And FWIW, I do advocate this sort of thing as long as it is within the bounds of the law. If we're going to point out why the law is flawed, then we need to show what the law really means in practice.
WRT to the ACTA situation, we have no recourse, since we cannot even examine the proposed treaty. Our only hope is to intercede with the Senate before the treaty is ratified. The chances of a successful intercession at that point are close to zero; furthermore, the US has acted within treaties it has signed even without ratification (assuming, generally correctly, that ratification would come at a later date).
In the end, though, we're SOL. IP is the only major area where the US has a dominant share of the global market. You can bet your bottom dollar that attempts to legally protect this valuable export will be made, regardless of how it suits *our* notions of freedom, or our notions of personal rights.
Big business rules the US, and they'll get what they want. Welcome to the future.
Not sure why you got modded off-topic. The subject of Daleks being unable to climb stairs was the source of many a heated argument amongst Dr. Who fans. It's a classic argument
Likely today's moderators are a little young to understand the significance among us older slashdotters.
Here we have a perfect article that makes the Dr. Who reference perfectly on-topic -- hopefully another moderator will have the good sense to undo the damage.
Or maybe I just need to admit I'm old and out-of-touch with today's nerd culture. But really, it's quite unseemly that in the new series, the Daleks *fly*. It's like not having Han shoot first, it's just plain wrong.
A standard car hitting a pedestrian at 25 mph would have a Head Impact Criterion score of about 1,000. That translates to an 18 per cent chance of a life-threatening injury.
Note to self: one in six is pretty shitty, especially since that's life-threatening, not life-ending. Must go faster to reduce chance of victim surviving. Or make sure to get the head beneath the tires.
Each of which are about the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined. The US of A is MUCH MUCH larger. You start running into economies of scale, since your HFC needs to run to individual neighborhood drops.
Just so you know, "economies of scale" are something completely different. They refer to the cost savings of doing a larger number of the same transaction. Mostly this relates to being able to spread fixed costs over more units made/sold. However, there are also economies of scale in variable costs like shipping & delivery, having more people with the necessary skill sets for critical path items, etc.
What you're actually talking about is very nearly the opposite of economies of scale. In the US, due to relative geographical isolation of a lot of people, there is *increased* fixed cost to serve certain sectors of the population. If you want to serve the market of 1500 people in Bumbleshit Arkansas or Fuckwit Pennsyltucky, you might need to spend as much on relay infrastructure as serving 30,000 people in Suburbastard New Jersey.
Compound this with the notion that "everyone should have access" in the US, and costs begin to get dizzyingly high to serve a lot of the market.
Re:Whatever happened to kernel trap?
on
LKML Summary Podcast
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I really enjoyed that site. Especially the flame wars. Now I have to go out and start my own flamewars to get my fix.
Like you'd know anything about kernel development, anyway.
Tell you what, after your mommy finishes changing your diaper, why don't you visit a grown-up discussion site where the real adults can figure out the answers to serious problems?
Idiot.
[did that help? I like to help out a brother who's jonesing for a fix o' flamewar.]
Most people replied that the best language for RAD was Delphi. A few said go with Java. I didn't choose any of these, I preferred Visual Basic to have the peace-of-mind of Microsoft.
Ah, so you're the "hobbyist programmer" in accounting who created the most borked up piece of application software that ever needed maintaining and yet was somehow so important to operations that it couldn't be scrapped even after two OS upgrade cycles.
I hope you suffer ceaseless torment for all your days and then die of the oozing shits.*
*If you're not that guy, I apologize. I'm just a little bitter about the lost year.
Now they're delaying it... or you know, just assume that Google is horribly evil. Whichever.
Thanks for offering the choice. I'm gonna assume they're horribly evil.
See, the truth of the matter is that Google is now assembling a database of all the possible ways the world could be saved. Meanwhile, they have a crack team of evil underlords working to make sure that Google has appropriate counter-strategies to the the world-saving methods with the highest PageRanks.
This way, when Googol the Destroyer is summoned from the Plane of Infernal Terrors to wreak the End of Days upon the world, no measly humans will be able to execute a plan to thwart him.
Mwua-ha-ha-ha.
Humanity's only hope will be that the eminent rival sorcerors, Gatus and Joba, will overcome their mutual disdain in order to devise an artifact of true power, the One True Operating System with Built-in Global Web Search, that will condemn Googol to return to the Plane of Infernal Terrors. Unfortunately, the roving druid Stallmanx has thrown a wrench into the works by turning the hearts and minds of lesser sorcerors (and hedge wizards) against Gatus and Joba, and so our heroes must overcome the animosity of their lesser brethren before they can fulfill their quest.
