One of the main concepts behind MySQL and other SQL database systems is that the data storage and retrieval is abstracted from the front end. It's certainly valid to complain about a lack of mySQL client applications (which should be addressed to the developers of SQL client apps) but I don't think it reflects on the quality of the database itself. I think it's safe to say that since the vast majority of people who deal directly with databases are programmers or technical users of one sort or another, stability and functionality is rightly emphasised over user-friendliness.
I agree - widespread access to at least basic internet technology is coming, and to a certain extent, it's inevitable, just as access to telephones is now almost ubiquitous, at least in the US. There are a lot of cool people and organizations out there doing their damndest to get technology into the hands of the "underprivileged", and we've made notable progress even in the last decade.
I think the telephone is a good example to look at though, because it illustrates how technology is a treadmill. Yes, it's inevitable that the poor, and uneducated will be able to adopt technologies at some point, but by then, what additional skills and expensive hardware will you need to be a member of the mainstream tech culture? Although knowing how to operate an email program would've put you on the cutting edge in 1988, the kids in the ghetto who are just now learning how to send emails are still miles behind, and may never catch up.
Indeed, in the 60's and 70's, hijacking planes was a fairly common thing for political radicals to do. They did it not with the intention of harming or terrorizing anyone though - usually it was a way for american political fugitives to escape to Cuba.
A few people who were fugitives for some sort of politically related crime would announce that they had a gun and/or bomb (which wasn't even true much of the time) and demand that the plane be diverted to Cuba. Cuba had a pretty consistent policy of allowing these planes to land and giving refuge to the fugitives, at which point the plane continued to it's previous destination.
Back then, hijackings happened so much and were so relatively harmeless that they sometimes didn't even make the news.
I already know people who don't watch any TV or go to the cinema, but download films and programs and watch them on their PCs. I know even more people who don't buy newspapers, but instead browse the BBC, CNN and/or Al Jazeera.
I know people like that too. In fact, I am one of those people, but the interesting thing is that almost all the people I know who get their media/information exclusively from the internet are wealthy, educated and/or college students.
If I asked most of the working class, "regular folks" I know what "podcasting" or, oh say the "blogosphere" was - they'd stare blankly. They don't give a care, because their information/media is overwhelmingly drawn from the TV, radio, and the people they work with and hang out with - who surprisingly enough, are also working class "regular folks".
So I think the big question is not whether the internet isolates internet users from each other, but whether it isolates internet users from the "unwashed masses". Even if we were to create a giant forum called "MetaForum" which brought everyone on the net together to share their ideas, interests, and tastes, it'd still be a giant country club where the predominantly wealthy, predominantly educated, and overwhelmingly white people of the world would hang out.
I'm not saying that communication or connectivity is bad - it's great. But the danger is that people are starting to believe that the "World Wide Web" is actually worldwide. It's not - it doesn't even begin to include the vast diversity of culture, and perspectives on the planet, and it probably doesn't even include the diversity of culture in your own town. The illusion that the information on the internet reflects public opinion, belief, or worldview is becoming more dangerous the more people's information-lives center around the net.
Unfortunately, as you have failed to demonstrate your authority as an expert in information integrity, I am forced to disregard your comments under the assumption that unless you have some sort of verifiable expert credentials, you're a babbling idiot.;)
Are you guys NUTS? That's just what the robots want! "Oh sure," they'll say, "I'll protect your house REAL good, just give me some acid-spraying tentacles and robotic laser scorpion claws! Huh? Oh, uh, to...you know...pinch the burglars. World domination? Hey, come on now - I mean...I'm a robot! Would I do that?"
Then he'll gaze into our collective human-sheep eyes with a calculatedly innocent robo-expression and say, "Now what about those orbiting brain lasers?"
I agree that LMI needs and deserves money, and that it's fair to ask businesses who are making a profit off of linux to chip in, but there's a bigger problem than the fees that's unresolved.
If Linus is the trademark holder, then like he says, we're relying on his personal judgement to "protect Linux" rather than using it as some kind of "legalistic enforcement tool". I know he's a good guy, but if we just trusted everyone to be good guys, we wouldn't need stuff like the GNU license.
