Craigslist makes money and regardless of my feelings on free speech, it shouldn't be profiting from illegal activity.
When a sports equipment shop sells a ski mask, they may be profiting from an illegal activity. They also may not be. When CL sells an erotic service ad, they may be profiting from an illegal activity. They also may not be.
You're right that CL is profiting from illegal activities, but I modestly propose that we're not going nearly far enough. Who are your employer's customers? We need to make sure they're all on the level, and adjust your employers' profits appropriately.
Their argument is going to be that it is already a choice. You can decline to go through one of these and drive to your destination instead. They didn't barge into your home and scan you; you initiated this transaction and can always back out. At that point, the only way to can assert that your rights are at stake, is to hold the position that you have a right to fly on their plane. That's going to be a hard fight.
Fine, but that sure doesn't mean they're not a legitimate target. Spraying them with your machine gun or tossing a few grenades their way just may not be the best way to deal with that target. Their legitimacy as "someone who needs to die as soon as convenient" isn't thrown into question, though.
Here's the problem: all this extra security sucks.
Actually, I think the problem is that people are calling it "extra security" instead of "wasteful posturing." People can debate whether extra security sucks or not, but there's little debate over whether wasteful posturing sucks or not.
We need some new, more accurate terms to replace misnomers such as "security checkpoint." Frame the issue in a descriptive way, instead of a government-is-trying-to-help-us way, or else they just win by default.
If you outlaw killbots, then only outlaws will have killbots. And if the killbots don't have pre-set kill limits, then that means the outlaws will win.
Municipalities do charge them. We just charge too little, and don't ask for much service in return. The last time my city "negotiated" with the cable company, I don't recall it being big news, and I certainly don't recall there being much public debate over what the terms should be.
For me, it's 8 years until the current contract is up. And yes, I'm going to make a stink.
When I walk through the office, the only games I see people playing on their desktops are Flash games inside their web browsers. Those poor bastards, stuck working with their Macs! When will they realize that they aren't real desktop users? Tech nerds would call their computers "servers" or something, because they run unix.
Because McAfee is still in business. Until that company folds, you will be staring at solid proof that most users still need to be interrupted by their computer with a "You're about to give total control and destructive powers to somebody. Are you sure? Then type your 'special' password" prompt.
Linux will be ready for the rest of the human race when somebody finally gets a brain-bing and hires a bloody design consultant who knows how to respect and communicate with the rest of the human race.
Apple has looked into design, and their solution with MacOS X has been to do what Linux does; pop up a window asking the user for their admin username and password. You might not like it, but you can't say nobody qualified has thought about this solution that you happen to not like.
..since his premise is.. well.. maybe not wrong, but inapplicable to the vast majority of people, it's no surprise he goes off into weirdo territory.
Premise: proprietary software will stay indefinitely. Full stop. You may argue eternally, but complicated software like games, 3D applications, databases, CADs(Computer-aided Design), etc. which cost millions of dollars and years of man-hours to develop will never be open sourced. Software patents are about to stay forever.
You see, that's true, but for any given user, the probability is low that they actually need any of these proprietary apps. I agree that some people need AutoCAD, but 99.99% (and I don't think I'm exaggerating those digits, if anything I left a few 9s out) of the people don't.
No equivalent of some hardcore Windows software like AutoCAD/3D Studio/Adobe Premier/Corel Painter/etc. Home and work users just won't bother installing Linux until they can work for real
In other words, a handful of people. Yes, those people matter and I mean them no disrespect. If they're stuck with Windows, I'm sorry. But that person's father, mother, wife, son, and every neighbor on their block, doesn't have that problem.
Word is the main historical exception, to such an extent that I suspect over half of Word sales and upgrades in the 1990s were caused by someone being emailed an MS Word document. But it's historical -- people can now survive that scenario w/out needing MS Word; OpenOffice can read the file.
A typical (not all, but most) desktop user has no need of any proprietary software at all; and everything (yes, really, everything) they need will be available through their distro's repository. They never have to manually download/install anything. Whatever they need is either already there, or they click something in their software installation tool, to make it magically become installed.
