Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Wal-Modem, Culpability, Misquotes
There must be some mistake; this is what I wanted. Masem writes: "The review of the OS-less PCs sold through Wal-Mart brought out a lot of comments on the inclusion of a WinModem, effectively requiring Windows to make the computer work correctly. However, NewsForge reports that shortly after that posting, Microtel, the makers of these computers, wrote back to the reviewer and indicated that new versions of the systems will ship with Linux-friendly modems from now on. Nice to see a company that knows its target audience and how to make them happy."
Thanks, Microtel!
Next: ethernet cable manufacturers. cpt kangarooski writes: "For those tuning in late, Harlan Ellison sued AOL (among others) for having the temerity to permit users to upload copies of his copyrighted works across their networks on the Usenet. As it turns out, AOL was in the right, and got a summary judgment against Ellison.
The opinion by Judge Cooper is located here in PDF format Given his reputation, Ellison will likely appeal."
Welcome to Ix, please take off your shoes. cayle clark writes "A few months back I asked slashdot about shopping in the Akihabara, Tokyo's famous "electric town," and got lots of good advice. Well, now I been and went there, took some pictures, and posted an illustrated account here. Netting it out, it's a keen place to wander, and prices are in some (but only some) cases lower than in the USA."
Hacking at the ties that bind Following up on the new venture in wireless from the LinuxCare crew, Dave Sifry writes "802.11b Networking News wrote up a summary of the new Sputnik Gateway release today, codenamed Stagecoach. The Community Gateway code runs from CD and turns a computer with an ethernet card and Prism 802.11b card into a secure authenticating firewalled 802.11b Access Point. New features of this release include support for desktop cards, like the Linksys WMP11 PCI card, which means that you can turn your old 486 in a closet into a cheap secure wireless router."
I'd rather they save Futurama, but gift horse, teeth, etc. Remik writes "Yahoo News is carrying this story letting Simpsons creator Matt Groening set the record straight that the Simpsons isn't winding down and that it isn't on the ropes. He claims he was misquoted and misunderstood in a Financial Times of London article that came out earlier this week and that he does indeed has stories for years and years. What if Marge became a robot? Hmm..."
Has anyone detected the envelope with the winner's name yet? SoundGuy666 writes "Looks like SETI made it past that 500 million milestone - wonder who won the $500 prize..."
Funny, the episode last night showed a huge lack of imagination. The network may want to beat the horse for more cash, but that doesn't mean that it's not in deep trouble.
Come on man, get with it! Suing over usenet piracy is so 90's. It's all about suing p2p now!
Next thing you know, he'll start railing off on the evils of DOOM.
-Denor
Hey, they're just starting out. We can look at all the errors of every computer manufacturer in their first models. The Altair 8088 and Apple 1 were both kits, requiring a great deal of know-how (especially then) and allowed for a large deal of Human error (This was in the days of shag carpetting). Microtel is going to have a large amount of future successes for freeing us from the evil tyrant of Microsoft! Thank you, Microtel for having the balls to stand up!
Surprise surprise! Someone got it wrong and sold a lot more issues by misquoting the Simpson's creator, saying that he was going to stop making new episodes. How convenient. It is such a rarity too, that a magazine would misquote someone to have a big story. Of course, I'm sure that it was entirely unintentional...
Clean PC... Wal-Mart...
Clean PC... Wal-Mart... Aaaaaagh!
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
When did it jump? I think I know, but everyone agrees it's happened already.
As soon as I saw the episode where Marge is
kidnapped by a biker gang, I said "This is so
incredibly forced and predictable. They're not
trying any more. I bet this show ends soon."
I got 2 out of 3.
Austin is more fun than Dallas.
Matt made the message clear in more than just an interview. The last new episode that aired, in the opening scene where Bart is writing on the chalkboard, Bart was writing something along the lines of "A will never lie about being canceled again..."
Gotta love finding out like that!
Now, that said,
I WANT MY GOD DAMNED FUTURAMA BACK YOU BASTARDS!!!
Wal-Mart is well known for their globalization tactics
... excuse me???
Their globalisation tactics? Errr... like selling to people?
Or maybe you mean allowing people to buy - say - mangos, or bananas?
There are many reasons not to buy from Wal-Mart. But 'their globalisation tactics', whatever they may be - and they seem hardly different from anyone that either sells into different countries, or sells to different countries - hardly seems one of them.
*r
--- My dad's political betting
The better reason to avoid Wal-Mart is the same reason to avoid Microsoft - both are very guilty of monopolistic abuses (MS has been found guilty, Wal-Mart is just as bad but has not been investigated).
Go into any small town in the American South. Look at the amount of competition both before and after Wal-Mart moved in. Look at what Wal-Mart does to their old buildings after they move into a "Super Wal-Mart" (sometimes less than 1/2 mile away).
