This one's easy. Either you have above average resources (money, etc) or below average resources. If you have below average, you benefit from socialism (including unions), whereas if you have above average, socialism tends to hurt you. It turns out that a majority of people in any group tends to have below average resources. This majority is easily able to use their votes to make their desired socialism legal. These businesses you mention don't have enough votes to make price fixing legal.
This has nothing to do with what is morally "right" or "wrong", nor is there a double standard. This is an inevitable result of people making rational decisions in order to benefit from the laws. Anything that benefits a majority of the people will be voted into law, even if it hurts the minority.
Suffice it to say that we Americans don't all carpool/cycle/drive hybrids because we are unmotivated to do so. This is mostly because gas is cheap and driving my car on a highway is extremely fast and convenient. If I had to drop off and pick up carpool buddies every day, it would make my commute take longer, and that won't be worth the tiny amount of money I would save on gasoline (granted I drive a small car so I don't spend much on gas as it is). Same goes for cycling and everything else. So I think we all understand that we can save resources by conserving, but large numbers of people won't change their habits to conserve resources unless there is some kind of financial motivation.
The promise of "green" technology is that we can build systems that use less energy but are just as convenient/affordable/etc as the existing systems. That way large numbers of people will be happy to use these systems and save energy.
Even better. We need to find some security-minded application for this observatory and sell that angle to get more funding. Say we can use it to scan for enemy satellites or point it at the border to look for people crossing over and threatening our homeland. As with all such programs, results aren't important so the observatory can just use the money for something silly and whimsical like science.
I still don't get why people think exercise makes them hungry, though. I (and everyone I know) lose my appetite, and in fact a total loss of appetite is a good indicator of overtraining.
This may just depend on what kind of exercise you are doing. If you are running/biking/etc for long distances, you will need to eat more. This makes sense because a long run can burn a couple of thousand calories and you'll need to get that energy back.
I'm not ready to celebrate. Our lawmakers are using publicly-funded time and resources to consider whether they should place limits on expression. I won't celebrate until every elected official understands that all private parties are free to produce, distribute, and consume any kind of art they please (given that they don't make use of public resources in the process).
We lose any time an elected official even vaguely suggests that we should have a law restricting video games. When this happens, it means we elected someone who cares more about his/her own personal morality than the Bill of Rights.
1) Microsoft squeezes more money out of older games that people would otherwise buy used.
(and most importantly)
2) Microsoft sells more $180 hard drives to people who need space for all their new downloaded games.
A more honest statement would be: "we can't hire enough skilled talent for the wages we want to pay."
Right. This is like the persistent blood shortage we seem to have in the U.S. The only way to get people to donate blood is to convince everyone that they should because otherwise the hospitals will run out. Of course, if folks were allowed to *pay* people for blood, then there couldn't be a shortage.
So to sum up, if somebody wants my blood, they'll have to take it from me the old fashioned way. The same goes for my cheap labor.
Paper money isn't durable enough to hold up to the stress it can be subjected to by low gravity and giant space insects.
We need something that is durable and safe to use as currency in space until someone invents space banks, space credit cards, and space wire transfers (all of which should be made out of round plastic, of course).
The fact that very, very, very few companies choose to go beyond these minimum practices indicates that removing them probably will cause the companies to sink to even lower levels
Or it indicates that the actual value of the labor in question is below minimum wage. You are passing moral judgement on the corporations that would like to pay below minimum wage. They don't care. They are in it for the money, not the well-being of their employees. If you don't like it, don't work for those companies or buy their products. Just please don't punish everyone with more laws.
I wonder which can last longer, you without food, or the company without you. Perhaps you have an overinflated idea of how important you are to the company.
My company would be just fine without me -- they wouldn't even really miss me. But what's more important is that I don't really care about the well-being of my company any more than I expect them to care about me. If I lose my job and I can't afford food, then I accept the possibility that I will starve to death. I don't expect my (former)company to care about my plight, nor do I expect to be bailed out by the government. If I do end up starving to death, there's no travesty of justice perpetrated by evil corporations -- it's just biology at work.
