Possibly, but when the reams of spare paper were kept right next to the printer, the printer had a simple top loading tray with a big picture of a piece of paper and an arrow showing where to put it, coupled with the fact it's the same printer she'd been using for about 3 years, I'm not convinced.
It may not have been incompetence I suppose, it could've been laziness - easier to pick up the phone and ring me than engage her brain but either way, it's clearly not a person anywhere near competent enough to be doing any kind of IT training to teachers, or anyone for that matter.
This is nothing to do with partisan politics anyway.
It's about how effective Microsoft's lobbying is nowadays.
Since Ballmer took over lobbying activity has massively increased, whilst growth of new and useful product lines has basically flatlined.
I've historically been quite supportive of Microsoft here on Slashdot as I like a lot of their products, XBox 360, Visual Studio, SQL Server, Windows Server etc. but I'm so sick and tired of all the anti-Google shilling from Microsoft and Facebook, that when I see something like this I'm more likely to be correct if I assume it's yet another Microsoft lobbying victory, than if I assume it's not.
See shit like this to understand where I'm coming from:
It's pretty fucking clear there's a problem, and not only is Microsoft failing to produce new product lines to grow the things people buy from them, they're actively pushing away people like me away, who, as a primarily Windows based developer/architect, is precisely the sort of person they've depended on to maintain the strength of their main product lines within the business world.
Between the failure of Microsoft in mobile coupled with the increase in importance of mobile, and this sort of shit, they really run the risk of losing everything in the long run. I fucking hate Apple too, but it's getting to the point where my next computer will run iOS, just to make a fucking point of not buying Windows and not funding Microsoft until they grow the fuck up and start focussing on products, rather than what basically amounts to corporate trolling.
If they spent as much time on producing innovative and cool new stuff as they did corporate trolling, they wouldn't need to worry about corporate trolling in the first place.
Gates may have been too aggressive against his competition resulting in the anti-trust stuff being brought against him, but at least he didn't engage in this corporate trolling. I wish Ballmer would die of a heart attack and Gates would come back frankly. It's no wonder he was ranked as the worst tech CEO or whatever - because it's absolutely fucking true.
"Apart from a few fringe cases, I have never known anyone who was owed money to / was owed money by the Inland Revenue at the end of the year, so I guess the employers know exactly how much to deduct."
Um, you must've missed the news where when Inland Revenue switched to new computerised systems over the last few years, literally millions of people in the UK have been over/under taxed. I myself was over-taxed, which I'm not too fussed about as it's nice getting a big fat lump sum cheque through.
The system is theoretically simple, you have a tax code, and you get a deduction based on that. The problem is there are many many tax codes, and if you get things like private healthcare from your employer then this can affect your tax code.
I agree in general the UK's system is pretty good and is only getting better with the new systems where there is less scope for error - now anyone who works full time and doesn't do any other taxable work doesn't even have to be aware of the tax system, let alone fill any forms in. They just get told each month and a summary at the end of each tax year how much they paid in tax, but to date it's far from foolproof, whilst still better than most places it's absolutely false to say adjustments occur in only a few fringe cases. It's long been far more widespread than that.
"Furthermore, in the UK primary sector, there exist quite advanced mechanisms for transferring "best practice" from one school to the next. The UK gov't spends real money on this and gets real results in turn."
Does it? I spent a number of years supporting "Advisory Teachers" who exist outside any one school for precisely the purpose of teaching teachers how to teach and the level of ineptitude was frankly astounding.
In fact, it was from an IT Advisory Teacher that I got my dumbest, most ridiculous ever technical support call once - "Hi, there's no paper in the printer, and an orange light on it and it wont print, can you come and have a look at it?"
Yes that's right, it wouldn't print BECAUSE IT HAD NO FUCKING PAPER IN IT. Her colleague wasn't any better, phoning up almost on a weekly basis to point out that she couldn't get sound on the training suite computer - oddly enough because she hadn't turned the fucking speakers on.
Honestly, Advisory Teachers are a prime example of a non-job, it's a high paid role (£40k - £60k p/a) and it's where teachers who were shit at teaching basically go to die.
It's these people those 100 slots Google is promoting should replace. I cannot describe how inexplicably terrible advisory teachers are. I even made the mistake of engaging in discussion with a maths one once, thinking we may have shared a common interest in maths, but no, her maths qualifications seem to just about extend to counting to 10 and nothing more.
Still it's been some years, maybe things have changed, maybe there are other mechanisms that bypass advisory teachers or something so perhaps you're right. But my experience was that local governments tended to throw literally millions of pounds a year down the drain on these people who - and I say this literally, not figuratively - weren't even fit to pass some of the most basic computing courses out there, which cover things such as doing a mail merge with Word. Bad just isn't a powerful enough word to describe how awful these people were at their jobs.
It sounds like I'm ranting, it sounds like I'm going over the top in my critique of the situation, but it really is quite unbeleivable how much of a train wreck advisory services were in the UK at least some years back - I'd be amazed if they've had a complete turn around since.
"It was trying to do it in a bad way through XML namespaces, leading to namespace confusion."
I fail to see any worthwhile arguments on that page, unless you're working on the premise the AC at the start of the thread point out as being so flawed - that HTML should serve to allow the lowest common denominator to publish at the expense of professional developers being able to write better code. The web is in a different place to where it was 15 years ago - as the AC said, non-programmers aren't publishing via HTML, nor do they have any interest in doing so, they're publishing via web apps written by the professionals. When the argument is not only so weak to start with, but based on a fundamentally flawed premise it's meaningless, but it highlights one of many fallacies WHATWG has based their entire argument on. Even then my point was absolutely not that XHTML2 was some super perfect spec - to anyone that isn't some mental HTML5 fanboy that much should have been pretty obvious - I was merely stating it was going in the right direction. Your link isn't even close to being any kind of evidence to the contrary, it is merely one perceived flaw based on a fundamental lack of understanding of the modern web.
"The only structure it would define is that of a tree devoid of meaning."
Exactly. A generic flexible tree that can be dealt with as you need to. The meaning is applied externally, and it is then upto the user agent as to what sets of technology it supports to provide meaning - semantics, styles, scripting. It's called separation of concerns, it's incredibly important in modern software, it's sad so many people like you don't get this vital concept in software design.
"If all older web browsers were IE browsers, you'd be right."
That's if you prefix my use of the term "older browsers" with the word "all". I can't really be held responsible for what fucked up logic you carry out in your head to create disagreement for the sake of creating disagreement.
"Disagreement about the semantic meaning of a bunch of elements is hardly fundamental."
Yes, except when the elements are design specifically as semantic elements, then it kind of is fundamental. If you can't define the semantics of tags designed purely for the purpose of being semantic, then it's a fundamental failure.
"We're talking about HTML5, not the versionless living spec living at the WHATWG. Did you forget that the W3C embraced the WHATWG's work and used that as a basis for HTML5?"
Have you looked at the list of outstanding issues? Hint: The definition of semantic tags is no longer something still under discussion.
Still, have fun not understanding even the fundamentals of what you're arguing whilst arguing on the topic regardless. Doing so doesn't make you right, it just makes you a failure.
Nice argument, well cited, and highly intelligent. I can't disagree. Oh wait, you didn't actually have an argument.
