This is especially pertinent since I've seen video of shuttle tiles being pulled out of a blast furnace and being cool enough to handle while still glowing on the inside from the heat.
I'm using Thunderbird 0.1 at home for Bayesian filtering and out of the 1800+ spam emails since June I've only picked two out of the bit bucket that were false positives. Unfortunately for T-bird it has a much higher false negative rate... Just needs more training.
My SpamBayes plugin for Outlook at work, however, is a real joy. After the first week of operation it had a rate (so far) of less than ten false negatives and only two false positive out of a few thousand messages. Now it had a much larger set of data to learn on when I first installed it (600+ spam, ~5k good e-mails) so that's a bit of an unfair advantage over T-bird, but so far I'm really pleased. If the spam score isn't quite high enough for it to be sure it's spam, it'll toss it in a seperate folder marked as 'Possible' spam. That happens about once every other day (with about 30 e-mails a day, 1 to 5 of which aren't spam) and 9 times out of ten the message is either some obfuscated spam or some advertisement from someone with a business relationship to me that confuses the spam filter and I usually don't want to see anyway (Damn you Cingular and Barnes and Noble!)
So no, false positives are not a problem since most good bayesian filters heavily weight against them.
That's what I thought, too, until I had the misfortune of people in my family buying PCs with it preloaded. Their PCs seem constructed from some form of pure malice and pain obviously scooped up from one of the infinite planes of the Abyss and molded into a form that pretends to be a usable PC. In almost every case the machine has required a reformat within a matter of months. Granted, it's not as bad as Windows ME... But yech...
Compared to XP Home, Win2K is like living out your life in some pristine calm and cool forest where all your needs can be provided for with only a slight effort. Since I needed multiple CPU support on my home machine and didn't want to pay the extra $100 for Win2k Pro, I've got XP Pro and after my HD dying and being forced to reinstall it on the new HD it's been rather bearable.
Are you absolutely positively sure you want to use Windows XP Home instead of the much better XP Professional or even better 2000 Professional? I've had nothing but heartache with the PCs that my family members have bought that have XP Home on them...
Otherwise, people have already suggested Mozilla and a few have suggested Mozilla Firebird, which I myself think is a far superior mail product. Mozilla Thunderbird is what I use for mail at home right now, but it's an acquired taste.
Ad-Aware is indispensable. Every PC should have a copy of it.
For image viewing Irfan View is probably the greatest thing in the world.
You'll of course need WinZip and you'll need the DiVX codec and unfortunately you'll also need Quicktime and Shockwave for numerous braindead (and not so braindead) websites along with the latest Java VM. Besides that, the rest is left up to personal taste. I'd suggest a copy of MS Office because OpenOffice makes me want to gnaw my arm off but then again that's also partially because I can buy Office on student discount at the University Bookstore. Oh, and get a BitTorrent client from somewhere.
I think your analogy doesn't quite work... The point is Governments should evaluate a software on its merit... Were they evaluating a building on its merit they'd include things like safety and environmental impact in the evaluation.
It shouldn't matter whether the building was built by volunteers or by a private construction firm, all that matters is which building is better. The same applies to software. When looking at software, Governments should evaluate based on TCO, reliability, maintainability, and usability. Usability unfortunately is the most important for most users and unfortunately is not the most important goal for most OSS software I've used.
Writing the Plan of Action to insist that they automatically prefer OSS over Proprietary software is as silly as writing it to automatically prefer proprietary over OSS. Use whichever one is better, regardless of its development methods. When it comes to server software, chances are the winner will be Linux. When it comes to Desktop software, the winner may be Windows or Solaris or Linux or whatever... Whichever fits the needs of their users best.
Choosing the best software package for the job fosters competition and makes the market healthier by causing lousy software to die out and encouraging further development of good software. If you truly want to beat out proprietary software... Then beat them with merit, not by some claim of moral superiority. As a previous poster pointed out... Proprietary software development employs people, which leads to people being fed... There's no moral deficit in that.
Your point MIGHT be valid if we weren't talking about the Government competing with a private business. That's not supposed to happen. A business can only use funds that have been voluntarily given to them by customers/investors to stay in business while the Government can force you to hand over tax revenues to fund whatever they want.
If the company who donated the equipment to the city was running a free hotspot as an advertisement for themselves that'd be one thing, but by getting the city government involved in the project they've probably set themselves up for a lawsuit. The Government is supposed to help along private business, not compete with it. A Government is always unfair competition... Because in the end they can always make you being in business illegal.
I said Federal, Federal... California is a State Government, not Federal. California is almost the most mis-managed government and budget in the entire Union. In this case it has nothing to do with a budget problem caused by tax cuts. Far be it, California's citizens pay more taxes than any other in the US. No, it's because a Moron has been in charge there for many years who spends entirely too much money and taxes the life out of the economy. This same moron is deciding to cut 1.6 billion out of Education (or so says your link) in lieu of cutting it out of something more worthless such as all the benefits California gives to illegal aliens.
