Re:Sony's dumb decision, with historical precedent
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No Love For The Blu-Ray
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I only have one Word to say to that.
The Word proprietary format is a lot different.
For one thing, people didn't have a choice between the Word proprietary format and another format that was agreed upon by the rest of the word processing industry. People only had a choice between the proprietary Word format and the proprietary WordPerfect format. Picking one over the other didn't really make much difference.
Second of all, early versions of Word were rather handily compatible with opening WordPerfect documents, so if one chose the proprietary Word format, they weren't locking themselves out of other formats as well.
Third of all, it's not like there aren't other formats out there that people use. For document publication, I think that HTML and Adobe's PDF formats are way more popular. People chose the Word proprietary format mostly for using their own proprietary software.
Fourth of all, after all these years, we're finally seeing an effort to create a new non-proprietary format for documents to be saved and loaded in. It's just going to take a little while for it to catch on and get popular since other formats have had a couple of decades of head start.
Sony's dumb decision, with historical precedent!
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No Love For The Blu-Ray
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· Score: 4, Interesting
How many ways are there to say it? Sony is stupid.
You would think it would learn from its mistakes. It tried to push out its proprietary format with Betamax, and it failed miserably. (I know, I know, "superior format" and all that, but it doesn't change the fact that VHS won the battle of the formats in consumers' living rooms.) It tried to push out its proprietary format with the MiniDisc, and it failed miserably. It tried to push out its proprietary format with UMD, and it failed miserably. Now, it is trying to push out its proprietary format with Blu-ray.
How many miserable failures is it going to take for Sony to realize something that, at least to me, is pretty freakin' obvious and stupidly simple: people do not want to get locked into proprietary formats controlled by one company. The thing that's so maddening is that when Sony does embrace non-proprietary formats, they have wild success. Their Walkman products sold like there was no tomorrow. Their CD and DVD consumer electronics have always been well-respected.
It's more than a little ironic, I think, that while Sony is trying desperately to convince people that they should be buying a PS3 for the Blu-ray drive, in fact, people are avoiding the PS3 specifically because of the Blu-ray drive! I mean, I don't know many people who actively don't want a Blu-ray drive, but it is definitely, at least indirectly, responsible for their woes:
The Blu-ray drive is heinously expensive. People don't want to pay over $500 for a gaming console, even if they can also watch a few movies on it. If they had sold it without the Blu-ray drive, it would be much more competitive with the Xbox 360 and the Wii.
The Blu-ray drive is hard to manufacture, which is causing Sony's dismal supply. If they had sold it without the Blu-ray drive, they could have made a lot more of them, and average little Timmys all over the world could have one under their Christmas tree instead of only the little Johnnys who happen to have parents that are very, very rich.
There wouldn't be a so-called "format war" which has turned into, basically, Sony vs. the rest of the world. Getting people to switch from standard DVDs to high-definition DVDs is already going to be a daunting task, since there's not that much addition of quality and people are generally happy with DVDs. Still, I think it could have been pulled off if all manufacturers, publishers, and marketing companies were on board with a common format. As it is, though, people aren't going to invest in a new library of movies as long as there's any question over whether they'll have to throw it away. No one wants to end up being the only person on their block with a Betamax player. And their squabbling in this delicate time when they should be pushing a new common format will allow alternate media delivery mechanism creep up and make both formats obsolete. (Online delivery of HD content, anyone?)
I could go on listing items, but you get my point. Everyone that said and signed on with, "I have an idea, let's use the PS3 as a launching platform for Blu-ray!" should be fired, because they just don't get it. People will buy a game console that happens to also play movies, but they're not going to be force-fed a whole new movie format just to own it. And I may end up eating crow for saying it if history proves me wrong, but I think that when all is said and done, people are really going to resent Sony imposing such a high premium on their gaming for something that has nothing to do with gaming. I really think that five or ten years from now, people are going to look at Sony's die-hard pushing of Blu-ray at the expense of its consoles as the thing that killed its dominance in the gaming console market.
It's too bad, too. Nintendo, while clever, just isn't set up to own the hardcore gamer market. And while I'm not big fan of Sony, I'm certainly not a big fan of Microsoft, either. Still, it looks like Sony is bound and determined to hand Microsoft the console victory crown on a silver platter with this foolishness.
I doubt that the drive is proprietary, but the encasement it's in looks like it is. I haven't really investigated, I'm not sure what would be involved in doing that. You might have to rig up your own interface, or at the very least, something to physically attach it to your Xbox.
For what it's worth, if you want an Xbox 360, you can now get a $100 rebate on either system (core or pro) if you buy it in a Micro Center store, and at least my Micro Center (and I suspect most Micro Centers) had plenty in stock, like 50 or so of each. No stupid lines, no 300-400% markup on Ebay, no fuss, no muss.
That brings the cost of the core system down to just $200 (cheaper than a Wii!) and the cost of a pro system down to $300.
In my book, people's best bet is to buy an Xbox 360 pro and a Wii for $650, collect the $100 rebate from Micro Center, come out paying $50 less than a PS3 (hey, Xbox Live Gold membership fee!), and not feel like a total idiot when everyone finally realizes how irrelevant Sony is in the console gaming world now.;-)
may result in your getting lower priority on downloads
many client programs for uploading-not-required protocols have a "don't upload to leechers" toggle switch, which when enabled simply checks a potential downloader's number of shared files. If that number is 0, then the client won't upload to them
Fine, then I'll change it:
Do you have any idea at all how peer-to-peer networks work? For all practical purposes, every downloader is an uploader as well.
Peer-to-peer networks with few uploaders suck. People don't use them. They fail miserably, and people go back to using the ones where everyone shares again.
suing the people that are the suppliers for the downloaders
Do you have any idea at all how peer-to-peer networks work? Every downloader is an uploader as well.
There's nothing clever, fiendishly or otherwise, about their plan. It's really stupidly simple: sue enough people so that word gets around that if you download music, you'll be sued. Then people will (theoretically) stop downloading music.
The problem with their stupidly simple plan is that it's not working. Why? Among other reasons:
Most of the people downloading music illegally don't care if other people are getting sued. They'll only stop of they get caught, they get sued, and they are forced to stop.
The industry is, in a lot of cases, going after the wrong people, and pursuing it relentlessly even after it's been demonstrating they're the wrong people. Now, there's a bit of the attitude going around that, if you're going to be sued anyway whether you're doing the right thing or the wrong thing, you might as well err on the side of having free music.
The industry is punishing people who have absolutely nothing to do with trying to download music illegally. Witness Sony's rootkit fiasco, DRM that keeps us from listening to our music on devices that they don't approve of, attempts (that are successful in other places, *ahem* Canada...) to tax media that may (but probably not) be used for illegal purposes, collect royalties on devices such as the Zune and iPod that may (but probably not) be used to listen to ill-gotten music, etc.
I'm sorry, but "clever" is not an adjective that I would apply to any company associated with the **AA. Fiendish? Yeah, I can live with that one.
Your comment is arrogant and typical of a lot of programmers that don't feel someone has worth unless they can code.
No, it's not. As I posted above, the reason I brought it up is because the author of the article implied that he has the skill to fix at least one of the bugs that he's complaining about. While I agree that he's under no obligation to do so if he doesn't want to, I also think it's extremely bad form to sit around complaining that no one else will.
