I hear those point, but I believe they can be addressed in other ways. Thin clients have their place, but I don't believe that they should become the norm, as it robs the users of flexibility. How would open source flourish, if our PCs were designed to only run software that was sent from HQ? Which is the eventuality that *would* occur.
Look 10 years ahead. Good succeeds with this and we're all using some GoogleOS or YouOS or whatever, delivered from the Microsoft of the day. Do you relaly think they'd not do everything they can to hinder the growth of projects that competed with their products? You need look no further than SCO to see *exactly* how they'd behave.
Oh, and another thing, I don't see why these so called "online OS" projects don't just use existing X infrastructure to create an easy way to access standard X windows applications and run them remotely over SSH. It'd a) eliminate the need for a whole new friggin' OS b) retain the privacy of users c) leverage the massive existing library of software that exists for Linux and X and d) be as easy as PISS to accomplish technically, with only some work needed to make it easy for the average user.
This is utter crap. It sounds like Google planted hype to try to push the idea of "software as a service", Which is a stupid, unworkable and untrustworthy way of computing.
So the guys at Slate thinks that the combined computing power of Google's umpteen million users is less than the power of their server farm? Unlikely, even for Google's impressive data centers. If its the case that as a general rule commercial servers were more powerful than the sum of their users' machines, we could do away with all those supposedly obsolete distributed computing efforts.
Home PCs are far more powerful than the average user needs. This has been the case for a long, long time. Even Microsoft is having trouble saturating medium end computers that dell sells for the $900US mark. 2.5ghz with 1gb RAM, and you're trying to tell me that my broadband link can deliver application with faster response? I think not. And I like the way they FUDify the "cool n quiet" marketing campaign as well, utterly misdirecting its purpose.
I'm getting really sick of this "software as a service" crud, but at the same time, I'm also getting scared that companies might actually convince the mainsteam to use it. It would spell the end of privacy and anonymity for users and massively increase the power of already too powerful corporations and governments. "Software as a service" is the ultimate spyware. Today we complain that Sony puts rootkits on their CDs, yet there's no real complaint that our entire OS can not only report to base, but runs from there entirely. Forget keyloggers, this thing will record your keys, mouseclicks and input from webcams, scanners and microphones in realtime.
I sincerely hope that the tool that is the personal computer doesn't get taken away from the masses and replaced with drone terminals that could only be used in the way proscribed by our corporate rulers, and observed by their minions in dark rooms.
Oh yea, feel free to call me a tinfoil hat wearing Google hater, because I am.
I'm sorry, I can't distill a point from your last post. Please re-read my post before it and attempt to respond. Just a few points, though:
a) Stop referring to television and movies! You're embarrassing yourself! I don't believe you're from another country. No non-American would incessantly refer to Hollywood movies and stand-up comedians in a political discussion. Unless you've been living there since a very early age. Stupidity is contagious, you know.
b) Margaret Cho is ultra left wing? Come again? Margaret Cho is a friggin' local comedian with a major chip on her shoulder. Racial activist? Maybe. Feminst? Definately. "Ultra-left" wing or politically aware? I don't think so.
Please, for the love of God, don't refer to any more television shows, movies, magazines or your local corner performer. I'm starting to feel sorry for you. Really, that level of ignorance must be physically painful. Now go back, re-read my last post and come up with a decent counter point.
Utterly destroyed? Your God Bless America rant is amusing in its ignorance. You really, really need to meet someone from another country. Baby steps, after that you can perhaps travel a bit. After that you might even venture outside the areas considered "safe" for tourists and maybe even meet a real live non-American! Perhaps then you'll realize that America is not God's gift to planet Earth and that the 5.8 billion people *not* living in America aren't just sitting around waiting for you to come liberate them.
Anyway here goes:
First things first. "see Black Hawk Down" ??? You mean the movie? No fking way! You're seriously using a movie as a reference? Wow dude, you need to go back to school. I really shouldn't bother continuing after such a collossal display of myopic, self-inflicted ignorance.
Do "we" impose governors and taxes upon them. Yes. Elected popular governments are overthrown for pro-US, corporate-friendly governments. Taxes aren't called taxes, they are called "corporate profits". See: Ecuador, Panama, Chile, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and Nicaragua for examples of governments overthrown by the US for dubious reasons. See Pfizer in Nigeria, Nike in China, United Fruit Company in Chile, Shell in Nigeria, Unocal in Afghanistan and Bechtel in Bolivia for examples of US firms pillaging the local populations.
I don't know what is really going on in Iraq at the moment, the world will have to wait until the dust settles before any real information can come out, but all I know is that if Saddam was really such a tiny minority, how is it that a tiny minority of a starving, badly armed country are causing the might of the US military so much greif? Could it be that those who wish the US to leave are not in the minority? You'll probably refute this, as I didn't source the information from the hallowed spring of pure truth that is Hollywood, which you seem to consider so reliable. Also remember that Vietnam was supposedly a war of justice against a minority. I can't believe some Americans (not even the majority any more) are falling for it again.
No Iraqi that I've ever heard, or Muslim anywhere for that matter, has said anything about declaring Jihad on everyone or establishing a world-wide umma. They just want the west and their abusive corporations out of their countries. It's not just Muslim countries but just about every debt-ridden third world country that the international finance cartel has managed to stick huge debts to. They pay rulers to allow them to pillage the country's people and resources, and if the ruler refuses the bribe, they get called a "rogue state" or "communist" or something similar. Examples here include Chilean leader Allende, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. You seem to get your education from US television and movies though, as you consider Che Guevara to be a terrorist. As such, I doubt you'll consider any of those people "decent" either, as they all run contrary to US corporate interests and get painted in a bad light on television and in movies. Heaven forbid that people don't want corporations to rule their lives. Oh no, such people are evil/communist/rogue/terrorist and must be killed at once!
Methods make the terrorist hey? Lets have a look at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the emerging Steven Green issue. Then there's things like Waco, Ruby Ridge and this. Oh, and what kind of benevolent government needs to spy on its own people in the name of "National Security" and enact laws that make the punishment for copyright infringement greater than robbing an old lady?
