I think what we're seeing here is a dichotomy between technophiles like Slashdot users, and laypeople who use computers but don't understand how they work. To the open source technophile, being able to grab the source, fix a bug or add a feature, and compile it is a perk. To the lay person it's the same thing as telling them they have access to all the parts to build a rocket to go to the moon. They couldn't do it in a thousand years even if they tried, and so it's a nonexistent benefit to them - a non-feature.
Apple's allure to regular people, and Jobs' particular influence, is that they make all this complicated technology easy to use. Yeah they severely limit the tech geek in the process, but most regular people simply don't care. To them, the alternative is barely being able to use the technology at all. That's what makes Jobs one of the most important influences on technology in the minds of most laypeople (i.e. the great majority of the population).
My Apple has never limited me as a tech geek, and while some of my friends are computer illiterate, all are intelligent enough to see the benefit of open source to them. All systems, open source or not, have limitations.
What Apple has given me and people I know is not "easy", but "reliable and working", something which I often cannot get from open source equivalents. A lot of Apple software is not remotely easy, but people still flock to it because "IT WORKS". Ditto for their hardware.
I think Apple often is spoken of as making things easy and sure they use that in their marketing... but I really don't think that is anywhere near as important as their contribution of simply good engineering. Very little modern non-Apple hardware is high quality, and what is generally costs as much if not more. I think good engineering is also a huge part of Apple's allure all around.
Like you, I want my accounts separate. I do not want my searching, gmail, google+, etc accounts to all be the same thing.
Google has really screwed things up by merging accounts, I absolutely hate that. I also use different service accounts by which I mean more than one gmail, youtube, or other type of account.
Just for example: I have activities that fall under personal, business, hobby, and gaming. I do not use the same email address, youtube account, or other accounts for all of those activities.
Google not only does not understand this, they actively work against you doing it. That whole crap about requiring a phone call to set up an account just ticks me off to no end. I'm all the time needing an account and can't use that feature.
That's just ignorant. Of course it will hurt the business. It is unfair and immoral to steal money from someone just because they make more money.
You seem to think that profit is something a small business owner can go play with and spend on toys. Most likely it is used for re-investment, expansion, R&D, and so on. Things which a small business cannot do if you take it from them.
Just because I own more land does not mean I need more roads, and in any case I will be paying for those roads, not the government.
Its somewhat possible I might have more need to call the police if I have expensive property, but that's fine because I'm already paying more money than someone who is at a lower income level.
Property taxes are not just unfair, they are ethically wrong. Once I have paid for something it is mine and you should not be able to take it from me or force me to pay continuously to keep it. I worked for it and earned it and paid taxes along the way. It is morally corrupt if think it is OK to take that from me.
What happened to the concept of right and wrong. Just because it is "reasonable" for a wealthier man to pay a higher percentage than a poor man, does not make it right for the government to forcibly take that money from him. It is his money. It is not yours, it is not the government's, it is his. How you can seriously think that kind of theft is right is beyond me. If I make $1 million, it is up to me to determine how that should be spent and where.
The reason we are being told we must raise taxes is because our government is spending more money than it makes and more than it has been authorized to spend. Its really simple: if you have $10, don't spend $15 and then try to force someone else to make up the $5 shortfall by claiming that, well, they can afford it. Just because they can afford it does not give you the right to take it from them.
Wasteful and idiotic government agencies, budget laws that make no sense at all (budget cannot be altered if you need less in one period, etc), crippling and ineffective over-regulation, and massive waste caused by people not having any economic reality checks... that is why we have a huge government debt burden. Heavy taxation will not fix this or make it go away.
I have run a small business for years, and my taxes just kept going up steadily. I'm having to give up, I just can't make enough money to justify running the business. The net result is that the government is going to lose far more than they gained in increased taxation, and the local area and the people I could employ lose everything.
Business expenses are tax deductible? What gave you the idea that somehow stops high taxation from killing small business? Heavy taxation cripples small business. In the 1970s small business was over 95% of the US GDP, now it is something like 75% and falling rapidly. This is grass roots destruction of the US economy.
That does not change the fact that it is THEIR money, and the government has no right to just take it because they make a lot.