Good software development is all about modularity, ensuring a spec is can grow to the dynamic needs of something like the web demands that you define the generic building blocks, and let people build whatever they need from there. XHTML2 was trying to do both of these things.
"HTML has always been about semantics. What HTML5 does is update them and introduce elements that web developers have been needing."
No, it's about defining document structure. It used to define some styling, but if you didn't get the memo this thing called CSS came along. It can include content, but this is often populated dynamically now, server side.
"Without the semantics HTML is meaningless. Stripping off the semantics is crazy talk."
Do you actually understand the concept of semantics? This comment is nonsensical. HTML still defines structure regardless of any semantic meaning.
"Wrong. IE is the only web browser that doesn't render them."
Wrong because it's right? what???
"No, you're just creating a maintenance nightmare."
As opposed to a mishmash of ill defined tags with arbitrary meanings? Really? Have you ever even been involved in large scale software development?
Er, the whole point of a spec is to specify things. If there's disagreement about something fundamental within the spec then the spec has failed to define something properly, and failed at the fundamental task a spec is precisely designed to fulfil.
"The spec isn't even done yet."
Yes, well that's one advantage of a living spec I suppose. When someone points out fundamental flaws in it you can say "It's living", or "It's not done yet".
Come back when you actually understand:
1) What HTML defines
2) What semantics means in the context of the web
3) What the purpose of a technical specification is
He's probably referring to XHTML, whilst XHTML2 wasn't really ideal, it was at least going down the right path in terms of doing just that. Though it's worth pointing out that Javascript/HTML is itself an example of separation of concerns - client side scripting separated from document structure, though HTML5 does nothing particular to cripple this at least.
Personally I'm not keen on semantics been wedged into the HTML5 spec though, I think that's a concern that could be far better dealt with like stylesheets. The semantic tags are one of my pet hates in HTML5, because they're based on a study that was out of date shortly after it was produced and it was produced in something like 2006. The set of tags is so small and arbitrary that it's meaningless, it would've made far more sense to apply semantic information to classes and ids as that way you could store them in a separate file, which gives you the additional benefits that they can also be applied to existing sites that are no longer maintained in the same way you can apply custom stylesheets. You could have separate people handle the semantics, which would be handy on massive projects, and you'd be able to update the available semantic options without having to update the main HTML spec or have a "living" non-spec as WHATWG have proposed. ARIA roles already basically duplicate the semantic tag functionality but do so in a far more flexible manner, so it's an example as to where, IMO, we should have gone, and should be going.
There are other issues with semantic tags - older browsers just don't even recognise them and fail to render those blocks, you can fix this with Javascript hacks, assuming everyone has Javascript enabled and working of course (they don't). They're hence not even properly backwards compatible, so if you want to use them you've realistically got to accept that someone is browser your site with an HTML5 compatible or higher browser. The other argument for the tags is to get rid of div soup, and sure it's a pain, but honestly? the benefit of divs is that they're generic, and by keeping your tags generic and applying additional information (i.e. styling) using the ids/classes, you're maintaining flexibility and keeping things both futureproof, and backwards compatible at the same time - new stuff can be added whilst old browsers can safely ignore it. Even now the semantic meanings of the semantic tags have become meaningless anyway as there's so much disagreement for example as to what should be an article. There's any number of questions that go something like this "There isn't a semantic tag to mark up this part of my web page, what do I do?" to which the response is "Use divs anyway", or "Use this semantic tag, which isn't exactly what the element is but is the closest element" - the problem with the latter which many people accept and use is that it dilutes the semantic meaning of that tag, an article is already not actually an article half the time, it may be a comment. You could argue a comment is an article, and that's great until you go to the next HTML5 page where someone has instead arbitrarily decided a comment is actually an aside.
There's some nice stuff in the spec, canvas being the obvious one, and web sockets if they ever get implemented properly in every browser, but in general I agree with the GP and think it's pretty awful. CSS3 in itself is pretty nice though, and doesn't have many issues with it beyond it's current level of support.
Really, as I say, CSS3 is pretty decent, but HTML5 is indeed a terribly thought out spec, the whole process has been rather amateurish and felt more like they were building a script kiddies wish list of shiny stuff rather than a spec to take the web forward. Many things such as accessibility and security seem to have been worryingly neglected in a number of areas. It doesn't help when you see grand commander Hixie engaging in flamewars with people and basically ending up with comments that amount to "I don't care what you think, I'm doing it my way whether right or not" - h
"exactly who was inconvenienced by their OOXML standard?"
They got it recognised as an international standard giving it increased legitimacy, when the standard was incomplete and realistically impossible for competitors to support fully. So to answer your question, people who were inconvenienced by Microsoft's hijacking of the standards process, is anyone who wants to be able to use free software, and not pay a Microsoft tax to be able to interoperate with other businesses in the exchange of documents.
"They are also keeping their eye on Apple in the eBook market"
Oooh, keeping their eye on, that'll teach them!
"although I maintain that the consumer has benefited from Apple being able to strong-arm the record industry on removing their DRM"
I maintain that Apple gained far more by continuing to exploit platform lockin through DRM to leave consumers with the choice of losing hundreds of pounds of content, or to buy Apple when their device with it's non-user replaceable battery and hence planned obsolence inevitably became obsolete.
"So the idea that Google should be given a free pass because they are being unfairly picked on is just rubbish."
I don't think they should be given a free pass. I just think that the EU should be targetting everyone else, and doing so by prioritising in order of urgency. In that order of urgency I think Google would be a fair bit down the list. I'd argue that Facebook would be at the top because it's breaches of European data protection acts are out and out illegal.
It seems to go beyond this however, the problem is that this isn't the first time Google has been investigated, the problem is that it's being investigated over a number of other issues - it's privacy policy, it was investigated over street view, it's investigated left right and centre any time it even steps into slightly questionable territory and again, that's not a bad thing, but why just Google? The problem is I suspect precisely because of this type of bullshit that another posted below linked:
It just seems that if you're a tech giant you can get away with an awful lot, unless you're Google, in which case expect every single little thing to be scrutinised. The problem isn't scrutiny of Google, the problem is the other tech giants getting away with some pretty gross levels of abuse.
The EU has initiated anti-trust action against just as many European companies as foreign companies. Look at the mobile phone market for example, European companies like Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile etc. have been under a constant barrage of regulation from the EU for years over roaming fees etc.
Also your first example doesn't even make any sense whatsoever, AMD isn't even a European company, it's American.
Part the reason for Europe being quite good in this respect is because it is not one country, there's a lot of inter-country rivalry in the EU itself - you can guarantee a British judge wont rule in a French company's favour against a US company for example because of some feeling he must protect a European company because the Brits generally love the French about as much as they love the Germans - i.e. not very much. Similarly you'll get the same sentiment to various other countries in Europe, from their own neighbours. There just isn't some feeling of a European superstate that must trounce outsiders at all costs. Successive British and Czech governments for example have aligned far more closely with Washington than they have Brussels. There just isn't some grand European patriotism for your theory to work out.
The fact you've no idea whatsoever about the topic you're conversing about doesn't make you right, it just makes you a tit. Please, do Slashdot a favour, don't jump into conversations you don't have the foggiest about and assert that you're right and no other suggestion could possibly have any validity.
