You can absolutely loan videos, DVDs, and other pieces of media from libraries or museums for free
At who's expense? The taxpayer in most cases. Where does this stop? If every citizen has an inalienable right to rent books for free, does he also have a given right to health care? Does he have a right to the best doctors and medical facilities? How do we then decide who has access to the best facilities? A lottery? Where does this end? Look, if somebody wants to dump some of their wealth into building a library, it isn't any of my business. But when society raises this type of person and these qualities of self-sacrafice above all others, we have a problem. A couple generations go by and our kids all learn this and guess what? We have a socialist system.
Some clearly feel that self-sacrafice is the most admirable of all traits. Unfortunately many of these folks are in government and they have at their disposal the power to force us all sacrafice ourselves through excess taxation. Look, if I want to help someone, I will do it on my own. I decide who I help and why. Don't respect me just because I give money away though. Respect me because I give money away because I'm selfish. I just sent the Citizens Against Govenment Waste a charitable donation. Why? Because I want to see them lobby damn hard to get our contributions to the UN every year reduced to 0. Helping them is in MY interest. Getting a good job, working hard, buying things, demanding better products and services: these are all things that fuel our country. The best of human nature is selfishness. To spite the brainwashing that occurs in schools, churches, etc, selfishness is not an evil trait. Its vice, altruism, is the primary problem.
You see, the Constitution makes no provisions for free health care, public facilities like libraries, welfare payments, social security, etc. All these programs are driven by forced, excess taxation. Government has three (and only 3) obligations. 1. Provide national defense. 2. Provide a fair and just judicial system 3. Provide police protection.
The problem is, nobody protects the Constitution any more. Not Bush, not Clinton, not the other Bush, not Reagan, nobody. Yet nobody will come out and just say they think the Constitution sucks, nor do they even have the balls to admit that they choose not to protect it.
there's no "self-sacrifice" when very wealthy individuals give to charity
Who is the judge of this? Can I say because someone makes 30K a year they cleary have enough to live in a cheap mobile home and give a few thousand to charity?
If you make 100K a year, how much is self sacrafice? Is it doing without food ? Is it doing without a vacation? Is doing with a BMW and instead buying a Kia? Do you see this differently now than you did when you were 16? Was a lot of money when you were 16 still a lot today?
You know what, if I want to use a library I'll pay to rent books the same way I pay to rent movies. I don't expect anybody regardless of how much money they have to fund building one just so my sorry ass can go get books for free.
Paul is doing a great thing here. This whole thing is an example of the power of the pursuit of achievement, from the lowest engineer to the primary capital contributor. These guys are in it to make money and thats why Space Ship One is going suborbital in 2004. It will be safe. Why? Because nobody would buy the rights to build duplicate spacecraft if the thing blows up. Are the folks who work for Scaled expected to work for free? To sacrafice themselves for the better good? Would they do as good of a job if they were? Would you rather fly in Space Ship One or a Habitat for Humanity Spacecraft? Would you prefer to fly in Space Ship One or a government contractor's ship who ended up being the lowest bidder in some sort of a crooked political deal to return a favor?
I don't know why everyone here is so anti-capitalist. Almost everything geeks like us enjoy are the results of capitalism. Even a lot of open source software is funded by companies who have an interest in making sure certain technologies stick around. Look how long the Soviet Union existed and how very little they contributed, comparatively. Sure they blasted a guy into space first but when the rubber hit the road they couldn't get to the moon. Silicon Valley would have been nothing, my friend, if its workers had guns to their heads. Same goes for the Japanese. Look what they've done Post WWII. They were destroyed but they rebuilt and built a government that didn't rule by fear.
Why is it that so many humans admire self-sacrafice above all other traits?
I can admire someone because they are smart/wealthy/etc and worked hard to get that way without taking handouts along the way or otherwise being a burden on society. Nothing else is required to earn my respect.
These people set a better lesson for society. Someone with billions who gives it all away just teaches people that handouts are readily available and personal achievement is meaningless.
