "But they are only providing the links". Give me a fucking break. You fully well know what they are trying to accomplish with their site. Don't pretend like its something its not. It is for encouraging piracy plain and simple.
I don't use TPB or illegal torrents myself, but from my understanding TPB is effectively a torrent search engine. This sets a bad president, what's next suing Google because their image search has got thumbnails of copyrighted pictures, and points to places where you can acquire said unlawful material. It's the individual copyright infringers that are the problem*, if there was no demand for TPB it wouldn't exist.
*IMO the bigger problem is unreasonable copyright laws, but how many people are going to TPB to download out of print works that they can't get hold of in any other way, or works that any sane person thinks should have been made public domain a decade ago?
I wonder what the Office of Fair Trading or Trading Standards would have to say about Amazon UK banning people's accounts for returning defective goods.
I know companies are free to serve people or not at their own discretion, but that right is not absolute (racial discrimination etc.).
If a company were explicitly banning a person because they were a victim of that company's repeated shipping of defective goods, I'd like to think that would be unlawful. Perhaps I'm being too idealistic.
We've got more freedom than the Americans here. Internet purchases fall under distance selling regulations, this bloke would have had seven days to return the good just because he didn't like them, defective or not: http://www.onlineshoppingrights.co.uk/understanding-uk-distance-selling-regulations.html
We have great consumer protection laws, it's just a shame not enough people know what they're entitled to. If you make sure you know the Sale of Goods act along with the Distance selling regulations, and sales staff tend to cower in fear of you, instead of trying to bully you into buying $_Product
You are being too idealistic. Who do you think is going to have more influence in the legal system, a single consumer or a multi-national corporation? Who do you think is better equipped to afford the expense of being successful in a "free-market" legal system?
Not at all, in the UK, internet shoping falls under distance selling regulations, these give me a seven day "cooling off" period within which I can return goods for any reason I like: http://www.onlineshoppingrights.co.uk/understanding-uk-distance-selling-regulations.html
Thankfully we have actually have quite good consumer protection laws here in the UK.
Now if somebody came out with a device that inspired consumer lust, and priced it comparably to a similar iPod, then we'd see some market position turmoil and Apple would have to either tweak its products or its prices. But Zune wasn't the device to make them do it.
Nintendo had a chance to do this with the DSi, in fact looking at the whole DSiWare store setup they still have a chance. That's what they could be planning with the next iteration of the DS. Music channel for the Wii and DS anyone?
I already use my DSi as my mp3 player. Well music player: it only plays AACs. Ironically I had to use itunes to re-rip my CDs so that I could play them on my DSi (despite never having owned an ipod), Nintendo missed a trick by not allowing mp3 playback.
Don't assume option 2 will ever work. There's always a younger naive generation coming into the polls. The UK, over 800 years of parliamentary protocol, fast forward to today, the "3rd" party are the Liberal Democrats. They've been the 3rd party for decades are are not getting anywhere near into power.
We've had liberal Prime Ministers before, it was the rise of the labour party that all but killed the liberals. The current Liberal Democrat party is it's successor and was only founded in 1988, when they merged with the Social Democrat Party (SDP), who were break-aways from the Labour party. I'd hardly call that "decades" (ok, it's more than one decade, but still not a particularly long time)
Besides it can be argued that the SDP won the argument, even though it never held power. Labour aren't certainly socialists any more.
One follows standards. One doesn't.
/. doesn't follow standards, so locking out a browser that also doesn't is hypocritical to say the least.