Tell them to get a copy of "Please Understand Me", written by Keirsey and Bates. It's an excellent book that explores MBTI personality type theory and it's applications to inter-personal relations, career choice, etc. The MBTI was first used by the army to properly classify personality types in order to determine what work one is best suited for. It can be uncanny at explaining how certain peronalities work as well as what your interests are, etc. If you want to read about it online, I would suggest going to www.typelogic.com and www.personalitypage.com. There are many others, but those two are a good place to start. Being an engineer, you are likely an INTP or an INTJ, you may want to read those profiles first and see if they sound familiar. To get a fairly accurate idea of what your type is, there are many free online tests that are reasonably close to what the MBTI is, or you can take the Keirsey temperament sorter online for a nominal fee. Either way, good luck, as an INTP who was raised by two extroverts (my mom is ESFP, dad is ESTJ), I can understand what you are going through, been there, done that. Type theory definitely helped bridge a fairly large gap in understanding.
I think that perhaps, due to a difference in termperment, that you have sorely mis-interpreted the motivation of most geeks. I'm not saying that someone labeled as "geek" such as myself don't enjoy positive attention every once in a while. However, just because the only reason that YOU might explain something is because YOU would want attention doesn't mean that's the way a geek's mind works. A geek might quite innocently think that others share their fascination, and have no idea that it would be boring to others. You really need to quit projecting your own personality onto others, and learn to understand people on their terms. For a person who devotes their entire lives to the understanding of ideas, it may be extremely difficult to understand that others do not appreciate their insights.
Oh yeah, here's an example. When the war in Iraq was going on, Fox News would find some way to have the main color theme on the screen to be red, white, and blue. There was a always a big banner saying, "Operation Iraqi Freedom", and you essentially felt like the channel just reminded you of a giant flag, that's if the flag wasn't on the screen somewhere. Usually there is a small flag in the corner of the screen, or perhaps a flag behind a reporter that's giving you the news. It was non-stop reporting of the war, except for maybe talk shows where they would stand behind the president, who was obviously doing the right thing. I don't think you kind media like Fox News even in the most totalitarian state, at least not without having people make fun of it, but for some reason people take it seriously here.
I don't know about that, man. Sure, CNN sucks, but Fox News is far and away the most jingoist blantatly biased News station here. When you watch them, you feel like you've stepped right into some book written by George Orwell. There's Bill O'Reilly who is the "no-spin" journalist that conveniently spins everything to the right. It's just amazing if you haven't seen it you'll have to take my word for it.
where you belong. Most fascist countries actually like it when dissidents leave. You would be right at home there, and you could tell anyone that didn't like it to leave without getting your ass kicked, since you would have the law on your side.
the people control their government, not the other way around. Maybe he doesn't live in a democratic counry and wants his government to become a democracy, have you ever thought of that?
Or you can change it...
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
That's the third choice that you are leaving out.
If you can't think of how to do it, the answer is to create anti-discrimation laws.
I agree, it's amazing that people are voting for this guy after his sending troops off to war for ficticious reasons which will increase terrorism, driving the economy into a train-wreck, and increasing spending to Reaganite levels, which serves to cripple government to the point that the next guys coming in office won't be able fund social programs. They are spending this much on purpose, the goal is destroy all social programs while benefitting the rich. The next guys coming in won't have a choice but to raise taxes even more, and spend the money on "defense" (AKA gravy train for large corporations) which is bigger than the 2nd largest military 10 times over. All that money isn't spent on protecting us, folks.
I can't do all your homework for you. It's obvious from reading your post, that you really don't know much about the stance of the far left, and have heard alot of bad information. You really need to read and understand the viewpoints of others to refute them. My suggestion is that you go to these sites and do some more reading. If you have any suggested reading for me, I'll be happy to take a look at it.
www.zmag.org. www.parecon.org www.motherjones. com www.thismodernworld.com http://www.monkeyfis t.com/ChomskyArchive http://www.motherjones.com/
There are many others, but you really need to see for yourself. Don't allow anyone to think for you, make up your own mind.
Nope, not at all. I never said that, and I don't appreciate having words put in my mouth. My solution is to encourage business growth, and to encourage a safety net and a minimum wage, which will also encourage business growth. Free trade is about allowing corporations to reward countries with the least regulations and standards of living with money, while countries that try to enforce democracy, environment regulations, and a minimum wage get the shaft.
