I don't see why corporations are necessary to have a roof over my head -- houses were built quite successfully for millenia before corporations were invented. Computers are more complicated and there's definitely a lot of them involved in making one today, but there's no particular reason it *has* to be that way -- there's plenty of other perfectly good structures for companies.
Sure. But in many ways, Linux is *cheaper* than $0 -- you also can get a total support package (in the form of ongoing development, bug fixes, and community support) for nothing. Netscape needed some way to make money after giving away its $0 product -- Linux doesn't. Companies like Red Hat might, but Microsoft *can* beat individual Linux companies (I hope they don't of course) and they don't talk about that -- they (correctly) talk about beating Linux itself.
But that's the beauty of Open Source / Free software -- you can pay for whatever level of support and brand name you want. You can choose to get everything for free, or you can get a million-dollar support contract -- or anything in between. This is the truth, and I think we've done a fairly good job of getting that perception out there -- and of course IBM's advertising dollars help too.
In this case, abandonware just makes an intermediate step. If there's some old software that I like that suddenly comes out in a new and useful format, of course I'll buy the new version.
The dictionary's job is to reflect our "cultural, unwritten definition". If it says something else, it's wrong. Just because a definition gets written in a dictionary doesn't make it a fact. In this case, I think it's in error.
There's far more PCs in university labs here; the Mac labs are far and few between outside of Comm, from what I see. And most of those are ancient machines -- not up to snuff for OS X. Most of the PCs are running MS Windows, but we're making a bit of an inroad; I wouldn't be surprised if we've got twice as many Linux systems in labs as Macs.
In dorm rooms is another story. What that story is, I have no idea, since I'm not involved there. I'll ask some of the resnet folks, but I bet Apple has a much better share there (and much better than the general market).
Yeah, that comment struck me as very archaic -- um, hey look, I'm *reading* some content on the net *right now*. Looks like that's working reasonably well enough.
This new hardware|software is great, but unless it has feature ____, and implemented exactly the way I want it, it is ABSOULTELY worthless. I don't know why they even bother.
They're going to run into a situation like that with Itanium vs. Sledgehammer -- sure, the clean break with the past is nice, and lets you get rid of a lot of stupid cruft, but can you really do it when there's a competitor out there who can keep running the old stuff *and* perform better at the new stuff? Oh, sure, the new way has a longer future, but that's not a bridge one can cross if one never gets to it. By the time Microsoft drops backwards compatibility with Win32, Wine will run most of those apps just fine. Assuming no major disaster for Linux (the legal/patent thing, for example), Microsoft will have no choice but to keep compatibility, just as Intel is going to have to make its "Yamhill" project into reality.
Don't be silly. Of course we don't just have whatever rights happen to pop into your head as ridiculous examples. However, it is beneficial for there to be certain rights to make society work smoothly and to allow each individual the best chance possible. What those specific rights might be is a long discussion, but most people can agree on generalities -- after all, we're in this same society together. Property rights are certainly an imporant and useful class of these rights, but I don't see why they should be elevated above all others -- and I can see some strong reasons why they should be kept in check.
Name one listed in the Constitution with full text and explanation.
Um, I think we're going in circles here. The constitution explicitly states that there exist rights not enumerated there -- that's what I said at the beginning of this thread.
The problem you have is that you think the US Constitution relates to all things.
I certainly don't think that and said nothing that would imply I do.
No one is pointing a gun at your head and telling you to work for someone so it is 100% voluntary. If you want "democracy" during business hours, start your own business.
Not everyone has the resources to do this -- not just the resources to get started, but more importantly the resources to fall back on if it doesn't work out (and most new businesses don't). I agree, getting out of a "wage slavery" situation and working for yourself is a good goal, but it's just not always possible for everyone.
There is no right that forces someone else to give you a job or income.
Of course not. But there are rights which dictate how someone can treat you when you work for them.
You have to look at why we have rights at all. At the most basic level, you don't have any "rights" to anything -- it's a harsh world. But in order to build a working society in which each individual has the highest possiblity of reaching full potential as a human beaing, we develop a system -- society and all that. If you want to make that system favor the wealthy, I guess that's one way to do it, but I don't think it's the most productive structure of rights.
With your reading of the 9th, I could decide to do anything I want, at anytime as long as I don't tread on the Civil Rights of others such as keep animals in inhumane conditions on purpose.
I didn't say that at all. I didn't say that you have whatever rights you claim -- just that you do have rights beyond those listed. Exactly as the quote you give says.
Working is a choice. If you do not wish to be forced an employer to do certain things, don't work for them. Its their equipment, bandwidth and electricity. They determine how it will be used.
It's not a very optional choice for most people. Like I said elsewhere, what you seem to support is "democracy on your own time" -- and feudalism at work. If you're happy with that arrangement, that's fine, but I don't see why we should be.