The biggest irony of it all is that the only reason you're complaining about it is because you yourself feel it's your patriotic American duty to stand up for American companies.
If only you knew which companies were actually American. That would be a start.
The problem is the double standards being applied. Whilst yes Google does abuse it's position in some cases, the things it doesn't aren't in any way as bad as the things other tech companies are guilty of. Microsoft's abuse of the standards process with OOXML, Apple's abuse of it's vertical integration, monopoly on music to lock people into it's platform, and it's strong market share in digital content to distort for example, the ebooks market, Facebook's constant illegal breaches of various data protection acts across the globe, Oracle's pretending it's a good little company to take over Sun, only to completely fuck previous commitments to openness etc.
All of these other companies are guilty of things that have been far more harmful to consumers, developers, and companies, yet only Google is the one being properly investigated. Is there something I'm unaware of that makes the advertising agency a magical gift to mankind that means it needs extra additional protections beyond the fact Microsoft was behind this original complaint and targetted ads because they know it's Google's lifeblood?
The original comments from the EU about adwords was something to do with the data entered for adwords ads not being portable to other ad networks or something obscure and stupid like that, presumably the EU wants you to be able to export your ad data into XML or something odd. The GP shill managed to translate that into some bullshit about exclusivity agreements that simply isn't true.
It's not going to be foolproof though, people fall in and out of love, especially when they're young, she could just as well have fallen out of love with him just as he was about to make his billions and decided to stick around.
But regardless, it's nice to see if it's genuine, I guess we're so used to precisely this type of bullshit in the music and movie industry that it's easy to be cynical, but I guess many tech types in general i.e. Bill Gates also have managed to at least maintain lasting relationships. I guess that's because tech types generally aren't shallow people, they did have to have some semblance of intelligence and rationality to get where they were whilst the same can't be said for actors and musicians I suppose.
"If an organization lies half the time and tells the truth the other half. You really shouldn't listen to them because you never know if it is a lie or not."
Really? Yet many people listen to everyone from Apple to the media every single day despite being guilty of a far larger proportion of lies in their press releases. It's a sad truth, but if you don't lie some of the time then you're fighting a battle with one armed tied behind your back. Telling organisations not to lie is akin to telling them not to try and even compete with those that will in the political arena, and to effectively give way to them. If more people held the likes of Apple and News International to account when they lie then I'd agree with you, but no one does, instead, here on Slashdot you can find thousands of fanboys who will defend such lies when it comes to Apple, elsewhere you can find fanboys who will defend Microsoft's lies, other places you can find people who will defend the media's lies. We don't live in the pictoresque ideal world where issuing equally over the top rhetoric is an option.
"There are other organizations out there that are more honest. Listen to them..."
Who are these mystical organisations who always tell the truth? I can't even think of a single one that has lied sometimes pushing them into your "don't listen to them category".
Really, the solution isn't "don't listen to those who lie", chances are those you think don't lie have just been more succesful at pulling the wool over your eyes. The solution is to recognise the reality that politics is a fucking dirty game, that lying is inevitable and that listening to both sides of the argument to try and judge the middle ground is the most sane option. That's why I suspect Amazon's position is the most realistic - it's not quite as extreme as Greenpeace's position, but it provides more reasoning as to why Greenpeace might think Apple's position is little more than a bit of fluffy PR even if it's not quite as bad as Greenpeace says - either way, on the weight of the evidence it seems unlike Apple is telling the complete truth, and it seems unlikely Greenpeace is. I doubt even Amazon's evaluation of the situation is perfect but it seems Apple's 20MW and 100% renewable claim is most likely bullshit and that there is at least some merit to what Greenpeace has to say.
The problem with Greenpeace is that it doesn't always lie.
It was quite right regarding the whales, and has been quite succesful as a result.
Obviously on nuclear it's almost entirely wrong though.
But I disagree that we should stop listening to them because a) it means there's a counterbalance to the massive fossil fuel lobby that due to their past successes, people listen to, and b) I don't think most companies are doing nearly enough, most carbon neutral schemes are actually complete bollocks and don't actually result in a reasonable amount of carbon neutrality, and do we even definitely know that Greenpeace did lie in this case? or are we supposedly meant to trust Apple (whose now deceased CEO was famous for outright lying to the world)?
Look at jo_ham's retarded post below in the discussion "Apple put out a press release gently correcting them", oh well, if Apple put out a press release then obviously it's true. If you read TFA then Greenpeace made an estime of 100 MW sure, but even Amazon queried their 20 MW value and believed it would be at least 78 MW - I fail to believe someone with as much data centre experience with Amazon would come up with an estimate 4x too high.
Still, fanboys will believe what fanboys believe - Apple releases a press release and it's obviously completely true, and would never be an attempt at saving face.
Really, reading TFA the only evidence that Apple's new datacentre will only use 20 MW is Apple's say so? Sorry, but I'd rather trust Amazon and Greenpeaces's estimate than blindly swallow anything the company at the centre of the criticism has to say. If it was just Apple vs. Greenpeace then sure you'd have two polar opposites, but Amazon is relatively neutral in this because is itself wouldn't want to get tangled up unnecessarily in data centre controversy when it owns so many so that adds sway to Greenpeaces argument somewhat. The Amazon article is far more interesting than the PR piece in the summary:
171 acres of trees are being cleared for Apple's solar array.
So in this case it seems perhaps the real problem is immediately assuming Greenpeace is lying and Apple is right based on nothing more than an Apple press release.
"The order seems to be general and descriptive, and is a manifestation of the implementation process for an even more general and vague larger-scale EU directive, which is the common source that caused the rulings recently posted on slashdot regarding the UK, the Netherlands and Finland."
Can anyone point to the larger-scale EU directive referred to in the summary? I've missed the news on any such directive having been passed. To date I was under the impression at EU level, all such directives have been in quite the opposite direction so I'd be intrigued to see where this one came from.
Someone I know paid for his own panels as he runs a tropical plant nursery here in the UK, so similarly needs a fair bit of power to heat it during the winter. The warranty on his panels was 20 years, but he said the folks providing it seemed pretty honest and were fairly confident they'd last as long as 60 years.
It's worth noting that to have confidence in a product lasting 20 years without fault means that you have to have a low chance of that product failing in or close to that period else it becomes economically unfeasible to provide that kind of warranty. A 3-fold actual life time on most panels seems a reasonable margin to ensure you don't really lose out by offering a 20 year warranty on the product. As you say also if this study was from 2000, we're now 12 years on, so it's also not suprising that newer panels could last as long as 60 years if the technology has improved.
"The Mini Cooper is an example of a brand redone, but bettered, by BMW."
Seriously? I don't know a single Mini owner that hasn't had problem after problem, and had to pay a small fortune each time their car has needed replacement parts, and I know plenty of Mini owners.
It may not be worse, but it's certainly not a better brand under BMW.
I'm not sure why there's this view German cars are that great, take a look here for example: BMW, Mini, Audi are right towards the bottom:
This isn't to say British cars fare any better, but it's pretty clear if you want reliability then these supposedly prestige German brands are far from even being close to the best. Audi, BMW, Mercedes are all fucking shit for reliability.