This isn't just my solution, it's the solution promoted by those who are against corporate globalization. If you read less propaganda, and started going striagh to the source (either online or in print) you would already know that.
Corporations are the one who have portrayed this stark choice, but really, we have many choices about how to promote the spread of democracy and opportunity to other countries, and it doesn't necessarily have to entail free market capitalism either.
This is a joke, the aim of our corporate government is not to get imports into the US, but to get our corporations into their markets, which is why they only trade with countries that trade with us.
Ok, it seems like the two quotes are contradicting each other. By "we" in the first statement, I mean the people of the US. In the second statement, I am referring to the corporate government, whose motives are different, IMO. There are also two kinds of imports, which I didn't necessarly make clear. There are intra-corporate imports, which is what corporations want, and their are imports that come from foreign companies which is what the rest of us Americans should desire. The reason we want the latter, is because foreign companies will typically return more of the profits to that country, which will mean higher wages for countries we trade with, which means more consumption by that country and more money flowing back into the American middle class. Intra-corporate imports means lower wages, and the profits get returned to that company and it's investors, who will simply hoard that money.
Sorry for the short reply. What is going to happen to the dollar? We are paying them a very small wage, for work that's worth quite a bit more.
Being more efficient does not help workers, it helps corporations. Remember, people compete for dollars, not for work. So, if someone loses their job to this nonsense, then they have lost quite a bit due to "efficiency". And remember, corporations only are competing for dollars, not for efficiency, if an approach is more efficient, but costs more then they will use people.
First of all, if anyone actually said business is about saving the world, then you were stupid for believing them.
That's EXACTLY what was said when NAFTA was found out in 1994 before the Clinton administration rammed it through Congress. It was marketed as being beneficial for Mexicans and Americans. It was pushed as a way of exporting capitalism and American values to Mexico. So far, Mexico has been devastated, and so have the Americans who have relied on those "bad" jobs.
Of course its about making corporations rich! And let's not obfuscate things, it's about making individuals rich, stockholders specifically. Which is awesome! That means that they were able to present someone with a better alternative use for their dollars than anyone else at a moment in time.
Stockholders represent a very small portion of the population, typically upper-class, since most of the lower and middle class can't afford to ride out the low points such as the dot com crash. The rich getting rich while the poor lose their jobs is not "awesome!" as you put it.
Anyway, the whole free trade thing...I live in Texas. I'm tremendously concerned about: the orange grove picker jobs that have been exported to Florida the snowmobile rental jobs farmed out to Colorado the Chicago tourism jobs exported to Chicago...
Come to think of it, I'm a programmer living in Dallas. I'm very concerned about all of the IT jobs that have gone to Austin and Houston. Perhaps I'll petition my local government to restrict companies from farming out jobs to them.
You miss one crucial factor, and that is that all states have the same federal minimum wage. This has huge effect on how things work. Free trade would be great if Mexicans, Indians, et al. had the same minimum wage that we do. That way, they would have enough money to buy from Americans, not just foreign branches of multinationals that can afford to drop the price low enough. In other words, we would all benefit from such a scenario, although the rich would benefit less.
Here's the point: I pursue those restrictive policies, and so Austin does too. Or Florida, or whatever. Of course, Florida wouldn't care about the orange grove jobs they'd lose to Texas, so they'd do something like Texas-produced steel, or something we specialize at, just like Chicago specializes (duh) in Chicago tourism.
But, you miss the point. The difference in wages between countries, along with barriers to competition is having a disaterous effect on our economy. The labor market is being flooded, but barriers to competition are keeping the number of businesses relatively constant. The result of this is that labor is getting more and more desperate, while large multinational corporations(not small businesses) are profiting immensely. Things will eventually reach equilibrium, but only when the majority of Americans have a far lower standard of living.
To an economist, this is a real head shaker. This whole sequence I'm talking about is called reciprocity. It's a solved problem in game theory. The only people who argue about it are people who haven't read and understand the solution, i.e., 90% of the whole world, unfortuately.
I understand it, but they are conveniently leaving things out. I will comment on some of the headings in the article you sent.
Trade Creates Wealth, Not Jobs
I agree with this, which is why I'm against it. It's making a small population of investors rich. Note that the only investors making money off this are those with enough money to dip into profits, which typically are the billionaires that own over 50% of a company. Free trade does not necesarily promote growth, so typical investors aren't getting any of this. The rest of America, with almost 50% owing more than they own(which means that have negative net worth) are going to be left without a safety net, and with a very poor standard of living.
