Or NFS, sshfs, or even Samba/CIFS if he must have a GUI for diff. In /etc it makes sense.

Proposed to be changed.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gbLR9rd2uUzbSFy6SMkIYJZ2y7PA?docId=ccc0ce3ccf8146c48ea9a496ce852576
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/24/AR2010112401239.html
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/24/ap-exclusive-color-coded-terror-alerts-end/
Couldn't get a non-google link for the AP story.

Just because you're evading the taxes doesn't mean those taxes don't exist. You as the consumer are responsible for paying those taxes to your home state (little s) not the State (big s, federal level).

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/article-29919.html

The federal government doesn't collect sales taxes. They derive their revenue through the IRS on the other end when the money comes into the hands of the eventual consumer. Then they again get another portion of the income, not revenue, of whatever business sold you its goods or services. Basically, you're delusional if you don't think the federal government is getting its share of every purchase multiple times over.

How are the law and the rights of the author irrelevant?

Apply a liberal amount of common sense to it first before simply trying or imposing though.

The artist owns every copy, even data, of their intellectual ideas as property until they are compensated for that copy. What's your stance on plagiarism?

Who are you to say who can and who cannot wear diamonds? Who is to say? The problem of food scarcity could also be solved by governments getting the hell out of the way. You should look into Communist China of 1958-1962, the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, bread and cheese lines in Soviet Russia, and the responses to the Great Depression in the US. Generally people cite WWII as the cause of the end of the latter and they're right. WWII ended Hoover and FDR's New Deal policies of meddling with everything and allowed markets to correct themselves. Since you're mentioning food, did you know one of the causes of the Great Depression was too much food which drove prices down to the point many farmers went broke which in turn caused massive bank troubles. One of FDR's solutions was to have thousands of pigs slaughtered to raise pork prices. Their plan worked so well that pork prices rose so much no one could afford it. Government created artificial scarcity.

We kill animals so that we can eat them. Very few animals are killed to be sold so that people can hang them on their walls and huge profits be made.

Seems like a good idea to many in government and environmentalist groups. Maybe you heard of the Cash for Clunkers program? Most people would call it a smart business idea, but I do see your point. There are ways around most of their methods though. Rarely products simply self detonate and stop working completely the moment the warranty runs out forcing you to buy a new one. It could be said though that the customer is generally better off buying the new product over continuing to use the old one.

So if everyone can't have a mansion made out of diamonds then no one can I'd assume. That is if you want to keep equality and fairness in mind. Where do you draw the line at what a basic necessity is? Do you deprive everyone of what we consider “creature comforts” because society cannot “afford” to give them to all? How is that system better than what we have now? Instead of some haves and some have nots, we all have some and all have none. You live in a world with the internet and video games. You do realize advocating for this other world is asking to make yourself worse off materially? How is that logical?

Again with food, science isn't limiting food. We can grow enough food to feed the world until it's obese. Policy on the other hand likes to starve people for some strange reason. The world is burning its food to move its latest generation smart cars on bio-ethanol. Even today (past 2 years), Venezuela which has an abundance of oil is suffering from rolling black outs and people are starving while grain in silos under lock and key protected by the military rots.

Right, I know it's already being used, but not for a long enough time to fully understand the consequences of it. I'm not talking about conventional pollution as the only possibly downside. A link to wikipedia or even a scientific journal will never tell the whole story as they will never contain facts that simply haven't been discovered yet. Here's a fear mongering scenario for you to ponder. Geothermal energy is basically pulling heat from deep inside the Earth, well deepish, and moving it elsewhere. Suppose we hit a large pocket of heated gas or liquid that's highly insulated from its surrounding area and build a community on top of that energy source. We constantly remove energy from that pocket for say 20-50 years until suddenly one day pv=nrt catches up with us and the pressure reduction is enough that that cavern collapses into a giant sink hole killing everyone that lives in the town. We could go on speculating a subsequent earthquake and tidal waves that kill millions but why bother. As for tidal and oceanic currents, I don't have the slightest clue, but I do know screwing with any cycle that takes about 1500 years to run in full isn't smart.

I would claim the alternate choices are higher forms of life. They have evolved to taste poorly and thus should be respected for that.

