I can't figure out why a Copper PowerPC has not been released yet.
Hmmm... Maybe you should talk to some Mac users who already have Copper G3s. If you go to XLR8 Your Mac you'll note some situtuations where Copper G3s behave differently than their aluminum counterparts.
I'm not sure if IBM has released any G4s to Apple yet (there was some hassle over getting any IBM G4s, but I think that was worked out a couple of months back, so Copper G4s should be forthcoming soon.
Yeah. 3.28 terabits. And this technology isn't just being tested. Evidently PSINet is actually putting some of these connections in place, according to a speech I recently heard from the president of PSINet, Bill Schrader.
Schrader claimed that 3.28 terabits is enough to handle all the telephone conversations being made in the United States all at once. I think a few of these would probably handle all the cellphone video connections anybody might want.
Hmmm... pretty soon you'll be reading both, when they merge (which they've already started doing. Is it the size of the DRMN that gets to you or the editorial content? I generally find the Post rabidly pro-authoritarian.
Yeah, I guess that WW2 history was a bunch of bunk. Hitler was really trying to preserve our rights.
OOOOhhhh! The man is being even more ironic. The Hitler card. Nobody expects the Hitlerian Holocaust.
Hitler never once threatened invasion of the North American continent. And FDR refused to allow the immigration of the Jews Hitler was gassing.
But the funny thing is that many "public school" textbooks fail to mention that Stalin did much worse than Hitler even hoped to do. Consider just the numbers. 6 million on Hitler's side. Conservatively 20 million on Stalin's side. Stalin didn't "do it" to vocal and articulate people, but he did it nonetheless. The sad part is that your Government Indoctrination Center textbooks are generally silent about this.
And why are they silent? Well, FDR was a great fan of Uncle Joe's and hoped that someday the U.S. could emulate the freedom and equality enjoyed by the enlightened and humane Russians.
Hmmm... I think the point is that your free speech rights precede any government and are in force whether or not the current administration actually honors those free speech rights.
Thus, saying that free speech rights are a result of the protection of the military and the government is getting it backwards. But governments want you to get it backwards and use the Government Indoctrination Centers (erroneously termed "public" schools by your educratic masters) to pound this idea into every citizen's head.
if I scanned in the entire text of Hellmouth and Geeks and put it on Wrapster for everyone to download, you or your publisher may be a little miffed.
That's why some musicians are in favor of distributing music on the Net, but with some restrictions.
As I recall, most of Hellmouth was published right here on/. and could have been downloaded in that form. But many people still prefer the feel of a bound set of papers.
I got busy last night and tried something new I'd never done before. I downloaded all the tracks of a CD with Liquid Audio (NO Linux port: BOO!) to my Mac and burned a CD (one copy only allowed). It cost me only a couple of dollars less than a "real" CD and took oodles more time than shopping in a CD store, but I got some music I doubt I'd've found in a store anyway.
I'm allowed to make only one CD from the downloads, and it sounds OK (not 100% of a "real" CD, sounds like an occasional click or something in the quiet passages).
Dunno if this is the future of music distribution, since it was still quite a hassle, but I did get my choice, not some record company's choice.
Will you next propose that shepherds must not think in terms of a flock and outlaw such vague terms as "many" on the way to your particular NewSpeak?
Well, no. But funny you should use that image. A shepherd and his flock. Exactly what a technocrat wants to be to "society." The technocrat wants a mindless herd to move where s/he directs it.
Since nobody seems to be getting it, I'll try to rephrase. "Society" has no voice. I may say that I speak for "society" but my voice is an individual, human, voice.
Anyone who wishes to direct "society" or who wishes to speak for "society" is directing a phantom and speaking for an imaginary figment.
Technocrats: be clear. Say, "I think that a lot of the induhviduals (Dogbert!) I know would prefer to be directed by my superior expertise." Don't say, "Society wishes what I wish."
Would you care to elaborate upon your cryptic concluding statement? "'Society' can either adapt or disappear, the latter being the more likely conclusion." I'd be interested to hear what you mean.
