You are absolutely wrong. You are not free to startup a competing phone without obtaining a huge license from the government. The government likes cooperative monopolies -- it lets them do the things the government can't do due to constitutional restrictions, and the government continues to allow them monopoly privileges, no, allows them to indulge in monopoly privileges -- doing things that in a competitive market, they'd never get away with -- and the consumer pays the consequences. Of course you can always have a duopoly with two companies that both are cooperative....
Unfortunately there's many examples a few companies forming a cartel and controlling the industry by only competing within certain mutually established bounds. Thus the ability to enter into, and, start new, tangential & related markets is limited.
In all the infinity that that is -- whether that be endless nothing beyond our 'universe bubble' (but why it wouldn't be equally likely to be an endless series of self-contained universe bubbles, is beyond me).
And that's where 'faith' can enter into science. Thinking that 'science' does anything other than predict conditions in the little speck of universe that we know about -- and nothing about the volumes beyond -- and that some people lean toward believing that our universe is unique because that's all science can prove?!? : yeah, and the universe still revolves around the earth!
All the evidence we have the the universe ends at some point is based on the fact that we can't see any further, and the further you go away from us, the less we can see and the younger the boundaries of this universe look. What does that tells us about what's beyond that range? Zip, as near as I can tell.
They didn't get him for doing anything actually 'wrong', just for not having 100% recall? _I_ don't have that type of recall I barely remember what I did last week, let alone daily events that happened months ago.
It makes sense....apple's Job's reminds me of an arch-villain in his turtle-neck costume and the apple corporation is strongly aligned with the ways and means of News Corp. The business models of each are strongly echoed in the other's. Both have had strong "come from behind" backgrounds, both want to conquer the world (in their own business areas), both have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to reach their goal.
Apple's stance in the computer world (post-Woz) has been about locking down the user and turning them into passive consumers & eliminating freedoms. In the publishing world Murdoch has led the herd to try to force pay-wall (pay-to-read) systems on the consumer and restricting dissemination and even indexing of his material in order to turn internet denizens into *paying* consumers. Murdoch's political support has been behind candidates willing to put business interests first, before the people and has generally supported the more conservative candidates for office.
Apple's stance in controlling the iphone and the app-store show them very willing to boldly eliminate potential competition as well as cater to morality police, showing they can be a new arm for government censorship (just as consortiums and companies in the past have been given monopoly status in return for doing things for the government that it couldn't do itself due to constitutional constraints).
In all, it would seem that Jobs and Murdoch share a great deal of views and tactics in dealing with 'consumers' and other companies. Their success would be bad for the american consumer's freedom. Their joint venture, hopefully, will fail.
The one point that gives hope for failure: despite Jobs success with consumer electronics products, Murdoch has had a history of failures at attempting to erect paywalls around his content. It will be interesting to see how this plays out...
If he always fixes bugs and provides support 'gratis', then sure, it might be in his best interests. But that's not a requirement of the market and not something most companies do. Look at Microsoft. If you get Windows w/your computer and have a Windows problem, MS will charge you either per-incident or per-hour, depending on customer type on type of service you choose. MS shrugs off responsibility and costs for support by saying that any support for the over 90% of windows copies that come on OEM machines is supposed to come from your machine manufacturer.
Dell -- charges hundreds of dollars for software (i.e. MS Windows) incidents. You can buy single or multi packs but they aren't cheap.
Last company I worked for -- I was told by my manager NOT to fix any bugs -- (I was marked down on a review for fixing some while I was working on the code for other reasons). Bugs were only to be fixed when they were reported by a support-paying customer. If I fixed them in my spare time -- I was hurting the maintenance-team's support revenues.
You see, in most software companies, support is treated as its own profit and loss center. They only way it can make money is by getting customers to pay support and pay for the bug fixes. If there are too few bugs to fix, (or too customers reporting bugs), it can mean layoffs and cost jobs.
So your idea of creating a test suite, while it might have been a good idea in the 70's and early 80's. after Reagan's "every man for themselves, every department for themselves, corporate profit before all else (including employees and customers)" philosophy was adopted into the culture (with support of repealed worker and customer protections) in the early 80's, making quality software just wasn't profitable and didn't make sense in the business market.
So.... You want quality SW? You might consider working for a place where quality is required as part of the final product (usually due to financial or other incentives) such as, perhaps, the medical market (where bugs might cost lives and mean large lawsuits), or places that are not simply motivated by next quarter's financial results (maybe government funded?)...
Reading a private person's *mail*, is a Federal Crime. Email isn't protected under the same laws.
Second, there is a difference between married and unmarried partners: there is a special relation between spouses, like not being able to be forced to testify against a spouse, having joint financial liabilities (including taxes) and over 1000 (** - number from arguments against equality of 'domestic partnerships' and 'marriage) other **benefits**. The expectation of financial co-responsibility **might** be enough to justify (with a savvy lawyer!) opening of email -- especially if there was a possibility of there being financial documents in that person's email. The IRS used lean toward allowing innocent spouses to be free of the financial dealings of their spouse, but now spouses must usually prove that there was no way they could have known (or no way they could have been expected to know) in order to be 'innocent'. The IRS started with spouses who should have known of their partner's financial dealings in cases where they were living above their means.
