Microsoft has to please its customers or go out of business. Government can and does imprison or torture or kill its "customers" if they object to its policies.
Correction: Microsoft needs to make money or go out of business.
Let's look at a few of the decisions that Microsoft has made, and how they furthered the interests of its customers. Breaking file format compatability between releases of Office? Forcing OEMs not to ship dual boot systems or systems with alternative operating systems? Shipping a broken JVM? Denying that critical security holes even exist? Breaking their software so it wouldn't run under DrDOS?
None of these actions benefitted consumers. Microsoft isn't alone in practicing anti-consumer, anti-competitive behavior. All publicly held corporations would do so if they were in such a lucrative position.
The purpose of any corporation is to make money for its shareholders. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing (given government oversight to keep everything legal), it's far from a mandate to look after a customer's best interests.
Government-worshiping idiots like you are responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths over the last hundred years. Collectivists and socialists and statists are the most evil people in the world.
I must be a really bad, bad person. How can I look myself in the mirror.
When you talk about "hundreds of millions of deaths," I assume you're making reference to Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, etc. But can you point me to a similar slaughter which happened in a representative democracy with a free press? No, these things invariably happen in dictatorships.
Socialists aren't evil. Communists aren't evil. They may or may not be the best way to run an economy, but the important thing is to have a government designed to respect the rights and the will of its constituents, and a populace which knows what its government is doing and is free to holler about it.
I despise the socialism practiced by China and Cuba, but the socialism practiced by Sweden kind of intrigues me. If that makes me a "government-worshipping idiot," then so be it.
I'm teaching my children to hate and undermine big government and collectivism. Yes, raw naked hatred and proud of it.
But you're going to allow them to believe that government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations will lead to some sort of paradise on Earth?
You go on, teaching your children to hate. You certainly don't seem capable of teaching much else.
See, that's exactly the problem. Some people want to believe that "the poor" are there because they are lazy, incompetent, and make bad decisions. Sometimes it's true, but more often it's just a rationale for not feeling guilty about having more than somebody else.
So some group starts offering free services to people who otherwise couldn't afford them. Those people, in turn, use these services to get themselves back into the rat race. The whole theory that people just gravitate to a situation fitting their "natural talents" implodes; we have to face the fact that we could do some real good by giving away some of our own resources.
Yep, it's just easier to listen to whatever memes tell us that we're entitled to keep everything we have, and feel good about it.
I've met plenty of lazy, incompetent people who make poor choices. Life would be so simple if such people were found only among the poor. But everything I've seen says that they cross all socioeconomic barriers.
1) Climatology was still in its infancy back in the 1970's. The "computer simulations" they were doing back then could be done with a few hours on a P800 today. Sure, it's an inexact science. But it's gotten better, and will continue to get better.
2) It's stupid to put sneer quotes around the term "scientist" when referring to government scientists. They're graduating from the same doctorate programs as non-government scientists. Without further evidence, there's no reason to assume that they're any less qualified than their civilian counterparts.
3) Government represents the will of the people (one man, one vote). Microsoft represents the will of its shareholders (one share, one vote). That is why I feel safer about government-imposed standards than standards imposed by a near-monopoly corporation, and why you should too.
4) I have almost zero confidence that any government will be able to fix global warming, but I have even less confidence that unregulated corporations would do so. There's just no incentive to do so.
But corporations are often far more flexible and innovative than governments. The best solution is probably to let the government create the incentives through tax breaks and fines, and give the corporations free rein in deciding how to meet the challenge.
"Can I bring suit against any and all spam and popup purveyors? After all, they ARE altering the contents of my PC (cookies and unwanted email) without my permission."
Nope. In fact, by deleting their cookies and e-mail, you are altering their intellectual property! They're the ones who wrote it, not you.
Certainly. Furthermore, there should be some inquiry into how much damage was actually done by the theft of the credit cards. Say you broke into Visa, downloaded their entire database of usable cards, and stored it on your computer. Now what?
If you immediately deleted the database, and sent Visa an explanation of the vulnerability, you should certainly be less liable than if you posted it on your FTP site, or wrote a small shell script telling Amazon.com to send every Visa holder a copy of "Curious George Goes to the Potty."
