Of course it becomes a political tool. How do you think we got 5 weeks vacation in Europe? Paid maternal/paternal leave? Regulated overtime compensation? CEO's out of the goodness of their hearts got together and lobbied for it? The examples are numerous, union involvement in politics has been a force of good, it's the only way to guarantee workers rights. I shudder in horror over the stories about regular 60-hour weeks from Americans, it's virtually unthinkable to be expected to work that much here. You guys need unions and you don't even know it.
Mopping the floor and cleaning the bathrooms would be automated, no one would need to do those tasks. (hell that's even essentially possible with current technology)
Oh and most of the licensed software for student use (Matlab, Mathematica, etc) is available for Linux, Mac and Windows, except for the MSDNAA stuff of course.
I'm not sure which IT-department provides the wireless (unencrypted with login and WPA-enterprise eduroam), but there are instructions available and being laughed at for using Linux seems unimaginable to me, the majority of desktops in the CS-department run Linux (used to be Solaris) and so do most teachers. This is a school where emacs is commonly cited as a course requirement for some arcane reason, and LaTeX seems to be the most common tool for both presentations, handouts and exams.;) The central email-servers were switched over to Exchange a couple of years ago under dubious circumstances, I've never really had to deal with the department responsible for email though.
Because they assume that if you're interested you already know what Meego is? Especially if you regularly read slashdot.. Should they also explain what KDE, Xorg etc is everytime news about them comes along?
While the church certainly shares some of the blame, the church's propaganda is not the lone culprit, and is probably not a major factor. Poverty is, when you're poor and your kids have a 50/50 chance of surviving childhood, you tend to have alot of kids. Eliminate poverty and you solve the growth problem. Sure, initially there will be a boost in population growth as more of the kids survive, but after a generation or two, the previously poor people will adjust and only have an average of two or three kids.
Ah the joys of a working democracy, over here the right-wing government coalition pretty much merged into what they call an "alliance", and seem to think that one of them voting against the others on even a single issue where the parties had vastly different stances before the "alliance" will somehow completely topple the government.
So simplify the tax system across all states, there is a legitimate need for federal regulation here no? I don't like much of what the EU does, but regulating VAT across borders is one thing that makes it a hell of a lot easier to run a business as well as be a consumer, you always know what to expect.
So what needs to go? Roads? Hospitals? Police? Maybe throw more people out on the street? And don't give me the standard neoliberal bullshit about making government more "effective", that can only go so far.
They're not really raising taxes, they're just making sure you pay the same tax online as you do in a physical store, I just don't see what's wrong with that. I also don't see anything wrong with raising taxes if needed to maintain or improve government services and ensure that everyone has the benefit of a decent life with a roof over their heads, healthcare, and an education, something that should be especially needed in the US with a minimum wage below the poverty line...
But what are they supposed to do? They're broke and raising taxes is apparently taboo over there, there's a limit to how much spending you can cut without severely impacting government services. Why should goods purchased over the Internet be exempt from taxes when goods purchased in a brick and mortar shop is not? Within the EU, we pay VAT in the country where the store is based, for goods purchased outside the EU, local VAT is imposed as part of import duties.
Been watching FOX News much? You're welcome to be anti-Sweden all you want. Personally I don't care about such silly labels as "jewish", "muslim" or "christian". We're all people, and we better start behaving as such. The reason muslims hate Israel is not because of your damn religion, it's because you've been occupying their damn land for 50 years and making life hell for those who dare to live there. At the same time, demagogues have conflated Israel and the Jewish religion to the degree that many don't care about the difference anymore, including calling any and all criticism of Israel "antisemitic".. I don't condone violence, but that goes for both sides of this damn conflict, but you might expect more restraint from a "democratic" nation with the obvious upper hand, that has the weapons to wipe out the entire Palestinian territories.
In this specific example, the Palestinians paying for rms's speech don't want him to speak in Israel on their dime, Israel being the country that has occupied the Palestinian territories for 50 years and even now continues to expand fenced "settlements" with armed guards in their country, setting up military checkpoints within their borders, telling them who can and can't pass, denying access to medical care in many cases. Is that valid criticism or is it too harsh for you? Anything but the most timid criticism of Israel is classified as "antisemitism" according to your quote, as it was intended of course.
