> 84% replied that UNIX - and Linux in particular - has no support for viewing pornography in a video form.
Neither does Microsoft. A year or so ago, someone made a similar comment to me, so I took a fresh W98SE install into alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica and found most of the pr0n wouldn't play either.
The problem with.AVI is that.AVI can mean any one of dozens of codecs. Off the top of my head, in loose chronological order, YUV9, IR32, IR42, IV5, I.263, MP4v2, MP4v3, DiVX...
In order to pick up all the codecs, I had to spend a fair bit of time browsing web sites people had set up to solve this problem. (No, I don't consider the MSFT solution of "Install Media Player 7 and let it munge your system online, and rat back to Bill, Inc. what pr0n you're viewing" as a solution).
The length of the alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica FAQ (and the effort to which people had gone through, both to "get" the codecs, many of which are, of course, no longer available even in closed-source form from Intel and what-not) tells me that "supporting.AVI" is as much of a problem for Micros~1 as it is for xanim.
But it's also a testament to how much work people are willing to go through to get their pr0n.
> Until Linux,
BSD, etc. decide to support this vital part of the market, Microsoft will continue to dominate.
Although the author of the comment said he was just kidding, and got modded "Funny", I think he's got a pretty good point.
Look back - pr0n is what made the VCR popular. Bandwidth limitations for static images brought us.GIF and.JPG, and pr0n users were probably the ones who most needed the compression. Then comes.MPG, MPEG2, and a gazillion different codecs wrapped in.AVI.
Look at DejaNews (no, they don't archive binaries, but they do archive alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.d.) and find out who the earliest adopters of MPEG4 video were. The pr0n groups appear to be several months ahead of the curve when it came to what-eventually-became-DiVX.
Say what you will about the cheeziness of pr0n, but you can learn a lot about the state of the art in video compression just by looking at the file extensions of postings in alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.
Thanks for the compliments -- and yeah, as much as I like Browne (and would vote for him if I thought he could win, or that it wouldn't "help" Gore), that's why I used a small "L" when I wrote "libertarian": The philosophy is not the party, and the philosophy is not the party.
Also, the reality of government is (and ought to be) a far cry from the ideal of the platform. My hunch is that if Nader gets his 5%, the Greens' next presidential candidate will be far more moderate, and likewise, if the Libertarians got their 5%, they'd also be more moderate.
Anyone who doubts that is invited to compare the Reform numbers under Perot (~19%) to Buchanan ( less than 1%). Ideological purity doesn't win elections in Western democracies, and I thank whatever Gods may be for it.
P.S. Enjoy your upcoming Canadian election, and may your party leaders not repeat the mistakes of ours.
> I could barely muster the interest level required to read about tax credits for kids, much less actually think about it, as
I have no sprog and plan no sprog...
Neither could I. I'm glad Salon researched Gore's cuts for me, because as a childfree, I also couldn't be bothered to look it up once I figured that Gore offered nothing to me. (I'm also glad Salon did it, 'cuz they're about as pro-Gore as anyone, and I could be sure I wasn't relying on any pro-Bush "spin" on my data for the Gore plan)
> but I gotta say, bless you for passing on "fucktrophy" and "crotchfruit" into my vocabulary,
If I see so far, it is only because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants". (I first heard the terms on TMB's site, and had the same reaction as you did. Credit for the terms goes to her, or to those from whom she first heard 'em.)
> (It might surprise many of you in the Slashdot audience who make the average tech industry salary yet identify with the proletariat -- you are rich.)
Kook9: The phenomenon surprises the hell outa me too. I just don't get it. Techies would be taxed into oblivion under Nader, and our industry (environmental damage caused by fab plants, anyone?) would likewise suffer.
>> Bush wants to give a tax cut to the rich. How is that better?
1) The libertarian argument: "The rich" pay more in taxes than "the poor". If the surplus is the result of too much money being taken from taxpayers, it should be returned to those who paid the excess. If you give the cashier a $20 bill for a $10.00 item, do you expect the cashier to give you $5.00 back, and hand $5.00 to the next person in line?
2) The other fairness argument: Hey, who are "the rich"? Someone living in the Bay Area with the foresight to day "damn, I can't afford kids here", is "the rich" and consequently undeserving of a Gore tax cut, whether they're making $100K as a developer or $20K as a janitor?
Bush's plan also offers more benefits to folks with kids than it does to those without, but at least people without kids get a shake too.
3) The "Gore's hyping up his base" argument - at present, a married filer with one kid starts paying taxes at $19K. With the upped tax brackets, they wouldn't start paying taxes until around $25Kish. And rather than paying 15%, they'd pay 10%. But at the "poor" levels, they get knocked completely off the tax rolls.
Sure, the rich get more dollars, but expressed as a percentage of tax they pay now, the "working poor" (as well as the middle class) get tax cuts - big ones - under Bush.
It's all in how you look at it. But the Gore rhetoric about how "only" the rich benefit under the Bush plan is class-warfare rhetoric, nothing more. This plays well to the Democratic base, but IMNSHO it doesn't really stand up to any real analysis.
I mean, if you're making $25K and have a kid, would you rather have your $1-2K of federal taxes back as cash, or would you rather have to pay $3000 per year to enroll a kid in day-care or after-school-program expenses in order to get the "tax cut"?
Singles, gays, and/or childfrees: No tax breaks under Gore. Mucho tax breaks under Bush.
Tech workers tend to make more money than non-tech workers: We're too rich for Gore. You get tax breaks under Bush.
Younger workers: Continue to fund Social Security pyramid scheme under Gore, or get to divert 16% of their SS taxes (a third of employee-paid portion) under Bush.
Integrity: A 26-year-old DUI, or ongoing defence of Clinton's behavior, his coverups, and the whole campaign-finance and espionage issues.
Leadership: "Dumb" Bush who's willing to listen to his cabinet, or "smart" Gore who knows he's always right, the facts be damned.
Pro-choice: Does anyone seriously think Bush is gonna commit political suicide by trying to overturn Roe v. Wade by stacking the Supreme Court and getting Congress to pass a law banning all abortion? Get real! Politicians can lie to the religious right, too!
But suffice it to say you're not alone.
