Ah, you show your laziness and girth by equating the right to vote with the luxury of transportation methods.
This isn't about poor people having to walk to the polling station. This is about wealth people not having to walk 5 feet to ensure that the status quo that keeps them relatively wealthy stays in place at the cost of those who require changes to the political and economic agenda. It's funny, by the time the shit hits the wall, those nailed against it are always wondering what was going on all that time where they felt everything was hunkey dory and that those in need were just lazy bums. At least when you go to the polling station, you see who else lives in your community. Otherwise, I promise you, you can go years convicing yourself that those who desire change that would require sacrifice on your part just dont get it or are lazy or some equally self-affirming reductionist perspective.
> Life is always easier for some people than for others. That's just the way it is.
You know that kind of attitude doesn't go very far for those on the flip side of unfairness, and it certainly wont prevent anyone from taking action if they believe you only accept that attitude when things are going your way...
Not that I think it matters. Every system reaps what those with opportunity and wealth sow...
I never implied that it would only be available via the net. I was simply pointing out that this kind of system would improve accessibility and participation primarily to those who are already prosperous under the current political and economic conditions.
I was illustrating that these types of improvements tend to benifit those who are more-or-less happy with the way things are, and thus, it would do little to improve represention of those who seek or need the most radical changes in the political and economic climate.
All of this tends to lead to 'boiling points' where those in poor conditions completely lose faith in the system, as it tends to only focus on improving the lives or representation of those who are already well off, and simply garauntees that more pressure is allowed to build in the social 'fault line' until something dramatic happens.
>Lemme guess, your either Poor, a Communist, or a Democrat?
Let me guess. You want to pigeonhole my theology so you can feel yummy warm at night in concluding that I'm a raving idiot.
None of the above. I make lots of money, I dont believe in communism, and while I probably align myself with Democrat values, I dont know enough about either American party.
In a land of supposed 'equality', why are people so glib to dismiss a technological class gap.
Look, when it comes to getting your ice cream, or filing your taxes, or whatever, I could give a flying fuck if you do it in your Lexus, or you have to walk cause you have no money.
But when it comes to voting, don't you think that the means by which we vote should be independant of our social position? Otherwise you defeat the purpose of a democracy - by 'tipping' the accessability of representation in favour of a particular class.
Let's get one thing straight. I/am/ the wealthy. However, giving people the ability to vote from home is like going door to door to those who make above X$$ and saying, "Well, things are good enough, right? You have your house and car.. here, sign here, and you're vote is cast.", while those who already believe that the system is stacked against them (and rightly so) now see themselves lose even more ground in terms of access to representation and technology; the psycological devestation is recognized by psychology, and dismissed by the wealthy with the 'life isn't fair' argument. It's nothing but more self-affirming perspectives by those with the 'I'm here because I earned it' dillusion.
Yes, your point about car ownership contributing to the problem is duly noted, but if you aknowledge that it exists, why are you so glib to furthur that gap in availability to the resources of exersising one's democratic rights? I can envision a world in which the wealthy are completely ignorant of the numbers of poor simply because its so much easier for them to vote that representation is tipped heavily in their favour. And then the wealthy wonder why the poor arn't voting - it's a lack of confidence in the system, much in part due to attitudes exactly like yours. Why should they try if the fundamental improvements to a democratic system is only available to those who are already prospering under it?
Note that the above assumed by 'voting on the Internet', we mean voting from home. I'm not neccessarily against using computers at poll stations, as this doesn't discriminate against those without access to the Internet at home, or disproportionately empower those that do.
The notion that voting on the Internet would constitute an advancement is disgusting. How many people without access to the Internet would have to work/harder/ than those who already are wealthy enough (presumably) to cast their vote via computers.
More wealth stroking. Internet voting would be all about making life easier for those who's lives are always considerably easier than those who couldn't vote online. How on earth can the article not point out how internet voting would undoubedly contribute to less political representation by those already on the wrong side of the digital divide (even if simply by increasing the participation of those on the right side of the digital divide.)
I'm not against using it for over-seas voting, etc, but to hope that one day we'll all be using the Internet to vote is a scary thought - the poor already have enough of a hard time being heard.
Hey, this is great! Keep it up! I'm diggin' your rational and non-cheap points!
> To use your analogy, better that a child have formula which will most likely let him or her survive than have a far more certain fate of starvation.
Very american way of thinking (not that I'm assuming you're American.) Psychologists point out that many studies have shown that people who suffer in unison often do not pay physocologically, so long as everyone is suffering to the same degree. However, and yes, saving lives is a good thing and the mother would be happy (and probably realize that some of her good fortune was luck), these studies say that the people who now fall behind in access to opportunity and health suffer alot emotionally and psychologically. That is, a majority in these situations feel worse off knowing that in other places, you could buy a truckload of this milk on a spur of the moment purchase. It's very existance in their lives, despite bettering the few, makes the community worse off. More people suffer than prosper, to say nothing of that availability hindering the neccessity for these people to develop their way out of their situations. So, physocology states that your use of the word 'better' is based on the fact that you do not believe that the people, as a whole, are worse off. (Which seems to run counter to the whole notion of capitalism not being a zero-sum game.. it might not be in $$'s, but it seems to be in physcology. Although who's listening to physocologists today?)
> where's the damage?
Well, we havn't done this yet. But history is full of situations where one culture gained access to technology above that of their surrounding cultures, thus creating an imbalance of might. PDAs are very unlikely to cause this.
> Ooh... an isolationist!
How about a neighbourist? Obviously, your society could end at your front door, or the next block, or your city.. your country... your neighbouring country.. well, you get the deal. Let's just say that I don't buy the sugar coated story that technology and communication has allowed us to understand what's going on on the other side of the planet. In that sense, yes, I'm an isolationist, probably because I grew up in a world, and developed a political ideology that ran counter to the grow-bigger and help-more-people philosophy.
> Mmm-hmm. So -- I was raised by fundamentalist Christians.
Ah, but you're already spoiled. You cannot prove to me that you wouldn't have had a better or more happy life (or had suffered for an overall higher level of communal contentedness, or whatever guage you happen to choose the purpose of living as) had you been relegated to fundamental Christianity. Good on you for being able to better yourself and having access to the opportunities you had (and I gunuinely believe that you are better for it.. I am not in any way advocating the specifics of any particular social pattern), but we cannot conclude by that that things wouldn't have been better the other way. Now, let me wiggle my toes now that my foot is in my mouth and wondering/how/ you had access to those opportunities. Were they from people half way across the planet, or from communities that socially and geographically (not technologically) intertwined with yours? Did you believe in Fundamental Christianity in the first place, and if so, who and what communities provided you with the means to grow outside of your original social situation? I think that, in order to make your point valid, I think you'd have to base your social advancement purely on those opportunities, and not on your own rejection of the social pattern in the first place.
So look, I understand your reasoning implicitly. It's been shoved down my throat by every single Internet ad, every single moment of popular culture.. that the masses are always right so give them what they need. Don't stop anyone from doing anything unless it outright kills them or someone else within a reasonable individual-mind graspable time frame. Shit, I agree with that, but change masses to communities, and make sure the people giving them what they 'need' is people from that own community. Honestly, yes, thats what I believe.
By the way, I live in Canada. I'm Canadian. Yes, we have a culture. A way of thinking. It is being killed by american business. Americans are right below us, and yet, it's absolutely insane that they dont understand Canadian culture, don't care to know anything about it, and would rather just buy up our larger companies and open stores and essentially change everything from Canadian (not nearly as business-opportunist, although our business sector is long brain-washed by the point) to American. It's no wonder I'm so touchy about the subject... we may want this stuff as individuals, but we have no way of stopping the cultural steamroller! All I want is for someone to admit that the world isn't getting better, it's only getting better for the wealthy nations! (Oh, theres a host of economic data there too, but statistics can always be countered, so it should come down to faith.)
