"Basically, the soldiers' had a medical condition which resulted uncontrollably in actions that were mistaken for cowardice. They should not have been found guilty of the law of the time, regardless of whether the law was just or not."
This is merely the political spin put on it. The fact is we have no idea whatsoever about the validity of the cowardice cases. There was a bit of evidence that one or two of them were unsafe convictions, but definitely not all of them.
So effectively the argument is that World War I happened long enough ago that we can claim there's not enough evidence to demonstrate one way or the other, but Turing's situation was recent enough that we can say based on surviving evidence that there's no doubt he's guilty, so what we'll do is assume that people in World War I were all completely inept, and they got it all completely wrong, and the guys were all actually innocent, or nearly all of them.
If we cut away the bullshit, and just cut to the chase, if you actually look back at the campaign surrounding the World War I pardonings and the reactions from press and politicians over the years until so forth you'll see it was all actually typical wishy washy feel good points scoring above all else. Labour had no political investment in not supporting it and supporting it just bought them some free positive publicity. The real difference with Turing is that there are still a number of people in the Commons and Lords who are quite homophobic so it's not as easy a clear cut points scoring win as the case with the soldiers was. By pardoning Turing the current government would piss off a non-negligible portion (mostly) of the religious element of their electorate, and would also have to deal with difficult back benchers and Lords. In the soldiers case, the slavery cases, and so forth, it's always been the same- there's never been the clear cut argument differentiating the different cases that the article you link to implies, only a contrast in political pressure between the cases.
Either this will dissapear into obscurity or the campaign will gain traction, that may be stating the obvious, but I guarantee you if the latter happens then government will backtrack on this, because as with the pardoned soldiers, and as with the campaign for better rights for ghurkas, what things like this are really about is balancing the good vs. bad publicity from either option. That is after all also what happened with Turing's apology - as I say, it took quite some traction after a few refusals before Labour finally apologised because the bad press over it began to increase.
The decision whether to pardon or no is really not about whether one is right, or the other is wrong as Lord McNally claimed, it's merely about politics and pleasing one faction or the other, so I'll come clean - if I'm honest what I'm really arguing for the pardon for is not over some philosophical belief that it's actually the right thing to do or not, but because frankly, it's nice to see the more liberal factions win out over the more bigoted factions of society. I wont hold my breath, but even seeing them forced to confront the issues of their own bigotry is often a good start. In other words whether the pardon is right or wrong is neither here nor there, the point is that it's an opportunity for bigotry to be confronted in the open.
The reason I stated it's symbolic is because, well, this particular case is - we're not talking about a random case of a random unknown person, we're talking about a case that is perhaps the most prominent and well known example in the UK of the harm that homophobia and laws limiting civil rights surrounding it can cause. It is symbolic because any evidence of remorse for it reaffirms the view that government has moved on from this ideology. There is similarly much focus around people like Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King because the events surrounding certain peoples lives can act as rallying points for moving forward.
"The government has already disowned the viewpoint, it is clearly not legal to do the same thing these days."
Has it? homophobia still has it's supporters in government. If you're referring to Labour's half arsed apology (which you should note they actually refused to do at first, until people got more vocal over it), then I'd agree that's something, but removing homophobia from government still requires work, and only when it is removed from there, can it really begin to be removed from society.
"I think you may have an emotional investment in this argument, and it is clouding your argument"
Unless it's some kind of pretty weak ad hominem attempt to claim I'm gay (I'm not) and so should step out the discussion then I'm not sure what your point is here. If I didn't have an interest in the topic then I'd see little point posting, isn't that why everyone posts because it basically boils down to the fact they have an emotional response to said topic? I didn't really realise there was some law against posting on such a subject in support of civil rights, and believe it or not it is possible for straight people to be passionate about trying to improve civil rights, including gay rights.
"And the official reply is legitimate - we can't go around pardoning people of things that were illegal at the time, and singling out one person for one crime is an affront to everyone who was considered guilty but not pardoned."
It would be if it were true, but as I pointed out, there have been a number of occasions where government has done exactly that. So why are they pulling up that excuse in this particular case? No one's saying they shouldn't pardon everyone guilty of that crime, simply that Turing is a good symbolic starting point, and to do so is still a trivial act, they managed to do so for the 306 World War I soldiers convicted and excuted for cowardice.
"Makes perfect sense, again unless you have a personal investment in this case."
Are you sure you don't have a personal investment in this yourself? You seem quite keen in trying to make some sort of ad hominem implication to argue against my point.
What's it got to do with simply the current government? I suspect if that's what you read into it you have an issue of political bias yourself.
This was brought up previously under Labour, as to the question of why it was just an apology and not a pardon and I said the same thing then. If there's any focus on the current government in my post, it's because the current government is the one that can act - I can't exactly criticise the opposition for not pardoning Turing right now, as they don't have the power to do that.
In the interest of disclosure, I actually tend more towards the Lib Dems, who are of course part of the current governing coalition so I'm actually more dissapointed that the Lord who gave the hypocritical excuse in TFA is a Lib Dem peer.
Statements and pardons do matter in adjusting public perception very much. Politicians don't just have the power to debate over legislation and so forth, they have a platform from which they can push ideas and philosophies. Importantly though, government making it clear that they are fully behind a pardon because they disagree strongly with what happened marginalises those in politics who still support what happened, leaving them with the choice of sitting there and accepting it, or vocally opposing it, whilst supporters of the pardon can vocally support it. It wouldn't be the first time some bigot felt they had to speak out on such an issue showing their bias, only to find their electorate didn't support their viewpoint when it came to light the next time that politician ended up at the ballot box.
I guess it comes down to your outlook on Turing's pardon. It depends on whether you see Turing's mistreatment as an absolute insult to someone who did so much for the world that must be rectified, or whether you see it as that, and also a symbolic low point of the ongoing fight for better civil rights.
