That's because Microsoft could get away with releasing a buggy IE then, due to the fact there was no competition for people to run to. There probably really was fuck all QA for IE6, and to a lesser extent 7, why would there need to be? It's not like people had any other browser worth going to.
In contrast, if you look at recent versions, it's hard to argue that they're particularly buggy. IE8 and 9 are at least as secure and stable as the competing browsers released at the time, if not more so in IE9's case.
It doesn't help that they don't even seem to know what's in each release themselves. Case in point, I loaded up Firefox yesterday and it asked me if I wanted to install a security and stability update, so I clicked yes and it installed......but if it's just a security and stability update, why the fuck has my user interface changed? Were the old back/forward and home buttons a security risk then? Thanks Mozilla, for lying to me about what was in the update.
Honestly, if they can't even tell what they're putting into each patch there's really little hope for the process.
Perhaps somewhat ironically, Microsoft have actually been one of the only sane voices in the HTML5 standards process. Weird I know, but it's worth having a read of some of the issues they put forward to WHATWG, they were absolutely spot on in their complaints.
"1) The W3C wasn't fixing obvious bugs in HTML4 (e.g. places where the standard required behavior that was not compatible with actual websites)."
You call them bugs, but in reality they were merely failures by the browser vendors to properly implement the spec. This was simply an excuse by browser vendors for carrying out a coup, rather than a real actual problem. There's nothing in the HTML4 spec that couldn't be implemented properly. CSS had issues,
"2) The W3C was instead spending its time working on XHTML2, which it had purposefully designed to be backwards-incompatible with HTML4 so that you couldn't implement the two in a single rendering engine."
Why is this a problem? The web needs to move forward, it can't sit on what are, in technological terms ancient foundations forever. Ignoring the fact you skipped the important versions that were XHTML1 and 1.1 which were interim specifications that bridged the two (hence why there was a transitional stylesheet in this version) then what exactly is the issue? Release of a new spec doesn't make an old spec magically vanish, if you want your site to remain standards compliant but don't want to update it to a new standard then keep it compliant with the old standard and leave it as it was. This is one of the more stupid things about HTML5 - trying to automatically make ancient sites HTML5 compliant gives us what benefit exactly? In contrast it create a lot of negatives - it means the spec is hamstrung by trying to mangle in and support ancient problems. Why does a site written 10 years ago, and that is unmaintained magically need to become HTML5 compliant overnight?
I believe most browsers have implemented XML rendering now anyway?
"A large part of the reason for #2 was that the browser vendors had at most 5 votes total on the working group, while there were lots of other voters who were more interested in pie-in-the-sky projects than actually producing something that could work on the web. "
This is a really shit argument, simply writing off those interested in true separation of concerns as pie-in-the-sky projects highlights the problem exactly - those developing browsers, and those supporting the browser manufacturers in their coup of web standards seem to completely fail to grasp how software is developed by companies in the real world. Hint: We do like to write maintainable software, we do like to automatically be able to translate content to/from web pages using the plethora of XML tools and frameworks out there, and we do like specifications that are actually specifications not "living standards". This is precisely the problem, browser manufacturers think they know better, but if nothing else the fact they're known for having horrendously glaring bugs and security issues in their browsers suggests otherwise. They had 5 votes because they only deserved 5 votes, because they only represent a small share of the players in the market. Now instead what we have is browser vendors with their shit software development practices dictating how everyone else should write software - badly. Worse, we're not even talking about the browser developers running the show currently, in fact, even one of the major browser developers, Microsoft, has raised concerns with the quality of HTML5, we're actually only talking about one guy at Google for the most part who is the one deciding everything, and a handful of smaller voices from Apple and Mozilla. That leaves even a lot of other browser developers absent.
"Note that the current situation is pretty different from what was going on when the WHATWG was first founded. It's a bit of a mess, but it's not the complete and utter disaster things were back then."
I agree it was a disaster back then but again, only because browser vendors were refusing to do anything until they got their own way, not because there was anything inherently wrong with the W3C other than the fact it tried to be represenative.
No, their argument is basically that FRAND or non-FRAND shouldn't matter anymore. Something that is such a standard user interface element nowadays that users simply expect it like slide to unlock so that they can move between competing handsets with little hassle are as essential to a modern cell phone as the underlying GSM patents for example are.
I can see where they're coming from, it does seem a bit ridiculous that Samsung for example can get bitched at for suing over FRAND patents when they're simultaneously getting sued over equally important but non-FRAND patents resulting in the litigating company not getting bitched at.
Either all software patents should be FRAND, or no software patents should be FRAND. This situation where companies that did real genuine research to come up with the FRAND patents are getting slapped left and right by companies that came up with much less research intensive patents (by orders of magnitude in terms of research investment) but that are equally expected in a modern device is simply fucking stupid.
I think Google is framing the argument that they should be able to use FRAND patents in defence of offensive suits regardless of the FRAND aspect, or, that innovations like slide to touch should themselves similarly be FRAND - that there should be a process for making now standard user interface elements in modern phones FRAND.
I don't think it's that simple, part the problem is browser manufacturers vs. everyone else. The fact is whilst mainstream browser manufacturers often seem like the only entities who should care about HTML, there's actually more to it than that.
The impact of HTML standards development has relevance to other developers too, think how many applications export to HTML, do not underestimate how many business systems scrape websites and import HTML. Think of all the people who have to author and develop with and for HTML.
Effectively WHATWG was a coup, it was a hijacking of the standards process by the browser manufacturers. Presumably they got tired of having to deal with everyone else having a say as they do in the W3C and just decided to try and go their own way. Their criticism of W3C was that it was slow in the creation of new web standards, but who exactly was behind the failure to implement many existing standards properly, and newer W3C standards at all which was in part a major factor in that? Er, the browser manufacturers.
I'm not at all convinced it's a good thing so far, the HTML5 process seems to have been a bit of a shambles and some important areas have been overlooked and grossly neglected in the new standard (e.g. accessibility).
"I'm sorry, but did you think that "desktop computing" and "mobile computing" were markets? The market is simply "computing"."
Well they are. Whatever OS' are sold in the mobile computing market isn't going to effect Windows 7 licensing because Windows 7 licenses are irrelevant to mobile devices. Even desktop Linux is a completely different looking thing to mobile Linux.
"Outside of an office, almost no one wants to do those things. (Note: you, I, and the rest of Slashdot don't statistically count. We're a tiny minority.) People want to share pictures, browse the web, listen to music, watch movies, and do lots of other things that phones and tablets are perfectly good at."
Well apart from the fact that's not true (people still write letters, essays, CVs, manage their personal finances and so forth on computers), I'm not really sure it matters. As I say the growth of the mobile phone market doesn't seem to have had much impact on the desktop market. People buy a phone/tablet AND a computer which was fundamentally my point because there are still lots of things that phones and tablets are not perfectly good at.
