Over history oil prices have been inversely proportional to growth in GDP. Hence the parent logically concludes that reducing the price of energy will increase GDP i.e. the economy will grow. The people in the power industry may lose jobs - however the enormous reduction in costs in the manufacturing sector (boosting say the automobile manufacturing sector), the decreased cost of electricity (air conditioning unit sales would take off), and increased household disposable income (lower bills) would compensate this for most people.
Grid power would fall in price - because a) there is reduced demand for it (everyone is using their own panels) and b) supply would increase (people can sell the excess electricity from their panels back).
I'm sorry I misunderstood your point - but I still don't really understand it. I read the communist manifesto (scanned it recently, read it when I was younger) - as far as I recall, it encouraged the workers of the world to unite to overthrow the capitalist hegemony. Every person was to give according to ability and take according to need... This sounds totalitarian, in that every person (every worker anyhow) joins in and behaves in the same way. It sounds undemocratic in that the state and bodies of power (e.g. parliament/congress etc) are overthrown. The strength of capitalism is it's diversity, supposed to be a strength that communism (in theory) doesn't have.
I assume your post is parody - "Indeed, this is a disgrace!" - hoho - "and otherwise don't let them enter WTO... What if they had refused? would the us invade?" No, dumbo, they just wouldn't have let them "enter WTO".
If you're serious - let me explain to you what is going on. The russian legal system is being exploited by people who are, under the laws of almost every nation and trade agreement globally, stealing. They (allofmp3.com) are not even freely distributing the music - they are charging for the privilege of downloading songs that belong to them. The Russian government is doubtless delighted to be finishing them off, as they must be a public embarassment
Posters have replied - "the musicians are for allofmp3.com" and "music shouldn't be about profits". Metallica and Madonna obviously are not in favour of selling their music for any less than the most they can get. Maybe that says something about them - but that's what they agreed to when they recorded the music. If you take away the profit motivation for Madonna, she will stop recording albums. She'll find different ways to profit from her talent.
Your big attack on the US - "the dollar is declining" - is great news for US exporters. If your interested, the scoop is that financial business is moving to Europe. The problem is not the decline of the dollar but Sarbannes Oxeley.
"police raid on pirate bay" - jesus - those poor "pirate bay" - from the name alone I can tell they weren't really up to any harm. Morons.
"These aren't crowdable assets" - not your comment but some guy who just made up a new "economic term" - so fucking what? If someone decides to live in your living room, it's not like they're stealing it is it? Would you let that happen? The whining fuss that you people make shows that this stuff is worth money - otherwise why are you all crying "nooooo"? Let me explain again - if this stuff has no value then WHY DO YOU CARE if you can't get it free. If it DOES have value then why shouldn't the people who made it charge for it?
"RIAA are evil - evil - EVIL I TELL YOU!" - okay you didn't say that. The RIAA are protecting the boring status quo. They are not particularly evil, just unimaginative. If someone (like, say iTunes) would just take on the record companies, sign new bands for 0 advance but with free marketing (like preloading their songs on iPods...), and in return iTunes gets the best talent, sells their stuff for knockdown prices and cleans up.
It is a real shame to see allofmp3.com go, since it was a great site to download from. XXXX when it reopens from Hungary/Nauru/North Korea it will be just the same and your credit will still be there. But this site is not fair to anyone - it's run by another bunch of Russian crooks. Anyone know *anything* about the saints who run this site?
It is, perhaps, useful for Westerners unfamiliar with the Soviet background to know that a book which many of them will have read, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, gives what many insiders consider to be a remarkably accurate satirical picture of Stalin's Russia around the time the novel itself was written
I certainly wouldn't want to criticise communism on Slashdot. Perhaps it has just been "poorly implemented in practice". Stalin's purges and the millions of soldiers that were wasted at Stalingrad could be described as "teething problems". The Khmer Rouge and their murder of one fifth of the Cambodian population could perhaps be attributed to their use of a "beta version" of communism which sadly didn't work so well. Mao's great leap forward and the subsequent starvation of a large proportion of his population was perhaps "user error". So please, do continue to defend communism - it seems a good way to collect mod points, if nothing else.