It is the genius of technocracy to believe in the existence of technocrat-defined collectives like society, collectives that can be "direct"ed or put under the thumb of some "final solution."
I'm no anarchist dumbass, but I'm not a believer in the coercive collectives that are usually the referent of the word "society." To put it bluntly, I'm not a believer in "democratic" governments and other uses of force to "direct" individuals in the direction the technocracy wants those individuals to go.
In fact, to answer your question, I believe that "democratic" governments are grown-up gangs of technocrats who use the word "society" or "the will of the majority" to impose their technocratic vison on all, both majority and minority.
Not to get into a civics class or anything, but people living within the borders of These United States live not in a democracy, but in a republic, where the rights of the minority are supposed to be protected.
That the rights of, say, those who object to supporting government-monopoly indoctrination centers like Columbine with their taxes are not protected in today's "society" goes without saying.
I sure hope that "society" does disappear and the original vision of those dead white men who signed their lives away with the Declaration of Independence will resurrect itself: the vision of a self-governing people bound together with "the consent of the governed" into a dynamic, evolving conversation.
Hey, that sounds a lot like the Internet. Funny thing...
So, in short, I would like to see the rule of the majority ("society") bend to the protection of the minority (individuals) and I believe that the Internet is one way in which that is happening. If the very idea of "society" gets trashed in the process, I'll be a happy camper.
...the best a society can do is hope to direct it.
Spoken like a true technocrat.
First: society doesn't exist. It's a figment of a technocrat's imagination. Usually "society" means "the current administration" which is chauvinistically US-centric.
Second: if you haven't noticed, the horse is already out of the barn and there's nothing "society" or "the administration" or "politicians" can do to direct it. The Internet genie is out of the bottle and is doing the directing. "Society" can either adapt or disappear, the latter being the more likely conclusion.
Hmmmm... I did go to freshmeat.net and found the following in one of the ACS/pg fora:
"Of course, Oracle can run circles around Postgres, which suffers from pathological brainlock in some cases, but not nearly as often as you might expect and folks are working on improving performance."
I also note that ACS/pg is really waiting for PostgreSQL 7.0, which is still in early beta.
I've read "Philip and Alex's Guide..." and hoped to implement your kind of website on my own server. But then I noted that Oracle requires thousands of dollars of licensing fees.
Have you used any of the Open Source databases like MySQL or Postgres enough to recommend one of them for a light-usage site?
Or perhaps none of the Open Source databases are yet ready for production use?
Re:Great book, but no answers
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I guess I kind of was hoping for the author's opinion as to the solution, but he didn't have any.
Not particularly surprising that he has no solution. One solution was proposed several thousand years ago. It's in a list of ten simple structures for making life easier. It's number four of the ten. You fortunately won't find it posted on the walls of any Government Indoctrination Centers (yet; the authoritarian right wants this to happen). But some very wise people have tried this solution over the last three or four millenia and have found it works for them. It may not work for you, but then, have you tried it?
Public education, if anything, is responsible for the U.S. keep a high literacy rate.
You can't say what is responsible, since you have no experimental evidence for your assertion. It's possible that literacy is high in this country because people realize that their economic well-being rests on literacy.
I had to laugh at the bumper sticker I saw on the freeway this morning: "If you can read this, thank a teacher." Well, no. I can read the bumper sticker because I made the effort to learn how to read. No teacher ever made me read, or even helped me read. In fact, most of my teachers despaired over the fact I was reading a couple or three grade levels ahead.
The argument that nobody will educate their children unless it's mandatory is the same argument that nobody would learn to read unless a teacher "taught" them how. And that argument assumes that nobody is motivated to read or to become educated by anyone or anything but laws and government monopoly miseducation systems.
The literacy rate in These United States might now be 99% had we not been gulled by the government educrats into believing that they and they only could educate us.
