Besides incresing our common knowledge of the universe we live in, or the new technologies [nasa.gov] developed by the space program? Saying "i don't care, i live on Earth" is like saying "why would i ever leave home? the fridge is stuffed."
So, you are saying that I can actually visit Mars now?
Until there is an actual tourism of those places select few (or robots) are going, what do I care?
And really, if I were telecommuting and the fridge were full, I would stay at home and not care about what happens outside my home (save for when I am traveling either for business or pleasure).
So if the crumple zones were identical in length, the bulkier car experiences smaller accelerations than the smaller car.
While technically true, this only gives you a factor of order unity (somewhere from factor of 2 to, let's say 8). You can get that factor by simply driving safer (you know, at safe speeds (usually the speed limit), avoiding packs, etc.).
If I had to drive (I thankfully don't), I'd buy a smaller car so that I'd have easier time parking and use less gas.
Next fiscal year (9): "Consider this a military coup. You will be allowed to stay on as long as you help us maintain the peace. We need extra funds to hire the extra manpower to help crush the tax-payer revolts. Sign here."
The good thing about U.S. government (despite all its failings) is, a civilian (the President of the U.S.) is the commander in chief.
I honestly do not think a military coup (which would be... some general *not* the commander in chief somehow getting enough support from his colleagues) is possible in the U.S.
I'll believe it when that happens, but I don't think it will in my lifetime.
With all that money NASA spent going to the moon, what practical benefit have we gained (that's related to actual landing on the moon, rather than, you know, the general research that goes on at NASA).
I suppose Mars is in the news now with all those stories of water being found. But, really, who cares? What practical benefit does that have for those of us who live on Earth?
Yup, exactly. The one to watch out for, however, is the increasing aggression of a Nazi run Germany leading to the annexation of Poland, which could very conceivably start WWIII.
Anything that tracks NEOs gives you a return on your tax dollar in that it keeps you aware of any catastrophic threats.
Just like this rock I hold in my hand is keeping bears away.
Tell me when we actually have the ability to destroy and or deflect NEOs---or, even better, when we have actually detected an NEO that is a real threat.
Yes, and no amount of crumple zones in a car this size will save you from the acceleration of a head-on collision.
Let's see, a head-on collision? The worst case scenario is that your final velocity will be that of the car that you collided with (whereas given the equal mass, your final velocity will be zero). Given the same amount of crumple zone, then that means twice as much force on you (as it would have been if you were in a larger car).
You know, I think I'll get that factor and better by simply driving safer (and by not getting into situations where I'd have a head-on collision!), but, I suppose it's your choice to pay more for gas if you'd like.
I am simply saying that forcing me to use software that doesn't do what I need it to do
Oh, I'm sorry. I totally forgot that rms passed/lobbied for all those legislations in the Congress making nonfree software illegal. Of course, he's forcing everyone to do his bidding against their will. You might even say that free software coders are rms's slaves!... Not.
All he's doing is speaking about the value of free software (for freedom) and trying to persuade the people. If you disagree with him, fine---that's free society for you---but don't mischaracterize him as "forcing" anyone to do anything. Apple's far more guilty of that (vendor lock-in, patents, etc.) than rms ever could be.
But I am a dumb slave who can actually do what he wants to do much more efficiently than can be done with Linux.
I suppose it depends on your own line of work, but having seen a co-worker struggle with a job that I do in 30 minutes trying to do it on a Mac (for the whole day!), for what I do (data analysis, mostly), Macs are far more inefficient. But the argument isn't really about efficiency at all.
Free Software flourishes because of the quality of the software and the benefits of distributed development.
This is almost like saying free society (most often a democracy) flourishes because of the responsiveness of the government and benefits of distributed decision-making, and that otherwise there is no merit to a free society. You might get some nice practical benefits that come with free society, but that is not why one ought to choose a free government in preference to, for example, a monarchy or dictatorship (ever heard of benevolent dictatorship?).
Freedom is a human right---that unfortunately many slaves deny to themselves.
That's a false dichotomy. If public good and individual rights are in "conflict", a free society isn't possible. Which I'm sure some power lusting types would hope we believe but it's just not true.
