Really? In 2002 my Nokia 7650 had a colour screen, a camera, installable applications and games, MMS support, mobile web browser. This was a full 5 years before the iPhone even came out.
Nokia was a key player in most things we take for granted on modern phones.
No, people want Nokia hardware, with Android software.
Even Lumia's with Android would've been a hot seller compared to how they did with Windows 8.
Samsung demonstrated what a complete and utter fallacy it was to for companies like Nokia and RIM not to use Android with the argument "you can't differentiate in the Android ecosystem", quite obviously Samsung proved you can very much differentiate pretty much on hardware alone.
Well maybe that's not entirely accurate, I suppose yes you can't differentiate in the Android market if your CEO is a complete and utter incompetent muppet like Elop, but the point is you can easily differentiate in the Android market.
Nokia didn't even have an excuse, there was precedent, Symbian was on a lot of non-Nokia devices also but Nokia was the top phone manufacturer precisely because it's devices stood out amongst the rest.
Personally right now I find the Android hardware market very underwhelming, it's all dull and very similar - wide, tall, thin, and some form of grey, white, or blue. There's so much scope for a new provider to produce something that stands out amongst the crowd and takes Samsung's crown and again, as Samsung has proven, there's plenty of profit to be made too.
You can perfectly well use Android and still innovate.
The problem is your argument is a classic appeal to authority fallacy - "SCOTUS said it so it must be true" is effectively the general outline of your argument.
There's no reason to suggest SCOTUS should be the one that gets to define what is and isn't a civil liberty, what about the people? what do polls say? what about the world in general?
If we use an arbitrary body, or even a small subset of people to define what is and isn't a civil liberty then you get the absurd scenario where in tribally administered Pakistan the right for women to vote isn't a civil liberties issue because the local tribal council says so. Obviously that's stupid because a civil liberty has to be universal - it can't be that race equality is only a civil liberty when it's an issue in the West, that's nonsense, it's an issue globally. Civil liberties are more universal than something that can be defined by a single person, or small group of people, or even a body like SCOTUS.
I wont pretend that it's easy to define civil liberties, they are themselves quite arbitrary, but that's why you can't call the ACLU hypocrites - their interpretation and position is well documented and defined. If they then didn't defend that position, then they'd be hypocrites, but as long as they stick to what they've said there is no hypocrisy. The ACLU makes it's determination on what their priorities should be and whilst you may disagree with that it's their right, and your right to disagree but without some grand definition of overruling civil liberties then you can't call them hypocrites, given that no such thing does, can or will exist then all you can say about them is they have a different view on civil liberties to you, no more, no less. The closest thing that makes any attempt (but is still far from perfect) is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that tries to pin down a bear minimum set of rights and liberties people should have.
"Though not all... there have been a few times when they backed ridiculous ideas in the name of "rights" that are nowhere to be found in the law or the Constitution."
You're assuming that the law and constitution are the only valid definitions of civil liberties, they're not, which is why there's nothing hypocritical about their stance.
You're implying that your belief is the only correct one and universally so and hence everyone else must be wrong. They just have a different viewpoint to you that's all, it doesn't make theirs hypocritical, it just makes it different to yours.
It's like the smokers in the UK who complain about how their liberties have been taken away now they don't have the right to smoke in public buildings and demand that this infringement of civil liberties be reversed. Except, it's a fucking stupid argument because the implication is that the right to smoke is a liberty, but the right for non-smokers around them to breathe fresh air isn't. You may believe the right to bear arms trumps the right to live in peace free from the fear of gun violence because maybe gun violence isn't an issue where you are, but ask the parents of Newtown how they feel and I suspect they'll have a view that maybe their right to live free from fear of gun violence is actually more important than the right of others to bear arms.
Sometimes liberties conflict and then different people take different sides, neither side is necessarily wrong, but as to which side gets their way, well, that's ultimately what the polling station is for.
"Well, if you decide to do that, you can't then go and decide to try and stick it to a company you don't like."
Right, but this is an oversimplification of the scenario. The problem is that FRAND stops applying if a company goes ahead and uses FRAND patented technology without first seeking a license (under FRAND terms) and this is exactly what happened here and it's what happened to companies like Apple when they went up against Nokia originally on their GSM FRAND patents. Just as you give up the ability to charge what you want when you offer technology to standards on the condition you license them under FRAND terms you also give up the ability to get a FRAND license if you use the technology without first obtaining that license.
If you use the technology and then try and obtain a license after your product is already out the door and on the shelves then FRAND no longer applies and it's for this reason that Microsoft lost this exact same court case against Motorola in Germany because German judges apparently have a better understanding of FRAND laws than the clueless jury in this case. For FRAND to apply you have to obtain that license before you start selling a product based on it - it requires goodwill from both sides and as Microsoft refused to do this they lost in Germany under judges who understood the law properly and for good reason.
Microsoft shouldn't have won this case as it seems to be a perfect demonstration of the danger of juries not grasping the intricacies of the law vs. judges who are experienced enough to understand as in the German case.
Regarding the 2.25% rate I'd wager that starting point was chosen because it's the same rate that Microsoft has been putting on it's arguably even more dubious patents to Android manufacturers and the same rate that Apple has been starting with on it's multi-touch patents and that Nokia, Samsung et. al. have been starting with on their cellular tech patents. In other words, it's the industry standard starting point for negotiations in the smartphone market. It may sound too high but it's the rate everyone starts at.
Of course, it'd be nicer if rather than charging each other 2.25% they all just grew the fuck up and stopped engaging in patent trolling altogether.
"He WAS on the neighborhood watch in an area which had suffered a rash of break ins."
In normal countries neighbourhood watch doesn't mean going round looking for trouble with a gun. It means keeping an eye out for anything suspicious and phoning the professionals (the police) to deal with it and why do you think that is? Precisely to avoid shit like this.
"Yes, heres the thing, a jury found that Martin WASNT innocent"
Wrong, it found that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest that Zimmerman was guilty which is not the same thing. But you're not responding to what the GP was saying anyway, you're talking about the fight which is really what the court case is about. The point the GP made that you're responding to was that before Zimmerman created a situation that caused that fight to break out Martin was innocent because he was just walking along the street doing nothing wrong and he was - the GP's point is that up until the fight started Martin was innocent of wrongdoing and hence because he was an innocent civilian wandering the streets Zimmerman should've had no right to stalk him.
