Also, 'cops' & 'blogs' are poor analogies for this discussion. No-one that I'm aware of is going around using those terms to further their litigation agendas.
Look, do most people think like you and consider 'copyright infringement' to be 'piracy'? Yes, it's a fact that they do. Is that good? IMHO, no. My point is that it plays into the hands of the **AA's. Maybe that's not important to most people. Fair enough. I prefer to make the distinction because I feel that it is important.
It's hyperbole. It's very common, and just because you don't happen to like it when it's applied to you...
You're right, it is hyperbole/metaphor. That doesn't make it good for society. I suppose you can make the argument that society doesn't care. Your post seems to fit that assumption.
Speaking of assumption; why do you assume that I'm talking about myself when it comes to 'piracy'? I disagree with the term, but I don't practice 'copyright infringement' any more than I practice raping and pillaging on the high seas, (athough I do tip back a spot of rum now & then).
To set the record straight: I don't download music. I buy CDs. Out of the used bin. It helps me sleep at night. YMMV.
Piracy now means copyright infringement. Hacking also means to get unauthorized access to a person's computer...
Yeah, I've always felt funny calling people who break into computers, 'cracker'. It sounds a bit racist, doesn't it?
Still, the distinction between 'copyright infringer' and 'pirate' is an important one. By using the words 'pirate' and 'piracy', the **AA is able to place a fairly specific concept in the mind of the public; that of an unsavory individual living on the fringes of society, 'stealing' from good, honest, law-abiding citizens of the commonwealth. This places the *AA in the position of the 'good guys', protecting us all from these dangerous brigands.
Yeah, I know. It's a fairly silly description. But that's how people perceive the words 'pirate' and 'piracy'. They don't think of their son or daughter sitting in a dorm room at college downloading mp3s. They think of the guy with the pegleg and the buried treasure. These small concepts add up quickly. By not making the proper distinctions, we allow the **AA to use words as weapons. For this reason, when the topic comes up, I always make the distinction between 'piracy' and 'copyright infringement'.
"Why is pirating allowed if you cannot afford it? i learned that if you cannot afford it, you don't get it. Fricking commies..."
Piracy, schmiracy. I don't see any eyepatches, parrots, or bottles of grog being passed around. On the other hand, copyright infringement isn't legal and the OP's statement doesn't make it so. But s/he's still correct - it's gonna happen. With every subsequent action, the RIAA continues to prove their irrelevancy in the modern world. They need to just die already...
Look, I'm no MS-basher. I run linux and windows every day. They both perform their respective tasks admirably. That being said, WinXP is now several years old. FC5 was just released. Let's see how Vista, (once it's released), runs on that old hardware of yours. Heck, by that time you may very well be comparing it to FC6.
Yeah, bleeding edge software will always push the limits of the hardware. That's why most computer users are familiar with the term 'Upgrade Cycle'. Still, comparing a new Live Linux CD with another aging OS is just disingenuous IMO. If you really want performance on old hardware, maybe try a lighter distro? Or, at least a lighter window manager?
"...a 65 means the character A, 67 character B and so on..."
<nitpick> 65 + 1 = 66 </nitpick>
I think it would take more than a couple hundred years for a language to die though. It will probably take more like a couple thousand - and an almost complete collapse of civilazion as we know it. Not entirely out of the realm of possibility, I suppose.
Still... like Linus once famously said, "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." So as long as there is an internet, I don't believe that needed information will become lost.
Dude. You think the fairtax is bad. Fine, that's your opinion. I happen to think it's a huge improvement over the current system that we are currently saddled with. Furthermore, I don't see a better alternative being discussed in any seriousness by anyone that might be able to change things.
When I talk about tax reform, I don't feel that I am trying to influence anyone's opinion. Each person is free to draw their own conclusions. As a matter of fact, I posted merely to point out that the text of the bill before Congress is available for people to read and to point out that you were inappropriately applying a flat tax quote to the fairtax. You're right, the Buffet quote is on-topic in a discussion about tax reform. My point, which still stands, is that it is off-topic when applied to a discussion about the fairtax. There is a distinction there, no?
Well... thanks! I know I really feel your love!!;-)
"Warren Buffet had this to say about the Flat Tax (not the "Fair" tax idea, but close): I wouldn't support it..."
The Flat Tax and the FairTax have some similarities but quoting a statement about one in a discussion about the other is disingenuous at best. Please read the details of HR25/S25 and then let's try to keep the discussion on topic, m'kay?
