The explosives bit is true, interesting, and complethy besides the point of the discussion. Criminals are not using (nor likely to start) explosives. Those are tools of war, not crime. Some bizarre outlier cases not withstanding.
How dare you value those people? How dare you value a burglar more than his victim? Do you hate good citizens?
How dare I value these people? Excuse me for not wanting to see someone die for a crime that in some cases is a misdemeanor.
I don't value the burglar more than the victim. I simply don't think one has the right to take another life over personal property. Regardless of who's in the right.
I don't hate good citizens. I simply think "bad citizens" (to extend the idea you posited) don't deserve to forfeit their very lives because they were stupid and / or desperate enough to do something like try to take your TV.
Again, if the damn courts can't impose a penalty for something, you should have no right to do so on the spot.
As far as ensuring that they don't attack you as a target of opportunity, I've already addressed numerous times that you're far better off retreating regardless of your access to weapons than taking your chances in confrontation. If the intruder is unarmed, they pose little threat. If they are armed, you've just put yourself into a firefight. No guarantee you'll be the one to walk out of that one. Where is the rational reason for wanting to confront someone under these circumstances?
I don't have hard evidence to support the idea that underground gunsmithing couldn't crop up here (mostly because of the difficulty in proving a negative). But the lack of a similar underground in any country with strict gun control laws makes me think we would not see widespread gunsmithing here if a ban ever happened. Some quick Googling finds no evidence of underground gunsmithing in the U.K., Australia, Japan, China, or anywhere really except for the Philippines where, oddly guns are legal. Clearly this is not absolute evidence, but if it were wide spread, I'd think there would be some evidence.
Excellent point. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I'm very glad you brought it up!
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The view that the second amendment is there to protect the people from the threat of government oppression is a popular one. It is not spelled out in the constitution if it is the case. I am not saying it is wrong, because I don't know the founder's intent. All I can know is the text itself.
Let's assume that you are right though. If that's the case, making political assassination illegal would be unconstitutional.
It also puts the power out of the voting public and into the armed minority. If a well organized and armed group of people decided to stage an attack on the capital, they can? Their reasons don't have to be good or anything, it's just might makes right?
Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilks Booth, and John Hinckley, Jr. were simply executing their constitutional rights?
With all the trouble that the second amendment causes, I do not understand why it would be a big deal to strike it from the constitution and replace it with an amendment that is clear, and reflects the will of the American people today. Regardless of what that will is. Then "what the founders intended" ceases to matter, because it will be spelled out.
There is a provision in the constitution for amendments to be passed. The reasons for this are clear, and undisputed. I don't know why there is zero will to ever change the document.
That said, and also assuming you're right, it's an out-dated concept. Letting people keep muskets to defend from a military that's largely armed with similar weapons (and some artillery as well, but mostly muskets) could work. Today our military has body armor, Abrams tanks, attack helicopters, and warplanes. the second amendment would not allow you to protect yourself from this in the first place.
A quote from Barney Frank comes to mind. He was talking about giving government regulators discretion on health care reform and what guarantees there would be that they would make good decisions. But it applies to any government power at all:
"'What's the guarantee that this discretion bodes well?' And the answer is: In democracies, there are no guarantees. Elect good people."
We live in times where this is more true than ever. We're not about to, as a society allow private ownership of B-2s and Abrams tanks. Nobody wants to see that. To say nothing of the cost prohibitions of doing so.
But without that level of "right to keep and bear arms", we put absolute trust in our government to operate in a just manner. We rely on government's internal checks and balances. Our military does not swear fealty to The President or to Congress. Their oath swears to "protect and defend The constitution against all enemies". The three branches are set in a work together / work against each other checks and balances scenario. The Republic, and the Democracy are our defense. If you're relying on your rifle to defend against the U.S. Army, you're laughably foolish.
Again, was this the founder's intent? I don't know. It could be. But if it is, it's a meaningless academic distinction now.
The point wasn't to set up a straw-man argument, it was to point out that all the other illegal things are the result things that are created or imported. 16 year old girls are pre-existing things that are exploited.
In other words, you can ban all of them (regardless of if you should), except 16 year old girls which is an entirely different problem, so let's exclude it from the discussion.
I addressed two major points in my post. You addressed one, which I conceded might be a problem in the first place. You ignored the other.
The point you addressed was guns getting into the hands of criminals. I conceded that even with an outright ban, it's likely that the supply for the underground would continue to be strong. You chose to address this point which I already conceded. I'm not sure why.
The other major point was that it doesn't do you any good to be armed if you're not one of the bad guys. It's a dangerous illusion of control.
Let's imagine a typical pro-gun fantasy of why it's good to have a gun.
It's 3:00 AM. I'm fast asleep in my bed, and I hear a noise.
1) I wake up and get out of bed to investigate or 2) I stay in bed and ignore it.
I think most normal people could choose either depending on the severity of the noise. So let's pick 1).
I've got a gun in my night stand. I need to decide if I take it with me or not while I investigate. 1) I take it 2) I don't.
I suspect most normal people aren't thinking "OMG SOMEONE IS COMING TO DO ME HARM!!!!!" as their first thought, but perhaps if I were inclined to own a gun it would be because this was my first thought? So let's again pick 1).
So you decide to take the gun. But this is dependent on a choice that you made before this night! Is the gun loaded?
1) Yes it is (You are retarded for keeping a loaded gun next to your bed) 2) No it's not (You are retarded for thinking an unloaded gun is any good to you in a crisis)
Let's pick 1) and hope that you don't have kids who'll blow their foot off some day.
So you creep down the stairs with the gun. You see a shadowy figure sneaking from your kitchen into your living room. You can't make them out clearly, but you realize they're facing away from you and haven't noticed you.
1) Shoot them and ask questions later. They're in your home after all. 2) Hold your fire, and get a better look risking getting hurt yourself.
Maybe you choose 1) and it's your spouse or kid coming in late. Maybe you just killed a burglar who only wanted to take your Blu-Ray player. Or maybe you stopped a rapist.
Maybe you choose 2) and get shot and killed yourself. Maybe you find out that it's your spouse or kid. Maybe there was nobody and it was your fucking cat knocking over a picture frame.
Of all these possibilities I think killing a rapist is the lest frequent thing that happens, and the cat knocking over a picture is the most. Followed by killing your spouse or kid.
So let's say you go down stairs and there's a guy with a gun. If you get they don't know you're there AND you positively identify them as a stranger AND you manage to disable them with a gun, then you win. That's a lot of fucking ifs. But if you go play cowboy down stairs with a gun and they do notice you (far more likely) now you're in a firefight or a standoff. Good luck!
There are just so many variables. People love to fantasize about a gun giving them this level of control and power and it's sad. If you're not an irresponsible nut job, it doesn't. The odds of the stars aligning and you saving the day are very low. If I'm in that scenario and I know for a FACT that someone is in my house and it can't be someone who should be, if I had the choice of a gun, I wouldn't take it. I'd grab my cell and go out the fucking window.
The cops can get to my house in a couple minutes.
I'm okay with only criminals having guns. Because only criminals having guns doesn't mean only criminals will have guns. It means only criminals and cops will have guns. And the supply to criminals will be constrained. I do however question if this constraint would be effective.
