Is net worth a reliable yardstick? Perhaps there should be an IQ test coupled with a current events test. People under a certain (not biased at all... honest) IQ score should only have their votes count for three fifths of a vote. People who inherited their wealth or position should have their votes discarded.
Given that we're electing lawmakers, maybe only lawyers should be able to vote.
Oooh! Oooh! I know, there should be a beer drinking test for the candidates. The winner picks up a few electoral college votes.
Even though I disagree with much of the recent direction in this country, I think that the constitution got it pretty right when it mentioned something about "all men are created equal."
If we had left it to Powell we'd still be waiting for sanctions on Saddam to work and Kuwait would be Iraqs' 13th province.
I'd much rather be in that position than in the position of having financed a very expensive war with deficit spending, while out-sourcing much of the dirty work to private firms like Blackwater and Halliburton.
This war should have had higher taxes and some degree of sacrifice associated with it. Instead we just sold more debt to foreign powers, cut taxes for the rich, and made shopping a patriotic act.
To me, Colin Powell spent whatever credibility he had by trying to sell the administrations case for war at the UN, even though he apparently wasn't any too convinced of the facts.
Intelligent Design in its more liberal terms goes to a core philosophical discussion is perceived randomness actually an act by a God(s), is it just a process of a complex set of cause and effects, or is it truly random.
Part of the problem that evolution faces is the popular concept that it is the result of randomness.
The core concept of evolution, as I understand it, is selection. Mutations are selected for, based on the benefits they provide for passing on the gene. The mutation may be random, but the selection process isn't.
People who don't believe in evolution, if they get infections, should only ever be provided sulfa drugs, or maybe penicillin, and not modern antibiotics. Certainly the nasty bugs haven't evolved to face the conditions that modern antibiotics have provided.
Come ON!... Flamebait? Really?
I was just stating that Exchange support is not worth $20 to me.
Maybe I'm just lucky to have never been forced to use Exchange anywhere I've worked, but I've never had to.
I stand by my statement: It isn't worth $20 to me.
The president should represent the average person of the United States of America.
Representing someone does not mean being the same as them. I don't want someone running the show as ill informed as the mythical "Average US Citizen."
It's sad that "elite" and "intellectual" are now epithets. I want the best and the brightest in charge. The current president got elected, to some extent, on how much fun the "Average US Citizen" thought it would be to drink beer with him.
Isn't he mostly talking about the "TiVo-ization" issue that RMS was all up in aRMS about? Isn't what TiVo did perfectly legal under GPL 2, and not legal under GPL 3?
When all is open, patents are basically unenforceable.
Open is no protection against patent prosecution. It's easy to come up with an original design that nonetheless infringes on someone's patent.
Patents don't quite protect ideas, but close.
Rather than implement Flash on the iPhone, I would much rather that Apple bought Adobe, if only so they can kill Flash.
Flash is a blight upon the WWW.
Actually I was less confused by your original post than your fact-free reply.
I guess you must be a glass-half-full sort of person. When I look at the world today I see nothing but problems caused either by overpopulation or individual over-consumption of resources, depending on your POV.
People are good (overall). I want more of them. The earth could easily support 20 billion people; we just need to figure out how to do it.
Got any facts to back these statements up? Let's take the first one "People are good (overall)" Without even getting into a discussion of what good means in this context, I would say that that about the only thing that you can say that people are (overall), is hungry on a regular basis.
As far as the 20 billion people figure goes, if you're pulling a number out of your... let's say hat... why not produce one that gives a little more breathing room, such as 500 trillion.
The royalty system emerged to allow for very "bursty" jobs, e.g actors & writers, to be compensated, when and if the studio made money. The royalty system has worked pretty well for quite a while.
In your world view, would you go back to the time when studios were the only ones who had any ownership in the "product" that was produced?
Well, Pogue certainly makes his likes and dislikes known, but isn't that the job of a reviewer?
I suppose you would look to Rob Enderle for objective info?
I agree that it isn't the technology's fault, I think that the cable industry deserves quite a lot of the blame. I have a TiVo HD, and had quite a few problems getting it set up properly. The problems were all cable company problems. One of the problems was with a bad cable card. I asked about the bad cable card, and the installer said it didn't work in several other installs, but that the cable company wouldn't swap it out of his inventory, and required him to keep trying to use it. Most of the problems were in the cable company database back end. There seems to be a high incidence of dyslexia in the back end database people.
I knew more about the process than the cable company installers, as well. The installers had not had any/enough CableCARD training, and consequently hated CableCARD installs. All in all, a recipe for disaster.
