Re:Spam is dead for me.
on
Spam is Dead
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· Score: 1
Hows that for a useless "me too" post?
No such thing if its for a minority opinion:)
Spam is dead for me.
on
Spam is Dead
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· Score: 3, Informative
I've had an e-mail address for over 15 years. My spam in the past 2 months is less than I had 10 years ago.
I post my main address unobfuscated on/. and 25 other public forums. My signal to noise ratio is 100:1. In 5 days I received about 200 real e-mails and 3 spam.
I gave up hosting my own e-mail late last year. I moved all my employees and family to gmail. I'm saving $4000 annually in labor and maybe $4000 in hardware, software and bandwidth.
With giving up my corporate domain name address I'm giving up headaches and spam.
I'm an "amateur" Austrian economist and I'll disagree completely.
I see zero to negative growth in 30 years, with emphasis on negative.
My opinions:
1. The Fed (central bank) has overinflated the currency base big time since 1971 (see M3 money figures from my link below my UID). This has led to huge cost of living increases, with wages never keeping up.
2. Home ownership in terms of equity is down drastically due to higher costs and easy credit (Fed induced).
3. Household work-hours have grown over those 35 years to keep up.
4. Savings is down to near 0%. Savings (not spending) drives the economy in the safest manner. Our economy was driven by debt, loaned by our nations.
I was up at 5, worked 3 hours (plus 1 hour of drive time) and earned my overhead for 2 weeks.
Home by 11. I had a meeting with my neighbors (all self-employed or retired) about taking over a lot across the street to build a private supervised playground and sitting garden (previous neighbor moved his house out).
I cooked lunch on my grill (its 50 degrees in Chicago) and ate it outside while updating my blogs and taking phone calls from my blog readers.
Now I'm outside still with my laptop writing My February edition of my newsletter (2000+ subscribers).
Actually, the first posts I've received have actually been mostly by luck. 99% of my posts come from my PDA over a cell modem connection. The latency generally is VERY high (there have been times when it has taken almost 50 seconds for a submit to be processed and loaded).
Recently T-Mobile upgraded my network from a terrible slow and high latency GPRS connection to a pseudo-broadband EDGE connection -- effectively taking me from 2k/s:1k/s DN/UP to 150k/s:40k/s DN/UP.
Also, since I read mostly from my PDA, I use an RSS reader/aggregator to keep my updated on my favorite blogs (such as slashdot). When a new story comes up (for subscribers) our RSS feed still pulls it down -- giving me time to read the article before its slashdotted. I can also type (slowly) a story in advance so I can get in the conversation. Reading and posting from my PDA is not as time consuming as doing so from my PC -- I can do other things in between stories and conversations. Productive and fun.
Don't like me? Add me as a foe, strike foes down -5. Even if I manage to get +5 moderated, you'll likely not see me.
We regulars at slashdot have found seven questions that will cause every computer taking the Turing test to fail:
1. Will it run Linux? 2. Why isn't there a law protecting us from [insert gripe here]? 3. When will Duke Nukem Forever be released and will it support Copland? 4. How can I enhance my sex organ's size? 5. How can I write a DRM scheme that can't be broken? 6. How can I protect my PIN number when I send it over AIM messenger to use at the ATM machine?
Yes! I loooooove it when a Subscriber gets first post! You pay for what we get for free!!!
You can thank my RSS reader for that, not the subscription.
Oh, and I don't pay for all my subscription points, I've actually received a few gift subscriptions from others -- so how does that affect your comment?
For years I worked on a viable PC-for-the-car. This is before Microsoft had their operating system (failure) for car stereos, and before the CarPC was even a thought by the designer. My biggest problem was finding a cheap, small and capable 12DC-DC power supply. Even a few years ago they were basically impossible to find.
I'm glad to see there is now a market for these power supplies (although I'm sure this isn't for car applications). I wonder how efficient it is -- and how much heat it gives off. The article was a bit...sparse.
I miss my old car PC -- 8 years ago it could do so much more than anything else I've seen. Considering how much time I wasted, I wish I kept all the software and code.
The feminist movement, to me, has really gotten it into some peoples' heads that the woman deserves equal treatment except, of course, in cases of courtesy (say, holding open a door or women and children in lifeboats) which has the adverse affect of making men 2nd class citizens
I agree. A bunch of years back I wrote a (free) book that I'm converting to an e-book now -- a guide to dating (mostly for geek guys). One of my premises was this point -- that modern women want everything a man has, but the also want everything a man used to offer. I was berated OFTEN by women who got a hold of my "for men only" book, but the majority of them would recant their anger after a few weeks -- they knew I was right.
