I could not agree more, it just seems like the US people are just too damn lazy to care about their rights. Everything from Net Neutrality to illegal phone tapping operations...what the hell does it take to get Americans angry and up in arms?? Maybe if this somehow affected the availability of American Idol they would be more interested.
Mod the parent up cause he hit it on the head. In order to correctly determine which language is right for the job, first we must know what the job is and what are the short term and long term objectives that hope to be achieved through this project from all stakeholders/
Man those Italians have no clue what they are getting into. First off in order to tax people doesnt the government actually have to invest something in this taxable asset first? Like roads, governments can charge tolls because those tolls go to the maintenence of the road on which the toll is charged. Even things like an additional environmental tax on electronics go to fund the program that recycles the electronics. What the hell does any government on this planet do to fund the sending of emails and text messages?
They might as well be saying "Ok we are now going to tax you per Google search", the government has nothing to do with Google, they do nothing to fund the people's access to Google, and the money is not being re-invested to help people search Google better. The money is being "invested" to alleviate the government's piss poor spending and planning practices.
Second of all I think that in order to set up a billing system so that this approach could work effectively would require an extreme amount of capital. Just think about it, they now have to develop a system that will integrate with every email provider and mobile phone provider in the country. Take a lesson from Canada, we have spent over 1 billion dollars trying to get a stupid gun registry off the ground...a fucking gun registry...a system that does nothing except store and grant access to names of people that own guns. That is seriously peanuts compared to the system it would take to implement this billing system correctly.
But if they want they can always outsource it me and I will guarantee that they wont be any worse off than Canada and that stupid registry. Give me a billion bucks and I can DEFINITELY give you a system that doesnt work.
At first I thought this was totally absurd, I mean trademarking a term that basically characterizes the evolution of technology...and only for the purpose of selling this techno-ideology to businesses is just insane, or is it really?
I mean considering how much this term is going to be thrown around in the coming year(s) and there is potentially so much to be gained from companies employing new IT strategies based on this concept, maybe it really is a good idea to have someone as reputable and unbiased as OReilly protecting this trademark to ensure that scam artists and shaddy businesses cant try to throw it around to their advantage.
Considering that they seem to be worried mainly about conferences I think this is probably valid because these conferences can have a lot of influence on people who attend them hoping to learn about this new approach and see how it fits into their company strategy. It is important that we not have what we had with the first tech bubble with a bunch of people pitching unwarranted hype and then having the people that actually listened to them go off and blow a bunch of money on a technological and business failure. This would only deter the Web 2.0 approach from really gaining the momentum it deserves.
Just think about it, if we had had this type of enforcement with the first tech bubble...the bubble might not have burst in the first place because people would have been making smarter business decisions.
Whatever though, just as long as they dont go suing people just for using the term and strictly for the purpose of upholding the validity of the term.
Sadly enough this is so true. There is the 5% of the population that is really creative and motivated to do big things and the other 95% are sitting in line waiting to get a job working for that 5% hoping that they can benefit from their success. However that is just the way it has to work, if that 95% was a bit smaller or more motivated then the 5% wouldnt seem so special and actually less would get done because everyone would be out trying to do their own thing to hit it big.
There are no leaders without followers.
But I do have to disagree with your last statement:
In other words, when you find people who are smart enough to do this travel scheme, you will be so few in number that you will have far easier and more ordinary ways of getting rich instead.
There is never a lack of people who are willing to make money, at least not in North America. The only thing is, in order to attract a mass customer base you would have to make whatever it is that you are trying to sell easy. Yes it still supports your fact that people are generally not willing to go the extra mile or endure the added risk of trying something different, but often I have found that is only when the customer does not truly understand the value of your product...if they even understand the product at all.
The point is is that find a way to make something easier and people will listen, even if the idea itself is stupid. This airline scheme is no different, yes it is technically illegal to do what the scheme intends...but if you were to integrate the marvels of technology as a means of sidestepping traditional legislation (which as we all know is the last thing to catch up with technology) and making everything into one seamless easy process from which many can benfit Im sure you would be able to find a way to make this idea fly.
They are all worth collectively hundreds of billions of dollars. Granted to set up a nationwide ISP is not cheap, but they could do it without question since the only alternative is to give in to the telcos and play russian roulette with their companies' futures.
