Monopolies are not illegal, at least not here in the US.
Go back and read my earlier comment. I never said anything about monopolies. What the government should be doing is preventing companies from extorting money from the consumer, no matter what the means. If this means outlawing monopolies, great. If there's a better way, that's fine too. So long as the corporations are kept in check, it doesn't much matter what the means are.
Hello? Whatever happened to the triumph of the human spirit? Lofty goals? Standards?
What you need to learn is that it is not right to have so little respect for other people's worth as individual human beings. Each person is unique, each person is valuable, and denying this is simply a short-sighted, materialistic fantasy.
So have your Super Bowls and your SUV's and your game consoles. But don't be shocked when your nation is cursed and spat on by every other for the injustices it commits for you. Don't come complaining when you regret your empty, wealth-obsessed life. Don't be surprised when those you've trampled on to get your little toys decide to stop being so docile.
Go on, pampered little sheep, ignore the real world. Just keep in mind that, someday, it's going to stop ignoring you.
With no competition, there is little incentive to actually innovate, and the prices for the consoles will go sky high as your monopoly spends more and more money muscleing out any possible competition from the field.
Well, of course. Sony's stated motive is to extort as much money out of the common man as it possibly can. What do you expect them to do?
I do have a related question, though: when the government exists to protect its constituents, why does it let these situations go unchecked so often? This is exactly what governments are supposed to prevent.
Is it now verboten to suggest that France just might be doing something right? I know that mocking the French is quite popular in our current American culture, but don't confuse jest with reality. Every country has its merits. Please learn to accept this.
under capitalism, you can choose whichever company you percieve to cheat you the least.
Except it'll have the government to help it. See the British and the Dutch in Asia, the US in Latin America, and pretty much everyone in Africa. Then take into account how much money corporations spend funding campaigns for a rough estimate of what the effects can be domestically.
A democratic socialist society doesn't have any of this. I won't speak for autocratic or oligarchic ones.
and if you think socialistic government are paragons of virtue and efficiency with only the best interests of the citizens at heart, then I feel sorry for you and your naivete.
So a corporatist government combined with thousands of groups whose sole stated interest is to screw the consumer out of as much money as possible is better? How does that make any sense?
I remember looking for an iPaq a few months back and finding that almost no place had them in stock. Are people still having to wait months to get them, or have the availability problems been solved?
Just because an issue is worthy, doesn't mean you should introsuce it into every discussion.
I simply happened to be curious about whether SuSE donates to charity. If you think this is offtopic, please ignore it. I certainly think it's on topic. The article's all about SuSE.
I'm sure if Hubel and Wiesel had been closing the eyes of human foetuses, you certainly wouldn't regard their study as residing in a moral gray area. How are cat foetuses any different?
This is one of the most common forms of animal-slavery justification: "I'm providing a service for my pet," or (especially among cat owners), "no, silly, my pet actually owns me!"
These are both terrible rationalizations.
Let's take cats, since you obviously "own" one. Cats are, by nature, solitary hunters. In your house, your cat is kept in an environment artificially free of prey, given poor imitations of real meat at your whim several times per day, subjected to an endless succession of rewards and punishments dispensed according to the byzantine system of social conventions governing proper conduct in human households, and will grow fat and lazy and die painfully of heart disease or some similar ailment.
What kind of life is this?
I won't suggest that, at this point, you simply turn your cat out on to the street: human cities may or may not be great places for cats to live on their own, and they simply can't support all the cats that are owned today. What you can do, though, is refuse to buy any more cats or breed the ones you already have: the fewer pets that are born into misery, the closer we are to being able to free the last pets into an environment that can sustain them.
Only under such a deranged set of principles would anybody refusing to scam his fellow (wo)man out of anything and everything be lauded as a role model or praised as a pillar of society. Don't even get me started on Forbes magazine's little list....
Only under such a deranged set of principles would anybody attempting to scam his fellow (wo)man out of anything and everything be lauded as a role model or praised as a pillar of society. Don't even get me started on Forbes magazine's little list....
