As long as I'm having to redo entire enterprises, I might as well roll out open source solutions or Macs.
Right because Apple's so good about offering support for anything legacy? Give me a break.
OSS at least is a decent option, but honestly, Vista is FAR FAR FAR more compatible with legacy windows than anything else on the market. So unless you plan to rewrite and/or find substitutes for practically everything, Vista is probably the best solution.
If you are truly in a situation where a switch to OSS actually makes sense, then you don't actually have all these legacy compatibility requirements you mentioned.
OSS makes sense if you need generic email/web/office or you need a 'terminal' for citrix/web apps/hosted apps/whatever (which does describe a LOT of people) but it rarely really makes sense in a situation where there are a lot of custom Windows apps knocking around, or where you need to use 3rd party apps that are windows only.
Try and find some contact lens design/lab control software that runs on Macs or Linux and integrates into both your accounting system and controls your lens lathe.
Try to run a cellular service center, where you need to run all those 3rd party phone-flash/reflash/updater tools, the latest software from blackberry (blackberry desktop) and microsoft (activesync), where support for mac lags behind windows, and support for linux is a joke. While in the back you've got someone running battery diagnostic software from Maccor or Cadex.
Try to find mac/linux software designed to run an optometrists office. Nevermined the total lack of OSX / Linux patient management systems, you also have to contend with the fact that all the instruments (topographers, perimeters, etc) run windows systems, often with integration features into windows patient management system.
And lets be honest, the companies that need generic terminals or basic office apps - those really AREN'T the ones having trouble with Vista. Its the manufacturers, the service centers, the doctors, etc, and as much as their is migration pain with Vista -- switching to OSX or Linux would make a masochist cringe in fear.
It is sounding more and more like Vista really is the newest generation of Windows ME.
Only to people who wish that were true. Its not.
People hated Windows ME. But Microsoft didn't shove it down anyone's throat so people danced around WinME without concern.
WinME was for home consumers not businesses. Businesses never had to deal with ME.
Honestly it really wouldn't have mattered what Vista was. Unless it was fully compatible with 2k/xp they were going to reject it. And if MS had kept it more compatible, they would not have been able to move forwards on things like security. Vista's not perfect, don't get me wrong, but even if vista was simply XP with the ability to run as administrator finally "turned off", businesses would have thrown the same fit they are throwing.
So Vista is slower on the same hardware? Big deal, every OS is. Win98 RAN well with 64MB of RAM, and took a couple hundred megabytes of disk. Try doing that with XP.
So Vista is isn't compatible with a lot of hardware, and buggy drivers abound. That's not new. Think back to XP, again, there was tons of low rent 'consumer oriented' hardware that only had win9x drivers.
The only reason there wasn't the same massive backlash to XP that there was to Vista is that BUSINESSES weren't *really* affected by XP. XP used the same drivers as 2k, so most of the hardware support businesses needed was already in place and mature. XP was little more than a minor update to 2k.
And even then, tons of companies vowed they'd never upgrade, and blasted everything from the color scheme, the deeper integration of windows media player, and the licensing issues (including "windows product activation").
Vista is stable, performs well on hardware its compatible with, is genuinely more secure than previous versions, features a number of real UI improvements. (The new start menu for example), and its desktop compisiting engine is far more modern, catching it up with OSX and Linux (Compiz).
It has its flaws too.. of course, but overall it is actually a decent step forward. It just has the misfortune of being a painful one for users with a lot of legacy dependencies, while simultaneously breaking new ground on the driver front so its has to suffer while it waits for hardware vendors getting drivers to maturity or for users to toss the old hardware.
The next version of Windows is just going to be a more refined version of Vista... but its acceptance will be much higher because the hardware driver issues will have matured, and a lot of the 'legacy dependencies' will have aged into obsolescent non-issues.
Microsoft's strategy is really little more than wait until Vista forces the market to accept the changes, and then launch it all over again with a new name and few tweaks... but because the market will have already mostly accommodated Vista, 7 will be a 'smooth transition'. Its that simple. And its a good strategy, because people are =that= stupid.
Abortion, if you're not killing a person (tricky thing to define, I admit, but your arm is alive and removing ('aborting') it is no moral problem and I feel the same way about an unthinking fetus.
You yourself admit its tricky to define.
Most pro-lifers think an unthinking fetus IS a person, so for them it IS a moral problem.
And they aren't "wrong" for thinking that. Its a perfectly rational position. After all, your suggestion that simple self-awareness is required before you can be considered a person raises questions about certain classes of mental handicap, people in comas, brain damage, etc... these are a people that are not self aware. And a fetus actually has a very good chance of achieving self-awareness. Like you said, 'person' is tricky to define. So if someone believes the definition includes an unborn fetus, I can see the argument is reasonable, whether I agree with it or not.
Further, your arm analogy has multiple flaws. An arm is not, was not, and will never be an independent person. A developing fetus has its own unique DNA, and is steadily sliding along a continuum towards being an independent person. I don't see a logical error being committed by arguing that a living organism with its own DNA that is actually developing into a fully 'normal person' should be protected more than a limb.
And it certainly seems reasonable that it shouldn't be protected LESS than your limbs?
And that's where it gets interesting... you can't just go in and get your arm lopped off because you feel like it. And its indisputably 'just' a part of you. Yet it would be pretty challenging to find a doctor willing to amputate your arm without a medical necessity. A fetus is arguably a person, and at the very least developing into a person. In fact, where I live at least, it would probably be HARDER to get a healthy arm amputated than to arrange for the abortion of a healthy fetus.
Hell, I'm pro-choice and that even seems out of whack to me.
First, both your examples are strawmen. We're talking about Gitmo.
Do you really think any of Gitmo's incarcerated have an undetonated bomb ticking away about to blow up? Of course not, hell, it took more than few days to get them to Gitmo in the first place from where they were arrested/captured. If this was a 'ticking bomb' situation, the bombs would have exploded before they ever got there. And that was YEARS ago... why are they STILL there?
What if a criminal has kidnapped your family and he also said that unless you meet his demands they will die in 2 days (because there is not enough air or water wherever he put them). However, the criminal was captured by the police. The police gives you a choice of what to do with him. What would you do: 1. Be nice to him, and politely ask where he has put them (he does not tell you)? 2. Give him a fair trial, which could last months (and your family has 2 days left)? 3. Beat it out of him?
A classic, but its a fantasy. The odds of this actually happening are absurdly remote.
