sound yummy? Its killer, and I'm putting together a web page w/ all the pics from the assembly and the final product.
Ye gods, man! If I take out a second I'm going to repaint the house, not build a media system. How much did you pay for all that?
My Setup:
TiVo (bought new for about $300)
Linksys USB Ethernet adapter for TiVo ($30)
AudioTron (bought on close-out for $130)
Slow frankenstein PC for MP3 storage (100 bucks?)
Used 10mbit hub bolted to the wall (free)
Korean DVD player ($40? Not sure...)
10 year old Sony AV receiver (I think it was $400)
Speakers my brother gave me when he got divorced
It's not pretty but it works. And I never have to fuss with it. If I want music, I switch the receiver on and pick an MP3 playlist on the AudioTron. If I want a DVD, I switch the input to that on the TV. If I want regular TV, the TiVo handles it. I didn't have to build anything, it all just stacks on top of the TV. I did use some pieces of scrap wood to hold up the back of the AudioTron (it's 19'' wide, but half as deep as any other component). One day soon, I'll paint the wood black or something. Everything's easy to maintain. If the TiVo goes on the fritz, I unplug it and send it back. If I want 6.1 sound, I buy two new speakers and replace the receiver. When the DVD player breaks, I'll get another at the grocery store.
The biggest features (besides never have to screw around with anything and the fact that it required no construction) are that the whole system was cheap as hell and it all just works. The biggest drawback? No bragging rights. But the again, my truck doesn't have a tuck-and-roll and a flame job, my PC doesn't have a window cut into the case with blue neon lights lights behind it. I don't entertain much so there's nobody to show off for anyway.
Don't worry slashdotters, you'll get a peek at this beauty soon.
Well, you have me there. Nobody would want to see a pic of my TiVo sitting on top of the TV. I have one if anyone wants to see, though. I thought the use of scrap 1x2s was particularly inspired...
Grub gives you something else: they hide your surfing habits.
The only way I'd run grub is on a low-bid DMZ host (like that old P133 I have laying around), with the adult content searching filters disabled. Then I'd let it do whatever it wanted to do as long as it wanted to do it and I'd forget about it. Who cares about the search results? Just use Google like before. They aren't going to make a good search engine anyway.
But if I ever got a subpoena which included information about my web browsing and online history, I could tell the judge that I could't honestly say if that particular bit of outbound traffic was me or that grub thing doing its searching. So as long as I was running it, I'd be free to look at "subversive" literature, pr0n, Arab websites, the Cato Institute's homepage, whatever I wanted. If I got on a list and they tried to PATRIOT ACT me, I'd use grub as my get out of (Ashcroft's mystery) jail free card. Hell, I'd throw grub and freenet on the same box and cover every base.
That's if I was paranoid. And wanted to surf Arab web sites or pr0n. Which I'm not. And I don't.:-)
You're not one for sarcasm, eh? I'm no more an anarchist than you are. (In fact, the two main areas in which I disagree with the stock Libertarian ideals are the dissolution of national borders and the complete elimination of taxes. I actually do think that a little tax is necessary, and borders define a nation's geography and resources.)
Assuming I were to get real, I'd have to stay with my orginal choice of a government that takes only what it needs in order to provide basic services. But them again, I'm known to be insensitive.:-)
-B
I went Linux only, and then went back
on
Winex 3.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
One day though I hope to just be able format c:\ and never look back. Its just games now that are keeping me having a dual boot system. Most of my time is spent in Linux just waiting for a 2.5 that boots on my system
I quit Windows completely in May of 2001. I scrubbed my drives and went completely Linux. It wasn't too hard since most (all) of the games I played eventually got released by Loki. When they went tits up, I lingered in Linux-only mode for a while. I installed WineX and never had much luck. (I have a SCSI-only system, and they continue to not want to fix the bug where copy protection schemes fail on SCSI CD drives; their answer was "...most people use IDE. Install an IDE CD-ROM if you want to use WineX." So much for me being a subscriber any more.) It's hard to use an all Linux if you can't do WineX and you want to play games. Nearly impossible, actually. There just aren't any games current for Linux.
I wound up playing my old ones for a while until I got some DVD software for Christmas that requires Win2K or XP. So I installed Win2K on a spare drive and now I dual boot again. It's pretty sad.
My advice to you is to look at the "supported games" list on WineX's site very carefully. Then install it and try to play the games you want. If a few work and you're fine, then go full Linux. If they all work, you're golden. If there's one that yuou have to have that doesn't work, keep a Win32 drive around.
How about those if us that favor no government? Maybe I'm not Libertarian. Maybe I'm an anarchist. Not sure if that party is on the voter registration card or not in California...
