So? It is an iPhone 3G without multitasking. They could either watch or do other stuff. However, watching TV while eating is a direct violation of normal cultural eating rituals. When eating switch off your TV and enjoy the food. You may even talk to your companions. No wonder HAL wants to get rid of those guys.
Sisko hands Kirk the computer log. In those times it seems more convenient to store all official log info on the same device. BTW in TOS they hand over USB-sticks or SD-Card like devices. While in TNG they use pads which can hold local information, but which can also transfer data into the cloud (aka ships computer).
They can transfer data to a pad and they can upload data from the pad. Today we could use Bluetooth or the wireless USB stuff for that. They have reconfigurable user interfaces in Voyager even with a tactile interface.
However, it is no wonder that all the tools we can buy today look like ST or other sci-fi gadgets. Geeks, engineers etc. watched those shows and are now building these technologies. Still missing is the Warp Drive and thrusters in ST quality.
When they would be cheap enough, I would own a couple of those devices. Why should I browse through the different document all on one pad when I can use more than one, showing different documents? In such an environment I could use these pads as different views to one data source, like every aspect has its own pad. Of course I can upload other data to them on demand.
Boeing is selling 747 models now for decades. While the A 380 is only available for a few years now. But aircraft industry is a bad example for the outsourcing issue. It is a key industry for the military and it is a prestige thing. Airbus and Boeing are both subsidized by the respective governments. And they are considered key industries to defend the USA and the EU.
Airbus and Boeing have similar sales figures. However, there is no real competition on market bases in this area. Boeing gets subsidies through military research and sales and Airbus gets subsidies from Germany and France. China is obviously supporting their plane industry to catch up with Boeing and Airbus.
When you look at other key industries, like automobiles, electronics, engineering, construction equipment, machinery, trains, chemistry, biotechnology. The US is losing its advantage in these fields or have already lost it. Automobiles is more or less a thing of Europe, Japan and South Korea (and China and India are catching up). In electronics CPUs are designed and manufactured by Intel and AMD, but i custom chip development, memory chips, camera chips and product assembly other countries have the lead. For engineering you go to Germany or Japan. In the train industry it is traditionally very dark in the US. While Europe has three different manufacturers for high speed trains and Japan has their own models and China has there models as well.
When unions, free payed vacation (30 work days => 6 weeks), a common health system, retirement fund, unemployment insurance, payed sick leave, job guarantee after pregnancy, extra money to Christmas, payed overtime, extra money for working at weekends or during the night are so bad why is Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and even France performing so much better than the US?
Because all those things help to keep your workforce at its best. German workers for example have a higher loyalty towards their employer then this is the case in the US. To continue the example: During the last crisis, German companies didn't lay off that much. Instead they used a government funded reduced hours compensation program. So they paid their employees less and these got some extra money from the state. At the end of the crisis they still had all their well trained employees and used the extra time to improve their machinery (anti cyclic investments) and tools. So when the economy started to run again they where right there. So all these extra stuff which makes work so expensive helped the economy a lot in that crisis. And it will help in the next.
They learned their lessons from the TV very good. It is good to work for slave wages (as long you are not the slave). What they do not see: They are unemployed because of the slave labor elsewhere. What me puzzles most: why do they not try to think it through or at least look at economic models to understand the economic processes. Then they would realize that the current system is not going to survive or they are not going to survive.
It is already too late. And after the last crisis, nobody tried to turn the steering wheel. Instead they put another brick on the accelerator. And they are still dancing around their Golden Calf. It would be helpful if US citizens would try to read other countries news. Especially those with no Murdoch background. China and EU for a start. Or even better travel there and talk to people outside of the US. You will see that the rest of the globe think that the US has a dying economy. The state is governed by a bunch of jerks who are not able to do the right thing: i.e. protecting the poor, the environment and the economy. Fix the state income by increasing taxes for those with money. And move the economy in a no growth direction where still everyone can participate on the society. Yes this needs another economy. So what. It is the only possible direction.