1) This devious psychotic mythical kidnapper who puts his victims into elaborate slow death traps would have instructed me not to call the police, and would have me under surveillance. The moment the police were involved he'd kill the victims and flee in his flying nuclear submarine.
2) If the kidnapper is a killer they're probably already dead.
3) The kidnapper may not be working alone. Even if the police catch one, he may not know the location, or they may be moved by the other kidnappers, once they realize the plan has gone askew.
4) Finally, and most importantly, the police brought me a suspect; in the real world there is no guarantee it is the kidnapper at all. How hard should I beat on someone who might be completely innocent? Ok to slap him around a bit? What about taking a bat to his knees? Cutting off his fingers? Vivisecting him?
Now, if a terrorist has placed a bomb somewhere, would you torture him to find out the location?
Same as above, how do I know I'm torturing a terrorist instead of some innocent bystander?
Until scientists create a device......torture is the most effective method available.
Tell me, just how well does it work on innocent bystanders?
If someone plants a bomb in an area your kid is staying... and the police pick him up as a suspect... how much torture do you think it would be reasonable to use on him?
"I guess we should just not try to extract any information from prisoners. Forget the whole "intelligence" thing. We shouldn't spy, we shouldn't use "torture." If 16 hours of extremely loud rock music (apparently not enough to deafen, though) and 4 hours of complete silence and darkness counts as "torture," people need to visit some other countries more often. "
Do you think it would be acceptable to subject YOU to this treatment?
After all YOU are as guilty as they are. Neither of you have even been charged with a crime, neither of you has been convicted of anything, indeed the only real difference between them and you is that THEY are in gitmo and you aren't.
Are YOU willing to trade places with them?
After all, a lot of them are as innocent as you.
Perhaps we should try and "extract" intelligence from you for a few years, and see if you think its still a good idea.
I then tried to explain about linux and FOSS but he had grown up with the solid idea that nothing worth having is ever free unless you're being scammed in some way.
He could not be convinced that FOSS was legal and genuinely free. There had to be a catch. There had to be a law being broken.
The approach to take with him is that FOSS is not 'free' but rather that its been paid for by others.
That is a more accurate representation of it, and its something they can understand. Its like a community event at the park put together by volunteers with a free petting zoo for the kids, and free punch. None of this stuff is really free, but the volunteers willingly donated their time, and a few other groups (maybe a local business or a local church put up the money for the zoo and punch to generate some goodwill). There isn't any 'catch'; its just an afternoon of fun paid for by others.
So free software isn't free, its just that someone else paid to make it, by donating their time and money to the effort, because they wanted it made.
Then point out how easy it is to make copies of software, by copying a few files on his computer.
So OSS is like a a community event with free punch, but with punch they have to pay a few cents for each glass they serve and so even though its cheap their is a limit on how much punch they can give away before they run out, and you have to come to the event to get it... they can't bring it to your home.
But with software they CAN. Once the volunteers have donated their time and money towards making it. They CAN offer it free to the entire world, because once the original is paid for, they can easily afford making millions of copies and deliver them anywhere via the internet, for fractions of fractions of fractions of a penny. And these copies are paid for by ISPs and big companies and individuals who do it for the same reasons they cover the cost of community event petting zoos and punch.
Hm. Do we have an example of the Internet's influence on war? Say, Iraq? It stopped the US from invading under false pretenses, right? Nope.
No, but I think coverage of the war has made invading Iran a lot less palatable to American's.
It might have helped stop the abuses at Abu Ghraib. On the other hand, the story was quite successfully suppressed by the US authorities until it was broken by a foreign news service. There weren't so many of those active in Nazi Germany.
The internet helped get the news out. It did take a bit of time for the US mainstream to pick up the story (a delay at the request of the DoD according to wikipedia), but pressure was building up, they couldn't have kept the lid on it indefinitely.
And the US media is generally still pretty 'free' and trustworthy all things considered, and if it were believed to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the state, the population would seek out and beleive foreign reports -- something they can do thanks, in large part, to the internet. Nazi germany had no alternative... either you believed what the media said or you didn't, but there wasn't any other source of news.
See point #2. Hitler enjoyed widespread and overwhelming support. If you'd been reading an Internet forum discussion at the time it would have been full of people talking about reasons why you should help vote Hitler in.
I agree he still would have been elected.
However his support might have evaporated when news and photos and video of what he was actually doing in a lot of places after things got rolling were communicated to those people. He might not have gotten nearly as far as he did.
There are lots that say it could never happen in america because the military would never follow those orders. But the reality is, you could separate the military into the groups that would and the groups that wouldn't, and then deploy the groups that wouldn't of communication with home (helped by controlling the media), and then set the group that would to doing the atrocities you could get away with it. Hitler did just this.
The internet would have made it impossible for the portions of the military that wouldn't have gone along with it from being so completely out of the loop for so long. Even if you control the media, the truth still moves around on the internet.
Hitler would have had to censor / filter / and discredit it. It would have been an additional challenge at least; at best it might even have stopped him. But China is the obvious counter example.
1) Hitler actively embraced the newly emerging mass media technology called television. He also loved to make radio speeches.
And if you can't see the difference between a medium that lets a central authority send out messages and one that lets everyone else send messages, you missed the point of the internet.
The only question that remains is if the modern internet existed at the time of hitler, would it have stopped him, or would he have managed to filter and censor it.
Nintendo - Wii (Playon is building an interface for the Wii)
Wii isn't HD, has limited storage, and has trouble with youtube sometimes. Its a fantastic console, but its not a great media center device.
Realistically Tivo is fighting a diminishing game, and this comes from the owner of a Tivo HD. How many people own one of those 3 units above vs. a TivoHD? Which is cheaper, the PlayOn (30$) or TivoHD (300+ sub)?
My parents and their friends, and millions of people like them, will never by a PS3 or Xbox360. The will buy Tivo/PVR/AppleTV devices though. So its a niche they'll fit in with. A $30 addon for a device they won't buy vs a $300 device they will, is no contest... the $300 device wins them.
And for people who have both a console and a PVR/TivoHD/AppleTV its a $30 add-on vs 'built-in' guess who wins that one?
As for the market at large, streaming, video-on-demand, and even DVRs aren't really mainstream yet. Most people still watch whats on TV when its broadcast to them.
So its not to late for anyone to get into the market and win. If this were mp3's we're still at the pre-ipod stage, when there were lots of solutions around, but most people still used CDs.