"What laws, specifically are you thinking of-- hopefully not the "stand your ground" law which had absolutely no relevance to the case?"
I suspect he's referring to laws that allow someone to stalk someone with a gun resulting in a fight in which the victim of stalking dies that has no repercussions for the stalker. The point is that even if Martin was very much guilty of starting the fight and even if the worst case is true that Martin wanted to kill Zimmerman the point is that the law should've protected Martin from being stalked by a hobby-cop with a gun that triggered the whole fight scenario in the first place. Those "most societies you would want to live in" that you talk about would also recognise this and punish Zimmerman for creating the situation by having him found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder, the US seems to be an exception in this regard.
Fundamentally the point is that Martin may have started the fight but Zimmerman's actions clearly provoked Martin into starting the fight and that is why in normal sensible societies it'd be a clear case of manslaughter - that provocation causes Zimmerman to have some degree of responsibility for the situation.
I think it's right that Zimmerman wasn't found guilty of murder because the evidence does seem to show that Martin started the fight and may well have been willing to do some serious, possibly fatal damage to Zimmerman, but I also think it's pretty clear cut that Zimmerman created the whole situation which in most sane societies would definitely put him in line for a manslaughter conviction.
Effectively the whole case has created a precedent where you can go out armed, provoke someone until they attack you, shoot them, and get away with it. That's a horrendously bad precedent to be setting as it allows people to engineer murder which they can get away with and that is why most sane countries will ensure both parties are punished - the provoker and the person responding to the provocation to make it clear that neither action is tolerated. Clarification of legalisation of provocation resulting in a fight to the death is defacto what has happened here with this court case.
"Willing to bet your life on the kindness and willingness of strangers, especially when they don't know who is in the right?"
Maybe America is especially fucked up, but here in the normal world where common decency still exists and stalking people is a crime, not something you make a hobby of strangers normally don't give a fuck who is in the right but simply tackle both parties and get them off each other so they stop fighting then let the cops figure out "who is in the right".
"You consider the fear that you may be killed reasonable enough to be scared, but not reasonable enough to defend yourself with the only weapon you have?"
Personally I call putting yourself in such a situation in the first place by stalking someone an unreasonable excuse to then go on to kill that person no matter what happens, but again I guess that's the difference between normal countries where stalking is a crime and America where it's a hobby.
"Perhaps not, but that's a risk you always take when you kick someone's ass with a sidewalk."
Right, and getting your ass kicked and suffering brain damage is the risk you take when you stalk someone looking for confrontation despite being told not to by the police. It doesn't give you the right to kill them though, actually scratch that, judging by the court case I guess in America it actually does.
The doctoring only changes the context of the claim about his race, from "Can you give us a description? He's maybe 5'10, wearing white clothes and I think he looks black" or whatever to "He's looks black I'm going to kill him because of that" but the argument above is whether he knew the race of the guy before he confronted him.
Obviously he did which means attempts to try and absolve Zimmerman of pursuing the guy for racist reasons based on him not knowing the colour of Travyon are invalid.
I'm not from the US so I have no real stake in the whole incident but whilst Zimmerman was found not guilty of murder there's an awful lot of people trying to find him not guilty of more than that, like, you know, playing amateur cop stalking a guy which he obviously did and to me is a bit messed up in itself, but hey, maybe that's a normal thing in the US. The US still has major race problems and whether this was or wasn't a racist incident the drama and commentary by both professionals talking heads and amateur bloggers made it pretty clear that racism is still rife in the US. Responses to this topic alone by ACs and non-ACs alike make that pretty clear. It's pretty obvious the US still has issues in this regard that desperately need solving.
That and much of Assange's "attention whoring" really had nothing to do with him.
Most of his supposed "attention whoring" was actually the media looking for a drama and most prominently falling for the whole Domscheit-Berg FUDfest, you can read about it first hand from a real actual activist with a long track record and who was familiar with the two of them:
Most of the "attention whoring" by Assange has actually been manufactured precisely to defame him. I can count the number of times Assange has wilfully put himself in front the press on one hand as it's usually been to talk about some key event in his story - his decision to enter the Ecuadorian embassy, his response to Manning's conviction and so on. I don't really see a handful of short sharp statements at a rate of maybe one or two a year as "attention whoring". 99% of the time it has been the press writing about him, rather than him going to the press.
"I have a 360 -- the last Xbox I'll own until MS pulls their head out of their sphincters."
Are you sure you have a 360? It's just if you actually did I'm amazed you didn't realise the update a few weeks back that eliminated Microsoft points and switched everything to real currency in preparation for this being the standard on the next gen.
But FWIW you can buy equally silly stuff as avatar clothes on the PS3 too.
You may well be right that this time around the PS4 will be a way better console but I think you're looking at things from a perspective where you're assuming that the grass is greener when it quite possibly wont be.
You've read way too much into that vote. It has nothing to do with MPs caring what we think and everything to do with party politics. Ed Milliband has no policies other than opposing government simply for the sake of trying to make the PM's life difficult. Most Labour MPs wanted military action but we're whipped into voting against it because Ed figured it'd pass and if it did go wrong he could pretend it was nothing to do with his party. The problem is he didn't factor in the Tory far right who are trying to bring Cameron down also because they want a far right foreigner hating gay hating leader who will push their anti Europe and anti gay rights laws.
As such Ed 's plan back fired and he got a result even he didn't really want. This is born out by the fact that a number of top Labour MPs including shadow ministers have come out and outright said it wasn't the result they wanted.
The whole thing was a mess born of Ed's and the Tory far right's political games to destroy Cameron. Just because it ended in the result you wanted it's a complete mistake to believe they did it for you as the fact is the majority of MPs want action. They just tried to play a game with their votes and ended up getting not what they wanted. It makes more sense if you view it as a vote on David Cameron. View it like this and you'll note the names voting against line up exactly to those who have been biting at his heels ever since he became party leader.
Especially the comment near the end about cutting jobs when they merged two companies.
I mean what, is whoever wrote that piece of turd suggesting that if you merge two companies you should just retain two HR departments, two finance departments, or merge them and have one big bloated oversized mess?
