Is that right? I thought if the benefits were reduced now by 20% it could run indefinately but that's even better. Either way, there is no need to reduce benefits if we add minor fixes to the program. The best place to start would be to stop capping the amount of income taxed for social security. (Currently only the first $85K or so are taxed for social security, even if you make millions or even billions of dollars a year.) No matter what though, there is no need to scrap the safety net of social security for a stock based program. We already encourage that through 401k and IRA exemptions on income taxes and the various tax deductions around those. Let's not risk people's retirement like this.
I don't see it... Japan wouldn't have near the military might due to their constitution preventing anything other than a defensive military and despite the Iraq war beginning to change this I really don't see Japan moving much beyond their pacifist constitution for political reasons. I don't see the Japan-China scenario at all plausible. I'm honestly not sure what the US will do if Taiwan is invaded. Despite our protests, I don't know if the President could justify starting a World War to defend a small island in the Pacific. This ain't taking back Kuwait from Iraq. I do believe Taiwan deserves independence though. I guess this is all up in the air depending on what Taiwanese politicians decide to do and that seems to be slowly moving towards independence.
The Social Security crisis is a myth! The program itself can continue to pay out just as it has in the past without increasing taxes or revenue till about 2050. Does that mean something has to be done? Of course. Does that mean we need to scrap the whole program to help Bush's cronies? Of course not. To sum up, in 45 years or so it will be out of money but its not like this is immediate and it does NOT need drastic measures that the the President is proposing.
They can't call Creationism a theory though. It just complaints about evolution. Sure evolution has evidence that seems to contradict some of the theory but hey most theories do. That's why you try to figure out a better theory. Saying that some species don't seem to follow the most likely pattern that evolution should give it means that you need to research the species and/or evolution more not that the whole theory is wrong. I can completely see why one might think that life was created by a higher being even if I don't think it is. But that's not science, its faith.
I think one of the problems with this entire situations is these people think we're attacking their beliefs.I think its important for people who aren't as religious if we even are religious, to not attack people's faith but try to show them that we respect their beliefs but science and religion are separate and attempt to explain different things. (Gould was a proponent of this view) Also, most people are religious because it helps them and as long as they don't go overboard in trying to control others because of their religion we should try to respect that as much as possible. I say if you believe that you're going to go to heaven and it gives you inner peace, I say more power to you. If you want to force that upon me or others, that's a huge problem.
I think that if something deserves to be patented when it comes to software, this would be it. However at the same time this will probably be ignored by everyone except organizations with HUGE image archives (some of them have been mentioned earlier including NASA, photographers, etc.) because few people want to spend extra cash on something like this for a few images (or even more than a few). Storage space is cheap and for most people plain old JPEG works because its there and they don't need to pay extra for it. I guess it comes down not to a moral choice as much to me as a business choice: is there a way we can capitalize on this invention by not patenting it and expanding the market for the product or if we patent it will we still be able to make enough money from a smaller market?
That said, most software patents are complete bullshit even if this one isn't.
Yes but we have these wonderful EULAs that limit Microsoft's liability even if the damn system kills you (although the courts might be willing to revisit that one). I would say a huge portion of Slashdot thinks Microsoft rights in the EULAs should be restricted but until we can get a court or Congress/legislature to agree with us, we're SOL.
I think there are two different things here. I'm trying to look at this (perhaps unsuccessfully) in a legal way. You're looking at it in a moral way. My descriptions so far have been bad though so I apologize. I still think there are moral reasons why you should pay your taxes but I can understand why you'd want to make a stand on this. If you're caught, you're going to prison which may or may not be good depending on your views of civil disobedience.
On the moral note, I do think there are very important services that need to be supported for others, not necessarily you, and would recommend you at the very least pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. How you'd go about doing that without being caught is beyond me but if the punishment is part of what you're going for ala civil disobedience, that's not a problem.
I agree with all of those (except for the last one, that's not a legal issue, its a moral one), I'm as progressive as it comes. But cash-only businesses should pay taxes like everyone else because you get the same services (even if they're not that great) that everyone else does. If you don't like the way the government is run, you've got a lo to different ways to change it (i.e.: vote, protest, run for office, give money to campaigns). Either way, its unfair to everyone else if you don't pay taxes even if you don't like some of the policies of our government.
legally you still have to pay income taxes whether its a cash only business or not... in fact drug dealers have been charged with tax evasion for not paying income taxes on their drug profits.
my understanding is that the IRS does have some type of XML language to describe tax form preparation and filing. There's a very complex set of procedures you need to go through to allow an organization/company to actually do the filing of the taxes which is where things get complex.
