Your argument is the path to madness. Wearing a butcher's metal glove while using a kitchen knife could also save a lot of healthcare costs. So would getting the recommended amount of exercise (but only if all safety guidelines are followed), not exceeding recommended guidelines for fat intake, attending stress management classes, driving below 30MPH, not riding a motorcycle, skateboarding, parachute jumping, skiing, etc etc. Do you REALLY want all of that and more to be mandated by law?
If not, it might be best not to ban one particular behavior you don't personally enjoy on the grounds of saving medical costs.
On the contrary. It's well recognized that helmets are LIFE savers on the motorcycle. Accidents do happen but placing yourself in a stupid situation is not something that should be acceptable. It's like playing russian roulette! I'm not saying BAN this sort of behaviour, I'm saying I don't want to have to pay for stupid mistakes that are CLEARLY preventable, all for the sake of "religious freedoms". If someone says that cutting their arm off is part of their religion, I say "go for it you nutter" but if it's going to cost us as taxpayers money, then they better expect to pay for their own bills.
We have laws for a reason here, it's so that we know what's acceptable and what isn't - as part of this society I tacitly agree to these laws. Wearing a helmet is the fucking law, which we've all agreed upon up here, and if people say that religious freedom is above the law then they better have proof.
For the record, I completely support our healthcare here. I know that no matter what, anyone who cannot afford to get better have a chance to get healed, and I really like that. I just want to make sure that people understand that if they do stupid things against the law that they're going to have repercussions. I don't want to pay for someone's darwin award.
[...] if you are a Sikh you are allowed to use a motorbike without a helmet since you have a turban in the way (although to be honest, in that case your violation doesn't harm anyone else) [...]
In Canada, if that person gets into an accident, my taxes are going to pay for his hospital bill. I'm all for saving lives, but I would rather prevent injury before it happens. In this case I worked goddamn hard for my money, a third of which goes towards taxes - his not wearing a helmet isn't harming me per se, but it is really fucking annoying. A simple helmet can save thousands of dollars in taxpayer money and I'm expected to kowtow to a religious right? What the fuck man!??
If Valve were to spend the money to develop for OSX, they'd never recoup it in profits because there's not a big enough installed base.
It's a lot more likely that Valve will make Portal or HL3 available on XBox than on Macs.
Not at all, in fact, if they make a cross platform rendering engine then they can sell that to other interested developers (who are interested in the continually growing userbase of the Mac) and make a profit from that as well.
You're in a mass-market. You can not expect the majority of users to know anything about computers. You can debate that point all you like, but that's how it is. Saying otherwise is like saying only car mechanics should be allowed to drive cars.
No, it's more like saying "people should know how to drive before taking their car on public roads"
Bad Car analogies? I'm game!!!! *Ahem*:
It's more like a person telling their chauffeur to drive them off a cliff - what should the chauffer do?
However, as it is there to correct a past wrong, the hard part is deciding when it is still or no longer needed.
How about never needed? I'm not the one to punish for something someone else's grandfather did to another person's grandfather. Affirmative Action is totally ridiculous and should never be implemented by any company or government. The merits of a worker is their talent, not the colour of their skin or where they come from.
I do, however, agree with giving the person free education. Of course, this may sound a bit two-faced, but I believe very strongly in education, and any chance that we can get people educated or motivated to be educated should be embraced whole-heartedly.
In what sort of society is this even thought of as being a good idea? Spying on your students? Invasion of privacy, breach of trust, unlawful covert observations, not even to mention the possibility of there being unscrupulous watchers of the kids. (how many pictures did they take?)
"Sure, let's spy on other people's children, that can't end badly!"
[...] I survived the ACiD, TRiBE, iCE ANSI wars in the BBS era. I witnessed the grand flame wars of Usenet. I saw the clan wars in the MMO days, I saw the Guild fights in the early days of the MMOs culminating in the rise of the Uber guilds. [...]
"I've seen.. things, you people wouldn't believe... All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in the rain..."
You know, there's more profit in selling digital stuff, right? Takes nothing to produce copies, but you get revenue from it!! You'd have to be idiots not to want to distribute your stuff electronically *cough*RIAA*cough*.
People have been worrying about MySQL. They have been right to worry. However, as a corporation, Oracle can and will have all relevant American laws re-written/re-interpreted as necessary to see all commercial deployment of MySQL in the USA dead within two years.
MySQL needs to be forked, before it gets forked in the rear by Oracle.