I see it as the latter, we've made a lot of progress, and a lot of apologies over racism, but sexuality is still very much an ongoing battle. Whilst a church could never dream of discriminating based on race nowadays for example, it can on sexuality.
I could say I'm a straight, white male, so it doesn't effect me, but that's not true- I am white, I am straight, and I am male, but it does effect me, it effects everyone - bigotry is one of the most fundamental problems our species still suffers to an unhealthy degree. I don't expect to see us rid of it any time soon, but we've made a lot of progress on women's rights, a lot of progress on fighting racism, but sexuality related discrimination? not so much. Any amount of official additional condemnation of it is a good thing, because that's what's required to fight it. When people as great as Turing can be effected by it so negatively then it absolutely effects all of us.
A pardon is symbolic confirmation that current government no longer supports the ideology behind what they are pardoning.
Thus the guy is wrong, a pardon very much does help the living - it gives them confirmation that government no longer supports that viewpoint. It closes the door on that part of our history and says finally once and for all, yep, we fucked up, never again. It concerns me that government isn't willing to close that door, it gives the impression they're actually not willing to close it.
For this to happen, it means that government does actually have to quite thoroughly be willing to disown that viewpoint, yet currently that's not the case, we still have far too many bigots in parliament. The fact people are even willing to argue this when it's such a trivial act to just carry out the pardon, and when Lord McNally's logic runs contrary to past pardons is illustration enough of this problem.
Because he's become a figurehead for the movement, and by saying yes, what was done to Turing was completely wrong, you're admitting that past stance on gay rights was completely wrong. It's symbolic acceptance of the fact times have changed, and a symbolic statement that we should never repeat that awful past.
I'd buy the Lord's argument if it weren't for the fact Britain has apologised and pardoned many a time for things like slavery in the past, which were also deemed right at the time, but wrong now. Discriminating on sexual preference is no better or no worse than discriminating based on race, so the fact we've apologised and pardoned over race related issues stemming from our imperialist past, but wont pardon over discrimination based on sexuality gives the impression that the Lords actually to this day do not actually take sexuality based discrimination seriously.
Just to illustrate how full of bollocks Lord McNally actually is, take this example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4796579.stm...or to sum up for those who can't be arsed to read the link, in 2006 we pardoned 306 World War 1 soldiers who were executed for cowardice. It was also perfectly legal action at the time. So the question is Lord McNally, why the hypocrisy?
Really, this has nothing to do with the philosophical argument cited by McNally, as his excuse is contradicted by many past pardons. This is entirely to do with the fact that even to this day both the Lords and the Commons are far too full of ignorant bigots and it unfortunately shines through not just in terms of homophobia, but by the repeated xenophobic views of many members of parliament and not just limited to the Tories is as often stereotyped but even people in Labour like Margaret Beckett.
So if you really want to know why Turing isn't getting a pardon, then it's because it's not too far from the truth that some politicians in the UK still to this day don't really think the law back then was even far wrong.
"And I remain baffled that the Slashdot crowd considers this business practice to be acceptable, regardless of who does it or against whom it is done. It goes against the very heart of everything that FRAND stands for and, if successful, will have chilling effects on, well, pretty much any and every industry that makes use of FRAND patents to establish industry standards. In my opinion, _ANY_ company that abuses a FRAND patent should be viewed in a negative light."
I don't really see the problem, I understand that FRAND applies to formally recognised standards, but to say companies shouldn't have to license things like push e-mail because they're not a formally recognised standard is stupid.
The whole FRAND/non-FRAND distinction is dumb, because there are a number of technologies and features that are so common nowadays that they are a defacto standard, and something users expect in their product as much as they expect it to support 3G or whatever FRAND covered technology you're talking about.
So personally I don't see it as disgusting, if companies like Motorola are being prevented using defacto standards than I don't see that as any worse than Apple being blocked from using official standards. The net effect is the same - users lose out on important features in their devices, and arguably the worst part is that it's not as if FRAND covered tech requires less R&D expenditure than non-FRAND - on the contrary, much of the FRAND stuff is more complicated, and IMO, more validly patentable.
Really, without complete reform of the patent system the next best thing would be that ALL software patents are FRAND covered, and probably all hardware patents too. If that's not to happen and it's to stay as is then I have no sympathy for companies crying FRAND over actual standards, whilst suing for non-FRAND patents that are still defacto standards.
It's all down to the shitty patent system in the first place, but I'm not convinced the FRAND vs. non-FRAND argument holds much weight. On modern smart phones, multi-touch for example is pretty much as standard an expectation as 3G. It's hard to justify that suing over multi-touch is any less bad than suing over 3G regardless of the fact one is covered by FRAND, the other isn't.
Because the hole they've dug themselves into means that they have to get sympathy from one group (politicians) where they complain about the damage and losses from piracy, whilst pretending they've got a strong, healthy, growing business to another group (shareholders).
Sometimes when the two collide they merge it into something that basically reads "Record sales and profits, despite the extremely massive threat of piracy, and we only managed it because we are so awesome and worked so much harder than anyone in any other industry".
It's all bullshit of course, if anything I'd argue the music industry is inherently more lazy than most industries, certainly the execs have as easy a lifestyle as any other, and the artists don't exactly have to slug their guts out thanks to copyright giving them continued income on a relatively trivial amount of work (relative to say, a 9 - 5 job). Regardless, the reason they have to admit to record profits is for investors and shareholders - that's when the lie of how their industry is dying, struggling, and that there's going to be mass unemployment falls flat on it's face.
That's the problem with building such a massive lie though, you really can't keep lying to everyone - someone will notice, or need to know the truth.
Most older folks complaining about ageism are those who have tried to get away with repeating 1 years experience, 40 times over, doing the same tired old thing without learning anything new.
In contrast, there are plenty of happily employed older engineers out there, but they're the ones who continued to learn and push their skills, they're the ones who are heading R&D departments at such companies and so forth.