Depends. Is there a prize? This would be more of a competition right? I'm all for duels and contests of the like. It helps with that “overpopulation” thing. You could say fighting wars are killing for sport.

You're thinking of ninjas. Ninjas don't steal. Pirates do. It's actually a primary condition of the definition of a pirate. Jaunty eye patch is not much to my surprise.

Any misunderstanding might be that you thought I was a conservative when I'm a libertarian. I'm actually with the environmentalists when it comes to misusing scarce land and cemeteries. The people are dead, they need to stop taking up space.

So they're being hurt by having costs which don't exist because there isn't any money? Your argument has broken down.

It's also fun and exciting. Leave them be. :)

Indeed... Yes, you can steal something they're supposed to have by depriving them of it.

No, it does not depend which we're speaking of, resources are limited. Open any economics textbook.

As do I.

"When you produce something, no one has an obligation to purchase it." "Apparently they do" Looks like you expect them to. It comes down to intentions and possibilities. The intention to buy the game or not. The intention to play the game or not. The random person on any street that has no intention of playing the game has almost 0 possibility of buying the game, but the pirate in question that has every intention of playing the game is a much greater possibility of a sale that they subvert directly by their own actions. Telling a friend the game sucks is not the same in any means.

Really.

It does exist. The $50 in the pirate's pocket they would have lost if they'd purchased the game is certainly real.

Resources are limited. Overpopulation isn't a problem. Anyone wanting to "quell" anyone's reproductive rights I oppose on a moral grounds. If you want to live in a country that shoots you in the head for not wearing a condom when you were told to, go right ahead.

Ah, finally you agree with me that resources are limited, not overly abundant and enough to provide free for all. Capitalism is the most efficient system for providing all of those things. Tyrannical regimes don't have obese societies. Over regulation does not provide affordable housing. Capitalism with a truly free market is the best system to increase a society's wealth, productivity, and opportunity for all. Since you'll probably disagree with me immediately, would a Nobel laureate's opinion help? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

1, it's not highly inefficient. 2, resources are not wasted or used up but only temporarily employed to serve a function. 3, we won't ever run out. There just isn't enough for everyone to have everything. Thinking otherwise would be forgetting the law of conservation of matter. All things are simply converted. 4, If you respected the individual and their desires as much as you thought you did, you would realize that the greatest potential to come out of technology or a resource is that which the individual derives it to be. As illogical as you may think the rest of us are, you are no higher power to better make those choices for everyone else.

Sure, but bad ideas must be rejected and good ideas must be examined thoroughly and tested rigorously. As you've said, you cannot predict the future and thus cannot even begin to know 100% of the consequences if even 1%. A whole world society without money or barter would be a drastic change from anything the world has seen for about 5000 years. The most likely result of that is chaos.

And the long term consequences of geothermal energy are? Right, we shouldn't be adopting it em masse before its localized usage is very mature. Look at the results we've had from fossil fuels. You cannot even say it would be better if the output levels were the same. Removing energy from a once closed system can be dangerous.

That life wouldn't have existed if it weren't for taste buds. How can it have importance over something that causes it to exist?

Yes, and preferably without government subsidies. It might prove useful one day after unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Depends on the reason. The rabbit wasn't necessarily killed for sport... which still wouldn't be inane. How can you not tell the obvious difference between a human and a rabbit, yet you see a non-existent difference between a pirate and a thief?

Actually, what's wrong with that? If the person is already dead, it's just a corpse. If you think a dead person's hand is lucky, I'm not going to stop you. Should you kill a person for their hand though? No, just as you shouldn't kill a rabbit only for its foot.

Wait, what's the cost thing you speak of? Did you just apply value to another person's time and work? Less than 2 days only discussing it and your society has already failed. At that point -- where you've applied a cost to someone's work or existence -- money is simply the next logical and inevitable step of efficiency and convenience. It's much easier to determine that cost to another with quantitative dollars. QED, you fail. :)

Do you have any idea how well those horses are treated by their owners? Like gods. The animal is incredibly better off under their care than it would be in the wild. You'd have a better argument talking about people who own pets they neglect. Oh wait, our broken system deals with those people and sends them to jail when they're caught.

