In some ways this isn't as much of a benefit as it might seem. Currently the spam reviews/emails etc are of such low quality that it is easy to mentally filter them out. Systems like this that require the quality to improve may decrease volume but will make it harder to spot the ones that get through.
Ultimately this is why the 'social web' is becoming so important. If I know the people who are telling me something is good then I know they aren't paid for posters. Obviously one side affect of this is that companies are realising that 'influencers' (users who drive adoption amongst their social group) are more valuable and trying to buy their love.
Why target the whole world? It's the US government that is trying to pass the laws. Hindering billions of other people is only going to anger users. Also, although I can see why a total block would be effective, killing services that other companies rely on (like google maps) would be a major business mistake. Drop everything social / search or media related and you'll achieve 99% as much.
Except that's true unless you take other action when you close them down. Do you think that people work in those conditions when they could live as well without doing as things stand?
On the original subject: Piracy encourages companies to take steps to make piracy harder be that by regulation or technical measures. Unfortunately consumers aren't organised or bothered enough to fight back effectively. Sure we can find ways round DRM, around hardware limitations like HDMI/Encoding etc but the push to make it harder will continue. We've already reached the point where many games come hobbled unless bought new and/or are effectively hobbled as they get older (see EAs sports titles).
The majority of people don't have an issue with the idea of artists being able to limit distribution of their creations. That is why there is less fuss made about efforts to stop piracy. Until we can re-frame the debate to one about just how much of our rights we are willing to surrender to artists things will keep getting worse.
Basically my experience. My work laptop (effectively my home pc as well) has to stay on windows. The home pc is kept on Windows because it does everything we need, in a way that we find effective and intuitive.
I like Windows 7 and although there may be something better for me out there I haven't seen something good enough to justify making the change. I only have so much time to learn new things. Learning other skills is more beneficial to my work and personal life.
China blocks sites that don't do what it wants so that sites that do what they want get the use. Facebook/Google etc all had the choice of caving and giving the Chinese government what they want or getting out of the market. That cannot possibly be taken as being better than what Hamburg has done here. Facebook has multiple options which would be easy to implement like disable all accounts in Hamburg, remove them from the recognition completely. As long as Facebook has offices in Germany, offers German language functionality, partners with German businesses for advertising etc it is naive at best to pretend they can act like German law should have no jurisdiction.
You prune a tree to keep to keep what is left healthy and doing what it should, if you don't you risk it dying or getting in the way and needing to be cut down. The only reason the same analogy is remotely contentious with companies and lay-offs is because the things you prune are sentient. I worked for a company that was bought and shut down. It couldn't turn a workable profit, in part because it was over-staffed and the pay and benefits were excessive. A cleaner earned over £40,000pa (admittedly by working ~55hrs a week). If the people running the business had done the right thing, not replaced people as they retired etc and held pay until it was close to in line with the value of the work, then at least the 90% of the staff who were left might have kept their jobs.
You can't make effective business decisions without accepting that sometimes companies need to decrease the amount of staff they've got to be viable.
Now, to make Windows do that would require major changes and break backwards compatibility, so why would they possibly want that?
Because sitting still and waiting for someone else to do it isn't always the best business strategy. I suppose it's possible that Microsoft employs enough people who are stupid enough to consider your scenario as a viable business strategy but I don't find it to be a remotely reliable answer. Microsoft can't remove the ability for 'file' interactions between their operating system and competing systems. They wouldn't even get as far as implementing it before it was regulated against.
I have no problem with Google charging for the API. Please remember that this only cover high use sites which wish to offer a service on the back of the considerable work and expense Google has put into maps. My only real concern is that as a Google 'customer' I have always found that support is something they do poorly, and this can be forgiven when you're not paying for the service. If Google uses the money to improve the service, assist customers then I have no issue with them making a profit off of the back of that.
Currently Google's business model is to sell advertising based on intensive profiling of us users. Anything they can do to diversify is welcome.
I'm pretty sure that anything short of god proving himself to exist, descending from the skies and beating them about with a tablet inscribed with 'man made global warming is real, stop fucking up my planet' won't persuade many deniers. Anyone who strongly believes we aren't the cause of any of the warming as this point is beyond educating with proof; they've taken a position and are now to stupid/ignorant/stubborn/deluded to change it.
