Yes, thanks for correcting my mistake with the homophone.
I know what plagiarism means. In this case, I think a complete lack of citation and quotation marks makes this look like it's his own saying. It's unclear from the brief preface "I prefer" that the following will be a quote from someone else. With 5 seconds of Googling, he could get the exact quotation and the source.
Without making it clear this is a quote from someone else, I think it could qualify as plagiarism. I'm sure my school teachers would have viewed it that way.
You may have a case to make that his context implies that the statement in question is an uncited quotation. I noticed it because I'd heard the quote before, and I posted because I thought SmackCrackandPot's wording, at least inadvertently, made the quotation sound like his original idea, and I wanted to give the good Sir Winston some credit.
Yes, force is a method of defending self & property. Courts are another way of going about this. Either one is really pretty independent of capitalism. "Capitalism" doesn't dictate any particular method of enforcing law & order- it is a method of operating an economy, not all aspects of society, and as a method of operating an economy, it is one which is based on voluntary exchange, not the use of force.
Theft really falls outside the realm of capitalist theory- the very act of theft is an anit-capitalist action, and methods of preventing it aren't really capitalism, they are just things necessary to go along with it and prevent a state of barbarism.
Economics does shed some useful light onto what crime is likely to pay, and plenty of companies working in the capitalist system make products to prevent crime, but crime and anti-crime are not "capitalism." They are barbarism. Voluntary exchange is capitalism.
That is a benefit. Seperating the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, along with systems of checks and balaneces between them, helps to prevent any one branch of government form becoming too powerful. Or so every high-school American History textbook tells us.
But I'm not sure I see your point. They're all still government, and SCO's still trying to use government (or at least a vague threat of government action) to coerce their profits retroactively from users of Linux. Who cares which branch of government they're using?
If the Judicial branch does end up ruling in their favor on weak evidence, then maybe the legislative branch could get involved with reformed laws regarding copyright and patents on software. This should be done anyway (read: "one-click").
You're right, there was a lot of cheering for the Microsoft Anti-trust case around here and in general, and I disagreed with that too.
Don't get me wrong: I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy. I think their business practices are deplorable. But I don't think they had a Monopoly or qualified for anti-trust prosecution, even for their extremely obnoxious licensing agreements. Get linux. get a Mac. There were always alternatves, no one was ever forced against their will to support Microsoft. They had enough market share to leverage it in bad ways, but they never had a monopoly.
And I think the market was and is working towards sorting this out . Microsoft had huge market share and leveraged it in nasty ways to try to maintain it and to try to make people pay them more. They made a LOT of enemies in the process, and while many companies & individuals still grudginly paid Microsoft for their buggy products, I think that that huge reserve of ill-will they built up around the world is sooner or later going to come back to hurt them in a big way.
As alternatives to Microsoft become more viable, people won't just want to switch if the competiton is superior. There are hordes of people who are dying to switch as soon as the competiton appears usable to them. I think that as alternatives gain momentum and business decision makers don't feel the "nobody ever got fired fro buying IBM" pressure about Microsoft anymore, that Microsoft will lose market share very rapidly.
I don't think this sort of badgery and legal abuse falls under "Capitalism."
There a many different definitions and conceptions of capitalism, but they usually involve things like investment in capital, competion, and freedom. Unless you consider investing in lawyers "capital," this is a pretty anti-capitalist, anti-free-market sort of manuever on SCO's part.
Using the courts (read: government) to try to extract money from people, rather than providing goods or services to be purchased on a voluntary basis, is not the ideal profit model for comapnies if you want to maintain a healthy capitalist system.
What do you think the net influence of Apple's OS-10 is on Linux?
There are reports of people fleeing Linux to OS 10 because they still get *NIX but with a more easily usable/configurable software suite, but on the other hand, Apple's contributing to open source, manufacturing another hardware platform for Linux, and generally providing another alternative to Redmond.
So, is the competition good for Linux, or not so much?
I can tell you about my experiences with Apple's support, but first let me tell you that for umpteen years in a row, including most recently a few months ago, Apple has come out #1 in Consumer Report's ratings both for machine reliability and customer support, against Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. Dell usually gets second.
