Why should the fact that money is changing hands effect the morality of some action? Is a hired assassin less moral than some crazy who kills people for 'free'?
What state mandated insurance?? I live in Victoria, Australia and can insurance is provided totally by private companies. The only state-mandated 'insurance' is an extra licence fee by the TAC to supposedly cover car-related personal injury costs... which I am sure just goes into general government revenue anyway.
Melbourne and Sydney have trains and trams, but they are a long way from being the primary mode of transport, except for trips to the CBD (downtown). 90%+ of all trips are still taken by car, and the cars ownership rate here in Australia is the 2nd or 3rd highest in the world.
Where does it say that Longhorn will be selling the contents of your hard drive to other people? That kind of indexing sounds more useful for users to search their own drives, not for other people to search them..
Even if these Port80 guys are on Microsoft's payroll, the point they make is still quite correct - it make no sense to measure market share by simply counting web hosts. If all the high-traffic web sites on the Internet are running IIS while the numerically greater but less popular remainder are running Apache, can you meaningfully say that Apache has a higher 'market share'?
Unfortunately, short of tracking people's surfing habits or getting access to web server logs, there is no easy way of working out the popularity of a site. Netcraft's method of polling every known webserver is really the only practical method available, if it is not truly accurate.
Currently, ICANN has very little control over the Internet - they merely approve top-level domains and IP address allocation ranges, which is just about the minimum amount of central control necessary for the Internet to operate smoothly.
Even if ICANN was replaced by some corrupt UN body, it would still be unable to cause much harm. The Internet is really just a bunch of networks run by various companies and organizations in different countries that have agreed to connect to each other, in hundreds of different legal juristictions. What possible leverage would ICANN or the ITU have over them?
There you have it a moral mobster. Someone who does not condone the actions of the US government but overlooks the actions of the mob.
Since these 'mobsters' are merely taking bets
from consenting adults, I'd say there are really quite moral. Only a stupid law has turned what should be a perfectly legal activity into a crime, which of course attracts organized crime groups.
Co-incidentally, relatives of a friend of mine
operated a very similar business in Malaysia,
where gambling is even more heavily restricted
than in the US. Naturally, they were little
different from the Mafia, and used violence to
get ahead. On the other hand, in places like Las Vegas where gambling is mostly legal, you don't see legitimate casino operators putting out contracts on each others' lives.
Conclusion - when the government turns a consensual activity like selling drugs, sex or wagers into a crime, the amount of real violent crime is actually increased.
I'm the author of this book, so I thought I'd add a comment explaining why the chapters are ordered the way they are. Basically, they follow the categories that modules are grouped under in Webmin itself, so all the system, networking and hardware related topics are covered first (such as users and groups and managing printers), followed by chapters on servers like apache, sendmail and squid.
Because it wasn't really written to be read all the way through from start to finish like a novel, the ordering shouldn't matter too much to readers anyway:-) Rather, you can just read the first few chapters that explain how to set things up, and then skip to the chapters covering the specific servers that you are interested in.
You're right that Singapore does have an odd combination of an authoritarian government and a
(mostly) free market. I haven't lived in Cuba but I
did work in Singapore for 2.5 years, and I'm pretty
sure it is a far nicer place for the average
citizen to live. The economic standard of living is almost
as good as a typical western country..
Oh, and 20k wouldn't buy much in Singapore. The tax on an average car alone is about that!
Why shouldn't people be allowed to sell copyright if they wish? No-one is forced to sell to the big music labels - they can just market their music directly if they wish. Preventing artists from selling their copyright would actually take away one of their existing rights!
The goal here is to destroy the RIAA. When the RIAA no longer exists (what a dream), the artists will be forced to sell their music directly to music listeners and receive 100% of the revenue rather than 1% of 1%. How horrible!
If it was really that easy, why aren't artists already doing this? Maybe today it might be possible by setting up a website and selling MP3s, but until recently the only way to sell music was on CDs, tapes or vinyl. No singer or songwriter wants to spend his time visiting millions of record stores making deals with each one individually..
If that was ever actually implemented, wouldn't people just buy songs for the time it takes to play them only, then re-sell them afterwards? In effect, a single transferrable copy of a song could be shared between hundreds of people!
I can see why music creators would hate this.. However, it may actually be legal under the 'first sale' doctrine.
While regulation of software might sound like a good idea to the anti-Microsoft crowd, consider how it would effect free software developers. Imagine if you couldn't release any software that hasn't been vetted by some government agency - that would be end end of 99% of the open-source projects out there.
And even if there were some excemption for not-for-profit developers, what about distribution companies like Redhat? They would be out of business in seconds..
Maybe the reason is that companies only turn to fraud when they are already in trouble, in an attempt to delay the inevitable. Well-run companies have no need for it.
Farming is an excellent example - before mechanization, 90% of the population worked in agriculture. Now only 5% do - but are the other 85% sitting around unemployed? Of course not - they have moved on to new jobs that were made possible by the reduction in food production costs.
