Jeezus Aich Christ.. you'd think this is rocket science. If people don't want to pay for the software or agree to their EULA then don't use the software...[rest of rant removed]
Name me one damned piece of software that doesn't come with a EULA 30 pages long these days, and that doesn't include onerous conditions. Even the free licenses have clauses you may not like or agree with. In the real world you're "just don't use it" rhetoric is nonsense. Forget games. Do you get to pick the software you use at work? If you said you had a moral objection to using it and refused how long do you think your job would last? Better yet name me a practical operating system without a EULA. Your choice on a modern personal computer is limited to MacOS, WIndows and Unix/Linux....and another damned thing. I don't get to take the damned software back if I don't agree to the EULA, because shock horror I might have made a copy. Worse, until people have their systems screwed up - when it's too late to do anything about it - they don't learn about the problems with certain anti-piracy schemes.
Horseshit. Either back it up with a cite or STFU.
Oh that's good. You can google for a dozen phrases such as "CD keys increase piracy". Go and google for "starforce copy protection" while you're at it.
I refuse to do any more research for you. You haven't countered one damn thing I said or provided one bit of evidence for anything you've said yet you want me to. Instead of countering my arguments you just tell me not to use software if I don't like it. Too damn late if I bought it!
Ahhh go bury your head in the sand. Obviously you see your living threatened so you choose to only see one side of the argument. Yeah lets continue with a system that doesn't work, and makes even the most well intentioned companies and peoples criminal. Have fun. It's obvious to any cretin that if the software copy protection is going to do damage to a system there are going to be more people willing to break it. If it's cheap and it doesn't waste your time or stuff your system, why would people want a cracked/pirated copy?
You're obviously really really confused. Either that or you're pretending you're confused so you can muddy the issue. When you use a theatre you are using a physical thing. You seem to have a very tough time grasping that taking or using something physical is not the same as making a copy.
Let me make it very clear. I also write software for a living. I don't support copyright infringment. I don't support theft. (I don't support murder and I don't support rape either but I don't confuse the two crimes).
I also don't support software anti-piracy methods that are useless, stupid, disruptive and destructive. CD keys are stupid and don't prevent "piracy" (at least for single user software - multiuser games for example can check multiple players aren't using the same cd key), they just waste people's time. Forcing an easily scratched CD to be in the drive to use the software when it's all installed on the hard disk anyway is just plain ludicrous. Operating systems shouldn't go and constantly check if you're authorised and dial home without your permission. Anti piracy software that actually borks your drive is terrible and inexcusable. Root kits are unforgivable as is software that tells me what other software (CD/DVD emulation) I can or can't have installed. The more of these stupid destructive methods used that actually criple the product, the more "piracy" we'll see.
By the way equating software copyright to piracy (murder, rape, pillage and theft) is heinous.
It really surprises me that people in the IT industry can be so apathetic to theft.
Goddamnit it may be wrong, and it might be illegal, but stop calling it theft! Copying something and stealing something are very different things. If I steal something I deprive you of its use. If I magically took a copy of your car, you might be miffed, and the car company wouldn't have the potential profit from a car sale, but I would have stolen nothing. No one is rolling the software author for the cash in their wallet. No one is going to the shop and stealing box sets.
I can't see how anyone expecting to make a living in the IT industry can pirate with a clear conscious.
I don't see how anyone in the software industry can inconvenience their customers by making them type in stupid sequences of numbers and letters that proove nothing and that a pirate can just as easily type. I don't see how anyone writing software can include copy protection that damages machines. (I can't prove it but I suspect a particular form of copy protection of killing two of my DVD/CD burners). I don't see how hobbiests are asked to pay for each copy of a piece of software just because they have multiple machines. The stupidity occurs on both sides here.
The solution is simple. Write the software. Make each copy affordable for the average man on the street if they're the target (tens of dollars tops). If its used in business by all means charge more but make compliance as easy as possible. For all but the smallest niches you'll get more sales and there will be much less incentive to pirate anything. Then remove all the ridiculous codes and CD checks. The only thing that prevents this approach is greed.
