No need for a meddling god when said god set up an ecosystem that doesn't require micromanagement.
You most certainly need a "meddling god" in your philosophy, to account for mutations and new species, since you assert these things cannot happen naturally.
It's completely relevant. To some, you are "super-rich".
No, it's not. Those people aren't living in the society I am. If they want to act within their own society, that's their business.
So in other words, you believe that wealth is zero-sum, and that it simply falls from the sky.
That statement isn't even consistent with itself, let alone what I wrote.
In fact, the "super-rich" people have no power whatsoever to threaten or bribe governments, except maybe by relocating to places less hostile to private wealth.
Wow. That's some serious naivette you have there.
Some governments have decided that they will not punish successful people too much, and they end up reaping greater economic growth as a result.
Ah, yes. The myth of infinite "growth". We've all seen what chasing that particular dragon has achieved these last few years.
Wealth isn't finite, so it's impossible to become wealthy at the "cost of everyone else".
Of course it is. Slavery is the most obvious example of same.
The current financial crisis in the US was caused by affirmative-action lending, mandated and encouraged by the government.
Bullshit. It was caused by fraudulent activities within financial institutions misrepresenting their "products" so as to make more money, *purely for the sake of making more money*.
Modern civilization is not defined by the level of taxation.
I didn't say that it was.
Civilizations crumble under high taxation and socialist economic policies. Argentina, for example, went from first-world to third world under national socialism, or take those wonderful bastions of economic growth, such as Cuba and North Korea as extreme examples.
Or we could look at the Nordic countries, with tax rates of our 60%, extensive social support programs and excellent quality of life.
Define "mainstream opinions" as a term and perhaps I can respond here. I'll admit that there are idiots and quacks from multiple extremes on this topic, but I will point out clearly that there have been "activists" and other sorts of folks who have been proponents of AGW that have indeed advocated the mass genocide of the human species. This is more a continuum of opinion ranging from merely zero population growth advocates to something resembling the eugenics movement of the 1930's, but they do use the viewpoint that mankind shouldn't be on this planet in one form or another.
"Zero population growth" is no more genocide than masturbation is murder. That ludicrous statement, alone, exposes your bias.
Please, I ask again, cite some people advocating "mass genocide".
There is also no proof that such a sequestration is necessarily less harmful than simply leaving that CO2 in the atmosphere, where larger scale global processes might just work to "scrub" that CO2 and turn it into plant matter or something else more useful.
No, there is indeed "proof" (that is to say, evidence). Prime among which is the known effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.
My secondary problem is the hubris of the climate modellers, predicting there will be rain in 12 hours or snow this winter is at best guesstimations, yet people tout their multi decade global predictions as for sure to be really accurate and a reason to ACT NOW because in twenty years it will be too late, never mind waiting five years to see if the model have any accuracy.
The fact that a model cannot pinpoint specific events does not inherently invalidate its conclusion.
Where the real problem comes in is not just the deniers who want to pop off a bunch of oil wells similar to what Saddam Hussein did in Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War and deliberately try to pollute the Earth and cause as much CO2 production as possible to prove that the AGW hypothesis is incorrect, but those who are of the opposite extreme and essentially wish to kill off the whole of human civilization and go even so far as advocating mass genocide as obviously mankind is a virus that needs to be exterminated.
Can you cite any remotely mainstream opinions "advocating mass genocide" ?
I, for one, am very concerned about carbon sequestration [...]
I'm kind of curious why you're concerned about "sequestering" carbon, but apparently not so concerned about dumping it out into the atmosphere.
Again, because of the politics in climate research, those who are doing the bad science are also getting away with it.
Ummm, who exactly do you think will be funding millions of dollar TV shows if everyone is torrenting stuff for their MythTV box, just out of curiosity?
Maybe TV shows will just have to get cheaper to produce ?
Your attitude speaks volumes about our society, and the general attitude of 'whatever I can get away with'. This permeates the Internet community (where it has good and bad applications), the political arena, our financial markets, and virtually every part of American society.