We are using "good" in two different ways. Perhaps I should've said "collective goods". If some goods (products, THINGS) are held as a collective (as it is in a communist state), then by definition the same goods cannot be claimed by individuals.
At no point in my life would I claim that doing good things for the public is in conflict with self-interest---heck, that's the basis of capitalism, that individuals acting in self-interest could make the society, as a whole, better.
Do you even know the definition of communism? Here it is:
Did you even read what I wrote? Here it is:
... but even with copyleft, copyright is still individual property*.
Yes, I know precisely what communism means, which is why I brought up the point that copyright is an INDIVIDUAL property. The copyright holder has special rights and privileges that no one else has.
I for one believe that copyright should be abolished (which would, to the propagandists at least, be communistic), but I've never heard or read FSF or rms saying the same.
Even if it has a crumple zones, I could see it being sent flying across the road like a hockeypuck, or it's lack of mass being unable to stop the forward progress of the impacting vehicle after the impact.
Why does it need to physically stop the other car? I don't think I'd mind being sent across the road like a hockeypuck, as long as each change in velocity (... probably collision-induced) is gentle enough to prevent damage to my body. I couldn't care less if the truck that hits me has enough forward momentum to go across America.
As long as it has crumple zones (remember---what you really care about is the acceleration of your own body (which gives the force on you), and that's inversely proportional to the distance you have to travel, given an initial and final velocity), I don't see how it's any less safer than a bulkier car with identical length of crumple zone.
I recently rode in a coworkers SmartCar, and while it seemed like a great car, I realized that if were were rear ended, we'd be killed. There's about a foot between your back and the back of the car. Less than that of a Jeep Wrangler. My biggest fear would be having to stop quickly on the highway and the guy behind me doesn't stop in time.
That should be fine---with your small mass, the other guy will simply end up pushing you forward.
Now, it's a different question if you were stopped right in front of a cliff (either one that stands as a wall or one where the ground disappears beneath you), but in the normal traffic conditions, you will either get pushed forward by yourself, or as you are pushed forward, you will hit the car ahead of you. In either case, assuming that the passenger compartment is strong, the mass of your car itself has no bearing on safety.
Anybody have any good arguments for justifying these ultra-light cars (VW, SmartCar) to those that do equate a certain size=safety measure?
Well, tell them about how "safe" SUVs are, with its frequent rollovers. If that doesn't convince them bigger != safer, well, I do think the gene pool would benefit from their decision.
but Stallman has always seemed to say that, "Freedom is what I say freedom is, and if you don't do what I tell you to do, then you are not free"
So, you are disagreeing with the "four freedoms" FSF declares as fundamental for software?
If so, can you offer a better list of fundamental freedoms for software (and, please, freedom to restrict others' freedom isn't a freedom)?
If not, your statement is entirely unwarranted---if rms wanted to, he could, e.g. kill XEmacs by modifying the license of GNU Emacs, but he has never so much as made a threat of doing such a thing. Characterization of rms as "do as I tell you" simply couldn't be more wrong.
As for the "dumb slave" part, if you use proprietary software, that IS what you are (and I see nothing wrong about calling you on that). And users like that (esp. people who send Word documents as email attachment) are essential in perpetuating proprietary software and are as guilty as proprietary software companies for doing so.
Free software is ironically both communist-ic (yay collective good) and free-market-istic (the price of the software is the marginal cost of production of one copy, or, um, zero!) It's rather fun. Not too many markets work out that way.
What "collective good"? That might be the case if rms (or FSF) is proposing that software need to be released into the public domain, but even with copyleft, copyright is still individual property*.
Just because something benefits the society as a whole doesn't make it communistic---if it were, Soviet Russia must've been a paradise.
Alas, I like to watch South Park on their website, and some of the advertising money (where number of views really do count) probably goes to Viacom through Comedy Central.
Fortunately, I don't have to worry about this for at least a month or two, as they are currently in their mid-season break. Perhaps I'll just get by with watching clips instead of full episodes (which presumably bring the ad dollars in).
P.S. BTW, it would depend on how... anal retentive you are, but one could argue, given that many of those channels are on cable, if you have cable TV at all, you are funding Viacom.