Lastly, regardless of how evolution works in the jungle, we like to modify the process in our gardens. I don't know about you, but I have a cultivated garden in my back yard, not a deadly jungle, and that's how I like it. I recommend we all nurture people in the same way...they grow better.
Nurturing can be a bad thing, however. Take wheat, which has been so nurtured by man that it can no longer survive without man there to tend it. Should individuals in our society become dependent in such a way?
We nurture people by providing them the opportunity and incentive to be successful and assuring them that if they fall upon hard times that they won't starve to death. What more would you have us do?
Can you please point to me where the federal government has cut spending on federal aid or services because I want to have a party to celebrate such a momentous occassion.
There has to be something better considering how often I have to bring the damn thing in to Cingular to get the battery "tightened". The battery randomly comes loose in my pocket, which leads to the phone losing power and/or the battery charging funny or not at all. Have to have it tightened almost every month.
The new Nokia 7600 Phone, the latest in our line of products that we'll tell you that you love but you'll hate anyway!
At least this product's announcement didn't include as much BLATANT STUPIDITY as previous ones...
P.S. I accidentally smashed the faceplate all to hell on my 5165 two days ago... Any sugggestions as to a good/inexpensive brand/model to go with besides Nokia? Preferably a Gate phone?
By the same logic presented in your argument, we shouldn't have laws that curtail drug sale or prostitution or gambling even though society dissaproves of them because they cost jobs and instead of getting a legitimate job people who lose these jobs may end up on welfare.
The point here is that the list in and of itself does NOT cost ANYONE a job. The list is just people who have made a public proclamation that they don't want to be bothered by telemarketers. If the number of people on the list causes telemarketers to lose money and shrink their companies that's GOOD. A company should make revenue from providing goods and/or services. If no one wants their goods and/or services for one reason or another, then that company SHOULD go out of business. Now if only that same logic could be applied to companies like SCO and Unisys...
It is absolutely a blind hatred for anyone wasting my tax dollars who shrugs off accountability.
Now you're talking my language! Yes, I agree that tax dollars could be better spent than propping up iffy Windows servers and desktops and wasting man hours fixing exploited boxes. But in many cases a Windows box is the ideal solution from a usability and ease of integration standpoint. Linux desktops just aren't there yet.
I've recently heard a number of Windows/Exchange admins from different companies complaining about having to go from desk to desk, from seat to seat, from box to box applying patches which can't be scripted.
Erm then maybe they should be looking for new work... Most every patch I've seen could be installed using some form of Windows Scripting (VBScript for instance) securely from the Domain Controller as either a login script or by pushing it out one way or another. There ARE ways to push out patches, many of them automatic, but you're correct in that they don't give you the same granularity as open source solutions. But then again, this wasn't a case of there not being enough control on the patching process, the boxes *weren't* patched, *period*. An unpatched Apache/OpenSSH/wu-ftp/sendmail install is just as dangerous as an unpatched IIS/DCOM/SQL Server/Exchange install. I agree tax dollars aren't being spent properly, but in this case it's more that the IT staff wasn't performing the duty we pay them to do, not that the money was mis-spent on the software purchase.
In this case, there was no massive downtime due to exploits, the system was brought down for a review to assure that the small amount of exploitation didn't compromise the system in some other more devious way. Had these been Linux boxes, and they'd been victim of an OpenSSH exploit, they'd of had to do the same forensic analysis and would've experienced the same downtime to assure they were clean. Look at the FSF's recent exploitation for an example of this.
In a situation where the Open Source offering is clearly a better solution, believe me the Government will make use of it. But there's not that many cases where it's true... I'm still confused as to how Exchange entered this discussion as the article has nothing whatsoever to do with Exchange... but Exchange is an excellent example of this problem. There is nothing on the market that even comes close to providing Exchange's functionality. And all of the methods you mentioned before of how to deal w/ viral e-mails will work just fine with Exchange (SpamAssassin especially). Where I work we use non-Free software to provide spam and virus filtering on the server side (we really don't have the manpower to support using Free software) and aside from the occassional glitch with our mail routing (I blame the consultants) it works pretty darn well.
In the case of our Exchange installation, I'd vehemently deny that tax dollars were wasted on purchasing the software (maybe I'd agree that it was wasted on the consultants, but I digress) as there was no other alternative on the market for our needs. If you think you know of a server that's a drop-in replacement for Exchange that costs less and is more reliable, please let me know! Otherwise, I can't see your argument for tax dollars being wasted on Exchange.
Now I'm a big Linux supporter and all... but you're way off base here comparing Exchange to a Linux MTA... they're very different beasts.
Just to let you know, we use Exchange, and I think all we did about the virus e-mails was scratch our head and shrug. Never had a single e-mail borne infection...
Though that didn't stop a certain unnamed director from making us send a memo out explaining why people were getting weird e-mails and why the return address was wrong etc...
In THIS case, the article mentions Welchia... Which is NOT an e-mail virus, it's the RPC DCOM worm that tries to patch the Blaster hole. Is it still able to infect due to bad software? Absolutely! But it has NOTHING to do with e-mail or Exchange.
