In this case the metric was supposed to be based off of the ticket tracking system. This makes optimal simple. The optimal number of tickets that are not resolved as invalid is exactly zero. If the number is above zero then someone already screwed up, so tracking anything after that is completely missing the point.
If the apps window is at the bottom right of the screen you have to go all the way up to the top left to...
...hit an infinitely wide/tall menu item.
Accessing an OS X menu item is faster than hitting any other button on the screen accept the one directly under the current mouse position, or in one of the four corners. There for contextual menus are the fastest to access, but require some learning to even realize they are there and what is in them. Corner menus would be the next fastest, but they would only hold a single button, which would be an odd interface. So there for your best bet are screen edge menus, which is exactly what OS X has.
Windows menus are the absolute worst possible way to implement a menu. The are not directly under the current mouse position and are not in any of the easy to reach in a single motion, areas of the screen, and lastly they are relatively small (sometimes ridiculously small). And even with their bad placement and small size they waste important screen real estate.
As I said, I never purchased an iPhone, I just know that Apple does not sell them without a contract, I just have no clue what the contract says and wouldn't doubt that it includes details about the hardware.
The hardware involved is good hardware, it would be more expensive and very very difficult to attempt to get the same thing without just purchasing the product. Why should the company have any right whatsoever to dictate how I use their product as long as I am not harming anyone else?
So rather than purchase from a company who would allow you to use your hardware how ever you would like, you would instead give your money to a company that supports restricting your usage of the hardware. You might as well be sending money directly to the legal team that will be filing suit against your for violation of the EULA. Don't sound like a smart thing to me, but then again I haven't purchased a iPhone,though I'm sure I've given plenty to the Apple legal team through other purchases.
But while we're asking questions, what gives you the right to determine how a company choses to sell their products? If they chose to sell it under the conditions that that you can not modify it or otherwise change it, then they have every right to add that stipulation. It's not like you did not know this before purchasing the product, or at the very worst after reading the licensing agreement and still able to return the product. It's the companies product and they can chose to sell it to whomever under what ever conditions they chose (or at least they would if there was actually a free market*). If you don't like those conditions then don't by the product.
* This should not be taken as an endorsement of free market economy.
I would suggest spending some time actually researching what happens in Union. You would probably even do well to work in a Unionized environment. Do yourself a favor and do so in a union that has members in both a right-to-work state and one without right-to-work regulations. Spending a little time in a union environment is leaps and bounds beyond anything you will ever see or read about labor unions. Mass media is very much biased against Unions, since unions have fought for their employees to be treated well and fairly compensated, but if you don't have the time or opportunity to be in a union environment I'm sure there are some good books out there that could explain the truth about unions (I don't know any because I lived it and never felt a need to read about it).
Completely irrelevant here. If I bought an HP PC the first thing I would do is format the HDD and remove all ties to HP, while replacing it with my own OS. This is exactly like buying any applicable device and jailbreaking it.
If you could figure out how to replace all the licensed software on the device, or at least any whose licensing agreement you would be violating, then you can go ahead and do the same thing with the so called locked down devices. Assuming you bought an iPhone without agreement to any contract about the hardware (I do not own one so I don't know what they have you sign), all you have to do is remove every last trace of apple software and then you can install anything you want (Oh you might also have to figure out how to do that without violating the DMCA).
Or, and this is a really novel idea, you don't purchase products from companies that would like to restrict how you use their products.
Isn't this exactly what a licensing agreement is, rental of a product. In the case of a game console, the hardware is not licensed but the software, including the firmware, is. The games are also licensed. So as long as you accept that these products are licensed (I'm not going to get into an argument over that), then you see that the only restriction is that you can not use the licensed software in violation of the license. I would be willing to be that you would find out that this is the actual reality of things. You can put what ever software you want on the the console, but you can't use any of the original software or software licensed to run in conjunction with the original software.
The typical license is simply a rental of indefinite duration that cost one flat fee and can be revoked according to the terms of the argeement.
The flaw in your thinking is that unions aren't just normal organizations. They have their own laws.
This is not a flaw of unionization or a valid argument against unions, but go ahead and argue against the regulations. I personally would support removing any laws that protect unions specifically, as many states have done with their right-to-work laws, but if and only if we also remove corporate personhood and other corporate protections. But that is beside the point, since supporting unionization has nothing to do with supporting current regulation.
You're very casually dismissing a hundred years of violence and intimidation.