All of you guys posting in favor of this are painfully naive if you think taxing the rich is going to benefit you: it won't. It will increase your taxes, cost of living, and lower your buying power. Its easy to target someone because they have a lot of money, but our illegal IRS has no more right to their income than they do to yours.
If I were wealthy I'd avoid taxation too: the code is grossly unfair and over complicated. If it were fair and simple, I'd not bother and just pay whatever the rate was (this is without addressing the fact our current tax system is illegal).
But as soon as you start taxing me heavily to pay for loans you cannot pay and were not authorized to assume in the first place, of course I'm going to avoid paying: it is not your money, it is not my obligation to pay for your stupid errors, nor do I owe the banks who made idiotic loans any money.
Taxing the rich or whatever other socialist bullshit comes up next is not going to solve the root problem, which is that our government is spending more money than it has. Its not legal for them to do that, nor is it necessary. Just like any other entity, it has a responsibility to live within its means and operate legally. It does neither, and taxing people to cover those errors is not solving the problem, it only makes it worse.
I attend a lot of libertarian gatherings, and stopping activities like monitoring, etc is certainly high on the agenda. We don't want heavy government control, but we don't want to trade it for corporate control either.
We aren't against government regulation where it fits within Constitutional bounds, and certainly what many corporations do is borderline or past violating our Constitutional rights and so we certainly don't believe in limiting government to the point where we are powerless against that sort of thing.
Government is a last resort and should be heavily restricted, but that doesn't mean it should have no teeth or that we believe free enterprise can do as it pleases without regard for others.
When I was a kid my family was poor but still paid most medical bills without using our insurance (which was cheap). Then the socialists started "improving" the system and now you can't get a bandaid without insurance unless you take out a loan. For-profit and free enterprise did not create the mess we are in, that's mythology. It was only when we started mixing it with socialism and the myth of non-profit that it went to hell.
Did you look up the rated speed of a P-51 in level flight with armor, ammo, and so on, at a certain altitude to get that number? I ask because that figure is listed in a book I have, but its an "official" speed based on a combat ready plane at a certain altitude.
In WWII, Chuck Yeager came near the sound barrier in a P-51, locking up his controls and nearly dying because of it. They routinely chased Nazi jet aircraft by diving at them.
The racers are using modified P-51s with more powerful engines, components stripped out, no ammunition, etc.
A lot of life is dangerous.
You can get killed in or at an auto race, or for that matter crossing the road to go play video games. Your odds doing the latter are quite a bit higher.
You cannot legislate safety or morality.
Risk is not stupid, its part of life and what makes it worth living, and what drives almost all improvement in it.
Removing it and we are the living dead.
When I need to go online, I go to electrical engineers and programmers. I don't understand everything they do, but if most agree that my computer and OS and browser aren't stealing my passwords, then I'll trust them.
Funny. Your examples are interesting, but I wonder if they say what you think. Playing devil's advocate...
A good number of buildings today meet "consensus" regulation, but blow down the first time a storm comes through, while some 100 year old buildings that don't meet the consensus remain standing. I live in a heavy storm area so this example is particularly funny to me.
The software industry is in an embarrassing state, with horrible security, code quality and UI design. Microsoft is the most popular and also one of the primary offenders.
Doctors are notorious for giving us medication we don't need because everything in their office is paid for by drug companies. We are the most over-medicated generation in history. I'd be dead right now if I'd blindly listened to my doctors.
Bridges in the USA and most of the world are probably the single biggest maintenance disaster in modern engineering, with a ton of experts telling us they were safe when in fact thousands of them are not. The problem is so bad that fixing them in some countries would require more than their entire transportation budget.
Likweise McDonald's, which sells horrible food, sells more food than anyone else.
Trust but verify is an ancient wisdom. I question any "scientist" who opposes that.
When I want to know what is happening with the climate, I go to a climatologist. I don't understand everything they do, but if most agree that human release of CO2 is altering the climate, then I call them a bunch of damned liars and frauds and demand they make it all easy enough for me to understand!
It's a blatant double standard, and it only applies to fields that Republicans don't like, such as climatology and evolution.
Your post was almost interesting, but then you shot it all down with this.