How would a bunch of Linux servers have helped them in this instance? If they're lax on patching Windows boxes, they'll be lax on patching Linux boxes too. Then they're just one OpenSSH exploit away from being out of commission anyway.
The only reason I can think of you being modded up is blind hatred for Microsoft. Hating MS is fine, but don't mark a post as 'Informative' that doesn't even know what they're talking about...
Please excuse my late reply, but I've been busy...
Incidentally, why do you think the "poor" *don't* deserve to be given food, education, healthcare, etc to the same standard as the "rich" ?
When did I say the poor don't deserve anything? The rich aren't given anything, so why should the poor? I think neither deserves to be provided for by society, they deserve nothing, they will get what they earn. I don't have a problem with limited help (ala unemployment) for people between jobs, but the government is NOT there to provide for your livelihood. The government "provides" for its constituency by protecting them from external threats and criminals and by assuring that commerce can proceed.
Yet the overpowering attitude being displayed in your posting is that the poor deserve to be poor. Why is that ?
I don't think anyone deserves anything. I want to see every person in the US be successful and happy, but taking money from me and giving it to them is not the way to accomplish that. The only way is for them to be self sufficient.
Most of them don't get rich. Simple statistical fact.
People only getting paid what they're worth are not rich and never will be.
I'll agree that no one will ever get rich working for someone else. But that doesn't mean they won't be comfortable in their lifestyle.
You seriously think things like minimum wage, minimum employment ages, Workplace Health & Safety, maternity leave, flexi-time, etc would exist without legislation ?
Minimum wage in some ways hurts American workers... As low paying jobs are shipped overseas to where there is no minimum wage so that companies can remain competitive. But besides that, did I specifically say anything bad about such legislation? While I don't always agree with it, there is room for some regulation of businesses by government. It's just a razor's edge that you rest on between under-regulating and over-regulating an economy. Too little regulation leads to monopolies (which is where capitalism breaks down) and too much regulation leads to socialism (which is where the economy breaks down).
I don't. And I don't because it is my belief that the things charities are doing *are* the job of Government (which is why I pay taxes).
See above. I pay Federal taxes to fund the military and pay for things like roads that are necessary for commerce. Charity cases should be handled by charities.
Or, to put it another way, should I suddenly find myself unemployed and/or incapable of earning an income, I'd much rather rely on the (effectively) bottomless pits of government money to keep me alive than pocket change thrown down from the balconies.
But it's not a bottomless pit and it's NOT the Government's money, it's the taxpayers money and it shouldn't be taken from them to buy votes! The situation you describe isn't the situation I'm against. A small safety net for people between jobs is one thing, that's called Unemployment Benefits, and that's payed for by business owners. Welfare is something entirely different. It's a long term way to have taxpayers pay for you to be a leech on society, provide nothing useful, and make you vote for the people you're now dependent on.
I've heard if you don't like your Government you can vote them out, too.
Yes! But once an entitlement (such as Welfare) is on the books, you'll never get rid of it! Only limit it's scope and growth. And with more entitlements being created every year (see: Paid Medical Leave, Prescription Drug Coverage, etc)
I find it ironic you seem to be implying money is misspent on "social programs", yet you give to charities who spend your money on exactly the same things.
If spending money on helping the poor is the right thing to do, and spending money on defence and the like is the right thing to do, exactly where is tax revenue being "mis-spent" ?
Worthless to whom? Isn't it quite important for a government to ensure the needs of its society are met? Aren't programs like these a pretty good way of dong that?
No, it's not. It is not the Government's responsibility to see to it that people's needs are met.
Because the relatively "poor" make up the majority of their citizens.
That still doesn't explain WHY they deserve a handout. The government's not there to fix all the problems in your life. It's there to build roads and provide defense and not much else.
Because attitudes like yours mean not enough money is put into private charities to make them useful.
Lies. My parents donate to charities out of every paycheck and despite being a college student barely scraping by I still manage to donate, too. If we didn't have to pay nearly half our income to the government, we'd probably donate alot more, too.
Because if it weren't for the corrupt governments and the friends of the rich in them, most of those "successful" people wouldn't be anywhere near as "successful".
Not to mention if it weren't for all those working class people, very few of the rich would have become rich as well.
Why do you believe that the only way someone can be successful is through some nefarious means? What about the people who simply work hard and do well in life?
No private organisation behaves responsibly without being forced to.
Are you for real? I'M pessimistic about the whole "inherent goodness of man" thing, but that comment is just uncalled for! For every private organization that you hear about misbehaving, there are hundreds you never hear about because not misbehaving isn't news worthy. How many governments out there can you point to as always behaving responsibly? I'll give my money to a charity, thanks. That way when I see the charity mis-spending my money, I can start giving it to someone else. If the government mis-spends my money, they'll continue to take it from me at gun point.
Which explains why no-one in the US was wanting for food, education, healthcare or housing before the last aircraft carrier was commissioned, right ?
