I am getting tired of Frances socialist attitude twords everything, they mascarade around as a democracy, but when it comes time to actually act like one they fall flat on their faces. They have the worst excuse for Free Speach until you get to 3rd world contries controled by dictators. They baby their citizens so much by giving them free everything, and they pay though their nose in taxes for it. Then they have the nerve to put tariffs on other countries who have a tax rate less than their 70%.
1) Democracy is a political system. Capitalism and Socialism are economic system. If the population wants to live in a socialist economic system, democracy should be bringing it to them.
2) Taxes in the states are not really lower than they are elsewhere. Take Canada for example (Quoted from here:
One question to ask, however, is why they are focusing so much attention on tax rates. Perhaps because is commonly believed that income taxes in Canada are much higher than in the United States. Let's compare 2003 rates:
Someone with an income of CDN$30,000 in Canada paid 11.9%, or CDN$3559 federal income tax. Someone in the United States, making USD$30,000 ended up paying USD$4310 federal tax, or about 14.4%.
An individual making CDN$60,000 paid CDN$10,028 or about 16.7%. The U.S. amount for USD$60,000 is USD$13,810 or about 23%. That is probably shocking to most Canadians. Please note this comparison does not include State or Provincial taxes -- which could add between 0% to 10%, depending on where you live. It also does not factor in tax deductions, which can vary greatly on an individual basis.
Futhermore, the average Canadian income in $CAD is higher than the average U.S. income in $USD. In 2001, the average family income in Canada was $60,300CAD. In that same year, the US average was $42,228USD (or roughly $57,000CAD at a 1.35 exchange rate). This contradicts another popular myth that the average American makes more money.
So we pay less taxes, yet we get WAY more for our tax dollars than you Americans do. Things like health care, universal social security, non-toll roads, etc. Socialism at work.
There are lots of politicans representing corporate interests that would love to turn Canada into another America. But they've been having trouble doing so because we actually have an effective democracy up here, and we don't want it.
You need to get off your high horse. Personally, I wouldn't live in your country for any price, and I've had some pretty lucrative offers.
Wasn't that the Soviet Union's method of development? I don't recall many great technical innovations coming out of the design bureaus.
Some Soviet Union Firsts:
First human in space: Apr 12, 1961
First daylong spaceflight: Aug 6, 1961
First woman in space: Jun 6, 1963
First multi-person spaceflight: Oct 12, 1964
First spacewalk: Mar 18, 1965
First photos from moons surface: Jan 31 1966
First lunar satellite: Mar 31 1966
First automatic space docking: Oct 27, 1967
Sure the processors are running at slower mhz speeds but as we all know a a slower mhz AMD processor can perform at the same level as a much faster mhz Intel processor
That comparison only really holds water when you're comparing AMDs chips with the P4 architecture. Intels mobile market focus is evolving the P3 architecture, P4 is for desktops. The P3 architecture gets a lot more done per cycle than the P4, and is pretty comperable if you look at the Athlons vs Coppermine/Tualatin
Wonder how fast they'd be if Intel hadn't dropped them for the P4s... that was such a dumb move.
As far as it being boring...you're just saying that because you find the game immoral.
No, I'm saying that because I find it boring. I've probably done more immoral things than most, and done a lot more that most would consider immoral but I don't. I'm no saint. I just feel that if I had a choice between playing NWN, reading a book, playing GTA, cleaning up my desk, playing Solitare or going to sleep, playing GTA would be at the bottom of the list
I guess I just like playing devils advocate. Anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of psychology (which is all that I have, gleaned from endless conversations with psyc students and occasional nights of falling asleep with my nose in their textbooks) will recognize that these sorts of games DO establish patterns of reward behavior. If you don't have other patterns established in your psychology to overcome these antisocial patterns, games like this WILL train you to associate criminally antisocial behavior with pleasure.
None of this is to say that my judgement falls on the side of censorship. Nor is it to say that I think this kid should get off on the charges. But Jack Thompson isn't a quack either. The things he's concerned about ARE real and are scientifically established. His priorities are just different from yours.
Hopefully this post will prompt a more intelligent discussion than the juvenile responses that seem do dominate this article.
Oh, and I confess that I may be misinformed about the rape thing. I guess it just extends to hiring and beating up hookers. My bad.
It's also fun because you can do things in the game that you're not able or allowed to do in real life.