Addressing your points on the data being wrong, Fox News and other right wing outlets cried foul at the 90% statistic, and (correctly) pointed out that it's not 90% of guns in Mexico that were traced to the U.S. It's *only* 90% of weapons that were sent b
You make some good points while ignoring or missing others.
16 year old girls are not illegal. Buying / selling them is. There is nothing that could be done or proposed to eliminate their existence, so let's set that aside as an apples to motorcycles comparison, shall we?
Crank, coke, smack, etc. are all chemical substances. Many drugs can be created with little technical know-how, and in some cases, just the ability to cultivate plants. Others (Meth for example) can be created with easily obtained items that are not strictly controlled due to many and common other uses. Meth labs are dangerous, yes, but you make a good point that the fact that they're illegal and dangerous does not stop them from existing.
Guns on the other hand are not typically built in people's garages. They are mass produced in factories. In countries where they are illegal, their existance in the underground is largely made possible by border crossings where they are legal.
This is where you miss the biggest point. Yes, we have a porous border. But guns flow south out of the U.S. into Mexico, not the other way around.
Mexico has one gun store, which is run by the military. It's near impossibly to own a gun legally there. And that's why the same cartels that are smuggling drugs into the States are smuggling guns south so as not to waste a trip back.
The people that were at this meet and greet today presumably had the right to own guns. It didn't help them stave off this nut. Even if one of them had a gun, do you honestly think that would stop the 19 (or more) shots he managed to get off? It was a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine. Assuming a magazine that holds 20 something rounds, he didn't have to reload. How long could it have taken? 5 seconds?
I am not saying that banning guns makes everything magically wonderful. I'm not even suggesting we should do it. But to say it shouldn't be on the table seems irrational.
If you limit the supply of guns, you will limit their availability. The only question in my mind is what about all the pre-existing guns? How many can you reasonably expect to recover? What mechanisms would lawfully allow existing guns to *be* recovered? It seems to me that if you ban guns, the existing guns will create a supply for the underground that will last for decades.
Addressing the other side of your argument, I don't believe that you should have the right to shoot someone unless you can prove they're threatening your life. Castle doctrine is bullshit. If someone wants to steal your TV, they're an asshole, and if they do so, they are a criminal. But if they get caught, they're not subject to the death penalty anywhere in the U.S.. Why should it be okay to kill them if you catch them in the act?
In many states, shop owners can have guns. And in many states where they can't, they do anyway. This doesn't stop liquor store or convenience store robberies because the owner might have a gun. Your idea that this is a cause for fewer "home invasions" (a bullshit politically loaded term if there ever was one) is completely without unsupported by any data. UCR data suggests that home robberies are more uniform within demographic areas regardless of gun laws. In other words, major metros with similar income levels and ethnic / educational distributions will have similar break-ins regardless if they are in Georgia, New Jersey, Michigan, or California.
Thieves don't pick businesses over homes because of fear of being shot. They do so because stores tend to be places where they think they can easily score cash. The average home is unlikely to net the thief much cash directly. He has to find something to rob and hope he or she can pawn it without being caught. They also can't as easily case the place out before hand. But any 7-11, you can walk into any time you please.
This is besides another point of fact: criminals don't commit crimes thinking ahead of time that they'll be caught. The average burger doesn't want
You're missing out. Silverlight learned a lot by being second to market after Flash, and had a lot of the problems with network quality of service and image quality solved from v1.0, rather than getting locked into some of the (in hindsight) bad design choices Adobe made since Flash as a video streaming medium evolved more organically.
The problems with Flash aren't crippling, and they don't mean that the quality can't be on par with Silverlight under ideal circumstances, but it means that no matter what, all things being equal, Flash will either use more resources for the same quality, or will have less quality than Silverlight. This is because ideal circumstances are almost non-existent in the real world.
Yes, there are other choices besides just Flash vs. Silverlight, but those two dominate the market so much, that others are more or less niche. It's eschewing a standard because you don't like the people who put their name on it, in favor of something which (standards body certification be damned) is less of a standard.
MSNBC and Fox News are both flawed. (So is CNN, actually)
Fox News is a brain dead mouthpiece for the right. MSNBC is a thinking, critical mouthpiece for the left.
Was my rant on anti-intellectualism on the right not explicit enough? I want a right wing media source that's not all about pandering to the latest fear meme. This exists in print publications. This exists online (though most of the good ones are highly specialized in finance, or military policy, or other specific areas). But while MSNBC presents intelligent analysis from the left on the TV machine, I see no counterpoint on the right. And if I were a serious person on the right, that would piss me off. Having the masses spoon fed that nonsense means the best and brightest have an up hill battle to get elected. And as I said, this is bad fro the republic.
You apparently doubt this, but I am capable of simultaneously agreeing with someone, yet thinking their argument is terrible, or disagreeing with someone, yet respecting their argument. I'm an Athiest, but I think Christopher Hitchins is a counter-productive wind-bag. I much prefer Dawkins' writing. Likewise I wanted to support the anti-religous sentiment of the film Zeitgeist but there was so much that was factually incorrect that I barely finished it. And while I'm on the subject, Bill Maher's film Religulous was awful too. I rather like Maher, and I agreed with his greater point, but the movie just sucked.
Don't people on the right have a problem with the pandering and fear mongering, and racism by Beck and Hanity, and the other "personalities" on Fox News? I can't imagine it's just a left-right thing.
No fair is having opponents on, starting the interview prior with an introduction of the guest where you explain their position on the issue(s) that are relevant to why you are having them on your show. Your point of view is in opposition to theirs, so you're critical of them. Then your first question to them is something like "okay, you've heard my characterization of your position, Is that fair, did I get anything wrong? Did I mis-characterize anything?". That's something I've seen on Maddow time and time again. I don't know how you get much more fair than that while espousing a point of view.
There are other ways of being fair, but most of them involve suppressing your point of view.
The First Olbermann comment on Scott Brown: Factually coreect, but hyper-partisan and silly. I cringed when I saw him say it live. Olbermann sometimes obviously has an axe to grind, and this is one of those times. As I said, is MSNBC perfect? Hell no.
Likewise for Michelle Malkin.
I don't see how Olbermann used selective edits when Cheney actually did that. He spent a whole year campaigning on the issue. This is not something that one needed to use selective edits to do.
Maddow's "dishonesty" was one detail of the order things happened in during an hour long special on the Oklahoma City bombing. And she issued a retraction. She does that. It's what good journalists do when they are wrong. The OKC piece wasn't a 2 minute piece on the regular show, it was an hour long special. One mistake in the narrative that she said was her mistake and hers alone is hardly an indictment of her ethics. I'd much rather be defending Maddow than Olbermann. Of the two, frankly, she's the better journalist. Olbermann is inclined to attack folks for reasons that are not substantive. I've not seen Maddow do that, despite having folks on who opened themselves up to it.
I don't think what Chris Mathews said is wrong in the least. Some journalists see their jobs as to be objective at all costs, and others see it as a way of helping their nation.
Regarding the Glenn Beck on global warming incident. You may have a point here, but Glenn Beck's clip was one of a dozen shown in sequence in that piece. The meme that "this snow storm proves no global warming! lolz!" is quite alive and well in the conservative media, even if Mr. Beck himself was not espousing it in the particular clip that Maddow showed.
