As a former caffeine addict, I would *love* to see some serious studies come out describing the long term consequences to long term caffeine use. Of course, we'll never see that because there's more money behind caffeine than alcohol and tobacco, combined.
"We're talking about a themed desktop with a couple shortcuts to applications which work identically on Windows as they do Linux "
That's a pretty big assumption. I have several Windows only apps that are mission critical.
"As a network/systems administrator, Windows has little to no use left on the desktop any longer."
As a non-administrator, I beg to differ. Linux is a nightmare for average users. Apple is grossly overpriced. All of the important apps run on Windows. Windows is cheap and easy.
As a retailer, this is completely normal. However, if you're a retailer, I can't imagine why you'd walk into a shop to buy something to resell. But, yes, retailers regularly provide this info to vendors. We generally provide a state sales tax exemption that says that we are responsible for collecting sales tax, and often, we have to provide the FEIN. That's totally normal.
Doesn't anybody realize this? They've exhibited it time and time and time again. Why is anybody still bothering to play games with settings and tools and such? Facebook says so in their massive (and growing) privacy statement.
Anything you put in Facebook will become public.
This tool, and every similar tool is a waste of time and effort. If you can imagine or if you can imagine that your grandchildren may not want any information to be public, DO NOT PUT THAT INFORMATION IN FACEBOOK.
I'm amazed that so much of the/. crowd is so oblivious.
No, it won't work. There are enough people out there who will say "Why does this non-existent software company need my money?". This is pretty silly.
1. Why does anybody need hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop software? You're using a computer right now as you read it. Start coding. What's the money thing all about?
2. These people haven't gotten together as a group (that I'm aware of or have ever heard of) and done anything together. Why would I throw money at an unproven group(?) of people?
3. If an idea is good enough, people will expect to make money on a project and want to invest on their own. This guy wants to get free of Facebook control by writing an aggregator that collects Facebook data? This is truly moronic.
Good free, open source software is generally written by a brilliant person or group of people who do it because they can and they want to. Proprietary software will be backed by people expecting to make some kind of return on their investment. This is some horrible mash-up of those two ideas that nobody has managed to think through.
I have a clunker PC running FreeNas in my closet loaded with 1 TB drives. Works like a champ. The PC was free, FreeNas is free, and the drives are $100 each at my local parts store.
Tablets and smartphones and i* are all just toys. No work gets done on these things. Nobody is going to run Quickbooks on an iPhone.
Contrary to "journalists" popular belief, just because their professional is still relatively low-tech (writing) and can actually be done on a wristwatch, these days, doesn't mean that the rest of the world works that way. Those of us who need more than a Gmail account for our actual productive work don't believe for a second that these toys will replace general purpose Windows PC's any time soon.
Our aging power grid is really beginning to show on so many levels that this is going to become a lot more common over the coming years.
That's why Google is locating all of their datacenters near natural power sources and is a registered utility agent whatchamajigger. I think that they agree with you.
"And *you're* qualified to determine what's a massive waste of money?"
I've never had anybody articulate why we need a massive military. Until I hear a single argument other than "Freedom" or "Liberty", I can't believe that there's any point to it besides providing jobs for the unemployable and lining the pockets of Haliburton, KBR, etc. If you have a cogent reason for why we need such a massive military, I'm all ears.
Ah, the old military is only xx% of the budget, argument. Right. Most of the money that we waste on military isn't even IN the budget. It's "discretionary" spending.
Any way you slice it, it's a massive, massive waste of money. We need about 1/10 of our current military to defend the country. All of the wars/invasions that the US has started since WWII have benefited military contractors, and military families. None of them have been of any benefit to the citizens of the US.
"I would hardly call it an 'entitlement' program to give benefits to people that we ask to give up their youngest, healthiest years and spend them slogging through mud, risking their lives; or for their families to have to sit back and wait, wondering if their spouse/parent will come home in one piece, if not alive"
It's voluntary. Nobody is asking anybody to do anything. If they don't want to do it, then they shouldn't sign up. Why people sign up with families, I'll never understand. None of the "wars" that we are involved in are defensive, or even necessary. If enlistment drops by 90%, we'll still be able to DEFEND the country just fine.
"One important point that Gates misses is that military personnel and civilian employees of the military often have much lower salaries than the equivalent private sector positions."
Let's not forget that military people don't have to pay for food, clothing, or shelter. That makes the vast majority of their salaries disposable income.
