While the Church is a church of forgiveness, it is not a Church of forgetfulness. The Church can decide not to punish a molesting priest, but it should realize that it has a problem with that priest and should not let that priest around children again.
This is a slight segue, but I think it's a point that needs to be made. The Catholic church arrogates to itself the ability to forgive sins on behalf of God. But just because God forgives you doesn't mean the act has been dealt with. When you do something wrong (like molest a child), you're violating a whole host of relationships - between you and the child (sexual abuse), you and the child's parents (abuse of trust), you and the wider community (breaking the law) as well as between you and God (violating His commandments).
Just because you have made your relationship with God right doesn't mean that you have also dealt with the breaches between you and the child, the parents, or the community. You find this all the way through the Bible; when someone repents from their sin, they don't just ask for forgiveness from God but also take action to make amends to their victims. This is where the Catholic church really failed; not that it forgave offenders, but that it also conspired in preventing true restitution being made.
Ok, let's see how many Calvinists we have on Slashdot...
God interceding constantly in human affairs is contrary to free will. What would you rather, a god who lets humans make their own choices, and then suffer the consequences, or a god who makes choices for humanity for their own good? Alternatively, a god who lets human makes their own choices, and then takes the consequences away? Even God's ultimate plan involved human choice - people aren't compelled to accept Jesus' sacrifice. Evil happens because people make the wrong choice*. Being able to make the wrong choice is part and parcel of free will.
Also, I'd be reluctant at saying a god whose standard is absolute perfection should be killing people who aren't up to snuff.
There's also the case of perspective; in Christian theology, God's plan for humanity involves eternal life. A lifetime of suffering seems terrible now, but if you're going to live for an eternity after, it'll probably seem insignificant then.
*Some cases (like your example) are obvious. According to Christian theology, "natural" evil (earthquakes, tornadoes, etc) are due to the fall, which basically caused the world to suck - and the fall was also a case of human free will.
Every time I try to use Facebook, I get driven away by the behavior of its users. Not the Instagram dinner plate updates, or the personal drama, because I've already filtered out those people.
It's the sensitivity. People take anything seriously. I posted an article showing that divorce really screws up kids. I got back a half-dozen replies, all from people who'd had divorces, defending their own decisions. When I said that it wasn't personal, they said they still felt attacked.
You realize that the people "on Facebook" in this regard are your friends? You post an article, it's your friends who comment on it. What you're complaining about isn't Facebook's userbase in general, but that subset of it that you consider your friends. For what it's worth, I've had extended political and religious (basically the two most flamebait-y topics possible) discussions on Facebook where most people remained civil and presented reasoned arguments (and the few who didn't were just ignored). That's because I've surrounded myself with people who appreciate civility and reason as much as I do.
Facebook's an enabler, with the usual GIGO provision. You put garbage friends in, you get garbage discussion out.
Yeah. But when you address one, the issue shifts to another; when you address that, suddenly you're arguing about the next. Moving goalposts. Although I notice there are far you form-factor fragmentation arguments now that Apple's got at least three different form-factors under their belt...
Trying to argue about fragmentation with people attacking Android is a losing battle. "Fragmentation" means there's too many different hardware form-factors. No, it means too many vendor-specific UIs. No, it means that we need to support multiple OS versions. No, it means that we can't guarantee what security patches have been applied.
Bah, from where I'm sitting, "fragmentation" means nothing more than "I don't like it" - a way of disparaging choice from those who don't want it.
If a foreign government agency had spent years gathering data, and was mining it for undisclosed (possibly nefarious) purposes, It would be known as a dangerous spy network, would be subjected to infiltration/corruption and possible attack.
Yes, because foreign government spy networks consist of putting up a webpage and saying "Hey, everyone, send us stuff you don't want people to know".
Probably not. I can type my mis-spelt Shakespeare quote of a passphrase faster than I can type an obtuse non-alphanumeric-laden password, because I'm far better at typing English sentences than I am weird symbol sequences.
It's not a Trojan Horse if you leave a note on the side saying: "This horse is full of armed Greek warriors. By bringing this horse into your city, you also agree to allow said warriors to kill and pillage any and all occupants of the afore-mentioned city". Either that, or the Trojans just didn't have good lawyers.