Their code is a mess, regardless of whether it's C++ code, or whether it's JavaScript code. Look for yourself
*shrugs*
Looks pretty good to me, and it seems to work pretty well. Is there anything in particular that you find messy?
We hear that reasoning a lot from open source advocates.
The reason I brought it up is because the author of the article implied that he has the skill to fix at least one of the bugs that he's complaining about. While I agree that he's under no obligation to do so if he doesn't want to, I also think it's extremely bad form to sit around complaining that no one else will.
Here, allow me to post a short summary of the article to save you some time:
I think the new theme and start page is ugly, and there are a few weird bugs that haven't been fixed yet, and they haven't implemented a feature I want in a way that I want it. Therefore, it sucks.
- Don't like the default theme that comes with Firefox? Go get another that you like better. Don't like the first run page? Who cares? You only see it one time!
Last time I checked, Firefox was still open source software. If they're not fixing bugs fast enough for your liking, by all means, download the source and fix them yourself. That's not meant as a smart-ass excuse for not fixing a bug, but the article's author says:
If I have the time, I'll go through the source, but I think the best way to help is to bring it to attention.
No, the best way to help is to go through the source and fix the bug! Don't talk about it, do it, and solve everyone's problem with having it!
- The feature the author wants implemented better is an RSS feed reader. I have some news for you: it's supposed to be a basic implementation that gives you the bare essentials. If you want one with bells and whistles, go get an extension that suits your needs better. This isn't a sign that Firefox has lost its way, its a sign that it's principles haven't changed much at all.
- Last, but not least, I'm not sure what the author of this article is proposing we all do. Switch to IE7 or Opera? Yeah, that will help the open source community.
Point is, while Firefox 2.0 was never pitched as the last version of Firefox that we'll ever need as a result of its attaining perfection. Personally, I wish that they would fix the bug that causes only the first page of web pages with absolutely positioned elements to be printed. I wish I had the skill to fix it myself; I would if I could. But I'm sure they're working on it, it doesn't change the fact that Firefox 2.0 is, in my humble opinion, the best damn browser out there right now, and the last thing I'm going to do is undercut the extraordinary efforts of its developers and contributors by posting a whiny blog entry about how because there are still a few things I don't like about it, it's somehow "lost its way somewhere."
When they chose to disobey God, the consequence was separation from Him, and ultimately, death - for themselves and for their offspring.
You're just as good as anyone to ask, I suppose.
Why is it exactly that I'm being punished for the sin of my ancestors? Why can't I just say, "Listen, God, I'm sorry Adam and Eve screwed up, but put me in the garden and make me innocent and protected; I'll behave!
Isn't me being punished for Adam's and Eve's sin a little bit like throwing a guy in jail because his father, a man who he's never seen or met and who died before he was born, once robbed a bank? Is that really the kind of god we want to believe in?
The piece of paper you take home at the end of the quarter has an "A" on it. What are the consequences of doing poorly? The piece of paper has a "D" on it. If you do really poorly, it has an "F" on it, and you have to take the same class again next year.
Grades are not just letters on a piece of paper. Somehow, I managed to pick this little tidbit up before getting out of high school, and I don't know many kids, even the ones who do badly in school, who don't know it. There's a direct correlation between grades and later economic success, and most decent parents manage to translate this into more concrete terms that kids, almost all of whom are delightfully stupid, can understand. When I was young, my mom would pay me based on how good my grades were. She used to say, "Good grades are money in the bank. You'll earn scholarships for college, and once you're out in the working world, you'll make a lot more." She was so very right, and to make the point that good grades are money in the bank, she tied it to my allowance, so it was literally money in my bank.
If I made D's or F's, I would be punished. I wouldn't get to hang out with my friends on weekends. I couldn't watch television. I had to go to bed earlier. I got my neat-o toys taken away from me.
She wasn't a slave driver, though. She never punished me for not making A's or B's, and I was anything but a straight A student. But I did pretty well, I earned a high school and college diploma, and her lessons about education are among the most valuable things I ever learned from her: If you do well in school, you'll be rewarded for it throughout life. If you do poorly, you shouldn't whine about how lousy your life is, because it's your own damned fault.
And the point is, grades were not just letters on pieces of paper to me, and they most certainly won't just be letters on pieces of paper to my kids, either.
If you are absolutely sure you can never afford college, even with financial aid, loans, and work-study programs, then I guess it makes sense to drop out.
This isn't true. If you mean drop out of high school, then look again at the stats of high school graduates versus high school dropouts. Even if you don't go to college, there's definitely a meaningful jump in quality of life. And those who have gone to some classes consistently do better as well over those who simply stopped after high school.
Also, if you're willing to do the schoolwork, I can't think of any financial reason one couldn't manage to get into college. Between financial aid, loans, and work-study programs, not only did I get into college, but I actually managed to make money while I was there. (Not income, mind you, I had to pay a lot of that money back; but enough to pay for my room and board and even go see a movie now and then.)
hese statistics show that the median income difference between high school graduates and non-graduates is a measley $6000 over the entire span of age groups studied.
And while I'm at it, I might as well point out how stupid this comment is. $6,000 is a HUGE step up within the groups that you're talking about. From $21,332 to $27,351 represents more than a 28% increase. I don't know about you, but if I thought I could get a 28% raise, I'd jump through a lot of hoops.
Also, it might be worth pointing out that this divides out to a little over $500 a month. Hell, even though this is less than a tenth of what I'm making right now, even as an absolute number instead of a percentage, I'd love to have an extra $500 a month!
Last, but not least, you're forgetting that this is per year. Let's see what kind of affect this "measly" $6000 has over the course of an average working lifetime, say, from the age of 18 to 65. $6,000 a year, compounded monthly at 4% interest (assuming you just tuck it away in a safe savings account or CD) over 47 years comes to... um... over $830 thousand! For someone making only $21,332 a year, that's a really nice nest egg for doing nothing other than sticking it out and getting their high school diploma! Just the interest (at 4%) alone on this $33,200. Your income would actually go up by over 50%, and you wouldn't even need to touch the money you've put away!
So tell me again how "measly" $6,000 a year is? Especially to someone making $21,332?
P.S. If that same person goes an extra four years to college and earns a degree and stays as frugal as they were, tucking away the extra money, they'll have almost two and a half million dollars at age 65 instead due to the measly $21,545 of extra income per year that the average college graduate makes over his or her high school dropout friend.
I wrote a suite of perl scripts to automate a series of tasks blah blah blah
I never said that people who don't finish high school are incapable of doing anything, I said that generally speaking, they're stupid, and that there are exceptions to the rule.
Also, what exactly are you trying to imply here? That high school or college dropouts are more likely to be able to write perl scripts? Around four months ago, I had never used perl in my life, and I got an assignment that happened to require it. It was such a quick project that I didn't even bother with the books, I looked up some tutorials on the Internet and within a couple of weeks, it was done, an error-prone process at my workplace was automated, and I got lots of nifty kudos. And (gasp!) I actually have a college degree! A nifty-looking piece of paper hanging on my home office wall, as a matter of fact, that says according to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, I'm considered at least somewhat competent in the field of Computer Science.
I didn't learn perl at UAB. But you know what I did learn? I learned how to approach a programming project like that and see it through. And yes, I even learned some of the concepts the underlie all programming languages in some of my classes there.
