Language is nothing more than a vehicle to convey meaning. Proper usage helps to accomplish this task, but if meaning HAS been successfully conveyed it is irrelevant. Clearly you, and everyone else understood meaning of the GP. Just as clearly your point amounts to nothing more than semantics.
A troll is a troll, and a troll is especially trollish when that troll brings technical points of grammar and word usage into play. Damn grammar trolls.
You would be right if I only had the right to speak freely, but what I actually have is the right to speak freely without reprucussion from my government. The only way to ensure this right is not violated is to assure that one can speak anonymously. This is the exact same reason voting is supposed to be anonymous.
Basically, my right to privacy exists to protect my right to speak freely without fear of government retaliation. Warrants provide a way to allow the government to enforce the law (personally I think the violation of law should have to involve imminent physical harm or political corruption since free speech is constitutional law that should trump other legal violations) with oversight to assure that the they are not merely listening to see if I am saying bad things about the government.
True enough. But you can't be a kid who sees $20 of spending money every two or three months and enjoy music in your youth without pirating it. This is a likely description of most pirates (certainly not all, but 99% of pirated (picked out of a hat but I would call it a conservative estimate) would not have been purchased if it could not have been pirated). You on the other hand who can afford cd's and prefer to own the album (for whatever reason) may very well hear that poor kid's pirated music playing and decide you like that album. This is an example of piracy generating exposure and that in turn generates sales.
That is what the music industry hates. There are and always have been those who will buy the albums and those who have copies, and a few who do a little of both (perhaps copy and then buy if they like it). Whatever music gets the most exposure becomes successful (the monkeys were an experiment that proved this point). Currently the music industry derives its power by controling radio playlists with an iron fist, music piracy is and has always been an alternative method of gaining exposure. Before the net it was mostly limited to repeated exposure of whatever was initially heard on the radio and bought. Thanks to the net the radio is not needed to gain initial exposure. If you don't need the radio, you don't need the record company anymore.
Lets turn this on its head. Which do you think would generate sales. Take two scenerios, the same unknown artist and album for both scenerios. No radio play or other exposure in either scenerio. In both scenerios we simply drop the album onto the shelf at every major music outlet without giving it any sort of prominent position. In short, the album is made available to any who want to buy it but is not advertised or highlighted in any fashion. Scenerio one we leave just like this. Scenerio two is just like scenerio one but 10,000,000 pirated copies of the music are placed into the hands of members of the audience who would enjoy the music (lets just say teens). Unless you honestly believe that 10,000,000 teens listening to this music and exposing their friend to it would not generate more sales than no advertising at all you can no longer claim that piracy is not a free advertising method.
Getting up and going to the polls when you have no intention of casting a vote; simply to make the 'go vote you bastards' people happy is ridiculous. Simply because one does not vote does not make you lazy. That's like digging a hole just to fill it up again, except digging a hole would at least result in a measurable amount of exercise.
I am a registered voter, I have been since I turned 18. I follow politics (at some times more closely than others) but have not voted to this day. It has nothing to do with laziness. I genuinely believe the democratic process no longer functions in the United States IF it ever functioned in the first place. I view voting within the current system as having the same impact on what will actually come in the future as whispering to someone on the opposite side of a hurricane. If I ever believe otherwise and am willing to support a candidate then I will vote. In the meantime I will not waste part of my day going to the polls to NOT vote. That is ridiculous. I could use that time to do something more productive like collecting my naval lint and sorting it by color.
Forcing the ignorant masses to the polls is not going to help anything anyway. Quite frankly the average person is a pretty dumb animal and we are better off without them participating. However, if you want them to participate you need to be prepared to encourage children to think for themselves rather than mindlessly obeying authority figures. This means children who are meant to be heard as well as seen and who consider a request from their parents rather than blindly obeying (of course that doesn't mean there won't be consequences if they don't obey after considering). Critical thinking and logic courses should be taught in grade school if you want concerned masses. Teach children to question authority and to think for themselves and they will care about what goes on around them. Teach them to do as they are told because it makes them easier to manage, and they will be managed by 'authority' figures their entire lives.
""Eugenics" isn't a theory. It can't be "disproven". It's a political pseudoscience."
False. Eugenics is a theory, backed by the observations of ranchers and herdsmen spanning thousands of years. It can easily be proven or disproven pending further discoveries in the field of genetics.
"The sickle-cell genetics that allow a single gene, expressing a single protein, lacking in collapsed red blood cells, are far from the complexity in behavior."
If simple genes are found to be shared by those with common roots than more complex genetic trees can be found as well. If you stopped spouting your anti-racism nonsense for a moment you might realize that I am not a racist. I am merely unwilling to close doors on possibilities simply because they are not politically correct.
