I agree with everything you wrote except, "MAYBE IT'S TIME TO GIVE UP YOUR FREAKIN' MONOPOLY!" When Linux / Mac are ready for the masses, the masses will come to them. Mac users have been screaming for 20+ years that they have a better OS than Microsoft offers, yet Microsoft is still the titan in the marketplace. Linux has seemingly dominated the nerd market as well, but the masses still elude proponents of both platforms.
Someday the Linux community may get off its collective elitist ass and start wooing Windows users but that time isn't here yet. I can already hear the cries, "but we've already made a better OS and Micro$oft is teh suxorz!!1!," but that's not the way to attract people to your operating system. Personally I think some company should write a bunch of GUI elements that perfectly replicate the appearance & functionality of Windows control panel applets and then market it as a true "windows experience" on Linux so people could get the security & reliability of Linux with the "ease of Windows". Before you flame me, I'm not saying current Linux distros aren't easy to use, but we've all ready articles saying that people accustomed to Windows will naturally have trouble making the switch.
Anyways... I've gotten off-topic enough, I just wish Linux users would actually try to attract Windows users instead of taking a defiant "Microsoft, you suck!" attitude.
To paraphrase a libertarian sentiment, if tens of millions of people are breaking a law, it is usually the law that is broken.
A very idealistic sentiment indeed, but silly when put in practical context. Tens of millions of people exceed maximum speed limits and run stop signs every day. Should we abolish speed limits & stop signs or do they provide a reasonable amount of safety at an acceptable level of inconvenience?
If tens of millions breaking the law means the law shouldn't exist, we would have to allow people from all countries unfettered access to our country. What about countries with state sponsored terrorism? What about countries with extreme instability? I think most people will agree that having some sort of limitation on entry to the US is a good thing. You'll note that every country on this planet has a form of immigration control so the US is not outside the norm on this issue and the meaningfulness of the law is not in question.
You can't implement free trade and expect people to believe they don't have a right to follow the wealth.
Even if they have a right to follow the wealth, they do not necessarily have a right to a quick, easy, & convenient journey. The current journey is difficult, but if the wealth & opportunities are so great the journey should be a worthwhile endeavor. I want to make as much money as Pierre Omidyar and believe that I have a right to do so, but that doesn't mean I won't have to work extremely hard and be very lucky achieve the same level of success. The right to follow the dream is natural, the right to succeed does not exist.
I welcome with open arms all immigrants who want to come here through the proper channels, largely due to the fact that my industry depends on them. I'm just sick & tired of hearing from people complaining that immigrants don't get treated the same or don't make the same money because the truth of the matter is that legal residents are all protected by the same minimum wage and anti-discrimination laws. Illegal immigrants are not protected in the same fashion and if they want to be afforded the same rights & protections they should come here legally.
The difference between calling illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants" and just plain old "immigrants" is negligible, especially because there were more than just illegals in the protests, and it was more than just the rights of the illegals that were at stake. Regular, ol' fashioned immigrants were fighting for their rights as well.
Wrong! The difference between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants is not negligible and the marches going on really aren't about rights for legal immigrants. Check out immigrantsolidarity.com and you'll see many statements about what these marches are about.
No to the anti-immigrant HR4437 and any other "copycat" legislation from Congress
The immigration system is messed up but they are against reforming the system and they are against any legislation that fixes the system or that makes it harder for illegals.
No to militarization of the border
If they are coming across legally, troops on the border doesn't affect them from an immigration point of view. It may be a poor direction of resources, but that is not an immigration issue. Troops on the border, from an immigration standpoint, only affects people coming across illegally.
No to criminalization of immigrant communities
Guess what? If you are here legally you have nothing to fear. They can't make "being an immigrant" a crime, but they can make "being here illegally" a crime.
No to the planned immigrant crackdown across the country
Again, how would they "crack down" on people who are here legally?
No to the guest worker program
So we shouldn't provide a legal way to come here and work, thus preserving the jobs of illegals?
Yes to amnesty for undocumented immigrants
Can you even spin that into a "this is for legal immigrants" argument? Undocumented = Illegal.
Yes to immigrant family reunification
Anyone can be reunified if they do it legally. Should we also lobby for "Yes to federal prisoner family reunification" for all criminals?
Yes to a humane path to citizenship
The path is humane, but it is not easy. That is part of the reality of moving to a new country.
Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers
Living wages are granted to all legal workers. It's called "Minimum Wage". If you do not come into this country legally you are not entitled to the privileges that legal citizens enjoy. And if you want to be paid more than minimum wage, learn English and learn a trade.
The problem with the marches and protests is that they really want the same privileges afforded to illegal immigrants as are afforded to legal immigrants and citizens. Simply put, people who are here illegally do not deserve such privileges. The protesters like to portray themselves as civil rights activists but this isn't about civil rights. Black people not allowed to use a "white" water fountain strictly based on the color of their skin was a human rights violation. People breaking laws and then being worried about the consequences is not a human rights violation.
Of course it's up to developers, that's how it should be. My comment was a response to the previous poster's lament about the absence of an enforcement body to govern developers.
Number one: Quirks Mode. As long as browsers try to correct invalid documents, there is not real incentive for valid documents to be produced. Interoperability can't be fully achieved, and machine-to-machine exchange of data remains tenuous.