I have no doubts that the education system highly propagandizes itself, but unless education is mandatory, either culturally or legally, the literacy rate will be rather low. And somebody has to pay for it.
Well you've got that last part right. Literacy is culturally mandatory these days. There's no need for, and great harm done, by legal mandates requiring kids to vegetate in Government Monopoly Indoctrination Centers.
And yes, somebody does have to pay for it. "Public" education is mostly financed by grandmothers on fixed incomes who later get evicted from their paid-for houses because they can't pay their property taxes any more and are unwilling to rebel against the guns of government.
I'll say it again. Government Monopoly Indoctrination Centers are financed by the force and violence of the guns of the tax collector. It's no wonder that kids forced into them by legal mandates seem to think that shooting up the classroom is a way to solve their problems.
Schools are not propaganda factories. In fact, in my school, there was a lot of emphasis put on student thought and debate regarding our Government.
Pretty clearly your "debate" was limited to subjects of your teachers' choosing, since they obviously didn't allow debating the possibility that schools are propoganda factories for the government.
I'll bet they never showed Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in your school.
"Public" schooling costs nearly TWICE as much as individually-financed education. And it wouldn't be Pepsi Education or Pinkerton Education either, it would be Mormon Education and Atheist Education and '60s Hippie Education and Gun Nut Education and all the other wild variety of education that would spring up when people were allowed to finally choose the type of education they wished.
As for the poor, scholarships from foundations, churches, lodges, and service clubs could finance the vast majority of the "poor" whose parents are unwilling to take on the financing job themselves. For those "poor" parents who do take on that responsibility, there would be thousands of low cost schools run by concerned parents in basements and living rooms.
Government Monopoly Schools are financed by the force and violence of taxation. It's no wonder the kids in them grab guns to "solve" their problems.
But the fact remains that universal, state-mandated and state-funded education has brought historically unprecedented levels of literacy. Ditching the educational system is not the answer to the educational problems that we have. It is quite literally the stupidest idea I have ever heard.
Not true. Ditching the Government Indoctrination Centers and replacing them with privately financed education is the quite literally the very best idea that has come along in about a century and a half.
Literacy has never been higher in These United States than before Horace Mann decided the Catholics in Boston were insufficiently Americanized and started the "Public" school movement in the 1850's specifically to "Protestantize and Americanize" these benighted European immigrants.
That today's "Public" schools now propogandize students with the mantra that "All problems have a government solution and only government can solve problems," is no surprise, given that the all the employees of these "Public" schools are government employees.
Do your homework. Literacy was far higher in De Tocqueville's time than it is today. There were no "Public" schools before 1850 worthy of the name and yet citizens of These United States were considered the best educated and most literate of any country in the world, certainly a kudo that cannot be given today.
Since they are, after all, associated with an actual political party that of necessity must deal with government in some way or other, the vast majority of Libertarians are minarchists (believers in the minimum possible government). Many (small l) libertarians are anarchists, believing that no government whatsoever would be better than the force and violence perpetrated on humanity by current and historical governments. If you pooh-pooh that idea, consider the nearly 100 million people killed by governments in this 20th century, the bloodiest of all centuries so far.
As for Libertarianism being an "adolescent mental malady" I note that very few of my Libertarian friends are either adolescent or of stunted mental ability. Most of us started out as Democrats or Republicans, but then grew out of those blinkered viewpoints into consistent Libertarianism.
If you like having the force and violence of the FBI, the IRS, the DEA and the ATF (etc. etc. ad nauseum) perpetrated against you, continue to vote for the mentally blinkered Demoblicans that litter the political landscape. If, on the other hand, you'd prefer that those bureacracies be done away with, vote Libertarian.
I think there are some projects that are just too big for the private charities. I'm talking about multi-hundred-million-dollar sorts of things. Charities don't get enough donations to do such things.
Hmmm... Whatever happened to "small is beautiful"? Since you're being completely unspecific in telling me what "things" could be accomplished with billions of charity dollars that couldn't be accomplished with hundreds or thousands, I'm at a loss.
