I wouldn't worry too much aboutt he BBC removing your posts, I've had them do the same when my posts have been mature, factual, and perfectly legal. The BBC moderators are highly politicised and moderate entirely based upon their personal opinion about a subject rather than following the guidelines laid out on the BBC's site.
It's probably the BBC's most atrociously biased department, and I personally tend to think the BBC does a good job of being objective for the most part. When the web cuts came swinging it'd have been better if they cut right through that department frankly as I'd rather the BBC has no discussion section than a discussion section moderated by highly biased individuals repeatedly imposing their own world view on discussions.
That's not to comment about your rights regarding naming those who have taken out super injunctions of course, just as I say, try not to let BBC moderation bother you- it's pathetic.
If you enjoy seeing Sony suffer, because like me, you recognise the world would be a better place without it due to the fact that it's a leading figure in artificial digital restrictions that remove long established rights from consumers as well as being a leading member of the RIAA and one of the largest proponents of net restrictions to fulfil it's anti-piracy dreams at the expense of fundamentally important tenets of anonymity, openess and freedom the internet has historically offered. Whilst also being one of the worst offenders at trying to stamp out your right to tinker with something you've bought, then, well, this might make you chuckle even more:
I only hope the prediction they'll return to profit later this year is wrong. The world would be a better place without Sony, it's too big, too evil and has the ear of too many governments.
It's worth pointing out that this is one of those things that would in fact have progressed faster were it not for the money men (BAE/RR) getting a bit bored of it part way through. Part of the reason it's had such a long gestation period has been political, not because of any inherent flaw with the idea.
The FP was also somewhat wrong to suggest it's all mere concept sure the vehicle itself is still at that stage, but they've actually developed real working examples of some of the cutting edge brand new fundamentally key technology required to make this work, and that's a major step forward from not having such a craft.
Because people using old unupdated browsers will then fail to see the web properly as a new loosely supported format enters the fray.
People think of web browsers as IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and the other desktop browsers, but they forget how many people are using older mobile phones and so forth, browsing the web on older tablet devices, browsing it on TVs and devices plugging into TVs with web browsers and so on that simply may not be updated anymore. By introducing a new image format you've got to recognise that it will have implications, and the question has to be whether that new format really brings enough to the table to justify breaking the web for many people.
There's a lot of browsers out there and a lot of applications that deal with the web- will the porn filter little Jonny's parents have made him use cope with this new format before he stumbles across it?
You've got to look beyond just the people willing/able to download and use desktop browsers and recognise the implications this has for everyone else. It may well be that the new format is good enough to justify breaking the web for these people, but then, it may not.
But otherwise it's mostly been people who have a different world view to Americans, a difficult concept for people like you to grasp, I know.
Let me help you try and grasp it though. Imagine Pakistan led by the Pakistani Taliban invaded America, and tried to enforce the Taliban's semi-Islamic world view on Americans would you a) bow down and take it, b) rise up and try and perform hit and run sniper and IED attacks on the Taliban soldiers.
Would you also think you were a terrorist, a militant, an insurgent or whatever for defending your homeland and your values if the Pakistani Taliban then labelled you as such?
If you think al Qaeda has been a particular stand out problem in a long while you're living in a fucking fantasy world and are a gullable victim of the politics of fear.
Because now Bin Laden is dead, and Al Qaeda has been rather unscary for a few years now, China is the new bogey man with which the US government prefers to beat it's citizens into submitting further to their control and scrutiny with.
I think part the problem in this case is you have two issues being muddled together.
The first is of the right to privacy vs. the right of a free press.
The second is the right of a free press vs. false accusations by that press.
I think many people would agree with the free press idea in the former issue, but in the latter case the problem with have is a press making shit up and destroying people's lives just to sell papers.
In the Max Mossley case in the UK the Daily Mail printed a story about the F1 boss being involved in orgies with prostitutes. That's arguably fair game, but what is not is the fact they also claimed it was a Nazi themed orgy, yet this is something they had completely and utterly fabricated to sell more papers.
Injunctions are being granted to protect privacy, IMO a partial solution at least is to not get rid of injunctions, but to limit their use to cases where a paper cannot prove to a judge that their story is factual. If the paper can prove their story is factual even if it breaches privacy, then an injunction should not be granted.
They more favourable in terms of winning, but not in terms of compensation.
Look at the Max Mosley case, his reward didn't even really cover his legal fees.
But it's a general problem in the UK, look at the phone hacking scandal similarly, whilst not libel £100,000 compensation is peanuts to the likes of News International. Look at Andrew Crossley and ACS:Law with his mere £1,000 fine.
In the UK yes we have laws to deal with these problems, but the damages are never high enough to be a real deterrent. Even if NotW has to pay £100,000 per victim for maybe 20 - 30 victims, do you not think they made far more than £3million over the years from doing what they were?
We really need higher penalties, arguably an order of magnitude higher- those £100,000 damages should be £1,000,000 at least. Similarly for each lost libel case a newspaper losing such a case should be forced to dedicate their next frontpage on their most popular day of publication to a retraction of their false claims. Frankly, it's the least they can do for making shit up just to sell papers.
I agree libel laws are one solution, although I admit I'm undecided as to whether it's the best solution- shit sticks after all, and once you've been libelled with false accusations it's hard to get those out of people's minds. This is a difficult problem as it's a clash between two fundamental principles, freedom of information, and privacy.
"The reason to choose Linux as stated above is financial as Microsoft makes its money with client access licenses and you would need to go unlimited eventually if he is using copies from Technet."
I think this view of cost is overstated, really, the cost of Windows is inconsequential in this type of scenario. If you require that many licenses for the cost of licensing to be non-negligible then your firm is big enough for the cost to be a non-issue, particularly in the face of paying more to find talented Linux admins of whom there are much fewer around and hence can (quite reasonably imo) demand higher wages. It's nearly always going to be the case that the cost of licensing scales with your revenue, so most companies wont really notice it. Where it might be an issue is if you're a non-profit such as a charity and really don't have the income, in that case I'd agree licensing is certainly an issue.
"Windows can be easy to manage if you have an MCSE in 2008 with several years of Windows LAN experience. Just as it is with Linux."
I've never heard of anyone needing an MCSE to manage Windows, in fact, Windows is pretty trivial to manage, and that's really the point.
"If I were him I would learn Php and hire someone to help him with the Java on Linux if he needs more scalability. It's still cheaper than Windows, IIS, and SQL Server with unlimted licences."
