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User: plague3106

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  1. Re:How silly on World's Most Powerful Rail Gun Delivered to US Navy · · Score: 1

    Well, they already have nuclear powered subs.. so just need the capacitors I guess.

  2. Re:logic on Startup Claims to Make $1/Gallon Ethanol · · Score: 1

    Um, who was limiting "pollution" to how much CO2 is put out?

  3. Re:Vista XP is here! on Software Tool Strips Windows Vista To Bare Bones · · Score: 1

    Multiple monitors.. maybe. But I'm willing to bet a large number of people actually do end up buying some hardware that comes with unsigned drivers. A netword card, maybe some USB device.

  4. Re:Vista XP is here! on Software Tool Strips Windows Vista To Bare Bones · · Score: 1

    2) The 64-bit version of Vista removes backwards compatability for 16-bit applications. I dunno about you, but sometimes I get nostalgic for the games I grew up with... and some of those games are good enough that horrible dated graphics don't matter.

    Ok, but I think you should concede that this is pretty much an edge case, and doesn't matter for most users. Backward compatibility is good, but I'm sure you've seen that too much ends up being a pain in the ass and the source of many problems.

    Your other two points seem valid, and my only experience is running Vista on 32-bit computers (with single monitors).

  5. Re:logic on Startup Claims to Make $1/Gallon Ethanol · · Score: 1

    Ya, the real horror of ethanol is that we're putting worse polution into the air than we are now.

  6. Re:the memories on Startup Claims to Make $1/Gallon Ethanol · · Score: 1

    I think GM's combination of influence and incentive [financial troubles] to get this implemented will prove sufficient. I'll be watching this story, and I expect my cheap, high-quality ethanol at service stations within 10 years.

    I'd rather not have to go to a service station at all, and plug my car in when I get home. To each his own I suppose.

  7. Re:Let me answer your question with a question. on When Are Kids Old Enough to Play Videogames? · · Score: 1

    I think that shows a failure on your part. My parents never took away TV or videogames, but I still formed a good imagination and also read quite a bit. I also had home chemestry and electronics labs and robot kits. You can encourage your kids to be diverse without such heavy-handedness. They'll come to miss it when their older and their friends are talking about things they don't understand. As kids, we did talk about the latest ninja turtles (in 4th and 5th grade) or ST:TNG (in HS).

  8. Re:Backups on Charter Accidentally Wipes 14K Email Accounts · · Score: 1

    Probably because backing up all the email would cost a pretty penny, and they never said that something like this wouldn't happen.

  9. Re:Crap on Charter Accidentally Wipes 14K Email Accounts · · Score: 1

    Not me. I have my email downloaded to my own mail server, which is backed up. Prior to my own mail server, things were in a .pst file.

  10. Re:Free Market on IBM Responds to Overtime Lawsuits With 15% Salary Cut · · Score: 1

    It was doing perfectly fine. The "disposible" machines part BS -- people weren't any more or less "disposible" than they are now.

    I think you really need to do some research into this, specifically things like safety and child labor; there's a reason the Progressive movement was trying to change things. If the workers weren't on their side, the movement would have failed.

    Please, substantiate this claim, while I substantiate the opposite. The "silly" (more like "idiotic") laws make companies more reluctant to hire people, although in the US the situation is not as bad as in the illiberal Europe. Because if I can not fire someone (or lower their pay) at will, I'll think twice and thrice about hiring them.

    Again, do research your history. Similar things were NOT done in Russia, and things became bad enough for the revolution.

    As for being more relucant to hire people; that's fine. I work for an employer that hires with the attitude that if it "doesn't work out," they'll just can them. The problem is that "working out" is arbitrarly defined, and they never tell the employee what they think the employee is doing wrong. So the employee, lacking any feedback, doesn't even get a chance to improve. Its bad enough that they can't fill professional positions now.

    You'll say, "see, the market is working." That doesn't help the people already fired though, and if it keeps up its likely the company will fail. That also won't help the employees that do manage to stay, and ends up being bad for the local economy. In other words, the irresponsible behavior of the owners affects the entire town / county. Why should the town / county pay for the irresponibility of a few? My answer is that it shouldn't.

    So yes, I think companies should be acting more responsible when hiring, and it isn't something they should be taking lightly. As far as Europe goes... well the Euro is stronger than the dollar, and their economies are pumping along quite nicely compared to ours... especially England, whose pound is worth two US dollars.

    The real point in all of this is that we are all employers -- to some degree.

    Nope, most of us aren't.