No, it's $912,500,000 a year in fines. I would say Microsoft doesn't *like* to throw away a billion dollars a year on fines, but it certainly wouldn't put them out of business.
This will come straight out of the consumer's pocket. Watch the price of Windows and Office go up. What's more Microsoft will not be able to apply increases only to EU customers as this would be too blatant. The EU just managed a far reaching tax on every person on the planet that buys a new Microsoft product in the next few years.
Everyone here seems to be implying this is about putting a megacorp in its place. It's not. It's about greed, money and corruption that doesn't favour Microsoft.
No I definitely shouldn't have left this part out.
I attended a talk Stallman gave at a University for the programming society. After a tiny bit of serious content he put on his saint robe and halo and went on about being the patron saint of free software. It was obvious he thought it was hilarious. I brushed it off as eccentricity.
I had to come after work so I was the only one in a suit. I asked what I believe was a good question - how do you counter those who suggest that free software tends to be difficult for the end user to use - and was stunned that I was treated with disdain. He basically denied that there was even a problem. I think part of it was the suit that put him on the defensive. However I very seriously doubt this man understand the difficulties an end user would have with Linux...and if he understands them he chooses to ignore them.
I do not want a man with people skills like that representing me no matter how good his motives. If he was 15 years older I'd have thought he had gone senile.
Wow you're arrogant. That's saying something since i've been on/. for a while.
I always enjoy it when Richard Stallman gives interviews. He was probably the first person--many, many years ago!--to fundamentally understand that we have a CHOICE of whether we want to preserve freedoms to do whatever we want with our software, or whether we're going to let other parties take those freedoms away from us.
RMS did NOT invent the concepts of freedom or open design. That you'd say something this out of whack is incredibly insulting to a great number of people who went before Stallman and were less eccentric to boot. Have you never heard of the American constitution? (I'm assuming you're American, I'm not). How about the United Nations. You ignore all of these and choose to worship in the cult of Stallman.
Also, he had the guts to stand up for his freedoms and everyone else's, to be able to do what they want with their software. He's done more than just about any other single person to try and protect those freedoms for regular folks like you and me.
Again wow. People have fought and died for freedom. Lets ignore all of these and worship Stallman. Seriously go pick up a dummies guide to philsophy or history or both and read it cover to cover so you have some idea what you're talking about.
Can you imagine what the software landscape would look like today without the GPL, without the FSF and without all the free software that has been licensed under the GPL
Given the that the personal computer took off more due to hobby programmers than any other group or business something like GPL would have come to be, and and organisation like the FSF had to also eventuate given people were upset at their freedoms being diminished.
Lots of people criticise Richard Stallman, but in my view nearly all of those people are either (1) immature kids who wouldn't pass a real civics class if they were ever put in one, (2) people who don't understand the real issues and how fundamental they are, or (3) shills or trolls or other people with an anti-freedom agenda.
Wonderfully dimissive of you oh loyal disciple. So no one's allowed to have a valid criticism of a man that will get defensive because you're wearing a suit? (personal experience by the way), or who chooses to wear a robe and a saints hat and call himself the patron saint of free software, or who says very extreme things because he's incapable of compromise?
Stallman is a brilliant coder (or rather was, I haven't seen him do much lately). He contributed to Emacs which I hate but which is incredibly powerful and to GCC which I love. You can't contribute to software like that by being a code monkey. However his people skills leave a lot to be desired and I'd rather he did not speak for me.
I'm no shill and I love free software which is WHY I don't want us all to be tarred with the same feather.
The correct term is "variable geometry wing". It's been around since the late 60s/early 70s. US built aircraft employing it are now being retired! Remember the F-14 Tomcats from top gun? (and before that there was the F-111).
What difference does his salary make? If he's made billions out of his company stock, why would he even care about his salary. He'd be able to borrow on the value of his companies or more likely liquidate them if he needed cash.
Vincent wasn't unreasonable at all. He answered John's first four or five questions. After that, he basically said "you're not going to convince me, so just cancel the account." At that point, the conversation is over.
