We'll just take that to help pay for our war expenses, like we did in Iraq. Heck, let's just turn all of western Canada into States 51,52,53,54,and 55. From what I hear many of them would be happy to join the U.S. since the Ottawa government ignores them.
I like the story you have linked in your sig: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html - "Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory."
"There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger."
Intercoms are Class B (C?) devices anyway. That means they are required to accept interference from other sources like Radio or TV, and they are required to shutdown if they interfere with radio, television, or other licensed service.
In other words, if the AM was interfering with your intercom - tough luck. Same applies to other devices like FM-transmitting Ipods, or wireless internet-capable TV Band devices. That's the price you pay for using that type of unlicensed device.
I want to drive to Seattle and set fire to the ELF's office, plus any other ELF offices I pass along the way, because I think they need to be taught a lesson that losing millions of dollars of property HURTS. Eye-for-an-eye, "walk in your victim's shoes", and all that stuff.
You should be able to pay-off your school cost during the first two years... if you live frugally. That means no cable tv, no internet except the bare minimum, no new car, no new computer, a cheap $500 apartment, not wasting money on expensive snack machines or coffee machines, eating-in not out, and so on.
The problem is that most people are not willing to make those sacrifices so the loan drags-on for ten years accumulating interest and eventually doubling itself, so you pay twice as much.
I guess I'm different from the rest of you. Although I took electrical engineering which is one of the harder degrees, I still found time to "enjoy the view" of women playing in bikinis on the college lawn, watching the student lounge's big screen MTV when I probably should have been doing work, or spending Friday/Saturday/Sundays doing nothing all day except enjoying life.
And yes I even scored a few times.;-)
Unfortunately did not meet my future wife, however given that half my old college mates are divorced, maybe that turned-out to be a good thing.
isohunt.com and a search for "The Teaching Company" - free
knowledge gained from hearing the world's best professors - priceless
Now true this won't get you that coveted degree which the Human Cattle..... er, Resources office demands to enter their exclusive clubs called corporations, but it will make the actual degree easier to earn. You can skate through with 25 or even 30 credits a semester, plus summer, and finish your college experience in just 1.5 years.
Of course I think most of us who HAVE gone to college realize that's not really the point. College is a chance to be a kid for 4 more years, scoring with women, and hopefully meet your future wife or husband. The reason people remember their alma maters so fondly is because it was the last time they lived without any responsibility. The piece-of-paper is just a nice bonus along the way to being a white-collar serf..... oops, employee.
(Do I sound bitter? Nah. Just less idealistic and more pragmatic.)
>>>just make the cancel button look small, scary, not recommended, with a sick face and a burning computer on it, and make the OK button 80% of the rest of the dialog, and make it look like a "red cross love palace for health, safety and happiness". >>>
This is what Paypal does when they ask, "Are you sure you want to use a credit card to pay?" with a gigantic "NO" and a little barely visible "yes I'll take the risk" next to it. I would prefer that my computer not adopt the same sort of deception.
Besides I don't want to upgrade my Flash. I have the full version of Acrobat and do not feel like dishing-out another $100 to buy the latest version. I will take my risks and stick with what I have.
Just because a printed receipt says, "You voted for George Washington" doesn't mean the vote was recorded internally. In fact the vote could just as easily be recorded for John Adams instead. And yes you do have the receipts to count, but that only happens if there's a suspicion. If there's only a few misrecorded votes per machine, that may not be enough to notice but it is enough to change a national election.
>>>No, the first transcontinental railroads were heavily government funded.
False. ONE transcontinental railroad (the first) was supported with free land from the Congress. The funding was entirely private, and all future railroads were done without government assistance. And of course the original lines that connected all of the cities east of the Mississippi River, and west of the Sierras, were privately funded too. .
>>>provide a return on investment, but to provide security to society. Which it does, with varying effectiveness.
A private savings account would provide greater security, simply because you know that if you die before 70, it will be passed-onto your children, rather than disappear. It's also greater security because living on a half-million-dollar savings FEELS more secure than living on a teeny-tiny $500 government check.
And last but not least, we already have Welfare and Food Stamps to provide for those in need. The SS program is redundant and not necessary. Plus it's been used/abused by the government to fund other projects as if it was just an ordinary tax meant to be spent.
SS == Epic fail. Almost-everything the government touches is a fail
>>>People die because they can not get access to or afford health care, no so with Intel products.
In the United States there are only 8 million U.S. citizens that are not covered by either a private or government program. That's less than 3% of all Americans. PLEASE please stop exaggerating the problem just to push-forward your agenda. There is no reason to punish the other 97% with a government monopoly takeover.
