Imagine, for instance, that person A has $1 billion and four others are flat broke. If you take $4 million from A and give $1 million each to the other four, A will hardly even notice that it's gone, but the people who receive the money will be much, much better off.
And you're correct, but only if you stop the analysis there. In reality, A will quickly notice that anytime he has earned more than his "fair share" of wealth, it is confiscated and given to those who have less. Why then should he continue to produce wealth? Why wouldn't he just sit back and get his share of the money confiscated from E (until E figures the game out and stops working too)? I suppose your answer could be "if he thinks like that then he's an evil selfish bastard", and while that may or may not be true, it doesn't solve the problem.
Of course both the original example and my reply are overly simplified, but the point is that analysis of wealth redistribution has to take into account the longer term effects of the redistribution policies themselves.
Let me say this clearly: This 'self-affirming' "REAL WORLD" bullshit that is always spouted as defense of socialism is crap.
s/socialism/capitalism/ for this post to make any sense.
Are all men born with the same inherent rights to food, shelter, clothing and as comfortable an existence as possible? Yes.
No. This is the fundamental difference between capitalists and socialists. I don't believe that anything requiring an affirmative act by another person can be a right. When I assert that I have the right to life, that means you shouldn't be able to kill me but leaves you otherwise free to conduct yourself. When you assert that you have the right to food, shelter, and clothing, these must be provided by the labor of others, so you am asserting that you should be able to command others to do your bidding. What were you saying about not being more important than anyone else?
Your 'real world' dogma is a defense to justify your own greed
Capitalists believe in accumulating wealth through the voluntary exchange of goods and services(*). Socialists believe in forcibly taking the fruits of other people's labor because they believe they need it more. I'm having a hard time figuring out how "greed" applies to the first and not the second.
(*)Note that this does not include entities such as the RIAA, who prefer to accumulate wealth by bribing lawmakers to pass anti-consumer laws.
Re:These are customer service types
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The Jungle
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· Score: 2
What concerns me more is the underlying contempt for technical support and customer service workers that seems endemic to the industry, as indicated by your post and the responses to it.
I didn't get that at all from his post. All he's saying is that the "high-tech union" movement we've been hearing about recently generally involves employees in positions that correspond directly to positions in traditional industries. He didn't say those people were stupid or incopetent, just that referring to them as "high tech workers" is somewhat misleading. By your definition, everyone who is not a physcial laborer is a "knowledge worker", making the term meaningless.
I can promise you the smooth, comfortable-with-customers-and-people programmers are outnumbered by the socially-inept by at least 50 to 1.
And I'm sure you have evidence to back that up. Your complaints about alleged lack of respect would be much more effective if they were not filled with ad hominem attacks and blatant stereotyping.
Now come on people, you can't have it both ways... Is it ok for everybody to exploit new technology as they see fit? FBI included.
It's the FBI that wants it both ways; they want to use the latest and greatest spying technologies, but want to deny ordinary citizens the ability to protect their privacy. Carnivore would not be an issue if the FBI and other government agencies had not deliberately crippled the widespread use of encryption.
I'm a big cat person. I like them, and they for the most part like me. I get along with them much better than, say, human beings. This site is not funny at all to me, and I can easily understand why people are upset about it. Having said that, I must defend their right to publish this material. There is no right not to be offended, and any law that prohibits mere depictions of animal cruelty is blatantly unconstitutional (much like the fake kiddie porn law).
Of course, this assumes that there is no actual cruelty occuring. If that is not the case, then an appropriate punishment for those responsible would involve a locked room and several hungry tigers.
Just how compatible will Mac OSX be with Linux? There are some programs I like on Linux, like the GIMP, that I would like to use on the Mac too.
Mac OS X is basically BSD under the hood, so source compatibility should be good. I was able to compile and run most of the Obfuscated C Contest entries without a hitch. XFree86 has already been ported to OS X in full-screen mode; a hot key toggles between it and the normal OS X interface. Tenon is working on a (commercial) rootless X server for OS X, they have a beta available here.
I really tend to judge OS's by looks a,d not substance I suppose, which is why I like gnome and Macs and not MS so much.
I hope you're not implying that MS wins on substance:)
It's a myth that Apple invented the GUI. They just stole it from Xerox before Microsoft did.
All right, one more time. Apple PAID Xerox to use their GUI technology. Apple then improved it substantially for the initial version of the Mac OS. (For example, I don't believe Xerox's UI could have overlapping windows.) There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize Apple, but the "Apple-stole-from-Xerox" fabrication is not one of them.
They are never going to be able to caputure enough marketshare just by trying to make computers that looks "cute" like the VW Beetle.
Looking cute is hardly the only redeeming feature of Apple hardware and software. Why are many people here looking forward to OS X? Generally not because of the candy-colored UI, but because it is the first OS that provides the full power of Unix in a form that regular consumers can easily use.
