In general I've found the *nix 'man' command far more helpful than MSDN. MS may have made improvements since the last time I used it though, it's been a few years.
Sadly, I have little time to engage in such discussions at the moment, but you could probably glean most of my arguments by glancing through the curriculum of a standard college level ethics class. You can also choose to look at things in terms of risk analysis and cost/benefit.
All approaches I can think of depend on one's ability to look beyond simple immediate gratification, however, which is a hurdle far more often than it should be.
Mexico isn't even in the "top 10" of nations or places in terms of economic freedom, for one.
In Mexico, the people with the money pretty much get to do whatever they want, which is precisely what you get when you have no regulation and limited government, and is also the reason the country is, and continues to be, such mess. Sorry reality doesn't jive with your libertarian fantasy world, and nice try at trying to redefine terms mid-discussion.
For two, you're not even really making an argument, just an assertion.
Please direct me to the arguments you've made, I'm having trouble spotting them among the platitudes and empty rhetoric.
In any case, you're making the same error ideologues on any side usually make--that because you perceive that country to have X, and since it also has quality Y, then Y is due to X. Truth is, you have to account for historical, cultural, political, and environmental factors which could also be influences or factors in any country's corruption or economic status. This applies to big or small government, libertarian or socialist, whatever. All I'm getting from you is vague, pro-government ideology and not really a coherent or supported argument.
That's because you're blinded by your own biases. however, if you care to hear my thoughts on the subject, here they are:
Government regulation is necessary to maintain the fragile balance between capitalism and the free market (and yes, that means they oppose each other).
Capitalism tends toward monopoly, because centralization is more efficient. A certain amount of that is good, obviously, as efficiency leads to nice things like lower prices and/or innovation. However, those effects (and typically the efficiencies that would lead to them) tend to be lost once the competition is eliminated, so it's important to maintain a healthy free market.
Too much free market isn't good either, though. The corporate environment is such that sociopaths tend to rise to the top, and thus we frequently see large corporations behaving in as abusive a manner as they can get away with. Generally, this means maximizing the gains of the board members, giving enough returns to the shareholders that they don't complain, and screwing over the employees, the customers, and the future of the company as much as they can. (I'm not saying it has to be this way, just that this is how it plays out far too often.)
Finally, a rising tide only lifts those boats that aren't firmly chained to the bottom. Perhaps you've noticed that all the doomsday scenarios put out by conservatives whenever an increase in the minimum wage is proposed never come to pass? It's not because we "narrowly dodged a bullet this time", but rather because those people whose wages are affected can't afford not to spend their entire income. This means that increasing the minimum wage actually increases the flow of capital, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.
To be clear, I'm not necessarily pro-government, but neither am I to blind to realize that, all too often, government regulation is the lesser evil.
Do you believe in things like "justice", "morality", "liberty", or even a difference between "right and wrong"? All of these are based on millenia of philosophy, but are still abstracts based on truths we only hold as articles of faith. And just like religious beliefs, all logical arguments in support of them end up circular arguments (ie all arguments in support of a need for justice depend on an implicit assumption that it's desirable, ditto just about every other abstract we hold dear).
Actually, pretty much all of these can be justified in terms of self-interest, and their desirability is not necessarily just assumed. For example, historical evidence shows that a well-balanced justice system leads to a stable society, which in turn leads to higher standards of living.
He's popular because most parents want to have something to blame for their kid's behavior problems other than their own parenting, and Jack Thomson gives them a Boogie Man.
Perhaps the best current term would be "developing," though even that is not fully accurate. Mexico does, however, serve as a good example of the type of country you get if you let libertarian ideals of no regulation and limited government go to their natural conclusion: a few rich families control basically everything worth controlling, and a majority of everyone else is dirt poor and suffers.
