We have been supporting, testing, developing for, and selling Linux for 8+ years here at Dell, but before the Ubuntu announcement, a lot of people didn't know that we did any of that...
Imagine that.
Eight years, and I still have my choice of 1 - 14" laptop in the small business section. And I can't even get there from the main page unless I know enough to type in the Linux URL. And then I get a paragraph explaining that I might not want this unless I'm an advanced user and a link back to the Windows stuff.
I'm surprised they weren't in the basement in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
The point is that they didn't award it to somebody who was actively working toward peace. They awarded it to somebody whose action "may" prevent an imaginary future war the conditions for which haven't even been set yet.
Even if you admire Gore's efforts, it's a pretty big stretch to link what he's doing to peace, let alone to say that his work attempts enough of a peace contribution to qualify for an award. The politicization of this award is pretty transparent.
This wouldn't be much different that/. fanboys promoting Torvalds or Stallman for a peace prize under the auspices of Linux contributing to third world education, and education helping to prevent wars. I love Linux, but it wouldn't qualify anyone for a prestigious peace prize.
> A company makes some income. They must pay tax on that income no matter what they choose to do with it. > There is no special tax on the company for issuing a dividend.
I think this is highly dependent on the point of view. Who is "they". The company? The owners? Are the owners the company, or not?
If you view the company as a "being" separate from it's owners, then your model is correct. If you view the company as a "thing" that you bought a piece of, then it is not quite the same.
If you and I (as investors) buy a $50k house and sell it for $100k, then we each make $25k and pay taxes on that. The house itself does not pay taxes on it's increased value before we get our cut.
If we buy a company for $50k, and that company makes $50k it will pay tax on that $50k before it pays us, and then we will pay tax on what's left.
But if we keep the $50k in the company and use it for capital improvements to expand, most of that will come off the company's taxable income (you don't get taxed for money you spend as cost of doing business). We sell our shares of the company for the $100k it's now worth, and we pay taxes on the $25k we each made - the same as if we had invested in the house.
We have three progressive tiers here - basic (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, etc), a middle tier (Nick, Discovery, History, Hallmark, Nat Geographic, etc), and a premium tier (HBO, SHOW, etc).
All I ever watch are a handful of middle-tier stuff - Discovery, History, etc. I pay for the rest of it (the first tier and half of the second) the way I pay for Windows - it's a tax that comes with the system. They could be airing a blue screen all day for all I know - I have to pay for it anyway.
Wouldn't the educational channels be better off if they were receiving 100% of my revenue? They produce 100% of the content I consume, but everyone else gets paid for it.
Maybe what's actually needed is an accurate way to gauge what people are watching. Throw everything out there and bill for the channels that are actually watched. It might be a little more per channel, but it would definitely drive competition for better shows.
It's not a matter of $ == speech. It's a matter of who is allowed to say what, and when and where.
The law bans election related communications within a certain time frame before an election is held - with an exception for media outlets (the press). Well who is "the Press"? The answer boils down to "whoever the government recognizes". That's the problem in a nutshell.
The last I heard (I'm not up to date) the NRA was seeking a legal declaration that they qualify as a media outlet. They have published magazines and books for about 100 years, so they have something of a case. Should they be allowed to discuss candidates when their opponents can't? How about labor unions? Or churches? Or the Electronic Frontier Foundation? So far the rules are pretty much "publish at your own peril". The government will decide later whether your organization qualified to speak about the candidates.
So far the major media outlets don't mind because they seem to be "obviously" exempt. But if campaign finance reform sticks long term, expect more "media outlets" to pop up, and existing established ones to become even more valuable targets for corruption. At that point, there will have to be some sifting out of who is the legitimate "press" and allowed to speak, and who isn't. Who do you suppose will decide that?
There is no justification for you to keep me off of a piece of land, as I was never party to any contract stating I have to keep off.
Fair enough. But I was never a party to any contract stating that I won't kill you. Woot! More resources for me! Got any cute daughters?
You can argue all you want about personal rights vs property rights. But I never agreed to anything either so I'm not bound by your theories of rights.
This takes us right back to ancient times - you have only what you can defend. The whole reason for governments and social contracts was so that we could do more than hunt and fight all day.
The practical question is how far these contracts should go. And many of us agree they've gone way too far. But if you're going to roll them back to the point where you can walk through my farm at will, the social contract becomes useless for me and all bets are off.
According to this chart you weigh, oh, about 600 pounds.
According to your chart there is no percentage of alcohol, no matter how small, that does not impair. It has warnings about.01%. Some people can get that from mouthwash.
