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User: Colin+Smith

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  1. Re:Economy on Vista Zero-Day Exploit For Sale · · Score: 1

    European libertanians? Surely you mean European liberals. The word libertanian isn't even in the Oxford English Dictionary. The word is an American invention to get round the redefinition of liberal. As a European Liberal, I have some sympathy with American Libertanians.

  2. Social and economic liberalism on Vista Zero-Day Exploit For Sale · · Score: 1

    With neo-liberalism the emphasis is on freedom of the market, based on an article of faith that the market is some magical entity that'll solve all admisitrative problems. You're mistaking social liberalism with economic liberalism. Liberals, liberalism are/is about both. I'd go as far as arguing that you can't in reality have one without the other, which is why our freedoms are being squashed the world over. Neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans, the Tories or New Labour are Liberal.

    Liberalism in America has come to mean socially liberal and economically restrictive. It's an incorrect definition of the word liberalism, and as such you've had to invent a new word to mean liberal; libertanian.

    In the US, you have the Democrats who are socially liberal and economically restrictive, or the Republicans who are socially restrictive and economically liberal. This really means that you can never have true freedom, you can never have the kind of society which created the USA in the first place. You simply switch from one type of restriction to another.

    The market isn't magical, it's a many to many system which rewards those who perform a task best where many is approximately the size of the population, it essentially introduces n^2 processing to find the best solution to problems. Instead of one government legislator (or indeed a thousand) trying to think up and enforce a solution, you have n people deciding from n^2 choices what is best for them, where n might be 300 million. While no market is that large, the potential for finding the best solution is still many times that of a governmental/legislative route.

  3. Um, why would they launch from the US? on FAA Releases Requirements for Space Tourism · · Score: 1

    After all, somewhere on the equator would be better and almost certainly cheaper too.

  4. For all Office users, there is a patch here! on How Do You Handle New MS Word Vulnerabilities? · · Score: 0


    It's quite big but it'll solve your MS Office security problems.

    http://download.openoffice.org/2.1.0/index.html

  5. Religion should be required in school on First Russian Anti-Evolution Suit Enters Court Room · · Score: 1

    It is legally required in the UK and it's made about 50% of the population into outright atheists, another 35% into agnostics and of the remaining 15% who actually do believe, 10% never go to church, instead, simply talking privately to the voices in their head.

  6. Species and life aren't the same thing on First Russian Anti-Evolution Suit Enters Court Room · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ain't it funny his writing was entitled, "The Origin of the Species." When he did not mean origin. Heh. Actually when he said species, he didn't mean life, he meant Species . i.e. Why the various living beings are all physically different from one another and not an amorphous grey goop.

  7. You don't like Yootles? on Tech Companies Draw on 'Wisdom of the Crowds' · · Score: 1

    You should try Euros. WTF thought that up? It's the classic politicial compromise and as such is crap, it's like the inspirational equivalent of grey sludge.

  8. The next logical step on Tech Companies Draw on 'Wisdom of the Crowds' · · Score: 1

    Is filtering out the idiots. You know, the ones who have no clue what they're talking about but who are very keen to inform you of the fact.

    You have to remember that for every person with an IQ above average, there's one with an IQ below average. That democracy doesn't take this into account is it's largest failing.

  9. What's the value of a yootle? on Tech Companies Draw on 'Wisdom of the Crowds' · · Score: 1

    I ask because it takes a certain amount of physical time and work to perform a favour.

    Anyway, who destroys the yootles? If you keep creating them but they're never destroyed, they'll become worthless very quickly indeed. The yootle inflation will be huge.

  10. Re:The US can't/shouldn't get rid of pennies on Melting Coins Now Illegal In the U.S. · · Score: 1

    Most transactions are STILL going to be electronic and not physical cash. Only in the west/developed countries. In many countries with crappy wages, dollars are preferred to local currencies. While US inflation runs at 2%->5% or so, the local currency inflation tends to run far higher, 30%, 50%, 1000% etc per anum.

    And by looking at history, you somehow have come to the conclusion that they won't???? God no. However it's a conscious decision to be made and if there ever happened to be a fiscally responsible government in place, it could go the other way.
  11. The way things are and the way they should be on How Do You Handle Your Enterprise Documentation? · · Score: 1

    Two types of document management. Egroupware document management for policy style docs which describe the way things should be done and a wiki to describe the way things are actually implemented. Strategy vs tactics.

