Instead of making them think, they have something to think for them.
Well of course! It's easier to control people who don't think than to control those who do.
What every high school should be mandated to have is a few philosophy courses, or a few liberal arts courses, or else some other courses designed to teach students how to think. A little more freethought in the world can hardly be a bad thing.
This is a prime example why the IRS needs to be demolished and replaced with a unified sales tax. That's it, pure and simple.
I hate to break it to you, but a unified sales tax would require a fairly sizable bureaucracy to enforce the provisions.
By letting our government tax every little nit-picking thing, they can shape society in the most mundane way.
[snark]As if that will magically stop when we enter universal sales tax paradise?[/snark]
Do you really think that the government is going to impose a flat sales tax of (for example) 6% on all goods? Please! The various US Governments (Federal, State, & Local) have already proven themselves adept at taxing cigarrettes at a much higher percentage than most other things (usually with the *stated* goal of getting less people to smoke), and I believe that such methods will only increase (frex., taxing condo purchases higher than home purchases, to encourage home ownership, taxing sex toys more highly due to "morality concerns", &c., &c....), not decrease. And yes, I believe the stated reason will often be to affect changes in society.
Re:let me explain something about longhorn...
on
Longhorn Beta Begins
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· Score: 1
So when you think Windows, think beer!
Well, thinking of Windows certainly drives me to drink beer. Does that count?
Re:let me explain something about longhorn...
on
Longhorn Beta Begins
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· Score: 1
So when you think Windows, think beer!
Well, when I think of Windows, I certainly want to drink beer. Does that count?
Good point. It's really not a question of how widespread ownership of listed companies' shares, but rather the magnitude of the ownership. The ownership of stocks through 401k plans gives the individual 401k owner the same rights as a small shareholder (i.e., a person who owns a small number of shares in a company, as this is what they are): none whatsoever. A shareholder's voice in the governance in a corporation is determined by the number of shares they hold. This is nothing more than a one dollar, one vote scheme. Everyone in America could own shares in Microsoft (for example), but the corporation would be under the effective control of those with the most shares in it (Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allan, etc., etc.). Having one share in a corporation is an investment, not an effective bid for corporate governance.
But that's not even half of the issue. In many cases, the sole goal of the Executives and Board of Directors is to maximize the profit made by the corporation, in order to create the maximum possible return on investment for the shareholder. Thus, regardless of who the shareholders happen to be, they will act in whatever way they feel will produce the most profit.
Basically, unless the employees of the corporation were collective owners of a large amount of the corporation (not necessarily majority owners, but it would make their power over the corporation unrivaled), there would still be a great likelihood that they will be layed off in order to maximize shareholder profits, even if they are shareholders
If the government owns the means of production then what is there for someone to invest in?
True, a government which owns the means of production almost always forbids investment through the private market.
But Norway does not have a fully socialist economy (neither does Germany for that matter). Rather, Norway has a Mixed Economy (as does Germany), whereby certain companies are owned by the government, while numerous (usually the majority) of companies are in private hands.
The German Economic System is a mixed economy, comprised of numerous companies which are in private ownership, as well as a number of state owned companies. The method of corporate governance between the United States and Germany differs greatly, but the corporations remain in mostly non-state hands.
Simply because a nation has a number of state owned companies does not make a nation socialist. There must also be an elimination of private ownership as well.
4) play the hottest videogames -- easy in Windows, can't be done for Linsux[sic]
This is not a problem inherent to *nix, let alone GNU/Linux. Rather, this is the result of (most, but not all) video and computer game makers not porting their games to *nix.
5) off load an arbitrary digital camera's photos to a computer by USB -- easy for nearly any camera and current Windows system, impossible for most Linsux[sic] systems
6) add arbitrary PCI hardware, usb hardware, serial/joystick port hardware without worrying about drivers -- mostly automatic for Windows, a horrendous task for Linsux[sic].
These, again, are not problems inherent to the *nix or GNU/Linux operating systems. Rather, this is due to a lack of vender support to provide drivers for their equipment. Most hardware nowadays comes with a Windows driver, if the driver doesn't come pre-installed with Windows.
I'll let those-who-know answer the other points (if there are answers to them), as I don't have enough experience in those areas to comment.
Most people that understand it recognize that it is still a theory.
