Here in Southern California, ever since I went on that list, I get almost no calls at all. Every so often I might get a call for a survey, but that's about it.
But then, my calls had dropped pretty low even before the do-not-call list went into effect. I had learned the magic phrase, "Could you take me off the call list?", which I diligently said to every telemarketer. By law, they have to take you off, so that had already almost completely solved the problem. The national do-not-call list eliminated the last bits.
I have a 40GB iPod almost full of 100% legit music. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that 15 years of buying CDs could do that.
Why do people like you always bring this up? It doesn't matter what you personally do. Sure, there are music geeks out there who spend every penny on buying CDs. But the VAST majority of people do not. The average person probably has 40 or 50 CDs, 100 at the outside.
hint: in a fair market, goods which can be produced and distributed for less money can be sold for less money while maintaining the same profit.
If it would actually make a difference, I might agree with you. But I highly doubt that BT is going to change the economics such that a $1 movie rental (as an example) suddenly becomes a $0.50 rental.
It might save someone, I dunno, 2% of their costs, but it would make a considerable difference to the usability of my Internet connection. Ever tried to to use VOIP during a BitTorrent download? My Cable Modem has 4 megabits down, but only 512 Kb up.
To answer my own critisim, I suppose you could argue that the start-up speed and download speeds could be addressed by official seeding servers, so that things would work more efficiently and reliably.
But that still doesn't address why I should be interested in giving my bandwidth to Warner Bros or whoever.
I like BitTorrent... it does a great job of doing reliable downloads for movies, er, I mean, large files. But why, exactly, would I use it from an "official" source? I mean, I'm not particularly interested in saving them money.
Second point, BT is not that user friendly, since it often takes a long time to start up, and isn't always very fast. It's reliable, in the sense that things usually get to you *eventually*, but it's not an appropriate technology for mainstream downloads.
Another case of VCs dumping money at popularity rather than something that can actually make money.
Watch a movie being shown on TNT-HD versus the DVD you own.
I tend to doubt the movie source is HD. I'd be interested to know if I'm wrong (if, say, they specifically say they create a new HD source from the original movie print), but I suspect they just use regular source tape or even a DVD source.
That is, if you sum up all of the species that have ever existed on this planet, only a tiny minority of those are currently alive. [...] We haven't been around long enough to declare our resiliency.
The difference between us and "all species that have ever existed" is our adaptability. Short of the atmosphere being stripped away, there's nothing natural environmentally speaking that would kill the ENTIRE human race. Hell, even if the atmosphere did get ripped away, we'd probably build a few bio-domes in time for someone to survive.
Now, whether we'll kill ourselves via war (nukes, bioweapons, that sort of thing) is another question. But slow environmental change will never kill us off. It's too slow and we're too quick to adapt.
I've been down this road sooooooo many times, and I really don't feel like revisting the 80s one more time... but, let's just take this:
Reagan "doubled the tax base" because in 1981, when the deficits were looking out of control, he implemented the "Self-Employment Tax" which almost doubled taxes.
Dude, you're not seriously suggesting that self employment taxes nearly doubled the total revenues to the government?? I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, but revenues increased from like $500 billion to $950 billion or something like that. Sheesh, look at the economic growth during that time. That statement is so obviously wrong that I know you don't really believe it.
The whole "credit card" analogy is wrong on so many levels. Sure, government spending goes into the economy, but look at spending in proportion to the size of the overall economy. You CAN'T spend enough to make a material difference, otherwise the government could just spend itself out of recessions. So why don't they? Again, because they can't. That's not how the economy works.
The economy grows by people taking risks and creating jobs. Not make-work jobs based on government handouts, but by real production. By lowering taxes, you keep more money in the economy to be used by people to invest. More investment means more jobs which means more tax revenue.
What, are you people actually using this product? Apple products are not meant to be used, they're meant to be put on a pedastal for proper worship, perhaps occasionally rubbed with a rabbit-skin mitt.
So when do the Geeks start running for office? Come on now!!! You know you wanna. You know you can solve the country's problems with that big geek brain!!!
There's more to being a politician than "having ideas". Everyone has ideas -- but the problem is that everyone has different ideas. Geeks would typically make terrible politicians, because they are more suited to being benevolent dictators, rather than functioning in a political body that is formed by compromise.
