omitted mention of Linux. That way, users who are not tech-savvy can't be sure that Linux is safe.
Sounds to me like they were completely fair. Of course that's not a journalistic conspiracyinvolving Microsoftand the NYT. Could not happen, categorically impossible. I never gave it a second thought. Our journalistic 5th Estate is as honest as our courts and our politicians.
Are you saying that if you got electric coaches, computerized docking, computerized back-checking, so that it was like a citywide light-rail system, that the union would still demand high wages?
For this application, electric is good enough, because the basic run for one set of batteries is only one station-to-station hop. Of course, whereever possible, you can include other energy sources, but
Electric trains *shouldn't* need highly skilled engineers to drive them. The days of steam engines is done. They should need, essentially, bus drivers.
That being the case, the other question is whether this is union thugs saying "you can't open for business." Fine. If I ever have a chance to do this I'll start it in a country where it is legal. That said, I suspect that the same problem that keeps a person from starting up such a rail system is also why I can show that I *saved* my customer over $200000 this year, and every year produce a top-selling book, but my "share" is less than $25000. Justice isn't to be had. Therefore, I don't have the assets to start something like this up.
So essentially, I think your response boils down to "justice isn't to be had, so no, you couldn't do it."
Okay, I'll buy that. But the economy is crashing, and the starving masses won't support the government forever. Sooner or later, the vandals come through, and the slaves walk. Then, after that, you get the renaissance. Somewhere else.
You don't need to go at high mach speeds. High mach is expensive and dangerous in closed quarters; vacuum is also expensive. I've thought about this one, in terms of running railrods in America profitably.
All you need to do is have the train cars be dynamically linkable. I mean, you get on a train at the station. It goes out ahead of the main train coming in, and then slows down to link. Each car, then has a destination. The door opens, and you walk back to your destination car [for freight, you'd need standardized packages, and onboard computerized conveyors.]
You sit down, order a meal [which comes with the next car]; each car has its own driver, so for a 5-car train, that means that the most recent addition's driver is driving the train; the others function now as security and wait staff.
Eventually, your car drops off the back of the train, and then delivers you to your destination.
The train, thus, never stops rolling at approximately 60 mph; you make a nonstop trip to your destination; the drag per train car is like a car running at 15 mph; the trains can run regularly, even every hour; and as per Vanderbilt's plan for steam boats, the trip could be extremely cheap or even free [since people are eating their meals on the train].
Looking here, one can see that the second greatest source of fraud in Australia seems to be the Netherlands.
However, what you refer to as Nigeria, would actually be the Nigerian spam, which most often involves some sort of "meet me in Amsterdam". Amsterdam, of course, is in the Netherlands.
According to the list, Hungary is on the list of fraud involving Australia, led by Czech Republic, Germany, and the Netherlands.
But as for that 55% statistic, I'm pretty sure he got it from here. Needless to say, if you see it on that site, and it is related at all to anything tech, you can be pretty sure it's correct.
If you want to send cash by post, buy a women's magazine (say Better Homemaking -- nothing with too many pics of underdressed women), carefully place a large bill between two of the dark, shiny advertising pages, and glue the pages together so that they look like one. Better, if you pick unnumbered pages.
The cash used to regularly disappear from international post: apparently, they'd hold it up to bright light or even X-ray it to see what it held. Nowadays, it's even legal for them to take it, because it's illegal for you to ship it, if they signed on to the "US Post standards" international treaty.
Don't consider it theft--consider that they are simply helping you follow the law. 8-a
Better things you can do: (1) e-gold.com, but you could lose it, and few people take it. (2) Western Union (3) a bank that has branches (not affililates) in two countries and internet payment. Even multiple banks like that, might be useful. I could see using Hansabank to transfer money from a country like Latvia to Poland, and then CitiBank to take it from Poland to America. (4) New way: Find a way to pair up dual export businesses that do internet business across the borders. Get them in touch with each other, so that they just credit each other's accounts whenever possible. Then latch on to those transactions.
Quite simply, Apple has less marketing; they tend to go for the larger markets (such as Poland, Austria, and Norway), and leave alone the smaller countries in between (such as Lithuania and Hungary). If you want an Apple in Lithuania, you can (1) go to the one store in Vilnius, place an order, and wait two weeks, or (2) Go to Warsaw on a bus, get your computer same day, and return.
Clearly, the Vilnius operator just consolidates #2 for those who don't want to go to Warsaw.
