Is this another bit of, "Destroy the Credibility of the Idea of Conspiracies"?
That is. . , provide a tatalizing albeit false idea, let the steam build and then debunk so that everybody looks silly?
Here's a hint: If it happens on big public broadcasting, (and if Peter Jennings doesn't contract terminal cancer shortly after it airs), then it's probably (more) misleading.
Anybody who is serious about learning how the world really works is going to have to be a lot more savvy and critical about what data to allow into their knowledge structure. --And they're going to have to learn how to ignore emotional attacks, like the "Tinfoil Hat" remark, which is fueled by the part of the world which doesn't want you to ask questions.
And those who fling emotional attacks at those who ask questions: You are being manipulated.
Where this statement is correct, the rest of your comment must have come out of your ass.
No. It came from asking lots and lots of questions and actively seeking their answers through comparative research. I note you didn't do either in your comment, which simply provided biased, summary judgment. Is that your native manner of thinking? If so, then I would feel confident in suggesting that you only think you're right, whereas I have a much higher chance of knowing I'm right.
Reality is amazing and it's unfolding rapidly. It pays to watch closely.
From my understanding, lasers capable of destroying weapons can only fire a few times before they run out of juice.
So while this is a neat idea and all, what's to stop a guy from firing a dozen tennis balls at a target followed by an actual bomb? Every solution has a counter-solution.
Not that it matters. Nobody but the U.S. and Zionist secret services (and the dupes they con into doing it for them), are lobbing bombs at civilian targets anyway. --All to A) Rape countries. B) Sell expensive weapon systems, C) To consolidate and extend psychotic police state powers, and D) To snatch all the really good chairs while playing, 'Musical Apocalypse'.
Laser bubbles? Gimme a break.
You want to stop airplanes from blowing up? Try routing out the secret government and stringing up all the scuzzy little Neocons and Zionist cultists who have the world in a stranglehold.
I use Win98 because after using it for going on 8 years, I now know it backwards and forwards, I have it running smooth as silk and it never gets viruses, it doesn't sneakily contact Microsoft, and there are no creepy NSA tags hiding in its code.
If it ain't broke. . .
And yes, actually, I'm also waiting eagerly for the next Ubuntu release. Duel booting is glorious.
Fuck slashdot, straight up. you assholes don't have the common decency to give MS or Gates a good icon. There is absolutly nothing impartial about slashcock or it's faggot editors.
Yes. Political cartoons can be too much for those with delicate sensitivities. Poor you. Anyway, impartiality was never something Slashdot claimed to have, so why on earth would anybody complain?
There are a hundred and one reasons to think very poorly of Billy boy, and people who like computers are generally very aware of them.
Conversely, those who side with the psychopathic corporate initiative to take over the universe are often quite ignorant of MS's many transgressions, --which probably also means, (if they are into computers), that they aren't particularly smart or generally aware of much of the world. --Typically, such people seem to have the boring host of garden variety fears running rampent through their brains; the fear of homosexuality in your post jumps out at me, and thus your belief that calling somebody a 'faggot' is actually a damaging insult when all it really does is make mature people shake their heads at you.
People only use insults that they would be unhappy to have used against them. I'm a prime example; I'm calling you stupid and ignorant because I'd hate to be called those things myself. You, however, are using 'faggot' as an insult which leads me to think that you probably have a deeply nestled thing for naked men. Poor, poor you.
Actually if you live in the US there IS something wrong with excessive regulation; it goes against the founding principles of this country.
I grew up living in Orlando, and their are one of the worse places in the world for urban sprawl. The problem in their case is a lack of planning for growth; usually as a result of the local government officials being bought and paid for by the developers. The housing market down there is huge, and they let them build new developments without any thought to infrastructure or thru-capacity.
The problem you describe in Orlando is a direct result of the Free Market acting without restriction, or as you put it, "A lack of planning for growth". I advocate planning. That's all. Greedy politicians being paid off by developers is in fact the free market in action; nobody is trying to restrain and direct it sensibly; they are only listening to personal desires without caring about the future or other people's needs.
Free market economics are not a tool, they are a law like physics. They are always there, and they can always be applied. The natural laws of the universe are always relevant and in effect.
Fine. If you want disagree with my metaphor then you have to go the whole way. --That is to say, human intelligence and the ability to shape dynamic systems, (like a market place) is also a fundamental element of the universe.
It's true: Wherever there is a complex trade & barter system, there must also be intelligent life capable of making choices. You cannot separate the two. However, I wouldn't call either one a law of physics as both can be restrained and stopped through active choice of the participants. You can't choose to stop obeying gravity, whereas we could all tomorrow decide to stop trading with each other. It's not so easy to do this, though; bater and trade is built deeply into our social framework. --It is, by contrast, far easier to stop using our intelligence to make wise decisions. Wisdom is a more recent step in the evolution of society, it seems, and so it's not quite as deeply ingrained so as to make it automatic.
People who suggest we abandon intelligence and fall back exclusively on our automatic behaviors are in effect suggesting that we stop using any layers of gray matter beyond the reptilian core. No thanks. I'm into evolving forward, not backwards.
Would you ever consider building an "ultra-light" car? --Something which seats two, is built like a four-wheeled mountain bike with a canopy, and uses similar technologies as you and your team developed? You know; a small car which isn't a car, safer than a motorbike, and which is designed to move people real distances at reasonable speeds on a fraction of the gas a car would drink?
I've seen motorbikes (dangerous), and I've seen cars (big & wasteful), but something in between seems to have been largely ignored. Such a vehicle, made well and made available to the general public could really change things. You could probably sell them new for three or four thousand. I'd buy one.
While the science has shown Bates to have been wrong about numerous items, the fact that nearly a whole century has passed since he was studying the problem of vision dysfunction, I'm willing to forgive him. I really don't get the impression that he was trying to mislead, or that given updated information, he would have denied it. The fact of the matter is that text which is out of focus at two feet from my eyes is crystal clear after four minutes of doing the palming exercise. This means that Bates was really on to something.
Keep in mind that the Bates system is free to anybody who feels like reading the copyright expired book on-line, while glasses, surgery and the whole optomotry profession are, um, expensive.
The review you linked to was written by doctors whose livlihood is based on selling glasses and surgery. Something to consider.
I've been working with a system pioneered by a fellow named William Bates nearly 100 years ago. The science since then has advanced and Bates was completely wrong about several things, but as he was writing almost a century ago I can forgive him that. --The fact of the matter is that he was really on to something; that is, I've personally found some of his method effective.
There is quite a lot of rather rabid anti-Bates stuff out there claiming quackery, but the fact that the system is free and glasses and surgery are not, leads me to wonder how sincere the critics really are.
For my part, I've been mucking about with the Bates system for about two months, (you're supposed to do it for a year), and have found the palming exercise in particular definitely works. --That is, text which is fuzzy and unreadable to me at two feet becomes crystal-clear after doing the palming exercise for four minutes. Go figure.
