Mezcal and tequila are both derived from the agave plant, and Mezcal has hallucigenic effects, while tequila is alcoholic. Pure agave cannot yield a very high proof--40 I think. I'm sure you know this, but I needed to establish this so that my statement below makes sense.
I thought the worms were used to either refine the agave before distillation or the product during fermentation in order to yield the ~80 proof that most tequilas have. Perhaps it was genetic engineering of the agave plant; can you shed some light here?
This is the single most important point which provided the launchpad for the others.
Ok...
If you have been mistreated by an employer in the US and are not a member of a group legally defined as protected (eg. minority, female, gay, disabled) then it does take at least $5k to put up a retainer fee and that rarely guarantees that the lawyer gives you any more than lip-service. If you want a lawyer to do any real legal research you should have at least $20k banked and waiting (unless you're a member of the "slam-dunk" groups mentioned above). If your employer has finished running you through the wringer then even $5k is nearly impossible to come up with.
Thanks for the real information. I shall have to rethink my position.
Additionally, under laws in the US affirmed by most state supreme courts and the US supreme court, employers are free to treat employees however they like and hire/fire them at will.
I did run in to this. The "at will" clause in most employee contracts reserves the right to hire/fire, but I don't think it extends to how employees get treated. Imagine a straight male being sexually harassed by his female boss. Not likely, but I'd bet that under no circumstances would the "at will" clause be a legitimate defense for the employer.
This gives employers a clean slate to operate as slavers. A manager at work can treat you in ways that would be considered assault on the open street but, because it's within the confines of the employer, it's perfectly a-okay. Ideally there are limitations to "crap rolls downhill". In reality there are none.
I agree with your argument that legal defense is not fiscally possible, but I'm not so sure that this is the case. I've been treated poorly by my employer, to the point where my fellow employees called the workforce commission and the corporate high ups. No action was really taken; which makes me inclined to agree with you. However, the reality I see is not one where bosses are like this across the board--the real "jerks" are an exception. I am probably wrong here as I don't have a whole lot of work experience.
I agree that most employers do not pursue the slaver approach. The fact remains, however, that unless you are independently well-off there is nothing that you can do to gain proper compensation should your employer decide to use you as cannon fodder. Ask anyone that's worked in an entry-level position in a small and growing company. They get worked to death, browbeaten daily, and tossed to the side when they're no longer willing to play politics.
I now agree with that argument, since you've actually stated some reasonable facts to back it up. I think the best solution would be to donate to an organization that collectively fights for this kind of thing in court. It seems like only the "slam dunk" groups get the representation, so perhaps the best solution would be to create an organization to protect the rights of straight caucasian male employees? This would be perceived as bigoted, but in this case I don't see the problem.
My definition of slavery is demanding proper work with improper compensation. Any other definition has loopholes.
It seems like that definition has a loophole in that "improper compensation" is highly subjective. My definition is being property, hence required to work for whatever compensation the "owner" deems proper.
For example, pre Civil War "slaves" would more properly be defined as "sharecroppers". The only thing that gave the North authority was their demands that compensation be paid to the sharecropping employees in funds that could be documented in a ledger as opposed to providing the slaves with land, minimal housing and free time. Don't give me any Uncle Tom's Cabin drivel. I empathize with the people that were at the worst extremes of the spectrum but, just like today's employers, most Sourthern slaveowners were generally humane.
Compared to Guatemala, yes. Compared to other technologically advanced and resource rich countries, no.
Even that is debatable; were your statement true, the simple idea that being behind other countries even in the slightest degree makes working in the US slavery is a real stretch.
Which brings us back to the ideal of any sort of rights. Sure you can refuse to work 7 days a week but if your manager thinks you should be putting in that extra time he'll find ways to slap you for refusing. I suppose you work in a Union shop where you're protected? Lucky you. I happen to be in the professional industry where companies slit the throats of union sympathizers.
I highly doubt that is the case. That is totally hypothetical. At least labor laws are something substantial. Labor laws also protect you from abuse, you know...all it takes is someone challenging it in court.
By the way, it doesn't take a small fortune to do this.