Wal-Mart drives all of the smaller competitors out of business. Now they are driving K-Mart out. They refuse to lease their old buildings, preferring to leave them empty.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
globalization...third world labor
Gosh break out the moral dilemna rags!
Good grief. Globalization itself is not evil, no more than capitalism or socialism is evil.
And what the heck is wrong with employing third world labor? You mean they should go without jobs?
Hey buddy, my truck was built in Indiana and North Carolina by a Japanese company. Should I refuse to buy any truck not built within 50 miles of where I live, and not built by locals?
Get a grip. Nothing is local any more. Any Wal Mart driving out inefficient mom-and-pop stores, well, too bad, but that's how progress works. The downside is the newly unemployed have to find a new job. The upside is costs drop, and society finds other uses for previously inefficient workers. They have been fred upt o do something NEW. Got a problem with that?
Yeh, let's all go back so damn far that everyone is employed locally, say, all the way back to when everyone had their own garden, made their own clothes, and so on.
I personally dislike Wal-Mart for their extreme penny puinching attitude, I always feel like they are squeezing the last penny out of every thing, and like I should go shower after leaving the place. I don't shop there much. But they have done a hell of a lot of good in keeping prices low for the great unwashed majority. I say Go Wal-Mart!
Infuriate left and right
I wish Mr Ellison would just realize the futility and injustice of doing what he is doing and fight his fine cause elsewhere.
The Simpsons jumped the shark in the season that ended with the Behind The Laughter episode.. Season 12, I think? The characters have been rather 'off' since then.. and 'Behind The Laughter' was worst episode ever anyway.. so it's a good point to mark.
mogorific carpentry experiments
It is a well known fact that AMD Duron processors are made in a sweatshop in Maylasia.
Of course they are! You ever been in a bunny suit? No matter how cold the room is--you sweat, period. The human body just gets hot when surrounded on all sides by millimeter-thick plastic.
Even so, I hope this post was a joke. I saw it was modded funny...
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
SETI@home changed the prize to a T-shirt shortly after the /. article.
So no one won the $500 prize...
It is a well known fact that AMD Duron processors are made in a sweatshop in Maylasia.
- i have never read anything about AMD making their processors in sweatshops...do you have any information to back that up? even if they are, does that mean we should stay away from all stores that sell AMD processors...jeez, i dunno where i'm gonna shop for electronics anymore...
A large portion of Wal-Mart's merchandise is produced in third-world countries under sweatshop conditions
- i dunno about your Wal-Mart, but in my Wal-Mart they sell tons of brand name merchandise...the same brand name merchandise that you can find in any mall, toy store, electronics store, etc...if you have a problem with the business practices of a particular brand of merchandise (e.g. Nike), then i suggest you protest their company in particular, rather then make a dangerous blanket statement like you did...
-if you were gonna slam Wal-Mart for anything, you could've slammed them from not hiring union workers (atleast i don't think they still do)...that would be a legitimate complaint (although, i don't have a problem with it)...that is one of the ways they keep their prices down, in fact...but instead, you came in with unsubstantiated claims about AMD, and a bunch of "evil" talk about Wal-Mart...nice try...
here's a link to the MENSA comment form, i think we should send them a copy of your post, and protest your membership...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Well, although you're just barely literate, I agree. People who shop at Wal-Mart are gonna be, well, like you. Barely literate cretins who buy computers for porn and games. I don't think that most Linux kids could even stand the lights in Wal-Mart long enough to buy a computer.
Can somebody enlighten me?
What is his copyrighted work for which he sued AOL?
I think this product is targeted towards the advanced users out there, as much of the "mainstream" users would at least think twice before buying a PC, then have to install an OS. However, most of the people I know who install and configure their own operating systems (whether windows or linux) tend to want to build their own systems themselves. Personally, I never purchase manufactured computers because I want to make sure I get "top quality" components, such as a versitile/highly configurable motherboard (like asus, i'm not endorsing). Especially when you install Linux, it's good to know exactly the hardware specs, and the easiest way to do that is to put it all together yourself.
Despite this, I feel Walmart & Microtel are doing a good job at showing that Windows isnt the only way to compute. The Microtel SYSMAR506 - Athlon 1.4 seems a good deal at around $500 for budget consious families who want to expose technology affordably to their children or for geeks who need a computer fast and cheap. It would be nice if they included both Windows and Linux drivers, but i know that 1.) Just the fact that it includes windows drivers is a much better improvement than Compaq's "recovery cd" that doesn't have drivers, and 2.) a lot of hardware is automatically detected under Linux, so it may not be necessary
$cat
...but you knew that.
If you actually read Ellison's original rant, he sued AOL because the infringing postings were "received as part of his subscription to AOL."
That's right kids, Ellison was connecting through AOL. The alleged infringer's ISP (Tehama County Online) rolled over immediately, and was thus spared inclusion in the lawsuit. AOL got sued because they carried the infringing bits to him at his request.