PHP is really not a good choice for something you want to scale, Java is much better if you don't want to go down the Microsoft route. You only have to look at the issues Facebook have had with PHP and the way they've had to mangle it into compiled C++ to see why PHP isn't the greatest solution for large scale applications. PHP is great for getting sites up and running that wont be expected to scale massively, but beyond that I'd avoid it like the plague.
But fundamentally I can see why someone with a Microsoft background would want to stick with it, developing in ASP.NET, particularly with ASP.NET MVC is so incredibly easy to do in a way where code quality and code security is top notch that it's a reasonable choice. As I say though personally, for me, if I was doing it now, I'd go with Linux/Java to avoid dependence on Microsoft and because Java has a good track record of scaling, whereas.NET really doesn't have a large enough portfolio of such useage yet.
"but beyond repairing it and restoring the product to the way it would be if you purchased it new and didn't have any problems they have no obligations to you at all."
This isn't entirely true, of for example you have to pay for postage to send a faulty product back that was faulty through no fault of your own and the company is deemed liable then by you can claim this back- the same goes for phone calls to premium rate lines and so forth they may require you to phone. But beyond that, most people value their time and whether there is an obligation or not the point is that it's good customer service that customers are compensated for lost time and inconvenience if a product failed through no fault of their own- that is, ignoring their obligations, it's still something they should do.
It absolutely is the company's fault the product broke, it is their responsibility to ensure they provide a product that is fit for purpose, and yes you're right, it's impossible to ensure this will always be the case but that's irrelevant, it's something they have to price into their product- dealing with knowing that there will at least be some faults.
This assertion:
"What the company is obligated to do is put it right, so you're at the same level as someone who got a working one off the bat."
Is completely wrong. Someone who got a working one off the bat didn't have to waste their time getting a repair/replacement, didn't have to waste their fuel driving to get a replacement, didn't have to waste money on a non-free support line phoning the firm up, and this is the fundamental point behind the concept of compensation as good customer service practice.
"However, don't think for one millisecond that you are *entitled* to them giving you anything extra than what is available to you when you purchased the product."
In many cases the courts would disagree, plenty of people who have really felt the need have compensated users for their time and money spent on getting a product fixed. The issue is that if people continue to accept that yeah, they're going to have to put up with having their time wasted with shitty products then it weakens this age old precedent and this is the problem we're facing nowadays, people like yourself willing to spend your own time and money getting something fixed.
"The money is in exchange for the product"
Herein lies the fundamental point, the money is in exchange for the product which, by law (in most countries at least) must be fit for purpose, if it has a design fault or fails within an unreasonable time period then it is not fit for purpose and while the customer has fulfilled his obligation in paying the money, the other party has not.
I guess it somewhat comes down to whether you value your time or not, personally I do because I have a lot of things to do, but if you've got more time than you know what to do with and don't value your time at all, then perhaps it's understandable you don't mind screwing around wasting time and potentially money getting a product you were sold that was faulty fixed. Obviously at least in the latest case, Microsoft understands that people do value their time, hence the compensation for the inconvenience of needing a console replacement.
Love or hate Windows, what you said is representative more of an anti-Microsoft meme than anything closely resembling fact.
Personally I'd go LAMP too, but I disagree that LAMP is easier to manage, and anymore portable to the cloud. On the contrary, from personal experience with this sort of thing I think Windows is easier to manage for sure and with Azure is definitely more easily portable to the cloud. The reason I wouldn't go Windows though is because for example if a critical security flaw in the web server or OS comes around then with FOSS you can get a fix quickly, whereas with Microsoft you're potentially left with a choice of being vulnerable, or taking your site offline, that's a disadvantage of proprietary in general for this kind of thing- you're too dependent on an external company to ensure your service is rock solid.
Final paragraph, page 2, seems pretty unambiguous:
"Finally, todayâ(TM)s science is capable, through genetic manipulation, of re-creating a highly virulent smallpoxlike virus from a closely related poxvirus or even from scratch."
What am I missing? Simply the fact it says smallpox like rather than smallpox specifically?
"There's another name for that: being an entitled ass. Setting out with the mindset that the world owes you something for... being you, leads to that sort of attitude."
What the fuck are you on about? When you pay for a product you're entitled to that product, or are you really such a batshit crazy irrational Apple fanboy that you'd be willing to pay Apple £500 for a phone in a box only to find the phone wasn't in the box because nevermind, it's not like you're owed anything are you?
No, in the real world, when you get out of fanboy land, a purchase is a contract between you and the seller, the seller sells you a product with the understanding that it should meet certain expectations, if the product does not meet those expectations then yes, the seller certainly does fucking owe you.
Apple should compensate your for your inconvenience because it's their fault you were inconvenienced in selling you a product that simply did not meet the level of expectation any rational customer would have (hence why so many people did return their iPhone 4s once the antenna design fault was clear).
You can't claim Apple and Microsoft have done exactly what they are meant to do- Apple hasn't, it's done the bear minimum, in contrast Microsoft has done exactly what I suggested- compensated the customer for a mistake not of the customer's making.
It's really a sad reflection how badly fanboys like yourself are willing to throw away long established principles of good customer service to a company to which you owe nothing because they are merely there to make money off of you. The level of irrationality fanboys like yourself stoop to the point you're willing to actually lose out for the sake of defending your pet company is insane.
It's always been the case that the customer should get what they pay for- and that's a fault free product, and if it's not fault free, the company should rectify that and compensate for the customer having to go out their way. Stop being a 'tard and letting companies get away with trying to change that, when they fuck up the onus is on them to fix it and make it up to you. Just to illustrate another example and how irrational your argument is, consider you only have £25 in your bank, and you buy something for £20 but get double charged putting you £15 in the red, all many bad companies will do is refund you the £20 overcharge, but if you incur £25 fees for going overdrawn by your bank would you really not claim the £25 fees off them for forcing you overdrawn? would you really just foot the bill of inconvenience for their mistake because you "don't have a sense of entitlement" right?
"Oh but that's different". No, it's not. People like you are rational consumers worst enemy.
"Where do you get the impression that I "demand a low bar" from customer service?"
As I say, simply the fact that a company fixed a fault with your product. I'm not saying you're particularly out of the ordinary in being happy with this service- I'm saying this lowers the bar because they've simply done the bare minimum required of them when not only should they be resolving an issue, but should be compensating you for having to suffer the inconvenience of facing an issue you shouldn't have had to in the first place.
"Ok, so the external antenna is more susceptible to detuning than other phones (but it's not unique to the iPhone 4, or even the iPhone in general, just more extreme due to external antenna), and you claim they should have taken every single iPhone back and replaced it.... with what?"
