Sad that Ford could make an automatic V6 with that good of gas mileage 9 years ago and just decided to make worse cars.
GM is just as bad.
My first brand new car was a Pontiac Sunfire that I bought in 2004. It gets 32-36 mpg, it's rugged enough that I've been the only passenger car at a few trailheads up in the mountains, and it hasn't needed any repairs in almost 5 years. To top it off it accelerates quickly and, IMO, handles really well. All for about $11k. So what did Pontiac do? They stopped producing it.
Then they had the nerve to send out an email asking for support of their government bailout. Killed any chance I'll ever buy another GM.
WTF are you talking about? The guy I replied to said he'd like the government to release software and documents under BSD license and Creative Commons. I was simply pointing out that they're already required to release stuff under a less restrictive license. We weren't talking about Silverlight.
As for Obama's campaign promises being bullshit... Anybody with half a brain should have realized both Obama and McCain were full of shit and begging for votes. Or maybe you're just not "hoping" hard enough.
Please get a clue. If the government creates software and releases the code, the code is public domain. Ditto with documents. The government doesn't really have a choice in the matter.
Not in the US. According to the Constitution the purpose of patehts is to promote progress in science and the useful arts:
Obviously the long term goal is the overall progress of society. Equally obvious is that patents help achieve that goal by making it easier for inventors to profit from inventions without other people ripping off their idea.
Oh come on. Where do you think the popular saying "Close enough for government work" came from? It wasn't because of the government's high quality workmanship and attention to detail...
And if they pay, say, $5000 to maintain each, isn't that a substantial financial burden?
Not really. The entire point of a patent is to allow a person or company to profit from their invention without other people ripping it off without doing their own research. The patent fees are almost like a benchmark. If the invention wouldn't be able to recover the cost of obtaining the patent it's really not even worth patenting. If they can't recover the patent fees, they're definitely not going to recover the researcher's salaries.
On the other hand, a company with as much money IBM probably patents a lot of things "just in case" it becomes useful to them later.
Important data is deleted by accident all the time. In other words, "real" IT people get it wrong all the time. You're expecting government IT people to get it right? Let's just say government employees aren't typically known for their competence.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Bush and the gang, but either possibility (purposely deleted or accident) seems equally likely to me.
In a democracy, for a politician to lose his job requires the public to stop voting for the person.
If the politician does something stupid, but the public keeps voting for them, it's an indication that the public doesn't consider the stupid things to be a problem. It's clear that most people don't care about the privacy of their personal information, or they would have fired the guy by voting for somebody else.
That's why it's important to keep the government as small as possible. Something you consider very important, like the privacy of your personal information, might not be important to everybody else. By trusting everybody to make to make the decision for you, you lose the freedom to decide for yourself.
Admittedly, it's a moot point in this case because the government is going to have your tax data no matter what, but it's something to keep in mind when thinking about government provided health care, government provided broadband, and other government provided services. There's no boycotting the government.
I used to drive about 65 miles to work, 130 miles round trip. If I left for the day at 5:30 I would get home around 7:00-7:15. If I waited for traffic to die down and left at 6:15, I would still get home between 7:00 and 7:15. Lucky for me there was a similar effect in the morning and my employer wasn't too picky on the schedule.
"It's ok because the government is doing it" is not my argument. My argument is that the majority of people support policies that protect the earth from people like you who would allow others to forget about personal responsibility and destroy the environment. You were talking about opinions and pushing them on others--and if you're comparing policies on environmental safety to slavery, you're missing the point--but I simply pointed out that YOU were the one pushing your irresponsible opinion on the majority of people.
So basically you're saying freedom is unimportant?
I'm not trying to force my opinion on anybody. As far as I'm concerned everybody should be able to do anything they want, as long as they leave me alone. It's this thing called "freedom", maybe you've heard of it?
And if the majority of voters supporting something makes it right, why is everybody so angry about the detainees at Guantanimo? Obviously the majority of people want them detained, otherwise they wouldn't have elected Bush again. Same with wiretapping. Same with copyright law - the majority of people obviously want it, so why does everybody here complain so much? The majority happily supported slavery for hundreds of years, does that make it okay? I don't think it does.
