-----Original Message----- From: Oddball [mailto:monkey9@iae.nl] Sent: June-18-12 4:54 AM To: opensuse@opensuse.org Subject: Re: [opensuse] How to import passwords from FF into SM? [off-topic]
-----Original Message----- From: Oddball [mailto:monkey9@iae.nl] Sent: June-16-12 12:25 PM To: Anton Aylward Cc: opensuse@opensuse.org Subject: Re: [opensuse] How to import passwords from FF into SM?
Well i have to admit that the only way i can use code, is the way you describe here, and i am glad there are ppl who freely give it to be used by everybody who wants to use it! Now that is the exact reason i use and prefer open source above it's closed brother. Sharing is 'commie' talk in a 'capital' world, but i believe in it, because everything belongs to everybody, but because a few ppl believe otherwise, hundreds of millions of ppl are poor.
Maybe I am extra grumpy because it is insanely hot here, over 27 degrees Celsius (for our 'merkin cousins, that's over 80 degrees Fahrenheit ;-), but I can't let that stand. I get especially angry when someone accuses me of evil, such as impoverishing hundreds of millions of people, just because I want to be paid for my work. If this is not what you meant, I suggest you rephrase, or explain more clearly,
Op 6/16/2012 10:02 PM, Ted Byers schreef: precisely what you meant.
Yes, i admit, this is 'poorly' stated from my side, and it got a little off-topic:
OK. Fair enough. I am still grumpy, though, because it is still insanely hot here. And worse, I have discovered that mites have almost killed my Turkish eggplant, tomato plant and pepper plant, and have started on my orchids (I started treatment as soon as I observed their presence, so my orchids at least ought to survive OK). But I am really disappointed at the probable loss of my tomatoes and pepper (a sweet hot variety).
Let me enlighten my findings here below, What i mean is merely that capitalism, as it is used now, with the ridiculous importance money has become nowadays, some ppl make a billion a day, of the misery of hundreds of millions of ppl, increasing this misery even more, is in my opinion overdone. Pointing to the situation in Europe now:
The only reason for Europe's crisis is the fact that the coins value is incorrect. To be a common coin, it should have a common value, not a Dollar-mirror. The value should be the average of all the coins, which would be a quarter of the value it has now. Spain has to pay 44 pesetas for one Euro: Absolutely ridiculous. Only logical that common ppl loose track of value this way: Everything 'looks' cheap. Negative effect: Prices go up more: Even more money lost. All the so called 'experts', do not seem to understand that the only way to control the crisis, is to devaluate, and compensate all ppl and companies, with newly printed money; because they have 'no feeling' with the common man and woman: They live in the luxury of their overpriced salary.
I think this greatly over-simplifies the problem, and may focus on what I suspect is a symptom of a deeper problem. One problem, that has been allowed to fester for decades is that those in the EU broke their own rules in admitting some of the current members by not insisting that the new members get their own economic houses in order. The idea of the Euro isn't wrong in principle, as the USA is larger geographically, and has a huge population, but it would have been stronger had they implemented it correctly from the start and maintained its integrity as the EU grew. But politicks got in the way. That is a major component in the case of Greece, and perhaps Spain too. Another problem involves stupid politicians making unsustainable promises to an equally stupid populace; with the net result that too many people end up working too few hours. One need look only at the average hours worked during the week, length of annual holidays, and age at retirement, and the huge discrepancy in those stats between northern Europe and southern Europe to see why southern European countries typically don't have a tax base adequate to support the insanely generous social programs they promised to idiots that voted these politicians into office. I haven't done it, but it would be interesting to do a detailed comparative study of how social welfare programs in places like Sweden and Germany, arguably quite rich, and equally arguably countries that have very strong economies, have been implemented without such devastating impacts on the economies that their southern neighbors suffer. A third problem involves the extent of tax evasion. Some of the sources I have read have described extensive problems with tax evasion, especially in Greece. Of course, those guilty of that crime don't care that in doing so they have become a major contributor to the sovereign debt crisis in Greece especially. In Italy, a major problem is organised crime. The