I'm not sure which INQ my brother has, but it was sold on a similar concept - Twitter/Facebook, but not full smart phone. I think he curses it pretty much every day for various features that it mishandles or just outright doesn't have that seem so obvious.
Mass-market Androids are on their way down, though. I was in a shop the other day and saw an LG at £100 on PAYG. Given that the HTCs are up at £300+ then it is definitely much closer to a mass-market price.
Indeed, the INQ1 has no twitter integration*, has problems with some rss feeds (including/.) and if you actually leave any of the apps on, the battery life is appalling. Still at ~£60 instead of ~£300 for an HSPDA phone with skype that I can check my Gmail, facebook etc. on I'm not complaining. All in all for a debut handset I was impressed, so if their 'droid phone comes here I'll be sure to at least take a look.
*IIRC they corrected at least this obvious oversight on their next two phones; I'm told that the battery life is also better.
Unfortunately, this thread is full of people starting off with the premise "there is a problem with union law" (including single-union laws which are effectively anti-union) and assuming the conclusion "there is a problem with unions". Disney copyright extensions are bad, but that doesn't necessarily mean all businesses which make their money with the help of copyright protections are pure evil.
Bingo! from what I've read here, yes there does seem to be a problem with US Union law, but 90% could be fixed by them abolishing closed shops like Thatcher did here in the '80s - give people a choice about union membership and most of the problems being complained about go away. A few other changes are needed as well, but the problem are the laws that regulate unions, not the concept of unions themselves.
Here in the UK Thatcher abolished closed shops back in the '80s - I have a free choice not to join a union, my employer can't discriminate against me if I don't. As it happens I have joined, but it was by my choice & I've opted out of paying the Union's "political levy" (i.e. that part of Union dues that goes to the Labour party as opposed to that needed to run the Union). Say what you like about Thatcher, but the more I read about US Unions, the more I think she did the right thing to them in this country.
Don't get me wrong, the INQ1 is a great phone - fast (HSDPA), cheap and with great social media integration. It's no smart phone though, so it's interface is only as good as other phones in the same price range & no touch screen. But at IIRC ~£60 on Pay as you go, I'm not complaining.
Does this mean that Facebook is finally going to build a mobile phone interface that doesn't just outright suck?
If they do the same as with the INQ 1 then the facebook integration will be seamless, the rest of the interface was mediocre at best though; hopefully the Android base for this phone will solve that problem.
I've got the INQ 1 phone - it was also sold as a product of collaboration between INQ and facebook, billed as "the facebook phone" as it was only £60, i.e. not smartphone territory, but mass market - I hope this is more of the same; a mass market Android phone would be great.
So, if "normal people"(i.e: customers) didn't have to pay, then who would buy the rights to distribute if their potential customers could just get it for free anyway?
I can (unlawfully) get all sorts of TV from other countries via the 'net - I don't, I tend to let the TV networks choose the best so I can watch there; also watching on my giant Flat screen TV is more fun than watching on my much smaller monitor.
I believe that most ordinary people (i.e. not the/. crowd who run MythTV so have their PCs hooked up to their PCs) are the same - foreign networks will still buy the rights for good programmes because most people will still watch Network TV not torrented downloads.
This will include the output of the BBC, which is funded by the licence paying public and should therefore belong to the licence paying public. We will amend the BBC's charter to prevent the BBC from using DRM technology, and to require the BBC to release all their content under a Creative Commons licence.
So, you basically want to eliminate an important source of income for the BBC, licensing shows internationally. So, you'll discourage creativity and increase the cost of running the BBC for the citizens. Nice job there.
No, I assume* that the licence would be a CC-BY-NC licence so anyone wishing to profit would have to pay; normal people, however could do as they liked with the content (seeing as we've already paid for it through the licence fee and all).
*It not explicitly in the manifeso, but in line with PPUK thinking.
They also proposed non-commercial copyright infringement be completely legal.
