For someone who claims to read things thoroughly, you don't seem to be very good at it. I also got a fixed-rate loan. I am not having trouble, nor do I anticipate trouble with my loan. My concern is not for myself, but for those who were defrauded.
To some extent, the 'victims' include the banks that were defrauded by mortgage brokers. However, the banks knew what practices would have constituted due diligence, and decided instead to roll the dice. Issuing NINA (no-income, no-assets) loans was a strong, obvious, bone-headed invitation to fraud. Is your average prospective homeowner such an expert?
they have these people you can hire, called lawyers
Do these 'lawyers' independently verify that your income is as stated (mortgage brokers were overstating applicant income, or even using no-income loans where they didn't have to state the applicants income)? Do they analyze your income and liabilities and tell you whether you can really afford the loan that you are applying for? Do they independently verify the assessed value of your house (since many inspectors were colluding with the mortgage brokers)? Do they give you a legally accurate 100-word summary, in language that someone with only a high-school diploma can understand, of the entire 400-page document stack? Or do they only verify that the documents comply with the law, and with accepted industry practices? 'Cause the accepted practices are the heart of the problem.
Poor innocent borrowers that had loans forced down their throat. Give me a break.
So when you pit an individual with a 100 IQ, working a full-time job, who has had one, maybe two mortgages before in his/her life, against an army of investors, lenders, brokers, lawyers, etc., whose only job is to create create and tweak these "instruments", that is a level playing field? At the very least, the borrower should have been able to trust that the lenders were looking out for their (the lenders) own best interest. Even that safeguard didn't exist.
When I closed on my loan, I had a stack of about 400 pages of documents to be signed and initialed in a few dozen places. These papers were not given to me until the hour of the actual closing. The language (much of it) was legalese. I checked the interest rate and the length of the loan. Most of the rest was taken on faith (this is just how it's done). Note: I have a simple, fixed-rate, 30-year loan; I'm not complaining because I got bit (I didn't), but don't feel disdain for people who got screwed by predatory lending practices.
Maybe the car should have computer-controlled tensioners that "relax" when the car is turned-off. So yes, your car is looking like a wrinkled prune sitting in a parking space, but it would take a vandal at least two hands (one of which holding a sharp knife) to try and cut the fabric.
The tensioners could also make it easier to replace the entire fabric envelope. Just turn-off the car, and the envelope sags. You slip-off the old one and slip-on a new one.
Christian, yes. Fundamentalist/literalist, the earth was created in 6 (24-hour) days? Darned few. The vast majority of scientists-who-happen-to-be-Christian understand evolution and accept that it is extremely likely to be correct.
Are you telling me that Intel, AMD, ATI, NV, etc. have never released a flawed chip?
Why did you list of bunch of chip companies in your question? The issue at hand is more like WalMart executives feeling that their handheld-scanners are too expensive, and deciding to design a new chip in-house to reduce the cost. That decision is stupid, whether there end-up being bugs in the chip or not.
Is the possibility of further abuse worth the tradeoff of getting rid of organized drug crimes?
To answer that question, we probably have to first answer this question: does the current prohibition scheme reduce drug abuse? As your question says, there is a "possibility" of further abuse. Looking at countries that have already legalized, do abuse rates increase, decrease, or stay the same? Are those patterns applicable to the U.S.? Getting rid of organized crime is valuable. Fighting against a "possibility" can have as little as zero value.
Keeping that many people fooled for so long is a sign of true mastery.
Those 'people' he's keeping-fooled are Americans, especially Red-Staters. That's not a sign of mastery. That's more like walking through a kindergarten holding a piece of candy 6-feet off the floor and laughing at the reaching ankle-biters.
Wait, you mean like Israeli Prime Minister "Ehud Barack"? OMFG, Obama isn't secretly Muslim; he's secretly Jewish! He's going to rebuild the Temple and bring about the End Times! (spread the word. it isn't true but it will garner the dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks-but-just-can't-wait-for-armageddon voters).