Just FYI: a lot of us skeptical about anthro climate change and what we need to do regarding climate change are Libertarians in the USA, not Republicans:)
An argument from authority is not a fallacy as long as the authority is a legitimate expert on the subject and there is a consensus among the majority. With the exception of the scientists working for BP, Exxon, and the like who don't really qualify as legitimate experts b/c they're paid to make a case rather than objectively obtain knowledge, there is a near consensus among the scientific community that humans have caused climate change which can have disastrous effects.
.
That's a gross generalization. Scientists working for energy and technology companies have made positive change to reduce emissions and make technology more efficient. They aren't all corrupt, and most of the improvements in our efficiency and emissions have been done by them. They are after all in the best position to do so.
Likewise a lot of scientists are paid by people outside the energy industry who also have agendas. Money buys a lot of mind share all around. No funding, no job.
I think some people feel such a great need to take a side, they'll do it even if it undermines what they claim to believe in. Its disappointing to watch energy companies shoot themselves in the foot when they could take positive changes as business opportunities. Likewise it is frustrating to see someone who claims to want to reduce pollution push changes that actually hamper our ability to do so.
There are a lot of experts in the field, who have no connection with all those "evil" energy companies, who disagree. They get shot down and refused funding because they have not jumped on the bandwagon. They aren't stupid, nor do they want to harm the Earth. What they are is under siege by largely leftist militants who oppose rational argument.
Some of us really don't have a side in this. We don't agree man is a huge factor because there is data which suggests otherwise, and the global warming fan club has been openly dishonest and hidden a lot of their data. Al Gore in particular in the USA funded a lot of research based on known bad sensor data and trumpeted it to the world as fact. In my opinion, people like him hurt either argument because the truth people like Al Gore are all about themselves anyway.
Most of us who are skeptical don't deny global warming, we question the cause and the knee-jerk policy, regulatory, and legislative changes which have been so incredibly damaging in the past. We think you should reduce emissions and make our technology cleaner. Its really annoying to have all these peole say we oppose that, when its simply not true.
In America we are faced with dealing with an overpowerful, agenda ridden, and corrupt EPA and other factors which, rather than helping situations like pollution, are in the long term crippling our ability to deal with it.
There are too many people on both sides fueled more by agenda that has nothing to do with global warming, pollution, industry, and technology, or anything worthwhile for that matter, and until we learn to ignore them we are going to have trouble over all of this.
There is no reason not to make reasonable changes to reduce our emissions and make us more efficient. Likewise there is no reason to adopt knee-jerk reactionary changes that will do more harm than good, especially since we still know relatively little about all of this.
You can make a name for yourself by jumping on the global warming bandwagon too, and there are plenty of people with an agenda ready with funding to help you do that.
This works both says.
This is beside the fact that reducing emissions should not depend on the eventual truth anyway. It improves our technology if we make reasonable changes to reduce emissions even if humans have no appreciable effect on climate. Interestingly a lot of the emission reduction we have had so far was funded by energy companies. I know some people working for a few of them, and they aren't trying to fund opposition to the global warming fan club. What they are trying to do is avoid knee jerk reactions which cripple us.
A lot of proposed climate change legislation and regulation is just plain stupid, and serves mostly to further the agenda of people who don't want certain people to have a strong economy and industry.
The frightening irony of it is all is that as we become more economically and industrially crippled because of idiots like the EPA and dangerous regulation and legislation, we become less able to make better and cleaner technology.
A good number of the people who claim to want to reduce pollution in the world, are in effect making it worse.
So the scientists where I worked at NASA, supporting satellite data like CERES and so on... who all said the Sun has been heating up and that CO2 is the result not the cause of warming... they are all idiots?
Certainly there are a lot of people who are being paid by oil companies and others, money has influence.
But then, there are also a lot of "climate scientists" who are depending on funding that would go away if they started to not believe in human caused global warming, because they are after all also being paid by people with an agenda.
Neither "side" has been very honest about any of this from the start.
Interesting...
Personally I found most games are far too short for the money. Ten hours is not enough for my $50, especially when most are not worth playing again.
