Perhaps they don't owe me a job, but they sure as hell owe some people in this country jobs for everything that we provide to them.
Then don't provide them with the benefits! Lobby your representatives, start a grassroots organization. I don't care. Point is, this is a problem with the US system of law, but has nothing to do with the economic principles surrounding the reponsibilities of a business, be it a large corporation or a small shop.
So what's wrong with making a profit? Since when did the CEO or owner of any company owe you or anyone in the US a job? The CEO's responsibility is to maximize profits not turn the company into a US charity.
And it's not "child labor" that's taking over the IT industry. Those jobs are going to people who would otherwise have a lot lower standard of living. And no one is forcing them to take those jobs.
To turn the question: Why are you being so greedy wanting high paid jobs when there are those who could do the work, perhaps not as well, but well enough, for a lot less money? What makes you more worthy?
Look, I'm not trying to flame you personally. I'm just trying to help people think from another point of view. We immediately label these actions as just the "greed" of the corporations, but what about our own "greed"?
Do we work for less? Do we (dare I say it) unionize? Pass laws? Comments, please.
We compete.
That's really all there is to it. Whether it's a business or an individual facing foreign compentition, the solution is the same: work harder and smarter. That may mean cutting costs (or your salary). It may mean longer hours or finding a niche.
The worst thing you can do is try to legislate your existance in the market. Unionizing has lots of pros and cons which vary for each market, but I don't think it's a solution here. The idea is just to compete. If you don't want to, fine, but don't expect to stay in the market.
Remember when Japan was selling hundreds of billions of dollars of goods to the USA for years? If they made so much money, why is their economy in the dump? They were so fantasitcally wealthy they were buying up motion picture studios, golf courses, farms (to raise cattle for export back to Japan), banks, you name it. Problem was, they made such good stuff and their standard of living went up so high they priced themselves right out of the market. Other countries are repeating the cycle. The USA seems to survive because it reinvents itself. Probably medical is the next big thing.
Actually, the Japanese economy is in the dumps because of a bad banking sector. It was due to government interferrance and bad banking laws that allowed for huge amounts of bad debt to pile up. It has little, if anything, to do with "pricing themselves out of the market".
I know a lot of business owners who operate in niche markets and run a small business. It may not be as easy as it was several decades ago (was it ever easy?), but it's possible. Look in your local phone book. Check out the business section. There may be a lot of franchises and whatnot, but there will almost always be one or two local small businesses in each market. They survive, they always will because they fill an economic need that a global corporation cannot fill
A source close to IBM said its lawyers were preparing a substantial defence of the suit and are likely to file counter-claims based on its huge portfolio of patents, the largest in the computer industry.
You knew this was going to happen. Ever since SCO announced this lawsuit, I was just waiting for IBM to come in and take them out. You know, I almost feel bad for SCO. Almost.
Another easy change that should be made: Flamebait really ought to be removed. Anything that can fairly be modded flamebait could be modded troll anyway, and most moderators seem to think that any unpopular opinion is automatically flamebait.
The temptation to mod you as flamebait was so great I just had to post instead.:)
Seriously though, I agree completely. My rule of thumb is always mod up. I don't want to waste my mod points on some troll.
if you were to take a trip across the country, where would you stop for access?
Can't you just enjoy the scenery? I mean, wouldn't that be the whole point of taking a cross country vacaction? If you must record the whole thing digitally, it can always be uploaded to a site when you get back.
I think too many people have forgotten about the "off" button. Wonderful invention you know.:)
Yeah, and what about XGoogle, which does IRC channel searches? I've always wondered how they've gotten away with that name. The site is different, but they're definitely building off of Google's success. Interesting how the word "Google" is really becoming a synonym for "search".
That's not a normal host we just slashdotted, that's the computer science department for the University of Pittsburgh which has some significant bandwidth. That's really impressive -- the entire cs.pitt.edu subdomain isn't responding!:)
Just want to point out that the demographics of Taiwan are rather different from the demographics of mainland China. And since it's Taiwan that we're talking about none of those $1200 a year Chinese villagers get any of this deal.
