Mine (open case hodge podge of parts now) has a baby lizard living in it! So far he's been too fast for me to catch him, he scoots away down behind the desk and the wall where all the wirez and dustbunnies and other sorts of stuff live. Almost had it this morning, it was lurking between the keyboard and monitor but booked under the monitor stand and got away.
If it didn't exist, they'd have to invent it. The regime needs a boogey man-men really. Al Jazeera fits the bill. It's headquartered in qatar, which for all practical purposes is a little known but important country in the mideast not only for having a ton of oil and natgas, but because it's a place where all the factions and spooks can get together and conduct real business-much like switzerland or portugal in ww2.
If the US regime didn't want al jazeera to exist it wouldn't, and starting with the grand poobah there, he knows where his bread is buttered and how he stays in power.
...and it won't be the first or last time, but I have been under the impression that no art museum likes people to photograph paintings, as the flash deteriorates the pigments.
--and no, never checked Snopes on that either. It very well could be an urban legend, but I do recall getting nailed for it at a museum once a long time ago...:p
hey, here you go. You obviously don't read or understand a thing I write, so stop bothering me. I NEVER SAID that I steal software, nor do I recommend people take it. NEVER. I don't downlkoad moveis or music either, and I always paid for my shareware. Get it? Got it yet??? You comprehende? It happens though, millions of people do, and all I was saying that if they dropped the price to more reasonable, they'd sell more and piracy would probably drop. this is the third time I've said it, and you cannot point to any instance where I encouraged people to take stuff. This is as simple as I can say it.
Now leave me alone, no more replies from me to you. I have no truck with people who accuse me of something I don't do or advocate.
Thankyou, Mr. or Ms coward, that ltsp page looks like the info I was after. I have a small stack of old boxes (pent 1's) with tiny ridiculous HDDs and only floppies, no Cd drives, which make them almost useless, but perhaps I can do a project with them using this info and one decent box added in as the server.
But I don't see anyplace with more technical information on exactly how they did the fedora diskless workstations and server setup. I'd like to see something like that.
You got it! they make tons offering it for real cheap to the OS vendors, yet they turn around and ten times the price to joe poorer end user off the rack at computes-b-us. It's a total rip-off price. If it was down to the same 20$ or even ten or free like they could, they'd sell a lot more. I think nowadays they'd be way better off giving it away with bandwith/internet connection/updates and fixes by the month. Back when making copies was still expensive and the whole idea of a personal computer was still rare, ya, I can see it cost a lot of money for providers to do things and sell them. Now? No way, copies are a lot cheaper to make, bascially every other aspect of computing has dropped in price except for microsofts offerings, they keep going up, for not much more in the way of quality or features. And people KNOW now how cheap it is to make copies, so they *do that* instead of paying obvious ripoff prices.
There's a fairly large difference between digital data that can be replicated for at most a few dollars a copy, compared to a heavily resource intensive manufactured item like a car.
That's the point. It's not my article or my software being pirated. I'm a consumer, and also read from other consumers and know other consumers. Most consumers think it's way over priced. That's the message MS needs to hear, just like the music and movie people. A lot of people tend to just make copies of it for free (I don't, just know it happens), because they don't want to pay hundreds for a copy. My *speculation* is that if MS offered it for a more reasonable per copy price, a lot more people would purchase it, tending to slow down outright piracy.
Simple enough concept I think to understand.
Heck, I think they could give away the initial OS install and just do a reasonable fee for updates, and they do still run a national ISP,so, if they combined it with that, well, it might work. Back to my early observation, AOL only offers a hacked browser and some connect software and bandwith for sale. MS could offer exactly the same but with a complete OS and if they were smart a lot more free applications, all on one disk.
none, nada, last several months. Not sure how I pulled it off other than not using my email address with only a few people and trusted companies, but I haven't received one in I think 6 months now. Haven't even had any to "train" my moz mail with.
I used to use email all the time and was cavalier about posting it, contacts in newsgroups or forums, etc, last I remember I was approaching a couple hundred spams a day with that insecure technique. Since then got a different ISP and new email addy, and been real particular who I give the addy to, and it seems to have worked. I miss using email *more*, but the time (and aggravation) I save makes up for it for me.
...alternative energy conversion devices, but I'll be the first one to admit that more sane conservation will do more in the short and medium term than anything else. It's jhoe sixpacks best bet dollar for dollar right now. Making homes with double the insulation for example, and using triple pane nitrogen gas filled windows, or integral blinds, etc are all great. The water heater blankets. Much better quality home appliances, like sunfrost units instead of el cheapos, and etc.
Basically, I like both methods simultaneously. My theory is you work both ends towards the middle. Produce (or use) more of your own power using renewables, and conserve what you use, use less but get more. Eventually those two lines meet up and you are sitting pretty energy wise.
some more things I'd like to see:
LEDs becoming commonplace in replacement of incandescents and fluorescents
Solar hot water heating and some more PV action on all the millions of sunny roofs out there
More commercial sized wind gennys on farms, both to help out the farmers and to add to the grid redundancy without resorting to more fuel burning plants.
Electric vehicles are practical enough now, need the manufacturers to just come up with a few normal looking models and sell the dang things, recharging at night is a benefit to the big power producers as well,they have to keep their units running even when demand is low like at night
Building codes and mortgage lenders need to get into the act and stop lending or approving dismally low levels of insulation in new construction
Stop the destruction of community small scale hydro electric like they are doing now, hydro is the cleanest and most cost effective low tech solution for electrical production.
Legalise industrial hemp and partially use it for liquid fuel production, the "solar conversion" with plants is very good and the ethanol or methanol or biodiesel that can be produced burns fairly clean. Hemp is good because it grows so fast, requires little attention or fertilisers compared to alternative fuel crops like corn for example
Higher mandated average vehicle mileage. Detroit whined and sniveled, said it was impossible, but once it was passed, by golly they met the goals. They could do it again because the higher mileage vehicles are out there now in other areas of the world, and until there's an incentive like a law, it won't happen as much as it needs to happen. And include normal pickups and SUVs into the mix. They could add take a scosh better mileage.