You know what else I learned? In some of my advanced classes, I learned how to do some pretty hairy mathematical manipulations of numbers to discover interesting things. I probably could have picked it up on my own if I wanted to, but honestly, I doubt I would have. At the time, it all seemed to be the kind of high-level stuff that I'd never use again, but I jumped through their hoops and pounded it into my brain well enough to get an A and retain it all of these years. Now, I'm working on another project that uses some of those skills, and to most of the other folks who work with me, it just seems like black magic, yet my forecasts are right on target, much better than anything that they've had before.
I'm also working on a pet project here at home, a web site for a game I'm playing. It's delved into some really high-level image manipulation, stuff that is making me extremely happy that I was a math geek in high school and that I know algebra and trigonometry like the back of my hand. If I hadn't jumped through the hoops of learning the stuff backwards and forwards when my mom made me go to high school over my vehement protests, there's no way I could even start to work on this stuff, and while I might still be happy today, I wouldn't be able to do half of the stuff that I think is cool.
Have you ever considered the possibility that even though you're happy, you'll never really know what you're missing out on or how successful you could have been given your skills and knowledge if you had just stuck it out a few more years? That because you were arrogant and thought that you were above college, that you gave up being decades ahead of where you are now because you didn't want to be bored for a few years when you were a kid?
Okay, so what's your point? That kids aren't responsible for the choices they make? That it's all the fault of the corporations, the government, and lousy parents?
I could actually agree with that to some point, but it doesn't change the fact that regardless of what values corporations, government, and lousy parents instill in kids, they are the ones who will ultimately be held accountable for their decisions. At some point along the way before they turn 18 and are let loose upon the world, they've got to decide for themselves what is important and what isn't. We can blame everyone in the world if we want to, and working for change in those areas is certainly worth pursuing, but unless we also blame the kids—and we teach them principles such as self-discipline and long-term planning—things will continue to get worse and worse.
Education is not necessarily the best path to self-actualization, a high income, or happiness.
Yes, it is. Period. No other objective factor determines the liklihood of someone's financial success as much as education does. Maybe you think that financial success doesn't equate to happiness, but in the real world, the more well-off one is generally determines how happy one is. I could quote crime rates, drug use statistics, abuse statistics, life expectancies, divorce rates, and so on compared with income, but I'm hoping that it's pretty obvious what the picture is like.
Most of the people I know who have college degrees work in areas unrelated to their field of study. Ergo, college isn't about education, it is about jumping through one more hoop to prove you are worthy of success.
Well, now you're starting to get it. An important part of high school and college that these "I don't need it" types neglect is what it teaches you other than the book knowledge that anyone can pick up without going to classes. Stuff like how to learn, how to study, how to work with others, and yes, how to jump through hoops when necessary.
Would I hire someone who doesn't have a college degree? Probably, depending on what job I need them for and (more importantly) their level of experience and their track record in doing what I need them to do. All other things being equal, though, I'll pick the college graduate over the college dropout. Why? Because presumably, I'll need someone with the ability to see things through, even if they sometimes get bored with it; someone who's not only willing to do the cool stuff, but who's also willing to jump through the hoops to get the job done. As for someone without a high school diploma? Not a chance. If you don't have the self-discipline or patience to even finish high school, then I have zero confidence in your ability to perform any but the most menial of tasks. Maaaaybe if I've known you for years and have personal knowledge of your work ethic and intelligence, and maaaaybe if there's something particularly striking in your work history that would change my mind, but seriously? I think not.
Some people choose the fast track to success—the weird exceptions, as you so call them. Others realize that education isn't for them, and get a head start in the work force.
Dude, please tell me that you're not calling dropping out of high school "the fast track to success." If so, then you have to also believe that drinking cyanide is "the fast track to living long." Please tell me that you don't seriously consider dropping out getting "a head start in the work force." If so, then I'm not sure what to say, except that every single statistic proves you wrong. This is a fact that is accepted by pretty much everyone, and I defy you to show me any sort of study or statistic that indicates that the lives of high school dropouts in general are better by any single measure than the lives of those who get a high school diploma, or that the lives of college dropouts in gener
There's just so much wrong with this that I don't know where to start.
Does this line of reasoning extend to college?
To some degree, yes. But finishing college is much harder than finishing high school. I'm sorry if this offends you, but the vast majority of people who don't finish high school are just plain stupid. There are exceptions; a small minority of students have some sort of mental problem that keeps them from understanding the material (and mental problem != stupid), some of them leave for concern about their own safety, some leave because their family is in poverty and they have to work for food, and so on. But like I said, these are weird exceptions. Most people who don't finish high school don't because they're stupid.
Is there any direct correlation between success in high school and, as you say, "long-term economic health"?
Yes, as a matter of fact, this is a well-established fact. Here are some statistics to back that up. On average, college graduates make more than twice as much as people who don't finish high school.
I also personally know college drop-outs who make more money than I could ever dream of earning.
So? I do to, what's your point? That basing your opinions on weird exceptions instead of the rule is a good thing? That just because Michael Jordan has more money than he knows what to do with, I should tell my kids to forget all that stupid studying, they should be playing basketball instead? That doesn't sound very smart to me at all.
Do the government and corporations (arguably the most powerful entities) operate mostly with short-term goals or long-term goals?
Businesses that operate mostly with short-term goals in mind tend to blow up in pretty spectacular fashion. Witness Enron and the dot-com demise. So do most people. Witness day-traders and steroid abusers. As for the government, that's why a lot of things are so screwed up these days. Witness global warming and our dependence on oil. This is an attitude to be discouraged, both in our personal lives and in the bigger picture, not encouraged. If you don't feel that way, then I feel sorry for you, and I especially feel sorry for any kids you might pass your warped view of reality on to.
But hey, good luck, and who knows? Maybe you'll be the next Bill Gates. (But if you didn't finish high school, I really doubt it.)
My grades sucked because I was bored to tears with my classes.
Then you were failing at something that school is also supposed to teach you along with reading, writing, and 'rithmetic: Self-discipline. If there's one thing that school, both high school and college, taught me, it is that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do in order to be better off later on. Hopefully you had a parent or two that drilled that into your head where your school let you down.
Why drop out of high school? Because you can teach yourself better.
That won't get you very far in a job interview. If you're not willing to do the bare minimum of what it takes to get through high school, I don't care how smart you are, I don't want you working for me. If I'm an employer looking to hire someone, there's a pretty good chance that they'll be bored to tears at some point with their job. I don't want them skipping out on me just because they have to be amused and entertained the whole time I'm paying them.
The fact is that the vast majority of kids who don't finish high school are pretty stupid. Yes, there are weird exceptions. Yes, I even know at least one. But for every one of them, there are a hundred people who are dumb as doornails who simply give up on it because they lack the self-discipline to see something that is really not that hard through. They're sacrificing their long-term economic health for the short-term gratification of not having to study, take tests, and otherwise jump through the hoops one has to in order to graduate.
A huge contributing factor to our nation's kids' lack of self-discipline is our nation's parents' lack of self-discipline. How many times have we seen parents ignore, or worse, coddle and try to mollify their youngsters who are upset about something, instead of disciplining them? How many times have we read about kids getting kicked off a football team, and the parents raising a ruckus and getting the teacher into trouble for it? Even the best educational system in the world can't do much with that kind of parenting.
