What is more evil than evil? It goes by the name of the UN!
My comment was actually a joke on the premise that the UN never agrees on anything. I'll agree that the UN is slow and not always optimal, but the UN have also done much good. And we would be worse off without it.
They will all agree on national content filtering and make it treating binding for the rest of us.
Maybe, but I find it hard to imagine that the EU can agree with Iran and China about censorship. Iran and China will continue with their censorship, whatever the UN does. But I seriously doubt the EU will agree to that signalling their approval.
I can't say what US politicians will do. But I'm confident that my representatives would go very far to ensure that they do not signal the approval of Chinese censorship. So if the UN agrees on anything it's more likely that they agree freedom of speech.
People will usually pay you to take their trash:)
No municipality wants a landfill in the neighbourhood, transport by sea is usually cheap.
How is this "green"?
Compared to dumping stuff on landfills this is very much green. Bad stuff doesn't leak into the ground water, and the emissions are filtered pretty good.
I trust the Swedes to do a good job at filtering the emissions.
I don't think it's just a negotiation strategy. There is no stopping Windows App Store or Mac OS X App Store, they are going to happen, and they are going to be the future for application deployment on Windows and OS X, respectively. So for Valve to try and make Linux a viable platform makes a lot of sense.
In the long-term they will be better suited for fixes bugs and providing better hardware support.
So, the question becomes: How do we protect ourselves from these people to make sure nobody gets control, including our service providers, who can at ant moment cut us off completely?
Give it to the UN, they'll never agree on anything, nothing will change and the internet remains free:)
Sure, you are partly right, that building a new app-store isn't something you'll be sued over... Well, atleast untill you're reasonably successful, then you're sure to get sued. Just, look at what happened to Samsung.
That's said I really doubt that patenting an idea will help you.
In the software industry, patents are for troll and companies with money enough to waste it on self-defence. The industry is moving so fast that first-to-market with a new technology is enough. Beside if anybody violates you patent and manages to get more customers, the courts will never be able to compensate you sufficiently.
I recently heard from a medical software start-up that patents and by implication VC capital was necessary, in their niche area. But he bluntly admitted that he didn't think he had a chance at enforcing the patent anyway. It was just to lure investors on-board.
Out side the medical industry, patents have no value... Even if I had a patent for something Facebook did, by the time I won the case against Facebook, they would have grown so big that it wouldn't matter to them, and my compensation would be insignificant anyway. Which, is fair because FB probably didn't only succeed because of ideas they stole from others, but for a long reason of things, including luck.
The only place in the software industry where I think patents could be valid, is when the company has the option to keep it's competitive advantage as a trade secret, instead of filling a patent. But in most cases, device designs, user interface ideas and any algorithm that runs on the client this doesn't make sense.
For instance it might be worthwhile to award google a patent on their search algorithm, in exchange for having it publicly disclosed.
(I think these cases are rare, and ought to be the exception).
IMO, patents should serve to help disclosure instead of trade secrets, to serve society, not greedy individuals.
If ignorance is your defense, you will spend your life as a victim.
True, I'm a victim of greedy banks... I'm a victim of targeted ads... Like it or not we're all victims on shady business practices. Paypals evil EULA, etc...
So choose your battles and fight those worthy of your time. If you decide to fight every new EULA before it's a problem to you, you'll have nothing else to do.
So ignore EULAs, user agreements, because at the end of the day, courts will likely find that it's unreasonable to expect anything but ignorance from you. So EULAs and bad privacy policies are void.
Just because the EULA says so, doesn't mean the courts agree. I for one is pretty confident that the courts in my country will aprox... 5 min to rule that the user cannot be expected to understand or even read the EULA, and that agreement-by-click is in anyway binding.
So let them write what they want... If you have sane laws and court system, it'll bite them in the ass, as the courts will probably find the entire EULA invalid, due to a single section...
In a world a complicated as it is today Ignorance is a defence.
When it comes to online banking or credit card security, ignorance is my only defence. The system are closed, I can verify anything, and even if I could the systems are so overly complicated that it would take me weeks.