Not only do they not share many of your interests, scream when you want to hang out your friends, have all these expensive/time-consuming "we" projects that "I" end up doing alone, and possibly have a mother-in-law like Fred Flintstone's on top of the standard emotional roller coaster a relationship puts you on
Exactly. This is one aspect that my guide was very vocal about -- putting the woman through the test before committing. It amazes me how many sissies we have that don't realize that dating is the man testing the woman, not vice versa.
They're more able to cheat on you and because of fucked up divorce laws still leave them with the house and full custody of the kids with mandatory financial support from you.
Which is why it is important to give them a test drive before marriage. I wrote about a bunch of basic "get out" warning signals for dating. If I didn't follow the points myself, I'd be miserable.
Christ, by the time that all goes through you could be homeless, penniless, deep in debt, out of work, unable to see your kids, and basically fucked for life. Is it any wonder some of us are more cautious than ever? Hey, I might be cynical but I am never going to open up to being on the receiving end of that sort of mess until I am damned sure.
You're one of maybe 3% of the men out there that realize this. You give me more drive to finish converting my e-book:)
Yeah, its ok though. Any time you offer that there is an actual difference between the sexes, you're liable to get flamebaited. That's why opinions like mine are kept quiet. I'm lucky that I've met the right women in my life -- always strong, but always knowing that their genes are more powerful than their dreams.
As to the rest of your post -- you're 100% spot on. Just because some women "succeed" in the places men have generally performed best doesn't mean it is true for everyone. There are some good stay-at-home dads, too, but genetically I don't believe we're as capable.
Good to know I'm not alone in my beliefs, even if you're not 100% certain:)
Increased bandwidth usuage (some people get billed for this you know)
I get unlimited wireless EDGE bandwidth through T-Mobile for under $20 per month. Unlimited. Always on. Everywhere I go.
Increased storage requirements (hard drives are not free)
That's why you bounce and erase SPAM. Don't keep it. If you base your income on receiving e-mails, you're part of the problem.
Increased system overhead (processors and RAM aren't free either)
Considering my corporate e-mail server I used to run was an ancient PC running Linux and a dedicated IP, it cost me almost nothing.
Anti-Spam software is not free.
Really? I dumping my dedicated domain name and e-mail server and joined up with gmail. It is free. My address is posted everywhere, not obfuscated, even here on slashdot. I receive 1-2 SPAM e-mails a day in my Inbox. I pay nothing for it.
My time to delete your unwanted messages is not free. (I bill 150+ per hour)
I bill double that. I spend 0 minutes a day deleting the two SPAM e-mails I get.
I will save nearly US$4000 this year dumping my corporate server and putting all my employees on gmail. We don't need "memorable logod" e-mail addresses. We need functionality, which running our own server did not offer. The US$4000 a year I'm saving will give everyone a little extra cash in their pocket.
Spam saved me US$4000 a year. How? I learned I can't battle it myself, so I reviewed my time preference when it came to spam and realized other people did a better job, cheaper.
So you see, your free market business is in fact costing me a nice chunk of change when viewed on a montly reoccuring basis.
Don't blame me if you're still living in the 90s. You're doing a job that some schmuck in Asia should be doing for you, for free -- sorting your inbox.
Materialism is not good for the economy -- only savings brings true wealth. America has grown not due to increased productivity but due to increased currency. In the next few years, we'll learn the same lessons that Japan learned 10 years ago -- savings brings wealth, not fiat currency inflation.
As a society, we are poorer and have to work longer and harder. We believe that we are wealthier because we see such huge numbers for salaries and housing costs and the rest -- but we are actually poorer when you consider that the average household owns 6% of their home versus 50% just 30 years ago. The average household doesn't even own their car (leasing) versus buying it for cash 30 years ago. The average household has 2 people working for one 1 person could bring home 30 years ago. The average household has more junk, but less wealth.
I backed out of that system. I make 50% of what I made 3 years ago, but I travel more, live better, and am far happier. Six figure salary brought me nothing but fear, frustration and all that. I found I can live better on less.
Haha, I'm not sure if you're kidding or not, but in the long run, it is self-fulfilling. Isn't it funny how the only companies who can make crappy products and still stay in business are those who receive protectionist treatment (tariffs, subsidies, labor laws) -- look at GM as an example.
What is funny about women working is that we're seeing a decrease lately (as the feminist movement thankfully is collapsing on itself).
