Yes - standing while working was one of the two things (plus a daily hamstring/gluteal flexibility-training regimen) that fixed my back. Sitting all day is what put my ligiments in such bad shape that they stopped supporting my L4/L5 disk. I'm still very stiff and sore in the mornings, but the rest of the time I'm doing much better. I'd definately recommend it for anyone with lower back problems. But having a good workstation setup is KEY. I still sit part of the day, with my keyboard and monitor on special stands that move as I sit or stand. I had to make major modifications to the keyboard tray to make it go high enough - it's my impression that it's actually very difficult to find the right equipment. I had to scrounge. The stuff facilities bought for me just plain didn't work. Including a special chair that you basically lean against, isntead of sitting on it. That just didn't do me any good at all.
There is no technical solution for a social problem.
Condoms (a technical solution) MITIGATES a social problem (teen pregnancy, STD's). They don't SOLVE these problems, because a Condom is only something like 99% effective (the 1% being people who don't use them properly).
So, assuming one's social problem is going out and seeking the services of a prostitute - use of condoms by said prostitute means that 99% of your prostitues won't have an STD (except crab lice - prefer those who shave). The world is better off with Condoms than without - and simply counting those who use it properly.
Now to bring this analogy into the world of computing - I am much better off sharing an Internet with 9900 healthy computers and 100 bot-infested spam-sending computers, than I am on an Internet with 9900 bot-infested spam-sending computers and 100 healthy comptuers, no matter how secure my system is, and no matter how vituous my computing habits are.
This huge industry push to OSS and virtualization could be the end of Microsoft and the tech economy as we know it
End it?
Son, this is just the BEGINNING.
When we can free OS technology from the shackles of IP constipation, (okay, bad mix of metaphors there) innovation will take off. Unless congress outlaws it (via stiffing net neutrality or worse DMCA-like laws).
We're witnessing a rebirth of an old industry that had nearly died because of Microsoft. IBM saw which direction the wind was blowing. Microsoft sees it too. They just need to get their boat turned around.
The thing I'm worried about is through the same means by which the "mainstream media" were "hacked" - by groups like CATO Institute, Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, etc. and other "think-tanks" - will also be the means by which Wikipedia is eventually turned towards evil purposes. Sooner or later, the right politicians will be bribed, and Net Neutrality really will be snuffed out, and millions of paid monkeys at the think tanks will be churning out Wikipedia posts, and/or Wikipedia will be one of those services that can't exist freely on the net without the "support" of one of the big telecoms.
The other thing is that many news articles will recycle old text as they are re-written and modified over those 36 hours or so. If you read an article on a developing story several times, you can see this. Sometimes, if it's not an important issue, you can wait 24-36 hours after a Reuters story is first posted, and read all the original and updated text.
It could be argued that because this advertisement betrays a complete ignorance to the issue of race relations - it is a statement that race relations *should* be irrelevant (in the context of advertising-art, video games, pseudo-metro-avant-garde culture - etc).
In that regard, perhaps this advertisement is ultra-anti-racist. It's saying; "racism is a quaint feature of primative humanity that has no place in our modern culture - in fact, we'd like to insist that it no longer is relevant."
Perhaps it's inflammatory in that, race relations, and racism, is a very real, very relevant issue in America. But it shouldn't have to be that way. It's a naive, even utopian wish on their part that they can juxtapose dominance and skin color, without implying any racism.
800 minutes + time and wherewithal to setup the scripting, download tools, avoid detection by the RIAA/MPAA/NSA...
To gain a permanent (illegal) copy of a movie I really only want to watch once or twice.
Seriously. I have a library of DVDs, I have bought legitimately, as I am sure most American consumers have. And frankly, if it's not something I haven't seen before, I can usually think of a lot of things I'd rather be doing with my time than re-watching a movie. Even a really, really good one. And if I want to re-watch something, aw hell, why not shell out the $15 for my own copy to sit on my shelf in my family room and collect dust for 5 years until I feel like maybe watching it again?