You're bringing up issues of ethics. I fully expect that most slashdotters (and even people in general) will disagree with me on the ethical and social aspects of economics. All I ask is that you folks leave your morality out of laws that affect me. I understand why most people would want laws to limit CEO pay and guarantee pay for normal workers. I suspect a big contributor to this desire is that most people are normal workers, not CEOs. Just remember that any law that limits the freedom of an individual or corporation can be applied to you. And from what I've seen, once we give up a freedom in the US, we don't get it back.
"The rich win and the poor die"
I prefer "the fit live and the unfit die". My moral system doesn't require me to take care of people when I'm not really interested in their continued existence. I respect your beliefs and I applaud your commitment to humanity, but I don't think we should be imposing this sort of morality using laws.
Thankfully we have this thing called "freedom" that allows companies to (for the most part)decide how to compensate their employees. So maybe if you're desirable enough, you can find an employer that compensates you in a way that makes you happy, regardless of what companies are required to do by law. In fact, why is it even remotely okay that the government can make laws that dictate how a private organization trades money for labor? What if there was a law that set a maximum salary for workers in your field?
And I don't want to hear any garbage about "wage slavery" or "no options" or "corporate greed." If you don't want to trade your labor for what you are willing to convince someone to pay for it, then don't do it.
But why should a company support linux just because their gadget has linux running inside it? The group that writes the software for the gadget is probably a totally different group than the one that writes the desktop interface software. And an even more different group is responsible for answering the phone and supporting users.
The software that runs in the device specifies an interface. The software that runs on the desktop makes use of the interface to interact with the device. How the device implements the interface is completely irrelevant. So the fact that the device uses linux has absolutely no bearing on whether the desktop software supports linux.
Yep. They would have to spend an additional X dollars to support linux and that decision would only net them an additional Y dollars in income. They had some (presumably competent) business analyst folks make a prediction that Y is less than X. These things really are quite simple when you look at them objectively.
Oh yeah? Well I worked as a software architect for 30 years while being a full-time professor in math and African history. I know 37 programming languages and 12 natural languages. When I'm not busy being intellectually awesome I like to go rock climbing, practice ninjitsu, wrestle bears, make 100 ft tall bronze sculptures, and play oustide linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs. So I don't think I'm a nerd either -- I'm entirely too awesome. I don't need to offer to fix a woman's computer in order to spend time with her. I usually just walk around and they are attracted to my awesomeness as if it had its own gravity.
I also think people who join LUGs are pathetic losers who probably couldn't attract a desperate woman *or* successfully wrestle even a small bear. I'm way better than them, and I'm glad to see that there are other folks out there who are just like me (only slightly less awesome).
TFA quotes parts of the Florida law related to nuissance. To sum up even more, something can be declared a nuissance if it damages the moral well-being of the community. The law uses prostitution and gambling as an example.
These sorts of laws exist for your own protection. If you would choose to engage in these activities, then obviously you are ignorant of the harmful effect it can have on your life and afterlife. So if Jack thinks Halo is morally harmful to those who play it, then he's right and it will be banned as long as a majority of the people agree with him.
But seriously, we see stories like this in the news all the time, and we continue to fail to see the actual cause of the problem. People like Thompson and others are just using the system that is in place for their own gain. That makes them smart, not stupid. It is the system that is stupid. If ridiculous laws like this didn't exist to begin with, then ridiculous cases like Jack's would never even be heard in court.
As a customer, I really don't care about the relationship between the cable companies and the content providers. All I care about is getting as much as possible (of things that I want) for as little money as possible. Cable companies will need to learn how to make better deals with their suppliers if they want to stay in business.
This is no different from any other industry. I don't care how much my GM had to pay for the engine in my car. All I care about is that if there is another similar car for much cheaper, I would buy it instead. Even if I was picky about the engine in my car, I could still justify paying only so much for a better engine.
I would miss ESPN on Monday nights in the fall, but I could live without it if it saved me enough money. The same goes for pretty much every other "expensive" channel in the lineup.
It's a bit hard to believe that all the customers who shop at the world's largest retailer want censored versions of music.
People go into Wal-Mart all the time and buy CDs from "artists" like Ashlee Simpson and Finger 11. After observing this, I have no trouble believing that customers will buy whatever the retailers put on the shelves.