"Have you talked to anyone outside an office? I personally know plenty of people who bought an iPad and abandoned their desktops and laptops. When it comes time to upgrade their less-portable systems, the thought process becomes "you know what, I don't really use it anymore. I guess I'd like to run ${application foo}, but not so much that I want to buy a whole new computer just for it, and have to set aside desk space for it, and it just sits there the rest of the time..."
No I've never ever once talked to anyone outside an office. Seriously, that's simply an anecdote, it's meaningless because I've never heard of anyone who has abandoned a desktop or laptop once they've got a tablet, because the thought process became "Okay, so I got rid of my computer, but it's such a pain in the arse writing up my CV and writing e-mails on a tablet, and my daughter needs to write up her essays...".
Honestly, you can argue with anecdotes until the cows come home, but the point is that despite the fact literally many hundreds of millions of tablets/smartphones have now been sold, there has been no noticable impact on Windows license sales. This is also despite the fact that said devices have now had 4 - 5 years to make an impact, which is plenty long enough but have failed to cut into those figures. Why do you think this is? Well, precisely because of what I said at the start - they're two different markets, as much as the mobile hype warriors like to pretend otherwise.
"This is why you can't lump digital and film cameras together, for the most part they're different markets, the areas in which they intersect are fairly small and limited to for example, situations like digital cameras acting as a good carry round the city camera instead of the nice film camera that they'll keep around for Important Stuff."
How'd that work out?"
This is probably the most nonsensical thing I've ever heard, is it a relation to the chewbacca defence? One could similarly point out how the creation of portable TVs did absolutely nothing to harm the normal TV market as a counter-example - at least that one has some merit and relevance to it rather than some obscure argument about cameras that really makes no sense at all.
Personally I'll stick to keeping a keen eye on the figures, rather than anecdotes and chewbacca defences, but until there's actually a dent in Windows desktop license sales, it seems nonsensical to argue that the mobile device market and the desktop market are one market and that the mobile device market is eating into it. I'm not pretending the mobile device market doesn't make Microsoft vulnerable - Apple/Google could easily use their strength on mobile devices to leapfrog into the desktop market if they execute such a change well, but it's not that the desktop market itself is in decline - it's still as healthy as it's ever been. Besides, why do you think even Apple is mana
Right, I guess the problem really is that you have a poor comprehension of English.
The question was to provide a definition for the internet. My response was:
"An international network of devices."
I said nothing about naming, or anything like that, I provided a completely correct answer. You don't seem to be able to understand that, but it's not really my fault you don't know English very well. You're now twisting your whole argument to base it on some premise that never actually existed, so kindly stop making shit up, you're still wrong however you try and twist it.
Regardless, I still want to point out how utterly lacking in knowledge of the subject you are, as it's the only hope that people like you will get a clue, rather than laughably making a fool of yourself by demonstrating repeatedly how wrong you are:
"Exactly my point:D Seems you don't graps it. If you interconnect a railway network with a river network, what do you get then? Certainly not a standard bigger network."
Yes you do, this was exactly my point, so I don't know why you've said "exactly my point" and then completely failed to grasp the point. If you combine the river and rail network then yes, you do get a bigger network, you get whatever that network is defining, it may be a boat/rail transportation network for example. You still completely fail to grasp what networks are, and well, I guess that sucks for you.
"What you get is pretty simple: you get a network with two nodes. And each of those nodes is a network in itself. Just like the internet, an interconnection of networks, where every node of the network is not a computer!! but a subnetwork! This is what you fail to grasp."
No you still don't get it. You have two networks, made up of say for example, 30 computers, you connect them together, and you now have a larger network of 60 computers, which is comprised of two subnetworks. Those subnetworks can be treated as networks in themselves, but ultimately the internet still remains an international network of devices, even if those devices are themselves subdivided into subnetworks. It's really not rocket science, I don't know why you struggle to badly to grasp the concept.
"Claiming that I Iack understanding regarding networks is plain stupid, as you see at my signature I'm very involved in all kinds of networks:D"
Great, but you still don't know what the fuck you're on about. See this definition from Princeton for example:
"you claim: internet means international network. I say: wrong."
Yes, you can say wrong all you want, but it doesn't make you right. What bit of my definition are you disagreeing with? are you arguing that the internet isn't international? are you arguing that it's not a network? or both?
"Do you really think a bunch of nodes connected with copper wires, and another bunch of nodes connected with glass fibres can simply be connected to be just more nodes in just a bigger network?"
Yes. You apparently still completely fail to understand what a network is. A network simply describes the fact that these nodes connect together somehow, the fact that two different networks use different connection mediums whilst using a gateway to link between them doesn't change the fact that they're all still part of a network. It kind of scares me that you bill yourself as an OO mentor, yet you seem to have a profound inability to grasp the separation between the abstract concept of a network and the actual physical implementation. If you are not capable of understanding the difference between a concept and an implementation, how can you possibly be competent with OO technologies???
"This is complete bollocks. So there is some international mathematical network in the internet? oO!"
Oh my god. You really do not have a clue what you're on about whatsoever do you? A network is absolutely nothing more than a set of interconnected nodes, what about the internet do you think does not fit into this definition? are you trying to argue that devices on the internet do not count as nodes? are you trying to argue that these nodes aren't interconnected? If it's the latter then that makes no sense either, because you have to be connected to some node on the internet to be able to be connected to the internet.
"Perhaps the mathematical definition of a network follows the natural occurances of networks?"
You realise the concept of networks has been along far longer than computer networks right? Even in the 1800s the term was used to describe rail, rivers, canals, walkways. The fact that each of these things is in itself doesn't change the fact that combined they are part of a bigger network - a transportation network.
Perhaps the problem is that you're not a native English speaker and hence this is why you don't understand the use of these terms very well? Either way, I fail to see how anyone with even a basic grasp of the concepts can fail to realise that the internet is an international network, because it is most definitely international in nature, and is most definitely a network.
Look if you don't get it fine, but you're simply wrong, your argument shows a profound lack of understanding of what a network actually is and that's fine, if you don't understand something you don't understand something, but don't try and pretend you do, as you're clearly way out of your depth in this discussion.
Wait, you forgot to include my fridge and central heating system, neither of these run Windows either. Christ, even throwing servers into the mix where operating systems like Linux hold a greater share would make more sense than mobile.
Honestly, I'd like to see more competition in the desktop OS market too, but pretending desktop licensing and mobile operatings systems are in the same market is fucking stupid.
Mixing some arbitrary devices into the OS mix doesn't change the fact that Microsoft is still far and away the most dominant entity in the desktop/laptop market.
It doesn't really matter how many iOS devices Apple sells or Android devices Google and friends sell, people still aren't going to be writing software, producing spreadsheets, creating presentations, creating web pages, using most business systems, and authoring documents, on their tablets and phones. Have you tried doing any lengthy amount of office work on a mobile device? Without turning it into a desktop/laptop by attaching a keyboard/mouse it's the quickest route to insanity. Tablet versions of much common desktop software such as Office pale in comparison to the real thing. For this reason the key point is that no matter how many extra smartphones/tablets are sold out there, the effect on Windows desktop license sales is going to be negligible. People may be buying tablets, but few are foregoing a PC/laptop as a result, they just get both. Christ, up until recently you couldn't even activate an iOS device and get content onto it without a computer anyway.
