As God has never chosen to give me a call and invite me to His place for a Sam Adams, I won't presume to know what He thinks.
Actually, the Constitution was based on the idea of a "Social Contract" -- that certain rights (life, liberty, property) belong to the people, and that governments exist to protect the rights of a collective group of people (hence, governments get their power from the people). Whether those rights are conferred by God, Allah, or even my cat is completely irrevelant.
I am failing to see where you are pulling these conclusions (that man would become nothing but savage), as there is no evidence to support them. Science has never given us rules to live by -- only rules by which to understand the universe around us. By those rules, however, one can deduce that the virtues of kindness, thrift, and charity are actually good things -- benefits to the community are even greater benefits to us as individuals.
What has organized religion given us? Wars. Famine. Hatred. Look at the middle east - bloodbaths for thousands of years over a simple piece of real estate.
I would go on, but I have work to do. Besides, Arthur C. Clarke said it better than I could have; in the book 3001, one of the characters says: "...religion had been classified as a mental illness. Why else would thousands of people kill thousands of other people over an unprovable, untestable idea?"
He is employing the same tactics practiced by any good army -- attack the supply lines first. In this case, the supply lines are the methods of content delivery: ISPs, telcos, and so on.
On a different note; can web designers stop making pages that display ultra-ultra-ultra tiny type on anything but a Windows machine!?! Sheesh!
Urm, speaking as a hobbyist "photo guy" -- I'll stick with celluloid. Until they make a decent SLR digital camera that is less expensive than the average automobile (a Nikon D60 sells for almost ten thousand dollars).
Ben Franklin once said: "Those who would sacrifice essential, fundamental liberties to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Franklin was a man who understood the value of open, redistributable media -- for without it, America would not exist. The US did not get started by a bunch of businessmen acting in corporate interest. It was started by a large number of outraged citizens, and fueled by the leaflets and pamphlets which they continuously distributed.
Where would we be if Ben Franklin had to contend with copy protection? What if he was distributing DVDs with his message, which couldn't be played because he didn't have the money or clout to get a key from the MPAA?
We, as Americans, claim to hold freedom so dearly -- when, in fact, we destroy the very tools that make freedom possible. Try to lock down my music, and I will stick to outdated formats. Encrypt new hardware, and I'll just keep running Linux on the old stuff. Don't tread on me.
I don't agree with the original poster, but you are missing a massive point here. Have you ever been to a third-world country, like India or Vietnam? I too believe that Nike (and other companies that follow similar labor practices) should use their massive economic power to raise the standard of living for third-world laborers in their employ. But what I don't understand is why the majority of us first-worlders don't seem to understand certain things. There are no public schools to speak of. Or public healthcare. These kids would likely be dead if they didn't work.
Yes, it may be a dead-end job, but at the moment it's better then the alternatives for most of these people. I'd rather have to work at McDonalds for the rest of my life then starve to death over the course of a month or so.
So -- what we need to focus on is having a definite foreign policy from a business standpoint, which is enforced by federal law, which states that overseas workers are to be paid no less then is required for a minimal standard of living. Somewhat like a foreign version of minimum wage.
That is all fine and dandy, but let's not forget one key fact here: Linux is not a consumer OS. It never was designed to be a consumer OS. Linus didn't sit down at the University of Helsinki and think "How can I gain OS-consumer market share?" He sat down and thought about creating a free alternative to all of the expensive, proprietary OSen out there, that he could run on some old hardware that he, as a poor college student, happened to own.
Now, it is true that Linux has matured well beyond that stage, but it it still intended as a hacker's operating system, not a consumer operating system -- which is one of the big reasons it's so popular. Don't like what your OS vendor has dictated to you as "The Way Things Should Be(tm)?" Then write the code to change it. Or find someone who can code and pay them to change it for you (which is not as expensive as one might imagine). If you don't like it, you are free to use something else.
Note that market share has no place in this philosophy. Neither does the word "consumer". A "consumer" is an aptly named entity, namely one who consumes. This implies no contribution back to the community from which it is consuming. Linux may be free, but it is only free because the Linux community is filled with participants instead of consumers. People who give back to the community in some meaningful way -- either by helping others, writing documentation, coding, or providing donations to groups such as the EFF or FSF.
