How about I refer to you Chomsky's Understanding Power, Chp.10?
Just looking at the
footnotes might be enough actually.
The basic story told there is the government funds research, which is then used by big corporations for profit. Or, the government funds development of weaponry from which again the big corporations profit. The subsidizing of rich outweighs the tax they pay. Not only corporations of course, but also the people with mortages etc.
Think of it this way: you pay 10 I pay 2, but you get back 11, I get back 1. What you pay is important but poor, practically get nothing back. Tax break due to a mortage can easily be hundreds of dollars, some people live a month with that kind of money.
Obviously, what is decent should be decided on a case by case basis. However, the way the person who pays the wages live looks like a good rule of thumb. How about we say the workers have a right to live a life as decent as the investors? After all, they are the ones that do the work. Does this sound reasonable?
I am sorry for the people who suffer around the world. However, believe me there are a lot of people suffering in both the country I live in (USA) and the country I am from (Turkey), so it does make sense to try to help those people and fight to decrease their numbers.
This becoming offtopic, but I'd like to answer your points as well: 1. Everyone is subsidized. You get tax breaks, benefits, etc. SOME companies pay no tax but as others have stated, businesses are responsible for a large amount of tax revenue - businesses as a whole get no free ride.
The most current example is the war in Iraq. Taxpayers pay for the costs of the war, big corporations sell the weapons, reconstruction etc. The money does flow from poor/middle class to rich. Also, at the beginning of 90s when the profit of the corporations were skyrocketing, the real wage of the workers was going down, so it happens in more than one way.
2. You say work is being sent to underpaid workers. What did you decide is the right wage? Is it ok if a company avoids outsourcing by moving jobs from say NYC to Boonieville, OH where living expenses and labour is cheaper?
My original post actually includes the answer, wage to have the worker have a decent life is fair. Your example makes sense of course, however think how Turkey's textile and cloth industry collapsed because of sweatshops in far east. In any case, my point is, the labor force in the countries where there is no job security, no labor rights, no expectation of decent life because people are literally struggling to live, is being used to push the working class in industrialized societies further down. You might say "This is capitalism, that's what cooperations do." And I'd say "Exactly! And it is not fair. The people who work as the labor for a factory should live as decently as the person who put the capital for the factory. We are all human beings, wage slavery is still slavery." 3. Assuming the company cuts their salary expenses in half. Where did that money go? Your post seemed to be anti-outsourcing so I'll assume the worst: the evil company paid more tax and kept the money. Which now belongs to the shareholders. Who now invest more heavily in technology. Which causes other businesses to pop up in this very profitable field. Other companies hire more people (a few of which have to be local).
This, I tried to address above. Putting the money for a cooperation and asking the maximum from your workers and threatening them to take their jobs away is no better than putting a gun to their head and make them work for your own good. The well-being of workers is as important if not more important than the well being of investors. The advancement of technology does not justify the eploitation of workers, IMHO.
Obviously we have a difference of opinion, but I am not trolling. This way of thinking is actually quiet common among people who had less exposure to big corporations propoganda.
You are not being fair. Big corporations, and in general the rich class, are continuously being subsidized by the government in US. It is not adapt or die. The environment is changing faster than we can adapt, we do not have lobbying power or PR money to change the environment to our needs, Microsoft does.
Every human being has a right to live a decent life. You do not have to earn it, if it is denied to you by underpaying for your abilities, yes! you are being cheated.
All you accomplish through getting the government involved to prevent outsourcing is hurting a hundred people through higher prices for the sake of one person.
Who are these hundreds of people? You think software companies or any other big corporation pass the savings to customers or compotent workers? How is the weather on your planet?
From the article: In the end, like it or not, we here in the U.S. are going to have to learn how to deal with a truly worldwide IT economy.
The only way to deal with any kind of worldwide economy, not only IT, is international unions and solidarity. This is big corporations using one country's workforce again the other. As pointed out near the beginning of the article, this is a lot similar to German workers losing jobs to Americans who lost jobs to Mexicans. This would be prevented if there was an international labor standard. Well, there is, but it is not enforcable unfortunately.