As for using the email 'maliciously', as the prosecutor claims, 1) the individual just found out about his wife cheating behind his back, and 2) aren't we supposed to "think of the children"??
And I sure could work a bit for something, I've got no problem with that, but it be an order of magnitude less work
.
Don't assume that public aid would give you enough for a private room. I don't know. Providing enough for 'food' (what we were discussing) is a different option than also providing free lodging as well (a laudible goal, but perhaps not as practical, though providing public warehouses, that you could sleep on a cot out of the elements would be 1 step above what we provide now --- maybe your own, private 6x6 room and a sleeping space in a communal area) could be provided for as a low cost alternative for those who want to drop-out.
Certainly if people are determined to live off of nothing, then I'd question the utility of forcing them to provide useful work for someone. It might be less costly for society to warehouse such individuals than force the rest of society to bear the burden of putting up with such people's shoddy work and ancillary costs (perhaps stealing on the job, or lowering overall service levels for the rest of society).
The effect of people being forced to work long hours at jobs they don't like is difficult to exactly quantify, but overall, compare the drop in customer service as more of these types are forced into customer service positions. It might raise the standard of living for the rest of society to stop forcing such people to work and providing low-cost warehousing alternatives. In the long run, it might weed out such types from the population (less likely to reproduce if they have little private space).
Another obvious measure, is America's relatively low position (not sure if it is even in the top 10) for worker productivity measured in $$-earning-power per worker-hour). Even 'socialist' France comes out ahead of the US by that measure. The only reason the US is competitive is that people are forced to work the most hours of any modern country (25-50% more -- as many more people in the US have to hold down 2 jobs to keep their productivity up).
This has a bunch of hidden costs to society, besides the overall increase in unhappiness and lower measures for quality of life. Given a sufficiently negative attitude toward working , it would probably be better for society if such people weren't required to be in the workforce with their attendant side-costs.
Just like ISP's and independent phone companies were supposed to be supposed to be provided w/equal access on telco-owned last-mile equipment...or ISP's were suppose to have similar to be able to compete against phone companies.
Then along comes another anti-government GOP president, like Reagan, who dismantles all of those pesky 'consumer' protections to save us all [sic], and we enter a new 'golden age' of media control with married couples relegated to separate bed again. (a symptom of large media companies who colluded to control the market (with the government's help, at the time who then performed government tasks of censorship, skirting the constitution for half a decade.
Another more recent example of government and monopoly mutual 'back-scratching' was in allowing AT&T to re-integrate, Bush declaring that the need for _real_ competition wasn't needed, as long as prices were 'competitive', and in return, AT&T gave complete covert access to the gov (CIA) to monitor all of the nation's internet traffic, also tidily circumventing the constitution.
People think we are so safe with constitutional protections -- but they do nothing to restrict large corporations from the same abusive power and leave us wide open to proven government abuse of constitutional controls by collaborating with monopoly businesses. Without more checks and balances, 'we the people' has been, and still is little more than a nice marketing phrase.
'E pluribus Unum' -- one unified controlling entity, from many: a government fettered by constitutional controls, and unfettered businesses willing to be given market control in exchange mutual benefit...
You are complaining about machines putting people out of work? Perhaps you need to return to the pre-industrial age. As for the bit about problems -- they have 1 person assigned to assist those who have problems with the machines, right now @ the rate of 1 person/4 auto-machines.
But I found, in my own experience, that problems come from people who don't know how to use the machines. I had problems the first few times I tried one, but being a computer person, I quickly figured out the interface. Once that happened -- no more problems.
I suppose you'd hate it worse if you just had to walk through a scanner that picked off all the RFID's of all the merchandise on you (as in the IBM commercial showing someone stuffing the lining of their long coat, full of merchandise, as if preparing to steal all of it). Then you swipe your payment card, slip (check's electronically scanned), or go to a cash line (also possibly automated w/talk of RFID's in money to prevent counterfeiting) and you're off.
Being scared of computers automating away jobs that used to be done by humans seems ridiculously out of place on a tech-site like "/.". You sure you are in the right place? Same goes for the lost Luddites who modded you to +4 insightful. Go find a flat-earth group to hang-out in -- you'd be more "at home", and think about evolving to the tech-age.
Well, your response may not be on the front page, but for anyone paying attention to the thread and not writing anon, we get notifications.
Thanx for the heads-up on G'o'G, -- already clicked and bookmarked -- will check them out -- but either gonna make Divinity work w/copy I got or return it first since I don't wanna keep throwing good money after bad for a game that has so many flaws apart from the bugs -- it's not like it's Oblivion or such (Divinity is so much more limited, the flight system is *lame*...like driving a bus from the rear seat -- and lots of 'magic' arbitrary restrictions that make no sense other than to limit player game play.
Even though you are able to turn into a dragon as a special power, the flight control system is the same as human running (always running unless you turn on caps lock, then it's a slow walk) walking+running. Right+left are for moving right & left (x-axis movement), not turning; as a dragon, it tilts you right or left, but doesn't actually 'bank' as though you were in a turn.
