Most of my info is third hand from Americans I've met abroad in Asia (I'm from Australia). Interesting that, moderate republicans tend to own customer service businesses (hotels, bars, cafe's) whilst moderate democrats tend to have less public facing income streams (stocks, term deposits), nice people the lot of them. Never met an extreme republican or extreme democrat in the flesh, they must come from somewhere as you get batshit insane posts on/. and other forums where Americans congregate.
Wait, sorry, did I get off track with a libertarian fantasy?
I'd never have described a mad max-esque post apocalypse world as "libertarian".
A libertarian utopia would be more like Starship Troopers (book or movie, the depiction of society is about the only thing they have in common). Everyone competes in a system without restrictions and it some how does not result in a concentration of power (say like a monopoly).
As this link pointed out, it's difficult to do an accurate study because Canada considers more crimes to be violent.
The best measurements are deaths by firearms (incl, accidents and suicide) as well as murder by firearms to be correlated with total murders (all per capita). These definitions dont leave much room for interpretation.
BTW, I'm pro gun ownership and pro gun restriction. I have no issue with anyone owning a firearm so long as you can prove you're of sound mind and know how to use/store the damn thing safely.
I often find it frustrating to engage in a debate about gun rights because of the double-speak and manipulated statistics from both sides.
I agree here, the extremists on both sides tend to polarise the discussion. Personally I dont believe more guns == less crime as there are too many other factors. As to gun crime, it's all about attitude, a bad gun culture leads to more firearm injuries/deaths where as a good gun culture leads to less. I feel that a bad gun culture is more of a problem then firearm availability in the US.
All the news companies are populated by lying sacks of shit (yes, even NPR). Why does FOX get singled out?
Because they are the smelliest bag of shit.
When I bring up the subject of Fox news, every American I talk to tells me that MSNBC is just as bad. Well I cant say as I've never seen it (Probably because those lefty, eco-nazi's turn off the TV when they leave the room).
Seriously, I'd rather watch the BBC, at least they separate news from editorial (commentary) content (BBC News is for factual news, BBC World is for cometary).
re: massively overpriced tech stock: the stock market is rarely right when everyone has jumped the same bandwagon.
Exactly right,
Every financial analyst/trader I know has come to the same conclusion I have, Apple is in a boom or economic bubble. The stock is vastly out of sync with the companies actual value. This kind of thing is quite common in the financial sector, even in the tech sector (remember the.com boom). The thing about bubbles is that they always bust, no avoiding this (remember the.com bust). The Apple bust (iBust?) is bound to happen as soon as speculators feel the boom has peaked and start to sell (which is how most stock busts happen). With APPL stock not paying divs, investors will be more likely to jump ship.
In my view, Apple is the only company focusing on the user experience
Nope, this just proves you've fallen victim to the marketing.
Marketing is more important then anything else. This is the single biggest thing holding back Linux adoption. Microsoft does not market to you, the end users because they do not have to. MS's core business is Operating Systems, they market to CIO's, procurement managers and OEM's because in the final analysis the end user will use at home, what they use at work and that remains Microsoft Windows with Microsoft Office. By the same token, Apple markets at you, it's not the device that makes you feel special but the marketing.
Secondly, "User Experience" is a meaningless marketing term. By it's own definition (how a user feels about a system), it's unquantifiable (due to the fact it's entirely subjective, based on emotion) thus useless as a measurement (due to no common point of reference between test subjects). This makes it the perfect marketing term because if you have a different "user experience" your perception was wrong, not the system. Please Note: User Experience is not HCI/HMI or usability design, those are quantifiable disciplines, User Experience is a marketing catch-all phrase that avoids any real commitment. I've got a long list of problems with OSX's and IOS's usability not the least of which is no task bar/poor task switching (OSX, doesn't exist on IOS) and over-reliance on modal popups/dialogues (IOS).
The users we speak of here are not slashdot readers, they are the general public.
Lets be honest, the general public are sheep. They'll use what they're told to. If we, the geeks of/. dont make some decisions then the decisions will be forced on us by far less scrupulous organisations. Also I dont know about you but I tend to have enormous sway in what tech my friends buy (maybe that's because I analyse their needs and present them with a variety of good options rather then just frothing "buy Apple" at them). Please re read my first paragraph for further clarification on this phenomena, people use what they use at work (because as many Apple fanboys will point out, people like simple and handling multiple OS's isn't simple).