There are few exceptions to this. One is helping children, especially when their parents have forgotten them. However, this is self-serving as well. If I help children it is because I know they are a part of our future and thus MY future. I have an interest in seeing that the future is a desirable place to exist.
Agreed. The US has made a mess of the "rebuilding."
In our efforts to not let anyone feel "left out", we've invited former members of the Iraqi communist party to the governing council.
We should have went over there and showed everyone we meant business. Dropping food packets, giving handouts, and apologizing for stray bombs that weren't even ours means that in the end, the leftover bad guy guerilla thugs have nothing to fear. What are we going to do, throw food packets at them? No wonder the "innocent" Iraqis are ungrateful. It is just like welfare handouts here in America. Keep giving money to the lazy asses and they just criticize their evil wealthy taxpaying benefactors more and more.
Fear is no way to govern a country but it is a hell of a way to win a war. Look at what Israel did during the 6 Day War. They scared the living shit out of the enemy. They sures as hell didn't drop food on them.
Umm, yeah.... Comparing American colonists fighting the British Empire to guerillas in Iraq?
Lets see. The Islamic guerillas/terrorists/etc fight and kill because they have been taught from an early age that life on earth is pointless and the only goal while here is to kill as many people who aren't Muslims as possible, so you can move on to the after-life. And they sure hope their stay here on earth is short, just look at how many go on suicide missions. Life has no meaning except as a doorway to the after-life for these freaks. That is one hell of a lethal philosophy for the rest of us who have to deal with being in buildings, airplanes and busses when one of them gets the fucking bright idea to go see Allah, suicide style.
America during the revolutionary war: You ever read "Common Sense"? Paine? I'm assuming you can read but probably choose not to. You know what these people were fighting? They were fighting to be FREE. The people in Iraq weren't free but thanks to our boys giving their lives, they are now. However, I'd say to hell with it. We should have let those unappreciative bastards rot. We should have done the same thing with Kuwait because they're almost as unappreciative.
Rand's philosophy is sharply critical of libertarians because in practice they are typically anarchists, not those who advocate individual rights as protected by the Constitution.
The Apollo program was pretty rough on the Earth's environment in many ways too. And for God's sake, we left JUNK ON THE MOON! The astronauts who did this will surely burn for defacing the prestine lunar surface.
Of course, this sets an interesting precedence. The next time a volcano erupts and fills the upper atmosphere with "pollution" or the next time a nice sized meteor impacts the lunar surface, we have to make some arrests or pass some new laws or something. Hey, you want to walk on Washington and protest meteors and volcanoes?
The $200 Microtels from walmart.com are too noisy for use inside the living area of a person's home, IMHO.
When the thing powers up, it literally sounds like a bathroom exhaust fan or a loud kitchen range hood fan. The C3 based Microtels were rather quiet. But, the Duron gets hot and they've put a very, very CPU cheap fan in there. Oh, and the CPU heatsink & fan stack is about 1/4 of an inch from the power supply, so it is hard to get a good replacement as most stacks will be larger. Plus some of the noise is caused by the fact that it only has 1/4" breathing room to suck air.
What I've heard, anyway, is that most of the cable carriers aren't making a profit. I find this difficult to believe and would immediately jump to conclusions about bad management or something else being at fault if they can't make a profit. But, who knows.
Jenni used to be more attractive, 7 years ago. Unfortunately, she's one of those girls who couldn't hold on to that youthful attractiveness. Things went downhill. Maybe that is why she's closing up shop?
How well does an X-Box physically integrate into a rack stereo system?
No everyone's home entertainment system is a big pile of random hacked components laid out all over the floor of a bedroom. People who have spent a lot of money on their existing stereo components want a quality, dedicated audio device.
You might want to check out B*Gallery. It is an easy to use desktop client (written in Java, no less) for building up photo galleries. It also makes easy work of publishing the content to your ISP.