Turning is with the mouse only -- but it's not a turn like with a steering wheel, it's "rotation" on the Z axis -- there is no banking or gradual turn to the right or left, it's like turning a bumper-car. But the visual feedback is BAD -- you have about a 120 FOV, but it's completely flat/uniform no shrink at the side, so it looks like panning of a 30-60. There is no tilt (rotation on Y (forward-backward axis).
Even though you are above mountains @ distance, as you approach them, you are forced DOWN, so that even when you get to a pass, you can't fly through a pass, but instead have to go around, just as if you were walking -- the height away from mountains is such that you should be able to fly over all of the mountains in the central playing area (not at the edges where the mountains are higher), but as you approach any barrier, you are artificially forced down, so that you can't fly over any barrier, but must take the same path as though you were walking -- many places are like that, where you should be able to fly over things, but are artificially forced down -- would make sense if it was at the edge of a map where there was 'nothing' beyond, but it's done over all surface area except minor height objects like fences and low buildings.
To turn into a dragon, you must have a clear space above you and a space around you the size of a baseball field, even though as soon as you transform, you are placed 10 feet above the ground (you can't land or touch water in dragon form, though if you are in a clear area in water, you can turn into a dragon). But the restrictions mean that turning into human form is often a one-way transformation -- there are lots of areas where you can exist (fly into) as a dragon, but when you want to CHANGE into a dragon, you are told there isn't enough room for a dragon.
The space limitation causes a nasty game bug in one cave, fighting a demon, where the game forces you into dragon form to fight the demon, but if you change into human form to kill it (it's easier to kill as a human), you can't change back into a dragon, -- it says there is no room to take you dragon form, even though you just did it, when the game forced you to. It's completely clear overhead where you end up when you morph, but there's no baseball field of *level* space around you, so you can't change. Unfortunately, that leaves you trapped, since the entrance you come into the cave in is closed by a rock slide as soon as the demon dies. The only exit is by flying up to the top of the cavern, and approaching a path -- where you are then forced into human form and can walk out.
Note -- that in other areas, where the game isn't putting artificial restrictions on you, you can fly into rather tight spaces, but again, if you morph to human, you can morph back. In several areas, the game artificially restricts your movement like on the mountain approach -- it forc
Not to mention the ones that are detected by the OS's 'compatibility' check -- one driver that was needed for a game to function, was denied loading -- after much probing I found out that the driver wasn't needed for the game to function at all - but was a DRM system that an out-of-business company and designed and wasn't going to be creating an update for in Win7.
The seller of the game 'CDV' software is still selling the game as compatible for Vista and XP, but claims win7 is too buggy to support the game -- when it's their DRM driver that kept crashing OS's, that wasn't able to be disabled until Win7.
Another vendor, 'Got Game, Inc' puts out a whole bunch of games that are complete crap -- many won't even install -- there is no patch, and the link to their support site results in a DNS-not found error -- not transient, either. Yet they continue to sell their games to exhaust their stock and whatever sales they can get -- I found a copy of a game "WorldShift", at Fry's in a Bargain bin -- where it's double-no refunds (no refunds on sale software and no refunds on opened software) -- thus stuck w/it.
Another company that puts out 'divinity II', also has Suck-U-Rom, when I had problems I talked about in the forum, I was told that my symptoms were things it did when I had DVD-emulation products instead of a real DVD -- except that my game was a download from Amazon! Same problems happen on downloads from the download-only game services. The only answer that anyone would give as to why securom was included in the download versions, was that it was required by the distributors. Unfortunately, these games that use these malware-DRM products, generate DRM-bugs that indistinguishable from actual bugs, and support personal can't tell the difference.
Supposedly, the company that produced divinity, claims it will "eventually" remove the DRM in a download -- but whether this will be before or after[sic-not possible] they go out of business wasn't clear...
Now, I never know when I see a game -- since they don't say on the outside, if they contain game-bug introducing code or not -- and whether or not any problems I run into, in the game are due to suc-u-rom or a real bug -- and the developers often won't tell you which it is (they've been directed not to say which by the publishers)....
Don't confuse spammers w/advertisers, and, unfortunately, in the US, w/o advertising, you won't have any support of media (TV, magazines, newpapers, radio, internet)....basically, everything goes away.
That's what you want?
You're so intelligent! But then, that was evident by your vocabulary.
They can't -- Mozilla SW isn't even running when these addons are installed. The addon's modify mozilla's code-base so it looks like a valid addon from the start. Some of them even make themselves uninstallable (MS)....
There's not alot an application can do to defend itself against the people who wrote the OS...
But if you buy from a remote vendor, you DO pay shipping to bring it to your state.
If states want the income tax, then they should pay the shipping costs -- effectively bring the product into the state, then the state could make the case that the purchase occurs 'in state'.
Wonder how many states would be willing to pay for shipping in order to get the sales tax?
Gosh -- the 'roar' of states pushing to be first is... underwhelming...
Could someone enlighten me on this, but I thought that it's *ALWAYS* been the case that mail order companies that were NOT located in your state, didn't charge you sales tax.
IF they had a 'presence' in your state (a nebulous term, but usually meaning if they 'employed' people in a given state), then they were exempt from paying sales tax in those states that they had no employees in.