Holy hypocrisy, batman ! You're the guy driving like a wanker, and you're complaining about other people having a "whatever I can get away with attitude". That takes a serious mental disconnect.
Let's get this clear, ok? the complaints I'm hearing are essentially that I am not accomodating the lawbreakers, and they are therefore left with the option of either endangering other drivers or submitting to the law.
No, the complaints are that you're driving badly.
Just as an exercise, if I should move over for a driver going 70, should I also do so for a driver going 75? 85? 135?
You should move over for anyone going faster than you. More accurately, if you're not actively overtaking, you shouldn't be in the left-hand lane in the first place and therefore not have to move over.
In most of the world, keep right (or left, for countries driving on the left) is the law (sadly, often poorly enforced). *Everywhere*, it's simply something you do if you're a good driver.
Wrong question. Why are people driving dangerously?
No, it *is* the correct question. "Exceeding the posted limit" is not synonymous with "driving dangerously", and trying to pretend it is adds nothing to the discussion.
If a large proportion of drives are exceeding the speed limit, that is prima facie evidence that the limit is set too low.
Heh. It's easy; I've done it myself. In fact, it's easier than using Windows, which has the most difficult UI in the industry, especially since it's constantly changing.
By that implied standard, which UI is _not_ "constantly changing" ?
But that's all irrelevant, because computer security has absolutely nothing to do with sales. It's determined by ad budgets.
The single biggest factor in "security" (and I assume from your comment you are using the word in the context of outcomes, not capabilities) is end user behaviour. Nothing else even comes close.
Building them a secure system is more expensive than not bothering with security, and it wouldn't increase sales past the current 90%, so why should MS bother?
But now you're using "security" in a reference to capabilities. So, what security _capabilities_ are lacking in Windows, both compared to the alternatives and in an absolute sense ?
Seriously, can we put this to rest? Compare the number of Linux servers and Windows servers on the web and tell me again that that argument holds water.
Can you provide the numbers so we can compare ?
Further, servers are not end user desktops. They represent two _distinctly_ different risk profiles.
I have yet to see a Windows machine stay clean indefinitely, however, no matter how conscientious or skilled the admin.
I've been running Windows NT (2k, XP, etc) on multiple home PCs for 15 years. I've never had a piece of malware on any system.
as a user you NEVER HAVE TO GIVE THEM ROOT ACCESS. Ever!
How are you planning on patching your OS without root ? Running software that binds to privileged ports ? Add devices to the system that require drivers ? Partition and/or format an external drive ? Etc, etc.
windows? I have to write to that abortion called the registry that is in the system folder.,
You mean the transactional database with per-user permissions ?
Oops install software? I need to write to system and system32.
No, you don't. Certain applications might require it, but it's not an OS issue.
Look I got me a open door into the system...
No, you don't. Create and modify are different things.
Otherwise, the user himself must add the execute permission to the file.
Users are happy to open password-protected zipfiles to get at the dancing bunnies inside. Are you seriously try to suggest "chmod +x boobies.sh", or "perl bunnies.pl" is some sort of meaningful security barrier ?
Test it for yourself. Write a script on a Linux machine and try to execute it without adding execute permissions. You can't do it. Try that on Windows and it works. No changes necessary. That's a huge difference in security.
Once the user starts to suspect shenanigans, cleaning you out is as simple as (optionally) rescuing important user data, killing the user account, and rolling up a new one. Getting back to 'trustworthy system' is a lot simpler and more foolproof if you're confident that the hostile code was effectively contained by its user privs.
It's not about profit, it's that windows gives people administrator by default (and you can still enable it in Windows 7).
It is now two major Windows releases since the standard user was Administrator - and even in prior versions it was only true of Windows machines not joined to a Domain.
On top of that, typical malware does not need elevated privileges to do its work.
iexplore.exe is asking for administrator access. grant forever/don't ask again? Way to go, giving viruses admin access. It happens all the time.
IE rarely asks for elevated privileges (can't even remember the last time I saw it). There is no option to "grant forever" in UAC.
