Capitalism is: an economic system in which the means of production and distribution (aka capital) are privately owned. Under capitalism, distribution of resources is controlled by market demand rather than central government planning.
A capitalist is someone who supports this economic system. Sometimes the term capitalist is also used to describe persons who provide capital for business ventures, e.g. Venture Capitalists.
Someone who manipulates the legislature or judiciary for financial gain is definitely NOT a capitalist. The term that is generally used to describe these people is 'unethical dickwad', although other vulgarities may certainly apply as well.
My cable ISP runs Squid... It doesn't bother me most of the time, but it does seem to add a little delay when loading dynamic/personalized pages. Also, they must have some sort of maintenance that runs on that server in the wee hours, because it grinds to a complete halt every morning around 4:00 a.m. I think that's an indication that I shouldn't stay up that late.
I wish they would just get rid of the thing and let me hit the servers directly, but I can understand why they run it.
True, but the trust relationship is different. If I understand freenet correctly, you have to trust that the content you're getting from your closest peer is genuine, even if you don't know them. With something like Akamai (or squid, which is similar but, um, different) you have to trust your ISP, and I think most people do.
I hope I made any sense whatsoever. My caffeine buzz is wearing off and I'm starting to slur my speech and become incoherent.
The 1996 Telecom Deregulation Act contained a loophole exempting some rural carriers from competition.
I just moved from such an area... The phone service was horrible, I got about 22K, and got disconnected constantly. No DSL, no ISDN, no cable modem service, no Teledesic coverage. It was quite frustrating.
I moved across the state border (a few miles away) to an area whose ILEC is not under the rural exemption. Now I have 1.5M cable access for $40/mo, and DSL is currently being rolled out by several local providers. I may switch to DSL at some point.
Your only hope is probably cable, since it isn't subject to the same distance limitations as DSL.
Also, DirecPC might be better than dialup... There's a company called Helius that makes a $99 software router package for Linux that allows you to a) use DirecPC on Linux and b) share the connection among up to 4 computers.
What we need is smarter protocols that distribute the content closer to the edge of the network. The commercial Akamai service does this by placing content caching servers at several thousand ISPs. These caching servers hold frequently-requested images, video clips, and other large files from major content providers. When Joe ISP user downloads a video clip it comes from his ISP's Akamai server instead of going out onto the Internet, crossing peering points,
etc.
Worthy of note is that Helix Code is an Akamai customer. So, when you install Helix GNOME, it's not coming from some arbitrary mirror site, but automagically from the closest upstream Akamai server.
Akamai is awesome, but it would be nice to have an open-source, open-network way to implement this at the ISP level. Does anyone know of any such effort underway already?
On a not-really related note, I just got an email saying that Ventura may announce on Fox News tomorrow that he is organizing a presidential debate that will invite all candidates who have a mathematical chance of winning the Electoral College. That would be George Dubya, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, Harry Browne, John Hagelin and Howard Phillips.
If Ventura does announce this, it is certain to be a major deal with the media, and would no doubt be widely watched and very educational to the public.
Ron Paul is widely known in the House as "Dr. No", because he is often the lone dissenting vote.
He's extremely hardcore about following the Constitution to the letter, and refuses to endorse any federal legislation that isn't authorized by the Constitution, which says that all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government are reserved for the individual states and/or the people.
He was the lone No vote on a bill authorizing a gold medal for the Pope... and wrote a letter to the Pope explaining that he didn't vote against it because he didn't think the Pope deserved it, but because it was not an expenditure authorized by the Constitution. The Pope wrote him a nice letter back saying he understood his reasoning and appreciated his letter.
Paul sometimes ticks people off by going against the grain, but I for one am glad to have him in Congress. The rest of our legislators pay almost no attention to the Constitution anymore. It carries very little weight whatsoever these days, and I think it's a damn shame.
His web site is at http://www.house.gov/paul/.