Finally, Apple has over $4 billion cash in the bank and is expected to return to sustained profitability this quarter. They are hardly in "imminent danger of death".
Mac file openers are primitive in comparison (although I admit, I've not used OS X yet...)
No argument here, the open/save dialogs are in my opinion the second worst "feature" of Mac OS. The worst would be the ridiculous requirement of manually setting the memory allocation for each app. Fortunately, OS X solves both.
Most of us no longer have a tiny monchrome screen. We can afford menubars on a per-window basis now.
We can, but I for one don't want them. Look up Fitt's Law: objects on the edge of the screen are much easier to hit, because you can't overshoot them. On a Mac, if I want to get to the File menu, I move the mouse up with maximum velocity and only have to worry about the horizontal position. Even though I may have to move the mouse further in pixels than if the menu were in the window, I'm going to reach it in less time. Saving vertical screen space is just a nice side benefit.
The ideal solution would be what Mac OS X Server does now: a single menu bar at the top of the main monitor, but the menus can be torn off and put anywhere you want.
Whether or not the author's view of the OS as an impediment to the user is correct (and I don't believe it is, at least not when done properly), his criticisms seem to apply less to OS X than most other OSes. For example:
The idea of walking up to a PC in sleep mode and hitting a button, which would instantly activate a specific app, is compelling. The OS would manage all the applications in the background. If you wanted to switch apps, you hit another hot key. Work files could be stored in yet another "button."
Sounds very similar to the Dock in OS X. With a good VM and inter-app communications (also in OS X), for the most part it doesn't matter if an app is currently running or not, as soon as you need it it will be.
Interactivity between the apps could be facilitated the same way they are now, with a GUI shell, but without the preponderance of icons, start menus and switchers, and without the tedious effort of installing apps via the GUI or customizing your environment.
Unless somebody has a telepathic user interface, you're going to need some way of telling the computer what you want to do, and I fail to see why clicking on an icon to do this is unreasonable. Regarding installers, the author appears to be unaware that it is possible and recommended in OS X to build your app so that the "install" process consists of copying a single file, ditto for uninstalling.
I disagree with the fundamental attitude of this article, which is that because some people find current OSes too hard to use, they must be dumbed down for everyone. Certainly OSes can and should be more accessible to novices, but that does not have to take away power and flexibility for advanced users. OS X is a perfect example of this; with some few improvements to the public beta UI (many of which have apparently already happened), it can be both more approachable for new users and more powerful for experts than the classic Mac OS, Windows, or (flame retardant activated) Linux.
The constitution exists to prevent the tyranny of the majority -- in this area, it has absolutely firm limits on what is allowed. It's largely a list of restrictions on what the government is allowed to do.
Correct. Actually to be more specific, the Constitution is supposed to be an enumeration of *all* the powers that the federal government has. The regularly ignored 9th and 10th amendments emphasize this point, reiterating that powers not explicitly granted to the federal government are reserved to the people and the states. Of course this means that the majority of what the federal government does is unconstitutional, but that argument won't work very well on April 15th.
You might want to check out JDOM. It uses the parser of your choice to build a tree structure like DOM, but it has a much simpler API. From their mission page:
There is no compelling reason for a Java API to manipulate XML to be complex, tricky, unintuitive, or a pain in the neck. JDOM is both Java-centric and Java-optimized. It behaves like Java, it uses Java collections, it is completely natural API for current Java developers, and it provides a low-cost entry point for using XML.
We've been using it at work and are happy with it so far.
This could end up being the first test case for the validity of ELUAs. Of course, if Verant wins on the grouds of their EULA, the ruling would set a nasty precedent with far greater implications than just online games.
I agree, and I really don't want this to be the EULA test case. With a traditional EULA, you buy a piece of software, install it, and are then told that the software manufacturer, with whom you have never dealt directly, has decided that you don't own anything other than the physical media and you can't use the software in any way that they don't like. Unilaterally imposing additional terms after a sale is completed is such a preposterous concept that I can't believe they haven't been laughed out of court yet.
On the other hand, with EverQuest Sony is providing an ongoing service rather than a one-time sale. Unless there is a contract that says otherwise, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to terminate that service for any reason at all. The closest analogy I can think of is an ISP with a no-commercial-use clause kicking you out if they find you selling stuff off the website you host with them. If this does go to court, Sony would have a good chance of winning and as you said, that would be an unfortunate precedent for EULAs even though this is a special case.
Re:Just proves the need for gov't regulation
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Kid Clicks For Sale
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· Score: 2
I know this is going to generate some flame, but the only way to stop these abuses of our fundamental rights to privacy is for the federal government to get involved.