So, you are making the distinction that people running corporations are the ones that are making these decisions. That's true, but how does this distinction increase our understanding? Are you pointing out anything that wasn't know already? What I see this arguement as is a way of obfuscating the arguement by introducing terminology that doesn't matter.
If you want to point out that people are doing this, then how about explaining WHY they are doing this. Then that extra terminilogy might have some use. The reason people behave this way when they run corporations is because corporate institutions select for those are willing to make "hard" (read, greedy, unethical, immoral, etc.) choices. The end result is that corporations are institutions that by their very nature encourage these kinds of decisions. Therefore, the properties of greediness, bad ethics, etc., belong more to corporations than they do to the people in them. So, other than explaining why people make these decisions when in corporations, we can for the most part ignore the people, and attack the corporations as illegitimate institutions. I'm not saying to ignore the people that are doing these things, they should be prosecuted to the fullest, but the root of the problem is corporation power, not people in and of themselves.
Before starting off on a tirade, check to make sure that your arguement actually is saying something other than a thinly veiled "shut up".
You're describing a trend in a specific field, he's describing a trend in the general work force. As long as people have a new field to go into, it all works, as soon as everything gets outsourced and people have no place to work, is when the things that he is describing happen.
One of the horrible things about the global economy is that it makes labor essentially a worthless commodity, since the amount of supply far exceeds demand. Due to anti-competitive pressures, new businesses aren't forming to soak up excess demand for cheaper products. Therefore, a few select corporations profit immensely, while the population of the rest of the world gets treated like slaves. But, hey, I guess the word "free" is in "free trade", so therefore it must be a good thing.
I have commented on this before to the people on slashdot promoting free trade. I told them that this was not about helping the people of India, and as soon as they got too "uppity" the corporations would drop them on their face and move somewhere else. See, folks, this isn't about helping out poor countries, this is about making corporations rich. It's not about exporting capitalism, it's about importing a 3rd world standard of living, which is why so many people around the world are against this. It's about making a market place, a product out of entire countries, whose populations are shopped by corporations, much like individual slaves were shopped for in the early United States. The message in return being sent to Americans isn't,"Thanks for helping us get to where we are.", but instead was, "Other countries are out-competing us, you better start working more hours." Of course, what they don't state explicitly, is that you are simply competing with another branch of your employer in a different country.
If I were to devise a system of government where Bill Gate's got 40 billion votes and the rest of us got 1 vote, we wouldn't even laugh. Calling capitalism democracy is absurd.
addressing the grievances that might cause a certain group to use technology to do harm? Or am I supposed to believe that we are the only rational ones and the rest of the world is full of savages that need to be tamed? Our viewpoint of other countries sounds alot like present day colonialism if you ask me.
Here's some food for thought. If we don't address these grievances, then how can Rees so arrogantly believe that his book is going to make a bit of difference? Does he think that they are incapable of research? Does he think that they are going to say," Gee, Rees wrote a book, maybe we shouldn't use this technology or do our own research." It might slow terrorism down, but it's a stupid price to pay. It will only delay the inevitable UNLESS we address the problems rather than dropping bombs. The only thing that his proposal might do is further along the police state mentality that seems to be moving along quite well here in the US. He certainly won't stop terrorism.
I wonder if this will be cheap enough to use with community wirless networks, or if we'll be stuck trying to extend the range of 802.11b? I would hate to see the wireless spectrum sold to the highest bidder the way domains were, but it seems that this may in fact happen unless laws are created to protect non-profit community access networks.
We have one such group here in Atlanta called atlantafreenet.org The project looks fairly promising, and they already have a backbone up, but it requires a line of site. Does anyone have any prices on this equipment? I would hate to see the price of this technology made artificially high or have the bandwidth used up by the highest bidder. Hopefully we'll see communities creating their own free networks out of this.
Government has a terrible flaw, and that flaw is that it has the potential for democracy. Coprorations are perfect tyrannies.