If you were to add up the total number of deaths directly linked to unionization it would considerable lower than many other organizations and actions. The most obvious is the military, and few people would support a wholesale disbanding of the military. Second would be corporations, with disasters like that caused by Union Carbide out numbering the union actions in one incident. Nuclear power, the war over oil, tobacco, alcohol, suicides from the stress of higher education, and these are just a few off the top of my head. These are a mix off good and bad things. The point is that unionization is not amoral, any more than say something like religion. Sure the inquisition killed numerous people, but the quakers and the Mennonites have not hard any one (with a couple rare notable exceptions). The unions of today are not the thugs of the industrial revolution, and even then most union members where moral and law abiding citizens. And that's not even talking about the number of lives saved through improved working conditions that was brought about by unionization.
Seniority is not a valid basis...because they can't be let go
Your are mixing up loosely related issues. Seniority is a valid basis if you chose to only keep competent and productive employees. The fact that getting rid of incompetent employees might take a bit of a paper trail is no reason to argue that seniority is invalid. In most states you don't even need a paper trail. Sure the unions are there to protect employees from wrongful termination, but trust me, if the person deserves to be let go the unions will not protect them. The idea that unions protect incompetents is a myth, intentional or otherwise, that undermines the reality of unionization.
Keep believing the myths if you must, but I would suggest that you educate yourself, with first hand experience if possible, before dismissing the benefits of unionization.
As I said above I previously worked for a union shop but was not the member or the union. I received the same compensation as the union employees and even received union representation if needed such as for disciplinary action. But there are things I did not get because I was not a union member. I was not eligible to receive compensation during a strike, and I had no say in the union negotiations.
The only reason I received those benefits is because the union negotiated them and made it contractual that the company could not hire non-union members fro less than union pay. Had the union not negotiated such then the company would have hired lower quality, lower cost, resources. So I did reap the benefits of unionization without being a member. That actually makes me even more supportive of unions, since there is no way a corporation would have worked on my behalf for free.
And just a tid-bit for those that don't know, 22 US states have right-to-work regulations. What this means is that the Union and companies can not enter into contracts that force union membership.
As far as I am aware, and I could be wrong, all union membership is voluntary in the United States. Membership in certain trade organizations, like Professional Engineering, is not, but that's another issue entirely. But let us not limit a collectives capabilities to bargain. If they have the strength to negotiate a contract with a corporation that says the company can not hire non-union workers, then more power too them.
In some cases scabs get beaten, maimed or killed.
Harm is amoral and illegal, and also is no more a side affect of unionization than it is a side affect of any other activity.
No, it can't be performance based, because that requires an objective way to measure performance.
Before becoming a software engineer I worked in a Union shop that included in it's compensation performance based reviews (I chose not to be a union member but I was still subject to the same compensation regulations). Seniority is a valid basis, as you shouldn't be keeping people that are not affective, but performance can easily be included as well.
The normal employer/employee relationship has a lot of fuzziness that allows hard-to-quantify performance factors to be taken into account.
The fuzziness in the normal relationship is what causes compensation to be based off of personal interactions and socialization, rather than based on performance. And though I have spent a lot of time perfecting the art of communication, I disagree with compensation being based on friendliness, when high performing individuals are lesser compensated because they lack certain social skills.
I have NEVER , during 15 years in the field, EVER encountered a competent IT professional who dreamed of being in a union.
Now I can't prove my competence in a slashdot post, but I am a software engineer that fully supports unionization.
I am fairly compensated, as I do a good job of negotiating what I believe I am worth. But there is more to unionization than compensation. Though I do support collective bargaining (which does not need to be seniority based, and can be performance based).
Unionization can be used as a tool to bring product quality back into the hands of those that produce the product. Having a union to collectively support only quality changes should improve overall product quality.
Unionization is a tool that can be utilized. I would much rather have more tools at my disposal than less (though we need not use every tool for every task).
Just remember that the corporation is bargaining against you, as there goal is to maximize profit, and they are doing it collectively. If you want to even the score you do your bargaining collectively. But corporations have also done a great job to convince the American people that Unions are bad and lazy, so I doubt I'll be changing any minds here.
Lastly, Unionization is fully in-line with Libertarian ideology, even the Neo Libertarians of the US Libertarian party, and the likes of Ron Paul. Collective bargaining is an important tool that allows capitalism to be successful.
Oh the irony to spend a ton of time, effort, and research to find Earths twin, only to find the race of carbon-based life forms living there has completely fucked up the entire planet by abusing its natural resources.
That's pretty much how the inhabitants of the alien planet our going to feel when they discover us. Or maybe they already have, but are smart enough to stay away.
Here's another method. Look at the definitions. Looks at the theory. Now look at reality.