The palming exercise is simple; You cover one eye with your palm so that the eye, while covered in darkness, can still move and act naturally. You don't close that eye or put any pressure on it. Then you simply look at things with your other eye. You scan around and focus on things and do that for about two minutes. Then you switch eyes. When you have done this with both eyes, your vision is suddenly much better. Try it. It's pretty cool, and seeing is believing.
Now, the conventional wisdom states that dysfunctional vision is the result of poorly shaped lenses and cannot under any circumstances be cured with exercises, but if this were true, then the level of 'out-of-focusness' I experience should remain constant no matter what happens. But that's obviously not how things really are; the palming exercises change my vision for the better. --Further, I find that doing the exercises for about twenty minutes will allow me to see much more clearly for several hours after the fact. I do this before going out or watching a movie.
All this means that there is more at work than simple lense structure; that the muscles acting on the eye -for whatever reason- subconsciously or whatever, are creating problems which in turn means that you should be able to re-train your brain to stop the eye muscles from acting like this. That's the general idea, and from my experiences, it is quite sound.
I've even had a few "clear flashes" where suddenly for a few moments the entire world is in perfect focus. It was really cool the first time it happened. I stared at the world in amazement until I had to blink. The moment I blinked, it went back to its 'normal' out of focus state. According to people who have been successful in following this system, if I keep up with the exercises, my vision should continue to improve incrementally, and more interestingly, the clear flashes will become more frequent until one day things will click into focus and stay that way.
Anyway, check it out for yourself. Somebody posted the whole of Bate's book online so you can read it for free. . .
This laser eye surgery thing basically just re-shapes your cornea into a secondary corrective lense; kind of like a built-in contact lense. The problem with this is that over time, your brain will 'correct' the new state of vision and your eyesight will diminish once more to wherever your subconscious believe it ought to be.
A little discipline and self-education should be preferable to having a laser trained on your eyeball! (One would think, anyway.)
Hi. I've been working with a system pioneered by a fellow named William Bates nearly 100 years ago. The science since then has advanced and Bates was completely wrong about some things, but as he was writing almost a century ago, so I can forgive him that. --The fact of the matter is that he was really on to something; that is, I've personally found his method effective.
There is quite a lot of rather rabid anti-Bates stuff out there claiming quackery, but the fact that the system is free and glasses and surgery are not leads me to wonder how sincere the critics really are.
For my part, I've been mucking about with the Bates system for about two months, (you're supposed to do it for a whole year), and have found the palming exercise in particular definitely works. --That is, text which is fuzzy and unreadable at a certain distance becomes crystal clear after four minutes of doing the palming exercise. Go figure.
I've even had a few "clear flashes" where suddenly for a few moments, the entire world is in perfect focus. (It was really cool the first time it happened. I stared at the world in amazement until I had to blink. The moment I blinked, it went back to its 'normal' out of focus state. According to people who have been successful in following this system, if I keep up with the exercises, my vision should continue to improve incrementally, and more interestingly, the clear flashes will become more frequent until one day things will click into focus and stay that way.
This system might not be for your girlfriend, but maybe it is. She can check it out for herself. Somebody posted the whole of Bate's book online. . .
Gee. Our media-owning overlords aren't planning a war even a little bit, are they?
Only chumps swallow this horse-manure. Newspapers don't always lie, but any truth they disseminate is designed to create trust.
From the Protocols of Zion: (Read the wikipedia for the history of this anti-semitic hoax. The Machiavellian logic, however, within the 'Protocols' is airtight and clearly in full effect in our world, being used by those who DO manage our economy, social mechanics and of course, the media).
PROTOCOL No. 12
1. The word "freedom," which can be interpreted in various ways, is defined by us as follows -
2. Freedom is the right to do what which the law allows. This interpretation of the word will at the proper time be of service to us, because all freedom will thus be in our hands, since the laws will abolish or create only that which is desirable for us according to the aforesaid program.
3. We shall deal with the press in the following way: what is the part played by the press to-day? It serves to excite and inflame those passions which are needed for our purpose or else it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often vapid, unjust, mendacious, and the majority of the public have not the slightest idea what ends the press really serves. We shall saddle and bridle it with a tight curb: we shall do the same also with all productions of the printing press, for where would be the sense of getting rid of the attacks of the press if we remain targets for pamphlets and books? The produce of publicity, which nowadays is a source of heavy expense owing to the necessity of censoring it, will be turned by us into a very lucrative source of income to our State: we shall lay on it a special stamp tax and require deposits of caution-money before permitting the establishment of any organ of the press or of printing offices; these will then have to guarantee our government against any kind of attack on the part of the press. For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy. Such measures as stamp tax, deposit of caution-money and fines secured by these deposits, will bring in a huge income to the government. It is true that party organs might not spare money for the sake of publicity, but these we shall shut up at the second attack upon us. No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification. I BEG YOU TO NOTE THAT AMONG THOSE MAKING ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO BE ORGANS ESTABLISHED BY US, BUT THEY WILL ATTACK EXCLUSIVELY POINTS THAT WE HAVE PRE-DETERMINED TO ALTER. WE CONTROL THE PRESS
4. NOT A SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT WILL REACH THE PUBLIC WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. Even now this is already being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.
5. If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the minds of the GOY communities to such an extent the they all come near looking upon the events of the world through the colored glasses of those spectacles we are setting astride their noses; if already now there is not a single State where there exist for us any barriers to admittance into what GOY stupidity calls State secrets: what will our positions be then, when we shall be acknowledged supreme lords of the world in the person of our king of all the world....
6. Let us turn again to the FUTURE OF THE PRINTING PRESS. Every one desirous of being a publisher, librarian, or printer, will be obliged to provide himself with the diploma instituted therefore, which, in case of any fault, will be immediately impounded. With such measures THE INSTRUMENT OF THOUGHT WILL
No, the obvious question would be Why don't they charge higher tuitions, thereby cutting out a certain percentage of the applicants who can't afford it. That's what they do over here isn't it?
Ah yes. The woefully inadequate "Natural Selection" concept forced into yet another ill-suited context designed to reward the already rich, (no matter how un-deserving and mentally insufficient they are), and punishes the already enslaved, (no matter how powerful their minds might be). Not that it matters. State-sanctioned education in either nation is perhaps more properly spelled, "S-O-C-I-A-L C-O-N-D-I-T-I-O-N-I-N-G". --Best taken in very light doses or avoided altogether.
Long live Western Philosophy. I give it another seven or eight years before total collapse. Tops.
that everything you learned in school is seriously flawed, and that high-tech, global civilizations have been and gone several times before ours, (there's plenty of evidence of this), how often do you think some bright spark thought to set up a seed-bank or similar on the eve of destruction?
Right. Now. . . How good a sci-fi novel would it be to set about searching for one such time capsule from a previous world-spanning empire? Atlantis, Lemuria, or something prior. . .