I'm currently in the process of ripping my 400+ CD's to FLAC - not MP3. If there was a service that would provide a lossless codec, I might be interested in saving the time. Even then, I doubt it though. It's just not that difficult, or time-consuming, to do it yourself. I mean, gRip runs in the background just fine while surfing for por^W^W^Wworking.
"Funny thing is, it's illegal to point a gun at someone and threaten them into doing something..."
Threatening with a gun is fairly cut & dried. Lawsuits are another thing altogether. By the time the lawyers do their 'Chewbacca Defense' dance & such, the final result can be, (and many times is), much different than what you or I would consider as 'Justice'.
I have a similar machine; 12-year old Pentium/90 that I originally installed Red Hat 5.2 on. Since then, I've turned it into a firewall/router using smoothwall. Dead simple to install and maintain.
"No nation ever existed without some sense of national destiny or purpose.
Manifest Destiny -- a phrase used by leaders and politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the United States -- revitalized a sense of "mission" or national destiny for Americans.
The people of the United States felt it was their mission to extend the "boundaries of freedom" to others by imparting their idealism and belief in democratic institutions to those who were capable of self-government. It excluded those people who were perceived as being incapable of self-government, such as Native American people and those of non-European origin."
Hmmmm... Iraq? The Intrawebs? What's next? Oh yeah, the moon. Let's install a giant frickin' laser on the moon and then we can hold the rest of the world hostage.
"Ah, so what you are saying is that most people won't gain anything?"
Please don't put words in my mouth. What I am saying, I have already said; "Read the text of House Resolution 25 and then decide for yourself whether or not it makes sense".
"For most people filling out the tax form should be quick and easy."
Heh. Right. That's why there's a multi-billion dollar a year industry in the USA just to help people interpret the tax code. A tax code that is so complex that even the IRS gives wrong advice more often than not.
"...if the tax is collected at the point of purchase, someone has to spend extra time and money on that process."
You mean like the merchants in 45 out of 50 states already do? Here's a little nugget for you; under the fairtax plan, those merchants get to keep 0.5% of the collected tax for their troubles. Another 0.5% of the collected tax goes to that state to help pay for the state-level administration of the plan. The rest goes to the feds.
"any simplified system will only stay simplified a short time after the ink has dried..."
Wow! Now there's an excellent reason to keep our current system in place! </sarcasm>.
"If I am paying less... someone else has to pay more."
Sigh...
No one who has even the most basic understanding of the Fairtax plan will try to tell you that you'll pay less in taxes. The fairtax is not a tax break. It's a re-structuring of how federal taxes are collected. The benefit is not lower taxes - it's that you will spend less time dealing with a convoluted tax code. You'll simply pay your share when you buy stuff. The basic plan is pretty darned simple. Please feel free to read up on it for yourself. All of the US population should at least read HR25 and S25 so an informed decision can be made at the polls, (if the status quo even allows it to get that far).
Is the fairtax the best thing to change the US tax system to? I don't know the answer to that, but I believe that the current system needs to change to something more transparent, less complex, and less time consuming than what we are now dealing with. Does anyone have a better idea?
"Um, actually the rich guy would have his corporation pay for jet fuel, even if it is his private plane."
Ok. So his corporation pays the tax. So what? It still gets paid. Under the current system, that's a write-off for the corporation - which results in less taxes collected!
What you say would be true if the billionaire bought the same size house, the same car, the same clothes, and had the same lifestyle as the 40K-per-year guy. The fact is that the 40K guy is not going to be buying jet fuel for his private plane. While rich folks may pay a smaller percentage of their income as taxes, they will pay more dollars than poor or middle-class people.
"People with money do not need to spend it. They make money with money and do not need to spend it so they get weathier."
I respectfully disagree.
People with money may not need to spend it - but they do spend it. How about all those huge mansions that celebrities buy? The cars they drive? The private planes they have?
The problem with income tax is that the government takes your money up front and gives you back a small portion without interest - if you don't owe more than they've withheld, that is. It's much, much more simple to pay as you go. The amount of time that millions of people spend preparing their taxes, keeping records, etc. could be put to better use, could it not?
Income taxes foster tax loopholes. Sales taxes do not.
Yes. It really benefits everyone. It's best to read it for yourself, but here are some quick points...