I've played a lot of RPGs over the years, and WoW is actually better than most single-player ones, and is a MMO on top of that.
I hope so. If you've been playing since it it started, you've sunk about $700 into it so far. If I paid $700 for a single player game, my expectations would be pretty damned high.
And for me, that's where WoW doesn't deliver. Its good... but I don't find it THAT good. I prefer variety, and $700 bucks buys a lot of games, especially if you shop smart.
I think the biggest pro for using divs is when you have to move something around. Tables are only easy for getting the initial layout just right. For something you actually have to maintain, divs just make sense. A little more work early on makes messing around w/ the pages design loads easier later on.
The table advocates here are advocating *minimal* use of tables. Generally its just 1 table in the page template that handles the 2,3 or 4 columns that the rest of the site gets laid into. Divs and CSS are used for everything else within those columns.
So moving things or doing maintenance around is really no easier or harder due to having used tables.
For the love of god, do NOT make your websites using any of these: - tables (for layout, I mean)
1) using tables for actual tables of course is perfectly ok (as you implied by saying 'for layout' 2) I would suggest "avoid" using tables for layout as much as possible, but don't discount them.
When faced with a situation where a table will just work in every browser you intend to support with minimal table html markup, and doing it with CSS requires divs nested in divs nested in divs nested in divs with all sorts of css hacks, and then STILL needs a javascript to run after the page renders to fix the widths and heights etc...
Yet its trivial to do with a table, without any javascript or browser hacks.
I just use a table.
Pure CSS is gold. But in my opinion browser hacks and javascript for layout are WORSE than tables. If you need them to avoid tables and make your "pure CSS" work, the cure is worse than the disease. (and really its not "pure CSS" anymore if you are using hacks and javascript)
As for flash and java. I again agree to a point. For most sites you absolutely don't want to make them essential for your site to operate, but there is nothing wrong with using either appropriately. And depending on what the site is, it might be appropriate to make them essential. homestarrunner.com without flash would be pretty pointless.
Xbox 360's innovation compared to the other consoles is a $1600 complete devkit ($700 Windows PC, $400 Xbox 360 Elite, and $100/yr XNA Creators Club subscription for five-year life of console) available to anyone with a high-speed Internet connection, not just companies with a prior published PC title that lease their own office space.
Congratulations, Microsoft just innovated the Commodore VIC-20
"Why buy just a video game? For under $300 get the commodore VIC-20, the wonder computer of the 1980s."
"Sure it plays the great games kids love. But the VIC-20 can also improve learning skills. In fact, it uses the same computer language taught in schools on the Commodore PET"
That's laughable, considering their penchant for pumping out a Mario, Metroid, and Zelda game with every platform.
That's a fair comment. Although they've started other new and successful franchises in the interim too... Pokemon, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Wii Sports (Wii Sports, Wii Ski, Wii Fit, Wii Sports Resort...)
They've got this innovative hardware, and all they've done is changed it so instead of pressing A to swing your sword, you flick your wrist.
Yes, well anything can be reduced to trivialities if you try hard enough. Tell me, what was the innovation with the Xbox 360 exactly? Higher resolution textures? Now that's trivial.
And Wii's Changing it from pushing a button to flicking your wrist is a massive understatement of the real effect. The new metroid or re4 controls of point-shoot blow away anything else for immersion. A game like Mercury Meltdown or Rayman Raving Rabbids or Dewey's Adventure or Boxing are dramatically enhanced by the Wii's controller... nevermind the direction they're heading with the Wii Fit.
Finally, how does Psystar distribute the added software with the originals? Do they distribute a separate DVD containing only the added software along with the actual original OSX disc? Do they include a recovery disk? I have no idea... that detail seems quite important.
Originally they provided the original CD, and pre-installed the system ("god knows how"), and there was no actual approved way to 'reinstall' yourself. ("Make a full disk image backup" after you get it and recover from that, was really your best and only option.)
They now provide a 'restore disk', which apparently automates the prerequisite initial system prep and loads/installs utility software is required to get OSX to run, and then it hands off to the original installation disk from Apple to do the installation.
From Psystar:
"For customers who purchased an Open Computing product with Apple's OS X Leopard we have developed a revolutionary utility that will allow you to reinstall your operating system directly from your original Leopard installation DVD. This utility will also allow you to boot into the Leopard Installation DVD's service console to perform advanced functions."
This is the 'software as a service' model. You don't own a product, and the license to use the service is itself not a product either. So you have nothing you can sell or trade. You have no asset, in other words. This makes you vulnerable because unlike with a product, to get any utility from a service you are totally dependent upon the service provider.
Yet these games are 'sold' on shelves at retail in boxes. How is that not highly deceptive?
When I bought a copy of 'Lost Planet' at EB a few months back, well... hmmm...see right there its FUCKED. It turns out that according to Valve, I didn't buy a copy. Yet I have a box, and disk, and a receipt... and it looks like all the other products I've ever bought... except for some fine print that I needed a free steam account.
The trouble with SAAS isn't the model itself its that they are selling SAAS as if it were regular software that you actually bought, and not drawing a real distinction, relying on the consumers understanding of how buying normally works to get them to take home their SAAS stuff and then spring the SAAS limitations on them months or years later. They might not have bought it in the first place if they were properly informed about what they bought^H^H^H^H^H... that they weren't in fact buying anything but were merely "subscribing" to something.
SAAS sales are analogous to walking into a store, picking a big screen TV, paying the sticker price for it cash, walking home, setting it up, and then 3 years later some guy comes and takes it away telling you that you'd only rented it. Sure some of the other TVs were actually for sale, but the one you picked, was just TV-as-a-service. Yes, yes, I know we didn't mention it, and yes, yes, I know it looked like we were selling it by putting it in with all the other stuff that really was for sale, but hey... it was in the fine print on the bottom of the box that this unit was a limited rental, what? why didn't you read it?
Apple sold them thousands of copies at full retail, which would mean those copies are subject to the usual EULA for OSX. One of the conditions is that OSX is only licensed for use on Apple-branded hardware.
The usual EULA terms apply.
The unique EULA terms OSX uses to assert that it binds the user to use it with Apple branded hardware MIGHT apply. Normally when you BUY something, the vendor doesn't get to decide what you use it with, or whether you resell it.
So apple is claiming Psystar broke elements of the EULA, and Psystar is claiming those elements of the EULA are bullshit. Hence the lawsuit. Psystar hasn't violated anything if the EULA terms aren't valid.