Today's/. article probably suffers from more anti-Bush posts mainly because (a) the Bush "response" was merely a cut-and-paste by a disinterested staffer, and (b) when you post your policies, they get criticized. That's what/. is all about, and that's a good thing.
Aside:
What I've never understood is the fascination the/. crowd has with Nader and the extreme left. Admittedly, my libertarian bias towards self-interest is showing - but would any Nader techies care to comment on how they think life will be better for them (as opposed to "everyone else") under a Nader presidency?
That said, I have respect for Nader as a person, and even though he doesn't have my vote, I do hope he gets his 5%, because I believe we need a third-party alternative - even if only to prove that "third-party" isn't a flash in the pan, whether from the right (Perot) or the left (Green).
SEP was one of the first sites I visited on the web, and the first one I bookmarked. When the Reform party implodes after the election - hijack it. And conquer.
Screw Bush, Gore, Nader, and Browne. I'm voting Scorched Earth!
> I think the average American would much prefer a set of check boxes than computing a high-order Taylor polynomial.
The point I was originally making is that the Gore approach is more geared towards social engineering (i.e. "only certain people get tax cuts") than Bush's.
That is, I believe Bush wants to cut taxes on ideological grounds ("We have a 'surplus' - we don't need the money - we should therefore give it back in proportion to those who paid into it"), whereas I see Gore's "tax cuts" as an opportunity to engage in further social engineering.
(In fairness, there is no "surplus", of course, it's all being yanked out of excess Social Security taxes. Since I don't believe SS is anything more than a pyramid scheme, I (a) don't care if it goes bankrupt; the sooner it does, the better, and (b) also like Bush's plan to partially-privatize it.)
Your point on "consider the rationale for these credits" is key. You say the Gore cuts are:
> financial help with the financial burden having a child [... ]
I'm probably gonna get "flamebaited" for this - but I'm asking the question in sincerity: under what logic should singles, gays, and straight-but-childfrees be obliged to (further) subsidize your lifestyle choices with our tax dollars?
If we assume child-rearing as a mandate (i.e. not a lifestyle choice) and worthy of state subsidy, I have to ask why are most of Gore's cuts only to those who make the further lifestyle choice to let others (day-care, after-school programs) raise the sprog? What's wrong with being a stay-at-home Mom or Dad during the preschool years? Surely that lifestyle choice (raising one's offspring at the expense of one's career) adds to the "financial burden of having a child", and ought likewise to be subsidized.
(Not only do we have to have kids because Gore wants us to, but we have to raise 'em Gore's way!)
For the sake of argument, let's accept the (dubious;-) proposition that the "surplus" exists, since that's the assumption upon which both tax proposals are founded.
If you believe that the surplus is the government's money, to use as it sees fit, your point of view stands - the government is free to engineer the kind of society it wants.
If you believe (as I do) that the surplus is the taxpayers' money, it should be returned to those who paid it, and not merely to those whose lifestyle choices match the profile of the "soccer-mom in a swing state who can easily be persuaded to vote Democrat".
If we disagree on "whose money it is, and who has the right to say how it's spent", we'll have to "agree to disagree" - because that's the fundamental ideological difference upon which both parties' tax cut plans rest.
> And no, I don't want to pandered to. But I do expect my politicians to have enough brains to realize, well, wait a
minute I'd like to figure out just who the audience is for Slashdot, what things they're concerned about, and how
the issues *I'm* concerned about fit into their concerns.
Amen. You'd think with the large numbers of Democrats and Republicans (and Greens and Libertarians) reading Slashdot, at least one of us (/. readers) would have been active enough in his or her local party association to make goddamn sure that this didn't happen.
If there are no/. readers actively involved with their party associations, then that's a shame o for all of us.
If you support a party, and you've never even considered being part of that party's campaign as anything other than a drone pulling a lever on November 7th, please reconsider your position.
Policy, more often than not, gets made at this level. It's what the Christian Coalition knew - and exploited - when they hijacked the Republican party many years ago, and the party still suffers in the polls for it. (Don't look smug, Democrats. The same goes for the AFL-CIO and your party!)
All that said, the cut-and-paste job is a bloody embarassment, and some campaign staffer oughta get fired for it. (Fer chrissakes, the least he coulda done is gotten in some pro-Nader comments, knowing the/. readership concentration in WA and OR;-)
Bizarre. Obviously the Bush campaign strategist had no clue about the audience, and merely cut-and-pasted text. I'm surprised I didn't see discussion about Medicare for seniors.
A while back, I got into an "Gore wants to kludge the tax code with a zillion if/then statements, Bush wants to tweak a few constants" argument.
I confess at the time I wasn't fully aware of Gore's proposals - only that they were of an if/then nature - and so I'm pleased to say that I found this pro-Gore Salon article (but I repeat myself;-) that outlines my beef with Gore's tax proposals.
(sprog_age >= 12 && sprog_age <= 16) && (enrolled in afterschooplrogram) {
tax credit of 20% on cost of program
}
(sprog_in_college) {
$10K tax credit
}
I'd like to thank Salon for making my point about the kludginess of the Gore plan so succinctly.
Let's summarize:
1) No sprog? Gore says "Fuck you". No tax breaks. Period. Gore hates nonbreeders with a passion. Doesn't matter if the reason for your nonbreeding is being straight-and-childfree, straight-but-infertile, or gay. If you don't pop out a fucktrophy like a good little lemming, you get FUCK ALL under Gore.
2) Got sprog? Great! Now that you've done the first thing Gore likes, you'd better make sure you keep doing the things Gore likes! Don't stay at home to take care of 'em, even if you can afford it, ship 'em to day-care and provide employment for other low-tech "soft skills" people. Don't be at home in school either, ship 'em to "after-school programs" (which are, of course, probably federally-funded... more work for the otherwise-unemployable out of your paycheck...)
3) And even if you are the ideal Gore breeder-famblee, you still gotta make sure your kids are the right ages to qualify! That is, either less than age 1, or young enough for day care (and you've got the money to enroll 'em), or between the ages of 12 and 16 (and in an after-school program),
or thouse magical four years of college.
So - a tweak of some constants where everyone gets a break, or a huge series of if/then statements, where a large proportion of famuhlees (nonbreeders are, of course, subhuman and don't count) can apply for one, but only one, of Gore's "targeted" tax cuts at any given time.
