Does it bother anyone else that our tax dollars are paying for the enforcement of laws we think are unjust? IMO, I don't think giving the latest Britney Spears to 1,000,000 of your "closest friends" is exactly fair use; but it seems pretty clear to me that I shouldn't be paying for the discovery and investigation of this behavior. Let those who hold the copyrights pay for their enforcement.
I never buy CD's at the aforementioned stores, because they insist on selling everything except the popular new releases and a few specials at MSRP, which means $19 or $20 these days. As I've said to many people on many occasions, I will never---that's not now, not tomorrow, not in 10 years, not ever---pay $20 for a CD. Not ever. Not. Ever. And I am not alone. That is why these stores are dying.
However, people (like myself) who want to take a gamble on buying technology that could shortly be obsolete should be able to. It's called capitalism, and such first adopters are the primary reason technological innovation is profitable.
If the article header is accurate, then Pioneer should be informed that carpal tunnel syndrome is only an INSTANCE of RSI, and the two are not equal. It is, in fact, still possible that every single other type of RSI has computer use as a significant risk factor and not contradict this study.
What happens if you put these bills in the microwave for 5 or 10 seconds? If that's enough to disable the RFID, I would probably just do that to every piece of currency I got.
This is a major problem with schemes like these: if the RFID tags are authoritative, they make legal tender impossible to distinguish from counterfeit without a special device, which I can't see everyone carrying around with them every time they have to collect money from their dorm buddies for pizza.
The problem here is that counterfeit money won't be detected until the recipient tries to use it in a store or a bank, and then he gets the double-anal: one, from losing the value of the currency he thought he had; two, from the police who arrest him for using counterfeit currency.
You DO realize that most of the problems compiling the Linux kernel with succeeding releases of gcc is due primarily to the kernel team making incorrect assumptions about the kernel output...
While I feel for those of you who are caught up in this innocently, those of you who voted for that Democrat fool Gray Davis deserve whatever happens: stores moving out of state, paying even more than I do for everything in addition to your higher housing costs, etc.
Why not use HashCash or some other proof-of-work-based system? At least then I wouldn't be forking more of my money over to Uncle Sam for some transaction he has absolutely nothing to do with.
Interesting question; but in this case, I don't actually think most people have a clear idea of what an operating system. My father heard about Linux two years ago and wanted to install it, and had no problem with me referring to it as an operating system.
Remember that I'm not saying broadband can't refer to what the the other guy said; I'm just saying that the term has at the very least been overloaded to mean what I said, and that the term has come to mean exactly what I said to the vast majority of people because it's the term trotted out by various companies selling "broadband" to advertise their otherwise generic service.
Microsoft doesn't talk about "operating systems": it talks about "Windows," and would prefer you to think there isn't an alternative, so why clutter the mind with the fact that Windows belongs to a class that has other members?:)
My music collection (all legal, just so you know) won't fit on half a dozen 4.7GB DVD-R's. I have currently backed up 11,000 tracks on 14 DVD-R's. You'd make the perfect government bureaucrat: "I don't see a need for it, so obviously no one needs it! Woohoo!"
Long ago, I was as pedantic as you are regarding language, always nitpicking on details of the language that conflicted with the dictionary or with an 8th grade grammar book.
Then, one day, I realized that the point of language is communication: despite what some English teachers might tell you, language isn't a static set of rules that were devised by some command authority, but is rather a fluid medium with which people exchange ideas.
In this particular case, broadband has come to mean "high capacity." That's how the vast majority---VAST majority---of people use it, and that is therefore the least confusing definition. In your particular domain and among your coworkers or buddies, broadband may mean something different, but to the general public, broadband means what I have said. This is a fact, and indisputable.
Look, I understand what you're saying, but the meaning has changed and you should just get over it and move on.
That's about twice what a good modem offers these days. It might have better latency than a modem, but bandwidth? You can't get anything better than the poor-quality video streams from the web news sites with 128 kbps, and you certainly can't reliably stream 128 kbps MP3, which itself isn't CD-quality.
I have 640/128 DSL, and while the 640 is nice and speedy and supports most of the media I want, the 128 up is terribly slow and won't even allow me to stream Oggs (192 kbps) from my home to my workplace.
"Broadband" means something different now than it did 5 years ago.
...what I would like to see is BOTH a local DRI (perhaps using SHM) AND continued network transparency.
Aside from that first time running Linux Doom over the network back in 1994 just to see how slow it would be, I have never had the desire to run a bandwidth-intensive X application over the network.