Anyhow, great points, and I certainly concede that I am in no way believing that either attitude isn't more condusive to 'progress'. I am this way, and those are my thoughts, and its good that we got lots of people thinking in lots of different ways here....
P.S.
> well-clothed, fed and educated
Environmentalists and anthropologists will tell you that for everyone on earth to live at the same level as North Americans do (same amounts of food, water, clothes, etc), we'd need 5 planets. So to get to where you want to go, first you have to admit that you're too well fed, well-clothed. And education only goes so far as your goals. If a culture needs to farm and eat and sleep and drink to be happy, to sustain, why do they need to learn math? Were none of us happy before humans invented math?
I am not determining 'what is best for their kids'. Note the use of the word 'perhaps'. What does this mean? It means I don't know, nor am I willing to bet the 'gain' from this experiement on the unknowns regarding the extent of (possible) exploitation.
You know, Nestle thinks like you do. They test their baby milk formulas by giving away free samples in developing nations. Now, before you bring up that assanine scientific argument, they don't/know/ if formula CMF664v4.3 is good or bad, and they certainly don't think it'll kill anyone. So, what do they do? They give it away for free, at the parents discretion. And babies die. Yes, it's all horribly cliche and melodramatic, but my whole point is that you seem sufficiently comfortable in concluding that no possible damage could be done, so why not leave it up to the parents in said places? History is rife with cultures who have had foreign values and technology imposed on them, because the imposer assumed that no damage would be done. It's a losing battle, my attitude, but I'd much rather sit at home and mind my own business than to apply my values (that of technology and scientific knowedge as indicators of progress and drivers of happiness) against other cultures on the basis of having seen it not do any relative damage in my own culture.
Whether or not this is a case where this reasoning can be applied is something else I don't know. I'm not sure where and what cultures they are talking about. What I do know is that much of the ass-backwards conditions of many places of this earth exist because we felt sufficiently comfortable applying technological, economic and cultural axioms against cultures we were unfamiliar with, and felt sufficiently comfortable assuming that things wouldn't result in some of the conditions we see today.
Again, take the blinders off. Just because you assume damage won't be done doesn't mean it can't happen. But I can garauntee a way you can't be responsible for damage to other cultures... by not involving myself in them! I don't push my solutions on other people, nor am I comfortable with giving large companies enough credit to assume they will not utilize this opportunity (or maybe not this one.. maybe this is in good interests, but the involvement leads to exploitation in the future, who knows.. ) as a pure PR exercise.
The empowerment of the individual is the disempowerment of the community. Thats what I'm talking about, but it's a way of thinking which is not very popular in this "Carpe Dium" society.
So what are we left with? What we started with. You seem assured that no harm can be done - more power to you, but I'm not going to attend the funeral if things turn ugly. I'm not so convinced, so I'd rather stay out of the game all together. BTW, I wonder how much harm individual europeans thought they were contibuting to, with respect to abroginal cultures and their involvement in America. Probably, as individuals, they likely imagined very little, if any. But ask aboriginals now whether the cultural imports of Europe benifitted them or disempowered them.. ahhh, I guess you really think it's worth it, dont you?
Then theres the case where you actually implicitly believe you're/helping/ a foreign culture (religion likes this one) by going over and 'teaching' them how to improve their community and culture. Well, anyhow, we'll agree to disagree.
Please walk away from this understanding that I am not placing my judgements/above/ those of the parents in those land. I'm simply wanting to exersice self-restraint/on by behalf/ because I am not confident that my actions will not exploit or damage said culture. I know, we can't imagine sales people who actually refuse to sell you those products where they are unsure of how safe they are, but believe me, those people do exist.. they just get told to shut up for being elitist, which makes it all the more frusterating. As you empower the individual's decision, you disempower the time and development a community has made in determining what is right and wrong for themselves. If they need it or want it, they'll come calling, but I refuse to go door to door with my own theologies, values or principals wistling "buyer beware" to make myself feel good, unless I'm well within the confines of my own cultural context.
> If giving children toys and putting them on TV would be "exploiting" them, then their parents should have the wisdom to opt out.
Once again, I see the cultural tunnel-vision is on! Perhaps the parents do not apreciate the significants of this exploitation, and thus cannot make the proper judgement. Yet again, people imaging the entire world as tho they were as smart or as dumb as their next door neighbour; a complete disregard for any attempt to question the damage one's involvement can have in a foreign culture which may not appreciate what the social, economic and cultural dynamics are of an experiment like this.
Lets take it to an extreme. Go into a society where smoking is not common (and where a need to be socially against smoking has never existed due to the absance of smoking in said society), and offer a kid a cigarette. Tell the parents that it's what all those Hollywood stars do! Now see how comfortable you feel with assuming that someone from a foreign culture has your experiences, perspective and scope when it comes to cultural and technological imports from your society...
People's ability to be glib about access to social knowledge passed via community and culture, to assume we all have the same implicit vantage point from which to make sound judgements, is possibly the defining trait that villifies well-intentionned people from large introverted cultures.
The very existance of such an 'unsafe' flag allows for the possibility of a bug in the VM's security architecture that/could/ (I said could) allow malicious coders to flag their 3rd party code as 'safe', or otherhwise circumvent said facility.
I think the issue at hand here is one of transparency. If this goes the way MS wants it to go, you'll likely not be aware of when you're computer is fetching code to execute from the network, so you've very little idea of the risks you expose your computer to. You're left with far more possible ways of exposing remote users to malicious code. Should you: trick them into thinking it's local code via a dialog? trick the VM into thinking its local code? exploit the requirement for the 'unsafe' flag in order to run unsafe code? There are now numerous ways of going out attempting to execute unsafe code on remote boxes.
Now, take C, which, yes, most apps are written in, but you download them, install them, and go through a process that essentially makes you aware that your computer now has additional code residing on it, which/could/ be malicious.
Then take Java, where you/shouldnt/ be able to write unsafe code. A much safer (better, faster, etc are not the issue here) approach when you're dealing with situations in which you might be transparently running execution code fetched from remote untrusted or unfamiliar locations. Only a bug in the VM could lead to code being allowed outside the sandbox, and even then, there is nothing in the language that could let the casual programmer attempt to munch memory, etc... I'm apt to believe this kind of achitecture likely leads to less possible problems than the.Net approach (of allowing unsafe code at the 'discretion' of the VM). Basically, there are far fewer 'paths' to exploit in the VM in order to execute malicious unsafe code in user memory, and once an exploit is discovered, you still can't really use java to write memory sniffers or access devices, or whatnot.
Ah well. Thats my 2 cents, from what I understand. For transparent remote-code network applications, I'll take Java's slow-but-safe approach any day of the week over MS's yet-to-be-fulfilled promises of being able to properly manage their own can of (marktable) worms.
Here's my guess. Consise texts don't make as much money? Not that they sit around thinking about ways to make books thicker, but.. well, it can't be that hard to imagine that they prefer to develop and sell large tombs to justify higher margins.