Like shoot cops, run down pedestrians and rape women.
Say what you want... the game glorifies antisocial behavior and lays down reward patterns that create antisocial behavior. It's only a straw, and we're all big camels, but lets not pretend that the game has any redeeming qualities. This isn't Tetris.
A lot of my friends play it. I tried it. What can I say, I think it's stupid, boring, unentertaining and inappropriate. Sort of like COPS.
IMHO the poster ment: typical first step programmers (some guy with a computer and basic HTML knowledge) probably chooses PHP because he has heared it is dead simple.
But there is no LEGAL requirement for a retailer to accept returns, except where the item is defective as sold. Any time a retailer DOES allow you to return something, it is out of the goodness of their heart, and the desire to maintain a good relationship with their customers.
Local variation in laws aside;
Show me a piece of software sold in a retail store that does not have an EULA hidden inside and I will accept your argument.
If you cannot do so, explain to me how they can sell me a product with a license controlling use that I have not been forced to agree to before purchasing the product and not be legally bound to return my money if I do not wish to agree to it.
Tivo are doomed. They were popular because they solved a problem that pisses a lot of people off: advertising. Their customers were those who were the most annoyed by the advertising, enough to pay money to do something about it. Their customers loved the fact that Tivo was "sticking it to the man" for them.
Not the case anymore. Now Tivo is about "compromise" and "innovation" and putting ads back into their customers shows and supporting Macrovision blocking of pay-per-view shows etc.
The thing they don't seem to grasp is that their customer base are made up of those who were not prepared to "compromise". These are people who said "No, I'm not prepared to compromise on this. I will not accept shit in my cornflakes. I don't care if there's less shit and it's harder to taste, I'm not giving you my money unless my cornflakes are shit-free"
Advice to Tivo: Stop looking at ways to "innovate" and get back to "fixing your customers problem"
The reason they don't allow this, of course, is that allowing the return of software would obliterate all profit in the retail arena. My girlfriend worked in clothing retail at a fairly upscale store, and the number of people that would buy something, wear it, and return it was staggering. With software, though, I could buy it, copy it, and return it, so I have my money AND the product. Allowing the return of copyable goods just doesn't make business sense.
Tough shit. Find a way to make it profitable or stop running the business. Running a business requires you to adhere to certain legally mandated levels of customer service. If you can't manage, either it's not a viable business or you're not a viable business owner.
As a matter of fact, the swastika is a symbol of good, not evil. The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix.
Use of the swastika dates back at least 6000 years, and started in India. It is also a religious symbol in current use for Hindus, Buddhists, Jainists and Pagans, and usually represents the sun.
The nazis used the swastika in a specific way, that being a black swastika, rotated at a 45 degree angle, contained in a white circle and resting on a red background. Even when used on nazi artifacts such as knifes, etc it was always rotated 45 degrees. Makes it pretty easy to tell them apart if you're aware of the distinction.
Banning symbols like this is indeed stupid. How much smarter it would have been to actively engage in restoring the old meaning to the symbol in popular view, and deprive hate-mongers of a symbol to rally behind. Instead, we've made it one of the worlds most powerful and recognizable banners.
Region coding is based on the idea that pricing entertainment at American prices regardless of the local income level is the best way to maximize Hollywood profits.
That's completely absurd regardless of whether or not the product is pirated.
I've seen numerous posts up putting forth this viewpoint. It is absolutely wrong.
Hollywood wants to be able to charge a few bucks a disc in poor countries and continue to charge huge prices in rich countries. Problem is, in most countries they don't have the right to stop me from buying a boatload of DVDs from a poor country, bringing them back to a rich country, and selling them.
As a matter of fact, practices like this are called price fixing, and are illegal in most of the world. The whole "copy protection" bullshit is just a way to slide region coding past the regulators.
So they put together the Region Coding scheme and they get to engage in criminal price fixing, but if they're called to task, they can defend themselves as simply putting in a copy protection mechanism.
If you think that this sort of thing is ok and should be encouraged, picture the world when the biotech companies are controlling the food and textile markets the way the media companies control the news and culture, to give one scary example. Sorry, you're not allowed to buy, sell or grow any of that stuff anywhere but where we tell you. Free market, free enterprise, cya. That the world you wanna live in?
Not that I would wish more lawsuits on the world, but this strikes me as exactly the sort of thing that trademark law was designed to protect against. LPhoto seems as close to iPhoto as say...Lindows seems to Windows.