Yes, because millions are doing it anyway; the law is next to useless and serves no point except to criminalize teenagers in their bedrooms
On the other hand, they didn't (for example) say anything about forcing the BBC to abandon DRM, support open standards for distributing its own work, and use CC (or similar) licensing for license-fee funded programming.
This is plain wrong: from the relevant section of the PPUK Manifesto
Government copyrights are increasingly becoming a problem for society, with data such as maps and postcodes being jealously protected by government departments. We will introduce a new right of access to government funded data, requiring the release of all maps, statistics and so on that have been paid for by the taxpayer in open formats, under a Creative Commons or similar licence, giving the public access to research that they have already paid for. An exception will be made for cases that genuinely have national security or privacy concerns.
This will include the output of the BBC, which is funded by the licence paying public and should therefore belong to the licence paying public. We will amend the BBC's charter to prevent the BBC from using DRM technology, and to require the BBC to release all their content under a Creative Commons licence. We pledge to maintain and expand the current list of important national events that cannot be exclusively broadcast pay TV services, and we pledge to put into action the government's existing but widely ignored Open Source Action Plan, which would encourage the use of free software in the public sector, saving money, and making the UK less reliant on foreign software suppliers.
In the Cities of London and Westminster constituency... propose a reasonable term for copyright.
At the last election, the Pirate party UK proposal was s a 5+5 copyright term; whilst I personally think it should be a 10 (well, up to 15) year fixed term, it's not that dissimilar - how is this unreasonable in the digital age?
Australians don't get knighthoods any more. Instead we have our own system of honours. Now if only we could get rid of the monarchy entirely...
You're still eligible for them if you wanted them though, as for the Monarchy issue; I've never understood why you guys don't just directly elect the Governor General and side step the problem so both sides can claim victory.
I used to have family North of the Watford Gap, for years I believed my Dad after he told me that you needed to take your passport go past - we actually took them once to show me. Thankfully they've now moved South.
I apologize in advance if this comes across as trolling (honestly, it's not intended to be), but... have you read those books? I'm really quite a fan of pTerry, and I've got more than 8 feet on my bookshelf dedicated to his novels and secondary Discworld literature alone, but in all honesty, the last couple of books he wrote (pretty much everything since "The Truth") stank, to varying extents.
Yes I also have all 38 Discworld Novels and quite a bit of the spin-off stuff as well. However I disagree with you; two of the best books in the series are Thud! and Night Watch; both were published after The Truth, and IMO they (and other recent books) are far better pieces of writing than The Colour of Magic & The Light Fantastic were because he's developed as an author and the Discworld along with him, just compare the characterisation of the wizards now to when we first saw Rincewind to see what I mean. Having said all that, my favourite remains Guards! Guards!
Careful reading of his more recent works, not just the two you mentioned but going back 5-10 years, you do notice some things in his works degrading; not enough to hurt the overall quality of the book, but enough that you can tell something is happening. The largest change is a reduction in vocabulary, but there is also the fact that tend to be more straightforward, with less metaphors and colorful language.
Like I said, the ideas are all still sound, the humor is fun and entertaining, there are no gaping plot holes left unfilled, but I suspect that you could make a pretty interesting study on the effects of Alzheimer's on language by studying his books. And you'd certainly have a good sample of his writing (what is he up to now, 30 books? 40?
38 Discworld Novels alone, multiple Discworld spin-offs (I can recommend the three "Science of Discworld" books as fun pop-sci books, they're hard science mixed with a story about the Wizards "roundworld" project in alternate chapters, they're not like the "Science of star-trek" type books), he's done quite a bit of non-Discworld stuff as well IMO the best being Good Omens with Neil Gaiman.
Has his work gone down hill? I'm not so sure, his style has defiantly changed, but I think a lot of it was him maturing as a writer. Both Thud! and Night Watch are far better pieces of writing than The colour of magic ever will be. having said that my favourite is actually one of the older books - Guards! Guards!
Of course I believe he'd have to become a subject of the Queen to do so, and given his predisposition, I doubt he'd be particularly inclined to do so.