Slashdot Mirror
I think what we're seeing here is a dichotomy between technophiles like Slashdot users, and laypeople who use computers but don't understand how they work. To the open source technophile, being able to grab the source, fix a bug or add a feature, and compile it is a perk. To the lay person it's the same thing as telling them they have access to all the parts to build a rocket to go to the moon. They couldn't do it in a thousand years even if they tried, and so it's a nonexistent benefit to them - a non-feature. Apple's allure to regular people, and Jobs' particular influence, is that they make all this complicated technology easy to use. Yeah they severely limit the tech geek in the process, but most regular people simply don't care. To them, the alternative is barely being able to use the technology at all. That's what makes Jobs one of the most important influences on technology in the minds of most laypeople (i.e. the great majority of the population).
My Apple has never limited me as a tech geek, and while some of my friends are computer illiterate, all are intelligent enough to see the benefit of open source to them. All systems, open source or not, have limitations.
What Apple has given me and people I know is not "easy", but "reliable and working", something which I often cannot get from open source equivalents. A lot of Apple software is not remotely easy, but people still flock to it because "IT WORKS". Ditto for their hardware.
I think Apple often is spoken of as making things easy and sure they use that in their marketing... but I really don't think that is anywhere near as important as their contribution of simply good engineering. Very little modern non-Apple hardware is high quality, and what is generally costs as much if not more. I think good engineering is also a huge part of Apple's allure all around.
This is something Google just does not get.
Like you, I want my accounts separate. I do not want my searching, gmail, google+, etc accounts to all be the same thing.
Google has really screwed things up by merging accounts, I absolutely hate that. I also use different service accounts by which I mean more than one gmail, youtube, or other type of account.
Just for example: I have activities that fall under personal, business, hobby, and gaming. I do not use the same email address, youtube account, or other accounts for all of those activities.
Google not only does not understand this, they actively work against you doing it. That whole crap about requiring a phone call to set up an account just ticks me off to no end. I'm all the time needing an account and can't use that feature.
That's just ignorant. Of course it will hurt the business. It is unfair and immoral to steal money from someone just because they make more money.
You seem to think that profit is something a small business owner can go play with and spend on toys. Most likely it is used for re-investment, expansion, R&D, and so on. Things which a small business cannot do if you take it from them.
Just because I own more land does not mean I need more roads, and in any case I will be paying for those roads, not the government.
Its somewhat possible I might have more need to call the police if I have expensive property, but that's fine because I'm already paying more money than someone who is at a lower income level.
Property taxes are not just unfair, they are ethically wrong. Once I have paid for something it is mine and you should not be able to take it from me or force me to pay continuously to keep it. I worked for it and earned it and paid taxes along the way. It is morally corrupt if think it is OK to take that from me.
The reason we are being told we must raise taxes is because our government is spending more money than it makes and more than it has been authorized to spend. Its really simple: if you have $10, don't spend $15 and then try to force someone else to make up the $5 shortfall by claiming that, well, they can afford it. Just because they can afford it does not give you the right to take it from them.
Wasteful and idiotic government agencies, budget laws that make no sense at all (budget cannot be altered if you need less in one period, etc), crippling and ineffective over-regulation, and massive waste caused by people not having any economic reality checks... that is why we have a huge government debt burden. Heavy taxation will not fix this or make it go away.
I have run a small business for years, and my taxes just kept going up steadily. I'm having to give up, I just can't make enough money to justify running the business. The net result is that the government is going to lose far more than they gained in increased taxation, and the local area and the people I could employ lose everything.
Business expenses are tax deductible? What gave you the idea that somehow stops high taxation from killing small business? Heavy taxation cripples small business. In the 1970s small business was over 95% of the US GDP, now it is something like 75% and falling rapidly. This is grass roots destruction of the US economy.
All of you guys posting in favor of this are painfully naive if you think taxing the rich is going to benefit you: it won't. It will increase your taxes, cost of living, and lower your buying power. Its easy to target someone because they have a lot of money, but our illegal IRS has no more right to their income than they do to yours.
If I were wealthy I'd avoid taxation too: the code is grossly unfair and over complicated. If it were fair and simple, I'd not bother and just pay whatever the rate was (this is without addressing the fact our current tax system is illegal).
But as soon as you start taxing me heavily to pay for loans you cannot pay and were not authorized to assume in the first place, of course I'm going to avoid paying: it is not your money, it is not my obligation to pay for your stupid errors, nor do I owe the banks who made idiotic loans any money.