Additionaly, I'm pretty sure it's full of language preventing you from selling modified copies of OSX
They aren't modified copies. They are the originals with some software added. Next you'll be saying its illegal for me to buy a Dell, install some software, and then resell it, simply because "Dell said so."
Hint: Dell doesn't get to decide what people do with things they buy. As long as they don't violate copyright and other laws, its not up to Dell. Apple doesn't automatically get special powers simply because it wrote them in a click-through EULA. The EULA has been upheld by law, insofar as its terms are =standard=.
Strange or unusual terms have no automatic legal standing.
This also means bypassing a technical means of controlling access to a copyrighted work (DMCA violation).
1) Copyright is not violated by the bypass. And their is no intent to violate copyright. And indeed the technical measure in question is not there as part of a copyright scheme.
2) per the DMCA -- a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to... [indentify/analyse], or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title. --
So it doesn't cause infringement, and it does enable interoperability with the bios and software layers psystar uses to get OSX to boot up.
Apple bringing the DMCA into this is ABUSE. Plain and simple. The DMCA was written to protect copyright, not to legally enshrine the right of companies to prevent end-users from arbitrary non-copyright related uses.
For example: suppose I wrote software with a technical measure that prevented you from using it on Thursdays. That is clearly "technical measure restricting access to a protected work". However it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the DMCA, and it would not be appropriate to charge someone who bypassed that measure with a DMCA violation. To even attempt to do so is a gross abuse of the DMCA.
If I don't want you using the software on Thursdays, and you sign a contract agreeing to it, I can sue you for beach of contract, but it shouldn't have anything to do with the DMCA.
Steam seems to me to be a rather effective method of DRM. I can only be logged into the account from ONE computer at a time, and I can play my games. what's the problem?
1) One day you might be part of a family, and will consider sharing your stuff.
And then it will happen that you want to play YOUR copy of game X online, while someone else in your family wants to play YOUR copy of game Y online. Steam's DRM prevents this.
That would be like not being allowed to read ANY of your books because your wife was currently reading one of them.
The only solution is to buy additional copies of a game YOU ALREADY HAVE on a separate account, even though the copy of the game YOU ALREADY HAVE isn't even being used.
2) Steam might one day decide not to authorize you to play your games. Maybe your account will get hacked and banned, and you lose all your games. Maybe they'll go bankrupt.
My policy is simply that every steam game I buy gets its own account. I lose a chunk of convenience because of this, but at least I can do things like use 2 of my games at the same time, or give/lend a game I don't want anymore away, and the worst case if an account gets compromised/banned - I lose one game. But I actively avoid buying steam games because of the hassle, and only have 2, instead of the 10+ I'd easily have if it weren't for the DRM.
What is surprising is how so few companies appear to "get it". You want to make an MMORPG that can survive in the Age of WoW? Simple. Do everything that WoW does first, then build on that (e.g. player built content, dynamic content, etc.).
No. It makes more sense to build something that appeals to people who didn't like WoW. Do something different.
And, dammit, when is someone gonna make a new, *good*, squad-based, tactical turn-based game like X-COM or Jagged Alliance again?
IBM Never owned DOS. They licensed it from Microsoft. Compaq cloned the PC with software that they licensed from the legal owner. Apple owns OS X. There is no third party available to give Psystar the go ahead that MS gave to Compaq.
Apple gave them the go ahead by selling them thousands of copies of OSX at full retail. If Apple wants to kill pystar all they have to do is stop selling OSX. If Pystar can't buy it anymore its game over.
Apple can choose another way to distribute OSX upgrades to existing mac owners without the retail channel. They have plenty of options.
Sure, the consumption tax would raise the price on items, BUT people will have significantly MORE money in their pockets to buy things, so that balances out. We only bring in the consumption tax IF we completely dismantle the income tax system. One or the other...not both.
But tourists won't have significantly more money in their pockets, so they won't come.
I don't see how purchasing things overseas will be a loophole, you have to just pay a VAT type tax on it coming into the US, like you do in Europe?
Which is why the yacht will be purchased for one of their many businesses and recorded as an entertainment expense to host clients... and any VAT paid on it would simply be refunded back against the VAT collected by that business. Surely you don't plan to have businesses pay this 'flat consumption income tax do you'?
After all that would be a massive drag on business... if ford has to pay this tax on all the component parts used to make cars, on all the tools it uses, on all the consultants, on everything...?
Do that and I guarantee you practically nothing will be 'made in the USA'.
But, even if there is a flat tax....that is one with NO loopholes like we have in the current US system. All income gets reported, no deductions, no shelters, etc...nothing. If you get it...it gets reported.
No such thing.
If I own 2 businesses, and one legitimately makes 5 million, and one legitimately loses 3.8 Million. How much income do I have? Is that a loophole? Not really, except the term 'legitimately loses' can be manipulated, especially if money is being moved through international systems that the IRS can't effectively audit.
Oh, sure you could 'close' that loophole, but that will be the end of entrepreneurship in America. Anyone with a bit of income would have no incentive whatsoever to gamble on a new business. If the tax rate were 20 percent, and I make 5 million, and then then take a risk on another business which loses 4.5 million, I'm going to still have a tax bill of 1 million, and am now actually in the hole.
The reason we have all these offsets, deductions, and tax breaks etc is to ENCOURAGE people with capital to develop new businesses etc, by reducing some of the risk, and making it a more attractive gamble.
A Fair/Sales tax in my mind is even better since you can save all the money you want, but unless watching interest accumulate floats your boat, the rich will spend more (and save more) and thus be taxed proportionally more.
1) The rich are the ones accumulating wealth (ie saving) while the poor spend every dollar they, and have debt on top of it. So a sales-tax tax amounts to a higher tax rate on the poor. They'll ultimately pay x% on everything they earn. while the rich would only pay on what they spend, which is less than they earn. The richer you are the lower your rate of tax.
2) Boosting the sales tax enough to eliminate income tax would raise prices to the point that tourism would die outright.
3) The rich would buy everything they wanted abroad to avoid the punitive sales taxes, a freedom the poor would be far less able to exercise. This would just further decrease the tax rate the rich pay.
Slashdot Mirror
As long as I'm having to redo entire enterprises, I might as well roll out open source solutions or Macs.
Right because Apple's so good about offering support for anything legacy? Give me a break.