Until international unions can be formed, we need to work to pass laws to prevent this abuse of workers, IT or any other field. However in US it is a far dream since there is no labor party. I believe US is the only industrialized society without a labor party.
Happy Labor Day!:-)
One nice thing about a good secretary or a personal friend is they will realize when they become annoying and tune themselves down. I think it is essential for this kind of software. Giving advice constantly will inevitably lead to wrong and/or unwanted advice at one point.
If you are a US citizen, and are in the US when uploading the files, there's plenty of precedent.
what's in dispute is not uploading the file. could it be illegal to link to the file on your website?
it is not up/downloading.
It is possible to delay the serving of pages that require interactive action. Then an automated robot will not be very fast.
Also, the behavioural pattern of an automated robot can be detected very easily, imagine a connection from a domain suddenly submits favorable reviews for a particular page, and no other such review is submitted. This should raise a red flag. If the effect of reviews is processed and used after an analysis, I think robots can be defeated.
Maybe the search results page can provide a link with a title something like "looks like it", in conrast to "let me see". If the summary provided looks useful you go with the former, if you don't have an opinion, you go with latter.
From the original parent post: where people learn by asking questions and discussing, rather than being presented with information
this is what I am referring to, I am not saying bloggers use or do not use facts, I am not even sure what you mean by bloggers:-), but if you mean the people like who post to/., just think of how many IANALs are commenting on a topic regarding law.
no, the facts provided by mainstream press are almost always put on a spin, and sometimes they tell only one part (which may be a lot worse than one side) of the story. Chomsky has good discussion of these issues, probably there are other sources, too, which provide references. however, you can't have news w/o facts. for me, that is a contradiction in terms.
you mean news should be based on discussion rather than information?;-)
maybe you meant to say, "facts by themselves are not enough, the consequences of those facts also need to be part of news"?
What the? The Feds arrested a guy for something incriminating. He admitted to it in a court of law. Guilty. Over.
You are either naive or simply trolling. Someone pleading to a crime he did not commit does happen, especially if it is clear that he will not get just treatment and will be in a hostile environment while fighting this, as has been in his five week material witness period. I am from Turkey, unfortunately I know what I am talking about!
Think about it, this is not very different from a small company settling out of court because fighting does not make sense and will probably cause more harm if they try. Except in this case, the government is the big company fighting a dirty war.
Woah, hang on there. The only country that recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan was Pakistan. Nobody else in the world thought they were a "legit" government, and they didn't even represent Afghanistan in the United Nations.
With all due respect, UN is in the pocket of US. Who are you kidding? And for the connection, as many posts pointed out, US is more responsible for Al Qaeda then Taliban. Also remember, Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, his financing also comes from there.
There is however very convincing evidence that Israel at least knew about the attacks in advance. ??? Where is that evidence? How is this post informative? Is barfing informative, too?
Nuclear simulations are used to see if the warheads are still effective after not being used for long times, not to see if they'll wipe out a city right after they are produced.
You'd be yelling bloody murder if Microsoft sponsored a study without doing this sort of research before pitting Windows vs. Linux. What??? Microsoft sells Windows, if they make a comparison, of course they need to be a lot more careful. Plus, what's with the "bloddy"? What are we? British?
PS: No offense to British folks;-)
I have suffered from same symptoms and planning worked wonders for me. Some tasks take weeks or months not a couple of nights, so waiting for deadline pressure won't accomplish anything. Also, some tasks do not have deadlines, and sometimes they are the most important ones.
The worst situation for me was when I was writing my MS thesis, calculations and speculating about the results were fun but writing them up was taking forever, because I was always distracted by some more calculations or other things to try. I guess this is roughly equivalent to surfing web or playing games. So, I started writing an outline, a very skeleton thing with no meat on it. But that gave me something to work on. Then I have written the outlines of chapters, then sections, then subsections. So, I reduced the task to chewable bites, i.e., paragraphs. Then I started writing those paragraphs and compiled the thesis through LaTeX as frequently as possible. It was rather like, when you are running, you see a post and say I'll first reach there, and when you reach there, you spot another post.
