This may or may not be true. It depends a great deal on how the capability is implemented. Does the installation clearly indicate the nature of the capability and ask you if you want it enabled? How difficult is it to turn it off? If you purchase a computer with it preinstalled, how difficult is it to know that the capability is turned on?
I con't particularly care for banner ads but if I installed an anti-virus program and it started modifying my browsing capabilities without my consent, I'd be quite irrate.
Because that's how the original article (sadly no longer available) divided society.
Funny, I have it up in another tab right now. I followed your link to the Seattle Times, created a bogus login, and accessed the article in the archives. It does not have the graphic in the archives article, but your page links to that.
Nowhere in the article does it divide society up as you claim. I only find one mention of different percentiles:
Seattle Times Quote:The top 5 percent of the nation's taxpayers paid 41 percent of all federal taxes, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. But that same group paid from 56 to 59 percent of all income taxes.
There were four groups: lower classes (bottom 60% quantiles) middle classes (not mentioned), upper classes (above 5%) and super-rich (above 1%). Then a graph compared income taxes paid by each. The top two groups were compared IN THE CONTEXT OF the bottom group, but the top two groups overlapped each other! This is deception.
This is simply false. The article never mentions three or four groups. I posted the only mention of percentages in a quote above. Pull it up and look. (If you dispute that, let me know and I'll paste the entire text of the article in a comment and copyright laws be damned.) The point of the graphic is not to compare the bottom 60% to the top 5% to the top 1%, nor is it to show the distribution of the tax burden across the entire spectrum of the population. The point of the graph is to compare each of the top 5% and top 1% with the bottom 60%. The fact that the top 5% and top 1% overlap is intentional. No attempt is made to have the numbers add up to 100%. THAT ISN'T THE POINT OF THE GRAPH. In effect, the graph says "The top 5% pays much more that the bottom 60%, and even if you restrict it to the top 1% they still pay more!" The point is to show the disparity, and the graph does that admirably.
Bertin's point regarding multiple pie charts is correct. Also, pie charts with more than four wedges are difficult to comprehend. That doesn't mean pie charts are useless. One would have worked fine for your "corrected" graph. (It would have been a poor choice for the original graph, however, because the original graph was not intended to show a division totaling 100%.)
But it doesn't make sense to compare the ratios of A+B with C, with the ratio of B with C. That's plain misleading.
It makes perfect sense to compare the top 5% with the bottom 60%, then to compare the top 1% with the bottom 60%. That's the purpose of the graph.
And, for the record, IAAS (I am a statistician).
God but I hope this is a lie. If not, please let me know where you earned your degree so I can make sure my kids don't go there.
The "corrected" chart is worse than the original. The author says "I re-did the chart in Excel, and you can see that a real chart tells a very different picture: actually, it's the middle classes that carry the greatest share of the tax burden, however you look at it."
Balderdash and poppycock. Why are you splitting the top 5% into two groups? Why, to make their contributions look smaller! That's a deliberate deception. How about if you combined the top 2-5% with the top 1% and show the top 5% as one group? The top 5% pays 56.1% of all income taxes. The middle class and the lower class combined pay 43.9% So tell me again who pays "...the greates share?" The rant is titled "Damn Lies." It doesn't bother to inform you that it's the ranter who's telling them.
(And for what it's worth, a bar chart was a poor choice for this graph. A pie chart would be preferred.)
This is why I don't agree with the Windows monopoly concept. We all know there are easily a hundred other free operating systems out there. Plus many more that aren't free but aren't from Microsoft. If Microsoft is the operating system of choice, even if the choice is watered down since most people get Windows free (or not free but seemingly so while paying for it in OEM costs) and prefer it, even if that choice is made out of laziness, how is that forcing their hand?