At worst, they failed to proactively remove the posts from their news spools.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
Actually, it is a well known fact that the Duron is manufactured in AMD's Fab 25 in Austin, Texas. I'm sure the residents of Austin will be suprised to know that they are now citizens of "Maylasia". Or did you perhaps mean Malaysia?
But hey, smart folks like you have no need for verifiable facts, right? So much for that "no toleranse for stupidity" thing. I guess Mensa'll hand out a card to any retard willing to take their asinine brain teaser test...
Oh and, by the way, it's spelled "tolerance". You might want to fix that one of these days. But then again, since I already pointed that out to you several months ago, maybe you enjoy looking like an idiot?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
No, the better reason to stay away from both Microsoft and Wal-mart is that they produce crappy product. Urban Wal-marts make even the worst of their K-mart counterparts seem downright pleasant.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Globalization itself is not evil...
Globalization often means that products are produced in one part of the world and shipped to another part of the world. This requires energy, often through the use of fossil fuels, which when used produce gases that harms the atmosphere.
This fact is often sadly neglected.
Mats
In that case, the court said this: "The court does not find workable a theory of direct infringement that would hold the entire Internet liable for actions that cannot reasonably be deterred." The worst possible outcome from a Scientologist's perspective.
Judge Cooper upheld this precedent with her current summary judgement. Way cool.
Yet again, the Scientologists shoot themselves in the foot!
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
Yep - really easy too - they all should have a n type port on the back that the antenna plugs in to.
I use a decent $67 8db omnidirectional at my base station, although, if you need longer range you might want to look at this $109 24 db directional.
Remember, you can increase the range by putting an antenna at both the base station, and the remote station. You might want to consider using an omnidirectional at the base, and a directional at the remote if you really need to push the limits.
The one with Furious D was one of the funniest episodes ever. You're nuts.
"And what's this? A horse abusing a jockey? Could this be the start of a terrifying Planet of the Horses? In this announcer's opinion, almost certainly yes! And away I go!"
Driving them out of business is capitalism, not anticompetitive practices. Microsoft forces companies to put Windows on every PC they sell or not get the cheap rate; they put hidden instructions in their operating system so that alternative software/os's can't run their software, etc. There is a difference. Has Wal-mart actually done such anticompetitive things?
Sorry but My Compaq EVO and my E500 both have winmodems and they work perfectly with linux, both slackware and redhat 7.2 and 7.3..
A major type of winmodem chipset is happily supported by linux.. Maybe the one in the walmart computer is a el-cheapo version of a winmodem that isnt supported, I dont know what chipset it is.
but saying that winmodems are unsupported by linux is pure FUD and has no place on slashdot.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I mean, isn't it obvious that, if it's $400 for one person, it will be $800 for a couple?
It's not as obvious as you might think. In the travel business, there's often a substantial discount on per-person rates for double occupancy, meaning that if it costs $X for one person, it'll cost less than $2*X for a couple.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Ellison is without doubt the most pompous jackass I've ever seen in my life.
Harlan or Larry?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Addressed in the previous post.
their use of third-world labor,
There are very few industries that can be said not to use "third-world" [his term, I don't use it myself] labor. If you wear clothing, use gasoline, shop at a grocery store, or make less than $100K a year I have no doubt that you have patronised such an industry. But please don't feel guilty about that. The man, woman, or teenager who is hired for $1 a day to sew shoes might be able to support a family that otherwise might have to scavenge for much less. I don't doubt that abuse occurs, and it should be stopped where it is identified. I'd love to see Wal-Mart institute a program to do just that. But I can't agree with an ignorant, blanket statement that would have us deal a staggering blow to the economies of nations like Malaysia, Peru, Thailand, Mexico, India, Nigeria, etc. Maybe you imagine a world in which we could snap our fingers and all countries would be "modernised" at once. We don't live in that world. Maybe you think that they should all just go back to picking bananas and pulling rickshaws. That sort of thinking would be an insult to all the rational adults who just happen not to have been born in the developed world. They do have problems, but the solutions to them lie far more in jobs and economic development than in aid and the exploitation of natural resources.
Even if you a leg to stand on in the above, Wal-Mart is more strongly identified in the minds of most people with "buy american" than most other large retailers.
and their opression of competition in small-towns
Just what do you understand the word "competition" to mean? Wal-Mart closes down mom-and-pop stores because they can't compete. Wal-Mart typically brings an orders of magnitude greater selection of products to a town, and then offers significantly lower prices for those products. Monopolistic behavior would then dictate a raising of prices after local competition had left, but I challenge you to cite a study that has found this. In the small towns in which I've lived most of my life, we were happy if we could reap the benefits of capitalism by driving 30 miles to a Wal-Mart. Our communities appreciate a large employer for the uneducated for whom we struggle to find jobs. Gone is the time when we would "just wait" for an item that we wanted or needed. Wal-Mart is a healthy phenomenon for the general public. In most cases I've seen, efficient retailers like auto parts stores, farm supplies, hardware stores, pharmacies, and the like have survived. It's nineteenth-century dinosaurs like general stores or clothing stores that have gone by the wayside. Or maybe we should just go back to picking peas like the bumpkins you know we are?