Taxing the rich or whatever other socialist bullshit comes up next is not going to solve the root problem, which is that our government is spending more money than it has. Its not legal for them to do that, nor is it necessary. Just like any other entity, it has a responsibility to live within its means and operate legally. It does neither, and taxing people to cover those errors is not solving the problem, it only makes it worse.
I attend a lot of libertarian gatherings, and stopping activities like monitoring, etc is certainly high on the agenda. We don't want heavy government control, but we don't want to trade it for corporate control either.
We aren't against government regulation where it fits within Constitutional bounds, and certainly what many corporations do is borderline or past violating our Constitutional rights and so we certainly don't believe in limiting government to the point where we are powerless against that sort of thing.
Government is a last resort and should be heavily restricted, but that doesn't mean it should have no teeth or that we believe free enterprise can do as it pleases without regard for others.
When I was a kid my family was poor but still paid most medical bills without using our insurance (which was cheap). Then the socialists started "improving" the system and now you can't get a bandaid without insurance unless you take out a loan. For-profit and free enterprise did not create the mess we are in, that's mythology. It was only when we started mixing it with socialism and the myth of non-profit that it went to hell.
That's not true.
Did you look up the rated speed of a P-51 in level flight with armor, ammo, and so on, at a certain altitude to get that number? I ask because that figure is listed in a book I have, but its an "official" speed based on a combat ready plane at a certain altitude.
In WWII, Chuck Yeager came near the sound barrier in a P-51, locking up his controls and nearly dying because of it. They routinely chased Nazi jet aircraft by diving at them.
The racers are using modified P-51s with more powerful engines, components stripped out, no ammunition, etc.
A lot of life is dangerous. You can get killed in or at an auto race, or for that matter crossing the road to go play video games. Your odds doing the latter are quite a bit higher. You cannot legislate safety or morality. Risk is not stupid, its part of life and what makes it worth living, and what drives almost all improvement in it. Removing it and we are the living dead.
The last time I checked, the US was still a democracy.
The USA has never been a democracy. We are a republic. We use democracy, but we are not one.
There are very important reasons why the Founders chose to create a republic instead of a democracy.
Of course, right now we seem to be on track to becoming yet another socialist hybrid or socialist aristocracy.
I don't know what the award is precisely, but you won it... :)
Thinking about this a moment, it sounds reasonable. Names are either verified or marked pseudonym... might be a good idea.
When I need to go online, I go to electrical engineers and programmers. I don't understand everything they do, but if most agree that my computer and OS and browser aren't stealing my passwords, then I'll trust them.
Funny. Your examples are interesting, but I wonder if they say what you think. Playing devil's advocate...
A good number of buildings today meet "consensus" regulation, but blow down the first time a storm comes through, while some 100 year old buildings that don't meet the consensus remain standing. I live in a heavy storm area so this example is particularly funny to me.
The software industry is in an embarrassing state, with horrible security, code quality and UI design. Microsoft is the most popular and also one of the primary offenders.
Doctors are notorious for giving us medication we don't need because everything in their office is paid for by drug companies. We are the most over-medicated generation in history. I'd be dead right now if I'd blindly listened to my doctors.
Bridges in the USA and most of the world are probably the single biggest maintenance disaster in modern engineering, with a ton of experts telling us they were safe when in fact thousands of them are not. The problem is so bad that fixing them in some countries would require more than their entire transportation budget.
Likweise McDonald's, which sells horrible food, sells more food than anyone else.
Trust but verify is an ancient wisdom. I question any "scientist" who opposes that.
When I want to know what is happening with the climate, I go to a climatologist. I don't understand everything they do, but if most agree that human release of CO2 is altering the climate, then I call them a bunch of damned liars and frauds and demand they make it all easy enough for me to understand!
It's a blatant double standard, and it only applies to fields that Republicans don't like, such as climatology and evolution.
Your post was almost interesting, but then you shot it all down with this.
Just FYI: a lot of us skeptical about anthro climate change and what we need to do regarding climate change are Libertarians in the USA, not Republicans :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
An argument from authority is not a fallacy as long as the authority is a legitimate expert on the subject and there is a consensus among the majority. With the exception of the scientists working for BP, Exxon, and the like who don't really qualify as legitimate experts b/c they're paid to make a case rather than objectively obtain knowledge, there is a near consensus among the scientific community that humans have caused climate change which can have disastrous effects.
