Fuck Noam Chomsky, Here's the REAL reason the country was founded:
". . . in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE, promote the general welfare and, secure the blessings of our liberty, to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Again, I say, FUCK Noam Chomsky. He's talking about an entirely different country altogether. Although I think we've got a long ways to go on that "establish justice" bit. . .
"Personally, I'd rather see the money spent on a way to make the West independent of the Middle East for energy (like fusion research), but even you cannot deny that defense spending creates jobs. That's a historical fact."
Considering I got laid off at my spiffy dotcom job last year, and now I'm working for a defense contractor, it's hard not to disagree with that.
"I read in the Washington Post that the top 5% of earners pay 41% of the total Federal tax collected annually. That's an awful lot. I think those folks have been carrying more than their fair share of the tax burden for a long time. BTW, those on $30k/year or less effectively pay no Federal tax at all."
Considering that if the US was invaded by the commies (TM), the lives of the BOTTOM 5% of earners would scarcely be affected by the new regime, I think that it's just fine that the people who are in a position to benefit the most from government spending (the super-rich who get government-enforced patent monopolies, government-built roads to support their businesses, who profit from government-funded r&d, who keep their workers in line with government-enforced laws) - are all that much more responsible for funding the spending.
Professional Sports: Gee, I wish *I* owned a business where the government built my infrastructure (sports stadiums) and the News Media gave me free advertising on all channels daily (Sports News).
1. He's Vegan. Many Americans view this as frankly, unAmerican.
2. He's an avowed atheist. You will NEVER EVER EVER see an atheist (at least a person who publically admits he's an atheist - not the closet atheists like Bush) - elected President. The religious right is just plain too powerful, and getting more powerful every day, like it or not.
One theory is that metabolism is defined more by the mitochondrial DNA than the nuclear DNA. Cloning does not duplicate the mitochondrial DNA (depending on the exact cloning technique used).
Hair growth, and metabolic rates are closely tied together, so it makes sense that the hair pattern could be tied to the mitochondrial DNA (as with the fat/skinny issue where the cats also differ).
What about the gummint burying sensors and recorders under the pavement. Any time you drive over the sensor, a record is added to you in their database, noting time and date, etc.
WinInstall is no longer owned by Veritas. Don't know what their new owner is - but the "flying V" divested themselves of that product about a year ago.
and quite often, it's about who you know outside of work.
If you get laid off, and all your freinds were at your job, you'll have a hard time finding another job, because those contacts aren't going to be as good getting connected with other places of employment - and you may actually be competing with them for jobs if they got laid off too.
The lesson for the next downturn: Make freinds outside of work, particularly if they're in your field. Stay in regular contact with them, don't blow them off. It could save your butt (as it did mine).
I'm utterly convinced that in this current market, if you don't "know somebody" - and you're looking for a job, you're screwed. Even if you are qualified.
I know, MOSR said that they're about on-par, but on my 450MHz G4-upgraded Beige G3 with 640 megs of RAM, and on my wife's 350MHz slot loading iMac, Chimera and Mozilla apparently slowed way down with the 10.2 upgrade (?). So maybe those comparisons were done on 10.1?
THAT, I can say may be just perception. But running them side by side, same box, Safari is way way faster. It's not just a small difference. It's huge.
I have to say that I was very very impressed with Chimera in it's first few iterations, and I still think it's a really great browser - but the Safari speed difference is too much for me to ignore. Maybe there's only a difference on old hardware?
That'd be a real switch - Apple releasing something that breathes new life into old hardware. Lately they've been very strongly trying to force people to buy new hardware. . .
I too was disappointed when I heard that Safari wasn't based on Gecko. I scoffed when they said it had no tabs.
I tried it.
It is SO much faster than Chimera, I currently am doing without tabs, knowing that someday, Safari will have tabs. But now I'm spending a lot less of my time waiting for Chimera to launch, and load pages.
You know, there's an important role in certification you're missing out on.
TRUST.
No system is going to work without trust.
If someone has a bad experience with an Auto Mechanic, ALL auto mechanics suffer. Because of one bad apple. Because that person will no longer take his car to a mechanic, he'll more likely do it himself.