Nice use of Orwell to defend communism. You might also want to look at Animal Farm, where dictators claiming to be communist (the pigs) send the workers (Boxer the horse) to the glue factory in exchange for a box of whisky. From Orwell's preface:
At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Every-one knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable.
Replace the words "Soviet Russia" with "Cuba". Then look at your friends. Does the quote above apply to you, today?
God I love trolls. They really do help me understand the basics. IE is not and never was given away - you are permitted to use it if you like, but the copyright and the source remains with Microsoft. Can anyone help me explain using that natty "free as in beer" argument?
Furthermore - ever noticed they give you free peanuts on aeroplane journeys? They make the money back somewhere...
So what exactly is the problem with a "communist" part in power if the people elected them?
The fact that the aim of communism - at least according to the communist manifesto - is to overthrow democracy in a revolution. Then the dictatorship that follows (my term - not in the manifesto) tends to become corrupt due to the absolute power which it wields. Of course modern communists don't follow the manifesto - in the words of Deng Xiaoping "to get rich is glorious". Which leaves one wondering what the purpose of modern communism is...
In many ways it's very simple. Modern society is based around property rights - people own their own cars, houses and things they need to live. Within capitalism the idea of ownership being extended has proven very successful. Examples would be the increased efficiency of privatised industries in Europe, Chile's economic miracle, and also for example ownership of private waterways in England, which leaves England with far cleaner streams and rivers than America.
Traditionally music has always been owned by record companies, and in the past record companies were necessary for music to exist (they had the complicated technology necessary to make records and record sounds). So they operated a Venture-Capital like model, where they would fund a band to make a record, and then they would take a large cut of any profits. 90% of bands would fail, but the remainder made enough money to pay for the failures.
Now the problem seems to be that record companies are not necessary in the process, but since in the West we respect property rights, they can do what they want with the music. Unfortunately for the record companies, they are so poorly run that it is more difficult to buy music legitimately than to steal it (e.g. iTunes doesn't exist on Linux, dozens of copyright albums have been deleted). So they try to combat it with the law and with DRM.
Sorry for rambling - but this is the way I see it. The record companies did once take a big chance, and once upon a time they earnt the right to the money they are now receiving. This is however irrelevant in the real world - if we cannot benefit from a system of property rights with music then that system will be very rapidly disbanded.
Lots of research over the last 10 years has shown a strong relationship with psychosis and schizophrenia. It was always argued that this was due to "self-medication" by people with mental problems - but the Dunedin study (a huge "longitudinal" study - looking at people over their whole lives) showed that if you control for people with mental health problems who smoke dope, there's still a correlation.
Other researchers identified a genetic pattern, which is carried by a quarter of the population, which combined with cannabis use gives the carrier a five-times higher likelihood of developing psychosis. So in essence it might make you crazy.
It stops it being a relevant issue. If people can get addicted to line-dancing, grand theft auto, sashimi then it takes all of the relevance away from the term addiction. That's why marijuana is not considered addictive. This doesn't change the fact that medical research does show it has harmful effects.
4. Opion/Heroin -- See #1 (doing crime to no one else).
When I was a teenager, I too thought it was wrong that "the man" used to spoil our fun by trying to stop us using drugs like Marijuana and Heroin. Then I realised the number one cause of theft in the UK is addictive drugs. The number one cause of gun murder in the UK is addictive drugs. The reason is that although people are able to freely make the decision to use addictive drugs, they are not freely able to stop using them, and fuck the lives of their families, friends, and complete strangers up (never trust a junkie). The money that they steal to buy drugs goes into the hands of local criminals who use it to buy guns. Then it has an even worse effect in the countries which produce the drugs, turning them into fiefdoms for the producers (see Killing Pablo).
I agree governments have got the wrong strategy on this - prohibition has demonstrably failed. However your logic is wrong. Addictive drugs do damage to other people. I say addictive because I don't consider Marijuana to be in this category. Do bear in mind though that heavy use has been shown to cause Schizophrenia in about a quarter of people - if you don't believe me just ask an admissions nurse at a mental hospital.