What I'm saying is, you don't present well. You come across as a somewhat evil, misguided person. The way you talk, you evoke one of the followers of Bob Roberts in the movie, a hyper little flag-waving, welfare-hating Republican from hell. You inspire strong, strong dislike, and rabid responses.
That's pretty funny. Republican. Yeah, I despise the welfare state but that doesn't make me Republican. It makes me sensible. Why wouldn't any sane person hate welfare? It creates a dependancy, and does nothing to encourage personal growth. If you truly care about people, there no way you could like the current welfare system.
I used to think like you until I moved into the inner city between high school and college. Then I saw what welfare in this country was really all about. I was making a little above minimum wage, and getting along all right for a young single guy. Then one day when I went to buy some beer after work (painting houses and doing roofing, if you care) and one of the guys that was *always* hanging around outside the liquor store approached me. He'd said he'd give me $20 in food stamps for $10. I bought all he had, and I came back every month for more. Turns out there's quite a market in the food-stamps-for-cash program. I had no qualms about using food stamps at the grocery store either -- I wasn't too proud for people to think I was a bum. Sure I got some pretty pathetic looks, but I was using them as intended and frankly I could give a shit what people think of me. The other guy wanted booze, I wanted my food dollar to go farther. Everyone was happy.
I have a feeling that story will disgust you, but it happened as described. If I had to do the whole thing over again, the only thing I would have changed was that I would have approached that dude much sooner than he approached me. I used to believe that people on welfare were just down on their luck and needed help. I'm fine with that. When I saw it was a lifstyle, I decided that tehre was nothing wrong with giving myself a retroactive tax refund. I could buy food for half price, thanks to the dole, and that made my paycheck go that much farther.
Here's Republican for you: I used to volunteer twice a month for two years at a food and shelter place downtown. I consider that welfare. And it's good welfare, too, because it was my choice to go down there and cook beans and ladle stew and clean up trash. I wanted to do it. However, if someone forced me to give up my time to do exactly what I was volunteering for, I would have refused. That would have been the same as taking money from me without my consent and giving it to someone I don't know can't see and will never talk to so they can buy beer for the rest of their adult life. Which is exactly what the current welfare system does.
The middle and working classes deserve a lot more than they're getting.
Honestly, I agree. They should get more -- by paying less tax. They should most certainly get to keep more of what they work for. And if they don't work they should get squat beyond just the help needed to start working and get back on their feet. (You do agree that people should be able to get back on their feet, right?) Everyone -- middle class, upper class, the poor, everyone -- deserves to keep as much as possible of what they make, create, etc. That encourages hard work and new ideas. People getting paid to do nothing will continue to do nothing.
How you think I could sound like a shill for "the wealthy" while saying that people should keep more of what they earn I don't know. I would think that those who are struggling to make ends meet would like to take home more of their paycheck.
If the government works for us, and we pay enough taxes that I think it should, it should at least pretend to protect our interests.
You honestly believe that the government has the public's interests at heart? There's the real "conspiracy theory" here: people believe that more govern
See, here's my problem with this whole thread: Say what you want about my lack of tact, at least I'm consistent. You, on the other hand, are wildly inconsistent. You go from claiming your parents make "in the low 7 digits" annually to claiming that they aren't rich.
I'm being very consistent, or as consistent as my life has been. When I was six years old, I went to the first grade in a Rolls, driven by a chauffeur. By the time I was 10 we were buying groceries (for a family of seven) with paper route money. I can't be any more inconsistent that that.
I never said my parents have a 7 digit income. I did say they weren't rich. Since you're whole counterpoint hinges on the notion of my folks making a lot of money (and therefore me having money for some reason), I think I need to explain a little more about them.
I said my dad is retired. He has no appreciable income, and in fact works a nearly full week -- at no pay -- as chairman of a non-profit (they take kids from third world countries and give them an education and training in various sports so they can compete in things like the Goodwill Games and whatever). He not only makes no money, he gives out money. So your assertion that that he's rich doesn't wash.
My mom made less than I did last year. Really. See, her store is what made all that money. And almost everything she takes out of it gets put back in to make it better (they recently moved to a new building, for example). She's not rich, at least not cash-wise. She could likely sel it for quite a bit and be rich, but being rich isn't what she wants to do for a living.
My parents have some stock and such and the normal, upper middle class retirement stuff (although not enough, IMO), but they aren't wealthy enough to, say, take a 2 week cruise on a whim or anything.
I still think you're full of crap, and I'm not saying that in any nasty way. It's meant in a purely friendly, "just us folks" way. Don't be ashamed of being a bullshit artist! Revel in it, like I do! What's the big deal, really? So you're talking out your ass on Slashdot. So what? Aren't we all?
I've said nothing which isn't true. I don't feel any need to talk/brag/lie about myself. Why the hell would anyone care about me and what I have to say? Who here would I have to impress?
