The problem isn't the application of Austrian Economics... it's the mistaken belief in the benevolence of the State. If we were to attempt a logical free market with an arbiter that has nothing to gain by backing one entity over another, we'd be a lot better off. However, we have allowed the State (and by that, I mean the Federal Government) to become the referee in a WWE wrestling match... not impartial, not concerned with the tenets of a level playing field, and certainly not concerned about the audience.
Until we can break the illusion that the State is benevolent and only wants what is good for us, we'll have people ridiculing Austrian Economics (indeed free market in general) like it was some sort of curse and the effective "trading of one slave master for another"....
It's a deliberate act of douchbaggery by kernel developers to force manufacturers to open source their drivers
Since the manufacturers have been such douches about their drivers in the first place, I don't see the kernel devs doing anything but giving the manufacturers a taste of their own medicine. (If this is indeed a valid argument to begin with.) Why do manufacturers close their drivers? In this day and age, it doesn't make any sense... are the 'secret' bits of the chip or device design under such closed conditions that any sort of OSS support leaves the manufacturer vulnerable to losing their so-called 'IP' to rivals? I find that suspicious, and I think it's just a smokescreen to stop OSS driver development from taking away resources from their "windows" division. That's just speculation of course, but hey, since we're all speculating...:)
You do realize that under a functional democratic government, the will of the state is approximately the same as the will of a majority of its people, right?
Government should never be used as a behavior modifier for something as nebulous as this study (or the violent video game crap... or the pot ban... or the ban on 32oz sodas in NYC). If it causes real harm, it can be handled the way we handle truly harmful things. Let the parents handle the recommendations and if they don't follow them (and something bad does happen), they can be held accountable (like giving alcohol to a 5 year old... etc), but "banning" something doesn't stop it from happening (War on Drugs anyone?), so why inflict more stifling restraint on people who don't have kids? Why punish the individual who does treat his/her child properly and with love, but may let the kid watch a smidge too much TV if the only thing that happened to said child is the parent violated a "ban"?
Banning the sale of "violent" video games hasn't stopped kids from playing them. Labeling music as "explicit" hasn't stopped kids from listening to it. So what does banning TV for kids under 3 hope to accomplish? And how would they enforce it? Would you be required by law to give up your TV when you welcome your new bundle of joy into the world? Or would they send the TV police out dressed as Barney and Big Bird and make sure you're not letting your kid watch too much TV or at all? Where does this absurdity end? Did Prohibition stop all consumption of alcohol? I fail to see how this "ban" on TV for kids under 3 is not going to work. It just takes more liberty from you... and whittles away your freedom that the government has no right to take in the first place.
The TV isn't inherently evil. It can be abused, but at the same time, banning it for a certain demographic gives the state ammo to say "too much TV makes adults overly flatulent" and blammo! Another ban for "the good of the community...." Yeah, I'd rather the government not have that power. I never consented to get told I can't buy a 32oz soda because Bloomberg's a fucking busybody.... And I don't need Nanny State hovering to make sure I don't watch too much of the idiot box... or my kids. That's my job.
I watched TV for years... mom would set me in front of the boob tube in my swing and I turned out jim dandy. The upside is I can remember tons and tons of commercial jingles, usually while sitting down ironically enough.
Seriously though, limits are important. Limits set by parents. The Nanny State is quite adamant about making sure they are involved in your private lives. Too many people simply surrender control to the almighty state. It's baffling.
I took a couple of classes in high school (mid-to-late-80s)... and they were pretty much on TRS-80 Model 3's and 4's. I already learned a little about BASIC since I had been using it on the Atari/C64 for about 4-5 years at that point. (I would've liked some assembly/low level stuff, but it was self-motivated when they got to a BASIC "concept" I already knew about.) What the low level snooping taught me (between bouts of playing Telengard) helped immensely when I started giving myself infinite lives in games and fiddling with the 68000 (on my shiny, new-to-me used Amiga and Action Replay add-on.)
