Well, you can believe that, but you'd be wrong. :-) From your journal entry: "I'm not sure why he moderated me down...". But maybe you meant something else?

There's your problem! Let's call them self described communists for extra clarity, and leave the question of what the word "communist" actually means today for another time.

In that case it's surprising that there aren't more people there that have "foe'd" you. While the overwhelming majority aren't on that list because they're "hard-core conservatives" the opinion that put them there does correlate very strongly with american conservative thinking in particular (and conservative thinking elsewhere in general, though not as openly and clearly).

You on the other hand don't fit that group (but I only have one marker to play with). Your (strongly voiced) opinion that made me want to notice if I came across you again, were very right wing though (not extremist, I haste to add, even from my admittedly skewed perspective, being where I am, but decidedly out there).

But, I can remove you from the list if it irks you. Like I said it's more of a "foo"-marker than a "foe"-marker. Most people don't seem to care or notice, as a matter of fact you're the first that ever gave any feedback. It's not part of some grand strategy to amass as many enemies as possible...

Well a proper union to begin with would actually be the result of freedom of association. In China they are not as the Chineese workers don't have freedom of association. The union in China is just another part of the governments control apparatus.

And yes, I know there are and have been problems with unions in the USA. But also we don't have nearly the same problems in non-Anglo-Saxon countries (most notably Sweden where I live). In Sweden even the armed forces officers are unionised. It doesn't get more public sector than that and that hasn't led to any major problems. (Or differences in outlook compared to their NATO brethren. )

No, the difference is between, on the one hand, partisanship above all else, and on the other, an understanding that we are, at the end of the day, all in the same boat. Given the relative sizes of the US and Sweden, and the relative difference in absolute strength (military, economic, etc.) that we are more attuned to the latter way of thinking. So, that we have "powerful" unions (our current prime minister is a former union leader, that's his political background), doesn't mean that those unions can "destroy" anything, as that destruction will leave everybody worse off. They're as constrained by facts on the ground as everybody else. That's not to say that there can't be fundamental differences in how to order society though, there are, and that we have a large portion of "socialist" (not really) policies is of course a large part of our being in the top of the quality of living indices for multiple decades in a row. Our much stronger and better organised version of the UAW notwithstanding. (Again our prime minister began on the national arena as the head of the Metal workers union, the largest and most powerful of the trade unions, which he later became the head of.)

Now, I don't understand the "massive conflict of interest" that would supposedly occur when government workers are unionised. As I read your FDR reference, he was basically against the right to strike for sensitive positions. That's a given, whether they are government workers or not, you can't have your ambulance personnel go on strike. The same with the army of course, and indeed while the Swedish officers are unionised, they don't have the right to strike. Turns out you can still be effectively organised and have real bargaining power without striking at the drop of a hat (even without the right to strike). A strike is the nuclear option, and there are still plenty of ways to wage war without it.

So if your point is that unions won't work in the US. Sure, I don't believe it, but it's at least an interesting topic for discussion. But if your argument is that "since unions don't work in the US, they can't work anywhere", then hard evidence flies directly in the face of that, and I won't be moved one mm by it.

a) I don't moderate and never have. Hence, I haven't moderated you down. So I can't help you with that.

b) How is that post displaying a "lack of understanding of communism"? I'm genuinely curious.

P.S. I use "foe" as a (too all purpose) marker for people, given that Slashdot doesn't have any other way of tagging people. (Though I've been toying with writing something using e.g. greasemonkey, if I wasn't a complete noob when it came to that). So don't take the word "foo" too literally.

I think you've missed the obvious reason. A desktop takes up too much space on the table at Starbucks.

True, but Louis Wu is more quotable than Gil the Arm.

"It was a standard surgical job. Owen could have had it done anywhere. A hole in his scalp, invisible under the hair, nearly impossible to find even if you knew what you were looking for. Even your best friends wouldn’t know, unless they caught you with the droud plugged in. But the tiny hole marked a bigger plug set in the bone of the skull. I touched the ecstasy plug with my imaginary fingertips, then ran them down the hair-fine wire going deep into Owen’s brain, down into the pleasure center.

No, the extra current hadn’t killed him. What had killed Owen was his lack of willpower. He had been unwilling to get up.

He had starved to death sitting in that chair."

-- Larry Niven, "Death By Ecstasy", 1969

By the post secondary level you wouldn't have noticed as much, but in K-12 gifted students whose needs are not being met will frequently exhibit poor academic performance. If it's an urban myth, then it's one which the New York State Education Department has fallen for.

"Current addiction is the youngest of mankind's sins. At some time in their histories, most of the cultures of human space have seen the habit as a major scourge. It takes users from the labor market and leaves them to die of self-neglect.

Times change. Generations later, these same cultures usually see current addiction as a mixed blessing. Older sins -- alcoholism and drug addiction and compulsive gambling -- cannot compete. People who can be hooked by drugs are happier with the wire. They take longer to die, and they tend not to have children.

It costs almost nothing. An ecstasy peddler can raise the price of the operation, but for what? The user isn't a wirehead until the wire has been embedded in the pleasure center of his brain. Then the peddler has no hold over him, for the user gets his kicks from house current.

And the joy comes pure, with no overtones and no hangover.

-- Larry Niven, "The Ringworld Engineers", 1980

You could save even more time and effort by using rlogin with a very liberal hosts.equiv file.

Or were you suggesting that every compiled version of dropbear has already implemented all of stribika's recommendations without any need for additional configuration? If so, feel free to elaborate on that claim.

...a better way of dealing with the need for leap seconds?"

Well... It could be worse. The last time we let the clocks go off we lost almost two weeks trying to fix it.

Let's just keep up with the leap seconds so that nobody has to cancel Christmas again.

As a dedicated audiophile I wouldn't touch this product unless it came with directional audio cables (honestly, half of you plebians have yours plugged in backwards!), headphones with integrated vacuum tube amplifiers, a solid gold power cord to preserve the fidelity of the charging signal and a place to put my Shakti stones. Not being able to install my own high performance teak knobs is also a big problem.

I don't know what Sony is thinking here.

Yes, they did, although the practise was quite common in many other countries.