People like to bash politicians, but it takes a very special type of personality to be able to function in that sort of frustrating arena. Geeks are all about, "see a problem... implement a solution". But government doesn't work like that -- it can't work like that. There are too many voices that have to have their say in the mix. It's all about compromise and building consensus.
When I was in my early 20s, I thought it might be interesting to get into politics. As I got older, I realized that there's no way I would have the patience to function that way. I finally concluded that I would make a much better King than a President, and that probably wasn't going to happen.:)
Why do so many people assume that it's either going to be a services world or a local-CPU world? We've always had both in the past, and we'll always have both in the (medium-time-frame-30-year) future. I think we'll see more and more things move over to the net, but some things would just suck running over the net. I mean, who wants to do photoshop over the net? Who wants to do video editing? Just not going to be enough bandwidth, especially when HDTV editing becomes common. And high graphic games are just not gonna work with AJAX and Javascript.
So no worries for Microsoft. There'll always be a place for the operating system. In fact, web services simply create more opportunities for Microsoft. The more useful a computer is, the better they do. Microsoft just has to be perceived as providing enough value beyond a dumb Net terminal that it makes it worth it to buy a computer. Given the price difference between the two, it's not that difficult a proposition.
There's a lot wrong with your post, but I don't feel like taking it point by point. Let's hit a few highlights...Also, there is no supply curve with software... again, where is supply and demand? If you didn't here that you needed to know this program, you would never have bought it.
The 'supply' is a copy of the software, backed by copyright laws. Sure, in theory, you have an infinite supply of software. In practice, one doesn't. Now, you could argue that in the future, the supply could become infinite with OSS, and then the economics might change.
One of the primary flaws in your thinking is believing that only tangible products (the "20%") is applicable to supply and demand. S&D may be Microecon 101, but that doesn't mean it's not true. Everything is comes down to supply and demand, if you know how to find exactly what the supply and demand actually are.
use of Supply-side economics have been totally failures and achieved all success based on piling up huge debts
I kind of doubt you actually understand supply-side economics, but while the jury is out on W, Reagan's success is simply factual. Look at the revenues to the government during that time, which almost doubled. The reason we had deficits is because of the spending, and it certainly wasn't the spending that stimulated the economy, because the congressional spending took place after the money started rolling in. Just for the record, "supply-side economics" isn't something that fails or works, it simply/is/. All it says is that excessives taxes can reduce revenues to the government, because pulling too much money out of the economy reduces growth. This is inarguable. What's arguable is what the optimal level of taxation is.
People assume they know how things work. I KNOW I don't know how things work but I have a few ideas and good questions.
I don't know all the answers, either, and I'm happy that you seem to open to being wrong. But I do know one thing -- cynicism is NOT the answer. Not everything is a conspiracy ("Leader either accepts new US multinational opportunity or has unfortunate accident"). Everything is not as it seems, but everything is not a lie, either. There are people out there whose livelihood depends on creating as much fear and doubt as possible by twisting the truth, and too many people follow those people (the Michael Moore's of the world, for example). Unfortunately, too many people/want/ to believe the worst of everything, too, which is something I've never understood. It's almost like a religion to some people. They're not happy unless they miserably repenting the state of the world.
You can rant all you want about some random person hating some other random people because they get hit with a rock, but it still ignores the bigger picture of history. Will France go around invading anyone anymore? NO. Will Britain run around invading anyone? NO. Will Spain? NO. Japan? NO. Russia? Eh -- probably not.:)
The point is that the world is, on balance, growing more stable as time goes by. A lot of the world is basically DONE as far as wars go. Do we have a ways to go? Sure, but the point is that it is possible for countries to mature into non-aggression, and only act when forced to by other aggressive nations.
Dude, relax. Really. Sure, we'll have problems in the future, just like we've had problems in the past. They'll get solved.
The desperation and poverty in the third world is used to make us cheap tennis shoes.
You mean those exploited people who are desperately happy to have any sort of job?
Are they paid less than people elsewhere? Sure. But it costs a whole lot less to live, too.
What happens when less oil comes out of the ground than the year before?
It gets more expensive. Once the price gets higher than something else, then we use the something else, which brings down the price of that thing. The economy adjusts based on supply and demand.
What happens when clean water gets more scarce?
We make more. The world doesn't exactly lack water. It just gets a bit pricier.
What happens when the gulf stream shuts down and Europe has to find new crop land or warmer/wetter weather?
