Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Antennae, Play, Book Larnin'
Out of warranty since day two -- More-than-ordinary Airport investigator Constantin von Wentzel, fearing that "readers will learn about the vagaries of Apple RAM instead of how to fix base stations," writes: "Cliff posted a article by Peter Deweese detailing how his Apple Airport failed. Unfortunately, these failures are next to certain since the power supply inside the Base Station will fry two components by two different means. One is heat, the other the switching power supply. Apple Base Station owners are well aware of the heat issue (the underside can get hot enough to bubble off the sticker)and the two capacitors inside the base station are rated for 1,000 hours @ 105 deg C - about 50 days. The other mode of failure is the power supply itself which switches at a high frequency and subjects the capacitors to high current loads. I investigated my ABS when it failed, and discovered two fried capacitors. It is true that the ABS will run as a DHCP router, etc. when the power supply has failed as long as the WaveLAN card has been removed. The question is how long. I put together a online guide to repair Apple Base Stations as well as how to retrofit external antennas. Both can be found at [this URL]."
Of course, I still like playing Earthball. In reference to the recent quest for non-zero sum games, stuq writes: " 35-40 years ago Buckminster Fuller created the 'World Game' -- the mother of all non-zero sum games. World Game is now under the excellent stewardship of Medard Gable and his World Game Institute.
The original game was played on a version of Fuller's Dymaxion map of the earth that covered an entire gym floor. They now have a satellite imagery version of the map!
There are 100 players, each representing 1% of humanity. Players are assigned
positions on the map in proportion to actual population density (which is
an eye opener -- half of India had to stand in the ocean). Everyone is apportioned:
energy, food, tech credits, etc. in a way that represents the actual distribution
of those rescoures. Additional players around the edge of the map represent
NGO's, Mother Nature, the world press, etc.
The goal is to make the world work for everyone. Utter chaos ensues
and the game play is totally exhilarating. The World Game Institute has taken
the large version of the game to players around the world including many
world leaders.
There is a
net version of the game. Looks like these people haven't been clued in to open source, but I'd bet
they would be interested."
Letters -- they're made out of letters! billn writes: "Long and short, member of a StarCraft clan was dealt a search warrant and is under investigation for 'tampering.' This is not a free speech suppression case. It's not a hate case. The followup is posted here. I did a lot of the research work myself, including a couple phone interviews. I'd just like to say, to all the people who flew off the handle without checking the facts first (including those of you who called Kent State to rant), LEARN TO READ.
For those who care, we'll be following the story to closure."
This after the recent story Cops Bust Starcraft Clan.
Have you got a license for this thing, sir? Olivier Lejade, CEO and co-founder of Nevrax wrote to say that he's posted a response to the recent mention of Nevrax's GPL-client/GPL-server game platform. More information is always good to have, thanks Olivier.
From experience, this is true.
Partially I think it is because NT, with its GUI, is percieved as being easier than a *nix OS, so people assume the work is done for them. With *nix, the admin has to understand what they are doing - the understanding leads to less mistakes being made. Because GUIs are considered easy, often NT admins have no knowledge of what they are actually doing, they are just a normal 'lowly' technician given control to save the company money.
C.
I sometimes write stuff
> There is no end point in lifetime relationships
When you're lying on your deathbed looking back on your life, or it's flashing before your eyes after a truck hits you, or whatever, that's the endpoint. If you're thinking "that was pretty worthwhile on the whole", you've won. If you're thinking "at last this whole shitty existence is over" you've lost.
--
rant
wow, I got a thoughtful and useful response from /. !! thanks, man, you have improved my day.
-- Jeff Paulsen
Hey, Kent saw itself getting shredded over this stupid move. So they had to generate some cover story to keep their asses from feeling the heat. What better than blaming the kid for 'hacking' the university's network (Yeah, we always call the FBI when a student abuses our network...?)
---
seumas.com
I tried a few (dozen) of the links off of whois.org's search results page, but they don't seem to have a host for worldgame.org. I suppose hiding is one answer to a severe slashdotting, but I wanted to run this by one of the producers here (educational websites). Their loss.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
The beer can in a trash can is a bad analogy. They did not confiscate all computers in the dorm, just one.
A better analogy is a beer can with someones name on it is found. That person's dorm fridge is confiscated. There is REAL evidence to support this action. Whether they committed the crime or not will be determined in the court.
And the webpage in a browser cache? That is really stretching it. Do you really think that the University is THAT dumb? Are they going to bring a lawsuit agains yahoo now because they found their webpage on the computer too?
Let me ask you this. If you found someones webpage on your server (in a directory not a browser cache) and the webserver is actually serving those pages, would you then agree that it is possible that a crime has been commited? Is it possible that this is the exact scenario that has occurred at Kent State?
This hardly sounds like a free speech issue.
Q.
I've been slogging through his book Critical Path and all i can say is read it. His life's work is an inspiration for all humanity.
For more info about bucky visit The Buckminster Fuller Institute
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
The word "dymaxion" is a combination of the words "dynamic" and "maximum efficiency") -- a friend of his coined the term fwiw...
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
The fact is, KSU police always have carried rifles in their cars. It's SOP. And those rifles are getting old. The military had a bunch of old M16's that they wanted to sell. They are selling them CHEAP. KSU thought "Here's a good deal, we get our guns, and we save people money."
It doesn't really matter what the police carry. Think about it. Will being shot by an M16 be any different than a rifle? No. It's going to hurt like Hell, and you may die. No matter what you get shot with. M16's are good guns; they are easy to clean, easy to train with, and can take a lot of abuse. And they were coming at a great price. But because of the school's history, and the fact that people are still upset about the shootings 31 years ago, the KSU police have decided not to use them.
I go to Kent. Our sidewalks are in horrible shape. We could use new dorms, since most are 40 years old and some have been shut down due to the large number of building code violations. We are tight for money, and now the police are going to have to spend a large amount of money instead of a little.
Think before you speak.
Do the obvious to e-mail me.
Thermodynamics tell us that in a closed system entropy stays the same or increases. The Earth is not a closed system (think sunlight, meteors), and human society is, as a system, about as 'open' as you could possibly get.
-- THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK -- --
Left-wing theory doesn't presume 'life' is
zero sum. However under capitalism there are a
class of people who own the means of productions
and a class who don't, in order for the former
to make profits they must pay the latter less
than the value of their labour. So for the working
class life is negative sum, though they may
simultaneously benefit from improvements in
technology.
I'd be very surprised if the poster's mother didn't pay insurance or hospital bills to compensate those who helped out with his or her birth. Firthermore, just because something isn't a "right" doesn't mean it isn't desireable. It just isn't useful to "guarentee" these things in the formal structure of state, church, or company.
Family relationships are usually voluntary.
"desperate need to justify ones own beliefs" - You're not even trying to see the other side.
Our whole society _IS_ built on personal initiative, no matter what kind of structures we put in place. Cooercion is nowhere near as effective as voluntary (especially compensated) action. You could turn your whole last paragraph around on yourself. Don't think about how hard it would be to live without an inheritance, think about how easy it can be. Think about how free you would be if you weren't dependent on large impersonal orginizations (govt, church, Proctor and Gamble) to feed you your information, your job, and your safety.
Many would claim that the lack of opportunity in many areas can be attributed to 50% taxation, laws written to support monopolies, and people looking for the wrong kind of work. You can't fix that with more of the same.
> What is with Buckminster Fuller's names. "Dymaxion map"?
"Twister" was already copyrighted.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Uhhh....
I thought that that was shot (bad pun) down and they weren't allowed to get them.
And I agree, there is no way that the campus police force needs modded m16s.
And slightly off topic, The room they raided was my old room.
Sigh...
What does this mean? /. article).
It's from this DDJ article (linked to from this
Or, put another way, how is OpenBSD like FORTH? ...) I take everything with a grain of salt, of course. Being super-minimalist isn't appropriate for everything, but there's a hell of a lot out there that could benefit from being implemented simply and straightforwardly.
:)
OpenBSD is simple (that is, it doesn't contain a ton of stuff.). (For several good articles on this , see Chuck Moore's writings on ultratechnology.com
... I also just found the comment funny, as I like BSD flavored Unixes, and I like FORTH.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Why is it our poor do so much better than poor people did a hundred years ago? Why are the rich much richer today?
I don't think we stole that money from other developing countries, and I think pretty much across the board (other than countries ravaged by war), living conditions are better or at least equal today than they were 200 years ago.
Don't forget that our truly poor people here in America would be considered rich in many third world countries. Many welfare-class poor families have an automobile, a roof over their head and food on the table. It may not be the best available here, but it's better than you can get in some parts of the world. Those are our poor! Even the homeless can find a bed and a hot meal if they want it. Provided how? Charity.
