You can get a dentist to pull a perfectly good tooth too, for that matter.
Yet surgeons refuse to cut off an otherwise physically healthy limb that the brain doesn't accept as part of the person. Even self-proclaimed Christian hospitals disregard Jesus's stance on the issue: "And if your foot makes you stumble, cut it off" (Mark 9:45, NWT).
I think it's safe to say that Jesus was talking about priorities in life, that nothing should be more important than "not stumbling" (i.e. having a strong and healthy relationship with God). "Better to go to Heaven maimed than to go to Hell whole" to paraphrase from memory the rest of that passage.
It's figurative language used to make a point. Anyone who read that and wanted to remove their own limbs has utterly failed to understand the meaning. The hospital is right to refuse such a request. If I were the doctor I would refuse too.
Back in the 1980's, NASA announced that with the Space Shuttle space travel was now perfectly safe
Sorry but they shouldn't let dumbasses make public proclamations simply because they sound good. It leads to the kind of disappointment you mention. Look at the number of traffic injuries and fatalities. We can't even make it perfectly safe to get groceries. To proclaim space travel perfectly safe is ridiculous and no thinking person would have believed it. It's shameful to see this kind of feel-good propaganda coming from an agency that performs so much hard science.
Anybody remember being a little kid and regarding astronauts with awe and wonder? They were like heroes who explored the greatest frontier imaginable. It was understood that they took risks. They were like fighter pilots except even more badass than that. Space travel was about two things: knowledge and plain ol' balls. I remember being little and thinking that if they can go to the moon years before I was born, imagine what they'll be able to do by the time I'm an adult!
The answer? Absolutely nothing. Sure, there's the ISS but NASA is stagnant and has been for a while now. The ISS isn't new and interesting the way going to Mars or creating a lunar base would be. When did we get so worried about risk that we don't try anything anymore? We send people who are barely considered adults to die for no good reason in the Middle East and we can't send people into space for similar (if not lower) cost? Something's fucked up in this picture.
life insurance people put dollar values on life all the time.
No, not exactly.
The purpose of life insurance is to replace the income that person would have received over time had they not died. It's not really the life you're insuring; they just call it that because it's collected when the insured dies. Still, it's the person's earning potential and the loss it would be to the rest of the family that is being protected.
That's why (so far as I know) it makes no sense to get a life insurance policy for children, though they sell that too. You can get a dentist to pull a perfectly good tooth too, for that matter.
The problem is that there are simply too many sites asking for passwords these days..
The sensible thing is obviously to use a different password everywhere, but you will never remember them and end up keeping them written down somewhere. Either somewhere inconvenient, so that you don't have access to the password when you need it, or somewhere convenient where it could more easily fall into someone else's hands.
So people reuse passwords across sites, the problem with this is that you don't know how a given site will store your password... It might be in plain text, or using a weak algorithm... A compromise of one site (see linkedin) thus compromises your accounts on other sites.
A nice solution is to use a browser add-on (Firefox has a few like this, other browsers probably do, too) that generates a strong per-site password for you.
The way it works is that you choose one good master password. The add-on then makes a cryptographic hash of the site's domain name and your master password. This produces a password that is unique to each site, can be safely stored without fear of compromise, and provides a high degree of entropy (looks like random characters). You only have to remember one good password.
It's definitely a solvable problem. Most modern browsers can also store the passwords you use. This is locally insecure, unless you have a browser master password with which that database is encrypted and then decrypted only as-needed. The problem is coming up with consistently strong passwords for each unique site. That's why I like those add-ons better.
It does not take very much determination, nor very much regard for one's own security to find that such solutions exist and are freely available. The very biggest problem with average users is that they seem to have no initiative, not even when it's their own ass that will suffer the consequences of failure.
Not only that, linux users cannot simply download an executable, they have to make it executable (or extract it from an archive keeping permissions). In addition to it, linux users don't have "download-n-run" mentality as most if not all the software comes from a repository.
One can argue about the reasons why it is virtually impossible to get a trojan using linux, but it is sure nice that I don't have to clean my parent's PCs once in a while as it used to be with Windows.
In my opinion people take system compromises far too lightly merely because they are common.
The danger is not having to periodically "clean their PC". That's a nuisance to be sure, but it is only a nuisance. No, the danger is that a piece of malware might help some criminal to "clean" their bank accounts. That kind of simple theft is bad enough; have you ever considered the prolonged nightmare that identity theft could cause? These are much, much worse than having to run a virus (etc.) scanner once in a while.
By replacing Windows with something that's not-Windows, you performed a real and worthy favor for them. I sure as hell wouldn't stand there and do nothing while my parents are exposed to these risks. Like you, I also set them up with Linux. They like it better anyway because it "just works" and they can focus on whatever they were trying to do.
You might remember a little ad campaign colloquially called the "PC vs. Mac" Ads. The entire ad campaign was targeted at Windows victims (users) who were fed-up with being fed-on by every malware writer from here to Bangalore. How's a multimillion ad campaign that lasted for over a year for a citation?
