There is a difference between helping, and being a nanny. There should be room for personal responsibility along with room to nurture society. We have a democratic government, so its role is pretty much anything we say it is, within some constitutional constraints. If we all decide tomorrow that the ultimate role of the government is to give us cake, then that is its roll. No where in the constitution does it say that the government shall NOT offer care or assistance to those in need, so this is a potential role of government.
I'd rather, personally, the government do something that matters to real people in need, than much of what its doing now. I'd rather my tax dollars go to healthcare than to idiotic wars, and the goal of spying on every individual in the US. I'd rather it go to real people than locking up millions of pot heads, or to handouts to unviable, unethical corporations. I'd rather being helping Americans than Israel, or Uganda, or whoever we're throwing money at today.
Am I a slave because I disagree with all of these? I have to pay for all of these, and none of them are as ethical as helping people. Hell, I don't even drive a car, so am I slave to you since my taxes go to roads I don't use.
All of this aside, disagreement over the roll of government is fine, even healthy. I'd hate to live in a government ruled by any pure ideology.
I agree there is nothing wrong with a degree of greed or egotism. Until, that is, it starts to come at the detriment of others. When it becomes hurtful (I will gain at your expense), then it becomes immoral. I also find it rather distasteful when it becomes an ends to itself. I generally hate it when people pull the Ayn Rand card too, that somehow being a greedy sociopath is GOOD for society, far better than being a decent helpful human being. We're all greedy individualists to some extent, we all hold ourselves (and families) in higher moral esteem than others, but when it comes without compassion, then your just a parasite doing nothing for society as a whole.
I also get peeved when people think government exists (or "rights") to protect THEIR individual interests, at the expense of anyone else's. Your rights are not, and never will be, more important than everyone else's.
To shorten things up a bit; all things should be a compromise between individualism, and the good of others. When this balance breaks you have tyranny.
And here is my stock question to anyone who says the word "right"; What the hell is a right, and where the hell do they come from? I'm sick of all this "rights" talk, which is generally just a cover for greed and Ayn Randian egotism.
I'd prefer health to be a so-called "right" over "me having tons of extra money". Since A) Health precludes all other things; B) health has a larger impact on the general well-being of society than you owning an extra plasma TV; and C) it is an essential quality to being, as opposed to "the right to lots of money". You can live without excess money, but you can't, obviously, live without your health.
Yes, you are an individual, and you might be blessed with enough money for decent health insurance (is there such a thing in America anymore?), but millions of others are not. Those people count in the equation too, since government exists for them as well. Government actually exists on the behalf of ALL of society, rich and poor, insured or not. Government does not exist to benefit you specifically, it exists to benefit ALL of us. It, in a sense, exists to keep you from stepping on my toes, and visa versa. Thus if there is millions of people with a problem, it is the governments job to help, by its very existence. If this requires a little pain (not equal to the millions of others suffering) to the rich, then sobeit, as long as it results in a net gain of happiness, well-being, or such.
I digress. Generally the terms "rights" is replaced in my brain with the phrase "prepare for some borderline sociopathic ad-hoc justification for greed and egotism"
Interesting theory, with one major flaw: most of the muzak was based upon pieces of music which had been favorites of mine growing up. It was like expecting me not to notice old friends being tortured and mutilated because it was just "background noise".
A couple months ago I was taking my girlfreind out at a decent steak house that was playing nothing but instrumental takes of 90's rock. The truly surreal bit was hearing a plain old Nine Inch Nails instrumental over desert.
But then again its in some big modern "supermall" that for some reason plays nothing but Soundgarden in the parking lot.
What strikes me is that you complain about core 2 duos running like mollasas and needed 6 gigs of memory for vista.
The Mac runs like crap, period. But then again I might be above what the entry level Macs are geared towards. I really have no right running Firefox, iTunes, Adium, and applying filers to a 100MB RAW file in photoshop (via Rosetta, damn CS2). My general observation with Intel Macs is that they don't handle dual cores as well as Linux or even Windows. Anecdotal, yes.
On the Vista boxes, both are completely crap free, including services scrubbed of most superfluous things. On the laptop, it ran okay with 1GB, but not as well as I would want it to. Again, I might have been using it for a bit more than HP expected. I was using it mostly as a desktop replacement, when it really wasn't up to it. I also find Vista dog ugly without some of its eye-candy (such as transparency). With 4GB of RAM, it wasn't bad, barring the stock Intel integrated graphics (which was another thing that stomped a bit on Linux, but oddly only on the HP, not the Mac)
My new PC, with 6GB, which might be a little much, on the other hand is awesome, even with Vista. I'm guessing around 2GB might be the minimum to make Vista run well, even with all its graphics crap, and indexing (which generally sucks). On my new one, I got the extra 4GB for a pittance, so I admit it is overkill (on the bright side, the top usage I've gotten is 3GB/6GB while running iTunes, Firefox, and Fallout 3 at the same time).
So, I understand if you claim you need 2Gb to run vista, but 4? 6? What are you running, iTunes + antivirus + official AIM + updaters for 20 odd apps?
With Vista graphics on, and a minimal load (meaning just Antivir, and Vista default services) I generally boot with with around 1.5GB used. With graphics off, it is around 1GB for just Vista. (Oddly, right now DWM.exe, Vistas widgets, is taking only 23MB).
My own personal take is around 2-3GB, for what I use my computer for. It varies by user, obviously.
And, for your information, all three of my computers are completely clean of crap. Dell isn't that bad for crapwear, but HP is f*ing terrible, I reformatted and reinstalled Vista on it, and then cleaned the useless services from both. The Mac obviously isn't that bad, though it boots with Quicksilver and Adium by default. I keep a clean house, in other words.
The point was; you don't know what type of people a majority of the poor actually are, yet phrased it to make it sound like "most poor people are trash who deserve it", which is a common/. meme.
I was simply anecdotally stating that your apparent faulty generalization was faulty.
You can. I just checked the iTMS, and it offered to "upgrade" my 3 albums of purchased music for $6.30. It says 30% of the album price, 30c a song, or 60c for a music video.
Still a rip. But nice to have the option. I might have to do it, I'm out of iTunes installs, and can't deauthorize anything since all those computers are dead/recycled.
