I'd really like to see the PTO require working models of all "inventions" submitted for patent
That used to be among the requirements, but the costs of storing all the models became prohibitive back in the 1870's or so. The Smithsonian Institution has quite a few of them, and they show some of the collection from time to time.
Not that I expect to have any windows apps in the forseeable future, but I'm curious: how far along is WINE? Will it run all of MS-office? What are its limitations?
You know, it's plainly obvious that windows development is a complete train wreck, and I was wondering who there was for the Evil Empire to turn to. At first glance, it appears that they've killed all of their possible saviors (and paid a pittance to the bankruptcy trustees of Be, Inc.)
When Copland cratered, Apple was able to buy NeXT. When DOS was proving too much of dead end even for the Empire, MS turned to Dave Cutler from DEC and ended up with a severely damaged VMS that they renamed "Windows NT". Vista is six years late already, and had to abandon the work in progress and rollback to the windows server 2003 code base.
Can they continue after Vista? Should they keep throwing good money after bad? Or, should they swallow their pride (if they ever had any) and buy a license for a modern, working operating system from Apple for probably a tenth of the money they've wasted on the Longhorn disaster?
If Apple can move to Intel, can Microsoft make a similarly daring move? Are they willing to pay Apple tens of billions in royalties on the OS, and make their money on the apps?
If this actually happens, I'll have to drastically revise my opinion of BG and the monkey boy. It would be one of the best things that could possibly happen for the computer industry overall, though.
WHOEVER GOES FIRST LOSES. Don't EVER be the first to mention a number.
This is not always true. If you go first and your number is higher than what they intended to pay, but not so high that they think you're out of their reach, then you can come out ahead.
Really, I wouldn't take it personally. What they were able to offer really is beside the point. They had a responsibility to try to save money, and they didn't play their hand very well.
their prior offers were attempts to steal from me.
Ok, you're way off in the weeds here. If someone's negotiating a price with you, they have no obligation to give you anythingin the first place. Paying you less than the max they possibly could have afforded isn't stealing from you, it's fulfilling their obligation to the owners of the business.
You seem to be implying that taxation infringes the liberty of other people.
Of course it does. The trade-off is to cede some powers to the state in order to secure our rights.
I think we agree that society has a duty to protect the rights of its citizens.
It appears to me that we diverge on the question of what is and what is not a right.
I also believe society has a duty to provide food, clothing, shelter, and health care to its people, as long as we can reasonably afford to do so. Does that sit better with you?
It is a good thing to provide for the less fortunate. It is not a good thing to rob someone, even if your purpose is to distribute his wealth to those who have less. The ends do not justify the means.
Not everything that may be good to do, requires the threat of force to carry it out. When you propose that there is an obligation to provide charity, then it is no longer charity at all; it is looting.
There is not enough evidence to support EITHER theory.
What's your next guess?
First of all, ID is not a theory, it's a leap to a conclusion based on nothing more than wishful thinking.
The theory of evolution is the model which best fits the available evidence. That species evolve over time is not in reasonable doubt. The questions are largely matters of detail: when and where did this species first diverge from its ancestors? What ecological niche did it fill? What factors resulted in selection for particular mutations?
But God help [sic] the poor judge who finds himself faced with a project proving that all the dinosaurs were wiped out in a flood 6,000 years ago.
Well, a project that actually proved such a thing would be quite a stunning achievement, since it didn't actually happen. A project which made such a claim on the other hand, should be dismissed for the puffery that it is.
This may be an argument for XP, but it's not one for Vista. The only game I've heard of so far that will be Vista-only is the next version of Halo and that's strictly for political reasons.
In my recollection, High School Science Fairs were as often about who had the flashiest, most inpressive presentation or display, and not necessarily who did the best science
Sadly, it happens all too often that a science fair is judged by people who are completely out of their depth in any discussion of science.
that traitorous rat, Jimmy Carter.
Carter, like Neville Chamberlain before him, isn't a traitor: he's just incompetent. Whenever he has dealth with anyone operating from truly evil motives, he has failed to recognize that fact, and act accordingly. Nice guy, but definitely not the man you want in charge when a pack of maniacs commit an act of war by invading an embassy.
Being entitled to healthcare by others is NOT the same as being entitled to FORCE others to provide it.
What does "entitled" mean to you?
If I were to accept the premise that one is entitled to the product of someone else's labor (whether it be for healthcare, or food, shelter, etc), then that entitlement requires someone to provide it. This is the difference between considering healthcare a "right", and healthcare being a service that people obtain through voluntary interaction.
The above is easy to glibly say if you are comfortably employed NOW.
I've been out of work, and it was just as easy to articulate my principles at that time.
Not to mention that advocating that people be left to get sick and die in the wealthiest country in the world makes you look like an utter prick
Arguing against something that I haven't said makes you look like a hysterical moonbat. And for the record, I am not a conservative.