So, in short: Linux is steered by those who contribute, not those who leech off of the work of others. In turn, all involved gain the benefits of belonging to an open community, and the freedom to come and go as they please.
Just called a friend who is rather high up in SuSE, and they confirmed that the U.S. office has more-or-less been vaporized. The P.R. departmet has not been told what to tell the press at present, and I can't really get any further information, as my friend is bound by an NDA on releasing internal information (standard practice, nowadays).
The good news is, most of the SuSE staff has been offered jobs at either companies, or for SuSE GmbH (aus Deutschland).
Hope that helps! As far as the Word® documents and Excel® spreadsheets, I would ask your friends and co-workers to convert them to another format before sending them to you, or run Wine and emulate Office2000 (which works fairly well). That's what I do (although I only need to contend with English and German)
...is that those moronic bastards link their slot machines into a network. I could clean out Vegas in a week!
That's hardly a troll statement, either -- Windows console security is on a par with AOL's customer service (read: nonexistant). Proof? A little program called "beadmin.exe" can be run on anything from Windows NT 4.0 to W2K Advanced Server to give full Administrator access to _everything_. Oh, and where's that 'decentralization' of administrative functions that NT admins knock "root" for? Looks like it's in the same place the rest of the security model went, right down the toilet...
On a bit more serious note, what happens when a machine bluescreens/crashes? What if I'm winning and the machine dies? Can I sue the hotel/casino/whorehouse that I almost won my Porsche at?
Only one problem -- DOS attacks / bandwidth theft can still be accomplished, unless you want to proxy _everything_. Which leaves you open to DOS attacks.
It seems to me that games like TradeWars (remember TradeWars?) fit the bill -- you score by trading and interacting with other players (mostly by blowing them out of space, but hey -- it's tough to make a living these days). The focus of the game is trade and interaction, though, not in racking up points or acquiring as much property as possible.
The problem with games played "just for entertainment" is that they don't set a definite goal for the player, as the game becomres rather boring when you don't have a definite direction. I'd just as happily read a book...
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Not aiming too high. Aiming at the target.
on
DVD Case Follow-Up
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· Score: 3
It is good that they are attacking the very constitutionality of the DMCA, as it does very clearly violate our rights as given by the first amendment. If they can successfully prove the DMCA is in violation of the first amendment, and therefore the supremacy clause of the Constitution, then it is an issue that will be forever buried -- no court in the future (no U.S. court, anyways) would be dumb enough to try and overturn that. If it's constitutionality was not tried, then future copyright laws might give the DMCA an additional inroad into law.
That, and the Supreme Court typically only votes on major cases involving constitutional law. This is a good way to make sure it ends up high on the priorities list.
It was about time for a re-design, and I'm glad they kept the same minimalist design philosophy. The blue bar should be a bit smaller, though, and the gray bar on the right wider (and a bit easier to read would be nice...)
Other then that, hey, it's a website. Not like this is the second coming of the Great Prophet Zarquin...
I would tend to agree that this sounds like a scam -- there is a fine line between "we give you a discount and hire you if you pass..." and "pay to take the exam at a discount and we'll hire you." It seems like a great way to get imployees, but in reality they're paying their own salary for the first month or two -- at which point they can be fired if they aren't worth Taco Boy's two cents.
The original sprit of Napster wasn't a free-as-in-beer proposal. It was a protest against the neurotic, intellectual freak-show known as the RIAA. I am disgusted by the fact that almost none of the money I spend when I purchase a CD goes to the artist, and that a CD that costs about one U.S. dollar to produce is sold for fifteen to twenty times as much, because there is no other source for this music.
If this was truly a free market [the music industry], I could pay $6 for a CD, have $2.50 go to distribution costs, and the rest go to Collective Soul, or Aerosmith, or Motley Crue, or Enya, or Beethoven (I sincerely doubt that there would be any dead RIAA executives in heaven to pay him his due royalty check, though...).
Can we sing "Monopoly", anyone? Nope...because that would likely violate a copyright somewhere...
