While it's all too chic right now to bag on the US and the UK for their positions on the upcoming war on Iraq, the Patriot Act, and other debatable topics, I hope everyone takes a deep breath and realizes that the very fact that we are debating these topics proves the openness of these societies.
Anyone who gives serious thought about lumping the US in with these authoritarian dictatorships has obviously never been to said countries.
I turn 35 in two weeks, and that makes me eligible for the White House. Let's start a party-- If elected, I promise:
subsidized wireless access for everyone in an urban area who pays more than $100/year in farm subsidies to the rural states
open source usage in gov't systems
selling the space shuttle to boeing or cathay pacific, whoever bids higher
will take corporate donations only via anonymous paypal contributions-- if they believe in our platform, they can give us money-- but it won't get them a night in the white house dorm room
This is simply revisionist history, looking for evil-doers after the whole thing happened.
1. IBM also supplied computing power to the US Army, who in turn used those computers to build the Atomic Bomb. Was IBM consiously supplying both sides of the war or merely fulfilling requests from their customers? (I know the US Army came to the door in uniform, but did the Nazis? I doubt it, I also doubt that IBM sold the machines to them after 1937)
2. Nazi use of the Hollerith machines just _happened_ to be the way they did things-- the atrocities could have been just as bad: The Rwandan genocide of 1994 used machetes and finger pointing amongst neighbors. No computers anywhere; yet the killing ratio (within the time allotted) was much higher than the Nazis' horrors against their Jewish, Catholic, Gay, and Gypsy minorities.
I've recently spent some time with Nokia engineers, and they all had the hip-top communicators. Certainly they seemed very functional, but these engineers all still carried laptops-- the hiptop stuff was really suped-up text messenging and maybe some email.
The flipside were the belt-cases they wore to carry the things around. Definite geek-factor there, both good and bad.
Don't get me wrong-- I think the correct approach is to keep adding things to phones rather than stripping things off computers. Open Source taught us that lesson. But the ergonomics and design 'cool' factor needs some work.
Does it not strike anyone else that this community freaks out everytime some gov't or other official entity even *hints* at limiting someone's GPL half-baked scheme, yet the same community practically screams for blood when one of those half-baked schemes involves spam?
I hate social engineering-- except for those policies against the people I don't like...
Your entire argument depends on a 'zero-sum' view of wealth: there is only so much gold on the planet, and for every ounce that China gains, the US, Germany, France, or someone must lose an ounce.
However, that is simply not true. Wealth is measured many different ways: cost-of-living, purchase ability, GDP, etc. And economics are founded on a virtual platform: money. All currencies are completely artificial (since the dollar left the Gold standard in 1972). As such, the total wealth of the planet can grow (or shrink) without any direct tie to a physical asset (theoretically).
In direct reference to your comment: just because China's arrow is pointed up (for the moment), and the West's is pointed down (for the moment), don't assume doomsday. In reality, All those Chinese shipping companies, manufacturers, etc. are financed by New Yorkers, Londoners, and anyone else who wants to buy stock. This can only benefit the bottom line: as labor becomes more efficient (by finding cheaper workers in China), then products become cheaper, and your purchasing power increases: because a computer only takes 5% of your salary, instead of 25%, you now have 20% to spend on candy and pr0n.
Eventually (hopefully), the Chinese WILL be just as rich as the West. Then there won't be any real reason to point missiles at each other, and ther will be 1B people to buy more stuff.
This was predicted some time back. The retail cost of a PC wasdropping toward $400, and some said that it was ludicrous that the office suite software should cost more than the whole computer itself. As that price approaches $400 ($199 anyone?), the retailers are doing just as they should: shaving of the pricey bits in order to gain marketshare through lower pricing.
Soon enough, OpenOffice (at no cost) will be adopted widely by the big retailers. If AOL were smart, they would switch their business model to not only be an ISP, but an application support clearance venue: AOLOffice, AOLCalendar, AOLFoo all rolled into your $19/month.
