But you didn't have bandwidth priority. What is bad about this idea is if they deprioritize stuff without asking people/packets. (Packets are people too ya know;).
Thus, economic law dictates that the price of the product should be zero.
No it doesn't, the price will be whatever seller and buyer can agree on. If new technology threatens to break the illusion that money maintains, it'll just mean that the commercial industry will have to adjust or perish. It's time for creativity, not holding onto old ideas about control and power. This is not just a property of Internet. It's a property for all information and it's the reason humans have become so knowledgeable, technical and full of old stories that we have.
What you have discovered, and call evil, is that being a "control freak" is a major character-flaw while the rest of society generally look up to leaders who can lead the most. This problem is prevalent everywhere on this globe, and not suprisingly religious and spiritual centers are no exception. Maybe calling it evil will raise awareness of the issue. But without clarification like you provided here, you will likely confuse the real issue. "Evil" is not a good word for anything other than creating emotional reactions.
In many cases, being a control freak makes a person incapable of being a good leader. However, in the right circumstances and/or for a person with great charisma, they might pull through with it. There are also a differences, eg. between the lone leader and the club of leaders who cover eachothers backs. You have the front-figure leader and you have the leader pulling strings from behind the scene. I'm sure there are much to cover here, but we should remember that being a leader is not inherently a bad thing. We should also remember that often people will want a leader to govern their lives.
If you reread my previous post, I'm sure you'll agree that my argument about people being different, coming from different backgrounds and thus doing different things that may conflict with eachother, is just something we'll have to accept. If we continue fighting the way we have, opposing the other side, the war will never end. Instead, we should see that they are just the extreme end of something that is within us all. We're all capable of hideous actions when we're in bad circumstances.
Well, it was just an illustration of the principle. Not like good things always magically happen in RL when you're "good". The key point then, is to not expect, thereby not be disappointed either. If you succeed in that, bad events won't affect you (well, not in the same devastating/troubling manner anyways). However, this is not the same as positive-thinking. "Gee, I lost my house, car, wife and daughters, but at least I got insurance money and can build a brand new family without so many mistakes! My next daughter is going to be president!". Positive thinking is a misused technique because we need to go through our emotions, not flee from them and lie to ourselves, in order to be free of them. It's good to be angry, but just observe it when/if you "lose control", and you'll be able to deal with it much better. Learn about yourself, meta-thinking could be an appropriate term for it.
In the bible, Job learned this lesson the really hard way. Of course, few people now realize this was why he was stripped of everything in his life. They can't see behind the actions of this "unjust" and "vengeful" God, or just don't understand it but believes in it anyways. To understand the bible you have to look past the superficial logical flaws. I'm sure those who wrote it had a higher purpose than spouting religious fanatism. (Aka, believe US not THEM. But in fact, it doesn't really matter what you believe, it's the principles behind that are important.)
Ah yes. You speak true words my friend. Many people speak so highly of academic concepts such as socialism, without realizing people will find a way to screw the system to their benefit as always. I believe this includes minimal government-systems such as capitalism/free market also. Sure, ANY system may work well in the beginning, but it'll soon rust and crumble because of the pressure on it from the people itself.
The only remedy I see for it, is like in hinduism and star trek (no pun intended). Self-development programs for all people. When people themselves are interested in sustainable development, they'll work like oiled hinges in the machinery of society. The oil will spread throughout and decrease friction.
Bullshit.:-) Evil is just a word people use on things they don't relate to, fear and don't want to understand. It is not a word you use out of understanding, courage and love. Does anyone here actually believe Bill Gates, or whoever your arch-enemy is, wakes up every morning wondering who he'll screw with next? If you do, you require some serious introspection.
These people are seriously misguided, I'll give you that. But so are we all, just in different ways. That's why we are here, to show eachother in what way we're mistaken. Calling someone evil, even just their actions, will turn them further away from you. It doesn't help anything but your own ego and sense of belonging to an opposition.
If someone screams and yells at you, being very rude. What to do? Kick back, and you'll justify his anger. You've just let someone have power over you. Ignore him, and he'll continue for a while until he lose interest and goes away to hassle someone else. You'll still feel battered though. Instead, you might try smiling and be polite. He'll become very confused and ashamed of himself and his actions. You'll give him no justification for treating you the way he have. We are all our own best teacher and judge.
I'm not saying you shouldn't stand up for yourself and your opinions. However, there's a polite and confident way of saying "No Sir, you can't have my wallet. Please don't take my money away from me." and there's not. Calling someone "lad" is condescending and will turn them against you. I believe this can also be applied to IP-laws.
