Why are you compiling with redhat? Why not install with an RPM?
Honestly people like should not use linux. Stick to windows, you'll be much happier and you won't be bothering those snobby and childish people. As you are well aware windows users and much more adult and sophisticated and will drop eveything to rush and help you out. Why give up a supportive environment like windows? It just does not make any sense.
It's not the fault of Linux. If companies don't make drivers blame them. If Compaq does not provide drivers for a popular operating system blame compaq.
How can you blame Linux if compaq uses weird one off components.
For most distributions installing packages is easier then windows.
With windows you first have to find the program. Maybe you buy it, maybe you go to download.com and search for it. Next you have to download it and save it to some directory. Next you need to unzip it (oops you did install winzip and pay for it didn't you?). Next you need to install it.
With linux you just do an apt-get install packagename.
Ooops like almost all astro-turfer posts looks like got modded up.
I do wish MS made up their minds though. Is the FSF a cancer or communist. Or are they the pure incarnation of evil. Perhaps they are something even worse like democrats or something.
"The outsourcing of prisons is one thing. Like I said, I'm yet to see any evidence of people being incarcerated purely on the basis of them being cheap labour."
As I said, it's enough that a system exists whereby people in prison are bid out to corporations. Once the profit motive is in place there does not need to be a direct correlation. People are not stupid. Nobody is going to pass a law saying arrest people because we need cheap labor. It's enough to set up a system whereby people are making money from the prison population. The rest of the dominos fall into place automatically.
"FACT: The average cost to incarcerate an adult inmate in a Department of Corrections institution is approximately $24,500 per year."
This is till lower then the mean wage for a working person in the US. Also that number represents the average there are lots of prisons where the cost of containment is significantly lower. Finally (and I keep saying this) the courts have ruled that keeping prisoners in chain link cages and communal tents is perfectly OK. Pretty soon most for profit prisons will start to do that. They can bring down the cost of housing prisoners to below 5K per year while collecting 24K per year from the states and selling the prisoners labor for another five to ten thousand per year.
"FACT: The construction cost of each new cell is approximately $100,000. (That's per cell, not per prison!)"
See above. The actual construction costs don't really matter anyway. You can make it over the lifetime of the cell.
"But I don't believe he did it so as to appease the big Corps - but rather, because of his deep-seated conservatism and his desire to appeal to the populist "tough on crime" approach."
he did it to appease the campaign contributors. Amongst those were people and corporations who profit from longer sentences.
"You pay your taxes. What do you get when people are arrested and put in jail? Squat diddly. Everyone pays thousands in taxes each year for jails, and then criminals go and do what?"
that is why Jail should be the last resort and not the first. That is why gambling, prostitution, drug use should be legalized. The answer is not to buy and sell human beings for profit.
"I don't think that having crooks being productive is such a bad thing. Maybe not for private organisations, but there are plenty of other ways. Anyway, giving them work to do builds self-esteem, and I think in many ways is more likely to assist in making them productive members of society."
For every prisoner filling a job position one honest, hardworking non criminal is out of a job. Prison labor is bad for the country because it leads to higher unemployment. Nobody who is going to support a family can compete with a prisoner for a job. A prisoner works all day for $10 to $15 dollars.
"I don't believe that free trade in any way contributes to your notion that people are being locked up as slave labour"
I think free trade does indeed contribute. Not only that but it will contribute more in the future. getting back to the start of this conversation.
The corporations will always go the cheapest available source of labor. The cheapest available source of labor is slavery. One day some country (perhaps the US) will imprison or enslave a significant portion of their citizens and sell them to corporations for rock bottom price. All the "shit" jobs will migrate to that country immediately.
The groundwork for that scenario is already being laid in the US where prisoners are bought and sold and put into indentured servitude. Where both the state and corporations profit from arresting and jailing people.
"let me rephrase it then. Do you have any evidence to suggest that a person in either of the US or China was incarcerated so as to work in slave labour"
IF they did nobody would admit it. It happens in an indirect way. Today there are many prisons that are private. These corporations buy human beings and cage them. The states pay the corporations to warehouse their humans and the corporations in turn sell the humans to other corporations. In a very real sense there is a "free market" in buying and selling humans.
As long as there is porfit to be made these corporations lobby for and get tougher sentencing laws (witness the recent demand by Ashcroft that judges hand out longer sentences). They also lobby for more intrusive laws. It's in their interest to criminize more behavior.
"And the US in particular does not have an economic incentive to jail people: "In some states, it costs more to house a prisoner than send a student to Harvard""
notice that it says "in some states". It does not say "in all states". As I said previously there are prisons in the US where prisoners are kept in tents and chain link cages. In those prisons the cost to house prisoners is very cheap. Since no court has found these prisons to be cruel and unusual more and more prisons will cust costs eventually.
"You're dreaming, buddy. It won't happen. Other than the fact that the public wouldn't let it happen "
As I said before it's already happening. Nobody is complaining about the cages in cuba, nobody is compalining about the tents in arizona. Most americans don't give a damn what happens to prisoners. maybe the dell deal fell down (great!) but lots of others are going on today and will continue on and be expanded in the future.