Re:How does a derivative work hurt me?
on
A Year of GPLv3
·
· Score: 1
Well, if you agree that "freedom to restrict others' freedom" shouldn't be considered a freedom at all, then "freedom to restrict one from restricting others' freedom" IS a freedom, because what is being restricted in the latter case is not a freedom.
There is no contradiction here, just a very twisty logic.
P.S. And, no, rewording "restricting others' freedom" as "relicensing the code" doesn't change the effect of the action. GPL does have an unfortunate defect of easily becoming incompatible with other licenses (even with itself, v2 and v3), but really, if you have an idea for drafting an airtight copyleft license that would be easily compatible with other copyleft licenses, I'd like to hear about it.
Why? The cost to produce a product has no bearing on price; it only determines wether or not a product will be produced based on teh demand - driven price.
Who modded this idiot insightful? Only on Slashdot...
Look. If we were to assume that a perfectly free market economy were at work here (which it definitely isn't because of illegal practices by the phone companies), price is set by SUPPLY and demand. And guess what decides the slope of the supply curve? The marginal cost for providing the extra unit!
The cost to produce a product does have a bearing on price. Absent illegal market manipulation (such as the one that all phone companies are guilty of), if someone sets their price too high, someone else will be willing to sell it for lower price because they still make profit at lower price, and price ought to eventually reflect what it costs to produce them. If the price does not reflect the cost, it's a good indication (as it is the case here) that illegal market manipulation is at hand.
Go take some economics class before you spew B.S. on Slashdot again.
And if you call them up, you can get your account credited without much trouble.
That still doesn't mean that it's not illegal (and, believe me, when there is finally a class action suit over this, they will lose big). This is very analogous to third party charges and "cramming" that phone companies were also guilty of (and lost big in the case of third party charges on mobile phones).
If I will give your money back if you ask me to, will you let me take a dollar from you every day? They shouldn't be allowed to habitually charge what they shouldn't be charging at all.
Us lazy Americans work the highest average hours per week and have the highest productivity per worker in the world.
Oh, you mean the 60 standard work-hour per week that all Americans work.
Bzzz! Only "go-getters" work that much, and frankly, those people are not at danger of losing their job to someone simply willing to work for lower wages. In other countries, the standard workweek is longer than 40 hours (I've seen 48 hour, basically one Saturday out of a month, and some countries take only one holiday per week).
Illegal immigrants do NOT pay taxes - certainly at least not like we do - and they are getting free infrastructure and medical care that us lazy Americans are paying for..
MEDICAL CARE? You mean the universal health care that Hillary Clinton got through the congress almost a decade ago? Oh wait. Never mind. In this timeline, that never happened---undocumented aliens have to pay for their medical costs out of pocket. State does not pay for their medical care. If we are really talking about how we should allocate our limited resources, we should be advocating for euthanasia of elderly people so that we don't blow off all our money on Medicare and a bunch of stuff that doesn't increase our GDP.
Frankly, I have no sympathy for the "little guy" at all. If your job can be done by someone who's simply willing to work for a lower wage than you are, then you have no business holding that job away from someone else. And if your job can be automated and done by a machine, you have no business wasting earth's resources.
P.S. Oh, and please, if you are really worried about "little guy", guess what---little guys don't really pay tax anyways. There are things called "standard deductions", and little guys shouldn't make too much above those deductions. Heck, they might even get "tax credit", as socialists like to call welfare handouts. With all those taken into account, undocumented aliens actually pay more tax than your typical "little guy"---in form of sales tax, which is vital to your local government and economy, whereas income tax only benefits the federal government, about which I couldn't care less. (And actually, depending on their employer, even if the undocumented alien is unable to pay their portion of tax themselves (mainly because the federal government won't let them, without endangering their livelihood), the employer might pay the payroll tax anyways.)
P.S.
If we document them, we can tax them too.
I am all for more permissive immigration laws (or rescinding all such restrictions altogether). What I am not for is tighter control of borders or demonization of the hard-working undocumented aliens who are already here.
Re:How does a derivative work hurt me?
on
A Year of GPLv3
·
· Score: 0, Troll
This is what free software is all about. It's not about trying to stop people from making money, it's about making cool stuff available so that people can have better lives.
