Why should I cut down trees for my mom instead of paying someone? Why should I build houses for the homeless for free? Why should I add another $50 bucks on to Bill's pile of unused money?
Is it better to trade my time on opensource stuff for others time on opensource stuff than my money (which took my time to earn) for microsoft's products?
Five times may have been excessive- once certainly wasn't.
As you say- wrestling the guy from the ground puts the officers in danger and he had plenty of warning to stand and leave the area before they tasered him.
Seriously tho after one taser, they should cuff him while he is incapacitated so they don't have to hit him more. Tasering that many times does start to look like torture.
1) A linux box that I use for important data - tax records, personal documents, any think like mp3's, etc.
2) A windows box that I use for entertainment (certain games) and at large companies. Since computers have been powerful enough for home use since about 2000, I can't see paying more than $499 for this and then $200 for a video card. The hardware would cost me $400 to scratch build (and $200 for the card) so I guess the OEM is splitting the $99 with Microsoft. Going forward, i'm less and less likely to use Windows computers for anything important. I'm too concerned about snooping, losing access to my own data, etc.
3) And a console for pure gaming on my big screen TV.
---
To reach this point, I've converted about 99% of my software to java, open-source applications. Openoffice Audacity Gimp Azureus Firefox and a few other minor programs.
I have two documents that I have to use Word for. I'm considering splitting them down into smaller documents.
Interesting interview with Warren Buffet last night.
He said he specifically avoids sending a detailed code of conduct and ethics to his executives because he believed that would encourage them to look for loopholes in it. Instead he just says something like you did above like "you are responsible for the good name of the company. Don't do anything that would damage it."
I understand where you are coming from-- "we are a society of laws and not men".
Realistically, ever since we were founded as a nation, our lawmen have made interpretations of the law to let go people they felt would not be a problem (or who had power... or who they liked... or who was a relative) and other interpretations to stop criminals and dangerous people (and those in groups they didn't like... or with a skin color they didn't like... or who they personally disliked).
Where you are coming from is the "ideal" however and you could point out their hypocrisy when they enforced the law unequally and it bothered them. Lately- the people in power seem to have less and less problem with shame and hypocrisy. They do what they want and when you catch them (perhaps because so many have been caught) they just smile and say "so what- try to do something about it".
It flows from the top and our current political and corporate executive branches are really bad about these kinds of behaviors.
I agree with you that the judge was "clever" to misinterpret the law to catch a scumbag.
However... this is from the post right above yours:
Actually, the stronger issue is that companies are required to maintain e-mail records for X number of years - in case of court cases, audits, etc. This ruling now makes companies accountable for maintaining IM traffic (and possibly other similar data) as well. THAT will be of grave issue.
The rule of unintended consequences is in full effect. For example, in my great state of texas, the DA has "misinterpreted" the law so that people with crackpipes are felons instead of misdemeanors (sp). The end result is a $59 *million* dollar a year bill for incarcerating them- an estimated $250 *million* dollar bill for new prisons because the misinterpretation means we have a lot more felons than we used to. An entire *class* of minor criminals who will now basically be *forced* into lives of crime since as convicted felons they are going to find it very hard to find work and they will be well "educated" while in prison by the hard core felons.
The United States currently incarcerates people at a higher rate than soviet russia did. Most of it over drug issues and a growing number over sex offenses.
The problem is that as we are getting better and better at tracking and detecting crimes- it's becoming clear that *MANY* people engage in criminal activity in their teens and twenties- they just used to get away with it or it was put down as youthful hijinks.
Any market experiencing 50% inflation for untrained labor and 100% inflation for trained labor seems pretty free to me.
The fact is, we have an *extremely* and *artificially* high cost of living in the united states.
A lot of it is good ideas like overtime, sick days, child labor laws.
But a lot of it is just artificial. There is a gross oversupply of labor in the world today.
Heck, there is no reason we should pay our executives so much when perfectly competant executives are available around the world for under a million a year.