There's a number of problems with this comment. I'll take them in order:
A lot of people can see how the institutions that try to impose software and copying restrictions choke off freedom in the USA Actually, the jury is still out on this one. The debate over what is 'okay' to copy (grama's recipe for cookies, GPL software, shareware) and what is 'not okay' (copyrighted music, proprietary software) is still raging.
but those economic forces and pressures will eventually reach China when they come into the information age too. It wouldn't be hard to argue that Southern and Coastal China are already there.
China's government will not be so restrained, and it could easially lead to a brutal or even genocidal crackdown when it comes to billions of people and trillions of dollars in intellectual property controlls. No. You cannot have it both ways-- if China is so wreckless with their citizen's lives, then it is doubtful they will ever have 'control' over 'trillions' in IP. Conversely, if China ever does figure out schemes to tax/issue/control intelectual property within it's state, then those same institutions would force a certain level of transparency that would prevent human rights abuses. Granted, pirates, grafters, and extortionists are taken out and shot as examples once in a while-- but you have to put that in context: these guys were ususally stealing state property.
For the USA to insist that China impose strong intellectual property controlls inspite of it's culture to the contrary is outright reckless and irresponsible. So, you're saying that it is reckless of the USA to demand IP controls on American IP-- just because China's "culture" likes to copy things? Since when? Is there a thousands-year tradition of copying things in China? Bullshit. The USG can demand whatever it wants from foreign companies handling US assets-- if those countries don't want to play by the rules coming from Washington, then the US can either 1) scream and not trade anymore, 2) complain to the WTO, 3) Impose sanctions, 4) send the gunboats.
The freedom to copy is one of the last glimmers of freedom in an otherwise militant police state. IMHO we are setting ourselves up to swallow some bitter Chineese medicine. Aah, yes-- the Freedom to Copy. Where is that written down again? The US Constitution? The UN Charter? Or just RMS' bathroom wall? grow up. The freedom to copy is spurious at best (see above reference to the debate still raging).
That's a funny crack at the US, but it's simply not true. The US holds more Nobel Prizes for sciences than any other country. The secondary school test scores could use some improvement, but University-level education is considered one of the highest in the world.
On the other hand, if your crack was some sort of political snipe at the US, then fine-- but it's funny how most people are really trying hard to get to the US.
India has had 'the bomb' for probably 15+ years. They only recently detonated one to scare the shiat out of Pakistan, and Pakistan was obliged to respond.
India is not a concern against attacking the US (or Europe) because there is no motivation to (just like there is no motivation for France, Germany, Japan, UK, Brazil or a few others with nukes to attack the West).
Threats need three things: * weapons * delivery system * motivation
Most western democracies have the first two, but lack the third. Many countries have the motivation, but lack either the weapons or the delivery. When viewed through this lens-- it is easy (albeit simplistic) to view US diplomacy as eliminating at least one of the ingredients from a percieved threat.
A common argument in populist economics is that jobs go to the third world because of lower labor costs. Others counter this argument that it is unskilled labor, and that high-end technologically advanced labor stays within 'advanced' economies (US, Europe, Japan).
So-- is this a case that disproves the counterargument-- that even 'skilled' labor industries can skip to the third world, or is it an indictment against the regulatory pressures/infrastructure costs of trying to launch something under a US/EU umbrella?
There is clearly a glut of satellite launching capacity, yet prices have remained high because?
1. 'additional features' will not really amount to that much, and websites will back off of using them (witness the standardization and stipping-down of websites in general compared to two years ago)
2. M$ might just pull something heinous in it's usage licenses, which will become much worse that what the market is currently tollerating
3a. Linux may make some headway on the desktop (hey-- 10% by the next year?)
3b. Apache will not be able to keep up with the features, which will cause managers to question #1 above
The second that Intel says it will integrate Paladium into its chipsets, AMD will take the other path and say that it is staying'open'. If AMD sells its soul as well to M$, then a third company will rise up and pledge open chips (Motorola, Fujitsu, Sun, etc.)