Aside from that, there are still the issues of international law, taxes, tariffs, and dealing with criminality. Quite simply, if you send something valuable through Lithuanian post, it has an excellent chance of disappearing, computer equipment especially. Apparantly international studies point one finger (bribes) at the Customs department, but local people say no, it's the post workers themselves. I myself am kindof divided on the issue: I don't really know where the stuff disappears, just that it definitely does. I also know that I had tons of trouble even getting stuff through UPS, and UPS did not even inform me that it was held up! I had to start calling around, asking pointed questions before I finally found the item, convinced them that there was no legal way to apply a tariff, and they then sent it on. Note that they did not even send a note asking the intended recipient for the product. It seems they were just going to delay it until a time limit ran out, and take it. And UPS did not seem to have any ability to help, except to tell me where in their system the package had disappeared.
But that being the case, there's not a lot of point in paying a 500% insurance rate on shipping. Maybe it's the same in Hungary.
What you say about trade and employment contracts would be true if there were no taxes. However, taxes represent the use of force to enforce trade and employment. That is, many people have/had enough land to farm it, and survive, but not enough to pay the taxes on it. Therefore, if they don't take a job with someone else, they [long story short] get stolen from, and eventually killed.
So trade and employment in real life are not voluntary, by your own definitions.
Those taxes, in turn, at least as far as income taxes go, and quite often as far as property taxes go, in turn were enforced on us by the same people that owned loads of wealth (and with whom we have our employment contracts), such as the banks.
JP Morgan and Rockefeller's Bank of Manhattan were major forces behind the Income Tax, practically sponsoring Knox's failed but perversely successful effort to impose an income tax amendment (very interesting story there: one of fraud, again force not voluntary).
But as a result, no trade, no employment contract is actually voluntary.
Here's a link. Actually, it would still be a touchy subject, because opinions are so strong on the issue.
As I said, it is a *very* slim majority for women's opinions, but it is there.
I suspect you're right that there's a significant undecided faction, but I also suspect that undecided faction is much smaller than you think. Because the issue is an issue of life, death, fear, and lifestyle, very few people who have even a slight leaning one way or another are going to say "undecided."
Anyhow, check out the news item.
Aside from that, though, that was a minor point in my overall statement. But I try to post truthfully, even on the minor points.
The quicksort is not the fastest. You want the heap sort (as described on www.nr.com), which at worst case gives you the Olog(N), and often does better.
There's another algorithm which does it as well --
Go through your cards by 2s, and compare and swap to put the low card on top. Then go through by 4s (1st 2 on the left, 2nd 2 on the right), compare top of left stack to top of right stack, and take low card. Again compare top of left to top of right, and take low card. If you use up a stack (left or right) stack remaining cards on bottom and continue.
Then go through by 8s, 16s, etc. Any leftovers just get stacked to the bottom.
This method, like the heap sort, has a worst case of Olog(n) compares, but is conceptually a tad easier, and you can test it out with a deck of cards.
I, too, really get into Olog(N) stuff. But I've found that the incremental value of this is minimal. If you want to publish it, I suggest doing it Don Lancaster style. Write some articles; once you have about 10 of them, get them published in a magazine, one per month, or maybe one every other month. Make it generate continuous income. Once you have 20 or so articles, republish them as a book, and so on.
You say that you should have time not to worry about being deluged with copycats. Can you say exactly why you think this? In the contrary position, let me point out:
(1) Copycats will still be copycats; people who aren't already tied to one of the copycaterers will tend to prefer your solution
(2) You will already have time not to worry about copycats: the development time that it takes the copycaterers to figure out your software.
(3) You already enjoy the fruits of your labor. If Microsoft, Oracle, and SCO are copycatering your work and your new sales are hurting, your obvious solution at that point is to sell out to one of them [that is, they get all your customers, but also have to work the merging of the two formats for the next version]. That way, you get your profit without further responsibility.
(4) If you think that there is some specific amount of time you should not have to worry about copycats, what exactly is that specific amount of time, and why exactly that amount? Why not a year more? Why not a year less?
(5) Patents are still not free market, and do damage the economy. They also most often make it difficult to enter the business, which keeps new jobs to a minimum.
Okay, you don't believe it. So why not do it for one system, study the perturbations, and then analyze the effect?
You might say "well then who's life shall we ruin?". But who's lives are being ruined right now? Name one country in which democracy is running well? If you can, I will happily grant that we should leave that country alone. But for any of the numerous examples where it isn't working, why not try? Why not see? If a democracy is marching towards dictator oblivion, why not change direction? Or is there something religiously sacrosanct about the word democracy, such that the meaning is unimportant?