"The morality of it is that a majority of the people incarcerated have committed serious felonies, and have leeched off society. "
first of all "serious felony" includes smoking dope and prostitution. That phrase is meaningless. Until recently anal sex was a "serious felony". Secondly most people in prison are there for theft, petty robbery, drug use or dealing, or prostitution. Basically crimes of poverty.
"While they remain in prison, we're paying for the privilege."
sorry but that's your choice. As long as America feels that common acts should be illegal and that people should be sentenced for decades for petty offences you have no choice in the matter. As long as America feels like incarceration is the only way to deal with crime you will continue to build more prisons every day and fill them to the brim.
"I don't want to see them outsourced to private companies"
That's exactly what is happeing. You should be outraged instead of defending the practice.
"but I can think of a number of positive things that they could be doing whilst locked up."
Most of them should not be locked up in the first place. If you only lock up the violent or the criminally insane you can pretty much let them sit on their asses.
"Other than sitting on their asses waiting to get out and re-offend, like most of them do."
I have no doubt that an otherwise normal person who enters the prison system for drugs or petty theft leaves a hardened criminal. The prison system breaks and corrupts people. A young kid can enter the system because he held up a 7/11 and leave a murderer. That's what happens after years of gang rape, countless assaults and having your spirit broken.
Prisons are the best mechanism known to mankind for turning otherwise sane (if desparate or stupid) people into evil.
What is interesting to me is that MS already settled with AOL for over 700 million for what they did to netscape. If this verdict stands (and god knows MS can drag it out forever and has friends in very high places) it will have cost MS over a billion dollars to gain dominance over the web.
I wonder if they feel like it was worth it. Billion is pocket change to MS but still it would have been cheaper to just license the patent.
"I've said it before, I'll say it again. Free trade is good."
Some people believe that religion. I don't.
"So, not only do American consumers pay more for their food, they pay more taxes that get handed out in subsidies to the farmers."
I really don't see how this proves free trade is good. subsidies abound in all industries in all countries. Your example has nothing to do with free trade.
"Likewise, all the Indians are doing is taking the shitty no-good jobs away from the US. "
Do you really think programming is a shitty no-good job? Do you really see all manufacturing as being shitty no good jobs?
"But this attitude is what shits me so much about the US. Freedom and democracy and capitalism until *gasp* it starts to hurt us a little bit. Well son, you can't have it both ways. Are you guys the leading lights of the free capitalist world, or do you pull back into your shells whenever it gets a bit tough?"
As I said some people see free trade as a religion and some people don't. The job of the US govt is to protect and save US citizens. Not to serve some higher ideal of capitalism or free trade especially if it hurts US citizens. The same is true for every country.
"Oh, I see, so what, you're saying that the US and China have locked up prisoners specifically for the purposes of slave labour? You're kidding me buddy. These guys have been given due process of law. They were locked up and asked to work AFTER they were found guilty."
I don't know about china. My guess is that not everybody got due process there. I am also sure not every body in the US got due process. Nevertheless that point is moot.
The govt has incentive to jail people, it can keep the jails full by making silly things illegal like smoking dope, gambling,prostitution etc. It can take any activity that people enjoy and make it illegal to make sure the prisons are full.
"You know how much it costs to keep a prisoner for a year? It's a lot - can be up in the six figure range. If you think that you're getting slave labour, I'd argue they're absolutely no damn different to six-figure bureaucrats. They cost too much and they don't do shit."
It depends on the prison. For example there are people in Cuba and other concentration camps scrattered across the world that are housed in very small chain link cages. They have no beds, no toilets, no roofs. I don't think it costs that much to give them a bagel or two a day do you?
In arizona there are hundreds of prisoners kept in communal tents. They have cots and a fabric roof and walls. They eat better then the people in cuba. Still though pretty cheap don't you think.
Other prisons are more posh I admit but clearly the US has differing levels of treatment for prisoners and none of them have been found to be illegal.
I imagine that the US could very easily set up Hitler style concentration camps. Give the prisoners a communal building with a shelf for a bed, a toilet and some showers. Dig up some historical photos if you want to see what that was like. Better then the cuban and the arizona prisoners but worse then rikers island. Given this you could house prisoners for cheap. Certainly less then 5K per year. You could easily rent these prisoners to corporations for 10K and make a tidy profit.
You could also just sell them to the corporations. Simply sell the prisoner to Nike for example and let them house and feed the prisoner any way they want. When the sentence is over Nike gives the prisoner back (if he/she is still alive). Once again you can sell them at 5K per year and make some nice money.
Once you have accepted the morality of prison labor the sky is the limit.
I am not. I would have much prefered that the MS/AOL users be confined to their own ghetto.
"The universites and innovation which spawned the world wide web and led to the various open LAMP technologies continue to innovate for that one internet."
MS hasn't killed off research yet despite their monopoly (thanks BSD for handing that gift to MS). If TCP/IP has been GPLed then MS would be even weaker and research would have been even better.
I'll say it again.
BSD is 100% responsible for giving MS dominance over the internet. Shame on them for giving MS the resources to fight open source.