(I'm reminded of that hoax that went around claiming Bjorne Stroutrup (sp?), creator of C++, invented the language, making it needlessly complex in order to ensure that programmers could earn lots of money and that not just anybody could learn to program.. sometimes I wonder how far off these types of claims are, with respect to how our behaviour and our economy becomes increasingly complex. Better to make things more complex, cause they we have more jobs for bigger books, more classes.. etc. Ie, in order to employ us all in a technological society, where the goal is to put the computer in the place of the human, we have to make things complicated and big in order to sustain the maintenance, development, and repair markets. Again, not a concious decision made by individuals, but collectively, tons of us would be out of jobs if technology were not so complex and fat.)
> And when did exchange of goods and services ever stop being intertwined with social and communal function?
Well, I can vote with my wallet regardless of what my neighbours think of what I'm buying. I needn't take the social cost of my aquisitions and exchanges into account. Because I am participating in the quest for material gain, by and large, the laws are set up in order to allow me access to whatever I want, regardless of it's social cost (environmental, social, etc.) The quest for more stuff is deemed more important to the betterment of mankind than the quest to regulate exchanges of materials and services that are deemed by the majority of people as harmful to my community. A cursory glance reveals the alarming trend of governments retracting envionrmental bans for fear of foreign investor settlements. The legal and economic system, which should be in place to serve the social needs of a populous, currently favours the quest for material gain over the quest to reflect the demands of a social body. Surveys show people are becoming more concerned with respect to the environment, and yet, most of the activity with respect to international trade is being done to reduce these types of regulations, or at least place the policy setting in the hands of private interests (haha!). I find it confusing when other people get confused about this issue. It's not difficult to see that the demands of a market (ie, individual wallets) have/disempowered/ community action.
So, how is this different than before?
The Food Riots, for instance, had people who couldn't afford/food/, who were literally on the brink of starvation, still respected that the bread maker had to make a living and was a part of their society. Thus, we saw people demanding to purchase food at fair prices. People still considered the social costs (persecuting the food producer, creating social unrest) above that of personal gain, as opposed to the types of rioting we see these days.. an activity now synonymous with straight up looting. People feel completely within their rights to take whatever is not protected by property rights or is not sufficiently nailed to the ground.
> Marx? Or later writers? Polyani. Communism is based on the same fundamental assumptions about the human condition as capitalism, which is why they are so at odds. One encourages greed as the primary motivator of working, while the other attempts to supress it by enforcement of the state. However, they both assume that it is your quest for wealth that will be the main deciding factor in your behaviour. A false assumption, in my opinion, but it exaplins why they are totally bipolar systems.
> They have incorporated many ideas from Java, and they have extended it to address new needs that developers had. They took where Java left off.
ROFL. Well, there you have it! An endorsement for 'embrace and extend'. We all know about MS's attempts to do it with Java, so I guess thats what C# is. Java, embraced, extended. Kinda like when the CIA was caught doing something bad, they lopped off the bad department, christened it unaffiliated with the CIA, and thus, we have the NED. But I digress. Anyhow, I just found it interesting just how upfront and accepted this approach is now.
> even before the 16th century, people made stuff because they wanted to sell it for money
The market was imposed by the feudal rule in the 16th and 17th century. Previously, people did not work to gain in wealth, but to provide for a living. It is a common misconception that people 'worked' before the imposition of Adam Smiths theologies for wealth. People 'worked' in order to provide things that others could not make, and were repaid by getting things they themselves could not make. But the 'cost/gain' measures were not nearly as qunatitative, and the exchange of goods and services was entwined inseperably with social and communal function. The pursuit of wealth was seen as a blight on one's character (I'm not making this stuff up), and thus people did not work 'for money', but rather 'to provide'.
It is obvious that the exchange of goods and services has been a part of virtually every society humans have ever participated in, but it is very important to understand that the commoditization of labour, land, and services as being 'on the market' was new as of those centuries. Imposed by the ruling elite, and enforced by the state, people's livelihoods were taken away by the introduction of scarcity, and a new order in which one had to participate in the market in order to earn a living. And thus the value of creating wealth was truely articulated in a way that seperated it's role in society from the social interaction of the community. Incidentally, the word 'economy', as we use it today, did not exist up until the 17th century or so...
To be honest, look at the strings the IMF and WTO have on their loans to developing nations. Unless suddenly the system has a change of heart, I firmly believe that the military has to be the future of where all the power is centralized.
Yes, it sounds like flame bait. I wish it wasn't this way, but as I see it from up here, the multinationals (and I'm putting Canada in with the US here, so I'm not dissing) are setting themselves up for a rough ride in the future. It's simply a matter of where power resides. If we're determined to center it all on this continent... well, lets just say that visibilty breeds criticism, and it's only those who are growing in wealth who can't afford to aknowledge it.
It's somewhat ironic, because the space program owes its successes (and failures.. know about that first planned US rocket to outer space?) to the cold war. And now it's being obliterated, in order to deal with the Cold War v2 (aka, terrorism). Anyone want to read into the increased funding of nuclear propulsion?
Whether or not 'a few developers still rally around him', he does stand for his principals over material gain, which is more than just about anyone can say these days.
If RMS 'alienates' developers because he sees the 'killer app' that will put undoubtly make Microsoft's interests a more powerful force behind future technology and information legislation than social and governmental (although the Bush administration is less of a government, and more of a door greaser for the Microsofts of the world) interests, good for him. Developers that abandon his 'radical' prinicipals will undoubtly find themselves on the wrong side of a swing that history prooves has already swung to far. The guy spends his time looking furthur, knowing more, rather than protecting his own interests. Those developers who are 'alienated' by his views are only thinking about their own interests, given the Vegas numbers on MS's chances with.NET entrenching their monopoly. What do you think the chances are of proponants of.NET seeing as some sort of salvation for the human condition?
Incidentally, I'm of the opinion that in the past few years, this has become less about 'business' per se, and more of a religion. MS is a church for market pricing (a state enforced system, very evident under the Bush administration, natch). RMS is a church for decentralized social pricing (which is to say that nothing is 'free', but that the cost/worth of software simply gets entwined with social values under his system, as goods and services were before the 16th and 17th century.. in which people only make, distribute, fix, document software for the sole purpose of bettering their society or community).
Yeah! Put more ambulances at the bottom of that cliff people keep walking off! Good idea! The legal industry isn't large enough!
Seriously, of course he should involve a lawyer (or two or three.. ), but trying illegitamize a request for the social 'climate' of particular situations is just plain stupid.
Laws, and IP protection laws (shit, man, Intellectual Property is still a very new term, even since the industrial revolution) are meant to reflect the wants of a society, not the economy (since this really is all about money). We've gotten things so backwards (society and it's laws bends to the economy) in the last 50 years, in part thanks to attitudes like yours: "Ask the experts! Entrench those professions! What would we do without their guiding light?!"
Obviously, when push comes to shove, he'll be dealing with the law, but there's nothing wrong with finding out if what the law wants and what developers in his situation want are as diametrically opposed as I suspect they are. It's only once we/all/ figure out that everyone's in the same boat will we amass, organize, and push back...
You need to understand that at some point, the economy and the legal system will be 'checked' back to the point where it serves a society and social laws. Today, and particularly since the late 70s, we've really been forcing society to cater to the wants of the economy and it's backing legal system. This is just another case where even if none of us are lawyers, if we think the beta-testers shouldn't see a dime (assuming we have a clear enough understanding of what their involvement is in the process), then the laws should reflect that, not the other way around.
> GUI's are like diapers, everyone grows out of them.
Well, I'll get off-topic'd, but its not my fault he doesn't have a journal.:P
Now now. We all love science, right? Well, if your goal isn't to eke out that extra power hidden under the hood, or to make a political statement (which I support) by coupling the lack of a GUI with the notion of open source, science can tell you that getting the job done with the best quickness:stress-free ratio for the average 'grower' involves more gui, less memorization. Would you really want to type in the name of every object you wanted to interact with in the real world, or would you rather that typing interface attempt to approach the ease of use and real-world familiarity that three dimentional objects enjoy?