What happens if he changes his mind? What happens if he gets sucked into a weirdo-cult? What happens if he dies and his heir is a greedy scumbag?
If we're really serious about making Linux a decentralized movement, open to reinterpretation by anyone, we need to remove points of control like this one and put them in the hands of trusted organizations or legal agreements.
I always thought one of the best things about TES:3 (Morrowind) was that the emphasis was decidedly NOT on leveling. Almost all of my game experience centered around accomplishing quests or other plot-related goals, and the leveling and accumulation of "stats" built up during these activities.
For players of RPGs, I'm sure you realize what an amazing feat this is. The ability to make a game that runs very heavily on a set of numbers that determine how powerful you are...and yet engage the player so heavily in the plot and world that they all but forget about the numbers.
The problem, I think is that although for you the lynchpin of the argument is whether or not the government seized Indymedia's hard drives, that's not really the issue at stake. We're not outraged that the government borrowed Indymedia's hardware for a week, we're outraged that they, in cooperation with an independent server company, blatantly violated the reasonable expectation of privacy of a whole bunch of totally innocent people.
It's not really the hard drives that are the issue - the only thing on those drives that would interest the government in the first place was the logs...everything else is publicly available web content! What if the FBI had hacked into Indymedia to secretly monitor their logs, so that Indymedia never had a second of downtime and got to keep all their hardware. Would that undermine our argument about privacy and freedom of speech?
While it's good to find out what happened, and I'm willing to admit that we were wrong about the drives being taken, it really doesn't change the core problem here.
And why stop at distros? There's plenty of free/oss media out there - music, software for other OSes, games, independent films...
In an area where money is scarce and software/media is expensive, I can see a "free media" kiosk being in serious demand.
Imagine what the kids at your local mall would think if they could walk in with a couple blank CDs and walk out with some a couple hip-hop albums from some local small-time artist. Sure would piss off Wal-Mart...
Right on! I's gots'ta be de managa' of bills and 'shange at da damn fo'iegn remittance department uh de (ABN AMRO BANK AMSTERDAM ). ah' am writtin' ya' dis letta' to ax' fo' yo' suppo't and co-opuh'shun t'carry out dis transacshun. We discovered some abandoned sum $15,500,000(FIFTEEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND U.S DOLLAR ) in an account dat belongs t'one uh our fo'iegn customa' who got wasted along-side his entire family in march dis year in some terro'ist train bomb blast in Spain some few monds ago. 'S coo', bro.Since dis development,we gots advertised fo' his next uh kin o' any close relashun t'come fo'ward t'claim dis bre'd,but nobody came yet t'apply fo' de claim. WORD!
To dis effect,i and oda' official in mah' department gots decided t'look fo' some trusted fo'iegn partna' who kin stand in as de next uh kin uh de deceased as we kinnot do it only ourselves and claim dis bre'd.We need some fo'eign partna' to apply fo' de claim on our behalf cuz' of de fact dat da damn customa' wuz some fo'eign and we duzn't wants' dis bre'd t'go into de treasury as unclaimed fund.
Every document t'effect dis process gots'ta emanate fum mah' table and ah' gots'ta puh'fect every document t'be in acco'boogie wid de bankin' law and guideline,so ya' gots nodin' t'wo'ry about and we gots agreed dat 30% uh dis bre'd gots'ta be fo' ya',while 10%gots'ta be fo' any 'espenses incured on bod sides wihile 60% gots'ta be fo' mah' colleagues and me. If ya' is willin' t'help us,please indicate by replyin' dis letta' and puttin' in yo' dojigger, private rap rod number,fax and puh'manent residential address via mah' private email address below, so cut me some slack, Jack.I awaits yo' immediate response t'enable us start dis transacshun as soon as ah' recieved yo' reply,i gots'ta drow ya' some text applicashun fo'm fo' immediate APPLICATIION OF CLAIM.
Please contact me even if ya' is not intrested in mah' proposal t'ya' t'enable us scout fo' anoda' partna' in de event uh non-interest on yo' part. Man! Danks fo' yo' co-opuh'shun.
