Woooah - a 9,999 person company is "small" and a 99,999 person company is "mid-sized"?! You must have worked for some hectically big businesses. Even Microsoft is "mid-sized" then, at 90,000 employees.
It's also worth pointing out to the higher-ups (I presume one would write up a report) that pirated software can often cause costly problems - torrents of popular software, for example, may come with viruses or back doors embedded (not speaking from personal experience *cough* *cough*). Also it's often harder to get updates for pirated software, leaving you with unfixed bugs or security holes. Sometimes pirated software can unexpectedly cause data corruption problems (3DSMAX is a classic example - random aberrant vertices). I know you can often avoid these issues if you know what you're doing, but there's always an additional cost in the time required to figure that all out etc. Definitely weigh this in, and evaluate OSS wherever it can be used.
Most people in India have lived their entire lives without cars and didn't need it.
If they don't need it, they won't buy it. Your argument is self-defeating. Especially as the price may be cheap by first-world standards, but not for the average Indian. They'll buy it because it improves their lives.
Sadly, I have some bad news for Linux lovers (myself included) when it comes to the netbook. The fact is that hopes for Linux on the netbook is all but dead
Not when convergence between cellphones and netbooks becomes a reality (which is very likely over the next 10 to 15 years) if systems like Android become popular on cellphones. This is the real reason MS is tightening up Windows 7, and should be worried... anyone capable of extrapolating trends should be able to spot this one coming, it's not news.
"Sixth sense" is a metaphorical, idiomatic phrase. I would've thought that people's understanding of basic English would have continued past grade-school.
Fine, but that's irrelevant, as virtually no pro-choicers are going around claiming that it should be OK to abort a baby right up to a few minutes before it pops out... that's just a strawman.
Bureaucrats pissing money into the toilet on stupid things like this might've been funny before the economy started tanking and millions lost their jobs. Now it's just sick. The best way to kickstart the economy again would be to kick out all these stupid bureaucrats who are not contributing anything obviously useful, but just wasting money.
Um, no, speciation does not have to occur for something to be considered "evolution", only a change in the inherited traits of a population (due to a selective pressure). You are confusing speciation with evolution in general. Evolution can lead to speciation but that is irrelevant.
Well, I actually do have a very good chance that I've been born with just such an ailment, and I'm working extra hard and saving money instead of buying luxuries so that I can pay for my own healthcare when it hits me - because that's just my value system, and I intend for my value system to remain intact - it is against my morals to force somebody else to spend a HUGE chunk of their hard-earned money to take care of me (care of a sick person costs a lot), that would be wrong, and I don't see how I could possibly even consider that that might be 'right' somehow, even as it may well threaten my very life; I'd sooner die in the gutter than have someone else's money stolen on my behalf, thank you.
Just because I have no control over it, doesn't mean I'm somehow entitled to being paid by others, that's a total non sequitir. "Ooh look, I'm so unlucky, so you must give me money to make things all fair". Please. Some people draw the short straw in the lottery of life. That's all there is to it.
... people who had the dumb luck to be born in some shithole country...
There's nothing "lucky" about being born in a shithole country, trust me, not even if you get the odd thing cheaper. The contradiction is right in your statement. If you really think it's "lucky", just move to one of those shithole countries; then you'll see why so many people are still clambering to get out and nobody's clambering to get in.
The big drug companies lose a lot of sales to generics in third-world countries; R&D on a particular drug is a sunk cost, so I can only imagine their reasoning here might be that, provided they don't sell a drug at a loss, that a cheaper sale is better than no sale (though it possibly opens some worm cans). Kind of like Windows 'Starter Edition'.
It's everybody's responsibility to uphold a civil society by helping the truly needy
Go for it, there's private charities for you to donate your money to, and for most everything else there's various kinds of insurance. But there's nothing morally righteous about taking someone else's money by force because you want to give it to charity.
Since when has the USA been "run into the ground"? It's still one of the most economically successful and wealthy countries in the world, still has the largest (or second-largest) GDP, still has a high GDP per capita, still has a reasonable wealth distribution and very little poverty, still has one of the lowest unemployment rates anywhere in the world even after all the recent job losses, and even the poor lead a quality of life that is well above the true poverty seen in pretty much most the rest of the world. I don't see any basis for your claim, it doesn't even make sense as hyperbole. I can only imagine that maybe you're referring to the current recession and 'financial crisis', but even that is relatively small, the media are sensationalizing it as if it were the apocalypse or something, but it's actually going to turn out to be relatively minor in the bigger scheme of things; there will be no second 'great depression' and in a few years time things will look up again. Recessions are natural, economies have cycles, and we're seeing a shakeout of large-scale fraud. "Run into the ground". Sure. Whatever.
