I seriously doubt he's eating it for the calories. Spirulina is high in a bunch of useful nutrients. Have fun eating nothing but potatoes. Personally, I like to get a little something that isn't starch in my diet.
So you feel that way about people burning the flag and South Park?
I think at this point it would be hypocritical of Rackspace to host a site about Bible burning, but I don't know if flag burning is really the same thing (but I think they would have a decent argument if they chose not to host that).
South Park is different, because it's parody. They make fun of people to get their point across, not just to make them angry. I see the difference being the intent.
However I do feel that what they are doing is counter to the spirit of freedom of speech and religion that we value in the US.
It's not that you should be able to say anything you want. The point of freedom of speech is that it's too dangerous to give anyone the power to stop you. The system we have is that the government can't stop you, but other people can refuse to associate with you. I think it's important not to just ignore people who seem crazy, but at this point it's clear that this guy just wants to offend people, and if his hosting company doesn't want to be involved with that, then that's their choice.
And I know some people are all angry about bowing to pressure from Muslim groups, and there are cases when I think they're right. Doing something for the sole purpose of offending other people is just stupid.
Of course, to play devil's advocate, I can easily imagine that companies will find ways around these kinds of policies. For example, if a mining company wanted to do a very dirty (and cheap) extraction that would poison a nearby stream, which resulted in severe health issues for those downstream, they could potentially establish some kind of temporary company which assumes all liability. Then, when the shit comes crashing down on their heads, they could just fold up the small company, declaring bankruptcy and walking away.
I haven't really had much time to think about this situation, but the first thing that comes to mind is having it work like this:
1. Insurance company agrees to pay a certain amount in cases where their customers are liable for something. 2. This doesn't actually get their customers off the hook, it just adds an additional source of money in case something goes wrong.
So if the insurance company doesn't have the money to cover something, the company that made the mistake has to cover the difference. It also adds an interesting effect where the insurance companies customers would have an incentive to police the insurance companies, just like the insurance companies would be policing their customers.
...but it's not like the government does anything to help this now anyway.
What about the regulations on food package labeling? Isn't that a big help? What about all of the regulations on food safety?
I was referring to where you were talking about "where does your plastic come from" or "where does your food come from", not food safety. I did write a section on food safety though. The line you quoted here was a response to what I thought was a ethics/sustainability question ("Where does your food/plastic come from?"). If it's not a question of ethics, then the answer is "I don't care". If the food tastes good and doesn't make me sick, I don't care where it's from. I assume you'll find a lot of Libertarians who will take that position. Personally, I am interested in where things come from, but that's why I shop at a grocery store that labels where everything is from (sometimes a bit too much). I wouldn't have a problem with the government enforcing truth in advertising.
If you chucked out all those regulations, the system of checks and balances may kick in to eventually reach some kind of stable equilibrium, but in the meantime, a lot of people will get sick and die from bad food.
My point (in the section you ignored) was that this system already exists, and the consumers don't necessarily need to know about it. How many stores are willing to be known as "the store that makes everyone sick"?
While I do think the guy in Gainesville is an idiot Rackspace is pretty much hitting attacking. 1. His freedom of speech. 2. He and his congratulation freedom of religion.
No they're not. The constitution only applies to the government. The point of "freedom of speech" is that you can say whatever you want without being arrested, not that anyone is required to help you say it.
Frankly I have seen posts on Slashdot every bit as offensive as what this guy has said towards Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Should Slashdot have a "spine" and pull those comments.?
Slashdot is free to do that, but they would lose a lot of subscribers (just because you can doesn't mean there won't be consequences). They have their own way of dealing with this problem (the moderation system).
Should a group that burns the US flag have their website taken down.
If that site was hosted on Rackspace, probably (if their policy is implemented consistently).
The problem is the press! They are giving this idiot attention and press. Imagine how important this nutball is now that he is getting talked about by the president of the US!
The problem is all of the people reading this story with their knee-jerk "but what about freedom of speech?" reactions. If people actually understood the point of freedom of speech, this story wouldn't be interested at all. Imagine if the title was "Real estate company refuses to rent office to the KKK" or "Advertising company refuses to work for neo-Nazis. This doesn't seem to be quite as bad as either of those, but Rackspace has the freedom to draw the line wherever they want, and it's not a particularly bad place to draw it. There are hosting providers who focus on offensive sites; Rackspace obviously doesn't want to be one.
You also fail to address my question - what do you think will happen if there is no regulation? What will stop companies from engaging in unsafe practices, like what happened with BP? Why will any factory install expensive systems to clean their waste instead of just dumping it in the river? Why will any company disclose all of their ingredients if they don't have to?
