though, acquiring knowledge is pretty hard to beat That is great, but you can usually gain that knowledge after a few weeks. After that, it just becomes a pain in the ass. After 2.5 years, I threw in the towel and bought a MacBook.
Would you rather fancy the chances of 5 armed terrorists and many unarmed passengers? If airport security is a joke, don't you think that terrorists could devise a pretty good way of sneaking a gun past the TSA?
Since you didn't bother to refute my assertions and instead started trolling, I will assume that you conceded victory to my argument and me. I will humbly accept your admission of my victory.
Ah, I get it. So when someone decides to live their life killing as many people as possible, we should just respect that because that's their choice. Libertarians think that people (and society) can be (and should be) responsible for defending themselves; technology does not yet allow police to be everywhere at once to defend everybody. Plus, do you really think a government will prevent this kind of thing? Nobody has stopped Bush from killing 600,000 Iraqis. Governments have killed far more people than lone deranged lunatics could ever dream of killing.
Or if a group of businesses decide to collude to prevent competition, we should just let them do it. Sounds like a fun world. Libertarians think the above point is more important.
Let's say there are 200 people on an airline, and only 5% of them have guns (not including the terrorists). That is still 5:1 odds against the terrorists. Unless you have the element of surprise (and you may not know who has a gun), those are not good odds REGARDLESS of whatever training you might have.
From what I blog posting (buried in the comments section), 60-75% of the power generated in the U.S. is lost because of power line impedance heating. I am surprised that nobody has suggested replacing the centuries-old power lines with superconducting ones. It would be an insane upfront cost, but it would probably pay for itself within five years.
Anyway, I wanted to say that The Free Market(tm) is kind of a mythical entity. Some people and political groups scream about it (and how holy it is), but I would argue that there's really no agreement as to a single definition of it. The people who do that (and I have been one of them from time to time) usually do so because they do not trust a government to make the best decisions. A market, to me, is the set of all mutually beneficial transactions among two or more entities. Any regulator cannot see all the motives behind all parties for all transactions, so it cannot wisely force the market to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
The tl;dr version of my thinking here is that with or without regulation, "the market" will always be subject to corruption and collusion. My thinking is here is that the regulator, the government, will always be subject to corruption and collusion. The best definition of a government is a monopoly (or near monopoly) on the use of force within a given region. To libertarians, it seems stupid to have an entity that is simultaneously extremely powerful and extremely susceptible to corruption. I think the underlying argument for libertarianism is that people should be free to live their lives the way they choose.
That may be true. But, did she get laid this semester, or did she have to spend all of her free nights dicking with this ungodly complicated system? I assume the GP is a dude, so this would be a bonus. How many fathers WANT young men to screw their daughters? Anyway, she's a chick. If she wanted some action, she would not have to look too hard; she could just go to her local LUG.
Voice of Producer: What? That'd be a huge story - Ford dying, and you coming out!
Tom Brokaw: But I'm not gay!
Voice of Producer: Today you're not gay, you know.. but then one day you wake up, you like men, and Gerald Ford dies, and we're screwed. Everyone's hearing about it from Dan Rather!
Talking about Timemachine, though: that really IS a true innovation, even if I wonder how big a HD it would take me to be able to timetravel all my apps back to, let's say one week? That isn't an innovation! Plan 9 had that.
economics is the study of how scarcity is managed. From Wikipedia:
Economics, as a social science, studies the production, distribution, and consumption of resources. I would say that managing scarcity is one facet of the study of economics, but I do not think that it covers the entire spectrum of the 'social science'.
Free Software is all about destroying markets because the scarcity of software is highly imposed, i.e. it can be copied and distrubuted to all for virtually no cost. Software can be copied and redistributed to all for virtually no cost (although bandwidth charges could apply for popular >1MB files). Software CANNOT be developed for zero cost; software development requires a (sometimes lengthy) development time, and, sometimes, an organization finds it necessary to pay developers for their time. Therefore, some organizations must battle the scarcity of time, and sometimes they choose to employ their scarce financial resources (hiring developers) to effectively combat the scarcity of time. Developers of competing Free Software, what I think you are referring to, must manage their needs with other work, so they often lack the time necessary to compete with commercial software. Commercial OSS software developers, such as Redhat, earn most of their revenue (I presume) from support contracts (i.e. managing the scarcity of time). MySQL (probably) earns most of its revenue from either support contracts or licensing their codebase under a proprietary license to organizations (thereby saving the organization from devoting many man hours either to understanding the software well enough to support it or to developing a solution from scratch).
Anyone who cares about market share, and I suspect ESR does, has nothing whatsoever to contribute to the world--might as well go work for MS. Maybe he likes Linux (and OSS), and he wants to be able to do things that he cannot currently do under Linux, and the best way to accomplish those things is to increase the number of people USING Linux.
Do you think that most computer users care (much) about DRM/proprietary formats? Ultimately, they just want to watch their DVDs and load the AAC-files they purchased from iTunes onto their iPods. Right now, many digital activites require proprietary and encumbered software: games, DVD playback, online music/movies/tv/etc., graphics cards, wifi chipsets, and a slew of other things. If Linux users want to partake in these activities, they NEED the backing of these software and hardware vendors. ESR is suggesting that the 64-bit transition (among other things) will shake things up a bit, and if the Linux community can get its act together before 2008, Linux could become the dominant consumer operating system. If that happens, then the hardware/software/content providers will have to develop for the Linux market, and they will have to play BY OUR RULES. Right now, Linux has less than 5% marketshare, so we need them more than they need us. ESR (and company) are attempting to turn the tables, and then they will need us! If Linux had a higher marketshare, the core developers (kernel hackers, distribution developers, etc.) could bandy together and DEMAND open-source drivers, unencumbered codecs, etc.
