"Idle hands are the devil's tools." Other cultures have similar sayings. Basically, when people are not busy working (or learning), they find themselves more likely to cause mischief.
Many Christians think that phrase is from the bible because it talks of the devil; it isn't. It's from Chaucer's "Tale of Melibee". Another bogus bible quote -- "The Lord helps those who help themselves."
How about this one -- "the love of money is the root of all evil"? Yep, 1 Timothy 6:10.
But your original Chaucer quote is itself a tool of the devil; without free time, no art, invention, poetry, or prose would happen; the artists and inventors and musicians would all be out chasing filthy lucre instead of making art (or making love).
How about this one: "all work and no play make Jack a dull boy" (appeared first in James Howell's "Proverbs in English, Italian, French and Spanish," 1659).
You can find an old saying to cover almost any point of view, and most of them are widely accepted and believed, but completely false ("there's.no such thing as a free lunch")
I think his point was that economics is as much science as air guitar or astrology (ie, not at all). AFAIK the only "Nobel Prize" that doesn't have to do with science is the Peace Prize.
There isn't an economist in the world that doesn't have a counterpart calling him a fool or a gold-studded liar.
Have federal taxes been as low as they are now in your lifetime? They're lower than they've been in mine, and I'm 59 years old. So how can you say "The last thing needed is more taxes?" The fact is, spending is too high and taxes are too low. All government revenues are down because most of us aren't earning as much money -- lots of us are out of work, business is slow for the small businessman, so he is paying far less tax than 10 years ago.
Here's a bit of a parable for you. A man marries a spendthrift woman who keeps getting him farther and farther in debt, and he finally divorces her. He then, of course, cuts back on his spending -- but there's that damned interest, plus his employer has cut back on his hours. He stops eating out, stops going out, gets rid of cable TV but he's still being eaten by debt.
So what does he do now? He gets another job -- in short, while decreasing his expenditures, he increases his revenues.
Repeal the Bush era tax cuts for the rich. Do it NOW. It was supposed to stimulate the economy, and failed miserably because wealth doesn't trickle down, it flows upwards. The contractor doen't create wealth, the people he hires do.
In my grandfather's day when federal income tax was brand new, only the rich paid Federal income tax!
I don't think that's a typo, the banks should indeed loose more money. It's damned near impossible to get a mortgage or small business loan these days, money's way too tight. The banks loosing money could jump start the economy.
No, my problem is that all the government seems to want to do is find new ways to tax people..
"The" government? I pay taxes to more than one government. There's Federal tax, state tax, and local tax. As to the Feds, Federal taxes are lower than they've been in 60 years. TFA is a red herring; rather than taxing financial transactions, why not simply tax Capital Gains as income (as well as get rid of loopholes like the mortgage deduction and the charity deduction)? Why should someone who "earns" $75k gambling on the stock market pay half the tax of someone earning $75k working as a roofer? The stock answer to that is "the stock market investor has huge risks!" Really? He's only risking money, the roofer risks his very LIFE.
The stock market gambler should be paying twice the tax the roofer pays. The roofer is creating wealth, the gambler simply shuffles it around and leeches off of it. TAX WALL STREET.
All good points, but I think that 17 years for patents is way too much still
For many things, yes. Electronic devices come to mind. But 17 years isn't excessive for a drug patent. There are a lot of things wrong with the patent system (software patents, trivial patents, obvious patents, etc) but I don't think the 17 years is much of a hurdle, but then 17 years doesn't seem very long to someone who's been here almost 60 years.
Rather than a "property tax" I'd rather see copyright length brought down to a reasonable term -- say, 17 years. There is no reason whatever for "Gone With the Wind" to still be covered by copyright. The RIAA should not be selling "licenses" to the works of Janice Joplin or Jimi Hendrix. Copyright and patents are for "promoting the useful arts and sciences" are are to get people to make art and inventions, but how is Joplin or Hendrix supposed to make new works? The current laws do the opposite of what the Constitution indended.
Nobody said anything about "gourmet", it was about affordability. Poor people can't afford KFC, KFC is a middle class joint. TV doesn't advertise to the poor (declaring bankrupcy doesn't mean you're poor, Donald Trump has declared bankrupcy), it advertises mostly to the middle class.