Oh come off it, let's not stupid to the level of denial. It's been demonstrated time and time again that the iPhone 4 had a design fault, Apple muddied the waters with their official announcement, but there's no dispute here so stop trying to pretend that's the case, it's established fact that the iPhone 4 had a design fault. Note how car manufacturers deal with a similar thing- Toyota stuck car mats were replaced when Toyota could've simply said that happens with all cars (It certainly used to happen with my old Vauxhall corsa). Apple muddied the waters here and you may be right, new iPhone 4s still have the issue, but the solution should've been a redesign to eliminate the fault and issuing of fixed products to consumers.
"I think you're just looking for excuses to trash them."
Please, let's not stoop to fanboyism, it's just pathetic. My view is that consumers should be treated better than they are, and that by expecting the bare minimum you're letting corporations get away with things they shouldn't. Look, I know you're a big fan of Apple, but if you bought a product from someone like I don't know, say, HP, would you really be content if it had a flaw? Would you be content with a case for it that covered up the flaw? These devices are expensive and when you pay what you do for them you should be able to expect a product that has no flaws, and Apple makes enough profit that they should've had the courage to accept that they fucked up, and pay for replacement handsets for everyone.
As much as I'm not keen on praising Microsoft, and know it's almost like asking for a death sentence here, I think the latest news story posted here on Slashdot about some XBox 360s having a flaw from an update that prevents those consoles affected from playing new titles coming out from now on demonstrates my point- Microsoft are not only offering to replace the console, which is the bare minimum they should really do, but are giving a years free live subscription as compensation for the inconvenience- it's that extra step that is the difference between fulfilling your obligations as a firm and saying "Here, we fixed the problem", and saying "Sorry, we fucked up, let us make it up to you with compensation for inconveniencing you with our mistake".
Consumers deserve better, especially with the cost of many IT gadgets, if companies aren't pressured into compensating for mistakes and mistakes aren't costly for them, they'll make them more and more and care less about making sure products are perfect right out the door. Whether you're a fan of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, or whoever, this should still be the case.
"Again, by endless harping on "features" aren't you guilty of the slashdot mindset where technical features = only thing important."
Rubbish, that's not what I said, your implication is the opposite which is in fact the fact, in that you're trying to remove features from the argument altogether as if they're not a factor for anyone. Features are always going to be a factor, less important for some, more important for others, my point is that Apple had no ease of use benefit, had a worse featureset, but had more style and better brand recognition, hence it's likely that as Apple's product sold more, it was style that was the deciding factor for those people who bought Apple products. If you think featureset is not a factor in the slightest you're greatly mistaken, it is, for everyone, it's just not necessarily the most import factor for some- for many Apple purchasers it's style and brand recognition above all else.
"Do you remember when MP3 players first sold? Do you know how many manual steps it took to convert a CD to MP3s and then onto the player? Most geeks didn't really care. Consumers would care that it took a lot of steps because they would never use it. iTunes was the first free program I knew that reduced MP3 creation down to 1 step if you accepted the defaults (put in a CD). It took one step to get onto the player (plug in the cable). Over time Apple added little things like Gracenote DB and album cover downloads to remove any minutiae that consumers don't want to deal with. In time other programs made the necessary changes to do this."
Again, complete rubbish, Creative software made it just as easy. Using iTunes as an example of how Apple got the usability thing right is a joke right?
I agree Apple doesn't focus on features, I felt I made this quite clear, where we disagree is that your implication is that Apple wins on ease of use, where I disagree is that Apple ease of use is often merely a myth and iTunes is ample evidence of that. My view is that Apple sells, because Apple has created one of the worlds top fashion brands, and sells products that look very nice. They're viewed as the Armani, the Gucci of the technology world- their products may often be quirky, may not necessarily even be the comfiest, may not actually last as well as budget competitors, but their brand recognition and style wins the day for them in terms of profitability.
Whilst I agree for the customers Apple has managed to gather features aren't important, again, what we really can't say is that that's the case for most people because we simply don't know- again there are so many people who don't buy Apple but could that it's perfectly feasible that even the average person puts features as a priority. I know it's a popular argument to suggest that features are a geek only thing here on Slashdot but it's an argument for which there is no evidence. Unless you can come forward with an objective representative study that shows that for most users, features for IT gadgets comes far down the list of desirables on a gadget then you cannot say that, it's complete speculation.
In pretty much all markets Apple is involved in it is actually a minority player with portable media players being one of the only real exceptions. People repeatedly make assertions based on Apple's popularity which are nonsensical to make based on Apple's market position. To suggest for example that the iPhone did well because features are unimportant to most people doesn't make a lot of sense when far more feature filled phones are being sold in far greater number- all you can really say is that there is an underserved market of people who like simple devices hence why the iPhone has sold well, but you cannot say that this group of people is representative of the majority, when the majority do not buy the iPhone.
The fundamental problem is you're still talking about the average consumer, yet here's an extremely important fact- the average consumer does NOT buy Apple, not even close, because Apple's marketshare in almost all it'
Seeing as half the world's business are still built on VB6 then yes, it'd have been a good thing, because it'd mean there was finally hope in creating something that'd pull them away from that unstable, poorly scalable fuckup of a technology.
Contrary to that, many Apple fans fail to acknowledge that things like the wheel concept was already present in the likes of the Creative Zen before the iPod was even announced with the only difference being the likes of the Zen used a side scrolling wheel rather than front scrolling but you could still click it in.
The iPod was another example of Apple doing what it does best- playing on style, and without question, the iPod was pretty fucking stylish, and you know what? there's even a damn good example of this being the case- when Apple released the "fat" nano, sales plummeted for the device because it simply wasn't as stylish, leading to Apple reverting to the previous style design the next generation, where sales of the nano picked up again. The featureset hadn't really changed, but the style had, and to Apple's target consumers that was all important. The fact is many of the iPod competitors were just as easy to use, had far better featuresets but my god were they ugly.
The usability argument is often brought up with Apple and whilst their devices are easy to use, I really struggle to see how it applies overall, as there's simply no way iTunes can be classed as a good example of usability and when users are forced to go via it as a gatekeeper to their devices all too often I don't think it's a rational argument that Apple devices sell because of usability- if usability was a problem and they needed simplified devices they'd never make it past iTunes in the first place.
But perhaps what's most annoying with Apple fans is how they harp on about how many people use some Apple product, how there's 200 million iPod users, and 50 million iPhone users or whatever, right, that's great, but it also means there's over 6.5 billion people who don't use Apple's phone or music player, many of those because it's out of their reach of course, but you can be rest assured that there are still hundreds of millions in that remaining 6.5 billion who could buy Apple, but simply choose not to. We can't say how many people have been turned away from Apple because they don't like it's style, it's usability, but similarly we also can't say things like "To an average consumer Apple's products are superior", because given the numbers, it's perfectly feasible that the average consumer doesn't in fact choose Apple. It's stupid to make assertions that only geeks talk down and dislike Apple and so forth, by virtue of the fact that we simply do not know that's true, and for some reason or another, hundreds of millions of people who could afford, and could choose Apple, don't.
