Read Error. Your request could not connect to the correct web server. This typically occurs as a result of a temporary outage or problem on our network....Generated Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:06:41 GMT by vhost.phx4.nearlyfreespeech.net (squid/2.7.STABLE7)
I'd expect my hosting company's website to be a bit more immune to slashdotting.
Getting to an island that is now ~500 km off shore
Where do you get that number from? Other people are mentioning 200 miles which is also wrong. According to Wikipedia, Crete is only 100 miles (160km) from mainland Greece and looking at the map there are several small islands in between so each single journey by sea might only involve 30 miles or so. If the sea level was lower it is quite likely that there would be more islands sticking out, and if the surface was frozen in the winter, then there is your problem solved without any seafaring technology.
Conveniently what gets forgotten with "anti-piracy" jackbooting is my right to tinker. I don't give a damn that console makers want to totally lock down "their" systems. It's not "theirs" its mine, I bought it at the store.
Perhaps it gets forgotten because there is no such thing as the "right to tinker". Read the contract you agreed to when you bought the device. It's yours, but still you don't necessarily have the "right to tinker". People enter into contracts with one another which involves transaction of property with some restrictions placed on the buyer all the time. Check real estate contracts for example.
The price structure of Nintendo consoles and games is as it is because it assumes that each game would have to be bought. That was the deal from the start. If you don't like it, don't buy it. If anybody can copy games as much as they like then the price of consoles would have to be much higher to reflect the full r&d and production costs, and perhaps the whole business model of game consoles wouldn't be viable at all.
Can you name the "basic rights" that are being violated here? Nobody is stopping Muslims in Switzerland from practicing their religion, they are only not allowed to impose it on everyone else in the form of giant rockets (erect penises?) whose only purpose is to promote the said religion. Since they are not even being used for calling for prayer what else is their purpose?
I wouldn't go so far as to call it lame but it pisses me of when people say such and such is made of legos with the
implication that somehow that makes it more difficult.
I'd be more impressed if he had fabricated the parts himself than if he used premade parts that snap together. now if had used regular bricks for the whole thing that would be a different story.
I don't know, banning porn with small tits only seems like common sense. From now on I'm only looking for porn officially approved by the Australian government as featuring girls with sufficiently large tits.
I"m sorry?? Amazon's work in selling these e-books is next to nothing.
I can have a online e-book shop set-up by tomorrow. And a author upload service on the next day.
Yes but you'll have a hell of a job making that the 8th most visited site in the US like Amazon is. People should know by now, having an online store has nothing to do with the software, and everything to do with marketing. 30% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
I'm a careful driver but many cyclists I come across make it hard not to run over them, what with driving through every gap between cars they can fit into regardless of the lanes, going through a car or a pedestrian green light, whichever comes first, and acting like jerks every time a car fails to signal or otherwise violates some traffic rule while they themselves almost completely ignore every single one of them.
Oh, I'm sure you are not one of those, but since you are generalizing I thought I'd join in.
Would you also support the right of software companies to collude among themselves to keep wages low? Oh wait, that's actually illegal. Unions are just monopolies and there are good reasons why monopolies are bad, whether on the employer or employee side. Lower productivity and quality (just ask the US auto industry), barriers to entry to new workers entering the field therefore increasing unemployment, higher labor costs and therefore jobs moved overseas, barriers to entry to small business to the benefit of existing large businesses who can more easily meet union requirements etc etc.
If the Cuban people want to try communism, that's their right.
Are you sure that they do? Do they have a say in it at all? Maybe Cuba is different but in other places people were rather happy when they got rid of the communists ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989), my guess is Cubans will be too.
From an objective, moral viewpoint, America is completely in the wrong. That land belonged to the Cubans, not American corporations who had somehow bought it up, and it was the Cubans' right to take it back. There's a simple lesson here: if you're not a citizen of a foreign country, then you don't have any rights there, especially when a new regime takes over.
That's a perfect attitude to take if you want to instantly end all foreign investments in your country. I don't know of any country (with the single exception of North Korea) who would consider that to be a good policy.
If America had had a "hands-off" policy towards Cuba under Castro (i.e., no embargo, no assassination attempts, no invasions, etc.), and people were still trying to escape by homemade raft, then you could rightfully criticize that nation for not working very well.
I think we have every right not to trade with a country where, according to a recent Amnesty International report:
- Freedom of expression remained limited, with all mass media outlets remaining under state control. Journalists working for independent and alternative news agencies continued to face harassment and intimidation
- Opposition political groups and many civil and professional associations continued to be barred from gaining legal status.
- The justice system continued to be used to harass political dissidents opposed to the Cuban government, in particular using charges of "dangerousness".