As for anecdotal evidence:
I recently moved my Mother to an eMac. She works from home and types all the time. About once or twice a week, she was having a sticky key/key repeat problem. Sometimes it was the "delete" key, and she'd look up and the cursor was crawling backwards across the screen deleting her work.
I didn't know if it was hardware or software, so to take a guess at it I first reinstalled the OS and Word, which didn't fix it. So I switched the USB keyboard with my girlfriend's, and my Mom didn't have any trouble for a few weeks.
So I called Apple. It's about 7:00 PM Eastern Time on a Thursday. I'm on the phone with a human in maybe 4 minutes. He's friendly. And I'm like: "I think I have a hardware program with the keyboard. Sometimes a key repeats. I switched keyboards, and the problem seems to have gone away."
"OK, we'll send you a new keyboard. Give me a minute to set this up."
One minute later...
"OK, we'll ship this to you today at [reads address]. Is that correct? Anything else I can help you with? Well, you should see that tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"
"Yep."
The keyboard was in Ohio from Cupertino the next morning. It arrived about 14 hours after I got off the phone. Nothing about sending the old one back. Nothing about making me go through some troubleshooting. No paperwork. Hardly any time on hold.
My mom hasn't experienced the repeat problem for months now with the new keyboard.
So that's what it's like.
As an interesting side note, my girlfriend's never had any trouble with the old keyboard either, which is a much nicer keyboard than the one that came with her old G4 350. It must have been some odd conflict.
Bug splatter
Round igloo
Writing with hands of blue
Holding breasts
Extra Berets
Partridge Flying
That bee person
Babies Sleeping
Butterfly struggling
Big demon with an extra wing
So lets see, instead of
"brrowehsespgtnbgbgbg," that gives me
"brrowehsespgtnbgbgbg."
Hmmm...
What do you call that psychology test like this?
on
Inkblot Passwords
·
· Score: 1, Funny
Hey, what do you call that psychology test, the one where they show you all the pornographic pictures?
"but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
In free markets, prices are mostly determined by supply and demand. The cheaper production costs do not affect either of those.
Usually a decrease in production costs leads to an increase in supply, which in turn leads to a decrease in prices, assuming other factors remain constant.
In the music industry, it's easy to see how decreasing production costs would not lead to an increase in supply for the majority of mass-market music. The leading bands make so much money per albm that they aren't limiting the number of albums they cut do to production costs. So lower production costs will not lead them to cut more albums, and will not increase supply.
If many smaller, low budget bands held a larger collective percentage of total market share, then this shift in production costs would lead to a decrease in prices.
This does not exclude some roll of the RIAA and industry collusion in price fixing, but that conclusion is not mandated by the evidence.
Listen to alternative music! (not the genre, the music.)
There used to be one pop machine at Carnegie Mellon where, if you tried to buy a can of coke and had less than the cost on balance on your card, the card balance rolled around to about $511
It was like playing Asteroids.
It made me wonder if (god knows why), anyone honestly tried to add over $512 cash to their card, if it would roll around to $0.
I don't know what to say- this is the 6th monitor I've owned and is the best in every way (except the RasterOps had slightly greater color gamut and brightness). I have it right by a window and have several lights in the room, and the glare isn't any trouble- I've got two other monitors in the room , one right beside the Nokia, and it's worse on both of them.
I sure don't get headaches or see any flicker- I work on this thing for 8, 10 hours at a time, and it's just gorgeous at 85 hz. I'm pretty sensitive to flicker, too. I can't stand anything under 75hz, and the difference between 75 and 85 is big to me.
Could it be your video card? Can you try hooking it up to another? Mine's on an ATI Radeon 7000. I tried it with an older card once that didn't support high frequencies, and it was pretty crappy. An addition to being flickery, it wasn't as sharp, which surprised me.