R&D I'd like to see
I think there's some huge power to be harvested in the areas of atmospheric static electricity and in the "differential" areas like in the ocean thermocline difference and with deep earth to surface differences. Pilot programs have shown it's there, just needs a little more work to get it consistent and useable
More work on improving permanent magnet motors and generators, they also show some decent promise in efficiency gains in a variety of applications
More mandated recycling, stop the nutso throw away culture. Products should also have their recyclability taken into consideration during design phases. Most people don't mind recycling at all-if it's convenient and actually useful
A LOT more methane production from ag waste and community sewer treatment plants. It's barely got off the ground in some places and it's proving practical, just need more of it and better designed digesters, etc.
...with the consumer "choice" model. Example, the GM EV-1 pure electric. The people who got to lease them loved them, wanted to purchase them outright. GM refused and is now crushing all of them. It worked too good or something. You can still google and find enthusiast boards about those cars. It was normal size, fast, carried people in quiet comfort and eliminated the cocnentration of pollution in the downtown area, something you still get with hybrids no matter how efficient they are.
Here's one I'd like to see as one sort of choice. A pure electric for the day to day commute. A dedicated solar array at home for recharging it when not in use (along with the normal plug in charger). An add-on cargo trailer for trips that also included a fuel generator and fuel tank to give you the option of automagically turning it into the extended range vehicle you need, plus some additional cargo capacity. As a plus, the genny is useful for those situations at home when the grid goes down, recent hurricane action shows the practicality of having that. You get the best of both alternative auto worlds then, plus the grid backup aspect.
You think they wouldn't sell more copies if it was more reasonably priced? They admit, everyone admits, that piracy of their software is rampant. I offered the opinion that part of the reason was the excessive price. You can see it in any number of products that were over priced, volume sales drop. Take it conversely, why don't they double (increase some amount large) the price? Would that sell more and reduce piracy?
Right now they are still dominant from legacy inertia,installed base and application lock-in, notably with Office, but with increasing competition they will be forced to either offer significantly better product at the same price, or drop price and be more proactive with the quality as they can pull it off. Nature of a business market. Me pointing out dropping price is a very normal business response to competition. They really haven't had much in the way of competition in the desktop market for years and years, now they are starting to feel it. And it's just the beginning, too, it will get more competitive over the next few years.
And you are correct, I don't run a million dollar business. I have never in my entire life had any desire to run a big business, so never attempted it. I simply don't want to. I have no desire to have employees, never have. I've had a few small businesses, that's it, but even there when I had to start hiring people I didn't like it, nor did I like dealing with governmental busywork/paperwork and whatnot, or all the other paperwork involved. Gives me the buckwheats. I like doing simple hands-on work, and the more you try to build a business the less you have time for the actual work, the kind that interests you. Different strokes, some folks thrive on that sort of thing, I don't. That doesn't mean I can't comment on business/economics in general. Hmm, it's like when we run articles on space exploration, I've never been an astronaut or worked on some big rocket, that doesn't mean I can't comment on it. Say you are discussing politics, if you haven't been elected to high office, does that preclude having an opinion or having observations?
Rhetorical question, obviously it doesn't.
Seeing that MS OS starts at a high price and goes up from there is just a normal observation, it's true, as several other posters pointed out prices they have seen. I base my opinion on personal observable anecdotal, and also what I read, and that's about all anyone can do. If MS can maintain their dominance and high prices doing what they are doing, hey, free country and all. I doubt they can keep it up for too many years longer without some serious and significant changes to their business model, price restructuring downwards being one of them.
Ok, ya got me, I don't! I guess there's always new "gullibles" around!
About the closest reference to specific OS gullibility-loss is the dusty copies of XP I have seen on the shelves locally. Talking to the store owners (mom and pop whitebox stores) they don't sell many except with what comes with new machines. Most of it is anecdotal, I just don't know that many people who actually went to the store, purchased XP in order to upgrade. Most that I know who are running it just got it with a new machine, and after awhile they complain about it as much as they ever did with 98. I have 3 friends lately who did the sp2 thing, two broke their boxes bad.
I don't run windows so I can't comment personally about it but it gives me the buckwheats whenever I am forced to, it's sorta...icky..... I have some copies here that are almost gone, I build boxes and give them away (OLD boxes that I get cheap or free and fix), and because they almost all have very low ram in them I susually stick 95 or 98 on them because they are going to kids who already have games, etc. I'm down to two more copies, one of each, all legit, then that's it, no more windows. I've always run mac and now linux the past two years, tried dos many moons ago and just didn't like it. Seemed like a lot of memorizing and typing and work to do not much compared to an easy mouse move and a click.
I'm real square, always paid for my shareware, too. Never even took/copied/whatever you want to call it one MP3 or one movie, either. The net is so chock fulla freeware anyway, just can't see any need to pirate. find decent shareware and pay the developer direct, or use free. I guess if you have an *exact* business use you might need this or that expensive package, that's a totally different ballgame then, I understand "tools".
Just can't see it, don't see it I mean, people clamoring to purchase XP at the prices they charge. I'm sure microsoft sells some full price retail,obviously they do *some*, but I bet most is OEM with new machines and bulk licenses to corporations, etc. I think they'd sell a whole lot more and cut down piracy if they dropped prices radically, exactly the same as the recorded music guys would.
besides being a potty mouth you really don't know me all that well I take it.
My point is it's too expensive, they could sell it for cheaper and eliminate a lot of the problems they see with software piracy. Notice the word "sell" I used here and in my original replay.
that's a clue man.
have a nice day and I hope you don't kiss your mother with that mouth
..is windows piracy. If it WAS cheap enough, people would pop for the Cd and install it.