Instead of trying to raise taxes it would be far more sensible to shrink government excesses to help cover the shortfall. For example, it *costs* the taxpayer a lot of money to enforce laws like trans fat bans... even apart from the ideological arguments, simple pragmatics suggests that in the current economic climate you look for areas to lower costs, i.e. ask yourself why you're spending that money and if you can't really justify it, do away with that expenditure.
And actually, not just policing manufacture, but all imports/exports of cellphones too, since different companies would have different regulations and different levels of enforcement. And all this paid for by taxpayers. It's frankly preposterous.
Hardly. Imagine the enforcement. Effectively it would be against the law to manufacturer a cellphone device not complying with the standard regulations. Do you not see the huge implications? There'd need to be some kind of government body overseeing all cellphone manufacturing. Checking every cellphone manufactured. Imagine the paperwork that would need to be done, and the pointless jobs for lawyers that would be created. The extra delays and hurdles in getting products out, since every one would need to be checked. You'd probably need to 'register' as a 'cellphone manufacturer' and need a special license, to prevent just anyone from coming in and offering cheaper phones that bypass the regulations. It's such a stupid idea it's beyond belief. Ironically it's probably the major cellphone manufacturers who would benefit most by way of reduced competition, because complex regulatory frameworks and hurdles create onerous market entry barriers that make it *harder* for small, nimble newcomers to enter the market, but that large established players can afford. That's why industries often lobby for this kind of nonsense, in the name of protecting consumers from semi-imaginary problems.
The cellphone industry would soar ahead if there was an ISO standard for connection of peripherals, power sources and accessories.
What? Haven't you been paying attention? The cellphone industry HAS soared ahead (and at an incredible pace - I can only imagine stifling regulations would slow it down) how much faster do you want it to go!? The market just isn't demanding standardised connectors *all that hard* after all (if it was, the providers would've offered it already). Of all the things I long for in cellphones, I seldom wish for 'more standardised connectors', they usually come with all the connectors I need (and they're no doubt quick and cheap for the manufacturers to make because they're not slowed down by silly government procedures). This is one of those things that a few people sometimes SAY they want, but when push comes to shove, it turns out they don't really want it that badly at all, since they look at other things as more important deciding factors when they actually make the purchase. And you BET that cellphone companies ARE looking at what customers think are important deciding factors - there is already a lot of competition in that market, and in case you haven't noticed, there's an incredible range of sophisticated products available at pretty decent prices. How often have you REALLY heard of someone walk into a cellphone store and say "I'm mainly looking for a phone that has standardised connectors please" - come on, nobody cares, they say "I need 3G" or "it must have a camera" or satnav or whatever. (And even without standards, there are already plenty cheap knock-offs of every type of connector or whatever that you could want.) Forcefully regulating a market in a direction in which it wasn't naturally inclined is not to anyone's benefit, it'll slow it down and it'll create greater market entry barriers to potential competition.
And IBM didn't "move in and blow away" anything with an open platform - they moved in with a CLOSED platform, which was only opened when it was reverse-engineered by - you guessed it - another private company engaging in healthy free-market competition. And IBM didn't succeed at all, they failed and basically lost that market due to the flood of cheap 'IBM compatible' clones.
Auto plants isn't an analogous example; their failure is primarily due to poor management and competition that is more efficient (i.e. able to produce adequate cars cheaper)... if other companies are capable of producing cars to supply to the market at lower cost, then it IS a good thing for the poorer run companies to collapse, since everyone will still be able to buy cars (even if they didn't bail out any motor manufacturers you would've had no trouble being able to buy cars). It would be analogous to Intel only if there was major (say Asian) chip manufacturer supplying the world with similar chips at a lower cost and in similar quantities - there isn't.
A similar principle applies to what happened with the banks, though it's somewhat more complex, but there are more than enough better-run banks to pick up the fallout from the badly run banks. Now we're rewarding badly run banks by throwing more money at the very people who are so bad that they pissed the money into the toilet in the first place.
The so-called bailouts are IMO little more than a small handful of bandits raiding the treasury.
If the foreskin made any sort of difference in the fitness or survival of the species, we wouldn't need to cut it off. It wouldn't be there to begin with.
Oh, like the appendix? (Which happens to relatively often kill people sans modern medicine.)
Evolution doesn't need to produce "best" solutions, only "good enough" solutions.
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Woooah - a 9,999 person company is "small" and a 99,999 person company is "mid-sized"?! You must have worked for some hectically big businesses. Even Microsoft is "mid-sized" then, at 90,000 employees.