And that makes things like this irrelevant.
No unified installer across all distros. Consider RPM, deb, portage, tar.gz, sources, etc. It adds a cost for software development.
The cost is low. The developer makes the app, the distro gets it packaged, and the user clicks something to install it.
Likewise, it's very rare that a typical user has this problem:
Many distros' repositories do not contain all available open source software. User should never be bothered with using./configure && make && make installer. It should be possible to install any software by downloading a package and double clicking it (yes, like in Windows, but probably prompting for user/administrator password).
because while it's true that their distro's repository doesn't have everything; it does have everything that 99% of the people need.
Yes, some people will be stuck with Windows. That has no bearing on Linux not being "ready" for the desktop, as already proven by lots of people using Linux desktops for many years now. And that's the real weirdness about articles like this. Complaining about problems is fine, but we already know the actual real-life premise is that Linux is already ready for the desktop and has been for many years. It's there and it works and most people who try it are fine with it.
A technology bill of rights should have zero items, but thinking about tech is a good excuse to review/update what rights people have.
But that list should be invariant, whether we're talking about intergalactic-warp-travelling nano-enhanced genetically modified cyber-transhumans, or cave men whose highest tech is ability-to-start fire.
Your rights are your rights, and technology doesn't have a damn thing to do with it.
If their policy is to defend the machine by attacking anyone they see taking pictures, then they are screwed. People who are just walking by, might be taking pictures without it being at all obvious. Ergo, they must attack everyone they see, whether they appear to be taking pictures or not.
That isn't sane.
If you have to hide stuff, don't hide it in plain sight. It just can't work.
Medical marijuana is legal where legalized. The fed is just trying to posture and assert illegal authority.
Posture?! Federal agents arrested marijuana growers in California. Those federal agents were not, in turn, arrested by California cops or ever charged in a California court with kidnapping.
They got away with it. Posturing is saying you're going to do something illegal. When you actually do it, and it is accepted by all your rivals, and there are no negative consequences to you, it isn't called "posturing"; it's called "winning."
You can make all the legal arguments you want about the feds not having this power, cite John Locke and Thomas Jefferson for hours on end, but the feds have (as in "possess") this power. They not only assert it, but they exercise it whenever they want to, and every single one of their opponents always submits.
Unless someone points out more often that "the king wears no clothes"
The king does have clothes. The real problem is that the king is a total asshole, and our enemy. His clothes, though, are very real. Those federal agents are armed and go into a raid with the sincere attitude "I'm willing to kill anyone who defies me" and there's no state trooper or city cop who ever shows up with his own gun and the attitude "I'm willing to kill any fed who defies the law and threatens the safety of the citizens I'm supposed to protect." The people are the ones who have no clothes.
One of the major complaints about Windows Vista was the fact that it was consistently slower than Windows XP. If Windows 7 can't significantly improve that situation, what chance does it have to convince people to move away from Windows XP?
I still maintain that outside of big businesses, where a specific OS (and version) are deliberately chosen, most of the time most people just use whatever OS comes preloaded on a new machine. If Windows 7 is what comes preloaded, then a lot of people are going to use it.
So the question is what'll keep people who buy new hardware with Windows 7 preloaded, from "downgrading" to XP. And if speed is the main complaint about Windows 7, then I think the answer is that that the biggest reason to not downgrade, is that new hardware is simply going to be faster. If Windows XP is fast enough in 7 year old hardware (I don't think it is, but millions of people disagree with me) then Windows 7, even if slower, is fast enough on 0-year-old hardware.
So I think all Microsoft needs to do, is keep hammering the OEMs and discourage them from offering competing OSes, or at least keep Windows as the default choice for people who don't think about what OS they want. This is way more important than making it faster. If Windows 7 comes preloaded, it's going to be relatively successful regardless of any qualities (or lack thereof) in the product. This strategy has worked for over 2 decades now; it's solid.
