What is a left-wing church? What is a right-wing church? And what constitutes being 'a church'? I know of some so-called druids in Oregon who weren't given church status. And what about GW Bush and his Wicca stance:
"I don't think that witchcraft is a religion. I wish the military would rethink this decision."
-- George W. Bush to ABCNEWS, June, 1999
I'm not advocating any religion, nor am I suggesting that religious organizations should be taxed when other non-profit organizations aren't, I just believe the easiest and most equitable way to keep the government 'honest' when dealing with religious matters is to keep Satan, God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha, and all other religious symbols out of government and government policies.
There never has been, nor will there ever be, a decent seperation of church and state. If you think about it, how many different tax breaks are given to churches and religious organizations? These were set up to help churches spread their word. It has only been in the last century that other eastern and middle eastern religions started to prosper in the US. I wonder how hard it is for these groups to be declared tax-free religions? Personally, I wish they would seperate religion from government more. I don't think it's going to happen soon or quickly though.
First: I have no experience in Florida; however, I would ask, what is the availability of land in the area? That can have a huge impact on the value of homes.
Second: Growth from 90k - to 110k is not _that_ much in three years. If you calculate his costs, they were probably 6.75-7.25% per year just for the loan. His annualized appreciation was around 6.91% annually - maybe a bit higher, depending on what time of year he bought/sold. You can see, even if he put a lot of money down on the house (you have to consider lost interest/investment revenue from giving up the downpayment) he may have actually _lost_ money.
$1 billion?!? Ouch. But would this new process really be that much cheaper in the long run? Let's say it is a lot cheaper in the short-run and can produce a chips at.10 micron. But is the technology scaleable? Will is be able to do.08,.06, or whatever? Maybe the more expensive machines are actually cheaper in the long-run because a few tweaks make them scale well. I don't know - I'm just thinking outloud. It seems that every few months we hear of a new 'revolutionary' process, never to see it again.
is the cost of installation and any retraining that needs to be paid for to use the new system. I have a feeling - unless it offers a HUGE advantage over standard methods - Intel et al. would be very reluctant to adopt a new process.
Read the next posting. What I said was a generality. Most people do not live in Southern California. I live in Riverside right now, but I have lived in Portland and worked (and still do) in Seattle, S.F. and dozens of West Coast cities and all across the country. What your are experiencing is unique to this area. Generally, if you purchase a new home in one of those subdivisions, your home value decrease instantly - who would want your 'used' home if there is a new one right next door. However, you may have been lucky and bought into a community where the developer screwed up. Priced homes too low at the beginning, saw that demand was increasing and increased prices accordingly. What you are quoting is anecdotal - not what the data says.
I work in Seattle and 90% of value escalation in that metro area has come out of OLDER HOMES. New home PRICES may be increasing but that DOES NOT MEAN your home built last year will increase in price. Understand the difference?
Ok, I've worked as a real estate and development consultant for the last three years. I help major developers decide what they should build and when they should build it. I have a little advise for all of you out there. You may not like it, but it is the same advise I give family members and anyone who asks.
NEVER buy a new home unless you plan to live there the rest of your life. Why, you may ask - They don't appreciate in value. It's simple as that. Usually it take a generation for a home to gain in value (above and beyond inflation and interest rates). This is because the new neighborhoods are designed very poorly and gain no real character until the trees are grown and people begin to take down or modify neighboring homes. My advise if you absolutely have to have a new home: buy one outside the city on a few acres and, yes, build it yourself. That way the land will appreciate greatly as the city grows outward. If you ever decide to move, you then have the chance to make out nicely. It's not that easy, though, so be careful. You are better off buying in an up-and-coming neighborhood that is older. Somewhere closer to the downtown (commute times are beginning to be very important to home values). You will then have to put a little time and money into the home - maybe upgrade appliances and add on. But the rewards in terms of value will be immediate, allowing you to move into an even larger/better home sooner. What I advise:
(1) Never buy a new home in a new development (there are exceptions - like downtown condos, which tend to appreciate greatly in good economies i.e. not in the current Seattle situation).
(2) If you have to have a new home, buy/build it somewhere that the land will have a chance to appreciate.