Yes mobile is becoming ever more important, no it's not going to replace the desktop, it just extends where you can do some of your desktop work (e-mail, web apps). Touch is great, but it's not the be all and end all, it's an extremely shit input method for many, many common tasks still.
This is why you can't lump mobile and desktop together, for the most part they're different markets, the areas in which they intersect are fairly small and limited to for example, situations like tablets acting as a good carry round the home web browser instead of a netbook.
Erm, democracy and republic aren't two mutually exclusive things. A republic is, put simply, little more than a nation where there is no monarch. It doesn't stop it being a democracy. The UK is a monarchy, but it's still a democracy too, because we vote for our government.
I hope you're not represenatative of many other Americans with this view, because if you don't even understand how your own political system works it really is no wonder your governing class can get away with whatever the fuck they want. Perhaps I should add another step to my list - 4) Make sure people actually even understand what democracy is.
I'm well aware of America's founding, and don't disagree that America gaining independence was the right thing to do.
But I do question whether the founding principles of the nation were necessarily done rationally. Why do you feel these decisions, made hundreds of years ago, possibly to an extent as a knee-jerk reaction to the reasons for the war of independence in the first place, as still 100% relevant as the perfect principles of governance even today? Do you really think America's founding fathers really just somehow magically got the age old problem of governance right the first time around all those years ago? and in a manner that would never need changing?
You recognise that your current system isn't working, that it is extremely corrupt, yet rather than remove the corruption I'm assuming from your comment you believe the solution is to take power back from the system. The problem with that idea is that something will fill that power vacuum, you probably believe it will be the people, but if you really want a lesson from history then I think you'll quickly find that people will quickly self-organise into their own power structures, historically when monarchys for example have lost power, the church for example would be the one to gain it. This is because some people really do just want to be led, it's because others want to lead. Nowadays, it's most likely to be corporations that would fill any power void, as that has certainly been the trend in the US to date.
I also am well aware that public funding cannot happen in the US without a constitutional amendment but that doesn't mean it wont go a long way to separating big business from politics, it just acts as an example of why the constitution is not necessarily relevant enough to modern times to justify being a be-all and end-all document to adhere to. This very American trait of treating the constitution like a holy scripture that must not be defied, much like muslims get angry at the burning of the Koran, is indeed rather alien to me, but I guess I haven't been brought up in a system that teaches that it should be treated as exactly that.
Undoubtedly it's a cultural issue and I understand that Americans have bred into successive generations this fear of the state, and of socialism. I also wont pretend that I'm absolutely right, perhaps I am wrong, but what I do know is that the same applies to your argument. I do know that the suggestions I cited would at least cripple the current mechanisms for corrupting the state and increase accountability to citizens, and accountability matters.
There are healthy democracies in the world, Norway being one good example. These nations tend to adhere to the sorts of principles I suggested. In contrast, I'm not aware of any states with healthy democracies that also have the sort of small government that the most libertarian of Americans propose, the only states I can think of that have tried this sort of thing have collapsed into anarchy as local groups fill the afformentioned power vacuums, and then inevitably end up warring with each other for more power/resources.
There is absolutely nothing about the term network whether used in the context of computing or not that implies it is some private entity, a network is simply nothing more than a group of interconnected nodes, how they connect, or where they connect is completely irrelevant.
The term network stems from the mathematical definition of a network, which is merely a series of interconnected nodes.
If you're going to assert that someone is wrong at least have a clue about what you are talking about. When you connect two networks, you merely have a bigger network. You can still say this bigger network is composed of smaller networks (in otherwords, subnetworks, often abbreviated to subnets), but that doesn't stop it being a network in itself.
The term is associated directly to the mathematical definition of network, which similarly uses this terminology. Go look it up sometime.
So does Sweden, but when a judge which was part of a music industry lobby group presided over The Pirate Bay trial it was whitewashed as no conflict of interest.
Whilst I agree that thereotically this is the correct outcome in this case, it does irk me somewhat that this sort of thing only turns out the way vested interests would like it to turn out, rather than necessarily how it should turn out if things were done right.
I'm not sure if New Zealand being at the top of the transparency index given the whole MegaUpload debacle tells me that the transparency index is full of crap, or simply that the standard of transparency required to be the most transparent country in the world is a pretty depressingly low bar to reach.
I think it's naive to beleive that simply because New Zealand, Sweden et al. are towards the top of this arbitrary index that there is no corruption involved.
The fact that my own country, the UK is perceived as pretty "clean" is a little worrying given that politicians have been lying to our faces, and we know they've been lying to our faces for sometime says a lot. Between the last government with David Miliband standing up in front of the cameras telling us the UK had nothing to do with torture when we know fucking well it did, a fact which is now proven, and Jeremy Hunt under this government telling us he was innocent of wrong doing when we all know fucking well he wasn't because the evidence is sat there right in front of us proving otherwise I don't know how we can even come close to scoring a 7.8. Christ, the Tory treasurer was filmed saying it would only cost £250,000 to basically dictate to government what you wanted policy on certain issues to be.
We're not defining what an international network of devices is, we're defining what the internet is, and the internet is an international network of devices.
If someone asks you what type of animal a frog is, you would probably describe it as an amphibian. Just because a newt is also an amphibian does not mean that a frog can no longer also be described as such.
The analog phone network may well also be an international network of devices, but that doesn't mean the internet isn't. Your question was to define the internet.
I'm not sure why everyone thinks her departure means she's going to be competing with Google.
She may well decide to actually go into partnership with Google on some things, this may even be why they chose her, because they recognise Yahoo couldn't compete with Google no matter how hard it tries, so instead should partner with it where it can, and diverge and offer other products where it thinks it can do better.
Larry and Sergei may in fact be quite pleased there's another friendly face now running a major silicon valley tech company. Up until now all the old school crowd like those at the top of Apple, Microsoft, Oracle etc. have been quite anti-Google.
To be fair this stems more from rather sloppy use of the term EU as shorthand for Europe, rather than referring to the European Union itself.
It's similar to the way people use the term America to refer to the United States of America, rather than the Americas.
I suspect the use of the term EU to mean Europe itself did indeed stem somewhat from people not knowing the difference to an extent, but it's not uncommon that you will find people who genuinely do know the difference saying EU when they mean Europe as a whole.
"Yes it can, MS has a de facto monopoly on the desktop(win 8), they are using that as leverage in another market(by blocking dual boot), I don't know about US antitrust legislation but that is explicitly forbidden according to EU antitrust legislation."