Instead all you need to do is extend the existing programs (like medicare) to those 3% of uncovered persons. A simple fix.
>>>Without HMOs no one would ever be able to maintain their health... right?
Wrong. You could just pay cash. That's what I do - just below $200 a year for my annual doctor's visit. It's cheaper to do that than to have insurance, just as it's cheaper to own a car than to rent it.
It actually makes sense to have companies be taxfree. They provide jobs which is a useful service to the nation and should be encouraged, just the same way we encourage other useful services like the foundation for the arts or the government-run school system or or city metro or whatever.
Plus we all know that taxes get paid by consumers anyway. If next year the Congress announced a 20% National Tax on every product sold, do you think Walmart or MS or other Corps would just say, "Oh that's okay. We'll pay it ourselves." Of course not. They'll pass it onto the customers as 20% higher prices. Corporate taxation is just a hidden tax that ultimately comes out of OUR wallets.
I think an organization that provides Americans with jobs should be tax exempt, if only as a way of saying "thank youse for my jarb".;-)
>>>Government-free energy implies more coal power plants.
Vice-versa government-run "cash for clunkers" means perfectly good cars were taken off the road, squashed, and thrown into landfills. The government didn't even bother to strip the parts and sell them (recycling), but instead declared that to be illegal. Had a private megacorp done that they'd be pilloried but when government does it, it's labeled a success.
Next up - "cash for breakers" where people are encouraged to break their windows and buy all new ones.
>>>For example; the railroad system, The New Deal, WWII spending, interstate highways, aerospace technology, the Apollo missions, ARPANET, etc. >>>
OMG. You call these successes? Let's see:
- railroads were funded *privately* not publicly. And now that rail has been taken-over by government, it's constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Ditto the government-run post office.
- The New Deal was a major fuckup that extended the recession from 1929 to 1950. Contrast that with the 1921 recession when the government did nothing, and yes it was bad, but the economy quickly recovered in 1922.
- WW2 was a horror not a success.
- Most interstate highways (like I-76/I-80) are paved-over already existing State Turnpikes, which were *private* funded businesses. Their genesis lies in the spirit of entrepreneurship. Now that government has taken-over a lot of them are falling apart (see bridge collapses).
- Aerospace was born in the backyards of hobbyists with a vision, and brought to fruition by a military looking for weapons, which you're right - governments are very effective at waging war.
- ARPAnet is something for which government deserves credit, but after 1980 the government was intelligent enough to step aside and let private companies take over, and that's why these was an enormous boom (from 0.1 or 0.3 kbit/s speeds under the government-run stagnation to ~100,000 kbit/s speeds with competitive speedwars).
- Social Security has been a joke, because if you live long enough to get it, the "interest rate" earned on your original deposit is only 1%... below the inflation rate so effectively negative growth. If you don't live long enough to see retirement (a more common problem than many people realize), the money you get back is ZERO! ----- You'd be better-off having a simple savings account could be handed-off to your children if you die, rather than disappear forever. Plus you'd earn much much greater growth, than investing in the government's SS.
I'll stop here. I could go on-and-on-and-on about government failures, bankruptcies, misappropriation of funds, et cetera, but my hands hurt so I'll just stop here and let you absorb what you've heard.
Andy Grove said, "You can't just sit on your a** and give everyone the finger." And later he added, "Hey you kids, get off my damn lawn!";-)
But Mr. Grove is correct - government often makes things stagnate and hold steady, such as when AT&T had a government-protected monopoly over the phone lines and computer modems. From the 1950s to the 1980s the only speeds available were 110 bit/s and 300 bit/s. If AT&T still held that monopoly, we'd still have 0.3 kbit/s modems and the late-90s web explosion would have been impossible (too slow).
But the Carterphone decision (circa 1981) eliminated that monopoly and multiple companies began a "speedwar" that rapidly moved speeds from 0.3 to 56k in only ten years time. And then they branched-out further with cable companies bring 1 Mbit and higher speeds, which forced phone companies to adapt or die.
Another (in)famous example was the Government-owned Tribant car. Yeah sure the government made sure people had cars, but the technology was stuck in the 1940s. Government stagnates.
Heh. Reminds me of Family Guy - "Yes please." - Peter. "Then you'll have to buy part 2 of this educational series." .
>>>At least he didn't look down and say "You...poor...thing...":P
Hey you stole my line!;-) It's never happened but I've always thought if someone accused me of having a small tool (like the George Costanza shrinkage scene), I'd just reply, "Well at least I'm not a member of the itty bitty titty committee."