If they were, there's nothing the Government can do to help them anyway. It's not the Government's job to provide for people's needs; and besides that, they CAN'T. No matter what the Government does or how much it spends, it's simply impossible for them to provide for everyone's needs. That's part of the reason it's not their job. The other reason is that the Constitution set out the idea of a limited government with a very strict set of responsibilities of which feeding the poor is NOT one of them.
"trickle-down" was a phrase used as a propaganda spin on an economic policy that lead America into a boom-time that raised the standards of living for EVERYONE. No one gave the rich anything in the Reagan years. Everyone's taxes were cut, and cutting someone's taxes is not GIVING them something, it's just TAKING less of what they own. Towards the end of Reagan's seperate term all the way through the end of Clinton's first term our economy was very healthy. Then the effects of the Clinton tax hike came into effect and pulled the handbrake on the whole thing.
Our society DOES have equal opportunity; anyone with a good idea on how to provide a good or service people want can succeed giving enough sweat and elbow grease. Society doesn't have to gaurantee you the right "to become what you want", if you want to be a journalist or you want to be a fireman you have to work at it just the same.
There are no ruling families in the US. Recent? Do you know how long Ted Kennedy has been in office? That's no dynasty, he's simply riding on the coat tails of John and Robert Kennedy. George W. Bush is NOT the first President's son to become President, and Hillary Clinton (unfortunately enough) is popular with a certain segment of voters, which happen to make up the majority in New York.
I'd be willing to pay for a state funded education program if the one they already had didn't suck so bad... But then again, if public education wasn't such a failure, we wouldn't need another education program... Give the money to the people and let them decide where they'll be educated...
How exactly do the rich benefit from your tax dollars?:)
The current tax system in the US doesn't tax the lower 50% of income earners whatsoever... And in fact gives them thousands of dollars in 'Earned Income Credit' at the end of the year just for being poor... This does nothing to improve their situation and in fact gives them incentive to not improve it. To use your example from earlier (which is much more understandable now, thanks) if you continue to spread fertilizer in the area this can actually cause an outbreak of funguses and disease that will undermine the healthy growth of plants. Plus with all the fertilizer spread around, it becomes harder for some plants to take root... and will allow other plants that probably shouldn't be growing there to grow more easily (fertilizer helps weeds, too) I knew of a man who was a single father barely scratching by... Who started working extra hours and odd jobs here and there and managed to take home about an extra 1000 dollars at the end of the year because of it... Who then lost almost double that in EIC for making more money... Where's his incentive to succeed? Every social program to help the needy I've seen has always created a huge incentive to stay poor... While most private charities I've seen do their darndest to get their recipients on their feet and self sufficient. I'd rather people willingly give money to charities than have the government take it from them by force.
Why should the government provide health care and education for the poor? Why not private charities? Why is it right for the government to steal from the successful and redistribute it to those who aren't willing to support themselves? I could understand some support for people incapable of working due to some physical or mental ailment, but even in that case it seems better that a private organization handle it than the government. In the US we spend many many times our defense budget on mostly worthless social programs, welfare, and social security... No one gets denied something so that an aircraft carrier can be built; quite the opposite... Before the Congress changed hands in '96 the defense budget was cut to ribbons to allow for more people to become dependant on the government... Even in recent years when defense spending picked back up, social programs have only grown bigger. Look at the 400 billion dollar prescription drug benefit that's being rammed down our throats... that alone is almost on par with our yearly defense budget...
Instead of spending loads of money on mini-nukes to circumvent international treaties, help the needed, feed the hungry.
Nuking the hungry solves world hunger problems, too...
Sorry, couldn't resist...
To put it simply, many Americans believe the government has no business seeing to the needy, that's what charities are for... The Constitution doesn't allow for the government to compel you at gunpoint to give up your money to be redistributed... That's something that goes on simply because politicians will lose elections if they challenge it. The government should build roads and see to defense and stay out of people's lives.
P.S. What's all this business about 'mini-nukes' I keep seeing from European posters? When I hear 'mini-nukes' I think of the pee-wee nukes in Starship Troopers... I know THAT can't be right...
That doesn't have anything to do with the economy, though... Besides, decreasing taxes increases revenue and Keynesian economics says governments should deficit spend during times of recession... Our deficit is currently *very* small compared to the GDP (as many have pointed out) so you'll have to come up with something better than that.
I personally believe the Government has no business stepping in to assure anything regarding Internet service... The market will handle itself just fine. If there is a market to sell broadband services somewhere (even if it's rural), someone will eventually pick it up. And if that doesn't happen, and the people living there still want broadband, here's a perfect example of how it can be done.
Seriously, we need the government LESS involved with our day-to-day lives, not more. If you want something done, do it yourself, don't ask the government to take money from me at gunpoint so they can do it for you for more money and a diminished result.
Slashdot Mirror
This is especially pertinent since I've seen video of shuttle tiles being pulled out of a blast furnace and being cool enough to handle while still glowing on the inside from the heat.