Of course, writing a thesis is very easily analysed into pieces which can be monitored continuously, but to some extent it works for other things to. On another note, analysing what you will do is a necessary step anyways, combine that with a roadplan so you will have something concrete to work on rather than something abstract which you can get away from easily.
Asian counties call us Yunanistan (And that's another story:)
I am curious what is the story? Are there really any countries, other than Turkish speaking ones, calling Greece/Hellas as Yunanistan?
I would like to offer my opinion regarding the
comments basically saying "there is nothing wrong with this, since the planes are their property they can do whatever they want".
First of all, I agree there is nothing illegal about this, but it is not the same thing as "there is nothing wrong". There is more to human interaction than what is defined by laws. Second, planes might be private property but the airlines cannot do whatever they choose. They are using my airspace, polluting my air, irritating my ears, causing me a risk (I know it is small!) every time
they fly over me, etc. All of this is OK, because, at least for me, the service they provide compensates for these. However, they do need a licence to fly those planes, and to run their business. If they start invading my rights, their privileges should be revoked, too! Just like people saying "if you don't like their rules, don't fly that airline" I can say "If you don't like acting respectfully, go fly on another planet dammit!".
Shutting down the military while waging war is not an option, but the idea of continuing to operating critical defense systems even after known penetration by hostile hackers or damaging worms will take some getting used to.
How about not waging war? Or better, how about shutting down the military period?
well, as a physicist i have to disagree. the ships in battlestar galactica do not move by classical propulsion, they use that only to maneuver. the real means of travel is via distortion of spacetime around the ships which does not change your inertia but let you move in spacetime by modifying the geodesics. incidentally, this is why these people do not feel the fictitious forces due to accelaration of the ships. of course that distortion does require energy so bringing fleet to a halt is necessary when you are low on fuel.
i hope this clarifies...
Slashdot Mirror
How about I refer to you Chomsky's Understanding Power, Chp.10? Just looking at the footnotes might be enough actually.
The basic story told there is the government funds research, which is then used by big corporations for profit. Or, the government funds development of weaponry from which again the big corporations profit. The subsidizing of rich outweighs the tax they pay. Not only corporations of course, but also the people with mortages etc.
Think of it this way: you pay 10 I pay 2, but you get back 11, I get back 1. What you pay is important but poor, practically get nothing back. Tax break due to a mortage can easily be hundreds of dollars, some people live a month with that kind of money.
Obviously, what is decent should be decided on a case by case basis. However, the way the person who pays the wages live looks like a good rule of thumb. How about we say the workers have a right to live a life as decent as the investors? After all, they are the ones that do the work. Does this sound reasonable?
I am sorry for the people who suffer around the world. However, believe me there are a lot of people suffering in both the country I live in (USA) and the country I am from (Turkey), so it does make sense to try to help those people and fight to decrease their numbers.
Actually, these are ideas that are part of social-democracy and socialism. If you think I invented them, I am flattered :-).
This becoming offtopic, but I'd like to answer your points as well:
1. Everyone is subsidized. You get tax breaks, benefits, etc. SOME companies pay no tax but as others have stated, businesses are responsible for a large amount of tax revenue - businesses as a whole get no free ride.
The most current example is the war in Iraq. Taxpayers pay for the costs of the war, big corporations sell the weapons, reconstruction etc. The money does flow from poor/middle class to rich. Also, at the beginning of 90s when the profit of the corporations were skyrocketing, the real wage of the workers was going down, so it happens in more than one way.
2. You say work is being sent to underpaid workers. What did you decide is the right wage? Is it ok if a company avoids outsourcing by moving jobs from say NYC to Boonieville, OH where living expenses and labour is cheaper?
My original post actually includes the answer, wage to have the worker have a decent life is fair. Your example makes sense of course, however think how Turkey's textile and cloth industry collapsed because of sweatshops in far east. In any case, my point is, the labor force in the countries where there is no job security, no labor rights, no expectation of decent life because people are literally struggling to live, is being used to push the working class in industrialized societies further down. You might say "This is capitalism, that's what cooperations do." And I'd say "Exactly! And it is not fair. The people who work as the labor for a factory should live as decently as the person who put the capital for the factory. We are all human beings, wage slavery is still slavery."