You can see this play out today, in government and the stock market. Very few Americans participate in voting, and if you look at polls, it's overwhelmingly because they feel either that they have been presented a limited set of candidates to choose from, or that no matter who is elected, they're affected by corruption. There's very little trust in the democratic process in the United States. As a result, fewer than half of all eligible voters vote. Campaign Finance reform would be our only hope here - and of course we can't truly implement it because some jackass with lots of money decided that money=speech. Another reason for your average voter to not trust the system.
So what about the Stock Market? The perception of the majority of middle-class would-be investors right now, after getting screwed over three years ago, is that the whole brokerage and research industry is corrupt, and there's not a damn thing the government is going to do about it to put a stop to it. No punative sentances or fines, no new regulations with sharper teeth, no new significant funding for regulatory agencies. And no prosecution of the President's friend. Pretty much everyone I know has the opinion that the stock market is a game rigged to make the super-rich richer, and remove money from the middle class. While it's not technically fraud because these people invested of their own free will, and *theoretically* had access to all the information everyone else has, you can't beat being the golfing buddy of someone on the board as far as accurate information goes. Hence, there's a low level of trust, a lower level of investment, and the stock market continues to creep along in the toilet.
What do you think - removing certification for Accountants is going to improve that situation?
What about doctors? (I already know what Libertarians think about certification of Laywers) - what if you're in an accident and need a transplant operation RIGHT AWAY in order to survive, so you need to make a decision in a drug-induced haze about whether your un-certified doctor is really the best vascular microsurgeon out there. . . what - you don't *KNOW* ?! You haven't done your homework on vascular microsurgeon? You lazy weak-minded bastard! You disgust me! You deserve to die!
Perhaps at least PART of the current tech downturn has to do with the pundits of our industry predicting dire consequences for not spending kajillions of dollars on Y2K fixes - the companies paid for them, and are now hung-over from the spending binge, and since nothing bad happened on 1/1/2000 to those who didn't spend a lot of money, they feel cheated. If they had more trust in IT providers in the wake of Y2K, perhaps the downturn would not have been so severe (yes, I realize there are many other not insignificant factors at work here, like the massive corporate and accounting fraud, the actual real stock price bubble, and energy price spikes in 1999/2000).
The fact is - people trust that peice of paper. Otherwise, universities would be out of business. Trusting a peice of paper is a shortcut. Often dangerous, but it makes the hiring process much more efficient than it otherwise would have been. And right now, the economy is all about productivity increases, which is all about efficiency.
Average Joe Consumer, whether he wants an SUV or not, maybe he's got 3 kids. Maybe he likes taking long driving vacations once in a while. If he bought your typical Luxury Sedan that was big enough for the job, he'd either get one with a really crappy engine (think of the 80's Chevy Impala with that peice of crap 3.8l Buick engine - uck!) or, for the V-8 option (to pull his boat or camper trailer), he'd end up getting totally screwed by the extra tax imposed by CAFE. So the only option for the features he wants is an SUV.
And because Car Insurance companies have us bent-over as well, Joe Average drives that SUV to work every day, because even if he could afford to then buy a little fuel-efficient commuter car for going to work, leaving the SUV sitting in the driveway, he's gotta pay insurace for BOTH vehicles. Even if the SUV is just sitting in the driveway 90% of the time, ONLY used for vacations. (If you ask me, any given person has only ONE ass, so he can't sit in two cars at the same time, and should pay for insurance as he drives).
"They forget that they once lived in a shithole with roaches and peeling walpaper and no cable. "
It's not a simple thing to downsize one's home.
Back when I lived in a shithole with roaches and peeling wallpaper and no cable (I did) - I did not have children, who had established social lifes and freinds in school. I did not have credit card debt that must be paid off before I apply for a new home loan. I did not have to sell a house in a very slow real-estate market while in the midst of a major landscaping project (ie. nearly impossible to sell at any price).
I can't change my house payment - period.
