>Put that Ayn Rand book down and you'll find that some of the real issues regarding the financial problems of Eastern Europe is fraud and lack of accountability.
LOL.
Listen up, this is from a businessman's mouth to your ear: If everyone I sold a computer to brought them back in a 3 years to be replaced, I'd only be in business for 2 years, 11 months. In fact, that would be the maximum amount of time any computer retailer could possibly be in business with thinking like that, including large retailers like IBM and Dell.
It doesn't take Ayn Rand to explain that a $500 item sold with (at absolute most) $100 profit (more like $30 in the real world) can NEVER be replaced for free for all customers. The $500 item would have to be sold, at a minimum of $1000 + expenses.
Heck, let's pretend that in 3 years the parts are actually still manufactured for the old machine, and that they are being made for 400% less (by moore's law, this might be possible). Who are you going to pay to handle the returns? There's no room left for that. So, in that case, instead of a 2 year, 11 month bleed, it just takes a lot longer.
But, hey, don't let your Ayn Rand bashing get in the way of those numbers!
>A lot of people think OSX is the best desktop OS in the world, by far. Unix and beauty, together.
You'll get no argument on that from me.
However, as long as it remains Mac only, I, like most others, am simply not interested. If it were on the PC, I'd have gotten a copy the day it went on sale.
Unfortunately, as long as it remains available only on a platform that is totally out of touch with reality on open specifications, availability, and, most importantly, price for performance, it'll never touch windows sales.
Jobs is missing a huge opportunity to put the squeeze on Microsoft with OS X, again, due to his own ego. He thinks people are willing to spend a minimum of $1,000 to run his OS (the extra investment required to buy a Mac -- remember, most people who need a computer already have a PC that works for them) when I can buy the latest, greatest, windows for $150 - $300 (depending on the features I want) or use Linux for nothing. Well, he's clearly wrong, as he has been since he took his position there.
Jobs, give it up. Either make apple hardware an open standard, or port OS X to the PC. Until then, you're missing out on a huge market segment at your company's peril.
>John Sculley was a sugar water salesman (Pepsi) before he came to Apple and forced Jobs out. Apple looked okay for a while, but slowly lost importance. Then Jobs came back, and Apple became very important.
Very important? Maybe to the 0.1% of the world that's a graphic designer of some sort. Everyone else really couldn't care if every Mac on earth blew up tomorrow. I know it wouldn't affect me in the slightest.
Face it. Steve Jobs hate for John Sculley lost them what could have been Apple's coup de gras to everyone else -- he fucked the newton right up the ass to make way for his ego. Steve Jobs is why apple will always be, at the very best, #2. The reality distortion field just isn't strong enough to work on most of us.
Another obvious point is that Steve Jobs is trying to use the iPod to do what he killed in the Newton. He's noticed the opportunity he ruined, and is trying to get things back together. Too bad he's a decade late.
I think I've said this before, but if you license under the BSD license, you must like all licenses, as any license (including the GPL) can be applied to your project at any point, and any further development on that new version will be out of your hands, as far as relicensing goes.
How can you say you shun the GPL when, not so indirectly, you support it? It simply doesn't make any sense.
>"When they came for the blacks I did not help them... when they came for the gays I did not help them... when they came for the jews I did not help them... finally when they came for me, there was no to help me"
It was Martin Niemoller. I have a poster with that written on it somewhere...
It should only be illegal if they force you against your will to wear said glasses. Then again, forcing people to do things against their will is generally illegal as is.
If you wore rose coloured glasses, and the linux ads were in red but MS ones in blue, would be have to ban those too?
You need the ABIT NF7-S. It has TOSLINK out onboard, and from what I read in the manual, you should be able to get SPDIF in on one of the IDC headers on the motherboard.
Although, in windows, I must say I'm not too impressed with the reliability of the analog out (it seems to have problems on cold boots...)
>Why not route DMZ by IP rather than separate interface?
If a machine on the DMZ is hacked, the hacker will then have full access to machines that are supposed to be firewalled from the DMZ, assuming the hacker can figure out the non-DMZ subnet (easy) and change the IP address (again, easy if the box gets rooted).
>I bought my first motherboard with onboard sound recently, ECS K7SOM+
Note for slashdotters considering this motherboard: The keyboard port is not up to spec and does not support IBM Model M keyboards (I installed one for someone once). The keyboard simply won't operate, or the computer won't boot, depending on the weather. Of course, being that it is PC Chips, you can't expect too much (and they may have fixed it without mentioning it -- that's standard procedure for them).