While that argument is suitable for a corporation I think Governments have a higher purpose. They should not only consider TCO they should also consider their security, the job creation potential for their citizens, boosting the economy of their own country and more.
For example a government should choose products from corporations based in their own country even if the TCO is a bit higher. If the award of a contract employs your won citizens then it should be preferred.
It makes no sense to send your collected tax dollars to Redmond when they could be pumped back into your own economy. Also if you are on the list of countries that the current US govt sees as it's enemies (iraq, china, north korea, fance, germany etc) you should be very worried about what may be in windows. Finally there is the spectre of industrial espionage. Who knows for sure what kind of information is being collected by Microsoft and sold to other US companies. How much do you trust your desktop, sql server or exhange? What really happens when you hit windows update?
"This is alarmist and unwarranted. Name me a country like the US or the UK that has developed and then as you claim "undeveloped" when everyone left. It doesn't happen."
It hasn't happened because up to now it has been difficult to move businesses back and forth. Due to the efforts of the WTA and other organizations it's now simple. You are already seeing jobs flowing overseas from the US. It will only accelerate as time geso by.
"Free trade is a good thing(TM). People that argue against it on economic (not talking environmental) grounds are normally trying to prop up dying industries or modern day McCarthyists."
The environmental arguments are powerful ones. The wrold can not afford to raise everybodies standard of living to the US level. Just not enough trees and water for that.
"I find the parent post's idea that we're all going to end up working in jails quite ludicrous to be honest."
It's already happening. I posted links to it. Did you read them? Some country will figure it out eventually. If the US and china can sell their prisoners to corporations why can't india or sudan? There are millions of "untouchables" in india that could be rounded up and sold to corporations for dirt cheap.
" That's the biggest load of s**t I've heard for a long time. If you can't see that an established "windows-net" would inevitably lead to the end of ALL TCP/IP internetworks as we know them, you're beyond help."
They would have been mutually exclusive. The internet would have stayed the playground of scholars and researchers and geeks. MS has not been able to kill off the universities yet and they have also failed to kill all research. If TCP/IP had been GPLed then they could not touch that net. It would have survived.
"I repeat. Thank you BSD licence for saving the world."
BSD licence is 100% responsible for the fact that people write IE only web sites. BSD (or the MIT) licence is 100% responsbile for active directory being incompatible with anything else. BSD licence is 100% responsible for the Microsft domination of the internet. MSD license has ruined computing, and enabled MS to have a monopoly.
" Ok, maybe he should be tried for treason for accepting campaign money from the PRC that he later gave missile secrets to?"
Is that a treasonable offense? Are you going to try every politician who takes bribes for treason? If so then every single politician from your city councilman to the president is guilty of treason.
BTW You are lying when you said he accepted money from the PRC. He did no such thing. He accepted money from an american citizen. Some people allege that that person got some money from china (but not the PRC). Once again you are sorely misinformed.
"Make no mistake. Slick Willie was a corrupt bastard. Money for stays in the Lincoln bedroom ring a bell?"
If accepting campaign contributions is corruption then yes. Every politician accepts contributions. Sometimes the politicians do things in return. SO what if people slept in the lincoln bedroom? What possible consequence is that to you? Some people get to have dinner with the president, some people get to have their pictures taken, some people get to sleep in the lincon bedroom. What the fuck is it to you?
"Of course, Bushie is even more corrupt and even more blatant. Halliburton now OWNS Iraq for all effects and purposes."
Let's not forget that he killed hundreds of thousands of people, and set up concentration camps all over the world.
"Wages will go up, and quality of goods will go up - and with it, the prices of the goods. A hole will open for another poor country to start producing the "cheap junk"."
Once the companies leave then a bust cycle will begin. There will be a prolonged period of unemployment and depression/recession. Eventually the standard of living will be pretty much where it was before. Maybe once the cambodians (or wherever the jobs went) get uppidy and demand more money the jobs might come back but more likely they will migrate to africa or someplace even more destitute.
Eventually some country will imprison a sizable minority of it's people and offer their labor for cheap to companies. This form of legalized slavery will start another chain reaction and before long a sizable chunk of the humans on this planet will be imprisoned and enslaved. People will be jailed for having one to two marijuana seeds for ten years and in prison they will work for AT&T making telemarketing calls.
Oh wait a minute that's already happening right here in the USA. http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispat ch/200 1-11-23/pols_naked3.html http://www.prisontalk.co m/forums/archive/topic/115 05.html http://kcd.com/goa/issues/2000/q1/Jail.ht m
I am sure these kinds of prison labor programs will be expanded hugely in the US and overseas. Imagine a couple of million slaves in china, US or africa manufacturing toys or sneakers for next to nothing. Of course the US prisons will have to degrade to the level of chinese or african prisons to compete.
"I don't mean to use the word "exploit" too negatively though, this will probably be a good thing."
Why would it be a good thing?
If the workers are happy working for dirt then it's good for the company. They can make greater profit (because you know damn well they won't drop prices).
If the workers demand higher wages then they can..
