This guy sounds like the dictionary definition of a (pure) capitalist. Everything in the universe should be converted to private property. Fortunately for most of us, this guy can't even get off earth--yet.
I don't agree with the guy (I don't subscribe to the capitalist view that everything should be owned) but your reasoning is severely flawed...
And curiously, Mr Nimitz has no ability to evict the probe.
You don't need to evict anyone to claim property. If I, and my gang of armed aliens from outer space, came to your house and "took it over". There is no way you can evict me. My weapons are too strong. Evicting the probe (or me and my alien friends in this case) only applies if there are no laws. If we were all in a lawless earth, then what you are saying would apply.
Usually, the decision comes to some authority that handles property cases. WIth your house, I guess it lies with the municipal government (or some government). When it comes to countries, it usually lies with the UN. The question is, what about space? I don't think any entity handles space yet. I imagine it would likely fall within the UN.
...it would seem that the asteroid is NASA's...
Another fallacy there. I don't think anyone that lands gets the right, just like how USA doesn't own the moon just because it landed there, or how USA doesn't own Kuwait although its troops are protecting the monarchy and the country.
If China took down the US flag, I'm sure USA will declare war. Even the UN wouldn't accept it. Many people, including anti-American extradionnaires like me;), consider the flag to be a cultural artifact. I don't want it taken down by anyone...
By the way, what ever happened to Star Wars II or the US Missle Shield? Not heard anything about them lately.
THe program isn't going too well. Last I heard, some test failed... Congress approved the budget for next year just recently. At the rate that they are going, USA will be able to build a FULLY FUNCTIONING missile shield just around the time they find WMD in Iraq...;)
Win2K is the "same" as NT. If I"m not mistaken, it's from the same baseline. So when I say NT I mean the NT-line (not the original version of NT--of course, win2k is superior to the original NT so they used that).
I lost the message I was typing due to a computer crash. Anyway...
You are getting sidetracked here. My original point is that governments are driven by ideologies. This is why they replace everyone they can with their own kind. If governments were more about immediate events, or about pragmatism (as opposed to ideologies), they would put whoever is best for the job. They don't do that.
Either you agree with my assertion that governments are driven by ideologies or you don't. All this stuff about Bush are irrelevant. (If you want to talk about why I hate US policies and such, fine. But that wasn't my main point).
BTW, I'm much further to the left than you think. Anyway, Colin Powell is not a liberal. He may be more liberal than say Bush or Ashcroft; but that doesn't mean he is a true liberal. If Colin Powell is a liberal then Howard Dean is a conservative (due to his fiscal policies). Neither is true.
I don't really want to get into it but I think you conservatives should drop the view that France owes you some eternal debt. Quoting history avoid answering questions is too cheap of a tactic. France doesn't owe you anything...
There were stories about the X-Prize but only the major ones (like the announcement, overview of the contest, etc). I don't think anyone covers the individual teams and their accomplishments. I think that is fine (who, other than fans, want to see stories about approval of team, etc?) As long as the major stories (eg. actual launch, etc)are covered, I'm cool...
MS was trying to merge Win 9x and NT for a long time. It only happened after a long time (with XP). It was delayed significantly... Of course, I'm just going by media reports (who knows what they were ACTUALLY doing)...
People who follow realpolitik don't really follow ideologies... They are more apt to follow pragmatism than idealism...
Is the ideology good?
Whose ideology? The neocons? It depends on what you think is driving them (capitalism? imperialism? greed? religion?). Liberals (I use the term losely) who support US foreign policy like to cite "democracy", humanatarian intervention or some such argument. I personally detest imperialism... you cannot impose "democracy" on anyone with a gun!... As far as the pro-war conservative crowd claiming national interest, WMD, protecting the world from evil or some such thing, I could care less about their views (I'm on the far-left and usually ignore them anyway).
Actually nearly all large corporations do that. It's just that you never hear of them. I worked at G.E. during my summer work term a long time ago and they were basically selling one of their products at a loss to the Asian (or maybe it was European? don't remember) market so as to capture market share. Once they get their foot in the door, they can increase prices or alter their pricing strategy (just look at cellphones, cable tv, to see the same thing).
