Why should the government get taxes on money that was already taxed when people die, which the government did nothing to earn? Why should they be special?
Our ancestors worked hard to put together the means to have children and provide for them. They sometimes for some strange reason want to see what is left of their earnings go to their children, ALL of which they worked hard for and paid taxes on repeatedly to provide. Our children are our ultimate investment. And then you die. What happens then? Ahh, I see your parents died, and wanted to provide for you further by leaving you this inheritance...well, what we don't take first anyways.
Where the hell is the right in that? Just because something is a certain way does NOT make it right.
And then what do they do with it anyways? Crap like spending 14 BILLION DOLLARS on mandatory ID cards so they can track and tax you better. Mhmm. Good times good times.
Pref is there, but it does nothing for me with D2, never has. Under d2, threads are always ordered by oldest first. Very annoying. This is the only thing that keeps me from using D2.
That is a completely screwed up mentality. So this scenario is more than ok with you?
Grandfather, one of 12 children, born into abject poverty. Works his way up in life. Gets a career. Makes a decent wage. Pays taxes on that wage. Ends up with 500k in the bank when he dies...ALL of which had taxes paid. He wills it to his children. Government takes 30% on the transaction.
Just WHO is getting the free money? No, NOT the children. That money was HARD EARNED and ALREADY TAXED.
Care to try again?
Yes, the fucking government is stealing another free cut of that money they already taxed previously. ANYONE that thinks this is right or just is a complete piece of shit, PERIOD.
Here's another fucked tax example: That guy that caught Barry Bond's record ball? How lucky was he right? Not like winning the lottery, he put nothing in to it. He paid NOTHING at all and had ZERO expectation that he'd ever end up with it. Guess what? He gets to pay uncle sam > 30% of it's 'perceived fair market value'...Yeah, over 1/4 MILLION DOLLARS in tax to keep...A FUCKING BASEBALL that the guy DOESN'T EVEN WANT TO SELL!!!
That's your fair taxation in America at work.
So, care to rethink your position? Or would you like to just send me the location of your grave plot so I can come shit on it after you're gone just like you seem to think is right and just of the good ole government of the U S of A?
Ahh, but by joking about their demise, one could argue that you DID do something to aid in their demise.
By your reasoning, if I have some blame in this, then so do you.
To redirect a bit, you seem to be taking this awfully personally for someone that has no guilty conscience...considering that I never once blamed you in any way shape or form. I actually did not condemn you for joking either. I was merely questioning our tendency to joke about these things, and wondering if that in itself may in fact be harmful...KNOWING full well that these ARE just jokes and that no harm is ever intended by making them.
Jokes like that are a defense mechanism, without a doubt. They aren't actually funny, though we all laugh. So why is it that we treat them as funny? Why do we laugh at them?
Some might care to be introspective about this kind of thing. I could care less if you do yourself or not, and do not condemn or blame or think anything actually about you in particular.
"I'd" is the conjugation of the words "I" and "would".
"I would" suggests a desire for something that is not.
"I would like dessert tonight" implies that I have not had dessert yet tonight, but have a desire to have some before the night is over.
Now read that quote again. If he were claiming that he _is_ not influenced by these things, the quote would read thus:
"I am not influenced by such trivialities as I do not ever look at or listen to politicians."
But he didn't, he stated quite explicitly that he has a desire to NOT be influenced by them as he currently is. The implied being that he knows this would actually be impossible.
So other than the fact that you insist on misinterpreting his quote, when it comes right down to it, you actually agree on the important point. Thus, you can quit arguing any time now;)
In your original post I was responding to, you seem to have gone out of your way to imply that you were very much sharing movies outside of fair use provisions, and that you were very much standing behind a "Yep, I'm doing something illegal, but I don't give a shit, and you can't prove it, so fuck off" stance.
You didn't even remotely suggest that you were doing something legitimate, as you now have stated, well after the fact.
So, given the context, I appear I've fed the troll as you were hoping. Congratulations. You are a superior human being by all counts, and I am most obviously a Dumbass...how could anything you say be wrong? Thank you for putting me in my place.