I don't think it's that simple, the waters seem very muddy when it comes to antitrust legislation, because for example, Apple had a de-facto monopoly in both the digital music sales and portable MP3 player markets and used both these as leverage to enter the cell phone market, but there was no anti-trust investigations surrounding that in either the US, or the EU.
There seems to be more to it than simply leveraging one monopoly to enter another market, I suspect you have to do more than enter it, but cause harm to it. For example, when Apple entered the cell phone market using it's monopolies elsewhere it actually heated up competition, but when Microsoft entered the browser market using it's monopoly on desktop OS software it actually killed competition.
Potentially I guess if Apple is/was succesful in killing off competition in the smartphone market using for example patents such that there was little competition left in the market they too would come under anti-trust scrutiny, but whilst the competition is healthy there seems to be no issue.
I think it's not that you can't enter a new market using an existing monopoly, it's more that you can't force another monopoly in another market abusing an existing monopoly. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's the only reason I can see why Microsoft was investigated but similar situations of monopoly leveraging have gone unnoticed.
Presumably part the reason Google has been targetted regarding ads is because it's perceived that it used it's monopoly on search to gain a monopoly on ads. Whilst I think this was far less problematic than what Microsoft did with IE, it would at least explain the disparity in anti-trust investigations between companies like MS/Google and companies like Apple who whilst they have similarly exploited their monopolies to enter other markets, have not been able to do so to the point where they gain a monopoly in those markets.
I think it's probably harder to fix the electorate than fix the system, because the electorate is in many cases kept dumb by the system, because the system benefits from an uninformed electorate. If you want to fix the electorate you fight an uphill battle because those with the power to easily change this are working against you, whilst you, a minority, have neither power nor numbers.
Despite this I largely agree that the suggestions put forward by the GP aren't necessarily going to fix much. The fixes that are needed (not just for the US, but even countries like the UK) are:
1) Political campaigns funded purely by the public purse, relative to past popular support performance, with a cap such that the largest party has no inherent financial benefit over say, their next 2 or 3 closest competitors.
People don't like paying for politics, but this is simply the only way to ensure that parties campaign and perform in the interests of the public, rather than lobbyists. I would argue that any cost involved in this sort of thing to the tax payer would be more than made up for by the savings of having competent government that doesn't spend money handing useless contracts to lobbyists who got them in power etc.
2) A representative voting system.
There is an argument that representative voting systems like PR create governments that have little strength, but this is clearly false as Germany has proven having had coalition governments since the war. Ultimately minority or coalition governments are forced to compromise. In the UK people complain about our current coalition, citing things like the increase in tuition fees to £9,000 but they miss the fact that if it weren't for the coalition the Tories were actually going to push fees of £12,000. Our coalition has made a lot of mistakes, but it's naive to think the Lib Dems haven't had at least some degree of moderating influence on the government. The NHS changes were similarly far far worse under purely Tory proposals. Even with our shitty example of a coalition government, the coalition has led to moderation and has still been better than the alternatives - a Labour or Tory majority.
3. Limit media ownership.
Limit media ownership to say, 10% of the media, to ensure that no one media mogul can have undue influence on the media. Having a strong public broadcaster like the BBC which has a legal obligation to be impartial is also of major benefit.
Unless you do these sorts of root and branch changes you cannot have a healthy democracy, it will always be more easily corrupted, much less representative of the people and far more representative of vested interests and lobby groups.
It's unlikely America especially would ever go for these changes because many Americans have been fed bullshit about how the state is evil, but this has simply been used as a method by which to ensure corporations are strong enough to be able to control the state, which is then used as the tool by which to act against the interest of most Americans which creates this obscure feedback loop of Americans then thinking the state is evil and supporting laws that make corporations more powerful. Similarly the idea of state funding for political campaigns would probably be seen as too socialist in America, where socialism is defined to be synonymous with communism which is defined to be inherently evil because America lost the Vietnam war and failed in Korea to attain complete victory etc.
Just as religion and state should never be mixed, neither should corporate interests and state, and the only way to remove that separation is with the likes of implementations of ideas such as points 1 and 3 above. Point 2 works to limit corporate interests by itself, because it forces politicians to listen to the people if they want to be elected, it forces them to pursue moderate policies that at least half-please everyone, rather than extreme policies often pushed by corporate interests that make some people happy, whilst destroying the lives of others.
Until you solve this problem of the merging of state and corporations, you cannot have a healthy democracy and again, just as you cannot have a healthy democracy when there is a merging of religion and state.
"I know that this is normally a forum to bash **AA, but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content."
Right, and all car manufacturers made their fortunes by providing cars that were used to break the speed limit, all gun manufacturers made their fortunes by providing guns that were used to kill, and Apple made it's fortunes by making media players that were used to play pirated MP3s.
Similarly neither Ford, nor gun manufacturers, nor Apple have done anything to stop illegal speeding, illegal killing, or illegal downloading, and at times have "promoted" it.
Honestly, your argument extends to many industries, as the whole data loss fiasco has proven, Megaupload had many legitimate customers. The point being that the service he was providing was not illegal, not any more so than the industries mentioned above. The problem is that his industry is one that:
a) The US is spending a fuckton of money attacking at the behest of corporate interests
and:
b) Not as big as the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Ford, or whoever to have had the money and lobbying power to protect themselves
My online FPS days actually stem from Quake too, not Quake II, not shit III Arena, actual Quake, the one where deathmatch was indeed highly competitive. I also worked on some mods during that era myself such as TF Bots, and AirQuake II. For what it's worth, whilst I did play Halo 3 a bit online, I never even played Halo 1 and 2, I'd moved more to MMOs at that point, mostly doing PvP in Ultima Online, and later Dark Age of Camelot.
If you still live in your mother's basement then fine, but don't assume everyone else is like you. Some of us grew up, moved out, and are entirely independent. Those of us who did that are probably the same people who also recognise that yes, whilst we pine for the Quake glory days to return, recognise that aint going to happen, but that I can still get some real enjoyment from some of the newer games. Accuracy and skill still entirely matters though, as much as it did back then, though people tend to play bigger games, where this is masked, rather than for example, 1 vs 1 on a map like DM2, it's more about teamplay now sure and I guess if you're not a teamplayer you may not like that. I always was, whilst I did enjoy 1 vs 1 DM and general all out DM, I did always tend to prefer CTF and TF, so modern team based shooters suit me fine.
I'd still probably be up for a bit of Quake even now though if people started playing it again, and all the old problems that killed it off could be avoided (proliferation of aimbots and speedhacks). I know there are updated versions of the Quake source, but they seem to fuck around with more than just cheat prevention, I don't want fancy new graphics etc., I was quite content with the non-GL client, I just don't want the cheats that destroyed the game.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because Microsoft could get away with releasing a buggy IE then, due to the fact there was no competition for people to run to. There probably really was fuck all QA for IE6, and to a lesser extent 7, why would there need to be? It's not like people had any other browser worth going to.
