Threaten M$ with litigation of some form even though they promised not to sue but it is still impacting on your business.... makes for a pretty tight spot.
I'll bet somebody's going to have to actually sue (not just "threaten") to get that list. I hope it happens soon.
That's the apparent goal of the Intel/Microsoft thing (i.e., get 'em hooked on Windows), but not the OLPC project. If it were, the OLPC people would have chosen more "normal" software.
So? Regardless of which kinds of investments are "better" (in terms of interest rate, I assume), the law of compound interest universally means it's better to start earlier rather than later.
Children are not born with an instictive knowledge of how to use comptuers, the internet, or English, all of which are items which are pretty much requistes of being able to find a use for these outside of making a few bucks on the black market.
When poor Nigerians got access to the internet, they didn't use it to primarily to better themselves--they used it to set up scams, relay points for identity theft, etc.
You're not making any sense. They did better themselves (economically if not morally); the scams were the mechanism for doing so.
Sooner or later Nigerans will accumulate enough of their own wealth to want to protect it, at which point they'll crack down on the scammers themselves.
If you give a child a meal, he eats for a day. If you give a child a way to learn about farming (e.g. looking it up on the Internet), he eats for a lifetime.
But how will we be able to exploit these populations for profit if we don't get them addicted to expensive electronic gadgets?
Everything about the XO (the actual name of the OLPC project computer) is open source. That includes both software and hardware designs. If these countries had the proper facilities, they could, and would be quite welcome to, build it themselves and keep the money in their own economy.
I think maybe you're right that I should have swallowed my pride and accepted money from my friends when they offered. Several people that I don't even know have offered to give me money since I started the blog, but I keep turning it down because I keep thinking I'll be able to take care of it myself.
Think of it this way: the longer you go without having this fixed, the deeper the hole you're digging yourself into in terms of retirement savings. Compound interest is working against you.
Besides, think of the assistance as loans instead of charity: the sooner you fix things, the sooner you can pay it back. And the sooner you'll start feeling better about yourself.
The guys I saw were wearing thick flannel or sweatshirts too. Don't get me wrong, I can't imagine how any sane person could deal with it either, but it's really not just Mexicans who dress like that.
The difference between the FairTax and income tax is that income tax is highly progressive (higher-income people pay a larger percentage of their income) while the FairTax is highly regressive (lower-income people spend a higher percentage of their income, which would be taxed, while higher-income people would invest instead, which would not be taxed).
Personally, I like the FairTax anyway, despite the fact that it would be harmful to me in the short run (as I'm a low-income college student), because it would encourage people to invest their money instead of drowning themselves in debt. The current savings rate is something like negative 3%, and that'll destroy the entire economy unless something is done about it.
Plus, eliminating the IRS (and associated paperwork that every company and individual in the country has to fill out) would save a bunch of money by itself.
They do better in the sun, too; many's the day I drive past a vineyard (I live amongst a number of them) and see some Mexicans out in the sun wearing hooded sweatshirts because 80 degrees ain't hot enough for 'em or something. I shit you not.
They do that to prevent sunburn: opaque fabric works much better than sunblock, especially when you're sweating. And it's not only Mexicans that do this; I recently visited a construction site here in Atlanta (with 80+ degree heat) and all the construction workers (of which the majority were white) were wearing long-sleeve shrits and jeans. I imagine they didn't wear hoods because they had hard hats instead.
No, all illegal immigrants should be immediately deported because they broke the law. Then the quotas should be relaxed so that we can allow more people (other than the ones that just got deported) to immigrate legally.
By your logic, we should support a bill to make all the illegal immigrants legal, taxpaying citizens, and then enforce tax laws with deportation.
No, we should deport all illegal immigrants (hint: the word "illegal" is there to indicate that they've already broken the law!), tighten the borders so that they can't get back in illegally, and loosen immigration quotas so that more people can get here legally. Of course, the people who got deported should be ineligable for legal immigration under the new regulations for a period of several years, as a punishment for coming illegally before.
