Yes, you are a bad ass. Please post your name/addy. Did I mention that I was a punk (before I sold out and started working for the man)? That i ride a motorcyce? that my father was x-spc forces vietnam? that I can fight well with my hands, chains, a broken bottle, and just about anything else that I can get my hands on. That I work out at the dojo 3-4 times a week (a dojo roughly corrolates to a gym for martial artists, except that it is mental as well as physical). Just because muscle heads believe that they are 'smarter/faster/stronger/more ambitious/more talented' does not make it so.
Not exactly the 'ugly, weak, undernourished geek/nerd' that you portray is it? Intelligence, lack of a frat membership, and not using steroids does not, in fact corrolate to unambitios, stupid, slow, weak, and a lack of talent. In fact it usually implies the opposite. I despise ignorance and stupidity, both of which you appear to have in abundance. As does Crichton.
Only a fool picks a fight without knowing his/her opponent. And you obviously do not know me.
Well, they are aiming for a different demographic in farscape, and personally I can not stand an idiot muscle brain frat boy portrayed as a scientist. The rest of the crew is all right, and the special effects are pretty good, but man that guy sucks as an actor and as a charachter. Lexx is pretty good, and odd, but a little shallow. The chronical shows some excellent camp humor potential. The invisible man is ok, but nothing special.
As for non sci-fi channel sci-fi, witchblade is alright, but shows signs of degrading into the monotony of the highlander siries. Buffy was good for a while, but I think that it is past the haighpoint and is going down hill. The star treks have been washed up for me for a while. Of course my all time favorite is blakes 7, with doctor who as a second.
-CrackElf
This isn't the US government or anything. Once you give your money to microsoft, it's theirs to do with as they please. Comingling aside, if they want to give away something they developed with their hard earned money, thats their business alone. Unless you're a stockholder, which I doubt.
I was arguing against the deception that you do not pay for windows. Someone pays those programmers to do their job. The money comes from the profit that they make (and they make a lot of it... saying things like hard earned money is slightly misleading... they make a *lot* of money... it is not like we are talking about starving minimum wage lifestyles for the stockholders.) The idea behind the capitalist economic model is that a person 'votes' or 'supports' the things that they feel are valid. But dominance in one market (operating systems) should not give them the right to dictate another market (browsers). That is illegal. They are not giving anything away. It is like when a department store lowers its book prices to undersell used book stores in order to corner the market in a specific geographical area, and then, once the other stores are out of business, raising the prices to the normal price. It is both illegal and immoral, and it leads to less freedom of choice for individuals. And personally, I do not care about the freedom of choice for dirty unwashed masses. I care about the freedom of choice for me. Netscape was not forced out of the market because they built an inferior product. They were forced out because microsoft lowered the price of the browser below the cost of production using the money from another enterprise.
Because at work, it's not your computer. If you don't like your company's IT policies, attacking microsofts business practices is an awfully roundabout way to effect change.
The problem with the IT policies (and it happens at many companies) is that they are not driven by what product is *best* but by what product comes prebundled. Thus, microsoft prebundling 'free' software unfairly inhibits the normal selection of software based on perceived quality. I would not have a problem with them choosing ie if they came to that decision through a process other than 'well, it came pre bundled, so that is what we will use'. And while yes, in an ideal world it policy would be driven by something other than laziness, this is not an ideal world, and microsoft knows that and takes advantage of it. Then they cross into the illegal realm by forcing businesses to *only* bundle ms products (or products ms gives them permission to bundle).
I try not to be a raving anti-microsoft techie, but it is hard when ms-pplz do not take the time to try and see things from the other side's point of view. Well, that is my 2c, I have to get back to work or I will be here all night.
You missed the point. I am going to assume that you are not some random troll.
1) you do pay for ie. all windows users do, wether they use it or not. tanstaafl. Paying for ms*, you pay for their 'free' products. Now, my opinion of IE is that it is inferior, and in fact dangerous (in terms of viri and other malicious code) to run on your computer. Why should I 1) be forced to pay for ie when i buy a copy of windows to play diabloii? and why should i 2) be forced to use it at work, despite my perception of it's inferiority? (this happens because the boss ppl want to 'standardize' the office, and because of the convenience of the software already being set up on the machine and the fact that they will do the thing that takes the least effort and standardize, ie is their choice.)