It seems that Amazon has been following the law from the very beginning, and that states, always looking for ways to get more money out of their citizens (Amazon wouldn't be paying the sales tax, YOU would), states are putting pressure to collect sales tax for their states, regardless of prior law -- simply because Amazon is such a big target.
Is this fair? Is it fair that Amazon doesn't pay taxes in your state, just as no other mail order or out-of-state business pays sales tax in your state for your purchases? HOW CAN IT NOT BE?
This has been the law for as long as I can remember -- and NOW people are whining that this is 'unfair'.
Regardless of sales tax, if you shop at Amazon, you always incur a shipping cost, vs. "Best Buy, the Apple store, and " many others -- because they have physical stores where you pick things up and incur no shipping costs. On heavy items I've bought through Amazon, ( UPS's being the worst), shipping charges added an additional $400-600 depending on the sub-merchant (all through Amazon store). That's a huge difference vs. "0" if you picked it up in person. Sales tax on those items would have been QUITE a bit less.
So I'd say this -- why not have the states that want sales tax, be willing to pay shipping to their state, and by doing so, effectively make it an 'in-state purchase' upon which sales tax would be due. That would be a 'fair' way of doing it. How many states would take up that offer?
The states want their cake and to eat it too -- if they want it to be treated as an in-state purchase, then they should be willing to pay shipping. That would balance it out.
I thoroughly hope that those states that are forcing Amazon to charge sales tax, have residents that will be willing to sue the state for costs of delivery, since that would be fair. Otherwise, it's an out-of-state purchase, and the state should have no right to the sales tax.
Being alone outside at night? -- So we should be locked up at night for our own safety?
Allowing anonymous information transfer? -- so no more anonymity on the net, you say?
Wearing sexually provocative clothing? -- (By who's standard? Being completely naked isn't sexually provocative to a nudist, but an exposed ankle might be to a moslem.
Books encouraging 'criminal activity' -- depends on whatever you define as criminal at the time. What do you define as 'encouraging'? Some people think that just by talking about it at all is 'encouraging'.
So many of your restrictions rely upon subjective definitions.
And I don't care how sexy the outfit is -- there can be no excuse for forcible rape -- treatment should be castration on the 1 offense where guilt is established without a doubt. If there are mitigating circumstances, then maybe on a 2nd offense. Sorry you find that Orwellian. But right now, the US definition of 'fixing' offenders is to lock them up for very long sentences. Many societies use various methods to "encourage" offenders to change their behavior, (i.e. use various methods to 'fix' them). Orwellian? If you say so.
Your list of restrictions sound like you'd be someone comfortable living in Iran or Saudi Arabia -- perhaps you should consider moving there rather than attempting to change a free society into a theocratic one.
I tempt and everyone else 'tempts', but simply owning things that others "want". So you are basically saying 'fuck everyone' for the death of your daughter.
How about putting the blame where it belongs -- on the murderer? Blaming all of society for the actions of those who commit criminal acts is unhelpful -- since there will always be those who are 'tempted' by almost 'anything'.
If you go with the logic of restricting everything that might tempt someone, then you need to remove ALL difference from everyone, so there will be no possibility that someone might want something that someone else has. That means everyone does the same job too, which is impossible.
It is impossible to create a perfectly equal society without any situation where someone might want something someone else has.
Since there is no place in all of nature where such conditions are exist -- they would be unnatural as well as impossible.
The only solution is to train people to get their needs met in a socially acceptable manner (not through violence or theft).
The laws to attempt to remove temptation are harmful to humankind -- they take away benefits from the whole of humanity in order to accommodate those with violent and thieving. It's the person with the bad tendencies who is 'sick'. They are the ones that need fixing.
You don't restrict healthy people from their freedoms in order to accommodate the sick --- you fix the sick.
It's perversely backwards to restrict the freedom of the healthy, so that sick people can walk the streets. How can you say that people don't deserve freedom so that the sick can walk free? People DO deserve their freedoms, as long as they don't directly impinge on other people or their freedoms, but the idea that I can't have a freedom because some sick person might create a problem?
Sorry, but it is the sickness that needs treatment, restricting and, if necessary, removal from society. To put the responsibility on the healthy for those who can't control themselves -- that's EXACTLY the excuse used to keep women covered and unable to walk the streets alone in theocratic countries -- because the men are tempted and can't control themselves, so it's the women who end up with no freedom. That's NOT a free society, and not one I'd want to live in. If you want that -- move to a country that restricts freedom based on temptation, as those laws have no place in a free society.
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Why, of course, as soon as sony told him he wasn't able to talk about it anymore, he deleted all of it from his computer so he wouldn't be tempted!
Duh!
Really -- why doesn't he just release it? Guess it needs 'staging' so it gets the proper attention paid to it in the press....?
You are absolutely wrong. You are not free to startup a competing phone without obtaining a huge license from the government. The government likes cooperative monopolies -- it lets them do the things the government can't do due to constitutional restrictions, and the government continues to allow them monopoly privileges, no, allows them to indulge in monopoly privileges -- doing things that in a competitive market, they'd never get away with -- and the consumer pays the consequences. Of course you can always have a duopoly with two companies that both are cooperative....