Following the religion example from TFA, it's like saying Christianity has 2.1bn followers so the average person is a Christian- well no, the 1.5bn muslims + 1.1bn atheists + 0.9bn hindus amongst others would rather disagree with such a statement.
I'm not sure what country you're in but here in the UK and much of Europe due to strong consumer protection laws none of those things would be classed as a company going out of it's way, but in fact sensible solutions to fulfil their obligations under those laws.
In the first case, they will have sent you an ethernet card simply because they have an obligation to repair, replace, or refund for the system, and sending you the card is undoubtedly the cheapest option for them if you're happy with it. They haven't gone out their way here- it'd be more expensive for them to spend engineer time fixing it, more expensive to replace the whole system, and more expensive to refund you for the system. They did what was best for them.
Similarly replacing an iBook 3 days out of warranty is something they'd realistically have to do in the UK/Europe too, under the consumer protection act in the UK for example for the first 6 months from purchase a firm has to provide a refund, a repair, or a replacement for a faulty product and if they do not wish to honour this must prove the fault was caused by misuse by the user. After the 6 months the obligation switches to the user to prove the fault occured through normal usage and this applies for the reasonable lifetime of the product, which, for products such as expensive laptops has been deemed to be as much as 5 years. Most companies wont contest this and force the user to prove otherwise because something as simple as a written letter by a qualified electrician at a repair shop confirming no user damage would be enough to make them lose their case at more expense to them.
It's a sad example of the state of customer service when you see the things you state as examples of good customer service, when frankly they're the bare minimum a company should do. Good customer service is going above and beyond to show the customer you're actually sorry something went wrong, like not just replacing a laptop that failed as early as 3 days post-warranty, but then giving you some money, store vouchers, or free additional item or similar to make up for the fact the product failed so early when frankly it should not have.
It's also sad that you dismiss issues of the likes of Magsafe power adapters or whatever catching fire as users yanking them out the wall when it's well documented that this is not the case, and similarly dismiss scratches on products that shouldn't scratch so easily as a user issue.
Whether it's Apple or any other company, it's people like you accepting such a low bar of customer service that allows companies to get away with things like this, get away with initially telling users they're holding it wrong and issuing of a free case eventually, and get away with such a low bar of customer service in general. When people like you put up with such crap responses companies are bound to be happy to get away with it- realistically when the iPhone 4 attenna issue came around Apple should've replaced each and every affected handset for free and should've reached out to users to do so, because it was a brand new product with a clear defect but with fanboys refusing to accept fault with their new shiny again, the bar of customer service was once again lowered.
Plenty of people who are experts in the field seem to have a similar view in that Smallpox can likely be created from scratch, and certainly be created as a modification of an existing virus. Are you saying these people with many years experience in the field are all wrong?
I'm not an expert in the field so can't be certain either way, but I'm a little loathe to believe those who are experts in the field are definitely wrong, and a suggestion that they're so wrong as to be the case that we're 10 years off from such technology and understanding seems a little unlikely to me.
There was trend in Europe some years back with phones where smaller was cooler. Back then we had phones that absolutely dwarfed the bricks (slang for large phones) companies are chucking out now. Obviously the increase in phone size now is partly out of necessity, you need a bigger phone for a reasonable sized touch screen for it to be useful for example, but ultimately SIM size was never a limiting factor back then, and there's no reason it would possible be a limiting factor now.
This is almost certainly about creating artificial incompatibility to try and increase lock in by making sure your SIM wont work in anything else as nothing else will support this non-standard SIM form factor.
The issue is that Smallpox is a particularly contagious, particularly deadly virus.
The danger is that of accidental release, either through human error, or natural disaster, or even non-accidental release through malice or terrorism.
The argument against keeping it is that if we really needed to, we could reproduce it from scratch, like we did the 1918 influenza, because smallpox is fully DNA sequenced and we thus have the technology to bring it back, hence there should really be no need to store live samples. The only argument for keeping it is perhaps that you save time in not having to recreate it but we know how to make vaccines for existing strains anyway, and any engineered recreation of the virus would likely be different enough that existing samples would be no more useful than existing knowledge and of course, far less useful than simply using a sample of the new strain which could be easily acquired on infection and hence that argument really doesn't hold water.
You mention that nukes pose a bigger threat, yet smallpox has killed an order of magnitude more people than nukes have- I'd recommend actually looking up how bad smallpox actually was, certainly much worse than things like the stupid swine flu epidemic.
I agree it's likely a non-issue, but I don't think it can be dismissed as something to completely ignore as easily as you have. Realistically no matter how small a threat it is to peoples lives, it's still a threat, and one that can be mitigated with really no side effects due to the fact it can be reproduced if really needed anyway. In other words, the US and Russian government are keeping the risk of accidental release alive, and no matter how small that risk, it's still a risk that in this day and age is utterly unnecessary.
So it's simply down to whether or not you think it's worth keeping a risk a risk no matter how small unnecessarily for no reason other than what is arguably simply just penis waving.
But it's not 75%, that implies Europe and North America are the only countries who share the credit system we're used to and nowhere else in the world does, which is completely and utterly wrong.
The fact India alone with 17% of the world's population also uses the same mechanism crushes such an assertion:
The lengths people like you go to to avoid admitting you are wrong is quite impressive. You must truly believe you're infallible or some such ludicrous thing.
Right, so what you're saying is if you remove around a quarter of the world's population from your original statement then you're right?
You know, if I remove every country except Canada and the US from the list of countries in the world and say "Every country in the world is in North America" then that's true as well, but it's equally retarded a statement.
It's quite amusing that you would spend so long typing a lengthy response when in reality all you needed to say was "Okay, well, maybe I overstated it originally in implying it was a problem fairly unique to the US".
I'm not sure why you think I'm agreeing with you, I'm disagreeing quite clearly with your original statement, which you've desperately tried to weasel out of without actually having the balls to simply admit you were wrong. There are a lot of people like you on Slashdot who cannot merely accept that maybe, just maybe, you were a little over the top, or maybe you didn't check your facts first, you are boring, tiresome, and you make Slashdot shit. Congratulations on that.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't worry too much aboutt he BBC removing your posts, I've had them do the same when my posts have been mature, factual, and perfectly legal. The BBC moderators are highly politicised and moderate entirely based upon their personal opinion about a subject rather than following the guidelines laid out on the BBC's site.