Did you guys know that as women started to work, wages dropped? Look at it this way: wages are a direct supply-and-demand issue. If an industry needs workers, they'll pay more to attract people into the business. If an industry has an over-abundance of workers, wages drop.
When women entered the workforce, we found a HUGE increase in the supply of workers. A high supply means wages drop. Women (in general) were new to the workplace, so of course their wages were less -- the market didn't know how they'd perform.
Over time, women earned better salaries by being better workers. Yet many businesses found that training women who might quit (to raise a family) was a losing venture, so women generally made less than men. This is for good reason, as training is very expensive. Laws were passed by the feminist outcry about imbalanced pay, which forced employers to pay equally even if they might lose out in the long run -- causing jobs to be harder to get for women (employers knew they'd have to pay more for possibly less return). Over time, as the family and the home suffered, and as wages dropped due to the abundance of available workers, women started to see the feminist fault in "equal work, equal pay" and also leaving the home.
Another funny situation was that college had more women than men, and that men generally don't want to marry women who earn more (or are smarter). I see MANY ff my female friends (we're in our 30s) with college degrees single and frustrated. One of my best friends actually lies now -- she doesn't admit to the degree or her income.
Over time, you'll see fewer women in the workplace than we saw in the 70s-90s. You'll also see fewer women attending college to learn a career.
Weird how hormones and natural instinct overcome stupid laws and stupid movements.
(FWIW my better half lives to work, but we don't plan on having kids)
You do realise that the people who even know, let alone care, probably only make up 0.1% of the ITMS customer base, if that?
Which is why Apple didn't have any reason to make it opt-out. They figured they could better provide for their customers (99.9%) by putting everyone in the program, especially since they disclosed it at the time of release.
Nothing was sold, nothing was kept. What's the problem, right?
If you ask me it represents perfectly the typical hypocracy of current day right-wing America.
I'm no right winger, I'm just offering my point of view. I would never force my point of view on you through law, but that is what you want to do to me -- force your point of view by making a law. Left wing, right wing, they're both part of the same side of the coin actually: the authoritarian side. I'm an anarchocapitalist, I'm on the other side of that coin.
For starters, how is a child meant to learn how to live a full independant life if (especially when they reach their teens) they have to first check off with their parents everywhere they go and everyone they speak to. Doesn't sound like the raising of a very 'free' generation.
Freedom does not mean freedom from your parents -- it means freedom from tyranny. Or did you forget that the Constitution just tells government what rights they can't take away from the governed? A child does not have a freedom of speech to say anything to their parents, they aren't free from search (and seizure) that their parents determine is correct. Children who learn that their parents must PARENT will be the same children who end up being good parents.
Also, you state that one parent should always be at home so that you don't have to subsidise other peoples child care, but having a prent at home to supervise children IS highly subsidised individual child care. Half the pricey sick-pay laws in this country centre around the case that if the primary income earner is off-work the household has no incomings.
I don't believe in sick-pay laws or any regulations forcing businesses to give employees anything. This is part of the problem -- people feel they can push the risk in life off to others, and the costs rise for everyone.
We pay 50% of our household incomes to government. This has doubled in 25 years. 25 years ago one parent could afford to stay home, but Nixon to Bush2 and everyone in between continually find ways to provide less risk for the household at significantly more cost than doing it alone.
The Internet has changed everything regarding bartering and trade. Up until 1995, I believe one could argue (and win) the debate on using regulations to keep businesses honest.
Now that we have near perfect instantaneous group communication, we've opened the doorway to not needing anything but consumer power to control companies, even the biggest companies such as Apple.
If a company performs some act -- faithfully or greedily -- that consumers don't like, you can expect the fact to be released where in the past it might have been kept secret (the media isn't very pro-consumer). We wonder why newspapers and magazines are dying -- they have advertisers to keep happy. The web lets everyone get information out that is important to them, and if enough people have a problem with a company, that negative information will gain steam quickly.
Apple did try to hedge against this outcry, as the article says, by providing the facts for those interested in them. Should Apple have performed an opt-in program rather than an opt-out? Yes. Do we need laws and regulations to force them? No -- they'll learn from this situation.
If Apple doesn't learn a lesson from consumer fallout, someone else will. There are already iTunes replacement programs out there -- provided out of voluntary methods (capitalism) rather than coercive methods (mercantilism and socialism).
Be glad that we have the Internet, it will soon allow us to back out of all the pro-corporation regulations that we're paying good tax dollars to enforce.
Oh please, like some parent stands a chance against all those marketers sloshing their emails, and their kids email boxes full of porn and other adult-only products.
