Corporations destroy our environment, abuse workers (what do you think minimum wage would be if there were no unions? We only need to look to where your Nikes were made for the answer)
Who said anything about Unions not being a part of a libertarian society - they are private organizations, not gov't run. RE Nike, vote with your checkbook whether or not you believe in their practices...how much has current government done to curtail these practices?
Corporations are about expoitation. Suck as much cash out of the consumer as possible, lie to the consumer as much as you can possibly get away with, only regard the health and safety of employees and consumers when mandated by law. (How safe were cars before government regulations?)
Do you want the government doing your thinking for you? Ours is the same one that mandated airbags that were so powerful, they killed people. Politicians are not engineers, scientists, or developers, they only care about getting back into office. At the most pessimistic level, the only difference between a politician, and a corporation, is that the product of a poltician is available only when they get elected - if they default on their promises, you need to wait 'till the next re-election. For a corporation, if you don't like what they produce, you don't need to buy it.
If you want a prime example of why libertarianism is doomed to fail, you only need to look as far as the Tobacco industry, which lied to consumers for decades, before finally being forced to come clean and admit that cigarettes were both addictive and harmful. (Standard Libertarian answer would be that its a person's choice to smoke, but I would argue that most people begin smoking when they are young, before they are fully capable of understanding the consequenses of their actions, and nicotine, being a more addictive substance than heroin, is manipulated to make it very difficult for people to quit.
One of the reasons that the cigarette companies had to lie about their product, is because if they didn't, they might become regulated by the FDA...something that would exist under the libertarian system. BTW, where did the responsility of the parents go when their kids started smoking?
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
While statistics do not prove causality, within research they are helpful. I'm certainly not arguing whether a person should be allowed to look at porn, but to argue the point that it doesn't affect people in any way (more than something random), is also being blind to human nature.
Kind of along the same lines as what the media portrays on television - yeah, people might watch it, and people might like it, but being in a position of high visibility, you can also make the choice not to show it, and instead show something useful [insert arguments of how porn is useful].
Censorship is when someone prevents you from doing something - I'm a libertarian, so I wouldn't even dare suggest that.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
So then by your logic, since 100% of those same convicts drank water, drinking water also has something to do with their offenses?
Why does every SlashBot have to be so binary as to think that pornography has nothing to do with a changed perception of females? Give me conclusive proof that it doesn't, and I'll believe you, but when you quote anecdotal evidence to make yourself better, you accomlish very little.
Feel free to moderate this down, since I'm sure nobody really wants to admit this to themselves...
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
That TV advertisers already paid the station to broadcast their commercial. Banner ads pay the host by the click, not in advance.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Can programmers really make that big of an impact?
on
Antitrust
·
· Score: 1
[this is not meant as a troll/flame]
I've not seen the movie (and won't), but something from the trailer got me to thinking. They hired this boy genious programmer (and many others like him) to supposedly change the world. Am I right in thinking that there are very few programmers who single-handedly make large social changes? Instead, IMO, it seems like the people with the ideas behind the programs are the ones to actually change the world (and even then, it's rare).
I ask, only 'cus I see programming as a language, that, while sometimes difficult, can be learned by a lot of people...however, the idea behind the program is what seems to make the actual change.
[again, I'm not writing this as a troll/flame]
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
I got a syslog mesage very similar to the one in t his usnet entry.
From what it looks like fo far, nothing was compomised, but it certainly makes you more aware of security issues...
A word of warning, unless you're running NFS stuff, and you use Debian, just remove the nfs-common package from your system...I've simply been turning portmap off (the service that's attacked), but running an update of the system always seems to get it turned back on.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
I was born in Moscow (in the US now), and currently have relatives living there. Whenever we have friends or relatives coming or going there, we're inundated with offers of packages to take to and fro.
It just needs to be accepted that the Russian postal service sucks.
A friend who recently travelled throughout Russia was able to get postcards through the mail (he sent them here when he was there), but c'mon, there's no monetary value to those;)
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
It seems the ideas mentioned so far (and modded up), aren't overly exciting, or easy for that matter.
At an early stage, you want to build the fundamentals of a language, and its understanding, but not get bogged down in the specifics of an already-existing one.
My suggestion: Give them a program to build, with extremely detailed functionality. By this, I mean things like "Save As" options, and "Print" options. Basically describe a program that everyone is used to, but doesn't know the underpinnings of. A web browser for example. After that, have them code this program in a pseudo-language...one that they come up with off the top of their head. They need to document all of their functions, and the logic of how the language works.
The students will learn what it takes to think out a design prior to actually coding it, and they will likely also come across functionality on their own, that exists in "real" programming languages already...
Q: What do you think about American Culture? A: I think it's a good idea.
Wednesday's Napster ruling, one of the most significant legal rulings yet involving the Net and the outside world, tilts the copyright issue dramatically in favor of media corporations, who now virtually own popular culture.
