I'd love to see what you post when you're sober, and using your own alias.
Let's start with China. They have large investments in our currency. So what? Why do you think you can't email the words "freedom" or "democracy" to China? Because of all the places on Earth where people live, the citizens of China know that their own national government is responsible for their problems. Not some local warlord or the dictator of the moment as in other countries where most citizens live in grinding poverty, but the Communist Party that has been in power since 1945. So, let the hyper-privileged Party Members try to tinker with our money supply. Money is a symbol, and the Chinese people would all prefer a green paper symbol of freedom than a 1 pound gold brick, if that brick was stamped with the likeness of Mao Tse-Tung, or any of their national rulers since. You're blowing smoke, nothing more.
Different private orgs have attempted to reconstruct it, the ones I have seen both had the US running over 10% a year inflation,(12 really) significantly higher than the "official" stats they claim. Just pay attention to what you buy, you'll see it isn't a paltry 4 or 5 %. It's the main reason foreigners are doing the slow bailout from the dollar. The chinese were even blunter,in public,an "in your face" statement direct to the US, directly from one of their main bankers, he said they have no idea whatsoever how many dollars are being put into circulation...
1. Which main banker? What's your source? At the very least, credibility demands you post 1 URL to accompany such tall tales.
2. Why should a slashdot reader who is not a member of China's Communist Party or of Comintern think there's any problem when the Chinese "have no idea whatsoever how many dollars are being put into circulation"?
A more general comment on your various references to economics and crisis situations: in crisis situations the economic laws that prevail in times of stability are replaced fast enough to minimize the type of damages you're trying to portray as likely. I did not enjoy The Grapes of Wrath, but I'm told by people who lived through it that its portrayal of barter economics and the like is quite accurate. You should read it, both because it will teach you something about real people in economic crises and because I hope you find the experience as annoying as I did.
And who, exactly, would decide what is important and what is non-critical?
The same people deciding what is patent-worthy. If they can make those decisions, which are thereafter legally binding on everybody, they had damn well better be able to distinguish something useful from the the anti-gravity illusion device and other such nonsense mentioned above.
But just as many people deciding to vote the same way can change a government, a large number of people deciding to make the snoopers' jobs (even slightly more) difficult would quickly outpace their resources available for the task.
Stealing a car and selling it for parts can be lucrative, I hear, once you meet the wrong people. For most thieves, stealing car radios is a more practical goal. Some car owners respond to the existence of car stereo thieves by leaving their doors unlocked, their windows rolled down except during rainfall, and their stereos only loosely fastened to the mounting bracket. I prefer to make thievery of my property, which includes my data, difficult.
Well, it's not a bad thing that the Evil Industries learned that too-broad laws can be used against them as much as against us. DMCA, anyone ?
So what, "that will teach them a lesson"?
I'm afraid, vegiVamp, that "the Evil Industries" have never "learned" anything, and never will, because their diffuse ownership structure allows diffuse accountability. Ultimately, they will just have half as many Billions, and taxpayers foot 50% or more of most of their (publicly known) transgressions. I enjoy the sentiment of punishing the bad guys, but that's better accomplished with fewer, simpler laws, strictly enforced, than the byzantine body of regulation currently in operation. Even a full-time lawyer cannot navigate the laws that govern a single corporation. It takes a full-time Legal Department to keep publicly traded, collectively owned businesses, aka "corporations", clear of prosecution under the laws they purchased to prevent competitors from entering the markets.
So the guy buys a laptop and is offered 6 months free MSN service in which he has to use his credit card so they have a credit card on file. Why is this any different from NetFlix getting your card info in order to use their free trial?
For one thing, because they haven't tried to bundle NetFlix subscription with an outright purchase. For another, if you sign up with NetFlix yourself, there may be a reasonable expectation that you will read the fine print.
"Best Buy allegedly signed Odom up an MSN account with the credit card Odom used to pay for the computer. After a six-month free trial ended, Microsoft began charging him for the account, the suit charged."
Allegedly, he did not sign up for that account. The implication is that he was subscribed by proxy, without his consent, or knowledge. If true, his complaint is completely legitimate.