In contrast, if you look at recent versions, it's hard to argue that they're particularly buggy. IE8 and 9 are at least as secure and stable as the competing browsers released at the time, if not more so in IE9's case.
It doesn't help that they don't even seem to know what's in each release themselves. Case in point, I loaded up Firefox yesterday and it asked me if I wanted to install a security and stability update, so I clicked yes and it installed... ...but if it's just a security and stability update, why the fuck has my user interface changed? Were the old back/forward and home buttons a security risk then? Thanks Mozilla, for lying to me about what was in the update.
Honestly, if they can't even tell what they're putting into each patch there's really little hope for the process.
Perhaps somewhat ironically, Microsoft have actually been one of the only sane voices in the HTML5 standards process. Weird I know, but it's worth having a read of some of the issues they put forward to WHATWG, they were absolutely spot on in their complaints.
WHATWG ignored them though unfortunately.
"1) The W3C wasn't fixing obvious bugs in HTML4 (e.g. places where the standard required behavior that was not compatible with actual websites)."
You call them bugs, but in reality they were merely failures by the browser vendors to properly implement the spec. This was simply an excuse by browser vendors for carrying out a coup, rather than a real actual problem. There's nothing in the HTML4 spec that couldn't be implemented properly. CSS had issues,
"2) The W3C was instead spending its time working on XHTML2, which it had purposefully designed to be backwards-incompatible with HTML4 so that you couldn't implement the two in a single rendering engine."
Why is this a problem? The web needs to move forward, it can't sit on what are, in technological terms ancient foundations forever. Ignoring the fact you skipped the important versions that were XHTML1 and 1.1 which were interim specifications that bridged the two (hence why there was a transitional stylesheet in this version) then what exactly is the issue? Release of a new spec doesn't make an old spec magically vanish, if you want your site to remain standards compliant but don't want to update it to a new standard then keep it compliant with the old standard and leave it as it was. This is one of the more stupid things about HTML5 - trying to automatically make ancient sites HTML5 compliant gives us what benefit exactly? In contrast it create a lot of negatives - it means the spec is hamstrung by trying to mangle in and support ancient problems. Why does a site written 10 years ago, and that is unmaintained magically need to become HTML5 compliant overnight?
I believe most browsers have implemented XML rendering now anyway?
"A large part of the reason for #2 was that the browser vendors had at most 5 votes total on the working group, while there were lots of other voters who were more interested in pie-in-the-sky projects than actually producing something that could work on the web. "
This is a really shit argument, simply writing off those interested in true separation of concerns as pie-in-the-sky projects highlights the problem exactly - those developing browsers, and those supporting the browser manufacturers in their coup of web standards seem to completely fail to grasp how software is developed by companies in the real world. Hint: We do like to write maintainable software, we do like to automatically be able to translate content to/from web pages using the plethora of XML tools and frameworks out there, and we do like specifications that are actually specifications not "living standards". This is precisely the problem, browser manufacturers think they know better, but if nothing else the fact they're known for having horrendously glaring bugs and security issues in their browsers suggests otherwise. They had 5 votes because they only deserved 5 votes, because they only represent a small share of the players in the market. Now instead what we have is browser vendors with their shit software development practices dictating how everyone else should write software - badly. Worse, we're not even talking about the browser developers running the show currently, in fact, even one of the major browser developers, Microsoft, has raised concerns with the quality of HTML5, we're actually only talking about one guy at Google for the most part who is the one deciding everything, and a handful of smaller voices from Apple and Mozilla. That leaves even a lot of other browser developers absent.
"Note that the current situation is pretty different from what was going on when the WHATWG was first founded. It's a bit of a mess, but it's not the complete and utter disaster things were back then."
I agree it was a disaster back then but again, only because browser vendors were refusing to do anything until they got their own way, not because there was anything inherently wrong with the W3C other than the fact it tried to be represenative.
No, their argument is basically that FRAND or non-FRAND shouldn't matter anymore. Something that is such a standard user interface element nowadays that users simply expect it like slide to unlock so that they can move between competing handsets with little hassle are as essential to a modern cell phone as the underlying GSM patents for example are.
I can see where they're coming from, it does seem a bit ridiculous that Samsung for example can get bitched at for suing over FRAND patents when they're simultaneously getting sued over equally important but non-FRAND patents resulting in the litigating company not getting bitched at.
Either all software patents should be FRAND, or no software patents should be FRAND. This situation where companies that did real genuine research to come up with the FRAND patents are getting slapped left and right by companies that came up with much less research intensive patents (by orders of magnitude in terms of research investment) but that are equally expected in a modern device is simply fucking stupid.
I think Google is framing the argument that they should be able to use FRAND patents in defence of offensive suits regardless of the FRAND aspect, or, that innovations like slide to touch should themselves similarly be FRAND - that there should be a process for making now standard user interface elements in modern phones FRAND.
I don't think it's that simple, part the problem is browser manufacturers vs. everyone else. The fact is whilst mainstream browser manufacturers often seem like the only entities who should care about HTML, there's actually more to it than that.
The impact of HTML standards development has relevance to other developers too, think how many applications export to HTML, do not underestimate how many business systems scrape websites and import HTML. Think of all the people who have to author and develop with and for HTML.
Effectively WHATWG was a coup, it was a hijacking of the standards process by the browser manufacturers. Presumably they got tired of having to deal with everyone else having a say as they do in the W3C and just decided to try and go their own way. Their criticism of W3C was that it was slow in the creation of new web standards, but who exactly was behind the failure to implement many existing standards properly, and newer W3C standards at all which was in part a major factor in that? Er, the browser manufacturers.
I'm not at all convinced it's a good thing so far, the HTML5 process seems to have been a bit of a shambles and some important areas have been overlooked and grossly neglected in the new standard (e.g. accessibility).
"I'm sorry, but did you think that "desktop computing" and "mobile computing" were markets? The market is simply "computing"."
Well they are. Whatever OS' are sold in the mobile computing market isn't going to effect Windows 7 licensing because Windows 7 licenses are irrelevant to mobile devices. Even desktop Linux is a completely different looking thing to mobile Linux.
"Outside of an office, almost no one wants to do those things. (Note: you, I, and the rest of Slashdot don't statistically count. We're a tiny minority.) People want to share pictures, browse the web, listen to music, watch movies, and do lots of other things that phones and tablets are perfectly good at."
Well apart from the fact that's not true (people still write letters, essays, CVs, manage their personal finances and so forth on computers), I'm not really sure it matters. As I say the growth of the mobile phone market doesn't seem to have had much impact on the desktop market. People buy a phone/tablet AND a computer which was fundamentally my point because there are still lots of things that phones and tablets are not perfectly good at.
"Have you talked to anyone outside an office? I personally know plenty of people who bought an iPad and abandoned their desktops and laptops. When it comes time to upgrade their less-portable systems, the thought process becomes "you know what, I don't really use it anymore. I guess I'd like to run ${application foo}, but not so much that I want to buy a whole new computer just for it, and have to set aside desk space for it, and it just sits there the rest of the time..."