1) Get fired and replaced with cheaper labor if the unemployment rate is high.
2) The company can move the factory to vietnam or africa or someplace where they can get cheaper labor. This will lead to a boom bust cycle for the chinese though.
3) The Chinese govt will offer prison labor to the company. This also happens in the US. AFAIK US and China are the only two countries with active prison labor programs although it would not surprise me one bit if there were other countries joining in this goldmine.
" It's Microsoft that would have turned the Internet into TV"
Internet has already become TV and that's largely due to windows users flooding the internet.
"In which it controlled the remote and the content on all of the channels. It's only because TCP/IP gained so much momentum -- which, in turn, it did because it was licensed under the BSD license -- that this did not happen."
Once again MS would have absolute control over the windows-net which would run on Microsoft's own protocol. People trapped into that hell would be force fed ads just like the poor suckers who are exploited daily by MSN and AOL. People like me however would avoid that by using the TCP/IP internet. If TCP/IP was GPLed then MS would avoid it like the plague and spare us their sleaze.
"Had the BSD TCP/IP stack been GPLed, it'd be the Microsoft Web."
No. I'll repeat it one last time. If the TCP/IP stack was GPLed MS would form their own net based on their own protocol. The internet would still be populated by smart people and the signal to noise ratio would still be very high. The MS-NET would be what internet has become. A cesspool of crap. The beauty is that that somebody would have reverse engineered the MS protocol so that we could visit the MS world when we wanted to.
I think it was a net loss to the world to let MS have TCP/IP. They have used it to wage war against open source and the internet. The sad thing is that they won. They have ruined HTML, email, kerberos, ldap, and every other standard protocol in the world. People should learn from history. If you want the ideas you came up with to survive and benefit future generations GPL the damned thing. The alternative is to have an army of idiot Web designers writing IE only web sites.
" I hope you understand that the seperate and proprietary windows-net would have to be the network which "won out" in the end, simply because MOST WEB BROWSING IS DONE USING WINDOWS MACHINES."
I fully understand that. We (the non windows people) would have our own original internet. One without idiot windows users, without ads aimed that idiot windows users, without all the nasty things windows users bought to the internet. At the same time if we wanted to go visit the cespool that would be windows-net we could.
"Arguably, the continued rise of Linux, enterprise java, PHP, apache, perl and all non-microsoft technologies which are internet related, is due to Windows users being forced to use the non-proprietary protocol (TCP/IP) and (inter)network on which said technologies/communities depend."
I don't think so.
" Unfourtanately, windows is where the critical mass for end users is and a microsoft windows net would have lead to proprietary web servers, proprietary web protocols and proprietary web services which all ISPs would have implemented. Eventually, TCP/IP would have been dropped by the majority (if not all) ISPs and where would that leave the non-mickeysoft technologies?"
Again that would be awsome. TCP/IP for us and netbui/netbios for the idiots. It would be great.
"That's why the BSD licence has saved the world..."
Only if you think turning the internet into TV is saving the world.
"Wrong. It WAS a corporation, but they had to get permission from the Clinton administration to release the information, which they got. That makes it Slick Willie's responsibility."
Really? On what planet? If the forest service gives permission to burn some forest and that fire gets out of hand is it the responsibility of George Bush?
If the FDA approves a drug and that drug kills people should George Bush be tried for murder?
What kind of an idiot would claim that the president should be tried for treason because some beurocrat dropped the ball.
While you are at it also complain to nasdaq, wall street journal, cnbc etc. Maybe a journalists will pick this sory up and tell the world what kind of a pump and dump scheme SCO is running here.
"Does RMS/FSF speak with forked tongue here? I actually agree with point a - BSD software has benefitted the world enormously. Imagine if Microsoft couldn't pick up the BSD TCP/IP stack back when they were trying to take over the internet. "
If MS did not implement the BSD stack they would have written their own crappy version. Their version would have worked like shit and would not have been compatible with anything else on the internet.
As a result windows users would not be on the internet but BSD users (through samba like re-engineering) would have been on the windows-net (ms proprietary internet). All in all it wold have been a good thing. A windows-less internet and a separate and proprietary windows-net for all the fuckups.
"You're getting a little worked up about this, aren't you?"
Can you balme me. After all I am on your enemies list. Surely this will go on my permament record and will forever prevent me from ever achieving anything meaningful in my life. How can you not expect me to react when you "PUT ME ON YOUR ENEMIES LIST". I am trambling in fear 24 hours a day. I didn't sleep at all last night. How can you expect me to go on when you "PUT ME ON YOUR ENEMIES LIST".
"However, Bill's administration did indeed give those secrets away, whether on purpose or accidentally, so they should be the ones held accountable. Even you should agree to that, yes?"
No I don't agree at all. Mainly because it's patently false. It wasn't the administration it was some corporation. You want to hold Bill Clinton responsible for the actions of some corporation just like you think he is responsible for zits and cancer and everything else bad in the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Why are you compiling with redhat? Why not install with an RPM?
Honestly people like should not use linux. Stick to windows, you'll be much happier and you won't be bothering those snobby and childish people. As you are well aware windows users and much more adult and sophisticated and will drop eveything to rush and help you out. Why give up a supportive environment like windows? It just does not make any sense.