The issue is not which browser is better, it is the being denied the freedom to chose which browser you like and want to support.
Would you not be a little miffed if the situation were reversed, and you were forced to select / pay for / a browser that you did not have any desire to use?
-CrackElf
Hmmm... well, I am no good at predicting the future, but I remember when people used to say the same thing about 1 gig, and then 10 gig drives. And the consumption has increased as the size increases.
Are you trying to tell me that those people do not personally identify with the machines? the ones holding up the signs that say 'grendel' or whatever?
The robots are distinct and their behavior is not dictated by an algorithm (well, and artificial algorithm anyway) it is dictated by humans. And when the announcers talk about the robots they tend to attribute human characteristics to them.
I doubt very much that if you stuck a couple of preprogrammed bots that looked identical in the center and never showed the human teams if it would draw the same crowd. Analyze what it is that makes the experience something that people get involved with. I believe that one of the strongest factors is identification with the robot.
Because the point of baseball is not to hit the ball. It is to create icons that are idolized to distract the population from the real problems of the era. A kind of hero worship if you will. Even if you do not see it that way, the fact remains that people need to be able to identify with the players and teams. If people could identify with the machine then there might be some reason to predict the end of a need for pitchers.
-CrackElf
Hmm, while I am not sure if the ratified it, the EU put forth the thing, so I am fairly certain that they will back it. And the EU has been offering compromises to the US and Japan to try and sway them. I think that this shows a degree of commitment. And they probably will not sign it until the final version (with the compromises) is agreed upon. And if you believe that the EU does not count as an industrially advanced country, then perhaps you should define what you count as an industrially advanced country.
-CrackElf
I used to work for the government (state). When you buy products you have to have at least three bids, and you have to take the lowest. Because Microsoft is a monopoly even their discounted 'educational' licenses are extravagant and excessive and people believe that MS is their only option (an idea that they try to cultivate) thus circumventing the whole bid thing. Just another way for them to get taxpayers money. And in this case totally bypassing the normal checks and balances that were put in place to avoid these kind of problems.
I remember a time when companies gave away computers to the school system. A good business strategy, as it creates a dependency and a familiarity with their products, thus ensuring a foothold in the future market. Ahh well, I suppose that bill gates has a better grasp on marketing than me. After all, he is worth a tad more than I.
Re:There is no reasonable expectation of privacy
on
Carnivore To Die?
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· Score: 1
Not everyone that desires privacy is a rapist.
Often, the disire for privacy has nothing to do with sexual relations at all. In fact, the reason that I like my privacy is because many of the ideas and philosophies that I hold dear are counter to what the 'moral majority' and the government would like for me to believe. Non of these ideas condone rape, abuse, or violence against women or men (except perhaps some corrupt politicians).
-CrackElf
Ok. This is slashdot. There are many people here who believe that ms sucks (myself included). Some of them have intelligent things to say about it. Some of them like to make fun of ms. And they forked linux because they could it being open source and all. They would undoubtedly have done the same with win2k, but they can not because it is closed source.
-CrackElf
Who watches the watchmen. You say that it should all be under one Authority. What about corruption? What about greed? What of the 'good old boy (or good new corp) system'? What is to counter these things?
There wasn't anything cryptic about my comment. I did twist your words "upper middle class Americans" to "Americans who are in the upper middle class" to make my point.
A one line question with implications and no statements is cryptic.
The bottom of the barrel here is so much better than most anywhere else. Why do you think people from Cambodia, Guatemala and China give up everything and risk their lives to come here and live in "poverty". East LA is 90120 to a lot of people.
And I repeat, dying of starvation and exposure is pretty much the same here as anywhere else. Yes, there is a smaller % on the bottom, but it still exists.