Now what would have been interesting is if someone like a Powell or Rice had run. Would black Americans have blindly voted for a black republican?
But how many white Republicans would have voted for a black person? Carrying 13% of the national vote won't cut it (and that's assuming that every black person is eligible to vote (not true, esp. in Florida) and actually votes).
To butcher a phrase from MLK: The arc of history is long, but it bends toward quality.
Putting a fresh coat of paint on a pig will only work for so long (and producing a fatter, less attractive, less useful, more expensive pig after 5 years of effort to produce something other than a pig, is not a win). Marketing and support can only compensate for high cost of low quality for so long; every day, more people realize that software that doesn't crash is better than software that has a 1-800 number that you can call when it crashes.
So open source software is not of 'markedly' higher quality. If it is of even 'slightly' higher quality, or 'exactly the same quality' as closed source software, then the fact that it costs less, and gives users freedoms that they don't have with closed source software, means that closed source is doomed.
And how did this mind exist when nothing existed before it existed?
Please, sir! It is well accepted that Philosophers are permitted a certain amount of hand waving. This one appears to be waving only his right hand, curled into a tubular shape, vigorously about his nether regions.
However, pink unicorns are invisible, and are thus capable of being neither pretty, nor pink. Since there are no other prevailing theories, all hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
but Unix filesystem permissions leave a lot to be desired (I don't like having to create a new group every time I want to set permissions on a subset of users
I'm not discouraging use of SELinux, but you can use Posix ACLs without SELinux. If flexible file permissions are the driving factor, SELinux is overkill.
I can't read old English well enough to comment on the grammatical structure of Shakespeare
Shakespeare isn't Old English. Shakespeare is a slightly archaic Modern English. Shakespeare isn't even Middle English. Chaucer was Middle English (try reading some of that in the original!) Beowulf was Old English.
I'd just like a $200-$300 laser printer on the network, from the printer compatibility lists I've found there isn't one.
I run a Brother 5250dn on my home network, with no problems printing from linux or Windows. My mother runs one of the cheap ($100) Brother lasers (no duplexing) on her home network, and prints from linux with no trouble. Even the setup was a breeze; the CUPS configuration GUI found the printer, and suggested the correct driver. I was shocked at how seamless this was.
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You're right; it is a stretch. WalMart doesn't have a long history of blowing their schedule and their budget to produce buggy products.
To some extent, the 'victims' include the banks that were defrauded by mortgage brokers. However, the banks knew what practices would have constituted due diligence, and decided instead to roll the dice. Issuing NINA (no-income, no-assets) loans was a strong, obvious, bone-headed invitation to fraud. Is your average prospective homeowner such an expert?
Do these 'lawyers' independently verify that your income is as stated (mortgage brokers were overstating applicant income, or even using no-income loans where they didn't have to state the applicants income)? Do they analyze your income and liabilities and tell you whether you can really afford the loan that you are applying for? Do they independently verify the assessed value of your house (since many inspectors were colluding with the mortgage brokers)? Do they give you a legally accurate 100-word summary, in language that someone with only a high-school diploma can understand, of the entire 400-page document stack? Or do they only verify that the documents comply with the law, and with accepted industry practices? 'Cause the accepted practices are the heart of the problem.
So when you pit an individual with a 100 IQ, working a full-time job, who has had one, maybe two mortgages before in his/her life, against an army of investors, lenders, brokers, lawyers, etc., whose only job is to create create and tweak these "instruments", that is a level playing field? At the very least, the borrower should have been able to trust that the lenders were looking out for their (the lenders) own best interest. Even that safeguard didn't exist.
When I closed on my loan, I had a stack of about 400 pages of documents to be signed and initialed in a few dozen places. These papers were not given to me until the hour of the actual closing. The language (much of it) was legalese. I checked the interest rate and the length of the loan. Most of the rest was taken on faith (this is just how it's done). Note: I have a simple, fixed-rate, 30-year loan; I'm not complaining because I got bit (I didn't), but don't feel disdain for people who got screwed by predatory lending practices.
