"Dendrophobia: Fear of Trees. They taught you in school that trees are alive.They were right! If you turn your back on th"
Not only that.... After seeing "The Two Towers", I'll never go in the woods again. At least not without gasoline, matches, and a chainsaw. And, after seeing John Kerry's face for all these months, I'm reliving childhood nightmares of those mean trees in the "Wizard of Oz" movie.
By the way, crawling chaos, you are missing an R in your name. Was "nyarlathotep" taken?
Meijer is a little worse than Wal-Mart: Meijer forces its workers to join political organizations, while Wal-Mart does not.
Neither, however, treats employees as chattel. There is nothing like slavery in such employment as long as the employees can walk out and tell the boss to take this job and shove it.
"How so? How else can the companies be kept from all but raping the working class (and they will if they can)?"
The minimum wage certainly does nothing for this. First, consider the companies, like Microsoft, that pay way above the minimum wage anyway. They are free to rape or not rape their employees anyway: the minimum wage is not even a consideration.
Then, consider that minimum wage increases encourage such things as firings / layoffs / downsizing and "outsourcing".
"I've always hated the idea of unions and minimum wage"
There's nothing wrong with unions as long as each member has a choice of membership. Once you have forced membership, you lose any legitimacy. Consider that most union members in the United States are forced to join under a "join or you will be fired" situation (more raping of the working class).
"The stores can't sell it early because it doesn't go on SALE until the 9th"
So you have a product sitting there, easily sold, but they can't sell it.
"Having games in the back offices early doesn't "encourage" piracy"
It certainly does, just like the "DVD Region" system does. It does provide an incentive for piracy ("illicit appropriation") if the product is available, but for some arbitrary reason (or region) you can't buy it.
"Let's say someone gets paid $3/hour, 40 hours a week, that's $480 a month [yadda,yadda,yadda] No chance of homeownership, even carownership. Education?"
Perfect for a high-school senior, isn't it? Yet, the minimum wage laws even deny them work.
"There are some instances where the minimum wage should not be necessary"
It is not necessary in any cases. The wage should be for the real value of the work. Any sense in the economy is gone when you get rid of this idea.
"By and large if the job isn't the person's primary income"
No way. The payment should be on the WORK. not on the living situation. The "let's pay you triple because you have three kids" idea is crazy.
Meijer's should have known better. They'll pay big for this. That will teach them. Next time, they'll give away free cracked copies of "Halo 3" or whatever. Anything is better than actually selling properly-licensed packaged software to customers for the proper price.
Why not let stores sell it when they have it? It kind of makes software industry whines about piracy losses ring hollow when the product is sitting there in the stores and the software company is prohibiting stores from selling it. There is also the message of "want to buy it? Forget about it: we're sitting on the boxes for now. You'll have to scan Kazaa for a cracked copy."
" 'fair' minimum wage is part of the social contract which we don't allow"
The problem with this is that it involves a meddling govermnet imposing its own idea of "fair" on people whether or not they agree. In reality, those best determined to decide if a trade is "fair" are those involved in the trade. They are free to go elsewhere if it is not "fair"
"...we don't allow (well, at least many) people to starve in the streets"
Yet, the minimum wage encourages this, by forcing companies to fire people. People's wages thus go from $17,000 a year to nothing because minimum wage increases are primarily a government disincentive for keeping people employed in low-value jobs. That might not be a problem for you, or for the rich legislators who make these decisions without any idea of what they are doing, but, you know, it might count as a loss to the fired worker. Ever consider that?
"True, but you fail to understand the effects on society which are caused by a low min wage"
I understand the effects fully. You get rid of these problems by getting government out of it entirely.
"We could eliminate all of the low wage subsisities which allow for a low 'market driven' wage"
Once there are subsidies, the wage is not at is actual (market-driven) value.
" for (well, at least most) Republicians"
Can't we discuss economic effects without resorting to comical and false ideological/partisan insults?
"2) Removable battery? That is what is supposed to kill the iPod? Huhn?"
The serious design flaw involving the battery is one major thing that keeps me away from the iPod. Anything where there is a not-insignificant risk of destroying the unit just by changing the battery (see the Popular Science article) has a problem. It is odd that Apple, a company known for "ease of use" overlooked the easy-to-use standard sliding battery hatch that has been around for decades.
