I have enough money now to retire at 30, put my kids thru university, etc.
While this is nice for you, it's also an exception to the rule. A very small percentage of the population will ever reach that point. I know I have no way of getting there no matter how hard I work. It has nothing to do with how hard you work. It has everything to do with either, how lucky you are, or how ethically dodgy you can comfortably live. For instance, I refuse to shop at Walmart no matter how low their prices are because I believe that by doing so, I am cutting myself deeply. That's an ethical choice. Others are apparently very comfortable buying at Walmart regardless of what they think of the company. Or as another example, there are companies that I refuse to buy much from at all (Microsoft being one of them) simply because I disagree with their way of doing business. All they have to do is change a few things, and I'd gladly buy from them. But they won't, and so I avoid their products. The same goes for investment. Being ethical about how you live and getting into investing is VERY difficult and expensive. You can ignore the impact you are having on others and just focus on yourself (which I can't bring myself to do) and make some money with investing. Or, you can chose to avoid getting into the tangle of funding inappropriate but profitable behaviors and wind up living like I do: with less money than most. At least I feel my conscience is cleaner. Not perfect, just cleaner.
You are living in a world controlled by capitalist America. If you want money, then you need to sell stuff to get it. Work hard. Get a job. Shave your head. Or something like that.
There will be no "Alphas" because the machines will take their place. All humans will be subject to perfect machine law and machine rule. Don't worry though because in essence, we will be their pets and will be well taken care of.
Yeah. Think real hard about that the next time you desperately need a ditch dug and you can only call a doctor... Not too well thought out there kemosabe. Did you come up with that all on your own?
WHO CARES? Why are people so obsessed with money, investments and the stock market? What good does it do you unless you have a lot of money to invest, which most of us don't? Frankly I think we'd all be better off without the concepts of money and property and everyone was just made to share equally by force of law (and the use of drugs to destroy the selfish nature in humans). We'd also go a long way if we eliminated all religions and got rid of "philosophies" like Ayn Rand's Objectivism. The government itself should be run by machines who would hold to the law with no emotion thereby obviating the need for Objectivism in the first place. That is what we need: the death of the monetary and private property systems.
Actually, I've read Slashdot for a long time. Pretty much since they started. The quality has declined in recent years and I have been looking for a good substitute. But there isn't one. A friend pointed me at Digg and I took a look. I wasn't to impressed initially because it didn't seem organized and homogenous enough (I can do without Windows only news) for my tastes. But I took a look again recently and I found they've been refining the UI a bit. It's still not good enough for me to want to get an account, but it's getting better. There's just something about rubbing elbows with more Windows users than I have to that I find uncomfortable. The only issue I've got now is that their categories are TOO specific. Basically, I just want a reproduction of Slashdot with no political discussion and less news about Windows and Microsoft and NO ADS. So you can see why I've been having a hard time finding a good site for that...
It's innevitable that this will happen. The question is whether or not the editors here will be smart enough to let the story through AFTER it's been posted to Digg or not. They should add some code to their submission script to check and see if the story has already been featured on Digg to avoid these kinds of criticisms. But... if they did that, then where would they get their stories?;P
You obviously have absolutely no sense of humor. Hmm... I wonder if you thought Friends was funny. If so, then you definitely have no sense of humor at all. At least not one worth speaking of.
...that the U.S. is under "soft" corporate control. We play at how the government has too much power, but does it really have any power at all? Apparently not. The only people with any real power here are the corporations. They say "jump"! The government and lawmakers say, "How high and should I lube up too"?!! "Too cheap" is a ridiculous reason for not seeling something in the U.S. Why on earth should corporations be able to dictate whether or not people in a geographic region have access to inexpensive goods and services? If they have that kind of power, then the whole concept of "let the market decide" is flawed because consumers DON'T have the power to buy what is beneficial to them. All you pro-capitalism idiots who cry out, "let the market decide" have been duped. How are you going to make a decision when all options aren't availabvle to you in the first place. Yet another reason America is the most disgusting place on Earth right now.
Besides the fact that Wired is now only a "gadget guy" rag dedicated to rich kid libertarians, I've heard a very similar prediction before. I can't remember if it was Kurzweil or Negroponte, or someone else, but I remember in the last century hearing, "The last 10 years of the 20th century will see more progress than the combined history of man". I thought that was a stupid idea then, and I find this new quote no less stupid. Pundits are overrated. Especially when Wired magazine is paying attention to them. Wired got screwed sometime early on. The magazine was originally dedicated to the social implications of technology for everyone. Whether it was some cool new technology to help the poor folks in the African desert harness water cheaply and efficiently from the air, or a low cost power management solution for middle class homes in the United States to beat the energy crunch. Now it's all toys for rich boys and pretty much just gadgets. There is no longer any kind of social responsibilty to that publication at all. What the hell happened to it? It used to be the neo-hippy magazine of the 90s. It was the new Whole Earth Review. Now it may as well be a catalog from Bang & Olufsen.