Our problem here has very little to do with poverty. Nobody starves in America (except rich, pretty girls who don't feel good about themselves) and the malnutrition is because the dumpsters are full of the same food everyone else eats.
And here again you are misinformed. I do not have statistics, but people starve due to lack of food.
To answer my own question, the other half in America is actually the other three-quarters. And I've been there. Almost my whole life, until recently. I'm glad you've had a personal experience to help you understand that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is fiction. But I've never had Glaucoma, or Scurvy, or Diptheria. I got a Tetanus shot when I cut myself, I buy iodine and penecillin at the drug store (but I rarely need them). I was born in a hospital.
Well, the point was to make you aware that the social constructs in buffy the vamire slayer, 90210 and friends are fantasy. You have been there? Then tell me how long does it take to qualify for welfare? Have you ever watched a friend die because they caught a disease due to poor living conditions? How many forms do you have to fill out? How often do people get booted on technicalities? Have you ever lived in a box? have you ever lost 50 lbs in one month (making you pass out on a regular basis) waiting for your forms to go through? Have you ever seen death up close and personal? How many times? How many of them were friends? Have you ever sold your body (or done other things that you would consider degrading... some people do not consider it degrading to sell their body) so that you can eat and put a roof over your head? Have you ever known your friends do that? Have you ever watched them get into drugs to forget the degradation that they endured to try and make it out? Have you ever tried to make it out, and made less than minimum wage, barely making it by, and had to go to the hospital, and get 5k in bills that you cannot pay, but since you have a 'job', you can not qualify for medicaid? Have you ever tried to ignore the pain in your chest because you can not afford medical treatment? Have you ever lived in a squat, because it was better than the cardboard box? Have you ever looked around you in the shelter at the pasty faces of the people who have given up, and just coast from day to day? Have you ever wondered when you would become one of them? (note that these questions are rhetorical, and designed to demonstrate my experiential evidence, and I do not actually expect you to have answers) I have been there, and you may or may not have been poor, but your statements prove that you were not in the same environment that I was. Being poor sucks everywhere.
Poverty is a social problem here, not economic. I've lived on food stamps. I've walked to work. I have a friend who paid $34 a month to live in Government housing. Now he's paying $350 to live in the same roach infested complex because he has a job but can't afford a rent deposit and has bad credit. But that's political.
Yeah it was political, it is the politicians (all of them, not just one party) being bought out by the big business to look after their interests instead of the peoples.
I'm probably still poorer than your parents, but I'm grateful to have free TV and be able to afford groceries and a computer and make payments on a new car.
Really? you are poorer than my parents? That was an incorrect guess (although a good try since I am literate and have computer access... and that has to do with school... which is a benefit, but I had to fight even for that... but that is a diff. rant.), and the fact that I moved out when I was 14 makes even that irrelevant but for the record... my parents did not have electricity most of the time. Let alone a tv or car. One year that I remember, the gross income of the household was about 9k.
To speak historically, a lot of wealthy merchants and landowners fled to Canada. Indentured servants and even slaves died to bring freedom to America.
Yes slaves died to bring freedom to the wealthy merchants who had stayed. I again challenge you to name one of the founding fathers who was !((wealthy and literate) and (a land owner or a merchant)).
Disclaimer: I dislike using microsofts software. I am a strong linux advocate. I think that microsoft is amoral... not malevolent, just without morals (as most big companies are). I believe that they engage in immoral (and illegal by my understanding of the law, which is not as great as my understanding of code) behavior. I believe that they write code that is stunted, and do not build a better product, but use marketing to cut out their niche.
That said. Mr. Katz, please stay off of my side of an argument. Did you go into theaters and scream fire as a small child? Do you get a kick out of encouraging the fanatics in a group? Do you hang out with pagans and declare that the christians are eating their babies? What is the motivation for this drivel?
You were doing so well for a while, containing your melodramatic urges. You sounded (almost) sane. Did you forget your medication?