That is not a strength. The Apple music files are overpriced (doubled that of some competitors), and are crippled to make it hard to play them (I know, the others do that to). If I ever get a high-storage-volume digitial music player, it will be based on the cost and features of the unit itself. Besides, you can play Apple music store files on other machines.
"Only the wage earner is, in many cases, in no position to bargain since it's either take the job or go hungry."
What about when the minimum wage increase by the government denies the worker this choice by forcing the company to fire the worker (or not offer such a job in the future)? "Companies will always pay as little as they can get away with".
"Minimum wage is a way to make sure companies don't exploit the labor market"
Free trade is not exploitation. This includes the trade of services (such as work) for money. The minimum wage does not do what you think it does at all, as the main thing it does is provide an incentive for the companies to fire those whose jobs have the least value.
"Companies will always pay as little as they can get away with"
Exactly! Yet, you fail to realize this. You think that they will put up with this higher cost. You ignore that they will try to "pay as little as they can" in reality by automating, outsourcing, or other ways of getting rid of the jobs.
If you want to look at how this works, look at the self-serve gas station. The gas stations used to employ lots of pump jockets. However, the minimum wage laws forced the companies to get rid of almost all of these jobs.
These jobs have become more costly not because the workers have earned the higher wages, but because bureacrats or mercurial legislators have meddled in the matter without regards to real values or consequences.
It is typical that the arguments for the "minimum wage" are based in bogus emotion-charge class warfare ideology.
"If only we could just slice up those huge blue spikes and seed them into the vast red plains"
I've figured it out. The vast red plains reference brought it home: we are living in Barsoom. John Kerry did bear a striking resemblance to Tars Tarkas. I guess Jimmy Carter will do in a pinch as we don't have John Carter.
"Giving people a wage they can live off of is also a value"
Wages are earned, not given. They are earned by doing work for the value of the wage. Things really get messed up if someone outside sets the value of the wage without regard to the value of the work. Forcing companies to overpay workers at some government-set wage that has nothing to do with the work also demeans real work and turns the whole affair into a welfare program: a forced handout.
Every time the government arbitrarily sets the mininum wage to be higher, thousands of people end up losing their jobs, as it forces companies to try to get by without low-end jobs. When I point it out to people who favor the "minimum wage", the typical response is that these jobs are worthless: a poor person is better off getting nothing, as compared to getting $17,000 a year.
As long as you are arbitrarily setting wages without regard to value, why not set the minimum wage to $1,000 an hour? It will make everyone a millionaire. Why stop at a low value?
Hidden entirely under this is the important fact that a red county is typically not all red, and a blue county is not all typically blue.
In other words, a county shows all red even if it is 51% Bush / 49% Kerry. Just so we remember that there is a lot of red in the blue counties, and vice-versa.
Wonder what it is? The actual Konfabulator site is slashdotted, but does come up some time. The front page looks like part of "MYST". The article describes it as a desktop organization utility, but it is rather vague.
"I bet you had a hard time with MusicVR and Maestro, then."
Do you actually play those? Last time I did play them, I did have the sound up. However, I will say that these games are not as musical as they could be. There is a lot of silence anyway.
"Why didn't I see that before, lets just use Google's infinite bandwidth and hosting instead of trying to come up with an alternative. Or did I miss the point"
Yes. Google has excellent image preview, and searches within PDFs. For video, however, you are right.
Guess you are:
"Do you think it's a bad idea that an amateur film maker or musician..."
Where did I say that this was a bad idea? Or that no-one should be allowed to spew Linux ISO's on their account??? I was just listing how most of the things in that list could be done better elsewhere.
Doesn't it make more sense to get these from "the source"? No problems with bad labels here.
Video Game Demos (those things are getting huge!). Sourceforge clearly labels the downloads and organizes them in a way that BT doesn't.
"eBook Collections (e.g. Gutenburg)"
The gutenburg mirrors seem like the best place for this.
"Publicly Available Videos (e.g. Star Trek fan videos, Presidential Debates, funny commercials)"
The commercials and debates are actually the copyrighted material of those who made them or recorded them (i.e.: CNN owns that CNN recording of the debate). It does make sense, however, for huge videos like "Fahrenheit 911", in which Michael Moore encouraged such distribution.
