The problem is more that 'American' capitalism (basically a variation on the same capitalism that started in Britain and places like the Netherlands in the 18th Century) has been tested and doesn't really work. It's great for the few at the top (if you ignore the need for armed guards 24x7), reasonably comfortable for a fair amount of the other people in the developed world, but absolute hell for vast swathes of the world's population.
And don't be under any illusion that the west's capitalism isn't the main cause of the absolute poverty in much of the third world. The system is build on exploitation and the rich few getting richer from the economic slavery of these people.
The capitalist system as it stands will not, and cannot, free these people, and will continue to lead to the kind of resentment that leads to terrorism.
I agree that Communism has never been successfully tried, and personally have a fair amount of skepisism about it ever being practical in its purest form, given human nature, but that doesn't stop me believing in, and promoting, its basic ideals.
And in fact, there is no "communist/socialist" theory, because communism and socialism are 2 different theories.
Yeah, thanks. I'm well aware of the difference. Try reading it as "little to do with either real communist or real socialist theory". I included both precisely to avoid someone going "they weren't communist, they were socialist".
"United Soviet Socialist Republics". That was not a communist nation, as America has so often stated, but was, as its name suggests, socialist.
Unfortunately, it was neither. It was socialist in the way that the German Democratic Republic was democratic. As for modern day China. When the 'Communist Party' first took over, they did attempt (badly) to run a socialist state, but these days it's nothing more than a Capitalist dictatorship.
Define unbiased. The report was written by the "Economic Freedom Of The World Network", which is sponsored by people like The Cato Institute, a well known libertarian think-tank, and in turn is sponsored by a collection of v. large corporations.
I guess everyone's experience is different. I've had 1 PS (admittedly hardly used), 1 PS/2 (used regularly), 1 XBox (again, not used that much yet), and 4 N64s - the first 2 dying within a couple of weeks of their warranty running out. I had to keep buying new ones though, as virtually every game I played at the time was on the N64.
No. Communism/Socialism is a system that's never really been tried out in the modern world (the closest probably being Barcelona prior the the Fascist takeover in the 30s). The point is that the USSR (certainly after Stalin took over) had virtually nothing to do with real socialism. Knocking socialism because the USSR failed is like knocking democracy because the German Democratic Republic failed.
"Direcly linked to" - yes. Bearing much relation to - no.
Soviet/Chinese 'statist' Communism by its very nature has little to do with the idea of real communism (rule by the people, for the people), in the fact that it's rule by an unelected central body. The idea was this central body was required as a temporary measure because the people weren't smart enough to know what was best for them. However, it didn't take long for someone with no interest in the good of the people to use this apparatus to create his own personal empire.
There are flaws in the practicalities of communism (in that there will always be people that don't want to work for the common good and would rather seize as much power for themselves as possible - e.g., Stalin or, to try to get this vaguely back on topic, Bill Gates), but that doesn't make people who believe in the principles ("from each according to their ability, to each according to their need") bad people, and therefore (again, hopefully back on topic) the use of communist red as an open source flag doesn't seem inappropriate to me at all.
Capitalism works every time it's tried, thank you very much.
Oh yes. Places like Argentina (and Russia at the moment) are glowing with health. And if you want a bit more history - how about Italian capitalism at the start of the 20th Century collapsing into Fascism.
Econimies with a high degree of freedom are Capitalist. Economies with low freedom are generally Communist. Those in the middle are Socialist.
Huh? Where does this drivel come from? Economies where the power is with those that have capital (money etc) are Capitalist. Economies where the power is with the workers that create the value are Communist or Socialist. There are differences between the latter two, but they are probably irrelevant for this arguement (Socialism is sometimes seen as a stepping stone to pure Communism).
Are you trying to claim that places like Singapore and Kuwait are bastions of freedom, or do you think that they are Commie strongholds?
Why do you assume people are aware of the risks of viruses, spyware etc, or have any idea what a firewall is?
There's plenty of people out there who want a PC to send emails to their mates, or to help the kids with homework etc, and who see the computer as no different to any other household item - plug it in, switch it on, use it for what it was bought for.