It's probably the BBC's most atrociously biased department, and I personally tend to think the BBC does a good job of being objective for the most part. When the web cuts came swinging it'd have been better if they cut right through that department frankly as I'd rather the BBC has no discussion section than a discussion section moderated by highly biased individuals repeatedly imposing their own world view on discussions.
That's not to comment about your rights regarding naming those who have taken out super injunctions of course, just as I say, try not to let BBC moderation bother you- it's pathetic.
If you enjoy seeing Sony suffer, because like me, you recognise the world would be a better place without it due to the fact that it's a leading figure in artificial digital restrictions that remove long established rights from consumers as well as being a leading member of the RIAA and one of the largest proponents of net restrictions to fulfil it's anti-piracy dreams at the expense of fundamentally important tenets of anonymity, openess and freedom the internet has historically offered. Whilst also being one of the worst offenders at trying to stamp out your right to tinker with something you've bought, then, well, this might make you chuckle even more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13557431
I only hope the prediction they'll return to profit later this year is wrong. The world would be a better place without Sony, it's too big, too evil and has the ear of too many governments.
It's worth pointing out that this is one of those things that would in fact have progressed faster were it not for the money men (BAE/RR) getting a bit bored of it part way through. Part of the reason it's had such a long gestation period has been political, not because of any inherent flaw with the idea.
The FP was also somewhat wrong to suggest it's all mere concept sure the vehicle itself is still at that stage, but they've actually developed real working examples of some of the cutting edge brand new fundamentally key technology required to make this work, and that's a major step forward from not having such a craft.
Because people using old unupdated browsers will then fail to see the web properly as a new loosely supported format enters the fray.
People think of web browsers as IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and the other desktop browsers, but they forget how many people are using older mobile phones and so forth, browsing the web on older tablet devices, browsing it on TVs and devices plugging into TVs with web browsers and so on that simply may not be updated anymore. By introducing a new image format you've got to recognise that it will have implications, and the question has to be whether that new format really brings enough to the table to justify breaking the web for many people.
There's a lot of browsers out there and a lot of applications that deal with the web- will the porn filter little Jonny's parents have made him use cope with this new format before he stumbles across it?
You've got to look beyond just the people willing/able to download and use desktop browsers and recognise the implications this has for everyone else. It may well be that the new format is good enough to justify breaking the web for these people, but then, it may not.
Well, no one really at the moment.
But otherwise it's mostly been people who have a different world view to Americans, a difficult concept for people like you to grasp, I know.
Let me help you try and grasp it though. Imagine Pakistan led by the Pakistani Taliban invaded America, and tried to enforce the Taliban's semi-Islamic world view on Americans would you a) bow down and take it, b) rise up and try and perform hit and run sniper and IED attacks on the Taliban soldiers.
Would you also think you were a terrorist, a militant, an insurgent or whatever for defending your homeland and your values if the Pakistani Taliban then labelled you as such?
If you think al Qaeda has been a particular stand out problem in a long while you're living in a fucking fantasy world and are a gullable victim of the politics of fear.
They will, because Sarkozy is heading it all.
So says the Daily Mail.
In other words, they were full of shit, and they knew it.
Because now Bin Laden is dead, and Al Qaeda has been rather unscary for a few years now, China is the new bogey man with which the US government prefers to beat it's citizens into submitting further to their control and scrutiny with.
That's why.
I think part the problem in this case is you have two issues being muddled together.
The first is of the right to privacy vs. the right of a free press.
The second is the right of a free press vs. false accusations by that press.
I think many people would agree with the free press idea in the former issue, but in the latter case the problem with have is a press making shit up and destroying people's lives just to sell papers.
In the Max Mossley case in the UK the Daily Mail printed a story about the F1 boss being involved in orgies with prostitutes. That's arguably fair game, but what is not is the fact they also claimed it was a Nazi themed orgy, yet this is something they had completely and utterly fabricated to sell more papers.
Injunctions are being granted to protect privacy, IMO a partial solution at least is to not get rid of injunctions, but to limit their use to cases where a paper cannot prove to a judge that their story is factual. If the paper can prove their story is factual even if it breaches privacy, then an injunction should not be granted.
They more favourable in terms of winning, but not in terms of compensation.
Look at the Max Mosley case, his reward didn't even really cover his legal fees.
But it's a general problem in the UK, look at the phone hacking scandal similarly, whilst not libel £100,000 compensation is peanuts to the likes of News International. Look at Andrew Crossley and ACS:Law with his mere £1,000 fine.
In the UK yes we have laws to deal with these problems, but the damages are never high enough to be a real deterrent. Even if NotW has to pay £100,000 per victim for maybe 20 - 30 victims, do you not think they made far more than £3million over the years from doing what they were?
We really need higher penalties, arguably an order of magnitude higher- those £100,000 damages should be £1,000,000 at least. Similarly for each lost libel case a newspaper losing such a case should be forced to dedicate their next frontpage on their most popular day of publication to a retraction of their false claims. Frankly, it's the least they can do for making shit up just to sell papers.
I agree libel laws are one solution, although I admit I'm undecided as to whether it's the best solution- shit sticks after all, and once you've been libelled with false accusations it's hard to get those out of people's minds. This is a difficult problem as it's a clash between two fundamental principles, freedom of information, and privacy.
"The reason to choose Linux as stated above is financial as Microsoft makes its money with client access licenses and you would need to go unlimited eventually if he is using copies from Technet."
I think this view of cost is overstated, really, the cost of Windows is inconsequential in this type of scenario. If you require that many licenses for the cost of licensing to be non-negligible then your firm is big enough for the cost to be a non-issue, particularly in the face of paying more to find talented Linux admins of whom there are much fewer around and hence can (quite reasonably imo) demand higher wages. It's nearly always going to be the case that the cost of licensing scales with your revenue, so most companies wont really notice it. Where it might be an issue is if you're a non-profit such as a charity and really don't have the income, in that case I'd agree licensing is certainly an issue.
"Windows can be easy to manage if you have an MCSE in 2008 with several years of Windows LAN experience. Just as it is with Linux."
I've never heard of anyone needing an MCSE to manage Windows, in fact, Windows is pretty trivial to manage, and that's really the point.
"If I were him I would learn Php and hire someone to help him with the Java on Linux if he needs more scalability. It's still cheaper than Windows, IIS, and SQL Server with unlimted licences."