Or have such things already been found and plumbed?
And I realized the answer is no. Just because it's infinite and non-repeating doesn't mean it must contain every string. (Although if it were truly random then we would expect it to.) For example, the number:
0.515511555111555511115555511111555555111111 and so on, would not repeat and would contain infinite digits. However, all of these would be a 5 or a 1. (Similarly, you could just encode Pi in octal but then not mention that it's not decimal: it would still be infinite digits and non-repeating, but with a conspicuous lack 8's or 9's....).
Both intersting and very true! (Although, I did reference Pi in my subject title, and that's the number I was thinking of. I must learn to be more specific in my flippant postings.)
Anyway, cheers to you and happy +3 cruising! (Using Slashdot at a free university? What a neat idea!)
Let me guess. You were one of those guys who sat at the back of the class and despised anybody who enjoyed life, participation and enthusiasm, because you never managed to overcome your own internal fears and shyness, etc., and so rather than encouraging others, tried to defuse any possible rogue happiness in the air so that you might control the emotional flow of the room. To stay on top. To stay 'safe', as it were.
Typically guys like that put on a big show of 'rationality', cling to conservative politics with a death grip, and try to force all reality into known quantities of Black & White in order that they never have to face the unknown.
It's all about trying to control EVERYTHING so that it can't hurt you.
Grow up. The world is bigger than you and always will be. Get used to it. Learn to surf or get swallowed. Buddy.
Forgive my geek-quotient, but by-golly, I LOVE the white LED.
Bare moments after they hit the market in the form of flashlights, I ordered at a ludicrously expensive bleeding-edge price the veritable Alpha-Male of the species; a phallic light-thrower which takes three 'D' cells and powers an array of 10 white LEDs. It's super-bright and it will run continuously for something like 3 solid months. Who needs a sports car?
--And because I am confident in my masculinity, I also bought and primarily use a much smaller one with a single LED. Oh god, it's sweet! Super-bright, it runs forever on a triple 'A' cell. I use that thing all the time. Not like the cute but ultimately annoying mini-mag, which ran down after twenty minutes. --I always felt slightly stressed while using that thing for any work. Instead of focusing 100% of my attention on the task it was illuminating, I'd have a little part of my mind worrying, "Oh no! My flashlight is going to die soon!"
Of course, with the far superior LED flashlight replacement, I now find myself distracted spending a sizable percentage of my brain thinking, "Wow! This is just the coolest flashlight on the planet!"
Indeed. White LEDs are the first bit of new technology which actually made me sit up and say, "Holy Awesomeness, Batman! I NEED one of those for my belt!" since. . , well, I can't actually remember the last bit of engineering which I absolutely had to run out and buy.
Oooh, scratch that. I DO remember. It was one of those extendable lightsaber toys when they first hit the market. They were painfully neat in an almost perfect kind of way. (That 8 inches of saber sticking out of the handle when the blade was retracted was dumb, but whatever). I broke mine open and installed extra lightsaber sounds, activated by a handy button so I could deflect pretend blaster bolts at a thumb press. Sooo proud of that. (Hm. Another phallic device. I wonder what's up with that. ..)
A close runner-up invention in terms of coolness is the flatscreen monitor. They're exceptionally wonderful, (bright, no EM radiation, they don't make any electronic whining sound on the upper end of audio perception, and they're, well, FLAT!), except they didn't hit the market in an exciting burst of newness. They sort of arrived and sucked, then got slowly better and more affordable over a 15 year period. Can you imagine how exciting they would have been if they just suddenly showed up with no warning?
I guess the MP3 was another really neat innovation. Heck. That drove the world stark-raving-giddy for almost two years. Remember Napster? Sheesh! The world is still trying to recover its senses.
And before that. . . Well, I guess the CD was pretty darn cool. The recordable option was exciting. That changed the world as well. As did PacMan and Space Invaders down at the K-Mart entrance during the 80's.
The Mountain Bike was pretty great, too. And so was the mini-Leatherman folding pliers. (The really small one which folds up to the size of a zippo.) I still have and my original pair bought when Leatherman was a new company back in the early nineties and use it regularly.
But none of those things excited me quite like the white LED. White LEDs are beautiful in their simplicity.
The only thing that annoys me about any of this is that I'm getting excited about weenie technology. --The MIC keeps all the really cool inventions from ever being released. We only get these safe little inventions which can't upset the balance of power and money distribution in the world. Ah well. At least we have cool flashlights!
[. ..] need to remember that Iran is not like the U.S.
Think of it as Columbine.
No. How about we think of it as it is.
Iran was growing into a powerful democratic state with high social values; women allowed to go to University and live without the veil, etc. However, one of several problems the West had with Iran's growth was that it also wanted to keep and manage it's own crude oil reserves. For this reason, (among others), the CIA succeeded in de-stabilizing the government by arming crazy religious fundamentalists who eventually took over the government. Iran fell into repression, and set itself up neatly as another Fall Guy for the U.S. war machine.
So if we want to equate current relations between the U.S. and Iran to a schoolyard bullying metaphor, it might be more accurate to say that bully, (the U.S.) simply wants to finish the job of crushing another nation into the ground for its own sick benefit, and is using a lie to do it.
Keep in mind, all the 'credible' evidence that Iran is working to build bombs comes from sources like Fox News and CNN, both of which do none of their investigative reporting with regard to war preferring to quote un-filtered press releases from the Pentagon, (the same Pentagon which assured us that Iraq had WMDs.) The U.S. has a long and well established history of lying and war-mongering for money. It would be wise to consider this while developing one's personal beliefs on the subject of world politics.
Interesting that Iran was building a nice democratic government when the CIA saw fit to destabilize it so that it slipped its hold on attaining a version of Western-style political power, status and civil awareness. (Such as it is in the West.)
The rational objections to U.S. policy with regard to Iran are not bourn from a desire to see a 'fair' distribution of nuclear weapons. The rational objection to U.S. policy with regard to Iran is that ALL the social awareness sculpting through the media and the actions of the government are designed to start another war in the Middle East. Period. ANY semi-logical sounding argument for doing so will be employed to trick the public into going along with this desire. It is easy to come up with good sounding arguments for even the dumbest ideas.
War is profitable. Chaos is profitable. That is the bottom line. (Well, that and speeding along the Christian cultic agenda toward the apocalypse. But that's another story). --Priming the U.S. population for war with Iran has nothing to do with any of the reasons you suggest. Bush and his people are not interested in any philosophy which does not seek to maintain imbalance, chaos and a steady flow of public funds into their pockets through third party companies, (oil, defense, etc.).
They fooled the world once with WMD's in Iraq. They're doing it again with this nonsense about uranium plants in Iran. It's all propaganda and social programming.