I was already interested in computers by the time I took any classes on it, so I pretty much was self-taught until college, when I took courses to supplement my love of computers... It's been downhill ever since.:) I finished my intro C language class in college on my Amiga with Lattice C. The campus bookstore had a good deal on it.:)
Most of the "PC" computers were limited to the secretarial classes that my high school taught... so we didn't fiddle with DOS officially. There was an Apple 2 in the Home Economics department that we used to play Gemstone Warrior before school. (I think it was actually used to show cross-stitch patterns). Nothing like playing Gemstone Warrior on a monochrome screen.:) Computers were still a novelty or a niche product when I was growing up. Most people hated them, and most people thought they were toys. I'm 42 now, and my only regret is not focusing my efforts earlier to make my own utilities and games. I used my skills to forward my pathetic gaming capability...:)
What's really funny is that all those things occur now with our "socialist governance" here in the United States. So you're basically pointing out that you don't understand what free means. Free doesn't mean unchecked. Free means unmanipulated. The government acts as facilitator for established companies in the market because those companies know that they can buy legislation favoring their established market at the expense of the rest of the emerging market (you see this every day with Cable companies).
Furthermore, a non-committed arbiter that can handle disputes in the market with no personal gain (something the government cannot do now) prevents most of your items from occurring. How? When the government has no stake in who wins... things work as they should. We are far from that. People think that when someone says "free market" that they're promoting robber barons and evil to run amok. It is another in a long line of misunderstood ideas about free markets. It's easy to think the government can do something when they pretend to do so when it's election time. The trouble is, the government we want to referee the free market doesn't exist... so by the very nature of our current crony-capitalistic state we cannot achieve anything close to a free market, even if we could eliminate some of the corruption between corporations and the government. We can't because we think the government is doing "the right thing" and all those "evil free marketeers" are just trying to squash the middle class or some other nonsense.
When the government can't be purchased by corporations and legislation can't be railroaded through... we can start to have a free market. That's a pipe-dream I fear, however. Because quite frankly. too many people think like you do and shut off logic. If we got a Constitutionally limited government that we're supposed to have, money couldn't be used to corrupt the free market because the government COULDN'T manipulate things. It's pretty simple, really... but most people are still hung up on the "evil free marketeers" to get past the nonsense and towards the real facts.
Well, if it's any consolation Shamalamadingdong isn't writing it... he's just directing it.:) That should be enough to save it from the "twist" factor.:) At least I hope so.
That was a great read...:) What's funny is I think MacBook Pro's are "shiny for the stupid"... but then again, I'm not their target demographic because I hate Starbuck's and don't wear hipster glasses.:)
I think it has been said (elswhere in the discussion) that the stagnation (and Microsoftization) of netbooks caused their premature demise. I expect that people who want a MBP or Air already have enough cash to get one (or a CC with a high limit)... but for the vast majority of the population, they want something they can afford... Netbooks started that way, but went south without a bump up (and artificial restrictions set by Redmond).... *shrug* I still like my netbook.:) But it runs Crunchbang not XP.
People with their heads in the sand can't see it anyway. Microsoft has threatened Linux (and all those who use it) for decades... "Linux violates tons of our patents"... etc. They are anti-OSS. They won't change just because they release this into the wild. They only use free when they can cut off a competitor at the knees (Netscape...) and they force enough of a lock-in with a shit-tacular non-standards compliant browser, we're STILL digging out of the mess Microsoft made because they couldn't bother to conform to existing standards, what 9 versions now FFS?
There won't be a great "I told you so" coming from the OSS "nutcases" (well, except for RMS... he's always pointing it out...) It'll just be another in a long line of things broken, co-opted, shot in the foot, and left to whither that Microsoft is famous for.
What part of "It is Microsoft" don't you get? I understand the license... I understand that you can fork it. That doesn't prevent Microsoft from withholding new features behind a derived library license, does it? I don't see how they can, but then again, Lawyers have already come up with it at Redmond... rest assured, they will monetize it after its gotten enough penetration in the market.
