Um, because it's about a pretty important person in technology? It makes more sense to post about something major like this than whether Linus Torvalds likes GNOME or KDE.
If you don't hold it, you don't own it. If its denominated in dollars, your wealth is tied to the strength of the US economy. Social security is a ponzi scheme, it relies on a flawed idea of perpetual population growth.
This isn't your father/grandfather's economy anymore and the idea of working at the same factory for 50 years isn't realized anymore. Whether that is a good/bad thing is irrelevant. Because of this, we need to go away from social security, pensions, 401(k)s and insurance tied to work. Instead, we should focus on paying employees a larger paycheck and allow them to save for retirement in their own way. By having company-based pension funds it leads to stress when 10 years before you are supposed to retire the company goes bankrupt, the pension fund loses money, or the pension gets altered/cut in some way. Instead, with a retirement plan that you create, you know how it is doing, you know what you have for the future, etc.
Or... Just leave. Seriously, aside from various countries in Africa, parts of Eastern Europe and North Korea, the rest of the world is more free than the US/The West.
Just look at what the tax rates are telling you, if you're productive in the West, they don't want you. Sure, if you're on welfare the US (or Western Europe) is great! But if you're productive there's greener pastures.
Every news agency has a bias because they are made by people and people have biases. However, Russia Today (and Al-Jezeera) shine because the biases they have are generally not shared by the mainstream US media.
If you want to be informed, you have to read all the news services and take them all with a grain of salt.
Your flagship company only offers paid downloads, if you want the product, you've got to pay for support.
You then have another site/organization that offers everything for free and only has community support forums.
For example, if your product is called Corporate Wizard, you'd have your Corporate Wizard only host the Corporate Wizard software and you've got to pay money to download it (with source included of course).
However, you have a community maintained "fork" called, say, Company Mage. While the codebases are 100% identical, someone who downloaded Company Mage is downloading a community maintained product with only support forums. This way, it separates the free products/no support from the paid products with support.
No point in ever coming to the US, we've got an increasingly corrupt police state, high rates of theft (taxation), and a dying currency. Mix that with several wars we've fought/are fighting that we can't pay for, a large portion dependent on welfare (in various forms) and you've got the exact same recipe for collapse that the Roman empire did.
Yep, I think the last "flagship" Android phone with a keyboard was the Droid. Samsung made a decent job with the captivate glide, which was basically a Galaxy S II with a keyboard (slightly lower CPU clock speed, but not too bad) but suffered from a late release date (close enough to the Galaxy S III) and terrible software support (they just now got a bug-free official ICS ROM out for it a week or two ago)
The problem with BlackBerry in recent years is that there's been no real convincing reason to use it rather than Android/iOS/Windows Phone. Unless you belong to a company tied into the BlackBerry environment, why would you really choose a BlackBerry?
A) Cell phones with 4G (LTE) coverage available in nearly every major area, if not 4G than 3G is pretty common in any reasonably populated area.
B) Everyone and their uncle has free wi-fi at their coffee shop/restaurant/hotel, etc.
Seriously, if you need to get your w@r3z t0rr3ntz why not just load up uTorrent on your Android Phone/tablet/toaster and go down to the local coffee shop and download it?
Yeah, back in 2001 it was interesting and fun because if you needed internet access your best bet was to find a place close to a router with an SSID of "linksys", but this isn't 2001 anymore.
Whenever something is coming to my web browser, I've got a right to choose how to display it how I choose, whether I want the font to be bright, green and bold, or whether I choose not to display ads, or follow the HTML that shows the ads, etc.
If you want me to buy your products, don't use online advertising, instead, create a decent enough site and decent enough prices to attract me.
The problem is, we've turned most every science question into a political one and so its turned into:
If AGW exists and it will negatively impact my quality of life if new legislation is enacted, then it only makes sense that those people will deny that AGW exists, irrespective of the evidence for or against AGW.