Parents are now prosperous enough that they can support their teen's needs and wants to the point that they don't want to go out and work part time for $5.15 or even $7/hour for extra spending money
That's part of the reason; the other part is that the kind of unskilled labor jobs teens get are also getting filled by illegal immmigrants and older people that got laid off and were unable to find any job in their field due to the bad economy.
Shame the government has a few million times more of them than you do. And rather a lot more people experienced in using them (and willing to do so), and better equipment to fire them and defend against them. And lots of pieces of paper which the majority of people think grants them more right to use their ammo against you than vice versa.
If it ever got bad enough that civil war were justified, a big chunk of those people would break with the government themselves and fight with you.
(Side note: it's getting close enough to that point that I made sure to phrase the previous statement as a hypothetical, for fear of being put on some kind of watch list. Now that's scary!)
I've been reading your blog (your situation is making me physically sick, by the way), and I've got a question: why did you pay (and thus plead guilty to) those bogus traffic tickets in the first place? Had you contested them, the worst-case scenario would have been to be found guilty, which you were anyway but you would have had at least a chance of winning. At the very least you would have been able to tell your story to a judge, and inconvenience the asshole cops.
Also, by the way: if you're indigent, the state will appoint you an attourney for free (especially for felony offenses, like the license suspension). Regardless of what those clerks said "should" happen, you should take advantage of that oppertunity -- you might be able to get some free advice about your situation in general.
Although I'm not a lawyer, I do have more experience in [traffic] court than I care to admit. So please, always fight your tickets! By pleading guilty, not only did you let the abusive cops win, cost yourself $300, and set yourself up for the license suspension trouble, you've also probably made it that much harder to clear your name (as the dichotomy between a convicted felon and a guy who's never had so much as a traffic ticket is mch wider than the felon and a guy who's been in enough trouble to get his license suspended, even if in error).
Bottom line: you need competent legal representation, and you need it now. Suck up your pride, and get your parents and friends to help you pay for it.
If you hold them to their stated reason (or rather, excuse) for the punishment, it's for "disrupting the class." 40 days is several orders of magnitude too extreme. It's like executing somebody for spitting out their gum on the sidewalk.
No, they're punishing him for embarrassing the teacher (and exercising his rights), and now they're just trying to cover their asses.
Imagine buying a 500 gig hard drive, but once it's out of the box you discover the company has shipped you a 375 gig drive.
This is what they do! They advertise (as per your 500 GB example) 500 * 2^40 = 549755813888000 bytes, but only deliver 500 * 10^12 = 500000000000000 bytes, so you're getting short-changed 45 gigabytes. Sure, 455 GB better than 375 GB, but it's still a huge difference from 500 GB!
Maybe what the kernel developers have said about it?
You mean other than Linus (who, by the way, is now "pretty pleased" about the newest draft because his concerns were addressed)? Cite sources like I just did.
Maybe MySQL's abstinence from adopting it?
That's better. Actually mentioning "MySQL" was enough to lead me to this, which does back up your claim. You should note, however, that according to that article MySQL doesn't actually have any particular philosophical disagreement with the GPLv3 itself.
Maybe the fact that I haven't read about or heard of anyone who works with Linux commercially in any way who wants to touch it with an 18 foot pole, but I in fact have read large amounts about companies saying exactly the opposite?
Which companies?
Again, I don't say what you want to hear, and I don't support the standard groupthink, so I'm a troll, I'm on your foes list, and it is insisted that I shut the fuck up.
No, you failed to back up your claim, which is the hallmark of a troll (along with insulting your audience, which you also did -- and which you failed to acknowledge now). That's why you got put on my "foes" list, and that's why I told you to "shut the fuck up" -- it seemed very unlikely that you had anything constructive to say, because you presented yourself so poorly.
You said you don't see a lot in support of my argument; I'm seeing that the only thing you really have in support of yours is your attempt to silence me.
What argument am I trying to support? If you re-read what I wrote, you'll see that I never actually disputed the truthfulness of your claim; the only argument I'm trying to make is that your failure to provide any basis for it (not to mention your confrontational attitude) isn't useful.
You're kidding, right? The recent (and ongoing!) scandal with AT&T and the NSA should have taught you by now that the government will try to spy whether it owns the networks or not, and corporations are more likely than not to enthusiastically oblige!