I always wonder if these companies ever feel for their study groups and actually try to relieve a little suffering by making the knowledge and in this case the soap easily available in these countries.
It's just like every other health or medical experiment. The knowledge is much more valuable than the health of the (relatively small number of) participants. We should be grateful to J&J for doing this study at all, not complaining about what they didn't do.
This problem seems to lend itself very well to creative solutions. Perhaps because it is pretty simple and it readily corresponds with many geometric/structural systems that can be used to compute a solution. As far as I know, this was the first problem that was solved using DNA
...who thinks this who "obstruction of justice" business is completely unconstitutional? If I have freedom of speech, then I am also free to decide what I say or don't say (with a few exceptions related to making threats or putting others in imminent danger). So why is it even remotely okay for the government to make me say something (e.g. naming a source, testifying, etc). If I don't want to speak, I don't have to speak. My right to silence trumps the government's desire to catch bad guys. This right also applies to me regardless of whether I am a journalist or not.
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This one's easy. Either you have above average resources (money, etc) or below average resources. If you have below average, you benefit from socialism (including unions), whereas if you have above average, socialism tends to hurt you. It turns out that a majority of people in any group tends to have below average resources. This majority is easily able to use their votes to make their desired socialism legal. These businesses you mention don't have enough votes to make price fixing legal.
This has nothing to do with what is morally "right" or "wrong", nor is there a double standard. This is an inevitable result of people making rational decisions in order to benefit from the laws. Anything that benefits a majority of the people will be voted into law, even if it hurts the minority.
Celardore -- what a dumb nickname. Sounds like something a 12-year-old girl would come up with.
Suffice it to say that we Americans don't all carpool/cycle/drive hybrids because we are unmotivated to do so. This is mostly because gas is cheap and driving my car on a highway is extremely fast and convenient. If I had to drop off and pick up carpool buddies every day, it would make my commute take longer, and that won't be worth the tiny amount of money I would save on gasoline (granted I drive a small car so I don't spend much on gas as it is). Same goes for cycling and everything else. So I think we all understand that we can save resources by conserving, but large numbers of people won't change their habits to conserve resources unless there is some kind of financial motivation.
The promise of "green" technology is that we can build systems that use less energy but are just as convenient/affordable/etc as the existing systems. That way large numbers of people will be happy to use these systems and save energy.
Even better. We need to find some security-minded application for this observatory and sell that angle to get more funding. Say we can use it to scan for enemy satellites or point it at the border to look for people crossing over and threatening our homeland. As with all such programs, results aren't important so the observatory can just use the money for something silly and whimsical like science.
I'm not ready to celebrate. Our lawmakers are using publicly-funded time and resources to consider whether they should place limits on expression. I won't celebrate until every elected official understands that all private parties are free to produce, distribute, and consume any kind of art they please (given that they don't make use of public resources in the process).
We lose any time an elected official even vaguely suggests that we should have a law restricting video games. When this happens, it means we elected someone who cares more about his/her own personal morality than the Bill of Rights.
*ahem* The plural of Mecca is Meccae.
1) Microsoft squeezes more money out of older games that people would otherwise buy used.
(and most importantly)
2) Microsoft sells more $180 hard drives to people who need space for all their new downloaded games.
So to sum up, if somebody wants my blood, they'll have to take it from me the old fashioned way. The same goes for my cheap labor.
Paper money isn't durable enough to hold up to the stress it can be subjected to by low gravity and giant space insects.
We need something that is durable and safe to use as currency in space until someone invents space banks, space credit cards, and space wire transfers (all of which should be made out of round plastic, of course).
My company would be just fine without me -- they wouldn't even really miss me. But what's more important is that I don't really care about the well-being of my company any more than I expect them to care about me. If I lose my job and I can't afford food, then I accept the possibility that I will starve to death. I don't expect my (former)company to care about my plight, nor do I expect to be bailed out by the government. If I do end up starving to death, there's no travesty of justice perpetrated by evil corporations -- it's just biology at work.
I prefer "the fit live and the unfit die". My moral system doesn't require me to take care of people when I'm not really interested in their continued existence. I respect your beliefs and I applaud your commitment to humanity, but I don't think we should be imposing this sort of morality using laws.