The rest of the security is no different in most scenarios whether windows or linux. However, on this front, UAC doesn't do squat (especially when you can get around UAC).
UAC does the same thing gksudo in Linux distros do.
Really, your numbers are ridiculous. I can imagine the grief you would feel if someone valued your output at such low numbers.
Actually they seem pretty high to me. Anything that works out to more than about $0.50/hr is going not "cheap", given that's roughly what a cable subscription is going to cost if you (more accurately, the household you live in) are watching 3ish hours of TV a day.
Especially since you can guarantee for that $0.50 you're not gong to be able to record it to watch multiple times.
The simple fact is pretty much _everything_ is noticably (sometimes dramatically) cheaper in the US than it is anything else is the western world. It's not so much a "UK tax" as a "not USA tax".
However, one of the compensating factors is that wages in the US are generally lower than they are anywhere else.
There are other documents in the report that go on to discuss photo enforcement efforts in Arizona, but they're not quite as relevant.
Firstly, construction zones and pedestrian areas are not the same thing.
Secondly, as I understand it the speed limit in construction zones is 45mph. That's going to give a fatality rate (based on the abstract) of somewhere between 95% and 100%. The difference between that and having the speed limit still at 65 (or whatever - >50mph) is basically nothing - it's still just going to be a matter of dumb luck whether or not the person survives being hit.
This is a big reason I picked an AMD Phenom II over a Core i7 recently. To get ECC support from Intel, you need to buy a Xeon, at which point they charge you an extra $800-$1000 for the gates to be enabled.
Huh ? You can buy a Xeon CPU for a few hundred bucks.
Hi! I'm from sub-Saharan Africa, and, since you're wealthy enough to be posting on Slashdot with a computer, I think you have too much. I'll be sending some Social Justice goons over to your house to make sure you're equal with the rest of us.
Hi ! I'm a non-sequitur and I'm here to describe your argument.
Wrong. Society is the sum of voluntary interactions between individuals. Lots of people obviously decided that what was produced by the "super rich" was worth money. Therefore, "society" has approved of the amount of wealth these individuals possess.
No, a very small proportion of (super-rich) people have colluded together to bribe and/or threaten governments into creating laws that enable them to become even more rich, at the cost of everyone else. Exhibit A: the current global financial crisis.
What you propose is using a violently coercive, involuntary institution to seize wealth above an arbitrary amount. That is the antithesis of society.
What I propose is the epitomy of modern, civilised society. It's called progressive taxation. The world is not going to fall apart because the unfeasibly rich have to get by with only a dozen houses instead of twenty. All that "wealth" isn't going to just disappear.
Nothing. They can always go back and regenerate that data. It's just a matter of time.
No, they can't. This is a really, really important distinction to make. They cannot "regenerate" the data. They *might* (perhaps even "probably") be able to "recopy" the data, *assuming the original source is still available*.
As a customer of Telekom Austria, I can assure you that nothing about that company is quick and efficient. They're the former state-run monopoly.
People love to say this scornfully, but they seem not to realise that if "Telekom $SOME_COUNTRY" _wasn't_ a "former state-run monopoly" then if they didn't live within a hundred metres of their nearest neighbour they wouldn't even _have_ a phone service, and the mere idea of a practically free phone standing on the street would be absolutely laughable.
You will not see consumer 10G Nic's, they're worthless in datacenters, thus no real way to push costs down.
Er, what ? Who _wouldn't_ be using 10G in new hardware ? *Especially* given the growing prevalence of virtualisation, iSCSI and the emergence of FCoE ?
You can only get 10G copper about 100 feet with any reliability and it's spotty at that.
So, basically perfect for the typical case of 5-10 racks full of servers connected to each other and then uplinked to the core ?
Slashdot Mirror
No need for a meddling god when said god set up an ecosystem that doesn't require micromanagement.
You most certainly need a "meddling god" in your philosophy, to account for mutations and new species, since you assert these things cannot happen naturally.