I got some nifty proof, too, a similar large company gives away it's disks, and has for years now-AOL. They afford it on the margin of a certain small (but still over-all large) segement of the population who will install their software and sign up for net service.
Microsoft could sell the OS on a disk for ten dollars or something like that, and charge another ten a year (something cheap) for updates, and still be billionaires.. Most folks would buy the disk and the legit key then. Note I said most, not all, but I think most would buy it, at least in western/industrialised nations with a decent enough median income.
Their price is not only ridiculous, it's outright scandalous. It's an affront to anyone who's thinking. If their products didn't come pre-installed on new computers, there's no way in heckfire they would sell for what they are asking. Keeping it as a "stealth" product via bundling and collusion with the vendors has been the ticket to their success, off the shelf sales are most likely no where's near where they make most of their money, at least with the base OS. 95 and 98 people were standing in line to get, by ME it slowed down, 2000 hit the doldrums, and XP although on maybe 1/2 the active boxes on the net came mostly with new machines when folks upgraded hardware. It's just lost any "new/shiny/gotta haveit" appeal, because we are 20 years into mass computer adoption now, 10 in a large way. People just aren't as gullible any longer. They'll upgrade with a new box, and that's it, as long as MS lives in delusion land where a simple computer OS is somehow "worth" well over a hundred dollars heading to 200$. Not happening when an entire new computer can be had for not much more than that..
re-read what I wrote and skip the juvenile insults please. The whole question of taxes (and money, it's inseparable) is what I am addressing.
You have to first look at where the money comes from, it's poof created out of thin air. Now you have to take that as a given. If you want to dispute that, I'll need to see some credible references.
Going from that, we don't need a private bank to do this, the official US Treasury can do it. The treasury makes the money and takes the money DIRECTLY and pays all the workers in the government, eliminating the ludicrous middleman of having a private bank do it and then paying the same private bank interest on this so called "debt" we have. It's ridiculous to pay a government worker with so called tax money, then turn around and charge them an income tax or flat tax or sales tax, just to turn it back into the government again. It's an insane daisy chain of complexity that is wasteful and just causes overly complicated busywork.
It's really a simple and logical cocnept if you are going to use artificially created fiat currency like we do now. The main task is to insure that the available monetary supply is no more than what can be demonstrated as the sum of any new created wealth plus the old wealth inside the economic system from the previous year (or quarter). It is no different from the current system except for the fact that "we the people" in the form of our official treasury create the money, and we no longer have to "pay interest" on it. We don't NEED taxes, it's an artificial construct designed for command and control of the population now, it has no other purpose.
In the olden days when all the money was hard currency in the form of precious metal coins, taxes were necessary in order to transfer some of the wealth to the crown or government for that governments business. Now that what we use as "money" is merely created digits in a data bank then only partially represented by inexpensive pieces of paper, we no longer need that middle man step. The government (we the people) can just issue itself the required cash. This pays for all the programs and employees, etc, and enters circulation that way. Roughly 10% of the US working adult population is either a direct government employee or a contractor-to the government. That is more than enough to get currency established into circulation. In a transition period going from the old way to the new way, government can actually just issue all the previous tax payers a set sum of cash, based on a formula that reflects their past several years tax history, perhaps going back one decade or so. Add up what they artifically "owed", and paid in, print out or digitize those sums, and transfer them to the tax payer. Now you have all the cash you need into circulation, and just funding government year to year is where the "new" cash comes from. Obviously inflation is the only major potential problem, so you have to insist on the actual supply, currently called the M3, to ONLY reflect additional produced wealth beyond the initial start up figures inclusive, which could be as easy as just the accounting of the years previous top 100 commodities traded inside the nation, or a similar arrangement.
Benefits are:
Eliminate the so called "national debt"
Individuals get to keep all their money and business would boom, an extra trillion or so in the private sector a year could go to more consumer spending and investments and savings, etc.
Eliminate scads of "busywork" paperwork involved in the current tax system or even a flat tax or sales tax system
Eliminate unneeded government agencies, notably the IRS
Stop the subsidy of billionaires, the private owners of the 12 private for-profit federal reserve banks, which are neither federal, nor do they have any "reserve" beyond computer programs to add new digits, nor do they actually have any money to "lend" the government, so it shouldn't be attempted. It's a pure scam, so eliminate the scam.
If my front door was bought by me brand new and it fell off the hinges every 10th time I used it, yep, I'd notice it and take it back and get my money back. If I tried to lock it but a simple push kept opening it, yep, I'd notice it. If it happened to everyone who bought that door the government would disallow it on the market until it was fixed. With computers and the software that runs them, nope, the companies are allowed to keep selling stuff that breaks all the time, yet it's no ones fault because of the EULA that accompanies your shiny new box. Why is it that these companies can get patents on their so called products, profit from it immensely, then NOTHING is required of them after that point?
And if peoples homes were being broken into and the burglars set up living in the back bedroom, you bet your bippy that the laws on doors and locks would change pretty quickly, and even better designs and warranties would become common place. If you let the burglars live in your back bedroom and they went out and ripped off the neighborhood, the cops WOULD come into your house and give you some legal grief over allowing it to happen, and you wouldn't be allowed to claim "innocence" that you didn't know it was going on. With computers and software though, they get a free ride, because they claim it isn't their fault, when it clearly is. Burglars have setup shop in millions and millions of peoples computers back bedrooms, because of the combo of the companies not being forced to make better products and because no laws apply to the individual users, and nothing is done about it.
Computers/software been around a long time now, in the beginning I could see giving them a skate as the industry got established and got their act together enough. Well, the time has come to insist on taking the training wheels off business-wise and legal liability-wise. You aren't allowed to operate what is called "an attractive nuisance" on your property, that is well established in legal case law. You aren't allowed to sell hazardous items, that too is well established, they get recalled or are not allowed on the market in the first place. But with computers? Anything goes, caveat emptor!