Ignorance is a defence, and when you fail to live up to your users expectations, it's a security break or fraud (if intentional). And that's regardless of what legal bullshit the users agreed to.
Sure, courts aren't always good at acknowledging this. But outside the US it actually happens...
Seriously, I think conferences and journals are overrated unless you're really into the theoretical computer science. These places are old fashion, proof-reading and formal correctness is important here. Also these places often require copyright assignment to greedy publishers, who will put your work behind a pay-wall.
To be fair though, I doubt that it's a matter of whether or not there's a professor name next to you. There's a lot of counter measures for discrimination, so maybe it's just that your writing does "comparatively suck".
Anyways, If you want to communicate interesting things, blog about it. Most real world developers don't have access to the journals anyway. A very few people will pay 50$ for a paper based on a poorly written abstract. So if you do want to publish, make sure your publication is worth the 50$ it'll be sold for.
- Don't worry, you wont get the money though:)
My guess is, that the effects of the recent economic downturn has yet to be realised - it's been kicked down the road by the creation of trillions of dollars and increased debt to offset its effect
Seriously, don't worry about debt, it's all hype, nothing to worry about... When wheels start spinning again, and you're not paying for two wars, that debt will be gone in no time...
Keep in mind that interest rates are so low, that take loans and investing it in education, research, infrastructure, etc. is very likely to pay of, big time. With a much bigger interest than you're charged for borrowing the money (which is practically free today).
Anyways, just my two cents... Keep in mind that when the state invests in people, that pays off because people pays taxes. And not bank can offer the same kind of investment.
I'm wondering why fracking needs defending the first place... Let's just agree that if it had been named horizontal drilling, nobody would have considered it a threat:)
this is still considered a great job in China where there are waiting lists just to apply, there is still some way to go until US workers are competitive to their Chinese counterparts.
[Citation Needed]
And you should probably find a source from 2012.
If drug development was socialized, what incentive would exist to develop any?
Greater good?
Let's face it, researchers today are not stakeholders (ie. shareholders/owners) of the companies they work for anyway. Developing drugs is complicated and high risk. The individual researches don't work towards success for financial reasons. They get paid regardless of their success, because drug development is so risky, that if they didn't get paid for discovering that something didn't work, they would most likely starve:)
But, yes, to only have publicly funded drug development is not the solution, the private sector is really good a spotting needs and research that can easily be turned into profit.
However, the private sector is not good a basic research, and don't publish results (negative or partially positive) for the greater good of mankind.
We're not replacing light bulbs with LEDs, we're replacing them with energy efficient light bulbs, not bleeding edge almost works technology (ie. LEDs).
The math on energy efficient light bulbs have shown them 10$ cheaper per year. But I suppose proper energy taxes might also have an influence of peoples desire to save power.
I'm sure the president have studied things:) So I assume you're trying to say that you disagree with him on the points you refer to as "textbooks".
Economics
Say what you want about the bank bailouts, but they did stop the crisis from becoming a depression.
History
Foreign Policy
The US Constitution
Those are listed because? Okay, I suppose he does continue the Bush era policy of murdering people in foreign countries (ie. drone attacks), and imprisoning people without proper trial (guantanamo).
You can try to legalize this, say the constitution, human rights, Geneva convention doesn't apply. And sure it's practical solution. But never in history have it been good foreign policy, and no matter how you phrase it, it's certainly against the spirit in which the constitution was written.
A nonprofit mutual insurance company is an option.
Wow, you guys really don't have that? (I would have expected that) As a European I have my country (which runs the hospitals and keeps cost down), and if I want even more healthcare insurance, dental, glasses, contacts, different styles of pseudo-scientific treatments not proven scientifically valid, we have self-owning non-profit organizations offering decent insurance plans.
Anyways, I don't think that's enough. My government recently experimented with private hospitals, off-loading patients on waiting list to private hospitals. Result was very expensive, enough said.
So you probably need to seize control of the hospitals, run them at state-level and make a federal law which mandates that states must provide healthcare proving scientifically valid (and within a reasonable cost). Then let the private sector do all the pseudo scientific treatments and offer insurance for these.