But look at it like this...if all of the companies that use the web as a means to generate revenue just bit the bullet and formed their own ISP, sure they would have to shell out many billions of dollars, but in return they would be the ONLY ISP in the US that would offer completely neutral access to any website, and probably charge less for doing so. I dont know about the rest of you but if I were a telco consumer pissed about my web access being throttled to my favorite sites and there was another option available to me that allowed me to A) access the sites that I want and B) was cheaper or at least the same price, I would switch.
Just think of all the consumers that would just cancel their current internet access arrangement with their telco and switch...the telcos would lose EVERY internet customer they ever had. The service is better and its the same price or cheaper than what I was paying before. More for less (or at least the same as what I was paying before)...the only true way to catch the eye of the average North Amercian consumer. Plus from the web companies' standpoint, they would now be turning in MASSIVE revenue from this new venture...they essentially just stole every internet customer in the United States so Im sure the initial cost of setting up that ISP would be offset in a reasonable amount of time.
I mean the telcos have to see this coming...these companies are worth BILLIONS...and you are trying to take that away from them. Are you crazy?!?!? Because its not like they are directly attacking small business here where literally almost all of them would have to ban together in order to compete on this monsterous finanacial level. Really there only needs to be about 10 or 15 large tech companies to make this viable.
The telcos are still trying to play this Business in the 1990's game by using the traditional tactics to ensure that your industry is well looked after by the powers that be in government. They fail to realize that they may own the pipes...but those pipes would be worthless without the content that flows through them. And just think...once this supermassive ISP is up and running and serving web connections, whats next, VOIP and IPTV, why not, they have the backbone to do it. These would be the only remaining revenue streams that the telcos/cable companies would have left if they arent serving up internet connections, and since they no longer have any internet customers Im sure the marketing geniuses at this new supermassive ISP would be able to think of some way to offer some discounted "package deals" for people wanting phone and television as well as their internet.
The internet is free and the telcos will find that out whether they like it or not.
Do you know what would really be funny? If all those web companies just straight blacklisted all of those government ip addresses. People seem to forget that the internet is only as useful as the information that you are able to find on it. No search engine support = no website visitors.
Can someone please tell me when congress started caring about DRMing music?? Like Valdrax said this is CLEARLY an act to please campaign contributors, how can it not be. This has to be the most useless waste of time that could ever occur in any government anywhere in the world. In a country with a medical and education system that is so substandard how can congress have nothing better to do than argue about DRMing MP3 streams?!?!?!
This arguement from Miro's estate is just so one sided its sickening. They claim that the Google logo portrayed aspects of Miro's paintings, which it does, but its not like they copied an entire Miro or even the majority of one. All the logo displayed were certain aspects from his paintings...so how do certain aspects belong to anyone. I mean was Miro the first person to paint some fruit??
Just the fact that a copyright case such as this is even being brought about by an artist of all people is the absolute most dispicable thing I have ever heard of. If it werent for artists getting ideas and finding influences from other artists then there would hardly be any art in the world at all. The entire artistic community has been built on modifying other people's concepts since someone decided to put paint on a canvas. All the Google logo was meant to be was a work influenced by the works of Miro, whats wrong with that?
Because if Miro's estate think they can get away with this then they should just pray that Miro wasnt influenced by any other artists (god forbid) whose estates will then come banging down their door demanding money. Seriously I dont think Miro's estate realizes the potential disaster that they are starting...which is effectively a wonderful patent system for the world of art. Hey once an artist can have explicit legal rights over a "style" of art (which is essentially the case that Miro's estate is making) whats to stop another artist from exercising their power over a particular style of art and suing anyone that tries to copy it.
This is absolutely absurd and if Miro's estate was actually concerned about the art they would have just let Google have their harmless Miro-esque logo up for one measly day and be done with it. But now it seems as if they are opening up a whole can of worms that us in the software industry are already too familiar with and most of us wish never existed in the first place. Take it from us, the last thing you want in art is patents...oh god.
The BBC's case would make more sense if they knew anything about how artists make their money. The truth is that music artists have always made more money from their concerts then from their record sales for the simple fact that for concerts artists get paid obscene amounts of money just to show up on top of all the money they gross from such things as merchandise sales. When it comes to record sales artists usually just get a set amount of money per album that is sold and quite often the total revenue they gross from this area is actually quite small, depending on the artist's contract with the record label.
