"I would like to remind all of their right to keep and bear arms instituted to control and protect oneself from an unreasonable government."
The "border search exception" first surfaced in 1789.
You're just getting around to militancy? Boy are you slow.
"Federal agents should reevaluate their careers with this in mind before accepting positions that are unconstitutional at face."
I've got my doubts about your legal training, but Customs Officers have a long history of law enforcement. In fact, Customs is the oldest federal law enforcement branch of the US government.
I think the people who work for CBP consider themselves to be working for the best interests of US citizens.
Do you really think CBP officers take laptops on a daily basis?
"I suppose the US Citizen that are in space does not have the same right as we in US Soil."
Bingo!
By international treaty there are no territorial claims to any area of space.
No territorial claim, no legal framework for Constitutional protection.
"I Suppose when you are out of the US embassy, you don't have the same protection as you are in US Soil,"
I guess that depends on what you mean. Are you in a foreign country? Then the answer is "yes". That is why the State Department warnings on foreign travel state quite clearly that you should not participate in demonstrations in foreign countries. You do not have First Amendment protections in foreign lands.
"...that means the US can go and take my house and tear it a apart, because since I am not in the US soil."
While you are outside of an embassy? Your logic escapes me. Walk me though that thought again.
"Now, lets say I call my Uncle Bush, from Canada, I should be in US Embassy to call him I suppose."
What?
"What a Hitler was of saying."
Godwin's Law?
"Either you have to be in US soil or you are not with us.. that is how it sound to me."
I'm not following you. I don't think many people are.
See page 9 of this document. It outlines the history of border searches. Please note that airports are included.
The international border areas are defined by the the treaties between the US, Mexico, and Canada. Where your respective facilities are in relation to that fixed border are covered under those agreements. A quick search found the US-Canada website. A similar quick search didn't turn up something for the US-Mexico border, although I'm sure someone has the info somewhere.
"Customs facilities at the border are on US soil."
Wrong. Customs facilities are on international borders maintained by both sovereign nations. Look up legal actions taken by the US government against US citizens and foreign nationals who erect structures in the areas occupied within the border areas (e.g., fences, sheds, etc.). There is a pending case against a Washington State resident who is being forced by the US government to take apart a structure on what they thought was their land.
"When you fly into the US, your first landing area is US soil."
True, but Customs and Border Protection does not cede authority to anyone, not even Federal Marshals, nor does it grant entry to anyone, until it has established the national origin of the entrant. That means until your passport is accepted, you are not automatically a US citizen. So until US Customs and Border Protection lets you go, you are not on US soil.
"However, ICE (and previously, US Customs).."
Previously US Customs? What do you mean by that?
Your whole post is based on incorrect information. But why argue with me? If you would like to argue this point with Customs and Border Protection, I'd be glad to give you a couple of phone numbers. They would be more than happy to set you straight.
"Instead they take your laptop and copy it and now can just steal your property."
That's a pretty bold assertion. Have you ever seen that happen? Have you ever been to the US border?
I've been at the border for my work several times and for extended duration for each visit. I've seen people detained. The detention doesn't generally last long and the Customs and Border Protection Officers generally hand all of the belongings back to the person they've detained and either send them to along to their destination, or they send them back to their country of origin.
It is kind of sad to see someone show up in a bus and end up walking back to the border on foot, but they have everything they brought with them when the arrived.
Burlington, VT airport security sucks because, I believe, they don't want to give the rest of New England the impression that they are a bunch of stoner, slacker hippies. They are over-compensating.
What most US citizens don't realize is that your 4th Amendment Rights - all of your Constitutional Rights - don't kick in until you are actually on US soil. That means you have to get through Customs first. So, legally, until you are released from Customs, you are not covered by the Constitutional protections many of you claim the DHS is violating.
I know this is an Alice in Wonderland-esque parsing of the rules, but it is a fact. You are not *in* the US until Customs lets you pass. The alternative is to go back into the country where you are coming from (let's say, Canada), head to a US embassy (which is US soil), and then file a complaint about your treatment at the border. It isn't likely to get much traction, but at least once you are on the embassy compound grounds, you are a US citizen again with full Constitutional rights.
Haven't you ever wondered how the Customs people are able to tear apart cars looking for drugs and illegal aliens without a court order?
"Nuclear secrets are NOT public access to any scientists."