Yeah, my 16c too, on both counts. I've had it forever, and the one time I had to change batteries, I was wondering what that asterisk in the display was all about for months before I looked in the manual to find out it was low batteries. That must have been ten years ago. I wish all my stuff was this solid.
I know I shouldn't respond to this anonymous troll, but...
With every $150 service pack released for OSX...
There have been eleven releases of OS X 10.4.x over the last couple years. Once you had 10.4 all those releases were free. These releases are roughly equivalent to a service pack, in Microsoft-speak. Service packs don't add features, do they? The major releases all add features. Granted many of them are new capabilities for developers to take advantage of, but there are usually enough immediate benefits for the end user to drive sales.
And by the way, if you're going to troll, at least get your facts straight. Major releases of 10.x are $129 for a single machine, and $199 for a family pack that covers five machines.
Why should a user have to pay for OS updates (they're free and frequent with MS, yet you have to pay for each version of OSX)?
Umm... I think that this is as much as a nomenclature problem as anything else. OS X is on version 10.4.10, with 10.4.11 and 10.5 right around the corner. Once you bought 10.4 (aka Tiger), all the 10.4.xx releases were free, delivered through Software Update. This is 11 or 12 software updates in a little less than 2.5 years.
OSX 10.5 (aka Leopard) has a bunch of new features, and will be a paid upgrade. It will come installed on new machines. If history is any guide, it will be available for $129 for a single machine, and a five machine family pack for $199. Once you have 10.5 the 10.5.xx releases will be free.
All high end multimedia phones are niche products. The article about Nokia you linked to states "During the period they shipped 1.5 million of its top end multimedia phone, the N95..."
For Apple to go from zero handsets sold in the high end multimedia category, to 2/3 the number market leader Nokia sold in the same category, in a similar time period is pretty impressive, IMO. Keep in mind that Apple has yet to expand outside the US market.
I would never want to bet against Nokia. They are a really well run company. That said, Apple is really a force to be reckoned with these days, too. If Apple focuses on a product, that product is often best in class (although I don't know how to explain Apple TV.)
Slashdot Mirror
...already have netflix
And are on Windows.
He starred in Drive, by Joss Whedon.
Drive was TIm Minear's baby, not Joss'.
OK, you're an elitist jerk.
Is net worth a reliable yardstick? Perhaps there should be an IQ test coupled with a current events test. People under a certain (not biased at all... honest) IQ score should only have their votes count for three fifths of a vote. People who inherited their wealth or position should have their votes discarded.
Given that we're electing lawmakers, maybe only lawyers should be able to vote.
Oooh! Oooh! I know, there should be a beer drinking test for the candidates. The winner picks up a few electoral college votes.
Even though I disagree with much of the recent direction in this country, I think that the constitution got it pretty right when it mentioned something about "all men are created equal."
If we had left it to Powell we'd still be waiting for sanctions on Saddam to work and Kuwait would be Iraqs' 13th province.
I'd much rather be in that position than in the position of having financed a very expensive war with deficit spending, while out-sourcing much of the dirty work to private firms like Blackwater and Halliburton.
This war should have had higher taxes and some degree of sacrifice associated with it. Instead we just sold more debt to foreign powers, cut taxes for the rich, and made shopping a patriotic act.
To me, Colin Powell spent whatever credibility he had by trying to sell the administrations case for war at the UN, even though he apparently wasn't any too convinced of the facts.
Intelligent Design in its more liberal terms goes to a core philosophical discussion is perceived randomness actually an act by a God(s), is it just a process of a complex set of cause and effects, or is it truly random.
Part of the problem that evolution faces is the popular concept that it is the result of randomness.
The core concept of evolution, as I understand it, is selection. Mutations are selected for, based on the benefits they provide for passing on the gene. The mutation may be random, but the selection process isn't.
People who don't believe in evolution, if they get infections, should only ever be provided sulfa drugs, or maybe penicillin, and not modern antibiotics. Certainly the nasty bugs haven't evolved to face the conditions that modern antibiotics have provided.
It may have been true then, but it wasn't a federal law then.
Come ON!... Flamebait? Really?
I was just stating that Exchange support is not worth $20 to me. Maybe I'm just lucky to have never been forced to use Exchange anywhere I've worked, but I've never had to. I stand by my statement: It isn't worth $20 to me.
Representing someone does not mean being the same as them. I don't want someone running the show as ill informed as the mythical "Average US Citizen."