I'll concede that label changing is something that happens on both sides. Sometimes it's silly, other times it's clearly for bias. In the case of pro-choice vs pro-life, I've always understood why pro-choicers are unhappy with the labels. Who wants to be thought of as anit-life as those labels imply?
I honestly seem to have lost the thread of where you are going with the parts at the end with NPR. What's wrong with gun advocates or gun rights advocates? I know some folks who would describe themselves that way. And pornography advocates? Seriously? It's a first amendment issue. I guess the difference is that the reason we don't call "gun advocates" "Second Amendment advocates" is that the Second Amendment is narrow, and applies basically only to guns. The First Amendment applies to all kinds of free speech, pornography included, but certainly not exclusively. I'm not sure that addresses what you're getting at though, because I'm not 100% sure what your point is.
I can accept that MSNBC and Fox News are equally biased, but I can not accept that they are equal.
Their methods, and quality, are not equal.
Even the hyper-partisans (Maddow, Olbermann) at MSNBC are generally fair with their treatment of the opposition. They base their arguments in facts, and they present their fluff stories as fluff, not serious news (War on Christmas? It's snowing so global warming is a myth? Seriously?)
Is MSNBC flawed? Hell yes. But it's not a brain dead mouthpiece for a political party like Fox News.
I would welcome intelligent discourse from the right. There ARE respectable ideas from the right. I don't agree with Ron Paul, but he's a thoughtful, intelligent individual. As is Condalisa Rice. David Frum has been called intellectual, and I'd say he deserves it. William F. Buckley certainly qualified.
But look at this list. There are certainly others you could add to it that I can't think of at the moment, but where are the leaders? Everyone who is on the right and shows the slightest hint of intellectualism is not taken seriously by the right wing base. Meanwhile, even if the inner circle doesn't take her seriously, Sarah Palin is in the spotlight of the populist base. That's a shame, and our republic is weaker for it.
No, I don't hate Fox News because it's right wing. There are plenty of things I don't agree with or don't like that I can just happily ignore.
The reason I detest Fox News, and the reason I can't just happily ignore it is because its not just anti-intellectual, but its gone so far as to be "proudly stupid", and because many of the tactics it employs are shady and dishonest.
I was going to say wow, I hadn't heard of that. And concede that it's a bigger problem than I was aware of.
But this isn't an exploit at all. It required user intervention to install "anti-malware" that contained a trojan.
Are you seriously saying that if not for adblock, you would have clicked "Yes, please install this anti-virus software I've never heard of, and anything else you like!"?
This is like blaming your door's lock when you let the guy pretending to be the mail man in, and he robs you.
I read those stories too. I can't help but feel they're overblown. I've never had one of my Windows boxes infected with malware. I don't run anti-malware software on them, and never have on a continuous basis. (Though I do scan a couple times a year). Most of these exploits are mighty particular, and were only exploited by affiliates of web sites who were dodgy to begin with.
You might as well lump "web sites" or "email" in as a vector for malware. Why not avoid them as well? I understand that the reason is that you see value in email or web sites, but not ads. But my point is that you can't lump all of a group together as bad because a very small subset are.
No, I disagree. Unless you think that adblock users represent more than 10% of browsers, it is disproportionate.
Remember, at the time I posted, there were only like 53 or 56 posts on the story (browsing at 0). That's over 10%. Even here on Slashdot, where it's possible adblock approaches or exceeds 10%, having 100% or near 100% of adblock users drone on about it is tiresome. Especially on an article that's not directly about adblock (though to be fair, it's not exactly off-topic).
I need a plugin that blocks comments on slashdot and other forums where people mention how great it is that they use Ad Block.
We get it. Everyone here knows this technology exists. Some of us choose not to use it. There are half a dozen posts saying "Put up ads! I won't see them! I run Ad Block Plus!" on this article, and only 50 comments total.
You folks made a choice to opt out of the ad model, but reap the rewards of content that ads pay for anyway. I get that, and hopefully you do too. But why are you folks all so damn vocal about it? It's as if you're smug about blocking ads, and I honestly don't know why you would be smug about that.
What would stop you, or me, or anybody from faking classified documents by making stuff up, then "leaking" them to an outfit like Wikileaks?
Which of course raises the counter-conspirasy theory conspiracy theory:
What would stop a government from faking classified documents ny making stuff up then "leaking" it to Wikileaks or a similar group?/me adjusts tin-foil hat.
As someone else pointed out, Max Payne is a Third Person Shooter, not an FPS, but your point still stands.
The sad thing is Max Payne may have made for a poor movie, but I do think it represents the high water mark for game to movie adaptations so far. Looks at what's out there:
Super Mario Bros. - I get it. The material in Super Mario didn't lend itself to a decent story. That's why you departed so much from it (Goombas are 8 foot lizards instead of 2 ft mushrooms, etc.). But if you're going to depart, why didn't you do something good?
Street Fighter - Generic Fighter Movie with bad acting and video game cliches! Sign me up!
Mortal Kombat - See Street Fighter, but darker and with better special effects.
Wing Commander - This should have been the high water mark. When the Wing Commander movie went into production, The Wing Commander game series was by far the closest the game industry had come to the vaunted "Interactive Movie" experience. It's creator / director / mastermind Chris Roberts was the same guy who was responsible for the games. It had a great budget and groundbreaking special effects. They got their choice of headline stars. Perfect formula. Except Chris Roberts, for reasons only known to him, departed significantly from the plot of the Wing Commander games. He introduced concepts that were alien to the Wing commander universe, (Pilgrims? Really?) and then just generally couldn't bring things together. Status: Total Loss.
Final Fantasy was impressive but only on a technical achievement level. It's plot was... well, I suspect that I wasn't bad, but just not for Western audiences. Perhaps someone more familiar with Japanese media can comment on it.
Resident Evil - I didn't see this, but the only thing I heard positive about it was a scantily clad Milla Jovovich running around soaking wet with guns. While that's appealing, it didn't sell me on the film.
Doom - I don't even know where to start.
Max Payne - The story was so-so. The acting was okay. The effects were good. The atmosphere was good. The production value was good. I really think this was the best the industry has produced so far. That's sad.
Am I missing some gem out there that was a game first and was made into a great film?
Yeah, it's tied to your income when you were working.
The rational is (I believe) that if you were earning a lot, your living expenses must be higher. If you weren't earning as much, they must not be. It's absurd. If there's a better rational, I don't know what it is. I agree it's not a very good system. Those who would defend it would probably say something about how they paid into it, so it's their money.
Someone making $25K in this country with a couple of kids is probably just squeaking by (but you can do it. Plenty of people do). They get laid off, and suddenly they're making 60% of that. I don't know how you support yourself and a couple kids on $15K. But that's reality for a lot of folks now, and others are accusing them of wanting to stay that way.
My situation, comparatively, as a single person, who was living with someone else, (so my expenses were nearly half what they would be) had no risk. The most I had to do was sweat about car repairs, and live without luxuries until I found a new job. I wasn't happy about it, but my situation wasn't dire like it is with many.
I do know that if we tried to implement a system like the U.K. has here in the U.S., the right would loose their minds, and scream that we'd become a socialist welfare state. As it is, unemployment is often derided by some on the right. The idea that you would treat the poor and the middle class the same would be an unthinkable evil to many of them.