A large portion of Wal-Mart's merchandise is produced in third-world countries under sweatshop conditions. This immoral and unethical business practice may save you a few pennies at the checkout but it exploits children and exaggerates the distance between socioeconomic classes.
Please cite any source at all for these statements. Please quantify "large portion".
Even the processor in the "linux-friendly PC" sold at Wal-Mart is manufactured from child labor in third-world countries. It is a well known fact that AMD Duron processors are made in a sweatshop in Maylasia. [sic]
Is it actually well known that the AMD plants in Malaysia that manufacture Durons use child labor? I've spent some time in Malaysia, and while it certainly isn't the U.S. [nor would I expect it to be], it is a rapidly modernising nation with a strong tradition of caring for its population, and a growing concern for the education of all young people. Malays appreciate the benefits of modern life as well as taking pride in their distinction as a culture and a nation.
I would urge everyone concerned with the exploitation of the poor children to purchase only American-made genuine Intel processors. Furthermore, using third-world labor for manufacturing causes significant harm to the American economy because of the tens of thousands of blue collar manufacturing jobs which have been moved overseas.
Ah, finally. Here it is. You, sir, are a protectionist. First, do you consider the manufacture of computers to be a traditional blue collar industry? How many jobs existed in this industry in the U.S. 20 years ago that have since moved overseas? Then, please realize that the productivity gains, which are the only drivers of sustained economic growth, over those 20 years have come about as a combination of the use of cheap overseas labor and information technology. Would you really like to trade in our economy for that of the early 1980s, even if we could? Do you imagine that any other components of your "genuine Intel" PCs are manufactured in the U.S.? As a side comment, I would much rather have my current job as an IT consultant than any manufacturing job.
Wal-Mart portrays a patriotic image in its advertising campaigns, but in reality is an evil corporate monster who exploits children for the sake of its own bottom line.
Like most companies not directly involved in the manufacture of chemicals, Wal-Mart is amoral. I would love to see it implement a program to find and eliminate child labor, but its effect in developing nations is overall positive. It is one of the strengths of capitalism that for the most part it encourages amoral individuals and organizations to improve the lives of real people, in the U.S. and elsewhere.
The best way to fight this is with our dollars. Don't spend any money at Wal-Mart and support their evil globalised empire. If we all band together, we can stop this evil menace.
This is funny, and makes me wonder if I've been trolled. Ah well, too late. I'm sure others have had these thoughts, even if you haven't.
later,
Jess
I am programmed for etiquette, not destruction!
I'm typing on a Japanese computer right now. The keyboard is just fine for typing in English. I don't understand the problem with getting a Japanese keyboard. There are a few extra keys and Japanese letters (hiragana) in addition to the usual letters, but I'd say it's way cooler, not a problem.
Japanese Windows, of course, requires you to be able to read, but all good geeks can install an English operating system on their computers.
Depends on your background and context. As a born-and-bred New Yorker, I will always think of the New York Times when hearing "The Times". Logically enough, someone from the UK would be probably think of the "The Times of London". I don't think there's a "right" way, anymore than there's a "right" assumed area code for a phone number like xxx-1212.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Harlan or Larry?
Yes.
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
Since we know Google spiders /., it would be helpful if you'd make Scientologists a link to xenu.net instead of some random phrase. After all, we all know where to go to get information on Scientology, but your casual Google queryist might not. Right?
--
E_NOSIG
Not so much a fan of WalMart, but... Do you have evidence that they have? I think it's pretty clear that the burden of proof is on those charging misdeeds. Crying "monopolist!" while getting whupped in the marketplace is almost as easy as crying "witch!" when getting whupped farming. It's entirely possible that Wal-Mart has legitimately leveraged their volume -- plus their documented operational efficiency -- into lower prices. I sympathize with people who bemoan the loss of the small American downtown... but those people seem to shop at the ole Box'N'Shop as well.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Oh no! What does that say about the US government? Followed by, You haven't been reading /. very long, have you?
And, since I've been roused to post yet again, I suppose I should address everything in this /back that concerns me.
1. Harlan Ellison has a right to defend his copyrights, but he's an idiot to go after what a powerful ISP that is becoming more and more like a common carrier. Wasn't there a move at one point to make ISPs CCs?