Unfortunately there's many examples a few companies forming a cartel and controlling the industry by only competing within certain mutually established bounds. Thus the ability to enter into, and, start new, tangential & related markets is limited.
Then that is the fault of science.
In all the infinity that that is -- whether that be endless nothing beyond our 'universe bubble' (but why it wouldn't be equally likely to be an endless series of self-contained universe bubbles, is beyond me).
And that's where 'faith' can enter into science. Thinking that 'science' does anything other than predict conditions in the little speck of universe that we know about -- and nothing about the volumes beyond -- and that some people lean toward believing that our universe is unique because that's all science can prove?!? : yeah, and the universe still revolves around the earth!
All the evidence we have the the universe ends at some point is based on the fact that we can't see any further, and the further you go away from us, the less we can see and the younger the boundaries of this universe look. What does that tells us about what's beyond that range? Zip, as near as I can tell.
They didn't get him for doing anything actually 'wrong', just for not having 100% recall? _I_ don't have that type of recall I barely remember what I did last week, let alone daily events that happened months ago.
Maybe one can post comments to the editor?
To give special status to their browser -- if you want to be able to block results, you have to use their browser....
It makes sense....apple's Job's reminds me of an arch-villain in his turtle-neck costume and the apple corporation is strongly aligned with the ways and means of News Corp. The business models of each are strongly echoed in the other's. Both have had strong "come from behind" backgrounds, both want to conquer the world (in their own business areas), both have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to reach their goal.
Apple's stance in the computer world (post-Woz) has been about locking down the user and turning them into passive consumers & eliminating freedoms. In the publishing world Murdoch has led the herd to try to force pay-wall (pay-to-read) systems on the consumer and restricting dissemination and even indexing of his material in order to turn internet denizens into *paying* consumers. Murdoch's political support has been behind candidates willing to put business interests first, before the people and has generally supported the more conservative candidates for office.
Apple's stance in controlling the iphone and the app-store show them very willing to boldly eliminate potential competition as well as cater to morality police, showing they can be a new arm for government censorship (just as consortiums and companies in the past have been given monopoly status in return for doing things for the government that it couldn't do itself due to constitutional constraints).
In all, it would seem that Jobs and Murdoch share a great deal of views and tactics in dealing with 'consumers' and other companies. Their success would be bad for the american consumer's freedom. Their joint venture, hopefully, will fail.
The one point that gives hope for failure: despite Jobs success with consumer electronics products, Murdoch has had a history of failures at attempting to erect paywalls around his content. It will be interesting to see how this plays out...
If he always fixes bugs and provides support 'gratis', then sure, it might be in his best interests. But that's not a requirement of the market and not something most companies do. Look at Microsoft. If you get Windows w/your computer and have a Windows problem, MS will charge you either per-incident or per-hour, depending on customer type on type of service you choose. MS shrugs off responsibility and costs for support by saying that any support for the over 90% of windows copies that come on OEM machines is supposed to come from your machine manufacturer.
Dell -- charges hundreds of dollars for software (i.e. MS Windows) incidents. You can buy single or multi packs but they aren't cheap.
Last company I worked for -- I was told by my manager NOT to fix any bugs -- (I was marked down on a review for fixing some while I was working on the code for other reasons). Bugs were only to be fixed when they were reported by a support-paying customer. If I fixed them in my spare time -- I was hurting the maintenance-team's support revenues.
You see, in most software companies, support is treated as its own profit and loss center. They only way it can make money is by getting customers to pay support and pay for the bug fixes. If there are too few bugs to fix, (or too customers reporting bugs), it can mean layoffs and cost jobs.
So your idea of creating a test suite, while it might have been a good idea in the 70's and early 80's. after Reagan's "every man for themselves, every department for themselves, corporate profit before all else (including employees and customers)" philosophy was adopted into the culture (with support of repealed worker and customer protections) in the early 80's, making quality software just wasn't profitable and didn't make sense in the business market.
So.... You want quality SW? You might consider working for a place where quality is required as part of the final product (usually due to financial or other incentives) such as, perhaps, the medical market (where bugs might cost lives and mean large lawsuits), or places that are not simply motivated by next quarter's financial results (maybe government funded?)...
Reading a private person's *mail*, is a Federal Crime. Email isn't protected under the same laws.
Second, there is a difference between married and unmarried partners: there is a special relation between spouses, like not being able to be forced to testify against a spouse, having joint financial liabilities (including taxes) and over 1000 (** - number from arguments against equality of 'domestic partnerships' and 'marriage) other **benefits**. The expectation of financial co-responsibility **might** be enough to justify (with a savvy lawyer!) opening of email -- especially if there was a possibility of there being financial documents in that person's email. The IRS used lean toward allowing innocent spouses to be free of the financial dealings of their spouse, but now spouses must usually prove that there was no way they could have known (or no way they could have been expected to know) in order to be 'innocent'. The IRS started with spouses who should have known of their partner's financial dealings in cases where they were living above their means.
As for using the email 'maliciously', as the prosecutor claims, 1) the individual just found out about his wife cheating behind his back, and 2) aren't we supposed to "think of the children"??