The story/animation in that game captured me in a big, big way. When I discovered the Miyazaki film within the same year, (or rather, some story books using stills from the film; getting an acutal copy was somewhat more challenging), I was similarly blown away. --Manga and anime were unknown words back in '83, and I was of the first wave of Westerners to fall under its spell.
I'm quite dedicated to my copy of Win98. It works fine, and after all these years, I know pretty much everything about it. I've finally gotten comfortable with it and know how to make it perform wonderfully.
Except I've seen a recent push in the media to ditch Win98. They're even pushing the, "You're Not Cool" buttons, which makes me think somebody is getting desperate. . . Now why on earth would the Big World Out There care which version of Windows the public is using? Here are a list of possible answers and general points which strike me off the top of my head. . .
1. Money. If you can convince a few million people that they need to spend a few hundred bucks on a new operating system, (Like, ooooh, say, Vista which is being released so very soon), what better way to increase initial sales on a new product? Mod me down, and I know some of you will want to, (hello MS astroturfers), but this seems like a fairly obvious marketing ploy to jeer and scare people into buying a new product. In other words, FUCK Microsoft; I'm not about to be manipulated by highschool popular kid tactics.
2. DRM. Later releases of Windows are linked to Microsoft and secret services in ways which allow the Powers That Be to keep tabs on you at all times. You want to control media? What better way than to put an OS with built in spy abilities on every desktop and lap top in the world? Win98 isn't so useful to the Black Hats this way; it was written too early in Microsoft's evolution; somewhat before their dance with the devil took it down the domestic spying and social control road.
3. Fear. Anybody who tells me that Win98 is not a safe system is a fool. Win98 has a very short list of vulnerabilities. Nobody attacks it. I don't run a virus checker and my very basic firewall takes care of every other danger. Look at the last three years of viruses and bugs which have hit the world; how many of them have affected Win98? Like 1 percent? Or less? Exactly.
I'll stick with Win98 until they make it illegal not to have government eyes installed in our homes. The way this is going, I probably won't have to wait too long. . .
Wow. I sure touched a nerve or two there with this one! Usually I do that on purpose, but this is just weird. Anyway, whenever that happens for no good reason, I repost the offending item. --Which contains, please note, only my personal views as pertain to just me and contains absolutely no judgement about others. If you like playing Pitfall, then play pitfall. I'm just sharing my experiences.
And so, the post which was modded into troll dust is as follows. . .
When I was a kid, video games looked shiny and amazing, because the technology was new. This made them exciting. Now they are old, and I realize just how dated everything looks and feels.
With the technology having moved on, I find those old games incredibly boring; I see them for what they really are; just lights on a screen you move around. How pointless. How dull. Interestingly, after accessing this part of my perception, I find it maps easily enough into the present; even new video games seem like elaborate excuses to move little lights around on a screen for no good reason. And that got old when I was a teen-ager.
Today, even the most up-to-date games look screamingly dull and uninteresting to me. (--Especially the driving and sports games, which I find dull and mechanical in real life!) Video games are all Spy Hunter, Doom and Pac Man to me these days. Cute once, but now go away please. You are dull. I'd rather eat my own eyes than play any more of it for more than ten seconds.
And Pitfall? For goodness sake. If I were one of the guys still playing Pitfall, I'd desperately try to reboot my brain for fear of being stuck in a zero-sum loop. My personal hell is having to play Pitfall.
When I was a kid, video games looked shiny and amazing, because the technology was new. This made them exciting. Now they are old, and I realize just how dated everything looks and feels.
With the technology having moved on, I find those old games incredibly boring; I see them for what they really are; just lights on a screen you move around. How pointless. How dull. Interestingly, after accessing this part of my perception, I find it maps easily enough into the present; even new video games seem like elaborate excuses to move little lights around on a screen for no good reason. And that got old when I was a teen-ager.
Today, even the most up-to-date games look screamingly dull and uninteresting to me. (--Especially the driving and sports games, which I find dull and mechanical in real life!) Video games are all Spy Hunter, Doom and Pac Man to me these days. Cute once, but now go away please. You are dull. I'd rather eat my own eyes than play any more of it for more than ten seconds.
And Pitfall? For goodness sake. If I were one of the guys still playing Pitfall, I'd desperately try to reboot my brain for fear of being stuck in a zero-sum loop. My personal hell is having to play Pitfall.
I'll never move away from Win98 and Linux OS's unless somebody has a gun to my head, and perhaps even then. . .
Win98 is pretty much free of Microsoft control bullshit these days. They didn't have their arm-in-arm with Big Brother shtick quite down to a fine dance back when Win98 was in production. Unlike today. . . When was the last time that Win98 secretly dialed up Microsoft from your home? Never. I know where all the bugs are and how to make the system fly.
There's a neat parable about fighter jets which is applicable here. . .
The Canadian and the American air forces have friendly contests each year to see who can out-fly who. The Canadians consistently win. Why? Because the Canadian Air Force has old jets which haven't been updated in a long while. They are not state of the art, which means that the pilots must work with the same gear year after year, getting to know their machines really, really well.
The American pilots, by contrast, are presented with new, high-tech aircraft with too many new gadgets which are updated regularly. This means the U.S. pilot, no matter how brilliant, doesn't have time to groove into a deep, instinctive knowledge of the machine being flown, and as a result, cannot perform to the maximum level of efficiency.
Anyway. . .
How does one save an extension on one's system for later installation? I knew this whole "live install" thing would eventually cause problems.
I respectfully disagree. There *IS* something wrong with regulation, and the problems that arise from it are not due to stupidity and greed, but are always going to be there despire the best of intentions and executions. Allow me to explain.
In this instance, I actually don't believe that political or legal intervention is a good idea. The internet is a target of fear-mongering by news agencies, and the government would dearly love to clamp down on it. --I was commenting primarily on the unrelated broad strokes of the parent poster with regard to free market systems, which as I have already expressed, I believe to be filled with various pitfalls and that there is nothing inherently wrong with using human intelligence and adaptability to fill those holes by way of regulations.
Also, I fail to see how a company not willing to invest in a better service isn't motivated by greed.
What people really want is for prices to stay the same but fraud protection to increase, which is impossible.
No it's not. --Sometimes, (read, nearly always), when a successful company does the minimum amount of work and investment and thus provides shoddy, over-priced goods and services, it is not because it cannot afford to do a better job or charge less, but rather it is that the owners and shareholders are unwilling to give up their profit margins. The seven-figure income is the American dream and a primary goal for many businessmen and CEO's. That is, after a certain point is reached in a company architecture, prices and service levels become very flexible. I don't know about the company in question, but the basic assumption that companies must raise prices to include honest services is totally erroneous. Particularly when filtering, (or in the case of some of the date services, stopping from engaging in fraudulent practices on their own boards), is not so terribly difficult.
So let the market determine how much fraud protection people are *actually*, not theoretically, willing to pay for. They can do it much more quickly and effectively than politicians. In fact, it's already been done.