In your opinion, which doesn't make for a strong argument in most other people's minds. Personally, I've tried Opera on and off and like it but I've never preferred it to either Firefox or Chrome. Even on websites where the visitors tend to be 'tech-aware' use of Opera remains comparatively low. These are users who know about Opera, who can choose their own browser and don't. That has nothing to do with monopoly powers.
Secondly, even if by a remotely valid measure Opera was the best browser the fact that it doesn't get publicity could be why it isn't more widely used. That's nothing new. It's hardly unusual for a product to fail because the company has failed to generate interest.
They are not necessarily required to let the owner of a PC turn off UEFI secure boot or install other operating system publishers' certificates.
So Microsoft should specify in its contracts with OEMs that they have to allow users to turn off secure boot when it makes no difference to their software? If Microsoft was requiring OEMs to do something that stifled competition then it'd be a problem they caused. They aren't. It isn't.
Only on Slashdot can this kind of bollocks cause so much controversy while the fact that iOS expressly forbids people from releasing apps that compete with Apple's own software barely gets a mention.
2. Allowed to be paid with pre-tax income (like money put towards retirement etc)
Given that the government needs to earn the same amount of money to fund degrees why pre-tax? In order to make up for the lost tax revenue here, they would need to raise it elsewhere. So all you're doing is allowing extremely high earners to avoid paying tax on a sizeable amount of income for a marginal decrease in tax on lower earners.
Like most debates their isn't a right and a wrong side, although I think going too far either way is a mistake. If you make the system entirely private business centric that will likely result in education becoming inaccessible to the poor. If you make the system entirely publicly funded then students and institutions have little reason to compete on price.
In the UK, 8 years ago, I got tuition as well as money for housing etc with a net 'loan' of £12,000. The loan was on hugely favourable terms. I was incredibly lucky in that sense. However, my education was still paid for and is now part of our governments debt. The debt needs paying and as a tax payer I'll be shouldering some of that cost (and some of the cost of 100,000s of other loans). More competition between universities to provide cost effective educations could well cost me and my country less overall.
I believe degrees should be accessible to as many people as possible and I believe that in the long term that is best achieved by ensuring their is competition in the market. To do that students need some reason to consider pricing when selecting university and that means their finances have to be affected.
I didn't say the poster's argument was invalid. I was highlighting that a post on an online forum with no real verification of identity has little credibility, one posted using a function called 'anonymous coward' has even less and someone posting anonymously to argue that someone else should not be given that liberty has decreased that credibility to virtually nil.
I believe privacy should be protected unless a strong and sound reason not to exists. I see no good reason to grant an exception to allow people to post police officers personal details in public.
If someone posts anonymous notes to all of someone else's neighbours saying that they were forced to leave their last home because they abused the local children I believe that this should be illegal and efforts should be made to discover who did it. If they did the same thing via email, my view would not change. If they did the same thing on a local community forum, again I see no reason to treat this differently.
Anonymity on the internet has provided immeasurable benefit and I to am sad to think that it will become less common in future. Sadly the worst amongst (and I include a sizeable minority of Anonymous in that group) have abused the easy anonymity and safety provided by international boundaries to the point where it can't be ignored.
Because the more advanced societies of the world have realised that even things of importance are better dealt with without resorting to violence where possible.
Over the last 3-6 months there has been an increase in completely false headlines and summaries on Slashdot. I'm sure there have always been some but it's getting frustrating. I've kept visiting Slashdot because I'm interested in the subjct areas it covers, however when it keeps covering them in such a way that I can't trust anything I read to be accurate a lot of that value is gone.
You expect people to take your support of people posting police officers personal information on a website seriously, when you you're not only posting on a forum that doesn't post your personal details but doing so using an optional feature to be 'anonymous'? Good luck with that.
In the format of one of the other posters who couldn't take his remark in perspective: I think you should take 5 years, go an live with someone who makes a living keeping women hooked on heroin and offering them out for sex and then see if you still think he's scum. In other words, think first and comment later.