(3) The best thing to do is buy a home near the city, in a neighborhood that is beginning to revive itself (i.e. you don't have to worry about getting shot). Do some upgrades on the home and you will immediately see appreciation.
There isn't a single open source product out there that doesn't exist a better commercial version of.
The word 'better' is a bit loaded and subjective. One could easily argue that M$ Windows is 'better' because it runs more games. The next person could argue that Linux or *BSD are 'better' because they crash less often. And, since you claim time always equals money, then non-OSS software must not always be 'better.' Take Oracle as an example. Oracle is a pain in the ass to get running, from what I hear. Not only that, it takes a lot of time to get correctly configured (once again - from what I hear - I have no direct experience with Oracle database software). Now, there are great OSS alternatives out there. My personal favorite being MySQL. It's free (as in cost) and it takes very little time to get up-and-running. I even did it and I'm not an admon nor an IT professional. Sounds like, by your definition that time is always money, there some OSS is 'better'.
Re:Linux for desktop, *BSD for servers?
on
FreeBSD 4.6
·
· Score: 1
I tend to agree. I currently manage a couple small networks and FreeBSD has always given me the reliability I needed - especially in the server realm. For workstations, I am forced to use Windows and a bit of Linux, but my box is FreeBSD/Windows. I tried Linux (Debian) for a time and was impressed with dselect and the whole packaging system; however, I did have some stability issues (most likely my fault) and I reverted to FreeBSD. I've never had a FreeBSD system crash on me and the only complaint I do have is the delay between the Linux release of some software and the time it takes to find its way into ports. I guess I could install by hand - but I'm lazy.
Whatever happened to preparing people for the REAL world???
If you look at the history of university education, you will notice that it's not about the "REAL world". It's about intellectual prowess. If you want "REAL world - you need to go to a trade school. This is the problem I had at University - especially in the beginning. I was raised with an emphasis on "common" sense. My rural education sucked and college was a major shock - especially since I was in an 'intellectual' major with much emphasis on theory and none on application.
This is why I think the US needs a major overhaul in its post-H.S. education system (and H.S.).
...that a government (which should be an international organization even though that could be a nightmare) should only get involved in DNS administration if there is a problem with the current situation. Of course, you have to remember, these politicians probably think every.za site is actually located in South Africa, which - in that case - the domains *would* come under their jurisdiction. We all know, though, that many of the site are probably outside the country. My question - though - it who actually *owns*.za? ICANN? Aren't they prety much comtrolled by the US government?
There has been a "de facto rollback" of the Sherman Act. It's called money in politics. As long as the Feds don't sue - States are screwed in the Federal legal system. Just look at the current state of the M$ punishment trial. This is a punishment trial but, because AG Ashcroft decided to make a deal and backstab the non-settling States, M$ has been able to make the argument that its actions were not that bad. Maybe I'm a cynic, but I'm going to bet that the States don't get anything extra and M$ walks on this one. I'm also willing to bet that a few checks change hands afterwards.
I noticed your rep is on the armed services committee. If you're so inclined, ask him to give his opinion on free software, security, and M$'s push to get open source out of the military. Ask him how M$'s apparent problems with security would 'help' keep America safe.
If you want more information about his voting record, just take a look at Opensecrets.org. I seem to notice a high correlation between campaign donations, the people who give them, the issues they support, and the way Senators/Representatives vote. Buying votes - it's called democracy.
As for questions to ask, I worked for a Senator for a while (I was an intern - nothing exciting). Anyway, it was my job to help set up these town meetings and I'll tell you one thing, Senators are very busy people. They only know what their aides have told them. Not because they aren't intelligent enough to understand the issues (most are very astute), they just don't have time to study every issue. I suggest asking very general questions like:
"Senator Hollings recently introduced a bill that will require every piece of electronic hardware to possess copyright protection. It has been argued by hardware manufacturers and consumer advocates that this will increase the costs of production as well as infringe on consumer's rights; what do you think of this bill?"
In essence, give him some background and try to get him to commit to something. Most good politicians will be able to easily sidestep the issues; however, if the question is clear enough, even the dullest watcher will be able to tell that he's trying to evade the question. Now, if you know his position on a topic, and you don't agree with it - go for the throat, but nicely. Try to get him to commit to an answer. Politicians hate committing to anything - and they hate their voting records to be scrutinized.