So if the question is, should I hire this 21 year old fresh out of uni for $60k, or this 50 year old, who has spent his life not bothering to learn anything new and not only doesn't have anymore engineering experience, but hasn't even bothered to get his head round the use of computers for engineering tasks and throws a huff when he's told to do something on the computer for £150k?
The fact is there is a market for older folk, but only if they're proactive types who have kept their skills uptodate - those are the very folk who companies rely on to be competitive as by sheer virtue of the fact that they've had so much time in the field and have spent their time learning they just know that much more than the youngsters.
The whole theory of employing younger workers because they're cheaper only works if the younger workers can provide a better ratio of benefit to cost, and that's what's fundamentally at the core of the issue - those complaining about being unable to find a job, just aren't providing enough benefit for the amount of money they're asking relative to the younger ones. It's not some innate hatred of old people or any such stupid paranoid conspiracy theory, it's simply about whether the people in question are asking for a justifiable wage relative to what they can offer. If the answer is no, then of course they wont get the job.
You know, complaining about nazi comments is as fucking stupid as some of the nazi comments are half the time.
Whilst many comments that may be claimed as godwinnable are fair enough to criticise, like say, comparing Steve Jobs to Hitler, in cases like this it's even more dangerous to criticise people who referring to the Nazis.
The fact is, the GP is right, it is that kind of loyal obedience to authority, this kind of naivety that "Oh it'll never happen again" and the type of right wing politics that is leading to the supression of many rights nowadays that was the precise recipe that led up to the rise of the Nazis in the first place.
We shouldn't make over-casual use of reference to one of the most awful groupings of people in our time in vain, but it's even worse to suggest we should silence all talk about the Nazis, particular about the conditions that led to their rise to power, as that, IMO, is even more dangerous. It's not wrong to point out, no matter how trivial, that something is nazi like when it really is.
So on the contrary, I'd argue that if you can't put someone down without referring to their use of a nazi related comparison despite completely ignoring the merit of their argument, then it's you who should not be making the argument. You can claim it's wrong how they do it, but as there is no other way to inspect ever further encroaching methods by the police then what do you suggest to maintain the checks and balances required? Protests that achieve nothing? Letters to ministers that are meaningless? Eventually direct action becomes the only option - and this is at least far better than terrorism, which is what the likes of al Qaeda have resorted to to try and get their own way. We shouldn't trivialise history, but we shouldn't ignore it either, that's the surest way to make sure we end up repeating it at some point.
Yes, but having been down to -42C in Canada, I'd much rather that than the -12C I suffered in the North of Norway near Narvik just inside the arctic circle.
The -12C sea air in Norway was much more painful and more biting than -42C was in Canada. Sure the latter will do more damage to you physically, but at least it was nowhere near as painful!
She doesn't have the power to void the signing, nor did she have the power to decide whether Slovenia should be a signatory.
She was merely the person who was sent to perform the physical act of signing it, all she is saying is that she wishes in hindsight that she'd have stepped down and joined the unemployment line rather than sign it.
If she hadn't signed it someone else would have, but good on her for admitting she should have at least stood up and made a point at the time- she's done the next best thing and is making a point about it now. That's all she has the power to do, so given that she's doing the best she can- that is, far, far more than the numerous people who signed it and don't give a shit. I'm in the UK and I'd love nothing more than such an apology from whoever signed it for us, but we don't even seem to know who that is, the media has been silent on the issue and no one seems to give a fuck here.
"They just tax everyone with a TV in the UK - even if you never watch their stuff."
They tax everyone who watches live broadcast TV in the UK.
Yes, whilst a fair whack goes to the BBC, it also goes to looking after the broadcast infrastructure in the UK also. you might have noticed recent talk about using surplus from the digital switchover fund which came from the BBC's pool of money being used to fund broadband too.
So enough of the bollocks about having to pay for something you don't use, you do use it, if you watch UK broadcast TV live, you're getting benefit from the license fee. If you don't watch broadcast TV live, you have no need to pay the license fee. Chances are even if you pay for Sky, or Virgin and solely use that, you've watched shows that are at least in part funded by the license fee.
People stupidly believe the FUD that the license fee only pays for the actual BBC channels, but it doesn't - it pays for the content they produce, that's shown elsewhere, the broadcast network, subsidies for ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5, and also any number of projects related to media access in the UK.
The BBC are restricted in how well they can generate resources to compete- Sky gets more income than the BBC does from license fees, and whilst the BBC could compete, it's been artificially restricted from doing so at the behest of Murdoch due to his corrupt links with numerous high ranking government ministers.
BBC World was growing incredibly fast as a result of the quality and popularity of their content (i.e. Planet Earth), and the BBC was looking at producing set top boxes along with the likes of ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 for on demand TV well ahead of it's time (long before Apple TV, and Google TV etc.). These are examples of where, due to Sky/Virgin lobbying the BBC has been artificially held back. The worst part is, for people like you, who clearly detest the license fee, that it could've been reduced, or even abolished if the BBC was allowed to pursue these revenue streams. Effectively despite Sky receiving higher income than the BBC by quite a margin, the BBC was restricted because despite it's lower income, it was out competing Sky due to better innovating. Now, ministers have prevented it innovating, so that Sky could continue to make more money, without having to bother to innovate.
It's somewhat of a coup too, the BBC was established to be independent of government, but government does have some control over it's budget, and the Tories most recently have abused that to restrict the BBC's ability to outcompete the likes of Sky based on innovation. Both previously Labour and now the Tories know they can't use the BBC to push their agenda because it is at least editorially independent, so instead they use their control over it's budget to restrict it's ability to compete with Sky which, being controlled so heavily by Murdoch they can use to push their agenda - when you understand this context, you'll understand why Jeremy Hunt was so openly going to allow the full News International takeover of Sky despite the blatant evidence of corruption right until the point it became a truly untenable position to defend. He was willing to be so openly corrupt because he knew that if it succeeded that a couple of years Murdoch propaganda before the next election would make him and his party look like saints again regardless.
