* Tired of the location Olympic games being picked based on a bribe-fest (with your tax dollars as the ante money)
Pretty much, but then I don't like the political aspects of the old olympic choosing. I don't really know a realistic great way to do it. I wish people could just pick a place for it's beauty and ability to host the games. I'll raise my hand on this one, even though I offer no solution.
* Tired of your tax dollars going towards facilities that most often are never used again
Yup, not a big fan of govt stepping in on this one. I'm a small govt type of person. Private industry can provide for it quite well.
* Tired of being shown only the most 'marketable' events or not seeing them at all, because only one news source is granted "rights"
Very much. It always seems I'm interested in the smaller sports. Though, for some reason, curling always seems to get *a lot* of air time during the winter olympics. I don't mind that - if you like curling great, I just don't really know why it's singled out of the "lesser" sports (with respect to itnerested viewers). Eh.
* Tired of the drama
Eh, I've never payed it much mind. Most of it is manufactured by a media needing ratings anyway.
* Tired of people who happen to be good at a particular sport getting acts of congress to instantly give them citizenship while hard-working, tax-paying greencarders have to wait years and pass exams
Somewhat. I guess I care less about this one than most of the ones you list. IMO they bring in enough money for it to be worth it. They typically work longer hours and much more physical than most of the "hard-working" and, because of thier endorsements, pay a much higher tax rate and amount. If hard-working tax-paying is your litmus test these guys are grand and should be flitted right through. I rather suspect you mean that thier impact on society is pretty much worthless compared to, say, a brick layer. Though that is a matter of argument.
* Tired of the olympic committee getting special legislation to protect its interests and giving it the ability to shut down businesses simply because they contain the word "olympic" in their title
Oh yea, not a big fan of govt controls. Much more of an Adam Smith type of person here. Artifical controls should only be used in extreme cases or for short periods of time (such as the original patent and copyright laws - not what we have today).
* Tired of the drug scandals and an IOC obviously looking the other way, like virtually every other major sports sanctioning body
Eh, another one to hard for me to get worked up about. If you are a big sports fan I can see it, I'm not. I just watch it once every four years and only care about the "oooh neat move" factor. I'm not particularly aware of any incidents of this, but then again not caring I wouldn't know.
* Tired of "for the sport" or "for the joy of competition" having turned into "for the money", right down to the recent decision by the IOC to allow athletes to be paid endorsements and more
This is the only one I really disagree with. It's been many many years (if ever) that it was truly "for the sport" or "joy of competition". For many countries there were no such thing as profesional so thier equivilent were the olympic teams. Even then, most of the western teams were not really "for the sport" - they were semi-professional looking to get that big contract. If you ever really thought that the majority would do it no matter what you were naive. Had it ever been this great alturistic thing t
It's 70% free compared to what? I don't know. As we explore the depths - do we have any baseline to compare too or is this normal? One possible explaination - what are the others? How good are the others?
The article cited is so horrid on this I can't get worked up over it. I have no idea what the 70% means, is this compared to known baselines or less than someone somewhere expected, or is it something else?
I suspect that the original scientific article would clear much of this up, but the report quoted is about as horrid as one can get. I'm not sure if you tried you get any less informed from this. Maybe it has dire ecological warnings - but all I can get is "Someone somewhere thinks something might not be what they expect but have never observed" - which isn't much to get worried over.
At least it didn't make the front page of slashdot.
The main difference here is that Sony didn't do anything considered illegal (some may try and construe it to be, but it is not conisdered so by federal regulations - your state laws may and will vary). This is more like if the police pulled you over for going the speed limit and told you "If everyone doesn't self regulate and go a little slower we will lower the speed limit".
You, yourself said it: "It seems to say, if you do it again, only then will make it illegal so you can't do it a third time." which is what the govt does quite often before hitting people with the Law Bat.
Interestingly enough this could be a Big Brother Evil(TM) threat - "do what we want or else" or the govt finally getting it's head out of it's ass. That view is totally dependent on if you think Sony's rootkit to fight piracy is a correct thing or a incorrect thing. It's totally amusing the number of people who are OK with this threat but not others (with the ones they are not being "Threats are wrong"). (not that you did this - read others on this whole thread)
Personally I would just assume see the legislation passed and be done with it. I don't like the threats, even when I agree with what the outcome of the threats are. It's not illegal now and this type of thing needs to be outlawed otherwise it will just happen over and over and over.
My parents fought broadband for years and years even though the accessed some work related stuff through the interenet (subdivision maps, deeds, and some other documents from the local court house). The never could see why there was any reason to pay 55 dollars a month plus, because of the wiring in the house not being available, a wireless access point and card.
I told them time after time that the map that took them 15 minutes to load would be nearly instant (comcast has 8mbit down here). One day thier modem finally kicked the bucket and I needed a new wireless switch/card so I made them a deal - purchase the one I want, try broadband for a month and if you do not like it I will buy the card/switch. At the end of the first day my father ask "Why didn't we ever use this before - I saved over an hour of time in *one* day!". Of course, I had to be that smart ass son and pointed out I've said that for about two years now:) They can not stand to use dialup any more - it's amusing to hear dad telling someone to go look at some funny video he found.
For them "price" would have been listed as a reason, though mostly because telling them how much faster doesn't make sense - for most it has to be something used and internally felt. I suspect that, as you said, the largest portion of those that say they don't need it would suddenly not be able to live without once they used it some. I've never driven a Ferrari and can't really imagine how it feels, many have never used broadband and can't raelly comprehend how much faster things happen.
There are two issues. First, does this make sense within Austrailia's laws. Two, is this the right thing to do.
Obviously it makes sense within them. As many have pointed out that thier laws ban games that fall into a rating above thier maximum - thus it makes sense. So, from that "context" it is OK. This is where many of the supporters stops and, IMO, is a very bad precedent.
Next, we have is this the proper thing for the govt to do? So, lets take an extreme example. right now, in China, you can be jailed and executed for speaking certain things (see some of the cases where Yahoo has given over Bloggers). It makes perfect sense within thier lwas - it is even internally logical and is relativly effective from their point of view (that is, other than "rights violation" there isn't much you can throw against it). If we view it "in context" we must conlcude that not only is it OK to do, it is the proper path thier govt should take as it is simply following their rules. However, I bet most of us here (including you) disagree with that as "rights violations" is a pretty big thing and this os where most of the posts I have read so far are arguing.
Thus, I rather suspect that what you, and many of the other apologist, are using as the be all and end all argument is not one - otherwise you would support this type of thing (and if you do support it, then I guess I don't really have an argument against you other than I think you ought to go live in one of the areas for a while). Instead of arguing that "It makes sense within thier laws" you should be arguing why it is a proper thing to do. If all it takes is that it makes sense within thier laws even genocide can be accepted as right and proper.
General consumers do not care about privacy until they get bit by it or a "trustworthy" news agency makes it sound like the whole world will collapse.
That's not really being stupid - just relativly uneducated and most people are too busy with other things to really think it through. I talk people out of using this type of stuff all the time - simply tell them how it can be abused. Until then they usually just look at the marketing hype about how useful it is when it works.
The first major public group that looses something important through a lack of privacy and it will stop. Just as people didn't lock doors at the turn of the century (who cared about privacy?) once it was obvious it was going to be taken advantage of it changed. Though it will probably swing back too far the other way in trusting almost nothing.
But hey, maybe they will fix thier privacy issues too, it *could* happen.
Yes, it is. But that's irrepective of *will it work*.
Anyone remeber Microsoft Bob - this great thing they were going to force on us?
The thing that companies like Microsoft never seem to get is the an "all or nothing" idea will eventually get a "nothing" as the answer. Will Vista be the one that gets "nothing"? I don't know, most consumers do not really care as long as everything works.
