I like community as well. But I loathe big shopping centres (malls to you North Americans) and I would much rather buy commodities from the Internet. It may not seem like it, but most retailing are information providers - you get to check out the product in store. Nowadays you find everything you need to know about a large number of consumer products online, so why not buy there as well?
If (or when) everyone bought commodities online, the local community would still exist. It would just be centred around bars, restaurants, fresh food sellers (or farmers markets) and cultural assets. Sounds like a much better alternative to me.
The distinction between retirement saving and paying off your mortgage is moot, unless you are talking about insurance. Your house should be one of the best assets you have, so pay that off and then start saving.
Here in Australia the government mandates 9% savings for retirement. This is for the stupid people who won't save. Me, I would rather have the money to put against my mortgage or spend on my own share portfolio rather than pay some muppet to do it for me.
One thing we CAN do about global warming is move away from the coast.
A large percentage of the world population live close to the coast, and that is where the biggest effects are going to be felt as the climate becomes more erratic.
Quite frankly any species that requires man for reproduction is slated for extinction anyway. Any any person that derives pleasure in the killing or maiming of living beings needs to do a bit of evolving, or preferably just remove themselves from the gene pool.
Fuck me, the corporate propagandists have really got the US sown up haven't they? I have always wondered how seemingly intelligent people can be so hoodwinked.
You could really do with reading some Noam Chomsky, "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" would be a good start.
"For instance, in a 100 billion dollar company if the CEO is making 10 - 100 million bucks"
You are comparing applies to pineapples. The former would be market capitalisation. The latter would be coming straight out of operating expenses, and therefore directly changing the profit/loss.
I know nothing about this particular dispute, but any management who take big pay rises while trying to screw workers (and let's face it there is no shortage of examples) will be completely screwing morale. Given this, I don't see how you can state as an absolute fact that the two are unrelated. Maybe if the top dogs had shown restraint, or, god forbid, taken a pay cut, the workers would have been a little bit more predisposed to be reasonable.
And lets face it, when times are good executives are fond of telling people that the success of the company is all down to them, so why shouldn't they take the rap when things go pear shaped. It is, after all, their job to manage the company.
Probably because US news networks don't worry about things like facts. Or truth.
In any case there are thousands of studies on the climate conducted. I would be very surprised if a few didn't show temperature decline, especially given the economic importance of this issue to potential funders of such studies. That is the way science works. But that doesn't make them statistically relevant.
But hang on there. Germans made huge leaps forwards with rocketry with their V2. This in turn led to the space race, and the miniaturisation of electronics which led to the microprocessor which led to Apple being able to create products.
So yes, everyone did benefit. Even the Apple haters.
Except for the ones who are dead. (apologies to Glados there).
Interesting moral stance, and one that makes little sense ethically. Either a persons intellectual work is protected, in which case you should not copy it without paying the person a fee, or it isn't, in which case you can make 1 or 1000 copies.
You might try to argue the "I wouldn't have bought it anyway so there is no loss" argument, but that may well apply to all of this guys customers.
Personally I don't think there should be such a thing as intellectual property. The world needs to come up with another way of rewarding the creators of cultural and scientific artifacts that achieves the aims of creating valuable culture without preventing the wide dissemination of said culture. We already have Arts Councils, and kickstarter doing just this. Remember, where there is demand, there will be supply, and supply may require those creating culture to get paid.
If we remove these laws it will be corporations that lose out, not people.
I bought my first PC in 1986 for 1500 UK pounds. At the time was almost a third of my annual pre-tax salary so I needed a loan to buy it. I used it to hone my coding skills and my salary increased five fold by 1990.
PC's have come down massively in the last few years, and continue to improve in performance. Don't know so much about reliability and sturdiness though. My first PC weighed a ton and would have survived a nuclear attack.
Two ways you can get what you want. Either get a better paid job. Or wait. Do both for best results with your goal.
My experience in Australia is pretty much your impression of the 90's - unless you are working for a small company owned by the boss with their mortgage on the line. Or a body shop like Accenture that likes to work their minions into the ground.
It might just be the effect of the GFC - with everyone afraid of losing their jobs - we haven't had a recession over here so their isn't the same level of fear.
Too true. The rape of Nanking by the Japanese, where a quarter of a million Chinese were massacred is still very much in the minds of the Chinese today.
While there is no concrete reason to think that this won't continue, we have major time of upheaval on the horizon with shrinking food supplied due to global warming, and the impending robotisation of manufacturing which will displace millions of manual workers worldwide.
To right. I would be happy if the organisation just kept its hands off our children, both by keeping out of our schools, and by keeping the hands of the priests tied firmly behind their backs.