Vincent should have asked to talk to a supervisor at that point instead of getting angry. First you ask for the guy's name or employee number. Then to every question you get asked you simply say "You're giving me the run around. I wish to speak to your supervisor. I want my account cancelled. I'm not answering any other questions you ask.". You say this calmly and politely and you don't budge.
You repeat this process until: 1) They tell you that you can't speak to anyone higher up, at which point you threaten to take it up externally with whatever governing body is applicable. If there is an external body that has teeth (and it helps to know the name) they _may_ take notice. 2) They give up in frustration and cancel the account. 3) They "accidentally" hang up on you forcing you to start again.
If you don't get anywhere with that, you write a letter. Try to provide a record of names and time spent talking to various people to try to resolve the issue.
Beyond that you're getting into the sort of territory where you're going to need legal representation.
My point is that the WORST thing you can do is get angry, abusive, or flustered. You need to remain calm and professional. That way if it does go further they have nothing at all on you.
The victim is probably Vincent who was just doing what his supervisor told him to do. But, atlas, that's what you get to be when the bottom falls out; the scapegoat at the bottom.
Rubbish. Sorry if that's offensive but that's pure and utter rubbish. This guy is a willing accomplice and makes his living by irritating and annoying people. He's as bad as or worse than a telemarketter. "I was just following orders" didn't work at Nuremburg either. Sure this guy isn't massacring people but he's certainly causing people distress. Getting fired would be the best thing that could happen to him if not for the fact that his morals and standards are so low that he'll just end up working for some other shonky company.
When roads are built by the gov't they aren't built at or under cost
Few large organisations are efficient. Difference is the big corporate organisation doesn't just need to break even or use it's budget, it's out to squeeze every last cent out of the customer. Haven't you noticed the prices these companies try to get away with charging for road use?
When the health care system is run by the gov't services are rationed, provided at lower quality (if at all), and again, paid for by your (higher) taxes.
That's garbage. Until our government in Australia started trying to copy the USA, we had fantastic healthcare.
I'll take Adam Smith over Uncle Sam for these matters any day.
You're tired of being brainwashed by Uncle Sam and so you've traded your loyalties and are now happy to be brainwashed by Uncle Smith who's out to take you for every penny.
Assurance contracts rely on someone or something to enforce them. Just who do you think that someone is? Do you honestly think a company whose primary goal is to make money is going to coperate without being coerced when there's a cost associated?
Nowhere in the world is infrastructure provided by a private company at or below cost. Where roads are privatised you have tolls. Where healthcare is privatised the sick fall through the cracks. Take a look around.
When will people learn that some things that most people agree are both beneficial and desirable to society actually COST money, rather than allow people to make it. Taxes are suppose to cover these things. Instead they go into the pockets of the corrupt.
I'm sure I'll get called a commi or at least a socialist for that. *shrug*
If anything, its the poster child of why you *shouldn't* make it too easy for people to develop solutions
Development should be insanely simple. Screens and reports should be WYSIWYG, database design should be simple etc. If you want to design a very good solution to something you better be spending 95% of your effort on the solution to the actual problem, not on proving how clever you are getting past the woeful frameworks in just 3 weeks when the development effort with better tools would take 3 days. The fact that some people don't use any tool well is neither here nor there.
You don't make carpenters use rocks as hammers because hammers are too easy to use do you? You make sure you employ a good carpenter.
If anything, its the poster child of why you *shouldn't* make it too easy for people to develop solutions
You've just completely lost any respect I might have had for you.
Development should be insanely simple. Screens and reports should be WYSIWYG, database design should be simple etc. If you want to design a very good solution to something you better be spending 95% of your effort on the solution to the actual problem, not on proving how clever you are getting past the woeful frameworks in just 3 weeks when the development effort with better tools would take 3 days. The fact that some people don't use any tool well is neither here nor there.
You don't make carpenters use rocks as hammers because hammers are too easy to use do you? You make sure you employ a good carpenter.