I started mine with a credit card, and some personal loans.
Well, I'm glad you certainly never went "begging for money" then, and that people weren't giving you money when you didn't have a product.
If you aren't willing to put your own personal assets on the line, and nobody else is willing to put their assets on the line, then yes, it's probably either a bad idea, or the people starting it are incompetent.
So, a Kickstarter user's money doesn't count as an asset. It's only a real business if you run the risk of your parents' losing their house when you fail.
Begging for money before there is a product or service and promising to deliver (maybe) is called a hand-out.
What product or service did you have before you got your credit card and loan again? Why did you get those lines of credit? Could it possibly have been on the promise to deliver (maybe) interest on the loan?
It takes an extra low IQ to give money to people in exchange for a non-legally binding promise of goods or services.
Damn straight. That's why I never exercise generosity. It's a sign of a low IQ.
I admire a person who starts a plumbing business. Or a gas station. Or a cleaning service. Or a restaurant.
Surprise, surprise. It was funded, at least in part, by Kickstarter. Kickstarter businesses, by definition, are almost always going to be the worst of the worst simply because of the nature of funding.
So what you're saying is the nature of the funding determines the quality of a venture? Not the product, not the experience of the people running it, the funding source. Why not check the tea-leaves or the entrails of your pet chook?
The company founders couldn't borrow the money, they couldn't get anybody to invest
Assumption. it is not necessary to seek other types of funding before going to Kickstarter
begging for handouts
It's not a hand-out when you're getting something in return. I guess companies like Rockstar and Bioware are asking for handouts when they offer pre-orders too?
from the clueless general public
Unlike you educated business types. Glad to see elitism is alive and well.
Personally, I see it as a real karmic kick in the ass to the people starting these "projects" every time one falls over.
You enjoy seeing other people fail because they didn't sell their soul to a banker to finance a new idea. Gotcha.
however, then i'm reminded of people like the dentist last year who (in an anti-tax interview) said they'd stop working right each year right before they made enough to be pushed into a higher tax bracket because they didn't want their rate going up and costing them a lot more money
I didn't see the interview, so I can't comment on what was actually said, just on your report on it. But that seems entirely probably to me. Obviously, going into the next tax bracket doesn't cost you money overall (you will still have more money than you did before you went over it) but it will increase the cost-per-dollar earned. It's entirely feasible that it would push the cost-per-dollar up to a point where working more just isn't a good deal. Just think - if, at the start of the year, you were earning $300 a day (no tax), but by the end of the year you were earning only $150 for the same amount of work, wouldn't you be tempted to just call it quits and take a holiday?
Personally, when I was a student, I used to work as an electoral official during election season. The job ran from 8:00am to whenever the votes where counted - usually between 10:00pm and midnight, and paid about $400. Now, because I'm earning more and this work would be taxed in my highest bracket, the same amount of work would earn me $250. Result? I'm working less to avoid tax. It's not that working more is going to cost me money, but taxation drops the reward for my time down to a point where it's not worth me doing it. In other words, I stop working because I'm in a high rate, and it would cost me a lot of money.
International distribution, download infrastructure
No. These two are the same thing, and trivial.
many millions of potential clients for the vendor
No. these are in-app purchases. The only potential clients are those who the vendor has already got to install the app
ease of installation
No. In-app purchases - installation is entirely managed by the vendor
a (pretty much) secure environment for the users
That's not a service provided to the vendor
You can argue that MS can feasibly provide the same on its own
No, you can't because Apply will not let them, and will pull their app if they attempt to do it themselves. That's the whole problem. There'd be no issue if Apply offered up their system as an option, but what they're forcing it as the only option. Payment services is pretty much the only thing of value you listed, and they're demanding for a 30% cut for that - an order of magnitude more than regular payment processors.
But boo hoo, MS has to pay what everyone else does to Apple for the service.
Not crying over no special treatment for MS here, but this is hardly a "service". Apple's providing nothing. This is rent-seeking of the most obvious kind. The only service Apple's offering is not pulling your app from the store. Sort of like how your local gangster provides the service of not burning down your establishment.
One of the problems with Capitalism is it can force Managers to compete with each other to screw everyone; their employee's, customers and ultimately the environment; the best. The classic method of constraining it has always been to involve government.