It's really cute that you think that:) It's like you've never heard of criminals. Naiveté can be so adorable!
Well I do live somewhere where I feel perfectly safe without weapons (and in a land with the 10 most dangerous animals on earth, petty criminals dont scare you much after that).
someone always profits from coughing up data, especialy customer data
But this is a good thing, if anything it should be more expensive (and the customer should get a cut, if we lived in a fair world) as to discourage the activity.
If this becomes standard government policy that means I can rob or kill any Australian citizen I want, as long as they're not in the government or military.
Don't know how you figured that one out.
If you break into the network of the Westpac bank, you will still be charged under the relevant law, all this states is that it is Westpac's responsibility to prevent you from doing so.
By the same token, if you try to kill or rob me you'll have to deal with the punishments under relevant law. Also, we dont just hand out guns in this nation so you'll have to get mighty close to do it which means I can fight back. Now I wont kill you but you will learn that within 3 hours drive of my city is a barren wilderness full of poisonous snakes, spiders, 40 C heat, not much water and no one around for miles... A few reckless tourists die there each year, so y'all have a real nice day now.
About time the/. notion of "get the gubbermit out of the way" was actually useful. Corporate security is the companies responsibility, it's up to the company to ensure that nothing damaging happens to their physical property (by installing security cameras, screening staff, guards and so forth) why should network security be any different? It isn't ASIO (Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation) or the AFP's (Australian Federal Police) job to secure a corporate network. The Attorney Generals department (where this article came from) may set a security standard, but it's up to an individual company to follow it.
Good thing, we've already got enough nutbars in politics trying to erect some kind of "shield" around the intertubes.
Yes Dr Conroy, I said "erect", you insecure tosser.
Here is what we do. get a bunch of people with a terminal disease that gives them 20 years or so of life left. Or the entire viewing audience of Jersey Shore. Put them on a 1 way rocket to Mars with a crap load of Cheetoes and snack foods. Throw in Lohan as a plaything, she's too cracked out to even notice these days...
No, these kind of things never turn out well. in every sci-fi movie always the exiles return for vengeance. Frankly the idea of Empress Lohan I of Mars or Praise be to Snookie day is too scary to contemplate.
just because someone points out the ineptitude of the IPCC
By ineptitude the OP means they found a few typo's and one date transposed. It's not like the IPCC report was updated once the typo's were found... oh yeah, it was.
Right, and that attitude has really killed Apple's computer products.. Oh wait, perhaps not.:)
Perhaps we forget our history, the now defunct Apple Computers?
Apple Inc is making the same mistakes as Apple Computers, Apple Computers made three big mistakes:
1. Made something that was expensive and not any better then its competitors, they called it the Lisa and was built because one man dictated how everything should work.
2. Isolated their core audience, the Lisa got hackers offside, so they switched to the new IBM offerings and businesses went with them.
3. Sued Microsoft using a dubious suit when they could not compete.
Now Apple Inc made mistake #1 already, they learned from mistake number #2 but picked the wrong audience, the "in" crowd are a fickle bunch which will change their minds as soon as the next big thing(TM) comes along and they've thrown themselves head first into #3 by suing HTC. This last reason says it all, Apple is unable to compete with other manufacturers so they are suing them to prevent anyone else from getting a competitive advantage and ultimately its a losing battle as 1. HTC is Taiwanese and can tell Apple and US laws to sod off (Europe, Asia and China are larger markets then the US) and 2. Apple will have to sue everyone in the end.
Apple users are used to paying for costly proprietary applications, so of course there is a better revenue opportunity.
Revenue != Profit, important lesson there. You need to make sure that you've made more money then you've spent.
If you've marketed a product, it needs to meet a release date. With Apple you cant control things like that, they have obscure rules, bad days and a myriad of other strange reasons why your application can be rejected, if you're going to put money into development, you at least want some assurance about release. But right now, money is starting to head towards Android because Android is selling 200,000 units a day and 75% of iphone4 owners had Iphone 3G/S's.
I just find it so disgusting that there are so many developers all of a sudden interested in making money from their code.