Socialism is not the answer. I don't think Bill Gates owes any money back to the rest of the country -- though indirectly he gives a lot back. Most of his wealth is sitting in a bank or in the stock market where it can be used by other people, and at the same time, he's giving massive amounts to charity because he quite literally doesn't need it. However, just because he doesn't need it doesn't mean we have the right to go and foricibly take it.
In every country that has tried socialism, it has lead not to wealth and innovation, but back down the path to the lowest common denomonator.
Socialism is a wonderful ideal, and that is what makes it so appealing. It appeals to our hearts -- wouldn't it be nice if we could all get along and cooperate and help each other out. But, it doesn't work in a real world with real human beings. Because everyone is rewarded the same, it leads to cooruption and an appeal to the lowest common denominator. Why should I stay late and bust my hump if I'm going to be rewarded the same as my coworker that leaves early and surfs the net all day? Why bother? Why bother having a job at all if the state will take care of me?
-------------------------------------------------
So true. But when you're finished playing, the game puts YOU away.
I think it is well accepted that biological life is a nonzero game. The theory that social systems are nonzero is less well accepted. Not that I would argue against it. An interesting recent book on these topics was Nonzero: the logic of human destiny
No, no it is not.
The amount of wealth in the world is not static, and expands whenever something new is created out of parts of an agregate lesser value.
"In simple terms: For each "rich" person there must exist a small army of "poor" people. "
Must exist? Do they just appear out of thin air? If enough idle rich exist, the demand for idle rich services increase, non-idle incomes increase. It's a dynamic system.
Ideas and value, the non-physical stuff of social systems, do not obey the laws of thermodynamics. The only closed system that biological systems exist in is the universe. There's lots of time to play some non-zero sum games within that big zero-sum system.
Wealth is created by producing value, independent of how much work it took to create that value. Produce a lot of value to a few people (trial lawyers, surgeons) or a little value to lots of people (entertainers), and you produce wealth. I think the mistake you are making is thinking that a unit of economic value is equivalent to some fixed unit of physical work. No such correlation exists, at least in a free market economy. In fact, I have yet to find anything at all that has intrinsic economic value, it all depends on someone wanting it.
I submit that the number of well paid contract programmers is about equal to the number of able people that can put up with the stress, uncertainty, and flavor of work involved, and the only manipulation going on is invented in your mind.
It appears you are saying that the supply of idle time is a zero sum and a rich person's gain of idle time is extracted from many worker's idle time.
If so, this is the silliest thing I've ever heard of, and am at a loss as to how you could possibly be serious. The only conclusion I can come up with is that you are a very good troll.
Congratualations, you got me.
There wasn't a good enough reason to steal the students computer. Besides, it seems that even if someone did crack the system, they probably would not put information that would lead right to them.
I find it far more likely that Kent just put those files there as a cover-up.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
I would like to quote Mc Hawking
Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
I think your assumption about A is incorrect. I think the people who make that kind of money don't do it just for the money, and I think they would continue to work regardless of how much money gets confiscated. They'd do it because they love the game, they love the power, and they love the privileges. Yeah, I'm sure they love the money, too, but I don't think it's as important as competing.
Anyway, in any economic system there will be people who accumulate wealth and power well beyond normal, regardless of whatever tax system is in place. I don't think this redistribution system is such a hot idea either, but at the same time I don't think it would kill the motivation of the powerful. I think it would inspire them to come up with new and creative ways to hide their wealth.
Haven't hung out here much, you say?
The gold-digger was poor to begin with, just like
the rest of us; he just got lucky. So now what?
The rest of us trade what little time we've got
left to Mr. Lucky in return for scraps off his
table; how does he decide what our lives are
worth? Looks around for someone who'll cut his
neighbor's throat cheaper, and there's no
shortage. Then, if Lucky can work it, he'll set
it up so the money runs the show from then on,
letting his children's children decide what the
market in starvation will bear during their gen-
eration. The human cast of this pathetic farce
comes and goes; the gold calls the shots and is
apparently immortal as well as amoral.
Well, the amount of gold we know about remains the
same, although there are fewer of us to know about
it.
Evan Reynolds evanthx@hotmail.com
Evan Reynolds evanthx@hotmail.com
Two peanuts crossed the street. One was assaulted.
Firstly, you should not be out "looking" for a partner, like you look for a car. Mariage, or permanent relationships are not about "ownership" or "possession". It's not a competition to see who "has" the better partner. You are not "denying" that partner to anyone else. You are forming a partnership with another individual to establish a lifelong connection of mutual aid and intimacy.
I think you will find that not a lot of life is actually zero sum, unless you choose it to be. Also the people who DO see the world as zero sum are generally the ones who wish they had more or what the other person has and generally is not a happy person because of it. Always having to keep up with everyone else otherwise the're "losing" at life because other people are "better" than they are. Does this sound familiar to you?
The non zero sum phillosophy is good, because with it, no one loses unless they choose to lose.
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
Actually I am. Five years now, one kid. Very happilly for the exact reason stated in my previous post.
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
I believe that is procreation and has nothing to do with life time relationships. It's possible to pass on ones genes with out being in a life time relationship (in fact I hear it happens quite a bit).
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
When you're lying on your deathbed looking back on your life, or it's flashing before your eyes after a truck hits you, or whatever, that's the endpoint. If you're thinking "that was pretty worthwhile on the whole", you've won. If you're thinking "at last this whole shitty existence is over" you've lost.
But the relationship is not over. This again shows the flaw in most peoples thinking about such things. You see the relationship as something of yours that involves another person. It's not. It has an existence (or a reality) of it's own that is not extinguished by the death of a participant. It might be your endpoint (although I don't believe that it is, but that's a whole other discussion, and I believe that there is another existence beyond the physical and that those that pass on still care about those that have not yet joined them, but I digress) but not the endpoint for your partner who still cares about you, even though you've gone. So the relationship is still there, and can still benefit the other person.
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
Wrong, wrong, wrong. A certain weight of copper has a monetary value, however when used in electronics that value is many times more than its "rest" value so to speak.
Time can be saved by hiring people or by machinery. I really don't understand the premise here. Would you rather people who are poor be unable to earn money for themselves? Is there a poverty gene that keeps them there or is menial work a stepping stone as well as a living base for those unable to further themselves.
Now you can argue that maybe the wages at each level aren't enough to move from one level to the next, but guess what? Taking risks and mainting pride and self-respect will get you a long way.
The "army" of poor people is not constant, people move on.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Rich also means having the MEANS with which to support the American Revolution. You think Jefferson built Monticello while cleaning dishes?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Material wealth has no effect on the supply of time. There are still only 24 hours in a day.
My computer makes my time much more valuable. I have access to tons of quality content that I can enrich my time with.
Having Debian means I have even more time because I don't have to hunt dependencies.
Time is a relative value, my knowledge, my determination to get things done, and my material wealth sets the value of those 24 hours.
Chaos theory teaches that equilibrium equals death. Things can't change. Basing wealth on time is dangerous. Instead of me deciding what my time is worth by my education and self-improvement, nowadays companies own my time regardless what I do, whether it's independent inventions of my own, tasks that cover multiple jobs. Hell, a plumber gets a better deal. Plumbers get paid for a specific service, while i get paid the same no matter what it is I do. Companies already recognize the wealth of time. That's how they get rich and rip off their employees who perform multiple complex tasks for which they should be getting paid according to the value of the task.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Actually, according to the second law of thermodynamics, everyone loses - eventually :-)
You must be one of the many "dumb" people to enable others to be "smart." Your cute little socialist stuff may play well in college, but doesn't work in the real world.
Actually I think that example may in fact work very well. If everyone was smart(by our current standard), then the no one would consider that smart anymore. The bar would be raised.
-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Could you be a little more explicit? Your description is kind of vague.
-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Firstly, you should not be out "looking" for a partner, like you look for a car. Mariage, or permanent relationships are not about "ownership" or "possession". It's not a competition to see who "has" the better partner. You are not "denying" that partner to anyone else. You are forming a partnership with another individual to establish a lifelong connection of mutual aid and intimacy.
He wasn't debasing human intimacy, he's not advocating a return to slavery or the retraction of human rights or freedom of choice. It was an analogy. Get over it. Shit, people are so touchy these days...
-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Hmmm.
Our game design and technology are specifically conceived with this problem [cheating] in mind
We place very little trust in the client software
We are doing a RPG, not a FPS
Security Through Obscurity does not work anyway.
This does make some sense. I know I wouldn't seriously play a game like Quake for anything more than fun, due to the extensive trust given to the clients. This does make me wonder, though, whether they address the problem of spoofed packets? Presumably, if they don't trust the client, they keep track of where each player is, and can therefore determine whether, according to the rules, a player can do what his packets are saying he's doing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there two G's in faggot?
"Reality is less than television."-Brian Oblivion
I know this doesn't work for a lot of people, and it's a little cleche, but here goes... I walk down a street and give a total stranger a dollar. Of course this makes him happy. I now feel happy for making someone else happy. now that makes 2 people happier, 1 richer, and one poorer. thermodynamics doesn't really work well for emotions.