This was just an illustration though, there are no "rules" to follow other than your heart. If you dare;-)
You may be true in your words, but your conclusion is wrong. If the information is still useful, needed or wanted, it can easily be copied to future optical terrabyte storage.
Sports stopped being fun because of the money, fame and glory - professionalism. People get attached to their teams, having moodswings and conversations depended on the last game. They might think they're having fun, sometimes they do, but the innocence of sport is lost today. Luckily, there are a few sports where people are still having fun, like orientation and timber-tossing. You can't live on it though.
As for cheating, cheating ruins the game and the innocence of it by far. It's an ego-boost to the immature trickster who enjoy others rage, just like the bully in kindergarten did, but the whole point of a game is to follow the rules. What makes a game fun is in its illusion. A game is essentially infinite possibilities limited by rules. Cracking those, dissolves the game and its enjoyment (unless it's only temporary).
I planned to write something along what you said. However, if you think about it, it's not really Blizzard's responsibility to accomodate hardcore gamers that take the game a little too serious (trading on ebay and such for instance). Sure, they _should_ support Battlenet in a better fashion than they have a history for, but some of the whining is just not mature and reasonable. Supporting a fault-free service would require more money, preferrably a monthly payment.
Now as for the discussion of what is "real" and not. It shouldn't take much brainwork to see that it is really a subjective definition. On one hand you can say everything we see/think/fantasize about is real, on the other hand nothing is real. What is real then? It's up to who you ask, and those who can't tolerate anothers opinion should open up their eyes. Everybody has their reasons for believing what they believe and everybody changes their opinion. So what's the use in bashing down on others when tomorrow you'll perhaps see what they really meant?
You got point:-) This is why we shouldn't attach ourselves so dearly to anything external, not even girlfriends. Because one day it will all be gone. Instead, enjoy what you have and share that now, and you'll be much happier. Without having to worry about what the future may bring or what happened in the past. Life is a game in itself, but seriousness kills the fun.
It's also important to make a difference between short-term and long-term effects. The usual short-term effect of avid gaming is to become unsocial in RL. However, I don't believe this is a long-term effect of an otherwise social person. Of course, extreme exceptions always exist.
There's also a difference between being social online and in RL. I believe a person can be influenced by online activity so much that it has an effect on RL behaviour (anyone tried using smileys in RL;), but perhaps not so much over a longer term.
All in all, the interactions and changes that may occur are so complex, there's no way you can draw any real conclusions from it other than we're all different from eachother.
No technology is inherently evil. They're just tools that we can use and build upon. Some inventions like biology warfare might seem completely wasteful, but it can also be seen as just a study.
What matters is people, our intentions and the knowledge with which we carry them out. With a bad intention, anything may become a murder-weapon. With bad knowledge we cause accidents.
The greatest mystery to me is that people pay for this kind of flawed research. I mean, I can't even remember one which wasn't flawed/biased in one way or another.
It very well can I believe. It's called associative thinking. It doesn't matter if what you associate with it is true, false or just lucid. What matters is that you've got something to associate with your newly aquired knowledge. It also helps that you associate fun with such knowledge.
Of course, school is meant to be boring to weed out non-comforming creative thinking. So we can't have that can we?
His point was that the boy had no interest in math because he saw no use for it. When he got a use, he quickly learned what he needed and continued to study math.
So instead, next time, I suggest you take a pause and do a little reasoning before throwing out obvious flamebait as a reaction to something nobody said except in your mind. (That roleplaying games are good for kids because this boy got interested in math because of it. He never said that.)
I can only give ideas, because nothing is set in stone. How about using a clock to nap just for 30 mins up to an hour? Running round the block, a few hours before you go to sleep may help too. (Or be active during the day instead of glaring at a computer all day. Hell, I know that's a tough habit to break;)
I believe the "free market" is just a wet-fantasy dream, just like communism, fascism, nazism, monarchy, democracy, theocracy etc, etc. These ideologies are not that similar to eachother, I'm not saying that, so please don't argue about that. Except in one respect, where the _system_ is supposed to take care of all of us automatically. (You may argue that free market differs from this, but please read further down for an explanation.)
It may well be that free market and globalization is worth trying out, I'm not saying either way. Nobody knows yet, but I suspect that big corporations like Microsoft would easily get formed to control all aspects of "free trade". Collusions like RIAA and MPAA that we have today would probably be miniscule to the size of those that will/can form.
