``how can a virus count in one software and not the other''
Read any comparisson of AV products in just about any mainstream IT rag. For these tests, they'll load up a hard disk with known viruses and see how many each product can detect. It is quite rare for all AV products to detect all viruses.
Part of this is due to there not being any standards for virus definitions. Part of this is due to polymorphic viruses (viruses that self-modify their code and, consequently, change their own binary signature). Part of this is due to the virus writing community writing many versions of some viruses. Part of this is due to some AV products using heuristic scanning which doesn't depend on definition files.
Modern AV software has finally achieved acceptably low false-positive rates for heuristic scanning. Based on the sequence of instructions in a binary file, a heuristic scan without recourse to a virus definition file can guess with a high level of probability as to whehther or not a given binary is a virus. Whether the Virex engine has this or not, I don't know.
Microsoft has so many liquid assetts that if they put them all into US treasury bonds and stopped charging for all of their software and services, they would still be in business at their present burn rate well after you and I pass away.
Taking on MS on an all fronts war (Netware/PerfectOffice/Groupwise) almost killed Novel.
Taking on MS on an all fronts war (OS/2, SmartSuite, Notes) caused such massive losses for IBM that lesser companies would have imploded under the strain.
Attempting to cut off Microsoft's air supply is an arduous and perilous task. It may very well be that such an attempt will be profitable, but history suggests that all past attempts have met a rather bitter end. To be fair, Google does has quite a bit going for it that Word Perfect, Novel and IBM didn't back in the nineties. So, perhaps things will turn out different.
Many of the writers of the US Constitution certainly thought that federalism was a subset of republicanism. A quick perusal of the Federalist Papers will supply the arguments for this. I realize that many people define republicanism in various fashion. Kant argued that republican governments are those that entirely separate the executive power from the legislative power. But in the Federalist Papers, Hamilton argued that the republican form of government is the one that represents the general will of the people as a whole. So how would define republicanism and how does federalism differ from that definition?
``You are saying that Americans who are characterized as "Conservatives" don't believe in that.''
I said no such thing. I said that ``conservatives'' in the US are really liberals. No more, no less.
``"Liberal" judges that just voted to screw the private citizen who owns private property by kicking them off their property to allow big greedy tax-generating business to have it (right to own property).''
``Conservative'' judges largely agreed with the majority opinion. And your beef, in this case, is with the Constitution. The role of a judge is to interpret the US Constitution which specifically grants local and state governments the ability to confiscate land for any reason they deem to be in the public good so long as just compensation occurs. Aside from which, eminent domain is rarely exercised.
``It's the "Liberals" who like the fact that it is legal to terminate unborn human life (right to life).''
But there is presently a dispute at what stage an embryo becomes a human life. The Supreme Court has said in Roe v. Wade, that at the point where a fetus is unambiguously a human, that the states have the right to limit abortions. Further, the case of abortion presents a case where the right to property of one person and the right to life of another are in an irreconcileable conflict. There are good arguments made by those who think that the conflict should be resolved in favor of each of these. No matter which way the argument is resolved, someone's rights are going to be infringed.
``And it's the "liberals" who are responsible for affirmative action which unbalances opportunity against the white male and in favor of any "minority" (that all citizens have equal rights under the law). ''
This is probably your best argument that ``liberals'' in the US don't genuinely hold liberal principles. But at best, it suggests that such people hold contradictory beliefs.
Further, all of these examples are cherry-picking. You're looking at only those aspects of ``liberals'' that piss you off and none of the aspects of ``liberals'' that mesh well with liberal values.
You know, the philosophical basis for all of modern liberalism?
Read up on Liberalism. In a nutshell, Liberalism is the idea that governments should rule with the consent of the governed; that individuals have a right to life, liberty and property; and that all citizens have equal rights under the law.
I would have expected someone of a libertarian bent to be a bit more educated about liberalism.
Freedom. Autonomy. Equality before the law. Those are all liberal ideas. My argument for lumping the ``conservatives'' in US politics is far stronger than your bald assertion that ``moderates'' and ``independants'' are really liberals. With the exception of those who would equate Patriotism with Christianity, there aren't any genuinely conservative ideas in all of American politics. At least there aren't any serious Monarchist parties in the US so far as I know.