Everyone likes to bring up C#... which is simply Microsoft's answer to "not being able to put its own MFC extensions in Java" (Remember visual J++)?
I got one thing that will make this entire rant of yours moot. Microsoft claims it has "thousands of patents" that Linux violates. A company that threatens that is NOT friendly to the Open Source community. They aren't. You can't spin it, wiggle it or jack it off until it is... it's simply not true. Microsoft HATES Open Source (decries it at every turn... spends millions getting SCO the Patent Troll to sue over it) and you think because this is currently under an Apache license it's all okay and roses?
I wouldn't say they "sell so many" MacBook Pros... Apple is, after all, about 12% of the market in PCs sold (and they have iMacs, Minis, etc.) They did enjoy a bump this year while everyone else declined... (not much of one, but a bump nonetheless.)
It seems everyone's facing a crunch. Apple's margins are so high, I doubt they notice. But, this brings up a question... why is the decline in their Mac lineup continuing when it peaked a few years back? I don't know the answer to that. As for netbooks... I like my netbook, but then again, I put Linux on it and upped the RAM (and got a nicer, larger battery)... it works like a champ. Microsoft really poisoned the netbook realm with their artificial restrictions on XP equipped netbooks (only 1 MB of RAM, etc.) I also think the "bandwangoneers" of netbook makers really just saturated the market. Before the netbook, companies were claiming you couldn't make a cheap laptop... Of course Larry Ellison (when he was trying to sell thin clients) famously quipped that there was no way a PC would break the $500 price point.:)
Ultrabooks are a solution looking for a problem. The demographic who will pay that much for a laptop already bleed Apple grey. The rest of us think it's overpriced hype.:)
If you want to dick measure... where do you think C# got its core constructs from? Intelligent aliens? EVERYTHING has come from open-sourced languages... you don't GET where C# is (or Java for that matter) without Lisp, Scheme, etc. Hell, Lisp had if/then/else constructs before ANY other language... it didn't come from IBM, either...
That's the bloody point. Microsoft has a history of screwing things over once they get what they perceive as majority mindshare. The fact that Microsoft is behind it makes EVERYONE (except those on the payroll of Redmond) suspicious. Their track record speaks for itself. Google it... better yet, Bing it so you won't blame google for "FUD".
Honestly, are you that enamored with Microsoft that you can't see the facts as plain as day? This isn't speculation... Microsoft HAS fucked over plenty of things first by making it free, then extending it, and later fucking the alternatives out of business. It makes me sad you can't see that.
Interesting... while it is far-fetched and most likely a fusing of many stories into one "meta" story about trolling (though as I've pointed out elsewhere in the thread that 'trolling' isn't what this blog entry describes), I am now more curious about the details than I was initially reading it (I was not convinced the "IT genius" was using legal means to track the perp... I just thought they got lucky, considering.)
At the very least your link provides some doubt to the veracity of the claims made by Traynor. That should be enough healthy skepticism to invalidate the entire story, to be honest.
It is assuming he is mentally ill. He could just be a fucking cocksucker who needs to be placed out of society before he kills someone. I am not qualified to know if he's in need of help or cornholed by a huge black guy named Thunderdick. But something needs to be done, or we'll all be reading about this asshat's killing spree with our Post Toasties.
I tend to agree with that... how I read it is he was crying because he got caught, not because he realized his stalking was a bad idea. If he had kept it to online nonsense, you could write it off as a bored moron who needs a swift kick in the ass, but when he started the whole mailing of packages thing, well, now the fucker needs locked up, or at the very least institutionalized until they can figure out what the flying fuck is wrong with his brain.
I'm ambivalent to the whole Internet Fuckwad Syndrome, because it's nothing to get pissed about... but when it moves outside to the real world, well, that is when it needs to be prosecuted harshly. This isn't a Troll... this is a psychopath. It's like the word 'hacker'... non-techies have co-opted a word and changed its meaning. (Unlike 'cyberbullying'... which is a term coined by technophobes about trolling...)...that's for another thread, though...