Taiwan has internet cafes and computer shops just about everywhere, even in the out of the way places (okay, maybe not in the rice fields, but you get my point).
This is not the only example of this happening. I imagine it is because of both reasons #2 and #3.
Too many people (not just Americans) don't bother to actually check the source. If people did they would realize that half of what is being said by any side is just crap.
It's fairly obvious to anyone who takes a second that al Qaida has little love to Saddam. Saddam is a secular ruler. The religious fundementalist are his enemies. There is no good reason for him to support them or for them to support him. But most people don't seem to realize this fact.
I drives me crazy. I don't watch TV so I'm out of touch with a lot of main stream America, but it just seems like one day everybody woke up and decided that the obvious next step was attacking Iraq. There was never any real debate, never any real reason, just, some sort of mass acceptance. It's always felt like some horrible con to me, like they switched the target from Osama to Saddam while everyone wasn't looking and no one noticed.
Well, my biggest problem is that each new supplement had great background material but the actual character classes, powers, weapons and whatnot were always out of scope. It was like every book had to have something bigger and badder than the last one. Look at the average weapon damage in the original compared to the later world books. Sure technology develops, but it was just ridiculous. I wanted to use some of the source material, but I found myself having to 'power down' a lot of the stats just to keep game balance. That's a lot of extra work and at some point it just wasn't worth it.
Rifts is an excellent idea with a cheap implementation. Good Game Masters can salvage it, but it's a shame that that would be necessary.
I swear, this country is tearing itself apart with self-induced paranoia.
You know I've been wondering about this, because that average person that I talk to is much more sane. Well, not as much as would be nice, but certainly not so bent on bombing and policing everything like Bush and the general media seem to be. The paranoia is being spread by from the top down, it certainly isn't grassroots. What bothers me is that so many people seem to just eat it up and don't pause to think about the reality of the situation for a minute.
Google's not only an accident, but also a misspelling: It should be googol.
Although I'm kinda glad it got misspelled though, because google is much cooler that googol.
Interesting googol fact from whatis.com:
Later, another mathematician devised the term googolplex for 10 to the power of googol - that is, 1 followed by 10 to the power of 100 zeros. Frank Pilhofer has determined that, given Moore's Law (which is that computer processor power doubles about every 1 to 2 years), it would make no sense to try to print out a googleplex for another 524 years - since all earlier attempts to print a googleplex out would be overtaken by the faster processor.
Actually, it's a tricky situation because you're talking about the line between the government and the market. Should the government compete or even enter areas of the private sector where firms are currently conducting activities? In some cases, it might make sense, but it's not something that should be happening often or you end up with a bloated government that runs and produces everything.
Taking this to extremes (forgive me for a moment), but if the government will provide free (or low cost) tax software, why not give me free or low cost online access so I can file online? And why not give me a computer too. And hey, I need an operating system for the darn thing. Oh, and throw in a printer while your at it. Perhaps this seems silly, but when you deal with public services, you have to consider the long term consequences these trends can begin. Bloated services often start lean and mean and well intentioned.
Generally, in any case that the private sector is offering a viable product, then the government shouldn't come in and replace them. Now the case of tax software is a little odd since that market is essentially feeding off of the tax service the government offers to begin with. One could also argue that the increased competition of the government might help the situation by forcing the current private firms to better their service. In some markets like education and mail/package delivery such competition works.
My point here is that just because some nation starts offering open source tax software doesn't mean it's a great idea for the US. There are pros and cons that should be weighed.
I have to deal with this issue at work and while IANAL, I think the following, from the same FAQ, makes it clear:
The substantive part is this: if the two programs are combined so that they become effectively two parts of one program, then you can't treat them as two separate programs. So the GPL has to cover the whole thing.
If the two programs remain well separated, like the compiler and the kernel, or like an editor and a shell, then you can treat them as two separate programs--but you have to do it properly.
In other words, is your jar file an actual program that you invoke side by side with your proprietary software, or is it "imported" in any place in your program? If you import, then your own software should probably be GPL'd. If you don't import, then you should be okay. That may sound harsh, but I do believe that's what the GPL says and besides, it's better to play it safe.
