Most of the well known languages, if not all, have proven themselves as enterprise ready, because they are used in enterprise level applications. These languages can be used efficiently and cleanly, and applications can be built with them that are scalable, portable, maintainable, ect.
There is no "best" language. Everyone will come up with valid arguements to support their personal preference. This is like argueing whats better, a Lambourhini Diablo or a Ferrari F50. The dragsters will tell you the F50 because it has faster acceleration, the racers will tell you the Diablo because it is faster. So which one is the better car?
This question is a failure. It has been asked so many times and there never has been a clear answer, though I'm sure many will respond to this with a "THERE IS A CLEAR ANSWER YOU IDIOT, USE [insert language here] BECAUSE [insert reasons here]". Meh...
ANY MOVE THAT INFRINGES UPON CANADIAN SOVERIEGNTY SHOULD BE MET WITH THE GREATEST OF FORCE AGAINST THE DANES.
THE DANISH GOVERNMENT HAS ATTEMPTED (without success) TO INVADE CANADA A TOTAL OF THREE TIMES IN THE PAST 15 YEARS. It is bad enough that true and proud Canadian culture is being ENCROACHED UPON by less than tasteful americanism, but to be invaded by WARSHIPS is UNACCEPTABLE.
Here are somethings that we can do to protest the Danish government and it's hostile actions:
- Rename danishes to Artic Freedom Delights and boycott resturants like Tim Hortons if they do not abide.
- Burn Hans Christian Anderson books
- If you haven't already, boycott Metallica, which you should be doing anyways because of their unwaivering support of the RIAA.
- Fight against danish lies. It was an ITALIAN who discovered electromagnetism. But Danish propaganda fooled most of the world.
- Declare PHP a Canadian invention. The Danish Government doesn't want you to know this, but Mr. Lerdorf WAS A CANADIAN CITIZEN.
These are all peaceful political protests, but we Canadians should be ready to face the reality of the situation. After all, the danes did try to invade Canada at least three times. We still have to explore all diplomatic possibilities, but if you are a proud Canadian, when the time comes, you will take up arms to defend the Great North from the invaders. This is the Cold War of the 21st Century. CANADIAN INTERESTS AND SOVEREIGNTY MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS.
I would think that this is blatantly illegal. Telus is clearly blocking the website as part of its fight, not because the site contains "confidential" or "proprietary" information. If it did, then Telus should've sought a court injunction to stop the union from posting such information, and most likely the court would've agreed. Now I couldn't find much of anything on the website to substantiate the claims telus made in the article, but if it is there than the union is definately in the wrong as well.
This is just another battle between corporations and unions that has the customers/clients caught in the crossfire. And corporations of course don't make it any easier, by giving their chiefs 50 to 200% salary raises, while employees get none. And of course, unions don't make it any easier because they have no choice these days but to resort to pressure tactics which disgruntles customers.
I already pointed out an example. No reason why it can't be repeated. Also, there is no reason why communism can't exist with democracy, and there is no reason why it can't exist with a multilevel government, like Canada's two tier system or America's three branch system.
Communism does not have to be oppressive. Just because the government owns the economy, does not make it oppressive. It's things like denying socalled basic freedoms that western society enjoys that are oppressive. It just so happens that communism was practiced by oppressive regimes, such as Cuba and North Korea and China. However, there were examples to the contrary. Lenin was not oppressive, Stalin was mind you. Another shining example of communism was Yugoslavia. You know why Yugoslavia failed? It wasn't due to a collapse in the political structure, it was due to ethnic differences, especially after Tito died.
Yugoslavia is a good case for communism and its effectiveness.
As well, direct democracy with more concerns for protecting the minority would fail, because nothing in the government would get done. Democracy needs a limit, and democractic governments have to make decisions not everyone is going to agree with. Imagine if Canada, with four major political parties, had to cater to the needs of EACH of those four parties? It would be ridiculous. Instead, the four parties vote on specific bills collectively, and thats it, done.
now the hatred for corporations is not unfounded. Numerous times we see no real desire from corporations to actually better the world, and frankly, there are certain corporations which should just not exist, because all they do is harm. Tobacco is a good example. If you want corporate freedom, remove tobacco laws, since that hinders the ability of a corporation to gain more power. And what about McDonalds? They are CLEARLY harming the public with their food. Of course, blame the public right? Guns aren't to blame, people who use them are type of arguement. That fails miserably, because McDonalds goes out of its way to get people to eat its obviously unhealthy food.
You talk about whats beyond capatalism? Lets talk about corporate accountability. Lets talk about gauging how corporate activities can devastate society. Can corporations provide benefits to society as well? Oh they can, but corporate social services should be managed and provided by governments, not corporations.
So next time a corporation is caught polluting, instead of fining it pocket change, threaten to fine it for a substantial amount of money AND offer alternatives. Give them time to create alternatives. There is one aspect of corporate accountability.
Corporations were created to be government entities, just like people. And as such, are afforded the same rights as people. But they should also be facing the exact same penalties as people, even more so, because they have a far greater responsibility to maintain the societies they inhabit.
I've been reading the comments to this article and I've seen a lot of US vs. , tin foil hattery, people for the patriot act, people against it.