PHP is really not a good choice for something you want to scale, Java is much better if you don't want to go down the Microsoft route. You only have to look at the issues Facebook have had with PHP and the way they've had to mangle it into compiled C++ to see why PHP isn't the greatest solution for large scale applications. PHP is great for getting sites up and running that wont be expected to scale massively, but beyond that I'd avoid it like the plague.
But fundamentally I can see why someone with a Microsoft background would want to stick with it, developing in ASP.NET, particularly with ASP.NET MVC is so incredibly easy to do in a way where code quality and code security is top notch that it's a reasonable choice. As I say though personally, for me, if I was doing it now, I'd go with Linux/Java to avoid dependence on Microsoft and because Java has a good track record of scaling, whereas .NET really doesn't have a large enough portfolio of such useage yet.
And I don't think you're reading what I'm saying:
"but beyond repairing it and restoring the product to the way it would be if you purchased it new and didn't have any problems they have no obligations to you at all."
This isn't entirely true, of for example you have to pay for postage to send a faulty product back that was faulty through no fault of your own and the company is deemed liable then by you can claim this back- the same goes for phone calls to premium rate lines and so forth they may require you to phone. But beyond that, most people value their time and whether there is an obligation or not the point is that it's good customer service that customers are compensated for lost time and inconvenience if a product failed through no fault of their own- that is, ignoring their obligations, it's still something they should do.
It absolutely is the company's fault the product broke, it is their responsibility to ensure they provide a product that is fit for purpose, and yes you're right, it's impossible to ensure this will always be the case but that's irrelevant, it's something they have to price into their product- dealing with knowing that there will at least be some faults.
This assertion:
"What the company is obligated to do is put it right, so you're at the same level as someone who got a working one off the bat."
Is completely wrong. Someone who got a working one off the bat didn't have to waste their time getting a repair/replacement, didn't have to waste their fuel driving to get a replacement, didn't have to waste money on a non-free support line phoning the firm up, and this is the fundamental point behind the concept of compensation as good customer service practice.
"However, don't think for one millisecond that you are *entitled* to them giving you anything extra than what is available to you when you purchased the product."
In many cases the courts would disagree, plenty of people who have really felt the need have compensated users for their time and money spent on getting a product fixed. The issue is that if people continue to accept that yeah, they're going to have to put up with having their time wasted with shitty products then it weakens this age old precedent and this is the problem we're facing nowadays, people like yourself willing to spend your own time and money getting something fixed.
"The money is in exchange for the product"
Herein lies the fundamental point, the money is in exchange for the product which, by law (in most countries at least) must be fit for purpose, if it has a design fault or fails within an unreasonable time period then it is not fit for purpose and while the customer has fulfilled his obligation in paying the money, the other party has not.
I guess it somewhat comes down to whether you value your time or not, personally I do because I have a lot of things to do, but if you've got more time than you know what to do with and don't value your time at all, then perhaps it's understandable you don't mind screwing around wasting time and potentially money getting a product you were sold that was faulty fixed. Obviously at least in the latest case, Microsoft understands that people do value their time, hence the compensation for the inconvenience of needing a console replacement.
Love or hate Windows, what you said is representative more of an anti-Microsoft meme than anything closely resembling fact.
Personally I'd go LAMP too, but I disagree that LAMP is easier to manage, and anymore portable to the cloud. On the contrary, from personal experience with this sort of thing I think Windows is easier to manage for sure and with Azure is definitely more easily portable to the cloud. The reason I wouldn't go Windows though is because for example if a critical security flaw in the web server or OS comes around then with FOSS you can get a fix quickly, whereas with Microsoft you're potentially left with a choice of being vulnerable, or taking your site offline, that's a disadvantage of proprietary in general for this kind of thing- you're too dependent on an external company to ensure your service is rock solid.
Final paragraph, page 2, seems pretty unambiguous:
"Finally, todayâ(TM)s science is capable, through genetic
manipulation, of re-creating a highly virulent smallpoxlike virus from a closely related poxvirus or even from scratch."
What am I missing? Simply the fact it says smallpox like rather than smallpox specifically?
"There's another name for that: being an entitled ass. Setting out with the mindset that the world owes you something for... being you, leads to that sort of attitude."
What the fuck are you on about? When you pay for a product you're entitled to that product, or are you really such a batshit crazy irrational Apple fanboy that you'd be willing to pay Apple £500 for a phone in a box only to find the phone wasn't in the box because nevermind, it's not like you're owed anything are you?
No, in the real world, when you get out of fanboy land, a purchase is a contract between you and the seller, the seller sells you a product with the understanding that it should meet certain expectations, if the product does not meet those expectations then yes, the seller certainly does fucking owe you.
Apple should compensate your for your inconvenience because it's their fault you were inconvenienced in selling you a product that simply did not meet the level of expectation any rational customer would have (hence why so many people did return their iPhone 4s once the antenna design fault was clear).
You can't claim Apple and Microsoft have done exactly what they are meant to do- Apple hasn't, it's done the bear minimum, in contrast Microsoft has done exactly what I suggested- compensated the customer for a mistake not of the customer's making.
It's really a sad reflection how badly fanboys like yourself are willing to throw away long established principles of good customer service to a company to which you owe nothing because they are merely there to make money off of you. The level of irrationality fanboys like yourself stoop to the point you're willing to actually lose out for the sake of defending your pet company is insane.
It's always been the case that the customer should get what they pay for- and that's a fault free product, and if it's not fault free, the company should rectify that and compensate for the customer having to go out their way. Stop being a 'tard and letting companies get away with trying to change that, when they fuck up the onus is on them to fix it and make it up to you. Just to illustrate another example and how irrational your argument is, consider you only have £25 in your bank, and you buy something for £20 but get double charged putting you £15 in the red, all many bad companies will do is refund you the £20 overcharge, but if you incur £25 fees for going overdrawn by your bank would you really not claim the £25 fees off them for forcing you overdrawn? would you really just foot the bill of inconvenience for their mistake because you "don't have a sense of entitlement" right?
"Oh but that's different". No, it's not. People like you are rational consumers worst enemy.
"Where do you get the impression that I "demand a low bar" from customer service?"
As I say, simply the fact that a company fixed a fault with your product. I'm not saying you're particularly out of the ordinary in being happy with this service- I'm saying this lowers the bar because they've simply done the bare minimum required of them when not only should they be resolving an issue, but should be compensating you for having to suffer the inconvenience of facing an issue you shouldn't have had to in the first place.
"Ok, so the external antenna is more susceptible to detuning than other phones (but it's not unique to the iPhone 4, or even the iPhone in general, just more extreme due to external antenna), and you claim they should have taken every single iPhone back and replaced it.... with what?"
