I hate to nitpick, but the outsourcing analogy is not a good one.
Outsourcing=redistribution of labor from among those in strong labor markets to weaker labor markets for regions of similar technical background/qualifications. The 'invisible' hand working at its best, encourage optimization of global production, redistribution of wealth towards poorer nations, and a new phase in worldwide economic integration.
Patents=government sanctioned tool creating an entry barrier for entrepenurial efforts worldwide. Patents, as an abstract idea, might be good. Patents, as assigned in the American system, and for the durations they are assigned, are atrocious.
Indeed, a 'feudal' intellectual regime arises (has arisen) whereby most any firm pays a series of 'taxes' in the process of manufacturing nearly anything.
And, in the case that Microsoft succeds in aggressively using software patents we'll get to see a whole different sort of monopoly abuses.
I don't buy the U.S. becomes the next Rome analogy. We aren't going down, but we aren't going up, either.
The rest of the world is going up, and guess what:
That's going to happen anyways. The U.S. cannot, and will not, represent such a large proporiton of the worlds wealth indefinetly.
You're pulling a Marx, and the collapse of capitalism just doesn't really happen.
What does happen is you have drifting towards welfare socialisms, stagnation, and a bizarre cultural relationship between society and the massive public sector.
Sadly, the welfare state usually ends in the same few profiting over the many. Rather than the strongest profiting, though, you have those with the greatest number of political connections profiting.
You are WAY too worried about the American economy 'showing' damage. Yes, it does suck if American's loose jobs to outsourcing. Yes, it is sad when anyone looses their job. But don't the workers on the other side deserve their jobs, too? Weren't there lives just as difficult (if not substantially more difficult)?
I'm too tired to keep up my diatribe, and it probably doesn't make that much sense anyway (not at this time of night), but this Patent mess is a government invention, not an necessary aspect of a market economy, and I really don't think Marxist reforms are the answer.
IMHO, many of the dangers associated with Ecstasy could be mitigated by FDA regulation. Sure, Ecstasy acts primarily on the serotonergic and dopaminergic neurons in the CNS, and appears to irreversably harm the former (documented pathologically in animal studies, and observationally in humans). But from what I've ready, that is both: A) A matter for debate (the animal studies I've read about have had some serious methodolgical problems), and B) Not terribly more scary than some of the statements I could be making about alcohol.
Ecstasy is a pretty scary thing. Especially street ecstasy.
However, a decision to take MDMA (if you know that's all your getting (and you can't know that if you bought it on the street)) is not particularly more risky than a decision to take alcohol.
Occassionally, people have adverse reactions to both. In excess, both will kill you. Both have long term side effects, and both alter your brain chemistry.
Ecstasy isn't pretty? Neither is alcohol abuse.
I understand you are a physican, and I understand that you have seen some scary things.
And while I wouldn't say that you are spreading FUD, I think that it is necessary to put comments like your own into perspective.
Life is risk. Unbridled exageration of risk (not what you are doing), or not having a *context* in which to evalute risk often leads to misguiding abominations like the drug war.
Regulate it, tax it, fund anti-drug programs.
Push it underground? Cause people to create 'street' black-market varients?
Create profit margins which are absolutely OBSCENE and spawn organized crime?
I'm not interested in drug use. I don't want to screw up my brain. At the same time, drug 'scare' tactics are a rhetorical/political weapon which must be tightly controlled.
If this does come out into the open (which it looks like it is) everyone MS stroke can be countered by an IBM counterstroke.
or Novell/SuSE, or Redhat, both of which have MUCH more on the line.
This was a competitive battle for MS when it was MS versus Linux hackers.
Now that it is MS.SCO versus IBM+Novell/SuSE+Redhat+countless others, it really is a battle of titans.
Autozone+DaimlerChrylser obviously migrated away from SCO and liked the fact that they did. It is for people like this that the Open Source Defense Fund was created.