The Patriot Act, and Canada's similar (but no where near as bad) Security Certificate Programme, give law enforcement officials the ability to imprision people indefinately without charge or proof or anything of the sort, so long as the government has deemed them a threat to national security.
There has been very few reported cases of these measures ever being used though. So it makes me wonder if the people who were indeed arrested are actuall threats. There are reasons why intelligence communities won't divulge any information. Even the slightest leak could be potentially dangerous and undermine a sensitive operation.
Now, a lot of people are saying that these new measures can be used against any anti government body, whether it be a terrorist, or just someone who is on the other side of the political spectrum. This idea is flawed. It's important to have the opposing political side. It is a risk to have it, but the gamble can pay out if you convince people that the other side is just stupid. We all see the left vs. right debates. The two sides NEED each other for power. They need to be able to show that they are better than the alternative. It's the way they control the mob.
So using the patriot act or anything else of the sort to eliminate opponents just wouldn't work out.
I still question certain government motives however. It's quite clear that north american governments are heavily influenced by corporations . The US turns a blind eye to the economy, Canada subsidizes bombardier and nortel and air canada with billions instead of investing into social programmes. The abuse of the freedom revoking laws would probally stem from such influences, and that worries me the most. Remember when the RIAA wanted to throw in anti piracy nonsense into the Patriot Act? It failed, but it's not the end.
If anything, it's corporate influence that has done more to revoke freedoms than terrorism....
Americans desperately need this do not call list, not so much for the convience, but for their OWN PROTECTION.
When I was younger, I used to do a lot of telemarketing. 90% of all telemarketing companies in Canada sell to the US and there is a VERY GOOD REASON FOR IT. Americans are naive.
Mod this as a troll, flame me, I don't care. 3 years of selling the DUMBEST THINGS to americans have taught me something.
The thing I sold the most of were packages that contained a list of banks that could potentially offer a low interest rate credit card to the person I was selling the list to. The package was always priced between $350 and $450. No one was pre approved. It was just a list of 10 banks. It was up to the "customer" to buy it. There were at least 100 companies across Canada selling this to americans. None of these companies sold this "product" to anywhere else in the world, other than america.
I dialed 1000 numbers a week. 75% of the numbers had no one picking up. That means I spoke to 250 people. Out of those 250 people, I was averaging 15 sales a week.
Thats a lot, for a grossly over priced list of 10 non pre approved banks. Of course, it was completely legitimate, and I was making $2500/wk at the age of 16.
15 sales a week? pfft nothing right? Try at least 50,000 kids who can't speak french in Montreal looking for jobs that only require english. Now we're looking at 750,000 sales a week. This is why America absolutely needs the strictest possible do not call programme. It's for their own good, and damn anyone who disagrees.
#1) Goatse #2) Hamsterdance #3) All Your Base are Belong To Us #4) Mahir #5) The 12 year old boy looking for love #6) Your the Man Now Dogg #7) Tubgirl #8) Hot or Not AND EVERY SINGLE SPINOFF #9) Every single flash animation that made you stare at something for 30 seconds before unleashing a short burst of hell to scare you #10) The forum post that linked infinitately to other forum posts.
Now thats a real list.
Re:PCs will always rule the FPS and RTS markets
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Review: Battlefield 2
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· Score: 1
See, Doom is available on the Console, but it sucks. It's not playable. Nor is any other FPS.
When consoles start having the same peripherals as computers, specifically a keyboard and mouse, then what is the point of the console market? You will now have systems nearly identical to a small form factor PC.
As for who needs mods? Thats a pretty weak question. Mods don't keep the game they are built on alive, they keep the engine alive. They also provide fresh new ideas. Who cares of SOCOM is released on time every year? What if I want to play a good fantasy game? Well ok I'll turn to a mod for HL2.
This is very important because as you point out, gamers have to wait five years for HL2. But then LOOK at HL2. It's such an incredible game that blows any console FPS out of the water.
As well, being able to create your own maps, thats almost needed. I don't see how feasible it is to use a keyboard and mouse to operate a 3D editor to make your own maps.
By the time consoles reach the level of PCs, they will be PCs.
You can not play FPS or RTS games on consoles, period. GoldenEye sucked, Halo2 sucked, even GTA sucked on console, and thats a TPS. These games are made for upclose to your monitor gaming, with a keyboard and mouse for quick and complex movements and weapon switching.
Consoles on the otherhand will always reign supreme when it comes to sports games, racing games, and platform fighting games. This has been their market, this will remain their market.
What is the worst that can happen when Steam calls home? It sends over your ip address, your email you used for steam, and your password.
OH MY FUCKING GOD THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO KIIL ME NOW.
Give me a break. That is not a violation of privacy in any way whatsoever. It is not obstrusive, and will almost likely never be used against you except to cancel your steam account for doing something stupid with it.
With this type of thinking, I'm surprised privacy nazis don't just lead a campaign against the internet. IRC servers record ip addresses. Websites do it. FTP servers can do it.
Perhaps privacy nazis can fight for a law to be passes that states that ISPs can not in any way collect any personal information from you. That way, you can pirate your internet connection and not pay for it.
stfu
It would be a much more pleasant discussion. It would also certaintly set a huge precedent, not just for slashdot but for the entire internet community as a whole.
A pleasent discussion about something a software company released? It seems almost impossible! Perhaps it's something we should try just to say "WE DID THE IMPOSSIBLE!"