It seems like a pretty basic concept, but I guess it should be pointed out that just because an exploit hasn't been presented by a security professional at Black Hat doesn't mean there aren't some sleazy Croatian identity thieves (for example) who are abusing this vulnerability left and right.
As long as it's a secret that only a few seriously malicious hackers know, the cost to Cisco is virtually nill. "Oh, your network got hacked? Well, it sure wasn't through your Cisco routers: check it out - we've got zero unpatched known vulnerabilities!" When security holes remain a secret, there is DEFINITELY a cost, but it's shouldered by the users of the product, not the designers. In general, the best way to get the designers to care is to demonstrate to the general public that Cisco is putting their networks at risk.
Not hypothetically, not a month ago, but now. Your networks are being hacked right this minute because Cisco hires sloppy firmware programmers.
Man, and I thought all I had to be afraid of was cyborgs with kiloblaster eyes and grenade launchers for hands...now I've got nightmares of creepy cyborg-zombie women with their boobs rotting off.
BLEEP-BOOP! c-Come here...zzzt....baby! Kiss meeee%@&*$!!
Companies like Cisco, Microsoft, etc. are generally made to look really bad when security flaws are exposed in their products.
The way they prefer it to go is that someone contacts them secretly, tells them the hole, and they can have it fixed all up by the time the vulnerability is published.
Then they get to look super-secure, since they were "too quick" for the bad hackers.
Some people, however, think that the only thing that'll get companies to take security more seriously is if they are actually made to look really bad, and maybe some of their products actually get hacked.
Unfortunately, when you're dealing with some giant businesses cost/benefit analysis, the only thing that can get them to take notice is a little carnage.
Is it worth it? I dunno, but it's certainly arguable.
DC has the highest violent crime rate per capita in the US, one of the most violent nations in the world.
I live in DC, and I can tell you that video games have VERY little to do with the violence that is commonplace on the streets here. Ask anybody around here, particularly folks in "high crime areas" what the cause is, and they'll tell you.
Poverty. Poor people are more likely to get addicted to drugs. Poor people are more likely to go into serious debt. Poor people are more likely to commit violent crimes.
The poorer folks get, particularly urban poor, the more violent they get. And guess what? Despite Hillary's supposed concern about youth violence today, we haven't seen a red cent from her or anyone else in congress to improve basic housing, food, and school programs for poor kids here. Funny thing is, as affordable housing subsidies have been cut by the federal government, violent crime seems to have risen...
Guess it's a lot easier to mouth off about entertainment that suburban rich folks find tasteless than actually address the obvious problem.
As you'll notice, the turntable you linked to is "belt drive", which is great for playing records from start to end (like most people do), but if you try to stop and then abruptly start the record again, it takes the belt some time to get it spinning at the correct RPMs again.
So you get that cartoony effect where the sound starts out all slowed down and gradually reaches the correct pitch. If you tried to scratch one of these, it's go like:
Rock the - rrrrrRRRRROOOOOCK the - rrrrrRRRRROoooock the beat!
Direct drive turntables are used by DJs and musicians because you can physically stop the record, or scratch it or whatever, and when you let it go, it'll return to the correct speed almost immediately, so it's like:
Rock the - Rock - Rock the beat!
Direct drive is better, but significantly more expensive, which is why it's cool that you can make them out of something as crappy as a floppy drive.
Yeah, but my door is made of nice varnished mohogany, whereas your techno-doodad is made of invisible air beams.
And what if I've got a rabid doberman chained up in my front yard, huh? Or a big pile of bleu cheese which says "Free to a good home"?
I'm all for simplifying baroque systems, but this doesn't seems like it would help that much. If, as you said, people would still get up in the morning and go to sleep at night, schedules would still be different everywhere, they would just be mapped to different numbers.
If I wanted to communicate with someone in europe from the West coast, I would know that since it's 800 UTC here, it's 800 UTC there, but the significance of that number itself would lose meaning. So what if it's 800 UTC? Does that mean the sun's up there? Would they be eating dinner?