On the one hand, I applaud that government is finally going after the computer burglars, but it also needs to go after the computer makers and sellers for selling buggy insecure crap, and it needs a nudge towards the individuals who just blindly stumble onto the net and then don't give a crap if they are running a public nuisance.. Enoughs enough on allowing this poorly designed stuff to be profitted from, the industry is "mature" enough now to be forced into a little less profit and a lot more responsibility for their products, and joe individual computer operator needs to assume part of that responsibility as well. It will take an "all of the above" effort to come up with a workable solution, IMO.
What, "renting" the music? Ya, that's my point, it's stupid.
I was showing that we don't need ANY taxes. We have a FIAT COUNTERFEIT POOF CREATED money system.
I'll say it again, because it is 100% verifiable true facts. We have a FIAT COUNTERFEIT POOF CREATED OUT OF THIN AIR money system now. It's BROKEN because instead of our own treasury creating the money it's created by a PRIVATE BANK THAT CHARGES INTEREST to you and me and the government. That necessitates the SHAM of requiring "taxes" and a collection agency called the IRS which is basically just goons with guns and badges who take your money. There's no need to "borrow" money if it's POOF CREATED OUT OF THIN AIR. We don't need taxes, we need just for the government itself to issue the money and to keep the supply in circulation at a point that reflects actual verifiable wealth created by all the people. As long as the supply is never enlargened beyond actual produced wealth levels every year, we can have the same business we have now and the same government services, and it would be cheaper and actually better as you could keep all your loot and spend it as you see fit. It would actually be cheaper to run government than the way we do it now, because there would be NO DEBT ever. The only problem is to keep a good eye on the actual supply, and that's about it.
That's the point. Consumer pressure would put pressure on government which would put pressure on the computer vendors and the softweare makers which is WHERE it belongs. THEY promote themselves as computer experts, not your dad. THEY sell this easily cracked crap to your Dad, which turns him into an unwitting accessory, but STILL an accessory, and until all parties involved with this scene are aware of the risks and responsibilities it will continue. Something has got to get their attention.
If your dad drove a car down the street that was belching tons of smoke and leaking oil in huge amounts, eventually he'd get pulled over by the traffic cop and given a ticket, and he'd fail emissions tests and not be allowed to drive or get insurance for the junker, yes? There's no one demanding that he be an expert mechanic, but there are laws insisting that you take your car to an expert to make sure it works properly. And -here's the main point- if the car came from the factory in that state, it wouldn't be allowed to be sold. THAT'S the point, this stuff shouldn't be allowed to be sold pre-broken. And just a few geeks complaining about it isn't working, the companies are still gleefully extracting billions. What other sort of pressure is needed? Market pressure hasn't done it because it's turned into a MONOPOLY, because no one has any blame, because there's no MANDATED WARRANTY. Every other consumer product out there has a minimum warranty, but NOT computer crap. You get a sleazy hardware warranty but without the software computers are just a pile of useless junk, the warranty needs to include the software, which is the whole point of computing, running the software, and a lot of that stuff comes pre broken and is shipped out the door and profitted from. There's no other solution other than mass rejection of the hardware/software combo that is broken, and the only way to obtain that is massive consumer inconvenience, and the only way to do that is to make it illegal somehow to be a zombie on the net. People weren't voluntarily using cars that polluted less, companies weren't making less polluting cars, eventually laws were passed MANDATING certain minimum standards and you as the individual driver also have to pass inspection and if it is broken, no driving on the highway. If enough are broken they get recalled. Same should apply to computers. We as society have finally determined you shouldn't be allowed to drive it around in public because it's just too crappy, even if it's only one hour a week. Same with the infohighway and computers, enoughs enough with insecure and polluting computer junkers on the highway and "innocent" drivers and "innocent" companies that supply the computer drivers. All of them say it ain't their fault... uh huh. It's all of their fault because it takes all of them to pollute the infohighway. It's called responsibility, and it should apply vertically, top to bottom, starting with the corporations down to the consumer who needs to be forced to also have a certain minimum awareness. If the individual consumers can be inconvenienced enough-either from confiscation of machine or being refused public internet access with that machine they might put pressure in large enough numbers on government and the corporations to disallow selling polluting junkers and calling them functional when they clearly are not.
We got EVERYONE saying it's a problem yet it's NO ONES fault. Huh? This is UNIQUE to computers and software and the net, it doesn't exist any place else with consumer products.
Take away the "not my fault" aspect and it would get fixed.
... a lot less buying of products and a lot more renting and leasing, at least those things that would lend themselves to that concept. No outright ownership/purchase = no tax. You'd have to tax services at the same rate then as sales of goods, or should I say all financial transactions. What person would want to pay a tax on durable goods that wear out anyway when they could avoid it by renting instead?
All in all though I'm in favor of eliminating the income tax, the IRS and egads get rid of the federal reserve conjob, the worst economic abomination evah. Even if we stick with a fiat currency, there is NO reason to not do it with our own treasury and to eliminate the whole "interest" scam that goes along with the FED. Paying interest to mega billionaires who can poof create the currency that they lend is pure-D nutz. That would save..uhh.. a ZILLION bucks right there, might even eliminate the whole need to tax at all. Just tightly control the money supply and never inflate it beyond actual probable growth. Government could still spend all they wanted to like now, and minus the "interest" could provide even more services. It would be the same poof created "money", so the only difference would be losing the interest we somehow "owe" them bozos.
Slashdot Mirror
Mine (open case hodge podge of parts now) has a baby lizard living in it! So far he's been too fast for me to catch him, he scoots away down behind the desk and the wall where all the wirez and dustbunnies and other sorts of stuff live. Almost had it this morning, it was lurking between the keyboard and monitor but booked under the monitor stand and got away.
..one "security" fanatics...certainly sounds like it. Basically, stay away from fundies, whatever stripe they are.....