Do you really have to go out of your way to bash some political ideology you don't like? This is about as disingenuous as saying that the United States' current economy problems is due to socialism. You come off more as a wacko paranoid over libertarians than anything else, especially because Mexico has really nothing to do with libertarianism, either in civil or economic matters. I might as well claim our shit economy is due to socialism's natural conclusions--hey, it's an outcome I don't like, so it must be the result of come political ideology I also don't like!
Come back with a real argument, then we'll talk.
Sorry to be the one to have to break this to you, but he's right.
And by the way, the current economic problems in the US are mainly due to deregulation also.
If you're trying to claim that no regulation and limited government are not the core Libertarian ideals, then I'm really not sure what to say.
I've had problems with every piece of Linksys gear I've ever dealt with, going back over 10 years, including a few WRT54Gs. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but I can't recall ever having much trouble with their competitors.
Very true, but nevertheless that is the law, and I thought it appropriate to point that out to the guy whining about people passing him on the right while he supposedly follows all traffic laws.
Not if the faster traffic is traveling over the speed limit. My aunt is a police officer, and a speeder, and she would translate frustration with slow people in the fast lane into pulling them over and ticketing. That is, until one guy fought it in court and it turned out that she (like most of the police) didn't have nearly as good of an understanding of the vehicle code as she thought she did.
The wording of the actual California law I am referring to does not support such a ruling. However, that certainly doesn't restrict a judge from making such a ruling based on the circumstances of that particular case, but that also doesn't mean that your aunt was wrong. Judges have a lot of power in that regard, and there are judges that side with the defendant by default, just as there are judges that side with the cop by default.
That being said, the California Highway Patrol Academy was teaching the law the way I described above as recently as the summer of 2004. I should note, though, that's it's only considered enforcible in areas with signs that say something like "slower traffic keep right" or "keep right except to pass". As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the law is not absolute and the real world is full of corner cases.
Of course, the CHP doesn't get a dime from any of the tickets they write, so the outcome in court is not something they typically care too much about beyond basic professional pride. I know plenty of CHP officers that have written tickets they were fairly certain would be thrown out just as a way to make someone who was acting like an idiot think about what they're doing.
That's a judgment call for the officer observing the situation. Note that one of the complaints I leveled at Buran was his absolutist view of the law. The real world is full of corner cases.
I won't even try to say that this is universal, but in the Los Angeles area the CHP's main goal is to keep traffic flowing as smoothly as possible. Second to that is getting drunks off the road. Anything else is pretty much tertiary, but they do try to keep busy, and they will make a point to nail you if they see you doing something dangerous.
So, yeah, I think in that situation you'd likely be fine legally, as long as you aren't creating a dangerous situation. You'll just have a bunch of pissed off drivers behind you.
It matters because traffic laws are not uniform. I know a fair amount about traffic laws in California because my ex-wife is a Highway Patrol Officer, but the the laws where you live may be different.
I've already explained that being where I am is necessary for what I am doing at the time I am doing it. Yes, I do normally drive in the right lane. If I am not there, I have good reason, and that does not change the fact that passing on the right is illegal.
Nor does it change the fact that you are required by law to move over to the right to allow faster traffic to pass you on the left. Quite the conundrum, isn't it?
If you think the situation justifies your ignoring one law, it's awfully hypocritical of you to get your panties in a bunch over other people using the same situation to justify ignoring another law that makes equally little sense in that situation. I'll assume you're talking about situations such as when a freeway splits into two or more separate freeways. Can you definitively say whether you are in the slow lane of the one going to the left or the fast lane of the one going to the right?
I also already explained that I obey all applicable rules of the road
Well then I must call you a liar. The California Vehicle Code is a pretty hefty book, well over 1000 pages of dense legalese, as I recall. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you know, let alone understand and follow, every single rule in that book that applies to you at any given time?
all this snark is totally unwarranted and I do not know what grounds are being used to vilify me even after repeated statements of these facts.
I can't speak for anyone else, but any snark in my replies has been in response to your self-righteous attitude and absolutist view of the law (except in cases where it would be inconvenient for you, but of course it's totally unacceptable for anyone else to do that).