If you had read the entire thread you would see that this is the exact thing that I am promoting. The original argument was that someone called it capitalism, someone else said, no it's not. Then someone chimed in to say that the same thing happened with communism, where sovietism, stalinism, and maoism are used as examples of failed communism, even though they were never communist, and never claimed to be communist. They were hardly socialist, and there failures had nothing to do with socialism. This same thing will happen with capitalism.
I'm on your side and wish people would stop blaming the failures on a system because of improper implementation or improper use of a word. More importantly, we should stop worrying about titles and labels and instead focus on the affects of actions. This is not a failure or capitalism, socialism, statism, corporatism, authoritarianism, or what ever ism is the enemy of the moment. This is most likely a failure of regulation (I'll let those that care more than I to fight over it being over or under regulation, though I'd put my money on it just being improper regulation).
I don't think that I would say facebook is a pyramid scheme by definition (though if you use the promise of notoriety or acceptance as your currency then maybe) but it does have the same fatal flaws as a pyramid scheme.
Facebook acquires it's revenue by sale of personal information (direct or aggregate I can't say for sure). This information has continued diminishing returns as each new bit about a person becomes less valuable once you have a significant profile. The only way to continue revenue growth, through sellable information, is to continue to gather fresh information. This can only happen by adding more people's data, not more data on the same people. More people only join if you can give an incentive to the current users to stay as members and/or have them convince their associates to join and share their information. Eventually you run out of new people, and revenue drops do to the aforementioned diminishing returns.
Facebook already knows all this so its not like I'm sharing any big secret, which is exactly why they are looking to double in size now, so that they can bring in enough fresh information (new users) sooner rather than later. The are creating their own stock bubble, and they are well aware of that.
Unlike Communism, Capitalism does not require perfect implementation to work.
Yet once it does collapse, and it will, the supporters of capitalism will be out explaining about how it was not capitalism that failed, because capitalism was never truly implemented. I won't even say that they would be wrong, but it's the exact same thing that happens on the Communist side of the argument.
I personally don't accept the argument that what we have is good enough so lets not try for better, but that's pretty much was you are saying with your comparison between Capitalism and cleanliness. The system we have right now, be it capitalism, or corporatism, or some ism in between, is not doing as well as possible for the overall well being of humanity. Let us stop worrying about titles and start thinking about how the system can be improved.
I think you just made his point. If you support Capitalism then of course any failures will be labeled as an unrelated economic system. If you are a supporter of Communism then of course any failures will be labeled as also being because of an unrelated system. Corporatism is as equal to capitalism as Stalinism is to Communism.
And so if history has shown us anything, capitalism will be written of as a failure that should never be attempted again, just as communism was. Not because capitalism is a bad idea (my personal opinion aside), but instead because there are nuances to economic systems that need to be understood and refined.
I happen to agree with sentiment, though I'd probably be a little more polite about it. The question is, would you be willing to pay more to have someone do the sorting for you? Maybe two grades of service. I know that I would be willing to pay more to not have to sort the stuff, but I certainly don't want recycling and composting programs to go away.
But since the free market will solve all problems, I have to assume that there is little demand for trash sorting or else someone would be offering the services for a nominal fee.
I disagree about there being subjects that cannot be expressed on slashdot, but we'll just agree to disagree on that one.
The problem with a "Wrong" moderation is that many of the comments are a matter of opinion, and opinions are by definition, never wrong. The best approach to deal with misinformation is to respond and supply supporting evidence to the alternate view. If done correctly the correction to the misinformation will get moderated up and be at least as visible as the incorrect information.
Also try not to confuse moderation with censorship, they are very different. Moderation does not remove the ability to view the content, it simply gives some guidance as to the quality of the content.
The problem with the tyranny of the majority in this case is that descenting views are able to be suppressed by the moderation system.
This is not actually true under the slashdot moderation system. One of the advantages to this system is that the is no such thin as oblivion. The worst the moderation can get is -1. Anyone can read comments moderated at -1, and in most case those interest in the unpopular opinion will do just that. Those interested in the popular opinion will only see the popular opinion, but even without moderation they will most likely tend toward that. What the group moderation does is allows the group as a whole to point out things of interest, and to suppress things that they believe to detract from the conversation.
Putting moderation into the hands of a select few, like on a traditionally moderated site, does not change this, accept that the opinion that is allowed to be seen is the opinion of the select few, not the community as a whole.
anyone can get modded up to +5 insightful or informative if they sound like they know what they're talking about, even if they're flat out wrong
If you notice the moderation system does not have any options for "Right" and "Wrong", and from what I understand, this was done for good reason. The purpose of the moderation system, on slashdot, is not to determine the correctness of a statement but to determine the readability of the statement. If a person moderates a post upward it's because they believe the statement is worth reading, regardless of whether or not the agree with the statement or believe it to be factual.