Everyone's got to eat. Yes I dislike the "monetising" that seems to be going on as well but I cant change that fact people need money. It's only a matter of time before the big boys move in and take over the app store, then it's back to BAU (which means coding for a weekly paycheck from someone else who makes the profit).
It seems Apple is doing more to destroy the environment created by the open source community than any other company...
Cue the fanboys saying otherwise...
I agree with you, Apple seems to have a distinctly anti-OSS agenda. To add insult to injury, almost all their products use OSS as a base except they use BSD licenses rather then GPL so they dont have to contribute back.
That is completely retarded. Of course you still need to market your application unless you want it lost in the sea of mediocrity that is the ITMS and the Android marketplace
There are simply too many similar applications, you can't just expect users to automagically find and install your application. You need to market it and make sure people can find it when they are looking for the functionality your application provides
My mom and other relatives are always giving me shit on Facebook about getting a job, and pointing out how my cousin is doing so much better than me. So while we're making it illegal to criticize governments, can we also make it illegal to criticize individuals? I really feel like a lot of people are being ideologically aggressive towards me
Well maybe you should get a job, then you wouldn't have time to fell crap about being criticised on Facebook.
And before someone says that you'd kill the auto industry by not giving them their money for cars... open-source hasn't killed closed
Even if it does, it wont kill the market.
Most of us could build our own toaster, but most of them will still pay someone else to manufacture it for them because that effort has value (even if just saving their time). The idea that open sourcing something makes it automatically lose value ignores the fact that people will still be willing to pay for open source to be provided to them.
If the money is there, a service (business) will expand to take it.
has worked with local Jewish leaders, and has been consistently advocating for peace between Islamic nations and the West throughout his career.
Historically, Islam and Judaism never had a conflict until Israel was created. Under the crusades it was the Christians who persecuted the Jews whilst the Muslims let them live in peace in Islamic controlled cities.
All the Jews and Muslims I know both comment on how futile and stupid it is to fight over an essentially worthless strip of land (Israel and Palestine have no natural resources).
It's good to hear about 9/11. Now, how many Muslims denounce death penalty for apostasy?
Ummm... how many Muslim nations have that?
One (Saudi) and maybe two (Iran, although that's not really used). The majority of Muslims live in Asia and in the worlds largest Muslim nation, Indonesia they can easily join the other religions prevalent in Indo (Christianity and Buddhism), Same with Malaysia, Brunei, and Turkey (not Asian, but still).
You generalise about an entire people by using their worst example as their pinnacle, it would be like me saying all Russians are sadistic tyrants who enjoy torturing people like Stalin.
Actually meet some Muslims from Asia, they'll change your opinion of Islam.
Slashdot Mirror
12 pt font for shirts sold in Europe, 20 pt font for shirts sold in America.
Most of my info is third hand from Americans I've met abroad in Asia (I'm from Australia). Interesting that, moderate republicans tend to own customer service businesses (hotels, bars, cafe's) whilst moderate democrats tend to have less public facing income streams (stocks, term deposits), nice people the lot of them. Never met an extreme republican or extreme democrat in the flesh, they must come from somewhere as you get batshit insane posts on /. and other forums where Americans congregate.
I'd never have described a mad max-esque post apocalypse world as "libertarian".
A libertarian utopia would be more like Starship Troopers (book or movie, the depiction of society is about the only thing they have in common). Everyone competes in a system without restrictions and it some how does not result in a concentration of power (say like a monopoly).
As this link pointed out, it's difficult to do an accurate study because Canada considers more crimes to be violent.
The best measurements are deaths by firearms (incl, accidents and suicide) as well as murder by firearms to be correlated with total murders (all per capita). These definitions dont leave much room for interpretation.
BTW, I'm pro gun ownership and pro gun restriction. I have no issue with anyone owning a firearm so long as you can prove you're of sound mind and know how to use/store the damn thing safely.
I agree here, the extremists on both sides tend to polarise the discussion. Personally I dont believe more guns == less crime as there are too many other factors. As to gun crime, it's all about attitude, a bad gun culture leads to more firearm injuries/deaths where as a good gun culture leads to less. I feel that a bad gun culture is more of a problem then firearm availability in the US.
The sixrd deployment?