Sure, but realistically, it's not that easy, especially in areas and times when jobs are scarce -- and when practices like this become the norm because all of the employees have this "it's their right to do that if they want" attitude.
Usually, things are better for educated folks, but there was a court decision a while ago banning someone from finding a new job in his field because he knew too much from his old employeer -- they owned his skills and knowledge, just as a feudal lord owns the labor of his vassals. That seems ridiculous, but that was the ruling, and we're going to see more of it in the future. (William Gibson might not be so far off.)
The 9th amendment -- for some reason, people who want to restrict the rights of US citizens seem to conveniently forget that one. Here it is:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
There's my right -- and yours --to an adequate standard of health, to be looked after after a life of contributing to society, and yes, to pursue happiness. Oh, and of course, to live like a free human being, not a corporate slave, even when I'm at work.
So it's feudalism at work; democracy on your own time.
Your words could apply just as well to someone justifying plutocracy as the logical system of government for a nation -- the wealthy landowners get to make the decisions, because they literally own the country. Somehow, in these modern times, we've decided that that's just not acceptable anymore. Why do we still put up with it at work?
When people are willing to pay for these features is when companies will pay to build the requisite drivers. And that is how it should be.
Alternately, they could publish full specs for their cards and provide the drivers as open source, and the few people who need the different features now could write them or have them written. This code could be contributed back to the card manufacturers and integrated in future driver releases, resulting in the feature being available for everyone. For example, ATI apparently didn't see enough market demand to provide 3d-accelerated Linux drivers for the Radeon 8500, but The Weather Channel did, and now we'll all benefit.
Obviously this is a bit idealistic, but hey, we're talking about how it should be here. As I started writing this, no one has made a good answer on the "what about under Linux" question, but honestly (and despite the way that that seems like a reflexive slashdot response), that's the real solution to this "problem".
Yeah, that's good stuff, but it's not going to be able to give paladins mounts, introduce prestige classes, etc. And there's other things in the 3e rules which make sense to be changed -- the xp penalty for death of a familiar and waiting a year and a day for a new one are too harsh for a computer game, where your familiar is going to get killed a lot no matter what you do. I'm sure people who are more hard-core D&D players than I can go on and on about further differences.
That's pushing it a bit -- some things don't translate so well, and others are just missing. And of course, the DM's ability to improvise and break the rules isn't quite what it is in real life.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see why corporations are necessary to have a roof over my head -- houses were built quite successfully for millenia before corporations were invented. Computers are more complicated and there's definitely a lot of them involved in making one today, but there's no particular reason it *has* to be that way -- there's plenty of other perfectly good structures for companies.
Sure. But in many ways, Linux is *cheaper* than $0 -- you also can get a total support package (in the form of ongoing development, bug fixes, and community support) for nothing. Netscape needed some way to make money after giving away its $0 product -- Linux doesn't. Companies like Red Hat might, but Microsoft *can* beat individual Linux companies (I hope they don't of course) and they don't talk about that -- they (correctly) talk about beating Linux itself.
"You get what you pay for."
But that's the beauty of Open Source / Free software -- you can pay for whatever level of support and brand name you want. You can choose to get everything for free, or you can get a million-dollar support contract -- or anything in between. This is the truth, and I think we've done a fairly good job of getting that perception out there -- and of course IBM's advertising dollars help too.
Java likes to run many threads very cavalierly, so it's likely to help there somewhat.
In this case, abandonware just makes an intermediate step. If there's some old software that I like that suddenly comes out in a new and useful format, of course I'll buy the new version.
The dictionary's job is to reflect our "cultural, unwritten definition". If it says something else, it's wrong. Just because a definition gets written in a dictionary doesn't make it a fact. In this case, I think it's in error.
Yeah, but you think that accounts for more than 0.01%? Even on Linux?
There's far more PCs in university labs here; the Mac labs are far and few between outside of Comm, from what I see. And most of those are ancient machines -- not up to snuff for OS X. Most of the PCs are running MS Windows, but we're making a bit of an inroad; I wouldn't be surprised if we've got twice as many Linux systems in labs as Macs.
In dorm rooms is another story. What that story is, I have no idea, since I'm not involved there. I'll ask some of the resnet folks, but I bet Apple has a much better share there (and much better than the general market).
Yeah, that comment struck me as very archaic -- um, hey look, I'm *reading* some content on the net *right now*. Looks like that's working reasonably well enough.
This new hardware|software is great, but unless it has feature ____, and implemented exactly the way I want it, it is ABSOULTELY worthless. I don't know why they even bother.