Yes, but I suppose it could be that it's the stupid they know, rather than the stupid they don't (obama over romney)...;) Politicians in general are all big friggin' idiots, so it's really trying to pick one that didn't eat as much lead paint chips as a child. (Sometimes I wonder....)
not an attempt to express a controversial viewpoint as much as something meant entirely to inflame and incense a volatile situation
No it wasn't. Not even close. The government, as usual, is full of shit and working the crowd, not doing what is right. Nowhere in that film does it say "Rise up! Kill Americans", which is the only possibility to equate this silly bit of digital film with yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater. So what if he knew the thin-skinned idiots in the Middle East would riot? (Let's be frank, the Libya incident has been proven to be something OTHER than the movie)...
If someone gets offended enough to want to riot and kill, then that's their problem for not being a functioning adult. And causing public backlash isn't a criteria for restricting speech, because if so, the KKK or Black Panthers wouldn't be allowed to march, because clearly they do it to poke and prod. The difference is, civilized people aren't prone to ransacking KFC's and defacing embassies. Those that are get arrested. That's the difference between the civilized world and the world of Islam.
Shut up, Biden. Go back to your coloring books. Obama is going to skate in for 4 more years because people are stupid, not because Romney's an idiot. Obama's an idiot, but no one seems to care because he's throwing money around like a drunken titty bar patron.
We don't know. With Obama, at least we found out that he executed American citizens. Who knows WTF Bush and Cheney did?
Really, that's not as comforting as it sounds.:) And considering the complicity of the press under Obama, I wonder how complicity under Bush would've been able to cover up such things... I figure this much is true... we have lost our greatest weapon against tyranny: A completely free press. It's lock-step with Obama (it's nauseating to see the leg humping most of the Press Corps does in the presence of Obama the magnificent.)
I don't think we'd have found out Obama did the drone attack on an American citizen if he didn't feel so goddamned proud about it. I don't think he expected the reaction he got, to be honest. It's probably the same reaction he got when he saw Hilary's penis for the first time.
While it's fun to think that China's got a stranglehold on the US, the truth is the economies are so intertwined and dependent upon each other neither side would do anything other that a futile bit of posturing now and again for press points. The Federal Reserve holds most of the US government's debt, not China. So the "doomsday" scenario about China "cashing in" on US debt is unfounded as well, but hey, it sells newspapers I guess. (China has about 8% iirc.)
As for US power.. it's difficult not to equate influence with power. Power, the US has got loads of. It has burned a great deal of goodwill over the years, that is true. Most countries meddle in the affairs of other nations, but the US is pretty obvious about it. That being said, I don't defend their actions in Afghanistan or Iraq... nor do I believe the US should be financing every two-bit dictator that shits between a pair of jackboots. The "political consequences" of the last decade or so of activity is that no one in the Middle East likes us (besides Israel I suppose). The fun fact is, they haven't liked us in decades. That doesn't excuse certain actions by past (and current) Presidents, but it is nothing new.
So, while it's fun to deride the US and all its "cowboy antics" as it strolls across the globe being nosy and pushy... we should really stop spreading FUD... I wonder if Tom Clancy would write a novel about Chinese drone attacks? Hell, Japan and China are in a pissing contest right now for some islands (I can't recall off the top of my head)... and there's always the Taiwan angle where the US is quite belligerent and China rattles sabers now and again... it amounts to a tempest in a teapot. We are smarter than this on/. (well most of us). We can see through the 24-hour news cycle hype machine. Are there problems? Absolutely. But let's not get ahead of ourselves... that's all I'm saying.
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The problem isn't the application of Austrian Economics... it's the mistaken belief in the benevolence of the State. If we were to attempt a logical free market with an arbiter that has nothing to gain by backing one entity over another, we'd be a lot better off. However, we have allowed the State (and by that, I mean the Federal Government) to become the referee in a WWE wrestling match... not impartial, not concerned with the tenets of a level playing field, and certainly not concerned about the audience.