No I've never ever once talked to anyone outside an office. Seriously, that's simply an anecdote, it's meaningless because I've never heard of anyone who has abandoned a desktop or laptop once they've got a tablet, because the thought process became "Okay, so I got rid of my computer, but it's such a pain in the arse writing up my CV and writing e-mails on a tablet, and my daughter needs to write up her essays...".
Honestly, you can argue with anecdotes until the cows come home, but the point is that despite the fact literally many hundreds of millions of tablets/smartphones have now been sold, there has been no noticable impact on Windows license sales. This is also despite the fact that said devices have now had 4 - 5 years to make an impact, which is plenty long enough but have failed to cut into those figures. Why do you think this is? Well, precisely because of what I said at the start - they're two different markets, as much as the mobile hype warriors like to pretend otherwise.
"This is why you can't lump digital and film cameras together, for the most part they're different markets, the areas in which they intersect are fairly small and limited to for example, situations like digital cameras acting as a good carry round the city camera instead of the nice film camera that they'll keep around for Important Stuff."
How'd that work out?"
This is probably the most nonsensical thing I've ever heard, is it a relation to the chewbacca defence? One could similarly point out how the creation of portable TVs did absolutely nothing to harm the normal TV market as a counter-example - at least that one has some merit and relevance to it rather than some obscure argument about cameras that really makes no sense at all.
Personally I'll stick to keeping a keen eye on the figures, rather than anecdotes and chewbacca defences, but until there's actually a dent in Windows desktop license sales, it seems nonsensical to argue that the mobile device market and the desktop market are one market and that the mobile device market is eating into it. I'm not pretending the mobile device market doesn't make Microsoft vulnerable - Apple/Google could easily use their strength on mobile devices to leapfrog into the desktop market if they execute such a change well, but it's not that the desktop market itself is in decline - it's still as healthy as it's ever been. Besides, why do you think even Apple is mana
Right, I guess the problem really is that you have a poor comprehension of English.
The question was to provide a definition for the internet. My response was:
"An international network of devices."
I said nothing about naming, or anything like that, I provided a completely correct answer. You don't seem to be able to understand that, but it's not really my fault you don't know English very well. You're now twisting your whole argument to base it on some premise that never actually existed, so kindly stop making shit up, you're still wrong however you try and twist it.
Regardless, I still want to point out how utterly lacking in knowledge of the subject you are, as it's the only hope that people like you will get a clue, rather than laughably making a fool of yourself by demonstrating repeatedly how wrong you are:
"Exactly my point :D Seems you don't graps it.
If you interconnect a railway network with a river network, what do you get then? Certainly not a standard bigger network."
Yes you do, this was exactly my point, so I don't know why you've said "exactly my point" and then completely failed to grasp the point. If you combine the river and rail network then yes, you do get a bigger network, you get whatever that network is defining, it may be a boat/rail transportation network for example. You still completely fail to grasp what networks are, and well, I guess that sucks for you.
"What you get is pretty simple: you get a network with two nodes. And each of those nodes is a network in itself. Just like the internet, an interconnection of networks, where every node of the network is not a computer!! but a subnetwork! This is what you fail to grasp."
No you still don't get it. You have two networks, made up of say for example, 30 computers, you connect them together, and you now have a larger network of 60 computers, which is comprised of two subnetworks. Those subnetworks can be treated as networks in themselves, but ultimately the internet still remains an international network of devices, even if those devices are themselves subdivided into subnetworks. It's really not rocket science, I don't know why you struggle to badly to grasp the concept.
"Claiming that I Iack understanding regarding networks is plain stupid, as you see at my signature I'm very involved in all kinds of networks :D"
Great, but you still don't know what the fuck you're on about. See this definition from Princeton for example:
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=internet
But I suppose you'll come back and tell me that people at Princeton don't know as well as you or something either.
Just admit it, you are wrong, trust me, it's much easier than continuing to make a fool of yourself.
"you claim: internet means international network.
I say: wrong."
Yes, you can say wrong all you want, but it doesn't make you right. What bit of my definition are you disagreeing with? are you arguing that the internet isn't international? are you arguing that it's not a network? or both?
"Do you really think a bunch of nodes connected with copper wires, and another bunch of nodes connected with glass fibres can simply be connected to be just more nodes in just a bigger network?"
Yes. You apparently still completely fail to understand what a network is. A network simply describes the fact that these nodes connect together somehow, the fact that two different networks use different connection mediums whilst using a gateway to link between them doesn't change the fact that they're all still part of a network. It kind of scares me that you bill yourself as an OO mentor, yet you seem to have a profound inability to grasp the separation between the abstract concept of a network and the actual physical implementation. If you are not capable of understanding the difference between a concept and an implementation, how can you possibly be competent with OO technologies???
"This is complete bollocks. So there is some international mathematical network in the internet? oO!"
Oh my god. You really do not have a clue what you're on about whatsoever do you? A network is absolutely nothing more than a set of interconnected nodes, what about the internet do you think does not fit into this definition? are you trying to argue that devices on the internet do not count as nodes? are you trying to argue that these nodes aren't interconnected? If it's the latter then that makes no sense either, because you have to be connected to some node on the internet to be able to be connected to the internet.
"Perhaps the mathematical definition of a network follows the natural occurances of networks?"
You realise the concept of networks has been along far longer than computer networks right? Even in the 1800s the term was used to describe rail, rivers, canals, walkways. The fact that each of these things is in itself doesn't change the fact that combined they are part of a bigger network - a transportation network.
Perhaps the problem is that you're not a native English speaker and hence this is why you don't understand the use of these terms very well? Either way, I fail to see how anyone with even a basic grasp of the concepts can fail to realise that the internet is an international network, because it is most definitely international in nature, and is most definitely a network.
Look if you don't get it fine, but you're simply wrong, your argument shows a profound lack of understanding of what a network actually is and that's fine, if you don't understand something you don't understand something, but don't try and pretend you do, as you're clearly way out of your depth in this discussion.
Wait, you forgot to include my fridge and central heating system, neither of these run Windows either. Christ, even throwing servers into the mix where operating systems like Linux hold a greater share would make more sense than mobile.
Honestly, I'd like to see more competition in the desktop OS market too, but pretending desktop licensing and mobile operatings systems are in the same market is fucking stupid.
Mixing some arbitrary devices into the OS mix doesn't change the fact that Microsoft is still far and away the most dominant entity in the desktop/laptop market.
It doesn't really matter how many iOS devices Apple sells or Android devices Google and friends sell, people still aren't going to be writing software, producing spreadsheets, creating presentations, creating web pages, using most business systems, and authoring documents, on their tablets and phones. Have you tried doing any lengthy amount of office work on a mobile device? Without turning it into a desktop/laptop by attaching a keyboard/mouse it's the quickest route to insanity. Tablet versions of much common desktop software such as Office pale in comparison to the real thing. For this reason the key point is that no matter how many extra smartphones/tablets are sold out there, the effect on Windows desktop license sales is going to be negligible. People may be buying tablets, but few are foregoing a PC/laptop as a result, they just get both. Christ, up until recently you couldn't even activate an iOS device and get content onto it without a computer anyway.
