Of course. Everybody is entitled to use their device however they choose. All I ask is for things for be configurable. For some reason, I had to install 3rd party software (Winaero, cited above) just to restore what I consider to be normal behavior. My only request to the MS engineers would be to stop breaking things, or at the very least, to allow me to restore functionality that was working just fine before. Just remember the Win8 fiasco and subsequent furious backpedal.
Oh, but since Windows is now a "service", rather than an actual operating system that I own, I guess MS is free to change the terms of this service at any time with or without my consent?
A small chill went down my spine when I read this headline.... Are they thinking of breaking alt-tab now??? I am relived to find no such indication in what I've read, but also disappointed that I apparently missed this call with MS engineers. I'd love the opportunity to tell them about now annoying the giant app preview thing is when using alt-tab, which is why I use https://winaero.com/ to make alt-tab behave like it did in the 90s, with just the icons of the software I have open, not a useless full-screen preview effect. Of course, "apps" just show a broken icon, for whatever reason, but that's fine, since I mostly use actual software, since my PC is not a phone.
I still remember back when Windows was an operating system. Now, the friendly popup informs me, Windows is a "service", graciously provided by Microsoft, at its discretion, and to susceptible be updated with whatever code they choose to push at me, with or without my approval. All for my greater comfort and convinience, of course.
With all the fuss over Facebook or whatever, why isn't anyone talking about the persistence of people's credit card transactions?
That Playboy subscription your bought in college? That bong you bought at your local dispensary? Those psychiatric services you received? If, for some strange reason, you didn't pay cash, then it's all on your permanent record.
Sure, we all love and trusts banks with our lives... but do they share this information with third parties? If not today, then maybe tomorrow? Plus, all this information will be shared with the government upon request (and we all trust whoever happens to be in charge, too, obviously).
In what sense are you a Libertarian? Please, enlighten us. You seem to believe that the government's proper role is to dictate what can and cannot be sold to consumers, and at what price, and yet you call yourself Libertarian? No sir, it is you who are the embarrassment here. Please, go change your party affiliation to one of those two well known ones that never miss an opportunity to insert their politics between buyer and seller.
You could probably use a cheap(ish) no-name tablet instead. At least you can be assured these apps don't have access to your call history, and, since you didn't sign a mobile contract, your identity is safe.
Of course, Apple can make this impossible, as they restrict apps to certain types of devices. Android doesn't do this (yet).
To use your example, dumping garbage on somebody else's property would be a violation of this other person's property rights.
Anyway, your point is taken. Of course there is need of taxation. I'm not so far gone as to be a total free market anarchist... although I think I might prefer such a world to the one in which random amounts of money are demanded at gunpoint from citizens to pay for the fearless leader's golf vacations.
My only point here was that it is disingenuous to cry that the state is giving its taxpayers' money away, when in fact, it is only refraining from taking even more tax money. It's just not the same.
Now... see how we can all get along just fine when people stop calling each other idiots because they don't agree?
No, I don't get it. You are suggesting that governments provide services for a fee, like business does? If that were true, we wouldn't need taxes, just mutually consenting exchanges of fee for services. That isn't how governments work, fool. The whole point of taxation is to pay arbitrary amounts of money, regardless of how you may feel about whatever services you may or may not be receiving.
In a word, analogy FAIL.
'We won't come unless we get three billion of your dollars,'
Or, more properly phrased, unless we are allowed to keep three billions of our dollars, which we earned through our enterprise.
Let's not confound a tax exemption with a government handout, OK?
me wishing slashdot had a like button for your comment. amen to all that.
but what then is the solution??? surely you don't mean to imply that all internet users should be personally identifiable. I wouldn't want to live in such a world.
If people could be bothered to use actual money, this would never be an issue. Such is the nature of cash. Nobody needs to know about the transaction except for you and your counterparty.
I may not be the smartest mammal in the in the galaxy (yet), but I know the difference between slavery and a contract entered by mutual agreement. Calling this form of agreement slavery is an insult to slaves.
No. In fact, this sort of arrangement has been a very long time coming. This is an investment in human potential.
Now.... let's take this little experiment one step further. What if a sort of hedge fund existed to place this investment not just in the USA, but in poor countries around the world? What if the managers of this fund would be empowered to adopt children from impoverished families, who identified as having more potential than to be a subsistence rice farmer for all of the 45 years of their miserable lives? Of course, these kids have no ability to pay for a college education, and nobody would ever extend a student loan to them... but under this sort of agreement, they become a valuable human resource. Not only that, but the educational institution has a vested interest in this child's future.