And, once again, private charities like synagogues, churches, temples, the Elk, the Odd Fellows, Rotarians, Lions Clubs, etc. etc. would be getting hundreds of billions more dollars in donations that are currently siphoned off by taxes and mostly wasted in bureaucracy.
I guess the fact that forced government "charity" spends 70% on overhead and only 30% on sapping poor people's willingness to help themselves is a good thing, eh?
Well I don't think it's a good thing. I don't think governments should be trying to force us to be economically "good." Charity comes from the heart, not the 1040 form.
But I do question your statement that donations to the Salvation Army, etc. "don't count." Those organizations do a much better job of serving the needs of the poor precisely because they've been organized to do it. They know what the needs are and I trust they'll put my money to good use.
Well, they don't count in the case of individual responsibility for the poor. I believe that where we probably differ the most is in our idea of responsibility. I (and many libertarian-minded folks) don't believe that "corporate" responsibility is ever possible. Corporations (and governments, the largest examples of "corporation" we have) are legal fictions. They do not exist except as rearrangements of marks on paper and electronic impulses in brains and computers. Individual human beings, on the other hand, do exist as thinking, acting, charitable, loving choosers. Corporations (and governments) cannot be charitable, or loving, or choosing, since they are fictitious, and have no "soul" (using the jazz sense of that word).
...rob the recipients of their self-worth and steal the property of those who have earned it to give to those who have not.
The above is precisely the attitude I find so distasteful in Libertarianism. In the statement above is the implied belief that if someone is needy, it is his or her fault for not working hard enough. It pains me to know that people actually think this way.
Hmm... I see nothing in that statement that implies anything about the moral state of the needy, or anything about fault whatsoever. My statement merely says that stealing property from people who have worked hard to earn that property, then turning around and giving it to people who have not worked to earn that property is wrong. This is not any reflection whatsoever on the morality, decency, or hardworking capabilities of the recipients of corporate welfare. Those recipients are most likely fully moral, decent, hardworking folks who have been suckered into dependance on corporate charity. My statement refers to the immorality of stealing, not the immorality of giving. If you give your property to people who are needy, then your moral karma increases and you become a better person. But if a legal fiction called "government" steals my property and then gives it to someone who I don't know for reasons I have no control over and have no say about, then that is an immoral act.
BUTTTTT... I can hear you say, What About Those Who Can't Help Themselves? Like people with Down's Syndrome? Like people with Muscular Dystrophy, etc.? Well, last time I checked, there were lots of private (admittedly mostly "corporate") charities that do a great job of helping people who can't help themselves. And without the forced charity of taxation-funded welfare, there would be a lot more of these private agencies, since people would have more disposable income to donate.
I still believe some sort of safety net is needed. I don't think the current system is necessarily the right way to do it, but without government-mandated taxes, I don't think things like subsidized housing would happen.
Ah! We agree! The "current system" is immoral, if you agree with the above statement that it's wrong to steal from some people to give to others. But can you actually say that "subsidized housing" is a good example of how well stealing to give to the poor works??? Subsidized housing??? The destroyer of cities and the creator of ghettoes and gang warfare? How can you possibly see this as good for anybody: taxpayers, poor people, cities, anything?
And to defend the Salvation Army (I wasn't criticizing them, merely pointing out that corporatizing your giving isn't really "charity" in the Biblical sense) they provide low-income housing for homeless people in a way that assures that these people won't stay there forever. Private charities (and churches, and synagogues, and temples) provide charity that is truly loving: nobody gets to live on it forever, and all are strongly encouraged to help themselves make their way in the wider world.
It's the belief system as a whole (exemplified by the quoted passage above) that I disagree with.
The Libertarian belief system is one of individual responsibility, not fictitious "corporate responsibility." There is plenty of room for private, noncorporate love, charity, longsufferingness, forgiveness and redemption in libertarian thought. Forced, governmental charity can never be called loving, charitable, forgiving or longsuffering (the taxpayers can, though!:-).