2. The Simpsons is definitely on the way out. I can't say exactly when it started on the way out... it's rather like the onset of cold weather. At some point, you start wearing a hat but it doesn't usually jump from 90 to 40 all in one day, and there are plenty of 80s mixed in with the 50s. Every once in a while I still get a good belly laugh from the Simpson's, but it's been a while. Last Sunday's Apu affair just sort of sat there. How old are the octuplets? They ought to age them correctly. That would yield a good shot where Maggie meets one and then looks at Marge as if to say "why not me?"... Actually, I've seen lots of suggestions from fans that are better than the real scripts. That's a certain sign the show is dying. Like Saturday Night Live jumped the shark when GE Smith started playing. Even George Foreman smashing Smith's guitar hasn't saved it. I can still think of better scripts than they can, but I can't pinpoint the moment of failure for the Simpons... sorry.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Amen to that. Ironically, however, the path to that happy state almost certainly lies in increased involvement in the world economy, and that at first is going to come through Western companies. So it's OK to pressure Wal-Mart, Nike, or whomever, but recognize the irony... Here in the industrial West, we reached more human working conditions through strife and struggle; it's unlikely to happen smoothly anywhere else. The worst thing is, the transnationals seemed to have learned a lot of lessons about stopping the process, but we are not transmitting the right lessons about moving it forward.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
OK, since there seems to be next to no posts regarding the Akihabara page, here I go... (sorry to be harsh, but I spend a lot of time there, so it sort of gets my goat to see someone come along, go around a few shops, write up a single-page report, and get that posted to /.).
The Akihabara district of Tokyo is world-famous as a shopping district specializing in electrical and electronic equipment. I had the chance to visit the Akihabara while on an Elderhostel tour of Japan in April, 2002. (The name is pronounced ah-kee-ha-ba-rah, with no stress on any syllable. It is not, as English speakers want to say, aki-HAbara or akiha-BAra. The syllables just roll out all at the same level.)
Not really. Spoken Japanese does not use stress as a marker, but rather pitch. 'Akihabara' declines in pitch towards the end of the word.
Akihabara is a station on the Japan Railways line and on the Tokyo subway. The railway station is a bit more convenient. This is what you see as you start down from the station platform.
A bit more convenient, if you happen to be using a JR line - if you're on a subway line, the subway exit is the way to go.
There are lots of people on the street (but that's true everywhere in Tokyo). This was Sunday morning at 11AM.
Akihabara's main street is closed to traffic on most Sundays.
The district is roughly 6 city blocks square. Some of the streets are wide, as above, and some are narrow and have that "oriental bazaar" feel to them.
It's quite considerably larger than that - certainly, most of the larger stores are toward the station, but if you head down the road in the direction of the Suehirocho station, there's many smaller shops in the back streets.
This place also sold a variety of CPU and memory chips. Here is the price list. Multiply Yen by 0.008 to get dollars (as of 4/02). Thus the 2.4Ghz P4 was selling for about $575. These prices, as with most prices in the Akihabara, did not strike me as wonderful bargains. Good prices, but not good enough to cover the airfare to Tokyo!
Gee, I'm so sorry... strange as it may seem, shops in Akihabara don't take your plane fare into account when setting their prices.
Notice the number of clerks. Like every Japanese retail store, there are many, many clerks, all eager to be helpful. Japanese retail stores are grossly overstaffed by American standards.
...which could easily be rewritten to say, "American stores are grossly understaffed by Japanese standards." How often have I seen people complaining that they can't find a clerk in a US Fry's?
The prices for Apple stuff seemed to be about the same as US prices.
That's because Apple engages in price-fixing in Japan (they were actually convicted of it once, but it's obvious that it still goes on).
Many stores sold games. This one is advertising the Nintendo for about $200. There were also Sega and Sony game stores. I don't know what the game is that is featured in the window display. The box was all Japanese except for the line "The voices of a distant star."
It's called 'Hoshi no Koe' ('The Voice of the Stars' is close enough).
When I looked closely at these PDAs I found the screen display was all in Japanese.
OH MY GOD!!! You're KIDDING!!!! Japanese PDAs in Japan... who would have thought it?!?
Most of the larger stores devoted much floor space to items of interest to local people, especially appliances: washing machines, microwaves, rice cookers and the like. And some absolutely gorgeous, 16:9-format TVs, which, or course, would be useless in the US.
Obviously, these stores should immediately devote a minimum of 70% of their floor space to items that are of interest to Americans.
There were lots of laptops to be seen, but alas, almost all had Japanese keyboards and the Japanese version of Windows. The prices for most laptops seemed to be pretty close to US prices for comparable models. The only bargains were on closeouts (clearly marked in English, "last one").
...I don't need to hammer the point any more, do I? (BTW, the reason you didn't find any 'bargains' was because you were looking in the wrong place - if you want a cheap laptop, the best way to find one is either online or check some of the smaller shops for weekend specials).
The only place you find English keyboards is in the big stores, in what are advertised as "Duty Free" departments. "Duty Free" is a misnomer -- all the goods were made in Japan, so there is no question of avoiding an import duty.
The 'Duty Free' in this case refers to the lack of the 5% consumption tax on items (which he does mention later on, although he doesn't link the two facts).
All in all, about what I'd expect from a tourist on a quick spin through the larger shops...
