"Your staggering level of accumulated hatred is going to hit you up for a pretty big Karma charge, I would prepare for that if I were you."
If you're talking about real-world Karma, you should be warning Bush. I haven't sent scores of people to their execution without even a cursory interest in their cases. I didn't approve torture. I haven't killed thousands of innocent civilians. I haven't courted the approval of bigots and treated a large segment of the population as sub-humans.
I have merely opposed those things. I think my Karma is just fine, thanks. Opposing right-wing authoritarians is good for the soul.
If you're talking about Slashdot Karma, well, I'll earn it back.
"Once more I say, you hate the idea of Bush fixing the social security system far more than you actually hate the idea of anything to do with Social Security."
Well, the man is a proven incompetent and walking mediocrity, with a track record of failure and destruction.
Given his performance on Iraq and national security, I don't see what evidence exists that the man is competent for any other significant responsibility.
Yes, I hate the idea of such a person taking it upon himself to fix *anything*. I wouldn't trust him to change a tire and do it right.
Given the man in charge, I'm more interested in preventing the inevitable disaster. Cleaning up after Bush would be far more expensive and difficult than doing it right in the first place.
I have had my eyes open, and that has made clear that Bush is lying out his ass, making the baby jesus cry with his deceptions.
A good solution to the Social Security problem cannot be based on lies. Therefore, a good solution cannot be created by George W. Bush.
Your blind hatred of Bush turns out to be, well, simply blinding in all cases. I don't think the sun revolves Bush but I've known Social Security has been screwed for me an my generation for the last fifteen years.
Well that's kinda the same situation as with terrorism. I agree with Bush that terrorism is a problem and a threat. The problem is that Bush's "solution" has in fact made the problem much worse.
I agree that there's problems with Social Security. I just have zero confidence that Bush is up to the task of fixing it. Really, he isn't even trying to fix it, he's enacting an ideological policy based on fantasy (much like the ideological fantasy that Iraq would welcome us and Democracy would sweep the region).
Instead of campaigning on his actual intentions and desires, he is lying to the public, telling us he wants to fix it, exaggerating the problem, etc.
So, basically, he's trying to tear down Social Security and replace it with something that will fail, and will make millions suffer, but which will be highly profitable for people who, like Bush, are wealthy.
The government, even a faux-"Compassionate Conservative" government, will likely be forced to provide a safety net to prevent the US from becoming "catfood nation".
The existence of that safety net will encourage the companies who are supposed to manage our investments to cheat and swindle Americans. By steering their money into bad investments, for kickbacks (as Edward Jones was recently caught doing), or churning their accounts with undesired short-term trades, or who knows what.
So the government will end up needing a safety net anyway, and it will probably be one instituted in a hurry, badly planned, and badly provided for.
"I might believe you if they weren't just trying to fit it instead of destroy it."
Yeah, kinda like invading Iraq was a way to fix the terrorism problem.
"Or we can wait for ten or twenty years doing nothing and then just implement the Logans Run plan later on when lifespans increase far beyond the estimates and the program runs out of money early. "
Only the rich will be able to afford longevity-increasing medical care, so it won't matter. They don't need social security anyway.
"At the time it was passed, very few people lived much past the age of about 60, let alone 65."
Actually, much of the deaths would have been very early. If you lived to 50, you had a pretty good chance of living quite a while longer. If you made it to 60, you had a very good chance of getting well past 65.
Another thing to consider, there were more people involved in dangerous occupations, like mining and farming. And worker protections were more lax, and technology was primitive. That would create more people with disabling injuries which would put them on Social Security for the rest of their potentially long lives.
A corporate death penalty for any company caught shortchanging customer retirement accounts. Out of business. For good.
A career death penalty for any employees and executives directly involved: restricted from engaging in any financial activity involving funds not their own.
But this isn't going to happen under Bush, because he's more interested in setting up a big fat pipeline to his cronies.
And, even if we give Bush the benefit of the doubt and believe that he's well-informed and being honest, who believes that the Bush administration's planning for a revamp of social security would be any better than its planning for the Iraq war?
From whence springs this unmerited confidence?
Social Security Plan, by George Bush
Step 1: Redo Social Security: Concept - "Shock and Awe" Step 2: Old people greet me with flowers and candy everywhere Step 3: My biggest contributors profit!
According to the Economist magazine, "the median family income at Harvard, for example, is $150,000".
Compare to the median US income for a 4-person family, which was $62,732 in 2002.
Even the richest state in the union, Connecticut, only had a median income of $81,191 in 2002, for a 4-person family.
Now, there are people at Harvard from modest, or downright poor, backgrounds. I'm not sure Nick Ciarelli was one of them.
And anyway, he has all that money from all those ads on ThinkSecret. He probably makes a profit on the site - it doesn't cost much to wheedle secrets about Apple's hard work.
Ciarelli might be a kid at Harvard, but Think Secret was a business, a way to make a buck.
This is not a story of a company grinding down Joe Everyman, this is about a company taking care of a profit-seeking tick who's been attached to Apple since 1998.
Nick Ciarelli is essentially in the business of making money by causing problems for Apple.