It's far worse that people use the negative mods such as "Flamebait" and "Troll" to down moderate statements they disagree with. But I think in the overall moderation you will find that this is relatively rare. The slashdot moderation happens at such a high volume, and includes meta moderation, that the group as a whole ends up with the result that the majority agrees with. This, in my opinion, is far better than having a select set of the populous deciding what is or is not important to the rest of us.
Take some time to go back and read some older posts. You will see that the moderation is actually pretty reasonable and accurate. You may not agree with ever bit of moderation, but over all it ends up to be a reasonable representation of the interests of the people that visit Slashdot.
T-Mobile has a banging-hot chick in their advertisements. AT&T does not have a banging-hot chick in their advertisements. Banging-hot chicks are clearly in the public interest.
Banging-hot? Maybe to a carpenter, or someone else used to nailing boards. Though the low self-esteem that usually comes along with being underweight does make for girls willing to do some crazy shit to get the attention and approval they never got earlier in life.
do you think self-education is going to be as good being taught by professors?
He would be a fool to think such a things, since self-education shows a dedication that a college graduate will rarely ever have. The self educated is more likely to be up on recent technologies. In fields like programming, the education system wastes a large portion of the person time on information that is at best not applicable, and at worst detrimental (If you've ever had to deal with a custom implementation of a sort algorithm in a business software project, then you'll understand what I mean).
Having Yoda teach you to be a Jedi is more effective than becoming a Jedi by yourself.
Yet both the most powerful Jedi's in the series never completed their training. But I guess self-education is your equivalent to the dark side.
If you have friends that are surgeons or lawyers then you have friends in the top 1% of the USA.
I believe this depends on what we are calling the top 1%. In my experience this is not based on income, but based on net worth. I happen to know people who are clearly in the top 1% on both of those measures, yet oddly not the same people. Most of the people I know that are in the top 1% by net worth, have relatively little income, being only that generated by capital gains, which has even been negative at times. Those that I know in the to 1% of income earnings have negative equity, thought that is sure to change over time. Also your measure of 280k a year is not your typical lawyer or doctor. The average pay for a lawyer is around 100k, and doctors around 150k. And that's not taking into account the amount of debt that is accrued to gain such titles.
Point being, entering into the 1% is not necessarily easy, and even if it were, it does not make wealth disparity a viable approach to modern civilization. There are enough resources available for every single person, at least in the United States, to live a comfortable life. There are enough jobs, if we, as a society, chose to provide a living wage for reasonable work. reduce the work day to 6 hours, as some suggest, and you get a 25% increase in jobs. Heck reducing the work day by one hour is enough to eradicate unemployment. If your society does not have enough work for everyone, then the problem is one of distribution, not availability.
You can interpret the Constitution how ever you would like, just understand that if you are not going to take it literally then you have to understand that your interpretation is not the only interpretation, and that your interpretation may not be the correct interpretation, or most valuable interpretation. You have chosen to interpret keep, as ownership, while use is also a perfectly valid interpretation of the word keep (I can keep in my possession, items that I do not own, as is done on nearly all leased items in the world). You have chosen to interpret private property as ownership of private property, where as a valid interpretation would again be based on use (a rental property is private to the person renting, but is not owned by that person).
I don't believe anyone would argue your points on case law, but the issue at hand was constitutionality. There are many examples of case law that have been found to be unconstitutional. There are many examples of case law that is not regulated by the constitution (which really should be up to the states in most cases, but I digress).
Let us also not forget that the constitution is a few years old now, and has quite likely out lived it's usefulness. We have entered into the territory of the dead ruling the living. It's possibly that it might be time for the constitution to be rewritten or replaced. I'm not proposing either, just saying that just because it's in the constitution does not mean it is appropriate for the current generation of citizens.
Then we get some real good ones that show that they've never read the Constitution: "Ban the private ownership of land." "Immediate debt forgiveness for all." "Ban private gun ownership."
I am asking this as an honest question, of someone that must be well versed on the US Constitution. Where in the constitution is there a mention of land ownership, debt, and gun ownership? I'm not even saying that these are reasonable demands. It's just that I often here things about what is stated in the constitution, when in reality there is no such statement. For example the mention of firearms exists only in second amendment, and it has no reference to ownership that I can discern.
Let us also not forget that the US constitution prescribes a process in which the constitution can be modified, through amendment. And though an organizations request my be unconstitutional, it only means that they are ultimately requesting an amendment to the constitution. So the argument that something is unconstitutional is no argument for it not to be request, only that it not be carried out without a constitutional amendment.
Do you have a link to the "large number of CC fraud reported"? From what I recall no fraud has ever been linked to the sony hack. The total number of reported cases are lower in percentage than in the general populous.