The other thing about these charts is that your body is disposing of the alcohol at (give or take) the rate of about 1 drink per hour. So if he's a large man like me (275 lbs) and had those drinks over the course of 3+ hours at a bar shooting pool, he's probably just over the.08 limit.
Realistically, "Impairment" is a difficult thing to measure. But I find it hard to believe most of what I've read in the last 15 years since "Drunk Driving" became a political crusade. As with anything else, once that happens it's hard to find any hard data or untainted statistics on the subject.
When I was a kid in high school, the material we had dealing with alcohol and tobacco seemed more realistic. For example, we were told that the average person's body could dispose of the tar from 3 cigarettes a day. **We were also told that it was unhealthy, and that you would almost certainly become addicted and smoke more than that.** But that seemed logical given that people don't worry about the ill effects of sitting around a campfire. But now we are told that even minimal exposure to someone else's smoke will do irreparable harm, cause cancer, etc. That doesn't seem likely for someone still healthy enough to sit around the campfire.
Alcohol statistics are getting there too. A buddy of mine was T-boned by a driver who ran a stop sign. The driver got off lucky, because my buddy was just on the minimum limit, and was faulted for the accident for being intoxicated. No need to look at the scene - he's been drinking so he's automatically guilty. Another banner case of alcohol abuse for the statistics.
It's not relevant, but I'll throw it in for the tear-jerker crowd. I have a sister-in-law who is missing a leg from a drunk driver. I have a friend who has major spinal injuries from a drunk driver. Yes those are tragedies, and I would show no mercy on a.22 driver flying around town out of control. But these people weren't injured by a.08 driving 2 miles home doing the speed limit. And no amount of hysteria, falsified studies, road blocks, check points, random searches, and nit-picking people over 1 or 2 drinks are going to prevent this sort of thing.
Another disclaimer - I've never had a DUI myself, and I don't drink anymore (I'm a sobered up alcoholic). I just believe in approaching problems rationally and realistically instead of hysterically.
We've all read the 92 posts saying how dangerous this puppy is. How about something more informative?
Anyone know an inexpensive source for protective gear (ie goggles) for those amateurs who will insist on playing with something like this, but would like to do so responsibly?
the rich had more surviving children than the poor and that he postulates that this caused constant downward social mobility as the poor failed to reproduce themselves and the progeny of the rich took over their occupations.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but here goes:
It's social Darwinism, plain and simple. I find it ironic that many of the same people who believe so vehemently in the principles of evolution actively work to defeat the same forces of natural selection in their society.
In the pre-industrial revolution society where you had to provide everything for your children or face losing them, it made sense to have no more children than you could afford. You would be constantly broke and your children would have a rough life.
Today it is the poor who are out-reproducing the upper and middle classes. For the upper and middle classes who consider their ability to pay for a good start for their children, the advantages of good daycare, better education (tutoring, piano lessons, college), medical care (braces, contacts) it makes sense to have fewer children. But for the poor, whose children will all get the same minimum-standard subsidized food, medical care, housing, and education, it makes little difference if they have one child or a dozen.
In other words by removing the natural selective pressures on reproduction, we have structured our society to encourage the reproduction of the poor. This should in theory drive the society the opposite way - toward a less educated, less advanced, less successful populace. I believe we are already seeing the beginning of that; but that is strictly a personal observation.
Perhaps I should clarify. I meant the poster was right about stuff these days not being worth "stealing", "misappropriating", whatever. I had to make a copy just to watch it and it still wasn't worth keeping.
I was a late adopter of the DVD player. I had it hooked up through my VCR (yeah, bad move). When I rented Star Wars Episode II, the macrovision made it unplayable.
So I called my neighbor - a trekkie who is more up-to-date on entertainment stuff. He explained the macrovision flag, and told me what to use to make a copy with the flag removed. It was the only way we could watch it.
All I can say is that it's too bad they don't make compostable DVDs. That copy is shamefully occupying space in a landfill somewhere.
Five seconds? It's 10 to 15 seconds - in English. Then another 10 to 15 - in French. Occasionally there's another 10 to 15 in Spanish. Then a 5 second animated logo. Followed by an 8 second animated logo. Then the previews come up and you're finally allowed to skip out to the main menu. This can be a long time if you're a parent:)
And the parent post makes a very valid point. You only have to put up with this penalty if you paid for the movie. Some incentive.
And your solution is to watch it on the computer with a player that uses the notorious evil DMCA-violating de-CSS software?
For the stuff my kids and I watch often, there are 2 copies in the case. The original that I bought and a rip containing only the movie.