  12. Try Ubuntu, it is ready for the desktop. on Why Does Everyone Hate Microsoft? · · Score: 1

    I know a lot of people on here look at Linux with adoring eyes, but come on, it's not ready for the desktop. As of Ubuntu 6.06, I believe it is.

    I've just installed it and, well, everything I've tried works fine out of the box. Camera, wireless, scanner, printer, msn, email, calendar. It's very very impressive. It's also very elegantly put together and very easy to use. It's actually more elegant and consistent than Windows (XP) now.

    Having said that, when people talk about the alternative to Microsoft applications being better, they're usually not talking about Linux, they're usually talking about alternative Windows applications.

    Word is a poor alternative to a host of alternative word processors, not least AmiPro, now Word Pro, or even WordPerfect especially when it comes to longer documents. The limitations and faults in Excel are legendary, it's a far less capable spreadsheet than Lotus 123. I could go on and on, the key is that Microsoft use their OS dominance to enter the market against a leading product with something relatively shoddy then they push the opposition out of the market.

    Usually the leading product in the particular market is such for a reason, it's bloody good at what it does, in a monopoly situation, it can be crap and still the leader.

  13. Re:SuperFetch, or a 5 line shell script on Samsung's Solid-State Disk Drive Unveiled · · Score: 1

    SuperFetch doesn't just load all of your commonly used files into memory, as your very impressive five line script does. It preloads them only for periods in which it has recognized you typically use the file. The functionality you describe is (of dubious value but) still pretty bloody simple to implement, it simply becomes a cron job rather than a boot script. Lets call it 10 rather than 5 lines.

  14. The US can't/shouldn't get rid of pennies on Melting Coins Now Illegal In the U.S. · · Score: 1

    When the half-cent was abolished in 1857 it was worth more than eight cents in today's currency. It's time for the penny to go, along with the paper dollar. You see... The US Dollar is the world's reserve currency. This means that all over the world, trades are made in US dollars, including in countries where $20 per month is a good wage.

    In another 20 years or so, they may as well get rid of the nickel too. Only if the government continues to print money and run up huge debts with abandon. If instead they start to pay off the debt, the value of the currency will increase. Inflation is a feature of not paying off the national debt and/or printing more money. Both of which are completely within the control of the government. Supply and demand.
  15. Inflation doesn't hit all commodities equally on Melting Coins Now Illegal In the U.S. · · Score: 1

    It's a mistake to think that a weakening currency hits all commodities equally, it doesn't. It has a proportionately larger effect on items which have a high demand, oil, property etc. So the copper may be in higher demand than the potatoes. The second thing is that the increasing price effect ripples through the economy just like a wave, it doesn't hit everything at exactly the same moment. In particular when suppliers increase their prices, the business then has to pass the increase on.

    It's the same phenomenon, you're just seeing the slightly different effects of demand and point in time.

  16. Re:Does anyone else here see the bigger problem? on Melting Coins Now Illegal In the U.S. · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You have it backwards just as almost all so called "news reporters" do (including even financial reporters). The number of people who don't understand that money is a commodity like coffee or copper is scary. Or should I say currencies are commodities, money is the value?

    However, gold, copper, nickle are also commodities which can change in relative value, just like money or coffee. It just depends where the value goes. You could think of them as a cloud of things all moving up and down relative to one another. There is no fixed point other than one you choose, like gold or dollars.

    At the moment, yes, the dollar is in freefall, demand for it is reducing and the supply is as high as it's ever been.
  17. SuperFetch, or a 5 line shell script on Samsung's Solid-State Disk Drive Unveiled · · Score: 1

    Amazing that this kind of stuff gets touted as innovative new features. I have in the past put together a shell script of a few lines which pre-loads commonly open files at boot time. It's trivial and shows just how inflexible Windows really is.