And Ballmer is his right hand man.... And here is a short article about Craig Mundie, a MS VP for sales, acting in an official manner, where he says that OpenSource is un-American, ruins your company, and destroys intellectual property. MS Blather This is an official viewpoint, and I'm sure Gates sees things the same way-----
They actually are fairly good mirror images....One of them just has a better PR department
In fact, here is a link where Gates says that 'Open Source' and the GPL "destroy the ecosystem" that is the world of software.
I do say, however, that here the democratic checks still work. The press, the unions, the other parties _and_ the other countries in the EU will raise a ruckus sky-high at the slightest hint that a politician may be bought or acting against the people's interest.
Maybe more important is that here, to the best of my knowledge, all countries have more than two parties. There is no lack of choice for voting someone else into office, if the current lot does a bad job. I agree with your second point, but not the first.
The main reason these things matter many places in Europe is because they have different voting systems, IMHO.
The american voting system is conducive to a two party system---Simple majority voting schemes work like that.
Claims of scandal and the like go pretty far in the U.S. too.
And European politicans are just as 'crooked'.
Trust me on this:) I'm fairly familar with both Italian and British politics, and they are DIRTY. I'm not as familiar with other places, but I have my doubts:)
Things just tend to work out better for the people (read there are more viewpoints, and less 'points' for party affiliation) in a more sophisticated voting system than our simple majorities.
MS maybe an OS monopoly---but even that is arguable now.
MS is definetly not a monopoly in terms of non-OS/non-Office applications.
MS is definetly on its way to not being a monopoly in terms of OS/Office applications, as well.
I wish the DoJ would have done something about it sooner, but the market will do something about it anyways.
MS is probably dumping products, but it is difficult to determine what a 'legitmate' price would be, because it would neither be as high as their 'monopoly' prices in the U.S., nor as low as the 'special' discounts they have offered in some markets (Munich, for example).
Obviously, they are engaged in predatory pricing behavior.
IMHO, it is not necessary for China to regulate them away, however. IF government's simply decided to procure alternatives, instead of MS products, everything would be okay.
Please don't try and troll(not to parent, but anyone else)----You can have a perfectly usable Linux/OpenOffice.org combination for 95% of the cubicle population. It may not be as effective as MS software is, any it may even be more expensive in some situations, but it is definetly a workable solution, and I believe that in the long run it can be highly competive.
MS retains marketshare through shear inertia and predatory pricing----But even so, the winds of change have started to blow.
It just might take years, but market forces are always gradual and slow like that.
Then one of my friends (who went to college the same time as I) got a job at a local political office.
She works for the Lt. Govern of Illinois. She's an assistant press secretary or something. Strictly entry level job.
But she gets to talk to 'Pat' whenever she wants (infact, he calls her, and many other members of his staff, all the time). Her opinions certainly draw more political weight than mine do.
Sure, he's not the president, but she IS part of the process.
Politics is NOT the scary beast everything thinks it is.
Big business only rules politics because generally, in this day and age, the little people have lost interest.
A little bit of 'little' guy political activity, and you'll have divergent views appearing in the political spectrum again. The Democracts/Republicans will come to the side, and perhaps YOU (the generic you) will be able to interject something into the debate.
Sure, instant run-off voting would be nice, but the current system works, anyone can participate, and (oh god this is a terrible cliche) you CAN make a difference.
My grandmother+aunt in the U.K. feel similarly. They worked for Tony Blair's campaign. Of course, they hate him now, but that's for different reasons.
They are far more part of the political process than I have been, but if 100 people like me, or my relatives, or my friend, try to exert a small bit of influence, they can, without a terribly large expense.
While they haven't necessairly done everything correctly, I still think it is an impressive project.
Also, Freenet 0.5.2.1 does work as advertised. It was just never designed to handle as large a network as Freenet has become. In order for the [larger]network to function properly, some nodes must update to newer versions. This has occurred, and now you can run Freenet 0.5.2.1 and it will work properly.
I'm not certain as to whether or not the network is as weak as its weakest link---
It seems intiutive, but I've had it explained to me (over my head) that this is not necessairly the case for Freenet. Freenet maintains anonymity for properly functioning nodes even if there are malfunctioning or malicious nodes on the network.