This will not work. a) continuous growth ends up in an exponential function. b) while China is becoming richer the US is becoming poorer. Not on paper right now, but when you look at the wealth distribution in the US you can already see what happens. Large groups of the society become poorer at an increasing rate, while a very selected group becomes richer. Warren Buffet lately claimed, that he pays about 17% taxes, while even his secretary has higher taxes. So even on the taxation side the things look grim.
You can also look at the EU, while Germany lowered the income of the average worker, they outperformed other states by that much, that now they have to support these states with money (same China does with the US).
When these issues would be the true driver. Then how can you explain that Germany, France, Sweden, etc. have not so big outsourcing issues? They have higher taxes, a real social security system with real unemployment insurance, and a lot more regulations to protect the environment. Still they compete the hell out of the US.
While the US have a higher GDP per capita than all these states, but the GDP is not so evenly distributed among the US citizens. And a lot of this GDP of the USA is generated at Wall Street which is only a pushing around of money loans and no real production.
As long as Wall Street dictates its ideology of shareholder value the companies will outsource, as they all look only on their pocket. Individualism at its best. To fix the problem the US has to switch from pure individualism to more collectivism. However, due to the base ideology of the US such approaches are all marked as evil named socialism or communism. Even though it is not.
Alternatively you could say: You have to switch from business studies (looking at one company) to economics (looking at the state as a whole).
So my conclusion is: The USA are not able to fix the problem.
The US is able to build wings and fuselage. The electronics is still coming from overseas. During the last Bush administration. Bush wanted to add import duties on steel products from China and Europe to protect the US steel industry. The US manufacturer for cars, white goods and construction industry intervened, because they needed these steel products from outside the US, as the US steel was not good enough.
He cannot make Australia an imaginary island as his friend and propaganda minister Rupert Murdoch was born there. However, he could move to Mesopotamia and be closer to paradise. At least god made every thing just there 6000 years ago. Sulfur eating lifeforms are definitely from hell. Therefor the entrance to hell must be somewhere in Australia. Wouldn't that be a superb plot for a new Hollywood series?
In an European context, vigilantes are also criminals, as the only organization which is allowed to use force is the state, which is legitimatized by the citizens.
On a side note: The problems in the UK are the same as in France or other countries. You people without a perspective and treated as second class citizens do not accept the state as their institution. They perceive the state as their enemy. In the UK they used CCTV to keep these people under surveillance which results in two things: a) Crimes move to other areas b) People get even more suppressed (at least they feel that way) which can erupt at any time.
To prevent such developments in future, we have to find a way to share the GDP more fairly.
Thanks. In Germany it is more like a copyright than a patent. As a patent describes a technical principal, while the copyright protects a specific implementation. However, they got only an injunction which means this can change very rapidly.
This is not about patents. It is about the design of the Galaxy Tab which looks so similar to the iPad. I do not know the correct English term. In Germany it is called Produktmusterschutz (copyright on product pattern/design/the art of appearance). Like you are not allowed to open a fast food restaurant McDonald's without asking the company of that particular name. As they own the brand and the design of the logo and shops etc.
It is true, I didn't watch the movie. I just read the plot information on Wikipedia. The movie might be a good action movie. And it might be fascinating to watch it. However, a strain which make apes intelligent over night is not very convincing. Even more that the same strain kill almost all humans. And humans are not able to take any counter measures. Looks like 12 Monkeys to me, which is an interesting film of its own, but which is not becoming more convincing when used in a second movie.
I guess, if you want to see a good sci-fi-look-a-like action movie, that might be a good place to go to. However, if you are looking for a new story or a true science fiction movie than it might be disappointing.
If they are software patents then most countries are not affected. The problem would be mostly the USA and Japan. If I am not mistaken: China, India and the EU do not have software patents. Also in Latin America there should be no problem selling such phones. And I doubt that it is any different in Africa. So in the end it is a local problem.