Slashdot Mirror
In this case the metric was supposed to be based off of the ticket tracking system. This makes optimal simple. The optimal number of tickets that are not resolved as invalid is exactly zero. If the number is above zero then someone already screwed up, so tracking anything after that is completely missing the point.
If the apps window is at the bottom right of the screen you have to go all the way up to the top left to...
...hit an infinitely wide/tall menu item.
Accessing an OS X menu item is faster than hitting any other button on the screen accept the one directly under the current mouse position, or in one of the four corners. There for contextual menus are the fastest to access, but require some learning to even realize they are there and what is in them. Corner menus would be the next fastest, but they would only hold a single button, which would be an odd interface. So there for your best bet are screen edge menus, which is exactly what OS X has.
Windows menus are the absolute worst possible way to implement a menu. The are not directly under the current mouse position and are not in any of the easy to reach in a single motion, areas of the screen, and lastly they are relatively small (sometimes ridiculously small). And even with their bad placement and small size they waste important screen real estate.
The hardware involved is good hardware, it would be more expensive and very very difficult to attempt to get the same thing without just purchasing the product. Why should the company have any right whatsoever to dictate how I use their product as long as I am not harming anyone else?
So rather than purchase from a company who would allow you to use your hardware how ever you would like, you would instead give your money to a company that supports restricting your usage of the hardware. You might as well be sending money directly to the legal team that will be filing suit against your for violation of the EULA. Don't sound like a smart thing to me, but then again I haven't purchased a iPhone,though I'm sure I've given plenty to the Apple legal team through other purchases.
But while we're asking questions, what gives you the right to determine how a company choses to sell their products? If they chose to sell it under the conditions that that you can not modify it or otherwise change it, then they have every right to add that stipulation. It's not like you did not know this before purchasing the product, or at the very worst after reading the licensing agreement and still able to return the product. It's the companies product and they can chose to sell it to whomever under what ever conditions they chose (or at least they would if there was actually a free market*). If you don't like those conditions then don't by the product.
* This should not be taken as an endorsement of free market economy.
I would suggest spending some time actually researching what happens in Union. You would probably even do well to work in a Unionized environment. Do yourself a favor and do so in a union that has members in both a right-to-work state and one without right-to-work regulations. Spending a little time in a union environment is leaps and bounds beyond anything you will ever see or read about labor unions. Mass media is very much biased against Unions, since unions have fought for their employees to be treated well and fairly compensated, but if you don't have the time or opportunity to be in a union environment I'm sure there are some good books out there that could explain the truth about unions (I don't know any because I lived it and never felt a need to read about it).
Completely irrelevant here. If I bought an HP PC the first thing I would do is format the HDD and remove all ties to HP, while replacing it with my own OS. This is exactly like buying any applicable device and jailbreaking it.
If you could figure out how to replace all the licensed software on the device, or at least any whose licensing agreement you would be violating, then you can go ahead and do the same thing with the so called locked down devices. Assuming you bought an iPhone without agreement to any contract about the hardware (I do not own one so I don't know what they have you sign), all you have to do is remove every last trace of apple software and then you can install anything you want (Oh you might also have to figure out how to do that without violating the DMCA).
Or, and this is a really novel idea, you don't purchase products from companies that would like to restrict how you use their products.
Isn't this exactly what a licensing agreement is, rental of a product. In the case of a game console, the hardware is not licensed but the software, including the firmware, is. The games are also licensed. So as long as you accept that these products are licensed (I'm not going to get into an argument over that), then you see that the only restriction is that you can not use the licensed software in violation of the license. I would be willing to be that you would find out that this is the actual reality of things. You can put what ever software you want on the the console, but you can't use any of the original software or software licensed to run in conjunction with the original software.
The typical license is simply a rental of indefinite duration that cost one flat fee and can be revoked according to the terms of the argeement.
The flaw in your thinking is that unions aren't just normal organizations. They have their own laws.
This is not a flaw of unionization or a valid argument against unions, but go ahead and argue against the regulations. I personally would support removing any laws that protect unions specifically, as many states have done with their right-to-work laws, but if and only if we also remove corporate personhood and other corporate protections. But that is beside the point, since supporting unionization has nothing to do with supporting current regulation.
You're very casually dismissing a hundred years of violence and intimidation.