1. The tax burden shifts from those who work to those who spend. This would now include tourists, drug dealers, prostitutes, children, retirees, etc...
2. You are only taxed on new goods. Sell your used computer, car, house, whatever, without worying about taxes.
3. Every head of household will receive a monthly 'rebate' check from the federal government to reimburse the taxes collected on basic necessities. The closer to the poverty line you are, the larger the check. For instance, a family of four living at the poverty line would receive a monthly check of $497.00, (estimated at the time the Fairtax book was written).
4. Every pay period, you receive your gross wages. No Federal Withholding, no Social Security withholding, no Medicare withholding. Those taxes are paid from the sales tax.
5. No more April 15th. It's just another spring day.
6. Outsourcing of jobs and finances will stop as the flow is reversed to what will become the biggest and best tax haven in the world.
So... do the rich benefit? Sure they do. But not at the expense of the middle-class or the poor. Our current tax system is almost completely broken and needs a major overhaul.
It would do away with all this income tax malarkey. At least at the federal level. Once that happens, it's a good bet that individual states would follow suit.
No. I think he got it right. Not whoa, but woe. As in, "Woe to you, oh Earth and Sea. For the Devil sends the Beast with wrath. Because he knows the time is short - so he changed DST to compensate."
"Not to worry. Following TV and cable, you WILL pay and also have to listen to the ads."
I gotta agree with this sentiment. It's inevitable that advertising will try to worm its way into every possible medium. This is why I subscribed to Sirius satellite radio now - while it's still mostly ad-free. Once the full-on advertising kicks in, (a la cable tv), I'll be cancelling my subscription.
Slashdot Mirror
Pirates haven't really been around for many years...
Really? are you certain?
Also, 'cops' & 'blogs' are poor analogies for this discussion. No-one that I'm aware of is going around using those terms to further their litigation agendas.
Look, do most people think like you and consider 'copyright infringement' to be 'piracy'? Yes, it's a fact that they do. Is that good? IMHO, no. My point is that it plays into the hands of the **AA's. Maybe that's not important to most people. Fair enough. I prefer to make the distinction because I feel that it is important.
It's hyperbole. It's very common, and just because you don't happen to like it when it's applied to you ...
You're right, it is hyperbole/metaphor. That doesn't make it good for society. I suppose you can make the argument that society doesn't care. Your post seems to fit that assumption.
Speaking of assumption; why do you assume that I'm talking about myself when it comes to 'piracy'? I disagree with the term, but I don't practice 'copyright infringement' any more than I practice raping and pillaging on the high seas, (athough I do tip back a spot of rum now & then).
To set the record straight: I don't download music. I buy CDs. Out of the used bin. It helps me sleep at night. YMMV.
Piracy now means copyright infringement. Hacking also means to get unauthorized access to a person's computer...
;-]
Yeah, I've always felt funny calling people who break into computers, 'cracker'. It sounds a bit racist, doesn't it?
Still, the distinction between 'copyright infringer' and 'pirate' is an important one. By using the words 'pirate' and 'piracy', the **AA is able to place a fairly specific concept in the mind of the public; that of an unsavory individual living on the fringes of society, 'stealing' from good, honest, law-abiding citizens of the commonwealth. This places the *AA in the position of the 'good guys', protecting us all from these dangerous brigands.
Yeah, I know. It's a fairly silly description. But that's how people perceive the words 'pirate' and 'piracy'. They don't think of their son or daughter sitting in a dorm room at college downloading mp3s. They think of the guy with the pegleg and the buried treasure. These small concepts add up quickly. By not making the proper distinctions, we allow the **AA to use words as weapons. For this reason, when the topic comes up, I always make the distinction between 'piracy' and 'copyright infringement'.
Go ahead, call me a zealot...
"Why is pirating allowed if you cannot afford it? i learned that if you cannot afford it, you don't get it. Fricking commies..."
Piracy, schmiracy. I don't see any eyepatches, parrots, or bottles of grog being passed around. On the other hand, copyright infringement isn't legal and the OP's statement doesn't make it so. But s/he's still correct - it's gonna happen. With every subsequent action, the RIAA continues to prove their irrelevancy in the modern world. They need to just die already...
"Have you tried to load Fedora Core 5 on a older machine lately? It's unbearable to use, yet somehow Windows XP is faster on it..."
Must. Not. Feed. AC. Troll. Can't. Resist. Aaaagghhhh...