There are a lot of poor people, and there is a lot of reasons that they are poor. I come from a poor family (who finally hit middle class, sort of). My father worked two jobs, but neither paid much, though he was lucky that they both were union so they paid higher than the average. My mom worked what she could, though she was of the house-wife/mother first ethic. My father, the breadwinner, didn't have a decent education (we're talking middle school) because he had to get a job at 14 to help support his family, limiting his opportunities. Even lacking advanced education, my parents still read all they could in their free time, and taught me to read well before any of my peers (in a richer district).
Both parents have "intellectual" pursuits, my mother managed to pick up as many credits as she could in geology. And my dad picked up the same information by prospecting for gold.
So was my family lazy? Did they have f'ed up priorities?
My mother developed severe depression after a divorce and is now living off of disability. Not bipolar, not feeling slightly down about life, but actual suicidal depression. Now she is on the welfare and disability. But even if she managed to get miraculously healthy, she is in her late 50's and there isn't much she can do. People do discriminate against older workers, and without Social Security she would be destitute, homeless, and starving in our wondrous 120 degree heat.
Hell, the Mexican immigrants (legal, AFAIK) down the street work harder than your average educated gringo, but have pretty much nothing to show for it. I don't think their priorities are screwed up, I definitely don't think working three jobs is lazy.
The homeless Vietnam (and now Iraq v1) vet you snub your nose at in an Ayn Randian fit of disdain and egotism isn't some lazy slacker either. We sent them to handle shit, and decided that it wasn't worth the expense of giving a shit later, and now what?
For every poor person they have a story. And some of them are wholly based on actual bad luck, and adverse circumstance.
Yes, I know some lazy, dirty, idiotic poor people too, whose problems are their own fault. Especially now since debt is our national product. Who charge a $3000 television when they have two children, and the father makes barely above minimum wage, but doesn't allow the wife to work because it goes against his antiquated world view of female servitude.
But still, don't try to pull a value thing against poor people, it doesn't work. You can't judge them as a whole, you can't judge ANY group as a whole. Saying all the poor are worthless, lazy, slackers is like saying all Muslims are terrorists, or all Americans are fat, lazy, egotistical sociopaths.
I would bet the author has never actually been in a truly wild setting, where there are animals around that might hunt you. The wild is no place to be oblivious.
huh? We're not talking the deep wilds of Africa here, or deep rain forests where Jaguars might jump on your head. Most of the remaining wilds of the U.S. are rather tame, both due to us killing off the apex predators, we've familiarized the remants with us, and the fact that we don't look like prey.
In my local desert, our big predator is the Mountain Lion (Puma, Cougar, whatnot), but in all my years in the back country I've seen ONE of them. I know they are there, but they are as frightened of us as we of them. The only time they attack people is in times of stress or starvation. Yes, they eat our stupid little dogs, and thats okay. After them we have coyotes, which are only scary to small children and small pets. I don't have to bring up foxes and bob cats.
Down south we might have a jaguar (singular for now, unless they build the asinine border fence).
In the woods you have black/brown bears and perhaps a couple reintroduced wolves. Of them the bear is only scary one time a year.
Most predators don't bother you unless your doing something wrong. Let them have their space, they will let you have yours.
They scariest things in most of Americas wilds are snakes and spiders. Snakes can be avoided easily, and generally don't seek out prey 100x their size. Spiders are everywhere, even in our "safe" cities.
If you really think America's wilds are that dangerous, you need to spend some more time out of the city.
Though I've started to notice the same annoying "Pride" thing from immigrants from LA, as from NYC. I even have a couple friends (or rather friends of a friend's sister) who got an LA tattoo, just so they know where they live.
I just find it annoying how New Yorkers think they they are really that relevant. I also find it annoying how New York is always shoved down the rest of the countries throat, as if anyone of us actually cared. I'm also miffed about how every television show is based there, meaning that none of it is really that applicable to people living in normal cities. I rather miss when everything was based in Milwaukee.
How many people are actively proud of living in Phoenix, or Cleveland?
I am a city person, and I wholly agree with the study (personally). But then again I think some degree of silence and solitude are necessary for the intellectual life (actually for focus, with is necessary for the intellectual life).
I grew up in the city, but had the good fortune of going to college in the boonies, and I could tell the difference. A 20 minute hike would put you in the woods, completely away from anyone. There were no distractions. I could actually sit and read (in a deep way, not in the leisurely way) for hours without anyone talking to me ("what are you reading" is the most damnable question ever, btw).
Part of this was because the lack of people, cars, etc... And part of it was due to the change in context. In the city we have constant reminders of our bust life, escaping the city escapes this context.
It always is nice to get out of the range of the nearest cell-tower, off the roads, and away from the mindless chatter of others.
For some reason I feel that the people who are against this study are the typical Americans who are frightened of silence since it allows introspection. Most people in cities, IMHO, exist largly as interactions, and are frightened on some level of what remains (if anything) when there is no more superfluous stimulus.
Which brings me too; why the hell is there canned music EVERYWHERE in cities?
Yes, I'm a slightly pissy misanthrope, so this might have something to do with it. And yes, I grew up in the 5th largest metropolitan area in the US, so I'm not a country boy.
Porting Quicksilver would be next to impossible. Windows doesn't handle objects the same as OS X. In OS X software can tie more into the OS than Windows, and data isn't quite as segregated (see the Services menu, for example).
I am glad they finally open sourced it though, they were talking about doing that for years. They have they same (ish) development model, with the 10 year beta.
I find it odd that the 3rd Party Free software for OS X is better quality than all of it that exist in windows, and most of it on Linux. The usefulness of Linux, with some eye towards GUI and ease, I suppose.
I agree with much of what you say, as well. For some reason Apple never realizes that Macs need about double the RAM that they bundle them with. Heck, I remember shopping around for a iMac, and finding that they wanted around $600 to add a 1GB stick to it, when that was about what OS X needed to run at a usable level. It always confused me.
Can't say I'm enamoured of Vista as you have been, though.
Enamored is a bit strong. its really hard to feel passionate about Windows, the only time I even approached strong feelings towards a Windows release was 2000, and 98SE (no clue why I loved the later). Vista is adequate. With RAM and SP1, it isn't the devil people paint it into. I like it a bit more than XP, not much, not enough to justify actually spending money on an upgrade.