Perhaps if apple wished to be protected by trademark law they should come up with a name that's a little more unique. Trademarks are intended to differentiate your business from other businesses, not to allow you to buy common words that describe your product so competitors can't use them.
Shameless Plug: I have a new product on the market. It's called aProgram. I'm the only supplier, so if you see anyone else out there describing their products as aProgram, do let me know so I can sue them.
So, the OS may not have been evaluated, other than on vendor support, expected longevity, and reliability. But I find this comment unnerving "It's easy to lose that $1,700 in downtime, spend it on a Windows engineer's new RHCE or such...". Simply because it assumes that Windows is (and will be) more reliable than the alternatives.
I believe what he was saying was "If you have the option to choose between changing architechtures or doubling the hardware to achieve a certain performance, doubling the hardware will be cheaper. It's cheaper to double your hardware than to train a favorite monkey to use another OS."
In any event, I wish that idealists would please give up their pipe dreams of world peace through diplomatic means only. It won't happen. As long as there will be violence in our society (bar fights, spouse abuse, child abuse, violent crime), there will be idiots in power that must be stopped with the use of force.
So you do think they should have built the nukes then?
With the introduction of the 2.6 Linux kernel, FreeBSD 5-STABLE, Solaris 10, and now NetBSD 2.0, you might be wondering which of them offers superior database performance.
Shouldn't you be using a database to do the performance testing then?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if it's Insightful or Funny, but mod him up.
I am getting tired of Frances socialist attitude twords everything, they mascarade around as a democracy, but when it comes time to actually act like one they fall flat on their faces. They have the worst excuse for Free Speach until you get to 3rd world contries controled by dictators. They baby their citizens so much by giving them free everything, and they pay though their nose in taxes for it. Then they have the nerve to put tariffs on other countries who have a tax rate less than their 70%.
1) Democracy is a political system. Capitalism and Socialism are economic system. If the population wants to live in a socialist economic system, democracy should be bringing it to them.
2) Taxes in the states are not really lower than they are elsewhere. Take Canada for example (Quoted from here:
One question to ask, however, is why they are focusing so much attention on tax rates. Perhaps because is commonly believed that income taxes in Canada are much higher than in the United States. Let's compare 2003 rates:
Someone with an income of CDN$30,000 in Canada paid 11.9%, or CDN$3559 federal income tax. Someone in the United States, making USD$30,000 ended up paying USD$4310 federal tax, or about 14.4%.
An individual making CDN$60,000 paid CDN$10,028 or about 16.7%. The U.S. amount for USD$60,000 is USD$13,810 or about 23%. That is probably shocking to most Canadians. Please note this comparison does not include State or Provincial taxes -- which could add between 0% to 10%, depending on where you live. It also does not factor in tax deductions, which can vary greatly on an individual basis.
Futhermore, the average Canadian income in $CAD is higher than the average U.S. income in $USD. In 2001, the average family income in Canada was $60,300CAD. In that same year, the US average was $42,228USD (or roughly $57,000CAD at a 1.35 exchange rate). This contradicts another popular myth that the average American makes more money.
So we pay less taxes, yet we get WAY more for our tax dollars than you Americans do. Things like health care, universal social security, non-toll roads, etc. Socialism at work.
There are lots of politicans representing corporate interests that would love to turn Canada into another America. But they've been having trouble doing so because we actually have an effective democracy up here, and we don't want it.
You need to get off your high horse. Personally, I wouldn't live in your country for any price, and I've had some pretty lucrative offers.
If you need an iPod to hear God, maybe you should start looking for a different faith...
All you need to do is hack the thing to play the tunes backwards!
Wasn't that the Soviet Union's method of development? I don't recall many great technical innovations coming out of the design bureaus.
Some Soviet Union Firsts:
First human in space: Apr 12, 1961
First daylong spaceflight: Aug 6, 1961
First woman in space: Jun 6, 1963
First multi-person spaceflight: Oct 12, 1964
First spacewalk: Mar 18, 1965
First photos from moons surface: Jan 31 1966
First lunar satellite: Mar 31 1966
First automatic space docking: Oct 27, 1967
Sure the processors are running at slower mhz speeds but as we all know a a slower mhz AMD processor can perform at the same level as a much faster mhz Intel processor
That comparison only really holds water when you're comparing AMDs chips with the P4 architecture. Intels mobile market focus is evolving the P3 architecture, P4 is for desktops. The P3 architecture gets a lot more done per cycle than the P4, and is pretty comperable if you look at the Athlons vs Coppermine/Tualatin
Wonder how fast they'd be if Intel hadn't dropped them for the P4s... that was such a dumb move.
