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User: mfwitten

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Comments · 337

  1. Re:Eh..... on Google and Microsoft Both Want To Stop Dual-Boot Windows/Android Device · · Score: 1

    Just because you can does not mean it's supported.

    Guess what? It's not supported.

  2. Eh..... on Google and Microsoft Both Want To Stop Dual-Boot Windows/Android Device · · Score: 3, Informative

    * Apple has Boot Camp because they have to allow Dual Booting in order to lure in the majority of computer users—Windows users. They sure as hell aren't helping Linux users out.

    * Apple introduced Boot Camp when they were still user-friendly—before they started constructing their walled guarden (located at 1984 Infinite Loop).

    * Of course Apple provides the Windows drivers for Apple's own machines; every vendor that supports Windows has always had to do so.

  3. Confederacy of Dunces on Google and Microsoft Both Want To Stop Dual-Boot Windows/Android Device · · Score: 2

    "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." —Jonathan Swift

  4. Re:Contributions NOT wanted on Linus Torvalds: Any CLA Is Fundamentally Broken · · Score: 0

    As I already said:

    publicly acceptable reason for shutting the door on those pesky newcomers.

  5. Contributions NOT wanted on Linus Torvalds: Any CLA Is Fundamentally Broken · · Score: 1

    The purpose of CLAs is to maintain the hegemony for the ruling clique; the very point of a CLA is to provide the entrenched bureaucrats with a publicly acceptable reason for shutting the door on those pesky newcomers.

  6. Re:Real Regulation on Encrypted Messaging Startup Wickr Offers $100K Bug Bounty · · Score: 1

    Corporations couldn't buy so much power if the government didn't have so much power to sell in the first place.

    In other words, either the problem is economic success through voluntary interaction, or the problem is a centralized monopoly on involuntary interaction for hire to the highest bidder. Which one is it?

  7. Re:Real Regulation on Encrypted Messaging Startup Wickr Offers $100K Bug Bounty · · Score: 1

    Bankruptcy is defined by the government.

    Corporate liability firewalls are defined by the government.

    Taxpayer cleanup is established by the government.

    Competition in regulation was destroyed when a monopoly on regulation was declared by the government.

    The existing regulation was establisehd by that government.

    I see one common element throughout all of the details you dislike. Can you spot it?

  8. Real Regulation on Encrypted Messaging Startup Wickr Offers $100K Bug Bounty · · Score: 2

    You'll get better regulation from this than from anything that could possibly be concocted by government bureaucrats.

    Note: This requires the real threat of economic loss, so an organization that can demand payment regardless of its performance—i.e., the government—cannot implement something similar.

  9. Re:Insurance policies have limits ... on Who Is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Crashes? · · Score: 1

    The insurance company pays only because the insurance company is "legally responsible" to do so.

    Are you getting it yet? When you purchase insurance, you are essentially offloading liability; indeed, if I don't have to pay everything (let alone anything), then why do I care whether you call me "solely liable" or not? At that point, it's just word games.

    You are making a distinction without a difference.

  10. Re:Insurance policies have limits ... on Who Is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Crashes? · · Score: 1

    So, the insurance company is "liable" for up to $1M...

    Liability is obligation.

  11. Re:Insurance on Who Is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Crashes? · · Score: 2

    Only the government can by definition, regulate

    Not according to my definition of "regulation".

  12. Re:Insurance company is not liable ... on Who Is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Crashes? · · Score: 0

    That's a distinction without a difference.

  13. Insurance on Who Is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Crashes? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's an industry that manages risk.

    Regulation (e.g., insurance) always develops spontaneously, because there is a market for reducing chaos.

  14. Re:Capitalism At Work on The SEC Is About To Make Crowdfunding More Expensive · · Score: 1

    There's a reason that George Orwell's 1984 prominently features the redefinition of language.

  15. Necessary Regulation on The SEC Is About To Make Crowdfunding More Expensive · · Score: 1

    Necessary Regulation is that which spontaneously develops in the free market; consider, for example, the Underwriters Laboratories (UL).

    Can't you just leave us the fsck alone!

  16. Re:Capitalism At Work on The SEC Is About To Make Crowdfunding More Expensive · · Score: 1

    Capitalism is predicated on voluntary exchange.

    Um... How is this "capitalism" again?

  17. Re:Not Culture on France's 'Culture Tax' Could Hit YouTube and Facebook · · Score: 1

    Culture being subsidized is hardly anything new, be it via donations, taxes or a patron.

    Patronage and donations are voluntary funding. Taxation is involuntary funding.

    This is the fundamental point.

  18. Not Culture on France's 'Culture Tax' Could Hit YouTube and Facebook · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.

  19. Downloadable Video on Epson Tries to One-up Google Glass with Moverio-Goggles (Video) · · Score: 1

    Please provide a link for downloading your video content, so that we don't have to suffer under this Flash player.

