Minimum wage is a great idea when viewed shallowly. It'd be great if there was a standard of living that everyone who worked could be guaranteed--but that's not the case.
Having a minimum wage effectively sets a floor for goods and services. Prices for product which has a minimum wage employee in the chain of employees who work on that product can never cost less than (in America) $5.85 divided by the number of products that are touched by that person in an hour (this is an oversimplification, but the idea is sane.) If that minimum wage employee wants to purchase the product, his own wages increase the cost of that product.
It's easiest to see this when minimum wage is increased. When this happens, either the company has to accept lower profits (that's what the government would like you to believe will happen), they have to lay people off, or they have to increase the costs of their products (this is assuming that efficiency is as high as it can get--something the business should be striving for anyway.)
Frequently, you'll just see the costs increase. This means that the minimum wage earners don't see much of a real benefit to the wage increase, but it does help close the gap between the middle class and the lower class.
When it's feasible to do so, companies will lay off minimum wage workers to keep their profits the same (or even increase them, in a few cases) and just make everyone else work harder. This is especially true if the company has any sorts of benefits, and can get away with paying someone time-and-a-half overtime to pick up the slack. This is great for the people who get to keep their jobs--they get the extra wages plus the overtime--but it increases unemployment.
The economics of a minimum wage just do not make sense. We'd be better off mandating a standard of living and letting people pay extra to live above those means. At least the (ostensible) goal of Minimum Wage would be met, and we wouldn't have to deal with the inflation that accompanies it.
As an aside, a significant percentage (I've heard that it's a majority) of all minimum wage earners are in high school, earning spending money. This throws a wrench in the works of the above points--these kids aren't making a living off of minimum wage, but the cost increases still affect those making just above minimum wage.
Plus, if you search around a bit you'll see that the box itself is HD capable and they'll upgrade it if the netflix offering ever gets upgraded. The press release said that it has 64M RAM in the device. That's not enough to buffer much HD content.
Not to mention the laptops you posted are already missing a lot of things all macbooks have... 802.11n standard I gotta call baloney on this one.
The guy added in most of the missing features. You can't claim that having some feature "standard" is a feature in and of itself. If it only costs $25 to add 802.11n to the otherwise comparable laptop, the the final price reflects that difference just fine.
The stock M1330 comes with a DVD burner. You have to spend $200 more to get that in a Macbook. The stock M1330 also comes with 40GB more drive space, and 1GB more RAM. Stock, it also has a slower processor (and it's impossible to configure with a comparable processor to the stock Macbook.) Since you can get Linux on the M1330, the stock price is $949, which is $150 less than the stock Macbook. They've got wildly different features, though.
I did see that gksu was first released in that time period, but I didn't see anything about when focus grabbing was implemented. I do think that Ubuntu really popularized the use of gksu as an automatic prompt when root privileges are needed. Before that, I'd almost never seen it in significant use.
Way to get defensive. In my own post:
I don't know if it's a configurable option, or how long it's been doing that, but I first noticed it a little while after Vista started dimming the screen on UAC prompts. I quite clearly indicated that I didn't know who did it first.
I don't know that it was a troll. There are a lot of people (myself, included) who think that a large part of Window's malware comes from trojans. Between the Windows firewall/NAT (helping to prevent worms from spreading) and Windows Update being on by default (somewhat mitigating exploits in Internet Explorer), non-trojan malware infections are really dropping. They're still there--from people who don't upgrade, who have older systems, etc. but they're decreasing. What's left is trojans and pre-installed malware.
But people continuously slam Windows for being insecure while touting OS X and Linux as secure alternatives. Secure? Sure, the code is good and secure, but there's no patch for gullibility.
I suggest the possibility that there are simply other factors that account for the almost total lack of malware on these systems.
First and foremost (and to get it out of the way, because it's so commonly presented) is the market share--virus writers want their viruses to run, so they target the largest markets.
Second is user education. Even with Ubuntu bringing Linux to the common man, the vast majority of Linux users are more knowledgeable about computers, and will not be as likely to fall for trojan traps. While the same cannot necessarily be said about OS X, both Linux and OS X have a history of better security architecture, which means that most operations do not require any sort of administrative access. While malware can run without administrative access, it's much harder to hide. Antivirus running as administrator will easily detect malware running as a user, and because of the history of these two operating systems (not needing administrative privileges that often) it's going to be harder to trick the user into giving up his password. That's not to say that it's impossible--and certainly there isn't a push to use antivirus on these systems anyway, but it would ultimately be a losing battle for malware authors even if the marketshare situation were different.