"t does not even mean the military need become weaker as a result."
So what if it does? The US already has the most powerful military in the world by an order of magnitude. What do we need all of this "power" for, anyway? We haven't had a real threat to the US since WWII.
We, the US taxpayers, pay for not only the health care of soldiers, but their families, as well. There's simply no reason for us to do so, when so many other people in the US don't have healthcare. The soldiers are great, and all that rah-rah-rah stuff, but come on. The military is the largest entitlement program in the country. We can't continue to pay for entire military families, especially when the vast majority of our military isn't even productive. It's unsutainable and a complete waste of money.
"Stock should (big should) represent the value of a company based on its market value. If a company's doing good, its stock should be valuable because it's backed by the market strength of the company represented."
Unfortunately, stock prices are completely, totally, 100% disconnected from the company that the shares supposedly represent. Stock prices are ONLY reflective of what investors are willing to pay for those shares. In other words, it's just legalized gambling on a very very large scale.
Why do environmental groups get upset by paper? Paper is a very renewable resource. Trees get cut down, and grow back. When I'm done with it, it rots (I happen to compost mine). With this computer I'm typing on, rare metals had to be mined to make it, and when I'm done with it, it sits around for at least a few thousand years (or more?). I have no problem with paper.
It's foolish to tie one's livelihood to something like Twitter. Not only is there the "walled garden" argument, but there's the much more obvious problem: Twitter is a fad and won't be around for very long. Who is Twitter kidding? Not only are they a cheesy fad, but they're a completely unprofitable cheesy fad. Sooner rather than later, Twitter will be relegated to Napster/Friendster/MySpace status (broke and devoid of legitimate users), and any developer who've hitched their star to Twitter will be left in a lurch.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. I'm going to get some to put next to my radioactive Fiestaware and cadmium laced Miley Cyrus jewelry.
As a former caffeine addict, I would *love* to see some serious studies come out describing the long term consequences to long term caffeine use. Of course, we'll never see that because there's more money behind caffeine than alcohol and tobacco, combined.
"We're talking about a themed desktop with a couple shortcuts to applications which work identically on Windows as they do Linux " That's a pretty big assumption. I have several Windows only apps that are mission critical.
"As a network/systems administrator, Windows has little to no use left on the desktop any longer."
As a non-administrator, I beg to differ. Linux is a nightmare for average users. Apple is grossly overpriced. All of the important apps run on Windows. Windows is cheap and easy.
Why do all of you Facebook bitches still use it? It's like Facebook is an abusive husband, and y'all just keep going back again and again.
As a retailer, this is completely normal. However, if you're a retailer, I can't imagine why you'd walk into a shop to buy something to resell. But, yes, retailers regularly provide this info to vendors. We generally provide a state sales tax exemption that says that we are responsible for collecting sales tax, and often, we have to provide the FEIN. That's totally normal.
Anything you put in Facebook will become public.
/. crowd is so oblivious.
Doesn't anybody realize this? They've exhibited it time and time and time again. Why is anybody still bothering to play games with settings and tools and such? Facebook says so in their massive (and growing) privacy statement.
Anything you put in Facebook will become public.
This tool, and every similar tool is a waste of time and effort. If you can imagine or if you can imagine that your grandchildren may not want any information to be public, DO NOT PUT THAT INFORMATION IN FACEBOOK.
I'm amazed that so much of the
"what would be the negative effects?"
Of a nuclear bomb? Really? Are you kidding? Ask the residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima if you honestly don't know.
I will write Facebook's replacement. Really. I mean it. I will. Please send me money.
No, it won't work. There are enough people out there who will say "Why does this non-existent software company need my money?". This is pretty silly.
1. Why does anybody need hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop software? You're using a computer right now as you read it. Start coding. What's the money thing all about?
2. These people haven't gotten together as a group (that I'm aware of or have ever heard of) and done anything together. Why would I throw money at an unproven group(?) of people?
3. If an idea is good enough, people will expect to make money on a project and want to invest on their own. This guy wants to get free of Facebook control by writing an aggregator that collects Facebook data? This is truly moronic.
Good free, open source software is generally written by a brilliant person or group of people who do it because they can and they want to. Proprietary software will be backed by people expecting to make some kind of return on their investment. This is some horrible mash-up of those two ideas that nobody has managed to think through.
Online access only? Are you kidding? That locks out just about every brick-and-mortar business.