Hope this helps and I hope you agree with me on most issues. I hate helping the enemy.:-)
...to the community from which the spawned. I can understand them trying to 'protect' their 'intellectual property' from other firms such as M$, I would just like to urge them to remain sympathetic to the 'cause' and offer their software as a *service*. If they don't, there is little chance they could catch up with true, open source options such as Apache.
What's so special about TUX that they could patent it? Sorry for MY ignorance.
hacked from the outside???
on
California Hax0red
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Maybe its a conspiracy to cover the huge CA debt during the next budget cycle.
Step 1) Hack own site and steal info on employees. Step 2) Blame hackers / terrorists (everyone hates them). Step 3) Take out credit cards in employee's names (excluding judges and politicians. Step 4) Purchase goods from 'contributing' business leaders. Collect taxes from purchases. Get kick-backs from businesses. Step 5) Lay off employees because of budget crisis.
From my calculations, this could save California millions! And we thought government heads were so dull. Their brilliant!!!
What we need is the right to sue for criminal neglegence if our personal info is stolen from a firm/government with lapse security. Shit, if we leave our home unlocked and someone breaks in - insurance doesn't cover it. But if we get screwed by some company/government that didn't lock their 'door', well, that's just too bad. We have to pay for it. What a f*cked up system.
What's really scary is that you are liable for any debt the hackers rack up on you, unless you catch them quick.
I guarantee the credit card companies won't want to pay for this - us citizens are about to get f*cked two ways - one from the hackers and once from the legal system. Doesn't it feel great to live in a modern society?
I think that Tivo users as well as users of other PVRs are going to have to get used to this type of thing. If the information supplied on this page is correct, then this perceived intrusion is not much of an intrusion at all. As long as user-specified recordings aren't overridden, the user isn't forced to view the content, and device capacity isn't affected, I'm not sure what the problem is. Now, if Tivo et al. decide to limit the ability of users to skip ads, that may be an issue - but I'm not sure the community should be up-in-arms about this particular issue. Tivo needs to make money in order to fight the networks in the inevitable lawsuits to come. If they demonstrate a limited willingness to work with the networks, then judges are going to be much less likely to take the side of the 'content' providers.
I think the networks are currently in a tough position with the PVR issue and anything to take them off-balance is a good thing.
It is highly unlikely that a candidate will get elected on any sort of anti-DMCA issues, and it is doubtful that a candidate would even air their opinions on the DMCA in public at all.
That's true - at least currently. However, if we are talking about an issue that will put people in the streets in protest (hence the 'Civil Disobediance'), then at that point the DMCA would become a major subject of political debate and would be a campaign topic. Remember, during the Civil Rights protests in the 60s, most major (Northern) newspapers and TV channels were in favor of the demonstrator's views. They published clashes with police and major marches on Washington, etc. This helped change the minds of many Americans who wouldn't really be directly affected by the outcome - at least in the near term. Americans love a good rebellion (Star Wars). What happens if they never hear about it though? What happens if public debate becomes non-existent? It's already headed that way. Scandal is all that pulls the local news channels away from their 'style' and 'sports' and 'weather' segments. Shit - it's the same as in China (from what I understand, most there don't even know about Tiannamen (spelling) square and the only real anti-government rallies have been the Falun Gong and anti-corruption oriented, which were bother scandals in the PRESS).
I loved that, it is a major gripe of mine that most government bureaucracies take soooo long to even think up of a solution for a problem that by the time that they DO think up of even possible course of action to take in SEEKING a possible course of action, hell, the problem has long since gotten far worse.
Well, I don't really believe that governments are supposed to act fast or SHOULD act fast. Except in the case of war. Think about it. If they acted fast, a governor or president or whoever could call up the 'Bureau of Screwing Citizens' and say they wanted something done. Before we know it, something very unpopular could be done and without the proper public discourse. I agree that much of the government needs streamlined and to be made more transparent - but not FAST.