The problem with setting up a tax is that this is exactly what these corrupt, free-loading assholes want you to do. My response is, "Fuck you!". I'll pay their fees as soon as they reduce copyright terms down to 20 years, and give a substantial portion of their money to fostering competition in this corrupt, price-fixed industry. Until then, no thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
Tell them to get a copy of "Please Understand Me", written by Keirsey and Bates. It's an excellent book that explores MBTI personality type theory and it's applications to inter-personal relations, career choice, etc. The MBTI was first used by the army to properly classify personality types in order to determine what work one is best suited for. It can be uncanny at explaining how certain peronalities work as well as what your interests are, etc. If you want to read about it online, I would suggest going to www.typelogic.com and www.personalitypage.com. There are many others, but those two are a good place to start. Being an engineer, you are likely an INTP or an INTJ, you may want to read those profiles first and see if they sound familiar. To get a fairly accurate idea of what your type is, there are many free online tests that are reasonably close to what the MBTI is, or you can take the Keirsey temperament sorter online for a nominal fee. Either way, good luck, as an INTP who was raised by two extroverts (my mom is ESFP, dad is ESTJ), I can understand what you are going through, been there, done that. Type theory definitely helped bridge a fairly large gap in understanding.
I think that perhaps, due to a difference in termperment, that you have sorely mis-interpreted the motivation of most geeks. I'm not saying that someone labeled as "geek" such as myself don't enjoy positive attention every once in a while. However, just because the only reason that YOU might explain something is because YOU would want attention doesn't mean that's the way a geek's mind works. A geek might quite innocently think that others share their fascination, and have no idea that it would be boring to others. You really need to quit projecting your own personality onto others, and learn to understand people on their terms. For a person who devotes their entire lives to the understanding of ideas, it may be extremely difficult to understand that others do not appreciate their insights.
Oh yeah, here's an example. When the war in Iraq was going on, Fox News would find some way to have the main color theme on the screen to be red, white, and blue. There was a always a big banner saying, "Operation Iraqi Freedom", and you essentially felt like the channel just reminded you of a giant flag, that's if the flag wasn't on the screen somewhere. Usually there is a small flag in the corner of the screen, or perhaps a flag behind a reporter that's giving you the news. It was non-stop reporting of the war, except for maybe talk shows where they would stand behind the president, who was obviously doing the right thing. I don't think you kind media like Fox News even in the most totalitarian state, at least not without having people make fun of it, but for some reason people take it seriously here.
I don't know about that, man. Sure, CNN sucks, but Fox News is far and away the most jingoist blantatly biased News station here. When you watch them, you feel like you've stepped right into some book written by George Orwell. There's Bill O'Reilly who is the "no-spin" journalist that conveniently spins everything to the right. It's just amazing if you haven't seen it you'll have to take my word for it.
then don't live in a modern reincarnation of Nazi Germany. :)
Microsoft is probably one of the Federal Government's biggest customers? :) After all, we have the best democracy that money can buy.
where you belong. Most fascist countries actually like it when dissidents leave. You would be right at home there, and you could tell anyone that didn't like it to leave without getting your ass kicked, since you would have the law on your side.
the people control their government, not the other way around. Maybe he doesn't live in a democratic counry and wants his government to become a democracy, have you ever thought of that?
That's the third choice that you are leaving out.
If you can't think of how to do it, the answer is to create anti-discrimation laws.
I agree, it's amazing that people are voting for this guy after his sending troops off to war for ficticious reasons which will increase terrorism, driving the economy into a train-wreck, and increasing spending to Reaganite levels, which serves to cripple government to the point that the next guys coming in office won't be able fund social programs. They are spending this much on purpose, the goal is destroy all social programs while benefitting the rich. The next guys coming in won't have a choice but to raise taxes even more, and spend the money on "defense" (AKA gravy train for large corporations) which is bigger than the 2nd largest military 10 times over. All that money isn't spent on protecting us, folks.
I can't do all your homework for you. It's obvious from reading your post, that you really don't know much about the stance of the far left, and have heard alot of bad information. You really need to read and understand the viewpoints of others to refute them. My suggestion is that you go to these sites and do some more reading. If you have any suggested reading for me, I'll be happy to take a look at it.
. coms t.com/ChomskyArchive
www.zmag.org.
www.parecon.org
www.motherjones
www.thismodernworld.com
http://www.monkeyfi
http://www.motherjones.com/
There are many others, but you really need to see for yourself. Don't allow anyone to think for you, make up your own mind.
Nope, not at all. I never said that, and I don't appreciate having words put in my mouth. My solution is to encourage business growth, and to encourage a safety net and a minimum wage, which will also encourage business growth. Free trade is about allowing corporations to reward countries with the least regulations and standards of living with money, while countries that try to enforce democracy, environment regulations, and a minimum wage get the shaft.
This isn't just my solution, it's the solution promoted by those who are against corporate globalization. If you read less propaganda, and started going striagh to the source (either online or in print) you would already know that.