If AGW doesn't exist and it will negatively impact my quality of life if the government doesn't do something (for example, if they don't subsidize "alternative" energy and you've got a large stake in said "alternative" energy), then it only makes sense that people will say that AGW exists, irrespective of the evidence for or against AGW.
Even "unbiased" scientists will never truly be "unbiased" because like everyone else they act in their own self interest and creating predictions that will lead to more funding (or recognition of their deeds) will benefit them.
There are others and its really hard to quantify what the end result is for most of the programs. For example, CRP has a stated goal of "reducing erosion" but ends up raising food prices by providing an incentive for those who do not farm arable land. Its used a lot by those who own land primarily for hunting because you can get paid for essentially keeping the land as you would before.
So, let me get this right, people who are both trespassing and spying get mad that their "drone" gets shot down? There's nothing legitimate about using a "drone" like this. Just because someone happens to be an "activist" doesn't mean they get a free pass to spy on people and trespass on their property.
IP is not the reason for starvation. While IP is in no way a good thing (applying rules used for scarce goods doesn't work when the goods are not scarce) it is government practices that create starvation. From corrupt African countries refusing to distribute aid to their people to western countries who pay people not to farm and actively try to maintain high food prices for their farmers. Those policies are the reason for starvation, not Monsanto's patented crops.
IP -is- inherently evil (aside from trademarks which are used for the consumer's benefit to prevent fraud). Our entire system of property is designed with scarcity in mind. You can't, for instance, have two people each eat the same hamburger in its entirety. Nor could one person who wants to drive to San Fransisco and one person who wants to drive to New York City share a car (assuming that they each wanted to arrive in their cities at the same time). Thus we have ownership. If we could duplicate cars or hamburgers with minimal to no raw materials it would be rather silly to prevent someone from duplicating a hamburger or car.
IP attempts to use property rights designed for scarce goods in an environment where there is no scarcity. Naturally, it fails.
It even goes deeper than that, look at the US (and most western governments) who literally pay people NOT to grow food and then buy "surplus" food at inflated prices to make sure that the price of food stays high.
I'd hardly put the VMU (essentially a memory card with a screen) in the same class as the WiiU controller. Also, the Dreamcast failed because of a lack of really good games, especially exclusive games. Other than Shenmue, Sonic Adventure 1/2 (the only good 3-D sonic games), Code Veronica, Crazy Taxi and a couple of quirky games (I think one was called Seaman?) there wasn't much going for the Dreamcast.
The Saturn failed for much the same reasons, there weren't any good games for it, Sonic which had sold like hotcakes on the Genesis/Mega Drive had no real game on the Saturn aside from various spin-offs and remakes. It would be like Nintendo releasing a console without Mario or Zelda, or the Xbox without Halo.
I don't see why Nintendo would move out of hardware considering it tends to revolutionize the gaming world with its hardware. From the D-Pad on the NES to motion control on the Wii, touchscreens on the DS, etc.
...Except for the fact that Nintendo routinely revolutionizes the hardware of gaming, not just the software. The NES brought the D-Pad, the GameBoy basically created decent portable gaming, the Wii was imitated by the 2 other consoles.
Nintendo's success is not just because of software, but hardware has a lot to do with it.
Look at the issues on where the third parties differ. Look at the legislation and deeds Obama has done, look at what Romney has promised. In the ways that third parties are different, the "big two" are the same. Which candidate is anti-war? It isn't Romney and it sure isn't Obama. Which candidate wants to end the war on drugs? Neither Obama nor Romney. Which candidate wants to investigate the Federal Reserve System? Neither Obama nor Romney. Etc.
Sure, Obama and Romney might disagree on a few issues, Obama might want a percentage or two higher tax, Romney might want a percentage or two lower tax. Obama might want to allow abortion for X,Y and Z while Romney might only want to allow it for X and Y. Obama might want to only bomb countries X and Y while Romney wants to bomb X, Y and Z. Etc. but overall they are the same. A vote for Johnson isn't "stealing" a vote away from Romney, if the Republicans wanted the libertarian-leaning vote they would have nominated Paul or Johnson. Similarly, a vote for Stein isn't a vote "stolen" from Obama because if the Democrats wanted the anti-war left vote they would have nominated someone actually deserving of a peace prize, not Drone-Master-In-Chief Obama.