Look, I'm no MS-basher. I run linux and windows every day. They both perform their respective tasks admirably. That being said, WinXP is now several years old. FC5 was just released. Let's see how Vista, (once it's released), runs on that old hardware of yours. Heck, by that time you may very well be comparing it to FC6.
Yeah, bleeding edge software will always push the limits of the hardware. That's why most computer users are familiar with the term 'Upgrade Cycle'. Still, comparing a new Live Linux CD with another aging OS is just disingenuous IMO. If you really want performance on old hardware, maybe try a lighter distro? Or, at least a lighter window manager?
--
"...a 65 means the character A, 67 character B and so on..."
<nitpick>
65 + 1 = 66
</nitpick>
I think it would take more than a couple hundred years for a language to die though. It will probably take more like a couple thousand - and an almost complete collapse of civilazion as we know it. Not entirely out of the realm of possibility, I suppose.
Still... like Linus once famously said, "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." So as long as there is an internet, I don't believe that needed information will become lost.
Dude. You think the fairtax is bad. Fine, that's your opinion. I happen to think it's a huge improvement over the current system that we are currently saddled with. Furthermore, I don't see a better alternative being discussed in any seriousness by anyone that might be able to change things.
When I talk about tax reform, I don't feel that I am trying to influence anyone's opinion. Each person is free to draw their own conclusions. As a matter of fact, I posted merely to point out that the text of the bill before Congress is available for people to read and to point out that you were inappropriately applying a flat tax quote to the fairtax. You're right, the Buffet quote is on-topic in a discussion about tax reform. My point, which still stands, is that it is off-topic when applied to a discussion about the fairtax. There is a distinction there, no?
The Flat Tax and the FairTax have some similarities but quoting a statement about one in a discussion about the other is disingenuous at best. Please read the details of HR25/S25 and then let's try to keep the discussion on topic, m'kay?
I'm currently in the process of ripping my 400+ CD's to FLAC - not MP3. If there was a service that would provide a lossless codec, I might be interested in saving the time. Even then, I doubt it though. It's just not that difficult, or time-consuming, to do it yourself. I mean, gRip runs in the background just fine while surfing for por^W^W^Wworking.
"IMHO - the "best" interface would be one that starts off at a child's level..."
Oh boy, have I got a DE for you!!
(Sorry, sorry, sorry...)
"Which, oddly enough, is exactly what the Visual Studio team is developing next, in the form of F#..."
So... if the circle of fifths naming convention holds true, the next iteration after that will be called 'B'.
Oh wait...
"Funny thing is, it's illegal to point a gun at someone and threaten them into doing something..."
Threatening with a gun is fairly cut & dried. Lawsuits are another thing altogether. By the time the lawyers do their 'Chewbacca Defense' dance & such, the final result can be, (and many times is), much different than what you or I would consider as 'Justice'.
I have a similar machine; 12-year old Pentium/90 that I originally installed Red Hat 5.2 on. Since then, I've turned it into a firewall/router using smoothwall. Dead simple to install and maintain.
"To handle all scenarios my foil headwear are two-ply. One has the shiny side out, the other has the shiny side in."
Rookie mistake. The two plys will cancel each other out - leaving you with no protection at all!!
"No nation ever existed without some sense of national destiny or purpose.
Manifest Destiny -- a phrase used by leaders and politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the United States -- revitalized a sense of "mission" or national destiny for Americans.
The people of the United States felt it was their mission to extend the "boundaries of freedom" to others by imparting their idealism and belief in democratic institutions to those who were capable of self-government. It excluded those people who were perceived as being incapable of self-government, such as Native American people and those of non-European origin."
Hmmmm... Iraq? The Intrawebs? What's next? Oh yeah, the moon. Let's install a giant frickin' laser on the moon and then we can hold the rest of the world hostage.
Mmmwwwuuuuuuhhahahhhhaahhaahaa...
"Ah, so what you are saying is that most people won't gain anything?"
Please don't put words in my mouth. What I am saying, I have already said; "Read the text of House Resolution 25 and then decide for yourself whether or not it makes sense".
"For most people filling out the tax form should be quick and easy."
Heh. Right. That's why there's a multi-billion dollar a year industry in the USA just to help people interpret the tax code. A tax code that is so complex that even the IRS gives wrong advice more often than not.
"...if the tax is collected at the point of purchase, someone has to spend extra time and money on that process."