The difference between Libertarians and anarchists in general is that Libertarians want the government to protect people from other people, with no artificial limits on liability. In other words, if fixing the oil spill would cost more money than BP has, then they'll still be required to pay every last cent of it until the problem is fixed or BP has no assets left to sell. What do you think would do more to make corporations play safe, regulations or the threat that a mistake could cost them everything? And the ones that don't play it safe go out of business. I guess you could say it's a different kind of regulation. The government is still making people play by the rules; the difference is that the rules are simpler (don't break other people's stuff) and individuals (or individual companies) get to decide how best to follow that.
The only solution that I see is some external regulating body. It doesn't have to be the government per se (and examples like ISO show that some privately run regulations can work), but I totally fail to see how a lack of any regulation benefits anybody other than the companies.
The idea I'm most familiar with is that insurance companies would tend to fill this niche. Back to my first point, people in charge of companies aren't going to want to go out of business if something goes wrong, so they'll get insurance, but insurance companies don't want risky clients. The insurance companies would set down their own rules, and companies could choose what rules they're willing to follow and what they're willing to pay for insurance. The primary difference between this and government regulation is that the rules come from multiple sources and evolve based on what works. The insurance companies would also presumably be hiring people based on their knowledge of the subject, rather than their position on gay marriage (when's the last time someone was elected based on their knowledge of food safety?). An insurance company with rules that are too strict won't have any customers, and one with rules that aren't strict enough will go out of business.
There are already companies that do research on products and recommend them (Consumer Reports for example). In the absence of government institutions to do this, I think consumers would pay more attention to other groups. Also, at least some stores would pay attention. For example, grocery stores would likely require their suppliers to meet certain standards. No one wants to be known as the grocery store that makes everyone sick. My guess is that there would be stores with lower standards, but that's always a choice. Better to be able to buy low-quality food than none at all.
The libertarian argument is that the consumers will demand it, but I doubt that this can happen. Do you know where the plastic in your keyboard came from? Do you have any idea where in the world all of your food is grown? The world is too complicated for each consumer to fully research every shopping decision and come to a final conclusion that carefully balances the needs of everybody.
I agree, this is probably the most complicated part. Like I said before, in many cases stores will do this for you, or consumer groups will get things changed (no government regulation is forcing Nestle to stop using palm oil), but it's not perfect, but it's not like the government does anything to help this now anyway.
Big corporations are the product of government interference, they wouldn't exist at all if they weren't being assisted with subsidies, the ability to hurt people without consequences, and regulations/copyrights/patents to make sure that no one else can enter the market. Any Libertarian who supports that is a moron.
Seriously. The comments on this article were really confusing to me. Ads? Popups? Are people still living in the 90's? Adblock Plus has been out since 2006; I don't even know when the original Adblock was made. I hadn't noticed any of the problems in the article because I never see any ads..
If you're distributing non-web software, you can use whatever codec you want and it doesn't matter if x264 is free. The reason this was a problem is because it looked like x264 was going to be the only codec available on the web.
No, Facebook is becoming the Scooby gang. "And I would've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for me posting the details of my plan on that meddling Facebook!"
That page looks like licensing info, not technical info (certain licenses allow unlimited CPUs). The Linux kernel has a limit on memory and processors. I think the memory limit is insanely high, the CPU one is less so. I've been trying to find info but all anyone seems to talk about is PAE.
Is your computer on and not crashing? Congratulations, your SATA cables are working perfectly. The reason people are responding like this is because of how obvious it is. The same cables carrying your music are also carrying more important things. If you're getting noticeable signal problems when loading relatively small music files, imagine what that many errors would do to the kernel. Another thing to remember is that if there was this kind of problem happening, and somehow you managed to boot, you wouldn't get minor differences in sound quality, you'd get very noticeable random noise (assuming your media player can even open the file).
Patched on 8/13, new kernel package on 8/14. I'm not concerned. And slower-updating distros generally have a security team to patch these kinds of things into their current kernel release.
Slashdot Mirror
I seriously doubt he's eating it for the calories. Spirulina is high in a bunch of useful nutrients. Have fun eating nothing but potatoes. Personally, I like to get a little something that isn't starch in my diet.
So you feel that way about people burning the flag and South Park?
I think at this point it would be hypocritical of Rackspace to host a site about Bible burning, but I don't know if flag burning is really the same thing (but I think they would have a decent argument if they chose not to host that).
South Park is different, because it's parody. They make fun of people to get their point across, not just to make them angry. I see the difference being the intent.
However I do feel that what they are doing is counter to the spirit of freedom of speech and religion that we value in the US.
