Comment Re:Hit them back (Score 0) 783
You wrongly assume that I want those government services at those prices in the first place. I don't. I would gladly not pay taxes and in return not get any services from the government.
Comment Re:Hit them back (Score 1) 783
When you picked your plan/phone you were not free, just a consumer.
How was I not free? Did someone force me to buy the plan I have (or even to buy one at all)?
And if you were in the US (or worse, Canada), _all_ your options were overpriced and crappy.
I am in Canada, and I think the plan I got fits my needs perfectly so I don't think it's overpriced or crappy, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. You might think differently, but that's because we don't have the same needs.
Comment Re:Hit them back (Score 1) 783
There are places not requiring it. But generally speaking, you'd prefer to avoid them. Voluntarily.
Which ones? Would they let me move there if I wanted to or would they consider me as a trespasser?
Comment Re:Hit them back (Score 3, Insightful) 783
Why? what is wrong with voting?
What is wrong with voting is that you can't make your own choices, you have to go with the majority.
we all use/need the collective services in the same way.
No we don't all need the same services in the same way.
If it makes you happy, think of voting as a market operation. But remember: it is not freedom to individually decide on a globally suboptimal solution that we then all need to collectively live with. It is stupidity.
You might argue that it is stupid or not optimal (I would disagree with that), but it certainly is freedom to individually decide.
And BTW, yes, people can decide for you. They do, all the time: doctors decide what you have, engineers decide on your car's design, coders on how your programs are made, cell phones companies on their pricing schemes, the shop owner on the products that are on his shelves, the traffic authority the circulation plan of your neighbourhood, other countries the rules for access to their territories, the central banks decide on the value of your bank account, designers decide on the look of your garments.
But they don't decide which car I buy, which programs I use, what cell phone scheme I buy or if I even buy one of those. Imagine if we had to vote on what cell phone plans we wanted and then everyone would get what the majority decided. What if I didn't want a cellphone, or I wanted a cheaper plan or a more expensive one? I would have no choice but to accept what the majority decided for me. Even worse, we rarely vote on direct issues like that. We only vote for who is going to decide for us, leaving us with even less choice on how to run our own lives.
Comment Re:Hit them back (Score 2) 783
Also, what is "waste"? is funding fundamental science waste? is funding liberal arts waste? are the likes of the FDA waste? is paying for some dubious piece of art in your own town waste? is paying people to check for fraud waste, or is the fraud the largest cause of waste?
In the marketplace, we can all decide individually what we consider waste and what we don't. Nobody can decide for us. That is called freedom (also capitalism).
Comment Re:Hit them back (Score 1) 783
Please explain.
When I pay for a good, I do it voluntarily because that good is worth more to me than the money I give in exchange.
The only reason I pay taxes is that I don't want to go to jail.
How is it the same, or even similar?
Comment Re:While I am all for green energy, save the Plane (Score 1) 347
Where in Quebec do they have mandated smart meters? From what I could find, there is a pilot project in 4 cities, but it is voluntary.
http://www.hydroquebec.com/heurejuste/en/index.html
Comment Re:You Seem to Forget a Generation (Score 1) 405
The store would already be paying the tax for their Internet connection, and pass it to its customers through increased costs. His grandparents would already pay for it indirectly, so no need to tax them an additional 10$.
Another Step Towards the Driverless Car 224
jtogel writes "At Essex, we have for some time been working on automatically learning how to race cars in simulation. It turns out that a combination of evolutionary algorithms and neural networks can learn how to beat all humans in racing games, and also come up with some quite interesting, novel behaviours, which might one day make their way into commercial racing games. While this is simulation, the race is now on for the real thing — we are setting up a competition for AI developers, where the goal is to win a race between model cars on real tracks. As the cars will be around half a meter long, the cost of participating will be a fraction of that for the famous DARPA Grand Challenge, whereas the challenges will be similar in terms of computer vision and AI."
Surprise, Windows Listed as Most Secure OS 499
david_g17 writes "According to a Symantec study reported by Information Week, Microsoft has the most secure operating system amongst its commercial competitors. The report only covered the last 6 months of vulnerabilities and patch releases, but the results place Microsoft operating systems above Mac OS X and Red Hat. According to the article, 'The report found that Microsoft Windows had the fewest number of patches and the shortest average patch development time of the five operating systems it monitored in the last six months of 2006.' The article continues to mention the metrics used in the study (quantity and severity of vulnerabilities as well as the amount of time one must wait for the patch to be released)."
Journal Journal: Greenies: Why ethanol instead of methanol? 14
If this has been written or posed elsewhere, please let me know? It just dawned on me the other day.
Why is ethanol supposed to be so great when racers have been using methanol for a long time? Plenty of methanol data and experience out there, but ethanol had to be dragged into a market with a bunch of government "help".
Submission + - Self Booting Games?
pentalive writes: Most games available now require you to leave the CD in the CD-ROM drive, Most machines available today can boot from CD-ROM? Why doesn't anyone market games that boot directly from their CD-ROM (using something like Ubuntu behind the scenes as the OS). I don't play FPS or MMORG (I play roller coaster tycoon mainly), you who do, do you play Diablo and also edit "that report" in word at the same time? Doom and Excel? Put the CD in and reboot the machine to play the game, Who cares what OS it runs when it's "working". What do you think? good idea?
