Verily I say unto thee, that Ezekiel spake thusly:
> Here's an even better 'audio scam' that someone certainly fell for:
>
> AK-DL1: Ultra Premium Denon Link Cable
> http://www.usa.denon.com/productdetails/3429.asp
>
> Yep... that's one fancy ethernet cable they've got there.
What a ridiculous product!
AFAICT the worst thing that can happen with a /data/ cable is packet
loss, and even that is usually compensated for using redundancy and
checksums. Spending 500 bucks on such a cable is monumentally stupid.
It's not like the signal can possibly irrecoverably degrade (like an
analogue signal) - over short distances at least.
Denon should be brought to book over this scam.
> Who's to decide what can or can't be sold.
Interesting question.
How about narcotics?
How about radioactive materials?
How about toxic or otherwise bio-hazardous materials?
How about human slaves?
How about stolen goods?
How about /faulty/ goods?
How about goods made in sweatshops by child slave labour?
How about /legitimate/ goods sold by gangsters or terrorists?
How about electronic goods that fail to pass FCC/BSI regulations?
How about falsely described or deceptively advertised goods?
Clearly there are a large number of bodies who "decide what can or can't
be sold".
The basis of Freedom is that people are Free to do anything /other/ than
compromise others' Freedom or other rights. This is why we have laws,
including the laws that restrict the sale of the aforementioned list of
goods.
>> It's a free market economy.
No, what you're advocating is an economy based on the brutal
exploitation and manipulation of others, in order to /guarantee/ profit
through dominance and control (or IOW Corporatism). This, if anything,
is actually the antithesis of a Free Market (or is IOW anti-capitalist).
A Free Market is one in which /any/ entrepreneur may /enter/ that
market, because conditions facilitate equal opportunity. This is in
contrast to your warped interpretation of "Free", meaning "Free" to
deceive; rip-off; manipulate and control. Free Markets need, and mostly
have, bodies to regulate them, without which those markets would become
cesspools of corruption.
>> Anyone smart enough to afford
"Smart enough to afford"?
Some of the world's most renowned geniuses are (or were when they were
alive) living in abject poverty.
[quote]
A Russian mathematician, Grigori ("Grisha") Perelman, who is credited
proving the Poincaré conjecture declined to accept the Fields Medal,
regarded as the highest honor in the field of mathematics.
The Fields Medal, often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of mathematics",
was awarded this year to Andrei Okounkov (Russia/US), Terence Tao
(Australia/US) and Wendelin Werner (France) in addition to Perelman. The
award was handed out by King Juan Carlos of Spain and is accompanied by
a C$15'000 (approximately US$13'400 or 10'400EUR) cash prize (less than
the one million Euros that come with the Nobel prize). Nominees have to
be under 40 years, because the founder of the award, Canadian
mathematician John Charles Fields wanted the medal to be a stimulus for
future endeavours.
Perelman submitted two papers in 2002 and 2003 outlining a proof for
Thurston's geometrization conjecture, which in turn, implies a proof for
the Poincaré conjecture. Other mathematicians filling in the details
have found no flaws in Perelman's approach yet. In 2003, Perelman made a
short tour in the United States to explain his proof of the conjecture.
When he went back to the St Petersburg department of the Staklov
Institute of Mathematics, he gave up his job, and is reported to be
unemployed and living with his mother ever since.
[/quote]
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Russian_mathematician_declines_Fields_Medal
What is your definition of "smart" I wonder?
Maybe you mean to imply that people who exploit others with wild
abandon; are selfish megalomaniacs; will stoop to any vile depths to
satisfy their frothing obsession with greed; and who generally have the
mentality of thugs; are somehow "smart" because their sick behaviour
results in the accumulation of vast hoards of cash.
Is that the kind of "smart" you meant?
>> People pay millions for diamonds which is nothing more than a
>> polished rock. Should this be banned too?
But nobody ever claimed that a diamond was ever anything but a cut and
polished rock, nor do they "recommend" one rock over another because
they've been paid to make that recommendation without declaring their
conflict of interest.
--
K.
http://slated.org
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| "At the time, I thought C was the most elegant language and Java
| the most practical one. That point of view lasted for maybe two
| weeks after initial exposure to Lisp." ~ Constantine Vetoshev
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Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
20:40:24 up 34 days, 4:23, 2 users, load average: 0.29, 0.09, 0.03
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