I mean, for all I know my Sprite is infected with DRM stuff to keep people from figuring out all the ingredients - I don't know as long as it tastes the same and is easy to use. The day that Coke makes it such that I have to use the official Coke opening tool to drink sprite and it must be replaced every time they change their bottle I will quit drinking Sprite.
Of course, there is something silly in that - Sprite isn't a computer and can't have DRM. But the theory is the same. You can put all the restrictions you want on anything, but once it makes something where you can not use it it makes your product die. When music, movies, and games take jumping through hoops to use few will use them. Heck, even on mission critical software that places have little choice over (like the old dongles) eventually went to the wayside because of it (or the company got rid of the stupid requirements).
And that's pretty much the way it should be. They have every right to ask us to do that just as I have every right to say "Nope, not gonna do it". The problem is that they are trying to remove my ability to say "nope" (I don't mean piracy, I mean attacks on GPL and other liscenses and competing software).
You know the neat thing? Wether you believe in the religion or not they even knew this to be a bad idea *thousands* of years ago. That it will be used for Bad Things. Just goes to show that ancient people were not stupid and could foresee what certain things would mean just as well as we can.
Sorta says something about modern people who think this is really neato and institute it at thier company.
That's fine - it's a valid option. I'm pretty much an OS agnostic - anything goes. I should probably amend with that option, I've struggled with how many options to need (I need too, personally, deicide where I actually stand as all options I see are very desireable, but it is a hard choice). As there are many varying only in small part, though still most fall into those two categories. I'm undecided as to if that if is a third option, or just a weaker option of the other two (in that you don't really care about the political stuff - just that Linux stays a viable option but "winning" is irrelevant - along the lines of the "non-political" option just a weaker version). Eh, I'll generally let you guys that choose that path decide, though I probably agree with you more than the politcal end of the movement.
The problem I have is those that want something that isn't achievable and get angry that isn't happening. I don't think what I write will have much impact, but I still keep on keeping on:)
Another way of putting it is do you want a political tool or a software tool?
It's a question the community is going to have to answer at some point. Most businesses couldn't care less about the political end - they just want to make money. Right or wrong they see this type of posturing as very bad - there is a fear if a business had totally switched over to Linux and the political end wins with the liscense destroying thier business model. Something that has been somewhat confirmed with this type of thing. It drives away a lot of the smaller developers (ones who make plugins, specialised software, and other such things) away from Linux and keeps many companies from switching (how many companies might have been on the line were turned away based on the reaction of Nvidia's binary drivers - if proliferation of Linux is the goal that was a Bad Thing). As I had said in a nother thread until the larger Linux conferances (and thus the community) start allowing commercial enterprises that do not have thier little bit opensourced into thier lineup Linux will always play second fiddle outside of the server market.
Now, if yout goal is not to have Linux everywhere and be the main OS but have it as a political statement/tool then the above is irrelevant. GPL3 looks to be a great step if that is what your goal is.
Neither idea is superior to the other, but you must either choose one or take what others choose for you. Trying to have both is a pipe dream and will equate to choosing the more restrictive one - the political end (you can not force freedom).
I don't really know what the "fast track" in the FDA means, though I seriously doubt that what you are afraid of would be a consequence. Not because I think the govt is infallable or some great entity, but they will always err on the side of caution - CYA is the name of thier game. The few years I spent working as a govt contractor "fast track" meant "twice as slow as you need" vs "5 times as slow as is normal", though it cost 10 times as much to go that way (of course, numbers are only a "feel" - I never really sat down and ran them).
"Another thing though, is this drug patented, or will this be cheaply available for everyone who needs it, especially AIDS ravaged countried in Africa."
I highly suspect the answer is "Yes" (assuming it is real - my guess is it's not and this whole thing is irrelevant for now). It will be patented and in first world contries that most have insurance and it will be expensive. There will most likely be some initial govt subsidies. Third world countries will either ignore the patent or get it cheaper. That's the pattern most medicines like this follow - those of us that can afford it pay a huge price for our medicine. We pay for the research, development, and testing to create safe and useful drugs - somebody has too. The rest of the world pays as well as they can or are willing too.
Yes, it sucks to be us and yes there are some that fall through the cracks. But in the long run it creates a MUCH better world to live in. Better to have the drag later than never if those are the only options.
Then again if we are talking a verfied cure for AIDS, cure for cancer, or sustainable cold fusion I bet those places would kinda over look that you blabbed. The presteige of running the scientific article that verfied it would be enormous, none of them would give up the next few decades of being the article most cited and credited with being the publication that ran the first real proof. However, the reasearchers would most likely pay for it with less than a find of a century papers they submit, but then with enough fame they may not also.
Maybe, maybe not. It could mean quite a few different things.
It could also mean that the rest of the Linux world is pretty decent - I see no reason to ask for a word processing suite, DHCP servers, printer control, compilers, or many other sorts of products. In quite a number of those cases I prefer the Linux tool above the windows one anyway.
This didn't really ask why you were not using Linux or what it needs to do for you to use, it asked what windows only (though they fail this in that several of thier choices are on a Mac also - they really mean "not ported to Linux) might keep you from it.
For most there isn't going to be a single hard reason. It's like a lot of other things - I can name individual ideas that certain politicians have that I don't like, yet there aren't any real single issues that make or break me. Though if asked I could probably name my number one issue - but simply fixing it will most likely not change too much.
What this most likely tells me is that Photoshop is one of those applications that many people use (and I bet mostly pirated) and don't really want to part with. If all thier other problems were fixed then they may change. Of course for any business that photoshop is a hard requirement it most likely isn't going to switch over either.
Heck I use Linux quite a bit, am a software engineer, and one of my main gripes is not having photoshop (for the reason I initially stated - the Opensource option is either 98% as good or better in all the other apps I use. You will note I use openoffice even though I can easily get a liscense for Office). The other is lack of games, since my main home computer is gaming/image-video processing I use windows, the rest of my machines are Linux. If you had a good image processor and Wine played my games decently (or they had Linux clients) I wouldn't look back.
They give quite a few points to consider, and I'm sure they all factor in. But most of them are just "I don't want to change" - while that is a valid idea (for a busness you need to justify the cost in retraining - just doing it for political reasons rarely works), but cost may eventaully be a factor. Especially if Photoshop tends to become the only platform stopping the migration.
However, those are just essentially icing on the cake with the other main problem (and I focus on it more because it's a universal problem):
"Another problem, according to my buddies, is that besides Photoshop itself, there are hundreds of Photoshop plug-in programs. Of those, everyone has their handful of favorites that they use on most of their projects. GIMP simply doesn't have anything close to this sort of third-party add-on software community."
With something like that, it's not a "I do not want too" but a "I can not". The 8bit problem would be in the same class.
There are many GPL software platforms out there that compete well in functionality with their commercial counterparts. I know my parents would love switching to Linux if they could (based on cost) but even if there is a comparable program to Autocad there isn't a land surveying plugin comparable to Eaglepoint and most likely never will be (unless Autocad is ever ported to Linux and enough land surveyors switch). It's not a matter of want or ease of use - they can not get thier work done under Linux.
There is something of wondering why the smaller companies will not port, after all many of them support different Unix variants. Ultimatly when I've asked with the few tertiary software producers I use it's generally the same problem - the political end of Linux is a big turnoff.
It's something I've felt strongly about for quite a while (but can't make up my mind which path to follow). Linux - and it's community of people and projects - is at or nearing a point where it is going to have to decide if they want to be commercial or play second fiddle. Rightly or wrongly, too many people are turned off by the strong political movement. Commercial software is not going to be political - that eats into profits. Even the companies like IBM that have been pretty strong in OpenSource work tend to use it because it benefits thier bottom line. People may want both, and some people may be happy with both, but the general business community is not going to accept it (again, rightly or wrongly it doesn't matter - there are times I don't like gravity and wish it were not so but it doesn't change anything).