There's a reason Murdoch's press and it's biggest ally, The Daily Mail create this anti-BBC propaganda about how you're paying for Jonathan Ross' extortionate salary and so forth and harp on about how unfair the license fee is if you don't watch Eastenders ignoring everything else the license fee goes to in their articles. I have plenty of complaints about some areas of the BBC myself, but make no mistake it's still one of the best editorially independent news outlet in the world, still arguably the best producer of documentairies in the world, and most importantly - it's under attack by vested interests.
Yet from a post that listed Microsoft's official blurb a bit further up:
"A commercial-ready installer which can be included in an applicationâ(TM)s set-up program, making it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployments."
I think I'll trust the official release notes thanks.
To be fair his bias isn't towards Apple, it's towards Microsoft, but Android is indeed his primary target as Microsoft apparently sees this as a bigger threat than iOS for whatever reason.
If it's an Apple vs. Google story you can guarantee he'll side with Apple, but you'll note if it's something that involves Microsoft, Apple and Google, or just Microsoft and Apple then the bias will be towards Microsoft rather than Apple.
I wouldn't be surprised if Mueller is linked to the multi-account pro-MS shill that posts here. I don't know why Microsoft bothers with these people though, I'm probably one of the more pro-MS people on Slashdot - I think the 360 is the best console around right now, and I think Visual Studio is far and away the best IDE around, but frankly all this blatant tosh from their paid shills is polarising people more against them, it isn't changing opinion as they seem to hope, it's actually making it impossible for me to defend them as a generally improving company when they actually do good stuff, as the good is being tarred by this shit, and if anything it's actually making even me begin to really dislike them.
Certainly it's pissed me off enough to be a major factor in cancelling Windows Phone ports of some of our projects here, and focus just on Android and iOS.
Are you seriously suggesting it's mere coincidence that for the first time ever, Samsung decided to use it's 3G patents in litigation and against a firm who'd been launching a global design patent war against it?
You've got to be pretty fucking naive or a pretty retarded fanboy to not realise that Samsung's litigation was a response to Apple's litigation against Samsung. FRAND wireless and design patents may not be related in law, but Samsung's litigation using FRAND patents was clearly a response to Apple's design patent litigation.
Those who have been extradited have made the mistake of going to nations that are either loyal to the US, or puppets of the US. The only Western nation where you might get away with it is Switzerland - it worked for Polanski just about, despite massive US pressure.
It's unlikely the US would get a succesful extradition from a few of the South American nations, Russia, or perhaps even China or India, and frankly if you have money, which it's likely the TPB guys do, then you can still live a pretty damn nice life in these places.
The key is to avoid North America, European nations, Commonwealth nations, and states that defend on US money and weapons for defence like Saudi Arabia and South Korea. As I say - that still leaves much of South America, some of Africa, and some of the biggest nations and ex-soviet states, where again, with a bit of Western money you can still live at least as comfortably as you would in the West.
Judging by who his successor is I'm not actually convinced that Sony believed Stringer ever made any mistakes as CEO.
Promoting Mr Gaffe Prone Failwhale himself to CEO seems to be the quickest way to finish Sony off, is this really what they had planned? Is this some kind of financial scam that I'm missing the point of where they're making money from Sony's demise?
It's not just DreamSpark, even Autodesk has a similar programme for students, they knew the situation years ago with gMax surrounding piracy and when they subsequently dropped it. They knew full well 3D Studio became the industry standard alongside Maya in the games industry because it's what people were pirating in the Quake modding days etc.
I'm sure I remember years back Oracle doing a similar thing too, to ensure future DBAs were getting trained up in Oracle rather than a resurgent MSSQL etc. I'm not sure if they still do.
Really, none of this is new at all, it's just been overshadowed by the fact that the likes of the music industry don't get it, and are suing their customers and exploiting government corruption to go as far as removing long established principles of a healthy society such as the right to fair trial, and being deemed innocent until proven guilty to further their failed cause.
To be fair, that's not really the case. Samsung probably is charging Apple more, but it's because it has to to make up for the money Apple is making it lose by abusing it's patents.
I feel really sorry for Samsung because their obvious patents are restricted by FRAND, but Apple's really obvious patents (a rectangular tablet) aren't.
The real issue is that FRAND does have any clause in that allows you to waiver FRAND against abusive patent troll companies like Apple.
But nevertheless, Samsung probably is legally in the wrong, which really sucks, because morally, they're in the right - FRAND should cease to apply when the potential licensee in question is engaging in any kind of patent litigation against you.
I actually agree with you on this, the most prominent example is of course Jonathan Ive - the guy wasn't always at the top in Apple, the reason he got to the top was because he came up with some good designs.
This article is a fail on so many levels, and it suffers from the flaw that many Apple fanboys do - it sees Jobs as some mystical god, from which every section of Apple's success came. Obviously that's bollocks, he was a shrewd businessman and marketer, but the idea for products from which he could decide what to invest in and market very much came from folks further down the chain a lot of the time.
In this respect it's no different to Google - whilst some ideas come from the top, plenty don't, so trying to play them off as some how different in this respect is stupid, they're really not. Both firms have ended up with products as much from acquisitions, ideas from the bottom, and ideas from the top as each other.
Slashdot Mirror
"Basically, the soldiers' had a medical condition which resulted uncontrollably in actions that were mistaken for cowardice. They should not have been found guilty of the law of the time, regardless of whether the law was just or not."
This is merely the political spin put on it. The fact is we have no idea whatsoever about the validity of the cowardice cases. There was a bit of evidence that one or two of them were unsafe convictions, but definitely not all of them.