Oh come off it, let's not stupid to the level of denial. It's been demonstrated time and time again that the iPhone 4 had a design fault, Apple muddied the waters with their official announcement, but there's no dispute here so stop trying to pretend that's the case, it's established fact that the iPhone 4 had a design fault. Note how car manufacturers deal with a similar thing- Toyota stuck car mats were replaced when Toyota could've simply said that happens with all cars (It certainly used to happen with my old Vauxhall corsa). Apple muddied the waters here and you may be right, new iPhone 4s still have the issue, but the solution should've been a redesign to eliminate the fault and issuing of fixed products to consumers.
"I think you're just looking for excuses to trash them."
Please, let's not stoop to fanboyism, it's just pathetic. My view is that consumers should be treated better than they are, and that by expecting the bare minimum you're letting corporations get away with things they shouldn't. Look, I know you're a big fan of Apple, but if you bought a product from someone like I don't know, say, HP, would you really be content if it had a flaw? Would you be content with a case for it that covered up the flaw? These devices are expensive and when you pay what you do for them you should be able to expect a product that has no flaws, and Apple makes enough profit that they should've had the courage to accept that they fucked up, and pay for replacement handsets for everyone.
As much as I'm not keen on praising Microsoft, and know it's almost like asking for a death sentence here, I think the latest news story posted here on Slashdot about some XBox 360s having a flaw from an update that prevents those consoles affected from playing new titles coming out from now on demonstrates my point- Microsoft are not only offering to replace the console, which is the bare minimum they should really do, but are giving a years free live subscription as compensation for the inconvenience- it's that extra step that is the difference between fulfilling your obligations as a firm and saying "Here, we fixed the problem", and saying "Sorry, we fucked up, let us make it up to you with compensation for inconveniencing you with our mistake".
Consumers deserve better, especially with the cost of many IT gadgets, if companies aren't pressured into compensating for mistakes and mistakes aren't costly for them, they'll make them more and more and care less about making sure products are perfect right out the door. Whether you're a fan of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, or whoever, this should still be the case.
"Again, by endless harping on "features" aren't you guilty of the slashdot mindset where technical features = only thing important."
Rubbish, that's not what I said, your implication is the opposite which is in fact the fact, in that you're trying to remove features from the argument altogether as if they're not a factor for anyone. Features are always going to be a factor, less important for some, more important for others, my point is that Apple had no ease of use benefit, had a worse featureset, but had more style and better brand recognition, hence it's likely that as Apple's product sold more, it was style that was the deciding factor for those people who bought Apple products. If you think featureset is not a factor in the slightest you're greatly mistaken, it is, for everyone, it's just not necessarily the most import factor for some- for many Apple purchasers it's style and brand recognition above all else.
"Do you remember when MP3 players first sold? Do you know how many manual steps it took to convert a CD to MP3s and then onto the player? Most geeks didn't really care. Consumers would care that it took a lot of steps because they would never use it. iTunes was the first free program I knew that reduced MP3 creation down to 1 step if you accepted the defaults (put in a CD). It took one step to get onto the player (plug in the cable). Over time Apple added little things like Gracenote DB and album cover downloads to remove any minutiae that consumers don't want to deal with. In time other programs made the necessary changes to do this."
Again, complete rubbish, Creative software made it just as easy. Using iTunes as an example of how Apple got the usability thing right is a joke right?
I agree Apple doesn't focus on features, I felt I made this quite clear, where we disagree is that your implication is that Apple wins on ease of use, where I disagree is that Apple ease of use is often merely a myth and iTunes is ample evidence of that. My view is that Apple sells, because Apple has created one of the worlds top fashion brands, and sells products that look very nice. They're viewed as the Armani, the Gucci of the technology world- their products may often be quirky, may not necessarily even be the comfiest, may not actually last as well as budget competitors, but their brand recognition and style wins the day for them in terms of profitability.
Whilst I agree for the customers Apple has managed to gather features aren't important, again, what we really can't say is that that's the case for most people because we simply don't know- again there are so many people who don't buy Apple but could that it's perfectly feasible that even the average person puts features as a priority. I know it's a popular argument to suggest that features are a geek only thing here on Slashdot but it's an argument for which there is no evidence. Unless you can come forward with an objective representative study that shows that for most users, features for IT gadgets comes far down the list of desirables on a gadget then you cannot say that, it's complete speculation.
In pretty much all markets Apple is involved in it is actually a minority player with portable media players being one of the only real exceptions. People repeatedly make assertions based on Apple's popularity which are nonsensical to make based on Apple's market position. To suggest for example that the iPhone did well because features are unimportant to most people doesn't make a lot of sense when far more feature filled phones are being sold in far greater number- all you can really say is that there is an underserved market of people who like simple devices hence why the iPhone has sold well, but you cannot say that this group of people is representative of the majority, when the majority do not buy the iPhone.
The fundamental problem is you're still talking about the average consumer, yet here's an extremely important fact- the average consumer does NOT buy Apple, not even close, because Apple's marketshare in almost all it'
Seeing as half the world's business are still built on VB6 then yes, it'd have been a good thing, because it'd mean there was finally hope in creating something that'd pull them away from that unstable, poorly scalable fuckup of a technology.
Contrary to that, many Apple fans fail to acknowledge that things like the wheel concept was already present in the likes of the Creative Zen before the iPod was even announced with the only difference being the likes of the Zen used a side scrolling wheel rather than front scrolling but you could still click it in.
The iPod was another example of Apple doing what it does best- playing on style, and without question, the iPod was pretty fucking stylish, and you know what? there's even a damn good example of this being the case- when Apple released the "fat" nano, sales plummeted for the device because it simply wasn't as stylish, leading to Apple reverting to the previous style design the next generation, where sales of the nano picked up again. The featureset hadn't really changed, but the style had, and to Apple's target consumers that was all important. The fact is many of the iPod competitors were just as easy to use, had far better featuresets but my god were they ugly.
The usability argument is often brought up with Apple and whilst their devices are easy to use, I really struggle to see how it applies overall, as there's simply no way iTunes can be classed as a good example of usability and when users are forced to go via it as a gatekeeper to their devices all too often I don't think it's a rational argument that Apple devices sell because of usability- if usability was a problem and they needed simplified devices they'd never make it past iTunes in the first place.
But perhaps what's most annoying with Apple fans is how they harp on about how many people use some Apple product, how there's 200 million iPod users, and 50 million iPhone users or whatever, right, that's great, but it also means there's over 6.5 billion people who don't use Apple's phone or music player, many of those because it's out of their reach of course, but you can be rest assured that there are still hundreds of millions in that remaining 6.5 billion who could buy Apple, but simply choose not to. We can't say how many people have been turned away from Apple because they don't like it's style, it's usability, but similarly we also can't say things like "To an average consumer Apple's products are superior", because given the numbers, it's perfectly feasible that the average consumer doesn't in fact choose Apple. It's stupid to make assertions that only geeks talk down and dislike Apple and so forth, by virtue of the fact that we simply do not know that's true, and for some reason or another, hundreds of millions of people who could afford, and could choose Apple, don't.