If you were to add up the total number of deaths directly linked to unionization it would considerable lower than many other organizations and actions. The most obvious is the military, and few people would support a wholesale disbanding of the military. Second would be corporations, with disasters like that caused by Union Carbide out numbering the union actions in one incident. Nuclear power, the war over oil, tobacco, alcohol, suicides from the stress of higher education, and these are just a few off the top of my head. These are a mix off good and bad things. The point is that unionization is not amoral, any more than say something like religion. Sure the inquisition killed numerous people, but the quakers and the Mennonites have not hard any one (with a couple rare notable exceptions). The unions of today are not the thugs of the industrial revolution, and even then most union members where moral and law abiding citizens. And that's not even talking about the number of lives saved through improved working conditions that was brought about by unionization.
Seniority is not a valid basis...because they can't be let go
Your are mixing up loosely related issues. Seniority is a valid basis if you chose to only keep competent and productive employees. The fact that getting rid of incompetent employees might take a bit of a paper trail is no reason to argue that seniority is invalid. In most states you don't even need a paper trail. Sure the unions are there to protect employees from wrongful termination, but trust me, if the person deserves to be let go the unions will not protect them. The idea that unions protect incompetents is a myth, intentional or otherwise, that undermines the reality of unionization.
Keep believing the myths if you must, but I would suggest that you educate yourself, with first hand experience if possible, before dismissing the benefits of unionization.
As I said above I previously worked for a union shop but was not the member or the union. I received the same compensation as the union employees and even received union representation if needed such as for disciplinary action. But there are things I did not get because I was not a union member. I was not eligible to receive compensation during a strike, and I had no say in the union negotiations.
The only reason I received those benefits is because the union negotiated them and made it contractual that the company could not hire non-union members fro less than union pay. Had the union not negotiated such then the company would have hired lower quality, lower cost, resources. So I did reap the benefits of unionization without being a member. That actually makes me even more supportive of unions, since there is no way a corporation would have worked on my behalf for free.
And just a tid-bit for those that don't know, 22 US states have right-to-work regulations. What this means is that the Union and companies can not enter into contracts that force union membership.
Voluntary unionization, yes.
As far as I am aware, and I could be wrong, all union membership is voluntary in the United States. Membership in certain trade organizations, like Professional Engineering, is not, but that's another issue entirely. But let us not limit a collectives capabilities to bargain. If they have the strength to negotiate a contract with a corporation that says the company can not hire non-union workers, then more power too them.
In some cases scabs get beaten, maimed or killed.
Harm is amoral and illegal, and also is no more a side affect of unionization than it is a side affect of any other activity.
No, it can't be performance based, because that requires an objective way to measure performance.
Before becoming a software engineer I worked in a Union shop that included in it's compensation performance based reviews (I chose not to be a union member but I was still subject to the same compensation regulations). Seniority is a valid basis, as you shouldn't be keeping people that are not affective, but performance can easily be included as well.
The normal employer/employee relationship has a lot of fuzziness that allows hard-to-quantify performance factors to be taken into account.
The fuzziness in the normal relationship is what causes compensation to be based off of personal interactions and socialization, rather than based on performance. And though I have spent a lot of time perfecting the art of communication, I disagree with compensation being based on friendliness, when high performing individuals are lesser compensated because they lack certain social skills.
I have NEVER , during 15 years in the field, EVER encountered a competent IT professional who dreamed of being in a union.
Now I can't prove my competence in a slashdot post, but I am a software engineer that fully supports unionization.
I am fairly compensated, as I do a good job of negotiating what I believe I am worth. But there is more to unionization than compensation. Though I do support collective bargaining (which does not need to be seniority based, and can be performance based).
Unionization can be used as a tool to bring product quality back into the hands of those that produce the product. Having a union to collectively support only quality changes should improve overall product quality.
Unionization is a tool that can be utilized. I would much rather have more tools at my disposal than less (though we need not use every tool for every task).
Just remember that the corporation is bargaining against you, as there goal is to maximize profit, and they are doing it collectively. If you want to even the score you do your bargaining collectively. But corporations have also done a great job to convince the American people that Unions are bad and lazy, so I doubt I'll be changing any minds here.
Lastly, Unionization is fully in-line with Libertarian ideology, even the Neo Libertarians of the US Libertarian party, and the likes of Ron Paul. Collective bargaining is an important tool that allows capitalism to be successful.
Oh the irony to spend a ton of time, effort, and research to find Earths twin, only to find the race of carbon-based life forms living there has completely fucked up the entire planet by abusing its natural resources.
That's pretty much how the inhabitants of the alien planet our going to feel when they discover us. Or maybe they already have, but are smart enough to stay away.
Here's another method. Look at the definitions. Looks at the theory. Now look at reality.
If you had read the entire thread you would see that this is the exact thing that I am promoting. The original argument was that someone called it capitalism, someone else said, no it's not. Then someone chimed in to say that the same thing happened with communism, where sovietism, stalinism, and maoism are used as examples of failed communism, even though they were never communist, and never claimed to be communist. They were hardly socialist, and there failures had nothing to do with socialism. This same thing will happen with capitalism.