So what's my argument for my views? Well, remember that companies when unhindered will try to merge whenever they see the benefit. And they'll ALWAYS see an economic/strategic benefit in getting larger. What is your remedy against this? People stopping buying at wall-mart? Yeah, right. That's what collusions are there to prevent any losses from. Any protest will likely be rendered ineffective, as people will have to buy something somewhere.
There's something called tyranny of the majority. I think people in a pure free market system would experience that rather painfully. Alot of similarities to what we have today, only more so. Uninformed people will just continue to support their suppressors, just like people have always done (for benefits too, like protection, of course).
There are also alot of stuff governments impose on companies. Work regulations, minimum wage, health regulations etc, etc. Are you seriously implying those are not needed anymore, and workers will just "work where they want"? I think you have been having the luxury of working in the IT-sector for too long then (assuming of course). I'd rather not go back to the unhealthy conditions of the 19th century. It took alot of hardship, violence and strikes to get us where we are today. I don't believe we can go back in time, but it's worth considering protecting what we have achieved as a people/workforce.
If somebody screws up, or get screwed up by someone. What is to help them back on their feet again, if there are no social money and care? How much people are going to be paid will depend heavily on how many there are to take that job. Minimum wage will drop to the floor pretty fast then. Is that fair? Having cleaning workforce on starve-pay for instance?
If I have to "take the good with the bad" as you say, what is to stop a company from demanding your "first born" when you have a starving family? Take that as a hypothetical example..
Like you, I have faith in people. I believe when you speak of "free market", that you mean that everyone should be able to make enlightened choices for themselves in life and no entitiy should stand in their way. However, that is were we differ. Today, that is just not true. Therefore, it's more important IMHO to work with people and make them capable of that, instead of believing in any system. For example, by doing education, yoga, breath-exercises and meditation. When people get knowledge, energize the body and mind, and release all their stress, we'll be much more capable of bringing forth positive changes. It may well be that a "free market"-alike system would be ideal for us then, to get the money flowing more freely among people.
Mind you, I'm not saying I know all what you mean by "free market" either. Maybe you have something more planned than just releasing the champions of Mammon upon earth.;) Please take the points in this post as positive criticism, because I'm not saying I'm against globalization and free market, but I'm opposed of more power to people who only care about profit. If you want to continue the discussion, you can email me. The words in my email's hostname-address are backwards.
They just feel like they have too much work, and so they have trouble falling asleep until they're very tired, or they frequently pull all-nighters.
Not so good, I know. It's all about priorities, awareness and the ability to observe your own pattern to be able to change it. Sometimes you HAVE to work at night and you get more and more screwed up during the week. It's incredible that this can happen after just one such session, but it's because we ignore the impulses we get when we get them at unusual times.
Tell them (or yourself) to sleep when they feel tired, ie usually right after work. There's a reason after dinner-naps are very old and well-used. Basically, the mistake I and they are doing;) is getting out of sync with the daily sleep rythm. You feel very tired at dinner time, but force yourself awake until you're over-tired (feels like you're fully awake again). Then it's _physically_ hard to go to sleep at night a few hours later. If you're unlucky, you can waste 2-3 hours lying awake in bed. It's not just a mental thing, ie having lots of due work. Although being over-tired, makes your brain think - and worry more than usual.
Of course, it's easy to say this. Harder to live it. I'm trying to take my own advice now;)
I try to see the humour in it, but sometimes I can get irritated too. It's because we get stressed, and dealing with computers is a BIG stress-factor. The best we can do about it is dealing with it ourself, not telling others what to do or how to think if they don't ask for it. So let those who want to deal with "M$ politics" deal with it. They'll get tired of it soon enough, and if they don't at least it's possible to ignore it or taking it humorously. Well, that's my take on it anyways. Take it or leave it:)
However, IMHO it's perfectly alright to criticize aspects that looks bizarre. It's almost impossible to do that without judging and gaining "enemies" though. Because issues like these, people get emotional about. Sometimes it's enough to just whisper "BSD" and GPL-people flame on:-)
Btw, I see myself as a human, not belonging to any camp in any aspects. I have my own opinions, that actually change on a daily basis. I may lean towards this and that in general, but I understand that noone is to blame for anything that happens or what they do. Sometimes I hurt somebody, other times I get hurt. Most of what hurts are just words, take away them and we can't get hurt! So we get hurt because we allow it.