Yet, I still use X applications remotely, day after day---XEmacs, xmms, xterm, you name it---and I'm not about to stop.
Come to think of it, we already HAVE the two things I've listed above, so in fact, I'm already happy. Half-life under Wine plays frickin' fast, as does the native version of Wolfenstein 3D, and I can still run my other apps remotely.
I'd still be interested in seeing what Keith comes up with.
Finally, it sounds to me (from the older article that was linked to above) like David can go fuck off: if he doesn't use X anymore, then he should give up his spot on the XFree86 steering committee to someone with a stake in XFree's future. At a minimum, this should be someone who uses the damn thing!
Go, Keith! Some of the best applications in existence (XEmacs, gcc-3.x, and XFree86 itself) were adversarial forks.
Cheers, Kyle
Re:'Because We Can' good enough reason?
on
The Space Elevator
·
· Score: 1
: Debatable yes but millions of deaths would have : been avoided if it hadn't been.
Sounds like you've pretty much closed the debate, when there's a whole other side to this story. How about the millions of Allied and Japanese military deaths resulting from a ground invasion of the isles? The convention wisdom that the atomic bomb net saved lives is probably correct.
How about: "I tried the obvious thing and it didn't work," DICK? But there's more to the story:
What I found out was that galeon-snapshot appears to be the only program that doesn't respect the "Emacs" keybinding setting, and that was the only application I was testing, because it's the only one I give a shit about.
So you are in fact right, but you can still fuck off.
I want to know why the Gnome developers decided that control-A should "select all" instead of "move to beginning of line" like it does in almost every other (read: emacs editing command-compliant) X application. I can't seem to change it anywhere, even in gconf-editor.
These are the sorts of changes that make me, as an experienced Unix user, want to look elsewhere. I personally grow tired of the drive to "simplify, man!" and yearn for the days of configurable sawfish and a galeon with 1,000,000 options in the preferences dialog.
Anyone have any suggestions as to where I should look? I'm completely open.
As a final note, it's worth remembering that your ability to run a server with a static IP from speakeasy.net comes from intrusive government regulation: if the government hadn't forced your local telco to open their lines to speakeasy.net, they'd have no incentive to do it. (And if Speakeasy would have had to lay lines to get to you, the chances are pretty good the installation cost would be prohibitive for non-business customers.)
I would say that you are right, if only because the people were stupid enough to allow government to both grant monopolies on the rights-of-way and to subsidize in many cases the laying of copper, especially to rural areas.
That's why I said in another reply that regulation of copper is (justifiably) regulated: it's stupid that the government got into the telephone-line-laying business in the first place; but now that We the People have paid for it, We should also have access to what We paid for. Perhaps a one-time payment from the phone company to every person who has ever paid taxes, in direct proportion to the amount of taxes they have paid, would be a good trade? Unworkable, especially since many of Us have died. This is exactly why these "public works" projects irritate me so much.
This is the last I will say on this point, because it's obvious we are proceeding in different directions, and you still seem unable to avoid ad hominem attacks.
My philosophy is based primarily on life being unfair, and dealing with that without whining.
I grew up in a middle-class family in rural New York, which instilled a work ethic in me.
Which increased the probability of my doing well in school.
Which increased the probability of my getting into a good college.
Which increased the probability that I would get a good job.
Which increased the probability that I would make good money.
At no point was anything certain; but I took risks that, at any given point, threatened to backfire (e.g., a good college costs money, and I was in $50,000 debt when I graduated; but I considered the risk worth it, and it paid off) simply so I would have a higher probability of making the next step.
I did not whine when I lost. I either changed my approach or did a better job at what I initially failed at.
So, no, I do not assume that inequality exists solely or even primarily due to factors that are within people's control. What I am saying is that people should take risks and do what they think will give them the greatest gain. If you work hard and make intelligent choices, then you will have a higher probability of getting what you want.
The uncertainty is what I mean when I say that life is unfair. Deal. My point that trying to eliminate unfairness only leads to spreading the unfairness around remains unchallenged.
: Are you talking about lowest common denominator : service like they have in Communist Canada? My : parents until recently lived out in the boonies : (farming community of 1500 people). For years, : they had DSL access for $50CDN/month (that's less : than $35US).
You addressed neither of my points:
(1) What kind of access did they have? Did they have static IP's and were they able to run servers? If not, then I maintain my assertion that it's "lowest common denominator" by virtue of being the minimum that 95% of the people are willing to pay for.
(2) How much more than $35/month did the service cost to provide? For those of us who work and pay taxes, this means we would be paying more than $35/month, except that it wouldn't be voluntary: I would have it taken from me at the point of a gun.