It's not the fault of Linux. If companies don't make drivers blame them. If Compaq does not provide drivers for a popular operating system blame compaq.
How can you blame Linux if compaq uses weird one off components.
For most distributions installing packages is easier then windows.
With windows you first have to find the program. Maybe you buy it, maybe you go to download.com and search for it. Next you have to download it and save it to some directory. Next you need to unzip it (oops you did install winzip and pay for it didn't you?). Next you need to install it.
With linux you just do an apt-get install packagename.
Ooops like almost all astro-turfer posts looks like got modded up.
I do wish MS made up their minds though. Is the FSF a cancer or communist. Or are they the pure incarnation of evil. Perhaps they are something even worse like democrats or something.
Whoever said windows has a lower TCO whould read your post a hundred times till it sinks in.
"The outsourcing of prisons is one thing. Like I said, I'm yet to see any evidence of people being incarcerated purely on the basis of them being cheap labour."
As I said, it's enough that a system exists whereby people in prison are bid out to corporations. Once the profit motive is in place there does not need to be a direct correlation. People are not stupid. Nobody is going to pass a law saying arrest people because we need cheap labor. It's enough to set up a system whereby people are making money from the prison population. The rest of the dominos fall into place automatically.
"FACT: The average cost to incarcerate an adult inmate in a Department of Corrections institution is approximately $24,500 per year."
This is till lower then the mean wage for a working person in the US. Also that number represents the average there are lots of prisons where the cost of containment is significantly lower. Finally (and I keep saying this) the courts have ruled that keeping prisoners in chain link cages and communal tents is perfectly OK. Pretty soon most for profit prisons will start to do that. They can bring down the cost of housing prisoners to below 5K per year while collecting 24K per year from the states and selling the prisoners labor for another five to ten thousand per year.
"FACT: The construction cost of each new cell is approximately $100,000. (That's per cell, not per prison!)"
See above. The actual construction costs don't really matter anyway. You can make it over the lifetime of the cell.
"But I don't believe he did it so as to appease the big Corps - but rather, because of his deep-seated conservatism and his desire to appeal to the populist "tough on crime" approach."
he did it to appease the campaign contributors. Amongst those were people and corporations who profit from longer sentences.
"You pay your taxes. What do you get when people are arrested and put in jail? Squat diddly. Everyone pays thousands in taxes each year for jails, and then criminals go and do what?"
that is why Jail should be the last resort and not the first. That is why gambling, prostitution, drug use should be legalized. The answer is not to buy and sell human beings for profit.
"I don't think that having crooks being productive is such a bad thing. Maybe not for private organisations, but there are plenty of other ways. Anyway, giving them work to do builds self-esteem, and I think in many ways is more likely to assist in making them productive members of society."
For every prisoner filling a job position one honest, hardworking non criminal is out of a job. Prison labor is bad for the country because it leads to higher unemployment. Nobody who is going to support a family can compete with a prisoner for a job. A prisoner works all day for $10 to $15 dollars.
"I don't believe that free trade in any way contributes to your notion that people are being locked up as slave labour"
I think free trade does indeed contribute. Not only that but it will contribute more in the future. getting back to the start of this conversation.
The corporations will always go the cheapest available source of labor. The cheapest available source of labor is slavery. One day some country (perhaps the US) will imprison or enslave a significant portion of their citizens and sell them to corporations for rock bottom price. All the "shit" jobs will migrate to that country immediately.
The groundwork for that scenario is already being laid in the US where prisoners are bought and sold and put into indentured servitude. Where both the state and corporations profit from arresting and jailing people.
it won't be long now, mark my words.
"let me rephrase it then. Do you have any evidence to suggest that a person in either of the US or China was incarcerated so as to work in slave labour"
IF they did nobody would admit it. It happens in an indirect way. Today there are many prisons that are private. These corporations buy human beings and cage them. The states pay the corporations to warehouse their humans and the corporations in turn sell the humans to other corporations. In a very real sense there is a "free market" in buying and selling humans.
As long as there is porfit to be made these corporations lobby for and get tougher sentencing laws (witness the recent demand by Ashcroft that judges hand out longer sentences). They also lobby for more intrusive laws. It's in their interest to criminize more behavior.
"And the US in particular does not have an economic incentive to jail people: "In some states, it costs more to house a prisoner than send a student to Harvard""
notice that it says "in some states". It does not say "in all states". As I said previously there are prisons in the US where prisoners are kept in tents and chain link cages. In those prisons the cost to house prisoners is very cheap. Since no court has found these prisons to be cruel and unusual more and more prisons will cust costs eventually.
"You're dreaming, buddy. It won't happen. Other than the fact that the public wouldn't let it happen "
As I said before it's already happening. Nobody is complaining about the cages in cuba, nobody is compalining about the tents in arizona. Most americans don't give a damn what happens to prisoners. maybe the dell deal fell down (great!) but lots of others are going on today and will continue on and be expanded in the future.