If there are a million capable people willing to do the work for $12,000 a year, only held back by artificial barriers, then the fair wage is not $80,000 but $12,000.
The fundamental problem is that we have many protections against slavery, pollution, child labor, unreasonable working hours, health care, etc. while the people are are competing against do not- or they have them much less expensively than we do. For example- health insurance is so much cheaper that it is less expensive to fly to india, get the complex surgury done, and spend a 2 week vacation there afterwards- than it is for the *deductable* back in the united states for the same quality care.
In part this is becuase the US doctor is paying $50,000 in malpractice insurance, $25,000 taxes on their income, $70,000 for their house and family, and $24,000 for their mistress. The same indian doctor is paying roughly a 5th of each of those amounts.
Wages *are* equaling out RAPIDLY. At the current rates of inflation- within 8 years the wages for similar positions will be the same in china, india, and the US. Imagine the shock to retiring people in those countries who have saved maybe $5,000 to retire on and suddenly everything is at US prices.
Likewise, even now- there are many hidden costs to using overseas workers and H1B workers- usually communications skills. Things have to be *very* formal- and even a single question can cost you a 24 hour turnaround.
In 2012- things start to get very nice in the US for US workers.
And to make it worse- IF anyone else can see the idea of green oak leaves on a sandy background they can duplicate it regardless of how well protected the original texture is.
At a minimum you could video capture it to another computer via a camera and clean up the texture. At a maximum you could recreate it from scratch just like the creator did with photoshop.
Current copyright is ridiculously long and companies are pushing for basically hard for infinite copyright. If these rules were already in place many of the companies would not exist. Walt Disney would have never happened if the Grimm family (Or GrimmCo, Inc.) still had all trademarks to the fairy tales written in the 1600's and of course they were *written* from stories that already existed for hundreds of years.
Money is a scoring system for how much we are willing to do to get scarce resources.
As long as *anything* is scarce, your society will never exist.
So...
Will beachfront property ever plentiful? Will property in california ever plentiful? Will the penthouse ever be plentiful? Will the chance to screw the hottest model on the planet ever be plentiful? Will the chance to attend the hottest parties ever be plentiful? Will the funniest or smartest or best looking people ever be plentiful?
But you can sell your linden dollars for us currency and exchange those for gold.
I don't know about the value of linden dollars but 1 million EQ1 plat -- $211 dollars US.
Underlying ALL of those currencies (and products) are:
VALUE OF TIME TO PRODUCE VALUE OF RAW RESOURCES TO PRODUCE SCARCITY DEMAND
Linden items take time (but after #1 time == zero) Linden items take a few dollars a month to produce (for your subscription dollars ultimately - genuine high fashion items are often made from extreme materials such as batch of rare unusually fine wool a couple years ago they made a about 100 suits with- that's it 100 suits like that in the entire world) Linden items are artificially scarce (unlike say gold, uranium, germanium, high quality silicon) Linden items do have demand.
Could be other factors. I think over time as DMCA gets stronger and stronger that artificial items like this may hold value better (because you can keep them artificially scarce).
Or it is possible that it was becoming too hard for them to stop this information anyway.
At least this way, they can make sure it is within a range close to reality (200 to 3000) vs wierd stuff (and they killed 30,000 students and tortured them to death!).
It will be wierd from some tho- prior posts here indicate many chinese are not aware of their own recent history.
They were convicted here but basically given a slap on the wrist. They were convicted there and are being given a punch to the jaw.
EU shows willingness to get out the sharp knives and teeth extractors if they continue resisting.
Basically, same crime- same conviction- but the us political parties have a lot more interest in microsoft's donations and the wealth it brings to the country than other countries.
The hospitals will *still* bill you in some cases and you have to *prove* to them that they are wrong.
In my case, it was bout $11,000 bucks worth of charges.
Watch out for them billing you for items which have negotiated charges. They say "This is a $110 test and the insurance company paid $90. You owe us $20." Then you check with the insurance company and it turns out the total price for the test is $90 to that insurance company. $110 is the "street" price with no discounts.