My impression that a home user version would be free but an enterprise version that can be controlled by an administrator and such was going to be charged for. I could be wrong though.
I think kiddie porn is a little more serious than that. You're basically making a video/picture of a person without their consent. Its unfair to kids who have been traumatized by this incident to continue to be exploited for sexual pleasure in the future. Its more serious than sweets companies.
That said, I don't think this should stop you from using Freenet. There are very valid uses for it. I just don't use it because I find it to be really, really useless for most anything because of its speed.
"Cintra is ponying up all the money for this project. The State of Texas will pay nothing. And gets the ability to take over tolls in 50 years."
If only I had a bridge to sell you...
I don't see why they wouldn't. I really think it comes down to what best fits your situation and what skills you have. I think PHP is great and I'm a casual programmer but I think the lack of namespaces can be super confusing in large projects. I've used Perl and its got tons of features and mod_perl is incredibly fast but its to say the least confusing..NET is stuck to MS servers to the most part. Its just using what works best for you.
Hell yeah. It's the idea that people to some extent ridiculed when Microsoft explained WinFS. It is the next big thing in computing ESPECIALLY meta-data. I still look at a picture and say to myself "Why in the world isn't it easier to explain who is in the picture so I can just search for that person's picture in the future?" Sure you can put it in the filename but "Jim's Vacation to Grand Canyon In August 2004" is just poorly defined meta-data. There is a serious need to change the way we look at computing especially for all the people in the world who don't get computers at all. I'm sick of explaining to my mother how to find where the letter she wrote last week is and why she can't just search for a photo of a person and frankly she shouldn't need ask any of those questions at all; it should be self-explanatory.
I agree with nonviolence resistance and am a firm believer in it but I think using these people's bandwidth is the epitome of nonviolent resistance. You basically bother someone till they HAVE to change something (i.e.: SCLC's bus boycott, Gandhi's march to the sea, etc.) Of course I don't htink the term for this is nonviolent resistance because that really is for something much more serious but that concept fits.
Slashdot Mirror
Is that right? I thought if the benefits were reduced now by 20% it could run indefinately but that's even better. Either way, there is no need to reduce benefits if we add minor fixes to the program. The best place to start would be to stop capping the amount of income taxed for social security. (Currently only the first $85K or so are taxed for social security, even if you make millions or even billions of dollars a year.) No matter what though, there is no need to scrap the safety net of social security for a stock based program. We already encourage that through 401k and IRA exemptions on income taxes and the various tax deductions around those. Let's not risk people's retirement like this.
Cuz we really don't like him and we wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to bash him. Try it, its fun! :)
I don't see it... Japan wouldn't have near the military might due to their constitution preventing anything other than a defensive military and despite the Iraq war beginning to change this I really don't see Japan moving much beyond their pacifist constitution for political reasons. I don't see the Japan-China scenario at all plausible. I'm honestly not sure what the US will do if Taiwan is invaded. Despite our protests, I don't know if the President could justify starting a World War to defend a small island in the Pacific. This ain't taking back Kuwait from Iraq. I do believe Taiwan deserves independence though. I guess this is all up in the air depending on what Taiwanese politicians decide to do and that seems to be slowly moving towards independence.
Uh huh... You're a Marxist alright.
Haha I love that. Nothing like a good Civilization joke
The Social Security crisis is a myth! The program itself can continue to pay out just as it has in the past without increasing taxes or revenue till about 2050. Does that mean something has to be done? Of course. Does that mean we need to scrap the whole program to help Bush's cronies? Of course not. To sum up, in 45 years or so it will be out of money but its not like this is immediate and it does NOT need drastic measures that the the President is proposing.
I wouldn't say Windows 98 works "quite well." I think that's a bit of a stretch.
They can't call Creationism a theory though. It just complaints about evolution. Sure evolution has evidence that seems to contradict some of the theory but hey most theories do. That's why you try to figure out a better theory. Saying that some species don't seem to follow the most likely pattern that evolution should give it means that you need to research the species and/or evolution more not that the whole theory is wrong. I can completely see why one might think that life was created by a higher being even if I don't think it is. But that's not science, its faith.
I think one of the problems with this entire situations is these people think we're attacking their beliefs.I think its important for people who aren't as religious if we even are religious, to not attack people's faith but try to show them that we respect their beliefs but science and religion are separate and attempt to explain different things. (Gould was a proponent of this view) Also, most people are religious because it helps them and as long as they don't go overboard in trying to control others because of their religion we should try to respect that as much as possible. I say if you believe that you're going to go to heaven and it gives you inner peace, I say more power to you. If you want to force that upon me or others, that's a huge problem.