If anyone thinks you should keep all jobs when you merge two companies then they're kind of missing the point and wont get very far in life. Merging companies or even departments to cut redundancy is a standard way of increasing efficiency. I mean what, are you supposed to have two receptionists sat on front desk filing their nails instead of just one? Two IT managers fighting over power of one network? Two CEOs fighting over the best way to run said company? Two janitors so you can have the toilets cleaned twice as fast leaving them nothing to do for the rest of the day?
I'm not convinced it's just that (though I agree that's relevant), take your music example, I may just remember the good stuff and forget the crap but I most definitely remember way more good stuff from the 90s UK music scene than I do from the 00s. This suggests there was either just lots more music in the 90s which I don't think is true, or there was a higher ratio of good to bad. The same is true for US music in the 80s compared to the 90s and 00s.
If I'm correct in my belief that there wasn't just lots more music then and in fact the quality ratio was simply higher then it suggests there genuinely are golden ages and it's not just a case of rose tinted glasses. I do agree with you that it's probably not true for journalism (I can't think of anything that would make me thing otherwise at least) but I do think it's true of music and movies - if you like war films then one can hardly say the last 10 - 20 years has given us anything like the amount and quality of movies as the era that gave us Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Hamburger Hill, Platoon, The Deer Hunter, Bat 21 and so forth. We've had the odd reasonably decent film like Blackhawk Down and such but they've been much fewer and farther between. I think likely these things happen in cycles, maybe in another 10 years we'll have a new golden era of war films focussing on the dramas and horrors of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq for example, or a resurgence in decent rock music or whatever but I think in some fields there are at least easily defined periods of specific excellence compared to the norm.
The only point I can give regarding the media is right now in the UK at least we have a massively biased to the right wing print media and because of that almost monopolistic bias the quality is indeed extremely poor, though it's counterbalanced by excellent TV and online media outlets. But perhaps you're right about the media, perhaps it's always been this way but the plurality of opinion in print media right now is horrendously bad here.
No I just expected anyone reading the post to be capable of understanding the point without an in depth explanation explaining every bit of detail thoroughly.
It's common knowledge in the UK but you have to consider who is making these calls:
1) Indian call centres who don't have a clue
2) Minimum wage phone monkeys in the UK who couldn't give a fuck what number they're calling
That is I suspect, why it's highly successful. The people who are calling either don't know or just aren't paid enough to care that it's costing the company.
You have to quote something to be misquoted, the fact you didn't quote anything and just made stuff up makes it kind of difficult for me to quote anything. If you want to see what I'm referring to you could just follow the thread back up, it's not difficult.
"Citation is required, I see no evidence anywhere. No, some blogger's opinion from the UK does not count. Facts only."
Read the news, any news source on the issue will do. In fact, the fact you haven't explains why you're woefully misinformed on this topic. See here for example:
"According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated."
Even she accepts there's no incontrovertible proof. All the links from that search are either speculation by private individuals or Del Ponte's viewpoint. There is no official UN ruling on the issue. In fact, on Google by the 6th link it starts talking about Sierra Leone, if this is widespread and common knowledge as you claim that the UN has officially claimed that the rebels definitely used chemical weapons then there would be pages of hits from such a search. You're confusing opinion and suspicion with fact, which is quite ironic given that's what you're claiming the US shouldn't base an attack on Syria on.
You need to link to the official UN ruling itself, or at least a site that references it or just admit you were wrong. Linking to vague third party sites of private individuals with little credibility that don't even back up your claim of official UN condemnation does nothing for your argument.
"The Syrian Army is now planting IEDs and blowing them up huh? Come on now, you can't really be that daft can you?"
You really don't have the slightest understanding of this conflict do you? You know Assad's forces are comprised of not just the Syrian military but Hezbollah, and pro-Assad paramilitaries? The latter of which both very much have IEDs as their modus-operandi, especially against witnesses to a massacre they just caught red handed committing.
But anyway I'm done, it's clear you're arguing from a point of complete lack of understanding on the topic. You obviously have absolutely no idea given that you think Assad's forces comprise only of the Syrian military itself, given that you think it's still in question as to whether a chemical attack even happened. I really can't be bothered to waste any more time on someone who can't at least even keep up with the current news on the topic and at least have a basic grasp of the various players involved in the conflict on both sides. You're lazy and forming an opinion on next to no information, that's a guaranteed recipe for ignorance and you've proven that. Well done.
"Everything I have claimed you said has been in quotes"
Except the bit I was disputing which is kind of the point.
"There is no proof that this happened!"
Huh? No one is disputing that a bunch of 1.5 - 2 metre munitions with a chemical payload landed in rebel held territory and killed a bunch of people at this point, not even Russia and China or even Assad. If you aren't aware of the confirmation of this then you really are out of your depth in this discussion. Backing up those initial images since are many images of UN weapons inspectors inspecting said munitions. If you aren't even aware of the basic facts at this point then why are you even involving in this discussion?
The debate now is simply about who carried out the attack and whether it justifies actions not whether it happened and once more there's no evidence the rebels have the capacity to launch this type of munition from government held territory and that is why it looks most likely to be a government launched attack.
"Google is not broken. If you fail to do any work at all how are you able to debate from a rational point."
I Googled and I could find nothing, only the things that backed up what I said to you. I asked you to back up your point precisely for this reason but the fact you're still evasive on this says all that needs to be said - you were wrong and you can't admit it. You have had 3 opportunities to demonstrate this supposed widespread information that should be easy to find and yet you haven't thus I can only realistically conclude that you can't find such evidence but wont just admit you were wrong.
"If a country holds a double standard of law, the law is unjust. There is no other way of putting it. So the US can hold Nukes for deterrent, but other nations cant?"
No, the established thinking across the globe on this is that the NPT should be adhered to - nations with existing stockpiles should reduce them until they don't have them, no new nations should acquire them. This isn't double standards, it applies to everyone and is broadly accepted as the safest way forward on nuclear arms. It's not about the US thinking only it's allies should have nukes, Russia and China aren't US allies, they're the counterbalance nuclear powers to the US/UK/France on the issue with Pakistan/India having their own counterbalancing arsenals.
"Further, an unjust punishment can not be used in seeking justice."
