The problem with that argument is that VERY few people who live in the country are farmers (about 1.4%). And nothing is stopping them from paying for these services themselves (i.e. satellite service). Who knows what kinds of technology would have evolved to serve rural populations if we hadn't mandated this socialized approach?
The libertarian side of me disagrees with this. Why should the people in the city be subsidizing the lifestyles of the people in the country? It means higher prices for everyone. If the people in the country want broadband service, they should move to where there IS broadband service. Same goes with phone service, electric service, etc... All these policies ended up creating a society where the population is widely spread out, horribly inefficient, and highly dependent on automobiles.
People in the country want the benefits of living in the city without the negatives of living in the city, and they want the people in the city to pay for it.
Now the socialist in me says that if you didn't "spread the wealth" in this manner, you'd end up with huge swaths of poor people in the country not unlike what China has today. That's a pool of workers that would work for low wages and depress wages for everyone. But I guess the broadband would be cheaper.
Come to think about it, I think I'm going to go tell the Electric Universe folks about this theory. They'd go ape on the possibility that earthquakes are caused by electricity!
Seems like Judges should be required to get special training and certifications (i.e. something similar to Bar Exams on specialized topics) before they are allowed to preside over cases requiring specialized knowledge like copyright, patents, medical malpractice, computer science, etc.
It seems like Google is getting the short end of the stick here. The patents involved (listed here: http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat&reel=026894&frame=0001) all appear to expire within the next 5 years or so. It looks like IBM is just dumping soon-to-be-worthless patents.
Let's step back....is this more of a problem for Adobe Flash or Windows? If I'm a normal person with the choice of buying an Android or Windows tablet, am I going to buy the one that plays Flash or the one that doesn't?
I don't think Microsoft really has that much clout anymore. There are consumer choices now, and they can just arbitrarily decide to drop support for something without repercussions.
In the same way that capitalism has been tried and failed because you can't remove greed from the human condition.
No, that's totally wrong. Capitalism (free markets in their most-free form) actually recognizes and utilizes greed to promote the system. It's greed and profit motive that drives and motivates the producers in the system. The winners are the ones that can satisfy the needs of consumers expending the least resources to do so.
You didn't finish that last sentence. Let me help.
The winners are the ones that can satisfy the needs of consumers expending the least resources to do so and thereby attain a monopoly, at which point satisfying the needs of consumers is irrelevant. And once you've reached that point, you have the power to change the rules at-will to maintain that monopoly position indefinitely.
Yeah. My friend's brother has an allergy to the vaccine, and his health relies on herd immunity. When idiots like these (and my one uncle; I don't really talk to him anymore) refuse to vaccinate their kids, my friend's brother is the one most likely to get hurt by this.
Herd immunity protects more than just people like your brother who cannot take the vaccine. The fact is that vaccines are not 100% effective. Herd immunity protects those who took the vaccine but for whom it was not effective. So people refusing to be vaccinated are not just a danger to themselves, but also potentially to anybody who HAS taken the vaccine.
For example, if you got your MMR vaccine before 1990, then there's a 5-10% chance that you're not actually protected from Measles.
Yes...of course...it's just a 60 foot diameter piece of Skylab!
Nothing to see here folks...move along.
Re:Happy Birthday IBM
on
IBM Turns 100
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Agreed. IBM hasn't been doing much innovation over the past 10 years. It's all been about increasing the stock price through cost cuts (layoffs, no travel, no perks, not even COFFEE!).
IBM's new business model is cannibalizing other innovative companies, gutting them (through layoffs and offshoring), and then using the ensuing short-term profits to continue the cycle. It's evil and demoralizing for employees of IBM who always have a Damocles sword of "resource actions" hanging over their head regardless of profitability. But it seems to be working well as a formula for shareholders. And IBM really only cares about shareholders nowadays anyway.
Agreed. These comments are funny. They obviously don't know what they're talking about or they would realize that it's impossible to watch your kids 100% of the time. Imagine if whenever you had to go to the bathroom, you had to rustle up all your kids and make sure they're in the bathroom with you so you could watch them while you're poop'n.
Sheesh. All that's being asked here is the equivalent of a kids playground in that big bad unsupervised city you speak of. I think a Google search engine that filters based on vetted content for kids (i.e. a whitelist) with user-preferences is a GREAT idea. It gives them the freedom and experience of learning about how to use the internet without having to deal with traumatic experiences like random goatse-like websites. And who cares if it doesn't work 100% of the time? If it filters out 99.9% of the stuff, then I'd consider it useful.