His point was to highlight a typical western, especially American, view that they can accurately and fairly define who should or shouldn't be allowed to own WMDs. No one, including durr thinks America is repressed compared to Iran; that certainly doesn't make America faultless or give it carte blanche to police the rest of the world.
Bollocks. Your browser, which you control, sends the information automatically when asked because you told it to. You could set it to ask and haven't. There is no way you can argue that you aren't consenting with any credibility. The thing is that isn't the point. Just like EULAs no one reads, crazy TOS etc we are constantly 'agreeing' to things that we don't want to agree to because the time taken to even consider it makes it effectively impossible to do so.
If the major browser manufacturers implemented different defaults together they could kill off a lot of these abusive practices straight away. If a consumer advocacy group worked with the browser makers to certify TOS/EULAs etc then users could click a couple of check boxes when they first see an EULA and the browser could advise them if it fits there needs.
We don't need governments to regulate this. Based on previous experience it won't work, will take too long and will cost a fortune. This is something that can be solved much more quickly by a little consumer advocacy.
In even other words, I am getting sick of morons reveling in talking shit all the time.
Yet you still just won't stop.
There is nothing unreasonable about doubting the predictions of journalists or analysts who haven't experienced the things about which they wax lyrical. Siri sounds pretty neat and although I'm no apple fan I respect their focus on releasing high quality products. It could well be a leap forward for voice interaction and mobile technology; I hope it is
I'll give you credit for the patience you've shown by responding repeatedly to politely explain the point. I don't know if you're being trolled or if the people you're responding too really do believe what they are saying. Frankly it doesn't matter, anyone who thinks the entire tech industry bar one company doesn't innovate isn't worth your time.
I think his point is that if a monitor can last as long as the computer to which it is integrated then he would have bought less over the same time period.
Computers are on a rapid race to commodity pricing. I just bought a 23" 1080p screen for £70. I could buy a new PC with good specs, peripherals, screen etc for noticeably less than my partner and I spend on petrol each month (~£450). As they get cheaper the need to be able to replace individual sections becomes less important for normal users. Hell, computer repairs are being threatened by the fact that it can cost a large proportion of the cost of buying a new PC to diagnose and fix an old one.
Slashdot Mirror
In some ways this isn't as much of a benefit as it might seem. Currently the spam reviews/emails etc are of such low quality that it is easy to mentally filter them out. Systems like this that require the quality to improve may decrease volume but will make it harder to spot the ones that get through.
Ultimately this is why the 'social web' is becoming so important. If I know the people who are telling me something is good then I know they aren't paid for posters. Obviously one side affect of this is that companies are realising that 'influencers' (users who drive adoption amongst their social group) are more valuable and trying to buy their love.
Why target the whole world? It's the US government that is trying to pass the laws. Hindering billions of other people is only going to anger users. Also, although I can see why a total block would be effective, killing services that other companies rely on (like google maps) would be a major business mistake. Drop everything social / search or media related and you'll achieve 99% as much.
Except that's true unless you take other action when you close them down. Do you think that people work in those conditions when they could live as well without doing as things stand?
On the original subject: Piracy encourages companies to take steps to make piracy harder be that by regulation or technical measures. Unfortunately consumers aren't organised or bothered enough to fight back effectively. Sure we can find ways round DRM, around hardware limitations like HDMI/Encoding etc but the push to make it harder will continue. We've already reached the point where many games come hobbled unless bought new and/or are effectively hobbled as they get older (see EAs sports titles).
The majority of people don't have an issue with the idea of artists being able to limit distribution of their creations. That is why there is less fuss made about efforts to stop piracy. Until we can re-frame the debate to one about just how much of our rights we are willing to surrender to artists things will keep getting worse.
Just want to say thank you for the post. I found it very easy to read, informative and interesting.
Basically my experience. My work laptop (effectively my home pc as well) has to stay on windows. The home pc is kept on Windows because it does everything we need, in a way that we find effective and intuitive.
I like Windows 7 and although there may be something better for me out there I haven't seen something good enough to justify making the change. I only have so much time to learn new things. Learning other skills is more beneficial to my work and personal life.