We commies have such higher moral standards than the likes of you. You must be an evil capitalist flaunting your propaganda that way. I bet you even work for the Evil Empire at Redmond. Shame on you for trying to subvert me to the Evil Path. I will now go to train with Yoda to perfect my l337 5K1llZ and h4X0R Satan's machines t0 w1pe out the abomination from the surface of the non-religious earth.
Seriously though, where did you get all your arguments from? I never said those things. The only thing I see worth discussing is perhaps the license-issue. "If you sue, you lose your license"? Sounds like that should be illegal to me. Going to court should not automatically void you of anything.
Actually, it seems to me they have much more to lose. The negative publicity, especially in these times when everyone sees Microsoft as "evil" would far outweigh the benefits of maybe eliminating some "competition".
Just perhaps YOU can, doesn't mean companies can predict what will become a major PR-disaster. They have a reputation of having NDA's that legally makes you incapable of working with IT for X years after you quit, now should that be legal?
In fact, GNU has proved quite litigious in the past.
This is certainly news to me. I assume you mean FSF, but they usually contact the people/companies involved _before_ any such actions. Why did you think the GPL has never really been tested in court yet?
What does Microsoft stand to gain by suing anyone and everyone who it thinks may have violated its license? Not a whole lot.
I agree, but they're not stupid. They sue when they know they can benefit from it. For instance, if they know you have looked at their code and you are coding something that competes with their products, they might sue you for copyright infringement, breaking an EULA or something like that. Not that I believe it would stand up in court, but that's not really the point either. It's enough for them to scare people into "behaving". Why do you think they call the GPL a virus? Because they're so accustomed to their own virus-like NDAs and EULAs. They know how powerful those can be, because they have abused that in the past.
Something is utterly wrong when computing is more about money, power and law, than it is about programming.
After all, those black civil rights protesters who rode in the front of the bus, or sat at the white's only lunch counters were breaking laws too, but NO ONE with any sense of morality would then or now call them criminals.
But they WERE criminals. Makes you think doesn't it?
Being rich is a cool thing and fun and, take alone, morally neutral.
Being rich can be cool and fun, but not if you don't have a clue what fun really is. There's nothing wrong with being rich, except if people are dying from hunger outside your door. So I'll take this sentence with a grain of salt, but basically it can be true. Eg, the contempt of "rich kids" who never worked for themselves is flawed. They just got born in a rich family, that's not a crime or anything, and they don't have to prove "worthy" to anybody. Those who take offence to such facts of the world, got a problem. I'll be the first to admit to that in cases like these.
What matters in successful politics and government is not how much tax you issue, where the money goes or what ideologies you serve. It's your whole attitude, the attitude of every politician, congressman and president. Since both leading parties are basically corrupted by fake issues, fake promises and lust/greed for wealth and power, politics is wildly unsuccessful. This is happening in most countries today. The people we put up there is just not authentic. If they once cared for the people, they got distracted by all the drama in politics and stress.
A politician spends most of his day and energy bickering with other politicians or mainly doing paperwork. He doesn't spend it discussing positive aspects of society, encouraging effective and human solutions or going deep into the problem by consulting real people that live and work in the subject area. He is not expected to be friendly with politicians with other parties, they are not expected to share ideas or help eachother to reach an agreement. The loyalty goes to the party and you are to grab all that you can, especially when the "enemy" is lying down. Those who are authentic and work towards common solutions are ridiculed or ignored, just like on online forums. There's tremendous resistance to anything new or original, unless it's insignificant. Politicians spends most of their time deciding on insignificant issues! Besides issuing personal attacks.
Many of them may even believe they work for the people. They struggle everyday, to keep some promise or another. To fight against eachother for some obscure cause. Which basically boils down to a few insignificant payouts here and there. Money, what people expect from politicians. It's so ineffective, and once the money is sent noone ever bothers to check on the progress. Sending money to a poor man never helps, because he doesn't know how to live - other than living poorly. You can't replace real education, moral support and general friendliness/helpfulness with a budget. It may be the "American Dream" but it's basically flawed, because it misses out on all human factors other than greed.
The problems in politics is not just the fault of politicians. It's rooted in the apathy and cynicism of the entire nation. Just like a real person, I believe it's got to go downhill before people realize what's happening and their real potential in life.
Slashdot Mirror
But you didn't have bandwidth priority. What is bad about this idea is if they deprioritize stuff without asking people/packets. (Packets are people too ya know ;).
- Steeltoe
Thus, economic law dictates that the price of the product should be zero.
