The problem with Libertarianism is that people are stupid.
That's the first problem.
The second problem is that people are greedy. Libertarians claim that, if taxes are abolished, people would take all of the money they now pay in taxes and donate it to worthy causes. If you eliminated taxes today, people would spend the money on nicer cars, new clothes, lottery tickets, vacations, consumer electronics, and so forth. When Bill Gates donates money to causes, it doesn't have any impact on his standard of living. But to expect a family of four living on a $40K income to do so is, at best, naive.
I can see it now:
Honey? I know that we've racked up $7,000 in debt on our credit cards, but I was thinking, shouldn't we donate, say, $500 to a study on the effects of non-indigenous migratory birds on native plant species?
Well, my counter-argument to that would be that the program is not as important, if people really don't care about it.
So any science or social program too complex for the public at large to understand or appreciate is unimportant?
If the cause was important enough, a small minority has a way of being vocal, that would draw attention to them nationally, and get them funding.
Many important causes with vocal supporters are underfunded. Sometimes, a cause gets funding because government staffers devote thousands of hours of research into it, understanding the nuances and balancing it against other programs. Voters don't have that kind of time. Time that voters spend studying these causes is time that they are not earning money to donate to these causes.
Have you ever gone through the budget and looked at all of the programs that are funded? Assuming that you felt that even 50% of the programs were worthwhile, would you be willing to spend the man-weeks it would take to write a check to each one of them?
Libertarians seem far too comfortable in the idea of running a grand social experiment to test their theories about human behavior. An experiment, that, if it failed, would be disastrous.
I don't like you or the government assuming that I am incapable of allocating my own money.
I did not say that you were "incapable" of it. I said that the vast majority of taxpayers would fund programs near and dear to their hearts and that, as a result, less compelling, but equally important programs would be harmed.
Instead of expressing your offense, how about countering my logic?
To assume that is basically arguing for socialism.
No, it's arguing for the form of government we have now where our elected representatives are responsible for studying and understanding the thousands of programs out there and apportioning money appropriately.
Of course, if you want freedom, and real development in space technology in the private sector, elect a Libertarian.
While I like much of the Libertarian platform, this is a really good example of why it doesn't work for everything. The private sector simply won't pony-up billions of dollars for pure science, space research.
Another example that I use with a Libertarian friend of mine is the privatization of all charity. Were that to happen, there would be a tremendous amount of money given to organizations working for the good of cute, furry mammals and babies. Those those working for less popular causes would be devastated. The average taxpayer simply would not be willing, or able, to evaluate all of the places that his/her donation could go and would, in the end, pick one or two favorite causes. And protecting the habitat of some kind of sea slug, while important, is unlikely to be in the top 10 for most people.
Blame the guy they appointed President.
on
NASA Satellite Stranded
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I work in the aerospace industry. It's not NASA that needs convincing. It's President Bush. He has cut funding severely on some NASA programs like the International Space Station, where that the U.S. will not even be keeping its promises to its partners. The Pluto-Kuiper Express and Solar Probe were both cancelled due to his budget. He cut $207 million from the overall budget of NASA's Earth Science program, which uses satellites to study the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. (I worked on one of the satellites associated with that program and the satellite is now mothballed at my company.)
If you want rockets to be used in weapons, elect a Republican President. If you want rockets to be used for space exploration and science, elect a Democrat. Just look at history. It was Kennedy who saw space exploration as a source of national pride. He pushed the Apollo program. It was Nixon who cut Apollo short by three landings and basically gutted NASA. Nixon ignored the recommendatons for Mars explorations made by his own task force. He only agreed to fund the development of the space shuttle because it would "bring the price of going into space down".
Reagan pushed NASA and the shuttle into ever-increasing military roles, launching military satellites and contributing to the "Star Wars" efforts. In addition, the Reagan administration directed NASA to cancel one of its ongoing space science missions (the the International Solar Polar mission), and seriously considered terminating the entire solar system exploration program and transferring the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to some other government agency.
Of course, when the main thrust of an administration is tax cuts for the wealthy, it's not surprising when funding for NASA suffers.
Anyway, OpenOffice is not very different from StarOffice, and it's available for free, so what's the big deal?