China blocks sites that don't do what it wants so that sites that do what they want get the use. Facebook/Google etc all had the choice of caving and giving the Chinese government what they want or getting out of the market. That cannot possibly be taken as being better than what Hamburg has done here. Facebook has multiple options which would be easy to implement like disable all accounts in Hamburg, remove them from the recognition completely. As long as Facebook has offices in Germany, offers German language functionality, partners with German businesses for advertising etc it is naive at best to pretend they can act like German law should have no jurisdiction.
You prune a tree to keep to keep what is left healthy and doing what it should, if you don't you risk it dying or getting in the way and needing to be cut down. The only reason the same analogy is remotely contentious with companies and lay-offs is because the things you prune are sentient. I worked for a company that was bought and shut down. It couldn't turn a workable profit, in part because it was over-staffed and the pay and benefits were excessive. A cleaner earned over £40,000pa (admittedly by working ~55hrs a week). If the people running the business had done the right thing, not replaced people as they retired etc and held pay until it was close to in line with the value of the work, then at least the 90% of the staff who were left might have kept their jobs.
You can't make effective business decisions without accepting that sometimes companies need to decrease the amount of staff they've got to be viable.
Because sitting still and waiting for someone else to do it isn't always the best business strategy. I suppose it's possible that Microsoft employs enough people who are stupid enough to consider your scenario as a viable business strategy but I don't find it to be a remotely reliable answer. Microsoft can't remove the ability for 'file' interactions between their operating system and competing systems. They wouldn't even get as far as implementing it before it was regulated against.
I have no problem with Google charging for the API. Please remember that this only cover high use sites which wish to offer a service on the back of the considerable work and expense Google has put into maps. My only real concern is that as a Google 'customer' I have always found that support is something they do poorly, and this can be forgiven when you're not paying for the service. If Google uses the money to improve the service, assist customers then I have no issue with them making a profit off of the back of that.
Currently Google's business model is to sell advertising based on intensive profiling of us users. Anything they can do to diversify is welcome.
I'm pretty sure that anything short of god proving himself to exist, descending from the skies and beating them about with a tablet inscribed with 'man made global warming is real, stop fucking up my planet' won't persuade many deniers. Anyone who strongly believes we aren't the cause of any of the warming as this point is beyond educating with proof; they've taken a position and are now to stupid/ignorant/stubborn/deluded to change it.
In your opinion, which doesn't make for a strong argument in most other people's minds. Personally, I've tried Opera on and off and like it but I've never preferred it to either Firefox or Chrome. Even on websites where the visitors tend to be 'tech-aware' use of Opera remains comparatively low. These are users who know about Opera, who can choose their own browser and don't. That has nothing to do with monopoly powers.
Secondly, even if by a remotely valid measure Opera was the best browser the fact that it doesn't get publicity could be why it isn't more widely used. That's nothing new. It's hardly unusual for a product to fail because the company has failed to generate interest.
So Microsoft should specify in its contracts with OEMs that they have to allow users to turn off secure boot when it makes no difference to their software? If Microsoft was requiring OEMs to do something that stifled competition then it'd be a problem they caused. They aren't. It isn't.
Only on Slashdot can this kind of bollocks cause so much controversy while the fact that iOS expressly forbids people from releasing apps that compete with Apple's own software barely gets a mention.
Given that the government needs to earn the same amount of money to fund degrees why pre-tax? In order to make up for the lost tax revenue here, they would need to raise it elsewhere. So all you're doing is allowing extremely high earners to avoid paying tax on a sizeable amount of income for a marginal decrease in tax on lower earners.
Like most debates their isn't a right and a wrong side, although I think going too far either way is a mistake. If you make the system entirely private business centric that will likely result in education becoming inaccessible to the poor. If you make the system entirely publicly funded then students and institutions have little reason to compete on price.
In the UK, 8 years ago, I got tuition as well as money for housing etc with a net 'loan' of £12,000. The loan was on hugely favourable terms. I was incredibly lucky in that sense. However, my education was still paid for and is now part of our governments debt. The debt needs paying and as a tax payer I'll be shouldering some of that cost (and some of the cost of 100,000s of other loans). More competition between universities to provide cost effective educations could well cost me and my country less overall.
