From a whois search, you have no idea who "the guy" is. You only know that namezero.com registered it. "The guy" that registered with namezero.com just asked them to register the site and make that address space available.
Namezero.com makes money from the banner, but unless you can prove "the guy" owns namezero.com, you can't prove he makes anything off of salshdot.org.
You know, my wife always accuses me of enjoying an argument. I try to help her understand the difference between arguing and discussing. Maybe she is right.
Well I'm glad, at least, that you finally admit speculation is not labor.
This is a matter of semantics. I think it is work. Obviously not by your definition, but work indeed.
You may not have said that the $2 million was taken out of circulation, but you did say If VA had bought it themselves for $75, the rest of the world would not have been without $3million dollars (#153).
Whether or not theft is zero-sum is not germaine to this argu, err, discussion. Speculation != theft.
OK means, well, just that. I have never had an indepth discussion about what OK means, so I never really gave it much thought. (It reminds me of President Clinton's evasiveness and asking what is is). I know I have to choose carefully here, so bear with me. OK means alright. It means within his rights. Fair means fair and Just means just. OK doesn't come into my play there.
{Diggs}It is absolutely OK for someone to ask you to work in deplorable conditions for only a tiny compensation. You can say NO.
{A+C}Of course you can. You can say "NO", and starve
It's not either/or. If you don't like the job you have now, you can quit. That does not mean you will starve. It means you will find another source of income. I just left one job and took another. I didn't starve between them.
I did support unions. To a point. Now I think they have outlived their usefulness and become their own problem. The problem I have with unions is when they demand guaranteed jobs and guaranteed incomes. It is not conducive to good work habits knowing that you are not subject to punishment or termination. Do you ever wonder why automobiles cost what they cost today? It's not because the materials have gone up in price so much. It's mostly due to the high cost of the factory workers salaries (and benefits packages). Now, don't get me wrong here. The workers should get everything they can. I know I did when I went looking for a replacement job for the one I left. I have a problem with the unions being in the pocket of politicians. The fact that the factories can't replace a striking worker with someone else willing to work for less is repulsive to me. If there is no one that wants to do the job for the compensation offered, the compensation will increase. Forcing the factory to pay more than market value only raises the end cost to you and me. It's called trickle down economics. There is nothing else. When the cost of the employees goes up, the cost of the car goes up so the selling price goes up so I need more money to buy it, so I want more money, so my product's price goes up... It's a vicious cycle. If the government was not in this cycle, it would level out on it's own.
Even if I could quit without starving, how would it follow that I shouldn't oppose the person who created those conditions?
It would not. Oppose away. Get the rest of the community to oppose. As I said, if no one is willing to do the job for the compensation offered....
you have not shown otherwise, and have apparently conceded, that speculation is not labor
Nope. No concession from here.
I have shown that speculation is harmful to the working class, and that the working class should oppose it, and work towards ending it. Any person who becomes wealthy through speculation is an enemy of the working class, regardless of whether he is within his rights or whether his behavior is "OK".
Speculation is not harmful to "the working class." When I make contributions to my 401K account, I am speculating. I am part of the working class. Any person that becomes wealthy through speculation is living the American Dream(tm).
Andrew, we can probably continue this pleasant back and forth until/. closes the thread. It appears that minds are not being changed here. It appears to me that we have a basic disagreement. and our efforts to sway the other person have had little consequence, except to burn up some bandwidth. This is not intended to draw out another reply from you, nor will any further replies on this subject be answered.
Let me take you back in time - to when you posted the comment that made me post a reply.
{A+C post} Call me a socialist... but I don't see how anyone can support a person making money through any means other than work. Now this fellow has obtained millions of dollars without having to work at all for it, and will probably continue to use that money to exploit people who do work, "earning" more money, still without having to work. That may be unavoidable, but it's odious to condone it, even if one admits the futility of trying to prevent it.
That is what got me going. That is what caused me to put pen to paper, so to speak. Your idea that "making money without having to work" is an odious thing. As I replied then, and as I believe now, that is wrong.
I tried at that time to show you that there are many different types of work. It looks like I did not do a very good job, as you chided me many times about your definition of work. Heck, there was even one that I missed until you pointed it out above.
Well, guess what? It doesn't matter if what he did is work or not. You have shown that you think speculation is wrong and should not be condoned. I think it is right.