Tell that the thousands of jewish people that died in concentration camps because the government knew who did what where. (just one example of a government using private information to the... shall we say 'disadvantage'?... of the people)
Or how about the Japanese internment camps in the United States. Teachers that get fired because they are gay. People that get fired because they are not Christian.
When people stop discriminating, and enforcing their moral code on others, then we can start talking about a utopia where people can just be themselves, and exist in society. Till then, any idea that people dont need to hide anything is just a pipe dream.
The question is who do you trust with your information. I do not trust any government with that information. Nor do I trust corporations, although, since they are usually just looking to scam me, it is relatively harmless (now).
Yes, there are times and places where information is useful. (if it were not, it would not be information, but random data) But in that same scenario, that person who is healing you does not need to know your religion, your sexual preference, your surfing habits, the clubs you frequent, or your political party. Neither (for instance) does the persons boss. The information is not necessary, and if used, will most likely not be used to the benefit of the subject of the information.
Information has, in the past, been used for malevolent or selfish purposes. In the present it is being used for malevolent or selfish purposes. I do not believe that this will change.
-CrackElf
just how many Americans do you think are not of the upper middle class (or higher)?
I assume from your slightly cryptic comment that you believe that everyone in america lives in some kind of 90210, friends, or buffy fantasy. That is a gross misconception. I know this from personal experience. Not to mention the statement was about the socio-economic structure of the past where there were more striking and prominent dividing lines between the classes (such as literacy and slavery).
Not everyone lives in dreamland suburbia... We have squats. We have homeless. We have ghettos. We have our slums. People die of starvation. And exposure. Some people eat out of dumpsters (I will grant that american dumpsters are some of the best). There is malnutrition due to poverty. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer here just like everywhere else.
I do not have a head count of how many people live in poverty (lower classes). Yes, amreica is a first world country. That means that the average is higher than in a second or third world country. But keep in mind that that is the average. America has less people on the bottom than some third and second world countries. But dying of starvation or exposure is still pretty much the same wether you are in a first world or a third world country.
But, to speak historically, the people involved with instigating the rebellion were wealthy merchants and landowners. (and it was not a first world country at the time, it was a colony, with similar situations to many other colonies, the natives were screwed, the slaves were bad off as well, and anyone who was not 'somebody' kept their heads down and tried to get by. Not everyone in america was a wealthy merchant or landowner. In fact there was a class below poor called indentured servant. And a class below that simply called slave.
Question: do you live in america, and refuse to see the bad parts, or are you judging from the outside. If you are judging from the outside, I wish to inform you that you are mistaken. If you are in America, I would say that you should count yourself lucky for never having seen how the other half lives.
If you could refill it at 11$ for 10$ cash
Or, perhaps by registering (and/or refilling) you could get a discount on your telephone bill. Marketing thinks of many devious things to lure ppl into releasing information.
After all, with mobile phones they encourage registering, and give additional time as an incentive.
(of course there would have to be hidden fees that are ultimately passed on to the consumer, like credit cards do)
-CrackElf
Are they saying that you can purchase games for the playstation securely on the playstation, and download them (without being copied by other pplz)... what would prevent someone from copying it once it was in a non-encrypted state on the local drive? (I presume that they will not be encrypting multistation game sessions... after all, performance is, i think, a higher priority than encrypting the session)
Or is this another one of those pay as you play schemes?
-CrackElf
But will they not, (like they do with some(all?) scratch n' sniff mobile phone cards) try to get you to register,(to encourage customer loyalty) and provide incentives for registering?
-CrackElf
That must mean that I am one of satans bitches... I mean programmers... (proging some software for a german telecom).
Seriously though, this is done through a bank and the phone company. It is just as intrusive as, say, a credit card. And it will be just as difficult for the Government to track and block your credit card.
(BTW: I do not think that they should be able to do it with the credit card... but it is no worse than the credit card.)
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, you are a bad ass. Please post your name /addy. Did I mention that I was a punk (before I sold out and started working for the man)? That i ride a motorcyce? that my father was x-spc forces vietnam? that I can fight well with my hands, chains, a broken bottle, and just about anything else that I can get my hands on. That I work out at the dojo 3-4 times a week (a dojo roughly corrolates to a gym for martial artists, except that it is mental as well as physical). Just because muscle heads believe that they are 'smarter/faster/stronger/more ambitious/more talented' does not make it so.