You still don't get it. It has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with making the cost of using chemical weapons too high to justify using chemical weapons, that's it, there's nothing more to it than that. We want to make sure chemical weapons are always a taboo and we shouldn't make exceptions.
"I'm not one sided, I said we need to fact find."
I agree, your problem is as explained in my first paragraph is that you don't even have the basic facts to even start engaging in this discussion. Hence why you seem to be struggling to understand it. You think there's still suspicion the whole attack was fake and staged and that it's all about revenge, neither of these things are true.
"Bombing Turkey when Turkey is allowing unfettered access routes to rebels is a logical military action is it not?"
Given that Syria and Iran have used Lebanon and Hezbollah as a proxy to attack other states for decades without said states attacking Syria and Iran proper then I'd say no, we don't want to go down that route, because otherwise everywhere becomes a target by everyone. Further, you seem oblivious that Turkey was an ally of Assad even after he started killing his own people, it was very much Syria's killing of Turkish civilians that changed all that which raises another important point - if you think Turkey is a legitimate military target then why did Assad's forces only kill civilians?
"If you do not see this as a viable military target given those circumstances, then you had best start petitioning against drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and every other place that the U
I actually agree that stock price isn't the greatest of metrics for what it's worth but what metric do you suggest? I think profit growth is probably the most sensible but Cook has faltered there the last couple of quarters too and Ballmer has maintained healthy growth at Microsoft so by this metric would be deemed a highly successful CEO. Sales figures are up under Cook but marketshare is down. Customer satisfaction is strong in Apple products but is it higher under Cook than it was under the era that could be credited to Jobs? Corporate responsibility? Is Apple greener and more philanthropic under Cook maybe?
I'm not arguing against you, on the contrary, I'm interested to hear what metric or metrics you think are best because none of them are particularly more positive for Cook than they were for Ballmer which is why I find it difficult to see how you can objectively suggest Ballmer is a poor CEO at his respective firm, but Cook not. By most metrics, their performances seem incredibly comparable having both taken over from people who were perceived to be successful leaders (albeit with varying levels of like/dislike depending on who you ask).
"Apple isn't going to produce a groundbreaking device in a new market for them every three years. No company can does that."
I actually agree, though that doesn't mean visionaries aren't important. You still need someone who can judge the road ahead and know what products to aim for when the time is right, even if you can't do that every three years. I do not think Cook is a person who can do that - just as Ballmer isn't given how badly he missed the smartphone and tablet boats only deciding to follow way after the boat had already left the dock.
But most of that can be attributed to the lag effect. The point is simply that Cook hasn't sustained, or even managed to come close to holding it even close to that peak.
Ultimately under Jobs it was on an upwards trend, and whilst no one expected Cook to be able to keep up the pace (no one could) one would at least expect him not to oversee a 50% decline from that peak.
Or in other words Cook could've simply not turned up to work after Job's resignation and it'd still have had the momentum from Jobs - it wouldn't have declined overnight, it takes time.
But if Cook was doing a good job then it would've kept increasing, or plateaued or declined slightly. It didn't do any of those though, it went into freefall under him.
Apple has lost half it's value since Tim Cook took over, it's since regained some now that the sharks (Icahn) are circling the pool waiting to see if they can profit off the decline. It's also seen two quarters with a decline in profits under him also.
In this respect he's actually damaged Apple far quicker and far more severely than Ballmer managed to damage Microsoft when he took over.
But despite this I'd argue Cook would actually be better suited to Microsoft. Apple sells cutting edge innovative products and Cook just isn't an innovator or a visionary which is why Apple has been beginning to suffer. Microsoft tends not to innovate so much and focuses on optimisation of profits in it's existing markets which is what Cook is actually good at - he did in Apple as the supply chain guy finding the cheapest suppliers etc. but has struggled as CEO.
Cook was never going to be able to follow in Jobs' footsteps but the way he's going he's at risk of taking Ballmer's crown as worst CEO if he hangs around in the role for 10 years like Ballmer. If he jumped to Microsoft he could probably do a bit better than Ballmer. I doubt it'll happen, there's too much money for him at Apple, but if reputation is what he cares about then he'd probably actually be better off leaving Apple and going to Microsoft.
Or to put it another way, Cook is Apple's Ballmer, but Apple's Ballmer is still at least likely able to do better than Microsoft's Ballmer at being Ballmer.
Businesses have often lobbied for codes of practice to be unenforceable so that nothing comes of them if they breach them so I doubt this is illegal, he'll just get a telling off from the regulator - as if he gives a shit.
It breaks the code of practice supposedly because you have to list pricing information alongside premium rate numbers and when he fills in the forms for his phone number etc. there is no form field to do this.
But I'm not convinced the code even applies, because the pricing information is meant for consumers and he's only giving these details to businesses who tend not to be covered by consumer protection laws (they're not protected by the sale of goods act for example).
I think this is more the regulator trying to avoid a headache than him actually doing anything wrong. I'd be surprised if any enforcement could actually be taken against him successfully which is presumably why the regulator has said "We advise against this" rather than "We're going to have a word with him and make him stop because he's breaching the code" - I suspect they're "advising" and not "acting" because there's actually fuck all else they can do about it but we'll probably find out before long.
I don't think GCHQ will be investigated. The problem is that whilst GCHQ was tapping cables in the UK itself, the NSA was ordering companies both US based and foreign to hand over data.
So for example, the NSA may have asked French telecomms companies to hand over data and the telecomms companies were obliging to retain access to the US market. In contrast GCHQ wasn't afaik doing this, it was just tapping cables only on it's home soil.
This is why the French authorities are investigating because in obliging French companies may have broken French law, but French companies can't be held liable if for example GCHQ stole data from them by tapping cables they used in the UK.
This seems to be more about investigating whether European companies adhering to those American national security orders from secret courts meant they broke the law of the European nations they were headquartered in than the spying programmes in general and GCHQ and the British government didn't use these sorts of orders - they went about things in a different way.
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Really? In 2002 my Nokia 7650 had a colour screen, a camera, installable applications and games, MMS support, mobile web browser. This was a full 5 years before the iPhone even came out.
Nokia was a key player in most things we take for granted on modern phones.
No, people want Nokia hardware, with Android software.
Even Lumia's with Android would've been a hot seller compared to how they did with Windows 8.