Planescape and BG2 were better, but hey, kicks the shit out of GTA and solitare.
MegaTF kicks ass too, but I doubt many ppl here have played it...
As far as it being boring...you're just saying that because you find the game immoral.
No, I'm saying that because I find it boring. I've probably done more immoral things than most, and done a lot more that most would consider immoral but I don't. I'm no saint. I just feel that if I had a choice between playing NWN, reading a book, playing GTA, cleaning up my desk, playing Solitare or going to sleep, playing GTA would be at the bottom of the list
I guess I just like playing devils advocate. Anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of psychology (which is all that I have, gleaned from endless conversations with psyc students and occasional nights of falling asleep with my nose in their textbooks) will recognize that these sorts of games DO establish patterns of reward behavior. If you don't have other patterns established in your psychology to overcome these antisocial patterns, games like this WILL train you to associate criminally antisocial behavior with pleasure.
None of this is to say that my judgement falls on the side of censorship. Nor is it to say that I think this kid should get off on the charges. But Jack Thompson isn't a quack either. The things he's concerned about ARE real and are scientifically established. His priorities are just different from yours.
Hopefully this post will prompt a more intelligent discussion than the juvenile responses that seem do dominate this article.
Oh, and I confess that I may be misinformed about the rape thing. I guess it just extends to hiring and beating up hookers. My bad.
It's also fun because you can do things in the game that you're not able or allowed to do in real life.
Like shoot cops, run down pedestrians and rape women.
Say what you want... the game glorifies antisocial behavior and lays down reward patterns that create antisocial behavior. It's only a straw, and we're all big camels, but lets not pretend that the game has any redeeming qualities. This isn't Tetris.
A lot of my friends play it. I tried it. What can I say, I think it's stupid, boring, unentertaining and inappropriate. Sort of like COPS.
because he has heared it is dead simple
I referring to this... thought you might be having a laugh at the expense of the guy who chose PHP and considered HTML a programming language.
IMHO the poster ment: typical first step programmers (some guy with a computer and basic HTML knowledge) probably chooses PHP because he has heared it is dead simple.
Was that a mistake or an insult?
Exactly. Take that back with you, say you won't agree to it, ask for your money back. They have to give it to you.
Ahh, but you can always chuck a few bucks to one of the older kids you run into while you're standing around at the playground watching your kid...
But there is no LEGAL requirement for a retailer to accept returns, except where the item is defective as sold. Any time a retailer DOES allow you to return something, it is out of the goodness of their heart, and the desire to maintain a good relationship with their customers.
Local variation in laws aside;
Show me a piece of software sold in a retail store that does not have an EULA hidden inside and I will accept your argument.
If you cannot do so, explain to me how they can sell me a product with a license controlling use that I have not been forced to agree to before purchasing the product and not be legally bound to return my money if I do not wish to agree to it.
Tivo are doomed. They were popular because they solved a problem that pisses a lot of people off: advertising. Their customers were those who were the most annoyed by the advertising, enough to pay money to do something about it. Their customers loved the fact that Tivo was "sticking it to the man" for them.
Not the case anymore. Now Tivo is about "compromise" and "innovation" and putting ads back into their customers shows and supporting Macrovision blocking of pay-per-view shows etc.
The thing they don't seem to grasp is that their customer base are made up of those who were not prepared to "compromise". These are people who said "No, I'm not prepared to compromise on this. I will not accept shit in my cornflakes. I don't care if there's less shit and it's harder to taste, I'm not giving you my money unless my cornflakes are shit-free"
Advice to Tivo: Stop looking at ways to "innovate" and get back to "fixing your customers problem"
The reason they don't allow this, of course, is that allowing the return of software would obliterate all profit in the retail arena. My girlfriend worked in clothing retail at a fairly upscale store, and the number of people that would buy something, wear it, and return it was staggering. With software, though, I could buy it, copy it, and return it, so I have my money AND the product. Allowing the return of copyable goods just doesn't make business sense.