And it's BS that the US stopped Milosevic for humanitarian reasons. If they gave a toss about helping people they'd also have done something in Rwanda, East Timor, Chile under Pinnochet, South Africa under Apartheid and a whole host of other atrocities that are happening now. So don't give me this "yea but we are just trying to help" crap. It's all about controlling the distribution of
Dude, I mean, like, really... Help me out here because I'm struggling...
Do you really believe that Bush / Clinton are fighting "evil"? Do you really believe that there are people out there who are "evil"? What kind of fairy land are you living in? Do you think the world is something out of Lord of the Rings? I mean seriously, dude, we're not fighting dark legions of hell-spawned, fire-breathing, brain-eating zombies. They're humans, who eat, sleep and crap just the same as you do. No, seriously, they don't eat brains.
"Evil" from your standpoint is "courage" from theirs. Ever heard the phrase "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"? As far as the public is concerned, the "good guys" are whoever you get told they are. Do you really, honestly, think CNN will say "Hey, we're stealing their land, money and resources, but meh, we've got bigger guns right now so fuck 'em". No, they word it in terms like "liberating the country's resources", "protecting the world from terrorism" and "allowing market forces to decide how wealth is distributed". You're kidding yourself if you really believe that the world had anything to fear from the half-starved badly equipped Iraqi army, or Saddam's rusty, decomposed chemical weapons that were about as dangerous as a bottle of Drain-O. And never mind that some societies like Chile don't want market forces, they actively choose socialist structures. But hey, according to guys like Kissinger, they are only allowed to elect governments that suit the agendas of US corporations.
Back to my point, consider the following people, who were considered "evil" or "terrorists" by authorities at some point in their lives:
* Nelson Mandela * Marin Luther King * George Washington
The list goes on. Remember this next time you see the label "terrorist" being applied to someone. Remember that anyone you put the label "terrorist" on, you put them in company with the people above. Ask yourself, "Are they really a terrorist, or do they just want to be able to drink water without having to pay Bechtel?". Also remember, America's founding fathers were all terrorists, according to Great Britain. I wonder who in today's world will be considered terrorists in 100 years.
Thanks for the clarification. I was aware of this, but in my haste to make first comment (it was my first time ever) I didn't think it through very carefully, I just said something that satisfied the bare minimum to avoid being modded troll hehe.
I wasn't saying ALL parents are better than school teachers, only that at the moment there is a tendency to over psychologise and over medicate children. The modern education system seems to be going through some classification phase where kids are given labels and force fit into models of behavior. A kid who might have been called a "quiet achiever" in another time is now labelled with "Aspergers Syndrome" and given medication. A child who is active and curious is labelled with "ADHD" and medicated. What happened to children being individuals with different personalities ranging from quiet and content to sit alone through to active and hungry for attention. These are just different traits, not syndromes or conditions.
I'd rather Aunty Beth with the floral apron and feather duster handling my kids than some dick with a major in education and a PhD in child psychology armed with a veritable arsenal of drugs, especially considering that getting to that level of qualification often precludes acquiring a rich and rewarding social experience when young. A great example of a man who knows all the science behind humanity, but has none, is to be seen in Harry Harlow [wikipedia.org]. He exemplifies what I mean when I say that someone can be an expert in something, yet still know nothing about it. For those of you who don't know who he is, he sought to investigate the nature of love and compassion between living creatures, but did this by performing the most horrific experiments on chimps. He was honoured by the American Psychological Association for his work. However, while he may have proved that love between parent and child exists, and disproved the Freudian belief that the child-mother link is purely due to the mother being a source of sustennance, he completely neglected his family, alienating his own children. His last years were reported to be miserable and lonely. In 1969 however, any school would have jumped at the opportunity to have him as their principal. Thank God he considered himself overqualified for such a lowly position.
You have just provided me with a perfect example of one of society's greatest problems: The celebration of apathy. I don't intend for this post to be personal, but for convenience, I will word it using "I" and "you" to represent our differing views. Please don't interpret this as a personal tirade:)
Why do children need to learn to be productive and postitive? Because if they don't you end up with an unenlightened, ignorant, unproductive bunch of sheep for citizens. Such citizens are easily herded by unscrupulous leaders for their own agenda. While I don't want our leaders to make laws against being miserable bastards, I would like our educators to strongly encourage the next generation not to be.
As part of my right to pursue happyness comes the "right" to act as negative as I want (up to breaking the law), and to drain society and those around me of as much productivity as possible (again, short of breaking the law).
Western society has is currently experiencing a "rights fetish". Everyone seems to talk about their rights to do this and that. While I agree that each person has a right to pursue their own happiness, I am dumbfounded that nobody seems to have any concept of the duties that go along with them. You want the right to free speech? Then you have the duty to protect the free speech of others. You want the right to freedom of movement, then you have a duty to not obstruct others. You want the right to social benefits such as unemployment payments? Then you have the duty to be productive, should you have the opportunity. Every right has a converse duty, and I respect nobody's rights who doesn't understand their corresponding duty. Want to be a miserable, unproductive bastard? Fine, but don't expect me to respect your right to my tax money. I don't see how people consider it to be a fundamental right to live in America as an unproductive bastard yet still have relative luxury, while people push themselves beyond breaking point in less fortunate areas of the world and still end up starving to death. Excuse my idealistic retort, but that just ain't right.
Society has no such right, whereas, as elaborated above, children (and the rest of us) do have the right to Miserable Bastardy.
See above. Children need to learn that rights come with duties, and you cannot have one without the other. This "rights fetish" has been pushed by American culture too far, IMHO. Rights can only exist if they are supported by society, and society can only support rights if people carry out their duties. Tax is not a sufficient fulfillment of that duty. Tax money makes roads, hospitals, schools and government buildings, but it does not buy your right to free speech or freedom from opression. Those rights only come into being when others execute upon their social duties.
Yeah, riiiiiight - Because some 4th-gen welfare mom with three kids and another on the way certainly has, simply by virtue of having spread her legs, the wisdom and compassion to properly raise "productive, positive influence[s] on the world around them".