Well, the results of nuclear *science* is publically available to any scientist. Nuclear secrets are, however, available to *many* scientists with appropriate clearance.
"Los Alamos are the traitors who through Clinton, gave your nuclear secrets over to your enemy."
Los Alamos is a national laboratory that brought us nuclear devices. I have no idea what your statement means when it is parsed except that you you hate Clinton and Los Alamos.
"Los Alamos 'scientists' should all be hung together."
The unfortunate thing about your fucked up statement is that there are extremely dedicated scientists working for all of the national laboratories, including Los Alamos. No organization, especially one working for and owned by the federal government, can be expected to work flawlessly. But to condemn all of the workers, many of whom are patriots who have served their country both in the military and working under hazardous conditions in the Lab, is completely unfair.
You are such a fucking asswipe that I can barely contain my frustration.
"When that big, hot, flash burn hits your flesh, or your childrens flesh, for a fraction of a second, you will remember this."
You are a pathetic little twat who hasn't the courage to say that within 100 ft of the fenceline of Los Alamos.
Not only do they control coastal climates, they also control the deep circulation of nutrients bottom-to-top of the ocean's food chain. Stop these and the coasts become wetter and the interiors become dryer and colder. The moderating effects that these belts have on our climates allows us to have agriculturally productive continental interiors.
"drastically more secure and provides drastically more usable security"
Drastic?
I'd be willing to work toward "acceptable" or "workable".
The problem with "drastic" is that it often envisions high frontier technologies when all that is needed is a really well thought out plan.
If the UNIX system worked well for nearly 40 years, and was fairly simple to implement, then another 40 years *might* be had with something equally simple.
No, he most certainly wasn't. I had more administrator duties back then than I do now.;)
My eleven-year-old does everything but install from raw sources. Package management isn't as difficult as it was in years past.
At least you aren't taking the M$ is evil approach.
MS isn't evil, they are just poorly managed. This is a byproduct of focused direction from the top. Now that they are a huge enterprise it is much more difficult to get the company to respond quickly to changing market conditions.
I thought that the best thing that could have happened to Microsoft would have been a forced breakup by the feds. It would have made two or three Microsoft companies that would have been more nimble in the quickly shifting tides of today's computer market. In order to make the change now, they would have to convince investors that it is in the company's best interest. I'm not sure that even Ballmer is that good of a saleman, and he is an *excellent* salesman (talk to anyone who has been to a developer conference).
What can you expect of a country that for all practical purposes is a one-party state?
For starters, a non-partisan redistricting commission in every state.
USA's political system is inherently inefficient and outdated and only fosters corruoptions and controlling people.
Compared to what?
But if you as an American citizen is happy with living in a country that is moving away from freedom, liberty and democracy, by all means do nothing.
That statement assumes that I am "doing nothing". Nothing in my original post could have given you the impression that I am not doing something to affect a change in the current system.
But I don't understand why you hate USA so much that you actually go along with this crap and that puzzles me. Dare I say brainwashed?
You've constructed an elaborate strawman and are now engaged in the exercise of beating yourself with it.
I never said I hate the US, and I don't "go along with that crap". Reread my original post and show me where I accept the current drive to uber-surveillance, let alone go along with it.
It has been for nearly two decades. The property rights point is dead on. With the War on Drugs, the cops and district attorney can seize your house if some dumbass renter is caught dealing drugs from your property. They have now burdened every small landowner with having the responsibility for anyone who has ever rented from them. More unfunded mandates with no obvious benefit to society.
Democrats and Republicans are equally guilty of stealing from hard working people.
And I'm a conservative, but a true conservative, not one of those neo-cons.
I think you are giving your 6 year old too much credit.
He was six-years-old twelve years ago.
I don't think your six year old does things like your average home computer user would do. That is, import photos from a camera, hook up a printer/scanner, listen to and download music.
My eighteen-year-old son does that now on RedHat Linux. So does my sixteen-year-old daughter and my eleven-year-old daughter.
Face it, linux is meant for fanboys.
Or fangirls, as the case may be.
With several billion dollars at their disposal, all Microsoft can say at this point is that Linux isn't as good Windows on a few minor points.
Stunning success considering the wealth of Microsoft, don't you agree? I mean, how many fellows do they employ?
Surely you would think that with their capital they would be shitting all over Linux, desktop AND server, right?
What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? Don't they have enough money to bury Linux?