The upshot of all of this is that I think that if some magic happened and all Windows installations were turned into Linux installations overnight, malware authors would start targeting Linux, and the new (and largely uneducated) Linux users would fall prey just as easily, despite what OS X and Linux fans would have you believe (that somehow using the OS inherently makes you more secure.)
Of course, I'll probably be modded down into oblivion, as a troll, or flamebait, or just as overrated, but I've never seen someone post a valid counter-argument to this type of post.
gksu, which acts more or less like a GUI front-end to su, dims the background when you use it. I don't know if it's a configurable option, or how long it's been doing that, but I first noticed it a little while after Vista started dimming the screen on UAC prompts. That's what the GGP was referring to.
gksudo: Dims screen, asks for permission to perform administrative operation, asks for password.
UAC: Dims screen, asks for permission to perform administrative operation, asks for password if you are not administrator.
The comparison is obvious, and while sudo itself was written before permissions were even a twinkle in Mr. Gates' eyes, gksudo's current behavior does emulate Vista's.
There's nothing that an OS vendor can do to protect the user from their own actions.
Yes there is. They can write their own antivirus software and bundle it with the PC. Oh yeah. I'm going to trust Microsoft to write their own antivirus software (yeah, I know they have some crap out there now), when major security firms whose only focus is on security can't get it right.
The AV I'd like to see ("I'D LIKE TO SEE -- TWO BRICKS BEING SMASHED TOGETHER") wouldn't be anything like Norton or McAffee as it would ONLY protect against trojans and would only run when you installed new software. Define "install." Does it watch for known installer programs? Does it watch for known executable formats being created on the hard drive?
It would simply not allow any installation of code that contained known malware, and would log into a VPN that downloaded new definitions before installation. A huge percentage of malware changes fast enough that the antivirus manufacturers cannot keep track. It's usually a couple of days before a new Storm Worm binary is detected by most antivirus vendors, and by the time that it is, the binary has changed again.
That way it would be out of the way and not hogging computer resources when there was no threat. It would effectively have to run any time a write operation was attempted on the hard drive. It wouldn't be enough to hook CreateNewFile calls, as there are other ways to actually create new files on the disk. You'd have to assume that all applications were well written (using well-defined API calls) for that scheme to work. And God forbid the preferred method for creating a new file ever changes.
(Microsoft could try a campaign to get more control over what software is shipped with Windows computers, and then you could watch Slashdot go crazy about how evil they are. It's a no-win for them.) Well, Slashdot's not a single entity with a single opinion. No matter what Microsoft does, there will probably be people on Slashdot that disagree with the decision.
That said, Microsoft has a history of trying to prevent competition by restricting what can be installed by OEMs. Remember the Netscape debacle? So there's a very good reason to be concerned if they tried to do this again, even if there were good intentions.
Ultimately, it's difficult to determine whether malware got onto the machine by the OEM, through phishing (which isn't easily stopped by the OS), or through a vulnerability. This is something I've alluded to before (that a high percentage of current Windows malware is almost certainly phishing), but I always get modded down for not flaming Windows.
So what you're saying is, "If you're an FOSS zealot bent on making everyone use FOSS as their primary desktop OS in the next 10 years, it's bad." That's kinda what I was saying, yeah. There are a lot of people with this mindset. Hell, even I have it, to a degree (I think that Linux should be as usable as possible to new users, and as configurable as possible for experts, but I don't think that new distributions are necessarily bad for FOSS.)
I think FOSS dominating the desktop would probably be about as bad as MS doing it in the end, because corporations/companies love standardization, and someone will always find a way to make money off a standard. What's wrong with people making money?
Or, to put it another way, I don't think that Ubuntu/Redhat/whatever having 85% of the desktop market would be any less evil than Microsoft having it. Why?
Microsoft got and maintained their monopoly by using dirty tricks. If Ubuntu got 85% of the desktop market, and kept itself open source (most portions of Ubuntu are covered by the GPL, so this is something they'd have to do), then any evil would instantly be mitigated by someone forking a non-evil alternative. That's why the GPL can be a good thing--try to close people off, and people can tell you to fuck yourself.