If these patents are on hardware designs, the situation would be slightly different. And it could be a big issue. However, on the hardware market this is no longer a game Google against Apple, Nokia and Microsoft. It is a game Samsung, HTC, etc. against Nokia and Apple against RIM.
We are so many humans. We would even win without weapons. And we have approx 6-7 billion people and approx 600 million guns out there. Not mentioning planes, helicopters etc. so most likely we can murder all of them. We could even use strange gases. Or do what we always did, destroy their habitat.
Even if they are twice as smart as humans (which they cannot be, due to energy constraints), they are technologically so backward that it won't work. They cannot build tools which would fit their proportions in such a short time, that we wouldn't recognize that and can take counter measures.
The interesting thing with the book and the original film was not the ape takeover as such. It was the new idea and the message. We already got that message. And the new movie does not focus on the message anyway.
Its like having Faust saving Gretchen from the prison and living happy ever after.
In the original "Planet of the Apes" movie, this kind of plot was chosen to show us humans, how we behave and how stupid and violent it is. First, it pointed out that humans destroyed earth after all, because of the usual things: greed, stupidity and being power hungry morons. Second, it changed the perspective for humans. Now humans are the animals and the apes are those who control the world. Humans are mistreated and used for experiments without any doubt in the action. Just as we humans did and do. Third, it shows that the apes, who call themselves superior (being a little bit chauvinistic at this point), that they would not resolve their problems in violence. However, in the end they do. In that part it discusses the problem with unequal power inside a society can result in problems when not controlled properly.
The way to broach those issues were good and typical for the time the movie was made. All this World War III stuff can be seen in different movies, books and other creative work. However, nowadays such plot is more than lame. The idea of being taken over by apes is not very convincing. Even if apes are twice as smart as a human (which is not possible, due to energy constraints). We humans are 6 billion entities 1/12 has guns. On the other side, there are at top most a million apes (I doubt that there are still that many of them) without guns. And the very idea of fire weapons is, that physical power does now longer count. So the apes are largely outnumbered and outgunned.
But the top most thing is, our cultural context changed since 1963 (book)/1968 (movie) and it does not make sense to discuss these issues in a move in the same way. A much more convincing plot would be a world, were we eradicated almost all animals and un-diversified plant life in such a way that some simple deceases destroy all our crops and humans die out (almost) due to food shortage.
Such movies are however, difficult because the transition takes so long. You either use the Roland Emmerich approach and let happen a deep freeze in days instead of decades or you try to do a 12 Monkeys approach. YOu not necessarily need time travel, but it is a method to connect the move past and the move present.
Or to be more precise, are their cheaper than a normal truck + humans? The US is definitely spending too much money on military. So the right thing to do is, use technology or practices (move out of Afghanistan and start no new war) which is more money efficient.
However, such truck is (if it works) impressive technology. A real autonomous vehicle. Nice.
As long as US-politicians give presents to the rich, this is not going to change. And while the rich became richer and the poor became poorer, the US needs more money for social security (at least it should). As the existential minimum to live has to be provided. I know this is not the fact in developing countries. However, in the so called Western World, this is possible and done by many Western states.
As more money for the poor requires more money. This money has to come from the rich. As it is their obligation to help their fellow humans. And BTW they get almost the total GDP so they are able to pay for their poor fellows. And before someone cries: "The poor shall go to work, then they have money". I have to point out three things: a) Many of them work, but they get not enough money for their work to get a decent living. b) There are no jobs (especially ones where you get paid). c) It doesn't matter if they are lazy or not. They are humans, they deserve support from all of us, so they can have food, housing, health care, education etc. (see the human rights declaration if in doubt).
However, all these things do not play any role in Us politics. And therefor the US is in big trouble and will get in bigger trouble in the near future. I am really afraid that the US can become a failing state in one or two decades.
Slashdot Mirror
Come on they added an "I" to symbolize their egocentric behavior.