It's not that you should be able to say anything you want. The point of freedom of speech is that it's too dangerous to give anyone the power to stop you. The system we have is that the government can't stop you, but other people can refuse to associate with you. I think it's important not to just ignore people who seem crazy, but at this point it's clear that this guy just wants to offend people, and if his hosting company doesn't want to be involved with that, then that's their choice.
And I know some people are all angry about bowing to pressure from Muslim groups, and there are cases when I think they're right. Doing something for the sole purpose of offending other people is just stupid.
Of course, to play devil's advocate, I can easily imagine that companies will find ways around these kinds of policies. For example, if a mining company wanted to do a very dirty (and cheap) extraction that would poison a nearby stream, which resulted in severe health issues for those downstream, they could potentially establish some kind of temporary company which assumes all liability. Then, when the shit comes crashing down on their heads, they could just fold up the small company, declaring bankruptcy and walking away.
I haven't really had much time to think about this situation, but the first thing that comes to mind is having it work like this:
1. Insurance company agrees to pay a certain amount in cases where their customers are liable for something.
2. This doesn't actually get their customers off the hook, it just adds an additional source of money in case something goes wrong.
So if the insurance company doesn't have the money to cover something, the company that made the mistake has to cover the difference. It also adds an interesting effect where the insurance companies customers would have an incentive to police the insurance companies, just like the insurance companies would be policing their customers.
What about the regulations on food package labeling? Isn't that a big help? What about all of the regulations on food safety?
I was referring to where you were talking about "where does your plastic come from" or "where does your food come from", not food safety. I did write a section on food safety though. The line you quoted here was a response to what I thought was a ethics/sustainability question ("Where does your food/plastic come from?"). If it's not a question of ethics, then the answer is "I don't care". If the food tastes good and doesn't make me sick, I don't care where it's from. I assume you'll find a lot of Libertarians who will take that position. Personally, I am interested in where things come from, but that's why I shop at a grocery store that labels where everything is from (sometimes a bit too much). I wouldn't have a problem with the government enforcing truth in advertising.
If you chucked out all those regulations, the system of checks and balances may kick in to eventually reach some kind of stable equilibrium, but in the meantime, a lot of people will get sick and die from bad food.
My point (in the section you ignored) was that this system already exists, and the consumers don't necessarily need to know about it. How many stores are willing to be known as "the store that makes everyone sick"?
While I do think the guy in Gainesville is an idiot Rackspace is pretty much hitting attacking.
1. His freedom of speech.
2. He and his congratulation freedom of religion.
No they're not. The constitution only applies to the government. The point of "freedom of speech" is that you can say whatever you want without being arrested, not that anyone is required to help you say it.
Frankly I have seen posts on Slashdot every bit as offensive as what this guy has said towards Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Should Slashdot have a "spine" and pull those comments.?
Slashdot is free to do that, but they would lose a lot of subscribers (just because you can doesn't mean there won't be consequences). They have their own way of dealing with this problem (the moderation system).
Should a group that burns the US flag have their website taken down.
If that site was hosted on Rackspace, probably (if their policy is implemented consistently).
The problem is the press! They are giving this idiot attention and press. Imagine how important this nutball is now that he is getting talked about by the president of the US!
The problem is all of the people reading this story with their knee-jerk "but what about freedom of speech?" reactions. If people actually understood the point of freedom of speech, this story wouldn't be interested at all. Imagine if the title was "Real estate company refuses to rent office to the KKK" or "Advertising company refuses to work for neo-Nazis. This doesn't seem to be quite as bad as either of those, but Rackspace has the freedom to draw the line wherever they want, and it's not a particularly bad place to draw it. There are hosting providers who focus on offensive sites; Rackspace obviously doesn't want to be one.
You also fail to address my question - what do you think will happen if there is no regulation? What will stop companies from engaging in unsafe practices, like what happened with BP? Why will any factory install expensive systems to clean their waste instead of just dumping it in the river? Why will any company disclose all of their ingredients if they don't have to?
The difference between Libertarians and anarchists in general is that Libertarians want the government to protect people from other people, with no artificial limits on liability. In other words, if fixing the oil spill would cost more money than BP has, then they'll still be required to pay every last cent of it until the problem is fixed or BP has no assets left to sell. What do you think would do more to make corporations play safe, regulations or the threat that a mistake could cost them everything? And the ones that don't play it safe go out of business. I guess you could say it's a different kind of regulation. The government is still making people play by the rules; the difference is that the rules are simpler (don't break other people's stuff) and individuals (or individual companies) get to decide how best to follow that.
The only solution that I see is some external regulating body. It doesn't have to be the government per se (and examples like ISO show that some privately run regulations can work), but I totally fail to see how a lack of any regulation benefits anybody other than the companies.