Er, you couldn't be more wrong. FREE software is about FREEDOM. Having the "cool stuff" may be a frequent by-product of free software, but that is definitely not a main goal---on the other hand, if you are talking "open source", yes, they try to emphasize that aspect of free software so that the businesses will be more receptive of free software, but free software proper is all about freedom.
And whether to stop tivoization or not really comes down to: Should you have the freedom to restrict other people's freedom?
If your answer is "yes" to that, I hope you don't reproduce.
P.S. And, of course, free software does respect people's right to pursue happiness and makes no exclusion of commercialization of free software---as long as it does not infringe on others' freedom.
Yet, there's little to no progress made for combating illegal immigration - while illegal immigrants are killing more Americans than died on 9/11 every year..
Are you talking about the group of people from the south (and sometimes north or even overseas) who are practically holding up America's economy with their willingness to work long and hard hours for nothing more than peanuts?
I daresay if it weren't for them, the lazy Americans (who keep complaining about "losing jobs" like crybabies) who couldn't do the same job well enough wouldn't be able to collect their welfare checks weekly.
As much as I love NFS.net, do they let you register domains through them without using the domain for a website hosted on NFS?
I have some domains (for a website hosted on a personal server) that would be coming up for renewal pretty soon, but judging from the control panel of domains I host on NFS, it doesn't seem possible to have the root domain go to an IP address of my choosing.
Of course, one could always take the domain and use a subdomain of it (since they do let you add more DNS records), but that doesn't give you the full control over your domain.
If they wish to continue distribution, it's likely that they're only available option is to open the source code, especially since their are often multiple copyright holders, especially in the linux kernel. From legal point of view, that's actually a bad thing for the community, and a good thing for thieving companies. For the best chance of prevailing in the court, a copyright lawsuit should be brought by everyone who claims (a portion of) copyright on the work. A few contributors, especially if their contribution is significant, may try bringing a lawsuit, but their chance of success is much less than it would have been, if they were the only copyright owners of the said software (or if all those who contributed and retain copyright to their patches brought the suit together).
Slashdot Mirror
Besides incresing our common knowledge of the universe we live in, or the new technologies [nasa.gov] developed by the space program? Saying "i don't care, i live on Earth" is like saying "why would i ever leave home? the fridge is stuffed."
So, you are saying that I can actually visit Mars now?
Until there is an actual tourism of those places select few (or robots) are going, what do I care?
And really, if I were telecommuting and the fridge were full, I would stay at home and not care about what happens outside my home (save for when I am traveling either for business or pleasure).
So if the crumple zones were identical in length, the bulkier car experiences smaller accelerations than the smaller car.
While technically true, this only gives you a factor of order unity (somewhere from factor of 2 to, let's say 8). You can get that factor by simply driving safer (you know, at safe speeds (usually the speed limit), avoiding packs, etc.).
If I had to drive (I thankfully don't), I'd buy a smaller car so that I'd have easier time parking and use less gas.
It says right on the title:
Journal written by kesuki (321456) and posted by timothy on Saturday July 05, @04:00PM
Next fiscal year (9): "Consider this a military coup. You will be allowed to stay on as long as you help us maintain the peace. We need extra funds to hire the extra manpower to help crush the tax-payer revolts. Sign here."
The good thing about U.S. government (despite all its failings) is, a civilian (the President of the U.S.) is the commander in chief.
I honestly do not think a military coup (which would be ... some general *not* the commander in chief somehow getting enough support from his colleagues) is possible in the U.S.
I'll believe it when that happens, but I don't think it will in my lifetime.
Why did we spend a dime going to the moon? Mars?
Politics and more politics.
With all that money NASA spent going to the moon, what practical benefit have we gained (that's related to actual landing on the moon, rather than, you know, the general research that goes on at NASA).
I suppose Mars is in the news now with all those stories of water being found. But, really, who cares? What practical benefit does that have for those of us who live on Earth?
Yup, exactly. The one to watch out for, however, is the increasing aggression of a Nazi run Germany leading to the annexation of Poland, which could very conceivably start WWIII.
Er, that already happened. More than 4 years ago!