Don't forget that much of that telco copper in the ground was subsidized by taxpayers.
As a libertarian you should also know that state/taxpayer subsidization of government monopolies is mercantilism/fascism/crony capitalism.
To simply give the telcos a free-ride monopoly on assets paid for by taxes and captive ratepayers under their monopoly status of yesteryear isn't the answer.
Absolutely. This goes back to what I was saying about government-granted monopolies being bad. We've essentially screwed ourselves by virtue of the tax-subsidized copper that gives us (I think, justifiable) moral authority not to want to privatize it completely, with all the bad effects that come along with such a policy.
Why does it seem the people at the beginning of the 20th century were so shortsighted/stupid? =)
In my significant experience, "life is complex" is merely code for "someone deserves something at another's expense without recompense" and "grow up" is code for "I have no real argument, so I'll stick to ad hominem fallacies."
In reality, life is unfair. This is the only constant in the universe. We might abolish death and, God-willing, we will abolish taxes; but unfairness will always exist. Socialist attempts to abolish unfairness invariably result only in shifting the unfairness around to negatively affect people who are popularly unpopular. Why not just skip that step, and leave the original, unblemished unfairness in place?
...if we hadn't granted Ma Bell a monopoly on rights-of-way a long time ago.
As a libertarian, the concept of a regulated, government-granted monopoly is anathemic to me; however, what is the alternative here? Do we give the Baby Bells free reign to do whatever they want with the existing copper, and refuse other companies the ability to add lines to those rights-of-way?
I'm all for deregulation, but not unless the entire thing is deregulated: it must be possible for new companies to lay their own copper or run their own wireless WAN's without government regulating what lines can go where or handing out wireless spectrum as campaign donation quid pro quos. Don't do a California-style partial deregulation in which some parties are forced out of business due to the government's stepping on some necks but not others.
Also, where are all these goddamned leftist posters all coming from? If the government suddenly owned all the copper and ran all the DSL lines, we'd be stuck with lowest-common-denominator access. I wouldn't be able run a server with a static IP (as I do with speakeasy.net today); and I'd pay LOW, LOW advertised prices while Uncle Sam reaches into my wallet for some extra cash to subsidize access for people unwilling to pay the cost of it. Fuck them: I did well in school and work hard and should get something extra for that. DSL IS NOT A RIGHT!
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Does it bother anyone else that our tax dollars are paying for the enforcement of laws we think are unjust? IMO, I don't think giving the latest Britney Spears to 1,000,000 of your "closest friends" is exactly fair use; but it seems pretty clear to me that I shouldn't be paying for the discovery and investigation of this behavior. Let those who hold the copyrights pay for their enforcement.
I never buy CD's at the aforementioned stores, because they insist on selling everything except the popular new releases and a few specials at MSRP, which means $19 or $20 these days. As I've said to many people on many occasions, I will never---that's not now, not tomorrow, not in 10 years, not ever---pay $20 for a CD. Not ever. Not. Ever. And I am not alone. That is why these stores are dying.
However, people (like myself) who want to take a gamble on buying technology that could shortly be obsolete should be able to. It's called capitalism, and such first adopters are the primary reason technological innovation is profitable.
If the article header is accurate, then Pioneer should be informed that carpal tunnel syndrome is only an INSTANCE of RSI, and the two are not equal. It is, in fact, still possible that every single other type of RSI has computer use as a significant risk factor and not contradict this study.
What happens if you put these bills in the microwave for 5 or 10 seconds? If that's enough to disable the RFID, I would probably just do that to every piece of currency I got.
This is a major problem with schemes like these: if the RFID tags are authoritative, they make legal tender impossible to distinguish from counterfeit without a special device, which I can't see everyone carrying around with them every time they have to collect money from their dorm buddies for pizza.
The problem here is that counterfeit money won't be detected until the recipient tries to use it in a store or a bank, and then he gets the double-anal: one, from losing the value of the currency he thought he had; two, from the police who arrest him for using counterfeit currency.
Cheers,
Kyle
You DO realize that most of the problems compiling the Linux kernel with succeeding releases of gcc is due primarily to the kernel team making incorrect assumptions about the kernel output...
Right?
While I feel for those of you who are caught up in this innocently, those of you who voted for that Democrat fool Gray Davis deserve whatever happens: stores moving out of state, paying even more than I do for everything in addition to your higher housing costs, etc.
Why not use HashCash or some other proof-of-work-based system? At least then I wouldn't be forking more of my money over to Uncle Sam for some transaction he has absolutely nothing to do with.
