Empowering them is easy. Pay them decent reasonable wages and mandate that by law wether a company goes off shore or not. This is better than lowering their wages to the point that they can't afford to eat and then forcing them to do "whatever it takes". Your argument is dangerous because it leaves the way open to more and more people earning less and thus a decreasing standard of living. If they're not going to be victims they'd better fight for their right to an honest day's pay for that honest day's work.
Hate Microsoft, hate Apple, but those organizations do not treat potential customers as primordial slime
That's right. You have to get further with Microsoft to be considered slime. You need to get net connected and activate. (Well you can do it on the phone but it's a hell of a lot more hassle).
When will users move to Linux. When Apple and MS fritter away their advantage enough so its harder to use their product. That's happening, at least with MS.
The push to make teachers work the same hours as everyone else often sees teachers doing nothing but bureaucratic baloney. Teaching isn't easy, but some of the best teachers don't have to do hours of prep because they know their subjects and can wing it very well. The exception is when preparing reports. At report time teachers work longer hours than just about any other profession and their reports usually have to fulfil some soul destroying criteria that means they don't actually get to grade students as they'd like to be able to.
You're also forgeting that teaching isn't stress free and that's one heck of a difference. For school teachers in particular controlling a class of feral students is a thankless job that pays very badly for the required effort AND they're responsible for the well being of the children as well as teaching them but they don't get pay that's much better than a child care worker. When you start teaching adults your knowledge has to be much more indepth and you have to keep up with your field (most of which you must do on your own dime and in your own time).
Free time as a teacher? Only if you're a substitute teacher (and then you're not paid for holidays).
So wait a second here. You're saying that the world would be a better place if we all had 3 jobs, lived in an overcrowded house, didn't have a phone, and were grateful for their meager existence? Get real. I bet that's not what your lifestyle is like! Let me guess. You're a manager or aspire to be one right?
People should be able to expect that if they work hard and produce something useful, they'll be paid well enough to enjoy some of the finer things. Otherwise people are just allowing themselves to be used.
I do agree with you about one thing. You shouldn't be spending more than you earn.
You really are a joke. What special school debating team did you escape from? You start your reply to my post with "Waaugh! Cry some more" and call me a child then complain about my insults? What are you smoking?
My entire point: Backward compatibility is important and old software shouldn't (and sometimes can't!) be thrown away.
I get the feeling you're an asshole who refuses to believe anything that is true. I'm working on a system that's been running since '91. We're adding a new J2EE front end with the latest Spring frameworks, Hibernate etc. The core code for the business engine is C on VMS. It's not going to be replaced for some time because it's rock solid and performs as it should. Both front and back ends continue to make use of the increases in speed/processing power your mention.
You know what you can do with your childish rant about throwing everything away and starting again every few years. You obviously wouldn't know an enterprise system if it bit you on the arse.
That barely coherent. You been sampling those drugs you're talking about?
I didn't say the war on drugs would change the "aristocrasy's" claim piracy is harming them. I said that the corps are claiming piracy is harming them, therefore any change to the law that was restricted to removing crimes where no other entity is harmed would not change any piracy law.
The old Profit!!! joke? You've lost the credibility to so much as attempt to attack my debating style because clearly you're about 12 and living in your parents basement.
22 years is an eternity? You must be young and dumb. I've worked on systems that have run for 15 years - before i was even in computing professionally - they show no sign of quitting and are constantly evolving, and I make good living servicing them.
The rest of your deluge of "quips" are neither funny nor deserve any kind of reply. You don't actually have a point, it's just an incoherent rant about how shit you think I am. Get a life and get a clue dude.
Where does the RIAA think the money is going to come from. Its not like web radio is making money hand over fist. Even the best web radio stations are struggling to survive under the current conditions, much less their future ridiculous rates.
They don't. They intend instead to kill off independent and small web radio stations, and therefore to maintain their monopoly. This isn't obvious to you?
That is the problem. Morals should be based on common sense and a sense of fair play, not on who's immaginary friend is better! Religion shouldn't be allowed to dictate morality at all.
So you're arguing that laws shouldn't be consistent with what's generally accepted as moral? You end up with laws that are unjust, bent to the will of powerful individuals or companies, and generally aren't respected. That's why we are seeing laws that put someone in jail for 5 years for backing up a DVD.