Socialogical laws are not so restrictive or defined as physical laws, but they can still be studied and learned from.
I've put forward my theory. Rather than poo-pooing it without even looking at it, you might try instead looking for cases where such perturbations *have* occured, and then seee if maybe I am right, or if I am wrong, what would give the desired effect.
Point 1: they already KNOW that we don't like this. RT*A
Point 2: Politicians got into politics for power. Do you think they'll like this, or dislike it? Do you think they'll vote as YOU want, or as THEY want? Have you been reading about the EU and software patents?
Since when have you actually seen this in practice? Most people, most women even, are against abortions being legal -- and yet it is legal. Yes, that is a very small pleurality, but it is there. Let me try to bring it close to home: there is a huge outpouring of public animosity against software patents, but they are law in America, and soon to be law in Europe nonetheless.
As will be a European dictator [semi-permanent president], if I read the most recent news aright [uh, yeah, some comment by a 6-month rotating president about Nazis and films and a german convinced us. It really drove the last nail in the coffin. We really need a dictator.]
Excuse me, but that bit about "in the IS our government has no power but that which we let it take" is bull.
The Freemen of Montana, nuts though they were, actually believed that. Waco's wackos actually believed that. The Southern States actually believed that. The Chinese in Tianamin square actually believed that.
It's not a case of fat and lazy. Yes, there is fat and lazy, but those are the overlords. I, for one, am extremely thin, and it isn't because I go to a workout club. It's from running to and from work, and not eating a lot. Yesterday, our big meal was a bowl of rice, flavored with sausage and vegetables. Our evening meal was soup; my breakfast was oatmeal [rolled oats are cheap here]. Today, our big meal is leftover soup.
I was thinking yesterday, bemusedly, how when I was in college (I have a BS AOE), for World Hunger Day there was a dinner where people could purchase a ticket for $50..1% got lobster; something like 10% got pizza; 40% got a bowl of rice, 10% got nothing but a crust [I'm making these numbers up, I don't remember them.] It was supposed to be educational. Sorry, I didn't have the money to go myself, but I read about it, and I'm getting my education firsthand. I'm a tad above the 40% with rice, but not far.
The government is *NOT* just given powers that we give it. Rather, it's a case of the rule of injustice beginning anew [and first in people's hearts].
Corporations have plenty of inherent power. They can fire or hire employees; this gives them power to help or destroy families.
They can discontinue products, to encourage more sales. They then have the power of money, which is a transferable power.
They can and often do wage war against whole countries, and win: consider ITT vs. Allende, or the Brazillian lumber companies vs. the aboriginal tribes, or the oil companies vs. African nations. Or, arguably since the IMF is a branch of the world bank, which is really a company, consider the IMF vs. Kabila in Congo [in case you don't know, the general who essentially destroyed Kabila was the son of the IMF's representative to Zaire, and the war was essentially defined within 2 months on both ends by Kabila's not accepting, and then later accepting Mobutu's debt].
Companies have tons of power and inherent power, and they do abuse it.
However, the purpose of a democratic-style government is to create a non-violent battlefield where each power is represented according to its actual power. Leave a major power out, and it's going to engage in real war.
In this case, we've left $$$ off the battlefield, and therefore $$$ is taking down the entire government throughout most of the world, piece by piece. It happens through bribes, through donations, through purchased access to the media -- but it happens.
If you want to stop this from happening, offer corporations a direct, legitimate piece of the government. For example, auction off seats to a house that cannot create law, but can block any law, majority against majority, 2/3 vote against 2/3 vote. Each seat gets auctioned for 1 year, 365 seats, 1 per day, anyone can buy, and winner can name the *citizen* who sits on the seat -- once named, the citizen cannot be replaced until the next year, even if he dies. But the company can purchase more seats if it needs to.
Let me point out that the problem phrase is "security through obscurity". Both security and obscurity are useful.
Obscurity isn't hiding it in a vault somewhere in New York, and telling you to try to read the letter. Obscurity is when you don't want anyone to read the letter, and so you bury it in a vault and don't tell anyone.
But you can't depend on obscurity. You especially can't depend on obscurity if you're trying to sell a product. So if that's so, you'd better have security in addition to any obscurity you have.
Could you explain this? I have a high-end microphone [okay, signal in, not signal out], and it looks to me like its cable is thick enough that it's heavily shielded.
It then goes into a plug [again, probably shielded], and straight into the sound card [short wires, so inductive noise should be minimal, and card, so capacitive noise should be minimal].
Can you tell me where, exactly, that electrical noise gets in?