I tell you who in my experience REALLY don't like cameras....
cops
...of that one guy search engine we had an article on here several months back? Can't remember it, but I want to give it another try.
I don't want an AOL (or whaterver) dominated web, a MS dominated web, nor a google dominated web.
I use google but it gives me the tinfoil hat buckwheats too, and has for a long time now. That's just too much concentrated data for one company, IMO.
If it didn't exist, they'd have to invent it. The regime needs a boogey man-men really. Al Jazeera fits the bill. It's headquartered in qatar, which for all practical purposes is a little known but important country in the mideast not only for having a ton of oil and natgas, but because it's a place where all the factions and spooks can get together and conduct real business-much like switzerland or portugal in ww2.
If the US regime didn't want al jazeera to exist it wouldn't, and starting with the grand poobah there, he knows where his bread is buttered and how he stays in power.
...and it won't be the first or last time, but I have been under the impression that no art museum likes people to photograph paintings, as the flash deteriorates the pigments.
:p
--and no, never checked Snopes on that either. It very well could be an urban legend, but I do recall getting nailed for it at a museum once a long time ago...
thanks, to you and the other Ac I got replies from. I originally looked at their site but failed to see it.
hey, here you go. You obviously don't read or understand a thing I write, so stop bothering me. I NEVER SAID that I steal software, nor do I recommend people take it. NEVER. I don't downlkoad moveis or music either, and I always paid for my shareware. Get it? Got it yet??? You comprehende? It happens though, millions of people do, and all I was saying that if they dropped the price to more reasonable, they'd sell more and piracy would probably drop. this is the third time I've said it, and you cannot point to any instance where I encouraged people to take stuff. This is as simple as I can say it.
Now leave me alone, no more replies from me to you. I have no truck with people who accuse me of something I don't do or advocate.
Thankyou, Mr. or Ms coward, that ltsp page looks like the info I was after. I have a small stack of old boxes (pent 1's) with tiny ridiculous HDDs and only floppies, no Cd drives, which make them almost useless, but perhaps I can do a project with them using this info and one decent box added in as the server.
here: http://www.hosef.org/
But I don't see anyplace with more technical information on exactly how they did the fedora diskless workstations and server setup. I'd like to see something like that.
You got it! they make tons offering it for real cheap to the OS vendors, yet they turn around and ten times the price to joe poorer end user off the rack at computes-b-us. It's a total rip-off price. If it was down to the same 20$ or even ten or free like they could, they'd sell a lot more. I think nowadays they'd be way better off giving it away with bandwith/internet connection/updates and fixes by the month. Back when making copies was still expensive and the whole idea of a personal computer was still rare, ya, I can see it cost a lot of money for providers to do things and sell them. Now? No way, copies are a lot cheaper to make, bascially every other aspect of computing has dropped in price except for microsofts offerings, they keep going up, for not much more in the way of quality or features. And people KNOW now how cheap it is to make copies, so they *do that* instead of paying obvious ripoff prices.
There's a fairly large difference between digital data that can be replicated for at most a few dollars a copy, compared to a heavily resource intensive manufactured item like a car.
That's the point. It's not my article or my software being pirated. I'm a consumer, and also read from other consumers and know other consumers. Most consumers think it's way over priced. That's the message MS needs to hear, just like the music and movie people. A lot of people tend to just make copies of it for free (I don't, just know it happens), because they don't want to pay hundreds for a copy. My *speculation* is that if MS offered it for a more reasonable per copy price, a lot more people would purchase it, tending to slow down outright piracy.
Simple enough concept I think to understand.
Heck, I think they could give away the initial OS install and just do a reasonable fee for updates, and they do still run a national ISP,so, if they combined it with that, well, it might work. Back to my early observation, AOL only offers a hacked browser and some connect software and bandwith for sale. MS could offer exactly the same but with a complete OS and if they were smart a lot more free applications, all on one disk.
...went and dug out ole grampa here... it's a "national postal meter"
%^)
Tell ya whut they are choppin up is a crying shame and that's all the 14s. Serious nice rifle there.
what??? You wouldn't want a rock-ola?
although I agree, and IBM one would be nice as well
when I was a kid they were 20$ surplus from the government.....
none, nada, last several months. Not sure how I pulled it off other than not using my email address with only a few people and trusted companies, but I haven't received one in I think 6 months now. Haven't even had any to "train" my moz mail with.
I used to use email all the time and was cavalier about posting it, contacts in newsgroups or forums, etc, last I remember I was approaching a couple hundred spams a day with that insecure technique. Since then got a different ISP and new email addy, and been real particular who I give the addy to, and it seems to have worked. I miss using email *more*, but the time (and aggravation) I save makes up for it for me.
...alternative energy conversion devices, but I'll be the first one to admit that more sane conservation will do more in the short and medium term than anything else. It's jhoe sixpacks best bet dollar for dollar right now. Making homes with double the insulation for example, and using triple pane nitrogen gas filled windows, or integral blinds, etc are all great. The water heater blankets. Much better quality home appliances, like sunfrost units instead of el cheapos, and etc.
Basically, I like both methods simultaneously. My theory is you work both ends towards the middle. Produce (or use) more of your own power using renewables, and conserve what you use, use less but get more. Eventually those two lines meet up and you are sitting pretty energy wise.
some more things I'd like to see:
LEDs becoming commonplace in replacement of incandescents and fluorescents
Solar hot water heating and some more PV action on all the millions of sunny roofs out there
More commercial sized wind gennys on farms, both to help out the farmers and to add to the grid redundancy without resorting to more fuel burning plants.
Electric vehicles are practical enough now, need the manufacturers to just come up with a few normal looking models and sell the dang things, recharging at night is a benefit to the big power producers as well,they have to keep their units running even when demand is low like at night
Building codes and mortgage lenders need to get into the act and stop lending or approving dismally low levels of insulation in new construction
Stop the destruction of community small scale hydro electric like they are doing now, hydro is the cleanest and most cost effective low tech solution for electrical production.