Unless, of course, you had the foresight to have kids precisely 18 years ago, 12 years ago, and plan to concieve your next crotchfruit shortly after Gore's inauguration.
What I'd really like to see - and I don't know the answer in advance - is for someone to sum up the tax credits for Gore and a family with either one or two sproggen over 18 years. And then compare their Gore-subsidies against what the same family would get with Bush's
tax credits on, say, a $60K income over the same 18 years.
Oh. And is it just me, or are people who have money to enroll their
sprog in after-school programs really in need of a tax credit?
(Wait a minute, sponsored daycare, sponsored age 12-16 afterschool programs. Guess even if you do breed, but decide you'd like to stay with the kid because you're lucky enough to be able to live on one income, you're still fucked under Gore.)
Go on, try it. Block msid.msn.com and cookies in Junkbuster, then try to visit msnbc.com.
Your browser will get caught in a loop, reloading blank pages until eternity.
Think that's bad? How 'bout msid.msn.com cookies set as part of your install, and re-created even after deletion?
Grab a hex editor or other file viewing tool (e.g. LIST.COM) and examine MSIE's cookie files, you'll see that msid.msn.com has a cookie set even if you don't use IE. (Reproduce: Delete - from within DOS, not Windoze, all MSIE cookie files. Reboot. Do not connect to the 'net. Observe that IE has re-created cookies pointing to msid.msn.com with your information in 'em, even though you never connected to the 'net. They're there on a clean install from CD-ROM, and they come back every time you delete 'em.
This is why I've had msid.msn.com firewalled for the past 2-3 years. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. Ever.
I have no idea what Bill's doing with this data, but I sure as fuck don't like it.
(And I concur with the poster that said this should be on the/. front page. Whatever's going on at msid.msn.com has been going on since the release of Windows 98, and it needs to be investigated by those with more clue than I.)
When multi-megabit bandwidth is too cheap to meter and more reliable than electrical power.
When cross-platform really means cross-platform (anyone tried to write a standalone app in Java and get it to work on all UNIXes as well as MSFT systems?)
When everyone's willing to have all their data travelling across someone else's pipe, and stored on someone else's hard drive, and trusts that the remote server won't be cracked.
In short, investments in these companies are about as likely to pay off as investments in companies supplying enabling services (goggles and scarves) for the porcine segment of the aviation market.
Sadly, the RBL has a poor track record of nailing large networks due to concerns about the political effects of collateral damage. (I can think of one network whose parent company lost about 20% yesterday after splitting itself in two, as a bigger spam source than the one whose parent company split itself in four last week... Serves 'em both right.)
Unfortunately for the spamhausen (and I consider the aforementioned backbone as much a spamhaus as I do the resellers they fail to control), that doesn't mean that individual sysadmins can't block 'em.
I urge anyone with connectivity from a provider with a track record of "pink contracts" and other pro-spam measures to change their provider as soon as practical, and to block all packets from the offender at the router level.
If RBL won't do it, it's up to us to do it for ourselves.
> I, for one, like this [duplication a'la K office, Sun/OpenOffice, Applix, Corel, etc]. Choice good.
You and I may like choice. The pointy-haired boss who makes the purchasing (or in the case of "free" software, the decision to convert the company over to it), hates it.
The ones who make the decisions want one solution, that they can call "the standard".
Competition's good early in a product lifecycle where feature count is important. But who the hell needs "more features" in their word processor or spreadsheet these days? Sometimes "standards" are good.
And even if they're not good, when it comes to purchasing decisions, they're seen to be good.
Install a Linux office suite? Why bother when you can "wait a year or two to see which one survives"? In the meantime, M$Orifice will always be there. So why move today? Or ever?
And that, in a nutshell, is why Orifice remains dominant, even though we all know a Linux box could fill the same business needs for a tenth of the price.
OK, it's a hoax. But let's look at what it is saying: That MSFT is still winning, and that Bill, if he were to give his honest opinion, would probably agree with everything the authors have written in "his" letter.
"I [and 10,000 quatloos says, the real Bill Gates, too!] would probably be writing a different letter now if..."
Less infighting. GNOME/KDE. Sun/HelixCode/Java. ESR/RMS. How much code has this produced?
Less reinvention of the wheel on political or personal grounds. See above.
Less trumpeting of the small wins (excellent dig on Slashdot and the:CueCat thing) and more focus on the big stuff.
More hardware support. Let's get real - gaming does drive consumer purchases.
And most importantly (IMNSHO),
Less bitching about how much Micros~1 sucks. And more coding to make Linux rule.
> That's weird, seeing as the album came out, even including prerelease/MP3/promo versions, months and months after Columbine...
*sound of Tackhead grabbing a big wooden mallet and LARTing himself into oblivion*
Mea culpa. It was the last KFMDM album I got a few days after Columbine, not the first MFDMK album. "Witch Hunt" was presumably written in response to Columbine, and as you correctly point out, didn't get published until months later.
Thankfully, someone downmodded my original post, so at least my dumb-ass error won't be propagated. My brain farted, and confused "DIY" ("Destroy what destroys you") on "ADIOS" with "Witch Hunt".
(In my defence, they're both good Quake background tracks;-)
Ironic coincidence: I purchased the new KFMDM (er, MFDMK) CD within a couple of days of Columbine. The double irony - that industrial music (and KFMDM specifically) were also part of the "reason" the killers snapped - was not lost on me.
I figure Sascha and friends say it better than I could, so here are the lyrics.
The music you'll have to judge for yourself. But it makes one hell of a great background track for Quake.
WITCH HUNT
Bolts of lightning - out of the blue
Without forewarning - the heat is on you
Watch what you say - the phone maybe tapped
Under heavy surveillance - looks like you're trapped
Under investigation - whether guilty or not
Without your own doing - you're part of the plot
Trying to hide - going underground
Just a matter of time - until you will be found
[Chorus]
The nose is tightening - there's no return
Moral cleansing - free thinking must burn
This is serious - your face in the mud
The end of the story is written in blood
FREEZE! Down on your knees! - beaten and bound
Tarred and feathered - they parade you around
The media's feasting - your face on the news
It's a feeding frenzy - a mob on the loose
[Chorus]
It doesn't matter - what you say or do
There is no justice - no future for you
Because you're the scapegoat - you are to blame
This is your life - 15 minutes of shame
Chorus:
WITCH HUNT - Guilty by association
WITCH HUNT - Systematic defamation
WITCH HUNT - Process of elimination
WITCH HUNT - Demonized and sacrificed
WITCH HUNT - Guilty by association
WITCH HUNT - Merciless interrogation
WITCH HUNT - ill-reputed executed
WITCH HUNT - Which hunt? BURN THAT WITCH!