And this is the trade off between theory and practise. In theory, browsers should not have a quirks mode because it allows for bad code and slows down the overall progress of the web. In practise, browsers that don't render in quirks mode will break pages and Joe User who doesn't know or care the difference between quirks & strict modes will nearly always interpret "misrendered" pages as a browser failure and not a code failure.
Think about Grannie Websurfer. She's used IE for years because it was on the computer she got. Now she hears the hype about a new browser and decides to try it out because it's more secure. If the new browser doesn't have quirks mode and starts breaking all her favorite sites she's going to go right back to IE. And the experience is likely to damage any chance of her switching again for a long time. She doesn't give a shit about standards and "W3C", she cares about her stupid soap opera page rendering properly and if it works fine on IE but doesn't work fine in Browser X that will be a problem with browser X.
Furthermore, the W3C just produces documents, and there is no body anywhere to monitor and enforce standards compliance among browser vendors
Welcome to the free market. There shouldn't be a body enforcing browser makers to follow the standards, it should be up to the browser makers. If developers put together a crap browser they will lose market share. Talk all the crap you want about Internet Explorer, for a long time it had many flaws but it was the best available browser. Monopolies and other crap aside, Internet Explorer became better than Netscape. Notice that while Microsoft is still a monopoly and Firefox hasn't come preinstalled on any mass-produced computers, Firefox is gaining impressive market-share. A better browser has been created and people are flocking to it.
While not claiming to be an expert, my thoughts are that his rights may have been violated and people should have been writing their representatives in Congress and their President demanding that this American Citizen be treated properly. I say "maybe" his rights have been violated because it seems like the government overstepped its bounds but it also seems that Padilla's own lawyer(s) did a terrible job. While appeals courts upheld the lawyer's original statement of venue & respondent, it may have been more prudent if he'd filed in a different court and directly against the commander controlling the brig where he was held. After that the timeline is mostly 2-3 month periods waiting for courts to hear his case (except for an 18 month stretch waiting for the Supreme Court which is an unfortunate consequence of being involved in a Supreme Court case).
It certainly does seem that the government has a bone to pick with Padilla and they are taking every measure to make his situation as difficult as possible - but they are doing things through the courts. He wasn't "disappeared" and turned up years later in a secret prison. I have a very hard time believing that they would spend this much time and risk so much bad PR & legal implications to mess with this one guy when it would've been much easier for the Padilla to wind up in the newspaper as a mugging victim who got shot on the streets of Chicago. Do you really think that an administration with no qualms about taking a guys rights away would have qualms about killing him? It would certainly involve less "moving parts".
There once was a country. They were known as Germany...
Hitler was an extremely charismatic individual, George W. may be charming one-on-one but he's never been able to give rousing speaches to the masses. And as tragic as 9/11 was, it's nowhere near the impact of being ravaged during WWI and paying reparations for years after. Let's keep some perspective here.
whoops, we accidently thought all our biggest denouncers were terrorists and sent them to GTMO, oh well, we'll just keep it confidential
Did I miss a news report of a U.S. citizen being sent to Gitmo? Let's not forget that the detainees in Camp X-Ray are not US citizens and thus are not necessarily afforded the rights of US citizens. They were foreign combatants actively fighting against our forces and are treated under a different set of rules (UCMJ, Geneva Convention) than Americans (US Constitution, Bill of Rights). And no, the government can't legally send you away without a trial. Americans are entitled to the Wirt of Habeas Corpus which means they have to have probable cause to imprison Americans. The 6th Ammendment to the US Consitution also grants "the right to a speedy and public trial". I will not contest that the government has held people without trials but that does not mean the government has the right to do so. If the government acts illegally and the people do nothing the people get what they deserve.
The Republicans are the most foul, corrupt, incompetent bunch that this country has ever seen in power. I'm disgusted.
They are politicians, corruption is their nature and their business. Democrats are no better.
The real power is in the people and the people keep these politicians in office despite their blatant perversion. And it's not just the politicians, it's the CEOs and board members of these telecoms who allowed the NSA to do this. People should be up in arms screaming for justice and AT&T should be losing huge amounts of marketshare to QWest. But it's not happening and likely won't - partly because QWest has limited service areas, but more importantly because people are lazy.
It's easy to sit here and complain and throw insults at the Bush administration, Republicans, or other politicians. It takes more effort to call up AT&T, cancel your account, and get a new account with another carrier. People complain with their mouths & e-mails, but they vote with their $$. The companies won't learn their lessons until it costs them.
Installing "three computers for family & friends" doesn't exactly give us an adequate random sample of the population at large. It is likely that a person who needs help to install a computer is more likely to be overwhelmed by the computer and less likely to successfully change settings or even attempt to change settings such as a homepage.
"One of them asked me to make MSN the default page" indicates that at least 1 of the 3 people you helped was interested in changing their homepage but that MSN was their homepage of choice. So they very well may have never changed their IE homepage because they were simply happy with MSN, not because they were too unmotivated/confused to change it. This person seems to contradict your premise.
My experiences have actually gone the other direction. I maintain a network of Windows PCs for a small business. Every time I install a new computer I set Firefox as the default browser and Google.com as the homepage in both IE and FF. The majority of the computers on the network now have IE as a default browser and Yahoo.com as the homepage. This happens via user intervention, not some dark magic of Windows or IE (I field the complaints every time I alter the settings... "Where did Yahoo go? Why Firefox?"). My small network isn't a great population sample either, but I'd say it's slightly more indicative of the general population's behavior as it involves people at multiple levels of computer proficiency that you would likely not find in family members or friends that need help installing their own computer.