And you can't see the problem with believing information published on sites with a vested interest in the bible being reliable?
Various religious people I have spoken to talk about the divine hand of God guiding the translators. A deity who is only "virtually free from any corruption" doesn't sound that good to me.
I have tried both and came to the decision that people ain't that interesting. You end up talking the same old shit to the same old people.
The Internet on the other hand, well, you can spend your nights repetitively shooting people in the face from your favourite corner of some make believe world.
I guess my only point is that I don't have one. Each to their own.
My 15 yo daughter has never watched commercial TV in my house, and my home SOE uses firefox with adblocker. I am amazed that any thinking person would do any different really.
Oh, and barbie and disney are a no-no in my house as well. I would far prefer my daughter to grow up as normal human being rather than a 'pink princess'.
I went to the US once, and driving out of Omaha all I saw was suburb after suburb of 'chains'. Why anyone would even think of pulling off the highway to go to a donut outlet is beyond me.
Here in Australia, 'normal' restaurants and cafes are the norm, and long may that be the case.
Fight it guys. Fight it with every once of your spirit. I grew up thinking Americans believed in freedom. But what I see from your culture is homogenisation and the rule of the bland. Is that really what you want?
The problem is that people "like" it because it has been engineered that way. Imagine the design brief:
1) make the food as addictive as possible 2) make it as cheaply as possible
And you get trans-fats, high fructose corn syrup, parmoline (aka tree lard) and all the other nasty things the food industry has come up with to make their business as profitable as possible.
The problem with the average slashdot denizen is that they give far too much credit to the intelligence of the target audience of this crap. The truth is that half of them are too uneducated to know better (which is a problem with our society), and the other half are too interested in other things (which is a problem with other marketing).
Now I know many on this site love the idea of a free market, but an unfettered market is not allowed in any country, for a very good reason.
Slashdot Mirror
I like community as well. But I loathe big shopping centres (malls to you North Americans) and I would much rather buy commodities from the Internet. It may not seem like it, but most retailing are information providers - you get to check out the product in store. Nowadays you find everything you need to know about a large number of consumer products online, so why not buy there as well?
If (or when) everyone bought commodities online, the local community would still exist. It would just be centred around bars, restaurants, fresh food sellers (or farmers markets) and cultural assets. Sounds like a much better alternative to me.
Oh, you Americans.... *shakes head slowly in despair*
The distinction between retirement saving and paying off your mortgage is moot, unless you are talking about insurance. Your house should be one of the best assets you have, so pay that off and then start saving.
Here in Australia the government mandates 9% savings for retirement. This is for the stupid people who won't save. Me, I would rather have the money to put against my mortgage or spend on my own share portfolio rather than pay some muppet to do it for me.
One thing we CAN do about global warming is move away from the coast.
A large percentage of the world population live close to the coast, and that is where the biggest effects are going to be felt as the climate becomes more erratic.
Maybe it isn't, but some bastard took photos of my property and sold them to google.
Try running that same argument with humans.
Quite frankly any species that requires man for reproduction is slated for extinction anyway. Any any person that derives pleasure in the killing or maiming of living beings needs to do a bit of evolving, or preferably just remove themselves from the gene pool.
Fuck me, the corporate propagandists have really got the US sown up haven't they? I have always wondered how seemingly intelligent people can be so hoodwinked.
You could really do with reading some Noam Chomsky, "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" would be a good start.
"For instance, in a 100 billion dollar company if the CEO is making 10 - 100 million bucks"
You are comparing applies to pineapples. The former would be market capitalisation. The latter would be coming straight out of operating expenses, and therefore directly changing the profit/loss.
I know nothing about this particular dispute, but any management who take big pay rises while trying to screw workers (and let's face it there is no shortage of examples) will be completely screwing morale. Given this, I don't see how you can state as an absolute fact that the two are unrelated. Maybe if the top dogs had shown restraint, or, god forbid, taken a pay cut, the workers would have been a little bit more predisposed to be reasonable.
And lets face it, when times are good executives are fond of telling people that the success of the company is all down to them, so why shouldn't they take the rap when things go pear shaped. It is, after all, their job to manage the company.
"several major news networks"
Probably because US news networks don't worry about things like facts. Or truth.
In any case there are thousands of studies on the climate conducted. I would be very surprised if a few didn't show temperature decline, especially given the economic importance of this issue to potential funders of such studies. That is the way science works. But that doesn't make them statistically relevant.
But hang on there. Germans made huge leaps forwards with rocketry with their V2. This in turn led to the space race, and the miniaturisation of electronics which led to the microprocessor which led to Apple being able to create products.