Not exactly the 'ugly, weak, undernourished geek/nerd' that you portray is it? Intelligence, lack of a frat membership, and not using steroids does not, in fact corrolate to unambitios, stupid, slow, weak, and a lack of talent. In fact it usually implies the opposite. I despise ignorance and stupidity, both of which you appear to have in abundance. As does Crichton.
Only a fool picks a fight without knowing his/her opponent. And you obviously do not know me.
-CrackElf
Err ... idiot frat boy is criten in farscape. Cut and past did not catch the entire comment.
-CrackElf
Well, they are aiming for a different demographic in farscape, and personally I can not stand an idiot muscle brain frat boy portrayed as a scientist. The rest of the crew is all right, and the special effects are pretty good, but man that guy sucks as an actor and as a charachter. Lexx is pretty good, and odd, but a little shallow. The chronical shows some excellent camp humor potential. The invisible man is ok, but nothing special.
As for non sci-fi channel sci-fi, witchblade is alright, but shows signs of degrading into the monotony of the highlander siries. Buffy was good for a while, but I think that it is past the haighpoint and is going down hill. The star treks have been washed up for me for a while. Of course my all time favorite is blakes 7, with doctor who as a second.
-CrackElf
This isn't the US government or anything. Once you give your money to microsoft, it's theirs to do with as they please. Comingling aside, if they want to give away something they developed with their hard earned money, thats their business alone. Unless you're a stockholder, which I doubt.
... saying things like hard earned money is slightly misleading ... they make a *lot* of money ... it is not like we are talking about starving minimum wage lifestyles for the stockholders.) The idea behind the capitalist economic model is that a person 'votes' or 'supports' the things that they feel are valid. But dominance in one market (operating systems) should not give them the right to dictate another market (browsers). That is illegal. They are not giving anything away. It is like when a department store lowers its book prices to undersell used book stores in order to corner the market in a specific geographical area, and then, once the other stores are out of business, raising the prices to the normal price. It is both illegal and immoral, and it leads to less freedom of choice for individuals. And personally, I do not care about the freedom of choice for dirty unwashed masses. I care about the freedom of choice for me. Netscape was not forced out of the market because they built an inferior product. They were forced out because microsoft lowered the price of the browser below the cost of production using the money from another enterprise.
I was arguing against the deception that you do not pay for windows. Someone pays those programmers to do their job. The money comes from the profit that they make (and they make a lot of it
Because at work, it's not your computer. If you don't like your company's IT policies, attacking microsofts business practices is an awfully roundabout way to effect change.
The problem with the IT policies (and it happens at many companies) is that they are not driven by what product is *best* but by what product comes prebundled. Thus, microsoft prebundling 'free' software unfairly inhibits the normal selection of software based on perceived quality. I would not have a problem with them choosing ie if they came to that decision through a process other than 'well, it came pre bundled, so that is what we will use'. And while yes, in an ideal world it policy would be driven by something other than laziness, this is not an ideal world, and microsoft knows that and takes advantage of it. Then they cross into the illegal realm by forcing businesses to *only* bundle ms products (or products ms gives them permission to bundle).
I try not to be a raving anti-microsoft techie, but it is hard when ms-pplz do not take the time to try and see things from the other side's point of view. Well, that is my 2c, I have to get back to work or I will be here all night.
-CrackElf
You missed the point. I am going to assume that you are not some random troll.
1) you do pay for ie. all windows users do, wether they use it or not. tanstaafl. Paying for ms*, you pay for their 'free' products. Now, my opinion of IE is that it is inferior, and in fact dangerous (in terms of viri and other malicious code) to run on your computer. Why should I 1) be forced to pay for ie when i buy a copy of windows to play diabloii? and why should i 2) be forced to use it at work, despite my perception of it's inferiority? (this happens because the boss ppl want to 'standardize' the office, and because of the convenience of the software already being set up on the machine and the fact that they will do the thing that takes the least effort and standardize, ie is their choice.)