I guess I just don't understand the impetus behind movie piracy. Sure. These HD DVD's aren't going to be $15. They'll be something like $60, right? And they'll RENT, of course, for - I'm guessing, the same $25/mo. memberships that you get other DVD movies for right now.
...but to call Osoma Bin-Laden, who by the way was never actually connected directly to the desctuction, a criminal is just ignorant.
Firstly; bin Laden connected himself to 9/11 - in statements he made in more than one video.
Second: There's plenty of valid arguments for 9/11 being a criminal act. His "soldiers" weren't wearing uniforms, etc. He does not represent a sovereign nation recognized by the UN (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan - ie. Taliban, was not recognized officially by the UN either) - so therefore, he doesn't get the legal "benefit" - and indemnification, of a formal declaration of war. Also, there are formal rules of engagement and other considerations, where the techniques of attack used on 9/11 are clearly illegal - including the killing of civillians. Finally - bin Laden is also internationally wanted in connection with fraud charges in his financing of operations.
Too bad he's too convenient for the neocon war profiteering assholes for them to actually put any effort into catching him and making him pay for his crimes.
I am very surprised that the FBI is protecting its secret and top secret stuff with passwords only
Yeah - the article is not likely accurate in this regard.
While the passwords may be compromized, I'd be SHOCKED that sensitive information was on an unisolated system. (ie. physical access AND password required.) - that detail was probably left out of the article.
Even better was the 10:21pm transit across the northwest horizon over California last night. Unfortunately, only magnatude 1, and had a low zenith, but at a backyard July 4th barbeque, with fireworks going off all around, and to point to an objet in the sky and go - "there, that bright light moving up there; that's the shuttle - it launched today, and there it is, it's in orbit, you can see it from the ground, if you know where and when to look." - really made it real for a lot of my freinds and neighbors who otherwise will probably never see a shuttle launch in person in their lives.
With all the problems the shuttle has, and with the flying with open safety issues - I've grown kind of disappointed in the US manned spaceflight program. But watching that last night was really amazing. The last thing I can remember seeing that got me that exited was a shuttle/mir docking back in the 1990's, where you could see both in the sky at the same time, one following the other.
MS long ago lost sight of the fact that the OS is an Operating System, not an application. The OS should be the most minimal layer necessary to provide abstract access to the hardware
It's absolutely crucial that Microsoft perpetuate this misperception - it's like the car dealer that tries to sneak-in the factory stereo, floor mats, and mudflaps, and take advantage of the fact that the buyer will likely pay a premium price for these extras, because it's falling under the umbrella of financing the whole vehicle.
But the car is really just four-wheels-and-an-engine.
If people could buy just that, then a lot of car dealers would lose out on a lot of profit on forcing people to buy extras.
(you can't run an app on a different machine while rendering its UI on the local machine, for example)
Not true - the Citrix extension to Terminal Server does this in "seamless mode".
I assume this is a contractually-enforced value-add for Citrix, when Microsoft bought their technology back in, what was it, 1995? Which is a shame, because while I like the seamless-mode feature, I can do without Citrix's obnoxious footprint and onerous licensing terms
I hate getting behind in my slashdot, cuz then I end up posting to stale threads like this one.
But this has been an interesting technical feat which, as far as I know, has resisted speculative discussion. How exactly IS Microsoft emulating the old XBox in the XBox360? If it *IS* some Connectix-derived technology, then Microsoft apparently accomplished something magical, because on my G5, VirtualPC is slow as hell, because IBM ripped the endian-translation instruction out of the G5. So now, VPC has to reverse byte-orders from little-endian to big-endian in software, instead of using the PPC opcode, which worked well in the G4 (though VPC suffered on the G4 due to crappy clock speeds and crappy bus bandwidth limitations).