Don't ask me to explain how, I'm taking that answer on faith, but it could be wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Half-Life 2 WILL work under Linux.
Half-Life 2 has been a Transgaming 'Focus' title for some time---
When Half-Life 2 comes out, Winex will either support it immediately, or support it in short order.
Transgaming is a pretty neat company---When they say they will deliver something, they generally have.
Sometimes they are a little late in delivery, but never terribly late.
I hate to nitpick, but the outsourcing analogy is not a good one.
Outsourcing=redistribution of labor from among those in strong labor markets to weaker labor markets for regions of similar technical background/qualifications. The 'invisible' hand working at its best, encourage optimization of global production, redistribution of wealth towards poorer nations, and a new phase in worldwide economic integration.
Patents=government sanctioned tool creating an entry barrier for entrepenurial efforts worldwide. Patents, as an abstract idea, might be good. Patents, as assigned in the American system, and for the durations they are assigned, are atrocious.
Indeed, a 'feudal' intellectual regime arises (has arisen) whereby most any firm pays a series of 'taxes' in the process of manufacturing nearly anything.
And, in the case that Microsoft succeds in aggressively using software patents we'll get to see a whole different sort of monopoly abuses.
I don't buy the U.S. becomes the next Rome analogy. We aren't going down, but we aren't going up, either.
The rest of the world is going up, and guess what:
That's going to happen anyways. The U.S. cannot, and will not, represent such a large proporiton of the worlds wealth indefinetly.
You're pulling a Marx, and the collapse of capitalism just doesn't really happen.
What does happen is you have drifting towards welfare socialisms, stagnation, and a bizarre cultural relationship between society and the massive public sector.
Sadly, the welfare state usually ends in the same few profiting over the many. Rather than the strongest profiting, though, you have those with the greatest number of political connections profiting.
You are WAY too worried about the American economy 'showing' damage. Yes, it does suck if American's loose jobs to outsourcing. Yes, it is sad when anyone looses their job.
But don't the workers on the other side deserve their jobs, too? Weren't there lives just as difficult (if not substantially more difficult)?
I'm too tired to keep up my diatribe, and it probably doesn't make that much sense anyway (not at this time of night), but this Patent mess is a government invention, not an necessary aspect of a market economy, and I really don't think Marxist reforms are the answer.
I was a die-hard 0S/2'er....
The optimist in me is hoping that IBM will stick to its guns this time.
There is more support now, and if you remember, it was difficult to get systems with OS/2 preloaded on them.
Linux has more marketshare, i think, and definetly more mindshare.
I think Linux will clear the hurdle....
Do this:
:)
Open up a terminal.
Type su. Push enter.
Type your root password.
Type killall y2base
Fixed.
IMHO, many of the dangers associated with Ecstasy could be mitigated by FDA regulation.
Sure,
Ecstasy acts primarily on the serotonergic and dopaminergic neurons in the CNS, and appears to irreversably harm the former (documented pathologically in animal studies, and observationally in humans).
But from what I've ready, that is both:
A) A matter for debate (the animal studies I've read about have had some serious methodolgical problems), and
B) Not terribly more scary than some of the statements I could be making about alcohol.
Ecstasy is a pretty scary thing. Especially street ecstasy.
However, a decision to take MDMA (if you know that's all your getting (and you can't know that if you bought it on the street)) is not particularly more risky than a decision to take alcohol.
Occassionally, people have adverse reactions to both. In excess, both will kill you. Both have long term side effects, and both alter your brain chemistry.
Ecstasy isn't pretty? Neither is alcohol abuse.
I understand you are a physican, and I understand that you have seen some scary things.
And while I wouldn't say that you are spreading FUD, I think that it is necessary to put comments like your own into perspective.
Life is risk. Unbridled exageration of risk (not what you are doing), or not having a *context* in which to evalute risk often leads to misguiding abominations like the drug war.
Regulate it, tax it, fund anti-drug programs.
Push it underground? Cause people to create 'street' black-market varients?
Create profit margins which are absolutely OBSCENE and spawn organized crime?
I'm not interested in drug use. I don't want to screw up my brain.