I would prefer a slightly less locked down version (let me mess with my GUI please) of OS X, running on standard hardware with decent 3rd party hardware support. With OS X using a standard release model.
Vista networking is terrible, you are correct. Especially with laptops, for some reason sleep makes your wifi die. When I was playing with some finicky ad-hoc networks, I had every single networking window open, it seemed more trial and error than an actual process.
Vista also handles user directories in the worst, and most inefficient manner ever. It took me about a full day to castrate my public/non-admin accounts of anything that would hose the computer. Vista's security model goes from intrusive and annoying, to pointless and annoying, to completely nonexistent. I suppose its the Windows philosophy.
I have almost stopped with buying AdWords ads myself
Where you've managed to spam your site at least twice in this topic. Bravo.
Not clicking it, don't care. Especially don't care when your posting what amounts to an ad (an unrelated, and unqualified one at that) in a discussion largely decrying unsolicited ads.
Please, just put it in a sig and aim for +5 comments.
I recently switched back to Windows from OS X. I originally switched from Windows to OS X for much of the reasons you speak of. I had a rather nasty series of hardware issues (New graphics cards drivers did nasty things, and combined with a new HDD needed a new PSU, new PSU fried mobo),and software problems, so when the computer made its freindly "snap" noise, and the ozone filled the air, I decided "screw it" and bought a G4 PowerMac.
OS X was sexy, which is an odd thing to call a mere OS. It was VERY user friendly, and actually somewhat fun to use. With about half the specs of my old top-of-the-line PC, it still ran remarkably fast. With the new iPod that came with it, I was in computer heaven. I never had to work for my computer, as I did with Linux and Windows and the general PC (for lack of a better term) hardware. And it has Adium and Quicksilver, which are probably two of the best designed chucks of code that ever existed.
Finally its HDD died, and I sold it off for about 70% of its original value, even while being broken. (very odd how much Mac people buy crap for).
So I got an Intel MacBook. With around twice the raw numbers of hardware, it ran a bit slower than the G4. It chugged. It didn't like multi-tasking, even when I fed it RAM like candy. Photoshop ran like molasses on the surface of Pluto, which is nice for something I actually shelled out a small countries fortune for. Then OS X updated, and no app developer would ever support my previous (only 1.5 year old) version. No more updates for me, unless I shelled out $100. I realized then that OS X is a subscription, not a release. Each version they make minor (superfluous) tweaks to make sure that nothing developed for the NEW version is backwards compatible with the old version. If you want new toys, you MUST pay Apple, every damn year. Like is MS charged for service packs, and released one a year. Named OS X version are NOT new OSs, they are just boring point releases that cost $100 apiece. (like the latest one, wow $100 for versioning and virtual desktops! Thinks that *nix has had for years, for free)
Then I bought a crappy middle-of-the-road HP laptop that was on a wicked Xmas sale. It was running Vista, which at first I wanted to abolish, but later learned to tolerate (with 4GB of RAM), and later still to actually like a bit (with 6GB of RAM and SP1). The HP had the same exact hardware as the Mac, but seemed faster. I relearned the joy of messing around inside the OS, streamlining it. Making it appear like MY home, and not the Model Home look that Apple likes (its pretty, but generally impersonal).
The Intel Integrated Video sucked. So this year I bought and tweaked a middle-of-the-road Dell, throwing in RAM, a decent graphics card, a huge monitor.
Long story short, it depends on what you want. No OS is superior. They all fit a certain type of user. I giggle at people who think their OS is perfect. I tell my parents to buy Macs, my friends to stick with Vista, while telling a very small percentage of them about various *nix releases. Too each his own, based on style and needs.
Vista fits my middle ground between desire to tweak things, and desire to have things work smoothly. Some people want their computer to be a toaster, let them have Macs. Some people want to treat them like muscle-car projects, let them run *nix.
Just bring Quicksilver and Adium to Windows, please.
Why does the public have rights over and above the creator?
The creator is dead, long dead, and hence receives absolutely no benefit from Mickey Mouse's copyright.
The point of government is to find the balance between individual good, and public good, and enforce it. Things being public domain enhance the public, while control over creations benefit the individual, the original goal of copyright was to balance these, limiting the creators rights to continue to give incentive for creation (to the benefit of the public), and limiting the public's rights until there was a period for the creator to benefit.
Right now, the public has essentially NO rights when it comes to works, while the creator (and his great great grandchildren) have all of the rights, and none of the incentives to continue being creative. There is no reason that zombie Disney (still benefiting somehow from the mouse after his death) to EVER create another iconic cartoon.
This is idealized, since often the creator doesn't even have the rights, they are held by giant corporations. For example the Beatles music copyrights are not benefiting any single member of the band, only giant corporations, and Micheal Jackson. This doesn't make sense. Lovecrafts works only benefit Arkham House, and the Derelith estate, since he left no heirs. None of this makes much sense to me.
Copyright should involve the creators of content, and the public. That is the original Constitutional scope.
Corporate profits should NOT come into this equation, just you (the artist), and me the consumer.
I see no actual reason why copyright should even exist past death, since the children of artists should be no more privileged than my own children (i.e. have to work for a living).
In my perfect world, copyright would last for 20 years, with 2 possible extensions (not to exceed the lift of the creator) with proof that the work is making money/being used. Rights would be nontransferable, and only existent within actual people, though this would not disallow signing profits over to 3rd parties, just not the full rights themselves.
All this anecdotal evidence is getting annoying. Here is my anecdotal evidence to completely invalidate yours, and everyone else's.
Low level HP laptop, Intel Core Duo 2.00GHZ(the 32bit variety), integrated Intel graphics, and 2BG of RAM; Vista runs like a dog.
Same laptop upgraded to 3.5GB of RAM; Vista runs about as fast as XP, or at least as far as I notice, there might be a couple MS difference. File copying still sucks via USB2 for large amounts of small files, but there isn't a noticeable between partitions or over a network (again, might be slightly slower, but not enough to make me care).
On my tower, Core 2 Duo 2.66GHZ (x64), 6GB RAM, and a nVidia 9500 1GB; Vista seems faster than XP. Normal ram usage tops out at around 1.5GB. Copying to USB2 with a huge amount of small files is still annoying, but again can't tell much of a difference with larger files.