WITCH HUNT - Guilty by asociation
WITCH HUNT - Methodical eradication
WITCH HUNT - Crucified by morning light
WITCH HUNT - Which hunt? BURN THAT WITCH!
You've always been different - you've spoken your mind
Set yourself apart - now they hate your kind
A foreign element, the unknown factor
An alien component, the Hannibal Lecter...
> Bitter? On the contrary -- for the first time since 1976 (maybe even 1956) we have two
candidates who are both acceptable, if not necessarily ideal, to the vast majority of Americans.
Agreed. This is the most fascinating race I've w seen in my life. Less than a week to go, and the outcomes for both the Presidency and Congress are still in doubt.
If it seems bitter, it's because both sides are desperate. If you're new to politics and have found a candidate or party whom you can support, get involved with them at the local level. The next four years are gonna be damn interesting, and in an era of ever-declining voter turnout, both your party (whatever it may be) and your country need you.
> 1) War on Drugs
[ Do you believe the WoD has been an unqualified success,
and if not, what would you change ]
Gore and Bush: No, it hasn't been an unqualified success.
We need to spend more money and escalate it.
Nader: Scrap it. I've got better things to do with your money.
Browne: Scrap it. You've got better things to do with your money.
> 2) Protecting rights of minority religions and atheists.
Gore: John Travolta told my boss to support Scientology,
which he did, and we
will Clear The Planet(tm)
as soon as I Find Out Who I Really Am(tm). The rest of
you will be Disposed Of Quietly And Without Sorrow(tm).
Bush: Huh? Y'mean there are other religions?
> 3) Why give a tax cut? [ in the face of an overheated economy,
against the goals of Greenspan ]
Gore and Bush: To energize our respective party bases.
Browne: Because it's the right thing to do.
Nader: Tax cut? I'm for raising taxes!
> 4) electoral reform
Bush: God damn, I love first-past the post!
Gore: I used to love first-past-the-post, but I'm no longer so sure. I'll let you know next Wednesday, depending on whether I lose Oregon and Washington.
Nader and Browne: We're for it. Not that under the current system
that means jack shit!
> 5) How do you feel about IP?
Gore: Ah feel yer pain^W^W^Wwill faht fur yew!
Bush: Ah trust y'all!
Nader and Browne: Geeks rule, d00d! (Hey, anything for votes!)
> 6) Encryption.
Gore: Everyone should be Freeh to use encryption. As long as
Freeh can read what you're saying. Clipper rhymes with Tipper,
and Carnivore shoulda been named "Barney".
Bush: (Actually has a reasonable policy. Not that I think he'll
do anything different than Gore, but at least he doesn't carry
Gore's baggage from the Clinton years of ever-encroaching FBI
surveillance)
Nader and Browne: See #5.
> 7) Rising Political Protests
Gore: I'll faht fur yew! While exterminating the commie filth
and blaming the Republicans.
Bush: I'll exterminate the commie filth too, but unlike my lying opponent, I'll take pride in it!
Browne: If those punk kids had jobs, they'd be protesting taxes
not corporatism! Really! (Of course, if you elect me, there won't be any taxes for them to protest, so there you go. No protests, no problem!)
Nader: From each according to his need, to each according to
his ability! Two-four-six-eight! Smash the corps and smash the state! Kill all pigs! A-nar-chy! A-nar-chy!, oh crap,
this is an election year, I'm not s'posed to say that. You're s'posed to think I'm sane.
> 8) Asteroid Defenses
Bush: If we build the missile defence, we can scale up!
Gore: We should defend against asteroids instead of
missiles fired from rogue states.
Browne and Nader: Yeah, it's a real risk, but we decline to comment
because we know the Demipublican media will pick up on any
comment we make and call us space cadets.
Hagelin (Natural Law Party): Hey, we are space cadets, and
we resemble that remark!
> 9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
All candidates: "Aaw, crap, do you really wanna hear
our stump speech again? Haven't you figured out that that's how
all politicians answer big philosophical questions about
our future? It's for the Children. Now shut the fuck up and
stop asking such silly questions."
> [Gore's "targeted tax cuts" weren't]... so much about "rewarding those who do what we wish" but rather trying to target an income range that's almost impossible to _solely_ target without implementing a tax scheme where different brackets pay different rates- which is politically unacceptable to most people.
First, you're absolutely right that any standard tax cut will benefit the rich more than the poor. The rich pay most of the income tax in this country; it stands to reason that any cut across all tax brackets will benefit them more on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
That said - I disagree when you say that Gore had no choice but to implement his cuts the way he did. It's a question on what you mean by "cut taxes across the board". Cut tax rates across the board, and you'll favor the rich. But you can cut taxes across the board and maintain any degree of progressivity you like in the tax system.
Here's a snapshot of the federal tax rates for a single filer (ignoring standard deduction, we're talking rates here):
$0-25,350 - 15%
$25,350-61,400 - 28%
$61,400 - 128,100 - 31%
$128,100 - 278,450 - 36%
$278,450 and up - 39.5%
There are zillions of ways to "target the middle class" without "rewarding those who do what we like" while still "giving everyone who pays income tax a tax cut".
Bush's plan is similar to one of these - everyone gets a cut.
Don't wanna give "the rich" a break? Fine, go with the earlier variation.
But for the love of God, don't go the Gore route and say "If you have a kid under age one, and pay $FOO in child support, and earn less than $BAR, you'll be able to deduct $BAZ, and if you have a kid in college, and earn less than $FROTZ, you'll get a $XYZZY deduction, and if you..."
If the tax system is "code", the Bush approach involves changing some constants. The Gore approach is to cruft on a whole series of if/then/else structures. Ug. Gore's proposal a kludge, a horrible kludge to an even kludgier system.