I'm not saying that you should dictate morality where no one else is affected, but if you look at what law does it intervenes when others are indeed affected (or claim to be). Like it or not the "war on drugs" is about stupid people with stupid children preventing drug dealers from ruining their lives as well as being about social control. I'm not saying I agree with the punishment they dole out for the drug user, or even that drugs should necessarily be criminalized, but people don't take drugs in a vacuum - they have to buy them, and they interact with others while they are on drugs.
So what are you arguing? That our laws DON'T fall in line with what is considered moral?
I was definitely arguing that the law should be consistent with what is considered moral, not that laws should define morality but the other way around.
Or to put it more simply there should never be a law you hear about where you say "that ain't right".
It is most moral to drive on the pre-agreed-upon side of the law that everyone else has agreed to drive on so that you don't kill people. The law isn't solely about morality. Convention, and standards are a whole separate issue. They are necessary but as you've said morally neutral.
However i'm sure you'd find a law that punishes someone speeding 1km/hr over the limit by summary execution immoral and unjust. Likewise I find a law that says someone backing up a DVD they bought must go to jail for 5 years abhorent.
1. Yes how about I magically change the medical care system in my government. After all it only takes one lemming with a monkey brain.
2. How is someone responsible for a disability they're born with or for an accident or illness that befalls them through no fault of their own? Your refusal to accept that people don't have complete control for things that happen to them is just funny.
3. Stop fucking quoting scientists at me. I actually happen to have a Masters in Astronomy and did a history subject for half a year so you're trying to teach me about the history of Astronomy is just fucking precious. (No I'm not kidding more making it up...got to love irony). What you forget is that most scientists were also socially mal-adjusted...and that is the only thing you have in common with them. Galileo was fortunate not to have been excuted. Einstein is very lucky his science was possible with little more than books, a pencil and paper because he actually flunked out of early math classes and was working in a patent office. You can have any retarded brain dead opinion you like. Have fun with it, but don't try and rank your petty ideas with those who've dedicated their life to the study of science unless you want to come across as an ass. Oh wait too late.
4. Thanks for the promotion oh ruler of the universe. Your sarcasm isn't funny or witty. It's inbred.
That's the problem isn't it. The megacorps are claiming that they are indeed being harmed by piracy. Your changes to the law would do nothing to improve this.
NO! Please don't stop confusing legality with morality. That's not the answer. The answer is to bring the law back in line with what the populace believes is moral. The fact that legality and morality are so far divorced today is a sign of a corrupt sick society. If the large companies played fair with pricing and proof of copyright infringement, and if the penalties for piracy weren't inflated so much (an ineffective deterent!) the argument that you should be allowed to get a copy of the fruits of someone else's labour without contributing something back would be much harder to rationalize....and for pity sake stop calling it piracy. I don't like rape or murder, both of which are crimes, but I don't go around calling rapists murders or vice versa!!!
I care about moderation because it speaks volumes for the sort of people who now read and post at/. Your failure to understand the importance of this really makes me wonder what you've got between your ears. Attitudes, and "fashion" as you put it affect everyone. Take a certain operating system we keep hearing about. If it were not popular and fasionable (despite not always performing best) it wouldn't matter. People's opinions matter in any social group. You can bandy about terms like SFV and groupthink all you like, but if a group you're part of tends to do something one way, you'll soon find it very difficult to go about doing them another way. Try walking down the street naked and see how quickly other people's opinions matter as you rot in a jail cell.
Also what are you browsing at? +3? +4. If not you then others. Your argument modding doesn't matter is the argument of a village idiot. It matters you spoon. It may not matter in your parent's basement but it matters in any social group. I don't know why I'm bothering to explain this because clearly you don't get it and you're not likely to listen to me.
Clearly the subtlety of the use of the word lemming has escaped you so I'll spell it out for you. If and when you get sick (and unless you meet an untimely death it's a matter of when) you too will end up a victim of the system who's insanity you support. How ironic would it be for you to be diagnosed with a terminal or disabling illness that you can't afford to cure under the current system (or rather the one it's degenerated into after people like you have pushed false arguments about taking responsibility for yourself when the argument simply doesn't apply).
I really don't know what to make of you quoting Sagan. I'd normally call someone who quoted Sagan at least somewhat intelligent, but in your case I think you've just shown that any quote can be misused. In fact you seem to be arguing that my line of reasoning may have merit even if it's modded down. Then you call me a lemming for caring? Where did you pick up your debating skills and what exactly is your obsession with the word lemming that you keep honing in on it? Perhaps you should take one as your lover. Twit.