Samsung demonstrated what a complete and utter fallacy it was to for companies like Nokia and RIM not to use Android with the argument "you can't differentiate in the Android ecosystem", quite obviously Samsung proved you can very much differentiate pretty much on hardware alone.
Well maybe that's not entirely accurate, I suppose yes you can't differentiate in the Android market if your CEO is a complete and utter incompetent muppet like Elop, but the point is you can easily differentiate in the Android market.
Nokia didn't even have an excuse, there was precedent, Symbian was on a lot of non-Nokia devices also but Nokia was the top phone manufacturer precisely because it's devices stood out amongst the rest.
Personally right now I find the Android hardware market very underwhelming, it's all dull and very similar - wide, tall, thin, and some form of grey, white, or blue. There's so much scope for a new provider to produce something that stands out amongst the crowd and takes Samsung's crown and again, as Samsung has proven, there's plenty of profit to be made too.
You can perfectly well use Android and still innovate.
The problem is your argument is a classic appeal to authority fallacy - "SCOTUS said it so it must be true" is effectively the general outline of your argument.
There's no reason to suggest SCOTUS should be the one that gets to define what is and isn't a civil liberty, what about the people? what do polls say? what about the world in general?
If we use an arbitrary body, or even a small subset of people to define what is and isn't a civil liberty then you get the absurd scenario where in tribally administered Pakistan the right for women to vote isn't a civil liberties issue because the local tribal council says so. Obviously that's stupid because a civil liberty has to be universal - it can't be that race equality is only a civil liberty when it's an issue in the West, that's nonsense, it's an issue globally. Civil liberties are more universal than something that can be defined by a single person, or small group of people, or even a body like SCOTUS.
I wont pretend that it's easy to define civil liberties, they are themselves quite arbitrary, but that's why you can't call the ACLU hypocrites - their interpretation and position is well documented and defined. If they then didn't defend that position, then they'd be hypocrites, but as long as they stick to what they've said there is no hypocrisy. The ACLU makes it's determination on what their priorities should be and whilst you may disagree with that it's their right, and your right to disagree but without some grand definition of overruling civil liberties then you can't call them hypocrites, given that no such thing does, can or will exist then all you can say about them is they have a different view on civil liberties to you, no more, no less. The closest thing that makes any attempt (but is still far from perfect) is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that tries to pin down a bear minimum set of rights and liberties people should have.
"Though not all... there have been a few times when they backed ridiculous ideas in the name of "rights" that are nowhere to be found in the law or the Constitution."
You're assuming that the law and constitution are the only valid definitions of civil liberties, they're not, which is why there's nothing hypocritical about their stance.
You're implying that your belief is the only correct one and universally so and hence everyone else must be wrong. They just have a different viewpoint to you that's all, it doesn't make theirs hypocritical, it just makes it different to yours.
It's like the smokers in the UK who complain about how their liberties have been taken away now they don't have the right to smoke in public buildings and demand that this infringement of civil liberties be reversed. Except, it's a fucking stupid argument because the implication is that the right to smoke is a liberty, but the right for non-smokers around them to breathe fresh air isn't. You may believe the right to bear arms trumps the right to live in peace free from the fear of gun violence because maybe gun violence isn't an issue where you are, but ask the parents of Newtown how they feel and I suspect they'll have a view that maybe their right to live free from fear of gun violence is actually more important than the right of others to bear arms.
Sometimes liberties conflict and then different people take different sides, neither side is necessarily wrong, but as to which side gets their way, well, that's ultimately what the polling station is for.
"I don't know why you were modded funny. The NRA is widely perceived in the gun rights community as far too willing to compromise."
Exactly, that's what's funny.
"Well, if you decide to do that, you can't then go and decide to try and stick it to a company you don't like."
Right, but this is an oversimplification of the scenario. The problem is that FRAND stops applying if a company goes ahead and uses FRAND patented technology without first seeking a license (under FRAND terms) and this is exactly what happened here and it's what happened to companies like Apple when they went up against Nokia originally on their GSM FRAND patents. Just as you give up the ability to charge what you want when you offer technology to standards on the condition you license them under FRAND terms you also give up the ability to get a FRAND license if you use the technology without first obtaining that license.
If you use the technology and then try and obtain a license after your product is already out the door and on the shelves then FRAND no longer applies and it's for this reason that Microsoft lost this exact same court case against Motorola in Germany because German judges apparently have a better understanding of FRAND laws than the clueless jury in this case. For FRAND to apply you have to obtain that license before you start selling a product based on it - it requires goodwill from both sides and as Microsoft refused to do this they lost in Germany under judges who understood the law properly and for good reason.
Microsoft shouldn't have won this case as it seems to be a perfect demonstration of the danger of juries not grasping the intricacies of the law vs. judges who are experienced enough to understand as in the German case.
Regarding the 2.25% rate I'd wager that starting point was chosen because it's the same rate that Microsoft has been putting on it's arguably even more dubious patents to Android manufacturers and the same rate that Apple has been starting with on it's multi-touch patents and that Nokia, Samsung et. al. have been starting with on their cellular tech patents. In other words, it's the industry standard starting point for negotiations in the smartphone market. It may sound too high but it's the rate everyone starts at.
Of course, it'd be nicer if rather than charging each other 2.25% they all just grew the fuck up and stopped engaging in patent trolling altogether.
"He WAS on the neighborhood watch in an area which had suffered a rash of break ins."
In normal countries neighbourhood watch doesn't mean going round looking for trouble with a gun. It means keeping an eye out for anything suspicious and phoning the professionals (the police) to deal with it and why do you think that is? Precisely to avoid shit like this.
"Yes, heres the thing, a jury found that Martin WASNT innocent"
Wrong, it found that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest that Zimmerman was guilty which is not the same thing. But you're not responding to what the GP was saying anyway, you're talking about the fight which is really what the court case is about. The point the GP made that you're responding to was that before Zimmerman created a situation that caused that fight to break out Martin was innocent because he was just walking along the street doing nothing wrong and he was - the GP's point is that up until the fight started Martin was innocent of wrongdoing and hence because he was an innocent civilian wandering the streets Zimmerman should've had no right to stalk him.
"What laws, specifically are you thinking of-- hopefully not the "stand your ground" law which had absolutely no relevance to the case?"