Alright. To be fair, plenty was a bad choice of words. In most of the scandals of the Clinton administration, Al Gore was either peripheral or not involved. And most of the "scandals" were acts of hypocrisy that are common in politics. Hopefully this admission will appease the apostles of St. Gore long enough for them to read this.
I replied to a few of the responses. Then I wrote a long post responding to all of them.... and deleted it. I realized I was letting myself get dragged into this too. Whether it's "Executive Non-Privlege" or "no controlling legal authority", this isn't the place for it.
Seems like each day I see more and more off-topic political posts being modded up and down like noise in a spectrum analyzer. And thats what it is - noise. Each attacks or defends some politician, while bitching about how ultra-partisan the moderators are. Now we're graduated from off-topic posts to off-topic articles.
I know you were all big fans of the "tubes" piece, and are clamoring for more. I'm sure another major piece of tech-related legislation will come up sooner or later and he'll have something stupid to say about it. The majority of us can laugh and move on, while these rest of you sling nasty posts back and forth and mod each other up and down. Just be patient....
This guy made a stupid comment that demonstrated his inability to grasp network technology. Yes it was funny, especially coming from a Senator pushing technology legislation. Yet another slapstick moment in the Senate.
So now we have to see articles about everything and anything Ted Stevens? The only thing these articles provide for nerds are more opportunities for stale tubes jokes.
And this from the same bunch who defended Al Gore when he - and I quote - "took the initiative in creating the Internet." He was involved in plenty of scandals. Did we post every last one so we could make more Internet jokes?
Why don't we just change this site to "News for political trolls. Stuff nobody cares about."
During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
If only we had some kind of system... something to do with a series of rules, we could call them, um, "laws". And some kind of "legal" system.
Funny, TFA alluded to the idea of a "legal system" to punish the girl with something called "probation", which apparently involves being scolded and then set free. According to TFA, it was at least the second time this "legal system" had to impose this severe penalty.
> So what if there was a law saying that a company working in China must have its Board of Directors each rape a child every year. > That would be ok right because they are complying with the laws of that country?
I think we have a new winner for most ridiculous analogy on slashdot.
But to answer it anyway....
A Chinese citizen on the board of a local (Chinese) division would either need to do it or go to prison.
An American would have to leave the country - since the Chinese law would force him to violate American law. We do have Federal laws dictating what you can do abroad, and you can be prosecuted here on your return.
>However, their presence is not exactly good for the Chinese people either because the company is opening the Chinese people up to what many in our world see as human rights violations by reporting them to the government.
By that logic, anyone's presence there is bad for the people in China. Because anyone doing any business there - even visiting as a tourist - must obey they laws.
Does anyone here really expect that the Chinese people don't know this?
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine that.
Eight years, and I still have my choice of 1 - 14" laptop in the small business section. And I can't even get there from the main page unless I know enough to type in the Linux URL. And then I get a paragraph explaining that I might not want this unless I'm an advanced user and a link back to the Windows stuff.
I'm surprised they weren't in the basement in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
The point is that they didn't award it to somebody who was actively working toward peace. They awarded it to somebody whose action "may" prevent an imaginary future war the conditions for which haven't even been set yet.
/. fanboys promoting Torvalds or Stallman for a peace prize under the auspices of Linux contributing to third world education, and education helping to prevent wars. I love Linux, but it wouldn't qualify anyone for a prestigious peace prize.
Even if you admire Gore's efforts, it's a pretty big stretch to link what he's doing to peace, let alone to say that his work attempts enough of a peace contribution to qualify for an award. The politicization of this award is pretty transparent.
This wouldn't be much different that
>This statement is more than a bit deceptive.
> A company makes some income. They must pay tax on that income no matter what they choose to do with it.
> There is no special tax on the company for issuing a dividend.
I think this is highly dependent on the point of view. Who is "they". The company? The owners? Are the owners the company, or not?
If you view the company as a "being" separate from it's owners, then your model is correct. If you view the company as a "thing" that you bought a piece of, then it is not quite the same.
If you and I (as investors) buy a $50k house and sell it for $100k, then we each make $25k and pay taxes on that. The house itself does not pay taxes on it's increased value before we get our cut.
If we buy a company for $50k, and that company makes $50k it will pay tax on that $50k before it pays us, and then we will pay tax on what's left.
But if we keep the $50k in the company and use it for capital improvements to expand, most of that will come off the company's taxable income (you don't get taxed for money you spend as cost of doing business). We sell our shares of the company for the $100k it's now worth, and we pay taxes on the $25k we each made - the same as if we had invested in the house.