"By looking at the results of recruiting practices, rather than the gamed mechanics."
Affirmative action SETS gamed mechanics. In a fair and unbiased workplace there would not neccesarily be equal employment. Even when population proportions and education are considered. Believe it or not, given the same budget and talent pool to build teams out of, one football team might beat another by a large margin instead of a statistically insignificant margin. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this and simply because it occurs is not justification for giving the losing team handicap points.
Affirmative action punishes members of a certain race. It does not judge individuals, instead it picks out anyone who shares certain physical characteristics and punishes them with no justification whatsoever. You can not combat racism with racism. Racism has no place in our government, period. Racism certainly has no place in government regulation over a supposedly free market.
Perhaps AA should change and start giving an edge to blondes. Clearly they are disadvantaged. Or perhaps AA should prefer those who can do the spock live long and prosper sign over those who can't. AA really only has one real requirement, giving a job seeker an advantage that is completely unrelated to their ability to perform the job.
"And it's easy to see your yearning for "legitimate racism" in your comment."
If you mean to imply that I am a closet racist yearning to break free you are letting your imagination carry you away. I would have the term racist cast from the books altogether. Grouping people on the basis of physical appearance is useless (although no more evil than any other arbitrary grouping, no matter what the current political winds); but grouping based on common genetics MIGHT lead to interesting findings.
"all show you're new to the game of coy racism"
Coy racism? Perhaps you mean imagined racism. Everyday people imagine themselves cheated by videogames when they can't win or don't pull off some special trick of move. Everyday people imagine they were given a dirty or suspicious look because of their race when their attitude, expression, suspicious behavior, or manner of dress were the real culprits.
"Before you cheat yourself of the equal opportunity to know, work and play with people without regard to the persistent fictions perpetuated as "racism"."
The sad thing is that you do not even realize that people like you are the ones who ensure what is left of those fictions persist.
"You're young enough to quit. And old enough to know better."
You base this upon what. How old am I again?
"Give yourself the chance to live life with just humans."
I'd love to, but people like you spread racism like AA and keep perpetuating the racism thing. Let it go already.
Remove the fines for not voting. None of the above should always be a choice. Not voting is not throwing away anything. It is a clear statement that the democratic process in this country is a farce and that any candidate that is allowed onto the mainstream news will yield mostly the same results in office.
There are those of us who believe it literally does not matter which puppet is chosen since the same puppeteers will pull the strings.
"Okay, so the minority is very disadvantaged, but this is the nature of BEING IN THE MINORITY. Remove the political connotations and consider the true form of the majority/minority"
First, the minority is NOT supposed to be marginalized. The majority is not supposed to rule entirely with districts that assure that the minority has NO representation. The nature of majority/minority would result in representatives for the views of minority interests that are proportional, not non-existant.
Second, look to this example for what is happening. Rearrange 5 districts, say 4 are for party x, and 1 is for party y to begin with. Now you still end up with 5 districts, but you rearrange them, dividing your 4 districts for party x so that 25% of them is replaced with population from the district supporting y and you put that 25% into what is currently the district supporting y. The result is 5 districts with 75% x support and 25% y support. Instead of y having 1 rep as is consistant with their numbers proportional to supports of x, y has no representation.
This is the simplest example of course, but it demonstrates the point and clearly illustrates that this is NOT ethical behavior.
You are right, but the system is rigged before the polls anyway. The hot button topics that are debated for the cattle are not the real issues. When the choice of candidates is rigged, it really doesn't matter who you pick.
"So the rest of your Nazi gibberish isn't worth reading, as you pretend to be expert in "race", when all you are is a garden variety racist."
Racial lines are indeed largely arbitrary. You are wrong to say that there are not distinct genetics involved. Clearly the waters are muddied so to speak, but you will not find many who are called 'white' with sickle cell either. There could as easily be a traceable gene that results in enhanced abstract mathematical ability as a gene that makes one vulnerable to a disease. Another example of this is the genetic resistance to 'mad cow' and similar diseases that spread via brain tissue.
Even behaviors are possible. While the Nazi party and their methods associated extreme distaste with the ideas of Eugenics it is important to remember that the core principle of Eugenics (the idea that behavior and personality characteristics are passed genetically) has never been dis-proven and remains a sound theory. In fact, one could argue that ranchers have proven this point since they successfully employ the ideas of Eugenics in breeding not just large cattle, but docile cattle. If Eugenics were untrue it would be rather difficult to explain domestication. If the docile manner were entirely learned and not passed genetically then simply raising a wild animal from birth and treating it well would make it completely domesticated. This is not the case.