He just needs citizenship of one of the Commonwealth realms - these include Canada & Australia; I don't think he'd mind being subject to the Queen's jurisdiction in that sense, but I doubt he'd accept a knighthood even then. He wouldn't be the first
I thought he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, but that it had not yet advanced very far yet. I had the impression of a man aware of the impending gradual loss of his cognition who was trying to make the best of what he had left.
in much better (mental) shape than i expected him to be.
Alzheimer's is degenerative & he's only been relatively recently diagnosed; he's had Unseen Academicals and I shall wear midnight both published this year - if you can have two books published you're bound to still be in good mental shape - it's when he stops publishing that we'll know his Alzheimer's has got his mind.
This story is a complete fantasy. Pratchett has advanced Alzheimer
No, he's got a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's; it's still in it's relatively early stages so he's still quite in control of all his faculties & capable of making a sword - as evidenced by the fact that he had not one, but two books published this very year. However as Alzheimer's is degenerative how long he will remain free of dementia is not something that's been made public knowledge (if his doctors have even been able to give him a reliable estimate).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure which INQ my brother has, but it was sold on a similar concept - Twitter/Facebook, but not full smart phone. I think he curses it pretty much every day for various features that it mishandles or just outright doesn't have that seem so obvious.
Mass-market Androids are on their way down, though. I was in a shop the other day and saw an LG at £100 on PAYG. Given that the HTCs are up at £300+ then it is definitely much closer to a mass-market price.
Indeed, the INQ1 has no twitter integration*, has problems with some rss feeds (including /.) and if you actually leave any of the apps on, the battery life is appalling. Still at ~£60 instead of ~£300 for an HSPDA phone with skype that I can check my Gmail, facebook etc. on I'm not complaining. All in all for a debut handset I was impressed, so if their 'droid phone comes here I'll be sure to at least take a look.
*IIRC they corrected at least this obvious oversight on their next two phones; I'm told that the battery life is also better.
Unfortunately, this thread is full of people starting off with the premise "there is a problem with union law" (including single-union laws which are effectively anti-union) and assuming the conclusion "there is a problem with unions". Disney copyright extensions are bad, but that doesn't necessarily mean all businesses which make their money with the help of copyright protections are pure evil.
Bingo! from what I've read here, yes there does seem to be a problem with US Union law, but 90% could be fixed by them abolishing closed shops like Thatcher did here in the '80s - give people a choice about union membership and most of the problems being complained about go away. A few other changes are needed as well, but the problem are the laws that regulate unions, not the concept of unions themselves.
And you don't have a choice to not join.
Here in the UK Thatcher abolished closed shops back in the '80s - I have a free choice not to join a union, my employer can't discriminate against me if I don't. As it happens I have joined, but it was by my choice & I've opted out of paying the Union's "political levy" (i.e. that part of Union dues that goes to the Labour party as opposed to that needed to run the Union). Say what you like about Thatcher, but the more I read about US Unions, the more I think she did the right thing to them in this country.
Don't get me wrong, the INQ1 is a great phone - fast (HSDPA), cheap and with great social media integration.
It's no smart phone though, so it's interface is only as good as other phones in the same price range & no touch screen. But at IIRC ~£60 on Pay as you go, I'm not complaining.
Another example is the "San Francisco" handset from UK carrier Orange. It's a cheapish-n-surprisingly-cheerful Android phone with 800x480 screen for around £100. http://shop.orange.co.uk/mobile-phones/San-Francisco-from-Orange-in-grey
Thanks for that, I've been looking for a decent, cheap Android phone (INQ 1 is great, but not 'droid) - I might just have to buy it.
Holy crap.
The INQ1 is what the Kin should've been. Cheap, fast, lightweight with 3G connectivity and Facebook/Twitter integration?
Twitter came with INQ's next two phones*, they somehow managed to forget it on the INQ 1, but for their first ever handset I can forgive them that.