And of course they hit you with this crap while you are sick and not capable of defending yourself well. In my case, a friend looked at the bills and went to bat for me.
Yea- I don't think most people realize how ruthless marriage was before the jewelry and movie business got ahold of it.
Marriages were about *PROPERTY* not about "true love".
Agree on the other points too- you raise children, then maybe the state gives you a break since we currently view it as good for society (I don't but I think we are overpopulating ourselves to death).
Otherwise, why should a childless couple of any gender mix be able to form a legal contract governing inheritance, power of attorney, distribution of property, support (alimony), etc. that is banned to other couples?
Separate MARRIAGE (religious) from CIVIL UNION (Secular). And then separate MARRIAGE (Catholic, Baptist) from MARRIAGE (Other religion that is cool with gay marriages). You shouldn't be able to force the catholic church to marry two gays because it's against their religion. You shouldn't be able to bar a pro-gay marriage religion from marrying gays.
Did you even honestly bother to read my entire post or did you just stop and reply the second that you hit a statement you disagreed with?
I'm not against gay marriage. I *ARGUE* in the bloody parent post that the same issue is becoming possible for female and male executives. I say that I see no basic difference between a non-fertile female marrying another man vs another female.
My basic point is that "marriage" has MANY implicit rules that have changed dramatically over the last few years and we need to *EXPLICITLY* address them in *ANY* kind of civil union.
For god's sake- read the post if you are going to reply. I'm probably 80% in agreement with your position man and I didn't argue for a ban on gay marriages. SHEESH.
No but a fairly *strong* government is needed to control people like gates (or O.J. Simpson).
Corporations are EVEN stronger than people like Gates, plus they are basically immortal and can assign blame to a few human "cells" and shed them to avoid legal consequences.
It's rapidly corrupting a republican democracy- I don't think liberatarian philosophy ala Ayn Rand would stand a chance against lawyers and corporations.
The problem with the libertarian philosophy is that it absolutely breaks down when one citizen is immensely richer or more powerful than another citizen.
If Bill Gates wanted to ruin your life- there is not a damn thing you could do to stop him in a libertarian society.
An underlying presumption of libertarian philosophy is that by some magical means very powerful people will not abuse their power.
They are not a hypocrit if they disagree with the catholic church that abortion is wrong.
They are only a hypocrit if they.. say make public speeches against abortion, have laws passed against abortion, and then it turns out they are having abortions themselves or supporting abortion actively in secret.
However, hypocrisy just doesn't have the sting it did 20 years ago. People have no shame any more.
The problem with civil unions is that they could be used to create huge legal loopholes.
Two male CEO's "marry" and one leaves their company to their "spouse" avoiding billions of dollars of tax consequences.
There are a lot of implicit rules that were imbedded in the "Male is the breadwinner and has money and Woman takes care of the home and has children" meme that was associated with marriage until a very short time ago.
Part of the reason for encouraging marriage was so there would be plenty of soldiers and plenty of young people to support the older people.
The rules are changing and marriage isn't keeping up.
What is the difference between a 40's non-fertile female marrying a 40's male vs another 40's female to society? What's the difference between a 40's non-fertile female marrying her 20's son? or Daughter? If producing babies are not involved, then the law needs to be pretty crystal clear. Whenever love or large amounts of money are involved, people are going to push it to the breaking point.
I really can't see a difference personally.
And my first comment increasingly applies to men and women (and always has among the rich who married rich to preserve the family fortune). The owners of two privately held companies could marry to avoid huge tax consequences provided they are male and female.
What ever the case- civil unions are *NOT* as simple as they seem at first glance. Today we want everything to be spelled out- when marriages were invented nothing was spelled out.
Slashdot Mirror
Why should I cut down trees for my mom instead of paying someone?
Why should I build houses for the homeless for free?
Why should I add another $50 bucks on to Bill's pile of unused money?
Is it better to trade my time on opensource stuff for others time on opensource stuff than my money (which took my time to earn) for microsoft's products?