We definitely need some tough love, but we're screwed if we expect it to only come from the schools.
What's the Problem With US High Schools?
To answer the original poster's questions:
US parents are more worried about the cushiness of their own lives than the education of their children. Even though my mom was a single working mother, she took time off work to go to the school and talk to my teachers about how I was doing. She came to school plays and such whenever possible. She researched programs like gifted classes and the AP program. She encouraged me to do things like play basketball, join the glee club, join the science club, and play on my school's Scholar's Bowl team, even though it meant taking large chunks of her free time away. Nowadays, when some parents have to take five minutes out of their busy day to talk on the telephone to a teacher, they're just as likely to tell them off for bothering them.
There's a sizable contingent of people in this country that simply want to give up on the thing that made this country great: the public education system. Instead of trying to make the system better, they'd like to get rid of it entirely and let everyone fend for themselves. The rich folks' kids will go to private schools, and the poor folks' kids, well, they don't matter anyway, because they're probably to stupid and/or lazy to learn anything anyway.
US children suffer from an epidemic and acute case of lack of self-discipline. Everything's got to be me, me, me, and it's got to be now, now, now. I don't want to study for that test! I don't want to work on my project! I don't want to read that book! I don't want to be judged relative to my peers, because then I might not feel good about myself!
Gambling and betting services are the second-largest industry in Antigua and Barbuda, after tourism
If the U.S. effectively outlawed the second largest industry in my country but permitted it in its own, yeah, I'd be upset, too. Remember, gambling isn't illegal in the U.S. In fact, neither is online gambling. Betting on horse racing and online gambling within a state is protected under the law that was recently passed.
The problem I have with both partys is that they are forcing morality onto *everyone*.
No, they're not. I'm not even going to dignify this with a response; plenty enough good ones have been posted already, and you're being really stupid in saying this.
The government has taken a religious concept (marriage) and usurped it and is now trying to force a definition onto everyone.
Government did this long ago when they gave a special legal status, along with certain rights, privileges, and responsibilities to couples that are married. I hate to burst your bubble, but marriage is not just a religious concept, and since it has legal implications, you cannot discriminate based on gender because of it. It's only a matter of time before all of these state laws banning same-sex marriage get struck down as unConstitutional, and I, as someone who is as straight as straight gets, will be very happy when that day comes.
Which is why I say the government should not do anything with marriage, as it's a religious concept and should only have civil unions.
You seriously have that big a problem with the word "marriage" being applied to gay people and want the phrase "civil union" to be used instead? That's fine with me. Let's completely remove the concept of people being married from the government and adopt civil unions for everyone. Whether it's two men, two women, or a man and a woman, you don't get "married," you get civilly united. (If you want to have a fancy church ceremony and call it a marriage for religious significance, go for it. I don't care.) People who are civilly united are for all legal purposes equivalent to what they are considered "married" today. Under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, this should be a federal law that would completely abolish marriage as a legal relationship in all states, and allow any two consenting adults who want to have a civil union, period.
I didn't say that all Republicans are stupid. In fact, I know some very bright Republicans. And believe it or not, most of them are actually really nice people. How does one account for this? Several reasons:
- They're Republican because they think that the Republican party has their social, religious, or ethical values in common with them, and that's more important to them than their economic well-being. Religion in particular is insidious for this characteristic. If God supposedly tells you that gays shouldn't get married, then it doesn't matter what the economic future of this country will be like; that trumps everything. Personally, I disagree with most of these people's values and beliefs, but we usually still get along because unlike most of them, I don't go trying to impose my own values on them.
- They're well off and have either only vague notions or no notion at all of what it's like to be poor. A lot of these folks are the middle-aged or old folks who lived in a time when there was upward mobility for the middle-class; when hard work and thriftiness really did pay off. These are typically the "I don't understand why poor people don't just pull themselves up by their bootstraps" Republicans, because when they were growing up, that was actually possible. They are against funding things like public education, public transportation, welfare, Medicaid, and so on, because they think that almost all poor people are poor because they're lazy or stupid, and we shouldn't have to pay to try to help them.
- They're ignorant of politics and economics. Not necessarily stupid, but they don't understand how government works, who's responsible for what, and what consequences are a result of what causes. These are the folks who can't name their own senators and representatives (Chambliss, Isakson, and Linder, at least those are mine). They have no idea who the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is (Roberts, so you don't have to look it up). They don't take the time to understand simple things such as how much we pay every year in interest on Reagan's and Bush's national credit card ($406 billion in 2006).
I'm sure there are other reasons, too. If you're a Republican for reasons that have to do with your beliefs or values, then although I probably disagree with you on that front too, at least I can understand where you're coming from. If you're a Republican for economic reasons because you're well off, then I think it's a little cold to stick it to the poor and middle-class folks out here, but at least I can understand where you're coming from. If you're a Republican because that's what your mom and dad are and you don't want to take the time out of your busy schedule to actually research what the differences in the parties are or believe that it really doesn't matter, then I think you're naive and a little misguided, but at least I can understand where you're coming from.
But if, on the other hand, you're poor or middle-class and you're a Republican because you think that their fiscal beliefs are sound and/or that the Republican party is capable of raising the general standard of living in this country through their economic policies, then yeah, I'm sorry it offends you, but I really do think you're pretty dumb.
In reality, the vast majority of people who identify themselves as aligning with the Republican Party do so because of economic reasons not social policies.
This is patently untrue. Did you see the exit polls for this election? It was all about two things: 1) The war in Iraq/Terrorism (which are, thanks to the Republicans, the same thing now and much worse than either were before), and 2) Corruption.
Did you see the exit polls from the last election? The number one issue back then was "moral values."
The Republicans have a history of fiscal irresponsibilities. The two presidents who hold the record for running our deficit up are, you guessed it, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. They also have a history of passing legislation that is great for corporations and rich folks, but bad for the average schmoes and poor people. You know that booming economy we keep hearing about? Guess who's getting all of that money. Yup, corporations and the generally rich folks who own them.
The majority of Republicans aren't rich, they're middle-class folks who like to think, and who the Republicans have told, that they'll be rich someday, or at the very least, they'll be pretty much where they are now. They're betting their current economic situation on a brighter future, and for most of them, that doesn't come true. (These are the same folks who go out and charge up their personal debt to their eyeballs because today doesn't matter and the future is just a vague notion.)
So why would they take a gamble like that? Because the Republicans are packaging a nice and tidy message that these folks want to hear with their "family values" and morality speeches. They're telling these middle-class folks not to worry about economics, because what really matters is not allowing gays to get married, "pre-born" babies to be killed, and so on. The sad truth is that most Americans aren't content to just live and let live, but want their morality and beliefs imposed on others, and their message sells really well.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have to suffer having other people's morality and beliefs imposed on us while we get downsized and outsourced and take jobs with pay cuts, while we lose our health insurance and retirement benefits, while we get raises that don't keep up with the cost of living, and while our country's financial foray into the red numbers just keeps getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
I'm sorry, but anyone who is a Republican for economic reasons is either 1) very well off or 2) pretty damn stupid.
Not a bad idea. If you play your cards right, a year's worth of lots of income now is worth several years of retirement later, at which time you can program all of the Perl you want to for whatever pet projects you desire, with a commute time of however long it takes you get roll out of bed and plop down in your favorite comfy chair.