Case in point Britney Spears and the Onyx Hotel Tour. Britney grossed hundreds of millions of dollars from this tour and actually set a record for highest merchandise revenue from a concert tour (no clue if this record still stands but its a pretty good guess that it does). Her album In The Zone which was being promoted by the Onys Hotel tour sold approximately 4-5 million copies to date, and say she was getting $3 per albumn sold (which is absolutely huge in the music industry but possible since she is such a pop icon) that amounts to $12 - 15 million in revenue. I could not find exact numbers for her gross tour revenue but I am certain it is at the very least $100 million. As you can see her album revenue is way smaller than this number, so basically this BBC guy is full of shit.
Personally I am a man of science and I definitely believe in Darwin's theory, I mean how much scientific evidence do they really have to put out there before religious zealots just accept the truth. However I have posed this question to many people who are also dedicated to the realm of science and I have recieved some very interesting answers (sometimes no real answer at all actually).
The big bang and humans evolving from apes..that all happened plain and simple. The question is, with so many naturally occuring phenomena (everything from 2 hydrogens and 1 oxygen = water to gravity) that can be consistently explained through scientific analysis and reasoning...how is it that without some type of intelligent design that science would be able to solve any of these problems in a consistent fashion?
For example, we take it for granted that as planets in a solar system orbit around the largest star due to gravitational pull. But why?? Why is it that planets orbiting a large star undergo gravitational pull towards the star, why couldnt it be the other way around? Because if it was we would not have any galaxies at all because basically everything would repel each other. We take this fact for granted when really all it would have taken is a few twists a few billion years ago and that is concievably what could have happened.
Basically my point is this...if there was no elegant design of the universe then (unless you believe in pure mass coincidence, which I do not) everything would be random. Nothing would be able to be explained on a consistent basis using math and science because there would be no pattern to anything. In order for math and science to explain how our universe works, it relies on patterns of repeating phenomena to prove the various laws that form the basis of scientific belief. I have yet to meet anyone that can accept the fact that everything happened by coincidence and that the many laws that govern our universe just happen to work out. They prove all this with science, but why does the science work?
I agree with mcvos completely. If ISPs are going to start charging Google to get access to me then what the fuck am I paying for?? They do nothing but bitch and whine about Google using their backbone when really it has shit fuck all to do with Google...it has to do with people already using their backbone going to Google and using their site..we go to them not the other way around.
This is just a prime example of a huge cash grab by the telcos...anyone with any half a breain would see that their arguments just dont make sense. Your current customers pay you to get to Google, Google doesnt do anything other than serve people's requests (granted it uses bandwidth provided by the telcos to perform its searches but that is just a cost of doing business in my opinion). So how are you going to justify to your customers the reason why they cant get to their favorite websites. All your customer is going to say is wtf am I paying you for...to get access to the internet...and now Im not getting that access...again wtf am I paying you for?!?! You basically signed me up promising me access to the internet and now that internet is being censored by you for reasons that have nothing to do with me...your customer.
All I can say is that if the telcos do go this way they are going to have one hell of a fight on their hands not only from irate customers such as myself...but from these mega websites. And in this type of game where one industry is threatening the livelihood of another things are bound to get nasty. But at least it is good for these companies such as Google that in a fight like this, the winner will almost always be the side with more money. And I dont think the telcos have enough of it to seriously threaten the livlihood of the potentially the world's first $100 billion company not to mention the other multi billion dollar companies that make their home on the web.
All these massive internet companies will have to do in order to mitigate this risk is band together and start their own ISP. That way not only will they not have to pay to get access to their customers, they will actually make money by customers getting access to them before they have even provided any service from their sites...and in the process destroy this seriously flawed business model the telcos seem to believe will work.
You just really have to wonder who were the brilliant strategists behind this move for the telcos. Surely they have to realize that the above scenario is definitely a possibility considering the fact that they are threatening the economic viability of so many multi million and multi billion dollar web based companies on top of the multi million and multi billion dollar brick and mortar shops who use the web as a sizable compliment to their already existing business model.
Because they wont even be able to get a degree for the following reasons:
1. The cannot get the professor's lectures because they are available only through iTunes
2. The will not be able to write any research papers because they will still be waiting for the new live.com search page to load and once it does they will not be able to find anything relevant to their research topics.
Btw I actually dont think the new live.com site or the search functionality is that bad....its just not as good as Google;)
I can see how the US government has the lawful ability to effectively block online gambling sites within the US. However I am not really sure about how they plan to prosecute these online gambling companies in a court of law in the US if they are based in another country. Im sure some countries might bend over for the US and extradite the offending company officials to the US to face prosecution, but I just cant help but think that there are alot of countries out there that would just as soon give the big middle finger to the US instead.