Yes mobile is becoming ever more important, no it's not going to replace the desktop, it just extends where you can do some of your desktop work (e-mail, web apps). Touch is great, but it's not the be all and end all, it's an extremely shit input method for many, many common tasks still.
This is why you can't lump mobile and desktop together, for the most part they're different markets, the areas in which they intersect are fairly small and limited to for example, situations like tablets acting as a good carry round the home web browser instead of a netbook.
Erm, democracy and republic aren't two mutually exclusive things. A republic is, put simply, little more than a nation where there is no monarch. It doesn't stop it being a democracy. The UK is a monarchy, but it's still a democracy too, because we vote for our government.
I hope you're not represenatative of many other Americans with this view, because if you don't even understand how your own political system works it really is no wonder your governing class can get away with whatever the fuck they want. Perhaps I should add another step to my list - 4) Make sure people actually even understand what democracy is.
I'm well aware of America's founding, and don't disagree that America gaining independence was the right thing to do.
But I do question whether the founding principles of the nation were necessarily done rationally. Why do you feel these decisions, made hundreds of years ago, possibly to an extent as a knee-jerk reaction to the reasons for the war of independence in the first place, as still 100% relevant as the perfect principles of governance even today? Do you really think America's founding fathers really just somehow magically got the age old problem of governance right the first time around all those years ago? and in a manner that would never need changing?
You recognise that your current system isn't working, that it is extremely corrupt, yet rather than remove the corruption I'm assuming from your comment you believe the solution is to take power back from the system. The problem with that idea is that something will fill that power vacuum, you probably believe it will be the people, but if you really want a lesson from history then I think you'll quickly find that people will quickly self-organise into their own power structures, historically when monarchys for example have lost power, the church for example would be the one to gain it. This is because some people really do just want to be led, it's because others want to lead. Nowadays, it's most likely to be corporations that would fill any power void, as that has certainly been the trend in the US to date.
I also am well aware that public funding cannot happen in the US without a constitutional amendment but that doesn't mean it wont go a long way to separating big business from politics, it just acts as an example of why the constitution is not necessarily relevant enough to modern times to justify being a be-all and end-all document to adhere to. This very American trait of treating the constitution like a holy scripture that must not be defied, much like muslims get angry at the burning of the Koran, is indeed rather alien to me, but I guess I haven't been brought up in a system that teaches that it should be treated as exactly that.
Undoubtedly it's a cultural issue and I understand that Americans have bred into successive generations this fear of the state, and of socialism. I also wont pretend that I'm absolutely right, perhaps I am wrong, but what I do know is that the same applies to your argument. I do know that the suggestions I cited would at least cripple the current mechanisms for corrupting the state and increase accountability to citizens, and accountability matters.
There are healthy democracies in the world, Norway being one good example. These nations tend to adhere to the sorts of principles I suggested. In contrast, I'm not aware of any states with healthy democracies that also have the sort of small government that the most libertarian of Americans propose, the only states I can think of that have tried this sort of thing have collapsed into anarchy as local groups fill the afformentioned power vacuums, and then inevitably end up warring with each other for more power/resources.
Erm, I think you need to go back to school.
There is absolutely nothing about the term network whether used in the context of computing or not that implies it is some private entity, a network is simply nothing more than a group of interconnected nodes, how they connect, or where they connect is completely irrelevant.
The term network stems from the mathematical definition of a network, which is merely a series of interconnected nodes.
If you're going to assert that someone is wrong at least have a clue about what you are talking about. When you connect two networks, you merely have a bigger network. You can still say this bigger network is composed of smaller networks (in otherwords, subnetworks, often abbreviated to subnets), but that doesn't stop it being a network in itself.
The term is associated directly to the mathematical definition of network, which similarly uses this terminology. Go look it up sometime.
So does Sweden, but when a judge which was part of a music industry lobby group presided over The Pirate Bay trial it was whitewashed as no conflict of interest.
Whilst I agree that thereotically this is the correct outcome in this case, it does irk me somewhat that this sort of thing only turns out the way vested interests would like it to turn out, rather than necessarily how it should turn out if things were done right.
I'm not sure if New Zealand being at the top of the transparency index given the whole MegaUpload debacle tells me that the transparency index is full of crap, or simply that the standard of transparency required to be the most transparent country in the world is a pretty depressingly low bar to reach.
I think it's naive to beleive that simply because New Zealand, Sweden et al. are towards the top of this arbitrary index that there is no corruption involved.
The fact that my own country, the UK is perceived as pretty "clean" is a little worrying given that politicians have been lying to our faces, and we know they've been lying to our faces for sometime says a lot. Between the last government with David Miliband standing up in front of the cameras telling us the UK had nothing to do with torture when we know fucking well it did, a fact which is now proven, and Jeremy Hunt under this government telling us he was innocent of wrong doing when we all know fucking well he wasn't because the evidence is sat there right in front of us proving otherwise I don't know how we can even come close to scoring a 7.8. Christ, the Tory treasurer was filmed saying it would only cost £250,000 to basically dictate to government what you wanted policy on certain issues to be.
We're not defining what an international network of devices is, we're defining what the internet is, and the internet is an international network of devices.
If someone asks you what type of animal a frog is, you would probably describe it as an amphibian. Just because a newt is also an amphibian does not mean that a frog can no longer also be described as such.
The analog phone network may well also be an international network of devices, but that doesn't mean the internet isn't. Your question was to define the internet.
I'm not sure why everyone thinks her departure means she's going to be competing with Google.
She may well decide to actually go into partnership with Google on some things, this may even be why they chose her, because they recognise Yahoo couldn't compete with Google no matter how hard it tries, so instead should partner with it where it can, and diverge and offer other products where it thinks it can do better.
Larry and Sergei may in fact be quite pleased there's another friendly face now running a major silicon valley tech company. Up until now all the old school crowd like those at the top of Apple, Microsoft, Oracle etc. have been quite anti-Google.
An international network of devices.
To be fair this stems more from rather sloppy use of the term EU as shorthand for Europe, rather than referring to the European Union itself.
It's similar to the way people use the term America to refer to the United States of America, rather than the Americas.
I suspect the use of the term EU to mean Europe itself did indeed stem somewhat from people not knowing the difference to an extent, but it's not uncommon that you will find people who genuinely do know the difference saying EU when they mean Europe as a whole.
"Yes it can, MS has a de facto monopoly on the desktop(win 8), they are using that as leverage in another market(by blocking dual boot), I don't know about US antitrust legislation but that is explicitly forbidden according to EU antitrust legislation."