Steam, or EA? The decision is *cough* obvious
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EA To Publish for Valve
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Thats the message I'm getting here. People hate steam because it prevents them from what exactly?
Oh right, being able to properly pirate a game and show Valve they don't give a shit.
HL2 by anyone's standards is a high calibre game. Even if you don't like FPS, there is no question about it. The attention to detail and the sheer power of the Source engine are mind blowing. Of course, these things take time and money to develope. I for one am grateful that Steam exists. It's so much better than any other possible method of protecting Valve's IP. For starters, it didn't require any hardware changes. It doesn't require an internet connection. It doesn't require a dongle. It doesn't really require anything at all.
For those who obviously don't know, Steam can and will work in an Offline mode. It will allow you to play HL2 single player, single player mods, and allows you to work on your mods and maps with the Source SDK. Don't tell me it doesn't, because it does. I lost internet for two weeks and the only thing that prevented me from committing mass murder and subsequently suicide was still being able to work on my Source mod, and still being able to play HL2 to see how Valve did certain effects.
I can not figure out for the life of me why some people are just so paranoid about steam calling home. It is a reasonable measure taken to protect valve's prized work and to ensure that there is a steady cash flow to Valve so that they can outdo themselves, again. Luckily, I do not have to look forward to idiotic DRM concepts that are not consumer friendly. I don't need a dongle, I don't need special hardware, I don't even need a CD. I don't even need to visit a store. And most importantly, I do not need to give EA money.
There seems to be a great deal of ungratefulness for this ease of use with Steam. It's almost like the mere mention of a company that wants to protect its works is now branded evil, even when they do it the easiest way possible. And naturally, all hatred and complaints come with absolutely no suggestion for an alternative.
There is another huge advantage to Steam that many people have overlooked. It allows Valve to implement very strict anti cheating measures. If you cheat, your copy of HL2 becomes INVALID and there is nothing you can do about it. I applaud this measure. It's impossible to fake your cd key with steam, so the arguement that "well, someone else did it" fails because that is solely your responsibility. And even if you are busted for cheating, you can STILL login to Steam, and STILL play online, just on insecure servers that don't implement VAC, which is more generous than I would've been. CS 1.5 was plagued by hackers, and there was little Valve could do about it. Now they much more control over it.
So all in all, the complaints about steam are unfounded, illogical, and demonstrates a great deal of ignorance and unfounded paranoia by the people who are against it.
Free legal and very good music is not hard to find
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Band Invites Music Copying
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· Score: 2, Informative
The demoscene, a collection of artistist nerds making cool little animations, spawned something of great importance: the netlabel scene.
Now I'm not sure if the demoscene is as large as it was when I was a part of it (future crew days), the netlabels are bursting at the seams and there is A LOT of high quality music in many different genres available. Several promiment artists have their roots in the netlabel scene when trackers were still #1 (Fast Tracker, Scream Tracker, Impulse Tracker), but now adays, while trackers are still in use (Buzz, MPT, Renoise), there are a lot of home studios and garage bands releasing music through netlabels as mp3s and oggs.
These netlabels are starting to be taken a lot more seriously these days, and has even attracted corporate attention. Mercedez Benz's "Soundtrack of the Autobahn" contained several prominent netlabel artists.
While 90% of the music available is electronic in nature, there are still some artists (including myself) that are hitting up other genres. It's just a matter of looking. Some of these artists go on tours, and in some cases, the netlabel itself sponsors their artists for tours.
So for people who want to seek non corporate tainted music, the netlabel scene is where to look.
Someone refresh my memory on something. I read or watched something a while ago discussing how to get fuel for hydrogen engines.
Someone somewhere offered methane as a source of fuel. And the methane would come from algae's "resperatory system" while they fed on sewege and breaking it down. I remeber there being a lot of happiness over this as it solved two problems.
your critisisms are invalid because they don't critize the points I made. Reading a few words and assuming the rest is not a good means of bring critical. Thus, you are a troll, and a foolish one at that.
I said something about IRC. I used it as an example. Of course, you don't read so you wouldn't know. You just want to troll.
These were not your words? "Another good idea about this is that in order to become a citizen of the internet, you'd have to pass a skill testing exam."
Yes, in order to become a citizen, in otherwords, have certain rights and privileges that simple tourists (who do not need to be tested) would have, including eligibility to vote on decicions that affect the internet as a whole. But again, you don't read what I say so why bother replying? Oh wait, thats right, TO TROLL.
Who is going to force them? It would have to be national legislatures, and if you seriously think the US Congress, for example, is going to force the major US telecom companies to divest themselves of their assets, you are deluded.
Wierder things have happened before. It just takes the right minds and the right leaders to get the job done.
I simply fail to see how putting an ineffectual organization like the UN in charge of the Internet (whatever that means) can, in any way, be seen to be "progress".
I simply fail to see how this has anything to do with what I suggested. Instead of commenting on things you don't read, just shut up. It makes life easier that way.
repeat after me, IRC is not WWW. Infact, the two have nothing to do with each other.
the concept of having an "internet license" is not far fetched. Also, did I say "make a test before someone goes online"? no, I did not. I suggest you reread what I wrote before making stupid comments.
the idea of corporations giving up their control is far fetched, but not impossible, and they could be forced to do it.