Real professionals [like myself] always use plumbing strap. No residue, not sticky, holds in high heat, stays strong forever, and no smell.
It also looks much more attractive than duct tape. I should know: in our VERY professional office, we have it holding the telephone to the wall, the chandelier in the meeting room from crashing down (well, just on the side near the door -- the other side is strong enough), and reinforcing the customer's chair, which is right below the chandelier.
Oh, and did I tell you I work at the NEWEST branch of the US Government, the DHS? We got all the budget we wanted, and we chose plumbing strap. That should tell you something.
One real mistake old-school businesses make is that they think they can just buy into a new industry, and it doesn't work like that.
Someone has to be boss, and either that boss knows widgets, or he knows the Zamf-service-industry.
His decisions then end up being good for end he knows, but bad for the other end, and the other end usually starts costing the industry money.
That kind of mistake usually takes a business down a notch from being two industry leaders and/or contenders, to being one company that is 5th or 6th in its field, and going nowhere.
If you're going to put it into such kinds of developement, it's far better just to hand the money out, and let people invest it where they will, keeping the knowledgeable management where it belongs.
Ford was incredibly smart not to get into the Parking industry. If they got into the Parking business, they'd first find that people were parking their Volkswagons and Mitsubishis there, anyways. Then, if they started towing and suing, they'd find that they were using Ford-level lawsuits for small-claims-court-level actions.
They'd also find that the publicity wasn't going the way they expected. Then there'd be the issue of when to upgrade the parking lots ("Are we sure we want our name on THAT ugly thing?" "Well, you're the boss, but it's cheaper than repaving every year") and so on.
Pure speculation? Well, yes and no. These mergers do happen all the time: Compaq and HP, for example. It is an excellent way for two A companies, as their business is failing, to become a single B level company with an amount of business that is close to bottoming out.
Let me point this out: Bill's money comes from the way he plays the game. He's either going to play this game, or he's going to play a different game.
Whatever game he plays, he's probably going to win, because that's how he plays. [There are games that are probably more worthwhile to win, but they involve God and Heaven. For earthbound games, he's chosen pretty well.]
Now, it may be that he's going to have to pay mega taxes, and maybe in the process he'll bail our government out sortof. [Please don't, Bill. It's like helping an alchoholic escape his consequences. Sometimes a government needs to fall.]
Or maybe he's going to find a way to duck the taxes, the way most wealthy people can.
Maybe he feels that SCO isn't working out, and Linux is eventually going to win its game. In that case, he may be dropping out of the game before it becomes a game he can't win.
Maybe he wants to get out no matter what the cost, but feels that he owes the *other* stockholders something. So his exit will be "here's the dividends, it's been fun, see ya all later."
Honestly, we don't know what is going to happen. But I would argue that if there is a major dividend coming, then the only way it will affect you is if you have Microsoft stock. Then the effect will be that you get a chunk of money, but then the value of the stock decreases. Whether you win out or lose out is anyone's guess, but my guess would be that you'll do fairly well.
First, you'll have to forgive me -- I don't have a copy of either book here with me. So my quotes aren't quotes. However...
Eyes of the Dragon: Randall Flagg certainly was old; he had advised the king, and his father. Some said that he was as old as the country; others claimed that no, he was the country; while yet others said he was only a symbol of the country.
Both stories: Flagg doesn't do the bad things himself, for the most part. Rather, he gets others to do evil "in the name of [the] Flagg". I threw the "The" in there, in brackets, myself.
There's about 30 or 40 major languages [dialects of English, if you will] in America, and some of them [including the good ol' boy wes'rn vajenya accent, and therefore probably the directly related Texas accent] pronounce nuclear nu-cue-lar [that's a, not e in "lar"] as a matter of choice.
I rather suspect that George is trying to show that he's just one of the boys when he says nu-cue-lar. In my opinion, not dumb at all, not any dumber than Clinton. He probably also takes an occasion pinch of chaw every now and then, too.
All this was referenced in the commic strip Kudzu [the one with Reverand Will B. Dunn] back in the George II-Clinton election and "The Attack of the Faux Bubbas".
I still say he isn't dumb. Not inspired (well, definitely), but also definitely not dumb. He knows pretty well what he's doing at every stage in the game.
Slashdot Mirror
omitted mention of Linux. That way, users who are not tech-savvy can't be sure that Linux is safe.
Sounds to me like they were completely fair. Of course that's not a journalistic conspiracy involving Microsoft and the NYT. Could not happen, categorically impossible. I never gave it a second thought. Our journalistic 5th Estate is as honest as our courts and our politicians.