I can't comment on the audio quality as I only tested it on a pair of $1 speakers...
>They have a snapshot of the files you shared along with a file or two or three that they received from your computer. They then sue you (or your parents or your roommate, whoever the isp has as the customer)
If easily fabricated evidence such as this can get someone in jail, how come I can't just say "Person x shot at me with a gun -- sorry, the finger prints have been wiped off and the room where he shot me demolished".
Seems to me a judge would need more than a screenshot and some pirate files coming from the accuser to blame you. Otherwise, this could make a very good insurance scandal: "Yeah, he stole the cash from the safe! See, I'm missing it! And I have his name and address! That should be enough! Now gimme my money!"
>Laughable. Join the real world one of these days. And open your mind and read a little.
If that guy spent even 1/10th of the time he has clearly spent maintaining that website on promoting it, it might mean something.
However, by choosing to be an insane hermit/kook rather that getting out and telling people (nicely), he's effectively isolated his opinions (and the opinions of a small few) to himself.
The reason why libertarianism is growing in popularity is due to the willingness of those who believe in it to simplify and explain what it means to them, and what it should mean to you. And, like all people, they make mistakes. But, despite that, far more people go to the various libertarian parties' sites per week than have ever visited that site (170k hits in 6 years? 66 hits a day does not an important site make).
Catch my drift?
The site claims to be rebutting libertarian arguments, but the first FAQ I've read spends a significant amount of time expounding on how people are wrong when they say the constitution of the US outlaws income tax. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but the fact is that libertarian views don't require income tax to be OUTLAWED, they simply state that people shouldn't have to pay such outrageously inflated income taxes for services they don't need. In fact, the feelings of most libertarians is that fewer laws are needed to get things done, not more. Outlawing a tax rather than simply choosing to limit it would simply add more complexity to an already overly complicated legal system. I put it to you that, in fact, that article could, in some ways, be considered a SUPPORT article for libertarianism.
I am a firm believer that you best lose your argument by overstating it, and boy-howdy, does that author ever overstate things. And, upon skimming, so do all the other FAQs. I'd read them as thouroughly as I've read the other one, but I'm far too busy for that.
Now, that having been said, it's always interesting to read what the other side of the fence thinks (especially, IMHO, extremist sites such as that one), and I am grateful for the link. I might spend some time writing one or two paragraph rebuttals to some of those articles if I find myself with nothing better to do.
No. But they only lost after many judges and lawyers had agreed with them (the judges being the important part -- it only takes money to convince a lawyer to take your case). And that doesn't invalidate someone trying again with better grounds (such as being hand delivered unwanted ads, rather than just having them emailed to them) and winning. In fact, IIRC, techlive just said that the only reason intel lost was because their servers hadn't experienced any harm or downtime from the spams. Just wait until the last guy with a PDP-11 on the internet gets 30k spams...
It seems this counterattack is going to be designed to disrupt regular service. And if that had been the case (Hamidi sending spams to attack intel's communications) all those years back, intel would have won, hands down.
>Most of all, libertarians don't say when or where free-speach is allowed.
So, as a libertarian, if someone is at my door selling knives, I must let them stand there and give their pitch?
Tresspass is tresspass, whether it is done in person, or done remotely.
Oh, and my theory isn't mis-guided. It's a theory many lawyers and judges have accepted as fact, and it is based on a 400 year old law making tresspass to chattels illegal. For more information (and proof) look up Intel vs. Hamidi. And yes, I disagree with the EFF here. In fact, you would be misguided to dismiss it out of hand, as it seems you have. My land, my equipment, my property, MY CONTROL.
I think you'll find my.sig very relevant to this discussion (or perhaps not).
>The real question is when will we as citizens and people realize how this consumerism is destroying or society and cultures and stop putting up with it.
When we decide we want to live in caves again?
Without people selling you stuff, you'd only have available to you what your skills can produce. Can you build good furniture? Can you build a stereo? Can you build a phone? Can you build (as in, from the transistors up) a computer? A fan? A heater? Hell, with your current skills can you even be sure that you'd have running water?
Giving up consumerism means every man must learn everything. If it takes 7 years to get a PhD in something, and a year to become expert at building it, the average man will only accomplish 8 things in their lifetime (well, actually about 3 unless you learn to operate on yourself).
And, before I hear we could become communists/socialists, consider this: ANY time you take ANYTHING from someone else, in exchange for anything (in the case of communism, in exchange for your labour, indirectly), you are consuming (in the economic sense).