And you know, just because you paid more for something, doesn't mean it's any better.
Only under a deranged, half-baked system like capitalism would this be true. Only in such an outrageously silly system would it be acceptable or normal to attempt to cheat your fellow humans as a matter of course. Only under such a deranged set of principles would anybody refusing to scam his fellow (wo)man out of anything and everything be lauded as a role model or praised as a pillar of society. Don't even get me started on Forbes magazine's little list....
I'm sorry for going off on a tangent like this, but whenever I see this quote I'm just reminded of all that's wrong with the so-called "free world".
Not a single person, besides myself, has asked how socially or environmentally conscious any of these companies or organizations are. Even when the Slashdot population can manage to grasp the concept of "social consciousness" and "social obligations", their understanding usually goes no farther than the limits of the Free Software community.
I don't know why everyone reading Slashdot seems to have such a narrow, self-centered view of the world, but I certainly get frustrated by it all the time.
Well, that's a start. But if that's all they do, I'd certainly want to see more.
For example, it's plainly obvious to anyone who cares to look that their mascot is a chameleon. Now, who even knows that there are at least two different endangered species of chameleon? The Parson's chameleon, Chamaeleo parsonii parsonii, and the Smith's dwarf chameleon, Bradypodion taeniabronchum, are both endangered. I think that it would be downright callous of the SuSE corporation to use this animal as its mascot while not caring about its ultimate fate.
Both of these chameleons are threatened by the loss of their habitat, so I think it would be a great move for SuSE to donate to the Nature Conservancy, a non-profit organization with the primary goal of preserving animal habitats, often by buying lands and waters with especially high biodiversity and natural value.
Does anyone actually know if SuSE is doing anything of this sort? If so, my hat's off to them. If not, I will not be buying any of their products until they take up their responsibilities to the world and its natural habitats. Free software is nice, but a livable Earth is crucial.
Firstly, congratulations to SuSE for their progressive attitude!
But does this attitude extend any farther than new software releases? SuSE obviously pulls in quite a lot of revenue from selling their distribution. Does any of this money go to more enlightened causes? Charities, animal rights groups, environmental protection foundations?
So are you saying that you have the absolute right to listen to my cellphone (assuming I had one) conversations? Take photographs of me through my windows? (My image is traveling onto your property....) Use shotgun mikes to record everything that goes on in my house?
Running a miniature espionage operation from your yard is clearly unacceptable, so why should descrambling (stealing) unpaid-for content be any different?
You may be able to write clever posts, but you've completely lost perspective on this issue. Criticizing a disrespectful and insensitive remark in no way compares to tossing off a wisecrack that casually dismisses years of hard work as totally worthless.
Were you part of the team developing Merced/Itanium?
No, I am not.
If you weren't you should get a life and take the joke as just that.
That's a very narrow-minded view you have. There are reasons that some jokes (racist, sexist, etc.) aren't funny. This particular joke happens to be unfunny and disrespectful to these people who have put in a lot of work developing the Itanium.
And if you haven't noticed lately, Intel is an excellent target for even cheap jokes, and I enjoyed this one
Yes, it's so easy to attack the Big Faceless Corporation - but have you ever thought about how the engineers behind this who have been trying so hard to bring this product to completion must feel when their brainchild is repeatedly slammed in a public forum?
It seems to me like, under the DMCA, it would be illegal to posess a copy of this software in the United States, since it could be used to "circumvent an access control device."
Personally, I don't think I would would be willing to exchange getting criminal record for a little bit of free music....
What would be your criteria, then, for deciding who should be allowed to have a broadband connection? Would it really be practical or fair to implement these criteria?
Slashdot Mirror
Monopolies are not illegal, at least not here in the US.
Go back and read my earlier comment. I never said anything about monopolies. What the government should be doing is preventing companies from extorting money from the consumer, no matter what the means. If this means outlawing monopolies, great. If there's a better way, that's fine too. So long as the corporations are kept in check, it doesn't much matter what the means are.