I sincerely doubt that people will switch to utilizing Napster as a pay-per-usage type service, unless they set up some type of system whereby you make a micropayment to the person serving up the MP3s -- some of us (like myself) have gigabytes of good music, and I wouldn't mind making an extra $100 a month or so for allowing people to download it.
A compelling story of a woman who's life is destroyed when the server holding all her personal information, documents, financial records, and chocolate chip cookie recipies is annhilated by a boot sector virus written for DOS 3.3.
Not only are you not well-versed in.NET, you don't appear to be too well versed in the English language as well. C# is not that impressive of a language -- it's like a very proprietary version of C++, with a few built-in capabilities that are normally present in C++ as libraries. Then again, I haven't looked at C# too much, because my job involves things that are cross-platform (or platform independent), and so I prefer to work with things that are based on open standards (Perl, Java, C, C++, and PHP). ASP and C# tie me to the Windows platform, which is vastly inferior (in my opinion) for any enterprise-level computing.
Who cares if it's 25% faster? The important thing is _stability_. I could name a handful of companies that went with MS SQL because of its impressive speed benchmarks, and who ditched it months later after trying to get it to work right for something like Oracle or Sybase. Sure, it may be 10% slower, but your database will only go down when the batteries in the UPS have failed.
In short -- I'd rather get somewhere slowly than nowhere quickly.
The reason that Java can't use classes from other languages is that it would require either a very complex wrapper system (overhead), or dependencies for some features on a specific platform -- exactly what Sun was trying to avoid when they designed Java.
Sun will be just fine, thank you -- they deliver a complete package (hardware, software, and Sun engineers to install it), whereas Microsoft gives a half-assed solution (no hardware, buggy-but-fast software, and a ridiculously expensive technical support staff that most likely could not find their buttocks with two hands, a flashlight, and a squad of Marines).
Science can not defeat itself. You still have to deal with the laws of thermodynamics -- entropy will always exist. A closed system will always run out of energy, sooner or later. We function in a closed system. Therefore, we will run out of energy sooner or later.
You too make some valid points, but it seems to me that you either ignored a large portion of my post or have never cracked the spine of a psychology (or sociology) textbook.
The base problem with communism is that it is completely dependent upon the false assumption of unlimited resources (or human integrity and kindness), to create the perfect society -- a blissful utopia lacking pain or want. Resources, however, are hardly unlimited; and human kindness and integrity seem to be on the out-and-out in this particular day and age.
The reason that capitalism (in its myriad of forms) is so successful as an economic system (and a way of life) is that it utilizes the basic concepts of positive and negative reinforcement. Work hard, contribute to the greater good, and you will be rewarded. Don't work hard, detract from the community, and you will be punished. These are base ideas that are present in a variety of cultures around the world, and can even be seen in nature. I guess the phrase "imperialist dog" really is somewhat accurate...
Capitalism is hardly a perfect system (I'm not a big advocate of Ayn Rand). It has many faults. but it is a system that is functional when dealing with human beings. Communism only works when the human factor is removed.
The problem with communism is that it, like any other form of government, is dependent on human beings who must be given total power over the production and distribution of goods and services. Human beings, especially human beings with power, have this habit of being greedy and wanting more for themselves.
Communism, in the traditioal Marxist sense, is a phenominally great idea. It eliminates most of the ails of modern society -- poverty, starvation, maluntrition. But it depends on the flawed concept that humans are capable of making unbiased decisions about themselves and others. This is why pure communism has not succeeded -- because it is simply impossible to implement. When was the last time you saw a Porsche or Ferarri and said "I would love to drive that."
What about wanting a bigger house? More, healtier, tastier food? That big-screen TV? Not everyone can have a big house, great food, and a Porsche in the driveway -- but everyone will always want these things (or some variant thereof). At least in a free-market economy, your contribution (what you put in) is, in theory, equal in value to your reward. This is why doctors make more than fast-food workers.
Note that I don't understand why lawyers are so high-paid...*grin*
I am not defending pure capitalism -- I find that horribly disgusting, as "pure capitalism" hardly allows for a free market (you end up with the ever-ubiquous nine-hundred-pound gorilla problem). There is a middle ground between the two, but it's not to be found by saying that communism will fix it and make it all better.