Are you saying that if you got electric coaches, computerized docking, computerized back-checking, so that it was like a citywide light-rail system, that the union would still demand high wages?
For this application, electric is good enough, because the basic run for one set of batteries is only one station-to-station hop. Of course, whereever possible, you can include other energy sources, but
Electric trains *shouldn't* need highly skilled engineers to drive them. The days of steam engines is done. They should need, essentially, bus drivers.
That being the case, the other question is whether this is union thugs saying "you can't open for business." Fine. If I ever have a chance to do this I'll start it in a country where it is legal. That said, I suspect that the same problem that keeps a person from starting up such a rail system is also why I can show that I *saved* my customer over $200000 this year, and every year produce a top-selling book, but my "share" is less than $25000. Justice isn't to be had. Therefore, I don't have the assets to start something like this up.
So essentially, I think your response boils down to "justice isn't to be had, so no, you couldn't do it."
Okay, I'll buy that. But the economy is crashing, and the starving masses won't support the government forever. Sooner or later, the vandals come through, and the slaves walk. Then, after that, you get the renaissance. Somewhere else.
I venture to ask, why not buy a two-way satellite uplink? The latency is bad, but once you get the data flow going, it really flies.
Of course, now we can watch the economy crash as the Vikings destroy the last infrastructure...
You don't need to go at high mach speeds. High mach is expensive and dangerous in closed quarters; vacuum is also expensive. I've thought about this one, in terms of running railrods in America profitably.
All you need to do is have the train cars be dynamically linkable. I mean, you get on a train at the station. It goes out ahead of the main train coming in, and then slows down to link. Each car, then has a destination. The door opens, and you walk back to your destination car [for freight, you'd need standardized packages, and onboard computerized conveyors.]
You sit down, order a meal [which comes with the next car]; each car has its own driver, so for a 5-car train, that means that the most recent addition's driver is driving the train; the others function now as security and wait staff.
Eventually, your car drops off the back of the train, and then delivers you to your destination.
The train, thus, never stops rolling at approximately 60 mph; you make a nonstop trip to your destination; the drag per train car is like a car running at 15 mph; the trains can run regularly, even every hour; and as per Vanderbilt's plan for steam boats, the trip could be extremely cheap or even free [since people are eating their meals on the train].
Looking here, one can see that the second greatest source of fraud in Australia seems to be the Netherlands.
However, what you refer to as Nigeria, would actually be the Nigerian spam, which most often involves some sort of "meet me in Amsterdam". Amsterdam, of course, is in the Netherlands.
So arguably, you could be right.
According to the list, Hungary is on the list of fraud involving Australia, led by Czech Republic, Germany, and the Netherlands.
But as for that 55% statistic, I'm pretty sure he got it from here. Needless to say, if you see it on that site, and it is related at all to anything tech, you can be pretty sure it's correct.
If you want to send cash by post, buy a women's magazine (say Better Homemaking -- nothing with too many pics of underdressed women), carefully place a large bill between two of the dark, shiny advertising pages, and glue the pages together so that they look like one. Better, if you pick unnumbered pages.
The cash used to regularly disappear from international post: apparently, they'd hold it up to bright light or even X-ray it to see what it held. Nowadays, it's even legal for them to take it, because it's illegal for you to ship it, if they signed on to the "US Post standards" international treaty.
Don't consider it theft--consider that they are simply helping you follow the law. 8-a
Better things you can do: (1) e-gold.com, but you could lose it, and few people take it. (2) Western Union (3) a bank that has branches (not affililates) in two countries and internet payment. Even multiple banks like that, might be useful. I could see using Hansabank to transfer money from a country like Latvia to Poland, and then CitiBank to take it from Poland to America. (4) New way: Find a way to pair up dual export businesses that do internet business across the borders. Get them in touch with each other, so that they just credit each other's accounts whenever possible. Then latch on to those transactions.
Quite simply, Apple has less marketing; they tend to go for the larger markets (such as Poland, Austria, and Norway), and leave alone the smaller countries in between (such as Lithuania and Hungary). If you want an Apple in Lithuania, you can (1) go to the one store in Vilnius, place an order, and wait two weeks, or (2) Go to Warsaw on a bus, get your computer same day, and return.
Clearly, the Vilnius operator just consolidates #2 for those who don't want to go to Warsaw.