Would it make you better if I had said "little" to offer instead of "nothing"?
While it's true that third party developers may develop M rated games if they choose, for the most part they choose not to because Nintendo does not foster the adult gamer demographic. Check out Nintendo's own website. The top 10 "Most Wanted" games are:
Legend of Zelda, The: Twilight Princess Adventure
Nintendogs - Lab & Friends Simulation
Pokémon Emerald RPG
Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness RPG
Madden NFL 06 Football, Sports
Animal Crossing: Wild World Simulation
Mario Kart DS Racing
DK: King of Swing Action
Mario Superstar Baseball Baseball
WWE Day of Reckoning 2 Wrestling
I'm not saying any of these games aren't fun for adults as well, but you cannot deny that Nintendo's primary focus is young gamers.
I would love to know what percentage of his customers fall into that "playcube, mario-on-xbox" category.
Any kid watching cartoons who sees a commercial for a product he wants will know exactly what the details are and will likely remind his parents exactly which product it was. If you want the Optimus Prime transformer, you know it. Now, by the time your parents got to the store they may only remember you want "a transformer" and get you the wrong one. In this type of scenario, Wii as a brand does nothing to help Nintendo because it has absolutely no familiarity with the masses. As the blog points out, it's not "Nintendo Wii" it's just "Wii". A confused parent looking for a game console for its child is going to have to pick from "Playstation" (that they've likely heard of), "Xbox" (that they've likely heard of) or "Wii" (what is that?). While the name may pique their curiosity, it does not provide the reassuring familiarity that a confused shopper is looking for. And since the name is so different, I'm guessing more confused parents will be asking Best Buy associates for "the nintendo console, I can't remember the name" instead of walking in and confidently saying "I want a we!".
I'm largely ignoring the adult-gamer demographic because it seems that Nintendo is also. While I don't doubt a motion-sensitive controller could be a lot of fun at a party, adult gamers seem to be more accustomed to just sitting in their gaming chairs pushing buttons. What's the oldest gamer you've ever seen jumping on a DDR machine? And since Nintendo seems to have given up completely on M rated games, there's nothing to offer in that arena. And most adult gamers know what they are looking for and I have a hard time picturing gamer over 20 walking into a Walmart saying "yeah, I want to play Mario on the x-play-cube or whatever ya got". That is something a confused non-gamer parent of a young gamer would do, and something that I don't think "Wii" would help with.
From TFA, "Google's logo allegedly incorporated images from Miro's "The Escape Ladder," 1940, "Nocture," 1940, and "The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers," 1941."
Having looked at The Escape Ladder, Nocturne, and The Beautiful Bird..., I don't see where they "incorporated images" directly from any of these paintings. Certainly the style is the same, but that is the purpose of the tribute.
The sad part is I'd never heard of Miro before and usually enjoy learning from the little sporadic tidbits Google provides. It would be a shame if Google decided to stop including artists because ARS is over-protective. I could understand their point if Google was trying to profit from using Miro's art in any way, but it just seems to be a fun way to raise awareness.
Does anyone else find it ironic that you can't buy advertising on Google's front-page and people who get some free publicity on one of the most-visited pages on the 'net are complaining.
I wish the article had more numbers and less hypothesis. The gist seems to be "people distrust Microsoft, therefore Apple could get bigger." Now, how long has Forrester been conducting these surveys and for how many years in a row has Microsoft been un-trustworthy in the public eye? If 5 million MS users have distrusted MS for years but are still using Windows, the survey doesn't mean anything.
Of course "Mass Defections to Apple are Possible". But they've always been *possible* and yet Microsoft still holds the majority of the market share. Too bad this article couldn't shed more insight than "Survey confirms what Slashdot already believes - people don't trust Microsoft."
I can't believe that for any company, information is so critical that it needs 24/7 user awareness. I think this is becoming a management problem. Companies must be able to manage their human resources so they don't have to rely on just a few crackberry people to run the whole operation.
I work in international shipping. If one of my trucks is on its way to the harbor hours before a deadline and gets a flat tire, I need a replacement truck immediately. If this container misses the boat and the customer demands that I ship on an airplane, the additional (unrecoverable) cost to me can be anywhere from $20k - $45k depending on the destination. Since the potential cost being unable to reach me is $20,000+ I am most definitely required to be on-call 24/7.
In theory, you are right - I could delegate responsibilities and details but the time it would take to do so and the quality of the information hand-off is not efficient. In the above scenario, many factors are weighed: How close are we to deadline? Can we get more time? Does this customer need this product immediately? Can we divert product from another customer? Do we make enough profit on this account to absorb the airfreight cost? Are any other trucks available? Can we just get a mechanic? etc. There are so many details that it is nearly impossible to pass information to my counterpart and expect that person to intimately understand the details in case a problem should arise. And since ultimately it is my account all decisions are ultimately my responsibility. If my counterpart makes an unwise decision because he was not properly briefed on every detail, it could be very costly. And my counterpart could always check with me to make sure he is making the right decision, but then we are back to me being on-call 24/7.
This is just one scenario where being on-call can save thousands of dollars if something goes wrong. Now, how about nurses & doctors? If they cannot be reached it could mean permanent changes to somebody's life or even the loss of that life.
I love my Blackberry because it allows me to be on-call 24/7 without having to respond to every message. If somebody calls my cel phone I cannot just ignore the phone call. I either have to answer every call or check every voicemail and respond as appropriate. The Blackberry allows me to know at-a-glance whether or not something is urgent.