What is amusing to me is that your own points make a stronger case for many ends the original poster would support. The fact that racial lines are largely arbitrary is precisely why any attempt to use them for equal opportunity or job metrics is completely invalid. This is randomly selecting multiple groups of people and claiming that for some unknown reason they should perform with equal success and earn equal pay; if they do not then it must be the result of racism. This view is highly racist and certainly has a more dramatic negative impact than a couple hundred vocal hillbilly extremists wearing white robes and swastikas.
"They're not locking anybody out. It's silly to think that developers should have full access to every single internal structure or API call. It's called "bad design principle". It means they can't change things internally."
Unless of course your code is INTENDED to function as part of the internal structure. That is why everyone should have access to every internal structure and API call. There is no reason that microsoft should be the only ones able to add filesystems to windows for instance. Or to hack on memory management. Or to write software that audits the low level behavior of microsoft programs that ARE written utilizing knowledge of hidden API functions.
Nothing I said is wrong. But what you said is right, a device can use non-gpl'd code to implement drm. The same is true of any application, that isn't the discussion. Linus is free to not use GPLv3 on the kernel either, in fact he doesn't even use the current GPL license because he doesn't like the terms.
The GPLv3 would however bar manufacturers from supporting this draconian system if they want to take advantage of the software that I have written. DRM would effectively castrate GPLv2 software, allowing it to be locked up like the BSD license. BSD authors give away their labor, GPL authors want to promote open and free software to make life better for themselves and others. They even would like payment in the form of code.
The ONLY purpose allowing manufacturers using DRM is to prevent the OWNER from intentionally modifying software (by not providing them their own hardware key). Mfgs want to be able to do this so they provide different levels of crippled device and sell the uncrippled one for more, rather than actually selling the product at full capability and selling something better for more. This is hardly something that should be encouraged. It is sad that there is no public awareness of this practice.
Well I can't comment on every manufacturer, but phoenix and award bioses of the future are implementing mandatory signing. Also our HP rep advised me that all core 2 duo generation laptops from HP will have this 'feature' along with full drm support in the video hardware.
Companies USING linux don't have the option to break the rules. The companies I was referring to are the hardware vendors. Your company represents the market for the non-drm hardware, and that market is not large enough to sustain a manufacturer when supporting it means that they can not support windows. Even if exception boards are made they will be most of the demand is (server boards) and leave workstations and desktops hanging.
Clearly Linus has sold out. This is the very clause that would prevent the noose of trusted computing from closing on the next generation pc hardware. It goes like this...
Bios chipsets conform to trusted computing and refuse to run non-trusted content. Only windows is signed. Linux can't run. End of story.
No the free market won't work here. There won't be any companies that break the rules, if they break the rules then windows won't run on their systems. If they break the rules then multimedia won't work on their systems. The consumer will either have to stop using computers or vote in favor of DRM with their dollar.
No startup will bring out an alternative because not running windows will assure a customer base that is small enough that it can't support the enourmous initial investment required to design a motherboard (not to mention video card and sound card once those require a 'trusted' platform to function).
Linus knows this. He doesn't care, all the evidence suggests that Linus became a whore turning tricks for corporate masters a long time ago. This public outcry against pro-consumer/modder yet anti-profiteer clauses of the GPLv3 can only be the result of payoffs from corporate masters.
It isn't really suprising that Linus has sold out, who knows, maybe any of us would do it in his position. But there is no reason the community has to support him in this.
For someone who claims to be scientist you seem to have a great deal of trouble with logic. How do you propose to claim that the meaning of something you fail to comprehend is not worthwhile? Wouldn't understanding be prerequisite to assessing merit?
For a rocket scientist you sure do seem to have trouble connecting dots. If I am the one who is confused then why are YOU asking ME to explain how to connect the dots? Re-read the post again. The dots are there and I am simply not that patient.
"We don't *know* whether Google is a "monopoly" as might be defined by the judge."
No but anyone with a feel for the online advertising market is aware of whether or not an entity holds a monopoly in that market or is merely popular. Judges make bad decisions all the time but google is clearly not a monopoly in truth (ignoring for a moment the idiots who believe that court decisions define the truth).
Microsoft clearly is a market monopoly that desperately needs to be broken, even if the failed US legal system can't manage to do it.
"So, is it all software that's overpriced, or just Windows? Because if a CD burning program (Nero) costs $90, then for sure the operating system is worth $140."
Most software is overpriced, nero is another good example.
There are two ways to look at what a price should be. The first is the cost of production and distribution. The cost of producing software is a one time expense and most software companies make massive profits. The cost of distribution is virtually zero for software, it costs more to develop photoshop than ms paint, but once it is made you would be turning a profit on individual sales if you sold photoshop cd's for $0.50/each.