Okay-- you keep using the word 'kaizen', but you don't even bother to translate it into English-- me thinks you may not even know the translation "improvement".
To say that the Japanese have some mystical, ancient insight on the art of improvement completely ignores the fact that the US outstrips Japan on almost all technological development fronts in terms of raw R and patents. I don't want to go into a big flame war over which country is smarter-- that's not the point.
My opinion: Japanese spend more effort in miniaturization because they ride the trains alot, and hate to carry all that stuff with them.
Maybe if we hadn't spent trillions of dollars on the cold war, we would have a great national train system right now. Instead, all we have had to show for it is a collection of weapons that are only useful against a giant enemy that doesn't exist anymore
Did you ever think that the gigantic enemy isn't there anymore because se built all the big weapons? It's well documented that the Reagan SDI was the world's biggest head-fake for the kremlin-- it was meant to accelerate Soviet spending to the point that it would break theregime, and it worked!
Aah... nothing like a good bash of the perceived 'English Language Oligarchy' that rules the planet.
You are confusing issues of literary expression, and URLs. URLs must be standardized on a universally recognizable (and unconfused) character-set. If that is ASCII, then great. The ASCII letters show up in every major culture/country on the planet:Japan, China, Korea, Europe, India, Arabia. Every literate person on the planet can read them. That makes for a pretty strong argument.
Slashdot Mirror
While it's all too chic right now to bag on the US and the UK for their positions on the upcoming war on Iraq, the Patriot Act, and other debatable topics, I hope everyone takes a deep breath and realizes that the very fact that we are debating these topics proves the openness of these societies.
Anyone who gives serious thought about lumping the US in with these authoritarian dictatorships has obviously never been to said countries.
Grow up.
What if I was serious about this?
This is simply revisionist history, looking for evil-doers after the whole thing happened.
1. IBM also supplied computing power to the US Army, who in turn used those computers to build the Atomic Bomb. Was IBM consiously supplying both sides of the war or merely fulfilling requests from their customers? (I know the US Army came to the door in uniform, but did the Nazis? I doubt it, I also doubt that IBM sold the machines to them after 1937)
2. Nazi use of the Hollerith machines just _happened_ to be the way they did things-- the atrocities could have been just as bad: The Rwandan genocide of 1994 used machetes and finger pointing amongst neighbors. No computers anywhere; yet the killing ratio (within the time allotted) was much higher than the Nazis' horrors against their Jewish, Catholic, Gay, and Gypsy minorities.
I've recently spent some time with Nokia engineers, and they all had the hip-top communicators. Certainly they seemed very functional, but these engineers all still carried laptops-- the hiptop stuff was really suped-up text messenging and maybe some email.
The flipside were the belt-cases they wore to carry the things around. Definite geek-factor there, both good and bad.
Don't get me wrong-- I think the correct approach is to keep adding things to phones rather than stripping things off computers. Open Source taught us that lesson. But the ergonomics and design 'cool' factor needs some work.
dammit Pronunciation Key (dmt)
interj. Used to express anger, irritation, contempt, or disappointment.
kooky also kookie Pronunciation Key (kk)
adj. Slang kookier, kookiest Characteristic of a kook; strange or crazy.
gonna Pronunciation Key (gn)
Informal Contraction of going to: We're gonna win today.
All taken from a modern dictionary. 'then' instead of 'than', is just piss-poor (and misleading) grammar.
Yes-- I have nothing better to do on a Monday night (bows head in shame).
much bigger then online sales
so, they get bigger, then become online sales?
than!
than!
than!
THAN!
A is bigger than B. C is cheaper than D.
Dammit-- If I see this one more time, i'm gonna do something really kooky.
Oh the Havoc The Blue Gin will reap on Major Nelson, genie, and poor old Dr. Bellos!
Oh, wait...
thanks-- whoever you are out there in the aether...
sorry for bringing this up but...
Does it not strike anyone else that this community freaks out everytime some gov't or other official entity even *hints* at limiting someone's GPL half-baked scheme, yet the same community practically screams for blood when one of those half-baked schemes involves spam?