The issue is not which browser is better, it is the being denied the freedom to chose which browser you like and want to support.
Would you not be a little miffed if the situation were reversed, and you were forced to select / pay for / a browser that you did not have any desire to use?
-CrackElf
I agree with this prognosis, since they both base their business on ripping off the less intelligent.
-CrackElf
Hmmm ... well, I am no good at predicting the future, but I remember when people used to say the same thing about 1 gig, and then 10 gig drives. And the consumption has increased as the size increases.
-CrackElf
Are you trying to tell me that those people do not personally identify with the machines? the ones holding up the signs that say 'grendel' or whatever?
The robots are distinct and their behavior is not dictated by an algorithm (well, and artificial algorithm anyway) it is dictated by humans. And when the announcers talk about the robots they tend to attribute human characteristics to them.
I doubt very much that if you stuck a couple of preprogrammed bots that looked identical in the center and never showed the human teams if it would draw the same crowd. Analyze what it is that makes the experience something that people get involved with. I believe that one of the strongest factors is identification with the robot.
-CrackElf
(and no, I am not one of those ppl)
Because the point of baseball is not to hit the ball. It is to create icons that are idolized to distract the population from the real problems of the era. A kind of hero worship if you will. Even if you do not see it that way, the fact remains that people need to be able to identify with the players and teams. If people could identify with the machine then there might be some reason to predict the end of a need for pitchers.
-CrackElf
Hmm, while I am not sure if the ratified it, the EU put forth the thing, so I am fairly certain that they will back it. And the EU has been offering compromises to the US and Japan to try and sway them. I think that this shows a degree of commitment. And they probably will not sign it until the final version (with the compromises) is agreed upon. And if you believe that the EU does not count as an industrially advanced country, then perhaps you should define what you count as an industrially advanced country.
-CrackElf
Do you have anything from say june or july instead of may?
I used to work for the government (state). When you buy products you have to have at least three bids, and you have to take the lowest. Because Microsoft is a monopoly even their discounted 'educational' licenses are extravagant and excessive and people believe that MS is their only option (an idea that they try to cultivate) thus circumventing the whole bid thing. Just another way for them to get taxpayers money. And in this case totally bypassing the normal checks and balances that were put in place to avoid these kind of problems.
I remember a time when companies gave away computers to the school system. A good business strategy, as it creates a dependency and a familiarity with their products, thus ensuring a foothold in the future market. Ahh well, I suppose that bill gates has a better grasp on marketing than me. After all, he is worth a tad more than I.
Not everyone that desires privacy is a rapist.
Often, the disire for privacy has nothing to do with sexual relations at all. In fact, the reason that I like my privacy is because many of the ideas and philosophies that I hold dear are counter to what the 'moral majority' and the government would like for me to believe. Non of these ideas condone rape, abuse, or violence against women or men (except perhaps some corrupt politicians).
-CrackElf
I do not believe that it will kill the project, but it will at least deny it legitimacy.
-CrackElf
Ok. This is slashdot. There are many people here who believe that ms sucks (myself included). Some of them have intelligent things to say about it. Some of them like to make fun of ms. And they forked linux because they could it being open source and all. They would undoubtedly have done the same with win2k, but they can not because it is closed source.
-CrackElf
Their web site is so secure that I can not even look at it.
-CrackElf
Who watches the watchmen. You say that it should all be under one Authority. What about corruption? What about greed? What of the 'good old boy (or good new corp) system'? What is to counter these things?
-CrackElf
There wasn't anything cryptic about my comment. I did twist your words "upper middle class Americans" to "Americans who are in the upper middle class" to make my point.