On the laptop, when I was running Ubutnu (Hardy) with Compiz, it ran MUCH slower than the same config with Vista, though the USB2 problem healed itself. Without Compiz, there was little difference, until I tried to use either the built in Wifi or my Linksys fob, where I promptly deleted the Linux partition in disgust.
With 6GB installed at boot (nothing but Antivir and a couple other 3rd party processes) Vista is using around 1.2-1.35GB. Right now with Firefox open (5 tabs), iTunes, Last.fm Client, and uTorrent I'm at 1.93GB used. With the Photoshop is jumps to around 2.2GB. This is with all the goodies turned on.
What the heck is taking up that much RAM on your system?
UAC is on by default, but easily turned off. How much default OS cruft do you usually keep, on any OS? Its like complaining that Windows Defender isn't as good as Spybot, or that the WMP sucks compared to KMPlayer or VLC. Completely optional, and it takes a mere 2 clicks to turn off (4 to remove the Security Center nag).
Actually SP1 Vista is about on par with XP, when run on a modern stock computer. I haven't noticed Vista crashing more or less than XP, I've only encountered one or two programs that won't run, and that was mostly because of the x32-x64 issues.
Yes, some older apps won't run anymore, but that generally happens.
As for the control panel, there still is the "classic" view.
It isn't perfect. But it isn't nearly as bad as people want to think it is either. I think the idiotic OS War (my OS is better than yours) has more to do with it, than any actual fault of Vista. You chose an OS, therefore it must be the best, if other people choose a different one, then they must be stupid. It's a flavor of cognitive dissonance.
True geeks run all of the "big 3", at once, in different corners.
You are correct, suicide bombers obviously don't have any desire but to cause destruction.
Actually no. Why would that be the motivation if they could not see it? They must be killing themselves for something they perceive to be bigger than themselves. I doubt that this is just the whim to.. er.. not see destruction.
Why do you attribute different internal motivation to others and not yourself? When we invade countries because we don't like how they look at us (assuming your an American), do we do it just because we like destruction? Or do we have some (generally half-baked) rational for doing it? Was our "shock and awe" campaign at the beginning of the Iraq War v.2 just for wanton destruction? The name belays the fact that it was a violent act used to psychologically overwhelm and demoralize the enemy, and thus an act akin to terrorism (definition wise).
I would posit that terrorism is probably a flawed approach, but I think its easy to grasp for the desperate. How are you supposed to tell the worlds antagonistic bullies to go away when your a poor country, without a standing military, and lacking the 30 years of advances we have (and impart to our equally antagonistic allies)? What do you do when you actually think that someone much bigger and more powerful than you is actively trying to destroy you, your way of life, and your home? What do you do when there is no chance whatsoever of an equal playing field?
I'm not saying these people are correct in this (though I'm beginning to suspect it), but put yourself in their shoes. Or at least analyze the violence that you deem as acceptable because it is your own.
Were the Americans "terrorists" in the Revolutionary war?
Why would I buy (or build) a bigger, heavier, noisier machine with similar performance and price?
Ease of repairs and upgrades? My GFs laptop had its mobo die, repairs would have cost the same as a new laptop, whereas if it was a PC, this could be fixed for around 100$ or less.
If this laptops keyboard died, then I'm out around 50% the price of a new laptop, instead of $9.
The LCD? Your pretty much screwed.
Also, if you want to upgrade the crappy video card in most laptops, to actually play games made after 1999, then your pretty much screwed as well.
My next computer is a desktop, I did the laptop thing for 6 years now, and I'm beginning to miss monkeying around inside of PCs. My old desktop was almost 10 years old, but I could continuously upgrade it, my laptop might only last 2 years before its too slow to run anything.
Laptops kind of suck, though the portability is nice. Sadly my lap top sits on a desk, and hardly ever moves.
Right now I've been leaning towards consoles as the ideal gaming platform, when it comes to lasting through time. I don't like this decision, since PCs have large advantages (for me at least) over consoles, like patches, user content, etc... They do, though, have a better sense of permanence.
Computers as an entertainment medium makes me wonder about historians in the future. Inevitably there will be humanities based on gaming in the late 20th century. But I think it might prove to be one of the more fragile cultural artifacts. Absurd thought, probably.
You can get it in my country (DK) right now, at affordable if not quite cheap, prizes right now, I'm guessing you are American (from your posting time, don't kill me if I'm wrong), and I hear US is a bit behind with that sort of thing, but no doubt it will happen there, too.
The US will probably remain behind for a long while (you are correct, btw). We are a much larger country than all of the European nations, and thus have a lot of land where it isn't economical to invest in cell-towers/wiring/etc... That and our current mindset is dead-set against investing in the necessary infrastructure. There are huge tracks of land here people still must rely on Dial-Up, or at best Satellite for service. Add to that our crappy telecom monopolies, and... Perhaps my grandchildren will have decent, universal, access.
Debating your agnosticism, in the proper context, will someday be enjoyable.:)
I wasn't really critiquing the free market, it was more an attack on how we approach it. Oddly we give corporations the status of people (when convenient), but refuse to hold them to the moral criteria we hold for individuals. This isn't so much a flaw in the free market, but more a flaw in how our society approaches it.
The idea that greed is the mother of all morals, or at least allotted the privilege of being agnostic to morality, is also a problem.
I don't have a solution for this, using the free market, or opposing it. Though I think Marx was originally right, eventually free market capitalism will collapse on itself, or at least have to come back in line with the values that any given society holds for itself. To ward off the flames, I'm not saying socialism, or communism, is an answer, nor is extensive government regulation, though some might be necessary to ward off the more harmful of predatory practices.
"...except I don't know who should decide (or what standard they should use) which companies are unethical."
I doubt there ever could be a universal criteria. It is like the old definition of pornography; you know it when you see it. In certain cases it is obvious (putting your workers or customers into harms way for a profit, lying, bribing officials for a better deal against the public interest), but most of the time we deal with nice shades of gray.