  18. Re:I'm less sure now of your solution. on Hydrogen Won't Save Our Economy · · Score: 1

    If you tax energy, you tax businesses more than individuals -- arguably proportionally more, but more none the less. And if you tax consumers less, they have more money to spend on higher priced products. BTW, I don't propose a big bang solution, rather a 10 year transition phase with the reduction in income taxes being reduced as the cost of energy increases. Plenty of time to take efficiency measures.

    That doesn't sound good for the economy, either. Some companies would benefit, some would lose out, but that happens today anyway. I'd put it to you that with a 30% tax on a employee's salary there are already particularly strong drives to reduce the number of employees and their salaries to a minimum. This would ease that drive to a certain extent. Also, salaries would only be reduced by the level of income tax, the take home pay would remain similar, more likely higher. The overall level of taxation would remain the same so the impact on the economy wouldn't be so large.
  19. 30% cheaper humans means more employment. on Hydrogen Won't Save Our Economy · · Score: 1

    Too bad you just fucked over everyone living near or below the poverty line by removing their income tax exemption and replacing it with the most regressive form of taxation I've ever heard of. Not a great way to keep your country's economy rolling. Not at all. It immediately makes human beings massively cheaper to employ compared to computers, robots, tools and other productivity measures, at the moment, we're punitively taxed to the tune of 30% and they're not. The demand for humans will be relatively higher, which means fuller employment and higher wages.

    The low paid and unemployed could be given subsidised or free efficiency measures during the 10 year transition period.

  20. Re:Simply replace income tax with an energy tax on Hydrogen Won't Save Our Economy · · Score: 1

    You require a nation of humans to vote against their own immediate selfish interests. Good luck with that. It's not entirely against their selfish interests. Income tax you can do nothing, thwack, 30% gone. With an energy tax you can change your lifestyle to reduce the costs.

    1: Insulate everything.
    2: Telecommute.
    3: Use transit.
    4: Invest in newer more efficient vehicles, appliances, fixtures and fittings.
    5: Use environmental technologies. Heat pumps, solar thermal and PV.

    You can reduce your energy consumption to a fraction of current levels and consequently your costs and taxes. You can't do that with income tax.
  21. Profitability on MySQL Quietly Drops Support For Debian Linux [UPDATED] · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I doubt it. And more important than my opinion, MySQL doubts it and has the sales figures to show it. Companies don't normally kill off profitable products and services, not even evil/stupid corporations. Just because one person can't do something profitably, doesn't mean that someone else can't do it profitably.
  22. It's called embrace and extend on Vista's TCP/IP Promises and Perils · · Score: 2, Insightful

    By making these changes in the stack you can improve the windowswindows performance while reducing the windowsother performance. It creates an environment which in which it is strongly beneficial to have a windows only network.

  23. Re:Simply replace income tax with an energy tax on Hydrogen Won't Save Our Economy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I like the idea, but... who pays for the increased cost of businesses? That is, right now, my company pays for the lights, computers, heating etc in their building. Your customers pay, as they do now. As it's an energy tax, everyone who consumes energy would pay the tax in proportion to their consumption, it wouldn't fall any more heavily on businesses than it would on anyone else, and the tax change would have to be split, employees would have proportionally higher domestic costs. Companies which are more energy efficient will obviously have substantially lower costs.
  24. Re:What difference does energy efficiency make? .. on Hydrogen Won't Save Our Economy · · Score: 1

    The (physical, not economic) efficiency of hydrogen compared to fossil fuels is irrelevant so long as we don't use fossil fuels to create it. No it isn't, even if you do happen to live in a fairy world where money is irrelevant. If a power station or power distribution system gives you 25% efficiency over all, you need 4 times as many/much to deliver that 100% that you need. You need four times as many power stations, wind turbines, four times as many hydrogen gas pipelines. In short, four times the infrastructure. This is typically represented in the real world by money but there are environmental impacts to all infrastructure.

    such as in transportation and portable electronics, why not use hydrogen? I'm sure even a significant loss in efficiency is more than offset by the benefits. Hydrogen is particularly unsuited to transport and portable devices, I don't know if you noticed but it's energy density sucks very badly indeed, as well as being horribly inefficient to produce. I'm sure hydrogen is and always has been a red herring.

  25. Simply replace income tax with an energy tax on Hydrogen Won't Save Our Economy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    http://www.whynot.net/ideas/2195

    No changes to human behaviour required.