I hate social engineering-- except for those policies against the people I don't like...
Your entire argument depends on a 'zero-sum' view of wealth: there is only so much gold on the planet, and for every ounce that China gains, the US, Germany, France, or someone must lose an ounce.
However, that is simply not true. Wealth is measured many different ways: cost-of-living, purchase ability, GDP, etc. And economics are founded on a virtual platform: money. All currencies are completely artificial (since the dollar left the Gold standard in 1972). As such, the total wealth of the planet can grow (or shrink) without any direct tie to a physical asset (theoretically).
In direct reference to your comment: just because China's arrow is pointed up (for the moment), and the West's is pointed down (for the moment), don't assume doomsday. In reality, All those Chinese shipping companies, manufacturers, etc. are financed by New Yorkers, Londoners, and anyone else who wants to buy stock. This can only benefit the bottom line: as labor becomes more efficient (by finding cheaper workers in China), then products become cheaper, and your purchasing power increases: because a computer only takes 5% of your salary, instead of 25%, you now have 20% to spend on candy and pr0n.
Eventually (hopefully), the Chinese WILL be just as rich as the West. Then there won't be any real reason to point missiles at each other, and ther will be 1B people to buy more stuff.
Uma Thurman can test my DNA anytime she wants to.
This was predicted some time back. The retail cost of a PC wasdropping toward $400, and some said that it was ludicrous that the office suite software should cost more than the whole computer itself. As that price approaches $400 ($199 anyone?), the retailers are doing just as they should: shaving of the pricey bits in order to gain marketshare through lower pricing.
Soon enough, OpenOffice (at no cost) will be adopted widely by the big retailers. If AOL were smart, they would switch their business model to not only be an ISP, but an application support clearance venue: AOLOffice, AOLCalendar, AOLFoo all rolled into your $19/month.
There's a number of problems with this comment. I'll take them in order:
A lot of people can see how the institutions that try to impose software and copying restrictions choke off freedom in the USA Actually, the jury is still out on this one. The debate over what is 'okay' to copy (grama's recipe for cookies, GPL software, shareware) and what is 'not okay' (copyrighted music, proprietary software) is still raging.
but those economic forces and pressures will eventually reach China when they come into the information age too. It wouldn't be hard to argue that Southern and Coastal China are already there.
China's government will not be so restrained, and it could easially lead to a brutal or even genocidal crackdown when it comes to billions of people and trillions of dollars in intellectual property controlls. No. You cannot have it both ways-- if China is so wreckless with their citizen's lives, then it is doubtful they will ever have 'control' over 'trillions' in IP. Conversely, if China ever does figure out schemes to tax/issue/control intelectual property within it's state, then those same institutions would force a certain level of transparency that would prevent human rights abuses. Granted, pirates, grafters, and extortionists are taken out and shot as examples once in a while-- but you have to put that in context: these guys were ususally stealing state property.
For the USA to insist that China impose strong intellectual property controlls inspite of it's culture to the contrary is outright reckless and irresponsible. So, you're saying that it is reckless of the USA to demand IP controls on American IP-- just because China's "culture" likes to copy things? Since when? Is there a thousands-year tradition of copying things in China? Bullshit. The USG can demand whatever it wants from foreign companies handling US assets-- if those countries don't want to play by the rules coming from Washington, then the US can either 1) scream and not trade anymore, 2) complain to the WTO, 3) Impose sanctions, 4) send the gunboats.
The freedom to copy is one of the last glimmers of freedom in an otherwise militant police state. IMHO we are setting ourselves up to swallow some bitter Chineese medicine. Aah, yes-- the Freedom to Copy. Where is that written down again? The US Constitution? The UN Charter? Or just RMS' bathroom wall? grow up. The freedom to copy is spurious at best (see above reference to the debate still raging).
As long as they don't visit the US
That's a funny crack at the US, but it's simply not true. The US holds more Nobel Prizes for sciences than any other country. The secondary school test scores could use some improvement, but University-level education is considered one of the highest in the world.
