Hi,

Yes, but in this case, you misunderstand how the free market works.

Think about grey market imports - people are still willing to import from overseas, even if they have to ship back to another for warranty, or may not have any warranty at all. They put up with that, because the price difference is so incredible.

And in many of these cases - e.g. TV shows or game catridges - there's no good reason to stop import. It's a fungible item - it's not like a US computer monitor is somehow different to an Australian computer monitor...

If people are willing to ship from overseas to avoid your price gouging - then you've screwed up your pricing.

Any attempts to argue out of it are just flimsy excuses.

If there are price differentials in support costs, then the fact that somebody has to ship to an overseas support centre would cancel that out.

And further - the fact that individuals can ship it, and still save money is another nail in your argument - companies can ship in bulk, using a container for *much* cheaper. Heck, think about it - most products are made in China anyhow - so the shipping costs from China to the US, versus China to say Australia is basically negligible.

Cheers,
Victor

Hi,

Err, that is very random - we are talking about the same company here, right? Lol.

Atlasssian have been *incredibly* professional in all my emails to them - I use them for Confluence. I honestly can't imagine that happening in an email chain with them. Can you paste any context to this email?

Also, I have a few friends there (Sydney office), and they're all pretty happy with the company - apparently they treat them very well, and staff morale/loyalty seems to be up there with Google so it does seem strange.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

No, mod parent down...*sigh*.

This has nothing to do with self-pollination - it's about seed smuggling.

Seriously, I know this is Slashdot - but does nobody actually read the source article these days? It's not even that long, and it's from frickin Nature, not some two-bit blog.

The story isn't about cross-pollination, or that sort of rubbish - that one's already been debunked anyway, sorry, evil corporation conspiracy theorists.

The issue here is with with Brazillian farmers smuggling in stolen GM seeds - gee, it doesn't sound so cut and dried when you insert facts, does it?

Monsanto managed to convince the courts to let them test "non-GM" produce to see if it was really non-GM, or whether it was smuggled in GM ones - if it was, they charged royalties. They also charged a blanket levy on the GM stock.

The issue now is that the soya farmers are saying they're clean - they claim 70% of soya-bean farmers buy their GM seeds from Monsanto legally.

This isn't some evil conspiracy to pollute the world - this is about dodgy Brazillian farmers stealing seeds, and getting caught - paying a levy - and now that they're clean, they say they shouldn't pay the levy anymore.

I certainly don't think Monsanto are saints - but nor do I think the world is quite as black and white as conspiracy nutjobs seem to think it is.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Sorry, this is just a niggle, but Java != Javascript!

Argh, I don't know where this meme came about, but the only thing similar between them is the "Java" part - and that was just Sun/Netscape trying to cash in on the Java hype back then.

Syntactically, sure, you can argue they're similar (and even then, only a a very basic level) - but then so are all the C-class languages.

If he really wanted to stick to his Java roots on the UI side, he could use something like GWT (Google Web Toolkit).

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Yes, but we should be glad we don't have a mini-Napoleon like you prancing around at the EU.

You cannot simply fine companies randomly on a whim - you actually need to find wrongdoing against them, which is what this case is about. And that process, like any kind of litigation, costs money. It's expensive for *all* parties involved. So the EU probably sees an easy way out - Google makes a plea bargain, essentially, and they don't have to go to all the hassle of trying to prove Google did wrong, as well as the off-chance that they might actually fail to prove wilful wrongdoing, and end up with egg on their faces.

Some of the recent yammering about Google does make me raise my eyebrows though.

The ruckus with the whole wifi "wardriving" thing was a classic example. The entire thing was a complete farce, with millions wasted by the US government to try to prove wrongdoing and the end result...zippo. Scraping packets off the air isn't illegal, and you can't retroactively change the laws on a whim. And 3-4 seconds of data capture per AP is going to net you squat - heck, you probably couldn't even pull a Google search term out of that traffic, assuming it's not even encrypted (either SSL or Layer 2 with WEP/WPA).

And the EU's continued beef with Google - I don't know enough about this particular case to comment, but some of the past cases have seen like a really bad case of sour grapes. I have a feeling that if it was a French or Danish firm, we wouldn't see half this amount of noise from the EU throne.

Considering the sort of actual real privacy rubbish that say Facebook, or Apple engage in, I'm perplexed why they don't hit the headlines as much.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Well, in a bit of luck for the "little guy", it seems there may be good news for the champagne cork opener guy:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/6667488/Kiwi-inventor-wins-champagne-patent-battle
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10795728

If what's written in those articles is true, it sounds like the American companies were real dicks - asking for a sample to "evaluate", offering him a paltry $2500 for unlimited use, then when they got turned down going to find his Chinese manufacturer, and attempting to steal his product.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

You do realise that's the sort of rhetoric that only brainwashed religious nutjobs spout, right?