Slashdot Mirror
You can absolutely loan videos, DVDs, and other pieces of media from libraries or museums for free
At who's expense? The taxpayer in most cases. Where does this stop? If every citizen has an inalienable right to rent books for free, does he also have a given right to health care? Does he have a right to the best doctors and medical facilities? How do we then decide who has access to the best facilities? A lottery? Where does this end? Look, if somebody wants to dump some of their wealth into building a library, it isn't any of my business. But when society raises this type of person and these qualities of self-sacrafice above all others, we have a problem. A couple generations go by and our kids all learn this and guess what? We have a socialist system.
Some clearly feel that self-sacrafice is the most admirable of all traits. Unfortunately many of these folks are in government and they have at their disposal the power to force us all sacrafice ourselves through excess taxation. Look, if I want to help someone, I will do it on my own. I decide who I help and why. Don't respect me just because I give money away though. Respect me because I give money away because I'm selfish. I just sent the Citizens Against Govenment Waste a charitable donation. Why? Because I want to see them lobby damn hard to get our contributions to the UN every year reduced to 0. Helping them is in MY interest. Getting a good job, working hard, buying things, demanding better products and services: these are all things that fuel our country. The best of human nature is selfishness. To spite the brainwashing that occurs in schools, churches, etc, selfishness is not an evil trait. Its vice, altruism, is the primary problem.
You see, the Constitution makes no provisions for free health care, public facilities like libraries, welfare payments, social security, etc. All these programs are driven by forced, excess taxation. Government has three (and only 3) obligations. 1. Provide national defense. 2. Provide a fair and just judicial system 3. Provide police protection.
The problem is, nobody protects the Constitution any more. Not Bush, not Clinton, not the other Bush, not Reagan, nobody. Yet nobody will come out and just say they think the Constitution sucks, nor do they even have the balls to admit that they choose not to protect it.
there's no "self-sacrifice" when very wealthy individuals give to charity
Who is the judge of this? Can I say because someone makes 30K a year they cleary have enough to live in a cheap mobile home and give a few thousand to charity?
If you make 100K a year, how much is self sacrafice? Is it doing without food ? Is it doing without a vacation? Is doing with a BMW and instead buying a Kia? Do you see this differently now than you did when you were 16? Was a lot of money when you were 16 still a lot today?
You know what, if I want to use a library I'll pay to rent books the same way I pay to rent movies. I don't expect anybody regardless of how much money they have to fund building one just so my sorry ass can go get books for free.
Paul is doing a great thing here. This whole thing is an example of the power of the pursuit of achievement, from the lowest engineer to the primary capital contributor. These guys are in it to make money and thats why Space Ship One is going suborbital in 2004. It will be safe. Why? Because nobody would buy the rights to build duplicate spacecraft if the thing blows up. Are the folks who work for Scaled expected to work for free? To sacrafice themselves for the better good? Would they do as good of a job if they were? Would you rather fly in Space Ship One or a Habitat for Humanity Spacecraft? Would you prefer to fly in Space Ship One or a government contractor's ship who ended up being the lowest bidder in some sort of a crooked political deal to return a favor?
I don't know why everyone here is so anti-capitalist. Almost everything geeks like us enjoy are the results of capitalism. Even a lot of open source software is funded by companies who have an interest in making sure certain technologies stick around. Look how long the Soviet Union existed and how very little they contributed, comparatively. Sure they blasted a guy into space first but when the rubber hit the road they couldn't get to the moon. Silicon Valley would have been nothing, my friend, if its workers had guns to their heads. Same goes for the Japanese. Look what they've done Post WWII. They were destroyed but they rebuilt and built a government that didn't rule by fear.
Why is it that so many humans admire self-sacrafice above all other traits?
I can admire someone because they are smart/wealthy/etc and worked hard to get that way without taking handouts along the way or otherwise being a burden on society. Nothing else is required to earn my respect.
These people set a better lesson for society. Someone with billions who gives it all away just teaches people that handouts are readily available and personal achievement is meaningless.