If you choose to contribute to healthcare for the indigent, then I'll commend you for performing a mitzvah. This is not the same thing at all as claiming that healthcare is a "right". Nothing that requires the servitude of other people is a right.
Well, that's quite a non-sequitur. Cooperation between people is quite a different thing from claiming that one is entitled as a right to a service from another.
I'm always amused by how many people who clamor for a local principality's 'right' to perform gay marriages get their panties in a bunch when another local principality flexes its muscles to enforce their 'right' to ban what they consider obscene.
Well, what an amazing job of package-dealing you've just done there. I guess it's not just the moonbat liberals who have this proclivitiy for conflating completely unrelated issues.
Even if your home doesn't increase in value you are still better off owning than renting,
This is not always the case.
Housing prices don't only rise, they sometimes fall, and when you buy a house you are making a very highly-leveraged investment. If you buy a $400K house for $10K down and $2500/month, and the price falls to $380K, your equity is now negative $10K. Lose a job while you're in the hole, and you're screwed.
health care as the fundamental human right that it is
Health care is not a "fundamental human right". It is a service like any other service, your emotional proclaimations notwithstanding. You are no more entitled to health care at other people's expense, than you are entitled to force other people to feed, clothe, or shelter you.
Attention, everyone in Houston.. Your police chief is on a track that would result in the city paying out tens, if not hundreds of millions in damages to people whose fourth amendment rights are violated.
I prefer to do this before I even go in for the interview. I've found that I've been able to close many deals in my career by being the higher-priced alternative. When the headhunter first calls, I tell them "Look, I've got more experience in this field than most people will ever get, and I'd really only be interested if they're able to pay X dollars."
Slashdot Mirror
Cue libertarian anti-environmentalist ranting and argumentative stupidity.
Gee, only three posts before there's some knee-jerker looking to bash people he doesn't like, waving his straw man around.
-jcr
I'd really like to see the PTO require working models of all "inventions" submitted for patent
That used to be among the requirements, but the costs of storing all the models became prohibitive back in the 1870's or so. The Smithsonian Institution has quite a few of them, and they show some of the collection from time to time.
-jcr
Not that I expect to have any windows apps in the forseeable future, but I'm curious: how far along is WINE? Will it run all of MS-office? What are its limitations?
-jcr
You know, it's plainly obvious that windows development is a complete train wreck, and I was wondering who there was for the Evil Empire to turn to. At first glance, it appears that they've killed all of their possible saviors (and paid a pittance to the bankruptcy trustees of Be, Inc.)
When Copland cratered, Apple was able to buy NeXT. When DOS was proving too much of dead end even for the Empire, MS turned to Dave Cutler from DEC and ended up with a severely damaged VMS that they renamed "Windows NT". Vista is six years late already, and had to abandon the work in progress and rollback to the windows server 2003 code base.
Can they continue after Vista? Should they keep throwing good money after bad? Or, should they swallow their pride (if they ever had any) and buy a license for a modern, working operating system from Apple for probably a tenth of the money they've wasted on the Longhorn disaster?
If Apple can move to Intel, can Microsoft make a similarly daring move? Are they willing to pay Apple tens of billions in royalties on the OS, and make their money on the apps?
If this actually happens, I'll have to drastically revise my opinion of BG and the monkey boy. It would be one of the best things that could possibly happen for the computer industry overall, though.
-jcr
WHOEVER GOES FIRST LOSES. Don't EVER be the first to mention a number.
This is not always true. If you go first and your number is higher than what they intended to pay, but not so high that they think you're out of their reach, then you can come out ahead.
-jcr
Really, I wouldn't take it personally. What they were able to offer really is beside the point. They had a responsibility to try to save money, and they didn't play their hand very well.
their prior offers were attempts to steal from me.
Ok, you're way off in the weeds here. If someone's negotiating a price with you, they have no obligation to give you anythingin the first place. Paying you less than the max they possibly could have afforded isn't stealing from you, it's fulfilling their obligation to the owners of the business.
-jcr
You seem to be implying that taxation infringes the liberty of other people.
Of course it does. The trade-off is to cede some powers to the state in order to secure our rights.
I think we agree that society has a duty to protect the rights of its citizens.
It appears to me that we diverge on the question of what is and what is not a right.
I also believe society has a duty to provide food, clothing, shelter, and health care to its people, as long as we can reasonably afford to do so. Does that sit better with you?
It is a good thing to provide for the less fortunate. It is not a good thing to rob someone, even if your purpose is to distribute his wealth to those who have less. The ends do not justify the means.
Not everything that may be good to do, requires the threat of force to carry it out. When you propose that there is an obligation to provide charity, then it is no longer charity at all; it is looting.
-jcr
There is not enough evidence to support EITHER theory.
What's your next guess?
First of all, ID is not a theory, it's a leap to a conclusion based on nothing more than wishful thinking.
