Comments for GNUosphere

Comment on 5 interesting facts about bitcoin by petrock

petrock — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:01:19 +0000

I may be wrong so maybe someone can correct me. My understanding is that while transactions are logged (which is necessary, no?) it isn’t necessary that personally identifiable information be associated with each transaction. You get an address, but there’s nothing stopping one from keeping that address private.

Logged transactions are essential as they are required to track the money and prevent fraud, no?

Comment on 5 interesting facts about bitcoin by brandon

brandon — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 13:34:35 +0000

Also – all Bitcoin transactions are logged. This may be a good thing for store owners and a bad thing for anonymous Internet users.

Comment on last-ditch emotional plea by norway and anders breivik « GNUosphere

norway and anders breivik « GNUosphere — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:43:36 +0000

[...] the case against Anders Breivik. Imprison him and care for him. This is courageous justice. I have sympathy for, but offer no support to, the Lynch Mob mentality that wants Breivik to suffer and die as “payment” for his [...]

Comment on abolish minimum wage and curtail union power by petrock

petrock — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:49:58 +0000

I don’t see a problem with mandating taxes to fund these goods/services as I don’t see it as individuals paying for themselves personally. A publicly supported system means everyone pays for everyone, not each person paying for themselves. This point may not seem important but I think it changes things when we talk about opting in or opting out.

It is my opinion that a free society can only thrive if it imposes some obligations and some restrictions. That is, I don’t think a society that requires participation in the redistribution of income is a society that isn’t free. Nor do I think a society that doesn’t restrict others from their freedom to harm others is a society that isn’t free.

Why should individuals who participate economically in society (i.e. have an income) have the “freedom” to not help take care of it?

As for legal support when negotiating wages, how could this create the same problem that minimum wage laws *could* cause (i.e. real-wage unemployment *if* the rate is above market equilibrium)? Good laws would simply help unions make their voice heard and help keep firms from intimidating or bribing unions. That is a matter of human rights so I don’t see it as an anti-market goal. Of course, RWU could still occur. But in a flexible labor market, firms would be free to renegotiate when the contract expires. If the economy is in a recession then they will simply bid the rate down (or downsize if households are too stubborn).

Comment on abolish minimum wage and curtail union power by arguri

arguri — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:34:30 +0000

Couldn’t a legislative support of wage negotiations by unions end up doing the same harm, although not for all society, as minimum wage laws?

Of course, Milton Friedman wouldn’t agree completely, but in the end he was smart enough to support more freedom over less.

Still, a lot of problems concerning state funded remains, because there is not even an opt-out possible, whereas a free market mainly consists of opt-ins. So, i.e. in state funded healthcare you have to pay for it, whether you use it, you want or don’t even think about it. And still there needs to be a way of supporting those unable to support themselfes…

Comment on “public” social networking (an observation) by petrock

petrock — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:49:49 +0000

Yeah the account/posting thing could be better. I think if it’s public, then the poster should have the option of allowing comments by readers who do not have an account. The good news is, that Diaspora is free software and the goal is that users will becoming more and more distributed, running their own servers. And those who do will have the freedom to change those settings as they see fit.

As for Facebook, they have a…uh…”unique” way of interpreting the meaning of “public”.

Comment on “public” social networking (an observation) by Khrys

Khrys — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:35:45 +0000

Interesting. Got to Diaspora and was unable to post only because I don’t have an account. Didn’t get past Facebook’s front door.

Comment on abolish minimum wage and curtail union power by petrock

petrock — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:38:40 +0000

Thanks, though he would certainly cringe at the proposal of publicly funded education, health care and transfer payments for the unemployed. At least, that’s my understanding of his view, if I’m not mistaken.

Comment on abolish minimum wage and curtail union power by swissecon

swissecon — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:58:34 +0000

The best explanation of what minimum wages actually are and what effects they have was given by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman:

If you want to learn more, I can only recommend his book “Free to Choose”.

Comment on Hungary, open standards, and funding by petrock

petrock — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:10:12 +0000

Not sure. My guess would be LibreOffice. Oracle didn’t seem to care much about OpenOffice so everyone abandoned ship. That’s a key advantage of free software…Oracle can control the trademark, but not the source.