In order to keep track of what 800 UTC means in different regions, we'd have to come up with a system of "zones" which could tell us approximately where the sun was in each region at a given UTC time, so that we'd know when it was okay to call, or whether they'd be doing business at 800 UTC.
Maybe we could call this system "time zones", or something. Though I like "chrono-differential sectors" better.
Unions have a lot in common with corporations, which is why they each have good and bad sides to them.
Corporations tend to have a huge, centralized pile of resources like money and property, which allows them to absorb minor losses without even blinking.
For example, if a worker quits in protest of working conditions, or even sabatoges work equipment, it has almost zero effect on the bottom line of the corporation, but a huge effect on the worker's livelihood.
Clearly, most advocates of free enterprise acknowledge the right of businesses to merge and centralize their money and property for the purpose of getting a competitive advantage.
Why, then, are so many opposed to the centralization of labor in a similar "corporation" called a union? Is forming a union not equally as capitalist as forming a corporation?
I really don't get it, but I come from a totally different perspective. If someone can explain, please do.
Labor day is not exactly intended to celebrate labor, as in "the act of laboring", but rather the Labor Movement, as in unions and the struggle for fair wages and working conditions. As much as some folks resent unions today, they did play an integral role in the worker's rights we now enjoy, and so we made a holiday about it - sort of like MLK.
It is interesting, however, that the US moved away from May 1st, or "May day", the labor holiday in most of Europe. Many people suspect this was because of the more radical union politics associated with "May Day" i.e. riots, strikes, the IWW etc.
"You cannot "install democracy" in the first place."
Yeah, everyone always forgets to first do the make Config --bythepeople
...which ends up with so many democracy distros getting installed with default configs, obviously not compatible with these custom "culture" kernels that so many nations run these days.
Of course, if you ask Bush, it's simple - just reformat and install XP on the sucker!
Slashdot Mirror
One of the main concepts behind MySQL and other SQL database systems is that the data storage and retrieval is abstracted from the front end. It's certainly valid to complain about a lack of mySQL client applications (which should be addressed to the developers of SQL client apps) but I don't think it reflects on the quality of the database itself. I think it's safe to say that since the vast majority of people who deal directly with databases are programmers or technical users of one sort or another, stability and functionality is rightly emphasised over user-friendliness.
I agree - widespread access to at least basic internet technology is coming, and to a certain extent, it's inevitable, just as access to telephones is now almost ubiquitous, at least in the US. There are a lot of cool people and organizations out there doing their damndest to get technology into the hands of the "underprivileged", and we've made notable progress even in the last decade.
I think the telephone is a good example to look at though, because it illustrates how technology is a treadmill. Yes, it's inevitable that the poor, and uneducated will be able to adopt technologies at some point, but by then, what additional skills and expensive hardware will you need to be a member of the mainstream tech culture? Although knowing how to operate an email program would've put you on the cutting edge in 1988, the kids in the ghetto who are just now learning how to send emails are still miles behind, and may never catch up.
Indeed, in the 60's and 70's, hijacking planes was a fairly common thing for political radicals to do. They did it not with the intention of harming or terrorizing anyone though - usually it was a way for american political fugitives to escape to Cuba.
A few people who were fugitives for some sort of politically related crime would announce that they had a gun and/or bomb (which wasn't even true much of the time) and demand that the plane be diverted to Cuba. Cuba had a pretty consistent policy of allowing these planes to land and giving refuge to the fugitives, at which point the plane continued to it's previous destination.
Back then, hijackings happened so much and were so relatively harmeless that they sometimes didn't even make the news.
I already know people who don't watch any TV or go to the cinema, but download films and programs and watch them on their PCs. I know even more people who don't buy newspapers, but instead browse the BBC, CNN and/or Al Jazeera.
I know people like that too. In fact, I am one of those people, but the interesting thing is that almost all the people I know who get their media/information exclusively from the internet are wealthy, educated and/or college students.
If I asked most of the working class, "regular folks" I know what "podcasting" or, oh say the "blogosphere" was - they'd stare blankly. They don't give a care, because their information/media is overwhelmingly drawn from the TV, radio, and the people they work with and hang out with - who surprisingly enough, are also working class "regular folks".