Check out some of his sponsored legislation, speeches and weekly columns and you'll get a better idea of why he votes the way he does. You'll also find that he is a tireless defender of privacy and free speech, and often speaks out against the War on Drugs.
PNTR China Act - China has a nasty habit of starting up bulldozers and mowing down people who think freely. Why are we, a allegedly democratic part-of-the-free-world country supporting this?
Trade with the Chinese offers a much better hope of improving the human rights situation there than does economic isolation. The Soviet Union fell in large part because of the citizens' exposure to Western films and music. As trashy as our entertainment may be, it showed them that they don't *have* to live under poverty and oppression.
Also consider that trade between nations strongly improves relations between the countries, and drastically reduces the chances of the two countries being involved in armed conflict against each other. Countries who depend upon each other are less likely to bomb each other. It may be cheesy to repeat this, but no two countries that have a McDonald's have ever been at war.
I'd rather have China as a trading partner than an enemy.
If you wanna get a better idea on what kind of intelligence info the FBI gathers, and the type of people it gathers it on, peep the FBI's Freedom of Information act site:
The site has reams of declassified FBI files on famous people like John Lennon, Lucille Ball, Jackie Robinson, Charles Lindbergh, Elvis Presley, John Steinbeck. They're all in PDF format, but at least that way you get to see the nifty black marks over the parts they didn't declassify.
--
The quotable Ralph Nader
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 2
[Nader:]I'd really put meat in the process of progressive taxation. The richer people are, the more the percentage you pay. After all, it's their influence that rigged the system to get them that rich to begin with. And, second, we should tax things we don't like. We should tax stock market speculation. We should tax pollution. We should tax activities that we don't like, like sprawl, in order to get a better planning system and better zoning system. And we should lighten the taxes on things we do like, like honest labor, like food. It's really interesting. In some places in this country, you go and you pay taxes on food and on books, but you don't pay taxes on what you buy on the Internet. Even though the small businesses in this country are the ones that support the charity and fiber of the community. It's really not fair.
The entire quotation is even scarier than the previous poster's 'out-of-context' little chunk. Nader is advocating for central government 'planners' to direct every facet of the economy, to *decide for the rest of us what we like and dislike*, and to forcibly redistribute wealth in an attempt to achieve income equality.
Oh, and FYI, the red scare ended years ago, bro. Mis-labeling someone a socialist or a communist has really fallen out of vogue.
Notwithstanding the unfortunate current lack of a 'red scare', bro, I have listened to several Nader speeches and the guy is quite definitely a socialist with communist leanings. On a number of occasions he has advocated that the government take over management of private businesses that fail to meet his expectations. He's all about forced redistribution of wealth, and for christ's sake, the guy even proposes more extensive government regulation of the nutritional content of McDonald's food...
Like the ones in your quote, most of his positions and ideas are very much socialist and/or communist, and it is quite accurate to label him as such.
That said, there are a handful of things I agree with him on... and actually think he makes some sense... but for the most part he scares the hell out of me.
--
Re:Someone beat this guy with a clue stick
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 1
While we're on the subject of clue-stick beatings, consider that your third-party vote has ZERO impact on the political process. There is exactly zippy chance that your candidate would win, thus, your vote goes into a black hole of 'votes that don't help decide the outcome'.
You are misinformed. A vote for a third-party candidate absolutely has an impact. Although this is applicable to any third party, as an example I'll use the Libertarian Party, which I'm registered under and for whose candidates I've voted over the last 13 years.
The LP expends a massive amount of monetary and volunteer resources every election to achieve ballot status in all 50 states. In addition to the work of volunteer petitioners across the country, they have to fly in paid petitioners to certain states where the ballot access laws are particularly difficult to surmount.
In several states (Massachussets is one, IIRC) the LP is listed permanently on the ballot as a major party, because of the number of people that have voted Libertarian in past elections. This ensures that the LP doesn't have to mobilize hundreds of volunteer and paid petitioners, and instead can direct those resources toward campaigning.