To summarize, Libertarians are not blind to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. Libertarians have more "soul" in that we believe that individual charity can make a much more positive change in people's lives than can corporatized, governmental charity. Libertarians cannot, however, condone kleptocracy (the current steal-from-those-who-have to give-to-those-who-need state) as the means by which to help the poor and the disadvantaged.
I resent the fact that as a user of the internet I am immediately pigeonholed as a Libertarian. As human beings we have a responsibility to each other that Libertarianism seems to ignore. They talk a lot about personal responsibility but completely ignore the issue of our responsibility to the poor and underpriviledged.
Well, as a "netizen" and a Libertarian, I resent the fact that you think Libertarians ignore their responsibilities towards the poor and underprivileged.
I certainly don't, and I don't believe many Libertarians do. Let me ask a couple of pointed questions: How much money have you personally given to a poor or underprivileged person? Donations to the United Way or the Salvation Army don't count here. What have you individually done to help out some poor or underprivileged family or individual?
Having answered that question almost certainly in the negative (I'm making an assumption here, but I find most people who yawp about "responsibilities to the poor and underprivileged" cannot answer in the positive), I'll point out that Libertarians do not consider "corporatist" efforts towards helping the poor and the underprivileged as in any way addressing individual responsibility towards those lower on the economic ladder.
And the worst "corporatist" approach is to use the guns and violence of government to force people to "invest" in government warfare-welfare plans that rob the recipients of their self-worth and steal the property of those who have earned it to give to those who have not.
Libertarians believe heartily in helping the poor and the underprivileged. Libertarians do not believe in forcing people to be good, either economically or morally. Only in totalitarian societies like North Korea and Cuba do people believe that forced charity can ever result in a moral good.
If you're of a religious bent, check out the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler, surely a good match for many netizens. This young man came to Jesus, claiming he had followed all the commandments but still didn't feel "saved." "What else can I do?" he asked.
Jesus replied, "Sell everything you have and give the proceeds to the poor."
But the rich young ruler walked away, unable to follow Jesus' admonition. Did Jesus summon the Roman centurions and tell them to sieze the man's wealth and give it to the poor? Did he round up the apostles in order to gang up on the young man and force him into giving his wealth to the poor?
No, Jesus did none of these things. Instead, he permitted the young man to make his choice and then live with it.
If you and I permit Ceasar to interfere with this process of choice by coercing people, through fines and imprisonment (the IRS can do this, let me tell you!), into loving God or doing charity, then we are accessories to tyrrany.
I, for one, support freedom of choice in charity and religion, and hope that you will too.
During the Q&A, someone mentioned emulating PowerPC, etc. and they allowed as it was possible to do so with the VLIW instructions, but that the initial processors would only do x86 and that the VLIW instructions would not be directly accessible so that someone could write their own emulator for instruction set X.
So far (37 minutes in), nothing really revolutionary has been said. They're emulating an x86 in "software" but not a word about emulating PowerPC, Alpha, or any other instruction set.
The processor is low power, for mobile computers, with some onboard cache. 400MHz processor with 100K cache; 700MHz processor with 400K cache. Only 1 watt power usage for either processor. That's good.
A handheld flatscreen computer with a "popup" keyboard seems to run Linux, but everything else is running Microsloth.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure if IBM has released any G4s to Apple yet (there was some hassle over getting any IBM G4s, but I think that was worked out a couple of months back, so Copper G4s should be forthcoming soon.
If it's so bad, why haven't the Brits descended into pre-Neanderthal chaos?
Schrader claimed that 3.28 terabits is enough to handle all the telephone conversations being made in the United States all at once. I think a few of these would probably handle all the cellphone video connections anybody might want.
Hitler never once threatened invasion of the North American continent. And FDR refused to allow the immigration of the Jews Hitler was gassing.