People have been dealing with that just fine since pagers first started coming out. When you go to the theater, you leave your pager with an attendant, and he records where you're sitting..... if something happens, they come in to get you, you LEAVE, and use the phone. All without disturbing anybody else.
First of all that costs money - you have to pay more attendants or risk having important calls missed. How many uncaring minimum wage slaves do you explicitly trust with your family's well being?
Secondly an attendant coming in to get someone is much more disturbing than a PROPERLY used phone (one set to vibrate, go outside to answer).
And lets' face it - it's s SHITLOAD more likely that you're gonna get called by some wanker who wants to know if you've picked up the cheese dip for friday's big game thatn to get a call that a close relative just died in a car crash.
So what if it's more likely. Some things happen less frequently and are more important and/or require more urgent attention.
And a partially aborted rant..... what the bloody hell is people's obsession, with being in touch with the entire world 24/7? What the hell is wrong with NOT being wired for an hour or two?
The world has changed! Deal with it. For the most part it's for the better. 24/7 communication is expected. There are jobs where you have to be available to respond 24/7. Pay phones are a dying breed. You might as well ask what people's obsession with cars is when we did perfectly well with the horse and buggy for thousands of years.
Quickest way to make it more like a combat zone is publicly concede that it is one then implement the tools used in the combat zone. You'd be amazed how quickly down town LA will turn into Baghdad minus the but with people speaking English instead of Arabic.
So I'm not allowed to fight against the tide of idiocy?
The tide of idiocy as you put it gives this phrase a meaning much closer to what it would mean intuitively if not for the history. Having phrases in the language mean what they sound like they mean instead of having some esoteric meaning steeped in the history of logic sounds like common sense to me, rather than idiocy.
My little comment has created a thread with dozens of comments, and I would guess that at least some of the people reading it or participating it will now think twice before using the phrase to mean "raises the question."
Your information is incomplete and incorrect. You're offering an old meaning of the phrase as the only valid meaning because you don't like the usage of the new meaning. The bottom line is that both meanings are well understood and usually not ambiguous so most people given all the information will either avoid the phrase to avoid this kind of meaningless debate or use the phrase with whichever meaning suits them. Certainly, no one familiar with the phrase failed to understand the meaning of the sentence in the story due to ambiguity.
So what exactly it wrong with me participating in the "living language" process? Or are only morons invited to that party?
Well for starters you're not participating, you're opposing living language and it's deceitful of you to say otherwise. The very way you phrase this implies only morons are currently participating. It's fools like you with a superiority complex that give precision in language a bad name. If you were arguing this point 100 years ago perhaps you'd have some ground to stand on. Given that some well accepted dictionaries now accept the new meaning, I think you're basically pissing into the wind here. Enjoy.
The fact that people even bother to argue this astounds me. If there's no ambiguity, I wish people would just accept that language changes and that English has never been precise instead of acting like someone's year 8 English teacher.
One of my cow-orkers has twin boys age 12 and a younger one age 7.
Mooooooo!
all have their own computers, they all have their own gameboays etc. None play any games that he hasn't first. He tries them, and decides if he finds them acceptable. He uses the ratings as a guideline, but the ultimate decision is what he feels is ok for his kids. After all, he understands their maturity level.
"Not now dear I'm testing a game for the kids."
"Now what have I told you before son. I play the new games and once I'm done...I mean I've decided they're suitable, then you can have them".
This is what gets modded up? This is both irrelevant and flamebait. It's also probably redundant since I've seen this posted sixty times. The article was about a top scientific lab going down hill over the years, not about your English lesson.
Slashdot Mirror
Jeezus Aich Christ.. you'd think this is rocket science. If people don't want to pay for the software or agree to their EULA then don't use the software...[rest of rant removed]
...and another damned thing. I don't get to take the damned software back if I don't agree to the EULA, because shock horror I might have made a copy. Worse, until people have their systems screwed up - when it's too late to do anything about it - they don't learn about the problems with certain anti-piracy schemes.