BMI *is* a useful indicator. Just because it doesn't apply to the top 1% of Olympic athletes doesn't mean it's not a useful measure for the other 99% of us. I've often heard people say, "The BMI is wrong. I'm not overweight," but when their fat was later measured, it confirmed the BMI was correct.
>>>You are making the foolish mistake of equating quality with popularity.
Yes but not all things that are popular are automatically bad (as you seem to presume), so TNG's achievement is still worthy of note because it's both popular AND quality. Besides 12% of the nation watching TNG is a bigger deal than 12% in the 60s watching TOS. The original show lived in a 3-network universe with minimal competition, such that it was consistently below 60 on the charts and canceled (twice), because only getting 12% was considered a failure. Whereas TNG was in a multichannel universe with lots of competition, but still managed to reach the top 20 or even top 10 each week.
Yes it was. All you have to do is watch the miserable season 3 of TOS to confirm that. Can you say "Spock's Brain"? Or how about the episode where Spock sings a love song to a bunch of hippies? Or in the final episode where Kirk proudly announces that women can not be captains! Even at its worse (season 2), TNG was never as bad as TOS' third season. Overall I'd rank the Treks like so:
DS9 (best scifi on television - second only to Babylon 5) TNG TOS ENT VGR
>>>If you steal windows 7, you are still supporting
Actually you've deprived Microsoft of a $200 piece of property. You can then toss-aside that worthless Vista that did not work on your 1/2 gig machine (fraud by MS) and use your free copy of Windows 7, or else sell it on ebay to recoup the money you lost ~2 years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
I hear Canada has lots of oil.
We'll just take that to help pay for our war expenses, like we did in Iraq. Heck, let's just turn all of western Canada into States 51,52,53,54,and 55. From what I hear many of them would be happy to join the U.S. since the Ottawa government ignores them.
>>>Imagine replacing every radio transmitter and receiver with a more complicated version... You're telling me *that* isn't profitable?
Well already have that:
- HD Radio in U.S.
- DAB or DRM in E.U.
Uh... he didn't claim EM isn't harmful. He claimed that *AM* radiation which is 1/8th miles long will have any effect on a tiny human being.
>>>(Calling it "terrorism" is, of course, ridiculous.)
Democrat-biased CNN calls it terrorism. Look at the end of their link: www.edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/04/washington.towers.terrorism
I like the story you have linked in your sig: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html - "Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory."
"There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger."
That's exactly where we're headed.
Intercoms are Class B (C?) devices anyway. That means they are required to accept interference from other sources like Radio or TV, and they are required to shutdown if they interfere with radio, television, or other licensed service.
In other words, if the AM was interfering with your intercom - tough luck. Same applies to other devices like FM-transmitting Ipods, or wireless internet-capable TV Band devices. That's the price you pay for using that type of unlicensed device.
I want to drive to Seattle and set fire to the ELF's office, plus any other ELF offices I pass along the way, because I think they need to be taught a lesson that losing millions of dollars of property HURTS. Eye-for-an-eye, "walk in your victim's shoes", and all that stuff.
So which category am I in?
You should be able to pay-off your school cost during the first two years... if you live frugally. That means no cable tv, no internet except the bare minimum, no new car, no new computer, a cheap $500 apartment, not wasting money on expensive snack machines or coffee machines, eating-in not out, and so on.
The problem is that most people are not willing to make those sacrifices so the loan drags-on for ten years accumulating interest and eventually doubling itself, so you pay twice as much.
I guess I'm different from the rest of you. Although I took electrical engineering which is one of the harder degrees, I still found time to "enjoy the view" of women playing in bikinis on the college lawn, watching the student lounge's big screen MTV when I probably should have been doing work, or spending Friday/Saturday/Sundays doing nothing all day except enjoying life.
And yes I even scored a few times. ;-)
Unfortunately did not meet my future wife, however given that half my old college mates are divorced, maybe that turned-out to be a good thing.
isohunt.com and a search for "The Teaching Company" - free
knowledge gained from hearing the world's best professors - priceless
Now true this won't get you that coveted degree which the Human Cattle..... er, Resources office demands to enter their exclusive clubs called corporations, but it will make the actual degree easier to earn. You can skate through with 25 or even 30 credits a semester, plus summer, and finish your college experience in just 1.5 years.