I thought this must be bs when I read it (The Times, a Murdoch rag, is famously anti-EU) but they do seem to have some weird ideas about the internet (from "the portal site of the European Union"):
One aim is to relax the current rules on advertising. Another is to draw a distinction between "linear" services (conventional television, Internet, mobile telephony) and "non-linear" services (on-demand television and information). The proposed approach would involve the introduction of obligations on two levels:
* fundamental obligations (particularly the protection of minors and human dignity) applicable to all audiovisual content services;
* "linear" audiovisual services would be subject to second-level obligations similar to those set out in the TVWF Directive, but simplified and updated.
I don't quite get how internet is differentiated from an "on-demand information" service - but the idea that the internet should be subject to the same "second level obligations" as TV sounds ominous. Maybe Ted Stevens has been advising them.
That's bullshit. Fascism means taking power by force. America's a democracy. Vote your bozo government out and stop bitching. Perhaps using a slightly less offensive doctrine than socialism or communism (read Orwell if you haven't already) might help get people onto your side. And don't capitalise People please - it gives me the shivers.
Why? You should choose the tool on the basis of what you need it for. Not every product is perfect for every situation. Why say "honestly"? We know OSS produces excellent software - but maybe you need something else.
our main requirement was -official support for all OSS products-
Why "official support"? I would have required good support. As others have mentioned windows support costs extra. I've worked for an organisation where we had the gold support. I only used it once, and after months working together we could only find a workaround for an issue between two MS products - support isn't a magic bullet.
OSS is useful for people who want to control and understand the tools they use. In my experience, this and the additional free, public resources available for OSS products are far more important than "official support" - especially in development environments.
After all, we have decided that the survival of our business is more important for us then 'do-good' ideas
That's good - you're running a business not a charity and you've decided to keep away from technology you don't understand. Read the Top Ten Geek Business Myths and concentrate on your business model, not on the technology you are using (or not using) to achieve it.
Professor Chomsky used the following argument to discount testimony by refugees that a slaughter was in progress, saying we should be wary of "the extreme unreliability of refugee reports":
"Refugees are frightened and defenseless, at the mercy of alien forces. They naturally tend to report what they believe their interlocutors wish to hear. While these reports must be considered seriously, care and caution are necessary. Specifically, refugees questioned by Westerners or Thais have a vested interest in reporting atrocities on the part of Cambodian revolutionaries, an obvious fact that no serious reporter will fail to take into account"
He has never apologised for his stance on Cambodia.
And environmentalists wonder why no one will believe them about global warming. This is not just lies, this encourages people to discount environmental arguments as bullshit, thus making it more difficult for politicians and business people to stop global warming.
There is not a chance in hell I would use an online app for something that runs fine on my local pc. Why add an unneeded security risk?
So what? You're a geek. You probably run a *nix. The average user runs (insecure) windows - this is the desktop market you're talking about. No-one gives a toss about security on desktops - except maybe when a virus hits, and online apps are way safer from viruses.
Sounds more like a quant question - there's a book called "heard on the street" which collects together many of the questions asked at interviews for quant jobs. The first chapter is general logic and then it goes into options maths. Apparently this question really was asked at interview: "How can 3 men and 1 woman each have mutually safe heterosexual sex with only 2 condoms? Assume condoms cannot break or tear, and cannot be washed". Apparently there's also a (theoretical) solution with 3 women and one man.
Slashdot Mirror
Grid power would fall in price - because a) there is reduced demand for it (everyone is using their own panels) and b) supply would increase (people can sell the excess electricity from their panels back).
I'm sorry I misunderstood your point - but I still don't really understand it. I read the communist manifesto (scanned it recently, read it when I was younger) - as far as I recall, it encouraged the workers of the world to unite to overthrow the capitalist hegemony. Every person was to give according to ability and take according to need... This sounds totalitarian, in that every person (every worker anyhow) joins in and behaves in the same way. It sounds undemocratic in that the state and bodies of power (e.g. parliament/congress etc) are overthrown. The strength of capitalism is it's diversity, supposed to be a strength that communism (in theory) doesn't have.
If you're serious - let me explain to you what is going on. The russian legal system is being exploited by people who are, under the laws of almost every nation and trade agreement globally, stealing. They (allofmp3.com) are not even freely distributing the music - they are charging for the privilege of downloading songs that belong to them. The Russian government is doubtless delighted to be finishing them off, as they must be a public embarassment
Posters have replied - "the musicians are for allofmp3.com" and "music shouldn't be about profits". Metallica and Madonna obviously are not in favour of selling their music for any less than the most they can get. Maybe that says something about them - but that's what they agreed to when they recorded the music. If you take away the profit motivation for Madonna, she will stop recording albums. She'll find different ways to profit from her talent.
