He and a band of anarchist acolytes long have waged war on the commercial software industry
What is wrong with anarchists? The free software development model is the epitome of an anarchist organization. I use it all the time as an example of how and why anarchy works.
Besides, at some time or other haven't we all wanted to wage war on the commercial software industry?
The actual definition for the number is "The all-in (top marginal) tax rate, calculated as the additional central and sub-central government personal income tax, plus employee social security contribution, resulting from a unit increase in gross wage earnings. The all-in rate takes account of the same aspects as the combined rate, but does in addition include employee social security contributions and if they are deductible in central government taxes etc."
Then the figure for the U.S. is incorrect. The top Federal Tax bracket is 33%, plus 15% for social security, plus state tax, let's say another 7-10%, plus local tax, let's say another 3-5%. That totals 63% on the high side. This doesn't include all the taxes on goods, services, and commodities, not to mention utility taxes, property taxes, personal property taxes, etc. It also doesn't include unemployment tax and workers compensation tax. I figured this up once and the actual nominal tax rate for a U.S. citizen in the top tax bracket is something like 83%.
And the poor American slob doesn't even get national healthcare.
So, as an American, I think that if I am going to be taxed shitless, then I might as well move to some country where I actually get a benefit for all the tax money I pay.
The sort of evolution mentioned in the header article starting this discussion is possible only in a caste system like that in India.
In the "modern" system in the USA,...
And its a shame the the world doesn't equal the USA, like all us Americans think. But, since it doesn't, we might want to think of all the "underdeveloped" parts of the world and wonder if this thesis doesn't have something going for it, other than the fact that it was an idea stolen from H.G. Wells.
It's not just you. I have read Neverwhere and Angels and Visitations, a collection of short stories and poetry, and, while I thought Neverwhere was pretty good, it had a lot of plot holes in it and, at some points became tedious. (What ever happened to the Rat Girl? Oh, maybe he just forgot her.) Angels and Visitations was pretty early work, and it showed. Most if it was boring but the stroy about the murder of an angel somewhat foreshadowed some of the themes he worked on in the comics.
In general, one cannot discharge intentional torts, such as defamation, in bankruptcy. Basically, the defendant can be garnished and collected against for the rest of her life. I assume she will never have any property titled to her again.
Each american produces about 2.3 kg of trash a day, the current rate is about 5 times that in developing countries.
Does this mean the current trash production rate in the developing world is ~.45 kg of trash per person per day or does it mean that the current trash production rate in the developing world is ~11.5 kg of trash per person per day?
MS needs to get Obsidian to bring NWN2 to the Xbox. Then we would have a mind-blowing RPG for the console. Hell, they could even talk Bioware into bringing the original NWN (well, not the original orignal, but you get the point) to the Xbox.
OK, where is SoulCalibur for 360? DoA is just not in the same league. The combat mechanics such compatred to SC and at 1080i the graphics are almost as good as the SC III graphics on PS2.
Let's see, I'm out of town and the game I just have to see is coming on. I can:
a) Go to Hooters and watch it, eat some wings and see some ass, or
b) I can sit at McDonalds, eat greasy fried, and watch it on a 1.5" screen.
Unless your dick is the same size as that cel phone screen, you are going to take option A.
Did anyone besides me find the weird parallel cracks on the extreme right side of the picture in the middle more intersting than the lame-assed aurorae?
a) reality doesn't matter, perception does
b) Isreal's stated goal of the "incursion" was to defeat Hezbollah, not destroy Lebanese infrastructure and massacre civilians
c) If Isreal could have defeated Hezbollah, it surely would have, it obviously has no qualms about causing civilian caslualties and destroying infrastructure
d) Hezbollah is still there, ergo Isreal did not achive its objective
e) Israeli perception is that Israel lost
f) The perception of the rest of the Middle East is that Israel lost
g) No one in Isreal cares what you (or I) think, but they do care what Israelis think and they do care what the other Middle Eastern countries think
g) FOXnews is a propaganda channel
No, it isn't really. You would think it would be, but it isn't. If you read any of the Israeli newspapers (and most of them are avaialble online in English) you will see that the latest Lebanon venture is viewed as an unmitigated disaster in Israel. Conversely, it is viewed as a shining success for Hezbollah--an irregular group of poorly equiped partisans handily defeating the regions reigning superpower backed by the world's real superpower, the U.S. It's a genuine modern-day David vs. Goliath story (all irony intended).