I ask you, where were you when these things happened that permit you to be able to make judgments? How do you know which car is mine? Describe it, give the time, date, and place and state what you saw.
I don't know, and I don't care. I wasn't responding to any specific incident you described, but rather to general patterns of behavior.
I don't speed (or if I do, it is not deliberate and I slow back down to the limit) and I am passed left and right (and passing on the right is not legal) and I've seen people scream on discussion forums at anyone who dares to obey the law, as if obeying the law is something to sneer at (it's not; the rules exist for a damn good reason and no one is above it).
I don't know where you live, but in California the law says you must move over to the right to allow faster traffic to pass you on the left. It is not your job, nor do you have the authority, to enforce the speed limit by clogging up the fast lane.
do try not to break your leg climbing down off your high horse.
The point, at least in a game environment, is to make up for all the cues you would have in a real environment that you don't have in the game, like peripheral vision for example.
MS is happy to lean on OEMs in other respects, surely they could do the same with craplets?
Actually, doing that would probably violate the anti-trust ruling. I mean, basically that all started (the one in the US anyway) with Netscape's complaint that new PCs didn't come preloaded with Navigator, causing them to lose market share.
Being "properly stretched" doesn't even begin to prepare you to perform at that level. Those years of training also build up muscles that help hold the joints together under the stresses caused by doing some of those moves. In fact, one of the reasons there are so many more injuries among high level western practitioners is that we're to lazy and impatient to, for example, spend 5 minutes in a deep horse stance every morning building up the muscles around our knees.
It is only version 0.5, but so far it seems a lot more polished than I would expect. I wouldn't know about Vista problems, but it runs fine on XP and Kubuntu for me.
In this case PsyStar is both installing OS X AND distributing the copy they installed.
You seem to be confused about what distribution actually means.
If I buy a copy of a particular program, install it on my computer, and then sell that computer to someone else, that is perfectly legal under copyright law. The only problem arises if I try to install the same purchased copy on another computer, because then I am making a copy that falls under the restrictions of copyright law.
You see, copyright law covers only the right to make copies. It does not cover the right to distribute (or redistribute) copies that were legally made. I don't understand why that's so hard for people to understand. I mean, it's right there in the name: "copy right".
They can have that position all they want, but US copyright law explicitly allows me to have copies in memory, on DVDs (including backup copies), etc, of any software I acquired legally.
Much like every copy of Linux is licensed for end use without modification unless source is made available.
Linux is not "licensed for end use" in any sense. I am completely free to use Linux any way I want, including modifying it, and as long as I don't distribute it to anyone else nobody can do anything about it.
The GPL puts absolutely no restrictions on end use because it is a copyright license, and copyright does not cover end use.
Really, your ignorance of copyright law is truly astounding considering your UID and sig.
So, if you have a job now, which leaves you with less time to play than you used to have, but your friends still have lots of time to play because (presumably) they don't have jobs... why don't you buy gold from your friends?
Otherwise, there would be open source VOIP apps that would run over the carriers' networks. They will not allow that.
No, they would love that, but only an idiot would use it.
You seem to be unaware of the fact that with US carriers voice calls are effectively free, while data is metered at exorbitant rates. For example, SMS messages cost $0.10-0.15 each if you don't buy a texting plan.
On the other hand, a way to disguise data transmission as a voice call might be interesting (IPOV?).
I am not a licensed pilot, nor have I received any training to speak of, and yet I have flown a plane before. A roughly 30 second explanation of the stick and pedals was quite sufficient, and by the way I was about 10 years old at the time. Of course, I didn't take off or land the plane, but then neither did the 9/11 hijackers. I'm pretty certain I could have hit a building if I had wanted to, even given that the only buildings in the area were single family homes, much smaller than the WTC towers.
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In general I've found the *nix 'man' command far more helpful than MSDN. MS may have made improvements since the last time I used it though, it's been a few years.