If you think that Linux should dominate the desktop, then forking projects is bad. The masses think that Ubuntu/is/ Linux. If all of the Ubuntu developers switch over to Exherbo in three years, the masses will think that Ubuntu stagnated. They'll be more likely to go back to Windows, where at least you have support (even if you have to buy a new copy every 5 years--hell, people do that anyway when their old computer "stops working" due to viruses.)
It sounds like they're just trying to be cool. If they really didn't want to attract people, they shouldn't have gone to the trouble of putting up that webpage.
Slashdot Mirror
Minimum wage is a great idea when viewed shallowly. It'd be great if there was a standard of living that everyone who worked could be guaranteed--but that's not the case.
Having a minimum wage effectively sets a floor for goods and services. Prices for product which has a minimum wage employee in the chain of employees who work on that product can never cost less than (in America) $5.85 divided by the number of products that are touched by that person in an hour (this is an oversimplification, but the idea is sane.) If that minimum wage employee wants to purchase the product, his own wages increase the cost of that product.
It's easiest to see this when minimum wage is increased. When this happens, either the company has to accept lower profits (that's what the government would like you to believe will happen), they have to lay people off, or they have to increase the costs of their products (this is assuming that efficiency is as high as it can get--something the business should be striving for anyway.)
Frequently, you'll just see the costs increase. This means that the minimum wage earners don't see much of a real benefit to the wage increase, but it does help close the gap between the middle class and the lower class.
When it's feasible to do so, companies will lay off minimum wage workers to keep their profits the same (or even increase them, in a few cases) and just make everyone else work harder. This is especially true if the company has any sorts of benefits, and can get away with paying someone time-and-a-half overtime to pick up the slack. This is great for the people who get to keep their jobs--they get the extra wages plus the overtime--but it increases unemployment.
The economics of a minimum wage just do not make sense. We'd be better off mandating a standard of living and letting people pay extra to live above those means. At least the (ostensible) goal of Minimum Wage would be met, and we wouldn't have to deal with the inflation that accompanies it.
As an aside, a significant percentage (I've heard that it's a majority) of all minimum wage earners are in high school, earning spending money. This throws a wrench in the works of the above points--these kids aren't making a living off of minimum wage, but the cost increases still affect those making just above minimum wage.
I wish that I could toss you a mod point :)
Well, no one ever accused Macs of having lots of options.
That's an awesome idea~
The problem is that he asked for a database but he really wants a datastore. He wants a program to keep data for him.
Most of Netflix's selection is older movies. Most of Apple's selection are fairly new.
The guy added in most of the missing features. You can't claim that having some feature "standard" is a feature in and of itself. If it only costs $25 to add 802.11n to the otherwise comparable laptop, the the final price reflects that difference just fine.
It's more of a tradeoff than that.
The stock M1330 comes with a DVD burner. You have to spend $200 more to get that in a Macbook. The stock M1330 also comes with 40GB more drive space, and 1GB more RAM. Stock, it also has a slower processor (and it's impossible to configure with a comparable processor to the stock Macbook.) Since you can get Linux on the M1330, the stock price is $949, which is $150 less than the stock Macbook. They've got wildly different features, though.
I did see that gksu was first released in that time period, but I didn't see anything about when focus grabbing was implemented. I do think that Ubuntu really popularized the use of gksu as an automatic prompt when root privileges are needed. Before that, I'd almost never seen it in significant use.
Here's your dual monitor support on the Mini.
I don't think that he was being sarcastic.
No, touche is for when your opponent makes the point. You failed to.
You also screwed up when you tried to set me as a freak.
And incidentally, because I was curious, I looked up the definition of "say."
The first definition is "to express in words."
So in addition to being overly pedantic, you're ignorant, too. Incorrectly correcting people--brilliant!
What a sad little pedant you must be.
I don't know that it was a troll. There are a lot of people (myself, included) who think that a large part of Window's malware comes from trojans. Between the Windows firewall/NAT (helping to prevent worms from spreading) and Windows Update being on by default (somewhat mitigating exploits in Internet Explorer), non-trojan malware infections are really dropping. They're still there--from people who don't upgrade, who have older systems, etc. but they're decreasing. What's left is trojans and pre-installed malware.
But people continuously slam Windows for being insecure while touting OS X and Linux as secure alternatives. Secure? Sure, the code is good and secure, but there's no patch for gullibility.
I suggest the possibility that there are simply other factors that account for the almost total lack of malware on these systems.
First and foremost (and to get it out of the way, because it's so commonly presented) is the market share--virus writers want their viruses to run, so they target the largest markets.