I'm not saying the political end is bad or inferior (this particular post is biased towards commercial acceptance because of the parent article) - I really like the GPL and the OpenSource philosophy. If that is the direction the community chooses fine by me, I like it. But I don't think it's possible to do both, too many smaller companies that can not make money from service - only from selling - are not going to embrace Linux. Yes I know they do not have too, but the community is still bent towards it to the point that most are not going to enter into it - can you imagine if ALS or OLS were flooded with smaller companies selling software (such as major Windows conferences are)? It's what is going to have to happen for general Linux acceptance (either it happens first, as a consequence of acceptance, or conferences like ALS and OLS become small irrelevant conferances and the ones that embrace it are the big ones - thus you must choose one over the other). Not to mention smaller companies noticing how the community reacts to places like Nvidia giving binary only drivers (again, if you want to focus on the political espects perfectly fine, if you want general commercial acceptance it really hurts to do it). It's not the big companies blocking it - they go where the money is and have plenty of money to shift if they need too, it's the myriad small, specialised, and essential tools that are stopping it. There is little talk or focus on these types of applications but they probably make up a larger percentage of make or break software for many companies.
Not really. Even if I had wanted too I wouldn't have any idea who to report too. In the grand hierarchy I was pretty much as low as you go and still be a researcher. Nor did I see any reason too - it wasn't really a secret. I mean they were posting on open newsgroups from thier version of a.mil site. Plus most of this was pre-9/11 - afterwards the amount of questions from marginal sites really dropped and my contract was not renewed a few years later.
As to how far, no idea. I would rather suspect that intelligence agencies knew far more about it than I. And even had they given enough info I'm a computer scientists and couldn't reall tell. The thing is if a your getting a post from a Chinese research agency talking about modelling flows of particulates in the atmosphere and you note that the person in question has a degree in nuclear engineering it's kinda obvious (especially given our nuke people asked the same things and only they did). Sometimes they might even come out and say something along the lines of "We are modelling nuclear fallout patterns and need help".
We do the same thing - it could be benign or malicious. One of the groups we sometimes worked with did it. Some of it was to find evacuation lanes, to try and figure out where a bomb was likely to go off, and mostly things like that. None of that was classified so I actually could know some about it. I can only assume that similar stuff was used to figure out where best to deploy nuclear weapons also - if it was not used to do that then the people who dole out DOD money need to be beaten with a clue stick (for one thing the benign end of the deal is more DOE stuff).
They could even have been using it in preperation for nuclear power plants. But, even if it were, it is trivial to use it for weapons. And like needing to beat the DOD people if they don't do it, I can assure you that every country on the planet with the computing resources does exactly that. I don't intend to help enemy countries in that goal.
Othertimes you may not know anything about it other than the installation they are from. Say if it was a post from something named like "Department or Defense" or "Cabinet of War" you pretty much got the picture.
As I said, it was best to rationalise it. I tended to hope that it would never aid them in an attack and help them save people and realise that is the price of freedom.
"The page linked to is that of the woman's lawyer. "Let's automatically believe something the lawyer said" is the last thing I'd ascribe to the typical Slashdot reader. The fact that you're doing so, you're openly admitting it, and you're +5 is really quite astonishing. Well done, my good man. But in case you (and the people who modded you up) weren't aware, of course her lawyer is going to try to convince people that she's innocent. That's what lawyers are paid to do."
That's silly. First off Lawyers aren't supposed to lie. Yes, I know like any human they are motiated by money to some extent, but the original poster said "Let's assume" which means - well - to assume it's the truth. Given his statement if it turns out to be a lie then the rest is worthless. Like any "If..then.." statement the later clause is only relevant if the "if" part is true. That's basic programming logic and as a slashdot user I'n shocked you don't see this. It's amusing that you want the RIAA to have every case stand on it's own but lawyers in general to be derided. There is no reason to believe that this lawyer told the truth or lied, so for the sake of the original poster lets assume that he told the truth. In fact, based on your own logic you shouldn't have any rael opinion.
"The proper thing to do is to judge each case on its own merit."
Really, do you truly believe this? If so, were I the RIAA, I would sue everyone. Those innocent would go free, those guilty would face the consequences. I'm not anti-corperation by any means (not even anti-RIAA either), but I'm anti-stupid lawsuit (nothing says the RIAA can not become a useful member of society and I wish it would). The RIAA has shown in the past a willingness to blanket sue which should be punishable. Your past actions should be part of the lawsuits. Of course, if you are guilty then what you say is true (because the prosecution has a vendetta is no reason to get off if you broke the law), but in the case of the blatantly innocent and negligent lawsuit it *should* be part of your past history that you are willing to blanket sue. It becomes important then. A simple "Each case on it's own" only works in the case where each participant is acting in good faith, once one side doesn't it needs to be punished.
"This is how you would want to be treated if you were brought into court for anything, isn't it?"
No, after being the 100'th person who is wrongly accused and had to spend 10's of thousands in lawyers fees I would like the court system to slap the prosecution down. Wouldn't you rather that happen if you were one in a long line of wrongly accused?
I can't speak for the Slashdot Crowd but generally one of three things.
First are the people who *really* don't want it. They shouldn't be contributing to GPL code and usually do not. Thier liscense stipulates no military. Though, IMO, it's sorta naive to think if your code works well it never made it into military uses. Closed source or countries that have no incentive to foloow the liscense will use it, but if it makes you feel better more power too you and maybe it will be followed.
Second, and probably the larger group, just doesn't really think about it. When they are forced too probably ambivilent - would rather it not happen but see no real way to stop it. Most of the people I worked with in the DOE thought this way.
Thirdly, the group I fall into, is proud that it does. Even in places I do not support our troops being at (and there are plenty) I would prefer us to have overwhelming ability on our side. If software I write or algorithms I write play some part in it I can't think of anything I would rather do. The DOD folks I worked with fit into this category and some of the DOE people did also.
Now, if you want to know things that made me feel uncomfortable that I somewhat pretended didn't happen was when an enemy nation posted about help on using the software and you knew (from thier problem description) they were doing military research. I, personally, found it to be a consequence of a free society and producing BSD liscensed code. Much as free speech means the KKK has the right to exist and give speeches I had to put up with middle eastern countries or chinese asking questions on HPC communication libraries that you very well knew were being used in nuke simulation research. I just didn't answer any of thier questions (free speech means I don't have to be supportive also). Plus you had the balance between what you liked and what you didn't to consider. I figure I helped the things I like much more than the others (though I have little proof other than paying attention to thier questions, I don't think I was rationalising and if I had ever felt otherwise I most likely would have quit). I suspect that the majority of Linux contributors probably feel that way about this.
A good thing to try and do is try and reverse what party/person is in the story.
Had this been a politican you tend to like would this case have not been kinda bogus?
First, yes the original poster is wrong, sorta. There were four grand juries. The first refused to indict on anything, the second one did on conspiracy but not on money laundering, the third on two counts of money laundering but not conpiracy, and the forth on both. Not being a lawyer I do not know why this was possible. Thus the count will depend on wether you want it to sound good, or bad with both being correct and wrong. You will note that this is probably one of the worst ways that bias can creep into a story - it's is the truth but only one side is given. NOTE: I can't find a single link that says this - use google (or whatever search you want) and read news stories on failure to indict.
Earle has had a history of suiing political oppenents - the democrats in his region will also admit this. The moving around until a grand jury bought all that he wanted things like multiple prosecutions across multiple counties (which is what I suppose allowed the multiple grand juries - but I'm not sure).
The whole thing stinks of nasty politics. I can't say I feel sorry for DeLay (I don't like the guy very much - made a decent whip but a terrible majority leader and he isn't in my state so I don't have a vote in that matter. I think in the end the Dems will regret having him removed) - the Republicans would have done it to the Democrats if they could have. If the position had been reversed - say Nancy Pelosi had been indicted by a republican DA who had to try four times to get the full indictments across multiple counties and was known to use them as a political tool there would be mass outrage on the democrats side.