You may not care that your civil liberties are in atrophy, but I intend to continue exercising mine.
Slashdot is ridiculed -- by whom? More giants of the intellect like you, I suppose. Please remind me to pretend to care.
"If you replace the threat of physical violence with a threat of legal and financial ruin, they are virtually identical."
I'm sorry, but whoever modded you up is a bigger twit than you are, which is saying a lot.
Please tell me the threat of legal and financial ruin that can be used which is equivalent to having your family executed in front of you.
You're the first here to use the word "equivalent" to describe actual physical force vs. financial and/or legal measures. [straw man] He correctly pointed out that they're both forms of coercion. He did not say they're equivalent. In fact, I was impressed by his careful inclusion of the qualifier "virtually". Perhaps you are not the first demagogue he's ever spoken to. Whether he anticipated your fallacious argument or merely made his better out of a habit of precision and accuracy, he has stated his position more consistently and honestly than you have stated yours.
It fascinates me how the hypocrites here rail against the Patriot Act and other laws being mis-applied, but because of your irrational hatred of MS, you ignore exactly the same kinds of abuses with RICO.
Bill Gates has not been tortured, or even forcibly moved under RICO. You just committed the same error, equation of legal action (RICO) to physical force (Patriot Act) that you erroneously accused your opponent of committing. Your liberal use of the word "rail" makes the absence from your statement of pertinent fact more, not less, obvious.
If the machines were technologically valuable, they could have a different OS installed and used at, for example, a growing drive-through dining establishment or small retail markets. And, if the manufacturer wanted to demonstrate the value of their engineering, ditto. In the total absence of such efforts, the only rational conclusion is that these machines are less than worthless, by design.
That kind of suggestion is the real reason some politicians are so eager to delegate the rights of citizens to computers.
I agree with you in part; voting machines are a crappy idea. But I side with Bing on getting rid of them. That should be done locally, by the same jurisdictions that made the mistake of using them.
The federal government can only screw up situations like Hurricane Katrina in proportion to how heavily the citizens of the country, on average, rely on it to resolve local problems.
When large organizations implement a search engine, it's not the same as the search window in your browser. This type of project isn't about what runs on client computers for general www searches, it's about searches within Indiana University, and not just material that's already had links written to www.iu.edu. This will increase what's available to Google searches of IU, at least for IU students. The article is a joke.
The synopsis looked a little bit too ridiculous to believe, so I Googled "indiana university search engine". It looks possible that "the ChaCha infrastructure" is not entirely without merit. Other things being equal (that is, assuming that their IT department doesn't totally suck eggs), their press release gives the impression that information that has not yet been uploaded will become more quickly digitized, the next time each resource is requested. Of course, that's the description from the parties who have a vested interest in making it sound good. But it is apparent that electronic search capabilities have been augmented by, not replaced by, human librarian expertise. I hope the Union of
How will this partnership benefit the IU academic community?
Every time a guide answers a question, the answer will be added to the search system, building a base of knowledge from which others can draw. The ability to repurpose this accumulated knowledge extends what is currently available at Indiana University and offers a valuable new service to the academic community.
I find that having more space between sentences than between words within a sentence makes speed-reading easier. If you don't consider the savings of your time "valid reason" for the rules of formatting, that's your problem. I disagree with you, and publishers agree with me.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder, though, why some seem to enjoy hate-mongering so much more than others.
How about a tariff on foreign ISP's? They seem to be "taxing" the infrastructure with their spam bots. We should charge China for that.
Yes & no. They should be able to communicate with GPS systems, but not depend on them.
One staffing company's report on their own clients' pay doesn't mean anything about the general market for tech workers.
Let's start with China. They have large investments in our currency. So what? Why do you think you can't email the words "freedom" or "democracy" to China? Because of all the places on Earth where people live, the citizens of China know that their own national government is responsible for their problems. Not some local warlord or the dictator of the moment as in other countries where most citizens live in grinding poverty, but the Communist Party that has been in power since 1945. So, let the hyper-privileged Party Members try to tinker with our money supply. Money is a symbol, and the Chinese people would all prefer a green paper symbol of freedom than a 1 pound gold brick, if that brick was stamped with the likeness of Mao Tse-Tung, or any of their national rulers since. You're blowing smoke, nothing more.