Thanks good summary.
Ignore the cowardly AC.
Five times may have been excessive- once certainly wasn't.
As you say- wrestling the guy from the ground puts the officers in danger and he had plenty of warning to stand and leave the area before they tasered him.
Seriously tho after one taser, they should cuff him while he is incapacitated so they don't have to hit him more. Tasering that many times does start to look like torture.
I see having two (three) computers going forward.
1) A linux box that I use for important data - tax records, personal documents, any think like mp3's, etc.
2) A windows box that I use for entertainment (certain games) and at large companies. Since computers have been powerful enough for home use since about 2000, I can't see paying more than $499 for this and then $200 for a video card. The hardware would cost me $400 to scratch build (and $200 for the card) so I guess the OEM is splitting the $99 with Microsoft. Going forward, i'm less and less likely to use Windows computers for anything important. I'm too concerned about snooping, losing access to my own data, etc.
3) And a console for pure gaming on my big screen TV.
---
To reach this point, I've converted about 99% of my software to java, open-source applications.
Openoffice
Audacity
Gimp
Azureus
Firefox
and a few other minor programs.
I have two documents that I have to use Word for. I'm considering splitting them down into smaller documents.
Interesting interview with Warren Buffet last night.
He said he specifically avoids sending a detailed code of conduct and ethics to his executives because he believed that would encourage them to look for loopholes in it. Instead he just says something like you did above like "you are responsible for the good name of the company. Don't do anything that would damage it."
I understand where you are coming from-- "we are a society of laws and not men".
Realistically, ever since we were founded as a nation, our lawmen have made interpretations of the law to let go people they felt would not be a problem (or who had power... or who they liked... or who was a relative) and other interpretations to stop criminals and dangerous people (and those in groups they didn't like... or with a skin color they didn't like... or who they personally disliked).
Where you are coming from is the "ideal" however and you could point out their hypocrisy when they enforced the law unequally and it bothered them. Lately- the people in power seem to have less and less problem with shame and hypocrisy. They do what they want and when you catch them (perhaps because so many have been caught) they just smile and say "so what- try to do something about it".
It flows from the top and our current political and corporate executive branches are really bad about these kinds of behaviors.
I agree with you that the judge was "clever" to misinterpret the law to catch a scumbag.
However... this is from the post right above yours:
Actually, the stronger issue is that companies are required to maintain e-mail records for X number of years - in case of court cases, audits, etc. This ruling now makes companies accountable for maintaining IM traffic (and possibly other similar data) as well. THAT will be of grave issue.
The rule of unintended consequences is in full effect. For example, in my great state of texas, the DA has "misinterpreted" the law so that people with crackpipes are felons instead of misdemeanors (sp). The end result is a $59 *million* dollar a year bill for incarcerating them- an estimated $250 *million* dollar bill for new prisons because the misinterpretation means we have a lot more felons than we used to. An entire *class* of minor criminals who will now basically be *forced* into lives of crime since as convicted felons they are going to find it very hard to find work and they will be well "educated" while in prison by the hard core felons.
The United States currently incarcerates people at a higher rate than soviet russia did. Most of it over drug issues and a growing number over sex offenses.
The problem is that as we are getting better and better at tracking and detecting crimes- it's becoming clear that *MANY* people engage in criminal activity in their teens and twenties- they just used to get away with it or it was put down as youthful hijinks.
Any market experiencing 50% inflation for untrained labor and 100% inflation for trained labor seems pretty free to me.
The fact is, we have an *extremely* and *artificially* high cost of living in the united states.
A lot of it is good ideas like overtime, sick days, child labor laws.
But a lot of it is just artificial. There is a gross oversupply of labor in the world today.
Heck, there is no reason we should pay our executives so much when perfectly competant executives are available around the world for under a million a year.
The free market cuts both ways.
If there are a million capable people willing to do the work for $12,000 a year, only held back by artificial barriers, then the fair wage is not $80,000 but $12,000.