Until we can break the illusion that the State is benevolent and only wants what is good for us, we'll have people ridiculing Austrian Economics (indeed free market in general) like it was some sort of curse and the effective "trading of one slave master for another"....
It's a deliberate act of douchbaggery by kernel developers to force manufacturers to open source their drivers
Since the manufacturers have been such douches about their drivers in the first place, I don't see the kernel devs doing anything but giving the manufacturers a taste of their own medicine. (If this is indeed a valid argument to begin with.) Why do manufacturers close their drivers? In this day and age, it doesn't make any sense... are the 'secret' bits of the chip or device design under such closed conditions that any sort of OSS support leaves the manufacturer vulnerable to losing their so-called 'IP' to rivals? I find that suspicious, and I think it's just a smokescreen to stop OSS driver development from taking away resources from their "windows" division. That's just speculation of course, but hey, since we're all speculating... :)
You do realize that under a functional democratic government, the will of the state is approximately the same as the will of a majority of its people, right?
Government should never be used as a behavior modifier for something as nebulous as this study (or the violent video game crap... or the pot ban... or the ban on 32oz sodas in NYC). If it causes real harm, it can be handled the way we handle truly harmful things. Let the parents handle the recommendations and if they don't follow them (and something bad does happen), they can be held accountable (like giving alcohol to a 5 year old... etc), but "banning" something doesn't stop it from happening (War on Drugs anyone?), so why inflict more stifling restraint on people who don't have kids? Why punish the individual who does treat his/her child properly and with love, but may let the kid watch a smidge too much TV if the only thing that happened to said child is the parent violated a "ban"?
Banning the sale of "violent" video games hasn't stopped kids from playing them. Labeling music as "explicit" hasn't stopped kids from listening to it. So what does banning TV for kids under 3 hope to accomplish? And how would they enforce it? Would you be required by law to give up your TV when you welcome your new bundle of joy into the world? Or would they send the TV police out dressed as Barney and Big Bird and make sure you're not letting your kid watch too much TV or at all? Where does this absurdity end? Did Prohibition stop all consumption of alcohol? I fail to see how this "ban" on TV for kids under 3 is not going to work. It just takes more liberty from you... and whittles away your freedom that the government has no right to take in the first place.
The TV isn't inherently evil. It can be abused, but at the same time, banning it for a certain demographic gives the state ammo to say "too much TV makes adults overly flatulent" and blammo! Another ban for "the good of the community...." Yeah, I'd rather the government not have that power. I never consented to get told I can't buy a 32oz soda because Bloomberg's a fucking busybody.... And I don't need Nanny State hovering to make sure I don't watch too much of the idiot box... or my kids. That's my job.
I watched TV for years... mom would set me in front of the boob tube in my swing and I turned out jim dandy. The upside is I can remember tons and tons of commercial jingles, usually while sitting down ironically enough.
Seriously though, limits are important. Limits set by parents. The Nanny State is quite adamant about making sure they are involved in your private lives. Too many people simply surrender control to the almighty state. It's baffling.
But.... think of the squirtles!
(That's the only friggin' pokemon I know besides Pikachu...)
I took a couple of classes in high school (mid-to-late-80s)... and they were pretty much on TRS-80 Model 3's and 4's. I already learned a little about BASIC since I had been using it on the Atari/C64 for about 4-5 years at that point. (I would've liked some assembly/low level stuff, but it was self-motivated when they got to a BASIC "concept" I already knew about.) What the low level snooping taught me (between bouts of playing Telengard) helped immensely when I started giving myself infinite lives in games and fiddling with the 68000 (on my shiny, new-to-me used Amiga and Action Replay add-on.)