Sounds like malicious prosecution, IMO...
.
Don't assume that public aid would give you enough for a private room. I don't know. Providing enough for 'food' (what we were discussing) is a different option than also providing free lodging as well (a laudible goal, but perhaps not as practical, though providing public warehouses, that you could sleep on a cot out of the elements would be 1 step above what we provide now --- maybe your own, private 6x6 room and a sleeping space in a communal area) could be provided for as a low cost alternative for those who want to drop-out.
Certainly if people are determined to live off of nothing, then I'd question the utility of forcing them to provide useful work for someone. It might be less costly for society to warehouse such individuals than force the rest of society to bear the burden of putting up with such people's shoddy work and ancillary costs (perhaps stealing on the job, or lowering overall service levels for the rest of society).
The effect of people being forced to work long hours at jobs they don't like is difficult to exactly quantify, but overall, compare the drop in customer service as more of these types are forced into customer service positions. It might raise the standard of living for the rest of society to stop forcing such people to work and providing low-cost warehousing alternatives. In the long run, it might weed out such types from the population (less likely to reproduce if they have little private space).
Another obvious measure, is America's relatively low position (not sure if it is even in the top 10) for worker productivity measured in $$-earning-power per worker-hour). Even 'socialist' France comes out ahead of the US by that measure. The only reason the US is competitive is that people are forced to work the most hours of any modern country (25-50% more -- as many more people in the US have to hold down 2 jobs to keep their productivity up).
This has a bunch of hidden costs to society, besides the overall increase in unhappiness and lower measures for quality of life. Given a sufficiently negative attitude toward working , it would probably be better for society if such people weren't required to be in the workforce with their attendant side-costs.
How are you going to afford music (something to play it on), a backpack (or supplies), etc, if you make no income?
Money for food != all of the above.
You don't work -- no large screen TV's for you...but you get your food...
What's wrong with that?
You just want to sit and be a vegetable? We can probably make it so that you'll use very few resources -- you'll benefit the nation.
So the problem with this is?
This nonsense gets trotted out every time someone comes up with providing basics for all guaranteed.
Thing is, is that *MOST* people in the US want more in life.
Your "logic" is very flawed.
Just like ISP's and independent phone companies were supposed to be supposed to be provided w/equal access on telco-owned last-mile equipment...or ISP's were suppose to have similar to be able to compete against phone companies.
Then along comes another anti-government GOP president, like Reagan, who dismantles all of those pesky 'consumer' protections to save us all [sic], and we enter a new 'golden age' of media control with married couples relegated to separate bed again. (a symptom of large media companies who colluded to control the market (with the government's help, at the time who then performed government tasks of censorship, skirting the constitution for half a decade.
Another more recent example of government and monopoly mutual 'back-scratching' was in allowing AT&T to re-integrate, Bush declaring that the need for _real_ competition wasn't needed, as long as prices were 'competitive', and in return, AT&T gave complete covert access to the gov (CIA) to monitor all of the nation's internet traffic, also tidily circumventing the constitution.
People think we are so safe with constitutional protections -- but they do nothing to restrict large corporations from the same abusive power and leave us wide open to proven government abuse of constitutional controls by collaborating with monopoly businesses. Without more checks and balances, 'we the people' has been, and still is little more than a nice marketing phrase.
'E pluribus Unum' -- one unified controlling entity, from many: a government fettered by constitutional controls, and unfettered businesses willing to be given market control in exchange mutual benefit...
You are complaining about machines putting people out of work? Perhaps you need to return to the pre-industrial age. As for the bit about problems -- they have 1 person assigned to assist those who have problems with the machines, right now @ the rate of 1 person/4 auto-machines.
But I found, in my own experience, that problems come from people who don't know how to use the machines. I had problems the first few times I tried one, but being a computer person, I quickly figured out the interface. Once that happened -- no more problems.
I suppose you'd hate it worse if you just had to walk through a scanner that picked off all the RFID's of all the merchandise on you (as in the IBM commercial showing someone stuffing the lining of their long coat, full of merchandise, as if preparing to steal all of it). Then you swipe your payment card, slip (check's electronically scanned), or go to a cash line (also possibly automated w/talk of RFID's in money to prevent counterfeiting) and you're off.
Being scared of computers automating away jobs that used to be done by humans seems ridiculously out of place on a tech-site like "/.". You sure you are in the right place? Same goes for the lost Luddites who modded you to +4 insightful. Go find a flat-earth group to hang-out in -- you'd be more "at home", and think about evolving to the tech-age.
Well, your response may not be on the front page, but for anyone paying attention to the thread and not writing anon, we get notifications.
Thanx for the heads-up on G'o'G, -- already clicked and bookmarked -- will check them out -- but either gonna make Divinity work w/copy I got or return it first since I don't wanna keep throwing good money after bad for a game that has so many flaws apart from the bugs -- it's not like it's Oblivion or such (Divinity is so much more limited, the flight system is *lame*...like driving a bus from the rear seat -- and lots of 'magic' arbitrary restrictions that make no sense other than to limit player game play.