It's also worth pointing out to the higher-ups (I presume one would write up a report) that pirated software can often cause costly problems - torrents of popular software, for example, may come with viruses or back doors embedded (not speaking from personal experience *cough* *cough*). Also it's often harder to get updates for pirated software, leaving you with unfixed bugs or security holes. Sometimes pirated software can unexpectedly cause data corruption problems (3DSMAX is a classic example - random aberrant vertices). I know you can often avoid these issues if you know what you're doing, but there's always an additional cost in the time required to figure that all out etc. Definitely weigh this in, and evaluate OSS wherever it can be used.
Most people in India have lived their entire lives without cars and didn't need it.
If they don't need it, they won't buy it. Your argument is self-defeating. Especially as the price may be cheap by first-world standards, but not for the average Indian. They'll buy it because it improves their lives.
and eventually need it.
Oh, so they will need it? Which is it?
Sadly, I have some bad news for Linux lovers (myself included) when it comes to the netbook. The fact is that hopes for Linux on the netbook is all but dead
Not when convergence between cellphones and netbooks becomes a reality (which is very likely over the next 10 to 15 years) if systems like Android become popular on cellphones. This is the real reason MS is tightening up Windows 7, and should be worried ... anyone capable of extrapolating trends should be able to spot this one coming, it's not news.
"Sixth sense" is a metaphorical, idiomatic phrase. I would've thought that people's understanding of basic English would have continued past grade-school.
Fine, but that's irrelevant, as virtually no pro-choicers are going around claiming that it should be OK to abort a baby right up to a few minutes before it pops out ... that's just a strawman.
So if your mother was dying of a painful disease that stem cell research had the potential to cure, you'd say "let her die"? That is creepy.
'Both' of course. They aren't mutually exclusive.
Bureaucrats pissing money into the toilet on stupid things like this might've been funny before the economy started tanking and millions lost their jobs. Now it's just sick. The best way to kickstart the economy again would be to kick out all these stupid bureaucrats who are not contributing anything obviously useful, but just wasting money.
Um, no, speciation does not have to occur for something to be considered "evolution", only a change in the inherited traits of a population (due to a selective pressure). You are confusing speciation with evolution in general. Evolution can lead to speciation but that is irrelevant.
I don't understand all the hate for Bill.
Then learn some history. Take it from some of the slightly older folk here, you're mistakenly just showing your own ignorance.
Well, I actually do have a very good chance that I've been born with just such an ailment, and I'm working extra hard and saving money instead of buying luxuries so that I can pay for my own healthcare when it hits me - because that's just my value system, and I intend for my value system to remain intact - it is against my morals to force somebody else to spend a HUGE chunk of their hard-earned money to take care of me (care of a sick person costs a lot), that would be wrong, and I don't see how I could possibly even consider that that might be 'right' somehow, even as it may well threaten my very life; I'd sooner die in the gutter than have someone else's money stolen on my behalf, thank you.
Just because I have no control over it, doesn't mean I'm somehow entitled to being paid by others, that's a total non sequitir. "Ooh look, I'm so unlucky, so you must give me money to make things all fair". Please. Some people draw the short straw in the lottery of life. That's all there is to it.
... people who had the dumb luck to be born in some shithole country ...
There's nothing "lucky" about being born in a shithole country, trust me, not even if you get the odd thing cheaper. The contradiction is right in your statement. If you really think it's "lucky", just move to one of those shithole countries; then you'll see why so many people are still clambering to get out and nobody's clambering to get in.
The big drug companies lose a lot of sales to generics in third-world countries; R&D on a particular drug is a sunk cost, so I can only imagine their reasoning here might be that, provided they don't sell a drug at a loss, that a cheaper sale is better than no sale (though it possibly opens some worm cans). Kind of like Windows 'Starter Edition'.
It's everybody's responsibility to uphold a civil society by helping the truly needy
Go for it, there's private charities for you to donate your money to, and for most everything else there's various kinds of insurance. But there's nothing morally righteous about taking someone else's money by force because you want to give it to charity.
Since when has the USA been "run into the ground"? It's still one of the most economically successful and wealthy countries in the world, still has the largest (or second-largest) GDP, still has a high GDP per capita, still has a reasonable wealth distribution and very little poverty, still has one of the lowest unemployment rates anywhere in the world even after all the recent job losses, and even the poor lead a quality of life that is well above the true poverty seen in pretty much most the rest of the world. I don't see any basis for your claim, it doesn't even make sense as hyperbole. I can only imagine that maybe you're referring to the current recession and 'financial crisis', but even that is relatively small, the media are sensationalizing it as if it were the apocalypse or something, but it's actually going to turn out to be relatively minor in the bigger scheme of things; there will be no second 'great depression' and in a few years time things will look up again. Recessions are natural, economies have cycles, and we're seeing a shakeout of large-scale fraud. "Run into the ground". Sure. Whatever.