The "big deal" is that Mandrake formed a legally binding contractual relationship with people who paid $5 per month. They promised that "all membership levels [would] enjoy the same benefits." Now Mandrake is reneging on it's obligations.
I do not understand where you (and other people) got the idea that a company can simply ignore legal obligations whenever it is financially advantageous to do so.
Anyway, OpenOffice is not very different from StarOffice, and it's available for free, so what's the big deal?
Then supply OpenOffice for free and sell StarOffice to those who want to pay for the difference.
Anyway, with the belts getting tightened the world over I really don't mind ponying up $19 for a year's worth of spam-free email. I don't think that's alot to ask. I'll be signing up today.
Ignoring the issue of spam, which was covered by others in depth, the problem with all of these was-free-now-pay e-mail services is that they have not proven to be financially viable yet. Maybe if 10% of their users convert, they will be viable. But what if only 1/10 of 1% convert? Will the e-mail address you gave to coworkers, friends, and family still work?
For that reason, I would sooner switch to an established service like pobox.com than pay money to Yahoo for their grand experiment.
Software engineering, as it is today, is pretty much a misnomer. There is not much about software production that resembles engineering, at least in most shops. I would guess that most programming doesn't adhere exactly to engineering principles - rigid design, development and testing cycles.
Of course it does not. Because the software vendors know that they can hide behind the license they sell. Engineering happens when a company has something to lose by selling a defective product. Right now, if your word processor crashes and you lose hours worth of work, you have no legal recourse, so they have little incentive to make the software bulletproof.
I don't see the need for regulating standard commercial software.
I never suggest regulating it. I said that it should be treated like almost any other product or service. If someone pays for software and it fails to perform reliably and as documented and advertised, the buyer should have the ability to press a lawsuit.
If your business needs high availability mail software, it should be up to YOU to seek out that software and test it yourself.
So you believe that all professional firms that rely on e-mail, from law firms to accounting firms to stock brokers, need to become expert in the SMTP/POP3 protocols and invest thousands of man-hours testing servers that they bought from IBM, Microsoft, and other firms? That's absurd.
If you pay an electrician, accountant, or plumber, you have legal recourse if they don't do their job right. But when they buy your software, you think that you should be shielded from legal responsibility? If so, why?
GPS works. It works very well. So does GLONASS. There is no reason why, in the 21st century, someone should be navigating with a compass when two handheld GPS units would fit in a jacket pocket.
I'm sure that I'll get flamed by people with all kinds of absurd scenarios about the satellites going offline, batteries dying, and interference from migratory waterfowl. So be it. If someone mounting a wilderness expedition can't be trusted to pack batteries and spares for their equipment, then they need to stay home and watch National Geographic Explorer on television.
Do you have any idea how it would cripple the software industry if they operated under the constant threat of product liability suits?
Oh no! Then we would be under the same, crippling rules as just about every other industry on the planet. Microsoft, IBM, Symantec, et al, would actually need to make a due-diligence effort to fix bugs rather than add new, unnecessary features and eye candy.
Software engineering is not some kind of black magic. It's no different than any other form of complex engineering, be it passenger jets to modern automobiles. To do it right requires care, time, diligence, and testing. If software companies dedicated 1/10 the effort to testing their products that they do to marketing them, 99.99% of problems would be caught before the products ever shipped.
I guess what it comes down to is this: If you are truly a software engineer, then you should embrace time-proven engineering principles and stop hiding behind the "we're just selling a license" cop-out.
1. This puts the burden of doing this on the ISPs, who will remain uncompensated. While AOL can amortize the cost of processing the blocking list across millions of subscribers, the little ISPs don't have that kind of user base. Penn. should pay the ISPs for their costs to do this.
2. How will an ISP block access to kiddie porn websites when people try to access them through, say, www.anonymizer.com? The ISPs would have to mount a man-in-the-middle attack and decrypt all such traffic.
3. The Attorney General is being given the power to simply declare something as being kiddie porn without a judge, jury, or trial. I can easily see them shutting down a web site that consisted of erotic photos of young looking, but legal age, adults. Worse still, I can see a born-again-Christian-zealot Attorney General defining kiddie porn to further their own agenda. It could include everything from Japanes anime sites to sites devoted to helping prevent the spread of STDs among teens.
ISPs should not become uncompensated censors for the government.