We do what our ancestors did when the environment changes: adapt. Move our farmland, or irrigate.
How civilized were we to turn back food and water going to the victims of Katrina just last week in the US of A?
Come on, it was delayed a couple of days because of beauracracy, not out of spite. Should it have been faster? Sure. But we're still talking only days to get our sh** together, and then the whole country practically flooded the area with supplies and help. If you need a reason to be cynical, I don't think you'll find it in the Katrina response. If anything, Katrina will probably set a record for compassionate outpouring.
I don't mean to sound like we won't have challenges in the future -- we certainly will. The Middle East will be a hard nut to crack and drag kicking and screaming into civilization. But one of the reasons I'm so in favor of the Iraq war is that we have the chance to really make a stable democracy in Iraq (I don't particularly care/why/ the war was started -- I care about the potential now that it's done). If we have one, WW/III will begin in the Middle East, and this might be the point in history that turns us away from that future.
But beyond that, yeah, believe it or not, things change. What, you think the Irish never had any bigotry here in the US? But how much bigotry is there now? Maybe in some New York suburb, I dunno, but the US is not exactly a hotbed of Irish bigotry.
And yes, I expect kids to be smarter in the age of information than in previous generations. Only kids who grow up in insulated environments make the leap that "Protestant kid throws a rock at me, therefore, all protestants are the same." All it takes is for that same kid to be in a few chat rooms with kids where religion is completely irrelevent to anything to make him figure out that the old prejudices are really stupid.
Look at what HAS changed: US and Soviet Union hostility: history. Japanese wars of aggression: history. Hell, look at Britain and France, who historically DESPISE each other. Is there any danger of either one invading the other? Do we fear the Fourth Reich springing up again? Hell no -- Germany will never do it again. How about Spain's wars of aggression? History.
The "cooling" of the civil conflict in Northern Ireland is a result of the British Government giving the Republicans what they want (piece by piece).
Well, I shouldn't have oversimplified that situation like I did. There is certainly a lot of heat under the surface that can re-erupt into hostilities, so I shouldn't make it out that things are "solved" in some way.
That said, while things are still bubbling below the surface, they aren't quite as hot as they used to be. I think there was/is a lot of terrorism fatigue going on, where terrorist tactics aren't getting quite as much support from the "Irishman on the street", especially when the Muslin terrorists are getting so much bad press.
So yeah, I shouldn't make it seem like there isn't anything there anymore, but I think things are on the road to reaching some sort of political equilibrium where no one is happy, but things are relatively peaceful.
If you'll forgive a departure from the normal patented Slashdot Cynicism(tm), the future really will be different. Give it, say, 50 or 100 years.
Europe was by far the bloodiest continent for hundreds and hundreds of years. What changed? Simple -- Democracy. It's extremely rare that stable democracies war on each other. Eventually, the rest of the world will join civilization and the entire world will be stable constitutional democracies. China, Korea, the Middle East -- Yeah, it seems far away from where we're standing right now, but it'll happen eventually.
Once the entire world has been "de-dictator-ized", war will be pretty much over. There will still be the old hatreds (*ahem*India and Pakistan), but that only takes a few generations of children who don't know and don't care the border used to be different. They'd rather have peace than move a few lines on the map. Britain and Northern Ireland are already well on this course. Israel and Palestine probably won't happen until Palestine has actual real estate to call their own and has had a stable democracy for a few generations.
But it'll happen. It's only a matter of time. I hope I see it in my lifetime.
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Makes me wonder if eventually Google might do their own music distribution service. Not sure how it could succeed much better than the other music services, but you never know. Of course, this was registered way back in 11/2001, so they may have been grabbing domains as they thought of anything.
If I want to keep the fucking page open I will do so, that's why I use a browser that allows me to open a link in a new window/tab, why the fuck should I use a browser to undo your incompetence?
You know what? SCREW YOU. Yes, yes, yes, I understand that the browser ultimately determines how things are displayed, which is fine -- knock yourself out with modifying the behavior of my page in your browser. But along with that, it's MY "fucking" page, so if I want a link to open in a new window, then I'll program it that way. Don't like it? Don't visit the page. But keep your webnazi bullshit away from me. I'll design the page any way I like, and it's not up to you in the least how I do it. W3 should provide tools to allow me to make any sort of web page that fits my needs. Loose designs that let the browser do the formatting work? Fine. Tight designs that display it EXACTLY how I want it? Fine, too.