*I haven't got them but I have seen them in the 3 mobile shop at mass market price: INQ mini 3G and INQ Chat 3G
Does this mean that Facebook is finally going to build a mobile phone interface that doesn't just outright suck?
If they do the same as with the INQ 1 then the facebook integration will be seamless, the rest of the interface was mediocre at best though; hopefully the Android base for this phone will solve that problem.
I've got the INQ 1 phone - it was also sold as a product of collaboration between INQ and facebook, billed as "the facebook phone" as it was only £60, i.e. not smartphone territory, but mass market - I hope this is more of the same; a mass market Android phone would be great.
So, if "normal people"(i.e: customers) didn't have to pay, then who would buy the rights to distribute if their potential customers could just get it for free anyway?
I can (unlawfully) get all sorts of TV from other countries via the 'net - I don't, I tend to let the TV networks choose the best so I can watch there; also watching on my giant Flat screen TV is more fun than watching on my much smaller monitor.
/. crowd who run MythTV so have their PCs hooked up to their PCs) are the same - foreign networks will still buy the rights for good programmes because most people will still watch Network TV not torrented downloads.
I believe that most ordinary people (i.e. not the
This will include the output of the BBC, which is funded by the licence paying public and should therefore belong to the licence paying public. We will amend the BBC's charter to prevent the BBC from using DRM technology, and to require the BBC to release all their content under a Creative Commons licence.
So, you basically want to eliminate an important source of income for the BBC, licensing shows internationally. So, you'll discourage creativity and increase the cost of running the BBC for the citizens. Nice job there.
No, I assume* that the licence would be a CC-BY-NC licence so anyone wishing to profit would have to pay; normal people, however could do as they liked with the content (seeing as we've already paid for it through the licence fee and all).
*It not explicitly in the manifeso, but in line with PPUK thinking.
They also proposed non-commercial copyright infringement be completely legal.
Yes, because millions are doing it anyway; the law is next to useless and serves no point except to criminalize teenagers in their bedrooms
On the other hand, they didn't (for example) say anything about forcing the BBC to abandon DRM, support open standards for distributing its own work, and use CC (or similar) licensing for license-fee funded programming.
This is plain wrong: from the relevant section of the PPUK Manifesto
Government copyrights are increasingly becoming a problem for society, with data such as maps and postcodes being jealously protected by government departments. We will introduce a new right of access to government funded data, requiring the release of all maps, statistics and so on that have been paid for by the taxpayer in open formats, under a Creative Commons or similar licence, giving the public access to research that they have already paid for. An exception will be made for cases that genuinely have national security or privacy concerns.
This will include the output of the BBC, which is funded by the licence paying public and should therefore belong to the licence paying public. We will amend the BBC's charter to prevent the BBC from using DRM technology, and to require the BBC to release all their content under a Creative Commons licence. We pledge to maintain and expand the current list of important national events that cannot be exclusively broadcast pay TV services, and we pledge to put into action the government's existing but widely ignored Open Source Action Plan, which would encourage the use of free software in the public sector, saving money, and making the UK less reliant on foreign software suppliers.
As you can see, we covered all of that.
In the Cities of London and Westminster constituency... propose a reasonable term for copyright.
At the last election, the Pirate party UK proposal was s a 5+5 copyright term; whilst I personally think it should be a 10 (well, up to 15) year fixed term, it's not that dissimilar - how is this unreasonable in the digital age?
Disclaimer - I'm a PPUK member
The Lat and Long of a piece of your property isn't protected by data or privacy laws period.
Just because that might be smack dab in the middle of some idiot's living room who stole your dog, doesn't mean squat.
I asked for the coordinates, not your attitude. Chop chop.
The Chip isn't some sort of GPS device - the company only knows the name & address of the new owners, not the precise location of the dog.
They’re the fucking experts... they should be telling him.
They have; from TFA:
[the company] would encourage Mr Moorhouse to go to a solicitor and start a civil case.