You are a worthless piece of sh*t that can't do your job and you should be happy that we even keep you here. Now get back to work because no one else is going to get your work done for you and don't even think about asking for a raise. As of right now we officially declare you on probation because you do such crappy work. No, we're not going to fire you because we can't find anyone else to do your job better but, yes, you are a worthless piece of undeserving cow-manure.
All employers do not behave like this; furthermore, at least where I live, laws protect you from this as well. If that has actually happened to you, I am sorry. I didn't write my post to try and make you look like a fool--I just disagreed with it.
Once again comparing the US to Guatemala is not a proper comparison. Comparing the US to a country, say Germany or Great Britain, where they work barely 40 hours a week and get 6 weeks vacation time to start, is much more fair. Different light, isn't it?
You can be as relative as you'd like--it's not your definition of "good benefits" that is pertinent. It's your definition of "slavery" that I disagree with.
Oh sure. If political graft is so bad we shouldn't stick up for our rights as Americans to challenge it as true patriots, we should just leave.
That wasn't my point; merely that the more you make doing business in America costly, the more businesses will have an incentive to leave. They aren't required to stay here, you know?
Your arguments suck and you're a troll.
By what definition of "troll" do I fall under? The "I disagree with out" one? Please give me at least an ounce of respect. You responded to everything I had to say with hypotheticals (albeit compelling ones if one accepts that they are commonplace), then told me my argements suck, and called me a name.
Trusted computing is another extension of "the man" enslaving the end user.
Yes; when the TCPA enabled computers start coming out, tell all your friends not to buy them. I'm not saying "The Man" doesn't try and enslave the user to some extent; just that our best hope is through educating our peers, not banking on hopeless legislation with unintended side effects and calling dissenters "trolls."
1. Have you seen how people work in other countries? We have it good here.
2. There are many labor laws here in the US. Employer trying to get you to work 7 days in a week? There's a law against that. Don't want to work much overtime? Stay out of salary. I know a guy who's working at Dell who consistently refuses a promotion because it would put him on salary. Now, you'll have to accept not making so much money, but you'll never have to work over 40 hours a week. Ever. And if you do, you'll probably get time-and-a-half.
3. Could you elaborate on psychological abuse? It sounds like you're painting the employee as the helpless victim without really backing it up.
4. If companies could treat you like a slave, then they probably would. They don't. The argument that American workers are enslaved by corporations is a slap in the face at countries where workers really do work 90 hours a week minimum and get almost no pay for it. It's also a slap in the face at slaves.
There are a lot of labor laws where I live. If you think that "The Man" is treating you as if you were a slave, my suggestion would be to move someplace where corporations are not allowed to.
Of course, the baseless demonizing of corporations and victimization of employees has driven legislation that is largely the cause of so much overseas job migration. Of course, it's all they're fault, right?
I thought that the 2004.0 release was a test release?
At any rate, a Gentoo user compiles his own kernel, right? I know you could use a stage3 kernel, but the documentation that is so wonderful goes through the process of building the kernel yourself. Hence, it doesn't really ship with a 2.6 kernel, just the sources.
Because of that, you could argue that the distribution I use has been using 2.6 for a long time, since I put the 2.6 sources onto my Crux CD before I install it.
Besides, I won't consider any distribution to be really USING 2.6 it one ships with a glibc compiled against 2.6 (right now in cvs, but what will be the next version). IIRC, Gentoo is still building glibc against 2.4 headers, is it not?
Your views are very narrowminded. Short term profits, long term disaster.
In my opinion, it is the irresponsible and myopic legislation of the Democrats that have made outsourcing so tempting. If minimum wage were lowered substantially, and various labor restrictions on corporations were lifted, then small and medium sized business could actually afford to do business here, and the larger ones would realize that the cost of moving offshore is too great for the decrease in labor cost.
We're pricing ourselves too high, and demanding that Washington force companies to keep us working, even if they can't easily afford it.
That's why we need more active participants in local politics--to monitor these things. The federal government gives us the shaft just as often anyways.
This one lady who had diabetes got retinal bleeding as a complication while she was driving a long road trip and had to closely trail the brake lights of an 18 wheeler to get home since she was quickly becoming irreversibly blind.
I don't know about the Oscars, but the Grammies work by the collection of all individuals who have ever worked on a movie, album, etc. voting on the winners. The record and movie executives cough up the dough to send copies of the works they want to receive nominations and awards for to all those voters, and voila! You have a total sham for an awards show.