Hello? Whatever happened to the triumph of the human spirit? Lofty goals? Standards?
What you need to learn is that it is not right to have so little respect for other people's worth as individual human beings. Each person is unique, each person is valuable, and denying this is simply a short-sighted, materialistic fantasy.
So have your Super Bowls and your SUV's and your game consoles. But don't be shocked when your nation is cursed and spat on by every other for the injustices it commits for you. Don't come complaining when you regret your empty, wealth-obsessed life. Don't be surprised when those you've trampled on to get your little toys decide to stop being so docile.
Go on, pampered little sheep, ignore the real world. Just keep in mind that, someday, it's going to stop ignoring you.
With no competition, there is little incentive to actually innovate, and the prices for the consoles will go sky high as your monopoly spends more and more money muscleing out any possible competition from the field.
Well, of course. Sony's stated motive is to extort as much money out of the common man as it possibly can. What do you expect them to do?
I do have a related question, though: when the government exists to protect its constituents, why does it let these situations go unchecked so often? This is exactly what governments are supposed to prevent.
All that this proves is that corporations lie and deceive. How is this new?
Is it now verboten to suggest that France just might be doing something right? I know that mocking the French is quite popular in our current American culture, but don't confuse jest with reality. Every country has its merits. Please learn to accept this.
I'd rather 100 corporations have my data than the government.
2 22&cid=68
Oh, really?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/01/26/1255
under capitalism, you can choose whichever company you percieve to cheat you the least.
Except it'll have the government to help it. See the British and the Dutch in Asia, the US in Latin America, and pretty much everyone in Africa. Then take into account how much money corporations spend funding campaigns for a rough estimate of what the effects can be domestically.
A democratic socialist society doesn't have any of this. I won't speak for autocratic or oligarchic ones.
and if you think socialistic government are paragons of virtue and efficiency with only the best interests of the citizens at heart, then I feel sorry for you and your naivete.
So a corporatist government combined with thousands of groups whose sole stated interest is to screw the consumer out of as much money as possible is better? How does that make any sense?
I remember looking for an iPaq a few months back and finding that almost no place had them in stock. Are people still having to wait months to get them, or have the availability problems been solved?
Just because an issue is worthy, doesn't mean you should introsuce it into every discussion.
I simply happened to be curious about whether SuSE donates to charity. If you think this is offtopic, please ignore it. I certainly think it's on topic. The article's all about SuSE.
I'm sure if Hubel and Wiesel had been closing the eyes of human foetuses, you certainly wouldn't regard their study as residing in a moral gray area. How are cat foetuses any different?
This is one of the most common forms of animal-slavery justification: "I'm providing a service for my pet," or (especially among cat owners), "no, silly, my pet actually owns me!"
These are both terrible rationalizations.
Let's take cats, since you obviously "own" one. Cats are, by nature, solitary hunters. In your house, your cat is kept in an environment artificially free of prey, given poor imitations of real meat at your whim several times per day, subjected to an endless succession of rewards and punishments dispensed according to the byzantine system of social conventions governing proper conduct in human households, and will grow fat and lazy and die painfully of heart disease or some similar ailment.
What kind of life is this?
I won't suggest that, at this point, you simply turn your cat out on to the street: human cities may or may not be great places for cats to live on their own, and they simply can't support all the cats that are owned today. What you can do, though, is refuse to buy any more cats or breed the ones you already have: the fewer pets that are born into misery, the closer we are to being able to free the last pets into an environment that can sustain them.
Yes, thank you. I have posted a correction.
Only under such a deranged set of principles would anybody refusing to scam his fellow (wo)man out of anything and everything be lauded as a role model or praised as a pillar of society. Don't even get me started on Forbes magazine's little list....
Only under such a deranged set of principles would anybody attempting to scam his fellow (wo)man out of anything and everything be lauded as a role model or praised as a pillar of society. Don't even get me started on Forbes magazine's little list....
And you know, just because you paid more for something, doesn't mean it's any better.