If you want privacy, use encryption. Any "solution" that depends on the government, corporations, or any third party being trustworthy is bunk.
I get about 20 or so and they're ALL encrypted so I can't even bum off someone else's connection!
Two thoughts:
Wi-Fi encryption is weak. Get some software to crack it and bum off somebody's connection anyway.
Take charge of the situation: set up a community meeting and work out a plan to equip the apartment complex with one shared Wi-Fi connection. If you can't get signal, chances are nobody else can either, and they'll welcome the idea. Besides, if you do it right you should be able to make everybody's connection both cheaper and faster than the 20 separate cable or DSL connections they're probably getting now!
That's true, but the introductory sentences have the wrong tone. I'm not sure how exactly to fix it, but it sounds too much like something out of Uncyclopedia (or maybe the Onion).
No, we'll call it astroturf beacuse you're being an asshole by first, defaming the people you're talking to, and second, repeatedly stating an assertion without backing it up with any actual evidence. You didn't need the survey to tell you the GPLv3 is unpopular; fine. What did tell you that?
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I had the urge to explain exactly why you need to shut the fuck up anyway.
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I'll bet somebody's going to have to actually sue (not just "threaten") to get that list. I hope it happens soon.
That's the apparent goal of the Intel/Microsoft thing (i.e., get 'em hooked on Windows), but not the OLPC project. If it were, the OLPC people would have chosen more "normal" software.
So? Regardless of which kinds of investments are "better" (in terms of interest rate, I assume), the law of compound interest universally means it's better to start earlier rather than later.
I guess I have to link to this again...
Well, it's a good thing he can look up war tactics and how to build weapons too, then!
You're not making any sense. They did better themselves (economically if not morally); the scams were the mechanism for doing so.
Sooner or later Nigerans will accumulate enough of their own wealth to want to protect it, at which point they'll crack down on the scammers themselves.
If you give a child a meal, he eats for a day. If you give a child a way to learn about farming (e.g. looking it up on the Internet), he eats for a lifetime.
Everything about the XO (the actual name of the OLPC project computer) is open source. That includes both software and hardware designs. If these countries had the proper facilities, they could, and would be quite welcome to, build it themselves and keep the money in their own economy.
Think of it this way: the longer you go without having this fixed, the deeper the hole you're digging yourself into in terms of retirement savings. Compound interest is working against you.
Besides, think of the assistance as loans instead of charity: the sooner you fix things, the sooner you can pay it back. And the sooner you'll start feeling better about yourself.
The guys I saw were wearing thick flannel or sweatshirts too. Don't get me wrong, I can't imagine how any sane person could deal with it either, but it's really not just Mexicans who dress like that.
The difference between the FairTax and income tax is that income tax is highly progressive (higher-income people pay a larger percentage of their income) while the FairTax is highly regressive (lower-income people spend a higher percentage of their income, which would be taxed, while higher-income people would invest instead, which would not be taxed).
Personally, I like the FairTax anyway, despite the fact that it would be harmful to me in the short run (as I'm a low-income college student), because it would encourage people to invest their money instead of drowning themselves in debt. The current savings rate is something like negative 3%, and that'll destroy the entire economy unless something is done about it.
Plus, eliminating the IRS (and associated paperwork that every company and individual in the country has to fill out) would save a bunch of money by itself.
They do that to prevent sunburn: opaque fabric works much better than sunblock, especially when you're sweating. And it's not only Mexicans that do this; I recently visited a construction site here in Atlanta (with 80+ degree heat) and all the construction workers (of which the majority were white) were wearing long-sleeve shrits and jeans. I imagine they didn't wear hoods because they had hard hats instead.
No, all illegal immigrants should be immediately deported because they broke the law. Then the quotas should be relaxed so that we can allow more people (other than the ones that just got deported) to immigrate legally.
No, we should deport all illegal immigrants (hint: the word "illegal" is there to indicate that they've already broken the law!), tighten the borders so that they can't get back in illegally, and loosen immigration quotas so that more people can get here legally. Of course, the people who got deported should be ineligable for legal immigration under the new regulations for a period of several years, as a punishment for coming illegally before.