Mafia has a huge impact on the economic viability of especially southern Italy. What many don't notice, though, that there is an even more severe problem with corruption throughout the Muslim world and in India: places in which almost nothing happens without bribes being paid. But few notice the macro-economic impact as these are mostly developing countries so most people expect them to be basket cases. I'll bet, though, that India will be among the first affected countries that takes measures to deal with it as they grow to become a major economic powerhouse over the next few decades. One last cause worth mentioning is the insane risk management practices in the Eurozone banking sector. There, a contrast with Canada's banking sector serves well. Canada's banking sector is better capitalized than any other country on the planet, and it survived the latest economic crisis unscathed. Europe's banks are, by comparison, poorly capitalized and that led to the crises in Iceland and Ireland especially (and remarkably once crisis hit, those two countries took appropriate remedial action, and so ought to be OK going forward). Others in Europe don't appear to have learned from that experience. Worse, some of the risk models they use are seriously broken and can be guaranteed to give the wrong answer; and when (not if) these go wrong, the bank involved, and the businesses that deal with it, are certain to suffer. (I presently work developing risk management software in the electronic transaction processing sector, so this is an area of applied statistics I know well - and I have seen the consequences when certain processes got bit by using a bad risk assessment model). While I sympathize with the attractiveness of simple solutions, I don't believe such simple solutions are going to be effective without first addressing the underlying causes, and that is hard because it can be very hard to properly identify the underlying causes well enough to know how to best address them, and then it is even harder to deal with the politics of applying the fix. How do you fix the problems cause by corruption, the Mafia in the case of Italy, without risking a blood bath? As much as most people don't like paying taxes, how do you get enough of the populace to recognize that it is essential for everyone to pay his taxes if there is to be a decent social welfare program provided by the state?
I mean the financial markets here, not individual SW Devs, or small SW companies let that be clear.. Ppl just have to earn a living, to pay the price to be alive...
OK. That makes you very different from the open source fanatics out there. I guess the intensity of my anger derives in part from past arguments with some of them, who went to so far as to accuse me of being guilty of causing world poverty and to declare they have a right, therefore to address the evils of closed source software by pirating it and distributing it freely to whoever that asks for it (a crime in most jurisdictions, though widely tolerated in those parts of south Asia where I have worked in the past, and undoubtedly elsewhere).
When it gets to monopolies, like M$, more than enough ppl pay for that, i choose not to, and use it otherwise.
First I will say that I use open source software and in my view the world is a richer place because some companies have been able to develop a business model that lets them distribute and support open source software. But, I would observe, that they use a business model that can not work in all cases.
Absolutely..
Second, I would say that generally software developed at government labs ought to be open source, or at least freely available to the citizens of the country that supported that development, because tax dollars are involved and thus that software is the property of everyone who paid taxes in that jurisdiction.
That would be only logical, and a tremendous improvement.
But ...
To claim that private enterprise is to blame for global poverty is simple minded folly.
Indeed.
Private enterprise is nothing more than production and distribution of goods: agriculture, manufacturing, and both local and international trade; and cash or capital is a mere convenience to make trade, both local and international, easier. There is recent evidence that Homo sapiens survived the latest ice age while Neanderthals went extinct, even though they had existed much longer than we have, and they were better adapted physically to the north European climate than we were, because they did not engage even in local trade while we did. It was our sociability and willingness to trade that let us take advantage of opportunities in harsh environments that could not be exploited if one limited oneself to only those resources available locally; one could argue that that is one of many attributes that actually makes us distinct as human beings.