The result of this was a "general strike" and hundreds of laborers unionizing overnight as everyone came to the realization they were putting up with something they aught not to put up with.
This isn't an example of government intervention; this is an example of capitalism working. Unionisation isn't anti-capitalistic; governmental backing of unionisation (making use of strikebreakers illegal, etc) may be anti-capitalist, but no more than governmental backing of companies (LLCs, laws promulgated via lobbyists, etc).
That's your selling point? "Come to the US, it's better than Somalia, Lybia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, most of Africa and large sections of rural Asia!"
The Capitalist lie is more insidious, because it's more personal. "Work hard, and you can be rich too".
Looking around at the standard of living in Western countries, it looks like it's pretty much true - you just have a skewed version of what "rich" means. I don't know anyone who works a full week of work who can't afford a house, food, entertainment and gadgets. Sure, the house may not be a massive waterfront mansion; the food may not be gourmet, and they might not have the latest version gadgets, but "work hard and you will prosper" (which is a much more reasonable rendering of the premise of capitalism) seems like it's being fulfilled almost everywhere I can see.
Sure, there are some people whose labour turns out to be worth a lot more than others, sometimes through brilliance, sometimes through a lucky break, and more often a combination of the two, and there's that unfortunate accretive property of capital, but neither of those change the fact that people who are living in countries that abide by capitalist principles (you are rewarded for what you do) as opposed to feudal (you are rewarded for who your parents are) or communist (you are rewarded for existing) tend to live well.
Slashdot Mirror
While the Church is a church of forgiveness, it is not a Church of forgetfulness. The Church can decide not to punish a molesting priest, but it should realize that it has a problem with that priest and should not let that priest around children again.
This is a slight segue, but I think it's a point that needs to be made. The Catholic church arrogates to itself the ability to forgive sins on behalf of God. But just because God forgives you doesn't mean the act has been dealt with. When you do something wrong (like molest a child), you're violating a whole host of relationships - between you and the child (sexual abuse), you and the child's parents (abuse of trust), you and the wider community (breaking the law) as well as between you and God (violating His commandments).
Just because you have made your relationship with God right doesn't mean that you have also dealt with the breaches between you and the child, the parents, or the community. You find this all the way through the Bible; when someone repents from their sin, they don't just ask for forgiveness from God but also take action to make amends to their victims. This is where the Catholic church really failed; not that it forgave offenders, but that it also conspired in preventing true restitution being made.
Ok, let's see how many Calvinists we have on Slashdot...
God interceding constantly in human affairs is contrary to free will. What would you rather, a god who lets humans make their own choices, and then suffer the consequences, or a god who makes choices for humanity for their own good? Alternatively, a god who lets human makes their own choices, and then takes the consequences away? Even God's ultimate plan involved human choice - people aren't compelled to accept Jesus' sacrifice. Evil happens because people make the wrong choice*. Being able to make the wrong choice is part and parcel of free will.
Also, I'd be reluctant at saying a god whose standard is absolute perfection should be killing people who aren't up to snuff.
There's also the case of perspective; in Christian theology, God's plan for humanity involves eternal life. A lifetime of suffering seems terrible now, but if you're going to live for an eternity after, it'll probably seem insignificant then.
*Some cases (like your example) are obvious. According to Christian theology, "natural" evil (earthquakes, tornadoes, etc) are due to the fall, which basically caused the world to suck - and the fall was also a case of human free will.
Neither of those options is something that Fedora will do
Google does things their way and is not going to change that for someone else
Looks like Google's not the only one.
You should be lucky that we even bother "selling" it to you anyway for all the good plastic Monopoly money is worth.
...which was the more than the US' paper money was worth, last time I checked.
only has
are fairly common
Different criteria.
Had a really hot summer? Boy, this global warming has gotten bad, it's going to wipe out humanity in a decade.
Terrible winter? Man, I'm tired of all those global warming alarmists - I wish it WAS warming!
BTW, it's called "climate change" now, so you can blame both events on it.
Lucky you; we've got 226 over here.
Yeah. You know what else is useless? Weekends. What's up with that crap. I mean, abolish them, and we could work 7 days a week. Woot!
No its not; China isn't officially a federation, therefore it doesn't have a federal government, or federal holidays.