It doesn't matter if your definition of "OK" is different than mine. It is absolutely OK for someone to ask you to work in deplorable conditions for only a tiny compensation. You can say NO. If enough people say no, then that someone has a choice - do the work himself or make the conditions (and/or the compensation) better.
Later in this discussion (I'm tired of quoting - look it up yourself if you don't believe me) you said that the products of labor belong to the laborers. Agreed. But what you seem to dislike is those laborers trading that product for a paycheck and then the one signing the paycheck reselling that product for a higher amount of money.
Geez O. Pete, if the laborers don't like their compensation, quit. If the conditions are that freakin' bad - Duh! - quit. Start up their own business and undercut that evil guy that dared to employ them in the first place.
We strayed WAY off the original point. You tried to convince me that what's his name getting a couple million dollars took those millions out of circulation. (see #153 and #154) I tried to end this politely (#158) but you drew me back in. In #159 you said that you never contested his right to do it. Well, I never said you did. What I replied to was your calling it odious and mocking his "earning". I said I thought he had the right and indeed was right to have done it. A clever chap (or lucky, but then we sometimes make our own luck), in the right place at the right time. More power to him.
A DNS name doesn't exist, and treating it like an object does not make sense.
A DNS name must exist. The IP address equals that name. Without the name, us humans would be telling others to go to http://111.112.113.114/index.html or whatever. We remember names much better than long strings of numbers. The only reason this was ever an issue was because this guy bought and paid for a DNS record (name) that others wanted, and then sold it to one of those people (for a stack of $$$).
If your point is only to show that DNS speculation is not deserving of that title, "speculation", I find this discussion silly.
Not my point at all. DNS speculation, land speculation, pork futures speculation. It's all the same. You puts up your money, You takes your chances.
It seems obvious to me that all the essential characteristics of speculation exist in DNS speculation, and that is why it has been so named.
Agreed.
But if you agree that speculation is unjust and only disagree in the above, although I feel you are mistaken, I also feel the point is minor and that we are largely of the same mind.
I do not agree that speculation is unjust.
If your argument is instead that "intellectual property" (so-called) is the equivalent of speculation, and therefore speculation and "intellectual property" must be either both just or unjust together, I commend your reasoning.
That is what I have been trying to say. Apparently my choice of words have been poor. My examples could have been better, but I thought that using someone that made money from a few words strung together in some DNS record was roughly equivalent to a novel writer putting common words together and making money from that effort.
However, the conclusion from there should be that "intellectual property" is unjust, not that speculation is just, for reasons stated previously.
Again, I must disagree. I will try to define intellectual property (or at least what I think it is). It is words and notes put together to make a song. It is words strung together to make a book or a magazine article. It is a painting.
(If you believe that opposition to "intellectual property" is equivalent to the position that intellectual effort is not labor, you are simply mistaken.
That was not my intention. See above.
I hold only that creation of "intellectual property" should be payed, like any other labor, indeed like most forms of intellectual labor, exactly once, in whatever amount it is able to secure through free trade.)
You had me ready to insert a big, bold Agreed! here. Then I re-read the exactly once part and you lost me. I guess you could say that, considering that a contract that calls for payments over many years could be considered being paid "exactly once", but I get antsy when "always", "never" and "exactly" get thrown around.
You know what? I think it comes down to this one question. Is it OK for the fellow to register the DNS name and then sale it to someone else? I think it is.
He created an internet address. It did not exist before he registered it. He traded it to VA for cash. Someone else may have thought of it, but since they did not register it and have DNS point to them, it effectively did not exist.
The example I used way back about Stephen King was meant to show that the words Mr. King uses exist in someone else's head before hand, but until they are put on paper, the book does not exist.
There is no concession and no insult intended here. It is just a disagreement.
It appears we have reached the point where we should agree to disagree.
You aren't going to change my mind about the original/. post. The fellow that originally bought linux.com had every right to sale it for whatever he could get for it.
And are you, King AC, the one that decides what is useful? How about if he buys the names and then refuses to sale them to anyone.
I suppose that if you bought them and put up a lame ass web site, that would be OK. Maybe one of those WaReZ sites that pop up all the rest of the places you registered when you try to leave.
Profits he makes by buying low and selling high are not made through work - at least, not his work. They are made through exploitation of the work of the employees of the company in which he invests.