I believe degrees should be accessible to as many people as possible and I believe that in the long term that is best achieved by ensuring their is competition in the market. To do that students need some reason to consider pricing when selecting university and that means their finances have to be affected.
I didn't say the poster's argument was invalid. I was highlighting that a post on an online forum with no real verification of identity has little credibility, one posted using a function called 'anonymous coward' has even less and someone posting anonymously to argue that someone else should not be given that liberty has decreased that credibility to virtually nil.
I believe privacy should be protected unless a strong and sound reason not to exists. I see no good reason to grant an exception to allow people to post police officers personal details in public.
FTFY ;)
If someone posts anonymous notes to all of someone else's neighbours saying that they were forced to leave their last home because they abused the local children I believe that this should be illegal and efforts should be made to discover who did it. If they did the same thing via email, my view would not change. If they did the same thing on a local community forum, again I see no reason to treat this differently.
Anonymity on the internet has provided immeasurable benefit and I to am sad to think that it will become less common in future. Sadly the worst amongst (and I include a sizeable minority of Anonymous in that group) have abused the easy anonymity and safety provided by international boundaries to the point where it can't be ignored.
Because the more advanced societies of the world have realised that even things of importance are better dealt with without resorting to violence where possible.
Over the last 3-6 months there has been an increase in completely false headlines and summaries on Slashdot. I'm sure there have always been some but it's getting frustrating. I've kept visiting Slashdot because I'm interested in the subjct areas it covers, however when it keeps covering them in such a way that I can't trust anything I read to be accurate a lot of that value is gone.
You expect people to take your support of people posting police officers personal information on a website seriously, when you you're not only posting on a forum that doesn't post your personal details but doing so using an optional feature to be 'anonymous'? Good luck with that.
In the format of one of the other posters who couldn't take his remark in perspective: I think you should take 5 years, go an live with someone who makes a living keeping women hooked on heroin and offering them out for sex and then see if you still think he's scum. In other words, think first and comment later.
His point was to highlight a typical western, especially American, view that they can accurately and fairly define who should or shouldn't be allowed to own WMDs. No one, including durr thinks America is repressed compared to Iran; that certainly doesn't make America faultless or give it carte blanche to police the rest of the world.
Bollocks. Your browser, which you control, sends the information automatically when asked because you told it to. You could set it to ask and haven't. There is no way you can argue that you aren't consenting with any credibility. The thing is that isn't the point. Just like EULAs no one reads, crazy TOS etc we are constantly 'agreeing' to things that we don't want to agree to because the time taken to even consider it makes it effectively impossible to do so.
If the major browser manufacturers implemented different defaults together they could kill off a lot of these abusive practices straight away. If a consumer advocacy group worked with the browser makers to certify TOS/EULAs etc then users could click a couple of check boxes when they first see an EULA and the browser could advise them if it fits there needs.
We don't need governments to regulate this. Based on previous experience it won't work, will take too long and will cost a fortune. This is something that can be solved much more quickly by a little consumer advocacy.
Yet you still just won't stop.
There is nothing unreasonable about doubting the predictions of journalists or analysts who haven't experienced the things about which they wax lyrical. Siri sounds pretty neat and although I'm no apple fan I respect their focus on releasing high quality products. It could well be a leap forward for voice interaction and mobile technology; I hope it is
I'll give you credit for the patience you've shown by responding repeatedly to politely explain the point. I don't know if you're being trolled or if the people you're responding too really do believe what they are saying. Frankly it doesn't matter, anyone who thinks the entire tech industry bar one company doesn't innovate isn't worth your time.
I think his point is that if a monitor can last as long as the computer to which it is integrated then he would have bought less over the same time period.
Computers are on a rapid race to commodity pricing. I just bought a 23" 1080p screen for £70. I could buy a new PC with good specs, peripherals, screen etc for noticeably less than my partner and I spend on petrol each month (~£450). As they get cheaper the need to be able to replace individual sections becomes less important for normal users. Hell, computer repairs are being threatened by the fact that it can cost a large proportion of the cost of buying a new PC to diagnose and fix an old one.