3. Assuming the company cuts their salary expenses in half. Where did that money go? Your post seemed to be anti-outsourcing so I'll assume the worst: the evil company paid more tax and kept the money. Which now belongs to the shareholders. Who now invest more heavily in technology. Which causes other businesses to pop up in this very profitable field. Other companies hire more people (a few of which have to be local).
This, I tried to address above. Putting the money for a cooperation and asking the maximum from your workers and threatening them to take their jobs away is no better than putting a gun to their head and make them work for your own good. The well-being of workers is as important if not more important than the well being of investors. The advancement of technology does not justify the eploitation of workers, IMHO.
Obviously we have a difference of opinion, but I am not trolling. This way of thinking is actually quiet common among people who had less exposure to big corporations propoganda.
You are not being fair. Big corporations, and in general the rich class, are continuously being subsidized by the government in US. It is not adapt or die. The environment is changing faster than we can adapt, we do not have lobbying power or PR money to change the environment to our needs, Microsoft does.
Every human being has a right to live a decent life. You do not have to earn it, if it is denied to you by underpaying for your abilities, yes! you are being cheated.
All you accomplish through getting the government involved to prevent outsourcing is hurting a hundred people through higher prices for the sake of one person.
Who are these hundreds of people? You think software companies or any other big corporation pass the savings to customers or compotent workers? How is the weather on your planet?
From the article: :-)
In the end, like it or not, we here in the U.S. are going to have to learn how to deal with a truly worldwide IT economy.
The only way to deal with any kind of worldwide economy, not only IT, is international unions and solidarity. This is big corporations using one country's workforce again the other. As pointed out near the beginning of the article, this is a lot similar to German workers losing jobs to Americans who lost jobs to Mexicans. This would be prevented if there was an international labor standard. Well, there is, but it is not enforcable unfortunately.
Until international unions can be formed, we need to work to pass laws to prevent this abuse of workers, IT or any other field. However in US it is a far dream since there is no labor party. I believe US is the only industrialized society without a labor party.
Happy Labor Day!
One nice thing about a good secretary or a personal friend is they will realize when they become annoying and tune themselves down. I think it is essential for this kind of software. Giving advice constantly will inevitably lead to wrong and/or unwanted advice at one point.
If you are a US citizen, and are in the US when uploading the files, there's plenty of precedent.
what's in dispute is not uploading the file. could it be illegal to link to the file on your website? it is not up/downloading.
It is possible to delay the serving of pages that require interactive action. Then an automated robot will not be very fast.
Also, the behavioural pattern of an automated robot can be detected very easily, imagine a connection from a domain suddenly submits favorable reviews for a particular page, and no other such review is submitted. This should raise a red flag. If the effect of reviews is processed and used after an analysis, I think robots can be defeated.
Maybe the search results page can provide a link with a title something like "looks like it", in conrast to "let me see". If the summary provided looks useful you go with the former, if you don't have an opinion, you go with latter.
From the original parent post: :-), but if you mean the people like who post to /., just think of how many IANALs are commenting on a topic regarding law.
where people learn by asking questions and discussing, rather than being presented with information
this is what I am referring to, I am not saying bloggers use or do not use facts, I am not even sure what you mean by bloggers
no, the facts provided by mainstream press are almost always put on a spin, and sometimes they tell only one part (which may be a lot worse than one side) of the story. Chomsky has good discussion of these issues, probably there are other sources, too, which provide references. however, you can't have news w/o facts. for me, that is a contradiction in terms.
you mean news should be based on discussion rather than information? ;-)
maybe you meant to say, "facts by themselves are not enough, the consequences of those facts also need to be part of news"?
ok, i have one thing to say for all of this, as onion once put it: "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!".
thanks for the info.
yeah, one could say that.