Your inability to realise that both doctors and medical insurers are part of the same system bemuses me. I haven't even written enough for you to assess what I do and don't know about the industry. (Hell we haven't even narrowed it down to a country to argue about)
Your inability to make an argument without hurling insults amuses me. (Heck your inability to make an argument without using underscores around key words for emphasis is funny enough)
Your supposition that anything that happens to a person's body must be their own fault is straight out of the dark ages.
You have the people skills and demenour of a grizzly bear. You must be real fun at parties.
And some retared fool has modded you insightful. You're insightful because you're arguing that it's too hard to have a medical system that provides actual care for the ill, and rant about communism and capitalism....and _I'm_ the lemming?
You know nothing about what I have or haven't experienced of the medical profession. You're free and liberal with those insults, despite not even knowing what country I'm from, what the setup is here, or what treatment I've seen given by doctors. If you care, you can go look at my other replies or you can go fuck yourself. Either way I don't care. But hey when you're spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to get treated DESPITE having medical insurance and you still can't get decent care, lets see how you fucking feel about it all. Wanker.
And hey I'm sick of asshole doctors with a bigger gut than me literally telling me and I quote "You look pregant". Or the 3 different doctors that fucking didn't check the contraindications on the medication they were giving and almost fritzed my fiancee's brain. She went to them having the occassional petite mal seizure, and came away on meds that cause suicidal tendancies if you come off too quickly and that were giving her 2 grand mal seizures a day at the end. Or doctors that don't know a dislocated shoulder when they see one. Or my current gem - a doctor that won't believe me about the pain I'm suffering right at the moment (even though it's a pre-existing thing from my childhood and i have no reason to lie). But hey maybe I just like spending $400 and taking days off, or the joy of being MRI'd.
So you know what, I don't give a shit if you are a doctor or a nurse or someone you know is one. The medical profession is a fucking horses ass. I'm sure there are good doctors out there, but that's despite the motherfucker of a system.
You know fucking nothing about me or the reasons I'm angry at the medical profession, so back the fuck off.
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Empowering them is easy. Pay them decent reasonable wages and mandate that by law wether a company goes off shore or not. This is better than lowering their wages to the point that they can't afford to eat and then forcing them to do "whatever it takes". Your argument is dangerous because it leaves the way open to more and more people earning less and thus a decreasing standard of living. If they're not going to be victims they'd better fight for their right to an honest day's pay for that honest day's work.
Hate Microsoft, hate Apple, but those organizations do not treat potential customers as primordial slime
That's right. You have to get further with Microsoft to be considered slime. You need to get net connected and activate. (Well you can do it on the phone but it's a hell of a lot more hassle).
When will users move to Linux. When Apple and MS fritter away their advantage enough so its harder to use their product. That's happening, at least with MS.
The push to make teachers work the same hours as everyone else often sees teachers doing nothing but bureaucratic baloney. Teaching isn't easy, but some of the best teachers don't have to do hours of prep because they know their subjects and can wing it very well. The exception is when preparing reports. At report time teachers work longer hours than just about any other profession and their reports usually have to fulfil some soul destroying criteria that means they don't actually get to grade students as they'd like to be able to.
You're also forgeting that teaching isn't stress free and that's one heck of a difference. For school teachers in particular controlling a class of feral students is a thankless job that pays very badly for the required effort AND they're responsible for the well being of the children as well as teaching them but they don't get pay that's much better than a child care worker. When you start teaching adults your knowledge has to be much more indepth and you have to keep up with your field (most of which you must do on your own dime and in your own time).
Free time as a teacher? Only if you're a substitute teacher (and then you're not paid for holidays).
So wait a second here. You're saying that the world would be a better place if we all had 3 jobs, lived in an overcrowded house, didn't have a phone, and were grateful for their meager existence? Get real. I bet that's not what your lifestyle is like! Let me guess. You're a manager or aspire to be one right?
People should be able to expect that if they work hard and produce something useful, they'll be paid well enough to enjoy some of the finer things. Otherwise people are just allowing themselves to be used.
I do agree with you about one thing. You shouldn't be spending more than you earn.
You really are a joke. What special school debating team did you escape from? You start your reply to my post with "Waaugh! Cry some more" and call me a child then complain about my insults? What are you smoking?
My entire point: Backward compatibility is important and old software shouldn't (and sometimes can't!) be thrown away.