1. Search eBay by region for local 21" or greater CRT monitors
2. Read some reviews & look up the specs for the monitors you see that look good
3. Select some auctions that look good, and email the seller to ask if you could pick up the monitor if you win.
4. Bid away.
5. Sell the old one.
6. Wait two years.
7. GOTO step 1.
This has worked wonders for me. Every two years I get a newer 21" monitor for around $200 and sell the old one for about $100. I save about $60-100 on shipping and handling compared to most of the people I'm bidding against by shopping only in the nearest metropolitian area and picking it up there.
I've been doing this for 6 years. I first got a Hitachi RasterOps.30mm dot pitch 1280 x 1024 at 85 hz with unbelieavable color fidelity, then another nice 21" hitachi, and then about a month ago I upgraded to a Nokia 21" Multigraph 445Xpro. It's.22 mm dot pitch and looks beautiful at 1600 x 1200 at 85 hz. It has dual video inputs, brightness and contrast nobs, and a USB hub. It was $180 with no shipping, just a 20 minute drive.
I also keep a 17" for a dual monitor setup to hold my pallets & such. I've upgraded the 17" the same way, most recently getting a new Sony that runs 1280 x 1024 at 85 hz,.25 mm dot pitch. That was $50.
If you can, take a laptop with you and check out the monitor for burn in, etc. before you take it.
This sytem takes a little extra time, but it gives you a lot of monitor for your money.
I do professional photographic work and some programming, so having good monitors is crucial. This method works out great for me.
If you want your monitor to look great, get one with small dot pitch, high refresh rate, and have a good video card- the video card really does make a difference.
If you want accurate color prints, you have to use ICC profiles on your monitor and printer.
As already noted- _Buckaroo Banzai_
Another one that's better known, but has a similiar cult following without being widely popular, is _The Princess Bride_.
Also, two french films _City Of The Lost Children_ and _Delicatessen_ are fabulous. (even though the French are unpopluar right now)
two David mamet films: _House of Games_ and _The Spanish Prisoner_.
It's more widely known, but _The Usual Suspects_ was great.
Not all the Cohen Brothers movies got the kind of theatrical release that _Fargo_ did, yet everything from _Blood Simple_ to _The Man Who Wasn't There_ were great. I particularly recommend _Miller's Crossing_ and _the Hudsucker Proxy_.
Woody Allen's _Bullets Over Broadway_ probably isn't very popular in the/. crowd, but it's great too.
I'm sure more will come to mind later.
I really wish I could find a source on this to site, but unfortunatly all I've got is what I rememeber from a magazine article from the early nineties-
Apple stuck with the 1 button mouse for the default because they had someone do research on a simple mac-like GUI with extensive and varied two-button options, and the overall results were that novice users faced a much steeper learning curve with two button mice. Macs were all about user friendliness and they wanted people- say, kids in shcools, to sit down and find the machines to be friendly, and the point and click, with one click to choose from, is just very intuitive.
Advanced users can probably work faster with more buttons. But hey, the Mac supports more buttons. As the parent post says, if you want more buttons, shell out some dough for whatever you want. Some people prefer pen tabs or touch screens. I use a four button Kensington TurboMouse, whcih is a trackball. Whatever makes you happy. It makes sense that Apple includes the simplest thing with the computer. It's a Mac, don't fault them for sticking to K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) design, it's where they grew up.
And their new whole-mouse-button optical mice are really elegant, I love them. Although I have to say, the hockey puck mechanical mouse was the worst mouse I've ever seen in my life. My girlfriend has one, and it makes me cringe.
- as an aside, we switched my Mom from a PC to a Mac recently, and she thought she was right clicking and left clicking on her Mac's "whole mouse is one button" mouse. She couldn't understand why it didn't do different things depending on how she clicked. Still, she went on for a week right and left clicking around before I explained it to her, and she still got her stuff done somehow before she knew.
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Yes, thanks for correcting my mistake with the homophone.
I know what plagiarism means. In this case, I think a complete lack of citation and quotation marks makes this look like it's his own saying. It's unclear from the brief preface "I prefer" that the following will be a quote from someone else. With 5 seconds of Googling, he could get the exact quotation and the source.
Without making it clear this is a quote from someone else, I think it could qualify as plagiarism. I'm sure my school teachers would have viewed it that way.
