I think you've got the argument twisted the wrong way. _If_ that is God, there's not much for us to say about it. If God does those things, who are we to judge what He does?
You can't go and say, "I like what this person says about God, I'll believe that He is God" because fundamentally it's not about you. It's about God. It's about is He who the Bible says He is or isn't He? If He is, then it doesn't matter that you don't like what He does. If He isn't, then it doesn't matter if you don't like what He does.
The big question is, "how do you find God?" I wish I had an easy answer to that question. For me, God showed Himself to me in a way that I know He's there just as much as I know that my wife is there. I wish I could transfer that experience to others, but sadly I can't. But I will pray that God will reveal Himself to you in the same way He's revealed Himself to me (or, even better, in whatever manner that helps you know Him best).
Actually, Linux supports this to. Just print to postscript, and run ps2pdf on it, or better yet, set up a printer to do that for you.
In fact, I have my Linux PDF Printer set up using SAMBA so the whole office can use it. This way noone has to buy Acrobat, and we can all print to PDF without even installing software (it's just a printer install - the drivers are already installed on Windows).
Read your links. The Bible one was interesting, but failed to differentiate adequately between those things that God commanded to have done, and those things that people did anyway. Depending on your worldview, the results may be better or worse:)
However, calling Jesus a "pretty decent guy" doesn't really do him or history justice. Based on what he said, either he's a nutcase, he's a deceiver, or he's the Son of God. It's possible that someone recorded his message wrong, but the following 300 years had quite a bit of scrutiny on those writings which claimed to be from Jesus' disciples, and we can hardly do better ourselves.
So, really, please don't call Jesus a "pretty decent guy". I don't see how that is an option.
"You're less likely to find out that having long hair is a morality violation and some hick town cop is throwing you in jail for it. "
You see, I like this. It allows communities to have laws that reflect their individual nature and culture, rather than have laws that don't work for any group. If you don't like the laws, you can get together your own group, and set up your own laws.
"Also, consistent laws are better for business."
This is true, and I'm not sure about the best way to reconcile the two.
"I thought people would learn their lesson after Melissa. I thought they would learn after ILoveYou, and Blaster, and Bugbear, and Sobig, and Swen. It's only a matter of time. One of these days people will get wise to the pattern."
Except that everyone uses Windows, so they can't see the pattern. You have to be familiar with both sides to see the pattern properly.
Also, for many of these, the real problem was in:
* Inadequate training - we have driver's ed for motorists, but nothing similar for computer users, and computers are much more complicated
* Improper expectations - many want the computer to "just work", where "just work" is defined as reading their minds to figure out what they want, and being omnicient (i.e. - I want to have all emails from friends automatically pop up and run programs, but malicious ones I don't want to do anything at all...)
* Improper counseling - while I don't believe licenses for computer people should be _mandatory_, there should be a standardized licensing or certification program that people come to respect.
"Let me be honest. I don't care about you, or anyone else."
Then I can understand why Church didn't work out for you.
All in all, I agree with the thesis that the best way to help someone out is to build companies, but I think it really has nothing to do with churches. According to Paul "if a man shall not work, neither shall he eat". But as far as not caring for others, Jesus taught to care for others, because God cares for us. So, if you don't follow Jesus, I can see why you might feel out-of-place at church.
Mine is well over 50%. Having $15,000/year in medical expenses (that's after insurance takes care of their portion) can really nail you when the government is already taking so much in taxes.
It's interesting, because if the federal government stopped messing around in local matters, and left that to, well, locals, we'd save billions in overhead. The federal government, perhaps, could make recommendations, but really the implementation of most of what the federal government does should be farmed out to the states and cities (and by that I mean done independently of the federal government, not by mandate of the federal government or with federal money).
'Another unfortunate consequence of capitalism: since it uses "creating wealth" as a proxy for "productivity", you end up with lots and lots of people "creating wealth" from dubious or useless endeavors (Internet porn link farmers come to mind), then tooting about how they're somehow improving society through this "wealth creation".'
The nice thing about capitalism is that, like democracy, it mirrors society. If society is void of morals, a democratic society will be devoid of morals, and a capitalistic economy will be so as well.
Capitalism is simply a really efficient way of having the economy mirror the values of the people. All systems eventually do that, but capitalism is the most efficient at it, I think.
"maybe we'll be able to abolish work once and for all"
Wow! What a pipe dream. How would we do that? Who would watch the automated machines if noone was working? What would happen if someone wanted more than was being produced? They would have to _work_.
"The non-trivial (engineering, politics, scientific research) tend to be rewarding enough to the minds and spirits of those that pursue them that they will never lack for those that would do so."