As a disclaimer, I'm a C/C++ FreeBSD programmer, so I'm not dissing the CLI. Just understand that it was build by, and most importantly, for the technical illuminati like you and I.
I actually know about here you fucking retard. In fact, one could suspect you're the fucking retard for thinking that I didn't know that:
a) Microsoft makes.NET
b) www.microsoft.com is their homepage
And yes, I could start there, but don't you imagine that I've already been there, and, by virtue of me asking for.NET resources, that I was looking for something a little more specific or (preferrably) written by someone else other than the party with the most vested interest in convincing me that I can't live without it?
... was the one who sucked up to Windows (at least in terms of the mandate of its GUI design.)
Take that!
Well, this ain't a troll, cause I'm not going to rm -rf/gnome.. but it will certainly be interesting to see where both the [gnome/kde] users, and the $$ go in light of this somewhat unlikely endorsement.
BTW, I'm a programmer, so I shouldn't find it hard to figure out what.NET is, and whether its what its touted to be. Can anyone give me a good place to start (not for the non-tech, but for the C/C++/Unix programmer) to see what it is, how it works, yadda, yadda? I have a dim notion of what it is, but I'm interested to get my hands on some 1's and 0's, to actually see the thing.
>a brand new computer than to hire me for 1 day to fix it
Indeed! Well, I'm salary, but its still about 10 days of my time = new computer.
Nothing speaks more about the falsehood of the market choosing wisely than the tech sector, as it relates to the perception of technology costs versus people costs. Who cares if it's 75% as fast if I need to spend less time thinking, caring, stressing over it.
It's kind of funny.. it almost makes me want to point out how, despite one's salary, employers consistantly underestimate the costs of labour (because the goal is to drive it ever cheaper) and typically overestimate the true cost of hardware. Add to the that the completely ignored (in a free-market) social costs depending on your selection, and you've got some very difficult-to-explain from a total-cost perspective monopolies...
> Don't like the IMF's conditions, don't borrow from them
BTW, so, american companies come into your country (your government lets them in, cause they say they'll be nice). Then they pollute the drinking water. Then they privatize your drinking water. Then you can't afford water. Then the IMF, in bed with these companies, gives you a deal that you can't refuse, not because you don't like the terms, but because millions upon millions of people would die if you don't borrow. BTW, typical third-world IMF interest payments are 30 times the rate that the allies felt was sufficient punishment to Germany, post WWII. I mean, can I come into your house as a guest, take all your food, and then sell it back to you at a rate you can't afford? And then offer to "loan" you money with interest rates that garauntee that unless you can pull off a 4 fold increase in your GDP, you'll never pay off?
You're very ignorant of the ways of the international scene. I'm no genius, but you lack even a smidgen of a world-view that isn't tainted by your own fishbowl. Go back to your bubble!
> Actually, what I'm saying is that the trend you are talking about
And I'm saying that that trend hasn't/always/ existed, nor needs to accelerate at the rate that it is currently accelerating. At least under a more cautious state-managed post-war capitalist era, the trend was nearly stopped, and many countries did experience favourable growth of their GDP.
I mean, seriously, I might as well go around stealing from people and say, "Well, you know, stealing will always happen, so might as well do it." Shit, thats the defining principal of unabated capitalism. That being a bad apple isn't bad, because there are always bad apples. The point is, there doesn't have to be that many.
> Argentina fell apart because it was a corrupt government with massive cronyism in state-run jobs.
Maybe it was the influence of the NED (National Endowment of Democracy Fund.. a 'non government' organization that was born out of a CIA scandal that you might know.. the Iran Contra scandal?), known for purposefully destabilizing the ecnomies and political systems of countries with decidedly socialist (but democratic) leaders. Another example of an angle supported by just about everyone in the world but the US, for obvious reasons.:) Hard to believe in when you love it so much, I know, but try.
> Capitalism. Feudalism. The two are not the same.
Like duh. Feudalism introduced capitalism, in the form of the privatization of what was, at the time, common land regulated and mandated by the farmers and communities at the time. Abusers of the land before the push by feudalists to privatization were punished by way of public humiliation. Privatization involved the erection of hedges around these lands.. thus, the introduction of what was to become the market based economy began with taking away what was at the time the right of the people living beside such common lands.
> If you and your buddies want to "manifest violence" on me
Why would I want to? I don't want to. I don't wish you any harm man. But I'm not the one who might die if I can't afford my next meal, or wants to die, because I work 12 hours a day and can only afford a tiny dingy apartment, food and water. These numbers may or may not be increasing, although I ague that they are, but that doesn't change the fact that if they are increasing, attitudes like yours will ensure you're first up against the wall. Dude, I mean, my parents are part of this group. Me too, probably. I'm not bashing you, I'm only showing you that people are moved to violence when they perceive they have no other choice.. not because they are dumb and don't recognize that if they only got off their lazy asses, they wouldn't have to lop people's heads off. Do you really think poor people just can't figure out that being a lawyer or computer programmer is more fun than joining riots? Nope.. but as long as you keep belittling the poor, and their 'meager' skills and motivation, and then critizing them for not having the drive for self-betterment, they'll always feel forced to believe that violence is the only way. If you can't be convinced to give them a chance, of course they'll take it. I would to, if the numbers were in my favour....
What surprise that we're in a market based economy.
The market always wins. The social costs (ease of maintenance, accessibiliy, at the (granted) cost of performance) are almost always ignored when people vote with individual walets.
Natch:
> Anything goes wrong with a PC node
Thats cause stuff goes wrong far more often in a PC envrionment. I say this with 10 years of computing experience on both platforms. YMMV, and I'm sure I'll collect anywhere from 2 to 200 replies either quoting amazing PC/Linux uptimes or terrible Mac related experiences, but I've worked, at length and in technical situations with MacOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, HPUX, AIX, Solaris... and Macs are by far the most reliable platforms in terms of hardware failure or incompatiblies that arise from drivers, etc. (Note: I am exclduing all Powerbooks. I'm well aware of the 5300 being the exact opposite of what I'm saying.. those things were more trouble than ANY platform I've ever worked on.)
> Plus you can modify bits of Linux
OSX, the kernel is Open Source, so you are free to munge around with it, although I havn't gotten a chance to look deep into it, so I'm not sure of the extent of the validity of this.
OS9, removing kernal modules from the OS is a simple point and click, although I think there is obviously more code in the base system than on a bare bones Linux system. Again, trade offs are unavoidable.
It is only because Apple sells their OS as 'easy to use' to people assume this is equivilent to 'non customizable'. Any dedicated mac techie knows that while MacOS ain't as granular as Linux in its customizability, the perfornace loss in putting your CPU against surperfluous tasks pays back in the other advantages of the platform.
Note that I'm not arguing that MacOS is better to cluster than Linux.. I'm only trying to debunk some of the most commonly lobbed FUD against the Mac platform, especially as it relates to its (supposed) unsuitability to non-multimedia related tasks.:)
What I love the most is how people expect computers to be cars. Ie, if its more expensive, it had better be faster. Man, I'll take a slower and more enjoyable and pain-free computing experience any day of the week, which is why my dream setup would be OSX by default, then Linux or some BSD variant (I'm a programmer on FreeBSD), and then Windows. This holds true even in computationally-intensive tasks. If I can't enjoy the experience of doing it, I don't want to do it, even if it can be done faster or cheaper. My happiness and level of stress is more important than speed.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, you show your laziness and girth by equating the right to vote with the luxury of transportation methods.