Every time I try to use Facebook, I get driven away by the behavior of its users. Not the Instagram dinner plate updates, or the personal drama, because I've already filtered out those people.
It's the sensitivity. People take anything seriously. I posted an article showing that divorce really screws up kids. I got back a half-dozen replies, all from people who'd had divorces, defending their own decisions. When I said that it wasn't personal, they said they still felt attacked.
You realize that the people "on Facebook" in this regard are your friends? You post an article, it's your friends who comment on it. What you're complaining about isn't Facebook's userbase in general, but that subset of it that you consider your friends. For what it's worth, I've had extended political and religious (basically the two most flamebait-y topics possible) discussions on Facebook where most people remained civil and presented reasoned arguments (and the few who didn't were just ignored). That's because I've surrounded myself with people who appreciate civility and reason as much as I do.
Facebook's an enabler, with the usual GIGO provision. You put garbage friends in, you get garbage discussion out.
Yeah. But when you address one, the issue shifts to another; when you address that, suddenly you're arguing about the next. Moving goalposts. Although I notice there are far you form-factor fragmentation arguments now that Apple's got at least three different form-factors under their belt...
Trying to argue about fragmentation with people attacking Android is a losing battle. "Fragmentation" means there's too many different hardware form-factors. No, it means too many vendor-specific UIs. No, it means that we need to support multiple OS versions. No, it means that we can't guarantee what security patches have been applied.
Bah, from where I'm sitting, "fragmentation" means nothing more than "I don't like it" - a way of disparaging choice from those who don't want it.
No, that's plagiarism. Real work is much more complex. :-P
Hey, it's real work - the GPs actually Germany's new Education Minister.
If a foreign government agency had spent years gathering data, and was mining it for undisclosed (possibly nefarious) purposes, It would be known as a dangerous spy network, would be subjected to infiltration/corruption and possible attack.
Yes, because foreign government spy networks consist of putting up a webpage and saying "Hey, everyone, send us stuff you don't want people to know".
Probably not. I can type my mis-spelt Shakespeare quote of a passphrase faster than I can type an obtuse non-alphanumeric-laden password, because I'm far better at typing English sentences than I am weird symbol sequences.
It's not a Trojan Horse if you leave a note on the side saying: "This horse is full of armed Greek warriors. By bringing this horse into your city, you also agree to allow said warriors to kill and pillage any and all occupants of the afore-mentioned city". Either that, or the Trojans just didn't have good lawyers.
I started mine with a credit card, and some personal loans.
Well, I'm glad you certainly never went "begging for money" then, and that people weren't giving you money when you didn't have a product.
If you aren't willing to put your own personal assets on the line, and nobody else is willing to put their assets on the line, then yes, it's probably either a bad idea, or the people starting it are incompetent.
So, a Kickstarter user's money doesn't count as an asset. It's only a real business if you run the risk of your parents' losing their house when you fail.
Begging for money before there is a product or service and promising to deliver (maybe) is called a hand-out.
What product or service did you have before you got your credit card and loan again? Why did you get those lines of credit? Could it possibly have been on the promise to deliver (maybe) interest on the loan?
It takes an extra low IQ to give money to people in exchange for a non-legally binding promise of goods or services.
Damn straight. That's why I never exercise generosity. It's a sign of a low IQ.
I admire a person who starts a plumbing business. Or a gas station. Or a cleaning service. Or a restaurant.
As long as they don't run a Kickstarter to start their project. Then they deserve to be laughed at as beggars and failures.
Flamebait "study" provokes flames. News at eleven. I'm waiting for the next study showing the correlation climate alarmism and being a poo-poo head.
Surprise, surprise. It was funded, at least in part, by Kickstarter. Kickstarter businesses, by definition, are almost always going to be the worst of the worst simply because of the nature of funding.
So what you're saying is the nature of the funding determines the quality of a venture? Not the product, not the experience of the people running it, the funding source. Why not check the tea-leaves or the entrails of your pet chook?
The company founders couldn't borrow the money, they couldn't get anybody to invest
Assumption. it is not necessary to seek other types of funding before going to Kickstarter
begging for handouts
It's not a hand-out when you're getting something in return. I guess companies like Rockstar and Bioware are asking for handouts when they offer pre-orders too?
from the clueless general public
Unlike you educated business types. Glad to see elitism is alive and well.