Additionally, past vote totals are a huge factor in determining whether a candidate gets media coverage. This is especially true for us since we haven't had any celebrity candidates like Nader, Buchanan and Ventura.
So, when you vote for a third party candidate, you may not help them win that election, but you are doing something very important by laying a foundation upon which that party can build. Again, to use the LP as an example... Harry Browne is obviously not going to win... but if he walks away with 1.2 million votes, the NEXT Libertarian presidential candidate is going to have a hell of a lot more media coverage, and more resources to expend because of the easier ballot access.
IMHO, voting for anything other than what you believe in is a wasted vote. Aren't happy with the status quo? Then why would you vote Democrat or Republican? That just sends them a mandate to keep on doing what they've been doing.
--
Re:While I'm not the first to say it...
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 1
I'm interested in hearing some examples of corporate abuses that are not carried out through or enabled by government officials. That's not meant to be sarcastic - I really would like to better understand what so many Slashdotters are railing about, as I don't see it in my day-to-day life.
I have to admit I'm not much of a consumer, but I do buy something every now and then. A couple months ago I bought a cable modem made by a large corporation named 3Com, but I didn't feel used or dirty about it. Every couple years I buy a stereo component or VCR, which usually ends up being a Sony, because I've been really pleased with their products over the years. I guess my car, credit card, coffeepot, bath towels, CPU and monitor come from corporations too, but I really don't think about that stuff. It all does what it's supposed to.
I have worked for several corporations, and couldn't stand it because of the top-heavy bureaucracy, endless committee meetings, stuffy office enviornment, and general Dilbert-like atmosphere. So I totally split from that scene, am now happily working for myself, and am convinced that corporations like that are destined to crumble from their own arrogance, stupidity and inefficiency.
So, that's the extent of my interaction with corporations. I don't feel abused, and I fail to see how I should.
If that were Katz it would have been about 6 times as long, full of unnecessary big words and 'new paradigms'.
--
Re:While I'm not the first to say it...
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 2
You want justice in America? Better get out that checkbook.... or a gun.
Well, at the rate the 2nd amendment is being eroded, we'll probably be left with just the checkbook option really soon.
With regards to lobbyists: if the politicians weren't given so much control and influence over the economy, there wouldn't be so many lobbying groups trying to convince them to favor one company or industry over another one. When legislation has such a dramatic impact on the fate of a company or industry, OF COURSE the companies and industry associations are going to hire lobbyists to win the legislators over to their point of view. I'm not saying it's right or wrong - just inevitable and obvious.
There are those on/. who would suggest that the answer is to give the legislators more power. That just encourages more lobbying. As examples I offer China and post-Soviet Russia. There the legislators have much more power than in the U.S., and corruption is rampant.
I think the answer is to take the power away from those in office and give it back to the people. A good start would be to dust off the Constitution and actually pay attention to it once in a while.
I agree with you on one thing - that small businesses are the real support for communities.
Unfortunately its increasingly difficult to make a go of it with a small business, because the complex regulatory environment often present a difficult barrier to marketplace entry, and because, as you said, many government policies favor large corporations over small businesses. I know a bit about this firsthand, being a small business owner and all that.
As far as the tax scale, why not eliminate favoritism and have a flat tax, like Hong Kong does?
Gee, here's a novel idea: why not have a LIMITED GOVERNMENT, which would be unable to dole out corporate welfare like this under the guise of 'fairness'?
This is what happens when the government starts controlling and directing all manner of economic activity. You end up with some companies and industries getting special treatment at the expense of others. Which companies get the favors is determined by who has the best lobbying presence, or who can pay the biggest bribe to elected officials.
Greens, Socialists and others want to solve this problem by adding MORE government regulation of the economy. Instead of 'reforming' things, it just causes more corruption, more bribes, and more legislative 'favors' to go to those with an effective lobbying presence. Before long you have an monstrous, corrupt bureaucracy and a multi-tiered labyrinth of asinine rules, restrictions and regulations.