Can we please not give the government any more opportunities to tax us? Please?
Interesting question; but in this case, I don't actually think most people have a clear idea of what an operating system. My father heard about Linux two years ago and wanted to install it, and had no problem with me referring to it as an operating system.
:)
Remember that I'm not saying broadband can't refer to what the the other guy said; I'm just saying that the term has at the very least been overloaded to mean what I said, and that the term has come to mean exactly what I said to the vast majority of people because it's the term trotted out by various companies selling "broadband" to advertise their otherwise generic service.
Microsoft doesn't talk about "operating systems": it talks about "Windows," and would prefer you to think there isn't an alternative, so why clutter the mind with the fact that Windows belongs to a class that has other members?
Cheers,
Kyle
My music collection (all legal, just so you know) won't fit on half a dozen 4.7GB DVD-R's. I have currently backed up 11,000 tracks on 14 DVD-R's. You'd make the perfect government bureaucrat: "I don't see a need for it, so obviously no one needs it! Woohoo!"
Long ago, I was as pedantic as you are regarding language, always nitpicking on details of the language that conflicted with the dictionary or with an 8th grade grammar book.
Then, one day, I realized that the point of language is communication: despite what some English teachers might tell you, language isn't a static set of rules that were devised by some command authority, but is rather a fluid medium with which people exchange ideas.
In this particular case, broadband has come to mean "high capacity." That's how the vast majority---VAST majority---of people use it, and that is therefore the least confusing definition. In your particular domain and among your coworkers or buddies, broadband may mean something different, but to the general public, broadband means what I have said. This is a fact, and indisputable.
Look, I understand what you're saying, but the meaning has changed and you should just get over it and move on.
Sorry to disappoint you, but language is not static, and "broadband" has come to mean "high capacity." That's just the way it is.
That's about twice what a good modem offers these days. It might have better latency than a modem, but bandwidth? You can't get anything better than the poor-quality video streams from the web news sites with 128 kbps, and you certainly can't reliably stream 128 kbps MP3, which itself isn't CD-quality.
I have 640/128 DSL, and while the 640 is nice and speedy and supports most of the media I want, the 128 up is terribly slow and won't even allow me to stream Oggs (192 kbps) from my home to my workplace.
"Broadband" means something different now than it did 5 years ago.
...what I would like to see is BOTH a local DRI (perhaps using SHM) AND continued network transparency.
Aside from that first time running Linux Doom over the network back in 1994 just to see how slow it would be, I have never had the desire to run a bandwidth-intensive X application over the network.
Yet, I still use X applications remotely, day after day---XEmacs, xmms, xterm, you name it---and I'm not about to stop.
Come to think of it, we already HAVE the two things I've listed above, so in fact, I'm already happy. Half-life under Wine plays frickin' fast, as does the native version of Wolfenstein 3D, and I can still run my other apps remotely.
I'd still be interested in seeing what Keith comes up with.
Finally, it sounds to me (from the older article that was linked to above) like David can go fuck off: if he doesn't use X anymore, then he should give up his spot on the XFree86 steering committee to someone with a stake in XFree's future. At a minimum, this should be someone who uses the damn thing!
Go, Keith! Some of the best applications in existence (XEmacs, gcc-3.x, and XFree86 itself) were adversarial forks.
Cheers,
Kyle
: Debatable yes but millions of deaths would have
: been avoided if it hadn't been.
Sounds like you've pretty much closed the debate, when there's a whole other side to this story. How about the millions of Allied and Japanese military deaths resulting from a ground invasion of the isles? The convention wisdom that the atomic bomb net saved lives is probably correct.
How about: "I tried the obvious thing and it didn't work," DICK? But there's more to the story:
What I found out was that galeon-snapshot appears to be the only program that doesn't respect the "Emacs" keybinding setting, and that was the only application I was testing, because it's the only one I give a shit about.
So you are in fact right, but you can still fuck off.
I want to know why the Gnome developers decided that control-A should "select all" instead of "move to beginning of line" like it does in almost every other (read: emacs editing command-compliant) X application. I can't seem to change it anywhere, even in gconf-editor.
These are the sorts of changes that make me, as an experienced Unix user, want to look elsewhere. I personally grow tired of the drive to "simplify, man!" and yearn for the days of configurable sawfish and a galeon with 1,000,000 options in the preferences dialog.
Anyone have any suggestions as to where I should look? I'm completely open.