I'm using Thunderbird 0.1 at home for Bayesian filtering and out of the 1800+ spam emails since June I've only picked two out of the bit bucket that were false positives. Unfortunately for T-bird it has a much higher false negative rate... Just needs more training.
My SpamBayes plugin for Outlook at work, however, is a real joy. After the first week of operation it had a rate (so far) of less than ten false negatives and only two false positive out of a few thousand messages. Now it had a much larger set of data to learn on when I first installed it (600+ spam, ~5k good e-mails) so that's a bit of an unfair advantage over T-bird, but so far I'm really pleased. If the spam score isn't quite high enough for it to be sure it's spam, it'll toss it in a seperate folder marked as 'Possible' spam. That happens about once every other day (with about 30 e-mails a day, 1 to 5 of which aren't spam) and 9 times out of ten the message is either some obfuscated spam or some advertisement from someone with a business relationship to me that confuses the spam filter and I usually don't want to see anyway (Damn you Cingular and Barnes and Noble!)
So no, false positives are not a problem since most good bayesian filters heavily weight against them.
That's what I thought, too, until I had the misfortune of people in my family buying PCs with it preloaded. Their PCs seem constructed from some form of pure malice and pain obviously scooped up from one of the infinite planes of the Abyss and molded into a form that pretends to be a usable PC. In almost every case the machine has required a reformat within a matter of months. Granted, it's not as bad as Windows ME... But yech...
Compared to XP Home, Win2K is like living out your life in some pristine calm and cool forest where all your needs can be provided for with only a slight effort. Since I needed multiple CPU support on my home machine and didn't want to pay the extra $100 for Win2k Pro, I've got XP Pro and after my HD dying and being forced to reinstall it on the new HD it's been rather bearable.
Are you absolutely positively sure you want to use Windows XP Home instead of the much better XP Professional or even better 2000 Professional? I've had nothing but heartache with the PCs that my family members have bought that have XP Home on them...
Otherwise, people have already suggested Mozilla and a few have suggested Mozilla Firebird, which I myself think is a far superior mail product. Mozilla Thunderbird is what I use for mail at home right now, but it's an acquired taste.
Ad-Aware is indispensable. Every PC should have a copy of it.
For image viewing Irfan View is probably the greatest thing in the world.
You'll of course need WinZip and you'll need the DiVX codec and unfortunately you'll also need Quicktime and Shockwave for numerous braindead (and not so braindead) websites along with the latest Java VM. Besides that, the rest is left up to personal taste. I'd suggest a copy of MS Office because OpenOffice makes me want to gnaw my arm off but then again that's also partially because I can buy Office on student discount at the University Bookstore.
Oh, and get a BitTorrent client from somewhere.
I think your analogy doesn't quite work... The point is Governments should evaluate a software on its merit... Were they evaluating a building on its merit they'd include things like safety and environmental impact in the evaluation.
It shouldn't matter whether the building was built by volunteers or by a private construction firm, all that matters is which building is better. The same applies to software. When looking at software, Governments should evaluate based on TCO, reliability, maintainability, and usability. Usability unfortunately is the most important for most users and unfortunately is not the most important goal for most OSS software I've used.
Writing the Plan of Action to insist that they automatically prefer OSS over Proprietary software is as silly as writing it to automatically prefer proprietary over OSS. Use whichever one is better, regardless of its development methods. When it comes to server software, chances are the winner will be Linux. When it comes to Desktop software, the winner may be Windows or Solaris or Linux or whatever... Whichever fits the needs of their users best.
Choosing the best software package for the job fosters competition and makes the market healthier by causing lousy software to die out and encouraging further development of good software. If you truly want to beat out proprietary software... Then beat them with merit, not by some claim of moral superiority. As a previous poster pointed out... Proprietary software development employs people, which leads to people being fed... There's no moral deficit in that.
That's either the most depressing or most hilarious thing I've ever seen... Wonder how long it'll take someone to type format c:
Your point MIGHT be valid if we weren't talking about the Government competing with a private business. That's not supposed to happen. A business can only use funds that have been voluntarily given to them by customers/investors to stay in business while the Government can force you to hand over tax revenues to fund whatever they want.
If the company who donated the equipment to the city was running a free hotspot as an advertisement for themselves that'd be one thing, but by getting the city government involved in the project they've probably set themselves up for a lawsuit. The Government is supposed to help along private business, not compete with it. A Government is always unfair competition... Because in the end they can always make you being in business illegal.
I said Federal, Federal... California is a State Government, not Federal. California is almost the most mis-managed government and budget in the entire Union. In this case it has nothing to do with a budget problem caused by tax cuts. Far be it, California's citizens pay more taxes than any other in the US. No, it's because a Moron has been in charge there for many years who spends entirely too much money and taxes the life out of the economy. This same moron is deciding to cut 1.6 billion out of Education (or so says your link) in lieu of cutting it out of something more worthless such as all the benefits California gives to illegal aliens.
