According to Cecil Adams, the inventor of the scale hated using negative numbers in his temperature logs, and 0F was colder than it ever got in Denmark (where he was working).
Judging by the amount of bitching over the issue, I would assume so. Personally, I'd just make it harder and tell the complaining parties "Windows does it. Why don't you just go use that?"
This seems misinformed, if not dishonest. Releasing a game for Linux does not automagically make it "open source", and vendors aren't going to lose their IP by making games available for Linux (how many years has iD been doing just that?). DRM's in the same boat; the FOSS types may not like it, but they won't be in a position to stop it.
Doubt it. Consoles aren't eliminating gaming PC's; they're causing divergent evolution. Not to mention that developing for PC's eliminates the licensing/lockout/content restriction issues inherent in all major consoles.
Hear, hear! I mean, I really don't have anything against people who are tired of Windows, and want a reasonable alternative (like, you know, something exactly like it except free of cost). I just wish they wouldn't shit in my pond.
You're talking copyright law. EULA's are contracts and fall under contract law. Barring a few select exceptions (minors, contracts of adhesion, yadda yadda yadda), if you do something that constitutes accepting the contract, you're bound by it. And nothing personal, but could anyone discussing "fair use" on/. take a sec to learn what the term actually means? You know, section 107 of the Copyright Act and all?
That's the problem with antitrust laws; they're little more than a redistrbutionist policy hidden under a few horror stories from the Standard Oil days and a hidebound, rationalistic view of competition that ignores how markets actually work in favor of how Economics 101 says they're supposed to. Since the ultimate goal is to punish businessmen for being wealthy and successful, all "standards" are effectively written in warm Jello. Microsoft made the mistake of being slightly less stupid than most of their competitors and got nailed to a fucking tree for it.
MS opens themselves up for this shit by continuing to operate in these countries. I wish they'd made good on their promise to pull out of South Korea a few years back; now everyone knows they'll stay and swallow whatever shit the European worker's paradise wishes to feed them.
First of all, copyright, like any other form of property right, is a moral right upheld by legislation. Yeah, they can "revoke" it, in the same sense that government thugs with guns can "revoke" my right to my computer or my house. Second of all, yeah, EU could expropriate the copyright. How much shit do you think is going to hit the fan if they do? That's essentially a repudiation of every international copyright agreement out there, and reciprocity can be a real bitch.
I didn't assume that. The assumption, if anything, is that the higher income person creates proportionally more wealth, which frequently has little to do with the level of physical assertion ("hard work").
The blue-blood thing is certainly no surprise to me; my generation is probably the first in our family to make its way out of the trailer park. I know many that haven't, and rather than some exploitative "cycle of poverty", I'd respond to the rest of your argument, but it seems to fall pretty well into the second choice I laid out in my original post.
You seem to be confusing laws that uphold the rights of individuals (contract and patent laws, per your example) with laws that deny them (commerce restrictions, and antitrust (not mentioned, but implied per the topic)). The government is acting perfectly fine when it is upholding the life, liberty, and property of its constituents; that is in fact why we have one. When it chooses instead to violate those rights (ie, to initiate force against individuals), then it is acting in an unjust manner. Those are the principles by which a proper and just government operates, not throwing random regulations around to create a "level playing field."
"Free market for its own sake" is simply a consistent application of a belief that human beings do in fact have the right to live their own lives and make their own decisions free from coercive interference. Call it an ideological club if you will; I will never reject the notion that I have principles and make every effort to apply them in a non-contradictory manner.
A monopolist who benefits no one but himself doesn't stay a monopolist for long. Say what you will about Gates and Microsoft (I certainly do, especially Gate's maligning of the system that enabled him to succeed and prosper), but by and large, they are in the position they are because customers choose to do business with them. Microsoft isn't putting guns in anyone's back, it's simply ensuring that they are the best choice to be made. So, in what is a completely voluntary effort on both sides to enter into a business agreement, what right does any coercive entity have to interfere?
No, keeping "monopolies" under "control" *destroys* the free market (ie, a market of freedom, not your rationalistic "perfect information/perfect competition" crap).