If you buy a phone with a subscription/contract, the yes, but if you buy one without a subscription/contract it's typically unlocked. At least that's the case in Denmark, where I've never had any problems buying an unlocked phone.
Honestly, getting people to code, even shitty code, and let everything crash and burn once in a while is not necessarily a bad strategy:)
If you want a consultant to setup a database and interface for managing something non-essential but time consuming, that'll cost you big bucks (even it's off-the-shelf software).
Don't compare Libya to CIA activities in Afghanistan. NATO didn't arm the rebels and there was a UN mandate! Need I remind you that French planes were the first to deploy in Libya. For once the US wasn't playing a leading role.
So yes, the US apparently learned from the Afghanistan. But nothing you do or learn can protect you from an angry fanatic with a rocket launcher.
That's what happens when you let people own weapons.
What generally happens when we trade with other countries (ie. no protectionism) is that other countries become more wealthy. This, means less poverty and other unpleasent things, I think that's good.
Also keep in mind that just because the chinees comes out of poverty and gets a decent living standart, doesn't mean that you go poor.
In fact most likely, the chineese will start bying products from the US.
Anyways, I think history indicate that trade is good for everybody and strongly encourages peace.
I do, because I still run my own, as plenty of power-users do. Of course, the masses never ran their own e-mail servers, even before webmail, they just used POP3 or IMAP.
I don't. Google Apps is free for 50 users, almost never goes down, configures itself automatically and does a better job of protecting my data than I could.
True, so true, there's no way you could configure a mail server better than gmail;)
Okay, joke aside, being a slashdot reader you probably could:) But to get the same level of availability and redundancy one would have to spend many hours configuring and setting up servers all over the world.
Slashdot Mirror
What is more evil than evil? It goes by the name of the UN!
My comment was actually a joke on the premise that the UN never agrees on anything. I'll agree that the UN is slow and not always optimal, but the UN have also done much good. And we would be worse off without it.
They will all agree on national content filtering and make it treating binding for the rest of us.
Maybe, but I find it hard to imagine that the EU can agree with Iran and China about censorship. Iran and China will continue with their censorship, whatever the UN does. But I seriously doubt the EU will agree to that signalling their approval.
I can't say what US politicians will do. But I'm confident that my representatives would go very far to ensure that they do not signal the approval of Chinese censorship. So if the UN agrees on anything it's more likely that they agree freedom of speech.
Surely the transport costs alone....
People will usually pay you to take their trash :)
No municipality wants a landfill in the neighbourhood, transport by sea is usually cheap.
How is this "green"?
Compared to dumping stuff on landfills this is very much green. Bad stuff doesn't leak into the ground water, and the emissions are filtered pretty good.
I trust the Swedes to do a good job at filtering the emissions.
I don't think it's just a negotiation strategy. There is no stopping Windows App Store or Mac OS X App Store, they are going to happen, and they are going to be the future for application deployment on Windows and OS X, respectively. So for Valve to try and make Linux a viable platform makes a lot of sense.
In the long-term they will be better suited for fixes bugs and providing better hardware support.
So, the question becomes: How do we protect ourselves from these people to make sure nobody gets control, including our service providers, who can at ant moment cut us off completely?
Give it to the UN, they'll never agree on anything, nothing will change and the internet remains free :)
Sure, you are partly right, that building a new app-store isn't something you'll be sued over... Well, atleast untill you're reasonably successful, then you're sure to get sued. Just, look at what happened to Samsung.
That's said I really doubt that patenting an idea will help you.
In the software industry, patents are for troll and companies with money enough to waste it on self-defence. The industry is moving so fast that first-to-market with a new technology is enough. Beside if anybody violates you patent and manages to get more customers, the courts will never be able to compensate you sufficiently.
I recently heard from a medical software start-up that patents and by implication VC capital was necessary, in their niche area. But he bluntly admitted that he didn't think he had a chance at enforcing the patent anyway. It was just to lure investors on-board.