Following the religion example from TFA, it's like saying Christianity has 2.1bn followers so the average person is a Christian- well no, the 1.5bn muslims + 1.1bn atheists + 0.9bn hindus amongst others would rather disagree with such a statement.
I'm not sure what country you're in but here in the UK and much of Europe due to strong consumer protection laws none of those things would be classed as a company going out of it's way, but in fact sensible solutions to fulfil their obligations under those laws.
In the first case, they will have sent you an ethernet card simply because they have an obligation to repair, replace, or refund for the system, and sending you the card is undoubtedly the cheapest option for them if you're happy with it. They haven't gone out their way here- it'd be more expensive for them to spend engineer time fixing it, more expensive to replace the whole system, and more expensive to refund you for the system. They did what was best for them.
Similarly replacing an iBook 3 days out of warranty is something they'd realistically have to do in the UK/Europe too, under the consumer protection act in the UK for example for the first 6 months from purchase a firm has to provide a refund, a repair, or a replacement for a faulty product and if they do not wish to honour this must prove the fault was caused by misuse by the user. After the 6 months the obligation switches to the user to prove the fault occured through normal usage and this applies for the reasonable lifetime of the product, which, for products such as expensive laptops has been deemed to be as much as 5 years. Most companies wont contest this and force the user to prove otherwise because something as simple as a written letter by a qualified electrician at a repair shop confirming no user damage would be enough to make them lose their case at more expense to them.
It's a sad example of the state of customer service when you see the things you state as examples of good customer service, when frankly they're the bare minimum a company should do. Good customer service is going above and beyond to show the customer you're actually sorry something went wrong, like not just replacing a laptop that failed as early as 3 days post-warranty, but then giving you some money, store vouchers, or free additional item or similar to make up for the fact the product failed so early when frankly it should not have.
It's also sad that you dismiss issues of the likes of Magsafe power adapters or whatever catching fire as users yanking them out the wall when it's well documented that this is not the case, and similarly dismiss scratches on products that shouldn't scratch so easily as a user issue.
Whether it's Apple or any other company, it's people like you accepting such a low bar of customer service that allows companies to get away with things like this, get away with initially telling users they're holding it wrong and issuing of a free case eventually, and get away with such a low bar of customer service in general. When people like you put up with such crap responses companies are bound to be happy to get away with it- realistically when the iPhone 4 attenna issue came around Apple should've replaced each and every affected handset for free and should've reached out to users to do so, because it was a brand new product with a clear defect but with fanboys refusing to accept fault with their new shiny again, the bar of customer service was once again lowered.
Any idea what people like this are on about then? -
http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/17/4/pdfs/681.pdf
Plenty of people who are experts in the field seem to have a similar view in that Smallpox can likely be created from scratch, and certainly be created as a modification of an existing virus. Are you saying these people with many years experience in the field are all wrong?
I'm not an expert in the field so can't be certain either way, but I'm a little loathe to believe those who are experts in the field are definitely wrong, and a suggestion that they're so wrong as to be the case that we're 10 years off from such technology and understanding seems a little unlikely to me.
There was trend in Europe some years back with phones where smaller was cooler. Back then we had phones that absolutely dwarfed the bricks (slang for large phones) companies are chucking out now. Obviously the increase in phone size now is partly out of necessity, you need a bigger phone for a reasonable sized touch screen for it to be useful for example, but ultimately SIM size was never a limiting factor back then, and there's no reason it would possible be a limiting factor now.
This is almost certainly about creating artificial incompatibility to try and increase lock in by making sure your SIM wont work in anything else as nothing else will support this non-standard SIM form factor.
The issue is that Smallpox is a particularly contagious, particularly deadly virus.
The danger is that of accidental release, either through human error, or natural disaster, or even non-accidental release through malice or terrorism.
The argument against keeping it is that if we really needed to, we could reproduce it from scratch, like we did the 1918 influenza, because smallpox is fully DNA sequenced and we thus have the technology to bring it back, hence there should really be no need to store live samples. The only argument for keeping it is perhaps that you save time in not having to recreate it but we know how to make vaccines for existing strains anyway, and any engineered recreation of the virus would likely be different enough that existing samples would be no more useful than existing knowledge and of course, far less useful than simply using a sample of the new strain which could be easily acquired on infection and hence that argument really doesn't hold water.
You mention that nukes pose a bigger threat, yet smallpox has killed an order of magnitude more people than nukes have- I'd recommend actually looking up how bad smallpox actually was, certainly much worse than things like the stupid swine flu epidemic.
I agree it's likely a non-issue, but I don't think it can be dismissed as something to completely ignore as easily as you have. Realistically no matter how small a threat it is to peoples lives, it's still a threat, and one that can be mitigated with really no side effects due to the fact it can be reproduced if really needed anyway. In other words, the US and Russian government are keeping the risk of accidental release alive, and no matter how small that risk, it's still a risk that in this day and age is utterly unnecessary.
So it's simply down to whether or not you think it's worth keeping a risk a risk no matter how small unnecessarily for no reason other than what is arguably simply just penis waving.
But it's not 75%, that implies Europe and North America are the only countries who share the credit system we're used to and nowhere else in the world does, which is completely and utterly wrong.
The fact India alone with 17% of the world's population also uses the same mechanism crushes such an assertion:
http://www.cibil.com/
The lengths people like you go to to avoid admitting you are wrong is quite impressive. You must truly believe you're infallible or some such ludicrous thing.
Right, so what you're saying is if you remove around a quarter of the world's population from your original statement then you're right?
You know, if I remove every country except Canada and the US from the list of countries in the world and say "Every country in the world is in North America" then that's true as well, but it's equally retarded a statement.
It's quite amusing that you would spend so long typing a lengthy response when in reality all you needed to say was "Okay, well, maybe I overstated it originally in implying it was a problem fairly unique to the US".
I'm not sure why you think I'm agreeing with you, I'm disagreeing quite clearly with your original statement, which you've desperately tried to weasel out of without actually having the balls to simply admit you were wrong. There are a lot of people like you on Slashdot who cannot merely accept that maybe, just maybe, you were a little over the top, or maybe you didn't check your facts first, you are boring, tiresome, and you make Slashdot shit. Congratulations on that.