"Yeah, let me just pack up my family, sell my house and all of my belongings, kiss off my friends, and break every tie that I have by deserting my country so I can go work for $12 an hour."
Yes, it is a difficult decision. One that your ancestors made coming to America in the first place.
I don't believe they would be paying you in dollars, by the way.
"To me this smacks of the classic, clueless political manuevering and bureaucractic thinking that has been devestating space exploration for the last 30+ years."
So, politics has been "devestating" to space exploration, yet you continue to have faith that someday the beaurocrats and politicians will get it right. As soon as the right people get into office, I assume, is all we need. Sure, good luck with that. Have you ever thought that the conservatives and libertarians might have a point and that the reason that 'someday' has never come is because innovation and great human advancements come despite beaurocratic interference and not because of it. Beaurocracy has its place in managing well defined slow to change systems. Not in managing the exploration of the next frontier.
"I really think America needs to go back and re-examine the Anti-Trust, the Corporation laws, and the Patent/Copyright laws. None seem to be working and it's time we stand up for ourselves and take responsibility for them not working."
The solution isn't in the laws, but rather in the power of the purse. Vote with your money and only support those corporations that you feel are dealing with you fairly and honestly. No, I'm not talking about charity here, if a company wants to raise their prices so that some of my money goes to charity, that is also a type of dishonesty in my book. I can give to my own charities, thank you. What I am talking about is knowing as much as possible about the quality of a product or service, including how it was made, and then seeing that the price that is being charged is reasonable and that no other company can make the product as well or as cheaply.
Forget laws and regulations, they only act to support the large corporations that can afford to spend the millions on laywers to stay in business. Help everyone and yourselves by knowing who you giving money to and what you are buying. If you let others decide for you, then you deserve everything that they get.
Yes, Comedy Central and Spike TV are tough to see go, but I'm a Dish network Customer and very happy at there work to keep the bottom tier package rates down.
I don't know what is really at issue at these contract negotiations, but it seems that a la carte channels is really the best of all worlds. Forget these stupid packages alltogether. I want to be able to pick which channels I get and pay individually for them, If the above poster was right about them stopping a la carte because of the difficulty of customer service, then make it an option to choose your channels on the web. Just click on the ones you want and put together your own package. If you want your channel seen by everyone, then make it free to the distributors.
go ahead, Bill, make my day.
on
Gates on Spam
·
· Score: 1
If your system is so good, just go ahead and implement it and see who wants to use it.
" Define "equitable". Search engines results aren't fundemental truths, they're the output of complicated calculations devised and presented by private companies."
I imagine many a conversation with marketing and sales at lycos/altavista/all the others started this way back in 1998.
The result was a mass exodus to google when all the others became exclusive directory services rather than search engines. A search engine is less than useless when it becomes an advertising engine.
I agree that this is a good thing at the moment, but city governments often don't act much better than commercial companies when they set themselves up as a monopoly. Eventually the tendency will be for those local utilities to compare their prices and services to other monopolies rather than the bottom line.
A competitive and free market is still the best way to insure the best value for the best service over the long term. With telephone pole space limited, it seems unlikely that wired communications will ever truly be competitive, so perhaps government sponsored utilities are the way to go, but remember when ATT ran the show on behalf of the government... they wouldn't even let someone connect their own phone to the network let alone a computer. Government sponsorship often means government regulation of content and use. If this model became popular, then how long till those restrictions that are found in a Comcast customer contract, like not hooking up any "servers" or not having multiple computers behind a firewall, suddenly have the force of criminal law rather than just contract law. It is one thing when a company can stop doing busines with you, but quite another when they can throw you in jail.
I agree with all of that, the best economy is the one where wealth is spread the most and concentrated the least. But I include governments in that statement. In the economy, governments are not much different than any other rich, powerful, monopolistic entitity.
Open Source supporters need to make this clear, that especially where the computer operating system, web browser and other software environments are concerned, that Open Source Software isn't some Socialist Utopian nonsense, but rather Open Source supports a free market for software by leveling the playing field and lowering the barriers to entry for Software Developers.
The Free market is good and Open Source Software Environments will help keep it free.
"The numbers I have indicate that the richest 1% control more than 47% of the wealth in this country"
define wealth.