But the funny thing is that many "public school" textbooks fail to mention that Stalin did much worse than Hitler even hoped to do. Consider just the numbers. 6 million on Hitler's side. Conservatively 20 million on Stalin's side. Stalin didn't "do it" to vocal and articulate people, but he did it nonetheless. The sad part is that your Government Indoctrination Center textbooks are generally silent about this.
And why are they silent? Well, FDR was a great fan of Uncle Joe's and hoped that someday the U.S. could emulate the freedom and equality enjoyed by the enlightened and humane Russians.
Thus, saying that free speech rights are a result of the protection of the military and the government is getting it backwards. But governments want you to get it backwards and use the Government Indoctrination Centers (erroneously termed "public" schools by your educratic masters) to pound this idea into every citizen's head.
As I recall, most of Hellmouth was published right here on /. and could have been downloaded in that form. But many people still prefer the feel of a bound set of papers.
I got busy last night and tried something new I'd never done before. I downloaded all the tracks of a CD with Liquid Audio (NO Linux port: BOO!) to my Mac and burned a CD (one copy only allowed). It cost me only a couple of dollars less than a "real" CD and took oodles more time than shopping in a CD store, but I got some music I doubt I'd've found in a store anyway.
I'm allowed to make only one CD from the downloads, and it sounds OK (not 100% of a "real" CD, sounds like an occasional click or something in the quiet passages).
Dunno if this is the future of music distribution, since it was still quite a hassle, but I did get my choice, not some record company's choice.
Since nobody seems to be getting it, I'll try to rephrase. "Society" has no voice. I may say that I speak for "society" but my voice is an individual, human, voice.
Anyone who wishes to direct "society" or who wishes to speak for "society" is directing a phantom and speaking for an imaginary figment.
Technocrats: be clear. Say, "I think that a lot of the induhviduals (Dogbert!) I know would prefer to be directed by my superior expertise." Don't say, "Society wishes what I wish."
I'm no anarchist dumbass, but I'm not a believer in the coercive collectives that are usually the referent of the word "society." To put it bluntly, I'm not a believer in "democratic" governments and other uses of force to "direct" individuals in the direction the technocracy wants those individuals to go.
In fact, to answer your question, I believe that "democratic" governments are grown-up gangs of technocrats who use the word "society" or "the will of the majority" to impose their technocratic vison on all, both majority and minority.
Not to get into a civics class or anything, but people living within the borders of These United States live not in a democracy, but in a republic, where the rights of the minority are supposed to be protected.
That the rights of, say, those who object to supporting government-monopoly indoctrination centers like Columbine with their taxes are not protected in today's "society" goes without saying.
I sure hope that "society" does disappear and the original vision of those dead white men who signed their lives away with the Declaration of Independence will resurrect itself: the vision of a self-governing people bound together with "the consent of the governed" into a dynamic, evolving conversation.
Hey, that sounds a lot like the Internet. Funny thing...
So, in short, I would like to see the rule of the majority ("society") bend to the protection of the minority (individuals) and I believe that the Internet is one way in which that is happening. If the very idea of "society" gets trashed in the process, I'll be a happy camper.
First: society doesn't exist. It's a figment of a technocrat's imagination. Usually "society" means "the current administration" which is chauvinistically US-centric.
Second: if you haven't noticed, the horse is already out of the barn and there's nothing "society" or "the administration" or "politicians" can do to direct it. The Internet genie is out of the bottle and is doing the directing. "Society" can either adapt or disappear, the latter being the more likely conclusion.
I guess I should have checked out mySQL a bit further. I compiled it on an Alpha server and it appears to work. I didn't look at the license. My bad.
A colleague says that he uses mySQL to back his database-driven sites, so I (wrongly) concluded mySQL would be appropriate.
Better do my homework before blabbing on /.
"Of course, Oracle can run circles around Postgres, which suffers from pathological brainlock in some cases, but not nearly as often as you might expect and folks are working on improving performance."
I also note that ACS/pg is really waiting for PostgreSQL 7.0, which is still in early beta.