Given the wide range of options available, the Gore approach is clearly more concerned with behavior modification than tax relief.
(And the cynic in me says that both approaches are engineered as efforts to pander to specific demographics - Gore for the "Soccer Moms" in his party's base, and Bush for the economic conservatives in his party's base.
That the Slashdot rhetoric mirrors the campaign's rhetoric -- "Big Oil vs. the middle class" (if you vote Gore or Nader) and "big government vs. your paycheck (if you vote Bush or Browne) is indicative that both campaigns have succeeded.
Both the progressive and the libertarian want "fair" tax cuts - but can argue for megabytes over whose cuts are "fair" - because they disagree at the most fundamental level on what constitutes "fairness".
(Of course, they also disagree on what constitutes "middle class" - $70K is dangerously close to poverty in the Bay Area!)
Crap, I just posted this in another thread in response to the Heinlein quote. It's even more appropriate here.
In response to a post where I said I preferred Bush to Gore on Heinlein's "find a well-meaning fool, ask him how he intends to vote, then vote the other way" strategy, someone wrote back:
> By this you mean that Bush is a malicious fool?
My response was "Actually, yes [as in yes, I agree Bush is a malicious fool];-)"
The difference is, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, that the malicious at least sleep.
Those who mean well never rest.
Gore's position is to give "targeted tax cuts" to things he likes. Nader wants
to tax "things he doesn't like". Both are using the power of the state to micro
manage individual behavior.
Given the choice, I'd vote Browne. But given that Browne's not gonna win, I'll
take Bush. A fool? Sure. Malicious? Perhaps. But at least malice sleeps at
night. Those with good intentions never rest.
"The robber baron's cruelty
may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but
those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for
they do so with the approval of their consciences."
-C.S. Lewis
The difference is, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, that the malicious at least sleep. Those who mean well never rest.
Gore's position is to give "targeted tax cuts" to things he likes. Nader wants to tax "things he doesn't like". Both are using the power of the state to micromanage individual behavior.
Given the choice, I'd vote Browne. But given that Browne's not gonna win, I'll take Bush. A fool? Sure. Malicious? Perhaps. But at least malice sleeps at night. Those with good intentions never rest.
"The robber baron's cruelty
may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but
those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for
they do so with the approval of their consciences."
-C.S. Lewis
Heinlein wrote: > consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way.
Granted, this wasn't the original poster's intent, but the aforementioned quote is probably the best argument I've seen to vote for Bush during the whole campaign;-)
Note that there is no
counterpart to 1201(a)(1), that is, you are not prohibited from USING
such a
device if you manage to obtain one without building it or
obtaining it from
anywhere else. (Achieving this is left as an exercise for the reader.)
History buffs will immediately recognize the similarity between this and Prohibition (i.e. of alcohol in the 20s), wherein it was legal to drink the stuff, it just wasn't legal to buy or brew it.
Thus came the "speakeasy", or a house/club where persons unknown (i.e. Capone and company) supplied the house and its patrons with booze. The patrons, as members of the club, found themselves "magically" in posession of the booze, and proceeded to consume it.
Further deponent sayeth not, other than that Capone went down for tax evasion, not the booze racket.
Slashdot Mirror
Neither does Microsoft. A year or so ago, someone made a similar comment to me, so I took a fresh W98SE install into alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica and found most of the pr0n wouldn't play either.
The problem with .AVI is that .AVI can mean any one of dozens of codecs. Off the top of my head, in loose chronological order, YUV9, IR32, IR42, IV5, I.263, MP4v2, MP4v3, DiVX...
In order to pick up all the codecs, I had to spend a fair bit of time browsing web sites people had set up to solve this problem. (No, I don't consider the MSFT solution of "Install Media Player 7 and let it munge your system online, and rat back to Bill, Inc. what pr0n you're viewing" as a solution).
The length of the alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica FAQ (and the effort to which people had gone through, both to "get" the codecs, many of which are, of course, no longer available even in closed-source form from Intel and what-not) tells me that "supporting .AVI" is as much of a problem for Micros~1 as it is for xanim.
But it's also a testament to how much work people are willing to go through to get their pr0n.
> Until Linux, BSD, etc. decide to support this vital part of the market, Microsoft will continue to dominate.
Although the author of the comment said he was just kidding, and got modded "Funny", I think he's got a pretty good point.
Look back - pr0n is what made the VCR popular. Bandwidth limitations for static images brought us .GIF and .JPG, and pr0n users were probably the ones who most needed the compression. Then comes .MPG, MPEG2, and a gazillion different codecs wrapped in .AVI.
Look at DejaNews (no, they don't archive binaries, but they do archive alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.d.) and find out who the earliest adopters of MPEG4 video were. The pr0n groups appear to be several months ahead of the curve when it came to what-eventually-became-DiVX.
Say what you will about the cheeziness of pr0n, but you can learn a lot about the state of the art in video compression just by looking at the file extensions of postings in alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.
Also, the reality of government is (and ought to be) a far cry from the ideal of the platform. My hunch is that if Nader gets his 5%, the Greens' next presidential candidate will be far more moderate, and likewise, if the Libertarians got their 5%, they'd also be more moderate.
Anyone who doubts that is invited to compare the Reform numbers under Perot (~19%) to Buchanan ( less than 1%). Ideological purity doesn't win elections in Western democracies, and I thank whatever Gods may be for it.
P.S. Enjoy your upcoming Canadian election, and may your party leaders not repeat the mistakes of ours.
Neither could I. I'm glad Salon researched Gore's cuts for me, because as a childfree, I also couldn't be bothered to look it up once I figured that Gore offered nothing to me. (I'm also glad Salon did it, 'cuz they're about as pro-Gore as anyone, and I could be sure I wasn't relying on any pro-Bush "spin" on my data for the Gore plan)
> but I gotta say, bless you for passing on "fucktrophy" and "crotchfruit" into my vocabulary,
If I see so far, it is only because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants". (I first heard the terms on TMB's site, and had the same reaction as you did. Credit for the terms goes to her, or to those from whom she first heard 'em.)
Kook9: The phenomenon surprises the hell outa me too. I just don't get it. Techies would be taxed into oblivion under Nader, and our industry (environmental damage caused by fab plants, anyone?) would likewise suffer.