  20. Re:But.. on Global Biological Experiment Generates Exciting New Results · · Score: 1

    Are the regulators not also individuals? In the real world, they are not a class of special, noble beings; they are also individuals with the same failings of which you speak, and their industry is not set apart from the laws of the universe under which all other industries exist.

    Voluntary interaction provides the only fundamental regulation that is required: Bankruptcy. The only way a bad organization can sustain itself is through forced funding by involuntary interaction (that is, coercion). This is also true of regulatory agencies; like any other company, a regulatory agency should instead be founded on capitalism as a "private" company.

    In particular, what is "Government"? Any organization—any organization at all—that confiscates resources by threat of strike-first violence is a "governmental" organization. When one such organization becomes a monopoly, we call that organization "Government".

    Government inevitably becomes just another bad company in the market place, one that doesn't go out of business because it is able to confiscate your resources by threat of violence; it doesn't give you the goods and services for which you personally think you are paying, but you have to pay them anyway—it's totally absurd and unconscionable. It is not a modern value to coerce resources from people by threat of violence. So, in fact, Government is actually the last barbaric vestige of a pre-modern civilization.

    Indeed, the easiest way for a company to secure its own funding by coercion is to employ a specialist, Government, to "legalize" bad behavior, or "regulate" competitors out of business, etc. The fundamental problem here is a foundation of coercion, which is itself fundamentally a lack of regulation (as per above).

    You are correct in that the free market does not promise an immediate solution to every problem, particularly ones that are completely unforeseen. But that's not the point of the free market; rather, it's about allowing a solution to emerge organically over the long term through evolution by variation and selection. Even under relatively mindless influences, this is much more likely to yield sustainable results than an attempt at Intelligent Design—the fantasies of bureacrats—because an evolved solution is necessarily aligned with reality.

  21. Re:you're optimistic on Global Biological Experiment Generates Exciting New Results · · Score: 1

    Easy. It is in their self-interest to avoid a society based on the theft of resources.

  22. Re:you are assuming rational people on Global Biological Experiment Generates Exciting New Results · · Score: 0

    In the real world, "regulators" or "officials" (or whatever you want to call them) are not a class of special, noble beings; they are also individuals with the same failings of which you speak. However, a capitalist organization must secure funding through voluntary interaction, while a governmental organization secures its funding via coercion. A bad company can only sustain itself by coercing resources from people; indeed, bad companies tend to employ another bad company—the government—to provide the service of coercion for them (by "legalizing" bad behavior, or "regulating" their competitors out of business, etc.). However, getting someone else to do your dirty work makes no difference; it is not capitalism to coerce resources from people.

    The Free Market does not assume everyone has access to sufficient information; the free market does not promise an immediate solution to every problem; the free market is about allowing a solution to emerge organically over the long term through evolution by variation and selection. Even under relatively mindless influences, this is much more likely to yield sustainable results than an attempt at Intelligent Design—the fantasies of bureacrats—because an evolved solution is necessarily aligned with reality.

  23. Re:But.. on Global Biological Experiment Generates Exciting New Results · · Score: 1

    A common waterway, you say? That sounds like a... tragedy of the commons... not a tragedy of private ownership of resources.

    So, now there's an organization called "the EPA". Great. Regardless of how well they perform, they get paid. If they do a lousy job, they don't go brankrupt, they get more money, which is coerced from people they call "citizens". Meanwhile, they are coercing not only individuals but entire industries into solutions that may have more to do with bureaucratic fantasy than workable reality. Also, a big bad energy company could use the EPA to regulate rival technology companies out of existence.

    Seeing a river burn on national television probably changed the way a lot of people thought about the environment. Perhaps environmental consciousness became prominent regardless of the EPA—perhaps even despite the EPA.

  24. Re:But.. on Global Biological Experiment Generates Exciting New Results · · Score: 1

    Are the regulators not also individuals?

    You're correct in that the free market does not promise an immediate solution to every problem; the free market is about allowing a solution to emerge organically over the long term through evolution by variation and selection. Even under relatively mindless influences, this is much more likely to yield sustainable results than an attempt at Intelligent Design, because an evolved solution is necessarily aligned with reality.

    Voluntary interaction provides the only regulation that is required: Bankruptcy. The only way a bad organization can sustain itself is through forced funding by involuntary interaction (that is, coercion). Indeed, the easiest way for a company (such as a regulatory agency) to achieve this is to employ another bad company that specializes in coercion—an organization known colloquially as "the government", which can be used to "legalize" bad behavior, or "regulate" competitors out of business, etc. However, employing somebody else to do your dirty work makes no difference; it is not capitalism to take resources by coercion.

  25. Re:But.. on Global Biological Experiment Generates Exciting New Results · · Score: 1

    Learn how to read.