It's the idea of evolution - one species turning into an entirely different species [...]
Please don't speak about evolution if you don't know what it is.
It's completely relevant. To some, you are "super-rich".
No, it's not. Those people aren't living in the society I am. If they want to act within their own society, that's their business.
So in other words, you believe that wealth is zero-sum, and that it simply falls from the sky.
That statement isn't even consistent with itself, let alone what I wrote.
In fact, the "super-rich" people have no power whatsoever to threaten or bribe governments, except maybe by relocating to places less hostile to private wealth.
Wow. That's some serious naivette you have there.
Some governments have decided that they will not punish successful people too much, and they end up reaping greater economic growth as a result.
Ah, yes. The myth of infinite "growth". We've all seen what chasing that particular dragon has achieved these last few years.
Wealth isn't finite, so it's impossible to become wealthy at the "cost of everyone else".
Of course it is. Slavery is the most obvious example of same.
The current financial crisis in the US was caused by affirmative-action lending, mandated and encouraged by the government.
Bullshit. It was caused by fraudulent activities within financial institutions misrepresenting their "products" so as to make more money, *purely for the sake of making more money*.
Modern civilization is not defined by the level of taxation.
I didn't say that it was.
Civilizations crumble under high taxation and socialist economic policies. Argentina, for example, went from first-world to third world under national socialism, or take those wonderful bastions of economic growth, such as Cuba and North Korea as extreme examples.
Or we could look at the Nordic countries, with tax rates of our 60%, extensive social support programs and excellent quality of life.
Define "mainstream opinions" as a term and perhaps I can respond here. I'll admit that there are idiots and quacks from multiple extremes on this topic, but I will point out clearly that there have been "activists" and other sorts of folks who have been proponents of AGW that have indeed advocated the mass genocide of the human species. This is more a continuum of opinion ranging from merely zero population growth advocates to something resembling the eugenics movement of the 1930's, but they do use the viewpoint that mankind shouldn't be on this planet in one form or another.
"Zero population growth" is no more genocide than masturbation is murder. That ludicrous statement, alone, exposes your bias.
Please, I ask again, cite some people advocating "mass genocide".
There is also no proof that such a sequestration is necessarily less harmful than simply leaving that CO2 in the atmosphere, where larger scale global processes might just work to "scrub" that CO2 and turn it into plant matter or something else more useful.
No, there is indeed "proof" (that is to say, evidence). Prime among which is the known effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.
My secondary problem is the hubris of the climate modellers, predicting there will be rain in 12 hours or snow this winter is at best guesstimations, yet people tout their multi decade global predictions as for sure to be really accurate and a reason to ACT NOW because in twenty years it will be too late, never mind waiting five years to see if the model have any accuracy.
The fact that a model cannot pinpoint specific events does not inherently invalidate its conclusion.
Where the real problem comes in is not just the deniers who want to pop off a bunch of oil wells similar to what Saddam Hussein did in Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War and deliberately try to pollute the Earth and cause as much CO2 production as possible to prove that the AGW hypothesis is incorrect, but those who are of the opposite extreme and essentially wish to kill off the whole of human civilization and go even so far as advocating mass genocide as obviously mankind is a virus that needs to be exterminated.
Can you cite any remotely mainstream opinions "advocating mass genocide" ?
I, for one, am very concerned about carbon sequestration [...]
I'm kind of curious why you're concerned about "sequestering" carbon, but apparently not so concerned about dumping it out into the atmosphere.
Again, because of the politics in climate research, those who are doing the bad science are also getting away with it.
How are they "getting away with it" ?
Ummm, who exactly do you think will be funding millions of dollar TV shows if everyone is torrenting stuff for their MythTV box, just out of curiosity?
Maybe TV shows will just have to get cheaper to produce ?
Your attitude speaks volumes about our society, and the general attitude of 'whatever I can get away with'. This permeates the Internet community (where it has good and bad applications), the political arena, our financial markets, and virtually every part of American society.