Where do you get your info? Unemployment pay is tied as a percentage of your prior income. IIRC (and the particulars probably vary from state to state) in NJ it's 60% of the highest 12 consecutive months of the last 18 months before you initially filed. I know in NJ and PA the cap is just over $500 / wk. In Delaware, it's something like $300 / wk.
I made just shy of $60K before I lost my job a couple years ago. When I collected unemployment, it went down to about a rate of $25K/yr. I was able to live off of that, and pay my bills, sure. But what if I wasn't making that much before I lost my job? If I was making $30K (which lots of people get by on, and I know I could if I had to), then unemployment would have been $350 / wk. That wouldn't pay my rent and electric. Let alone, cable, phone, car payment, etc. Some of those things I could cut back on, but it's not easy even to cut back. How do you back out of a lease? How do you back out of a car payment? How do you get rid of internet and do an effective job search today? If you do back out of a car payment, how do you get to interviews, or land a job that you'd have to commute to? These are all solvable problems, but every one makes the problem more difficult.
People that say the modest safety net keeps people from working are disillusion. Maybe there are some people out there, but a few oddballs that are happy living off of $10K a year are hardly the norm. Unless there are some states with RADICALLY different unemployment rules. But I hardly think many states would be more liberal than NJ. Can anyone point to a state where the benefits are so radically better that it would be *desirable* to be on unemployment?
I can't speak for the person who you asked the question, but I can speak for myself.
GM built my car. I didn't build it myself. However, GM does not control the aftermarket for my car. If I want to replace my exhaust manifold with a set of nice high flow headers, anyone can design and build those. There are no lockouts to prevent this. Likewise, if I want a nicer stereo, or navigation system, I can just install it myself. Vendors who want to sell me an aftermarket stereo don't need to do so through a GM approved store.
There are of course other factors (is there a market to support doing this?) but that's just reality.
No. That's not my argument, which is why you don't understand.
My argument isn't just about why I chose Windows on the desktop, it's why I choose OSes in general. Including Windows on the desktop. But also WinMo 6.5 for my phone, and Linux for my web servers.
Any OS that's locked down is unacceptable. That has nothing to do with popular desktop OSes (today, though with the popularity of iOS, that could change!). But it is why I consider iOS and Windows Phone 7 in it's current incarnation toy OSes. They're no better than an Xbox or Wii.
And I prefer Linux as a web server, because it's mature in that segment. Availability of high quality, mature, stable applications are just as plentiful for Linux servers (if not more so) than they are for Windows, and certainly more so than other more obscure platforms. This is also why I choose Windows on the desktop. Being the market leader is not meaningless. As long as the platform is not locked down by vendor restrictions, or needless complications, developers will go where the market is. It's why Linux is the best choice for servers (for me) and why Windows is the best choice for the desktop (for me). It's also why although I use Windows Mobile 6.5 for mobile, I'm not seriously considering staying with the platform unless something drastic changes between now and when I need a new phone.
I like my phone now. The processor could be a bit quicker, but over all, the form factor is great, the screen size is great, it fits in my pocket, there are plenty of useful applications to do what I want, and I'm not restricted to just running signed apps from an app store. If I want, I can fire up Visual Studio and write my own applications (and I have done this).
But Windows Phone 7 departs from compatibility with the previous versions. My apps won't run on the new phones without a total re-write. And you can't run unsigned code off the net, you've got to go through the app store. I should be the first in line to buy Windows Phone 7. I've loved WinMo up until now (despite it's faults). But it's not even something I can consider. The platform is so locked down that there are applications on 6.5 that can not be ported to 7 no matter what. The 7 API just doesn't expose enough of the hardware to make that possible.
I haven't written Windows off 100% yet for mobile, because I don't need a new phone yet, and Microsoft could still change course by opening up 7, or abandoning it and going back to the 6.5 model for 8. But when I do, if things haven't changed for the better, I'll be looking for an Android phone instead.
I wasn't referring to the Mac when I was talking about permission. I was referring to iOS. To be fair, yes, that means I was mixing metaphors platforms, referring to both desktop and mobile OSes in one rant. But my point stands. Any platform that I have to jailbreak to run unsigned code on is a toy in my mind.
And no, it's not my first choice. Re-read what I said: I'm not using the term "open" to mean "I can read the source" (though that can be nice), but is there a barrier for meaningful development on the platform? It the platform *unlocked*? From a practical standpoint, that's what open means to me.
The combination of the number of Windows installs out there and the ease of development of the software means there's just more software in any category you can imagine on Windows. A lot of it will be junk, sure. But in practice, that has nothing to do with the platform.
I guess you could say my priorities go something like this:
Is the platform well deployed enough to have a diverse software ecosystem? Haiku is neat and all, but despite efforts to get non-native binaries running on it, what's the development ecosystem like for it?
Is the platform locked down? X-Box 360 and the iPhone are both closed to the typical developer from a practical standpoint. In order to distribute anything useful, you need permission of the developer of the platform itself. This locks out the masses, or controversial applications.
Is the platform reasonably easy to develop for? Some people predicted that he "OtherOS" option on the Playstation 3 would be a boon to novel, powerful computing due to the nature of the cell architecture. In practice, the cell's goofy design is tough to develop for if you're a pro, let alone a hobbyist. From what I've heard, Windows Phone 7 is very, very easy to develop for (though it strikes out in other areas), which is a boon to the number of applications one can expect in the future. In practice, this is a function of the complexity of the architecture and the quality of the development tools available.
Is the source code available? The ability to read and modify the source is a potential benefit. But it's not as important to me as the prior three points.
That's why I like Windows for my desktop. It just lines up best with my priorities. It's also why I'm leaning toward Android for my next mobile OS (Even though I'm already invested in Windows Mobile, and reluctant to switch OSes once I've picked one), and why I use Linux on my web servers.
It's the 800 lb gorilla - This isn't the only reason, but it's a big one. The fact that it's dominant means that if I want to find an app to do x, I can. I don't have to write something from scratch unless I'm very, very particular about something obscure. Most problems have been solved already.
It's open. - Lost of people will scream and pull their hair out for me saying this, and if you have a better term, I'd be happy to use it. But what I mean is this: If I want to develop for the platform, I can. I don't need Apple's permission to publish to a finite store. I don't need to sign an NDA to build a binary that will run on the platform, etc. I don't need the OSes source code, I just need to be able to develop for it. From a practical standpoint, that's all I care about.
It's mature and stable. - There are "better" OSes but they're either experiments that aren't stable yet, or they're toy OSes that aren't feature complete.
This is not a dig against OSS software. It's not even a dig against Linux. I run Linux on all my web servers. Apache on Linux is the tool I prefer for that particular job. For the desktop, Windows is the more versatile tool for me. I use lots of OSS tools every day on Windows, and of course some on Linux as well. But there is this great assumption that anyone who knows better won't use Windows. I do. I can use whatever I like, and I choose Windows.
That said, I use Windows as my mobile platform as well. I'm pretty happy with my HTC Tilt 2 running WinMo 6.5. But I'm greatly concerned about 7. I should be Microsoft's target demographic, but I've seen nothing redeeming about Windows 7.