Lastly, regardless of how evolution works in the jungle, we like to modify the process in our gardens. I don't know about you, but I have a cultivated garden in my back yard, not a deadly jungle, and that's how I like it. I recommend we all nurture people in the same way...they grow better.
Nurturing can be a bad thing, however. Take wheat, which has been so nurtured by man that it can no longer survive without man there to tend it. Should individuals in our society become dependent in such a way?
We nurture people by providing them the opportunity and incentive to be successful and assuring them that if they fall upon hard times that they won't starve to death. What more would you have us do?
Can you please point to me where the federal government has cut spending on federal aid or services because I want to have a party to celebrate such a momentous occassion.
Eagerly awaiting your reply...
There has to be something better considering how often I have to bring the damn thing in to Cingular to get the battery "tightened". The battery randomly comes loose in my pocket, which leads to the phone losing power and/or the battery charging funny or not at all. Have to have it tightened almost every month.
The new Nokia 7600 Phone, the latest in our line of products that we'll tell you that you love but you'll hate anyway!
At least this product's announcement didn't include as much BLATANT STUPIDITY as previous ones...
P.S. I accidentally smashed the faceplate all to hell on my 5165 two days ago... Any sugggestions as to a good/inexpensive brand/model to go with besides Nokia? Preferably a Gate phone?
By the same logic presented in your argument, we shouldn't have laws that curtail drug sale or prostitution or gambling even though society dissaproves of them because they cost jobs and instead of getting a legitimate job people who lose these jobs may end up on welfare.
The point here is that the list in and of itself does NOT cost ANYONE a job. The list is just people who have made a public proclamation that they don't want to be bothered by telemarketers. If the number of people on the list causes telemarketers to lose money and shrink their companies that's GOOD. A company should make revenue from providing goods and/or services. If no one wants their goods and/or services for one reason or another, then that company SHOULD go out of business.
Now if only that same logic could be applied to companies like SCO and Unisys...
It is absolutely a blind hatred for anyone wasting my tax dollars who shrugs off accountability.
Now you're talking my language! Yes, I agree that tax dollars could be better spent than propping up iffy Windows servers and desktops and wasting man hours fixing exploited boxes. But in many cases a Windows box is the ideal solution from a usability and ease of integration standpoint. Linux desktops just aren't there yet.
I've recently heard a number of Windows/Exchange admins from different companies complaining about having to go from desk to desk, from seat to seat, from box to box applying patches which can't be scripted.
Erm then maybe they should be looking for new work... Most every patch I've seen could be installed using some form of Windows Scripting (VBScript for instance) securely from the Domain Controller as either a login script or by pushing it out one way or another. There ARE ways to push out patches, many of them automatic, but you're correct in that they don't give you the same granularity as open source solutions. But then again, this wasn't a case of there not being enough control on the patching process, the boxes *weren't* patched, *period*. An unpatched Apache/OpenSSH/wu-ftp/sendmail install is just as dangerous as an unpatched IIS/DCOM/SQL Server/Exchange install. I agree tax dollars aren't being spent properly, but in this case it's more that the IT staff wasn't performing the duty we pay them to do, not that the money was mis-spent on the software purchase.
In this case, there was no massive downtime due to exploits, the system was brought down for a review to assure that the small amount of exploitation didn't compromise the system in some other more devious way. Had these been Linux boxes, and they'd been victim of an OpenSSH exploit, they'd of had to do the same forensic analysis and would've experienced the same downtime to assure they were clean. Look at the FSF's recent exploitation for an example of this.
In a situation where the Open Source offering is clearly a better solution, believe me the Government will make use of it. But there's not that many cases where it's true... I'm still confused as to how Exchange entered this discussion as the article has nothing whatsoever to do with Exchange... but Exchange is an excellent example of this problem. There is nothing on the market that even comes close to providing Exchange's functionality. And all of the methods you mentioned before of how to deal w/ viral e-mails will work just fine with Exchange (SpamAssassin especially). Where I work we use non-Free software to provide spam and virus filtering on the server side (we really don't have the manpower to support using Free software) and aside from the occassional glitch with our mail routing (I blame the consultants) it works pretty darn well.
In the case of our Exchange installation, I'd vehemently deny that tax dollars were wasted on purchasing the software (maybe I'd agree that it was wasted on the consultants, but I digress) as there was no other alternative on the market for our needs. If you think you know of a server that's a drop-in replacement for Exchange that costs less and is more reliable, please let me know! Otherwise, I can't see your argument for tax dollars being wasted on Exchange.
Now I'm a big Linux supporter and all... but you're way off base here comparing Exchange to a Linux MTA... they're very different beasts.
Just to let you know, we use Exchange, and I think all we did about the virus e-mails was scratch our head and shrug. Never had a single e-mail borne infection...
Though that didn't stop a certain unnamed director from making us send a memo out explaining why people were getting weird e-mails and why the return address was wrong etc...