No it doesn't, the price will be whatever seller and buyer can agree on. If new technology threatens to break the illusion that money maintains, it'll just mean that the commercial industry will have to adjust or perish. It's time for creativity, not holding onto old ideas about control and power. This is not just a property of Internet. It's a property for all information and it's the reason humans have become so knowledgeable, technical and full of old stories that we have.
- Steeltoe
What you have discovered, and call evil, is that being a "control freak" is a major character-flaw while the rest of society generally look up to leaders who can lead the most. This problem is prevalent everywhere on this globe, and not suprisingly religious and spiritual centers are no exception. Maybe calling it evil will raise awareness of the issue. But without clarification like you provided here, you will likely confuse the real issue. "Evil" is not a good word for anything other than creating emotional reactions.
In many cases, being a control freak makes a person incapable of being a good leader. However, in the right circumstances and/or for a person with great charisma, they might pull through with it. There are also a differences, eg. between the lone leader and the club of leaders who cover eachothers backs. You have the front-figure leader and you have the leader pulling strings from behind the scene. I'm sure there are much to cover here, but we should remember that being a leader is not inherently a bad thing. We should also remember that often people will want a leader to govern their lives.
If you reread my previous post, I'm sure you'll agree that my argument about people being different, coming from different backgrounds and thus doing different things that may conflict with eachother, is just something we'll have to accept. If we continue fighting the way we have, opposing the other side, the war will never end. Instead, we should see that they are just the extreme end of something that is within us all. We're all capable of hideous actions when we're in bad circumstances.
- Steeltoe
Funny, I trained taekwondo too but I got more injured outside class ;)
- Steeltoe
Well, it was just an illustration of the principle. Not like good things always magically happen in RL when you're "good". The key point then, is to not expect, thereby not be disappointed either. If you succeed in that, bad events won't affect you (well, not in the same devastating/troubling manner anyways). However, this is not the same as positive-thinking. "Gee, I lost my house, car, wife and daughters, but at least I got insurance money and can build a brand new family without so many mistakes! My next daughter is going to be president!". Positive thinking is a misused technique because we need to go through our emotions, not flee from them and lie to ourselves, in order to be free of them. It's good to be angry, but just observe it when/if you "lose control", and you'll be able to deal with it much better. Learn about yourself, meta-thinking could be an appropriate term for it.
In the bible, Job learned this lesson the really hard way. Of course, few people now realize this was why he was stripped of everything in his life. They can't see behind the actions of this "unjust" and "vengeful" God, or just don't understand it but believes in it anyways. To understand the bible you have to look past the superficial logical flaws. I'm sure those who wrote it had a higher purpose than spouting religious fanatism. (Aka, believe US not THEM. But in fact, it doesn't really matter what you believe, it's the principles behind that are important.)
- Steeltoe
Ah yes. You speak true words my friend. Many people speak so highly of academic concepts such as socialism, without realizing people will find a way to screw the system to their benefit as always. I believe this includes minimal government-systems such as capitalism/free market also. Sure, ANY system may work well in the beginning, but it'll soon rust and crumble because of the pressure on it from the people itself.
The only remedy I see for it, is like in hinduism and star trek (no pun intended). Self-development programs for all people. When people themselves are interested in sustainable development, they'll work like oiled hinges in the machinery of society. The oil will spread throughout and decrease friction.
- Steeltoe
Bullshit. :-) Evil is just a word people use on things they don't relate to, fear and don't want to understand. It is not a word you use out of understanding, courage and love. Does anyone here actually believe Bill Gates, or whoever your arch-enemy is, wakes up every morning wondering who he'll screw with next? If you do, you require some serious introspection.
;-)
These people are seriously misguided, I'll give you that. But so are we all, just in different ways. That's why we are here, to show eachother in what way we're mistaken. Calling someone evil, even just their actions, will turn them further away from you. It doesn't help anything but your own ego and sense of belonging to an opposition.
If someone screams and yells at you, being very rude. What to do? Kick back, and you'll justify his anger. You've just let someone have power over you. Ignore him, and he'll continue for a while until he lose interest and goes away to hassle someone else. You'll still feel battered though. Instead, you might try smiling and be polite. He'll become very confused and ashamed of himself and his actions. You'll give him no justification for treating you the way he have. We are all our own best teacher and judge.
I'm not saying you shouldn't stand up for yourself and your opinions. However, there's a polite and confident way of saying "No Sir, you can't have my wallet. Please don't take my money away from me." and there's not. Calling someone "lad" is condescending and will turn them against you. I believe this can also be applied to IP-laws.