5 .html
Name me one damned piece of software that doesn't come with a EULA 30 pages long these days, and that doesn't include onerous conditions. Even the free licenses have clauses you may not like or agree with. In the real world you're "just don't use it" rhetoric is nonsense. Forget games. Do you get to pick the software you use at work? If you said you had a moral objection to using it and refused how long do you think your job would last? Better yet name me a practical operating system without a EULA. Your choice on a modern personal computer is limited to MacOS, WIndows and Unix/Linux.
Horseshit. Either back it up with a cite or STFU.
Oh that's good. You can google for a dozen phrases such as "CD keys increase piracy". Go and google for "starforce copy protection" while you're at it.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060313-636
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145864.html
I refuse to do any more research for you. You haven't countered one damn thing I said or provided one bit of evidence for anything you've said yet you want me to. Instead of countering my arguments you just tell me not to use software if I don't like it. Too damn late if I bought it!
Ahhh go bury your head in the sand. Obviously you see your living threatened so you choose to only see one side of the argument. Yeah lets continue with a system that doesn't work, and makes even the most well intentioned companies and peoples criminal. Have fun. It's obvious to any cretin that if the software copy protection is going to do damage to a system there are going to be more people willing to break it. If it's cheap and it doesn't waste your time or stuff your system, why would people want a cracked/pirated copy?
...and misdirect the funds. That's what they do. Does it really matter which scumbag gets the money though? Politicians or "copyright holders".
You're obviously really really confused. Either that or you're pretending you're confused so you can muddy the issue. When you use a theatre you are using a physical thing. You seem to have a very tough time grasping that taking or using something physical is not the same as making a copy.
Let me make it very clear. I also write software for a living. I don't support copyright infringment. I don't support theft. (I don't support murder and I don't support rape either but I don't confuse the two crimes).
I also don't support software anti-piracy methods that are useless, stupid, disruptive and destructive. CD keys are stupid and don't prevent "piracy" (at least for single user software - multiuser games for example can check multiple players aren't using the same cd key), they just waste people's time. Forcing an easily scratched CD to be in the drive to use the software when it's all installed on the hard disk anyway is just plain ludicrous. Operating systems shouldn't go and constantly check if you're authorised and dial home without your permission. Anti piracy software that actually borks your drive is terrible and inexcusable. Root kits are unforgivable as is software that tells me what other software (CD/DVD emulation) I can or can't have installed. The more of these stupid destructive methods used that actually criple the product, the more "piracy" we'll see.
By the way equating software copyright to piracy (murder, rape, pillage and theft) is heinous.
It really surprises me that people in the IT industry can be so apathetic to theft.
Goddamnit it may be wrong, and it might be illegal, but stop calling it theft! Copying something and stealing something are very different things. If I steal something I deprive you of its use. If I magically took a copy of your car, you might be miffed, and the car company wouldn't have the potential profit from a car sale, but I would have stolen nothing. No one is rolling the software author for the cash in their wallet. No one is going to the shop and stealing box sets.
I can't see how anyone expecting to make a living in the IT industry can pirate with a clear conscious.
I don't see how anyone in the software industry can inconvenience their customers by making them type in stupid sequences of numbers and letters that proove nothing and that a pirate can just as easily type. I don't see how anyone writing software can include copy protection that damages machines. (I can't prove it but I suspect a particular form of copy protection of killing two of my DVD/CD burners). I don't see how hobbiests are asked to pay for each copy of a piece of software just because they have multiple machines. The stupidity occurs on both sides here.
The solution is simple. Write the software. Make each copy affordable for the average man on the street if they're the target (tens of dollars tops). If its used in business by all means charge more but make compliance as easy as possible. For all but the smallest niches you'll get more sales and there will be much less incentive to pirate anything. Then remove all the ridiculous codes and CD checks. The only thing that prevents this approach is greed.
No, it's $912,500,000 a year in fines. I would say Microsoft doesn't *like* to throw away a billion dollars a year on fines, but it certainly wouldn't put them out of business.