What is wrong with Microsoft's management that they cannot completely bury Linux in the market? They have the intellectual firepower, money, market position, user base, developers, and world-wide support network.
If I read your post correctly, they are being matched by a bunch of fanboys and a rag-tag army of uncoordinated developers working with inferior coding tools.
What does that say about Microsoft? If Linux never existed, would this be the best that Microsoft can produce?
Well, to be fair, if you had to pay the linux contributors the same hourly rate that you would pay the average programmer at Microsoft or Apple, I'd be interested in seeing which OS actually costs more. And add on top of that, Linus dictating which features needed to go in and when. That's something I'd really be interested in seeing.
Good point, if the economics were comparable. It would be interesting, for instance, to calculate how much money would have been spent by local farmers if they had hired a contractor to build their barn rather than by paying it forward by helping raise their neighbors barn.
Or how much money would have been spent if soup kitchens had to pay for their food rather than relying on donations. Or how much each Habitat for Humanity house would cost if it had paid for the volunteer labor.
That is the problem with comparing a commercial venture with a volunteer effort. The economics aren't the same. My point was considering the vast amount of capital that Microsoft and Apple have at their disposal, why is Linux so close in quality that these arguments over which is better are even possible?
These are your rulers, the people you selected, and the system you chose. It's not as if you are defending your privacy, so you must not want it.
I didn't vote for these idiots.
Look, if you want a solution, its the market. The free market, the private corporations, these entities run our society, but until recently, we had the ability to decide where to shop.
Are you claiming that private corporations influencing government decision making is a NEW thing?
Tell me, how does domestic surveillance help a corporation? It doesn't because it requires that multi-national corporations open their operations to government agencies.
Find me one corporate officer who likes the idea of having the government spying on its operations.
This will change soon, because once all the corporations have dirt on us all, they'll be able to force us to pay them to keep it quiet.
Not the tinfoil hat corporations, obviously.
If you want to do something positive, start a business like Google, become profitable, earn billions of dollars, and then you'll actually matter in the political world.
By maintaining the status quo.
Just look at how Microsoft has shaken up the world order.
If you can't start a company like Google, then you'll have to work with these companies because lets face it, Google owns us, just as bankers, insurance companies, oil companies and Walmart own us. We are owned by corporations, and the only way to own yourself is to start a corporation.
No, the only way to survive is to BECOME a corporation.
If you want to own America Inc, you'll have to start a business if you want a vote, and I'm surprised that we havent changed voting laws so only business owners have the right to vote. Maybe this would actually be a good idea.
Yeah, I've got ya: "This has been the bash America show."
Because the Pinto was a horrible car, all Ford producats are as well.
All companies take risks, and sometimes they make horrible products.
My point had nothing to do with the point you are trying to make, so let me clear it up for you. A couple of posts up I made the point that Microsoft will not innovate or improve if it doesn't have a competitor on the horizon threatening it. Given that as a premise, how does your statement above counter my point? It doesn't - it reinforces it.
If MS makes just horrible products,
Strawman. I never said they made "just horrible products".
why are almost all "Linux on the desktop" applications clones of them?
Why are Microsoft's products clones of shareware or freeware products that Microsoft decided to encroach upon?
I'm not talking about server space (Apache, etc). Why does Nautilus work just like explorer?
Because it makes sense? Did you look at the Finder feature in MacOS?
Why is "evolution" just like Outlook?
One: compatibility. Two, why does Outlook look like Eudora?
Why is the "Start Menu" the dominate shell for launching programs?
I don't know many Linux users who use the Start Menu feature. I load up a button bar.
Many people will say: "because it is easier for a novice to learn."
Perhaps they are right.
Well, the easiest thing for a novice to do is to buy a $399 Dell with Windows and not HAVE to learn.
My six-year-old son started out on a Linux machine. He uses his Win2k machine to play WoW. Everything else is done on Linux. How hard is it to learn Linux?
If OS/2 and OS9 were better then the MS counterparts, why isn't the OSS on the Desktop crowd emulating those?
Dominant paradigm. Why do you assume that Windows is easy to use? How do you find problems with registry entries?
Why is OpenOffice a clone of MS office?
Do we have to go into the history of office applications? MS Office copied everyone. There is nothing new in Office. Except Clippy.
Where is the innovation there?
Yes, where is the innovation between, say, Excel and Lotus 1,2,3?