It's closed, you can't access the bare metal, you can't publish software for it without their app store. It's not compatible with earlier hardware, or the other way around. It's missing features from prior versions (copy paste, tethering, hot swapping SD cards, etc.), and worst of all, the Silverlight developing method gives nearly as little exposure to the hardware as writing an HTML 5 / JavaScript application would! It seems to me the only thing you get in a "Native" Win 7 app that you couldn't do in HTML5 / JavaScript is access to the tilt sensor, compass, and GPS!
Microsoft is successful on some things because they do a good job on the product. Windows is one of those cases. Windows Mobile 7 may be some day as well, but I'm betting not. If they don't improve the product radically, I'll probably look to Android for my next mobile device.
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The explosives bit is true, interesting, and complethy besides the point of the discussion. Criminals are not using (nor likely to start) explosives. Those are tools of war, not crime. Some bizarre outlier cases not withstanding.
How dare I value these people? Excuse me for not wanting to see someone die for a crime that in some cases is a misdemeanor.
I don't value the burglar more than the victim. I simply don't think one has the right to take another life over personal property. Regardless of who's in the right.
I don't hate good citizens. I simply think "bad citizens" (to extend the idea you posited) don't deserve to forfeit their very lives because they were stupid and / or desperate enough to do something like try to take your TV.
Again, if the damn courts can't impose a penalty for something, you should have no right to do so on the spot.
As far as ensuring that they don't attack you as a target of opportunity, I've already addressed numerous times that you're far better off retreating regardless of your access to weapons than taking your chances in confrontation. If the intruder is unarmed, they pose little threat. If they are armed, you've just put yourself into a firefight. No guarantee you'll be the one to walk out of that one. Where is the rational reason for wanting to confront someone under these circumstances?
Touché.
I don't have hard evidence to support the idea that underground gunsmithing couldn't crop up here (mostly because of the difficulty in proving a negative). But the lack of a similar underground in any country with strict gun control laws makes me think we would not see widespread gunsmithing here if a ban ever happened. Some quick Googling finds no evidence of underground gunsmithing in the U.K., Australia, Japan, China, or anywhere really except for the Philippines where, oddly guns are legal. Clearly this is not absolute evidence, but if it were wide spread, I'd think there would be some evidence.
Excellent point. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I'm very glad you brought it up!
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The view that the second amendment is there to protect the people from the threat of government oppression is a popular one. It is not spelled out in the constitution if it is the case. I am not saying it is wrong, because I don't know the founder's intent. All I can know is the text itself.
Let's assume that you are right though. If that's the case, making political assassination illegal would be unconstitutional.
It also puts the power out of the voting public and into the armed minority. If a well organized and armed group of people decided to stage an attack on the capital, they can? Their reasons don't have to be good or anything, it's just might makes right?
Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilks Booth, and John Hinckley, Jr. were simply executing their constitutional rights?
With all the trouble that the second amendment causes, I do not understand why it would be a big deal to strike it from the constitution and replace it with an amendment that is clear, and reflects the will of the American people today. Regardless of what that will is. Then "what the founders intended" ceases to matter, because it will be spelled out.
There is a provision in the constitution for amendments to be passed. The reasons for this are clear, and undisputed. I don't know why there is zero will to ever change the document.
That said, and also assuming you're right, it's an out-dated concept. Letting people keep muskets to defend from a military that's largely armed with similar weapons (and some artillery as well, but mostly muskets) could work. Today our military has body armor, Abrams tanks, attack helicopters, and warplanes. the second amendment would not allow you to protect yourself from this in the first place.
A quote from Barney Frank comes to mind. He was talking about giving government regulators discretion on health care reform and what guarantees there would be that they would make good decisions. But it applies to any government power at all:
"'What's the guarantee that this discretion bodes well?' And the answer is: In democracies, there are no guarantees. Elect good people."
We live in times where this is more true than ever. We're not about to, as a society allow private ownership of B-2s and Abrams tanks. Nobody wants to see that. To say nothing of the cost prohibitions of doing so.
But without that level of "right to keep and bear arms", we put absolute trust in our government to operate in a just manner. We rely on government's internal checks and balances. Our military does not swear fealty to The President or to Congress. Their oath swears to "protect and defend The constitution against all enemies". The three branches are set in a work together / work against each other checks and balances scenario. The Republic, and the Democracy are our defense. If you're relying on your rifle to defend against the U.S. Army, you're laughably foolish.
Again, was this the founder's intent? I don't know. It could be. But if it is, it's a meaningless academic distinction now.
Sure, I get that, and that's the POINT!
It only takes a fraction of a second to put a hole in you.
So which reaction is the safer bet of getting you safer faster?
Arming yourself and confronting the intruder and hoping you come out on top?
Or grabbing your cell (or not) and jumping out a window and fleeing to a neighbors, or somewhere else safer?
I know what I'm choosing.
The point wasn't to set up a straw-man argument, it was to point out that all the other illegal things are the result things that are created or imported. 16 year old girls are pre-existing things that are exploited.
In other words, you can ban all of them (regardless of if you should), except 16 year old girls which is an entirely different problem, so let's exclude it from the discussion.
I addressed two major points in my post. You addressed one, which I conceded might be a problem in the first place. You ignored the other.
The point you addressed was guns getting into the hands of criminals. I conceded that even with an outright ban, it's likely that the supply for the underground would continue to be strong. You chose to address this point which I already conceded. I'm not sure why.
The other major point was that it doesn't do you any good to be armed if you're not one of the bad guys. It's a dangerous illusion of control.
Let's imagine a typical pro-gun fantasy of why it's good to have a gun.
It's 3:00 AM. I'm fast asleep in my bed, and I hear a noise.
1) I wake up and get out of bed to investigate or
2) I stay in bed and ignore it.
I think most normal people could choose either depending on the severity of the noise. So let's pick 1).
I've got a gun in my night stand. I need to decide if I take it with me or not while I investigate.
1) I take it
2) I don't.
I suspect most normal people aren't thinking "OMG SOMEONE IS COMING TO DO ME HARM!!!!!" as their first thought, but perhaps if I were inclined to own a gun it would be because this was my first thought? So let's again pick 1).
So you decide to take the gun. But this is dependent on a choice that you made before this night! Is the gun loaded?
1) Yes it is (You are retarded for keeping a loaded gun next to your bed)
2) No it's not (You are retarded for thinking an unloaded gun is any good to you in a crisis)
Let's pick 1) and hope that you don't have kids who'll blow their foot off some day.
So you creep down the stairs with the gun. You see a shadowy figure sneaking from your kitchen into your living room. You can't make them out clearly, but you realize they're facing away from you and haven't noticed you.
1) Shoot them and ask questions later. They're in your home after all.
2) Hold your fire, and get a better look risking getting hurt yourself.
Maybe you choose 1) and it's your spouse or kid coming in late. Maybe you just killed a burglar who only wanted to take your Blu-Ray player. Or maybe you stopped a rapist.
Maybe you choose 2) and get shot and killed yourself. Maybe you find out that it's your spouse or kid. Maybe there was nobody and it was your fucking cat knocking over a picture frame.
Of all these possibilities I think killing a rapist is the lest frequent thing that happens, and the cat knocking over a picture is the most. Followed by killing your spouse or kid.