... some people do not consider it degrading to sell their body) so that you can eat and put a roof over your head? Have you ever known your friends do that? Have you ever watched them get into drugs to forget the degradation that they endured to try and make it out? Have you ever tried to make it out, and made less than minimum wage, barely making it by, and had to go to the hospital, and get 5k in bills that you cannot pay, but since you have a 'job', you can not qualify for medicaid? Have you ever tried to ignore the pain in your chest because you can not afford medical treatment? Have you ever lived in a squat, because it was better than the cardboard box? Have you ever looked around you in the shelter at the pasty faces of the people who have given up, and just coast from day to day? Have you ever wondered when you would become one of them? (note that these questions are rhetorical, and designed to demonstrate my experiential evidence, and I do not actually expect you to have answers) I have been there, and you may or may not have been poor, but your statements prove that you were not in the same environment that I was. Being poor sucks everywhere.
... and that has to do with school ... which is a benefit, but I had to fight even for that ... but that is a diff. rant.), and the fact that I moved out when I was 14 makes even that irrelevant but for the record ... my parents did not have electricity most of the time. Let alone a tv or car. One year that I remember, the gross income of the household was about 9k.
A one line question with implications and no statements is cryptic.
The bottom of the barrel here is so much better than most anywhere else. Why do you think people from Cambodia, Guatemala and China give up everything and risk their lives to come here and live in "poverty". East LA is 90120 to a lot of people.
And I repeat, dying of starvation and exposure is pretty much the same here as anywhere else. Yes, there is a smaller % on the bottom, but it still exists.
Our problem here has very little to do with poverty. Nobody starves in America (except rich, pretty girls who don't feel good about themselves) and the malnutrition is because the dumpsters are full of the same food everyone else eats.
And here again you are misinformed. I do not have statistics, but people starve due to lack of food.
To answer my own question, the other half in America is actually the other three-quarters. And I've been there. Almost my whole life, until recently. I'm glad you've had a personal experience to help you understand that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is fiction. But I've never had Glaucoma, or Scurvy, or Diptheria. I got a Tetanus shot when I cut myself, I buy iodine and penecillin at the drug store (but I rarely need them). I was born in a hospital.
Well, the point was to make you aware that the social constructs in buffy the vamire slayer, 90210 and friends are fantasy. You have been there? Then tell me how long does it take to qualify for welfare? Have you ever watched a friend die because they caught a disease due to poor living conditions? How many forms do you have to fill out? How often do people get booted on technicalities? Have you ever lived in a box? have you ever lost 50 lbs in one month (making you pass out on a regular basis) waiting for your forms to go through? Have you ever seen death up close and personal? How many times? How many of them were friends? Have you ever sold your body (or done other things that you would consider degrading
Poverty is a social problem here, not economic. I've lived on food stamps. I've walked to work. I have a friend who paid $34 a month to live in Government housing. Now he's paying $350 to live in the same roach infested complex because he has a job but can't afford a rent deposit and has bad credit. But that's political.
Yeah it was political, it is the politicians (all of them, not just one party) being bought out by the big business to look after their interests instead of the peoples.
I'm probably still poorer than your parents, but I'm grateful to have free TV and be able to afford groceries and a computer and make payments on a new car.
Really? you are poorer than my parents? That was an incorrect guess (although a good try since I am literate and have computer access
To speak historically, a lot of wealthy merchants and landowners fled to Canada. Indentured servants and even slaves died to bring freedom to America.
Yes slaves died to bring freedom to the wealthy merchants who had stayed. I again challenge you to name one of the founding fathers who was !((wealthy and literate) and (a land owner or a merchant)).
-CrackElf
Ok ... now that I have your attention.
... not malevolent, just without morals (as most big companies are). I believe that they engage in immoral (and illegal by my understanding of the law, which is not as great as my understanding of code) behavior. I believe that they write code that is stunted, and do not build a better product, but use marketing to cut out their niche.
Disclaimer: I dislike using microsofts software. I am a strong linux advocate. I think that microsoft is amoral
That said. Mr. Katz, please stay off of my side of an argument. Did you go into theaters and scream fire as a small child? Do you get a kick out of encouraging the fanatics in a group? Do you hang out with pagans and declare that the christians are eating their babies? What is the motivation for this drivel?