I believe you chose a poor example there. I mean, advertisements are the most biased source of information imaginable.
Consider that Windows is the greatest OS ever!...... if you ask Microsoft.
Note that I agree with the basic premise that for average non-technical users, OSX provides a better experience than Windows. The higher cost for similar hardware, the deliberate incompatibilities of various peripherals, and the Microsoft monopoly are probably the major reasons Apple does not have a larger marketshare. I just think you chose a particularly weak method of making your point.
the average mac user paid more money for a mac because they thought windows was too hard.
No. The average Mac user THESE days purchased a Mac because they were TIRED of Windows.
I felt that way back in the mid 1990s. So I switched to Linux.
I continue to be glad that I did. I started out with Red Hat and have also tried Debian, Slackware, and Suse. I eventually settled on Gentoo some years ago because I like to customize, which especially includes the security options available when you build from source (like SSP). I also enjoy having such a wide variety of software available in the package manager. Not to mention, the Gentoo forums are some of the very best I've seen anywhere. I often refer to them even when helping friends who are not using Gentoo because the information is high-quality and oriented towards understanding the issue rather than "follow these steps".
I'm probably not a part of Apple's target market. Apple makes a fine desktop computer, especially for users who are not technically-minded and don't have any curiosity about how the system works. I have seen several frustrated, non-technical Windows users suddenly have a great experience with Macs. However, I have a philosophical problem with walled gardens and I believe Apple's stance on intellectual property is harmful to the industry. I realize that ultimately, only reform of patent law is going to really fix that situation, but Apple seems particularly zealous on this front. When Jobs was in control he also promoted a suffocating, dehumanizing (well, more than usual) corporate culture that I personally would never want to work in. These things make me disinclined to vote for them with my wallet.
Compared to the above, this is a minor and admittedly somewhat petty concern: it's also undesirable to me that so many Apple customers seem to think that they're showing how cool they are by sporting the logo. It's not that I think I'm cool for not joining them; it's that this idea and the marketing that goes with it is hollow, superficial, and does not provide for me a good reason to invest non-trivial amounts of money in a product.
So, I can't help but to wonder: are you one of these rabid fanboys or can you handle the idea that someone might have reasons for disagreeing with something you seem to be quite satisfied with? Because I definitely understand that Linux is not for everyone, in fact I admire that it doesn't pretend to be. If someone isn't going to like Linux, I would encourage them to use what does work for them. What I would not do is try to force a square peg into a round hole.
Do you think this voluminous bluster actually makes you look better. You made a claim, you repeatedly refused to back it up, and now you actually call other people lazy?
Pathetic.
I made no previous claim. There is nothing for me to back up. The post to which you have replied is my opinion. That prior post plus this one are my only two posts in this entire thread. Perhaps while puffing up with indignation, you have confused me with someone else?
Otherwise it's amazing how angry and upset people get when you suggest that they can educate themselves. It's almost as though telling them they're helpless victims who can never better themselves would make them happy. Or is it the identification of character flaws, the ease with which they are recognizable, that makes you so uncomfortable that you have to lash out in anger? Security is not just for computers.
Incidentally, to confuse me with another poster because you could not be bothered to even glance up at the username is... lazy. If you want to make more judgments like "pathetic" it will confirm for me that something I said hit home.
Well they are no longer the current password to those accounts, and with regards to other sites it's no less secure than someone who has a password on the top 10 most popular passwords list.
Some users think passwords are a nuisance or a bother and resent having to stop and take the 2 seconds necessary to type it in. Others appreciate the safeguard that it represents and treat it accordingly. Both reap what they sow.
There is definitely a strong overlap between that first group, and this more general (sadly widespread) mindset that ever putting any thought into anything is some kind of terrible burden to be avoided at all costs.
Wouldn't it have been easier to just put up a link (especially since they are so easy to find; I mean, we're apparently talking ten seconds here) instead of writing several messages on how you knowledgeable people are not going to put up a link and everyone should just google for it?
No. It's not about being "knowledgable". This isn't something information alone can fix. Intellectual laziness is a character flaw. As such, it should never be supported, validated, or made to feel comfortable. There is no need to condemn it. Just not aiding it is enough.
You're not doing the person any favor at all by coddling their faults.
It's unfortunate that most people won't look at themselves and work to change faults because they should be changed, because they want to be better people, because they want to more thoroughly enjoy and appreciate their lives. Instead, they usually need a selfish reason, like missing out on information people without the fault are enjoying. Otherwise they make excuses and act like spoon-fed information is something you owe to them, like there's something wrong with refusing to cater to their weaknesses. Like what you're doing.
For something like a link, it's not so significant. For more serious problems, it's the same principles in action, working in concert to make the world the place full of self-centered, self-important, short-sighted, entitled people that it is. Some of us have more sense than that and are "voting with our feet" for something better.