- Cubans were allowed for the first time to buy mobile phones and computers for personal use [in 2009!], but access to the internet remained restricted.
etc etc.
Assassinations and invasions are a different story, but that was part of the Cold War. I don't see those happening now.
As a kid I was once upset about somebody getting the credit for something I did at school or somehow getting something by cheating at my expense, I can't remember the details. My father said, to paraphrase, you should be glad you were the victim rather than the cheat. Sure, he might get away with a small gain here and there but if he is that kind of person he will have far bigger problems in the long run. I guess it applies here too.
So, tricking workers into slavery by promising them high pay then taking their passports away and forcing them to work for low pay with the collusion of a corrupt autocratic government is an example of what happens when you have TOO MUCH economic liberty? I think you are crazy.
What I don't understand about the blasphemy laws in general is how do religious people get around committing blasphemy against other religions just by pretty much quoting from their holy books whenever they contradict other holy books. Every Muslim will tell you that Jesus is not really a son of God, hence the Bible is full of lies. Isn't that blasphemy against Christianity?
If you read the whole document the bit about stacking "independent" panels and getting favorable "news" stories is the only truly unethical part and even that is regularly done by a lot of companies including Apple in particular. it's just good agressive competition. Or maybe I worked for Oracle for too long:)
I see what you mean. If I was poor, I'd choose to sleep under a bridge or to starve rather than take handouts. Therefore, I shouldn't have to pay taxes.
That's a typical liberal worldview where people are poor and sad and miserable and there is nothing they can do about it without the big mother government to help them. If you are poor you should work on raising yourself out of poverty and along the way accept help of the fellow human being who are helping you voluntarily. As somebody who is probably not poor, and since you care so much about poor people, why don't you go out and help them and I might join you too. All I am saying is that you have no right to force me to do it against my will.
The only job for government is to bomb people and throw potheads in jail for a few decades, and in that case I'm hugely in favor of big government.
I think what you are doing there is confusing libertarian views such as those expressed or implied in my previous posts with your perception of what somebody like the Republican party in the US stands for. Big difference.
Aside from that I can teach my own kids, inspect my own meat, and I can drive myself to the hospital if I fall down the stairs or have a heart attack...if my house catches fire, it's my job to extinguish it....etc.
Nonsense. You can pay other people to provide you with services you need. You might as well say if the government doesn't provide me with a supermarket or repair my car, I will have to learn how to become a car mechanic and grow vegetables in my yard. Why does it have to be the government that provides those specific service you list?
I've had enough with these fucking commies who want to take all my guns and money away.
Of course we need defense although the budget is hugely bloated out of proportion due to pork and other forms of corruption rather than genuine defense needs. As for what I don't need, social welfare alone is over 50% (Health, SS and other benefits). The next two largest items, debt interest and gov employee benefits are also large because of the inflated size of the government in the first place. When you add up all the other smaller stuff, you can easily get to around 70%. No, I don't need Social Security or Medicare. I can provide for my own retirement and health care and even if I couldn't I wouldn't think it morally acceptable to demand that others be forced to provide it for me.
Where else in the world is someone required to pay a tax to a corporation? Required, as in you will go to jail if you don't give a corporation money for a service you might not need or want.
You have a lot to learn about the US tax system: http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms//WhereOurTaxDollarsGo_MostOfBudget.jpg Around 70% to 80% of my taxes go to services I don't need or want, yet I am forced to pay for them. True, we don't have to pay for a TV license, so that makes it ok.
Your argument is ridiculous. So in your example, a government agency picks an open source solution and THEN worry about the lack of support and the possibility of the project going under? They should take those things into account BEFORE choosing the open source solution, and maybe go with a commercial one instead or with whichever other one meets the requirements of providing reliable support and not being likely to go under any time soon. Those are just requirements to be considered ahead of time, along with price, features and everything else. So lets say the $GOVERNMENT_AGENCY screws up and chooses a product that some time later they realize is inadequate in the ways you mention? Yes, they should let it go under and start over, and try to make a better choice next time.
Slashdot Mirror
Read Error. Your request could not connect to the correct web server. This typically occurs as a result of a temporary outage or problem on our network....Generated Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:06:41 GMT by vhost.phx4.nearlyfreespeech.net (squid/2.7.STABLE7)
I'd expect my hosting company's website to be a bit more immune to slashdotting.
Getting to an island that is now ~500 km off shore
Where do you get that number from? Other people are mentioning 200 miles which is also wrong. According to Wikipedia, Crete is only 100 miles (160km) from mainland Greece and looking at the map there are several small islands in between so each single journey by sea might only involve 30 miles or so. If the sea level was lower it is quite likely that there would be more islands sticking out, and if the surface was frozen in the winter, then there is your problem solved without any seafaring technology.