In THIS case, the article mentions Welchia... Which is NOT an e-mail virus, it's the RPC DCOM worm that tries to patch the Blaster hole. Is it still able to infect due to bad software? Absolutely! But it has NOTHING to do with e-mail or Exchange.
How would a bunch of Linux servers have helped them in this instance? If they're lax on patching Windows boxes, they'll be lax on patching Linux boxes too. Then they're just one OpenSSH exploit away from being out of commission anyway.
The only reason I can think of you being modded up is blind hatred for Microsoft. Hating MS is fine, but don't mark a post as 'Informative' that doesn't even know what they're talking about...
Please excuse my late reply, but I've been busy...
Incidentally, why do you think the "poor" *don't* deserve to be given food, education, healthcare, etc to the same standard as the "rich" ?
When did I say the poor don't deserve anything? The rich aren't given anything, so why should the poor? I think neither deserves to be provided for by society, they deserve nothing, they will get what they earn. I don't have a problem with limited help (ala unemployment) for people between jobs, but the government is NOT there to provide for your livelihood. The government "provides" for its constituency by protecting them from external threats and criminals and by assuring that commerce can proceed.
Yet the overpowering attitude being displayed in your posting is that the poor deserve to be poor. Why is that ?
I don't think anyone deserves anything. I want to see every person in the US be successful and happy, but taking money from me and giving it to them is not the way to accomplish that. The only way is for them to be self sufficient.
Most of them don't get rich. Simple statistical fact.
People only getting paid what they're worth are not rich and never will be.
I'll agree that no one will ever get rich working for someone else. But that doesn't mean they won't be comfortable in their lifestyle.
You seriously think things like minimum wage, minimum employment ages, Workplace Health & Safety, maternity leave, flexi-time, etc would exist without legislation ?
Minimum wage in some ways hurts American workers... As low paying jobs are shipped overseas to where there is no minimum wage so that companies can remain competitive. But besides that, did I specifically say anything bad about such legislation? While I don't always agree with it, there is room for some regulation of businesses by government. It's just a razor's edge that you rest on between under-regulating and over-regulating an economy. Too little regulation leads to monopolies (which is where capitalism breaks down) and too much regulation leads to socialism (which is where the economy breaks down).
I don't. And I don't because it is my belief that the things charities are doing *are* the job of Government (which is why I pay taxes).
See above. I pay Federal taxes to fund the military and pay for things like roads that are necessary for commerce. Charity cases should be handled by charities.
Or, to put it another way, should I suddenly find myself unemployed and/or incapable of earning an income, I'd much rather rely on the (effectively) bottomless pits of government money to keep me alive than pocket change thrown down from the balconies.
But it's not a bottomless pit and it's NOT the Government's money, it's the taxpayers money and it shouldn't be taken from them to buy votes! The situation you describe isn't the situation I'm against. A small safety net for people between jobs is one thing, that's called Unemployment Benefits, and that's payed for by business owners. Welfare is something entirely different. It's a long term way to have taxpayers pay for you to be a leech on society, provide nothing useful, and make you vote for the people you're now dependent on.
I've heard if you don't like your Government you can vote them out, too.
Yes! But once an entitlement (such as Welfare) is on the books, you'll never get rid of it! Only limit it's scope and growth. And with more entitlements being created every year (see: Paid Medical Leave, Prescription Drug Coverage, etc)
I find it ironic you seem to be implying money is misspent on "social programs", yet you give to charities who spend your money on exactly the same things.
If spending money on helping the poor is the right thing to do, and spending money on defence and the like is the right thing to do, exactly where is tax revenue being "mis-spent" ?
Worthless to whom? Isn't it quite important for a government to ensure the needs of its society are met? Aren't programs like these a pretty good way of dong that?
No, it's not. It is not the Government's responsibility to see to it that people's needs are met.
Because the relatively "poor" make up the majority of their citizens.
That still doesn't explain WHY they deserve a handout. The government's not there to fix all the problems in your life. It's there to build roads and provide defense and not much else.
Because attitudes like yours mean not enough money is put into private charities to make them useful.
Lies. My parents donate to charities out of every paycheck and despite being a college student barely scraping by I still manage to donate, too. If we didn't have to pay nearly half our income to the government, we'd probably donate alot more, too.
Because if it weren't for the corrupt governments and the friends of the rich in them, most of those "successful" people wouldn't be anywhere near as "successful".
Not to mention if it weren't for all those working class people, very few of the rich would have become rich as well.
Why do you believe that the only way someone can be successful is through some nefarious means? What about the people who simply work hard and do well in life?
No private organisation behaves responsibly without being forced to.
Are you for real? I'M pessimistic about the whole "inherent goodness of man" thing, but that comment is just uncalled for! For every private organization that you hear about misbehaving, there are hundreds you never hear about because not misbehaving isn't news worthy. How many governments out there can you point to as always behaving responsibly? I'll give my money to a charity, thanks. That way when I see the charity mis-spending my money, I can start giving it to someone else. If the government mis-spends my money, they'll continue to take it from me at gun point.