I don't think it's that simple, the waters seem very muddy when it comes to antitrust legislation, because for example, Apple had a de-facto monopoly in both the digital music sales and portable MP3 player markets and used both these as leverage to enter the cell phone market, but there was no anti-trust investigations surrounding that in either the US, or the EU.
There seems to be more to it than simply leveraging one monopoly to enter another market, I suspect you have to do more than enter it, but cause harm to it. For example, when Apple entered the cell phone market using it's monopolies elsewhere it actually heated up competition, but when Microsoft entered the browser market using it's monopoly on desktop OS software it actually killed competition.
Potentially I guess if Apple is/was succesful in killing off competition in the smartphone market using for example patents such that there was little competition left in the market they too would come under anti-trust scrutiny, but whilst the competition is healthy there seems to be no issue.
I think it's not that you can't enter a new market using an existing monopoly, it's more that you can't force another monopoly in another market abusing an existing monopoly. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's the only reason I can see why Microsoft was investigated but similar situations of monopoly leveraging have gone unnoticed.
Presumably part the reason Google has been targetted regarding ads is because it's perceived that it used it's monopoly on search to gain a monopoly on ads. Whilst I think this was far less problematic than what Microsoft did with IE, it would at least explain the disparity in anti-trust investigations between companies like MS/Google and companies like Apple who whilst they have similarly exploited their monopolies to enter other markets, have not been able to do so to the point where they gain a monopoly in those markets.
I think it's probably harder to fix the electorate than fix the system, because the electorate is in many cases kept dumb by the system, because the system benefits from an uninformed electorate. If you want to fix the electorate you fight an uphill battle because those with the power to easily change this are working against you, whilst you, a minority, have neither power nor numbers.
Despite this I largely agree that the suggestions put forward by the GP aren't necessarily going to fix much. The fixes that are needed (not just for the US, but even countries like the UK) are:
1) Political campaigns funded purely by the public purse, relative to past popular support performance, with a cap such that the largest party has no inherent financial benefit over say, their next 2 or 3 closest competitors.
People don't like paying for politics, but this is simply the only way to ensure that parties campaign and perform in the interests of the public, rather than lobbyists. I would argue that any cost involved in this sort of thing to the tax payer would be more than made up for by the savings of having competent government that doesn't spend money handing useless contracts to lobbyists who got them in power etc.
2) A representative voting system.
There is an argument that representative voting systems like PR create governments that have little strength, but this is clearly false as Germany has proven having had coalition governments since the war. Ultimately minority or coalition governments are forced to compromise. In the UK people complain about our current coalition, citing things like the increase in tuition fees to £9,000 but they miss the fact that if it weren't for the coalition the Tories were actually going to push fees of £12,000. Our coalition has made a lot of mistakes, but it's naive to think the Lib Dems haven't had at least some degree of moderating influence on the government. The NHS changes were similarly far far worse under purely Tory proposals. Even with our shitty example of a coalition government, the coalition has led to moderation and has still been better than the alternatives - a Labour or Tory majority.
3. Limit media ownership.
Limit media ownership to say, 10% of the media, to ensure that no one media mogul can have undue influence on the media. Having a strong public broadcaster like the BBC which has a legal obligation to be impartial is also of major benefit.
Unless you do these sorts of root and branch changes you cannot have a healthy democracy, it will always be more easily corrupted, much less representative of the people and far more representative of vested interests and lobby groups.
It's unlikely America especially would ever go for these changes because many Americans have been fed bullshit about how the state is evil, but this has simply been used as a method by which to ensure corporations are strong enough to be able to control the state, which is then used as the tool by which to act against the interest of most Americans which creates this obscure feedback loop of Americans then thinking the state is evil and supporting laws that make corporations more powerful. Similarly the idea of state funding for political campaigns would probably be seen as too socialist in America, where socialism is defined to be synonymous with communism which is defined to be inherently evil because America lost the Vietnam war and failed in Korea to attain complete victory etc.
Just as religion and state should never be mixed, neither should corporate interests and state, and the only way to remove that separation is with the likes of implementations of ideas such as points 1 and 3 above. Point 2 works to limit corporate interests by itself, because it forces politicians to listen to the people if they want to be elected, it forces them to pursue moderate policies that at least half-please everyone, rather than extreme policies often pushed by corporate interests that make some people happy, whilst destroying the lives of others.
Until you solve this problem of the merging of state and corporations, you cannot have a healthy democracy and again, just as you cannot have a healthy democracy when there is a merging of religion and state.
"What is gained by inaccuracy?"
Sensationalism?
Oh really, what stuff did he steal?
I don't really need a smaller motherboard, I'm only going to buy a medium size tower case anyway.
What else will I use as a combined leg rest and heater in the winter under the desk otherwise?
"I know that this is normally a forum to bash **AA, but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content."
Right, and all car manufacturers made their fortunes by providing cars that were used to break the speed limit, all gun manufacturers made their fortunes by providing guns that were used to kill, and Apple made it's fortunes by making media players that were used to play pirated MP3s.
Similarly neither Ford, nor gun manufacturers, nor Apple have done anything to stop illegal speeding, illegal killing, or illegal downloading, and at times have "promoted" it.
Honestly, your argument extends to many industries, as the whole data loss fiasco has proven, Megaupload had many legitimate customers. The point being that the service he was providing was not illegal, not any more so than the industries mentioned above. The problem is that his industry is one that:
a) The US is spending a fuckton of money attacking at the behest of corporate interests
and:
b) Not as big as the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Ford, or whoever to have had the money and lobbying power to protect themselves
What an utterly stupid post.
My online FPS days actually stem from Quake too, not Quake II, not shit III Arena, actual Quake, the one where deathmatch was indeed highly competitive. I also worked on some mods during that era myself such as TF Bots, and AirQuake II. For what it's worth, whilst I did play Halo 3 a bit online, I never even played Halo 1 and 2, I'd moved more to MMOs at that point, mostly doing PvP in Ultima Online, and later Dark Age of Camelot.
If you still live in your mother's basement then fine, but don't assume everyone else is like you. Some of us grew up, moved out, and are entirely independent. Those of us who did that are probably the same people who also recognise that yes, whilst we pine for the Quake glory days to return, recognise that aint going to happen, but that I can still get some real enjoyment from some of the newer games. Accuracy and skill still entirely matters though, as much as it did back then, though people tend to play bigger games, where this is masked, rather than for example, 1 vs 1 on a map like DM2, it's more about teamplay now sure and I guess if you're not a teamplayer you may not like that. I always was, whilst I did enjoy 1 vs 1 DM and general all out DM, I did always tend to prefer CTF and TF, so modern team based shooters suit me fine.
I'd still probably be up for a bit of Quake even now though if people started playing it again, and all the old problems that killed it off could be avoided (proliferation of aimbots and speedhacks). I know there are updated versions of the Quake source, but they seem to fuck around with more than just cheat prevention, I don't want fancy new graphics etc., I was quite content with the non-GL client, I just don't want the cheats that destroyed the game.