My point is - Apple solved the G4 problems when they went to the G5, but the G5 introduced new problems, so Macintosh never did really get a worthwhile x86 emulator. I'm still suffering on my Dual G5 PowerMac with a Virtual PC that seems about as fast as it was on my Beige G3 ten years ago.
So I have to assume that the PPC in the XBox 360 has the endian-translation opcode. And that - in Microsoft's first attempt, they got a better x86 emulator running in XBox360 than Apple did in over 10 years of PPC Macs.
I used to argue tooth-and-nail against the "Shuttle is a flawed design" statements that have appeared here on slashdot, and elsewhere.
I don't think that the "payload on-top of the booster" is inherently safer.
In fact, I think that the original reasoning that the design of the shuttle was safe, had to do with the original launch plan, which called for a fuelling, followed quickly by a launch. After the first launch, and delays on the pad allowed ice to build up on the tank in the humid florida weather, causing a hazard on launch, they modified the original external tank design to include the foam - which became another hazard altogether. A better solution would have been to fix the procedures so that the time-delay between fuelling and launch was shorter. Which is pretty much unrealistic in a machine that complex, including side effects from florida's complex weather.
So - we've been stuck with this external tank/TPS problem since after the first launch, with the foam being a workaround. A smarter decision would have been an external tank redesign. For example - SpaceX's Falcon 1 uses a thermal blanket that detaches on liftoff, to protect the cryogenic tanks. Granted, it did not separate on the last test launch, and possibly figured in the loss of vehicle. Granted, the challenge of putting a thermal blanket on the much larger shuttle external tank is an even bigger problem.
Or maybe there's a better solution; Radiant heaters? Stiffer insulating foam? (at the cost of reduced payload maybe?), more variable launch-profile (don't accellerate until the Shuttle's out of the lower-atmosphere?) Protective fairings? Jettisonable shields on the shuttle's TPS? That's better than catastrophic loss of vehicle, and all the other goofy trade-offs, limitations, and problems they've had to put up with like, daytime-only launch, on-orbit inspections and TPS repairs, etc. These are very costly band-aids, that have reduced the shuttle to near-uselessness. Worse - it's an acceptance that TPS damage CAN occur. It's an admission that the Shuttle design (just the launch configuration) IS flawed unredeemably. Maybe it is - or maybe our approach of trying to solve this problem is flawed.
Well, I hope they've got the "context sensitive" thing really figured out - because there's nothing I hate more than a UI that thinks it knows better than the user what the user wants to do.
Case-in-point: O2K (Word) I don't know how to reproduce this - but sometimes when I rt.click on a number-list, and look for "bullets and numbering" in the so-called context menu, it's not there. Or sometimes it's there, and it's greyed out. So then I go up to the menu bar and select Format->Bullets and Numbering - to modify the number-list properties. The context menu apparently thought it was being clever.
Those supposed context-sensitive "ribbons" in O2k7 better not fuck with me. I'll go to Open Office. I swear. And I'll take my customers with me.
The hilarity of this pdf, is that it's really a Power-Point presentation that's been transferred to PDF format - probably out of some misplaced concern for portability.
One could think of cases where, say after an auto accident, one person is greivously injured and requires medical attention, but does not have the financial ability to 'pay has he/she goes' for life-saving medical care; how do we balance the value of their lives against the value of systemwide monetary fairness?
Well, instead of an individual paying for his or her use of "the medical system" - each individual can pay an equal share of what it costs to run "the medical system" to keep all individuals healthy.
But we'll really need to split out two separate goals.
One goal is to keep everyone healthy, to the extent that it benefits all of us.
But we need to differentiate those uses of "the medical system" from abuses. Like, for example, if someone isn't wearing a seatbelt or was driving recklessly, then expecting everyone else to pay out of the group fund to heal that person isn't fair to the group.
In the end, for situations like this, there's a moral calculus to be made, measuring each case. This is a really hard problem, but blanket "progressive taxation" is so vague, that it's easy to frame it as "wealth redistribution" and "unfair" - and then you get a situation like we have today in the US, where anti-tax jihadists have pretty much taken over the country, because they buy into the notion that progressive taxation is unfair, because it's so nebulously defined.