If they can keep this going, then all they really have to worry about, are people keeping their old hardware instead of buying new stuff. So I guess the next best thing for MS to do, would be to encourage OEMs to cheap out on power supply and cooling fans.;) I'm sure AMD and Intel would be happy about that, too, so maybe collectively they can work together.
Of all the explanations of relativity, as a relative (heh) layman I was surprised to find Einstein's the best/clearest. Prior to that, I just assumed that someone whose job title was "writer" rather than "scientist" would do a better job. And maybe somewhere, someone has done a better job, but I didn't find it. Einstein's book clobbered all the other ones I tried to get through. It is written well and you will grok relativity after reading it.
I guess that all depends on what you mean by "general." In the late 1980s (before Windows 3.0) it was already clear that Microsoft's platform was significantly behind everything else, was always going to stay behind everything else (even with Windows 386 (which was version 2.something)), and people staying on MS-DOS were going to be a problem for the advancement of technology. I tend to think that 1989 was well before Amiga was dead, although I guess some prescient people might have already seen it coming then. As a cultist at the time, I would have violently disagreed.;)
Am I cynical to think that these businesses will just raise the cost of their goods to cover the additional tax, thus making consumers the ones to pick up this $210 billion tab?
You're not cynical, you're just not seeing everything that can happen.
Suppose we were talking about personal income taxes instead. You might ask, "Won't these people just raise the cost of their salaries, passing the personal income tax bill on to their employers?" And the answer would be Yes, some will. And some won't quite have the negotiating power, or not enough to pass the whole cost on to their employer. Well, it's the same with the corporations making the shit we buy. Some can raise their prices, and some, if they try to do that, will stop having customers.
I've already told a bunch of corporations that I used to do business with, "Fuck off, that's too much money that you want for too little value." Maybe you have too.
Taxes: yes, someone always loses. Often, it's everyone. But it's spread out funny; we don't all lose the same. Who bought the tax laws (the loopholes) that shape who loses the least versus who loses the most? I bet it wasn't you. Closing the laws that put some people at a relative advantage to you, benefits you. Don't get me wrong: you'll still be taxed. You'll still lose. You'll just lose less, relative to the guy who bought a loophole many years ago and hasn't been paying as much tax as you do.
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Are you kidding? Who doesn't want that?
I know who Debian is and what they're about and have pretty high confidence that I'm getting quality software from 'em. (No ssh jokes, please.)
I know who Apple and Microsoft are, and what the criteria for their stores is: the apps are required to not be too good and functional.
Sun? Who is Sun? What's your gimmick? Are you here to maximize my freedom, or just to keep me in a long-term billing arrangement with AT&T, or what?
When a sports equipment shop sells a ski mask, they may be profiting from an illegal activity. They also may not be. When CL sells an erotic service ad, they may be profiting from an illegal activity. They also may not be.
You're right that CL is profiting from illegal activities, but I modestly propose that we're not going nearly far enough. Who are your employer's customers? We need to make sure they're all on the level, and adjust your employers' profits appropriately.
Their argument is going to be that it is already a choice. You can decline to go through one of these and drive to your destination instead. They didn't barge into your home and scan you; you initiated this transaction and can always back out. At that point, the only way to can assert that your rights are at stake, is to hold the position that you have a right to fly on their plane. That's going to be a hard fight.
Fine, but that sure doesn't mean they're not a legitimate target. Spraying them with your machine gun or tossing a few grenades their way just may not be the best way to deal with that target. Their legitimacy as "someone who needs to die as soon as convenient" isn't thrown into question, though.
Actually, I think the problem is that people are calling it "extra security" instead of "wasteful posturing." People can debate whether extra security sucks or not, but there's little debate over whether wasteful posturing sucks or not.
We need some new, more accurate terms to replace misnomers such as "security checkpoint." Frame the issue in a descriptive way, instead of a government-is-trying-to-help-us way, or else they just win by default.
In any war zone (regardless of who has fled and who hasn't), isn't anyone who shoots at you, defined as a combatant and a legitimate target?