Sounds like a win-win to me. Too bad Marxists will cry "exploitation" and keep these poor slobs in their rice paddies.
True. But then so is farming. And building houses. And making TV shows.
Whenever some activity is a benefit to the individual, and that individual lives in a free society where people are allowed to exchange goods and services by mutual agreement and without undue interference, then that activity will be of benefit to society.
If, on the other hand, this hypothetical individual is forced to pay for goods and services to benefit other people, then it becomes very hard to gauge the utility of those goods and services, since nobody has specifically requested them. Distributing human energy in arbitrary ways according to the whims of some powerful group of people is what we call "politics".
Sure. Instead of having the students pay for their education, why not just make it free for everyone? For that matter, why not just make everything free. Food, shelter, clothes, health care, movies, gas, Disney World... All free!!!
Well, maybe "free" isn't exactly the right word. We should maybe say "everyone pays", since it is taxes, after all. Huh. And since everyone is paying anyway, how about we just make it so that people pay for just the things they want? We could have some sort of system where people keep track of the things they use, and just pay for that. I have no idea what we would call that kind of system, but it seems like a good idea.
Because some of us humans actually do love meat, but, due to our pesky conscience, we choose not to eat it. It would be wonderful to have a credible substitute, and it feels like the products on the market are getting really close now, if not already there. The A&W Beyond Burger, for example, is an extraordinary accomplishment, nearly indistinguishable from the "real thing".
"the shifting of profits to fiscally beneficial regions"... in other domains, know as "competition". It's a notion that is familiar to those who provide goods and services to people who want them (read "useful" goods and services). Governments, unbound by this natural constraint, naturally hate this concept.
Merkel's idea to create a Worldwide Government Monopoly might be considered an anti-competitive practice, if it had come from one of these evil global corporations.
Slashdot Mirror
That "a" tag contains no href, so it's kinda normal that it does nothing. Anyway, thanks for finding the article.
I thought Facebook had that patent?
who left the monkeys in charge? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0...
That was hilarious... I think. Honestly, things are to the point now where I can't even be sure if you're joking. I sincerely hope you are.
Of course. Everybody is entitled to use their device however they choose. All I ask is for things for be configurable. For some reason, I had to install 3rd party software (Winaero, cited above) just to restore what I consider to be normal behavior. My only request to the MS engineers would be to stop breaking things, or at the very least, to allow me to restore functionality that was working just fine before. Just remember the Win8 fiasco and subsequent furious backpedal.
Oh, but since Windows is now a "service", rather than an actual operating system that I own, I guess MS is free to change the terms of this service at any time with or without my consent?
A small chill went down my spine when I read this headline.... Are they thinking of breaking alt-tab now??? I am relived to find no such indication in what I've read, but also disappointed that I apparently missed this call with MS engineers. I'd love the opportunity to tell them about now annoying the giant app preview thing is when using alt-tab, which is why I use https://winaero.com/ to make alt-tab behave like it did in the 90s, with just the icons of the software I have open, not a useless full-screen preview effect. Of course, "apps" just show a broken icon, for whatever reason, but that's fine, since I mostly use actual software, since my PC is not a phone.
Congratulations, Mr. Trump, you've done it again!
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I still remember back when Windows was an operating system. Now, the friendly popup informs me, Windows is a "service", graciously provided by Microsoft, at its discretion, and to susceptible be updated with whatever code they choose to push at me, with or without my approval. All for my greater comfort and convinience, of course.
With all the fuss over Facebook or whatever, why isn't anyone talking about the persistence of people's credit card transactions?
That Playboy subscription your bought in college? That bong you bought at your local dispensary? Those psychiatric services you received? If, for some strange reason, you didn't pay cash, then it's all on your permanent record.
Sure, we all love and trusts banks with our lives... but do they share this information with third parties? If not today, then maybe tomorrow? Plus, all this information will be shared with the government upon request (and we all trust whoever happens to be in charge, too, obviously).
I prefer to pay cash, if that's still possible.
In what sense are you a Libertarian? Please, enlighten us. You seem to believe that the government's proper role is to dictate what can and cannot be sold to consumers, and at what price, and yet you call yourself Libertarian? No sir, it is you who are the embarrassment here. Please, go change your party affiliation to one of those two well known ones that never miss an opportunity to insert their politics between buyer and seller.