"Software Distribution (How can a database application be more 1 gig in size?!)"
See the first one. Might as well add that with BT there is a chance that your GTA demo is really a mis-labelled Halo demo.
Google would be better for most of this.
For most of this, it makes more sense to get the files elsewhere. For now, BT makes the most sense for copyright infringement materials, where for the most part no-one dares to host them on typical static web pages or download sites.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only that.... After seeing "The Two Towers", I'll never go in the woods again. At least not without gasoline, matches, and a chainsaw. And, after seeing John Kerry's face for all these months, I'm reliving childhood nightmares of those mean trees in the "Wizard of Oz" movie.
By the way, crawling chaos, you are missing an R in your name. Was "nyarlathotep" taken?
Neither, however, treats employees as chattel. There is nothing like slavery in such employment as long as the employees can walk out and tell the boss to take this job and shove it.
The minimum wage certainly does nothing for this. First, consider the companies, like Microsoft, that pay way above the minimum wage anyway. They are free to rape or not rape their employees anyway: the minimum wage is not even a consideration.
Then, consider that minimum wage increases encourage such things as firings / layoffs / downsizing and "outsourcing".
"I've always hated the idea of unions and minimum wage"
There's nothing wrong with unions as long as each member has a choice of membership. Once you have forced membership, you lose any legitimacy. Consider that most union members in the United States are forced to join under a "join or you will be fired" situation (more raping of the working class).
So you have a product sitting there, easily sold, but they can't sell it.
"Having games in the back offices early doesn't "encourage" piracy"
It certainly does, just like the "DVD Region" system does. It does provide an incentive for piracy ("illicit appropriation") if the product is available, but for some arbitrary reason (or region) you can't buy it.
Perfect for a high-school senior, isn't it? Yet, the minimum wage laws even deny them work.
"There are some instances where the minimum wage should not be necessary"
It is not necessary in any cases. The wage should be for the real value of the work. Any sense in the economy is gone when you get rid of this idea.
"By and large if the job isn't the person's primary income"
No way. The payment should be on the WORK. not on the living situation. The "let's pay you triple because you have three kids" idea is crazy.
Meijer's should have known better. They'll pay big for this. That will teach them. Next time, they'll give away free cracked copies of "Halo 3" or whatever. Anything is better than actually selling properly-licensed packaged software to customers for the proper price.
Yeah, it would be great to see someone sued for selling a legal properly-licensed product.
Why not let stores sell it when they have it? It kind of makes software industry whines about piracy losses ring hollow when the product is sitting there in the stores and the software company is prohibiting stores from selling it. There is also the message of "want to buy it? Forget about it: we're sitting on the boxes for now. You'll have to scan Kazaa for a cracked copy."
The problem with this is that it involves a meddling govermnet imposing its own idea of "fair" on people whether or not they agree. In reality, those best determined to decide if a trade is "fair" are those involved in the trade. They are free to go elsewhere if it is not "fair"
"...we don't allow (well, at least many) people to starve in the streets"
Yet, the minimum wage encourages this, by forcing companies to fire people. People's wages thus go from $17,000 a year to nothing because minimum wage increases are primarily a government disincentive for keeping people employed in low-value jobs. That might not be a problem for you, or for the rich legislators who make these decisions without any idea of what they are doing, but, you know, it might count as a loss to the fired worker. Ever consider that?
"True, but you fail to understand the effects on society which are caused by a low min wage"
I understand the effects fully. You get rid of these problems by getting government out of it entirely.
"We could eliminate all of the low wage subsisities which allow for a low 'market driven' wage"
Once there are subsidies, the wage is not at is actual (market-driven) value.
" for (well, at least most) Republicians"
Can't we discuss economic effects without resorting to comical and false ideological/partisan insults?
The serious design flaw involving the battery is one major thing that keeps me away from the iPod. Anything where there is a not-insignificant risk of destroying the unit just by changing the battery (see the Popular Science article) has a problem. It is odd that Apple, a company known for "ease of use" overlooked the easy-to-use standard sliding battery hatch that has been around for decades.
That is not a strength. The Apple music files are overpriced (doubled that of some competitors), and are crippled to make it hard to play them (I know, the others do that to). If I ever get a high-storage-volume digitial music player, it will be based on the cost and features of the unit itself. Besides, you can play Apple music store files on other machines.