Because they are the smelliest bag of shit.
When I bring up the subject of Fox news, every American I talk to tells me that MSNBC is just as bad. Well I cant say as I've never seen it (Probably because those lefty, eco-nazi's turn off the TV when they leave the room).
Seriously, I'd rather watch the BBC, at least they separate news from editorial (commentary) content (BBC News is for factual news, BBC World is for cometary).
Exactly right,
.com boom). The thing about bubbles is that they always bust, no avoiding this (remember the .com bust). The Apple bust (iBust?) is bound to happen as soon as speculators feel the boom has peaked and start to sell (which is how most stock busts happen). With APPL stock not paying divs, investors will be more likely to jump ship.
Every financial analyst/trader I know has come to the same conclusion I have, Apple is in a boom or economic bubble. The stock is vastly out of sync with the companies actual value. This kind of thing is quite common in the financial sector, even in the tech sector (remember the
Nope, this just proves you've fallen victim to the marketing.
Marketing is more important then anything else. This is the single biggest thing holding back Linux adoption. Microsoft does not market to you, the end users because they do not have to. MS's core business is Operating Systems, they market to CIO's, procurement managers and OEM's because in the final analysis the end user will use at home, what they use at work and that remains Microsoft Windows with Microsoft Office. By the same token, Apple markets at you, it's not the device that makes you feel special but the marketing.
Secondly, "User Experience" is a meaningless marketing term. By it's own definition (how a user feels about a system), it's unquantifiable (due to the fact it's entirely subjective, based on emotion) thus useless as a measurement (due to no common point of reference between test subjects). This makes it the perfect marketing term because if you have a different "user experience" your perception was wrong, not the system. Please Note: User Experience is not HCI/HMI or usability design, those are quantifiable disciplines, User Experience is a marketing catch-all phrase that avoids any real commitment. I've got a long list of problems with OSX's and IOS's usability not the least of which is no task bar/poor task switching (OSX, doesn't exist on IOS) and over-reliance on modal popups/dialogues (IOS).
Lets be honest, the general public are sheep. They'll use what they're told to. If we, the geeks of /. dont make some decisions then the decisions will be forced on us by far less scrupulous organisations. Also I dont know about you but I tend to have enormous sway in what tech my friends buy (maybe that's because I analyse their needs and present them with a variety of good options rather then just frothing "buy Apple" at them). Please re read my first paragraph for further clarification on this phenomena, people use what they use at work (because as many Apple fanboys will point out, people like simple and handling multiple OS's isn't simple).
Well I do live somewhere where I feel perfectly safe without weapons (and in a land with the 10 most dangerous animals on earth, petty criminals dont scare you much after that).
But this is a good thing, if anything it should be more expensive (and the customer should get a cut, if we lived in a fair world) as to discourage the activity.
Sorry, I got him confused with another Dr Conroy... not an uncommon name.
Don't know how you figured that one out.
If you break into the network of the Westpac bank, you will still be charged under the relevant law, all this states is that it is Westpac's responsibility to prevent you from doing so.
By the same token, if you try to kill or rob me you'll have to deal with the punishments under relevant law. Also, we dont just hand out guns in this nation so you'll have to get mighty close to do it which means I can fight back. Now I wont kill you but you will learn that within 3 hours drive of my city is a barren wilderness full of poisonous snakes, spiders, 40 C heat, not much water and no one around for miles... A few reckless tourists die there each year, so y'all have a real nice day now.
here, here.
/. notion of "get the gubbermit out of the way" was actually useful. Corporate security is the companies responsibility, it's up to the company to ensure that nothing damaging happens to their physical property (by installing security cameras, screening staff, guards and so forth) why should network security be any different? It isn't ASIO (Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation) or the AFP's (Australian Federal Police) job to secure a corporate network. The Attorney Generals department (where this article came from) may set a security standard, but it's up to an individual company to follow it.
About time the
Good thing, we've already got enough nutbars in politics trying to erect some kind of "shield" around the intertubes.
Yes Dr Conroy, I said "erect", you insecure tosser.
Pattaya, the sex tourism capital of the world grew up around the US military base at U-Tapao, Thailand in the 60's and 70's.
Angeles City, the next biggest sex tourism destination grew up around the Clarke AFB in Pampanga, Philippines in the 70's and 80's.