Would that exploitation include the fact that he is helping to keep those workers employed? He is helping to keep them fed, clothed and sheltered.
For a definition, I'll take a snippet from Webster's Unabridged, 1913: 1. Exertion of strength or faculties; physical or intellectual effort directed to an end (Emphasis is mine)
The $75 was spent to create a new product. A domain name. So, when the fellow got the $2 million, it was no longer in the world? How do you figure that?
The $2 million originally came from... what? Thin air?
It was there for VA to use as they desired. Now it's there for the fellow to use.
Zero-sum means nothing was created. He created an Internet domain name, where that domain name did not previously exist. And obviously it had some value, or VA would not have come up with the money (whether it was $2 million or $200) to buy it.
Your definition of labor apparently differs from mine. Mental labor counts, too. Not just manual labor.
Speculation is a zero-sum game? Ridiculous. I get something. I hold on to it. Be it land, or Hershey bars or domain names, it is paid for at the time of my acquisition at the market value. Now that the demand is higher, I can either continue to hold it for myself, or I can sale it to someone else that is willing to pay me for it. What if this fellow had registered dogturds.com? I suppose there are different things that we would call him, but the one that comes immediately to my mind isn't speculator. Unless and until someone else decides they want that domain name, it is only worth what he paid for it. Even that is questionable. But he has a choice, just like you and me, to either register it or not.
Let's look at an example, {begin shameless plug for a friend} linuxempire.net is a nice site.
But it's value is only what someone else is willing to give for it. Would my friend be accused of being a squatter if some startup Linux distributor wanted to call their distro LinuxEmpire and offered him a million bucks or so for the domain name? I don't think so.
Speculation is a zero-sum game? Ridiculous. I get something. I hold on to it. Be it land, or Hershey bars or domain names, it is paid for at the time of my acquisition at the market value. Now that the demand is higher, I can either continue to hold it for myself, or I can sale it to someone else that is willing to pay me for it. What if this fellow had registered dogturds.com? I suppose there are different things that we would call him, but the one that comes immediately to my mind isn't speculator. Unless and until someone else decides they want that domain name, it is only worth what he paid for it. Even that is questionable. But he has a choice, just like you and me, to either register it or not.
Let's look at an example, {begin shameless plug for a friend} linuxempire.net is a nice site.
But it's value is only what someone else is willing to give for it. Would my friend be accused of being a squatter if some startup Linux distributor wanted to call their distro LinuxEmpire and offered him a million bucks or so for the domain name? I don't think so.
Voting is reserved to the Representatives of the several states.
Ms. Norton is not a representative of a state, and never should be if one cares to read the Constitution.
- quoting from Article 1, Section 8 - To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--
The District should never have had people living in it. It's a Federal District, and everyone that moved there, knowing they would not have Congressmen and Senators gets exactly what they deserve.
...get Congress to do only what they are allowed by law to do. Anybody here read the Bill of Rights or the Constitution lately? Pay particular attention to Amendment X.
The safest time for all Americans (and their wallets) is when Congress is in recess.
Government would not come to a complete and total stand still. In fact, things would be better for all Americans. Congressmen might again become Representatives. As it is now, they think they are legislators and think they are required to legislate.
There is an automobile manufacturing company out there in Northern Virginia somewhere.
They make lots of cars, but only one of each model.
The microsoft.com model was snapped up pretty quickly. Likewise for the linux.com model.
The fellow that bought the microsoft.com model uses it as a daily driver. In fact, he has added quite a few features to it and invites everyone to come on over and take a ride in it.
The fellow that bought the linux.com model kept it in his garage, and only rolled it out when he wanted folks to see that he had a for sale sign on it.
At first, no one wanted it, so he just hung on to his for sale sign and waited for the conditions to change.
After a while, there were lots of folks that wanted to have a linux.com model, so the relative value finally got to the point that he was convinced that now was the time to sale it.
After the sale, all he had to show for his efforts was a pile of green paper with pictures of dead presidents on them.
On the other hand, the fellow that gave him all that paper was so happy to have the only linux.com car in the world that he decided he wanted to let others have rides in it. So, he went the microsoft.com car route and added some neat features and invited everyone to come on over and have a ride.
Now, which one of those fellows had a product?
The fellow that bought the microsoft.com car had something for everyone right away. What if he now decided he wanted to preserve his one-of-a-kind car? The product would not go away if he parked it in his garage and told everyone they could not have rides in it anymore. It would only be available to him.