I've read "Philip and Alex's Guide..." and hoped to implement your kind of website on my own server. But then I noted that Oracle requires thousands of dollars of licensing fees.
Have you used any of the Open Source databases like MySQL or Postgres enough to recommend one of them for a light-usage site?
Or perhaps none of the Open Source databases are yet ready for production use?
I had to laugh at the bumper sticker I saw on the freeway this morning: "If you can read this, thank a teacher." Well, no. I can read the bumper sticker because I made the effort to learn how to read. No teacher ever made me read, or even helped me read. In fact, most of my teachers despaired over the fact I was reading a couple or three grade levels ahead.
The argument that nobody will educate their children unless it's mandatory is the same argument that nobody would learn to read unless a teacher "taught" them how. And that argument assumes that nobody is motivated to read or to become educated by anyone or anything but laws and government monopoly miseducation systems.
The literacy rate in These United States might now be 99% had we not been gulled by the government educrats into believing that they and they only could educate us.
And yes, somebody does have to pay for it. "Public" education is mostly financed by grandmothers on fixed incomes who later get evicted from their paid-for houses because they can't pay their property taxes any more and are unwilling to rebel against the guns of government.
I'll say it again. Government Monopoly Indoctrination Centers are financed by the force and violence of the guns of the tax collector. It's no wonder that kids forced into them by legal mandates seem to think that shooting up the classroom is a way to solve their problems.
I'll bet they never showed Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in your school.
"Public" schooling costs nearly TWICE as much as individually-financed education. And it wouldn't be Pepsi Education or Pinkerton Education either, it would be Mormon Education and Atheist Education and '60s Hippie Education and Gun Nut Education and all the other wild variety of education that would spring up when people were allowed to finally choose the type of education they wished.
As for the poor, scholarships from foundations, churches, lodges, and service clubs could finance the vast majority of the "poor" whose parents are unwilling to take on the financing job themselves. For those "poor" parents who do take on that responsibility, there would be thousands of low cost schools run by concerned parents in basements and living rooms.
Government Monopoly Schools are financed by the force and violence of taxation. It's no wonder the kids in them grab guns to "solve" their problems.
Literacy has never been higher in These United States than before Horace Mann decided the Catholics in Boston were insufficiently Americanized and started the "Public" school movement in the 1850's specifically to "Protestantize and Americanize" these benighted European immigrants.
That today's "Public" schools now propogandize students with the mantra that "All problems have a government solution and only government can solve problems," is no surprise, given that the all the employees of these "Public" schools are government employees.
Do your homework. Literacy was far higher in De Tocqueville's time than it is today. There were no "Public" schools before 1850 worthy of the name and yet citizens of These United States were considered the best educated and most literate of any country in the world, certainly a kudo that cannot be given today.
As for Libertarianism being an "adolescent mental malady" I note that very few of my Libertarian friends are either adolescent or of stunted mental ability. Most of us started out as Democrats or Republicans, but then grew out of those blinkered viewpoints into consistent Libertarianism.
If you like having the force and violence of the FBI, the IRS, the DEA and the ATF (etc. etc. ad nauseum) perpetrated against you, continue to vote for the mentally blinkered Demoblicans that litter the political landscape. If, on the other hand, you'd prefer that those bureacracies be done away with, vote Libertarian.
I just look in the mirror and remember the Pogo quote: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
And, once again, private charities like synagogues, churches, temples, the Elk, the Odd Fellows, Rotarians, Lions Clubs, etc. etc. would be getting hundreds of billions more dollars in donations that are currently siphoned off by taxes and mostly wasted in bureaucracy.
I guess the fact that forced government "charity" spends 70% on overhead and only 30% on sapping poor people's willingness to help themselves is a good thing, eh?
Well I don't think it's a good thing. I don't think governments should be trying to force us to be economically "good." Charity comes from the heart, not the 1040 form.