Aside from that, there are still the issues of international law, taxes, tariffs, and dealing with criminality. Quite simply, if you send something valuable through Lithuanian post, it has an excellent chance of disappearing, computer equipment especially. Apparantly international studies point one finger (bribes) at the Customs department, but local people say no, it's the post workers themselves. I myself am kindof divided on the issue: I don't really know where the stuff disappears, just that it definitely does. I also know that I had tons of trouble even getting stuff through UPS, and UPS did not even inform me that it was held up! I had to start calling around, asking pointed questions before I finally found the item, convinced them that there was no legal way to apply a tariff, and they then sent it on. Note that they did not even send a note asking the intended recipient for the product. It seems they were just going to delay it until a time limit ran out, and take it. And UPS did not seem to have any ability to help, except to tell me where in their system the package had disappeared.
But that being the case, there's not a lot of point in paying a 500% insurance rate on shipping. Maybe it's the same in Hungary.
What you say about trade and employment contracts would be true if there were no taxes. However, taxes represent the use of force to enforce trade and employment. That is, many people have/had enough land to farm it, and survive, but not enough to pay the taxes on it. Therefore, if they don't take a job with someone else, they [long story short] get stolen from, and eventually killed.
So trade and employment in real life are not voluntary, by your own definitions.
Those taxes, in turn, at least as far as income taxes go, and quite often as far as property taxes go, in turn were enforced on us by the same people that owned loads of wealth (and with whom we have our employment contracts), such as the banks.
JP Morgan and Rockefeller's Bank of Manhattan were major forces behind the Income Tax, practically sponsoring Knox's failed but perversely successful effort to impose an income tax amendment (very interesting story there: one of fraud, again force not voluntary).
But as a result, no trade, no employment contract is actually voluntary.
Here's a link. Actually, it would still be a touchy subject, because opinions are so strong on the issue.
As I said, it is a *very* slim majority for women's opinions, but it is there.
I suspect you're right that there's a significant undecided faction, but I also suspect that undecided faction is much smaller than you think. Because the issue is an issue of life, death, fear, and lifestyle, very few people who have even a slight leaning one way or another are going to say "undecided."
Anyhow, check out the news item.
Aside from that, though, that was a minor point in my overall statement. But I try to post truthfully, even on the minor points.
Here's a link.
As I said, it is a *very* slim majority for women's opinions, but it is there.
The quicksort is not the fastest. You want the heap sort (as described on www.nr.com), which at worst case gives you the Olog(N), and often does better.
There's another algorithm which does it as well --
Go through your cards by 2s, and compare and swap to put the low card on top. Then go through by 4s (1st 2 on the left, 2nd 2 on the right), compare top of left stack to top of right stack, and take low card. Again compare top of left to top of right, and take low card. If you use up a stack (left or right) stack remaining cards on bottom and continue.
Then go through by 8s, 16s, etc. Any leftovers just get stacked to the bottom.
This method, like the heap sort, has a worst case of Olog(n) compares, but is conceptually a tad easier, and you can test it out with a deck of cards.
I, too, really get into Olog(N) stuff. But I've found that the incremental value of this is minimal. If you want to publish it, I suggest doing it Don Lancaster style. Write some articles; once you have about 10 of them, get them published in a magazine, one per month, or maybe one every other month. Make it generate continuous income. Once you have 20 or so articles, republish them as a book, and so on.
You say that you should have time not to worry about being deluged with copycats. Can you say exactly why you think this? In the contrary position, let me point out:
(1) Copycats will still be copycats; people who aren't already tied to one of the copycaterers will tend to prefer your solution
(2) You will already have time not to worry about copycats: the development time that it takes the copycaterers to figure out your software.
(3) You already enjoy the fruits of your labor. If Microsoft, Oracle, and SCO are copycatering your work and your new sales are hurting, your obvious solution at that point is to sell out to one of them [that is, they get all your customers, but also have to work the merging of the two formats for the next version]. That way, you get your profit without further responsibility.
(4) If you think that there is some specific amount of time you should not have to worry about copycats, what exactly is that specific amount of time, and why exactly that amount? Why not a year more? Why not a year less?
(5) Patents are still not free market, and do damage the economy. They also most often make it difficult to enter the business, which keeps new jobs to a minimum.
Okay, you don't believe it. So why not do it for one system, study the perturbations, and then analyze the effect?
You might say "well then who's life shall we ruin?". But who's lives are being ruined right now? Name one country in which democracy is running well? If you can, I will happily grant that we should leave that country alone. But for any of the numerous examples where it isn't working, why not try? Why not see? If a democracy is marching towards dictator oblivion, why not change direction? Or is there something religiously sacrosanct about the word democracy, such that the meaning is unimportant?