The federal government is already involved. According to the article, one of the two purchasers of N2H2's data is the Defense Department. That doesn't give me warm fuzzies about the government's attitude toward privacy.
I'll mention is that he probably started in this industry before people made alot of money on it & probably didn't have the same chance to save money the way you will.
Possibly true. Still, even most people who don't have large salaries can save 10% of their salary fairly easily, which will accumulate significantly over time.
Then you say that he in effect should have known better than to have a family & aka 'live a normal life' like anyone else because it may in effect interfere with your future employment options... Are you on crack or something?
Please read again what I said, which was that if you make certain life decisions you should understand that there will be tradeoffs involved.
Do you really think we should all wait til we almost can't have kids anymore just because we need to save up all the money ever needed to take care of them? Should we skip marrying the woman we fall in love with (or guy for those women reading this comment) just because we aren't financially capable of saving money for some time after that happens?
Of course not. What I am saying is that when you assume these responsibilities you must be aware of the sacrifices you may have to make, and make them when necessary rather than complaining about how life isn't fair because you can't have everything you want and trying to force others (e.g. your employer) to bail you out.
was it my fault that I'm paid shit because of where I live (& I don't want to move due to family/friends/significant others who live here)?
It's not your "fault" (it's not anybody's fault, because nothing is actually wrong), but it is your choice. You've in effect chosen to pay (via a lower salary) to be around your friends and family. A perfectly reasonable decision, and once again it comes down to tradeoffs. What I dispute is that your choices should be subsidized by others.
Because you'll be a real bastard of a father & husband with the way your goals are.
I was not aware that wanting to be self-reliant and assuming responsibility for my actions constituted being a bastard. Thank you for enlightening me.
Good programmers know that they can crank out thousands of lines of code in a day if the requirements are well defined. The industry average for lines of code per year dropped to 6500 from 9000 per programmer. Is this because the requirements aren't there? Probably in large measure, but in any case, the average productivity stinks. You elite programmers out there: doesn't the average year of output sound like a slow month?
Sort of off topic, but this is a bogus statistic. Especially in OO languages, lines of code mean nothing in terms of productivity. Some of my most productive days at have been spent refactoring a bunch of nasty code into more clear and maintainable pieces, often in the process reducing the number of lines substantially. If two programs do the same thing, but one has 30000 lines of code and the other 10000, which do you think will have fewer bugs?
Once you have a family and a mortgage, cars and educations to pay for, the whole "you can get another job" thing isn't quite as simple.
This attitude really bothers me. Your family and mortgage and cars didn't suddenly appear on your doorstep, you chose to assume those responsibilities. What you are saying is that because you have voluntarily made certain life choices, everyone must change to accomodate you. Here's a wacky concept: maybe you shouldn't buy a house or cars if you can't afford them, and maybe you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford to raise them. If you do put yourself into a situation where you are living paycheck to paycheck and have other people dependent on you, of course you are going to have less flexibility and that is your not your employer's fault. With salaries what they are in IT, almost all of us should be able to save a sufficient amount to survive being out of work for quite a while.
I do not understand why people think that having a family should come without any tradeoffs. And yes, I'm single. That's why I'm saving a lot now so that if I do have a family in the future I will still have some degree of freedom.
Give me a fucking break. No woman chooses to be raped. Every tech worker chooses to get up and go to work. You always have the option of quitting anytime you want. Maybe it would cause you some financial hardship (although if you manage your finances with any degree of responsibility you should be able to survive at least a few months out of work), but nobody has a gun to your head. To compare having a lousy job with being a victim of sexual assualt is ludicrous.
Sorry if this sounds rude, but rape is a particularly sensitive subject for me and it bothers me when relatively minor problems are compared to it.
Re:Well given his record on education in Texas...
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Kids and Computers
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· Score: 2
Yeah, because inner city schools today are a model of intellectual enlightenment and peace. It would be a shame to mess that up.
The rich already have the means to escape failed schools. Do you think Bill Clinton for one moment considered sending Chelsea to the DC public schools? I am puzzled as to why liberals want to deny poor families any choice as to how their children are educated. After all, they're supposed to support the poor and be pro-choice, right? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the massive contributions from the teachers' unions who are terrified of any form of accountability or competition, could it?
Well, here's Jim Hines, University of Michigan Business School Professor attesting that the top 1% get 30% of the benefit, here . You can call the "half to 1%" phrase a flat-out lie if you must, but it's basically correct.
I see, so being off by nearly a factor of two "basically correct". I hope your job doesn't involve building bridges.
Furthermore, your attempt at calling Bush's plan "progressive" is bewildering: the low tax bracket would go from 15 to 10 (a 5% reduction), while the high tax bracket goes from 39.6 to 33 (a 6.6% reduction). An extra cut for the most wealthy.