.
That's a gross generalization. Scientists working for energy and technology companies have made positive change to reduce emissions and make technology more efficient. They aren't all corrupt, and most of the improvements in our efficiency and emissions have been done by them. They are after all in the best position to do so.
Likewise a lot of scientists are paid by people outside the energy industry who also have agendas. Money buys a lot of mind share all around. No funding, no job.
I think some people feel such a great need to take a side, they'll do it even if it undermines what they claim to believe in. Its disappointing to watch energy companies shoot themselves in the foot when they could take positive changes as business opportunities. Likewise it is frustrating to see someone who claims to want to reduce pollution push changes that actually hamper our ability to do so.
There are a lot of experts in the field, who have no connection with all those "evil" energy companies, who disagree. They get shot down and refused funding because they have not jumped on the bandwagon. They aren't stupid, nor do they want to harm the Earth. What they are is under siege by largely leftist militants who oppose rational argument.
Some of us really don't have a side in this. We don't agree man is a huge factor because there is data which suggests otherwise, and the global warming fan club has been openly dishonest and hidden a lot of their data. Al Gore in particular in the USA funded a lot of research based on known bad sensor data and trumpeted it to the world as fact. In my opinion, people like him hurt either argument because the truth people like Al Gore are all about themselves anyway.
Most of us who are skeptical don't deny global warming, we question the cause and the knee-jerk policy, regulatory, and legislative changes which have been so incredibly damaging in the past. We think you should reduce emissions and make our technology cleaner. Its really annoying to have all these peole say we oppose that, when its simply not true.
In America we are faced with dealing with an overpowerful, agenda ridden, and corrupt EPA and other factors which, rather than helping situations like pollution, are in the long term crippling our ability to deal with it.
There are too many people on both sides fueled more by agenda that has nothing to do with global warming, pollution, industry, and technology, or anything worthwhile for that matter, and until we learn to ignore them we are going to have trouble over all of this.
There is no reason not to make reasonable changes to reduce our emissions and make us more efficient. Likewise there is no reason to adopt knee-jerk reactionary changes that will do more harm than good, especially since we still know relatively little about all of this.
On that's just not true, you made another invalid argument. You need to look those up so you can avoid them in the future.
Every post he's made on Slashdot and elsewhere is already public, so he's therefore done what you suggest by posting.
This is beside the fact that personal privacy is a totally different animal.
You can make a name for yourself by jumping on the global warming bandwagon too, and there are plenty of people with an agenda ready with funding to help you do that.
This works both says.
This is beside the fact that reducing emissions should not depend on the eventual truth anyway. It improves our technology if we make reasonable changes to reduce emissions even if humans have no appreciable effect on climate. Interestingly a lot of the emission reduction we have had so far was funded by energy companies. I know some people working for a few of them, and they aren't trying to fund opposition to the global warming fan club. What they are trying to do is avoid knee jerk reactions which cripple us.
A lot of proposed climate change legislation and regulation is just plain stupid, and serves mostly to further the agenda of people who don't want certain people to have a strong economy and industry.
The frightening irony of it is all is that as we become more economically and industrially crippled because of idiots like the EPA and dangerous regulation and legislation, we become less able to make better and cleaner technology.
A good number of the people who claim to want to reduce pollution in the world, are in effect making it worse.
So the scientists where I worked at NASA, supporting satellite data like CERES and so on... who all said the Sun has been heating up and that CO2 is the result not the cause of warming... they are all idiots?
Certainly there are a lot of people who are being paid by oil companies and others, money has influence.
But then, there are also a lot of "climate scientists" who are depending on funding that would go away if they started to not believe in human caused global warming, because they are after all also being paid by people with an agenda.
Neither "side" has been very honest about any of this from the start.
Interesting... Personally I found most games are far too short for the money. Ten hours is not enough for my $50, especially when most are not worth playing again.
FreeBSD 5 was bad, 6 was iffy... but starting with 7 it started to get much better and 8 has been very solid.
Article: That could allow much more data-rich communication between, say, Earth and probes on Mars, the researchers say.