Actually a pre-nup would be less vulgar if there were payments since it would prove that it reduces a marriage to nothing more than as simple business transaction.
...it could be ignored by porn pirates off shore. All they'd do is take the cease-and-desist letters and post them on their website while making snide comments online about them. The kind of comments where they tell the U.S. Commerce Department to go sodomize themselves with a retractable baton. If ya know what I'm talking about...;P (A wag of the stump to Swedish pirates out there)
OK. Another reasonable response. It does make me feel like not everyone on Slashdot is an insane money grubbing bastard. Thanks. I think my point is that society would be better off if everyone could count on a basic level of support from the government so that they could actually set out and find the things that make their life good. Sure it will encourage some lazy people to do the very minimum, but that doesn't actually hurt anyone. The real problem comes from the people who are currently gaming the capitalist system. They would game this system just the same to try and get more out of it than they are entitled to.
Human nature is generally rotten unless it's kept in check by some kind of system. The current systems are too easy for people to manipulate to their own advantage. A perfect system would prevent them from doing this and punish them for taking too much. That's the ideal. I know we live in the real world where that can never be. But that doesn't mean I can't try to change some people's thinking over to my way of thinking. Idiots like the guys above won't change. But, perhaps some other people with more open minds will see what I'm saying and live accordingly. That's the best I can hope for. As far as my own life is concerned, I'm actually OK with what I've got. I think a lot of people would think I live in poor conditions compared to them. But I really think too many people are living in fantasy land and overextending themselves financially to live as they are told they should live. That bothers me because I hate to see people being taken advantage of by others.
In a lot of ways my family lives a lot more like my grandparent's generation since the economy in the U.S. is so bad. I make comparatively less than my dad did even though my employment is more highly skilled. The house we live in is of lesser value than my parent's house when you take inflation into account and yet I have a college degree and my parents didn't. The plain fact is that if you weren't rich in the 70s or 80s, you're likely worse off now. Anyone who believes that they can just work hard and elevate their status is dreaming. Anyone who thinks they can just take their smart idea and build a company around it and become rich is deluding themselves. They *might* be able to but it's a long shot. I'd have a better chance of becoming a rock star than striking it rich in the technology sector.
The plain fact is that the economy is in poor shape for those of us who started out near the bottom and it's only gotten worse. This is something that people in the upper-middle class don't seem to get. They seem to think things are a little harder but generally OK. The way I see it, I'm a job away from total bankruptcy since I really only lucked into IT. I have no training. No related college degree. The only thing to back me is three years of experience at my first IT job and six at the current one. Pure luck. Sure I have skill at what I'm doing and I do it well, but that doesn't hold water in the job market. Especially now that I've turned 36. I'm basically also "over the hill" as far as the IT world is concerned. My only hope is to try and start my own consultancy. And THAT would be ultimate hell since I'm not really a business person. I really don't believe that I'm employable outside of where I've worked. I know I'm good at what I do, but that really doesn't count to anyone else. If I lost my job, I believe I'd have to go back to installing alarm systems to get immediate employment. And THAT job REALLY sucked.
That's the situation of a large portion of Americans. They are one job away from total destruction. It wouldn't be this way if a lot of the old protections that used to be in place weren't taken away. Society needs to make a shift back to the glory days of the Democratic party. The more it shifts to the Republicans the more the average person nears death.
Um. Surely you jest. There is no way to guaranteed success in this country no matter how hard you work. You either have to be born rich or get lucky. The kind of idiot who spends 80 hours a week chasing the American dream simply benefits his employer with no really good compensation and basically loses out on enjoying his own life. There are better thing in life than money. I advise that you discover them. But I doubt that you will since you've obviously fallen for the lie.
Again... I agree. I don't like Microsoft at all. But, I can't ignore the things they've taken from Unix and claimed to have innovated:
1. Remote GUI display 2. Symlinks 3. The redirection symbols in CMD among other things 4. The remote audio daemon (used when you run Remote Desktop) 5. Services/Daemons
It sounds like their Monad shell will be VERY *nix like with the addition of the questionable concept of using pipes for objects beyond streams. So I think that's where they are headed. You're right, they'll use it to unfair advantage over their customers. Unfortunately most customers aren't developers or IT folks. Which means they'll put themselves into the position that the big automakers are in. They can continue to produce crap, fool the public into thinking it's better crap than before, and charge them repeatedly.