"$50 says that Apple had plans BEFORE these "secrets" were published to announce them at MacWorld. So the judge is going to look at this and wonder why, if it's such a secret, they announced it to the largest gathering of journalists, developers, and customers in the world."
And Apple will explain what happens when talk about future products (real or imagined) causes customers to stop buying the currently available products.
Apple has the right to decide when they will divulge the information. A 19 year old pipsqueak at Hahvahd does not have that right, and does not know the business factors leading Apple to decide when it will announce.
"Note the trend in Mac shipments, particularly the big increase in the most recent quarter."
Mac shipments have been trending upwards over the last 8 quarters. From 711,000 in Q12003, to 1,046,000 Macs sold in Q4 2004. A sizable jump there in Q4, from 836,000 in Q304.
Market share is not all its cracked up to be.
IBM has about 8.6% market share. Unfortunately, even that wasn't enough - they lost money on their PC business for the last three years, so they bailed out and sold it to Lenovo.
I'd much rather have Apple at 1.9% market share, profitable, growing, and influential, than at 8.6% market share, losing money, and bailing out.
As a NeXT/Cocoa programmer, I'm quite happy to see that Apple has sold about 6.6 million Macs (fast, OS X-running Macs) in the last two years, and even more happy that that figure will likely grow even faster in 2005.
I'd guess the NY Times photo is of a copy, which has or had the fig leaf.
Another possibility is that it's just an old stock photo, taken when the statue still had a fig leaf, or else the fig leaf was temporarily stuck on for the photo.
By their nature, antiquities are just as well represented by a photo taken in the 1930s, as they are by a new photo. Actually, the older photo might be better, if the object has been damaged since the picture was taken. (By vandalism, or by environmental causes such as acid rain.)
Slashdot Mirror
I expect that is the loophole they have fixed. The CEO's contact info is probably completely gone, now.
They also have all the integrity to be expected of the major ".cx" registrar.
I expect that within the year they'll change their name to GoatseIT.
Code *is* in a structured format.
It's not uncommon for people who are geniuses in one area to be kinda silly once they leave their area of expertise.
"Your staggering level of accumulated hatred is going to hit you up for a pretty big Karma charge, I would prepare for that if I were you."
If you're talking about real-world Karma, you should be warning Bush. I haven't sent scores of people to their execution without even a cursory interest in their cases. I didn't approve torture. I haven't killed thousands of innocent civilians. I haven't courted the approval of bigots and treated a large segment of the population as sub-humans.
I have merely opposed those things. I think my Karma is just fine, thanks. Opposing right-wing authoritarians is good for the soul.
If you're talking about Slashdot Karma, well, I'll earn it back.
"Once more I say, you hate the idea of Bush fixing the social security system far more than you actually hate the idea of anything to do with Social Security."
Well, the man is a proven incompetent and walking mediocrity, with a track record of failure and destruction.
Given his performance on Iraq and national security, I don't see what evidence exists that the man is competent for any other significant responsibility.
Yes, I hate the idea of such a person taking it upon himself to fix *anything*. I wouldn't trust him to change a tire and do it right.
Given the man in charge, I'm more interested in preventing the inevitable disaster. Cleaning up after Bush would be far more expensive and difficult than doing it right in the first place.
I have had my eyes open, and that has made clear that Bush is lying out his ass, making the baby jesus cry with his deceptions.
A good solution to the Social Security problem cannot be based on lies. Therefore, a good solution cannot be created by George W. Bush.
Your blind hatred of Bush turns out to be, well, simply blinding in all cases. I don't think the sun revolves Bush but I've known Social Security has been screwed for me an my generation for the last fifteen years.
Well that's kinda the same situation as with terrorism. I agree with Bush that terrorism is a problem and a threat. The problem is that Bush's "solution" has in fact made the problem much worse.
I agree that there's problems with Social Security. I just have zero confidence that Bush is up to the task of fixing it. Really, he isn't even trying to fix it, he's enacting an ideological policy based on fantasy (much like the ideological fantasy that Iraq would welcome us and Democracy would sweep the region).
Instead of campaigning on his actual intentions and desires, he is lying to the public, telling us he wants to fix it, exaggerating the problem, etc.
So, basically, he's trying to tear down Social Security and replace it with something that will fail, and will make millions suffer, but which will be highly profitable for people who, like Bush, are wealthy.
The government, even a faux-"Compassionate Conservative" government, will likely be forced to provide a safety net to prevent the US from becoming "catfood nation".
The existence of that safety net will encourage the companies who are supposed to manage our investments to cheat and swindle Americans. By steering their money into bad investments, for kickbacks (as Edward Jones was recently caught doing), or churning their accounts with undesired short-term trades, or who knows what.
So the government will end up needing a safety net anyway, and it will probably be one instituted in a hurry, badly planned, and badly provided for.
"I might believe you if they weren't just trying to fit it instead of destroy it."
Yeah, kinda like invading Iraq was a way to fix the terrorism problem.
"Or we can wait for ten or twenty years doing nothing and then just implement the Logans Run plan later on when lifespans increase far beyond the estimates and the program runs out of money early. "
Only the rich will be able to afford longevity-increasing medical care, so it won't matter. They don't need social security anyway.