WHITE LIST. How hard is it? I help parents at my church set up e-mail accounts for the kids, and there are numerous services that let you set a white list and then lock it out completely. If you want to go further, you can set up white lists for browsing, or join an ISP that white lists content for your kids.
Yea, but accidents do happen as well as unexpected financial difficulties like being laid off from your job due to catastrophic events like 911, Katrina,.com bubble, etc.
Those are not accidents, those are irresponsibilities. Trust me, I am no saint, but I was always safe. If you make an irresponsible decision, you have to live with it by cutting back on your spending, and focusing on your child. I know many irresponsible parents who still buy themselves toys and TVs and movies and CDs and all the junk -- while their kid is basically raised by the State.
Thanks - now I need to join a church to have a family. Thanks for pushing your religious republican views on me
I'm anarchocapitalist and not republican. I'm not a Christian either, so I don't push my views on people. I said church OR community group. If you aren't religious, you can join a community group to help raise your children together, without the teacher's unions or the No Child Left Behind act getting in your way (or taxing me).
No, raising a child - at no point - means having one parent at home. That is a luxary some families have, but many do not. Also, you cannot assume each family is frivolously spending money on toys, cars, vacations, etc before spending money on their childrens clothing, food and education.
Come on, every family COULD have a parent home. Want to know why 2 parents have to work? Tax burden. In 20 years our household tax burden has gone from 30% to 50%! When the household pays 30% in tax burden, one parent can afford to stay home. With all the new nanny programs, we pay 50% of our income to government, so both parents have to work. What a nice conundru,. Also, most families on welfare have excess. I know, I help at my church's monthly "help the poor" weekend. I can't believe the things I see poor people owning -- cars, new clothes, cell phones, even new PSPs. And they're there to get freebies to compensate for their inability to stop spending and start saving.
Duh we know that, but life is life and sometimes kids will slip away. Also, you need to be able to let your kids wander on their own at times so they learn on their own.
Where did you get that from? Kids don't have to be free to wander, that's a myth. Kids wander freely in public school, and look how they turn out. If you're part of a community group focused on raising kids, your kids will have all the freedom they need. Nonetheless, you should know where they are and who they are with. This is a job of a parent, not the police or the justice system or the public nanny/education system.
AK-47, fully auto, with laser sight and sniper scope so they can go kill obliterate a herd of pigeons off their back yard.
Hey, I shot an AK-47 in Vegas a few weeks ago. I can completely see it being used for defense (especially when tyranny comes to take our rights away completely).
You're right here, to a point. Parents who trust clergy or youth pastors to be alone with their kids are idiots.
I've been working on putting some of my time into mentoring kids. Guess what? I never EVER am alone with them. It isn't because I can't be trusted, it is so they don't lie.
I've seen VERY successful home schooling programs in my community. One program is about 50 parent-couples who share the responsibility. They do a science day where 3 parents are the teachers (together) for the entire group, a math day, a writing day, etc. They share the burden, but never are alone with the kids.
I would never let my kid be alone with an adult -- ever. In a church I attend the pastor's kid was abused by a grandparent! These things happen, you have to be smart and be secure in advance. Why should I trust anyone, even a "good Christian."
Do it on your own dime...my bandwidth and server space cost me money. Funny how you're all for the "free market" until one of its finer points inconveniences you.
Good, it costs YOU money. YOUR bandwidth and YOUR server don't cost ME money.
Make a law, and it does.
Sorry, but the free market requires that you maintain the items you own. Running a server requires paying for securing that server from attacks -- including e-mail spam attacks. Laws won't stop them. Again, the free market works.
Slashdot Mirror
Hows that for a useless "me too" post?
:)
No such thing if its for a minority opinion
I've had an e-mail address for over 15 years. My spam in the past 2 months is less than I had 10 years ago.
I post my main address unobfuscated on
I gave up hosting my own e-mail late last year. I moved all my employees and family to gmail. I'm saving $4000 annually in labor and maybe $4000 in hardware, software and bandwidth.
With giving up my corporate domain name address I'm giving up headaches and spam.
Try it, you'll love it.
I'm an "amateur" Austrian economist and I'll disagree completely.
I see zero to negative growth in 30 years, with emphasis on negative.
My opinions:
1. The Fed (central bank) has overinflated the currency base big time since 1971 (see M3 money figures from my link below my UID). This has led to huge cost of living increases, with wages never keeping up.