There is such a thing as purity of motive, and it counts for a lot. Linux users have a motive as well. The greater Linux's marketshare is, the greater the support. There also seems to be a desire of recent converts to a faith/ideology/etc. to convert others to that same faith/ideology/etc. Mac (and formerly OS/2) users are also famous for their advocacy.
Incidentally, because this was mentioned in the GP, I will say that Linux (and *nix in general) is not at all difficult to use. It is more difficult to learn than Windows, but the effort required to understand how the system works is a one-time investment, after which you find yourself with a rather straightforward operating system in which it is a simple matter to perform most tasks -- my personal opinion is that this is because unlike Windows, Linux does not assume that the user is an idiot. That is just the beginning. When browing the web sites of some open source programs (Azureus, etc.), I wondered why most projects only offer binaries for Windows and Mac OSX. Then I realized that many binaries would be distribution-specific, so it would be quite a bit of work (Yes, I know that many distributions offer binaries, but I still came across programs that were not in all or any distributions package repository. After 2.75 years, I mostly gave up trying and switched to Vista RC1 on my desktop. I plan to buy the final version of Vista when it comes out. Quite frankly, I actually LIKE Windows Vista (I have mostly hated every other version of Windows).
It also does not assume that the user intends to use the same machine for months or years without ever learning more about it than what was learned during the first week of use (although perhaps I repeat myself; to me one symptom that someone is an idiot is that they do not value or even hate learning). I have no problem with learning, but every minute that I spend learning to USE my system is a minute that I could have spent improving my programming skills, reading a new novel, playing with robots, etc. Some people want to treat a computer as a TOOL that is used to learn other NON-COMPUTER related things.
In comparison, Windows is easier to learn how to use, but learning more and more about how the system works does not provide the user with fewer annoying explanation and confirmation dialogs to click through, nor does it make the "power user" options less buried in the user interface, to name just two examples of the tedium involved. I would not be surprised if there are a few registry hacks that can take care of both problems.
Simple. They can stop it by not depending on the client to report the accurate state of HP/XP/etc., and they can only give the client information (about incoming enemies, etc.) when absolutely necessary. Basically, DON'T TRUST THE CLIENT!!
There were also a lot of (conservative) Americans who thought that Clinton would give the UN hegemony over the U.S., and the UN would install Clinton as President-for-Life. Nutters are present on all sides of political debate.
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You can still write drivers to work with Vista; they just have to be in userland.
Would you rather fancy the chances of 5 armed terrorists and many unarmed passengers? If airport security is a joke, don't you think that terrorists could devise a pretty good way of sneaking a gun past the TSA?
Since you didn't bother to refute my assertions and instead started trolling, I will assume that you conceded victory to my argument and me. I will humbly accept your admission of my victory.
I think you mean a lot of SEA.
I am not so sure about that; planes are pretty tough. One landed safely even when a good chunk of the ceiling was ripped off.
Let's say there are 200 people on an airline, and only 5% of them have guns (not including the terrorists). That is still 5:1 odds against the terrorists. Unless you have the element of surprise (and you may not know who has a gun), those are not good odds REGARDLESS of whatever training you might have.
From what I blog posting (buried in the comments section), 60-75% of the power generated in the U.S. is lost because of power line impedance heating. I am surprised that nobody has suggested replacing the centuries-old power lines with superconducting ones. It would be an insane upfront cost, but it would probably pay for itself within five years.
I certainly could have written Ulysses. It's only a story about some bloke pissing around Dublin.
The Tamil Tigers are not terrorists. They have an Air Force.
Voice of Producer: What? That'd be a huge story - Ford dying, and you coming out!
Tom Brokaw: But I'm not gay!
Voice of Producer: Today you're not gay, you know.. but then one day you wake up, you like men, and Gerald Ford dies, and we're screwed. Everyone's hearing about it from Dan Rather!
I think you underestimate the reach of WIPO.
Do you think that most computer users care (much) about DRM/proprietary formats? Ultimately, they just want to watch their DVDs and load the AAC-files they purchased from iTunes onto their iPods. Right now, many digital activites require proprietary and encumbered software: games, DVD playback, online music/movies/tv/etc., graphics cards, wifi chipsets, and a slew of other things. If Linux users want to partake in these activities, they NEED the backing of these software and hardware vendors. ESR is suggesting that the 64-bit transition (among other things) will shake things up a bit, and if the Linux community can get its act together before 2008, Linux could become the dominant consumer operating system. If that happens, then the hardware/software/content providers will have to develop for the Linux market, and they will have to play BY OUR RULES. Right now, Linux has less than 5% marketshare, so we need them more than they need us. ESR (and company) are attempting to turn the tables, and then they will need us! If Linux had a higher marketshare, the core developers (kernel hackers, distribution developers, etc.) could bandy together and DEMAND open-source drivers, unencumbered codecs, etc.
He has not posted anything in his blog for six months!
Precision Approach is quite old, so you might have better luck with Dosbox.
World War II is WAY overrated.
Simple. They can stop it by not depending on the client to report the accurate state of HP/XP/etc., and they can only give the client information (about incoming enemies, etc.) when absolutely necessary. Basically, DON'T TRUST THE CLIENT!!
There were also a lot of (conservative) Americans who thought that Clinton would give the UN hegemony over the U.S., and the UN would install Clinton as President-for-Life. Nutters are present on all sides of political debate.