I think that if something deserves to be patented when it comes to software, this would be it. However at the same time this will probably be ignored by everyone except organizations with HUGE image archives (some of them have been mentioned earlier including NASA, photographers, etc.) because few people want to spend extra cash on something like this for a few images (or even more than a few). Storage space is cheap and for most people plain old JPEG works because its there and they don't need to pay extra for it. I guess it comes down not to a moral choice as much to me as a business choice: is there a way we can capitalize on this invention by not patenting it and expanding the market for the product or if we patent it will we still be able to make enough money from a smaller market?
That said, most software patents are complete bullshit even if this one isn't.
Yes but we have these wonderful EULAs that limit Microsoft's liability even if the damn system kills you (although the courts might be willing to revisit that one). I would say a huge portion of Slashdot thinks Microsoft rights in the EULAs should be restricted but until we can get a court or Congress/legislature to agree with us, we're SOL.
I believe I heard that Microsoft extended that deadline to the end of this month. Apparently they haven't updated the site.
Are we actually allowed to post the contents now?
I wouldn't call IBM conservative. They're large and old but they're for the most part pretty progressive nowadays, especially on diversity.
I think there are two different things here. I'm trying to look at this (perhaps unsuccessfully) in a legal way. You're looking at it in a moral way. My descriptions so far have been bad though so I apologize. I still think there are moral reasons why you should pay your taxes but I can understand why you'd want to make a stand on this. If you're caught, you're going to prison which may or may not be good depending on your views of civil disobedience.
On the moral note, I do think there are very important services that need to be supported for others, not necessarily you, and would recommend you at the very least pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. How you'd go about doing that without being caught is beyond me but if the punishment is part of what you're going for ala civil disobedience, that's not a problem.
I agree with all of those (except for the last one, that's not a legal issue, its a moral one), I'm as progressive as it comes. But cash-only businesses should pay taxes like everyone else because you get the same services (even if they're not that great) that everyone else does. If you don't like the way the government is run, you've got a lo to different ways to change it (i.e.: vote, protest, run for office, give money to campaigns). Either way, its unfair to everyone else if you don't pay taxes even if you don't like some of the policies of our government.
legally you still have to pay income taxes whether its a cash only business or not... in fact drug dealers have been charged with tax evasion for not paying income taxes on their drug profits.
my understanding is that the IRS does have some type of XML language to describe tax form preparation and filing. There's a very complex set of procedures you need to go through to allow an organization/company to actually do the filing of the taxes which is where things get complex.
That too.
No you're not, I agree completely. Sadly enough, not enough people agree with us.
My impression that a home user version would be free but an enterprise version that can be controlled by an administrator and such was going to be charged for. I could be wrong though.
I think kiddie porn is a little more serious than that. You're basically making a video/picture of a person without their consent. Its unfair to kids who have been traumatized by this incident to continue to be exploited for sexual pleasure in the future. Its more serious than sweets companies.
That said, I don't think this should stop you from using Freenet. There are very valid uses for it. I just don't use it because I find it to be really, really useless for most anything because of its speed.
"Cintra is ponying up all the money for this project. The State of Texas will pay nothing. And gets the ability to take over tolls in 50 years." If only I had a bridge to sell you...
I don't see why they wouldn't. I really think it comes down to what best fits your situation and what skills you have. I think PHP is great and I'm a casual programmer but I think the lack of namespaces can be super confusing in large projects. I've used Perl and its got tons of features and mod_perl is incredibly fast but its to say the least confusing. .NET is stuck to MS servers to the most part. Its just using what works best for you.
Hell yeah. It's the idea that people to some extent ridiculed when Microsoft explained WinFS. It is the next big thing in computing ESPECIALLY meta-data. I still look at a picture and say to myself "Why in the world isn't it easier to explain who is in the picture so I can just search for that person's picture in the future?" Sure you can put it in the filename but "Jim's Vacation to Grand Canyon In August 2004" is just poorly defined meta-data. There is a serious need to change the way we look at computing especially for all the people in the world who don't get computers at all. I'm sick of explaining to my mother how to find where the letter she wrote last week is and why she can't just search for a photo of a person and frankly she shouldn't need ask any of those questions at all; it should be self-explanatory.
I agree with nonviolence resistance and am a firm believer in it but I think using these people's bandwidth is the epitome of nonviolent resistance. You basically bother someone till they HAVE to change something (i.e.: SCLC's bus boycott, Gandhi's march to the sea, etc.) Of course I don't htink the term for this is nonviolent resistance because that really is for something much more serious but that concept fits.