Libertarians and laissez-faire types want to tie the hands of the politicians who would hand out corporate welfare and special favors, by limiting their power. I guess you could call this a 'supply-side' approach, because it cuts off the supply of corporate welfare money.
That's what I was wondering... whether this means its now OK to use mod_ssl/OpenSSL in the U.S.
And where can you get a server cert for $45 or $90? The cheapest I am aware of is $125 from Thawte Consulting, a division of Verisign.
I actually need to buy a cert in the next week or so. If I could save a few bucks it would make me a happy man. Browser compatibility is of great concern though.
At the time I was expecting more along the lines of network security, i.e. closing all ports and disabling stuff like sendmail and linuxconf.
I guess since Mandrake is highly touted as an easy-to-install desktop OS, I expected paranoid security within the context of an operational desktop OS - i.e. working X, sound, etc.
I would point out that Mandrake might want to provide a more clear explanation of the security settings during the install process, since they are aiming their distro at the unwashed masses.
I'm not entirely complaining though - I also thought I would share my experience so that others might avoid the mistake I made.
Not anymore. They decided to do their own thing shortly after Red Hat started shipping KDE. That happened sometime around Mandrake 6.1 or 7.0.
I think now they try to maintain RPM compatibility with Red Hat by keeping libs and such in the same location, but the distro is no longer derived from Red Hat.
7.1 has offers different levels of security on install (which changes things like directory permissions, among others)
I believe the security options are similar to:
a) Welcome Crackers
b) Low Security
c) Medium Security
d) High Security
e) Paranoid
With my Mandrake 7.0 install, I chose 'Paranoid' because, well, I'm extremely paranoid about security.
This caused no end of trouble for me because of the ultra-restrictive directory permissions it slapped on everything. For months (as a nonprivileged user) I ran into programs I couldn't run, global application config files I couldn't read, and devices I couldn't access. I finally got most everything straightened out, but I still run into an occasional glitch because of the settings.
Things may have improved since 7.0, but I would caution you that this may happen if you choose 'paranoid'. I'm choosing 'high' when I install 7.2.
Otherwise, I've found it to be quite stable, and yes, a bit bloated.
I would describe Mandrake as a heavily tweaked desktop distribution that installs the latest bleeding-edge versions of just about everything, including lots of applications you never knew existed.
I would never run Mandrake on a server. Bleeding edge + tons of unnecessary packages = security risk, IMO.
Actually, the original NT kernel was written in Pascal
MacOS was at one time written in Pascal also. I was programming in C then, and all the interfaces and examples in the Inside Macintosh references were for Pascal. If the 8,000 redundant API functions didn't get you... the Pascal calling conventions would. Drove me nuts.
The key point in the AOL suit is that AOL's reliance on volunteers was essentially a substitute for hiring paid employees.
Here is a more detailed list of pertinent criteria from the plaintiffs' site. If you look at it, you'll see that Open Source projects match all 4 of the listed criteria.
I can see how this could derail many open source projects which have a company's backing., especially when the company employs one or more of the project leaders, as is the case with GNOME, MySQL, PHP, Abiword and dozens of others.
So while this may be a concern for outfits like RedHat or Andover, it's a non-issue for non-profits and real volunteers.
Should it matter if someone else wants to volunteer for a profit-making entity? Should there even be such a distinction?
I'm reminded of the Cluetrain Manifesto, which urges companies to get closer to their customers, understand them, and get involved with them. One way a company can do this is by forming a community around its product, which some enthusiastic users might volunteer to be involved with (just like we are with Slashdot).
The Cluetrain Manifesto tells us to 'tear down the walls'. I think that's a damn fine idea. Unfortunately it sounds like we're already busy erecting new ones.
Slashdot Mirror
Capitalism is: an economic system in which the means of production and distribution (aka capital) are privately owned. Under capitalism, distribution of resources is controlled by market demand rather than central government planning.