Now, that all being said, people selling you stuff doesn't ALWAYS mean people advertising to you. It's just a byproduct of the process, and it's your job to decide where the limit is with your wallet.
>Now libertarians tend to be intelligent and intelligent people tend to hate advertising, so how do you reconcile?
Just because one is a libertarian doesn't mean one must feel compelled to be forced to listen when one doesn't want to.
Everyone has the right to decide what free speech they want to hear, and when. The only time the libertarian ideology says that free speech shouldn't be prevented is when it is done on public property (and, in a libertarian country, there wouldn't be all that much of that now, would there?).
So:
- Government workers receiving spam at work against their will = A-OK
- Governemnt worker receiving spam at home against their will = Trespass
Catch the difference? Your free speech goes as far as the edge of my land -- after that you have to ask my permission.
...and do it on timenext time if I had a certificate. Then again, I don't know if I'd really want to give useless parcel service my name and number for a permanent database.
Call it what you like but the willingness of people to use stupidity taxes (example: Being a car mechanic) is what has made most countries as good as they are today.
You need _some_ reason to get off your ass and learn how to do something. Money is just a good motivator. And the lazy ones that don't? It's just darwinism in action.
When you don't need to finance connecting customers, paying for support staff and technicians, and your only cost is variable (increased bandwidth usage charged by the terabyte of whatever speakeasy pays for it in bulk), it only makes sense to get people on this deal.
No line rental costs means more profit. No additional admin staff means even more profit. Lowering prices to the point that people who normally would have bought a money losing dialup connection swtich and still making oodles of dough? Pure genius.
Slashdot Mirror
>Put that Ayn Rand book down and you'll find that some of the real issues regarding the financial problems of Eastern Europe is fraud and lack of accountability.
LOL.
Listen up, this is from a businessman's mouth to your ear: If everyone I sold a computer to brought them back in a 3 years to be replaced, I'd only be in business for 2 years, 11 months. In fact, that would be the maximum amount of time any computer retailer could possibly be in business with thinking like that, including large retailers like IBM and Dell.
It doesn't take Ayn Rand to explain that a $500 item sold with (at absolute most) $100 profit (more like $30 in the real world) can NEVER be replaced for free for all customers. The $500 item would have to be sold, at a minimum of $1000 + expenses.
Heck, let's pretend that in 3 years the parts are actually still manufactured for the old machine, and that they are being made for 400% less (by moore's law, this might be possible). Who are you going to pay to handle the returns? There's no room left for that. So, in that case, instead of a 2 year, 11 month bleed, it just takes a lot longer.
But, hey, don't let your Ayn Rand bashing get in the way of those numbers!
>A lot of people think OSX is the best desktop OS in the world, by far. Unix and beauty, together.
You'll get no argument on that from me.
However, as long as it remains Mac only, I, like most others, am simply not interested. If it were on the PC, I'd have gotten a copy the day it went on sale.
Unfortunately, as long as it remains available only on a platform that is totally out of touch with reality on open specifications, availability, and, most importantly, price for performance, it'll never touch windows sales.
Jobs is missing a huge opportunity to put the squeeze on Microsoft with OS X, again, due to his own ego. He thinks people are willing to spend a minimum of $1,000 to run his OS (the extra investment required to buy a Mac -- remember, most people who need a computer already have a PC that works for them) when I can buy the latest, greatest, windows for $150 - $300 (depending on the features I want) or use Linux for nothing. Well, he's clearly wrong, as he has been since he took his position there.
Jobs, give it up. Either make apple hardware an open standard, or port OS X to the PC. Until then, you're missing out on a huge market segment at your company's peril.
>John Sculley was a sugar water salesman (Pepsi) before he came to Apple and forced Jobs out. Apple looked okay for a while, but slowly lost importance. Then Jobs came back, and Apple became very important.
Very important? Maybe to the 0.1% of the world that's a graphic designer of some sort. Everyone else really couldn't care if every Mac on earth blew up tomorrow. I know it wouldn't affect me in the slightest.
Face it. Steve Jobs hate for John Sculley lost them what could have been Apple's coup de gras to everyone else -- he fucked the newton right up the ass to make way for his ego. Steve Jobs is why apple will always be, at the very best, #2. The reality distortion field just isn't strong enough to work on most of us.
Another obvious point is that Steve Jobs is trying to use the iPod to do what he killed in the Newton. He's noticed the opportunity he ruined, and is trying to get things back together. Too bad he's a decade late.