You could probably use a cheap(ish) no-name tablet instead. At least you can be assured these apps don't have access to your call history, and, since you didn't sign a mobile contract, your identity is safe.
Of course, Apple can make this impossible, as they restrict apps to certain types of devices. Android doesn't do this (yet).
When the government is so desperately short on the natural variety, I'll vote for artificial intelligence every time.
Colossus 2020!!!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0...
To use your example, dumping garbage on somebody else's property would be a violation of this other person's property rights.
Anyway, your point is taken. Of course there is need of taxation. I'm not so far gone as to be a total free market anarchist... although I think I might prefer such a world to the one in which random amounts of money are demanded at gunpoint from citizens to pay for the fearless leader's golf vacations.
My only point here was that it is disingenuous to cry that the state is giving its taxpayers' money away, when in fact, it is only refraining from taking even more tax money. It's just not the same.
Now... see how we can all get along just fine when people stop calling each other idiots because they don't agree?
No, I don't get it. You are suggesting that governments provide services for a fee, like business does? If that were true, we wouldn't need taxes, just mutually consenting exchanges of fee for services. That isn't how governments work, fool. The whole point of taxation is to pay arbitrary amounts of money, regardless of how you may feel about whatever services you may or may not be receiving. In a word, analogy FAIL.
You are either extremely bad an analogies, or just very confused. Either way, I have no idea what you're on about here, dear fellow idiot.
'We won't come unless we get three billion of your dollars,'
Or, more properly phrased, unless we are allowed to keep three billions of our dollars, which we earned through our enterprise.
Let's not confound a tax exemption with a government handout, OK?
me wishing slashdot had a like button for your comment. amen to all that.
but what then is the solution??? surely you don't mean to imply that all internet users should be personally identifiable. I wouldn't want to live in such a world.
If people could be bothered to use actual money, this would never be an issue. Such is the nature of cash. Nobody needs to know about the transaction except for you and your counterparty.
Yep, kinda like that! I did not know... thanks.
I may not be the smartest mammal in the in the galaxy (yet), but I know the difference between slavery and a contract entered by mutual agreement. Calling this form of agreement slavery is an insult to slaves.
No. In fact, this sort of arrangement has been a very long time coming. This is an investment in human potential.
Now.... let's take this little experiment one step further. What if a sort of hedge fund existed to place this investment not just in the USA, but in poor countries around the world? What if the managers of this fund would be empowered to adopt children from impoverished families, who identified as having more potential than to be a subsistence rice farmer for all of the 45 years of their miserable lives? Of course, these kids have no ability to pay for a college education, and nobody would ever extend a student loan to them... but under this sort of agreement, they become a valuable human resource. Not only that, but the educational institution has a vested interest in this child's future.
Sounds like a win-win to me. Too bad Marxists will cry "exploitation" and keep these poor slobs in their rice paddies.
True. But then so is farming. And building houses. And making TV shows.
Whenever some activity is a benefit to the individual, and that individual lives in a free society where people are allowed to exchange goods and services by mutual agreement and without undue interference, then that activity will be of benefit to society.
If, on the other hand, this hypothetical individual is forced to pay for goods and services to benefit other people, then it becomes very hard to gauge the utility of those goods and services, since nobody has specifically requested them. Distributing human energy in arbitrary ways according to the whims of some powerful group of people is what we call "politics".
Sure. Instead of having the students pay for their education, why not just make it free for everyone? For that matter, why not just make everything free. Food, shelter, clothes, health care, movies, gas, Disney World... All free!!!
Well, maybe "free" isn't exactly the right word. We should maybe say "everyone pays", since it is taxes, after all. Huh. And since everyone is paying anyway, how about we just make it so that people pay for just the things they want? We could have some sort of system where people keep track of the things they use, and just pay for that. I have no idea what we would call that kind of system, but it seems like a good idea.
Because some of us humans actually do love meat, but, due to our pesky conscience, we choose not to eat it. It would be wonderful to have a credible substitute, and it feels like the products on the market are getting really close now, if not already there. The A&W Beyond Burger, for example, is an extraordinary accomplishment, nearly indistinguishable from the "real thing".
After every Windows update, my only hope is that nothing has changed.
"the shifting of profits to fiscally beneficial regions" ... in other domains, know as "competition". It's a notion that is familiar to those who provide goods and services to people who want them (read "useful" goods and services). Governments, unbound by this natural constraint, naturally hate this concept.
Merkel's idea to create a Worldwide Government Monopoly might be considered an anti-competitive practice, if it had come from one of these evil global corporations.