Besides, isn't it a relatively capitalist position that one should 'pay for what you get' and conversely that one 'gets what he pays for'?
The ideal solution would be: NO taxes, and make everything a user-fee.
The microcosm of this strategy is toll roads.
I recently returned to my native home of Illinois, and I was shocked to see this new "I-Pass" thing, where you have a little transmitter in your car, and you drive through the toll both, and it bills you automatically.
IF - such technology can be used properly - billing in a fair and equitable manner, yet also protecting privacy, why wouldn't it be a great replacement for progressive taxation? If the theory behind progressive taxation (rich people benefit disproportionately from public investment, therefore should pay a larger share) - then user-fees could be a perfect replacement. Nobody would question the fairness, because Wal Mart's trucks pay for their millions of trips on the road, and Bob Consumer pays for his two trips a day.
Now, of course, this is all academic, because user-fees are too inefficient to manage for most things. Maybe technology can address some of these issues. Maybe it already does, at least on the Internet - because when it comes down to it, this is the Net Neutrality issue in meatspace: If Bob Consumer is paying $50/month for so much net bandwidth, and Google's paying the same RATE PER BIT - then the net is "neutral" and there's no reason for Google to get a progressive rate, OR a "bulk" (regressive) rate.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes - standing while working was one of the two things (plus a daily hamstring/gluteal flexibility-training regimen) that fixed my back. Sitting all day is what put my ligiments in such bad shape that they stopped supporting my L4/L5 disk. I'm still very stiff and sore in the mornings, but the rest of the time I'm doing much better. I'd definately recommend it for anyone with lower back problems. But having a good workstation setup is KEY. I still sit part of the day, with my keyboard and monitor on special stands that move as I sit or stand. I had to make major modifications to the keyboard tray to make it go high enough - it's my impression that it's actually very difficult to find the right equipment. I had to scrounge. The stuff facilities bought for me just plain didn't work. Including a special chair that you basically lean against, isntead of sitting on it. That just didn't do me any good at all.
How telling is it that your observation was also moderated "interesting"?
(. . . waiting for the mod points to roll on in. . . )
There is no technical solution for a social problem.
Condoms (a technical solution) MITIGATES a social problem (teen pregnancy, STD's). They don't SOLVE these problems, because a Condom is only something like 99% effective (the 1% being people who don't use them properly).
So, assuming one's social problem is going out and seeking the services of a prostitute - use of condoms by said prostitute means that 99% of your prostitues won't have an STD (except crab lice - prefer those who shave). The world is better off with Condoms than without - and simply counting those who use it properly.
Now to bring this analogy into the world of computing - I am much better off sharing an Internet with 9900 healthy computers and 100 bot-infested spam-sending computers, than I am on an Internet with 9900 bot-infested spam-sending computers and 100 healthy comptuers, no matter how secure my system is, and no matter how vituous my computing habits are.
This huge industry push to OSS and virtualization could be the end of Microsoft and the tech economy as we know it
End it?
Son, this is just the BEGINNING.
When we can free OS technology from the shackles of IP constipation, (okay, bad mix of metaphors there) innovation will take off. Unless congress outlaws it (via stiffing net neutrality or worse DMCA-like laws).
We're witnessing a rebirth of an old industry that had nearly died because of Microsoft. IBM saw which direction the wind was blowing. Microsoft sees it too. They just need to get their boat turned around.
No, we're talking about DoD contractors contributing the patches, who then "sell" the systems to the DoD.
And yes; a lot of DoD systems do get code-reviews by independent organizations (like Mitre.org, and Aerospace Corp.).
He's in a witness-protection program.
The body is that of some drifter they found in New Mexico, who looks kind of like Ken Lay.
What - you didn't expect Ken Lay to actually do time did you?