You are just close minded, people like you hinder progress.
Perhaps this is a but of a futurist idea, but why can't the internet have its own government?
I mean think about it, a lot of the online community can be divided into two groups, locals and tourists. The locals have their own culture of sorts that transcends borders. The locals gather into almost self governing communities (slashdot, fark, SA forums, IRC channels) where ideas and information is shared that could better the community, or the over all internet country.
Root servers world wide could be moved into embassies for the internet and thus protected from the laws of their respective countries and be the only physical locations of this new country. Businesses that operate solely on the internet wouldn't pay taxes to the internet since thats what paying for an internet connection does.
Every local on the internet would have dual citizenship of course.
Now, this wouldn't be feasible because of infrastructure I think. Major corporations owning the actuall wires that delivery packets from point a to point b and so forth. But why couldn't that be replaced with a solely wireless network? Either that, or the infrastructure becomes property of the internet country.
Another good idea about this is that in order to become a citizen of the internet, you'd have to pass a skill testing exam. Nothing too complex, but something that would at least judge your ability to protect yourself againt most forms of maliciousness that exist on the internet, like protecting yourself against spam, how to install a firewall and an anti virus, what to look out for in emails to avoid running the latest virus attachment, ect. In otherwords, it wouldn't be a network certification or MCSE or anything like that. You don't even have to know how to make a website to be an internet citizen, just be able to protect yourself, which isn't all that hard nowadays anyways.
Citizens would be able to vote on their preferred leaders, and I guess it would be a series a votes to determine who should actually be in control of the internet. Infact, we could even vote in a group of people to run the internet. And I think it would also be feasible to run an almost true democracy, and be able to vote on most major issues regarding this great country.
Meh, superficially, it seems like a great idea. Though I'm sure there are many reasons why it can't happen (other than world governments not letting it happen).
Google feeds off everybody's work to make billions of dollars.
Google exposes publically available content to more public, a service thats fundamentally important, and is offered for free. So why shouldn't they make billions of dollars off it?
The Google mail system combined with Google Earth(or the simpler Maps), Orkut and Blogs is the end of privacy.
wait, what? How did that happen? You realize that google mail is pop3 accessible? I don't use gmail's website. the pop3 servers are ssh secured. And Orkut is a social networking tool, it's not meant to maintain privacy.
Not only is Google a major threat to our constitutional right to privacy but it is also a major leech of other people's copyrighted material.
Google does nothing to violate copyright material in any way whatsoever. All content google indexes and caches was publicaly available in the first place.
Google does not produce one line of content, their news service leeches other agencies' work, their search engine leeches everybody's web sites...
Google LINKS to other websites. you use google's news service, all you get are blurbs, click on a click and you're brought to AP's site, or yahoo's site, or cnn's site, or whatever.
Sometimes you just gotta ask yourself how something as absurd as google goes by loved by everyone and adored as if it were anything more than a huge copyright infringement case.
There is nothing absurd with google. How do you expect to find information if a search engine at access content of a site?
They provide a nice service, granted. But this service is based on our content, shouldn't we get a share of the revenue? No! Instead we PAY to have ads on their results which in turn are 100% our content. I'd like to meet the marketing genius that convinced everyone to produce content so Google could feed off of it.
They are offering you a service free of charge. Why should they pay you anything? They are giving you some help in driving traffic to your site, why should they pay you for that? And you use it to find other websites, why should they pay you for that? Considering that all of this is FREE in the first place.
If you go read some SEO forums you'll see that the google representatives tell you to produce tons of clean content and you'll rank higher. AH GENIUS! Give them MORE free content so their engine offers more of YOUR work to others, make THEM more money against your work.
All search engines will tell you to produce clean content. All web designers will tell you to produce clean content. You should create well structured html, and accessible content. It's important to you and your website.
AH! As if it weren't enough, Google runs on open-source software because they HAD to leech other people's programming too. They developed proprietary tools, a proprietary, secretly held algorithm WITH open source tools!!!! Google developed a fascinating distributed filesystem and guess what WE THE DEVELOPERS OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE WHICH GOOGLE LEECHED DO NOT GET TO SEE IT!!!!
I've tonnes of cool stuff with open source tools. You have absolutely no right to see it just becasue I used open source tools. These are TOOLS, frameworks provided to create products, services, ect. In no way does that mean those products and services should be open source as well.
In short : Google produces nothing, they organize your stuff for you without you asking for it, and they get really well paid for that. They use open source tools but give nothing back to open source, they use your website and they give you some traffic in return, traffic which your content earned anyway.
Google produced gmail, a search engine, a news wire, froogle, google maps, orkut, so uh, what? Also, Google does a lot for the open source community. Infact, they pay people to contribute to the open source community. If google shared their innermost secrets, they wouldn't have much of a business now would they.
yeah, then Stephen Harper takes the bill, and makes it even worse and some how manage to ban the internet and turn Canada into a dirty combination of china's antifreedom and american neoconservatism. *shudder*
Slashdot Mirror
How can PHP be compiled? I have never seen this feature. It almost sounds like the PHP to C++ translation thing.
And here is my take on it...
Most of the well known languages, if not all, have proven themselves as enterprise ready, because they are used in enterprise level applications. These languages can be used efficiently and cleanly, and applications can be built with them that are scalable, portable, maintainable, ect.