Holy hypocrisy, batman ! You're the guy driving like a wanker, and you're complaining about other people having a "whatever I can get away with attitude". That takes a serious mental disconnect.
Let's get this clear, ok? the complaints I'm hearing are essentially that I am not accomodating the lawbreakers, and they are therefore left with the option of either endangering other drivers or submitting to the law.
No, the complaints are that you're driving badly.
Just as an exercise, if I should move over for a driver going 70, should I also do so for a driver going 75? 85? 135?
You should move over for anyone going faster than you. More accurately, if you're not actively overtaking, you shouldn't be in the left-hand lane in the first place and therefore not have to move over.
In most of the world, keep right (or left, for countries driving on the left) is the law (sadly, often poorly enforced). *Everywhere*, it's simply something you do if you're a good driver.
Wrong question. Why are people driving dangerously?
No, it *is* the correct question. "Exceeding the posted limit" is not synonymous with "driving dangerously", and trying to pretend it is adds nothing to the discussion.
If a large proportion of drives are exceeding the speed limit, that is prima facie evidence that the limit is set too low.
Heh. It's easy; I've done it myself. In fact, it's easier than using Windows, which has the most difficult UI in the industry, especially since it's constantly changing.
By that implied standard, which UI is _not_ "constantly changing" ?
But that's all irrelevant, because computer security has absolutely nothing to do with sales. It's determined by ad budgets.
The single biggest factor in "security" (and I assume from your comment you are using the word in the context of outcomes, not capabilities) is end user behaviour. Nothing else even comes close.
Building them a secure system is more expensive than not bothering with security, and it wouldn't increase sales past the current 90%, so why should MS bother?
But now you're using "security" in a reference to capabilities. So, what security _capabilities_ are lacking in Windows, both compared to the alternatives and in an absolute sense ?
Seriously, can we put this to rest? Compare the number of Linux servers and Windows servers on the web and tell me again that that argument holds water.
Can you provide the numbers so we can compare ?
Further, servers are not end user desktops. They represent two _distinctly_ different risk profiles.
I have yet to see a Windows machine stay clean indefinitely, however, no matter how conscientious or skilled the admin.
I've been running Windows NT (2k, XP, etc) on multiple home PCs for 15 years. I've never had a piece of malware on any system.
as a user you NEVER HAVE TO GIVE THEM ROOT ACCESS. Ever!
How are you planning on patching your OS without root ? Running software that binds to privileged ports ? Add devices to the system that require drivers ? Partition and/or format an external drive ? Etc, etc.
windows? I have to write to that abortion called the registry that is in the system folder.,
You mean the transactional database with per-user permissions ?
Oops install software? I need to write to system and system32.
No, you don't. Certain applications might require it, but it's not an OS issue.
Look I got me a open door into the system...
No, you don't. Create and modify are different things.
Otherwise, the user himself must add the execute permission to the file.
Users are happy to open password-protected zipfiles to get at the dancing bunnies inside. Are you seriously try to suggest "chmod +x boobies.sh", or "perl bunnies.pl" is some sort of meaningful security barrier ?
Test it for yourself. Write a script on a Linux machine and try to execute it without adding execute permissions. You can't do it. Try that on Windows and it works. No changes necessary. That's a huge difference in security.
No. It's insignificant and irrelevant.
Once the user starts to suspect shenanigans, cleaning you out is as simple as (optionally) rescuing important user data, killing the user account, and rolling up a new one. Getting back to 'trustworthy system' is a lot simpler and more foolproof if you're confident that the hostile code was effectively contained by its user privs.
Which you never can be.
It's not about profit, it's that windows gives people administrator by default (and you can still enable it in Windows 7).
It is now two major Windows releases since the standard user was Administrator - and even in prior versions it was only true of Windows machines not joined to a Domain.
On top of that, typical malware does not need elevated privileges to do its work.
iexplore.exe is asking for administrator access. grant forever/don't ask again? Way to go, giving viruses admin access. It happens all the time.