    If you don't want the government to dictate, how much you pay the babysitter, how much tip you leave to the waiter

    Hmm, well technically we should be providing 1099-misc to our babysitters, so we're breaking the law by not doing so and reporting their income to the IRS. As far as waiters go, tipping isn't the same as a paycheck. I don't get to decide if they still work at the restraunt or not, so I'm not their employer. I don't manage their 401, health benefits, or anything else. That's also why the restraunts must report to the IRS the tips earned by the waiter. Your attempt to blur things isn't working.

    which supermarket or laundromat to patronize (thus "firing" the others), you should defend the IBM's right to pay what they want to their employees.

    More crap examples; I don't employ them, I don't have a relationship with them past the I do business with them. Its not ongoing. And if I don't like their "services," I can't cut off all their income, like my boss can do to me. Stop with your strawman arguments.

    All of those idiotic laws you advocate ought to apply to your relationship with the people you are paying just as much, as you would like them to apply to the relationships, where someone else pays you.

    Nope, because employer / employee means something that vendor / customer do not. There's a reason its called "sales tax" and not part of income tax.

  11. Re:Funny on Mystery Malware Affecting Linux/Apache Web Servers · · Score: 1

    Well, the mono-culture also makes development costs lower, although its not really a mono-culture either. IIS is not the same on Win2k Server as it is in 2k3, or 2k8. Most of the recent exploits are also configuration problems, much like using a weak password.

    Mono-cultures do provide benefits as well as risks, just like everything else.

  12. Re:Funny on Mystery Malware Affecting Linux/Apache Web Servers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No, not really a good guess. It could be only Apache on a certain distro, with a certain version. Apache runs on Unix as well, so you can rule all those Apache installs out (the article seems to point out Linux, IIRC).

    I agree with your reasoning on the significance of the story.

  13. Re:Free Market on IBM Responds to Overtime Lawsuits With 15% Salary Cut · · Score: 1

    What a profound demagoguery! So my decisions to cut somebody's pay are equivalent to my punching somebody's nose? What else is equivalent in your opinion? Action vs. inaction?..

    If the result is that person going bancrupt, and you decided to cut pay because you knowing broke overtime laws, yes, that is causing harm to someone. Not physical.

    But please do cite a LAW supporting your claims. What LAW -- other than the minimum wage regulation -- affects the amounts an employer must pay their employees? Put up or shut up...

    I'm not arguing based exclusively on the law. If IBM can do this though, then what would be the point of having overtime laws? They can't realistically be enforced, because employees will stay quiet for fear of reprisal.

    "Sociopath"? Did you call him a sociopath, commie? You belong on a lamp-post, asshole -- along with all the other illiberals hell-bent on dictating free men, what they must pay for what...

    Ya, except I already said communism isn't a solution either. Might want to work on reading comprehension. Not that I expect some neo-con jackass to agree anyway. Of course by your logic I can have my company dump whatever I want into a river, because I can run my business as I choose.

    Oh, I see. You are not really an asshole -- just a moron... "Dangerously close to slavery" -- awesome!.. Slavery, dear, is when you can not leave -- held against your will, deprived of personal freedoms, and compelled to work. None of this is true about the employees in question. None...

    Well, if your choice right now is work for IBM or starve, are you not being held? Can you exercise your freedom if your employer can lash back at you? If you like then I can argue its closer to Feudalism, but with the ability to choose your manor. Not that they are any different, if you had your way.

  14. Re:Funny on Mystery Malware Affecting Linux/Apache Web Servers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I read it, here's what it said: "One great unknown thus far is how the servers come to be infected. Absent any forensic evidence of break-ins, the current thinking is that the malware authors gained access to the servers using stolen root passwords."

    In other words, they have no idea how the servers were compromised. Because they can't find out how, they're guessing it was a root password that was stolen. In other words, its still just as likely a flaw in some software.

  15. Re:Free Market on IBM Responds to Overtime Lawsuits With 15% Salary Cut · · Score: 1

    False. And irrelevant -- there is nothing in this story about IBM doing something, that an individual would/could not do.

    Not quite true. An individual acting irresponsibly like IBM is would be called to task on it.

    Owners of the companies are people. And they have rights, however irritating that may be to you. The "legal fiction", that you call a corporation, derives its rights from the rights of its owners.

    They have rights, and as I said, their right to do whatever they want stops when it harms another.. especially when that other person is being harmed because the owners weren't following the law to begin with. The corporation can't derive rights from its owners anymore than a rock can. All you're doing is giving a company rights and removing responsiblity from the owners.

    Yep -- it is a silly law to begin with. It should, of course, be obeyed, because it is still a law -- if you can describe, how IBM is disobeying it now, please do...