A capitalist is someone who supports this economic system. Sometimes the term capitalist is also used to describe persons who provide capital for business ventures, e.g. Venture Capitalists.
Someone who manipulates the legislature or judiciary for financial gain is definitely NOT a capitalist. The term that is generally used to describe these people is 'unethical dickwad', although other vulgarities may certainly apply as well.
--
My cable ISP runs Squid... It doesn't bother me most of the time, but it does seem to add a little delay when loading dynamic/personalized pages. Also, they must have some sort of maintenance that runs on that server in the wee hours, because it grinds to a complete halt every morning around 4:00 a.m. I think that's an indication that I shouldn't stay up that late.
I wish they would just get rid of the thing and let me hit the servers directly, but I can understand why they run it.
--
True, but the trust relationship is different. If I understand freenet correctly, you have to trust that the content you're getting from your closest peer is genuine, even if you don't know them. With something like Akamai (or squid, which is similar but, um, different) you have to trust your ISP, and I think most people do.
I hope I made any sense whatsoever. My caffeine buzz is wearing off and I'm starting to slur my speech and become incoherent.
--
The 1996 Telecom Deregulation Act contained a loophole exempting some rural carriers from competition.
I just moved from such an area... The phone service was horrible, I got about 22K, and got disconnected constantly. No DSL, no ISDN, no cable modem service, no Teledesic coverage. It was quite frustrating.
I moved across the state border (a few miles away) to an area whose ILEC is not under the rural exemption. Now I have 1.5M cable access for $40/mo, and DSL is currently being rolled out by several local providers. I may switch to DSL at some point.
Your only hope is probably cable, since it isn't subject to the same distance limitations as DSL.
Also, DirecPC might be better than dialup... There's a company called Helius that makes a $99 software router package for Linux that allows you to a) use DirecPC on Linux and b) share the connection among up to 4 computers.
--
What we need is smarter protocols that distribute the content closer to the edge of the network. The commercial Akamai service does this by placing content caching servers at several thousand ISPs. These caching servers hold frequently-requested images, video clips, and other large files from major content providers. When Joe ISP user downloads a video clip it comes from his ISP's Akamai server instead of going out onto the Internet, crossing peering points, etc.
Worthy of note is that Helix Code is an Akamai customer. So, when you install Helix GNOME, it's not coming from some arbitrary mirror site, but automagically from the closest upstream Akamai server.
Akamai is awesome, but it would be nice to have an open-source, open-network way to implement this at the ISP level. Does anyone know of any such effort underway already?
--
On a not-really related note, I just got an email saying that Ventura may announce on Fox News tomorrow that he is organizing a presidential debate that will invite all candidates who have a mathematical chance of winning the Electoral College. That would be George Dubya, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, Harry Browne, John Hagelin and Howard Phillips.
If Ventura does announce this, it is certain to be a major deal with the media, and would no doubt be widely watched and very educational to the public.
--
Ron Paul is widely known in the House as "Dr. No", because he is often the lone dissenting vote.
He's extremely hardcore about following the Constitution to the letter, and refuses to endorse any federal legislation that isn't authorized by the Constitution, which says that all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government are reserved for the individual states and/or the people.
He was the lone No vote on a bill authorizing a gold medal for the Pope... and wrote a letter to the Pope explaining that he didn't vote against it because he didn't think the Pope deserved it, but because it was not an expenditure authorized by the Constitution. The Pope wrote him a nice letter back saying he understood his reasoning and appreciated his letter.
Paul sometimes ticks people off by going against the grain, but I for one am glad to have him in Congress. The rest of our legislators pay almost no attention to the Constitution anymore. It carries very little weight whatsoever these days, and I think it's a damn shame.
His web site is at http://www.house.gov/paul/.
Check out some of his sponsored legislation, speeches and weekly columns and you'll get a better idea of why he votes the way he does. You'll also find that he is a tireless defender of privacy and free speech, and often speaks out against the War on Drugs.