You're simply wrong.
Britney Spears, N'sync, and other pop bands are popular culture. How many/.'ers subscribe to their style?
Just yesterday I bought 12 vinyl records (I DJ)...all of them having nothing to do with the RIAA, or the mainstream music culture. Comments like yours are almost hypocritical in the sense that you want this music given to you on a silver platter, and complain when you have to do a little footwork.
If you want to bring down the RIAA, you needn't give up music (or in the case of the MPAA, movies), you just need to get out of the local Virgin Megastore, and wheel your ass over to a local independant music store (or one of the many on the web).
Q: What do you think about American Culture? A: I think it's a good idea.
ok, instead of moderating this down, I decided to reply (and will likely get -1'd for it).
The embedded space is only going to get bigger, and it needs a small, stable, fast, and standards-compliant browser. Mozilla can deliver on those promises. I really think we are going to see that the embedded browser makers will flock to using Mozilla, because it's so well done. I know if I were assigning a console or a web pad, Mozilla would be my first choice.
Do you work for a PR department? In theory, I agree with everything you've said, but the reality of the situation is where we diverge. Mozilla/Netscape is still not done. Regardless of the grand plans that you have for the app, it can't go anywhere if it's only a gleam in a programmers eye (or a buggy redheaded step-child).
Beyond that, a web browser for a PDA, or other such device doesn't have to be nearly as complicated as either IE, or mozilla. At their current stage, all they have to do is basic text parsing. As technology advances, the differences between a PDA, and a dekstop will get smaller and smaller, and regular web browsers will be suitable for them. I'm getting off track though.
When AOL includes Netscape in their client, the tide will turn. Suddenly there's another 22 million users you have to take into account. That comfortable, "lazy" approach of desinging for the IE extensions just won't cut it anymore.
How long have we been hearing this for?!? With the money that AOL has, we could have have had several maturing versions of Mozilla by now. Fact is, AOL saw a possible oppurtunity, and they took it. Their decision doesn't make things right, and it certainly doesn't garauntee success.
[cue standard speech] I've been waiting for moilla just as long as everyone else, but the fact is, they blew it. This has no relevance to the OSS community, as some great gems have come out of it. Currently, and for the forseeable future, Mozilla will remain a lump of coal.
Q: What do you think about American Culture? A: I think it's a good idea.
Very astute observations, pretty much all correct - let me make one about you:
you have a different value system from me.
At the same time, I don't think that there is a definite right answer to all of this, and my values simply differ from yours. If you think I'm an ultra-consumer, perhaps you're right. If you think i'm impatient, again, you may be right, but you also have to pick your battles wisely IMO, and the association of the MPAA with virtually all movies is not a connection I care to break, only 'cus I don't think it's as big of a deal as you.
Q: What do you think about American Culture? A: I think it's a good idea.
if even all of/. community stopped watching movies, the impact on the MPAA would be minimal.
all I'm saying, is that my rights in such a matter *don't* matter as much to me as my enjoyment. Maybe I've sold out, maybe I'm under the finger of the "man", or maybe I realize that there are far more important things in life to worry about.
Q: What do you think about American Culture? A: I think it's a good idea.
TOS or no TOS, breaking the law (however unjust it may be to/.) is still illegal.
if a service like napster was a known haven for pedophilia, or other illegal activities (and a previous/. article proved that it was), it would not be illegal to apprehend those users.
tell me if I'm wrong...
Q: What do you think about American Culture? A: I think it's a good idea.
Jon, have you honestly ever loaded up slashdot.org just to look at the content of the site? You're surrounded by evidence that blatantly goes against your argument. /. is a site that shows no matter how greedy a corporation gets, no matter how devious, and underhanded, there will always be a person, or a group of people that will try their hardest to
put out their product for free (beer/speech)
create a way to get around the rules of those corporations they deem "wrong"
compete and win against these corporations with the above mentioned tactics
so seriously Jon, let's not call normal everyday battles that we see, an apocalypse. mkay?
Q: What do you think about American Culture? A: I think it's a good idea.
Ghandi didn't reply to that question either...it's pretty much a total rewrite adapted from his quote - or is the "adapted from Ghandi thing a bit too hard to grasp?
Q: What do you think about American Culture? A: I think it's a good idea.
While I too have been thinking about just how the 'net is the "cutting edge" (Katz, you're no pioneer in these concepts), I've also come to realize that there are certain careers that spring up out of different needs:
the innovator - the people who make the technology, whether it be the physicist in the lab working on condensed matter, the engineer in the processor fab working on smaller die sizes, and even the programmer hacking out the next great database, or crypto program.
the maintainer - the sysadmins, web monkeys, database programmers, and system repair people who work with those tools that were given to them to create new things.