1) The libertarian argument: "The rich" pay more in taxes than "the poor". If the surplus is the result of too much money being taken from taxpayers, it should be returned to those who paid the excess. If you give the cashier a $20 bill for a $10.00 item, do you expect the cashier to give you $5.00 back, and hand $5.00 to the next person in line?
2) The other fairness argument: Hey, who are "the rich"? Someone living in the Bay Area with the foresight to day "damn, I can't afford kids here", is "the rich" and consequently undeserving of a Gore tax cut, whether they're making $100K as a developer or $20K as a janitor?
Bush's plan also offers more benefits to folks with kids than it does to those without, but at least people without kids get a shake too.
3) The "Gore's hyping up his base" argument - at present, a married filer with one kid starts paying taxes at $19K. With the upped tax brackets, they wouldn't start paying taxes until around $25Kish. And rather than paying 15%, they'd pay 10%. But at the "poor" levels, they get knocked completely off the tax rolls.
Sure, the rich get more dollars, but expressed as a percentage of tax they pay now, the "working poor" (as well as the middle class) get tax cuts - big ones - under Bush.
It's all in how you look at it. But the Gore rhetoric about how "only" the rich benefit under the Bush plan is class-warfare rhetoric, nothing more. This plays well to the Democratic base, but IMNSHO it doesn't really stand up to any real analysis.
I mean, if you're making $25K and have a kid, would you rather have your $1-2K of federal taxes back as cash, or would you rather have to pay $3000 per year to enroll a kid in day-care or after-school-program expenses in order to get the "tax cut"?
- Singles, gays, and/or childfrees: No tax breaks under Gore. Mucho tax breaks under Bush.
- Tech workers tend to make more money than non-tech workers: We're too rich for Gore. You get tax breaks under Bush.
- Younger workers: Continue to fund Social Security pyramid scheme under Gore, or get to divert 16% of their SS taxes (a third of employee-paid portion) under Bush.
- Integrity: A 26-year-old DUI, or ongoing defence of Clinton's behavior, his coverups, and the whole campaign-finance and espionage issues.
- Leadership: "Dumb" Bush who's willing to listen to his cabinet, or "smart" Gore who knows he's always right, the facts be damned.
- Pro-choice: Does anyone seriously think Bush is gonna commit political suicide by trying to overturn Roe v. Wade by stacking the Supreme Court and getting Congress to pass a law banning all abortion? Get real! Politicians can lie to the religious right, too!
But suffice it to say you're not alone.Today's /. article probably suffers from more anti-Bush posts mainly because (a) the Bush "response" was merely a cut-and-paste by a disinterested staffer, and (b) when you post your policies, they get criticized. That's what /. is all about, and that's a good thing.
Aside: What I've never understood is the fascination the /. crowd has with Nader and the extreme left. Admittedly, my libertarian bias towards self-interest is showing - but would any Nader techies care to comment on how they think life will be better for them (as opposed to "everyone else") under a Nader presidency?
That said, I have respect for Nader as a person, and even though he doesn't have my vote, I do hope he gets his 5%, because I believe we need a third-party alternative - even if only to prove that "third-party" isn't a flash in the pan, whether from the right (Perot) or the left (Green).
SEP was one of the first sites I visited on the web, and the first one I bookmarked. When the Reform party implodes after the election - hijack it. And conquer.
Screw Bush, Gore, Nader, and Browne. I'm voting Scorched Earth!
The point I was originally making is that the Gore approach is more geared towards social engineering (i.e. "only certain people get tax cuts") than Bush's.
That is, I believe Bush wants to cut taxes on ideological grounds ("We have a 'surplus' - we don't need the money - we should therefore give it back in proportion to those who paid into it"), whereas I see Gore's "tax cuts" as an opportunity to engage in further social engineering.
(In fairness, there is no "surplus", of course, it's all being yanked out of excess Social Security taxes. Since I don't believe SS is anything more than a pyramid scheme, I (a) don't care if it goes bankrupt; the sooner it does, the better, and (b) also like Bush's plan to partially-privatize it.)
Your point on "consider the rationale for these credits" is key. You say the Gore cuts are:
> financial help with the financial burden having a child [ ... ]
I'm probably gonna get "flamebaited" for this - but I'm asking the question in sincerity: under what logic should singles, gays, and straight-but-childfrees be obliged to (further) subsidize your lifestyle choices with our tax dollars?
If we assume child-rearing as a mandate (i.e. not a lifestyle choice) and worthy of state subsidy, I have to ask why are most of Gore's cuts only to those who make the further lifestyle choice to let others (day-care, after-school programs) raise the sprog? What's wrong with being a stay-at-home Mom or Dad during the preschool years? Surely that lifestyle choice (raising one's offspring at the expense of one's career) adds to the "financial burden of having a child", and ought likewise to be subsidized.
(Not only do we have to have kids because Gore wants us to, but we have to raise 'em Gore's way!)
For the sake of argument, let's accept the (dubious ;-) proposition that the "surplus" exists, since that's the assumption upon which both tax proposals are founded.
If we disagree on "whose money it is, and who has the right to say how it's spent", we'll have to "agree to disagree" - because that's the fundamental ideological difference upon which both parties' tax cut plans rest.
Amen. You'd think with the large numbers of Democrats and Republicans (and Greens and Libertarians) reading Slashdot, at least one of us (/. readers) would have been active enough in his or her local party association to make goddamn sure that this didn't happen.
If there are no /. readers actively involved with their party associations, then that's a shame o for all of us.
If you support a party, and you've never even considered being part of that party's campaign as anything other than a drone pulling a lever on November 7th, please reconsider your position.
Policy, more often than not, gets made at this level. It's what the Christian Coalition knew - and exploited - when they hijacked the Republican party many years ago, and the party still suffers in the polls for it. (Don't look smug, Democrats. The same goes for the AFL-CIO and your party!)
All that said, the cut-and-paste job is a bloody embarassment, and some campaign staffer oughta get fired for it. (Fer chrissakes, the least he coulda done is gotten in some pro-Nader comments, knowing the /. readership concentration in WA and OR ;-)
A while back, I got into an "Gore wants to kludge the tax code with a zillion if/then statements, Bush wants to tweak a few constants" argument.