That's part of the reason; the other part is that the kind of unskilled labor jobs teens get are also getting filled by illegal immmigrants and older people that got laid off and were unable to find any job in their field due to the bad economy.
Neither. The wages gradually decreased (relative to inflation) as the number of illegal immigrants gradually increased.
If it ever got bad enough that civil war were justified, a big chunk of those people would break with the government themselves and fight with you.
(Side note: it's getting close enough to that point that I made sure to phrase the previous statement as a hypothetical, for fear of being put on some kind of watch list. Now that's scary!)
I've been reading your blog (your situation is making me physically sick, by the way), and I've got a question: why did you pay (and thus plead guilty to) those bogus traffic tickets in the first place? Had you contested them, the worst-case scenario would have been to be found guilty, which you were anyway but you would have had at least a chance of winning. At the very least you would have been able to tell your story to a judge, and inconvenience the asshole cops.
Also, by the way: if you're indigent, the state will appoint you an attourney for free (especially for felony offenses, like the license suspension). Regardless of what those clerks said "should" happen, you should take advantage of that oppertunity -- you might be able to get some free advice about your situation in general.
Although I'm not a lawyer, I do have more experience in [traffic] court than I care to admit. So please, always fight your tickets! By pleading guilty, not only did you let the abusive cops win, cost yourself $300, and set yourself up for the license suspension trouble, you've also probably made it that much harder to clear your name (as the dichotomy between a convicted felon and a guy who's never had so much as a traffic ticket is mch wider than the felon and a guy who's been in enough trouble to get his license suspended, even if in error).
Bottom line: you need competent legal representation, and you need it now. Suck up your pride, and get your parents and friends to help you pay for it.
If you hold them to their stated reason (or rather, excuse) for the punishment, it's for "disrupting the class." 40 days is several orders of magnitude too extreme. It's like executing somebody for spitting out their gum on the sidewalk.
No, they're punishing him for embarrassing the teacher (and exercising his rights), and now they're just trying to cover their asses.
This is what they do! They advertise (as per your 500 GB example) 500 * 2^40 = 549755813888000 bytes, but only deliver 500 * 10^12 = 500000000000000 bytes, so you're getting short-changed 45 gigabytes. Sure, 455 GB better than 375 GB, but it's still a huge difference from 500 GB!
You mean other than Linus (who, by the way, is now "pretty pleased" about the newest draft because his concerns were addressed)? Cite sources like I just did.
That's better. Actually mentioning "MySQL" was enough to lead me to this, which does back up your claim. You should note, however, that according to that article MySQL doesn't actually have any particular philosophical disagreement with the GPLv3 itself.
Which companies?
No, you failed to back up your claim, which is the hallmark of a troll (along with insulting your audience, which you also did -- and which you failed to acknowledge now). That's why you got put on my "foes" list, and that's why I told you to "shut the fuck up" -- it seemed very unlikely that you had anything constructive to say, because you presented yourself so poorly.
What argument am I trying to support? If you re-read what I wrote, you'll see that I never actually disputed the truthfulness of your claim; the only argument I'm trying to make is that your failure to provide any basis for it (not to mention your confrontational attitude) isn't useful.
You're kidding, right? The recent (and ongoing!) scandal with AT&T and the NSA should have taught you by now that the government will try to spy whether it owns the networks or not, and corporations are more likely than not to enthusiastically oblige!
If you want privacy, use encryption. Any "solution" that depends on the government, corporations, or any third party being trustworthy is bunk.
Two thoughts:
That's true, but the introductory sentences have the wrong tone. I'm not sure how exactly to fix it, but it sounds too much like something out of Uncyclopedia (or maybe the Onion).
No, we'll call it astroturf beacuse you're being an asshole by first, defaming the people you're talking to, and second, repeatedly stating an assertion without backing it up with any actual evidence. You didn't need the survey to tell you the GPLv3 is unpopular; fine. What did tell you that?
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I had the urge to explain exactly why you need to shut the fuck up anyway.