"Capitalist economics is a shell game? I strongly disagree but I will go with it for the purposes of discussion. (I believe capitalism does a damn fine job of allocating resources efficiently)"
That comment got me thinking: Is there really a need for capitalism and it's "allocation of resources" if the thing we are allocating is practically infinite? When we buy physical goods, we are buying from a limited supply. There's only so many cars, computers, gizmos out there to be bought. And thosethings are made from resources that are finite. Those items are scarse. Some more, some less, but still. And price reflects that.
But what about digital goods? for example, music in mp3-format. There's no scarcity there. You could make thousands of copies of a song, and the price of doing that would be neglible. Do we need capitalism, supply and demand in setting the prices there? Only way those could work is with artificial limitations that would create a "price" for the end-product. But if we abandon those artificial limitations, how could we have a price on those songs, since the supply would be practically limitless?
So, what's the point of this computer again... ? Um, the fact that it's tiny and light, whereas the generic 15.4" laptop you mention is not? Computer like this is something I could taking with me just about everywhere I go, whereas a 15.4" laptop is practically a desktop-replacement.
They used to look blurry but these days it's hardly a problem. Unless you plan on running 1600x1200 screen at 640x480 or something. You can easily drop the resolution by a step or two.
OMG, I have an USB-port on this computer that I'm not currently using! Oh why do they force me to pay for stuff that I don't use?
Just suck it up. If you think that the features and the price are acceptable, then buy it (even if you plan to use a lower resolution). If not, then don't. No-one is forcing you to pay for features you don't need, since you always have the choice of not buying anything.
KDE 4.1 has completely removed the ability to put files or icons on the desktop. No they haven't, and claiming that they have only makes you an idiot. For starters, the new method is more flexible and powerful. Previously, you had a desktop-folder that had all the stuff that was in your desktop. This new way allows you to have several such folders which contents is displayed on the desktop. You can also have filters that only show certain type of files, instead of shoving all the files in the folder.
In the future you could have an automated system that changes according to the app you are using, You could have a plasmoid that displays a contents of a folder. Then you fire up a video-editor (for example), and the plasmoid switches to showing your video-files, or your project-folder or something like that.
The old way (which is still used by other systems) is really about "you can do it this way, and only this way".
You still have desktop-icons in 4.1. Just because you keep on whining about this issue, does not mean that your whining is based on a real problem.
And before you start whining about the "big black box".... I would say that is up to the theme you are using. Don't like big black boxes? then use some other theme. And how about actually USING the software before whining how bad it is? Sheesh....
I wonder how much subsidies the oil-industry has received, all things considered? And those subsidies can include stuff like legislation, politics, urban planning etc. All kinds of things that benefit oil-companies.
How about farmers? I guess there is no market for foodstuffs, since farming is so heavily subsidized? There's no market for weapons, since weapons-manufacturers are swimming in all kinds of subsidies?
Solar Thermal. You mean the stuff that is widely used in China, providing hot water to at least 30 million households there? Yep, sounds like a joke to me....
(who happens to also be the Jew's God, Christian's God, and, come right down to it, the Muslim's God)
I have seen this before.... This strange thing of separating Catholics from Christians. Catholicism is one branch of CHristianity, just like Baptism, Lutheranism, Protestantism etc. is.
HP really should spend a bit more time getting familiar with their market. You can find full-featured laptops for around $500 today - with decent sized screens and an optical drive.
Congrats on missing the point on this machine entirely. No, laptops that cost around 500-600 bucks are nothing new. But tiny laptops that weight around 1Kg and cost around 500 bucks certainly are. Usually laptops of that size cost around three times that much. Those cheap laptops with "optical drives and decent sized screens"? They are big, heavy and clumsy. Completely opposite to these new machines.
Albert Einstein, for instance, was certainly not an atheist.
Which is why he said stuff like
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."
"Hitler took gun's away from people." does not(In most contexts)
Sorry to nitpick, but Hitler did not disarm the Germans, the Weimar Republic (the government prior to Nazi-rule) did. The goal was to prevent an armed rebellion against the government by the Nazis, commies and all those other factions that existed in the post-WW1 Germany. And you could say that their plan worked: there was no armed rebellion. Nazis rose to power through democratic means.