But the whole thing shouldn't happen - regardless of Republicans or Democrats. Just the same as the laws such as the "Independant Counsel" laws - there was no difference between the abuse by the dems against Reagan and the abuse of the repubs against Clinton (same laws, same type of abuse, and about the same level of succesful prosecutions - nasty politics in general. Though partisans on both sides will tend to argue that each was justified but you will tend to note they only justify the core law broken/investigated and let the reader extend that into the rest). Neither side is going to fix it because it is too powerful a tool and they like weilding it (notice that none of the complainers during Clinton's term introduced new quidlines and the desire by many of them to indict Bush).
Yea, I know, spin is terrible. People who try and minimize scadals for a political party they like should be flogged, let alone people who make up information to prove political positions.
Those evil manipulative Republicans should all be put in jail where the nice Democrats will care for thier every need in our new utopia free from corruption and spin.
Umm, isn't that the same thing I said? You just used a different set of numbers. No matter what you are saying you are willing to pay a premium to not have to fill out rebate paperwork. Again - I'm sure many companies out there wish you would stick it to the man. However, I'll tend to try and purchase the most for the least amount that I can.
If you want to spend more than you need too, more power to you. Especially if it makes you feel better in some fashion, people used to keep the price tags on their shoes to see who payed the most when I was in middle school also. I didn't understand it then and I still do not understand how spending more for the same thing is in someway better.
While to some extent what you say is true - you are paying extra taxes than if you simply got the money off - your remedy is cutting of your nose to spite your face.
Lets use your example at my local best buy. Our tax rate (Knoxville, Tennessee) is 9.25%. So on the 1000 dollar order we are paying 1092.5 dollars for the final product. A tax of 92.5 dollars. With the said 200 dollar rebate I will pay 892.5 dollars, which in my book is less than 1092.5 dollars. Now, you say you will pay more to avoid this so lets assume you are not paying 1001.00 dollars to avoid a 200 dollar rebate you are paying a final amount of 1093.5 dollars. In some form or fasion you equate the 1093.5 as being cheaper than the 892.5 dollars, however I suspect that more retail stores would like the general populace to use that math than the one usually used by consumers. Maybe if your time was worth more than the "200 dollars/time spent filling out the forms" would I agree. Otherwise you are simply paying more.
Yep, you stuck it to The Man. By paying 201 more dollars you have showed him! No longer will rebates be usable after your stand against tyrrany! You can sleep peacfully at night and be assured that those of us that sent the rabate in are endlessly regretting that check for X amount of money we recieved in the mail, or better yet the ones taken off at the register as some places now do.
"My mother regularly saves 30%~50% on groceries because she clips coupons and uses her frequent shopper card. She saves the reciepts to show me and everytime, I ask her when the supermarkets will just start giving her food for free."
Food city already does this. Every month thier card holders get a coupon book. Much of it is just regular type coupons (a common one is 2 dollars off 10 dollars of some type of meat). Between 1/4 and 1/2 of the book is free food. Most of it isn't stuff I would buy any way - free cheap sardines isn't a good deal if I don't like expensive high class sardines (assuming there is such a thing:) ).
For example, this month has a free bunch of carrots and a free can of decent beef stew (I don't recall the brand, but it's one of the ones I will sometimes purchase anyway). It has much more, but these were the two I was asked if I wanted to use today. There have been a handful of things we now use because of it, though most of it "free" is too expensive.
While I don't particularly care for what China is doing, I can't particularly blame google.
First off, his statement is correct - that is a large market. I can't blame them for wanting to get into it. The Chinese govt is the one imposing the standards - hate them.
Secondly, this is still a march towards not having the censorship. If you demand an all or nothing approach then, at least with this Chinese Govt you will get the "nothing" end of the bargain. It's like demanding "Give me a million dollars or give me death" - while the million dollars would be nice, death sucks and will be the option you are stuck with if you stay headstrong about those being the only two options. Better to choose the path that will get you to the million dollars as quickly as possible and still be likely.
Right now, Chinese Govt is in a hard place (though very good for the rest of the world and the Chinese people). If they do not progress they will die, in order to progress they need to open the information avenues. By opening those avenues they are going to die. All this will do is give another way for dissidents to gather information and learn and show normal average people what they are missing.
It would be nice to wave a magic wand and have them be a free country, but that isn't going to happen. It's going to take a long series of concessions with a final bloody conflict, though with enough of their country inching towards it it will be less bloody - in the long run stuff like this will save lives even if it isn't what you want ideologically.
As to if the founder of google are being greedy bastards who trample on the Chinese rights or see the second part of what I say will depend on your view of the company. They aren't going to say either way. Given Google's past I generally suspect that the second benefit I said plays in their decision - though I do not know how much.
That's why there are garbage collectors, sewage cleaners, brick layers, factory workers, and the vast vast vast majority of jobs out there. People just LOVE that type of work and choose to do so.
By all means, let kids work to do what they love. I actually have a job I really enjoy, so do my parents. But that is lucky. Setting them up for thier self worth being "doing what they love" and anything less as abject failure will, by necissity, cause a majority of people be VERY unhappy.
There *should* be no negative connotations with the professions I listed above. It's is by no means a failure to be any of them - not only do they have to be done but many of them are highly skilled professionals that take years to learn to do effeciently.
Like it or not, cabbage needs to be picked, sewage cleaned, tar put on roofs, rocks crushed, etc, etc. You do not do any one any favors by making them believe that those jobs are failures when they are not. Ideal conditions are well and good to strive for as long as you notice that something called "reality" is out there and conform to it also. Those are all jobs that one can provide for ones family and live a decent life - which is what should be considered a success.
"The lack of trust is, assuming the figures add up, the showstopper. It's hard to see how we can have confidence in any design review, to say nothing of operational procedure after a plant is commissioned. Come up with an answer to that - and I don't mean a bug ad campaign - and we might get somewhere. In the meantime, I can't help sympathising with the NIMBYs".
I doubt one can ever answer it to your satisfaction - by your own definition once you have enough knowledge to do so you are a salseman and not believable but can't asnwer the question without said knowledge. It is impossible to ever have a discussion on this because you have set up conditions where whatever you want to believe to be will never be able to be shown wrong.
In a sense you are right, that lack of trust is your showstopper, however that lack of trust is silly, there are plenty of reliable people out there that have no real political agenda. Plus you can look at which side has the better track record as far as thier prediction (hint, it's not the NIMBY's as you call them). People perception has shown it to be bad, but that perception is incorrect. If this were all just done from models I would tend to agree and be skeptical - you can really fool yourself with models. But this is from many years of testing with real live equipment during production - if it were as dangerous as many say we would all be dead.
There are people who believe that the govt is watching you through your monitor, that there are secret hidden camera's that transmit the data using the internet when you connect to it (they even go so far as to notice that the "upstream" light flashes when they are downloading - not uploading, of course sending ACK's and NAK's is something they want you to believe and isn't true). They dismiss anyone who knows anything about computers because you are involved and part of the problem. Since you are posting here I assume you know something about comptuers, how silly that is.
Because of the same logic you use there is no way to persuade them - and like the nuclear engineers who have thier "agenda" there is nothing you can do except shake your head and wonder how they got that way. The *only* reason this is stupid to one of us is that we know that can not be - but to the average person who a computer is something that they have no hope of understanding it - why not (if you think that anyone would find it silly, see how many non-computer friends you can convince of this - it isn't really that hard, hell I had 20 or so people calling Best Buy once for a Berkenrater to speed thier computer up)?
The other problem is that there is such a large amount of people involved the Truth would be out there, and like the Nuclear stuff it is - just the NIMBY's don't want to hear it and cite thier "facts".
Slashdot Mirror
Do I need all of them to raise my hand?