Tough shit. Find a way to make it profitable or stop running the business. Running a business requires you to adhere to certain legally mandated levels of customer service. If you can't manage, either it's not a viable business or you're not a viable business owner.
Gee, that was an easy fix.
So, a swastika is a "real evil", eh?
As a matter of fact, the swastika is a symbol of good, not evil. The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix.
Use of the swastika dates back at least 6000 years, and started in India. It is also a religious symbol in current use for Hindus, Buddhists, Jainists and Pagans, and usually represents the sun.
The nazis used the swastika in a specific way, that being a black swastika, rotated at a 45 degree angle, contained in a white circle and resting on a red background. Even when used on nazi artifacts such as knifes, etc it was always rotated 45 degrees. Makes it pretty easy to tell them apart if you're aware of the distinction.
Banning symbols like this is indeed stupid. How much smarter it would have been to actively engage in restoring the old meaning to the symbol in popular view, and deprive hate-mongers of a symbol to rally behind. Instead, we've made it one of the worlds most powerful and recognizable banners.
What Symb said, a crotchety old man.
Unless they're going to change their license, I don't think RMS is going to go along with this.
Not really,
Region coding is based on the idea that pricing entertainment at American prices regardless of the local income level is the best way to maximize Hollywood profits.
That's completely absurd regardless of whether or not the product is pirated.
I've seen numerous posts up putting forth this viewpoint. It is absolutely wrong.
Hollywood wants to be able to charge a few bucks a disc in poor countries and continue to charge huge prices in rich countries. Problem is, in most countries they don't have the right to stop me from buying a boatload of DVDs from a poor country, bringing them back to a rich country, and selling them.
As a matter of fact, practices like this are called price fixing, and are illegal in most of the world. The whole "copy protection" bullshit is just a way to slide region coding past the regulators.
So they put together the Region Coding scheme and they get to engage in criminal price fixing, but if they're called to task, they can defend themselves as simply putting in a copy protection mechanism.
If you think that this sort of thing is ok and should be encouraged, picture the world when the biotech companies are controlling the food and textile markets the way the media companies control the news and culture, to give one scary example. Sorry, you're not allowed to buy, sell or grow any of that stuff anywhere but where we tell you. Free market, free enterprise, cya. That the world you wanna live in?
Not that I would wish more lawsuits on the world, but this strikes me as exactly the sort of thing that trademark law was designed to protect against. LPhoto seems as close to iPhoto as say...Lindows seems to Windows.
Perhaps if apple wished to be protected by trademark law they should come up with a name that's a little more unique. Trademarks are intended to differentiate your business from other businesses, not to allow you to buy common words that describe your product so competitors can't use them.
Shameless Plug: I have a new product on the market. It's called aProgram. I'm the only supplier, so if you see anyone else out there describing their products as aProgram, do let me know so I can sue them.
I suppose it's only a matter of time til the chinese government learns what most people already know.
Oh, that's why every successful government on earth controls the mass media, because controlling the mass media isn't effective!
Wow, imagine all the wasted effort they'll save now that you've let them know!
Just make a long strong password using the first letter from each word in a sentance.
iswtfmtosadgawd
I spend way too fucking much time on slashdot and don't get any work done
Give your users something funny and they won't forget it.
t's not just time. (Oh, and two hours is A LOT when you work full time and have kids.)
Ok, if you've got kids and are still mowing your own lawn, you're missing the boat!
So, the OS may not have been evaluated, other than on vendor support, expected longevity, and reliability. But I find this comment unnerving "It's easy to lose that $1,700 in downtime, spend it on a Windows engineer's new RHCE or such...". Simply because it assumes that Windows is (and will be) more reliable than the alternatives.
I believe what he was saying was "If you have the option to choose between changing architechtures or doubling the hardware to achieve a certain performance, doubling the hardware will be cheaper. It's cheaper to double your hardware than to train a favorite monkey to use another OS."
In any event, I wish that idealists would please give up their pipe dreams of world peace through diplomatic means only. It won't happen. As long as there will be violence in our society (bar fights, spouse abuse, child abuse, violent crime), there will be idiots in power that must be stopped with the use of force.
So you do think they should have built the nukes then?
With the introduction of the 2.6 Linux kernel, FreeBSD 5-STABLE, Solaris 10, and now NetBSD 2.0, you might be wondering which of them offers superior database performance.
Shouldn't you be using a database to do the performance testing then?