As someone who responded above says, the thing with Microsoft is that they have large amounts of cash. This basically means that you can try risky strategies. When they do succeed, they win big. It's sort of like diversified investing. They may not have done well in say webTV, Bob:), etc. But they did very well with their MS SQL Server, Windows 95 (vs OS/2), etc.
Capital is what matters under capitalism. As long as you have a lot of it (MS does), you WILL win. How much do you wnat to bet that.NET will be a standard in 5 years? How much do you want ot bet that C# will be the #1 language for new applications in 3 years?
I'm not arguing for or against George Bush (in this case). I'm just saying that all governments do that.
With respect to Bush, his neocon cabal and their lust for empired sidetracked Bush's plans. But he did attempt to change the environmental agencies (eg. Environmental head at UN was an American), courts (eg. Ashcroft and his buddies), etc.
Anyway, my point is not Bush; my point is that ALL governments do that. It's just that some do it more than others, or some hide what they do,,,
And the Borg are very diverse, they assimilate everyone. When a Klingon is assimilated, he doesn't automatically become as weak as an assimilated Ferengi, nor does it make the Ferengi as stupid (intelligence is distributed and refocused, not removed). Notice how you never see any assimilated Ferengi as foot soldiers.
Borg are NOT diverse. By definition, assimilation involves including many different species/types/etc. Diversity comes from the fact that there are different beings who have different properties, and think, act, and behave differently. After the Borg assimilates someone, ALL future borgs will end up identical. So you would lose diversity over time.
When it comes to their strength as a military force, their strength is comparable to that of the Soviet Union.
The analogy to USSR is completely wrong. Either your knowledge of USSR is wrong or you have been brainwashed by USA. USSR did not try to assimilate people. I think the best analogy is Nazism, or fascism in general. Things like eugenics is basically the creation of a superior being via assimilation*. Fascists will act identically to the Borg.
(* only difference is that the Nazis were only interested in creating a being from "Aryans". A true Borg would use anyone).
I hate Star Trek for the reason you mention. Star Trek, in my opinion, is a show that is often avoided by true sci-fi fans. The society is Star Trek is such a joke, that one would think that humans didn't progress at all. Consider the hierarchial structure in Star Trek (with commander above another, etc). Just look at the aliens and you'll see that they are all humanoids with human-like characteristics. Every alien that you meet is either inferior to humans in major ways, or is so super-powerful that they don't even matter.
The celebration happened a long time ago. Science and technology are driven by liberals. One only needs to look at Galileo, considered to be the founder of science, who was persecuted for introducing scientific thinking. Galileo=liberal; the religious crowd=conservative;)
Find a conservative site relating to science & technology, and I can probably find 10 liberal sites.
Why should we care what an ex-President of either party thinks anyhow?
Because criticism from someone influential, let alone someone from the same party who happens to be his relative, has a big impact.
Times change, the current President has information they did not have, and uses it to make his decisions.
Government policy hardly ever changes due to "information". Most of these are policies that are driven by ideology or profit, and has little to do with the current moment. Very little of what a government does comes from the present. That's why governments always fire everyone who is affiliated with their opponent right after they take over.
What you are saying may be true but why do people assume that MS didn't know it was going to lose money? It might have been their plan all along. Many companies are willing to take losses in order to enter a market and capture market share.
Actually all of them were right--half right that is. Most console developers don't care about the PC market. The market is too small and the types of games that sell on the PC are different (compare what passes as an RPG on a console to a PC one, or an RTS, or ARPG, etc).
BUT I 'm sure that having a common development environment helps. I am not a console programmer but from what I understand the best thing about the X-Box is the development environment (like IDE, tools, etc).
Slashdot Mirror
This guy sounds like the dictionary definition of a (pure) capitalist. Everything in the universe should be converted to private property. Fortunately for most of us, this guy can't even get off earth--yet.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't agree with the guy (I don't subscribe to the capitalist view that everything should be owned) but your reasoning is severely flawed...
...it would seem that the asteroid is NASA's...
And curiously, Mr Nimitz has no ability to evict the probe.