The fellow that bought the linux.com car didn't have something for everyone right away, but the product was certainly there.
Maybe that is the problem. It sounds like my wife's attitude about our paychecks. She is fond of saying "Mine is mine and yours is ours."
This is not a zero-sum game. Just because someone gets rich does not mean that someone else has to get poor.
If you want to condemn the fellow that originally bought the linux.com car just because he didn't donate it to "the common good" then maybe the subject line fits more than I thought.
but I don't see how anyone can support a person making money through any means other than work
Your definition of work is obviously different from mine. Work includes brain work as well as the back breaking physical kind. Just think, Steven King makes all those millions of dollars just for stringing words together on a page.
Now this fellow has obtained millions of dollars without having to work at all for it, and will probably continue to use that money to exploit people who do work, "earning" more money, still without having to work
This fellow got there before we did, thus entitling him to the spoils of his labors. Exploiting people who do work? This fellow will do what just about anyone would do. Spend some. Invest some. Either way, he will make a contribution to the economy. Either directly by making purchases; keeping people in jobs manufacturing whatever he buys, transporting the products to the stores, selling the products. Hell, even the trash man gets some when he throws away all that packing material. If he invests it, he has now made it easier for me to get a loan to start up my own Linux distribution company (DiggsLeenucks, I can dig it). Damn, I guess that just created some more jobs.
I don't see the problem with so called "cyber-squatters." They aren't much different from real life squatters. Remember in your history classes about the Old West? The land rushes? "I got here first, so this is mine. Oh, you want it? How much will you give me for it? Well, he said he would give me more than that, so you have to come up with more." OR "I don't like the way you operate, so even though you are offering more money, I am going to sale it to him. That is my perogative as a property owner."
It's seems hard to believe they could be checking each and every OS that logs into their network.
However comma I have been having the same problem with @home in Northern Virginia. Leenucks fails to get out to the 'net, but Win2k cranks right along every time.
This story tells about places that have already deployed Windows 2000.
Some people that are registered with MSDN have it. And any warez kiddie worth his salt already has the ISO.
Stop telling people it is not available, when it is. You may not be able to run down to CompUSA or BestBuy and get a copy, but the RTM version is definitely available.
Slashdot Mirror
From a whois search, you have no idea who "the guy" is. You only know that namezero.com registered it. "The guy" that registered with namezero.com just asked them to register the site and make that address space available.
Namezero.com makes money from the banner, but unless you can prove "the guy" owns namezero.com, you can't prove he makes anything off of salshdot.org.
Diggs
...to those that pay the taxes to support them.
Free at the library, you say??
So all those real estate taxes I've been paying are what, a figment of my imagination? I don't think so.
Diggs
And if you follow the link under "Operating System - Linux 2.0" you'll see that Linux isn't even listed.
So it must be, umm, special.
Diggs
That is the funniest thing I have read today.
What a crock o' shit.
Diggs
Have you seen some of the left wing socialist crap he has donated to?
More gun control in Washington state is only one "cause" for him.
Diggs
And to get 1Gbps you need 24 T3's (2 x OC12 > 1Gbps)
Diggs
Well I'm glad, at least, that you finally admit speculation is not labor.
This is a matter of semantics. I think it is work. Obviously not by your definition, but work indeed.
You may not have said that the $2 million was taken out of circulation, but you did say If VA had bought it themselves for $75, the rest of the world would not have been without $3million dollars (#153).
Whether or not theft is zero-sum is not germaine to this argu, err, discussion. Speculation != theft.
OK means, well, just that. I have never had an indepth discussion about what OK means, so I never really gave it much thought. (It reminds me of President Clinton's evasiveness and asking what is is). I know I have to choose carefully here, so bear with me. OK means alright. It means within his rights. Fair means fair and Just means just. OK doesn't come into my play there.
{Diggs}It is absolutely OK for someone to ask you to work in deplorable conditions for only a tiny compensation. You can say NO.
{A+C}Of course you can. You can say "NO", and starve
It's not either/or. If you don't like the job you have now, you can quit. That does not mean you will starve. It means you will find another source of income. I just left one job and took another. I didn't starve between them.
