If anything had us doubting they maintain their position with criminal means
Oh please - Microsoft have pulled a lot of dodgy bullshit over the years, but spreading stupid lies by claiming this is illegal is just going to make us MS critics look stupid... stick to criticising them for legitimate things, there is more than enough fodder for that.
"Why is it that corporations who want to keep the money they earned by selling products and services are evil and greedy"
Moreover, companies like Microsoft don't just put their cash in giant vaults and let the execs swim in it like Scrooge McDuck while cackling evilly - they *invest* that money to make it grow. In other words, ultimately (after a few layers of indirection), it is made available to people like you and me who want to borrow money to start our own businesses (and thus create further jobs). And since they have an incentive to maximize their return on investment, unlike government, they'll make sure they will try to invest it smartly in a way that creates the most growth - and hence the most more jobs etc.
In other words, it gets plowed back into the community smartly.
Governments want to spread the myth that corporations are "evil" and they are "good" for obvious reasons - they want money! Lots of it! More and more of it! And they're not above lying or engineering "crises" and issuing propaganda etc. to convince people to hand over more and more.
Agreed, but who technically "pays" the tax is ultimately a moot point - because regardless of who technically "pays" the tax, it's still you and me - Joe Public - who get harmed by higher taxes, in one way or another.
Internet "libertarians" seem to forget one imperative thing:
What's an "Internet libertarian" and how is that different to a libertarian in the flesh? Do you get "Internet socialists" too? How about "telephone socialists" for people who advocate socialism in phone conversations? Does using "Internet" as an adjective in front of an ideology mean anything at all?
Corporations are a 100% Government created *legal* entity. There is NO natural right to form a corporation
So? There are no "natural" property rights either, nor is there a "natural" right not to be murdered by your neighbour. What's your point?
Libertarians, btw, don't profess that there should not be a government, nor did Rand - that's an anarchist, a completely different thing. If you want to criticize something, at least make sure you have a clue of the very basics of what that thing is.
"God" or whoever must have forgotten to include that in the package and I'm sure he's very sorry Randians.
So if the government creates it, the government can tax it, destroy it or rule it as it sees fit.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Governments are servants to the people, created by and for the people - not all-powerful authoritarian entities that lord over us as subservient sheep. They can "tax it, destroy it or rule it" only as far as people want that. And most people actually don't want to get taxed to death, funnily enough - in fact the majority of people only pay taxes because they have to, and would rather pay fewer taxes than more. The majority of people also want the right to form corporations. And the majority of people also want the taxes for the corporations they have a right to form to not be excessive . So what's your point anyway?
If the corp doesn't like it, it may disband at any time and the owners can become sole traders and not be liable under these regulations.
Pretty bloody simple isn't it?
No, actually, it's one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard in a very long time - can you imagine trying to run a company like Microsoft as a couple hundred thousand "sole traders"? Don't be ridiculous. I can't see how you managed to be modded up, because nothing in your post makes any sense at all.
As far as syncing, there is nothing stopping native apps from syncing to "the cloud".
Our customers are saving their most important and crucial intellectual property in our database applications - their 'crown jewels' - is it really a great idea to just randomly entrust saving your company's most precious IP (which, if it leaked, could sink your company) to "the cloud", an amorphous entity consisting of computers that could be anywhere, and could be accessed by who-knows-who amongst varied and changing subcontractors and employees, and may be susceptible to hacking or poorly scrupled individuals e.g. within subcontractors who have access to bits and pieces of this network?
I use four different computers on a weekly basis, and on one of them, I cannot install software. So, it's not just about platform. It's also about being able to go to any random "box" and access your documents.
Oh, you mean like X / UNIX were designed to do and able to do decades ago already - elegantly, securely, fast, and bloat-free.
How many times is this industry going to re-invent the same wheels badly.
While I agree it's another "layer of abstraction", the point of using a browser is access from anywhere / anything. Whether it's a desktop, netbook, phone, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, CISC, RISC etc.. you can potentially run whatever it is and have the same exact same experience on any platform. That's pretty cool.