Time for some remedial math. Let's take two taxpayers, Evil Rich Capitalist Exploiter A and Poor Victim of Republican Greed B. Suppose A makes $100,000/year and pays 39.6% in taxes, while B makes $20,000/year and pays 15%. Before Bush's tax cuts:
A's tax bill: $39,600
B's tax bill: $3,000
combined taxes: $42,600
percentage of total paid by A: 92.96%
After Bush's tax cuts, A pays 33% and B pays 10%. We now have:
A's tax bill: $33,000
B's tax bill: $2,000
combined taxes: $35,000
percentage of total paid by A: 94.29%
A pays more relative to B after the tax cuts, therefore they make the system more progressive. Your mistake is using absolute differences in tax percentages rather than relative differences. A's tax rate going from 39.6% to 33% means he pays 16.7% less in taxes. B's tax rate going from 15% to 10% means he pays 33.3% less, so B has a proportionally larger cut.
The entirety of Greenspan's quote is this: "'Well, Senator, I react favorably to that sort of system,' responded Greenspan, adding, however, that he would want to see all the details before endorsing such a plan."
Yes, exactly. Of course Greenspan would need to see details of a specific plan before he endorsed it; the point is that he supports the concept of private Social Security accounts, contrary to what you claimed with your misleading quote.
There is in the Mac OS X public beta (1.3 will ship with the final release). It works quite well, and Swing looks much less crappy than usual because it uses native Aqua widgets.
Federal civilian employment is now at 1.8 million, its lowest level since 1960. During the Clinton administration, it has dropped 19 percent. The reductions are unquestionably real."
Even if this is true, so what? I couldn't care less about the number of people employed by the government. What I care about is how much of my money they spend. As I said previously spending is at the highest percentage of GDP since World War II and Gore's proposals would substantially increase it.
Bush wants to cut taxes big time for the richest people, he's explicitly admitted that.
Correct in a very narrow sense. You left out that he also wants to cut taxes for the poor and the middle class. He wants to cut taxes for everyone, without requiring them to jump through bureaucratic hoops to prove that they "need" to keep more of their own money. Gore's repeated statements that half of the benefit goes to the richest 1% is a flat-out lie. In fact, Bush's tax cuts actually make the tax structure more progressive, since the rich get a lesser percentage cut than the poor. Of course, from the liberal perspective the possibility that any rich person might in any way benefit automatically renders the plan unacceptable, regardless of its other merits.
And I can't believe anyone seriously would be willing to try the Social-Security-in-the-stock-market scheme.
I can't believe anyone wouldn't. Over the long term, stocks have consistently outperformed other investments. But if you're paranoid about stocks, there's always CDs, bonds, or money market funds, any of which would produce far greater benefits than Social Security promises and would not require huge taxes on future generations. (See Cato's Social Security Calculator to estimate how much you could make with privatization, or more directly, how much you are losing with the current system.) And you're conveniently forgetting that Bush's plan is voluntary; you would be free to continue to throw your money at Washington and hope they hand you some of it back, while I would be free to accumulate real assets instead of unenforceable promises from the government.
Asked about the President's plan to put approximately one-quarter of Social Security funds into the stock market, Greenspan said, "Let me just say it's not so much a trade-off of benefits versus costs. I'm frankly just hard-pressed to find any benefits there are in doing it."
Bzzt! Thanks you for playing. Greenspan was referring to Clinton's "scheme" to have the government directly invest Social Security money in the stock market. That was a horrible idea for too many reasons to count and it died a quick and well deserved death. For Greenspan's comments on real privatization, see http://www.senate.gov/~gramm/policy/grnspan.html, in which he is supportive of transitioning Social Security to a market based system.
RIAA? UCITA? DMCA? MPAA? Do these mean anything to you?
Good point. It's too bad we didn't have a Democratic president for the last eight years, since a Democratic president would never have allowed the DMCA, Clipper Chip, encryption controls, CDA, Echelon, CALEA, or Carnivore. Oh wait.
If Sony/RCA/Universal had its way, there wouldn't be a way to distribute music online, legally or not. Ditto movies. If the book publishing industry had its way, you wouldn't be able to buy used books on Amazon
The companies can want to do these things all they want. They can't actually accomplish anything until they get government to pass laws eviscerating the rights of the people. Do you seriously think the DMCA would exist under a Libertarian government?
On the other hand there is the government, which has no profit motive, and is beholden to the people.
See the list of abuses perpetuated by the allegedly benevolent government above.
I always thought the choice was pretty clear
Me too. My choice is "neither". Let the government stop people from killing each other and stealing things, and otherwise leave us alone. Once you start giving government the power to make the world a better place, you will find that that power will be sold to the highest bidder.
If you're claiming that Democrats care more about freedom than do Republicans you are seriously deluded. If not, then you've made an excellent argument for limiting government to the powers granted it by the Constitution.
