When the distro is ready, mdk10 will allow ISO downloads to club members FIRST, while everything is available via ftp mirrors. Next comes the shipping boxed sets, finally a box set on store shelves and freely downloadable ISOs. The boxed set/iso downloading scheme is new and while some people have complained, it's really in Mandrake's best interests to do it this way.
I'm not sure I completely understand what you said, but your summary of how they used to do it is correct.
If you recall, and I waited breathlessly through this (I really wanted to upgrade to 9.2 so I could get a decent rpm of the 2.6 kernel), they had a serious problem with certain CD drives that mis-used the atapi protocol and got their firmware erased the first time you used them. This was a very serious problem, and they had to yank the release until it was resolved. While they had the release yanked, thousands (millions?) of people just like me waited, and waited, and waited some more. They probably already had sent 9.2 to the presses to get printed and pressed and distributed and had to stop that in a hurry, and there's no telling how much money they lost in the deal because of this.
So, what they're doing now looks like a way to deal with this problem and others like it in the future. What's different is that they'll make the regular release just like they used to, and they'll make the isos available for download, just like they used to. But they won't produce the boxed sets for a couple more months while the rest of us install it and find all the bugs that slipped through. Then they fix those bugs, make their boxed set, and make their "Official" release.
As far as I'm concerned, I think this is great. They really got a bad rap over the last release, and it's an awesome release (I'm using it right now!). It kicks the ass out of RedHat 9, which I used a few months back. It really fuckin' rocks, man, it rocks. Dude! So we who like to freeload (still poor, otherwise I'd've joined the MandrakeClub a long time ago) still get our download release that'll be just as good as it always is at the regular time we expect it to be available, and they get to release a boxed set that really rocks, because it won't have the stupid bugs that appeared right after the "release". So now we get two releases, one that's great with a few stupid bugs that crept through (damn those bugs that always make it through!), and one that's great without all the stupid bugs that crept through.
So, in conclusion, I, for one, welcome our new Mandrake overlords.
Republic is where the citizens vote on who will make laws. Democracy is where the citizens vote on the laws themselves. Most states, cities, and counties in the US are a hybrid of democracy and republic, but our Federal government is pure republic.
It's really very simple. In a republic, the people vote on who will represent them in government, and theoretically those people who are elected are going to make laws in accordance with the will of the citizens. The citizens themselves don't get to pick and chose the laws or have any say in them, other than contacting their elected official. The citizens don't get to propose laws in a formal fashion, and they don't get to vote on the laws themselves. The relationship between the people and the elected officials is one of employer to employee. The elected officials are chosen as qualified in legal matters, versed in social issues, and so forth. The underlying assumptions are also very simple. The people, as an aggregate, do not have the time to deal with day-to-day management of the government. Neither do they have the education and expertise required to manage the government. So they chose people who will work full-time (or part-time, as is the case in most cities and counties) to manage the government and who have the education and expertise to do so.
A democracy is quite different. In a democracy the people get to chose the laws, and there are no elected officials. The people have to spend their time managing day-to-day government affairs, and that's in addition to the time they spend just working and playing with their families. Democracy doesn't work on a large scale without the help of many of the traits of a Republic, which is why states have their own elected bodies, governors, and so forth. Democracy is what this country had when it was a bunch of english colonies. The townspeople would gather regularly (weekly was pretty common) and discuss the issues, vote on laws, and so forth.
Communism is actually supposed to be democracy, except in Communism all citizens are equal. They get paid the same amount of money, so there's no aristocracy in any fashion. They also are supposed to chose the laws themselves. Communism in its purest form hasn't been implemented on a large scale, but frequently shows up in small scales, such as in the early days of Salt Lake City, and the early days of the original English colonies.
Monarchy gives absolute power to a single individual, and religion is used to seal his power. Inheritance is what usually determines the next King or Queen (or Emperor, or Tsar). The "Divine Right of Kings" is what gives the king his power, and the ruling class (aka nobility) consists of the King's extended family and anybody he appoints to that class. Feudalism is the economic system of Monarchy, which is theoretically a combination of the free market and communism, but that's not really the best way to describe feudalism.
Other forms of dictatorial style government exist. The Romans adapted their Republic to a dictatorial style of government when Caesar became the first emperor of Rome. Caesar was elected to be the emperor in a process that is very similar to what we see in the new Star Wars movies. A precedent was set that passes the Emperor from father to son, but there were other ways of choosing an emperor used in Rome. Justin, the Emperor that reconquered the Western half of the Roman Empire in the 500s AD, was elected. He was born a commoner and rose to power on the strengths of his own leadership.
A dictionary isn't good enough to define these complex systems of government. History is better, where you'll learn that the ancient greek city-states experimented with every form of government currently known to man. I suggest you study your ancient greeks to learn more about this subject. The fact is, every form of government we know about right now can be combined with any/all of the other forms. Communism, as I indicated, isn't actually a complete form of government. It's an economic system. The way the Soviets implemented it it was totalitarian rule with communism as the economic system. We've seen plenty totalitarian rule with capitalism and feudalism as the economic systems, so this concept isn't really hard to grasp.
Oo, yeah, I forgot about Executive Orders that don't actually have to be obeyed.:) Sorry about that one.
You're right that our President has too much power, but you're wrong about our US government being a democracy. It's a republic. Sorry. "I will not let this Republic which has stood for a thousand years..."
There's a certain critical mass we have to achieve before we can reasonably expect a lot of OEMs to install Linux for us. Your point is valid, but it's not something we can address until we have some large percentage of the users that are willing to install their own OSs.
Fair enough; that's a clear direction. But if it means finding, installing, and setting up a new app (even if they know what IRC is), then many new users won't bother.
Um, my mandrake system installed 3 IRC clients.:) I can bitch about it installing 3 for awhile, but point is I didn't have to install anything.