2. Home ownership in terms of equity is down drastically due to higher costs and easy credit (Fed induced).
3. Household work-hours have grown over those 35 years to keep up.
4. Savings is down to near 0%. Savings (not spending) drives the economy in the safest manner. Our economy was driven by debt, loaned by our nations.
We're poorer as a society.
Awesome site. Loads and looks great on my PDA.
Questions:
1. Do you need a CDL to drive it?
2. Annual insurance costs?
3. How much are buses (in working condition)?
I'm contemplating starting an scheduled on-the-go retail chain for big areas with small towns. This would be perfect.
unlike the Media PC from Microsoft that keeps you from doing just about anything with your recorded shows.
Except watch them.
I've run MCE from day 1. I have a great HT-LAN at my homes, and it never fails. I'm very happy, so is the wife.
I've tried Myth on 7 platforms over the past 2 years or so. Ugh. Frustration on top of anger. No thanks.
I hear they've come a long way, so I'll try again soon. I'm a geek, and the problems I've had were commonly found on forums -- without solutions.
MS' MCE tech support has fixed all my glitches over the phone in a day or less.
That's life passing you by.
If you knew me, you'd laugh at your comment.
I was up at 5, worked 3 hours (plus 1 hour of drive time) and earned my overhead for 2 weeks.
Home by 11. I had a meeting with my neighbors (all self-employed or retired) about taking over a lot across the street to build a private supervised playground and sitting garden (previous neighbor moved his house out).
I cooked lunch on my grill (its 50 degrees in Chicago) and ate it outside while updating my blogs and taking phone calls from my blog readers.
Now I'm outside still with my laptop writing My February edition of my newsletter (2000+ subscribers).
What did you do today?
Heh, that's funny.
Actually, the first posts I've received have actually been mostly by luck. 99% of my posts come from my PDA over a cell modem connection. The latency generally is VERY high (there have been times when it has taken almost 50 seconds for a submit to be processed and loaded).
Recently T-Mobile upgraded my network from a terrible slow and high latency GPRS connection to a pseudo-broadband EDGE connection -- effectively taking me from 2k/s:1k/s DN/UP to 150k/s:40k/s DN/UP.
Also, since I read mostly from my PDA, I use an RSS reader/aggregator to keep my updated on my favorite blogs (such as slashdot). When a new story comes up (for subscribers) our RSS feed still pulls it down -- giving me time to read the article before its slashdotted. I can also type (slowly) a story in advance so I can get in the conversation. Reading and posting from my PDA is not as time consuming as doing so from my PC -- I can do other things in between stories and conversations. Productive and fun.
Don't like me? Add me as a foe, strike foes down -5. Even if I manage to get +5 moderated, you'll likely not see me.
We regulars at slashdot have found seven questions that will cause every computer taking the Turing test to fail:
1. Will it run Linux?
2. Why isn't there a law protecting us from [insert gripe here]?
3. When will Duke Nukem Forever be released and will it support Copland?
4. How can I enhance my sex organ's size?
5. How can I write a DRM scheme that can't be broken?
6. How can I protect my PIN number when I send it over AIM messenger to use at the ATM machine?
and the hardest question asked on slashdot:
7. ??? (usually followed by "Profit!")
Poor Larry is just spinning his wheels...
Yes! I loooooove it when a Subscriber gets first post! You pay for what we get for free!!!
You can thank my RSS reader for that, not the subscription.
Oh, and I don't pay for all my subscription points, I've actually received a few gift subscriptions from others -- so how does that affect your comment?
For years I worked on a viable PC-for-the-car. This is before Microsoft had their operating system (failure) for car stereos, and before the CarPC was even a thought by the designer. My biggest problem was finding a cheap, small and capable 12DC-DC power supply. Even a few years ago they were basically impossible to find.
A /id.417/.f
i le=article&sid=718
e r_supply_-_the_picoPSU
I'm glad to see there is now a market for these power supplies (although I'm sure this isn't for car applications). I wonder how efficient it is -- and how much heat it gives off. The article was a bit...sparse.
I miss my old car PC -- 8 years ago it could do so much more than anything else I've seen. Considering how much time I wasted, I wish I kept all the software and code.
A couple more links to the picoPSU:
http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.13/it.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/01/07/pico_psu/
http://www.epiacenter.com/modules.php?name=News&f
http://www.realtechnews.com/page/2/
And, of course: http://www.digg.com/hardware/World_s_smallest_pow
The feminist movement, to me, has really gotten it into some peoples' heads that the woman deserves equal treatment except, of course, in cases of courtesy (say, holding open a door or women and children in lifeboats) which has the adverse affect of making men 2nd class citizens
:)
I agree. A bunch of years back I wrote a (free) book that I'm converting to an e-book now -- a guide to dating (mostly for geek guys). One of my premises was this point -- that modern women want everything a man has, but the also want everything a man used to offer. I was berated OFTEN by women who got a hold of my "for men only" book, but the majority of them would recant their anger after a few weeks -- they knew I was right.