Of course I think most of us who HAVE gone to college realize that's not really the point. College is a chance to be a kid for 4 more years, scoring with women, and hopefully meet your future wife or husband. The reason people remember their alma maters so fondly is because it was the last time they lived without any responsibility. The piece-of-paper is just a nice bonus along the way to being a white-collar serf..... oops, employee.
(Do I sound bitter? Nah. Just less idealistic and more pragmatic.)
>>>just make the cancel button look small, scary, not recommended, with a sick face and a burning computer on it, and make the OK button 80% of the rest of the dialog, and make it look like a "red cross love palace for health, safety and happiness".
>>>
This is what Paypal does when they ask, "Are you sure you want to use a credit card to pay?" with a gigantic "NO" and a little barely visible "yes I'll take the risk" next to it. I would prefer that my computer not adopt the same sort of deception.
Besides I don't want to upgrade my Flash. I have the full version of Acrobat and do not feel like dishing-out another $100 to buy the latest version. I will take my risks and stick with what I have.
>>>i like gay midget donkey porn!
Big deal. At least that's legal. I like porn starring 15-year-old men and women, and for some reason I'm in jail? (shaking head). Illogical.
Just because a printed receipt says, "You voted for George Washington" doesn't mean the vote was recorded internally. In fact the vote could just as easily be recorded for John Adams instead. And yes you do have the receipts to count, but that only happens if there's a suspicion. If there's only a few misrecorded votes per machine, that may not be enough to notice but it is enough to change a national election.
>>>No, the first transcontinental railroads were heavily government funded.
False. ONE transcontinental railroad (the first) was supported with free land from the Congress. The funding was entirely private, and all future railroads were done without government assistance. And of course the original lines that connected all of the cities east of the Mississippi River, and west of the Sierras, were privately funded too.
.
>>>provide a return on investment, but to provide security to society. Which it does, with varying effectiveness.
A private savings account would provide greater security, simply because you know that if you die before 70, it will be passed-onto your children, rather than disappear. It's also greater security because living on a half-million-dollar savings FEELS more secure than living on a teeny-tiny $500 government check.
And last but not least, we already have Welfare and Food Stamps to provide for those in need. The SS program is redundant and not necessary. Plus it's been used/abused by the government to fund other projects as if it was just an ordinary tax meant to be spent.
SS == Epic fail. Almost-everything the government touches is a fail
>>>People die because they can not get access to or afford health care, no so with Intel products.
In the United States there are only 8 million U.S. citizens that are not covered by either a private or government program. That's less than 3% of all Americans. PLEASE please stop exaggerating the problem just to push-forward your agenda. There is no reason to punish the other 97% with a government monopoly takeover.
Instead all you need to do is extend the existing programs (like medicare) to those 3% of uncovered persons. A simple fix.
>>>Without HMOs no one would ever be able to maintain their health ... right?
Wrong. You could just pay cash. That's what I do - just below $200 a year for my annual doctor's visit. It's cheaper to do that than to have insurance, just as it's cheaper to own a car than to rent it.
It actually makes sense to have companies be taxfree. They provide jobs which is a useful service to the nation and should be encouraged, just the same way we encourage other useful services like the foundation for the arts or the government-run school system or or city metro or whatever.
Plus we all know that taxes get paid by consumers anyway. If next year the Congress announced a 20% National Tax on every product sold, do you think Walmart or MS or other Corps would just say, "Oh that's okay. We'll pay it ourselves." Of course not. They'll pass it onto the customers as 20% higher prices. Corporate taxation is just a hidden tax that ultimately comes out of OUR wallets.
I think an organization that provides Americans with jobs should be tax exempt, if only as a way of saying "thank youse for my jarb". ;-)
>>>Government-free energy implies more coal power plants.
Vice-versa government-run "cash for clunkers" means perfectly good cars were taken off the road, squashed, and thrown into landfills. The government didn't even bother to strip the parts and sell them (recycling), but instead declared that to be illegal. Had a private megacorp done that they'd be pilloried but when government does it, it's labeled a success.
Next up - "cash for breakers" where people are encouraged to break their windows and buy all new ones.
>>>For example; the railroad system, The New Deal, WWII spending, interstate highways, aerospace technology, the Apollo missions, ARPANET, etc.
>>>
OMG. You call these successes? Let's see:
- railroads were funded *privately* not publicly. And now that rail has been taken-over by government, it's constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Ditto the government-run post office.
- The New Deal was a major fuckup that extended the recession from 1929 to 1950. Contrast that with the 1921 recession when the government did nothing, and yes it was bad, but the economy quickly recovered in 1922.