Yep, it's that kind of attitude that makes me fear for our collective future.
What do you mean by 'We're not responsible for it'? Us as a species? North Americans? You personally?
How would you feel if every macro species on the planet outside of north america were wiped out? Still hold the same viewpoint? Still be all high and mighty and giggly inside?
My point is, what is wrong with acting to stop these things from happening. Wouldn't that make more sense than giggling like a school girl when atrocities like this do occur?
Further, a TRUE capitalist would be able to figure out how to MAKE money off of saving species like this.
Alas, I know I'm wasting my breath on you, I do realize that, you even stated so quite explicitly. I assumed that when I first responded to you, and expected as much. However, it's not a waste if even one person reads that and stops to think about it for a minute.
We're not as helpless as you've convinced yourself you are.
That's the point, we DO pay for a particular amount of bandwidth ALREADY.
And very rarely actually GET that bandwidth that we pay for.
It's a 'have their cake and eat it too' situation.
Note that when we buy gas/water/hydro, we pay for the amount we use, we don't pay based on the size of the pipe and amount we can draw through that pipe at once. It'd be a problem if we payed BOTH ways.
Personally I don't care WHICH way it is with bandwidth, just that either way, we're paying a reasonable price based on what we actually GET.
Really, with the internet, the only payment scheme that actually makes sense is something that charges based on bandwidth usage AND amount transferred. You're moving more around? You pay more. What's wrong with that? You're using up more of the pipe at a given time? You pay more, what's wrong with that.
It seems to me that the people that complain about this are the people that download way more than most in their neighborhoods, the ones that are being SUBSIDIZED by their neighbors, the one's that aren't actually paying for what they USE. I'm sorry, but the granny next door that reads email for 10 minutes a week SHOULDN'T be paying the same amount as the person beside her that is torrenting movies 24/7, and THAT person SHOULD be paying through the ass.
Now, whatever we DO end up paying, it sure would be nice to know that it was a reasonable charge based upon the actual costs incurred to provide such service. I've never felt confident in that respect.
I know there is a certain kind of morbid humor that is accepted and even encouraged surrounding such tragedies...but do people not sometimes think humor like this is maybe not a good thing?
All it really does is gives us a way of accepting a tragedy such as this as 'inevitable, and not my fault'. Makes it easier to shrug our shoulders and go 'oh well'.
Maybe some things simply shouldn't be joked about. Or at least, maybe if we didn't joke about these things, and took them very seriously, we might as a whole be more likely to stop these kinds of things from happening in the future.
Personally, I see nothing amusing whatsoever in yet another extinction that we as a species are fully responsible for.
No, you're right, you did NOT say that movie sharing was illegal or outside of 'fair use'. Rather, you implied that you acknowledge that it is indeed illegal, but you don't give a shit.
And then resorted to grade school level name calling when I called you on it.
Obviously, there's not much point carrying on this conversation.
I clearly don't understand what you are talking about.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've suggested that you'd rather buy the iPhone, and cited as one of your reasons the fact that you wouldn't be very likely to be able to get the source for the knock off phone...which I responded to by suggesting that that is a bad reason since you won't ever get the iPhone source code either.
Did I miss something?
Oh wait...sorry, think I get it. You'd buy the knock off only if you could get the source because you can't trust that they've done things right...but with the iPhone you're ok with no source since you trust the company it came from.
Righto, carry on, nothing to see here, please move along.
When will people get it through their thick skulls that just because you don't agree with something, it's not necessarily a troll or flamebait.
Personally, I think Troll and Flamebait are useless and just cause trouble. They provide nothing but hurt feelings and arguments, when overrated, offtopic, wrong or unfunny would suffice./. really does need wrong and unfunny moderations though.
While your points are in general correct, they aren't exactly relevant to what I was discussing entirely, or at least, you're making far more assumptions based on what I actually said than is reasonable. I wasn't complaining about time commitments...for all you know I spend an hour a year helping people out. You also have no idea whether I already DO cut off supporting people that insist on doing things their preferred way.