Just about everything you need to know about Harlan can be found on harlanellison.com. And check out the quote on the first page. Way to make friends, Harlan.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Globalization is definately NOT evil. Yes, the U.S. does lose blue collar jobs to "third-world countries" but that is not necessarlly a bad thing. The reason that labor is so cheap in undeveloped nations in that it is very unproductive. If an employee wasn't working in a textile mill, making $1 a day, they would be without a job entirely. Sure, that wage is low according to our standards but when your next-best option is no job and starving, which would you pick? As the workforce becomes more skilled and educated, the price of labor becomes more expensive. Look at Japan: following World War II, they were an underdeveloped nation and labor was cheap. Now, as the country has developed, the price of labor in Japan is near that in the US. Take Germany: highly skilled labor is, in fact, more expensive than in the U.S. but is used to produce finer-quality products (luxary vehicles are one).
It would be exploiting a worker in the United States or other simarlly industrialized nation where the standard of living was high to pay a very low wage. So what happens? Ideally, the price of the imported goods are cheaper than they would be if they were made domestically. The aggregate savings that society relizes can be used to reeducate the workforce that would have been manufacturing the imported good to perform work that requires more education or skills and then the standard of living for ALL Americans can increase. At the same time, underdeveloped countries will develop more and increase the standard of living in those countries.
So, while globalization might force change, it is a change for the better. We get cheaper goods and a better standard of living. The foreign countries get meaningful jobs, the workforce and economy develops, and their standard of living increases. Global society as a whole is better off then it was before.
I don't shop at Wal-Mart because of their illegal actions towards the attempted organization of their employees, among other reasons. But the fact that they sell foreign-made goods is not one of them.
Why are all the American IQs I see so high ? Is it similar to the having bigger golf balls thing ?
I was of the opinion that about 1% of the population (of anywhere) had an IQ of above 120. I tested mine at 117 I think. Phhhhht. Even if I tested as 5000 points I would still say that intelligence can't be measured- there are too many biases and even tests that have supposedly been carefully controlled rely too much on knowledge rather than intelligence.
Whatever.
graspee
Namely, forbid interstate commerce. Forbid intercounty or even intercity or especially interneighborhood commerce.
Where do you draw the line?
Here's a thought. Money is the great equalizer. If someone can build something halfway around the world and ship it to me cheaper than I could make it myself, that's a win.
Here's another thought. If that ship / train / truck / plane carries cargo to me from halfway around the world, it probably carries something back in the other direction.
Infuriate left and right
I have to disagree. Like many of the earlier Simpsons epidodes, The Principle and the Pauper is a parody of an earlier famous work. In this case it is taken directly from Martin Guerre [musicalheaven.com], a musical.
I'd imagine they got the idea from the Prince and the Pauper story, since the name and the fact that its a more common take on the plot.. who's not familar with the prince and the pauper? Who's heard of Martin Guerre?
If someone else can make something cheaper than we can, then that frees us up to do something NEW and BETTER. Would you still have us making buggy whips just to keep the jobs?
Infuriate left and right
"A large portion of Wal-Mart's merchandise is produced in third-world countries under sweatshop conditions"
In fact, some of their merchandise has been shown to be manufactured in first-world countries under sweatshop conditions -- and by children, no less (i.e., the Kathie Lee thing). And of course, there's always the Wal-Mart practice of enforcing their own moralist values on their inventory/ services (e.g., their decision not to carry the morning-after pill).
An MS-free PC is a very good thing...but the cost outweighs the...cost, or whatever it is I'm trying to say.
Where did I say anything about monopolies being good?
Next time you post, try interspersing some facts or at least reasoning in amongst the rants.
For instance, one benefit of globalization is more competition, such as third world steel mills. They can make steel a whole heck of a lot cheaper than the first world. Look up some facts on how much overcapacity there is among steel mills. Half could go out of business -- the inefficient half, mind you -- and the world would be better off because (1) those workers would find something more productive to do, and (2) the crappy inefficient mills would go out of business and stop polluting.
Isn't that something! More and better work, less pollution -- bingo! Competition!
Now what was it you liked so much about localization?
Infuriate left and right
Harlan Ellison is an excellent example of why one should never know what one's favorite authors are like as people.
I loved Alone Against Tomorrow and his [imho] groundbreaking novella The Region Between. He was my undisputed king of unapologetically weird 70's-era sci fi.
I would say "love" but it's impossible to pick them up again without thinking of his trite rants on the [old] Sci Fi Channel. Now he's suing AOL for serving up content he explicitly asked for.
Harlan, Harlan. Feh.
Lest Slashdot readers be tempted to dismiss Harlan Ellison as a technophobic crank, be aware that he is one of the most financially successful writers working in Hollywood today. He got that way by fighting the studios who tried to rip him off.