Not only do they not share many of your interests, scream when you want to hang out your friends, have all these expensive/time-consuming "we" projects that "I" end up doing alone, and possibly have a mother-in-law like Fred Flintstone's on top of the standard emotional roller coaster a relationship puts you on
Exactly. This is one aspect that my guide was very vocal about -- putting the woman through the test before committing. It amazes me how many sissies we have that don't realize that dating is the man testing the woman, not vice versa.
They're more able to cheat on you and because of fucked up divorce laws still leave them with the house and full custody of the kids with mandatory financial support from you.
Which is why it is important to give them a test drive before marriage. I wrote about a bunch of basic "get out" warning signals for dating. If I didn't follow the points myself, I'd be miserable.
Christ, by the time that all goes through you could be homeless, penniless, deep in debt, out of work, unable to see your kids, and basically fucked for life. Is it any wonder some of us are more cautious than ever? Hey, I might be cynical but I am never going to open up to being on the receiving end of that sort of mess until I am damned sure.
You're one of maybe 3% of the men out there that realize this. You give me more drive to finish converting my e-book
I think you're right, but now you're flambaited.
:)
Yeah, its ok though. Any time you offer that there is an actual difference between the sexes, you're liable to get flamebaited. That's why opinions like mine are kept quiet. I'm lucky that I've met the right women in my life -- always strong, but always knowing that their genes are more powerful than their dreams.
As to the rest of your post -- you're 100% spot on. Just because some women "succeed" in the places men have generally performed best doesn't mean it is true for everyone. There are some good stay-at-home dads, too, but genetically I don't believe we're as capable.
Good to know I'm not alone in my beliefs, even if you're not 100% certain
Increased bandwidth usuage (some people get billed for this you know)
I get unlimited wireless EDGE bandwidth through T-Mobile for under $20 per month. Unlimited. Always on. Everywhere I go.
Increased storage requirements (hard drives are not free)
That's why you bounce and erase SPAM. Don't keep it. If you base your income on receiving e-mails, you're part of the problem.
Increased system overhead (processors and RAM aren't free either)
Considering my corporate e-mail server I used to run was an ancient PC running Linux and a dedicated IP, it cost me almost nothing.
Anti-Spam software is not free.
Really? I dumping my dedicated domain name and e-mail server and joined up with gmail. It is free. My address is posted everywhere, not obfuscated, even here on slashdot. I receive 1-2 SPAM e-mails a day in my Inbox. I pay nothing for it.
My time to delete your unwanted messages is not free. (I bill 150+ per hour)
I bill double that. I spend 0 minutes a day deleting the two SPAM e-mails I get.
I will save nearly US$4000 this year dumping my corporate server and putting all my employees on gmail. We don't need "memorable logod" e-mail addresses. We need functionality, which running our own server did not offer. The US$4000 a year I'm saving will give everyone a little extra cash in their pocket.
Spam saved me US$4000 a year. How? I learned I can't battle it myself, so I reviewed my time preference when it came to spam and realized other people did a better job, cheaper.
So you see, your free market business is in fact costing me a nice chunk of change when viewed on a montly reoccuring basis.
Don't blame me if you're still living in the 90s. You're doing a job that some schmuck in Asia should be doing for you, for free -- sorting your inbox.
Parents should be tyrants to a point.
Materialism is not good for the economy -- only savings brings true wealth. America has grown not due to increased productivity but due to increased currency. In the next few years, we'll learn the same lessons that Japan learned 10 years ago -- savings brings wealth, not fiat currency inflation.
As a society, we are poorer and have to work longer and harder. We believe that we are wealthier because we see such huge numbers for salaries and housing costs and the rest -- but we are actually poorer when you consider that the average household owns 6% of their home versus 50% just 30 years ago. The average household doesn't even own their car (leasing) versus buying it for cash 30 years ago. The average household has 2 people working for one 1 person could bring home 30 years ago. The average household has more junk, but less wealth.
I backed out of that system. I make 50% of what I made 3 years ago, but I travel more, live better, and am far happier. Six figure salary brought me nothing but fear, frustration and all that. I found I can live better on less.