I agree with you. I prefer real Unix or even the newcomers like Linux over Windows any day. But I do think MS will continue to errode market share and they have a long term goal: Windows everywhere.
Yeah. I was wondering whatever happened with Windows Data Center 2000. They were bragging about the five nines and had all those ads with a room that was meant to be you trapped in a Unix box and they were providing Windows to get out of the box.
Goddamn the idiocy here is quite strong today. I've already made it clear that I don't care about the fact that the messages sit on servers elsewhere or traverse the internet in the clear. That doesn't make one bit of difference. If someone was interested enough in me to start hitting every ISP in the world to recover my e-mail, I've probably done something I should be seriously worried about. The government isn't going to go to that length to read the jokes that get passed around or personal correspondence of a guy like me. I'm strictly talking about them wanting access to my hard drives. If my mail was hosted somewhere else, they would turn the drives over to the government without informing me. If the government comes to me and says, "give us your drives", I at least know about it. That's a HUGE difference in my mind. But all you negative posters continue posting your idiotic thoughts on my statement. I still stand on the basis of my facts mentioned above. (ie. Fuck you)
This won't work until Microsoft has completely changed Windows to be Unix-like. They are working on it. With each release, they learn their lessons and add backwards implementations of Unix innovations. As long as they continue down that path, they might someday be able to take over the big iron market. But they're not quite there yet.
As I said before I'm more concerned about physical security. Other people holding my mail aren't or can't be. I know my mail goes over the wire in the clear. But I'll be damned if anyone gets to touch my drives without my permission.
True. That's why I use OpenVPN for any communications the must remain private. I run my own Jabber server that is totally closed to the public and only accessible if I let someone into my VPN. That's where I communicate in total privacy.
Slashdot Mirror
While this is nice for you, it's also an exception to the rule. A very small percentage of the population will ever reach that point. I know I have no way of getting there no matter how hard I work. It has nothing to do with how hard you work. It has everything to do with either, how lucky you are, or how ethically dodgy you can comfortably live. For instance, I refuse to shop at Walmart no matter how low their prices are because I believe that by doing so, I am cutting myself deeply. That's an ethical choice. Others are apparently very comfortable buying at Walmart regardless of what they think of the company. Or as another example, there are companies that I refuse to buy much from at all (Microsoft being one of them) simply because I disagree with their way of doing business. All they have to do is change a few things, and I'd gladly buy from them. But they won't, and so I avoid their products. The same goes for investment. Being ethical about how you live and getting into investing is VERY difficult and expensive. You can ignore the impact you are having on others and just focus on yourself (which I can't bring myself to do) and make some money with investing. Or, you can chose to avoid getting into the tangle of funding inappropriate but profitable behaviors and wind up living like I do: with less money than most. At least I feel my conscience is cleaner. Not perfect, just cleaner.
Hmmm... maybe I should have said:
1. Skip out on the national guard
2. Do lots of coke
3. ??? ---(ie. become the president of the U.S.)
4. Profit!!!
You are living in a world controlled by capitalist America. If you want money, then you need to sell stuff to get it. Work hard. Get a job. Shave your head. Or something like that.
There will be no "Alphas" because the machines will take their place. All humans will be subject to perfect machine law and machine rule. Don't worry though because in essence, we will be their pets and will be well taken care of.
Yeah. Think real hard about that the next time you desperately need a ditch dug and you can only call a doctor... Not too well thought out there kemosabe. Did you come up with that all on your own?
WHO CARES? Why are people so obsessed with money, investments and the stock market? What good does it do you unless you have a lot of money to invest, which most of us don't? Frankly I think we'd all be better off without the concepts of money and property and everyone was just made to share equally by force of law (and the use of drugs to destroy the selfish nature in humans). We'd also go a long way if we eliminated all religions and got rid of "philosophies" like Ayn Rand's Objectivism. The government itself should be run by machines who would hold to the law with no emotion thereby obviating the need for Objectivism in the first place. That is what we need: the death of the monetary and private property systems.