Honestly, I find this conversation interesting, mostly because it's enlightening to see how others perceive me. I'm usually not all self-absorbed (almost to a fault, if you ask my wife), but it's like the online equivalent of hearing your own voice in home movies or something. I tend not to worry or care about how I come off as much as just blurt it out. So I find it interesting to hear how you got such an odd mental picture of me and my life.
First of all, you are clearly not a "working stiff". You are a trust fund baby.
I've been accused of a lot of things (some of them were even true), but that is one I've not yet heard.
I have never in the past had a trust fund, and I probably wouldn't have wanted it had I had one. My experience has been that more money simply means more expensive problems. Back when I said the game was capitalism, I meant that. That is the game. I never said I played it. Getting rich is how you win, and after seeing what happened to my parents I have no desire to be rich. I just want to never be poor again. That's the truth, take it or leave it.
If you were not a trust fund baby, you would not have parents who make several million dollars a year, by your own admission. IF you're working, as you claim, you're doing it out of some perverse desire for street cred. But, all that street cred gets wrecked as soon as you mention the "seven figures" thing, so I don't see why you bother.
Well, they don't make that much money. Her store grosses that much. Her net is much smaller, her personal profit on that net even less.
People like you really piss me off, with your bullshit comments about how "wonderful you" deserves all the good fortune you've received, and how everyone else is poor because they somehow deserve it.
So much for reasonable debate. Went straight into ad hominem. This is starting to sound like an elaborate troll. Anyway, I'll bite one last time...
When was it that I said I received any of my family's "good fortune"? (And why call it "good fortune" when it should more accurately be called "hard work"?) When did I ever say they were rich? When did I say anyone deserved anything? You missed my whole point: nobody deserves anything -- good or bad. But I get the feeling that nothing I say will change your preconceived notions about me (or others).
Not that it matters, but I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination. I'm plain middle class, and I've worked very hard to get where I am. I moved out of my parents' house at age 17 to go make my own way, on my own. I worked plenty of crappy and menial jobs, worked through college, and finally found something that makes me happy (and enough money to get by on). But my folks aren't what you'd call rich, and I wouldn't take money from them even if they were; just because they have some money in no way means I deserve any of it. They have their lives, I have mine. They've worked hard to earn what they have, I'm doing likewise. Should I be waiting for a handout or something?
I'd rather be a dyed-in-the-wool red than whatever slimy creature you've grown up to be.
If working hard to earn what you get isn't a concept that you can get behind, then I don't know what to tell you. I wish you the best in relying on someone else for your future.
I'll buy that. I'm certainly no entrepreneur. If I was, I'd be out "creating wealth" and not arguing with you on Slashdot.
Most mature industries have a very high barrier to entry. Virtually all established forms of commerce have at least a modest barrier to entry (think of this in terms of the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to, say, simply open a small office somewhere). It is therefore nearly impossible for a "newly freed worker" (???) to muster up the scratch to enter any lucrative area of business. He's lucky if he can make RENT, much less start a company. But of course you knew that.
There's actually nothing stopping someone if they want to create badly enough. Really. I'm not making that up. I've seen it happen to my family twice.
My father was into real estate. He used to buy and sell hotels. He was very wealthy as a result. He was also ethical. His business partner was not. When his partner got idicted under the RICO Act, my dad lost nearly everything (since all corporate assets were frozen). That included our house, cars, everything else. We were essentially penniless. This was a long time ago, when I was just starting grade school.
He later went on to start a consulting business, then a real estate business, then a business selling consumer energy saving products. He started each one small, and gradually built back up. He became moderately wealthy again and retired comfortably.
At another time in my life, my mother was divorced from my father and had also eventually lost her job. We had a hard time paying for basics like electricity. She had an idea for a clothing store that would make a little money (enough to get us by) which was easy to start up. She did it part-time and looked for other work. BTW, she had no retail experience, nor had never owned a business. She didn't even have a college degree. All she had was an idea, determination and an opportunity created by adversity.
That part-time idea worked well and is currently a 27,000 square foot store that has yearly sales in the small 7 figures. She employs over 70 people, and her charitable donations (it's built into her business model) nearly equal her profits. She's thinking of franchising and then retiring.
But, even your simple examples are far off. Amazon? Best Buy? Are you kidding? It takes millions of dollars of startup capital to build out a warehouse system capable of supporting Amazon-type activities. And, Best Buy is a chain store -- think tens of millions, and the setting up of numerous locations around the country. You're a madman, and what you're saying doesn't even make sense (much less add up to anything).
Hell, I could have just as easily said "Bear Stearns" or "Yellow Taxis" or "Cap'n Bob's Fish-n-Chips". It was just an example that popped into my head.