The fundamental problem is that we have many protections against slavery, pollution, child labor, unreasonable working hours, health care, etc. while the people are are competing against do not- or they have them much less expensively than we do. For example- health insurance is so much cheaper that it is less expensive to fly to india, get the complex surgury done, and spend a 2 week vacation there afterwards- than it is for the *deductable* back in the united states for the same quality care.
In part this is becuase the US doctor is paying $50,000 in malpractice insurance, $25,000 taxes on their income, $70,000 for their house and family, and $24,000 for their mistress. The same indian doctor is paying roughly a 5th of each of those amounts.
Wages *are* equaling out RAPIDLY. At the current rates of inflation- within 8 years the wages for similar positions will be the same in china, india, and the US. Imagine the shock to retiring people in those countries who have saved maybe $5,000 to retire on and suddenly everything is at US prices.
Likewise, even now- there are many hidden costs to using overseas workers and H1B workers- usually communications skills. Things have to be *very* formal- and even a single question can cost you a 24 hour turnaround.
In 2012- things start to get very nice in the US for US workers.
Well, if we are talking fictional characters anyway how about Lazerous Long or Methos?
And to make it worse- IF anyone else can see the idea of green oak leaves on a sandy background they can duplicate it regardless of how well protected the original texture is.
At a minimum you could video capture it to another computer via a camera and clean up the texture.
At a maximum you could recreate it from scratch just like the creator did with photoshop.
Current copyright is ridiculously long and companies are pushing for basically hard for infinite copyright.
If these rules were already in place many of the companies would not exist. Walt Disney would have never happened if the Grimm family (Or GrimmCo, Inc.) still had all trademarks to the fairy tales written in the 1600's and of course they were *written* from stories that already existed for hundreds of years.
Money is a scoring system for how much we are willing to do to get scarce resources.
As long as *anything* is scarce, your society will never exist.
So...
Will beachfront property ever plentiful?
Will property in california ever plentiful?
Will the penthouse ever be plentiful?
Will the chance to screw the hottest model on the planet ever be plentiful?
Will the chance to attend the hottest parties ever be plentiful?
Will the funniest or smartest or best looking people ever be plentiful?
But you can sell your linden dollars for us currency and exchange those for gold.
I don't know about the value of linden dollars but 1 million EQ1 plat -- $211 dollars US.
Underlying ALL of those currencies (and products) are:
VALUE OF TIME TO PRODUCE
VALUE OF RAW RESOURCES TO PRODUCE
SCARCITY
DEMAND
Linden items take time (but after #1 time == zero)
Linden items take a few dollars a month to produce (for your subscription dollars ultimately - genuine high fashion items are often made from extreme materials such as batch of rare unusually fine wool a couple years ago they made a about 100 suits with- that's it 100 suits like that in the entire world)
Linden items are artificially scarce (unlike say gold, uranium, germanium, high quality silicon)
Linden items do have demand.
Could be other factors. I think over time as DMCA gets stronger and stronger that artificial items like this may hold value better (because you can keep them artificially scarce).
Or it is possible that it was becoming too hard for them to stop this information anyway.
At least this way, they can make sure it is within a range close to reality (200 to 3000) vs wierd stuff (and they killed 30,000 students and tortured them to death!).
It will be wierd from some tho- prior posts here indicate many chinese are not aware of their own recent history.
They were convicted here but basically given a slap on the wrist.
They were convicted there and are being given a punch to the jaw.
EU shows willingness to get out the sharp knives and teeth extractors if they continue resisting.
Basically, same crime- same conviction- but the us political parties have a lot more interest in microsoft's donations and the wealth it brings to the country than other countries.
The hospitals will *still* bill you in some cases and you have to *prove* to them that they are wrong.
In my case, it was bout $11,000 bucks worth of charges.
Watch out for them billing you for items which have negotiated charges. They say "This is a $110 test and the insurance company paid $90. You owe us $20." Then you check with the insurance company and it turns out the total price for the test is $90 to that insurance company. $110 is the "street" price with no discounts.