I could be wrong, but I think XP's "bliss" wallpaper (the one Gates is using) and "azul" (the tropical island) are the only 2 pre-installed wallpapers that tile nicely when the monitors are setup like Gates'. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes their tile wallpapers to flow nicely.
You make many points that I agree wholeheartedly with and I think I just missed your point on the previous post. I hope I didn't ruffle any feathers, thanks for the clarificatinos.
How do you think companies pick health plans? By shopping. Human Resources departments are tasked daily to find health care plans that will match the company's workforce and to do so for as little cost as possible. And if a company doesn't provide health care to its employees, then yes the employees have the option to shop for health care. What plans cover their unique needs? What plans fit their budget? Just because you signed a paper at your job and instantly you had a care plan doesn't mean that someone at some level didn't shop for that plan.
Insurance companies are't spending billions of dollars on commercials...All they're doing is taking customers from each other.
And how do you think they spread awareness so that their competitors' customers know to switch? By advertising! They advertise with doctors, they advertise on TV. Just because you don't realize they are advertising doesn't mean you aren't being marketed. And even if you don't see specific underwriters advertising, can you deny the influence of insurance money on direct-to-consumer advertising? I'm sure you've never seen ads for Viagra, Cialis, Nexium, Claritin, Allegra, Ambien, Zocor or Levitra. And you'd would agree these drugs would advertise on TV if the insurance companies didn't cover them... right? And you'd agree that no geriatric consumers compare health plans to see which one will cover Viagra because, after all, health plans aren't shopped.
Incentive to improve is omnipresent since Death is a far more efficient competitor than Microsoft or State Farm
While death is definitely a market force to be reckoned with, it is not a competitor. People are constantly dying, but people are also constantly being born. Do you think the insurance companies want to write policies for old, stingy people who need lots of medication for their failing health or for young people who don't get sick as much and will be paying their whole life? Insurance companies aren't fighting death, they wish it would strike quicker so they can charge you a premium without having to pay for your care.
a $50 annual checkup would allow us to prevent many of the $50,000 emergency visits we already pay for
Perhaps, but it certainly wouldn't prevent the damage done by a car accident, animal attack, machinery accident at work, etc. And let's be realistic here though, a $50 checkup is not off-limits to the masses. I realize there are people just scraping by, but saving $1/week doesn't seem to be an impossible goal.
Prior to this experience I thought Google was great... but it appears to me that much of their company is "automated" and that my site somehow tripped some automated flags and hence automatically punished me... for something someone else did.
Wrong, dude. Nobody else put the code on your site, you did. The fact that you didn't check the code first to understand what it was doing is not Google's fault. Instead of being pissed at Google for this, you should learn to double-check code that you get from other people
but the two have different objectives, one is to be able to better facilitate the communications of thoughts and ideas by making them more readily available. The other is to know everything about you. While arguably the two overlap i think that they are not inherintly the same thing.
I disagree because of the overlap. I don't see how they can "organize the world's information" without knowing everything about you. If they have all the world's information except everyone's personal information, they really haven't accomplished their goal.
My original point in the GP post was that Google has never said they want to organize some information. They've always been quite clear about the fact that they want to organize all information. Anyone who doesn't think that the word "all" doesn't encompass a subset of "private" information is mistaken.
"one goal of Google was to "store 100 percent" of consumer information."
any one find the following line just as scary?
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Google doesn't hide the fact that they want your info. Their publicized goal is to organize the world's information - not to organize the internet, not to organize some information in some contexts - to organize the world's information. This has always been their goal and will always be their goal. Just because they said it in different terms doesn't make the goal any less ambitious/intrusive/scary.
Yahoo has always been like this, it's just people didn't notice while google was the new hotness
Or perhaps people were pre-occupied with Yahoo!'s problem of being linked to spyware funding. People are worried about Google's response to the government subpoena for info, but seem to turn a blind eye to Yahoo! complicity. People are blasting Google for censoring Chinese search results, but the Shi Tao PR flap seems to have blown over for Yahoo!.
Or are you talking strictly in the context of free code for developers? There have been complaints that Google uses OSS but doesn't contribute enough back, yet their overal social & business ethics seem to be better than Yahoo!'s. Does Yahoo!'s code-release to the developer community somehow mitigate their other poor ethics? And how much redemption is there in a codebase that many developers have already created on their own?
If the decision is taken to install the software by a person or persons who knows that Joe Blow most likely isn't very computer savvy, and most likely won't really know or understand what software is installed, or know how that software is configured or works, or understand the ramifications of those things, then I personally think they share responsibility for it
If a customer isn't computer savvy or doesn't know/understand the software, etc. they should ask the geek in their family, or at their office, or call their local news station. If they have don't know who to ask or where to look, they can always ask the salesperson selling them the product. If they are misled by the salesperson, of course that is unethical practise by the company and the customer becomes a victim. But if the customer does not conduct adequate due diligence it is their own fault and they are a willing participant, not a victim.
Caveat Emptor is not specific to the computer industry. I think it would be exemplary business practise to give full-disclosure of all the possible negative aspects of a purchase, but with the exeption of real-estate this just doesn't happen.
I agree, however the average joe blow that is buying a new dell that has Google desktop installed when it arrives, don't get the option to choose, nor are very many people informed about the data collection they perform.