I'm definitely not 100% comfortable with advocating open season for abortions, and I think it's a tragedy whenever it happen, but to declare moral equivalence between abortions and shooting a child is a logical fallacy that only an idiot or a self-deluded fool could commit.

Look, I don't know if you're ever actually worked with autistic kids. I don't mean movie-style Rain Man style, but an actual real flesh and blood kid, complete with temper tantrums, screaming and violent outbursts. If it was your kid, I'm sure you'd still love them, but I can see why some parents would crack.

I used to help teach special needs kids, and on the bad days, even those couple hours a week could be seriously draining.

And also, many of these have a genetic factor - so it's just like hereditary diabetes - the incident rate today is going up, simply because people with the genes are living longer, and having more kids. Diabetes - sure, you can argue it's not a huge deal if you pass it onto all your kids, but other things, like say Huttingtons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington's_disease), if I knew I was a carrier, I'd think twice before having my own biological children (there are alternatives to abortion, believe it or not).

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Lol, it's not ease-of-use that they rail against, it's that every man and his dog thinks that putting together a script somehow makes them "software engineers".

Like it or not, software design is actually *hard*. Installing Windows XP on your mother's PC, or updating your Norton AV signatures is not hard. But designing software that is both architecturally sound, easy to maintain, and has low number of bugs per LOC is actually quite difficult.

PHP attracts people who really shouldn't program. I'm sorry, but it's just a brain thing - some people just don't have the right-brain logic to do it. Just like I would never wield a paint-brush, or consider myself a poet by any stretch, likewise some people just can't code. It's not a criticism of any sort, it's just...

I've seen some badly written VBA code, or Excel macros. Awful, awful spaghetti code, with horrible edge-case bugs, no documentation of any sort, and no actual thought given to the design to speak of. I've also seen some awful PHP code. I have a feeling most of the other "haters" on this forum has as well, hence the source of their hate.

Python is not some magical bullet that means you can't write bad code. However, it is designed around good design. It encourages good indentation (where good == standardised), if nothing else. The official tutorial encourage good programming practices, as does the community. And there is clear advice on the "Right" way to do things (or the idiomatic way.)

And Python also has a slightly higher learning bar than VB/VBA and PHP - and it also doesn't try to hide all details from you. People rea encouraged to read and learn about how things are done, and what's under the hood, so to speak.

So it's got very little to do with elitism or scarying away newbies, as simply not giving somebody who's never seen a gun before a loaded handgun with the safety off before either A. teaching them handgun safety, or B. taking the handgun away from them very slowly.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

I like your post, bar one thing.

The idea that the Chinese people are somehow "uneducated", or "retarded", and hence they need a "strong" government to control them.

That same line has been used by tyrants, dictators and bullies since the beginning of time. I'm probably Godwinning this, but Hitler used the same line to justify exterminating the Jews. And Stalin, Kim Il Jong and Burma's junta also used it - for the "good" of society

I know it's some weird Asian cultural thing, that the government somehow needs to "manage" it's people, for the "harmony" of society, but I think that's absolutely bollocks, and smacks of cowardice on the part of the people.

We've moved beyond that time, when warlords and tyrants held power by simple brutality, or how many henchmen they had. Modern China, in some ways has not:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2097372,00.html

However, this is simply how things right now. Ultimately, I hope that the Chinese people man-up, and try and take responsibility for their own choices.

Cheers,
Victor

Hi,

Hmm, "illegal", I don't think that word means what you think it does...lol.

You claim Google is killing off small flight search companies by "illegally" promoting their sites. What exactly is "illegal" here? *sigh*.

What, they don't run ads for their competitors? Big whoope de do. *sigh*. In what sort of idiotic world do you live in where you *have* to do that?

Now, if Google was filtering search results to actively remove those companies, and claiming that it's search results were virgin and untampered with, that's an entirely different kettle of fish. But they're not. They just happen to usually have links at the top saying "hey, you searched for flight results, did you know we also have a flight search engine". That is not illegal, and never has been - it's called cross-promotion, and is as old as the hills.

And in fact, the funny thing about Google is that A. they actually *do* provide information about their competitors and B. They make it very easy to switch - e.g. Chrome makes it easy to change default browsers, unlike the nightmare that is the IE startup wizard, and Google even lets you export your data with them (www.dataliberation.org) - something nobody else does.