What the? The Feds arrested a guy for something incriminating. He admitted to it in a court of law. Guilty. Over.
You are either naive or simply trolling. Someone pleading to a crime he did not commit does happen, especially if it is clear that he will not get just treatment and will be in a hostile environment while fighting this, as has been in his five week material witness period. I am from Turkey, unfortunately I know what I am talking about!
Think about it, this is not very different from a small company settling out of court because fighting does not make sense and will probably cause more harm if they try. Except in this case, the government is the big company fighting a dirty war.
Woah, hang on there. The only country that recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan was Pakistan. Nobody else in the world thought they were a "legit" government, and they didn't even represent Afghanistan in the United Nations.
With all due respect, UN is in the pocket of US. Who are you kidding? And for the connection, as many posts pointed out, US is more responsible for Al Qaeda then Taliban. Also remember, Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, his financing also comes from there.
There is however very convincing evidence that Israel at least knew about the attacks in advance.
??? Where is that evidence? How is this post informative? Is barfing informative, too?
Nuclear simulations are used to see if the warheads are still effective after not being used for long times, not to see if they'll wipe out a city right after they are produced.
You'd be yelling bloody murder if Microsoft sponsored a study without doing this sort of research before pitting Windows vs. Linux. ;-)
What??? Microsoft sells Windows, if they make a comparison, of course they need to be a lot more careful. Plus, what's with the "bloddy"? What are we? British?
PS: No offense to British folks
I have suffered from same symptoms and planning worked wonders for me. Some tasks take weeks or months not a couple of nights, so waiting for deadline pressure won't accomplish anything. Also, some tasks do not have deadlines, and sometimes they are the most important ones.
The worst situation for me was when I was writing my MS thesis, calculations and speculating about the results were fun but writing them up was taking forever, because I was always distracted by some more calculations or other things to try. I guess this is roughly equivalent to surfing web or playing games. So, I started writing an outline, a very skeleton thing with no meat on it. But that gave me something to work on. Then I have written the outlines of chapters, then sections, then subsections. So, I reduced the task to chewable bites, i.e., paragraphs. Then I started writing those paragraphs and compiled the thesis through LaTeX as frequently as possible. It was rather like, when you are running, you see a post and say I'll first reach there, and when you reach there, you spot another post.
Of course, writing a thesis is very easily analysed into pieces which can be monitored continuously, but to some extent it works for other things to. On another note, analysing what you will do is a necessary step anyways, combine that with a roadplan so you will have something concrete to work on rather than something abstract which you can get away from easily.
Asian counties call us Yunanistan (And that's another story :)
I am curious what is the story? Are there really any countries, other than Turkish speaking ones, calling Greece/Hellas as Yunanistan?
I would like to offer my opinion regarding the comments basically saying "there is nothing wrong with this, since the planes are their property they can do whatever they want".
First of all, I agree there is nothing illegal about this, but it is not the same thing as "there is nothing wrong". There is more to human interaction than what is defined by laws. Second, planes might be private property but the airlines cannot do whatever they choose. They are using my airspace, polluting my air, irritating my ears, causing me a risk (I know it is small!) every time they fly over me, etc. All of this is OK, because, at least for me, the service they provide compensates for these. However, they do need a licence to fly those planes, and to run their business. If they start invading my rights, their privileges should be revoked, too! Just like people saying "if you don't like their rules, don't fly that airline" I can say "If you don't like acting respectfully, go fly on another planet dammit!".
Shutting down the military while waging war is not an option, but the idea of continuing to operating critical defense systems even after known penetration by hostile hackers or damaging worms will take some getting used to.
How about not waging war? Or better, how about shutting down the military period?
well, as a physicist i have to disagree. the ships in battlestar galactica do not move by classical propulsion, they use that only to maneuver. the real means of travel is via distortion of spacetime around the ships which does not change your inertia but let you move in spacetime by modifying the geodesics. incidentally, this is why these people do not feel the fictitious forces due to accelaration of the ships. of course that distortion does require energy so bringing fleet to a halt is necessary when you are low on fuel.
i hope this clarifies...