Point being since the only world authority (WTO) has already passed a ruling that went against this new bill then there are effectively no international governing bodies that are willing to enforce this law. What is the US supposed to do, start barging into other countries and telling them to abide by US laws?
Oh wait....this is the US we're talking about here, of course that is what they will do. Oh well on another interesting note, doesnt it seem hypocritical to anyone that the US government can come down so hard on companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo for cooperating with the Chinese government in censoring the internet when this bill shows that they are essentially trying to do the same thing?
The bottom line is, if people want to gamble online they are going to find some way to do it, just like if the Chinese public wanted to "break" Google's filtering scheme or the Great Chinese firewall and see what the rest of the world sees on the web...rest assured they will do it.
Well really it wouldnt take much for a cyber criminal to just use a series of removable hard drives, possibly each encrypted with something else on top of Vista's encryption (if they were really serious 128 bit encryption would be the absolute minimum they would use), and in the event of law enforcement coming to take them down either store the hard drives somewhere or just keep a few microwaves handy to toast them before anyone can get their hands on them.
I mean especially since this news is not exactly a secret Im sure that cyber criminals will think twice before using Vista. Plus really...how many serious cyber criminals would use Windows as their main operating system knowing full well that the Microsoft can so easily be coerced by almost any major government on earth into lending a helping hand in this particular area.
In addition Im sure these criminals are smart enough to see the EASY solution to this problem....USE ANOTHER OS!!!!
The funny thing is that the news companies just cant opt out of it...without making every other person that comes to their site sign up for an account or something similar that would effectively close the news site off to pretty much everyone and everything on the web. Anything that is open content on the web is 100% legal to re-use on another site provided that it is referenced properly.
The news companies cannot win here because they are fighting two different battles with opposing goals: one to protect their online content and one to preserve its already shrinking customer base, and it seems that in this case they just will not be able to win one without losing the other.
I cant believe with all of the seemingly intelligent minds here that people still seem to think that the Western way is the 'right' way. Dont get me wrong, I do not approve of censorship in any way shape or form, but that is entirely based on my values being brought up in a Western society. This is just another example of people trying to impose their beliefs on another society because we think we know better. I great example of this could be seen in the way the Chinese culture goes to the bathroom. We think its right that people should wipe with toilet paper but when you look at it from their perspective its absolutely disgusting. Using paper to smear it all around and make even a bigger mess just doesnt make sense to them and when you think about it really isnt the most efficient way to clean yourself.
You just cant try to impose Western beliefs on a population that has never really known anything different than what they are currently living under....can anyone say Vietnam?
When looking at China, you have to realize that this country has been run this way for longer than most people reading this have been alive. You cant just turn the communism switch off and expect everything to be hunky dory. People should view Google stepping into China as quite possibly one of the most important things that could happen if the people of China are expected to one day change the way their country is governed. I think we are already seeing a step in this direction with the fall of the red curtain and the opening up of China's economy to the rest of the world. The seed for change has been planted.
Information is power and right now the Chinese people have a lack of information. So would anyone please care to tell me who better to provide them with this information than Google?? I mean their slogan is "Don't be evil" (and they by far have the best utilities to provide the people of China with the information that they are sorely lacking) so what makes you think that they are going to all of a sudden start being evil? They cant do a damn thing to help the people of China if they dont get in there somehow.
But I dont understand if so many people have such a high opinion of Google then why do you think that they are going to walk into China and turn into Microsoft? And that is another thing...would China really be better off with ONLY influences from American corporations such as Microsoft and Yahoo, corporations that are definitely only their for monetary gain...I think not. This is the start of change and one day all you people bashing Google for their decision will be praising them as a corporation that stepped into China and instead of just exploiting the new marketplace actually tried to do something for its people.
And you just KNOW that Google's filtering wont catch everything...by mistake of course;)
I have to agree with the majority here and say that there is no way the space shuttle can have a disasterous effect on the earth's environment strictly though its emissions.
However one should definitely be concerned with the amount of pollution in the form of space junk that we are putting into orbit. It is quite possible that in the foreseeable future the amount of space junk in our orbit could be so bad that we wont even be able to get off our own planet without hitting something, let alone to boldly go where no man has gone before.