IE rarely asks for elevated privileges (can't even remember the last time I saw it). There is no option to "grant forever" in UAC.
The rest of the security is no different in most scenarios whether windows or linux. However, on this front, UAC doesn't do squat (especially when you can get around UAC).
UAC does the same thing gksudo in Linux distros do.
You know how much it costs to make an hour long show?
If it's a million bucks, then they only need about 2 million people to think it's worth fifty cents and they've broken even.
Really, your numbers are ridiculous. I can imagine the grief you would feel if someone valued your output at such low numbers.
Actually they seem pretty high to me. Anything that works out to more than about $0.50/hr is going not "cheap", given that's roughly what a cable subscription is going to cost if you (more accurately, the household you live in) are watching 3ish hours of TV a day.
Especially since you can guarantee for that $0.50 you're not gong to be able to record it to watch multiple times.
However, one of the compensating factors is that wages in the US are generally lower than they are anywhere else.
There are other documents in the report that go on to discuss photo enforcement efforts in Arizona, but they're not quite as relevant.
Firstly, construction zones and pedestrian areas are not the same thing.
Secondly, as I understand it the speed limit in construction zones is 45mph. That's going to give a fatality rate (based on the abstract) of somewhere between 95% and 100%. The difference between that and having the speed limit still at 65 (or whatever - >50mph) is basically nothing - it's still just going to be a matter of dumb luck whether or not the person survives being hit.
This is a big reason I picked an AMD Phenom II over a Core i7 recently. To get ECC support from Intel, you need to buy a Xeon, at which point they charge you an extra $800-$1000 for the gates to be enabled.
Huh ? You can buy a Xeon CPU for a few hundred bucks.
Hi! I'm from sub-Saharan Africa, and, since you're wealthy enough to be posting on Slashdot with a computer, I think you have too much. I'll be sending some Social Justice goons over to your house to make sure you're equal with the rest of us.
Hi ! I'm a non-sequitur and I'm here to describe your argument.
Wrong. Society is the sum of voluntary interactions between individuals. Lots of people obviously decided that what was produced by the "super rich" was worth money. Therefore, "society" has approved of the amount of wealth these individuals possess.
No, a very small proportion of (super-rich) people have colluded together to bribe and/or threaten governments into creating laws that enable them to become even more rich, at the cost of everyone else. Exhibit A: the current global financial crisis.
What you propose is using a violently coercive, involuntary institution to seize wealth above an arbitrary amount. That is the antithesis of society.
What I propose is the epitomy of modern, civilised society. It's called progressive taxation. The world is not going to fall apart because the unfeasibly rich have to get by with only a dozen houses instead of twenty. All that "wealth" isn't going to just disappear.
Nothing. They can always go back and regenerate that data. It's just a matter of time.
No, they can't. This is a really, really important distinction to make. They cannot "regenerate" the data. They *might* (perhaps even "probably") be able to "recopy" the data, *assuming the original source is still available*.
As a customer of Telekom Austria, I can assure you that nothing about that company is quick and efficient. They're the former state-run monopoly.
People love to say this scornfully, but they seem not to realise that if "Telekom $SOME_COUNTRY" _wasn't_ a "former state-run monopoly" then if they didn't live within a hundred metres of their nearest neighbour they wouldn't even _have_ a phone service, and the mere idea of a practically free phone standing on the street would be absolutely laughable.
And exactly who is endowed with the wisdom, and power to say how much a person can earn?
Everyone.
Apparently, some people are willing to pay some people more than others...who is to say how much?
The rest of society, which is why we (used to) have extremely high tax rates for the super-rich.
You will not see consumer 10G Nic's, they're worthless in datacenters, thus no real way to push costs down.
Er, what ? Who _wouldn't_ be using 10G in new hardware ? *Especially* given the growing prevalence of virtualisation, iSCSI and the emergence of FCoE ?
You can only get 10G copper about 100 feet with any reliability and it's spotty at that.
So, basically perfect for the typical case of 5-10 racks full of servers connected to each other and then uplinked to the core ?