You may have a case to make that his context implies that the statement in question is an uncited quotation. I noticed it because I'd heard the quote before, and I posted because I thought SmackCrackandPot's wording, at least inadvertently, made the quotation sound like his original idea, and I wanted to give the good Sir Winston some credit.
Great quote, but doesn't anyone site sources anymore? Sheesh! Isn't that just plagiarism?
"Capitalism is the uneven distribution of wealth, and socialism the even distribution of poverty."
Winston S. Churchill
Yes, force is a method of defending self & property. Courts are another way of going about this. Either one is really pretty independent of capitalism. "Capitalism" doesn't dictate any particular method of enforcing law & order- it is a method of operating an economy, not all aspects of society, and as a method of operating an economy, it is one which is based on voluntary exchange, not the use of force.
Theft really falls outside the realm of capitalist theory- the very act of theft is an anit-capitalist action, and methods of preventing it aren't really capitalism, they are just things necessary to go along with it and prevent a state of barbarism.
Economics does shed some useful light onto what crime is likely to pay, and plenty of companies working in the capitalist system make products to prevent crime, but crime and anti-crime are not "capitalism." They are barbarism. Voluntary exchange is capitalism.
That is a benefit. Seperating the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, along with systems of checks and balaneces between them, helps to prevent any one branch of government form becoming too powerful. Or so every high-school American History textbook tells us.
But I'm not sure I see your point. They're all still government, and SCO's still trying to use government (or at least a vague threat of government action) to coerce their profits retroactively from users of Linux. Who cares which branch of government they're using?
If the Judicial branch does end up ruling in their favor on weak evidence, then maybe the legislative branch could get involved with reformed laws regarding copyright and patents on software. This should be done anyway (read: "one-click").
You're right, there was a lot of cheering for the Microsoft Anti-trust case around here and in general, and I disagreed with that too.
Don't get me wrong: I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy. I think their business practices are deplorable. But I don't think they had a Monopoly or qualified for anti-trust prosecution, even for their extremely obnoxious licensing agreements. Get linux. get a Mac. There were always alternatves, no one was ever forced against their will to support Microsoft. They had enough market share to leverage it in bad ways, but they never had a monopoly.
And I think the market was and is working towards sorting this out . Microsoft had huge market share and leveraged it in nasty ways to try to maintain it and to try to make people pay them more. They made a LOT of enemies in the process, and while many companies & individuals still grudginly paid Microsoft for their buggy products, I think that that huge reserve of ill-will they built up around the world is sooner or later going to come back to hurt them in a big way.
As alternatives to Microsoft become more viable, people won't just want to switch if the competiton is superior. There are hordes of people who are dying to switch as soon as the competiton appears usable to them. I think that as alternatives gain momentum and business decision makers don't feel the "nobody ever got fired fro buying IBM" pressure about Microsoft anymore, that Microsoft will lose market share very rapidly.
I don't think this sort of badgery and legal abuse falls under "Capitalism."
There a many different definitions and conceptions of capitalism, but they usually involve things like investment in capital, competion, and freedom. Unless you consider investing in lawyers "capital," this is a pretty anti-capitalist, anti-free-market sort of manuever on SCO's part.
Using the courts (read: government) to try to extract money from people, rather than providing goods or services to be purchased on a voluntary basis, is not the ideal profit model for comapnies if you want to maintain a healthy capitalist system.
Ahh, yes, this is the same question as my "OS X: Friend or Foe" post below. Thanks for the reply, Jon.
I _did_ search for related questions before posting, but I only posted about 10 min. after you. You must have posted while I was composing.
I hope one of these gets to the final round.
-Phat Tony
What do you think the net influence of Apple's OS-10 is on Linux?
There are reports of people fleeing Linux to OS 10 because they still get *NIX but with a more easily usable/configurable software suite, but on the other hand, Apple's contributing to open source, manufacturing another hardware platform for Linux, and generally providing another alternative to Redmond.
So, is the competition good for Linux, or not so much?
I can tell you about my experiences with Apple's support, but first let me tell you that for umpteen years in a row, including most recently a few months ago, Apple has come out #1 in Consumer Report's ratings both for machine reliability and customer support, against Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. Dell usually gets second.