Case in point: My 'IncrediMail' friend. I drop by for a visit once every couple of months. Usually stay overnight. Spend maybe an hour tops with her and her computer...fix little things here, show here how to do things there. And usually load up FF, which defaults to her GMail page automatically, and leave it sitting there as a last step, and just as a hint. Takes a couple seconds. After that, it's usually a nice dinner with friends and much drinking for all. Oh, and she cuts my hair for free. Oh, and I sometimes repair their bikes. Oh, and I very often get cheap clothes via them from one of their friends stores. (end of lines, samples etc.)
You keeping track of all of that? Who's winning?
Hint: If you have any sort of answer, you failed the test, and likely have very very few friends in the world.
With that said, I'm perfectly capable of deciding whether I'm being 'used' or not thank you very much.
Er, only a half dozen games isn't exactly a lack of game experience in this industry.
Who wrote the original Unreal engine? And how many games has that company created? (Look it up, it's more fun that way;) (Oh, and note, I mean the developer, not the publisher!)
Anyways, from what I can see, the problem is that Epic promised SK a bunch of features that SK needed were in the pipeline and would be available to them, which is why SK chose that particular engine. To date, Epic hasn't provided those to SK, while they have continued to move the engine forward anyways in the direction they desire for Gears of War.
What is NOT clear is if there were any timelines agreed upon...that will probably end up being the crux of this dispute. If Epic has not given what was promised to SK when they signed on within timelines that were agreed upon...doesn't matter WHY Epic hasn't produced, fact is, they haven't produced what was required.
On another point, the fact that games using this engine have already shipped has little bearing on this. Those games might not have needed features that SK is waiting on and were promised. (Or worse, perhaps some of these games WERE given functionality that SK is waiting on that Epic still hasn't provided to SK...which seems to be the particular argument surrounding Gears of War)
Anyways, can't really side with either here, no where near enough information is available. Guess it'll be up to the courts to decide.
a) Rarely if ever needed anymore. (For IE only sites, spoofing probably won't make that ActiveX control work anyways)
and b) The day where most FF users were that technically inclined have passed. Average joe's using FF would have no idea that could even be done. (Or care...see a )
The other problem I encounter is the 'Ohh, Shiney!' camp.
They always stick with IE...all those horrendous toolbars and crap addons they install don't work in FF...even if they are completely useless, or worse even...some people just can't go without!!!
Got one friend that's completely hooked on IncrediMail (bloated POS btw, totally in the 'Ohh, Shiney!' camp). Always having problems with it. Endlessly. Every Single Time I'm There I show her her gmail account again...she uses it once...and then back to IncrediMail. Then I get bugged again.
Memory footprint of these extremely large textures was prohibitive in the past. Originally this just wasn't possible.
In the beginning, very small textures were all that could be used, and they were tiled everywhere. Ever since then, the workable size of textures has been slowly increasing...but the old habit of breaking things down into small(ish) textures remained.
Technological advances and an 'aha!, we can do that now!' lead to advances such as this that to some might appear 'obvious', when in fact, since they hadn't been done before, weren't so obvious after all.
For some reason, I don't think most gamers would accept a bunch of gray blocks slowly and randomly being replaced with textures before your very eyes every time your view changes..but hey, maybe that's just me;)
Slashdot Mirror
Why should the government get taxes on money that was already taxed when people die, which the government did nothing to earn? Why should they be special?
Our ancestors worked hard to put together the means to have children and provide for them. They sometimes for some strange reason want to see what is left of their earnings go to their children, ALL of which they worked hard for and paid taxes on repeatedly to provide. Our children are our ultimate investment. And then you die. What happens then? Ahh, I see your parents died, and wanted to provide for you further by leaving you this inheritance...well, what we don't take first anyways.
Where the hell is the right in that?
Just because something is a certain way does NOT make it right.