Maybe mister CEO can forgo one or two of his quarterly junkets to Hawaii just this one year? Or let his trophy wife continue to drive the old Explorer instead of buying her a new Jag? Wouldn't that be easier? How's that for perspective? Sure as hell beats me having to lose all the home equity I worked my ass off for for 10 years, making my kids change schools and get all new friends, having to cram them into the same bedroom with my wife and I.
I worked just as hard - likely harder, then your "worthy CEO". His suffering wouldn't come close to equalling the suffering of one underling, let alone a hundred.
Oh yeah? What do they eat? How do they make their house payments while they're adapting. Adapting doesn't happen overnight, it takes time, often years. Unemployment and severance helps, but that only gets you through about 6-12 months, and what if some of that money has to go towards relocation expenses?
If Keynote (and Safari) *IS* a shot across Microsoft's bow, we all know what this will inevitably lead to: Microsoft shooting back.
How? Using "Office like a club". Keep watching. You know this to be true.
So what will Apple do in response? Right now, Office X is "good enough". And may be good enough for the next two years or so. But what happens when Microsoft migrates to the next verion of Office? Then Office X will not have file-format compatability, unless Microsoft provides an upgrade.
So either Office X is going to be left in the dust - or Apple might write a plug-in for Office X to make file-format compatability possible.
Or Look at the file format of the upcoming version of Office for Windows. Look at the file format of Keynote.
Notice any similarities? Two hints: It starts with "X" It ends with "L"
Speculation: Apple must have something in the "works" (pun intended), since presentation software, and file-format compatability are the only things that Apple Works is missing. . .
Well, a possible solution is to give everyone free access through your theoretical "micropayment system" - which tracks a user's useage. When that usage gets to a level where it's economically feasible - THEN you bill their credit card.
Pros- - CC companies can continue charging the exorbitant transaction fees they obviously require just to struggle along and break even.
- A "free trial" is built in to your content billing model - which is what a lot of people really want. Nobody wants to sign up for a yearly subscription to a site they may only read one good article from, and then find the rest to be crap.
Cons- - The content provider feels as if he's getting screwed by all the viewers that come in and view one article and never come back; he's gotta track billing for people who "creep along" at a minimal rate.
- User may be lulled into a false sense of security by viewing a few pages of content, then, wham, all of a sudden they cross the threshold and are hit with whatever minimal fee you decided was worthwhile given the credit card company's transaction fee.
I dunno. I used to be a Palm nut, but at some point I came to the conclusion that my Palm III just wasn't "ready" for my needs:
1. WAY too big. If it was say, the size of three stacked credit cards, no bigger, that would be ideal. No organizer system can work if you don't carry the damn thing with you at all times. (or you find that you don't have access to that crucial phone number when you need it, or it can't remind you of an appointment, etc). On the other hand, a larger screen would have been nice for note taking or reading. 6 of one, half-dozen of the other - but the Palm III and even the V are just too dang big.
2. Grafitti, while damn fast, was still just too damn slow. Ultimately, I don't know how one solves this problem. Nothing's as fast as typing on a full-sized keyboard, but nobody sane is going to carry one around with them.
3. Sucky battery life. - The Palm V fixed this problem, and I *know* Apple's got this problem licked with the iPod.
I know what you're thinking, but our boyz over in the ME fighting for the freedom of the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites (tough luck Palestinians, maybe next time) aren't going to be watching video of their wives doing the striptease on an iVid.
Pr0n is forbidden over there. And yes, they inspect everything soldiers bring with them. (although I have no idea if anyone's tried to encrypt it to smuggle it in - I have heard war-stories from a buddy who was in Saudi, who had to bust many US soldiers for alcohol smuggling.)
Slashdot Mirror
trust me on this, as long as we're not bowing to their mullahs and putting veils on our women, they'll FIND more reasons to hate us.
Fuck Noam Chomsky,
Here's the REAL reason the country was founded:
". . . in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE, promote the general welfare and, secure the blessings of our liberty, to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Again, I say, FUCK Noam Chomsky. He's talking about an entirely different country altogether. Although I think we've got a long ways to go on that "establish justice" bit. . .
"Personally, I'd rather see the money spent on a way to make the West independent of the Middle East for energy (like fusion research), but even you cannot deny that defense spending creates jobs. That's a historical fact."