I'm on your side and wish people would stop blaming the failures on a system because of improper implementation or improper use of a word. More importantly, we should stop worrying about titles and labels and instead focus on the affects of actions. This is not a failure or capitalism, socialism, statism, corporatism, authoritarianism, or what ever ism is the enemy of the moment. This is most likely a failure of regulation (I'll let those that care more than I to fight over it being over or under regulation, though I'd put my money on it just being improper regulation).
I don't think that I would say facebook is a pyramid scheme by definition (though if you use the promise of notoriety or acceptance as your currency then maybe) but it does have the same fatal flaws as a pyramid scheme.
Facebook acquires it's revenue by sale of personal information (direct or aggregate I can't say for sure). This information has continued diminishing returns as each new bit about a person becomes less valuable once you have a significant profile. The only way to continue revenue growth, through sellable information, is to continue to gather fresh information. This can only happen by adding more people's data, not more data on the same people. More people only join if you can give an incentive to the current users to stay as members and/or have them convince their associates to join and share their information. Eventually you run out of new people, and revenue drops do to the aforementioned diminishing returns.
Facebook already knows all this so its not like I'm sharing any big secret, which is exactly why they are looking to double in size now, so that they can bring in enough fresh information (new users) sooner rather than later. The are creating their own stock bubble, and they are well aware of that.
Unlike Communism, Capitalism does not require perfect implementation to work.
Yet once it does collapse, and it will, the supporters of capitalism will be out explaining about how it was not capitalism that failed, because capitalism was never truly implemented. I won't even say that they would be wrong, but it's the exact same thing that happens on the Communist side of the argument.
I personally don't accept the argument that what we have is good enough so lets not try for better, but that's pretty much was you are saying with your comparison between Capitalism and cleanliness. The system we have right now, be it capitalism, or corporatism, or some ism in between, is not doing as well as possible for the overall well being of humanity. Let us stop worrying about titles and start thinking about how the system can be improved.
I think you just made his point. If you support Capitalism then of course any failures will be labeled as an unrelated economic system. If you are a supporter of Communism then of course any failures will be labeled as also being because of an unrelated system. Corporatism is as equal to capitalism as Stalinism is to Communism.
And so if history has shown us anything, capitalism will be written of as a failure that should never be attempted again, just as communism was. Not because capitalism is a bad idea (my personal opinion aside), but instead because there are nuances to economic systems that need to be understood and refined.
I happen to agree with sentiment, though I'd probably be a little more polite about it. The question is, would you be willing to pay more to have someone do the sorting for you? Maybe two grades of service. I know that I would be willing to pay more to not have to sort the stuff, but I certainly don't want recycling and composting programs to go away.
But since the free market will solve all problems, I have to assume that there is little demand for trash sorting or else someone would be offering the services for a nominal fee.
I disagree about there being subjects that cannot be expressed on slashdot, but we'll just agree to disagree on that one.
The problem with a "Wrong" moderation is that many of the comments are a matter of opinion, and opinions are by definition, never wrong. The best approach to deal with misinformation is to respond and supply supporting evidence to the alternate view. If done correctly the correction to the misinformation will get moderated up and be at least as visible as the incorrect information.
Also try not to confuse moderation with censorship, they are very different. Moderation does not remove the ability to view the content, it simply gives some guidance as to the quality of the content.
The problem with the tyranny of the majority in this case is that descenting views are able to be suppressed by the moderation system.
This is not actually true under the slashdot moderation system. One of the advantages to this system is that the is no such thin as oblivion. The worst the moderation can get is -1. Anyone can read comments moderated at -1, and in most case those interest in the unpopular opinion will do just that. Those interested in the popular opinion will only see the popular opinion, but even without moderation they will most likely tend toward that. What the group moderation does is allows the group as a whole to point out things of interest, and to suppress things that they believe to detract from the conversation.
Putting moderation into the hands of a select few, like on a traditionally moderated site, does not change this, accept that the opinion that is allowed to be seen is the opinion of the select few, not the community as a whole.
anyone can get modded up to +5 insightful or informative if they sound like they know what they're talking about, even if they're flat out wrong
If you notice the moderation system does not have any options for "Right" and "Wrong", and from what I understand, this was done for good reason. The purpose of the moderation system, on slashdot, is not to determine the correctness of a statement but to determine the readability of the statement. If a person moderates a post upward it's because they believe the statement is worth reading, regardless of whether or not the agree with the statement or believe it to be factual.