And then what do they do with it anyways? Crap like spending 14 BILLION DOLLARS on mandatory ID cards so they can track and tax you better. Mhmm. Good times good times.
Pref is there, but it does nothing for me with D2, never has. Under d2, threads are always ordered by oldest first. Very annoying. This is the only thing that keeps me from using D2.
Work for the government much?
That is a completely screwed up mentality. So this scenario is more than ok with you?
Grandfather, one of 12 children, born into abject poverty. Works his way up in life. Gets a career. Makes a decent wage. Pays taxes on that wage. Ends up with 500k in the bank when he dies...ALL of which had taxes paid. He wills it to his children. Government takes 30% on the transaction.
Just WHO is getting the free money? No, NOT the children. That money was HARD EARNED and ALREADY TAXED.
Care to try again?
Yes, the fucking government is stealing another free cut of that money they already taxed previously. ANYONE that thinks this is right or just is a complete piece of shit, PERIOD.
Here's another fucked tax example: That guy that caught Barry Bond's record ball? How lucky was he right? Not like winning the lottery, he put nothing in to it. He paid NOTHING at all and had ZERO expectation that he'd ever end up with it. Guess what? He gets to pay uncle sam > 30% of it's 'perceived fair market value'...Yeah, over 1/4 MILLION DOLLARS in tax to keep...A FUCKING BASEBALL that the guy DOESN'T EVEN WANT TO SELL!!!
That's your fair taxation in America at work.
So, care to rethink your position? Or would you like to just send me the location of your grave plot so I can come shit on it after you're gone just like you seem to think is right and just of the good ole government of the U S of A?
Ahh, but by joking about their demise, one could argue that you DID do something to aid in their demise.
By your reasoning, if I have some blame in this, then so do you.
To redirect a bit, you seem to be taking this awfully personally for someone that has no guilty conscience...considering that I never once blamed you in any way shape or form. I actually did not condemn you for joking either. I was merely questioning our tendency to joke about these things, and wondering if that in itself may in fact be harmful...KNOWING full well that these ARE just jokes and that no harm is ever intended by making them.
Jokes like that are a defense mechanism, without a doubt. They aren't actually funny, though we all laugh. So why is it that we treat them as funny? Why do we laugh at them?
Some might care to be introspective about this kind of thing. I could care less if you do yourself or not, and do not condemn or blame or think anything actually about you in particular.
A dictionary is your friend.
;)
"I'd" is the conjugation of the words "I" and "would".
"I would" suggests a desire for something that is not.
"I would like dessert tonight" implies that I have not had dessert yet tonight, but have a desire to have some before the night is over.
Now read that quote again.
If he were claiming that he _is_ not influenced by these things, the quote would read thus:
"I am not influenced by such trivialities as I do not ever look at or listen to politicians."
But he didn't, he stated quite explicitly that he has a desire to NOT be influenced by them as he currently is. The implied being that he knows this would actually be impossible.
So other than the fact that you insist on misinterpreting his quote, when it comes right down to it, you actually agree on the important point. Thus, you can quit arguing any time now
In your original post I was responding to, you seem to have gone out of your way to imply that you were very much sharing movies outside of fair use provisions, and that you were very much standing behind a "Yep, I'm doing something illegal, but I don't give a shit, and you can't prove it, so fuck off" stance.
You didn't even remotely suggest that you were doing something legitimate, as you now have stated, well after the fact.
So, given the context, I appear I've fed the troll as you were hoping. Congratulations. You are a superior human being by all counts, and I am most obviously a Dumbass...how could anything you say be wrong? Thank you for putting me in my place.
You presume way WAY too much.
That's the 2nd reply you've made to me in which you've made many assumptions about many things without knowing anything for certain.
You know nothing about me, and yet you act like you know everything about me.
Your problems are well outside the scope of this particular topic.
And as it would obviously be a complete waste of time, I won't respond directly to your presumptions.
Yep, it's that kind of attitude that makes me fear for our collective future.
What do you mean by 'We're not responsible for it'? Us as a species? North Americans? You personally?