"It's okay because the government is doing it" is just about the silliest argument possible because it's so obviously not true.
First, that was one item in an entire list of reasons. In other words, the government is wasting time and money "promoting" something that's already worth doing.
Second, just because you happen to agree with promoting environmentalism, doesn't mean everybody agrees. Why should you get to force your opinion on everybody?
99.99% of computers are in those countries, think about cause and effect here.
Well no shit. That still doesn't change the fact that they'll initially be consuming software instead of producing it, making the OP's argument wrong.
With a secret-based proprietary OS, you cannot become a producer, with an open OS, once you have the computer in your hands, you have that option open for you.
Most people will be happy to be users, just like how most people aren't musicians, but once you make the instruments available, then those with the inclination to do it have the opportunity.
Microsoft sees a bunch of new computer educated people in Nigieria/Ghana/wherever and builds a software development facility there. Now they're producing Windows, too. There's about as much evidence to support that outcome as there is to expect that they'll start developing OSS.
Also, just so you know, it's entirely possible to use and write open source software on Windows.
I'm absolutely sure they can modify the code. But I'm also absolutely sure that they haven't yet.
The problem is, if you're going to speculate like that, you might as well speculate that Microsoft wants Windows on the OLPC so they can branch out into third world countries, making them producers in that case, too.
That doesn't make sense. Unless the OLPC hardware and software were being made by the people in the countries buying them, they would be consumers no matter what OS was preinstalled. 99.99% of open source developers are in first world countries, so that wouldn't really tip the balance.
If the OLPC project were really serious about using open source software to help the third world, it would start hiring some of the people there to work on open source projects.
So do "laymen" there not have to abide by the law? Or do they have to go around chained to lawyers? Or is it just kinda like in "The Trial", where people get arrested but they don't know why?
The worst that someone will do on a Linux system is delete all their files, not break the entire system which is what happens with Windows.
Usually, on a home PC, deleting the personal files is a lot worse than deleting the system files. The system files can easily be restored from the install media or the software repository. It's a minor inconvenience compared to losing your wedding photos or other important data. On an actual multiuser system that security is important so that you can't (maliciously or accidently) ruin other people's data.
...But they won't buy things on disks with Linux. If it is a disk that they bought when they were still using Windows compare it to sticking a Wii game into a PS3, it just won't work (or a similar analogy). When people start just opening up a front-end to apt-get and getting their programs theres not much that can go wrong (with average use).
And for the myriad software not in the "standard" repositories? Debian has the biggest software repository around, and I have to install things from source more than I'd like. The usual reasons being that the version in the repository is too old, or the software I'm trying to use is too obscure or too new.
Unfortunately, the problem with "typical users" is lack of education. That's going to be a problem for any system they use.
Facebook isn't a common carrier. If they were, the policy of blocking bare breast pictures would already be a "problem" for them. The issue here is whether breast feeding should be thrown in that category.
Also, as far as I know, common carrier status is something you can, at least in part, choose to be. If, like Facebook, your policy is to filter user content, then you're obviously not a common carrier. If they choose not to censor and let anybody use the service, then they *might* be a common carrier if certain other requirements are met. It's the service owner's decision, though. They're not required to be a common carrier. They can stop any time they want to. The catch is that if they choose to filter, then they HAVE to filter stuff like child pornography and copyright violations.
If the internet companies can't compete when people have to pay taxes then its not a viable business model.
Legally, people already have to pay taxes on the things they purchase over the internet, so there's really no advantage. The GP wasn't joking. You're required to pay a "use tax" on items you buy from out of state, usually equivalent to the sales tax you would have paid if you bought the item within the state.
I don't see how you can hold internet companies responsible for their customers breaking the law. That's not done for any other type of business.