You mean like the merchants in 45 out of 50 states already do? Here's a little nugget for you; under the fairtax plan, those merchants get to keep 0.5% of the collected tax for their troubles. Another 0.5% of the collected tax goes to that state to help pay for the state-level administration of the plan. The rest goes to the feds.
"any simplified system will only stay simplified a short time after the ink has dried..."
Wow! Now there's an excellent reason to keep our current system in place!
</sarcasm>.
"If I am paying less ... someone else has to pay more."
Sigh...
No one who has even the most basic understanding of the Fairtax plan will try to tell you that you'll pay less in taxes. The fairtax is not a tax break. It's a re-structuring of how federal taxes are collected. The benefit is not lower taxes - it's that you will spend less time dealing with a convoluted tax code. You'll simply pay your share when you buy stuff. The basic plan is pretty darned simple. Please feel free to read up on it for yourself. All of the US population should at least read HR25 and S25 so an informed decision can be made at the polls, (if the status quo even allows it to get that far).
Is the fairtax the best thing to change the US tax system to? I don't know the answer to that, but I believe that the current system needs to change to something more transparent, less complex, and less time consuming than what we are now dealing with. Does anyone have a better idea?
"Um, actually the rich guy would have his corporation pay for jet fuel, even if it is his private plane."
Ok. So his corporation pays the tax. So what? It still gets paid. Under the current system, that's a write-off for the corporation - which results in less taxes collected!
"You really drank the Fair Tax Kool-Aid, huh?"
(Score:-1, Ad hominem)
What you say would be true if the billionaire bought the same size house, the same car, the same clothes, and had the same lifestyle as the 40K-per-year guy. The fact is that the 40K guy is not going to be buying jet fuel for his private plane. While rich folks may pay a smaller percentage of their income as taxes, they will pay more dollars than poor or middle-class people.
"People with money do not need to spend it. They make money with money and do not need to spend it so they get weathier."
I respectfully disagree.
People with money may not need to spend it - but they do spend it. How about all those huge mansions that celebrities buy? The cars they drive? The private planes they have?
The problem with income tax is that the government takes your money up front and gives you back a small portion without interest - if you don't owe more than they've withheld, that is. It's much, much more simple to pay as you go. The amount of time that millions of people spend preparing their taxes, keeping records, etc. could be put to better use, could it not?
Income taxes foster tax loopholes. Sales taxes do not.
Yes. It really benefits everyone. It's best to read it for yourself, but here are some quick points...
1. The tax burden shifts from those who work to those who spend. This would now include tourists, drug dealers, prostitutes, children, retirees, etc...
2. You are only taxed on new goods. Sell your used computer, car, house, whatever, without worying about taxes.
3. Every head of household will receive a monthly 'rebate' check from the federal government to reimburse the taxes collected on basic necessities. The closer to the poverty line you are, the larger the check. For instance, a family of four living at the poverty line would receive a monthly check of $497.00, (estimated at the time the Fairtax book was written).
4. Every pay period, you receive your gross wages. No Federal Withholding, no Social Security withholding, no Medicare withholding. Those taxes are paid from the sales tax.
5. No more April 15th. It's just another spring day.
6. Outsourcing of jobs and finances will stop as the flow is reversed to what will become the biggest and best tax haven in the world.
So... do the rich benefit? Sure they do. But not at the expense of the middle-class or the poor. Our current tax system is almost completely broken and needs a major overhaul.
Oh, and sooner is better than later.
This is why the US of A needs the FairTax.
It would do away with all this income tax malarkey. At least at the federal level. Once that happens, it's a good bet that individual states would follow suit.
Says you. Music is very subjective. I haven't listened to it yet, but your opinion matters very little to me.
In short, you are an asshat. But then, that's just my opinion...
No. I think he got it right. Not whoa, but woe. As in, "Woe to you, oh Earth and Sea. For the Devil sends the Beast with wrath. Because he knows the time is short - so he changed DST to compensate."
(Score:-1, Poor Iron Maiden Reference)
"Not to worry. Following TV and cable, you WILL pay and also have to listen to the ads."
I gotta agree with this sentiment. It's inevitable that advertising will try to worm its way into every possible medium. This is why I subscribed to Sirius satellite radio now - while it's still mostly ad-free. Once the full-on advertising kicks in, (a la cable tv), I'll be cancelling my subscription.