The problem was with the MS licensing agreements with computer sellers. If you sold computers, you could sign an exclusive deal with MS and get a discount (that OEM cost you mentioned) on the cost of the OS you supplied with your computers. However, you could not sell a computer that was not loaded with Windows. This meant that you either offered your consumers no choice in OS, or your Windows PCs cost significantly more than your competitor down the street because they had to pay full retail for Windows, not the OEM cost. End result - monopoly. If you bought a PC, you bought Windows. Following the monopoly suit, that policty changed but the policy had already had the effect of handing the marketplace to Windows. Had MS simply won the market fair and square, there would be significantly less animosity towards them.
While rather crudely stated, grandparent post is correct. Fitness is defined by the environment, and it is defined in terms of reproductive success. (Your use of the phrase 'ones that adapt' is amibguous. It could mean either specialization or non specialization. Specialization, which is species adaption to an existing environment, is important, but excessive specialization becomes a liability when environments change. Non-specialized species tend to be more adaptable or versatile as individuals because they're not adapted, or specialized, to a particular environment. This is valuable in times of environmental flux, but can be a disadvantage in times of environmental stasis.)
Modern society in general and social programs in particular essentially remove the concept of fitness. Everyone is fit, regardless of the traits they possess. Only the most extreme diseases or anti-social tendancies are selected against. Success, however you choose to define it, is not rewarded in an evolutionary sense. (Unless, of course, you define success in evolutionary terms of reproduction, in which case the statement becomes an oxymoron. <G>) In fact, the common defintion of success, relying on economic and/or social measures, is actually selected against, as educated, middle and upper class people tend to reproduce less often than the lower classes.
If the majority of broadcasters decline to participate? They don't have an option. They're required to provide digital broadcasts as a condition of their license. If they don't broadcast digital, they don't broadcast at all. I believe they're required to provide the digital broadcast by 2006.
Is there anything wrong with the Pledge? Is there anything wrong with saying it? Is there anything wrong with believing what you are saying? Is there anything wrong with having pride in your country, even if you don't agree with its government sometimes?"
The answer to all of those questions is clearly "No." However, those aren't the important question. The important question is "Is there anything wrong with your government forcing you to pledge your allegiance, and/or to pay homage to God?" The answer to that question is a clear and unequivical "Yes."
Anti-Americanism within America is really annoying.
The most unAmerican thing I can think of is forcing someone to support a cause they find objectionable. (And if you think I'm unAmerican, perhaps you should check my user profile page and see what I do for a living.)
You begin "Let's look at this scientifically" and immediately proceed to abandon all pretense of scientific objectivity and show no understanding of the scientific method.
For example, in the last three hundred years the average world life expectancy has risen from approximately 27 to more than 65. US life expectancy is currently around 78. Do you suppose that it might be possible that the fact that people now live long enough to get cancer might have something to do with the fact that doctors see more cases than they used to?
Do you support running 6-8 generation QA processes on all technologies? What effect do electric fields have on the human body? Obviously, the prudent thing to do is ban electricity until we can be sure it's safe.
SGI found some code that seemed likely to have come from old Unix code. The code has almost certainly been released under the BSD license, so it was extremely unlikely to have been infringing in that sense. However, there may have been an issue with the proper copyright notice being included with the code. Additionally, the functionality of the code was provided by other other, original code in a different location, and the second implementation was superior to the code in question. SGI removed the old code.
Three HUNDRED million, not three million, which would be about 300,000 to 400,000 PCs if your cost factor is correct. But, as has been previously pointed out, the article actually says that they'll be able to save around three hundred mil, meaning that's the cost of the software being replaced, not the cost of the PCs.
Basic capitalism doesn't see you as anything at all. Under capitalism, you're free to do as much or as little as you like. Socialism depends upon "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." (Quoting from memory.) The system, not you, determines what your abilities are and how they're used. No such control of the individual is inherent in the basic philosophy of capitalsim.
Basic political science? Been there, got the t-shirt, thanks.
And you're right that under pure socialism, the workers nominally own the means of production. But does it matter who owns it if the "owners" can not dictate the terms of its use? Who ever runs (and profits from) the factory is the owner in all but legal fiction.
There's nothing that says a communism or socialism can't be a democracy and support basic human rights. Until we see one that is, I submit that we don't have any evidence that either of these systems will fail.