The tensioners could also make it easier to replace the entire fabric envelope. Just turn-off the car, and the envelope sags. You slip-off the old one and slip-on a new one.
Christian, yes. Fundamentalist/literalist, the earth was created in 6 (24-hour) days? Darned few. The vast majority of scientists-who-happen-to-be-Christian understand evolution and accept that it is extremely likely to be correct.
Why did you list of bunch of chip companies in your question? The issue at hand is more like WalMart executives feeling that their handheld-scanners are too expensive, and deciding to design a new chip in-house to reduce the cost. That decision is stupid, whether there end-up being bugs in the chip or not.
To answer that question, we probably have to first answer this question: does the current prohibition scheme reduce drug abuse? As your question says, there is a "possibility" of further abuse. Looking at countries that have already legalized, do abuse rates increase, decrease, or stay the same? Are those patterns applicable to the U.S.? Getting rid of organized crime is valuable. Fighting against a "possibility" can have as little as zero value.
Those 'people' he's keeping-fooled are Americans, especially Red-Staters. That's not a sign of mastery. That's more like walking through a kindergarten holding a piece of candy 6-feet off the floor and laughing at the reaching ankle-biters.
Wait, you mean like Israeli Prime Minister "Ehud Barack"? OMFG, Obama isn't secretly Muslim; he's secretly Jewish! He's going to rebuild the Temple and bring about the End Times! (spread the word. it isn't true but it will garner the dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks-but-just-can't-wait-for-armageddon voters).
Back in the day, no one asked this question. It was pretty well accepted that AOL would decide how many coasters you needed.
Heck, us Linux users call that kind of machine a "graphics workstation".
But how many white Republicans would have voted for a black person? Carrying 13% of the national vote won't cut it (and that's assuming that every black person is eligible to vote (not true, esp. in Florida) and actually votes).
Buggy whips were a tool for overclockers. That was how you overclocked your horse.
Inferior buggy whips were cursed roundly, just as overclockers curse buggy chips today.
Putting a fresh coat of paint on a pig will only work for so long (and producing a fatter, less attractive, less useful, more expensive pig after 5 years of effort to produce something other than a pig, is not a win). Marketing and support can only compensate for high cost of low quality for so long; every day, more people realize that software that doesn't crash is better than software that has a 1-800 number that you can call when it crashes.
Forget the PhD, if you have really learned that lesson, then you need to be made CIO at any one of my former employers.
So open source software is not of 'markedly' higher quality. If it is of even 'slightly' higher quality, or 'exactly the same quality' as closed source software, then the fact that it costs less, and gives users freedoms that they don't have with closed source software, means that closed source is doomed.
That's cromulent.
Or any person, even a deaf one, provided that they are hit by the falling tree (to be aware of it), and not killed instantly by said falling tree.
Please, sir! It is well accepted that Philosophers are permitted a certain amount of hand waving. This one appears to be waving only his right hand, curled into a tubular shape, vigorously about his nether regions.
However, pink unicorns are invisible, and are thus capable of being neither pretty, nor pink. Since there are no other prevailing theories, all hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I'm not discouraging use of SELinux, but you can use Posix ACLs without SELinux. If flexible file permissions are the driving factor, SELinux is overkill.
Shakespeare isn't Old English. Shakespeare is a slightly archaic Modern English. Shakespeare isn't even Middle English. Chaucer was Middle English (try reading some of that in the original!) Beowulf was Old English.
No, it's how they make Mountain Due.
I run a Brother 5250dn on my home network, with no problems printing from linux or Windows. My mother runs one of the cheap ($100) Brother lasers (no duplexing) on her home network, and prints from linux with no trouble. Even the setup was a breeze; the CUPS configuration GUI found the printer, and suggested the correct driver. I was shocked at how seamless this was.