Out side the medical industry, patents have no value... Even if I had a patent for something Facebook did, by the time I won the case against Facebook, they would have grown so big that it wouldn't matter to them, and my compensation would be insignificant anyway. Which, is fair because FB probably didn't only succeed because of ideas they stole from others, but for a long reason of things, including luck.
The only place in the software industry where I think patents could be valid, is when the company has the option to keep it's competitive advantage as a trade secret, instead of filling a patent. But in most cases, device designs, user interface ideas and any algorithm that runs on the client this doesn't make sense.
For instance it might be worthwhile to award google a patent on their search algorithm, in exchange for having it publicly disclosed.
(I think these cases are rare, and ought to be the exception).
IMO, patents should serve to help disclosure instead of trade secrets, to serve society, not greedy individuals.
If ignorance is your defense, you will spend your life as a victim.
True, I'm a victim of greedy banks... I'm a victim of targeted ads... Like it or not we're all victims on shady business practices. Paypals evil EULA, etc...
So choose your battles and fight those worthy of your time. If you decide to fight every new EULA before it's a problem to you, you'll have nothing else to do.
So ignore EULAs, user agreements, because at the end of the day, courts will likely find that it's unreasonable to expect anything but ignorance from you. So EULAs and bad privacy policies are void.
Just because the EULA says so, doesn't mean the courts agree.
I for one is pretty confident that the courts in my country will aprox... 5 min to rule that the user cannot be expected to understand or even read the EULA, and that agreement-by-click is in anyway binding.
So let them write what they want... If you have sane laws and court system, it'll bite them in the ass, as the courts will probably find the entire EULA invalid, due to a single section...
In a world a complicated as it is today Ignorance is a defence.
When it comes to online banking or credit card security, ignorance is my only defence. The system are closed, I can verify anything, and even if I could the systems are so overly complicated that it would take me weeks.
Ignorance is a defence, and when you fail to live up to your users expectations, it's a security break or fraud (if intentional). And that's regardless of what legal bullshit the users agreed to.
Sure, courts aren't always good at acknowledging this. But outside the US it actually happens...
Seriously, I think conferences and journals are overrated unless you're really into the theoretical computer science. These places are old fashion, proof-reading and formal correctness is important here. Also these places often require copyright assignment to greedy publishers, who will put your work behind a pay-wall.
:)
To be fair though, I doubt that it's a matter of whether or not there's a professor name next to you. There's a lot of counter measures for discrimination, so maybe it's just that your writing does "comparatively suck".
Anyways, If you want to communicate interesting things, blog about it. Most real world developers don't have access to the journals anyway. A very few people will pay 50$ for a paper based on a poorly written abstract. So if you do want to publish, make sure your publication is worth the 50$ it'll be sold for.
- Don't worry, you wont get the money though
My guess is, that the effects of the recent economic downturn has yet to be realised - it's been kicked down the road by the creation of trillions of dollars and increased debt to offset its effect
Seriously, don't worry about debt, it's all hype, nothing to worry about... When wheels start spinning again, and you're not paying for two wars, that debt will be gone in no time...
Keep in mind that interest rates are so low, that take loans and investing it in education, research, infrastructure, etc. is very likely to pay of, big time. With a much bigger interest than you're charged for borrowing the money (which is practically free today).
Anyways, just my two cents... Keep in mind that when the state invests in people, that pays off because people pays taxes. And not bank can offer the same kind of investment.
Putting proper labels on the box that informs you of the 3 year prison time you'll for trying to take down an airplane would probably do the trick.
I'm not defending fracking
I'm wondering why fracking needs defending the first place... Let's just agree that if it had been named horizontal drilling, nobody would have considered it a threat :)
Is there a chance I'm right about this?
Klout scores have real-world consequences, with people deemed influential getting discounts on concert tickets or free access to airport VIP lounges
Wow, that's some really horrible real-world consequences... Can we move along...
this is still considered a great job in China where there are waiting lists just to apply, there is still some way to go until US workers are competitive to their Chinese counterparts.
[Citation Needed]
And you should probably find a source from 2012.
If drug development was socialized, what incentive would exist to develop any?