..but completely evil from a human sense-of-life perspective. Redistribution of wealth is a way of forcing one man to act for the sake of another, in other words, it's slavery. Go ahead, however, and tell me how either it's a check on the wealthy man's "exploitation" (of those who voluntarily agree to trade with him), or how he pays for the "privelige" of possessing more property (ie, paying protection money to keep the armed thugs at bay).
You're totally right. The ones that don't care about the public good are in fact us, the Objectivists. "Public good" is just another euphemism for sacrificing the individual to the collective.
This is why the Pauline approach is doomed: You are attempting to defend freedom and capialism by referring to a document whose flaws and contradictions have nearly destroyed them.
The Shiite-Sunni thing was a stupid gaff, but a lot of people seem to treat it as an absolute and ignore the fact that Iran has in fact given support to Sunni movements in the past (Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led by current al-Qaeda majordomo al-Zawahari is the obvious one, not to mention their support of Syria (although that one's more of secular state in the Baathist mold)). When the party hacks in Washington, Dem and Rep alike, pull their heads out of their asses, realize what is going on and who is fighting us and why, war with Iran may become a necessity. Until then, it's just an excuse to spill more blood in the name of "nation-building".
Debating eliminating or not eliminating earmarks is like debating whether or not to take a shot of NyQuil to treat your SARS. While the idea of using my money to build highways to nowhere is somewhat disturbing, the real enemy is the idea that the government, by right, has an absolute claim to the wealth we create. Certainly there are functions of government that aid us in being a free society, and these functions have a cost. But does that justify them in taking what is ours under the threat of force?
The Republican Party has for years been trapped in a contradiction between sacrificial Christian ethics and liberating capitalist ethics. That contradiction started to unravel the party under Nixon and Reagan, and finally worked itself out in the form of Bush and his applications of neo-conservative principles. The Patriot Act and the Iraq War aren't perversions of the Republican Party; they're just the chickens coming home to roost.
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According to Cecil Adams, the inventor of the scale hated using negative numbers in his temperature logs, and 0F was colder than it ever got in Denmark (where he was working).
Judging by the amount of bitching over the issue, I would assume so. Personally, I'd just make it harder and tell the complaining parties "Windows does it. Why don't you just go use that?"
Intentional infringement is a much bigger no-no than accidental infringement, to the tune of triple damages plus legal fees.
This seems misinformed, if not dishonest. Releasing a game for Linux does not automagically make it "open source", and vendors aren't going to lose their IP by making games available for Linux (how many years has iD been doing just that?). DRM's in the same boat; the FOSS types may not like it, but they won't be in a position to stop it.
Doubt it. Consoles aren't eliminating gaming PC's; they're causing divergent evolution. Not to mention that developing for PC's eliminates the licensing/lockout/content restriction issues inherent in all major consoles.
Hear, hear! I mean, I really don't have anything against people who are tired of Windows, and want a reasonable alternative (like, you know, something exactly like it except free of cost). I just wish they wouldn't shit in my pond.
You're talking copyright law. EULA's are contracts and fall under contract law. Barring a few select exceptions (minors, contracts of adhesion, yadda yadda yadda), if you do something that constitutes accepting the contract, you're bound by it. And nothing personal, but could anyone discussing "fair use" on /. take a sec to learn what the term actually means? You know, section 107 of the Copyright Act and all?
That's the problem with antitrust laws; they're little more than a redistrbutionist policy hidden under a few horror stories from the Standard Oil days and a hidebound, rationalistic view of competition that ignores how markets actually work in favor of how Economics 101 says they're supposed to. Since the ultimate goal is to punish businessmen for being wealthy and successful, all "standards" are effectively written in warm Jello. Microsoft made the mistake of being slightly less stupid than most of their competitors and got nailed to a fucking tree for it.
MS opens themselves up for this shit by continuing to operate in these countries. I wish they'd made good on their promise to pull out of South Korea a few years back; now everyone knows they'll stay and swallow whatever shit the European worker's paradise wishes to feed them.