It doesn't work like that, Google got a ban in place against Microsoft products in Germany but a US court ordered Motorola not to enforce the German ban even though frankly it had fuck all to do with the US court as it as a German issue. Here's hoping a German court orders Microsoft not to enforce the Motorola ban and see how American sfeel about German courts enforcing their power on US soil, doubt it'll happen though.
Basically whatever Microsoft wants Microsoft gets. People think Ballmer has achieved nothing since Gates left, it's not true, from OpenXML to various nonsencial court rulings favourable to Microsoft, to various investigations of Google when Microsoft/Facebook are guilty of the same things on the same/larger scale - Ballmer has achieved something, he's made Microsoft arguably the best tech lobbyist in the world, the problem is, Microsoft is the company we probably least want to be the best tech lobbyist in the world. Microsoft learnt well from the antitrust litigation how to avoid the wrath of politicians and courts and how to use them against your competition.
Apple seems to be pretty decent on the lobbying front, but Google has been too naive over it, hence their haste and will to buy Motorola- they were caught with their pants down putting too much faith into other companies playing fair and now they have a mad rush to catch up on the lobbying/patent/general dick business front so don't count on them managing to get their way. It's a sad illustration of the current state of the US tech industry, innovation is no longer relevant, it's all about how you play the politicians and the courts and in that scenario, Microsoft is king.
"That's not really true - the government can (and does) also censor commercial speech (criminal penalties of copyright law)"
Copying content isn't speech. Criminal penalties only apply to the action of profiting from selling counterfeit goods, I'm not sure how you can possibly claim that is some kind of speech.
"a moderated message board being a simple example, but even choosing the callers on a radio program is a form of censorship."
No, you don't understand the concept of free speech at all. The concept of free speech isn't that corporations, political groups and citizens don't have the right to stop you saying what you want on their premises, or broadcast it using their equipment, it's that they don't have the right to stop you using other mechanisms to say what you want that are outside their control. It's censorship of free speech if some government organisation or individual or corporation stops you saying what you want where you do have permission to do so - i.e. a third party forum. It's not censorship of free speech if I kick someone out my house for saying something I don't like because they can go elsewhere and do it, it is censorship if I have them silenced over the issue everywhere somehow. It's not that you're wrong to suggest choosing callers on a radio show isn't censorship, it is, you're right about that, but it's not an infringement of free speech - because there are other shows, and other mediums where you can say what you believe where they can't stop you doing that.
The problem regarding the internet is that some governments and corporations are attempting to block what can be said anywhere on the net - including on privately owned forums that are accepting of such topics, and this is a problem whether it's China's government doing it, or US corporations abusing corrupt courts/government officials etc.
"What I mean is that it is far more critical to a democracy to have a free press and the ability to speak one's opinion without risk of jail or bodily harm, especially at the hand of government forces (or a proxy of the same). When the "opposition" is in jail, or when dissidents are routinely beaten up and their families threatened, when "hostile" newspapers are shut down, when unfriendly radio and TV stations are shut down - that's a much more dangerous sign than the government yanking the DNS record of a site that links to copyrighted files. I'd rather the latter didn't happen as well, but I see a major distinction between the two kinds of censorship."
What about Wikileaks? That's about the most journalistic form of journalism we've seen in the West in decades, yet the West has worked very hard to censor it, and punish those responsible. Now the truth is finally coming out in the UK over News International it's become clear that Murdoch's empire and politicians have conspired in the UK to cover up all sorts of stories - it's no different elsewhere in the world, it's just that other Murdoch plagued countries haven't yet found the balls to face up to the problem.
"I think it is negatively tarred with things like the human rights commission getting headed up by some of the biggest offenders."
But it's another tiny facet of what the UN is and does, yes some members of the UN have managed to subvert some sections - the US managed to completely fuck over WIPO which worked exactly as it should until they did so - preventing overly restrictive US IP policy when the US suberted it with the WTO. In WIPO African nations, Asian nations were counteracting US' over the top IP laws and restrictions and the US didn't like it so it created the WTO and now forces everyone to join that to play by it's rules instead, but fundamentally these are only very small things compared to the IAEA, ICAO, IFAD, IMO, ITU, UNESCO, UPU, WFP, WHO, WMO, and much of what the general assembly does actually cover.
The sad thing is your same argument was used for things like the ITU, ICAO, IMO etc. and yet it turns out such accusations were unfounded, further, whatever issues may ari
There's not really such thing as commercial speech and political speech, commercial censorship can censor political discussion as well as political censorship can, the differentiator between the two is the source. In political censorship it is political bodies such as governments that censor, in commercial censorship it is corporations, what they actually censor will often overlap, so one is just as bad as the other.
I've pointed it out before on Slashdot that the UN already handles things such as international telecomms, international post, international air and maritime standards and does so incredibly well, there's no reason the internet shouldn't be the same as these other core communication tools, and in fact, it's quite likely it would be the ITU that deals with it. Perhaps there's a bit of misunderstanding but when they say hand it to the general assembly I do not believe they mean let the general assembly manage it, but instead mean let the general assembly figure out what to do with it - i.e. create it it's own ITU style organisation, or hand it to the ITU for management. The problem the UN in general has is that it's negatively tarred with the brush of the security council, which is the most often in the news component in the UN, but only a tiny, tiny fragment of what the UN is or does. The UN has far, far more good bits, than it does bad bits.
That and the fact that he left all that behind to live an off the grid life, probably also means that his understanding of the world outside his little haven is probably a bit "off the grid" too.
Honestly, a gun-toting tea party supporting survivalist is probably the last sort of person I'd actually trust with anything, MIT or not.
Whilst I'm by no means suggesting this guy is a terrorist it's probably worth bearing in mind that a number of terrorist in recent years came from prestiguous universities. Clearly coming from a top university isn't exactly evidence that you're some super-trustworthy ultra-genius, but could equally just be an untrustworthy crackpot. My bet is this guy falls into the latter category.
I think that would only make things much worse. The problem is that whilst yes many such nations wouldn't support out and out censorship of random political topics, they would support US attempts to censor stuff relating to IP infringement - effectively you'd run the risk of getting support for ICE that also hits gambling and such.
To counter that you need countries like China, because they're important voices in counteracting over-reaching US IP policy. You need this sort of disagreement to ensure stalemate on controversal issues.
This way you can guarantee the West will block moves by China to increase global censorship, whilst China and other African/Asian nations will block attempts at over-reaching IP enforcement related censorship from the US. You need your Chinas, Russias, Irans, Syrias, Venezuelas and so forth to stand up to Western corporate censorship just as much as you need the US, Europe etc. to stand up to Eastern political censorship.
This stalemate caused by including even the most dispicable regimes is important, essential to ensure that the fringes don't get to push their policies, whilst ensuring the only areas of agreement are the areas that frankly everyone agrees on and make sense to implement anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Possibly, but when the reams of spare paper were kept right next to the printer, the printer had a simple top loading tray with a big picture of a piece of paper and an arrow showing where to put it, coupled with the fact it's the same printer she'd been using for about 3 years, I'm not convinced.
It may not have been incompetence I suppose, it could've been laziness - easier to pick up the phone and ring me than engage her brain but either way, it's clearly not a person anywhere near competent enough to be doing any kind of IT training to teachers, or anyone for that matter.