As things stand now, the prosecutor would just brew up an "analysis" showing that you cost Visa $500,000,000, point out that you're a terrorist, and sentence you to life in solitary (so that you don't manage to escape, gain access to a payphone, and start a nuclear war).
I've never heard anything about the DMCA requiring all digital media to be played on "trustworthy architectures." There have been a couple of attempts to pass legislation like that, but it's never gone through.
Memes are weird. I've noticed that a lot of people think that every time someone sues over copyright infringment, they're invoking the DMCA. Sure, the DMCA is a really obnoxious, overreaching law. But a lot of its critics don't understand what it's actually saying.
I've got kind of the same problem. I use EMACS a lot, and sometimes I try and use Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N to scroll the screen up and down when I'm web browsing. Then I have to kill off the print dialog box.
You're right about coming up with some sort of gesturing standards. It will be necessary if they're ever going to become popular. As to your second question (which gesture system gets priority?) I'm guessing that a good standard would address that as well.
On the other hand, unlike other businesses, you don't have a choice to not "do business" with the government by not paying your taxes. It seems lame for them to create the burden on the public and then force us to rely on third parties to comply with them.
The IRS certainly has sufficient expertise to create and maintain income tax software. I really think it's something that they should be doing.
Also, there's an issue of accountability. Supposing a major error was found in a highly popular tax prep package, which caused people to file inaccurately. I don't know what sort of guarantees the vendors make, but one thing that they can't say is that the IRS would honor the inaccurate evaluation. With the IRS as the vendor, the taxpayers might have greater assurances.
I believe that the government has a duty to make it as easy to comply with tax laws as humanly possible, and I'm heavily in favor of anything that accomplishes that goal. Whether that means creating helpful software or simplifying the tax code itself, such simplifications make life easier on hundreds of millions of people.
You remind me of Mr. Burns when his employees went on strike. "FINE! I'll just run the company by myself!"
You sound every bit as whiny as the Generation X'ers you're complaining about. "I shouldn't have to pay people overtime, they make enough already! I shouldn't have to listen to my employee's complaints, so I'll just hire people who don't complain."
You make some great points in there. Employers and employees owe it to each other to be fair to each other. But your points are undermined by the way you try to make them. Thanks to you, a good many readers are even more inclined to think of their employers as heartless bastards who would rather fire them than give them a cent above what they absolutely must.
I like my job. I'm very happy with it. But if I asked for a raise, or for overtime, and got a speech like this in response, I would be out the door right then.
1) All your base are belong to us. 2) w3 0wn55 j00! 3) You have all been conscripted into Microsoft's mole-man army. 4) Money. Good. 5) Linus has been kidnapped, brainwashed, and returned to his home. He has no recollection of his imprisonment, but upon hearing the words "I found a segfault in the kitten API," he will hunt down and kill Bruce Perens.
I hope this sheds some light on this complex issue.
Good point. Apache strikes me as more BSD-ish than GPL (see the license for more info. According to the Open Source Definition, the BSD and Apache licenses are both Open Source.
Still, you're right. Since the author goes out of his way to tout the GPL as better than the BSD License, this discrepancy should be brought to the author's attention.
Wonderful idea. Rather than fighting spam through legislative or technological means, we'll simply convince all the stupid, desperate people in the world not to fall for silly cons.
Except, wait. We can't do that because they're too stupid and desperate to get the hint! </rant>
Seriously, though. I wish everyone were capable of being able to spot shady deals. But to do so requires an uncommon amount of common sense. I don't think you could train most people quickly enough. Come to think of it, I don't think you could train some people at all.
Okay, switch to plan B. We don't just call it illegal, we call spamming a "terrorist activity." If the spammers don't stop, we shall make war on their routers, launch cruise missiles against their ISPs, and freeze the financial assets of known spammer cells.
Just once, just ONCE I'd like to see the constant erosion of personal liberties work in MY favor!