* Tired of the location Olympic games being picked based on a bribe-fest (with your tax dollars as the ante money)
Pretty much, but then I don't like the political aspects of the old olympic choosing. I don't really know a realistic great way to do it. I wish people could just pick a place for it's beauty and ability to host the games. I'll raise my hand on this one, even though I offer no solution.
* Tired of your tax dollars going towards facilities that most often are never used again
Yup, not a big fan of govt stepping in on this one. I'm a small govt type of person. Private industry can provide for it quite well.
* Tired of being shown only the most 'marketable' events or not seeing them at all, because only one news source is granted "rights"
Very much. It always seems I'm interested in the smaller sports. Though, for some reason, curling always seems to get *a lot* of air time during the winter olympics. I don't mind that - if you like curling great, I just don't really know why it's singled out of the "lesser" sports (with respect to itnerested viewers). Eh.
* Tired of the drama
Eh, I've never payed it much mind. Most of it is manufactured by a media needing ratings anyway.
* Tired of people who happen to be good at a particular sport getting acts of congress to instantly give them citizenship while hard-working, tax-paying greencarders have to wait years and pass exams
Somewhat. I guess I care less about this one than most of the ones you list. IMO they bring in enough money for it to be worth it. They typically work longer hours and much more physical than most of the "hard-working" and, because of thier endorsements, pay a much higher tax rate and amount. If hard-working tax-paying is your litmus test these guys are grand and should be flitted right through. I rather suspect you mean that thier impact on society is pretty much worthless compared to, say, a brick layer. Though that is a matter of argument.
* Tired of the olympic committee getting special legislation to protect its interests and giving it the ability to shut down businesses simply because they contain the word "olympic" in their title
Oh yea, not a big fan of govt controls. Much more of an Adam Smith type of person here. Artifical controls should only be used in extreme cases or for short periods of time (such as the original patent and copyright laws - not what we have today).
* Tired of the drug scandals and an IOC obviously looking the other way, like virtually every other major sports sanctioning body
Eh, another one to hard for me to get worked up about. If you are a big sports fan I can see it, I'm not. I just watch it once every four years and only care about the "oooh neat move" factor. I'm not particularly aware of any incidents of this, but then again not caring I wouldn't know.
* Tired of "for the sport" or "for the joy of competition" having turned into "for the money", right down to the recent decision by the IOC to allow athletes to be paid endorsements and more
This is the only one I really disagree with. It's been many many years (if ever) that it was truly "for the sport" or "joy of competition". For many countries there were no such thing as profesional so thier equivilent were the olympic teams. Even then, most of the western teams were not really "for the sport" - they were semi-professional looking to get that big contract. If you ever really thought that the majority would do it no matter what you were naive. Had it ever been this great alturistic thing t
I can't tell much of anything from this report.
It's 70% free compared to what? I don't know. As we explore the depths - do we have any baseline to compare too or is this normal? One possible explaination - what are the others? How good are the others?
The article cited is so horrid on this I can't get worked up over it. I have no idea what the 70% means, is this compared to known baselines or less than someone somewhere expected, or is it something else?
I suspect that the original scientific article would clear much of this up, but the report quoted is about as horrid as one can get. I'm not sure if you tried you get any less informed from this. Maybe it has dire ecological warnings - but all I can get is "Someone somewhere thinks something might not be what they expect but have never observed" - which isn't much to get worried over.
At least it didn't make the front page of slashdot.
The main difference here is that Sony didn't do anything considered illegal (some may try and construe it to be, but it is not conisdered so by federal regulations - your state laws may and will vary). This is more like if the police pulled you over for going the speed limit and told you "If everyone doesn't self regulate and go a little slower we will lower the speed limit".
You, yourself said it: "It seems to say, if you do it again, only then will make it illegal so you can't do it a third time." which is what the govt does quite often before hitting people with the Law Bat.
Interestingly enough this could be a Big Brother Evil(TM) threat - "do what we want or else" or the govt finally getting it's head out of it's ass. That view is totally dependent on if you think Sony's rootkit to fight piracy is a correct thing or a incorrect thing. It's totally amusing the number of people who are OK with this threat but not others (with the ones they are not being "Threats are wrong"). (not that you did this - read others on this whole thread)
Personally I would just assume see the legislation passed and be done with it. I don't like the threats, even when I agree with what the outcome of the threats are. It's not illegal now and this type of thing needs to be outlawed otherwise it will just happen over and over and over.
My parents fought broadband for years and years even though the accessed some work related stuff through the interenet (subdivision maps, deeds, and some other documents from the local court house). The never could see why there was any reason to pay 55 dollars a month plus, because of the wiring in the house not being available, a wireless access point and card.
:) They can not stand to use dialup any more - it's amusing to hear dad telling someone to go look at some funny video he found.
I told them time after time that the map that took them 15 minutes to load would be nearly instant (comcast has 8mbit down here). One day thier modem finally kicked the bucket and I needed a new wireless switch/card so I made them a deal - purchase the one I want, try broadband for a month and if you do not like it I will buy the card/switch. At the end of the first day my father ask "Why didn't we ever use this before - I saved over an hour of time in *one* day!". Of course, I had to be that smart ass son and pointed out I've said that for about two years now
For them "price" would have been listed as a reason, though mostly because telling them how much faster doesn't make sense - for most it has to be something used and internally felt. I suspect that, as you said, the largest portion of those that say they don't need it would suddenly not be able to live without once they used it some. I've never driven a Ferrari and can't really imagine how it feels, many have never used broadband and can't raelly comprehend how much faster things happen.
There are two issues. First, does this make sense within Austrailia's laws. Two, is this the right thing to do.
Obviously it makes sense within them. As many have pointed out that thier laws ban games that fall into a rating above thier maximum - thus it makes sense. So, from that "context" it is OK. This is where many of the supporters stops and, IMO, is a very bad precedent.
Next, we have is this the proper thing for the govt to do? So, lets take an extreme example. right now, in China, you can be jailed and executed for speaking certain things (see some of the cases where Yahoo has given over Bloggers). It makes perfect sense within thier lwas - it is even internally logical and is relativly effective from their point of view (that is, other than "rights violation" there isn't much you can throw against it). If we view it "in context" we must conlcude that not only is it OK to do, it is the proper path thier govt should take as it is simply following their rules. However, I bet most of us here (including you) disagree with that as "rights violations" is a pretty big thing and this os where most of the posts I have read so far are arguing.
Thus, I rather suspect that what you, and many of the other apologist, are using as the be all and end all argument is not one - otherwise you would support this type of thing (and if you do support it, then I guess I don't really have an argument against you other than I think you ought to go live in one of the areas for a while). Instead of arguing that "It makes sense within thier laws" you should be arguing why it is a proper thing to do. If all it takes is that it makes sense within thier laws even genocide can be accepted as right and proper.
General consumers do not care about privacy until they get bit by it or a "trustworthy" news agency makes it sound like the whole world will collapse.
That's not really being stupid - just relativly uneducated and most people are too busy with other things to really think it through. I talk people out of using this type of stuff all the time - simply tell them how it can be abused. Until then they usually just look at the marketing hype about how useful it is when it works.
The first major public group that looses something important through a lack of privacy and it will stop. Just as people didn't lock doors at the turn of the century (who cared about privacy?) once it was obvious it was going to be taken advantage of it changed. Though it will probably swing back too far the other way in trusting almost nothing.
But hey, maybe they will fix thier privacy issues too, it *could* happen.
"Is this really true? "
Yes, it is. But that's irrepective of *will it work*.
Anyone remeber Microsoft Bob - this great thing they were going to force on us?
The thing that companies like Microsoft never seem to get is the an "all or nothing" idea will eventually get a "nothing" as the answer. Will Vista be the one that gets "nothing"? I don't know, most consumers do not really care as long as everything works.