Thankfully we have this thing called "freedom" that allows companies to (for the most part)decide how to compensate their employees. So maybe if you're desirable enough, you can find an employer that compensates you in a way that makes you happy, regardless of what companies are required to do by law. In fact, why is it even remotely okay that the government can make laws that dictate how a private organization trades money for labor? What if there was a law that set a maximum salary for workers in your field?
And I don't want to hear any garbage about "wage slavery" or "no options" or "corporate greed." If you don't want to trade your labor for what you are willing to convince someone to pay for it, then don't do it.
But why should a company support linux just because their gadget has linux running inside it? The group that writes the software for the gadget is probably a totally different group than the one that writes the desktop interface software. And an even more different group is responsible for answering the phone and supporting users.
The software that runs in the device specifies an interface. The software that runs on the desktop makes use of the interface to interact with the device. How the device implements the interface is completely irrelevant. So the fact that the device uses linux has absolutely no bearing on whether the desktop software supports linux.
Yep. They would have to spend an additional X dollars to support linux and that decision would only net them an additional Y dollars in income. They had some (presumably competent) business analyst folks make a prediction that Y is less than X. These things really are quite simple when you look at them objectively.
That was easy. Next question.
Oh yeah? Well I worked as a software architect for 30 years while being a full-time professor in math and African history. I know 37 programming languages and 12 natural languages. When I'm not busy being intellectually awesome I like to go rock climbing, practice ninjitsu, wrestle bears, make 100 ft tall bronze sculptures, and play oustide linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs. So I don't think I'm a nerd either -- I'm entirely too awesome. I don't need to offer to fix a woman's computer in order to spend time with her. I usually just walk around and they are attracted to my awesomeness as if it had its own gravity.
I also think people who join LUGs are pathetic losers who probably couldn't attract a desperate woman *or* successfully wrestle even a small bear. I'm way better than them, and I'm glad to see that there are other folks out there who are just like me (only slightly less awesome).
TFA quotes parts of the Florida law related to nuissance. To sum up even more, something can be declared a nuissance if it damages the moral well-being of the community. The law uses prostitution and gambling as an example.
These sorts of laws exist for your own protection. If you would choose to engage in these activities, then obviously you are ignorant of the harmful effect it can have on your life and afterlife. So if Jack thinks Halo is morally harmful to those who play it, then he's right and it will be banned as long as a majority of the people agree with him.
But seriously, we see stories like this in the news all the time, and we continue to fail to see the actual cause of the problem. People like Thompson and others are just using the system that is in place for their own gain. That makes them smart, not stupid. It is the system that is stupid. If ridiculous laws like this didn't exist to begin with, then ridiculous cases like Jack's would never even be heard in court.
As a customer, I really don't care about the relationship between the cable companies and the content providers. All I care about is getting as much as possible (of things that I want) for as little money as possible. Cable companies will need to learn how to make better deals with their suppliers if they want to stay in business.
This is no different from any other industry. I don't care how much my GM had to pay for the engine in my car. All I care about is that if there is another similar car for much cheaper, I would buy it instead. Even if I was picky about the engine in my car, I could still justify paying only so much for a better engine.
I would miss ESPN on Monday nights in the fall, but I could live without it if it saved me enough money. The same goes for pretty much every other "expensive" channel in the lineup.
1) Raise average global temperature a whole lot 2) Wait for Microsoft, Sony, and the RIAA to burn 3) ??????? 4) Profit
This problem seems to lend itself very well to creative solutions. Perhaps because it is pretty simple and it readily corresponds with many geometric/structural systems that can be used to compute a solution. As far as I know, this was the first problem that was solved using DNA
I should clarify that I'm using "obstruction of justice" to mean any punishment for refusing to speak, including contempt of court or congress.
...who thinks this who "obstruction of justice" business is completely unconstitutional? If I have freedom of speech, then I am also free to decide what I say or don't say (with a few exceptions related to making threats or putting others in imminent danger). So why is it even remotely okay for the government to make me say something (e.g. naming a source, testifying, etc). If I don't want to speak, I don't have to speak. My right to silence trumps the government's desire to catch bad guys. This right also applies to me regardless of whether I am a journalist or not.