Joe Blow may not have the option to choose whether or not Goodle Desktop is installed on his new Dell, but he certainly has the choice of whether or not to purchase that Dell. If Joe Blow chooses to purchase a computer and he chooses to buy a Dell specifically and he chooses not to read the list of software pre-installed on the machine and he chooses to leave the software on the machine after he receives it, how can he not be personally responsible for Google getting information about him.
This is kind of like the tiny fine print on a contract. Also there isn't an 'I Agree' button on the Google Search website, people think they are just looking up information.
There may not be an "I Agree" button, but there is a link to "About Google" where there are links to little things called "Privacy Policy" and "Terms of Service."
When will people understand that Google isn't hiding out in a dark alley hitting passerbys over the head and stealing information. They put out a big colorful sign that says, "Our goal is to organize the world's information" and people come to the big colorful sign and throw information at it. Google has bills to pay and they pay those bills by harvesting, organizing, and re-selling (in a way) that information. Everybody wants something for free, but don't want to believe the reality that nothing is truly free.
Are you one of the people who felt the woman was justified who sued McDonalds for serving her hot coffee because there were not significant warnings that it was hot? Where does personal responsibility end?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with everything you wrote except, "MAYBE IT'S TIME TO GIVE UP YOUR FREAKIN' MONOPOLY!" When Linux / Mac are ready for the masses, the masses will come to them. Mac users have been screaming for 20+ years that they have a better OS than Microsoft offers, yet Microsoft is still the titan in the marketplace. Linux has seemingly dominated the nerd market as well, but the masses still elude proponents of both platforms.
Someday the Linux community may get off its collective elitist ass and start wooing Windows users but that time isn't here yet. I can already hear the cries, "but we've already made a better OS and Micro$oft is teh suxorz!!1!," but that's not the way to attract people to your operating system. Personally I think some company should write a bunch of GUI elements that perfectly replicate the appearance & functionality of Windows control panel applets and then market it as a true "windows experience" on Linux so people could get the security & reliability of Linux with the "ease of Windows". Before you flame me, I'm not saying current Linux distros aren't easy to use, but we've all ready articles saying that people accustomed to Windows will naturally have trouble making the switch.
Anyways... I've gotten off-topic enough, I just wish Linux users would actually try to attract Windows users instead of taking a defiant "Microsoft, you suck!" attitude.
To paraphrase a libertarian sentiment, if tens of millions of people are breaking a law, it is usually the law that is broken.
A very idealistic sentiment indeed, but silly when put in practical context. Tens of millions of people exceed maximum speed limits and run stop signs every day. Should we abolish speed limits & stop signs or do they provide a reasonable amount of safety at an acceptable level of inconvenience?
If tens of millions breaking the law means the law shouldn't exist, we would have to allow people from all countries unfettered access to our country. What about countries with state sponsored terrorism? What about countries with extreme instability? I think most people will agree that having some sort of limitation on entry to the US is a good thing. You'll note that every country on this planet has a form of immigration control so the US is not outside the norm on this issue and the meaningfulness of the law is not in question.
You can't implement free trade and expect people to believe they don't have a right to follow the wealth.
Even if they have a right to follow the wealth, they do not necessarily have a right to a quick, easy, & convenient journey. The current journey is difficult, but if the wealth & opportunities are so great the journey should be a worthwhile endeavor. I want to make as much money as Pierre Omidyar and believe that I have a right to do so, but that doesn't mean I won't have to work extremely hard and be very lucky achieve the same level of success. The right to follow the dream is natural, the right to succeed does not exist.
I welcome with open arms all immigrants who want to come here through the proper channels, largely due to the fact that my industry depends on them. I'm just sick & tired of hearing from people complaining that immigrants don't get treated the same or don't make the same money because the truth of the matter is that legal residents are all protected by the same minimum wage and anti-discrimination laws. Illegal immigrants are not protected in the same fashion and if they want to be afforded the same rights & protections they should come here legally.
The difference between calling illegal immigrants "illegal immigrants" and just plain old "immigrants" is negligible, especially because there were more than just illegals in the protests, and it was more than just the rights of the illegals that were at stake. Regular, ol' fashioned immigrants were fighting for their rights as well.
Wrong! The difference between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants is not negligible and the marches going on really aren't about rights for legal immigrants. Check out immigrantsolidarity.com and you'll see many statements about what these marches are about.
The immigration system is messed up but they are against reforming the system and they are against any legislation that fixes the system or that makes it harder for illegals.
If they are coming across legally, troops on the border doesn't affect them from an immigration point of view. It may be a poor direction of resources, but that is not an immigration issue. Troops on the border, from an immigration standpoint, only affects people coming across illegally.
Guess what? If you are here legally you have nothing to fear. They can't make "being an immigrant" a crime, but they can make "being here illegally" a crime.
Again, how would they "crack down" on people who are here legally?
So we shouldn't provide a legal way to come here and work, thus preserving the jobs of illegals?
Can you even spin that into a "this is for legal immigrants" argument? Undocumented = Illegal.
Anyone can be reunified if they do it legally. Should we also lobby for "Yes to federal prisoner family reunification" for all criminals?
The path is humane, but it is not easy. That is part of the reality of moving to a new country.
Living wages are granted to all legal workers. It's called "Minimum Wage". If you do not come into this country legally you are not entitled to the privileges that legal citizens enjoy. And if you want to be paid more than minimum wage, learn English and learn a trade.