I always get upset when I hear that somebody's been convicted of stuff nine seperate times! I'm like why didn't somebody get a clue and just lock the guy up forever.
Because in a free country, you only serve time for crimes you commit, not being a criminal.
But in a country where a guy arrested for DUI can still hope to be elected president someday
I am thankful for that, thank you very much. People can change, and people do make mistakes. Find me a perfect human being and I'll vote for him in a heart beat; until then I'll have to choose my elected officials on the basis of their ideology and voting record--not their criminal record.
i think the federal government needs to force counties and states to do a lawbook housecleaning some year. Then just have a 4 page ballot one year and be done with it all.
Uhh, it's the federal government that needs it. Besides, you can make issue with these laws at the local level and actually make a difference. We don't need federal control here, just responsible citizens. If citizens aren't responsible, then democracy fails anyway; giving more power to Washington will only worsen the problem.
I personally think that every bill should have a clause that mandates a discussion at some point in the future to determine whether the law would stay in effect.
You could, but with the incredible new package installation paradigm introduced by Gentoo, you only need to install it once and just use portage and cron to keep your system up to date all the time wohooo!!!!!
That's a good reason to oppose any government sponsored network infrastructure project; it is not a good reason to support Washington doing it instead of your home town.
I don't think morality police rule the roost at all--they have a few issues that they debate strongly, but as far as internet censorship goes, they are hardly in a position of power.
Who says the federal government won't do the same thing...or if the federal government pursues an avenue that is immune from that, what prevents the local communities from pursuing the same course of action.
Many people from the anti-big-government crowd (I prefer to call it Constitutional federal government anyways) might feel that this is important enough to submit taxation at the local level for city-wide broadband access. That's just as good, from my perspective at least.
That's why we should all say just say "no" to the FCC to do it, and rally our local government to say "yes." That way it would be decentralized, easier to maintain, and far more likely to be interested in our say.
But I'd rather see this come from local communities. They could vote on who they outsource the labor to, how much they are willing to pay for, allow people who don't want to participate to "opt out," and also allow communities that want the Internet, but not the HDTV, to have it "their way."
They are not merely fancy wrappers, and although they interact with Xlib, there are many implementations of Xlib. They do not derive any code from XFree at all, so no, they are not derivative works.
Xlib is just a protocol, and it doesn't fall under XFree86's license.
Yep. The only issue that could come up would be if you tried to actually work with the sources themselves. This would be the case if you were adding new functionality, writing a driver, etc.
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I thought the worms were used to either refine the agave before distillation or the product during fermentation in order to yield the ~80 proof that most tequilas have. Perhaps it was genetic engineering of the agave plant; can you shed some light here?
Or the post could be completely mistaken.
This is the single most important point which provided the launchpad for the others.
Ok...
If you have been mistreated by an employer in the US and are not a member of a group legally defined as protected (eg. minority, female, gay, disabled) then it does take at least $5k to put up a retainer fee and that rarely guarantees that the lawyer gives you any more than lip-service. If you want a lawyer to do any real legal research you should have at least $20k banked and waiting (unless you're a member of the "slam-dunk" groups mentioned above). If your employer has finished running you through the wringer then even $5k is nearly impossible to come up with.
Thanks for the real information. I shall have to rethink my position.
Additionally, under laws in the US affirmed by most state supreme courts and the US supreme court, employers are free to treat employees however they like and hire/fire them at will.
I did run in to this. The "at will" clause in most employee contracts reserves the right to hire/fire, but I don't think it extends to how employees get treated. Imagine a straight male being sexually harassed by his female boss. Not likely, but I'd bet that under no circumstances would the "at will" clause be a legitimate defense for the employer.
This gives employers a clean slate to operate as slavers. A manager at work can treat you in ways that would be considered assault on the open street but, because it's within the confines of the employer, it's perfectly a-okay. Ideally there are limitations to "crap rolls downhill". In reality there are none.
I agree with your argument that legal defense is not fiscally possible, but I'm not so sure that this is the case. I've been treated poorly by my employer, to the point where my fellow employees called the workforce commission and the corporate high ups. No action was really taken; which makes me inclined to agree with you. However, the reality I see is not one where bosses are like this across the board--the real "jerks" are an exception. I am probably wrong here as I don't have a whole lot of work experience.