A new lunar landing will help re-establish faith in our government, faith in ourselves, and faith in what we can achieve.
We already know we can go to the moon. In fact, we already know we can go to Mars. So what, exactly, do we prove by going again? Is too much to ask that we have a *purpose* in going?
No one has gotten more cynical since 1969. It was interesting in 1969 because we'd never done it before. We didn't even know if it could be done or not. Now we know -- there is nothing new here, hence the lack of excitement about it.
What they ought to do is build a huge city in space or something like that, maybe inflatable like what-sis-name wants to do.
The point is that you confuse economic value with human value. How does having a skill that is more economically valuable make that human deserve a better life?
Well, now you're the one confusing economic value with human value. Everyone has the same intrinsic human value, and that's where the government guarantees certain "inalienable human rights". Everyone is entitled to a better life defined in terms of freedom, equal treatment under the law, etc.
However, a human with better economic value inevitably gets a better life in economic terms. That has nothing to do with someone's value as a human being.
The question was about where adopting Samba would eventually lead businesses, not about why they should adopt it. And it certainly wasn't about you.
Are you seriously defending invoking "the children" in the context of using OSS? Leave aside the general silliness of putting it in terms of ethics (there is nothing intrinsically ethical about OSS, foolishness from RMS notwithstanding), invoking a better future for children is just dumb.
Linux and open source software is a choice for greater business ethics. It is a first step toward redefinition of the IT services market. It is a first step to securing a better future for our children, who will comprise the next generation of IT managers.
Ahem. Was I suppose to take this guy seriously? I mean, come on. I'm supposed to care about Linux because of... the children?
Some people intrinsicly deserve more than others, because they are better or have a more useful or rare skill. Your clearness of thought ends at one point, though. WHY does that person deserve a better life?
Because that person is more valuable. Should a doctor who busts his ass for ten years to become one make the same amount of money as some idiot who never gets a job and sponges off society?
Somehow, the notion that some people are better than other people must prevail for a class system to work.
And here is the fallacy in your thinking. "Class" has nothing to do with anything. Sure, connections between people matter -- someone is who is well connected has an easier time than someone who isn't. But see, that's all ingrained in the notion of "value". Someone has more value to someone else if they're is a personal connection. If you don't have personal connections, then you need to build your value in other ways.
This is wrong on so many levels, and backs up my opinion that economics should be a required course for at least two years of high school. I don't feel like tearing this whole thing apart, so let's just focus on one thing:
Who should we employ, you or the other two guys? If the guys get the job the wealth will be split between them. If you get the job the full pay will be given to you. [...] From the capitalist POV it doesn't matter. Same investment, same return. But if you value human life the two guys will get the job.
This is a fundamental mistake you're making in a lot of your reasoning. You're assuming everything is static and unchanging. Economics is never static -- it's always dynamic, changing in response to various forces.
Which of these is better for a healthy economy? Why, hiring the more efficient person. The reason is because the two less-efficient workers will eventually realize that they are not competing well in the economy, because they're getting passed over for jobs by other people. So the two other workers have an incentive to become more educated, work harder, or even change jobs to something else they do better. So in the end, we get the faster worker, and two others who transform themselves into faster workers.
Of course, not everyone gets clued in as simply as that, but that's what happens on the average in the economy. Why did customer service suck so notoriously in the Soviet Union? Because no one had an incentive to do it better. What difference does it make? You get the same money and same job no matter what attitude you have.
People naturally gravitate to doing the least amount of work that gives the same reward. If you want your economy to be healthy, people have to have incentive to not be slackers.
Slashdot Mirror
But then, my calls had dropped pretty low even before the do-not-call list went into effect. I had learned the magic phrase, "Could you take me off the call list?", which I diligently said to every telemarketer. By law, they have to take you off, so that had already almost completely solved the problem. The national do-not-call list eliminated the last bits.
Why do people like you always bring this up? It doesn't matter what you personally do. Sure, there are music geeks out there who spend every penny on buying CDs. But the VAST majority of people do not. The average person probably has 40 or 50 CDs, 100 at the outside.
If it would actually make a difference, I might agree with you. But I highly doubt that BT is going to change the economics such that a $1 movie rental (as an example) suddenly becomes a $0.50 rental.