Plus, if you had to program in Perl for your job, would it really be as fun a hobby for you as it is now? I generally find that as soon as I have to do fun things so that I can eat, they become much less fun.:-( As long as the.NET job isn't miserable, I'd go with it.
Will the U.S. lose control of the Internet? One can hope.
I don't know where this insane notion came from that the U.S. is capable of governing the Internet any better than the world community at large. In case you haven't been watching the news, we can barely govern ourselves right now.
The U.S. has a fine history of coming up with a really nifty idea and developing it to the point that it's useful, and then totally screwing it up to the point that someone else has to come in dominate the market in that particular field. Witness the auto industry. Or computer chip manufacturing. Or cell phones. Or videogames. Or more recently, programming.
Also, if I were another country, I'd be mad as hell that certain parts of my industry are completely and utterly under the control of another country. Witness what's been going on with Spamhaus. Also, check out how our own leaders react when someone like, oh I don't know, Sadam Hussein starts threatening to impact the availability of our oil resources.
So go ahead and mod me a troll or baiter of the flame if you have to, but it doesn't change that it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world stands up to the big bad U.S. and says, "Enough." And frankly, speaking as an American, even I think that that's a good thing.
Bullshit, I hear this load of FUD a lot. Show me some numbers.
Everything I've ever read and personally experienced says that popular or not, Linux and its applications are, generally speaking, much harder to crack and exploit, and when they are, patches are rolled out almost instantaneously. Impossible to crack? No. But Microsoft's software (Windows, IE, IIS, etc.) is notoriously full of holes to the point of people just giving up and thinking that having adware and viruses on their systems is normal.
In the meantime, chew on this empirical observation. Microsoft's IIS isn't the market leader in web servers, Apache is. Yet for some weird reason, I constantly hear about IIS compromises and hardly ever see anything about Apache exploits.
Also, chew on this nugget of obviousness. When a security hole is found in an open-source OS or application, typically it's easy to find because the source code is right there for everyone to see. When a security hole is found in a closed-source OS or application, there's a pretty good chance that you'll never know as malicious hackers and crackers quietly go about exploiting it on your systems. Even if it's revealed, you're completely at the mercy of the developer, who may not even acknowledge that the hole exists as the world burns down, and who may or may not be inclined enough to rate it as a priority to fix.
If Linux was the most popular OS, we would be blaming it today for botnets and uncontrollable zombies.
Fine, keep encouraging people to use that other quaint little OS that we know is rife with vulnerabilities, and compounding the problems with exploits out there, and rationalizing it by saying that maybe things would be just as bad in a Linux world. As for me, I'll take my chances and try to get everyone I can to use Linux, and encourage OSS developers to continue making their software as user-friendly as possible.
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The Word proprietary format is a lot different.
For one thing, people didn't have a choice between the Word proprietary format and another format that was agreed upon by the rest of the word processing industry. People only had a choice between the proprietary Word format and the proprietary WordPerfect format. Picking one over the other didn't really make much difference.
Second of all, early versions of Word were rather handily compatible with opening WordPerfect documents, so if one chose the proprietary Word format, they weren't locking themselves out of other formats as well.
Third of all, it's not like there aren't other formats out there that people use. For document publication, I think that HTML and Adobe's PDF formats are way more popular. People chose the Word proprietary format mostly for using their own proprietary software.
Fourth of all, after all these years, we're finally seeing an effort to create a new non-proprietary format for documents to be saved and loaded in. It's just going to take a little while for it to catch on and get popular since other formats have had a couple of decades of head start.
How many ways are there to say it? Sony is stupid.
You would think it would learn from its mistakes. It tried to push out its proprietary format with Betamax, and it failed miserably. (I know, I know, "superior format" and all that, but it doesn't change the fact that VHS won the battle of the formats in consumers' living rooms.) It tried to push out its proprietary format with the MiniDisc, and it failed miserably. It tried to push out its proprietary format with UMD, and it failed miserably. Now, it is trying to push out its proprietary format with Blu-ray.
How many miserable failures is it going to take for Sony to realize something that, at least to me, is pretty freakin' obvious and stupidly simple: people do not want to get locked into proprietary formats controlled by one company. The thing that's so maddening is that when Sony does embrace non-proprietary formats, they have wild success. Their Walkman products sold like there was no tomorrow. Their CD and DVD consumer electronics have always been well-respected.
It's more than a little ironic, I think, that while Sony is trying desperately to convince people that they should be buying a PS3 for the Blu-ray drive, in fact, people are avoiding the PS3 specifically because of the Blu-ray drive! I mean, I don't know many people who actively don't want a Blu-ray drive, but it is definitely, at least indirectly, responsible for their woes:
I could go on listing items, but you get my point. Everyone that said and signed on with, "I have an idea, let's use the PS3 as a launching platform for Blu-ray!" should be fired, because they just don't get it. People will buy a game console that happens to also play movies, but they're not going to be force-fed a whole new movie format just to own it. And I may end up eating crow for saying it if history proves me wrong, but I think that when all is said and done, people are really going to resent Sony imposing such a high premium on their gaming for something that has nothing to do with gaming. I really think that five or ten years from now, people are going to look at Sony's die-hard pushing of Blu-ray at the expense of its consoles as the thing that killed its dominance in the gaming console market.
It's too bad, too. Nintendo, while clever, just isn't set up to own the hardcore gamer market. And while I'm not big fan of Sony, I'm certainly not a big fan of Microsoft, either. Still, it looks like Sony is bound and determined to hand Microsoft the console victory crown on a silver platter with this foolishness.
I doubt that the drive is proprietary, but the encasement it's in looks like it is. I haven't really investigated, I'm not sure what would be involved in doing that. You might have to rig up your own interface, or at the very least, something to physically attach it to your Xbox.
For what it's worth, if you want an Xbox 360, you can now get a $100 rebate on either system (core or pro) if you buy it in a Micro Center store, and at least my Micro Center (and I suspect most Micro Centers) had plenty in stock, like 50 or so of each. No stupid lines, no 300-400% markup on Ebay, no fuss, no muss.
That brings the cost of the core system down to just $200 (cheaper than a Wii!) and the cost of a pro system down to $300.
In my book, people's best bet is to buy an Xbox 360 pro and a Wii for $650, collect the $100 rebate from Micro Center, come out paying $50 less than a PS3 (hey, Xbox Live Gold membership fee!), and not feel like a total idiot when everyone finally realizes how irrelevant Sony is in the console gaming world now. ;-)
Fine, then I'll change it:
Do you have any idea at all how peer-to-peer networks work? For all practical purposes, every downloader is an uploader as well.
Peer-to-peer networks with few uploaders suck. People don't use them. They fail miserably, and people go back to using the ones where everyone shares again.
Your original comment made it sound like the **AA is chasing down just a few rogue pirates who are the big-time offenders. That's not the case at all. They're chasing down anyone and everyone; downloaders, uploaders, average schmoes, parents, 14-year-old kids, dead people, employers, people who have never owned computers,...
Do you have any idea at all how peer-to-peer networks work? Every downloader is an uploader as well.
There's nothing clever, fiendishly or otherwise, about their plan. It's really stupidly simple: sue enough people so that word gets around that if you download music, you'll be sued. Then people will (theoretically) stop downloading music.