Sadly, I have little time to engage in such discussions at the moment, but you could probably glean most of my arguments by glancing through the curriculum of a standard college level ethics class. You can also choose to look at things in terms of risk analysis and cost/benefit.
All approaches I can think of depend on one's ability to look beyond simple immediate gratification, however, which is a hurdle far more often than it should be.
Mexico isn't even in the "top 10" of nations or places in terms of economic freedom, for one.
In Mexico, the people with the money pretty much get to do whatever they want, which is precisely what you get when you have no regulation and limited government, and is also the reason the country is, and continues to be, such mess. Sorry reality doesn't jive with your libertarian fantasy world, and nice try at trying to redefine terms mid-discussion.
For two, you're not even really making an argument, just an assertion.
Please direct me to the arguments you've made, I'm having trouble spotting them among the platitudes and empty rhetoric.
In any case, you're making the same error ideologues on any side usually make--that because you perceive that country to have X, and since it also has quality Y, then Y is due to X. Truth is, you have to account for historical, cultural, political, and environmental factors which could also be influences or factors in any country's corruption or economic status. This applies to big or small government, libertarian or socialist, whatever. All I'm getting from you is vague, pro-government ideology and not really a coherent or supported argument.
That's because you're blinded by your own biases. however, if you care to hear my thoughts on the subject, here they are:
Government regulation is necessary to maintain the fragile balance between capitalism and the free market (and yes, that means they oppose each other).
Capitalism tends toward monopoly, because centralization is more efficient. A certain amount of that is good, obviously, as efficiency leads to nice things like lower prices and/or innovation. However, those effects (and typically the efficiencies that would lead to them) tend to be lost once the competition is eliminated, so it's important to maintain a healthy free market.
Too much free market isn't good either, though. The corporate environment is such that sociopaths tend to rise to the top, and thus we frequently see large corporations behaving in as abusive a manner as they can get away with. Generally, this means maximizing the gains of the board members, giving enough returns to the shareholders that they don't complain, and screwing over the employees, the customers, and the future of the company as much as they can. (I'm not saying it has to be this way, just that this is how it plays out far too often.)
Finally, a rising tide only lifts those boats that aren't firmly chained to the bottom. Perhaps you've noticed that all the doomsday scenarios put out by conservatives whenever an increase in the minimum wage is proposed never come to pass? It's not because we "narrowly dodged a bullet this time", but rather because those people whose wages are affected can't afford not to spend their entire income. This means that increasing the minimum wage actually increases the flow of capital, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.
To be clear, I'm not necessarily pro-government, but neither am I to blind to realize that, all too often, government regulation is the lesser evil.
Do you believe in things like "justice", "morality", "liberty", or even a difference between "right and wrong"? All of these are based on millenia of philosophy, but are still abstracts based on truths we only hold as articles of faith. And just like religious beliefs, all logical arguments in support of them end up circular arguments (ie all arguments in support of a need for justice depend on an implicit assumption that it's desirable, ditto just about every other abstract we hold dear).
Actually, pretty much all of these can be justified in terms of self-interest, and their desirability is not necessarily just assumed. For example, historical evidence shows that a well-balanced justice system leads to a stable society, which in turn leads to higher standards of living.
He's popular because most parents want to have something to blame for their kid's behavior problems other than their own parenting, and Jack Thomson gives them a Boogie Man.
Perhaps the best current term would be "developing," though even that is not fully accurate. Mexico does, however, serve as a good example of the type of country you get if you let libertarian ideals of no regulation and limited government go to their natural conclusion: a few rich families control basically everything worth controlling, and a majority of everyone else is dirt poor and suffers.
Do you really have to go out of your way to bash some political ideology you don't like? This is about as disingenuous as saying that the United States' current economy problems is due to socialism. You come off more as a wacko paranoid over libertarians than anything else, especially because Mexico has really nothing to do with libertarianism, either in civil or economic matters. I might as well claim our shit economy is due to socialism's natural conclusions--hey, it's an outcome I don't like, so it must be the result of come political ideology I also don't like!