Hollywood operates in large part on reputation fraud and misappropriation of other people's work, particularly screenwriters. Plot ideas and outlines are co-opted left and right. Writers in Hollywood do indeed work like dogs and end up getting treated about as well. Ellison stepped into these shark-infested waters many decades ago and has consistently and resolutely refused to allow himself to be fscked by the studios.
Ellison is widely recognized as one of the most litigious writers out there, suing studios when they misappropriate his work. What's more, Harlan wins these suits almost all the time. Writing is his vocation and his passion, and he stands among some of the first names in science fiction. But he has seen too many of his friends and colleagues screwed by the studio system, doing lame knock-offs of their work and making millions while the writer goes hungry. Most creative types -- me included -- would just roll over and go, "Oh, well, what can I do about it?"
Not Harlan. He bitch-slaps these creeps up Sunset Blvd. and back until they get the clue: You don't take a writer's work without paying for it.
Where Harlan has gone wrong, IMHO, is that he has misconceptualized the nature of the "wrong" against him. Ellison's entire experience of having his work copied has been in the context of Hollywood studios and publishers. Studios copy Harlan's work, and make money off it. So Harlan sues the studio. Then he sees copies of his work are, "all over AOL," and AOL's making money off it. Ergo, the same solution applies.
Except it doesn't.
I hope someone can explain this to Ellison. His stock and trade is science fiction. We need the imaginations of men like him to provide the ideas and invent a future where copying is ubiquitous and unconstrained, and artists still get handsomely remunerated.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
It is interesting to read the whole decision in Ellison v. AOL. IANAL, but apparently the issue of contributory copyright infringement (as opposed to direct infringement and vicarious infringement, which starts to explain why IANAL) would have gone to trial but for the fact that AOL met one of the "safe-harbor" provisions of the DMCA.
So Usenet is apparently saved by the DMCA. Depending on how you feel about Usenet, this is either an ironic victory or yet another reason to curse the day the DMCA was enacted.
No, boner, like The Financial Times (of London), or (from London). A clarification for the "inward-looking morons" who aren't familiar with every financial periodical in the Western world. Ease up.
[switching to hardware modems] may not seem like it's very significant, but it is. Consider this: One of the world's largest retailers has decided that the Open Source community may be a viable marketplace. Wal-Mart has promoted products aimed at us. And that has opened the door for us to be heard, not as techies, but as consumers.
All true, and it also occurred to me that changing to a Linux-friendly modem is a very, very smart move on the part of Microtel.
If Microsoft were to sue Microtel and Walmart under some theory of contributory copyright infringement -- inducing people to buy computers for the purpose of pirating Windows, it would be difficult for Microtel or Walmart to make the argument that those computers were intended for Linux use, if they contained hardware that is designed to only work under Windows.
Martin Guerre was a sixteenth-century French peasant who returned from war to find that he had "returned" years earlier and had been living tidily with his wife for some time.
There followed a great trial to determine which one was the "real" Guerre. The real one lost.
It's a famous historical episode in early modern history. Needless to say, it a) predates Mark Twain and b) is obviously the basis of the musical (and a movie with Gerard Depardieu).
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
The latest Walmart controversy (as heard on NPR): they're running supermarkets in their stores and employing non-union butchers.
Good. You ever been forced to work in a closed shop (mandatory union membership)? It sucks.
Supposedly Walmart treats their employees like crap. Maybe you and I don't have to worry about getting a job as a cashier, but that's no reason to applaud paying people next to nothing just so you can get a better deal on paper towels.
Wal-Mart helped pioneer employee stock ownership plans. If you've ever been to a Sam's Club, they have the stock price posted next to the employee lounge. Wal-Mart means employment to a lot of people in a lot places more blighted than you'll ever see. Why do they pay people "next to nothing"? Why do you pay upwards of $1000 for an apartment in Silicon Valley? Because the cost of living is different in different places.
Which is better for the economy, a bunch of people in each city making good money selling goods at local stores, or a couple of guys in Texas making good money running a chain?
Arkansas, actually. And a lot of the "good money" is being made by the employees because they are shareholders, as per above.
There's the flip side of the coin, too - the price of everything going down by 20% means that everybody's purchasing power just went up by 20%. That means a lot of poor people can suddenly buy a lot more. Is that good for the economy? It means that a lot of people in rural America can suddenly breathe easier.
I'm not a rabid Wal-Mart apologist. My family business was one of the countless small stores destroyed by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. But the truth isn't as simple as "and then the giant came and destroyed everything".
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
The problem isn't the storyline per se; it's the complete destruction of continuity. It just makes a lot of the previous episodes not make sense.
>The aggregate savings that society relizes can be used to reeducate the workforce that would have been manufacturing the imported good to perform work that requires more education or skills and then the standard of living for ALL Americans can increase.
What country are YOU living in?
I guess the emphasis is on "can". Of course this would never actually occur in the US. Rather, we will just join the race to the bottom, the gap between rich and poor will widen, and we can all listen to William F. Buckley musing "I don't see what the problem is" after he hires you to be his towel boy for a few peanuts a day (or the equivalent cash rate of the cheapest labor available globally).