I did support unions. To a point. Now I think they have outlived their usefulness and become their own problem. The problem I have with unions is when they demand guaranteed jobs and guaranteed incomes. It is not conducive to good work habits knowing that you are not subject to punishment or termination. Do you ever wonder why automobiles cost what they cost today? It's not because the materials have gone up in price so much. It's mostly due to the high cost of the factory workers salaries (and benefits packages). Now, don't get me wrong here. The workers should get everything they can. I know I did when I went looking for a replacement job for the one I left. I have a problem with the unions being in the pocket of politicians. The fact that the factories can't replace a striking worker with someone else willing to work for less is repulsive to me. If there is no one that wants to do the job for the compensation offered, the compensation will increase. Forcing the factory to pay more than market value only raises the end cost to you and me. It's called trickle down economics. There is nothing else. When the cost of the employees goes up, the cost of the car goes up so the selling price goes up so I need more money to buy it, so I want more money, so my product's price goes up... It's a vicious cycle. If the government was not in this cycle, it would level out on it's own.
Even if I could quit without starving, how would it follow that I shouldn't oppose the person who created those conditions?
It would not. Oppose away. Get the rest of the community to oppose. As I said, if no one is willing to do the job for the compensation offered....
you have not shown otherwise, and have apparently conceded, that speculation is not labor
Nope. No concession from here.
I have shown that speculation is harmful to the working class, and that the working class should oppose it, and work towards ending it. Any person who becomes wealthy through speculation is an enemy of the working class, regardless of whether he is within his rights or whether his behavior is "OK".
Speculation is not harmful to "the working class." When I make contributions to my 401K account, I am speculating. I am part of the working class. Any person that becomes wealthy through speculation is living the American Dream(tm).
Diggs
Let me take you back in time - to when you posted the comment that made me post a reply.
{A+C post} Call me a socialist... but I don't see how anyone can support a person making money through any means other than work. Now this fellow has obtained millions of dollars without having to work at all for it, and will probably continue to use that money to exploit people who do work, "earning" more money, still without having to work. That may be unavoidable, but it's odious to condone it, even if one admits the futility of trying to prevent it.
That is what got me going. That is what caused me to put pen to paper, so to speak. Your idea that "making money without having to work" is an odious thing. As I replied then, and as I believe now, that is wrong.
I tried at that time to show you that there are many different types of work. It looks like I did not do a very good job, as you chided me many times about your definition of work. Heck, there was even one that I missed until you pointed it out above.
Well, guess what? It doesn't matter if what he did is work or not. You have shown that you think speculation is wrong and should not be condoned. I think it is right.
It doesn't matter if your definition of "OK" is different than mine. It is absolutely OK for someone to ask you to work in deplorable conditions for only a tiny compensation. You can say NO. If enough people say no, then that someone has a choice - do the work himself or make the conditions (and/or the compensation) better.
Later in this discussion (I'm tired of quoting - look it up yourself if you don't believe me) you said that the products of labor belong to the laborers. Agreed. But what you seem to dislike is those laborers trading that product for a paycheck and then the one signing the paycheck reselling that product for a higher amount of money.
Geez O. Pete, if the laborers don't like their compensation, quit. If the conditions are that freakin' bad - Duh! - quit. Start up their own business and undercut that evil guy that dared to employ them in the first place.
We strayed WAY off the original point. You tried to convince me that what's his name getting a couple million dollars took those millions out of circulation. (see #153 and #154) I tried to end this politely (#158) but you drew me back in. In #159 you said that you never contested his right to do it. Well, I never said you did. What I replied to was your calling it odious and mocking his "earning". I said I thought he had the right and indeed was right to have done it. A clever chap (or lucky, but then we sometimes make our own luck), in the right place at the right time. More power to him.
Diggs
A DNS name must exist. The IP address equals that name. Without the name, us humans would be telling others to go to http://111.112.113.114/index.html or whatever. We remember names much better than long strings of numbers. The only reason this was ever an issue was because this guy bought and paid for a DNS record (name) that others wanted, and then sold it to one of those people (for a stack of $$$).
If your point is only to show that DNS speculation is not deserving of that title, "speculation", I find this discussion silly.
Not my point at all. DNS speculation, land speculation, pork futures speculation. It's all the same. You puts up your money, You takes your chances.
It seems obvious to me that all the essential characteristics of speculation exist in DNS speculation, and that is why it has been so named.
Agreed.