No, but if they found a beer can in the trash of an underage student with no other way it could ahve gotten there, then that should probably be enough to get a search warrent.
What we need to do is get the hell out of our little Ivory Tower that we've built for ourselves. Yes, your new shell/programming language/bit twiddler is great, but we need a little public outreach. What about doing free sysadmin work for non-profit organizations? Support & installation for youth centers & half-way houses? Teaching classes in low-income neighborhoods? We've let the black hats have the spotlight for too long, and too many of us consider it an accomplishment simply to write great software.
No, life is a non-zero-sum game. If I suddenly think up some majickal new invention, and sell it, others win by buying this fantastic product/service, and I win by making money on the sales. You can make life a zero-sum game if you believe that stealing is the way to obtain items, but in general, an increase in commerce helps more than it hurts, and is non-zero-sum.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
One of the many reasons I'm living off campus next year. :)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
I agree, in fact when I win we all win. So give me everything.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Is it so incocievable that human advancement could provide the means for everyone to live in relative luxury? You no longer need a slave with a palm leaf to keep you cool - you have air conditioning. You no longer need a coach driver and a team of horses to get you where you want to go. You no longer need a private courier to converse with someone accross town - you have fax machines and email and the telephone, etc... As humanity's pool of knowledge and societal infrastructure improves we can all grow rich, wealth doesn't need to built on the backs of the poor.
We may not be there yet but we are working on it. The more people realize this the sooner it will happen.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
I understand and agree with what you are saying.
But consider (aside from conditions that exploited workers are forced deal with) how many air-conditioners that Malaysian factory produces as compared with the number of workers employed there and in the distribution system.
Now think about how long each of those air-conditioners should last.
Compare this with the efficiency of a dedicated slave with a palm leaf.
Obviously people still have to work, my point is that for each persons labor much more can be achieved and gradually we all should become richer.
What percentage of the population now can afford an air-conditioner as compared with the percentage of people able to afford a dedicated palm waving slave 3000 years ago?
p.s. I apologize for the excessive use of the A.C. example
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Of course, I still like playing Earthball.
...but I still have no idea what it is. I am also unable to find references to a sport named earthball at google. Is this proof of nonexistence? :)
What IS Earthball?
I lost a game of trivial pursiut to some damn question about what sport uses the largest ball...
The answer of course was Earthball...
Anyone have an answer for me?
not to nit pick,
Yet you go ahead and do it. I'll play along:
but the plural of "antenna" is "antennas" when in reference to ariels
"aerials" not "ariels" (see also The Little Mermaid)
and "antannae" when in reference to bugs. :)
You misspelled "antennae." Yet, this story was about a bug, a bug in the design of the AirPort base station.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
In economic theory there is the concept of pareto efficiency. The idea is simple. An economic system is most efficient when the only way to increase the one persons wealth is to decrease the wealth of another individual. For example, suppose Joe has 100 apples and Jane has 100 oranges.
An interesting thing happens when you assign a value to these commodities. Generally people don't value the 100th apple as much as the first. So while Joe may like apples much more than oranges he may be willing to trade 2 apples for 1 orange. The reverse can be said of Jane. If John and Jane can trade they are BOTH BETTER OFF and there is more total utility in the system.
Eventually an equilibrium will result. At some point the marginal cost of an apple equals the margial benefit of an orange to Joe. It need not be the same point for Jane. At this point even though Jane may be willing to trade oranges for apples no trade will occur. This is the pareto efficient outcome. The only way to increase Janes utility is to decrease Joe's.
It's an interesting concept. Unlike most natural systems (not including thermodynamics. Entropy is not conserved) economics is not conservative.
Um, finding partners is about the most positive sum game there is. Consider the base case: no one plays... the human race dies out in 80 years. Unless you believe this is the optimal outcome, surely you agree that mate-finding activity has some positive value over the base case.
Even if I personally don't find a mate, I still benefit from the game because the next generation is created as a result of mate-finding. This generation provides me with the option to buy services from paper-boys, then waiters, then doctors. Some may grow up and invent really cool stuff that I benefit from. Others may write great books. We all have a total gain versus not playing the game.
Games are exceptional in that they are generally zero-sum. Almost nothing in life is. Most individual transactions are positive sum, tho a few are disasterously negative sum (mostly acts of desparation or confusion.)
Well, at least it wasn't the goatse.cx link.
-
Wealth is not energy, and is easily created and destroyed. If I take fruit, flour, and other ingredients, and make a pie, I can sell that pie for more than the cost of my ingredients. The difference between what I paid for the ingredients and what I get for the finished pie is, roughly, the value of the time I spent making it.
And equal to your cost of eating the pie. Zero sum.-
What if we make our pies, and nobody is hungry, so we can't sell them? Where did that value go?
The value is diminished. You've zeroed out the extra value.Yeah, it's a bit of a troll, but you still have holes in your argument. Just meant to keep you thinking :)
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Umm. You've baited me, and I shall rise to the occasion. Sorry, left wing theory does not claim that life is a zero sum game. In fact, it claims that by taking from those who have and giving to those who need, we all benefit. Both parties benefit from this action. It does not say that the person who had to give lost. That's a bogus claim.
Actually, slashdot is a non-zero sum game. When I have moderator points and mod somebody up, my own karma doesn't go down. Total karma is allowed to increase. OTOH, if I mod a stupid troll down, my karma doesn't increase to compensate, so it's also possible for total karma to decrease. But if everyone follows the moderator guidelines and uses their mod points more to mod up good posts than to mod down bad ones, karma will tend to increase over time.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
So you should have been born in a grassy field by your mother. You should at birth feed yourself by your instincts for hunger. You should then learn by watching other human animals to hunt or gather food to sustain yourself. Then you should fight for your position in the pack/tribe to raise your social status.
What kind of desperate need to justify ones own beliefs could issue such an obtuse statement from a person with the educational opportunities of today.
Do you think that your whole society is built on personal initiative? This is why people look at conservatives as unintellectual dipshits, because they have neither the experience nor the imagination to divine the environments of anyone other than themselves. If I can do it, so can everyone else. Well, to you I invite you to ditch the inherited gifts of your parents and go make a stand in a country that doesn't offer you such an indulgent lifestyle. Then develop your theories on social responsibility.
billn wrote: "...geek haven Slashdot..."
on the top of every slashdot page it clearly says:
"News for nerds. Stuff that matters."
this is a Nerd haven, not a geek haven. LEARN TO READ. and stop SHOUTING at us!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I hope you don't stay awake at nights obsessing over me obsessing over wrongly distributed karma on slashdot. That would be such a shame.
Yes, it would be. Thankfully I do manage to snatch a few hours of sleep.
And you lose me towards the end there. What is economics if not the study of many human beings, each trying to maximise their happiness?
On a serious note, this is probably where our main differences stem from. In my mind economics is simply the movement of energy and resources through a society. It's only one part of the human equation.
--
Of course as long as football brings in as much money for colleges as it does here, competitive sports are hear to stay along with things like sports scholarships and other such BS.
Actually I read somewhere that the vast majority of college athletic programs are financial losses for the schools; only the top few actually make money. The only explanation for funding them I can think of is that administrators are sure that they'll a) either be able to eventually turn one, or b) they're convinced that they wouldn't be a 'real' college without them. I've always been rather proud of the fact that my alma mater de-emphasized sports, even going so far as to boast about the lack of teams in a recruiting poster.
--
What a thoroughly civilised way for a thread to peter out.
I know, I can't help feeling we're doing something wrong...
--
Actually, slashdot is a non-zero sum game. When I have moderator points and mod somebody up, my own karma doesn't go down. Total karma is allowed to increase. OTOH, if I mod a stupid troll down, my karma doesn't increase to compensate, so it's also possible for total karma to decrease
I don't know, maybe we shouldn't differentiate between karma and moderation points; they're essentially the same thing. And you have to factor in metamoderation too.
--
well...if you want to take it to a genetically deterministic extreme, the end of the game could be when you pass along your genes to your offspring.
--
First of all, I hope you don't stay awake at nights obsessing over wrongly distributed karma on slashdot.
Secondly, the post I responded to started out talking about "life", then turned it into a swipe at "leftist" economic thought. That's the part I was responding to. No, the economy isn't a closed system, but parts of it act like one, and historically we can see that most periods of extreme wealth in one segment of society also coincide with crushing poverty. Your analogy makes little sense, as I didn't talk about "human happiness".