The problem with the marches and protests is that they really want the same privileges afforded to illegal immigrants as are afforded to legal immigrants and citizens. Simply put, people who are here illegally do not deserve such privileges. The protesters like to portray themselves as civil rights activists but this isn't about civil rights. Black people not allowed to use a "white" water fountain strictly based on the color of their skin was a human rights violation. People breaking laws and then being worried about the consequences is not a human rights violation.
Of course it's up to developers, that's how it should be. My comment was a response to the previous poster's lament about the absence of an enforcement body to govern developers.
Number one: Quirks Mode. As long as browsers try to correct invalid documents, there is not real incentive for valid documents to be produced. Interoperability can't be fully achieved, and machine-to-machine exchange of data remains tenuous.
And this is the trade off between theory and practise. In theory, browsers should not have a quirks mode because it allows for bad code and slows down the overall progress of the web. In practise, browsers that don't render in quirks mode will break pages and Joe User who doesn't know or care the difference between quirks & strict modes will nearly always interpret "misrendered" pages as a browser failure and not a code failure.
Think about Grannie Websurfer. She's used IE for years because it was on the computer she got. Now she hears the hype about a new browser and decides to try it out because it's more secure. If the new browser doesn't have quirks mode and starts breaking all her favorite sites she's going to go right back to IE. And the experience is likely to damage any chance of her switching again for a long time. She doesn't give a shit about standards and "W3C", she cares about her stupid soap opera page rendering properly and if it works fine on IE but doesn't work fine in Browser X that will be a problem with browser X.
Furthermore, the W3C just produces documents, and there is no body anywhere to monitor and enforce standards compliance among browser vendors
Welcome to the free market. There shouldn't be a body enforcing browser makers to follow the standards, it should be up to the browser makers. If developers put together a crap browser they will lose market share. Talk all the crap you want about Internet Explorer, for a long time it had many flaws but it was the best available browser. Monopolies and other crap aside, Internet Explorer became better than Netscape. Notice that while Microsoft is still a monopoly and Firefox hasn't come preinstalled on any mass-produced computers, Firefox is gaining impressive market-share. A better browser has been created and people are flocking to it.
While not claiming to be an expert, my thoughts are that his rights may have been violated and people should have been writing their representatives in Congress and their President demanding that this American Citizen be treated properly. I say "maybe" his rights have been violated because it seems like the government overstepped its bounds but it also seems that Padilla's own lawyer(s) did a terrible job. While appeals courts upheld the lawyer's original statement of venue & respondent, it may have been more prudent if he'd filed in a different court and directly against the commander controlling the brig where he was held. After that the timeline is mostly 2-3 month periods waiting for courts to hear his case (except for an 18 month stretch waiting for the Supreme Court which is an unfortunate consequence of being involved in a Supreme Court case).
It certainly does seem that the government has a bone to pick with Padilla and they are taking every measure to make his situation as difficult as possible - but they are doing things through the courts. He wasn't "disappeared" and turned up years later in a secret prison. I have a very hard time believing that they would spend this much time and risk so much bad PR & legal implications to mess with this one guy when it would've been much easier for the Padilla to wind up in the newspaper as a mugging victim who got shot on the streets of Chicago. Do you really think that an administration with no qualms about taking a guys rights away would have qualms about killing him? It would certainly involve less "moving parts".
There once was a country. They were known as Germany...
Hitler was an extremely charismatic individual, George W. may be charming one-on-one but he's never been able to give rousing speaches to the masses. And as tragic as 9/11 was, it's nowhere near the impact of being ravaged during WWI and paying reparations for years after. Let's keep some perspective here.
whoops, we accidently thought all our biggest denouncers were terrorists and sent them to GTMO, oh well, we'll just keep it confidential
Did I miss a news report of a U.S. citizen being sent to Gitmo? Let's not forget that the detainees in Camp X-Ray are not US citizens and thus are not necessarily afforded the rights of US citizens. They were foreign combatants actively fighting against our forces and are treated under a different set of rules (UCMJ, Geneva Convention) than Americans (US Constitution, Bill of Rights). And no, the government can't legally send you away without a trial. Americans are entitled to the Wirt of Habeas Corpus which means they have to have probable cause to imprison Americans. The 6th Ammendment to the US Consitution also grants "the right to a speedy and public trial". I will not contest that the government has held people without trials but that does not mean the government has the right to do so. If the government acts illegally and the people do nothing the people get what they deserve.
The Republicans are the most foul, corrupt, incompetent bunch that this country has ever seen in power. I'm disgusted.
They are politicians, corruption is their nature and their business. Democrats are no better.
The real power is in the people and the people keep these politicians in office despite their blatant perversion. And it's not just the politicians, it's the CEOs and board members of these telecoms who allowed the NSA to do this. People should be up in arms screaming for justice and AT&T should be losing huge amounts of marketshare to QWest. But it's not happening and likely won't - partly because QWest has limited service areas, but more importantly because people are lazy.
It's easy to sit here and complain and throw insults at the Bush administration, Republicans, or other politicians. It takes more effort to call up AT&T, cancel your account, and get a new account with another carrier. People complain with their mouths & e-mails, but they vote with their $$. The companies won't learn their lessons until it costs them.
Well, if it's "about" the only one without an icon, it's in good company. Microsoft and Walmart are also missing icons.