FYI, I was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. I've never been out of the country in my life. You have to go back about five generations before you find any immigrants in my family tree.
BSD was under something of a shadow when Linux was in its infancy. It wasn't until the settlement between AT&T and UCB that BSD started to pick up steam again. Where BSD might of gone if AT&T never sued is an open question.
``I've been developing Linux business systems for nearly 10 years and I've never heard of a company not adopting Linux for legal reasons.''
A former employer of mine had planned to port its flagship software to Linux and reversed course after SCO filed its suit. Their primary engine was already ported to HP/UX, AIX, and Solaris, so I don't think porting to Linux would have been that difficult for them.
They may have changed their path back to their former plans since I left, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. From what I understand, the legal department said that deploying Linux should be delayed at least until resolution of SCO's various lawsuits. Of course, their estimation of SCO's lawsuits may have changed in the interim.
This is true, but what is left unspoken is that ``conservative'' is also liberal. In the US, all of the political parties gather their fundamental principles from the classical liberalism of the enlightenment. You don't see any of the truly conservative stances such as the divine right of kings or the fundamental superiority of the nobility over peasantry being argued. The right wing in the US is the right wing of the liberal movement.
And to make matters confusing, the left wing in the US is really only the left wing of the right wing of the liberal movement. If you want to see real left wing politics you have to go to South America or Europe. What passes for ``liberal'' in the US is right of center almost everywhere else in the world.
Accepting goods within a state is being taxed and is being taxed at the same right for all buyers regardless of whether they are buying from a firm within the state or outside the state.
It doesn't (a) interfere with interstate commerce, (b) unduly disadvantage out of state firms, or (c) apply to transactions that take place wholly outside the state.
Now, if the tax applied to all goods that happen to be shipped through the state rather than items shipped to the state, I might agree with you.
Many states, Ohio being one, tax all purchases that are made out of state and shipped to an Ohio address. There is even a special line on the Ohio income tax form especially for reporting the amount of goods you've purchased online, through mail order, over the phone, etc.
Of course no one I know of that lives in Ohio has ever put any amount there other than a 0. Nonetheless, it isn't accurate to say that interstate transactions are not subject to and have never been subject to sales tax.
The whole brouhaha is about a state sanctioned monopoly called ``copyright.'' Hence, capitalism is being entirely bypassed as the very precondition for the dispute.
The standard profit for every industry is calculated as a percentage of costs of production. If costs are mostly the same for producing a given commodity, all of the firms selling that product will be making the same approximate profit at the margins. If a firm tries to sell at a margin higher than their competitors, consumers will switch to competing products that are lower in price. If a producer is selling at a rate below their competitors, they are not maximizing the amount of money that they might make. Hence, the actual price you pay at the market is based directly on the costs of production.
This process drives technology. If a firm can acquire a genuine technological advance for reducing costs over its competitors, it can either reduce the market price (until its competitors catch up) to increase its market volume and make more money because the standard profit on a greater market share is a greater volume of money, or keep the market price the same and enjoy a higher profit than most of its competitors for a period of time. In either case, the competitors will eventually catch up.
But of course, this only works for commodities. In some cases, the actual market for a product more closely represents a monopoly. For example, few people buy Nikes because they are the best athletic shoe on the market for the best price. By and large, the people buying Nikes are buying them because they are Nikes. Hence, Nike can set the price of its shoes without regard to the price of any competing products because there are effectively no competing products.
Saying that law enforcement is not a commercial activity is in no way an artificial distinction. To begin with, there is no choice in the matter. Even in monopoly situations, consumers can choose not to buy goods or services. But with regards to taxes, coercive force is applied if the citizen attempts to not pay. The element of coercive force is a very real differentiator.
Your analogy to AT&T fails because (1) I already addressed natural monopolies, which we are not talking about and (2) AT&T never used coercive force to get people to pay money regardless of whether or not those people actually used a given AT&T service.