Seems that most of the wealth that the rich "control" is productive wealth, which I would define for this purpose as that from which others benefit. All those stocks, bonds, and commercial real estate holdings, are the rich using their wealth in ways that create jobs for people in a sustainable way.
Most Americans' "Wealth" is wrapped up in their homes which is the kind of wealth that benefits no one other than themselves and the ocassional plumber.
"That's who this kind of system is designed to detect."
No, This effort will not be aimed at business' whose transactions are harder to track and taxable income is much harder to determine.
"LeBovidge said eventually the state will begin scrutinizing all shipments into Massachusetts to see if residents are buying items on which they should be paying a use tax."
That is where this is going. Paying Sales tax on Internet Sales.
These are taxes that are already on the books, but aren't being collected because federal law protects the sellers from having to collect sales tax and the buyers don't know or don't care that they might legally owe the tax.
And how expensive would a local roll out of highspeed internet really be? Not as much as the phone and cable companies might suggest, I imagine.
Just add up the cost of fiber, switches, and some labor to get it strung, I'm willing to bet it would work out to no more than a couple thousand per household, which could be fincanced with a city bond. And charge people individually to hook up their houses, and monthly access fees to pay off the bond. I bet someone could get it done to so as to make it work out to $30 per month for 100 Gigabit service. Just gotta take out the middleman Phone/cable companies as much as possible.
Just play online with friends on a password protected server, if you think most people are weenies. Get enough people together and make it a regular thing.
It isn't like they are distributing products from their website or have any new customers going to their website. The only place you can hurt SCO these days is in the courts, because that is where they are doing business.
Yes, it hasn't exactly come out that Caridi was actually involved with the copying of movies... just that his copies were being copied. If he just lent this guy the movies without knowing or benefiting from this financially, then Caridi as far as anyone should be concerned did nothing.
"Science is not a competitive pursuit.. it's a collaborative one."
Science and exploration are certainly competetive pursuits. As people we value things that are "first", this provides motivation to do some types of things.
It is not a bad thing to compete. In fact it is this very value of recognition that provides part of the impetus for people to share knowledge and discovery so that we can confirm and understand the accomplishment.
It is something that many don't seem to appreciate as much these days, that something can be both collaborative and competitive at the same time, to good effect.
Didn't see the Discovery channel show you mention, but if this testing wasn't done on a large enough population sample I wouldn't conclude that everyone works this way... Seems that a lot of people's body's do respond to chill at the extremities by reducing circulation, so in some people maybe it isn't just core body temperature, but also skin temperature that causes this effect. In those people any way of bringing additional warmth to the hands and feet would be of benefit. Although, seems like this method will just cause more overall heat loss providing temporary comfort to your hands.
"maglev is cheaper to run and maintain in the long run"
How the heck would anyone know? The only mag lev systems have been small and haven't been around very long... sure theoretically it is great, but if it takes Billions of dollars to prove it, then maybe you should use private money to do so.
seems common in other areas of engineering also, bridges could just be retrofitted, buildings added on to, but sometimes there are too many unknowns in engineering old structures... Are the building materials made from Asbestos, How has the structure held up after so many years? Have other modifications extended or complicated further modifications beyond that which the original plans called for? Sometimes the unknowns themselves justify building from scratch. Sure we could just keep tacking on new technologies to old, but the result will seldom be better. More often the real advancement comes from taking the knowledge gained from past experiences and applying them to new, rather than actually taking old work and trying to make it work in a new situation.
Would you really want horses running on a treadmill attached to the front of your car, just because humanity wouldn't want to throw away its previous investment in transportation technology?
"When people drive they accept the laws of the road."
Some of us actually believe we should have a democractic say in the laws that are imposed on us. When was the last time you voted on a speed limit? Or even had your elected representative vote on a speed limit? Beaurocracy and Democracy are not the same thing, one is legitamite and one is not.
It is very simple, they actually want it both ways. They want to play up the fact that they are moving to Linux, but make it clear they are not abandoning Windows. Since they still sell Windows and sell consulting services for Windows customers, they want to make it clear they aren't biased against Windows if that is what the customer wants.
Slashdot Mirror
"Yeah, let me just pack up my family, sell my house and all of my belongings, kiss off my friends, and break every tie that I have by deserting my country so I can go work for $12 an hour."