So yes, everyone did benefit. Even the Apple haters.
Except for the ones who are dead. (apologies to Glados there).
Interesting moral stance, and one that makes little sense ethically. Either a persons intellectual work is protected, in which case you should not copy it without paying the person a fee, or it isn't, in which case you can make 1 or 1000 copies.
You might try to argue the "I wouldn't have bought it anyway so there is no loss" argument, but that may well apply to all of this guys customers.
Personally I don't think there should be such a thing as intellectual property. The world needs to come up with another way of rewarding the creators of cultural and scientific artifacts that achieves the aims of creating valuable culture without preventing the wide dissemination of said culture. We already have Arts Councils, and kickstarter doing just this. Remember, where there is demand, there will be supply, and supply may require those creating culture to get paid.
If we remove these laws it will be corporations that lose out, not people.
You have no idea...
I bought my first PC in 1986 for 1500 UK pounds. At the time was almost a third of my annual pre-tax salary so I needed a loan to buy it. I used it to hone my coding skills and my salary increased five fold by 1990.
PC's have come down massively in the last few years, and continue to improve in performance. Don't know so much about reliability and sturdiness though. My first PC weighed a ton and would have survived a nuclear attack.
Two ways you can get what you want. Either get a better paid job. Or wait. Do both for best results with your goal.
Maybe you are working in the wrong country.
My experience in Australia is pretty much your impression of the 90's - unless you are working for a small company owned by the boss with their mortgage on the line. Or a body shop like Accenture that likes to work their minions into the ground.
It might just be the effect of the GFC - with everyone afraid of losing their jobs - we haven't had a recession over here so their isn't the same level of fear.
That'd be why it got modded interesting then. I was wondering how this modding thing worked...
Too true. The rape of Nanking by the Japanese, where a quarter of a million Chinese were massacred is still very much in the minds of the Chinese today.
It is certainly getting safer. The world in 2012 is a less violent, less belligerent place than at any time in recorded history :
http://hnn.us/articles/10-3-11/the-world-is-actually-safer.html
While there is no concrete reason to think that this won't continue, we have major time of upheaval on the horizon with shrinking food supplied due to global warming, and the impending robotisation of manufacturing which will displace millions of manual workers worldwide.
Saying that we would be better off without a religion is not the same as calling for its elimination.
We would be better off without stupid people, but that doesn't mean we should round 'em up.
To right. I would be happy if the organisation just kept its hands off our children, both by keeping out of our schools, and by keeping the hands of the priests tied firmly behind their backs.
And you can't see the problem with believing information published on sites with a vested interest in the bible being reliable?
Various religious people I have spoken to talk about the divine hand of God guiding the translators. A deity who is only "virtually free from any corruption" doesn't sound that good to me.
That's because all the wicked people killed them...
I have tried both and came to the decision that people ain't that interesting. You end up talking the same old shit to the same old people.
The Internet on the other hand, well, you can spend your nights repetitively shooting people in the face from your favourite corner of some make believe world.
I guess my only point is that I don't have one. Each to their own.
My 15 yo daughter has never watched commercial TV in my house, and my home SOE uses firefox with adblocker. I am amazed that any thinking person would do any different really.
Oh, and barbie and disney are a no-no in my house as well. I would far prefer my daughter to grow up as normal human being rather than a 'pink princess'.
Let me do you a further favour. Don't take your kids to fast food outlets AT ALL.
It beggars belief that the audience of slashdot, whom I consider above average intelligence, think that fast food has any place in a child's life.
I went to the US once, and driving out of Omaha all I saw was suburb after suburb of 'chains'. Why anyone would even think of pulling off the highway to go to a donut outlet is beyond me.
Here in Australia, 'normal' restaurants and cafes are the norm, and long may that be the case.
Fight it guys. Fight it with every once of your spirit. I grew up thinking Americans believed in freedom. But what I see from your culture is homogenisation and the rule of the bland. Is that really what you want?
The problem is that people "like" it because it has been engineered that way. Imagine the design brief:
1) make the food as addictive as possible
2) make it as cheaply as possible
And you get trans-fats, high fructose corn syrup, parmoline (aka tree lard) and all the other nasty things the food industry has come up with to make their business as profitable as possible.
The problem with the average slashdot denizen is that they give far too much credit to the intelligence of the target audience of this crap. The truth is that half of them are too uneducated to know better (which is a problem with our society), and the other half are too interested in other things (which is a problem with other marketing).
Now I know many on this site love the idea of a free market, but an unfettered market is not allowed in any country, for a very good reason.