With all of the people working on the OSS model (which actually I think the number is fewer then is estimates) why are "Tabbed Browsing" and "Mouse Gestures" the biggest user interface innovation?
What innovations are there in Office 2000 over Office 97? Make a list, please.
The one thing that I will give "Linux on the Desktop" is that it is less suceptible to hacks/worms, but I wonder if that is just because the people who do use it are savvy enough to know what to do. Once you get Joe-Consumer the system, they will just run as administrator as a convienence.
You and I agree on that point.
I'm not being a MS apologist here, those are genuine questions that I have.
I know. I hope I answered yours without sounding sarcastic.
I grow tired of so many loud voices saying "They suck!" without offering actual alternatives. The is why the "switch" campaign that Mac had worked (to a point). They offered reasonable alternatives.
Agreed. Linux is not one company with a singular message. That is probably why the PR sucks.
Right now you can go to the walmart.com and purchase a PC with "Linspire" pre-installed. They don't sell many, because there isn't a demand. Consumers see computers like telephones, and Operating Systems like the dial tone. They don't care how it works, they just want it to do what they want. For that matter, as an advanced user, the computer itself is a tool. I just want to use the best tool for the job with the least amount of annoyances to get my job done. When I was a java developer, that was Linux. When building apps for SQL server, that is XP. The religous wars are stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
You're my last hope, Old Ben Kanobe.
"I would like to remind all of their right to keep and bear arms instituted to control and protect oneself from an unreasonable government."
The "border search exception" first surfaced in 1789.
You're just getting around to militancy? Boy are you slow.
"Federal agents should reevaluate their careers with this in mind before accepting positions that are unconstitutional at face."
I've got my doubts about your legal training, but Customs Officers have a long history of law enforcement. In fact, Customs is the oldest federal law enforcement branch of the US government.
I think the people who work for CBP consider themselves to be working for the best interests of US citizens.
Do you really think CBP officers take laptops on a daily basis?
You're right, Osama. But somehow the alternatives seem so much worse.
"How the heck is this constitutional?"
The law making this possible is as old as the 4th Amendment (see page 9):
http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/library/P1075.pdf
"I suppose the US Citizen that are in space does not have the same right as we in US Soil."
Bingo!
By international treaty there are no territorial claims to any area of space.
No territorial claim, no legal framework for Constitutional protection.
"I Suppose when you are out of the US embassy, you don't have the same protection as you are in US Soil,"
I guess that depends on what you mean. Are you in a foreign country? Then the answer is "yes". That is why the State Department warnings on foreign travel state quite clearly that you should not participate in demonstrations in foreign countries. You do not have First Amendment protections in foreign lands.
"...that means the US can go and take my house and tear it a apart, because since I am not in the US soil."
While you are outside of an embassy? Your logic escapes me. Walk me though that thought again.
"Now, lets say I call my Uncle Bush, from Canada, I should be in US Embassy to call him I suppose."
What?
"What a Hitler was of saying."
Godwin's Law?
"Either you have to be in US soil or you are not with us.. that is how it sound to me."
I'm not following you. I don't think many people are.
Documents supporting my points:
See page 9 of this document. It outlines the history of border searches. Please note that airports are included.
The international border areas are defined by the the treaties between the US, Mexico, and Canada. Where your respective facilities are in relation to that fixed border are covered under those agreements. A quick search found the US-Canada website. A similar quick search didn't turn up something for the US-Mexico border, although I'm sure someone has the info somewhere.
"Customs facilities at the border are on US soil."
Wrong. Customs facilities are on international borders maintained by both sovereign nations. Look up legal actions taken by the US government against US citizens and foreign nationals who erect structures in the areas occupied within the border areas (e.g., fences, sheds, etc.). There is a pending case against a Washington State resident who is being forced by the US government to take apart a structure on what they thought was their land.
"When you fly into the US, your first landing area is US soil."
True, but Customs and Border Protection does not cede authority to anyone, not even Federal Marshals, nor does it grant entry to anyone, until it has established the national origin of the entrant. That means until your passport is accepted, you are not automatically a US citizen. So until US Customs and Border Protection lets you go, you are not on US soil.
"However, ICE (and previously, US Customs).."
Previously US Customs? What do you mean by that?
Your whole post is based on incorrect information. But why argue with me? If you would like to argue this point with Customs and Border Protection, I'd be glad to give you a couple of phone numbers. They would be more than happy to set you straight.