--
There was an article in a recent New Scientist magazine ("What's love got to do with it, 8 oct 2000) dealing with this very problem. A bunch of computer scientists hacked out a program where "men" and "women" would search for their ideal mate. Every man ranked all the women randomly, and vice versa. Men proposed. Women always accepted, and would stay with that man until she got a "better" offer from someone she ranked more highly. Because it is travelling-salesman, they only used 50 "men" and 50 "women" in it, but it was always able to work itself out happily ever after for every "person" involved. It only started being zero-sum when they introduced the concept of beauty, in which each "person" had a set aesthetic value that would boost them the same way in everyone else's eyes. Then everyone, especially the men, wound up miserable.
So what's the moral of the story? Don't have absolutes. any time everyone agrees that X is great and Y sucks, there won't be enough X to go around, and people will feel that there's just too much Y in the world. making more X, killing all the Y, or Y pretending to be X won't fix that, because people will still see things in relative terms. basically, be your own person. Dont go with the crowd. You'll be happier for not judging and allowing yourself to be judged by Their standards.
The article said that Slashdot emphasized on them getting confiscated in violation of free speech. Slashdot is a starting to become a pulling machine and people are listening. Slash has got some pull.
Zero-sum games are just battles for short-term advantage within larger, longer-term positive- or negative-sum games. All three kinds of games are instructive, I suppose, but playing Monopoly and Risk our whole lives may give us distorted instincts about where our opportunities for success lie.
(And don't both posting ways around this - I know, I know, change your NIC and steal someone else's port (bad idea), IP masqing (requires someone with two adapters), and other ways that are against the acceptable usage policy anyway.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
You got this right, man. Everybody's on such a tear to make sure that everyone gets treated "fairly". That's crap. Life ain't fair. When you get out of high school, you're (maybe) going to be competing for a spot in a college. Of course, the competition for those spots is under pressure too, what with quotas/AA and all. And when you go to get a job? Heh, any intelligent, decent employer (i.e. anyone worth working for) is going to hire the brightest, most talented people they can find. If not they might as well relocate to the third world and hire a bunch of uneducated third-worlders for $0.10/day. (Not that I would support such a thing, but it happens.)
-bluebomber
The Daily Build
not meening to start a war,
but WTF are these guys runing on?
im geting forbidden on about 90% of links,
inculding thire main page
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
I think this about wraps up my views on NZSGs as well, but additionally, even if the perfect game coud be created, where competition for resources etc weren't taking place, there will always be one person better than those he is cooperating with, and conciously or not he will begin competing with their flaws.
I'd much rather compete against a person outright than compete with their inability to support themselves, and have to carry them.
And MUDs are an excellent example. There is not a MUD I've ever seen that doesn't have at least one person who has gotten bored and turned to trying to kill other people. Even the ones that ban it have players looking for loopholes.
The entire concept of an NZSG is boring, if it's even possible. What is the point of a game that doesn't have some form of valuable reward for completion? And what could be valuable that you wouldn't have to compete for?
-Tommy
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
With my luck I would end up being a farmer or working a checkout counter in a non-zero sum game.
If it's not a positive-sum game, you're not looking for a partner, you're looking for a servant.
That's not a partner. That's a servant. Partners don't try to own each other.
I want to buy a widget for my home. Having a widget in my home is worth $20 to me (either because of its aesthetic beauty, or because it is a labour saving device.)
You are a maker of widgets. Your factory can make them for $10 (including raw materials, equipment costs, and the labour of the people who work in the factory). Having made a widget for $10, you want to sell it for $15, for a $5 profit (you need to eat.)
So, you and I engage in a transaction. I give you $15, and you give me a widget. I am happy since I have purchased for $15 something which is worth $20 to me: I have made a profit of $5. You are also happy, as you have sold for $15 something that cost $10 to make: you have made a profit of $5.
We both gain from this transaction. Your profit is not my loss, any more than my profit is your loss. The transaction was not zero-sum.
Cheers, quokka
--
Ikaruga scoreboard (supports netranking)
That's not to say that wealth needs to be built on the backs of the poor. We could stop that tendency if we wanted to badly enough. But most wealth today still comes from exploiting somebody.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
If you can convince a programmer that his time is worth $25/hr, and then sell his programs for the equivalent of $100/programmer-hr, then you will become wealthy. Even more so if you can convince many programmers that their time has the same value as the first guy's. The only thing you have done to earn that wealth is to convince different people that the same commodity has different values. Now if you weren't such a greedy bastard, you might just tell the programmers and buyers about each other, let them agree on a price, and go off and find a job that actually produces something of value.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
The best example of a non-zero sum game is life itself. Most left wing theory is built upon the presumption that life is a zero sum game (when people start talking about "redistribution of wealth" you know they are a bit nuts***)
What? You mean to say that Leftists are operating in a *MORE* 'sum-game' mind set? WTF are you thinking? People on the left are *ALWAYS* more interested in consensus, sharing and community. This is the practically the opposite of the right who are generally selfish, self-obsessed and greedy.
.People often mistakenly assume that someone's gain is necessarily someone else's loss.
What are you talking about? The point of 'Capitalists' and 'Conservatives' (usually you find Left/Socialists and Right/Capitalists) is that your gain is *ALWAYS* at the expense of someone else. Its called profit, or if you've heard this one before: Energy is neither created nor destroyed - its just changes form.. When a GreedyRightWingBastard(TM) has a gain he must be taking it from somewhere.. the public, his friends, family, nature - somewhere. He does not simply create wealth from thin air.
Your whole post is backasswards logic. You must be modding yourself up.
***People that 'believe in' property rights and private ownership are nuts.
socialist bullshit system to make us all poor and therefore 'equal.
What a lovely non sequitur.
Of course everyone else bitches about the USA's wealth and prosperity, and high standard of living
I can smell your arrogance. Do you also have a big cock?
When the American Indian Nation migrated to this land and assumed mineral rights, who became poorer? No matter your belief system (creationism, evolutionism, etc), there have not always been people to own every bit of everything out there.
funny munging
There is nothing wrong with the idea of competition, of winners and losers.
But most of life is not a zero sum game. Driving in traffic is not zero sum. Me getting to my destination does not mean you don't get to yours. Me taking an open spot may deny you the chance to take said open spot, but the rules of the game is not to take all the open spots. It's to reach a destination.
Finding a mate is not a zero sum game. Three guys chasing after one girl may be zero sum, in that one winner denies the others the chance at the girl, but the act of finding a mate does not deny others their chance at finding mates. The rules are to find mates, and deny others the chance has almost no bearing, except where multiple people may have the same person in mind.
Competition is only useful in it gives you a benefit. I mean, that's a very basic definition for anything. If competition gives you bad results, than it's less than useful. Competitive driving, during traffic, just makes traffic worse.
A lot of other people have already made responses on how mating is not a zero sum game. Hopefully it's a net positive game increasing the value of all humanity.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
*sigh*
Well, I know what to do on my two days off next week. DL Larn src and get cracking. :)
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Examples:
"For success, it is essential you have Thunderball Fists." "I can have such a thing?" "That's right. Thunderball Fists."
Damnit, I said the exact same thing on the original article, and I got no moderation on it! Where's the justice in that?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
"I have finally found the free Unix that's the closest thing to FORTH." -- Jack J. Woehr on OpenBSD
What does this mean?
Or, put another way, how is OpenBSD like FORTH?
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Who is it in your dream world that makes the air conditioners, fax machines, computers, and telephones, not to mention laying cable for the same? The idle rich, in their copious spare time, whiling the hours away in a quaint factory or rustic outdoor setting, just for the taste of it?
Just curious...
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
I seem to remember a study done in which they found out how much time the typical member of a given society spent doing "work". Modern hunter-gatherer societies such as the Bushmen were found to spend little time "working" compared to members of modern agricultural and industrial societies. Maybe our techniques of hunting and gathering have gotten that much better, but I think it more likely your assumption that technology and/or societal development increase leisure time is faulty.
I think the point of the argument that for every "rich" person there must be an army of "poor" people is that part of what makes a person feel "rich" is the ability to boss around others and generally be waited on hand and foot. "Rich" means relatively more powerful than others in this context. Seen from this viewpoint, "richness" is inherently limited to a small part of society, because if it is not, it will not be recognized as such.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Now this may be a dumb question, but what is a zerosum game as opposed to a non-zerosum game?
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
The question is not whether it is possible for everyone to gain from an economy. As someone who posted before me so aptly put it, the goal of redistribution of wealth is precisely for everyone to gain. However we do need to be aware of the fact that in our world today, the economic gain of some is overwhelmingly a result of economic loss of others. There are many ways to go about changing this, some of which have been practiced with some success, others are being formulated or being striven towards. For a good discussion on one such effort take a look at Michael Albert's (of Znet) ParEcon project page.
It seems that I must have been taught something of real value when I was young. Be it zero or non zero, it's how you play the game.
....