:) I finished my intro C language class in college on my Amiga with Lattice C. The campus bookstore had a good deal on it. :)
:) Computers were still a novelty or a niche product when I was growing up. Most people hated them, and most people thought they were toys. I'm 42 now, and my only regret is not focusing my efforts earlier to make my own utilities and games. I used my skills to forward my pathetic gaming capability... :)
I was already interested in computers by the time I took any classes on it, so I pretty much was self-taught until college, when I took courses to supplement my love of computers... It's been downhill ever since.
Most of the "PC" computers were limited to the secretarial classes that my high school taught... so we didn't fiddle with DOS officially. There was an Apple 2 in the Home Economics department that we used to play Gemstone Warrior before school. (I think it was actually used to show cross-stitch patterns). Nothing like playing Gemstone Warrior on a monochrome screen.
Anyone who votes for Romney is an ignorant cunt.
Anyone who thinks Obama and Romney are actually different is an ignorant cunt. I think that's what you meant.
What's really funny is that all those things occur now with our "socialist governance" here in the United States. So you're basically pointing out that you don't understand what free means. Free doesn't mean unchecked. Free means unmanipulated. The government acts as facilitator for established companies in the market because those companies know that they can buy legislation favoring their established market at the expense of the rest of the emerging market (you see this every day with Cable companies).
Furthermore, a non-committed arbiter that can handle disputes in the market with no personal gain (something the government cannot do now) prevents most of your items from occurring. How? When the government has no stake in who wins... things work as they should. We are far from that. People think that when someone says "free market" that they're promoting robber barons and evil to run amok. It is another in a long line of misunderstood ideas about free markets. It's easy to think the government can do something when they pretend to do so when it's election time. The trouble is, the government we want to referee the free market doesn't exist... so by the very nature of our current crony-capitalistic state we cannot achieve anything close to a free market, even if we could eliminate some of the corruption between corporations and the government. We can't because we think the government is doing "the right thing" and all those "evil free marketeers" are just trying to squash the middle class or some other nonsense.
When the government can't be purchased by corporations and legislation can't be railroaded through... we can start to have a free market. That's a pipe-dream I fear, however. Because quite frankly. too many people think like you do and shut off logic. If we got a Constitutionally limited government that we're supposed to have, money couldn't be used to corrupt the free market because the government COULDN'T manipulate things. It's pretty simple, really... but most people are still hung up on the "evil free marketeers" to get past the nonsense and towards the real facts.
Well, if it's any consolation Shamalamadingdong isn't writing it... he's just directing it. :) That should be enough to save it from the "twist" factor. :) At least I hope so.
That was a great read... :) What's funny is I think MacBook Pro's are "shiny for the stupid"... but then again, I'm not their target demographic because I hate Starbuck's and don't wear hipster glasses. :)
:) But it runs Crunchbang not XP.
I think it has been said (elswhere in the discussion) that the stagnation (and Microsoftization) of netbooks caused their premature demise. I expect that people who want a MBP or Air already have enough cash to get one (or a CC with a high limit)... but for the vast majority of the population, they want something they can afford... Netbooks started that way, but went south without a bump up (and artificial restrictions set by Redmond).... *shrug* I still like my netbook.
People with their heads in the sand can't see it anyway. Microsoft has threatened Linux (and all those who use it) for decades... "Linux violates tons of our patents"... etc. They are anti-OSS. They won't change just because they release this into the wild. They only use free when they can cut off a competitor at the knees (Netscape...) and they force enough of a lock-in with a shit-tacular non-standards compliant browser, we're STILL digging out of the mess Microsoft made because they couldn't bother to conform to existing standards, what 9 versions now FFS?
There won't be a great "I told you so" coming from the OSS "nutcases" (well, except for RMS... he's always pointing it out...) It'll just be another in a long line of things broken, co-opted, shot in the foot, and left to whither that Microsoft is famous for.
What part of "It is Microsoft" don't you get? I understand the license... I understand that you can fork it. That doesn't prevent Microsoft from withholding new features behind a derived library license, does it? I don't see how they can, but then again, Lawyers have already come up with it at Redmond... rest assured, they will monetize it after its gotten enough penetration in the market.
