Closed source software is also artificially inflated
Huh??? How's it artificially inflated. Company hires labour to produce/market software, company sets price to recoup costs and little profit. Same as any other product.
You know, many other lega drugs, prescription or not, have the same effect. Driving after downing a packet of NyQuil probably isn't that different than driving and drinking. And the side-effects of drugs for more serious problems are even worse.
Saying the crack should be banned because of snorting and driving makes no more sense than banning NyQuil for the same reason.
Regarding incentive: You make it sound like the government makes it better to not do anything at all. That it's better to not try and achieve anything. That's a rather weak argument. If you make $10M and the government takes $5, then you're still better off than if you make $1M and pay $350K, or $30K and pay $10K. The incentive is still there, the harder you work the more you get.
Regarding thievery: Most of the key services the government provides are things that benefit everyone in the society, but that no one in the society would pay for if they didn't have to. If it was optional to not pay, there would be too many free-riders benefitting from the system and it would collapse.
Whether you call that thievery depends on how cynical you are. The only societies in which humans are truly free from paying taxes is in egaltarian hunter-gatherer societies. So unless you're spending all your time living off the land and only using what you make you're benfitting in some way from having an organized society.
I didn't have to "assume" anything. What the poster wrote was clear as day. Grammatically and logically it made sense, with only one way to misinterpret it. You misinterpreted.
What he wrote was wrong, but not for the reason you mentioned in your original. Likewise, your castigation of the grandparent of my post was offbase. What does 1998 have to do with anything?
"Slipped below 90% for the first time" doesn't mean that IE was always above 90%. It just means that since the point that IE achieved dominance this is the first it has dropped this low.
Regarding public heath care spending (I'm Canadian by the way). As you chart shows the US is one of the highest spenders on public healthcare. It is also, hoewever, the largest spender on private healthcare. The US spends 14% of it's GDP on healthcare, versus the 8-10% that Canada and most European countries spend. Yet the US healthcare system can't provide half-way decent coverage to a third of its citizens.
Regarding drug research, the US isn't the source of all innovation and research. In fact, while 60% of global research money was spent in the states only about 40% of new discoveries come from there. Europe and Canada, with there 'evil' public healthcare systems get more results with less money. Oh, and the drug prices are cheaper in those places and the price continues to widen.
You seem to be using the "if it doesn't benefit me directly, why should I pay" way of thinking. Even if someone doesn't benefit directly doesn't mean they aren't getting anything. Let's just spend time looking at healthcare.
Healthcare isn't just about helping people. It's largely about ensuring stability. What happens if poor people who can't afford healthcare get sick? It results in massive disease outbreaks. That will effect me, you, and Bill Gates. When people are dropping dead, they're not working, they're not buying stuff, the disease will continue to spread, and the economy will falter. Everyone benefits from public healthcare.
If there's no cheap public healthcare, people will spend less. They'll be saving money for Grandma's operation and they'll be going bankrupt when Little Johnny needs luekemia treatment. They won't be spending or building, they will be missing work. The efficiency of the economy will falter.
Sick cattle in a herd are bad and will be culled, if not they infect and bring down the rest of the herd. The same is true for people and society, except since we can kill them we need to make sure they don't get sick. It's not about making people comfortable, it's about keeping society stable.
40% of your earnings on a 100k salary? so to put this another way 40% of your time wasted in slave labour to a central government authority you do not exercise direct control over? Serious question, how can you possibly promote such blatant theft?
And that money goes to pay for things like roads, police, health care, firedepartments, military, social services, regulatory bodies. These are all CRITICAL features of a modern society. It's not theft, you're paying for services. Everyone is benefitting from them, everyone needs to pay.
If you didn't pay for this through taxes you'd be paying private industry. Inefficient as government is, you only have to look at US healthcare to see that private industry can be even worse.
Then again, you are a communist
It's an online handle. I'm no more communist than you are ethereal.
The problem is something is basically that tax cuts tend to disproportionately favour the rich, and by rich I'm not talking $50K or $100K. But $1M+. Or even $10M+. Of the $X amount of money the government lost in tax revenue, something like 1/3X or 1/2X came from the top couple percent of people, the ubber-wealthy.
What would be beneficial is a more balanced form of progressive taxation that doesn't put the highest tax bracket at a low sum of $50K or $70K. Because someone earning $50K shouldn't be taxed the same as someone at $50M. Perhaps something like 40% at $100K, 50% at $1M, then 0.5% per $1M more.
People always say that taxing the super-rich will discourage people. Which is bullshit. I recall reading that in the US in 40s/50s/60s, the highest effective tax-rate was around 95%. Did that deter people or hinder the economy? Hell no, it was probably the greatest period of growth in US history.