OSS at least is a decent option, but honestly, Vista is FAR FAR FAR more compatible with legacy windows than anything else on the market. So unless you plan to rewrite and/or find substitutes for practically everything, Vista is probably the best solution.
If you are truly in a situation where a switch to OSS actually makes sense, then you don't actually have all these legacy compatibility requirements you mentioned.
OSS makes sense if you need generic email/web/office or you need a 'terminal' for citrix/web apps/hosted apps/whatever (which does describe a LOT of people) but it rarely really makes sense in a situation where there are a lot of custom Windows apps knocking around, or where you need to use 3rd party apps that are windows only.
Try and find some contact lens design/lab control software that runs on Macs or Linux and integrates into both your accounting system and controls your lens lathe.
Try to run a cellular service center, where you need to run all those 3rd party phone-flash/reflash/updater tools, the latest software from blackberry (blackberry desktop) and microsoft (activesync), where support for mac lags behind windows, and support for linux is a joke. While in the back you've got someone running battery diagnostic software from Maccor or Cadex.
Try to find mac/linux software designed to run an optometrists office. Nevermined the total lack of OSX / Linux patient management systems, you also have to contend with the fact that all the instruments (topographers, perimeters, etc) run windows systems, often with integration features into windows patient management system.
And lets be honest, the companies that need generic terminals or basic office apps - those really AREN'T the ones having trouble with Vista. Its the manufacturers, the service centers, the doctors, etc, and as much as their is migration pain with Vista -- switching to OSX or Linux would make a masochist cringe in fear.
It is sounding more and more like Vista really is the newest generation of Windows ME.
Only to people who wish that were true. Its not.
People hated Windows ME. But Microsoft didn't shove it down anyone's throat so people danced around WinME without concern.
WinME was for home consumers not businesses. Businesses never had to deal with ME.
Honestly it really wouldn't have mattered what Vista was. Unless it was fully compatible with 2k/xp they were going to reject it. And if MS had kept it more compatible, they would not have been able to move forwards on things like security. Vista's not perfect, don't get me wrong, but even if vista was simply XP with the ability to run as administrator finally "turned off", businesses would have thrown the same fit they are throwing.
So Vista is slower on the same hardware? Big deal, every OS is. Win98 RAN well with 64MB of RAM, and took a couple hundred megabytes of disk. Try doing that with XP.
So Vista is isn't compatible with a lot of hardware, and buggy drivers abound. That's not new. Think back to XP, again, there was tons of low rent 'consumer oriented' hardware that only had win9x drivers.
The only reason there wasn't the same massive backlash to XP that there was to Vista is that BUSINESSES weren't *really* affected by XP. XP used the same drivers as 2k, so most of the hardware support businesses needed was already in place and mature. XP was little more than a minor update to 2k.
And even then, tons of companies vowed they'd never upgrade, and blasted everything from the color scheme, the deeper integration of windows media player, and the licensing issues (including "windows product activation").
Vista is stable, performs well on hardware its compatible with, is genuinely more secure than previous versions, features a number of real UI improvements. (The new start menu for example), and its desktop compisiting engine is far more modern, catching it up with OSX and Linux (Compiz).
It has its flaws too.. of course, but overall it is actually a decent step forward. It just has the misfortune of being a painful one for users with a lot of legacy dependencies, while simultaneously breaking new ground on the driver front so its has to suffer while it waits for hardware vendors getting drivers to maturity or for users to toss the old hardware.
The next version of Windows is just going to be a more refined version of Vista... but its acceptance will be much higher because the hardware driver issues will have matured, and a lot of the 'legacy dependencies' will have aged into obsolescent non-issues.
Microsoft's strategy is really little more than wait until Vista forces the market to accept the changes, and then launch it all over again with a new name and few tweaks... but because the market will have already mostly accommodated Vista, 7 will be a 'smooth transition'. Its that simple. And its a good strategy, because people are =that= stupid.
Abortion, if you're not killing a person (tricky thing to define, I admit, but your arm is alive and removing ('aborting') it is no moral problem and I feel the same way about an unthinking fetus.
You yourself admit its tricky to define.
Most pro-lifers think an unthinking fetus IS a person, so for them it IS a moral problem.
And they aren't "wrong" for thinking that. Its a perfectly rational position. After all, your suggestion that simple self-awareness is required before you can be considered a person raises questions about certain classes of mental handicap, people in comas, brain damage, etc... these are a people that are not self aware. And a fetus actually has a very good chance of achieving self-awareness. Like you said, 'person' is tricky to define. So if someone believes the definition includes an unborn fetus, I can see the argument is reasonable, whether I agree with it or not.
Further, your arm analogy has multiple flaws. An arm is not, was not, and will never be an independent person. A developing fetus has its own unique DNA, and is steadily sliding along a continuum towards being an independent person. I don't see a logical error being committed by arguing that a living organism with its own DNA that is actually developing into a fully 'normal person' should be protected more than a limb.
And it certainly seems reasonable that it shouldn't be protected LESS than your limbs?
And that's where it gets interesting... you can't just go in and get your arm lopped off because you feel like it. And its indisputably 'just' a part of you. Yet it would be pretty challenging to find a doctor willing to amputate your arm without a medical necessity. A fetus is arguably a person, and at the very least developing into a person. In fact, where I live at least, it would probably be HARDER to get a healthy arm amputated than to arrange for the abortion of a healthy fetus.
Hell, I'm pro-choice and that even seems out of whack to me.
First, both your examples are strawmen. We're talking about Gitmo.
Do you really think any of Gitmo's incarcerated have an undetonated bomb ticking away about to blow up? Of course not, hell, it took more than few days to get them to Gitmo in the first place from where they were arrested/captured. If this was a 'ticking bomb' situation, the bombs would have exploded before they ever got there. And that was YEARS ago... why are they STILL there?
What if a criminal has kidnapped your family and he also said that unless you meet his demands they will die in 2 days (because there is not enough air or water wherever he put them). However, the criminal was captured by the police. The police gives you a choice of what to do with him. What would you do:
1. Be nice to him, and politely ask where he has put them (he does not tell you)?
2. Give him a fair trial, which could last months (and your family has 2 days left)?
3. Beat it out of him?
A classic, but its a fantasy. The odds of this actually happening are absurdly remote.
1) This devious psychotic mythical kidnapper who puts his victims into elaborate slow death traps would have instructed me not to call the police, and would have me under surveillance. The moment the police were involved he'd kill the victims and flee in his flying nuclear submarine.