Consequently, it isn't at all surprising that career IDF functionaries are trying to find something to explain the disaster that doesn't involve personal responsibility for them or the political leadership. After all, no one wants to admit that it was just a bad idea in the first, place, that it was poorly planned and even more poorly executed. This would embolden (as it already has) the rest of the countries in the region.
What is interesting is that there is anecdotal information that Hezbollah was calling Israeli Soldiers by name when they saw them based on their interception of the communications. This tells us that: a) communications was being intercepted; b) that Hezbollah has trained Hebrew speakers; and c) that it had a significant negative psychological impact on the Israeli forces.
I'm with you on this. We have a GameCube, a PS2, an Xbox, and PC's, all for gaming. What do we play? GameCube.
Now, let's think a little. In my mind, I have seen no compelling game that I would buy an Xbox 360 to play. All the games releasd are just rehashes of Xbox games, but I can't play SoulCalibur II on the 360. The PS3 intrigues me more, but Sony has been screwing up so frequently and so badly of late, that it will be a miracle if they can get this thing to market and working. If there is nothing new to play on the 360 and Sony can't get it's product out the door in a working configuration, does Nintendo even have to do anything to win other than ship working units? And Mario, of course?
[w]hile I agree that there isn't going to be an Islamic ICBM delivering a nuclear weapon anytime soon,
Well, Pakistan is known to have both nukes and IRBM's. I have little doubt they could build an ICBM, if they wanted to, but I think they perceive their threat to be across their border with India, not on the other side of the planet. Of course, they are probably wrong about this.
The intelligence capabilities of most western European nations, notably the UNSEC members, the UN as an organization, the US, UK, and so on, all believed Iraq to be in continuing possession of the WMD that were unaccounted for after 1998 when the inspectors left.
This isn't even close to true. The IAEA believed that Iraq never restarted it's program after 1997. They also made this known to the U.S. Hence, Bush insisted the U.N. was "irrelevant." If the U.N. agreed with U.S. policy, then it would not have been "irrelevant." See http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/03/21/iraq.weapons/ among many others, if you bother to search.
Likely, it is now in the hands of nations like Syria.
Based on what, statements from the current U.S. adminstration? You need better than that. This may come as a shock to you, but most of us are aware that the President lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq.
You really need to expand your reading beyond globalsecurity.org which is simply a right-wing propaganda aggregation service. You certainly can't think that a website whose primary sources are Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Armed Forces Press Service (AFPS), and Navy News Stand has anything like an objective or even realistic view of defense issues.
It's amazing that: 1) you have canned responses for everything; 2) you refer people to propaganda sites for "education;" and 3) you don't think we should think you are part of the propaganda. Slashdotters are smarter than this. Maybe you go back to posting on Free Republic.
Why listen to anything non-podcasted, if it comes in a podcasted form? Until they figure out some way to fast forward past the crap I don't want to hear about on radio, I'll be listening to podcasts exclusively.
As an aside, does anyone else find it tedious when NPR does a bit on modern dance, say, (or some other inherently visual medium) and they try to describe it with a little soundtrack of people flopping around in a dance studio? Somehow, this just leaves me cold. With podcasts, I jsut FF past it.
Sorry, I'm not reading an article that gives someone's opinion of the top 5 games but runs 29 pages. They can scam their advertisers some other way. How does this crap even make it to slashdot. Don't we have admins or something who exercise some discretion over the selections?
On the whole, if a game can be "finished," I'm not interested in it at all. Give me open ended, skill based games with infinate replaybility every time.
If I could "finish" playing the flute, why would I even start??
Damn good point. I much prefer games like Neverwinter Nights and Age of Empires to games like Silent Hill or Myst. I see the former as games and the latter as interactive fiction, kind of like those "you pick the ending" books that used to be popular before computers.
Hello? Read up on your history. Monitoring communications is nothing new, nor are investigations such as this.
Did you know Abe Lincoln had reporters that weren't "on his side" thrown in jail?
Do you know how throughly people were monitored during WW2? Let along during other parts of the 50's through 70's?
And I suppose your point is something like "If being spied upon was good enough for my dear old Granny, then it's good enough for me"?
You know, the Catholic Church used to torture and imprison scientists whose ideas they deemed dangerous (especially so because the scientists were correct). Is this a good idea? I mean, assuming you want to live in a modern world with progress in technology and not in a Medieval pig-sty.