To what measure of quality? The only way to have _accountability_ is to have an exchange. Otherwise, they are chipping in for free to a bunch of lazies. Who wants to do that? My guess is they would complain and whine, and noone wants to deal with that, especially from people who aren't contributing. So, I image, perhaps, the people watching the system would want something extra - might want the lazies to do something for them.
But that would be work, and yet another utopian dream crashes under the burden of reality.
That's what's nice about capitalism - it is the economic system that takes reality the most into account, including the bad parts.
"Economy is a zero sum game when you take natural resources into account."
There _may_ be a limit, but it's likely far beyond what we are at now.
"This means it's impossible for everybody in the world to have the same standard of living as the US because there are not enough trees, water, and oil to accomplish such a thing."
Based on what data? History has shown us that technology can account for a dramatic increase in the usability of existing resources.
Most projections along these lines assume that there is no advancing technology, and everything stays at the same price. For example, the estimates of the supplies of oil usually have the following incorrect assumptions:
1) The current wells won't refill (we've found that many in fact, do)
2) We don't ever find any new reserves (in fact the ocean contains a vast supply, and we continually find new reserves)
3) The price of oil stays the same (there are considerable resources that are available that we simply don't dig up because it's not profitable at the _current price_, but will be if the price would increase)
The same kind of assumptions are in most of these "we're going to drain the planet" type of predictions.
I agree with you that businesses should not be given status as a person (I actually wrote a short essay on the topic), but I do believe that sole proprietorships should have the right to do so, because there really isn't a difference between the business and the person running it. Therefore, to take away the rights of the _business_ would be equivalent to taken away the rights of the _person_ running the business.
I understand. But you are abusing the term freedom. Basically, you are saying that you don't want consequences, which means that whatever you do you want others to still have to be just as nice to you as they were before. That might be freedom for YOU, but not for them. You are violating their freedom to think that you suck, and their freedom to take action.
So you are actually denying freedom rather than giving it. You are just denying it from other people than yourself. I'm sure those who supported slavery thought that enslaving others brought them great freedom in their own lives. However, freedom means freedom for everyone, including business owners, employers, etc.
And IBM today admits that they were bad guys back then, but have since shaped up. They even warned Microsoft publicly that they had to learn things the hard way, and hoped Microsoft would come to their senses before they had to learn it as hard as IBM.
"That's commercial censorship. It is widely accepted and all capitalists are in favour of it. But that's not freedom of speech."
Yes it is. It is only a violation of freedom of speech if the government prevents you from speaking. It does not prevent me from not liking you for your speech, not listening to you for your speech, telling others not to listen to you for your speech, not doing business with you for your speech, or firing you for your speech.
Censorship is not a violation of the freedom of speech. _Government_ censorship is.
It's pretty easy to do this just scripted. The main part of MCL is the process, not the technology. What you need is
* Computers w/ shared SCSI RAID array
* Each computer has a serial connection that can terminate the power of the other (VERY IMPORTANT)
* Server A is master, Server B monitors server A
* When Server A goes down, Server B turns off the power to A, takes over the IP address, and mounts the volume from the SCSI array.
* When Server A comes back up, you manually switch it back over.
The part where B turns off A's power is critically important, because if A isn't fully dead and tries to write to the SCSI array after B mounts it, you have data loss.
No, what I was asking is if _wildcards_ were a protocol or a server implementation thing. A Records are obviously a protocol thing, but are wildcards? I.e., does the protocol transfer the fact that an A record is based on a wildcard?
No, the problem with the Microsoft desktop is that it tries to give advanced functionality in a simple way. That's a nice idea and all, but it makes security problematic. For example, to execute a Microsoft attachment executable, you just double-click on it. In most Linux mailers, you have to save it to your hard drive, change the permissions, and then run it.
In addition, since Linux isn't monolithic, an exploit covering, say, RedHat isn't likely to be exploitable on all systems.
The same people who complain about Microsoft also complain about sendmail. I see no problem here. There are additional reasons to not like microsoft as well, which many people have listed many times (usually related to speed of patch / availability of patch source for verification, etc.)
However, law suits in this case are valid. The law is what gives Verisign the authority to control DNS, and therefore when they abuse this power they should be held accountable. I agree with your sentiments in general, but since Verisign is essentially acting on behalf of the government I think it needs government intervention.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you've got the argument twisted the wrong way. _If_ that is God, there's not much for us to say about it. If God does those things, who are we to judge what He does?
You can't go and say, "I like what this person says about God, I'll believe that He is God" because fundamentally it's not about you. It's about God. It's about is He who the Bible says He is or isn't He? If He is, then it doesn't matter that you don't like what He does. If He isn't, then it doesn't matter if you don't like what He does.