On the other hand, if your crack was some sort of political snipe at the US, then fine-- but it's funny how most people are really trying hard to get to the US.
Okay Oktagon. I live in Surrey, you punter.
You misunderstood my point-- denoting different nouns does NOT imply opposing positions. France, Germany, Japan, UK and Brazil ARE part of "the West".
Where's a grammar teacher when you need one?
India has had 'the bomb' for probably 15+ years. They only recently detonated one to scare the shiat out of Pakistan, and Pakistan was obliged to respond.
India is not a concern against attacking the US (or Europe) because there is no motivation to (just like there is no motivation for France, Germany, Japan, UK, Brazil or a few others with nukes to attack the West).
Threats need three things:
* weapons
* delivery system
* motivation
Most western democracies have the first two, but lack the third. Many countries have the motivation, but lack either the weapons or the delivery. When viewed through this lens-- it is easy (albeit simplistic) to view US diplomacy as eliminating at least one of the ingredients from a percieved threat.
A common argument in populist economics is that jobs go to the third world because of lower labor costs. Others counter this argument that it is unskilled labor, and that high-end technologically advanced labor stays within 'advanced' economies (US, Europe, Japan).
So-- is this a case that disproves the counterargument-- that even 'skilled' labor industries can skip to the third world, or is it an indictment against the regulatory pressures/infrastructure costs of trying to launch something under a US/EU umbrella?
There is clearly a glut of satellite launching capacity, yet prices have remained high because?
Since conservative estimates say nearly half of all survey answers are bogus...
How did they come up with that estimate? A survey?
Reasons to stop worrying and love the bomb:
1. 'additional features' will not really amount to that much, and websites will back off of using them (witness the standardization and stipping-down of websites in general compared to two years ago)
2. M$ might just pull something heinous in it's usage licenses, which will become much worse that what the market is currently tollerating
3a. Linux may make some headway on the desktop (hey-- 10% by the next year?)
3b. Apache will not be able to keep up with the features, which will cause managers to question #1 above
4. Lynx will return with a vengeance!
actually, i see this working the other way: eBay will start using Pay Pal financial structure to engage in currency speculation and transfers...
GBP10,000 in cold hard British currency! Bid Now!
Kuwaiti Dinars 50,000 going fast!
The second that Intel says it will integrate Paladium into its chipsets, AMD will take the other path and say that it is staying'open'. If AMD sells its soul as well to M$, then a third company will rise up and pledge open chips (Motorola, Fujitsu, Sun, etc.)
Okay-- you keep using the word 'kaizen', but you don't even bother to translate it into English-- me thinks you may not even know the translation "improvement".
To say that the Japanese have some mystical, ancient insight on the art of improvement completely ignores the fact that the US outstrips Japan on almost all technological development fronts in terms of raw R and patents. I don't want to go into a big flame war over which country is smarter-- that's not the point.
My opinion: Japanese spend more effort in miniaturization because they ride the trains alot, and hate to carry all that stuff with them.
Maybe if we hadn't spent trillions of dollars on the cold war, we would have a great national train system right now. Instead, all we have had to show for it is a collection of weapons that are only useful against a giant enemy that doesn't exist anymore
Did you ever think that the gigantic enemy isn't there anymore because se built all the big weapons? It's well documented that the Reagan SDI was the world's biggest head-fake for the kremlin-- it was meant to accelerate Soviet spending to the point that it would break theregime, and it worked!
Aah... nothing like a good bash of the perceived 'English Language Oligarchy' that rules the planet.
You are confusing issues of literary expression, and URLs. URLs must be standardized on a universally recognizable (and unconfused) character-set. If that is ASCII, then great. The ASCII letters show up in every major culture/country on the planet:Japan, China, Korea, Europe, India, Arabia. Every literate person on the planet can read them. That makes for a pretty strong argument.
wtf?
How is my identical post modded down as 'redundant' when I posted before this one?