The other is that you should look at what you get from the use the software. This is how you sell overpriced solutions to business and make purchases sound important. In the real world this has no meaning. If I do $10,000,000/year in a car business and a piece of software is critical to that business, that doesn't somehow magically make it legitimate to extort $1000 for a piece of software that required no greater development cost than $20 shareware. Especially when the same 'it makes us money' logic is applied to lots and lots of different things that are critical to making the same money.
"{removing cost of PS, because nobody needs PS"
Nobody is a rather extreme statement. Lots of people need photoshop. Many more need to perform functions that are best performed by photoshop but use a $50 application instead due to the price. I love open source, but I still wouldn't seriously claim they should be using gimp.
"People are paying way more for software than they should, but only when comparing it to open source software."
There are shareware and freeware applications that perform the same or similar functions as well. The fact is, there is no justification for the prices charged.
"What color is the sky on your world? Every user needs Photoshop?"
Almost every user has a need to edit images and photos. You might argue that users should use shit software to perform the task, I would argue that is little reason for the shit software to exist in the first place and that on most pcs you will find photoshop performing this task. The software I listed is what you will find installed on the pc of the average user who DOES NOT pay for their software. After all, since pirates are only paying the cost of distribution it doesn't make sense to pick inferior software for a given task.
Autocad on the other hand performs that almost nobody needs or wants, it is quite a step away from being the best tool for a commonly performed task like photoshop.
They haven't stolen anything. They have infringed on copyrights by making a copy without permission. There is a very big difference. Stealing is taking something from another, nobody took anything by making a copy of software.
Many 'pirated' copies of windows are only 'pirated' because of a questionable EULA. Unreasonable expectations like purchasing seperate copies of $100-$300 Microsoft sofware for each PC you own (more and more commonly that is 3 or more machines).
People also pirate when it comes time to update. After all, incremental updates like win2k-winxp or winxp-win vista should be free.
The only ones who really pay for windows are buying it preinstalled on a pc. Most find the prices to buy retail copies of windows (the only ones they are really supposed to buy) ridiculous and unaffordable.
For the price of 3 retail MS Office licenses for your computers you could build two gaming systems.
For a reasonable windows software setup you would pay a fortune. Something reasonable for most would be windows ($140),office ($300), a/v, firewall ($60), 3 anti-spyware apps ($90), adobe photoshop ($600), nero 6 ultra ($90), quickbooks ($199), cd ripper/converter/tagger ($79), and alarm software ($20).
That is $1578 per pc for software. The average person gets a low end pc/monitor/keyboard/mouse/printer for under $300 nowdays. That means the realistic foundation of software mentioned above will cost them over 5x as much as the computer! This average user struggles to pay the price of this computer nowdays because manufacturers use rebates that make the initial price of products difficult or impossible to afford. They certainly can't afford to lay out a budget european vacation for the software that lets them use their pc.
It doesn't even make sense. A retail copy of windows would not accept an OEM license key in the first place. When he tried to enter the key it would have said it was invalid and refused to install.
Since google is not a monopoly, why on earth would they be required to actively promote (search engines are promoting sites with results and the higher the ranking the stronger the promotion) the competition?
I wouldn't see any problem with google removing this site from their database and giving them NO ranking.
Having explored the options out there I can say that there are solutions, but none of them really fit the bill. Most are cumbersome to setup and maintain for starters. Once setup they seem to take the stance that you are either looking for a digital version of paper accounting or that you want to manage a personal checking account.
For instance, almost everything done in my business is invoicing. That means I want a basic, but complete, chart of accounts. I want to see how much was spent on office supplies last month, not just how much was spent or business expenses. I need an interface that will allow me to look at and edit the ledgers kept internally but never troubles me with them otherwise. Instead I input customers, invoices, purchase orders, and inventory items; actually adjusting appropriate accounts should be handled automatically. Anything that can be automated for the user, should be automated. After all, everything done in accounting is systematic and numerical. Aside from the data entry the accounting program should be able to handle the books automatically. Quickbooks does this, Peachtree does this, nothing I have found that runs on linux does this.
"You seem to be under this misconception that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world."
Fixed is not the right word, limited is the right word. At any given moment there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. The number of US Dollars for instance, is (supposedly) carefully matched to the resources of this nation, those resources are limited not merely by a go getter attitude, but by nature. No matter how hard you work the miners, there is a fixed amount of coal in the ground. Working the miners harder might create more available coal today, but it will deplete the mine faster.