I mean, for all I know my Sprite is infected with DRM stuff to keep people from figuring out all the ingredients - I don't know as long as it tastes the same and is easy to use. The day that Coke makes it such that I have to use the official Coke opening tool to drink sprite and it must be replaced every time they change their bottle I will quit drinking Sprite.
Of course, there is something silly in that - Sprite isn't a computer and can't have DRM. But the theory is the same. You can put all the restrictions you want on anything, but once it makes something where you can not use it it makes your product die. When music, movies, and games take jumping through hoops to use few will use them. Heck, even on mission critical software that places have little choice over (like the old dongles) eventually went to the wayside because of it (or the company got rid of the stupid requirements).
And that's pretty much the way it should be. They have every right to ask us to do that just as I have every right to say "Nope, not gonna do it". The problem is that they are trying to remove my ability to say "nope" (I don't mean piracy, I mean attacks on GPL and other liscenses and competing software).
You know the neat thing? Wether you believe in the religion or not they even knew this to be a bad idea *thousands* of years ago. That it will be used for Bad Things. Just goes to show that ancient people were not stupid and could foresee what certain things would mean just as well as we can.
Sorta says something about modern people who think this is really neato and institute it at thier company.
That's fine - it's a valid option. I'm pretty much an OS agnostic - anything goes. I should probably amend with that option, I've struggled with how many options to need (I need too, personally, deicide where I actually stand as all options I see are very desireable, but it is a hard choice). As there are many varying only in small part, though still most fall into those two categories. I'm undecided as to if that if is a third option, or just a weaker option of the other two (in that you don't really care about the political stuff - just that Linux stays a viable option but "winning" is irrelevant - along the lines of the "non-political" option just a weaker version). Eh, I'll generally let you guys that choose that path decide, though I probably agree with you more than the politcal end of the movement.
:)
The problem I have is those that want something that isn't achievable and get angry that isn't happening. I don't think what I write will have much impact, but I still keep on keeping on
Another way of putting it is do you want a political tool or a software tool?
It's a question the community is going to have to answer at some point. Most businesses couldn't care less about the political end - they just want to make money. Right or wrong they see this type of posturing as very bad - there is a fear if a business had totally switched over to Linux and the political end wins with the liscense destroying thier business model. Something that has been somewhat confirmed with this type of thing. It drives away a lot of the smaller developers (ones who make plugins, specialised software, and other such things) away from Linux and keeps many companies from switching (how many companies might have been on the line were turned away based on the reaction of Nvidia's binary drivers - if proliferation of Linux is the goal that was a Bad Thing). As I had said in a nother thread until the larger Linux conferances (and thus the community) start allowing commercial enterprises that do not have thier little bit opensourced into thier lineup Linux will always play second fiddle outside of the server market.
Now, if yout goal is not to have Linux everywhere and be the main OS but have it as a political statement/tool then the above is irrelevant. GPL3 looks to be a great step if that is what your goal is.
Neither idea is superior to the other, but you must either choose one or take what others choose for you. Trying to have both is a pipe dream and will equate to choosing the more restrictive one - the political end (you can not force freedom).
I don't really know what the "fast track" in the FDA means, though I seriously doubt that what you are afraid of would be a consequence. Not because I think the govt is infallable or some great entity, but they will always err on the side of caution - CYA is the name of thier game. The few years I spent working as a govt contractor "fast track" meant "twice as slow as you need" vs "5 times as slow as is normal", though it cost 10 times as much to go that way (of course, numbers are only a "feel" - I never really sat down and ran them).
"Another thing though, is this drug patented, or will this be cheaply available for everyone who needs it, especially AIDS ravaged countried in Africa."
I highly suspect the answer is "Yes" (assuming it is real - my guess is it's not and this whole thing is irrelevant for now). It will be patented and in first world contries that most have insurance and it will be expensive. There will most likely be some initial govt subsidies. Third world countries will either ignore the patent or get it cheaper. That's the pattern most medicines like this follow - those of us that can afford it pay a huge price for our medicine. We pay for the research, development, and testing to create safe and useful drugs - somebody has too. The rest of the world pays as well as they can or are willing too.
Yes, it sucks to be us and yes there are some that fall through the cracks. But in the long run it creates a MUCH better world to live in. Better to have the drag later than never if those are the only options.
Then again if we are talking a verfied cure for AIDS, cure for cancer, or sustainable cold fusion I bet those places would kinda over look that you blabbed. The presteige of running the scientific article that verfied it would be enormous, none of them would give up the next few decades of being the article most cited and credited with being the publication that ran the first real proof. However, the reasearchers would most likely pay for it with less than a find of a century papers they submit, but then with enough fame they may not also.
Maybe, maybe not. It could mean quite a few different things.
It could also mean that the rest of the Linux world is pretty decent - I see no reason to ask for a word processing suite, DHCP servers, printer control, compilers, or many other sorts of products. In quite a number of those cases I prefer the Linux tool above the windows one anyway.
This didn't really ask why you were not using Linux or what it needs to do for you to use, it asked what windows only (though they fail this in that several of thier choices are on a Mac also - they really mean "not ported to Linux) might keep you from it.
For most there isn't going to be a single hard reason. It's like a lot of other things - I can name individual ideas that certain politicians have that I don't like, yet there aren't any real single issues that make or break me. Though if asked I could probably name my number one issue - but simply fixing it will most likely not change too much.
What this most likely tells me is that Photoshop is one of those applications that many people use (and I bet mostly pirated) and don't really want to part with. If all thier other problems were fixed then they may change. Of course for any business that photoshop is a hard requirement it most likely isn't going to switch over either.
Heck I use Linux quite a bit, am a software engineer, and one of my main gripes is not having photoshop (for the reason I initially stated - the Opensource option is either 98% as good or better in all the other apps I use. You will note I use openoffice even though I can easily get a liscense for Office). The other is lack of games, since my main home computer is gaming/image-video processing I use windows, the rest of my machines are Linux. If you had a good image processor and Wine played my games decently (or they had Linux clients) I wouldn't look back.
They give quite a few points to consider, and I'm sure they all factor in. But most of them are just "I don't want to change" - while that is a valid idea (for a busness you need to justify the cost in retraining - just doing it for political reasons rarely works), but cost may eventaully be a factor. Especially if Photoshop tends to become the only platform stopping the migration.
However, those are just essentially icing on the cake with the other main problem (and I focus on it more because it's a universal problem):
"Another problem, according to my buddies, is that besides Photoshop itself, there are hundreds of Photoshop plug-in programs. Of those, everyone has their handful of favorites that they use on most of their projects. GIMP simply doesn't have anything close to this sort of third-party add-on software community."
With something like that, it's not a "I do not want too" but a "I can not". The 8bit problem would be in the same class.
There are many GPL software platforms out there that compete well in functionality with their commercial counterparts. I know my parents would love switching to Linux if they could (based on cost) but even if there is a comparable program to Autocad there isn't a land surveying plugin comparable to Eaglepoint and most likely never will be (unless Autocad is ever ported to Linux and enough land surveyors switch). It's not a matter of want or ease of use - they can not get thier work done under Linux.
There is something of wondering why the smaller companies will not port, after all many of them support different Unix variants. Ultimatly when I've asked with the few tertiary software producers I use it's generally the same problem - the political end of Linux is a big turnoff.
It's something I've felt strongly about for quite a while (but can't make up my mind which path to follow). Linux - and it's community of people and projects - is at or nearing a point where it is going to have to decide if they want to be commercial or play second fiddle. Rightly or wrongly, too many people are turned off by the strong political movement. Commercial software is not going to be political - that eats into profits. Even the companies like IBM that have been pretty strong in OpenSource work tend to use it because it benefits thier bottom line. People may want both, and some people may be happy with both, but the general business community is not going to accept it (again, rightly or wrongly it doesn't matter - there are times I don't like gravity and wish it were not so but it doesn't change anything).