Market forces are generally going to be in effect regardless, but to rely entirely upon them is short-sighted and unnecessary. Politicians are not a great solution to any problem, it is true, but some laws just make sense; there are lots of good examples. Michael Moore summed it up well: according to free market logic, it would make most sense for McDonald's to sell crack cocaine. --Crack is enormously profitable and the customers would be locked through addiction into coming back for more. Let the Free Market reign! --Except we don't allow this because of the negative impact it would have on our society.
Market forces are a neat and powerful idea, but so is balance. That's all I'm saying. It's not a Black & White universe out there, and neither should be one's world view or philosophy.
Regulation and legislation usually stifles competition and innovation. If people can't get good service at one place, they will go to somewhere else that meets their needs. That is called the free market!
This really is a noble idea, but like many such ideas, it is far too simple to work all by itself. There is nothing inherently wrong with regulation; it's just mindful engineering. Many systems, if you don't apply intelligence and sculpting to their growth progress, will just end up being wild free-for-alls which do not necessarily favor humans. This is why farmers try to discourage weed growth among their crops. Our intelligence is a tool designed to give us an edge in the wild; ignoring it needlessly strips us of that advantage. Sorry, but I don't have claws and fur, so why on earth would I want to handicap myself?
--I remember while visiting Orlando, and Buffalo and a few other U.S. cities, and being amazed at the apparent lack of zoning laws. The cities were a total mess. Industry and housing and retail sectors were all mixed together. I saw nasty chemical plants next to schools, next to gun shops, next to more housing, next to burned out housing. . . It was insane and stressful and totally unnecessary. --Yes, it made the ideologues happy because some high-minded theory about evolution or something was being adhered to, but the result were stupid cities which were uncomfortable and stressful to live in.
Humans have the ability to measure the effectiveness of systems and employ tactics to increase efficiency. --Yes, free market economies are a good base-line for allowing natural efficiencies to take hold, but so are implementing required standards, -for example, the the legally imposed engineering standards placed on boiler manufacture during the steam age when faulty or stupidly made engines exploded on a regular basis. --The free market may have in time have come around to building safe boilers all on its own, but things got a lot safer for the populace almost immediately when the public decided to make it illegal for companies to build lethal steam-bombs masquerading as engines.
Free market economics is one tool, and while it sometimes works, as with all tools, it also sometimes fails miserably. Why get upset when other tools are suggested? You can't solve every problem with a hammer. Sometimes a drill, or a screwdriver, or a piece of sandpaper are better fits for a problem. More often than not, all the tools used in concert in an intelligent manner turn out the best results.
I for one am glad that bridge designs need to meet certain critical standards before cars are allowed to cross and that we don't have to wait around for the stupid companies to be weeded out through economic failure due to their bridges collapsing some percentage of the time.
Of course, it is true that regulation through government bodies can and does also cause big problems, but those problems stem from stupidity and greed rather than an inherent flaw in the style of solution. Regulation can stifle creativity, but the Free Market model allows for unnecessary dangers to the population. Human Intelligence is the stuff we use to balance out the difference.
Slashdot Mirror
That is. . , provide a tatalizing albeit false idea, let the steam build and then debunk so that everybody looks silly?
Here's a hint: If it happens on big public broadcasting, (and if Peter Jennings doesn't contract terminal cancer shortly after it airs), then it's probably (more) misleading.
Anybody who is serious about learning how the world really works is going to have to be a lot more savvy and critical about what data to allow into their knowledge structure. --And they're going to have to learn how to ignore emotional attacks, like the "Tinfoil Hat" remark, which is fueled by the part of the world which doesn't want you to ask questions.
And those who fling emotional attacks at those who ask questions: You are being manipulated.
-FL
No. It came from asking lots and lots of questions and actively seeking their answers through comparative research. I note you didn't do either in your comment, which simply provided biased, summary judgment. Is that your native manner of thinking? If so, then I would feel confident in suggesting that you only think you're right, whereas I have a much higher chance of knowing I'm right.
Reality is amazing and it's unfolding rapidly. It pays to watch closely.
-FL
So while this is a neat idea and all, what's to stop a guy from firing a dozen tennis balls at a target followed by an actual bomb? Every solution has a counter-solution.
Not that it matters. Nobody but the U.S. and Zionist secret services (and the dupes they con into doing it for them), are lobbing bombs at civilian targets anyway. --All to A) Rape countries. B) Sell expensive weapon systems, C) To consolidate and extend psychotic police state powers, and D) To snatch all the really good chairs while playing, 'Musical Apocalypse'.
Laser bubbles? Gimme a break.
You want to stop airplanes from blowing up? Try routing out the secret government and stringing up all the scuzzy little Neocons and Zionist cultists who have the world in a stranglehold.
Allen Moore had the right idea.
-FL
I use Win98 because after using it for going on 8 years, I now know it backwards and forwards, I have it running smooth as silk and it never gets viruses, it doesn't sneakily contact Microsoft, and there are no creepy NSA tags hiding in its code.
If it ain't broke. . .
And yes, actually, I'm also waiting eagerly for the next Ubuntu release. Duel booting is glorious.
-FL
Yes. Political cartoons can be too much for those with delicate sensitivities. Poor you. Anyway, impartiality was never something Slashdot claimed to have, so why on earth would anybody complain?
There are a hundred and one reasons to think very poorly of Billy boy, and people who like computers are generally very aware of them.
Conversely, those who side with the psychopathic corporate initiative to take over the universe are often quite ignorant of MS's many transgressions, --which probably also means, (if they are into computers), that they aren't particularly smart or generally aware of much of the world. --Typically, such people seem to have the boring host of garden variety fears running rampent through their brains; the fear of homosexuality in your post jumps out at me, and thus your belief that calling somebody a 'faggot' is actually a damaging insult when all it really does is make mature people shake their heads at you.
People only use insults that they would be unhappy to have used against them. I'm a prime example; I'm calling you stupid and ignorant because I'd hate to be called those things myself. You, however, are using 'faggot' as an insult which leads me to think that you probably have a deeply nestled thing for naked men. Poor, poor you.
-FL
I grew up living in Orlando, and their are one of the worse places in the world for urban sprawl. The problem in their case is a lack of planning for growth; usually as a result of the local government officials being bought and paid for by the developers. The housing market down there is huge, and they let them build new developments without any thought to infrastructure or thru-capacity.
The problem you describe in Orlando is a direct result of the Free Market acting without restriction, or as you put it, "A lack of planning for growth". I advocate planning. That's all. Greedy politicians being paid off by developers is in fact the free market in action; nobody is trying to restrain and direct it sensibly; they are only listening to personal desires without caring about the future or other people's needs.
Free market economics are not a tool, they are a law like physics. They are always there, and they can always be applied. The natural laws of the universe are always relevant and in effect.