"Instead they take your laptop and copy it and now can just steal your property."
That's a pretty bold assertion. Have you ever seen that happen? Have you ever been to the US border?
I've been at the border for my work several times and for extended duration for each visit. I've seen people detained. The detention doesn't generally last long and the Customs and Border Protection Officers generally hand all of the belongings back to the person they've detained and either send them to along to their destination, or they send them back to their country of origin.
It is kind of sad to see someone show up in a bus and end up walking back to the border on foot, but they have everything they brought with them when the arrived.
Burlington, VT airport security sucks because, I believe, they don't want to give the rest of New England the impression that they are a bunch of stoner, slacker hippies. They are over-compensating.
But that keyboard looked like a bomb.
They should take passports too. They have magnetic strips with information on them.
Wait....
What most US citizens don't realize is that your 4th Amendment Rights - all of your Constitutional Rights - don't kick in until you are actually on US soil. That means you have to get through Customs first. So, legally, until you are released from Customs, you are not covered by the Constitutional protections many of you claim the DHS is violating.
I know this is an Alice in Wonderland-esque parsing of the rules, but it is a fact. You are not *in* the US until Customs lets you pass. The alternative is to go back into the country where you are coming from (let's say, Canada), head to a US embassy (which is US soil), and then file a complaint about your treatment at the border. It isn't likely to get much traction, but at least once you are on the embassy compound grounds, you are a US citizen again with full Constitutional rights.
Haven't you ever wondered how the Customs people are able to tear apart cars looking for drugs and illegal aliens without a court order?
"Nuclear secrets are NOT public access to any scientists."
Well, the results of nuclear *science* is publically available to any scientist. Nuclear secrets are, however, available to *many* scientists with appropriate clearance.
"Los Alamos are the traitors who through Clinton, gave your nuclear secrets over to your enemy."
Los Alamos is a national laboratory that brought us nuclear devices. I have no idea what your statement means when it is parsed except that you you hate Clinton and Los Alamos.
"Los Alamos 'scientists' should all be hung together."
The unfortunate thing about your fucked up statement is that there are extremely dedicated scientists working for all of the national laboratories, including Los Alamos. No organization, especially one working for and owned by the federal government, can be expected to work flawlessly. But to condemn all of the workers, many of whom are patriots who have served their country both in the military and working under hazardous conditions in the Lab, is completely unfair.
You are such a fucking asswipe that I can barely contain my frustration.
"When that big, hot, flash burn hits your flesh, or your childrens flesh, for a fraction of a second, you will remember this."
You are a pathetic little twat who hasn't the courage to say that within 100 ft of the fenceline of Los Alamos.
"Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad? "
t ion
Yes. Dumping a bunch of fresh water into the world's oceans can stop these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circula
Not only do they control coastal climates, they also control the deep circulation of nutrients bottom-to-top of the ocean's food chain. Stop these and the coasts become wetter and the interiors become dryer and colder. The moderating effects that these belts have on our climates allows us to have agriculturally productive continental interiors.
"Who has determined this?"
Scientists.
"Where do they live?"
Everywhere, around the world.
"What are their motives?"
We like to eat and live just like you do.
Funny that.
"drastically more secure and provides drastically more usable security"
Drastic?
I'd be willing to work toward "acceptable" or "workable".
The problem with "drastic" is that it often envisions high frontier technologies when all that is needed is a really well thought out plan.
If the UNIX system worked well for nearly 40 years, and was fairly simple to implement, then another 40 years *might* be had with something equally simple.
You've obviously got me on that one. The pointer has changed to http://www.lp.org./
if( hand.Contents() ~= tubular && hand.Contents() == flesh) /11;
{
strength = strength
}
After all, there are several Italians on the project.
(don't worry, I'll handle this myself: boooooo!)
As a 6 year old, he wasn't exactly a power user.
;)
No, he most certainly wasn't. I had more administrator duties back then than I do now.
My eleven-year-old does everything but install from raw sources. Package management isn't as difficult as it was in years past.
At least you aren't taking the M$ is evil approach.
MS isn't evil, they are just poorly managed. This is a byproduct of focused direction from the top. Now that they are a huge enterprise it is much more difficult to get the company to respond quickly to changing market conditions.