So effectively the argument is that World War I happened long enough ago that we can claim there's not enough evidence to demonstrate one way or the other, but Turing's situation was recent enough that we can say based on surviving evidence that there's no doubt he's guilty, so what we'll do is assume that people in World War I were all completely inept, and they got it all completely wrong, and the guys were all actually innocent, or nearly all of them.
If we cut away the bullshit, and just cut to the chase, if you actually look back at the campaign surrounding the World War I pardonings and the reactions from press and politicians over the years until so forth you'll see it was all actually typical wishy washy feel good points scoring above all else. Labour had no political investment in not supporting it and supporting it just bought them some free positive publicity. The real difference with Turing is that there are still a number of people in the Commons and Lords who are quite homophobic so it's not as easy a clear cut points scoring win as the case with the soldiers was. By pardoning Turing the current government would piss off a non-negligible portion (mostly) of the religious element of their electorate, and would also have to deal with difficult back benchers and Lords. In the soldiers case, the slavery cases, and so forth, it's always been the same- there's never been the clear cut argument differentiating the different cases that the article you link to implies, only a contrast in political pressure between the cases.
Either this will dissapear into obscurity or the campaign will gain traction, that may be stating the obvious, but I guarantee you if the latter happens then government will backtrack on this, because as with the pardoned soldiers, and as with the campaign for better rights for ghurkas, what things like this are really about is balancing the good vs. bad publicity from either option. That is after all also what happened with Turing's apology - as I say, it took quite some traction after a few refusals before Labour finally apologised because the bad press over it began to increase.
The decision whether to pardon or no is really not about whether one is right, or the other is wrong as Lord McNally claimed, it's merely about politics and pleasing one faction or the other, so I'll come clean - if I'm honest what I'm really arguing for the pardon for is not over some philosophical belief that it's actually the right thing to do or not, but because frankly, it's nice to see the more liberal factions win out over the more bigoted factions of society. I wont hold my breath, but even seeing them forced to confront the issues of their own bigotry is often a good start. In other words whether the pardon is right or wrong is neither here nor there, the point is that it's an opportunity for bigotry to be confronted in the open.
The reason I stated it's symbolic is because, well, this particular case is - we're not talking about a random case of a random unknown person, we're talking about a case that is perhaps the most prominent and well known example in the UK of the harm that homophobia and laws limiting civil rights surrounding it can cause. It is symbolic because any evidence of remorse for it reaffirms the view that government has moved on from this ideology. There is similarly much focus around people like Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King because the events surrounding certain peoples lives can act as rallying points for moving forward.
"The government has already disowned the viewpoint, it is clearly not legal to do the same thing these days."
Has it? homophobia still has it's supporters in government. If you're referring to Labour's half arsed apology (which you should note they actually refused to do at first, until people got more vocal over it), then I'd agree that's something, but removing homophobia from government still requires work, and only when it is removed from there, can it really begin to be removed from society.
"I think you may have an emotional investment in this argument, and it is clouding your argument"
Unless it's some kind of pretty weak ad hominem attempt to claim I'm gay (I'm not) and so should step out the discussion then I'm not sure what your point is here. If I didn't have an interest in the topic then I'd see little point posting, isn't that why everyone posts because it basically boils down to the fact they have an emotional response to said topic? I didn't really realise there was some law against posting on such a subject in support of civil rights, and believe it or not it is possible for straight people to be passionate about trying to improve civil rights, including gay rights.
"And the official reply is legitimate - we can't go around pardoning people of things that were illegal at the time, and singling out one person for one crime is an affront to everyone who was considered guilty but not pardoned."
It would be if it were true, but as I pointed out, there have been a number of occasions where government has done exactly that. So why are they pulling up that excuse in this particular case? No one's saying they shouldn't pardon everyone guilty of that crime, simply that Turing is a good symbolic starting point, and to do so is still a trivial act, they managed to do so for the 306 World War I soldiers convicted and excuted for cowardice.
"Makes perfect sense, again unless you have a personal investment in this case."
Are you sure you don't have a personal investment in this yourself? You seem quite keen in trying to make some sort of ad hominem implication to argue against my point.
What's it got to do with simply the current government? I suspect if that's what you read into it you have an issue of political bias yourself.
This was brought up previously under Labour, as to the question of why it was just an apology and not a pardon and I said the same thing then. If there's any focus on the current government in my post, it's because the current government is the one that can act - I can't exactly criticise the opposition for not pardoning Turing right now, as they don't have the power to do that.
In the interest of disclosure, I actually tend more towards the Lib Dems, who are of course part of the current governing coalition so I'm actually more dissapointed that the Lord who gave the hypocritical excuse in TFA is a Lib Dem peer.
Statements and pardons do matter in adjusting public perception very much. Politicians don't just have the power to debate over legislation and so forth, they have a platform from which they can push ideas and philosophies. Importantly though, government making it clear that they are fully behind a pardon because they disagree strongly with what happened marginalises those in politics who still support what happened, leaving them with the choice of sitting there and accepting it, or vocally opposing it, whilst supporters of the pardon can vocally support it. It wouldn't be the first time some bigot felt they had to speak out on such an issue showing their bias, only to find their electorate didn't support their viewpoint when it came to light the next time that politician ended up at the ballot box.
See my comment here as to why I think this guy is wrong though:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2656331&cid=38942093
I guess it comes down to your outlook on Turing's pardon. It depends on whether you see Turing's mistreatment as an absolute insult to someone who did so much for the world that must be rectified, or whether you see it as that, and also a symbolic low point of the ongoing fight for better civil rights.
I see it as the latter, we've made a lot of progress, and a lot of apologies over racism, but sexuality is still very much an ongoing battle. Whilst a church could never dream of discriminating based on race nowadays for example, it can on sexuality.