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There is a difference between helping, and being a nanny. There should be room for personal responsibility along with room to nurture society. We have a democratic government, so its role is pretty much anything we say it is, within some constitutional constraints. If we all decide tomorrow that the ultimate role of the government is to give us cake, then that is its roll. No where in the constitution does it say that the government shall NOT offer care or assistance to those in need, so this is a potential role of government.
I'd rather, personally, the government do something that matters to real people in need, than much of what its doing now. I'd rather my tax dollars go to healthcare than to idiotic wars, and the goal of spying on every individual in the US. I'd rather it go to real people than locking up millions of pot heads, or to handouts to unviable, unethical corporations. I'd rather being helping Americans than Israel, or Uganda, or whoever we're throwing money at today.
Am I a slave because I disagree with all of these? I have to pay for all of these, and none of them are as ethical as helping people. Hell, I don't even drive a car, so am I slave to you since my taxes go to roads I don't use.
All of this aside, disagreement over the roll of government is fine, even healthy. I'd hate to live in a government ruled by any pure ideology.
I agree there is nothing wrong with a degree of greed or egotism. Until, that is, it starts to come at the detriment of others. When it becomes hurtful (I will gain at your expense), then it becomes immoral. I also find it rather distasteful when it becomes an ends to itself. I generally hate it when people pull the Ayn Rand card too, that somehow being a greedy sociopath is GOOD for society, far better than being a decent helpful human being. We're all greedy individualists to some extent, we all hold ourselves (and families) in higher moral esteem than others, but when it comes without compassion, then your just a parasite doing nothing for society as a whole.
I also get peeved when people think government exists (or "rights") to protect THEIR individual interests, at the expense of anyone else's. Your rights are not, and never will be, more important than everyone else's.
To shorten things up a bit; all things should be a compromise between individualism, and the good of others. When this balance breaks you have tyranny.
Hyperbole much?
And here is my stock question to anyone who says the word "right"; What the hell is a right, and where the hell do they come from? I'm sick of all this "rights" talk, which is generally just a cover for greed and Ayn Randian egotism.
I'd prefer health to be a so-called "right" over "me having tons of extra money". Since A) Health precludes all other things; B) health has a larger impact on the general well-being of society than you owning an extra plasma TV; and C) it is an essential quality to being, as opposed to "the right to lots of money". You can live without excess money, but you can't, obviously, live without your health.
Yes, you are an individual, and you might be blessed with enough money for decent health insurance (is there such a thing in America anymore?), but millions of others are not. Those people count in the equation too, since government exists for them as well. Government actually exists on the behalf of ALL of society, rich and poor, insured or not. Government does not exist to benefit you specifically, it exists to benefit ALL of us. It, in a sense, exists to keep you from stepping on my toes, and visa versa. Thus if there is millions of people with a problem, it is the governments job to help, by its very existence. If this requires a little pain (not equal to the millions of others suffering) to the rich, then sobeit, as long as it results in a net gain of happiness, well-being, or such.
I digress. Generally the terms "rights" is replaced in my brain with the phrase "prepare for some borderline sociopathic ad-hoc justification for greed and egotism"
Interesting theory, with one major flaw: most of the muzak was based upon pieces of music which had been favorites of mine growing up. It was like expecting me not to notice old friends being tortured and mutilated because it was just "background noise".
A couple months ago I was taking my girlfreind out at a decent steak house that was playing nothing but instrumental takes of 90's rock. The truly surreal bit was hearing a plain old Nine Inch Nails instrumental over desert.
But then again its in some big modern "supermall" that for some reason plays nothing but Soundgarden in the parking lot.
Has the 90's become "retro" already?
What strikes me is that you complain about core 2 duos running like mollasas and needed 6 gigs of memory for vista.
The Mac runs like crap, period. But then again I might be above what the entry level Macs are geared towards. I really have no right running Firefox, iTunes, Adium, and applying filers to a 100MB RAW file in photoshop (via Rosetta, damn CS2). My general observation with Intel Macs is that they don't handle dual cores as well as Linux or even Windows. Anecdotal, yes.
On the Vista boxes, both are completely crap free, including services scrubbed of most superfluous things. On the laptop, it ran okay with 1GB, but not as well as I would want it to. Again, I might have been using it for a bit more than HP expected. I was using it mostly as a desktop replacement, when it really wasn't up to it. I also find Vista dog ugly without some of its eye-candy (such as transparency). With 4GB of RAM, it wasn't bad, barring the stock Intel integrated graphics (which was another thing that stomped a bit on Linux, but oddly only on the HP, not the Mac)
My new PC, with 6GB, which might be a little much, on the other hand is awesome, even with Vista. I'm guessing around 2GB might be the minimum to make Vista run well, even with all its graphics crap, and indexing (which generally sucks). On my new one, I got the extra 4GB for a pittance, so I admit it is overkill (on the bright side, the top usage I've gotten is 3GB/6GB while running iTunes, Firefox, and Fallout 3 at the same time).
So, I understand if you claim you need 2Gb to run vista, but 4? 6? What are you running, iTunes + antivirus + official AIM + updaters for 20 odd apps?
With Vista graphics on, and a minimal load (meaning just Antivir, and Vista default services) I generally boot with with around 1.5GB used. With graphics off, it is around 1GB for just Vista. (Oddly, right now DWM.exe, Vistas widgets, is taking only 23MB).
My own personal take is around 2-3GB, for what I use my computer for. It varies by user, obviously.
And, for your information, all three of my computers are completely clean of crap. Dell isn't that bad for crapwear, but HP is f*ing terrible, I reformatted and reinstalled Vista on it, and then cleaned the useless services from both. The Mac obviously isn't that bad, though it boots with Quicksilver and Adium by default. I keep a clean house, in other words.
The point was; you don't know what type of people a majority of the poor actually are, yet phrased it to make it sound like "most poor people are trash who deserve it", which is a common /. meme.
I was simply anecdotally stating that your apparent faulty generalization was faulty.
Thanks!
You can. I just checked the iTMS, and it offered to "upgrade" my 3 albums of purchased music for $6.30. It says 30% of the album price, 30c a song, or 60c for a music video.
Still a rip. But nice to have the option. I might have to do it, I'm out of iTunes installs, and can't deauthorize anything since all those computers are dead/recycled.
Huh?
Class warfare much?
