Shouldn't law enforcement be able to track criminals on the internet?
Sure they should. Now define 'criminal' for me. Before you do, I can confidently state that what you consider criminal and what I consider criminal are going to be different; which one of us gets to make the determination?
Would you consider Dr. Martin Luther King & associates criminal? He was viewed as one by people in law enforcement, and was closely monitored. Do you see what the real problem is, yet?
There have been no other strikes at America since 9/11
Yeah, those deadly letters that keep showing up in Washington DC are nothing to get upset about. As we can all see, the sender is cowering before the power of the Patriot Act. Those enhanced police powers really solved that mystery, eh?
"I'm actually much more concerned about the government's ability and willingness to repress political speech..."
If I recall correctly, protesters in the US are corralled into tightly-secured pens, with ranks of riot police on all sides, helicopters\snipers lurking overhead, and undercover agents in the crowd around you. So technically, everyone is allowed to voice their dissent. But the rules are designed to discourage as many people as possible. Do you want to be penned, covertly photographed, and possibly get 'swept up' by being near the wrong people?
We may have more freedom of political expression than, say, China, but that freedom depends upon anonymity -- or do people keep the curtain wide open when they vote? Does everyone make it a point to inform their employer of their political opinions (especially the unpopular ones)?
" I'm more annoyed on a practical every day basis with the nosy neighbors than I am with US Bank's selling my credit card purchase information..."
You do not see the connection between 'nosy neighbors' and a nosy government? Astounding.
Not a good idea. Despite the pleasure of running a webserver in 16k of memory, uptime will be severely hampered by the fact that the ZX81 crashes when touched, breathed upon, or subjected to any sort of vibration (such as a nearby person). It would just give Linux a bad reputation.
Just look at his karma. He is obviously a malcontent, and a deeply-placed one at that (ID 2990!). Quick, round up an angry mob! Vigilante justice will surely please the media at large.
The television, for some mysterious reason, is not quite the passive tool you make it out to be.
Next time a few friends or family visit your place, have everyone sit in the room with the TV. Turn the television on to one of the blank blue channels, or perhaps even to a paused videogame with a boring static image and no sound.
Everyone in the room will watch the television even though nothing is on. People will either stare at it outright, or glance continously during conversation. Try it, you'll see.
Humans are social creatures. Believing that the goal of life is to stand proudly alone is psychotic and, quite literally, sociopathic. Humans would not exist if individual cells did not cooperate with each other, you know.
Please (re)read Asimov's classic Foundation series again. The logical end result of your ideology is spelled out on the surface of the Moon in a later book. I urge you to check it out.
China is destined to be the next super power
With no economic freedom and the vast majority of it's citizens living in horrid poverty, I doubt it.
You are basing this on what information? The fact that your mother admonished you to finish your plate "for the starving children in China?"
An anthropologist I am familiar with recently returned to Northwest China (in the remote mountains) after 20+ years. He was absolutely shocked; instead of rutted dirt roads, he travelled out on a paved highway. The rural villages now have industry, power, telephones, cars, and the beginnings of a middle class consumer life. Their economic 'freedom' to consume will equal ours very shortly. Political freedom is another story, but you probably don't care about such paltry things as accuracy.
He roughly equated the economy to the late 1940's early 1950's in America, where factory workers could buy a car on one month's salary. Is that true here today? Or does the abstract growth of the Dow Jones average somehow equate to that? I think not.
I never understood the whole "GPL is communist" thing. Communists did not invent the concept of "sharing", so why it is that everything that remotely seems about sharing and not greed is labeled "communist"?
Jesus was a communist, too. Perhaps the very first one. Ironic, that.
Your faith was naive from the start, then. Boring drudge-code has never been OSS's speciality. Big name sponsors like IBM pay coders to do specific tasks that no one else is willing (or has the expertise) to do; why the hell would anyone do shit work for the government for free?
My friend's hobby is cooking. Should I expect him to come over and make dinner for me every night, because I assume he will enjoy it?
And most average computer users care nothing for the distinction between "portal" and "search engine." If the MSN search page comes up first, by default, then most people will use it without question. Google's superiority only matters to the knowledgable and discriminating.
From my own personal survey, 500+ users have proven me right, with only a half-dozen bothering to use Google. That does not bode well for the future.