Look, everyone agrees Lucas should have stopped after three films. The Star [Wars|Trek|Gate|Craft] franchises have been done to death. Now a rehash of "Dune" is in production. Please.
Just want to comment that I don't think the StarCraft franchise has been done to death yet. There's only been one single game afaik!
Included in that list was one video that used only a brief portion of your song, short enough to count as fair use. Is $400,000 a fair punishment for accidentally including one video in your list that wasn't a bona fide copyright infringement?
Fuck yes it is. Do your goddamn homework. This is obviously serious shit you are dipping your toe into - make sure you take the time to actually do it properly.
Perpetuating the use of MS products is better for MS than switching to alternatives. Pirating a few copies of Windows/Office is a papercut to the beast. Your use of Linux (and related software) is the only hope of slaying the beast.
You boned that one, pal. Any decent brother would have known what to do...
You should have found a similar perspective eagle picture online, 'enhanced' it with GIMP/PS to make it as close as possible to what she shot, and send it back at a minimum 1024 res and high color, thereby perpetuating the myth that you are indeed a Computer God.
Kids these days, can't see opportunity even when it's smacking 'em in the face...;)
Or, better yet, insert a polar bear and ask her if she really saw what she thought she did. Practical jokes are just as fun to illustrate absurdities.
I don't know about anyone else but every person I know who uses drugs on a regular basis is a complete moron
You, of course, include caffeine in those drugs.
Right, because caffeine and meth are pretty much the same thing. Those coffee drinkers, man. They'll shank you for a hot cuppa joe. You gotta watch your back around them.
Mod parent up. Ext3 doesn't work nicely with Mac OSX (last time I checked anyway) and I hear bad things about NTFS on external drives (besides which, it's a microsoft technology - fuck em)
However, it's a bitch to get ext3 mounted on OSX. - it would be better to just do something like was suggested by other posters, a freeNAS or freeBSD setup and share the drives over the network.
It is generally accepted to try to use the prefix that will best keep the number of units between 1-999. More people might still speak parts of Latin if people used the correct terms. Also Slashdot is a technical crowd and I would bet that less than 1% doesn't know what a Tera means.
True, however, it's best to often represent a measurement in terms of what people already know. I know roughly how long it takes me to get through 1 km, but there is still the calculation, however quick, of changing a terameter into something I would be able to relate to easily, which is a billion km.
Spoken like someone who doesn't develop software for a living.
I used to. Realized that I didn't like what I was doing (online advertising) then decided to pursue other avenues of money-making.
My company (among other things) develops software. The sale of that software pays for our homes, electricity, computers, and the ability to continue developing programs that people need.
Well that's good. My point is that it should be more like a book. You think open-sourcing something will automatically make people steal it? Something tells me you don't give your customers enough credit, or you think perhaps that your software isn't worth the price...?
My point was that if the software community were more like books (you still retain copyright, all source must be open), we'd probably have a healthier software environment instead of all this cloak and daggers bullshit. I know I'd still be buying software.
Now if someone wants to pay my car payment, house payment, electricity bill, buy a few new computers, etc...then sure--I'll develop and release software for free.
Hrm.. I wonder how authors pay for things in this day and age...</sarcasm>
But as long as I need to feed my family, I need to continue earning money. If I can't do that by developing software, I'll go pump gas and you can live without it.
Again, you're assuming you wouldn't make money if you open-sourced your application. I think otherwise - especially if everyone was required to open their source or be forced off the market. It would be really simple and easy to find people who are pirating your software... (and, let's face it, the ones who really matter when pirating your software are the ones who are paying for your pirated software to someone else - not the ones who just take it)
If Microsoft couldn't make money from their software, and Bill had decided to pump gas instead, where would you be today?
You really want me to answer this question? On slashdot? Really? hint: I'm an OSS and linux user through and through. This sort of scenario would be a beautiful haven in my opinion.
Would linux be where it is today?
How about the iPhone?
See above. It's interesting that you use the iPhone, the OS upon which it's based is itself using open source (FreeBSD&NetBSD)! Fancy that.
Slashdot Mirror
Your argument is the path to madness. Wearing a butcher's metal glove while using a kitchen knife could also save a lot of healthcare costs. So would getting the recommended amount of exercise (but only if all safety guidelines are followed), not exceeding recommended guidelines for fat intake, attending stress management classes, driving below 30MPH, not riding a motorcycle, skateboarding, parachute jumping, skiing, etc etc. Do you REALLY want all of that and more to be mandated by law?