BUTTTTT... I can hear you say, What About Those Who Can't Help Themselves? Like people with Down's Syndrome? Like people with Muscular Dystrophy, etc.? Well, last time I checked, there were lots of private (admittedly mostly "corporate") charities that do a great job of helping people who can't help themselves. And without the forced charity of taxation-funded welfare, there would be a lot more of these private agencies, since people would have more disposable income to donate.
Ah! We agree! The "current system" is immoral, if you agree with the above statement that it's wrong to steal from some people to give to others. But can you actually say that "subsidized housing" is a good example of how well stealing to give to the poor works??? Subsidized housing??? The destroyer of cities and the creator of ghettoes and gang warfare? How can you possibly see this as good for anybody: taxpayers, poor people, cities, anything?And to defend the Salvation Army (I wasn't criticizing them, merely pointing out that corporatizing your giving isn't really "charity" in the Biblical sense) they provide low-income housing for homeless people in a way that assures that these people won't stay there forever. Private charities (and churches, and synagogues, and temples) provide charity that is truly loving: nobody gets to live on it forever, and all are strongly encouraged to help themselves make their way in the wider world.
The Libertarian belief system is one of individual responsibility, not fictitious "corporate responsibility." There is plenty of room for private, noncorporate love, charity, longsufferingness, forgiveness and redemption in libertarian thought. Forced, governmental charity can never be called loving, charitable, forgiving or longsuffering (the taxpayers can, though!To summarize, Libertarians are not blind to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. Libertarians have more "soul" in that we believe that individual charity can make a much more positive change in people's lives than can corporatized, governmental charity. Libertarians cannot, however, condone kleptocracy (the current steal-from-those-who-have to give-to-those-who-need state) as the means by which to help the poor and the disadvantaged.
I certainly don't, and I don't believe many Libertarians do. Let me ask a couple of pointed questions: How much money have you personally given to a poor or underprivileged person? Donations to the United Way or the Salvation Army don't count here. What have you individually done to help out some poor or underprivileged family or individual?
Having answered that question almost certainly in the negative (I'm making an assumption here, but I find most people who yawp about "responsibilities to the poor and underprivileged" cannot answer in the positive), I'll point out that Libertarians do not consider "corporatist" efforts towards helping the poor and the underprivileged as in any way addressing individual responsibility towards those lower on the economic ladder.
And the worst "corporatist" approach is to use the guns and violence of government to force people to "invest" in government warfare-welfare plans that rob the recipients of their self-worth and steal the property of those who have earned it to give to those who have not.
Libertarians believe heartily in helping the poor and the underprivileged. Libertarians do not believe in forcing people to be good, either economically or morally. Only in totalitarian societies like North Korea and Cuba do people believe that forced charity can ever result in a moral good.
If you're of a religious bent, check out the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler, surely a good match for many netizens. This young man came to Jesus, claiming he had followed all the commandments but still didn't feel "saved." "What else can I do?" he asked.
Jesus replied, "Sell everything you have and give the proceeds to the poor."
But the rich young ruler walked away, unable to follow Jesus' admonition. Did Jesus summon the Roman centurions and tell them to sieze the man's wealth and give it to the poor? Did he round up the apostles in order to gang up on the young man and force him into giving his wealth to the poor?
No, Jesus did none of these things. Instead, he permitted the young man to make his choice and then live with it.
If you and I permit Ceasar to interfere with this process of choice by coercing people, through fines and imprisonment (the IRS can do this, let me tell you!), into loving God or doing charity, then we are accessories to tyrrany.
I, for one, support freedom of choice in charity and religion, and hope that you will too.
During the Q&A, someone mentioned emulating PowerPC, etc. and they allowed as it was possible to do so with the VLIW instructions, but that the initial processors would only do x86 and that the VLIW instructions would not be directly accessible so that someone could write their own emulator for instruction set X.
The processor is low power, for mobile computers, with some onboard cache. 400MHz processor with 100K cache; 700MHz processor with 400K cache. Only 1 watt power usage for either processor. That's good.
A handheld flatscreen computer with a "popup" keyboard seems to run Linux, but everything else is running Microsloth.