You still haven't backed up your "illegal" claim with anything that Google has actually done.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Lol, actually he did a lot wrong (apart from being an cocky little dickwad who somehow magically manages to pisses off *everybody*, including Wikileaks themselves...*rolls eyes*).

Espionage has always been illegal.

This isn't a new trend - governments and diplomacy have always had secrets, and it's been that way since ancient times. It's how diplomacy is conducted. Anybody who claims otherwise is obviously completely ignorant or deluding themselves. And let's be really honest, we all have dirty little secrets we'd like to keep - we've all made plenty of screwsup (myself included), and blunders, or things that we thought we'd get away with.

If anybody actually wants to argue with me on this, I challenge you to reveal right here, on Slashdot - your name, your address, your employee, your salary, how much tax you cheated the government out of last year, your marital status, how many times you've cheated on your spouse/partner, how many times you've thought about another person other than your spouse/partner, how you really feel about your company, how you really feel about your boss. Any takers?

Anyhow, Assange and Brad Manning committed espionage, plain and simple. So yes, they would both be arrested - Bradley being American, he did, Assange isn't, so he hasn't been arrested on those charges yet.

Whether what they did was right, ethically/morally is separate to the legal issue here. Sure, you can say they were sticking it to the man, and fighting for freedom (cue Mel Gibson impression), but you can't argue yourself out of the fact that they committed a crime.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Yup, I'll have to agree 100% with the parent.

What really irks me is stupid, affluent, middle-class suburbanites, sitting around sipping their latte decafs, bemoaning the awful, awful state of affairs and how they're "oppressed", and the "Man has them down"...*sigh*.

Really? Why don't you get off your a*ses and maybe do some travelling and see what the world is really like. In places like China, the CCP can have it's local thugs come and beat you up if you try and stand for election:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2097372,00.html

Heck, in Singapore, supposedly a bastion of "democracy" in Asia - you get hauled in front of a court on trumped up "anti-sedition" laws if you try and start a protest march without a "license".

I don't know if it's something to do with our Chinese culture or whatever, but it seems we're just not very compatible with democracy. Or if we do, we try to implement it with a "Chinese twist" *rolls eyes*, which basically means that whichever incumbent party is in power wields a iron fist of power and quashes opposition, all in the name of "promoting harmony and social well-being". What a farce.

And I'm sure many countries in Africa, the Middle-East, you name it, are the same.

I live in Australia, and I count myself very lucky and very fortunate that our society is open, and respects the rule of law. Sure, I don't agree with everything my government does - and I can vote, protest and file petitions accordingly (or just call our PM a tosser in public), but I never try to erect some ridiculous straw-man argument or spout hyperbole about how my government is "oppressive and tyrannical" and "destroying democracy".

To generalise, you silly Americans don't actually know how good you have it *sigh*. I'm not saying that you shouldn't protest or challenge your government (in fact, that's my whole point), but you seriously need to get some perspective and open up your eyes to the real world, and countries outside yourselves.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Lol, why the heck did the parent get downvoted.

He/she is right, "How do I love thee, let me count the ways" is from Elizabeth Browning's Sonnet XLIII.

However, then again, I'm not sure where in this article the "Let me count the ways" reference is even from...?

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Yeah, Java is firmly entrenched in enterprise, and I don't see massive rewrites happening.

However, that's not to say you can't subtly encourage new projects to go in different directions.

The problem is - what is the best alternative? C# and the .NET family simply lock you into Microsoft.

Personally, I'd love to see Python take hold, but it's still lacking traction in many enterprise settings (although that's changing slowly).

And hmm, why is your lawyer automatically a her? I was always curious whether people's choice of pronouns was directly related or inversely related to their own gender. Would be interesting to a stat analysis on that.

Cheers,
Victor

heya,

Hmm, ok, so the parent was a bit sensationalist with the 100% claim, and the pseudo-moral overtones are a bit weird.

But he does have a point - practice safe sex goes a long way to cutting down on HIV.

You can talk all you want about all the other possible transmission vectors, but in the grand schema of things, they're a drop in the ocean compared to the number of cases via unsafe sex.

And look, at the end of the day, a person who screws around and does it with random people from bars is a lot likely to contract HIV (or some other STI) than somebody who stays married to the same person for 55 years and doesn't cheat. And this is a broad brush, but that sort of person is probably not likely to get random tattoos every Sunday, or engage in drugs or other risk-taking behaviour.

Like it or not, but as humans, we do reap what we so. Sure, it all boils down to percentage. But you don't do stupid things - whether it's drugs, tattoos, or jumping out of buildings or cagefighting - and chances are, your odds are less of stupid things happening to you. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that stupid things can often be fun or tempting *grins*. But meh, that's life for you.

Cheers,
Victor