Bingo. Somebody needs to sit down every public official in the world and very carefully explain, in words of one syllable, with big simple line-art pictures, that the Internet is not television.
Honestly, I think they do understand that. That's the rub.
In politics it is often assumed that they would act differently if only they knew better, if only they weren't so ignorant, etc. It's a comforting thought, isn't it?
Unfortunately stupidity is one of the few faults our leaders tend not to have. Remember that politicians find the free and open exchange of information more threatening than anyone else does.
I worry that you refer to people who propose mandatory country-wide censorship as "worthy"
You could not have more thoroughly failed to comprehend what you read.
I said they and their ilk are unworthy. They do not deserve to get what they want. Neither them, nor those who think like them (such as a politically-active person who would like to shut down the other party's sites).
I said I cannot imagine being so insecure that it would actually occur to me to *censor* those who disagree with me.
That many would be outraged does not cause the remaining small-minded people to cease their desire for censorship.
but if you get really sick or injured don't expect much care because i don't want to pay for it. and don't expect the best hospitals to take care of you. send you to the county/city run hospital where you will be lucky if they change you after lying in your own filth
Ah. So, I see that you were irresponsible and did something stupid. To show you how much better I am, I will disregard all standard of decency and treat you in an incredibly inhumane fashion. Deliberate patient neglect: crime, or a way to engineer a better world, you decide!
I mean c'mon man. Even convicted murderers have a better standard of care. In one of the planet's wealthiest nations, is it really so unreasonable that people who were irresponsible with their money be treated at least as well as people who have raped and murdered?
I do understand your visceral desire to punish, however. That's how I feel about tailgaters. And idiots who weave all over the median on blind curves, probably saying to themselves "what could possibly go wrong?" assuming they can even string that many words together. Most of all, because suddenly lots of people started doing this at once, as though one celebrity did it on TV and now they're all aping him because that's the extent of their cognitive powers.
This assumes that a landlord is not passing on the savings from his/her mortgage deduction* to the renter. Assuming enough competition in the rental market this should happen, and therefore the renter ends up benefiting.
Or they could take a page from the mobile phone companies' playbook: informally collude.
That is, name one major American mobile phone company that charges a realistic rate for text messaging. By "realistic" I mean, has any relation at all to the actual cost of delivering text messages.
I mean, one might naively think that the first company to charge a realistic rate would undercut all of the competition and capture their business, right? But that would be naive. You don't need a genius for business to understand what happens next: the competitors would also have to lower their rates and the rates would again be uniform, this time uniformly related to the actual cost of delivery. The execs running these companies know that. When they all overcharge for text messages, they all make more money from them, more than they'd make by competing. They feel like they have a "good" thing going and no single company wants to be the first to rock that boat.
None of this requires a formal arrangement or formal conspiracy. These businessmen who know much, MUCH more about business than I do just have to recognize that changing the status quo is not in their interests. When none of them has an incentive to do it, none of them do it. It's that simple.
I hope landlords don't work this way, because it's much easier to enter that market than it is to become a mobile phone carrier, but still. That would be the only thing stopping them.
when someone uninsured shows up at the hospital with a broken arm, then avoids the bill or declares bankrupcty, we bail out the hospital from bankrupcty and you pay the bill
the only thing that has changed is that irresponsible people, people who think freedom means not to taking responsible for their healthcare, now have to do that, and stop freeloading off of us
I want to believe that, but this is the federal government.
I wouldn't ask an Enron exec about business accounting. I wouldn't ask a murderer about the sanctity of life. I wouldn't ask the federal government about how to honestly solve a problem without creating more problems.
I'd love to be proven wrong on this. I would enjoy a reason to doubt my well-established cynicism. It would be a relief.
How in the world do you think the government will make things more efficient. They are notorious for making things inefficient. If you actually think things will become easier and more efficient, then I feel sorry for you.
This is a tough thing to understand, but many people are like this. They get their hopes up and... damn, disappointed. Get their hopes up again and... shit, disappointed. Once again their hopes are up and... and... fuck, disappointed. This happens constantly and consistently.
Yet, despite the last 10,000 examples, people love to get their hopes up and swear to themselves that Number 10,001 will be IT. It will be The Time that vindicates all the previous ones. When it doesn't, they remember it for all of 20 seconds before they start worrying about things like American Idol and Jersey Shore and football.
As for me, you only have to disappoint me a couple of times before I stop trusting your competence. You only have to betray me once before I stop trusting your integrity. Replacement, not repair, is the preferred policy for these situations.
They're suggesting that things they don't like should be automatically blocked. What if I said that we should automatically block republican/democrat/religious/atheist websites, for instance? I'm sure there are some people that would like at least a few of those blocked
It's difficult to fathom being so grotesquely insecure as to be that deeply threatened by the mere existence of people who disagree with you. These are the people least worthy of getting what they want.
Taxation has always been an instrument of social engineering how a society operates. By any other name, it's a behavior modifier. The fact many of you don't already know this is quite frankly, scary as hell!