So, evolution is merely a theory. As is gravity, it should be pointed out. The scientific definition of theory differs slighty from the colloquial definition, and thus should be explained. The Wikipedia article does a far better job of this than I can, but I will enumerate a few key points from the same article: A theory
explains, and is consisten with, the vast majority of data
makes predictions about what should occur or what has occured that can be tested
has survived numerous tests to prove it wrong, and
can be proven false
Evolution is "just a theory" because it fits all of the above.
Cancer, according to evolution, is the engine of progress. Truth is, you'd leave everything just the way it is. Nobody wants their DNA fooled with because they know intuitively that it's a bad thing.
Cancer is not the engine of "progress" in evolution. Rather, the mutability of genetic code is the engine of evolution, at least according to current evolutionary theory. Cancer is a good example of the mutability of genes. However, only those mutations which occur along a "germline" (i.e. mutations that occur in gamete cells through meiosis, at least in many multicellular organisms) can be inherited by offspring, and thus "count" as mutations which run evolution by means of natural selection.
And I might also point out that evolution relates to how organisms morph across specie
[sic] boundaries, not how life appears in the first place. That is the providence of abiogenesis vs. panspermia.
Then why use it when attempting to attack evolution? Evolution will stand or fall as a theory regardless of how life came into being.
As far as the Earth being flat, the Bible pointed out it is a sphere some 3,000 years ago (Isiaih 40:22), some 250 years before Pythagoras.
Well, actually, Isaiah 40:22 clearly states that the earth is a circle: "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth". A circle is not a sphere. And they are flat. And while we're on the subject of Isaiah, Isaiah 11:12 states that the Messiah shall gather "the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." Neither a sphere nor a circle has any corners. Now, I will accept that perhaps the writers of Isaiah meant those lines to be read metaphorically; if so, however, why should not Genesis also be taken as a metaphor?
You are, however, very much correct (as far as I know the Bible), that there are no statements stating that the earth was ever the center of the universe, much less is so now.
The ability to make a profit off of someone else's work for free, perhaps.
Corporations, just like everyone else, are free to use GPL software in anyway they wish. However, if they decide to distribute their own program which includes code taken from a program covered by the GPL, they must release their program under the GPL. The Corporation is still free to charge for it, but it must permit anyone who comes along and uses their program to do what it did: Modify the source code or modify their current program with part of the program, make a better program, and distribute it under the GPL (although that person could still charge for their program).
The BSD (or the MIT license, or any number of other licenses), on the other hand, gives the corporation the right to prevent others from coming along and doing what they did: profit from the labor of others without paying.
They have announced that they wish to "catalog every human creation in existence that can be expressed by a digital medium.(Sporny 1)" However, they state that items can be bought and sold on the network only if the copyright holder has registered this work with Bitmunk. This leaves me with a few questions:
What happens to all the creations in the public domain? Are those unable to be traded on Bitmunk?
Can a person who has copyright over a work register while asking for no royalty?
What happens when the Bitmunk database is overburdened with requests? Will there be another database, or is this a false P2P?
I'm also not sure that simply giving a credit card number (see second to last question) is enough to guarantee authenticity of ownership.
michael has pulled a fast one on the Slashdoterati: taking into account that not reading the article is widespread enough on/. that it has its own abbreviation, by submitting a story which could not be judged by its cover has managed to pull a large prank which will not be forgotten by those who were here today.
I wonder if this will motivate/.ers to read the article before posting.
I think that if the author wanted to be obvious, he could also have spelled it '0wn3rsh1p', so I'm thinking that maybe he meant to be subtle.
He was a little too subtle, though, even for me: I had to re-read the first page of actual text (pg. 3 of the pdf) before I realized it was a satire; though not arguing that companies would save money using Windows instead of GNU/Linux, that one would typically find in a like-titled piece (i.e., one with a letter 'O', and not the number zero) should have clued me in the first time.
I can't imagine it will save on expenses, unless there are some things it is easier to film an actual actor doing rather than just drawing (either cell or CGI). But IANAA (I Am Not An Animator), so I could be missing something.
But it's still very cool.
<required_slashdot_bias> At least for something from Microsoft </required_slashdot_bias>
Such applications will truly take off after remote storage becomes ubiquitous and (at least moderately) more secure.
For some applications, such as the Lemmings Clone, or the calculator, or a number of others, there's no real reason to save what one had created with the program, as the output is only immediately important. The application is used a few times, and the outputs are used immediately, or within a few hours.