Slashdot Mirror
What is a left-wing church? What is a right-wing church? And what constitutes being 'a church'? I know of some so-called druids in Oregon who weren't given church status. And what about GW Bush and his Wicca stance:
"I don't think that witchcraft is a religion. I wish the military would rethink this decision." -- George W. Bush to ABCNEWS, June, 1999
I'm not advocating any religion, nor am I suggesting that religious organizations should be taxed when other non-profit organizations aren't, I just believe the easiest and most equitable way to keep the government 'honest' when dealing with religious matters is to keep Satan, God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha, and all other religious symbols out of government and government policies.
There never has been, nor will there ever be, a decent seperation of church and state. If you think about it, how many different tax breaks are given to churches and religious organizations? These were set up to help churches spread their word. It has only been in the last century that other eastern and middle eastern religions started to prosper in the US. I wonder how hard it is for these groups to be declared tax-free religions? Personally, I wish they would seperate religion from government more. I don't think it's going to happen soon or quickly though.
First: I have no experience in Florida; however, I would ask, what is the availability of land in the area? That can have a huge impact on the value of homes.
Second: Growth from 90k - to 110k is not _that_ much in three years. If you calculate his costs, they were probably 6.75-7.25% per year just for the loan. His annualized appreciation was around 6.91% annually - maybe a bit higher, depending on what time of year he bought/sold. You can see, even if he put a lot of money down on the house (you have to consider lost interest/investment revenue from giving up the downpayment) he may have actually _lost_ money.
Just something to think about.
Well said.
$1 billion?!? Ouch. But would this new process really be that much cheaper in the long run? Let's say it is a lot cheaper in the short-run and can produce a chips at .10 micron. But is the technology scaleable? Will is be able to do .08, .06, or whatever? Maybe the more expensive machines are actually cheaper in the long-run because a few tweaks make them scale well. I don't know - I'm just thinking outloud. It seems that every few months we hear of a new 'revolutionary' process, never to see it again.
is the cost of installation and any retraining that needs to be paid for to use the new system. I have a feeling - unless it offers a HUGE advantage over standard methods - Intel et al. would be very reluctant to adopt a new process.
You've summarized better than I did. I knew that my post would shock some people - but I guess I should have explained a little better.
Read the next posting. What I said was a generality. Most people do not live in Southern California. I live in Riverside right now, but I have lived in Portland and worked (and still do) in Seattle, S.F. and dozens of West Coast cities and all across the country. What your are experiencing is unique to this area. Generally, if you purchase a new home in one of those subdivisions, your home value decrease instantly - who would want your 'used' home if there is a new one right next door. However, you may have been lucky and bought into a community where the developer screwed up. Priced homes too low at the beginning, saw that demand was increasing and increased prices accordingly. What you are quoting is anecdotal - not what the data says.
I work in Seattle and 90% of value escalation in that metro area has come out of OLDER HOMES. New home PRICES may be increasing but that DOES NOT MEAN your home built last year will increase in price. Understand the difference?
Ok, I've worked as a real estate and development consultant for the last three years. I help major developers decide what they should build and when they should build it. I have a little advise for all of you out there. You may not like it, but it is the same advise I give family members and anyone who asks.
NEVER buy a new home unless you plan to live there the rest of your life. Why, you may ask - They don't appreciate in value. It's simple as that. Usually it take a generation for a home to gain in value (above and beyond inflation and interest rates). This is because the new neighborhoods are designed very poorly and gain no real character until the trees are grown and people begin to take down or modify neighboring homes. My advise if you absolutely have to have a new home: buy one outside the city on a few acres and, yes, build it yourself. That way the land will appreciate greatly as the city grows outward. If you ever decide to move, you then have the chance to make out nicely. It's not that easy, though, so be careful. You are better off buying in an up-and-coming neighborhood that is older. Somewhere closer to the downtown (commute times are beginning to be very important to home values). You will then have to put a little time and money into the home - maybe upgrade appliances and add on. But the rewards in terms of value will be immediate, allowing you to move into an even larger/better home sooner. What I advise:
(1) Never buy a new home in a new development (there are exceptions - like downtown condos, which tend to appreciate greatly in good economies i.e. not in the current Seattle situation).