The idea I'm most familiar with is that insurance companies would tend to fill this niche. Back to my first point, people in charge of companies aren't going to want to go out of business if something goes wrong, so they'll get insurance, but insurance companies don't want risky clients. The insurance companies would set down their own rules, and companies could choose what rules they're willing to follow and what they're willing to pay for insurance. The primary difference between this and government regulation is that the rules come from multiple sources and evolve based on what works. The insurance companies would also presumably be hiring people based on their knowledge of the subject, rather than their position on gay marriage (when's the last time someone was elected based on their knowledge of food safety?). An insurance company with rules that are too strict won't have any customers, and one with rules that aren't strict enough will go out of business.
There are already companies that do research on products and recommend them (Consumer Reports for example). In the absence of government institutions to do this, I think consumers would pay more attention to other groups. Also, at least some stores would pay attention. For example, grocery stores would likely require their suppliers to meet certain standards. No one wants to be known as the grocery store that makes everyone sick. My guess is that there would be stores with lower standards, but that's always a choice. Better to be able to buy low-quality food than none at all.
The libertarian argument is that the consumers will demand it, but I doubt that this can happen. Do you know where the plastic in your keyboard came from? Do you have any idea where in the world all of your food is grown? The world is too complicated for each consumer to fully research every shopping decision and come to a final conclusion that carefully balances the needs of everybody.
I agree, this is probably the most complicated part. Like I said before, in many cases stores will do this for you, or consumer groups will get things changed (no government regulation is forcing Nestle to stop using palm oil), but it's not perfect, but it's not like the government does anything to help this now anyway.
Sure they do. Don't question my straw man.
Big corporations are the product of government interference, they wouldn't exist at all if they weren't being assisted with subsidies, the ability to hurt people without consequences, and regulations/copyrights/patents to make sure that no one else can enter the market. Any Libertarian who supports that is a moron.
No, more like they want to hire people who can actually write programs, and more than 6% of "software engineers" don't know what they're doing.
I don't know. I prefer to comment, just in case:
while 1:
# Indentation
dosomething()
It's not funny if you explain the joke..
Two words: ad blockers.
Seriously. The comments on this article were really confusing to me. Ads? Popups? Are people still living in the 90's? Adblock Plus has been out since 2006; I don't even know when the original Adblock was made. I hadn't noticed any of the problems in the article because I never see any ads..
but ultimately produce a PDF if I care about printing
Where's +1 obvious? PDF is designed to always look the same everywhere, other formats generally aren't.
Inter ocular lenses with wifi capabilities would be even more efficient.
Until you have to change the battery in your eye..
If you're distributing non-web software, you can use whatever codec you want and it doesn't matter if x264 is free. The reason this was a problem is because it looked like x264 was going to be the only codec available on the web.
No, Facebook is becoming the Scooby gang. "And I would've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for me posting the details of my plan on that meddling Facebook!"
I was looking at kernel config options and here's what I found.
Max CPUs:
- x86: 512
- x86_64: 256 (not sure why this is smaller)
- sparc64: 1024
- ia64: 4096
It also notes that these are the max, hardware limits may make it lower. These numbers seem much smaller than I expected.
There's no citation but this Wikipedia page says Linux can support up to 64 TB of memory on x86_64.
That page looks like licensing info, not technical info (certain licenses allow unlimited CPUs). The Linux kernel has a limit on memory and processors. I think the memory limit is insanely high, the CPU one is less so. I've been trying to find info but all anyone seems to talk about is PAE.
Oracle had its own operating system before this?
and to date none of them sparkle in the sun.
Yet.
Is your computer on and not crashing? Congratulations, your SATA cables are working perfectly. The reason people are responding like this is because of how obvious it is. The same cables carrying your music are also carrying more important things. If you're getting noticeable signal problems when loading relatively small music files, imagine what that many errors would do to the kernel. Another thing to remember is that if there was this kind of problem happening, and somehow you managed to boot, you wouldn't get minor differences in sound quality, you'd get very noticeable random noise (assuming your media player can even open the file).
No don't use logic, that just makes audiophiles angry! The GP is probably going to lock comments on his comment now :(
http://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/i686/kernel26/
Patched on 8/13, new kernel package on 8/14. I'm not concerned. And slower-updating distros generally have a security team to patch these kinds of things into their current kernel release.
They fixed a bug in the Linux kernel? I'm worried now.
Who should be jailed?
The person who planned to start a war?
That's true in every industry, and is not a convincing argument for why software is different.
And yet if you read the original post:
This is a problem with the patent system, not with software patents themselves.