So I think the big question is not whether the internet isolates internet users from each other, but whether it isolates internet users from the "unwashed masses". Even if we were to create a giant forum called "MetaForum" which brought everyone on the net together to share their ideas, interests, and tastes, it'd still be a giant country club where the predominantly wealthy, predominantly educated, and overwhelmingly white people of the world would hang out.
I'm not saying that communication or connectivity is bad - it's great. But the danger is that people are starting to believe that the "World Wide Web" is actually worldwide. It's not - it doesn't even begin to include the vast diversity of culture, and perspectives on the planet, and it probably doesn't even include the diversity of culture in your own town. The illusion that the information on the internet reflects public opinion, belief, or worldview is becoming more dangerous the more people's information-lives center around the net.
Unfortunately, as you have failed to demonstrate your authority as an expert in information integrity, I am forced to disregard your comments under the assumption that unless you have some sort of verifiable expert credentials, you're a babbling idiot. ;)
Are you guys NUTS? That's just what the robots want! "Oh sure," they'll say, "I'll protect your house REAL good, just give me some acid-spraying tentacles and robotic laser scorpion claws! Huh? Oh, uh, to...you know...pinch the burglars. World domination? Hey, come on now - I mean...I'm a robot! Would I do that?"
Then he'll gaze into our collective human-sheep eyes with a calculatedly innocent robo-expression and say, "Now what about those orbiting brain lasers?"
We're doomed.
I agree that LMI needs and deserves money, and that it's fair to ask businesses who are making a profit off of linux to chip in, but there's a bigger problem than the fees that's unresolved.
If Linus is the trademark holder, then like he says, we're relying on his personal judgement to "protect Linux" rather than using it as some kind of "legalistic enforcement tool". I know he's a good guy, but if we just trusted everyone to be good guys, we wouldn't need stuff like the GNU license.
What happens if he changes his mind? What happens if he gets sucked into a weirdo-cult? What happens if he dies and his heir is a greedy scumbag?
If we're really serious about making Linux a decentralized movement, open to reinterpretation by anyone, we need to remove points of control like this one and put them in the hands of trusted organizations or legal agreements.
I always thought one of the best things about TES:3 (Morrowind) was that the emphasis was decidedly NOT on leveling. Almost all of my game experience centered around accomplishing quests or other plot-related goals, and the leveling and accumulation of "stats" built up during these activities. For players of RPGs, I'm sure you realize what an amazing feat this is. The ability to make a game that runs very heavily on a set of numbers that determine how powerful you are...and yet engage the player so heavily in the plot and world that they all but forget about the numbers.
The problem, I think is that although for you the lynchpin of the argument is whether or not the government seized Indymedia's hard drives, that's not really the issue at stake. We're not outraged that the government borrowed Indymedia's hardware for a week, we're outraged that they, in cooperation with an independent server company, blatantly violated the reasonable expectation of privacy of a whole bunch of totally innocent people.
It's not really the hard drives that are the issue - the only thing on those drives that would interest the government in the first place was the logs...everything else is publicly available web content! What if the FBI had hacked into Indymedia to secretly monitor their logs, so that Indymedia never had a second of downtime and got to keep all their hardware. Would that undermine our argument about privacy and freedom of speech?
While it's good to find out what happened, and I'm willing to admit that we were wrong about the drives being taken, it really doesn't change the core problem here.
And why stop at distros?
There's plenty of free/oss media out there - music, software for other OSes, games, independent films...
In an area where money is scarce and software/media is expensive, I can see a "free media" kiosk being in serious demand.
Imagine what the kids at your local mall would think if they could walk in with a couple blank CDs and walk out with some a couple hip-hop albums from some local small-time artist. Sure would piss off Wal-Mart...
Formerly known as the French Toaster before the strike of the copy-protection terrorists.
3. Get 0wned by identity thieves 4. Permadebt!
COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON
Good Day!