Whatever party you vote in, you will still get scr*wed by a lying, cheating, bribed b*stard. You get the same sh*t. Just different public "statements, promises, and claims"
I find that annoying. Just say "Whatever party you vote in, you will still get screwed by a lying, cheating, bribed bastard. You get the same shit. Just different public 'statements, promises, and claims" and be done with it. If you're going ti use harsh language, use harsh language. If you're afraid of offending, don't use that language at all. Saying "sh*t" just looks juvenile.
Whoever gets asked, I want to know why pot's still illegal, considering all the social ills prohibition causes. I've never gotten an answer that was based in fact from anyone.
An economist? Economics is about as scientific as phrenology. There isn't an economist alive that you can't find another economist who will call the first a gold studded liar.
Look what happened when we put an MBA in the White House. I'm sure you need quite a few economics classes to get an MBA.
Basically, it will all boil down to the fact that we "need" government to do these things because otherwise terrible (but generally vague) things will happen.
Sometimes, but many times government does these things because terrible things HAVE happened and are likely to happen again.
The 1929 stock market crash, bank failures, and depression resulted in legislation that reformed banking. Unfortunately, the politicians don't study history and undid those regs, resulting in the 2008 crash and the Great Recession.
Social Security was started as a result of dire poverty among the elderly. It was the reaction to something bad that had already happened.
The 2006 welfare reform package was to counter generational welfare Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society and War On Poverty wrought. Again, something bad had happened and they fixed it.
Deregulation? Yeah, tell that to the dead miners in West Virginia. Tell that to any of us who were alive before the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
You only get stupid laws and regulations when you elect stupid or corrupt politicians; the overreaction to 9-11 and the loss of civil liberties afterwards is a good example.
Not really. If someone's logged in, there's more than a pretty good chance that they'll get notification that someone has responded and can go back and read the response to their comment. With an AC there's little reason to respond, since there's little liklihood the AC will see your response.
I generally ignore ACs unless I'm moderating and one says something that might be of interest, but I never respond to their comments unless they say something stupid that needs to be countered AND if someone has modded them up.
You use free to drum up sales; Cory Doctorow credits giving his books away in ereader form on his website for his status as a NYT best seller. The RIAA labels, however, aren't really after "pirates", they're after P2P itself, because they have radio and don't need it, while the indies depend on P2P. The RIAA's fight against P2P is actually an anticompetetive, monopolistic move that would have them in prison if they didn't own the government.
In the original, illegal Napster days the RIAA could have given low quality MP3s away and used them as advertising for lossless media with cover art, lyrics, etc. The MPAA could give away low-res movies to sell hi-def blu-rays. Paople will always pay for quality.
Windows fragmentation (how many different brands of computers come with Windows?) hasn't hurt its desktop business. AND there are not only several flavors of Windows (starter, home, professional) and different versions (98, XP, 7, and even a few copies of Vista) of the OS.
As a consumer, I welcome fragmentation. Having the choice of many different Linux distros is a plus, not a negative.
And BTW, why are they using Android rather than a standard Linux distro? The touch screen?
No, not much difference at all -- except for rendering and a few new things, slashdot is pretty much what it was ten years ago. Look in the archives, you'll see news about new Linux distros, new MS OSes, new hardware (especially CPUs).
If you want to see different stories, submit them. If you don't want to see certain stories, vote them down in the firehose.
What I can't understand is why it's so expensive. What causes it to cost so much? My Acer cost $250, and doesn't have a touch screen but does have a keyboard and mouse pad and 180 gb of drive space, as opposed to this device's 8 gig. Are touch screens really that expensive?
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They're probably here to clear out the Ferengis.
Yes, it does vary by state.
Commie? No, it's just that I don't belong to America's #1 religion, which is the worship of money. My religion says that worshiping money is a sin.
Compare it to America though where a parent can (and would be) thrown in jail if they so much as let their kid take a sip of beer
It's not quite that bad; you can let your kid drink, but you can't let him get drunk, and you can't serve his friends, and you can only do it at home.