So let's say you go down stairs and there's a guy with a gun. If you get they don't know you're there AND you positively identify them as a stranger AND you manage to disable them with a gun, then you win. That's a lot of fucking ifs. But if you go play cowboy down stairs with a gun and they do notice you (far more likely) now you're in a firefight or a standoff. Good luck!
There are just so many variables. People love to fantasize about a gun giving them this level of control and power and it's sad. If you're not an irresponsible nut job, it doesn't. The odds of the stars aligning and you saving the day are very low. If I'm in that scenario and I know for a FACT that someone is in my house and it can't be someone who should be, if I had the choice of a gun, I wouldn't take it. I'd grab my cell and go out the fucking window.
The cops can get to my house in a couple minutes.
I'm okay with only criminals having guns. Because only criminals having guns doesn't mean only criminals will have guns. It means only criminals and cops will have guns. And the supply to criminals will be constrained. I do however question if this constraint would be effective.
Addressing your points on the data being wrong, Fox News and other right wing outlets cried foul at the 90% statistic, and (correctly) pointed out that it's not 90% of guns in Mexico that were traced to the U.S. It's *only* 90% of weapons that were sent b
You make some good points while ignoring or missing others.
16 year old girls are not illegal. Buying / selling them is. There is nothing that could be done or proposed to eliminate their existence, so let's set that aside as an apples to motorcycles comparison, shall we?
Crank, coke, smack, etc. are all chemical substances. Many drugs can be created with little technical know-how, and in some cases, just the ability to cultivate plants. Others (Meth for example) can be created with easily obtained items that are not strictly controlled due to many and common other uses. Meth labs are dangerous, yes, but you make a good point that the fact that they're illegal and dangerous does not stop them from existing.
Guns on the other hand are not typically built in people's garages. They are mass produced in factories. In countries where they are illegal, their existance in the underground is largely made possible by border crossings where they are legal.
This is where you miss the biggest point. Yes, we have a porous border. But guns flow south out of the U.S. into Mexico, not the other way around.
Mexico has one gun store, which is run by the military. It's near impossibly to own a gun legally there. And that's why the same cartels that are smuggling drugs into the States are smuggling guns south so as not to waste a trip back.
The people that were at this meet and greet today presumably had the right to own guns. It didn't help them stave off this nut. Even if one of them had a gun, do you honestly think that would stop the 19 (or more) shots he managed to get off? It was a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine. Assuming a magazine that holds 20 something rounds, he didn't have to reload. How long could it have taken? 5 seconds?
I am not saying that banning guns makes everything magically wonderful. I'm not even suggesting we should do it. But to say it shouldn't be on the table seems irrational.
If you limit the supply of guns, you will limit their availability. The only question in my mind is what about all the pre-existing guns? How many can you reasonably expect to recover? What mechanisms would lawfully allow existing guns to *be* recovered? It seems to me that if you ban guns, the existing guns will create a supply for the underground that will last for decades.
Addressing the other side of your argument, I don't believe that you should have the right to shoot someone unless you can prove they're threatening your life. Castle doctrine is bullshit. If someone wants to steal your TV, they're an asshole, and if they do so, they are a criminal. But if they get caught, they're not subject to the death penalty anywhere in the U.S.. Why should it be okay to kill them if you catch them in the act?
In many states, shop owners can have guns. And in many states where they can't, they do anyway. This doesn't stop liquor store or convenience store robberies because the owner might have a gun. Your idea that this is a cause for fewer "home invasions" (a bullshit politically loaded term if there ever was one) is completely without unsupported by any data. UCR data suggests that home robberies are more uniform within demographic areas regardless of gun laws. In other words, major metros with similar income levels and ethnic / educational distributions will have similar break-ins regardless if they are in Georgia, New Jersey, Michigan, or California.
Thieves don't pick businesses over homes because of fear of being shot. They do so because stores tend to be places where they think they can easily score cash. The average home is unlikely to net the thief much cash directly. He has to find something to rob and hope he or she can pawn it without being caught. They also can't as easily case the place out before hand. But any 7-11, you can walk into any time you please.
This is besides another point of fact: criminals don't commit crimes thinking ahead of time that they'll be caught. The average burger doesn't want
You're missing out. Silverlight learned a lot by being second to market after Flash, and had a lot of the problems with network quality of service and image quality solved from v1.0, rather than getting locked into some of the (in hindsight) bad design choices Adobe made since Flash as a video streaming medium evolved more organically.
The problems with Flash aren't crippling, and they don't mean that the quality can't be on par with Silverlight under ideal circumstances, but it means that no matter what, all things being equal, Flash will either use more resources for the same quality, or will have less quality than Silverlight. This is because ideal circumstances are almost non-existent in the real world.
Yes, there are other choices besides just Flash vs. Silverlight, but those two dominate the market so much, that others are more or less niche. It's eschewing a standard because you don't like the people who put their name on it, in favor of something which (standards body certification be damned) is less of a standard.
No, let me spell it out for you.
MSNBC and Fox News are both flawed. (So is CNN, actually)
Fox News is a brain dead mouthpiece for the right.
MSNBC is a thinking, critical mouthpiece for the left.
Was my rant on anti-intellectualism on the right not explicit enough? I want a right wing media source that's not all about pandering to the latest fear meme. This exists in print publications. This exists online (though most of the good ones are highly specialized in finance, or military policy, or other specific areas). But while MSNBC presents intelligent analysis from the left on the TV machine, I see no counterpoint on the right. And if I were a serious person on the right, that would piss me off. Having the masses spoon fed that nonsense means the best and brightest have an up hill battle to get elected. And as I said, this is bad fro the republic.
You apparently doubt this, but I am capable of simultaneously agreeing with someone, yet thinking their argument is terrible, or disagreeing with someone, yet respecting their argument. I'm an Athiest, but I think Christopher Hitchins is a counter-productive wind-bag. I much prefer Dawkins' writing. Likewise I wanted to support the anti-religous sentiment of the film Zeitgeist but there was so much that was factually incorrect that I barely finished it. And while I'm on the subject, Bill Maher's film Religulous was awful too. I rather like Maher, and I agreed with his greater point, but the movie just sucked.
Don't people on the right have a problem with the pandering and fear mongering, and racism by Beck and Hanity, and the other "personalities" on Fox News? I can't imagine it's just a left-right thing.
No fair is having opponents on, starting the interview prior with an introduction of the guest where you explain their position on the issue(s) that are relevant to why you are having them on your show. Your point of view is in opposition to theirs, so you're critical of them. Then your first question to them is something like "okay, you've heard my characterization of your position, Is that fair, did I get anything wrong? Did I mis-characterize anything?". That's something I've seen on Maddow time and time again. I don't know how you get much more fair than that while espousing a point of view.
There are other ways of being fair, but most of them involve suppressing your point of view.
Okay, I'll take these one at a time"
The First Olbermann comment on Scott Brown: Factually coreect, but hyper-partisan and silly. I cringed when I saw him say it live. Olbermann sometimes obviously has an axe to grind, and this is one of those times. As I said, is MSNBC perfect? Hell no.
Likewise for Michelle Malkin.
I don't see how Olbermann used selective edits when Cheney actually did that. He spent a whole year campaigning on the issue. This is not something that one needed to use selective edits to do.
