You see people at the bar getting beers at 7am. So you are in a bar at 7am.
No, I'm walking my dogs for 2 to 3 miles every morning, and the bar happens to be on one of the streets we take. It has these things called "Windows" that let me see inside. You know, the Non-Microsoft version, the ones that don't break all by themselves.
Unfortunately, the "norm" for the casino is not all that great.
I remember back when I was taking the "Psychology of Gambling" class back in college, and how, even if people won, they'd continue, because it wasn't the winning that was important - it was the high from the risk-taking behaviour. Of course, then there's the low from losing. So, how to get out of that low? Get another "high" from taking another risk. Sounds like another form of crack to me.
Do you REALLY think these people are having fun, any more than the people I see sitting in the bar at 7 am for their first 3 beers of the day are "enjoying" their beer?
Every study done shows that casinos hurt the local economy - higher policing costs, higher welfare rates (broken homes, suicide of the breadwinner, etc), more crime.
Everyone's a loser because of casinos.
Has nothing to do with "being self-righteous." People are addicted. Just like they're addicted to VLTs (Video Lottery Terminals). They wear Depends diapers so they can crap in their pants rather than risk losing "their" machine. They piss in their token buckets for the same reason.
The newspapers here used to carry stories about the workers' complaints, about having to clean up these wonderful "tips". Now the casino fires you if you leak stories about the leaks.
The three big days for the casinos?
In order:
Welfare Check Day
Old Age Security Check Day
Family Allowance Check Day.
The rest is just filler. Don't take my word for it. Ask any casino worker... or the taxi drivers that take them there, or the bus drivers that bring them back and look the other way when they get on the bus with less than half the fare, because they are TOTALLY broke...
Psychiatry and the Law Characteristics of 75 Gambling-Related Suicides in Quebec
Dominique Bourget, MD, FRCPC, CSPQ Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario; Coroner, Province of Quebec. Helen Ward, MD, FRCPC Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario. Pierre Gagné MD, FRCPC, CSPQ Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec; Coroner, Province of Quebec.
Objective: To describe the demographic, psychiatric and social characteristics of pathological gamblers who have completed suicide.
Method: The authors examined 75 cases of completed suicide in which pathological gambling behaviour was implicated. The characteristics of these cases were extracted from the Quebec Coroner's files by two forensic psychiatrists.
Results: Victims were married in 52.0 per cent of cases, and at least 45.3 per cent were employed. Only 25.3 per cent had made a previous suicide attempt, and most (64.0 per cent) had given no prior warning of suicidal intent to either family or psychiatrists. A history of substance abuse was present in about one-third of the sample, and one-quarter were intoxicated with alcohol at the time of death. Most victims had suffered financial and marital losses as a result of their gambling behaviour.
Discussion: These results suggest that pathological gamblers who commit suicide differ from nongamblers. Major psychiatric illness and suicidal intent may be more difficult to identify, which potentially leads to underestimates of suicidal risk in individual pathological gamblers. The impulsiveness that characterizes pathological gambling behaviour, in combination with substance abuse and multiple losses, put this population at high risk for suicide. We suggest that, given the growing prevalence of pathological gambling, suicide and suicide prevention in this population should be further studied.
But it takes a certain type of person to truly gamble anyway.
Yeah. Generally, they answer to the name "loser." Like the guy that was bragging that he "won" $400 at the track - but if you prod a bit, it cost him $900 to win that $400. And this guy was a former accountant. Guess that's why he's no longer an accountant - his numbers don't add up.
... remember the 3rd-party screen pagers under 3.1? After so much time using KDE/Linux, it would be hard for me to go back to a box w/o at least 8 desktops.
Guess someone will have to make plugins or mods that do the pgp/gpg automagically... and as long as its open source, hopefully the "many eyes" will mare sure there's no "NSA_key" type stuff in it...
Next thing ya know the Feds will want all the corporate encrypt/decrypt keys and all of our PGP keys
Interesting thought, but how are they going to do that?
Looks to me like more and more people are going to gt into wireless mesh networks and pgp/gpg just to avoid big brother.
Its' like back in (IIRC) the '60s, when one guy who was being watched by the FBI made it a habit of writing "Fuck the FBI" on sheets of paper in every hotel room he stayed in, shredded them, then dumped them in the trash. So the agents had to waste lots of time re-assemble the "messages", just in case...