Will Gatus and Joba succeed? Will we ever find out what wonders lie beneath the surface of Stallmanx's Beard of Druidic Prowess? Will Googol succeed in bringing about the End of Days via the Rite of a Million Targeted Ads?
Tune in to next week's broadcast of "Googol the Destroyer"!
Thanks for enlightening me by bring up "inflammatory terms". It becomes clearer why there was a failure in comprehension by both you and diablovision. You have too much emotion wrapped up in words that have actual meanings, which is why you were unable to comprehend my post correctly. You brought assumed context into play because of your preconceptions about certain terms, that are not nearly universal.
Also note that the use of "inflammatory terms", as you put it, was in direct response to the same terms being used by parent of my post in a generalism. If you chose to be inflamed, it makes me doubt our ability to handle written communication even more.
Here's the thing about context... when you have a discussion with multiple people involved, in a written form, one needs to use great care in using context to disambiguate unclear terms. This is obvious. It becomes an especially big problem when you are using assumed context, instead of explicit context.
The key here is that the parent to my original post started with specifics, then broadened to a generalism. My response was to the generalism he made, not to the specifics (this is why I blockquoted only the generalism). You inferred the context of the specifics, which was a mistake.
Yes, I could have been clearer. However, most people with good comprehension skills should be able to follow the obvious transition from the specific to the general, especially when the term "slogan" is used -- that alone signifies a generalism.
I am noting your continual use of ad hominem attacks. They don't make your original statement any more precise or accurate.
Oh noes! Are you putting it in your secret revenge notebook?
FYI, those weren't ad hominem attacks. Your misinterpretation of what I wrote is my point; I am not attacking you, I am pointing out your choice not to comprehend, or inability to comprehend, what I had initially written. Since your entire post was predicated on something I had not written, and was therefore way off base, pointing out your miscomprehension is completely valid.
and I think I would have a problem if I purchased this as it is a pretty misleading posting.
I think you'd have a bigger problem if you purchased that item, namely that you'd be a sucker.
Ad states it's 15% 24k gold (in so many words), with a weight of 455 g. That works out to 68.25 g of pure gold, or a little over two ounces... since gold is currently selling at around $900, a buy-it-now cost of $1495 (plus 49.99 shipping) is far less than the value of the gold in the piece.
Right away it's clear that there is something fishy, which should be enough to scare away anyone who isn't a sucker.
I'm a bit peeved at organic farming, because it is deliberately under-utilizing land and being purposely inefficient at creating one of the most precious resources on Earth: food.
Deliberately under-utilizing land?
That's a laugh. Organic yields are pretty close to non-organic yields; never mind the fact that it can just as easily be argued that current factory farming methods are deliberately over-utilising land in an unsustainable way (unsustainable due to the environmental impact which is often externalised as a cost).
Please also note that the world currently produces more food than it needs; distribution is the problem.
Furthermore, organic methods can actually increase yields in areas that are capital-poor but have a surplus of labor (which includes most areas where starvation is an issue).
Successful investment is going to tend to make the corporation worth more, so it seems like taxing the owners would be perfectly workable.
And so it is for C-corps. S-corps, for example all publically traded companies, pay corporate income tax.
I think the problem with taxing only the owners on their capital gains is that we'd lose our ability to influence businesses by means of tax law. Right-wingers may disagree with the principle there, but I feel that taxes are the only viable means we have of forcing businesses to internalize erstwhile external costs (like pollution).
So I feel corporate income taxes are a necessary tool in addition to capital gains tax.
It's the US government at all levels, federal, state, and local, that should learn to live by the rules. When the corporations are moving overseas to places with lower taxes this means your taxes are too high, you should cut government spending and taxes at the same time.
Taxes are only part of the equation. Labor costs are far more important. As are "friendly" regulatory environments.
The answer is not to abase ourselves at the altar of the almighty corporations. The answer is to elevate global standards of living, to allow free trade to equalize wealth distribution, and not have to compete against horrid labor conditions.
But that'll never fly, because Americans (and I am one) cannot live without their unsustainable luxuries that require cheap foreign labor.
What do you mean, everyone else? What does that have to do with that I wrote, and with what he or she chose to infer?
I tend to choose my words carefully, especially so for serious topics. If that poster chose to read what they wanted to see, that is their problem, and the mark of someone who uses a written communication channel poorly. They deserved to be dressed down.