I wasn't saying ALL parents are better than school teachers, only that at the moment there is a tendency to over psychologise and over medicate children. The modern education system seems to be going through some classification phase where kids are given labels and force fit into models of behavior. A kid who might have been called a "quiet achiever" in another time is now labelled with "Aspergers Syndrome" and given medication. A child who is active and curious is labelled with "ADHD" and medicated. What happened to children being individuals with different personalities ranging from quiet and content to sit alone through to active and hungry for attention. These are just different traits, not syndromes or conditions.
I'd rather Aunty Beth with the floral apron and feather duster handling my kids than some dick with a major in education and a PhD in child psychology armed with a veritable arsenal of drugs, especially considerin
Children need to learn what it means to be a productive, positive influence on the world around them. Having said that, I have absolutely no idea, and cannot comment on where to draw the line between childrens' rights to be children and society's right to ensure healthy upbringing. Furthermore, I have no idea what exactly constitutes and healthy upbringing and what does not. These questions need to be investigated by those experienced in handling children with compassion. That means your professional school principles who handle 10,000 children a year but hever married and had children of their own are not up to the task.
On a similar note, I think the idea that schools could or should act in place of parents is just loco, señor. Children need parents who see them as their flesh and blood, not teachers who see them collectively as a job.
Oh, and I have no idea how that kid should have been dealt with. However, missing out on a semester is counter productive, as whatever anger and resentment now has a semester to fester. When I was a kid, pulling stunts like that got me a belting from my folks. Thats what this world needs more of. parents who aren't scared to give their kids a spanking. Long-winded psychological games don't work and just build resentment long after the child has forgotten what he or she did in the first place.
Steal cookie. Spank. End.
It's a much closer association with what not to do, and over time as the child grows they will learn why stealing is bad. Week-long groundings or confiscation of the X-Box don't get associated with whatever the child did to cause it. I went to a friend's house where a child had been banned from X-Box for a week due to hitting his 3yo sister with a book. After having a chat with him he said he was grounded coz his parents were stupid. I asked him why they took it away and as far as I could tell he didn't even know. It had been 3 days since the incident.
Childrens' perception of time is completely different to adults'. For an 8yo, one week is an immesurably long period of time. Remember how long it took for the weekends to arrive? How unimaginably far away the summer holidays seemed even though it was only 3 weeks away? Fast forward, and me, as a 27 year old, can blink and miss an entire month.
All this rambling really boils down to me trying to say that children need more than regimented procedure, school rule books and "politically correct" punishment. They need the love, support and firm guidance that only a real parent or honest socially aware teacher can provide. I know many loving parents, but honest, socially aware teachers are few and far between.
And of course, free-to-air television is valued more than pay-per-view, public education is considered superior to expensive private colleges, free radio is hotter than pay-per-song iTunes and nobody ever thought of charging for web content, like, with a two-tiered Internet or anything.
You, my dear naieve friend, need to realize that until the Open Source movement, few things remained free after a) its value was recognised by business and b) a viable model to charge for it was developed. The Open Source community better watch its back, business is scheming right now how to hijack it and charge for it and as impossible as it may seem, they'll try.
The reason capitalists are so forceful about pushing their ideals is becuase capitalism benefits capitalists. Moderm economic models just don't work unless everyone behaves in an economically "rational" manner. I.e., with self-interest being the first, foremost and only motivation to get out of bed every morning. Without everyone behaving in this way, not only do economic models fall apart, but economic manipulation by the government and big business becomes impossible as the economy does not follow the "rules". Monetary policy cannot operate if people consider social values such as education or health care more important than their mortgage repayments.
This was illustrated in the last Australian election where an obviously anti-social, anti-welfare, pro-corporate John Howard was elected simply be hinting that the opposition would result in higher interest rates. A claim that was contested by economists in the major Australian economic research groups anyway. Once elected, interest rates rose anyway, and he immedialy set upon the task of dismantling public funding for education and health care and setting up American style industries where citizens pay huge prices for these "commodities". Mark my words Australia: Medicare will not survive another Howard term. He has implemented many anti-public policies such as cutting the number of government funded places for medicine at universities to create an artificial shortage. Another move was the proposal to privatise Medibank Private. These policies increase the pressure on the healthcare industry to "marketise" its service offerings. Step by step, as Australians become used to each bite that is taken out of their health care system, the goal of giving the health care cake to the corporate rulers is being accomplished. Such subtle policies only work if people think only in terms of capitalist "economic rationalism" and ignore things like long term social effects, ethics and equity. They are strengthened if people behave like a mob of individuals rather than a society with values.
Economic rationalism is the religion du jour, it is the ideology that the current ruling class push upon the masses to ensure that they collectively behave in a predictable, manipulable manner. I have just written an essay on economic rationalism, feel free to read it, and perhaps comment.
I believe in the market. But I also believe in humanity. I believe in equity, ethics, morals and fairness. I believe that the market has lost these things due to a systematic effort by those in power to strip the population of their ability to think socially or morally. You think consumerism is only about sellign stuff? Not so. It is deeper than that. It is engineered to not only sell stuff, but preserve the environment in which stuff can be sold. That is, preserve selfishness, whimsical behavior, aversion to social values and prevent philosophical evaluation of our own condition. In other words, the market has been hijacked, its values stripped away and it is being used as an engine to amass wealth and power for those leading it by the nose.
Dude, don't take this personally but you sound like a complete tard. Your ability to write sounds like you just finished junior high school and your analytical ability is on par with a cabbage that got thrown out of a supermarket backroom because it arrived with worms in it. I shudder to think you're EX military, meaning you were in the military *before* you reached your current level of intellectual prowess.
The anti-globalization movement you refer to in the 70s is the same as the one today. They were NEVER labeled right wing, as you claim, as by definition, opposition to organized centralization cannot be right wing. Back to politics 101 with you!