... all go down in there respective cycles sometimes as much as 33% ( MO traded from 40's to 19 and back to the 40's in less than 12 months.) oil seams to revolve around a 30 to 48 month top to bottom cycle and it keeps on going on like that with different sectors. I just come to believe that americans for what-ever it might be worth put alot of faith in themselves and our neighbors to produce alot of luck ( luck = hard hard work + research + more hard work )
.02 ( hey were is the cent key )
I think it's that easy. You share what you got, when you want to or have to and expect or hope that it come back to you when you need it or desire it.
troll alert
Also all modern currency is based real estate ( including the mineral rights and the people above it ). Hong kong is the best example of it. The government hold onto the realestate until there currency gets to strong and then they release some realestate and the currency gets put back into check. Japan example "bubble burst" has to do with bad lending based on overvalued realestate prices slam the currency then slam the market pop goes the weasel. USA were note realy due for anything major, our markets have done some amazing reorg and we now have what I call micro-mini-sectors depresions. take a good look at our markets and you'll see that the sectors of oil, food, tech, steel,
my
spambait e-mail
my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop music news
please help me make it better
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Damn. You have problems. Not everyone is out to get you. Or your entire race/class whatever you are thinking. Just calm down. You are not on anyones "list" right now. You are going to be ok.
The only thing interesting in your post was the first sentance.
"This will be my last slashdot post, good right?"
Yet you never explain why this is going to be your last post. Even sig11 left a decent reason!
So what is yours? Are you no longer posting because someone said that you shouldn't have called? Or is it because you feel you are an idiot? Please explain. I'm interested.
Moron.
What a thoroughly civilised way for a thread to peter out.
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
Thanks for keeping me sane throughout this thread. Sometimes I really have to wonder.
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
You are a twat,
That is all
Thank you,
And goodbye.
Fucking retard
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
In fact, technological progression is nearly always the best catalyst of overall quality of life improvements. Technological progression is also unlikely to flower in a socialist society.
You say that 'For each "rich" person there must exist a small army of "poor" people'. This is *exactly* the attitude I'm talking about. It may be true that for each "richer" person there are, by definition, people who are "poorer" than him. But these are relative terms, and because life is not a zero sum game, it is disingenuous to talk about wealth in this way.
Essentially, you are assuming that if we had some mechanism in place to stop that one person getting rich, then everyone else would be less poor. You're wrong.
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
If I discover a tonne of gold in the ground today, then true, everyone else's gold is worth less. But the world is still a richer place because we know about more gold.
Admittedly, gold was a bad example because it is material. The most convincing arguments that we live in a positive-sum world are to be found in technological progress, which often enrichens many people at the expense of very few people.
Another example: suppose there is nuclear holocaust tomorrow. Is there still the same total wealth in the world?
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
Energy may be conserved, but human happiness and well-being aren't.
Even in a closed system. Put two people in a box with just each other for company. They might start tearing each other's hair out immediately. Or they might start an interesting discussion, comfort each other, entertain each other, etc. The laws of thermodynamics are being obeyed all the time, but the total amount of human happiness is quite obviously *not* conserved.
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
On the individual level you're right of course: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But if you consider life to be "all human beings", and take snapshots of it at various times, you will no longer see a zero sum game.
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
Dear nomadic,
I hope you don't stay awake at nights obsessing over me obsessing over wrongly distributed karma on slashdot. That would be such a shame.
And you lose me towards the end there. What is economics if not the study of many human beings, each trying to maximise their happiness?
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
You seem desperately confused. Could you please clarify what you're trying to say and I'll try my best to help you.
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
If it's not a positive-sum game, you're not looking for a partner, you're looking for a servant.
It's not I win, my partner loses.
If I start a relationship with someone, nobody else can. There's the zero-sum.
They give you that plastic wall mount bracket. Use it. Even if you have it sitting on the floor, put it on the bracket. That little bit of ventiliation is apparently more than enough to resolve the problem, since I've never noticed the least bit of heat coming off my base station.
It's supposed to be funny, not a troll. If you don't appreciate it, mark it offtopic! Geez - some people can't appreciate an attempt at a joke.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
Finding a partner is not a positive-sum game for instance, and that's about the most important thing there is.
*Eyebrows raise*
Not positive sum eh? No wonder you're failing at it.
I call that evolution in action.
--Kara
--Kara
Before you ask, I already have a boyfriend and he's more of a man than you'll ever be.
your name sounds girlish, and your talk is unmanly. please be a girl please
I am in fact a woman.
I've linked to the definition on dictionary.com as it seems unlikely that you've ever met one.
Try leaving the house once in a while.
--Kara
--Kara
Before you ask, I already have a boyfriend and he's more of a man than you'll ever be.
Hunting and gathering was certainly not an easy way of life but don't make the mistake that the switch over to agriculture improved people's lives. Even in the modern world with machines that do that do the bulk of farmwork it is still a grueling task. Imagine the first few groups of humans which didn't even have draft animals to plow the fields with? It takes a large amount of farmland to support a single human. Life for early farmers was short and brutal, the work nearly killed them. Why then did we switch over? For stability and the ability to have larger families. Everything has it's cost, progress is never free.
Innovation in the real world is done out of neccesity, this is partially why extreme forms of *capitalism* don't have good technological progression. Notice I say "good" progression, when the wealthy consummers want something developed (from Athlon gigahertz chips to viagra, I can't think of anything beginning with Z) it will be developed, whereas when a great number of people with no buying power want something like food, affordable medicine, and *any* computer whatsoever their demand are not met. Lets not even get into lack of funding for hard science... Progress does happen but it is not the kind of progress that civilization depends on, it does not help our species survive and thus it is a perversion.
And to your last point about rich and poor being relitive: Rich can arguably be relative, I would be considered rich in somecountries and barely middleclass in others, but "poor" is universal, poor is the subsitance level, the bare minimum necesary to eat, stay out of the cold and nothing left over. Many many people are in the "poor" category, not just in far off countries but probably in your local urban center. The poor who have jobs almost always produce enough through their work to live in luxury if they were in better circumstances but they aren't because they aren't fairly compensated based on what they produce. Why? lets not get into that whole marxist means of production thing... But lets get into another socialist topic: redistributing the wealth. We *can* make the poor poor no longer by making the rich less rich. How? By doing what we've been doing to a greater extent, heavily taxing the top brackets and investing some of that money in wellfare and social security, not to mention raising the minimum wage. Give workers enough cash so they can miss a paycheck when they need to strike and pretty soon they will have negotiated better saleries, formed unions, and ended the zero sum game.
Nobody is cutting anybody's throat for anything?
Better today then when? Better then during the plague? Better then after the plague when low population among the working class brought the wage up? Or after that when a population explosion sent wages plummiting again? How much of that had to do with technology?
We didn't steal money from developing countries? What do the countries closest to us look like? Columbia with wars caused by the American narcotics market? Mexico with those who can afford to slipping over the border into a more prosperous country?
Sorry I turned a few question marks into a theme...
The wandering vagrants are poor no matter their location and there is deffinitely *not* enough charity to keep millions of homeless Americans fed and under a roof 365 nights a year.
Bill Gates does owe the community money if the community says he owes them money. That is what taxes are. Taxes are made by elected officials who Bill Gates has more effect over than any other individual in this country so I'd say that his situation is entirely fair, maybe more than fair...
No, socialism has never been sustained for a very long time. But neither has capitalism, so called laize faire (is that spelled right?) policies are doomed to booms and busts i.e the great depression, that is why many governments, including the US use hybrid economic policies. Yes thats right we do implement certain socialist policies, lots of them in fact. Considering the amound of effort we've put into making socialism look like a bad idea (and like I said, it is) we don't say where these ideas come from, just that they are smart.
F.Y.I. It used to be in most countries tax brackets went the opposite way they do now, the very rich were almost exempt from taxation while skilled workers and serfs payed the government's dues.
For example: In the halls at my U (UW-Eau Claire), a first underage drinking incident is handled internally -- the hall director would assign some set fine, but the cops would not be called. Any time someone was suspected of smoking pot, on the other hand, the cops would be called immediately. You know, 'cause one form of illegal drug use is less serious than the other, being that one is a socially accepted drug and all.
Anyhow, remember: Most people who run residence halls do so either because they have no career prospects or because they can't bear the thought of moving on from college life (or, often, a combination of these two). Expecting intelligent action is expecting too much.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Damn, man, I've never felt that way about wealth. My boss is well-off, and that money is paying the salary of everyone I work with. That money is paying for my house, my car, and everything I buy. That money is paying the wages of the folks at the corner market, the farmers who grow the food, the barber who cuts my hair. Nobody is cutting anybody's throat for anything. Your rhetoric is unneccesarily harsh, and hides your point.
-- Jeff Paulsen
You are trolling, but I'm hooked. The 'zero-sum-ness' of a game is not determined by consensus, sharing, or community. The positive-sum-ness of capitalist thinking might be related by the idea that if I have two blenders, and you have two icemakers, we can trade one blender for one icemaker, and now we can both make pina colada. Nobody lost. "Money" and "Markets" are simply tools that facilitate this exchange. The most efficient markets are those that are kept carefully isolated from manipulation by anyone. The conservative lassaiz-faire concept is the idea that government manipulation of markets is what prevents everyone from trading with near-perfect efficiency, keeping some people from making pina colada. I would go a bit further, and say that corporate and private interference in markets is just as bad for you and I. That is why insider trading needs to be restricted, among other things.