That was reall professional, clear, and effective (eye-rolling).
In your first letter you're all over the place. You state that you're boycotting Barracuda's publications because O'Gara is on their payroll. You also state that that you'll boycott anyone who advertise's in their publication. Considering that Barracuda doesn't have publications, doesn't employ O'Gara, and doesn't have advertisers, I think all you've succeeded in doing is confuse the pour guy.
Your boycott isn't going to be effective if the people in charge don't know why you're boycotting them.
Oh, and good job in leaving all the other guy's contact details in the exchange but editing out yours. (more eye-rolling).
Amen to that. The first season was an awesome. It involved what, a kidnapping and an assasination attemp.
The fourth season is way overtop. So far there's been, hmm: a train crash, nuclear meltdowns, attacks on AirForce 1, EMP bombs, stolen warheads. It's getting silly.
Having built and ran clusters, this computer may very well be an option for many people.
Clusters need A/C. A $100,000 cluster might generate 100K BTU/h. That's going to generate serious heat.
A large cluster requires renovating a room to accommodate a number of things. High electricity draw, lots of weight on a small area of floor space, security whatnot. Building a server room from scratch could easily run 100K.
A $100K cluster might suck back 15-20KWh of electricity. Over a couple years that will set you back a couple tens of thousands of dollars.
This Orion system won't be ideal for everyone, or even a lot of people, but it will have a market.
That's really funny. So any organisation that encourages youths or members to better themselves is automatically some evil brainwashing cult?
Most of the of unit leaders are volounteers, usually parents of kids in the troop. As well, in most civilized countries scouting is no longer exclusively male. It wasn't 15 years ago when I was still in it.
Yes, there has been the occasional sicko scout leaders. There have also been sicko police, teachers, soldiers, doctors. Your point?
You're right, that's pretty scary. "Do my best"? I mean that's obviously training them to be corporate pawns. "Kind and Cheerful"? What sort of Commie trick is that?
more information is being recorded and stored each day than ever before.
That's a con, not a pro. There is so much information being generated nowadays that actually finding something particular will be relatively hard. Especially if you aren't actively looking for it.
What are the odds that somebody 1000 years in the future is going to google to see if there were any cool Time Traveller conventions back in the 20th century.
Data will get lost. Data that isn't lost will be irrelevant and unused. The rate at which data is being produced is growing exponentially.
Why on earth would "Lier" be filtered? What dumb fuck programmed the filter?
Re:Next to The DaVinci Code ?
on
Spam Kings
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· Score: 1
Well for several reasons:
1) The level of the language isn't that great. It's not quite "Billy went to the store. Billy open the door. Billy walked through the door", but it isn't that far off.
2) The characters are flat and two dimensional. "See Spot Run" had more interesting characters.
3) The plot was formulaic, predictible, obviously designed to be turned into a thriller movie. The author broke all sorts of rules of good writing, such as the author, acting as god, roughly pokes and prodes at the story and characters instead of letting them develop and flow along naturally. When you need a cliff-hanger chapter ending every two pages there's a problem.
4) The history. Historical accuracy isn't normally a problem in fiction books, they are after all fiction, it is an immense problem when the author attempts to pass of said inaccuracies as scholarly research and fact.
Next to The DaVinci Code ?
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· Score: 4, Funny
You're talking about the shelf I keep in my closet to hide all the books I'm embarrassed to have bought?
So while you contend that the OT doesn't apply to modern people (care to back that up? not saying it can't be, just want to see fi you can)
The idea is that Jesus being born and dying for our sins makes a new covenant with God that invalidates any old covenants, rules, or requirements.
Basically it's just the priesthood realizing that the old testament was too barbaric/strict/loose (depending on your view) and creating the new covenant stuff so they could start fresh whilst still using the established mythos and familiarity of the old religion.
Slashdot Mirror
Closed source software is also artificially inflated
Huh??? How's it artificially inflated. Company hires labour to produce/market software, company sets price to recoup costs and little profit. Same as any other product.
You know, many other lega drugs, prescription or not, have the same effect. Driving after downing a packet of NyQuil probably isn't that different than driving and drinking. And the side-effects of drugs for more serious problems are even worse.
Saying the crack should be banned because of snorting and driving makes no more sense than banning NyQuil for the same reason.
Regarding incentive: You make it sound like the government makes it better to not do anything at all. That it's better to not try and achieve anything. That's a rather weak argument. If you make $10M and the government takes $5, then you're still better off than if you make $1M and pay $350K, or $30K and pay $10K. The incentive is still there, the harder you work the more you get.
Regarding thievery: Most of the key services the government provides are things that benefit everyone in the society, but that no one in the society would pay for if they didn't have to. If it was optional to not pay, there would be too many free-riders benefitting from the system and it would collapse.