By your logic, I shouldn't even be letting my kids outside to play because it's not "safe". Or if I do, I should be a helicopter parent, constantly hovering over them to make sure they're 100% safe 100% of the time? Even playgrounds aren't 100% safe either...they're may be sexual predators lurking in the bushes after all. Does that mean I shouldn't take my kids to them? No. It means I still watch my kids if they're in a playground, but I don't have to watch them as closely as if they're running around in a ghetto.
You people disgust me. You go through the trouble of having a kid and yet you want to leave the responsibilty to big corporation. If you can't bother to spend time browsing the web with your kid, don't have one.
Typical nonsensical rant from someone who doesn't have any kids. What kind of parent would *I* be if I supervised my child 100% of the time? That's called helicopter parenting, and it's NOT considered a good thing.
This puts Google in the position of being mommy and daddy. What I consider "inappropriate" is unlikely to be the same as the next parent; what this suggests, though, is that everyone gets to deal with what Google decides, and frankly... that's not an appropriate role for a third party. That's the parent's job. If you don't have time for guiding your kids, and you can't seem to come up with rules and behaviors, or use a white-list facility competently, then perhaps you shouldn't be spawning anyway, rather than begging for a third party to do your job for you.
Google wouldn't NEED to determine what topics are "inappropriate". It's called "user preferences".
I always thought it would be a good idea to put a countdown timer (or some similar) up there so that you would know EXACTLY when the light was going to turn red.
That would also solve the problem with "shortened" yellow lights.
If Radon is being released BEFORE a quake occurs, wouldn't it be insignificant to the amount of Radon released DURING and AFTER an earthquake? And therefore, if the atmosphere was heating before the earthquake, wouldn't it be doing so much more significantly during and after the earthquake, so much more so as to be obvious?
Sheesh. I don't know if I'd consider Ron Paul to be a Libertarian anymore ever since he said outlawing abortion is a "Libertarian principle". Yea...in bizzaro world maybe.
If I can't trust Ron Paul to be Libertarian in social matters, how can I trust him to be a Libertarian at all? He sounds like a plain-old Republican to me. I might as well be voting for Huckabee.
If you loan money to people or projects, those recipients need to have the means to pay it back. Governments do not produce anything, so they must get their money from those who are productive. To "stimulate" the economy, they are taking it from productive projects (Exports), skimming expenses off the top and then sending it back as "stimulus" funds.
That's an ultra-libertarian view of government, and it's not entirely accurate. Don't get me wrong....capitalism is great at steering money and resources towards where it's useful. However, capitalism also has some very significant shortcomings too. For example, many corporations today are not investing for long-term sustainability, but rather short-term profits. The almighty buck is all that's important. The environment, product safety, employees, etc... are all hindrances to the bottom line. And unbridled capitalism naturally leads to monopolies, where all the original benefits of capitalism cease to exist. And without regulation, you end up with extreme pollution, slave-like wages and working conditions, extreme polarization between the "haves" and "have-nots", etc...
You need government taxation and spending to pay for stuff that requires long-term investment, like roads, and scientific research that may not pay off for many years. You also need government to create a somewhat "fair" system (i.e. graduated taxation rates) to create a stable society that isn't going to revolt and overthrow the government every 10 years. And you need government to regulate industry to prevent monopolies from forming, and from allowing things like the financial crisis from occurring (which lets be honest was a product of decades of deregulation of the financial sector).
Capitalism is a lot like a Ferrari, and government is the 'brakes". Sure the brakes slow down the car. But you still need brakes. Without it, you end up with spectacular crashes (e.g. the financial system crisis).
Interesting. Why do you feel that the most effective way to combat trolls would be to silently flag their account, allowing them to post and continue viewing the forums as normal, but everything they do is completely invisible. The system could also generate fake replies to their replies and threads, also completely invisible?
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with that argument is that VERY few people who live in the country are farmers (about 1.4%). And nothing is stopping them from paying for these services themselves (i.e. satellite service). Who knows what kinds of technology would have evolved to serve rural populations if we hadn't mandated this socialized approach?