Basic socialistic philosophy views citizens as units of production subservient to the system, and concentrates power in the hands of rulers. The fact that every communistic or socialistic government that we have seen has ended up as a corrupt morass is, if not conclusive, at least highly suggestive evidence that the philosophy is fatally flawed.
And it's absolutely certain that we haven't seen a pure capitalisity society. However, the most succesful ones we have seen are capitalistic in nature.
Why not read the linked article? The site does more than inform consumers. It sets up a system that supposedly allows consumers to file for a claim through the website, and allows Lindows to accept their rebate for them and apply it to a purchase through Lindows. MS claims this violates the terms of the settlement. IANAL, and have only seens MS's side of the claim, so I have no idea if what MS says is correct. They seem to have a point, but it's relatively easy to spin legal jargoneese that sounds good but is completely bogus.
If there was a software package that helped restaurants with inventory, ordering, advertising, etc. that helped them get the business end right...
There are. A great many of them. And yes, they're somewhat expensive but they aren't a significant percentage of the start-up cost of a restaurant - the real estate, the appliances and the supplies cost much more. Restaurants are high turn-over businesses. Most of them will fail, and no amount of software will change that.
Yeah, we can invent a new economic system. We'll call it "socialism." Maybe we can try it in the old Soviet Union. Their old system collapsed and they need something different.
Actually, printing money is the only way that the suggestions in the article are going to work. Given that you accept all of the premises, the suggested solutions are likely to prove counter-productive:
Write free software for individual industries
The increased productivity caused by computers is one of the reasons cited for rising unemployment rates. Isn't this new software likely to replace efforts now being done by hand and make the situation worse, not better?
Create a truly public key infrastructure... People have been trying to get corporate communications and negotiations online for years, and probably the biggest beneficiaries of such a move would be small businesses and individual contractors. After all, who finds it hardest to pay travel costs and conference room fees for expensive legal help?
Assuming that we did manage to get corporate communications online, what happens to the current infrastructure that grew up to support widespread business travel? Airlines, hotels, etc.
The argument is that increased productivity causes unemployment, therefore we need to increase productivity so that small businesses can function more efficiently and cut costs, thus paving the way for more small businesses. I don't think you can have it both ways. Increased productivity can't be both our bane and our salvation.
Give me one example of a succesful business that would have failed if someone else had known what they were doing. Transmeta was supersecret about what it was they were doing. Do you really think they'd have been less succesful (is that possible?), or that someone else would have tried to take away their idea if they'd taken out a front page ad in the NYT describing their plan? So give me one example.
Linux is available for free, yes. However, check the cost of Red Hat Enterprise edition. If we're talking about enterprise servers, we aren't talking about free vs high cost. In terms of TCO, I'd guess that Linux still has a slight edge but it's not that large. (There have been a number of studies, most of them biased, which claim the TCO crown for either side.) The real advantage of Linux in the corporate environment is its power and its ability to be widely customized, not its cost. It's weakness is that its often decidedly less user friendly than Windows and that applies to sysadmins as well as to desktop users.
They may indeed, although you can convince a jury of a great many things. And, of course, the real problem in that scenario is the government-granted monopoly. However, I have difficulty in seeing where your right to free speech compels me to transmit your message. If I'm a publisher and you're an author, is my refusal to publish your book an attack on your freedom of speech? Even if I'm the only provider of cable-based access in your area, there is most likely satellite-based high-speed access available. There are also dial-up connections available which, while slower, are certainly servicable.
Mind you, I am not supporting anyone's actions in using blacklists. However, I am supporting their RIGHT to do so.
I understand the objects some people have to black lists. But the fact remains that there is a fundamental difference in me restricting how someone else uses my system, and in someone else dictating how I use my system by a cyber attack.
Slashdot Mirror
This may or may not be true. It depends a great deal on how the capability is implemented. Does the installation clearly indicate the nature of the capability and ask you if you want it enabled? How difficult is it to turn it off? If you purchase a computer with it preinstalled, how difficult is it to know that the capability is turned on?