I suspect he's referring to laws that allow someone to stalk someone with a gun resulting in a fight in which the victim of stalking dies that has no repercussions for the stalker. The point is that even if Martin was very much guilty of starting the fight and even if the worst case is true that Martin wanted to kill Zimmerman the point is that the law should've protected Martin from being stalked by a hobby-cop with a gun that triggered the whole fight scenario in the first place. Those "most societies you would want to live in" that you talk about would also recognise this and punish Zimmerman for creating the situation by having him found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder, the US seems to be an exception in this regard.
Fundamentally the point is that Martin may have started the fight but Zimmerman's actions clearly provoked Martin into starting the fight and that is why in normal sensible societies it'd be a clear case of manslaughter - that provocation causes Zimmerman to have some degree of responsibility for the situation.
I think it's right that Zimmerman wasn't found guilty of murder because the evidence does seem to show that Martin started the fight and may well have been willing to do some serious, possibly fatal damage to Zimmerman, but I also think it's pretty clear cut that Zimmerman created the whole situation which in most sane societies would definitely put him in line for a manslaughter conviction.
Effectively the whole case has created a precedent where you can go out armed, provoke someone until they attack you, shoot them, and get away with it. That's a horrendously bad precedent to be setting as it allows people to engineer murder which they can get away with and that is why most sane countries will ensure both parties are punished - the provoker and the person responding to the provocation to make it clear that neither action is tolerated. Clarification of legalisation of provocation resulting in a fight to the death is defacto what has happened here with this court case.
"Willing to bet your life on the kindness and willingness of strangers, especially when they don't know who is in the right?"
Maybe America is especially fucked up, but here in the normal world where common decency still exists and stalking people is a crime, not something you make a hobby of strangers normally don't give a fuck who is in the right but simply tackle both parties and get them off each other so they stop fighting then let the cops figure out "who is in the right".
"You consider the fear that you may be killed reasonable enough to be scared, but not reasonable enough to defend yourself with the only weapon you have?"
Personally I call putting yourself in such a situation in the first place by stalking someone an unreasonable excuse to then go on to kill that person no matter what happens, but again I guess that's the difference between normal countries where stalking is a crime and America where it's a hobby.
"Perhaps not, but that's a risk you always take when you kick someone's ass with a sidewalk."
Right, and getting your ass kicked and suffering brain damage is the risk you take when you stalk someone looking for confrontation despite being told not to by the police. It doesn't give you the right to kill them though, actually scratch that, judging by the court case I guess in America it actually does.
The doctoring only changes the context of the claim about his race, from "Can you give us a description? He's maybe 5'10, wearing white clothes and I think he looks black" or whatever to "He's looks black I'm going to kill him because of that" but the argument above is whether he knew the race of the guy before he confronted him.
Obviously he did which means attempts to try and absolve Zimmerman of pursuing the guy for racist reasons based on him not knowing the colour of Travyon are invalid.
I'm not from the US so I have no real stake in the whole incident but whilst Zimmerman was found not guilty of murder there's an awful lot of people trying to find him not guilty of more than that, like, you know, playing amateur cop stalking a guy which he obviously did and to me is a bit messed up in itself, but hey, maybe that's a normal thing in the US. The US still has major race problems and whether this was or wasn't a racist incident the drama and commentary by both professionals talking heads and amateur bloggers made it pretty clear that racism is still rife in the US. Responses to this topic alone by ACs and non-ACs alike make that pretty clear. It's pretty obvious the US still has issues in this regard that desperately need solving.
That and much of Assange's "attention whoring" really had nothing to do with him.
Most of his supposed "attention whoring" was actually the media looking for a drama and most prominently falling for the whole Domscheit-Berg FUDfest, you can read about it first hand from a real actual activist with a long track record and who was familiar with the two of them:
http://nothingispermanent.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/open-letter.html
Most of the "attention whoring" by Assange has actually been manufactured precisely to defame him. I can count the number of times Assange has wilfully put himself in front the press on one hand as it's usually been to talk about some key event in his story - his decision to enter the Ecuadorian embassy, his response to Manning's conviction and so on. I don't really see a handful of short sharp statements at a rate of maybe one or two a year as "attention whoring". 99% of the time it has been the press writing about him, rather than him going to the press.
"I have a 360 -- the last Xbox I'll own until MS pulls their head out of their sphincters."
Are you sure you have a 360? It's just if you actually did I'm amazed you didn't realise the update a few weeks back that eliminated Microsoft points and switched everything to real currency in preparation for this being the standard on the next gen.
But FWIW you can buy equally silly stuff as avatar clothes on the PS3 too.
You may well be right that this time around the PS4 will be a way better console but I think you're looking at things from a perspective where you're assuming that the grass is greener when it quite possibly wont be.
You've read way too much into that vote. It has nothing to do with MPs caring what we think and everything to do with party politics. Ed Milliband has no policies other than opposing government simply for the sake of trying to make the PM's life difficult. Most Labour MPs wanted military action but we're whipped into voting against it because Ed figured it'd pass and if it did go wrong he could pretend it was nothing to do with his party. The problem is he didn't factor in the Tory far right who are trying to bring Cameron down also because they want a far right foreigner hating gay hating leader who will push their anti Europe and anti gay rights laws.
As such Ed 's plan back fired and he got a result even he didn't really want. This is born out by the fact that a number of top Labour MPs including shadow ministers have come out and outright said it wasn't the result they wanted.
The whole thing was a mess born of Ed's and the Tory far right's political games to destroy Cameron. Just because it ended in the result you wanted it's a complete mistake to believe they did it for you as the fact is the majority of MPs want action. They just tried to play a game with their votes and ended up getting not what they wanted. It makes more sense if you view it as a vote on David Cameron. View it like this and you'll note the names voting against line up exactly to those who have been biting at his heels ever since he became party leader.
Especially the comment near the end about cutting jobs when they merged two companies.
I mean what, is whoever wrote that piece of turd suggesting that if you merge two companies you should just retain two HR departments, two finance departments, or merge them and have one big bloated oversized mess?