Take the case of Mac OS X. In most cases, installing a new app looks like this:
Mandrake Linux:
K Menu (or the stupid paw) -> Configuration -> Mandrake Control Center
Software Management
Install Software
Now you can text-search for software or you can browse the list of packages, click a box to install it. Dependency checking is taken care of for you and has few problems, if any, these days
Click "Install Now"
Done!
There are a few complications, such as how to deal with rpms downloaded off the web, but the fact is that there are mandrake-supplied rpms for most free software I've found. I don't think an average user will have problems with Mandrake, seriously.
Oh, quite. I'm not saying any of this is right or good, just that it's the way things are, and it's something the whole Linux environment will have to address if it wants to attract these sorts of users.
I disagree to an extent. The main problem is that I don't think we'll ever be able to drop-in replace MS Office if file formats are the deal-breaker. Instead, we need to create apps and games that only run on Linux to attract people to it. Sorta like a game as addicting as Tetris, but sorry, doesn't run on Windows. Stick it on Knoppix, though, and pass it around. Something that can't be provided by Windows that regular users (not the IT-crazed phreaks) will really really want, even decide they need.
Oh well. We do have to deal with the problem somehow, but perhaps by brute-forcing our way we're going the wrong way. Rearrange the problem and re-solve it and see what you come up with.:)
Anyway, while I agree with your post in spirit, there's one particular thing I wanted to comment on.
5. Discover China. They're not ascending, they're imploding.
I've been hearing this since the Tianamen Square massacre, and I just don't believe it. All my life I heard that the USSR was imploding as well, and I think most of it was propoganda. By the time the revolutions started happening in the USSR, our own government started scrambling like "wtf? You mean there's a revolution going on over there?". It was very satisfying to see it happening, but I wasn't born yesterday, and I'm not entirely convinced that all those years of hearing about how the USSR would fall any day now all over the press was anything but propoganda, and we're hearing it now about China.
Sure, China's in a bit of a bind. China's totalitarian government isn't gonna last forever. But the USSR rose to a superpower under communism, and it's entirely possible that China will too. Of course, I don't think it'll actually happen, considering what happens in China whenever there's a regime change (hint: Mao rose to the top during a civil war, and left during a civil war).
In the US system, the President is a limited-term dictator, with immense powers
Describe these "immense powers" that you speak of, if you don't mind.
The President has the power of Veto, which means that he can just not sign a law and it doesn't go into existance.
The President is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the country, but he can't send them off to war without congress's help (an abused power in recent decades). If he does, he has to bring them back within a certain amount of time (thanks to laws passed as a result of Viet Nam, if I'm not mistaken)
The President appoints Supreme Court justices, but they must be approved by the Sen-nate (sorry, Newt Gunray slipped in while I was writing that).
And, that's it? He doesn't get to make laws, although he can suggest them. Extrapolating, we find that he can tell Congress "I won't sign this law that you want unless you pass that law that I want". So there's plenty of room for compromise on his part. Furthermore, he doesn't get to sign in any law that wasn't already voted for by both Houses.
The President's power is severely limited for a reason, the framers of the Constitution didn't want any single man to be able to acquire these Dictator powers of which you speak. So put up and tell us what powers you speak of.
...she was using one that had already been installed and set up with the sort of software she might use, with the right network and ISP settings, &c. (And I'm sure it didn't hurt having a comforting presence beside her, too.)
Actually, while you're right that I had already installed it, it was RedHat 7.2, and it was easier to install than windows 2000. Windows 2000, as you might recall, has a stupid text-driven installer that you use for partitioning and crap and then it does work for awhile, then reboots and runs you through a stupid wizard, then works for awhile, reboots again, and I don't remember what it does after that. In any case, RedHat 7.2 installed on my system out of the box with everything working (except sound, a problem which doesn't exist anymore for me and current distributions) and using default options. She could've installed it, I'm certain, but she never has. As far as ISP settings, we're behind a NAT router on a cable connection, so it only needed to work with DHCP and the network card, a strength of Linux. I didn't discuss the installation because when I started in with RedHat 7.2, I quickly learned that installation wasn't an issue anymore.
She also finds my presence intimidating when she's using a computer 'cause I always bitch "Why are you doing it the hard way?" "Shut up, Dave".:)
Again, you're using knowledge that the uninitiated simply don't have. I've never used IRC, and I'm far from new to all this. How do you know where to look for help? How do you find all these helpful people?
Instructions clearly posted on the GnuCash site led me to their IRC channel. The "uninitiated" have no problems surfing the web, as previously established. They only have to read the directions posted there to find help. I hadn't used IRC since the internet was telnet-driven, so while I did have the advantage of already knowing what IRC was, I don't think it served me in this case because finding it through the UI was completely different than I'm used to.
There is at least one: M$ Office. I hate to say it, coz I know that other office packages have done a huge amount of work and are better in some ways, but I know many people who need to be able to read and write Office files, without worrying that obscure bits of formatting will be lost or that they won't be able to send files back. Rightly or wrongly, this is the main show-stopper, without which they simply won't consider anything else. If/when Linux is seen to provide a seamless, transparent, drop-in replacement for Office, it stands to gain a lot more users.
That's just people being extremely picky. Before Microsoft had their monopoly, an Office suite wouldn't have been the deal-breaker like it is now. Personally, I find that KSpread and family are just as good, if not better, than MS Office. They just don't read MS Office files. I find that OpenOffice.org is an excellent office suite, but unreliable. It doesn't run well at all on my laptop, so it's a pain in the ass, but KOffice runs great. It really pisses me off that people focus on one thing, file formats, and refuse to go any further until that one thing is perfect to their satisfaction.
Oh well. I suppose the serfs of our feudalistic ancestry didn't mind being beat up by the nobility as long as they had shelter.