Yes, it is a difficult decision. One that your ancestors made coming to America in the first place.
I don't believe they would be paying you in dollars, by the way.
"To me this smacks of the classic, clueless political manuevering and bureaucractic thinking that has been devestating space exploration for the last 30+ years."
So, politics has been "devestating" to space exploration, yet you continue to have faith that someday the beaurocrats and politicians will get it right. As soon as the right people get into office, I assume, is all we need. Sure, good luck with that. Have you ever thought that the conservatives and libertarians might have a point and that the reason that 'someday' has never come is because innovation and great human advancements come despite beaurocratic interference and not because of it. Beaurocracy has its place in managing well defined slow to change systems. Not in managing the exploration of the next frontier.
"They are free as a society not individually."
Free to make laws to steal from individuals for what ever damn reason they please.
I was with you until this:
"I really think America needs to go back and re-examine the Anti-Trust, the Corporation laws, and the Patent/Copyright laws. None seem to be working and it's time we stand up for ourselves and take responsibility for them not working."
The solution isn't in the laws, but rather in the power of the purse. Vote with your money and only support those corporations that you feel are dealing with you fairly and honestly. No, I'm not talking about charity here, if a company wants to raise their prices so that some of my money goes to charity, that is also a type of dishonesty in my book. I can give to my own charities, thank you. What I am talking about is knowing as much as possible about the quality of a product or service, including how it was made, and then seeing that the price that is being charged is reasonable and that no other company can make the product as well or as cheaply.
Forget laws and regulations, they only act to support the large corporations that can afford to spend the millions on laywers to stay in business. Help everyone and yourselves by knowing who you giving money to and what you are buying. If you let others decide for you, then you deserve everything that they get.
Yes, Comedy Central and Spike TV are tough to see go, but I'm a Dish network Customer and very happy at there work to keep the bottom tier package rates down.
I don't know what is really at issue at these contract negotiations, but it seems that a la carte channels is really the best of all worlds. Forget these stupid packages alltogether. I want to be able to pick which channels I get and pay individually for them, If the above poster was right about them stopping a la carte because of the difficulty of customer service, then make it an option to choose your channels on the web. Just click on the ones you want and put together your own package. If you want your channel seen by everyone, then make it free to the distributors.
If your system is so good, just go ahead and implement it and see who wants to use it.
" Define "equitable". Search engines results aren't fundemental truths, they're the output of complicated calculations devised and presented by private companies."
I imagine many a conversation with marketing and sales at lycos/altavista/all the others started this way back in 1998.
The result was a mass exodus to google when all the others became exclusive directory services rather than search engines. A search engine is less than useless when it becomes an advertising engine.
I agree that this is a good thing at the moment, but city governments often don't act much better than commercial companies when they set themselves up as a monopoly. Eventually the tendency will be for those local utilities to compare their prices and services to other monopolies rather than the bottom line.
A competitive and free market is still the best way to insure the best value for the best service over the long term. With telephone pole space limited, it seems unlikely that wired communications will ever truly be competitive, so perhaps government sponsored utilities are the way to go, but remember when ATT ran the show on behalf of the government... they wouldn't even let someone connect their own phone to the network let alone a computer. Government sponsorship often means government regulation of content and use. If this model became popular, then how long till those restrictions that are found in a Comcast customer contract, like not hooking up any "servers" or not having multiple computers behind a firewall, suddenly have the force of criminal law rather than just contract law. It is one thing when a company can stop doing busines with you, but quite another when they can throw you in jail.
Is there still an industry specifically for lead production? I would have thought that they would have been bought out by Comcast by now.
I agree with all of that, the best economy is the one where wealth is spread the most and concentrated the least. But I include governments in that statement. In the economy, governments are not much different than any other rich, powerful, monopolistic entitity.
Open Source supporters need to make this clear, that especially where the computer operating system, web browser and other software environments are concerned, that Open Source Software isn't some Socialist Utopian nonsense, but rather Open Source supports a free market for software by leveling the playing field and lowering the barriers to entry for Software Developers.
The Free market is good and Open Source Software Environments will help keep it free.
"The numbers I have indicate that the richest 1% control more than 47% of the wealth in this country"
define wealth.