The problem with their stupidly simple plan is that it's not working. Why? Among other reasons:
I'm sorry, but "clever" is not an adjective that I would apply to any company associated with the **AA. Fiendish? Yeah, I can live with that one.
No, it's not. As I posted above, the reason I brought it up is because the author of the article implied that he has the skill to fix at least one of the bugs that he's complaining about. While I agree that he's under no obligation to do so if he doesn't want to, I also think it's extremely bad form to sit around complaining that no one else will.
*shrugs*
Looks pretty good to me, and it seems to work pretty well. Is there anything in particular that you find messy?
The reason I brought it up is because the author of the article implied that he has the skill to fix at least one of the bugs that he's complaining about. While I agree that he's under no obligation to do so if he doesn't want to, I also think it's extremely bad form to sit around complaining that no one else will.
Here, allow me to post a short summary of the article to save you some time:
I think the new theme and start page is ugly, and there are a few weird bugs that haven't been fixed yet, and they haven't implemented a feature I want in a way that I want it. Therefore, it sucks.- Don't like the default theme that comes with Firefox? Go get another that you like better. Don't like the first run page? Who cares? You only see it one time!
Last time I checked, Firefox was still open source software. If they're not fixing bugs fast enough for your liking, by all means, download the source and fix them yourself. That's not meant as a smart-ass excuse for not fixing a bug, but the article's author says:
No, the best way to help is to go through the source and fix the bug! Don't talk about it, do it, and solve everyone's problem with having it!
- The feature the author wants implemented better is an RSS feed reader. I have some news for you: it's supposed to be a basic implementation that gives you the bare essentials. If you want one with bells and whistles, go get an extension that suits your needs better. This isn't a sign that Firefox has lost its way, its a sign that it's principles haven't changed much at all.
- Last, but not least, I'm not sure what the author of this article is proposing we all do. Switch to IE7 or Opera? Yeah, that will help the open source community.
Point is, while Firefox 2.0 was never pitched as the last version of Firefox that we'll ever need as a result of its attaining perfection. Personally, I wish that they would fix the bug that causes only the first page of web pages with absolutely positioned elements to be printed. I wish I had the skill to fix it myself; I would if I could. But I'm sure they're working on it, it doesn't change the fact that Firefox 2.0 is, in my humble opinion, the best damn browser out there right now, and the last thing I'm going to do is undercut the extraordinary efforts of its developers and contributors by posting a whiny blog entry about how because there are still a few things I don't like about it, it's somehow "lost its way somewhere."
Sheez. Talk about ungrateful.
You're just as good as anyone to ask, I suppose.
Why is it exactly that I'm being punished for the sin of my ancestors? Why can't I just say, "Listen, God, I'm sorry Adam and Eve screwed up, but put me in the garden and make me innocent and protected; I'll behave!
Isn't me being punished for Adam's and Eve's sin a little bit like throwing a guy in jail because his father, a man who he's never seen or met and who died before he was born, once robbed a bank? Is that really the kind of god we want to believe in?
So what's your answer, then? Tell kids that it's okay to drop out?
I have a weird idea. How about trying to make things better instead of just giving up on the education of our youth?
Grades are not just letters on a piece of paper. Somehow, I managed to pick this little tidbit up before getting out of high school, and I don't know many kids, even the ones who do badly in school, who don't know it. There's a direct correlation between grades and later economic success, and most decent parents manage to translate this into more concrete terms that kids, almost all of whom are delightfully stupid, can understand. When I was young, my mom would pay me based on how good my grades were. She used to say, "Good grades are money in the bank. You'll earn scholarships for college, and once you're out in the working world, you'll make a lot more." She was so very right, and to make the point that good grades are money in the bank, she tied it to my allowance, so it was literally money in my bank.
If I made D's or F's, I would be punished. I wouldn't get to hang out with my friends on weekends. I couldn't watch television. I had to go to bed earlier. I got my neat-o toys taken away from me.
She wasn't a slave driver, though. She never punished me for not making A's or B's, and I was anything but a straight A student. But I did pretty well, I earned a high school and college diploma, and her lessons about education are among the most valuable things I ever learned from her: If you do well in school, you'll be rewarded for it throughout life. If you do poorly, you shouldn't whine about how lousy your life is, because it's your own damned fault.
And the point is, grades were not just letters on pieces of paper to me, and they most certainly won't just be letters on pieces of paper to my kids, either.
This isn't true. If you mean drop out of high school, then look again at the stats of high school graduates versus high school dropouts. Even if you don't go to college, there's definitely a meaningful jump in quality of life. And those who have gone to some classes consistently do better as well over those who simply stopped after high school.
Also, if you're willing to do the schoolwork, I can't think of any financial reason one couldn't manage to get into college. Between financial aid, loans, and work-study programs, not only did I get into college, but I actually managed to make money while I was there. (Not income, mind you, I had to pay a lot of that money back; but enough to pay for my room and board and even go see a movie now and then.)
And while I'm at it, I might as well point out how stupid this comment is. $6,000 is a HUGE step up within the groups that you're talking about. From $21,332 to $27,351 represents more than a 28% increase. I don't know about you, but if I thought I could get a 28% raise, I'd jump through a lot of hoops.
Also, it might be worth pointing out that this divides out to a little over $500 a month. Hell, even though this is less than a tenth of what I'm making right now, even as an absolute number instead of a percentage, I'd love to have an extra $500 a month!
Last, but not least, you're forgetting that this is per year. Let's see what kind of affect this "measly" $6000 has over the course of an average working lifetime, say, from the age of 18 to 65. $6,000 a year, compounded monthly at 4% interest (assuming you just tuck it away in a safe savings account or CD) over 47 years comes to... um... over $830 thousand! For someone making only $21,332 a year, that's a really nice nest egg for doing nothing other than sticking it out and getting their high school diploma! Just the interest (at 4%) alone on this $33,200. Your income would actually go up by over 50%, and you wouldn't even need to touch the money you've put away!
So tell me again how "measly" $6,000 a year is? Especially to someone making $21,332?
P.S. If that same person goes an extra four years to college and earns a degree and stays as frugal as they were, tucking away the extra money, they'll have almost two and a half million dollars at age 65 instead due to the measly $21,545 of extra income per year that the average college graduate makes over his or her high school dropout friend.
I never said that people who don't finish high school are incapable of doing anything, I said that generally speaking, they're stupid, and that there are exceptions to the rule.
Also, what exactly are you trying to imply here? That high school or college dropouts are more likely to be able to write perl scripts? Around four months ago, I had never used perl in my life, and I got an assignment that happened to require it. It was such a quick project that I didn't even bother with the books, I looked up some tutorials on the Internet and within a couple of weeks, it was done, an error-prone process at my workplace was automated, and I got lots of nifty kudos. And (gasp!) I actually have a college degree! A nifty-looking piece of paper hanging on my home office wall, as a matter of fact, that says according to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, I'm considered at least somewhat competent in the field of Computer Science.
I didn't learn perl at UAB. But you know what I did learn? I learned how to approach a programming project like that and see it through. And yes, I even learned some of the concepts the underlie all programming languages in some of my classes there.
You know what else I learned? In some of my advanced classes, I learned how to do some pretty hairy mathematical manipulations of numbers to discover interesting things. I probably could have picked it up on my own if I wanted to, but honestly, I doubt I would have. At the time, it all seemed to be the kind of high-level stuff that I'd never use again, but I jumped through their hoops and pounded it into my brain well enough to get an A and retain it all of these years. Now, I'm working on another project that uses some of those skills, and to most of the other folks who work with me, it just seems like black magic, yet my forecasts are right on target, much better than anything that they've had before.