You were doing so well for a while, containing your melodramatic urges. You sounded (almost) sane. Did you forget your medication?
-CrackElf.
Tell that the thousands of jewish people that died in concentration camps because the government knew who did what where. (just one example of a government using private information to the ... shall we say 'disadvantage'? ... of the people)
Or how about the Japanese internment camps in the United States. Teachers that get fired because they are gay. People that get fired because they are not Christian.
When people stop discriminating, and enforcing their moral code on others, then we can start talking about a utopia where people can just be themselves, and exist in society. Till then, any idea that people dont need to hide anything is just a pipe dream.
The question is who do you trust with your information. I do not trust any government with that information. Nor do I trust corporations, although, since they are usually just looking to scam me, it is relatively harmless (now).
Yes, there are times and places where information is useful. (if it were not, it would not be information, but random data) But in that same scenario, that person who is healing you does not need to know your religion, your sexual preference, your surfing habits, the clubs you frequent, or your political party. Neither (for instance) does the persons boss. The information is not necessary, and if used, will most likely not be used to the benefit of the subject of the information.
Information has, in the past, been used for malevolent or selfish purposes. In the present it is being used for malevolent or selfish purposes. I do not believe that this will change.
-CrackElf
just how many Americans do you think are not of the upper middle class (or higher)?
I assume from your slightly cryptic comment that you believe that everyone in america lives in some kind of 90210, friends, or buffy fantasy. That is a gross misconception. I know this from personal experience. Not to mention the statement was about the socio-economic structure of the past where there were more striking and prominent dividing lines between the classes (such as literacy and slavery).
Not everyone lives in dreamland suburbia... We have squats. We have homeless. We have ghettos. We have our slums. People die of starvation. And exposure. Some people eat out of dumpsters (I will grant that american dumpsters are some of the best). There is malnutrition due to poverty. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer here just like everywhere else.
I do not have a head count of how many people live in poverty (lower classes). Yes, amreica is a first world country. That means that the average is higher than in a second or third world country. But keep in mind that that is the average. America has less people on the bottom than some third and second world countries. But dying of starvation or exposure is still pretty much the same wether you are in a first world or a third world country.
But, to speak historically, the people involved with instigating the rebellion were wealthy merchants and landowners. (and it was not a first world country at the time, it was a colony, with similar situations to many other colonies, the natives were screwed, the slaves were bad off as well, and anyone who was not 'somebody' kept their heads down and tried to get by. Not everyone in america was a wealthy merchant or landowner. In fact there was a class below poor called indentured servant. And a class below that simply called slave.
Question: do you live in america, and refuse to see the bad parts, or are you judging from the outside. If you are judging from the outside, I wish to inform you that you are mistaken. If you are in America, I would say that you should count yourself lucky for never having seen how the other half lives.
-CrackElf
If you could refill it at 11$ for 10$ cash
Or, perhaps by registering (and/or refilling) you could get a discount on your telephone bill. Marketing thinks of many devious things to lure ppl into releasing information.
After all, with mobile phones they encourage registering, and give additional time as an incentive.
(of course there would have to be hidden fees that are ultimately passed on to the consumer, like credit cards do)
-CrackElf
Are they saying that you can purchase games for the playstation securely on the playstation, and download them (without being copied by other pplz) ... what would prevent someone from copying it once it was in a non-encrypted state on the local drive? (I presume that they will not be encrypting multistation game sessions ... after all, performance is, i think, a higher priority than encrypting the session)
Or is this another one of those pay as you play schemes?
-CrackElf
But will they not, (like they do with some(all?) scratch n' sniff mobile phone cards) try to get you to register,(to encourage customer loyalty) and provide incentives for registering?
-CrackElf
That must mean that I am one of satans bitches ... I mean programmers ... (proging some software for a german telecom).
... but it is no worse than the credit card.)
Seriously though, this is done through a bank and the phone company. It is just as intrusive as, say, a credit card. And it will be just as difficult for the Government to track and block your credit card.
(BTW: I do not think that they should be able to do it with the credit card