The Right is always fond of tougher drug laws, bigger prisons, more spying technologies, fewer available abortion options, and less free access to the 'Net.
Not necessarily. The leading proponent of reforming the drug laws is Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico, a Republican. It was Republicans in Congress that initiated inquiries into Echelon, and Republicans have generally (although not always) opposed the encryption export controls. I agree that Republicans often are opposed to personal freedoms, but I don't see the Democrats being any better.
The Left, exemplified by Gore, cut a record amount of beauracratic regulations and gets no credit for it.
Please cite examples of this. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP is at its highest level since World War II, and Gore's solution to every problem was even more spending and regulations.
Frankly, I've always thought that the critical weakness of the Left is its inability to really lie without shame.
Did you sleep through the entire campaign? The only reason Gore even came close was by blatantly lying about Bush's tax cuts (the "over half the benefit goes to the richest 1%" bull***t) and Social Security reforms (it's a "risky scheme" to invest in money market funds, far safer to hand it over to the government and hope that when you retire they'll give you some of it back by taxing the hell out of your grandchildren.)
"to protect the children" is the root password to the Constitution. (I think that's somebody's sig). Apparently it works even if the children do not actually exist.
We do not want child pornography because it represents the most abhorrent behavior in our society. Whether it be real, cartoon, or virtual, it is still abhorrent.
I too believe it is abhorrent. But are you prepared to start throwing people in jail who have never harmed anyone, but who have written or drawn things that you find offensive?
Virtual drugs, do not exist. Virtual death, does not really happen. Virtual porn however does exist.
I totally don't understand this. Virtual porn "exists" in the same sense that virtual drugs do. Neither involves actual drugs or sex in real life.
A friendly game of quake may get your blood flowing but it is not illegal. Child-porn is illegal
Circular reasoning. You're using the current state of the law to argue what the law should be.
Consider when we put your virtual likeness into the picture of such an "encounter". Since it is not really you was any harm done?
Of course, and I could sue for defamation of character among other things. But that has nothing to do with the question of whether purely artificial porn (which your example is not) should be illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
And you're correct, but only if you stop the analysis there. In reality, A will quickly notice that anytime he has earned more than his "fair share" of wealth, it is confiscated and given to those who have less. Why then should he continue to produce wealth? Why wouldn't he just sit back and get his share of the money confiscated from E (until E figures the game out and stops working too)? I suppose your answer could be "if he thinks like that then he's an evil selfish bastard", and while that may or may not be true, it doesn't solve the problem.
Of course both the original example and my reply are overly simplified, but the point is that analysis of wealth redistribution has to take into account the longer term effects of the redistribution policies themselves.
s/socialism/capitalism/ for this post to make any sense.
Are all men born with the same inherent rights to food, shelter, clothing and as comfortable an existence as possible? Yes.
No. This is the fundamental difference between capitalists and socialists. I don't believe that anything requiring an affirmative act by another person can be a right. When I assert that I have the right to life, that means you shouldn't be able to kill me but leaves you otherwise free to conduct yourself. When you assert that you have the right to food, shelter, and clothing, these must be provided by the labor of others, so you am asserting that you should be able to command others to do your bidding. What were you saying about not being more important than anyone else?
Your 'real world' dogma is a defense to justify your own greed
Capitalists believe in accumulating wealth through the voluntary exchange of goods and services(*). Socialists believe in forcibly taking the fruits of other people's labor because they believe they need it more. I'm having a hard time figuring out how "greed" applies to the first and not the second.
(*)Note that this does not include entities such as the RIAA, who prefer to accumulate wealth by bribing lawmakers to pass anti-consumer laws.
I didn't get that at all from his post. All he's saying is that the "high-tech union" movement we've been hearing about recently generally involves employees in positions that correspond directly to positions in traditional industries. He didn't say those people were stupid or incopetent, just that referring to them as "high tech workers" is somewhat misleading. By your definition, everyone who is not a physcial laborer is a "knowledge worker", making the term meaningless.
I can promise you the smooth, comfortable-with-customers-and-people programmers are outnumbered by the socially-inept by at least 50 to 1.
And I'm sure you have evidence to back that up. Your complaints about alleged lack of respect would be much more effective if they were not filled with ad hominem attacks and blatant stereotyping.
It's the FBI that wants it both ways; they want to use the latest and greatest spying technologies, but want to deny ordinary citizens the ability to protect their privacy. Carnivore would not be an issue if the FBI and other government agencies had not deliberately crippled the widespread use of encryption.
Of course, this assumes that there is no actual cruelty occuring. If that is not the case, then an appropriate punishment for those responsible would involve a locked room and several hungry tigers.