If anyone thinks you should keep all jobs when you merge two companies then they're kind of missing the point and wont get very far in life. Merging companies or even departments to cut redundancy is a standard way of increasing efficiency. I mean what, are you supposed to have two receptionists sat on front desk filing their nails instead of just one? Two IT managers fighting over power of one network? Two CEOs fighting over the best way to run said company? Two janitors so you can have the toilets cleaned twice as fast leaving them nothing to do for the rest of the day?
I'm not convinced it's just that (though I agree that's relevant), take your music example, I may just remember the good stuff and forget the crap but I most definitely remember way more good stuff from the 90s UK music scene than I do from the 00s. This suggests there was either just lots more music in the 90s which I don't think is true, or there was a higher ratio of good to bad. The same is true for US music in the 80s compared to the 90s and 00s.
If I'm correct in my belief that there wasn't just lots more music then and in fact the quality ratio was simply higher then it suggests there genuinely are golden ages and it's not just a case of rose tinted glasses. I do agree with you that it's probably not true for journalism (I can't think of anything that would make me thing otherwise at least) but I do think it's true of music and movies - if you like war films then one can hardly say the last 10 - 20 years has given us anything like the amount and quality of movies as the era that gave us Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Hamburger Hill, Platoon, The Deer Hunter, Bat 21 and so forth. We've had the odd reasonably decent film like Blackhawk Down and such but they've been much fewer and farther between. I think likely these things happen in cycles, maybe in another 10 years we'll have a new golden era of war films focussing on the dramas and horrors of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq for example, or a resurgence in decent rock music or whatever but I think in some fields there are at least easily defined periods of specific excellence compared to the norm.
The only point I can give regarding the media is right now in the UK at least we have a massively biased to the right wing print media and because of that almost monopolistic bias the quality is indeed extremely poor, though it's counterbalanced by excellent TV and online media outlets. But perhaps you're right about the media, perhaps it's always been this way but the plurality of opinion in print media right now is horrendously bad here.
Dividends only started being paid after the fall as a measure to stem it falling any further.
No I just expected anyone reading the post to be capable of understanding the point without an in depth explanation explaining every bit of detail thoroughly.
Apparently some readers just aren't that smart.
It's common knowledge in the UK but you have to consider who is making these calls:
1) Indian call centres who don't have a clue
2) Minimum wage phone monkeys in the UK who couldn't give a fuck what number they're calling
That is I suspect, why it's highly successful. The people who are calling either don't know or just aren't paid enough to care that it's costing the company.
"Rubbish, show me what was misquoted."
You have to quote something to be misquoted, the fact you didn't quote anything and just made stuff up makes it kind of difficult for me to quote anything. If you want to see what I'm referring to you could just follow the thread back up, it's not difficult.
"Citation is required, I see no evidence anywhere. No, some blogger's opinion from the UK does not count. Facts only."
Read the news, any news source on the issue will do. In fact, the fact you haven't explains why you're woefully misinformed on this topic. See here for example:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-russia-idUSBRE97O09820130825
Relevant quote:
"Russia, which has suggested that Syrian rebels may have carried out the attack"
"You could have found by searching for "United Nations finds rebels guilty". You obviously didn't try very hard to search."
I did that exact search and the only thing from the UN was a suspicion from a specific individual at the UN:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22424188
Quote:
"According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated."
Even she accepts there's no incontrovertible proof. All the links from that search are either speculation by private individuals or Del Ponte's viewpoint. There is no official UN ruling on the issue. In fact, on Google by the 6th link it starts talking about Sierra Leone, if this is widespread and common knowledge as you claim that the UN has officially claimed that the rebels definitely used chemical weapons then there would be pages of hits from such a search. You're confusing opinion and suspicion with fact, which is quite ironic given that's what you're claiming the US shouldn't base an attack on Syria on.
You need to link to the official UN ruling itself, or at least a site that references it or just admit you were wrong. Linking to vague third party sites of private individuals with little credibility that don't even back up your claim of official UN condemnation does nothing for your argument.
"The Syrian Army is now planting IEDs and blowing them up huh? Come on now, you can't really be that daft can you?"
You really don't have the slightest understanding of this conflict do you? You know Assad's forces are comprised of not just the Syrian military but Hezbollah, and pro-Assad paramilitaries? The latter of which both very much have IEDs as their modus-operandi, especially against witnesses to a massacre they just caught red handed committing.
But anyway I'm done, it's clear you're arguing from a point of complete lack of understanding on the topic. You obviously have absolutely no idea given that you think Assad's forces comprise only of the Syrian military itself, given that you think it's still in question as to whether a chemical attack even happened. I really can't be bothered to waste any more time on someone who can't at least even keep up with the current news on the topic and at least have a basic grasp of the various players involved in the conflict on both sides. You're lazy and forming an opinion on next to no information, that's a guaranteed recipe for ignorance and you've proven that. Well done.
"Everything I have claimed you said has been in quotes"
Except the bit I was disputing which is kind of the point.
"There is no proof that this happened!"
Huh? No one is disputing that a bunch of 1.5 - 2 metre munitions with a chemical payload landed in rebel held territory and killed a bunch of people at this point, not even Russia and China or even Assad. If you aren't aware of the confirmation of this then you really are out of your depth in this discussion. Backing up those initial images since are many images of UN weapons inspectors inspecting said munitions. If you aren't even aware of the basic facts at this point then why are you even involving in this discussion?
The debate now is simply about who carried out the attack and whether it justifies actions not whether it happened and once more there's no evidence the rebels have the capacity to launch this type of munition from government held territory and that is why it looks most likely to be a government launched attack.
"Google is not broken. If you fail to do any work at all how are you able to debate from a rational point."
I Googled and I could find nothing, only the things that backed up what I said to you. I asked you to back up your point precisely for this reason but the fact you're still evasive on this says all that needs to be said - you were wrong and you can't admit it. You have had 3 opportunities to demonstrate this supposed widespread information that should be easy to find and yet you haven't thus I can only realistically conclude that you can't find such evidence but wont just admit you were wrong.
"If a country holds a double standard of law, the law is unjust. There is no other way of putting it. So the US can hold Nukes for deterrent, but other nations cant?"