Since you want to constantly apply human rights to animals, I would conclude you're a hypocrite for not applying those same rights to plants. They are in fact living creatures too. It's just easier to push that back in your mind, because they don't have faces and generally don't move. Yet they "suffer" just as much cramped together in rows on a farm the same as livestock do.

I gave an actual definition. "deprive, tr v, 2. To keep from possessing or enjoying; deny:" Preventing the seller of the benefits of the transaction while the receiver is allowed to utilized the benefits is wrong.

Sure, sounds great on paper like many things, but resources are not overly abundant. They are limited and would become more so after a short time in any society they describe. Quite quickly the people would decide to implement forced rationing.

It won't.

Do I really need to? No one else would even ask that I prove why it's illogical to expect everyone everywhere to be obligated to buy every product.

I'm trying to be realistic as well.

I'm commenting on your "no harm" argument which is silly. Not you refusing to understand what "deprive" means.

It exists the moment the torrent is downloaded... it being the received goods along with the obligation to pay for those goods.

Things still have inherent value without the existence of money, those values just become more complicated to represent and somewhat ambiguous. Money is nothing more or less than a convenient representation of value, usually your time.

Again, things other than money have value, and with that profit if the net gain is positive. Think land and increased territory.

You should tell your environmentalist friends that. You know, the ones that like to claim the earth is overpopulated even though we're using less than 10% of it. There would still be a need for individuals to own large tracts of land in a society without money. More so for some when their hobby pursuits are encouraged more than their work ethics. Hunting requires a very large amount of land for wild animals to live.

Die from what? The war you would need to fight to enforce your money-free vision? Or just the ones you'd refuse to feed when they refuse to work without payment? Seeing any problems yet?

At least you haven't advocated for 100% organic farming so far. A "few" more would have to die for that one... only about 4 billion people.

My point is not to ignore history. We're generally better off now than we were before major changes else that change wouldn't have occurred and been kept.

Don't forget feasibility. The "right" laughs at most of the "left's" ideas when it comes to clean energy because they generally only work 12 hours out of a 24 hour day, and the left gets scared of the right's ideas and scream "NIMBY!". So we're left with coal. There's a problem with cleanliness that's constantly being improved, but abundance won't be a problem for several centuries.

Sounds disgusting and unnatural.

Superstitious reasons? Lucky rabbits' feet? The rabbit was likely going to die for another reason, was already dead when the foot was removed, and someone is just being efficient by wasting as little of the animal as possible. Who are you to decide it has no purpose though?

What's wrong with a little entertainment? I thought your whole utopia was about people following their relaxation and entertainment pursuits. Doing what they love... but only if you decree it is acceptable and has a purpose.

Animals raised for food don't "suffer". Also, I wouldn't call the test tube stuff meat, so not entirely reasonable. Maybe after a few nuclear winters it would sound "pretty" reasonable.

Oops, I don't remember checking the AC box but apparently I did.

The author is deprived a potential sale.

I've seen and read some of them and in all of those you've dodged the question.

I'll read that tomorrow and possibly get back with a response if I remember. :)

No, it's ignorance. As I said, those are the only 2 I can think of that will net you free stuff. Since you've refused (unless it's in that link) to give alternatives, I'm ignorant to what they might be. If you can name or describe any of those almost infinite ideas, please do.

Very few people are, will be, or can be motivated simply by love of their profession. Most people hate their jobs and hate working period. Until you can guarantee with absolute certainty that there will be just enough or an excess of farmers, road builders, factory workers, etc. to provide the basics for modern human society, you can keep your utopia far away from me. If all those things can be created in abundance only by people that love their jobs, why would the people that only work because they have to still be around? There's a breakdown in your logic. The majority of increases in efficiency have arisen by people trying to increase their profits, by lowering their costs not gouging their customers. The ultimate manifestation of the desire to make more money "at all costs" has been lowered prices and thus more widespread availability of goods and services to those of a lower economic status.

Humans as a general rule are not altruistic creatures. Many say they are but do not put their energy into any such task unless they're certain they can be seen doing it. That's simply vanity, not compassion.