"Idle hands are the devil's tools." Other cultures have similar sayings. Basically, when people are not busy working (or learning), they find themselves more likely to cause mischief.
Many Christians think that phrase is from the bible because it talks of the devil; it isn't. It's from Chaucer's "Tale of Melibee". Another bogus bible quote -- "The Lord helps those who help themselves."
How about this one -- "the love of money is the root of all evil"? Yep, 1 Timothy 6:10.
But your original Chaucer quote is itself a tool of the devil; without free time, no art, invention, poetry, or prose would happen; the artists and inventors and musicians would all be out chasing filthy lucre instead of making art (or making love).
How about this one: "all work and no play make Jack a dull boy" (appeared first in James Howell's "Proverbs in English, Italian, French and Spanish," 1659).
You can find an old saying to cover almost any point of view, and most of them are widely accepted and believed, but completely false ("there's .no such thing as a free lunch")
So's my oldest daughter, kid.
I think his point was that economics is as much science as air guitar or astrology (ie, not at all). AFAIK the only "Nobel Prize" that doesn't have to do with science is the Peace Prize.
There isn't an economist in the world that doesn't have a counterpart calling him a fool or a gold-studded liar.
Have federal taxes been as low as they are now in your lifetime? They're lower than they've been in mine, and I'm 59 years old. So how can you say "The last thing needed is more taxes?" The fact is, spending is too high and taxes are too low. All government revenues are down because most of us aren't earning as much money -- lots of us are out of work, business is slow for the small businessman, so he is paying far less tax than 10 years ago.
Here's a bit of a parable for you. A man marries a spendthrift woman who keeps getting him farther and farther in debt, and he finally divorces her. He then, of course, cuts back on his spending -- but there's that damned interest, plus his employer has cut back on his hours. He stops eating out, stops going out, gets rid of cable TV but he's still being eaten by debt.
So what does he do now? He gets another job -- in short, while decreasing his expenditures, he increases his revenues.
Repeal the Bush era tax cuts for the rich. Do it NOW. It was supposed to stimulate the economy, and failed miserably because wealth doesn't trickle down, it flows upwards. The contractor doen't create wealth, the people he hires do.
In my grandfather's day when federal income tax was brand new, only the rich paid Federal income tax!
I don't think that's a typo, the banks should indeed loose more money. It's damned near impossible to get a mortgage or small business loan these days, money's way too tight. The banks loosing money could jump start the economy.
How about a tax on getting money from your ATM?
You're already paying it, it's a high tax, and not a penny of it goes to the government.
Or every time you pay a bill?
Have you ever looked at your utility bills? Already taxed to the hilt.
No, my problem is that all the government seems to want to do is find new ways to tax people..
"The" government? I pay taxes to more than one government. There's Federal tax, state tax, and local tax. As to the Feds, Federal taxes are lower than they've been in 60 years. TFA is a red herring; rather than taxing financial transactions, why not simply tax Capital Gains as income (as well as get rid of loopholes like the mortgage deduction and the charity deduction)? Why should someone who "earns" $75k gambling on the stock market pay half the tax of someone earning $75k working as a roofer? The stock answer to that is "the stock market investor has huge risks!" Really? He's only risking money, the roofer risks his very LIFE.
The stock market gambler should be paying twice the tax the roofer pays. The roofer is creating wealth, the gambler simply shuffles it around and leeches off of it. TAX WALL STREET.
But do you respond anonymously?
I never comment anonymously. What's the point of commenting if nobody will see your comment?
All good points, but I think that 17 years for patents is way too much still
For many things, yes. Electronic devices come to mind. But 17 years isn't excessive for a drug patent. There are a lot of things wrong with the patent system (software patents, trivial patents, obvious patents, etc) but I don't think the 17 years is much of a hurdle, but then 17 years doesn't seem very long to someone who's been here almost 60 years.
Rather than a "property tax" I'd rather see copyright length brought down to a reasonable term -- say, 17 years. There is no reason whatever for "Gone With the Wind" to still be covered by copyright. The RIAA should not be selling "licenses" to the works of Janice Joplin or Jimi Hendrix. Copyright and patents are for "promoting the useful arts and sciences" are are to get people to make art and inventions, but how is Joplin or Hendrix supposed to make new works? The current laws do the opposite of what the Constitution indended.