It'll be the same thing - even if you don't have anything to hide, you still don't want anyone snooping on you, on general principles.
Well, they weren't exactly able to keep it out of other peoples' hands, even after threats, and destroying CDs, and ripping pages out of the presentation booklets.
... then he sould be well aware that Microsofts platforms are fatally flawed, with the various parts of the OS so tightly coupled.
So unless he's announcing that he's going to drag them kicking and screaming into at least the 1980s in terms of overall development strategies, what's the point?
I agree with you on the Acid2 thing. Unfortunately, Microsoft has always been behind when it comes to technology. They're still playing catch-up in terms of features, security, and performance.
Their only hope is to break their current model and go back to a non-integrated browser (no more "IE is a critical component of Windows" nonsense). And, while they're at it, do the same with the Office component model.
Tightly coupled software is impossible to secure. Its also impossible to maintain, which is why they've been through so many "death marches."
Keeping that in mind, I would have to be like the folks from Missouri - "show me!", and, until they do, discredit any claims to the contrary.
While you and I might have enough intelligence, or enough background info, to sort the wheat from the chaff, the majority of the people out there don't. They're the target, not you or I.
What would I do in their shoes? Take a long walk in the park, figure out a real vision of what I would want a computer to BE (not do - there's a big difference), and then get a group together and block out the necessary underpinnings.
Ironically, the best thing that could have happened to Microsoft would have been for them to have been split into 3 or more companies.
A good text editor: qe (quickedit)
A good OS: Microware OS9 (back in the '80s) - multitask in 64k, 64 terms terms in 512k
For everything else, there's autopr0n
Guess you're too lazy to look up what Stallman actually said. You claimed that "free as in beer" == "no cost" Here http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html is the free software definition.
It only mentions beer once,:
``Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in ``free beer.''
As I pointed out, even 'free beer" has to be paid for or produced by someone. In this case, the coder produced the "free beer", then grants a license to use it freely as in 'freedom of speech'. But it still cost the coder in terms of resources (time, labour, etc), just as if, when you come over and I give you a beer, it still cost me.
The 'free as in beer' never meant that there was no cost associated with it - just that the grantor/giver has already borne the cost. And this is part of the social contract of the gpl - that people recognize that their 'free as in freedom of speech' code has an actual cost, hence a real value, and that, if they can, they should try to put back a bit into the well they've drawn from.
... and a LOT of the aren't... and this group (the "I'm not going to buy the next upgrade") will continue to grow, as the hardware cost goes down to the point where proprietary software costs many times what the hardware costs.
No, free as in beer does NOT mean no cost. Someone has to pay for it - its more along the lines of "here, have a beer, friend".
Apply the same thinking to code. "Here's the code - its already written, you don't have to pay for it, I'm sharing it with you"
Stallman has made it quite clear that free as in beer does not mean it has to be free of cost - quite the contrary, he's said many times that he has no problem with people making money off free code, including selling copies of it for whatever the market will bear.
the future is looking both more restrictive and more commercial.
... and just HOW are they going to restrict it, pray tell? Its not like you can't run it off any port you choose, or modify/extend it... its' NOT a closed-source app/protocol, and its not like there won't be further developments, or changes that take the tech into another direction, that can't be restricted.
For example, if I decide to host a pr0n torrent server for free, I'm sure Ill get LOTS more traffic than any paid service. Free (as in cost as well as in beer) always wins.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember back when I was taking the "Psychology of Gambling" class back in college, and how, even if people won, they'd continue, because it wasn't the winning that was important - it was the high from the risk-taking behaviour. Of course, then there's the low from losing. So, how to get out of that low? Get another "high" from taking another risk. Sounds like another form of crack to me.
Do you REALLY think these people are having fun, any more than the people I see sitting in the bar at 7 am for their first 3 beers of the day are "enjoying" their beer?
*wipes tears from eyes*
Everyone's a loser because of casinos.
Has nothing to do with "being self-righteous." People are addicted. Just like they're addicted to VLTs (Video Lottery Terminals). They wear Depends diapers so they can crap in their pants rather than risk losing "their" machine. They piss in their token buckets for the same reason.
The newspapers here used to carry stories about the workers' complaints, about having to clean up these wonderful "tips". Now the casino fires you if you leak stories about the leaks.
The three big days for the casinos?
In order:
- Welfare Check Day
- Old Age Security Check Day
- Family Allowance Check Day.