--
PNTR China Act - China has a nasty habit of starting up bulldozers and mowing down people who think freely. Why are we, a allegedly democratic part-of-the-free-world country supporting this?
Trade with the Chinese offers a much better hope of improving the human rights situation there than does economic isolation. The Soviet Union fell in large part because of the citizens' exposure to Western films and music. As trashy as our entertainment may be, it showed them that they don't *have* to live under poverty and oppression.
Also consider that trade between nations strongly improves relations between the countries, and drastically reduces the chances of the two countries being involved in armed conflict against each other. Countries who depend upon each other are less likely to bomb each other. It may be cheesy to repeat this, but no two countries that have a McDonald's have ever been at war.
I'd rather have China as a trading partner than an enemy.
--
Here's a novel idea: why not let people cross borders freely and work wherever they want?
--
...for lifting that submission off my site verbatim without crediting the person who wrote the words (aka me).
Not the world's biggest deal, but it would have been a nice gesture...
--
If you wanna get a better idea on what kind of intelligence info the FBI gathers, and the type of people it gathers it on, peep the FBI's Freedom of Information act site:
http://foia.fbi.gov/
The site has reams of declassified FBI files on famous people like John Lennon, Lucille Ball, Jackie Robinson, Charles Lindbergh, Elvis Presley, John Steinbeck. They're all in PDF format, but at least that way you get to see the nifty black marks over the parts they didn't declassify.
--
[Nader:]I'd really put meat in the process of progressive taxation. The richer people are, the more the percentage you pay. After all, it's their influence that rigged the system to get them that rich to begin with. And, second, we should tax things we don't like. We should tax stock market speculation. We should tax pollution. We should tax activities that we don't like, like sprawl, in order to get a better planning system and better zoning system. And we should lighten the taxes on things we do like, like honest labor, like food. It's really interesting. In some places in this country, you go and you pay taxes on food and on books, but you don't pay taxes on what you buy on the Internet. Even though the small businesses in this country are the ones that support the charity and fiber of the community. It's really not fair.
The entire quotation is even scarier than the previous poster's 'out-of-context' little chunk. Nader is advocating for central government 'planners' to direct every facet of the economy, to *decide for the rest of us what we like and dislike*, and to forcibly redistribute wealth in an attempt to achieve income equality.
Oh, and FYI, the red scare ended years ago, bro. Mis-labeling someone a socialist or a communist has really fallen out of vogue.
Notwithstanding the unfortunate current lack of a 'red scare', bro, I have listened to several Nader speeches and the guy is quite definitely a socialist with communist leanings. On a number of occasions he has advocated that the government take over management of private businesses that fail to meet his expectations. He's all about forced redistribution of wealth, and for christ's sake, the guy even proposes more extensive government regulation of the nutritional content of McDonald's food...
Like the ones in your quote, most of his positions and ideas are very much socialist and/or communist, and it is quite accurate to label him as such.
That said, there are a handful of things I agree with him on... and actually think he makes some sense... but for the most part he scares the hell out of me.
--
While we're on the subject of clue-stick beatings, consider that your third-party vote has ZERO impact on the political process. There is exactly zippy chance that your candidate would win, thus, your vote goes into a black hole of 'votes that don't help decide the outcome'.
You are misinformed. A vote for a third-party candidate absolutely has an impact. Although this is applicable to any third party, as an example I'll use the Libertarian Party, which I'm registered under and for whose candidates I've voted over the last 13 years.
The LP expends a massive amount of monetary and volunteer resources every election to achieve ballot status in all 50 states. In addition to the work of volunteer petitioners across the country, they have to fly in paid petitioners to certain states where the ballot access laws are particularly difficult to surmount.
In several states (Massachussets is one, IIRC) the LP is listed permanently on the ballot as a major party, because of the number of people that have voted Libertarian in past elections. This ensures that the LP doesn't have to mobilize hundreds of volunteer and paid petitioners, and instead can direct those resources toward campaigning.