Conveniently what gets forgotten with "anti-piracy" jackbooting is my right to tinker. I don't give a damn that console makers want to totally lock down "their" systems. It's not "theirs" its mine, I bought it at the store.
Perhaps it gets forgotten because there is no such thing as the "right to tinker". Read the contract you agreed to when you bought the device. It's yours, but still you don't necessarily have the "right to tinker". People enter into contracts with one another which involves transaction of property with some restrictions placed on the buyer all the time. Check real estate contracts for example. The price structure of Nintendo consoles and games is as it is because it assumes that each game would have to be bought. That was the deal from the start. If you don't like it, don't buy it. If anybody can copy games as much as they like then the price of consoles would have to be much higher to reflect the full r&d and production costs, and perhaps the whole business model of game consoles wouldn't be viable at all.
Amateur stuff compared to the reviews of the legendary Denon $500 cable: http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/product-reviews/B000I1X6PM/ref=cm_cr_pr_helpful?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0
I got far more worked up over the ban on minarets that they enacted last year. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/world/europe/30swiss.html That was a much more serious violation of basic rights.
Can you name the "basic rights" that are being violated here? Nobody is stopping Muslims in Switzerland from practicing their religion, they are only not allowed to impose it on everyone else in the form of giant rockets (erect penises?) whose only purpose is to promote the said religion. Since they are not even being used for calling for prayer what else is their purpose?
I wouldn't go so far as to call it lame but it pisses me of when people say such and such is made of legos with the implication that somehow that makes it more difficult. I'd be more impressed if he had fabricated the parts himself than if he used premade parts that snap together. now if had used regular bricks for the whole thing that would be a different story.
I don't know, banning porn with small tits only seems like common sense. From now on I'm only looking for porn officially approved by the Australian government as featuring girls with sufficiently large tits.
I"m sorry?? Amazon's work in selling these e-books is next to nothing. I can have a online e-book shop set-up by tomorrow. And a author upload service on the next day.
Yes but you'll have a hell of a job making that the 8th most visited site in the US like Amazon is. People should know by now, having an online store has nothing to do with the software, and everything to do with marketing. 30% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
I'm a careful driver but many cyclists I come across make it hard not to run over them, what with driving through every gap between cars they can fit into regardless of the lanes, going through a car or a pedestrian green light, whichever comes first, and acting like jerks every time a car fails to signal or otherwise violates some traffic rule while they themselves almost completely ignore every single one of them.
Oh, I'm sure you are not one of those, but since you are generalizing I thought I'd join in.
How about cutting the entitlement programs that take up two thirds of the budget instead of seeking to massively expand them (healthcare)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2009spendingbycategory2.png
No, we don't need a defense budget that big either so there is plenty of room to cut if there is political will.
If they fail to repay the loan, that's about $1.45 per person.
None of these cost a lot per person http://funding-programs.idilogic.aidpage.com/funding-programs/ but have a habit of adding up. Not to mention the good old farmers: http://farm.ewg.org/farm/top_recips.php?fips=00000&progcode=total
If Tesla wants $1.45 right now from me, I'm fairly sure I could afford it.
If Tesla took only the money of people like you who have no problem with it, they wouldn't need a subsidy. They would just need private investors.
Would you also support the right of software companies to collude among themselves to keep wages low? Oh wait, that's actually illegal. Unions are just monopolies and there are good reasons why monopolies are bad, whether on the employer or employee side. Lower productivity and quality (just ask the US auto industry), barriers to entry to new workers entering the field therefore increasing unemployment, higher labor costs and therefore jobs moved overseas, barriers to entry to small business to the benefit of existing large businesses who can more easily meet union requirements etc etc.
If the Cuban people want to try communism, that's their right.
Are you sure that they do? Do they have a say in it at all? Maybe Cuba is different but in other places people were rather happy when they got rid of the communists ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989), my guess is Cubans will be too.
From an objective, moral viewpoint, America is completely in the wrong. That land belonged to the Cubans, not American corporations who had somehow bought it up, and it was the Cubans' right to take it back. There's a simple lesson here: if you're not a citizen of a foreign country, then you don't have any rights there, especially when a new regime takes over.
That's a perfect attitude to take if you want to instantly end all foreign investments in your country. I don't know of any country (with the single exception of North Korea) who would consider that to be a good policy.
If America had had a "hands-off" policy towards Cuba under Castro (i.e., no embargo, no assassination attempts, no invasions, etc.), and people were still trying to escape by homemade raft, then you could rightfully criticize that nation for not working very well.
I think we have every right not to trade with a country where, according to a recent Amnesty International report:
- Freedom of expression remained limited, with all mass media outlets remaining under state control. Journalists working for independent and alternative news agencies continued to face harassment and intimidation
- Opposition political groups and many civil and professional associations continued to be barred from gaining legal status.