I get the feeling you're an asshole who refuses to believe anything that is true. I'm working on a system that's been running since '91. We're adding a new J2EE front end with the latest Spring frameworks, Hibernate etc. The core code for the business engine is C on VMS. It's not going to be replaced for some time because it's rock solid and performs as it should. Both front and back ends continue to make use of the increases in speed/processing power your mention.
You know what you can do with your childish rant about throwing everything away and starting again every few years. You obviously wouldn't know an enterprise system if it bit you on the arse.
That barely coherent. You been sampling those drugs you're talking about?
I didn't say the war on drugs would change the "aristocrasy's" claim piracy is harming them. I said that the corps are claiming piracy is harming them, therefore any change to the law that was restricted to removing crimes where no other entity is harmed would not change any piracy law.
The old Profit!!! joke? You've lost the credibility to so much as attempt to attack my debating style because clearly you're about 12 and living in your parents basement.
22 years is an eternity? You must be young and dumb. I've worked on systems that have run for 15 years - before i was even in computing professionally - they show no sign of quitting and are constantly evolving, and I make good living servicing them.
The rest of your deluge of "quips" are neither funny nor deserve any kind of reply. You don't actually have a point, it's just an incoherent rant about how shit you think I am. Get a life and get a clue dude.
with the extravaganza "I love the 2000s" covering the greatest hits of the entire 21st century to air on July 4th, 2007
I prefer the title "I love the naughties".
Where does the RIAA think the money is going to come from. Its not like web radio is making money hand over fist. Even the best web radio stations are struggling to survive under the current conditions, much less their future ridiculous rates.
They don't. They intend instead to kill off independent and small web radio stations, and therefore to maintain their monopoly. This isn't obvious to you?
That is the problem. Morals should be based on common sense and a sense of fair play, not on who's immaginary friend is better! Religion shouldn't be allowed to dictate morality at all.
So you're arguing that laws shouldn't be consistent with what's generally accepted as moral? You end up with laws that are unjust, bent to the will of powerful individuals or companies, and generally aren't respected. That's why we are seeing laws that put someone in jail for 5 years for backing up a DVD.
I'm not saying that you should dictate morality where no one else is affected, but if you look at what law does it intervenes when others are indeed affected (or claim to be). Like it or not the "war on drugs" is about stupid people with stupid children preventing drug dealers from ruining their lives as well as being about social control. I'm not saying I agree with the punishment they dole out for the drug user, or even that drugs should necessarily be criminalized, but people don't take drugs in a vacuum - they have to buy them, and they interact with others while they are on drugs.
So what are you arguing? That our laws DON'T fall in line with what is considered moral?
I was definitely arguing that the law should be consistent with what is considered moral, not that laws should define morality but the other way around.
Or to put it more simply there should never be a law you hear about where you say "that ain't right".
It is most moral to drive on the pre-agreed-upon side of the law that everyone else has agreed to drive on so that you don't kill people. The law isn't solely about morality. Convention, and standards are a whole separate issue. They are necessary but as you've said morally neutral.
However i'm sure you'd find a law that punishes someone speeding 1km/hr over the limit by summary execution immoral and unjust. Likewise I find a law that says someone backing up a DVD they bought must go to jail for 5 years abhorent.
1. Yes how about I magically change the medical care system in my government. After all it only takes one lemming with a monkey brain.
2. How is someone responsible for a disability they're born with or for an accident or illness that befalls them through no fault of their own? Your refusal to accept that people don't have complete control for things that happen to them is just funny.
3. Stop fucking quoting scientists at me. I actually happen to have a Masters in Astronomy and did a history subject for half a year so you're trying to teach me about the history of Astronomy is just fucking precious. (No I'm not kidding more making it up...got to love irony). What you forget is that most scientists were also socially mal-adjusted...and that is the only thing you have in common with them. Galileo was fortunate not to have been excuted. Einstein is very lucky his science was possible with little more than books, a pencil and paper because he actually flunked out of early math classes and was working in a patent office. You can have any retarded brain dead opinion you like. Have fun with it, but don't try and rank your petty ideas with those who've dedicated their life to the study of science unless you want to come across as an ass. Oh wait too late.
4. Thanks for the promotion oh ruler of the universe. Your sarcasm isn't funny or witty. It's inbred.
5. You're a troll. Go away.
That's the problem isn't it. The megacorps are claiming that they are indeed being harmed by piracy. Your changes to the law would do nothing to improve this.
No. That's how you end up with oppressive religious regimes.
Only if the majority are religious loonies. That's where education comes in.
Please stop confusing legality with morality.