As far an an industry goes, prostitution gets a lot from the Military (ahem, I mean income wise).
Well perhaps we can order some Hesco Bastions and make one.
No, these kind of things never turn out well. in every sci-fi movie always the exiles return for vengeance. Frankly the idea of Empress Lohan I of Mars or Praise be to Snookie day is too scary to contemplate.
By ineptitude the OP means they found a few typo's and one date transposed. It's not like the IPCC report was updated once the typo's were found... oh yeah, it was.
Perhaps we forget our history, the now defunct Apple Computers?
Apple Inc is making the same mistakes as Apple Computers, Apple Computers made three big mistakes:
1. Made something that was expensive and not any better then its competitors, they called it the Lisa and was built because one man dictated how everything should work.
2. Isolated their core audience, the Lisa got hackers offside, so they switched to the new IBM offerings and businesses went with them.
3. Sued Microsoft using a dubious suit when they could not compete.
Now Apple Inc made mistake #1 already, they learned from mistake number #2 but picked the wrong audience, the "in" crowd are a fickle bunch which will change their minds as soon as the next big thing(TM) comes along and they've thrown themselves head first into #3 by suing HTC. This last reason says it all, Apple is unable to compete with other manufacturers so they are suing them to prevent anyone else from getting a competitive advantage and ultimately its a losing battle as 1. HTC is Taiwanese and can tell Apple and US laws to sod off (Europe, Asia and China are larger markets then the US) and 2. Apple will have to sue everyone in the end.
Revenue != Profit, important lesson there. You need to make sure that you've made more money then you've spent.
If you've marketed a product, it needs to meet a release date. With Apple you cant control things like that, they have obscure rules, bad days and a myriad of other strange reasons why your application can be rejected, if you're going to put money into development, you at least want some assurance about release. But right now, money is starting to head towards Android because Android is selling 200,000 units a day and 75% of iphone4 owners had Iphone 3G/S's.
Everyone's got to eat. Yes I dislike the "monetising" that seems to be going on as well but I cant change that fact people need money. It's only a matter of time before the big boys move in and take over the app store, then it's back to BAU (which means coding for a weekly paycheck from someone else who makes the profit).
Cue the fanboys saying otherwise... I agree with you, Apple seems to have a distinctly anti-OSS agenda. To add insult to injury, almost all their products use OSS as a base except they use BSD licenses rather then GPL so they dont have to contribute back.
That is completely retarded. Of course you still need to market your application unless you want it lost in the sea of mediocrity that is the ITMS and the Android marketplace
There are simply too many similar applications, you can't just expect users to automagically find and install your application. You need to market it and make sure people can find it when they are looking for the functionality your application provides
Well maybe you should get a job, then you wouldn't have time to fell crap about being criticised on Facebook.
I would never dare to infringe upon your right to have furry sleeves.
Even if it does, it wont kill the market.
Most of us could build our own toaster, but most of them will still pay someone else to manufacture it for them because that effort has value (even if just saving their time). The idea that open sourcing something makes it automatically lose value ignores the fact that people will still be willing to pay for open source to be provided to them.
If the money is there, a service (business) will expand to take it.
To the GP, Get back to us when you've managed to accomplish 1/8th of anything Stallman has done.
Like him or not, he's a man who lives by his convictions and that's a damn rare thing today.
Historically, Islam and Judaism never had a conflict until Israel was created. Under the crusades it was the Christians who persecuted the Jews whilst the Muslims let them live in peace in Islamic controlled cities.
All the Jews and Muslims I know both comment on how futile and stupid it is to fight over an essentially worthless strip of land (Israel and Palestine have no natural resources).
Ummm... how many Muslim nations have that? One (Saudi) and maybe two (Iran, although that's not really used). The majority of Muslims live in Asia and in the worlds largest Muslim nation, Indonesia they can easily join the other religions prevalent in Indo (Christianity and Buddhism), Same with Malaysia, Brunei, and Turkey (not Asian, but still).
You generalise about an entire people by using their worst example as their pinnacle, it would be like me saying all Russians are sadistic tyrants who enjoy torturing people like Stalin.
Actually meet some Muslims from Asia, they'll change your opinion of Islam.