2) If the kidnapper is a killer they're probably already dead.
3) The kidnapper may not be working alone. Even if the police catch one, he may not know the location, or they may be moved by the other kidnappers, once they realize the plan has gone askew.
4) Finally, and most importantly, the police brought me a suspect; in the real world there is no guarantee it is the kidnapper at all. How hard should I beat on someone who might be completely innocent? Ok to slap him around a bit? What about taking a bat to his knees? Cutting off his fingers? Vivisecting him?
Now, if a terrorist has placed a bomb somewhere, would you torture him to find out the location?
Same as above, how do I know I'm torturing a terrorist instead of some innocent bystander?
Until scientists create a device... ...torture is the most effective method available.
Tell me, just how well does it work on innocent bystanders?
If someone plants a bomb in an area your kid is staying... and the police pick him up as a suspect... how much torture do you think it would be reasonable to use on him?
"I guess we should just not try to extract any information from prisoners. Forget the whole "intelligence" thing. We shouldn't spy, we shouldn't use "torture." If 16 hours of extremely loud rock music (apparently not enough to deafen, though) and 4 hours of complete silence and darkness counts as "torture," people need to visit some other countries more often. "
Do you think it would be acceptable to subject YOU to this treatment?
After all YOU are as guilty as they are. Neither of you have even been charged with a crime, neither of you has been convicted of anything, indeed the only real difference between them and you is that THEY are in gitmo and you aren't.
Are YOU willing to trade places with them?
After all, a lot of them are as innocent as you.
Perhaps we should try and "extract" intelligence from you for a few years, and see if you think its still a good idea.
I then tried to explain about linux and FOSS but he had grown up with the solid idea that nothing worth having is ever free unless you're being scammed in some way.
He could not be convinced that FOSS was legal and genuinely free. There had to be a catch. There had to be a law being broken.
The approach to take with him is that FOSS is not 'free' but rather that its been paid for by others.
That is a more accurate representation of it, and its something they can understand. Its like a community event at the park put together by volunteers with a free petting zoo for the kids, and free punch. None of this stuff is really free, but the volunteers willingly donated their time, and a few other groups (maybe a local business or a local church put up the money for the zoo and punch to generate some goodwill). There isn't any 'catch'; its just an afternoon of fun paid for by others.
So free software isn't free, its just that someone else paid to make it, by donating their time and money to the effort, because they wanted it made.
Then point out how easy it is to make copies of software, by copying a few files on his computer.
So OSS is like a a community event with free punch, but with punch they have to pay a few cents for each glass they serve and so even though its cheap their is a limit on how much punch they can give away before they run out, and you have to come to the event to get it... they can't bring it to your home.
But with software they CAN. Once the volunteers have donated their time and money towards making it. They CAN offer it free to the entire world, because once the original is paid for, they can easily afford making millions of copies and deliver them anywhere via the internet, for fractions of fractions of fractions of a penny. And these copies are paid for by ISPs and big companies and individuals who do it for the same reasons they cover the cost of community event petting zoos and punch.
Hm. Do we have an example of the Internet's influence on war? Say, Iraq? It stopped the US from invading under false pretenses, right? Nope.
No, but I think coverage of the war has made invading Iran a lot less palatable to American's.
It might have helped stop the abuses at Abu Ghraib. On the other hand, the story was quite successfully suppressed by the US authorities until it was broken by a foreign news service. There weren't so many of those active in Nazi Germany.
The internet helped get the news out. It did take a bit of time for the US mainstream to pick up the story (a delay at the request of the DoD according to wikipedia), but pressure was building up, they couldn't have kept the lid on it indefinitely.
And the US media is generally still pretty 'free' and trustworthy all things considered, and if it were believed to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the state, the population would seek out and beleive foreign reports -- something they can do thanks, in large part, to the internet. Nazi germany had no alternative... either you believed what the media said or you didn't, but there wasn't any other source of news.
See point #2. Hitler enjoyed widespread and overwhelming support. If you'd been reading an Internet forum discussion at the time it would have been full of people talking about reasons why you should help vote Hitler in.
I agree he still would have been elected.
However his support might have evaporated when news and photos and video of what he was actually doing in a lot of places after things got rolling were communicated to those people. He might not have gotten nearly as far as he did.
There are lots that say it could never happen in america because the military would never follow those orders. But the reality is, you could separate the military into the groups that would and the groups that wouldn't, and then deploy the groups that wouldn't of communication with home (helped by controlling the media), and then set the group that would to doing the atrocities you could get away with it. Hitler did just this.
The internet would have made it impossible for the portions of the military that wouldn't have gone along with it from being so completely out of the loop for so long. Even if you control the media, the truth still moves around on the internet.
Hitler would have had to censor / filter / and discredit it. It would have been an additional challenge at least; at best it might even have stopped him. But China is the obvious counter example.
1) Hitler actively embraced the newly emerging mass media technology called television. He also loved to make radio speeches.
And if you can't see the difference between a medium that lets a central authority send out messages and one that lets everyone else send messages, you missed the point of the internet.
The only question that remains is if the modern internet existed at the time of hitler, would it have stopped him, or would he have managed to filter and censor it.
"the great firewall of Germany"
Nintendo - Wii (Playon is building an interface for the Wii)
Wii isn't HD, has limited storage, and has trouble with youtube sometimes. Its a fantastic console, but its not a great media center device.
Realistically Tivo is fighting a diminishing game, and this comes from the owner of a Tivo HD. How many people own one of those 3 units above vs. a TivoHD? Which is cheaper, the PlayOn (30$) or TivoHD (300+ sub)?
My parents and their friends, and millions of people like them, will never by a PS3 or Xbox360. The will buy Tivo/PVR/AppleTV devices though. So its a niche they'll fit in with. A $30 addon for a device they won't buy vs a $300 device they will, is no contest... the $300 device wins them.
And for people who have both a console and a PVR/TivoHD/AppleTV its a $30 add-on vs 'built-in' guess who wins that one?
As for the market at large, streaming, video-on-demand, and even DVRs aren't really mainstream yet. Most people still watch whats on TV when its broadcast to them.
So its not to late for anyone to get into the market and win. If this were mp3's we're still at the pre-ipod stage, when there were lots of solutions around, but most people still used CDs.
I've played a lot of RPGs over the years, and WoW is actually better than most single-player ones, and is a MMO on top of that.
