In all the years I've been reading Slashdot, I've never been so
disgusted by the reactions of posters, most of them posting along the
lines of "Nike is not responsible for sweatshops/poverty, they were
already there in the first place".
At one point, someone says "If Nike would be forced to pay decent
wages, and not hire children, they would move back the factories to the
US".
Well, thanks to multilateral trade agreements, tariffs barriers are
falling down, and the result is the free movement of merchandise. Countries
no longer have to face protective tariffs and whole industries are sucked
offshore.
What would be needed is free trade but with tariffs. Each country could
be given an indice, proportional to it's standard of living, and, most
importantly, proportional to the level of it's democracy. Tariffs could
then be levied according to the differences between the indices of each
trading country.
This would, of course, discourage trading between countries with different
levels. So, the tariffs levied would then go to the poorer country, but
administered by an entity that's outside the jurisdiction of the country,
so to ensure that there is no embezzelment by corrupt authorities. Of course,
any country that would resist that external administration's efforts would
face an instant trade embargo.
For generations, parisian parkgoers were greeted by (litterally!) charwomen
("chaisières") that collected from them a pittance whenever
they set their butts down on one of the many loose chairs that were provided
for the visitors' convenience...
(By the way: one of the cool things about BSCCO -- I wonder
when they made up this "Bisco" business, that's a new one on me -- but
all the components are relatively non-toxic. At least they're not using
something really evil like Thallium.)
Yeah, especially Thallium Oxide, that's really a bad one!
Better check nearby space for Kemplerer Rosettes, so we can be sure we won't get mysterious bouts of superconductor plagues...
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Re:What about the anti-genetic backlash?
on
Genetic Stone Soup
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· Score: 2
These people are dangerous, and their actions need to be
curbed. No longer should they be able to get away with their lies and violent
behaviour, no more than any common thug. They can claim moral superiority,
but in truth it seems as though these people are as bigoted as any racist,
and just as determined to further their cause.
We can't allow research to the thwarted because of the voices of
a small bunch of extremists. That's not democracy at all.
Ignore them.
Having companies such as Monsanto, General Electric or the Royal Dutch
Shell Company subvert governments to push their own economic agendas is
hardly democracy either. Having governments NOT MANDATE compulsory
informative product labelling, to insure that consumers CANNOT make
an informed choice whilst shopping in grocery aisles, DESPITE the
fact that the public IS ASKING FOR IT is not democracy either.
At least, with protesting zealots, you have the choice of not listening
to them. But corporate behemoths cannot be moved aside nor ignored.
Democracy CANNOT exist when the people are ignorant; therefore,
those who go to great lengths to make sure that the people
stay ignorant are hijacking democracy.
Democracy is ABOUT CHOICE MADE DOWN AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL.
If you remove what one needs to do informed choice, THERE IS NO MORE
DEMOCRACY.
This is valid whether the "product" is a box of sugar-hypercharged breakfast
cereal or a political platform.
Agreed, he likely brought a huge amount of pre-existing
skill in matrix math. But 10k lines of assembly language hacking to beat
richly funded capitalists with super-computers in four weeks is a truely
amazing hack, no matter what their skill level.
What is amazing is that you are amazed to notice that corporate-funded
research wasn't as effective as an underfunded solitary matrix arithmetic
geek's endeavours.
Now consider the amount of money the company would make
FOR THE REST OF TIME, if it hadn't been hit by the virus. Draw the graph
of the amount it makes each day and color it in below the graph. That area
is the amount of money it takes in. Now draw the same graph for
the company WITH the virus hit. Start by shifting the graph to the right
by one day, then lower it to account for the competition beating it to
market, irate customers, delayed customers not doing as well and not buying
as much product, and so on. Put that graph over the first and erase everything
it covers. What's left is a financial flow that the company DIDN'T get
because of the virus.
More croporate oxdung. Management incompetent enough to not guard
properly against viruses certainly do not deserve the oodles of
money they OUGHTA make if they didn't get attacked by the
virus.
That's funny. My coworker and I,... have spent the
last three hours... working on the e-mail server because some idiot
decided sending out Kourinokava.vbs files was funny.... Now, that's
12 manhours down the drain. ... Now, exactly how is that NOT a cost?
Think of it as an extension of the Microsoft tax, or, alternatively,
a tax on stupidity.
It's nothing more than Marketing 101, pals. It is well known that only 10 to 20% people bother with the rebates hassle, so it's a cheap way (for the vendors) to make a "discount"...
Check this out: ... 5.The CD is burned, and sent to a local radio station. 6.The radio station play it, and it's a hit. Other stations ask
for the song
Won't happen. You can bet your ass that this would be in violation of some
contract or even some law that the RIAA has foisted upon the radio station...
Make your next mailbox out of #1 steel sheet, and have it stand on a post made out of a 8 foot length of 132 to 164 pounds (to the yard) rail (available at your friendly neighboorhood railroad yard) set into a 3 foot diameter by 5 foot deep hole filled with concrete.
No snowplough (nor any redneck kid with baseball bat mounted on a speeding car) will ever interfere with your mail delivery thereafter...
This is not a legal proposal, but simply a crybaby corporate desiderata, from an industry that is unable to conceive means of competing in the digital age.
Of course, in a corrupt legal environment such as the one in the US, such crybaby wants pass, but not in a civilized european country such as Germany, which, in any case, has to answer to a higher legal authority, the European Union.
I could see hitting the power key, and immediately getting
a system that was up (i.e. the thread scheduler running, and processes
getting their time slices), but in effect had everything paged out.
Obviously, smart OSes (i.e. Linux, Be and maybe OS-X) will be supporting
such features. Especially when you can bet your ass that Motorola will
whip-out a PPC chip that will seamlessly integrate those NVRAM features.