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Language is nothing more than a vehicle to convey meaning. Proper usage helps to accomplish this task, but if meaning HAS been successfully conveyed it is irrelevant. Clearly you, and everyone else understood meaning of the GP. Just as clearly your point amounts to nothing more than semantics.
A troll is a troll, and a troll is especially trollish when that troll brings technical points of grammar and word usage into play. Damn grammar trolls.
You would be right if I only had the right to speak freely, but what I actually have is the right to speak freely without reprucussion from my government. The only way to ensure this right is not violated is to assure that one can speak anonymously. This is the exact same reason voting is supposed to be anonymous.
Basically, my right to privacy exists to protect my right to speak freely without fear of government retaliation. Warrants provide a way to allow the government to enforce the law (personally I think the violation of law should have to involve imminent physical harm or political corruption since free speech is constitutional law that should trump other legal violations) with oversight to assure that the they are not merely listening to see if I am saying bad things about the government.
"You can hate the RIAA and not pirate music."
True enough. But you can't be a kid who sees $20 of spending money every two or three months and enjoy music in your youth without pirating it. This is a likely description of most pirates (certainly not all, but 99% of pirated (picked out of a hat but I would call it a conservative estimate) would not have been purchased if it could not have been pirated). You on the other hand who can afford cd's and prefer to own the album (for whatever reason) may very well hear that poor kid's pirated music playing and decide you like that album. This is an example of piracy generating exposure and that in turn generates sales.
That is what the music industry hates. There are and always have been those who will buy the albums and those who have copies, and a few who do a little of both (perhaps copy and then buy if they like it). Whatever music gets the most exposure becomes successful (the monkeys were an experiment that proved this point). Currently the music industry derives its power by controling radio playlists with an iron fist, music piracy is and has always been an alternative method of gaining exposure. Before the net it was mostly limited to repeated exposure of whatever was initially heard on the radio and bought. Thanks to the net the radio is not needed to gain initial exposure. If you don't need the radio, you don't need the record company anymore.
Lets turn this on its head. Which do you think would generate sales. Take two scenerios, the same unknown artist and album for both scenerios. No radio play or other exposure in either scenerio. In both scenerios we simply drop the album onto the shelf at every major music outlet without giving it any sort of prominent position. In short, the album is made available to any who want to buy it but is not advertised or highlighted in any fashion. Scenerio one we leave just like this. Scenerio two is just like scenerio one but 10,000,000 pirated copies of the music are placed into the hands of members of the audience who would enjoy the music (lets just say teens). Unless you honestly believe that 10,000,000 teens listening to this music and exposing their friend to it would not generate more sales than no advertising at all you can no longer claim that piracy is not a free advertising method.
Getting up and going to the polls when you have no intention of casting a vote; simply to make the 'go vote you bastards' people happy is ridiculous. Simply because one does not vote does not make you lazy. That's like digging a hole just to fill it up again, except digging a hole would at least result in a measurable amount of exercise.
I am a registered voter, I have been since I turned 18. I follow politics (at some times more closely than others) but have not voted to this day. It has nothing to do with laziness. I genuinely believe the democratic process no longer functions in the United States IF it ever functioned in the first place. I view voting within the current system as having the same impact on what will actually come in the future as whispering to someone on the opposite side of a hurricane. If I ever believe otherwise and am willing to support a candidate then I will vote. In the meantime I will not waste part of my day going to the polls to NOT vote. That is ridiculous. I could use that time to do something more productive like collecting my naval lint and sorting it by color.
Forcing the ignorant masses to the polls is not going to help anything anyway. Quite frankly the average person is a pretty dumb animal and we are better off without them participating. However, if you want them to participate you need to be prepared to encourage children to think for themselves rather than mindlessly obeying authority figures. This means children who are meant to be heard as well as seen and who consider a request from their parents rather than blindly obeying (of course that doesn't mean there won't be consequences if they don't obey after considering). Critical thinking and logic courses should be taught in grade school if you want concerned masses. Teach children to question authority and to think for themselves and they will care about what goes on around them. Teach them to do as they are told because it makes them easier to manage, and they will be managed by 'authority' figures their entire lives.
""Eugenics" isn't a theory. It can't be "disproven". It's a political pseudoscience."
False. Eugenics is a theory, backed by the observations of ranchers and herdsmen spanning thousands of years. It can easily be proven or disproven pending further discoveries in the field of genetics.
"The sickle-cell genetics that allow a single gene, expressing a single protein, lacking in collapsed red blood cells, are far from the complexity in behavior."
If simple genes are found to be shared by those with common roots than more complex genetic trees can be found as well. If you stopped spouting your anti-racism nonsense for a moment you might realize that I am not a racist. I am merely unwilling to close doors on possibilities simply because they are not politically correct.