There are a lot of poor people, and there is a lot of reasons that they are poor. I come from a poor family (who finally hit middle class, sort of). My father worked two jobs, but neither paid much, though he was lucky that they both were union so they paid higher than the average. My mom worked what she could, though she was of the house-wife/mother first ethic. My father, the breadwinner, didn't have a decent education (we're talking middle school) because he had to get a job at 14 to help support his family, limiting his opportunities. Even lacking advanced education, my parents still read all they could in their free time, and taught me to read well before any of my peers (in a richer district).
Both parents have "intellectual" pursuits, my mother managed to pick up as many credits as she could in geology. And my dad picked up the same information by prospecting for gold.
So was my family lazy? Did they have f'ed up priorities?
My mother developed severe depression after a divorce and is now living off of disability. Not bipolar, not feeling slightly down about life, but actual suicidal depression. Now she is on the welfare and disability. But even if she managed to get miraculously healthy, she is in her late 50's and there isn't much she can do. People do discriminate against older workers, and without Social Security she would be destitute, homeless, and starving in our wondrous 120 degree heat.
Hell, the Mexican immigrants (legal, AFAIK) down the street work harder than your average educated gringo, but have pretty much nothing to show for it. I don't think their priorities are screwed up, I definitely don't think working three jobs is lazy.
The homeless Vietnam (and now Iraq v1) vet you snub your nose at in an Ayn Randian fit of disdain and egotism isn't some lazy slacker either. We sent them to handle shit, and decided that it wasn't worth the expense of giving a shit later, and now what?
For every poor person they have a story. And some of them are wholly based on actual bad luck, and adverse circumstance.
Yes, I know some lazy, dirty, idiotic poor people too, whose problems are their own fault. Especially now since debt is our national product. Who charge a $3000 television when they have two children, and the father makes barely above minimum wage, but doesn't allow the wife to work because it goes against his antiquated world view of female servitude.
But still, don't try to pull a value thing against poor people, it doesn't work. You can't judge them as a whole, you can't judge ANY group as a whole. Saying all the poor are worthless, lazy, slackers is like saying all Muslims are terrorists, or all Americans are fat, lazy, egotistical sociopaths.
I wasn't aware that the government was a for-profit entity.
I would bet the author has never actually been in a truly wild setting, where there are animals around that might hunt you. The wild is no place to be oblivious.
huh? We're not talking the deep wilds of Africa here, or deep rain forests where Jaguars might jump on your head. Most of the remaining wilds of the U.S. are rather tame, both due to us killing off the apex predators, we've familiarized the remants with us, and the fact that we don't look like prey.
In my local desert, our big predator is the Mountain Lion (Puma, Cougar, whatnot), but in all my years in the back country I've seen ONE of them. I know they are there, but they are as frightened of us as we of them. The only time they attack people is in times of stress or starvation. Yes, they eat our stupid little dogs, and thats okay. After them we have coyotes, which are only scary to small children and small pets. I don't have to bring up foxes and bob cats.
Down south we might have a jaguar (singular for now, unless they build the asinine border fence).
In the woods you have black/brown bears and perhaps a couple reintroduced wolves. Of them the bear is only scary one time a year.
Most predators don't bother you unless your doing something wrong. Let them have their space, they will let you have yours.
They scariest things in most of Americas wilds are snakes and spiders. Snakes can be avoided easily, and generally don't seek out prey 100x their size. Spiders are everywhere, even in our "safe" cities.
If you really think America's wilds are that dangerous, you need to spend some more time out of the city.
I'd rather live in NYC than LA.
Not that that is saying much.
Though I've started to notice the same annoying "Pride" thing from immigrants from LA, as from NYC. I even have a couple friends (or rather friends of a friend's sister) who got an LA tattoo, just so they know where they live.
I just find it annoying how New Yorkers think they they are really that relevant. I also find it annoying how New York is always shoved down the rest of the countries throat, as if anyone of us actually cared. I'm also miffed about how every television show is based there, meaning that none of it is really that applicable to people living in normal cities. I rather miss when everything was based in Milwaukee.
How many people are actively proud of living in Phoenix, or Cleveland?
I am a city person, and I wholly agree with the study (personally). But then again I think some degree of silence and solitude are necessary for the intellectual life (actually for focus, with is necessary for the intellectual life).
I grew up in the city, but had the good fortune of going to college in the boonies, and I could tell the difference. A 20 minute hike would put you in the woods, completely away from anyone. There were no distractions. I could actually sit and read (in a deep way, not in the leisurely way) for hours without anyone talking to me ("what are you reading" is the most damnable question ever, btw).
Part of this was because the lack of people, cars, etc... And part of it was due to the change in context. In the city we have constant reminders of our bust life, escaping the city escapes this context.
It always is nice to get out of the range of the nearest cell-tower, off the roads, and away from the mindless chatter of others.
For some reason I feel that the people who are against this study are the typical Americans who are frightened of silence since it allows introspection. Most people in cities, IMHO, exist largly as interactions, and are frightened on some level of what remains (if anything) when there is no more superfluous stimulus.
Which brings me too; why the hell is there canned music EVERYWHERE in cities?
Yes, I'm a slightly pissy misanthrope, so this might have something to do with it. And yes, I grew up in the 5th largest metropolitan area in the US, so I'm not a country boy.
Porting Quicksilver would be next to impossible. Windows doesn't handle objects the same as OS X. In OS X software can tie more into the OS than Windows, and data isn't quite as segregated (see the Services menu, for example).
I am glad they finally open sourced it though, they were talking about doing that for years. They have they same (ish) development model, with the 10 year beta.
I find it odd that the 3rd Party Free software for OS X is better quality than all of it that exist in windows, and most of it on Linux. The usefulness of Linux, with some eye towards GUI and ease, I suppose.
thanks for the vocal mod.
I agree with much of what you say, as well. For some reason Apple never realizes that Macs need about double the RAM that they bundle them with. Heck, I remember shopping around for a iMac, and finding that they wanted around $600 to add a 1GB stick to it, when that was about what OS X needed to run at a usable level. It always confused me.
Can't say I'm enamoured of Vista as you have been, though.