Er, what does Luskin know about anything?
He's not an economist. He doesn't know economics. He's a college dropout with some weird financial management scheme which he promotes.
What you link to, most of it is relative to GDP.
But it's not clear what they think GDP will do, how fast they think GDP will increase.
If they're making a conservative estimate of GDP growth, lower than is likely, then their calculations could be way off.
"At the time it was passed, very few people lived much past the age of about 60, let alone 65."
Actually, much of the deaths would have been very early. If you lived to 50, you had a pretty good chance of living quite a while longer. If you made it to 60, you had a very good chance of getting well past 65.
Another thing to consider, there were more people involved in dangerous occupations, like mining and farming. And worker protections were more lax, and technology was primitive. That would create more people with disabling injuries which would put them on Social Security for the rest of their potentially long lives.
So I'm not sure the point is a good one.
A corporate death penalty for any company caught shortchanging customer retirement accounts. Out of business. For good.
A career death penalty for any employees and executives directly involved: restricted from engaging in any financial activity involving funds not their own.
But this isn't going to happen under Bush, because he's more interested in setting up a big fat pipeline to his cronies.
who brought you the WMD crisis in Iraq.
And, even if we give Bush the benefit of the doubt and believe that he's well-informed and being honest, who believes that the Bush administration's planning for a revamp of social security would be any better than its planning for the Iraq war?
From whence springs this unmerited confidence?
Social Security Plan, by George Bush
Step 1: Redo Social Security: Concept - "Shock and Awe"
Step 2: Old people greet me with flowers and candy everywhere
Step 3: My biggest contributors profit!
Fox viewers just think that if you lie while you're YELLING, it doesn't count.
According to the Economist magazine, "the median family income at Harvard, for example, is $150,000".
Compare to the median US income for a 4-person family, which was $62,732 in 2002.
Even the richest state in the union, Connecticut, only had a median income of $81,191 in 2002, for a 4-person family.
Now, there are people at Harvard from modest, or downright poor, backgrounds. I'm not sure Nick Ciarelli was one of them.
And anyway, he has all that money from all those ads on ThinkSecret. He probably makes a profit on the site - it doesn't cost much to wheedle secrets about Apple's hard work.
Ciarelli might be a kid at Harvard, but Think Secret was a business, a way to make a buck.
This is not a story of a company grinding down Joe Everyman, this is about a company taking care of a profit-seeking tick who's been attached to Apple since 1998.
Nick Ciarelli is essentially in the business of making money by causing problems for Apple.
which is surely where someone with a Harvard education is going to incorporate
He doesn't have a Harvard education yet.
But it looks like he's enrolled at the school of hard knocks.
"$50 says that Apple had plans BEFORE these "secrets" were published to announce them at MacWorld. So the judge is going to look at this and wonder why, if it's such a secret, they announced it to the largest gathering of journalists, developers, and customers in the world."
And Apple will explain what happens when talk about future products (real or imagined) causes customers to stop buying the currently available products.
Apple has the right to decide when they will divulge the information. A 19 year old pipsqueak at Hahvahd does not have that right, and does not know the business factors leading Apple to decide when it will announce.
Um, that looks more like a void than a lump in his pants.
"I have a dick like a clydesdale - in NEGATIVE SPACE!"
- Bill Gates
If speed is a problem, profile it, locate the specific problem sites, and use C or C++ for those parts.
You can do that, without any sort of slow JNI hackery. Objective-C plays nice with its peers.
I don't care *that* much. I'm a Mac user. Jes' trying to help.
You need up to date information.
"Note the trend in Mac shipments, particularly the big increase in the most recent quarter."
Mac shipments have been trending upwards over the last 8 quarters. From 711,000 in Q12003, to 1,046,000 Macs sold in Q4 2004. A sizable jump there in Q4, from 836,000 in Q304.
Market share is not all its cracked up to be.
IBM has about 8.6% market share. Unfortunately, even that wasn't enough - they lost money on their PC business for the last three years, so they bailed out and sold it to Lenovo.
I'd much rather have Apple at 1.9% market share, profitable, growing, and influential, than at 8.6% market share, losing money, and bailing out.
As a NeXT/Cocoa programmer, I'm quite happy to see that Apple has sold about 6.6 million Macs (fast, OS X-running Macs) in the last two years, and even more happy that that figure will likely grow even faster in 2005.
"And how many people know objective-c?"
It takes less time to learn ObjC than it takes to learn Java.
And that difference is going to get bigger as Java adds features (and complexity).
It also takes less time to learn ObjC than it takes to learn C#.
There really isn't much of it to learn.
I'd guess the NY Times photo is of a copy, which has or had the fig leaf.
Another possibility is that it's just an old stock photo, taken when the statue still had a fig leaf, or else the fig leaf was temporarily stuck on for the photo.
By their nature, antiquities are just as well represented by a photo taken in the 1930s, as they are by a new photo. Actually, the older photo might be better, if the object has been damaged since the picture was taken. (By vandalism, or by environmental causes such as acid rain.)
I don't think the *photo* was modified.