They're going to run into a situation like that with Itanium vs. Sledgehammer -- sure, the clean break with the past is nice, and lets you get rid of a lot of stupid cruft, but can you really do it when there's a competitor out there who can keep running the old stuff *and* perform better at the new stuff? Oh, sure, the new way has a longer future, but that's not a bridge one can cross if one never gets to it. By the time Microsoft drops backwards compatibility with Win32, Wine will run most of those apps just fine. Assuming no major disaster for Linux (the legal/patent thing, for example), Microsoft will have no choice but to keep compatibility, just as Intel is going to have to make its "Yamhill" project into reality.
Ok, touché. But it's strange to me that most people easily recognize this as a problem in government but not as a problem in the rest of life.
Don't be silly. Of course we don't just have whatever rights happen to pop into your head as ridiculous examples. However, it is beneficial for there to be certain rights to make society work smoothly and to allow each individual the best chance possible. What those specific rights might be is a long discussion, but most people can agree on generalities -- after all, we're in this same society together. Property rights are certainly an imporant and useful class of these rights, but I don't see why they should be elevated above all others -- and I can see some strong reasons why they should be kept in check.
Name one listed in the Constitution with full text and explanation.
Um, I think we're going in circles here. The constitution explicitly states that there exist rights not enumerated there -- that's what I said at the beginning of this thread.
The problem you have is that you think the US Constitution relates to all things.
I certainly don't think that and said nothing that would imply I do.
No one is pointing a gun at your head and telling you to work for someone so it is 100% voluntary. If you want "democracy" during business hours, start your own business.
Not everyone has the resources to do this -- not just the resources to get started, but more importantly the resources to fall back on if it doesn't work out (and most new businesses don't). I agree, getting out of a "wage slavery" situation and working for yourself is a good goal, but it's just not always possible for everyone.
There is no right that forces someone else to give you a job or income.
Of course not. But there are rights which dictate how someone can treat you when you work for them.
You have to look at why we have rights at all. At the most basic level, you don't have any "rights" to anything -- it's a harsh world. But in order to build a working society in which each individual has the highest possiblity of reaching full potential as a human beaing, we develop a system -- society and all that. If you want to make that system favor the wealthy, I guess that's one way to do it, but I don't think it's the most productive structure of rights.
With your reading of the 9th, I could decide to do anything I want, at anytime as long as I don't tread on the Civil Rights of others such as keep animals in inhumane conditions on purpose.
I didn't say that at all. I didn't say that you have whatever rights you claim -- just that you do have rights beyond those listed. Exactly as the quote you give says.
Working is a choice. If you do not wish to be forced an employer to do certain things, don't work for them. Its their equipment, bandwidth and electricity. They determine how it will be used.
It's not a very optional choice for most people. Like I said elsewhere, what you seem to support is "democracy on your own time" -- and feudalism at work. If you're happy with that arrangement, that's fine, but I don't see why we should be.
Sure, but realistically, it's not that easy, especially in areas and times when jobs are scarce -- and when practices like this become the norm because all of the employees have this "it's their right to do that if they want" attitude.
Usually, things are better for educated folks, but there was a court decision a while ago banning someone from finding a new job in his field because he knew too much from his old employeer -- they owned his skills and knowledge, just as a feudal lord owns the labor of his vassals. That seems ridiculous, but that was the ruling, and we're going to see more of it in the future. (William Gibson might not be so far off.)
So it's feudalism at work; democracy on your own time.
Your words could apply just as well to someone justifying plutocracy as the logical system of government for a nation -- the wealthy landowners get to make the decisions, because they literally own the country. Somehow, in these modern times, we've decided that that's just not acceptable anymore. Why do we still put up with it at work?
Yep, that woulda been right here on slashdot, linking to abcnews, June 2000.
?
That doesn't even make sense, let alone be true in any way.
When people are willing to pay for these features is when companies will pay to build the requisite drivers. And that is how it should be.
Alternately, they could publish full specs for their cards and provide the drivers as open source, and the few people who need the different features now could write them or have them written. This code could be contributed back to the card manufacturers and integrated in future driver releases, resulting in the feature being available for everyone. For example, ATI apparently didn't see enough market demand to provide 3d-accelerated Linux drivers for the Radeon 8500, but The Weather Channel did, and now we'll all benefit.
Obviously this is a bit idealistic, but hey, we're talking about how it should be here. As I started writing this, no one has made a good answer on the "what about under Linux" question, but honestly (and despite the way that that seems like a reflexive slashdot response), that's the real solution to this "problem".
Yeah, that's good stuff, but it's not going to be able to give paladins mounts, introduce prestige classes, etc. And there's other things in the 3e rules which make sense to be changed -- the xp penalty for death of a familiar and waiting a year and a day for a new one are too harsh for a computer game, where your familiar is going to get killed a lot no matter what you do. I'm sure people who are more hard-core D&D players than I can go on and on about further differences.
Entire official AD&D third edition rules support.
That's pushing it a bit -- some things don't translate so well, and others are just missing. And of course, the DM's ability to improvise and break the rules isn't quite what it is in real life.
That said, they did a credible job.