Fine. If you want disagree with my metaphor then you have to go the whole way. --That is to say, human intelligence and the ability to shape dynamic systems, (like a market place) is also a fundamental element of the universe.
It's true: Wherever there is a complex trade & barter system, there must also be intelligent life capable of making choices. You cannot separate the two. However, I wouldn't call either one a law of physics as both can be restrained and stopped through active choice of the participants. You can't choose to stop obeying gravity, whereas we could all tomorrow decide to stop trading with each other. It's not so easy to do this, though; bater and trade is built deeply into our social framework. --It is, by contrast, far easier to stop using our intelligence to make wise decisions. Wisdom is a more recent step in the evolution of society, it seems, and so it's not quite as deeply ingrained so as to make it automatic.
People who suggest we abandon intelligence and fall back exclusively on our automatic behaviors are in effect suggesting that we stop using any layers of gray matter beyond the reptilian core. No thanks. I'm into evolving forward, not backwards.
-FL
I've seen motorbikes (dangerous), and I've seen cars (big & wasteful), but something in between seems to have been largely ignored. Such a vehicle, made well and made available to the general public could really change things. You could probably sell them new for three or four thousand. I'd buy one.
-FL
While the science has shown Bates to have been wrong about numerous items, the fact that nearly a whole century has passed since he was studying the problem of vision dysfunction, I'm willing to forgive him. I really don't get the impression that he was trying to mislead, or that given updated information, he would have denied it. The fact of the matter is that text which is out of focus at two feet from my eyes is crystal clear after four minutes of doing the palming exercise. This means that Bates was really on to something.
Keep in mind that the Bates system is free to anybody who feels like reading the copyright expired book on-line, while glasses, surgery and the whole optomotry profession are, um, expensive.
The review you linked to was written by doctors whose livlihood is based on selling glasses and surgery. Something to consider.
-FL
There is quite a lot of rather rabid anti-Bates stuff out there claiming quackery, but the fact that the system is free and glasses and surgery are not, leads me to wonder how sincere the critics really are.
For my part, I've been mucking about with the Bates system for about two months, (you're supposed to do it for a year), and have found the palming exercise in particular definitely works. --That is, text which is fuzzy and unreadable to me at two feet becomes crystal-clear after doing the palming exercise for four minutes. Go figure.
The palming exercise is simple; You cover one eye with your palm so that the eye, while covered in darkness, can still move and act naturally. You don't close that eye or put any pressure on it. Then you simply look at things with your other eye. You scan around and focus on things and do that for about two minutes. Then you switch eyes. When you have done this with both eyes, your vision is suddenly much better. Try it. It's pretty cool, and seeing is believing.
Now, the conventional wisdom states that dysfunctional vision is the result of poorly shaped lenses and cannot under any circumstances be cured with exercises, but if this were true, then the level of 'out-of-focusness' I experience should remain constant no matter what happens. But that's obviously not how things really are; the palming exercises change my vision for the better. --Further, I find that doing the exercises for about twenty minutes will allow me to see much more clearly for several hours after the fact. I do this before going out or watching a movie.
All this means that there is more at work than simple lense structure; that the muscles acting on the eye -for whatever reason- subconsciously or whatever, are creating problems which in turn means that you should be able to re-train your brain to stop the eye muscles from acting like this. That's the general idea, and from my experiences, it is quite sound.
I've even had a few "clear flashes" where suddenly for a few moments the entire world is in perfect focus. It was really cool the first time it happened. I stared at the world in amazement until I had to blink. The moment I blinked, it went back to its 'normal' out of focus state. According to people who have been successful in following this system, if I keep up with the exercises, my vision should continue to improve incrementally, and more interestingly, the clear flashes will become more frequent until one day things will click into focus and stay that way.
Anyway, check it out for yourself. Somebody posted the whole of Bate's book online so you can read it for free. . .
This laser eye surgery thing basically just re-shapes your cornea into a secondary corrective lense; kind of like a built-in contact lense. The problem with this is that over time, your brain will 'correct' the new state of vision and your eyesight will diminish once more to wherever your subconscious believe it ought to be.
A little discipline and self-education should be preferable to having a laser trained on your eyeball! (One would think, anyway.)
-FL
There is quite a lot of rather rabid anti-Bates stuff out there claiming quackery, but the fact that the system is free and glasses and surgery are not leads me to wonder how sincere the critics really are.
For my part, I've been mucking about with the Bates system for about two months, (you're supposed to do it for a whole year), and have found the palming exercise in particular definitely works. --That is, text which is fuzzy and unreadable at a certain distance becomes crystal clear after four minutes of doing the palming exercise. Go figure.
I've even had a few "clear flashes" where suddenly for a few moments, the entire world is in perfect focus. (It was really cool the first time it happened. I stared at the world in amazement until I had to blink. The moment I blinked, it went back to its 'normal' out of focus state. According to people who have been successful in following this system, if I keep up with the exercises, my vision should continue to improve incrementally, and more interestingly, the clear flashes will become more frequent until one day things will click into focus and stay that way.
This system might not be for your girlfriend, but maybe it is. She can check it out for herself. Somebody posted the whole of Bate's book online. . .
Hope that helps.
-FL
Only chumps swallow this horse-manure. Newspapers don't always lie, but any truth they disseminate is designed to create trust.
From the Protocols of Zion: (Read the wikipedia for the history of this anti-semitic hoax. The Machiavellian logic, however, within the 'Protocols' is airtight and clearly in full effect in our world, being used by those who DO manage our economy, social mechanics and of course, the media).
Ah yes. The woefully inadequate "Natural Selection" concept forced into yet another ill-suited context designed to reward the already rich, (no matter how un-deserving and mentally insufficient they are), and punishes the already enslaved, (no matter how powerful their minds might be). Not that it matters. State-sanctioned education in either nation is perhaps more properly spelled, "S-O-C-I-A-L C-O-N-D-I-T-I-O-N-I-N-G". --Best taken in very light doses or avoided altogether.
Long live Western Philosophy. I give it another seven or eight years before total collapse. Tops.
-FL
Right. Now. . . How good a sci-fi novel would it be to set about searching for one such time capsule from a previous world-spanning empire? Atlantis, Lemuria, or something prior. . .
Or have such things already been found and plumbed?
Hm.
-FL
0.515511555111555511115555511111555555111111 and so on,
would not repeat and would contain infinite digits. However, all of these would be a 5 or a 1. (Similarly, you could just encode Pi in octal but then not mention that it's not decimal: it would still be infinite digits and non-repeating, but with a conspicuous lack 8's or 9's....).
Both intersting and very true! (Although, I did reference Pi in my subject title, and that's the number I was thinking of. I must learn to be more specific in my flippant postings.)
Anyway, cheers to you and happy +3 cruising! (Using Slashdot at a free university? What a neat idea!)
-FL
Ah. Sneering humor for no good reason.