Enamored is a bit strong. its really hard to feel passionate about Windows, the only time I even approached strong feelings towards a Windows release was 2000, and 98SE (no clue why I loved the later). Vista is adequate. With RAM and SP1, it isn't the devil people paint it into. I like it a bit more than XP, not much, not enough to justify actually spending money on an upgrade.
I would prefer a slightly less locked down version (let me mess with my GUI please) of OS X, running on standard hardware with decent 3rd party hardware support. With OS X using a standard release model.
Vista networking is terrible, you are correct. Especially with laptops, for some reason sleep makes your wifi die. When I was playing with some finicky ad-hoc networks, I had every single networking window open, it seemed more trial and error than an actual process.
Vista also handles user directories in the worst, and most inefficient manner ever. It took me about a full day to castrate my public/non-admin accounts of anything that would hose the computer. Vista's security model goes from intrusive and annoying, to pointless and annoying, to completely nonexistent. I suppose its the Windows philosophy.
I have almost stopped with buying AdWords ads myself
Where you've managed to spam your site at least twice in this topic. Bravo.
Not clicking it, don't care. Especially don't care when your posting what amounts to an ad (an unrelated, and unqualified one at that) in a discussion largely decrying unsolicited ads.
Please, just put it in a sig and aim for +5 comments.
I recently switched back to Windows from OS X. I originally switched from Windows to OS X for much of the reasons you speak of. I had a rather nasty series of hardware issues (New graphics cards drivers did nasty things, and combined with a new HDD needed a new PSU, new PSU fried mobo),and software problems, so when the computer made its freindly "snap" noise, and the ozone filled the air, I decided "screw it" and bought a G4 PowerMac.
OS X was sexy, which is an odd thing to call a mere OS. It was VERY user friendly, and actually somewhat fun to use. With about half the specs of my old top-of-the-line PC, it still ran remarkably fast. With the new iPod that came with it, I was in computer heaven. I never had to work for my computer, as I did with Linux and Windows and the general PC (for lack of a better term) hardware. And it has Adium and Quicksilver, which are probably two of the best designed chucks of code that ever existed.
Finally its HDD died, and I sold it off for about 70% of its original value, even while being broken. (very odd how much Mac people buy crap for).
So I got an Intel MacBook. With around twice the raw numbers of hardware, it ran a bit slower than the G4. It chugged. It didn't like multi-tasking, even when I fed it RAM like candy. Photoshop ran like molasses on the surface of Pluto, which is nice for something I actually shelled out a small countries fortune for. Then OS X updated, and no app developer would ever support my previous (only 1.5 year old) version. No more updates for me, unless I shelled out $100. I realized then that OS X is a subscription, not a release. Each version they make minor (superfluous) tweaks to make sure that nothing developed for the NEW version is backwards compatible with the old version. If you want new toys, you MUST pay Apple, every damn year. Like is MS charged for service packs, and released one a year. Named OS X version are NOT new OSs, they are just boring point releases that cost $100 apiece. (like the latest one, wow $100 for versioning and virtual desktops! Thinks that *nix has had for years, for free)
Then I bought a crappy middle-of-the-road HP laptop that was on a wicked Xmas sale. It was running Vista, which at first I wanted to abolish, but later learned to tolerate (with 4GB of RAM), and later still to actually like a bit (with 6GB of RAM and SP1). The HP had the same exact hardware as the Mac, but seemed faster. I relearned the joy of messing around inside the OS, streamlining it. Making it appear like MY home, and not the Model Home look that Apple likes (its pretty, but generally impersonal).
The Intel Integrated Video sucked. So this year I bought and tweaked a middle-of-the-road Dell, throwing in RAM, a decent graphics card, a huge monitor.
Long story short, it depends on what you want. No OS is superior. They all fit a certain type of user. I giggle at people who think their OS is perfect. I tell my parents to buy Macs, my friends to stick with Vista, while telling a very small percentage of them about various *nix releases. Too each his own, based on style and needs.
Vista fits my middle ground between desire to tweak things, and desire to have things work smoothly. Some people want their computer to be a toaster, let them have Macs. Some people want to treat them like muscle-car projects, let them run *nix.
Just bring Quicksilver and Adium to Windows, please.
Why does the public have rights over and above the creator?
The creator is dead, long dead, and hence receives absolutely no benefit from Mickey Mouse's copyright.
The point of government is to find the balance between individual good, and public good, and enforce it. Things being public domain enhance the public, while control over creations benefit the individual, the original goal of copyright was to balance these, limiting the creators rights to continue to give incentive for creation (to the benefit of the public), and limiting the public's rights until there was a period for the creator to benefit.
Right now, the public has essentially NO rights when it comes to works, while the creator (and his great great grandchildren) have all of the rights, and none of the incentives to continue being creative. There is no reason that zombie Disney (still benefiting somehow from the mouse after his death) to EVER create another iconic cartoon.
This is idealized, since often the creator doesn't even have the rights, they are held by giant corporations. For example the Beatles music copyrights are not benefiting any single member of the band, only giant corporations, and Micheal Jackson. This doesn't make sense. Lovecrafts works only benefit Arkham House, and the Derelith estate, since he left no heirs. None of this makes much sense to me.
Copyright should involve the creators of content, and the public. That is the original Constitutional scope.
Corporate profits should NOT come into this equation, just you (the artist), and me the consumer.
I see no actual reason why copyright should even exist past death, since the children of artists should be no more privileged than my own children (i.e. have to work for a living).
In my perfect world, copyright would last for 20 years, with 2 possible extensions (not to exceed the lift of the creator) with proof that the work is making money/being used. Rights would be nontransferable, and only existent within actual people, though this would not disallow signing profits over to 3rd parties, just not the full rights themselves.
All this anecdotal evidence is getting annoying. Here is my anecdotal evidence to completely invalidate yours, and everyone else's.
Low level HP laptop, Intel Core Duo 2.00GHZ(the 32bit variety), integrated Intel graphics, and 2BG of RAM; Vista runs like a dog.
Same laptop upgraded to 3.5GB of RAM; Vista runs about as fast as XP, or at least as far as I notice, there might be a couple MS difference. File copying still sucks via USB2 for large amounts of small files, but there isn't a noticeable between partitions or over a network (again, might be slightly slower, but not enough to make me care).