Seems that most of the wealth that the rich "control" is productive wealth, which I would define for this purpose as that from which others benefit. All those stocks, bonds, and commercial real estate holdings, are the rich using their wealth in ways that create jobs for people in a sustainable way.
Most Americans' "Wealth" is wrapped up in their homes which is the kind of wealth that benefits no one other than themselves and the ocassional plumber.
"That's who this kind of system is designed to detect."
No, This effort will not be aimed at business' whose transactions are harder to track and taxable income is much harder to determine.
"LeBovidge said eventually the state will begin scrutinizing all shipments into Massachusetts to see if residents are buying items on which they should be paying a use tax."
That is where this is going. Paying Sales tax on Internet Sales.
These are taxes that are already on the books, but aren't being collected because federal law protects the sellers from having to collect sales tax and the buyers don't know or don't care that they might legally owe the tax.
And how expensive would a local roll out of highspeed internet really be? Not as much as the phone and cable companies might suggest, I imagine.
Just add up the cost of fiber, switches, and some labor to get it strung, I'm willing to bet it would work out to no more than a couple thousand per household, which could be fincanced with a city bond. And charge people individually to hook up their houses, and monthly access fees to pay off the bond. I bet someone could get it done to so as to make it work out to $30 per month for 100 Gigabit service. Just gotta take out the middleman Phone/cable companies as much as possible.
Just play online with friends on a password protected server, if you think most people are weenies. Get enough people together and make it a regular thing.
"Lifetime support my ass..."
Either their lifetime or yours... whichever comes first.
Seems that in the case of many companies these days, it is theirs.
It isn't like they are distributing products from their website or have any new customers going to their website. The only place you can hurt SCO these days is in the courts, because that is where they are doing business.
Yes, it hasn't exactly come out that Caridi was actually involved with the copying of movies... just that his copies were being copied. If he just lent this guy the movies without knowing or benefiting from this financially, then Caridi as far as anyone should be concerned did nothing.
"Science is not a competitive pursuit.. it's a collaborative one."
Science and exploration are certainly competetive pursuits. As people we value things that are "first", this provides motivation to do some types of things.
It is not a bad thing to compete. In fact it is this very value of recognition that provides part of the impetus for people to share knowledge and discovery so that we can confirm and understand the accomplishment.
It is something that many don't seem to appreciate as much these days, that something can be both collaborative and competitive at the same time, to good effect.
Didn't see the Discovery channel show you mention, but if this testing wasn't done on a large enough population sample I wouldn't conclude that everyone works this way... Seems that a lot of people's body's do respond to chill at the extremities by reducing circulation, so in some people maybe it isn't just core body temperature, but also skin temperature that causes this effect. In those people any way of bringing additional warmth to the hands and feet would be of benefit. Although, seems like this method will just cause more overall heat loss providing temporary comfort to your hands.
Good point.
"maglev is cheaper to run and maintain in the long run"
How the heck would anyone know? The only mag lev systems have been small and haven't been around very long... sure theoretically it is great, but if it takes Billions of dollars to prove it, then maybe you should use private money to do so.
seems common in other areas of engineering also, bridges could just be retrofitted, buildings added on to, but sometimes there are too many unknowns in engineering old structures... Are the building materials made from Asbestos, How has the structure held up after so many years? Have other modifications extended or complicated further modifications beyond that which the original plans called for? Sometimes the unknowns themselves justify building from scratch. Sure we could just keep tacking on new technologies to old, but the result will seldom be better. More often the real advancement comes from taking the knowledge gained from past experiences and applying them to new, rather than actually taking old work and trying to make it work in a new situation.
Would you really want horses running on a treadmill attached to the front of your car, just because humanity wouldn't want to throw away its previous investment in transportation technology?
"When people drive they accept the laws of the road."
Some of us actually believe we should have a democractic say in the laws that are imposed on us. When was the last time you voted on a speed limit? Or even had your elected representative vote on a speed limit? Beaurocracy and Democracy are not the same thing, one is legitamite and one is not.
It is very simple, they actually want it both ways. They want to play up the fact that they are moving to Linux, but make it clear they are not abandoning Windows. Since they still sell Windows and sell consulting services for Windows customers, they want to make it clear they aren't biased against Windows if that is what the customer wants.