Actually, I've read Slashdot for a long time. Pretty much since they started. The quality has declined in recent years and I have been looking for a good substitute. But there isn't one. A friend pointed me at Digg and I took a look. I wasn't to impressed initially because it didn't seem organized and homogenous enough (I can do without Windows only news) for my tastes. But I took a look again recently and I found they've been refining the UI a bit. It's still not good enough for me to want to get an account, but it's getting better. There's just something about rubbing elbows with more Windows users than I have to that I find uncomfortable. The only issue I've got now is that their categories are TOO specific. Basically, I just want a reproduction of Slashdot with no political discussion and less news about Windows and Microsoft and NO ADS. So you can see why I've been having a hard time finding a good site for that...
It's innevitable that this will happen. The question is whether or not the editors here will be smart enough to let the story through AFTER it's been posted to Digg or not. They should add some code to their submission script to check and see if the story has already been featured on Digg to avoid these kinds of criticisms. But... if they did that, then where would they get their stories? ;P
You obviously have absolutely no sense of humor. Hmm... I wonder if you thought Friends was funny. If so, then you definitely have no sense of humor at all. At least not one worth speaking of.
...that the U.S. is under "soft" corporate control. We play at how the government has too much power, but does it really have any power at all? Apparently not. The only people with any real power here are the corporations. They say "jump"! The government and lawmakers say, "How high and should I lube up too"?!! "Too cheap" is a ridiculous reason for not seeling something in the U.S. Why on earth should corporations be able to dictate whether or not people in a geographic region have access to inexpensive goods and services? If they have that kind of power, then the whole concept of "let the market decide" is flawed because consumers DON'T have the power to buy what is beneficial to them. All you pro-capitalism idiots who cry out, "let the market decide" have been duped. How are you going to make a decision when all options aren't availabvle to you in the first place. Yet another reason America is the most disgusting place on Earth right now.
...that if I had the money and the time I could take out a patent on my secret formula:
H2O
I could then demand that the entire world pay me ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!! (fucking idiots at the patent office)
Besides the fact that Wired is now only a "gadget guy" rag dedicated to rich kid libertarians, I've heard a very similar prediction before. I can't remember if it was Kurzweil or Negroponte, or someone else, but I remember in the last century hearing, "The last 10 years of the 20th century will see more progress than the combined history of man". I thought that was a stupid idea then, and I find this new quote no less stupid. Pundits are overrated. Especially when Wired magazine is paying attention to them. Wired got screwed sometime early on. The magazine was originally dedicated to the social implications of technology for everyone. Whether it was some cool new technology to help the poor folks in the African desert harness water cheaply and efficiently from the air, or a low cost power management solution for middle class homes in the United States to beat the energy crunch. Now it's all toys for rich boys and pretty much just gadgets. There is no longer any kind of social responsibilty to that publication at all. What the hell happened to it? It used to be the neo-hippy magazine of the 90s. It was the new Whole Earth Review. Now it may as well be a catalog from Bang & Olufsen.
Actually a pre-nup would be less vulgar if there were payments since it would prove that it reduces a marriage to nothing more than as simple business transaction.
That guy didn't know what he was talking about! Mob rule, well... RULES!!! ;P
...it could be ignored by porn pirates off shore. All they'd do is take the cease-and-desist letters and post them on their website while making snide comments online about them. The kind of comments where they tell the U.S. Commerce Department to go sodomize themselves with a retractable baton. If ya know what I'm talking about... ;P (A wag of the stump to Swedish pirates out there)
OK. Another reasonable response. It does make me feel like not everyone on Slashdot is an insane money grubbing bastard. Thanks. I think my point is that society would be better off if everyone could count on a basic level of support from the government so that they could actually set out and find the things that make their life good. Sure it will encourage some lazy people to do the very minimum, but that doesn't actually hurt anyone. The real problem comes from the people who are currently gaming the capitalist system. They would game this system just the same to try and get more out of it than they are entitled to.
Human nature is generally rotten unless it's kept in check by some kind of system. The current systems are too easy for people to manipulate to their own advantage. A perfect system would prevent them from doing this and punish them for taking too much. That's the ideal. I know we live in the real world where that can never be. But that doesn't mean I can't try to change some people's thinking over to my way of thinking. Idiots like the guys above won't change. But, perhaps some other people with more open minds will see what I'm saying and live accordingly. That's the best I can hope for. As far as my own life is concerned, I'm actually OK with what I've got. I think a lot of people would think I live in poor conditions compared to them. But I really think too many people are living in fantasy land and overextending themselves financially to live as they are told they should live. That bothers me because I hate to see people being taken advantage of by others.