Legalise industrial hemp and partially use it for liquid fuel production, the "solar conversion" with plants is very good and the ethanol or methanol or biodiesel that can be produced burns fairly clean. Hemp is good because it grows so fast, requires little attention or fertilisers compared to alternative fuel crops like corn for example
Higher mandated average vehicle mileage. Detroit whined and sniveled, said it was impossible, but once it was passed, by golly they met the goals. They could do it again because the higher mileage vehicles are out there now in other areas of the world, and until there's an incentive like a law, it won't happen as much as it needs to happen. And include normal pickups and SUVs into the mix. They could add take a scosh better mileage.
R&D I'd like to see
I think there's some huge power to be harvested in the areas of atmospheric static electricity and in the "differential" areas like in the ocean thermocline difference and with deep earth to surface differences. Pilot programs have shown it's there, just needs a little more work to get it consistent and useable
More work on improving permanent magnet motors and generators, they also show some decent promise in efficiency gains in a variety of applications
More mandated recycling, stop the nutso throw away culture. Products should also have their recyclability taken into consideration during design phases. Most people don't mind recycling at all-if it's convenient and actually useful
A LOT more methane production from ag waste and community sewer treatment plants. It's barely got off the ground in some places and it's proving practical, just need more of it and better designed digesters, etc.
...with the consumer "choice" model. Example, the GM EV-1 pure electric. The people who got to lease them loved them, wanted to purchase them outright. GM refused and is now crushing all of them. It worked too good or something. You can still google and find enthusiast boards about those cars. It was normal size, fast, carried people in quiet comfort and eliminated the cocnentration of pollution in the downtown area, something you still get with hybrids no matter how efficient they are.
Here's one I'd like to see as one sort of choice. A pure electric for the day to day commute. A dedicated solar array at home for recharging it when not in use (along with the normal plug in charger). An add-on cargo trailer for trips that also included a fuel generator and fuel tank to give you the option of automagically turning it into the extended range vehicle you need, plus some additional cargo capacity. As a plus, the genny is useful for those situations at home when the grid goes down, recent hurricane action shows the practicality of having that. You get the best of both alternative auto worlds then, plus the grid backup aspect.
You think they wouldn't sell more copies if it was more reasonably priced? They admit, everyone admits, that piracy of their software is rampant. I offered the opinion that part of the reason was the excessive price. You can see it in any number of products that were over priced, volume sales drop. Take it conversely, why don't they double (increase some amount large) the price? Would that sell more and reduce piracy?
Right now they are still dominant from legacy inertia,installed base and application lock-in, notably with Office, but with increasing competition they will be forced to either offer significantly better product at the same price, or drop price and be more proactive with the quality as they can pull it off. Nature of a business market. Me pointing out dropping price is a very normal business response to competition. They really haven't had much in the way of competition in the desktop market for years and years, now they are starting to feel it. And it's just the beginning, too, it will get more competitive over the next few years.
And you are correct, I don't run a million dollar business. I have never in my entire life had any desire to run a big business, so never attempted it. I simply don't want to. I have no desire to have employees, never have. I've had a few small businesses, that's it, but even there when I had to start hiring people I didn't like it, nor did I like dealing with governmental busywork/paperwork and whatnot, or all the other paperwork involved. Gives me the buckwheats. I like doing simple hands-on work, and the more you try to build a business the less you have time for the actual work, the kind that interests you. Different strokes, some folks thrive on that sort of thing, I don't. That doesn't mean I can't comment on business/economics in general. Hmm, it's like when we run articles on space exploration, I've never been an astronaut or worked on some big rocket, that doesn't mean I can't comment on it. Say you are discussing politics, if you haven't been elected to high office, does that preclude having an opinion or having observations?
Rhetorical question, obviously it doesn't.
Seeing that MS OS starts at a high price and goes up from there is just a normal observation, it's true, as several other posters pointed out prices they have seen. I base my opinion on personal observable anecdotal, and also what I read, and that's about all anyone can do. If MS can maintain their dominance and high prices doing what they are doing, hey, free country and all. I doubt they can keep it up for too many years longer without some serious and significant changes to their business model, price restructuring downwards being one of them.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
...icky..... I have some copies here that are almost gone, I build boxes and give them away (OLD boxes that I get cheap or free and fix), and because they almost all have very low ram in them I susually stick 95 or 98 on them because they are going to kids who already have games, etc. I'm down to two more copies, one of each, all legit, then that's it, no more windows. I've always run mac and now linux the past two years, tried dos many moons ago and just didn't like it. Seemed like a lot of memorizing and typing and work to do not much compared to an easy mouse move and a click.
Ok, ya got me, I don't! I guess there's always new "gullibles" around!
About the closest reference to specific OS gullibility-loss is the dusty copies of XP I have seen on the shelves locally. Talking to the store owners (mom and pop whitebox stores) they don't sell many except with what comes with new machines. Most of it is anecdotal, I just don't know that many people who actually went to the store, purchased XP in order to upgrade. Most that I know who are running it just got it with a new machine, and after awhile they complain about it as much as they ever did with 98. I have 3 friends lately who did the sp2 thing, two broke their boxes bad.
I don't run windows so I can't comment personally about it but it gives me the buckwheats whenever I am forced to, it's sorta
I'm real square, always paid for my shareware, too. Never even took/copied/whatever you want to call it one MP3 or one movie, either. The net is so chock fulla freeware anyway, just can't see any need to pirate. find decent shareware and pay the developer direct, or use free. I guess if you have an *exact* business use you might need this or that expensive package, that's a totally different ballgame then, I understand "tools".
Just can't see it, don't see it I mean, people clamoring to purchase XP at the prices they charge. I'm sure microsoft sells some full price retail,obviously they do *some*, but I bet most is OEM with new machines and bulk licenses to corporations, etc. I think they'd sell a whole lot more and cut down piracy if they dropped prices radically, exactly the same as the recorded music guys would.
besides being a potty mouth you really don't know me all that well I take it.