Wealth is not energy, and is easily created and destroyed. If I take fruit, flour, and other ingredients, and make a pie, I can sell that pie for more than the cost of my ingredients. The difference between what I paid for the ingredients and what I get for the finished pie is, roughly, the value of the time I spent making it. If you and I both make pies and sell them, but your pie is better and you sell it for more, where did that value come from? What if we make our pies, and nobody is hungry, so we can't sell them? Where did that value go?
You should learn sufficient economics to understand that there are trades that are advantageous to both sides. Nobody is ripping anybody off in these - it's just that value is relative.
And people who say things like this are trolls..
-- Jeff Paulsen
Possibly. They run NT as a supposedly "non-accessible" web server. Hell, one of "other faculty", notice no mention of whether the "other faculty" had any qualifications to deal with this other than breathing, could have logged into their PC and gone wandering through their Network Neighborhood to look at files on the server. They may have just happened onto the Temporary Internet Files on the server. We all know what happens next.
True sidenote: I had a manager frantic because he did just this, found someones Temporary Internet Files with pr0n in them. Was a bit abashed when I pointed out the truth to him.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Yeah, that's what it is. Everyone wants to eliminate competition in the world. Your sociological acumen has once again seen through the great liberal conspiracy and found the truth.
F'in trolls...
--
A member of a StarCraft clan was dealt a search warrant and is under investigation for 'tampering.' This is not a free speech suppression case. It's not a hate case.
Sounds a bit naive, no? Do you expect that if someone in this country is trying to suppress speech with the aid of police force, that they charge you with "undesirable expression of speech"?
But regardless of whether this case involves the First Amendment or not, this and many, many other stories leave the same questions open. Did the incident require the involvement of police? Did it require confiscation of equipment -- even equipment that has nothing to do with the network -- and the "related articles" (in billn's story), whatever those were?
Apparently not, because the actions they were initially going to take involved just a meeting with their RD and someone from ResNet or the academic IT. Something tells me that in the process of planning this meeting, someone in IT or ResLife called Campus Security to ask a quick question, and Campus Security decided to bust it open and take over. (Note that they haven't even let IT look at the box, and I really doubt that campus security has better computer experts than IT.) Apparently busting "hackers" makes college rentacops (remember, these departments are usually staffed with people who couldnt even get jobs as transit cops) look good.
I had my own share of geek-profiling in college, so I can't say that the bias isn't there. I hear even at MIT they are cracking down on undesired expression and other innocent tomfoolery by their brightest.
And I also know that what holds for the people who work for college police also holds for those who work for college IT: they tend to suck at it. I wouldn't be surprised if they left a no-password login as the default on their main server; hell, at my college, plenty of administrators' desktops were wide open on the campus network -- as in 'I can mount that drive, and if i hit delete, it will work.' (Hmm -- so thats how much the new building is going to cost!) And in my last job, we routinely got reports of 'hacking attempts' because someone running a jumpy network filter would catch someone pinging them.
As for BfD, one wonders why the hell they would want to post their own clan site on a server theyre not supposed to have access to. I dont suppose that the campus cops have thought about that -- at this point, with this press, they need to bring this guy 'down' to look good, regardless of how much it fscks this kid over.
I can't get the Stater's story (site is down?) so I can't argue the merits of the offical version (undoubtedly written by a green journalism student with an AOL-based knowledge of computers, if that). But billn, for his assurance that he knows the true motives behind this blip in the campus police log, doesn't have much to say about any of this in his rebuttal. It reads objectively enough, but to assume that what the campus cops say (or even what academic IT says) is necessarily the truth is an icy footing.
-- Keith "I used to be a journalism student too, but then i wised up" Tyler
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
How can Slashdot have missed this one?
On the Worldgame site under "Suggested New Worldometers" is how many Windows Operating System Crashes have occurred so far this year!
(No, I don't hate Windows, this is just seriously funny.)
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Second: who became poor? If this lump of gold was found in North America, probably some American Indian nation. Always remember that the state creates mineral rights, and other similar property rights, by force.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
...or because they get their room free...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
In fact, you are not asserting a right to life in your argument, but a right not to be killed. For example, if you were subject to an act of nature (let's say getting struck by lightning) and thus were hurt to the point that your recovery needed the aid of others, would they have to help you? In your society, they would not.
Correct. If they do not help me then they're probably not very nice people, but I don't believe they should be thrown in prison.
Who, if we take your society to the extreme, would leave you there to die, since, of course, they would receive no compensation for the act of helping you.
I doubt that. Have you ever donated any money or time to charity? If so, why? You certainly aren't compelled to, you do it because you think it's right and it probably makes you feel good. I'm absolutely not saying that it's wrong to help others, only that the choice should be yours and not forced by someone pointing a gun at you.
If we use your definition of right to life, there would be no hospital care except for the wealthy, no care for the elderly
Again, I don't believe this follows. Many charities provide food, shelter, and medical care, and function completely on voluntary donations. In fact, they tend to be more effective than the much more expensive government programs.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Who said there was anything wrong with them?
All your events are belong to us.
I just remembered my biggest problem with this discussion. FINDING A LIFE PARTNER IS NOT A GAME WITH A FINITE END. In order for something to be considered zero-sum or non-zero-sum, there must be an end point. There is no end point in lifetime relationships, and the belief that getting to the stage of marriage or whatever as an end point, is the reason that so many people become disillusioned by the whole thing. Marriage or whatever is not the end point of a game, neither is it the starting point of another game, but a stage in the progress of life. It is the point that you choose to open up and share your life and experiences with another individual who wishes to do the same, and that is certainly NOT zero-sum!
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
Regardless of whether it's right or wrong, our society bases partnering on physical attractiveness, and as such people who use that as a metric of who they partner (although not the only metric) with are likely making the right choice. In general, whatever the society deems "attractive," be it thinness or largeness, or money, or stature, the partnering process will typically result in long term good matches and short term bad matches. Thus, it is a postive sum game.
-no broken link
Think of 100 people. The first finds a parter slightly better suited to them than the average. The next then does the same, etc, etc. It is cetainly possible (and in reality likely) that the total happiness is higher than if no one evey matched up.
This is the same principle that shows that trade is positive sum. You have M&Ms, I have gummi bears. We trade half for half, and because of the law of diminishing returns, we come out of the trade with more enjoyment. Partnering is supposed to com out of the trade with more enjoyment. When you consider the whole system, it's still positive sum, because some people are incompatible while others are a good fit (this would be more like me having M&Ms and you having gummis and neither of us like what we have but like the others. We trade our candy, or partners, and we are more happy for it).
-no broken link
Holy crap! I remember playing the world game back in middle school. It's like I totally forgot about that until the article reminded me of it. Even though it's designed to me a zero-sum game, placing a bunch of middle school kids in the game is just asking for trouble. During the game, each country/region had a certain number of objects representing resources (play money, candles for energy, plastic fruits for food, etc). Even in the spirit of learning and all, I remember our team sending certain kids out to steal the other team's candles and fruits. I also remember bribing the media team for extra coverage of our country. Guess it just goes to show that even though the game was meant to be zero-sum where no one wins, the group's natural insticts were to steal and dominate the world.
Nonesense. This is almost exactly backwards. The theory of redistribution of wealth is that given that money has diminishing marginal utility, you can increase total utility by taking something away from the richest people and giving it to the poorest. Imagine, for instance, that person A has $1 billion and four others are flat broke. If you take $4 million from A and give $1 million each to the other four, A will hardly even notice that it's gone, but the people who receive the money will be much, much better off. That's positive sum.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
The most convincing arguments that we live in a positive-sum world are to be found in technological progress
Economically speaking, technological progress is not a good example -- its the only example we don't live in a zero sum world. Your gold example wasn't just a bad example, it was actually an incorrect example, for exactly the reason outlined above.
I have absolutely no idea what you think you're trying to explain through the nucear holocaust thing, though...
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Nice abstraction, but in the real world it doesn't work that way. When say that everyone has the right to life, it doesn't mean anything unless somebody enforces that right. That means that your are commanding others to do your bidding: to write and enforce the laws that protect that right. In most societies around the world, that means involuntary taxation, subjection to law, etc. These are all affirmative acts. Your assertion that protecting a right to life is different from protecting a right to food is false.
--
share and enjoy
The only currency will be attention.
Read my comment again. I said the real currency is time, thats also why I put the words rich and poor in quotes.
Material wealth has no effect on the supply of time. There are still only 24 hours in a day.
Or in this case the value of everyone else's gold.