I would say that you are right, if only because the people were stupid enough to allow government to both grant monopolies on the rights-of-way and to subsidize in many cases the laying of copper, especially to rural areas.
That's why I said in another reply that regulation of copper is (justifiably) regulated: it's stupid that the government got into the telephone-line-laying business in the first place; but now that We the People have paid for it, We should also have access to what We paid for. Perhaps a one-time payment from the phone company to every person who has ever paid taxes, in direct proportion to the amount of taxes they have paid, would be a good trade? Unworkable, especially since many of Us have died. This is exactly why these "public works" projects irritate me so much.
This is the last I will say on this point, because it's obvious we are proceeding in different directions, and you still seem unable to avoid ad hominem attacks.
My philosophy is based primarily on life being unfair, and dealing with that without whining.
I grew up in a middle-class family in rural New York, which instilled a work ethic in me.
Which increased the probability of my doing well in school.
Which increased the probability of my getting into a good college.
Which increased the probability that I would get a good job.
Which increased the probability that I would make good money.
At no point was anything certain; but I took risks that, at any given point, threatened to backfire (e.g., a good college costs money, and I was in $50,000 debt when I graduated; but I considered the risk worth it, and it paid off) simply so I would have a higher probability of making the next step.
I did not whine when I lost. I either changed my approach or did a better job at what I initially failed at.
So, no, I do not assume that inequality exists solely or even primarily due to factors that are within people's control. What I am saying is that people should take risks and do what they think will give them the greatest gain. If you work hard and make intelligent choices, then you will have a higher probability of getting what you want.
The uncertainty is what I mean when I say that life is unfair. Deal. My point that trying to eliminate unfairness only leads to spreading the unfairness around remains unchallenged.
Cheers,
Kyle
: Are you talking about lowest common denominator
: service like they have in Communist Canada? My
: parents until recently lived out in the boonies
: (farming community of 1500 people). For years,
: they had DSL access for $50CDN/month (that's less
: than $35US).
You addressed neither of my points:
(1) What kind of access did they have? Did they have static IP's and were they able to run servers? If not, then I maintain my assertion that it's "lowest common denominator" by virtue of being the minimum that 95% of the people are willing to pay for.
(2) How much more than $35/month did the service cost to provide? For those of us who work and pay taxes, this means we would be paying more than $35/month, except that it wouldn't be voluntary: I would have it taken from me at the point of a gun.
Learn to read, dude.
Absolutely. This goes back to what I was saying about government-granted monopolies being bad. We've essentially screwed ourselves by virtue of the tax-subsidized copper that gives us (I think, justifiable) moral authority not to want to privatize it completely, with all the bad effects that come along with such a policy.
Why does it seem the people at the beginning of the 20th century were so shortsighted/stupid? =)
Cheers,
Kyle
In my significant experience, "life is complex" is merely code for "someone deserves something at another's expense without recompense" and "grow up" is code for "I have no real argument, so I'll stick to ad hominem fallacies."
In reality, life is unfair. This is the only constant in the universe. We might abolish death and, God-willing, we will abolish taxes; but unfairness will always exist. Socialist attempts to abolish unfairness invariably result only in shifting the unfairness around to negatively affect people who are popularly unpopular. Why not just skip that step, and leave the original, unblemished unfairness in place?
...if we hadn't granted Ma Bell a monopoly on rights-of-way a long time ago.
As a libertarian, the concept of a regulated, government-granted monopoly is anathemic to me; however, what is the alternative here? Do we give the Baby Bells free reign to do whatever they want with the existing copper, and refuse other companies the ability to add lines to those rights-of-way?
I'm all for deregulation, but not unless the entire thing is deregulated: it must be possible for new companies to lay their own copper or run their own wireless WAN's without government regulating what lines can go where or handing out wireless spectrum as campaign donation quid pro quos. Don't do a California-style partial deregulation in which some parties are forced out of business due to the government's stepping on some necks but not others.
Also, where are all these goddamned leftist posters all coming from? If the government suddenly owned all the copper and ran all the DSL lines, we'd be stuck with lowest-common-denominator access. I wouldn't be able run a server with a static IP (as I do with speakeasy.net today); and I'd pay LOW, LOW advertised prices while Uncle Sam reaches into my wallet for some extra cash to subsidize access for people unwilling to pay the cost of it. Fuck them: I did well in school and work hard and should get something extra for that. DSL IS NOT A RIGHT!
Cheers,
Kyle
: we made a reasonable assumption from what the
: respective companies told us that it would be
: available "real soon now".
Well, don't let it happen again. Fool me once, yadda yadda yadda.