As far as the original topic (AIDS medication, and the distribution therein), I think a public healthcare system would go a long way. It wouldn't even really raise taxes that much -- divert some money from welfare, and use the same cash that you're paying your current HMO with. Doctors and nurses get paid, you get to pick your doctor and not mess with all the rest of this PCP (Primary Care Physician) crap, and the medical needs of a nation are met.
Slashdot Mirror
Sit, CowboyNeal! Stay! Stay! No! Bad CowboyNeal! No hot grits for you!
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Go to the average American public school. One would wonder if we are still in the bacteria stage after meeting the management...
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Actually, the Constitution was based on the idea of a "Social Contract" -- that certain rights (life, liberty, property) belong to the people, and that governments exist to protect the rights of a collective group of people (hence, governments get their power from the people). Whether those rights are conferred by God, Allah, or even my cat is completely irrevelant.
I am failing to see where you are pulling these conclusions (that man would become nothing but savage), as there is no evidence to support them. Science has never given us rules to live by -- only rules by which to understand the universe around us. By those rules, however, one can deduce that the virtues of kindness, thrift, and charity are actually good things -- benefits to the community are even greater benefits to us as individuals.
What has organized religion given us? Wars. Famine. Hatred. Look at the middle east - bloodbaths for thousands of years over a simple piece of real estate.
I would go on, but I have work to do. Besides, Arthur C. Clarke said it better than I could have; in the book 3001, one of the characters says: "...religion had been classified as a mental illness. Why else would thousands of people kill thousands of other people over an unprovable, untestable idea?"
--
He is employing the same tactics practiced by any good army -- attack the supply lines first. In this case, the supply lines are the methods of content delivery: ISPs, telcos, and so on.
On a different note; can web designers stop making pages that display ultra-ultra-ultra tiny type on anything but a Windows machine!?! Sheesh!
--
Urm, speaking as a hobbyist "photo guy" -- I'll stick with celluloid. Until they make a decent SLR digital camera that is less expensive than the average automobile (a Nikon D60 sells for almost ten thousand dollars).
--
Ummm...there's a difference?
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Franklin was a man who understood the value of open, redistributable media -- for without it, America would not exist. The US did not get started by a bunch of businessmen acting in corporate interest. It was started by a large number of outraged citizens, and fueled by the leaflets and pamphlets which they continuously distributed.
Where would we be if Ben Franklin had to contend with copy protection? What if he was distributing DVDs with his message, which couldn't be played because he didn't have the money or clout to get a key from the MPAA?
We, as Americans, claim to hold freedom so dearly -- when, in fact, we destroy the very tools that make freedom possible. Try to lock down my music, and I will stick to outdated formats. Encrypt new hardware, and I'll just keep running Linux on the old stuff. Don't tread on me.
--
Yes, it may be a dead-end job, but at the moment it's better then the alternatives for most of these people. I'd rather have to work at McDonalds for the rest of my life then starve to death over the course of a month or so.
So -- what we need to focus on is having a definite foreign policy from a business standpoint, which is enforced by federal law, which states that overseas workers are to be paid no less then is required for a minimal standard of living. Somewhat like a foreign version of minimum wage.
--
Now, it is true that Linux has matured well beyond that stage, but it it still intended as a hacker's operating system, not a consumer operating system -- which is one of the big reasons it's so popular. Don't like what your OS vendor has dictated to you as "The Way Things Should Be(tm)?" Then write the code to change it. Or find someone who can code and pay them to change it for you (which is not as expensive as one might imagine). If you don't like it, you are free to use something else.
Note that market share has no place in this philosophy. Neither does the word "consumer". A "consumer" is an aptly named entity, namely one who consumes. This implies no contribution back to the community from which it is consuming. Linux may be free, but it is only free because the Linux community is filled with participants instead of consumers. People who give back to the community in some meaningful way -- either by helping others, writing documentation, coding, or providing donations to groups such as the EFF or FSF.
So, in short: Linux is steered by those who contribute, not those who leech off of the work of others. In turn, all involved gain the benefits of belonging to an open community, and the freedom to come and go as they please.
--
I believe that you are confusing slashdotters with Unix System Administrators (of which I am one). Just got done polishing up the AK, actually...