There are many causes of poverty, the most ubiquitous being environmental and laziness. There are many places in this world that are so harsh that opportunities for survival are limited at best. I worked for a time in the Punjab, and for several years before I had arrived, the monsoons had failed. Consequently, the reservoir nearest me was scarcely deeper than the average toddler's wading pool, even though, when designed, and after a few years of good monsoonal rains, it would have been a decent sized lake hundreds of meters deep. That reservoir, in such times, supported many tens of thousands of hectares of farmland. At the time I arrived, all of that farmland had returned to the desert, growing nothing, and leaving the locals starving. I say that if those people want to live there, that is their prerogative, but do not blame me if as a result of such folly they occasionally starve. It is smarted to operate a farm in the Niagara region of southern Ontario than it is to try to operate a farm in the desert (and yes, I am aware that some 'merkins, having more dollars than sense, operate farms in deserts of the 'merkin southwest. If they want to do so, that is their prerogative, but they have no one to blame for the coming poverty when they face the same crisis that the native populations in the same deserts experienced centuries ago.
I agree...
The idea of sharing is not new, the earliest traces of it that I have seen being in the earliest Judeo-Christian. I have not read about similar concepts in any of the pre-Christian Roman or Greek literature I
have read.
Some of the older testament laws were specifically designed to help the poor (such as farmers being prohibited from gleaning their fields so that the poor could find plenty of food by gleaning the fields after the harvest had been taken). The first church, in Jerusalem, was what we'd call communist today: everyone, rich and poor alike, sold everything they had and put it into a common purse, as it were: share and share alike. We don't know why that experiment failed,
It failed for the same reason as animal farm failed: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than other animals...
but fail it did and that is why Paul and his colleagues are reported to have commonly raised funds to help that church as he travelled the Mediterranean. The next experiment with communism that I am aware of was in the US, centuries ago, practiced by the first settlers. We know why that experiment failed. Some in the community were lazy, and enough of them failed to work their fields as they ought to have during their first summer that many crops failed, and most of the settlers died.
same reason...
All men's 3 enemies: Ignorance, Slowness of the mind, Preference for evil.
All would have died had their native neighbors not come to their aide. Their experiment with communism ended quickly once they figured out why the crops failed and why so many starved to death. Two more recent examples will suffice. First, in China, there was a man made famine right after the communists one their revolution. I have this on the authority of a man, a friend of mine who lived it and for some reason I'll never understand still loves China. What he told me was that the communist leaders won the support of the agricultural communities by promising they'd have an easy life because the communist party would take care of them: share and share alike the wealth of China! So, when the war was over, many farmers partied for the first year, and put their feet up to relax, as it were, because the party would take care of them. So many did this that there was wide spread crop failure, and close to 50 million people died.
Same happened after the French revolution: Farmers took over the rule, after they decapitated all original 'leaders', and nobody worked the land.... And then when Church (keep'em dumb) and (state) King (keep'em poor) were murdered, and everybody died of hunger, capitalism started to take over
We must not forget the ubiquity of greed and laziness. the
'free' world... Industrialization had made an entry to stay....
I don't think there was even that much distinction between the church and state. From as early as the sixth century, (Gregory of Tours in the south of France and the venerable Bede about the same time in England) there were monks writing vigorous criticisms of the church leadership complaining that wealthy aristocrats and monarchs were buying positions as bishops and cardinals in the church for the purpose of gaining control over church lands and enslaving the serfs that were employed in working the land. The church policy, of keep them ignorant, is as much a policy of the state as the idea of keeping them poor. The church just let itself become a tool of the state. And one can see a more subtle approach to 'keep them ignorant' in public education systems in north America and south Asia even now. These school systems are more focussed on indoctrinating kids in the political ideology of the elite rather than in rigorous, objective study of history, natural science, and economics. I couldn't tell you how many alleged honour students I have encountered that I would dismiss as functionally illiterate. But they say all the right things to please the local and regional politicians. It is important to make a distinction, though, between official church practices of the mega-institution and the 'church' as represented by people of faith, lest the latter be slandered unjustly by the crimes of the former.