Your big attack on the US - "the dollar is declining" - is great news for US exporters. If your interested, the scoop is that financial business is moving to Europe. The problem is not the decline of the dollar but Sarbannes Oxeley.
"police raid on pirate bay" - jesus - those poor "pirate bay" - from the name alone I can tell they weren't really up to any harm. Morons.
"These aren't crowdable assets" - not your comment but some guy who just made up a new "economic term" - so fucking what? If someone decides to live in your living room, it's not like they're stealing it is it? Would you let that happen? The whining fuss that you people make shows that this stuff is worth money - otherwise why are you all crying "nooooo"? Let me explain again - if this stuff has no value then WHY DO YOU CARE if you can't get it free. If it DOES have value then why shouldn't the people who made it charge for it?
"RIAA are evil - evil - EVIL I TELL YOU!" - okay you didn't say that. The RIAA are protecting the boring status quo. They are not particularly evil, just unimaginative. If someone (like, say iTunes) would just take on the record companies, sign new bands for 0 advance but with free marketing (like preloading their songs on iPods...), and in return iTunes gets the best talent, sells their stuff for knockdown prices and cleans up.
It is a real shame to see allofmp3.com go, since it was a great site to download from. XXXX when it reopens from Hungary/Nauru/North Korea it will be just the same and your credit will still be there. But this site is not fair to anyone - it's run by another bunch of Russian crooks. Anyone know *anything* about the saints who run this site?
bet you weren't saying that when mossad squirted poison in that arab guy's ear.
I certainly wouldn't want to criticise communism on Slashdot. Perhaps it has just been "poorly implemented in practice". Stalin's purges and the millions of soldiers that were wasted at Stalingrad could be described as "teething problems". The Khmer Rouge and their murder of one fifth of the Cambodian population could perhaps be attributed to their use of a "beta version" of communism which sadly didn't work so well. Mao's great leap forward and the subsequent starvation of a large proportion of his population was perhaps "user error". So please, do continue to defend communism - it seems a good way to collect mod points, if nothing else.
Nice use of Orwell to defend communism. You might also want to look at Animal Farm, where dictators claiming to be communist (the pigs) send the workers (Boxer the horse) to the glue factory in exchange for a box of whisky. From Orwell's preface:
Replace the words "Soviet Russia" with "Cuba". Then look at your friends. Does the quote above apply to you, today?
Yeah but at least with MS extortion (TM) they pay you :)
http://slashdot.org/~Whiney+Mac+Fanboy/freaks/
Furthermore - ever noticed they give you free peanuts on aeroplane journeys? They make the money back somewhere...
The fact that the aim of communism - at least according to the communist manifesto - is to overthrow democracy in a revolution. Then the dictatorship that follows (my term - not in the manifesto) tends to become corrupt due to the absolute power which it wields. Of course modern communists don't follow the manifesto - in the words of Deng Xiaoping "to get rich is glorious". Which leaves one wondering what the purpose of modern communism is...
In many ways it's very simple. Modern society is based around property rights - people own their own cars, houses and things they need to live. Within capitalism the idea of ownership being extended has proven very successful. Examples would be the increased efficiency of privatised industries in Europe, Chile's economic miracle, and also for example ownership of private waterways in England, which leaves England with far cleaner streams and rivers than America.
Traditionally music has always been owned by record companies, and in the past record companies were necessary for music to exist (they had the complicated technology necessary to make records and record sounds). So they operated a Venture-Capital like model, where they would fund a band to make a record, and then they would take a large cut of any profits. 90% of bands would fail, but the remainder made enough money to pay for the failures.
Now the problem seems to be that record companies are not necessary in the process, but since in the West we respect property rights, they can do what they want with the music. Unfortunately for the record companies, they are so poorly run that it is more difficult to buy music legitimately than to steal it (e.g. iTunes doesn't exist on Linux, dozens of copyright albums have been deleted). So they try to combat it with the law and with DRM.
