PR sure does deliver weak governments and perpetual coalitions, but I think that's a good thing. Care to back up your assertion that it's "not a recipe for success" with some reasoning?
A 'strong government' is the government's way of saying a 'government that has too much power', as far as I'm concerned. Look, politics should reflect the debates people are having in real life. Laws *should* be hard to pass, coalitions *should* have to be formed to get them through; that represents a majority of people actually having to agree on something in order for it to be made law, which makes it more likely it will be a good law.
I totally don't get your assertion that PR is what's behind MEPs voting for 'silly nonsense', anyway. Are you telling me that MPs, under our current system, and *not* accountable to their parties? How do you explain whips, and backbenchers always 'towing the party line' in votes for laws that are totally unpopular with the electorate, such as ID cards, tuition fees, or contraversial NHS reforms? MPs will *always* be accountable to their parties, but this is fine, because their parties are accountable to the electorate. PR simply makes the parties a lot MORE accountable, because they know that people can and will get rid of them if they screw up, instead of voting for them out of fear that an even-worse party will get an unfair majority.
I urge everyone to vote Lib Dem. They're committed to improving the electoral system (check out the 'better governance' consultation paper), which includes implementing a system of proportional representation. This is the foundation for good government. They may well have policies that you disagree with; I don't like their fondness for the EU, nor their support of Labour's road charging idea. However we only need them in office for 1 or 2 terms to fix our godawful electoral system, and then we can actually start voting for parties that are actually GOOD, and our vote will be useful. Vote Lib Dem.
I'm seriously wondering whether the received wisdom will start to falter if/when AMD dies, though. Never before has there been a market (modern CPUs) with such high barriers to entry, to the extent that the only competitor I can think would have the resources to fight Intel would be a large government, like the US or Chinese governments. Do you think that, absent of this, the Intel empire would stand a chance of falling? You can use OSS to defeat MS, because its distribution is incredibly cheap. The same can't be said of CPU production. It worries me.
Sure the prices could be raised, but only in theory - imagine the outrage from consumers like you (and me) if suddenly our access costs were hiked because "on average" people use more bandwidth.
Prices on stuff go up all the time. Net connection prices have recently been reducing because of price wars, but 'outrage' if they were to increase a bit? Hardly. I'd be more than happy to pay, say, £10($20)/month more for my net access, before I even began to think about complaining. *AS LONG AS* they didn't cap or tier it.
OK, this might seem like a nitpick, but I can't let it pass; I had to read this sentence a few times before I understood the true meaning, and I only did because I'm a native English speaker:
He writes that the classic 'Jeffersonet' -- which includes e-mail, instant messaging, much e-commerce, and most websites created in the first 13 or so years of the Web -- is 'the greatest tool in human history to communicate research, teaching, news, and political ideas, or to let tiny businesses compete worldwide,' and cannot be compromised by a tiered Internet.
What you mean (or he means) is that it must not be compromised. 'Cannot' pretty much means the opposite.
And I think you should always emphasize that some, probably many, lawyers actually fight lawsuits that they consider to be valid and just. Only some are assholes. This illustrates the fact that they could practice law without being assholes.
The GIMP uses several windows to contain an interface what is, semantically, one interface. That makes it totally unintuative and ugly, and I have no idea why they've not redesigned the interface yet. Do you?
Never mind that; if this was issued in 1987, doesn't that mean its 20 year period is either up or nearly up? So, they're suing solely for PREVIOUS violations of the patent, not current violations? If this is the case, it most certainly should be outlawed. They've made no attempt to defend the patent, and have cynically waited until the last minute to screw (many well-intentioned) others out of as much money as possible.
MS competed and released competetive IE browsers until Netscape died painfully. It then stagnated, and continued to consolidate its monopoly position. Intel has shown no evidence that it will not do exactly the same, once AMD goes away. Don't think for one second that they won't put shareholder profits before customers.
Still had the 2GB memory limit though, probably not much to there except go to a 64bit system and suffer the issues involved with that... not worth it.
Honest question: What was even a hardcore gamer needing with more than 2GB of memory? I'm not hardcore, but do like the TES series and bought TES: Oblivion soon after it was released. Even IT runs just fine with my 'measly' 1GB of memory. What could they possibly need more than 2GB for? Sounds like somebody who's been misinformed that more RAM *always* increases performance.
ReactOS competes with MS in the same way that an ant competes with an elephant. It takes up some space the elephant could possibly have used, but doesn't exactly cause it problems.
A while back, I distinctly remember reading a post on Slashdot predicting that there would be endless Vista articles, as in several on a daily basis from the date it was officially released. Obsession over it, if you will. I remember laughing, and it was modded funny. Looks like it should've been modded informative.:-\
Slashdot Mirror
PR sure does deliver weak governments and perpetual coalitions, but I think that's a good thing. Care to back up your assertion that it's "not a recipe for success" with some reasoning?
A 'strong government' is the government's way of saying a 'government that has too much power', as far as I'm concerned. Look, politics should reflect the debates people are having in real life. Laws *should* be hard to pass, coalitions *should* have to be formed to get them through; that represents a majority of people actually having to agree on something in order for it to be made law, which makes it more likely it will be a good law.
I totally don't get your assertion that PR is what's behind MEPs voting for 'silly nonsense', anyway. Are you telling me that MPs, under our current system, and *not* accountable to their parties? How do you explain whips, and backbenchers always 'towing the party line' in votes for laws that are totally unpopular with the electorate, such as ID cards, tuition fees, or contraversial NHS reforms? MPs will *always* be accountable to their parties, but this is fine, because their parties are accountable to the electorate. PR simply makes the parties a lot MORE accountable, because they know that people can and will get rid of them if they screw up, instead of voting for them out of fear that an even-worse party will get an unfair majority.