I think I've said this before, but if you license under the BSD license, you must like all licenses, as any license (including the GPL) can be applied to your project at any point, and any further development on that new version will be out of your hands, as far as relicensing goes.
How can you say you shun the GPL when, not so indirectly, you support it? It simply doesn't make any sense.
>"When they came for the blacks I did not help them... when they came for the gays I did not help them... when they came for the jews I did not help them... finally when they came for me, there was no to help me"
It was Martin Niemoller. I have a poster with that written on it somewhere...
It should only be illegal if they force you against your will to wear said glasses. Then again, forcing people to do things against their will is generally illegal as is.
If you wore rose coloured glasses, and the linux ads were in red but MS ones in blue, would be have to ban those too?
You need the ABIT NF7-S. It has TOSLINK out onboard, and from what I read in the manual, you should be able to get SPDIF in on one of the IDC headers on the motherboard.
Although, in windows, I must say I'm not too impressed with the reliability of the analog out (it seems to have problems on cold boots...)
>Why not route DMZ by IP rather than separate interface?
If a machine on the DMZ is hacked, the hacker will then have full access to machines that are supposed to be firewalled from the DMZ, assuming the hacker can figure out the non-DMZ subnet (easy) and change the IP address (again, easy if the box gets rooted).
>I bought my first motherboard with onboard sound recently, ECS K7SOM+
Note for slashdotters considering this motherboard: The keyboard port is not up to spec and does not support IBM Model M keyboards (I installed one for someone once). The keyboard simply won't operate, or the computer won't boot, depending on the weather. Of course, being that it is PC Chips, you can't expect too much (and they may have fixed it without mentioning it -- that's standard procedure for them).
I can't comment on the audio quality as I only tested it on a pair of $1 speakers...
>They have a snapshot of the files you shared along with a file or two or three that they received from your computer. They then sue you (or your parents or your roommate, whoever the isp has as the customer)
If easily fabricated evidence such as this can get someone in jail, how come I can't just say "Person x shot at me with a gun -- sorry, the finger prints have been wiped off and the room where he shot me demolished".
Seems to me a judge would need more than a screenshot and some pirate files coming from the accuser to blame you. Otherwise, this could make a very good insurance scandal: "Yeah, he stole the cash from the safe! See, I'm missing it! And I have his name and address! That should be enough! Now gimme my money!"
The odds of a mismatch are 1 in 100,000.
This means that in the USA, if everyone was on record, every single DNA sample would return up to 3,000 false positives.
Coming to think of it, I think it might be a good idea if everyone were on record! Then the database would be absolutely USELESS!
>It's shame that Free-X appears not to give a flying pig's arse about the intellectual rights of those who develop software for Xbox.
Intellectual rights extend to the point that authors have a right to choose what font files can and can't be loaded with their software?
What's next, xerox deciding what I can and can't print on their paper?
>Laughable. Join the real world one of these days. And open your mind and read a little.
If that guy spent even 1/10th of the time he has clearly spent maintaining that website on promoting it, it might mean something.
However, by choosing to be an insane hermit/kook rather that getting out and telling people (nicely), he's effectively isolated his opinions (and the opinions of a small few) to himself.
The reason why libertarianism is growing in popularity is due to the willingness of those who believe in it to simplify and explain what it means to them, and what it should mean to you. And, like all people, they make mistakes. But, despite that, far more people go to the various libertarian parties' sites per week than have ever visited that site (170k hits in 6 years? 66 hits a day does not an important site make).
Catch my drift?
The site claims to be rebutting libertarian arguments, but the first FAQ I've read spends a significant amount of time expounding on how people are wrong when they say the constitution of the US outlaws income tax. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but the fact is that libertarian views don't require income tax to be OUTLAWED, they simply state that people shouldn't have to pay such outrageously inflated income taxes for services they don't need. In fact, the feelings of most libertarians is that fewer laws are needed to get things done, not more. Outlawing a tax rather than simply choosing to limit it would simply add more complexity to an already overly complicated legal system. I put it to you that, in fact, that article could, in some ways, be considered a SUPPORT article for libertarianism.
I am a firm believer that you best lose your argument by overstating it, and boy-howdy, does that author ever overstate things. And, upon skimming, so do all the other FAQs. I'd read them as thouroughly as I've read the other one, but I'm far too busy for that.
Now, that having been said, it's always interesting to read what the other side of the fence thinks (especially, IMHO, extremist sites such as that one), and I am grateful for the link. I might spend some time writing one or two paragraph rebuttals to some of those articles if I find myself with nothing better to do.
>Were you suggesting otherwise?