I could say I'm a straight, white male, so it doesn't effect me, but that's not true- I am white, I am straight, and I am male, but it does effect me, it effects everyone - bigotry is one of the most fundamental problems our species still suffers to an unhealthy degree. I don't expect to see us rid of it any time soon, but we've made a lot of progress on women's rights, a lot of progress on fighting racism, but sexuality related discrimination? not so much. Any amount of official additional condemnation of it is a good thing, because that's what's required to fight it. When people as great as Turing can be effected by it so negatively then it absolutely effects all of us.
A pardon has a bit more weight behind it because it has it's basis in law as a formal procedure. An apology is just talk.
A pardon is symbolic confirmation that current government no longer supports the ideology behind what they are pardoning.
Thus the guy is wrong, a pardon very much does help the living - it gives them confirmation that government no longer supports that viewpoint. It closes the door on that part of our history and says finally once and for all, yep, we fucked up, never again. It concerns me that government isn't willing to close that door, it gives the impression they're actually not willing to close it.
For this to happen, it means that government does actually have to quite thoroughly be willing to disown that viewpoint, yet currently that's not the case, we still have far too many bigots in parliament. The fact people are even willing to argue this when it's such a trivial act to just carry out the pardon, and when Lord McNally's logic runs contrary to past pardons is illustration enough of this problem.
Because he's become a figurehead for the movement, and by saying yes, what was done to Turing was completely wrong, you're admitting that past stance on gay rights was completely wrong. It's symbolic acceptance of the fact times have changed, and a symbolic statement that we should never repeat that awful past.
I'd buy the Lord's argument if it weren't for the fact Britain has apologised and pardoned many a time for things like slavery in the past, which were also deemed right at the time, but wrong now. Discriminating on sexual preference is no better or no worse than discriminating based on race, so the fact we've apologised and pardoned over race related issues stemming from our imperialist past, but wont pardon over discrimination based on sexuality gives the impression that the Lords actually to this day do not actually take sexuality based discrimination seriously.
Just to illustrate how full of bollocks Lord McNally actually is, take this example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4796579.stm ...or to sum up for those who can't be arsed to read the link, in 2006 we pardoned 306 World War 1 soldiers who were executed for cowardice. It was also perfectly legal action at the time. So the question is Lord McNally, why the hypocrisy?
Really, this has nothing to do with the philosophical argument cited by McNally, as his excuse is contradicted by many past pardons. This is entirely to do with the fact that even to this day both the Lords and the Commons are far too full of ignorant bigots and it unfortunately shines through not just in terms of homophobia, but by the repeated xenophobic views of many members of parliament and not just limited to the Tories is as often stereotyped but even people in Labour like Margaret Beckett.
So if you really want to know why Turing isn't getting a pardon, then it's because it's not too far from the truth that some politicians in the UK still to this day don't really think the law back then was even far wrong.
"And I remain baffled that the Slashdot crowd considers this business practice to be acceptable, regardless of who does it or against whom it is done. It goes against the very heart of everything that FRAND stands for and, if successful, will have chilling effects on, well, pretty much any and every industry that makes use of FRAND patents to establish industry standards. In my opinion, _ANY_ company that abuses a FRAND patent should be viewed in a negative light."
I don't really see the problem, I understand that FRAND applies to formally recognised standards, but to say companies shouldn't have to license things like push e-mail because they're not a formally recognised standard is stupid.
The whole FRAND/non-FRAND distinction is dumb, because there are a number of technologies and features that are so common nowadays that they are a defacto standard, and something users expect in their product as much as they expect it to support 3G or whatever FRAND covered technology you're talking about.
So personally I don't see it as disgusting, if companies like Motorola are being prevented using defacto standards than I don't see that as any worse than Apple being blocked from using official standards. The net effect is the same - users lose out on important features in their devices, and arguably the worst part is that it's not as if FRAND covered tech requires less R&D expenditure than non-FRAND - on the contrary, much of the FRAND stuff is more complicated, and IMO, more validly patentable.
Really, without complete reform of the patent system the next best thing would be that ALL software patents are FRAND covered, and probably all hardware patents too. If that's not to happen and it's to stay as is then I have no sympathy for companies crying FRAND over actual standards, whilst suing for non-FRAND patents that are still defacto standards.
It's all down to the shitty patent system in the first place, but I'm not convinced the FRAND vs. non-FRAND argument holds much weight. On modern smart phones, multi-touch for example is pretty much as standard an expectation as 3G. It's hard to justify that suing over multi-touch is any less bad than suing over 3G regardless of the fact one is covered by FRAND, the other isn't.
Because the hole they've dug themselves into means that they have to get sympathy from one group (politicians) where they complain about the damage and losses from piracy, whilst pretending they've got a strong, healthy, growing business to another group (shareholders).
Sometimes when the two collide they merge it into something that basically reads "Record sales and profits, despite the extremely massive threat of piracy, and we only managed it because we are so awesome and worked so much harder than anyone in any other industry".
It's all bullshit of course, if anything I'd argue the music industry is inherently more lazy than most industries, certainly the execs have as easy a lifestyle as any other, and the artists don't exactly have to slug their guts out thanks to copyright giving them continued income on a relatively trivial amount of work (relative to say, a 9 - 5 job). Regardless, the reason they have to admit to record profits is for investors and shareholders - that's when the lie of how their industry is dying, struggling, and that there's going to be mass unemployment falls flat on it's face.
That's the problem with building such a massive lie though, you really can't keep lying to everyone - someone will notice, or need to know the truth.
"Dont the older ones come with experience?"
Yeah, well, therein lies the problem.
Most older folks complaining about ageism are those who have tried to get away with repeating 1 years experience, 40 times over, doing the same tired old thing without learning anything new.
In contrast, there are plenty of happily employed older engineers out there, but they're the ones who continued to learn and push their skills, they're the ones who are heading R&D departments at such companies and so forth.