...
...
This isn't about poor people having to walk to the polling station. This is about wealth people not having to walk 5 feet to ensure that the status quo that keeps them relatively wealthy stays in place at the cost of those who require changes to the political and economic agenda. It's funny, by the time the shit hits the wall, those nailed against it are always wondering what was going on all that time where they felt everything was hunkey dory and that those in need were just lazy bums. At least when you go to the polling station, you see who else lives in your community. Otherwise, I promise you, you can go years convicing yourself that those who desire change that would require sacrifice on your part just dont get it or are lazy or some equally self-affirming reductionist perspective.
> Life is always easier for some people than for others. That's just the way it is.
You know that kind of attitude doesn't go very far for those on the flip side of unfairness, and it certainly wont prevent anyone from taking action if they believe you only accept that attitude when things are going your way
Not that I think it matters. Every system reaps what those with opportunity and wealth sow
I never implied that it would only be available via the net. I was simply pointing out that this kind of system would improve accessibility and participation primarily to those who are already prosperous under the current political and economic conditions.
I was illustrating that these types of improvements tend to benifit those who are more-or-less happy with the way things are, and thus, it would do little to improve represention of those who seek or need the most radical changes in the political and economic climate.
All of this tends to lead to 'boiling points' where those in poor conditions completely lose faith in the system, as it tends to only focus on improving the lives or representation of those who are already well off, and simply garauntees that more pressure is allowed to build in the social 'fault line' until something dramatic happens.
>Lemme guess, your either Poor, a Communist, or a Democrat?
/am/ the wealthy. However, giving people the ability to vote from home is like going door to door to those who make above X$$ and saying, "Well, things are good enough, right? You have your house and car .. here, sign here, and you're vote is cast.", while those who already believe that the system is stacked against them (and rightly so) now see themselves lose even more ground in terms of access to representation and technology; the psycological devestation is recognized by psychology, and dismissed by the wealthy with the 'life isn't fair' argument. It's nothing but more self-affirming perspectives by those with the 'I'm here because I earned it' dillusion.
Let me guess. You want to pigeonhole my theology so you can feel yummy warm at night in concluding that I'm a raving idiot.
None of the above. I make lots of money, I dont believe in communism, and while I probably align myself with Democrat values, I dont know enough about either American party.
In a land of supposed 'equality', why are people so glib to dismiss a technological class gap.
Look, when it comes to getting your ice cream, or filing your taxes, or whatever, I could give a flying fuck if you do it in your Lexus, or you have to walk cause you have no money.
But when it comes to voting, don't you think that the means by which we vote should be independant of our social position? Otherwise you defeat the purpose of a democracy - by 'tipping' the accessability of representation in favour of a particular class.
Let's get one thing straight. I
Yes, your point about car ownership contributing to the problem is duly noted, but if you aknowledge that it exists, why are you so glib to furthur that gap in availability to the resources of exersising one's democratic rights? I can envision a world in which the wealthy are completely ignorant of the numbers of poor simply because its so much easier for them to vote that representation is tipped heavily in their favour. And then the wealthy wonder why the poor arn't voting - it's a lack of confidence in the system, much in part due to attitudes exactly like yours. Why should they try if the fundamental improvements to a democratic system is only available to those who are already prospering under it?
Note that the above assumed by 'voting on the Internet', we mean voting from home. I'm not neccessarily against using computers at poll stations, as this doesn't discriminate against those without access to the Internet at home, or disproportionately empower those that do.
The notion that voting on the Internet would constitute an advancement is disgusting. How many people without access to the Internet would have to work /harder/ than those who already are wealthy enough (presumably) to cast their vote via computers.
More wealth stroking. Internet voting would be all about making life easier for those who's lives are always considerably easier than those who couldn't vote online. How on earth can the article not point out how internet voting would undoubedly contribute to less political representation by those already on the wrong side of the digital divide (even if simply by increasing the participation of those on the right side of the digital divide.)
I'm not against using it for over-seas voting, etc, but to hope that one day we'll all be using the Internet to vote is a scary thought - the poor already have enough of a hard time being heard.
Hey, this is great! Keep it up! I'm diggin' your rational and non-cheap points!
.. it might not be in $$'s, but it seems to be in physcology. Although who's listening to physocologists today?)
.. your country ... your neighbouring country .. well, you get the deal. Let's just say that I don't buy the sugar coated story that technology and communication has allowed us to understand what's going on on the other side of the planet. In that sense, yes, I'm an isolationist, probably because I grew up in a world, and developed a political ideology that ran counter to the grow-bigger and help-more-people philosophy.
.. I am not in any way advocating the specifics of any particular social pattern), but we cannot conclude by that that things wouldn't have been better the other way. Now, let me wiggle my toes now that my foot is in my mouth and wondering /how/ you had access to those opportunities. Were they from people half way across the planet, or from communities that socially and geographically (not technologically) intertwined with yours? Did you believe in Fundamental Christianity in the first place, and if so, who and what communities provided you with the means to grow outside of your original social situation? I think that, in order to make your point valid, I think you'd have to base your social advancement purely on those opportunities, and not on your own rejection of the social pattern in the first place.
.. that the masses are always right so give them what they need. Don't stop anyone from doing anything unless it outright kills them or someone else within a reasonable individual-mind graspable time frame. Shit, I agree with that, but change masses to communities, and make sure the people giving them what they 'need' is people from that own community. Honestly, yes, thats what I believe.
... we may want this stuff as individuals, but we have no way of stopping the cultural steamroller! All I want is for someone to admit that the world isn't getting better, it's only getting better for the wealthy nations! (Oh, theres a host of economic data there too, but statistics can always be countered, so it should come down to faith.)
....
> To use your analogy, better that a child have formula which will most likely let him or her survive than have a far more certain fate of starvation.
Very american way of thinking (not that I'm assuming you're American.) Psychologists point out that many studies have shown that people who suffer in unison often do not pay physocologically, so long as everyone is suffering to the same degree. However, and yes, saving lives is a good thing and the mother would be happy (and probably realize that some of her good fortune was luck), these studies say that the people who now fall behind in access to opportunity and health suffer alot emotionally and psychologically. That is, a majority in these situations feel worse off knowing that in other places, you could buy a truckload of this milk on a spur of the moment purchase. It's very existance in their lives, despite bettering the few, makes the community worse off. More people suffer than prosper, to say nothing of that availability hindering the neccessity for these people to develop their way out of their situations. So, physocology states that your use of the word 'better' is based on the fact that you do not believe that the people, as a whole, are worse off. (Which seems to run counter to the whole notion of capitalism not being a zero-sum game
> where's the damage?
Well, we havn't done this yet. But history is full of situations where one culture gained access to technology above that of their surrounding cultures, thus creating an imbalance of might. PDAs are very unlikely to cause this.
> Ooh... an isolationist!
How about a neighbourist? Obviously, your society could end at your front door, or the next block, or your city
> Mmm-hmm. So -- I was raised by fundamentalist Christians.