Additionally, past vote totals are a huge factor in determining whether a candidate gets media coverage. This is especially true for us since we haven't had any celebrity candidates like Nader, Buchanan and Ventura.
So, when you vote for a third party candidate, you may not help them win that election, but you are doing something very important by laying a foundation upon which that party can build. Again, to use the LP as an example... Harry Browne is obviously not going to win... but if he walks away with 1.2 million votes, the NEXT Libertarian presidential candidate is going to have a hell of a lot more media coverage, and more resources to expend because of the easier ballot access.
IMHO, voting for anything other than what you believe in is a wasted vote. Aren't happy with the status quo? Then why would you vote Democrat or Republican? That just sends them a mandate to keep on doing what they've been doing.
--
I'm interested in hearing some examples of corporate abuses that are not carried out through or enabled by government officials. That's not meant to be sarcastic - I really would like to better understand what so many Slashdotters are railing about, as I don't see it in my day-to-day life.
I have to admit I'm not much of a consumer, but I do buy something every now and then. A couple months ago I bought a cable modem made by a large corporation named 3Com, but I didn't feel used or dirty about it. Every couple years I buy a stereo component or VCR, which usually ends up being a Sony, because I've been really pleased with their products over the years. I guess my car, credit card, coffeepot, bath towels, CPU and monitor come from corporations too, but I really don't think about that stuff. It all does what it's supposed to.
I have worked for several corporations, and couldn't stand it because of the top-heavy bureaucracy, endless committee meetings, stuffy office enviornment, and general Dilbert-like atmosphere. So I totally split from that scene, am now happily working for myself, and am convinced that corporations like that are destined to crumble from their own arrogance, stupidity and inefficiency.
So, that's the extent of my interaction with corporations. I don't feel abused, and I fail to see how I should.
--
If that were Katz it would have been about 6 times as long, full of unnecessary big words and 'new paradigms'.
--
You want justice in America? Better get out that checkbook.... or a gun.
Well, at the rate the 2nd amendment is being eroded, we'll probably be left with just the checkbook option really soon.
With regards to lobbyists: if the politicians weren't given so much control and influence over the economy, there wouldn't be so many lobbying groups trying to convince them to favor one company or industry over another one. When legislation has such a dramatic impact on the fate of a company or industry, OF COURSE the companies and industry associations are going to hire lobbyists to win the legislators over to their point of view. I'm not saying it's right or wrong - just inevitable and obvious.
There are those on /. who would suggest that the answer is to give the legislators more power. That just encourages more lobbying. As examples I offer China and post-Soviet Russia. There the legislators have much more power than in the U.S., and corruption is rampant.
I think the answer is to take the power away from those in office and give it back to the people. A good start would be to dust off the Constitution and actually pay attention to it once in a while.
--
I agree with you on one thing - that small businesses are the real support for communities.
Unfortunately its increasingly difficult to make a go of it with a small business, because the complex regulatory environment often present a difficult barrier to marketplace entry, and because, as you said, many government policies favor large corporations over small businesses. I know a bit about this firsthand, being a small business owner and all that.
As far as the tax scale, why not eliminate favoritism and have a flat tax, like Hong Kong does?
--
Gee, here's a novel idea: why not have a LIMITED GOVERNMENT, which would be unable to dole out corporate welfare like this under the guise of 'fairness'?
This is what happens when the government starts controlling and directing all manner of economic activity. You end up with some companies and industries getting special treatment at the expense of others. Which companies get the favors is determined by who has the best lobbying presence, or who can pay the biggest bribe to elected officials.
Greens, Socialists and others want to solve this problem by adding MORE government regulation of the economy. Instead of 'reforming' things, it just causes more corruption, more bribes, and more legislative 'favors' to go to those with an effective lobbying presence. Before long you have an monstrous, corrupt bureaucracy and a multi-tiered labyrinth of asinine rules, restrictions and regulations.