Taxation wasn't nearly so useful for purposes of social engineering until we implemented an income tax. Sure, there were broad excise taxes, "sin taxes", etc, but none of the fine-grained manipulation of behavior that is possible under an income tax. Speaking of lies and manipulation, the income tax was supposed to be a "temporary wartime measure" so I'm sure they will repeal it Real Soon Now, right?
There is a reason that the original US Constitution did not allow for an income tax. It is not because the Founders never heard of income taxation.
You will note that in his Ruling, Roberts said that the conservative wing made the same argument as you did, namely, that the law was labeled incorrectly.
And as Roberts wisely stated, it's pretty silly to argue that you should strike down a law because of it being mislabeled, rather than for the effect of the law.
It's equally silly to assume that a correctly labelled law would enjoy the same level of political support and public opinion as a mislabelled law.
It also has to be appreciated that the people involved here are not dummies. Almost all politicians are lawyers. Obama is particularly intelligent, and taught law. If they "mislabelled" anything, it is not because they were confused, or didn't know better. Incompetence is just about the last thing they could claim. This deserves to succeed?
I have health insurance. It is not a tax on me. It is a tax on the irresponsible Americans who decide to leech off of the system instead of getting health insurance. If you get sick (or in an accident) and do not have health insurance then I have to pay for it (the hospital will still treat you, and the costs will be passed on to me as higher premiums when you cannot pay and file for bankruptcy). So yes, it is a tax on dumb/irresponsible people.
When put that way, this starts to sound like a really good idea. Maybe we can find a way to expand it to other areas.
What's the good reason why the states couldn't handle this? Bear in mind, almost all current regulation of insurance markets comes from the states.
Because government saw a growth area, a chance to expand its power and involvement in daily life. Naturally the Supreme Court approved it, because I don't believe they have ever seen an instance of excessive power they didn't like. Refer to the abuse of emminent domain to increase local tax revenue for another example (basically, your local gov't can take your house, bulldoze it, and invite Walmart to build a store there because Walmart pays more taxes than you do - prior to this "movement" emminent domain was restricted to public things like roads, bridges, and schools). Yeah this Court approved that too, because free people in a free country should always wonder how long they get to keep their (often already paid for) homes.
Government looks for areas of growth the exact same way that businesses look for new markets. Now they have some control over whether you can get health care. Now they can play with their balls and celebrate their increasing power, or whatever it is they do to celebrate these things.
Ministers are suggesting that people should automatically be barred from accessing unsuitable adult material unless they actually choose to view it.
So, leave it exactly the way it is, then?
No really, I am trying to think of the last time I saw anything pornographic that I wasn't looking for, and I can't name a single example. Maybe it's because I took two minutes to read Google's tips on how to get good search results? At any rate, this is the very first time in recent memory that I sincerely felt pro-status quo.
The Internet is a really great thing. Can't we have just one nice thing that the Puritannical busybodies don't fuck up for us? Is it really everyone else's problem if this tiny minority gets offended? Can we just decide to trust the parents to be parents, and accept that if we can't do that, the children have much bigger problems than any censorship is going to fix?
Average users who don't want to learn new things about their systems are already well represented. They have several good options. What's so wrong with an OS for those who like learning and want to understand how the system works?
Being technical and "learn new things about their system" are two different things. I have a graduate degree in A.I. and spent 15+ years as a programmer, but right now I spend my free time learning statistical techniques and tools and don't really want to futz with my system UI. MacOS X provides an aesthetically-pleasing and well-designed UI, and lets me plunge into the command line to compile open source tools, too. I can focus on learning what I need to learn to do what I want to do.
You have to carefully define "system" and what parts of that system you feel are beneficial to learn new things about and what parts you simply want to work well.
Ah but for me that's so simple. Any chance to learn something I didn't previously understand is beneficial. Even if there is no immediate, pressing, pragmatic need for it, I still get to learn new things and expand my capabilities. There is a joy of discovery that does not lend itself to the usual monetary methods of assessing value. It's something I really appreciate.
For others who do not appreciate this, I consider that their loss. Many things that would be enjoyable for me resemble pitched battle for them, mostly because they resent having to deal with it. That's their choice, and they must freely choose just as I did.
Maybe the other aspect to consider is whether having the system not run on X, as OS-X does, is an advantage. The ones that don't run on X are doing fine - Windows, OS-X, Android. Maybe something to be learned here?
The burden of proof there is on the person who says this must be because of X. Otherwise, it's coincidence.
Otherwise, it's like telling you about my Martian Repellant Charm. I wear it around my neck at all times. I never take it off and I've never seen a Martian. Clearly it works!
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You can get a dentist to pull a perfectly good tooth too, for that matter.
Yet surgeons refuse to cut off an otherwise physically healthy limb that the brain doesn't accept as part of the person. Even self-proclaimed Christian hospitals disregard Jesus's stance on the issue: "And if your foot makes you stumble, cut it off" (Mark 9:45, NWT).