I agree that most employers do not pursue the slaver approach. The fact remains, however, that unless you are independently well-off there is nothing that you can do to gain proper compensation should your employer decide to use you as cannon fodder. Ask anyone that's worked in an entry-level position in a small and growing company. They get worked to death, browbeaten daily, and tossed to the side when they're no longer willing to play politics.
I now agree with that argument, since you've actually stated some reasonable facts to back it up. I think the best solution would be to donate to an organization that collectively fights for this kind of thing in court. It seems like only the "slam dunk" groups get the representation, so perhaps the best solution would be to create an organization to protect the rights of straight caucasian male employees? This would be perceived as bigoted, but in this case I don't see the problem.
My definition of slavery is demanding proper work with improper compensation. Any other definition has loopholes.
It seems like that definition has a loophole in that "improper compensation" is highly subjective. My definition is being property, hence required to work for whatever compensation the "owner" deems proper.
For example, pre Civil War "slaves" would more properly be defined as "sharecroppers". The only thing that gave the North authority was their demands that compensation be paid to the sharecropping employees in funds that could be documented in a ledger as opposed to providing the slaves with land, minimal housing and free time. Don't give me any Uncle Tom's Cabin drivel. I empathize with the people that were at the worst extremes of the spectrum but, just like today's employers, most Sourthern slaveowners were generally humane.
Doesn't Uncle Tom's Cabin portray both a good a
Even that is debatable; were your statement true, the simple idea that being behind other countries even in the slightest degree makes working in the US slavery is a real stretch.
Which brings us back to the ideal of any sort of rights. Sure you can refuse to work 7 days a week but if your manager thinks you should be putting in that extra time he'll find ways to slap you for refusing. I suppose you work in a Union shop where you're protected? Lucky you. I happen to be in the professional industry where companies slit the throats of union sympathizers.
I highly doubt that is the case. That is totally hypothetical. At least labor laws are something substantial. Labor laws also protect you from abuse, you know...all it takes is someone challenging it in court.
By the way, it doesn't take a small fortune to do this.
You are a worthless piece of sh*t that can't do your job and you should be happy that we even keep you here. Now get back to work because no one else is going to get your work done for you and don't even think about asking for a raise. As of right now we officially declare you on probation because you do such crappy work. No, we're not going to fire you because we can't find anyone else to do your job better but, yes, you are a worthless piece of undeserving cow-manure.
All employers do not behave like this; furthermore, at least where I live, laws protect you from this as well. If that has actually happened to you, I am sorry. I didn't write my post to try and make you look like a fool--I just disagreed with it.
Once again comparing the US to Guatemala is not a proper comparison. Comparing the US to a country, say Germany or Great Britain, where they work barely 40 hours a week and get 6 weeks vacation time to start, is much more fair. Different light, isn't it?
You can be as relative as you'd like--it's not your definition of "good benefits" that is pertinent. It's your definition of "slavery" that I disagree with.
Oh sure. If political graft is so bad we shouldn't stick up for our rights as Americans to challenge it as true patriots, we should just leave.
That wasn't my point; merely that the more you make doing business in America costly, the more businesses will have an incentive to leave. They aren't required to stay here, you know?
Your arguments suck and you're a troll.
By what definition of "troll" do I fall under? The "I disagree with out" one? Please give me at least an ounce of respect. You responded to everything I had to say with hypotheticals (albeit compelling ones if one accepts that they are commonplace), then told me my argements suck, and called me a name.
Trusted computing is another extension of "the man" enslaving the end user.
Yes; when the TCPA enabled computers start coming out, tell all your friends not to buy them. I'm not saying "The Man" doesn't try and enslave the user to some extent; just that our best hope is through educating our peers, not banking on hopeless legislation with unintended side effects and calling dissenters "trolls."
1. Have you seen how people work in other countries? We have it good here.
2. There are many labor laws here in the US. Employer trying to get you to work 7 days in a week? There's a law against that. Don't want to work much overtime? Stay out of salary. I know a guy who's working at Dell who consistently refuses a promotion because it would put him on salary. Now, you'll have to accept not making so much money, but you'll never have to work over 40 hours a week. Ever. And if you do, you'll probably get time-and-a-half.