Australians don't get knighthoods any more. Instead we have our own system of honours. Now if only we could get rid of the monarchy entirely...
You're still eligible for them if you wanted them though, as for the Monarchy issue; I've never understood why you guys don't just directly elect the Governor General and side step the problem so both sides can claim victory.
South is anything past the Watford Gap.
I used to have family North of the Watford Gap, for years I believed my Dad after he told me that you needed to take your passport go past - we actually took them once to show me. Thankfully they've now moved South.
Perhaps I'm mistaken.
In this context you are - both tasks need a functioning brain.
I apologize in advance if this comes across as trolling (honestly, it's not intended to be), but... have you read those books? I'm really quite a fan of pTerry, and I've got more than 8 feet on my bookshelf dedicated to his novels and secondary Discworld literature alone, but in all honesty, the last couple of books he wrote (pretty much everything since "The Truth") stank, to varying extents.
Yes I also have all 38 Discworld Novels and quite a bit of the spin-off stuff as well. However I disagree with you; two of the best books in the series are Thud! and Night Watch; both were published after The Truth, and IMO they (and other recent books) are far better pieces of writing than The Colour of Magic & The Light Fantastic were because he's developed as an author and the Discworld along with him, just compare the characterisation of the wizards now to when we first saw Rincewind to see what I mean. Having said all that, my favourite remains Guards! Guards!
Careful reading of his more recent works, not just the two you mentioned but going back 5-10 years, you do notice some things in his works degrading; not enough to hurt the overall quality of the book, but enough that you can tell something is happening. The largest change is a reduction in vocabulary, but there is also the fact that tend to be more straightforward, with less metaphors and colorful language.
Like I said, the ideas are all still sound, the humor is fun and entertaining, there are no gaping plot holes left unfilled, but I suspect that you could make a pretty interesting study on the effects of Alzheimer's on language by studying his books. And you'd certainly have a good sample of his writing (what is he up to now, 30 books? 40?
38 Discworld Novels alone, multiple Discworld spin-offs (I can recommend the three "Science of Discworld" books as fun pop-sci books, they're hard science mixed with a story about the Wizards "roundworld" project in alternate chapters, they're not like the "Science of star-trek" type books), he's done quite a bit of non-Discworld stuff as well IMO the best being Good Omens with Neil Gaiman.
Has his work gone down hill? I'm not so sure, his style has defiantly changed, but I think a lot of it was him maturing as a writer. Both Thud! and Night Watch are far better pieces of writing than The colour of magic ever will be. having said that my favourite is actually one of the older books - Guards! Guards!
I can't wait for RMS to get knighted.
Of course I believe he'd have to become a subject of the Queen to do so, and given his predisposition, I doubt he'd be particularly inclined to do so.
He just needs citizenship of one of the Commonwealth realms - these include Canada & Australia; I don't think he'd mind being subject to the Queen's jurisdiction in that sense, but I doubt he'd accept a knighthood even then. He wouldn't be the first
I thought he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, but that it had not yet advanced very far yet. I had the impression of a man aware of the impending gradual loss of his cognition who was trying to make the best of what he had left.
Perhaps I'm mistaken.
No, you're quite right, the GP is wrong
in much better (mental) shape than i expected him to be.
Alzheimer's is degenerative & he's only been relatively recently diagnosed; he's had Unseen Academicals and I shall wear midnight both published this year - if you can have two books published you're bound to still be in good mental shape - it's when he stops publishing that we'll know his Alzheimer's has got his mind.
This story is a complete fantasy. Pratchett has advanced Alzheimer
No, he's got a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's; it's still in it's relatively early stages so he's still quite in control of all his faculties & capable of making a sword - as evidenced by the fact that he had not one, but two books published this very year. However as Alzheimer's is degenerative how long he will remain free of dementia is not something that's been made public knowledge (if his doctors have even been able to give him a reliable estimate).
This is from the council of Europe (the one that gave us the ECHR) not the EU.
According to TFA it was the Council of Europe