In a lot of ways my family lives a lot more like my grandparent's generation since the economy in the U.S. is so bad. I make comparatively less than my dad did even though my employment is more highly skilled. The house we live in is of lesser value than my parent's house when you take inflation into account and yet I have a college degree and my parents didn't. The plain fact is that if you weren't rich in the 70s or 80s, you're likely worse off now. Anyone who believes that they can just work hard and elevate their status is dreaming. Anyone who thinks they can just take their smart idea and build a company around it and become rich is deluding themselves. They *might* be able to but it's a long shot. I'd have a better chance of becoming a rock star than striking it rich in the technology sector.
The plain fact is that the economy is in poor shape for those of us who started out near the bottom and it's only gotten worse. This is something that people in the upper-middle class don't seem to get. They seem to think things are a little harder but generally OK. The way I see it, I'm a job away from total bankruptcy since I really only lucked into IT. I have no training. No related college degree. The only thing to back me is three years of experience at my first IT job and six at the current one. Pure luck. Sure I have skill at what I'm doing and I do it well, but that doesn't hold water in the job market. Especially now that I've turned 36. I'm basically also "over the hill" as far as the IT world is concerned. My only hope is to try and start my own consultancy. And THAT would be ultimate hell since I'm not really a business person. I really don't believe that I'm employable outside of where I've worked. I know I'm good at what I do, but that really doesn't count to anyone else. If I lost my job, I believe I'd have to go back to installing alarm systems to get immediate employment. And THAT job REALLY sucked.
That's the situation of a large portion of Americans. They are one job away from total destruction. It wouldn't be this way if a lot of the old protections that used to be in place weren't taken away. Society needs to make a shift back to the glory days of the Democratic party. The more it shifts to the Republicans the more the average person nears death.
Um. Surely you jest. There is no way to guaranteed success in this country no matter how hard you work. You either have to be born rich or get lucky. The kind of idiot who spends 80 hours a week chasing the American dream simply benefits his employer with no really good compensation and basically loses out on enjoying his own life. There are better thing in life than money. I advise that you discover them. But I doubt that you will since you've obviously fallen for the lie.
Again... I agree. I don't like Microsoft at all. But, I can't ignore the things they've taken from Unix and claimed to have innovated:
1. Remote GUI display
2. Symlinks
3. The redirection symbols in CMD among other things
4. The remote audio daemon (used when you run Remote Desktop)
5. Services/Daemons
It sounds like their Monad shell will be VERY *nix like with the addition of the questionable concept of using pipes for objects beyond streams. So I think that's where they are headed. You're right, they'll use it to unfair advantage over their customers. Unfortunately most customers aren't developers or IT folks. Which means they'll put themselves into the position that the big automakers are in. They can continue to produce crap, fool the public into thinking it's better crap than before, and charge them repeatedly.
I agree with you. I prefer real Unix or even the newcomers like Linux over Windows any day. But I do think MS will continue to errode market share and they have a long term goal: Windows everywhere.
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!! Watch out lest you start receiving tubgirl and goatse photos in your Inbox...
Yeah. I was wondering whatever happened with Windows Data Center 2000. They were bragging about the five nines and had all those ads with a room that was meant to be you trapped in a Unix box and they were providing Windows to get out of the box.
Goddamn the idiocy here is quite strong today. I've already made it clear that I don't care about the fact that the messages sit on servers elsewhere or traverse the internet in the clear. That doesn't make one bit of difference. If someone was interested enough in me to start hitting every ISP in the world to recover my e-mail, I've probably done something I should be seriously worried about. The government isn't going to go to that length to read the jokes that get passed around or personal correspondence of a guy like me. I'm strictly talking about them wanting access to my hard drives. If my mail was hosted somewhere else, they would turn the drives over to the government without informing me. If the government comes to me and says, "give us your drives", I at least know about it. That's a HUGE difference in my mind. But all you negative posters continue posting your idiotic thoughts on my statement. I still stand on the basis of my facts mentioned above. (ie. Fuck you)
This won't work until Microsoft has completely changed Windows to be Unix-like. They are working on it. With each release, they learn their lessons and add backwards implementations of Unix innovations. As long as they continue down that path, they might someday be able to take over the big iron market. But they're not quite there yet.
As I said before I'm more concerned about physical security. Other people holding my mail aren't or can't be. I know my mail goes over the wire in the clear. But I'll be damned if anyone gets to touch my drives without my permission.
True. That's why I use OpenVPN for any communications the must remain private. I run my own Jabber server that is totally closed to the public and only accessible if I let someone into my VPN. That's where I communicate in total privacy.