Wrong. Some people want the police to be in control. And then there are some who value freedom a little more. I would prefer some criminals go uncaught rather than have any limits on political speech. I realize this is a very Enlightenment-informed and therefore old school attitude in this modern age of Orwellian perpetual surveilance.
the only video format is uses is hard to make except via their software, and it does not show off the better screen quality
I think the question was "What is better than the current 5G 60GB iPod for a cheaper price?" not "What product costs the same as a 5G 60GB iPod but sucks?"
What is the point of the "better screen quality," looking at album art? If the video format is screwy and proprietary and doesn't look better on the screen than non-proprietary formats do on the iPod, what is the point of your argument?
or either they are irritated by an anonymous network they can't control and try to harrass as many people using it as they can, to try to break it down
Sad day for annonymous Internet, as more of the crap side of humanity uses services like Tor, and people who do need it, like people in China, are the ones burned.
Did it ever occur to anyone that protecting governments--all governments, not just those in China--from opposition is the very reason for taking actions like this?
Think about it: do kiddie porn and terrorism really affect more people in the world than say, domestic violence, or alcohol abuse, or even theft? Do kiddie porn and terrorism affect more people than lack of food, lack of sanitary water, low wages, or disease? Do kiddie porn and terrorism affect more people than hurricanes and tsunamis? Do kiddie porn and terrorism affect more people than war, cluster bombs, or unexploded mines?
Ah, but where are government resources spent: fighting the scourge of kiddie porn and the battling terrorists lurking under every bed.
The point of these "fights" against kiddie porn and terrorism are to get people accustomed to giving up their rights and, sure enough, even in the U.S. our rights are rapidly being eroded. A supreme Court Justice from even 30 years ago would hardly recognize the U.S. today.
Slashdot Mirror
He and a band of anarchist acolytes long have waged war on the commercial software industry
What is wrong with anarchists? The free software development model is the epitome of an anarchist organization. I use it all the time as an example of how and why anarchy works.
Besides, at some time or other haven't we all wanted to wage war on the commercial software industry?
The actual definition for the number is "The all-in (top marginal) tax rate, calculated as the additional central and sub-central government personal income tax, plus employee social security contribution, resulting from a unit increase in gross wage earnings. The all-in rate takes account of the same aspects as the combined rate, but does in addition include employee social security contributions and if they are deductible in central government taxes etc."
Then the figure for the U.S. is incorrect. The top Federal Tax bracket is 33%, plus 15% for social security, plus state tax, let's say another 7-10%, plus local tax, let's say another 3-5%. That totals 63% on the high side. This doesn't include all the taxes on goods, services, and commodities, not to mention utility taxes, property taxes, personal property taxes, etc. It also doesn't include unemployment tax and workers compensation tax. I figured this up once and the actual nominal tax rate for a U.S. citizen in the top tax bracket is something like 83%.
And the poor American slob doesn't even get national healthcare.
So, as an American, I think that if I am going to be taxed shitless, then I might as well move to some country where I actually get a benefit for all the tax money I pay.
The sort of evolution mentioned in the header article starting this discussion is possible only in a caste system like that in India. In the "modern" system in the USA,...
And its a shame the the world doesn't equal the USA, like all us Americans think. But, since it doesn't, we might want to think of all the "underdeveloped" parts of the world and wonder if this thesis doesn't have something going for it, other than the fact that it was an idea stolen from H.G. Wells.
It's not just you. I have read Neverwhere and Angels and Visitations, a collection of short stories and poetry, and, while I thought Neverwhere was pretty good, it had a lot of plot holes in it and, at some points became tedious. (What ever happened to the Rat Girl? Oh, maybe he just forgot her.) Angels and Visitations was pretty early work, and it showed. Most if it was boring but the stroy about the murder of an angel somewhat foreshadowed some of the themes he worked on in the comics.
In general, one cannot discharge intentional torts, such as defamation, in bankruptcy. Basically, the defendant can be garnished and collected against for the rest of her life. I assume she will never have any property titled to her again.
Here is one I love.
Each american produces about 2.3 kg of trash a day, the current rate is about 5 times that in developing countries.
Does this mean the current trash production rate in the developing world is ~.45 kg of trash per person per day or does it mean that the current trash production rate in the developing world is ~11.5 kg of trash per person per day?