Further, Microsoft can and does dictate the price of windows. With regards to economics, there is nothing in the definition of a monopoly that says that individuals have to buy the products of a monopolist, only that if you do want a given product, the only source is that monopolist. And where do you think you can buy any Microsoft products that don't ultimately come from Microsoft?
In a true free market, individuals would not be constrained by a monopoly on such intangible items such as copyrights and individuals could buy Microsoft Windows from any number of producers. Windows would become a commodity such as orange juice or coffee. But presently, it isn't. Only one firm can legally produce Microsoft Windows.
Further, through much of the nineties, Microsoft also had a monopoly not only on its own branded products, but also on the desktop operating system market. In large segments of the US, it was practically impossible to buy a computer without it shipping with a copy of Windows. Sure, it could be done by driving out of town or ordering mail order, but Microsoft had a stranglehold on most of the reseller market.
Hence, imprisonment of criminals is not an example of a monopoly.
You're mostly correct with regards to utilities, except that in most cases they are what is considered to be a natural monopoly which most economists hold to be a special case.
Economists (of the neo-classical variety anyway) actually define a monopoly as a firm that can dictate the price to the market rather than having the market dictate the price.
Aside from which, as far as I can tell, by your definition Microsoft would be a monopoly because they are the only legal provider of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, etc.
But only if you're blind. For as long as I can remember, most libraries have programs to mail audio books to blind people, let them keep them as long as they want and mail the next selection upon return of the previous selection. I don't know for certain, but I'd wager there are federal dollars behind this.
So much as the implementation. At its core, Netflix isn't doing anything other than what libraries and rental shops have been doing for decades. What makes Netflix different is their execution of the business model: good selection, prompt service, decent price.
You're behind the times. Some of the commercial third party products that work with iPods, do use their database. And, of course, if you're using Linux, then third party programs are the only game in town.
Slashdot Mirror
``how can a virus count in one software and not the other''
Read any comparisson of AV products in just about any mainstream IT rag. For these tests, they'll load up a hard disk with known viruses and see how many each product can detect. It is quite rare for all AV products to detect all viruses.
Part of this is due to there not being any standards for virus definitions. Part of this is due to polymorphic viruses (viruses that self-modify their code and, consequently, change their own binary signature). Part of this is due to the virus writing community writing many versions of some viruses. Part of this is due to some AV products using heuristic scanning which doesn't depend on definition files.
Modern AV software has finally achieved acceptably low false-positive rates for heuristic scanning. Based on the sequence of instructions in a binary file, a heuristic scan without recourse to a virus definition file can guess with a high level of probability as to whehther or not a given binary is a virus. Whether the Virex engine has this or not, I don't know.
Microsoft has so many liquid assetts that if they put them all into US treasury bonds and stopped charging for all of their software and services, they would still be in business at their present burn rate well after you and I pass away.
Taking on MS killed Word Perfect.
Taking on MS on an all fronts war (Netware/PerfectOffice/Groupwise) almost killed Novel.
Taking on MS on an all fronts war (OS/2, SmartSuite, Notes) caused such massive losses for IBM that lesser companies would have imploded under the strain.
Attempting to cut off Microsoft's air supply is an arduous and perilous task. It may very well be that such an attempt will be profitable, but history suggests that all past attempts have met a rather bitter end. To be fair, Google does has quite a bit going for it that Word Perfect, Novel and IBM didn't back in the nineties. So, perhaps things will turn out different.
``I believe in republicanism, not federalism.''
Many of the writers of the US Constitution certainly thought that federalism was a subset of republicanism. A quick perusal of the Federalist Papers will supply the arguments for this. I realize that many people define republicanism in various fashion. Kant argued that republican governments are those that entirely separate the executive power from the legislative power. But in the Federalist Papers, Hamilton argued that the republican form of government is the one that represents the general will of the people as a whole. So how would define republicanism and how does federalism differ from that definition?
``You are saying that Americans who are characterized as "Conservatives" don't believe in that.''
I said no such thing. I said that ``conservatives'' in the US are really liberals. No more, no less.
``"Liberal" judges that just voted to screw the private citizen who owns private property by kicking them off their property to allow big greedy tax-generating business to have it (right to own property).''