I thought that the best thing that could have happened to Microsoft would have been a forced breakup by the feds. It would have made two or three Microsoft companies that would have been more nimble in the quickly shifting tides of today's computer market. In order to make the change now, they would have to convince investors that it is in the company's best interest. I'm not sure that even Ballmer is that good of a saleman, and he is an *excellent* salesman (talk to anyone who has been to a developer conference).
What can you expect of a country that for all practical purposes is a one-party state?
For starters, a non-partisan redistricting commission in every state.
USA's political system is inherently inefficient and outdated and only fosters corruoptions and controlling people.
Compared to what?
But if you as an American citizen is happy with living in a country that is moving away from freedom, liberty and democracy, by all means do nothing.
That statement assumes that I am "doing nothing". Nothing in my original post could have given you the impression that I am not doing something to affect a change in the current system.
But I don't understand why you hate USA so much that you actually go along with this crap and that puzzles me. Dare I say brainwashed?
You've constructed an elaborate strawman and are now engaged in the exercise of beating yourself with it.
I never said I hate the US, and I don't "go along with that crap". Reread my original post and show me where I accept the current drive to uber-surveillance, let alone go along with it.
The middle class is under attack.
It has been for nearly two decades. The property rights point is dead on. With the War on Drugs, the cops and district attorney can seize your house if some dumbass renter is caught dealing drugs from your property. They have now burdened every small landowner with having the responsibility for anyone who has ever rented from them. More unfunded mandates with no obvious benefit to society.
Democrats and Republicans are equally guilty of stealing from hard working people.
And I'm a conservative, but a true conservative, not one of those neo-cons.
We are a vansishing breed, my friend.
I think you are giving your 6 year old too much credit.
He was six-years-old twelve years ago.
I don't think your six year old does things like your average home computer user would do. That is, import photos from a camera, hook up a printer/scanner, listen to and download music.
My eighteen-year-old son does that now on RedHat Linux. So does my sixteen-year-old daughter and my eleven-year-old daughter.
Face it, linux is meant for fanboys.
Or fangirls, as the case may be.
With several billion dollars at their disposal, all Microsoft can say at this point is that Linux isn't as good Windows on a few minor points.
Stunning success considering the wealth of Microsoft, don't you agree? I mean, how many fellows do they employ?
Surely you would think that with their capital they would be shitting all over Linux, desktop AND server, right?
What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? Don't they have enough money to bury Linux?
What is wrong with Microsoft's management that they cannot completely bury Linux in the market? They have the intellectual firepower, money, market position, user base, developers, and world-wide support network.
If I read your post correctly, they are being matched by a bunch of fanboys and a rag-tag army of uncoordinated developers working with inferior coding tools.
What does that say about Microsoft? If Linux never existed, would this be the best that Microsoft can produce?
Rather sad, I'd say.
Does it matter? It works now. Holding a grudge is so pointless.
Who is holding a grudge? The "it just works" mantra has been stated categorically for decades and has only recently been a *fact*.
Are you bitter that people are calling Microsoft on their former bullshit?
What OS's out there support a breadth and depth of P&P devices comparable to Windows?
OSX
I've run Windows, FreeBSD, and now Mac OS X. I love my Mac, but there is no denying that Windows is the market leader when it comes to perrefrials.
Then why did my brother have so much trouble with his WiFi card? I had it running on Linux in five minutes. XP never did get it running.
Well, to be fair, if you had to pay the linux contributors the same hourly rate that you would pay the average programmer at Microsoft or Apple, I'd be interested in seeing which OS actually costs more. And add on top of that, Linus dictating which features needed to go in and when. That's something I'd really be interested in seeing.
Good point, if the economics were comparable. It would be interesting, for instance, to calculate how much money would have been spent by local farmers if they had hired a contractor to build their barn rather than by paying it forward by helping raise their neighbors barn.
Or how much money would have been spent if soup kitchens had to pay for their food rather than relying on donations. Or how much each Habitat for Humanity house would cost if it had paid for the volunteer labor.
That is the problem with comparing a commercial venture with a volunteer effort. The economics aren't the same. My point was considering the vast amount of capital that Microsoft and Apple have at their disposal, why is Linux so close in quality that these arguments over which is better are even possible?
These are your rulers, the people you selected, and the system you chose. It's not as if you are defending your privacy, so you must not want it.
I didn't vote for these idiots.
Look, if you want a solution, its the market. The free market, the private corporations, these entities run our society, but until recently, we had the ability to decide where to shop.