I con't particularly care for banner ads but if I installed an anti-virus program and it started modifying my browsing capabilities without my consent, I'd be quite irrate.
Because that's how the original article (sadly no longer available) divided society.
Funny, I have it up in another tab right now. I followed your link to the Seattle Times, created a bogus login, and accessed the article in the archives. It does not have the graphic in the archives article, but your page links to that.
Nowhere in the article does it divide society up as you claim. I only find one mention of different percentiles:
Seattle Times Quote: The top 5 percent of the nation's taxpayers paid 41 percent of all federal taxes, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. But that same group paid from 56 to 59 percent of all income taxes.
There were four groups: lower classes (bottom 60% quantiles) middle classes (not mentioned), upper classes (above 5%) and super-rich (above 1%). Then a graph compared income taxes paid by each. The top two groups were compared IN THE CONTEXT OF the bottom group, but the top two groups overlapped each other! This is deception.
This is simply false. The article never mentions three or four groups. I posted the only mention of percentages in a quote above. Pull it up and look. (If you dispute that, let me know and I'll paste the entire text of the article in a comment and copyright laws be damned.) The point of the graphic is not to compare the bottom 60% to the top 5% to the top 1%, nor is it to show the distribution of the tax burden across the entire spectrum of the population. The point of the graph is to compare each of the top 5% and top 1% with the bottom 60%. The fact that the top 5% and top 1% overlap is intentional. No attempt is made to have the numbers add up to 100%. THAT ISN'T THE POINT OF THE GRAPH. In effect, the graph says "The top 5% pays much more that the bottom 60%, and even if you restrict it to the top 1% they still pay more!" The point is to show the disparity, and the graph does that admirably.
Bertin's point regarding multiple pie charts is correct. Also, pie charts with more than four wedges are difficult to comprehend. That doesn't mean pie charts are useless. One would have worked fine for your "corrected" graph. (It would have been a poor choice for the original graph, however, because the original graph was not intended to show a division totaling 100%.)
But it doesn't make sense to compare the ratios of A+B with C, with the ratio of B with C. That's plain misleading.
It makes perfect sense to compare the top 5% with the bottom 60%, then to compare the top 1% with the bottom 60%. That's the purpose of the graph.
And, for the record, IAAS (I am a statistician).
God but I hope this is a lie. If not, please let me know where you earned your degree so I can make sure my kids don't go there.
The "corrected" chart is worse than the original. The author says "I re-did the chart in Excel, and you can see that a real chart tells a very different picture: actually, it's the middle classes that carry the greatest share of the tax burden, however you look at it."
Balderdash and poppycock. Why are you splitting the top 5% into two groups? Why, to make their contributions look smaller! That's a deliberate deception. How about if you combined the top 2-5% with the top 1% and show the top 5% as one group? The top 5% pays 56.1% of all income taxes. The middle class and the lower class combined pay 43.9% So tell me again who pays "...the greates share?" The rant is titled "Damn Lies." It doesn't bother to inform you that it's the ranter who's telling them.
(And for what it's worth, a bar chart was a poor choice for this graph. A pie chart would be preferred.)
This is why I don't agree with the Windows monopoly concept. We all know there are easily a hundred other free operating systems out there. Plus many more that aren't free but aren't from Microsoft. If Microsoft is the operating system of choice, even if the choice is watered down since most people get Windows free (or not free but seemingly so while paying for it in OEM costs) and prefer it, even if that choice is made out of laziness, how is that forcing their hand?
The problem was with the MS licensing agreements with computer sellers. If you sold computers, you could sign an exclusive deal with MS and get a discount (that OEM cost you mentioned) on the cost of the OS you supplied with your computers. However, you could not sell a computer that was not loaded with Windows. This meant that you either offered your consumers no choice in OS, or your Windows PCs cost significantly more than your competitor down the street because they had to pay full retail for Windows, not the OEM cost. End result - monopoly. If you bought a PC, you bought Windows. Following the monopoly suit, that policty changed but the policy had already had the effect of handing the marketplace to Windows. Had MS simply won the market fair and square, there would be significantly less animosity towards them.