So if the question is, should I hire this 21 year old fresh out of uni for $60k, or this 50 year old, who has spent his life not bothering to learn anything new and not only doesn't have anymore engineering experience, but hasn't even bothered to get his head round the use of computers for engineering tasks and throws a huff when he's told to do something on the computer for £150k?
The fact is there is a market for older folk, but only if they're proactive types who have kept their skills uptodate - those are the very folk who companies rely on to be competitive as by sheer virtue of the fact that they've had so much time in the field and have spent their time learning they just know that much more than the youngsters.
The whole theory of employing younger workers because they're cheaper only works if the younger workers can provide a better ratio of benefit to cost, and that's what's fundamentally at the core of the issue - those complaining about being unable to find a job, just aren't providing enough benefit for the amount of money they're asking relative to the younger ones. It's not some innate hatred of old people or any such stupid paranoid conspiracy theory, it's simply about whether the people in question are asking for a justifiable wage relative to what they can offer. If the answer is no, then of course they wont get the job.
You know, complaining about nazi comments is as fucking stupid as some of the nazi comments are half the time.
Whilst many comments that may be claimed as godwinnable are fair enough to criticise, like say, comparing Steve Jobs to Hitler, in cases like this it's even more dangerous to criticise people who referring to the Nazis.
The fact is, the GP is right, it is that kind of loyal obedience to authority, this kind of naivety that "Oh it'll never happen again" and the type of right wing politics that is leading to the supression of many rights nowadays that was the precise recipe that led up to the rise of the Nazis in the first place.
We shouldn't make over-casual use of reference to one of the most awful groupings of people in our time in vain, but it's even worse to suggest we should silence all talk about the Nazis, particular about the conditions that led to their rise to power, as that, IMO, is even more dangerous. It's not wrong to point out, no matter how trivial, that something is nazi like when it really is.
So on the contrary, I'd argue that if you can't put someone down without referring to their use of a nazi related comparison despite completely ignoring the merit of their argument, then it's you who should not be making the argument. You can claim it's wrong how they do it, but as there is no other way to inspect ever further encroaching methods by the police then what do you suggest to maintain the checks and balances required? Protests that achieve nothing? Letters to ministers that are meaningless? Eventually direct action becomes the only option - and this is at least far better than terrorism, which is what the likes of al Qaeda have resorted to to try and get their own way. We shouldn't trivialise history, but we shouldn't ignore it either, that's the surest way to make sure we end up repeating it at some point.
Yes, it's almost as stupid as patenting a rectangle with rounded corners and getting something banned over it!
Yes, but having been down to -42C in Canada, I'd much rather that than the -12C I suffered in the North of Norway near Narvik just inside the arctic circle.
The -12C sea air in Norway was much more painful and more biting than -42C was in Canada. Sure the latter will do more damage to you physically, but at least it was nowhere near as painful!
She doesn't have the power to void the signing, nor did she have the power to decide whether Slovenia should be a signatory.
She was merely the person who was sent to perform the physical act of signing it, all she is saying is that she wishes in hindsight that she'd have stepped down and joined the unemployment line rather than sign it.
If she hadn't signed it someone else would have, but good on her for admitting she should have at least stood up and made a point at the time- she's done the next best thing and is making a point about it now. That's all she has the power to do, so given that she's doing the best she can- that is, far, far more than the numerous people who signed it and don't give a shit. I'm in the UK and I'd love nothing more than such an apology from whoever signed it for us, but we don't even seem to know who that is, the media has been silent on the issue and no one seems to give a fuck here.
"They just tax everyone with a TV in the UK - even if you never watch their stuff."
They tax everyone who watches live broadcast TV in the UK.
Yes, whilst a fair whack goes to the BBC, it also goes to looking after the broadcast infrastructure in the UK also. you might have noticed recent talk about using surplus from the digital switchover fund which came from the BBC's pool of money being used to fund broadband too.
So enough of the bollocks about having to pay for something you don't use, you do use it, if you watch UK broadcast TV live, you're getting benefit from the license fee. If you don't watch broadcast TV live, you have no need to pay the license fee. Chances are even if you pay for Sky, or Virgin and solely use that, you've watched shows that are at least in part funded by the license fee.
People stupidly believe the FUD that the license fee only pays for the actual BBC channels, but it doesn't - it pays for the content they produce, that's shown elsewhere, the broadcast network, subsidies for ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5, and also any number of projects related to media access in the UK.
The BBC are restricted in how well they can generate resources to compete- Sky gets more income than the BBC does from license fees, and whilst the BBC could compete, it's been artificially restricted from doing so at the behest of Murdoch due to his corrupt links with numerous high ranking government ministers.
BBC World was growing incredibly fast as a result of the quality and popularity of their content (i.e. Planet Earth), and the BBC was looking at producing set top boxes along with the likes of ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 for on demand TV well ahead of it's time (long before Apple TV, and Google TV etc.). These are examples of where, due to Sky/Virgin lobbying the BBC has been artificially held back. The worst part is, for people like you, who clearly detest the license fee, that it could've been reduced, or even abolished if the BBC was allowed to pursue these revenue streams. Effectively despite Sky receiving higher income than the BBC by quite a margin, the BBC was restricted because despite it's lower income, it was out competing Sky due to better innovating. Now, ministers have prevented it innovating, so that Sky could continue to make more money, without having to bother to innovate.
It's somewhat of a coup too, the BBC was established to be independent of government, but government does have some control over it's budget, and the Tories most recently have abused that to restrict the BBC's ability to outcompete the likes of Sky based on innovation. Both previously Labour and now the Tories know they can't use the BBC to push their agenda because it is at least editorially independent, so instead they use their control over it's budget to restrict it's ability to compete with Sky which, being controlled so heavily by Murdoch they can use to push their agenda - when you understand this context, you'll understand why Jeremy Hunt was so openly going to allow the full News International takeover of Sky despite the blatant evidence of corruption right until the point it became a truly untenable position to defend. He was willing to be so openly corrupt because he knew that if it succeeded that a couple of years Murdoch propaganda before the next election would make him and his party look like saints again regardless.