Clustering has definitely won out in the United States mostly due to the appeal of cheap processing power, but that doesn't mean that clustering is always best. Like another poster mentioned, it depends on what you're doing. For Google, clustering is probably a good solution, but for high end supercomputing, it doesn't always work.
Check out who's on top of the TOP 500 supercomputers. US? Nope. Cluster? Nope. The top computer in the world is the Earth Simulator in Japan. It's not a cluster of lower end processors. It was built from the ground up with one idea -- speed. Unsurprisingly it uses traditional vector processing techniques developed by Cray to achieve this power. And how does it compare with the next in line? It blows them away. Absolutely blows them away.
I recently read a very interesting article about this (I can't remember where - I tried googling) which basically stated that the US has lost it's edge in supercomputing. The reason was two fold: (1) less government and private funding for supercomputing projects and (2) a reliance on clustering. There is communication overhead in clustering that dwarfs similar problems in traditional supercomputers. Clusters can scale, but the max speed is limited.
Before you start thinking that it doesn't matter and that the beowulf in your bedroom can compare to any Cray, recognize that there are still problems within science that would take ages to complete. These are very different problems from those facing Google, but they are nonetheless real and important.
I understand the problem with SPAM, but why a legal solution to a technical problem? It reminds me of the litgation induced from "deep linking," when in reality the web master simply needs to better configure his/her server. Similarly there are technical solutions to this. If I'm on a "do-not-email" list, then why don't I configure my email client to only accept emails within my address book? Many email clients can do this filtering, even web based ones, so what's the problem? Effectively, this is what these people want and there's a solution so why the red tape?
While I agree the Plan 9 license isn't the best in the world, some of us aren't all that excited about software under the GPL or even LGPL. Stallman urges developers away from the Apache license let alone the Plan 9 license.
Slashdot Mirror
The Economist has a set of related articles in this week's edition.
Perhaps they don't owe me a job, but they sure as hell owe some people in this country jobs for everything that we provide to them.
Then don't provide them with the benefits! Lobby your representatives, start a grassroots organization. I don't care. Point is, this is a problem with the US system of law, but has nothing to do with the economic principles surrounding the reponsibilities of a business, be it a large corporation or a small shop.
Allow me to play devil's advocate here:
So what's wrong with making a profit? Since when did the CEO or owner of any company owe you or anyone in the US a job? The CEO's responsibility is to maximize profits not turn the company into a US charity.
And it's not "child labor" that's taking over the IT industry. Those jobs are going to people who would otherwise have a lot lower standard of living. And no one is forcing them to take those jobs.
To turn the question: Why are you being so greedy wanting high paid jobs when there are those who could do the work, perhaps not as well, but well enough, for a lot less money? What makes you more worthy?
Look, I'm not trying to flame you personally. I'm just trying to help people think from another point of view. We immediately label these actions as just the "greed" of the corporations, but what about our own "greed"?
Do we work for less? Do we (dare I say it) unionize? Pass laws? Comments, please.
We compete.
That's really all there is to it. Whether it's a business or an individual facing foreign compentition, the solution is the same: work harder and smarter. That may mean cutting costs (or your salary). It may mean longer hours or finding a niche.
The worst thing you can do is try to legislate your existance in the market. Unionizing has lots of pros and cons which vary for each market, but I don't think it's a solution here. The idea is just to compete. If you don't want to, fine, but don't expect to stay in the market.
Remember when Japan was selling hundreds of billions of dollars of goods to the USA for years? If they made so much money, why is their economy in the dump? They were so fantasitcally wealthy they were buying up motion picture studios, golf courses, farms (to raise cattle for export back to Japan), banks, you name it. Problem was, they made such good stuff and their standard of living went up so high they priced themselves right out of the market. Other countries are repeating the cycle. The USA seems to survive because it reinvents itself. Probably medical is the next big thing.
Actually, the Japanese economy is in the dumps because of a bad banking sector. It was due to government interferrance and bad banking laws that allowed for huge amounts of bad debt to pile up. It has little, if anything, to do with "pricing themselves out of the market".