For other online applications, such as online office applications, or the like, the need to save a document (or other work) is manifestly important. Currently, documents can be saved on the computer on which one works, but then one still requires a storage medium to cart around in order to keep the document with the person during travel. Which means that the online office application is a good way to save money, or to be able to create office documents on a computer without office applications (word processors, spreadsheets, etc.), but a person will likely use a word processor which is located on the computer if one is present.
However, with remote storage, online applications could begin to take off as the primary application, replacing their installed counterparts: the same document could be edited in the same word processor on two (or fifteen) different computers, reducing the number of people who need to use and carry laptops. In addition, if and when online office applications appear in great numbers for mobile devices, e.g. the Palm or the Zaurus, an online office application will make even more sense in terms of storage management, as no local application is needed, and the document can be stored off the palmtop somewhere else, and be edited from a desktop at work or home, as well as the palmtop on the road.
Re:basic... very basic.
on
You've Got PC
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· Score: 2, Funny
You need a minimum of 256M, 2GHz CPU and 50G hdd just to get on the web??
That might actually be a good episode for a change. The only potential problem is that it makes the show too predictable:
Enemy makes dramatic appearance, or else the Enterprise runs across a planet which then tries to destroy them
Enterprise crew beam down a few thousand tribbles
???
Entire enemy crew/planet is now either contently spending their days petting tribbles, or launching an anti-tribble crusade, and thus is far too busy to notice the Enterprise preparing to run away
The Enterprise runs away
Of course, this would require the writers giving the crew brains, so I'm not sure one will have to worry about that.
The vulcan chick's breasts start expanding for no apparent reason, and the Enterprise is helpless to stop them!
Of course, if the reason is because then then Wall Street will ignore the stock and no institutions will recommend it, well, maybe that's a great reason not to do this.
Well, perhaps Google is not interested in the institutional investor. Perhaps they would rather have small, individual investors who want Google to remain profitable by remaining Google, and not turning into Something Else.
I think the Google "Do No Evil" strategy, as mentioned previously on/., could be behind this: They don't want to change how they operate just to get more money. Instead, they are trying to preserve Google as it is. Notice that class B stock has ten times the voting power of class A stock, and most of these shares are held by insiders (it's near the bottom of the article). Thus, they are trying to prevent Google from becoming another public company which has not a care in the world for the morality of their actions as long as they make money for the shareholders, while still being a public company.
Of course, I could be wildly optimistic in this outlook. Just ask China.
I certainly hope I'm not, however. But the ultimate conclusion may still be written by the stock price.
Re:uh,, Black and White anyone?
on
Game with God
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· Score: 1
And now for an opinion piece - [t]he folk[s] who say that religions are all basically different ways to the same goal a) do not understand world religions very well and b) are essentially trying to self-forgive their own failings or doubts by simply passing them off as 'probably godly'
In reality, there is only one religion, the religion of God. This one religion is continually evolving, and each particular religious system represents a stage in the evolution of the whole. The Bahá'í Faith represents the current stage in the evolution of religion.
Or, more specifically:
Bahá'u'lláh attributed the differences in some teachings of the great religions not to any human fallibility of the Founders, but rather to the different requirements of the ages in which the revelations occurred.
If one considers all religions to really be the same religion, then the goal must have remained constant through history; rather, the methods for reaching that goal have simply changed as the situation has changed.
The administration did not say that non-stem-cell research funding will be cut from any organization that conducts stem-cell research, only that the government will not fund stem-cell research.
Alright: the federal government will not fund stem-cell research. But they will fund research for drugs or other therapies that do not involve stem-cells (excepting the stem-cell lines that were present when Bush made his announcement). Thus, why would a drug company use their own money to begin to study stem-cells when they can use government money to research other areas? After all, drug companies are a business, and out to make money. Many of them are also publicly traded, and it looks better on their balance sheets to have research costs, in whole or in part, already covered by an outside source (read: the government), rather than taking on the whole burden.
As they stand to reap enormous profits for developing new drugs or treatments based on stem-cell research, they should pay the costs, not me.
Does the public at large derive no benefits from a healthier population? I think the benefits to society, economic and social, are great enough to warrant some government funding. The patenting of the results of that research, imho, undermines much of that public benefit, however.
YOU might make value judgements like "Well, you don't NEED those features..." to which I say "You're welcome to your opinion, with which I disagree..." and we're at an impasse.