If not, it might be best not to ban one particular behavior you don't personally enjoy on the grounds of saving medical costs.
On the contrary. It's well recognized that helmets are LIFE savers on the motorcycle. Accidents do happen but placing yourself in a stupid situation is not something that should be acceptable. It's like playing russian roulette! I'm not saying BAN this sort of behaviour, I'm saying I don't want to have to pay for stupid mistakes that are CLEARLY preventable, all for the sake of "religious freedoms". If someone says that cutting their arm off is part of their religion, I say "go for it you nutter" but if it's going to cost us as taxpayers money, then they better expect to pay for their own bills.
We have laws for a reason here, it's so that we know what's acceptable and what isn't - as part of this society I tacitly agree to these laws. Wearing a helmet is the fucking law, which we've all agreed upon up here, and if people say that religious freedom is above the law then they better have proof.
For the record, I completely support our healthcare here. I know that no matter what, anyone who cannot afford to get better have a chance to get healed, and I really like that. I just want to make sure that people understand that if they do stupid things against the law that they're going to have repercussions. I don't want to pay for someone's darwin award.
[...] if you are a Sikh you are allowed to use a motorbike without a helmet since you have a turban in the way (although to be honest, in that case your violation doesn't harm anyone else) [...]
In Canada, if that person gets into an accident, my taxes are going to pay for his hospital bill. I'm all for saving lives, but I would rather prevent injury before it happens. In this case I worked goddamn hard for my money, a third of which goes towards taxes - his not wearing a helmet isn't harming me per se, but it is really fucking annoying. A simple helmet can save thousands of dollars in taxpayer money and I'm expected to kowtow to a religious right? What the fuck man!??
If Valve were to spend the money to develop for OSX, they'd never recoup it in profits because there's not a big enough installed base.
It's a lot more likely that Valve will make Portal or HL3 available on XBox than on Macs.
Not at all, in fact, if they make a cross platform rendering engine then they can sell that to other interested developers (who are interested in the continually growing userbase of the Mac) and make a profit from that as well.
Cheap cop-out.
You're in a mass-market. You can not expect the majority of users to know anything about computers. You can debate that point all you like, but that's how it is. Saying otherwise is like saying only car mechanics should be allowed to drive cars.
No, it's more like saying "people should know how to drive before taking their car on public roads"
Bad Car analogies? I'm game!!!! *Ahem*:
It's more like a person telling their chauffeur to drive them off a cliff - what should the chauffer do?
However, as it is there to correct a past wrong, the hard part is deciding when it is still or no longer needed.
How about never needed? I'm not the one to punish for something someone else's grandfather did to another person's grandfather. Affirmative Action is totally ridiculous and should never be implemented by any company or government. The merits of a worker is their talent, not the colour of their skin or where they come from.
I do, however, agree with giving the person free education. Of course, this may sound a bit two-faced, but I believe very strongly in education, and any chance that we can get people educated or motivated to be educated should be embraced whole-heartedly.
In what sort of society is this even thought of as being a good idea? Spying on your students? Invasion of privacy, breach of trust, unlawful covert observations, not even to mention the possibility of there being unscrupulous watchers of the kids. (how many pictures did they take?)
"Sure, let's spy on other people's children, that can't end badly!"
More like Can'tada!
amirite?
Ooh, let me try!
"U.S.Wrong"
I would love to see what Ridley Scott would do with the Foundation Universe...
[...] I survived the ACiD, TRiBE, iCE ANSI wars in the BBS era. I witnessed the grand flame wars of Usenet. I saw the clan wars in the MMO days, I saw the Guild fights in the early days of the MMOs culminating in the rise of the Uber guilds. [...]
"I've seen.. things, you people wouldn't believe... All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in the rain..."
To sell more Ihardware.
You know, there's more profit in selling digital stuff, right? Takes nothing to produce copies, but you get revenue from it!! You'd have to be idiots not to want to distribute your stuff electronically *cough*RIAA*cough*.
People have been worrying about MySQL. They have been right to worry. However, as a corporation, Oracle can and will have all relevant American laws re-written/re-interpreted as necessary to see all commercial deployment of MySQL in the USA dead within two years.
MySQL needs to be forked, before it gets forked in the rear by Oracle.
This has got to be one of the most geeky and wonderful posts I have read on Slashdot in a long long time.
Look, everyone agrees Lucas should have stopped after three films. The Star [Wars|Trek|Gate|Craft] franchises have been done to death. Now a rehash of "Dune" is in production. Please.