Furthermore, you say that you "thought about the numbers" and claim to have done some maths. You cannot just look at the raw exchange price and your income. I don't know where you get that $10 differential in price you refer to, and I have no idea who you're talking to when you say "I am makeing (sic) twenty times as much". You just blurt this out like numbers and arithmetic make your stance stronger. No comparison of the purchasing power parity, or the CPI of subsistence goods, or even the notion that your income may not be average for the US. No recognition that water is the ultimate necessity and its provision has since ancient times been considered a sacred duty of society to society. Nope, let's ignore it all and talk about ridiculously simple price and income measures.
Finally, "you are" does not contract to "your", it's "you're", "makeing" has no "e" and putting a period after an exclamation mark is redundant. "Electricity", "nuclear", biological", "chemical defense" and "telephone" are not proper nouns and as such do not get randomly capitalized in the middle of a sentence. Semi-colons can not be sprinkled liberally and randomly throughout a block of text. Oh, and I have no idea what "Roit Control" is, but I'm glad you have training doing it, because it sounds complicated.
In short your knowledge is poor, your analysis of that knowledge is poor and your use of spelling and grammar to convey this poor analysis of poor knowledge is, well, poor. So, to sum up my feelings on you, as a participant in Slashdot and indeed the wider community, I really only have this to day:
Please refrain from reading anything ever again. In future, if you ever require an opinion please contact your local law enforcement authority and you will be issued one in due course. Do not give out this opinion to others as a) they don't want to hear it and b) they will source their own opinions from wherever they see fit.
Yours truly, George Bush, Prezident of the United Satest.
For starters my post was deliberately simplistic to illustrate the hypocracy of the US attempting to project standards on others that it does not itself conform to.
I agree that geopolitical stability is about governments' internal capacity to continue operating at their own will while being able to resist forces that seek to change its structure or policy, I was using the term loosely to describe the stupidity of the comment that went before.
The US has started more wars in the last century than any other nation. And they're getting an early start in this one. I thought "stable" meant something along the lines of "does not cause disruption". Well, I would describe unnecessary, unjustified and self-serving war to be a bit of a disruption, so excuse me if I tell you that I think you're full of BS.
If you honestly believe that there is an army of Muslims in the Arab world sitting in a dark room mutting "I hate those Americans, they're so damn.... FREE! I'll kill them for being so free!" then you need to take a good hard look inside your head and clear out the thoughts that have been proscribed for you by the media.
The Arab world (and indeed most of the third world including Africa, Indochina and South America) hate the Western powers not because they are democratic, but because they are exploitative fascists. The west is always pulling stunts like this which is why there are so many "terrorists" out there trying to bring the west down. The moment the US stops trying to act like a global dictator the sooner crazy lunatics will stop flying planes into US buildings.
Get a grip. And get rid of that huge gas guzzling 4x4 you use to haul your collection of shotguns around in.
I wouldn't get upset. Snow lost because he's a god damned moron. His case should have been one of contract, not one under the SCA. Furthermore, even if he wanted to argue the SCA, he was not precluded from arguing BOTH points of view, SCA *and* contract law. Why he didn't is a mystery to me.
In actuality, that isn't quite correct. Fiat currencies (currencies not backed by some commodity) are pegged to nothing. Their value relative to a basket of goods changes from year to year. While central banks try to keep the value of their local currencies stable according to the *local* CPI and government inflation targets, they are more or less powerless to keep it stable with global prices.
Gold retains its stable value according to *international* prices, as gold is more likely to be valuable to a larger number of people around the world than USD or Euro or any single currency. USD are worthless in some regions, because they are unable to be traded with local money marketers. Gold on the other hand, has no such limitation. Everyone, and I mean eveyrone, wants gold. So chnages in the price of gold are in actuality changes in the price of the major currencies used to measure it.
That is why, when measured in USD or Euro over the last few years it can appreciate significantly. Not because the value of gold is rising, but because the values of the currencies relative to *global* prices are falling. Strengthening major currencies like the Chinese Yuan, Indian Rupee and various middle eastern currencies could cause this, as could a strengthening South African Rand, South Africa being the largest supplier of gold currently.
You said that currencies like GBP, USD and Euro have proven to be a better store of wealth. That is because you are so used to measuring the value of dollars *in* dollars, that you will obviously perceive a dollar to always be stable to the dollar. Your GBP, USD and Euro are stable by tautology. To give you the extreme example, were the British government (or the US govt or any govt) to collapse, your currency notes would instantly be worthless. One ounce of gold today however, will get you roughly the same amount of food and shelter as it would have under the Roman empire 2,000 years ago. Try saying *that* about a $5 note in 2,000 years (ignoring the fact that a $5 note would probably be a rare collector's item by then).
There is a proposal by the Arab Leage to create the "Gold Dinar" which would be a common currency between Arab countries the same as the Euro is a common currency for European nations, with one important difference. Every dinar would be backed by a certain amount of gold. Anyone holding a dinar note would be eligible to go to the central bank and convert it into the set value of gold. The amount of gold a Gold Dinar would convert to would be fixed, and the central bank would only be able to print as many notes as they had gold in their vaults. Thus credit squeeze and liquidity crises would never happen, and money market manipulation would be impossible. Political stability aside, even if the entire country collapsed, the people's wealth in their earnings would be convertable to gold and retained unlike in Western countries where a government economic default means that ordinary every day people lose money.
As fiat currenies "create" fictitious wealth, leaving the real wealth in the hands of those that hold the economic assets (the corporate class of super-rich), a government collapse leave the peasants (you, me and Aunt Hilda) with nothing, and the super rich with everything, as they control the assets like the land, the bulidings, the gold and of course the military, while we're all left with our hands full of toilet paper and houses that defaulting banks are allowed to sieze to pay back their secured creditors who, again, are the super rich corporate types.
Slashdot Mirror
I hear those point, but I believe they can be addressed in other ways. Thin clients have their place, but I don't believe that they should become the norm, as it robs the users of flexibility. How would open source flourish, if our PCs were designed to only run software that was sent from HQ? Which is the eventuality that *would* occur.
