Posts by asdf 6570 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Apr 2007
As another article on El Reg shows Seagate has major managerial problems at the top. Seagate has really screwed up in the last year or so and now even lowly WD is eating their lunch. They seem to be in panic cost cutting quality cutting mode so I would avoid their products until they get the ship turned around.
Funny how market forces work. When you have a free market instead of government sponsored monopoly the prices are actually low enough that people will use the data services. Here in the US I get truly unlimited 3G data for $40 a month with nationwide coverage. No way can you get that rate in Europe short of performing felatio on the right people. Of course Europe is more "sophisticated" (and snooty) technology wise but I am happy to take the lower prices any time.
After going on holiday to the US I'm certainly not keen on the pay to receive model. One of the reasons the European market has been so successful with mobile phones is the explosion of pay as you go users, without them we would never have seen so much widespread adoption so fast. Pay to receive harms pay as you go users.
Seems to me the only people slagging off on the US teleco rates are people that think they are "experts" because they spent a weekend once and got screwed over buying service at the airport. As you can tell by most of the informed comments anyone who has ever lived in both Europe and US can tell you pay far less to telecos in the US than in Europe. The reason is because one of the only smart things our government ever did was truly bust up our dominant teleco and actually let market forces do their thing. One thing I hated when I lived in Europe was being financially extorted by the local national telecarrier. Is there a country in Western Europe where the national telecom isn't the most political powerful company in the country? Wake up Europe, your governments are simply taxing you for communication through supposedly private companies <cough huge 3g licenses>.
It seems that the Korean culture is not capable of the seperation of private enterprise and government. From what I understand even the concept is foreign to them. It should then come as no suprise to anyone, that both illegal activity was found at a very large opaque Korean corporation and that the guilty partys would receive only a slap on the wrist. That being said it is hard to take the high road as the same type of graft and government looking the other way occurs frequently in the western world as well. Sigh I guess the world is one large good 'ole' boy club and its all about who you know.
Look not to defend Apple or any other US company but they are just playing by the current laws in the UK. If you don't like the laws quit voting for Labour. Its not like in the US where you have a large geographical region (the southeastern) who keep putting the same "pious" corrupt morons in charge. We should have just let them form their own country and accepted bordering two third world countries.
Yes because as he have seen, the FBI never abuses its illegal wiretapping powers. Bush the first president to not only ignore the US constitution but even the Magna Carta as well. The skeletons in the closet that will come out after Bush and cronies are gone will keep historians busy for generations.
Who the hell decided it would be a good idea to allow cable companies to have a monopoly in a geographical region in the US anyway? Comcast can deceive the public and talk out both sides of its face because it does not face real competition (in the states in many places all the other alternatives such as DSL are usually way slower and or more expensive). Having lived in Europe I can say the last thing we need to is state sanctioned infrastructure monopolies.
Lets see if I get this right. The "legitimate" business model is that content creators get %5 and other %95 goes to anglo suits and pigopolyists whose only role is to bombard us with adverts and sue us. In addition, the legitimate media includes crippling drm restrictions such as region codes and being forced to watch adverts and a FBI warning informing us what thieves us consumers are. Whereas the pirate version are not only free but usually have the annoying drm crap removed. And they wonder why they are losing $ when they blow it on lawyer and lobbyists fees as well as offering an inferior product to "unwashed thieving masses". Wankers, the whole lot.
Being an American myself, I believe Chris W does have a kernel of truth to what he is saying. How come network TV can show Steven Segal horribly breaking some "bad" guy's arm in a movie but god help them if they ever show a woman's naked breast? I guess that happens when your country acts as a preserve for all the religious crazies Europe has kicked out.
It never ceases to amaze me how much power the telecoms have in euroland and how they bend over the masses hardcore. IMHO the greatest thing Reagan did was bust up AT&T (that and the worthless unions but that is another story). In effect the telecoms are just another pseudo government entity and basically put a tax on all of society. This has to have a knock-on effect on the economy as cheap data/communication is vital these days to being competitive. Not so sure about the UK, but Deutsch Telekom makes Microsoft look caring and competent.
Yes running a marathon is space is ridiculous but I guess being up there that long makes you like Jack Nicholson in The Shining (HERE'S JOHNNY!). At least she has an excuse and most importantly the belief system of her culture allowed a Renaissance and the truth to be attainable. Heres to being more than 500 years behind. Good luck catching up.
Europe may be ahead of North America in a lot of things but we were smart enough to break up our telecom monopoly over twenty years ago. It is inexcusable how expensive communication in Europe is and no one seems to realize it hurts their already slow growing economies. Oh well if the Euros want to go along with it and pay yet another tax and gimp their economies in the process so be it.
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