I'm not saying the political end is bad or inferior (this particular post is biased towards commercial acceptance because of the parent article) - I really like the GPL and the OpenSource philosophy. If that is the direction the community chooses fine by me, I like it. But I don't think it's possible to do both, too many smaller companies that can not make money from service - only from selling - are not going to embrace Linux. Yes I know they do not have too, but the community is still bent towards it to the point that most are not going to enter into it - can you imagine if ALS or OLS were flooded with smaller companies selling software (such as major Windows conferences are)? It's what is going to have to happen for general Linux acceptance (either it happens first, as a consequence of acceptance, or conferences like ALS and OLS become small irrelevant conferances and the ones that embrace it are the big ones - thus you must choose one over the other). Not to mention smaller companies noticing how the community reacts to places like Nvidia giving binary only drivers (again, if you want to focus on the political espects perfectly fine, if you want general commercial acceptance it really hurts to do it). It's not the big companies blocking it - they go where the money is and have plenty of money to shift if they need too, it's the myriad small, specialised, and essential tools that are stopping it. There is little talk or focus on these types of applications but they probably make up a larger percentage of make or break software for many companies.
Not really. Even if I had wanted too I wouldn't have any idea who to report too. In the grand hierarchy I was pretty much as low as you go and still be a researcher. Nor did I see any reason too - it wasn't really a secret. I mean they were posting on open newsgroups from thier version of a .mil site. Plus most of this was pre-9/11 - afterwards the amount of questions from marginal sites really dropped and my contract was not renewed a few years later.
As to how far, no idea. I would rather suspect that intelligence agencies knew far more about it than I. And even had they given enough info I'm a computer scientists and couldn't reall tell. The thing is if a your getting a post from a Chinese research agency talking about modelling flows of particulates in the atmosphere and you note that the person in question has a degree in nuclear engineering it's kinda obvious (especially given our nuke people asked the same things and only they did). Sometimes they might even come out and say something along the lines of "We are modelling nuclear fallout patterns and need help".
We do the same thing - it could be benign or malicious. One of the groups we sometimes worked with did it. Some of it was to find evacuation lanes, to try and figure out where a bomb was likely to go off, and mostly things like that. None of that was classified so I actually could know some about it. I can only assume that similar stuff was used to figure out where best to deploy nuclear weapons also - if it was not used to do that then the people who dole out DOD money need to be beaten with a clue stick (for one thing the benign end of the deal is more DOE stuff).
They could even have been using it in preperation for nuclear power plants. But, even if it were, it is trivial to use it for weapons. And like needing to beat the DOD people if they don't do it, I can assure you that every country on the planet with the computing resources does exactly that. I don't intend to help enemy countries in that goal.
Othertimes you may not know anything about it other than the installation they are from. Say if it was a post from something named like "Department or Defense" or "Cabinet of War" you pretty much got the picture.
As I said, it was best to rationalise it. I tended to hope that it would never aid them in an attack and help them save people and realise that is the price of freedom.
"The page linked to is that of the woman's lawyer. "Let's automatically believe something the lawyer said" is the last thing I'd ascribe to the typical Slashdot reader. The fact that you're doing so, you're openly admitting it, and you're +5 is really quite astonishing. Well done, my good man. But in case you (and the people who modded you up) weren't aware, of course her lawyer is going to try to convince people that she's innocent. That's what lawyers are paid to do."
That's silly. First off Lawyers aren't supposed to lie. Yes, I know like any human they are motiated by money to some extent, but the original poster said "Let's assume" which means - well - to assume it's the truth. Given his statement if it turns out to be a lie then the rest is worthless. Like any "If..then.." statement the later clause is only relevant if the "if" part is true. That's basic programming logic and as a slashdot user I'n shocked you don't see this. It's amusing that you want the RIAA to have every case stand on it's own but lawyers in general to be derided. There is no reason to believe that this lawyer told the truth or lied, so for the sake of the original poster lets assume that he told the truth. In fact, based on your own logic you shouldn't have any rael opinion.
"The proper thing to do is to judge each case on its own merit."
Really, do you truly believe this? If so, were I the RIAA, I would sue everyone. Those innocent would go free, those guilty would face the consequences. I'm not anti-corperation by any means (not even anti-RIAA either), but I'm anti-stupid lawsuit (nothing says the RIAA can not become a useful member of society and I wish it would). The RIAA has shown in the past a willingness to blanket sue which should be punishable. Your past actions should be part of the lawsuits. Of course, if you are guilty then what you say is true (because the prosecution has a vendetta is no reason to get off if you broke the law), but in the case of the blatantly innocent and negligent lawsuit it *should* be part of your past history that you are willing to blanket sue. It becomes important then. A simple "Each case on it's own" only works in the case where each participant is acting in good faith, once one side doesn't it needs to be punished.
"This is how you would want to be treated if you were brought into court for anything, isn't it?"
No, after being the 100'th person who is wrongly accused and had to spend 10's of thousands in lawyers fees I would like the court system to slap the prosecution down. Wouldn't you rather that happen if you were one in a long line of wrongly accused?
I can't speak for the Slashdot Crowd but generally one of three things.
First are the people who *really* don't want it. They shouldn't be contributing to GPL code and usually do not. Thier liscense stipulates no military. Though, IMO, it's sorta naive to think if your code works well it never made it into military uses. Closed source or countries that have no incentive to foloow the liscense will use it, but if it makes you feel better more power too you and maybe it will be followed.
Second, and probably the larger group, just doesn't really think about it. When they are forced too probably ambivilent - would rather it not happen but see no real way to stop it. Most of the people I worked with in the DOE thought this way.
Thirdly, the group I fall into, is proud that it does. Even in places I do not support our troops being at (and there are plenty) I would prefer us to have overwhelming ability on our side. If software I write or algorithms I write play some part in it I can't think of anything I would rather do. The DOD folks I worked with fit into this category and some of the DOE people did also.
Now, if you want to know things that made me feel uncomfortable that I somewhat pretended didn't happen was when an enemy nation posted about help on using the software and you knew (from thier problem description) they were doing military research. I, personally, found it to be a consequence of a free society and producing BSD liscensed code. Much as free speech means the KKK has the right to exist and give speeches I had to put up with middle eastern countries or chinese asking questions on HPC communication libraries that you very well knew were being used in nuke simulation research. I just didn't answer any of thier questions (free speech means I don't have to be supportive also). Plus you had the balance between what you liked and what you didn't to consider. I figure I helped the things I like much more than the others (though I have little proof other than paying attention to thier questions, I don't think I was rationalising and if I had ever felt otherwise I most likely would have quit). I suspect that the majority of Linux contributors probably feel that way about this.
A good thing to try and do is try and reverse what party/person is in the story.
Had this been a politican you tend to like would this case have not been kinda bogus?
First, yes the original poster is wrong, sorta. There were four grand juries. The first refused to indict on anything, the second one did on conspiracy but not on money laundering, the third on two counts of money laundering but not conpiracy, and the forth on both. Not being a lawyer I do not know why this was possible. Thus the count will depend on wether you want it to sound good, or bad with both being correct and wrong. You will note that this is probably one of the worst ways that bias can creep into a story - it's is the truth but only one side is given. NOTE: I can't find a single link that says this - use google (or whatever search you want) and read news stories on failure to indict.
Earle has had a history of suiing political oppenents - the democrats in his region will also admit this. The moving around until a grand jury bought all that he wanted things like multiple prosecutions across multiple counties (which is what I suppose allowed the multiple grand juries - but I'm not sure).
The whole thing stinks of nasty politics. I can't say I feel sorry for DeLay (I don't like the guy very much - made a decent whip but a terrible majority leader and he isn't in my state so I don't have a vote in that matter. I think in the end the Dems will regret having him removed) - the Republicans would have done it to the Democrats if they could have. If the position had been reversed - say Nancy Pelosi had been indicted by a republican DA who had to try four times to get the full indictments across multiple counties and was known to use them as a political tool there would be mass outrage on the democrats side.