How would you feel if every macro species on the planet outside of north america were wiped out? Still hold the same viewpoint? Still be all high and mighty and giggly inside?
My point is, what is wrong with acting to stop these things from happening. Wouldn't that make more sense than giggling like a school girl when atrocities like this do occur?
Further, a TRUE capitalist would be able to figure out how to MAKE money off of saving species like this.
Alas, I know I'm wasting my breath on you, I do realize that, you even stated so quite explicitly. I assumed that when I first responded to you, and expected as much. However, it's not a waste if even one person reads that and stops to think about it for a minute.
We're not as helpless as you've convinced yourself you are.
The GP did not state that he was not influenced by these things. They stated that they would be happy to NOT be influenced by these things.
IE: They stated their OPINION on a matter.
Given that, how can someone's OPINION be untrue.
Pretty rude response actually. Adds up to: "No, you're wrong. THIS is what you believe."
That's the point, we DO pay for a particular amount of bandwidth ALREADY.
And very rarely actually GET that bandwidth that we pay for.
It's a 'have their cake and eat it too' situation.
Note that when we buy gas/water/hydro, we pay for the amount we use, we don't pay based on the size of the pipe and amount we can draw through that pipe at once. It'd be a problem if we payed BOTH ways.
Personally I don't care WHICH way it is with bandwidth, just that either way, we're paying a reasonable price based on what we actually GET.
Really, with the internet, the only payment scheme that actually makes sense is something that charges based on bandwidth usage AND amount transferred. You're moving more around? You pay more. What's wrong with that? You're using up more of the pipe at a given time? You pay more, what's wrong with that.
It seems to me that the people that complain about this are the people that download way more than most in their neighborhoods, the ones that are being SUBSIDIZED by their neighbors, the one's that aren't actually paying for what they USE. I'm sorry, but the granny next door that reads email for 10 minutes a week SHOULDN'T be paying the same amount as the person beside her that is torrenting movies 24/7, and THAT person SHOULD be paying through the ass.
Now, whatever we DO end up paying, it sure would be nice to know that it was a reasonable charge based upon the actual costs incurred to provide such service. I've never felt confident in that respect.
I know there is a certain kind of morbid humor that is accepted and even encouraged surrounding such tragedies...but do people not sometimes think humor like this is maybe not a good thing?
All it really does is gives us a way of accepting a tragedy such as this as 'inevitable, and not my fault'. Makes it easier to shrug our shoulders and go 'oh well'.
Maybe some things simply shouldn't be joked about. Or at least, maybe if we didn't joke about these things, and took them very seriously, we might as a whole be more likely to stop these kinds of things from happening in the future.
Personally, I see nothing amusing whatsoever in yet another extinction that we as a species are fully responsible for.
Just a thought.
No, you're right, you did NOT say that movie sharing was illegal or outside of 'fair use'.
Rather, you implied that you acknowledge that it is indeed illegal, but you don't give a shit.
And then resorted to grade school level name calling when I called you on it.
Obviously, there's not much point carrying on this conversation.
All too clear actually.
Er, they've been doing that for a very very long time now.
I clearly don't understand what you are talking about.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've suggested that you'd rather buy the iPhone, and cited as one of your reasons the fact that you wouldn't be very likely to be able to get the source for the knock off phone...which I responded to by suggesting that that is a bad reason since you won't ever get the iPhone source code either.
Did I miss something?
Oh wait...sorry, think I get it. You'd buy the knock off only if you could get the source because you can't trust that they've done things right...but with the iPhone you're ok with no source since you trust the company it came from.
Righto, carry on, nothing to see here, please move along.
Yep, we're on the same page :)
Yep...however just because it's in the filing doesn't prove it either.
Until someone posts the actual agreement in question, this is all just hearsay and speculation.
Yes, quite.
/. really does need wrong and unfunny moderations though.
When will people get it through their thick skulls that just because you don't agree with something, it's not necessarily a troll or flamebait.