Not true.
I know a lot of business owners who operate in niche markets and run a small business. It may not be as easy as it was several decades ago (was it ever easy?), but it's possible. Look in your local phone book. Check out the business section. There may be a lot of franchises and whatnot, but there will almost always be one or two local small businesses in each market. They survive, they always will because they fill an economic need that a global corporation cannot fill
A source close to IBM said its lawyers were preparing a substantial defence of the suit and are likely to file counter-claims based on its huge portfolio of patents, the largest in the computer industry.
You knew this was going to happen. Ever since SCO announced this lawsuit, I was just waiting for IBM to come in and take them out. You know, I almost feel bad for SCO. Almost.
Another easy change that should be made: Flamebait really ought to be removed. Anything that can fairly be modded flamebait could be modded troll anyway, and most moderators seem to think that any unpopular opinion is automatically flamebait.
:)
The temptation to mod you as flamebait was so great I just had to post instead.
Seriously though, I agree completely. My rule of thumb is always mod up. I don't want to waste my mod points on some troll.
if you were to take a trip across the country, where would you stop for access?
:)
Can't you just enjoy the scenery? I mean, wouldn't that be the whole point of taking a cross country vacaction? If you must record the whole thing digitally, it can always be uploaded to a site when you get back.
I think too many people have forgotten about the "off" button. Wonderful invention you know.
Yeah, and what about XGoogle, which does IRC channel searches? I've always wondered how they've gotten away with that name. The site is different, but they're definitely building off of Google's success. Interesting how the word "Google" is really becoming a synonym for "search".
Companies are paying on average HALF of what they were for the same work 2 years ago..
And the market was bloated and people were getting way over paid at that time too.
That's not a normal host we just slashdotted, that's the computer science department for the University of Pittsburgh which has some significant bandwidth. That's really impressive -- the entire cs.pitt.edu subdomain isn't responding! :)
Just want to point out that the demographics of Taiwan are rather different from the demographics of mainland China. And since it's Taiwan that we're talking about none of those $1200 a year Chinese villagers get any of this deal.
Taiwan has internet cafes and computer shops just about everywhere, even in the out of the way places (okay, maybe not in the rice fields, but you get my point).
This is not the only example of this happening. I imagine it is because of both reasons #2 and #3.
Too many people (not just Americans) don't bother to actually check the source. If people did they would realize that half of what is being said by any side is just crap.
It's fairly obvious to anyone who takes a second that al Qaida has little love to Saddam. Saddam is a secular ruler. The religious fundementalist are his enemies. There is no good reason for him to support them or for them to support him. But most people don't seem to realize this fact.
I drives me crazy. I don't watch TV so I'm out of touch with a lot of main stream America, but it just seems like one day everybody woke up and decided that the obvious next step was attacking Iraq. There was never any real debate, never any real reason, just, some sort of mass acceptance. It's always felt like some horrible con to me, like they switched the target from Osama to Saddam while everyone wasn't looking and no one noticed.
Well, my biggest problem is that each new supplement had great background material but the actual character classes, powers, weapons and whatnot were always out of scope. It was like every book had to have something bigger and badder than the last one. Look at the average weapon damage in the original compared to the later world books. Sure technology develops, but it was just ridiculous. I wanted to use some of the source material, but I found myself having to 'power down' a lot of the stats just to keep game balance. That's a lot of extra work and at some point it just wasn't worth it.
Rifts is an excellent idea with a cheap implementation. Good Game Masters can salvage it, but it's a shame that that would be necessary.
I swear, this country is tearing itself apart with self-induced paranoia.
You know I've been wondering about this, because that average person that I talk to is much more sane. Well, not as much as would be nice, but certainly not so bent on bombing and policing everything like Bush and the general media seem to be. The paranoia is being spread by from the top down, it certainly isn't grassroots. What bothers me is that so many people seem to just eat it up and don't pause to think about the reality of the situation for a minute.
I think the idea was to print out the numbers one to a googleplex which is much more than just printing out the number itself.
RIFTS was great. Or at least it started that way.