Considering I got laid off at my spiffy dotcom job last year, and now I'm working for a defense contractor, it's hard not to disagree with that.
"I read in the Washington Post that the top 5% of earners pay 41% of the total Federal tax collected annually. That's an awful lot. I think those folks have been carrying more than their fair share of the tax burden for a long time. BTW, those on $30k/year or less effectively pay no Federal tax at all."
Considering that if the US was invaded by the commies (TM), the lives of the BOTTOM 5% of earners would scarcely be affected by the new regime, I think that it's just fine that the people who are in a position to benefit the most from government spending (the super-rich who get government-enforced patent monopolies, government-built roads to support their businesses, who profit from government-funded r&d, who keep their workers in line with government-enforced laws) - are all that much more responsible for funding the spending.
Professional Sports:
Gee, I wish *I* owned a business where the government built my infrastructure (sports stadiums) and the News Media gave me free advertising on all channels daily (Sports News).
Will NEVER happen in THIS United States.
1. He's Vegan. Many Americans view this as frankly, unAmerican.
2. He's an avowed atheist. You will NEVER EVER EVER see an atheist (at least a person who publically admits he's an atheist - not the closet atheists like Bush) - elected President. The religious right is just plain too powerful, and getting more powerful every day, like it or not.
THey sure as hell showed the dead bodies that resulted from Restore Hope (Somalia, 1992).
We all know what effect THAT had. Nothing sanitized there. . .
One theory is that metabolism is defined more by the mitochondrial DNA than the nuclear DNA. Cloning does not duplicate the mitochondrial DNA (depending on the exact cloning technique used).
Hair growth, and metabolic rates are closely tied together, so it makes sense that the hair pattern could be tied to the mitochondrial DNA (as with the fat/skinny issue where the cats also differ).
What about the gummint burying sensors and recorders under the pavement. Any time you drive over the sensor, a record is added to you in their database, noting time and date, etc.
WinInstall is no longer owned by Veritas. Don't know what their new owner is - but the "flying V" divested themselves of that product about a year ago.
and quite often, it's about who you know outside of work.
If you get laid off, and all your freinds were at your job, you'll have a hard time finding another job, because those contacts aren't going to be as good getting connected with other places of employment - and you may actually be competing with them for jobs if they got laid off too.
The lesson for the next downturn:
Make freinds outside of work, particularly if they're in your field. Stay in regular contact with them, don't blow them off. It could save your butt (as it did mine).
I'm utterly convinced that in this current market, if you don't "know somebody" - and you're looking for a job, you're screwed. Even if you are qualified.
what's IE? :)
I know, MOSR said that they're about on-par, but on my 450MHz G4-upgraded Beige G3 with 640 megs of RAM, and on my wife's 350MHz slot loading iMac, Chimera and Mozilla apparently slowed way down with the 10.2 upgrade (?). So maybe those comparisons were done on 10.1?
THAT, I can say may be just perception. But running them side by side, same box, Safari is way way faster. It's not just a small difference. It's huge.
I have to say that I was very very impressed with Chimera in it's first few iterations, and I still think it's a really great browser - but the Safari speed difference is too much for me to ignore. Maybe there's only a difference on old hardware?
That'd be a real switch - Apple releasing something that breathes new life into old hardware. Lately they've been very strongly trying to force people to buy new hardware. . .
I too was disappointed when I heard that Safari wasn't based on Gecko.
I scoffed when they said it had no tabs.
I tried it.
It is SO much faster than Chimera, I currently am doing without tabs, knowing that someday, Safari will have tabs. But now I'm spending a lot less of my time waiting for Chimera to launch, and load pages.
You know, there's an important role in certification you're missing out on.
TRUST.
No system is going to work without trust.
If someone has a bad experience with an Auto Mechanic, ALL auto mechanics suffer. Because of one bad apple. Because that person will no longer take his car to a mechanic, he'll more likely do it himself.
You can see this play out today, in government and the stock market.