I confess at the time I wasn't fully aware of Gore's proposals - only that they were of an if/then nature - and so I'm pleased to say that I found this pro-Gore Salon article (but I repeat myself ;-) that outlines my beef with Gore's tax proposals.
(sprog age < 1) {
$500 tax credit
}
(Earnings < $60K) && (sprog enrolled in daycare) {
expanded day-care tax credit
}
(sprog_age >= 12 && sprog_age <= 16) && (enrolled in afterschooplrogram) {
tax credit of 20% on cost of program
}
(sprog_in_college) {
$10K tax credit
}
I'd like to thank Salon for making my point about the kludginess of the Gore plan so succinctly.
Let's summarize:
1) No sprog? Gore says "Fuck you". No tax breaks. Period. Gore hates nonbreeders with a passion. Doesn't matter if the reason for your nonbreeding is being straight-and-childfree, straight-but-infertile, or gay. If you don't pop out a fucktrophy like a good little lemming, you get FUCK ALL under Gore.
2) Got sprog? Great! Now that you've done the first thing Gore likes, you'd better make sure you keep doing the things Gore likes! Don't stay at home to take care of 'em, even if you can afford it, ship 'em to day-care and provide employment for other low-tech "soft skills" people. Don't be at home in school either, ship 'em to "after-school programs" (which are, of course, probably federally-funded... more work for the otherwise-unemployable out of your paycheck...)
3) And even if you are the ideal Gore breeder-famblee, you still gotta make sure your kids are the right ages to qualify! That is, either less than age 1, or young enough for day care (and you've got the money to enroll 'em), or between the ages of 12 and 16 (and in an after-school program), or thouse magical four years of college.
So - a tweak of some constants where everyone gets a break, or a huge series of if/then statements, where a large proportion of famuhlees (nonbreeders are, of course, subhuman and don't count) can apply for one, but only one, of Gore's "targeted" tax cuts at any given time.
Unless, of course, you had the foresight to have kids precisely 18 years ago, 12 years ago, and plan to concieve your next crotchfruit shortly after Gore's inauguration.
What I'd really like to see - and I don't know the answer in advance - is for someone to sum up the tax credits for Gore and a family with either one or two sproggen over 18 years. And then compare their Gore-subsidies against what the same family would get with Bush's tax credits on, say, a $60K income over the same 18 years.
Oh. And is it just me, or are people who have money to enroll their sprog in after-school programs really in need of a tax credit?
(Wait a minute, sponsored daycare, sponsored age 12-16 afterschool programs. Guess even if you do breed, but decide you'd like to stay with the kid because you're lucky enough to be able to live on one income, you're still fucked under Gore.)
Your browser will get caught in a loop, reloading blank pages until eternity.
Think that's bad? How 'bout msid.msn.com cookies set as part of your install, and re-created even after deletion?
Grab a hex editor or other file viewing tool (e.g. LIST.COM) and examine MSIE's cookie files, you'll see that msid.msn.com has a cookie set even if you don't use IE. (Reproduce: Delete - from within DOS, not Windoze, all MSIE cookie files. Reboot. Do not connect to the 'net. Observe that IE has re-created cookies pointing to msid.msn.com with your information in 'em, even though you never connected to the 'net. They're there on a clean install from CD-ROM, and they come back every time you delete 'em.
This is why I've had msid.msn.com firewalled for the past 2-3 years. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. Ever.
I have no idea what Bill's doing with this data, but I sure as fuck don't like it.
(And I concur with the poster that said this should be on the /. front page. Whatever's going on at msid.msn.com has been going on since the release of Windows 98, and it needs to be investigated by those with more clue than I.)
When cross-platform really means cross-platform (anyone tried to write a standalone app in Java and get it to work on all UNIXes as well as MSFT systems?)
When everyone's willing to have all their data travelling across someone else's pipe, and stored on someone else's hard drive, and trusts that the remote server won't be cracked.
In short, investments in these companies are about as likely to pay off as investments in companies supplying enabling services (goggles and scarves) for the porcine segment of the aviation market.
Sadly, the RBL has a poor track record of nailing large networks due to concerns about the political effects of collateral damage. (I can think of one network whose parent company lost about 20% yesterday after splitting itself in two, as a bigger spam source than the one whose parent company split itself in four last week... Serves 'em both right.)
Unfortunately for the spamhausen (and I consider the aforementioned backbone as much a spamhaus as I do the resellers they fail to control), that doesn't mean that individual sysadmins can't block 'em.
I urge anyone with connectivity from a provider with a track record of "pink contracts" and other pro-spam measures to change their provider as soon as practical, and to block all packets from the offender at the router level.
If RBL won't do it, it's up to us to do it for ourselves.
You and I may like choice. The pointy-haired boss who makes the purchasing (or in the case of "free" software, the decision to convert the company over to it), hates it.
The ones who make the decisions want one solution, that they can call "the standard".
Competition's good early in a product lifecycle where feature count is important. But who the hell needs "more features" in their word processor or spreadsheet these days? Sometimes "standards" are good.
And even if they're not good, when it comes to purchasing decisions, they're seen to be good.
Install a Linux office suite? Why bother when you can "wait a year or two to see which one survives"? In the meantime, M$Orifice will always be there. So why move today? Or ever?
And that, in a nutshell, is why Orifice remains dominant, even though we all know a Linux box could fill the same business needs for a tenth of the price.
"I [and 10,000 quatloos says, the real Bill Gates, too!] would probably be writing a different letter now if..."
- Less infighting. GNOME/KDE. Sun/HelixCode/Java. ESR/RMS. How much code has this produced?
- Less reinvention of the wheel on political or personal grounds. See above.
- Less trumpeting of the small wins (excellent dig on Slashdot and the
:CueCat thing) and more focus on the big stuff.
- More hardware support. Let's get real - gaming does drive consumer purchases.
And most importantly (IMNSHO),Happy Day-After-Hallowe'en.
*sound of Tackhead grabbing a big wooden mallet and LARTing himself into oblivion*
Mea culpa. It was the last KFMDM album I got a few days after Columbine, not the first MFDMK album. "Witch Hunt" was presumably written in response to Columbine, and as you correctly point out, didn't get published until months later.