But if you agree that speculation is unjust and only disagree in the above, although I feel you are mistaken, I also feel the point is minor and that we are largely of the same mind.
I do not agree that speculation is unjust.
If your argument is instead that "intellectual property" (so-called) is the equivalent of speculation, and therefore speculation and "intellectual property" must be either both just or unjust together, I commend your reasoning.
That is what I have been trying to say. Apparently my choice of words have been poor. My examples could have been better, but I thought that using someone that made money from a few words strung together in some DNS record was roughly equivalent to a novel writer putting common words together and making money from that effort.
However, the conclusion from there should be that "intellectual property" is unjust, not that speculation is just, for reasons stated previously.
Again, I must disagree. I will try to define intellectual property (or at least what I think it is). It is words and notes put together to make a song. It is words strung together to make a book or a magazine article. It is a painting.
(If you believe that opposition to "intellectual property" is equivalent to the position that intellectual effort is not labor, you are simply mistaken.
That was not my intention. See above.
I hold only that creation of "intellectual property" should be payed, like any other labor, indeed like most forms of intellectual labor, exactly once, in whatever amount it is able to secure through free trade.)
You had me ready to insert a big, bold Agreed! here. Then I re-read the exactly once part and you lost me. I guess you could say that, considering that a contract that calls for payments over many years could be considered being paid "exactly once", but I get antsy when "always", "never" and "exactly" get thrown around.
You know what? I think it comes down to this one question. Is it OK for the fellow to register the DNS name and then sale it to someone else? I think it is.
Diggs
Diggs
He created an internet address. It did not exist before he registered it. He traded it to VA for cash. Someone else may have thought of it, but since they did not register it and have DNS point to them, it effectively did not exist.
The example I used way back about Stephen King was meant to show that the words Mr. King uses exist in someone else's head before hand, but until they are put on paper, the book does not exist.
There is no concession and no insult intended here. It is just a disagreement.
Diggs
You aren't going to change my mind about the original /. post. The fellow that originally bought linux.com had every right to sale it for whatever he could get for it.
Diggs
And are you, King AC, the one that decides what is useful? How about if he buys the names and then refuses to sale them to anyone.
I suppose that if you bought them and put up a lame ass web site, that would be OK. Maybe one of those WaReZ sites that pop up all the rest of the places you registered when you try to leave.
Yeah, that's really useful.
Diggs
Profits he makes by buying low and selling high are not made through work - at least, not his work. They are made through exploitation of the work of the employees of the company in which he invests.
Would that exploitation include the fact that he is helping to keep those workers employed? He is helping to keep them fed, clothed and sheltered.
For a definition, I'll take a snippet from Webster's Unabridged, 1913: 1. Exertion of strength or faculties; physical or intellectual effort directed to an end (Emphasis is mine)
He is surely working for his money.
Diggs
The $2 million originally came from... what? Thin air?
It was there for VA to use as they desired. Now it's there for the fellow to use.
Zero-sum means nothing was created. He created an Internet domain name, where that domain name did not previously exist. And obviously it had some value, or VA would not have come up with the money (whether it was $2 million or $200) to buy it.
Your definition of labor apparently differs from mine. Mental labor counts, too. Not just manual labor.
Diggs
Diggs
Speculation is a zero-sum game? Ridiculous. I get something. I hold on to it. Be it land, or Hershey bars or domain names, it is paid for at the time of my acquisition at the market value. Now that the demand is higher, I can either continue to hold it for myself, or I can sale it to someone else that is willing to pay me for it. What if this fellow had registered dogturds.com? I suppose there are different things that we would call him, but the one that comes immediately to my mind isn't speculator. Unless and until someone else decides they want that domain name, it is only worth what he paid for it. Even that is questionable. But he has a choice, just like you and me, to either register it or not.
Let's look at an example, {begin shameless plug for a friend} linuxempire.net is a nice site.
But it's value is only what someone else is willing to give for it. Would my friend be accused of being a squatter if some startup Linux distributor wanted to call their distro LinuxEmpire and offered him a million bucks or so for the domain name? I don't think so.
Diggs
Speculation is a zero-sum game? Ridiculous. I get something. I hold on to it. Be it land, or Hershey bars or domain names, it is paid for at the time of my acquisition at the market value. Now that the demand is higher, I can either continue to hold it for myself, or I can sale it to someone else that is willing to pay me for it. What if this fellow had registered dogturds.com? I suppose there are different things that we would call him, but the one that comes immediately to my mind isn't speculator. Unless and until someone else decides they want that domain name, it is only worth what he paid for it. Even that is questionable. But he has a choice, just like you and me, to either register it or not.