So? It is an iPhone 3G without multitasking. They could either watch or do other stuff. However, watching TV while eating is a direct violation of normal cultural eating rituals. When eating switch off your TV and enjoy the food. You may even talk to your companions. No wonder HAL wants to get rid of those guys.
They "patented" a rectangular shaped device which can be controlled by finger tips.
Sisko hands Kirk the computer log. In those times it seems more convenient to store all official log info on the same device. BTW in TOS they hand over USB-sticks or SD-Card like devices. While in TNG they use pads which can hold local information, but which can also transfer data into the cloud (aka ships computer).
They can transfer data to a pad and they can upload data from the pad. Today we could use Bluetooth or the wireless USB stuff for that. They have reconfigurable user interfaces in Voyager even with a tactile interface.
However, it is no wonder that all the tools we can buy today look like ST or other sci-fi gadgets. Geeks, engineers etc. watched those shows and are now building these technologies. Still missing is the Warp Drive and thrusters in ST quality.
When they would be cheap enough, I would own a couple of those devices. Why should I browse through the different document all on one pad when I can use more than one, showing different documents? In such an environment I could use these pads as different views to one data source, like every aspect has its own pad. Of course I can upload other data to them on demand.
Boeing is selling 747 models now for decades. While the A 380 is only available for a few years now. But aircraft industry is a bad example for the outsourcing issue. It is a key industry for the military and it is a prestige thing. Airbus and Boeing are both subsidized by the respective governments. And they are considered key industries to defend the USA and the EU.
Airbus and Boeing have similar sales figures. However, there is no real competition on market bases in this area. Boeing gets subsidies through military research and sales and Airbus gets subsidies from Germany and France. China is obviously supporting their plane industry to catch up with Boeing and Airbus.
When you look at other key industries, like automobiles, electronics, engineering, construction equipment, machinery, trains, chemistry, biotechnology. The US is losing its advantage in these fields or have already lost it. Automobiles is more or less a thing of Europe, Japan and South Korea (and China and India are catching up). In electronics CPUs are designed and manufactured by Intel and AMD, but i custom chip development, memory chips, camera chips and product assembly other countries have the lead. For engineering you go to Germany or Japan. In the train industry it is traditionally very dark in the US. While Europe has three different manufacturers for high speed trains and Japan has their own models and China has there models as well.
When unions, free payed vacation (30 work days => 6 weeks), a common health system, retirement fund, unemployment insurance, payed sick leave, job guarantee after pregnancy, extra money to Christmas, payed overtime, extra money for working at weekends or during the night are so bad why is Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and even France performing so much better than the US?
Because all those things help to keep your workforce at its best. German workers for example have a higher loyalty towards their employer then this is the case in the US. To continue the example: During the last crisis, German companies didn't lay off that much. Instead they used a government funded reduced hours compensation program. So they paid their employees less and these got some extra money from the state. At the end of the crisis they still had all their well trained employees and used the extra time to improve their machinery (anti cyclic investments) and tools. So when the economy started to run again they where right there. So all these extra stuff which makes work so expensive helped the economy a lot in that crisis. And it will help in the next.
They learned their lessons from the TV very good. It is good to work for slave wages (as long you are not the slave). What they do not see: They are unemployed because of the slave labor elsewhere. What me puzzles most: why do they not try to think it through or at least look at economic models to understand the economic processes. Then they would realize that the current system is not going to survive or they are not going to survive.
It is already too late. And after the last crisis, nobody tried to turn the steering wheel. Instead they put another brick on the accelerator. And they are still dancing around their Golden Calf. It would be helpful if US citizens would try to read other countries news. Especially those with no Murdoch background. China and EU for a start. Or even better travel there and talk to people outside of the US. You will see that the rest of the globe think that the US has a dying economy. The state is governed by a bunch of jerks who are not able to do the right thing: i.e. protecting the poor, the environment and the economy. Fix the state income by increasing taxes for those with money. And move the economy in a no growth direction where still everyone can participate on the society. Yes this needs another economy. So what. It is the only possible direction.