It might save someone, I dunno, 2% of their costs, but it would make a considerable difference to the usability of my Internet connection. Ever tried to to use VOIP during a BitTorrent download? My Cable Modem has 4 megabits down, but only 512 Kb up.
But that still doesn't address why I should be interested in giving my bandwidth to Warner Bros or whoever.
Second point, BT is not that user friendly, since it often takes a long time to start up, and isn't always very fast. It's reliable, in the sense that things usually get to you *eventually*, but it's not an appropriate technology for mainstream downloads.
Another case of VCs dumping money at popularity rather than something that can actually make money.
I tend to doubt the movie source is HD. I'd be interested to know if I'm wrong (if, say, they specifically say they create a new HD source from the original movie print), but I suspect they just use regular source tape or even a DVD source.
The difference between us and "all species that have ever existed" is our adaptability. Short of the atmosphere being stripped away, there's nothing natural environmentally speaking that would kill the ENTIRE human race. Hell, even if the atmosphere did get ripped away, we'd probably build a few bio-domes in time for someone to survive.
Now, whether we'll kill ourselves via war (nukes, bioweapons, that sort of thing) is another question. But slow environmental change will never kill us off. It's too slow and we're too quick to adapt.
Reagan "doubled the tax base" because in 1981, when the deficits were looking out of control, he implemented the "Self-Employment Tax" which almost doubled taxes.
Dude, you're not seriously suggesting that self employment taxes nearly doubled the total revenues to the government?? I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, but revenues increased from like $500 billion to $950 billion or something like that. Sheesh, look at the economic growth during that time. That statement is so obviously wrong that I know you don't really believe it.
The whole "credit card" analogy is wrong on so many levels. Sure, government spending goes into the economy, but look at spending in proportion to the size of the overall economy. You CAN'T spend enough to make a material difference, otherwise the government could just spend itself out of recessions. So why don't they? Again, because they can't. That's not how the economy works.
The economy grows by people taking risks and creating jobs. Not make-work jobs based on government handouts, but by real production. By lowering taxes, you keep more money in the economy to be used by people to invest. More investment means more jobs which means more tax revenue.
Obviously, that's how they tested it. :)
There's more to being a politician than "having ideas". Everyone has ideas -- but the problem is that everyone has different ideas. Geeks would typically make terrible politicians, because they are more suited to being benevolent dictators, rather than functioning in a political body that is formed by compromise.
People like to bash politicians, but it takes a very special type of personality to be able to function in that sort of frustrating arena. Geeks are all about, "see a problem... implement a solution". But government doesn't work like that -- it can't work like that. There are too many voices that have to have their say in the mix. It's all about compromise and building consensus.
When I was in my early 20s, I thought it might be interesting to get into politics. As I got older, I realized that there's no way I would have the patience to function that way. I finally concluded that I would make a much better King than a President, and that probably wasn't going to happen. :)
So no worries for Microsoft. There'll always be a place for the operating system. In fact, web services simply create more opportunities for Microsoft. The more useful a computer is, the better they do. Microsoft just has to be perceived as providing enough value beyond a dumb Net terminal that it makes it worth it to buy a computer. Given the price difference between the two, it's not that difficult a proposition.
The 'supply' is a copy of the software, backed by copyright laws. Sure, in theory, you have an infinite supply of software. In practice, one doesn't. Now, you could argue that in the future, the supply could become infinite with OSS, and then the economics might change.
One of the primary flaws in your thinking is believing that only tangible products (the "20%") is applicable to supply and demand. S&D may be Microecon 101, but that doesn't mean it's not true. Everything is comes down to supply and demand, if you know how to find exactly what the supply and demand actually are.
use of Supply-side economics have been totally failures and achieved all success based on piling up huge debts
I kind of doubt you actually understand supply-side economics, but while the jury is out on W, Reagan's success is simply factual. Look at the revenues to the government during that time, which almost doubled. The reason we had deficits is because of the spending, and it certainly wasn't the spending that stimulated the economy, because the congressional spending took place after the money started rolling in. Just for the record, "supply-side economics" isn't something that fails or works, it simply /is/. All it says is that excessives taxes can reduce revenues to the government, because pulling too much money out of the economy reduces growth. This is inarguable. What's arguable is what the optimal level of taxation is.
People assume they know how things work. I KNOW I don't know how things work but I have a few ideas and good questions.