Personally, I think Troll and Flamebait are useless and just cause trouble. They provide nothing but hurt feelings and arguments, when overrated, offtopic, wrong or unfunny would suffice.
While your points are in general correct, they aren't exactly relevant to what I was discussing entirely, or at least, you're making far more assumptions based on what I actually said than is reasonable. I wasn't complaining about time commitments...for all you know I spend an hour a year helping people out. You also have no idea whether I already DO cut off supporting people that insist on doing things their preferred way.
Case in point: My 'IncrediMail' friend. I drop by for a visit once every couple of months. Usually stay overnight. Spend maybe an hour tops with her and her computer...fix little things here, show here how to do things there. And usually load up FF, which defaults to her GMail page automatically, and leave it sitting there as a last step, and just as a hint. Takes a couple seconds. After that, it's usually a nice dinner with friends and much drinking for all. Oh, and she cuts my hair for free. Oh, and I sometimes repair their bikes. Oh, and I very often get cheap clothes via them from one of their friends stores. (end of lines, samples etc.)
You keeping track of all of that? Who's winning?
Hint: If you have any sort of answer, you failed the test, and likely have very very few friends in the world.
With that said, I'm perfectly capable of deciding whether I'm being 'used' or not thank you very much.
Er, only a half dozen games isn't exactly a lack of game experience in this industry.
;)
Who wrote the original Unreal engine? And how many games has that company created?
(Look it up, it's more fun that way
(Oh, and note, I mean the developer, not the publisher!)
Anyways, from what I can see, the problem is that Epic promised SK a bunch of features that SK needed were in the pipeline and would be available to them, which is why SK chose that particular engine. To date, Epic hasn't provided those to SK, while they have continued to move the engine forward anyways in the direction they desire for Gears of War.
What is NOT clear is if there were any timelines agreed upon...that will probably end up being the crux of this dispute. If Epic has not given what was promised to SK when they signed on within timelines that were agreed upon...doesn't matter WHY Epic hasn't produced, fact is, they haven't produced what was required.
On another point, the fact that games using this engine have already shipped has little bearing on this. Those games might not have needed features that SK is waiting on and were promised. (Or worse, perhaps some of these games WERE given functionality that SK is waiting on that Epic still hasn't provided to SK...which seems to be the particular argument surrounding Gears of War)
Anyways, can't really side with either here, no where near enough information is available. Guess it'll be up to the courts to decide.
Kinda silly. FF doesn't resize inline images, IE: Anything that would screw up page flow.
And for pure image viewing, it's immediately obvious how to scale to full size.
FF does a very good job at this feature without having it impact the user negatively.
Not very likely anymore.
a) Rarely if ever needed anymore. (For IE only sites, spoofing probably won't make that ActiveX control work anyways)
and b) The day where most FF users were that technically inclined have passed. Average joe's using FF would have no idea that could even be done. (Or care...see a )
The other problem I encounter is the 'Ohh, Shiney!' camp.
They always stick with IE...all those horrendous toolbars and crap addons they install don't work in FF...even if they are completely useless, or worse even...some people just can't go without!!!
Got one friend that's completely hooked on IncrediMail (bloated POS btw, totally in the 'Ohh, Shiney!' camp). Always having problems with it. Endlessly. Every Single Time I'm There I show her her gmail account again...she uses it once...and then back to IncrediMail. Then I get bugged again.
Some people just can't be helped.
Memory footprint of these extremely large textures was prohibitive in the past. Originally this just wasn't possible.
In the beginning, very small textures were all that could be used, and they were tiled everywhere. Ever since then, the workable size of textures has been slowly increasing...but the old habit of breaking things down into small(ish) textures remained.
Technological advances and an 'aha!, we can do that now!' lead to advances such as this that to some might appear 'obvious', when in fact, since they hadn't been done before, weren't so obvious after all.
Framerate for starters?
;)
For some reason, I don't think most gamers would accept a bunch of gray blocks slowly and randomly being replaced with textures before your very eyes every time your view changes..but hey, maybe that's just me