"By looking at the results of recruiting practices, rather than the gamed mechanics."
Affirmative action SETS gamed mechanics. In a fair and unbiased workplace there would not neccesarily be equal employment. Even when population proportions and education are considered. Believe it or not, given the same budget and talent pool to build teams out of, one football team might beat another by a large margin instead of a statistically insignificant margin. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this and simply because it occurs is not justification for giving the losing team handicap points.
Affirmative action punishes members of a certain race. It does not judge individuals, instead it picks out anyone who shares certain physical characteristics and punishes them with no justification whatsoever. You can not combat racism with racism. Racism has no place in our government, period. Racism certainly has no place in government regulation over a supposedly free market.
Perhaps AA should change and start giving an edge to blondes. Clearly they are disadvantaged. Or perhaps AA should prefer those who can do the spock live long and prosper sign over those who can't. AA really only has one real requirement, giving a job seeker an advantage that is completely unrelated to their ability to perform the job.
"And it's easy to see your yearning for "legitimate racism" in your comment."
If you mean to imply that I am a closet racist yearning to break free you are letting your imagination carry you away. I would have the term racist cast from the books altogether. Grouping people on the basis of physical appearance is useless (although no more evil than any other arbitrary grouping, no matter what the current political winds); but grouping based on common genetics MIGHT lead to interesting findings.
"all show you're new to the game of coy racism"
Coy racism? Perhaps you mean imagined racism. Everyday people imagine themselves cheated by videogames when they can't win or don't pull off some special trick of move. Everyday people imagine they were given a dirty or suspicious look because of their race when their attitude, expression, suspicious behavior, or manner of dress were the real culprits.
"Before you cheat yourself of the equal opportunity to know, work and play with people without regard to the persistent fictions perpetuated as "racism"."
The sad thing is that you do not even realize that people like you are the ones who ensure what is left of those fictions persist.
"You're young enough to quit. And old enough to know better."
You base this upon what. How old am I again?
"Give yourself the chance to live life with just humans."
I'd love to, but people like you spread racism like AA and keep perpetuating the racism thing. Let it go already.
Remove the fines for not voting. None of the above should always be a choice. Not voting is not throwing away anything. It is a clear statement that the democratic process in this country is a farce and that any candidate that is allowed onto the mainstream news will yield mostly the same results in office.
There are those of us who believe it literally does not matter which puppet is chosen since the same puppeteers will pull the strings.
"Okay, so the minority is very disadvantaged, but this is the nature of BEING IN THE MINORITY. Remove the political connotations and consider the true form of the majority/minority"
First, the minority is NOT supposed to be marginalized. The majority is not supposed to rule entirely with districts that assure that the minority has NO representation. The nature of majority/minority would result in representatives for the views of minority interests that are proportional, not non-existant.
Second, look to this example for what is happening. Rearrange 5 districts, say 4 are for party x, and 1 is for party y to begin with. Now you still end up with 5 districts, but you rearrange them, dividing your 4 districts for party x so that 25% of them is replaced with population from the district supporting y and you put that 25% into what is currently the district supporting y. The result is 5 districts with 75% x support and 25% y support. Instead of y having 1 rep as is consistant with their numbers proportional to supports of x, y has no representation.
This is the simplest example of course, but it demonstrates the point and clearly illustrates that this is NOT ethical behavior.
You are right, but the system is rigged before the polls anyway. The hot button topics that are debated for the cattle are not the real issues. When the choice of candidates is rigged, it really doesn't matter who you pick.
"So the rest of your Nazi gibberish isn't worth reading, as you pretend to be expert in "race", when all you are is a garden variety racist."
Racial lines are indeed largely arbitrary. You are wrong to say that there are not distinct genetics involved. Clearly the waters are muddied so to speak, but you will not find many who are called 'white' with sickle cell either. There could as easily be a traceable gene that results in enhanced abstract mathematical ability as a gene that makes one vulnerable to a disease. Another example of this is the genetic resistance to 'mad cow' and similar diseases that spread via brain tissue.
Even behaviors are possible. While the Nazi party and their methods associated extreme distaste with the ideas of Eugenics it is important to remember that the core principle of Eugenics (the idea that behavior and personality characteristics are passed genetically) has never been dis-proven and remains a sound theory. In fact, one could argue that ranchers have proven this point since they successfully employ the ideas of Eugenics in breeding not just large cattle, but docile cattle. If Eugenics were untrue it would be rather difficult to explain domestication. If the docile manner were entirely learned and not passed genetically then simply raising a wild animal from birth and treating it well would make it completely domesticated. This is not the case.