Yes, people should take responsibility for their actions, but only to the level that they can reasonably be expected to be aware of the consequences. How, as an ignorant user, are you expected to magically become aware that your computer is likely to be infected within minutes?
As a responsible IT literate person, the very first thing that I say to anyone who's buying their first PC, or going online for the first time is "Have you got an up to date virus checker installed?" The initial response is often "a what?". If the person doesn't know anyone IT literate, where do you expect them to get the knowledge from (or even to look for the knowledge)?
How about blame the person/people that actually developed the exploit, and the societies that breed this kind of destructive mentality.
I resent having to have my choice of OS/Browser/whatever dictated to me not on the grounds of functionality, but by how easily it's going to get attacked (not that in this case I'd choose IE over FireFox anyway, but that's beside the point), and having my valuable system resources taken up by having to have a virus scanner run permanently in the background.
Open source is great partly because if you spot a security flaw, you can fix it. I suspect Cisco aren't going to take too kindly to someone emailing them with "I've just bought a stolen copy of your source code and you've got a bug in line 254".
What really fascinates me is how Kerry 'bowing to' the UN is being presented by the Republicans as a bad thing, yet the justification for going to war in Iraq is now claimed to be that Saddam refused to bow to the wishes of the UN.
To some extent you already get this. If you want extra security, you can pay for a security guard, otherwise you fall back on the regular police service.
And how about health service - in the UK (and I suspect many other places in the world), if you want immediate treatment, you pay (or get your insurance to pay) to go private. If you don't pay, you end up at the back of the NHS waiting list.
Not saying whether it's a good or a bad thing, but this is pretty much how a market economy is meant to work - you get what you pay for.
When did it become the responsibility of an automated entity to check and correct basic language skills?
When did it become the responsibility of an automated entity to check and correct basic maths skills? Let's bin those darned calculators/spreadsheets now. Isn't this one of the main reasons for using an automated tool, that it can do some of the work for you?
It's not a replacement for the understanding of basic spelling/grammar, but when you're working on a 100+ page document (as I have to on a regular basis), the automated hints that I may have made a typo on page 47, or deleted part of a sentence that means it might no longer makes sense, is extremely useful. I may not take all of Word's advice (particularly the annoying 'American' spellings that still seem to exist in the UK dictionary), and it certainly doesn't catch everything, but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Seems unlikely. I'm guessing their business case for Hotmail is at least partly based on advertising revenue, and this is usually largely dependent on number of (independently verified) page hits, so the more you use them, the more demand they get for (and the more they can charge for) advertising space.
A "Googlefight" on, say, Java vs.NET tells us that all has not necessarily gone Java's way just recently. A "mere" 66 million "Java" hits...versus 388 million for "NET" - but that may all be about to change.
Not that it really matters, but this is one of the most stupid comparisons ever. The.NET search pulls back just about every site with a.net extension. Out of the first 10 pages, only one seems to be directly related to the.NET framework (the 4th entry is php.net! ), whereas all of the first 10 Java searches is relevant.
Cell phones that play games are about as useful as the teats on a boar hog
I love this "I don't want the feature, so it's obviously useless" attitude on Slashdot. Games on phones may be useless to you, but I and, evidently by the number of games purchased, many other people find games on phones useful. I often find myself waiting around somewhere (pub, meeting room, bus etc) and carrying very little in the way of entertainment except my phone. So being able to have a quick game of chess, or whatever, is a great way to pass the time.
Sure it's something I could live without (as is pretty much every gadget that I own), but that doesn't mean it's not useful.
Love or hate it, the US has been fanatical for democracy and freedom since World War II. They have been fanatical enough to wipe themselves off the face of the earth in nuclear oblivion if it meant protecting the rest of the world from the Soviet Union
You have a fascinating definition for freedom, if you think that wiping the world out before the Soviets got hold of it is freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
100% compression of a file is easy. It's the decompression of that file into the original that's the tricky bit.