There's a reason Murdoch's press and it's biggest ally, The Daily Mail create this anti-BBC propaganda about how you're paying for Jonathan Ross' extortionate salary and so forth and harp on about how unfair the license fee is if you don't watch Eastenders ignoring everything else the license fee goes to in their articles. I have plenty of complaints about some areas of the BBC myself, but make no mistake it's still one of the best editorially independent news outlet in the world, still arguably the best producer of documentairies in the world, and most importantly - it's under attack by vested interests.
So by all means back the propaganda, pre
Yet from a post that listed Microsoft's official blurb a bit further up:
"A commercial-ready installer which can be included in an applicationâ(TM)s set-up program, making it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployments."
I think I'll trust the official release notes thanks.
I had no idea but was intrigued to find out myself, and stumbled upon this, which presumably explains it:
http://www.developerfusion.com/news/91207/unicode-6-out-with-2000-new-characters-but-what-support-does-it-have/
I knew the Japanese would be involved somewhere!
To be fair his bias isn't towards Apple, it's towards Microsoft, but Android is indeed his primary target as Microsoft apparently sees this as a bigger threat than iOS for whatever reason.
If it's an Apple vs. Google story you can guarantee he'll side with Apple, but you'll note if it's something that involves Microsoft, Apple and Google, or just Microsoft and Apple then the bias will be towards Microsoft rather than Apple.
I wouldn't be surprised if Mueller is linked to the multi-account pro-MS shill that posts here. I don't know why Microsoft bothers with these people though, I'm probably one of the more pro-MS people on Slashdot - I think the 360 is the best console around right now, and I think Visual Studio is far and away the best IDE around, but frankly all this blatant tosh from their paid shills is polarising people more against them, it isn't changing opinion as they seem to hope, it's actually making it impossible for me to defend them as a generally improving company when they actually do good stuff, as the good is being tarred by this shit, and if anything it's actually making even me begin to really dislike them.
Certainly it's pissed me off enough to be a major factor in cancelling Windows Phone ports of some of our projects here, and focus just on Android and iOS.
Are you seriously suggesting it's mere coincidence that for the first time ever, Samsung decided to use it's 3G patents in litigation and against a firm who'd been launching a global design patent war against it?
You've got to be pretty fucking naive or a pretty retarded fanboy to not realise that Samsung's litigation was a response to Apple's litigation against Samsung. FRAND wireless and design patents may not be related in law, but Samsung's litigation using FRAND patents was clearly a response to Apple's design patent litigation.
I was going to ask if the Dilbert principle had ever been tested to this level before, but then I remembered SCO and answered my own question.
We already know how this ends, it's not quick, and it's not pretty.
I think his point was in the "every country" bit.
Those who have been extradited have made the mistake of going to nations that are either loyal to the US, or puppets of the US. The only Western nation where you might get away with it is Switzerland - it worked for Polanski just about, despite massive US pressure.
It's unlikely the US would get a succesful extradition from a few of the South American nations, Russia, or perhaps even China or India, and frankly if you have money, which it's likely the TPB guys do, then you can still live a pretty damn nice life in these places.
The key is to avoid North America, European nations, Commonwealth nations, and states that defend on US money and weapons for defence like Saudi Arabia and South Korea. As I say - that still leaves much of South America, some of Africa, and some of the biggest nations and ex-soviet states, where again, with a bit of Western money you can still live at least as comfortably as you would in the West.
Judging by who his successor is I'm not actually convinced that Sony believed Stringer ever made any mistakes as CEO.
Promoting Mr Gaffe Prone Failwhale himself to CEO seems to be the quickest way to finish Sony off, is this really what they had planned? Is this some kind of financial scam that I'm missing the point of where they're making money from Sony's demise?
It's not just DreamSpark, even Autodesk has a similar programme for students, they knew the situation years ago with gMax surrounding piracy and when they subsequently dropped it. They knew full well 3D Studio became the industry standard alongside Maya in the games industry because it's what people were pirating in the Quake modding days etc.
I'm sure I remember years back Oracle doing a similar thing too, to ensure future DBAs were getting trained up in Oracle rather than a resurgent MSSQL etc. I'm not sure if they still do.
Really, none of this is new at all, it's just been overshadowed by the fact that the likes of the music industry don't get it, and are suing their customers and exploiting government corruption to go as far as removing long established principles of a healthy society such as the right to fair trial, and being deemed innocent until proven guilty to further their failed cause.
To be fair, that's not really the case. Samsung probably is charging Apple more, but it's because it has to to make up for the money Apple is making it lose by abusing it's patents.
I feel really sorry for Samsung because their obvious patents are restricted by FRAND, but Apple's really obvious patents (a rectangular tablet) aren't.
The real issue is that FRAND does have any clause in that allows you to waiver FRAND against abusive patent troll companies like Apple.
But nevertheless, Samsung probably is legally in the wrong, which really sucks, because morally, they're in the right - FRAND should cease to apply when the potential licensee in question is engaging in any kind of patent litigation against you.
I actually agree with you on this, the most prominent example is of course Jonathan Ive - the guy wasn't always at the top in Apple, the reason he got to the top was because he came up with some good designs.
This article is a fail on so many levels, and it suffers from the flaw that many Apple fanboys do - it sees Jobs as some mystical god, from which every section of Apple's success came. Obviously that's bollocks, he was a shrewd businessman and marketer, but the idea for products from which he could decide what to invest in and market very much came from folks further down the chain a lot of the time.
In this respect it's no different to Google - whilst some ideas come from the top, plenty don't, so trying to play them off as some how different in this respect is stupid, they're really not. Both firms have ended up with products as much from acquisitions, ideas from the bottom, and ideas from the top as each other.