The main problem with the general argument in the GP is that we will not be able to solve all of our human problems before conquering the heavens. We'll be extinct before that happens. Many of the problems that exist down here have existed amongst humans for all of recorded history, and we have reason to believe they existed long before recorded history began. If we achieve a utopia where all of these problems are solved, then we won't need to go into space anymore.
That said:
You can save an awful lot of starving people with the kind of money it would take to send people to Mars. It would create employment at home and in the communities needing help. It would create wealth by creating new customers who can afford to watch a Mars landing rather than trudging half a day to find pulluted drinking water. It would reduce the number of people supporting or becoming terrorists, since less people would be angry at the smug westerners who wouldn't help them out.
AND
As far as religious imperatives go, I seem to remember helping the poor and dying as being a priority. It ranks above curiosity in my mind. A good 80% of all humans live in poverty, with no hope of ever working their way out of it, and they probably don't care about what's on Mars.
AND
I think it should go to raising the worldwide standard of living until nobody has to die of starvation (what a horrible and helpless way to go, really).
Can all be solved by:
I think there are cheaper ways to reduce crime than send people to Mars. One such way is to teach them properly in school so that they are motivated to better themselves.
So what's left from your post that you haven't already solved?
Labour, clever people and energy are some of the limited resources that are consumed by such an endeavour. Consider if these could be used in a better way, such as to invent a way to de-pollute the atmosphere, replenish the ozone layer,
And once again, dealing with pollution and the ozone layer are problems that have been demonstrated are solvable with better education.
Here's some interesting conclusions I've made. If you want to raise the standard of living amongst those who are poverty-stricken, you must raise the average standard of living in the area. If you try to address the poverty-stricken areas specifically, you won't make a lasting change. But if you address all areas simultaneously in order to raise the average, you will make a lasting change. Ultimately, it's raising the average standard of living that is the purpose of the space program.
Ok, I'll bite.:) I think you're overcomplicating the matter, although you made a lot of good points.
You don't know the first thing about peppers, and it just so happens I live next to a produce mart the likes of which you've never seen before. To choose from are: jalapenos, habaneros, anaheim, chipotle, ancho, pablano, thai, serrano, scotch bonnet, etc. What are you likely to do? That's right--grab the jalapenos, cuz that's what you've heard of before, even though they're probably not the best solution. Some die-hard linux people would argue, hey, if your goal is to help your buddy out, you'll head over to your favorite bookstore and read up, and then head back to the produce mart armed with this newfound knowledge.
Actually, not to split hairs or anything, but if you're having that much of a problem, you list the choices and go back to your buddy (or call him on your cell phone) and ask him which one he wants. Remember, the scenario you provided is your friend running an errand for me. The problem with using scenarios like this is that you can craft anything you want to make your point.
Let's deal with real, hard facts here. The first time my wife sat down in front of a computer running Linux, she looked at all the foreign icons on her panel and correctly chose the web browser. Then she opened up a text editor to copy some stuff out of the browser into it. Then she saved it. Then she opened up her (mine, actually) home directory and started browsing the file system looking for it. She never once asked me "What is the d: drive?" because it never materialized to perplex her. Then she opened a mail client and realized she was logged into my account. Then she logged off and tried her old Windows username and password. Then she asked me why she couldn't login? I watched her this whole time because I was curious how she would react to it. She's a smart girl, but she's pretty sucky when it comes to computers. I was impressed, to tell you the truth. Linux isn't *that* hard to deal with.
The thinking goes, in Windows, you learn about directory structures, a few commands to navigate around, a few basic apps for looking at files, opening programs, etc...at some point you hit a critical mass of knowledge where you just innately know how to move around and navigate new programs.
This is a known problem and has been addressed by the major desktops. KDE has had a standard interface for years, and GNOME is finally tightening up on it as well. It is a problem that has mostly gone away. I suggest you take your Knoppix CD out to your dumbest friend's house with a windows box, pop it in, and watch him. See how he deals with it.
How many linux users, even experts, can install an app they've never seen before (only know the basics of what it's for) in linux and start using it productively inside a few minutes without ever cracking any documentation?
The answer is "all", because one of the main problems of free software is the lack of good documentation. So, since there isn't a manual to crack open, it is a requirement to be able to figure out how to use the software productively quickly without cracking open the non-existant manual.:)
Ok, then, think about a piano. Anyone, even a child, can figure out the piano if given a chance to hit a couple of keys. That's Windows. They hand you the keys and you hit a couple and soon you're banging out simple tunes.
Hmm, try again. Windows is a trumpet, with three valves that don't make any sense and a stupid slide. You have to either discover or have someone tell you to blow higher and tighten your embrosure just to get out of one stupid octave. Linux is the piano.:) Everything is exposed, you can look inside it and puzzle out how it works, and you can sit and use it productively within minutes of bootup. Personally, I prefer guitar.
.there are a LOT of places where linux is worse than Wi
Hm, I misread your post, sorry. I thought you said the engine failed because it wasn't waterproofed.
In any case, it's not unusual at all for electrical motors to fail in high humidity, but it's also not acceptable behavior.:) But the Fieros were notorious for having their pop-up headlights fail. That's why when you see them these days they always look like they're winking, and nobody seems to have managed to build a decent replacement motor for them. Why shoot the cash cow, you know?
Mazda Miata, Toyota MR2, and Honda RSX drivers must prefer that kind of driving, where you have to work to stay in the powerband.
Several things.:)
First, it's not that hard of a job to keep those cars in the powerband. They have featherlight throttles, especially compared to the Mustang you cited. Just push the accelerator to the floor and keep shifting.:)
Second: Those cars are light, so even at 3000rpm they're pretty jumpy.
Third: They actually have two powerbands, one that peaks around 3500-4000 and another one that peaks around 7000. Remove the rev limiter, add some strength to the motor so you don't blow it up, and you'll find another powerband in the 11000 range. So it's really a matter of picking how much power you want and choosing the powerband that best serves it.