Thankfully, someone downmodded my original post, so at least my dumb-ass error won't be propagated. My brain farted, and confused "DIY" ("Destroy what destroys you") on "ADIOS" with "Witch Hunt".
(In my defence, they're both good Quake background tracks ;-)
I figure Sascha and friends say it better than I could, so here are the lyrics.
The music you'll have to judge for yourself. But it makes one hell of a great background track for Quake.
WITCH HUNT
Bolts of lightning - out of the blue
Without forewarning - the heat is on you
Watch what you say - the phone maybe tapped
Under heavy surveillance - looks like you're trapped
Under investigation - whether guilty or not
Without your own doing - you're part of the plot
Trying to hide - going underground
Just a matter of time - until you will be found
[Chorus]
The nose is tightening - there's no return
Moral cleansing - free thinking must burn
This is serious - your face in the mud
The end of the story is written in blood
FREEZE! Down on your knees! - beaten and bound
Tarred and feathered - they parade you around
The media's feasting - your face on the news
It's a feeding frenzy - a mob on the loose
[Chorus]
It doesn't matter - what you say or do
There is no justice - no future for you
Because you're the scapegoat - you are to blame
This is your life - 15 minutes of shame
Chorus:
You've always been different - you've spoken your mindSet yourself apart - now they hate your kind
A foreign element, the unknown factor
An alien component, the Hannibal Lecter...
[Chorus]
Agreed. This is the most fascinating race I've w seen in my life. Less than a week to go, and the outcomes for both the Presidency and Congress are still in doubt.
If it seems bitter, it's because both sides are desperate. If you're new to politics and have found a candidate or party whom you can support, get involved with them at the local level. The next four years are gonna be damn interesting, and in an era of ever-declining voter turnout, both your party (whatever it may be) and your country need you.
> 5) How do you feel about IP?
> 6) Encryption. > 7) Rising Political Protests > 8) Asteroid Defenses > 9) The Future of the Country, and of HumanityFirst, you're absolutely right that any standard tax cut will benefit the rich more than the poor. The rich pay most of the income tax in this country; it stands to reason that any cut across all tax brackets will benefit them more on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
That said - I disagree when you say that Gore had no choice but to implement his cuts the way he did. It's a question on what you mean by "cut taxes across the board". Cut tax rates across the board, and you'll favor the rich. But you can cut taxes across the board and maintain any degree of progressivity you like in the tax system.
Here's a snapshot of the federal tax rates for a single filer (ignoring standard deduction, we're talking rates here):
$0-25,350 - 15%
$25,350-61,400 - 28%
$61,400 - 128,100 - 31%
$128,100 - 278,450 - 36%
$278,450 and up - 39.5%
There are zillions of ways to "target the middle class" without "rewarding those who do what we like" while still "giving everyone who pays income tax a tax cut".
- Make the 15% into 10%, and the 28% bracket 15%".
- Change the numbers - $25350 -> $30000, $61400 -> $100000, $128100 -> $200000, $278450 -> $300000.
Bush's plan is similar to one of these - everyone gets a cut.Don't wanna give "the rich" a break? Fine, go with the earlier variation.
But for the love of God, don't go the Gore route and say "If you have a kid under age one, and pay $FOO in child support, and earn less than $BAR, you'll be able to deduct $BAZ, and if you have a kid in college, and earn less than $FROTZ, you'll get a $XYZZY deduction, and if you..."
If the tax system is "code", the Bush approach involves changing some constants. The Gore approach is to cruft on a whole series of if/then/else structures. Ug. Gore's proposal a kludge, a horrible kludge to an even kludgier system.
Given the wide range of options available, the Gore approach is clearly more concerned with behavior modification than tax relief.
(And the cynic in me says that both approaches are engineered as efforts to pander to specific demographics - Gore for the "Soccer Moms" in his party's base, and Bush for the economic conservatives in his party's base.
That the Slashdot rhetoric mirrors the campaign's rhetoric -- "Big Oil vs. the middle class" (if you vote Gore or Nader) and "big government vs. your paycheck (if you vote Bush or Browne) is indicative that both campaigns have succeeded.
Both the progressive and the libertarian want "fair" tax cuts - but can argue for megabytes over whose cuts are "fair" - because they disagree at the most fundamental level on what constitutes "fairness".
(Of course, they also disagree on what constitutes "middle class" - $70K is dangerously close to poverty in the Bay Area!)
In response to a post where I said I preferred Bush to Gore on Heinlein's "find a well-meaning fool, ask him how he intends to vote, then vote the other way" strategy, someone wrote back:
> By this you mean that Bush is a malicious fool?
My response was "Actually, yes [as in yes, I agree Bush is a malicious fool] ;-)"
The difference is, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, that the malicious at least sleep. Those who mean well never rest.
Gore's position is to give "targeted tax cuts" to things he likes. Nader wants to tax "things he doesn't like". Both are using the power of the state to micro manage individual behavior.
Given the choice, I'd vote Browne. But given that Browne's not gonna win, I'll take Bush. A fool? Sure. Malicious? Perhaps. But at least malice sleeps at night. Those with good intentions never rest.
Actually, yes ;-)
The difference is, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, that the malicious at least sleep. Those who mean well never rest.
Gore's position is to give "targeted tax cuts" to things he likes. Nader wants to tax "things he doesn't like". Both are using the power of the state to micromanage individual behavior.
Given the choice, I'd vote Browne. But given that Browne's not gonna win, I'll take Bush. A fool? Sure. Malicious? Perhaps. But at least malice sleeps at night. Those with good intentions never rest.
> consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way.
Granted, this wasn't the original poster's intent, but the aforementioned quote is probably the best argument I've seen to vote for Bush during the whole campaign ;-)
> a handheld scanner fetchingly shaped like a cat
History buffs will immediately recognize the similarity between this and Prohibition (i.e. of alcohol in the 20s), wherein it was legal to drink the stuff, it just wasn't legal to buy or brew it.
Thus came the "speakeasy", or a house/club where persons unknown (i.e. Capone and company) supplied the house and its patrons with booze. The patrons, as members of the club, found themselves "magically" in posession of the booze, and proceeded to consume it.
Further deponent sayeth not, other than that Capone went down for tax evasion, not the booze racket.