Maddow's "dishonesty" was one detail of the order things happened in during an hour long special on the Oklahoma City bombing. And she issued a retraction. She does that. It's what good journalists do when they are wrong. The OKC piece wasn't a 2 minute piece on the regular show, it was an hour long special. One mistake in the narrative that she said was her mistake and hers alone is hardly an indictment of her ethics. I'd much rather be defending Maddow than Olbermann. Of the two, frankly, she's the better journalist. Olbermann is inclined to attack folks for reasons that are not substantive. I've not seen Maddow do that, despite having folks on who opened themselves up to it.
I don't think what Chris Mathews said is wrong in the least. Some journalists see their jobs as to be objective at all costs, and others see it as a way of helping their nation.
Regarding the Glenn Beck on global warming incident. You may have a point here, but Glenn Beck's clip was one of a dozen shown in sequence in that piece. The meme that "this snow storm proves no global warming! lolz!" is quite alive and well in the conservative media, even if Mr. Beck himself was not espousing it in the particular clip that Maddow showed.
I'll concede that label changing is something that happens on both sides. Sometimes it's silly, other times it's clearly for bias. In the case of pro-choice vs pro-life, I've always understood why pro-choicers are unhappy with the labels. Who wants to be thought of as anit-life as those labels imply?
I honestly seem to have lost the thread of where you are going with the parts at the end with NPR. What's wrong with gun advocates or gun rights advocates? I know some folks who would describe themselves that way. And pornography advocates? Seriously? It's a first amendment issue. I guess the difference is that the reason we don't call "gun advocates" "Second Amendment advocates" is that the Second Amendment is narrow, and applies basically only to guns. The First Amendment applies to all kinds of free speech, pornography included, but certainly not exclusively. I'm not sure that addresses what you're getting at though, because I'm not 100% sure what your point is.
I can accept that MSNBC and Fox News are equally biased, but I can not accept that they are equal.
Their methods, and quality, are not equal.
Even the hyper-partisans (Maddow, Olbermann) at MSNBC are generally fair with their treatment of the opposition. They base their arguments in facts, and they present their fluff stories as fluff, not serious news (War on Christmas? It's snowing so global warming is a myth? Seriously?)
Is MSNBC flawed? Hell yes. But it's not a brain dead mouthpiece for a political party like Fox News.
I would welcome intelligent discourse from the right. There ARE respectable ideas from the right. I don't agree with Ron Paul, but he's a thoughtful, intelligent individual. As is Condalisa Rice. David Frum has been called intellectual, and I'd say he deserves it. William F. Buckley certainly qualified.
But look at this list. There are certainly others you could add to it that I can't think of at the moment, but where are the leaders? Everyone who is on the right and shows the slightest hint of intellectualism is not taken seriously by the right wing base. Meanwhile, even if the inner circle doesn't take her seriously, Sarah Palin is in the spotlight of the populist base. That's a shame, and our republic is weaker for it.
No, I don't hate Fox News because it's right wing. There are plenty of things I don't agree with or don't like that I can just happily ignore.
The reason I detest Fox News, and the reason I can't just happily ignore it is because its not just anti-intellectual, but its gone so far as to be "proudly stupid", and because many of the tactics it employs are shady and dishonest.
I was going to say wow, I hadn't heard of that. And concede that it's a bigger problem than I was aware of.
But this isn't an exploit at all. It required user intervention to install "anti-malware" that contained a trojan.
Are you seriously saying that if not for adblock, you would have clicked "Yes, please install this anti-virus software I've never heard of, and anything else you like!"?
This is like blaming your door's lock when you let the guy pretending to be the mail man in, and he robs you.
I read those stories too. I can't help but feel they're overblown. I've never had one of my Windows boxes infected with malware. I don't run anti-malware software on them, and never have on a continuous basis. (Though I do scan a couple times a year). Most of these exploits are mighty particular, and were only exploited by affiliates of web sites who were dodgy to begin with.
You might as well lump "web sites" or "email" in as a vector for malware. Why not avoid them as well? I understand that the reason is that you see value in email or web sites, but not ads. But my point is that you can't lump all of a group together as bad because a very small subset are.
No, I disagree. Unless you think that adblock users represent more than 10% of browsers, it is disproportionate.
Remember, at the time I posted, there were only like 53 or 56 posts on the story (browsing at 0). That's over 10%. Even here on Slashdot, where it's possible adblock approaches or exceeds 10%, having 100% or near 100% of adblock users drone on about it is tiresome. Especially on an article that's not directly about adblock (though to be fair, it's not exactly off-topic).
I need a plugin that blocks comments on slashdot and other forums where people mention how great it is that they use Ad Block.
We get it. Everyone here knows this technology exists. Some of us choose not to use it. There are half a dozen posts saying "Put up ads! I won't see them! I run Ad Block Plus!" on this article, and only 50 comments total.
You folks made a choice to opt out of the ad model, but reap the rewards of content that ads pay for anyway. I get that, and hopefully you do too. But why are you folks all so damn vocal about it? It's as if you're smug about blocking ads, and I honestly don't know why you would be smug about that.
Yes, exactly!
What would stop you, or me, or anybody from faking classified documents by making stuff up, then "leaking" them to an outfit like Wikileaks?
Which of course raises the counter-conspirasy theory conspiracy theory:
What would stop a government from faking classified documents ny making stuff up then "leaking" it to Wikileaks or a similar group? /me adjusts tin-foil hat.
As someone else pointed out, Max Payne is a Third Person Shooter, not an FPS, but your point still stands.
The sad thing is Max Payne may have made for a poor movie, but I do think it represents the high water mark for game to movie adaptations so far. Looks at what's out there:
Super Mario Bros. - I get it. The material in Super Mario didn't lend itself to a decent story. That's why you departed so much from it (Goombas are 8 foot lizards instead of 2 ft mushrooms, etc.). But if you're going to depart, why didn't you do something good?
Street Fighter - Generic Fighter Movie with bad acting and video game cliches! Sign me up!
Mortal Kombat - See Street Fighter, but darker and with better special effects.
Wing Commander - This should have been the high water mark. When the Wing Commander movie went into production, The Wing Commander game series was by far the closest the game industry had come to the vaunted "Interactive Movie" experience. It's creator / director / mastermind Chris Roberts was the same guy who was responsible for the games. It had a great budget and groundbreaking special effects. They got their choice of headline stars. Perfect formula. Except Chris Roberts, for reasons only known to him, departed significantly from the plot of the Wing Commander games. He introduced concepts that were alien to the Wing commander universe, (Pilgrims? Really?) and then just generally couldn't bring things together. Status: Total Loss.
Final Fantasy was impressive but only on a technical achievement level. It's plot was... well, I suspect that I wasn't bad, but just not for Western audiences. Perhaps someone more familiar with Japanese media can comment on it.
Resident Evil - I didn't see this, but the only thing I heard positive about it was a scantily clad Milla Jovovich running around soaking wet with guns. While that's appealing, it didn't sell me on the film.
Doom - I don't even know where to start.
Max Payne - The story was so-so. The acting was okay. The effects were good. The atmosphere was good. The production value was good. I really think this was the best the industry has produced so far. That's sad.
Am I missing some gem out there that was a game first and was made into a great film?
Yeah, it's tied to your income when you were working.