If you want to know who got "poorer" in your example, well it was everyone else who had money in gold/gold interests.
Money is relative, what the real commodity being traded is time. What percent of your time is spent serving others, and what percent is spent having fun? For one person to have extreme material wealth means that lots&lots of people have to spend their time working for that person. (building his houses, cooking his food, penning his FUD, tracking his taxes, piloting his personal jet, etc), whereas he spends his time having fun- or working for himself.
In simple terms: For each "rich" person there must exist a small army of "poor" people.
Place the ideal state, where everyone has their ideal partner at infinity (nirvana). Zero is the state where noone has any partner.
If you choose a partner based upon criteria where the selection you make will cause a certain number of others to be unable to find their ideal mate, you are reducing the sum. (For example if you choose someone who is ideal to you, but you are not ideal to them)
If you choose the ideal partner for yourself and you are your partner's ideal partner, then you are increasing the sum.
Also, if you make yourself a better person, you become more desirable, and could be an ideal mate for more people. This would make the sum go up. Conversely being slovenly would decrease the sum.
(Since completely solving for every person on earth would be a travelling salesman class problem, its fair to call the nirvana state an infinity even with a mere 6 billion people.)
I'm currently a high school student, my current school isn't too bad but my old school went way too far. At one point they considered abolishing the honor roll because the 20-30% of students who didn't make it felt left out. They also decided to do away with tryouts for teams, and instead used a lottery system if more people tried out than they could take. I believe we went from 2nd in our league to last after they implemented this... oh well.
If anyone knows what article I'm talking about that'd be nice, I couldn't find it for the life of me.
Yep, but it wasn't that it was necessary they only work 15-20 hours a week, it was necessary they work at most 15-20 hours a week. Due to the ins-and-outs of hunting/gathering, any more than that and you're expending more energy than you're taking in. Most of that "leisure time" was spent actively doing as little as possible..no energy to spare.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Number of Windows Operating System crashes since January 1st:
27,010,000 and counting
This is something that we should have available for download or link up or something.
what a hoot!
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Ever heard the term "GDP growth
Do you understand that GDP growth is a measurement of a self-affirming group? GDP Growth does not relate in a linear manner with 'quality of life'.
"same amount of wealth in existence today as there was 100 years ago"
You are not claiming that the improvement in the standard of living for the last 100 years is a simple product of 'Capitalism'? Capitalism is a mere market construct - it is artificial. It has been chosen. There are other systems. Some have more reasonable long-term prospects for success (read: Communism). I would suggest it is Science, Culture and Knowledge. Humanity has the good fortune of experiencing a massive growth in the three afore mentioned facets of culture - the same would have happened if 'we' were not ruthless corporate whores... there is no proof of the two being absolutely related. I would guess that Americans perceive there present 'power' as a testament to the 'rightchiousness' of Capitalism, that it is the 'best system - just look at how terrific we are'.
I would counter that America has the good fortune of being living on a previously un-exploited landmass and never having to fight a modern domestic war. Dont be so sure of the ultimate 'success' of Corporatist Capitalism. America may be the 'wealthiest' nation - but it also enjoys *ALOT* of major social problems: Puritanism, Intolerance, Religious Zealotry, Legislated Morals, Crime, Cultural Myopia, Racism, Corruption, Consumerism and Apathy. These things are a result of individuals being convinced of their self-importance, and their greed being encouraged. This aids in maintaining the all justifying 'profit motive'. Dont confuse random good fortune with destiny - and dont let propaganda and public hysteria confuse your judgement. Look outside your borders and realize that the reason the rest of the world hates Americans is there hubris and lack of perspective... just what your post displays.
Oh and btw: GPD Growth != Success.
Note: If you happen to not be American, your opinions exemplify one.
s/socialism/capitalism/
Yes - thanks for the clarity.
these must be provided by the labor of others
these must be provided by the labor of others & Socialists believe in forcibly taking the fruits of other people's labor
both of these are basically untrue - socialists arent 'lazy'. Looking for a 'free ride'. Dont be so paranoid. The basic idea is that Class Structures are inherently flawed: It is not necessary for people to work 'against' on another. *WE* would all be better off to co-operate. Organizing our economy around the idea that people are all entitled to basic needs, and working together to assure them is a worthier collective goal. We do have a choice, we can purposely organize a system to exploit and exclude people or we can try and provide more - for all.
This is what I am advocating. Uncontrolled, rabid capitalism will not lead to a 'better world'. It may be a method to aid a few (bourgeoisie) to live much better than virtually everyone else (proletariat) - but it is not the kind of 'worthy goal' we should be aligning ourselves with.
The world is not a cold, dark, uncaring place unless we succumb to cynicism.
BTW: RIAA==MPAA==BigThreeAuto==WIPO==WTO==Bourgeoisie
Capitalists believe in accumulating wealth through the voluntary exchange of goods and services(*).
Quite possibly, but the essential part is that the 'capital' they gain is *private*. Capitalism is the antithesis of sharing. Therefore, all capitalists are depriving others of their wealth, ie the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.
You'll also find that hard-working capitalist corporations prefer to obtain unskilled and semi-skilled labour at as low a cost as possible. This is good, because a reduction in costs can increase profits, market share, etc. However, it does go directly against democratic governments, who have the unfortunate task of providing at least a minimum socialist agenda, ie employment laws and minimum wages, because its capital is 'votes', and happy people make good voters.
The 'free market' has winners and losers, but I don't think that people would choose to be born if they were forced to live their existance purely based on a ruthlessly capitalistic 'free market'. It's a non-natural invention, supported by the individuals who benefit from it the most. Evolution doesn't benefit individuals, only the collective.
Does my bum look big in this?
No, instead you need a slave in Malaysia to build you air conditioner. You no longer need a courier, you need a copper mine, probably in Africa, semiconductor plans, probably in Taiwan, and container ships, probabyl 30+ years old and registered in Liberia or Morrocco and stocked with a crew of workers who may or may not be paid enough to cover their food expenses when they land in port to unload the stuff. People seem to assume that advances in technology make things more efficient. Frankly, I'm wondering if they don't transfer the burden to the rest of the world. It is now belived that 30,000 years ago, it was neccessary for only the adult members of society to work only 15-20 hours a week for all survival functions--I'm not suggesting we go back, but it certainly makes you wonder...
/* This post not warrantied for mission critical applications. */
Finding a partner is only a "zero-sum" game if you assume every person has the same standards and the same criteria. For example, that computer model that used "attractiveness" levels had everyone value attractiveness and had everyone use the same criteria for valuing attractiveness.
However, that is absolutely not the case . As Jared Diamond mentions in "The Third Chimpanzee", studies have shown that among studied animals and humans, the object of desire is someone who resembles a person you were raised by/with but not someone you were actually raised by/with. In humans, that set of characteristics include belief systems (religious, political, etc.)
The result is that my ideal is highly unlikely to be ideal or even highly valued by someone raised by a tall, thin, dark-haired, religious Eastern Orthodox Russian-American Democrat with perfect vision.
The problem with zero-sum games is that they do not accurately reflect how market economies or personal relationships work. But this is not a cry to eliminate competition; obviously competition is an element of the non-zero-sum "games" of market economies and personal relationships. But a game where player 1 comes out 100% ahead of where he started and player 2 comes out only 50% ahead has both competition and isn't zero-sum.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
SubtleNuance is a truly ironic name for someone with such a shallow grasp of reasoning. You are quite right about energy. You couldn't be more wrong with your analogy between energy and wealth. Are you seriously trying to tell me that there is the same amount of wealth in existence today as there was 100 years ago? Nobody with a basic grasp of history and some empathy skills would. Ever heard the term "GDP growth"? Ever wondered what it means?
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
Think of 100 people. The first finds a parter slightly better suited to them than the average. The next then does the same, etc, etc. It is cetainly possible (and in reality likely) that the total happiness is higher than if no one evey matched up.
In an ideal world maybe. But one thing I read recently was a statistical study of the effects of societal ideals for attractiveness on whether or not people end up with partners they are suited for. And what was found was that when a society has a high ideal for attractiveness (as we do given the media's fascination with "beautiful" people) more people ended up with people that were less than averagely suited to each other.
So in that sense, the sum is negative, because most people don't end up with someone better suited to them than the average.
If you choose a partner based upon criteria where the selection you make will cause a certain number of others to be unable to find their ideal mate, you are reducing the sum. (For example if you choose someone who is ideal to you, but you are not ideal to them)
But you aren't just either not suited or ideal, there's a spectrum of appeal between the two... So by taking your "ideal" partner, you could be denying another thousand people the chance for a "75% ideal" partner... And if there is also a "90% ideal partner" for you but only a "5% ideal" partner for them, then only by taking the 90% ideal partner and giving your ideal partner to them do we benefit as a whole...
Maybe you've been at the feminism or something for too long... :)
Last time I checked, sex ratios were fairly balanced. That means that there really can be someone for everyone.