I'm also working on a pet project here at home, a web site for a game I'm playing. It's delved into some really high-level image manipulation, stuff that is making me extremely happy that I was a math geek in high school and that I know algebra and trigonometry like the back of my hand. If I hadn't jumped through the hoops of learning the stuff backwards and forwards when my mom made me go to high school over my vehement protests, there's no way I could even start to work on this stuff, and while I might still be happy today, I wouldn't be able to do half of the stuff that I think is cool.
Have you ever considered the possibility that even though you're happy, you'll never really know what you're missing out on or how successful you could have been given your skills and knowledge if you had just stuck it out a few more years? That because you were arrogant and thought that you were above college, that you gave up being decades ahead of where you are now because you didn't want to be bored for a few years when you were a kid?
Okay, so what's your point? That kids aren't responsible for the choices they make? That it's all the fault of the corporations, the government, and lousy parents?
I could actually agree with that to some point, but it doesn't change the fact that regardless of what values corporations, government, and lousy parents instill in kids, they are the ones who will ultimately be held accountable for their decisions. At some point along the way before they turn 18 and are let loose upon the world, they've got to decide for themselves what is important and what isn't. We can blame everyone in the world if we want to, and working for change in those areas is certainly worth pursuing, but unless we also blame the kids—and we teach them principles such as self-discipline and long-term planning—things will continue to get worse and worse.
Yes, it is. Period. No other objective factor determines the liklihood of someone's financial success as much as education does. Maybe you think that financial success doesn't equate to happiness, but in the real world, the more well-off one is generally determines how happy one is. I could quote crime rates, drug use statistics, abuse statistics, life expectancies, divorce rates, and so on compared with income, but I'm hoping that it's pretty obvious what the picture is like.
Well, now you're starting to get it. An important part of high school and college that these "I don't need it" types neglect is what it teaches you other than the book knowledge that anyone can pick up without going to classes. Stuff like how to learn, how to study, how to work with others, and yes, how to jump through hoops when necessary.
Would I hire someone who doesn't have a college degree? Probably, depending on what job I need them for and (more importantly) their level of experience and their track record in doing what I need them to do. All other things being equal, though, I'll pick the college graduate over the college dropout. Why? Because presumably, I'll need someone with the ability to see things through, even if they sometimes get bored with it; someone who's not only willing to do the cool stuff, but who's also willing to jump through the hoops to get the job done. As for someone without a high school diploma? Not a chance. If you don't have the self-discipline or patience to even finish high school, then I have zero confidence in your ability to perform any but the most menial of tasks. Maaaaybe if I've known you for years and have personal knowledge of your work ethic and intelligence, and maaaaybe if there's something particularly striking in your work history that would change my mind, but seriously? I think not.
Dude, please tell me that you're not calling dropping out of high school "the fast track to success." If so, then you have to also believe that drinking cyanide is "the fast track to living long." Please tell me that you don't seriously consider dropping out getting "a head start in the work force." If so, then I'm not sure what to say, except that every single statistic proves you wrong. This is a fact that is accepted by pretty much everyone, and I defy you to show me any sort of study or statistic that indicates that the lives of high school dropouts in general are better by any single measure than the lives of those who get a high school diploma, or that the lives of college dropouts in gener
There's just so much wrong with this that I don't know where to start.
To some degree, yes. But finishing college is much harder than finishing high school. I'm sorry if this offends you, but the vast majority of people who don't finish high school are just plain stupid. There are exceptions; a small minority of students have some sort of mental problem that keeps them from understanding the material (and mental problem != stupid), some of them leave for concern about their own safety, some leave because their family is in poverty and they have to work for food, and so on. But like I said, these are weird exceptions. Most people who don't finish high school don't because they're stupid.
Yes, as a matter of fact, this is a well-established fact. Here are some statistics to back that up. On average, college graduates make more than twice as much as people who don't finish high school.
So? I do to, what's your point? That basing your opinions on weird exceptions instead of the rule is a good thing? That just because Michael Jordan has more money than he knows what to do with, I should tell my kids to forget all that stupid studying, they should be playing basketball instead? That doesn't sound very smart to me at all.
Businesses that operate mostly with short-term goals in mind tend to blow up in pretty spectacular fashion. Witness Enron and the dot-com demise. So do most people. Witness day-traders and steroid abusers. As for the government, that's why a lot of things are so screwed up these days. Witness global warming and our dependence on oil. This is an attitude to be discouraged, both in our personal lives and in the bigger picture, not encouraged. If you don't feel that way, then I feel sorry for you, and I especially feel sorry for any kids you might pass your warped view of reality on to.
But hey, good luck, and who knows? Maybe you'll be the next Bill Gates. (But if you didn't finish high school, I really doubt it.)
Then you were failing at something that school is also supposed to teach you along with reading, writing, and 'rithmetic: Self-discipline. If there's one thing that school, both high school and college, taught me, it is that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do in order to be better off later on. Hopefully you had a parent or two that drilled that into your head where your school let you down.
That won't get you very far in a job interview. If you're not willing to do the bare minimum of what it takes to get through high school, I don't care how smart you are, I don't want you working for me. If I'm an employer looking to hire someone, there's a pretty good chance that they'll be bored to tears at some point with their job. I don't want them skipping out on me just because they have to be amused and entertained the whole time I'm paying them.
The fact is that the vast majority of kids who don't finish high school are pretty stupid. Yes, there are weird exceptions. Yes, I even know at least one. But for every one of them, there are a hundred people who are dumb as doornails who simply give up on it because they lack the self-discipline to see something that is really not that hard through. They're sacrificing their long-term economic health for the short-term gratification of not having to study, take tests, and otherwise jump through the hoops one has to in order to graduate.
A huge contributing factor to our nation's kids' lack of self-discipline is our nation's parents' lack of self-discipline. How many times have we seen parents ignore, or worse, coddle and try to mollify their youngsters who are upset about something, instead of disciplining them? How many times have we read about kids getting kicked off a football team, and the parents raising a ruckus and getting the teacher into trouble for it? Even the best educational system in the world can't do much with that kind of parenting.
We definitely need some tough love, but we're screwed if we expect it to only come from the schools.
To answer the original poster's questions:
From the second FA:
If the U.S. effectively outlawed the second largest industry in my country but permitted it in its own, yeah, I'd be upset, too. Remember, gambling isn't illegal in the U.S. In fact, neither is online gambling. Betting on horse racing and online gambling within a state is protected under the law that was recently passed.
No, they're not. I'm not even going to dignify this with a response; plenty enough good ones have been posted already, and you're being really stupid in saying this.
Government did this long ago when they gave a special legal status, along with certain rights, privileges, and responsibilities to couples that are married. I hate to burst your bubble, but marriage is not just a religious concept, and since it has legal implications, you cannot discriminate based on gender because of it. It's only a matter of time before all of these state laws banning same-sex marriage get struck down as unConstitutional, and I, as someone who is as straight as straight gets, will be very happy when that day comes.