If you outlaw killbots, then only outlaws will have killbots. And if the killbots don't have pre-set kill limits, then that means the outlaws will win.
Municipalities do charge them. We just charge too little, and don't ask for much service in return. The last time my city "negotiated" with the cable company, I don't recall it being big news, and I certainly don't recall there being much public debate over what the terms should be.
For me, it's 8 years until the current contract is up. And yes, I'm going to make a stink.
So "ready for the desktop" is about games?
When I walk through the office, the only games I see people playing on their desktops are Flash games inside their web browsers. Those poor bastards, stuck working with their Macs! When will they realize that they aren't real desktop users? Tech nerds would call their computers "servers" or something, because they run unix.
Because McAfee is still in business. Until that company folds, you will be staring at solid proof that most users still need to be interrupted by their computer with a "You're about to give total control and destructive powers to somebody. Are you sure? Then type your 'special' password" prompt.
Apple has looked into design, and their solution with MacOS X has been to do what Linux does; pop up a window asking the user for their admin username and password. You might not like it, but you can't say nobody qualified has thought about this solution that you happen to not like.
..since his premise is .. well.. maybe not wrong, but inapplicable to the vast majority of people, it's no surprise he goes off into weirdo territory.
You see, that's true, but for any given user, the probability is low that they actually need any of these proprietary apps. I agree that some people need AutoCAD, but 99.99% (and I don't think I'm exaggerating those digits, if anything I left a few 9s out) of the people don't.
In other words, a handful of people. Yes, those people matter and I mean them no disrespect. If they're stuck with Windows, I'm sorry. But that person's father, mother, wife, son, and every neighbor on their block, doesn't have that problem.
Word is the main historical exception, to such an extent that I suspect over half of Word sales and upgrades in the 1990s were caused by someone being emailed an MS Word document. But it's historical -- people can now survive that scenario w/out needing MS Word; OpenOffice can read the file.
A typical (not all, but most) desktop user has no need of any proprietary software at all; and everything (yes, really, everything) they need will be available through their distro's repository. They never have to manually download/install anything. Whatever they need is either already there, or they click something in their software installation tool, to make it magically become installed.
And that makes things like this irrelevant.
The cost is low. The developer makes the app, the distro gets it packaged, and the user clicks something to install it.
Likewise, it's very rare that a typical user has this problem:
because while it's true that their distro's repository doesn't have everything; it does have everything that 99% of the people need.
Yes, some people will be stuck with Windows. That has no bearing on Linux not being "ready" for the desktop, as already proven by lots of people using Linux desktops for many years now. And that's the real weirdness about articles like this. Complaining about problems is fine, but we already know the actual real-life premise is that Linux is already ready for the desktop and has been for many years. It's there and it works and most people who try it are fine with it.
A technology bill of rights should have zero items, but thinking about tech is a good excuse to review/update what rights people have.
But that list should be invariant, whether we're talking about intergalactic-warp-travelling nano-enhanced genetically modified cyber-transhumans, or cave men whose highest tech is ability-to-start fire.
Your rights are your rights, and technology doesn't have a damn thing to do with it.
Everyone thought it would be 999MHz this year, 999.9 MHz the next year, 999.99999 MHz a few years later. It looked uncrossable! Well done, AMD!
It means the display uses player/missile graphics (Atari terminology for sprites).
Ah, so it's like most of the code in the world used to convict people.
If their policy is to defend the machine by attacking anyone they see taking pictures, then they are screwed. People who are just walking by, might be taking pictures without it being at all obvious. Ergo, they must attack everyone they see, whether they appear to be taking pictures or not.
That isn't sane.
If you have to hide stuff, don't hide it in plain sight. It just can't work.
Because their copy has ads, or otherwise(?) just isn't "as good" as a shiny disc from the publisher?
And the bond sale was a software error.
Posture?! Federal agents arrested marijuana growers in California. Those federal agents were not, in turn, arrested by California cops or ever charged in a California court with kidnapping.