"The morality of it is that a majority of the people incarcerated have committed serious felonies, and have leeched off society. "
first of all "serious felony" includes smoking dope and prostitution. That phrase is meaningless. Until recently anal sex was a "serious felony". Secondly most people in prison are there for theft, petty robbery, drug use or dealing, or prostitution. Basically crimes of poverty.
"While they remain in prison, we're paying for the privilege."
sorry but that's your choice. As long as America feels that common acts should be illegal and that people should be sentenced for decades for petty offences you have no choice in the matter. As long as America feels like incarceration is the only way to deal with crime you will continue to build more prisons every day and fill them to the brim.
"I don't want to see them outsourced to private companies"
That's exactly what is happeing. You should be outraged instead of defending the practice.
"but I can think of a number of positive things that they could be doing whilst locked up."
Most of them should not be locked up in the first place. If you only lock up the violent or the criminally insane you can pretty much let them sit on their asses.
"Other than sitting on their asses waiting to get out and re-offend, like most of them do."
I have no doubt that an otherwise normal person who enters the prison system for drugs or petty theft leaves a hardened criminal. The prison system breaks and corrupts people. A young kid can enter the system because he held up a 7/11 and leave a murderer. That's what happens after years of gang rape, countless assaults and having your spirit broken.
Prisons are the best mechanism known to mankind for turning otherwise sane (if desparate or stupid) people into evil.
It's a double negative.
What is interesting to me is that MS already settled with AOL for over 700 million for what they did to netscape. If this verdict stands (and god knows MS can drag it out forever and has friends in very high places) it will have cost MS over a billion dollars to gain dominance over the web.
I wonder if they feel like it was worth it. Billion is pocket change to MS but still it would have been cheaper to just license the patent.
"I've said it before, I'll say it again. Free trade is good."
Some people believe that religion. I don't.
"So, not only do American consumers pay more for their food, they pay more taxes that get handed out in subsidies to the farmers."
I really don't see how this proves free trade is good. subsidies abound in all industries in all countries. Your example has nothing to do with free trade.
"Likewise, all the Indians are doing is taking the shitty no-good jobs away from the US. "
Do you really think programming is a shitty no-good job? Do you really see all manufacturing as being shitty no good jobs?
"But this attitude is what shits me so much about the US. Freedom and democracy and capitalism until *gasp* it starts to hurt us a little bit. Well son, you can't have it both ways. Are you guys the leading lights of the free capitalist world, or do you pull back into your shells whenever it gets a bit tough?"
As I said some people see free trade as a religion and some people don't. The job of the US govt is to protect and save US citizens. Not to serve some higher ideal of capitalism or free trade especially if it hurts US citizens. The same is true for every country.
"Oh, I see, so what, you're saying that the US and China have locked up prisoners specifically for the purposes of slave labour? You're kidding me buddy. These guys have been given due process of law. They were locked up and asked to work AFTER they were found guilty."
I don't know about china. My guess is that not everybody got due process there. I am also sure not every body in the US got due process. Nevertheless that point is moot.
The govt has incentive to jail people, it can keep the jails full by making silly things illegal like smoking dope, gambling,prostitution etc. It can take any activity that people enjoy and make it illegal to make sure the prisons are full.
"You know how much it costs to keep a prisoner for a year? It's a lot - can be up in the six figure range. If you think that you're getting slave labour, I'd argue they're absolutely no damn different to six-figure bureaucrats. They cost too much and they don't do shit."
It depends on the prison. For example there are people in Cuba and other concentration camps scrattered across the world that are housed in very small chain link cages. They have no beds, no toilets, no roofs. I don't think it costs that much to give them a bagel or two a day do you?
In arizona there are hundreds of prisoners kept in communal tents. They have cots and a fabric roof and walls. They eat better then the people in cuba. Still though pretty cheap don't you think.
Other prisons are more posh I admit but clearly the US has differing levels of treatment for prisoners and none of them have been found to be illegal.
I imagine that the US could very easily set up Hitler style concentration camps. Give the prisoners a communal building with a shelf for a bed, a toilet and some showers. Dig up some historical photos if you want to see what that was like. Better then the cuban and the arizona prisoners but worse then rikers island. Given this you could house prisoners for cheap. Certainly less then 5K per year. You could easily rent these prisoners to corporations for 10K and make a tidy profit.
You could also just sell them to the corporations. Simply sell the prisoner to Nike for example and let them house and feed the prisoner any way they want. When the sentence is over Nike gives the prisoner back (if he/she is still alive). Once again you can sell them at 5K per year and make some nice money.
Once you have accepted the morality of prison labor the sky is the limit.
"You're so wrong. I'm glad there's ONE internet."
I am not. I would have much prefered that the MS/AOL users be confined to their own ghetto.
"The universites and innovation which spawned the world wide web and led to the various open LAMP technologies continue to innovate for that one internet."
MS hasn't killed off research yet despite their monopoly (thanks BSD for handing that gift to MS). If TCP/IP has been GPLed then MS would be even weaker and research would have been even better.
I'll say it again.
BSD is 100% responsible for giving MS dominance over the internet. Shame on them for giving MS the resources to fight open source.