You really think that successful businesses get built all at once? Interesting.
I don't have any sympathy for people like you, who spout rah-rah cheerleading bullshit for the rich while they steal MY lunch.
And I have none for political whiners like yourself, who think that life should be fair, and that the answer to everything should be an artificially leveled playing field, government handouts, etc. But you're a communist and I'm libertarian so the fact that we disagree isn't all that surprising.
FWIW, I'm not stealing your lunch. But I strongly suspect that you're not protecting it, either. (Hint: you have actively to do that yourself. You can't simply just sit back and demand that life be fair or that the government make everything better for you.)
Guys like you are going to be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes. Heh heh...
Wow. Nice.
But, seriously, you're full of shit. You know that, right?
Tell that to my mother and father. Or just keep whining about how the evil upper class is crushing the proletari
What do you call the plans of a billionaire, anyway?
Ahh... "plans to use that billion to make another billion"? Something like that? Why does there have to be a conspiracy behind everything? Can't a rich old asshole be a rich old asshole without being a member of the Masonic Secret Order of Royal Capitalist Knights out to subjugate the masses?
Guys like Scott McNealy and Bill Gates and Warren Buffett don't have some grand plot to destroy the free world. Yeah, sure, they might be causing harm because of their offshore actions, but that's to be expected. I have news for you: if you become a chairman of a public company and you don't do everything you can to increase shareholder value you can be sued and ousted. That means doing things like moving jobs to where labor is cheap in order to make more money (if you don't, your competition surely will). It might suck for the little guy, but them's the brakes. At very least, every newly-freed worker has all the tools he needs to go out and create an enterprise for him/herself (or just eat the gubmint cheese and bitch about The Man like most people wind up doing). While not rich myself (by any stretch), I've seen more than a few people wind up being very successful by going out and creating something after being hit by severe hardship (and they got rich in spite of the plots to get them, eh?).
It's called capitalism. Money wins. You joined the game when you got your SSN, started paying taxes and buying crap on Amazon or at Best Buy. You win the game by becoming as rich as you can. You typically do this by starting a new Amazon or Best Buy that sells crap at a lower price than other crap dealers to other people playing the game. If you don't want to play by the rich people's rules, either get into another game or make enough money to set your own rules (I'm guessing you'd like some form of socialism). Making wild conspiracy accusations isn't likely going to help you achieve much. Just a guess.
Anyway, this is all water under a large bridge. There's nothing you or I can say that will make any difference. All we can do is do. Money isn't bad or good, it just is. If you want to get a lot and spend it like Ted Turner, more power to you. You want to make it off the backs of the poor like Kathy Lee or lie or cheat to get it like Gates/Ellision/et al, then that's fine too. Money still just is, and having it doesn't mean you're out to get everyone, getting it doesn't mean you've "gotten" people.
Ya, I guess all these guys that finally quit CompUSA and get real tech jobs are seeing a whole new world. Honestly, did they think the entire world was living with the same misconception?
Im not going to go MS bashing, because quite honestly Im pro-MS, but really, thats a truly stupid statement to make, especially if you have worked in real data centers.
Why do I read Slashdot? Why bother? What is the point? This gets +5?
I don't even know what the hell that guy is saying.
So you'll be feel fine if we DDoS attack your web server, right?
Because that's exactly that the "Slashdot effect" is.
That's idiotic. A traffic spike is not necessarily an attack. Attack implies malicious intent. Making resources publicly available and then whining that those resources were fetched legitimately is lame.
I think they really, really, really didn't like finding out about the./ effect completely unannounced.
Oh bull. A group of (image-laden) pages on my site got posted to Slashdot last year and it wasn't that big of a deal. Yeah, I had a few hundred thousand visitors, but that's why I have a hosting company that doesn't suck. So that people can actually -- gasp! -- get to what I put online.
If you don't want people to access their content, either don't put it on the Net or restrict access to it.
The really funny part is that this story will help increase his ranking. The Register has linked to it, and lots of people here will "search Google" for the phrase.
The first rule of Googlewashing is you don't talk about Googlewashing. The second rule of Googlewashing is you don't talk about Googlewashing.
They bought a fantastic HD-based car MP3 player (empeg), and promptly killed it off
I was all set to buy an Empeg, until I saw a posting on their web site (before they were bought) that said the next version due out would have a PCMCIA slot. That meant I could throw an Orinoco card in there. That meant I could hack up some scripts which would let it rsync up to my main server at my house once I pulled into the driveway. That meant I would have paid double what they were asking.
As soon as SonicBlue bought the makers of the Empeg I forgot all about ever owning one. If you ever wanted to see a company that cared about cash, and little else, look to SonicBlue. They just aren't (weren't?) a company I had any faith in. It's sad. The Empeg could have been really big. If SonicBlue had never entered the picture it might have.