(2) If you have to have a new home, buy/build it somewhere that the land will have a chance to appreciate.
(3) The best thing to do is buy a home near the city, in a neighborhood that is beginning to revive itself (i.e. you don't have to worry about getting shot). Do some upgrades on the home and you will immediately see appreciation.
There isn't a single open source product out there that doesn't exist a better commercial version of.
The word 'better' is a bit loaded and subjective. One could easily argue that M$ Windows is 'better' because it runs more games. The next person could argue that Linux or *BSD are 'better' because they crash less often. And, since you claim time always equals money, then non-OSS software must not always be 'better.' Take Oracle as an example. Oracle is a pain in the ass to get running, from what I hear. Not only that, it takes a lot of time to get correctly configured (once again - from what I hear - I have no direct experience with Oracle database software). Now, there are great OSS alternatives out there. My personal favorite being MySQL. It's free (as in cost) and it takes very little time to get up-and-running. I even did it and I'm not an admon nor an IT professional. Sounds like, by your definition that time is always money, there some OSS is 'better'.
I tend to agree. I currently manage a couple small networks and FreeBSD has always given me the reliability I needed - especially in the server realm. For workstations, I am forced to use Windows and a bit of Linux, but my box is FreeBSD/Windows. I tried Linux (Debian) for a time and was impressed with dselect and the whole packaging system; however, I did have some stability issues (most likely my fault) and I reverted to FreeBSD. I've never had a FreeBSD system crash on me and the only complaint I do have is the delay between the Linux release of some software and the time it takes to find its way into ports. I guess I could install by hand - but I'm lazy.
Whatever happened to preparing people for the REAL world???
If you look at the history of university education, you will notice that it's not about the "REAL world". It's about intellectual prowess. If you want "REAL world - you need to go to a trade school. This is the problem I had at University - especially in the beginning. I was raised with an emphasis on "common" sense. My rural education sucked and college was a major shock - especially since I was in an 'intellectual' major with much emphasis on theory and none on application.
This is why I think the US needs a major overhaul in its post-H.S. education system (and H.S.).
...that a government (which should be an international organization even though that could be a nightmare) should only get involved in DNS administration if there is a problem with the current situation. Of course, you have to remember, these politicians probably think every .za site is actually located in South Africa, which - in that case - the domains *would* come under their jurisdiction. We all know, though, that many of the site are probably outside the country. My question - though - it who actually *owns* .za? ICANN? Aren't they prety much comtrolled by the US government?
There has been a "de facto rollback" of the Sherman Act. It's called money in politics. As long as the Feds don't sue - States are screwed in the Federal legal system. Just look at the current state of the M$ punishment trial. This is a punishment trial but, because AG Ashcroft decided to make a deal and backstab the non-settling States, M$ has been able to make the argument that its actions were not that bad. Maybe I'm a cynic, but I'm going to bet that the States don't get anything extra and M$ walks on this one. I'm also willing to bet that a few checks change hands afterwards.
Bill Gates' ATM PIN.
I noticed your rep is on the armed services committee. If you're so inclined, ask him to give his opinion on free software, security, and M$'s push to get open source out of the military. Ask him how M$'s apparent problems with security would 'help' keep America safe.
If you want more information about his voting record, just take a look at Opensecrets.org. I seem to notice a high correlation between campaign donations, the people who give them, the issues they support, and the way Senators/Representatives vote. Buying votes - it's called democracy.
:-)
As for questions to ask, I worked for a Senator for a while (I was an intern - nothing exciting). Anyway, it was my job to help set up these town meetings and I'll tell you one thing, Senators are very busy people. They only know what their aides have told them. Not because they aren't intelligent enough to understand the issues (most are very astute), they just don't have time to study every issue. I suggest asking very general questions like:
"Senator Hollings recently introduced a bill that will require every piece of electronic hardware to possess copyright protection. It has been argued by hardware manufacturers and consumer advocates that this will increase the costs of production as well as infringe on consumer's rights; what do you think of this bill?"