While that argument is suitable for a corporation I think Governments have a higher purpose. They should not only consider TCO they should also consider their security, the job creation potential for their citizens, boosting the economy of their own country and more.
For example a government should choose products from corporations based in their own country even if the TCO is a bit higher. If the award of a contract employs your won citizens then it should be preferred.
It makes no sense to send your collected tax dollars to Redmond when they could be pumped back into your own economy. Also if you are on the list of countries that the current US govt sees as it's enemies (iraq, china, north korea, fance, germany etc) you should be very worried about what may be in windows. Finally there is the spectre of industrial espionage. Who knows for sure what kind of information is being collected by Microsoft and sold to other US companies. How much do you trust your desktop, sql server or exhange? What really happens when you hit windows update?
I would guess it's been years since Bill G flew on any commercial airline.
Does anybody know how many planes he owns?
"This is alarmist and unwarranted. Name me a country like the US or the UK that has developed and then as you claim "undeveloped" when everyone left. It doesn't happen."
It hasn't happened because up to now it has been difficult to move businesses back and forth. Due to the efforts of the WTA and other organizations it's now simple. You are already seeing jobs flowing overseas from the US. It will only accelerate as time geso by.
"Free trade is a good thing(TM). People that argue against it on economic (not talking environmental) grounds are normally trying to prop up dying industries or modern day McCarthyists."
The environmental arguments are powerful ones. The wrold can not afford to raise everybodies standard of living to the US level. Just not enough trees and water for that.
"I find the parent post's idea that we're all going to end up working in jails quite ludicrous to be honest."
It's already happening. I posted links to it. Did you read them? Some country will figure it out eventually. If the US and china can sell their prisoners to corporations why can't india or sudan? There are millions of "untouchables" in india that could be rounded up and sold to corporations for dirt cheap.
" That's the biggest load of s**t I've heard for a long time. If you can't see that an established "windows-net" would inevitably lead to the end of ALL TCP/IP internetworks as we know them, you're beyond help."
They would have been mutually exclusive. The internet would have stayed the playground of scholars and researchers and geeks. MS has not been able to kill off the universities yet and they have also failed to kill all research. If TCP/IP had been GPLed then they could not touch that net. It would have survived.
"I repeat. Thank you BSD licence for saving the world."
BSD licence is 100% responsible for the fact that people write IE only web sites. BSD (or the MIT) licence is 100% responsbile for active directory being incompatible with anything else. BSD licence is 100% responsible for the Microsft domination of the internet. MSD license has ruined computing, and enabled MS to have a monopoly.
I am sorry you can't see that.
" Ok, maybe he should be tried for treason for accepting campaign money from the PRC that he later gave missile secrets to?"
Is that a treasonable offense? Are you going to try every politician who takes bribes for treason? If so then every single politician from your city councilman to the president is guilty of treason.
BTW You are lying when you said he accepted money from the PRC. He did no such thing. He accepted money from an american citizen. Some people allege that that person got some money from china (but not the PRC). Once again you are sorely misinformed.
"Make no mistake. Slick Willie was a corrupt bastard. Money for stays in the Lincoln bedroom ring a bell?"
If accepting campaign contributions is corruption then yes. Every politician accepts contributions. Sometimes the politicians do things in return. SO what if people slept in the lincoln bedroom? What possible consequence is that to you? Some people get to have dinner with the president, some people get to have their pictures taken, some people get to sleep in the lincon bedroom. What the fuck is it to you?
"Of course, Bushie is even more corrupt and even more blatant. Halliburton now OWNS Iraq for all effects and purposes."
Let's not forget that he killed hundreds of thousands of people, and set up concentration camps all over the world.
"Wages will go up, and quality of goods will go up - and with it, the prices of the goods. A hole will open for another poor country to start producing the "cheap junk"."
t ch/200 1-11-23/pols_naked3.htmlo m/forums/archive/topic/115 05.htmlt m
Once the companies leave then a bust cycle will begin. There will be a prolonged period of unemployment and depression/recession. Eventually the standard of living will be pretty much where it was before. Maybe once the cambodians (or wherever the jobs went) get uppidy and demand more money the jobs might come back but more likely they will migrate to africa or someplace even more destitute.
Eventually some country will imprison a sizable minority of it's people and offer their labor for cheap to companies. This form of legalized slavery will start another chain reaction and before long a sizable chunk of the humans on this planet will be imprisoned and enslaved. People will be jailed for having one to two marijuana seeds for ten years and in prison they will work for AT&T making telemarketing calls.
Oh wait a minute that's already happening right here in the USA.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispa
http://www.prisontalk.c
http://kcd.com/goa/issues/2000/q1/Jail.h
I am sure these kinds of prison labor programs will be expanded hugely in the US and overseas. Imagine a couple of million slaves in china, US or africa manufacturing toys or sneakers for next to nothing. Of course the US prisons will have to degrade to the level of chinese or african prisons to compete.
"I don't mean to use the word "exploit" too negatively though, this will probably be a good thing."
Why would it be a good thing?