Look 10 years ahead. Good succeeds with this and we're all using some GoogleOS or YouOS or whatever, delivered from the Microsoft of the day. Do you relaly think they'd not do everything they can to hinder the growth of projects that competed with their products? You need look no further than SCO to see *exactly* how they'd behave.
So you can't see a distinction between a web page and a network booted operating system that may not even need a HDD to run?
You're a fucking idiot.
Oh, and another thing, I don't see why these so called "online OS" projects don't just use existing X infrastructure to create an easy way to access standard X windows applications and run them remotely over SSH. It'd a) eliminate the need for a whole new friggin' OS b) retain the privacy of users c) leverage the massive existing library of software that exists for Linux and X and d) be as easy as PISS to accomplish technically, with only some work needed to make it easy for the average user.
This is utter crap. It sounds like Google planted hype to try to push the idea of "software as a service", Which is a stupid, unworkable and untrustworthy way of computing.
So the guys at Slate thinks that the combined computing power of Google's umpteen million users is less than the power of their server farm? Unlikely, even for Google's impressive data centers. If its the case that as a general rule commercial servers were more powerful than the sum of their users' machines, we could do away with all those supposedly obsolete distributed computing efforts.
Home PCs are far more powerful than the average user needs. This has been the case for a long, long time. Even Microsoft is having trouble saturating medium end computers that dell sells for the $900US mark. 2.5ghz with 1gb RAM, and you're trying to tell me that my broadband link can deliver application with faster response? I think not. And I like the way they FUDify the "cool n quiet" marketing campaign as well, utterly misdirecting its purpose.
I'm getting really sick of this "software as a service" crud, but at the same time, I'm also getting scared that companies might actually convince the mainsteam to use it. It would spell the end of privacy and anonymity for users and massively increase the power of already too powerful corporations and governments. "Software as a service" is the ultimate spyware. Today we complain that Sony puts rootkits on their CDs, yet there's no real complaint that our entire OS can not only report to base, but runs from there entirely. Forget keyloggers, this thing will record your keys, mouseclicks and input from webcams, scanners and microphones in realtime.
I sincerely hope that the tool that is the personal computer doesn't get taken away from the masses and replaced with drone terminals that could only be used in the way proscribed by our corporate rulers, and observed by their minions in dark rooms.
Oh yea, feel free to call me a tinfoil hat wearing Google hater, because I am.
I'm sorry, I can't distill a point from your last post. Please re-read my post before it and attempt to respond. Just a few points, though:
a) Stop referring to television and movies! You're embarrassing yourself! I don't believe you're from another country. No non-American would incessantly refer to Hollywood movies and stand-up comedians in a political discussion. Unless you've been living there since a very early age. Stupidity is contagious, you know.
b) Margaret Cho is ultra left wing? Come again? Margaret Cho is a friggin' local comedian with a major chip on her shoulder. Racial activist? Maybe. Feminst? Definately. "Ultra-left" wing or politically aware? I don't think so.
Please, for the love of God, don't refer to any more television shows, movies, magazines or your local corner performer. I'm starting to feel sorry for you. Really, that level of ignorance must be physically painful. Now go back, re-read my last post and come up with a decent counter point.
Utterly destroyed? Your God Bless America rant is amusing in its ignorance. You really, really need to meet someone from another country. Baby steps, after that you can perhaps travel a bit. After that you might even venture outside the areas considered "safe" for tourists and maybe even meet a real live non-American! Perhaps then you'll realize that America is not God's gift to planet Earth and that the 5.8 billion people *not* living in America aren't just sitting around waiting for you to come liberate them.
Anyway here goes:
First things first. "see Black Hawk Down" ??? You mean the movie? No fking way! You're seriously using a movie as a reference? Wow dude, you need to go back to school. I really shouldn't bother continuing after such a collossal display of myopic, self-inflicted ignorance.
Do "we" impose governors and taxes upon them. Yes. Elected popular governments are overthrown for pro-US, corporate-friendly governments. Taxes aren't called taxes, they are called "corporate profits". See: Ecuador, Panama, Chile, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and Nicaragua for examples of governments overthrown by the US for dubious reasons. See Pfizer in Nigeria, Nike in China, United Fruit Company in Chile, Shell in Nigeria, Unocal in Afghanistan and Bechtel in Bolivia for examples of US firms pillaging the local populations.
I don't know what is really going on in Iraq at the moment, the world will have to wait until the dust settles before any real information can come out, but all I know is that if Saddam was really such a tiny minority, how is it that a tiny minority of a starving, badly armed country are causing the might of the US military so much greif? Could it be that those who wish the US to leave are not in the minority? You'll probably refute this, as I didn't source the information from the hallowed spring of pure truth that is Hollywood, which you seem to consider so reliable. Also remember that Vietnam was supposedly a war of justice against a minority. I can't believe some Americans (not even the majority any more) are falling for it again.
No Iraqi that I've ever heard, or Muslim anywhere for that matter, has said anything about declaring Jihad on everyone or establishing a world-wide umma. They just want the west and their abusive corporations out of their countries. It's not just Muslim countries but just about every debt-ridden third world country that the international finance cartel has managed to stick huge debts to. They pay rulers to allow them to pillage the country's people and resources, and if the ruler refuses the bribe, they get called a "rogue state" or "communist" or something similar. Examples here include Chilean leader Allende, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. You seem to get your education from US television and movies though, as you consider Che Guevara to be a terrorist. As such, I doubt you'll consider any of those people "decent" either, as they all run contrary to US corporate interests and get painted in a bad light on television and in movies. Heaven forbid that people don't want corporations to rule their lives. Oh no, such people are evil/communist/rogue/terrorist and must be killed at once!
Methods make the terrorist hey? Lets have a look at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the emerging Steven Green issue. Then there's things like Waco, Ruby Ridge and this. Oh, and what kind of benevolent government needs to spy on its own people in the name of "National Security" and enact laws that make the punishment for copyright infringement greater than robbing an old lady?