Just want to comment that I don't think the StarCraft franchise has been done to death yet. There's only been one single game afaik!
Included in that list was one video that used only a brief portion of your song, short enough to count as fair use. Is $400,000 a fair punishment for accidentally including one video in your list that wasn't a bona fide copyright infringement?
Fuck yes it is. Do your goddamn homework. This is obviously serious shit you are dipping your toe into - make sure you take the time to actually do it properly.
Perpetuating the use of MS products is better for MS than switching to alternatives. Pirating a few copies of Windows/Office is a papercut to the beast. Your use of Linux (and related software) is the only hope of slaying the beast.
So... Is 7 the new number of the beast?
You boned that one, pal. Any decent brother would have known what to do... You should have found a similar perspective eagle picture online, 'enhanced' it with GIMP/PS to make it as close as possible to what she shot, and send it back at a minimum 1024 res and high color, thereby perpetuating the myth that you are indeed a Computer God. Kids these days, can't see opportunity even when it's smacking 'em in the face... ;)
Or, better yet, insert a polar bear and ask her if she really saw what she thought she did. Practical jokes are just as fun to illustrate absurdities.
I think CERN would be declared an Terrorist Organization and the scientists individually deemed Enemy Combatants.
Damn Americans and their silent Ts.
I'll be able to move faster, do more damage, and take more damage, all at a small cost of my health?
Fire it up!
Tsssss* aaah.
Man that brings back memories.
I don't know about anyone else but every person I know who uses drugs on a regular basis is a complete moron
You, of course, include caffeine in those drugs.
Right, because caffeine and meth are pretty much the same thing. Those coffee drinkers, man. They'll shank you for a hot cuppa joe. You gotta watch your back around them.
Mod parent up. Ext3 doesn't work nicely with Mac OSX (last time I checked anyway) and I hear bad things about NTFS on external drives (besides which, it's a microsoft technology - fuck em)
However, it's a bitch to get ext3 mounted on OSX. - it would be better to just do something like was suggested by other posters, a freeNAS or freeBSD setup and share the drives over the network.
I'm curious to know how many Volkswagen Beetles we'd need to collide with a two-and-a-half football fields asteroid to change its trajectory.
Not enough!
It is generally accepted to try to use the prefix that will best keep the number of units between 1-999. More people might still speak parts of Latin if people used the correct terms. Also Slashdot is a technical crowd and I would bet that less than 1% doesn't know what a Tera means.
True, however, it's best to often represent a measurement in terms of what people already know. I know roughly how long it takes me to get through 1 km, but there is still the calculation, however quick, of changing a terameter into something I would be able to relate to easily, which is a billion km.
...
Spoken like someone who doesn't develop software for a living.
I used to. Realized that I didn't like what I was doing (online advertising) then decided to pursue other avenues of money-making.
My company (among other things) develops software. The sale of that software pays for our homes, electricity, computers, and the ability to continue developing programs that people need.
Well that's good. My point is that it should be more like a book. You think open-sourcing something will automatically make people steal it? Something tells me you don't give your customers enough credit, or you think perhaps that your software isn't worth the price...?
My point was that if the software community were more like books (you still retain copyright, all source must be open), we'd probably have a healthier software environment instead of all this cloak and daggers bullshit. I know I'd still be buying software.
Now if someone wants to pay my car payment, house payment, electricity bill, buy a few new computers, etc...then sure--I'll develop and release software for free.
Hrm.. I wonder how authors pay for things in this day and age...</sarcasm>
But as long as I need to feed my family, I need to continue earning money. If I can't do that by developing software, I'll go pump gas and you can live without it.
Again, you're assuming you wouldn't make money if you open-sourced your application. I think otherwise - especially if everyone was required to open their source or be forced off the market. It would be really simple and easy to find people who are pirating your software... (and, let's face it, the ones who really matter when pirating your software are the ones who are paying for your pirated software to someone else - not the ones who just take it)
If Microsoft couldn't make money from their software, and Bill had decided to pump gas instead, where would you be today?
You really want me to answer this question? On slashdot? Really? hint: I'm an OSS and linux user through and through. This sort of scenario would be a beautiful haven in my opinion.
Would linux be where it is today? How about the iPhone?
See above. It's interesting that you use the iPhone, the OS upon which it's based is itself using open source (FreeBSD&NetBSD)! Fancy that.
Goddammit PCMAG. Where the frak is the microsoft post? All links in the article are back to PCMAG articles!!