If the workers are happy working for dirt then it's good for the company. They can make greater profit (because you know damn well they won't drop prices).
If the workers demand higher wages then they can..
1) Get fired and replaced with cheaper labor if the unemployment rate is high.
2) The company can move the factory to vietnam or africa or someplace where they can get cheaper labor. This will lead to a boom bust cycle for the chinese though.
3) The Chinese govt will offer prison labor to the company. This also happens in the US. AFAIK US and China are the only two countries with active prison labor programs although it would not surprise me one bit if there were other countries joining in this goldmine.
" It's Microsoft that would have turned the Internet into TV"
Internet has already become TV and that's largely due to windows users flooding the internet.
"In which it controlled the remote and the content on all of the channels. It's only because TCP/IP gained so much momentum -- which, in turn, it did because it was licensed under the BSD license -- that this did not happen."
Once again MS would have absolute control over the windows-net which would run on Microsoft's own protocol. People trapped into that hell would be force fed ads just like the poor suckers who are exploited daily by MSN and AOL. People like me however would avoid that by using the TCP/IP internet. If TCP/IP was GPLed then MS would avoid it like the plague and spare us their sleaze.
"Had the BSD TCP/IP stack been GPLed, it'd be the Microsoft Web."
No. I'll repeat it one last time. If the TCP/IP stack was GPLed MS would form their own net based on their own protocol. The internet would still be populated by smart people and the signal to noise ratio would still be very high. The MS-NET would be what internet has become. A cesspool of crap. The beauty is that that somebody would have reverse engineered the MS protocol so that we could visit the MS world when we wanted to.
I think it was a net loss to the world to let MS have TCP/IP. They have used it to wage war against open source and the internet. The sad thing is that they won. They have ruined HTML, email, kerberos, ldap, and every other standard protocol in the world. People should learn from history. If you want the ideas you came up with to survive and benefit future generations GPL the damned thing. The alternative is to have an army of idiot Web designers writing IE only web sites.
" I hope you understand that the seperate and proprietary windows-net would have to be the network which "won out" in the end, simply because MOST WEB BROWSING IS DONE USING WINDOWS MACHINES."
I fully understand that. We (the non windows people) would have our own original internet. One without idiot windows users, without ads aimed that idiot windows users, without all the nasty things windows users bought to the internet. At the same time if we wanted to go visit the cespool that would be windows-net we could.
"Arguably, the continued rise of Linux, enterprise java, PHP, apache, perl and all non-microsoft technologies which are internet related, is due to Windows users being forced to use the non-proprietary protocol (TCP/IP) and (inter)network on which said technologies/communities depend."
I don't think so.
" Unfourtanately, windows is where the critical mass for end users is and a microsoft windows net would have lead to proprietary web servers, proprietary web protocols and proprietary web services which all ISPs would have implemented. Eventually, TCP/IP would have been dropped by the majority (if not all) ISPs and where would that leave the non-mickeysoft technologies?"
Again that would be awsome. TCP/IP for us and netbui/netbios for the idiots. It would be great.
"That's why the BSD licence has saved the world..."
Only if you think turning the internet into TV is saving the world.
"Wrong. It WAS a corporation, but they had to get permission from the Clinton administration to release the information, which they got. That makes it Slick Willie's responsibility."
Really? On what planet? If the forest service gives permission to burn some forest and that fire gets out of hand is it the responsibility of George Bush?
If the FDA approves a drug and that drug kills people should George Bush be tried for murder?
What kind of an idiot would claim that the president should be tried for treason because some beurocrat dropped the ball.
Only if you complain. Please complain to the SEC.
While you are at it also complain to nasdaq, wall street journal, cnbc etc. Maybe a journalists will pick this sory up and tell the world what kind of a pump and dump scheme SCO is running here.
"Does RMS/FSF speak with forked tongue here? I actually agree with point a - BSD software has benefitted the world enormously. Imagine if Microsoft couldn't pick up the BSD TCP/IP stack back when they were trying to take over the internet. "
If MS did not implement the BSD stack they would have written their own crappy version. Their version would have worked like shit and would not have been compatible with anything else on the internet.
As a result windows users would not be on the internet but BSD users (through samba like re-engineering) would have been on the windows-net (ms proprietary internet). All in all it wold have been a good thing. A windows-less internet and a separate and proprietary windows-net for all the fuckups.
"You're getting a little worked up about this, aren't you?"
Can you balme me. After all I am on your enemies list. Surely this will go on my permament record and will forever prevent me from ever achieving anything meaningful in my life. How can you not expect me to react when you "PUT ME ON YOUR ENEMIES LIST". I am trambling in fear 24 hours a day. I didn't sleep at all last night. How can you expect me to go on when you "PUT ME ON YOUR ENEMIES LIST".
Woe is me!
"However, Bill's administration did indeed give those secrets away, whether on purpose or accidentally, so they should be the ones held accountable. Even you should agree to that, yes?"
No I don't agree at all.
Mainly because it's patently false. It wasn't the administration it was some corporation. You want to hold Bill Clinton responsible for the actions of some corporation just like you think he is responsible for zits and cancer and everything else bad in the world.