This was just an illustration though, there are no "rules" to follow other than your heart. If you dare
- Steeltoe
You may be true in your words, but your conclusion is wrong. If the information is still useful, needed or wanted, it can easily be copied to future optical terrabyte storage.
- Steeltoe
Sports stopped being fun because of the money, fame and glory - professionalism. People get attached to their teams, having moodswings and conversations depended on the last game. They might think they're having fun, sometimes they do, but the innocence of sport is lost today. Luckily, there are a few sports where people are still having fun, like orientation and timber-tossing. You can't live on it though.
As for cheating, cheating ruins the game and the innocence of it by far. It's an ego-boost to the immature trickster who enjoy others rage, just like the bully in kindergarten did, but the whole point of a game is to follow the rules. What makes a game fun is in its illusion. A game is essentially infinite possibilities limited by rules. Cracking those, dissolves the game and its enjoyment (unless it's only temporary).
- Steeltoe
I planned to write something along what you said. However, if you think about it, it's not really Blizzard's responsibility to accomodate hardcore gamers that take the game a little too serious (trading on ebay and such for instance). Sure, they _should_ support Battlenet in a better fashion than they have a history for, but some of the whining is just not mature and reasonable. Supporting a fault-free service would require more money, preferrably a monthly payment.
Now as for the discussion of what is "real" and not. It shouldn't take much brainwork to see that it is really a subjective definition. On one hand you can say everything we see/think/fantasize about is real, on the other hand nothing is real. What is real then? It's up to who you ask, and those who can't tolerate anothers opinion should open up their eyes. Everybody has their reasons for believing what they believe and everybody changes their opinion. So what's the use in bashing down on others when tomorrow you'll perhaps see what they really meant?
- Steeltoe
You got point :-) This is why we shouldn't attach ourselves so dearly to anything external, not even girlfriends. Because one day it will all be gone. Instead, enjoy what you have and share that now, and you'll be much happier. Without having to worry about what the future may bring or what happened in the past. Life is a game in itself, but seriousness kills the fun.
- Steeltoe
It's also important to make a difference between short-term and long-term effects. The usual short-term effect of avid gaming is to become unsocial in RL. However, I don't believe this is a long-term effect of an otherwise social person. Of course, extreme exceptions always exist.
;), but perhaps not so much over a longer term.
There's also a difference between being social online and in RL. I believe a person can be influenced by online activity so much that it has an effect on RL behaviour (anyone tried using smileys in RL
All in all, the interactions and changes that may occur are so complex, there's no way you can draw any real conclusions from it other than we're all different from eachother.
- Steeltoe
No technology is inherently evil. They're just tools that we can use and build upon. Some inventions like biology warfare might seem completely wasteful, but it can also be seen as just a study.
What matters is people, our intentions and the knowledge with which we carry them out. With a bad intention, anything may become a murder-weapon. With bad knowledge we cause accidents.
- Steeltoe
The greatest mystery to me is that people pay for this kind of flawed research. I mean, I can't even remember one which wasn't flawed/biased in one way or another.
- Steeltoe
It very well can I believe. It's called associative thinking. It doesn't matter if what you associate with it is true, false or just lucid. What matters is that you've got something to associate with your newly aquired knowledge. It also helps that you associate fun with such knowledge.
Of course, school is meant to be boring to weed out non-comforming creative thinking. So we can't have that can we?
- Steeltoe
His point was that the boy had no interest in math because he saw no use for it. When he got a use, he quickly learned what he needed and continued to study math.
So instead, next time, I suggest you take a pause and do a little reasoning before throwing out obvious flamebait as a reaction to something nobody said except in your mind. (That roleplaying games are good for kids because this boy got interested in math because of it. He never said that.)
- Steeltoe
I can only give ideas, because nothing is set in stone. How about using a clock to nap just for 30 mins up to an hour? Running round the block, a few hours before you go to sleep may help too. (Or be active during the day instead of glaring at a computer all day. Hell, I know that's a tough habit to break ;)
- Steeltoe
I believe the "free market" is just a wet-fantasy dream, just like communism, fascism, nazism, monarchy, democracy, theocracy etc, etc. These ideologies are not that similar to eachother, I'm not saying that, so please don't argue about that. Except in one respect, where the _system_ is supposed to take care of all of us automatically. (You may argue that free market differs from this, but please read further down for an explanation.)
;) Please take the points in this post as positive criticism, because I'm not saying I'm against globalization and free market, but I'm opposed of more power to people who only care about profit. If you want to continue the discussion, you can email me. The words in my email's hostname-address are backwards.