Whether you call that thievery depends on how cynical you are. The only societies in which humans are truly free from paying taxes is in egaltarian hunter-gatherer societies. So unless you're spending all your time living off the land and only using what you make you're benfitting in some way from having an organized society.
I didn't have to "assume" anything. What the poster wrote was clear as day. Grammatically and logically it made sense, with only one way to misinterpret it. You misinterpreted.
What he wrote was wrong, but not for the reason you mentioned in your original. Likewise, your castigation of the grandparent of my post was offbase. What does 1998 have to do with anything?
Whoa, dude. Reading comprehension problems?
"Slipped below 90% for the first time" doesn't mean that IE was always above 90%. It just means that since the point that IE achieved dominance this is the first it has dropped this low.
Regarding public heath care spending (I'm Canadian by the way). As you chart shows the US is one of the highest spenders on public healthcare. It is also, hoewever, the largest spender on private healthcare. The US spends 14% of it's GDP on healthcare, versus the 8-10% that Canada and most European countries spend. Yet the US healthcare system can't provide half-way decent coverage to a third of its citizens.
Regarding drug research, the US isn't the source of all innovation and research. In fact, while 60% of global research money was spent in the states only about 40% of new discoveries come from there. Europe and Canada, with there 'evil' public healthcare systems get more results with less money. Oh, and the drug prices are cheaper in those places and the price continues to widen.
You seem to be using the "if it doesn't benefit me directly, why should I pay" way of thinking. Even if someone doesn't benefit directly doesn't mean they aren't getting anything. Let's just spend time looking at healthcare.
Healthcare isn't just about helping people. It's largely about ensuring stability. What happens if poor people who can't afford healthcare get sick? It results in massive disease outbreaks. That will effect me, you, and Bill Gates. When people are dropping dead, they're not working, they're not buying stuff, the disease will continue to spread, and the economy will falter. Everyone benefits from public healthcare.
If there's no cheap public healthcare, people will spend less. They'll be saving money for Grandma's operation and they'll be going bankrupt when Little Johnny needs luekemia treatment. They won't be spending or building, they will be missing work. The efficiency of the economy will falter.
Sick cattle in a herd are bad and will be culled, if not they infect and bring down the rest of the herd. The same is true for people and society, except since we can kill them we need to make sure they don't get sick. It's not about making people comfortable, it's about keeping society stable.
40% of your earnings on a 100k salary? so to put this another way 40% of your time wasted in slave labour to a central government authority you do not exercise direct control over? Serious question, how can you possibly promote such blatant theft?
And that money goes to pay for things like roads, police, health care, firedepartments, military, social services, regulatory bodies. These are all CRITICAL features of a modern society. It's not theft, you're paying for services. Everyone is benefitting from them, everyone needs to pay.
If you didn't pay for this through taxes you'd be paying private industry. Inefficient as government is, you only have to look at US healthcare to see that private industry can be even worse.
Then again, you are a communist
It's an online handle. I'm no more communist than you are ethereal.
The problem is something is basically that tax cuts tend to disproportionately favour the rich, and by rich I'm not talking $50K or $100K. But $1M+. Or even $10M+. Of the $X amount of money the government lost in tax revenue, something like 1/3X or 1/2X came from the top couple percent of people, the ubber-wealthy.
What would be beneficial is a more balanced form of progressive taxation that doesn't put the highest tax bracket at a low sum of $50K or $70K. Because someone earning $50K shouldn't be taxed the same as someone at $50M. Perhaps something like 40% at $100K, 50% at $1M, then 0.5% per $1M more.
People always say that taxing the super-rich will discourage people. Which is bullshit. I recall reading that in the US in 40s/50s/60s, the highest effective tax-rate was around 95%. Did that deter people or hinder the economy? Hell no, it was probably the greatest period of growth in US history.
I OTOH have a natural right of free speech and press
You have no such natural right. These are artifical rights granted by government and technology.
Well, actually, if a work doesn't make money within about a year, it probably never will. And it probably never will make money at all, in fact.
What about movies that bomb in theatres, but become hits when released on video a year later.
What about a book that's released and doesn't sell well, but then someone like Oprah mentions it a couple years later and it becomes a bestseller?
That was reall professional, clear, and effective (eye-rolling).
In your first letter you're all over the place. You state that you're boycotting Barracuda's publications because O'Gara is on their payroll. You also state that that you'll boycott anyone who advertise's in their publication. Considering that Barracuda doesn't have publications, doesn't employ O'Gara, and doesn't have advertisers, I think all you've succeeded in doing is confuse the pour guy.