Yes, but how well matched will these people be for each other? Even if there was an "ideal" person for everybody, and even if they matched, how many of these would find each other and then get together? Not that many I'd assume, not with 250 million people in the US alone.
As far as "denying your partner to everyone else," did it ever occur to you that your partner is a person and not a commodity? They choose to stay with you - you don't own them.
See, you're misinterpreted what I said again. For some reason you seem to think that I am physically restraining my partner from being with other people as well. One would hope that if they are with you they do not want to be with anyone else. If they did, then they shouldn't be with you, and probably won't be after a while either.
As for experiance with relationships? Well, not that it's any of your business, but I'm perfectly happy with my wife of six years thank you. But nice try missy.
Not positive sum eh? No wonder you're failing at it.
Well no, it's not. If you find yourself a partner then you have denied that partner to everyone else (assuming fidelity of course). You win, they lose, hence it is a zero-sum situation. Of course if you're polyamorous it's different and you can have a postive-sum situation since by having someone you aren't denying them to anyone else...
Oh and thanks for the ad hominem attack. Very big of you.
Yeah, that's what it is. Everyone wants to eliminate competition in the world.
Strawman. I never claimed everyone wanted to, just that some do. Take a look at the decline in competitive sports in schools in the UK for instance. And there are groups who agree with this position here in the US. Of course as long as football brings in as much money for colleges as it does here, competitive sports are hear to stay along with things like sports scholarships and other such BS.
F'in trolls...
Oooh, I'm hurt. An opinion you don't like! Quick, must be a troll!
Now if only he knew how to fix the LaGuardia Airport (in New York). Then we'd really be saved!
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
Personally, when I read the phrase "Kent State Starcraft" I assumed that somebody with rather poor taste created a mod that replaced the existing sides with National Guardsmen and students...
s/socialism/capitalism/ for this post to make any sense.
Are all men born with the same inherent rights to food, shelter, clothing and as comfortable an existence as possible? Yes.
No. This is the fundamental difference between capitalists and socialists. I don't believe that anything requiring an affirmative act by another person can be a right. When I assert that I have the right to life, that means you shouldn't be able to kill me but leaves you otherwise free to conduct yourself. When you assert that you have the right to food, shelter, and clothing, these must be provided by the labor of others, so you am asserting that you should be able to command others to do your bidding. What were you saying about not being more important than anyone else?
Your 'real world' dogma is a defense to justify your own greed
Capitalists believe in accumulating wealth through the voluntary exchange of goods and services(*). Socialists believe in forcibly taking the fruits of other people's labor because they believe they need it more. I'm having a hard time figuring out how "greed" applies to the first and not the second.
(*)Note that this does not include entities such as the RIAA, who prefer to accumulate wealth by bribing lawmakers to pass anti-consumer laws.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
And you're correct, but only if you stop the analysis there. In reality, A will quickly notice that anytime he has earned more than his "fair share" of wealth, it is confiscated and given to those who have less. Why then should he continue to produce wealth? Why wouldn't he just sit back and get his share of the money confiscated from E (until E figures the game out and stops working too)? I suppose your answer could be "if he thinks like that then he's an evil selfish bastard", and while that may or may not be true, it doesn't solve the problem.
Of course both the original example and my reply are overly simplified, but the point is that analysis of wealth redistribution has to take into account the longer term effects of the redistribution policies themselves.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
99% of the web site hacks on WinNT are becuase some administrator (or desktop-support-person-forced-to-run-the-server) gave anonymous users write access to the website through Frontpage extensions. It's the equivalent of giving 'nobody' write/put permissions on your Apache site. Univeristy departments are probably the worst at this too, so it's no suprise that someone who's "idea of shutting down his computer is kicking it until the light goes off" could upload some webpages.
ÕÕ
Strangely enough, none of his comments were moderated above a score of 1.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Any non-zero-sum game will eventually evolve into a zero-sum game. I say this as a veteran of countless muds and cooperative games of starcraft. My rationale is that in any universe containing finite "resources" and no limits on the player's actions, players will eventually consume enough of the resources (be they vespian gas or +1 daggers) such that things will eventually result in either competition to take resources quicker or fighting to take resources that have already been claimed.
Every game Ive played that didnt take drastic measures to prevent players from competing with one another always had players competing with one another. Any game that did an effective job of preventing this competition was quickly abandoned as boring.
Games that completely prevent competition between players arent games anymore... theyre called *drum roll* chat rooms! Or mucks or whatever.
Anyway, competition is fun, right? What better reason to get up in the morning?
However, I don't see the bubbling in the label that was in that link.
I did intend to mount the antenna on the wall at one point, but never did it. The wall bracket is still on, though, and it serves to elevate the base station off of the shelf that it's on, which is probably good for ventilation.
Moral of the story: Put that bracket on, even if you're not intending to mount it. Not only could it make your unit run cooler, but it gives it that kind of floating-UFO action.
The best example of a non-zero sum game is life itself. Most left wing theory is built upon the presumption that life is a zero sum game (when people start talking about "redistribution of wealth" you know they are a bit nuts). People often mistakenly assume that someone's gain is necessarily someone else's loss.
"moo" - cow 3, 1906
Yea, I know that whole 1970s thing was the National Guard getting just a tisch trigger happy. But the Kent State UPD just bought freaking M16s
Supposedly, they're being modified to semi-automatic. Still, what the hell does a UPD need M16s for? If it's that bad, call in the city police or sherrifs for help. Or even the National Guard if you have a riot on your hands.... oh wait... that happened already. My bad.
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Is there something wrong with the idea of competition and having someone win and others lose? After all many of the challenges people face in their lives will be zero-sum ones - either you win or you lose, and not everyone can come out ahead. Finding a partner is not a positive-sum game for instance, and that's about the most important thing there is.
There does seem to be certain people that seem to think that competition is bad, and that it is somehow "unfair" to those that aren't as good. Peronally, I think it's unfair to cosset these people and make them believe that things are going to be easy when they hit the outside world.
At least losing in school will prepare them for losing outside of it. Harsh, yes, but better sooner rather than later.
Still, the game sounds interesting and I may have to have a go. Hopefully managing the world's resources won't turn out to be a zero sum game, even though America seems to think it is, and if they don't actively try and scupper all attempts to curb our excesses we will somehow "lose".
Oohkay. So, there's no real evidence that a crime has been committed (maybe someone logged onto the server, fired up IE, and the pages ended up in the cache), but the judge is quick to hand out a search warrant and the police have the right to hold the kid's computer for up to a year.
So, if I were to find a beer can in a dorm trash can, would the judge grant a search warrant to confiscate the dorm fridge of every resident (despite the fact that some residents might be overage, or that a visitor might have desposited it, or whatever)? After all, a crime might have been committed.
In my opinion, this case was never important for any free speech implications: It's the unreasonable search and seizure you should be concerned with. Even in a case where it the police don't know a crime has even been committed, they can easily obtain a warrant to suspect a suspect's civil liberties.
If the government tries to regulate guns, special interests swing into action. If the government tries to stop someone from saying anything, Slashdot goes nuts. Why isn't this just as bad, if not worse?
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Had the airport been intact Apple would have presumably replaced it (it's not cost-effective to repair them) free of charge under the one year warranty.
Unfortunately due to (reportedly) poor electrical design the device's lifetime appears to be only slightly greater then one year. How convenient for Apple. I'd always suspected this of my kitchen appliances but generally Apple's equipment (except for their old 9" monitors & Mac SE power supplies) has been notably high quality.
Electrical/design defects aside the Apple Airports really are a fabulous bit of engineering. For a few hundred bucks they act as a really nifty DHCP/NAT server. One doesn't even need a Mac to configure these suckers as their OS manufacturer has a Java one out. Surreally enough the AirPorts are x86-based, which is strange considering the strength of PPC in embedded devices.
In somewhat related new the Orinoco/WaveLAN 802.11 cards have now dropped in price to ~US$150 for Silver, ~US$170 for Gold (128 bit encryption.) Furthermore reports are out that the next generation of these devices will shrink down to two or so discrete chips meaning even smaller/more efficient devices.
Now if only more manufacturers would start embedding antennas in their devices.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Well, I'm glad to see that the police did at least go in for some reason that wasn't just 'we don't like the page'. It's really sad though, that it's gotten to the point that many of us feel that we have to be that paranoid with regard to laws and law enforcement, and that it seems that much of law enforcement is very behind as far as technical knowledge goes. I'm still wondering why it wasn't handled internally though. At my university, if a student is suspected of breaking the rules of the school with regard to the network, his physical feed is unplugged from the other end. (Ironically, they aren't usually smart enough to cut access by IP, so the student simply has to find another outlet, but oh bloody well.) The thing is that they don't usually need to call the police in, and I'm not aware of any instances where that was necessary.
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...