Gee, maybe the market and technology really *do* solve everything.
As an impartial Australian, its my impression that Europe is a lot less free than the US. For example, in Germany the goverment can veto parents' choice of a childs name - not just stupid names like 'Fuckyou', but supposedly inapropriate ones like 'Jonah'. Then there are all the restrictions on supposedly racist speech, selling Nazi artifacts and so on.
And don't forget about all the European restrictions on commerce.. in most countries, opening hours for stores are heavily regulated for example. Until just recently, it was illegal to haggle in Germany, and it is still illegal for stores to offer most kinds of discounts!
MS has plenty of good reasons to prevent an OS like Linux running on the X-BOX, apart from simple malice. For example, they supposedly sell the console at a loss and make up the money on licencing fees from game developers. If Linux could be used to run un-signed games, then this revenue stream would disappear!
Also, the X-BOX live service avoids the kind of cheating that plagues other multiplayer games by ensuring the clients only run signed non-hacked software. Again, this could be broken if Linux could be used as a loader for artbitrary software..
So saving a child from certain death is 'disturbing' now!? Far more worrying are the insane British regulations that almost prevented the parents from undergoing the necessary medical procedures.
This case more than any shows the contempt for human life displayed by the 'bioethics' and anti-bioengineering lobby groups.
Using highways as an analogy shows exact why a 'free' goverment-run network is a bad idea. Look at all the congestion that occurs on highways during peak times - no matter how much the system is expanded or how many new roads are built, it still happens.
The reason is of course that drivers are not charged based on their use of the highway system - instead they pay a flat fee from petrol taxes. Why bother driving at a different time, using some other form of transport or telecommuting when the cost is the same?
Now, imagine how the same problems would effect a government-run Internet. Backbones would be continually overloaded, because everyone has an incentive to use the maximum bandwidth possible. And of course the Department of the Internet would have no reason to both upgrading the network, because there would be no relationship between end-user satisfaction and income. Or worse still, there would an *inverse* relationship as spending is increased in a futile attempt to solve the capacity problem!
I've heard of poker machines (as they are called in Australia) working like this before from people who worked in the industry. And if you think about it, they are not really 'cheating' people - just because the machine has made a random win/loss decision before you pull the handle makes no difference to the probabilities of winning or losing. It is just as likely that the machine could have decided that you were going to win and then generates that outcome no matter what choice you make.
Of course, if a situation arises in which the machine *always* chooses failure then that would be fraud.
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Why should the fact that money is changing hands effect the morality of some action? Is a hired assassin less moral than some crazy who kills people for 'free'?
And how does the salary of the average american compare to the salary of the average swede? Those vacation days are not exactly free ..
What state mandated insurance?? I live in Victoria, Australia and can insurance is provided totally by private companies. The only state-mandated 'insurance' is an extra licence fee by the TAC to supposedly cover car-related personal injury costs ... which I am sure just goes into general government revenue anyway.
Melbourne and Sydney have trains and trams, but they are a long way from being the primary mode of transport, except for trips to the CBD (downtown). 90%+ of all trips are still taken by car, and the cars ownership rate here in Australia is the 2nd or 3rd highest in the world.
Where does it say that Longhorn will be selling ..
the contents of your hard drive to other people? That kind of indexing sounds more useful for users to search their own drives, not for other people to search them
Even if these Port80 guys are on Microsoft's payroll, the point they make is still quite correct - it make no sense to measure market share by simply counting web hosts. If all the high-traffic web sites on the Internet are running IIS while the numerically greater but less popular remainder are running Apache, can you meaningfully say that Apache has a higher 'market share'?
Unfortunately, short of tracking people's surfing habits or getting access to web server logs, there is no easy way of working out the popularity of a site. Netcraft's method of polling every known webserver is really the only practical method available, if it is not truly accurate.
Currently, ICANN has very little control over the Internet - they merely approve top-level domains and IP address allocation ranges, which is just about the minimum amount of central control necessary for the Internet to operate smoothly.
Even if ICANN was replaced by some corrupt UN body, it would still be unable to cause much harm. The Internet is really just a bunch of networks run by various companies and organizations in different countries that have agreed to connect to each other, in hundreds of different legal juristictions. What possible leverage would ICANN or the ITU have over them?
Reminds me of that Simpsons episode in which Krusty has a generic ad in which he says "I heartily endorse this product or service".
Since these 'mobsters' are merely taking bets from consenting adults, I'd say there are really quite moral. Only a stupid law has turned what should be a perfectly legal activity into a crime, which of course attracts organized crime groups.
Co-incidentally, relatives of a friend of mine operated a very similar business in Malaysia, where gambling is even more heavily restricted than in the US. Naturally, they were little different from the Mafia, and used violence to get ahead. On the other hand, in places like Las Vegas where gambling is mostly legal, you don't see legitimate casino operators putting out contracts on each others' lives.