Sure the idea is cool, but the implementation is anything but. And there've been other much better implementations of the same idea; they just haven't been able to gain the same traction; mainly for historical reasons the web browser has evolved into the 'cross-platform application environment of choice', not because it was technically a great solution to the problem. It's not.
Having all applications in the browser would be a huge step forward.
Urgh. HTML is the crappiest "platform" ever. It was never designed to be an application platform, it's just 'de facto' evolved into one, and evolved in a grotesque, messy way at that. I think making the Web browser a "platform" was the biggest step backwards in the history of software development ever, we've been set back years if not decades in terms of app development speed, capabilities, robustness, performance, size, requirements, bloat, etc.... something brand new and cleanly designed for the purpose would've been much better. Heck, X would been much better, and was already "cloud-friendly" and generally "buzzword-friendly" anyway.
Probably some wharrgarbl from the intertubes stuck in my head, but who knows.
Possibly - I remember wharrgarbling precisely that possibility back when that stupid 'moon truth' video came out and everyone was talking about it (someone paid a lot to make that video, seemed to me the Chinese were the ones with the motivation to fund such a thing) - and probably it was on/. here that I brought it up.
It's an interesting video, and a more important question than most people realise - are people mainly unhappy because it's become culturally regarded as a good thing to be jaded and cynical, or have peoples standards and expectations just dramatically increased? Of course the truth is "both" in different degrees, but it might be a good thing if the next generation merely have 'incredibly high standards', because rather than just enjoying how amazing things are, it might push them to take society and technology to far more amazing levels (that we ultimately should get to). It's worthwhile to try learn both how much to appreciate the amazing things we do have, but also realise where it makes sense to put our 'standards bar' and keep pushing it higher.
"why would an intelligent network waste resources on personal combat"
Because those good at combat will have greater "reproductive success" than mild-mannered, meek robots. Evolution will apply to machines just as it does to biological life, just with a few different 'rules' about the logistics of their production and survival. When regarding this question, intelligent machines should be viewed merely as additional life forms in the same system in which we exist. Machines are harder to reproduce than biological animals (basically requiring an industrialized economy, while we just need food and sex and a few basics), but will likely have far broader operating specifications than biological life forms like us (e.g. temperatures and lifespans etc. required for space travel). In reality though, the line between the two will blur as we re-engineer our own DNA, enhance our bodies with advanced prosthetics, and enhance our intelligence with embedded prosthetic computational devices.
If you don't want to be *judged* by society/employers etc. for activities like your stupid boozing and burglary, then don't *do* those activities. Simple. If you are actually doing those activities, then you *should* be judged accordingly - man up and take responsibility for how you behaved. There is no magic "hey but I was young so it doesn't count" - when I was young I had self-control because I understood that my actions had repercussions for my future, and those are also the type of people I'd also now prefer to hire as an employer, not boozers or thieves.
Or (to put very crudely in layman-like terms): In a world where billions of things happen every single day, "1 in a million" events happen all the time.
The first you will learn about money is that it lets you do exactly that.
Precisely. The obvious contradiction in his statement reveals naivety in this regard - he's perhaps just used to mom paying for everything, so hasn't quite learned this yet. Speaking as someone now in his 7th year of working his ass off at growing a small business, and still at least a few years of hard slog away from being able to "retire - precisely so that I will be able to do whatever I want" - I would strongly recommend taking this deal, especially if you can negotiate a bit of a higher price (if they offered X, they will probably accept a price of, say, X+15%). Getting a business going is really *tough*... you might think right now that opportunities like this are going to come along a lot - but more likely than otherwise, this is just a fluke, you might *very* well struggle your ass off for another ten years before you ever get another opportunity like this. Unless the offer isn't that great (he's vague - e.g. is it "enough money to live for three years" or "enough money to live for 30 years", crucial difference) - take it, take it, take - even if you then just start a new venture, at least you will be starting that from a position of having some cash in the bank, which will really, really help in any new venture (as a.o. e.g. you can't invest in R&D when you need to do projects just to keep the cash flow going). If the money is good (as in "I could theoretically retire with this, if I manage it carefully"), then I would definitely take the money.