No, they do not. And unlike you, I'll back up what I say with specs:
IBM 120GXP peak current: 12V/2.0A, 5V/.74A Maxtor Fireball Plus AS: 12V/2.4A, 5V/.90A Western Digital WD1000JB: 12V/2.2A, 5V/.55A
IBM 120GXP idle current: 6.7W Maxtor Fireball Plus AS: 7.5W Western Digital WD1000JB: 7.25W
The IBM drive uses more power than some and less than others. It is just about normal in its power consumption. Next time, do your research before claiming that someone is wrong.
I sent the following e-mail to the CEO of Sirius Radio:
Dear Mr. Clayton,
I am astounded that Sirius Radio would petition the FCC to cripple 2.4ghz devices (http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article/0,,1 0692_992321,00.html), including everything from cordless 2.4ghz DSS telephones to RF Internet/data networks for something as wholly unimportant and unappealing as "satellite radio." Your "service" does not even exist yet! Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
Your actions are analogous to a moped manufacturer petitioning the government to reduce all speed limits to 25mph to prevent cars from "interfering" with mopeds. Well, it would be analogous if the moped manufacturer had not actually produced any mopeds at the time of the petition.
Five years from now, long after Sirius Radio is out of business, the 2.4ghz power restrictions you have petitioned the FCC to put into place will, if enacted, still be hurting consumers (including Sirius Radio's former customers) and businesses throughout the United States.
If you choose to buy a product where the mafacturer makes no claims for the product, and doesn't guarantee its safety, then that's your business.
And if you insist on only buying software for which the manufacturer guarantees the performance and safety of the product then you will be out of business!
I know of no major piece of commercial PC software in existence that comes with a performance guarantee. It doesn't matter if you are talking about Windows, Partition Magic, Microsoft Office, Borland C++ Builder, or Quake III. Every one of them has language disclaiming responsibility if their software malfunctions.
In the long run, consumer education will acomplish more than state intervention.
Right. We'll educate consumers about software performance guarantees and then they can demand that Microsoft and other software publishers provide such guarantees. Then the software publishers will refuse. And what will the next step be in your world sans consumer protection laws?
Most businesses that contract software have an SLA (service-level agreement); if the software doesn't meet certian standards, the supplier must pay a penalty. For the most part, the more serious potential problems are handled privately, without the need for some sweeping government iron hand.
And how does that help some small business when they buy a copy of Windows* and it hoses, costing them hours of work? How does that help them if Outlook Express cheerfully formats someone's hard drive because some kid in Brazil sent a virus-infected e-mail that exploited yet another Windows/HTML/Javascript/VBscript/etc. flaw? Most businesses buy and use commercial software for which there is no SLA available. Ever try to get Microsoft to agree to an SLA?
I am a software engineer and have been for over 20 years. I am still astounded by the "everyone except us" attitude. Why should we hold Boeing liable if one of their jets has an engineering flaw that kills people? The engineering in a commercial jet is far more complex than the engineering in 99.99% of the commercial software that's been written. The same can be said of automobiles, skyscrapers, submarines, satellites, and nuclear reactors. But we don't exempt the companies the produce those items from legal liability.
And don't tell me that "software flaws don't kill people." Software flaws in aircraft and medical equipment have already killed people. When a software flaw takes the phones down and people can't call 911, it can kill people.
So, you loaned large sums of money to an insolvent company that was named Loki, after the Norse God of Evil and Mischief? And they haven't paid you back? Who would have guessed?
From this link, you can save the entire 31MB movie to hard disk and play it whenever you want without downloading it again. I'm sure that they'll appreciate me doing this to help reduce the load on their server.
To see my full review, go to Peterswift.org/ html [peterswift.org]
Does Jon Katz post stuff on that web site that says "To see my full review, go to http://slashdot.org"? These are supposed to be Slashdot reader comments. If you want to advertise on Slashdot, go to this link. You will find all of the information on rates, ad types, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with Libertarianism is that people are stupid.
That's the first problem.
The second problem is that people are greedy. Libertarians claim that, if taxes are abolished, people would take all of the money they now pay in taxes and donate it to worthy causes. If you eliminated taxes today, people would spend the money on nicer cars, new clothes, lottery tickets, vacations, consumer electronics, and so forth. When Bill Gates donates money to causes, it doesn't have any impact on his standard of living. But to expect a family of four living on a $40K income to do so is, at best, naive.