Let's look at an example, {begin shameless plug for a friend} linuxempire.net is a nice site.
But it's value is only what someone else is willing to give for it. Would my friend be accused of being a squatter if some startup Linux distributor wanted to call their distro LinuxEmpire and offered him a million bucks or so for the domain name? I don't think so.
Diggs
Ms. Norton is not a representative of a state, and never should be if one cares to read the Constitution.
- quoting from Article 1, Section 8 - To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--
The District should never have had people living in it. It's a Federal District, and everyone that moved there, knowing they would not have Congressmen and Senators gets exactly what they deserve.
Diggs
The safest time for all Americans (and their wallets) is when Congress is in recess.
Government would not come to a complete and total stand still. In fact, things would be better for all Americans. Congressmen might again become Representatives. As it is now, they think they are legislators and think they are required to legislate.
Diggs
They make lots of cars, but only one of each model.
The microsoft.com model was snapped up pretty quickly. Likewise for the linux.com model.
The fellow that bought the microsoft.com model uses it as a daily driver. In fact, he has added quite a few features to it and invites everyone to come on over and take a ride in it.
The fellow that bought the linux.com model kept it in his garage, and only rolled it out when he wanted folks to see that he had a for sale sign on it.
At first, no one wanted it, so he just hung on to his for sale sign and waited for the conditions to change.
After a while, there were lots of folks that wanted to have a linux.com model, so the relative value finally got to the point that he was convinced that now was the time to sale it.
After the sale, all he had to show for his efforts was a pile of green paper with pictures of dead presidents on them.
On the other hand, the fellow that gave him all that paper was so happy to have the only linux.com car in the world that he decided he wanted to let others have rides in it. So, he went the microsoft.com car route and added some neat features and invited everyone to come on over and have a ride.
Now, which one of those fellows had a product?
The fellow that bought the microsoft.com car had something for everyone right away. What if he now decided he wanted to preserve his one-of-a-kind car? The product would not go away if he parked it in his garage and told everyone they could not have rides in it anymore. It would only be available to him.
The fellow that bought the linux.com car didn't have something for everyone right away, but the product was certainly there.
Maybe that is the problem. It sounds like my wife's attitude about our paychecks. She is fond of saying "Mine is mine and yours is ours."
This is not a zero-sum game. Just because someone gets rich does not mean that someone else has to get poor.
If you want to condemn the fellow that originally bought the linux.com car just because he didn't donate it to "the common good" then maybe the subject line fits more than I thought.
Diggs
Diggs
Your definition of work is obviously different from mine. Work includes brain work as well as the back breaking physical kind. Just think, Steven King makes all those millions of dollars just for stringing words together on a page.
Now this fellow has obtained millions of dollars without having to work at all for it, and will probably continue to use that money to exploit people who do work, "earning" more money, still without having to work
This fellow got there before we did, thus entitling him to the spoils of his labors. Exploiting people who do work? This fellow will do what just about anyone would do. Spend some. Invest some. Either way, he will make a contribution to the economy. Either directly by making purchases; keeping people in jobs manufacturing whatever he buys, transporting the products to the stores, selling the products. Hell, even the trash man gets some when he throws away all that packing material. If he invests it, he has now made it easier for me to get a loan to start up my own Linux distribution company (DiggsLeenucks, I can dig it). Damn, I guess that just created some more jobs.
I don't see the problem with so called "cyber-squatters." They aren't much different from real life squatters. Remember in your history classes about the Old West? The land rushes? "I got here first, so this is mine. Oh, you want it? How much will you give me for it? Well, he said he would give me more than that, so you have to come up with more." OR "I don't like the way you operate, so even though you are offering more money, I am going to sale it to him. That is my perogative as a property owner."
Diggs
However comma I have been having the same problem with @home in Northern Virginia. Leenucks fails to get out to the 'net, but Win2k cranks right along every time.
Diggs
Some people that are registered with MSDN have it. And any warez kiddie worth his salt already has the ISO.
Stop telling people it is not available, when it is. You may not be able to run down to CompUSA or BestBuy and get a copy, but the RTM version is definitely available.
Diggs