He says it's not about the money - but it always is, because living is expensive, nobody can get away from that. And so you never do quite "what you want" anyway, even if it's your own business; you gotta keep customers happy so you can pay the rent.
Unless you are super confident that your business is so amazing is going to hit the bigtime soon. It's 'tough out there', it really is.
We tried it in the UK. Privately owned railway systems have proved much more expensive
That's not a failure of "privately owned railway systems" - that's a failure of "privately owned railway systems that are effectively granted a monopoly by the government, with what may well be a very possibly corrupt process involving government officials and very possibly corrupt management". Massive difference - never just assume that "private" is the cause of the failure just because they've plastered the word on there.
Not really, I used to regularly cycle through to a busy city centre and out again (+/- 10 miles either way), often even during rush hour. No helmet or anything. Never had so much as a bump.
Our economies are incredibly complex, but there is no voodoo or anything mystical involved - someone smart enough, with enough information, can make meaningful predictions - because it's just difficult, not impossible. This isn't like an unpredictable natural disaster. We're not merely being subject to random tragic events that nobody can possibly predict.
Because it's overvalued, thanks to speculative hype because it's "fad of the day". It isn't worth that much because there isn't any potential business model that can generate that much revenue, and in a few years when everyone realizes the phenomenon is a mini-bubble that can't be effectively monetized like they'd hoped, the value will tank.
Not sure what you mean about "roots" and "national identity", btw --- for the record, I'm not American, I'm African... just using logical strategic arguments here.
Slashdot Mirror
If anything had us doubting they maintain their position with criminal means
Oh please - Microsoft have pulled a lot of dodgy bullshit over the years, but spreading stupid lies by claiming this is illegal is just going to make us MS critics look stupid ... stick to criticising them for legitimate things, there is more than enough fodder for that.
"Why is it that corporations who want to keep the money they earned by selling products and services are evil and greedy"
Moreover, companies like Microsoft don't just put their cash in giant vaults and let the execs swim in it like Scrooge McDuck while cackling evilly - they *invest* that money to make it grow. In other words, ultimately (after a few layers of indirection), it is made available to people like you and me who want to borrow money to start our own businesses (and thus create further jobs). And since they have an incentive to maximize their return on investment, unlike government, they'll make sure they will try to invest it smartly in a way that creates the most growth - and hence the most more jobs etc.
In other words, it gets plowed back into the community smartly.
Governments want to spread the myth that corporations are "evil" and they are "good" for obvious reasons - they want money! Lots of it! More and more of it! And they're not above lying or engineering "crises" and issuing propaganda etc. to convince people to hand over more and more.
The current administration is much less submissive to corporate political desires.
Hurt your corporations and you hurt your people.
You'll reap what you sow.
Agreed, but who technically "pays" the tax is ultimately a moot point - because regardless of who technically "pays" the tax, it's still you and me - Joe Public - who get harmed by higher taxes, in one way or another.
Internet "libertarians" seem to forget one imperative thing:
What's an "Internet libertarian" and how is that different to a libertarian in the flesh? Do you get "Internet socialists" too? How about "telephone socialists" for people who advocate socialism in phone conversations? Does using "Internet" as an adjective in front of an ideology mean anything at all?
Corporations are a 100% Government created *legal* entity. There is NO natural right to form a corporation
So? There are no "natural" property rights either, nor is there a "natural" right not to be murdered by your neighbour. What's your point?
Libertarians, btw, don't profess that there should not be a government, nor did Rand - that's an anarchist, a completely different thing. If you want to criticize something, at least make sure you have a clue of the very basics of what that thing is.
"God" or whoever must have forgotten to include that in the package and I'm sure he's very sorry Randians.