Mac OS X is basically BSD under the hood, so source compatibility should be good. I was able to compile and run most of the Obfuscated C Contest entries without a hitch. XFree86 has already been ported to OS X in full-screen mode; a hot key toggles between it and the normal OS X interface. Tenon is working on a (commercial) rootless X server for OS X, they have a beta available here.
I really tend to judge OS's by looks a,d not substance I suppose, which is why I like gnome and Macs and not MS so much.
I hope you're not implying that MS wins on substance :)
All right, one more time. Apple PAID Xerox to use their GUI technology. Apple then improved it substantially for the initial version of the Mac OS. (For example, I don't believe Xerox's UI could have overlapping windows.) There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize Apple, but the "Apple-stole-from-Xerox" fabrication is not one of them.
They are never going to be able to caputure enough marketshare just by trying to make computers that looks "cute" like the VW Beetle.
Looking cute is hardly the only redeeming feature of Apple hardware and software. Why are many people here looking forward to OS X? Generally not because of the candy-colored UI, but because it is the first OS that provides the full power of Unix in a form that regular consumers can easily use.
Finally, Apple has over $4 billion cash in the bank and is expected to return to sustained profitability this quarter. They are hardly in "imminent danger of death".
No argument here, the open/save dialogs are in my opinion the second worst "feature" of Mac OS. The worst would be the ridiculous requirement of manually setting the memory allocation for each app. Fortunately, OS X solves both.
Most of us no longer have a tiny monchrome screen. We can afford menubars on a per-window basis now.
We can, but I for one don't want them. Look up Fitt's Law: objects on the edge of the screen are much easier to hit, because you can't overshoot them. On a Mac, if I want to get to the File menu, I move the mouse up with maximum velocity and only have to worry about the horizontal position. Even though I may have to move the mouse further in pixels than if the menu were in the window, I'm going to reach it in less time. Saving vertical screen space is just a nice side benefit.
The ideal solution would be what Mac OS X Server does now: a single menu bar at the top of the main monitor, but the menus can be torn off and put anywhere you want.
Sounds very similar to the Dock in OS X. With a good VM and inter-app communications (also in OS X), for the most part it doesn't matter if an app is currently running or not, as soon as you need it it will be.
Unless somebody has a telepathic user interface, you're going to need some way of telling the computer what you want to do, and I fail to see why clicking on an icon to do this is unreasonable. Regarding installers, the author appears to be unaware that it is possible and recommended in OS X to build your app so that the "install" process consists of copying a single file, ditto for uninstalling.
I disagree with the fundamental attitude of this article, which is that because some people find current OSes too hard to use, they must be dumbed down for everyone. Certainly OSes can and should be more accessible to novices, but that does not have to take away power and flexibility for advanced users. OS X is a perfect example of this; with some few improvements to the public beta UI (many of which have apparently already happened), it can be both more approachable for new users and more powerful for experts than the classic Mac OS, Windows, or (flame retardant activated) Linux.
Correct. Actually to be more specific, the Constitution is supposed to be an enumeration of *all* the powers that the federal government has. The regularly ignored 9th and 10th amendments emphasize this point, reiterating that powers not explicitly granted to the federal government are reserved to the people and the states. Of course this means that the majority of what the federal government does is unconstitutional, but that argument won't work very well on April 15th.
We've been using it at work and are happy with it so far.
I agree, and I really don't want this to be the EULA test case. With a traditional EULA, you buy a piece of software, install it, and are then told that the software manufacturer, with whom you have never dealt directly, has decided that you don't own anything other than the physical media and you can't use the software in any way that they don't like. Unilaterally imposing additional terms after a sale is completed is such a preposterous concept that I can't believe they haven't been laughed out of court yet.
On the other hand, with EverQuest Sony is providing an ongoing service rather than a one-time sale. Unless there is a contract that says otherwise, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to terminate that service for any reason at all. The closest analogy I can think of is an ISP with a no-commercial-use clause kicking you out if they find you selling stuff off the website you host with them. If this does go to court, Sony would have a good chance of winning and as you said, that would be an unfortunate precedent for EULAs even though this is a special case.
The federal government is already involved. According to the article, one of the two purchasers of N2H2's data is the Defense Department. That doesn't give me warm fuzzies about the government's attitude toward privacy.
Possibly true. Still, even most people who don't have large salaries can save 10% of their salary fairly easily, which will accumulate significantly over time.
Then you say that he in effect should have known better than to have a family & aka 'live a normal life' like anyone else because it may in effect interfere with your future employment options... Are you on crack or something?
Please read again what I said, which was that if you make certain life decisions you should understand that there will be tradeoffs involved.
Do you really think we should all wait til we almost can't have kids anymore just because we need to save up all the money ever needed to take care of them? Should we skip marrying the woman we fall in love with (or guy for those women reading this comment) just because we aren't financially capable of saving money for some time after that happens?