Just like you didn't expect Kenny Boy to actually be charged with Baxter's murder either.
"political fart-lighting"?
heh.
The thing I'm worried about is through the same means by which the "mainstream media" were "hacked" - by groups like CATO Institute, Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, etc. and other "think-tanks" - will also be the means by which Wikipedia is eventually turned towards evil purposes. Sooner or later, the right politicians will be bribed, and Net Neutrality really will be snuffed out, and millions of paid monkeys at the think tanks will be churning out Wikipedia posts, and/or Wikipedia will be one of those services that can't exist freely on the net without the "support" of one of the big telecoms.
The other thing is that many news articles will recycle old text as they are re-written and modified over those 36 hours or so. If you read an article on a developing story several times, you can see this. Sometimes, if it's not an important issue, you can wait 24-36 hours after a Reuters story is first posted, and read all the original and updated text.
It could be argued that because this advertisement betrays a complete ignorance to the issue of race relations - it is a statement that race relations *should* be irrelevant (in the context of advertising-art, video games, pseudo-metro-avant-garde culture - etc).
In that regard, perhaps this advertisement is ultra-anti-racist. It's saying; "racism is a quaint feature of primative humanity that has no place in our modern culture - in fact, we'd like to insist that it no longer is relevant."
Perhaps it's inflammatory in that, race relations, and racism, is a very real, very relevant issue in America. But it shouldn't have to be that way. It's a naive, even utopian wish on their part that they can juxtapose dominance and skin color, without implying any racism.
800 minutes + time and wherewithal to setup the scripting, download tools, avoid detection by the RIAA/MPAA/NSA. ..
To gain a permanent (illegal) copy of a movie I really only want to watch once or twice.
Seriously. I have a library of DVDs, I have bought legitimately, as I am sure most American consumers have. And frankly, if it's not something I haven't seen before, I can usually think of a lot of things I'd rather be doing with my time than re-watching a movie. Even a really, really good one. And if I want to re-watch something, aw hell, why not shell out the $15 for my own copy to sit on my shelf in my family room and collect dust for 5 years until I feel like maybe watching it again?
I guess I just don't understand the impetus behind movie piracy. Sure. These HD DVD's aren't going to be $15. They'll be something like $60, right? And they'll RENT, of course, for - I'm guessing, the same $25/mo. memberships that you get other DVD movies for right now.
Amen brother.
You and I are the vanguard of a new millenium.
Not to mention those scary Freemasons.
...but to call Osoma Bin-Laden, who by the way was never actually connected directly to the desctuction, a criminal is just ignorant.
Firstly; bin Laden connected himself to 9/11 - in statements he made in more than one video.
Second: There's plenty of valid arguments for 9/11 being a criminal act. His "soldiers" weren't wearing uniforms, etc. He does not represent a sovereign nation recognized by the UN (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan - ie. Taliban, was not recognized officially by the UN either) - so therefore, he doesn't get the legal "benefit" - and indemnification, of a formal declaration of war. Also, there are formal rules of engagement and other considerations, where the techniques of attack used on 9/11 are clearly illegal - including the killing of civillians.
Finally - bin Laden is also internationally wanted in connection with fraud charges in his financing of operations.
Too bad he's too convenient for the neocon war profiteering assholes for them to actually put any effort into catching him and making him pay for his crimes.
I am very surprised that the FBI is protecting its secret and top secret stuff with passwords only
Yeah - the article is not likely accurate in this regard.
While the passwords may be compromized, I'd be SHOCKED that sensitive information was on an unisolated system. (ie. physical access AND password required.) - that detail was probably left out of the article.
Even better was the 10:21pm transit across the northwest horizon over California last night. Unfortunately, only magnatude 1, and had a low zenith, but at a backyard July 4th barbeque, with fireworks going off all around, and to point to an objet in the sky and go - "there, that bright light moving up there; that's the shuttle - it launched today, and there it is, it's in orbit, you can see it from the ground, if you know where and when to look." - really made it real for a lot of my freinds and neighbors who otherwise will probably never see a shuttle launch in person in their lives.