Instead of trying to raise taxes it would be far more sensible to shrink government excesses to help cover the shortfall. For example, it *costs* the taxpayer a lot of money to enforce laws like trans fat bans ... even apart from the ideological arguments, simple pragmatics suggests that in the current economic climate you look for areas to lower costs, i.e. ask yourself why you're spending that money and if you can't really justify it, do away with that expenditure.
Sorry, correction, "different companies" -> "different countries".
And actually, not just policing manufacture, but all imports/exports of cellphones too, since different companies would have different regulations and different levels of enforcement. And all this paid for by taxpayers. It's frankly preposterous.
Hardly. Imagine the enforcement. Effectively it would be against the law to manufacturer a cellphone device not complying with the standard regulations. Do you not see the huge implications? There'd need to be some kind of government body overseeing all cellphone manufacturing. Checking every cellphone manufactured. Imagine the paperwork that would need to be done, and the pointless jobs for lawyers that would be created. The extra delays and hurdles in getting products out, since every one would need to be checked. You'd probably need to 'register' as a 'cellphone manufacturer' and need a special license, to prevent just anyone from coming in and offering cheaper phones that bypass the regulations. It's such a stupid idea it's beyond belief. Ironically it's probably the major cellphone manufacturers who would benefit most by way of reduced competition, because complex regulatory frameworks and hurdles create onerous market entry barriers that make it *harder* for small, nimble newcomers to enter the market, but that large established players can afford. That's why industries often lobby for this kind of nonsense, in the name of protecting consumers from semi-imaginary problems.
The cellphone industry would soar ahead if there was an ISO standard for connection of peripherals, power sources and accessories.
What? Haven't you been paying attention? The cellphone industry HAS soared ahead (and at an incredible pace - I can only imagine stifling regulations would slow it down) how much faster do you want it to go!? The market just isn't demanding standardised connectors *all that hard* after all (if it was, the providers would've offered it already). Of all the things I long for in cellphones, I seldom wish for 'more standardised connectors', they usually come with all the connectors I need (and they're no doubt quick and cheap for the manufacturers to make because they're not slowed down by silly government procedures). This is one of those things that a few people sometimes SAY they want, but when push comes to shove, it turns out they don't really want it that badly at all, since they look at other things as more important deciding factors when they actually make the purchase. And you BET that cellphone companies ARE looking at what customers think are important deciding factors - there is already a lot of competition in that market, and in case you haven't noticed, there's an incredible range of sophisticated products available at pretty decent prices. How often have you REALLY heard of someone walk into a cellphone store and say "I'm mainly looking for a phone that has standardised connectors please" - come on, nobody cares, they say "I need 3G" or "it must have a camera" or satnav or whatever. (And even without standards, there are already plenty cheap knock-offs of every type of connector or whatever that you could want.) Forcefully regulating a market in a direction in which it wasn't naturally inclined is not to anyone's benefit, it'll slow it down and it'll create greater market entry barriers to potential competition.
And IBM didn't "move in and blow away" anything with an open platform - they moved in with a CLOSED platform, which was only opened when it was reverse-engineered by - you guessed it - another private company engaging in healthy free-market competition. And IBM didn't succeed at all, they failed and basically lost that market due to the flood of cheap 'IBM compatible' clones.
Ignore this - am posting to undo my moderation (as I accidentally modded incorrectly)
Auto plants isn't an analogous example; their failure is primarily due to poor management and competition that is more efficient (i.e. able to produce adequate cars cheaper) ... if other companies are capable of producing cars to supply to the market at lower cost, then it IS a good thing for the poorer run companies to collapse, since everyone will still be able to buy cars (even if they didn't bail out any motor manufacturers you would've had no trouble being able to buy cars). It would be analogous to Intel only if there was major (say Asian) chip manufacturer supplying the world with similar chips at a lower cost and in similar quantities - there isn't.
A similar principle applies to what happened with the banks, though it's somewhat more complex, but there are more than enough better-run banks to pick up the fallout from the badly run banks. Now we're rewarding badly run banks by throwing more money at the very people who are so bad that they pissed the money into the toilet in the first place.
The so-called bailouts are IMO little more than a small handful of bandits raiding the treasury.
Someone's been drinking the Feminist Kool-Aid.
Mac OS X is UNIX.
If the foreskin made any sort of difference in the fitness or survival of the species, we wouldn't need to cut it off. It wouldn't be there to begin with.
Oh, like the appendix? (Which happens to relatively often kill people sans modern medicine.)
Evolution doesn't need to produce "best" solutions, only "good enough" solutions.