But, really, the main problem with "globalization" as it's being implemented is it hands the sovereignty of citizens to foreign businessmen. You no longer have democratic control of the laws in your community. A foreign businessman can over-turn them in a foreign court where you have no standing.
It's late and maybe it's just my brain failing to do the math right, but how is 10% of 1026-400 == 26??
1026 - 400 = 626. 10% = 62.6 ($63)?
Of course, I'm probably wrong and I'm making an ass of myself. Please explain anyway.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
"about 1% of the population (of anywhere) had an IQ above 120"
Try your statistics again. IQ's fall on a bell curve with a standard deviation of 15, so 95% percent of the population is between 70 and 130. This means that 2.5% of the population has an IQ above 130.
Also, "(of anywhere)" assumes a population that hasn't been prebiased. The population of the US counts; the population of Slashdot, however, is selected in part because the audience has an interest in technical subjects, meaning that you would expect that the average IQ of a Slashdot reader would be above 100; the 15% of the population with an IQ below 85 will probably find little reason to stick around.
I should be shot (and I will be shot if someone tells my wife how much I spent on it.)
Ummm. Wal-Mart moved probably less than 1/4th mile away into a Super Wal-Mart here, and now an Old Navy and other things are using the old Wal-Mart building. They were in the building almost as soon as the new Super Wal-Mart opened. I don't know where you come up with this stuff. Infact, the entire building had been remodeled to accomodate the new tenets (walls torn down, new ones put up, etc.).
Dijkstra Considered Dead
I even have a Pentium board with a VLB slot. Now that's rare; the VLB bus was basically an extension of the 486's internal CPU bus. It required quite a bit of bridge logic to make it work with a Pentium.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Microtel winmodems work fine in Linux.
Maybe someone should have investigated this before raising a stink about it.
yeah, they aren't great modems, but I bought one (got it for free with the rebate at compusa). I put it in my linux machine and downloaded a kernal module for it. It works pretty well.
just fyi
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Harlan Ellison's "problem," is the same as it's always been. He's a cantankerous, paranoid, horny old man. (some would argue that he wasn't an old man 50 years ago, but I disagree). He has loudly and vociferously shouted his opinion from the rooftops for decades, and has an absolute compulsion about the use/control/reproduction of his writings.
He's also one of the finest authors of the 20th century--probably in the top five.
As for the Simpson's, I agree--what the hell have they been DOING lately??!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Many 802.11b PCI cards are PCI 2.2 only though, which no 486 will be (in fact only quite recent boards are).
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
"unsupported by linux is pure FUD"
FUD:
Fear
Uncertianty(sp?)
Doubt
In the context of the story, saying Linux doesn't support winmodems is a mistake, not FUD.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
'their globalisation tactics'
Thats is a poor statement for someone to make, and I can see why it would confuse somebody.
What they are referring to is wal-marts tactic to "lower the bar" for overseas companies.
Manufactures of wal-mart goods get paid less, and work more then any other manufacture in order to get wal-mart prices. this forces other large companies to do the same or go out of business, some companies have chose to go out of business. This is the big reason on why Kmart has gone under.
Wal-mart also red lines the books of people they buy from, forcing them to cut "uneeded fat". Like health care.
Wal-mart treats its employees like dirt. You have to be there 2 years before your eligable for health care, then it costs so much most of there emplyees can not afford it.
Wal-Mart says it has more full time employees the any other retailer, but they consider 28 hour full time.
For ever 2 people wal-mart hires, three are put out of work in the local community.
I probably didn't present this very well, for that, I'm sorry.
go to NLC and search for Wal-mart, Or any company. Please read the about NLC page so thye can explain what there about.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually, there's a Wal-Mart near me that, several years ago, moved about 200 yards away into a new building. Their old space is now a Big Lots.
For those not familiar, Big Lots buys up loads of crap that no one wants and sells it at fairly cheap prices. They have a smattering of stuff from groceries, household products, furniture, toys, etc. If you can find something you want, you can usually get a good deal. I guess Wal-Mart doesn't think of Big Lots as competition, really.
It is sad to see all the K-Marts closing around us, but K-Mart could have prevented their demise if they had tried about six years ago. All they had to do was keep their prices competitive with Wal-Mart and carry stuff people wanted. And maybe clean up their stores - all the K-Marts around here are 20+ years old and look like it, most of the Wal-Marts are 5-10 years old but look brand new.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
The difference is that the legal name of "The New York Times" includes the location, while the legal name of the "The Times", which happens to be published in London, is just "The Times". This is reflected in their mastheads, website names, and copyright statements.
Yeah, that's why I wrote "apparently". There was a triable issue of fact, so no certainty that the court would reach the conclusion you suggest. But it seems pretty likely to me also.