The problem is more that 'American' capitalism (basically a variation on the same capitalism that started in Britain and places like the Netherlands in the 18th Century) has been tested and doesn't really work. It's great for the few at the top (if you ignore the need for armed guards 24x7), reasonably comfortable for a fair amount of the other people in the developed world, but absolute hell for vast swathes of the world's population.
And don't be under any illusion that the west's capitalism isn't the main cause of the absolute poverty in much of the third world. The system is build on exploitation and the rich few getting richer from the economic slavery of these people.
The capitalist system as it stands will not, and cannot, free these people, and will continue to lead to the kind of resentment that leads to terrorism.
I agree that Communism has never been successfully tried, and personally have a fair amount of skepisism about it ever being practical in its purest form, given human nature, but that doesn't stop me believing in, and promoting, its basic ideals.
Yeah, thanks. I'm well aware of the difference. Try reading it as "little to do with either real communist or real socialist theory". I included both precisely to avoid someone going "they weren't communist, they were socialist".
"United Soviet Socialist Republics". That was not a communist nation, as America has so often stated, but was, as its name suggests, socialist.
Unfortunately, it was neither. It was socialist in the way that the German Democratic Republic was democratic. As for modern day China. When the 'Communist Party' first took over, they did attempt (badly) to run a socialist state, but these days it's nothing more than a Capitalist dictatorship.
Define unbiased. The report was written by the "Economic Freedom Of The World Network", which is sponsored by people like The Cato Institute, a well known libertarian think-tank, and in turn is sponsored by a collection of v. large corporations.
Looks pretty biased to me.
I guess everyone's experience is different. I've had 1 PS (admittedly hardly used), 1 PS/2 (used regularly), 1 XBox (again, not used that much yet), and 4 N64s - the first 2 dying within a couple of weeks of their warranty running out. I had to keep buying new ones though, as virtually every game I played at the time was on the N64.
No. Communism/Socialism is a system that's never really been tried out in the modern world (the closest probably being Barcelona prior the the Fascist takeover in the 30s). The point is that the USSR (certainly after Stalin took over) had virtually nothing to do with real socialism. Knocking socialism because the USSR failed is like knocking democracy because the German Democratic Republic failed.
"Direcly linked to" - yes. Bearing much relation to - no.
Soviet/Chinese 'statist' Communism by its very nature has little to do with the idea of real communism (rule by the people, for the people), in the fact that it's rule by an unelected central body. The idea was this central body was required as a temporary measure because the people weren't smart enough to know what was best for them. However, it didn't take long for someone with no interest in the good of the people to use this apparatus to create his own personal empire.
There are flaws in the practicalities of communism (in that there will always be people that don't want to work for the common good and would rather seize as much power for themselves as possible - e.g., Stalin or, to try to get this vaguely back on topic, Bill Gates), but that doesn't make people who believe in the principles ("from each according to their ability, to each according to their need") bad people, and therefore (again, hopefully back on topic) the use of communist red as an open source flag doesn't seem inappropriate to me at all.
Oh yes. Places like Argentina (and Russia at the moment) are glowing with health. And if you want a bit more history - how about Italian capitalism at the start of the 20th Century collapsing into Fascism.
Econimies with a high degree of freedom are Capitalist. Economies with low freedom are generally Communist. Those in the middle are Socialist.
Huh? Where does this drivel come from? Economies where the power is with those that have capital (money etc) are Capitalist. Economies where the power is with the workers that create the value are Communist or Socialist. There are differences between the latter two, but they are probably irrelevant for this arguement (Socialism is sometimes seen as a stepping stone to pure Communism).
Are you trying to claim that places like Singapore and Kuwait are bastions of freedom, or do you think that they are Commie strongholds?
And statist 'communism' as practiced in places like the USSR and China has very little to do with real communist/socialist theory.
Why do you assume people are aware of the risks of viruses, spyware etc, or have any idea what a firewall is?
There's plenty of people out there who want a PC to send emails to their mates, or to help the kids with homework etc, and who see the computer as no different to any other household item - plug it in, switch it on, use it for what it was bought for.