1. Which main banker? What's your source? At the very least, credibility demands you post 1 URL to accompany such tall tales.
2. Why should a slashdot reader who is not a member of China's Communist Party or of Comintern think there's any problem when the Chinese "have no idea whatsoever how many dollars are being put into circulation"?
A more general comment on your various references to economics and crisis situations: in crisis situations the economic laws that prevail in times of stability are replaced fast enough to minimize the type of damages you're trying to portray as likely. I did not enjoy The Grapes of Wrath, but I'm told by people who lived through it that its portrayal of barter economics and the like is quite accurate. You should read it, both because it will teach you something about real people in economic crises and because I hope you find the experience as annoying as I did.
All those English teachers who had such a blast in China knew they could go home whenever they felt like it.
Allegedly, he did not sign up for that account. The implication is that he was subscribed by proxy, without his consent, or knowledge. If true, his complaint is completely legitimate.
You may not care that your civil liberties are in atrophy, but I intend to continue exercising mine.
You're the first here to use the word "equivalent" to describe actual physical force vs. financial and/or legal measures. [straw man] He correctly pointed out that they're both forms of coercion. He did not say they're equivalent. In fact, I was impressed by his careful inclusion of the qualifier "virtually". Perhaps you are not the first demagogue he's ever spoken to. Whether he anticipated your fallacious argument or merely made his better out of a habit of precision and accuracy, he has stated his position more consistently and honestly than you have stated yours.
Bill Gates has not been tortured, or even forcibly moved under RICO. You just committed the same error, equation of legal action (RICO) to physical force (Patriot Act) that you erroneously accused your opponent of committing. Your liberal use of the word "rail" makes the absence from your statement of pertinent fact more, not less, obvious.
If the machines were technologically valuable, they could have a different OS installed and used at, for example, a growing drive-through dining establishment or small retail markets. And, if the manufacturer wanted to demonstrate the value of their engineering, ditto. In the total absence of such efforts, the only rational conclusion is that these machines are less than worthless, by design.
That kind of suggestion is the real reason some politicians are so eager to delegate the rights of citizens to computers.
I agree with you in part; voting machines are a crappy idea. But I side with Bing on getting rid of them. That should be done locally, by the same jurisdictions that made the mistake of using them.
The federal government can only screw up situations like Hurricane Katrina in proportion to how heavily the citizens of the country, on average, rely on it to resolve local problems.
When large organizations implement a search engine, it's not the same as the search window in your browser. This type of project isn't about what runs on client computers for general www searches, it's about searches within Indiana University, and not just material that's already had links written to www.iu.edu. This will increase what's available to Google searches of IU, at least for IU students. The article is a joke.
The synopsis looked a little bit too ridiculous to believe, so I Googled "indiana university search engine". It looks possible that "the ChaCha infrastructure" is not entirely without merit. Other things being equal (that is, assuming that their IT department doesn't totally suck eggs), their press release gives the impression that information that has not yet been uploaded will become more quickly digitized, the next time each resource is requested. Of course, that's the description from the parties who have a vested interest in making it sound good. But it is apparent that electronic search capabilities have been augmented by, not replaced by, human librarian expertise. I hope the Union of
How will this partnership benefit the IU academic community?
Every time a guide answers a question, the answer will be added to the search system, building a base of knowledge from which others can draw. The ability to repurpose this accumulated knowledge extends what is currently available at Indiana University and offers a valuable new service to the academic community.
www.indiana.edu/~ovpit/presentations/ChaCha/ChaCha_IU_FAQ_080607.doc
If it seems to good to be true, it is.
The converse is also true, with a few hilarious exceptions.
You forgot nepotism.
People trot this out all the time, it is not deemed necessary or worth the costs.
Some people like to deem, other people would rather trot.
That's why Adam Smith invented free markets.
I find that having more space between sentences than between words within a sentence makes speed-reading easier. If you don't consider the savings of your time "valid reason" for the rules of formatting, that's your problem. I disagree with you, and publishers agree with me.