This is nothing to do with partisan politics anyway.
It's about how effective Microsoft's lobbying is nowadays.
Since Ballmer took over lobbying activity has massively increased, whilst growth of new and useful product lines has basically flatlined.
I've historically been quite supportive of Microsoft here on Slashdot as I like a lot of their products, XBox 360, Visual Studio, SQL Server, Windows Server etc. but I'm so sick and tired of all the anti-Google shilling from Microsoft and Facebook, that when I see something like this I'm more likely to be correct if I assume it's yet another Microsoft lobbying victory, than if I assume it's not.
See shit like this to understand where I'm coming from:
http://falkvinge.net/2012/03/02/how-microsoft-pays-big-money-to-smear-google-audaciously/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/8184065/Dark-forces-gunning-for-Google.html
It's pretty fucking clear there's a problem, and not only is Microsoft failing to produce new product lines to grow the things people buy from them, they're actively pushing away people like me away, who, as a primarily Windows based developer/architect, is precisely the sort of person they've depended on to maintain the strength of their main product lines within the business world.
Between the failure of Microsoft in mobile coupled with the increase in importance of mobile, and this sort of shit, they really run the risk of losing everything in the long run. I fucking hate Apple too, but it's getting to the point where my next computer will run iOS, just to make a fucking point of not buying Windows and not funding Microsoft until they grow the fuck up and start focussing on products, rather than what basically amounts to corporate trolling.
If they spent as much time on producing innovative and cool new stuff as they did corporate trolling, they wouldn't need to worry about corporate trolling in the first place.
Gates may have been too aggressive against his competition resulting in the anti-trust stuff being brought against him, but at least he didn't engage in this corporate trolling. I wish Ballmer would die of a heart attack and Gates would come back frankly. It's no wonder he was ranked as the worst tech CEO or whatever - because it's absolutely fucking true.
"Apart from a few fringe cases, I have never known anyone who was owed money to / was owed money by the Inland Revenue at the end of the year, so I guess the employers know exactly how much to deduct."
Um, you must've missed the news where when Inland Revenue switched to new computerised systems over the last few years, literally millions of people in the UK have been over/under taxed. I myself was over-taxed, which I'm not too fussed about as it's nice getting a big fat lump sum cheque through.
The system is theoretically simple, you have a tax code, and you get a deduction based on that. The problem is there are many many tax codes, and if you get things like private healthcare from your employer then this can affect your tax code.
I agree in general the UK's system is pretty good and is only getting better with the new systems where there is less scope for error - now anyone who works full time and doesn't do any other taxable work doesn't even have to be aware of the tax system, let alone fill any forms in. They just get told each month and a summary at the end of each tax year how much they paid in tax, but to date it's far from foolproof, whilst still better than most places it's absolutely false to say adjustments occur in only a few fringe cases. It's long been far more widespread than that.
Not really, the existing programmes put people off of computing for life, which was far worse than just giving them a bad education in it.
"Furthermore, in the UK primary sector, there exist quite advanced mechanisms for transferring "best practice" from one school to the next. The UK gov't spends real money on this and gets real results in turn."
Does it? I spent a number of years supporting "Advisory Teachers" who exist outside any one school for precisely the purpose of teaching teachers how to teach and the level of ineptitude was frankly astounding.
In fact, it was from an IT Advisory Teacher that I got my dumbest, most ridiculous ever technical support call once - "Hi, there's no paper in the printer, and an orange light on it and it wont print, can you come and have a look at it?"
Yes that's right, it wouldn't print BECAUSE IT HAD NO FUCKING PAPER IN IT. Her colleague wasn't any better, phoning up almost on a weekly basis to point out that she couldn't get sound on the training suite computer - oddly enough because she hadn't turned the fucking speakers on.
Honestly, Advisory Teachers are a prime example of a non-job, it's a high paid role (£40k - £60k p/a) and it's where teachers who were shit at teaching basically go to die.
It's these people those 100 slots Google is promoting should replace. I cannot describe how inexplicably terrible advisory teachers are. I even made the mistake of engaging in discussion with a maths one once, thinking we may have shared a common interest in maths, but no, her maths qualifications seem to just about extend to counting to 10 and nothing more.
Still it's been some years, maybe things have changed, maybe there are other mechanisms that bypass advisory teachers or something so perhaps you're right. But my experience was that local governments tended to throw literally millions of pounds a year down the drain on these people who - and I say this literally, not figuratively - weren't even fit to pass some of the most basic computing courses out there, which cover things such as doing a mail merge with Word. Bad just isn't a powerful enough word to describe how awful these people were at their jobs.
It sounds like I'm ranting, it sounds like I'm going over the top in my critique of the situation, but it really is quite unbeleivable how much of a train wreck advisory services were in the UK at least some years back - I'd be amazed if they've had a complete turn around since.
"It was trying to do it in a bad way through XML namespaces, leading to namespace confusion."
I fail to see any worthwhile arguments on that page, unless you're working on the premise the AC at the start of the thread point out as being so flawed - that HTML should serve to allow the lowest common denominator to publish at the expense of professional developers being able to write better code. The web is in a different place to where it was 15 years ago - as the AC said, non-programmers aren't publishing via HTML, nor do they have any interest in doing so, they're publishing via web apps written by the professionals. When the argument is not only so weak to start with, but based on a fundamentally flawed premise it's meaningless, but it highlights one of many fallacies WHATWG has based their entire argument on. Even then my point was absolutely not that XHTML2 was some super perfect spec - to anyone that isn't some mental HTML5 fanboy that much should have been pretty obvious - I was merely stating it was going in the right direction. Your link isn't even close to being any kind of evidence to the contrary, it is merely one perceived flaw based on a fundamental lack of understanding of the modern web.
"The only structure it would define is that of a tree devoid of meaning."
Exactly. A generic flexible tree that can be dealt with as you need to. The meaning is applied externally, and it is then upto the user agent as to what sets of technology it supports to provide meaning - semantics, styles, scripting. It's called separation of concerns, it's incredibly important in modern software, it's sad so many people like you don't get this vital concept in software design.
"If all older web browsers were IE browsers, you'd be right."
That's if you prefix my use of the term "older browsers" with the word "all". I can't really be held responsible for what fucked up logic you carry out in your head to create disagreement for the sake of creating disagreement.
"Disagreement about the semantic meaning of a bunch of elements is hardly fundamental."
Yes, except when the elements are design specifically as semantic elements, then it kind of is fundamental. If you can't define the semantics of tags designed purely for the purpose of being semantic, then it's a fundamental failure.
"We're talking about HTML5, not the versionless living spec living at the WHATWG. Did you forget that the W3C embraced the WHATWG's work and used that as a basis for HTML5?"
Have you looked at the list of outstanding issues? Hint: The definition of semantic tags is no longer something still under discussion.
Still, have fun not understanding even the fundamentals of what you're arguing whilst arguing on the topic regardless. Doing so doesn't make you right, it just makes you a failure.
That's nothing, Facebook has this habit of paying people to troll Google on Slashdot!
"No, it wasn't."
Nice argument, well cited, and highly intelligent. I can't disagree. Oh wait, you didn't actually have an argument.