I think it's safe to say that Jesus was talking about priorities in life, that nothing should be more important than "not stumbling" (i.e. having a strong and healthy relationship with God). "Better to go to Heaven maimed than to go to Hell whole" to paraphrase from memory the rest of that passage.
It's figurative language used to make a point. Anyone who read that and wanted to remove their own limbs has utterly failed to understand the meaning. The hospital is right to refuse such a request. If I were the doctor I would refuse too.
The purpose of life insurance is to replace the income that person would have received over time had they not died.
Maybe that was the original intent but these days it's just another business. They'll take your money for anything you can think of.
They'll even invent new things for you to insure and advertise them, just in case you're wasting time not actively thinking about insuring things.
Eh everything is "just another business" or so it would seem.
Our single biggest economic problem is that we place all focus on growth and nearly none on sustainability. It ends up creating a house of cards.
Back in the 1980's, NASA announced that with the Space Shuttle space travel was now perfectly safe
Sorry but they shouldn't let dumbasses make public proclamations simply because they sound good. It leads to the kind of disappointment you mention. Look at the number of traffic injuries and fatalities. We can't even make it perfectly safe to get groceries. To proclaim space travel perfectly safe is ridiculous and no thinking person would have believed it. It's shameful to see this kind of feel-good propaganda coming from an agency that performs so much hard science.
Anybody remember being a little kid and regarding astronauts with awe and wonder? They were like heroes who explored the greatest frontier imaginable. It was understood that they took risks. They were like fighter pilots except even more badass than that. Space travel was about two things: knowledge and plain ol' balls. I remember being little and thinking that if they can go to the moon years before I was born, imagine what they'll be able to do by the time I'm an adult!
The answer? Absolutely nothing. Sure, there's the ISS but NASA is stagnant and has been for a while now. The ISS isn't new and interesting the way going to Mars or creating a lunar base would be. When did we get so worried about risk that we don't try anything anymore? We send people who are barely considered adults to die for no good reason in the Middle East and we can't send people into space for similar (if not lower) cost? Something's fucked up in this picture.
life insurance people put dollar values on life all the time.
No, not exactly.
The purpose of life insurance is to replace the income that person would have received over time had they not died. It's not really the life you're insuring; they just call it that because it's collected when the insured dies. Still, it's the person's earning potential and the loss it would be to the rest of the family that is being protected.
That's why (so far as I know) it makes no sense to get a life insurance policy for children, though they sell that too. You can get a dentist to pull a perfectly good tooth too, for that matter.
The problem is that there are simply too many sites asking for passwords these days..
The sensible thing is obviously to use a different password everywhere, but you will never remember them and end up keeping them written down somewhere. Either somewhere inconvenient, so that you don't have access to the password when you need it, or somewhere convenient where it could more easily fall into someone else's hands.
So people reuse passwords across sites, the problem with this is that you don't know how a given site will store your password... It might be in plain text, or using a weak algorithm... A compromise of one site (see linkedin) thus compromises your accounts on other sites.
A nice solution is to use a browser add-on (Firefox has a few like this, other browsers probably do, too) that generates a strong per-site password for you.
The way it works is that you choose one good master password. The add-on then makes a cryptographic hash of the site's domain name and your master password. This produces a password that is unique to each site, can be safely stored without fear of compromise, and provides a high degree of entropy (looks like random characters). You only have to remember one good password.
It's definitely a solvable problem. Most modern browsers can also store the passwords you use. This is locally insecure, unless you have a browser master password with which that database is encrypted and then decrypted only as-needed. The problem is coming up with consistently strong passwords for each unique site. That's why I like those add-ons better.
It does not take very much determination, nor very much regard for one's own security to find that such solutions exist and are freely available. The very biggest problem with average users is that they seem to have no initiative, not even when it's their own ass that will suffer the consequences of failure.
Not only that, linux users cannot simply download an executable, they have to make it executable (or extract it from an archive keeping permissions). In addition to it, linux users don't have "download-n-run" mentality as most if not all the software comes from a repository.
One can argue about the reasons why it is virtually impossible to get a trojan using linux, but it is sure nice that I don't have to clean my parent's PCs once in a while as it used to be with Windows.
In my opinion people take system compromises far too lightly merely because they are common.
The danger is not having to periodically "clean their PC". That's a nuisance to be sure, but it is only a nuisance. No, the danger is that a piece of malware might help some criminal to "clean" their bank accounts. That kind of simple theft is bad enough; have you ever considered the prolonged nightmare that identity theft could cause? These are much, much worse than having to run a virus (etc.) scanner once in a while.
By replacing Windows with something that's not-Windows, you performed a real and worthy favor for them. I sure as hell wouldn't stand there and do nothing while my parents are exposed to these risks. Like you, I also set them up with Linux. They like it better anyway because it "just works" and they can focus on whatever they were trying to do.