Ah, but you're already spoiled. You cannot prove to me that you wouldn't have had a better or more happy life (or had suffered for an overall higher level of communal contentedness, or whatever guage you happen to choose the purpose of living as) had you been relegated to fundamental Christianity. Good on you for being able to better yourself and having access to the opportunities you had (and I gunuinely believe that you are better for it
So look, I understand your reasoning implicitly. It's been shoved down my throat by every single Internet ad, every single moment of popular culture
By the way, I live in Canada. I'm Canadian. Yes, we have a culture. A way of thinking. It is being killed by american business. Americans are right below us, and yet, it's absolutely insane that they dont understand Canadian culture, don't care to know anything about it, and would rather just buy up our larger companies and open stores and essentially change everything from Canadian (not nearly as business-opportunist, although our business sector is long brain-washed by the point) to American. It's no wonder I'm so touchy about the subject
Anyhow, great points, and I certainly concede that I am in no way believing that either attitude isn't more condusive to 'progress'. I am this way, and those are my thoughts, and its good that we got lots of people thinking in lots of different ways here
P.S.
> well-clothed, fed and educated
Environmentalists and anthropologists will tell you that for everyone on earth to live at the same level as North Americans do (same amounts of food, water, clothes, etc), we'd need 5 planets. So to get to where you want to go, first you have to admit that you're too well fed, well-clothed. And education only goes so far as your goals. If a culture needs to farm and eat and sleep and drink to be happy, to sustain, why do they need to learn math? Were none of us happy before humans invented math?
I am not determining 'what is best for their kids'. Note the use of the word 'perhaps'. What does this mean? It means I don't know, nor am I willing to bet the 'gain' from this experiement on the unknowns regarding the extent of (possible) exploitation.
/know/ if formula CMF664v4.3 is good or bad, and they certainly don't think it'll kill anyone. So, what do they do? They give it away for free, at the parents discretion. And babies die. Yes, it's all horribly cliche and melodramatic, but my whole point is that you seem sufficiently comfortable in concluding that no possible damage could be done, so why not leave it up to the parents in said places? History is rife with cultures who have had foreign values and technology imposed on them, because the imposer assumed that no damage would be done. It's a losing battle, my attitude, but I'd much rather sit at home and mind my own business than to apply my values (that of technology and scientific knowedge as indicators of progress and drivers of happiness) against other cultures on the basis of having seen it not do any relative damage in my own culture.
... by not involving myself in them! I don't push my solutions on other people, nor am I comfortable with giving large companies enough credit to assume they will not utilize this opportunity (or maybe not this one .. maybe this is in good interests, but the involvement leads to exploitation in the future, who knows .. ) as a pure PR exercise.
.. ahhh, I guess you really think it's worth it, dont you?
/helping/ a foreign culture (religion likes this one) by going over and 'teaching' them how to improve their community and culture. Well, anyhow, we'll agree to disagree.
/above/ those of the parents in those land. I'm simply wanting to exersice self-restraint /on by behalf/ because I am not confident that my actions will not exploit or damage said culture. I know, we can't imagine sales people who actually refuse to sell you those products where they are unsure of how safe they are, but believe me, those people do exist .. they just get told to shut up for being elitist, which makes it all the more frusterating. As you empower the individual's decision, you disempower the time and development a community has made in determining what is right and wrong for themselves. If they need it or want it, they'll come calling, but I refuse to go door to door with my own theologies, values or principals wistling "buyer beware" to make myself feel good, unless I'm well within the confines of my own cultural context.
You know, Nestle thinks like you do. They test their baby milk formulas by giving away free samples in developing nations. Now, before you bring up that assanine scientific argument, they don't
Whether or not this is a case where this reasoning can be applied is something else I don't know. I'm not sure where and what cultures they are talking about. What I do know is that much of the ass-backwards conditions of many places of this earth exist because we felt sufficiently comfortable applying technological, economic and cultural axioms against cultures we were unfamiliar with, and felt sufficiently comfortable assuming that things wouldn't result in some of the conditions we see today.
Again, take the blinders off. Just because you assume damage won't be done doesn't mean it can't happen. But I can garauntee a way you can't be responsible for damage to other cultures
The empowerment of the individual is the disempowerment of the community. Thats what I'm talking about, but it's a way of thinking which is not very popular in this "Carpe Dium" society.
So what are we left with? What we started with. You seem assured that no harm can be done - more power to you, but I'm not going to attend the funeral if things turn ugly. I'm not so convinced, so I'd rather stay out of the game all together. BTW, I wonder how much harm individual europeans thought they were contibuting to, with respect to abroginal cultures and their involvement in America. Probably, as individuals, they likely imagined very little, if any. But ask aboriginals now whether the cultural imports of Europe benifitted them or disempowered them
Then theres the case where you actually implicitly believe you're
Please walk away from this understanding that I am not placing my judgements
> If giving children toys and putting them on TV would be "exploiting" them, then their parents should have the wisdom to opt out.
...
Once again, I see the cultural tunnel-vision is on! Perhaps the parents do not apreciate the significants of this exploitation, and thus cannot make the proper judgement. Yet again, people imaging the entire world as tho they were as smart or as dumb as their next door neighbour; a complete disregard for any attempt to question the damage one's involvement can have in a foreign culture which may not appreciate what the social, economic and cultural dynamics are of an experiment like this.
Lets take it to an extreme. Go into a society where smoking is not common (and where a need to be socially against smoking has never existed due to the absance of smoking in said society), and offer a kid a cigarette. Tell the parents that it's what all those Hollywood stars do! Now see how comfortable you feel with assuming that someone from a foreign culture has your experiences, perspective and scope when it comes to cultural and technological imports from your society
People's ability to be glib about access to social knowledge passed via community and culture, to assume we all have the same implicit vantage point from which to make sound judgements, is possibly the defining trait that villifies well-intentionned people from large introverted cultures.
The very existance of such an 'unsafe' flag allows for the possibility of a bug in the VM's security architecture that /could/ (I said could) allow malicious coders to flag their 3rd party code as 'safe', or otherhwise circumvent said facility.
/could/ be malicious.
/shouldnt/ be able to write unsafe code. A much safer (better, faster, etc are not the issue here) approach when you're dealing with situations in which you might be transparently running execution code fetched from remote untrusted or unfamiliar locations. Only a bug in the VM could lead to code being allowed outside the sandbox, and even then, there is nothing in the language that could let the casual programmer attempt to munch memory, etc ... I'm apt to believe this kind of achitecture likely leads to less possible problems than the .Net approach (of allowing unsafe code at the 'discretion' of the VM). Basically, there are far fewer 'paths' to exploit in the VM in order to execute malicious unsafe code in user memory, and once an exploit is discovered, you still can't really use java to write memory sniffers or access devices, or whatnot.
I think the issue at hand here is one of transparency. If this goes the way MS wants it to go, you'll likely not be aware of when you're computer is fetching code to execute from the network, so you've very little idea of the risks you expose your computer to. You're left with far more possible ways of exposing remote users to malicious code. Should you: trick them into thinking it's local code via a dialog? trick the VM into thinking its local code? exploit the requirement for the 'unsafe' flag in order to run unsafe code? There are now numerous ways of going out attempting to execute unsafe code on remote boxes.
Now, take C, which, yes, most apps are written in, but you download them, install them, and go through a process that essentially makes you aware that your computer now has additional code residing on it, which
Then take Java, where you
Ah well. Thats my 2 cents, from what I understand. For transparent remote-code network applications, I'll take Java's slow-but-safe approach any day of the week over MS's yet-to-be-fulfilled promises of being able to properly manage their own can of (marktable) worms.
Here's my guess. Consise texts don't make as much money? Not that they sit around thinking about ways to make books thicker, but .. well, it can't be that hard to imagine that they prefer to develop and sell large tombs to justify higher margins.
.. sometimes I wonder how far off these types of claims are, with respect to how our behaviour and our economy becomes increasingly complex. Better to make things more complex, cause they we have more jobs for bigger books, more classes .. etc. Ie, in order to employ us all in a technological society, where the goal is to put the computer in the place of the human, we have to make things complicated and big in order to sustain the maintenance, development, and repair markets. Again, not a concious decision made by individuals, but collectively, tons of us would be out of jobs if technology were not so complex and fat.)