I get ya. If it has any bearing whatsoever, I paid for a RHN subscription Monday morning, right before my BitTorrent download. I'm not pissed. After all, I got the ISOs fast and I still have a year's worth of updates.
I'm probably not typical, however.
RHAT probably lost some money, but I don't think they lost all that much. Anyone who really wanted RH9 early probably paid early like you and I did. Now if it was a leaked copy a couple days before the pre-release, then it'd be a different matter.
gonna remind us how we can fuck Red Hat & get it a week early without paying? I especially liked seeing that 3 days after I purchased a RHN account with that as a major factor & to support Red Hat
So you're saying that you're mad because you weren't also able to fuck Red Hat out of $60 and get RH9 without paying? Or did I miss something more altruistic in that rant?
I found a Linux machine that had a GUI I could see and installed BT on that (rather than use the Win2K box that I'm sitting in front of). Wound up getting around 130K/s. And now the CD-Rs are being burned.
Slashdot Mirror
-B
Ye gods, man! If I take out a second I'm going to repaint the house, not build a media system. How much did you pay for all that?
My Setup:
TiVo (bought new for about $300)
Linksys USB Ethernet adapter for TiVo ($30)
AudioTron (bought on close-out for $130)
Slow frankenstein PC for MP3 storage (100 bucks?)
Used 10mbit hub bolted to the wall (free)
Korean DVD player ($40? Not sure...)
10 year old Sony AV receiver (I think it was $400)
Speakers my brother gave me when he got divorced
It's not pretty but it works. And I never have to fuss with it. If I want music, I switch the receiver on and pick an MP3 playlist on the AudioTron. If I want a DVD, I switch the input to that on the TV. If I want regular TV, the TiVo handles it. I didn't have to build anything, it all just stacks on top of the TV. I did use some pieces of scrap wood to hold up the back of the AudioTron (it's 19'' wide, but half as deep as any other component). One day soon, I'll paint the wood black or something. Everything's easy to maintain. If the TiVo goes on the fritz, I unplug it and send it back. If I want 6.1 sound, I buy two new speakers and replace the receiver. When the DVD player breaks, I'll get another at the grocery store.
The biggest features (besides never have to screw around with anything and the fact that it required no construction) are that the whole system was cheap as hell and it all just works. The biggest drawback? No bragging rights. But the again, my truck doesn't have a tuck-and-roll and a flame job, my PC doesn't have a window cut into the case with blue neon lights lights behind it. I don't entertain much so there's nobody to show off for anyway.
Don't worry slashdotters, you'll get a peek at this beauty soon.
Well, you have me there. Nobody would want to see a pic of my TiVo sitting on top of the TV. I have one if anyone wants to see, though. I thought the use of scrap 1x2s was particularly inspired...
-B
The only way I'd run grub is on a low-bid DMZ host (like that old P133 I have laying around), with the adult content searching filters disabled. Then I'd let it do whatever it wanted to do as long as it wanted to do it and I'd forget about it. Who cares about the search results? Just use Google like before. They aren't going to make a good search engine anyway.
But if I ever got a subpoena which included information about my web browsing and online history, I could tell the judge that I could't honestly say if that particular bit of outbound traffic was me or that grub thing doing its searching. So as long as I was running it, I'd be free to look at "subversive" literature, pr0n, Arab websites, the Cato Institute's homepage, whatever I wanted. If I got on a list and they tried to PATRIOT ACT me, I'd use grub as my get out of (Ashcroft's mystery) jail free card. Hell, I'd throw grub and freenet on the same box and cover every base.
That's if I was paranoid. And wanted to surf Arab web sites or pr0n. Which I'm not. And I don't. :-)
-B
Assuming I were to get real, I'd have to stay with my orginal choice of a government that takes only what it needs in order to provide basic services. But them again, I'm known to be insensitive. :-)
-B
I quit Windows completely in May of 2001. I scrubbed my drives and went completely Linux. It wasn't too hard since most (all) of the games I played eventually got released by Loki. When they went tits up, I lingered in Linux-only mode for a while. I installed WineX and never had much luck. (I have a SCSI-only system, and they continue to not want to fix the bug where copy protection schemes fail on SCSI CD drives; their answer was "...most people use IDE. Install an IDE CD-ROM if you want to use WineX." So much for me being a subscriber any more.) It's hard to use an all Linux if you can't do WineX and you want to play games. Nearly impossible, actually. There just aren't any games current for Linux.
I wound up playing my old ones for a while until I got some DVD software for Christmas that requires Win2K or XP. So I installed Win2K on a spare drive and now I dual boot again. It's pretty sad.