Your boycott isn't going to be effective if the people in charge don't know why you're boycotting them.
Oh, and good job in leaving all the other guy's contact details in the exchange but editing out yours. (more eye-rolling).
Amen to that. The first season was an awesome. It involved what, a kidnapping and an assasination attemp.
The fourth season is way overtop. So far there's been, hmm: a train crash, nuclear meltdowns, attacks on AirForce 1, EMP bombs, stolen warheads. It's getting silly.
Thank you. And it's getting worse for 24 isn't it? The first season was more or less standard technology misuse, but now it's just getting ridiculous.
"It'll take I have to modify the kernel, but if I touch the pre-compiled header files the plant will melt down"
"I'd scanned the network but didn't see any traffic. So then I scanned the subnet..."
(roughly paraphrased)
Having built and ran clusters, this computer may very well be an option for many people.
Clusters need A/C. A $100,000 cluster might generate 100K BTU/h. That's going to generate serious heat.
A large cluster requires renovating a room to accommodate a number of things. High electricity draw, lots of weight on a small area of floor space, security whatnot. Building a server room from scratch could easily run 100K.
A $100K cluster might suck back 15-20KWh of electricity. Over a couple years that will set you back a couple tens of thousands of dollars.
This Orion system won't be ideal for everyone, or even a lot of people, but it will have a market.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
That's really funny. So any organisation that encourages youths or members to better themselves is automatically some evil brainwashing cult?
Most of the of unit leaders are volounteers, usually parents of kids in the troop. As well, in most civilized countries scouting is no longer exclusively male. It wasn't 15 years ago when I was still in it.
Yes, there has been the occasional sicko scout leaders. There have also been sicko police, teachers, soldiers, doctors. Your point?
The Scout Promise
On my honour,
I promise that I will do my best,
To do my Duty to God and the Queen,
To help other people at all times,
And to carry out the spirit of the Scout Law.
The Scout Law
A Scout is
Helpful and trustworthy,
Kind and cheerful,
Considerate and clean,
And wise in the use of all resources.
You're right, that's pretty scary. "Do my best"? I mean that's obviously training them to be corporate pawns. "Kind and Cheerful"? What sort of Commie trick is that?
The people running scouts ARE parents.
more information is being recorded and stored each day than ever before.
That's a con, not a pro. There is so much information being generated nowadays that actually finding something particular will be relatively hard. Especially if you aren't actively looking for it.
What are the odds that somebody 1000 years in the future is going to google to see if there were any cool Time Traveller conventions back in the 20th century.
Data will get lost. Data that isn't lost will be irrelevant and unused. The rate at which data is being produced is growing exponentially.
"Alien vs Predator" is a video game.
Also, I was using motion sensor bombs in Duke Nukem way back when.
Also, I was using sticky grenade things on the N64 Golden Eye way back when as well.
I for one don't understand the logic behind "work visas,"
Hmm...
Say a music band from country XYZ wants to do a tour of the States...
Say I work for a multi-national corporation that needs me to go work at the US office for a while...
Say I'm expert of some kind, say a bio-med research, and a university in states needs someone with my expertise for a couple years...
Say I'm a Canadian construction worker, and a large project across the border desperately needs more workers for a crunch...
There's plenty of reasons why someone would want/need to work in the States without wanting to obtain citizenship.
"lier"
Why on earth would "Lier" be filtered? What dumb fuck programmed the filter?
Well for several reasons:
1) The level of the language isn't that great. It's not quite "Billy went to the store. Billy open the door. Billy walked through the door", but it isn't that far off.
2) The characters are flat and two dimensional. "See Spot Run" had more interesting characters.
3) The plot was formulaic, predictible, obviously designed to be turned into a thriller movie. The author broke all sorts of rules of good writing, such as the author, acting as god, roughly pokes and prodes at the story and characters instead of letting them develop and flow along naturally. When you need a cliff-hanger chapter ending every two pages there's a problem.
4) The history. Historical accuracy isn't normally a problem in fiction books, they are after all fiction, it is an immense problem when the author attempts to pass of said inaccuracies as scholarly research and fact.
You're talking about the shelf I keep in my closet to hide all the books I'm embarrassed to have bought?
I think it's rather sad that someone at university thinks that using Latin is pretentious.
What's prententious about "Tempus Fugit"?
So while you contend that the OT doesn't apply to modern people (care to back that up? not saying it can't be, just want to see fi you can)
The idea is that Jesus being born and dying for our sins makes a new covenant with God that invalidates any old covenants, rules, or requirements.
Basically it's just the priesthood realizing that the old testament was too barbaric/strict/loose (depending on your view) and creating the new covenant stuff so they could start fresh whilst still using the established mythos and familiarity of the old religion.