So if the government creates it, the government can tax it, destroy it or rule it as it sees fit.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Governments are servants to the people, created by and for the people - not all-powerful authoritarian entities that lord over us as subservient sheep. They can "tax it, destroy it or rule it" only as far as people want that. And most people actually don't want to get taxed to death, funnily enough - in fact the majority of people only pay taxes because they have to, and would rather pay fewer taxes than more. The majority of people also want the right to form corporations. And the majority of people also want the taxes for the corporations they have a right to form to not be excessive . So what's your point anyway?
If the corp doesn't like it, it may disband at any time and the owners can become sole traders and not be liable under these regulations.
Pretty bloody simple isn't it?
No, actually, it's one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard in a very long time - can you imagine trying to run a company like Microsoft as a couple hundred thousand "sole traders"? Don't be ridiculous. I can't see how you managed to be modded up, because nothing in your post makes any sense at all.
As far as syncing, there is nothing stopping native apps from syncing to "the cloud".
Our customers are saving their most important and crucial intellectual property in our database applications - their 'crown jewels' - is it really a great idea to just randomly entrust saving your company's most precious IP (which, if it leaked, could sink your company) to "the cloud", an amorphous entity consisting of computers that could be anywhere, and could be accessed by who-knows-who amongst varied and changing subcontractors and employees, and may be susceptible to hacking or poorly scrupled individuals e.g. within subcontractors who have access to bits and pieces of this network?
I use four different computers on a weekly basis, and on one of them, I cannot install software. So, it's not just about platform. It's also about being able to go to any random "box" and access your documents.
Oh, you mean like X / UNIX were designed to do and able to do decades ago already - elegantly, securely, fast, and bloat-free.
How many times is this industry going to re-invent the same wheels badly.
While I agree it's another "layer of abstraction", the point of using a browser is access from anywhere / anything. Whether it's a desktop, netbook, phone, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, CISC, RISC etc.. you can potentially run whatever it is and have the same exact same experience on any platform. That's pretty cool.
Sure the idea is cool, but the implementation is anything but. And there've been other much better implementations of the same idea; they just haven't been able to gain the same traction; mainly for historical reasons the web browser has evolved into the 'cross-platform application environment of choice', not because it was technically a great solution to the problem. It's not.
Having all applications in the browser would be a huge step forward.
Urgh. HTML is the crappiest "platform" ever. It was never designed to be an application platform, it's just 'de facto' evolved into one, and evolved in a grotesque, messy way at that. I think making the Web browser a "platform" was the biggest step backwards in the history of software development ever, we've been set back years if not decades in terms of app development speed, capabilities, robustness, performance, size, requirements, bloat, etc. ... something brand new and cleanly designed for the purpose would've been much better. Heck, X would been much better, and was already "cloud-friendly" and generally "buzzword-friendly" anyway.
Probably some wharrgarbl from the intertubes stuck in my head, but who knows.
Possibly - I remember wharrgarbling precisely that possibility back when that stupid 'moon truth' video came out and everyone was talking about it (someone paid a lot to make that video, seemed to me the Chinese were the ones with the motivation to fund such a thing) - and probably it was on /. here that I brought it up.
That was the point of Fnkmaster's post - it's not about the *complexity* really.
It's an interesting video, and a more important question than most people realise - are people mainly unhappy because it's become culturally regarded as a good thing to be jaded and cynical, or have peoples standards and expectations just dramatically increased? Of course the truth is "both" in different degrees, but it might be a good thing if the next generation merely have 'incredibly high standards', because rather than just enjoying how amazing things are, it might push them to take society and technology to far more amazing levels (that we ultimately should get to). It's worthwhile to try learn both how much to appreciate the amazing things we do have, but also realise where it makes sense to put our 'standards bar' and keep pushing it higher.
Only a Westerner would think that another culture needs some "enlightenment"
Really!? Good heavens man, crack open a history book sometime will you.