    No, the law is there for good reason. We tried employement without restriction in the 1900s. Go research how well that did; people became little more than disposible machines. Those "silly" laws helped form a middle class (because we COULD demand more, because the field was made slightly more level), which is why we never had a Red revolution.

    "Unfairly" is not a legal term, but all of your arguments are of legal kind ("broke a law", "legal fiction"). In other words, the claim of "unfair" treatment is unsubstantiated... The employees in question are not slaves -- if they feel unfair treatment, they can leave for greener pastures.

    Not at all. Fair is certainly expected, especially in contract law. One of the underpinnings of contract law is that both sides must benefit equally; too far to one side, and the whole contract can be thrown out.

    You also miss the point; without the "silly" laws, there would be no greener pastures to go to. Even now, its unlikely a majority will be able to leave, because they may not be able to afford to move, and there are probably not enough openings to absorb all those wishing to leave. Did you ever see what happens when a major employer pulls out? The people are left behind, and things quickly deteriorate.

    Following your line of reasoning, a woman that sues her employer for sexual harrasment and wins can then be terminated. At that point, the actions of the company undermine the intention of the law, and if allowed, the law becomes effectively useless. Of course that's exactly what you seem to want, but I'd rather live in a world where the standards of living are modern, not those of the 1900s.

    Well, it seems like IBM has found a way to do both -- continue to treat them reasonably

    Treating them reasonably would have been paying the overtime to begin with, or not expecting the overtime. So they weren't treating them reasonably.

    This may not be quite what the employees expected, when they initiated the lawsuits, but -- given their complete freedom to chose different employment and not doing so -- I think, their compensation remains "reasonable".

    Again, you miss the point. There are no greener pastures if employers are allowed to act in this way.

    But you can think whatever you like, I suspect you own a business, probably with high turnover. I suspect IBM will suffer some harsh feelings as well; not only will some likely leave, others like me won't consider them for employment in the future if they have openings.

  16. Re:Free Market on IBM Responds to Overtime Lawsuits With 15% Salary Cut · · Score: 1

    The people at IBM certainly have no business deciding the fate of their employees. However, they should be totally free to decide the fate of their money.

    First off, IBM is a corporation, a legal fiction we allow to exist to better society. Court ruling saying they have "rights" are wrong, as they are given the rights with no responsibities expected.

    Back to the main point, isn't that what IBM is doing by cutting its employees pay, deciding their employees fates, knowing that some were not expecting a cut can it will hurt them? I think it is.

    These freedoms are rights that belong to the company, and these rights trump any individual's desire to be employed by IBM and receive their desired salary.

    Again, companies are not people and should not have rights. However, you're conviently ignoring the context of IBM's actions; they were breaking the law, knowingly or not (and given the number of lawyers they have, I suspect they knew). Whatever happened to ignorance is no excuse?

    So, they broke the law, and caused harm to their employees by not paying overtime whcih they were entitled. They then turn around and cut their employees pay, undoing the correction of their previous harm. The end result is that the employees are still harmed and treated unfairly.

    The reason why your analogy doesn't apply is that "not being punched in the face" is a right that all individuals should have, but "working at IBM" is not.

    I never said that working at IBM is a right. But if you do work for them, its reasonable to expect to be treated reasonably and within the confines of the law. Their freedom to "decide the fate of their money" ends when it unjustly causes harm to their employees. Its one thing to fire an employee because they weren't doing their job, its quite another to cut everyone's pay because IBM wants that much more profit.

  17. Re:Eliminate Copyrights and Patents on Bill Gates Calls for a 'Kinder Capitalism' · · Score: 1

    I wasn't arguing the natural selection side of things. My only point was that if 1 million peopled died "over there" (or hell, on the other side of the nation you live in, assuming you're in the US), you'd go "oh, that's horrible," and then finish whatever it was you were doing.

    Or are you actively doing something to help starving Ethiopians? More to the point, what effect did it have on your life that wouldn't have changed had you never heard about them?

    When I said "don't care," I really meant it; if you want someone dead, you then DO care about them at some level. :-)

  18. Re:Free Market on IBM Responds to Overtime Lawsuits With 15% Salary Cut · · Score: 1

    Ya, see we tried that free market bullshit for employement in the early 1900s, it didn't work out so well. Years later, those "BS laws" helped create a middle class, which is why there was no Red Revolution here as there was in other industrializing nations. Marx did correctly identify a problem with modern capitalism, just got the solution wrong.