It's far worse that people use the negative mods such as "Flamebait" and "Troll" to down moderate statements they disagree with. But I think in the overall moderation you will find that this is relatively rare. The slashdot moderation happens at such a high volume, and includes meta moderation, that the group as a whole ends up with the result that the majority agrees with. This, in my opinion, is far better than having a select set of the populous deciding what is or is not important to the rest of us.
Take some time to go back and read some older posts. You will see that the moderation is actually pretty reasonable and accurate. You may not agree with ever bit of moderation, but over all it ends up to be a reasonable representation of the interests of the people that visit Slashdot.
T-Mobile has a banging-hot chick in their advertisements. AT&T does not have a banging-hot chick in their advertisements. Banging-hot chicks are clearly in the public interest.
Banging-hot? Maybe to a carpenter, or someone else used to nailing boards. Though the low self-esteem that usually comes along with being underweight does make for girls willing to do some crazy shit to get the attention and approval they never got earlier in life.
do you think self-education is going to be as good being taught by professors?
He would be a fool to think such a things, since self-education shows a dedication that a college graduate will rarely ever have. The self educated is more likely to be up on recent technologies. In fields like programming, the education system wastes a large portion of the person time on information that is at best not applicable, and at worst detrimental (If you've ever had to deal with a custom implementation of a sort algorithm in a business software project, then you'll understand what I mean).
Having Yoda teach you to be a Jedi is more effective than becoming a Jedi by yourself.
Yet both the most powerful Jedi's in the series never completed their training. But I guess self-education is your equivalent to the dark side.
If you have friends that are surgeons or lawyers then you have friends in the top 1% of the USA.
I believe this depends on what we are calling the top 1%. In my experience this is not based on income, but based on net worth. I happen to know people who are clearly in the top 1% on both of those measures, yet oddly not the same people. Most of the people I know that are in the top 1% by net worth, have relatively little income, being only that generated by capital gains, which has even been negative at times. Those that I know in the to 1% of income earnings have negative equity, thought that is sure to change over time. Also your measure of 280k a year is not your typical lawyer or doctor. The average pay for a lawyer is around 100k, and doctors around 150k. And that's not taking into account the amount of debt that is accrued to gain such titles.
Point being, entering into the 1% is not necessarily easy, and even if it were, it does not make wealth disparity a viable approach to modern civilization. There are enough resources available for every single person, at least in the United States, to live a comfortable life. There are enough jobs, if we, as a society, chose to provide a living wage for reasonable work. reduce the work day to 6 hours, as some suggest, and you get a 25% increase in jobs. Heck reducing the work day by one hour is enough to eradicate unemployment. If your society does not have enough work for everyone, then the problem is one of distribution, not availability.
You can interpret the Constitution how ever you would like, just understand that if you are not going to take it literally then you have to understand that your interpretation is not the only interpretation, and that your interpretation may not be the correct interpretation, or most valuable interpretation. You have chosen to interpret keep, as ownership, while use is also a perfectly valid interpretation of the word keep (I can keep in my possession, items that I do not own, as is done on nearly all leased items in the world). You have chosen to interpret private property as ownership of private property, where as a valid interpretation would again be based on use (a rental property is private to the person renting, but is not owned by that person).
I don't believe anyone would argue your points on case law, but the issue at hand was constitutionality. There are many examples of case law that have been found to be unconstitutional. There are many examples of case law that is not regulated by the constitution (which really should be up to the states in most cases, but I digress).
Let us also not forget that the constitution is a few years old now, and has quite likely out lived it's usefulness. We have entered into the territory of the dead ruling the living. It's possibly that it might be time for the constitution to be rewritten or replaced. I'm not proposing either, just saying that just because it's in the constitution does not mean it is appropriate for the current generation of citizens.
Then we get some real good ones that show that they've never read the Constitution: "Ban the private ownership of land." "Immediate debt forgiveness for all." "Ban private gun ownership."
I am asking this as an honest question, of someone that must be well versed on the US Constitution. Where in the constitution is there a mention of land ownership, debt, and gun ownership? I'm not even saying that these are reasonable demands. It's just that I often here things about what is stated in the constitution, when in reality there is no such statement. For example the mention of firearms exists only in second amendment, and it has no reference to ownership that I can discern.
Let us also not forget that the US constitution prescribes a process in which the constitution can be modified, through amendment. And though an organizations request my be unconstitutional, it only means that they are ultimately requesting an amendment to the constitution. So the argument that something is unconstitutional is no argument for it not to be request, only that it not be carried out without a constitutional amendment.
Do you have a link to the "large number of CC fraud reported"? From what I recall no fraud has ever been linked to the sony hack. The total number of reported cases are lower in percentage than in the general populous.