In essence, give him some background and try to get him to commit to something. Most good politicians will be able to easily sidestep the issues; however, if the question is clear enough, even the dullest watcher will be able to tell that he's trying to evade the question. Now, if you know his position on a topic, and you don't agree with it - go for the throat, but nicely. Try to get him to commit to an answer. Politicians hate committing to anything - and they hate their voting records to be scrutinized.
Hope this helps and I hope you agree with me on most issues. I hate helping the enemy.
...to the community from which the spawned. I can understand them trying to 'protect' their 'intellectual property' from other firms such as M$, I would just like to urge them to remain sympathetic to the 'cause' and offer their software as a *service*. If they don't, there is little chance they could catch up with true, open source options such as Apache.
What's so special about TUX that they could patent it? Sorry for MY ignorance.
Agreed. Skywalker *was* a terrorist.
Maybe its a conspiracy to cover the huge CA debt during the next budget cycle.
Step 1) Hack own site and steal info on employees.
Step 2) Blame hackers / terrorists (everyone hates them).
Step 3) Take out credit cards in employee's names (excluding judges and politicians.
Step 4) Purchase goods from 'contributing' business leaders. Collect taxes from purchases. Get kick-backs from businesses.
Step 5) Lay off employees because of budget crisis.
From my calculations, this could save California millions! And we thought government heads were so dull. Their brilliant!!!
What we need is the right to sue for criminal neglegence if our personal info is stolen from a firm/government with lapse security. Shit, if we leave our home unlocked and someone breaks in - insurance doesn't cover it. But if we get screwed by some company/government that didn't lock their 'door', well, that's just too bad. We have to pay for it. What a f*cked up system.
What's really scary is that you are liable for any debt the hackers rack up on you, unless you catch them quick.
I guarantee the credit card companies won't want to pay for this - us citizens are about to get f*cked two ways - one from the hackers and once from the legal system. Doesn't it feel great to live in a modern society?
Start checking you credit rating...
I think that Tivo users as well as users of other PVRs are going to have to get used to this type of thing. If the information supplied on this page is correct, then this perceived intrusion is not much of an intrusion at all. As long as user-specified recordings aren't overridden, the user isn't forced to view the content, and device capacity isn't affected, I'm not sure what the problem is. Now, if Tivo et al. decide to limit the ability of users to skip ads, that may be an issue - but I'm not sure the community should be up-in-arms about this particular issue. Tivo needs to make money in order to fight the networks in the inevitable lawsuits to come. If they demonstrate a limited willingness to work with the networks, then judges are going to be much less likely to take the side of the 'content' providers.
I think the networks are currently in a tough position with the PVR issue and anything to take them off-balance is a good thing.
It is highly unlikely that a candidate will get elected on any sort of anti-DMCA issues, and it is doubtful that a candidate would even air their opinions on the DMCA in public at all.
That's true - at least currently. However, if we are talking about an issue that will put people in the streets in protest (hence the 'Civil Disobediance'), then at that point the DMCA would become a major subject of political debate and would be a campaign topic. Remember, during the Civil Rights protests in the 60s, most major (Northern) newspapers and TV channels were in favor of the demonstrator's views. They published clashes with police and major marches on Washington, etc. This helped change the minds of many Americans who wouldn't really be directly affected by the outcome - at least in the near term. Americans love a good rebellion (Star Wars). What happens if they never hear about it though? What happens if public debate becomes non-existent? It's already headed that way. Scandal is all that pulls the local news channels away from their 'style' and 'sports' and 'weather' segments. Shit - it's the same as in China (from what I understand, most there don't even know about Tiannamen (spelling) square and the only real anti-government rallies have been the Falun Gong and anti-corruption oriented, which were bother scandals in the PRESS).
I loved that, it is a major gripe of mine that most government bureaucracies take soooo long to even think up of a solution for a problem that by the time that they DO think up of even possible course of action to take in SEEKING a possible course of action, hell, the problem has long since gotten far worse.
Well, I don't really believe that governments are supposed to act fast or SHOULD act fast. Except in the case of war. Think about it. If they acted fast, a governor or president or whoever could call up the 'Bureau of Screwing Citizens' and say they wanted something done. Before we know it, something very unpopular could be done and without the proper public discourse. I agree that much of the government needs streamlined and to be made more transparent - but not FAST.
Cheers...