Furthermore, in the thread in question, what was being discussed initially was the workers seizing the control of production. Since when is the government synonymous with the workers? If there were to be any error in comprehension on that poster's part, it should have been by assuming I meant "seizing by force" as another poster did.
Seriously. This is one of the reasons it's hard to have a serious discussion on slashdot -- because people don't read well.
Because communism is dead, and has been for a long, long time. I am scared of fascism, which is far different from Communism, and I think you need to learn what the difference is. Key aspect: in the Cold War Soviet Union, the workers did not control the means of production. Neither did they in Communist China, nor do they in modern China. In actuality, it is logistically impossible for the workers to control the means of production on a large scale. Hence, I do not fear that.
The UAW was the biggest contributor to the failure of the US auto industry. By raising labor costs to the point only huge luxury cars could earn a profit.
Yet another falsehood from the right. The Ford Ranger was hugely profitable, despite labor costs. The smaller cars that were produced by Honda and Toyota faced labor costs very close to that of American car companies. Yet they were very profitable -- and the difference in profit was greater than the difference in labor costs. The failures of the auto industry are squarely on the shoulders of those who were unable to foresee and meet the demands of the market. This happened because the automakers in the US grew accustomed to creating and molding the market, and were unable to adapt to quality competition being able to serve the actual demands of the market.
But we do have a system to deal with the controllers of the means of production failing. It used to be called bankruptcy court. But the UAW would lose bigtime so it wasn't considered a (politically) viable option.
I think you consider the unions a bugaboo. So be it; it helps me understand where you're coming from, and where I'm unlikely to be able to get a point across. The biggest one being that the health of the UAW, in this case, is a bellwether for larger labor concerns. And by labor, I don't mean organized labor, I mean working class. These are the people that ultimately pay if the automakers close their doors. Any sane capital investor loses a small part of their portfolio; any worker entangled loses their entire livelihood for a while.
I understand the philosophy you are coming from (I once believed much the same), but please be aware that the Communism bugaboo was supported by the government largely to keep the domestic populace in check. The external threat is a wonderful tool for those in power...
All taxes punish success. You can't get around that fact.
So the question is, what are the things that we can tax and minimize the negative impact on the economy?
Since I believe trickle-down economics has been shown to not work, I believe taxes levied on capital investment are a good bet. One can increase capital investment to increase income. There is a limit to how much a person can increase labor to increase income.
Slashdot Mirror
That was Joel Reidenberg at Fordham Law.
Here's a brief article.
Scalia's response left a little to be desired.
And FWIW, I do advocate this sort of thing as long as it is within the bounds of the law. If we're going to point out why the law is flawed, then we need to show what the law really means in practice.
WRT to the ACTA situation, we have no recourse, since we cannot even examine the proposed treaty. Our only hope is to intercede with the Senate before the treaty is ratified. The chances of a successful intercession at that point are close to zero; furthermore, the US has acted within treaties it has signed even without ratification (assuming, generally correctly, that ratification would come at a later date).
In the end, though, we're SOL. IP is the only major area where the US has a dominant share of the global market. You can bet your bottom dollar that attempts to legally protect this valuable export will be made, regardless of how it suits *our* notions of freedom, or our notions of personal rights.
Big business rules the US, and they'll get what they want. Welcome to the future.
Because uClibc brings us one step closer to Cthulhulibc.
That which lies dead but dreaming must not be awoken, especially on embedded devices.
What the hell do the trees look like where you live? They sound like they'd scare the *shit* out of me.
Not sure why you got modded off-topic. The subject of Daleks being unable to climb stairs was the source of many a heated argument amongst Dr. Who fans. It's a classic argument
Likely today's moderators are a little young to understand the significance among us older slashdotters.
Here we have a perfect article that makes the Dr. Who reference perfectly on-topic -- hopefully another moderator will have the good sense to undo the damage.
Or maybe I just need to admit I'm old and out-of-touch with today's nerd culture. But really, it's quite unseemly that in the new series, the Daleks *fly*. It's like not having Han shoot first, it's just plain wrong.
Note to self: one in six is pretty shitty, especially since that's life-threatening, not life-ending. Must go faster to reduce chance of victim surviving. Or make sure to get the head beneath the tires.
Oops -- was that my out-loud voice?
As seen on some slashdotter's sig:
Makes me curious, why we have no moderation for just plain "flame".
At what point does a flame cease begging for flame responses, and instead just quietly go about its business of taking another poster down a notch?