Everyone likes to bring up C#... which is simply Microsoft's answer to "not being able to put its own MFC extensions in Java" (Remember visual J++)?
I got one thing that will make this entire rant of yours moot. Microsoft claims it has "thousands of patents" that Linux violates. A company that threatens that is NOT friendly to the Open Source community. They aren't. You can't spin it, wiggle it or jack it off until it is... it's simply not true. Microsoft HATES Open Source (decries it at every turn... spends millions getting SCO the Patent Troll to sue over it) and you think because this is currently under an Apache license it's all okay and roses?
Wait, who's the troll here?
I wouldn't say they "sell so many" MacBook Pros... Apple is, after all, about 12% of the market in PCs sold (and they have iMacs, Minis, etc.) They did enjoy a bump this year while everyone else declined... (not much of one, but a bump nonetheless.)
:)
:)
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/24/apple-reports-disappointing-mac-sales-despite-retina-macbook-release-4-million-units-sold-in-q3-2012/
It seems everyone's facing a crunch. Apple's margins are so high, I doubt they notice. But, this brings up a question... why is the decline in their Mac lineup continuing when it peaked a few years back? I don't know the answer to that. As for netbooks... I like my netbook, but then again, I put Linux on it and upped the RAM (and got a nicer, larger battery)... it works like a champ. Microsoft really poisoned the netbook realm with their artificial restrictions on XP equipped netbooks (only 1 MB of RAM, etc.) I also think the "bandwangoneers" of netbook makers really just saturated the market. Before the netbook, companies were claiming you couldn't make a cheap laptop... Of course Larry Ellison (when he was trying to sell thin clients) famously quipped that there was no way a PC would break the $500 price point.
Ultrabooks are a solution looking for a problem. The demographic who will pay that much for a laptop already bleed Apple grey. The rest of us think it's overpriced hype.
If you want to dick measure... where do you think C# got its core constructs from? Intelligent aliens? EVERYTHING has come from open-sourced languages... you don't GET where C# is (or Java for that matter) without Lisp, Scheme, etc. Hell, Lisp had if/then/else constructs before ANY other language... it didn't come from IBM, either...
That's the bloody point. Microsoft has a history of screwing things over once they get what they perceive as majority mindshare. The fact that Microsoft is behind it makes EVERYONE (except those on the payroll of Redmond) suspicious. Their track record speaks for itself. Google it... better yet, Bing it so you won't blame google for "FUD".
Honestly, are you that enamored with Microsoft that you can't see the facts as plain as day? This isn't speculation... Microsoft HAS fucked over plenty of things first by making it free, then extending it, and later fucking the alternatives out of business. It makes me sad you can't see that.
Interesting... while it is far-fetched and most likely a fusing of many stories into one "meta" story about trolling (though as I've pointed out elsewhere in the thread that 'trolling' isn't what this blog entry describes), I am now more curious about the details than I was initially reading it (I was not convinced the "IT genius" was using legal means to track the perp... I just thought they got lucky, considering.)
At the very least your link provides some doubt to the veracity of the claims made by Traynor. That should be enough healthy skepticism to invalidate the entire story, to be honest.
It is assuming he is mentally ill. He could just be a fucking cocksucker who needs to be placed out of society before he kills someone. I am not qualified to know if he's in need of help or cornholed by a huge black guy named Thunderdick. But something needs to be done, or we'll all be reading about this asshat's killing spree with our Post Toasties.
I tend to agree with that... how I read it is he was crying because he got caught, not because he realized his stalking was a bad idea. If he had kept it to online nonsense, you could write it off as a bored moron who needs a swift kick in the ass, but when he started the whole mailing of packages thing, well, now the fucker needs locked up, or at the very least institutionalized until they can figure out what the flying fuck is wrong with his brain.
...that's for another thread, though...