Actually, I was presuming that all other things were equal: only the price and quality had declined. If you need the new features, go ahead and buy it.
I would still, however, rather have a greater quality device, as this would allow me to choose whether I should buy the new model with some new features, or keep the old one, which lacks features I (personally) probably will not use, rather than be forced to buy a new model, as the old one broke on me, and the cost for fixing it would cost more than buying a new one.
But the real question is whether you will save money in the long run?
If something of higher initial cost lasts long enough, it will be cheaper than buying x number of cheaper versions over a succession of years.
And that's not mentioning that a longer life span would probably keep waste dumps from piling up quite so fast (recycling does help, but many items that can be recycled end up in a dump anyway), and use less energy in making a new radio; making a new radio to last twenty years can often be more energy efficient than making a new radio designed to last 3 years, as more will probably be needed to be made in three years in the latter example than the former.
Slashdot Mirror
What every high school should be mandated to have is a few philosophy courses, or a few liberal arts courses, or else some other courses designed to teach students how to think. A little more freethought in the world can hardly be a bad thing.
Do you really think that the government is going to impose a flat sales tax of (for example) 6% on all goods? Please! The various US Governments (Federal, State, & Local) have already proven themselves adept at taxing cigarrettes at a much higher percentage than most other things (usually with the *stated* goal of getting less people to smoke), and I believe that such methods will only increase (frex., taxing condo purchases higher than home purchases, to encourage home ownership, taxing sex toys more highly due to "morality concerns", &c., &c....), not decrease. And yes, I believe the stated reason will often be to affect changes in society.
But that's not even half of the issue. In many cases, the sole goal of the Executives and Board of Directors is to maximize the profit made by the corporation, in order to create the maximum possible return on investment for the shareholder. Thus, regardless of who the shareholders happen to be, they will act in whatever way they feel will produce the most profit.
Basically, unless the employees of the corporation were collective owners of a large amount of the corporation (not necessarily majority owners, but it would make their power over the corporation unrivaled), there would still be a great likelihood that they will be layed off in order to maximize shareholder profits, even if they are shareholders
The German Economic System is a mixed economy, comprised of numerous companies which are in private ownership, as well as a number of state owned companies. The method of corporate governance between the United States and Germany differs greatly, but the corporations remain in mostly non-state hands.
Simply because a nation has a number of state owned companies does not make a nation socialist. There must also be an elimination of private ownership as well.
I'll let those-who-know answer the other points (if there are answers to them), as I don't have enough experience in those areas to comment.
- explains, and is consisten with, the vast majority of data
- makes predictions about what should occur or what has occured that can be tested
- has survived numerous tests to prove it wrong, and
- can be proven false
Evolution is "just a theory" because it fits all of the above. Cancer is not the engine of "progress" in evolution. Rather, the mutability of genetic code is the engine of evolution, at least according to current evolutionary theory. Cancer is a good example of the mutability of genes. However, only those mutations which occur along a "germline" (i.e. mutations that occur in gamete cells through meiosis, at least in many multicellular organisms) can be inherited by offspring, and thus "count" as mutations which run evolution by means of natural selection. Then why use it when attempting to attack evolution? Evolution will stand or fall as a theory regardless of how life came into being. Well, actually, Isaiah 40:22 clearly states that the earth is a circle: "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth". A circle is not a sphere. And they are flat. And while we're on the subject of Isaiah, Isaiah 11:12 states that the Messiah shall gather "the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." Neither a sphere nor a circle has any corners. Now, I will accept that perhaps the writers of Isaiah meant those lines to be read metaphorically; if so, however, why should not Genesis also be taken as a metaphor?You are, however, very much correct (as far as I know the Bible), that there are no statements stating that the earth was ever the center of the universe, much less is so now.
Lastly, how does ANY of this relate to RFIDs?
Corporations, just like everyone else, are free to use GPL software in anyway they wish. However, if they decide to distribute their own program which includes code taken from a program covered by the GPL, they must release their program under the GPL. The Corporation is still free to charge for it, but it must permit anyone who comes along and uses their program to do what it did: Modify the source code or modify their current program with part of the program, make a better program, and distribute it under the GPL (although that person could still charge for their program).
The BSD (or the MIT license, or any number of other licenses), on the other hand, gives the corporation the right to prevent others from coming along and doing what they did: profit from the labor of others without paying.
PLEASE Mod the parent UP, oh great and glorious mods!