Personally, I prefer inline 6s myself, because they have a powerband that is very comfortable to me. Speaking purely esthetically, of course. They also tend to be more reliable under pressure than v8s and require less tweaking to get more power out of them. It is true that a v8 will always be able to carry more power than an inline 4 or 6 cylinder, assuming unlimited time and money to soup it up. But the cost breakdowns and regular budget figures are in, and TCO on a hotrod rice-burner is lower than any given american-made v8.:)
It would be interesting to see what Japanese motors would look like if this limit wasn't artificially imposed on them.
Forgive me my American bias, but I think I'd rather see what American motors would look like if they had a limit like this artificially imposed on them. When Toyota finally made the Tundra, it kicked every bit of ass that you see in T3. That truck really is that tough. And it gets mileage comparable to cars, and that's the real kicker.
Just remember, low mpg doesn't mean low power. Quite the opposite can and should be true, in fact. Making a more powerful engine is all about making it burn gas more efficiently first, and putting more gas into the chamber second. That's why degreeing your cams is the first step you take to increase engine power, it makes the engine run more efficiently with a minimal sacrifice of reliability.
Also, don't forget that Japanese companies have huge investments in motorcycle technology. The first Honda cars had Honda motorcycle engines in them.:) So they already have huge experience building small, powerful motors, and that was before they even got into cars.
If I may permit myself some self indulgent memories here, the Integra motor would just sweep up to redline while the Honda's would bitch a bit. That Integra engine was sweet.
Hm, too bad it wasn't particularly reliable. It did take a couple of years for Honda to get the hang of it. I forget what it was about it, though. Wasn't it the first DOHC engine Honda built? (Before anybody says Honda didn't build the Integra, they did. Honda:Acura::Toyota:Lexus)
Heh, no disclaimer needed. Go check out my website, I can take a joke.:)
My wife actually thinks my nickname is childish. She's probably right. But that doesn't mean I'm going to change it, I like having a nick like this and a maxed out karma rating. It's a pleasant irony, I think.
Most people are easy marks when they are dealing with an unfamiliar subject. If your doctor prescribes a drug for your condition, what will you do if you are not a doctor yourself? Buy it and become an "easy mark", or refuse and potentially die? I think I know a most common answer to that.
Any drug that I'm not familiar with, be it over the counter or prescription, gets googled before purchasing. Or at least googled before taking. I trust doctors, but they do make mistakes from time to time, and there's no reason I can't second-guess them from making their newest mistake on me. I've never found reason not to take the drug, however, I have learned a lot of good stuff.:) I'm certainly no doctor myself, and I certainly wouldn't refuse to take the drug based on googling, but there's an internet full of knowledge available to me, if I just look for it. Anyway, if the googling turns up questionable material, I'd call the doctor and ask him about it.
I'm no doctor, and I won't even pretend to understand everything I read about drugs. But if I see several sights that say "This drug causes people to lapse into psychotic fits", that's pretty plain english to me and worthy of note.
In doing so, I learned that most over the counter sleeping pills are just Benadryl, and over-priced for it. Since I already know that Benadryl doesn't make me drowsy, I can eliminate most over-the-counter sleeping pills as being useful to me. The other drug used has big massive warnings all over it, and likewise doesn't work on me.
Hell, just reading the packages themselves is plenty of information, and when you get a prescription filled the pharmacist is required to give you an information sheet about the drug. There's already one check in place to make sure doctors don't fuck you over.
Like I said, I trust doctors, but drugs aren't to be trifled with.
What's wrong with polygamy? As long as everyone's a consenting adult, what's the problem?
It's blatantly sexist in previous incarnations. That's all. The idea that one man can have many wives, but any given woman can only have one husband. I realize there are biological reasons to justify it, but it's still wrong in that incarnation.
Now, if you want to talk about Heinlein's ideas of marriage, I'm all for that. Many husbands, many wives. Sounds great! Too bad our country is populated by a bunch of jealous freaks... Marriage as possession is slavery. Marriage as partnership is liberty.:) (Guess which type of marriage I've got)
Supposing there is an eligible young woman, it would be more procreatively efficient to marry her off to an energetic twenty-something guy than a fifty or sixty year old geezer with an already overlarge harem
Not true! Not true. That old geezer with 30 wives can sire 30 babies in 1-year intervals. That means that in 3 years he can sire 90 babies (assuming a 3-month break for each woman after a baby is born, of course), and he only has to get laid every day of the month! Heaven Forbid!
In any case, you could make the case that having 30 men distributed amongst those 30 women would have worked great, but you're leaving a few steps out. Those 30 kids from the first year, assume that many of them are girls, when they grow up, they'll be married off to other 60-year-old geezers (yes, I'm ignoring the fact that 60 years old in the 19th century in the Old West meant burial) who would be the other younger saps you mentioned. That means the genes will get passed around. Diversifying the spread of the genepool is the goal of polygamy, as well as parallel baby birthing. Sure, you get a bunch of kids with the same dad, but you can pass them around and after a few generations you wind up with a much more diverse genepool with what you had available than you otherwise would have.
That said, now this:
The Mormon culture as a whole suffers from a stark aristocratic view of itself, which is why they always strike the rest of the world as being snobs. This is what leads to the other things in your post:
But due to the artificial shortage created by the "monopolistic practices" of certain favored individuals, many young men had to go on missions just to find and convert eligible young women.
That's the practice of an aristocracy, plain and simple. See, the mormon aristocracy can't exist without all the 'inferior' religions in the world, because then there wouldn't be anybody left for them to be better than!
Slashdot Mirror
When the distro is ready, mdk10 will allow ISO downloads to club members FIRST, while everything is available via ftp mirrors. Next comes the shipping boxed sets, finally a box set on store shelves and freely downloadable ISOs. The boxed set/iso downloading scheme is new and while some people have complained, it's really in Mandrake's best interests to do it this way.
I'm not sure I completely understand what you said, but your summary of how they used to do it is correct.