Good software development is all about modularity, ensuring a spec is can grow to the dynamic needs of something like the web demands that you define the generic building blocks, and let people build whatever they need from there. XHTML2 was trying to do both of these things.
"HTML has always been about semantics. What HTML5 does is update them and introduce elements that web developers have been needing."
No, it's about defining document structure. It used to define some styling, but if you didn't get the memo this thing called CSS came along. It can include content, but this is often populated dynamically now, server side.
"Without the semantics HTML is meaningless. Stripping off the semantics is crazy talk."
Do you actually understand the concept of semantics? This comment is nonsensical. HTML still defines structure regardless of any semantic meaning.
"Wrong. IE is the only web browser that doesn't render them."
Wrong because it's right? what???
"No, you're just creating a maintenance nightmare."
As opposed to a mishmash of ill defined tags with arbitrary meanings? Really? Have you ever even been involved in large scale software development?
"ohnoes there's disagreement let's throw everything out."
Er, the whole point of a spec is to specify things. If there's disagreement about something fundamental within the spec then the spec has failed to define something properly, and failed at the fundamental task a spec is precisely designed to fulfil.
"The spec isn't even done yet."
Yes, well that's one advantage of a living spec I suppose. When someone points out fundamental flaws in it you can say "It's living", or "It's not done yet".
Come back when you actually understand:
1) What HTML defines
2) What semantics means in the context of the web
3) What the purpose of a technical specification is
He's probably referring to XHTML, whilst XHTML2 wasn't really ideal, it was at least going down the right path in terms of doing just that. Though it's worth pointing out that Javascript/HTML is itself an example of separation of concerns - client side scripting separated from document structure, though HTML5 does nothing particular to cripple this at least.
Personally I'm not keen on semantics been wedged into the HTML5 spec though, I think that's a concern that could be far better dealt with like stylesheets. The semantic tags are one of my pet hates in HTML5, because they're based on a study that was out of date shortly after it was produced and it was produced in something like 2006. The set of tags is so small and arbitrary that it's meaningless, it would've made far more sense to apply semantic information to classes and ids as that way you could store them in a separate file, which gives you the additional benefits that they can also be applied to existing sites that are no longer maintained in the same way you can apply custom stylesheets. You could have separate people handle the semantics, which would be handy on massive projects, and you'd be able to update the available semantic options without having to update the main HTML spec or have a "living" non-spec as WHATWG have proposed. ARIA roles already basically duplicate the semantic tag functionality but do so in a far more flexible manner, so it's an example as to where, IMO, we should have gone, and should be going.
There are other issues with semantic tags - older browsers just don't even recognise them and fail to render those blocks, you can fix this with Javascript hacks, assuming everyone has Javascript enabled and working of course (they don't). They're hence not even properly backwards compatible, so if you want to use them you've realistically got to accept that someone is browser your site with an HTML5 compatible or higher browser. The other argument for the tags is to get rid of div soup, and sure it's a pain, but honestly? the benefit of divs is that they're generic, and by keeping your tags generic and applying additional information (i.e. styling) using the ids/classes, you're maintaining flexibility and keeping things both futureproof, and backwards compatible at the same time - new stuff can be added whilst old browsers can safely ignore it. Even now the semantic meanings of the semantic tags have become meaningless anyway as there's so much disagreement for example as to what should be an article. There's any number of questions that go something like this "There isn't a semantic tag to mark up this part of my web page, what do I do?" to which the response is "Use divs anyway", or "Use this semantic tag, which isn't exactly what the element is but is the closest element" - the problem with the latter which many people accept and use is that it dilutes the semantic meaning of that tag, an article is already not actually an article half the time, it may be a comment. You could argue a comment is an article, and that's great until you go to the next HTML5 page where someone has instead arbitrarily decided a comment is actually an aside.
There's some nice stuff in the spec, canvas being the obvious one, and web sockets if they ever get implemented properly in every browser, but in general I agree with the GP and think it's pretty awful. CSS3 in itself is pretty nice though, and doesn't have many issues with it beyond it's current level of support.
Really, as I say, CSS3 is pretty decent, but HTML5 is indeed a terribly thought out spec, the whole process has been rather amateurish and felt more like they were building a script kiddies wish list of shiny stuff rather than a spec to take the web forward. Many things such as accessibility and security seem to have been worryingly neglected in a number of areas. It doesn't help when you see grand commander Hixie engaging in flamewars with people and basically ending up with comments that amount to "I don't care what you think, I'm doing it my way whether right or not" - h
"exactly who was inconvenienced by their OOXML standard?"
They got it recognised as an international standard giving it increased legitimacy, when the standard was incomplete and realistically impossible for competitors to support fully. So to answer your question, people who were inconvenienced by Microsoft's hijacking of the standards process, is anyone who wants to be able to use free software, and not pay a Microsoft tax to be able to interoperate with other businesses in the exchange of documents.
"They are also keeping their eye on Apple in the eBook market"
Oooh, keeping their eye on, that'll teach them!
"although I maintain that the consumer has benefited from Apple being able to strong-arm the record industry on removing their DRM"
I maintain that Apple gained far more by continuing to exploit platform lockin through DRM to leave consumers with the choice of losing hundreds of pounds of content, or to buy Apple when their device with it's non-user replaceable battery and hence planned obsolence inevitably became obsolete.
"So the idea that Google should be given a free pass because they are being unfairly picked on is just rubbish."
I don't think they should be given a free pass. I just think that the EU should be targetting everyone else, and doing so by prioritising in order of urgency. In that order of urgency I think Google would be a fair bit down the list. I'd argue that Facebook would be at the top because it's breaches of European data protection acts are out and out illegal.
It seems to go beyond this however, the problem is that this isn't the first time Google has been investigated, the problem is that it's being investigated over a number of other issues - it's privacy policy, it was investigated over street view, it's investigated left right and centre any time it even steps into slightly questionable territory and again, that's not a bad thing, but why just Google? The problem is I suspect precisely because of this type of bullshit that another posted below linked:
http://falkvinge.net/2012/03/02/how-microsoft-pays-big-money-to-smear-google-audaciously/
It just seems that if you're a tech giant you can get away with an awful lot, unless you're Google, in which case expect every single little thing to be scrutinised. The problem isn't scrutiny of Google, the problem is the other tech giants getting away with some pretty gross levels of abuse.
Completely false.
The EU has initiated anti-trust action against just as many European companies as foreign companies. Look at the mobile phone market for example, European companies like Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile etc. have been under a constant barrage of regulation from the EU for years over roaming fees etc.
Also your first example doesn't even make any sense whatsoever, AMD isn't even a European company, it's American.
Part the reason for Europe being quite good in this respect is because it is not one country, there's a lot of inter-country rivalry in the EU itself - you can guarantee a British judge wont rule in a French company's favour against a US company for example because of some feeling he must protect a European company because the Brits generally love the French about as much as they love the Germans - i.e. not very much. Similarly you'll get the same sentiment to various other countries in Europe, from their own neighbours. There just isn't some feeling of a European superstate that must trounce outsiders at all costs. Successive British and Czech governments for example have aligned far more closely with Washington than they have Brussels. There just isn't some grand European patriotism for your theory to work out.