I'm ambivalent to the whole Internet Fuckwad Syndrome, because it's nothing to get pissed about... but when it moves outside to the real world, well, that is when it needs to be prosecuted harshly. This isn't a Troll... this is a psychopath. It's like the word 'hacker'... non-techies have co-opted a word and changed its meaning. (Unlike 'cyberbullying'... which is a term coined by technophobes about trolling...)
I do too... it's called Texas to the rest of the world. :) I'm not leaving, because I hate snow... :-)
Yes, but I suppose it could be that it's the stupid they know, rather than the stupid they don't (obama over romney)... ;) Politicians in general are all big friggin' idiots, so it's really trying to pick one that didn't eat as much lead paint chips as a child. (Sometimes I wonder....)
You should go to a higher class establishment. :)
not an attempt to express a controversial viewpoint as much as something meant entirely to inflame and incense a volatile situation
No it wasn't. Not even close. The government, as usual, is full of shit and working the crowd, not doing what is right. Nowhere in that film does it say "Rise up! Kill Americans", which is the only possibility to equate this silly bit of digital film with yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater. So what if he knew the thin-skinned idiots in the Middle East would riot? (Let's be frank, the Libya incident has been proven to be something OTHER than the movie)...
If someone gets offended enough to want to riot and kill, then that's their problem for not being a functioning adult. And causing public backlash isn't a criteria for restricting speech, because if so, the KKK or Black Panthers wouldn't be allowed to march, because clearly they do it to poke and prod. The difference is, civilized people aren't prone to ransacking KFC's and defacing embassies. Those that are get arrested. That's the difference between the civilized world and the world of Islam.
Shut up, Biden. Go back to your coloring books. Obama is going to skate in for 4 more years because people are stupid, not because Romney's an idiot. Obama's an idiot, but no one seems to care because he's throwing money around like a drunken titty bar patron.
We don't know. With Obama, at least we found out that he executed American citizens. Who knows WTF Bush and Cheney did?
Really, that's not as comforting as it sounds. :) And considering the complicity of the press under Obama, I wonder how complicity under Bush would've been able to cover up such things... I figure this much is true... we have lost our greatest weapon against tyranny: A completely free press. It's lock-step with Obama (it's nauseating to see the leg humping most of the Press Corps does in the presence of Obama the magnificent.)
I don't think we'd have found out Obama did the drone attack on an American citizen if he didn't feel so goddamned proud about it. I don't think he expected the reaction he got, to be honest. It's probably the same reaction he got when he saw Hilary's penis for the first time.
While it's fun to think that China's got a stranglehold on the US, the truth is the economies are so intertwined and dependent upon each other neither side would do anything other that a futile bit of posturing now and again for press points. The Federal Reserve holds most of the US government's debt, not China. So the "doomsday" scenario about China "cashing in" on US debt is unfounded as well, but hey, it sells newspapers I guess. (China has about 8% iirc.)
/. (well most of us). We can see through the 24-hour news cycle hype machine. Are there problems? Absolutely. But let's not get ahead of ourselves... that's all I'm saying.
As for US power.. it's difficult not to equate influence with power. Power, the US has got loads of. It has burned a great deal of goodwill over the years, that is true. Most countries meddle in the affairs of other nations, but the US is pretty obvious about it. That being said, I don't defend their actions in Afghanistan or Iraq... nor do I believe the US should be financing every two-bit dictator that shits between a pair of jackboots. The "political consequences" of the last decade or so of activity is that no one in the Middle East likes us (besides Israel I suppose). The fun fact is, they haven't liked us in decades. That doesn't excuse certain actions by past (and current) Presidents, but it is nothing new.
So, while it's fun to deride the US and all its "cowboy antics" as it strolls across the globe being nosy and pushy... we should really stop spreading FUD... I wonder if Tom Clancy would write a novel about Chinese drone attacks? Hell, Japan and China are in a pissing contest right now for some islands (I can't recall off the top of my head)... and there's always the Taiwan angle where the US is quite belligerent and China rattles sabers now and again... it amounts to a tempest in a teapot. We are smarter than this on