There is no "best" language. Everyone will come up with valid arguements to support their personal preference. This is like argueing whats better, a Lambourhini Diablo or a Ferrari F50. The dragsters will tell you the F50 because it has faster acceleration, the racers will tell you the Diablo because it is faster. So which one is the better car?
This question is a failure. It has been asked so many times and there never has been a clear answer, though I'm sure many will respond to this with a "THERE IS A CLEAR ANSWER YOU IDIOT, USE [insert language here] BECAUSE [insert reasons here]". Meh...
ANY MOVE THAT INFRINGES UPON CANADIAN SOVERIEGNTY SHOULD BE MET WITH THE GREATEST OF FORCE AGAINST THE DANES.
THE DANISH GOVERNMENT HAS ATTEMPTED (without success) TO INVADE CANADA A TOTAL OF THREE TIMES IN THE PAST 15 YEARS. It is bad enough that true and proud Canadian culture is being ENCROACHED UPON by less than tasteful americanism, but to be invaded by WARSHIPS is UNACCEPTABLE.
Here are somethings that we can do to protest the Danish government and it's hostile actions:
- Rename danishes to Artic Freedom Delights and boycott resturants like Tim Hortons if they do not abide.
- Burn Hans Christian Anderson books
- If you haven't already, boycott Metallica, which you should be doing anyways because of their unwaivering support of the RIAA.
- Fight against danish lies. It was an ITALIAN who discovered electromagnetism. But Danish propaganda fooled most of the world.
- Declare PHP a Canadian invention. The Danish Government doesn't want you to know this, but Mr. Lerdorf WAS A CANADIAN CITIZEN.
These are all peaceful political protests, but we Canadians should be ready to face the reality of the situation. After all, the danes did try to invade Canada at least three times. We still have to explore all diplomatic possibilities, but if you are a proud Canadian, when the time comes, you will take up arms to defend the Great North from the invaders. This is the Cold War of the 21st Century. CANADIAN INTERESTS AND SOVEREIGNTY MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS.
OH CANADA, I STAND ON GAURD FOR THEE
Just because a country can't output as many nerds doesn't mean it can't attract as many nerds.
Loosen work visa restrictions, and you'll see how many nerds drop china and move to the US.
erm, isn't this what the CRTC is for? They regulate media companies. Telus, providing cellphone, tv, and internet services, is a media company.
I could be wrong, and if I am, please enlighten me.
I would think that this is blatantly illegal. Telus is clearly blocking the website as part of its fight, not because the site contains "confidential" or "proprietary" information. If it did, then Telus should've sought a court injunction to stop the union from posting such information, and most likely the court would've agreed. Now I couldn't find much of anything on the website to substantiate the claims telus made in the article, but if it is there than the union is definately in the wrong as well.
This is just another battle between corporations and unions that has the customers/clients caught in the crossfire. And corporations of course don't make it any easier, by giving their chiefs 50 to 200% salary raises, while employees get none. And of course, unions don't make it any easier because they have no choice these days but to resort to pressure tactics which disgruntles customers.
The cycle of life continues...
I already pointed out an example. No reason why it can't be repeated. Also, there is no reason why communism can't exist with democracy, and there is no reason why it can't exist with a multilevel government, like Canada's two tier system or America's three branch system.
Communism does not have to be oppressive. Just because the government owns the economy, does not make it oppressive. It's things like denying socalled basic freedoms that western society enjoys that are oppressive. It just so happens that communism was practiced by oppressive regimes, such as Cuba and North Korea and China. However, there were examples to the contrary. Lenin was not oppressive, Stalin was mind you. Another shining example of communism was Yugoslavia. You know why Yugoslavia failed? It wasn't due to a collapse in the political structure, it was due to ethnic differences, especially after Tito died.
Yugoslavia is a good case for communism and its effectiveness.
As well, direct democracy with more concerns for protecting the minority would fail, because nothing in the government would get done. Democracy needs a limit, and democractic governments have to make decisions not everyone is going to agree with. Imagine if Canada, with four major political parties, had to cater to the needs of EACH of those four parties? It would be ridiculous. Instead, the four parties vote on specific bills collectively, and thats it, done.
now the hatred for corporations is not unfounded. Numerous times we see no real desire from corporations to actually better the world, and frankly, there are certain corporations which should just not exist, because all they do is harm. Tobacco is a good example. If you want corporate freedom, remove tobacco laws, since that hinders the ability of a corporation to gain more power. And what about McDonalds? They are CLEARLY harming the public with their food. Of course, blame the public right? Guns aren't to blame, people who use them are type of arguement. That fails miserably, because McDonalds goes out of its way to get people to eat its obviously unhealthy food.
You talk about whats beyond capatalism? Lets talk about corporate accountability. Lets talk about gauging how corporate activities can devastate society. Can corporations provide benefits to society as well? Oh they can, but corporate social services should be managed and provided by governments, not corporations.
So next time a corporation is caught polluting, instead of fining it pocket change, threaten to fine it for a substantial amount of money AND offer alternatives. Give them time to create alternatives. There is one aspect of corporate accountability.
Corporations were created to be government entities, just like people. And as such, are afforded the same rights as people. But they should also be facing the exact same penalties as people, even more so, because they have a far greater responsibility to maintain the societies they inhabit.