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The good news is, most of the SuSE staff has been offered jobs at either companies, or for SuSE GmbH (aus Deutschland).
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- Mozilla with some Hebrew extensions.
- Somethinng from the IGLU FAQ, with links on places to find Hebrew fonts and keyboard support.
- Some common Linux applications with Hebrew support.
Hope that helps! As far as the Word® documents and Excel® spreadsheets, I would ask your friends and co-workers to convert them to another format before sending them to you, or run Wine and emulate Office2000 (which works fairly well). That's what I do (although I only need to contend with English and German)--
...is that those moronic bastards link their slot machines into a network. I could clean out Vegas in a week!
That's hardly a troll statement, either -- Windows console security is on a par with AOL's customer service (read: nonexistant). Proof? A little program called "beadmin.exe" can be run on anything from Windows NT 4.0 to W2K Advanced Server to give full Administrator access to _everything_. Oh, and where's that 'decentralization' of administrative functions that NT admins knock "root" for? Looks like it's in the same place the rest of the security model went, right down the toilet...
On a bit more serious note, what happens when a machine bluescreens/crashes? What if I'm winning and the machine dies? Can I sue the hotel/casino/whorehouse that I almost won my Porsche at?
--
Only one problem -- DOS attacks / bandwidth theft can still be accomplished, unless you want to proxy _everything_. Which leaves you open to DOS attacks.
--
It seems to me that games like TradeWars (remember TradeWars?) fit the bill -- you score by trading and interacting with other players (mostly by blowing them out of space, but hey -- it's tough to make a living these days). The focus of the game is trade and interaction, though, not in racking up points or acquiring as much property as possible.
The problem with games played "just for entertainment" is that they don't set a definite goal for the player, as the game becomres rather boring when you don't have a definite direction. I'd just as happily read a book...
--
It is good that they are attacking the very constitutionality of the DMCA, as it does very clearly violate our rights as given by the first amendment. If they can successfully prove the DMCA is in violation of the first amendment, and therefore the supremacy clause of the Constitution, then it is an issue that will be forever buried -- no court in the future (no U.S. court, anyways) would be dumb enough to try and overturn that. If it's constitutionality was not tried, then future copyright laws might give the DMCA an additional inroad into law.
That, and the Supreme Court typically only votes on major cases involving constitutional law. This is a good way to make sure it ends up high on the priorities list.
--
It was about time for a re-design, and I'm glad they kept the same minimalist design philosophy. The blue bar should be a bit smaller, though, and the gray bar on the right wider (and a bit easier to read would be nice...) Other then that, hey, it's a website. Not like this is the second coming of the Great Prophet Zarquin...
--
I would tend to agree that this sounds like a scam -- there is a fine line between "we give you a discount and hire you if you pass..." and "pay to take the exam at a discount and we'll hire you." It seems like a great way to get imployees, but in reality they're paying their own salary for the first month or two -- at which point they can be fired if they aren't worth Taco Boy's two cents.
--
The original sprit of Napster wasn't a free-as-in-beer proposal. It was a protest against the neurotic, intellectual freak-show known as the RIAA. I am disgusted by the fact that almost none of the money I spend when I purchase a CD goes to the artist, and that a CD that costs about one U.S. dollar to produce is sold for fifteen to twenty times as much, because there is no other source for this music.
If this was truly a free market [the music industry], I could pay $6 for a CD, have $2.50 go to distribution costs, and the rest go to Collective Soul, or Aerosmith, or Motley Crue, or Enya, or Beethoven (I sincerely doubt that there would be any dead RIAA executives in heaven to pay him his due royalty check, though...).
Can we sing "Monopoly", anyone? Nope...because that would likely violate a copyright somewhere...
I sincerely doubt that people will switch to utilizing Napster as a pay-per-usage type service, unless they set up some type of system whereby you make a micropayment to the person serving up the MP3s -- some of us (like myself) have gigabytes of good music, and I wouldn't mind making an extra $100 a month or so for allowing people to download it.
This is unlikely to happen.
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A compelling story of a woman who's life is destroyed when the server holding all her personal information, documents, financial records, and chocolate chip cookie recipies is annhilated by a boot sector virus written for DOS 3.3.
