If you critique every thing someone does you will find things they need to hide. You've never been in a intense personal relationship. Trust me you spend enough time observing someone very close, and you can find lots of flaws and problems.
Yes, you certainly can find something wrong when you're looking so very hard for something to be wrong. That you wallow in pessimism, however, does not constitute an ethical argument.
Of course it's wrong for the technician to install spyware; it's an uninvited tresspass on the client's property. However, the idea that everyone has something to hide gains truth only because there are petty jackasses like you around to judge them for things that would otherwise be meaningless.
Ultima Underworld and TES2: Daggerfall are IMO truly excellent games which brought together the FPS and CRPG genres. Unfortunately the same balance doesn't appear to have been struck again, yet... FPS takes over because flash is king.:(
Amazing. Hey everyone, raise your hand if you've worked for Electronic Arts! I'm guessing none of the above corporations has a six-month-per-year contract hiring policy to prevent them from ever becoming liable for insurance benefits.
The President's power in this matter is pretty reasonable in responsible hands. It's the last part that's brought into question.
And it will be, again and again. Sure, these powers are fine in the hands of individuals who will not misuse them. Now, give me a guarantee that no such person will ever hold the office...?
Rent, utilities, food, insurance, transportation: all paid. And you may have missed the "per diem in local currency" part, don't know how much that is but I'm sure it covers entertainment and incidentals. That $1300/month is pure gain. As someone with no insurance who pays for half a household out of a gross income slightly smaller than that, it seems pretty darn cushy to me.
Despite what many times goes wrong with movie adaptations
Ghost in the Shell was a movie in the first place. The TV series (Stand Alone Complex) is a spinoff. Not sure what Spielburg plans to do with it at this point...
This troll is modded insightful? Five minutes of listening to Ron Paul ramble will yield "corporate welfare" as one of his biggest hot-button topics. This is not a free market; this isn't even a market in most regards. The idea that the behavior of a corporation which can prop itself up with hand-outs from taxpayer money is in any way representative of the dynamics of an unregulated market is not insightful, it's a dangerous red-herring meme.
Now, if you want to discuss the difficulty of forming a system of government which does not rapidly become corrupted and start pouring money into the pockets of corporate interests, be my guest. The U.S. government circa 1786 was a nice try, but voters didn't care enough to keep it clean for more than a few decades. Solving that problem is the biggest challenge to libertarianism's viability, not bleated one-liners equating corporatism to laissez-faire.
If you use a dislup, DSL, ISDN or FiOS connection, you are paying into the Universal Service Fund
Actually, no you aren't, as of sometime last year. You're paying the "FUSF recovery fee." I work for a small ISP which resells DSL, and we got the memo that FUSF was going away, but if you change the name of the line item just slightly you can keep charging it, at least on existing installations. Customers won't complain, their bill isn't going up... but the ISP's bill went down, so there's more profit. We didn't toe the line on this one, but many did.
Your ISP has a business presence in your state (state sales tax)
Pretty sure we don't do that either (in California)... I'd have to ask the accountant to be sure, but it's definitely not itemized on our bills, nor is there a "tax included" statement anywhere.
Just fact-checking, mind. I'm in complete agreement with your core message (as well as your choice of candidates).
See, that's my favorite, because it sounds like kinky flirtation; an appropriate 'amore' pun. Also, this version comes from The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers: Idiots Abroad, a classic if there ever was one.
I work at one such small-town ISP and I can say with certainty that only it's the absence of ubiquitous cable service that lets us exist. Most of our immediate area doesn't even have DSL-capable phone switches, and in fact even ISDN is unavailable here. We've got a high-bandwidth wireless service, but it's comparable to satellite in cost, and the service area is limited to those who can see the transmitters (they're on the highest peaks, but this is hill country). The vast majority of our customers are still on dial-up.
If Comcast showed up, we'd pretty much vanish. So I think that the market variety in small towns is not representative here. In places where there are more people, there are fewer ISPs -- but more bookstores, because national chains are competing for your attention, as opposed to the privately owned shops in rural areas.
"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." - Publilius Syrus
"There's a sucker born every minute." - (source disputed)...but seriously: I don't see anything wrong with this mindset. Salaries are based on expected productivity. If you're a store clerk or security guard that's one thing; you're actually being paid for your physical presence during the allotted time. For most other sorts of positions, though, free time can quite rightly be thought of as a perk for good productivity. If the same individuals spending 20% of their time slacking instead spent it being 25% more productive, they'd probably demand a commensurate raise.
I work for a small rural ISP. We get customers (and turn a profit) by undercutting AT&T on DSL which we resell for AT&T. We don't give a "special introductory rate," but our real rate is significantly lower, and I've found that consumers have no difficulty understanding this. We also charge the same to businesses as to residential customers (perhaps the biggest taboo of them all). Trust me, the competition model really does work so long as there are regulatory laws requiring competition to be permitted. Absent such laws, of course, AT&T wouldn't be letting us use their circuits.
Slashdot Mirror
"Condensed" is not the same as "dense." You, for instance, are not condensed.
Yes, you certainly can find something wrong when you're looking so very hard for something to be wrong. That you wallow in pessimism, however, does not constitute an ethical argument.
Of course it's wrong for the technician to install spyware; it's an uninvited tresspass on the client's property. However, the idea that everyone has something to hide gains truth only because there are petty jackasses like you around to judge them for things that would otherwise be meaningless.