Anything that tracks NEOs gives you a return on your tax dollar in that it keeps you aware of any catastrophic threats.
Just like this rock I hold in my hand is keeping bears away.
Tell me when we actually have the ability to destroy and or deflect NEOs---or, even better, when we have actually detected an NEO that is a real threat.
Because I just don't see how it could exist without government funding given there is no realistic potential for a monetary return on investment.
Philanthropy. There are whole organizations pouring money into Africa. What's their expected return?
Yes, and no amount of crumple zones in a car this size will save you from the acceleration of a head-on collision.
Let's see, a head-on collision? The worst case scenario is that your final velocity will be that of the car that you collided with (whereas given the equal mass, your final velocity will be zero). Given the same amount of crumple zone, then that means twice as much force on you (as it would have been if you were in a larger car).
You know, I think I'll get that factor and better by simply driving safer (and by not getting into situations where I'd have a head-on collision!), but, I suppose it's your choice to pay more for gas if you'd like.
I am simply saying that forcing me to use software that doesn't do what I need it to do
Oh, I'm sorry. I totally forgot that rms passed/lobbied for all those legislations in the Congress making nonfree software illegal. Of course, he's forcing everyone to do his bidding against their will. You might even say that free software coders are rms's slaves! ... Not.
All he's doing is speaking about the value of free software (for freedom) and trying to persuade the people. If you disagree with him, fine---that's free society for you---but don't mischaracterize him as "forcing" anyone to do anything. Apple's far more guilty of that (vendor lock-in, patents, etc.) than rms ever could be.
But I am a dumb slave who can actually do what he wants to do much more efficiently than can be done with Linux.
I suppose it depends on your own line of work, but having seen a co-worker struggle with a job that I do in 30 minutes trying to do it on a Mac (for the whole day!), for what I do (data analysis, mostly), Macs are far more inefficient. But the argument isn't really about efficiency at all.
Free Software flourishes because of the quality of the software and the benefits of distributed development.
This is almost like saying free society (most often a democracy) flourishes because of the responsiveness of the government and benefits of distributed decision-making, and that otherwise there is no merit to a free society. You might get some nice practical benefits that come with free society, but that is not why one ought to choose a free government in preference to, for example, a monarchy or dictatorship (ever heard of benevolent dictatorship?).
Freedom is a human right---that unfortunately many slaves deny to themselves.
That's a false dichotomy. If public good and individual rights are in "conflict", a free society isn't possible. Which I'm sure some power lusting types would hope we believe but it's just not true.
We are using "good" in two different ways. Perhaps I should've said "collective goods". If some goods (products, THINGS) are held as a collective (as it is in a communist state), then by definition the same goods cannot be claimed by individuals.
At no point in my life would I claim that doing good things for the public is in conflict with self-interest---heck, that's the basis of capitalism, that individuals acting in self-interest could make the society, as a whole, better.
Do you even know the definition of communism? Here it is:
Did you even read what I wrote? Here it is:
... but even with copyleft, copyright is still individual property*.
Yes, I know precisely what communism means, which is why I brought up the point that copyright is an INDIVIDUAL property. The copyright holder has special rights and privileges that no one else has.
I for one believe that copyright should be abolished (which would, to the propagandists at least, be communistic), but I've never heard or read FSF or rms saying the same.
Even if it has a crumple zones, I could see it being sent flying across the road like a hockeypuck, or it's lack of mass being unable to stop the forward progress of the impacting vehicle after the impact.
Why does it need to physically stop the other car? I don't think I'd mind being sent across the road like a hockeypuck, as long as each change in velocity (... probably collision-induced) is gentle enough to prevent damage to my body. I couldn't care less if the truck that hits me has enough forward momentum to go across America.
As long as it has crumple zones (remember---what you really care about is the acceleration of your own body (which gives the force on you), and that's inversely proportional to the distance you have to travel, given an initial and final velocity), I don't see how it's any less safer than a bulkier car with identical length of crumple zone.
I recently rode in a coworkers SmartCar, and while it seemed like a great car, I realized that if were were rear ended, we'd be killed. There's about a foot between your back and the back of the car. Less than that of a Jeep Wrangler. My biggest fear would be having to stop quickly on the highway and the guy behind me doesn't stop in time.