As for anecdotal evidence:
I recently moved my Mother to an eMac. She works from home and types all the time. About once or twice a week, she was having a sticky key/key repeat problem. Sometimes it was the "delete" key, and she'd look up and the cursor was crawling backwards across the screen deleting her work.
I didn't know if it was hardware or software, so to take a guess at it I first reinstalled the OS and Word, which didn't fix it. So I switched the USB keyboard with my girlfriend's, and my Mom didn't have any trouble for a few weeks.
So I called Apple. It's about 7:00 PM Eastern Time on a Thursday. I'm on the phone with a human in maybe 4 minutes. He's friendly. And I'm like: "I think I have a hardware program with the keyboard. Sometimes a key repeats. I switched keyboards, and the problem seems to have gone away."
"OK, we'll send you a new keyboard. Give me a minute to set this up."
One minute later...
"OK, we'll ship this to you today at [reads address]. Is that correct? Anything else I can help you with? Well, you should see that tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"
"Yep."
The keyboard was in Ohio from Cupertino the next morning. It arrived about 14 hours after I got off the phone. Nothing about sending the old one back. Nothing about making me go through some troubleshooting. No paperwork. Hardly any time on hold.
My mom hasn't experienced the repeat problem for months now with the new keyboard.
So that's what it's like.
As an interesting side note, my girlfriend's never had any trouble with the old keyboard either, which is a much nicer keyboard than the one that came with her old G4 350. It must have been some odd conflict.
No, the stuff I saw was toally different.
I saw
Bug splatter
Round igloo
Writing with hands of blue
Holding breasts
Extra Berets
Partridge Flying
That bee person
Babies Sleeping
Butterfly struggling
Big demon with an extra wing
So lets see, instead of
"brrowehsespgtnbgbgbg," that gives me
"brrowehsespgtnbgbgbg."
Hmmm...
Hey, what do you call that psychology test, the one where they show you all the pornographic pictures?
Do you mean a Rorschach Test?
Yeah, that's the one!
"but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
In free markets, prices are mostly determined by supply and demand. The cheaper production costs do not affect either of those.
Usually a decrease in production costs leads to an increase in supply, which in turn leads to a decrease in prices, assuming other factors remain constant.
In the music industry, it's easy to see how decreasing production costs would not lead to an increase in supply for the majority of mass-market music. The leading bands make so much money per albm that they aren't limiting the number of albums they cut do to production costs. So lower production costs will not lead them to cut more albums, and will not increase supply.
If many smaller, low budget bands held a larger collective percentage of total market share, then this shift in production costs would lead to a decrease in prices.
This does not exclude some roll of the RIAA and industry collusion in price fixing, but that conclusion is not mandated by the evidence.
Listen to alternative music! (not the genre, the music.)
-Fat Tony
The subject pretty much sums up my question.
Easiest exploit ever:
There used to be one pop machine at Carnegie Mellon where, if you tried to buy a can of coke and had less than the cost on balance on your card, the card balance rolled around to about $511
It was like playing Asteroids.
It made me wonder if (god knows why), anyone honestly tried to add over $512 cash to their card, if it would roll around to $0.
This was eventually fixed.
I was one of the two "Windows 32 guys,"
You insensitive clod!!!
I don't know what to say- this is the 6th monitor I've owned and is the best in every way (except the RasterOps had slightly greater color gamut and brightness). I have it right by a window and have several lights in the room, and the glare isn't any trouble- I've got two other monitors in the room , one right beside the Nokia, and it's worse on both of them.
I sure don't get headaches or see any flicker- I work on this thing for 8, 10 hours at a time, and it's just gorgeous at 85 hz. I'm pretty sensitive to flicker, too. I can't stand anything under 75hz, and the difference between 75 and 85 is big to me.
Could it be your video card? Can you try hooking it up to another? Mine's on an ATI Radeon 7000. I tried it with an older card once that didn't support high frequencies, and it was pretty crappy. An addition to being flickery, it wasn't as sharp, which surprised me.
Good luck,
Fat Tony.