I know that's against the principles of free trade and all, but we invented this technology, we are the ones who built it, we supported it, and now the corporations we built it for are selling our jobs for pennies on the dollar to third world countries.
The Arabs called, and they want Mathematics and Astronomy back. They feel they had a substantial part in starting both sciences, and now want a monopoly on the practice of both. Only residents of the historical Dar al-Islam may work in these fields.
The world doesn't work that way, sorry. Once the US is senseless enough to give away its lead, chances are it will be gone for good. It sucks, but that is history for you; I'm sure the old Caliphs of yore would agree.
subsidized education -- Subsidized by whom?
it's been a long time since i've been to the states... do they have cover charges for high school now?
Property owners pay for high school even if they do not have children. Education costs make up a large chunk of the property tax landowners pay to their local government. This tax can be very expensive (especially in the Northeast), and are in addition to the other taxes you mentioned.
================
You give SCO too much credit....
on
SCO Offline
·
· Score: 1
makes you wonder if they had anything to do with the virus itself?
I do not wonder, because quite frankly, no one at that company is smart enough to pull it off. Just look at the quality of their current scheme, and then compare it to the logistics of planning, deploying, and concealing something like a virus in today's paranoid atmosphere.
At most, SCO will pretend to be hurt by he virus more than it really is, much like a basketball player who writhes on the floor in hopes of a foul call.
For all that he cares, Jackson could have "desecrated the holy LOTR scrolls" and made it into whatever he wanted.
Actually, this is not true. Christopher Tolkein & co. guard the copyrights to Middle-Earth like Smaug on his gold. I believe he had a final veto on the script and/or deviations from the Holy Writ of his father. So Jackson had to (a) make the movie mainstream enough for the studio bosses, and (b) make the movie orthodox enough to get the Tolkein seal of approval. All things considered, he did a decent job of it.
Gimli's sole purpose in the movies was comic relief. Between physical (short) humor and the scottish brogue, all the meaningful elements of his character (and of Dwarves in general) were ignored. Maybe The Hobbit will breathe more detail into the Dwarves (and Gandalf's so-called Wizardry....where was the magic?), but I'm half-expecting something along the lines of The Seven Dwarves go Dragon Slaying, with a Hobbit...
No-one I know has joined yet and I've not heard much on the net so are there really any members or is it just another conspiracy theory--"
Well Slashdot has certainly been giving it coverage. Are you sure the conspiracy you are talking about isn't betwix the editors here and Orkut? Or is all the attention just over the Google connection? Hmmm. A plot is surely afoot!
Lawful, gainful employment? What does that even mean anymore?
If America was a nice, cooperative socialist democracy, where everyone has a place and the Individual takes second place to the Whole, then that sentiment would be valid. But in a country where the standard introduction is "So what do you do?", things are different.
Take a job as a pizza man, and see what kind of people you associate with, professionally and otherwise, after a few years on the job. Then, maybe, you'll understand how socially degenerate you really are.
One other question, while I am thinking about it. Would refusing to work in a coal mine or PCB plant be "shameful" too?
I don't much agree with $500 jackets and $200 jeans, as I am not a fan of fashion, but buying a nice computer isn't exactly the same thing as looking good for the sake of looking good, especially when one's livelihood depends...one's main workstation.
And to an entire swath of the population, a "nice computer" and "nice clothes" swap priorities. For these people, not wearing such clothes will see your social reputation fall and your career suffer (yes, entire industries work on that principle). Frivolous, but having a very real utility at the same time. That does not make it any less of a rip-off, however.
I would also add that the 'market' sees great value in psuedo-pyramid schemes, SCOish stock manipulation, prision-building, and other fun stuff. So I guess that is all okay, too, if they do not affect me directly....
The Open Source community -- is this some sort of commune? As far as I know, OSS is more a loosely-allied confederacy than some sort of grand socialist collective. Why are so many apologists jumping out to defend the "community's intentions" as if they are half-guilty of conspiracy?
When was the last time you heard a Republican leader defending the ideologies he shares with the shrieking madman that calls into news radio every day? Or priests defending the beliefs they share with the antiabortionists that hurl bricks at traumatized women?
But no, people buy Alienware computes, cars from BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, Audi, ect, and hi end DVD players from Denon, ect.
And in the end, none of those manufacturers put out a product that is anywhere near what the object is actually worth.
There is nothing quite as good to a manufacturer than having perceived value to the moneyed classes.