While rather crudely stated, grandparent post is correct. Fitness is defined by the environment, and it is defined in terms of reproductive success. (Your use of the phrase 'ones that adapt' is amibguous. It could mean either specialization or non specialization. Specialization, which is species adaption to an existing environment, is important, but excessive specialization becomes a liability when environments change. Non-specialized species tend to be more adaptable or versatile as individuals because they're not adapted, or specialized, to a particular environment. This is valuable in times of environmental flux, but can be a disadvantage in times of environmental stasis.)
Modern society in general and social programs in particular essentially remove the concept of fitness. Everyone is fit, regardless of the traits they possess. Only the most extreme diseases or anti-social tendancies are selected against. Success, however you choose to define it, is not rewarded in an evolutionary sense. (Unless, of course, you define success in evolutionary terms of reproduction, in which case the statement becomes an oxymoron. <G>) In fact, the common defintion of success, relying on economic and/or social measures, is actually selected against, as educated, middle and upper class people tend to reproduce less often than the lower classes.
If the majority of broadcasters decline to participate? They don't have an option. They're required to provide digital broadcasts as a condition of their license. If they don't broadcast digital, they don't broadcast at all. I believe they're required to provide the digital broadcast by 2006.
Is there anything wrong with the Pledge? Is there anything wrong with saying it? Is there anything wrong with believing what you are saying? Is there anything wrong with having pride in your country, even if you don't agree with its government sometimes?"
The answer to all of those questions is clearly "No." However, those aren't the important question. The important question is "Is there anything wrong with your government forcing you to pledge your allegiance, and/or to pay homage to God?" The answer to that question is a clear and unequivical "Yes."
Anti-Americanism within America is really annoying.
The most unAmerican thing I can think of is forcing someone to support a cause they find objectionable. (And if you think I'm unAmerican, perhaps you should check my user profile page and see what I do for a living.)
You begin "Let's look at this scientifically" and immediately proceed to abandon all pretense of scientific objectivity and show no understanding of the scientific method.
For example, in the last three hundred years the average world life expectancy has risen from approximately 27 to more than 65. US life expectancy is currently around 78. Do you suppose that it might be possible that the fact that people now live long enough to get cancer might have something to do with the fact that doctors see more cases than they used to?
Do you support running 6-8 generation QA processes on all technologies? What effect do electric fields have on the human body? Obviously, the prudent thing to do is ban electricity until we can be sure it's safe.
SGI found some code that seemed likely to have come from old Unix code. The code has almost certainly been released under the BSD license, so it was extremely unlikely to have been infringing in that sense. However, there may have been an issue with the proper copyright notice being included with the code. Additionally, the functionality of the code was provided by other other, original code in a different location, and the second implementation was superior to the code in question. SGI removed the old code.
Three HUNDRED million, not three million, which would be about 300,000 to 400,000 PCs if your cost factor is correct. But, as has been previously pointed out, the article actually says that they'll be able to save around three hundred mil, meaning that's the cost of the software being replaced, not the cost of the PCs.
Basic capitalism doesn't see you as anything at all. Under capitalism, you're free to do as much or as little as you like. Socialism depends upon "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." (Quoting from memory.) The system, not you, determines what your abilities are and how they're used. No such control of the individual is inherent in the basic philosophy of capitalsim.
Basic political science? Been there, got the t-shirt, thanks.
And you're right that under pure socialism, the workers nominally own the means of production. But does it matter who owns it if the "owners" can not dictate the terms of its use? Who ever runs (and profits from) the factory is the owner in all but legal fiction.
Either that, or we will reach a point where anything can be fabricated for essentially nothing, in which case wealth will be meaningless.
There's nothing that says a communism or socialism can't be a democracy and support basic human rights. Until we see one that is, I submit that we don't have any evidence that either of these systems will fail.