This sytem has worked wonders for me:
.30mm dot pitch 1280 x 1024 at 85 hz with unbelieavable color fidelity, then another nice 21" hitachi, and then about a month ago I upgraded to a Nokia 21" Multigraph 445Xpro. It's .22 mm dot pitch and looks beautiful at 1600 x 1200 at 85 hz. It has dual video inputs, brightness and contrast nobs, and a USB hub. It was $180 with no shipping, just a 20 minute drive.
.25 mm dot pitch. That was $50.
1. Search eBay by region for local 21" or greater CRT monitors
2. Read some reviews & look up the specs for the monitors you see that look good
3. Select some auctions that look good, and email the seller to ask if you could pick up the monitor if you win.
4. Bid away.
5. Sell the old one.
6. Wait two years.
7. GOTO step 1.
This has worked wonders for me. Every two years I get a newer 21" monitor for around $200 and sell the old one for about $100. I save about $60-100 on shipping and handling compared to most of the people I'm bidding against by shopping only in the nearest metropolitian area and picking it up there.
I've been doing this for 6 years. I first got a Hitachi RasterOps
I also keep a 17" for a dual monitor setup to hold my pallets & such. I've upgraded the 17" the same way, most recently getting a new Sony that runs 1280 x 1024 at 85 hz,
If you can, take a laptop with you and check out the monitor for burn in, etc. before you take it.
This sytem takes a little extra time, but it gives you a lot of monitor for your money.
I do professional photographic work and some programming, so having good monitors is crucial. This method works out great for me.
If you want your monitor to look great, get one with small dot pitch, high refresh rate, and have a good video card- the video card really does make a difference.
If you want accurate color prints, you have to use ICC profiles on your monitor and printer.
Good luck. -Phat Tony
Companies have been doing this for years. My physics teacher in high school ten years ago tested beta and concept appliances for IBM.
As already noted- _Buckaroo Banzai_ /. crowd, but it's great too.
Another one that's better known, but has a similiar cult following without being widely popular, is _The Princess Bride_.
Also, two french films _City Of The Lost Children_ and _Delicatessen_ are fabulous. (even though the French are unpopluar right now)
two David mamet films: _House of Games_ and _The Spanish Prisoner_.
It's more widely known, but _The Usual Suspects_ was great.
Not all the Cohen Brothers movies got the kind of theatrical release that _Fargo_ did, yet everything from _Blood Simple_ to _The Man Who Wasn't There_ were great. I particularly recommend _Miller's Crossing_ and _the Hudsucker Proxy_.
Woody Allen's _Bullets Over Broadway_ probably isn't very popular in the
I'm sure more will come to mind later.
I hope anyone finds & enjoys some of these,
Cheers,
Fat Tony.
I really wish I could find a source on this to site, but unfortunatly all I've got is what I rememeber from a magazine article from the early nineties- Apple stuck with the 1 button mouse for the default because they had someone do research on a simple mac-like GUI with extensive and varied two-button options, and the overall results were that novice users faced a much steeper learning curve with two button mice. Macs were all about user friendliness and they wanted people- say, kids in shcools, to sit down and find the machines to be friendly, and the point and click, with one click to choose from, is just very intuitive. Advanced users can probably work faster with more buttons. But hey, the Mac supports more buttons. As the parent post says, if you want more buttons, shell out some dough for whatever you want. Some people prefer pen tabs or touch screens. I use a four button Kensington TurboMouse, whcih is a trackball. Whatever makes you happy. It makes sense that Apple includes the simplest thing with the computer. It's a Mac, don't fault them for sticking to K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) design, it's where they grew up. And their new whole-mouse-button optical mice are really elegant, I love them. Although I have to say, the hockey puck mechanical mouse was the worst mouse I've ever seen in my life. My girlfriend has one, and it makes me cringe. - as an aside, we switched my Mom from a PC to a Mac recently, and she thought she was right clicking and left clicking on her Mac's "whole mouse is one button" mouse. She couldn't understand why it didn't do different things depending on how she clicked. Still, she went on for a week right and left clicking around before I explained it to her, and she still got her stuff done somehow before she knew.