Overall, I think Johnson and Stein are both good candidates. I've never really liked the Constitution Party because it seems to be a bizarre blend of Libertarian and Republican thinking (you are free to do whatever unless it violates our moral code, then we need to punish you!). And the Justice Party likewise seems to be a blend of the Green and Democratic parties.
But I'd have to say, both Johnson and Stein are better leaders and much more impressive than either Romney or Obama.
Yep, even though I don't agree with Stein's positions on a lot of things, I'd much rather her run the country than Obama or Romney. Why? Because she'd do exactly what she said she would. Romney has said just about everything under the sun to please people, he's been pro-government healthcare (heck, Obamacare is basically Romneycare at the federal level!) he's been anti-government healthcare, etc. Obama has done mostly the same, he's promised to end wars and ends up starting new ones, he promised a transparent government and instead we've had nothing but 4 years of propaganda and secrets.
I'm pretty sure that any third-party candidate would stand up for what they believe in. I'd much rather have Johnson, Stein, Goode or Anderson as the president than Obama or Romney.
The candidates are not electable because they aren't nominated by either the Republicans or the Democrats. Get Johnson as a Republican and he has ~50% of the vote, get Stein as a Democrat and she has ~50% of the vote.
The system, quite simply is rigged. From the Commission on Presidential Debates (which, incidentally is run by the Democrats and Republicans) which control the "mainstream" debates, to public funding, to the very system of the electoral college itself is designed to keep third parties out of the race.
The only way to not have a two party system is to completely change the way we elect the president (and most likely congress also).
Slashdot Mirror
I think WinFixer has the market cornered on worst anti-virus software
Um, because it's about a pretty important person in technology? It makes more sense to post about something major like this than whether Linus Torvalds likes GNOME or KDE.
If you don't hold it, you don't own it. If its denominated in dollars, your wealth is tied to the strength of the US economy. Social security is a ponzi scheme, it relies on a flawed idea of perpetual population growth.
This isn't your father/grandfather's economy anymore and the idea of working at the same factory for 50 years isn't realized anymore. Whether that is a good/bad thing is irrelevant. Because of this, we need to go away from social security, pensions, 401(k)s and insurance tied to work. Instead, we should focus on paying employees a larger paycheck and allow them to save for retirement in their own way. By having company-based pension funds it leads to stress when 10 years before you are supposed to retire the company goes bankrupt, the pension fund loses money, or the pension gets altered/cut in some way. Instead, with a retirement plan that you create, you know how it is doing, you know what you have for the future, etc.
Or... Just leave. Seriously, aside from various countries in Africa, parts of Eastern Europe and North Korea, the rest of the world is more free than the US/The West.
Just look at what the tax rates are telling you, if you're productive in the West, they don't want you. Sure, if you're on welfare the US (or Western Europe) is great! But if you're productive there's greener pastures.
Every news agency has a bias because they are made by people and people have biases. However, Russia Today (and Al-Jezeera) shine because the biases they have are generally not shared by the mainstream US media.
If you want to be informed, you have to read all the news services and take them all with a grain of salt.
Just split the company into two main parts.
Your flagship company only offers paid downloads, if you want the product, you've got to pay for support.
You then have another site/organization that offers everything for free and only has community support forums.
For example, if your product is called Corporate Wizard, you'd have your Corporate Wizard only host the Corporate Wizard software and you've got to pay money to download it (with source included of course).
However, you have a community maintained "fork" called, say, Company Mage. While the codebases are 100% identical, someone who downloaded Company Mage is downloading a community maintained product with only support forums. This way, it separates the free products/no support from the paid products with support.