You might remember a little ad campaign colloquially called the "PC vs. Mac" Ads. The entire ad campaign was targeted at Windows victims (users) who were fed-up with being fed-on by every malware writer from here to Bangalore. How's a multimillion ad campaign that lasted for over a year for a citation?
I believe you chose a poor example there. I mean, advertisements are the most biased source of information imaginable.
... ... if you ask Microsoft.
Consider that Windows is the greatest OS ever!
Note that I agree with the basic premise that for average non-technical users, OSX provides a better experience than Windows. The higher cost for similar hardware, the deliberate incompatibilities of various peripherals, and the Microsoft monopoly are probably the major reasons Apple does not have a larger marketshare. I just think you chose a particularly weak method of making your point.
the average mac user paid more money for a mac because they thought windows was too hard.
No. The average Mac user THESE days purchased a Mac because they were TIRED of Windows.
I felt that way back in the mid 1990s. So I switched to Linux.
I continue to be glad that I did. I started out with Red Hat and have also tried Debian, Slackware, and Suse. I eventually settled on Gentoo some years ago because I like to customize, which especially includes the security options available when you build from source (like SSP). I also enjoy having such a wide variety of software available in the package manager. Not to mention, the Gentoo forums are some of the very best I've seen anywhere. I often refer to them even when helping friends who are not using Gentoo because the information is high-quality and oriented towards understanding the issue rather than "follow these steps".
I'm probably not a part of Apple's target market. Apple makes a fine desktop computer, especially for users who are not technically-minded and don't have any curiosity about how the system works. I have seen several frustrated, non-technical Windows users suddenly have a great experience with Macs. However, I have a philosophical problem with walled gardens and I believe Apple's stance on intellectual property is harmful to the industry. I realize that ultimately, only reform of patent law is going to really fix that situation, but Apple seems particularly zealous on this front. When Jobs was in control he also promoted a suffocating, dehumanizing (well, more than usual) corporate culture that I personally would never want to work in. These things make me disinclined to vote for them with my wallet.
Compared to the above, this is a minor and admittedly somewhat petty concern: it's also undesirable to me that so many Apple customers seem to think that they're showing how cool they are by sporting the logo. It's not that I think I'm cool for not joining them; it's that this idea and the marketing that goes with it is hollow, superficial, and does not provide for me a good reason to invest non-trivial amounts of money in a product.
So, I can't help but to wonder: are you one of these rabid fanboys or can you handle the idea that someone might have reasons for disagreeing with something you seem to be quite satisfied with? Because I definitely understand that Linux is not for everyone, in fact I admire that it doesn't pretend to be. If someone isn't going to like Linux, I would encourage them to use what does work for them. What I would not do is try to force a square peg into a round hole.
Do you think this voluminous bluster actually makes you look better. You made a claim, you repeatedly refused to back it up, and now you actually call other people lazy?
Pathetic.
I made no previous claim. There is nothing for me to back up. The post to which you have replied is my opinion. That prior post plus this one are my only two posts in this entire thread. Perhaps while puffing up with indignation, you have confused me with someone else?
... lazy. If you want to make more judgments like "pathetic" it will confirm for me that something I said hit home.
Otherwise it's amazing how angry and upset people get when you suggest that they can educate themselves. It's almost as though telling them they're helpless victims who can never better themselves would make them happy. Or is it the identification of character flaws, the ease with which they are recognizable, that makes you so uncomfortable that you have to lash out in anger? Security is not just for computers.
Incidentally, to confuse me with another poster because you could not be bothered to even glance up at the username is
Well they are no longer the current password to those accounts, and with regards to other sites it's no less secure than someone who has a password on the top 10 most popular passwords list.
Some users think passwords are a nuisance or a bother and resent having to stop and take the 2 seconds necessary to type it in. Others appreciate the safeguard that it represents and treat it accordingly. Both reap what they sow.
There is definitely a strong overlap between that first group, and this more general (sadly widespread) mindset that ever putting any thought into anything is some kind of terrible burden to be avoided at all costs.
Wouldn't it have been easier to just put up a link (especially since they are so easy to find; I mean, we're apparently talking ten seconds here) instead of writing several messages on how you knowledgeable people are not going to put up a link and everyone should just google for it?
No. It's not about being "knowledgable". This isn't something information alone can fix. Intellectual laziness is a character flaw. As such, it should never be supported, validated, or made to feel comfortable. There is no need to condemn it. Just not aiding it is enough.
You're not doing the person any favor at all by coddling their faults.
It's unfortunate that most people won't look at themselves and work to change faults because they should be changed, because they want to be better people, because they want to more thoroughly enjoy and appreciate their lives. Instead, they usually need a selfish reason, like missing out on information people without the fault are enjoying. Otherwise they make excuses and act like spoon-fed information is something you owe to them, like there's something wrong with refusing to cater to their weaknesses. Like what you're doing.