_Some_ Divinity-II limitations (mostly dragon-form limitations):
Even though you are able to turn into a dragon as a special power, the flight control system is the same as human running (always running unless you turn on caps lock, then it's a slow walk) walking+running. Right+left are for moving right & left (x-axis movement), not turning; as a dragon, it tilts you right or left, but doesn't actually 'bank' as though you were in a turn.
Turning is with the mouse only -- but it's not a turn like with a steering wheel, it's "rotation" on the Z axis -- there is no banking or gradual turn to the right or left, it's like turning a bumper-car. But the visual feedback is BAD -- you have about a 120 FOV, but it's completely flat/uniform no shrink at the side, so it looks like panning of a 30-60. There is no tilt (rotation on Y (forward-backward axis).
Even though you are above mountains @ distance, as you approach them, you are forced DOWN, so that even when you get to a pass, you can't fly through a pass, but instead have to go around, just as if you were walking -- the height away from mountains is such that you should be able to fly over all of the mountains in the central playing area (not at the edges where the mountains are higher), but as you approach any barrier, you are artificially forced down, so that you can't fly over any barrier, but must take the same path as though you were walking -- many places are like that, where you should be able to fly over things, but are artificially forced down -- would make sense if it was at the edge of a map where there was 'nothing' beyond, but it's done over all surface area except minor height objects like fences and low buildings.
To turn into a dragon, you must have a clear space above you and a space around you the size of a baseball field, even though as soon as you transform, you are placed 10 feet above the ground (you can't land or touch water in dragon form, though if you are in a clear area in water, you can turn into a dragon). But the restrictions mean that turning into human form is often a one-way transformation -- there are lots of areas where you can exist (fly into) as a dragon, but when you want to CHANGE into a dragon, you are told there isn't enough room for a dragon.
The space limitation causes a nasty game bug in one cave, fighting a demon, where the game forces you into dragon form to fight the demon, but if you change into human form to kill it (it's easier to kill as a human), you can't change back into a dragon, -- it says there is no room to take you dragon form, even though you just did it, when the game forced you to. It's completely clear overhead where you end up when you morph, but there's no baseball field of *level* space around you, so you can't change. Unfortunately, that leaves you trapped, since the entrance you come into the cave in is closed by a rock slide as soon as the demon dies. The only exit is by flying up to the top of the cavern, and approaching a path -- where you are then forced into human form and can walk out.
Note -- that in other areas, where the game isn't putting artificial restrictions on you, you can fly into rather tight spaces, but again, if you morph to human, you can morph back. In several areas, the game artificially restricts your movement like on the mountain approach -- it forc
My employers have usually called them "personal days", that were able to be taken off for any personal reason -- not just being sick...
Not to mention the ones that are detected by the OS's 'compatibility' check -- one driver that was needed for a game to function, was denied loading -- after much probing I found out that the driver wasn't needed for the game to function at all - but was a DRM system that an out-of-business company and designed and wasn't going to be creating an update for in Win7.
The seller of the game 'CDV' software is still selling the game as compatible for Vista and XP, but claims win7 is too buggy to support the game -- when it's their DRM driver that kept crashing OS's, that wasn't able to be disabled until Win7.
Another vendor, 'Got Game, Inc' puts out a whole bunch of games that are complete crap -- many won't even install -- there is no patch, and the link to their support site results in a DNS-not found error -- not transient, either. Yet they continue to sell their games to exhaust their stock and whatever sales they can get -- I found a copy of a game "WorldShift", at Fry's in a Bargain bin -- where it's double-no refunds (no refunds on sale software and no refunds on opened software) -- thus stuck w/it.
Another company that puts out 'divinity II', also has Suck-U-Rom, when I had problems I talked about in the forum, I was told that my symptoms were things it did when I had DVD-emulation products instead of a real DVD -- except that my game was a download from Amazon! Same problems happen on downloads from the download-only game services. The only answer that anyone would give as to why securom was included in the download versions, was that it was required by the distributors. Unfortunately, these games that use these malware-DRM products, generate DRM-bugs that indistinguishable from actual bugs, and support personal can't tell the difference.
Supposedly, the company that produced divinity, claims it will "eventually" remove the DRM in a download -- but whether this will be before or after[sic-not possible] they go out of business wasn't clear...
Now, I never know when I see a game -- since they don't say on the outside, if they contain game-bug introducing code or not -- and whether or not any problems I run into, in the game are due to suc-u-rom or a real bug -- and the developers often won't tell you which it is (they've been directed not to say which by the publishers)....
Don't confuse spammers w/advertisers, and, unfortunately, in the US, w/o advertising, you won't have any support of media (TV, magazines, newpapers, radio, internet)....basically, everything goes away.
That's what you want?
You're so intelligent! But then, that was evident by your vocabulary.
They can't -- Mozilla SW isn't even running when these addons are installed.
The addon's modify mozilla's code-base so it looks like a valid addon from the start. Some of them even make themselves uninstallable (MS)....
There's not alot an application can do to defend itself against the people who wrote the OS...
But if you buy from a remote vendor, you DO pay shipping to bring it to your state.
If states want the income tax, then they should pay the shipping costs -- effectively bring the product into the state, then the state could make the case that the purchase occurs 'in state'.