There are few exceptions to this. One is helping children, especially when their parents have forgotten them. However, this is self-serving as well. If I help children it is because I know they are a part of our future and thus MY future. I have an interest in seeing that the future is a desirable place to exist.
Agreed. The US has made a mess of the "rebuilding." In our efforts to not let anyone feel "left out", we've invited former members of the Iraqi communist party to the governing council. We should have went over there and showed everyone we meant business. Dropping food packets, giving handouts, and apologizing for stray bombs that weren't even ours means that in the end, the leftover bad guy guerilla thugs have nothing to fear. What are we going to do, throw food packets at them? No wonder the "innocent" Iraqis are ungrateful. It is just like welfare handouts here in America. Keep giving money to the lazy asses and they just criticize their evil wealthy taxpaying benefactors more and more. Fear is no way to govern a country but it is a hell of a way to win a war. Look at what Israel did during the 6 Day War. They scared the living shit out of the enemy. They sures as hell didn't drop food on them.
Umm, yeah.... Comparing American colonists fighting the British Empire to guerillas in Iraq?
Lets see. The Islamic guerillas/terrorists/etc fight and kill because they have been taught from an early age that life on earth is pointless and the only goal while here is to kill as many people who aren't Muslims as possible, so you can move on to the after-life. And they sure hope their stay here on earth is short, just look at how many go on suicide missions. Life has no meaning except as a doorway to the after-life for these freaks. That is one hell of a lethal philosophy for the rest of us who have to deal with being in buildings, airplanes and busses when one of them gets the fucking bright idea to go see Allah, suicide style.
America during the revolutionary war: You ever read "Common Sense"? Paine? I'm assuming you can read but probably choose not to. You know what these people were fighting? They were fighting to be FREE. The people in Iraq weren't free but thanks to our boys giving their lives, they are now. However, I'd say to hell with it. We should have let those unappreciative bastards rot. We should have done the same thing with Kuwait because they're almost as unappreciative.
"ultra-libertarian Rand fanbois?"
Rand's philosophy is sharply critical of libertarians because in practice they are typically anarchists, not those who advocate individual rights as protected by the Constitution.
The Apollo program was pretty rough on the Earth's environment in many ways too. And for God's sake, we left JUNK ON THE MOON! The astronauts who did this will surely burn for defacing the prestine lunar surface.
Of course, this sets an interesting precedence. The next time a volcano erupts and fills the upper atmosphere with "pollution" or the next time a nice sized meteor impacts the lunar surface, we have to make some arrests or pass some new laws or something. Hey, you want to walk on Washington and protest meteors and volcanoes?
The $200 Microtels from walmart.com are too noisy for use inside the living area of a person's home, IMHO. When the thing powers up, it literally sounds like a bathroom exhaust fan or a loud kitchen range hood fan. The C3 based Microtels were rather quiet. But, the Duron gets hot and they've put a very, very CPU cheap fan in there. Oh, and the CPU heatsink & fan stack is about 1/4 of an inch from the power supply, so it is hard to get a good replacement as most stacks will be larger. Plus some of the noise is caused by the fact that it only has 1/4" breathing room to suck air.
What I've heard, anyway, is that most of the cable carriers aren't making a profit. I find this difficult to believe and would immediately jump to conclusions about bad management or something else being at fault if they can't make a profit. But, who knows.
Jenni used to be more attractive, 7 years ago. Unfortunately, she's one of those girls who couldn't hold on to that youthful attractiveness. Things went downhill. Maybe that is why she's closing up shop?
How well does an X-Box physically integrate into a rack stereo system? No everyone's home entertainment system is a big pile of random hacked components laid out all over the floor of a bedroom. People who have spent a lot of money on their existing stereo components want a quality, dedicated audio device.
You might want to check out B*Gallery. It is an easy to use desktop client (written in Java, no less) for building up photo galleries. It also makes easy work of publishing the content to your ISP.