It may well be that free market and globalization is worth trying out, I'm not saying either way. Nobody knows yet, but I suspect that big corporations like Microsoft would easily get formed to control all aspects of "free trade". Collusions like RIAA and MPAA that we have today would probably be miniscule to the size of those that will/can form.
So what's my argument for my views? Well, remember that companies when unhindered will try to merge whenever they see the benefit. And they'll ALWAYS see an economic/strategic benefit in getting larger. What is your remedy against this? People stopping buying at wall-mart? Yeah, right. That's what collusions are there to prevent any losses from. Any protest will likely be rendered ineffective, as people will have to buy something somewhere.
There's something called tyranny of the majority. I think people in a pure free market system would experience that rather painfully. Alot of similarities to what we have today, only more so. Uninformed people will just continue to support their suppressors, just like people have always done (for benefits too, like protection, of course).
There are also alot of stuff governments impose on companies. Work regulations, minimum wage, health regulations etc, etc. Are you seriously implying those are not needed anymore, and workers will just "work where they want"? I think you have been having the luxury of working in the IT-sector for too long then (assuming of course). I'd rather not go back to the unhealthy conditions of the 19th century. It took alot of hardship, violence and strikes to get us where we are today. I don't believe we can go back in time, but it's worth considering protecting what we have achieved as a people/workforce.
If somebody screws up, or get screwed up by someone. What is to help them back on their feet again, if there are no social money and care? How much people are going to be paid will depend heavily on how many there are to take that job. Minimum wage will drop to the floor pretty fast then. Is that fair? Having cleaning workforce on starve-pay for instance?
If I have to "take the good with the bad" as you say, what is to stop a company from demanding your "first born" when you have a starving family? Take that as a hypothetical example..
Like you, I have faith in people. I believe when you speak of "free market", that you mean that everyone should be able to make enlightened choices for themselves in life and no entitiy should stand in their way. However, that is were we differ. Today, that is just not true. Therefore, it's more important IMHO to work with people and make them capable of that, instead of believing in any system. For example, by doing education, yoga, breath-exercises and meditation. When people get knowledge, energize the body and mind, and release all their stress, we'll be much more capable of bringing forth positive changes. It may well be that a "free market"-alike system would be ideal for us then, to get the money flowing more freely among people.
Mind you, I'm not saying I know all what you mean by "free market" either. Maybe you have something more planned than just releasing the champions of Mammon upon earth.
- Steeltoe
They just feel like they have too much work, and so they have trouble falling asleep until they're very tired, or they frequently pull all-nighters.
;) is getting out of sync with the daily sleep rythm. You feel very tired at dinner time, but force yourself awake until you're over-tired (feels like you're fully awake again). Then it's _physically_ hard to go to sleep at night a few hours later. If you're unlucky, you can waste 2-3 hours lying awake in bed. It's not just a mental thing, ie having lots of due work. Although being over-tired, makes your brain think - and worry more than usual.
;)
Not so good, I know. It's all about priorities, awareness and the ability to observe your own pattern to be able to change it. Sometimes you HAVE to work at night and you get more and more screwed up during the week. It's incredible that this can happen after just one such session, but it's because we ignore the impulses we get when we get them at unusual times.
Tell them (or yourself) to sleep when they feel tired, ie usually right after work. There's a reason after dinner-naps are very old and well-used. Basically, the mistake I and they are doing
Of course, it's easy to say this. Harder to live it. I'm trying to take my own advice now
- Steeltoe
I try to see the humour in it, but sometimes I can get irritated too. It's because we get stressed, and dealing with computers is a BIG stress-factor. The best we can do about it is dealing with it ourself, not telling others what to do or how to think if they don't ask for it. So let those who want to deal with "M$ politics" deal with it. They'll get tired of it soon enough, and if they don't at least it's possible to ignore it or taking it humorously. Well, that's my take on it anyways. Take it or leave it :)
:-)
However, IMHO it's perfectly alright to criticize aspects that looks bizarre. It's almost impossible to do that without judging and gaining "enemies" though. Because issues like these, people get emotional about. Sometimes it's enough to just whisper "BSD" and GPL-people flame on
Btw, I see myself as a human, not belonging to any camp in any aspects. I have my own opinions, that actually change on a daily basis. I may lean towards this and that in general, but I understand that noone is to blame for anything that happens or what they do. Sometimes I hurt somebody, other times I get hurt. Most of what hurts are just words, take away them and we can't get hurt! So we get hurt because we allow it.