MS needs to get Obsidian to bring NWN2 to the Xbox. Then we would have a mind-blowing RPG for the console. Hell, they could even talk Bioware into bringing the original NWN (well, not the original orignal, but you get the point) to the Xbox.
OK, where is SoulCalibur for 360? DoA is just not in the same league. The combat mechanics such compatred to SC and at 1080i the graphics are almost as good as the SC III graphics on PS2.
I couldn't agree more.
Let's see, I'm out of town and the game I just have to see is coming on. I can:
a) Go to Hooters and watch it, eat some wings and see some ass, or
b) I can sit at McDonalds, eat greasy fried, and watch it on a 1.5" screen.
Unless your dick is the same size as that cel phone screen, you are going to take option A.
A 5 page story about GUI's and not a single picture.
Some people, you just can't reach.
discovered aurorae on Mars;
Did anyone besides me find the weird parallel cracks on the extreme right side of the picture in the middle more intersting than the lame-assed aurorae?
You missed several points:
a) reality doesn't matter, perception does
b) Isreal's stated goal of the "incursion" was to defeat Hezbollah, not destroy Lebanese infrastructure and massacre civilians
c) If Isreal could have defeated Hezbollah, it surely would have, it obviously has no qualms about causing civilian caslualties and destroying infrastructure
d) Hezbollah is still there, ergo Isreal did not achive its objective
e) Israeli perception is that Israel lost
f) The perception of the rest of the Middle East is that Israel lost
g) No one in Isreal cares what you (or I) think, but they do care what Israelis think and they do care what the other Middle Eastern countries think
g) FOXnews is a propaganda channel
The real news is that this made it into the news.
No, it isn't really. You would think it would be, but it isn't. If you read any of the Israeli newspapers (and most of them are avaialble online in English) you will see that the latest Lebanon venture is viewed as an unmitigated disaster in Israel. Conversely, it is viewed as a shining success for Hezbollah--an irregular group of poorly equiped partisans handily defeating the regions reigning superpower backed by the world's real superpower, the U.S. It's a genuine modern-day David vs. Goliath story (all irony intended).
Consequently, it isn't at all surprising that career IDF functionaries are trying to find something to explain the disaster that doesn't involve personal responsibility for them or the political leadership. After all, no one wants to admit that it was just a bad idea in the first, place, that it was poorly planned and even more poorly executed. This would embolden (as it already has) the rest of the countries in the region.
What is interesting is that there is anecdotal information that Hezbollah was calling Israeli Soldiers by name when they saw them based on their interception of the communications. This tells us that: a) communications was being intercepted; b) that Hezbollah has trained Hebrew speakers; and c) that it had a significant negative psychological impact on the Israeli forces.
Another flop? Did I miss something?
I'm with you on this. We have a GameCube, a PS2, an Xbox, and PC's, all for gaming. What do we play? GameCube.
Now, let's think a little. In my mind, I have seen no compelling game that I would buy an Xbox 360 to play. All the games releasd are just rehashes of Xbox games, but I can't play SoulCalibur II on the 360. The PS3 intrigues me more, but Sony has been screwing up so frequently and so badly of late, that it will be a miracle if they can get this thing to market and working. If there is nothing new to play on the 360 and Sony can't get it's product out the door in a working configuration, does Nintendo even have to do anything to win other than ship working units? And Mario, of course?
[w]hile I agree that there isn't going to be an Islamic ICBM delivering a nuclear weapon anytime soon,
Well, Pakistan is known to have both nukes and IRBM's. I have little doubt they could build an ICBM, if they wanted to, but I think they perceive their threat to be across their border with India, not on the other side of the planet. Of course, they are probably wrong about this.
The intelligence capabilities of most western European nations, notably the UNSEC members, the UN as an organization, the US, UK, and so on, all believed Iraq to be in continuing possession of the WMD that were unaccounted for after 1998 when the inspectors left.
This isn't even close to true. The IAEA believed that Iraq never restarted it's program after 1997. They also made this known to the U.S. Hence, Bush insisted the U.N. was "irrelevant." If the U.N. agreed with U.S. policy, then it would not have been "irrelevant." See http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/03/21/iraq.weapons/ among many others, if you bother to search.
Likely, it is now in the hands of nations like Syria.
Based on what, statements from the current U.S. adminstration? You need better than that. This may come as a shock to you, but most of us are aware that the President lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq.