On my tower, Core 2 Duo 2.66GHZ (x64), 6GB RAM, and a nVidia 9500 1GB; Vista seems faster than XP. Normal ram usage tops out at around 1.5GB. Copying to USB2 with a huge amount of small files is still annoying, but again can't tell much of a difference with larger files.
On the laptop, when I was running Ubutnu (Hardy) with Compiz, it ran MUCH slower than the same config with Vista, though the USB2 problem healed itself. Without Compiz, there was little difference, until I tried to use either the built in Wifi or my Linksys fob, where I promptly deleted the Linux partition in disgust.
What are you running?
With 6GB installed at boot (nothing but Antivir and a couple other 3rd party processes) Vista is using around 1.2-1.35GB. Right now with Firefox open (5 tabs), iTunes, Last.fm Client, and uTorrent I'm at 1.93GB used. With the Photoshop is jumps to around 2.2GB. This is with all the goodies turned on.
What the heck is taking up that much RAM on your system?
UAC is on by default, but easily turned off. How much default OS cruft do you usually keep, on any OS? Its like complaining that Windows Defender isn't as good as Spybot, or that the WMP sucks compared to KMPlayer or VLC. Completely optional, and it takes a mere 2 clicks to turn off (4 to remove the Security Center nag).
Actually SP1 Vista is about on par with XP, when run on a modern stock computer. I haven't noticed Vista crashing more or less than XP, I've only encountered one or two programs that won't run, and that was mostly because of the x32-x64 issues.
Yes, some older apps won't run anymore, but that generally happens.
As for the control panel, there still is the "classic" view.
It isn't perfect. But it isn't nearly as bad as people want to think it is either. I think the idiotic OS War (my OS is better than yours) has more to do with it, than any actual fault of Vista. You chose an OS, therefore it must be the best, if other people choose a different one, then they must be stupid. It's a flavor of cognitive dissonance.
True geeks run all of the "big 3", at once, in different corners.
But Hawaii is next to India?
Hm...
You are correct, suicide bombers obviously don't have any desire but to cause destruction.
Actually no. Why would that be the motivation if they could not see it? They must be killing themselves for something they perceive to be bigger than themselves. I doubt that this is just the whim to.. er.. not see destruction.
Why do you attribute different internal motivation to others and not yourself? When we invade countries because we don't like how they look at us (assuming your an American), do we do it just because we like destruction? Or do we have some (generally half-baked) rational for doing it? Was our "shock and awe" campaign at the beginning of the Iraq War v.2 just for wanton destruction? The name belays the fact that it was a violent act used to psychologically overwhelm and demoralize the enemy, and thus an act akin to terrorism (definition wise).
I would posit that terrorism is probably a flawed approach, but I think its easy to grasp for the desperate. How are you supposed to tell the worlds antagonistic bullies to go away when your a poor country, without a standing military, and lacking the 30 years of advances we have (and impart to our equally antagonistic allies)? What do you do when you actually think that someone much bigger and more powerful than you is actively trying to destroy you, your way of life, and your home? What do you do when there is no chance whatsoever of an equal playing field?
I'm not saying these people are correct in this (though I'm beginning to suspect it), but put yourself in their shoes. Or at least analyze the violence that you deem as acceptable because it is your own.
Were the Americans "terrorists" in the Revolutionary war?
Why would I buy (or build) a bigger, heavier, noisier machine with similar performance and price?
Ease of repairs and upgrades? My GFs laptop had its mobo die, repairs would have cost the same as a new laptop, whereas if it was a PC, this could be fixed for around 100$ or less.
If this laptops keyboard died, then I'm out around 50% the price of a new laptop, instead of $9.
The LCD? Your pretty much screwed.
Also, if you want to upgrade the crappy video card in most laptops, to actually play games made after 1999, then your pretty much screwed as well.
My next computer is a desktop, I did the laptop thing for 6 years now, and I'm beginning to miss monkeying around inside of PCs. My old desktop was almost 10 years old, but I could continuously upgrade it, my laptop might only last 2 years before its too slow to run anything.
Laptops kind of suck, though the portability is nice. Sadly my lap top sits on a desk, and hardly ever moves.
Right now I've been leaning towards consoles as the ideal gaming platform, when it comes to lasting through time. I don't like this decision, since PCs have large advantages (for me at least) over consoles, like patches, user content, etc... They do, though, have a better sense of permanence.
Computers as an entertainment medium makes me wonder about historians in the future. Inevitably there will be humanities based on gaming in the late 20th century. But I think it might prove to be one of the more fragile cultural artifacts. Absurd thought, probably.
You can get it in my country (DK) right now, at affordable if not quite cheap, prizes right now, I'm guessing you are American (from your posting time, don't kill me if I'm wrong), and I hear US is a bit behind with that sort of thing, but no doubt it will happen there, too.
The US will probably remain behind for a long while (you are correct, btw). We are a much larger country than all of the European nations, and thus have a lot of land where it isn't economical to invest in cell-towers/wiring/etc... That and our current mindset is dead-set against investing in the necessary infrastructure. There are huge tracks of land here people still must rely on Dial-Up, or at best Satellite for service. Add to that our crappy telecom monopolies, and... Perhaps my grandchildren will have decent, universal, access.
Debating your agnosticism, in the proper context, will someday be enjoyable. :)
I wasn't really critiquing the free market, it was more an attack on how we approach it. Oddly we give corporations the status of people (when convenient), but refuse to hold them to the moral criteria we hold for individuals. This isn't so much a flaw in the free market, but more a flaw in how our society approaches it.
The idea that greed is the mother of all morals, or at least allotted the privilege of being agnostic to morality, is also a problem.
I don't have a solution for this, using the free market, or opposing it. Though I think Marx was originally right, eventually free market capitalism will collapse on itself, or at least have to come back in line with the values that any given society holds for itself. To ward off the flames, I'm not saying socialism, or communism, is an answer, nor is extensive government regulation, though some might be necessary to ward off the more harmful of predatory practices.
"...except I don't know who should decide (or what standard they should use) which companies are unethical."
I doubt there ever could be a universal criteria. It is like the old definition of pornography; you know it when you see it. In certain cases it is obvious (putting your workers or customers into harms way for a profit, lying, bribing officials for a better deal against the public interest), but most of the time we deal with nice shades of gray.