The rational is (I believe) that if you were earning a lot, your living expenses must be higher. If you weren't earning as much, they must not be. It's absurd. If there's a better rational, I don't know what it is. I agree it's not a very good system. Those who would defend it would probably say something about how they paid into it, so it's their money.
Someone making $25K in this country with a couple of kids is probably just squeaking by (but you can do it. Plenty of people do). They get laid off, and suddenly they're making 60% of that. I don't know how you support yourself and a couple kids on $15K. But that's reality for a lot of folks now, and others are accusing them of wanting to stay that way.
My situation, comparatively, as a single person, who was living with someone else, (so my expenses were nearly half what they would be) had no risk. The most I had to do was sweat about car repairs, and live without luxuries until I found a new job. I wasn't happy about it, but my situation wasn't dire like it is with many.
I do know that if we tried to implement a system like the U.K. has here in the U.S., the right would loose their minds, and scream that we'd become a socialist welfare state. As it is, unemployment is often derided by some on the right. The idea that you would treat the poor and the middle class the same would be an unthinkable evil to many of them.
Where do you get your info? Unemployment pay is tied as a percentage of your prior income. IIRC (and the particulars probably vary from state to state) in NJ it's 60% of the highest 12 consecutive months of the last 18 months before you initially filed. I know in NJ and PA the cap is just over $500 / wk. In Delaware, it's something like $300 / wk.
I made just shy of $60K before I lost my job a couple years ago. When I collected unemployment, it went down to about a rate of $25K /yr. I was able to live off of that, and pay my bills, sure. But what if I wasn't making that much before I lost my job? If I was making $30K (which lots of people get by on, and I know I could if I had to), then unemployment would have been $350 / wk. That wouldn't pay my rent and electric. Let alone, cable, phone, car payment, etc. Some of those things I could cut back on, but it's not easy even to cut back. How do you back out of a lease? How do you back out of a car payment? How do you get rid of internet and do an effective job search today? If you do back out of a car payment, how do you get to interviews, or land a job that you'd have to commute to? These are all solvable problems, but every one makes the problem more difficult.
People that say the modest safety net keeps people from working are disillusion. Maybe there are some people out there, but a few oddballs that are happy living off of $10K a year are hardly the norm. Unless there are some states with RADICALLY different unemployment rules. But I hardly think many states would be more liberal than NJ. Can anyone point to a state where the benefits are so radically better that it would be *desirable* to be on unemployment?
It's a cute analogy, but it quickly falls apart.
I can't speak for the person who you asked the question, but I can speak for myself.
GM built my car. I didn't build it myself. However, GM does not control the aftermarket for my car. If I want to replace my exhaust manifold with a set of nice high flow headers, anyone can design and build those. There are no lockouts to prevent this. Likewise, if I want a nicer stereo, or navigation system, I can just install it myself. Vendors who want to sell me an aftermarket stereo don't need to do so through a GM approved store.
There are of course other factors (is there a market to support doing this?) but that's just reality.
No. That's not my argument, which is why you don't understand.
My argument isn't just about why I chose Windows on the desktop, it's why I choose OSes in general. Including Windows on the desktop. But also WinMo 6.5 for my phone, and Linux for my web servers.
Any OS that's locked down is unacceptable. That has nothing to do with popular desktop OSes (today, though with the popularity of iOS, that could change!). But it is why I consider iOS and Windows Phone 7 in it's current incarnation toy OSes. They're no better than an Xbox or Wii.
And I prefer Linux as a web server, because it's mature in that segment. Availability of high quality, mature, stable applications are just as plentiful for Linux servers (if not more so) than they are for Windows, and certainly more so than other more obscure platforms. This is also why I choose Windows on the desktop. Being the market leader is not meaningless. As long as the platform is not locked down by vendor restrictions, or needless complications, developers will go where the market is. It's why Linux is the best choice for servers (for me) and why Windows is the best choice for the desktop (for me). It's also why although I use Windows Mobile 6.5 for mobile, I'm not seriously considering staying with the platform unless something drastic changes between now and when I need a new phone.
I like my phone now. The processor could be a bit quicker, but over all, the form factor is great, the screen size is great, it fits in my pocket, there are plenty of useful applications to do what I want, and I'm not restricted to just running signed apps from an app store. If I want, I can fire up Visual Studio and write my own applications (and I have done this).
But Windows Phone 7 departs from compatibility with the previous versions. My apps won't run on the new phones without a total re-write. And you can't run unsigned code off the net, you've got to go through the app store. I should be the first in line to buy Windows Phone 7. I've loved WinMo up until now (despite it's faults). But it's not even something I can consider. The platform is so locked down that there are applications on 6.5 that can not be ported to 7 no matter what. The 7 API just doesn't expose enough of the hardware to make that possible.
I haven't written Windows off 100% yet for mobile, because I don't need a new phone yet, and Microsoft could still change course by opening up 7, or abandoning it and going back to the 6.5 model for 8. But when I do, if things haven't changed for the better, I'll be looking for an Android phone instead.
I was unclear. Sorry about that.
I wasn't referring to the Mac when I was talking about permission. I was referring to iOS. To be fair, yes, that means I was mixing metaphors platforms, referring to both desktop and mobile OSes in one rant. But my point stands. Any platform that I have to jailbreak to run unsigned code on is a toy in my mind.
And no, it's not my first choice. Re-read what I said: I'm not using the term "open" to mean "I can read the source" (though that can be nice), but is there a barrier for meaningful development on the platform? It the platform *unlocked*? From a practical standpoint, that's what open means to me.
The combination of the number of Windows installs out there and the ease of development of the software means there's just more software in any category you can imagine on Windows. A lot of it will be junk, sure. But in practice, that has nothing to do with the platform.
I guess you could say my priorities go something like this:
That's why I like Windows for my desktop. It just lines up best with my priorities. It's also why I'm leaning toward Android for my next mobile OS (Even though I'm already invested in Windows Mobile, and reluctant to switch OSes once I've picked one), and why I use Linux on my web servers.
I'm a Windows user on the desktop. Here's why:
This is not a dig against OSS software. It's not even a dig against Linux. I run Linux on all my web servers. Apache on Linux is the tool I prefer for that particular job. For the desktop, Windows is the more versatile tool for me. I use lots of OSS tools every day on Windows, and of course some on Linux as well. But there is this great assumption that anyone who knows better won't use Windows. I do. I can use whatever I like, and I choose Windows.
That said, I use Windows as my mobile platform as well. I'm pretty happy with my HTC Tilt 2 running WinMo 6.5. But I'm greatly concerned about 7. I should be Microsoft's target demographic, but I've seen nothing redeeming about Windows 7.
It's closed, you can't access the bare metal, you can't publish software for it without their app store. It's not compatible with earlier hardware, or the other way around. It's missing features from prior versions (copy paste, tethering, hot swapping SD cards, etc.), and worst of all, the Silverlight developing method gives nearly as little exposure to the hardware as writing an HTML 5 / JavaScript application would! It seems to me the only thing you get in a "Native" Win 7 app that you couldn't do in HTML5 / JavaScript is access to the tilt sensor, compass, and GPS!
Microsoft is successful on some things because they do a good job on the product. Windows is one of those cases. Windows Mobile 7 may be some day as well, but I'm betting not. If they don't improve the product radically, I'll probably look to Android for my next mobile device.