Come back with a real argument, then we'll talk.
Sorry to be the one to have to break this to you, but he's right.
And by the way, the current economic problems in the US are mainly due to deregulation also.
If you're trying to claim that no regulation and limited government are not the core Libertarian ideals, then I'm really not sure what to say.
I've had problems with every piece of Linksys gear I've ever dealt with, going back over 10 years, including a few WRT54Gs. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but I can't recall ever having much trouble with their competitors.
Linksys has been crap for years. Go with D-Link or Netgear (at the same price) and you'll have far less problems.
Very true, but nevertheless that is the law, and I thought it appropriate to point that out to the guy whining about people passing him on the right while he supposedly follows all traffic laws.
Not if the faster traffic is traveling over the speed limit. My aunt is a police officer, and a speeder, and she would translate frustration with slow people in the fast lane into pulling them over and ticketing. That is, until one guy fought it in court and it turned out that she (like most of the police) didn't have nearly as good of an understanding of the vehicle code as she thought she did.
The wording of the actual California law I am referring to does not support such a ruling. However, that certainly doesn't restrict a judge from making such a ruling based on the circumstances of that particular case, but that also doesn't mean that your aunt was wrong. Judges have a lot of power in that regard, and there are judges that side with the defendant by default, just as there are judges that side with the cop by default.
That being said, the California Highway Patrol Academy was teaching the law the way I described above as recently as the summer of 2004. I should note, though, that's it's only considered enforcible in areas with signs that say something like "slower traffic keep right" or "keep right except to pass". As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the law is not absolute and the real world is full of corner cases.
Of course, the CHP doesn't get a dime from any of the tickets they write, so the outcome in court is not something they typically care too much about beyond basic professional pride. I know plenty of CHP officers that have written tickets they were fairly certain would be thrown out just as a way to make someone who was acting like an idiot think about what they're doing.
That's a judgment call for the officer observing the situation. Note that one of the complaints I leveled at Buran was his absolutist view of the law. The real world is full of corner cases.
I won't even try to say that this is universal, but in the Los Angeles area the CHP's main goal is to keep traffic flowing as smoothly as possible. Second to that is getting drunks off the road. Anything else is pretty much tertiary, but they do try to keep busy, and they will make a point to nail you if they see you doing something dangerous.
So, yeah, I think in that situation you'd likely be fine legally, as long as you aren't creating a dangerous situation. You'll just have a bunch of pissed off drivers behind you.
What does it matter where I live?
It matters because traffic laws are not uniform. I know a fair amount about traffic laws in California because my ex-wife is a Highway Patrol Officer, but the the laws where you live may be different.
I've already explained that being where I am is necessary for what I am doing at the time I am doing it. Yes, I do normally drive in the right lane. If I am not there, I have good reason, and that does not change the fact that passing on the right is illegal.
Nor does it change the fact that you are required by law to move over to the right to allow faster traffic to pass you on the left. Quite the conundrum, isn't it?
If you think the situation justifies your ignoring one law, it's awfully hypocritical of you to get your panties in a bunch over other people using the same situation to justify ignoring another law that makes equally little sense in that situation. I'll assume you're talking about situations such as when a freeway splits into two or more separate freeways. Can you definitively say whether you are in the slow lane of the one going to the left or the fast lane of the one going to the right?
I also already explained that I obey all applicable rules of the road
Well then I must call you a liar. The California Vehicle Code is a pretty hefty book, well over 1000 pages of dense legalese, as I recall. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you know, let alone understand and follow, every single rule in that book that applies to you at any given time?
all this snark is totally unwarranted and I do not know what grounds are being used to vilify me even after repeated statements of these facts.
I can't speak for anyone else, but any snark in my replies has been in response to your self-righteous attitude and absolutist view of the law (except in cases where it would be inconvenient for you, but of course it's totally unacceptable for anyone else to do that).