What about when the minimum wage increase by the government denies the worker this choice by forcing the company to fire the worker (or not offer such a job in the future)? "Companies will always pay as little as they can get away with".
Free trade is not exploitation. This includes the trade of services (such as work) for money. The minimum wage does not do what you think it does at all, as the main thing it does is provide an incentive for the companies to fire those whose jobs have the least value.
"Companies will always pay as little as they can get away with"
Exactly! Yet, you fail to realize this. You think that they will put up with this higher cost. You ignore that they will try to "pay as little as they can" in reality by automating, outsourcing, or other ways of getting rid of the jobs.
If you want to look at how this works, look at the self-serve gas station. The gas stations used to employ lots of pump jockets. However, the minimum wage laws forced the companies to get rid of almost all of these jobs.
These jobs have become more costly not because the workers have earned the higher wages, but because bureacrats or mercurial legislators have meddled in the matter without regards to real values or consequences.
It is typical that the arguments for the "minimum wage" are based in bogus emotion-charge class warfare ideology.
I voted for Kerry. And then I voted against him. Decisions like this require flexibility, nuance, and a global test.
Please see this very recent Slashdot article for more about the vast red plains.
You've got it. The Michael Moore argument that small business is the cause of economic evil, and we must wipe it out in order to progress.
I've figured it out. The vast red plains reference brought it home: we are living in Barsoom. John Kerry did bear a striking resemblance to Tars Tarkas. I guess Jimmy Carter will do in a pinch as we don't have John Carter.
Wages are earned, not given. They are earned by doing work for the value of the wage. Things really get messed up if someone outside sets the value of the wage without regard to the value of the work. Forcing companies to overpay workers at some government-set wage that has nothing to do with the work also demeans real work and turns the whole affair into a welfare program: a forced handout.
Every time the government arbitrarily sets the mininum wage to be higher, thousands of people end up losing their jobs, as it forces companies to try to get by without low-end jobs. When I point it out to people who favor the "minimum wage", the typical response is that these jobs are worthless: a poor person is better off getting nothing, as compared to getting $17,000 a year.
As long as you are arbitrarily setting wages without regard to value, why not set the minimum wage to $1,000 an hour? It will make everyone a millionaire. Why stop at a low value?
In other words, a county shows all red even if it is 51% Bush / 49% Kerry. Just so we remember that there is a lot of red in the blue counties, and vice-versa.
Wonder what it is? The actual Konfabulator site is slashdotted, but does come up some time. The front page looks like part of "MYST". The article describes it as a desktop organization utility, but it is rather vague.
Do you actually play those? Last time I did play them, I did have the sound up. However, I will say that these games are not as musical as they could be. There is a lot of silence anyway.
Yes. Google has excellent image preview, and searches within PDFs. For video, however, you are right.
All those takes to get the line right? I've been playing videogames with the sound off for months now.
Guess you are: "Do you think it's a bad idea that an amateur film maker or musician..." Where did I say that this was a bad idea? Or that no-one should be allowed to spew Linux ISO's on their account??? I was just listing how most of the things in that list could be done better elsewhere.
Doesn't it make more sense to get these from "the source"? No problems with bad labels here. Video Game Demos (those things are getting huge!). Sourceforge clearly labels the downloads and organizes them in a way that BT doesn't.
"eBook Collections (e.g. Gutenburg)"
The gutenburg mirrors seem like the best place for this.
"Publicly Available Videos (e.g. Star Trek fan videos, Presidential Debates, funny commercials)"
The commercials and debates are actually the copyrighted material of those who made them or recorded them (i.e.: CNN owns that CNN recording of the debate). It does make sense, however, for huge videos like "Fahrenheit 911", in which Michael Moore encouraged such distribution.
"Software Distribution (How can a database application be more 1 gig in size?!)"
See the first one. Might as well add that with BT there is a chance that your GTA demo is really a mis-labelled Halo demo.
"Website Content Mirrors (e.g. PDFs, promotional videos, images, etc.)"
Google would be better for most of this. For most of this, it makes more sense to get the files elsewhere. For now, BT makes the most sense for copyright infringement materials, where for the most part no-one dares to host them on typical static web pages or download sites.