But yes, this does remove the ability of a business owner to fire an employee because "I disagree with this" for any arbitrary value of 'this'. However, as someone else already pointed out, there is no absolute right to free speech (and that's probably true of any country that claims to have free speech). So in your specific example of racial slurs, that's specifically not protected by free speech, so you absolutely could fire an employee for that.
So my employee can tell customers that my competitor's product is better, and I can't fire him? How is it not a violation of my free speech to require that I pay somebody for saying things that I consider wrong, inappropriate or otherwise disagree with? That doesn't make sense to me.
This means your right to say what you feel is protected at work whereas in the US companies are free to fire you for disagreeing with them, as long as it's applied consistently.
Honest question: isn't that a violation of the business owner's rights?
For example, if I own a business and have an employee who's constantly using racial slurs to customers, why shouldn't I be able to fire him? By forcing me to keep him, isn't the government removing my ability to say "I disagree with this"?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think such a journalist exists. Certainly not on any of the big news networks.
GM is just as bad.
My first brand new car was a Pontiac Sunfire that I bought in 2004. It gets 32-36 mpg, it's rugged enough that I've been the only passenger car at a few trailheads up in the mountains, and it hasn't needed any repairs in almost 5 years. To top it off it accelerates quickly and, IMO, handles really well. All for about $11k. So what did Pontiac do? They stopped producing it.
Then they had the nerve to send out an email asking for support of their government bailout. Killed any chance I'll ever buy another GM.
WTF are you talking about? The guy I replied to said he'd like the government to release software and documents under BSD license and Creative Commons. I was simply pointing out that they're already required to release stuff under a less restrictive license. We weren't talking about Silverlight.
As for Obama's campaign promises being bullshit... Anybody with half a brain should have realized both Obama and McCain were full of shit and begging for votes. Or maybe you're just not "hoping" hard enough.
Please get a clue. If the government creates software and releases the code, the code is public domain. Ditto with documents. The government doesn't really have a choice in the matter.
Might want to be careful bragging about tax evasion.
Obviously the long term goal is the overall progress of society. Equally obvious is that patents help achieve that goal by making it easier for inventors to profit from inventions without other people ripping off their idea.
Oh come on. Where do you think the popular saying "Close enough for government work" came from? It wasn't because of the government's high quality workmanship and attention to detail...
Not really. The entire point of a patent is to allow a person or company to profit from their invention without other people ripping it off without doing their own research. The patent fees are almost like a benchmark. If the invention wouldn't be able to recover the cost of obtaining the patent it's really not even worth patenting. If they can't recover the patent fees, they're definitely not going to recover the researcher's salaries.
On the other hand, a company with as much money IBM probably patents a lot of things "just in case" it becomes useful to them later.
Important data is deleted by accident all the time. In other words, "real" IT people get it wrong all the time. You're expecting government IT people to get it right? Let's just say government employees aren't typically known for their competence.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Bush and the gang, but either possibility (purposely deleted or accident) seems equally likely to me.
In a democracy, for a politician to lose his job requires the public to stop voting for the person.
If the politician does something stupid, but the public keeps voting for them, it's an indication that the public doesn't consider the stupid things to be a problem. It's clear that most people don't care about the privacy of their personal information, or they would have fired the guy by voting for somebody else.
That's why it's important to keep the government as small as possible. Something you consider very important, like the privacy of your personal information, might not be important to everybody else. By trusting everybody to make to make the decision for you, you lose the freedom to decide for yourself.
Admittedly, it's a moot point in this case because the government is going to have your tax data no matter what, but it's something to keep in mind when thinking about government provided health care, government provided broadband, and other government provided services. There's no boycotting the government.
That could go either way, though.
I used to drive about 65 miles to work, 130 miles round trip. If I left for the day at 5:30 I would get home around 7:00-7:15. If I waited for traffic to die down and left at 6:15, I would still get home between 7:00 and 7:15. Lucky for me there was a similar effect in the morning and my employer wasn't too picky on the schedule.
So basically you're saying freedom is unimportant?
I'm not trying to force my opinion on anybody. As far as I'm concerned everybody should be able to do anything they want, as long as they leave me alone. It's this thing called "freedom", maybe you've heard of it?