The fact you've no idea whatsoever about the topic you're conversing about doesn't make you right, it just makes you a tit. Please, do Slashdot a favour, don't jump into conversations you don't have the foggiest about and assert that you're right and no other suggestion could possibly have any validity.
The biggest irony of it all is that the only reason you're complaining about it is because you yourself feel it's your patriotic American duty to stand up for American companies.
If only you knew which companies were actually American. That would be a start.
The problem is the double standards being applied. Whilst yes Google does abuse it's position in some cases, the things it doesn't aren't in any way as bad as the things other tech companies are guilty of. Microsoft's abuse of the standards process with OOXML, Apple's abuse of it's vertical integration, monopoly on music to lock people into it's platform, and it's strong market share in digital content to distort for example, the ebooks market, Facebook's constant illegal breaches of various data protection acts across the globe, Oracle's pretending it's a good little company to take over Sun, only to completely fuck previous commitments to openness etc.
All of these other companies are guilty of things that have been far more harmful to consumers, developers, and companies, yet only Google is the one being properly investigated. Is there something I'm unaware of that makes the advertising agency a magical gift to mankind that means it needs extra additional protections beyond the fact Microsoft was behind this original complaint and targetted ads because they know it's Google's lifeblood?
It's an outright lie by the GP.
The original comments from the EU about adwords was something to do with the data entered for adwords ads not being portable to other ad networks or something obscure and stupid like that, presumably the EU wants you to be able to export your ad data into XML or something odd. The GP shill managed to translate that into some bullshit about exclusivity agreements that simply isn't true.
It's not going to be foolproof though, people fall in and out of love, especially when they're young, she could just as well have fallen out of love with him just as he was about to make his billions and decided to stick around.
But regardless, it's nice to see if it's genuine, I guess we're so used to precisely this type of bullshit in the music and movie industry that it's easy to be cynical, but I guess many tech types in general i.e. Bill Gates also have managed to at least maintain lasting relationships. I guess that's because tech types generally aren't shallow people, they did have to have some semblance of intelligence and rationality to get where they were whilst the same can't be said for actors and musicians I suppose.
"If an organization lies half the time and tells the truth the other half. You really shouldn't listen to them because you never know if it is a lie or not."
Really? Yet many people listen to everyone from Apple to the media every single day despite being guilty of a far larger proportion of lies in their press releases. It's a sad truth, but if you don't lie some of the time then you're fighting a battle with one armed tied behind your back. Telling organisations not to lie is akin to telling them not to try and even compete with those that will in the political arena, and to effectively give way to them. If more people held the likes of Apple and News International to account when they lie then I'd agree with you, but no one does, instead, here on Slashdot you can find thousands of fanboys who will defend such lies when it comes to Apple, elsewhere you can find fanboys who will defend Microsoft's lies, other places you can find people who will defend the media's lies. We don't live in the pictoresque ideal world where issuing equally over the top rhetoric is an option.
"There are other organizations out there that are more honest. Listen to them..."
Who are these mystical organisations who always tell the truth? I can't even think of a single one that has lied sometimes pushing them into your "don't listen to them category".
Really, the solution isn't "don't listen to those who lie", chances are those you think don't lie have just been more succesful at pulling the wool over your eyes. The solution is to recognise the reality that politics is a fucking dirty game, that lying is inevitable and that listening to both sides of the argument to try and judge the middle ground is the most sane option. That's why I suspect Amazon's position is the most realistic - it's not quite as extreme as Greenpeace's position, but it provides more reasoning as to why Greenpeace might think Apple's position is little more than a bit of fluffy PR even if it's not quite as bad as Greenpeace says - either way, on the weight of the evidence it seems unlike Apple is telling the complete truth, and it seems unlikely Greenpeace is. I doubt even Amazon's evaluation of the situation is perfect but it seems Apple's 20MW and 100% renewable claim is most likely bullshit and that there is at least some merit to what Greenpeace has to say.
This doesn't say anything about web blocking though? It's just about data retention?
The problem with Greenpeace is that it doesn't always lie.
It was quite right regarding the whales, and has been quite succesful as a result.
Obviously on nuclear it's almost entirely wrong though.
But I disagree that we should stop listening to them because a) it means there's a counterbalance to the massive fossil fuel lobby that due to their past successes, people listen to, and b) I don't think most companies are doing nearly enough, most carbon neutral schemes are actually complete bollocks and don't actually result in a reasonable amount of carbon neutrality, and do we even definitely know that Greenpeace did lie in this case? or are we supposedly meant to trust Apple (whose now deceased CEO was famous for outright lying to the world)?
Look at jo_ham's retarded post below in the discussion "Apple put out a press release gently correcting them", oh well, if Apple put out a press release then obviously it's true. If you read TFA then Greenpeace made an estime of 100 MW sure, but even Amazon queried their 20 MW value and believed it would be at least 78 MW - I fail to believe someone with as much data centre experience with Amazon would come up with an estimate 4x too high.
Still, fanboys will believe what fanboys believe - Apple releases a press release and it's obviously completely true, and would never be an attempt at saving face.
Really, reading TFA the only evidence that Apple's new datacentre will only use 20 MW is Apple's say so? Sorry, but I'd rather trust Amazon and Greenpeaces's estimate than blindly swallow anything the company at the centre of the criticism has to say. If it was just Apple vs. Greenpeace then sure you'd have two polar opposites, but Amazon is relatively neutral in this because is itself wouldn't want to get tangled up unnecessarily in data centre controversy when it owns so many so that adds sway to Greenpeaces argument somewhat. The Amazon article is far more interesting than the PR piece in the summary:
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/amazon-queries-facebook-apple-sola-69713
Or the original blog:
http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2012/03/17/ILoveSolarPowerBut.aspx
171 acres of trees are being cleared for Apple's solar array.
So in this case it seems perhaps the real problem is immediately assuming Greenpeace is lying and Apple is right based on nothing more than an Apple press release.
"The order seems to be general and descriptive, and is a manifestation of the implementation process for an even more general and vague larger-scale EU directive, which is the common source that caused the rulings recently posted on slashdot regarding the UK, the Netherlands and Finland."
Can anyone point to the larger-scale EU directive referred to in the summary? I've missed the news on any such directive having been passed. To date I was under the impression at EU level, all such directives have been in quite the opposite direction so I'd be intrigued to see where this one came from.
Someone I know paid for his own panels as he runs a tropical plant nursery here in the UK, so similarly needs a fair bit of power to heat it during the winter. The warranty on his panels was 20 years, but he said the folks providing it seemed pretty honest and were fairly confident they'd last as long as 60 years.
It's worth noting that to have confidence in a product lasting 20 years without fault means that you have to have a low chance of that product failing in or close to that period else it becomes economically unfeasible to provide that kind of warranty. A 3-fold actual life time on most panels seems a reasonable margin to ensure you don't really lose out by offering a 20 year warranty on the product. As you say also if this study was from 2000, we're now 12 years on, so it's also not suprising that newer panels could last as long as 60 years if the technology has improved.
"The Mini Cooper is an example of a brand redone, but bettered, by BMW."
Seriously? I don't know a single Mini owner that hasn't had problem after problem, and had to pay a small fortune each time their car has needed replacement parts, and I know plenty of Mini owners.
It may not be worse, but it's certainly not a better brand under BMW.