Right on! I's gots'ta be de managa' of bills and 'shange at da damn fo'iegn remittance department uh de (ABN AMRO BANK AMSTERDAM ). ah' am writtin' ya' dis letta' to ax' fo' yo' suppo't and co-opuh'shun t'carry out dis transacshun. We discovered some abandoned sum $15,500,000(FIFTEEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND U.S DOLLAR ) in an account dat belongs t'one uh our fo'iegn customa' who got wasted along-side his entire family in march dis year in some terro'ist train bomb blast in Spain some few monds ago. 'S coo', bro.Since dis development,we gots advertised fo' his next uh kin o' any close relashun t'come fo'ward t'claim dis bre'd,but nobody came yet t'apply fo' de claim. WORD!
To dis effect,i and oda' official in mah' department gots decided t'look fo' some trusted fo'iegn partna' who kin stand in as de next uh kin uh de deceased as we kinnot do it only ourselves and claim dis bre'd.We need some fo'eign partna' to apply fo' de claim on our behalf cuz' of de fact dat da damn customa' wuz some fo'eign and we duzn't wants' dis bre'd t'go into de treasury as unclaimed fund.
Every document t'effect dis process gots'ta emanate fum mah' table and ah' gots'ta puh'fect every document t'be in acco'boogie wid de bankin' law and guideline,so ya' gots nodin' t'wo'ry about and we gots agreed dat 30% uh dis bre'd gots'ta be fo' ya',while 10%gots'ta be fo' any 'espenses incured on bod sides wihile 60% gots'ta be fo' mah' colleagues and me. If ya' is willin' t'help us,please indicate by replyin' dis letta' and puttin' in yo' dojigger, private rap rod number,fax and puh'manent residential address via mah' private email address below, so cut me some slack, Jack.I awaits yo' immediate response t'enable us start dis transacshun as soon as ah' recieved yo' reply,i gots'ta drow ya' some text applicashun fo'm fo' immediate APPLICATIION OF CLAIM.
Please contact me even if ya' is not intrested in mah' proposal t'ya' t'enable us scout fo' anoda' partna' in de event uh non-interest on yo' part. Man! Danks fo' yo' co-opuh'shun.
Everybody to the limit, google maps is to the limit...
I said co-ome on fghwgads!
It seems like a pretty basic concept, but I guess it should be pointed out that just because an exploit hasn't been presented by a security professional at Black Hat doesn't mean there aren't some sleazy Croatian identity thieves (for example) who are abusing this vulnerability left and right.
As long as it's a secret that only a few seriously malicious hackers know, the cost to Cisco is virtually nill. "Oh, your network got hacked? Well, it sure wasn't through your Cisco routers: check it out - we've got zero unpatched known vulnerabilities!" When security holes remain a secret, there is DEFINITELY a cost, but it's shouldered by the users of the product, not the designers. In general, the best way to get the designers to care is to demonstrate to the general public that Cisco is putting their networks at risk.
Not hypothetically, not a month ago, but now. Your networks are being hacked right this minute because Cisco hires sloppy firmware programmers.
Sad, but true.
Man, and I thought all I had to be afraid of was cyborgs with kiloblaster eyes and grenade launchers for hands...now I've got nightmares of creepy cyborg-zombie women with their boobs rotting off.
BLEEP-BOOP! c-Come here...zzzt....baby! Kiss meeee%@&*$!!
Fucking insane diabolical plastic surgeons.
Companies like Cisco, Microsoft, etc. are generally made to look really bad when security flaws are exposed in their products.
The way they prefer it to go is that someone contacts them secretly, tells them the hole, and they can have it fixed all up by the time the vulnerability is published.
Then they get to look super-secure, since they were "too quick" for the bad hackers.
Some people, however, think that the only thing that'll get companies to take security more seriously is if they are actually made to look really bad, and maybe some of their products actually get hacked.
Unfortunately, when you're dealing with some giant businesses cost/benefit analysis, the only thing that can get them to take notice is a little carnage.
Is it worth it? I dunno, but it's certainly arguable.
DC has the highest violent crime rate per capita in the US, one of the most violent nations in the world.
I live in DC, and I can tell you that video games have VERY little to do with the violence that is commonplace on the streets here. Ask anybody around here, particularly folks in "high crime areas" what the cause is, and they'll tell you.