Ultima Underworld and TES2: Daggerfall are IMO truly excellent games which brought together the FPS and CRPG genres. Unfortunately the same balance doesn't appear to have been struck again, yet... FPS takes over because flash is king. :(
Mod parent up, insightful. Previous arguments have lumped together minimum wage and worker safety laws, but parent reveals an important distinction.
I'm pretty sure impeaching him, even now, would remove his Presidential pension and Secret Service protection. Better than nothing.
My local gaming store is also a maternity, infant and toddler store. The owner is a midwife. She considers it to be the "total service plan."
I'm pretty sure that's State law, not Federal... never mind that the demography of Slashdotters is hardly limited to the US.
This is true in California (or was last time I checked), but I wouldn't take it for granted if you live anywhere else.
Amazing. Hey everyone, raise your hand if you've worked for Electronic Arts! I'm guessing none of the above corporations has a six-month-per-year contract hiring policy to prevent them from ever becoming liable for insurance benefits.
And it will be, again and again. Sure, these powers are fine in the hands of individuals who will not misuse them. Now, give me a guarantee that no such person will ever hold the office...?
Rent, utilities, food, insurance, transportation: all paid. And you may have missed the "per diem in local currency" part, don't know how much that is but I'm sure it covers entertainment and incidentals. That $1300/month is pure gain. As someone with no insurance who pays for half a household out of a gross income slightly smaller than that, it seems pretty darn cushy to me.
Please define them concisely, and then elucidate Bill Gates's violations.
Ghost in the Shell was a movie in the first place. The TV series (Stand Alone Complex) is a spinoff. Not sure what Spielburg plans to do with it at this point...
This troll is modded insightful? Five minutes of listening to Ron Paul ramble will yield "corporate welfare" as one of his biggest hot-button topics. This is not a free market; this isn't even a market in most regards. The idea that the behavior of a corporation which can prop itself up with hand-outs from taxpayer money is in any way representative of the dynamics of an unregulated market is not insightful, it's a dangerous red-herring meme.
Now, if you want to discuss the difficulty of forming a system of government which does not rapidly become corrupted and start pouring money into the pockets of corporate interests, be my guest. The U.S. government circa 1786 was a nice try, but voters didn't care enough to keep it clean for more than a few decades. Solving that problem is the biggest challenge to libertarianism's viability, not bleated one-liners equating corporatism to laissez-faire.
Is there any precedent for slashdotting a phone number? I think this may be a revolutionary step forward.
Come on, this is hilarious! ...oh, but you have to read above a 5th-grade level to get the joke.
If you use a dislup, DSL, ISDN or FiOS connection, you are paying into the Universal Service Fund
Actually, no you aren't, as of sometime last year. You're paying the "FUSF recovery fee." I work for a small ISP which resells DSL, and we got the memo that FUSF was going away, but if you change the name of the line item just slightly you can keep charging it, at least on existing installations. Customers won't complain, their bill isn't going up... but the ISP's bill went down, so there's more profit. We didn't toe the line on this one, but many did.
Your ISP has a business presence in your state (state sales tax)
Pretty sure we don't do that either (in California)... I'd have to ask the accountant to be sure, but it's definitely not itemized on our bills, nor is there a "tax included" statement anywhere.
Just fact-checking, mind. I'm in complete agreement with your core message (as well as your choice of candidates).
See, that's my favorite, because it sounds like kinky flirtation; an appropriate 'amore' pun. Also, this version comes from The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers: Idiots Abroad, a classic if there ever was one.
I work at one such small-town ISP and I can say with certainty that only it's the absence of ubiquitous cable service that lets us exist. Most of our immediate area doesn't even have DSL-capable phone switches, and in fact even ISDN is unavailable here. We've got a high-bandwidth wireless service, but it's comparable to satellite in cost, and the service area is limited to those who can see the transmitters (they're on the highest peaks, but this is hill country). The vast majority of our customers are still on dial-up.
If Comcast showed up, we'd pretty much vanish. So I think that the market variety in small towns is not representative here. In places where there are more people, there are fewer ISPs -- but more bookstores, because national chains are competing for your attention, as opposed to the privately owned shops in rural areas.
"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." - Publilius Syrus
...but seriously: I don't see anything wrong with this mindset. Salaries are based on expected productivity. If you're a store clerk or security guard that's one thing; you're actually being paid for your physical presence during the allotted time. For most other sorts of positions, though, free time can quite rightly be thought of as a perk for good productivity. If the same individuals spending 20% of their time slacking instead spent it being 25% more productive, they'd probably demand a commensurate raise.
"There's a sucker born every minute." - (source disputed)
I'm sure they'd stick around in "trial mode," where you get constant pop-up trailer clips until you pay the registration fee.
Meanwhile, this explains why I can only remember half the plot of Radio Star Weasels.
Exactly what I was going to say. Spent my copious five mod points a couple of weeks ago, but you'd get +1 if I had 'em today.
I work for a small rural ISP. We get customers (and turn a profit) by undercutting AT&T on DSL which we resell for AT&T. We don't give a "special introductory rate," but our real rate is significantly lower, and I've found that consumers have no difficulty understanding this. We also charge the same to businesses as to residential customers (perhaps the biggest taboo of them all). Trust me, the competition model really does work so long as there are regulatory laws requiring competition to be permitted. Absent such laws, of course, AT&T wouldn't be letting us use their circuits.
"Broadcasting is employing a licensed access to a scarce resource, the public airwaves."
Only if you don't have cable. There is simply no excuse for the FCC to have a presence there.
Would a field of 100s to 1000s of these devices 'dampen' the surrounding acoustics, acting as a 'sound sponge'?
Hey, I can finally justify the cost of soundproofing my apartment!