``Conservative'' judges largely agreed with the majority opinion. And your beef, in this case, is with the Constitution. The role of a judge is to interpret the US Constitution which specifically grants local and state governments the ability to confiscate land for any reason they deem to be in the public good so long as just compensation occurs. Aside from which, eminent domain is rarely exercised.
``It's the "Liberals" who like the fact that it is legal to terminate unborn human life (right to life).''
But there is presently a dispute at what stage an embryo becomes a human life. The Supreme Court has said in Roe v. Wade, that at the point where a fetus is unambiguously a human, that the states have the right to limit abortions. Further, the case of abortion presents a case where the right to property of one person and the right to life of another are in an irreconcileable conflict. There are good arguments made by those who think that the conflict should be resolved in favor of each of these. No matter which way the argument is resolved, someone's rights are going to be infringed.
``And it's the "liberals" who are responsible for affirmative action which unbalances opportunity against the white male and in favor of any "minority" (that all citizens have equal rights under the law). ''
This is probably your best argument that ``liberals'' in the US don't genuinely hold liberal principles. But at best, it suggests that such people hold contradictory beliefs.
Further, all of these examples are cherry-picking. You're looking at only those aspects of ``liberals'' that piss you off and none of the aspects of ``liberals'' that mesh well with liberal values.
You know, the philosophical basis for all of modern liberalism?
Read up on Liberalism. In a nutshell, Liberalism is the idea that governments should rule with the consent of the governed; that individuals have a right to life, liberty and property; and that all citizens have equal rights under the law.
I would have expected someone of a libertarian bent to be a bit more educated about liberalism.
Freedom. Autonomy. Equality before the law. Those are all liberal ideas. My argument for lumping the ``conservatives'' in US politics is far stronger than your bald assertion that ``moderates'' and ``independants'' are really liberals. With the exception of those who would equate Patriotism with Christianity, there aren't any genuinely conservative ideas in all of American politics. At least there aren't any serious Monarchist parties in the US so far as I know.
FYI, I was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. I've never been out of the country in my life. You have to go back about five generations before you find any immigrants in my family tree.
BSD was under something of a shadow when Linux was in its infancy. It wasn't until the settlement between AT&T and UCB that BSD started to pick up steam again. Where BSD might of gone if AT&T never sued is an open question.
``I've been developing Linux business systems for nearly 10 years and I've never heard of a company not adopting Linux for legal reasons.''
A former employer of mine had planned to port its flagship software to Linux and reversed course after SCO filed its suit. Their primary engine was already ported to HP/UX, AIX, and Solaris, so I don't think porting to Linux would have been that difficult for them.
They may have changed their path back to their former plans since I left, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. From what I understand, the legal department said that deploying Linux should be delayed at least until resolution of SCO's various lawsuits. Of course, their estimation of SCO's lawsuits may have changed in the interim.
I think you overestimate the comprehension skills of a significant portion of the movie-going public.
This is true, but what is left unspoken is that ``conservative'' is also liberal. In the US, all of the political parties gather their fundamental principles from the classical liberalism of the enlightenment. You don't see any of the truly conservative stances such as the divine right of kings or the fundamental superiority of the nobility over peasantry being argued. The right wing in the US is the right wing of the liberal movement.
And to make matters confusing, the left wing in the US is really only the left wing of the right wing of the liberal movement. If you want to see real left wing politics you have to go to South America or Europe. What passes for ``liberal'' in the US is right of center almost everywhere else in the world.
Star Office will finally be able to run at an acceptable speed on reasonable hardware!
Accepting goods within a state is being taxed and is being taxed at the same right for all buyers regardless of whether they are buying from a firm within the state or outside the state.
It doesn't (a) interfere with interstate commerce, (b) unduly disadvantage out of state firms, or (c) apply to transactions that take place wholly outside the state.
Now, if the tax applied to all goods that happen to be shipped through the state rather than items shipped to the state, I might agree with you.
My razor works with any razor blade that fits. I am not restricted to only buying my blades from the same manufacturer as my razor.