Nobody said anything about "gourmet", it was about affordability. Poor people can't afford KFC, KFC is a middle class joint. TV doesn't advertise to the poor (declaring bankrupcy doesn't mean you're poor, Donald Trump has declared bankrupcy), it advertises mostly to the middle class.
Whatever party you vote in, you will still get scr*wed by a lying, cheating, bribed b*stard. You get the same sh*t. Just different public "statements, promises, and claims"
I find that annoying. Just say "Whatever party you vote in, you will still get screwed by a lying, cheating, bribed bastard. You get the same shit. Just different public 'statements, promises, and claims" and be done with it. If you're going ti use harsh language, use harsh language. If you're afraid of offending, don't use that language at all. Saying "sh*t" just looks juvenile.
Whoever gets asked, I want to know why pot's still illegal, considering all the social ills prohibition causes. I've never gotten an answer that was based in fact from anyone.
No, more likely it'll be President Tux.
An economist? Economics is about as scientific as phrenology. There isn't an economist alive that you can't find another economist who will call the first a gold studded liar.
Look what happened when we put an MBA in the White House. I'm sure you need quite a few economics classes to get an MBA.
Basically, it will all boil down to the fact that we "need" government to do these things because otherwise terrible (but generally vague) things will happen.
Sometimes, but many times government does these things because terrible things HAVE happened and are likely to happen again.
The 1929 stock market crash, bank failures, and depression resulted in legislation that reformed banking. Unfortunately, the politicians don't study history and undid those regs, resulting in the 2008 crash and the Great Recession.
Social Security was started as a result of dire poverty among the elderly. It was the reaction to something bad that had already happened.
The 2006 welfare reform package was to counter generational welfare Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society and War On Poverty wrought. Again, something bad had happened and they fixed it.
Deregulation? Yeah, tell that to the dead miners in West Virginia. Tell that to any of us who were alive before the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
You only get stupid laws and regulations when you elect stupid or corrupt politicians; the overreaction to 9-11 and the loss of civil liberties afterwards is a good example.
Not really. If someone's logged in, there's more than a pretty good chance that they'll get notification that someone has responded and can go back and read the response to their comment. With an AC there's little reason to respond, since there's little liklihood the AC will see your response.
I generally ignore ACs unless I'm moderating and one says something that might be of interest, but I never respond to their comments unless they say something stupid that needs to be countered AND if someone has modded them up.
I'd rather say of it, "it's history".
You use free to drum up sales; Cory Doctorow credits giving his books away in ereader form on his website for his status as a NYT best seller. The RIAA labels, however, aren't really after "pirates", they're after P2P itself, because they have radio and don't need it, while the indies depend on P2P. The RIAA's fight against P2P is actually an anticompetetive, monopolistic move that would have them in prison if they didn't own the government.
In the original, illegal Napster days the RIAA could have given low quality MP3s away and used them as advertising for lossless media with cover art, lyrics, etc. The MPAA could give away low-res movies to sell hi-def blu-rays. Paople will always pay for quality.
No, velcro works by having tiny hooks grab fibers of cloth. Gecko feet (like this is patterned after) use van der Waals forces.
Windows fragmentation (how many different brands of computers come with Windows?) hasn't hurt its desktop business. AND there are not only several flavors of Windows (starter, home, professional) and different versions (98, XP, 7, and even a few copies of Vista) of the OS.
As a consumer, I welcome fragmentation. Having the choice of many different Linux distros is a plus, not a negative.
And BTW, why are they using Android rather than a standard Linux distro? The touch screen?
No, not much difference at all -- except for rendering and a few new things, slashdot is pretty much what it was ten years ago. Look in the archives, you'll see news about new Linux distros, new MS OSes, new hardware (especially CPUs).
If you want to see different stories, submit them. If you don't want to see certain stories, vote them down in the firehose.
What I can't understand is why it's so expensive. What causes it to cost so much? My Acer cost $250, and doesn't have a touch screen but does have a keyboard and mouse pad and 180 gb of drive space, as opposed to this device's 8 gig. Are touch screens really that expensive?