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I could not agree more, it just seems like the US people are just too damn lazy to care about their rights. Everything from Net Neutrality to illegal phone tapping operations...what the hell does it take to get Americans angry and up in arms?? Maybe if this somehow affected the availability of American Idol they would be more interested.
Mod the parent up cause he hit it on the head. In order to correctly determine which language is right for the job, first we must know what the job is and what are the short term and long term objectives that hope to be achieved through this project from all stakeholders/
Man those Italians have no clue what they are getting into. First off in order to tax people doesnt the government actually have to invest something in this taxable asset first? Like roads, governments can charge tolls because those tolls go to the maintenence of the road on which the toll is charged. Even things like an additional environmental tax on electronics go to fund the program that recycles the electronics. What the hell does any government on this planet do to fund the sending of emails and text messages? They might as well be saying "Ok we are now going to tax you per Google search", the government has nothing to do with Google, they do nothing to fund the people's access to Google, and the money is not being re-invested to help people search Google better. The money is being "invested" to alleviate the government's piss poor spending and planning practices.
Second of all I think that in order to set up a billing system so that this approach could work effectively would require an extreme amount of capital. Just think about it, they now have to develop a system that will integrate with every email provider and mobile phone provider in the country. Take a lesson from Canada, we have spent over 1 billion dollars trying to get a stupid gun registry off the ground...a fucking gun registry...a system that does nothing except store and grant access to names of people that own guns. That is seriously peanuts compared to the system it would take to implement this billing system correctly.
But if they want they can always outsource it me and I will guarantee that they wont be any worse off than Canada and that stupid registry. Give me a billion bucks and I can DEFINITELY give you a system that doesnt work.
At first I thought this was totally absurd, I mean trademarking a term that basically characterizes the evolution of technology...and only for the purpose of selling this techno-ideology to businesses is just insane, or is it really?
I mean considering how much this term is going to be thrown around in the coming year(s) and there is potentially so much to be gained from companies employing new IT strategies based on this concept, maybe it really is a good idea to have someone as reputable and unbiased as OReilly protecting this trademark to ensure that scam artists and shaddy businesses cant try to throw it around to their advantage.
Considering that they seem to be worried mainly about conferences I think this is probably valid because these conferences can have a lot of influence on people who attend them hoping to learn about this new approach and see how it fits into their company strategy. It is important that we not have what we had with the first tech bubble with a bunch of people pitching unwarranted hype and then having the people that actually listened to them go off and blow a bunch of money on a technological and business failure. This would only deter the Web 2.0 approach from really gaining the momentum it deserves.
Just think about it, if we had had this type of enforcement with the first tech bubble...the bubble might not have burst in the first place because people would have been making smarter business decisions.
Whatever though, just as long as they dont go suing people just for using the term and strictly for the purpose of upholding the validity of the term.
Sadly enough this is so true. There is the 5% of the population that is really creative and motivated to do big things and the other 95% are sitting in line waiting to get a job working for that 5% hoping that they can benefit from their success. However that is just the way it has to work, if that 95% was a bit smaller or more motivated then the 5% wouldnt seem so special and actually less would get done because everyone would be out trying to do their own thing to hit it big.
There are no leaders without followers.
But I do have to disagree with your last statement:
In other words, when you find people who are smart enough to do this travel scheme, you will be so few in number that you will have far easier and more ordinary ways of getting rich instead.
There is never a lack of people who are willing to make money, at least not in North America. The only thing is, in order to attract a mass customer base you would have to make whatever it is that you are trying to sell easy. Yes it still supports your fact that people are generally not willing to go the extra mile or endure the added risk of trying something different, but often I have found that is only when the customer does not truly understand the value of your product...if they even understand the product at all.
The point is is that find a way to make something easier and people will listen, even if the idea itself is stupid. This airline scheme is no different, yes it is technically illegal to do what the scheme intends...but if you were to integrate the marvels of technology as a means of sidestepping traditional legislation (which as we all know is the last thing to catch up with technology) and making everything into one seamless easy process from which many can benfit Im sure you would be able to find a way to make this idea fly.
They are all worth collectively hundreds of billions of dollars. Granted to set up a nationwide ISP is not cheap, but they could do it without question since the only alternative is to give in to the telcos and play russian roulette with their companies' futures.