Which explains why no-one in the US was wanting for food, education, healthcare or housing before the last aircraft carrier was commissioned, right ?
If they were, there's nothing the Government can do to help them anyway. It's not the Government's job to provide for people's needs; and besides that, they CAN'T. No matter what the Government does or how much it spends, it's simply impossible for them to provide for everyone's needs. That's part of the reason it's not their job. The other reason is that the Constitution set out the idea of a limited government with a very strict set of responsibilities of which feeding the poor is NOT one of them.
"trickle-down" was a phrase used as a propaganda spin on an economic policy that lead America into a boom-time that raised the standards of living for EVERYONE. No one gave the rich anything in the Reagan years. Everyone's taxes were cut, and cutting someone's taxes is not GIVING them something, it's just TAKING less of what they own.
Towards the end of Reagan's seperate term all the way through the end of Clinton's first term our economy was very healthy. Then the effects of the Clinton tax hike came into effect and pulled the handbrake on the whole thing.
Our society DOES have equal opportunity; anyone with a good idea on how to provide a good or service people want can succeed giving enough sweat and elbow grease. Society doesn't have to gaurantee you the right "to become what you want", if you want to be a journalist or you want to be a fireman you have to work at it just the same.
There are no ruling families in the US. Recent? Do you know how long Ted Kennedy has been in office? That's no dynasty, he's simply riding on the coat tails of John and Robert Kennedy. George W. Bush is NOT the first President's son to become President, and Hillary Clinton (unfortunately enough) is popular with a certain segment of voters, which happen to make up the majority in New York.
Then let the rich and successful do it through philanthropy. Don't take the money from them at gunpoint.
I'd be willing to pay for a state funded education program if the one they already had didn't suck so bad... But then again, if public education wasn't such a failure, we wouldn't need another education program... Give the money to the people and let them decide where they'll be educated...
:)
How exactly do the rich benefit from your tax dollars?
The current tax system in the US doesn't tax the lower 50% of income earners whatsoever... And in fact gives them thousands of dollars in 'Earned Income Credit' at the end of the year just for being poor... This does nothing to improve their situation and in fact gives them incentive to not improve it. To use your example from earlier (which is much more understandable now, thanks) if you continue to spread fertilizer in the area this can actually cause an outbreak of funguses and disease that will undermine the healthy growth of plants. Plus with all the fertilizer spread around, it becomes harder for some plants to take root... and will allow other plants that probably shouldn't be growing there to grow more easily (fertilizer helps weeds, too)
I knew of a man who was a single father barely scratching by... Who started working extra hours and odd jobs here and there and managed to take home about an extra 1000 dollars at the end of the year because of it... Who then lost almost double that in EIC for making more money... Where's his incentive to succeed?
Every social program to help the needy I've seen has always created a huge incentive to stay poor... While most private charities I've seen do their darndest to get their recipients on their feet and self sufficient. I'd rather people willingly give money to charities than have the government take it from them by force.
Why should the government provide health care and education for the poor? Why not private charities? Why is it right for the government to steal from the successful and redistribute it to those who aren't willing to support themselves?
I could understand some support for people incapable of working due to some physical or mental ailment, but even in that case it seems better that a private organization handle it than the government.
In the US we spend many many times our defense budget on mostly worthless social programs, welfare, and social security... No one gets denied something so that an aircraft carrier can be built; quite the opposite... Before the Congress changed hands in '96 the defense budget was cut to ribbons to allow for more people to become dependant on the government... Even in recent years when defense spending picked back up, social programs have only grown bigger. Look at the 400 billion dollar prescription drug benefit that's being rammed down our throats... that alone is almost on par with our yearly defense budget...
Instead of spending loads of money on mini-nukes to circumvent international treaties, help the needed, feed the hungry.
Nuking the hungry solves world hunger problems, too...
Sorry, couldn't resist...
To put it simply, many Americans believe the government has no business seeing to the needy, that's what charities are for... The Constitution doesn't allow for the government to compel you at gunpoint to give up your money to be redistributed... That's something that goes on simply because politicians will lose elections if they challenge it. The government should build roads and see to defense and stay out of people's lives.
P.S. What's all this business about 'mini-nukes' I keep seeing from European posters? When I hear 'mini-nukes' I think of the pee-wee nukes in Starship Troopers... I know THAT can't be right...
That doesn't have anything to do with the economy, though... Besides, decreasing taxes increases revenue and Keynesian economics says governments should deficit spend during times of recession... Our deficit is currently *very* small compared to the GDP (as many have pointed out) so you'll have to come up with something better than that.
I personally believe the Government has no business stepping in to assure anything regarding Internet service... The market will handle itself just fine. If there is a market to sell broadband services somewhere (even if it's rural), someone will eventually pick it up. And if that doesn't happen, and the people living there still want broadband, here's a perfect example of how it can be done.
Seriously, we need the government LESS involved with our day-to-day lives, not more. If you want something done, do it yourself, don't ask the government to take money from me at gunpoint so they can do it for you for more money and a diminished result.