Haha, I'm not sure if you're kidding or not, but in the long run, it is self-fulfilling. Isn't it funny how the only companies who can make crappy products and still stay in business are those who receive protectionist treatment (tariffs, subsidies, labor laws) -- look at GM as an example.
What is funny about women working is that we're seeing a decrease lately (as the feminist movement thankfully is collapsing on itself).
Did you guys know that as women started to work, wages dropped? Look at it this way: wages are a direct supply-and-demand issue. If an industry needs workers, they'll pay more to attract people into the business. If an industry has an over-abundance of workers, wages drop.
When women entered the workforce, we found a HUGE increase in the supply of workers. A high supply means wages drop. Women (in general) were new to the workplace, so of course their wages were less -- the market didn't know how they'd perform.
Over time, women earned better salaries by being better workers. Yet many businesses found that training women who might quit (to raise a family) was a losing venture, so women generally made less than men. This is for good reason, as training is very expensive. Laws were passed by the feminist outcry about imbalanced pay, which forced employers to pay equally even if they might lose out in the long run -- causing jobs to be harder to get for women (employers knew they'd have to pay more for possibly less return). Over time, as the family and the home suffered, and as wages dropped due to the abundance of available workers, women started to see the feminist fault in "equal work, equal pay" and also leaving the home.
Another funny situation was that college had more women than men, and that men generally don't want to marry women who earn more (or are smarter). I see MANY ff my female friends (we're in our 30s) with college degrees single and frustrated. One of my best friends actually lies now -- she doesn't admit to the degree or her income.
Over time, you'll see fewer women in the workplace than we saw in the 70s-90s. You'll also see fewer women attending college to learn a career.
Weird how hormones and natural instinct overcome stupid laws and stupid movements.
(FWIW my better half lives to work, but we don't plan on having kids)
You do realise that the people who even know, let alone care, probably only make up 0.1% of the ITMS customer base, if that?
Which is why Apple didn't have any reason to make it opt-out. They figured they could better provide for their customers (99.9%) by putting everyone in the program, especially since they disclosed it at the time of release.
Nothing was sold, nothing was kept. What's the problem, right?
If you ask me it represents perfectly the typical hypocracy of current day right-wing America.
I'm no right winger, I'm just offering my point of view. I would never force my point of view on you through law, but that is what you want to do to me -- force your point of view by making a law. Left wing, right wing, they're both part of the same side of the coin actually: the authoritarian side. I'm an anarchocapitalist, I'm on the other side of that coin.
For starters, how is a child meant to learn how to live a full independant life if (especially when they reach their teens) they have to first check off with their parents everywhere they go and everyone they speak to. Doesn't sound like the raising of a very 'free' generation.
Freedom does not mean freedom from your parents -- it means freedom from tyranny. Or did you forget that the Constitution just tells government what rights they can't take away from the governed? A child does not have a freedom of speech to say anything to their parents, they aren't free from search (and seizure) that their parents determine is correct. Children who learn that their parents must PARENT will be the same children who end up being good parents.
Also, you state that one parent should always be at home so that you don't have to subsidise other peoples child care, but having a prent at home to supervise children IS highly subsidised individual child care. Half the pricey sick-pay laws in this country centre around the case that if the primary income earner is off-work the household has no incomings.
I don't believe in sick-pay laws or any regulations forcing businesses to give employees anything. This is part of the problem -- people feel they can push the risk in life off to others, and the costs rise for everyone.
We pay 50% of our household incomes to government. This has doubled in 25 years. 25 years ago one parent could afford to stay home, but Nixon to Bush2 and everyone in between continually find ways to provide less risk for the household at significantly more cost than doing it alone.
OPT IN LIST. How hard is it?
A white list is VOLUNTARY. An opt-in list law is COERCION.
If you believe that spam is protected by free speech then you believe in pushing your views on people.
What country were you born in?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech"
NO LAW means NO LAW.
The Internet has changed everything regarding bartering and trade. Up until 1995, I believe one could argue (and win) the debate on using regulations to keep businesses honest.
Now that we have near perfect instantaneous group communication, we've opened the doorway to not needing anything but consumer power to control companies, even the biggest companies such as Apple.
If a company performs some act -- faithfully or greedily -- that consumers don't like, you can expect the fact to be released where in the past it might have been kept secret (the media isn't very pro-consumer). We wonder why newspapers and magazines are dying -- they have advertisers to keep happy. The web lets everyone get information out that is important to them, and if enough people have a problem with a company, that negative information will gain steam quickly.