Second is user education. Even with Ubuntu bringing Linux to the common man, the vast majority of Linux users are more knowledgeable about computers, and will not be as likely to fall for trojan traps. While the same cannot necessarily be said about OS X, both Linux and OS X have a history of better security architecture, which means that most operations do not require any sort of administrative access. While malware can run without administrative access, it's much harder to hide. Antivirus running as administrator will easily detect malware running as a user, and because of the history of these two operating systems (not needing administrative privileges that often) it's going to be harder to trick the user into giving up his password. That's not to say that it's impossible--and certainly there isn't a push to use antivirus on these systems anyway, but it would ultimately be a losing battle for malware authors even if the marketshare situation were different.
The upshot of all of this is that I think that if some magic happened and all Windows installations were turned into Linux installations overnight, malware authors would start targeting Linux, and the new (and largely uneducated) Linux users would fall prey just as easily, despite what OS X and Linux fans would have you believe (that somehow using the OS inherently makes you more secure.)
Of course, I'll probably be modded down into oblivion, as a troll, or flamebait, or just as overrated, but I've never seen someone post a valid counter-argument to this type of post.
No, he really wasn't.
gksu, which acts more or less like a GUI front-end to su, dims the background when you use it. I don't know if it's a configurable option, or how long it's been doing that, but I first noticed it a little while after Vista started dimming the screen on UAC prompts. That's what the GGP was referring to.
gksudo:
Dims screen, asks for permission to perform administrative operation, asks for password.
UAC:
Dims screen, asks for permission to perform administrative operation, asks for password if you are not administrator.
The comparison is obvious, and while sudo itself was written before permissions were even a twinkle in Mr. Gates' eyes, gksudo's current behavior does emulate Vista's.
Yes there is. They can write their own antivirus software and bundle it with the PC. Oh yeah. I'm going to trust Microsoft to write their own antivirus software (yeah, I know they have some crap out there now), when major security firms whose only focus is on security can't get it right. The AV I'd like to see ("I'D LIKE TO SEE -- TWO BRICKS BEING SMASHED TOGETHER") wouldn't be anything like Norton or McAffee as it would ONLY protect against trojans and would only run when you installed new software. Define "install." Does it watch for known installer programs? Does it watch for known executable formats being created on the hard drive? It would simply not allow any installation of code that contained known malware, and would log into a VPN that downloaded new definitions before installation. A huge percentage of malware changes fast enough that the antivirus manufacturers cannot keep track. It's usually a couple of days before a new Storm Worm binary is detected by most antivirus vendors, and by the time that it is, the binary has changed again. That way it would be out of the way and not hogging computer resources when there was no threat. It would effectively have to run any time a write operation was attempted on the hard drive. It wouldn't be enough to hook CreateNewFile calls, as there are other ways to actually create new files on the disk. You'd have to assume that all applications were well written (using well-defined API calls) for that scheme to work. And God forbid the preferred method for creating a new file ever changes.
That said, Microsoft has a history of trying to prevent competition by restricting what can be installed by OEMs. Remember the Netscape debacle? So there's a very good reason to be concerned if they tried to do this again, even if there were good intentions.
Ultimately, it's difficult to determine whether malware got onto the machine by the OEM, through phishing (which isn't easily stopped by the OS), or through a vulnerability. This is something I've alluded to before (that a high percentage of current Windows malware is almost certainly phishing), but I always get modded down for not flaming Windows.
Microsoft got and maintained their monopoly by using dirty tricks. If Ubuntu got 85% of the desktop market, and kept itself open source (most portions of Ubuntu are covered by the GPL, so this is something they'd have to do), then any evil would instantly be mitigated by someone forking a non-evil alternative. That's why the GPL can be a good thing--try to close people off, and people can tell you to fuck yourself.
I like that :) I'll have to keep it in mind for the future.
It depends upon your end goal.
/is/ Linux. If all of the Ubuntu developers switch over to Exherbo in three years, the masses will think that Ubuntu stagnated. They'll be more likely to go back to Windows, where at least you have support (even if you have to buy a new copy every 5 years--hell, people do that anyway when their old computer "stops working" due to viruses.)
If you think that Linux should dominate the desktop, then forking projects is bad. The masses think that Ubuntu
It sounds like they're just trying to be cool. If they really didn't want to attract people, they shouldn't have gone to the trouble of putting up that webpage.
Yes, but I have a feeling that it's what the parent meant