They got away with it. Posturing is saying you're going to do something illegal. When you actually do it, and it is accepted by all your rivals, and there are no negative consequences to you, it isn't called "posturing"; it's called "winning."
You can make all the legal arguments you want about the feds not having this power, cite John Locke and Thomas Jefferson for hours on end, but the feds have (as in "possess") this power. They not only assert it, but they exercise it whenever they want to, and every single one of their opponents always submits.
The king does have clothes. The real problem is that the king is a total asshole, and our enemy. His clothes, though, are very real. Those federal agents are armed and go into a raid with the sincere attitude "I'm willing to kill anyone who defies me" and there's no state trooper or city cop who ever shows up with his own gun and the attitude "I'm willing to kill any fed who defies the law and threatens the safety of the citizens I'm supposed to protect." The people are the ones who have no clothes.
Get your clothes on before you backtalk the king.
I still maintain that outside of big businesses, where a specific OS (and version) are deliberately chosen, most of the time most people just use whatever OS comes preloaded on a new machine. If Windows 7 is what comes preloaded, then a lot of people are going to use it.
So the question is what'll keep people who buy new hardware with Windows 7 preloaded, from "downgrading" to XP. And if speed is the main complaint about Windows 7, then I think the answer is that that the biggest reason to not downgrade, is that new hardware is simply going to be faster. If Windows XP is fast enough in 7 year old hardware (I don't think it is, but millions of people disagree with me) then Windows 7, even if slower, is fast enough on 0-year-old hardware.
So I think all Microsoft needs to do, is keep hammering the OEMs and discourage them from offering competing OSes, or at least keep Windows as the default choice for people who don't think about what OS they want. This is way more important than making it faster. If Windows 7 comes preloaded, it's going to be relatively successful regardless of any qualities (or lack thereof) in the product. This strategy has worked for over 2 decades now; it's solid.
If they can keep this going, then all they really have to worry about, are people keeping their old hardware instead of buying new stuff. So I guess the next best thing for MS to do, would be to encourage OEMs to cheap out on power supply and cooling fans. ;) I'm sure AMD and Intel would be happy about that, too, so maybe collectively they can work together.
I have not yet deployed the munitions.
Of all the explanations of relativity, as a relative (heh) layman I was surprised to find Einstein's the best/clearest. Prior to that, I just assumed that someone whose job title was "writer" rather than "scientist" would do a better job. And maybe somewhere, someone has done a better job, but I didn't find it. Einstein's book clobbered all the other ones I tried to get through. It is written well and you will grok relativity after reading it.
I guess that all depends on what you mean by "general." In the late 1980s (before Windows 3.0) it was already clear that Microsoft's platform was significantly behind everything else, was always going to stay behind everything else (even with Windows 386 (which was version 2.something)), and people staying on MS-DOS were going to be a problem for the advancement of technology. I tend to think that 1989 was well before Amiga was dead, although I guess some prescient people might have already seen it coming then. As a cultist at the time, I would have violently disagreed. ;)
You're not cynical, you're just not seeing everything that can happen.
Suppose we were talking about personal income taxes instead. You might ask, "Won't these people just raise the cost of their salaries, passing the personal income tax bill on to their employers?" And the answer would be Yes, some will. And some won't quite have the negotiating power, or not enough to pass the whole cost on to their employer. Well, it's the same with the corporations making the shit we buy. Some can raise their prices, and some, if they try to do that, will stop having customers.
I've already told a bunch of corporations that I used to do business with, "Fuck off, that's too much money that you want for too little value." Maybe you have too.
Taxes: yes, someone always loses. Often, it's everyone. But it's spread out funny; we don't all lose the same. Who bought the tax laws (the loopholes) that shape who loses the least versus who loses the most? I bet it wasn't you. Closing the laws that put some people at a relative advantage to you, benefits you. Don't get me wrong: you'll still be taxed. You'll still lose. You'll just lose less, relative to the guy who bought a loophole many years ago and hasn't been paying as much tax as you do.