But look at it like this...if all of the companies that use the web as a means to generate revenue just bit the bullet and formed their own ISP, sure they would have to shell out many billions of dollars, but in return they would be the ONLY ISP in the US that would offer completely neutral access to any website, and probably charge less for doing so. I dont know about the rest of you but if I were a telco consumer pissed about my web access being throttled to my favorite sites and there was another option available to me that allowed me to A) access the sites that I want and B) was cheaper or at least the same price, I would switch.
Just think of all the consumers that would just cancel their current internet access arrangement with their telco and switch...the telcos would lose EVERY internet customer they ever had. The service is better and its the same price or cheaper than what I was paying before. More for less (or at least the same as what I was paying before)...the only true way to catch the eye of the average North Amercian consumer. Plus from the web companies' standpoint, they would now be turning in MASSIVE revenue from this new venture...they essentially just stole every internet customer in the United States so Im sure the initial cost of setting up that ISP would be offset in a reasonable amount of time.
I mean the telcos have to see this coming...these companies are worth BILLIONS...and you are trying to take that away from them. Are you crazy?!?!? Because its not like they are directly attacking small business here where literally almost all of them would have to ban together in order to compete on this monsterous finanacial level. Really there only needs to be about 10 or 15 large tech companies to make this viable.
The telcos are still trying to play this Business in the 1990's game by using the traditional tactics to ensure that your industry is well looked after by the powers that be in government. They fail to realize that they may own the pipes...but those pipes would be worthless without the content that flows through them. And just think...once this supermassive ISP is up and running and serving web connections, whats next, VOIP and IPTV, why not, they have the backbone to do it. These would be the only remaining revenue streams that the telcos/cable companies would have left if they arent serving up internet connections, and since they no longer have any internet customers Im sure the marketing geniuses at this new supermassive ISP would be able to think of some way to offer some discounted "package deals" for people wanting phone and television as well as their internet.
The internet is free and the telcos will find that out whether they like it or not.
Do you know what would really be funny? If all those web companies just straight blacklisted all of those government ip addresses. People seem to forget that the internet is only as useful as the information that you are able to find on it. No search engine support = no website visitors.
Can someone please tell me when congress started caring about DRMing music?? Like Valdrax said this is CLEARLY an act to please campaign contributors, how can it not be. This has to be the most useless waste of time that could ever occur in any government anywhere in the world. In a country with a medical and education system that is so substandard how can congress have nothing better to do than argue about DRMing MP3 streams?!?!?!
This arguement from Miro's estate is just so one sided its sickening. They claim that the Google logo portrayed aspects of Miro's paintings, which it does, but its not like they copied an entire Miro or even the majority of one. All the logo displayed were certain aspects from his paintings...so how do certain aspects belong to anyone. I mean was Miro the first person to paint some fruit??
Just the fact that a copyright case such as this is even being brought about by an artist of all people is the absolute most dispicable thing I have ever heard of. If it werent for artists getting ideas and finding influences from other artists then there would hardly be any art in the world at all. The entire artistic community has been built on modifying other people's concepts since someone decided to put paint on a canvas. All the Google logo was meant to be was a work influenced by the works of Miro, whats wrong with that?
Because if Miro's estate think they can get away with this then they should just pray that Miro wasnt influenced by any other artists (god forbid) whose estates will then come banging down their door demanding money. Seriously I dont think Miro's estate realizes the potential disaster that they are starting...which is effectively a wonderful patent system for the world of art. Hey once an artist can have explicit legal rights over a "style" of art (which is essentially the case that Miro's estate is making) whats to stop another artist from exercising their power over a particular style of art and suing anyone that tries to copy it.
This is absolutely absurd and if Miro's estate was actually concerned about the art they would have just let Google have their harmless Miro-esque logo up for one measly day and be done with it. But now it seems as if they are opening up a whole can of worms that us in the software industry are already too familiar with and most of us wish never existed in the first place. Take it from us, the last thing you want in art is patents...oh god.
The BBC's case would make more sense if they knew anything about how artists make their money. The truth is that music artists have always made more money from their concerts then from their record sales for the simple fact that for concerts artists get paid obscene amounts of money just to show up on top of all the money they gross from such things as merchandise sales. When it comes to record sales artists usually just get a set amount of money per album that is sold and quite often the total revenue they gross from this area is actually quite small, depending on the artist's contract with the record label.