All I ever watch are a handful of middle-tier stuff - Discovery, History, etc. I pay for the rest of it (the first tier and half of the second) the way I pay for Windows - it's a tax that comes with the system. They could be airing a blue screen all day for all I know - I have to pay for it anyway.
Wouldn't the educational channels be better off if they were receiving 100% of my revenue? They produce 100% of the content I consume, but everyone else gets paid for it.
Maybe what's actually needed is an accurate way to gauge what people are watching. Throw everything out there and bill for the channels that are actually watched. It might be a little more per channel, but it would definitely drive competition for better shows.
The law bans election related communications within a certain time frame before an election is held - with an exception for media outlets (the press). Well who is "the Press"? The answer boils down to "whoever the government recognizes". That's the problem in a nutshell.
The last I heard (I'm not up to date) the NRA was seeking a legal declaration that they qualify as a media outlet. They have published magazines and books for about 100 years, so they have something of a case. Should they be allowed to discuss candidates when their opponents can't? How about labor unions? Or churches? Or the Electronic Frontier Foundation? So far the rules are pretty much "publish at your own peril". The government will decide later whether your organization qualified to speak about the candidates.
So far the major media outlets don't mind because they seem to be "obviously" exempt. But if campaign finance reform sticks long term, expect more "media outlets" to pop up, and existing established ones to become even more valuable targets for corruption. At that point, there will have to be some sifting out of who is the legitimate "press" and allowed to speak, and who isn't. Who do you suppose will decide that?
That's funny... until you stop to consider that we already tax dying.
Fair enough. But I was never a party to any contract stating that I won't kill you. Woot! More resources for me! Got any cute daughters?
You can argue all you want about personal rights vs property rights. But I never agreed to anything either so I'm not bound by your theories of rights.
This takes us right back to ancient times - you have only what you can defend. The whole reason for governments and social contracts was so that we could do more than hunt and fight all day.
The practical question is how far these contracts should go. And many of us agree they've gone way too far. But if you're going to roll them back to the point where you can walk through my farm at will, the social contract becomes useless for me and all bets are off.
According to your chart there is no percentage of alcohol, no matter how small, that does not impair. It has warnings about .01%. Some people can get that from mouthwash.
The other thing about these charts is that your body is disposing of the alcohol at (give or take) the rate of about 1 drink per hour. So if he's a large man like me (275 lbs) and had those drinks over the course of 3+ hours at a bar shooting pool, he's probably just over the .08 limit.
Realistically, "Impairment" is a difficult thing to measure. But I find it hard to believe most of what I've read in the last 15 years since "Drunk Driving" became a political crusade. As with anything else, once that happens it's hard to find any hard data or untainted statistics on the subject.
When I was a kid in high school, the material we had dealing with alcohol and tobacco seemed more realistic. For example, we were told that the average person's body could dispose of the tar from 3 cigarettes a day. **We were also told that it was unhealthy, and that you would almost certainly become addicted and smoke more than that.** But that seemed logical given that people don't worry about the ill effects of sitting around a campfire. But now we are told that even minimal exposure to someone else's smoke will do irreparable harm, cause cancer, etc. That doesn't seem likely for someone still healthy enough to sit around the campfire.
Alcohol statistics are getting there too. A buddy of mine was T-boned by a driver who ran a stop sign. The driver got off lucky, because my buddy was just on the minimum limit, and was faulted for the accident for being intoxicated. No need to look at the scene - he's been drinking so he's automatically guilty. Another banner case of alcohol abuse for the statistics.
It's not relevant, but I'll throw it in for the tear-jerker crowd. I have a sister-in-law who is missing a leg from a drunk driver. I have a friend who has major spinal injuries from a drunk driver. Yes those are tragedies, and I would show no mercy on a .22 driver flying around town out of control. But these people weren't injured by a .08 driving 2 miles home doing the speed limit. And no amount of hysteria, falsified studies, road blocks, check points, random searches, and nit-picking people over 1 or 2 drinks are going to prevent this sort of thing.
Another disclaimer - I've never had a DUI myself, and I don't drink anymore (I'm a sobered up alcoholic). I just believe in approaching problems rationally and realistically instead of hysterically.
Anyone know an inexpensive source for protective gear (ie goggles) for those amateurs who will insist on playing with something like this, but would like to do so responsibly?
(And thanks to dhalgren for the very helpful Safety FAQ.)
I'll probably get flamed for this, but here goes:
It's social Darwinism, plain and simple. I find it ironic that many of the same people who believe so vehemently in the principles of evolution actively work to defeat the same forces of natural selection in their society.