I saw a documentary about this village on TV a while ago. And while the problems they were facing were serious, I simply could not muster any sympathy for them. Why?
a) The village is small, maybe 500 meters in diameter. And still, EVERYONE drove around with ATV's. No-one walked
b) Whenever they showed them eating, they ate from disposable plates.
While their contribution to global warming is miniscule, it does raise a question: if they have done nothing to prevent global warming (in fact, their lifestyle has accelerated it), do they have any moral leg to stand on when it comes to suing others for their problems?
why did he, in the middle of an acrimonious divorce that he was about to be judicially sanctioned for his foot-dragging, pick up the kids from school when it was Nina's turn to do so?
Because he didn't?
"Tue 2006-09-05, 5:00 PM: Reiser, arrives at the Joaquin Miller school and sets up a meeting to discuss the program's enrollment policies. He speaks with Natalie Potter. Although Potter knows that Nina is missing, she neither tells Reiser this, nor asks Reiser if he knows where Nina is. Reiser states that he is not there to pick up the children and he gives his permission for Doren to pick them up, which she does a few minutes later, at about 5:15 PM. Reiser is at the school for about 10 minutes. "
If it is okay for this guy to sue and for the FSF to threaten legal action over the GPL then it is okay for file shares to get sued.
Like it has been said numerous times: there is a difference. Filesharing (which is a copyright infringment, no-one is denying that) is not done for profit. People who copy those songs don't start earning money from them. The copies are made for personal use.
In this case, the corporation took the picture and used it to generate profits. I don't think there would be any issue if the CEO had simply printed the picture out and hanged it on his wall (which would be personal use). But they didn't do that. The took the picture, and used it for their own profit.
You can not have it both ways.
Yes we can, since the two cases are not comparable. I have zero problems when record-labels and the like go after the people who make illegal copies of music-CD's or DVD's and sell them for profit. And that's basically what happened here, but instead of a corporation doing the fighting, it was just one guy.
I wasn't talking about legalities of creating laws that are unconstitutional, I was more referring to the morality (or lack of thereof) of people who create those laws, and the MP's who either had no idea what was being done, or simply didn't care. In either case, they screwed up.
And maybe he didn't vote against it because he was sick that day? Voting against the law wouldn't have labeled him any further than his vocal opposition to the law had labeled him (if it had at all). That said, I can't find ANY voting-records on that particular piece of legislation.
I don't think he was the "sole dissenter", or that he didn't want to vote on the issue. I mean, he had publicly spoken against the legislation quite forcefully, and his critique is available in his blog (where he even has a link to the now-blacklisted website). If he was afraid of being labeled as "supporter of pedophiles" or something like that, the damage was already done. What do I think happened? I believe he was sick on the day of the vote, and that his vote wouldn't have changed anything in any case.
Well, the thing is that the legislators (including some of those who I mentioned) have said that while the blacklist is voluntary, if ISP's don't start using it, they will make it mandatory...
That said, to my knowledge Sonera (the old state telecom-monopoly! Oh the irony!) is not using the list at the moment, although they haven't made any sort of pledge on the issue. I haven't been able to verify that, since Sonera is not my ISP. I haven't checked with my ISP (Nebula).
Well, what I did is that I went to Parliaments website, looked for the people who presented this legislation and supported it in the relevant comission. I then wrote a polite yet very stern email to each of them, explaining the flaws of the law and the error of their ways.
BTW. the MP's I wrote to are: Markku Laukkanen, Raimo Vistbacka, Saara Karhu, Erkki Pulliainen and Mikko Alatalo. here you can read the comments those people made during the first hearing on the new legislation. Another person to write to could be Sari Essayah, who supported the legislation here (what else can you expect from a fundie?). It should also be noted that Jyrki Kasvi strongly opposed the legislation.