Not this bullshit again. Being against Israel is not the same as being antisemitic, there are plenty of reasons to be anti-Israel considering all the lousy crap they've done and continue to do in that region. And accusing Palestinians of "antisemitism" is especially dumb, as Palestinians are just as Semitic as the Israelis are.
Android throws away too much of the GNU userspace and replaces it with Java/Dalvik-based userspace to be of any use to a desktop Linux distribution. If any migration of desktop environments from the mobile space is to happen, my bet would be on MeeGo, they build on top of GNU userspace and allow anything X or terminal-based to still run.
The accountability of the individual politician to their district is a pie-in-the-sky dream. It's a nice theory but in practice they don't care. We vote for parties in Sweden, there are 8 of them in parliament, each party has a list of people on their ballot in order of preference to the party. If the voters wish, they can vote for individual candidates on that list and if they get a certain percentage that overrides the party's preferred candidates. The districts are relatively large and there are several seats in each district which are proportionally divided between the parties. There is a nation-wide adjustment of the party-seats so the total will correspond to the proportional vote as close as possible. It's by no means a perfect system, I would prefer party-preferential voting, but it does mean minority viewpoints can have a voice in government unlike the winner-takes-all system where everyone will be represented by the majority candidate even if 48% didn't vote for that candidate.
Same here in Sweden. Though I suppose we do get unofficial "snow-days" when the subways and commuter trains stop working due to some switch being frozen solid and when the roads haven't been cleared because politicians have outsourced the damn snow-clearing to the lowest bidder.;)
How is it fair to everyone that the guy barely making enough money to feed his kids pay the same proportion of their income as the guy who just got his 10th million-dollar bonus this year? You have to realize that money does not have equal value to everyone. What is barely enough to cover one persons daily food budget is enough to feed a less well-off family for a month. After the first million or so, money completely loses its value and its impact on a persons life, an extra million will not significantly affect the life of someone who already earns ten, but on the lower end of the income ladder, a million is enough to bring a hundred families out of starving conditions.
So you tell me which is best, one guy earning 10 million keeping an extra million or 100 families not having to starve? If your answer is anything but the last, it's not your political ideology that is faulty, it's you complete lack of any shred of human empathy and sense of justice.
We do have "slightly" more government services to compensate though, or at least we do in Sweden. Our "marginal" tax rate is about 55%, though of course no one actually pays that much, the tax bracket up to about 380,000 SEK is about 30%, then 50% up to about 540,000 SEK, after which it's about 55%. When I take into account the things Americans have to pay huge sums of money for out of pocket (health care, education, daycare, parental leave, sick leave, etc) I'd say we got the better end of the stick.
I wouldn't worry about lost revenue, it would be more than compensated for by a reduction in the number of accidents caused those who drive drunk, speed, and improperly change lanes... Computers should be much better at keeping to the rules and preventing accidents than humans.
We already have the data retention directive in the EU, seems this is something similar. It hasn't been implemented here in Sweden quite yet, the Left party and the Greens managed to get it tabled for a year in parliament recently, one can always hope that now that one the architects of the whole thing is no longer in a leading position of the social democrats, they will reconsider, but I sort of doubt it, and the right wing will reconsider when hell freezes over. The government of course uses the excuse that because it's a directive we "have" to implement it (as always with directives, the back-door for unpopular legislation so the politicians at home will have someone else to blame), completely ignoring the judicial option.
User switching is implemented in both Gnome and KDE. Maybe you mean user switching without having multiple X servers though? I don't know much about X, but I can't see why that couldn't be implemented somehow.. Maybe there are security issues though.
I have a nifty little app that will ask me to add/subtract/multiply a few numbers to snooze/dismiss the alarm, works wonders for getting me out of bed to use a calculator when it's too much to handle for my half-asleep brain.;) Of course I go right back to bed again but at least I'm somewhat more awake than I would have been just pressing the snooze button.