No point in ever coming to the US, we've got an increasingly corrupt police state, high rates of theft (taxation), and a dying currency. Mix that with several wars we've fought/are fighting that we can't pay for, a large portion dependent on welfare (in various forms) and you've got the exact same recipe for collapse that the Roman empire did.
Yep, I think the last "flagship" Android phone with a keyboard was the Droid. Samsung made a decent job with the captivate glide, which was basically a Galaxy S II with a keyboard (slightly lower CPU clock speed, but not too bad) but suffered from a late release date (close enough to the Galaxy S III) and terrible software support (they just now got a bug-free official ICS ROM out for it a week or two ago)
The problem with BlackBerry in recent years is that there's been no real convincing reason to use it rather than Android/iOS/Windows Phone. Unless you belong to a company tied into the BlackBerry environment, why would you really choose a BlackBerry?
Why wardrive in 2012? Considering you've got:
A) Cell phones with 4G (LTE) coverage available in nearly every major area, if not 4G than 3G is pretty common in any reasonably populated area.
B) Everyone and their uncle has free wi-fi at their coffee shop/restaurant/hotel, etc.
Seriously, if you need to get your w@r3z t0rr3ntz why not just load up uTorrent on your Android Phone/tablet/toaster and go down to the local coffee shop and download it?
Yeah, back in 2001 it was interesting and fun because if you needed internet access your best bet was to find a place close to a router with an SSID of "linksys", but this isn't 2001 anymore.
Whenever something is coming to my web browser, I've got a right to choose how to display it how I choose, whether I want the font to be bright, green and bold, or whether I choose not to display ads, or follow the HTML that shows the ads, etc.
If you want me to buy your products, don't use online advertising, instead, create a decent enough site and decent enough prices to attract me.
The problem is, we've turned most every science question into a political one and so its turned into:
If AGW exists and it will negatively impact my quality of life if new legislation is enacted, then it only makes sense that those people will deny that AGW exists, irrespective of the evidence for or against AGW.
If AGW doesn't exist and it will negatively impact my quality of life if the government doesn't do something (for example, if they don't subsidize "alternative" energy and you've got a large stake in said "alternative" energy), then it only makes sense that people will say that AGW exists, irrespective of the evidence for or against AGW.
Even "unbiased" scientists will never truly be "unbiased" because like everyone else they act in their own self interest and creating predictions that will lead to more funding (or recognition of their deeds) will benefit them.
I think a $1 bullet is cheaper than a $60 controller... (Keep in mind, these are hunters and so there is no additional cost of the gun)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_Reserve_Program
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100962.html
There are others and its really hard to quantify what the end result is for most of the programs. For example, CRP has a stated goal of "reducing erosion" but ends up raising food prices by providing an incentive for those who do not farm arable land. Its used a lot by those who own land primarily for hunting because you can get paid for essentially keeping the land as you would before.
So, let me get this right, people who are both trespassing and spying get mad that their "drone" gets shot down? There's nothing legitimate about using a "drone" like this. Just because someone happens to be an "activist" doesn't mean they get a free pass to spy on people and trespass on their property.
IP is not the reason for starvation. While IP is in no way a good thing (applying rules used for scarce goods doesn't work when the goods are not scarce) it is government practices that create starvation. From corrupt African countries refusing to distribute aid to their people to western countries who pay people not to farm and actively try to maintain high food prices for their farmers. Those policies are the reason for starvation, not Monsanto's patented crops.
IP -is- inherently evil (aside from trademarks which are used for the consumer's benefit to prevent fraud). Our entire system of property is designed with scarcity in mind. You can't, for instance, have two people each eat the same hamburger in its entirety. Nor could one person who wants to drive to San Fransisco and one person who wants to drive to New York City share a car (assuming that they each wanted to arrive in their cities at the same time). Thus we have ownership. If we could duplicate cars or hamburgers with minimal to no raw materials it would be rather silly to prevent someone from duplicating a hamburger or car.
IP attempts to use property rights designed for scarce goods in an environment where there is no scarcity. Naturally, it fails.