Tell me about it. I'm fucking PISSED OFF at the legislators! How in the fuck did they manage to pass a bill that is so blatantly against the constitution? And not only that, the law is already being misused, since the blacklist contains tons of websites that have nothing to do with pedophilia! And it's supposed to only deal with foreign websites, but now they are using it to silence a Finnish website as well! So that's already three ways this law has failed! And the goddamned recording-industry is already salivating by the idea of using this technology to block access to websites that "infringe on their IP". Fuck this shit!
What I want to know is the names of each and every MP who voted for this travesty of a law! I will swear to FSM that during the next elections, I will go talk to them during their campaign and grill them about "supporting censorship". If those fucking fascists want censorship, maybe they should move to China or North Korea? Why in the hell we have such a bunch of fucking retards deciding things for us?
Speaking as a Finn, I'm deeply ashamed and fucking pissed off!
What Finland needs right about now is MASSIVE amount of bad publicity! We have this thing that we are always concerned what others might be thinking about us. And if Finland starts to be compared to China and North Korea in the international media, that just might be the trick to get this law overturned.
I've seen police states. I've had to pass through checkpoints and answer questions about where I was going, why I was going there and when I plan on being back. The US is not a police state.
So, your definition of a "police state" is one that has checkpoints where they keep tabs on the goingabouts of the citizens? If a country does not have those, then it's not a "police state"?
I would say that your definition is an extremely narrow definition. Maybe those checkpoints are no longer needed, because technology has replaced it? They could monitor people with surveillance-cameras, cell-phone triangulation, snooping of their emails and phone-calls... Technology has allowed them to retire jackboots and checkpoints, while maintaining control.
The thing with checkpoints is that for years we have been educated that those (among other things) are a sign of oppressive regime. So we are on the lookout for those. If se see them, we become suspicious and alert. So they got rid of them. you might be living in a police-state, and you do not know it. And even if you did, you might not care, since there's good entertainment on TV.
I would say that the fact that US Government illegally snooped on their own citizens with the help of the Telcos is one good indicator that you ARE living in a police-state. Seriously, that's something similar to what Stasi did in East-Germany!
Disclaimer: I'm a Mac-user, and mostly ex Linux-user who still, deep down, roots for Linux.
There has been a bunch of reports recently that show OS X gaining market-share. And that's a great thing! Anything that erodes the mediocrity of Windows is a good thing. One of the tools used to track the trends in OS-usage is the Netapplications survey, which monitors which OS'es website-users are using. While that tool might not be perfect for determining the actual market-share, it's a good tool to show trends where the market is moving to. And what do their results show us?
In March 2007, Mac OS has market-share of 6.09%. In January 2008 that had increased to 7.57%. Not bad. And while Linux is significantly smaller, it too has something interesting to report. In March 2007, Linux had market-share of 0.4%. In January 2007, Linux had market-share of 0.67%. That's an over 50% increase in market-share in under a year. Had OS X had similar growth, they would have went from 6.09% in march to over 9% in January.
Slashdot Mirror
"Capitalist economics is a shell game? I strongly disagree but I will go with it for the purposes of discussion. (I believe capitalism does a damn fine job of allocating resources efficiently)"
That comment got me thinking: Is there really a need for capitalism and it's "allocation of resources" if the thing we are allocating is practically infinite? When we buy physical goods, we are buying from a limited supply. There's only so many cars, computers, gizmos out there to be bought. And thosethings are made from resources that are finite. Those items are scarse. Some more, some less, but still. And price reflects that.
But what about digital goods? for example, music in mp3-format. There's no scarcity there. You could make thousands of copies of a song, and the price of doing that would be neglible. Do we need capitalism, supply and demand in setting the prices there? Only way those could work is with artificial limitations that would create a "price" for the end-product. But if we abandon those artificial limitations, how could we have a price on those songs, since the supply would be practically limitless?
They used to look blurry but these days it's hardly a problem. Unless you plan on running 1600x1200 screen at 640x480 or something. You can easily drop the resolution by a step or two.
OMG, I have an USB-port on this computer that I'm not currently using! Oh why do they force me to pay for stuff that I don't use?