My advice to you is to look at the "supported games" list on WineX's site very carefully. Then install it and try to play the games you want. If a few work and you're fine, then go full Linux. If they all work, you're golden. If there's one that yuou have to have that doesn't work, keep a Win32 drive around.
-B
How about those if us that favor no government? Maybe I'm not Libertarian. Maybe I'm an anarchist. Not sure if that party is on the voter registration card or not in California...
-B
-B
That's pretty funny. Republican. Yeah, I despise the welfare state but that doesn't make me Republican. It makes me sensible. Why wouldn't any sane person hate welfare? It creates a dependancy, and does nothing to encourage personal growth. If you truly care about people, there no way you could like the current welfare system.
I used to think like you until I moved into the inner city between high school and college. Then I saw what welfare in this country was really all about. I was making a little above minimum wage, and getting along all right for a young single guy. Then one day when I went to buy some beer after work (painting houses and doing roofing, if you care) and one of the guys that was *always* hanging around outside the liquor store approached me. He'd said he'd give me $20 in food stamps for $10. I bought all he had, and I came back every month for more. Turns out there's quite a market in the food-stamps-for-cash program. I had no qualms about using food stamps at the grocery store either -- I wasn't too proud for people to think I was a bum. Sure I got some pretty pathetic looks, but I was using them as intended and frankly I could give a shit what people think of me. The other guy wanted booze, I wanted my food dollar to go farther. Everyone was happy.
I have a feeling that story will disgust you, but it happened as described. If I had to do the whole thing over again, the only thing I would have changed was that I would have approached that dude much sooner than he approached me. I used to believe that people on welfare were just down on their luck and needed help. I'm fine with that. When I saw it was a lifstyle, I decided that tehre was nothing wrong with giving myself a retroactive tax refund. I could buy food for half price, thanks to the dole, and that made my paycheck go that much farther.
Here's Republican for you: I used to volunteer twice a month for two years at a food and shelter place downtown. I consider that welfare. And it's good welfare, too, because it was my choice to go down there and cook beans and ladle stew and clean up trash. I wanted to do it. However, if someone forced me to give up my time to do exactly what I was volunteering for, I would have refused. That would have been the same as taking money from me without my consent and giving it to someone I don't know can't see and will never talk to so they can buy beer for the rest of their adult life. Which is exactly what the current welfare system does.
The middle and working classes deserve a lot more than they're getting.
Honestly, I agree. They should get more -- by paying less tax. They should most certainly get to keep more of what they work for. And if they don't work they should get squat beyond just the help needed to start working and get back on their feet. (You do agree that people should be able to get back on their feet, right?) Everyone -- middle class, upper class, the poor, everyone -- deserves to keep as much as possible of what they make, create, etc. That encourages hard work and new ideas. People getting paid to do nothing will continue to do nothing.
How you think I could sound like a shill for "the wealthy" while saying that people should keep more of what they earn I don't know. I would think that those who are struggling to make ends meet would like to take home more of their paycheck.
If the government works for us, and we pay enough taxes that I think it should, it should at least pretend to protect our interests.
You honestly believe that the government has the public's interests at heart? There's the real "conspiracy theory" here: people believe that more govern
I'm being very consistent, or as consistent as my life has been. When I was six years old, I went to the first grade in a Rolls, driven by a chauffeur. By the time I was 10 we were buying groceries (for a family of seven) with paper route money. I can't be any more inconsistent that that.
I never said my parents have a 7 digit income. I did say they weren't rich. Since you're whole counterpoint hinges on the notion of my folks making a lot of money (and therefore me having money for some reason), I think I need to explain a little more about them.
I said my dad is retired. He has no appreciable income, and in fact works a nearly full week -- at no pay -- as chairman of a non-profit (they take kids from third world countries and give them an education and training in various sports so they can compete in things like the Goodwill Games and whatever). He not only makes no money, he gives out money. So your assertion that that he's rich doesn't wash.
My mom made less than I did last year. Really. See, her store is what made all that money. And almost everything she takes out of it gets put back in to make it better (they recently moved to a new building, for example). She's not rich, at least not cash-wise. She could likely sel it for quite a bit and be rich, but being rich isn't what she wants to do for a living.
My parents have some stock and such and the normal, upper middle class retirement stuff (although not enough, IMO), but they aren't wealthy enough to, say, take a 2 week cruise on a whim or anything.
I still think you're full of crap, and I'm not saying that in any nasty way. It's meant in a purely friendly, "just us folks" way. Don't be ashamed of being a bullshit artist! Revel in it, like I do! What's the big deal, really? So you're talking out your ass on Slashdot. So what? Aren't we all?
I've said nothing which isn't true. I don't feel any need to talk/brag/lie about myself. Why the hell would anyone care about me and what I have to say? Who here would I have to impress?