"why would an intelligent network waste resources on personal combat"
Because those good at combat will have greater "reproductive success" than mild-mannered, meek robots. Evolution will apply to machines just as it does to biological life, just with a few different 'rules' about the logistics of their production and survival. When regarding this question, intelligent machines should be viewed merely as additional life forms in the same system in which we exist. Machines are harder to reproduce than biological animals (basically requiring an industrialized economy, while we just need food and sex and a few basics), but will likely have far broader operating specifications than biological life forms like us (e.g. temperatures and lifespans etc. required for space travel). In reality though, the line between the two will blur as we re-engineer our own DNA, enhance our bodies with advanced prosthetics, and enhance our intelligence with embedded prosthetic computational devices.
If you don't want to be *judged* by society/employers etc. for activities like your stupid boozing and burglary, then don't *do* those activities. Simple. If you are actually doing those activities, then you *should* be judged accordingly - man up and take responsibility for how you behaved. There is no magic "hey but I was young so it doesn't count" - when I was young I had self-control because I understood that my actions had repercussions for my future, and those are also the type of people I'd also now prefer to hire as an employer, not boozers or thieves.
Or (to put very crudely in layman-like terms): In a world where billions of things happen every single day, "1 in a million" events happen all the time.
The first you will learn about money is that it lets you do exactly that.
Precisely. The obvious contradiction in his statement reveals naivety in this regard - he's perhaps just used to mom paying for everything, so hasn't quite learned this yet. Speaking as someone now in his 7th year of working his ass off at growing a small business, and still at least a few years of hard slog away from being able to "retire - precisely so that I will be able to do whatever I want" - I would strongly recommend taking this deal, especially if you can negotiate a bit of a higher price (if they offered X, they will probably accept a price of, say, X+15%). Getting a business going is really *tough* ... you might think right now that opportunities like this are going to come along a lot - but more likely than otherwise, this is just a fluke, you might *very* well struggle your ass off for another ten years before you ever get another opportunity like this. Unless the offer isn't that great (he's vague - e.g. is it "enough money to live for three years" or "enough money to live for 30 years", crucial difference) - take it, take it, take - even if you then just start a new venture, at least you will be starting that from a position of having some cash in the bank, which will really, really help in any new venture (as a.o. e.g. you can't invest in R&D when you need to do projects just to keep the cash flow going). If the money is good (as in "I could theoretically retire with this, if I manage it carefully"), then I would definitely take the money.
He says it's not about the money - but it always is, because living is expensive, nobody can get away from that. And so you never do quite "what you want" anyway, even if it's your own business; you gotta keep customers happy so you can pay the rent.
Unless you are super confident that your business is so amazing is going to hit the bigtime soon. It's 'tough out there', it really is.
We tried it in the UK. Privately owned railway systems have proved much more expensive
That's not a failure of "privately owned railway systems" - that's a failure of "privately owned railway systems that are effectively granted a monopoly by the government, with what may well be a very possibly corrupt process involving government officials and very possibly corrupt management". Massive difference - never just assume that "private" is the cause of the failure just because they've plastered the word on there.
Private companies are all failing? That's news to me, most of them look like they're doing OK to me.
Not really, I used to regularly cycle through to a busy city centre and out again (+/- 10 miles either way), often even during rush hour. No helmet or anything. Never had so much as a bump.
Nouriel Roubini?
Our economies are incredibly complex, but there is no voodoo or anything mystical involved - someone smart enough, with enough information, can make meaningful predictions - because it's just difficult, not impossible. This isn't like an unpredictable natural disaster. We're not merely being subject to random tragic events that nobody can possibly predict.
has to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen.
Hey, it's the new new new new new economy.
Sure, why not?
Because it's overvalued, thanks to speculative hype because it's "fad of the day". It isn't worth that much because there isn't any potential business model that can generate that much revenue, and in a few years when everyone realizes the phenomenon is a mini-bubble that can't be effectively monetized like they'd hoped, the value will tank.
Not sure what you mean about "roots" and "national identity", btw --- for the record, I'm not American, I'm African ... just using logical strategic arguments here.