Google's not only an accident, but also a misspelling: It should be googol.
Although I'm kinda glad it got misspelled though, because google is much cooler that googol.
Interesting googol fact from whatis.com:
Later, another mathematician devised the term googolplex for 10 to the power of googol - that is, 1 followed by 10 to the power of 100 zeros. Frank Pilhofer has determined that, given Moore's Law (which is that computer processor power doubles about every 1 to 2 years), it would make no sense to try to print out a googleplex for another 524 years - since all earlier attempts to print a googleplex out would be overtaken by the faster processor.
Oh, if only I had mod point for you. :)
Actually, it's a tricky situation because you're talking about the line between the government and the market. Should the government compete or even enter areas of the private sector where firms are currently conducting activities? In some cases, it might make sense, but it's not something that should be happening often or you end up with a bloated government that runs and produces everything.
Taking this to extremes (forgive me for a moment), but if the government will provide free (or low cost) tax software, why not give me free or low cost online access so I can file online? And why not give me a computer too. And hey, I need an operating system for the darn thing. Oh, and throw in a printer while your at it. Perhaps this seems silly, but when you deal with public services, you have to consider the long term consequences these trends can begin. Bloated services often start lean and mean and well intentioned.
Generally, in any case that the private sector is offering a viable product, then the government shouldn't come in and replace them. Now the case of tax software is a little odd since that market is essentially feeding off of the tax service the government offers to begin with. One could also argue that the increased competition of the government might help the situation by forcing the current private firms to better their service. In some markets like education and mail/package delivery such competition works.
My point here is that just because some nation starts offering open source tax software doesn't mean it's a great idea for the US. There are pros and cons that should be weighed.
I have to deal with this issue at work and while IANAL, I think the following, from the same FAQ, makes it clear:
The substantive part is this: if the two programs are combined so that they become effectively two parts of one program, then you can't treat them as two separate programs. So the GPL has to cover the whole thing. If the two programs remain well separated, like the compiler and the kernel, or like an editor and a shell, then you can treat them as two separate programs--but you have to do it properly.
In other words, is your jar file an actual program that you invoke side by side with your proprietary software, or is it "imported" in any place in your program? If you import, then your own software should probably be GPL'd. If you don't import, then you should be okay. That may sound harsh, but I do believe that's what the GPL says and besides, it's better to play it safe.
Clustering has definitely won out in the United States mostly due to the appeal of cheap processing power, but that doesn't mean that clustering is always best. Like another poster mentioned, it depends on what you're doing. For Google, clustering is probably a good solution, but for high end supercomputing, it doesn't always work.
Check out who's on top of the TOP 500 supercomputers. US? Nope. Cluster? Nope. The top computer in the world is the Earth Simulator in Japan. It's not a cluster of lower end processors. It was built from the ground up with one idea -- speed. Unsurprisingly it uses traditional vector processing techniques developed by Cray to achieve this power. And how does it compare with the next in line? It blows them away. Absolutely blows them away.
I recently read a very interesting article about this (I can't remember where - I tried googling) which basically stated that the US has lost it's edge in supercomputing. The reason was two fold: (1) less government and private funding for supercomputing projects and (2) a reliance on clustering. There is communication overhead in clustering that dwarfs similar problems in traditional supercomputers. Clusters can scale, but the max speed is limited.
Before you start thinking that it doesn't matter and that the beowulf in your bedroom can compare to any Cray, recognize that there are still problems within science that would take ages to complete. These are very different problems from those facing Google, but they are nonetheless real and important.
I understand the problem with SPAM, but why a legal solution to a technical problem? It reminds me of the litgation induced from "deep linking," when in reality the web master simply needs to better configure his/her server. Similarly there are technical solutions to this. If I'm on a "do-not-email" list, then why don't I configure my email client to only accept emails within my address book? Many email clients can do this filtering, even web based ones, so what's the problem? Effectively, this is what these people want and there's a solution so why the red tape?
While I agree the Plan 9 license isn't the best in the world, some of us aren't all that excited about software under the GPL or even LGPL. Stallman urges developers away from the Apache license let alone the Plan 9 license.