You really need to expand your reading beyond globalsecurity.org which is simply a right-wing propaganda aggregation service. You certainly can't think that a website whose primary sources are Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Armed Forces Press Service (AFPS), and Navy News Stand has anything like an objective or even realistic view of defense issues.
It's amazing that: 1) you have canned responses for everything; 2) you refer people to propaganda sites for "education;" and 3) you don't think we should think you are part of the propaganda. Slashdotters are smarter than this. Maybe you go back to posting on Free Republic.
When I hear the word "Brown," I always think of two things: Cleveland and shit. OK, I guess that was just one thing, but you get the point.
Why listen to anything non-podcasted, if it comes in a podcasted form? Until they figure out some way to fast forward past the crap I don't want to hear about on radio, I'll be listening to podcasts exclusively.
As an aside, does anyone else find it tedious when NPR does a bit on modern dance, say, (or some other inherently visual medium) and they try to describe it with a little soundtrack of people flopping around in a dance studio? Somehow, this just leaves me cold. With podcasts, I jsut FF past it.
Sorry, I'm not reading an article that gives someone's opinion of the top 5 games but runs 29 pages. They can scam their advertisers some other way. How does this crap even make it to slashdot. Don't we have admins or something who exercise some discretion over the selections?
On the whole, if a game can be "finished," I'm not interested in it at all. Give me open ended, skill based games with infinate replaybility every time.
If I could "finish" playing the flute, why would I even start??
Damn good point. I much prefer games like Neverwinter Nights and Age of Empires to games like Silent Hill or Myst. I see the former as games and the latter as interactive fiction, kind of like those "you pick the ending" books that used to be popular before computers.
Hello? Read up on your history. Monitoring communications is nothing new, nor are investigations such as this.
Did you know Abe Lincoln had reporters that weren't "on his side" thrown in jail?
Do you know how throughly people were monitored during WW2? Let along during other parts of the 50's through 70's?
And I suppose your point is something like "If being spied upon was good enough for my dear old Granny, then it's good enough for me"?
You know, the Catholic Church used to torture and imprison scientists whose ideas they deemed dangerous (especially so because the scientists were correct). Is this a good idea? I mean, assuming you want to live in a modern world with progress in technology and not in a Medieval pig-sty.
People want the police to be in control.
Wrong. Some people want the police to be in control. And then there are some who value freedom a little more. I would prefer some criminals go uncaught rather than have any limits on political speech. I realize this is a very Enlightenment-informed and therefore old school attitude in this modern age of Orwellian perpetual surveilance.
Don't know about you, but $399.00 for the http://onlinestore.cowonamerica.com/index.asp?Page Action=VIEWCATS&Category=6060 Gig iAudio X5 looks a lot like $399.00 for the http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore.woa/wo/1.RSLID?mco=CC4D3CBB&nclm=iPod60 Gig iPod
Maybe where you live the prices are different or they do math wrong.
the only video format is uses is hard to make except via their software, and it does not show off the better screen quality
I think the question was "What is better than the current 5G 60GB iPod for a cheaper price?" not "What product costs the same as a 5G 60GB iPod but sucks?"
What is the point of the "better screen quality," looking at album art? If the video format is screwy and proprietary and doesn't look better on the screen than non-proprietary formats do on the iPod, what is the point of your argument?
or either they are irritated by an anonymous network they can't control and try to harrass as many people using it as they can, to try to break it down
Bingo!
Sad day for annonymous Internet, as more of the crap side of humanity uses services like Tor, and people who do need it, like people in China, are the ones burned.
Did it ever occur to anyone that protecting governments--all governments, not just those in China--from opposition is the very reason for taking actions like this?
Think about it: do kiddie porn and terrorism really affect more people in the world than say, domestic violence, or alcohol abuse, or even theft? Do kiddie porn and terrorism affect more people than lack of food, lack of sanitary water, low wages, or disease? Do kiddie porn and terrorism affect more people than hurricanes and tsunamis? Do kiddie porn and terrorism affect more people than war, cluster bombs, or unexploded mines?
Ah, but where are government resources spent: fighting the scourge of kiddie porn and the battling terrorists lurking under every bed.
The point of these "fights" against kiddie porn and terrorism are to get people accustomed to giving up their rights and, sure enough, even in the U.S. our rights are rapidly being eroded. A supreme Court Justice from even 30 years ago would hardly recognize the U.S. today.