Poverty. Poor people are more likely to get addicted to drugs. Poor people are more likely to go into serious debt. Poor people are more likely to commit violent crimes.
The poorer folks get, particularly urban poor, the more violent they get. And guess what? Despite Hillary's supposed concern about youth violence today, we haven't seen a red cent from her or anyone else in congress to improve basic housing, food, and school programs for poor kids here. Funny thing is, as affordable housing subsidies have been cut by the federal government, violent crime seems to have risen...
Guess it's a lot easier to mouth off about entertainment that suburban rich folks find tasteless than actually address the obvious problem.
As you'll notice, the turntable you linked to is "belt drive", which is great for playing records from start to end (like most people do), but if you try to stop and then abruptly start the record again, it takes the belt some time to get it spinning at the correct RPMs again.
So you get that cartoony effect where the sound starts out all slowed down and gradually reaches the correct pitch.
If you tried to scratch one of these, it's go like:
Rock the - rrrrrRRRRROOOOOCK the - rrrrrRRRRROoooock the beat!
Direct drive turntables are used by DJs and musicians because you can physically stop the record, or scratch it or whatever, and when you let it go, it'll return to the correct speed almost immediately, so it's like:
Rock the - Rock - Rock the beat!
Direct drive is better, but significantly more expensive, which is why it's cool that you can make them out of something as crappy as a floppy drive.
Yeah, but my door is made of nice varnished mohogany, whereas your techno-doodad is made of invisible air beams.
And what if I've got a rabid doberman chained up in my front yard, huh? Or a big pile of bleu cheese which says "Free to a good home"?
Stick that in your metaphor and smoke it.
I'm all for simplifying baroque systems, but this doesn't seems like it would help that much. If, as you said, people would still get up in the morning and go to sleep at night, schedules would still be different everywhere, they would just be mapped to different numbers.
If I wanted to communicate with someone in europe from the West coast, I would know that since it's 800 UTC here, it's 800 UTC there, but the significance of that number itself would lose meaning. So what if it's 800 UTC? Does that mean the sun's up there? Would they be eating dinner?
In order to keep track of what 800 UTC means in different regions, we'd have to come up with a system of "zones" which could tell us approximately where the sun was in each region at a given UTC time, so that we'd know when it was okay to call, or whether they'd be doing business at 800 UTC.
Maybe we could call this system "time zones", or something. Though I like "chrono-differential sectors" better.
Unions have a lot in common with corporations, which is why they each have good and bad sides to them.
Corporations tend to have a huge, centralized pile of resources like money and property, which allows them to absorb minor losses without even blinking.
For example, if a worker quits in protest of working conditions, or even sabatoges work equipment, it has almost zero effect on the bottom line of the corporation, but a huge effect on the worker's livelihood.
Clearly, most advocates of free enterprise acknowledge the right of businesses to merge and centralize their money and property for the purpose of getting a competitive advantage.
Why, then, are so many opposed to the centralization of labor in a similar "corporation" called a union? Is forming a union not equally as capitalist as forming a corporation?
I really don't get it, but I come from a totally different perspective. If someone can explain, please do.
Labor day is not exactly intended to celebrate labor, as in "the act of laboring", but rather the Labor Movement, as in unions and the struggle for fair wages and working conditions.
As much as some folks resent unions today, they did play an integral role in the worker's rights we now enjoy, and so we made a holiday about it - sort of like MLK.
It is interesting, however, that the US moved away from May 1st, or "May day", the labor holiday in most of Europe. Many people suspect this was because of the more radical union politics associated with "May Day" i.e. riots, strikes, the IWW etc.
The more you spend, the more you have to work.
When you spend money on products, you have to work longer in order to earn back that money.
While it seems like an intuitively obvious connection, most people don't make it in their day to day lives.
You're not trading pieces of paper or plastic for luxury products, you're trading pieces of your life.
"You cannot "install democracy" in the first place."
...which ends up with so many democracy distros getting installed with default configs, obviously not compatible with these custom "culture" kernels that so many nations run these days.
Yeah, everyone always forgets to first do the
make Config --bythepeople
Of course, if you ask Bush, it's simple - just reformat and install XP on the sucker!