I hope so. If you've been playing since it it started, you've sunk about $700 into it so far. If I paid $700 for a single player game, my expectations would be pretty damned high.
And for me, that's where WoW doesn't deliver. Its good... but I don't find it THAT good.
I prefer variety, and $700 bucks buys a lot of games, especially if you shop smart.
Too little, too late. Why take up the space on my PVR when I can live stream it from my PC?
Too little too late if you have PS3 or xbox360.
Millions of people don't have and don't want either.
I think the biggest pro for using divs is when you have to move something around. Tables are only easy for getting the initial layout just right. For something you actually have to maintain, divs just make sense. A little more work early on makes messing around w/ the pages design loads easier later on.
The table advocates here are advocating *minimal* use of tables. Generally its just 1 table in the page template that handles the 2,3 or 4 columns that the rest of the site gets laid into. Divs and CSS are used for everything else within those columns.
So moving things or doing maintenance around is really no easier or harder due to having used tables.
For the love of god, do NOT make your websites using any of these:
- tables (for layout, I mean)
1) using tables for actual tables of course is perfectly ok (as you implied by saying 'for layout'
2) I would suggest "avoid" using tables for layout as much as possible, but don't discount them.
When faced with a situation where a table will just work in every browser you intend to support with minimal table html markup, and doing it with CSS requires divs nested in divs nested in divs nested in divs with all sorts of css hacks, and then STILL needs a javascript to run after the page renders to fix the widths and heights etc...
Yet its trivial to do with a table, without any javascript or browser hacks.
I just use a table.
Pure CSS is gold. But in my opinion browser hacks and javascript for layout are WORSE than tables. If you need them to avoid tables and make your "pure CSS" work, the cure is worse than the disease. (and really its not "pure CSS" anymore if you are using hacks and javascript)
As for flash and java. I again agree to a point. For most sites you absolutely don't want to make them essential for your site to operate, but there is nothing wrong with using either appropriately. And depending on what the site is, it might be appropriate to make them essential. homestarrunner.com without flash would be pretty pointless.
Xbox 360's innovation compared to the other consoles is a $1600 complete devkit ($700 Windows PC, $400 Xbox 360 Elite, and $100/yr XNA Creators Club subscription for five-year life of console) available to anyone with a high-speed Internet connection, not just companies with a prior published PC title that lease their own office space.
Congratulations, Microsoft just innovated the Commodore VIC-20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vic-20_ad.jpg
"Why buy just a video game? For under $300 get the commodore VIC-20, the wonder computer of the 1980s."
"Sure it plays the great games kids love. But the VIC-20 can also improve learning skills. In fact, it uses the same computer language taught in schools on the Commodore PET"
=facepalm=
No hope for test subjects who over-identify with Weighted Companion Cube.
I apparently incinerated mine with the least hesitation ever recorded!
That's laughable, considering their penchant for pumping out a Mario, Metroid, and Zelda game with every platform.
That's a fair comment. Although they've started other new and successful franchises in the interim too... Pokemon, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Wii Sports (Wii Sports, Wii Ski, Wii Fit, Wii Sports Resort...)
They've got this innovative hardware, and all they've done is changed it so instead of pressing A to swing your sword, you flick your wrist.
Yes, well anything can be reduced to trivialities if you try hard enough.
Tell me, what was the innovation with the Xbox 360 exactly? Higher resolution textures? Now that's trivial.
And Wii's Changing it from pushing a button to flicking your wrist is a massive understatement of the real effect. The new metroid or re4 controls of point-shoot blow away anything else for immersion. A game like Mercury Meltdown or Rayman Raving Rabbids or Dewey's Adventure or Boxing are dramatically enhanced by the Wii's controller... nevermind the direction they're heading with the Wii Fit.
Finally, how does Psystar distribute the added software with the originals? Do they distribute a separate DVD containing only the added software along with the actual original OSX disc? Do they include a recovery disk? I have no idea... that detail seems quite important.
Originally they provided the original CD, and pre-installed the system ("god knows how"), and there was no actual approved way to 'reinstall' yourself. ("Make a full disk image backup" after you get it and recover from that, was really your best and only option.)
They now provide a 'restore disk', which apparently automates the prerequisite initial system prep and loads/installs utility software is required to get OSX to run, and then it hands off to the original installation disk from Apple to do the installation.
From Psystar:
"For customers who purchased an Open Computing product with Apple's OS X Leopard we have developed a revolutionary utility that will allow you to reinstall your operating system directly from your original Leopard installation DVD. This utility will also allow you to boot into the Leopard Installation DVD's service console to perform advanced functions."
This is the 'software as a service' model. You don't own a product, and the license to use the service is itself not a product either. So you have nothing you can sell or trade. You have no asset, in other words. This makes you vulnerable because unlike with a product, to get any utility from a service you are totally dependent upon the service provider.
Yet these games are 'sold' on shelves at retail in boxes. How is that not highly deceptive?
When I bought a copy of 'Lost Planet' at EB a few months back, well... hmmm ...see right there its FUCKED. It turns out that according to Valve, I didn't buy a copy. Yet I have a box, and disk, and a receipt... and it looks like all the other products I've ever bought... except for some fine print that I needed a free steam account.
The trouble with SAAS isn't the model itself its that they are selling SAAS as if it were regular software that you actually bought, and not drawing a real distinction, relying on the consumers understanding of how buying normally works to get them to take home their SAAS stuff and then spring the SAAS limitations on them months or years later. They might not have bought it in the first place if they were properly informed about what they bought^H^H^H^H^H ... that they weren't in fact buying anything but were merely "subscribing" to something.
SAAS sales are analogous to walking into a store, picking a big screen TV, paying the sticker price for it cash, walking home, setting it up, and then 3 years later some guy comes and takes it away telling you that you'd only rented it. Sure some of the other TVs were actually for sale, but the one you picked, was just TV-as-a-service. Yes, yes, I know we didn't mention it, and yes, yes, I know it looked like we were selling it by putting it in with all the other stuff that really was for sale, but hey... it was in the fine print on the bottom of the box that this unit was a limited rental, what? why didn't you read it?
Apple sold them thousands of copies at full retail, which would mean those copies are subject to the usual EULA for OSX. One of the conditions is that OSX is only licensed for use on Apple-branded hardware.
The usual EULA terms apply.
The unique EULA terms OSX uses to assert that it binds the user to use it with Apple branded hardware MIGHT apply. Normally when you BUY something, the vendor doesn't get to decide what you use it with, or whether you resell it.