- Steeltoe
We commies have such higher moral standards than the likes of you. You must be an evil capitalist flaunting your propaganda that way. I bet you even work for the Evil Empire at Redmond. Shame on you for trying to subvert me to the Evil Path. I will now go to train with Yoda to perfect my l337 5K1llZ and h4X0R Satan's machines t0 w1pe out the abomination from the surface of the non-religious earth.
Seriously though, where did you get all your arguments from? I never said those things. The only thing I see worth discussing is perhaps the license-issue. "If you sue, you lose your license"? Sounds like that should be illegal to me. Going to court should not automatically void you of anything.
Actually, it seems to me they have much more to lose. The negative publicity, especially in these times when everyone sees Microsoft as "evil" would far outweigh the benefits of maybe eliminating some "competition".
Just perhaps YOU can, doesn't mean companies can predict what will become a major PR-disaster. They have a reputation of having NDA's that legally makes you incapable of working with IT for X years after you quit, now should that be legal?
- Steeltoe
In fact, GNU has proved quite litigious in the past.
This is certainly news to me. I assume you mean FSF, but they usually contact the people/companies involved _before_ any such actions. Why did you think the GPL has never really been tested in court yet?
What does Microsoft stand to gain by suing anyone and everyone who it thinks may have violated its license? Not a whole lot.
I agree, but they're not stupid. They sue when they know they can benefit from it. For instance, if they know you have looked at their code and you are coding something that competes with their products, they might sue you for copyright infringement, breaking an EULA or something like that. Not that I believe it would stand up in court, but that's not really the point either. It's enough for them to scare people into "behaving". Why do you think they call the GPL a virus? Because they're so accustomed to their own virus-like NDAs and EULAs. They know how powerful those can be, because they have abused that in the past.
Something is utterly wrong when computing is more about money, power and law, than it is about programming.
- Steeltoe
After all, those black civil rights protesters who rode in the front of the bus, or sat at the white's only lunch counters were breaking laws too, but NO ONE with any sense of morality would then or now call them criminals.
But they WERE criminals. Makes you think doesn't it?
- Steeltoe
Being rich is a cool thing and fun and, take alone, morally neutral.
Being rich can be cool and fun, but not if you don't have a clue what fun really is. There's nothing wrong with being rich, except if people are dying from hunger outside your door. So I'll take this sentence with a grain of salt, but basically it can be true. Eg, the contempt of "rich kids" who never worked for themselves is flawed. They just got born in a rich family, that's not a crime or anything, and they don't have to prove "worthy" to anybody. Those who take offence to such facts of the world, got a problem. I'll be the first to admit to that in cases like these.
What matters in successful politics and government is not how much tax you issue, where the money goes or what ideologies you serve. It's your whole attitude, the attitude of every politician, congressman and president. Since both leading parties are basically corrupted by fake issues, fake promises and lust/greed for wealth and power, politics is wildly unsuccessful. This is happening in most countries today. The people we put up there is just not authentic. If they once cared for the people, they got distracted by all the drama in politics and stress.
A politician spends most of his day and energy bickering with other politicians or mainly doing paperwork. He doesn't spend it discussing positive aspects of society, encouraging effective and human solutions or going deep into the problem by consulting real people that live and work in the subject area. He is not expected to be friendly with politicians with other parties, they are not expected to share ideas or help eachother to reach an agreement. The loyalty goes to the party and you are to grab all that you can, especially when the "enemy" is lying down. Those who are authentic and work towards common solutions are ridiculed or ignored, just like on online forums. There's tremendous resistance to anything new or original, unless it's insignificant. Politicians spends most of their time deciding on insignificant issues! Besides issuing personal attacks.
Many of them may even believe they work for the people. They struggle everyday, to keep some promise or another. To fight against eachother for some obscure cause. Which basically boils down to a few insignificant payouts here and there. Money, what people expect from politicians. It's so ineffective, and once the money is sent noone ever bothers to check on the progress. Sending money to a poor man never helps, because he doesn't know how to live - other than living poorly. You can't replace real education, moral support and general friendliness/helpfulness with a budget. It may be the "American Dream" but it's basically flawed, because it misses out on all human factors other than greed.
The problems in politics is not just the fault of politicians. It's rooted in the apathy and cynicism of the entire nation. Just like a real person, I believe it's got to go downhill before people realize what's happening and their real potential in life.
- Steeltoe
Thanks for brighten up this rainy day a little. Don't mind the others here.
- Steeltoe