I was going to write something witty and interesting, but then my mind drew a blank. Now I am here telling you this.
I suck, carry on with topic related conversation.
I've been reading the comments to this article and I've seen a lot of US vs. , tin foil hattery, people for the patriot act, people against it.
The Patriot Act, and Canada's similar (but no where near as bad) Security Certificate Programme, give law enforcement officials the ability to imprision people indefinately without charge or proof or anything of the sort, so long as the government has deemed them a threat to national security.
There has been very few reported cases of these measures ever being used though. So it makes me wonder if the people who were indeed arrested are actuall threats. There are reasons why intelligence communities won't divulge any information. Even the slightest leak could be potentially dangerous and undermine a sensitive operation.
Now, a lot of people are saying that these new measures can be used against any anti government body, whether it be a terrorist, or just someone who is on the other side of the political spectrum. This idea is flawed. It's important to have the opposing political side. It is a risk to have it, but the gamble can pay out if you convince people that the other side is just stupid. We all see the left vs. right debates. The two sides NEED each other for power. They need to be able to show that they are better than the alternative. It's the way they control the mob.
So using the patriot act or anything else of the sort to eliminate opponents just wouldn't work out.
I still question certain government motives however. It's quite clear that north american governments are heavily influenced by corporations . The US turns a blind eye to the economy, Canada subsidizes bombardier and nortel and air canada with billions instead of investing into social programmes. The abuse of the freedom revoking laws would probally stem from such influences, and that worries me the most. Remember when the RIAA wanted to throw in anti piracy nonsense into the Patriot Act? It failed, but it's not the end.
If anything, it's corporate influence that has done more to revoke freedoms than terrorism....
Americans desperately need this do not call list, not so much for the convience, but for their OWN PROTECTION.
When I was younger, I used to do a lot of telemarketing. 90% of all telemarketing companies in Canada sell to the US and there is a VERY GOOD REASON FOR IT. Americans are naive.
Mod this as a troll, flame me, I don't care. 3 years of selling the DUMBEST THINGS to americans have taught me something.
The thing I sold the most of were packages that contained a list of banks that could potentially offer a low interest rate credit card to the person I was selling the list to. The package was always priced between $350 and $450. No one was pre approved. It was just a list of 10 banks. It was up to the "customer" to buy it. There were at least 100 companies across Canada selling this to americans. None of these companies sold this "product" to anywhere else in the world, other than america.
I dialed 1000 numbers a week. 75% of the numbers had no one picking up. That means I spoke to 250 people. Out of those 250 people, I was averaging 15 sales a week.
Thats a lot, for a grossly over priced list of 10 non pre approved banks. Of course, it was completely legitimate, and I was making $2500/wk at the age of 16.
15 sales a week? pfft nothing right? Try at least 50,000 kids who can't speak french in Montreal looking for jobs that only require english. Now we're looking at 750,000 sales a week. This is why America absolutely needs the strictest possible do not call programme. It's for their own good, and damn anyone who disagrees.
#1) Goatse
#2) Hamsterdance
#3) All Your Base are Belong To Us
#4) Mahir
#5) The 12 year old boy looking for love
#6) Your the Man Now Dogg
#7) Tubgirl
#8) Hot or Not AND EVERY SINGLE SPINOFF
#9) Every single flash animation that made you stare at something for 30 seconds before unleashing a short burst of hell to scare you
#10) The forum post that linked infinitately to other forum posts.
Now thats a real list.
See, Doom is available on the Console, but it sucks. It's not playable. Nor is any other FPS.
When consoles start having the same peripherals as computers, specifically a keyboard and mouse, then what is the point of the console market? You will now have systems nearly identical to a small form factor PC.
As for who needs mods? Thats a pretty weak question. Mods don't keep the game they are built on alive, they keep the engine alive. They also provide fresh new ideas. Who cares of SOCOM is released on time every year? What if I want to play a good fantasy game? Well ok I'll turn to a mod for HL2.
This is very important because as you point out, gamers have to wait five years for HL2. But then LOOK at HL2. It's such an incredible game that blows any console FPS out of the water.
As well, being able to create your own maps, thats almost needed. I don't see how feasible it is to use a keyboard and mouse to operate a 3D editor to make your own maps.
By the time consoles reach the level of PCs, they will be PCs.
You can not play FPS or RTS games on consoles, period. GoldenEye sucked, Halo2 sucked, even GTA sucked on console, and thats a TPS. These games are made for upclose to your monitor gaming, with a keyboard and mouse for quick and complex movements and weapon switching.
Consoles on the otherhand will always reign supreme when it comes to sports games, racing games, and platform fighting games. This has been their market, this will remain their market.
What is the worst that can happen when Steam calls home? It sends over your ip address, your email you used for steam, and your password. OH MY FUCKING GOD THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO KIIL ME NOW. Give me a break. That is not a violation of privacy in any way whatsoever. It is not obstrusive, and will almost likely never be used against you except to cancel your steam account for doing something stupid with it. With this type of thinking, I'm surprised privacy nazis don't just lead a campaign against the internet. IRC servers record ip addresses. Websites do it. FTP servers can do it. Perhaps privacy nazis can fight for a law to be passes that states that ISPs can not in any way collect any personal information from you. That way, you can pirate your internet connection and not pay for it. stfu
It would be a much more pleasant discussion. It would also certaintly set a huge precedent, not just for slashdot but for the entire internet community as a whole. A pleasent discussion about something a software company released? It seems almost impossible! Perhaps it's something we should try just to say "WE DID THE IMPOSSIBLE!"