Only under a deranged, half-baked system like capitalism would this be true. Only in such an outrageously silly system would it be acceptable or normal to attempt to cheat your fellow humans as a matter of course. Only under such a deranged set of principles would anybody refusing to scam his fellow (wo)man out of anything and everything be lauded as a role model or praised as a pillar of society. Don't even get me started on Forbes magazine's little list....
I'm sorry for going off on a tangent like this, but whenever I see this quote I'm just reminded of all that's wrong with the so-called "free world".
I halfway agree with you.
Not a single person, besides myself, has asked how socially or environmentally conscious any of these companies or organizations are. Even when the Slashdot population can manage to grasp the concept of "social consciousness" and "social obligations", their understanding usually goes no farther than the limits of the Free Software community.
I don't know why everyone reading Slashdot seems to have such a narrow, self-centered view of the world, but I certainly get frustrated by it all the time.
Well, that's a start. But if that's all they do, I'd certainly want to see more.
For example, it's plainly obvious to anyone who cares to look that their mascot is a chameleon. Now, who even knows that there are at least two different endangered species of chameleon? The Parson's chameleon, Chamaeleo parsonii parsonii, and the Smith's dwarf chameleon, Bradypodion taeniabronchum, are both endangered. I think that it would be downright callous of the SuSE corporation to use this animal as its mascot while not caring about its ultimate fate.
Both of these chameleons are threatened by the loss of their habitat, so I think it would be a great move for SuSE to donate to the Nature Conservancy, a non-profit organization with the primary goal of preserving animal habitats, often by buying lands and waters with especially high biodiversity and natural value.
Does anyone actually know if SuSE is doing anything of this sort? If so, my hat's off to them. If not, I will not be buying any of their products until they take up their responsibilities to the world and its natural habitats. Free software is nice, but a livable Earth is crucial.
Firstly, congratulations to SuSE for their progressive attitude!
But does this attitude extend any farther than new software releases? SuSE obviously pulls in quite a lot of revenue from selling their distribution. Does any of this money go to more enlightened causes? Charities, animal rights groups, environmental protection foundations?
So are you saying that you have the absolute right to listen to my cellphone (assuming I had one) conversations? Take photographs of me through my windows? (My image is traveling onto your property....) Use shotgun mikes to record everything that goes on in my house?
Running a miniature espionage operation from your yard is clearly unacceptable, so why should descrambling (stealing) unpaid-for content be any different?
How could the cards be remotely phyiscally destroyed? I can't quite think of how this might be possible. Any ideas?
You may be able to write clever posts, but you've completely lost perspective on this issue. Criticizing a disrespectful and insensitive remark in no way compares to tossing off a wisecrack that casually dismisses years of hard work as totally worthless.
I would think that the difference is quite clear.
I don't mean to be insensitive, but I would recommend that you seek counseling.
Were you part of the team developing Merced/Itanium?
No, I am not.
If you weren't you should get a life and take the joke as just that.
That's a very narrow-minded view you have. There are reasons that some jokes (racist, sexist, etc.) aren't funny. This particular joke happens to be unfunny and disrespectful to these people who have put in a lot of work developing the Itanium.
And if you haven't noticed lately, Intel is an excellent target for even cheap jokes, and I enjoyed this one
Yes, it's so easy to attack the Big Faceless Corporation - but have you ever thought about how the engineers behind this who have been trying so hard to bring this product to completion must feel when their brainchild is repeatedly slammed in a public forum?
Uh, shouldn't it be at least capable of blowing the P4 out of the water at a quarter of the clockspeed?
Why a quarter? A half seems to make sense to me.
It seems to me like, under the DMCA, it would be illegal to posess a copy of this software in the United States, since it could be used to "circumvent an access control device."
Personally, I don't think I would would be willing to exchange getting criminal record for a little bit of free music....
What would be your criteria, then, for deciding who should be allowed to have a broadband connection? Would it really be practical or fair to implement these criteria?
Good gravy! Too bad the ISPs will divvy that up into a billion megabit lines for you and me.
Why is this bad? What's wrong with broadband connections for everyone?