I don't know all the answers, either, and I'm happy that you seem to open to being wrong. But I do know one thing -- cynicism is NOT the answer. Not everything is a conspiracy ("Leader either accepts new US multinational opportunity or has unfortunate accident"). Everything is not as it seems, but everything is not a lie, either. There are people out there whose livelihood depends on creating as much fear and doubt as possible by twisting the truth, and too many people follow those people (the Michael Moore's of the world, for example). Unfortunately, too many people /want/ to believe the worst of everything, too, which is something I've never understood. It's almost like a religion to some people. They're not happy unless they miserably repenting the state of the world.
The point is that the world is, on balance, growing more stable as time goes by. A lot of the world is basically DONE as far as wars go. Do we have a ways to go? Sure, but the point is that it is possible for countries to mature into non-aggression, and only act when forced to by other aggressive nations.
The desperation and poverty in the third world is used to make us cheap tennis shoes.
You mean those exploited people who are desperately happy to have any sort of job?
Are they paid less than people elsewhere? Sure. But it costs a whole lot less to live, too.
What happens when less oil comes out of the ground than the year before?
It gets more expensive. Once the price gets higher than something else, then we use the something else, which brings down the price of that thing. The economy adjusts based on supply and demand.
What happens when clean water gets more scarce?
We make more. The world doesn't exactly lack water. It just gets a bit pricier.
What happens when the gulf stream shuts down and Europe has to find new crop land or warmer/wetter weather?
We do what our ancestors did when the environment changes: adapt. Move our farmland, or irrigate.
How civilized were we to turn back food and water going to the victims of Katrina just last week in the US of A?
Come on, it was delayed a couple of days because of beauracracy, not out of spite. Should it have been faster? Sure. But we're still talking only days to get our sh** together, and then the whole country practically flooded the area with supplies and help. If you need a reason to be cynical, I don't think you'll find it in the Katrina response. If anything, Katrina will probably set a record for compassionate outpouring.
I don't mean to sound like we won't have challenges in the future -- we certainly will. The Middle East will be a hard nut to crack and drag kicking and screaming into civilization. But one of the reasons I'm so in favor of the Iraq war is that we have the chance to really make a stable democracy in Iraq (I don't particularly care /why/ the war was started -- I care about the potential now that it's done). If we have one, WW/III will begin in the Middle East, and this might be the point in history that turns us away from that future.
But beyond that, yeah, believe it or not, things change. What, you think the Irish never had any bigotry here in the US? But how much bigotry is there now? Maybe in some New York suburb, I dunno, but the US is not exactly a hotbed of Irish bigotry.
And yes, I expect kids to be smarter in the age of information than in previous generations. Only kids who grow up in insulated environments make the leap that "Protestant kid throws a rock at me, therefore, all protestants are the same." All it takes is for that same kid to be in a few chat rooms with kids where religion is completely irrelevent to anything to make him figure out that the old prejudices are really stupid.
Look at what HAS changed: US and Soviet Union hostility: history. Japanese wars of aggression: history. Hell, look at Britain and France, who historically DESPISE each other. Is there any danger of either one invading the other? Do we fear the Fourth Reich springing up again? Hell no -- Germany will never do it again. How about Spain's wars of aggression? History.
Well, I shouldn't have oversimplified that situation like I did. There is certainly a lot of heat under the surface that can re-erupt into hostilities, so I shouldn't make it out that things are "solved" in some way.
That said, while things are still bubbling below the surface, they aren't quite as hot as they used to be. I think there was/is a lot of terrorism fatigue going on, where terrorist tactics aren't getting quite as much support from the "Irishman on the street", especially when the Muslin terrorists are getting so much bad press.
So yeah, I shouldn't make it seem like there isn't anything there anymore, but I think things are on the road to reaching some sort of political equilibrium where no one is happy, but things are relatively peaceful.
Europe was by far the bloodiest continent for hundreds and hundreds of years. What changed? Simple -- Democracy. It's extremely rare that stable democracies war on each other. Eventually, the rest of the world will join civilization and the entire world will be stable constitutional democracies. China, Korea, the Middle East -- Yeah, it seems far away from where we're standing right now, but it'll happen eventually.
Once the entire world has been "de-dictator-ized", war will be pretty much over. There will still be the old hatreds (*ahem*India and Pakistan), but that only takes a few generations of children who don't know and don't care the border used to be different. They'd rather have peace than move a few lines on the map. Britain and Northern Ireland are already well on this course. Israel and Palestine probably won't happen until Palestine has actual real estate to call their own and has had a stable democracy for a few generations.