IMO, (and this is certainly gonna seem like a troll), only the first group really matters, and it's where (mainly), the brains lie. As a network admin, sadly, I fall into the second group. I grad'ed with a BS in physics, but with the relative openness of the market, I decided to put any further education on hold.
Now, this is not to say that there aren't very intelligent people maintaining computer systems, but for the most part, maintainers are filling a gap, that essentially plumbers did when closed plumbing came into existance.
People like Carmack, and Trovalds, and the researchers @ Cornell are doing the stuff that's putting us on the edge, IMO, it's not a good idea to get them mixed up with the maintainers...
you're right on...the poster above doesn't seem to realize that different groups can distribute their are in different ways. if you're going against the wishes of a group that's against piracy...well, that's that.
Slashdot Mirror
And Oscar Wilde may have gotten it from his butler. But who's counting?
the IEEE ratified the standard, they didn't come up with it. That's like saying Underwriters Laboratories makes everything they test.
Who said anything about Unions not being a part of a libertarian society - they are private organizations, not gov't run. RE Nike, vote with your checkbook whether or not you believe in their practices...how much has current government done to curtail these practices?
Corporations are about expoitation. Suck as much cash out of the consumer as possible, lie to the consumer as much as you can possibly get away with, only regard the health and safety of employees and consumers when mandated by law. (How safe were cars before government regulations?)
Do you want the government doing your thinking for you? Ours is the same one that mandated airbags that were so powerful, they killed people. Politicians are not engineers, scientists, or developers, they only care about getting back into office. At the most pessimistic level, the only difference between a politician, and a corporation, is that the product of a poltician is available only when they get elected - if they default on their promises, you need to wait 'till the next re-election. For a corporation, if you don't like what they produce, you don't need to buy it.
If you want a prime example of why libertarianism is doomed to fail, you only need to look as far as the Tobacco industry, which lied to consumers for decades, before finally being forced to come clean and admit that cigarettes were both addictive and harmful. (Standard Libertarian answer would be that its a person's choice to smoke, but I would argue that most people begin smoking when they are young, before they are fully capable of understanding the consequenses of their actions, and nicotine, being a more addictive substance than heroin, is manipulated to make it very difficult for people to quit.
One of the reasons that the cigarette companies had to lie about their product, is because if they didn't, they might become regulated by the FDA...something that would exist under the libertarian system. BTW, where did the responsility of the parents go when their kids started smoking?
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Kind of along the same lines as what the media portrays on television - yeah, people might watch it, and people might like it, but being in a position of high visibility, you can also make the choice not to show it, and instead show something useful [insert arguments of how porn is useful].
Censorship is when someone prevents you from doing something - I'm a libertarian, so I wouldn't even dare suggest that.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Why does every SlashBot have to be so binary as to think that pornography has nothing to do with a changed perception of females? Give me conclusive proof that it doesn't, and I'll believe you, but when you quote anecdotal evidence to make yourself better, you accomlish very little.
Feel free to moderate this down, since I'm sure nobody really wants to admit this to themselves...
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
I've not seen the movie (and won't), but something from the trailer got me to thinking. They hired this boy genious programmer (and many others like him) to supposedly change the world. Am I right in thinking that there are very few programmers who single-handedly make large social changes? Instead, IMO, it seems like the people with the ideas behind the programs are the ones to actually change the world (and even then, it's rare).
I ask, only 'cus I see programming as a language, that, while sometimes difficult, can be learned by a lot of people...however, the idea behind the program is what seems to make the actual change.
[again, I'm not writing this as a troll/flame]
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
From what it looks like fo far, nothing was compomised, but it certainly makes you more aware of security issues...
A word of warning, unless you're running NFS stuff, and you use Debian, just remove the nfs-common package from your system...I've simply been turning portmap off (the service that's attacked), but running an update of the system always seems to get it turned back on.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
I was born in Moscow (in the US now), and currently have relatives living there. Whenever we have friends or relatives coming or going there, we're inundated with offers of packages to take to and fro.
It just needs to be accepted that the Russian postal service sucks.
A friend who recently travelled throughout Russia was able to get postcards through the mail (he sent them here when he was there), but c'mon, there's no monetary value to those
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
At an early stage, you want to build the fundamentals of a language, and its understanding, but not get bogged down in the specifics of an already-existing one.
My suggestion:
Give them a program to build, with extremely detailed functionality. By this, I mean things like "Save As" options, and "Print" options. Basically describe a program that everyone is used to, but doesn't know the underpinnings of. A web browser for example.
After that, have them code this program in a pseudo-language...one that they come up with off the top of their head. They need to document all of their functions, and the logic of how the language works.
The students will learn what it takes to think out a design prior to actually coding it, and they will likely also come across functionality on their own, that exists in "real" programming languages already...
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
You're simply wrong.