You don't need to evict anyone to claim property. If I, and my gang of armed aliens from outer space, came to your house and "took it over". There is no way you can evict me. My weapons are too strong. Evicting the probe (or me and my alien friends in this case) only applies if there are no laws. If we were all in a lawless earth, then what you are saying would apply.
Usually, the decision comes to some authority that handles property cases. WIth your house, I guess it lies with the municipal government (or some government). When it comes to countries, it usually lies with the UN. The question is, what about space? I don't think any entity handles space yet. I imagine it would likely fall within the UN.
Another fallacy there. I don't think anyone that lands gets the right, just like how USA doesn't own the moon just because it landed there, or how USA doesn't own Kuwait although its troops are protecting the monarchy and the country.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
If China took down the US flag, I'm sure USA will declare war. Even the UN wouldn't accept it. Many people, including anti-American extradionnaires like me ;), consider the flag to be a cultural artifact. I don't want it taken down by anyone...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
By the way, what ever happened to Star Wars II or the US Missle Shield? Not heard anything about them lately.
;)
THe program isn't going too well. Last I heard, some test failed... Congress approved the budget for next year just recently. At the rate that they are going, USA will be able to build a FULLY FUNCTIONING missile shield just around the time they find WMD in Iraq...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Win2K is the "same" as NT. If I"m not mistaken, it's from the same baseline. So when I say NT I mean the NT-line (not the original version of NT--of course, win2k is superior to the original NT so they used that).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't think pragmatism is considered an ideology. It is not driven by any ideals or ideologies. Instead, it is based on present events.
If pragmatism is an ideology then EVERYTHING is an ideology--something I disagree with.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I lost the message I was typing due to a computer crash. Anyway...
You are getting sidetracked here. My original point is that governments are driven by ideologies. This is why they replace everyone they can with their own kind. If governments were more about immediate events, or about pragmatism (as opposed to ideologies), they would put whoever is best for the job. They don't do that.
Either you agree with my assertion that governments are driven by ideologies or you don't. All this stuff about Bush are irrelevant. (If you want to talk about why I hate US policies and such, fine. But that wasn't my main point).
BTW, I'm much further to the left than you think. Anyway, Colin Powell is not a liberal. He may be more liberal than say Bush or Ashcroft; but that doesn't mean he is a true liberal. If Colin Powell is a liberal then Howard Dean is a conservative (due to his fiscal policies). Neither is true.
I don't really want to get into it but I think you conservatives should drop the view that France owes you some eternal debt. Quoting history avoid answering questions is too cheap of a tactic. France doesn't owe you anything...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I guess it makese sense... if my English comprehension sucks, then it is kind of hard to read history, is it not? ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
There were stories about the X-Prize but only the major ones (like the announcement, overview of the contest, etc). I don't think anyone covers the individual teams and their accomplishments. I think that is fine (who, other than fans, want to see stories about approval of team, etc?) As long as the major stories (eg. actual launch, etc)are covered, I'm cool...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
MS was trying to merge Win 9x and NT for a long time. It only happened after a long time (with XP). It was delayed significantly... Of course, I'm just going by media reports (who knows what they were ACTUALLY doing)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
People who follow realpolitik don't really follow ideologies... They are more apt to follow pragmatism than idealism...
... As far as the pro-war conservative crowd claiming national interest, WMD, protecting the world from evil or some such thing, I could care less about their views (I'm on the far-left and usually ignore them anyway).
Is the ideology good?
Whose ideology? The neocons? It depends on what you think is driving them (capitalism? imperialism? greed? religion?). Liberals (I use the term losely) who support US foreign policy like to cite "democracy", humanatarian intervention or some such argument. I personally detest imperialism... you cannot impose "democracy" on anyone with a gun!
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Actually nearly all large corporations do that. It's just that you never hear of them. I worked at G.E. during my summer work term a long time ago and they were basically selling one of their products at a loss to the Asian (or maybe it was European? don't remember) market so as to capture market share. Once they get their foot in the door, they can increase prices or alter their pricing strategy (just look at cellphones, cable tv, to see the same thing).
:), etc. But they did very well with their MS SQL Server, Windows 95 (vs OS/2), etc.
.NET will be a standard in 5 years? How much do you want ot bet that C# will be the #1 language for new applications in 3 years?