You seriously have that big a problem with the word "marriage" being applied to gay people and want the phrase "civil union" to be used instead? That's fine with me. Let's completely remove the concept of people being married from the government and adopt civil unions for everyone. Whether it's two men, two women, or a man and a woman, you don't get "married," you get civilly united. (If you want to have a fancy church ceremony and call it a marriage for religious significance, go for it. I don't care.) People who are civilly united are for all legal purposes equivalent to what they are considered "married" today. Under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, this should be a federal law that would completely abolish marriage as a legal relationship in all states, and allow any two consenting adults who want to have a civil union, period.
I didn't say that all Republicans are stupid. In fact, I know some very bright Republicans. And believe it or not, most of them are actually really nice people. How does one account for this? Several reasons:
- They're Republican because they think that the Republican party has their social, religious, or ethical values in common with them, and that's more important to them than their economic well-being. Religion in particular is insidious for this characteristic. If God supposedly tells you that gays shouldn't get married, then it doesn't matter what the economic future of this country will be like; that trumps everything. Personally, I disagree with most of these people's values and beliefs, but we usually still get along because unlike most of them, I don't go trying to impose my own values on them.
- They're well off and have either only vague notions or no notion at all of what it's like to be poor. A lot of these folks are the middle-aged or old folks who lived in a time when there was upward mobility for the middle-class; when hard work and thriftiness really did pay off. These are typically the "I don't understand why poor people don't just pull themselves up by their bootstraps" Republicans, because when they were growing up, that was actually possible. They are against funding things like public education, public transportation, welfare, Medicaid, and so on, because they think that almost all poor people are poor because they're lazy or stupid, and we shouldn't have to pay to try to help them.
- They're ignorant of politics and economics. Not necessarily stupid, but they don't understand how government works, who's responsible for what, and what consequences are a result of what causes. These are the folks who can't name their own senators and representatives (Chambliss, Isakson, and Linder, at least those are mine). They have no idea who the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is (Roberts, so you don't have to look it up). They don't take the time to understand simple things such as how much we pay every year in interest on Reagan's and Bush's national credit card ($406 billion in 2006).
I'm sure there are other reasons, too. If you're a Republican for reasons that have to do with your beliefs or values, then although I probably disagree with you on that front too, at least I can understand where you're coming from. If you're a Republican for economic reasons because you're well off, then I think it's a little cold to stick it to the poor and middle-class folks out here, but at least I can understand where you're coming from. If you're a Republican because that's what your mom and dad are and you don't want to take the time out of your busy schedule to actually research what the differences in the parties are or believe that it really doesn't matter, then I think you're naive and a little misguided, but at least I can understand where you're coming from.
But if, on the other hand, you're poor or middle-class and you're a Republican because you think that their fiscal beliefs are sound and/or that the Republican party is capable of raising the general standard of living in this country through their economic policies, then yeah, I'm sorry it offends you, but I really do think you're pretty dumb.
This is patently untrue. Did you see the exit polls for this election? It was all about two things: 1) The war in Iraq/Terrorism (which are, thanks to the Republicans, the same thing now and much worse than either were before), and 2) Corruption.
Did you see the exit polls from the last election? The number one issue back then was "moral values."
The Republicans have a history of fiscal irresponsibilities. The two presidents who hold the record for running our deficit up are, you guessed it, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. They also have a history of passing legislation that is great for corporations and rich folks, but bad for the average schmoes and poor people. You know that booming economy we keep hearing about? Guess who's getting all of that money. Yup, corporations and the generally rich folks who own them.
The majority of Republicans aren't rich, they're middle-class folks who like to think, and who the Republicans have told, that they'll be rich someday, or at the very least, they'll be pretty much where they are now. They're betting their current economic situation on a brighter future, and for most of them, that doesn't come true. (These are the same folks who go out and charge up their personal debt to their eyeballs because today doesn't matter and the future is just a vague notion.)
So why would they take a gamble like that? Because the Republicans are packaging a nice and tidy message that these folks want to hear with their "family values" and morality speeches. They're telling these middle-class folks not to worry about economics, because what really matters is not allowing gays to get married, "pre-born" babies to be killed, and so on. The sad truth is that most Americans aren't content to just live and let live, but want their morality and beliefs imposed on others, and their message sells really well.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have to suffer having other people's morality and beliefs imposed on us while we get downsized and outsourced and take jobs with pay cuts, while we lose our health insurance and retirement benefits, while we get raises that don't keep up with the cost of living, and while our country's financial foray into the red numbers just keeps getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
I'm sorry, but anyone who is a Republican for economic reasons is either 1) very well off or 2) pretty damn stupid.
Not a bad idea. If you play your cards right, a year's worth of lots of income now is worth several years of retirement later, at which time you can program all of the Perl you want to for whatever pet projects you desire, with a commute time of however long it takes you get roll out of bed and plop down in your favorite comfy chair.
Plus, if you had to program in Perl for your job, would it really be as fun a hobby for you as it is now? I generally find that as soon as I have to do fun things so that I can eat, they become much less fun. :-( As long as the .NET job isn't miserable, I'd go with it.
Will the U.S. lose control of the Internet? One can hope.
I don't know where this insane notion came from that the U.S. is capable of governing the Internet any better than the world community at large. In case you haven't been watching the news, we can barely govern ourselves right now.
The U.S. has a fine history of coming up with a really nifty idea and developing it to the point that it's useful, and then totally screwing it up to the point that someone else has to come in dominate the market in that particular field. Witness the auto industry. Or computer chip manufacturing. Or cell phones. Or videogames. Or more recently, programming.
Also, if I were another country, I'd be mad as hell that certain parts of my industry are completely and utterly under the control of another country. Witness what's been going on with Spamhaus. Also, check out how our own leaders react when someone like, oh I don't know, Sadam Hussein starts threatening to impact the availability of our oil resources.
So go ahead and mod me a troll or baiter of the flame if you have to, but it doesn't change that it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world stands up to the big bad U.S. and says, "Enough." And frankly, speaking as an American, even I think that that's a good thing.
Bullshit, I hear this load of FUD a lot. Show me some numbers.
Everything I've ever read and personally experienced says that popular or not, Linux and its applications are, generally speaking, much harder to crack and exploit, and when they are, patches are rolled out almost instantaneously. Impossible to crack? No. But Microsoft's software (Windows, IE, IIS, etc.) is notoriously full of holes to the point of people just giving up and thinking that having adware and viruses on their systems is normal.
In the meantime, chew on this empirical observation. Microsoft's IIS isn't the market leader in web servers, Apache is. Yet for some weird reason, I constantly hear about IIS compromises and hardly ever see anything about Apache exploits.
Also, chew on this nugget of obviousness. When a security hole is found in an open-source OS or application, typically it's easy to find because the source code is right there for everyone to see. When a security hole is found in a closed-source OS or application, there's a pretty good chance that you'll never know as malicious hackers and crackers quietly go about exploiting it on your systems. Even if it's revealed, you're completely at the mercy of the developer, who may not even acknowledge that the hole exists as the world burns down, and who may or may not be inclined enough to rate it as a priority to fix.
Fine, keep encouraging people to use that other quaint little OS that we know is rife with vulnerabilities, and compounding the problems with exploits out there, and rationalizing it by saying that maybe things would be just as bad in a Linux world. As for me, I'll take my chances and try to get everyone I can to use Linux, and encourage OSS developers to continue making their software as user-friendly as possible.