Just suck it up. If you think that the features and the price are acceptable, then buy it (even if you plan to use a lower resolution). If not, then don't. No-one is forcing you to pay for features you don't need, since you always have the choice of not buying anything.
In the future you could have an automated system that changes according to the app you are using, You could have a plasmoid that displays a contents of a folder. Then you fire up a video-editor (for example), and the plasmoid switches to showing your video-files, or your project-folder or something like that.
The old way (which is still used by other systems) is really about "you can do it this way, and only this way".
You still have desktop-icons in 4.1. Just because you keep on whining about this issue, does not mean that your whining is based on a real problem.
And before you start whining about the "big black box".... I would say that is up to the theme you are using. Don't like big black boxes? then use some other theme. And how about actually USING the software before whining how bad it is? Sheesh....
I wonder how much subsidies the oil-industry has received, all things considered? And those subsidies can include stuff like legislation, politics, urban planning etc. All kinds of things that benefit oil-companies.
How about farmers? I guess there is no market for foodstuffs, since farming is so heavily subsidized? There's no market for weapons, since weapons-manufacturers are swimming in all kinds of subsidies?
Solar Thermal. You mean the stuff that is widely used in China, providing hot water to at least 30 million households there? Yep, sounds like a joke to me....
I have seen this before.... This strange thing of separating Catholics from Christians. Catholicism is one branch of CHristianity, just like Baptism, Lutheranism, Protestantism etc. is.
Congrats on missing the point on this machine entirely. No, laptops that cost around 500-600 bucks are nothing new. But tiny laptops that weight around 1Kg and cost around 500 bucks certainly are. Usually laptops of that size cost around three times that much. Those cheap laptops with "optical drives and decent sized screens"? They are big, heavy and clumsy. Completely opposite to these new machines.
Which is why he said stuff like
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."
Sorry to nitpick, but Hitler did not disarm the Germans, the Weimar Republic (the government prior to Nazi-rule) did. The goal was to prevent an armed rebellion against the government by the Nazis, commies and all those other factions that existed in the post-WW1 Germany. And you could say that their plan worked: there was no armed rebellion. Nazis rose to power through democratic means.
I saw a documentary about this village on TV a while ago. And while the problems they were facing were serious, I simply could not muster any sympathy for them. Why?
a) The village is small, maybe 500 meters in diameter. And still, EVERYONE drove around with ATV's. No-one walked
b) Whenever they showed them eating, they ate from disposable plates.
While their contribution to global warming is miniscule, it does raise a question: if they have done nothing to prevent global warming (in fact, their lifestyle has accelerated it), do they have any moral leg to stand on when it comes to suing others for their problems?
Because he didn't?
"Tue 2006-09-05, 5:00 PM: Reiser, arrives at the Joaquin Miller school and sets up a meeting to discuss the program's enrollment policies. He speaks with Natalie Potter. Although Potter knows that Nina is missing, she neither tells Reiser this, nor asks Reiser if he knows where Nina is. Reiser states that he is not there to pick up the children and he gives his permission for Doren to pick them up, which she does a few minutes later, at about 5:15 PM. Reiser is at the school for about 10 minutes. "
I wasn't talking about legalities of creating laws that are unconstitutional, I was more referring to the morality (or lack of thereof) of people who create those laws, and the MP's who either had no idea what was being done, or simply didn't care. In either case, they screwed up.
And maybe he didn't vote against it because he was sick that day? Voting against the law wouldn't have labeled him any further than his vocal opposition to the law had labeled him (if it had at all). That said, I can't find ANY voting-records on that particular piece of legislation.
I don't think he was the "sole dissenter", or that he didn't want to vote on the issue. I mean, he had publicly spoken against the legislation quite forcefully, and his critique is available in his blog (where he even has a link to the now-blacklisted website). If he was afraid of being labeled as "supporter of pedophiles" or something like that, the damage was already done. What do I think happened? I believe he was sick on the day of the vote, and that his vote wouldn't have changed anything in any case.