Apple did try to hedge against this outcry, as the article says, by providing the facts for those interested in them. Should Apple have performed an opt-in program rather than an opt-out? Yes. Do we need laws and regulations to force them? No -- they'll learn from this situation.
If Apple doesn't learn a lesson from consumer fallout, someone else will. There are already iTunes replacement programs out there -- provided out of voluntary methods (capitalism) rather than coercive methods (mercantilism and socialism).
Be glad that we have the Internet, it will soon allow us to back out of all the pro-corporation regulations that we're paying good tax dollars to enforce.
That's why I refuse to become a teacher.
:)
I'd like to send you some money or buy you a slashdot subscription for making that decision. Thank you
Insightful but off.
Viruses = breaking into your house (I think we should be able to sue virus spreaders for trespass)
SPAM = USPS advertising that clutters up your mailbox.
I don't look at the advertising that comes to my mailbox, I throw it out.
Oh please, like some parent stands a chance against all those marketers sloshing their emails, and their kids email boxes full of porn and other adult-only products.
.com bubble, etc.
WHITE LIST. How hard is it? I help parents at my church set up e-mail accounts for the kids, and there are numerous services that let you set a white list and then lock it out completely. If you want to go further, you can set up white lists for browsing, or join an ISP that white lists content for your kids.
Yea, but accidents do happen as well as unexpected financial difficulties like being laid off from your job due to catastrophic events like 911, Katrina,
Those are not accidents, those are irresponsibilities. Trust me, I am no saint, but I was always safe. If you make an irresponsible decision, you have to live with it by cutting back on your spending, and focusing on your child. I know many irresponsible parents who still buy themselves toys and TVs and movies and CDs and all the junk -- while their kid is basically raised by the State.
Thanks - now I need to join a church to have a family. Thanks for pushing your religious republican views on me
I'm anarchocapitalist and not republican. I'm not a Christian either, so I don't push my views on people. I said church OR community group. If you aren't religious, you can join a community group to help raise your children together, without the teacher's unions or the No Child Left Behind act getting in your way (or taxing me).
No, raising a child - at no point - means having one parent at home. That is a luxary some families have, but many do not. Also, you cannot assume each family is frivolously spending money on toys, cars, vacations, etc before spending money on their childrens clothing, food and education.
Come on, every family COULD have a parent home. Want to know why 2 parents have to work? Tax burden. In 20 years our household tax burden has gone from 30% to 50%! When the household pays 30% in tax burden, one parent can afford to stay home. With all the new nanny programs, we pay 50% of our income to government, so both parents have to work. What a nice conundru,. Also, most families on welfare have excess. I know, I help at my church's monthly "help the poor" weekend. I can't believe the things I see poor people owning -- cars, new clothes, cell phones, even new PSPs. And they're there to get freebies to compensate for their inability to stop spending and start saving.
Duh we know that, but life is life and sometimes kids will slip away. Also, you need to be able to let your kids wander on their own at times so they learn on their own.
Where did you get that from? Kids don't have to be free to wander, that's a myth. Kids wander freely in public school, and look how they turn out. If you're part of a community group focused on raising kids, your kids will have all the freedom they need. Nonetheless, you should know where they are and who they are with. This is a job of a parent, not the police or the justice system or the public nanny/education system.
AK-47, fully auto, with laser sight and sniper scope so they can go kill obliterate a herd of pigeons off their back yard.
Hey, I shot an AK-47 in Vegas a few weeks ago. I can completely see it being used for defense (especially when tyranny comes to take our rights away completely).
You're right here, to a point. Parents who trust clergy or youth pastors to be alone with their kids are idiots.
I've been working on putting some of my time into mentoring kids. Guess what? I never EVER am alone with them. It isn't because I can't be trusted, it is so they don't lie.
I've seen VERY successful home schooling programs in my community. One program is about 50 parent-couples who share the responsibility. They do a science day where 3 parents are the teachers (together) for the entire group, a math day, a writing day, etc. They share the burden, but never are alone with the kids.
I would never let my kid be alone with an adult -- ever. In a church I attend the pastor's kid was abused by a grandparent! These things happen, you have to be smart and be secure in advance. Why should I trust anyone, even a "good Christian."
Do it on your own dime...my bandwidth and server space cost me money. Funny how you're all for the "free market" until one of its finer points inconveniences you.
Good, it costs YOU money. YOUR bandwidth and YOUR server don't cost ME money.
Make a law, and it does.
Sorry, but the free market requires that you maintain the items you own. Running a server requires paying for securing that server from attacks -- including e-mail spam attacks. Laws won't stop them. Again, the free market works.