The theory of evolution is the model which best fits the available evidence. That species evolve over time is not in reasonable doubt. The questions are largely matters of detail: when and where did this species first diverge from its ancestors? What ecological niche did it fill? What factors resulted in selection for particular mutations?
-jcr
But God help [sic] the poor judge who finds himself faced with a project proving that all the dinosaurs were wiped out in a flood 6,000 years ago.
Well, a project that actually proved such a thing would be quite a stunning achievement, since it didn't actually happen. A project which made such a claim on the other hand, should be dismissed for the puffery that it is.
-jcr
Remember the Evil Empire's "where do you want to go today" ads? The real slogan is "who cares? You're coming with us."
-jcr
Compatibility with more games.
This may be an argument for XP, but it's not one for Vista. The only game I've heard of so far that will be Vista-only is the next version of Halo and that's strictly for political reasons.
-jcr
So I suppose that other than my Right not to be Murdered I have no Right to Live?
You have the right to live by whatever means you can muster, as long as you don't rob or enslave someone else to provide you with those means.
-jcr
In my recollection, High School Science Fairs were as often about who had the flashiest, most inpressive presentation or display, and not necessarily who did the best science
Sadly, it happens all too often that a science fair is judged by people who are completely out of their depth in any discussion of science.
that traitorous rat, Jimmy Carter.
Carter, like Neville Chamberlain before him, isn't a traitor: he's just incompetent. Whenever he has dealth with anyone operating from truly evil motives, he has failed to recognize that fact, and act accordingly. Nice guy, but definitely not the man you want in charge when a pack of maniacs commit an act of war by invading an embassy.
-jcr
Creationism is not a scientific topic. It's nothing more than a big "nu-uh" to the evidence which overwhelmingly supports the theory of evolution.
-jcr
there is no reason to think that it cannot be a right, just because it is a service.
That's not why it can't be a right. It can't be a right, because it is a demand that infringes the liberty of other people. Food isn't a right either.
someone very well might be "entitled to health care at other people's expense",
Sure, if that other person took on the obligation voluntarily.
-jcr
Being entitled to healthcare by others is NOT the same as being entitled to FORCE others to provide it.
What does "entitled" mean to you?
If I were to accept the premise that one is entitled to the product of someone else's labor (whether it be for healthcare, or food, shelter, etc), then that entitlement requires someone to provide it. This is the difference between considering healthcare a "right", and healthcare being a service that people obtain through voluntary interaction.
-jcr
The above is easy to glibly say if you are comfortably employed NOW.
I've been out of work, and it was just as easy to articulate my principles at that time.
Not to mention that advocating that people be left to get sick and die in the wealthiest country in the world makes you look like an utter prick
Arguing against something that I haven't said makes you look like a hysterical moonbat. And for the record, I am not a conservative.
If you choose to contribute to healthcare for the indigent, then I'll commend you for performing a mitzvah. This is not the same thing at all as claiming that healthcare is a "right". Nothing that requires the servitude of other people is a right.
-jcr
No man is an island.
Well, that's quite a non-sequitur. Cooperation between people is quite a different thing from claiming that one is entitled as a right to a service from another.
-jcr
I'm always amused by how many people who clamor for a local principality's 'right' to perform gay marriages get their panties in a bunch when another local principality flexes its muscles to enforce their 'right' to ban what they consider obscene.
Well, what an amazing job of package-dealing you've just done there. I guess it's not just the moonbat liberals who have this proclivitiy for conflating completely unrelated issues.
-jcr
People shouldn't look at porn in public libraries
Define "porn".
-jcr
Even if your home doesn't increase in value you are still better off owning than renting,
This is not always the case.
Housing prices don't only rise, they sometimes fall, and when you buy a house you are making a very highly-leveraged investment. If you buy a $400K house for $10K down and $2500/month, and the price falls to $380K, your equity is now negative $10K. Lose a job while you're in the hole, and you're screwed.
-jcr
health care as the fundamental human right that it is
Health care is not a "fundamental human right". It is a service like any other service, your emotional proclaimations notwithstanding. You are no more entitled to health care at other people's expense, than you are entitled to force other people to feed, clothe, or shelter you.
-jcr
Sad, really but look at it this way: Has anyone ever done something to your car or your property while you were sleeping?
That's a fine reason to get your OWN cameras that you control, and hand over footage to the cops if and when it suits you to do so.
-jcr
Attention, everyone in Houston.. Your police chief is on a track that would result in the city paying out tens, if not hundreds of millions in damages to people whose fourth amendment rights are violated.
-jcr
Get them to say the first number.
I prefer to do this before I even go in for the interview. I've found that I've been able to close many deals in my career by being the higher-priced alternative. When the headhunter first calls, I tell them "Look, I've got more experience in this field than most people will ever get, and I'd really only be interested if they're able to pay X dollars."
-jcr