It did not take the Chinese authorities long to figure out what went awry, and understood that a major part of the wealth of China was agricultural, and there was no wealth to distribute if the farmers did not work their fields as usual. The quickly ensured that all the farming communities in China learned that so that that mistake would not be repeated. Alas, like everyone I have met that have transformed the virtue of sharing into a political ideology (or equally accurate idiocy), they failed to take into account human nature. I guess survival of the fittest will win, again than...
In China, that idea of willingness to share was soon transformed into compulsion to share, and the very friend who loves China and survived the famine that followed the revolution, was one of countless young people who were forced into slavery on government run farms. Of course, the government didn't call it slavery; they called it re-education. The end result was the same, of course, in which the people so enslaved had no choice but to obey, and slave their lives away, receiving only scarcely sufficient food to survive and woefully inadequate shelter, while the communist leaders lived lives of luxury.
Because they were just liars who wanted to stay in power, like all who tasted power, and got corrupted by it.. Preference for evil
I can not understand his affection for a county that has treated him so shamefully. The folk in the Ukraine ought to be relatively wealthy since the farmland there is incredibly fertile. But, many decades ago, when my parents were young, while their crops didn't fail, their Russian masters forced them to share; and how many died as a result? Ironically, both Russia and China are doing well now, and will be major economic powers for at least the first half of this century precisely because they have adapted to transform themselves into having a form of the capitalism that you apparently despise.
Despise is a great word. I merely think a fusion of the best parts of both would be the solution...
One other cause of poverty worth mentioning, in part because it will be causing major problems of the coming century, is stupidity combined with ignorance combined with lust for power by Muslim religious leaders.
Indeed: the three enemies of all men: Ignorance, Slowness of the mind, and Preference for evil.
These leaders know that if you keep people ignorant, knowing only what you tell them, you can persuade them to do almost anything.
Like the catholic church has done for ages...
That is why, across north Africa, through the middle east and into south western Asia, you have constant warfare instigated by these leaders against anyone who believes differently: in the Sudan, and across north Africa, Arab Muslims slaughtering black animist and Christian neighbors for many generations now, and throughout the middle east, Shia and Sunni clerics ranting, instigating violence, against each other as well as the West and Israel. You have Turkey and Iran waging a proxy war in Syria as a result. All that warfare is guaranteed to keep the entire Muslim world in poverty; and the rest of the world is at risk if they let themselves be drawn into it. War is bad for most businesses, and poverty is an inevitable result.
There are no winners in a war, only loosers. Gain is money, for arms dealers.
It is important to note, though, that so-called religious wars have almost nothing to do with religion (except possibly Islam - in which the Quran has no redeeming content - trust me, I have read it cover to cover) and everything to do with political leaders exploiting general levels of ignorance among the masses and manipulating the ignorant into doing what they would otherwise not do.
All about power, and staying in power.
I am sure the software developers at Microsoft and Intel and IBM and Oracle, and all the other commercial software houses are much like me; we're just people who happen to develop software for a living. Some of us do it well, and some not so well, but that is beside the point. We're just people trying to earn a living. And you have the temerity to accuse us of contributing to global poverty because we want to be
Yes, but remembering that that was the institution as controlled by politicians, not those actually trying to practice that faith. All too often, I have seen folk (especially western atheists) attack the latter, and the faith itself, because of the deeds of the politicians who manipulated the institution. paid for
our work? Absolutely not, that would be ridiculous.
OK. I am glad we got that clarified.
I don't know which is more obscene: the idea that I ought to work for free because I happen to develop software, so you can have it without paying for it, or that I am guilty of impoverishing the world because I want to be paid for my work; and this in spite of the ample evidence visible to anyone with eyes to see the world as it is that there are many causes of poverty.
I am glad this unguarded 'slip of the keyboard' brought you back into your conviction.
Might I suggest, to you, and any other open source fanatic,
I hope you will not see me as any other open source fanatic, this is absolutely not the case...