But it'll happen. It's only a matter of time. I hope I see it in my lifetime.
Makes we wonder... yep.
$ whois googlemusic.com
Registrant:
Google Inc. (DOM-1314687)
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CA 94043 US
Domain Name: googlemusic.com
Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com/
Administrative Contact:
DNS Admin (NIC-1467103) Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CA 94043 US
dns-admin@google.com +1.6502530000 Fax- +1.6506188571
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
DNS Admin (NIC-1467103) Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CA 94043 US
dns-admin@google.com +1.6502530000 Fax- +1.6506188571
Created on..............: 2003-Feb-13.
Expires on..............: 2008-Feb-13.
Record last updated on..: 2004-Nov-01 09:49:36.
Makes me wonder if eventually Google might do their own music distribution service. Not sure how it could succeed much better than the other music services, but you never know. Of course, this was registered way back in 11/2001, so they may have been grabbing domains as they thought of anything.
You know what? SCREW YOU. Yes, yes, yes, I understand that the browser ultimately determines how things are displayed, which is fine -- knock yourself out with modifying the behavior of my page in your browser. But along with that, it's MY "fucking" page, so if I want a link to open in a new window, then I'll program it that way. Don't like it? Don't visit the page. But keep your webnazi bullshit away from me. I'll design the page any way I like, and it's not up to you in the least how I do it. W3 should provide tools to allow me to make any sort of web page that fits my needs. Loose designs that let the browser do the formatting work? Fine. Tight designs that display it EXACTLY how I want it? Fine, too.
</rant off>
We already know we can go to the moon. In fact, we already know we can go to Mars. So what, exactly, do we prove by going again? Is too much to ask that we have a *purpose* in going?
No one has gotten more cynical since 1969. It was interesting in 1969 because we'd never done it before. We didn't even know if it could be done or not. Now we know -- there is nothing new here, hence the lack of excitement about it.
What they ought to do is build a huge city in space or something like that, maybe inflatable like what-sis-name wants to do.
Well, now you're the one confusing economic value with human value. Everyone has the same intrinsic human value, and that's where the government guarantees certain "inalienable human rights". Everyone is entitled to a better life defined in terms of freedom, equal treatment under the law, etc.
However, a human with better economic value inevitably gets a better life in economic terms. That has nothing to do with someone's value as a human being.
Are you seriously defending invoking "the children" in the context of using OSS? Leave aside the general silliness of putting it in terms of ethics (there is nothing intrinsically ethical about OSS, foolishness from RMS notwithstanding), invoking a better future for children is just dumb.
Ahem. Was I suppose to take this guy seriously? I mean, come on. I'm supposed to care about Linux because of... the children?
Because that person is more valuable. Should a doctor who busts his ass for ten years to become one make the same amount of money as some idiot who never gets a job and sponges off society?
Somehow, the notion that some people are better than other people must prevail for a class system to work.
And here is the fallacy in your thinking. "Class" has nothing to do with anything. Sure, connections between people matter -- someone is who is well connected has an easier time than someone who isn't. But see, that's all ingrained in the notion of "value". Someone has more value to someone else if they're is a personal connection. If you don't have personal connections, then you need to build your value in other ways.
Who should we employ, you or the other two guys? If the guys get the job the wealth will be split between them. If you get the job the full pay will be given to you. [...] From the capitalist POV it doesn't matter. Same investment, same return. But if you value human life the two guys will get the job.
This is a fundamental mistake you're making in a lot of your reasoning. You're assuming everything is static and unchanging. Economics is never static -- it's always dynamic, changing in response to various forces.
Which of these is better for a healthy economy? Why, hiring the more efficient person. The reason is because the two less-efficient workers will eventually realize that they are not competing well in the economy, because they're getting passed over for jobs by other people. So the two other workers have an incentive to become more educated, work harder, or even change jobs to something else they do better. So in the end, we get the faster worker, and two others who transform themselves into faster workers.
Of course, not everyone gets clued in as simply as that, but that's what happens on the average in the economy. Why did customer service suck so notoriously in the Soviet Union? Because no one had an incentive to do it better. What difference does it make? You get the same money and same job no matter what attitude you have.
People naturally gravitate to doing the least amount of work that gives the same reward. If you want your economy to be healthy, people have to have incentive to not be slackers.