Or are all flames also flamebaits, by nature -- since it is against human nature to turn the other cheek?
Ah, deep thoughts. I have to stop before I hurt myself.
Just so you know, "economies of scale" are something completely different. They refer to the cost savings of doing a larger number of the same transaction. Mostly this relates to being able to spread fixed costs over more units made/sold. However, there are also economies of scale in variable costs like shipping & delivery, having more people with the necessary skill sets for critical path items, etc.
What you're actually talking about is very nearly the opposite of economies of scale. In the US, due to relative geographical isolation of a lot of people, there is *increased* fixed cost to serve certain sectors of the population. If you want to serve the market of 1500 people in Bumbleshit Arkansas or Fuckwit Pennsyltucky, you might need to spend as much on relay infrastructure as serving 30,000 people in Suburbastard New Jersey.
Compound this with the notion that "everyone should have access" in the US, and costs begin to get dizzyingly high to serve a lot of the market.
Like you'd know anything about kernel development, anyway.
Tell you what, after your mommy finishes changing your diaper, why don't you visit a grown-up discussion site where the real adults can figure out the answers to serious problems?
Idiot.
[did that help? I like to help out a brother who's jonesing for a fix o' flamewar.]
Ah, so you're the "hobbyist programmer" in accounting who created the most borked up piece of application software that ever needed maintaining and yet was somehow so important to operations that it couldn't be scrapped even after two OS upgrade cycles.
I hope you suffer ceaseless torment for all your days and then die of the oozing shits.*
*If you're not that guy, I apologize. I'm just a little bitter about the lost year.
I'm glad to see you've revised your plan to include gliders.
Have you addressed the acceleration problems mentioned in this post by Gnick the last time your idea was discussed?
That'd have to be a mighty long and soft slingshot band.
Thanks for offering the choice. I'm gonna assume they're horribly evil.
See, the truth of the matter is that Google is now assembling a database of all the possible ways the world could be saved. Meanwhile, they have a crack team of evil underlords working to make sure that Google has appropriate counter-strategies to the the world-saving methods with the highest PageRanks.
This way, when Googol the Destroyer is summoned from the Plane of Infernal Terrors to wreak the End of Days upon the world, no measly humans will be able to execute a plan to thwart him.
Mwua-ha-ha-ha.
Humanity's only hope will be that the eminent rival sorcerors, Gatus and Joba, will overcome their mutual disdain in order to devise an artifact of true power, the One True Operating System with Built-in Global Web Search, that will condemn Googol to return to the Plane of Infernal Terrors. Unfortunately, the roving druid Stallmanx has thrown a wrench into the works by turning the hearts and minds of lesser sorcerors (and hedge wizards) against Gatus and Joba, and so our heroes must overcome the animosity of their lesser brethren before they can fulfill their quest.
Will Gatus and Joba succeed? Will we ever find out what wonders lie beneath the surface of Stallmanx's Beard of Druidic Prowess? Will Googol succeed in bringing about the End of Days via the Rite of a Million Targeted Ads?
Tune in to next week's broadcast of "Googol the Destroyer"!
I'm not weaseling out of anything.
You presume too much.
Thanks for enlightening me by bring up "inflammatory terms". It becomes clearer why there was a failure in comprehension by both you and diablovision. You have too much emotion wrapped up in words that have actual meanings, which is why you were unable to comprehend my post correctly. You brought assumed context into play because of your preconceptions about certain terms, that are not nearly universal.
Also note that the use of "inflammatory terms", as you put it, was in direct response to the same terms being used by parent of my post in a generalism. If you chose to be inflamed, it makes me doubt our ability to handle written communication even more.
Here's the thing about context... when you have a discussion with multiple people involved, in a written form, one needs to use great care in using context to disambiguate unclear terms. This is obvious. It becomes an especially big problem when you are using assumed context, instead of explicit context.
The key here is that the parent to my original post started with specifics, then broadened to a generalism. My response was to the generalism he made, not to the specifics (this is why I blockquoted only the generalism). You inferred the context of the specifics, which was a mistake.
Yes, I could have been clearer. However, most people with good comprehension skills should be able to follow the obvious transition from the specific to the general, especially when the term "slogan" is used -- that alone signifies a generalism.
Oh noes! Are you putting it in your secret revenge notebook?
FYI, those weren't ad hominem attacks. Your misinterpretation of what I wrote is my point; I am not attacking you, I am pointing out your choice not to comprehend, or inability to comprehend, what I had initially written. Since your entire post was predicated on something I had not written, and was therefore way off base, pointing out your miscomprehension is completely valid.