That should be fine---with your small mass, the other guy will simply end up pushing you forward.
Now, it's a different question if you were stopped right in front of a cliff (either one that stands as a wall or one where the ground disappears beneath you), but in the normal traffic conditions, you will either get pushed forward by yourself, or as you are pushed forward, you will hit the car ahead of you. In either case, assuming that the passenger compartment is strong, the mass of your car itself has no bearing on safety.
Anybody have any good arguments for justifying these ultra-light cars (VW, SmartCar) to those that do equate a certain size=safety measure?
Well, tell them about how "safe" SUVs are, with its frequent rollovers. If that doesn't convince them bigger != safer, well, I do think the gene pool would benefit from their decision.
but Stallman has always seemed to say that, "Freedom is what I say freedom is, and if you don't do what I tell you to do, then you are not free"
So, you are disagreeing with the "four freedoms" FSF declares as fundamental for software?
If so, can you offer a better list of fundamental freedoms for software (and, please, freedom to restrict others' freedom isn't a freedom)?
If not, your statement is entirely unwarranted---if rms wanted to, he could, e.g. kill XEmacs by modifying the license of GNU Emacs, but he has never so much as made a threat of doing such a thing. Characterization of rms as "do as I tell you" simply couldn't be more wrong.
As for the "dumb slave" part, if you use proprietary software, that IS what you are (and I see nothing wrong about calling you on that). And users like that (esp. people who send Word documents as email attachment) are essential in perpetuating proprietary software and are as guilty as proprietary software companies for doing so.
Free software is ironically both communist-ic (yay collective good) and free-market-istic (the price of the software is the marginal cost of production of one copy, or, um, zero!) It's rather fun. Not too many markets work out that way.
What "collective good"? That might be the case if rms (or FSF) is proposing that software need to be released into the public domain, but even with copyleft, copyright is still individual property*.
Just because something benefits the society as a whole doesn't make it communistic---if it were, Soviet Russia must've been a paradise.
* for imaginary values of property.
And I would think that the chance of pissing off a grader will be higher than the chance of getting away with this.
Yes, you are right. When I was a grader, when someone said things like "it is easy to show" or "trivial", I took a point off for every step skipped.
Alas, I like to watch South Park on their website, and some of the advertising money (where number of views really do count) probably goes to Viacom through Comedy Central.
Fortunately, I don't have to worry about this for at least a month or two, as they are currently in their mid-season break. Perhaps I'll just get by with watching clips instead of full episodes (which presumably bring the ad dollars in).
P.S. BTW, it would depend on how ... anal retentive you are, but one could argue, given that many of those channels are on cable, if you have cable TV at all, you are funding Viacom.
Well, if you agree that "freedom to restrict others' freedom" shouldn't be considered a freedom at all, then "freedom to restrict one from restricting others' freedom" IS a freedom, because what is being restricted in the latter case is not a freedom.
There is no contradiction here, just a very twisty logic.
P.S. And, no, rewording "restricting others' freedom" as "relicensing the code" doesn't change the effect of the action. GPL does have an unfortunate defect of easily becoming incompatible with other licenses (even with itself, v2 and v3), but really, if you have an idea for drafting an airtight copyleft license that would be easily compatible with other copyleft licenses, I'd like to hear about it.
Why? The cost to produce a product has no bearing on price; it only determines wether or not a product will be produced based on teh demand - driven price.
Who modded this idiot insightful? Only on Slashdot ...
Look. If we were to assume that a perfectly free market economy were at work here (which it definitely isn't because of illegal practices by the phone companies), price is set by SUPPLY and demand. And guess what decides the slope of the supply curve? The marginal cost for providing the extra unit!
The cost to produce a product does have a bearing on price. Absent illegal market manipulation (such as the one that all phone companies are guilty of), if someone sets their price too high, someone else will be willing to sell it for lower price because they still make profit at lower price, and price ought to eventually reflect what it costs to produce them. If the price does not reflect the cost, it's a good indication (as it is the case here) that illegal market manipulation is at hand.
Go take some economics class before you spew B.S. on Slashdot again.