Wonder how many states would be willing to pay for shipping in order to get the sales tax?
Gosh -- the 'roar' of states pushing to be first is ... underwhelming...
Could someone enlighten me on this, but I thought that it's *ALWAYS* been the case that mail order companies that were NOT located in your state, didn't charge you sales tax.
IF they had a 'presence' in your state (a nebulous term, but usually meaning if they 'employed' people in a given state), then they were exempt from paying sales tax in those states that they had no employees in.
It seems that Amazon has been following the law from the very beginning, and that states, always looking for ways to get more money out of their citizens (Amazon wouldn't be paying the sales tax, YOU would), states are putting pressure to collect sales tax for their states, regardless of prior law -- simply because Amazon is such a big target.
Is this fair? Is it fair that Amazon doesn't pay taxes in your state, just as no other mail order or out-of-state business pays sales tax in your state for your purchases? HOW CAN IT NOT BE?
This has been the law for as long as I can remember -- and NOW people are whining that this is 'unfair'.
Regardless of sales tax, if you shop at Amazon, you always incur a shipping cost, vs. "Best Buy, the Apple store, and " many others -- because they have physical stores where you pick things up and incur no shipping costs. On heavy items I've bought through Amazon, ( UPS's being the worst), shipping charges added an additional $400-600 depending on the sub-merchant (all through Amazon store). That's a huge difference vs. "0" if you picked it up in person. Sales tax on those items would have been QUITE a bit less.
So I'd say this -- why not have the states that want sales tax, be willing to pay shipping to their state, and by doing so, effectively make it an 'in-state purchase' upon which sales tax would be due. That would be a 'fair' way of doing it. How many states would take up that offer?
The states want their cake and to eat it too -- if they want it to be treated as an in-state purchase, then they should be willing to pay shipping. That would balance it out.
I thoroughly hope that those states that are forcing Amazon to charge sales tax, have residents that will be willing to sue the state for costs of delivery, since that would be fair. Otherwise, it's an out-of-state purchase, and the state should have no right to the sales tax.
Except that such encryption will now be classified as a means to get around restrictions on copying -- so such encrypted nets will become illegal.
Not cool!
Things you think should be illegal:
Being alone outside at night? -- So we should be locked up at night for our own safety?
Allowing anonymous information transfer? -- so no more anonymity on the net, you say?
Wearing sexually provocative clothing? -- (By who's standard? Being completely naked isn't sexually provocative to a nudist, but an exposed ankle might be to a moslem.
Books encouraging 'criminal activity' -- depends on whatever you define as criminal at the time. What do you define as 'encouraging'? Some people think that just by talking about it at all is 'encouraging'.
So many of your restrictions rely upon subjective definitions.
And I don't care how sexy the outfit is -- there can be no excuse for forcible rape -- treatment should be castration on the 1 offense where guilt is established without a doubt. If there are mitigating circumstances, then maybe on a 2nd offense. Sorry you find that Orwellian. But right now, the US definition of 'fixing' offenders is to lock them up for very long sentences. Many societies use various methods to "encourage" offenders to change their behavior, (i.e. use various methods to 'fix' them). Orwellian? If you say so.
Your list of restrictions sound like you'd be someone comfortable living in Iran or Saudi Arabia -- perhaps you should consider moving there rather than attempting to change a free society into a theocratic one.
incite != tempt.
I tempt and everyone else 'tempts', but simply owning things that others "want". So you are basically saying 'fuck everyone' for the death of your daughter.
How about putting the blame where it belongs -- on the murderer? Blaming all of society for the actions of those who commit criminal acts is unhelpful -- since there will always be those who are 'tempted' by almost 'anything'.
If you go with the logic of restricting everything that might tempt someone, then you need to remove ALL difference from everyone, so there will be no possibility that someone might want something that someone else has. That means everyone does the same job too, which is impossible.
It is impossible to create a perfectly equal society without any situation where someone might want something someone else has.
Since there is no place in all of nature where such conditions are exist -- they would be unnatural as well as impossible.
The only solution is to train people to get their needs met in a socially acceptable manner (not through violence or theft).
The laws to attempt to remove temptation are harmful to humankind -- they take away benefits from the whole of humanity in order to accommodate those with violent and thieving. It's the person with the bad tendencies who is 'sick'. They are the ones that need fixing.
You don't restrict healthy people from their freedoms in order to accommodate the sick --- you fix the sick.
It's perversely backwards to restrict the freedom of the healthy, so that sick people can walk the streets. How can you say that people don't deserve freedom so that the sick can walk free? People DO deserve their freedoms, as long as they don't directly impinge on other people or their freedoms, but the idea that I can't have a freedom because some sick person might create a problem?
Sorry, but it is the sickness that needs treatment, restricting and, if necessary, removal from society. To put the responsibility on the healthy for those who can't control themselves -- that's EXACTLY the excuse used to keep women covered and unable to walk the streets alone in theocratic countries -- because the men are tempted and can't control themselves, so it's the women who end up with no freedom. That's NOT a free society, and not one I'd want to live in. If you want that -- move to a country that restricts freedom based on temptation, as those laws have no place in a free society.