3. Could you elaborate on psychological abuse? It sounds like you're painting the employee as the helpless victim without really backing it up.
4. If companies could treat you like a slave, then they probably would. They don't. The argument that American workers are enslaved by corporations is a slap in the face at countries where workers really do work 90 hours a week minimum and get almost no pay for it. It's also a slap in the face at slaves.
There are a lot of labor laws where I live. If you think that "The Man" is treating you as if you were a slave, my suggestion would be to move someplace where corporations are not allowed to.
Of course, the baseless demonizing of corporations and victimization of employees has driven legislation that is largely the cause of so much overseas job migration. Of course, it's all they're fault, right?
That argument is just a bit dramatic. Those laws aren't what prevents America from being a third world country at all.
At any rate, a Gentoo user compiles his own kernel, right? I know you could use a stage3 kernel, but the documentation that is so wonderful goes through the process of building the kernel yourself. Hence, it doesn't really ship with a 2.6 kernel, just the sources.
Because of that, you could argue that the distribution I use has been using 2.6 for a long time, since I put the 2.6 sources onto my Crux CD before I install it.
Besides, I won't consider any distribution to be really USING 2.6 it one ships with a glibc compiled against 2.6 (right now in cvs, but what will be the next version). IIRC, Gentoo is still building glibc against 2.4 headers, is it not?
Granted, Mandrake is too, so I'm splitting hairs.
In my opinion, it is the irresponsible and myopic legislation of the Democrats that have made outsourcing so tempting. If minimum wage were lowered substantially, and various labor restrictions on corporations were lifted, then small and medium sized business could actually afford to do business here, and the larger ones would realize that the cost of moving offshore is too great for the decrease in labor cost.
We're pricing ourselves too high, and demanding that Washington force companies to keep us working, even if they can't easily afford it.
That's why we need more active participants in local politics--to monitor these things. The federal government gives us the shaft just as often anyways.
And this one time...
I don't know about the Oscars, but the Grammies work by the collection of all individuals who have ever worked on a movie, album, etc. voting on the winners. The record and movie executives cough up the dough to send copies of the works they want to receive nominations and awards for to all those voters, and voila! You have a total sham for an awards show.
Because in a free country, you only serve time for crimes you commit, not being a criminal.
I am thankful for that, thank you very much. People can change, and people do make mistakes. Find me a perfect human being and I'll vote for him in a heart beat; until then I'll have to choose my elected officials on the basis of their ideology and voting record--not their criminal record.
Uhh, it's the federal government that needs it. Besides, you can make issue with these laws at the local level and actually make a difference. We don't need federal control here, just responsible citizens. If citizens aren't responsible, then democracy fails anyway; giving more power to Washington will only worsen the problem.
I personally think that every bill should have a clause that mandates a discussion at some point in the future to determine whether the law would stay in effect.
You could, but with the incredible new package installation paradigm introduced by Gentoo, you only need to install it once and just use portage and cron to keep your system up to date all the time wohooo!!!!!
I don't think morality police rule the roost at all--they have a few issues that they debate strongly, but as far as internet censorship goes, they are hardly in a position of power.
Who says the federal government won't do the same thing...or if the federal government pursues an avenue that is immune from that, what prevents the local communities from pursuing the same course of action.
Many people from the anti-big-government crowd (I prefer to call it Constitutional federal government anyways) might feel that this is important enough to submit taxation at the local level for city-wide broadband access. That's just as good, from my perspective at least.
Austin. Besides, your city council will listen to you more than the Federal Government does.
That's why we should all say just say "no" to the FCC to do it, and rally our local government to say "yes." That way it would be decentralized, easier to maintain, and far more likely to be interested in our say.
But I'd rather see this come from local communities. They could vote on who they outsource the labor to, how much they are willing to pay for, allow people who don't want to participate to "opt out," and also allow communities that want the Internet, but not the HDTV, to have it "their way."
Xlib is just a protocol, and it doesn't fall under XFree86's license.
Yep. The only issue that could come up would be if you tried to actually work with the sources themselves. This would be the case if you were adding new functionality, writing a driver, etc.
Actually, this has been cleared up many times. A derivative work is something that uses the source code of another; not the functionality.
I don't think so...QT and GTK are not derived works of XFree86 by any test you put them under.