My point is it's too expensive, they could sell it for cheaper and eliminate a lot of the problems they see with software piracy. Notice the word "sell" I used here and in my original replay.
that's a clue man.
have a nice day and I hope you don't kiss your mother with that mouth
..is windows piracy. If it WAS cheap enough, people would pop for the Cd and install it.
I got some nifty proof, too, a similar large company gives away it's disks, and has for years now-AOL. They afford it on the margin of a certain small (but still over-all large) segement of the population who will install their software and sign up for net service.
Microsoft could sell the OS on a disk for ten dollars or something like that, and charge another ten a year (something cheap) for updates, and still be billionaires.. Most folks would buy the disk and the legit key then. Note I said most, not all, but I think most would buy it, at least in western/industrialised nations with a decent enough median income.
Their price is not only ridiculous, it's outright scandalous. It's an affront to anyone who's thinking. If their products didn't come pre-installed on new computers, there's no way in heckfire they would sell for what they are asking. Keeping it as a "stealth" product via bundling and collusion with the vendors has been the ticket to their success, off the shelf sales are most likely no where's near where they make most of their money, at least with the base OS. 95 and 98 people were standing in line to get, by ME it slowed down, 2000 hit the doldrums, and XP although on maybe 1/2 the active boxes on the net came mostly with new machines when folks upgraded hardware. It's just lost any "new/shiny/gotta haveit" appeal, because we are 20 years into mass computer adoption now, 10 in a large way. People just aren't as gullible any longer. They'll upgrade with a new box, and that's it, as long as MS lives in delusion land where a simple computer OS is somehow "worth" well over a hundred dollars heading to 200$. Not happening when an entire new computer can be had for not much more than that..
IMO anyway-anyones MMV of course
re-read what I wrote and skip the juvenile insults please. The whole question of taxes (and money, it's inseparable) is what I am addressing.
You have to first look at where the money comes from, it's poof created out of thin air. Now you have to take that as a given. If you want to dispute that, I'll need to see some credible references.
Going from that, we don't need a private bank to do this, the official US Treasury can do it. The treasury makes the money and takes the money DIRECTLY and pays all the workers in the government, eliminating the ludicrous middleman of having a private bank do it and then paying the same private bank interest on this so called "debt" we have. It's ridiculous to pay a government worker with so called tax money, then turn around and charge them an income tax or flat tax or sales tax, just to turn it back into the government again. It's an insane daisy chain of complexity that is wasteful and just causes overly complicated busywork.
It's really a simple and logical cocnept if you are going to use artificially created fiat currency like we do now. The main task is to insure that the available monetary supply is no more than what can be demonstrated as the sum of any new created wealth plus the old wealth inside the economic system from the previous year (or quarter). It is no different from the current system except for the fact that "we the people" in the form of our official treasury create the money, and we no longer have to "pay interest" on it. We don't NEED taxes, it's an artificial construct designed for command and control of the population now, it has no other purpose.
In the olden days when all the money was hard currency in the form of precious metal coins, taxes were necessary in order to transfer some of the wealth to the crown or government for that governments business. Now that what we use as "money" is merely created digits in a data bank then only partially represented by inexpensive pieces of paper, we no longer need that middle man step. The government (we the people) can just issue itself the required cash. This pays for all the programs and employees, etc, and enters circulation that way. Roughly 10% of the US working adult population is either a direct government employee or a contractor-to the government. That is more than enough to get currency established into circulation. In a transition period going from the old way to the new way, government can actually just issue all the previous tax payers a set sum of cash, based on a formula that reflects their past several years tax history, perhaps going back one decade or so. Add up what they artifically "owed", and paid in, print out or digitize those sums, and transfer them to the tax payer. Now you have all the cash you need into circulation, and just funding government year to year is where the "new" cash comes from. Obviously inflation is the only major potential problem, so you have to insist on the actual supply, currently called the M3, to ONLY reflect additional produced wealth beyond the initial start up figures inclusive, which could be as easy as just the accounting of the years previous top 100 commodities traded inside the nation, or a similar arrangement.
Benefits are:
Eliminate the so called "national debt"
Individuals get to keep all their money and business would boom, an extra trillion or so in the private sector a year could go to more consumer spending and investments and savings, etc.
Eliminate scads of "busywork" paperwork involved in the current tax system or even a flat tax or sales tax system
Eliminate unneeded government agencies, notably the IRS
Stop the subsidy of billionaires, the private owners of the 12 private for-profit federal reserve banks, which are neither federal, nor do they have any "reserve" beyond computer programs to add new digits, nor do they actually have any money to "lend" the government, so it shouldn't be attempted. It's a pure scam, so eliminate the scam.
It wo
If my front door was bought by me brand new and it fell off the hinges every 10th time I used it, yep, I'd notice it and take it back and get my money back. If I tried to lock it but a simple push kept opening it, yep, I'd notice it. If it happened to everyone who bought that door the government would disallow it on the market until it was fixed. With computers and the software that runs them, nope, the companies are allowed to keep selling stuff that breaks all the time, yet it's no ones fault because of the EULA that accompanies your shiny new box. Why is it that these companies can get patents on their so called products, profit from it immensely, then NOTHING is required of them after that point?
And if peoples homes were being broken into and the burglars set up living in the back bedroom, you bet your bippy that the laws on doors and locks would change pretty quickly, and even better designs and warranties would become common place. If you let the burglars live in your back bedroom and they went out and ripped off the neighborhood, the cops WOULD come into your house and give you some legal grief over allowing it to happen, and you wouldn't be allowed to claim "innocence" that you didn't know it was going on. With computers and software though, they get a free ride, because they claim it isn't their fault, when it clearly is. Burglars have setup shop in millions and millions of peoples computers back bedrooms, because of the combo of the companies not being forced to make better products and because no laws apply to the individual users, and nothing is done about it.