The libertarian side of me disagrees with this. Why should the people in the city be subsidizing the lifestyles of the people in the country? It means higher prices for everyone. If the people in the country want broadband service, they should move to where there IS broadband service. Same goes with phone service, electric service, etc... All these policies ended up creating a society where the population is widely spread out, horribly inefficient, and highly dependent on automobiles.
People in the country want the benefits of living in the city without the negatives of living in the city, and they want the people in the city to pay for it.
Now the socialist in me says that if you didn't "spread the wealth" in this manner, you'd end up with huge swaths of poor people in the country not unlike what China has today. That's a pool of workers that would work for low wages and depress wages for everyone. But I guess the broadband would be cheaper.
Come to think about it, I think I'm going to go tell the Electric Universe folks about this theory. They'd go ape on the possibility that earthquakes are caused by electricity!
You're welcome.
Given the electrons show up 30 minutes BEFORE an earthquake, isn't it obvious that earthquakes are caused by electrons in the atmosphere? Case closed.
Seems like Judges should be required to get special training and certifications (i.e. something similar to Bar Exams on specialized topics) before they are allowed to preside over cases requiring specialized knowledge like copyright, patents, medical malpractice, computer science, etc.
It seems like Google is getting the short end of the stick here. The patents involved (listed here: http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat&reel=026894&frame=0001) all appear to expire within the next 5 years or so. It looks like IBM is just dumping soon-to-be-worthless patents.
Let's step back....is this more of a problem for Adobe Flash or Windows? If I'm a normal person with the choice of buying an Android or Windows tablet, am I going to buy the one that plays Flash or the one that doesn't?
I don't think Microsoft really has that much clout anymore. There are consumer choices now, and they can just arbitrarily decide to drop support for something without repercussions.
In the same way that capitalism has been tried and failed because you can't remove greed from the human condition.
No, that's totally wrong. Capitalism (free markets in their most-free form) actually recognizes and utilizes greed to promote the system. It's greed and profit motive that drives and motivates the producers in the system. The winners are the ones that can satisfy the needs of consumers expending the least resources to do so.
You didn't finish that last sentence. Let me help.
The winners are the ones that can satisfy the needs of consumers expending the least resources to do so and thereby attain a monopoly, at which point satisfying the needs of consumers is irrelevant. And once you've reached that point, you have the power to change the rules at-will to maintain that monopoly position indefinitely.
Yeah. My friend's brother has an allergy to the vaccine, and his health relies on herd immunity. When idiots like these (and my one uncle; I don't really talk to him anymore) refuse to vaccinate their kids, my friend's brother is the one most likely to get hurt by this.
Herd immunity protects more than just people like your brother who cannot take the vaccine. The fact is that vaccines are not 100% effective. Herd immunity protects those who took the vaccine but for whom it was not effective. So people refusing to be vaccinated are not just a danger to themselves, but also potentially to anybody who HAS taken the vaccine.
For example, if you got your MMR vaccine before 1990, then there's a 5-10% chance that you're not actually protected from Measles.
That's natural selection's fault. It should have adapted.
I do believe that's exactly what natural selection is trying to do with these new measles outbreaks.
Yes...of course...it's just a 60 foot diameter piece of Skylab!
Nothing to see here folks...move along.
Agreed. IBM hasn't been doing much innovation over the past 10 years. It's all been about increasing the stock price through cost cuts (layoffs, no travel, no perks, not even COFFEE!).
IBM's new business model is cannibalizing other innovative companies, gutting them (through layoffs and offshoring), and then using the ensuing short-term profits to continue the cycle. It's evil and demoralizing for employees of IBM who always have a Damocles sword of "resource actions" hanging over their head regardless of profitability. But it seems to be working well as a formula for shareholders. And IBM really only cares about shareholders nowadays anyway.
Agreed. These comments are funny. They obviously don't know what they're talking about or they would realize that it's impossible to watch your kids 100% of the time. Imagine if whenever you had to go to the bathroom, you had to rustle up all your kids and make sure they're in the bathroom with you so you could watch them while you're poop'n.
It's called "user preferences". If you don't want your kid to know about AK-47's, then click the filter checkbox next to "firearms".