Deliberately under-utilizing land?
That's a laugh. Organic yields are pretty close to non-organic yields; never mind the fact that it can just as easily be argued that current factory farming methods are deliberately over-utilising land in an unsustainable way (unsustainable due to the environmental impact which is often externalised as a cost).
Please also note that the world currently produces more food than it needs; distribution is the problem.
Furthermore, organic methods can actually increase yields in areas that are capital-poor but have a surplus of labor (which includes most areas where starvation is an issue).
Sorry, didn't include those two, since they are not taxes on economic activity, and thus cannot be used to impact economic actions generally.
Ob response: Sure, but you come in naked, and you can't take it with you anyway. ;)
And so it is for C-corps. S-corps, for example all publically traded companies, pay corporate income tax.
I think the problem with taxing only the owners on their capital gains is that we'd lose our ability to influence businesses by means of tax law. Right-wingers may disagree with the principle there, but I feel that taxes are the only viable means we have of forcing businesses to internalize erstwhile external costs (like pollution).
So I feel corporate income taxes are a necessary tool in addition to capital gains tax.
Why do you think on wall street there is a adjective used to differentiate between "takeover" and "hostile takeover"?
To take over is to gain control of. The phrase is agnostic of the means of gaining control.
Feel free to keep excusing your inability to comprehend written English, and/or your desire to infer meanings other than what was written.
Taxes are only part of the equation. Labor costs are far more important. As are "friendly" regulatory environments.
The answer is not to abase ourselves at the altar of the almighty corporations. The answer is to elevate global standards of living, to allow free trade to equalize wealth distribution, and not have to compete against horrid labor conditions.
But that'll never fly, because Americans (and I am one) cannot live without their unsustainable luxuries that require cheap foreign labor.
/rant
What do you mean, everyone else? What does that have to do with that I wrote, and with what he or she chose to infer?
I tend to choose my words carefully, especially so for serious topics. If that poster chose to read what they wanted to see, that is their problem, and the mark of someone who uses a written communication channel poorly. They deserved to be dressed down.
Furthermore, in the thread in question, what was being discussed initially was the workers seizing the control of production. Since when is the government synonymous with the workers? If there were to be any error in comprehension on that poster's part, it should have been by assuming I meant "seizing by force" as another poster did.
Seriously. This is one of the reasons it's hard to have a serious discussion on slashdot -- because people don't read well.
Because communism is dead, and has been for a long, long time. I am scared of fascism, which is far different from Communism, and I think you need to learn what the difference is. Key aspect: in the Cold War Soviet Union, the workers did not control the means of production. Neither did they in Communist China, nor do they in modern China. In actuality, it is logistically impossible for the workers to control the means of production on a large scale. Hence, I do not fear that.
Yet another falsehood from the right. The Ford Ranger was hugely profitable, despite labor costs. The smaller cars that were produced by Honda and Toyota faced labor costs very close to that of American car companies. Yet they were very profitable -- and the difference in profit was greater than the difference in labor costs. The failures of the auto industry are squarely on the shoulders of those who were unable to foresee and meet the demands of the market. This happened because the automakers in the US grew accustomed to creating and molding the market, and were unable to adapt to quality competition being able to serve the actual demands of the market.
I think you consider the unions a bugaboo. So be it; it helps me understand where you're coming from, and where I'm unlikely to be able to get a point across. The biggest one being that the health of the UAW, in this case, is a bellwether for larger labor concerns. And by labor, I don't mean organized labor, I mean working class. These are the people that ultimately pay if the automakers close their doors. Any sane capital investor loses a small part of their portfolio; any worker entangled loses their entire livelihood for a while.
I understand the philosophy you are coming from (I once believed much the same), but please be aware that the Communism bugaboo was supported by the government largely to keep the domestic populace in check. The external threat is a wonderful tool for those in power...
No. I consider myself one of these "smart people" who have seized a business opportunity made available due to the failures of large businesses.
Why do you assume I refer to government intervention? You seem to have a lot of preconceived notions.
All taxes punish success. You can't get around that fact.
So the question is, what are the things that we can tax and minimize the negative impact on the economy?
Since I believe trickle-down economics has been shown to not work, I believe taxes levied on capital investment are a good bet. One can increase capital investment to increase income. There is a limit to how much a person can increase labor to increase income.
mindlessautomata is an apt nick for you.
Did I write "take the means of production by force"? No. I wrote "take over the means of production".
Are you intentionally daft, or have you just read too much Rand?