If you recall, and I waited breathlessly through this (I really wanted to upgrade to 9.2 so I could get a decent rpm of the 2.6 kernel), they had a serious problem with certain CD drives that mis-used the atapi protocol and got their firmware erased the first time you used them. This was a very serious problem, and they had to yank the release until it was resolved. While they had the release yanked, thousands (millions?) of people just like me waited, and waited, and waited some more. They probably already had sent 9.2 to the presses to get printed and pressed and distributed and had to stop that in a hurry, and there's no telling how much money they lost in the deal because of this.
So, what they're doing now looks like a way to deal with this problem and others like it in the future. What's different is that they'll make the regular release just like they used to, and they'll make the isos available for download, just like they used to. But they won't produce the boxed sets for a couple more months while the rest of us install it and find all the bugs that slipped through. Then they fix those bugs, make their boxed set, and make their "Official" release.
As far as I'm concerned, I think this is great. They really got a bad rap over the last release, and it's an awesome release (I'm using it right now!). It kicks the ass out of RedHat 9, which I used a few months back. It really fuckin' rocks, man, it rocks. Dude! So we who like to freeload (still poor, otherwise I'd've joined the MandrakeClub a long time ago) still get our download release that'll be just as good as it always is at the regular time we expect it to be available, and they get to release a boxed set that really rocks, because it won't have the stupid bugs that appeared right after the "release". So now we get two releases, one that's great with a few stupid bugs that crept through (damn those bugs that always make it through!), and one that's great without all the stupid bugs that crept through.
So, in conclusion, I, for one, welcome our new Mandrake overlords.
On the starship Cowerprise, under captain...
Kalam?
Republic is where the citizens vote on who will make laws. Democracy is where the citizens vote on the laws themselves. Most states, cities, and counties in the US are a hybrid of democracy and republic, but our Federal government is pure republic.
It's really very simple. In a republic, the people vote on who will represent them in government, and theoretically those people who are elected are going to make laws in accordance with the will of the citizens. The citizens themselves don't get to pick and chose the laws or have any say in them, other than contacting their elected official. The citizens don't get to propose laws in a formal fashion, and they don't get to vote on the laws themselves. The relationship between the people and the elected officials is one of employer to employee. The elected officials are chosen as qualified in legal matters, versed in social issues, and so forth. The underlying assumptions are also very simple. The people, as an aggregate, do not have the time to deal with day-to-day management of the government. Neither do they have the education and expertise required to manage the government. So they chose people who will work full-time (or part-time, as is the case in most cities and counties) to manage the government and who have the education and expertise to do so.
A democracy is quite different. In a democracy the people get to chose the laws, and there are no elected officials. The people have to spend their time managing day-to-day government affairs, and that's in addition to the time they spend just working and playing with their families. Democracy doesn't work on a large scale without the help of many of the traits of a Republic, which is why states have their own elected bodies, governors, and so forth. Democracy is what this country had when it was a bunch of english colonies. The townspeople would gather regularly (weekly was pretty common) and discuss the issues, vote on laws, and so forth.
Communism is actually supposed to be democracy, except in Communism all citizens are equal. They get paid the same amount of money, so there's no aristocracy in any fashion. They also are supposed to chose the laws themselves. Communism in its purest form hasn't been implemented on a large scale, but frequently shows up in small scales, such as in the early days of Salt Lake City, and the early days of the original English colonies.
Monarchy gives absolute power to a single individual, and religion is used to seal his power. Inheritance is what usually determines the next King or Queen (or Emperor, or Tsar). The "Divine Right of Kings" is what gives the king his power, and the ruling class (aka nobility) consists of the King's extended family and anybody he appoints to that class. Feudalism is the economic system of Monarchy, which is theoretically a combination of the free market and communism, but that's not really the best way to describe feudalism.
Other forms of dictatorial style government exist. The Romans adapted their Republic to a dictatorial style of government when Caesar became the first emperor of Rome. Caesar was elected to be the emperor in a process that is very similar to what we see in the new Star Wars movies. A precedent was set that passes the Emperor from father to son, but there were other ways of choosing an emperor used in Rome. Justin, the Emperor that reconquered the Western half of the Roman Empire in the 500s AD, was elected. He was born a commoner and rose to power on the strengths of his own leadership.
A dictionary isn't good enough to define these complex systems of government. History is better, where you'll learn that the ancient greek city-states experimented with every form of government currently known to man. I suggest you study your ancient greeks to learn more about this subject. The fact is, every form of government we know about right now can be combined with any/all of the other forms. Communism, as I indicated, isn't actually a complete form of government. It's an economic system. The way the Soviets implemented it it was totalitarian rule with communism as the economic system. We've seen plenty totalitarian rule with capitalism and feudalism as the economic systems, so this concept isn't really hard to grasp.
Oo, yeah, I forgot about Executive Orders that don't actually have to be obeyed. :) Sorry about that one.
You're right that our President has too much power, but you're wrong about our US government being a democracy. It's a republic. Sorry. "I will not let this Republic which has stood for a thousand years..."
Not if Windows 2000 is already installed.
There's a certain critical mass we have to achieve before we can reasonably expect a lot of OEMs to install Linux for us. Your point is valid, but it's not something we can address until we have some large percentage of the users that are willing to install their own OSs.
Fair enough; that's a clear direction. But if it means finding, installing, and setting up a new app (even if they know what IRC is), then many new users won't bother.
Um, my mandrake system installed 3 IRC clients. :) I can bitch about it installing 3 for awhile, but point is I didn't have to install anything.
Take the case of Mac OS X. In most cases, installing a new app looks like this:
Mandrake Linux:
There are a few complications, such as how to deal with rpms downloaded off the web, but the fact is that there are mandrake-supplied rpms for most free software I've found. I don't think an average user will have problems with Mandrake, seriously.