What is amusing to me is that your own points make a stronger case for many ends the original poster would support. The fact that racial lines are largely arbitrary is precisely why any attempt to use them for equal opportunity or job metrics is completely invalid. This is randomly selecting multiple groups of people and claiming that for some unknown reason they should perform with equal success and earn equal pay; if they do not then it must be the result of racism. This view is highly racist and certainly has a more dramatic negative impact than a couple hundred vocal hillbilly extremists wearing white robes and swastikas.
"They're not locking anybody out. It's silly to think that developers should have full access to every single internal structure or API call. It's called "bad design principle". It means they can't change things internally."
Unless of course your code is INTENDED to function as part of the internal structure. That is why everyone should have access to every internal structure and API call. There is no reason that microsoft should be the only ones able to add filesystems to windows for instance. Or to hack on memory management. Or to write software that audits the low level behavior of microsoft programs that ARE written utilizing knowledge of hidden API functions.
Nothing I said is wrong. But what you said is right, a device can use non-gpl'd code to implement drm. The same is true of any application, that isn't the discussion. Linus is free to not use GPLv3 on the kernel either, in fact he doesn't even use the current GPL license because he doesn't like the terms.
The GPLv3 would however bar manufacturers from supporting this draconian system if they want to take advantage of the software that I have written. DRM would effectively castrate GPLv2 software, allowing it to be locked up like the BSD license. BSD authors give away their labor, GPL authors want to promote open and free software to make life better for themselves and others. They even would like payment in the form of code.
The ONLY purpose allowing manufacturers using DRM is to prevent the OWNER from intentionally modifying software (by not providing them their own hardware key). Mfgs want to be able to do this so they provide different levels of crippled device and sell the uncrippled one for more, rather than actually selling the product at full capability and selling something better for more. This is hardly something that should be encouraged. It is sad that there is no public awareness of this practice.
Well I can't comment on every manufacturer, but phoenix and award bioses of the future are implementing mandatory signing. Also our HP rep advised me that all core 2 duo generation laptops from HP will have this 'feature' along with full drm support in the video hardware.
Companies USING linux don't have the option to break the rules. The companies I was referring to are the hardware vendors. Your company represents the market for the non-drm hardware, and that market is not large enough to sustain a manufacturer when supporting it means that they can not support windows. Even if exception boards are made they will be most of the demand is (server boards) and leave workstations and desktops hanging.
Clearly Linus has sold out. This is the very clause that would prevent the noose of trusted computing from closing on the next generation pc hardware. It goes like this...
Bios chipsets conform to trusted computing and refuse to run non-trusted content. Only windows is signed. Linux can't run. End of story.
No the free market won't work here. There won't be any companies that break the rules, if they break the rules then windows won't run on their systems. If they break the rules then multimedia won't work on their systems. The consumer will either have to stop using computers or vote in favor of DRM with their dollar.
No startup will bring out an alternative because not running windows will assure a customer base that is small enough that it can't support the enourmous initial investment required to design a motherboard (not to mention video card and sound card once those require a 'trusted' platform to function).
Linus knows this. He doesn't care, all the evidence suggests that Linus became a whore turning tricks for corporate masters a long time ago. This public outcry against pro-consumer/modder yet anti-profiteer clauses of the GPLv3 can only be the result of payoffs from corporate masters.
It isn't really suprising that Linus has sold out, who knows, maybe any of us would do it in his position. But there is no reason the community has to support him in this.
Sounds like a legitimate point, not a troll.
For someone who claims to be scientist you seem to have a great deal of trouble with logic. How do you propose to claim that the meaning of something you fail to comprehend is not worthwhile? Wouldn't understanding be prerequisite to assessing merit?
For a rocket scientist you sure do seem to have trouble connecting dots. If I am the one who is confused then why are YOU asking ME to explain how to connect the dots? Re-read the post again. The dots are there and I am simply not that patient.
"We don't *know* whether Google is a "monopoly" as might be defined by the judge."
No but anyone with a feel for the online advertising market is aware of whether or not an entity holds a monopoly in that market or is merely popular. Judges make bad decisions all the time but google is clearly not a monopoly in truth (ignoring for a moment the idiots who believe that court decisions define the truth).
Microsoft clearly is a market monopoly that desperately needs to be broken, even if the failed US legal system can't manage to do it.
"So, is it all software that's overpriced, or just Windows? Because if a CD burning program (Nero) costs $90, then for sure the operating system is worth $140."
Most software is overpriced, nero is another good example.
There are two ways to look at what a price should be. The first is the cost of production and distribution. The cost of producing software is a one time expense and most software companies make massive profits. The cost of distribution is virtually zero for software, it costs more to develop photoshop than ms paint, but once it is made you would be turning a profit on individual sales if you sold photoshop cd's for $0.50/each.