The rest is just filler. Don't take my word for it. Ask any casino workerIts the casinos that are "self-righteous" - saying they create jobs. Sure they do. Loan sharking. Pawn shops. Divorce lawyers. Embalmers. http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/Bulle tin/2003/december/bourget.asp
Gee, sounds like they were having a lot of fun.Damn, but you're good! I salute you, good sir or madame (and linked to it from my journal).
... and been used as part of the plot in an Analog story ("Of Kings, Queens, and Angels" - Rajnar Vajra, Analog July/August 2005).
... remember the 3rd-party screen pagers under 3.1? After so much time using KDE/Linux, it would be hard for me to go back to a box w/o at least 8 desktops.
... or don't you remember - "The Internet, where men are men, women are men, and the little girls are FBI agents".
Guess someone will have to make plugins or mods that do the pgp/gpg automagically ... and as long as its open source, hopefully the "many eyes" will mare sure there's no "NSA_key" type stuff in it ...
Sure they did - they were called scissors, iirc :-)
Looks to me like more and more people are going to gt into wireless mesh networks and pgp/gpg just to avoid big brother.
Its' like back in (IIRC) the '60s, when one guy who was being watched by the FBI made it a habit of writing "Fuck the FBI" on sheets of paper in every hotel room he stayed in, shredded them, then dumped them in the trash. So the agents had to waste lots of time re-assemble the "messages", just in case ...
It'll be the same thing - even if you don't have anything to hide, you still don't want anyone snooping on you, on general principles.
I was referring to the technical side, which will eventually impact their financials :-)
So much for keeping it secret ...
You can get your copy lynne-cisco.zip from cryptome.org.
So unless he's announcing that he's going to drag them kicking and screaming into at least the 1980s in terms of overall development strategies, what's the point?
Their only hope is to break their current model and go back to a non-integrated browser (no more "IE is a critical component of Windows" nonsense). And, while they're at it, do the same with the Office component model.
Tightly coupled software is impossible to secure. Its also impossible to maintain, which is why they've been through so many "death marches."
Keeping that in mind, I would have to be like the folks from Missouri - "show me!", and, until they do, discredit any claims to the contrary.
While you and I might have enough intelligence, or enough background info, to sort the wheat from the chaff, the majority of the people out there don't. They're the target, not you or I.
What would I do in their shoes? Take a long walk in the park, figure out a real vision of what I would want a computer to BE (not do - there's a big difference), and then get a group together and block out the necessary underpinnings.
Ironically, the best thing that could have happened to Microsoft would have been for them to have been split into 3 or more companies.
... making me a foe because I pointed out you didn't understand the true meaning of "free as in beer"? touchy, aren't we ...
A good text editor: qe (quickedit)
A good OS: Microware OS9 (back in the '80s) - multitask in 64k, 64 terms terms in 512k
For everything else, there's autopr0n
It only mentions beer once,:
As I pointed out, even 'free beer" has to be paid for or produced by someone. In this case, the coder produced the "free beer", then grants a license to use it freely as in 'freedom of speech'. But it still cost the coder in terms of resources (time, labour, etc), just as if, when you come over and I give you a beer, it still cost me.The 'free as in beer' never meant that there was no cost associated with it - just that the grantor/giver has already borne the cost. And this is part of the social contract of the gpl - that people recognize that their 'free as in freedom of speech' code has an actual cost, hence a real value, and that, if they can, they should try to put back a bit into the well they've drawn from.
So, how is that a troll?
... and a LOT of the aren't ... and this group (the "I'm not going to buy the next upgrade") will continue to grow, as the hardware cost goes down to the point where proprietary software costs many times what the hardware costs.
... and we've yet to see a DRM that hasn't been broken ...
Apply the same thinking to code. "Here's the code - its already written, you don't have to pay for it, I'm sharing it with you"
Stallman has made it quite clear that free as in beer does not mean it has to be free of cost - quite the contrary, he's said many times that he has no problem with people making money off free code, including selling copies of it for whatever the market will bear.
There was a time when people had to pay for an office suite ... or an operating system, or a comms program, etc.
Nowadays, when something new comes out, people ask "where can I download it" ... they don't expect to pay. Witness the death of shareware.
For example, if I decide to host a pr0n torrent server for free, I'm sure Ill get LOTS more traffic than any paid service. Free (as in cost as well as in beer) always wins.