Basic socialistic philosophy views citizens as units of production subservient to the system, and concentrates power in the hands of rulers. The fact that every communistic or socialistic government that we have seen has ended up as a corrupt morass is, if not conclusive, at least highly suggestive evidence that the philosophy is fatally flawed.
And it's absolutely certain that we haven't seen a pure capitalisity society. However, the most succesful ones we have seen are capitalistic in nature.
Why not read the linked article? The site does more than inform consumers. It sets up a system that supposedly allows consumers to file for a claim through the website, and allows Lindows to accept their rebate for them and apply it to a purchase through Lindows. MS claims this violates the terms of the settlement. IANAL, and have only seens MS's side of the claim, so I have no idea if what MS says is correct. They seem to have a point, but it's relatively easy to spin legal jargoneese that sounds good but is completely bogus.
If there was a software package that helped restaurants with inventory, ordering, advertising, etc. that helped them get the business end right...
There are. A great many of them. And yes, they're somewhat expensive but they aren't a significant percentage of the start-up cost of a restaurant - the real estate, the appliances and the supplies cost much more. Restaurants are high turn-over businesses. Most of them will fail, and no amount of software will change that.Yeah, we can invent a new economic system. We'll call it "socialism." Maybe we can try it in the old Soviet Union. Their old system collapsed and they need something different.
Actually, printing money is the only way that the suggestions in the article are going to work. Given that you accept all of the premises, the suggested solutions are likely to prove counter-productive:
... People have been trying to get corporate communications and negotiations online for years, and probably the biggest beneficiaries of such a move would be small businesses and individual contractors. After all, who finds it hardest to pay travel costs and conference room fees for expensive legal help?
Write free software for individual industries
The increased productivity caused by computers is one of the reasons cited for rising unemployment rates. Isn't this new software likely to replace efforts now being done by hand and make the situation worse, not better?
Create a truly public key infrastructure
Assuming that we did manage to get corporate communications online, what happens to the current infrastructure that grew up to support widespread business travel? Airlines, hotels, etc.
The argument is that increased productivity causes unemployment, therefore we need to increase productivity so that small businesses can function more efficiently and cut costs, thus paving the way for more small businesses. I don't think you can have it both ways. Increased productivity can't be both our bane and our salvation.
Speak for yourself. I can type and stroke at the same tima;lksjdf Oh! Oh God. Yeah, that's it! Oh!!!!!!!!!!!!! uh, sorry, what was I saying?
Give me one example of a succesful business that would have failed if someone else had known what they were doing. Transmeta was supersecret about what it was they were doing. Do you really think they'd have been less succesful (is that possible?), or that someone else would have tried to take away their idea if they'd taken out a front page ad in the NYT describing their plan? So give me one example.
Linux is available for free, yes. However, check the cost of Red Hat Enterprise edition. If we're talking about enterprise servers, we aren't talking about free vs high cost. In terms of TCO, I'd guess that Linux still has a slight edge but it's not that large. (There have been a number of studies, most of them biased, which claim the TCO crown for either side.) The real advantage of Linux in the corporate environment is its power and its ability to be widely customized, not its cost. It's weakness is that its often decidedly less user friendly than Windows and that applies to sysadmins as well as to desktop users.
What's the proper pronounciation for l0pht? I've heard it pronounced both "loft" and "low fat." Which is correct?
They may indeed, although you can convince a jury of a great many things. And, of course, the real problem in that scenario is the government-granted monopoly. However, I have difficulty in seeing where your right to free speech compels me to transmit your message. If I'm a publisher and you're an author, is my refusal to publish your book an attack on your freedom of speech? Even if I'm the only provider of cable-based access in your area, there is most likely satellite-based high-speed access available. There are also dial-up connections available which, while slower, are certainly servicable.
Mind you, I am not supporting anyone's actions in using blacklists. However, I am supporting their RIGHT to do so.
I understand the objects some people have to black lists. But the fact remains that there is a fundamental difference in me restricting how someone else uses my system, and in someone else dictating how I use my system by a cyber attack.
Isn't hand-holding 99% of customer support in any industry?