The big question is, "how do you find God?" I wish I had an easy answer to that question. For me, God showed Himself to me in a way that I know He's there just as much as I know that my wife is there. I wish I could transfer that experience to others, but sadly I can't. But I will pray that God will reveal Himself to you in the same way He's revealed Himself to me (or, even better, in whatever manner that helps you know Him best).
Actually, Linux supports this to. Just print to postscript, and run ps2pdf on it, or better yet, set up a printer to do that for you.
In fact, I have my Linux PDF Printer set up using SAMBA so the whole office can use it. This way noone has to buy Acrobat, and we can all print to PDF without even installing software (it's just a printer install - the drivers are already installed on Windows).
Read your links. The Bible one was interesting, but failed to differentiate adequately between those things that God commanded to have done, and those things that people did anyway. Depending on your worldview, the results may be better or worse :)
However, calling Jesus a "pretty decent guy" doesn't really do him or history justice. Based on what he said, either he's a nutcase, he's a deceiver, or he's the Son of God. It's possible that someone recorded his message wrong, but the following 300 years had quite a bit of scrutiny on those writings which claimed to be from Jesus' disciples, and we can hardly do better ourselves.
So, really, please don't call Jesus a "pretty decent guy". I don't see how that is an option.
"You're less likely to find out that having long hair is a morality violation and some hick town cop is throwing you in jail for it. "
You see, I like this. It allows communities to have laws that reflect their individual nature and culture, rather than have laws that don't work for any group. If you don't like the laws, you can get together your own group, and set up your own laws.
"Also, consistent laws are better for business."
This is true, and I'm not sure about the best way to reconcile the two.
"I thought people would learn their lesson after Melissa. I thought they would learn after ILoveYou, and Blaster, and Bugbear, and Sobig, and Swen. It's only a matter of time. One of these days people will get wise to the pattern."
Except that everyone uses Windows, so they can't see the pattern. You have to be familiar with both sides to see the pattern properly.
Also, for many of these, the real problem was in:
* Inadequate training - we have driver's ed for motorists, but nothing similar for computer users, and computers are much more complicated
* Improper expectations - many want the computer to "just work", where "just work" is defined as reading their minds to figure out what they want, and being omnicient (i.e. - I want to have all emails from friends automatically pop up and run programs, but malicious ones I don't want to do anything at all...)
* Improper counseling - while I don't believe licenses for computer people should be _mandatory_, there should be a standardized licensing or certification program that people come to respect.
"Let me be honest. I don't care about you, or anyone else."
Then I can understand why Church didn't work out for you.
All in all, I agree with the thesis that the best way to help someone out is to build companies, but I think it really has nothing to do with churches. According to Paul "if a man shall not work, neither shall he eat". But as far as not caring for others, Jesus taught to care for others, because God cares for us. So, if you don't follow Jesus, I can see why you might feel out-of-place at church.
Mine is well over 50%. Having $15,000/year in medical expenses (that's after insurance takes care of their portion) can really nail you when the government is already taking so much in taxes.
It's interesting, because if the federal government stopped messing around in local matters, and left that to, well, locals, we'd save billions in overhead. The federal government, perhaps, could make recommendations, but really the implementation of most of what the federal government does should be farmed out to the states and cities (and by that I mean done independently of the federal government, not by mandate of the federal government or with federal money).
'Another unfortunate consequence of capitalism: since it uses "creating wealth" as a proxy for "productivity", you end up with lots and lots of people "creating wealth" from dubious or useless endeavors (Internet porn link farmers come to mind), then tooting about how they're somehow improving society through this "wealth creation".'
The nice thing about capitalism is that, like democracy, it mirrors society. If society is void of morals, a democratic society will be devoid of morals, and a capitalistic economy will be so as well.
Capitalism is simply a really efficient way of having the economy mirror the values of the people. All systems eventually do that, but capitalism is the most efficient at it, I think.
"The conservatives (at least Bush and the Republican Party) are pushing for even more tax cuts for the rich, of which we've already had too many."
No, they're pushing for more tax cuts for everyone, because EVERYONE is overtaxed.
"maybe we'll be able to abolish work once and for all"
Wow! What a pipe dream. How would we do that? Who would watch the automated machines if noone was working? What would happen if someone wanted more than was being produced? They would have to _work_.
"The non-trivial (engineering, politics, scientific research) tend to be rewarding enough to the minds and spirits of those that pursue them that they will never lack for those that would do so."
To what measure of quality? The only way to have _accountability_ is to have an exchange. Otherwise, they are chipping in for free to a bunch of lazies. Who wants to do that? My guess is they would complain and whine, and noone wants to deal with that, especially from people who aren't contributing. So, I image, perhaps, the people watching the system would want something extra - might want the lazies to do something for them.