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Of course it becomes a political tool. How do you think we got 5 weeks vacation in Europe? Paid maternal/paternal leave? Regulated overtime compensation? CEO's out of the goodness of their hearts got together and lobbied for it? The examples are numerous, union involvement in politics has been a force of good, it's the only way to guarantee workers rights. I shudder in horror over the stories about regular 60-hour weeks from Americans, it's virtually unthinkable to be expected to work that much here. You guys need unions and you don't even know it.
Mopping the floor and cleaning the bathrooms would be automated, no one would need to do those tasks. (hell that's even essentially possible with current technology)
Oh and most of the licensed software for student use (Matlab, Mathematica, etc) is available for Linux, Mac and Windows, except for the MSDNAA stuff of course.
I'm not sure which IT-department provides the wireless (unencrypted with login and WPA-enterprise eduroam), but there are instructions available and being laughed at for using Linux seems unimaginable to me, the majority of desktops in the CS-department run Linux (used to be Solaris) and so do most teachers. This is a school where emacs is commonly cited as a course requirement for some arcane reason, and LaTeX seems to be the most common tool for both presentations, handouts and exams. ;)
The central email-servers were switched over to Exchange a couple of years ago under dubious circumstances, I've never really had to deal with the department responsible for email though.
Because they assume that if you're interested you already know what Meego is? Especially if you regularly read slashdot.. Should they also explain what KDE, Xorg etc is everytime news about them comes along?
While the church certainly shares some of the blame, the church's propaganda is not the lone culprit, and is probably not a major factor. Poverty is, when you're poor and your kids have a 50/50 chance of surviving childhood, you tend to have alot of kids. Eliminate poverty and you solve the growth problem. Sure, initially there will be a boost in population growth as more of the kids survive, but after a generation or two, the previously poor people will adjust and only have an average of two or three kids.
Ah the joys of a working democracy, over here the right-wing government coalition pretty much merged into what they call an "alliance", and seem to think that one of them voting against the others on even a single issue where the parties had vastly different stances before the "alliance" will somehow completely topple the government.
So simplify the tax system across all states, there is a legitimate need for federal regulation here no? I don't like much of what the EU does, but regulating VAT across borders is one thing that makes it a hell of a lot easier to run a business as well as be a consumer, you always know what to expect.
So what needs to go? Roads? Hospitals? Police? Maybe throw more people out on the street? And don't give me the standard neoliberal bullshit about making government more "effective", that can only go so far.
It's not a tax on the business, it's a tax on the consumer, who is taking advantage of government services.
They're not really raising taxes, they're just making sure you pay the same tax online as you do in a physical store, I just don't see what's wrong with that. I also don't see anything wrong with raising taxes if needed to maintain or improve government services and ensure that everyone has the benefit of a decent life with a roof over their heads, healthcare, and an education, something that should be especially needed in the US with a minimum wage below the poverty line...
But what are they supposed to do? They're broke and raising taxes is apparently taboo over there, there's a limit to how much spending you can cut without severely impacting government services. Why should goods purchased over the Internet be exempt from taxes when goods purchased in a brick and mortar shop is not? Within the EU, we pay VAT in the country where the store is based, for goods purchased outside the EU, local VAT is imposed as part of import duties.
Been watching FOX News much? You're welcome to be anti-Sweden all you want.
Personally I don't care about such silly labels as "jewish", "muslim" or "christian". We're all people, and we better start behaving as such. The reason muslims hate Israel is not because of your damn religion, it's because you've been occupying their damn land for 50 years and making life hell for those who dare to live there. At the same time, demagogues have conflated Israel and the Jewish religion to the degree that many don't care about the difference anymore, including calling any and all criticism of Israel "antisemitic"..
I don't condone violence, but that goes for both sides of this damn conflict, but you might expect more restraint from a "democratic" nation with the obvious upper hand, that has the weapons to wipe out the entire Palestinian territories.
In this specific example, the Palestinians paying for rms's speech don't want him to speak in Israel on their dime, Israel being the country that has occupied the Palestinian territories for 50 years and even now continues to expand fenced "settlements" with armed guards in their country, setting up military checkpoints within their borders, telling them who can and can't pass, denying access to medical care in many cases.