- The justice system continued to be used to harass political dissidents opposed to the Cuban government, in particular using charges of "dangerousness".
- Cubans were allowed for the first time to buy mobile phones and computers for personal use [in 2009!], but access to the internet remained restricted.
etc etc.
Assassinations and invasions are a different story, but that was part of the Cold War. I don't see those happening now.
As a kid I was once upset about somebody getting the credit for something I did at school or somehow getting something by cheating at my expense, I can't remember the details. My father said, to paraphrase, you should be glad you were the victim rather than the cheat. Sure, he might get away with a small gain here and there but if he is that kind of person he will have far bigger problems in the long run. I guess it applies here too.
So, tricking workers into slavery by promising them high pay then taking their passports away and forcing them to work for low pay with the collusion of a corrupt autocratic government is an example of what happens when you have TOO MUCH economic liberty? I think you are crazy.
Take a look at how UAE ranks in the Index of Economic Fredom: http://www.heritage.org/Index/Ranking.aspx
While you are there take a moment to notice the strong correlation between economic liberty and political liberty as well as prosperity.
JFC
What I don't understand about the blasphemy laws in general is how do religious people get around committing blasphemy against other religions just by pretty much quoting from their holy books whenever they contradict other holy books. Every Muslim will tell you that Jesus is not really a son of God, hence the Bible is full of lies. Isn't that blasphemy against Christianity?
Ok I meant the linked "infamous" document, obviously not the entire case
If you read the whole document the bit about stacking "independent" panels and getting favorable "news" stories is the only truly unethical part and even that is regularly done by a lot of companies including Apple in particular. it's just good agressive competition. Or maybe I worked for Oracle for too long :)
I see what you mean. If I was poor, I'd choose to sleep under a bridge or to starve rather than take handouts. Therefore, I shouldn't have to pay taxes.
That's a typical liberal worldview where people are poor and sad and miserable and there is nothing they can do about it without the big mother government to help them. If you are poor you should work on raising yourself out of poverty and along the way accept help of the fellow human being who are helping you voluntarily. As somebody who is probably not poor, and since you care so much about poor people, why don't you go out and help them and I might join you too. All I am saying is that you have no right to force me to do it against my will.
The only job for government is to bomb people and throw potheads in jail for a few decades, and in that case I'm hugely in favor of big government.
I think what you are doing there is confusing libertarian views such as those expressed or implied in my previous posts with your perception of what somebody like the Republican party in the US stands for. Big difference.
Aside from that I can teach my own kids, inspect my own meat, and I can drive myself to the hospital if I fall down the stairs or have a heart attack...if my house catches fire, it's my job to extinguish it....etc.
Nonsense. You can pay other people to provide you with services you need. You might as well say if the government doesn't provide me with a supermarket or repair my car, I will have to learn how to become a car mechanic and grow vegetables in my yard. Why does it have to be the government that provides those specific service you list?
I've had enough with these fucking commies who want to take all my guns and money away.
Sarcasm +1, Insight -1
Of course we need defense although the budget is hugely bloated out of proportion due to pork and other forms of corruption rather than genuine defense needs. As for what I don't need, social welfare alone is over 50% (Health, SS and other benefits). The next two largest items, debt interest and gov employee benefits are also large because of the inflated size of the government in the first place. When you add up all the other smaller stuff, you can easily get to around 70%. No, I don't need Social Security or Medicare. I can provide for my own retirement and health care and even if I couldn't I wouldn't think it morally acceptable to demand that others be forced to provide it for me.
Where else in the world is someone required to pay a tax to a corporation? Required, as in you will go to jail if you don't give a corporation money for a service you might not need or want.
You have a lot to learn about the US tax system: http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms//WhereOurTaxDollarsGo_MostOfBudget.jpg Around 70% to 80% of my taxes go to services I don't need or want, yet I am forced to pay for them. True, we don't have to pay for a TV license, so that makes it ok.
Your argument is ridiculous. So in your example, a government agency picks an open source solution and THEN worry about the lack of support and the possibility of the project going under? They should take those things into account BEFORE choosing the open source solution, and maybe go with a commercial one instead or with whichever other one meets the requirements of providing reliable support and not being likely to go under any time soon. Those are just requirements to be considered ahead of time, along with price, features and everything else. So lets say the $GOVERNMENT_AGENCY screws up and chooses a product that some time later they realize is inadequate in the ways you mention? Yes, they should let it go under and start over, and try to make a better choice next time.
Or more precisely; If Joanna has access to the hardware they are screwed. :-)
Hey, be nice, she's a lady.
And why is Intel releasing patches to Infiniti car models?