Of course not. What I am saying is that when you assume these responsibilities you must be aware of the sacrifices you may have to make, and make them when necessary rather than complaining about how life isn't fair because you can't have everything you want and trying to force others (e.g. your employer) to bail you out.
was it my fault that I'm paid shit because of where I live (& I don't want to move due to family/friends/significant others who live here)?
It's not your "fault" (it's not anybody's fault, because nothing is actually wrong), but it is your choice. You've in effect chosen to pay (via a lower salary) to be around your friends and family. A perfectly reasonable decision, and once again it comes down to tradeoffs. What I dispute is that your choices should be subsidized by others.
Because you'll be a real bastard of a father & husband with the way your goals are.
I was not aware that wanting to be self-reliant and assuming responsibility for my actions constituted being a bastard. Thank you for enlightening me.
Sort of off topic, but this is a bogus statistic. Especially in OO languages, lines of code mean nothing in terms of productivity. Some of my most productive days at have been spent refactoring a bunch of nasty code into more clear and maintainable pieces, often in the process reducing the number of lines substantially. If two programs do the same thing, but one has 30000 lines of code and the other 10000, which do you think will have fewer bugs?
This attitude really bothers me. Your family and mortgage and cars didn't suddenly appear on your doorstep, you chose to assume those responsibilities. What you are saying is that because you have voluntarily made certain life choices, everyone must change to accomodate you. Here's a wacky concept: maybe you shouldn't buy a house or cars if you can't afford them, and maybe you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford to raise them. If you do put yourself into a situation where you are living paycheck to paycheck and have other people dependent on you, of course you are going to have less flexibility and that is your not your employer's fault. With salaries what they are in IT, almost all of us should be able to save a sufficient amount to survive being out of work for quite a while.
I do not understand why people think that having a family should come without any tradeoffs. And yes, I'm single. That's why I'm saving a lot now so that if I do have a family in the future I will still have some degree of freedom.
Give me a fucking break. No woman chooses to be raped. Every tech worker chooses to get up and go to work. You always have the option of quitting anytime you want. Maybe it would cause you some financial hardship (although if you manage your finances with any degree of responsibility you should be able to survive at least a few months out of work), but nobody has a gun to your head. To compare having a lousy job with being a victim of sexual assualt is ludicrous.
Sorry if this sounds rude, but rape is a particularly sensitive subject for me and it bothers me when relatively minor problems are compared to it.
The rich already have the means to escape failed schools. Do you think Bill Clinton for one moment considered sending Chelsea to the DC public schools? I am puzzled as to why liberals want to deny poor families any choice as to how their children are educated. After all, they're supposed to support the poor and be pro-choice, right? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the massive contributions from the teachers' unions who are terrified of any form of accountability or competition, could it?
I see, so being off by nearly a factor of two "basically correct". I hope your job doesn't involve building bridges.
Furthermore, your attempt at calling Bush's plan "progressive" is bewildering: the low tax bracket would go from 15 to 10 (a 5% reduction), while the high tax bracket goes from 39.6 to 33 (a 6.6% reduction). An extra cut for the most wealthy.
Time for some remedial math. Let's take two taxpayers, Evil Rich Capitalist Exploiter A and Poor Victim of Republican Greed B. Suppose A makes $100,000/year and pays 39.6% in taxes, while B makes $20,000/year and pays 15%. Before Bush's tax cuts:
A's tax bill: $39,600
B's tax bill: $3,000
combined taxes: $42,600
percentage of total paid by A: 92.96%
After Bush's tax cuts, A pays 33% and B pays 10%. We now have:
A's tax bill: $33,000
B's tax bill: $2,000
combined taxes: $35,000
percentage of total paid by A: 94.29%
A pays more relative to B after the tax cuts, therefore they make the system more progressive. Your mistake is using absolute differences in tax percentages rather than relative differences. A's tax rate going from 39.6% to 33% means he pays 16.7% less in taxes. B's tax rate going from 15% to 10% means he pays 33.3% less, so B has a proportionally larger cut.
The entirety of Greenspan's quote is this: "'Well, Senator, I react favorably to that sort of system,' responded Greenspan, adding, however, that he would want to see all the details before endorsing such a plan."
Yes, exactly. Of course Greenspan would need to see details of a specific plan before he endorsed it; the point is that he supports the concept of private Social Security accounts, contrary to what you claimed with your misleading quote.
There is in the Mac OS X public beta (1.3 will ship with the final release). It works quite well, and Swing looks much less crappy than usual because it uses native Aqua widgets.
Even if this is true, so what? I couldn't care less about the number of people employed by the government. What I care about is how much of my money they spend. As I said previously spending is at the highest percentage of GDP since World War II and Gore's proposals would substantially increase it.