It even goes deeper than that, look at the US (and most western governments) who literally pay people NOT to grow food and then buy "surplus" food at inflated prices to make sure that the price of food stays high.
I'd hardly put the VMU (essentially a memory card with a screen) in the same class as the WiiU controller. Also, the Dreamcast failed because of a lack of really good games, especially exclusive games. Other than Shenmue, Sonic Adventure 1/2 (the only good 3-D sonic games), Code Veronica, Crazy Taxi and a couple of quirky games (I think one was called Seaman?) there wasn't much going for the Dreamcast.
The Saturn failed for much the same reasons, there weren't any good games for it, Sonic which had sold like hotcakes on the Genesis/Mega Drive had no real game on the Saturn aside from various spin-offs and remakes. It would be like Nintendo releasing a console without Mario or Zelda, or the Xbox without Halo.
I don't see why Nintendo would move out of hardware considering it tends to revolutionize the gaming world with its hardware. From the D-Pad on the NES to motion control on the Wii, touchscreens on the DS, etc.
...Except for the fact that Nintendo routinely revolutionizes the hardware of gaming, not just the software. The NES brought the D-Pad, the GameBoy basically created decent portable gaming, the Wii was imitated by the 2 other consoles.
Nintendo's success is not just because of software, but hardware has a lot to do with it.
Look at the issues on where the third parties differ. Look at the legislation and deeds Obama has done, look at what Romney has promised. In the ways that third parties are different, the "big two" are the same. Which candidate is anti-war? It isn't Romney and it sure isn't Obama. Which candidate wants to end the war on drugs? Neither Obama nor Romney. Which candidate wants to investigate the Federal Reserve System? Neither Obama nor Romney. Etc.
Sure, Obama and Romney might disagree on a few issues, Obama might want a percentage or two higher tax, Romney might want a percentage or two lower tax. Obama might want to allow abortion for X,Y and Z while Romney might only want to allow it for X and Y. Obama might want to only bomb countries X and Y while Romney wants to bomb X, Y and Z. Etc. but overall they are the same. A vote for Johnson isn't "stealing" a vote away from Romney, if the Republicans wanted the libertarian-leaning vote they would have nominated Paul or Johnson. Similarly, a vote for Stein isn't a vote "stolen" from Obama because if the Democrats wanted the anti-war left vote they would have nominated someone actually deserving of a peace prize, not Drone-Master-In-Chief Obama.
Overall, I think Johnson and Stein are both good candidates. I've never really liked the Constitution Party because it seems to be a bizarre blend of Libertarian and Republican thinking (you are free to do whatever unless it violates our moral code, then we need to punish you!). And the Justice Party likewise seems to be a blend of the Green and Democratic parties.
But I'd have to say, both Johnson and Stein are better leaders and much more impressive than either Romney or Obama.
Yep, even though I don't agree with Stein's positions on a lot of things, I'd much rather her run the country than Obama or Romney. Why? Because she'd do exactly what she said she would. Romney has said just about everything under the sun to please people, he's been pro-government healthcare (heck, Obamacare is basically Romneycare at the federal level!) he's been anti-government healthcare, etc. Obama has done mostly the same, he's promised to end wars and ends up starting new ones, he promised a transparent government and instead we've had nothing but 4 years of propaganda and secrets.
Vote Stein, Johnson, Goode or Anderson tomorrow.
I'm pretty sure that any third-party candidate would stand up for what they believe in. I'd much rather have Johnson, Stein, Goode or Anderson as the president than Obama or Romney.
The candidates are not electable because they aren't nominated by either the Republicans or the Democrats. Get Johnson as a Republican and he has ~50% of the vote, get Stein as a Democrat and she has ~50% of the vote.
The system, quite simply is rigged. From the Commission on Presidential Debates (which, incidentally is run by the Democrats and Republicans) which control the "mainstream" debates, to public funding, to the very system of the electoral college itself is designed to keep third parties out of the race.
The only way to not have a two party system is to completely change the way we elect the president (and most likely congress also).