And it's BS that the US stopped Milosevic for humanitarian reasons. If they gave a toss about helping people they'd also have done something in Rwanda, East Timor, Chile under Pinnochet, South Africa under Apartheid and a whole host of other atrocities that are happening now. So don't give me this "yea but we are just trying to help" crap. It's all about controlling the distribution of
Dude, I mean, like, really... Help me out here because I'm struggling...
Do you really believe that Bush / Clinton are fighting "evil"? Do you really believe that there are people out there who are "evil"? What kind of fairy land are you living in? Do you think the world is something out of Lord of the Rings? I mean seriously, dude, we're not fighting dark legions of hell-spawned, fire-breathing, brain-eating zombies. They're humans, who eat, sleep and crap just the same as you do. No, seriously, they don't eat brains.
"Evil" from your standpoint is "courage" from theirs. Ever heard the phrase "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"? As far as the public is concerned, the "good guys" are whoever you get told they are. Do you really, honestly, think CNN will say "Hey, we're stealing their land, money and resources, but meh, we've got bigger guns right now so fuck 'em". No, they word it in terms like "liberating the country's resources", "protecting the world from terrorism" and "allowing market forces to decide how wealth is distributed". You're kidding yourself if you really believe that the world had anything to fear from the half-starved badly equipped Iraqi army, or Saddam's rusty, decomposed chemical weapons that were about as dangerous as a bottle of Drain-O. And never mind that some societies like Chile don't want market forces, they actively choose socialist structures. But hey, according to guys like Kissinger, they are only allowed to elect governments that suit the agendas of US corporations.
Back to my point, consider the following people, who were considered "evil" or "terrorists" by authorities at some point in their lives:
* Nelson Mandela
* Marin Luther King
* George Washington
The list goes on. Remember this next time you see the label "terrorist" being applied to someone. Remember that anyone you put the label "terrorist" on, you put them in company with the people above. Ask yourself, "Are they really a terrorist, or do they just want to be able to drink water without having to pay Bechtel?". Also remember, America's founding fathers were all terrorists, according to Great Britain. I wonder who in today's world will be considered terrorists in 100 years.
Thanks for the clarification. I was aware of this, but in my haste to make first comment (it was my first time ever) I didn't think it through very carefully, I just said something that satisfied the bare minimum to avoid being modded troll hehe.
Regards!
(Pasted raw from another post of mine)
I wasn't saying ALL parents are better than school teachers, only that at the moment there is a tendency to over psychologise and over medicate children. The modern education system seems to be going through some classification phase where kids are given labels and force fit into models of behavior. A kid who might have been called a "quiet achiever" in another time is now labelled with "Aspergers Syndrome" and given medication. A child who is active and curious is labelled with "ADHD" and medicated. What happened to children being individuals with different personalities ranging from quiet and content to sit alone through to active and hungry for attention. These are just different traits, not syndromes or conditions.
I'd rather Aunty Beth with the floral apron and feather duster handling my kids than some dick with a major in education and a PhD in child psychology armed with a veritable arsenal of drugs, especially considering that getting to that level of qualification often precludes acquiring a rich and rewarding social experience when young. A great example of a man who knows all the science behind humanity, but has none, is to be seen in Harry Harlow [wikipedia.org]. He exemplifies what I mean when I say that someone can be an expert in something, yet still know nothing about it. For those of you who don't know who he is, he sought to investigate the nature of love and compassion between living creatures, but did this by performing the most horrific experiments on chimps. He was honoured by the American Psychological Association for his work. However, while he may have proved that love between parent and child exists, and disproved the Freudian belief that the child-mother link is purely due to the mother being a source of sustennance, he completely neglected his family, alienating his own children. His last years were reported to be miserable and lonely. In 1969 however, any school would have jumped at the opportunity to have him as their principal. Thank God he considered himself overqualified for such a lowly position.
You have just provided me with a perfect example of one of society's greatest problems: The celebration of apathy. I don't intend for this post to be personal, but for convenience, I will word it using "I" and "you" to represent our differing views. Please don't interpret this as a personal tirade :)
Why do children need to learn to be productive and postitive? Because if they don't you end up with an unenlightened, ignorant, unproductive bunch of sheep for citizens. Such citizens are easily herded by unscrupulous leaders for their own agenda. While I don't want our leaders to make laws against being miserable bastards, I would like our educators to strongly encourage the next generation not to be.
As part of my right to pursue happyness comes the "right" to act as negative as I want (up to breaking the law), and to drain society and those around me of as much productivity as possible (again, short of breaking the law).
Western society has is currently experiencing a "rights fetish". Everyone seems to talk about their rights to do this and that. While I agree that each person has a right to pursue their own happiness, I am dumbfounded that nobody seems to have any concept of the duties that go along with them. You want the right to free speech? Then you have the duty to protect the free speech of others. You want the right to freedom of movement, then you have a duty to not obstruct others. You want the right to social benefits such as unemployment payments? Then you have the duty to be productive, should you have the opportunity. Every right has a converse duty, and I respect nobody's rights who doesn't understand their corresponding duty. Want to be a miserable, unproductive bastard? Fine, but don't expect me to respect your right to my tax money. I don't see how people consider it to be a fundamental right to live in America as an unproductive bastard yet still have relative luxury, while people push themselves beyond breaking point in less fortunate areas of the world and still end up starving to death. Excuse my idealistic retort, but that just ain't right.
Society has no such right, whereas, as elaborated above, children (and the rest of us) do have the right to Miserable Bastardy.
See above. Children need to learn that rights come with duties, and you cannot have one without the other. This "rights fetish" has been pushed by American culture too far, IMHO. Rights can only exist if they are supported by society, and society can only support rights if people carry out their duties. Tax is not a sufficient fulfillment of that duty. Tax money makes roads, hospitals, schools and government buildings, but it does not buy your right to free speech or freedom from opression. Those rights only come into being when others execute upon their social duties.
Yeah, riiiiiight - Because some 4th-gen welfare mom with three kids and another on the way certainly has, simply by virtue of having spread her legs, the wisdom and compassion to properly raise "productive, positive influence[s] on the world around them".