I ask you, where were you when these things happened that permit you to be able to make judgments? How do you know which car is mine? Describe it, give the time, date, and place and state what you saw.
I don't know, and I don't care. I wasn't responding to any specific incident you described, but rather to general patterns of behavior.
I don't speed (or if I do, it is not deliberate and I slow back down to the limit) and I am passed left and right (and passing on the right is not legal) and I've seen people scream on discussion forums at anyone who dares to obey the law, as if obeying the law is something to sneer at (it's not; the rules exist for a damn good reason and no one is above it).
I don't know where you live, but in California the law says you must move over to the right to allow faster traffic to pass you on the left. It is not your job, nor do you have the authority, to enforce the speed limit by clogging up the fast lane.
do try not to break your leg climbing down off your high horse.
The point, at least in a game environment, is to make up for all the cues you would have in a real environment that you don't have in the game, like peripheral vision for example.
MS is happy to lean on OEMs in other respects, surely they could do the same with craplets?
Actually, doing that would probably violate the anti-trust ruling. I mean, basically that all started (the one in the US anyway) with Netscape's complaint that new PCs didn't come preloaded with Navigator, causing them to lose market share.
Being "properly stretched" doesn't even begin to prepare you to perform at that level. Those years of training also build up muscles that help hold the joints together under the stresses caused by doing some of those moves. In fact, one of the reasons there are so many more injuries among high level western practitioners is that we're to lazy and impatient to, for example, spend 5 minutes in a deep horse stance every morning building up the muscles around our knees.
It is only version 0.5, but so far it seems a lot more polished than I would expect. I wouldn't know about Vista problems, but it runs fine on XP and Kubuntu for me.
You might check out Vega Strike. I've not spent a lot of time with it yet, but it looks like it's basically a 3D version of Escape Velocity.
In this case PsyStar is both installing OS X AND distributing the copy they installed.
You seem to be confused about what distribution actually means.
If I buy a copy of a particular program, install it on my computer, and then sell that computer to someone else, that is perfectly legal under copyright law. The only problem arises if I try to install the same purchased copy on another computer, because then I am making a copy that falls under the restrictions of copyright law.
You see, copyright law covers only the right to make copies. It does not cover the right to distribute (or redistribute) copies that were legally made. I don't understand why that's so hard for people to understand. I mean, it's right there in the name: "copy right".
They can have that position all they want, but US copyright law explicitly allows me to have copies in memory, on DVDs (including backup copies), etc, of any software I acquired legally.
Much like every copy of Linux is licensed for end use without modification unless source is made available.
Linux is not "licensed for end use" in any sense. I am completely free to use Linux any way I want, including modifying it, and as long as I don't distribute it to anyone else nobody can do anything about it.
The GPL puts absolutely no restrictions on end use because it is a copyright license, and copyright does not cover end use.
Really, your ignorance of copyright law is truly astounding considering your UID and sig.
So, if you have a job now, which leaves you with less time to play than you used to have, but your friends still have lots of time to play because (presumably) they don't have jobs... why don't you buy gold from your friends?
Otherwise, there would be open source VOIP apps that would run over the carriers' networks. They will not allow that.
No, they would love that, but only an idiot would use it.
You seem to be unaware of the fact that with US carriers voice calls are effectively free, while data is metered at exorbitant rates. For example, SMS messages cost $0.10-0.15 each if you don't buy a texting plan.
On the other hand, a way to disguise data transmission as a voice call might be interesting (IPOV?).
Of course he is! Someone has to actually be fiscally responsible and pay off the massive debts the Republicans keep running up.
Clearly, you have never flown a plane either.
I am not a licensed pilot, nor have I received any training to speak of, and yet I have flown a plane before. A roughly 30 second explanation of the stick and pedals was quite sufficient, and by the way I was about 10 years old at the time. Of course, I didn't take off or land the plane, but then neither did the 9/11 hijackers. I'm pretty certain I could have hit a building if I had wanted to, even given that the only buildings in the area were single family homes, much smaller than the WTC towers.