In my industry, people buy jeans for $180 and ripped, drawn-upon sports jackets for $520; the names on said labels are suitably European. In both cases, the extra materials and work might come out to an extra $15-$20 a unit.
So what justifies the insane markup? Stupid consumers who want to buy the trappings of the rich. More power to Apple lovers, I guess, but you are no different than Gucci girls and Armani suitmen. Now go earn that big paycheck!
I can't imagine middle schoolers using linux.... faaar too stupid.
Are these the same middle schoolers who play Counter Strike and Halo while growing up instead of Doom, Wolf3d, Super Mario Bros , or any of the 2-d videogames of yore? If anything, middle schoolers today are faaaar more technical than those of ten or twenty years ago. They can definately understand Linux; some of us grew up on MS-DOS, you know...kids don't need GUIs, only impatient, unlearning adults do.
My company has been interviewing for a nothing-special Macintosh technician. Somehow, despite the low requirements and supposed glut of unemployed tech workers, HR only came up with three candidates, two of which were clumsy bullshit artists.
If my HR department is being so selective, why can it not select anything that remotely matches the technicial qualifications? You do not need to be a engineer to figure out that a "Mactinosh Technician" needs to have "Macintosh" experience somewhere in the resume.
The bull artists sure did have "detail-oriented" promenently displayed in their resumes, however...
Slashdot Mirror
Sure they should. Now define 'criminal' for me. Before you do, I can confidently state that what you consider criminal and what I consider criminal are going to be different; which one of us gets to make the determination?
Would you consider Dr. Martin Luther King & associates criminal? He was viewed as one by people in law enforcement, and was closely monitored. Do you see what the real problem is, yet?
================
Yeah, those deadly letters that keep showing up in Washington DC are nothing to get upset about. As we can all see, the sender is cowering before the power of the Patriot Act. Those enhanced police powers really solved that mystery, eh?
============
If I recall correctly, protesters in the US are corralled into tightly-secured pens, with ranks of riot police on all sides, helicopters\snipers lurking overhead, and undercover agents in the crowd around you. So technically, everyone is allowed to voice their dissent. But the rules are designed to discourage as many people as possible. Do you want to be penned, covertly photographed, and possibly get 'swept up' by being near the wrong people?
We may have more freedom of political expression than, say, China, but that freedom depends upon anonymity -- or do people keep the curtain wide open when they vote? Does everyone make it a point to inform their employer of their political opinions (especially the unpopular ones)?
" I'm more annoyed on a practical every day basis with the nosy neighbors than I am with US Bank's selling my credit card purchase information ..."
You do not see the connection between 'nosy neighbors' and a nosy government? Astounding.
=============
===========
===============
============
Next time a few friends or family visit your place, have everyone sit in the room with the TV. Turn the television on to one of the blank blue channels, or perhaps even to a paused videogame with a boring static image and no sound.
Everyone in the room will watch the television even though nothing is on. People will either stare at it outright, or glance continously during conversation. Try it, you'll see.
=============
And a wise man once said: "No man is an island."
Humans are social creatures. Believing that the goal of life is to stand proudly alone is psychotic and, quite literally, sociopathic. Humans would not exist if individual cells did not cooperate with each other, you know. Please (re)read Asimov's classic Foundation series again. The logical end result of your ideology is spelled out on the surface of the Moon in a later book. I urge you to check it out.
=============
You are basing this on what information? The fact that your mother admonished you to finish your plate "for the starving children in China?"
An anthropologist I am familiar with recently returned to Northwest China (in the remote mountains) after 20+ years. He was absolutely shocked; instead of rutted dirt roads, he travelled out on a paved highway. The rural villages now have industry, power, telephones, cars, and the beginnings of a middle class consumer life. Their economic 'freedom' to consume will equal ours very shortly. Political freedom is another story, but you probably don't care about such paltry things as accuracy.
He roughly equated the economy to the late 1940's early 1950's in America, where factory workers could buy a car on one month's salary. Is that true here today? Or does the abstract growth of the Dow Jones average somehow equate to that? I think not.
===================
Jesus was a communist, too. Perhaps the very first one. Ironic, that.
===============
My friend's hobby is cooking. Should I expect him to come over and make dinner for me every night, because I assume he will enjoy it?