I wasn't saying ALL parents are better than school teachers, only that at the moment there is a tendency to over psychologise and over medicate children. The modern education system seems to be going through some classification phase where kids are given labels and force fit into models of behavior. A kid who might have been called a "quiet achiever" in another time is now labelled with "Aspergers Syndrome" and given medication. A child who is active and curious is labelled with "ADHD" and medicated. What happened to children being individuals with different personalities ranging from quiet and content to sit alone through to active and hungry for attention. These are just different traits, not syndromes or conditions.
I'd rather Aunty Beth with the floral apron and feather duster handling my kids than some dick with a major in education and a PhD in child psychology armed with a veritable arsenal of drugs, especially considerin
Does this apply to the CIA falsifying intelligence to secure a slice of the defence budget?
And that, my friend, is exactly why Norway is not considered "capitalist" in the way of the US.
Children need to learn what it means to be a productive, positive influence on the world around them. Having said that, I have absolutely no idea, and cannot comment on where to draw the line between childrens' rights to be children and society's right to ensure healthy upbringing. Furthermore, I have no idea what exactly constitutes and healthy upbringing and what does not. These questions need to be investigated by those experienced in handling children with compassion. That means your professional school principles who handle 10,000 children a year but hever married and had children of their own are not up to the task.
On a similar note, I think the idea that schools could or should act in place of parents is just loco, señor. Children need parents who see them as their flesh and blood, not teachers who see them collectively as a job.
Oh, and I have no idea how that kid should have been dealt with. However, missing out on a semester is counter productive, as whatever anger and resentment now has a semester to fester. When I was a kid, pulling stunts like that got me a belting from my folks. Thats what this world needs more of. parents who aren't scared to give their kids a spanking. Long-winded psychological games don't work and just build resentment long after the child has forgotten what he or she did in the first place.
Steal cookie.
Spank.
End.
It's a much closer association with what not to do, and over time as the child grows they will learn why stealing is bad. Week-long groundings or confiscation of the X-Box don't get associated with whatever the child did to cause it. I went to a friend's house where a child had been banned from X-Box for a week due to hitting his 3yo sister with a book. After having a chat with him he said he was grounded coz his parents were stupid. I asked him why they took it away and as far as I could tell he didn't even know. It had been 3 days since the incident.
Childrens' perception of time is completely different to adults'. For an 8yo, one week is an immesurably long period of time. Remember how long it took for the weekends to arrive? How unimaginably far away the summer holidays seemed even though it was only 3 weeks away? Fast forward, and me, as a 27 year old, can blink and miss an entire month.
All this rambling really boils down to me trying to say that children need more than regimented procedure, school rule books and "politically correct" punishment. They need the love, support and firm guidance that only a real parent or honest socially aware teacher can provide. I know many loving parents, but honest, socially aware teachers are few and far between.
And of course, free-to-air television is valued more than pay-per-view, public education is considered superior to expensive private colleges, free radio is hotter than pay-per-song iTunes and nobody ever thought of charging for web content, like, with a two-tiered Internet or anything.
You, my dear naieve friend, need to realize that until the Open Source movement, few things remained free after a) its value was recognised by business and b) a viable model to charge for it was developed. The Open Source community better watch its back, business is scheming right now how to hijack it and charge for it and as impossible as it may seem, they'll try.
Hehe it's good to hear that I'm not the only one yelling "stop feeding on each other!".
The reason capitalists are so forceful about pushing their ideals is becuase capitalism benefits capitalists. Moderm economic models just don't work unless everyone behaves in an economically "rational" manner. I.e., with self-interest being the first, foremost and only motivation to get out of bed every morning. Without everyone behaving in this way, not only do economic models fall apart, but economic manipulation by the government and big business becomes impossible as the economy does not follow the "rules". Monetary policy cannot operate if people consider social values such as education or health care more important than their mortgage repayments.
This was illustrated in the last Australian election where an obviously anti-social, anti-welfare, pro-corporate John Howard was elected simply be hinting that the opposition would result in higher interest rates. A claim that was contested by economists in the major Australian economic research groups anyway. Once elected, interest rates rose anyway, and he immedialy set upon the task of dismantling public funding for education and health care and setting up American style industries where citizens pay huge prices for these "commodities". Mark my words Australia: Medicare will not survive another Howard term. He has implemented many anti-public policies such as cutting the number of government funded places for medicine at universities to create an artificial shortage. Another move was the proposal to privatise Medibank Private. These policies increase the pressure on the healthcare industry to "marketise" its service offerings. Step by step, as Australians become used to each bite that is taken out of their health care system, the goal of giving the health care cake to the corporate rulers is being accomplished. Such subtle policies only work if people think only in terms of capitalist "economic rationalism" and ignore things like long term social effects, ethics and equity. They are strengthened if people behave like a mob of individuals rather than a society with values.
Economic rationalism is the religion du jour, it is the ideology that the current ruling class push upon the masses to ensure that they collectively behave in a predictable, manipulable manner. I have just written an essay on economic rationalism, feel free to read it, and perhaps comment.
I believe in the market. But I also believe in humanity. I believe in equity, ethics, morals and fairness. I believe that the market has lost these things due to a systematic effort by those in power to strip the population of their ability to think socially or morally. You think consumerism is only about sellign stuff? Not so. It is deeper than that. It is engineered to not only sell stuff, but preserve the environment in which stuff can be sold. That is, preserve selfishness, whimsical behavior, aversion to social values and prevent philosophical evaluation of our own condition. In other words, the market has been hijacked, its values stripped away and it is being used as an engine to amass wealth and power for those leading it by the nose.
Dude, don't take this personally but you sound like a complete tard. Your ability to write sounds like you just finished junior high school and your analytical ability is on par with a cabbage that got thrown out of a supermarket backroom because it arrived with worms in it. I shudder to think you're EX military, meaning you were in the military *before* you reached your current level of intellectual prowess.
The anti-globalization movement you refer to in the 70s is the same as the one today. They were NEVER labeled right wing, as you claim, as by definition, opposition to organized centralization cannot be right wing. Back to politics 101 with you!
