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Comment Re:What's a music video? (Score 1) 364

OK, I think I get it: what Google wants to do is to give viewers the option of paying a flat rate, which will remove ads from all of the music videos on the site as part of their streaming service. And they need the labels to agree to these terms. And if they DON'T agree to the terms, then Google would have one of three options: either maintain the status quo (which they don't want to do), show those videos sans ads (which would be a copyright infringement since the artists wouldn't be paid as per the original license agreement), or remove the videos altogether.

Does that sound right?

If so, that doesn't sound nearly as evil as it first sounded, if Google is only taking down videos that it was basically paying to host.

Comment The NSA failed (Score 1) 238

The NSA let this random guy Snowden walk away with all of their secrets. Snowden isn't some genius mastermind; if he could do it, I'll bet there are other people who did it too. Only they didn't go public, they just sold the information to China or Russia or al Qaeda (assuming they weren't spies to begin with).

So it doesn't matter what Snowden announced to the world, because chances are the people we're most worried about already knew about it.

If the bloody National SECURITY Agency can't secure itself, we can't rely on it to secure anything else.

Comment Re:Excersise for the reader: (Score 1) 409

Whenever you see "in the CLOUD!", mentally replace it with "using someone else's server" -- all of a sudden it looks a whole lot less appealing.

I'm not an IT professional by any means, but to me that doesn't seem quite fair. Ideally, the server is being run by somebody with the resources and expertise to keep the server running better than you can yourself. It seems reasonable to me that this is the sort of thing that might benefit from outsourcing, if you're an individual or a small company, and so long as you take precautions.

Comment That's where we're headed (Score 3, Insightful) 343

Asimov and others predicted a future where there wouldn't be enough jobs to go aroundubt they saw that as a GOOD thing. Humanity was clever enough to build machines to do all the work, and now we can kick back and enjoy some leisure time. George Jetson had a three-hour workday. But that vision can only work if we view our increased productivity as a benefit to *everyone*, and compensate everyone accordingly: a dividend for being a member of the clever human race (or if you want, a dividend for being a citizen/resident of a first-world nation).

As more jobs are automated, it seems to me that there are three options: 1) we share the wealth, either with a guaranteed income or by raising wages while simultaneously cutting the number of hours people work; 2) we make a lot of fake jobs so that we can pretend that people are earning the money they need to live, and avoid the horrors of socialism (horror! horror!); or 3) a LOT of people drop into poverty.

Comment Re:A feature phone doesn't need a data plan (Score 1) 243

I live in Slashdot's home country, and I've defined a feature phone as a phone that won't cause you to have to buy a data plan. The major U.S. CDMA2000 carriers (Verizon, Sprint, and Sprint-owned Boost and Virgin) refuse to on talk-and-text-only plans, and the U.S. GSM carrier with the best coverage (AT&T) will automatically add a data plan to a talk-and-text-only SIM if you insert it in a smartphone.

Good point. That's the reason I have an iPod Touch and a separate dumbphone (for which I pay ~$50/year).

Comment Re:Alternatives (Score 1) 242

I already had an alternative for years: my ISP. It has this free service where you login with your account, and pick [chosenname].go.ro - and that's it. Of course, some might consider it as rather limited but I think its more than fitting for a home user.

This really is the sort of service all ISPs should provide.

Comment Re:Abolish marriage solves the problem. (Score 1) 564

A rose by a different name... is it really so important how you call something? A name should reflect its content, it's not content by itself.

Are you addressing the commenters who want to keep government "marriage", or the commenters who want to change it to "civil union"? Seems like your comment could go either way.

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