Besides, why would you choose to do a bank instead of a credit union?
It's nice that you'd like to contribute, but you need to learn a bit more about how banking works, first.
I have a clunker PC running FreeNas in my closet loaded with 1 TB drives. Works like a champ. The PC was free, FreeNas is free, and the drives are $100 each at my local parts store.
Tablets and smartphones and i* are all just toys. No work gets done on these things. Nobody is going to run Quickbooks on an iPhone.
Contrary to "journalists" popular belief, just because their professional is still relatively low-tech (writing) and can actually be done on a wristwatch, these days, doesn't mean that the rest of the world works that way. Those of us who need more than a Gmail account for our actual productive work don't believe for a second that these toys will replace general purpose Windows PC's any time soon.
Our aging power grid is really beginning to show on so many levels that this is going to become a lot more common over the coming years.
That's why Google is locating all of their datacenters near natural power sources and is a registered utility agent whatchamajigger. I think that they agree with you.
"And *you're* qualified to determine what's a massive waste of money?"
I've never had anybody articulate why we need a massive military. Until I hear a single argument other than "Freedom" or "Liberty", I can't believe that there's any point to it besides providing jobs for the unemployable and lining the pockets of Haliburton, KBR, etc. If you have a cogent reason for why we need such a massive military, I'm all ears.
"show me how we could defend our borders"
Defend it from, who, exactly? The boogeyman? Oh wait... now the military calls them "evildoers".
Ah, the old military is only xx% of the budget, argument. Right. Most of the money that we waste on military isn't even IN the budget. It's "discretionary" spending.
Any way you slice it, it's a massive, massive waste of money. We need about 1/10 of our current military to defend the country. All of the wars/invasions that the US has started since WWII have benefited military contractors, and military families. None of them have been of any benefit to the citizens of the US.
"I would hardly call it an 'entitlement' program to give benefits to people that we ask to give up their youngest, healthiest years and spend them slogging through mud, risking their lives; or for their families to have to sit back and wait, wondering if their spouse/parent will come home in one piece, if not alive"
It's voluntary. Nobody is asking anybody to do anything. If they don't want to do it, then they shouldn't sign up. Why people sign up with families, I'll never understand. None of the "wars" that we are involved in are defensive, or even necessary. If enlistment drops by 90%, we'll still be able to DEFEND the country just fine.
"One important point that Gates misses is that military personnel and civilian employees of the military often have much lower salaries than the equivalent private sector positions."
Let's not forget that military people don't have to pay for food, clothing, or shelter. That makes the vast majority of their salaries disposable income.
"t does not even mean the military need become weaker as a result."
So what if it does? The US already has the most powerful military in the world by an order of magnitude. What do we need all of this "power" for, anyway? We haven't had a real threat to the US since WWII.
We, the US taxpayers, pay for not only the health care of soldiers, but their families, as well. There's simply no reason for us to do so, when so many other people in the US don't have healthcare. The soldiers are great, and all that rah-rah-rah stuff, but come on. The military is the largest entitlement program in the country. We can't continue to pay for entire military families, especially when the vast majority of our military isn't even productive. It's unsutainable and a complete waste of money.
"Stock should (big should) represent the value of a company based on its market value. If a company's doing good, its stock should be valuable because it's backed by the market strength of the company represented."
Unfortunately, stock prices are completely, totally, 100% disconnected from the company that the shares supposedly represent. Stock prices are ONLY reflective of what investors are willing to pay for those shares. In other words, it's just legalized gambling on a very very large scale.
Isn't corporations collaborating to fix prices in the free market an offense?
It used to be...
Why do environmental groups get upset by paper? Paper is a very renewable resource. Trees get cut down, and grow back. When I'm done with it, it rots (I happen to compost mine). With this computer I'm typing on, rare metals had to be mined to make it, and when I'm done with it, it sits around for at least a few thousand years (or more?). I have no problem with paper.
It's foolish to tie one's livelihood to something like Twitter. Not only is there the "walled garden" argument, but there's the much more obvious problem: Twitter is a fad and won't be around for very long. Who is Twitter kidding? Not only are they a cheesy fad, but they're a completely unprofitable cheesy fad. Sooner rather than later, Twitter will be relegated to Napster/Friendster/MySpace status (broke and devoid of legitimate users), and any developer who've hitched their star to Twitter will be left in a lurch.