My experiences have actually gone the other direction. I maintain a network of Windows PCs for a small business. Every time I install a new computer I set Firefox as the default browser and Google.com as the homepage in both IE and FF. The majority of the computers on the network now have IE as a default browser and Yahoo.com as the homepage. This happens via user intervention, not some dark magic of Windows or IE (I field the complaints every time I alter the settings... "Where did Yahoo go? Why Firefox?"). My small network isn't a great population sample either, but I'd say it's slightly more indicative of the general population's behavior as it involves people at multiple levels of computer proficiency that you would likely not find in family members or friends that need help installing their own computer.
Would it make you better if I had said "little" to offer instead of "nothing"?
While it's true that third party developers may develop M rated games if they choose, for the most part they choose not to because Nintendo does not foster the adult gamer demographic. Check out Nintendo's own website. The top 10 "Most Wanted" games are:
I'm not saying any of these games aren't fun for adults as well, but you cannot deny that Nintendo's primary focus is young gamers.
I would love to know what percentage of his customers fall into that "playcube, mario-on-xbox" category.
Any kid watching cartoons who sees a commercial for a product he wants will know exactly what the details are and will likely remind his parents exactly which product it was. If you want the Optimus Prime transformer, you know it. Now, by the time your parents got to the store they may only remember you want "a transformer" and get you the wrong one. In this type of scenario, Wii as a brand does nothing to help Nintendo because it has absolutely no familiarity with the masses. As the blog points out, it's not "Nintendo Wii" it's just "Wii". A confused parent looking for a game console for its child is going to have to pick from "Playstation" (that they've likely heard of), "Xbox" (that they've likely heard of) or "Wii" (what is that?). While the name may pique their curiosity, it does not provide the reassuring familiarity that a confused shopper is looking for. And since the name is so different, I'm guessing more confused parents will be asking Best Buy associates for "the nintendo console, I can't remember the name" instead of walking in and confidently saying "I want a we!".
I'm largely ignoring the adult-gamer demographic because it seems that Nintendo is also. While I don't doubt a motion-sensitive controller could be a lot of fun at a party, adult gamers seem to be more accustomed to just sitting in their gaming chairs pushing buttons. What's the oldest gamer you've ever seen jumping on a DDR machine? And since Nintendo seems to have given up completely on M rated games, there's nothing to offer in that arena. And most adult gamers know what they are looking for and I have a hard time picturing gamer over 20 walking into a Walmart saying "yeah, I want to play Mario on the x-play-cube or whatever ya got". That is something a confused non-gamer parent of a young gamer would do, and something that I don't think "Wii" would help with.
Having looked at The Escape Ladder, Nocturne, and The Beautiful Bird..., I don't see where they "incorporated images" directly from any of these paintings. Certainly the style is the same, but that is the purpose of the tribute.
The sad part is I'd never heard of Miro before and usually enjoy learning from the little sporadic tidbits Google provides. It would be a shame if Google decided to stop including artists because ARS is over-protective. I could understand their point if Google was trying to profit from using Miro's art in any way, but it just seems to be a fun way to raise awareness.
Does anyone else find it ironic that you can't buy advertising on Google's front-page and people who get some free publicity on one of the most-visited pages on the 'net are complaining.
They seem to have fixed that issue in XP.
I wish the article had more numbers and less hypothesis. The gist seems to be "people distrust Microsoft, therefore Apple could get bigger." Now, how long has Forrester been conducting these surveys and for how many years in a row has Microsoft been un-trustworthy in the public eye? If 5 million MS users have distrusted MS for years but are still using Windows, the survey doesn't mean anything.
Of course "Mass Defections to Apple are Possible". But they've always been *possible* and yet Microsoft still holds the majority of the market share. Too bad this article couldn't shed more insight than "Survey confirms what Slashdot already believes - people don't trust Microsoft."
I work in international shipping. If one of my trucks is on its way to the harbor hours before a deadline and gets a flat tire, I need a replacement truck immediately. If this container misses the boat and the customer demands that I ship on an airplane, the additional (unrecoverable) cost to me can be anywhere from $20k - $45k depending on the destination. Since the potential cost being unable to reach me is $20,000+ I am most definitely required to be on-call 24/7.
In theory, you are right - I could delegate responsibilities and details but the time it would take to do so and the quality of the information hand-off is not efficient. In the above scenario, many factors are weighed: How close are we to deadline? Can we get more time? Does this customer need this product immediately? Can we divert product from another customer? Do we make enough profit on this account to absorb the airfreight cost? Are any other trucks available? Can we just get a mechanic? etc. There are so many details that it is nearly impossible to pass information to my counterpart and expect that person to intimately understand the details in case a problem should arise. And since ultimately it is my account all decisions are ultimately my responsibility. If my counterpart makes an unwise decision because he was not properly briefed on every detail, it could be very costly. And my counterpart could always check with me to make sure he is making the right decision, but then we are back to me being on-call 24/7.
This is just one scenario where being on-call can save thousands of dollars if something goes wrong. Now, how about nurses & doctors? If they cannot be reached it could mean permanent changes to somebody's life or even the loss of that life.
I love my Blackberry because it allows me to be on-call 24/7 without having to respond to every message. If somebody calls my cel phone I cannot just ignore the phone call. I either have to answer every call or check every voicemail and respond as appropriate. The Blackberry allows me to know at-a-glance whether or not something is urgent.
I could be wrong, but I think XP's "bliss" wallpaper (the one Gates is using) and "azul" (the tropical island) are the only 2 pre-installed wallpapers that tile nicely when the monitors are setup like Gates'. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes their tile wallpapers to flow nicely.