Socialogical laws are not so restrictive or defined as physical laws, but they can still be studied and learned from.
I've put forward my theory. Rather than poo-pooing it without even looking at it, you might try instead looking for cases where such perturbations *have* occured, and then seee if maybe I am right, or if I am wrong, what would give the desired effect.
... then I have another question for you.
Who's got more lobbying power with the AARP? You? Or Walmart/Sears/Kmart/Target/Asda/Tesco?
Give you a hint: ________________
Point 1: they already KNOW that we don't like this. RT*A
Point 2: Politicians got into politics for power. Do you think they'll like this, or dislike it? Do you think they'll vote as YOU want, or as THEY want? Have you been reading about the EU and software patents?
Since when have you actually seen this in practice? Most people, most women even, are against abortions being legal -- and yet it is legal. Yes, that is a very small pleurality, but it is there. Let me try to bring it close to home: there is a huge outpouring of public animosity against software patents, but they are law in America, and soon to be law in Europe nonetheless.
.1% got lobster; something like 10% got pizza; 40% got a bowl of rice, 10% got nothing but a crust [I'm making these numbers up, I don't remember them.] It was supposed to be educational. Sorry, I didn't have the money to go myself, but I read about it, and I'm getting my education firsthand. I'm a tad above the 40% with rice, but not far.
As will be a European dictator [semi-permanent president], if I read the most recent news aright [uh, yeah, some comment by a 6-month rotating president about Nazis and films and a german convinced us. It really drove the last nail in the coffin. We really need a dictator.]
Excuse me, but that bit about "in the IS our government has no power but that which we let it take" is bull.
The Freemen of Montana, nuts though they were, actually believed that. Waco's wackos actually believed that. The Southern States actually believed that. The Chinese in Tianamin square actually believed that.
It's not a case of fat and lazy. Yes, there is fat and lazy, but those are the overlords. I, for one, am extremely thin, and it isn't because I go to a workout club. It's from running to and from work, and not eating a lot. Yesterday, our big meal was a bowl of rice, flavored with sausage and vegetables. Our evening meal was soup; my breakfast was oatmeal [rolled oats are cheap here]. Today, our big meal is leftover soup.
I was thinking yesterday, bemusedly, how when I was in college (I have a BS AOE), for World Hunger Day there was a dinner where people could purchase a ticket for $50.
The government is *NOT* just given powers that we give it. Rather, it's a case of the rule of injustice beginning anew [and first in people's hearts].
Corporations have plenty of inherent power. They can fire or hire employees; this gives them power to help or destroy families.
They can discontinue products, to encourage more sales. They then have the power of money, which is a transferable power.
They can and often do wage war against whole countries, and win: consider ITT vs. Allende, or the Brazillian lumber companies vs. the aboriginal tribes, or the oil companies vs. African nations. Or, arguably since the IMF is a branch of the world bank, which is really a company, consider the IMF vs. Kabila in Congo [in case you don't know, the general who essentially destroyed Kabila was the son of the IMF's representative to Zaire, and the war was essentially defined within 2 months on both ends by Kabila's not accepting, and then later accepting Mobutu's debt].
Companies have tons of power and inherent power, and they do abuse it.
However, the purpose of a democratic-style government is to create a non-violent battlefield where each power is represented according to its actual power. Leave a major power out, and it's going to engage in real war.
In this case, we've left $$$ off the battlefield, and therefore $$$ is taking down the entire government throughout most of the world, piece by piece. It happens through bribes, through donations, through purchased access to the media -- but it happens.
If you want to stop this from happening, offer corporations a direct, legitimate piece of the government. For example, auction off seats to a house that cannot create law, but can block any law, majority against majority, 2/3 vote against 2/3 vote. Each seat gets auctioned for 1 year, 365 seats, 1 per day, anyone can buy, and winner can name the *citizen* who sits on the seat -- once named, the citizen cannot be replaced until the next year, even if he dies. But the company can purchase more seats if it needs to.
Let me point out that the problem phrase is "security through obscurity". Both security and obscurity are useful.
Obscurity isn't hiding it in a vault somewhere in New York, and telling you to try to read the letter. Obscurity is when you don't want anyone to read the letter, and so you bury it in a vault and don't tell anyone.
But you can't depend on obscurity. You especially can't depend on obscurity if you're trying to sell a product. So if that's so, you'd better have security in addition to any obscurity you have.
Could you explain this? I have a high-end microphone [okay, signal in, not signal out], and it looks to me like its cable is thick enough that it's heavily shielded.