Sheesh. All that's being asked here is the equivalent of a kids playground in that big bad unsupervised city you speak of. I think a Google search engine that filters based on vetted content for kids (i.e. a whitelist) with user-preferences is a GREAT idea. It gives them the freedom and experience of learning about how to use the internet without having to deal with traumatic experiences like random goatse-like websites. And who cares if it doesn't work 100% of the time? If it filters out 99.9% of the stuff, then I'd consider it useful.
By your logic, I shouldn't even be letting my kids outside to play because it's not "safe". Or if I do, I should be a helicopter parent, constantly hovering over them to make sure they're 100% safe 100% of the time? Even playgrounds aren't 100% safe either...they're may be sexual predators lurking in the bushes after all. Does that mean I shouldn't take my kids to them? No. It means I still watch my kids if they're in a playground, but I don't have to watch them as closely as if they're running around in a ghetto.
You people disgust me. You go through the trouble of having a kid and yet you want to leave the responsibilty to big corporation. If you can't bother to spend time browsing the web with your kid, don't have one.
Typical nonsensical rant from someone who doesn't have any kids. What kind of parent would *I* be if I supervised my child 100% of the time? That's called helicopter parenting, and it's NOT considered a good thing.
This puts Google in the position of being mommy and daddy. What I consider "inappropriate" is unlikely to be the same as the next parent; what this suggests, though, is that everyone gets to deal with what Google decides, and frankly... that's not an appropriate role for a third party. That's the parent's job. If you don't have time for guiding your kids, and you can't seem to come up with rules and behaviors, or use a white-list facility competently, then perhaps you shouldn't be spawning anyway, rather than begging for a third party to do your job for you.
Google wouldn't NEED to determine what topics are "inappropriate". It's called "user preferences".
I always thought it would be a good idea to put a countdown timer (or some similar) up there so that you would know EXACTLY when the light was going to turn red.
That would also solve the problem with "shortened" yellow lights.
If Radon is being released BEFORE a quake occurs, wouldn't it be insignificant to the amount of Radon released DURING and AFTER an earthquake? And therefore, if the atmosphere was heating before the earthquake, wouldn't it be doing so much more significantly during and after the earthquake, so much more so as to be obvious?
Sheesh. I don't know if I'd consider Ron Paul to be a Libertarian anymore ever since he said outlawing abortion is a "Libertarian principle". Yea...in bizzaro world maybe.
If I can't trust Ron Paul to be Libertarian in social matters, how can I trust him to be a Libertarian at all? He sounds like a plain-old Republican to me. I might as well be voting for Huckabee.
If dolphins are so smart, how come they haven't built a translator to communicate with us yet?
Free electricity? Sign me up!!!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this prior art? http://www.wetlandsonline.com/ProductImages/strap-ons/se-1514-01.jpg
If you loan money to people or projects, those recipients need to have the means to pay it back. Governments do not produce anything, so they must get their money from those who are productive. To "stimulate" the economy, they are taking it from productive projects (Exports), skimming expenses off the top and then sending it back as "stimulus" funds.
That's an ultra-libertarian view of government, and it's not entirely accurate. Don't get me wrong....capitalism is great at steering money and resources towards where it's useful. However, capitalism also has some very significant shortcomings too. For example, many corporations today are not investing for long-term sustainability, but rather short-term profits. The almighty buck is all that's important. The environment, product safety, employees, etc... are all hindrances to the bottom line. And unbridled capitalism naturally leads to monopolies, where all the original benefits of capitalism cease to exist. And without regulation, you end up with extreme pollution, slave-like wages and working conditions, extreme polarization between the "haves" and "have-nots", etc...
You need government taxation and spending to pay for stuff that requires long-term investment, like roads, and scientific research that may not pay off for many years. You also need government to create a somewhat "fair" system (i.e. graduated taxation rates) to create a stable society that isn't going to revolt and overthrow the government every 10 years. And you need government to regulate industry to prevent monopolies from forming, and from allowing things like the financial crisis from occurring (which lets be honest was a product of decades of deregulation of the financial sector).
Capitalism is a lot like a Ferrari, and government is the 'brakes". Sure the brakes slow down the car. But you still need brakes. Without it, you end up with spectacular crashes (e.g. the financial system crisis).
Interesting. Why do you feel that the most effective way to combat trolls would be to silently flag their account, allowing them to post and continue viewing the forums as normal, but everything they do is completely invisible. The system could also generate fake replies to their replies and threads, also completely invisible?