Personally, I see it as a real karmic kick in the ass to the people starting these "projects" every time one falls over.
You enjoy seeing other people fail because they didn't sell their soul to a banker to finance a new idea. Gotcha.
however, then i'm reminded of people like the dentist last year who (in an anti-tax interview) said they'd stop working right each year right before they made enough to be pushed into a higher tax bracket because they didn't want their rate going up and costing them a lot more money
I didn't see the interview, so I can't comment on what was actually said, just on your report on it. But that seems entirely probably to me. Obviously, going into the next tax bracket doesn't cost you money overall (you will still have more money than you did before you went over it) but it will increase the cost-per-dollar earned. It's entirely feasible that it would push the cost-per-dollar up to a point where working more just isn't a good deal. Just think - if, at the start of the year, you were earning $300 a day (no tax), but by the end of the year you were earning only $150 for the same amount of work, wouldn't you be tempted to just call it quits and take a holiday?
Personally, when I was a student, I used to work as an electoral official during election season. The job ran from 8:00am to whenever the votes where counted - usually between 10:00pm and midnight, and paid about $400. Now, because I'm earning more and this work would be taxed in my highest bracket, the same amount of work would earn me $250. Result? I'm working less to avoid tax. It's not that working more is going to cost me money, but taxation drops the reward for my time down to a point where it's not worth me doing it. In other words, I stop working because I'm in a high rate, and it would cost me a lot of money.
International distribution, download infrastructure
No. These two are the same thing, and trivial.
many millions of potential clients for the vendor
No. these are in-app purchases. The only potential clients are those who the vendor has already got to install the app
ease of installation
No. In-app purchases - installation is entirely managed by the vendor
a (pretty much) secure environment for the users
That's not a service provided to the vendor
You can argue that MS can feasibly provide the same on its own
No, you can't because Apply will not let them, and will pull their app if they attempt to do it themselves. That's the whole problem. There'd be no issue if Apply offered up their system as an option, but what they're forcing it as the only option. Payment services is pretty much the only thing of value you listed, and they're demanding for a 30% cut for that - an order of magnitude more than regular payment processors.
But boo hoo, MS has to pay what everyone else does to Apple for the service.
Not crying over no special treatment for MS here, but this is hardly a "service". Apple's providing nothing. This is rent-seeking of the most obvious kind. The only service Apple's offering is not pulling your app from the store. Sort of like how your local gangster provides the service of not burning down your establishment.
One of the problems with Capitalism is it can force Managers to compete with each other to screw everyone; their employee's, customers and ultimately the environment; the best. The classic method of constraining it has always been to involve government.
The result of this was a "general strike" and hundreds of laborers unionizing overnight as everyone came to the realization they were putting up with something they aught not to put up with.
This isn't an example of government intervention; this is an example of capitalism working. Unionisation isn't anti-capitalistic; governmental backing of unionisation (making use of strikebreakers illegal, etc) may be anti-capitalist, but no more than governmental backing of companies (LLCs, laws promulgated via lobbyists, etc).
That's your selling point? "Come to the US, it's better than Somalia, Lybia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, most of Africa and large sections of rural Asia!"
Um, yay?
The Capitalist lie is more insidious, because it's more personal. "Work hard, and you can be rich too".
Looking around at the standard of living in Western countries, it looks like it's pretty much true - you just have a skewed version of what "rich" means. I don't know anyone who works a full week of work who can't afford a house, food, entertainment and gadgets. Sure, the house may not be a massive waterfront mansion; the food may not be gourmet, and they might not have the latest version gadgets, but "work hard and you will prosper" (which is a much more reasonable rendering of the premise of capitalism) seems like it's being fulfilled almost everywhere I can see.
Sure, there are some people whose labour turns out to be worth a lot more than others, sometimes through brilliance, sometimes through a lucky break, and more often a combination of the two, and there's that unfortunate accretive property of capital, but neither of those change the fact that people who are living in countries that abide by capitalist principles (you are rewarded for what you do) as opposed to feudal (you are rewarded for who your parents are) or communist (you are rewarded for existing) tend to live well.