So apple is claiming Psystar broke elements of the EULA, and Psystar is claiming those elements of the EULA are bullshit. Hence the lawsuit. Psystar hasn't violated anything if the EULA terms aren't valid.
Additionaly, I'm pretty sure it's full of language preventing you from selling modified copies of OSX
They aren't modified copies. They are the originals with some software added. Next you'll be saying its illegal for me to buy a Dell, install some software, and then resell it, simply because "Dell said so."
Hint: Dell doesn't get to decide what people do with things they buy. As long as they don't violate copyright and other laws, its not up to Dell. Apple doesn't automatically get special powers simply because it wrote them in a click-through EULA. The EULA has been upheld by law, insofar as its terms are =standard=.
Strange or unusual terms have no automatic legal standing.
This also means bypassing a technical means of controlling access to a copyrighted work (DMCA violation).
1) Copyright is not violated by the bypass. And their is no intent to violate copyright. And indeed the technical measure in question is not there as part of a copyright scheme.
2) per the DMCA
--
a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to... [indentify/analyse], or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.
--
So it doesn't cause infringement, and it does enable interoperability with the bios and software layers psystar uses to get OSX to boot up.
Apple bringing the DMCA into this is ABUSE. Plain and simple. The DMCA was written to protect copyright, not to legally enshrine the right of companies to prevent end-users from arbitrary non-copyright related uses.
For example: suppose I wrote software with a technical measure that prevented you from using it on Thursdays. That is clearly "technical measure restricting access to a protected work". However it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the DMCA, and it would not be appropriate to charge someone who bypassed that measure with a DMCA violation. To even attempt to do so is a gross abuse of the DMCA.
If I don't want you using the software on Thursdays, and you sign a contract agreeing to it, I can sue you for beach of contract, but it shouldn't have anything to do with the DMCA.
Steam seems to me to be a rather effective method of DRM. I can only be logged into the account from ONE computer at a time, and I can play my games. what's the problem?
1) One day you might be part of a family, and will consider sharing your stuff.
And then it will happen that you want to play YOUR copy of game X online, while someone else in your family wants to play YOUR copy of game Y online. Steam's DRM prevents this.
That would be like not being allowed to read ANY of your books because your wife was currently reading one of them.
The only solution is to buy additional copies of a game YOU ALREADY HAVE on a separate account, even though the copy of the game YOU ALREADY HAVE isn't even being used.
2) Steam might one day decide not to authorize you to play your games. Maybe your account will get hacked and banned, and you lose all your games. Maybe they'll go bankrupt.
My policy is simply that every steam game I buy gets its own account. I lose a chunk of convenience because of this, but at least I can do things like use 2 of my games at the same time, or give/lend a game I don't want anymore away, and the worst case if an account gets compromised/banned - I lose one game. But I actively avoid buying steam games because of the hassle, and only have 2, instead of the 10+ I'd easily have if it weren't for the DRM.
What is surprising is how so few companies appear to "get it". You want to make an MMORPG that can survive in the Age of WoW? Simple. Do everything that WoW does first, then build on that (e.g. player built content, dynamic content, etc.).
No. It makes more sense to build something that appeals to people who didn't like WoW. Do something different.
And, dammit, when is someone gonna make a new, *good*, squad-based, tactical turn-based game like X-COM or Jagged Alliance again?
Try Radiant Dawn on the Wii.
IBM Never owned DOS. They licensed it from Microsoft. Compaq cloned the PC with software that they licensed from the legal owner. Apple owns OS X. There is no third party available to give Psystar the go ahead that MS gave to Compaq.
Apple gave them the go ahead by selling them thousands of copies of OSX at full retail. If Apple wants to kill pystar all they have to do is stop selling OSX. If Pystar can't buy it anymore its game over.
Apple can choose another way to distribute OSX upgrades to existing mac owners without the retail channel. They have plenty of options.
Sure, the consumption tax would raise the price on items, BUT people will have significantly MORE money in their pockets to buy things, so that balances out. We only bring in the consumption tax IF we completely dismantle the income tax system. One or the other...not both.
But tourists won't have significantly more money in their pockets, so they won't come.
I don't see how purchasing things overseas will be a loophole, you have to just pay a VAT type tax on it coming into the US, like you do in Europe?
Which is why the yacht will be purchased for one of their many businesses and recorded as an entertainment expense to host clients... and any VAT paid on it would simply be refunded back against the VAT collected by that business. Surely you don't plan to have businesses pay this 'flat consumption income tax do you'?
After all that would be a massive drag on business... if ford has to pay this tax on all the component parts used to make cars, on all the tools it uses, on all the consultants, on everything...?
Do that and I guarantee you practically nothing will be 'made in the USA'.
But, even if there is a flat tax....that is one with NO loopholes like we have in the current US system. All income gets reported, no deductions, no shelters, etc...nothing. If you get it...it gets reported.
No such thing.
If I own 2 businesses, and one legitimately makes 5 million, and one legitimately loses 3.8 Million. How much income do I have? Is that a loophole? Not really, except the term 'legitimately loses' can be manipulated, especially if money is being moved through international systems that the IRS can't effectively audit.
Oh, sure you could 'close' that loophole, but that will be the end of entrepreneurship in America. Anyone with a bit of income would have no incentive whatsoever to gamble on a new business. If the tax rate were 20 percent, and I make 5 million, and then then take a risk on another business which loses 4.5 million, I'm going to still have a tax bill of 1 million, and am now actually in the hole.
The reason we have all these offsets, deductions, and tax breaks etc is to ENCOURAGE people with capital to develop new businesses etc, by reducing some of the risk, and making it a more attractive gamble.
A Fair/Sales tax in my mind is even better since you can save all the money you want, but unless watching interest accumulate floats your boat, the rich will spend more (and save more) and thus be taxed proportionally more.
1) The rich are the ones accumulating wealth (ie saving) while the poor spend every dollar they, and have debt on top of it. So a sales-tax tax amounts to a higher tax rate on the poor. They'll ultimately pay x% on everything they earn. while the rich would only pay on what they spend, which is less than they earn. The richer you are the lower your rate of tax.
2) Boosting the sales tax enough to eliminate income tax would raise prices to the point that tourism would die outright.
3) The rich would buy everything they wanted abroad to avoid the punitive sales taxes, a freedom the poor would be far less able to exercise. This would just further decrease the tax rate the rich pay.