Corporations are the one who have portrayed this stark choice, but really, we have many choices about how to promote the spread of democracy and opportunity to other countries, and it doesn't necessarily have to entail free market capitalism either.
We Trade for Imports
Yes, we do trade for imports,....
Unilateral Free Trade
This is a joke, the aim of our corporate government is not to get imports into the US, but to get our corporations into their markets, which is why they only trade with countries that trade with us.
Ok, it seems like the two quotes are contradicting each other. By "we" in the first statement, I mean the people of the US. In the second statement, I am referring to the corporate government, whose motives are different, IMO. There are also two kinds of imports, which I didn't necessarly make clear. There are intra-corporate imports, which is what corporations want, and their are imports that come from foreign companies which is what the rest of us Americans should desire. The reason we want the latter, is because foreign companies will typically return more of the profits to that country, which will mean higher wages for countries we trade with, which means more consumption by that country and more money flowing back into the American middle class. Intra-corporate imports means lower wages, and the profits get returned to that company and it's investors, who will simply hoard that money.
Sorry for the short reply. What is going to happen to the dollar? We are paying them a very small wage, for work that's worth quite a bit more.
Being more efficient does not help workers, it helps corporations. Remember, people compete for dollars, not for work. So, if someone loses their job to this nonsense, then they have lost quite a bit due to "efficiency". And remember, corporations only are competing for dollars, not for efficiency, if an approach is more efficient, but costs more then they will use people.
Horsehockey.
First of all, if anyone actually said business is about saving the world, then you were stupid for believing them.
That's EXACTLY what was said when NAFTA was found out in 1994 before the Clinton administration rammed it through Congress. It was marketed as being beneficial for Mexicans and Americans. It was pushed as a way of exporting capitalism and American values to Mexico. So far, Mexico has been devastated, and so have the Americans who have relied on those "bad" jobs.
Of course its about making corporations rich! And let's not obfuscate things, it's about making individuals rich, stockholders specifically. Which is awesome! That means that they were able to present someone with a better alternative use for their dollars than anyone else at a moment in time.
Stockholders represent a very small portion of the population, typically upper-class, since most of the lower and middle class can't afford to ride out the low points such as the dot com crash. The rich getting rich while the poor lose their jobs is not "awesome!" as you put it.
Anyway, the whole free trade thing...I live in Texas. I'm tremendously concerned about:
the orange grove picker jobs that have been exported to Florida
the snowmobile rental jobs farmed out to Colorado
the Chicago tourism jobs exported to Chicago...
Come to think of it, I'm a programmer living in Dallas. I'm very concerned about all of the IT jobs that have gone to Austin and Houston. Perhaps I'll petition my local government to restrict companies from farming out jobs to them.
You miss one crucial factor, and that is that all states have the same federal minimum wage. This has huge effect on how things work. Free trade would be great if Mexicans, Indians, et al. had the same minimum wage that we do. That way, they would have enough money to buy from Americans, not just foreign branches of multinationals that can afford to drop the price low enough. In other words, we would all benefit from such a scenario, although the rich would benefit less.
Here's the point: I pursue those restrictive policies, and so Austin does too. Or Florida, or whatever. Of course, Florida wouldn't care about the orange grove jobs they'd lose to Texas, so they'd do something like Texas-produced steel, or something we specialize at, just like Chicago specializes (duh) in Chicago tourism.
But, you miss the point. The difference in wages between countries, along with barriers to competition is having a disaterous effect on our economy. The labor market is being flooded, but barriers to competition are keeping the number of businesses relatively constant. The result of this is that labor is getting more and more desperate, while large multinational corporations(not small businesses) are profiting immensely. Things will eventually reach equilibrium, but only when the majority of Americans have a far lower standard of living.
To an economist, this is a real head shaker. This whole sequence I'm talking about is called reciprocity. It's a solved problem in game theory. The only people who argue about it are people who haven't read and understand the solution, i.e., 90% of the whole world, unfortuately.
I understand it, but they are conveniently leaving things out. I will comment on some of the headings in the article you sent.
Trade Creates Wealth, Not Jobs
I agree with this, which is why I'm against it. It's making a small population of investors rich. Note that the only investors making money off this are those with enough money to dip into profits, which typically are the billionaires that own over 50% of a company. Free trade does not necesarily promote growth, so typical investors aren't getting any of this. The rest of America, with almost 50% owing more than they own(which means that have negative net worth) are going to be left without a safety net, and with a very poor standard of living.