Thats the message I'm getting here. People hate steam because it prevents them from what exactly?
Oh right, being able to properly pirate a game and show Valve they don't give a shit.
HL2 by anyone's standards is a high calibre game. Even if you don't like FPS, there is no question about it. The attention to detail and the sheer power of the Source engine are mind blowing. Of course, these things take time and money to develope. I for one am grateful that Steam exists. It's so much better than any other possible method of protecting Valve's IP. For starters, it didn't require any hardware changes. It doesn't require an internet connection. It doesn't require a dongle. It doesn't really require anything at all.
For those who obviously don't know, Steam can and will work in an Offline mode. It will allow you to play HL2 single player, single player mods, and allows you to work on your mods and maps with the Source SDK. Don't tell me it doesn't, because it does. I lost internet for two weeks and the only thing that prevented me from committing mass murder and subsequently suicide was still being able to work on my Source mod, and still being able to play HL2 to see how Valve did certain effects.
I can not figure out for the life of me why some people are just so paranoid about steam calling home. It is a reasonable measure taken to protect valve's prized work and to ensure that there is a steady cash flow to Valve so that they can outdo themselves, again. Luckily, I do not have to look forward to idiotic DRM concepts that are not consumer friendly. I don't need a dongle, I don't need special hardware, I don't even need a CD. I don't even need to visit a store. And most importantly, I do not need to give EA money.
There seems to be a great deal of ungratefulness for this ease of use with Steam. It's almost like the mere mention of a company that wants to protect its works is now branded evil, even when they do it the easiest way possible. And naturally, all hatred and complaints come with absolutely no suggestion for an alternative.
There is another huge advantage to Steam that many people have overlooked. It allows Valve to implement very strict anti cheating measures. If you cheat, your copy of HL2 becomes INVALID and there is nothing you can do about it. I applaud this measure. It's impossible to fake your cd key with steam, so the arguement that "well, someone else did it" fails because that is solely your responsibility. And even if you are busted for cheating, you can STILL login to Steam, and STILL play online, just on insecure servers that don't implement VAC, which is more generous than I would've been. CS 1.5 was plagued by hackers, and there was little Valve could do about it. Now they much more control over it.
So all in all, the complaints about steam are unfounded, illogical, and demonstrates a great deal of ignorance and unfounded paranoia by the people who are against it.
The demoscene, a collection of artistist nerds making cool little animations, spawned something of great importance: the netlabel scene.
Now I'm not sure if the demoscene is as large as it was when I was a part of it (future crew days), the netlabels are bursting at the seams and there is A LOT of high quality music in many different genres available. Several promiment artists have their roots in the netlabel scene when trackers were still #1 (Fast Tracker, Scream Tracker, Impulse Tracker), but now adays, while trackers are still in use (Buzz, MPT, Renoise), there are a lot of home studios and garage bands releasing music through netlabels as mp3s and oggs.
Thinnerism
Ronin Collective
Camomille
Kahvi
One
There are also two main repositories where netlabel releases are uploaded, available at:
Scene.Org
Archive.Org's netlabel repository
These netlabels are starting to be taken a lot more seriously these days, and has even attracted corporate attention. Mercedez Benz's "Soundtrack of the Autobahn" contained several prominent netlabel artists.
While 90% of the music available is electronic in nature, there are still some artists (including myself) that are hitting up other genres. It's just a matter of looking. Some of these artists go on tours, and in some cases, the netlabel itself sponsors their artists for tours.
So for people who want to seek non corporate tainted music, the netlabel scene is where to look.
Someone refresh my memory on something. I read or watched something a while ago discussing how to get fuel for hydrogen engines.
Someone somewhere offered methane as a source of fuel. And the methane would come from algae's "resperatory system" while they fed on sewege and breaking it down. I remeber there being a lot of happiness over this as it solved two problems.
Can someone explain this further to me?
your critisisms are invalid because they don't critize the points I made. Reading a few words and assuming the rest is not a good means of bring critical. Thus, you are a troll, and a foolish one at that.
I said something about IRC. I used it as an example. Of course, you don't read so you wouldn't know. You just want to troll.
These were not your words? "Another good idea about this is that in order to become a citizen of the internet, you'd have to pass a skill testing exam."
Yes, in order to become a citizen, in otherwords, have certain rights and privileges that simple tourists (who do not need to be tested) would have, including eligibility to vote on decicions that affect the internet as a whole. But again, you don't read what I say so why bother replying? Oh wait, thats right, TO TROLL.
Who is going to force them? It would have to be national legislatures, and if you seriously think the US Congress, for example, is going to force the major US telecom companies to divest themselves of their assets, you are deluded.
Wierder things have happened before. It just takes the right minds and the right leaders to get the job done.
I simply fail to see how putting an ineffectual organization like the UN in charge of the Internet (whatever that means) can, in any way, be seen to be "progress".