Let me guess. You were one of those guys who sat at the back of the class and despised anybody who enjoyed life, participation and enthusiasm, because you never managed to overcome your own internal fears and shyness, etc., and so rather than encouraging others, tried to defuse any possible rogue happiness in the air so that you might control the emotional flow of the room. To stay on top. To stay 'safe', as it were.
Typically guys like that put on a big show of 'rationality', cling to conservative politics with a death grip, and try to force all reality into known quantities of Black & White in order that they never have to face the unknown.
It's all about trying to control EVERYTHING so that it can't hurt you.
Grow up. The world is bigger than you and always will be. Get used to it. Learn to surf or get swallowed. Buddy.
-FL
Bare moments after they hit the market in the form of flashlights, I ordered at a ludicrously expensive bleeding-edge price the veritable Alpha-Male of the species; a phallic light-thrower which takes three 'D' cells and powers an array of 10 white LEDs. It's super-bright and it will run continuously for something like 3 solid months. Who needs a sports car?
--And because I am confident in my masculinity, I also bought and primarily use a much smaller one with a single LED. Oh god, it's sweet! Super-bright, it runs forever on a triple 'A' cell. I use that thing all the time. Not like the cute but ultimately annoying mini-mag, which ran down after twenty minutes. --I always felt slightly stressed while using that thing for any work. Instead of focusing 100% of my attention on the task it was illuminating, I'd have a little part of my mind worrying, "Oh no! My flashlight is going to die soon!"
Of course, with the far superior LED flashlight replacement, I now find myself distracted spending a sizable percentage of my brain thinking, "Wow! This is just the coolest flashlight on the planet!"
Indeed. White LEDs are the first bit of new technology which actually made me sit up and say, "Holy Awesomeness, Batman! I NEED one of those for my belt!" since. . , well, I can't actually remember the last bit of engineering which I absolutely had to run out and buy.
Oooh, scratch that. I DO remember. It was one of those extendable lightsaber toys when they first hit the market. They were painfully neat in an almost perfect kind of way. (That 8 inches of saber sticking out of the handle when the blade was retracted was dumb, but whatever). I broke mine open and installed extra lightsaber sounds, activated by a handy button so I could deflect pretend blaster bolts at a thumb press. Sooo proud of that. (Hm. Another phallic device. I wonder what's up with that. .
A close runner-up invention in terms of coolness is the flatscreen monitor. They're exceptionally wonderful, (bright, no EM radiation, they don't make any electronic whining sound on the upper end of audio perception, and they're, well, FLAT!), except they didn't hit the market in an exciting burst of newness. They sort of arrived and sucked, then got slowly better and more affordable over a 15 year period. Can you imagine how exciting they would have been if they just suddenly showed up with no warning?
I guess the MP3 was another really neat innovation. Heck. That drove the world stark-raving-giddy for almost two years. Remember Napster? Sheesh! The world is still trying to recover its senses.
And before that. . . Well, I guess the CD was pretty darn cool. The recordable option was exciting. That changed the world as well. As did PacMan and Space Invaders down at the K-Mart entrance during the 80's.
The Mountain Bike was pretty great, too. And so was the mini-Leatherman folding pliers. (The really small one which folds up to the size of a zippo.) I still have and my original pair bought when Leatherman was a new company back in the early nineties and use it regularly.
But none of those things excited me quite like the white LED. White LEDs are beautiful in their simplicity.
The only thing that annoys me about any of this is that I'm getting excited about weenie technology. --The MIC keeps all the really cool inventions from ever being released. We only get these safe little inventions which can't upset the balance of power and money distribution in the world. Ah well. At least we have cool flashlights!
-FL
Think of it as Columbine.
No. How about we think of it as it is.
Iran was growing into a powerful democratic state with high social values; women allowed to go to University and live without the veil, etc. However, one of several problems the West had with Iran's growth was that it also wanted to keep and manage it's own crude oil reserves. For this reason, (among others), the CIA succeeded in de-stabilizing the government by arming crazy religious fundamentalists who eventually took over the government. Iran fell into repression, and set itself up neatly as another Fall Guy for the U.S. war machine.
So if we want to equate current relations between the U.S. and Iran to a schoolyard bullying metaphor, it might be more accurate to say that bully, (the U.S.) simply wants to finish the job of crushing another nation into the ground for its own sick benefit, and is using a lie to do it.
Keep in mind, all the 'credible' evidence that Iran is working to build bombs comes from sources like Fox News and CNN, both of which do none of their investigative reporting with regard to war preferring to quote un-filtered press releases from the Pentagon, (the same Pentagon which assured us that Iraq had WMDs.) The U.S. has a long and well established history of lying and war-mongering for money. It would be wise to consider this while developing one's personal beliefs on the subject of world politics.
-FL
The rational objections to U.S. policy with regard to Iran are not bourn from a desire to see a 'fair' distribution of nuclear weapons. The rational objection to U.S. policy with regard to Iran is that ALL the social awareness sculpting through the media and the actions of the government are designed to start another war in the Middle East. Period. ANY semi-logical sounding argument for doing so will be employed to trick the public into going along with this desire. It is easy to come up with good sounding arguments for even the dumbest ideas.
War is profitable. Chaos is profitable. That is the bottom line. (Well, that and speeding along the Christian cultic agenda toward the apocalypse. But that's another story). --Priming the U.S. population for war with Iran has nothing to do with any of the reasons you suggest. Bush and his people are not interested in any philosophy which does not seek to maintain imbalance, chaos and a steady flow of public funds into their pockets through third party companies, (oil, defense, etc.).
They fooled the world once with WMD's in Iraq. They're doing it again with this nonsense about uranium plants in Iran. It's all propaganda and social programming.
-FL
The story/animation in that game captured me in a big, big way. When I discovered the Miyazaki film within the same year, (or rather, some story books using stills from the film; getting an acutal copy was somewhat more challenging), I was similarly blown away. --Manga and anime were unknown words back in '83, and I was of the first wave of Westerners to fall under its spell.
Good times!
-FL
Except I've seen a recent push in the media to ditch Win98. They're even pushing the, "You're Not Cool" buttons, which makes me think somebody is getting desperate. . . Now why on earth would the Big World Out There care which version of Windows the public is using? Here are a list of possible answers and general points which strike me off the top of my head. . .
1. Money. If you can convince a few million people that they need to spend a few hundred bucks on a new operating system, (Like, ooooh, say, Vista which is being released so very soon), what better way to increase initial sales on a new product? Mod me down, and I know some of you will want to, (hello MS astroturfers), but this seems like a fairly obvious marketing ploy to jeer and scare people into buying a new product. In other words, FUCK Microsoft; I'm not about to be manipulated by highschool popular kid tactics.
2. DRM. Later releases of Windows are linked to Microsoft and secret services in ways which allow the Powers That Be to keep tabs on you at all times. You want to control media? What better way than to put an OS with built in spy abilities on every desktop and lap top in the world? Win98 isn't so useful to the Black Hats this way; it was written too early in Microsoft's evolution; somewhat before their dance with the devil took it down the domestic spying and social control road.