Libertarians and laissez-faire types want to tie the hands of the politicians who would hand out corporate welfare and special favors, by limiting their power. I guess you could call this a 'supply-side' approach, because it cuts off the supply of corporate welfare money.
--
That's what I was wondering... whether this means its now OK to use mod_ssl/OpenSSL in the U.S.
And where can you get a server cert for $45 or $90? The cheapest I am aware of is $125 from Thawte Consulting, a division of Verisign.
I actually need to buy a cert in the next week or so. If I could save a few bucks it would make me a happy man. Browser compatibility is of great concern though.
--
At the time I was expecting more along the lines of network security, i.e. closing all ports and disabling stuff like sendmail and linuxconf.
I guess since Mandrake is highly touted as an easy-to-install desktop OS, I expected paranoid security within the context of an operational desktop OS - i.e. working X, sound, etc.
I would point out that Mandrake might want to provide a more clear explanation of the security settings during the install process, since they are aiming their distro at the unwashed masses.
I'm not entirely complaining though - I also thought I would share my experience so that others might avoid the mistake I made.
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Dunno, KDE2 looks pretty rockin'. As in, faster, slicker and easier to use.
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Mandrake is a Redhat derivative.
Not anymore. They decided to do their own thing shortly after Red Hat started shipping KDE. That happened sometime around Mandrake 6.1 or 7.0.
I think now they try to maintain RPM compatibility with Red Hat by keeping libs and such in the same location, but the distro is no longer derived from Red Hat.
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7.1 has offers different levels of security on install (which changes things like directory permissions, among others)
I believe the security options are similar to:
a) Welcome Crackers
b) Low Security
c) Medium Security
d) High Security
e) Paranoid
With my Mandrake 7.0 install, I chose 'Paranoid' because, well, I'm extremely paranoid about security.
This caused no end of trouble for me because of the ultra-restrictive directory permissions it slapped on everything. For months (as a nonprivileged user) I ran into programs I couldn't run, global application config files I couldn't read, and devices I couldn't access. I finally got most everything straightened out, but I still run into an occasional glitch because of the settings.
Things may have improved since 7.0, but I would caution you that this may happen if you choose 'paranoid'. I'm choosing 'high' when I install 7.2.
Otherwise, I've found it to be quite stable, and yes, a bit bloated.
I would describe Mandrake as a heavily tweaked desktop distribution that installs the latest bleeding-edge versions of just about everything, including lots of applications you never knew existed.
I would never run Mandrake on a server. Bleeding edge + tons of unnecessary packages = security risk, IMO.
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Actually, the original NT kernel was written in Pascal
MacOS was at one time written in Pascal also. I was programming in C then, and all the interfaces and examples in the Inside Macintosh references were for Pascal. If the 8,000 redundant API functions didn't get you... the Pascal calling conventions would. Drove me nuts.
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The key point in the AOL suit is that AOL's reliance on volunteers was essentially a substitute for hiring paid employees.
Here is a more detailed list of pertinent criteria from the plaintiffs' site. If you look at it, you'll see that Open Source projects match all 4 of the listed criteria.
I can see how this could derail many open source projects which have a company's backing., especially when the company employs one or more of the project leaders, as is the case with GNOME, MySQL, PHP, Abiword and dozens of others.
So while this may be a concern for outfits like RedHat or Andover, it's a non-issue for non-profits and real volunteers.
Should it matter if someone else wants to volunteer for a profit-making entity? Should there even be such a distinction?
I'm reminded of the Cluetrain Manifesto, which urges companies to get closer to their customers, understand them, and get involved with them. One way a company can do this is by forming a community around its product, which some enthusiastic users might volunteer to be involved with (just like we are with Slashdot).
The Cluetrain Manifesto tells us to 'tear down the walls'. I think that's a damn fine idea. Unfortunately it sounds like we're already busy erecting new ones.
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