This will not work. a) continuous growth ends up in an exponential function. b) while China is becoming richer the US is becoming poorer. Not on paper right now, but when you look at the wealth distribution in the US you can already see what happens. Large groups of the society become poorer at an increasing rate, while a very selected group becomes richer. Warren Buffet lately claimed, that he pays about 17% taxes, while even his secretary has higher taxes. So even on the taxation side the things look grim.
You can also look at the EU, while Germany lowered the income of the average worker, they outperformed other states by that much, that now they have to support these states with money (same China does with the US).
When these issues would be the true driver. Then how can you explain that Germany, France, Sweden, etc. have not so big outsourcing issues? They have higher taxes, a real social security system with real unemployment insurance, and a lot more regulations to protect the environment. Still they compete the hell out of the US.
While the US have a higher GDP per capita than all these states, but the GDP is not so evenly distributed among the US citizens. And a lot of this GDP of the USA is generated at Wall Street which is only a pushing around of money loans and no real production.
As long as Wall Street dictates its ideology of shareholder value the companies will outsource, as they all look only on their pocket. Individualism at its best. To fix the problem the US has to switch from pure individualism to more collectivism. However, due to the base ideology of the US such approaches are all marked as evil named socialism or communism. Even though it is not.
Alternatively you could say: You have to switch from business studies (looking at one company) to economics (looking at the state as a whole).
So my conclusion is: The USA are not able to fix the problem.
The US is able to build wings and fuselage. The electronics is still coming from overseas. During the last Bush administration. Bush wanted to add import duties on steel products from China and Europe to protect the US steel industry. The US manufacturer for cars, white goods and construction industry intervened, because they needed these steel products from outside the US, as the US steel was not good enough.
He cannot make Australia an imaginary island as his friend and propaganda minister Rupert Murdoch was born there. However, he could move to Mesopotamia and be closer to paradise. At least god made every thing just there 6000 years ago. Sulfur eating lifeforms are definitely from hell. Therefor the entrance to hell must be somewhere in Australia. Wouldn't that be a superb plot for a new Hollywood series?
In an European context, vigilantes are also criminals, as the only organization which is allowed to use force is the state, which is legitimatized by the citizens.
On a side note: The problems in the UK are the same as in France or other countries. You people without a perspective and treated as second class citizens do not accept the state as their institution. They perceive the state as their enemy. In the UK they used CCTV to keep these people under surveillance which results in two things:
a) Crimes move to other areas
b) People get even more suppressed (at least they feel that way) which can erupt at any time.
To prevent such developments in future, we have to find a way to share the GDP more fairly.
Thanks. In Germany it is more like a copyright than a patent. As a patent describes a technical principal, while the copyright protects a specific implementation. However, they got only an injunction which means this can change very rapidly.
What is your problem with his position?
This is not about patents. It is about the design of the Galaxy Tab which looks so similar to the iPad. I do not know the correct English term. In Germany it is called Produktmusterschutz (copyright on product pattern/design/the art of appearance). Like you are not allowed to open a fast food restaurant McDonald's without asking the company of that particular name. As they own the brand and the design of the logo and shops etc.
It is true, I didn't watch the movie. I just read the plot information on Wikipedia. The movie might be a good action movie. And it might be fascinating to watch it. However, a strain which make apes intelligent over night is not very convincing. Even more that the same strain kill almost all humans. And humans are not able to take any counter measures. Looks like 12 Monkeys to me, which is an interesting film of its own, but which is not becoming more convincing when used in a second movie.
I guess, if you want to see a good sci-fi-look-a-like action movie, that might be a good place to go to. However, if you are looking for a new story or a true science fiction movie than it might be disappointing.
If they are software patents then most countries are not affected. The problem would be mostly the USA and Japan. If I am not mistaken: China, India and the EU do not have software patents. Also in Latin America there should be no problem selling such phones. And I doubt that it is any different in Africa. So in the end it is a local problem.