- What happens to all the creations in the public domain? Are those unable to be traded on Bitmunk?
- Can a person who has copyright over a work register while asking for no royalty?
- What happens when the Bitmunk database is overburdened with requests? Will there be another database, or is this a false P2P?
I'm also not sure that simply giving a credit card number (see second to last question) is enough to guarantee authenticity of ownership.I wonder if this will motivate /.ers to read the article before posting.
He was a little too subtle, though, even for me: I had to re-read the first page of actual text (pg. 3 of the pdf) before I realized it was a satire; though not arguing that companies would save money using Windows instead of GNU/Linux, that one would typically find in a like-titled piece (i.e., one with a letter 'O', and not the number zero) should have clued me in the first time.
I can't imagine it will save on expenses, unless there are some things it is easier to film an actual actor doing rather than just drawing (either cell or CGI). But IANAA (I Am Not An Animator), so I could be missing something.
But it's still very cool.
<required_slashdot_bias>
At least for something from Microsoft
</required_slashdot_bias>
For some applications, such as the Lemmings Clone, or the calculator, or a number of others, there's no real reason to save what one had created with the program, as the output is only immediately important. The application is used a few times, and the outputs are used immediately, or within a few hours.
For other online applications, such as online office applications, or the like, the need to save a document (or other work) is manifestly important. Currently, documents can be saved on the computer on which one works, but then one still requires a storage medium to cart around in order to keep the document with the person during travel. Which means that the online office application is a good way to save money, or to be able to create office documents on a computer without office applications (word processors, spreadsheets, etc.), but a person will likely use a word processor which is located on the computer if one is present.
However, with remote storage, online applications could begin to take off as the primary application, replacing their installed counterparts: the same document could be edited in the same word processor on two (or fifteen) different computers, reducing the number of people who need to use and carry laptops. In addition, if and when online office applications appear in great numbers for mobile devices, e.g. the Palm or the Zaurus, an online office application will make even more sense in terms of storage management, as no local application is needed, and the document can be stored off the palmtop somewhere else, and be edited from a desktop at work or home, as well as the palmtop on the road.
- Enemy makes dramatic appearance, or else the Enterprise runs across a planet which then tries to destroy them
- Enterprise crew beam down a few thousand tribbles
- ???
- Entire enemy crew/planet is now either contently spending their days petting tribbles, or launching an anti-tribble crusade, and thus is far too busy to notice the Enterprise preparing to run away
- The Enterprise runs away
Of course, this would require the writers giving the crew brains, so I'm not sure one will have to worry about that.The Enterprise runs across the Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi. Now there's an episode of ST:Enterprise I'd actually watch.I wonder how they will get the charm of breast enlargement off of Eutus. Or will they steal it off of Arumi, instead?
I think the Google "Do No Evil" strategy, as mentioned previously on /., could be behind this: They don't want to change how they operate just to get more money. Instead, they are trying to preserve Google as it is. Notice that class B stock has ten times the voting power of class A stock, and most of these shares are held by insiders (it's near the bottom of the article). Thus, they are trying to prevent Google from becoming another public company which has not a care in the world for the morality of their actions as long as they make money for the shareholders, while still being a public company.
Of course, I could be wildly optimistic in this outlook. Just ask China. I certainly hope I'm not, however. But the ultimate conclusion may still be written by the stock price.
Stateth the article:
Or, more specifically:If one considers all religions to really be the same religion, then the goal must have remained constant through history; rather, the methods for reaching that goal have simply changed as the situation has changed.How are Unionized workers bad for an economy?
I hope none of the scientists get the idea of shrinking Adam down so they could take him back to civilization to study. Second Impact won't be pretty.
I would still, however, rather have a greater quality device, as this would allow me to choose whether I should buy the new model with some new features, or keep the old one, which lacks features I (personally) probably will not use, rather than be forced to buy a new model, as the old one broke on me, and the cost for fixing it would cost more than buying a new one.
Then again, what do I know? I still use LPs.
If something of higher initial cost lasts long enough, it will be cheaper than buying x number of cheaper versions over a succession of years.
And that's not mentioning that a longer life span would probably keep waste dumps from piling up quite so fast (recycling does help, but many items that can be recycled end up in a dump anyway), and use less energy in making a new radio; making a new radio to last twenty years can often be more energy efficient than making a new radio designed to last 3 years, as more will probably be needed to be made in three years in the latter example than the former.