Oh, quite. I'm not saying any of this is right or good, just that it's the way things are, and it's something the whole Linux environment will have to address if it wants to attract these sorts of users.
I disagree to an extent. The main problem is that I don't think we'll ever be able to drop-in replace MS Office if file formats are the deal-breaker. Instead, we need to create apps and games that only run on Linux to attract people to it. Sorta like a game as addicting as Tetris, but sorry, doesn't run on Windows. Stick it on Knoppix, though, and pass it around. Something that can't be provided by Windows that regular users (not the IT-crazed phreaks) will really really want, even decide they need.
Oh well. We do have to deal with the problem somehow, but perhaps by brute-forcing our way we're going the wrong way. Rearrange the problem and re-solve it and see what you come up with. :)
Duderstadt? From Liberty Hill?
Anyway, while I agree with your post in spirit, there's one particular thing I wanted to comment on.
5. Discover China. They're not ascending, they're imploding.
I've been hearing this since the Tianamen Square massacre, and I just don't believe it. All my life I heard that the USSR was imploding as well, and I think most of it was propoganda. By the time the revolutions started happening in the USSR, our own government started scrambling like "wtf? You mean there's a revolution going on over there?". It was very satisfying to see it happening, but I wasn't born yesterday, and I'm not entirely convinced that all those years of hearing about how the USSR would fall any day now all over the press was anything but propoganda, and we're hearing it now about China.
Sure, China's in a bit of a bind. China's totalitarian government isn't gonna last forever. But the USSR rose to a superpower under communism, and it's entirely possible that China will too. Of course, I don't think it'll actually happen, considering what happens in China whenever there's a regime change (hint: Mao rose to the top during a civil war, and left during a civil war).
In the US system, the President is a limited-term dictator, with immense powers
Describe these "immense powers" that you speak of, if you don't mind.
The President has the power of Veto, which means that he can just not sign a law and it doesn't go into existance.
The President is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the country, but he can't send them off to war without congress's help (an abused power in recent decades). If he does, he has to bring them back within a certain amount of time (thanks to laws passed as a result of Viet Nam, if I'm not mistaken)
The President appoints Supreme Court justices, but they must be approved by the Sen-nate (sorry, Newt Gunray slipped in while I was writing that).
And, that's it? He doesn't get to make laws, although he can suggest them. Extrapolating, we find that he can tell Congress "I won't sign this law that you want unless you pass that law that I want". So there's plenty of room for compromise on his part. Furthermore, he doesn't get to sign in any law that wasn't already voted for by both Houses.
The President's power is severely limited for a reason, the framers of the Constitution didn't want any single man to be able to acquire these Dictator powers of which you speak. So put up and tell us what powers you speak of.
Actually, while you're right that I had already installed it, it was RedHat 7.2, and it was easier to install than windows 2000. Windows 2000, as you might recall, has a stupid text-driven installer that you use for partitioning and crap and then it does work for awhile, then reboots and runs you through a stupid wizard, then works for awhile, reboots again, and I don't remember what it does after that. In any case, RedHat 7.2 installed on my system out of the box with everything working (except sound, a problem which doesn't exist anymore for me and current distributions) and using default options. She could've installed it, I'm certain, but she never has. As far as ISP settings, we're behind a NAT router on a cable connection, so it only needed to work with DHCP and the network card, a strength of Linux. I didn't discuss the installation because when I started in with RedHat 7.2, I quickly learned that installation wasn't an issue anymore.
She also finds my presence intimidating when she's using a computer 'cause I always bitch "Why are you doing it the hard way?" "Shut up, Dave". :)
Again, you're using knowledge that the uninitiated simply don't have. I've never used IRC, and I'm far from new to all this. How do you know where to look for help? How do you find all these helpful people?
Instructions clearly posted on the GnuCash site led me to their IRC channel. The "uninitiated" have no problems surfing the web, as previously established. They only have to read the directions posted there to find help. I hadn't used IRC since the internet was telnet-driven, so while I did have the advantage of already knowing what IRC was, I don't think it served me in this case because finding it through the UI was completely different than I'm used to.
There is at least one: M$ Office. I hate to say it, coz I know that other office packages have done a huge amount of work and are better in some ways, but I know many people who need to be able to read and write Office files, without worrying that obscure bits of formatting will be lost or that they won't be able to send files back. Rightly or wrongly, this is the main show-stopper, without which they simply won't consider anything else. If/when Linux is seen to provide a seamless, transparent, drop-in replacement for Office, it stands to gain a lot more users.
That's just people being extremely picky. Before Microsoft had their monopoly, an Office suite wouldn't have been the deal-breaker like it is now. Personally, I find that KSpread and family are just as good, if not better, than MS Office. They just don't read MS Office files. I find that OpenOffice.org is an excellent office suite, but unreliable. It doesn't run well at all on my laptop, so it's a pain in the ass, but KOffice runs great. It really pisses me off that people focus on one thing, file formats, and refuse to go any further until that one thing is perfect to their satisfaction.
Oh well. I suppose the serfs of our feudalistic ancestry didn't mind being beat up by the nobility as long as they had shelter.
You can rock it like Sir Sisyphus, But even in it's genesis, It's really quite ridiculous.
Hey, is that Rolf Harris, or at least a song that he did at some point?
"I like my women like I like my coffee...ground up and stuffed into a plastic bag, which I keep in the freezer"
I like my women like I like my tea. Boiled and with sweetness added in measured amounts.
Just a note, this is the funniest thing I've ever read:
but for all in tents and purposes
I'll bite, too. :)
The main problem with the general argument in the GP is that we will not be able to solve all of our human problems before conquering the heavens. We'll be extinct before that happens. Many of the problems that exist down here have existed amongst humans for all of recorded history, and we have reason to believe they existed long before recorded history began. If we achieve a utopia where all of these problems are solved, then we won't need to go into space anymore.