And if you call them up, you can get your account credited without much trouble.
That still doesn't mean that it's not illegal (and, believe me, when there is finally a class action suit over this, they will lose big). This is very analogous to third party charges and "cramming" that phone companies were also guilty of (and lost big in the case of third party charges on mobile phones).
If I will give your money back if you ask me to, will you let me take a dollar from you every day? They shouldn't be allowed to habitually charge what they shouldn't be charging at all.
Us lazy Americans work the highest average hours per week and have the highest productivity per worker in the world.
Oh, you mean the 60 standard work-hour per week that all Americans work.
Bzzz! Only "go-getters" work that much, and frankly, those people are not at danger of losing their job to someone simply willing to work for lower wages. In other countries, the standard workweek is longer than 40 hours (I've seen 48 hour, basically one Saturday out of a month, and some countries take only one holiday per week).
Illegal immigrants do NOT pay taxes - certainly at least not like we do - and they are getting free infrastructure and medical care that us lazy Americans are paying for..
MEDICAL CARE? You mean the universal health care that Hillary Clinton got through the congress almost a decade ago? Oh wait. Never mind. In this timeline, that never happened---undocumented aliens have to pay for their medical costs out of pocket. State does not pay for their medical care. If we are really talking about how we should allocate our limited resources, we should be advocating for euthanasia of elderly people so that we don't blow off all our money on Medicare and a bunch of stuff that doesn't increase our GDP.
Frankly, I have no sympathy for the "little guy" at all. If your job can be done by someone who's simply willing to work for a lower wage than you are, then you have no business holding that job away from someone else. And if your job can be automated and done by a machine, you have no business wasting earth's resources.
P.S. Oh, and please, if you are really worried about "little guy", guess what---little guys don't really pay tax anyways. There are things called "standard deductions", and little guys shouldn't make too much above those deductions. Heck, they might even get "tax credit", as socialists like to call welfare handouts. With all those taken into account, undocumented aliens actually pay more tax than your typical "little guy"---in form of sales tax, which is vital to your local government and economy, whereas income tax only benefits the federal government, about which I couldn't care less. (And actually, depending on their employer, even if the undocumented alien is unable to pay their portion of tax themselves (mainly because the federal government won't let them, without endangering their livelihood), the employer might pay the payroll tax anyways.)
P.S.
If we document them, we can tax them too.
I am all for more permissive immigration laws (or rescinding all such restrictions altogether). What I am not for is tighter control of borders or demonization of the hard-working undocumented aliens who are already here.
This is what free software is all about. It's not about trying to stop people from making money, it's about making cool stuff available so that people can have better lives.
Er, you couldn't be more wrong. FREE software is about FREEDOM. Having the "cool stuff" may be a frequent by-product of free software, but that is definitely not a main goal---on the other hand, if you are talking "open source", yes, they try to emphasize that aspect of free software so that the businesses will be more receptive of free software, but free software proper is all about freedom.
And whether to stop tivoization or not really comes down to: Should you have the freedom to restrict other people's freedom?
If your answer is "yes" to that, I hope you don't reproduce.
P.S. And, of course, free software does respect people's right to pursue happiness and makes no exclusion of commercialization of free software---as long as it does not infringe on others' freedom.
Yet, there's little to no progress made for combating illegal immigration - while illegal immigrants are killing more Americans than died on 9/11 every year..
Are you talking about the group of people from the south (and sometimes north or even overseas) who are practically holding up America's economy with their willingness to work long and hard hours for nothing more than peanuts?
I daresay if it weren't for them, the lazy Americans (who keep complaining about "losing jobs" like crybabies) who couldn't do the same job well enough wouldn't be able to collect their welfare checks weekly.
As much as I love NFS.net, do they let you register domains through them without using the domain for a website hosted on NFS?
I have some domains (for a website hosted on a personal server) that would be coming up for renewal pretty soon, but judging from the control panel of domains I host on NFS, it doesn't seem possible to have the root domain go to an IP address of my choosing.
Of course, one could always take the domain and use a subdomain of it (since they do let you add more DNS records), but that doesn't give you the full control over your domain.
IANAL, but I think patent works in a similar way.