Case in point Britney Spears and the Onyx Hotel Tour. Britney grossed hundreds of millions of dollars from this tour and actually set a record for highest merchandise revenue from a concert tour (no clue if this record still stands but its a pretty good guess that it does). Her album In The Zone which was being promoted by the Onys Hotel tour sold approximately 4-5 million copies to date, and say she was getting $3 per albumn sold (which is absolutely huge in the music industry but possible since she is such a pop icon) that amounts to $12 - 15 million in revenue. I could not find exact numbers for her gross tour revenue but I am certain it is at the very least $100 million. As you can see her album revenue is way smaller than this number, so basically this BBC guy is full of shit.
Personally I am a man of science and I definitely believe in Darwin's theory, I mean how much scientific evidence do they really have to put out there before religious zealots just accept the truth. However I have posed this question to many people who are also dedicated to the realm of science and I have recieved some very interesting answers (sometimes no real answer at all actually).
The big bang and humans evolving from apes..that all happened plain and simple. The question is, with so many naturally occuring phenomena (everything from 2 hydrogens and 1 oxygen = water to gravity) that can be consistently explained through scientific analysis and reasoning...how is it that without some type of intelligent design that science would be able to solve any of these problems in a consistent fashion?
For example, we take it for granted that as planets in a solar system orbit around the largest star due to gravitational pull. But why?? Why is it that planets orbiting a large star undergo gravitational pull towards the star, why couldnt it be the other way around? Because if it was we would not have any galaxies at all because basically everything would repel each other. We take this fact for granted when really all it would have taken is a few twists a few billion years ago and that is concievably what could have happened.
Basically my point is this...if there was no elegant design of the universe then (unless you believe in pure mass coincidence, which I do not) everything would be random. Nothing would be able to be explained on a consistent basis using math and science because there would be no pattern to anything. In order for math and science to explain how our universe works, it relies on patterns of repeating phenomena to prove the various laws that form the basis of scientific belief. I have yet to meet anyone that can accept the fact that everything happened by coincidence and that the many laws that govern our universe just happen to work out. They prove all this with science, but why does the science work?
SEE TELCOS!!!! Even everyday slashdotters can see where this is going WHY CANT YOU?!?!
I agree with mcvos completely. If ISPs are going to start charging Google to get access to me then what the fuck am I paying for?? They do nothing but bitch and whine about Google using their backbone when really it has shit fuck all to do with Google...it has to do with people already using their backbone going to Google and using their site..we go to them not the other way around.
This is just a prime example of a huge cash grab by the telcos...anyone with any half a breain would see that their arguments just dont make sense. Your current customers pay you to get to Google, Google doesnt do anything other than serve people's requests (granted it uses bandwidth provided by the telcos to perform its searches but that is just a cost of doing business in my opinion). So how are you going to justify to your customers the reason why they cant get to their favorite websites. All your customer is going to say is wtf am I paying you for...to get access to the internet...and now Im not getting that access...again wtf am I paying you for?!?! You basically signed me up promising me access to the internet and now that internet is being censored by you for reasons that have nothing to do with me...your customer.
All I can say is that if the telcos do go this way they are going to have one hell of a fight on their hands not only from irate customers such as myself...but from these mega websites. And in this type of game where one industry is threatening the livelihood of another things are bound to get nasty. But at least it is good for these companies such as Google that in a fight like this, the winner will almost always be the side with more money. And I dont think the telcos have enough of it to seriously threaten the livlihood of the potentially the world's first $100 billion company not to mention the other multi billion dollar companies that make their home on the web.
All these massive internet companies will have to do in order to mitigate this risk is band together and start their own ISP. That way not only will they not have to pay to get access to their customers, they will actually make money by customers getting access to them before they have even provided any service from their sites...and in the process destroy this seriously flawed business model the telcos seem to believe will work.
You just really have to wonder who were the brilliant strategists behind this move for the telcos. Surely they have to realize that the above scenario is definitely a possibility considering the fact that they are threatening the economic viability of so many multi million and multi billion dollar web based companies on top of the multi million and multi billion dollar brick and mortar shops who use the web as a sizable compliment to their already existing business model.
Stupid stupid stupid....
Because they wont even be able to get a degree for the following reasons:
;)
1. The cannot get the professor's lectures because they are available only through iTunes
2. The will not be able to write any research papers because they will still be waiting for the
new live.com search page to load and once it does they will not be able to find anything relevant to their research topics.
Btw I actually dont think the new live.com site or the search functionality is that bad....its just not as good as Google
I can see how the US government has the lawful ability to effectively block online gambling sites within the US. However I am not really sure about how they plan to prosecute these online gambling companies in a court of law in the US if they are based in another country. Im sure some countries might bend over for the US and extradite the offending company officials to the US to face prosecution, but I just cant help but think that there are alot of countries out there that would just as soon give the big middle finger to the US instead.