You make many points that I agree wholeheartedly with and I think I just missed your point on the previous post. I hope I didn't ruffle any feathers, thanks for the clarificatinos.
How do you think companies pick health plans? By shopping. Human Resources departments are tasked daily to find health care plans that will match the company's workforce and to do so for as little cost as possible. And if a company doesn't provide health care to its employees, then yes the employees have the option to shop for health care. What plans cover their unique needs? What plans fit their budget? Just because you signed a paper at your job and instantly you had a care plan doesn't mean that someone at some level didn't shop for that plan.
And how do you think they spread awareness so that their competitors' customers know to switch? By advertising! They advertise with doctors, they advertise on TV. Just because you don't realize they are advertising doesn't mean you aren't being marketed. And even if you don't see specific underwriters advertising, can you deny the influence of insurance money on direct-to-consumer advertising? I'm sure you've never seen ads for Viagra, Cialis, Nexium, Claritin, Allegra, Ambien, Zocor or Levitra. And you'd would agree these drugs would advertise on TV if the insurance companies didn't cover them... right? And you'd agree that no geriatric consumers compare health plans to see which one will cover Viagra because, after all, health plans aren't shopped.
While death is definitely a market force to be reckoned with, it is not a competitor. People are constantly dying, but people are also constantly being born. Do you think the insurance companies want to write policies for old, stingy people who need lots of medication for their failing health or for young people who don't get sick as much and will be paying their whole life? Insurance companies aren't fighting death, they wish it would strike quicker so they can charge you a premium without having to pay for your care.
Perhaps, but it certainly wouldn't prevent the damage done by a car accident, animal attack, machinery accident at work, etc. And let's be realistic here though, a $50 checkup is not off-limits to the masses. I realize there are people just scraping by, but saving $1/week doesn't seem to be an impossible goal.
Wrong, dude. Nobody else put the code on your site, you did. The fact that you didn't check the code first to understand what it was doing is not Google's fault. Instead of being pissed at Google for this, you should learn to double-check code that you get from other people
I disagree because of the overlap. I don't see how they can "organize the world's information" without knowing everything about you. If they have all the world's information except everyone's personal information, they really haven't accomplished their goal.
My original point in the GP post was that Google has never said they want to organize some information. They've always been quite clear about the fact that they want to organize all information. Anyone who doesn't think that the word "all" doesn't encompass a subset of "private" information is mistaken.
any one find the following line just as scary?
Google doesn't hide the fact that they want your info. Their publicized goal is to organize the world's information - not to organize the internet, not to organize some information in some contexts - to organize the world's information. This has always been their goal and will always be their goal. Just because they said it in different terms doesn't make the goal any less ambitious/intrusive/scary.
Yahoo has always been like this, it's just people didn't notice while google was the new hotness
Or perhaps people were pre-occupied with Yahoo!'s problem of being linked to spyware funding. People are worried about Google's response to the government subpoena for info, but seem to turn a blind eye to Yahoo! complicity. People are blasting Google for censoring Chinese search results, but the Shi Tao PR flap seems to have blown over for Yahoo!.
Or are you talking strictly in the context of free code for developers? There have been complaints that Google uses OSS but doesn't contribute enough back, yet their overal social & business ethics seem to be better than Yahoo!'s. Does Yahoo!'s code-release to the developer community somehow mitigate their other poor ethics? And how much redemption is there in a codebase that many developers have already created on their own?
If the decision is taken to install the software by a person or persons who knows that Joe Blow most likely isn't very computer savvy, and most likely won't really know or understand what software is installed, or know how that software is configured or works, or understand the ramifications of those things, then I personally think they share responsibility for it
If a customer isn't computer savvy or doesn't know/understand the software, etc. they should ask the geek in their family, or at their office, or call their local news station. If they have don't know who to ask or where to look, they can always ask the salesperson selling them the product. If they are misled by the salesperson, of course that is unethical practise by the company and the customer becomes a victim. But if the customer does not conduct adequate due diligence it is their own fault and they are a willing participant, not a victim.
Caveat Emptor is not specific to the computer industry. I think it would be exemplary business practise to give full-disclosure of all the possible negative aspects of a purchase, but with the exeption of real-estate this just doesn't happen.
I agree, however the average joe blow that is buying a new dell that has Google desktop installed when it arrives, don't get the option to choose, nor are very many people informed about the data collection they perform.
Joe Blow may not have the option to choose whether or not Goodle Desktop is installed on his new Dell, but he certainly has the choice of whether or not to purchase that Dell. If Joe Blow chooses to purchase a computer and he chooses to buy a Dell specifically and he chooses not to read the list of software pre-installed on the machine and he chooses to leave the software on the machine after he receives it, how can he not be personally responsible for Google getting information about him.
This is kind of like the tiny fine print on a contract. Also there isn't an 'I Agree' button on the Google Search website, people think they are just looking up information.
There may not be an "I Agree" button, but there is a link to "About Google" where there are links to little things called "Privacy Policy" and "Terms of Service."
When will people understand that Google isn't hiding out in a dark alley hitting passerbys over the head and stealing information. They put out a big colorful sign that says, "Our goal is to organize the world's information" and people come to the big colorful sign and throw information at it. Google has bills to pay and they pay those bills by harvesting, organizing, and re-selling (in a way) that information. Everybody wants something for free, but don't want to believe the reality that nothing is truly free.
Are you one of the people who felt the woman was justified who sued McDonalds for serving her hot coffee because there were not significant warnings that it was hot? Where does personal responsibility end?