OK.
that it is more constructive to adhere to another philosophical idea, to be found in the writings of ancient Greek and Roman authors, as well as the Bible and some eastern religious, philosophical texts, variously known as meekness or the way of the middle? The idea we shouldn't share is not good, but I am not aware of any great examples of widespread evil that has happened because that idea was abused. That we should share is a good idea, but great evils have happened because some idiot took the idea and transformed it first into a political idea (and not taking human nature into account, specifically the tendency to be lazy, cause catastrophic famine and death) and then into a political weapon (as Russia did against the Ukraine). The middle is best, in which sharing is regarded as a virtue, widely practiced, but not imposed. Similarly, capital, viewed as merely a device of instrumental value in the support of trade, can result in great wealth, as most western countries show, even in these 'interesting times', but that other human attribute, greed, or the love of money, has caused all kinds of evil when left unchecked. The resulting position, with regard to software, is that there is a place for both open source software and closed source software, and neither has an ethical advantage over the other.
Your welformed opinion, based on reading the right stuff, 'clean' thinking and experience, for which i am glad you shared it with me/us (shared freely, without charging.. ;-), must have cost you quite some time, as it took me to read and reply to it. As you might have noticed, i have put remarks while reading your utmost interesting post, to which you are free to respond, if you feel the need for it... As yourself, i am quite aware of all of this.
Yes, I did. The experience involved took eons to accumulate. ;-) I am so old I can remember fighting off T.Rex so I could enjoy my Bronto-burgers, which tasted remarkably like chicken. ;-) or so it seems (a feeling confirmed by my feet and knees, BTW). I can write this in safety as it is certain my sisters won't see it. if they did, they'd retort that there isn't that much difference between my age and theirs, and they don't remember this. And then they'd smack me when I reply that they needn't worry as that just means their sometimers has progressed to alltimers (Alzheimer's), and that I'd make sure they got appropriate care in a residential facility whenever they're ready. And attempt at humour that would just result in sibling abuse. ;-)
I buy apps directly from swdevs, when i think they are useful to me, like ghislers total commander, because he did a very good job. The license gives me a lot of advantages: i can talk to the guy, and it lets me feel a lot better.
A feeling i total lack with windows, which i use also.
In the end it only comes down to what we did with our lives, and how we did it. There is absolutely no sense in life, as only the sense we give it, or,
assassins say: 'Nothing is true, and everything is permitted'. A statement that implies that the world is an illusion, and we are free men, but i am aware of (many) other explanations of this phrase... that can shed
M$ has a mixed track record. Windows 3.0 was interesting, and I had it, but rarely used it, preferring the command line to run the programs I wrote (and I admit doing things with the graphics hardware at the time that would be disastrous now with any modern OS - but which were necessary to make usable educational software, which I was doing at the time to put myself through graduate school). Windows 95 98 and ME were basically viruses that took over your machine and prevented you from either getting much done or preserving the little you did get done. NT was usable, but rather poor relative to OS/2. The problem with the latter was the marketing. If IBM got that right, we'd all be using it rather than Linux or Windows. Windows 2000, XP and now Windows 7 were/are quite good, with Windows 7 being the best of the lot. I do not see Windows 7 being better or worse than the current Linux distributions; only a little different. The one edge I see it having is that I always know exactly where it is putting stuff, but in Linux, once I figure out where Ubuntu has put software I just installed, and I look on Suse Linux having just installed the same software on it, and I look in the same place, it isn't there. The local Linux folk here that I talk to tell me that even they have problems finding the software and their working directories some times as they see little consistency between distributions as to where things ought to go. It gets quite confusing sometimes. like the the
world in darkness...
Cheers
Ted
Don't loose sense of humor,
Kind Regards,
Rob.
Thanks for clarifying this. It is good that there is so much upon which we're agreed. :-) But for now, I have to get something to eat and start my real work for the day. Cheers Ted -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org