Very few Americans participate in voting, and if you look at polls, it's overwhelmingly because they feel either that they have been presented a limited set of candidates to choose from, or that no matter who is elected, they're affected by corruption. There's very little trust in the democratic process in the United States. As a result, fewer than half of all eligible voters vote. Campaign Finance reform would be our only hope here - and of course we can't truly implement it because some jackass with lots of money decided that money=speech. Another reason for your average voter to not trust the system.
So what about the Stock Market?
The perception of the majority of middle-class would-be investors right now, after getting screwed over three years ago, is that the whole brokerage and research industry is corrupt, and there's not a damn thing the government is going to do about it to put a stop to it. No punative sentances or fines, no new regulations with sharper teeth, no new significant funding for regulatory agencies. And no prosecution of the President's friend. Pretty much everyone I know has the opinion that the stock market is a game rigged to make the super-rich richer, and remove money from the middle class. While it's not technically fraud because these people invested of their own free will, and *theoretically* had access to all the information everyone else has, you can't beat being the golfing buddy of someone on the board as far as accurate information goes.
Hence, there's a low level of trust, a lower level of investment, and the stock market continues to creep along in the toilet.
What do you think - removing certification for Accountants is going to improve that situation?
What about doctors? (I already know what Libertarians think about certification of Laywers) - what if you're in an accident and need a transplant operation RIGHT AWAY in order to survive, so you need to make a decision in a drug-induced haze about whether your un-certified doctor is really the best vascular microsurgeon out there. . . what - you don't *KNOW* ?! You haven't done your homework on vascular microsurgeon? You lazy weak-minded bastard! You disgust me! You deserve to die!
Perhaps at least PART of the current tech downturn has to do with the pundits of our industry predicting dire consequences for not spending kajillions of dollars on Y2K fixes - the companies paid for them, and are now hung-over from the spending binge, and since nothing bad happened on 1/1/2000 to those who didn't spend a lot of money, they feel cheated. If they had more trust in IT providers in the wake of Y2K, perhaps the downturn would not have been so severe (yes, I realize there are many other not insignificant factors at work here, like the massive corporate and accounting fraud, the actual real stock price bubble, and energy price spikes in 1999/2000).
The fact is - people trust that peice of paper. Otherwise, universities would be out of business. Trusting a peice of paper is a shortcut. Often dangerous, but it makes the hiring process much more efficient than it otherwise would have been. And right now, the economy is all about productivity increases, which is all about efficiency.
A bazillion kajillion internet routers better understand how to parse and deal with MSOY/BO. . . overnight? Don't think so. . .
If they're that parsimonious about getting ripped off, then they ought to be checking odometer readings.
Tell me, who doesn't defraud their insurance company by saying "I only drive this car to and from work 15 miles a day" when it's really 30-40?
That's only half the equation.
Average Joe Consumer, whether he wants an SUV or not, maybe he's got 3 kids. Maybe he likes taking long driving vacations once in a while. If he bought your typical Luxury Sedan that was big enough for the job, he'd either get one with a really crappy engine (think of the 80's Chevy Impala with that peice of crap 3.8l Buick engine - uck!) or, for the V-8 option (to pull his boat or camper trailer), he'd end up getting totally screwed by the extra tax imposed by CAFE. So the only option for the features he wants is an SUV.
And because Car Insurance companies have us bent-over as well, Joe Average drives that SUV to work every day, because even if he could afford to then buy a little fuel-efficient commuter car for going to work, leaving the SUV sitting in the driveway, he's gotta pay insurace for BOTH vehicles. Even if the SUV is just sitting in the driveway 90% of the time, ONLY used for vacations.
(If you ask me, any given person has only ONE ass, so he can't sit in two cars at the same time, and should pay for insurance as he drives).
Don't forget the Web'ho industry, they gave up on film from day 1!
"They forget that they once lived in a shithole with roaches and peeling walpaper and no cable. "
It's not a simple thing to downsize one's home.
Back when I lived in a shithole with roaches and peeling wallpaper and no cable (I did) - I did not have children, who had established social lifes and freinds in school. I did not have credit card debt that must be paid off before I apply for a new home loan. I did not have to sell a house in a very slow real-estate market while in the midst of a major landscaping project (ie. nearly impossible to sell at any price).