It's sad that "elite" and "intellectual" are now epithets. I want the best and the brightest in charge. The current president got elected, to some extent, on how much fun the "Average US Citizen" thought it would be to drink beer with him.
Isn't he mostly talking about the "TiVo-ization" issue that RMS was all up in aRMS about? Isn't what TiVo did perfectly legal under GPL 2, and not legal under GPL 3?
When all is open, patents are basically unenforceable.
Open is no protection against patent prosecution. It's easy to come up with an original design that nonetheless infringes on someone's patent. Patents don't quite protect ideas, but close.Rather than implement Flash on the iPhone, I would much rather that Apple bought Adobe, if only so they can kill Flash. Flash is a blight upon the WWW.
Actually I was less confused by your original post than your fact-free reply.
I guess you must be a glass-half-full sort of person. When I look at the world today I see nothing but problems caused either by overpopulation or individual over-consumption of resources, depending on your POV.
And just to prove that I'm not embarrassed: ass.
Got any facts to back these statements up? Let's take the first one "People are good (overall)" Without even getting into a discussion of what good means in this context, I would say that that about the only thing that you can say that people are (overall), is hungry on a regular basis.
As far as the 20 billion people figure goes, if you're pulling a number out of your... let's say hat... why not produce one that gives a little more breathing room, such as 500 trillion.
The royalty system emerged to allow for very "bursty" jobs, e.g actors & writers, to be compensated, when and if the studio made money. The royalty system has worked pretty well for quite a while.
In your world view, would you go back to the time when studios were the only ones who had any ownership in the "product" that was produced?
Well, Pogue certainly makes his likes and dislikes known, but isn't that the job of a reviewer? I suppose you would look to Rob Enderle for objective info?
Yes.
I agree that it isn't the technology's fault, I think that the cable industry deserves quite a lot of the blame. I have a TiVo HD, and had quite a few problems getting it set up properly. The problems were all cable company problems. One of the problems was with a bad cable card. I asked about the bad cable card, and the installer said it didn't work in several other installs, but that the cable company wouldn't swap it out of his inventory, and required him to keep trying to use it. Most of the problems were in the cable company database back end. There seems to be a high incidence of dyslexia in the back end database people.
I knew more about the process than the cable company installers, as well. The installers had not had any/enough CableCARD training, and consequently hated CableCARD installs. All in all, a recipe for disaster.Yeah, my 16c too, on both counts. I've had it forever, and the one time I had to change batteries, I was wondering what that asterisk in the display was all about for months before I looked in the manual to find out it was low batteries. That must have been ten years ago. I wish all my stuff was this solid.
I know I shouldn't respond to this anonymous troll, but...
With every $150 service pack released for OSX...
There have been eleven releases of OS X 10.4.x over the last couple years. Once you had 10.4 all those releases were free. These releases are roughly equivalent to a service pack, in Microsoft-speak. Service packs don't add features, do they? The major releases all add features. Granted many of them are new capabilities for developers to take advantage of, but there are usually enough immediate benefits for the end user to drive sales.
And by the way, if you're going to troll, at least get your facts straight. Major releases of 10.x are $129 for a single machine, and $199 for a family pack that covers five machines.
Why should a user have to pay for OS updates (they're free and frequent with MS, yet you have to pay for each version of OSX)?
Umm... I think that this is as much as a nomenclature problem as anything else. OS X is on version 10.4.10, with 10.4.11 and 10.5 right around the corner. Once you bought 10.4 (aka Tiger), all the 10.4.xx releases were free, delivered through Software Update. This is 11 or 12 software updates in a little less than 2.5 years.
OSX 10.5 (aka Leopard) has a bunch of new features, and will be a paid upgrade. It will come installed on new machines. If history is any guide, it will be available for $129 for a single machine, and a five machine family pack for $199. Once you have 10.5 the 10.5.xx releases will be free.
I'm sure it's been found by now. Benton & Stanley have had the better part of a decade to look for it.
All high end multimedia phones are niche products. The article about Nokia you linked to states "During the period they shipped 1.5 million of its top end multimedia phone, the N95..."
For Apple to go from zero handsets sold in the high end multimedia category, to 2/3 the number market leader Nokia sold in the same category, in a similar time period is pretty impressive, IMO. Keep in mind that Apple has yet to expand outside the US market.
I would never want to bet against Nokia. They are a really well run company. That said, Apple is really a force to be reckoned with these days, too. If Apple focuses on a product, that product is often best in class (although I don't know how to explain Apple TV.)