I can see it now:
Honey? I know that we've racked up $7,000 in debt on our credit cards, but I was thinking, shouldn't we donate, say, $500 to a study on the effects of non-indigenous migratory birds on native plant species?
Well, my counter-argument to that would be that the program is not as important, if people really don't care about it.
So any science or social program too complex for the public at large to understand or appreciate is unimportant?
If the cause was important enough, a small minority has a way of being vocal, that would draw attention to them nationally, and get them funding.
Many important causes with vocal supporters are underfunded. Sometimes, a cause gets funding because government staffers devote thousands of hours of research into it, understanding the nuances and balancing it against other programs. Voters don't have that kind of time. Time that voters spend studying these causes is time that they are not earning money to donate to these causes.
Have you ever gone through the budget and looked at all of the programs that are funded? Assuming that you felt that even 50% of the programs were worthwhile, would you be willing to spend the man-weeks it would take to write a check to each one of them?
Libertarians seem far too comfortable in the idea of running a grand social experiment to test their theories about human behavior. An experiment, that, if it failed, would be disastrous.
I don't like you or the government assuming that I am incapable of allocating my own money.
I did not say that you were "incapable" of it. I said that the vast majority of taxpayers would fund programs near and dear to their hearts and that, as a result, less compelling, but equally important programs would be harmed.
Instead of expressing your offense, how about countering my logic?
To assume that is basically arguing for socialism.
No, it's arguing for the form of government we have now where our elected representatives are responsible for studying and understanding the thousands of programs out there and apportioning money appropriately.
Of course, if you want freedom, and real development in space technology in the private sector, elect a Libertarian.
While I like much of the Libertarian platform, this is a really good example of why it doesn't work for everything. The private sector simply won't pony-up billions of dollars for pure science, space research.
Another example that I use with a Libertarian friend of mine is the privatization of all charity. Were that to happen, there would be a tremendous amount of money given to organizations working for the good of cute, furry mammals and babies. Those those working for less popular causes would be devastated. The average taxpayer simply would not be willing, or able, to evaluate all of the places that his/her donation could go and would, in the end, pick one or two favorite causes. And protecting the habitat of some kind of sea slug, while important, is unlikely to be in the top 10 for most people.
I work in the aerospace industry. It's not NASA that needs convincing. It's President Bush. He has cut funding severely on some NASA programs like the International Space Station, where that the U.S. will not even be keeping its promises to its partners. The Pluto-Kuiper Express and Solar Probe were both cancelled due to his budget. He cut $207 million from the overall budget of NASA's Earth Science program, which uses satellites to study the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. (I worked on one of the satellites associated with that program and the satellite is now mothballed at my company.)
If you want rockets to be used in weapons, elect a Republican President. If you want rockets to be used for space exploration and science, elect a Democrat. Just look at history. It was Kennedy who saw space exploration as a source of national pride. He pushed the Apollo program. It was Nixon who cut Apollo short by three landings and basically gutted NASA. Nixon ignored the recommendatons for Mars explorations made by his own task force. He only agreed to fund the development of the space shuttle because it would "bring the price of going into space down".
Reagan pushed NASA and the shuttle into ever-increasing military roles, launching military satellites and contributing to the "Star Wars" efforts. In addition, the Reagan administration directed NASA to cancel one of its ongoing space science missions (the the International Solar Polar mission), and seriously considered terminating the entire solar system exploration program and transferring the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to some other government agency.
Of course, when the main thrust of an administration is tax cuts for the wealthy, it's not surprising when funding for NASA suffers.
Anyway, OpenOffice is not very different from StarOffice, and it's available for free, so what's the big deal?
The "big deal" is that Mandrake formed a legally binding contractual relationship with people who paid $5 per month. They promised that "all membership levels [would] enjoy the same benefits." Now Mandrake is reneging on it's obligations.
I do not understand where you (and other people) got the idea that a company can simply ignore legal obligations whenever it is financially advantageous to do so.
Anyway, OpenOffice is not very different from StarOffice, and it's available for free, so what's the big deal?