For something like a link, it's not so significant. For more serious problems, it's the same principles in action, working in concert to make the world the place full of self-centered, self-important, short-sighted, entitled people that it is. Some of us have more sense than that and are "voting with our feet" for something better.
Bingo. Somebody needs to sit down every public official in the world and very carefully explain, in words of one syllable, with big simple line-art pictures, that the Internet is not television.
Honestly, I think they do understand that. That's the rub.
In politics it is often assumed that they would act differently if only they knew better, if only they weren't so ignorant, etc. It's a comforting thought, isn't it?
Unfortunately stupidity is one of the few faults our leaders tend not to have. Remember that politicians find the free and open exchange of information more threatening than anyone else does.
I worry that you refer to people who propose mandatory country-wide censorship as "worthy"
You could not have more thoroughly failed to comprehend what you read.
I said they and their ilk are unworthy. They do not deserve to get what they want. Neither them, nor those who think like them (such as a politically-active person who would like to shut down the other party's sites).
I said I cannot imagine being so insecure that it would actually occur to me to *censor* those who disagree with me.
That many would be outraged does not cause the remaining small-minded people to cease their desire for censorship.
Is English a second or third language for you?
but if you get really sick or injured don't expect much care because i don't want to pay for it. and don't expect the best hospitals to take care of you. send you to the county/city run hospital where you will be lucky if they change you after lying in your own filth
Ah. So, I see that you were irresponsible and did something stupid. To show you how much better I am, I will disregard all standard of decency and treat you in an incredibly inhumane fashion. Deliberate patient neglect: crime, or a way to engineer a better world, you decide!
I mean c'mon man. Even convicted murderers have a better standard of care. In one of the planet's wealthiest nations, is it really so unreasonable that people who were irresponsible with their money be treated at least as well as people who have raped and murdered?
I do understand your visceral desire to punish, however. That's how I feel about tailgaters. And idiots who weave all over the median on blind curves, probably saying to themselves "what could possibly go wrong?" assuming they can even string that many words together. Most of all, because suddenly lots of people started doing this at once, as though one celebrity did it on TV and now they're all aping him because that's the extent of their cognitive powers.
This assumes that a landlord is not passing on the savings from his/her mortgage deduction* to the renter. Assuming enough competition in the rental market this should happen, and therefore the renter ends up benefiting.
Or they could take a page from the mobile phone companies' playbook: informally collude.
That is, name one major American mobile phone company that charges a realistic rate for text messaging. By "realistic" I mean, has any relation at all to the actual cost of delivering text messages.
I mean, one might naively think that the first company to charge a realistic rate would undercut all of the competition and capture their business, right? But that would be naive. You don't need a genius for business to understand what happens next: the competitors would also have to lower their rates and the rates would again be uniform, this time uniformly related to the actual cost of delivery. The execs running these companies know that. When they all overcharge for text messages, they all make more money from them, more than they'd make by competing. They feel like they have a "good" thing going and no single company wants to be the first to rock that boat.
None of this requires a formal arrangement or formal conspiracy. These businessmen who know much, MUCH more about business than I do just have to recognize that changing the status quo is not in their interests. When none of them has an incentive to do it, none of them do it. It's that simple.
I hope landlords don't work this way, because it's much easier to enter that market than it is to become a mobile phone carrier, but still. That would be the only thing stopping them.
have been for decades
when someone uninsured shows up at the hospital with a broken arm, then avoids the bill or declares bankrupcty, we bail out the hospital from bankrupcty and you pay the bill
the only thing that has changed is that irresponsible people, people who think freedom means not to taking responsible for their healthcare, now have to do that, and stop freeloading off of us
I want to believe that, but this is the federal government.
I wouldn't ask an Enron exec about business accounting. I wouldn't ask a murderer about the sanctity of life. I wouldn't ask the federal government about how to honestly solve a problem without creating more problems.
I'd love to be proven wrong on this. I would enjoy a reason to doubt my well-established cynicism. It would be a relief.
How in the world do you think the government will make things more efficient. They are notorious for making things inefficient. If you actually think things will become easier and more efficient, then I feel sorry for you.
This is a tough thing to understand, but many people are like this. They get their hopes up and ... damn, disappointed. Get their hopes up again and ... shit, disappointed. Once again their hopes are up and ... and ... fuck, disappointed. This happens constantly and consistently.
Yet, despite the last 10,000 examples, people love to get their hopes up and swear to themselves that Number 10,001 will be IT. It will be The Time that vindicates all the previous ones. When it doesn't, they remember it for all of 20 seconds before they start worrying about things like American Idol and Jersey Shore and football.
As for me, you only have to disappoint me a couple of times before I stop trusting your competence. You only have to betray me once before I stop trusting your integrity. Replacement, not repair, is the preferred policy for these situations.
They're suggesting that things they don't like should be automatically blocked. What if I said that we should automatically block republican/democrat/religious/atheist websites, for instance? I'm sure there are some people that would like at least a few of those blocked
It's difficult to fathom being so grotesquely insecure as to be that deeply threatened by the mere existence of people who disagree with you. These are the people least worthy of getting what they want.