Outside of bug-compatibility needs, Intel shall look less and less desirable.
heck, in 1984, there were something like 30 universal newsgroups--seems
to me that they wouldn't quite fit on one screen, but didn't
need two.
And you could read the days newsfeed in about two hours
(yes, my consulting at the time had some *very* boring tasks
that left me sitting in front of machines for a long time waiting
to change disks).
Would you say that, since this time,
disk speed and capacity have progressed more than the growth
of USENET, thus making you unable to read the whole USENET feed
in the time it takes to do the *very* boring tasks ?
disk speed and capacity have progressed less than the growth
of USENET, thus making you unable to read the whole USENET feed
in the time it takes to do the *very* boring tasks ?
disk speed and capacity have progressed the same as the growth
of USENET, thus being able to read the whole USENET feed in the
time it takes to do the *very* boring tasks ?
It's not about racial groups, it's about animal abuse...human
cruelty.
I will never cease to be amazed by the anglo-saxons. They will let humans
be hurt or killed by letting people carry guns, so they can shoot anyone
who's passing on their land (as in Texas), yet they will go to great lengths
to insure that animals are not hurt.
If I remember right, Winfield was actually arrested, though
the charges were dropped. Something about Billy Martin refuting the very
idea that Winfield could've hit the bird on purpose, given that he hadn't
hit a cutoff man all year. (In case you don't know what I'm talking about,
Winfield was booed for years in Toronto after killing a seagull -- the
national bird of Canada -- with a thrown baseball.)
I agree completely. Involving the government denies people
the right to seek affordable health care of their choice, because government
subsidies make private health care prices sky high. Same thing happened
with Universities.
Complete and total OXDUNG. In Canada, the cornerstone
of the public health-care system is the ability of the public to
choose your doctor. I'm afraid not many HMOs can say
the same down there...
Slashdot Mirror
In all the years I've been reading Slashdot, I've never been so disgusted by the reactions of posters, most of them posting along the lines of " Nike is not responsible for sweatshops/poverty, they were already there in the first place ".
At one point, someone says "If Nike would be forced to pay decent wages, and not hire children, they would move back the factories to the US".
Well, thanks to multilateral trade agreements, tariffs barriers are falling down, and the result is the free movement of merchandise. Countries no longer have to face protective tariffs and whole industries are sucked offshore.
What would be needed is free trade but with tariffs. Each country could be given an indice, proportional to it's standard of living, and, most importantly, proportional to the level of it's democracy. Tariffs could then be levied according to the differences between the indices of each trading country.
This would, of course, discourage trading between countries with different levels. So, the tariffs levied would then go to the poorer country, but administered by an entity that's outside the jurisdiction of the country, so to ensure that there is no embezzelment by corrupt authorities. Of course, any country that would resist that external administration's efforts would face an instant trade embargo.
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How about OSS?
That would be a fitting tribute to the CIA's ancestor, the Office of Strategic Services... :) :) :)
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Unlikely. Such reliable technology will *HAVE* to be used with reliable software, the kind that does not gratify you with a blue screen of death (tm).
--
Still nothing new, there.
For generations, parisian parkgoers were greeted by (litterally!) charwomen ("chaisières") that collected from them a pittance whenever they set their butts down on one of the many loose chairs that were provided for the visitors' convenience...
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Having companies such as Monsanto, General Electric or the Royal Dutch Shell Company subvert governments to push their own economic agendas is hardly democracy either. Having governments NOT MANDATE compulsory informative product labelling, to insure that consumers CANNOT make an informed choice whilst shopping in grocery aisles, DESPITE the fact that the public IS ASKING FOR IT is not democracy either.
At least, with protesting zealots, you have the choice of not listening to them. But corporate behemoths cannot be moved aside nor ignored.
Democracy CANNOT exist when the people are ignorant; therefore, those who go to great lengths to make sure that the people stay ignorant are hijacking democracy.
Democracy is ABOUT CHOICE MADE DOWN AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL. If you remove what one needs to do informed choice, THERE IS NO MORE DEMOCRACY.
This is valid whether the "product" is a box of sugar-hypercharged breakfast cereal or a political platform.
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More croporate oxdung. Management incompetent enough to not guard properly against viruses certainly do not deserve the oodles of money they OUGHTA make if they didn't get attacked by the virus.
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Now, we have SPAMGANOGRAPHY to hide the meaning of life from Echelon....
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It's nothing more than Marketing 101, pals. It is well known that only 10 to 20% people bother with the rebates hassle, so it's a cheap way (for the vendors) to make a "discount"...
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No snowplough (nor any redneck kid with baseball bat mounted on a speeding car) will ever interfere with your mail delivery thereafter...
--
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Of course, in a corrupt legal environment such as the one in the US, such crybaby wants pass, but not in a civilized european country such as Germany, which, in any case, has to answer to a higher legal authority, the European Union.
--
Outside of bug-compatibility needs, Intel shall look less and less desirable.
--
--
Would you say that, since this time,
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A number of years ago, Toronto really became a laughingstock when baseball player Dave Winfield, after accidentally killing a (which, by the way, is vermin - it's basically a rat with wings), was instantly arrested by the police and busted for cruelty to animals.
Excerpt from this website http://www.stanford.edu/~greggjp/EEEEEE/Notes00/Ma y00Notes1.html
(More links about this: Twisted history - Sports Watch - CBS sportsline - And, here, on TAHOE.COM, a disgustingly sick column that hints that deliberately injuring severely someone is okay while playing any sport - Yankeehater)Those people really have their priorities totally screwed-up as a society.
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