And of course they hit you with this crap while you are sick and not capable of defending yourself well. In my case, a friend looked at the bills and went to bat for me.
I'd assume you can use a counterweight for part of that issue.
I see the time on your post as 11:49AM (48 minutes after the time you reference in your post).
My current time is 12:47PM CST.
I'm sure he did. And I'm sure they laughed with him.
He is that kinda guy.
Yea- I don't think most people realize how ruthless marriage was before the jewelry and movie business got ahold of it.
Marriages were about *PROPERTY* not about "true love".
Agree on the other points too- you raise children, then maybe the state gives you a break since we currently view it as good for society (I don't but I think we are overpopulating ourselves to death).
Otherwise, why should a childless couple of any gender mix be able to form a legal contract governing inheritance, power of attorney, distribution of property, support (alimony), etc. that is banned to other couples?
Separate MARRIAGE (religious) from CIVIL UNION (Secular). And then separate MARRIAGE (Catholic, Baptist) from MARRIAGE (Other religion that is cool with gay marriages). You shouldn't be able to force the catholic church to marry two gays because it's against their religion. You shouldn't be able to bar a pro-gay marriage religion from marrying gays.
Did you even honestly bother to read my entire post or did you just stop and reply the second that you hit a statement you disagreed with?
I'm not against gay marriage. I *ARGUE* in the bloody parent post that the same issue is becoming possible for female and male executives. I say that I see no basic difference between a non-fertile female marrying another man vs another female.
My basic point is that "marriage" has MANY implicit rules that have changed dramatically over the last few years and we need to *EXPLICITLY* address them in *ANY* kind of civil union.
For god's sake- read the post if you are going to reply. I'm probably 80% in agreement with your position man and I didn't argue for a ban on gay marriages. SHEESH.
No but a fairly *strong* government is needed to control people like gates (or O.J. Simpson).
Corporations are EVEN stronger than people like Gates, plus they are basically immortal and can assign blame to a few human "cells" and shed them to avoid legal consequences.
It's rapidly corrupting a republican democracy- I don't think liberatarian philosophy ala Ayn Rand would stand a chance against lawyers and corporations.
The problem with the libertarian philosophy is that it absolutely breaks down when one citizen is immensely richer or more powerful than another citizen.
If Bill Gates wanted to ruin your life- there is not a damn thing you could do to stop him in a libertarian society.
An underlying presumption of libertarian philosophy is that by some magical means very powerful people will not abuse their power.
They are not a hypocrit if they disagree with the catholic church that abortion is wrong.
.. say make public speeches against abortion, have laws passed against abortion, and then it turns out they are having abortions themselves or supporting abortion actively in secret.
They are only a hypocrit if they
However, hypocrisy just doesn't have the sting it did 20 years ago. People have no shame any more.
Except maybe republicans *once* they are caught.
The problem with civil unions is that they could be used to create huge legal loopholes.
Two male CEO's "marry" and one leaves their company to their "spouse" avoiding billions of dollars of tax consequences.
There are a lot of implicit rules that were imbedded in the "Male is the breadwinner and has money and Woman takes care of the home and has children" meme that was associated with marriage until a very short time ago.
Part of the reason for encouraging marriage was so there would be plenty of soldiers and plenty of young people to support the older people.
The rules are changing and marriage isn't keeping up.
What is the difference between a 40's non-fertile female marrying a 40's male vs another 40's female to society?
What's the difference between a 40's non-fertile female marrying her 20's son? or Daughter?
If producing babies are not involved, then the law needs to be pretty crystal clear. Whenever love or large amounts of money are involved, people are going to push it to the breaking point.
I really can't see a difference personally.
And my first comment increasingly applies to men and women (and always has among the rich who married rich to preserve the family fortune). The owners of two privately held companies could marry to avoid huge tax consequences provided they are male and female.
What ever the case- civil unions are *NOT* as simple as they seem at first glance. Today we want everything to be spelled out- when marriages were invented nothing was spelled out.