The book could have various "branches" tailored to varying target audiences.
cout "\nOpen source will ";
#ifdef TARGET_CORPORATE_SUIT cout "save you on licensing fees, while providing a reliable, interoperable platform for your e-business solutions."; #endif
#ifdef TARGET_LINUX_ZEALOT cout "take over the world, protecting your freedoms from soulless corporations."; #endif
#ifdef TARGET_BILL_GATES cout "fail miserably once people realize that Windows XP provides a lower TCO. You can stop reading now. You have nothing to worry about. Go back to diving naked into your money pool."; #endif
Okay, stupid examples. But I think there's an opportunity there to stretch the definition of what a book is.
The people don't need to be tracked. The ID number could be attached to the money itself, not to the people carrying the money. That way, you loan it to a friend, a friend loans it to a friend, and that guy now has a completely valid "token" worth $29.37. I wonder if you would need some centralized authority to make change, or would every penny have to carry its own signature?
Re:Who gets the float...as if I need to ask
on
Cashless Society
·
· Score: 1
Okay, the transaction fees really kill the system for me. But the other problems you've noted aren't big deals.
Let's say that, instead of a $100 card, you get a $100 bill from the bank. Is that money earning interest for you? Nope. For the bank? Nope. From the time you take the money, you lose access to any interest it could be producing, regardless of the form in which you receive it.
Same thing goes for an ATM. When you make a withdrawl, you're taking money out of your checking account, so it no longer produces interest for you. Whether you took it out via twenties or a cash card, what's the difference?
Most important, I don't see how the money can be in two places at the same time. You say that the bank transfers $100 from your account into its account. But it seems more reasonable to say that it's going from your account to your card.
I just don't see how a bank could be earning money on the money stored on your cash card. If they could, I would assume they'd quickly drop the transaction fees, as the system would be profitable without it.
If you read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," ESR covers this issue in pretty good detail. His counterarguments basically boil down to:
1) Something like eighty percent of software development is done for embedded devices, specialized software for a single company, and other similar jobs. These things will not go away.
2) By having quality open source, it saves developers from having to re-invent the same systems over and over again, freeing up development time for doing fundamentally new and innovative things.
There were other arguments, which I can't give off the top of my head. He had me convinced, but YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
Oops, I mean, Microsoft Xwclju3_fffk.NET! My bad.
You're absolutely right. I'm going to write Bill Gates and recommend that they change the name of their office suite to Microsoft Xwclju3_fffk. :)
Correction: Microsoft needs to make money or go out of business.
Let's look at a few of the decisions that Microsoft has made, and how they furthered the interests of its customers. Breaking file format compatability between releases of Office? Forcing OEMs not to ship dual boot systems or systems with alternative operating systems? Shipping a broken JVM? Denying that critical security holes even exist? Breaking their software so it wouldn't run under DrDOS?
None of these actions benefitted consumers. Microsoft isn't alone in practicing anti-consumer, anti-competitive behavior. All publicly held corporations would do so if they were in such a lucrative position.
The purpose of any corporation is to make money for its shareholders. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing (given government oversight to keep everything legal), it's far from a mandate to look after a customer's best interests.
I must be a really bad, bad person. How can I look myself in the mirror.
When you talk about "hundreds of millions of deaths," I assume you're making reference to Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, etc. But can you point me to a similar slaughter which happened in a representative democracy with a free press? No, these things invariably happen in dictatorships.
Socialists aren't evil. Communists aren't evil. They may or may not be the best way to run an economy, but the important thing is to have a government designed to respect the rights and the will of its constituents, and a populace which knows what its government is doing and is free to holler about it.
I despise the socialism practiced by China and Cuba, but the socialism practiced by Sweden kind of intrigues me. If that makes me a "government-worshipping idiot," then so be it.
But you're going to allow them to believe that government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations will lead to some sort of paradise on Earth?
You go on, teaching your children to hate. You certainly don't seem capable of teaching much else.
See, that's exactly the problem. Some people want to believe that "the poor" are there because they are lazy, incompetent, and make bad decisions. Sometimes it's true, but more often it's just a rationale for not feeling guilty about having more than somebody else.
So some group starts offering free services to people who otherwise couldn't afford them. Those people, in turn, use these services to get themselves back into the rat race. The whole theory that people just gravitate to a situation fitting their "natural talents" implodes; we have to face the fact that we could do some real good by giving away some of our own resources.