Are you claiming that private corporations influencing government decision making is a NEW thing?
Tell me, how does domestic surveillance help a corporation? It doesn't because it requires that multi-national corporations open their operations to government agencies.
Find me one corporate officer who likes the idea of having the government spying on its operations.
This will change soon, because once all the corporations have dirt on us all, they'll be able to force us to pay them to keep it quiet.
Not the tinfoil hat corporations, obviously.
If you want to do something positive, start a business like Google, become profitable, earn billions of dollars, and then you'll actually matter in the political world.
By maintaining the status quo.
Just look at how Microsoft has shaken up the world order.
If you can't start a company like Google, then you'll have to work with these companies because lets face it, Google owns us, just as bankers, insurance companies, oil companies and Walmart own us. We are owned by corporations, and the only way to own yourself is to start a corporation.
No, the only way to survive is to BECOME a corporation.
If you want to own America Inc, you'll have to start a business if you want a vote, and I'm surprised that we havent changed voting laws so only business owners have the right to vote. Maybe this would actually be a good idea.
Yeah, I've got ya: "This has been the bash America show."
Thank you for your insights.
So by similar arguement:
Well, it isn't, but go ahead anyhow.
Because the Pinto was a horrible car, all Ford producats are as well.
All companies take risks, and sometimes they make horrible products.
My point had nothing to do with the point you are trying to make, so let me clear it up for you. A couple of posts up I made the point that Microsoft will not innovate or improve if it doesn't have a competitor on the horizon threatening it. Given that as a premise, how does your statement above counter my point? It doesn't - it reinforces it.
If MS makes just horrible products,
Strawman. I never said they made "just horrible products".
why are almost all "Linux on the desktop" applications clones of them?
Why are Microsoft's products clones of shareware or freeware products that Microsoft decided to encroach upon?
I'm not talking about server space (Apache, etc). Why does Nautilus work just like explorer?
Because it makes sense? Did you look at the Finder feature in MacOS?
Why is "evolution" just like Outlook?
One: compatibility. Two, why does Outlook look like Eudora?
Why is the "Start Menu" the dominate shell for launching programs?
I don't know many Linux users who use the Start Menu feature. I load up a button bar.
Many people will say: "because it is easier for a novice to learn."
Perhaps they are right.
Well, the easiest thing for a novice to do is to buy a $399 Dell with Windows and not HAVE to learn.
My six-year-old son started out on a Linux machine. He uses his Win2k machine to play WoW. Everything else is done on Linux. How hard is it to learn Linux?
If OS/2 and OS9 were better then the MS counterparts, why isn't the OSS on the Desktop crowd emulating those?
Dominant paradigm. Why do you assume that Windows is easy to use? How do you find problems with registry entries?
Why is OpenOffice a clone of MS office?
Do we have to go into the history of office applications? MS Office copied everyone. There is nothing new in Office. Except Clippy.
Where is the innovation there?
Yes, where is the innovation between, say, Excel and Lotus 1,2,3?
With all of the people working on the OSS model (which actually I think the number is fewer then is estimates) why are "Tabbed Browsing" and "Mouse Gestures" the biggest user interface innovation?
What innovations are there in Office 2000 over Office 97? Make a list, please.
The one thing that I will give "Linux on the Desktop" is that it is less suceptible to hacks/worms, but I wonder if that is just because the people who do use it are savvy enough to know what to do. Once you get Joe-Consumer the system, they will just run as administrator as a convienence.
You and I agree on that point.
I'm not being a MS apologist here, those are genuine questions that I have.
I know. I hope I answered yours without sounding sarcastic.
I grow tired of so many loud voices saying "They suck!" without offering actual alternatives. The is why the "switch" campaign that Mac had worked (to a point). They offered reasonable alternatives.
Agreed. Linux is not one company with a singular message. That is probably why the PR sucks.
Right now you can go to the walmart.com and purchase a PC with "Linspire" pre-installed. They don't sell many, because there isn't a demand. Consumers see computers like telephones, and Operating Systems like the dial tone. They don't care how it works, they just want it to do what they want. For that matter, as an advanced user, the computer itself is a tool. I just want to use the best tool for the job with the least amount of annoyances to get my job done. When I was a java developer, that was Linux. When building apps for SQL server, that is XP. The religous wars are stupid.
Amen, brother. Amen.