--
Not only are you not well-versed in .NET, you don't appear to be too well versed in the English language as well. C# is not that impressive of a language -- it's like a very proprietary version of C++, with a few built-in capabilities that are normally present in C++ as libraries. Then again, I haven't looked at C# too much, because my job involves things that are cross-platform (or platform independent), and so I prefer to work with things that are based on open standards (Perl, Java, C, C++, and PHP). ASP and C# tie me to the Windows platform, which is vastly inferior (in my opinion) for any enterprise-level computing.
Who cares if it's 25% faster? The important thing is _stability_. I could name a handful of companies that went with MS SQL because of its impressive speed benchmarks, and who ditched it months later after trying to get it to work right for something like Oracle or Sybase. Sure, it may be 10% slower, but your database will only go down when the batteries in the UPS have failed.
In short -- I'd rather get somewhere slowly than nowhere quickly.
The reason that Java can't use classes from other languages is that it would require either a very complex wrapper system (overhead), or dependencies for some features on a specific platform -- exactly what Sun was trying to avoid when they designed Java.
Sun will be just fine, thank you -- they deliver a complete package (hardware, software, and Sun engineers to install it), whereas Microsoft gives a half-assed solution (no hardware, buggy-but-fast software, and a ridiculously expensive technical support staff that most likely could not find their buttocks with two hands, a flashlight, and a squad of Marines).
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Science can not defeat itself. You still have to deal with the laws of thermodynamics -- entropy will always exist. A closed system will always run out of energy, sooner or later. We function in a closed system. Therefore, we will run out of energy sooner or later.
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You too make some valid points, but it seems to me that you either ignored a large portion of my post or have never cracked the spine of a psychology (or sociology) textbook.
The base problem with communism is that it is completely dependent upon the false assumption of unlimited resources (or human integrity and kindness), to create the perfect society -- a blissful utopia lacking pain or want. Resources, however, are hardly unlimited; and human kindness and integrity seem to be on the out-and-out in this particular day and age.
The reason that capitalism (in its myriad of forms) is so successful as an economic system (and a way of life) is that it utilizes the basic concepts of positive and negative reinforcement. Work hard, contribute to the greater good, and you will be rewarded. Don't work hard, detract from the community, and you will be punished. These are base ideas that are present in a variety of cultures around the world, and can even be seen in nature. I guess the phrase "imperialist dog" really is somewhat accurate...
Capitalism is hardly a perfect system (I'm not a big advocate of Ayn Rand). It has many faults. but it is a system that is functional when dealing with human beings. Communism only works when the human factor is removed.
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The problem with communism is that it, like any other form of government, is dependent on human beings who must be given total power over the production and distribution of goods and services. Human beings, especially human beings with power, have this habit of being greedy and wanting more for themselves.
Communism, in the traditioal Marxist sense, is a phenominally great idea. It eliminates most of the ails of modern society -- poverty, starvation, maluntrition. But it depends on the flawed concept that humans are capable of making unbiased decisions about themselves and others. This is why pure communism has not succeeded -- because it is simply impossible to implement. When was the last time you saw a Porsche or Ferarri and said "I would love to drive that."
What about wanting a bigger house? More, healtier, tastier food? That big-screen TV? Not everyone can have a big house, great food, and a Porsche in the driveway -- but everyone will always want these things (or some variant thereof). At least in a free-market economy, your contribution (what you put in) is, in theory, equal in value to your reward. This is why doctors make more than fast-food workers.
Note that I don't understand why lawyers are so high-paid...*grin*
I am not defending pure capitalism -- I find that horribly disgusting, as "pure capitalism" hardly allows for a free market (you end up with the ever-ubiquous nine-hundred-pound gorilla problem). There is a middle ground between the two, but it's not to be found by saying that communism will fix it and make it all better.
As far as the original topic (AIDS medication, and the distribution therein), I think a public healthcare system would go a long way. It wouldn't even really raise taxes that much -- divert some money from welfare, and use the same cash that you're paying your current HMO with. Doctors and nurses get paid, you get to pick your doctor and not mess with all the rest of this PCP (Primary Care Physician) crap, and the medical needs of a nation are met.
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How about "Get a job." Sheesh.
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