Many states, Ohio being one, tax all purchases that are made out of state and shipped to an Ohio address. There is even a special line on the Ohio income tax form especially for reporting the amount of goods you've purchased online, through mail order, over the phone, etc.
Of course no one I know of that lives in Ohio has ever put any amount there other than a 0. Nonetheless, it isn't accurate to say that interstate transactions are not subject to and have never been subject to sales tax.
The whole brouhaha is about a state sanctioned monopoly called ``copyright.'' Hence, capitalism is being entirely bypassed as the very precondition for the dispute.
The standard profit for every industry is calculated as a percentage of costs of production. If costs are mostly the same for producing a given commodity, all of the firms selling that product will be making the same approximate profit at the margins. If a firm tries to sell at a margin higher than their competitors, consumers will switch to competing products that are lower in price. If a producer is selling at a rate below their competitors, they are not maximizing the amount of money that they might make. Hence, the actual price you pay at the market is based directly on the costs of production.
This process drives technology. If a firm can acquire a genuine technological advance for reducing costs over its competitors, it can either reduce the market price (until its competitors catch up) to increase its market volume and make more money because the standard profit on a greater market share is a greater volume of money, or keep the market price the same and enjoy a higher profit than most of its competitors for a period of time. In either case, the competitors will eventually catch up.
But of course, this only works for commodities. In some cases, the actual market for a product more closely represents a monopoly. For example, few people buy Nikes because they are the best athletic shoe on the market for the best price. By and large, the people buying Nikes are buying them because they are Nikes. Hence, Nike can set the price of its shoes without regard to the price of any competing products because there are effectively no competing products.
Saying that law enforcement is not a commercial activity is in no way an artificial distinction. To begin with, there is no choice in the matter. Even in monopoly situations, consumers can choose not to buy goods or services. But with regards to taxes, coercive force is applied if the citizen attempts to not pay. The element of coercive force is a very real differentiator.
Your analogy to AT&T fails because (1) I already addressed natural monopolies, which we are not talking about and (2) AT&T never used coercive force to get people to pay money regardless of whether or not those people actually used a given AT&T service.
Further, Microsoft can and does dictate the price of windows. With regards to economics, there is nothing in the definition of a monopoly that says that individuals have to buy the products of a monopolist, only that if you do want a given product, the only source is that monopolist. And where do you think you can buy any Microsoft products that don't ultimately come from Microsoft?
In a true free market, individuals would not be constrained by a monopoly on such intangible items such as copyrights and individuals could buy Microsoft Windows from any number of producers. Windows would become a commodity such as orange juice or coffee. But presently, it isn't. Only one firm can legally produce Microsoft Windows.
Further, through much of the nineties, Microsoft also had a monopoly not only on its own branded products, but also on the desktop operating system market. In large segments of the US, it was practically impossible to buy a computer without it shipping with a copy of Windows. Sure, it could be done by driving out of town or ordering mail order, but Microsoft had a stranglehold on most of the reseller market.
Hence, imprisonment of criminals is not an example of a monopoly.
You're mostly correct with regards to utilities, except that in most cases they are what is considered to be a natural monopoly which most economists hold to be a special case.
Economists (of the neo-classical variety anyway) actually define a monopoly as a firm that can dictate the price to the market rather than having the market dictate the price.
Aside from which, as far as I can tell, by your definition Microsoft would be a monopoly because they are the only legal provider of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, etc.
Why is it that the iPod dominates the .mp3 player market? It would seem that the evidence at hand directly contradicts your assertion as Apple currently controls a 74 percent market share in the U.S., the world's single largest MP3 player market.
But only if you're blind. For as long as I can remember, most libraries have programs to mail audio books to blind people, let them keep them as long as they want and mail the next selection upon return of the previous selection. I don't know for certain, but I'd wager there are federal dollars behind this.
So much as the implementation. At its core, Netflix isn't doing anything other than what libraries and rental shops have been doing for decades. What makes Netflix different is their execution of the business model: good selection, prompt service, decent price.
You're behind the times. Some of the commercial third party products that work with iPods, do use their database. And, of course, if you're using Linux, then third party programs are the only game in town.