Yep, it's just easier to listen to whatever memes tell us that we're entitled to keep everything we have, and feel good about it.
I've met plenty of lazy, incompetent people who make poor choices. Life would be so simple if such people were found only among the poor. But everything I've seen says that they cross all socioeconomic barriers.
Absolutely right. The same things were said about radio and microfilm as well.
These days, I'm not even sure how I feel about Sesame Street.
Cheers!
1) Climatology was still in its infancy back in the 1970's. The "computer simulations" they were doing back then could be done with a few hours on a P800 today. Sure, it's an inexact science. But it's gotten better, and will continue to get better.
2) It's stupid to put sneer quotes around the term "scientist" when referring to government scientists. They're graduating from the same doctorate programs as non-government scientists. Without further evidence, there's no reason to assume that they're any less qualified than their civilian counterparts.
3) Government represents the will of the people (one man, one vote). Microsoft represents the will of its shareholders (one share, one vote). That is why I feel safer about government-imposed standards than standards imposed by a near-monopoly corporation, and why you should too.
4) I have almost zero confidence that any government will be able to fix global warming, but I have even less confidence that unregulated corporations would do so. There's just no incentive to do so.
But corporations are often far more flexible and innovative than governments. The best solution is probably to let the government create the incentives through tax breaks and fines, and give the corporations free rein in deciding how to meet the challenge.
Bwahahahaha.
Certainly. Furthermore, there should be some inquiry into how much damage was actually done by the theft of the credit cards. Say you broke into Visa, downloaded their entire database of usable cards, and stored it on your computer. Now what?
If you immediately deleted the database, and sent Visa an explanation of the vulnerability, you should certainly be less liable than if you posted it on your FTP site, or wrote a small shell script telling Amazon.com to send every Visa holder a copy of "Curious George Goes to the Potty."
As things stand now, the prosecutor would just brew up an "analysis" showing that you cost Visa $500,000,000, point out that you're a terrorist, and sentence you to life in solitary (so that you don't manage to escape, gain access to a payphone, and start a nuclear war).
I've never heard anything about the DMCA requiring all digital media to be played on "trustworthy architectures." There have been a couple of attempts to pass legislation like that, but it's never gone through.
Memes are weird. I've noticed that a lot of people think that every time someone sues over copyright infringment, they're invoking the DMCA. Sure, the DMCA is a really obnoxious, overreaching law. But a lot of its critics don't understand what it's actually saying.
No, it will automatically run "apt-get bulk-email-publisher-1.0". If you've got broadband, your financial future will then be secure.
I've got kind of the same problem. I use EMACS a lot, and sometimes I try and use Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N to scroll the screen up and down when I'm web browsing. Then I have to kill off the print dialog box.
You're right about coming up with some sort of gesturing standards. It will be necessary if they're ever going to become popular. As to your second question (which gesture system gets priority?) I'm guessing that a good standard would address that as well.
I do it too, but I thought it was just some sort of high-level nervous twitch.
On the other hand, unlike other businesses, you don't have a choice to not "do business" with the government by not paying your taxes. It seems lame for them to create the burden on the public and then force us to rely on third parties to comply with them.
The IRS certainly has sufficient expertise to create and maintain income tax software. I really think it's something that they should be doing.
Also, there's an issue of accountability. Supposing a major error was found in a highly popular tax prep package, which caused people to file inaccurately. I don't know what sort of guarantees the vendors make, but one thing that they can't say is that the IRS would honor the inaccurate evaluation. With the IRS as the vendor, the taxpayers might have greater assurances.
I believe that the government has a duty to make it as easy to comply with tax laws as humanly possible, and I'm heavily in favor of anything that accomplishes that goal. Whether that means creating helpful software or simplifying the tax code itself, such simplifications make life easier on hundreds of millions of people.
You remind me of Mr. Burns when his employees went on strike. "FINE! I'll just run the company by myself!"
You sound every bit as whiny as the Generation X'ers you're complaining about. "I shouldn't have to pay people overtime, they make enough already! I shouldn't have to listen to my employee's complaints, so I'll just hire people who don't complain."