But that would be work, and yet another utopian dream crashes under the burden of reality.
That's what's nice about capitalism - it is the economic system that takes reality the most into account, including the bad parts.
"Economy is a zero sum game when you take natural resources into account."
There _may_ be a limit, but it's likely far beyond what we are at now.
"This means it's impossible for everybody in the world to have the same standard of living as the US because there are not enough trees, water, and oil to accomplish such a thing."
Based on what data? History has shown us that technology can account for a dramatic increase in the usability of existing resources.
Most projections along these lines assume that there is no advancing technology, and everything stays at the same price. For example, the estimates of the supplies of oil usually have the following incorrect assumptions:
1) The current wells won't refill (we've found that many in fact, do)
2) We don't ever find any new reserves (in fact the ocean contains a vast supply, and we continually find new reserves)
3) The price of oil stays the same (there are considerable resources that are available that we simply don't dig up because it's not profitable at the _current price_, but will be if the price would increase)
The same kind of assumptions are in most of these "we're going to drain the planet" type of predictions.
I agree with you that businesses should not be given status as a person (I actually wrote a short essay on the topic), but I do believe that sole proprietorships should have the right to do so, because there really isn't a difference between the business and the person running it. Therefore, to take away the rights of the _business_ would be equivalent to taken away the rights of the _person_ running the business.
"BUT *I* am saying it IS a violation."
I understand. But you are abusing the term freedom. Basically, you are saying that you don't want consequences, which means that whatever you do you want others to still have to be just as nice to you as they were before. That might be freedom for YOU, but not for them. You are violating their freedom to think that you suck, and their freedom to take action.
So you are actually denying freedom rather than giving it. You are just denying it from other people than yourself. I'm sure those who supported slavery thought that enslaving others brought them great freedom in their own lives. However, freedom means freedom for everyone, including business owners, employers, etc.
Not all companies are devoid of altruistic motives. However, all _public_ companies are, as are most companies carrying a sizeable debt load.
r oblemsOfCorporations.xml
See here - http://www.eskimo.com/~johnnyb/spiritual/EthicalP
(Requires XML-capable browser - Opera/Mozilla/Konquerer/maybe some versions of IE)
And IBM today admits that they were bad guys back then, but have since shaped up. They even warned Microsoft publicly that they had to learn things the hard way, and hoped Microsoft would come to their senses before they had to learn it as hard as IBM.
What is USC-17?
If we get to the point where employers cannot fire people just because they want to, that will essentially be the end of a free economy.
"That's commercial censorship. It is widely accepted and all capitalists are in favour of it. But that's not freedom of speech."
Yes it is. It is only a violation of freedom of speech if the government prevents you from speaking. It does not prevent me from not liking you for your speech, not listening to you for your speech, telling others not to listen to you for your speech, not doing business with you for your speech, or firing you for your speech.
Censorship is not a violation of the freedom of speech. _Government_ censorship is.
It's pretty easy to do this just scripted. The main part of MCL is the process, not the technology. What you need is
* Computers w/ shared SCSI RAID array
* Each computer has a serial connection that can terminate the power of the other (VERY IMPORTANT)
* Server A is master, Server B monitors server A
* When Server A goes down, Server B turns off the power to A, takes over the IP address, and mounts the volume from the SCSI array.
* When Server A comes back up, you manually switch it back over.
The part where B turns off A's power is critically important, because if A isn't fully dead and tries to write to the SCSI array after B mounts it, you have data loss.
Because lambda calculus is much more fun :)
No, what I was asking is if _wildcards_ were a protocol or a server implementation thing. A Records are obviously a protocol thing, but are wildcards? I.e., does the protocol transfer the fact that an A record is based on a wildcard?
No, the problem with the Microsoft desktop is that it tries to give advanced functionality in a simple way. That's a nice idea and all, but it makes security problematic. For example, to execute a Microsoft attachment executable, you just double-click on it. In most Linux mailers, you have to save it to your hard drive, change the permissions, and then run it.
In addition, since Linux isn't monolithic, an exploit covering, say, RedHat isn't likely to be exploitable on all systems.
The same people who complain about Microsoft also complain about sendmail. I see no problem here. There are additional reasons to not like microsoft as well, which many people have listed many times (usually related to speed of patch / availability of patch source for verification, etc.)
However, law suits in this case are valid. The law is what gives Verisign the authority to control DNS, and therefore when they abuse this power they should be held accountable. I agree with your sentiments in general, but since Verisign is essentially acting on behalf of the government I think it needs government intervention.
I'm not sure that the intermediate-level name servers see the wildcards. Do they? i.e. - is it a protocol thing or a BIND application thing?