Sorry for rambling - but this is the way I see it. The record companies did once take a big chance, and once upon a time they earnt the right to the money they are now receiving. This is however irrelevant in the real world - if we cannot benefit from a system of property rights with music then that system will be very rapidly disbanded.
Other researchers identified a genetic pattern, which is carried by a quarter of the population, which combined with cannabis use gives the carrier a five-times higher likelihood of developing psychosis. So in essence it might make you crazy.
It stops it being a relevant issue. If people can get addicted to line-dancing, grand theft auto, sashimi then it takes all of the relevance away from the term addiction. That's why marijuana is not considered addictive. This doesn't change the fact that medical research does show it has harmful effects.
When I was a teenager, I too thought it was wrong that "the man" used to spoil our fun by trying to stop us using drugs like Marijuana and Heroin. Then I realised the number one cause of theft in the UK is addictive drugs. The number one cause of gun murder in the UK is addictive drugs. The reason is that although people are able to freely make the decision to use addictive drugs, they are not freely able to stop using them, and fuck the lives of their families, friends, and complete strangers up (never trust a junkie). The money that they steal to buy drugs goes into the hands of local criminals who use it to buy guns. Then it has an even worse effect in the countries which produce the drugs, turning them into fiefdoms for the producers (see Killing Pablo).
I agree governments have got the wrong strategy on this - prohibition has demonstrably failed. However your logic is wrong. Addictive drugs do damage to other people. I say addictive because I don't consider Marijuana to be in this category. Do bear in mind though that heavy use has been shown to cause Schizophrenia in about a quarter of people - if you don't believe me just ask an admissions nurse at a mental hospital.
That's bullshit. Fascism means taking power by force. America's a democracy. Vote your bozo government out and stop bitching. Perhaps using a slightly less offensive doctrine than socialism or communism (read Orwell if you haven't already) might help get people onto your side. And don't capitalise People please - it gives me the shivers.
Why? You should choose the tool on the basis of what you need it for. Not every product is perfect for every situation. Why say "honestly"? We know OSS produces excellent software - but maybe you need something else.
our main requirement was -official support for all OSS products-
Why "official support"? I would have required good support. As others have mentioned windows support costs extra. I've worked for an organisation where we had the gold support. I only used it once, and after months working together we could only find a workaround for an issue between two MS products - support isn't a magic bullet.
OSS is useful for people who want to control and understand the tools they use. In my experience, this and the additional free, public resources available for OSS products are far more important than "official support" - especially in development environments.
After all, we have decided that the survival of our business is more important for us then 'do-good' ideas
That's good - you're running a business not a charity and you've decided to keep away from technology you don't understand. Read the Top Ten Geek Business Myths and concentrate on your business model, not on the technology you are using (or not using) to achieve it.
Can't believe it took 3 hours for someone to point this out. Credit to you sir.
Professor Chomsky was busy documenting American war crimes while writing books glossing over the butchery of two million cambodian civilians: http://www.amazon.com/After-Cataclysm-Indo-China-N oam-Chomsky/dp/0896081001
Professor Chomsky used the following argument to discount testimony by refugees that a slaughter was in progress, saying we should be wary of "the extreme unreliability of refugee reports": "Refugees are frightened and defenseless, at the mercy of alien forces. They naturally tend to report what they believe their interlocutors wish to hear. While these reports must be considered seriously, care and caution are necessary. Specifically, refugees questioned by Westerners or Thais have a vested interest in reporting atrocities on the part of Cambodian revolutionaries, an obvious fact that no serious reporter will fail to take into account"
He has never apologised for his stance on Cambodia.
And environmentalists wonder why no one will believe them about global warming. This is not just lies, this encourages people to discount environmental arguments as bullshit, thus making it more difficult for politicians and business people to stop global warming.
Erm... I think that was "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", Ken.
That's the problem with anarchist books. Their intended audience can't be arsed to read.
Sounds more like a quant question - there's a book called "heard on the street" which collects together many of the questions asked at interviews for quant jobs. The first chapter is general logic and then it goes into options maths. Apparently this question really was asked at interview: "How can 3 men and 1 woman each have mutually safe heterosexual sex with only 2 condoms? Assume condoms cannot break or tear, and cannot be washed". Apparently there's also a (theoretical) solution with 3 women and one man.