...and for pity sake stop calling it piracy. I don't like rape or murder, both of which are crimes, but I don't go around calling rapists murders or vice versa!!!
NO! Please don't stop confusing legality with morality. That's not the answer. The answer is to bring the law back in line with what the populace believes is moral. The fact that legality and morality are so far divorced today is a sign of a corrupt sick society. If the large companies played fair with pricing and proof of copyright infringement, and if the penalties for piracy weren't inflated so much (an ineffective deterent!) the argument that you should be allowed to get a copy of the fruits of someone else's labour without contributing something back would be much harder to rationalize.
I care about moderation because it speaks volumes for the sort of people who now read and post at /. Your failure to understand the importance of this really makes me wonder what you've got between your ears. Attitudes, and "fashion" as you put it affect everyone. Take a certain operating system we keep hearing about. If it were not popular and fasionable (despite not always performing best) it wouldn't matter. People's opinions matter in any social group. You can bandy about terms like SFV and groupthink all you like, but if a group you're part of tends to do something one way, you'll soon find it very difficult to go about doing them another way. Try walking down the street naked and see how quickly other people's opinions matter as you rot in a jail cell.
Also what are you browsing at? +3? +4. If not you then others. Your argument modding doesn't matter is the argument of a village idiot. It matters you spoon. It may not matter in your parent's basement but it matters in any social group. I don't know why I'm bothering to explain this because clearly you don't get it and you're not likely to listen to me.
Clearly the subtlety of the use of the word lemming has escaped you so I'll spell it out for you. If and when you get sick (and unless you meet an untimely death it's a matter of when) you too will end up a victim of the system who's insanity you support. How ironic would it be for you to be diagnosed with a terminal or disabling illness that you can't afford to cure under the current system (or rather the one it's degenerated into after people like you have pushed false arguments about taking responsibility for yourself when the argument simply doesn't apply).
I really don't know what to make of you quoting Sagan. I'd normally call someone who quoted Sagan at least somewhat intelligent, but in your case I think you've just shown that any quote can be misused. In fact you seem to be arguing that my line of reasoning may have merit even if it's modded down. Then you call me a lemming for caring? Where did you pick up your debating skills and what exactly is your obsession with the word lemming that you keep honing in on it? Perhaps you should take one as your lover. Twit.
Oh you think common sense, sanity and logic apply to those seeking divorce?
What an incoherent childish rant.
Your inability to realise that both doctors and medical insurers are part of the same system bemuses me. I haven't even written enough for you to assess what I do and don't know about the industry. (Hell we haven't even narrowed it down to a country to argue about)
Your inability to make an argument without hurling insults amuses me. (Heck your inability to make an argument without using underscores around key words for emphasis is funny enough)
Your supposition that anything that happens to a person's body must be their own fault is straight out of the dark ages.
You have the people skills and demenour of a grizzly bear. You must be real fun at parties.
What are you going to do next? Poke your tongue out at me?
Child!
And some retared fool has modded you insightful. You're insightful because you're arguing that it's too hard to have a medical system that provides actual care for the ill, and rant about communism and capitalism....and _I'm_ the lemming?
You know nothing about what I have or haven't experienced of the medical profession. You're free and liberal with those insults, despite not even knowing what country I'm from, what the setup is here, or what treatment I've seen given by doctors. If you care, you can go look at my other replies or you can go fuck yourself. Either way I don't care. But hey when you're spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to get treated DESPITE having medical insurance and you still can't get decent care, lets see how you fucking feel about it all. Wanker.
And hey I'm sick of asshole doctors with a bigger gut than me literally telling me and I quote "You look pregant". Or the 3 different doctors that fucking didn't check the contraindications on the medication they were giving and almost fritzed my fiancee's brain. She went to them having the occassional petite mal seizure, and came away on meds that cause suicidal tendancies if you come off too quickly and that were giving her 2 grand mal seizures a day at the end. Or doctors that don't know a dislocated shoulder when they see one. Or my current gem - a doctor that won't believe me about the pain I'm suffering right at the moment (even though it's a pre-existing thing from my childhood and i have no reason to lie). But hey maybe I just like spending $400 and taking days off, or the joy of being MRI'd.
So you know what, I don't give a shit if you are a doctor or a nurse or someone you know is one. The medical profession is a fucking horses ass. I'm sure there are good doctors out there, but that's despite the motherfucker of a system.
You know fucking nothing about me or the reasons I'm angry at the medical profession, so back the fuck off.