This will come straight out of the consumer's pocket. Watch the price of Windows and Office go up. What's more Microsoft will not be able to apply increases only to EU customers as this would be too blatant. The EU just managed a far reaching tax on every person on the planet that buys a new Microsoft product in the next few years.
Everyone here seems to be implying this is about putting a megacorp in its place. It's not. It's about greed, money and corruption that doesn't favour Microsoft.
No I definitely shouldn't have left this part out.
I attended a talk Stallman gave at a University for the programming society. After a tiny bit of serious content he put on his saint robe and halo and went on about being the patron saint of free software. It was obvious he thought it was hilarious. I brushed it off as eccentricity.
I had to come after work so I was the only one in a suit. I asked what I believe was a good question - how do you counter those who suggest that free software tends to be difficult for the end user to use - and was stunned that I was treated with disdain. He basically denied that there was even a problem. I think part of it was the suit that put him on the defensive. However I very seriously doubt this man understand the difficulties an end user would have with Linux...and if he understands them he chooses to ignore them.
I do not want a man with people skills like that representing me no matter how good his motives. If he was 15 years older I'd have thought he had gone senile.
Wow you're arrogant. That's saying something since i've been on /. for a while.
I always enjoy it when Richard Stallman gives interviews. He was probably the first person--many, many years ago!--to fundamentally understand that we have a CHOICE of whether we want to preserve freedoms to do whatever we want with our software, or whether we're going to let other parties take those freedoms away from us.
RMS did NOT invent the concepts of freedom or open design. That you'd say something this out of whack is incredibly insulting to a great number of people who went before Stallman and were less eccentric to boot. Have you never heard of the American constitution? (I'm assuming you're American, I'm not). How about the United Nations. You ignore all of these and choose to worship in the cult of Stallman.
Also, he had the guts to stand up for his freedoms and everyone else's, to be able to do what they want with their software. He's done more than just about any other single person to try and protect those freedoms for regular folks like you and me.
Again wow. People have fought and died for freedom. Lets ignore all of these and worship Stallman. Seriously go pick up a dummies guide to philsophy or history or both and read it cover to cover so you have some idea what you're talking about.
Can you imagine what the software landscape would look like today without the GPL, without the FSF and without all the free software that has been licensed under the GPL
Given the that the personal computer took off more due to hobby programmers than any other group or business something like GPL would have come to be, and and organisation like the FSF had to also eventuate given people were upset at their freedoms being diminished.
Lots of people criticise Richard Stallman, but in my view nearly all of those people are either (1) immature kids who wouldn't pass a real civics class if they were ever put in one, (2) people who don't understand the real issues and how fundamental they are, or (3) shills or trolls or other people with an anti-freedom agenda.
Wonderfully dimissive of you oh loyal disciple. So no one's allowed to have a valid criticism of a man that will get defensive because you're wearing a suit? (personal experience by the way), or who chooses to wear a robe and a saints hat and call himself the patron saint of free software, or who says very extreme things because he's incapable of compromise?
Stallman is a brilliant coder (or rather was, I haven't seen him do much lately). He contributed to Emacs which I hate but which is incredibly powerful and to GCC which I love. You can't contribute to software like that by being a code monkey. However his people skills leave a lot to be desired and I'd rather he did not speak for me.
I'm no shill and I love free software which is WHY I don't want us all to be tarred with the same feather.
The correct term is "variable geometry wing". It's been around since the late 60s/early 70s. US built aircraft employing it are now being retired! Remember the F-14 Tomcats from top gun? (and before that there was the F-111).
The name of the game is obviously "dodge the malware".
What difference does his salary make? If he's made billions out of his company stock, why would he even care about his salary. He'd be able to borrow on the value of his companies or more likely liquidate them if he needed cash.
Vincent wasn't unreasonable at all. He answered John's first four or five questions. After that, he basically said "you're not going to convince me, so just cancel the account." At that point, the conversation is over.