I can't change my house payment - period.
Maybe mister CEO can forgo one or two of his quarterly junkets to Hawaii just this one year?
Or let his trophy wife continue to drive the old Explorer instead of buying her a new Jag?
Wouldn't that be easier? How's that for perspective?
Sure as hell beats me having to lose all the home equity I worked my ass off for for 10 years, making my kids change schools and get all new friends, having to cram them into the same bedroom with my wife and I.
I worked just as hard - likely harder, then your "worthy CEO". His suffering wouldn't come close to equalling the suffering of one underling, let alone a hundred.
Oh yeah? What do they eat? How do they make their house payments while they're adapting. Adapting doesn't happen overnight, it takes time, often years. Unemployment and severance helps, but that only gets you through about 6-12 months, and what if some of that money has to go towards relocation expenses?
"The government works for the people, and privatizing federal jobs saves MONEY."
Yeah, that sure worked great for Airline Security. . .
The other thing that people seem to be missing -
If Keynote (and Safari) *IS* a shot across Microsoft's bow, we all know what this will inevitably lead to:
Microsoft shooting back.
How?
Using "Office like a club". Keep watching. You know this to be true.
So what will Apple do in response? Right now, Office X is "good enough". And may be good enough for the next two years or so. But what happens when Microsoft migrates to the next verion of Office? Then Office X will not have file-format compatability, unless Microsoft provides an upgrade.
So either Office X is going to be left in the dust - or Apple might write a plug-in for Office X to make file-format compatability possible.
Or
Look at the file format of the upcoming version of Office for Windows.
Look at the file format of Keynote.
Notice any similarities? Two hints:
It starts with "X"
It ends with "L"
Speculation: Apple must have something in the "works" (pun intended), since presentation software, and file-format compatability are the only things that Apple Works is missing. . .
I can't understand why Intel would even be in the top 1000. They're notorious for being horrid slave-masters.
However, I know a guy who works at Xylinx, and they do, indeed, tongue his ass.
Well, a possible solution is to give everyone free access through your theoretical "micropayment system" - which tracks a user's useage. When that usage gets to a level where it's economically feasible - THEN you bill their credit card.
Pros-
- CC companies can continue charging the exorbitant transaction fees they obviously require just to struggle along and break even.
- A "free trial" is built in to your content billing model - which is what a lot of people really want. Nobody wants to sign up for a yearly subscription to a site they may only read one good article from, and then find the rest to be crap.
Cons-
- The content provider feels as if he's getting screwed by all the viewers that come in and view one article and never come back; he's gotta track billing for people who "creep along" at a minimal rate.
- User may be lulled into a false sense of security by viewing a few pages of content, then, wham, all of a sudden they cross the threshold and are hit with whatever minimal fee you decided was worthwhile given the credit card company's transaction fee.
I dunno. I used to be a Palm nut, but at some point I came to the conclusion that my Palm III just wasn't "ready" for my needs:
1. WAY too big. If it was say, the size of three stacked credit cards, no bigger, that would be ideal. No organizer system can work if you don't carry the damn thing with you at all times. (or you find that you don't have access to that crucial phone number when you need it, or it can't remind you of an appointment, etc). On the other hand, a larger screen would have been nice for note taking or reading. 6 of one, half-dozen of the other - but the Palm III and even the V are just too dang big.
2. Grafitti, while damn fast, was still just too damn slow. Ultimately, I don't know how one solves this problem. Nothing's as fast as typing on a full-sized keyboard, but nobody sane is going to carry one around with them.
3. Sucky battery life. - The Palm V fixed this problem, and I *know* Apple's got this problem licked with the iPod.
I know what you're thinking, but our boyz over in the ME fighting for the freedom of the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites (tough luck Palestinians, maybe next time) aren't going to be watching video of their wives doing the striptease on an iVid.
Pr0n is forbidden over there. And yes, they inspect everything soldiers bring with them. (although I have no idea if anyone's tried to encrypt it to smuggle it in - I have heard war-stories from a buddy who was in Saudi, who had to bust many US soldiers for alcohol smuggling.)