And if the majority of voters supporting something makes it right, why is everybody so angry about the detainees at Guantanimo? Obviously the majority of people want them detained, otherwise they wouldn't have elected Bush again. Same with wiretapping. Same with copyright law - the majority of people obviously want it, so why does everybody here complain so much? The majority happily supported slavery for hundreds of years, does that make it okay? I don't think it does.
"It's okay because the government is doing it" is just about the silliest argument possible because it's so obviously not true.
A friend of mine was working in IT 70 hours a week a while back. His reason could be summed up as "I wanted to buy a new car."
What's your point exactly?
First, that was one item in an entire list of reasons. In other words, the government is wasting time and money "promoting" something that's already worth doing.
Second, just because you happen to agree with promoting environmentalism, doesn't mean everybody agrees. Why should you get to force your opinion on everybody?
Well no shit. That still doesn't change the fact that they'll initially be consuming software instead of producing it, making the OP's argument wrong.
Microsoft sees a bunch of new computer educated people in Nigieria/Ghana/wherever and builds a software development facility there. Now they're producing Windows, too. There's about as much evidence to support that outcome as there is to expect that they'll start developing OSS.
Also, just so you know, it's entirely possible to use and write open source software on Windows.
I'm absolutely sure they can modify the code. But I'm also absolutely sure that they haven't yet.
The problem is, if you're going to speculate like that, you might as well speculate that Microsoft wants Windows on the OLPC so they can branch out into third world countries, making them producers in that case, too.
That doesn't make sense. Unless the OLPC hardware and software were being made by the people in the countries buying them, they would be consumers no matter what OS was preinstalled. 99.99% of open source developers are in first world countries, so that wouldn't really tip the balance.
If the OLPC project were really serious about using open source software to help the third world, it would start hiring some of the people there to work on open source projects.
Wow, thanks. Very interesting videos.
So do "laymen" there not have to abide by the law? Or do they have to go around chained to lawyers? Or is it just kinda like in "The Trial", where people get arrested but they don't know why?
Usually, on a home PC, deleting the personal files is a lot worse than deleting the system files. The system files can easily be restored from the install media or the software repository. It's a minor inconvenience compared to losing your wedding photos or other important data. On an actual multiuser system that security is important so that you can't (maliciously or accidently) ruin other people's data.
And for the myriad software not in the "standard" repositories? Debian has the biggest software repository around, and I have to install things from source more than I'd like. The usual reasons being that the version in the repository is too old, or the software I'm trying to use is too obscure or too new.
Unfortunately, the problem with "typical users" is lack of education. That's going to be a problem for any system they use.
Facebook isn't a common carrier. If they were, the policy of blocking bare breast pictures would already be a "problem" for them. The issue here is whether breast feeding should be thrown in that category.
Also, as far as I know, common carrier status is something you can, at least in part, choose to be. If, like Facebook, your policy is to filter user content, then you're obviously not a common carrier. If they choose not to censor and let anybody use the service, then they *might* be a common carrier if certain other requirements are met. It's the service owner's decision, though. They're not required to be a common carrier. They can stop any time they want to. The catch is that if they choose to filter, then they HAVE to filter stuff like child pornography and copyright violations.
Legally, people already have to pay taxes on the things they purchase over the internet, so there's really no advantage. The GP wasn't joking. You're required to pay a "use tax" on items you buy from out of state, usually equivalent to the sales tax you would have paid if you bought the item within the state.
I don't see how you can hold internet companies responsible for their customers breaking the law. That's not done for any other type of business.
So my employee can tell customers that my competitor's product is better, and I can't fire him? How is it not a violation of my free speech to require that I pay somebody for saying things that I consider wrong, inappropriate or otherwise disagree with? That doesn't make sense to me.
Honest question: isn't that a violation of the business owner's rights?
For example, if I own a business and have an employee who's constantly using racial slurs to customers, why shouldn't I be able to fire him? By forcing me to keep him, isn't the government removing my ability to say "I disagree with this"?