No. But they only lost after many judges and lawyers had agreed with them (the judges being the important part -- it only takes money to convince a lawyer to take your case). And that doesn't invalidate someone trying again with better grounds (such as being hand delivered unwanted ads, rather than just having them emailed to them) and winning. In fact, IIRC, techlive just said that the only reason intel lost was because their servers hadn't experienced any harm or downtime from the spams. Just wait until the last guy with a PDP-11 on the internet gets 30k spams...
It seems this counterattack is going to be designed to disrupt regular service. And if that had been the case (Hamidi sending spams to attack intel's communications) all those years back, intel would have won, hands down.
>Free speech doesn't really obey property lines, nor is your mis-guided theory a tenet of libertarianism.
.sig very relevant to this discussion (or perhaps not).
If that were true, then this would be pointless.
>Most of all, libertarians don't say when or where free-speach is allowed.
So, as a libertarian, if someone is at my door selling knives, I must let them stand there and give their pitch?
Tresspass is tresspass, whether it is done in person, or done remotely.
Oh, and my theory isn't mis-guided. It's a theory many lawyers and judges have accepted as fact, and it is based on a 400 year old law making tresspass to chattels illegal. For more information (and proof) look up Intel vs. Hamidi. And yes, I disagree with the EFF here. In fact, you would be misguided to dismiss it out of hand, as it seems you have. My land, my equipment, my property, MY CONTROL.
I think you'll find my
>The real question is when will we as citizens and people realize how this consumerism is destroying or society and cultures and stop putting up with it.
When we decide we want to live in caves again?
Without people selling you stuff, you'd only have available to you what your skills can produce. Can you build good furniture? Can you build a stereo? Can you build a phone? Can you build (as in, from the transistors up) a computer? A fan? A heater? Hell, with your current skills can you even be sure that you'd have running water?
Giving up consumerism means every man must learn everything. If it takes 7 years to get a PhD in something, and a year to become expert at building it, the average man will only accomplish 8 things in their lifetime (well, actually about 3 unless you learn to operate on yourself).
And, before I hear we could become communists/socialists, consider this: ANY time you take ANYTHING from someone else, in exchange for anything (in the case of communism, in exchange for your labour, indirectly), you are consuming (in the economic sense).
Now, that all being said, people selling you stuff doesn't ALWAYS mean people advertising to you. It's just a byproduct of the process, and it's your job to decide where the limit is with your wallet.
>Now libertarians tend to be intelligent and intelligent people tend to hate advertising, so how do you reconcile?
Just because one is a libertarian doesn't mean one must feel compelled to be forced to listen when one doesn't want to.
Everyone has the right to decide what free speech they want to hear, and when. The only time the libertarian ideology says that free speech shouldn't be prevented is when it is done on public property (and, in a libertarian country, there wouldn't be all that much of that now, would there?).
So:
- Government workers receiving spam at work against their will = A-OK
- Governemnt worker receiving spam at home against their will = Trespass
Catch the difference? Your free speech goes as far as the edge of my land -- after that you have to ask my permission.
USPS may trash any Bulk Mail they don't wish to deliver (that's why it's bulk, apart from the sorting).
I doubt they want to deliver your returned to sender ads, sorry.
Where's delete comment when you need it?
Must read titles more closely next time... Sorry.
...and do it on time next time if I had a certificate. Then again, I don't know if I'd really want to give useless parcel service my name and number for a permanent database.
First with TVs (SECAM = System Essentially Contrary to the American Method), now with WiFi.
You French never quit, do you?
XBOX Controller + USB adapter cable: $30
USB plate (to match XBOXes 4 ports): $10
Ability to start a game right away without hassle: Priceless...
>Or just being a dick?
Call it what you like but the willingness of people to use stupidity taxes (example: Being a car mechanic) is what has made most countries as good as they are today.
You need _some_ reason to get off your ass and learn how to do something. Money is just a good motivator. And the lazy ones that don't? It's just darwinism in action.
Zero fixed costs.
When you don't need to finance connecting customers, paying for support staff and technicians, and your only cost is variable (increased bandwidth usage charged by the terabyte of whatever speakeasy pays for it in bulk), it only makes sense to get people on this deal.
No line rental costs means more profit. No additional admin staff means even more profit. Lowering prices to the point that people who normally would have bought a money losing dialup connection swtich and still making oodles of dough? Pure genius.
>What kind of ethics cause one to intentionally run a open access point and then charge someone who doesn't 'get' it?
A strong belief in Darwinian Selection?