Greater good? :)
Let's face it, researchers today are not stakeholders (ie. shareholders/owners) of the companies they work for anyway. Developing drugs is complicated and high risk. The individual researches don't work towards success for financial reasons. They get paid regardless of their success, because drug development is so risky, that if they didn't get paid for discovering that something didn't work, they would most likely starve
But, yes, to only have publicly funded drug development is not the solution, the private sector is really good a spotting needs and research that can easily be turned into profit.
However, the private sector is not good a basic research, and don't publish results (negative or partially positive) for the greater good of mankind.
We're not replacing light bulbs with LEDs, we're replacing them with energy efficient light bulbs, not bleeding edge almost works technology (ie. LEDs).
The math on energy efficient light bulbs have shown them 10$ cheaper per year. But I suppose proper energy taxes might also have an influence of peoples desire to save power.
$23 is dinner for a week if you're poor. It's only a light bulb if you're rich.
In the EU we solve this problem by giving the poor people money, you'ld be surpised at how efficiently this technique eradicates poverty :)
So I assume you're trying to say that you disagree with him on the points you refer to as "textbooks".
Economics
Say what you want about the bank bailouts, but they did stop the crisis from becoming a depression.
History
Foreign Policy
The US Constitution
Those are listed because? Okay, I suppose he does continue the Bush era policy of murdering people in foreign countries (ie. drone attacks), and imprisoning people without proper trial (guantanamo).
You can try to legalize this, say the constitution, human rights, Geneva convention doesn't apply. And sure it's practical solution. But never in history have it been good foreign policy, and no matter how you phrase it, it's certainly against the spirit in which the constitution was written.
A nonprofit mutual insurance company is an option.
Wow, you guys really don't have that? (I would have expected that)
As a European I have my country (which runs the hospitals and keeps cost down), and if I want even more healthcare insurance, dental, glasses, contacts, different styles of pseudo-scientific treatments not proven scientifically valid, we have self-owning non-profit organizations offering decent insurance plans.
Anyways, I don't think that's enough. My government recently experimented with private hospitals, off-loading patients on waiting list to private hospitals. Result was very expensive, enough said.
So you probably need to seize control of the hospitals, run them at state-level and make a federal law which mandates that states must provide healthcare proving scientifically valid (and within a reasonable cost). Then let the private sector do all the pseudo scientific treatments and offer insurance for these.
If you buy a phone with a subscription/contract, the yes, but if you buy one without a subscription/contract it's typically unlocked. At least that's the case in Denmark, where I've never had any problems buying an unlocked phone.
Honestly, getting people to code, even shitty code, and let everything crash and burn once in a while is not necessarily a bad strategy :)
If you want a consultant to setup a database and interface for managing something non-essential but time consuming, that'll cost you big bucks (even it's off-the-shelf software).
Don't compare Libya to CIA activities in Afghanistan. NATO didn't arm the rebels and there was a UN mandate! Need I remind you that French planes were the first to deploy in Libya. For once the US wasn't playing a leading role.
So yes, the US apparently learned from the Afghanistan. But nothing you do or learn can protect you from an angry fanatic with a rocket launcher.
That's what happens when you let people own weapons.
There's a big difference there.
The grammar error? :)
What generally happens when we trade with other countries (ie. no protectionism) is that other countries become more wealthy. This, means less poverty and other unpleasent things, I think that's good.
Also keep in mind that just because the chinees comes out of poverty and gets a decent living standart, doesn't mean that you go poor.
In fact most likely, the chineese will start bying products from the US.
Anyways, I think history indicate that trade is good for everybody and strongly encourages peace.
I do, because I still run my own, as plenty of power-users do. Of course, the masses never ran their own e-mail servers, even before webmail, they just used POP3 or IMAP.
I don't. Google Apps is free for 50 users, almost never goes down, configures itself automatically and does a better job of protecting my data than I could.
True, so true, there's no way you could configure a mail server better than gmail ;) :) But to get the same level of availability and redundancy one would have to spend many hours configuring and setting up servers all over the world.
Okay, joke aside, being a slashdot reader you probably could