Point being since the only world authority (WTO) has already passed a ruling that went against this new bill then there are effectively no international governing bodies that are willing to enforce this law. What is the US supposed to do, start barging into other countries and telling them to abide by US laws?
Oh wait....this is the US we're talking about here, of course that is what they will do. Oh well on another interesting note, doesnt it seem hypocritical to anyone that the US government can come down so hard on companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo for cooperating with the Chinese government in censoring the internet when this bill shows that they are essentially trying to do the same thing?
The bottom line is, if people want to gamble online they are going to find some way to do it, just like if the Chinese public wanted to "break" Google's filtering scheme or the Great Chinese firewall and see what the rest of the world sees on the web...rest assured they will do it.
Well really it wouldnt take much for a cyber criminal to just use a series of removable hard drives, possibly each encrypted with something else on top of Vista's encryption (if they were really serious 128 bit encryption would be the absolute minimum they would use), and in the event of law enforcement coming to take them down either store the hard drives somewhere or just keep a few microwaves handy to toast them before anyone can get their hands on them.
I mean especially since this news is not exactly a secret Im sure that cyber criminals will think twice before using Vista. Plus really...how many serious cyber criminals would use Windows as their main operating system knowing full well that the Microsoft can so easily be coerced by almost any major government on earth into lending a helping hand in this particular area.
In addition Im sure these criminals are smart enough to see the EASY solution to this problem....USE ANOTHER OS!!!!
The funny thing is that the news companies just cant opt out of it...without making every other person that comes to their site sign up for an account or something similar that would effectively close the news site off to pretty much everyone and everything on the web. Anything that is open content on the web is 100% legal to re-use on another site provided that it is referenced properly.
The news companies cannot win here because they are fighting two different battles with opposing goals: one to protect their online content and one to preserve its already shrinking customer base, and it seems that in this case they just will not be able to win one without losing the other.
I cant believe with all of the seemingly intelligent minds here that people still seem to think that the Western way is the 'right' way. Dont get me wrong, I do not approve of censorship in any way shape or form, but that is entirely based on my values being brought up in a Western society. This is just another example of people trying to impose their beliefs on another society because we think we know better. I great example of this could be seen in the way the Chinese culture goes to the bathroom. We think its right that people should wipe with toilet paper but when you look at it from their perspective its absolutely disgusting. Using paper to smear it all around and make even a bigger mess just doesnt make sense to them and when you think about it really isnt the most efficient way to clean yourself.
You just cant try to impose Western beliefs on a population that has never really known anything different than what they are currently living under....can anyone say Vietnam?
When looking at China, you have to realize that this country has been run this way for longer than most people reading this have been alive. You cant just turn the communism switch off and expect everything to be hunky dory. People should view Google stepping into China as quite possibly one of the most important things that could happen if the people of China are expected to one day change the way their country is governed. I think we are already seeing a step in this direction with the fall of the red curtain and the opening up of China's economy to the rest of the world. The seed for change has been planted.
Information is power and right now the Chinese people have a lack of information. So would anyone please care to tell me who better to provide them with this information than Google?? I mean their slogan is "Don't be evil" (and they by far have the best utilities to provide the people of China with the information that they are sorely lacking) so what makes you think that they are going to all of a sudden start being evil? They cant do a damn thing to help the people of China if they dont get in there somehow.
But I dont understand if so many people have such a high opinion of Google then why do you think that they are going to walk into China and turn into Microsoft? And that is another thing...would China really be better off with ONLY influences from American corporations such as Microsoft and Yahoo, corporations that are definitely only their for monetary gain...I think not. This is the start of change and one day all you people bashing Google for their decision will be praising them as a corporation that stepped into China and instead of just exploiting the new marketplace actually tried to do something for its people. ;)
And you just KNOW that Google's filtering wont catch everything...by mistake of course
I have to agree with the majority here and say that there is no way the space shuttle can have a disasterous effect on the earth's environment strictly though its emissions.
However one should definitely be concerned with the amount of pollution in the form of space junk that we are putting into orbit. It is quite possible that in the foreseeable future the amount of space junk in our orbit could be so bad that we wont even be able to get off our own planet without hitting something, let alone to boldly go where no man has gone before.