Vincent should have asked to talk to a supervisor at that point instead of getting angry. First you ask for the guy's name or employee number. Then to every question you get asked you simply say "You're giving me the run around. I wish to speak to your supervisor. I want my account cancelled. I'm not answering any other questions you ask.". You say this calmly and politely and you don't budge.
You repeat this process until:
1) They tell you that you can't speak to anyone higher up, at which point you threaten to take it up externally with whatever governing body is applicable. If there is an external body that has teeth (and it helps to know the name) they _may_ take notice.
2) They give up in frustration and cancel the account.
3) They "accidentally" hang up on you forcing you to start again.
If you don't get anywhere with that, you write a letter. Try to provide a record of names and time spent talking to various people to try to resolve the issue.
Beyond that you're getting into the sort of territory where you're going to need legal representation.
My point is that the WORST thing you can do is get angry, abusive, or flustered. You need to remain calm and professional. That way if it does go further they have nothing at all on you.
The victim is probably Vincent who was just doing what his supervisor told him to do. But, atlas, that's what you get to be when the bottom falls out; the scapegoat at the bottom.
Rubbish. Sorry if that's offensive but that's pure and utter rubbish. This guy is a willing accomplice and makes his living by irritating and annoying people. He's as bad as or worse than a telemarketter. "I was just following orders" didn't work at Nuremburg either. Sure this guy isn't massacring people but he's certainly causing people distress. Getting fired would be the best thing that could happen to him if not for the fact that his morals and standards are so low that he'll just end up working for some other shonky company.
When roads are built by the gov't they aren't built at or under cost
Few large organisations are efficient. Difference is the big corporate organisation doesn't just need to break even or use it's budget, it's out to squeeze every last cent out of the customer. Haven't you noticed the prices these companies try to get away with charging for road use?
When the health care system is run by the gov't services are rationed, provided at lower quality (if at all), and again, paid for by your (higher) taxes.
That's garbage. Until our government in Australia started trying to copy the USA, we had fantastic healthcare.
I'll take Adam Smith over Uncle Sam for these matters any day.
You're tired of being brainwashed by Uncle Sam and so you've traded your loyalties and are now happy to be brainwashed by Uncle Smith who's out to take you for every penny.
Assurance contracts rely on someone or something to enforce them. Just who do you think that someone is? Do you honestly think a company whose primary goal is to make money is going to coperate without being coerced when there's a cost associated?
Nowhere in the world is infrastructure provided by a private company at or below cost. Where roads are privatised you have tolls. Where healthcare is privatised the sick fall through the cracks. Take a look around.
focus on capitalism
When will people learn that some things that most people agree are both beneficial and desirable to society actually COST money, rather than allow people to make it. Taxes are suppose to cover these things. Instead they go into the pockets of the corrupt.
I'm sure I'll get called a commi or at least a socialist for that. *shrug*
Same reply as to the previous poster
If anything, its the poster child of why you *shouldn't* make it too easy for people to develop solutions
Development should be insanely simple. Screens and reports should be WYSIWYG, database design should be simple etc. If you want to design a very good solution to something you better be spending 95% of your effort on the solution to the actual problem, not on proving how clever you are getting past the woeful frameworks in just 3 weeks when the development effort with better tools would take 3 days. The fact that some people don't use any tool well is neither here nor there.
You don't make carpenters use rocks as hammers because hammers are too easy to use do you? You make sure you employ a good carpenter.
If anything, its the poster child of why you *shouldn't* make it too easy for people to develop solutions
You've just completely lost any respect I might have had for you.
Development should be insanely simple. Screens and reports should be WYSIWYG, database design should be simple etc. If you want to design a very good solution to something you better be spending 95% of your effort on the solution to the actual problem, not on proving how clever you are getting past the woeful frameworks in just 3 weeks when the development effort with better tools would take 3 days. The fact that some people don't use any tool well is neither here nor there.
You don't make carpenters use rocks as hammers because hammers are too easy to use do you? You make sure you employ a good carpenter.
The more practical and up-front approach would be to x-ray everybody and take their cameras off them.
Yes because we all know how good a regular healthy dose of X-ray radiation is for you.