Yes, people should take responsibility for their actions, but only to the level that they can reasonably be expected to be aware of the consequences. How, as an ignorant user, are you expected to magically become aware that your computer is likely to be infected within minutes?
As a responsible IT literate person, the very first thing that I say to anyone who's buying their first PC, or going online for the first time is "Have you got an up to date virus checker installed?" The initial response is often "a what?". If the person doesn't know anyone IT literate, where do you expect them to get the knowledge from (or even to look for the knowledge)?
How about blame the person/people that actually developed the exploit, and the societies that breed this kind of destructive mentality.
I resent having to have my choice of OS/Browser/whatever dictated to me not on the grounds of functionality, but by how easily it's going to get attacked (not that in this case I'd choose IE over FireFox anyway, but that's beside the point), and having my valuable system resources taken up by having to have a virus scanner run permanently in the background.
Open source is great partly because if you spot a security flaw, you can fix it. I suspect Cisco aren't going to take too kindly to someone emailing them with "I've just bought a stolen copy of your source code and you've got a bug in line 254".
What really fascinates me is how Kerry 'bowing to' the UN is being presented by the Republicans as a bad thing, yet the justification for going to war in Iraq is now claimed to be that Saddam refused to bow to the wishes of the UN.
I think you'll find $180 is over $100, so the submitter was perfectly correct.
Have you ever talked to a Brit? I've never heard anyone here ever pronounce point in a way that sounds remotely like pint.
Are you somehow trying to suggest that Coors or Bud Light are good beers?
You evidently don't live in the UK. There's a fair amount of press about MRSA, a bug that people usually manage to catch when in hospital.
To some extent you already get this. If you want extra security, you can pay for a security guard, otherwise you fall back on the regular police service.
And how about health service - in the UK (and I suspect many other places in the world), if you want immediate treatment, you pay (or get your insurance to pay) to go private. If you don't pay, you end up at the back of the NHS waiting list.
Not saying whether it's a good or a bad thing, but this is pretty much how a market economy is meant to work - you get what you pay for.
Evidently you can't, as his is rated "5,Funny" whereas yours is only rated "3,Funny" (at least it is at the moment).
When did it become the responsibility of an automated entity to check and correct basic maths skills? Let's bin those darned calculators/spreadsheets now. Isn't this one of the main reasons for using an automated tool, that it can do some of the work for you?
It's not a replacement for the understanding of basic spelling/grammar, but when you're working on a 100+ page document (as I have to on a regular basis), the automated hints that I may have made a typo on page 47, or deleted part of a sentence that means it might no longer makes sense, is extremely useful. I may not take all of Word's advice (particularly the annoying 'American' spellings that still seem to exist in the UK dictionary), and it certainly doesn't catch everything, but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Seems unlikely. I'm guessing their business case for Hotmail is at least partly based on advertising revenue, and this is usually largely dependent on number of (independently verified) page hits, so the more you use them, the more demand they get for (and the more they can charge for) advertising space.
Not that it really matters, but this is one of the most stupid comparisons ever. The .NET search pulls back just about every site with a .net extension. Out of the first 10 pages, only one seems to be directly related to the .NET framework (the 4th entry is php.net! ), whereas all of the first 10 Java searches is relevant.
I love this "I don't want the feature, so it's obviously useless" attitude on Slashdot. Games on phones may be useless to you, but I and, evidently by the number of games purchased, many other people find games on phones useful. I often find myself waiting around somewhere (pub, meeting room, bus etc) and carrying very little in the way of entertainment except my phone. So being able to have a quick game of chess, or whatever, is a great way to pass the time.
Sure it's something I could live without (as is pretty much every gadget that I own), but that doesn't mean it's not useful.
You have a fascinating definition for freedom, if you think that wiping the world out before the Soviets got hold of it is freedom.
Not really. If it's broadcast it's already in the public domain, and someone else could quite legitimately have recorded it.
I can understand an arguement based on cost or red tape, but not on privacy.