As someone who responded above says, the thing with Microsoft is that they have large amounts of cash. This basically means that you can try risky strategies. When they do succeed, they win big. It's sort of like diversified investing. They may not have done well in say webTV, Bob
Capital is what matters under capitalism. As long as you have a lot of it (MS does), you WILL win. How much do you wnat to bet that
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not arguing for or against George Bush (in this case). I'm just saying that all governments do that.
With respect to Bush, his neocon cabal and their lust for empired sidetracked Bush's plans. But he did attempt to change the environmental agencies (eg. Environmental head at UN was an American), courts (eg. Ashcroft and his buddies), etc.
Anyway, my point is not Bush; my point is that ALL governments do that. It's just that some do it more than others, or some hide what they do,,,
Sivaram Velauthapillai
And the Borg are very diverse, they assimilate everyone. When a Klingon is assimilated, he doesn't automatically become as weak as an assimilated Ferengi, nor does it make the Ferengi as stupid (intelligence is distributed and refocused, not removed). Notice how you never see any assimilated Ferengi as foot soldiers.
Borg are NOT diverse. By definition, assimilation involves including many different species/types/etc. Diversity comes from the fact that there are different beings who have different properties, and think, act, and behave differently. After the Borg assimilates someone, ALL future borgs will end up identical. So you would lose diversity over time.
When it comes to their strength as a military force, their strength is comparable to that of the Soviet Union.
The analogy to USSR is completely wrong. Either your knowledge of USSR is wrong or you have been brainwashed by USA. USSR did not try to assimilate people. I think the best analogy is Nazism, or fascism in general. Things like eugenics is basically the creation of a superior being via assimilation*. Fascists will act identically to the Borg.
(* only difference is that the Nazis were only interested in creating a being from "Aryans". A true Borg would use anyone).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I hate Star Trek for the reason you mention. Star Trek, in my opinion, is a show that is often avoided by true sci-fi fans. The society is Star Trek is such a joke, that one would think that humans didn't progress at all. Consider the hierarchial structure in Star Trek (with commander above another, etc). Just look at the aliens and you'll see that they are all humanoids with human-like characteristics. Every alien that you meet is either inferior to humans in major ways, or is so super-powerful that they don't even matter.
Shows like Babylon 5, Lexx, etc are better IMO.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The celebration happened a long time ago. Science and technology are driven by liberals. One only needs to look at Galileo, considered to be the founder of science, who was persecuted for introducing scientific thinking. Galileo=liberal; the religious crowd=conservative ;)
Find a conservative site relating to science & technology, and I can probably find 10 liberal sites.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Government mandated honesty? Isn't that an oxymoron?
I'll let you prove how the government is supposed to mandate honesty, when it is one of the most dishonest, corrupt entities...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
WHat you are saying makes no sense given that most of the those driving the war are ideologues.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Why should we care what an ex-President of either party thinks anyhow?
Because criticism from someone influential, let alone someone from the same party who happens to be his relative, has a big impact.
Times change, the current President has information they did not have, and uses it to make his decisions.
Government policy hardly ever changes due to "information". Most of these are policies that are driven by ideology or profit, and has little to do with the current moment. Very little of what a government does comes from the present. That's why governments always fire everyone who is affiliated with their opponent right after they take over.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What's DOA?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
(I'm fascinated by these people who "finish" games in a week -- where do they find the time?).
;)
:)
Maybe cheat codes are designed for these people
Or they are just gaming Gods
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What you are saying may be true but why do people assume that MS didn't know it was going to lose money? It might have been their plan all along. Many companies are willing to take losses in order to enter a market and capture market share.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Actually all of them were right--half right that is. Most console developers don't care about the PC market. The market is too small and the types of games that sell on the PC are different (compare what passes as an RPG on a console to a PC one, or an RTS, or ARPG, etc).
BUT I 'm sure that having a common development environment helps. I am not a console programmer but from what I understand the best thing about the X-Box is the development environment (like IDE, tools, etc).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
small correction... you mean DirectX and not ActiveX...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The number of people that hack X-Box (or other consoles) is very small. It's just like the number of people who pirate movies: very few.
Sivaram Velauthapillai