Then supply OpenOffice for free and sell StarOffice to those who want to pay for the difference.
Anyway, with the belts getting tightened the world over I really don't mind ponying up $19 for a year's worth of spam-free email. I don't think that's alot to ask. I'll be signing up today.
Ignoring the issue of spam, which was covered by others in depth, the problem with all of these was-free-now-pay e-mail services is that they have not proven to be financially viable yet. Maybe if 10% of their users convert, they will be viable. But what if only 1/10 of 1% convert? Will the e-mail address you gave to coworkers, friends, and family still work?
For that reason, I would sooner switch to an established service like pobox.com than pay money to Yahoo for their grand experiment.
Software engineering, as it is today, is pretty much a misnomer. There is not much about software production that resembles engineering, at least in most shops. I would guess that most programming doesn't adhere exactly to engineering principles - rigid design, development and testing cycles.
Of course it does not. Because the software vendors know that they can hide behind the license they sell. Engineering happens when a company has something to lose by selling a defective product. Right now, if your word processor crashes and you lose hours worth of work, you have no legal recourse, so they have little incentive to make the software bulletproof.
I don't see the need for regulating standard commercial software.
I never suggest regulating it. I said that it should be treated like almost any other product or service. If someone pays for software and it fails to perform reliably and as documented and advertised, the buyer should have the ability to press a lawsuit.
If your business needs high availability mail software, it should be up to YOU to seek out that software and test it yourself.
So you believe that all professional firms that rely on e-mail, from law firms to accounting firms to stock brokers, need to become expert in the SMTP/POP3 protocols and invest thousands of man-hours testing servers that they bought from IBM, Microsoft, and other firms? That's absurd.
If you pay an electrician, accountant, or plumber, you have legal recourse if they don't do their job right. But when they buy your software, you think that you should be shielded from legal responsibility? If so, why?
GPS works. It works very well. So does GLONASS. There is no reason why, in the 21st century, someone should be navigating with a compass when two handheld GPS units would fit in a jacket pocket.
I'm sure that I'll get flamed by people with all kinds of absurd scenarios about the satellites going offline, batteries dying, and interference from migratory waterfowl. So be it. If someone mounting a wilderness expedition can't be trusted to pack batteries and spares for their equipment, then they need to stay home and watch National Geographic Explorer on television.
Do you have any idea how it would cripple the software industry if they operated under the constant threat of product liability suits?
Oh no! Then we would be under the same, crippling rules as just about every other industry on the planet. Microsoft, IBM, Symantec, et al, would actually need to make a due-diligence effort to fix bugs rather than add new, unnecessary features and eye candy.
Software engineering is not some kind of black magic. It's no different than any other form of complex engineering, be it passenger jets to modern automobiles. To do it right requires care, time, diligence, and testing. If software companies dedicated 1/10 the effort to testing their products that they do to marketing them, 99.99% of problems would be caught before the products ever shipped.
I guess what it comes down to is this: If you are truly a software engineer, then you should embrace time-proven engineering principles and stop hiding behind the "we're just selling a license" cop-out.
> What exactly is the problem here??
Several things actually:
1. This puts the burden of doing this on the ISPs, who will remain uncompensated. While AOL can amortize the cost of processing the blocking list across millions of subscribers, the little ISPs don't have that kind of user base. Penn. should pay the ISPs for their costs to do this.
2. How will an ISP block access to kiddie porn websites when people try to access them through, say, www.anonymizer.com? The ISPs would have to mount a man-in-the-middle attack and decrypt all such traffic.
3. The Attorney General is being given the power to simply declare something as being kiddie porn without a judge, jury, or trial. I can easily see them shutting down a web site that consisted of erotic photos of young looking, but legal age, adults. Worse still, I can see a born-again-Christian-zealot Attorney General defining kiddie porn to further their own agenda. It could include everything from Japanes anime sites to sites devoted to helping prevent the spread of STDs among teens.
ISPs should not become uncompensated censors for the government.
No, they do not. And unlike you, I'll back up what I say with specs:
IBM 120GXP peak current: 12V/2.0A, 5V/.74A
Maxtor Fireball Plus AS: 12V/2.4A, 5V/.90A
Western Digital WD1000JB: 12V/2.2A, 5V/.55A
IBM 120GXP idle current: 6.7W
Maxtor Fireball Plus AS: 7.5W
Western Digital WD1000JB: 7.25W
The IBM drive uses more power than some and less than others. It is just about normal in its power consumption. Next time, do your research before claiming that someone is wrong.