First of all, copyright, like any other form of property right, is a moral right upheld by legislation. Yeah, they can "revoke" it, in the same sense that government thugs with guns can "revoke" my right to my computer or my house. Second of all, yeah, EU could expropriate the copyright. How much shit do you think is going to hit the fan if they do? That's essentially a repudiation of every international copyright agreement out there, and reciprocity can be a real bitch.
I didn't assume that. The assumption, if anything, is that the higher income person creates proportionally more wealth, which frequently has little to do with the level of physical assertion ("hard work").
The blue-blood thing is certainly no surprise to me; my generation is probably the first in our family to make its way out of the trailer park. I know many that haven't, and rather than some exploitative "cycle of poverty", I'd respond to the rest of your argument, but it seems to fall pretty well into the second choice I laid out in my original post.
You seem to be confusing laws that uphold the rights of individuals (contract and patent laws, per your example) with laws that deny them (commerce restrictions, and antitrust (not mentioned, but implied per the topic)). The government is acting perfectly fine when it is upholding the life, liberty, and property of its constituents; that is in fact why we have one. When it chooses instead to violate those rights (ie, to initiate force against individuals), then it is acting in an unjust manner. Those are the principles by which a proper and just government operates, not throwing random regulations around to create a "level playing field."
"Free market for its own sake" is simply a consistent application of a belief that human beings do in fact have the right to live their own lives and make their own decisions free from coercive interference. Call it an ideological club if you will; I will never reject the notion that I have principles and make every effort to apply them in a non-contradictory manner.
A monopolist who benefits no one but himself doesn't stay a monopolist for long. Say what you will about Gates and Microsoft (I certainly do, especially Gate's maligning of the system that enabled him to succeed and prosper), but by and large, they are in the position they are because customers choose to do business with them. Microsoft isn't putting guns in anyone's back, it's simply ensuring that they are the best choice to be made. So, in what is a completely voluntary effort on both sides to enter into a business agreement, what right does any coercive entity have to interfere?
No, keeping "monopolies" under "control" *destroys* the free market (ie, a market of freedom, not your rationalistic "perfect information/perfect competition" crap).
..but completely evil from a human sense-of-life perspective. Redistribution of wealth is a way of forcing one man to act for the sake of another, in other words, it's slavery. Go ahead, however, and tell me how either it's a check on the wealthy man's "exploitation" (of those who voluntarily agree to trade with him), or how he pays for the "privelige" of possessing more property (ie, paying protection money to keep the armed thugs at bay).
You're totally right. The ones that don't care about the public good are in fact us, the Objectivists. "Public good" is just another euphemism for sacrificing the individual to the collective.
Ahh, the "perfect information" fallacy rears its ugly head again.
Now how do you limit "corporate" rights without violating the rights of the individuals involved?
This is why the Pauline approach is doomed: You are attempting to defend freedom and capialism by referring to a document whose flaws and contradictions have nearly destroyed them.
The Shiite-Sunni thing was a stupid gaff, but a lot of people seem to treat it as an absolute and ignore the fact that Iran has in fact given support to Sunni movements in the past (Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led by current al-Qaeda majordomo al-Zawahari is the obvious one, not to mention their support of Syria (although that one's more of secular state in the Baathist mold)). When the party hacks in Washington, Dem and Rep alike, pull their heads out of their asses, realize what is going on and who is fighting us and why, war with Iran may become a necessity. Until then, it's just an excuse to spill more blood in the name of "nation-building".
Debating eliminating or not eliminating earmarks is like debating whether or not to take a shot of NyQuil to treat your SARS. While the idea of using my money to build highways to nowhere is somewhat disturbing, the real enemy is the idea that the government, by right, has an absolute claim to the wealth we create. Certainly there are functions of government that aid us in being a free society, and these functions have a cost. But does that justify them in taking what is ours under the threat of force?
The Republican Party has for years been trapped in a contradiction between sacrificial Christian ethics and liberating capitalist ethics. That contradiction started to unravel the party under Nixon and Reagan, and finally worked itself out in the form of Bush and his applications of neo-conservative principles. The Patriot Act and the Iraq War aren't perversions of the Republican Party; they're just the chickens coming home to roost.
True for the KDE3 series, but KDE4 seems to be a lot more set in stone (at least the 4.0.x stuff, in its current non-released released state).