3. Fear. Anybody who tells me that Win98 is not a safe system is a fool. Win98 has a very short list of vulnerabilities. Nobody attacks it. I don't run a virus checker and my very basic firewall takes care of every other danger. Look at the last three years of viruses and bugs which have hit the world; how many of them have affected Win98? Like 1 percent? Or less? Exactly.
I'll stick with Win98 until they make it illegal not to have government eyes installed in our homes. The way this is going, I probably won't have to wait too long. . .
-FL
And so, the post which was modded into troll dust is as follows. . .
Cheers!
-FL
With the technology having moved on, I find those old games incredibly boring; I see them for what they really are; just lights on a screen you move around. How pointless. How dull. Interestingly, after accessing this part of my perception, I find it maps easily enough into the present; even new video games seem like elaborate excuses to move little lights around on a screen for no good reason. And that got old when I was a teen-ager.
Today, even the most up-to-date games look screamingly dull and uninteresting to me. (--Especially the driving and sports games, which I find dull and mechanical in real life!) Video games are all Spy Hunter, Doom and Pac Man to me these days. Cute once, but now go away please. You are dull. I'd rather eat my own eyes than play any more of it for more than ten seconds.
And Pitfall? For goodness sake. If I were one of the guys still playing Pitfall, I'd desperately try to reboot my brain for fear of being stuck in a zero-sum loop. My personal hell is having to play Pitfall.
-FL
Win98 is pretty much free of Microsoft control bullshit these days. They didn't have their arm-in-arm with Big Brother shtick quite down to a fine dance back when Win98 was in production. Unlike today. . . When was the last time that Win98 secretly dialed up Microsoft from your home? Never. I know where all the bugs are and how to make the system fly.
There's a neat parable about fighter jets which is applicable here. . .
The Canadian and the American air forces have friendly contests each year to see who can out-fly who. The Canadians consistently win. Why? Because the Canadian Air Force has old jets which haven't been updated in a long while. They are not state of the art, which means that the pilots must work with the same gear year after year, getting to know their machines really, really well.
The American pilots, by contrast, are presented with new, high-tech aircraft with too many new gadgets which are updated regularly. This means the U.S. pilot, no matter how brilliant, doesn't have time to groove into a deep, instinctive knowledge of the machine being flown, and as a result, cannot perform to the maximum level of efficiency.
Anyway. . .
How does one save an extension on one's system for later installation? I knew this whole "live install" thing would eventually cause problems.
-FL
In this instance, I actually don't believe that political or legal intervention is a good idea. The internet is a target of fear-mongering by news agencies, and the government would dearly love to clamp down on it. --I was commenting primarily on the unrelated broad strokes of the parent poster with regard to free market systems, which as I have already expressed, I believe to be filled with various pitfalls and that there is nothing inherently wrong with using human intelligence and adaptability to fill those holes by way of regulations.
Also, I fail to see how a company not willing to invest in a better service isn't motivated by greed.
What people really want is for prices to stay the same but fraud protection to increase, which is impossible.
No it's not. --Sometimes, (read, nearly always), when a successful company does the minimum amount of work and investment and thus provides shoddy, over-priced goods and services, it is not because it cannot afford to do a better job or charge less, but rather it is that the owners and shareholders are unwilling to give up their profit margins. The seven-figure income is the American dream and a primary goal for many businessmen and CEO's. That is, after a certain point is reached in a company architecture, prices and service levels become very flexible. I don't know about the company in question, but the basic assumption that companies must raise prices to include honest services is totally erroneous. Particularly when filtering, (or in the case of some of the date services, stopping from engaging in fraudulent practices on their own boards), is not so terribly difficult.
So let the market determine how much fraud protection people are *actually*, not theoretically, willing to pay for. They can do it much more quickly and effectively than politicians. In fact, it's already been done.
Market forces are generally going to be in effect regardless, but to rely entirely upon them is short-sighted and unnecessary. Politicians are not a great solution to any problem, it is true, but some laws just make sense; there are lots of good examples. Michael Moore summed it up well: according to free market logic, it would make most sense for McDonald's to sell crack cocaine. --Crack is enormously profitable and the customers would be locked through addiction into coming back for more. Let the Free Market reign! --Except we don't allow this because of the negative impact it would have on our society.
Market forces are a neat and powerful idea, but so is balance. That's all I'm saying. It's not a Black & White universe out there, and neither should be one's world view or philosophy.
-FL
This really is a noble idea, but like many such ideas, it is far too simple to work all by itself. There is nothing inherently wrong with regulation; it's just mindful engineering. Many systems, if you don't apply intelligence and sculpting to their growth progress, will just end up being wild free-for-alls which do not necessarily favor humans. This is why farmers try to discourage weed growth among their crops. Our intelligence is a tool designed to give us an edge in the wild; ignoring it needlessly strips us of that advantage. Sorry, but I don't have claws and fur, so why on earth would I want to handicap myself?
--I remember while visiting Orlando, and Buffalo and a few other U.S. cities, and being amazed at the apparent lack of zoning laws. The cities were a total mess. Industry and housing and retail sectors were all mixed together. I saw nasty chemical plants next to schools, next to gun shops, next to more housing, next to burned out housing. . . It was insane and stressful and totally unnecessary. --Yes, it made the ideologues happy because some high-minded theory about evolution or something was being adhered to, but the result were stupid cities which were uncomfortable and stressful to live in.
Humans have the ability to measure the effectiveness of systems and employ tactics to increase efficiency. --Yes, free market economies are a good base-line for allowing natural efficiencies to take hold, but so are implementing required standards, -for example, the the legally imposed engineering standards placed on boiler manufacture during the steam age when faulty or stupidly made engines exploded on a regular basis. --The free market may have in time have come around to building safe boilers all on its own, but things got a lot safer for the populace almost immediately when the public decided to make it illegal for companies to build lethal steam-bombs masquerading as engines.
Free market economics is one tool, and while it sometimes works, as with all tools, it also sometimes fails miserably. Why get upset when other tools are suggested? You can't solve every problem with a hammer. Sometimes a drill, or a screwdriver, or a piece of sandpaper are better fits for a problem. More often than not, all the tools used in concert in an intelligent manner turn out the best results.
I for one am glad that bridge designs need to meet certain critical standards before cars are allowed to cross and that we don't have to wait around for the stupid companies to be weeded out through economic failure due to their bridges collapsing some percentage of the time.
Of course, it is true that regulation through government bodies can and does also cause big problems, but those problems stem from stupidity and greed rather than an inherent flaw in the style of solution. Regulation can stifle creativity, but the Free Market model allows for unnecessary dangers to the population. Human Intelligence is the stuff we use to balance out the difference.
-FL