Taxation has always been an instrument of social engineering how a society operates. By any other name, it's a behavior modifier. The fact many of you don't already know this is quite frankly, scary as hell!
Taxation wasn't nearly so useful for purposes of social engineering until we implemented an income tax. Sure, there were broad excise taxes, "sin taxes", etc, but none of the fine-grained manipulation of behavior that is possible under an income tax. Speaking of lies and manipulation, the income tax was supposed to be a "temporary wartime measure" so I'm sure they will repeal it Real Soon Now, right?
There is a reason that the original US Constitution did not allow for an income tax. It is not because the Founders never heard of income taxation.
You will note that in his Ruling, Roberts said that the conservative wing made the same argument as you did, namely, that the law was labeled incorrectly.
And as Roberts wisely stated, it's pretty silly to argue that you should strike down a law because of it being mislabeled, rather than for the effect of the law.
It's equally silly to assume that a correctly labelled law would enjoy the same level of political support and public opinion as a mislabelled law.
It also has to be appreciated that the people involved here are not dummies. Almost all politicians are lawyers. Obama is particularly intelligent, and taught law. If they "mislabelled" anything, it is not because they were confused, or didn't know better. Incompetence is just about the last thing they could claim. This deserves to succeed?
I have health insurance. It is not a tax on me. It is a tax on the irresponsible Americans who decide to leech off of the system instead of getting health insurance. If you get sick (or in an accident) and do not have health insurance then I have to pay for it (the hospital will still treat you, and the costs will be passed on to me as higher premiums when you cannot pay and file for bankruptcy). So yes, it is a tax on dumb/irresponsible people.
When put that way, this starts to sound like a really good idea. Maybe we can find a way to expand it to other areas.
What's the good reason why the states couldn't handle this? Bear in mind, almost all current regulation of insurance markets comes from the states.
...why did we need the law?
Because government saw a growth area, a chance to expand its power and involvement in daily life. Naturally the Supreme Court approved it, because I don't believe they have ever seen an instance of excessive power they didn't like. Refer to the abuse of emminent domain to increase local tax revenue for another example (basically, your local gov't can take your house, bulldoze it, and invite Walmart to build a store there because Walmart pays more taxes than you do - prior to this "movement" emminent domain was restricted to public things like roads, bridges, and schools). Yeah this Court approved that too, because free people in a free country should always wonder how long they get to keep their (often already paid for) homes.
Government looks for areas of growth the exact same way that businesses look for new markets. Now they have some control over whether you can get health care. Now they can play with their balls and celebrate their increasing power, or whatever it is they do to celebrate these things.
Ministers are suggesting that people should automatically be barred from accessing unsuitable adult material unless they actually choose to view it.
So, leave it exactly the way it is, then?
No really, I am trying to think of the last time I saw anything pornographic that I wasn't looking for, and I can't name a single example. Maybe it's because I took two minutes to read Google's tips on how to get good search results? At any rate, this is the very first time in recent memory that I sincerely felt pro-status quo.
The Internet is a really great thing. Can't we have just one nice thing that the Puritannical busybodies don't fuck up for us? Is it really everyone else's problem if this tiny minority gets offended? Can we just decide to trust the parents to be parents, and accept that if we can't do that, the children have much bigger problems than any censorship is going to fix?
Average users who don't want to learn new things about their systems are already well represented. They have several good options. What's so wrong with an OS for those who like learning and want to understand how the system works?
Being technical and "learn new things about their system" are two different things. I have a graduate degree in A.I. and spent 15+ years as a programmer, but right now I spend my free time learning statistical techniques and tools and don't really want to futz with my system UI. MacOS X provides an aesthetically-pleasing and well-designed UI, and lets me plunge into the command line to compile open source tools, too. I can focus on learning what I need to learn to do what I want to do.
You have to carefully define "system" and what parts of that system you feel are beneficial to learn new things about and what parts you simply want to work well.
Ah but for me that's so simple. Any chance to learn something I didn't previously understand is beneficial. Even if there is no immediate, pressing, pragmatic need for it, I still get to learn new things and expand my capabilities. There is a joy of discovery that does not lend itself to the usual monetary methods of assessing value. It's something I really appreciate.
For others who do not appreciate this, I consider that their loss. Many things that would be enjoyable for me resemble pitched battle for them, mostly because they resent having to deal with it. That's their choice, and they must freely choose just as I did.
Maybe the other aspect to consider is whether having the system not run on X, as OS-X does, is an advantage. The ones that don't run on X are doing fine - Windows, OS-X, Android. Maybe something to be learned here?
The burden of proof there is on the person who says this must be because of X. Otherwise, it's coincidence.
Otherwise, it's like telling you about my Martian Repellant Charm. I wear it around my neck at all times. I never take it off and I've never seen a Martian. Clearly it works!