No, the established thinking across the globe on this is that the NPT should be adhered to - nations with existing stockpiles should reduce them until they don't have them, no new nations should acquire them. This isn't double standards, it applies to everyone and is broadly accepted as the safest way forward on nuclear arms. It's not about the US thinking only it's allies should have nukes, Russia and China aren't US allies, they're the counterbalance nuclear powers to the US/UK/France on the issue with Pakistan/India having their own counterbalancing arsenals.
"Further, an unjust punishment can not be used in seeking justice."
You still don't get it. It has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with making the cost of using chemical weapons too high to justify using chemical weapons, that's it, there's nothing more to it than that. We want to make sure chemical weapons are always a taboo and we shouldn't make exceptions.
"I'm not one sided, I said we need to fact find."
I agree, your problem is as explained in my first paragraph is that you don't even have the basic facts to even start engaging in this discussion. Hence why you seem to be struggling to understand it. You think there's still suspicion the whole attack was fake and staged and that it's all about revenge, neither of these things are true.
"Bombing Turkey when Turkey is allowing unfettered access routes to rebels is a logical military action is it not?"
Given that Syria and Iran have used Lebanon and Hezbollah as a proxy to attack other states for decades without said states attacking Syria and Iran proper then I'd say no, we don't want to go down that route, because otherwise everywhere becomes a target by everyone. Further, you seem oblivious that Turkey was an ally of Assad even after he started killing his own people, it was very much Syria's killing of Turkish civilians that changed all that which raises another important point - if you think Turkey is a legitimate military target then why did Assad's forces only kill civilians?
"If you do not see this as a viable military target given those circumstances, then you had best start petitioning against drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and every other place that the U
I actually agree that stock price isn't the greatest of metrics for what it's worth but what metric do you suggest? I think profit growth is probably the most sensible but Cook has faltered there the last couple of quarters too and Ballmer has maintained healthy growth at Microsoft so by this metric would be deemed a highly successful CEO. Sales figures are up under Cook but marketshare is down. Customer satisfaction is strong in Apple products but is it higher under Cook than it was under the era that could be credited to Jobs? Corporate responsibility? Is Apple greener and more philanthropic under Cook maybe?
I'm not arguing against you, on the contrary, I'm interested to hear what metric or metrics you think are best because none of them are particularly more positive for Cook than they were for Ballmer which is why I find it difficult to see how you can objectively suggest Ballmer is a poor CEO at his respective firm, but Cook not. By most metrics, their performances seem incredibly comparable having both taken over from people who were perceived to be successful leaders (albeit with varying levels of like/dislike depending on who you ask).
"Apple isn't going to produce a groundbreaking device in a new market for them every three years. No company can does that."
I actually agree, though that doesn't mean visionaries aren't important. You still need someone who can judge the road ahead and know what products to aim for when the time is right, even if you can't do that every three years. I do not think Cook is a person who can do that - just as Ballmer isn't given how badly he missed the smartphone and tablet boats only deciding to follow way after the boat had already left the dock.
But most of that can be attributed to the lag effect. The point is simply that Cook hasn't sustained, or even managed to come close to holding it even close to that peak.
Ultimately under Jobs it was on an upwards trend, and whilst no one expected Cook to be able to keep up the pace (no one could) one would at least expect him not to oversee a 50% decline from that peak.
Or in other words Cook could've simply not turned up to work after Job's resignation and it'd still have had the momentum from Jobs - it wouldn't have declined overnight, it takes time.
But if Cook was doing a good job then it would've kept increasing, or plateaued or declined slightly. It didn't do any of those though, it went into freefall under him.
Apple has lost half it's value since Tim Cook took over, it's since regained some now that the sharks (Icahn) are circling the pool waiting to see if they can profit off the decline. It's also seen two quarters with a decline in profits under him also.
In this respect he's actually damaged Apple far quicker and far more severely than Ballmer managed to damage Microsoft when he took over.
But despite this I'd argue Cook would actually be better suited to Microsoft. Apple sells cutting edge innovative products and Cook just isn't an innovator or a visionary which is why Apple has been beginning to suffer. Microsoft tends not to innovate so much and focuses on optimisation of profits in it's existing markets which is what Cook is actually good at - he did in Apple as the supply chain guy finding the cheapest suppliers etc. but has struggled as CEO.
Cook was never going to be able to follow in Jobs' footsteps but the way he's going he's at risk of taking Ballmer's crown as worst CEO if he hangs around in the role for 10 years like Ballmer. If he jumped to Microsoft he could probably do a bit better than Ballmer. I doubt it'll happen, there's too much money for him at Apple, but if reputation is what he cares about then he'd probably actually be better off leaving Apple and going to Microsoft.
Or to put it another way, Cook is Apple's Ballmer, but Apple's Ballmer is still at least likely able to do better than Microsoft's Ballmer at being Ballmer.
Businesses have often lobbied for codes of practice to be unenforceable so that nothing comes of them if they breach them so I doubt this is illegal, he'll just get a telling off from the regulator - as if he gives a shit.
It breaks the code of practice supposedly because you have to list pricing information alongside premium rate numbers and when he fills in the forms for his phone number etc. there is no form field to do this.
But I'm not convinced the code even applies, because the pricing information is meant for consumers and he's only giving these details to businesses who tend not to be covered by consumer protection laws (they're not protected by the sale of goods act for example).
I think this is more the regulator trying to avoid a headache than him actually doing anything wrong. I'd be surprised if any enforcement could actually be taken against him successfully which is presumably why the regulator has said "We advise against this" rather than "We're going to have a word with him and make him stop because he's breaching the code" - I suspect they're "advising" and not "acting" because there's actually fuck all else they can do about it but we'll probably find out before long.
I don't think GCHQ will be investigated. The problem is that whilst GCHQ was tapping cables in the UK itself, the NSA was ordering companies both US based and foreign to hand over data.
So for example, the NSA may have asked French telecomms companies to hand over data and the telecomms companies were obliging to retain access to the US market. In contrast GCHQ wasn't afaik doing this, it was just tapping cables only on it's home soil.
This is why the French authorities are investigating because in obliging French companies may have broken French law, but French companies can't be held liable if for example GCHQ stole data from them by tapping cables they used in the UK.
This seems to be more about investigating whether European companies adhering to those American national security orders from secret courts meant they broke the law of the European nations they were headquartered in than the spying programmes in general and GCHQ and the British government didn't use these sorts of orders - they went about things in a different way.