  19. Re:Free Market on IBM Responds to Overtime Lawsuits With 15% Salary Cut · · Score: 1

    I'm exempt, but still need to punch a clock. Yet somehow I still get to go to the doctors. You can have flexibility still; make up your hour at some other point in the pay period. Come in at 8 today, 9 tomorrow... just don't leave until 5 or 6, respectively.

    If you can't make up the time, use time off. How is it not flexible?

    People that get less done simply get less done; being paid hourly would actually force companies to get rid of those not as efficient, if that's their sole concern.

  20. Re:Eliminate Copyrights and Patents on Bill Gates Calls for a 'Kinder Capitalism' · · Score: 1

    Who said anything about Walmart Costco or Whole Foods? Nice try at a red herring though.

  21. Re:Free Market on IBM Responds to Overtime Lawsuits With 15% Salary Cut · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And exactly whose fault is it that the employee is so overextended that losing their job will cause loss of house, car and going into bankruptcy? It's not IBM's responsibility to ensure their employees are financially responsible adults.

    Wow, lots of assumptions in there. Is someone out of work for a year and runs out of savings "finicanlly irresponsible?" Or are you arguing that everyone should be paying cash for their homes? You're out of touch of reality either way it would seem.

    To the point though, it IS IBM's responsiblity to pay their employees in accordence with the law. They don't have a right to cut someone's pay when they are caught and that person has planned things so that his salary DOES meet his finincal responsiblities.

    That's the fundamental problem with today's society. People think it's someone else's job to feed them. Sorry, but it's your job to feed yourself by entering into agreements with others to exchange work for money.

    Yes, and because I need to eat, those contracts are often unfair and unbalanced. I think the fundamentl problem with today's society are sociopaths like you that feel they can do whatever they want to employees, because its THEIR company. Sorry, but your right to swing your fist ends at other people's faces.

    Lets get real here; weren't not talking about people sitting around getting handed money by IBM; the workers were WORKING, IBM was not paying them what they LEGALLY were entitled to and you think IBM has the right to hit back because they got caught? Bull.

    Every single employee could leave if they wanted to. Exactly which ones can't? And if they can't find another job where they are, then they should move. That's how responsible adults act.

    Moving in and of itself is a huge cost. All the employees could leave in theory. In practice they can't, because there aer only so many open jobs, and not all of them can move. You talk a lot about employees being responsible; how has IBM acted responsiblely in this? That's right, they don't have to, because the legal fiction doesn't force them to.

    The biggest lesson in life that everyone seems to learn sooner or later is that NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING. And that's the way life should be. It's a better world when people take care of themselves.

    Huh.. and here I thought having a job and working WAS taking care of yourself. I don't buy the idea that a company can decide they aren't making enough profit, and show someone the door. Ih other words, its not ok to screw someone over for your own benefit.

    In any case, the reason IBM did the pay cut was so that the net pay would stay the same. So the employees are working the same number of hours for the same net amount of money (I'm sure there are some variations here and there). The only difference is in how the hours are counted. Some employees will probably make more money since they're working more hours.

    Many will make less, because they weren't working overtime to begin with. Others now have to give more of their life to the company for less money. Sounds dangerously close to slavery to me.

  22. Re:Eliminate Copyrights and Patents on Bill Gates Calls for a 'Kinder Capitalism' · · Score: 1

    A person that claims to care about a million people he doesn't know isn't being honest, that's certain too.

  23. Re:Eliminate Copyrights and Patents on Bill Gates Calls for a 'Kinder Capitalism' · · Score: 1

    If anything, all the drugs today are the reason the next infection will wipe us out; instead of letting our immune system handle it, we pop pills, and viruses and bacteria that are left are immune.

    So ya, thank the drug companies. They're our only hope! Its not like we could fund research with public money after all!

  24. Re:Great News... on Bill Gates Calls for a 'Kinder Capitalism' · · Score: 1

    Ya because the media never quotes you out of context or spins things to make their point.

  25. Re:Free Market on IBM Responds to Overtime Lawsuits With 15% Salary Cut · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, they are free to leave. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with the fact that the employee still needs to eat. If they can find another job, great. But you can't argue that a sudden 15% paycut won't have an effect on the employees, and may put them in danger of losing their house, depending on individual situation. One employee leaving IBM won't have any effect whatsoever. That's where the power divide lies.

    More to the point, does it do the employee any good to leave if any other company knows they can break the law, lose a lawsuit but be able to cut everyone's base pay so everything evens out for them?

    Kind of like it was before workers saftey rights; your employer doesn't make your workplace safe, so you're free to leave... except without force of law, no other employer bothers to ensure the saftey of their employees either. So what good does freedom to leave do you?