Computers/software been around a long time now, in the beginning I could see giving them a skate as the industry got established and got their act together enough. Well, the time has come to insist on taking the training wheels off business-wise and legal liability-wise. You aren't allowed to operate what is called "an attractive nuisance" on your property, that is well established in legal case law. You aren't allowed to sell hazardous items, that too is well established, they get recalled or are not allowed on the market in the first place. But with computers? Anything goes, caveat emptor!
On the one hand, I applaud that government is finally going after the computer burglars, but it also needs to go after the computer makers and sellers for selling buggy insecure crap, and it needs a nudge towards the individuals who just blindly stumble onto the net and then don't give a crap if they are running a public nuisance.. Enoughs enough on allowing this poorly designed stuff to be profitted from, the industry is "mature" enough now to be forced into a little less profit and a lot more responsibility for their products, and joe individual computer operator needs to assume part of that responsibility as well. It will take an "all of the above" effort to come up with a workable solution, IMO.
What, "renting" the music? Ya, that's my point, it's stupid.
I was showing that we don't need ANY taxes. We have a FIAT COUNTERFEIT POOF CREATED money system.
I'll say it again, because it is 100% verifiable true facts. We have a FIAT COUNTERFEIT POOF CREATED OUT OF THIN AIR money system now. It's BROKEN because instead of our own treasury creating the money it's created by a PRIVATE BANK THAT CHARGES INTEREST to you and me and the government. That necessitates the SHAM of requiring "taxes" and a collection agency called the IRS which is basically just goons with guns and badges who take your money. There's no need to "borrow" money if it's POOF CREATED OUT OF THIN AIR. We don't need taxes, we need just for the government itself to issue the money and to keep the supply in circulation at a point that reflects actual verifiable wealth created by all the people. As long as the supply is never enlargened beyond actual produced wealth levels every year, we can have the same business we have now and the same government services, and it would be cheaper and actually better as you could keep all your loot and spend it as you see fit. It would actually be cheaper to run government than the way we do it now, because there would be NO DEBT ever. The only problem is to keep a good eye on the actual supply, and that's about it.
That's the point. Consumer pressure would put pressure on government which would put pressure on the computer vendors and the softweare makers which is WHERE it belongs. THEY promote themselves as computer experts, not your dad. THEY sell this easily cracked crap to your Dad, which turns him into an unwitting accessory, but STILL an accessory, and until all parties involved with this scene are aware of the risks and responsibilities it will continue. Something has got to get their attention.
If your dad drove a car down the street that was belching tons of smoke and leaking oil in huge amounts, eventually he'd get pulled over by the traffic cop and given a ticket, and he'd fail emissions tests and not be allowed to drive or get insurance for the junker, yes? There's no one demanding that he be an expert mechanic, but there are laws insisting that you take your car to an expert to make sure it works properly. And -here's the main point- if the car came from the factory in that state, it wouldn't be allowed to be sold. THAT'S the point, this stuff shouldn't be allowed to be sold pre-broken. And just a few geeks complaining about it isn't working, the companies are still gleefully extracting billions. What other sort of pressure is needed? Market pressure hasn't done it because it's turned into a MONOPOLY, because no one has any blame, because there's no MANDATED WARRANTY. Every other consumer product out there has a minimum warranty, but NOT computer crap. You get a sleazy hardware warranty but without the software computers are just a pile of useless junk, the warranty needs to include the software, which is the whole point of computing, running the software, and a lot of that stuff comes pre broken and is shipped out the door and profitted from. There's no other solution other than mass rejection of the hardware/software combo that is broken, and the only way to obtain that is massive consumer inconvenience, and the only way to do that is to make it illegal somehow to be a zombie on the net. People weren't voluntarily using cars that polluted less, companies weren't making less polluting cars, eventually laws were passed MANDATING certain minimum standards and you as the individual driver also have to pass inspection and if it is broken, no driving on the highway. If enough are broken they get recalled. Same should apply to computers. We as society have finally determined you shouldn't be allowed to drive it around in public because it's just too crappy, even if it's only one hour a week. Same with the infohighway and computers, enoughs enough with insecure and polluting computer junkers on the highway and "innocent" drivers and "innocent" companies that supply the computer drivers. All of them say it ain't their fault... uh huh. It's all of their fault because it takes all of them to pollute the infohighway. It's called responsibility, and it should apply vertically, top to bottom, starting with the corporations down to the consumer who needs to be forced to also have a certain minimum awareness. If the individual consumers can be inconvenienced enough-either from confiscation of machine or being refused public internet access with that machine they might put pressure in large enough numbers on government and the corporations to disallow selling polluting junkers and calling them functional when they clearly are not.
We got EVERYONE saying it's a problem yet it's NO ONES fault. Huh? This is UNIQUE to computers and software and the net, it doesn't exist any place else with consumer products.
Take away the "not my fault" aspect and it would get fixed.
... a lot less buying of products and a lot more renting and leasing, at least those things that would lend themselves to that concept. No outright ownership/purchase = no tax. You'd have to tax services at the same rate then as sales of goods, or should I say all financial transactions. What person would want to pay a tax on durable goods that wear out anyway when they could avoid it by renting instead?
All in all though I'm in favor of eliminating the income tax, the IRS and egads get rid of the federal reserve conjob, the worst economic abomination evah. Even if we stick with a fiat currency, there is NO reason to not do it with our own treasury and to eliminate the whole "interest" scam that goes along with the FED. Paying interest to mega billionaires who can poof create the currency that they lend is pure-D nutz. That would save..uhh.. a ZILLION bucks right there, might even eliminate the whole need to tax at all. Just tightly control the money supply and never inflate it beyond actual probable growth. Government could still spend all they wanted to like now, and minus the "interest" could provide even more services. It would be the same poof created "money", so the only difference would be losing the interest we somehow "owe" them bozos.