(I'm reminded of that hoax that went around claiming Bjorne Stroutrup (sp?), creator of C++, invented the language, making it needlessly complex in order to ensure that programmers could earn lots of money and that not just anybody could learn to program
> And when did exchange of goods and services ever stop being intertwined with social and communal function?
/disempowered/ community action.
/food/, who were literally on the brink of starvation, still respected that the bread maker had to make a living and was a part of their society. Thus, we saw people demanding to purchase food at fair prices. People still considered the social costs (persecuting the food producer, creating social unrest) above that of personal gain, as opposed to the types of rioting we see these days .. an activity now synonymous with straight up looting. People feel completely within their rights to take whatever is not protected by property rights or is not sufficiently nailed to the ground.
Well, I can vote with my wallet regardless of what my neighbours think of what I'm buying. I needn't take the social cost of my aquisitions and exchanges into account. Because I am participating in the quest for material gain, by and large, the laws are set up in order to allow me access to whatever I want, regardless of it's social cost (environmental, social, etc.) The quest for more stuff is deemed more important to the betterment of mankind than the quest to regulate exchanges of materials and services that are deemed by the majority of people as harmful to my community. A cursory glance reveals the alarming trend of governments retracting envionrmental bans for fear of foreign investor settlements. The legal and economic system, which should be in place to serve the social needs of a populous, currently favours the quest for material gain over the quest to reflect the demands of a social body. Surveys show people are becoming more concerned with respect to the environment, and yet, most of the activity with respect to international trade is being done to reduce these types of regulations, or at least place the policy setting in the hands of private interests (haha!). I find it confusing when other people get confused about this issue. It's not difficult to see that the demands of a market (ie, individual wallets) have
So, how is this different than before?
The Food Riots, for instance, had people who couldn't afford
> Marx? Or later writers?
Polyani. Communism is based on the same fundamental assumptions about the human condition as capitalism, which is why they are so at odds. One encourages greed as the primary motivator of working, while the other attempts to supress it by enforcement of the state. However, they both assume that it is your quest for wealth that will be the main deciding factor in your behaviour. A false assumption, in my opinion, but it exaplins why they are totally bipolar systems.
> They have incorporated many ideas from Java, and they have extended it to address new needs that developers had. They took where Java left off.
ROFL. Well, there you have it! An endorsement for 'embrace and extend'. We all know about MS's attempts to do it with Java, so I guess thats what C# is. Java, embraced, extended. Kinda like when the CIA was caught doing something bad, they lopped off the bad department, christened it unaffiliated with the CIA, and thus, we have the NED. But I digress. Anyhow, I just found it interesting just how upfront and accepted this approach is now.
> even before the 16th century, people made stuff because they wanted to sell it for money
...
The market was imposed by the feudal rule in the 16th and 17th century. Previously, people did not work to gain in wealth, but to provide for a living. It is a common misconception that people 'worked' before the imposition of Adam Smiths theologies for wealth. People 'worked' in order to provide things that others could not make, and were repaid by getting things they themselves could not make. But the 'cost/gain' measures were not nearly as qunatitative, and the exchange of goods and services was entwined inseperably with social and communal function. The pursuit of wealth was seen as a blight on one's character (I'm not making this stuff up), and thus people did not work 'for money', but rather 'to provide'.
It is obvious that the exchange of goods and services has been a part of virtually every society humans have ever participated in, but it is very important to understand that the commoditization of labour, land, and services as being 'on the market' was new as of those centuries. Imposed by the ruling elite, and enforced by the state, people's livelihoods were taken away by the introduction of scarcity, and a new order in which one had to participate in the market in order to earn a living. And thus the value of creating wealth was truely articulated in a way that seperated it's role in society from the social interaction of the community. Incidentally, the word 'economy', as we use it today, did not exist up until the 17th century or so
> they feel the military is their future.
... well, lets just say that visibilty breeds criticism, and it's only those who are growing in wealth who can't afford to aknowledge it.
.. know about that first planned US rocket to outer space?) to the cold war. And now it's being obliterated, in order to deal with the Cold War v2 (aka, terrorism). Anyone want to read into the increased funding of nuclear propulsion?
To be honest, look at the strings the IMF and WTO have on their loans to developing nations. Unless suddenly the system has a change of heart, I firmly believe that the military has to be the future of where all the power is centralized.
Yes, it sounds like flame bait. I wish it wasn't this way, but as I see it from up here, the multinationals (and I'm putting Canada in with the US here, so I'm not dissing) are setting themselves up for a rough ride in the future. It's simply a matter of where power resides. If we're determined to center it all on this continent
It's somewhat ironic, because the space program owes its successes (and failures
Whether or not 'a few developers still rally around him', he does stand for his principals over material gain, which is more than just about anyone can say these days.
.NET entrenching their monopoly. What do you think the chances are of proponants of .NET seeing as some sort of salvation for the human condition?
.. in which people only make, distribute, fix, document software for the sole purpose of bettering their society or community).
If RMS 'alienates' developers because he sees the 'killer app' that will put undoubtly make Microsoft's interests a more powerful force behind future technology and information legislation than social and governmental (although the Bush administration is less of a government, and more of a door greaser for the Microsofts of the world) interests, good for him. Developers that abandon his 'radical' prinicipals will undoubtly find themselves on the wrong side of a swing that history prooves has already swung to far. The guy spends his time looking furthur, knowing more, rather than protecting his own interests. Those developers who are 'alienated' by his views are only thinking about their own interests, given the Vegas numbers on MS's chances with
Incidentally, I'm of the opinion that in the past few years, this has become less about 'business' per se, and more of a religion. MS is a church for market pricing (a state enforced system, very evident under the Bush administration, natch). RMS is a church for decentralized social pricing (which is to say that nothing is 'free', but that the cost/worth of software simply gets entwined with social values under his system, as goods and services were before the 16th and 17th century
Yeah! Put more ambulances at the bottom of that cliff people keep walking off! Good idea! The legal industry isn't large enough!
.. ), but trying illegitamize a request for the social 'climate' of particular situations is just plain stupid.
/all/ figure out that everyone's in the same boat will we amass, organize, and push back ...
Seriously, of course he should involve a lawyer (or two or three
Laws, and IP protection laws (shit, man, Intellectual Property is still a very new term, even since the industrial revolution) are meant to reflect the wants of a society, not the economy (since this really is all about money). We've gotten things so backwards (society and it's laws bends to the economy) in the last 50 years, in part thanks to attitudes like yours: "Ask the experts! Entrench those professions! What would we do without their guiding light?!"
Obviously, when push comes to shove, he'll be dealing with the law, but there's nothing wrong with finding out if what the law wants and what developers in his situation want are as diametrically opposed as I suspect they are. It's only once we
You need to understand that at some point, the economy and the legal system will be 'checked' back to the point where it serves a society and social laws. Today, and particularly since the late 70s, we've really been forcing society to cater to the wants of the economy and it's backing legal system. This is just another case where even if none of us are lawyers, if we think the beta-testers shouldn't see a dime (assuming we have a clear enough understanding of what their involvement is in the process), then the laws should reflect that, not the other way around.
Jebus, should I have cut-and-pasted a shell session of me unintalling gnome properly? It was all tongue and cheek, for the sake of fun and brevity!
> GUI's are like diapers, everyone grows out of them.
:P
Well, I'll get off-topic'd, but its not my fault he doesn't have a journal.