Well, the thing is that the legislators (including some of those who I mentioned) have said that while the blacklist is voluntary, if ISP's don't start using it, they will make it mandatory...
That said, to my knowledge Sonera (the old state telecom-monopoly! Oh the irony!) is not using the list at the moment, although they haven't made any sort of pledge on the issue. I haven't been able to verify that, since Sonera is not my ISP. I haven't checked with my ISP (Nebula).
Note: there are probably other people as well who should be emailed as well, but those were the people I found with 10 minutes of searching.
And I can happily report that I voted for Kasvi as well.
Well, what I did is that I went to Parliaments website, looked for the people who presented this legislation and supported it in the relevant comission. I then wrote a polite yet very stern email to each of them, explaining the flaws of the law and the error of their ways.
BTW. the MP's I wrote to are: Markku Laukkanen, Raimo Vistbacka, Saara Karhu, Erkki Pulliainen and Mikko Alatalo. here you can read the comments those people made during the first hearing on the new legislation. Another person to write to could be Sari Essayah, who supported the legislation here (what else can you expect from a fundie?). It should also be noted that Jyrki Kasvi strongly opposed the legislation.
Make your voice heard. And know who to vote.
Tell me about it. I'm fucking PISSED OFF at the legislators! How in the fuck did they manage to pass a bill that is so blatantly against the constitution? And not only that, the law is already being misused, since the blacklist contains tons of websites that have nothing to do with pedophilia! And it's supposed to only deal with foreign websites, but now they are using it to silence a Finnish website as well! So that's already three ways this law has failed! And the goddamned recording-industry is already salivating by the idea of using this technology to block access to websites that "infringe on their IP". Fuck this shit!
What I want to know is the names of each and every MP who voted for this travesty of a law! I will swear to FSM that during the next elections, I will go talk to them during their campaign and grill them about "supporting censorship". If those fucking fascists want censorship, maybe they should move to China or North Korea? Why in the hell we have such a bunch of fucking retards deciding things for us?
Speaking as a Finn, I'm deeply ashamed and fucking pissed off!
What Finland needs right about now is MASSIVE amount of bad publicity! We have this thing that we are always concerned what others might be thinking about us. And if Finland starts to be compared to China and North Korea in the international media, that just might be the trick to get this law overturned.
So, your definition of a "police state" is one that has checkpoints where they keep tabs on the goingabouts of the citizens? If a country does not have those, then it's not a "police state"?
I would say that your definition is an extremely narrow definition. Maybe those checkpoints are no longer needed, because technology has replaced it? They could monitor people with surveillance-cameras, cell-phone triangulation, snooping of their emails and phone-calls... Technology has allowed them to retire jackboots and checkpoints, while maintaining control.
The thing with checkpoints is that for years we have been educated that those (among other things) are a sign of oppressive regime. So we are on the lookout for those. If se see them, we become suspicious and alert. So they got rid of them. you might be living in a police-state, and you do not know it. And even if you did, you might not care, since there's good entertainment on TV.
I would say that the fact that US Government illegally snooped on their own citizens with the help of the Telcos is one good indicator that you ARE living in a police-state. Seriously, that's something similar to what Stasi did in East-Germany!
Ooops, it seems I made a typo. It's from march 2007 to January 2008
Disclaimer: I'm a Mac-user, and mostly ex Linux-user who still, deep down, roots for Linux.
There has been a bunch of reports recently that show OS X gaining market-share. And that's a great thing! Anything that erodes the mediocrity of Windows is a good thing. One of the tools used to track the trends in OS-usage is the Netapplications survey, which monitors which OS'es website-users are using. While that tool might not be perfect for determining the actual market-share, it's a good tool to show trends where the market is moving to. And what do their results show us?
In March 2007, Mac OS has market-share of 6.09%. In January 2008 that had increased to 7.57%. Not bad. And while Linux is significantly smaller, it too has something interesting to report. In March 2007, Linux had market-share of 0.4%. In January 2007, Linux had market-share of 0.67%. That's an over 50% increase in market-share in under a year. Had OS X had similar growth, they would have went from 6.09% in march to over 9% in January.