Honestly, I find this conversation interesting, mostly because it's enlightening to see how others perceive me. I'm usually not all self-absorbed (almost to a fault, if you ask my wife), but it's like the online equivalent of hearing your own voice in home movies or something. I tend not to worry or care about how I come off as much as just blurt it out. So I find it interesting to hear how you got such an odd mental picture of me and my life.
First of all, you are clearly not a "working stiff". You are a trust fund baby.
I've been accused of a lot of things (some of them were even true), but that is one I've not yet heard.
I have never in the past had a trust fund, and I probably wouldn't have wanted it had I had one. My experience has been that more money simply means more expensive problems. Back when I said the game was capitalism, I meant that. That is the game. I never said I played it. Getting rich is how you win, and after seeing what happened to my parents I have no desire to be rich. I just want to never be poor again. That's the truth, take it or leave it.
If you were not a trust fund baby, you would not have parents who make several million dollars a year, by your own admission. IF you're working, as you claim, you're doing it out of some perverse desire for street cred. But, all that street cred gets wrecked as soon as you mention the "seven figures" thing, so I don't see why you bother.
Well, they don't make that much money. Her store grosses that much. Her net is much smaller, her personal profit on that net even less.
And even if they did make that much cash, what r
So much for reasonable debate. Went straight into ad hominem. This is starting to sound like an elaborate troll. Anyway, I'll bite one last time...
When was it that I said I received any of my family's "good fortune"? (And why call it "good fortune" when it should more accurately be called "hard work"?) When did I ever say they were rich? When did I say anyone deserved anything? You missed my whole point: nobody deserves anything -- good or bad. But I get the feeling that nothing I say will change your preconceived notions about me (or others).
Not that it matters, but I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination. I'm plain middle class, and I've worked very hard to get where I am. I moved out of my parents' house at age 17 to go make my own way, on my own. I worked plenty of crappy and menial jobs, worked through college, and finally found something that makes me happy (and enough money to get by on). But my folks aren't what you'd call rich, and I wouldn't take money from them even if they were; just because they have some money in no way means I deserve any of it. They have their lives, I have mine. They've worked hard to earn what they have, I'm doing likewise. Should I be waiting for a handout or something?
I'd rather be a dyed-in-the-wool red than whatever slimy creature you've grown up to be.
If working hard to earn what you get isn't a concept that you can get behind, then I don't know what to tell you. I wish you the best in relying on someone else for your future.
-B
See my other recent post in this topic.
-B
I'll buy that. I'm certainly no entrepreneur. If I was, I'd be out "creating wealth" and not arguing with you on Slashdot.
Most mature industries have a very high barrier to entry. Virtually all established forms of commerce have at least a modest barrier to entry (think of this in terms of the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to, say, simply open a small office somewhere). It is therefore nearly impossible for a "newly freed worker" (???) to muster up the scratch to enter any lucrative area of business. He's lucky if he can make RENT, much less start a company. But of course you knew that.
There's actually nothing stopping someone if they want to create badly enough. Really. I'm not making that up. I've seen it happen to my family twice.
My father was into real estate. He used to buy and sell hotels. He was very wealthy as a result. He was also ethical. His business partner was not. When his partner got idicted under the RICO Act, my dad lost nearly everything (since all corporate assets were frozen). That included our house, cars, everything else. We were essentially penniless. This was a long time ago, when I was just starting grade school.
He later went on to start a consulting business, then a real estate business, then a business selling consumer energy saving products. He started each one small, and gradually built back up. He became moderately wealthy again and retired comfortably.
At another time in my life, my mother was divorced from my father and had also eventually lost her job. We had a hard time paying for basics like electricity. She had an idea for a clothing store that would make a little money (enough to get us by) which was easy to start up. She did it part-time and looked for other work. BTW, she had no retail experience, nor had never owned a business. She didn't even have a college degree. All she had was an idea, determination and an opportunity created by adversity.
That part-time idea worked well and is currently a 27,000 square foot store that has yearly sales in the small 7 figures. She employs over 70 people, and her charitable donations (it's built into her business model) nearly equal her profits. She's thinking of franchising and then retiring.
But, even your simple examples are far off. Amazon? Best Buy? Are you kidding? It takes millions of dollars of startup capital to build out a warehouse system capable of supporting Amazon-type activities. And, Best Buy is a chain store -- think tens of millions, and the setting up of numerous locations around the country. You're a madman, and what you're saying doesn't even make sense (much less add up to anything).
Hell, I could have just as easily said "Bear Stearns" or "Yellow Taxis" or "Cap'n Bob's Fish-n-Chips". It was just an example that popped into my head.
You really think that successful businesses get built all at once? Interesting.
I don't have any sympathy for people like you, who spout rah-rah cheerleading bullshit for the rich while they steal MY lunch.