Conclusion - when the government turns a consensual activity like selling drugs, sex or wagers into a crime, the amount of real violent crime is actually increased.
Wouldn't a near-totalitarian state be needed to implement such a system .. perhaps one sort of like the now-defunct USSR?
How about $340 to myself .. or better still, maybe government could actually just reduce taxes!
I'm the author of this book, so I thought I'd add a comment explaining why the chapters are ordered the way they are. Basically, they follow the categories that modules are grouped under in Webmin itself, so all the system, networking and hardware related topics are covered first (such as users and groups and managing printers), followed by chapters on servers like apache, sendmail and squid.
:-) Rather, you can just read the first few chapters that explain how to set things up, and then skip to the chapters covering the specific servers that you are interested in.
Because it wasn't really written to be read all the way through from start to finish like a novel, the ordering shouldn't matter too much to readers anyway
Oh, and 20k wouldn't buy much in Singapore. The tax on an average car alone is about that!
Why shouldn't people be allowed to sell copyright
if they wish? No-one is forced to sell to the
big music labels - they can just market their
music directly if they wish. Preventing artists
from selling their copyright would actually take
away one of their existing rights!
If it was really that easy, why aren't artists already doing this? Maybe today it might be possible by setting up a website and selling MP3s, but until recently the only way to sell music was on CDs, tapes or vinyl. No singer or songwriter wants to spend his time visiting millions of record stores making deals with each one individually ..
Energy density - 1kg of petrol stores a lot more energy that a 1kg battery for your electric car.
If that was ever actually implemented, wouldn't people just buy songs for the time it takes to play them only, then re-sell them afterwards? In effect, a single transferrable copy of a song could be shared between hundreds of people!
.. However, it may actually be legal under the 'first sale' doctrine.
I can see why music creators would hate this
While regulation of software might sound like a good idea to the anti-Microsoft crowd, consider how it would effect free software developers. Imagine if you couldn't release any software that hasn't been vetted by some government agency - that would be end end of 99% of the open-source projects out there.
..
And even if there were some excemption for not-for-profit developers, what about distribution companies like Redhat? They would be out of business in seconds
Maybe the reason is that companies only turn to fraud when they are already in trouble, in an attempt to delay the inevitable. Well-run companies have no need for it.
Farming is an excellent example - before mechanization, 90% of the population worked in agriculture. Now only 5% do - but are the other 85% sitting around unemployed? Of course not - they have moved on to new jobs that were made possible by the reduction in food production costs.
Gee, maybe the market and technology really *do* solve everything.
As an impartial Australian, its my impression that Europe is a lot less free than the US. For example, in Germany the goverment can veto parents' choice of a childs name - not just stupid names like 'Fuckyou', but supposedly inapropriate ones like 'Jonah'. Then there are all the restrictions on supposedly racist speech, selling Nazi artifacts and so on.
.. in most countries, opening hours for stores are heavily regulated for example. Until just recently, it was illegal to haggle in Germany, and it is still illegal for stores to offer most kinds of discounts!
And don't forget about all the European restrictions on commerce
MS has plenty of good reasons to prevent an OS like Linux running on the X-BOX, apart from simple malice. For example, they supposedly sell the console at a loss and make up the money on licencing fees from game developers. If Linux could be used to run un-signed games, then this revenue stream would disappear!
..
Also, the X-BOX live service avoids the kind of cheating that plagues other multiplayer games by ensuring the clients only run signed non-hacked software. Again, this could be broken if Linux could be used as a loader for artbitrary software
So saving a child from certain death is 'disturbing' now!? Far more worrying are the insane British regulations that almost prevented the parents from undergoing the necessary medical procedures.
This case more than any shows the contempt for human life displayed by the 'bioethics' and anti-bioengineering lobby groups.
Using highways as an analogy shows exact why a 'free' goverment-run network is a bad idea. Look at all the congestion that occurs on highways during peak times - no matter how much the system is expanded or how many new roads are built, it still happens.
The reason is of course that drivers are not charged based on their use of the highway system - instead they pay a flat fee from petrol taxes. Why bother driving at a different time, using some other form of transport or telecommuting when the cost is the same?
Now, imagine how the same problems would effect a government-run Internet. Backbones would be continually overloaded, because everyone has an incentive to use the maximum bandwidth possible. And of course the Department of the Internet would have no reason to both upgrading the network, because there would be no relationship between end-user satisfaction and income. Or worse still, there would an *inverse* relationship as spending is increased in a futile attempt to solve the capacity problem!
I've heard of poker machines (as they are called in Australia) working like this before from people who worked in the industry. And if you think about it, they are not really 'cheating' people - just because the machine has made a random win/loss decision before you pull the handle makes no difference to the probabilities of winning or losing. It is just as likely that the machine could have decided that you were going to win and then generates that outcome no matter what choice you make.
Of course, if a situation arises in which the machine *always* chooses failure then that would be fraud.