The other is that you should look at what you get from the use the software. This is how you sell overpriced solutions to business and make purchases sound important. In the real world this has no meaning. If I do $10,000,000/year in a car business and a piece of software is critical to that business, that doesn't somehow magically make it legitimate to extort $1000 for a piece of software that required no greater development cost than $20 shareware. Especially when the same 'it makes us money' logic is applied to lots and lots of different things that are critical to making the same money.
"{removing cost of PS, because nobody needs PS"
Nobody is a rather extreme statement. Lots of people need photoshop. Many more need to perform functions that are best performed by photoshop but use a $50 application instead due to the price.
I love open source, but I still wouldn't seriously claim they should be using gimp.
"People are paying way more for software than they should, but only when comparing it to open source software."
There are shareware and freeware applications that perform the same or similar functions as well. The fact is, there is no justification for the prices charged.
"What color is the sky on your world? Every user needs Photoshop?"
Almost every user has a need to edit images and photos. You might argue that users should use shit software to perform the task, I would argue that is little reason for the shit software to exist in the first place and that on most pcs you will find photoshop performing this task. The software I listed is what you will find installed on the pc of the average user who DOES NOT pay for their software. After all, since pirates are only paying the cost of distribution it doesn't make sense to pick inferior software for a given task.
Autocad on the other hand performs that almost nobody needs or wants, it is quite a step away from being the best tool for a commonly performed task like photoshop.
They haven't stolen anything. They have infringed on copyrights by making a copy without permission. There is a very big difference. Stealing is taking something from another, nobody took anything by making a copy of software.
Many 'pirated' copies of windows are only 'pirated' because of a questionable EULA. Unreasonable expectations like purchasing seperate copies of $100-$300 Microsoft sofware for each PC you own (more and more commonly that is 3 or more machines).
People also pirate when it comes time to update. After all, incremental updates like win2k-winxp or winxp-win vista should be free.
The only ones who really pay for windows are buying it preinstalled on a pc. Most find the prices to buy retail copies of windows (the only ones they are really supposed to buy) ridiculous and unaffordable.
For the price of 3 retail MS Office licenses for your computers you could build two gaming systems.
For a reasonable windows software setup you would pay a fortune. Something reasonable for most would be windows ($140),office ($300), a/v, firewall ($60), 3 anti-spyware apps ($90), adobe photoshop ($600), nero 6 ultra ($90), quickbooks ($199), cd ripper/converter/tagger ($79), and alarm software ($20).
That is $1578 per pc for software. The average person gets a low end pc/monitor/keyboard/mouse/printer for under $300 nowdays. That means the realistic foundation of software mentioned above will cost them over 5x as much as the computer! This average user struggles to pay the price of this computer nowdays because manufacturers use rebates that make the initial price of products difficult or impossible to afford. They certainly can't afford to lay out a budget european vacation for the software that lets them use their pc.
It doesn't even make sense. A retail copy of windows would not accept an OEM license key in the first place. When he tried to enter the key it would have said it was invalid and refused to install.
SQL-Ledger does not meet the criteria I have already outlined.
Since google is not a monopoly, why on earth would they be required to actively promote (search engines are promoting sites with results and the higher the ranking the stronger the promotion) the competition?
I wouldn't see any problem with google removing this site from their database and giving them NO ranking.
Having explored the options out there I can say that there are solutions, but none of them really fit the bill. Most are cumbersome to setup and maintain for starters. Once setup they seem to take the stance that you are either looking for a digital version of paper accounting or that you want to manage a personal checking account.
For instance, almost everything done in my business is invoicing. That means I want a basic, but complete, chart of accounts. I want to see how much was spent on office supplies last month, not just how much was spent or business expenses. I need an interface that will allow me to look at and edit the ledgers kept internally but never troubles me with them otherwise. Instead I input customers, invoices, purchase orders, and inventory items; actually adjusting appropriate accounts should be handled automatically. Anything that can be automated for the user, should be automated. After all, everything done in accounting is systematic and numerical. Aside from the data entry the accounting program should be able to handle the books automatically. Quickbooks does this, Peachtree does this, nothing I have found that runs on linux does this.
"You seem to be under this misconception that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world."
Fixed is not the right word, limited is the right word. At any given moment there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. The number of US Dollars for instance, is (supposedly) carefully matched to the resources of this nation, those resources are limited not merely by a go getter attitude, but by nature. No matter how hard you work the miners, there is a fixed amount of coal in the ground. Working the miners harder might create more available coal today, but it will deplete the mine faster.