It then goes into a plug [again, probably shielded], and straight into the sound card [short wires, so inductive noise should be minimal, and card, so capacitive noise should be minimal].
Can you tell me where, exactly, that electrical noise gets in?
Real professionals [like myself] always use plumbing strap. No residue, not sticky, holds in high heat, stays strong forever, and no smell.
It also looks much more attractive than duct tape. I should know: in our VERY professional office, we have it holding the telephone to the wall, the chandelier in the meeting room from crashing down (well, just on the side near the door -- the other side is strong enough), and reinforcing the customer's chair, which is right below the chandelier.
Oh, and did I tell you I work at the NEWEST branch of the US Government, the DHS? We got all the budget we wanted, and we chose plumbing strap. That should tell you something.
One real mistake old-school businesses make is that they think they can just buy into a new industry, and it doesn't work like that.
Someone has to be boss, and either that boss knows widgets, or he knows the Zamf-service-industry.
His decisions then end up being good for end he knows, but bad for the other end, and the other end usually starts costing the industry money.
That kind of mistake usually takes a business down a notch from being two industry leaders and/or contenders, to being one company that is 5th or 6th in its field, and going nowhere.
If you're going to put it into such kinds of developement, it's far better just to hand the money out, and let people invest it where they will, keeping the knowledgeable management where it belongs.
Ford was incredibly smart not to get into the Parking industry. If they got into the Parking business, they'd first find that people were parking their Volkswagons and Mitsubishis there, anyways. Then, if they started towing and suing, they'd find that they were using Ford-level lawsuits for small-claims-court-level actions.
They'd also find that the publicity wasn't going the way they expected. Then there'd be the issue of when to upgrade the parking lots ("Are we sure we want our name on THAT ugly thing?" "Well, you're the boss, but it's cheaper than repaving every year") and so on.
Pure speculation? Well, yes and no. These mergers do happen all the time: Compaq and HP, for example. It is an excellent way for two A companies, as their business is failing, to become a single B level company with an amount of business that is close to bottoming out.
Let me point this out: Bill's money comes from the way he plays the game. He's either going to play this game, or he's going to play a different game.
Whatever game he plays, he's probably going to win, because that's how he plays. [There are games that are probably more worthwhile to win, but they involve God and Heaven. For earthbound games, he's chosen pretty well.]
Now, it may be that he's going to have to pay mega taxes, and maybe in the process he'll bail our government out sortof. [Please don't, Bill. It's like helping an alchoholic escape his consequences. Sometimes a government needs to fall.]
Or maybe he's going to find a way to duck the taxes, the way most wealthy people can.
Maybe he feels that SCO isn't working out, and Linux is eventually going to win its game. In that case, he may be dropping out of the game before it becomes a game he can't win.
Maybe he wants to get out no matter what the cost, but feels that he owes the *other* stockholders something. So his exit will be "here's the dividends, it's been fun, see ya all later."
Honestly, we don't know what is going to happen. But I would argue that if there is a major dividend coming, then the only way it will affect you is if you have Microsoft stock. Then the effect will be that you get a chunk of money, but then the value of the stock decreases. Whether you win out or lose out is anyone's guess, but my guess would be that you'll do fairly well.
First, you'll have to forgive me -- I don't have a copy of either book here with me. So my quotes aren't quotes. However...
Eyes of the Dragon: Randall Flagg certainly was old; he had advised the king, and his father. Some said that he was as old as the country; others claimed that no, he was the country; while yet others said he was only a symbol of the country.
Both stories: Flagg doesn't do the bad things himself, for the most part. Rather, he gets others to do evil "in the name of [the] Flagg". I threw the "The" in there, in brackets, myself.
That's for starters.
Can't? Or chooses not to?
There's about 30 or 40 major languages [dialects of English, if you will] in America, and some of them [including the good ol' boy wes'rn vajenya accent, and therefore probably the directly related Texas accent] pronounce nuclear nu-cue-lar [that's a, not e in "lar"] as a matter of choice.
I rather suspect that George is trying to show that he's just one of the boys when he says nu-cue-lar. In my opinion, not dumb at all, not any dumber than Clinton. He probably also takes an occasion pinch of chaw every now and then, too.
All this was referenced in the commic strip Kudzu [the one with Reverand Will B. Dunn] back in the George II-Clinton election and "The Attack of the Faux Bubbas".
I still say he isn't dumb. Not inspired (well, definitely), but also definitely not dumb. He knows pretty well what he's doing at every stage in the game.