Comment on Hungary, open standards, and funding by aNDy

aNDy — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:04:38 +0000

Any idea which “suite” are they using or recommending?? In a weird coincidence, I stumbled upon this presentation the other day that I think is worth sharing… Can anybody confirm the info claimed??

http://prezi.com/ycbqlykxq91a/the-rise-and-fall-of-openofficeorg/

Comment on fear of death by petrock

petrock — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:05:25 +0000

I think I’m with you on that one, aNDy.

Comment on fear of death by aNDy

aNDy — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:11:26 +0000

I don’t know which is worse, dying and leaving behind the grieving few who loved you, or having them die before you and you be the griever!!!

I am selfish… I’d rather die first…

Comment on my son’s cursive handwriting practice by Khrys

Khrys — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 01:21:56 +0000

Posted on my web site ’cause your boy is fantabulous.

moo.guildomatic.com
/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=148&start=840#p3452

Comment on fear of death by Christianity

Christianity — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:27:45 +0000

With Jesus you can reflect. Believe in Him and your fantasy will become reality.

Comment on so sue me by J & M

J & M — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:45:27 +0000

Horse Porn: http://www.jesusandmo.net/2011/09/28/porn2/

Comment on so sue me by Graham Wegner

Graham Wegner — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:42:25 +0000

It’s probably not how I would state things, but I thought it was very clever and thought you might appreciate it as well.

Comment on so sue me by petrock

petrock — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 08:23:29 +0000

That appears to be from the same “Jason Robinson” who is a contact of mine on Diaspora.

I don’t intend the sentiment to be so graphic, but that about sums it up.

Comment on so sue me by Graham Wegner

Graham Wegner — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 07:32:47 +0000

Whilst on the topic, I think you might like this. Hope the link lasts.

Comment on DuckDuckGo: bang searching and SSL by Khrys

Khrys — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 04:31:04 +0000

I’m sold. Nice find.

Comment on will Diaspora “succeed”? by petrock

petrock — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 01:45:19 +0000

Yes, privacy and anonymity are two different issues.

Comment on will Diaspora “succeed”? by woombat

woombat — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 16:37:09 +0000

Regarding the IP address / DNS entry talk – please do not confuse privacy and anonymity. I couldn’t care less if someone knows that my stuff lives at mypersonaldomain.net, as long as _I_ am in control of who gets to see said stuff.

Comment on how to fix the United States’ financial woes by Big Agribusiness

Big Agribusiness — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:55:14 +0000

Sure why not. They already sell the environment so why not the people’s rights too?

Comment on not perfect, but humble enough by petrock

petrock — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 23:33:34 +0000

I don’t buy the “foreign land” and “willingly accept” angle. Developers who are in that boat will make their games free software if there is incentive to do so, not because “pro-open source” folks like you instill in them some sense of altruism over time. I think it is fundamentally mistaken to believe that by buying more proprietary games we will get more free software games. I think we should teach companies how to make money from free software and reward them when they license their engines freely.

So while you may find my view “radical”, I find your view naive and again, grounded in the shallow goal of popularizing the Linux kernel. If I shared your goals, then if it’s any consolation, I would wholeheartedly agree with you.

Comment on not perfect, but humble enough by Ancurio

Ancurio — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:40:32 +0000

I wouldn’t think so. Did you email the developers and told them why you wouldn’t buy their closed source game? Else your not buying the game is just silence, which is usually interpreted as “no interest”.
Some developers agreed to open their sources should the Humble Bundle reach a certain goal. I believe the more games are released on open source platforms, the more developers become accustomed to this “foreign land”, and would more willingly accept to open source their games. Imagine the requirement for games to be part of the bundle was not only cross compatibility, but being open source: I believe there would be close to no developers agreeing to that.

I think you misunderstood my last statement. By “open source hardware” I mean hardware with fully disclosed specifications under a GPL-like license (wikipedia will tell you more).
The fact is, that most hardware these days isn’t open source, so much reverse engineering is required. Now if everyone in the open source/free software world would boycott non free hardware, we wouldn’t be any way close to where we are today.
The reason I ask this is that your standpoint is so radical, I just tried taking this radicalism to a higher level to demonstrate how your opinion feels to me.