=========
From my own personal survey, 500+ users have proven me right, with only a half-dozen bothering to use Google. That does not bode well for the future.
========
The Arabs called, and they want Mathematics and Astronomy back. They feel they had a substantial part in starting both sciences, and now want a monopoly on the practice of both. Only residents of the historical Dar al-Islam may work in these fields.
The world doesn't work that way, sorry. Once the US is senseless enough to give away its lead, chances are it will be gone for good. It sucks, but that is history for you; I'm sure the old Caliphs of yore would agree.
=============
Property owners pay for high school even if they do not have children. Education costs make up a large chunk of the property tax landowners pay to their local government. This tax can be very expensive (especially in the Northeast), and are in addition to the other taxes you mentioned.
================
I do not wonder, because quite frankly, no one at that company is smart enough to pull it off. Just look at the quality of their current scheme, and then compare it to the logistics of planning, deploying, and concealing something like a virus in today's paranoid atmosphere.
At most, SCO will pretend to be hurt by he virus more than it really is, much like a basketball player who writhes on the floor in hopes of a foul call.
========
Actually, this is not true. Christopher Tolkein & co. guard the copyrights to Middle-Earth like Smaug on his gold. I believe he had a final veto on the script and/or deviations from the Holy Writ of his father. So Jackson had to (a) make the movie mainstream enough for the studio bosses, and (b) make the movie orthodox enough to get the Tolkein seal of approval. All things considered, he did a decent job of it.
=============
Maybe The Hobbit will breathe more detail into the Dwarves (and Gandalf's so-called Wizardry....where was the magic?), but I'm half-expecting something along the lines of The Seven Dwarves go Dragon Slaying, with a Hobbit...
=======
See, that is what did it. You gamed their averages from the very beginning, so now they just assume it is in fact normal...
Well Slashdot has certainly been giving it coverage. Are you sure the conspiracy you are talking about isn't betwix the editors here and Orkut? Or is all the attention just over the Google connection? Hmmm. A plot is surely afoot!
==============
If America was a nice, cooperative socialist democracy, where everyone has a place and the Individual takes second place to the Whole, then that sentiment would be valid. But in a country where the standard introduction is "So what do you do?", things are different.
Take a job as a pizza man, and see what kind of people you associate with, professionally and otherwise, after a few years on the job. Then, maybe, you'll understand how socially degenerate you really are.
One other question, while I am thinking about it. Would refusing to work in a coal mine or PCB plant be "shameful" too?
==================
And to an entire swath of the population, a "nice computer" and "nice clothes" swap priorities. For these people, not wearing such clothes will see your social reputation fall and your career suffer (yes, entire industries work on that principle). Frivolous, but having a very real utility at the same time. That does not make it any less of a rip-off, however.
I would also add that the 'market' sees great value in psuedo-pyramid schemes, SCOish stock manipulation, prision-building, and other fun stuff. So I guess that is all okay, too, if they do not affect me directly....
========
When was the last time you heard a Republican leader defending the ideologies he shares with the shrieking madman that calls into news radio every day? Or priests defending the beliefs they share with the antiabortionists that hurl bricks at traumatized women?
Think about it.
=========
And in the end, none of those manufacturers put out a product that is anywhere near what the object is actually worth.
There is nothing quite as good to a manufacturer than having perceived value to the moneyed classes. In my industry, people buy jeans for $180 and ripped, drawn-upon sports jackets for $520; the names on said labels are suitably European. In both cases, the extra materials and work might come out to an extra $15-$20 a unit.
So what justifies the insane markup? Stupid consumers who want to buy the trappings of the rich. More power to Apple lovers, I guess, but you are no different than Gucci girls and Armani suitmen. Now go earn that big paycheck!
=================
Are these the same middle schoolers who play Counter Strike and Halo while growing up instead of Doom, Wolf3d, Super Mario Bros , or any of the 2-d videogames of yore? If anything, middle schoolers today are faaaar more technical than those of ten or twenty years ago. They can definately understand Linux; some of us grew up on MS-DOS, you know...kids don't need GUIs, only impatient, unlearning adults do.
=========
If my HR department is being so selective, why can it not select anything that remotely matches the technicial qualifications? You do not need to be a engineer to figure out that a "Mactinosh Technician" needs to have "Macintosh" experience somewhere in the resume.
The bull artists sure did have "detail-oriented" promenently displayed in their resumes, however...
==============