That said:
You can save an awful lot of starving people with the kind of money it would take to send people to Mars. It would create employment at home and in the communities needing help. It would create wealth by creating new customers who can afford to watch a Mars landing rather than trudging half a day to find pulluted drinking water. It would reduce the number of people supporting or becoming terrorists, since less people would be angry at the smug westerners who wouldn't help them out.
AND
As far as religious imperatives go, I seem to remember helping the poor and dying as being a priority. It ranks above curiosity in my mind. A good 80% of all humans live in poverty, with no hope of ever working their way out of it, and they probably don't care about what's on Mars.
AND
I think it should go to raising the worldwide standard of living until nobody has to die of starvation (what a horrible and helpless way to go, really).
Can all be solved by:
I think there are cheaper ways to reduce crime than send people to Mars. One such way is to teach them properly in school so that they are motivated to better themselves.
So what's left from your post that you haven't already solved?
Labour, clever people and energy are some of the limited resources that are consumed by such an endeavour. Consider if these could be used in a better way, such as to invent a way to de-pollute the atmosphere, replenish the ozone layer,
And once again, dealing with pollution and the ozone layer are problems that have been demonstrated are solvable with better education.
Here's some interesting conclusions I've made. If you want to raise the standard of living amongst those who are poverty-stricken, you must raise the average standard of living in the area. If you try to address the poverty-stricken areas specifically, you won't make a lasting change. But if you address all areas simultaneously in order to raise the average, you will make a lasting change. Ultimately, it's raising the average standard of living that is the purpose of the space program.
If their software can't censor internet access, then the majority of public schools and libraries can't use it.
INteresting, I think, that Microsoft can make software that censors the internet and sell it to the US and to China. What does that really say?
Ok, I'll bite. :) I think you're overcomplicating the matter, although you made a lot of good points.
You don't know the first thing about peppers, and it just so happens I live next to a produce mart the likes of which you've never seen before. To choose from are: jalapenos, habaneros, anaheim, chipotle, ancho, pablano, thai, serrano, scotch bonnet, etc. What are you likely to do? That's right--grab the jalapenos, cuz that's what you've heard of before, even though they're probably not the best solution. Some die-hard linux people would argue, hey, if your goal is to help your buddy out, you'll head over to your favorite bookstore and read up, and then head back to the produce mart armed with this newfound knowledge.
Actually, not to split hairs or anything, but if you're having that much of a problem, you list the choices and go back to your buddy (or call him on your cell phone) and ask him which one he wants. Remember, the scenario you provided is your friend running an errand for me. The problem with using scenarios like this is that you can craft anything you want to make your point.
Let's deal with real, hard facts here. The first time my wife sat down in front of a computer running Linux, she looked at all the foreign icons on her panel and correctly chose the web browser. Then she opened up a text editor to copy some stuff out of the browser into it. Then she saved it. Then she opened up her (mine, actually) home directory and started browsing the file system looking for it. She never once asked me "What is the d: drive?" because it never materialized to perplex her. Then she opened a mail client and realized she was logged into my account. Then she logged off and tried her old Windows username and password. Then she asked me why she couldn't login? I watched her this whole time because I was curious how she would react to it. She's a smart girl, but she's pretty sucky when it comes to computers. I was impressed, to tell you the truth. Linux isn't *that* hard to deal with.
The thinking goes, in Windows, you learn about directory structures, a few commands to navigate around, a few basic apps for looking at files, opening programs, etc...at some point you hit a critical mass of knowledge where you just innately know how to move around and navigate new programs.
This is a known problem and has been addressed by the major desktops. KDE has had a standard interface for years, and GNOME is finally tightening up on it as well. It is a problem that has mostly gone away. I suggest you take your Knoppix CD out to your dumbest friend's house with a windows box, pop it in, and watch him. See how he deals with it.
How many linux users, even experts, can install an app they've never seen before (only know the basics of what it's for) in linux and start using it productively inside a few minutes without ever cracking any documentation?
The answer is "all", because one of the main problems of free software is the lack of good documentation. So, since there isn't a manual to crack open, it is a requirement to be able to figure out how to use the software productively quickly without cracking open the non-existant manual. :)
Ok, then, think about a piano. Anyone, even a child, can figure out the piano if given a chance to hit a couple of keys. That's Windows. They hand you the keys and you hit a couple and soon you're banging out simple tunes.
Hmm, try again. Windows is a trumpet, with three valves that don't make any sense and a stupid slide. You have to either discover or have someone tell you to blow higher and tighten your embrosure just to get out of one stupid octave. Linux is the piano. :) Everything is exposed, you can look inside it and puzzle out how it works, and you can sit and use it productively within minutes of bootup. Personally, I prefer guitar.
Hm, I misread your post, sorry. I thought you said the engine failed because it wasn't waterproofed.
In any case, it's not unusual at all for electrical motors to fail in high humidity, but it's also not acceptable behavior. :) But the Fieros were notorious for having their pop-up headlights fail. That's why when you see them these days they always look like they're winking, and nobody seems to have managed to build a decent replacement motor for them. Why shoot the cash cow, you know?
Mazda Miata, Toyota MR2, and Honda RSX drivers must prefer that kind of driving, where you have to work to stay in the powerband.
Several things. :)
First, it's not that hard of a job to keep those cars in the powerband. They have featherlight throttles, especially compared to the Mustang you cited. Just push the accelerator to the floor and keep shifting. :)
Second: Those cars are light, so even at 3000rpm they're pretty jumpy.
Third: They actually have two powerbands, one that peaks around 3500-4000 and another one that peaks around 7000. Remove the rev limiter, add some strength to the motor so you don't blow it up, and you'll find another powerband in the 11000 range. So it's really a matter of picking how much power you want and choosing the powerband that best serves it.