But the whole thing shouldn't happen - regardless of Republicans or Democrats. Just the same as the laws such as the "Independant Counsel" laws - there was no difference between the abuse by the dems against Reagan and the abuse of the repubs against Clinton (same laws, same type of abuse, and about the same level of succesful prosecutions - nasty politics in general. Though partisans on both sides will tend to argue that each was justified but you will tend to note they only justify the core law broken/investigated and let the reader extend that into the rest). Neither side is going to fix it because it is too powerful a tool and they like weilding it (notice that none of the complainers during Clinton's term introduced new quidlines and the desire by many of them to indict Bush).
Yea, I know, spin is terrible. People who try and minimize scadals for a political party they like should be flogged, let alone people who make up information to prove political positions.
Those evil manipulative Republicans should all be put in jail where the nice Democrats will care for thier every need in our new utopia free from corruption and spin.
Umm, isn't that the same thing I said? You just used a different set of numbers. No matter what you are saying you are willing to pay a premium to not have to fill out rebate paperwork. Again - I'm sure many companies out there wish you would stick it to the man. However, I'll tend to try and purchase the most for the least amount that I can.
If you want to spend more than you need too, more power to you. Especially if it makes you feel better in some fashion, people used to keep the price tags on their shoes to see who payed the most when I was in middle school also. I didn't understand it then and I still do not understand how spending more for the same thing is in someway better.
While to some extent what you say is true - you are paying extra taxes than if you simply got the money off - your remedy is cutting of your nose to spite your face.
Lets use your example at my local best buy. Our tax rate (Knoxville, Tennessee) is 9.25%. So on the 1000 dollar order we are paying 1092.5 dollars for the final product. A tax of 92.5 dollars. With the said 200 dollar rebate I will pay 892.5 dollars, which in my book is less than 1092.5 dollars. Now, you say you will pay more to avoid this so lets assume you are not paying 1001.00 dollars to avoid a 200 dollar rebate you are paying a final amount of 1093.5 dollars. In some form or fasion you equate the 1093.5 as being cheaper than the 892.5 dollars, however I suspect that more retail stores would like the general populace to use that math than the one usually used by consumers. Maybe if your time was worth more than the "200 dollars/time spent filling out the forms" would I agree. Otherwise you are simply paying more.
Yep, you stuck it to The Man. By paying 201 more dollars you have showed him! No longer will rebates be usable after your stand against tyrrany! You can sleep peacfully at night and be assured that those of us that sent the rabate in are endlessly regretting that check for X amount of money we recieved in the mail, or better yet the ones taken off at the register as some places now do.
"My mother regularly saves 30%~50% on groceries because she clips coupons and uses her frequent shopper card. She saves the reciepts to show me and everytime, I ask her when the supermarkets will just start giving her food for free."
:) ).
Food city already does this. Every month thier card holders get a coupon book. Much of it is just regular type coupons (a common one is 2 dollars off 10 dollars of some type of meat). Between 1/4 and 1/2 of the book is free food. Most of it isn't stuff I would buy any way - free cheap sardines isn't a good deal if I don't like expensive high class sardines (assuming there is such a thing
For example, this month has a free bunch of carrots and a free can of decent beef stew (I don't recall the brand, but it's one of the ones I will sometimes purchase anyway). It has much more, but these were the two I was asked if I wanted to use today. There have been a handful of things we now use because of it, though most of it "free" is too expensive.
While I don't particularly care for what China is doing, I can't particularly blame google.
First off, his statement is correct - that is a large market. I can't blame them for wanting to get into it. The Chinese govt is the one imposing the standards - hate them.
Secondly, this is still a march towards not having the censorship. If you demand an all or nothing approach then, at least with this Chinese Govt you will get the "nothing" end of the bargain. It's like demanding "Give me a million dollars or give me death" - while the million dollars would be nice, death sucks and will be the option you are stuck with if you stay headstrong about those being the only two options. Better to choose the path that will get you to the million dollars as quickly as possible and still be likely.
Right now, Chinese Govt is in a hard place (though very good for the rest of the world and the Chinese people). If they do not progress they will die, in order to progress they need to open the information avenues. By opening those avenues they are going to die. All this will do is give another way for dissidents to gather information and learn and show normal average people what they are missing.
It would be nice to wave a magic wand and have them be a free country, but that isn't going to happen. It's going to take a long series of concessions with a final bloody conflict, though with enough of their country inching towards it it will be less bloody - in the long run stuff like this will save lives even if it isn't what you want ideologically.
As to if the founder of google are being greedy bastards who trample on the Chinese rights or see the second part of what I say will depend on your view of the company. They aren't going to say either way. Given Google's past I generally suspect that the second benefit I said plays in their decision - though I do not know how much.
That's why there are garbage collectors, sewage cleaners, brick layers, factory workers, and the vast vast vast majority of jobs out there. People just LOVE that type of work and choose to do so.
By all means, let kids work to do what they love. I actually have a job I really enjoy, so do my parents. But that is lucky. Setting them up for thier self worth being "doing what they love" and anything less as abject failure will, by necissity, cause a majority of people be VERY unhappy.
There *should* be no negative connotations with the professions I listed above. It's is by no means a failure to be any of them - not only do they have to be done but many of them are highly skilled professionals that take years to learn to do effeciently.
Like it or not, cabbage needs to be picked, sewage cleaned, tar put on roofs, rocks crushed, etc, etc. You do not do any one any favors by making them believe that those jobs are failures when they are not. Ideal conditions are well and good to strive for as long as you notice that something called "reality" is out there and conform to it also. Those are all jobs that one can provide for ones family and live a decent life - which is what should be considered a success.
"The lack of trust is, assuming the figures add up, the showstopper. It's hard to see how we can have confidence in any design review, to say nothing of operational procedure after a plant is commissioned. Come up with an answer to that - and I don't mean a bug ad campaign - and we might get somewhere. In the meantime, I can't help sympathising with the NIMBYs".
I doubt one can ever answer it to your satisfaction - by your own definition once you have enough knowledge to do so you are a salseman and not believable but can't asnwer the question without said knowledge. It is impossible to ever have a discussion on this because you have set up conditions where whatever you want to believe to be will never be able to be shown wrong.
In a sense you are right, that lack of trust is your showstopper, however that lack of trust is silly, there are plenty of reliable people out there that have no real political agenda. Plus you can look at which side has the better track record as far as thier prediction (hint, it's not the NIMBY's as you call them). People perception has shown it to be bad, but that perception is incorrect. If this were all just done from models I would tend to agree and be skeptical - you can really fool yourself with models. But this is from many years of testing with real live equipment during production - if it were as dangerous as many say we would all be dead.
There are people who believe that the govt is watching you through your monitor, that there are secret hidden camera's that transmit the data using the internet when you connect to it (they even go so far as to notice that the "upstream" light flashes when they are downloading - not uploading, of course sending ACK's and NAK's is something they want you to believe and isn't true). They dismiss anyone who knows anything about computers because you are involved and part of the problem. Since you are posting here I assume you know something about comptuers, how silly that is.
Because of the same logic you use there is no way to persuade them - and like the nuclear engineers who have thier "agenda" there is nothing you can do except shake your head and wonder how they got that way. The *only* reason this is stupid to one of us is that we know that can not be - but to the average person who a computer is something that they have no hope of understanding it - why not (if you think that anyone would find it silly, see how many non-computer friends you can convince of this - it isn't really that hard, hell I had 20 or so people calling Best Buy once for a Berkenrater to speed thier computer up)?
The other problem is that there is such a large amount of people involved the Truth would be out there, and like the Nuclear stuff it is - just the NIMBY's don't want to hear it and cite thier "facts".