- WW2 was a horror not a success.
- Most interstate highways (like I-76/I-80) are paved-over already existing State Turnpikes, which were *private* funded businesses. Their genesis lies in the spirit of entrepreneurship. Now that government has taken-over a lot of them are falling apart (see bridge collapses).
- Aerospace was born in the backyards of hobbyists with a vision, and brought to fruition by a military looking for weapons, which you're right - governments are very effective at waging war.
- ARPAnet is something for which government deserves credit, but after 1980 the government was intelligent enough to step aside and let private companies take over, and that's why these was an enormous boom (from 0.1 or 0.3 kbit/s speeds under the government-run stagnation to ~100,000 kbit/s speeds with competitive speedwars).
- Social Security has been a joke, because if you live long enough to get it, the "interest rate" earned on your original deposit is only 1%... below the inflation rate so effectively negative growth. If you don't live long enough to see retirement (a more common problem than many people realize), the money you get back is ZERO! ----- You'd be better-off having a simple savings account could be handed-off to your children if you die, rather than disappear forever. Plus you'd earn much much greater growth, than investing in the government's SS.
I'll stop here. I could go on-and-on-and-on about government failures, bankruptcies, misappropriation of funds, et cetera, but my hands hurt so I'll just stop here and let you absorb what you've heard.
Andy Grove said, "You can't just sit on your a** and give everyone the finger." And later he added, "Hey you kids, get off my damn lawn!" ;-)
But Mr. Grove is correct - government often makes things stagnate and hold steady, such as when AT&T had a government-protected monopoly over the phone lines and computer modems. From the 1950s to the 1980s the only speeds available were 110 bit/s and 300 bit/s. If AT&T still held that monopoly, we'd still have 0.3 kbit/s modems and the late-90s web explosion would have been impossible (too slow).
But the Carterphone decision (circa 1981) eliminated that monopoly and multiple companies began a "speedwar" that rapidly moved speeds from 0.3 to 56k in only ten years time. And then they branched-out further with cable companies bring 1 Mbit and higher speeds, which forced phone companies to adapt or die.
Another (in)famous example was the Government-owned Tribant car. Yeah sure the government made sure people had cars, but the technology was stuck in the 1940s. Government stagnates.
>>>Hoping one of my "ideas" will "slip out"? :P
Heh. Reminds me of Family Guy - "Yes please." - Peter. "Then you'll have to buy part 2 of this educational series."
.
>>>At least he didn't look down and say "You...poor...thing..." :P
Hey you stole my line! ;-) It's never happened but I've always thought if someone accused me of having a small tool (like the George Costanza shrinkage scene), I'd just reply, "Well at least I'm not a member of the itty bitty titty committee."
>>>to get a partner twice as smart as either of us, we'd basically have to find someone on a level with Hawking...
His IQ is somewhere around 180, so that puts your IQ at 90-something. Is that what you're trying to tell us? (oooops)
BMI *is* a useful indicator. Just because it doesn't apply to the top 1% of Olympic athletes doesn't mean it's not a useful measure for the other 99% of us. I've often heard people say, "The BMI is wrong. I'm not overweight," but when their fat was later measured, it confirmed the BMI was correct.
P.S.
>>>You are making the foolish mistake of equating quality with popularity.
Yes but not all things that are popular are automatically bad (as you seem to presume), so TNG's achievement is still worthy of note because it's both popular AND quality. Besides 12% of the nation watching TNG is a bigger deal than 12% in the 60s watching TOS. The original show lived in a 3-network universe with minimal competition, such that it was consistently below 60 on the charts and canceled (twice), because only getting 12% was considered a failure. Whereas TNG was in a multichannel universe with lots of competition, but still managed to reach the top 20 or even top 10 each week.
>>>TNG wasn't better than TOS.
Yes it was. All you have to do is watch the miserable season 3 of TOS to confirm that. Can you say "Spock's Brain"? Or how about the episode where Spock sings a love song to a bunch of hippies? Or in the final episode where Kirk proudly announces that women can not be captains! Even at its worse (season 2), TNG was never as bad as TOS' third season. Overall I'd rank the Treks like so:
DS9 (best scifi on television - second only to Babylon 5)
TNG
TOS
ENT
VGR
>>>If you steal windows 7, you are still supporting
Actually you've deprived Microsoft of a $200 piece of property. You can then toss-aside that worthless Vista that did not work on your 1/2 gig machine (fraud by MS) and use your free copy of Windows 7, or else sell it on ebay to recoup the money you lost ~2 years ago.