Now now. We all love science, right? Well, if your goal isn't to eke out that extra power hidden under the hood, or to make a political statement (which I support) by coupling the lack of a GUI with the notion of open source, science can tell you that getting the job done with the best quickness:stress-free ratio for the average 'grower' involves more gui, less memorization. Would you really want to type in the name of every object you wanted to interact with in the real world, or would you rather that typing interface attempt to approach the ease of use and real-world familiarity that three dimentional objects enjoy?
As a disclaimer, I'm a C/C++ FreeBSD programmer, so I'm not dissing the CLI. Just understand that it was build by, and most importantly, for the technical illuminati like you and I.
I actually know about here you fucking retard. In fact, one could suspect you're the fucking retard for thinking that I didn't know that:
.NET
.NET resources, that I was looking for something a little more specific or (preferrably) written by someone else other than the party with the most vested interest in convincing me that I can't live without it?
a) Microsoft makes
b) www.microsoft.com is their homepage
And yes, I could start there, but don't you imagine that I've already been there, and, by virtue of me asking for
Take that!
Well, this ain't a troll, cause I'm not going to rm -rf
BTW, I'm a programmer, so I shouldn't find it hard to figure out what
Is this to facilitate our ever-increasing divorce rates? Now she can call to inform you of the impending alimony payments right from the wedding band!
Suddenly, the solitary life doesn't seem so bad.
>a brand new computer than to hire me for 1 day to fix it
.. it almost makes me want to point out how, despite one's salary, employers consistantly underestimate the costs of labour (because the goal is to drive it ever cheaper) and typically overestimate the true cost of hardware. Add to the that the completely ignored (in a free-market) social costs depending on your selection, and you've got some very difficult-to-explain from a total-cost perspective monopolies ...
Indeed! Well, I'm salary, but its still about 10 days of my time = new computer.
Nothing speaks more about the falsehood of the market choosing wisely than the tech sector, as it relates to the perception of technology costs versus people costs. Who cares if it's 75% as fast if I need to spend less time thinking, caring, stressing over it.
It's kind of funny
> Don't like the IMF's conditions, don't borrow from them
BTW, so, american companies come into your country (your government lets them in, cause they say they'll be nice). Then they pollute the drinking water. Then they privatize your drinking water. Then you can't afford water. Then the IMF, in bed with these companies, gives you a deal that you can't refuse, not because you don't like the terms, but because millions upon millions of people would die if you don't borrow. BTW, typical third-world IMF interest payments are 30 times the rate that the allies felt was sufficient punishment to Germany, post WWII. I mean, can I come into your house as a guest, take all your food, and then sell it back to you at a rate you can't afford? And then offer to "loan" you money with interest rates that garauntee that unless you can pull off a 4 fold increase in your GDP, you'll never pay off?
You're very ignorant of the ways of the international scene. I'm no genius, but you lack even a smidgen of a world-view that isn't tainted by your own fishbowl. Go back to your bubble!
> Actually, what I'm saying is that the trend you are talking about
/always/ existed, nor needs to accelerate at the rate that it is currently accelerating. At least under a more cautious state-managed post-war capitalist era, the trend was nearly stopped, and many countries did experience favourable growth of their GDP.
.. a 'non government' organization that was born out of a CIA scandal that you might know .. the Iran Contra scandal?), known for purposefully destabilizing the ecnomies and political systems of countries with decidedly socialist (but democratic) leaders. Another example of an angle supported by just about everyone in the world but the US, for obvious reasons. :) Hard to believe in when you love it so much, I know, but try.
.. thus, the introduction of what was to become the market based economy began with taking away what was at the time the right of the people living beside such common lands.
.. not because they are dumb and don't recognize that if they only got off their lazy asses, they wouldn't have to lop people's heads off. Do you really think poor people just can't figure out that being a lawyer or computer programmer is more fun than joining riots? Nope .. but as long as you keep belittling the poor, and their 'meager' skills and motivation, and then critizing them for not having the drive for self-betterment, they'll always feel forced to believe that violence is the only way. If you can't be convinced to give them a chance, of course they'll take it. I would to, if the numbers were in my favour ....
And I'm saying that that trend hasn't
I mean, seriously, I might as well go around stealing from people and say, "Well, you know, stealing will always happen, so might as well do it." Shit, thats the defining principal of unabated capitalism. That being a bad apple isn't bad, because there are always bad apples. The point is, there doesn't have to be that many.
> Argentina fell apart because it was a corrupt government with massive cronyism in state-run jobs.
Maybe it was the influence of the NED (National Endowment of Democracy Fund
> Capitalism. Feudalism. The two are not the same.
Like duh. Feudalism introduced capitalism, in the form of the privatization of what was, at the time, common land regulated and mandated by the farmers and communities at the time. Abusers of the land before the push by feudalists to privatization were punished by way of public humiliation. Privatization involved the erection of hedges around these lands
> If you and your buddies want to "manifest violence" on me
Why would I want to? I don't want to. I don't wish you any harm man. But I'm not the one who might die if I can't afford my next meal, or wants to die, because I work 12 hours a day and can only afford a tiny dingy apartment, food and water. These numbers may or may not be increasing, although I ague that they are, but that doesn't change the fact that if they are increasing, attitudes like yours will ensure you're first up against the wall. Dude, I mean, my parents are part of this group. Me too, probably. I'm not bashing you, I'm only showing you that people are moved to violence when they perceive they have no other choice
What surprise that we're in a market based economy.
... and Macs are by far the most reliable platforms in terms of hardware failure or incompatiblies that arise from drivers, etc. (Note: I am exclduing all Powerbooks. I'm well aware of the 5300 being the exact opposite of what I'm saying .. those things were more trouble than ANY platform I've ever worked on.)
.. I'm only trying to debunk some of the most commonly lobbed FUD against the Mac platform, especially as it relates to its (supposed) unsuitability to non-multimedia related tasks. :)
The market always wins. The social costs (ease of maintenance, accessibiliy, at the (granted) cost of performance) are almost always ignored when people vote with individual walets.
Natch:
> Anything goes wrong with a PC node
Thats cause stuff goes wrong far more often in a PC envrionment. I say this with 10 years of computing experience on both platforms. YMMV, and I'm sure I'll collect anywhere from 2 to 200 replies either quoting amazing PC/Linux uptimes or terrible Mac related experiences, but I've worked, at length and in technical situations with MacOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, HPUX, AIX, Solaris
> Plus you can modify bits of Linux
OSX, the kernel is Open Source, so you are free to munge around with it, although I havn't gotten a chance to look deep into it, so I'm not sure of the extent of the validity of this.
OS9, removing kernal modules from the OS is a simple point and click, although I think there is obviously more code in the base system than on a bare bones Linux system. Again, trade offs are unavoidable.
It is only because Apple sells their OS as 'easy to use' to people assume this is equivilent to 'non customizable'. Any dedicated mac techie knows that while MacOS ain't as granular as Linux in its customizability, the perfornace loss in putting your CPU against surperfluous tasks pays back in the other advantages of the platform.
Note that I'm not arguing that MacOS is better to cluster than Linux
What I love the most is how people expect computers to be cars. Ie, if its more expensive, it had better be faster. Man, I'll take a slower and more enjoyable and pain-free computing experience any day of the week, which is why my dream setup would be OSX by default, then Linux or some BSD variant (I'm a programmer on FreeBSD), and then Windows. This holds true even in computationally-intensive tasks. If I can't enjoy the experience of doing it, I don't want to do it, even if it can be done faster or cheaper. My happiness and level of stress is more important than speed.