You make some great points in there. Employers and employees owe it to each other to be fair to each other. But your points are undermined by the way you try to make them. Thanks to you, a good many readers are even more inclined to think of their employers as heartless bastards who would rather fire them than give them a cent above what they absolutely must.
I like my job. I'm very happy with it. But if I asked for a raise, or for overtime, and got a speech like this in response, I would be out the door right then.
Main claims:
1) All your base are belong to us.
2) w3 0wn55 j00!
3) You have all been conscripted into Microsoft's mole-man army.
4) Money. Good.
5) Linus has been kidnapped, brainwashed, and returned to his home. He has no recollection of his imprisonment, but upon hearing the words "I found a segfault in the kitten API," he will hunt down and kill Bruce Perens.
I hope this sheds some light on this complex issue.
Good point. Apache strikes me as more BSD-ish than GPL (see the license for more info. According to the Open Source Definition, the BSD and Apache licenses are both Open Source.
Still, you're right. Since the author goes out of his way to tout the GPL as better than the BSD License, this discrepancy should be brought to the author's attention.
Wonderful idea. Rather than fighting spam through legislative or technological means, we'll simply convince all the stupid, desperate people in the world not to fall for silly cons.
Except, wait. We can't do that because they're too stupid and desperate to get the hint!
</rant>
Seriously, though. I wish everyone were capable of being able to spot shady deals. But to do so requires an uncommon amount of common sense. I don't think you could train most people quickly enough. Come to think of it, I don't think you could train some people at all.
Okay, switch to plan B. We don't just call it illegal, we call spamming a "terrorist activity." If the spammers don't stop, we shall make war on their routers, launch cruise missiles against their ISPs, and freeze the financial assets of known spammer cells.
Just once, just ONCE I'd like to see the constant erosion of personal liberties work in MY favor!
The book could have various "branches" tailored to varying target audiences.
cout "\nOpen source will ";
#ifdef TARGET_CORPORATE_SUIT
cout "save you on licensing fees, while providing a reliable, interoperable platform for your e-business solutions.";
#endif
#ifdef TARGET_LINUX_ZEALOT
cout "take over the world, protecting your freedoms from soulless corporations.";
#endif
#ifdef TARGET_BILL_GATES
cout "fail miserably once people realize that Windows XP provides a lower TCO. You can stop reading now. You have nothing to worry about. Go back to diving naked into your money pool.";
#endif
Okay, stupid examples. But I think there's an opportunity there to stretch the definition of what a book is.
The people don't need to be tracked. The ID number could be attached to the money itself, not to the people carrying the money. That way, you loan it to a friend, a friend loans it to a friend, and that guy now has a completely valid "token" worth $29.37. I wonder if you would need some centralized authority to make change, or would every penny have to carry its own signature?
Okay, the transaction fees really kill the system for me. But the other problems you've noted aren't big deals.
Let's say that, instead of a $100 card, you get a $100 bill from the bank. Is that money earning interest for you? Nope. For the bank? Nope. From the time you take the money, you lose access to any interest it could be producing, regardless of the form in which you receive it.
Same thing goes for an ATM. When you make a withdrawl, you're taking money out of your checking account, so it no longer produces interest for you. Whether you took it out via twenties or a cash card, what's the difference?
Most important, I don't see how the money can be in two places at the same time. You say that the bank transfers $100 from your account into its account. But it seems more reasonable to say that it's going from your account to your card.
I just don't see how a bank could be earning money on the money stored on your cash card. If they could, I would assume they'd quickly drop the transaction fees, as the system would be profitable without it.
If you read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," ESR covers this issue in pretty good detail. His counterarguments basically boil down to:
1) Something like eighty percent of software development is done for embedded devices, specialized software for a single company, and other similar jobs. These things will not go away.
2) By having quality open source, it saves developers from having to re-invent the same systems over and over again, freeing up development time for doing fundamentally new and innovative things.
There were other arguments, which I can't give off the top of my head. He had me convinced, but YMMV.
Thank you.
-- Your Refrigerator
Story got rejected, eh? :)