In the pre-industrial revolution society where you had to provide everything for your children or face losing them, it made sense to have no more children than you could afford. You would be constantly broke and your children would have a rough life.
Today it is the poor who are out-reproducing the upper and middle classes. For the upper and middle classes who consider their ability to pay for a good start for their children, the advantages of good daycare, better education (tutoring, piano lessons, college), medical care (braces, contacts) it makes sense to have fewer children. But for the poor, whose children will all get the same minimum-standard subsidized food, medical care, housing, and education, it makes little difference if they have one child or a dozen.
In other words by removing the natural selective pressures on reproduction, we have structured our society to encourage the reproduction of the poor. This should in theory drive the society the opposite way - toward a less educated, less advanced, less successful populace. I believe we are already seeing the beginning of that; but that is strictly a personal observation.
Perhaps I should clarify. I meant the poster was right about stuff these days not being worth "stealing", "misappropriating", whatever. I had to make a copy just to watch it and it still wasn't worth keeping.
Dang! Thet wuz funny!
Jeebus! Wish ahh had sum ah them mod poynts. Ahh'd a mod you up fer thet!
So I called my neighbor - a trekkie who is more up-to-date on entertainment stuff. He explained the macrovision flag, and told me what to use to make a copy with the flag removed. It was the only way we could watch it.
All I can say is that it's too bad they don't make compostable DVDs. That copy is shamefully occupying space in a landfill somewhere.
Five seconds? It's 10 to 15 seconds - in English. Then another 10 to 15 - in French. Occasionally there's another 10 to 15 in Spanish. Then a 5 second animated logo. Followed by an 8 second animated logo. Then the previews come up and you're finally allowed to skip out to the main menu. This can be a long time if you're a parent :)
And the parent post makes a very valid point. You only have to put up with this penalty if you paid for the movie. Some incentive.
And your solution is to watch it on the computer with a player that uses the notorious evil DMCA-violating de-CSS software?
For the stuff my kids and I watch often, there are 2 copies in the case. The original that I bought and a rip containing only the movie.
I replied to a few of the responses. Then I wrote a long post responding to all of them.... and deleted it. I realized I was letting myself get dragged into this too. Whether it's "Executive Non-Privlege" or "no controlling legal authority", this isn't the place for it.
Seems like each day I see more and more off-topic political posts being modded up and down like noise in a spectrum analyzer. And thats what it is - noise. Each attacks or defends some politician, while bitching about how ultra-partisan the moderators are. Now we're graduated from off-topic posts to off-topic articles.
I know you were all big fans of the "tubes" piece, and are clamoring for more. I'm sure another major piece of tech-related legislation will come up sooner or later and he'll have something stupid to say about it. The majority of us can laugh and move on, while these rest of you sling nasty posts back and forth and mod each other up and down. Just be patient....
What do you expect?
I don't know. Maybe articles related to politics and science/technology. Global warming, spectrum licensing, Internet regulation. Just a thought.
I copied and pasted the quote from that very page you use to refute it. Hello McFly!
So now we have to see articles about everything and anything Ted Stevens? The only thing these articles provide for nerds are more opportunities for stale tubes jokes.
And this from the same bunch who defended Al Gore when he - and I quote - "took the initiative in creating the Internet." He was involved in plenty of scandals. Did we post every last one so we could make more Internet jokes?
Why don't we just change this site to "News for political trolls. Stuff nobody cares about."
Funny, TFA alluded to the idea of a "legal system" to punish the girl with something called "probation", which apparently involves being scolded and then set free. According to TFA, it was at least the second time this "legal system" had to impose this severe penalty.
Frist car psot!
And removing an American business from China would change this, right?
> That would be ok right because they are complying with the laws of that country?
I think we have a new winner for most ridiculous analogy on slashdot.
But to answer it anyway....
A Chinese citizen on the board of a local (Chinese) division would either need to do it or go to prison.
An American would have to leave the country - since the Chinese law would force him to violate American law. We do have Federal laws dictating what you can do abroad, and you can be prosecuted here on your return.
By that logic, anyone's presence there is bad for the people in China. Because anyone doing any business there - even visiting as a tourist - must obey they laws.
Does anyone here really expect that the Chinese people don't know this?
"Yahoo shareholders have rejected plans for the company to adopt a policy that opposes censorship on the internet."
The summary is misleading. It makes it seem like all the shareholders wanted this and the board shot it down.
"A shareholder proposal" in the summary means a proposal put forth by a shareholder - not ratified by all of them as a group.