And I have none for political whiners like yourself, who think that life should be fair, and that the answer to everything should be an artificially leveled playing field, government handouts, etc. But you're a communist and I'm libertarian so the fact that we disagree isn't all that surprising.
FWIW, I'm not stealing your lunch. But I strongly suspect that you're not protecting it, either. (Hint: you have actively to do that yourself. You can't simply just sit back and demand that life be fair or that the government make everything better for you.)
Guys like you are going to be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes. Heh heh...
Wow. Nice.
But, seriously, you're full of shit. You know that, right?
Tell that to my mother and father. Or just keep whining about how the evil upper class is crushing the proletari
Ahh... "plans to use that billion to make another billion"? Something like that? Why does there have to be a conspiracy behind everything? Can't a rich old asshole be a rich old asshole without being a member of the Masonic Secret Order of Royal Capitalist Knights out to subjugate the masses?
Guys like Scott McNealy and Bill Gates and Warren Buffett don't have some grand plot to destroy the free world. Yeah, sure, they might be causing harm because of their offshore actions, but that's to be expected. I have news for you: if you become a chairman of a public company and you don't do everything you can to increase shareholder value you can be sued and ousted. That means doing things like moving jobs to where labor is cheap in order to make more money (if you don't, your competition surely will). It might suck for the little guy, but them's the brakes. At very least, every newly-freed worker has all the tools he needs to go out and create an enterprise for him/herself (or just eat the gubmint cheese and bitch about The Man like most people wind up doing). While not rich myself (by any stretch), I've seen more than a few people wind up being very successful by going out and creating something after being hit by severe hardship (and they got rich in spite of the plots to get them, eh?).
It's called capitalism. Money wins. You joined the game when you got your SSN, started paying taxes and buying crap on Amazon or at Best Buy. You win the game by becoming as rich as you can. You typically do this by starting a new Amazon or Best Buy that sells crap at a lower price than other crap dealers to other people playing the game. If you don't want to play by the rich people's rules, either get into another game or make enough money to set your own rules (I'm guessing you'd like some form of socialism). Making wild conspiracy accusations isn't likely going to help you achieve much. Just a guess.
Anyway, this is all water under a large bridge. There's nothing you or I can say that will make any difference. All we can do is do. Money isn't bad or good, it just is. If you want to get a lot and spend it like Ted Turner, more power to you. You want to make it off the backs of the poor like Kathy Lee or lie or cheat to get it like Gates/Ellision/et al, then that's fine too. Money still just is, and having it doesn't mean you're out to get everyone, getting it doesn't mean you've "gotten" people.
-B
-B
Ok, better. Looks fine now.
-B
Im not going to go MS bashing, because quite honestly Im pro-MS, but really, thats a truly stupid statement to make, especially if you have worked in real data centers.
Why do I read Slashdot? Why bother? What is the point? This gets +5?
I don't even know what the hell that guy is saying.
-B
That's idiotic. A traffic spike is not necessarily an attack. Attack implies malicious intent. Making resources publicly available and then whining that those resources were fetched legitimately is lame.
Yet one more reason not to bother with ACs...
-B
Oh bull. A group of (image-laden) pages on my site got posted to Slashdot last year and it wasn't that big of a deal. Yeah, I had a few hundred thousand visitors, but that's why I have a hosting company that doesn't suck. So that people can actually -- gasp! -- get to what I put online.
If you don't want people to access their content, either don't put it on the Net or restrict access to it.
Buncha friggin' whiners...
-B
That was from "Fight Club"? For real? No kidding? Wow.
You don't get that whole sarcasm thing very much, do you?
-B
The first rule of Googlewashing is you don't talk about Googlewashing. The second rule of Googlewashing is you don't talk about Googlewashing.
-B
-B
I was all set to buy an Empeg, until I saw a posting on their web site (before they were bought) that said the next version due out would have a PCMCIA slot. That meant I could throw an Orinoco card in there. That meant I could hack up some scripts which would let it rsync up to my main server at my house once I pulled into the driveway. That meant I would have paid double what they were asking.
As soon as SonicBlue bought the makers of the Empeg I forgot all about ever owning one. If you ever wanted to see a company that cared about cash, and little else, look to SonicBlue. They just aren't (weren't?) a company I had any faith in. It's sad. The Empeg could have been really big. If SonicBlue had never entered the picture it might have.
-B
RHAT probably lost some money, but I don't think they lost all that much. Anyone who really wanted RH9 early probably paid early like you and I did. Now if it was a leaked copy a couple days before the pre-release, then it'd be a different matter.
-B
So you're saying that you're mad because you weren't also able to fuck Red Hat out of $60 and get RH9 without paying? Or did I miss something more altruistic in that rant?
-B
And yes, I left my client running...
-B