I urge everyone to vote Lib Dem. They're committed to improving the electoral system (check out the 'better governance' consultation paper), which includes implementing a system of proportional representation. This is the foundation for good government. They may well have policies that you disagree with; I don't like their fondness for the EU, nor their support of Labour's road charging idea. However we only need them in office for 1 or 2 terms to fix our godawful electoral system, and then we can actually start voting for parties that are actually GOOD, and our vote will be useful. Vote Lib Dem.
How about using the sun as a garbage dump?
I'm seriously wondering whether the received wisdom will start to falter if/when AMD dies, though. Never before has there been a market (modern CPUs) with such high barriers to entry, to the extent that the only competitor I can think would have the resources to fight Intel would be a large government, like the US or Chinese governments. Do you think that, absent of this, the Intel empire would stand a chance of falling? You can use OSS to defeat MS, because its distribution is incredibly cheap. The same can't be said of CPU production. It worries me.
Sure the prices could be raised, but only in theory - imagine the outrage from consumers like you (and me) if suddenly our access costs were hiked because "on average" people use more bandwidth.
Prices on stuff go up all the time. Net connection prices have recently been reducing because of price wars, but 'outrage' if they were to increase a bit? Hardly. I'd be more than happy to pay, say, £10($20)/month more for my net access, before I even began to think about complaining. *AS LONG AS* they didn't cap or tier it.
And if they use the term, 'series of tubes', they should be shot.
OK, this might seem like a nitpick, but I can't let it pass; I had to read this sentence a few times before I understood the true meaning, and I only did because I'm a native English speaker:
He writes that the classic 'Jeffersonet' -- which includes e-mail, instant messaging, much e-commerce, and most websites created in the first 13 or so years of the Web -- is 'the greatest tool in human history to communicate research, teaching, news, and political ideas, or to let tiny businesses compete worldwide,' and cannot be compromised by a tiered Internet.
What you mean (or he means) is that it must not be compromised. 'Cannot' pretty much means the opposite.
What is there to appeal against? "The patents system is fucking retarded and you should throw the case out on principle"?
Do they have Galaxy in the US? Apparenly it's called 'Dove' there. I challenge you to find a more delicious, intense, creamy chocolate.
No. The stuff I grew up on is low-grade cheap chocolate. Not as low grade or cheap as off-the-shelf candy in the US, but mass-market anyway.
I was (am) addicted to the stuff. Eating between a kilo a week and a kilo a day.
Let me guess - you're Richard Stallman?
Why would you want to remove the oil? Just get some of it on the knife. It's delicious and juicy.
What you don't seem to realize is you can only have food invented once...and then built on.
Not if it infringes upon the first food's patent.
Waldorf Salad
Yeah, fair enough. Can't argue with that one. Quite nice too, actually.
What is a waldorf? A walnut that's gone orf?
And I think you should always emphasize that some, probably many, lawyers actually fight lawsuits that they consider to be valid and just. Only some are assholes. This illustrates the fact that they could practice law without being assholes.
The GIMP uses several windows to contain an interface what is, semantically, one interface. That makes it totally unintuative and ugly, and I have no idea why they've not redesigned the interface yet. Do you?
Why vertical? Latin text is written horizontally; surely it would make better use of real estate to have horizontal menubars.
And btw, 18 monitors? wtf? have you watched too many movies like "hackers"? I'm a give fan of screen space, but that's fucking ridiculous.
What he didn't mention was that he was working on a home-brew dot-matrix display, and each monitor was a wristwatch with a 2x2px resolution.
Slashdot summary said it was issued in 1987. :-)
Never mind that; if this was issued in 1987, doesn't that mean its 20 year period is either up or nearly up? So, they're suing solely for PREVIOUS violations of the patent, not current violations? If this is the case, it most certainly should be outlawed. They've made no attempt to defend the patent, and have cynically waited until the last minute to screw (many well-intentioned) others out of as much money as possible.
MS competed and released competetive IE browsers until Netscape died painfully. It then stagnated, and continued to consolidate its monopoly position. Intel has shown no evidence that it will not do exactly the same, once AMD goes away. Don't think for one second that they won't put shareholder profits before customers.
There is absolutely nothing to get excited about with Vista.
The 'wow' starts now! How can you not get excited about that??
Still had the 2GB memory limit though, probably not much to there except go to a 64bit system and suffer the issues involved with that... not worth it.
Honest question: What was even a hardcore gamer needing with more than 2GB of memory? I'm not hardcore, but do like the TES series and bought TES: Oblivion soon after it was released. Even IT runs just fine with my 'measly' 1GB of memory. What could they possibly need more than 2GB for? Sounds like somebody who's been misinformed that more RAM *always* increases performance.
ReactOS competes with MS in the same way that an ant competes with an elephant. It takes up some space the elephant could possibly have used, but doesn't exactly cause it problems.
As much as the media may want it to be, there is no competition in a market with a Monopoly.
Oh come on, I think there is. I can think of several off the top of my head; Snakes & Ladders, Hungry Hungry Hippoes, Cluedo, etc.
A while back, I distinctly remember reading a post on Slashdot predicting that there would be endless Vista articles, as in several on a daily basis from the date it was officially released. Obsession over it, if you will. I remember laughing, and it was modded funny. Looks like it should've been modded informative. :-\