Personally, I prefer inline 6s myself, because they have a powerband that is very comfortable to me. Speaking purely esthetically, of course. They also tend to be more reliable under pressure than v8s and require less tweaking to get more power out of them. It is true that a v8 will always be able to carry more power than an inline 4 or 6 cylinder, assuming unlimited time and money to soup it up. But the cost breakdowns and regular budget figures are in, and TCO on a hotrod rice-burner is lower than any given american-made v8. :)
It would be interesting to see what Japanese motors would look like if this limit wasn't artificially imposed on them.
Forgive me my American bias, but I think I'd rather see what American motors would look like if they had a limit like this artificially imposed on them. When Toyota finally made the Tundra, it kicked every bit of ass that you see in T3. That truck really is that tough. And it gets mileage comparable to cars, and that's the real kicker.
Just remember, low mpg doesn't mean low power. Quite the opposite can and should be true, in fact. Making a more powerful engine is all about making it burn gas more efficiently first, and putting more gas into the chamber second. That's why degreeing your cams is the first step you take to increase engine power, it makes the engine run more efficiently with a minimal sacrifice of reliability.
Also, don't forget that Japanese companies have huge investments in motorcycle technology. The first Honda cars had Honda motorcycle engines in them. :) So they already have huge experience building small, powerful motors, and that was before they even got into cars.
If I may permit myself some self indulgent memories here, the Integra motor would just sweep up to redline while the Honda's would bitch a bit. That Integra engine was sweet.
Hm, too bad it wasn't particularly reliable. It did take a couple of years for Honda to get the hang of it. I forget what it was about it, though. Wasn't it the first DOHC engine Honda built? (Before anybody says Honda didn't build the Integra, they did. Honda:Acura::Toyota:Lexus)
Heh, no disclaimer needed. Go check out my website, I can take a joke. :)
My wife actually thinks my nickname is childish. She's probably right. But that doesn't mean I'm going to change it, I like having a nick like this and a maxed out karma rating. It's a pleasant irony, I think.
I submit that realplayer has been real crap for a real long time.
Alright, who let Captain Kirk in here?
Not only does MPlayer not have that codec, it doesn't play .asx files.
Since when? I've got an old Star Trek episode that's in .asx format and plays just fine. In fact, mplayer was the only thing I could get to play it.
Most people are easy marks when they are dealing with an unfamiliar subject. If your doctor prescribes a drug for your condition, what will you do if you are not a doctor yourself? Buy it and become an "easy mark", or refuse and potentially die? I think I know a most common answer to that.
Any drug that I'm not familiar with, be it over the counter or prescription, gets googled before purchasing. Or at least googled before taking. I trust doctors, but they do make mistakes from time to time, and there's no reason I can't second-guess them from making their newest mistake on me. I've never found reason not to take the drug, however, I have learned a lot of good stuff. :) I'm certainly no doctor myself, and I certainly wouldn't refuse to take the drug based on googling, but there's an internet full of knowledge available to me, if I just look for it. Anyway, if the googling turns up questionable material, I'd call the doctor and ask him about it.
I'm no doctor, and I won't even pretend to understand everything I read about drugs. But if I see several sights that say "This drug causes people to lapse into psychotic fits", that's pretty plain english to me and worthy of note.
In doing so, I learned that most over the counter sleeping pills are just Benadryl, and over-priced for it. Since I already know that Benadryl doesn't make me drowsy, I can eliminate most over-the-counter sleeping pills as being useful to me. The other drug used has big massive warnings all over it, and likewise doesn't work on me.
Hell, just reading the packages themselves is plenty of information, and when you get a prescription filled the pharmacist is required to give you an information sheet about the drug. There's already one check in place to make sure doctors don't fuck you over.
Like I said, I trust doctors, but drugs aren't to be trifled with.
The 'This American Life' explanation makes sense, but does not differentiate Real v.s. Windows Media.
This kind of crap makes me want to stream the so-called important, valuable content to a file and distribute it to as many people as possible.
"Why should I respect your copyright if you won't respect my fair use?"
What's wrong with polygamy? As long as everyone's a consenting adult, what's the problem?
It's blatantly sexist in previous incarnations. That's all. The idea that one man can have many wives, but any given woman can only have one husband. I realize there are biological reasons to justify it, but it's still wrong in that incarnation.
Now, if you want to talk about Heinlein's ideas of marriage, I'm all for that. Many husbands, many wives. Sounds great! Too bad our country is populated by a bunch of jealous freaks... Marriage as possession is slavery. Marriage as partnership is liberty. :) (Guess which type of marriage I've got)
Supposing there is an eligible young woman, it would be more procreatively efficient to marry her off to an energetic twenty-something guy than a fifty or sixty year old geezer with an already overlarge harem
Not true! Not true. That old geezer with 30 wives can sire 30 babies in 1-year intervals. That means that in 3 years he can sire 90 babies (assuming a 3-month break for each woman after a baby is born, of course), and he only has to get laid every day of the month! Heaven Forbid!
In any case, you could make the case that having 30 men distributed amongst those 30 women would have worked great, but you're leaving a few steps out. Those 30 kids from the first year, assume that many of them are girls, when they grow up, they'll be married off to other 60-year-old geezers (yes, I'm ignoring the fact that 60 years old in the 19th century in the Old West meant burial) who would be the other younger saps you mentioned. That means the genes will get passed around. Diversifying the spread of the genepool is the goal of polygamy, as well as parallel baby birthing. Sure, you get a bunch of kids with the same dad, but you can pass them around and after a few generations you wind up with a much more diverse genepool with what you had available than you otherwise would have.
That said, now this:
The Mormon culture as a whole suffers from a stark aristocratic view of itself, which is why they always strike the rest of the world as being snobs. This is what leads to the other things in your post:
But due to the artificial shortage created by the "monopolistic practices" of certain favored individuals, many young men had to go on missions just to find and convert eligible young women.
That's the practice of an aristocracy, plain and simple. See, the mormon aristocracy can't exist without all the 'inferior' religions in the world, because then there wouldn't be anybody left for them to be better than!