Furthermore, you say that you "thought about the numbers" and claim to have done some maths. You cannot just look at the raw exchange price and your income. I don't know where you get that $10 differential in price you refer to, and I have no idea who you're talking to when you say "I am makeing (sic) twenty times as much". You just blurt this out like numbers and arithmetic make your stance stronger. No comparison of the purchasing power parity, or the CPI of subsistence goods, or even the notion that your income may not be average for the US. No recognition that water is the ultimate necessity and its provision has since ancient times been considered a sacred duty of society to society. Nope, let's ignore it all and talk about ridiculously simple price and income measures.
Finally, "you are" does not contract to "your", it's "you're", "makeing" has no "e" and putting a period after an exclamation mark is redundant. "Electricity", "nuclear", biological", "chemical defense" and "telephone" are not proper nouns and as such do not get randomly capitalized in the middle of a sentence. Semi-colons can not be sprinkled liberally and randomly throughout a block of text. Oh, and I have no idea what "Roit Control" is, but I'm glad you have training doing it, because it sounds complicated.
In short your knowledge is poor, your analysis of that knowledge is poor and your use of spelling and grammar to convey this poor analysis of poor knowledge is, well, poor. So, to sum up my feelings on you, as a participant in Slashdot and indeed the wider community, I really only have this to day:
STFU AND STOP WASTING MY OXYGEN!
Please refrain from reading anything ever again. In future, if you ever require an opinion please contact your local law enforcement authority and you will be issued one in due course. Do not give out this opinion to others as a) they don't want to hear it and b) they will source their own opinions from wherever they see fit.
Yours truly,
George Bush,
Prezident of the United Satest.
For starters my post was deliberately simplistic to illustrate the hypocracy of the US attempting to project standards on others that it does not itself conform to.
I agree that geopolitical stability is about governments' internal capacity to continue operating at their own will while being able to resist forces that seek to change its structure or policy, I was using the term loosely to describe the stupidity of the comment that went before.
There is no question that the US is stable
The US has started more wars in the last century than any other nation. And they're getting an early start in this one. I thought "stable" meant something along the lines of "does not cause disruption". Well, I would describe unnecessary, unjustified and self-serving war to be a bit of a disruption, so excuse me if I tell you that I think you're full of BS.
If you honestly believe that there is an army of Muslims in the Arab world sitting in a dark room mutting "I hate those Americans, they're so damn.... FREE! I'll kill them for being so free!" then you need to take a good hard look inside your head and clear out the thoughts that have been proscribed for you by the media.
The Arab world (and indeed most of the third world including Africa, Indochina and South America) hate the Western powers not because they are democratic, but because they are exploitative fascists. The west is always pulling stunts like this which is why there are so many "terrorists" out there trying to bring the west down. The moment the US stops trying to act like a global dictator the sooner crazy lunatics will stop flying planes into US buildings.
Get a grip. And get rid of that huge gas guzzling 4x4 you use to haul your collection of shotguns around in.
I wouldn't get upset. Snow lost because he's a god damned moron. His case should have been one of contract, not one under the SCA. Furthermore, even if he wanted to argue the SCA, he was not precluded from arguing BOTH points of view, SCA *and* contract law. Why he didn't is a mystery to me.
50 - 7 = 43
QED.
In actuality, that isn't quite correct. Fiat currencies (currencies not backed by some commodity) are pegged to nothing. Their value relative to a basket of goods changes from year to year. While central banks try to keep the value of their local currencies stable according to the *local* CPI and government inflation targets, they are more or less powerless to keep it stable with global prices.
Gold retains its stable value according to *international* prices, as gold is more likely to be valuable to a larger number of people around the world than USD or Euro or any single currency. USD are worthless in some regions, because they are unable to be traded with local money marketers. Gold on the other hand, has no such limitation. Everyone, and I mean eveyrone, wants gold. So chnages in the price of gold are in actuality changes in the price of the major currencies used to measure it.
That is why, when measured in USD or Euro over the last few years it can appreciate significantly. Not because the value of gold is rising, but because the values of the currencies relative to *global* prices are falling. Strengthening major currencies like the Chinese Yuan, Indian Rupee and various middle eastern currencies could cause this, as could a strengthening South African Rand, South Africa being the largest supplier of gold currently.
You said that currencies like GBP, USD and Euro have proven to be a better store of wealth. That is because you are so used to measuring the value of dollars *in* dollars, that you will obviously perceive a dollar to always be stable to the dollar. Your GBP, USD and Euro are stable by tautology. To give you the extreme example, were the British government (or the US govt or any govt) to collapse, your currency notes would instantly be worthless. One ounce of gold today however, will get you roughly the same amount of food and shelter as it would have under the Roman empire 2,000 years ago. Try saying *that* about a $5 note in 2,000 years (ignoring the fact that a $5 note would probably be a rare collector's item by then).
There is a proposal by the Arab Leage to create the "Gold Dinar" which would be a common currency between Arab countries the same as the Euro is a common currency for European nations, with one important difference. Every dinar would be backed by a certain amount of gold. Anyone holding a dinar note would be eligible to go to the central bank and convert it into the set value of gold. The amount of gold a Gold Dinar would convert to would be fixed, and the central bank would only be able to print as many notes as they had gold in their vaults. Thus credit squeeze and liquidity crises would never happen, and money market manipulation would be impossible. Political stability aside, even if the entire country collapsed, the people's wealth in their earnings would be convertable to gold and retained unlike in Western countries where a government economic default means that ordinary every day people lose money.
As fiat currenies "create" fictitious wealth, leaving the real wealth in the hands of those that hold the economic assets (the corporate class of super-rich), a government collapse leave the peasants (you, me and Aunt Hilda) with nothing, and the super rich with everything, as they control the assets like the land, the bulidings, the gold and of course the military, while we're all left with our hands full of toilet paper and houses that defaulting banks are allowed to sieze to pay back their secured creditors who, again, are the super rich corporate types.
Wake up. Your dollars are nothing but paper.
- Naz