With all the problems the shuttle has, and with the flying with open safety issues - I've grown kind of disappointed in the US manned spaceflight program. But watching that last night was really amazing. The last thing I can remember seeing that got me that exited was a shuttle/mir docking back in the 1990's, where you could see both in the sky at the same time, one following the other.
MS long ago lost sight of the fact that the OS is an Operating System, not an application. The OS should be the most minimal layer necessary to provide abstract access to the hardware
It's absolutely crucial that Microsoft perpetuate this misperception - it's like the car dealer that tries to sneak-in the factory stereo, floor mats, and mudflaps, and take advantage of the fact that the buyer will likely pay a premium price for these extras, because it's falling under the umbrella of financing the whole vehicle.
But the car is really just four-wheels-and-an-engine.
If people could buy just that, then a lot of car dealers would lose out on a lot of profit on forcing people to buy extras.
(you can't run an app on a different machine while rendering its UI on the local machine, for example)
Not true - the Citrix extension to Terminal Server does this in "seamless mode".
I assume this is a contractually-enforced value-add for Citrix, when Microsoft bought their technology back in, what was it, 1995? Which is a shame, because while I like the seamless-mode feature, I can do without Citrix's obnoxious footprint and onerous licensing terms
I hate getting behind in my slashdot, cuz then I end up posting to stale threads like this one.
But this has been an interesting technical feat which, as far as I know, has resisted speculative discussion. How exactly IS Microsoft emulating the old XBox in the XBox360? If it *IS* some Connectix-derived technology, then Microsoft apparently accomplished something magical, because on my G5, VirtualPC is slow as hell, because IBM ripped the endian-translation instruction out of the G5. So now, VPC has to reverse byte-orders from little-endian to big-endian in software, instead of using the PPC opcode, which worked well in the G4 (though VPC suffered on the G4 due to crappy clock speeds and crappy bus bandwidth limitations).
My point is - Apple solved the G4 problems when they went to the G5, but the G5 introduced new problems, so Macintosh never did really get a worthwhile x86 emulator. I'm still suffering on my Dual G5 PowerMac with a Virtual PC that seems about as fast as it was on my Beige G3 ten years ago.
So I have to assume that the PPC in the XBox 360 has the endian-translation opcode. And that - in Microsoft's first attempt, they got a better x86 emulator running in XBox360 than Apple did in over 10 years of PPC Macs.
I used to argue tooth-and-nail against the "Shuttle is a flawed design" statements that have appeared here on slashdot, and elsewhere.
I don't think that the "payload on-top of the booster" is inherently safer.
In fact, I think that the original reasoning that the design of the shuttle was safe, had to do with the original launch plan, which called for a fuelling, followed quickly by a launch. After the first launch, and delays on the pad allowed ice to build up on the tank in the humid florida weather, causing a hazard on launch, they modified the original external tank design to include the foam - which became another hazard altogether. A better solution would have been to fix the procedures so that the time-delay between fuelling and launch was shorter. Which is pretty much unrealistic in a machine that complex, including side effects from florida's complex weather.
So - we've been stuck with this external tank/TPS problem since after the first launch, with the foam being a workaround. A smarter decision would have been an external tank redesign. For example - SpaceX's Falcon 1 uses a thermal blanket that detaches on liftoff, to protect the cryogenic tanks. Granted, it did not separate on the last test launch, and possibly figured in the loss of vehicle. Granted, the challenge of putting a thermal blanket on the much larger shuttle external tank is an even bigger problem.