At the same time, drug 'scare' tactics are a rhetorical/political weapon which must be tightly controlled.
Err....
The red coats didn't have stealth bombers and nerve gas......
I feel your pain.
;-)
:)
To be honest, I feel like the 'us poor scmucks' need to start investing in our own security
Less insurance payments, more car alarms+electrostatic armor plating *evil grin*
Police won't catch the crooks? My ShockMaster 2000 will fry them dead
I'm skeptical.
IBM's lawyers are the Nazgul, IBM is the 900 pound gorilla, IBM is totally in the right, and MS is probably at fault as well....
However, IBM v. SCO is a certain thing. Even if SCO has a little bit of help.
IBM v. SCO+MS is a little bit too much heat, methinks.
It isn't Ragnarok yet, that battle is scheduled for the future.
Too much.
If this does come out into the open (which it looks like it is) everyone MS stroke can be countered by an IBM counterstroke.
or Novell/SuSE, or Redhat, both of which have MUCH more on the line.
This was a competitive battle for MS when it was MS versus Linux hackers.
Now that it is MS.SCO versus IBM+Novell/SuSE+Redhat+countless others, it really is a battle of titans.
Autozone+DaimlerChrylser obviously migrated away from SCO and liked the fact that they did. It is for people like this that the Open Source Defense Fund was created.
Ahh.. There is a reason I have slightly more hope in this case.
It isn't me or you who need to have our minority rights enforced. I do feel bad for the people MS/SCO picked on, but....
IBM?
Autozone?
Novell/Suse?
DaimlerChrysler?
I can safely say that there companies fit in the 500k+ category, and they are not at all happy with SCO.
Halloween X:
:)
MS is funding SCO. Evidence at OSI!
Absolutely amazing. If this is real.....some heads will roll
Time for the SEC is whoop some ass
Well, IIRC, Ballmer has done as much....
And Ballmer is his right hand man....
And here is a short article about Craig Mundie, a MS VP for sales, acting in an official manner, where he says that OpenSource is un-American, ruins your company, and destroys intellectual property.
MS Blather
This is an official viewpoint, and I'm sure Gates sees things the same way-----
They actually are fairly good mirror images....One of them just has a better PR department
In fact, here is a link where Gates says that 'Open Source' and the GPL "destroy the ecosystem" that is the world of software.
And all that Jazz
Nonsense. Even my Windows OS(TM) is free.
After all, it came with the computer, and they didn't even charge me for it!
Salesperson even through in the MS Plus Pack!(TM) for free!
Sorta....
SuSE linux, for example, is free as in speech, but they do not make ISOs avaliable.
There are several debian 'knockoffs' (forks?) that are similar (you have to pay the $20 or whatever to get the discs).
Sure, you can always work out some way to do an FTP install, but thats not always practical.
And can be much more complicated.
There could be more examples. The GPL does not preclude you from selling your software.
You just have to make your source code avaliable to your customers on request.
Not to anyone else, mind you.
I do say, however, that here the democratic checks still work. The press, the unions, the other parties _and_ the other countries in the EU will raise a ruckus sky-high at the slightest hint that a politician may be bought or acting against the people's interest.
Maybe more important is that here, to the best of my knowledge, all countries have more than two parties. There is no lack of choice for voting someone else into office, if the current lot does a bad job.
I agree with your second point, but not the first.
The main reason these things matter many places in Europe is because they have different voting systems, IMHO.
The american voting system is conducive to a two party system---Simple majority voting schemes work like that.
Claims of scandal and the like go pretty far in the U.S. too.
And European politicans are just as 'crooked'.
Trust me on this
Things just tend to work out better for the people (read there are more viewpoints, and less 'points' for party affiliation) in a more sophisticated voting system than our simple majorities.
MS maybe an OS monopoly---but even that is arguable now.
MS is definetly not a monopoly in terms of non-OS/non-Office applications.
MS is definetly on its way to not being a monopoly in terms of OS/Office applications, as well.
I wish the DoJ would have done something about it sooner, but the market will do something about it anyways.