Is that valid criticism or is it too harsh for you? Anything but the most timid criticism of Israel is classified as "antisemitism" according to your quote, as it was intended of course.
Not this bullshit again. Being against Israel is not the same as being antisemitic, there are plenty of reasons to be anti-Israel considering all the lousy crap they've done and continue to do in that region. And accusing Palestinians of "antisemitism" is especially dumb, as Palestinians are just as Semitic as the Israelis are.
Android throws away too much of the GNU userspace and replaces it with Java/Dalvik-based userspace to be of any use to a desktop Linux distribution. If any migration of desktop environments from the mobile space is to happen, my bet would be on MeeGo, they build on top of GNU userspace and allow anything X or terminal-based to still run.
The accountability of the individual politician to their district is a pie-in-the-sky dream. It's a nice theory but in practice they don't care.
We vote for parties in Sweden, there are 8 of them in parliament, each party has a list of people on their ballot in order of preference to the party. If the voters wish, they can vote for individual candidates on that list and if they get a certain percentage that overrides the party's preferred candidates. The districts are relatively large and there are several seats in each district which are proportionally divided between the parties. There is a nation-wide adjustment of the party-seats so the total will correspond to the proportional vote as close as possible.
It's by no means a perfect system, I would prefer party-preferential voting, but it does mean minority viewpoints can have a voice in government unlike the winner-takes-all system where everyone will be represented by the majority candidate even if 48% didn't vote for that candidate.
If you are a gamer on a budget Gog.com has 300 classic DOS and Windows games ready to run under Windows 7, none of them costing more than $10
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Same here in Sweden. ;)
Though I suppose we do get unofficial "snow-days" when the subways and commuter trains stop working due to some switch being frozen solid and when the roads haven't been cleared because politicians have outsourced the damn snow-clearing to the lowest bidder.
How is it fair to everyone that the guy barely making enough money to feed his kids pay the same proportion of their income as the guy who just got his 10th million-dollar bonus this year? You have to realize that money does not have equal value to everyone. What is barely enough to cover one persons daily food budget is enough to feed a less well-off family for a month. After the first million or so, money completely loses its value and its impact on a persons life, an extra million will not significantly affect the life of someone who already earns ten, but on the lower end of the income ladder, a million is enough to bring a hundred families out of starving conditions.
So you tell me which is best, one guy earning 10 million keeping an extra million or 100 families not having to starve? If your answer is anything but the last, it's not your political ideology that is faulty, it's you complete lack of any shred of human empathy and sense of justice.
We do have "slightly" more government services to compensate though, or at least we do in Sweden. Our "marginal" tax rate is about 55%, though of course no one actually pays that much, the tax bracket up to about 380,000 SEK is about 30%, then 50% up to about 540,000 SEK, after which it's about 55%. When I take into account the things Americans have to pay huge sums of money for out of pocket (health care, education, daycare, parental leave, sick leave, etc) I'd say we got the better end of the stick.
I wouldn't worry about lost revenue, it would be more than compensated for by a reduction in the number of accidents caused those who drive drunk, speed, and improperly change lanes... Computers should be much better at keeping to the rules and preventing accidents than humans.
We already have the data retention directive in the EU, seems this is something similar. It hasn't been implemented here in Sweden quite yet, the Left party and the Greens managed to get it tabled for a year in parliament recently, one can always hope that now that one the architects of the whole thing is no longer in a leading position of the social democrats, they will reconsider, but I sort of doubt it, and the right wing will reconsider when hell freezes over. The government of course uses the excuse that because it's a directive we "have" to implement it (as always with directives, the back-door for unpopular legislation so the politicians at home will have someone else to blame), completely ignoring the judicial option.
User switching is implemented in both Gnome and KDE. Maybe you mean user switching without having multiple X servers though? I don't know much about X, but I can't see why that couldn't be implemented somehow.. Maybe there are security issues though.
I have a nifty little app that will ask me to add/subtract/multiply a few numbers to snooze/dismiss the alarm, works wonders for getting me out of bed to use a calculator when it's too much to handle for my half-asleep brain. ;) Of course I go right back to bed again but at least I'm somewhat more awake than I would have been just pressing the snooze button.