We Trade for I
So, you are making the distinction that people running corporations are the ones that are making these decisions. That's true, but how does this distinction increase our understanding? Are you pointing out anything that wasn't know already? What I see this arguement as is a way of obfuscating the arguement by introducing terminology that doesn't matter.
If you want to point out that people are doing this, then how about explaining WHY they are doing this. Then that extra terminilogy might have some use. The reason people behave this way when they run corporations is because corporate institutions select for those are willing to make "hard" (read, greedy, unethical, immoral, etc.) choices. The end result is that corporations are institutions that by their very nature encourage these kinds of decisions. Therefore, the properties of greediness, bad ethics, etc., belong more to corporations than they do to the people in them. So, other than explaining why people make these decisions when in corporations, we can for the most part ignore the people, and attack the corporations as illegitimate institutions. I'm not saying to ignore the people that are doing these things, they should be prosecuted to the fullest, but the root of the problem is corporation power, not people in and of themselves.
Before starting off on a tirade, check to make sure that your arguement actually is saying something other than a thinly veiled "shut up".
Right, these decision makers are just doing their job, it's the job that needs to be questioned.
You're describing a trend in a specific field, he's describing a trend in the general work force. As long as people have a new field to go into, it all works, as soon as everything gets outsourced and people have no place to work, is when the things that he is describing happen.
One of the horrible things about the global economy is that it makes labor essentially a worthless commodity, since the amount of supply far exceeds demand. Due to anti-competitive pressures, new businesses aren't forming to soak up excess demand for cheaper products. Therefore, a few select corporations profit immensely, while the population of the rest of the world gets treated like slaves. But, hey, I guess the word "free" is in "free trade", so therefore it must be a good thing.
I have commented on this before to the people on slashdot promoting free trade. I told them that this was not about helping the people of India, and as soon as they got too "uppity" the corporations would drop them on their face and move somewhere else. See, folks, this isn't about helping out poor countries, this is about making corporations rich. It's not about exporting capitalism, it's about importing a 3rd world standard of living, which is why so many people around the world are against this. It's about making a market place, a product out of entire countries, whose populations are shopped by corporations, much like individual slaves were shopped for in the early United States. The message in return being sent to Americans isn't,"Thanks for helping us get to where we are.", but instead was, "Other countries are out-competing us, you better start working more hours." Of course, what they don't state explicitly, is that you are simply competing with another branch of your employer in a different country.
Check out "Bowling for Columbine", it's a great movie. Or you can go to www.michaelmoore.com to find out what he's all about.
If I were to devise a system of government where Bill Gate's got 40 billion votes and the rest of us got 1 vote, we wouldn't even laugh. Calling capitalism democracy is absurd.
addressing the grievances that might cause a certain group to use technology to do harm? Or am I supposed to believe that we are the only rational ones and the rest of the world is full of savages that need to be tamed? Our viewpoint of other countries sounds alot like present day colonialism if you ask me.
Here's some food for thought. If we don't address these grievances, then how can Rees so arrogantly believe that his book is going to make a bit of difference? Does he think that they are incapable of research? Does he think that they are going to say," Gee, Rees wrote a book, maybe we shouldn't use this technology or do our own research." It might slow terrorism down, but it's a stupid price to pay. It will only delay the inevitable UNLESS we address the problems rather than dropping bombs. The only thing that his proposal might do is further along the police state mentality that seems to be moving along quite well here in the US. He certainly won't stop terrorism.
I wonder if this will be cheap enough to use with community wirless networks, or if we'll be stuck trying to extend the range of 802.11b? I would hate to see the wireless spectrum sold to the highest bidder the way domains were, but it seems that this may in fact happen unless laws are created to protect non-profit community access networks.
We have one such group here in Atlanta called atlantafreenet.org
The project looks fairly promising, and they already have a backbone up, but it requires a line of site. Does anyone have any prices on this equipment? I would hate to see the price of this technology made artificially high or have the bandwidth used up by the highest bidder. Hopefully we'll see communities creating their own free networks out of this.
Government has a terrible flaw, and that flaw is that it has the potential for democracy. Coprorations are perfect tyrannies.
The problem with setting up a tax is that this is exactly what these corrupt, free-loading assholes want you to do. My response is, "Fuck you!". I'll pay their fees as soon as they reduce copyright terms down to 20 years, and give a substantial portion of their money to fostering competition in this corrupt, price-fixed industry. Until then, no thanks.