Britney Spears, N'sync, and other pop bands are popular culture. How many
Just yesterday I bought 12 vinyl records (I DJ)...all of them having nothing to do with the RIAA, or the mainstream music culture. Comments like yours are almost hypocritical in the sense that you want this music given to you on a silver platter, and complain when you have to do a little footwork.
If you want to bring down the RIAA, you needn't give up music (or in the case of the MPAA, movies), you just need to get out of the local Virgin Megastore, and wheel your ass over to a local independant music store (or one of the many on the web).
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
The embedded space is only going to get bigger, and it needs a small, stable, fast, and standards-compliant browser. Mozilla can deliver on those promises. I really think we are going to see that the embedded browser makers will flock to using Mozilla, because it's so well done. I know if I were assigning a console or a web pad, Mozilla would be my first choice.
Do you work for a PR department? In theory, I agree with everything you've said, but the reality of the situation is where we diverge. Mozilla/Netscape is still not done. Regardless of the grand plans that you have for the app, it can't go anywhere if it's only a gleam in a programmers eye (or a buggy redheaded step-child).
Beyond that, a web browser for a PDA, or other such device doesn't have to be nearly as complicated as either IE, or mozilla. At their current stage, all they have to do is basic text parsing. As technology advances, the differences between a PDA, and a dekstop will get smaller and smaller, and regular web browsers will be suitable for them. I'm getting off track though.
When AOL includes Netscape in their client, the tide will turn. Suddenly there's another 22 million users you have to take into account. That comfortable, "lazy" approach of desinging for the IE extensions just won't cut it anymore.
How long have we been hearing this for?!? With the money that AOL has, we could have have had several maturing versions of Mozilla by now. Fact is, AOL saw a possible oppurtunity, and they took it. Their decision doesn't make things right, and it certainly doesn't garauntee success.
[cue standard speech]
I've been waiting for moilla just as long as everyone else, but the fact is, they blew it. This has no relevance to the OSS community, as some great gems have come out of it. Currently, and for the forseeable future, Mozilla will remain a lump of coal.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
you have a different value system from me.
At the same time, I don't think that there is a definite right answer to all of this, and my values simply differ from yours. If you think I'm an ultra-consumer, perhaps you're right. If you think i'm impatient, again, you may be right, but you also have to pick your battles wisely IMO, and the association of the MPAA with virtually all movies is not a connection I care to break, only 'cus I don't think it's as big of a deal as you.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
if even all of
all I'm saying, is that my rights in such a matter *don't* matter as much to me as my enjoyment. Maybe I've sold out, maybe I'm under the finger of the "man", or maybe I realize that there are far more important things in life to worry about.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Have you ever thought that there are inescapable evils in this world? While I don't like a lot of things in this country, I'm not moving out.
I suggest watching more independant film, but please don't include me in your martyr campaign.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
if a service like napster was a known haven for pedophilia, or other illegal activities (and a previous
tell me if I'm wrong...
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
/. is a site that shows no matter how greedy a corporation gets, no matter how devious, and underhanded, there will always be a person, or a group of people that will try their hardest to
put out their product for free (beer/speech)
create a way to get around the rules of those corporations they deem "wrong"
compete and win against these corporations with the above mentioned tactics
so seriously Jon, let's not call normal everyday battles that we see, an apocalypse. mkay?
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
[end karma killing humor]
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
While I too have been thinking about just how the 'net is the "cutting edge" (Katz, you're no pioneer in these concepts), I've also come to realize that there are certain careers that spring up out of different needs:
the innovator - the people who make the technology, whether it be the physicist in the lab working on condensed matter, the engineer in the processor fab working on smaller die sizes, and even the programmer hacking out the next great database, or crypto program.
the maintainer - the sysadmins, web monkeys, database programmers, and system repair people who work with those tools that were given to them to create new things.
IMO, (and this is certainly gonna seem like a troll), only the first group really matters, and it's where (mainly), the brains lie. As a network admin, sadly, I fall into the second group. I grad'ed with a BS in physics, but with the relative openness of the market, I decided to put any further education on hold.
Now, this is not to say that there aren't very intelligent people maintaining computer systems, but for the most part, maintainers are filling a gap, that essentially plumbers did when closed plumbing came into existance.
People like Carmack, and Trovalds, and the researchers @ Cornell are doing the stuff that's putting us on the edge, IMO, it's not a good idea to get them mixed up with the maintainers...
if you feel strongly about not giving out information to companies on the web, don't fill in the blanks...simple as that.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
[christ, I never have points when I need 'em]
you're right on...the poster above doesn't seem to realize that different groups can distribute their are in different ways. if you're going against the wishes of a group that's against piracy...well, that's that.
-lev
(they also work nicely on boring press releases ;)
I guess that explains why so many ppl's submissions never get posted...