Or maybe there's a better solution; Radiant heaters? Stiffer insulating foam? (at the cost of reduced payload maybe?), more variable launch-profile (don't accellerate until the Shuttle's out of the lower-atmosphere?) Protective fairings? Jettisonable shields on the shuttle's TPS? That's better than catastrophic loss of vehicle, and all the other goofy trade-offs, limitations, and problems they've had to put up with like, daytime-only launch, on-orbit inspections and TPS repairs, etc. These are very costly band-aids, that have reduced the shuttle to near-uselessness. Worse - it's an acceptance that TPS damage CAN occur. It's an admission that the Shuttle design (just the launch configuration) IS flawed unredeemably. Maybe it is - or maybe our approach of trying to solve this problem is flawed.
Well, I hope they've got the "context sensitive" thing really figured out - because there's nothing I hate more than a UI that thinks it knows better than the user what the user wants to do.
Case-in-point:
O2K (Word) I don't know how to reproduce this - but sometimes when I rt.click on a number-list, and look for "bullets and numbering" in the so-called context menu, it's not there. Or sometimes it's there, and it's greyed out. So then I go up to the menu bar and select Format->Bullets and Numbering - to modify the number-list properties. The context menu apparently thought it was being clever.
Those supposed context-sensitive "ribbons" in O2k7 better not fuck with me. I'll go to Open Office. I swear. And I'll take my customers with me.
I thought that they bought 3D Realms (and Bungie) for the Halo3 (on an emulated xbox-360) easter-egg in Excel 2007.
Have you heard that one?
The hilarity of this pdf, is that it's really a Power-Point presentation that's been transferred to PDF format - probably out of some misplaced concern for portability.
One could think of cases where, say after an auto accident, one person is greivously injured and requires medical attention, but does not have the financial ability to 'pay has he/she goes' for life-saving medical care; how do we balance the value of their lives against the value of systemwide monetary fairness?
Well, instead of an individual paying for his or her use of "the medical system" - each individual can pay an equal share of what it costs to run "the medical system" to keep all individuals healthy.
But we'll really need to split out two separate goals.
One goal is to keep everyone healthy, to the extent that it benefits all of us.
But we need to differentiate those uses of "the medical system" from abuses. Like, for example, if someone isn't wearing a seatbelt or was driving recklessly, then expecting everyone else to pay out of the group fund to heal that person isn't fair to the group.
In the end, for situations like this, there's a moral calculus to be made, measuring each case. This is a really hard problem, but blanket "progressive taxation" is so vague, that it's easy to frame it as "wealth redistribution" and "unfair" - and then you get a situation like we have today in the US, where anti-tax jihadists have pretty much taken over the country, because they buy into the notion that progressive taxation is unfair, because it's so nebulously defined.
Besides, isn't it a relatively capitalist position that one should 'pay for what you get' and conversely that one 'gets what he pays for'?
The ideal solution would be: NO taxes, and make everything a user-fee.
The microcosm of this strategy is toll roads.
I recently returned to my native home of Illinois, and I was shocked to see this new "I-Pass" thing, where you have a little transmitter in your car, and you drive through the toll both, and it bills you automatically.
IF - such technology can be used properly - billing in a fair and equitable manner, yet also protecting privacy, why wouldn't it be a great replacement for progressive taxation? If the theory behind progressive taxation (rich people benefit disproportionately from public investment, therefore should pay a larger share) - then user-fees could be a perfect replacement. Nobody would question the fairness, because Wal Mart's trucks pay for their millions of trips on the road, and Bob Consumer pays for his two trips a day.
Now, of course, this is all academic, because user-fees are too inefficient to manage for most things. Maybe technology can address some of these issues. Maybe it already does, at least on the Internet - because when it comes down to it, this is the Net Neutrality issue in meatspace: If Bob Consumer is paying $50/month for so much net bandwidth, and Google's paying the same RATE PER BIT - then the net is "neutral" and there's no reason for Google to get a progressive rate, OR a "bulk" (regressive) rate.
What ? How about Ug son of Ug who invented making fire 42 thousand years ago ?
Imagine how rich Ug's descendents and how cold and dark the world would be today, had Ug invented patents first.