I simply fail to see how this has anything to do with what I suggested. Instead of commenting on things you don't read, just shut up. It makes life easier that way.
repeat after me, IRC is not WWW. Infact, the two have nothing to do with each other. the concept of having an "internet license" is not far fetched. Also, did I say "make a test before someone goes online"? no, I did not. I suggest you reread what I wrote before making stupid comments. the idea of corporations giving up their control is far fetched, but not impossible, and they could be forced to do it. You are just close minded, people like you hinder progress.
Perhaps this is a but of a futurist idea, but why can't the internet have its own government?
I mean think about it, a lot of the online community can be divided into two groups, locals and tourists. The locals have their own culture of sorts that transcends borders. The locals gather into almost self governing communities (slashdot, fark, SA forums, IRC channels) where ideas and information is shared that could better the community, or the over all internet country.
Root servers world wide could be moved into embassies for the internet and thus protected from the laws of their respective countries and be the only physical locations of this new country. Businesses that operate solely on the internet wouldn't pay taxes to the internet since thats what paying for an internet connection does.
Every local on the internet would have dual citizenship of course.
Now, this wouldn't be feasible because of infrastructure I think. Major corporations owning the actuall wires that delivery packets from point a to point b and so forth. But why couldn't that be replaced with a solely wireless network? Either that, or the infrastructure becomes property of the internet country.
Another good idea about this is that in order to become a citizen of the internet, you'd have to pass a skill testing exam. Nothing too complex, but something that would at least judge your ability to protect yourself againt most forms of maliciousness that exist on the internet, like protecting yourself against spam, how to install a firewall and an anti virus, what to look out for in emails to avoid running the latest virus attachment, ect. In otherwords, it wouldn't be a network certification or MCSE or anything like that. You don't even have to know how to make a website to be an internet citizen, just be able to protect yourself, which isn't all that hard nowadays anyways.
Citizens would be able to vote on their preferred leaders, and I guess it would be a series a votes to determine who should actually be in control of the internet. Infact, we could even vote in a group of people to run the internet. And I think it would also be feasible to run an almost true democracy, and be able to vote on most major issues regarding this great country.
Meh, superficially, it seems like a great idea. Though I'm sure there are many reasons why it can't happen (other than world governments not letting it happen).
Google feeds off everybody's work to make billions of dollars.
Google exposes publically available content to more public, a service thats fundamentally important, and is offered for free. So why shouldn't they make billions of dollars off it?
The Google mail system combined with Google Earth(or the simpler Maps), Orkut and Blogs is the end of privacy.
wait, what? How did that happen? You realize that google mail is pop3 accessible? I don't use gmail's website. the pop3 servers are ssh secured. And Orkut is a social networking tool, it's not meant to maintain privacy.
Not only is Google a major threat to our constitutional right to privacy but it is also a major leech of other people's copyrighted material.
Google does nothing to violate copyright material in any way whatsoever. All content google indexes and caches was publicaly available in the first place.
Google does not produce one line of content, their news service leeches other agencies' work, their search engine leeches everybody's web sites...
Google LINKS to other websites. you use google's news service, all you get are blurbs, click on a click and you're brought to AP's site, or yahoo's site, or cnn's site, or whatever.
Sometimes you just gotta ask yourself how something as absurd as google goes by loved by everyone and adored as if it were anything more than a huge copyright infringement case.
There is nothing absurd with google. How do you expect to find information if a search engine at access content of a site?
They provide a nice service, granted. But this service is based on our content, shouldn't we get a share of the revenue? No! Instead we PAY to have ads on their results which in turn are 100% our content. I'd like to meet the marketing genius that convinced everyone to produce content so Google could feed off of it.
They are offering you a service free of charge. Why should they pay you anything? They are giving you some help in driving traffic to your site, why should they pay you for that? And you use it to find other websites, why should they pay you for that? Considering that all of this is FREE in the first place.
If you go read some SEO forums you'll see that the google representatives tell you to produce tons of clean content and you'll rank higher. AH GENIUS! Give them MORE free content so their engine offers more of YOUR work to others, make THEM more money against your work.
All search engines will tell you to produce clean content. All web designers will tell you to produce clean content. You should create well structured html, and accessible content. It's important to you and your website.
AH! As if it weren't enough, Google runs on open-source software because they HAD to leech other people's programming too. They developed proprietary tools, a proprietary, secretly held algorithm WITH open source tools!!!! Google developed a fascinating distributed filesystem and guess what WE THE DEVELOPERS OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE WHICH GOOGLE LEECHED DO NOT GET TO SEE IT!!!!
I've tonnes of cool stuff with open source tools. You have absolutely no right to see it just becasue I used open source tools. These are TOOLS, frameworks provided to create products, services, ect. In no way does that mean those products and services should be open source as well.
In short : Google produces nothing, they organize your stuff for you without you asking for it, and they get really well paid for that. They use open source tools but give nothing back to open source, they use your website and they give you some traffic in return, traffic which your content earned anyway.
Google produced gmail, a search engine, a news wire, froogle, google maps, orkut, so uh, what? Also, Google does a lot for the open source community. Infact, they pay people to contribute to the open source community. If google shared their innermost secrets, they wouldn't have much of a business now would they.
yeah, then Stephen Harper takes the bill, and makes it even worse and some how manage to ban the internet and turn Canada into a dirty combination of china's antifreedom and american neoconservatism. *shudder*