No, but it does make the discussion quite pointless. If you can't find a better solution to even a highly specific detail, it's hard to support an argument for or against it. You're basically just saying "this sucks" over and over and somewhat moving on. Actually what you have said over and over is "no harm", "harm no one", etc. and it becomes tiresome. The harm is in the violation of the authors rights. Whether you can see that harm or not makes it no less real.

That's not a logical argument at all. When you produce something, no one has an obligation to purchase it. There's also no expectation of that when the developer created it, but there should be a good faith expectation (think before rampant piracy) by the developer that the end users of their product will be paying for their services.

I take it that's your real problem here and we're all evil because we find money useful as an efficient means of exchange between goods, services, and our time.

Heh, for you free speech argument, it seems these developers have the perfect solution for your scenario. Let's say a person buys the game and is disappointed with the purchase. They can give or possibly sell their copy of the game to their friend since "owners will be able to install it as many times as they like on any number of computers." As long as they stop playing the game, and thus no longer receive the benefits from the product, the transfer would appear to fall under fair use and the spirit of selling software without DRM. In that scenario there is truly no harm being performed and no loss being made as there is still 1 copy of the game sold and 1 copy of the game being played. Do you really see 1 copy sold and 1 million copies being played as an ethical and proper situation?

Merely existing doesn't, but "making available" can be seen as "interfering with their flow of profit." Using bittorrent contributes to the availability of the pirated software even while just downloading "your" copy.

No, he's mainly upset because the exchange for the good or service hasn't occurred fully. One side gets a benefit for nothing and the other doesn't get the benefit of revenue or income, not profit for the first 150,000 copies. Until that break even mark is reached, the pirate, or more potentially a large mass of pirates in what might be your non-broken system, runs the risk of the developer making no income and not having the resources to produce a future product to be bought or pirated. You've avoided the question that's been asked several time by saying the debate isn't about what fixes the system or truly even what is broken. Currently I assume you're bitching about a highly regulated capitalist model as being insufficient to get you and others free stuff. The alternatives for free stuff that I see are socialized gaming or an anarchic system that doesn't protect the intellectual property rights of the creator at all. Either of those would be worse than current. In the latter, no creator would have any protections what-so-ever to provide even minimal chance that they could support themselves by having skills in any useful art, hence why would anyone even be motivated to learn those skills in the first place? In a government provided gaming system, the payment for the developers' services would be provided by the government, regardless of how it came to the decision that the product was worthy to be produced, and everyone in the tax base would be deprived of their money to pay for the game not only whether they intended to play it or not but even if they even knew of its existence or not. Neither of those other solutions seem any more adequate, so I'd love to know your solution to the so called broken system that is yet to be clearly defined.

Why not? He/she built a cluster for no use at all other than learning and fun. I can easily see the "use" for 1k cores with Intel's apparent interest to get into the 3d market or at least destroy Nvidia and ATI (something AMD has already done in name but that's beside the point). For clusters it's a no-brainer to keep adding cores if you can increase performance per watt ratio with each additional core. For desktops there likely will be a point where enough is enough, but I disagree that we've passed it. Software designers are still keeping up quite quickly with any headroom new hardware creates.

While the US's tax system is incredibly screwed up and complicated, it does take $20 payments into account sanely in a few places. I believe the example for 20 bucks was repayment of lunch?

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p525.pdf page 32.

Expenses paid by another. If your personal expenses are paid for by another person, such as a corporation, the payment may be taxable to you depending upon your relationship with that person and the nature of the payment. But if that payment makes up for a loss caused by that person, and only restores you to the position you were in before the loss, the paymet is not includible in your income.

Also, if it isn't reimbursing a friend but a small payment to a friend for a service, they don't have to consider the money as income if their net earnings from self employment are less than $400 for that year.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040.pdf Page 9, Chart C, condition 5. Also, page 170 of the pdf, page SE-1, under General Instructions.

I run Gentoo on a Pentium 133mhz with 128mb ram now. But then, I'm somewhat a masochist as I like a challenge. It simply wouldn't be worth trying with only a 720mb drive though.

100 hours. 4 days-ish. 3,600,000 deciseconds.