If these patents are on hardware designs, the situation would be slightly different. And it could be a big issue. However, on the hardware market this is no longer a game Google against Apple, Nokia and Microsoft. It is a game Samsung, HTC, etc. against Nokia and Apple against RIM.
We are so many humans. We would even win without weapons. And we have approx 6-7 billion people and approx 600 million guns out there. Not mentioning planes, helicopters etc. so most likely we can murder all of them. We could even use strange gases. Or do what we always did, destroy their habitat.
Even if they are twice as smart as humans (which they cannot be, due to energy constraints), they are technologically so backward that it won't work. They cannot build tools which would fit their proportions in such a short time, that we wouldn't recognize that and can take counter measures.
The interesting thing with the book and the original film was not the ape takeover as such. It was the new idea and the message. We already got that message. And the new movie does not focus on the message anyway.
Its like having Faust saving Gretchen from the prison and living happy ever after.
In the original "Planet of the Apes" movie, this kind of plot was chosen to show us humans, how we behave and how stupid and violent it is.
First, it pointed out that humans destroyed earth after all, because of the usual things: greed, stupidity and being power hungry morons. Second, it changed the perspective for humans. Now humans are the animals and the apes are those who control the world. Humans are mistreated and used for experiments without any doubt in the action. Just as we humans did and do. Third, it shows that the apes, who call themselves superior (being a little bit chauvinistic at this point), that they would not resolve their problems in violence. However, in the end they do. In that part it discusses the problem with unequal power inside a society can result in problems when not controlled properly.
The way to broach those issues were good and typical for the time the movie was made. All this World War III stuff can be seen in different movies, books and other creative work. However, nowadays such plot is more than lame. The idea of being taken over by apes is not very convincing. Even if apes are twice as smart as a human (which is not possible, due to energy constraints). We humans are 6 billion entities 1/12 has guns. On the other side, there are at top most a million apes (I doubt that there are still that many of them) without guns. And the very idea of fire weapons is, that physical power does now longer count. So the apes are largely outnumbered and outgunned.
But the top most thing is, our cultural context changed since 1963 (book)/1968 (movie) and it does not make sense to discuss these issues in a move in the same way. A much more convincing plot would be a world, were we eradicated almost all animals and un-diversified plant life in such a way that some simple deceases destroy all our crops and humans die out (almost) due to food shortage.
Such movies are however, difficult because the transition takes so long. You either use the Roland Emmerich approach and let happen a deep freeze in days instead of decades or you try to do a 12 Monkeys approach. YOu not necessarily need time travel, but it is a method to connect the move past and the move present.
Or to be more precise, are their cheaper than a normal truck + humans? The US is definitely spending too much money on military. So the right thing to do is, use technology or practices (move out of Afghanistan and start no new war) which is more money efficient.
However, such truck is (if it works) impressive technology. A real autonomous vehicle. Nice.
As long as US-politicians give presents to the rich, this is not going to change. And while the rich became richer and the poor became poorer, the US needs more money for social security (at least it should). As the existential minimum to live has to be provided. I know this is not the fact in developing countries. However, in the so called Western World, this is possible and done by many Western states.
As more money for the poor requires more money. This money has to come from the rich. As it is their obligation to help their fellow humans. And BTW they get almost the total GDP so they are able to pay for their poor fellows. And before someone cries: "The poor shall go to work, then they have money". I have to point out three things:
a) Many of them work, but they get not enough money for their work to get a decent living.
b) There are no jobs (especially ones where you get paid).
c) It doesn't matter if they are lazy or not. They are humans, they deserve support from all of us, so they can have food, housing, health care, education etc. (see the human rights declaration if in doubt).
However, all these things do not play any role in Us politics. And therefor the US is in big trouble and will get in bigger trouble in the near future. I am really afraid that the US can become a failing state in one or two decades.