Practical if you're not going to be in business in 10 years when the law suits start coming in from those who you regularly X-ray.
People have been dealing with that just fine since pagers first started coming out. ..... if something happens, they come in to get you, you LEAVE, and use the phone. All without disturbing anybody else.
..... what the bloody hell is people's obsession, with being in touch with the entire world 24/7? What the hell is wrong with NOT being wired for an hour or two?
When you go to the theater, you leave your pager with an attendant, and he records where you're sitting
First of all that costs money - you have to pay more attendants or risk having important calls missed. How many uncaring minimum wage slaves do you explicitly trust with your family's well being?
Secondly an attendant coming in to get someone is much more disturbing than a PROPERLY used phone (one set to vibrate, go outside to answer).
And lets' face it - it's s SHITLOAD more likely that you're gonna get called by some wanker who wants to know if you've picked up the cheese dip for friday's big game thatn to get a call that a close relative just died in a car crash.
So what if it's more likely. Some things happen less frequently and are more important and/or require more urgent attention.
And a partially aborted rant
The world has changed! Deal with it. For the most part it's for the better. 24/7 communication is expected. There are jobs where you have to be available to respond 24/7. Pay phones are a dying breed. You might as well ask what people's obsession with cars is when we did perfectly well with the horse and buggy for thousands of years.
Quickest way to make it more like a combat zone is publicly concede that it is one then implement the tools used in the combat zone. You'd be amazed how quickly down town LA will turn into Baghdad minus the but with people speaking English instead of Arabic.
So I'm not allowed to fight against the tide of idiocy?
The tide of idiocy as you put it gives this phrase a meaning much closer to what it would mean intuitively if not for the history. Having phrases in the language mean what they sound like they mean instead of having some esoteric meaning steeped in the history of logic sounds like common sense to me, rather than idiocy.
My little comment has created a thread with dozens of comments, and I would guess that at least some of the people reading it or participating it will now think twice before using the phrase to mean "raises the question."
Your information is incomplete and incorrect. You're offering an old meaning of the phrase as the only valid meaning because you don't like the usage of the new meaning. The bottom line is that both meanings are well understood and usually not ambiguous so most people given all the information will either avoid the phrase to avoid this kind of meaningless debate or use the phrase with whichever meaning suits them. Certainly, no one familiar with the phrase failed to understand the meaning of the sentence in the story due to ambiguity.
So what exactly it wrong with me participating in the "living language" process? Or are only morons invited to that party?
Well for starters you're not participating, you're opposing living language and it's deceitful of you to say otherwise. The very way you phrase this implies only morons are currently participating. It's fools like you with a superiority complex that give precision in language a bad name. If you were arguing this point 100 years ago perhaps you'd have some ground to stand on. Given that some well accepted dictionaries now accept the new meaning, I think you're basically pissing into the wind here. Enjoy.
The phrase has been accepted to have multiple meanings - the original one from the study of logic, and the now common usage "prompts the question"
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-beg1.htm
The fact that people even bother to argue this astounds me. If there's no ambiguity, I wish people would just accept that language changes and that English has never been precise instead of acting like someone's year 8 English teacher.
One of my cow-orkers has twin boys age 12 and a younger one age 7.
Mooooooo!
all have their own computers, they all have their own gameboays etc. None play any games that he hasn't first. He tries them, and decides if he finds them acceptable. He uses the ratings as a guideline, but the ultimate decision is what he feels is ok for his kids. After all, he understands their maturity level.
"Not now dear I'm testing a game for the kids."
"Now what have I told you before son. I play the new games and once I'm done...I mean I've decided they're suitable, then you can have them".
This is what gets modded up? This is both irrelevant and flamebait. It's also probably redundant since I've seen this posted sixty times. The article was about a top scientific lab going down hill over the years, not about your English lesson.
Gates kicks ass. He'd be the perfect role model if it weren't for some of his less savoury feats.
I'd argue he'd be an unknown nobody if it weren' for some of his less savoury feats. He didn't get rich and famous being a nice guy.