I'm not sure why there's this view German cars are that great, take a look here for example: BMW, Mini, Audi are right towards the bottom:
http://www.reliabilityindex.com/manufacturer
This isn't to say British cars fare any better, but it's pretty clear if you want reliability then these supposedly prestige German brands are far from even being close to the best. Audi, BMW, Mercedes are all fucking shit for reliability.
It doesn't work like that, Google got a ban in place against Microsoft products in Germany but a US court ordered Motorola not to enforce the German ban even though frankly it had fuck all to do with the US court as it as a German issue. Here's hoping a German court orders Microsoft not to enforce the Motorola ban and see how American sfeel about German courts enforcing their power on US soil, doubt it'll happen though.
Basically whatever Microsoft wants Microsoft gets. People think Ballmer has achieved nothing since Gates left, it's not true, from OpenXML to various nonsencial court rulings favourable to Microsoft, to various investigations of Google when Microsoft/Facebook are guilty of the same things on the same/larger scale - Ballmer has achieved something, he's made Microsoft arguably the best tech lobbyist in the world, the problem is, Microsoft is the company we probably least want to be the best tech lobbyist in the world. Microsoft learnt well from the antitrust litigation how to avoid the wrath of politicians and courts and how to use them against your competition.
Apple seems to be pretty decent on the lobbying front, but Google has been too naive over it, hence their haste and will to buy Motorola- they were caught with their pants down putting too much faith into other companies playing fair and now they have a mad rush to catch up on the lobbying/patent/general dick business front so don't count on them managing to get their way. It's a sad illustration of the current state of the US tech industry, innovation is no longer relevant, it's all about how you play the politicians and the courts and in that scenario, Microsoft is king.
"That's not really true - the government can (and does) also censor commercial speech (criminal penalties of copyright law)"
Copying content isn't speech. Criminal penalties only apply to the action of profiting from selling counterfeit goods, I'm not sure how you can possibly claim that is some kind of speech.
"a moderated message board being a simple example, but even choosing the callers on a radio program is a form of censorship."
No, you don't understand the concept of free speech at all. The concept of free speech isn't that corporations, political groups and citizens don't have the right to stop you saying what you want on their premises, or broadcast it using their equipment, it's that they don't have the right to stop you using other mechanisms to say what you want that are outside their control. It's censorship of free speech if some government organisation or individual or corporation stops you saying what you want where you do have permission to do so - i.e. a third party forum. It's not censorship of free speech if I kick someone out my house for saying something I don't like because they can go elsewhere and do it, it is censorship if I have them silenced over the issue everywhere somehow. It's not that you're wrong to suggest choosing callers on a radio show isn't censorship, it is, you're right about that, but it's not an infringement of free speech - because there are other shows, and other mediums where you can say what you believe where they can't stop you doing that.
The problem regarding the internet is that some governments and corporations are attempting to block what can be said anywhere on the net - including on privately owned forums that are accepting of such topics, and this is a problem whether it's China's government doing it, or US corporations abusing corrupt courts/government officials etc.
"What I mean is that it is far more critical to a democracy to have a free press and the ability to speak one's opinion without risk of jail or bodily harm, especially at the hand of government forces (or a proxy of the same). When the "opposition" is in jail, or when dissidents are routinely beaten up and their families threatened, when "hostile" newspapers are shut down, when unfriendly radio and TV stations are shut down - that's a much more dangerous sign than the government yanking the DNS record of a site that links to copyrighted files. I'd rather the latter didn't happen as well, but I see a major distinction between the two kinds of censorship."
What about Wikileaks? That's about the most journalistic form of journalism we've seen in the West in decades, yet the West has worked very hard to censor it, and punish those responsible. Now the truth is finally coming out in the UK over News International it's become clear that Murdoch's empire and politicians have conspired in the UK to cover up all sorts of stories - it's no different elsewhere in the world, it's just that other Murdoch plagued countries haven't yet found the balls to face up to the problem.
"I think it is negatively tarred with things like the human rights commission getting headed up by some of the biggest offenders."
But it's another tiny facet of what the UN is and does, yes some members of the UN have managed to subvert some sections - the US managed to completely fuck over WIPO which worked exactly as it should until they did so - preventing overly restrictive US IP policy when the US suberted it with the WTO. In WIPO African nations, Asian nations were counteracting US' over the top IP laws and restrictions and the US didn't like it so it created the WTO and now forces everyone to join that to play by it's rules instead, but fundamentally these are only very small things compared to the IAEA, ICAO, IFAD, IMO, ITU, UNESCO, UPU, WFP, WHO, WMO, and much of what the general assembly does actually cover.
The sad thing is your same argument was used for things like the ITU, ICAO, IMO etc. and yet it turns out such accusations were unfounded, further, whatever issues may ari
There's not really such thing as commercial speech and political speech, commercial censorship can censor political discussion as well as political censorship can, the differentiator between the two is the source. In political censorship it is political bodies such as governments that censor, in commercial censorship it is corporations, what they actually censor will often overlap, so one is just as bad as the other.
I've pointed it out before on Slashdot that the UN already handles things such as international telecomms, international post, international air and maritime standards and does so incredibly well, there's no reason the internet shouldn't be the same as these other core communication tools, and in fact, it's quite likely it would be the ITU that deals with it. Perhaps there's a bit of misunderstanding but when they say hand it to the general assembly I do not believe they mean let the general assembly manage it, but instead mean let the general assembly figure out what to do with it - i.e. create it it's own ITU style organisation, or hand it to the ITU for management. The problem the UN in general has is that it's negatively tarred with the brush of the security council, which is the most often in the news component in the UN, but only a tiny, tiny fragment of what the UN is or does. The UN has far, far more good bits, than it does bad bits.
That and the fact that he left all that behind to live an off the grid life, probably also means that his understanding of the world outside his little haven is probably a bit "off the grid" too.
Honestly, a gun-toting tea party supporting survivalist is probably the last sort of person I'd actually trust with anything, MIT or not.
Whilst I'm by no means suggesting this guy is a terrorist it's probably worth bearing in mind that a number of terrorist in recent years came from prestiguous universities. Clearly coming from a top university isn't exactly evidence that you're some super-trustworthy ultra-genius, but could equally just be an untrustworthy crackpot. My bet is this guy falls into the latter category.
I think that would only make things much worse. The problem is that whilst yes many such nations wouldn't support out and out censorship of random political topics, they would support US attempts to censor stuff relating to IP infringement - effectively you'd run the risk of getting support for ICE that also hits gambling and such.
To counter that you need countries like China, because they're important voices in counteracting over-reaching US IP policy. You need this sort of disagreement to ensure stalemate on controversal issues.
This way you can guarantee the West will block moves by China to increase global censorship, whilst China and other African/Asian nations will block attempts at over-reaching IP enforcement related censorship from the US. You need your Chinas, Russias, Irans, Syrias, Venezuelas and so forth to stand up to Western corporate censorship just as much as you need the US, Europe etc. to stand up to Eastern political censorship.
This stalemate caused by including even the most dispicable regimes is important, essential to ensure that the fringes don't get to push their policies, whilst ensuring the only areas of agreement are the areas that frankly everyone agrees on and make sense to implement anyway.