How will people use their 1,000 free hours of AOL in 45 days if their hard drive, and hence their PC, can only be on 333 hours per month?
Most of Slashdot thinks "Resident Evil" refers to the installations of Windows and Office on their home computers.
If you choose to buy a product where the mafacturer makes no claims for the product, and doesn't guarantee its safety, then that's your business.
And if you insist on only buying software for which the manufacturer guarantees the performance and safety of the product then you will be out of business!
I know of no major piece of commercial PC software in existence that comes with a performance guarantee. It doesn't matter if you are talking about Windows, Partition Magic, Microsoft Office, Borland C++ Builder, or Quake III. Every one of them has language disclaiming responsibility if their software malfunctions.
In the long run, consumer education will acomplish more than state intervention.
Right. We'll educate consumers about software performance guarantees and then they can demand that Microsoft and other software publishers provide such guarantees. Then the software publishers will refuse. And what will the next step be in your world sans consumer protection laws?
Most businesses that contract software have an SLA (service-level agreement); if the software doesn't meet certian standards, the supplier must pay a penalty. For the most part, the more serious potential problems are handled privately, without the need for some sweeping government iron hand.
And how does that help some small business when they buy a copy of Windows* and it hoses, costing them hours of work? How does that help them if Outlook Express cheerfully formats someone's hard drive because some kid in Brazil sent a virus-infected e-mail that exploited yet another Windows/HTML/Javascript/VBscript/etc. flaw? Most businesses buy and use commercial software for which there is no SLA available. Ever try to get Microsoft to agree to an SLA?
I am a software engineer and have been for over 20 years. I am still astounded by the "everyone except us" attitude. Why should we hold Boeing liable if one of their jets has an engineering flaw that kills people? The engineering in a commercial jet is far more complex than the engineering in 99.99% of the commercial software that's been written. The same can be said of automobiles, skyscrapers, submarines, satellites, and nuclear reactors. But we don't exempt the companies the produce those items from legal liability.
And don't tell me that "software flaws don't kill people." Software flaws in aircraft and medical equipment have already killed people. When a software flaw takes the phones down and people can't call 911, it can kill people.
They are blocking ALL non Apple, non Lucas HTTP referrals, it seems, not just Slashdot. I tried linking from my own personal page, and it failed.
That's why I said to turn off referrer logging in the broswer or through a third-party app. like Proxomitron. Just checked. It works fine.
I can just hear the credit card company now:
So, you loaned large sums of money to an insolvent company that was named Loki, after the Norse God of Evil and Mischief? And they haven't paid you back? Who would have guessed?
How much more warning do people need?
We had offices, not cubicles :-)
I am sure that is what they told you.
Where is my paycheck?
You don't need to see a paycheck.
I don't need to see a paycheck.
You don't need to be reimbursed for your credit card purchases.
I don't need to be reimbursed for my credit card purchses.
You can go back to your cubicle.
I can go back to my cubicle.
Move along.
Employee shuffles off.
They now block referrer Slashdot, so:
1. Turn off referrer logging if you have Opera.
2. If you don't use Opera but do use Proxomitron, use that to turn off referrer.
3. If neither of the above is an option for you, cut the link and paste it into a new instance of your browser.
Happy hunting!
now if only i cared enough to watch it.
You care enough to read about it, read people's comments about it, download it, but don't care enough to watch it? I'm confused.
Here's the (hidden) direct link to the movie in "large format" (640x288):
e /ep2_clone_war_p640.mov
http://starwars.apple.com/ep2/clone_war/media/gat
From this link, you can save the entire 31MB movie to hard disk and play it whenever you want without downloading it again. I'm sure that they'll appreciate me doing this to help reduce the load on their server.
To see my full review, go to Peterswift.org/ html [peterswift.org]
Does Jon Katz post stuff on that web site that says "To see my full review, go to http://slashdot.org"? These are supposed to be Slashdot reader comments. If you want to advertise on Slashdot, go to this link. You will find all of the information on rates, ad types, etc.