Bush wants to cut taxes big time for the richest people, he's explicitly admitted that.
Correct in a very narrow sense. You left out that he also wants to cut taxes for the poor and the middle class. He wants to cut taxes for everyone, without requiring them to jump through bureaucratic hoops to prove that they "need" to keep more of their own money. Gore's repeated statements that half of the benefit goes to the richest 1% is a flat-out lie. In fact, Bush's tax cuts actually make the tax structure more progressive, since the rich get a lesser percentage cut than the poor. Of course, from the liberal perspective the possibility that any rich person might in any way benefit automatically renders the plan unacceptable, regardless of its other merits.
And I can't believe anyone seriously would be willing to try the Social-Security-in-the-stock-market scheme.
I can't believe anyone wouldn't. Over the long term, stocks have consistently outperformed other investments. But if you're paranoid about stocks, there's always CDs, bonds, or money market funds, any of which would produce far greater benefits than Social Security promises and would not require huge taxes on future generations. (See Cato's Social Security Calculator to estimate how much you could make with privatization, or more directly, how much you are losing with the current system.) And you're conveniently forgetting that Bush's plan is voluntary; you would be free to continue to throw your money at Washington and hope they hand you some of it back, while I would be free to accumulate real assets instead of unenforceable promises from the government.
Asked about the President's plan to put approximately one-quarter of Social Security funds into the stock market, Greenspan said, "Let me just say it's not so much a trade-off of benefits versus costs. I'm frankly just hard-pressed to find any benefits there are in doing it."
Bzzt! Thanks you for playing. Greenspan was referring to Clinton's "scheme" to have the government directly invest Social Security money in the stock market. That was a horrible idea for too many reasons to count and it died a quick and well deserved death. For Greenspan's comments on real privatization, see http://www.senate.gov/~gramm/policy/grnspan.html, in which he is supportive of transitioning Social Security to a market based system.
Good point. It's too bad we didn't have a Democratic president for the last eight years, since a Democratic president would never have allowed the DMCA, Clipper Chip, encryption controls, CDA, Echelon, CALEA, or Carnivore. Oh wait.
If Sony/RCA/Universal had its way, there wouldn't be a way to distribute music online, legally or not. Ditto movies. If the book publishing industry had its way, you wouldn't be able to buy used books on Amazon
The companies can want to do these things all they want. They can't actually accomplish anything until they get government to pass laws eviscerating the rights of the people. Do you seriously think the DMCA would exist under a Libertarian government?
On the other hand there is the government, which has no profit motive, and is beholden to the people.
See the list of abuses perpetuated by the allegedly benevolent government above.
I always thought the choice was pretty clear
Me too. My choice is "neither". Let the government stop people from killing each other and stealing things, and otherwise leave us alone. Once you start giving government the power to make the world a better place, you will find that that power will be sold to the highest bidder.
If you're claiming that Democrats care more about freedom than do Republicans you are seriously deluded. If not, then you've made an excellent argument for limiting government to the powers granted it by the Constitution.
Not necessarily. The leading proponent of reforming the drug laws is Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico, a Republican. It was Republicans in Congress that initiated inquiries into Echelon, and Republicans have generally (although not always) opposed the encryption export controls. I agree that Republicans often are opposed to personal freedoms, but I don't see the Democrats being any better.
The Left, exemplified by Gore, cut a record amount of beauracratic regulations and gets no credit for it.
Please cite examples of this. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP is at its highest level since World War II, and Gore's solution to every problem was even more spending and regulations.
Frankly, I've always thought that the critical weakness of the Left is its inability to really lie without shame.
Did you sleep through the entire campaign? The only reason Gore even came close was by blatantly lying about Bush's tax cuts (the "over half the benefit goes to the richest 1%" bull***t) and Social Security reforms (it's a "risky scheme" to invest in money market funds, far safer to hand it over to the government and hope that when you retire they'll give you some of it back by taxing the hell out of your grandchildren.)
"to protect the children" is the root password to the Constitution. (I think that's somebody's sig). Apparently it works even if the children do not actually exist.
I too believe it is abhorrent. But are you prepared to start throwing people in jail who have never harmed anyone, but who have written or drawn things that you find offensive?
Virtual drugs, do not exist. Virtual death, does not really happen. Virtual porn however does exist.
I totally don't understand this. Virtual porn "exists" in the same sense that virtual drugs do. Neither involves actual drugs or sex in real life.
A friendly game of quake may get your blood flowing but it is not illegal. Child-porn is illegal
Circular reasoning. You're using the current state of the law to argue what the law should be.
Consider when we put your virtual likeness into the picture of such an "encounter". Since it is not really you was any harm done?
Of course, and I could sue for defamation of character among other things. But that has nothing to do with the question of whether purely artificial porn (which your example is not) should be illegal.