MS is probably dumping products, but it is difficult to determine what a 'legitmate' price would be, because it would neither be as high as their 'monopoly' prices in the U.S., nor as low as the 'special' discounts they have offered in some markets (Munich, for example).
Obviously, they are engaged in predatory pricing behavior.
IMHO, it is not necessary for China to regulate them away, however. IF government's simply decided to procure alternatives, instead of MS products, everything would be okay.
Please don't try and troll(not to parent, but anyone else)----You can have a perfectly usable Linux/OpenOffice.org combination for 95% of the cubicle population. It may not be as effective as MS software is, any it may even be more expensive in some situations, but it is definetly a workable solution, and I believe that in the long run it can be highly competive.
MS retains marketshare through shear inertia and predatory pricing----But even so, the winds of change have started to blow.
It just might take years, but market forces are always gradual and slow like that.
Cheers,
WhiteWolf666
Correct:
;)
Remember, the XBox 1 'runs' an 'NT kernel'
Nobody ever talks about how it only takes about ~2 megs of ram!
Obviously, they took some stuff out
You can have your greens, but I want the libertarians.
How about 46 repub, 46 democrat, 4 green, 4 libertarian?
God I would LOVE, absolutely LOVE, watching the republicans+democrats trying to sway those 8 on social and economic issues.
The compromises would be earth shattering, IMHO
I 100% agree too.
I used to feel dejected about politics too.
Hopeless, right?
Democrat/Republican are the same thing, right?
Then one of my friends (who went to college the same time as I) got a job at a local political office.
She works for the Lt. Govern of Illinois. She's an assistant press secretary or something. Strictly entry level job.
But she gets to talk to 'Pat' whenever she wants (infact, he calls her, and many other members of his staff, all the time). Her opinions certainly draw more political weight than mine do.
Sure, he's not the president, but she IS part of the process.
Politics is NOT the scary beast everything thinks it is.
Big business only rules politics because generally, in this day and age, the little people have lost interest.
A little bit of 'little' guy political activity, and you'll have divergent views appearing in the political spectrum again. The Democracts/Republicans will come to the side, and perhaps YOU (the generic you) will be able to interject something into the debate.
Sure, instant run-off voting would be nice, but the current system works, anyone can participate, and (oh god this is a terrible cliche) you CAN make a difference.
My grandmother+aunt in the U.K. feel similarly. They worked for Tony Blair's campaign. Of course, they hate him now, but that's for different reasons.
They are far more part of the political process than I have been, but if 100 people like me, or my relatives, or my friend, try to exert a small bit of influence, they can, without a terribly large expense.
Actually, it fails to load at all.
There is no shop.sco.com
They won't sell licenses, because it is arguably fradulent to sell licenses.
I was going to buy a license on my VISA card, and stop payment.
:(
They are selling me something that isn't theirs.......
In my book, that counts as 'STOLEN'. And I'm going to stop payment on this stolen property.
If everyone else does that, they will be in a WORLD of hurt.
VISA will go after them for all the charge back fees.
But...shop.sco.com is down
Just that Debian stable takes FOREVER to issue new releases.
Not that this is bad, they have their reasons.
Freenet is the sameway. The nightly builds and newer snapshots have a great deal more functionality.
Just a 'release' has not occurred yet.
Debian has reached its first release.
Freenet has not.
While they haven't necessairly done everything correctly, I still think it is an impressive project.
Also, Freenet 0.5.2.1 does work as advertised. It was just never designed to handle as large a network as Freenet has become. In order for the [larger]network to function properly, some nodes must update to newer versions. This has occurred, and now you can run Freenet 0.5.2.1 and it will work properly.
I'm not certain as to whether or not the network is as weak as its weakest link---
It seems intiutive, but I've had it explained to me (over my head) that this is not necessairly the case for Freenet. Freenet maintains anonymity for properly functioning nodes even if there are malfunctioning or malicious nodes on the network.
Don't ask me to explain how, I'm taking that answer on faith, but it could be wrong.
Not sure how nifty these devices are....
:)
But you might be able to use an air pump
Did you update it to the latest release?
I.E. running update.sh?
Very, very, very,very, very, important