No. A huge amount of the federal government, including just about all of the NIH, CIA are in MD. The parent poster is absolutely correct. There is also the "use tax" to be contemplated, the headline discussed hiring from other states (or countries) -- you can't get around sales tax that way. Frankly, it's a brilliant move by MD. They could even turn 5-15% of the revenue around into IT grants... bringing IT companies *into* MD. Sales tax is done on the purchaser, not on the seller.
Norman Megill's Meta-Math for proof verification
on
Open Source Math
·
· Score: 3, Informative
http://metamath.org/ has been around for 15 years or so; it has a very nice text-based proof expression, a huge library of existing proofs and a graphical visualization tool
If Slaby is the *sole* copyright owner, he's welcome to release it under another license. It appears however that his work was probably done in concert with other contributors and those contributors may not have transferred their copyright to him. Hence, he may not be able to just change the license like he did. That said, the modification that he's agreed seems correct -- ie, parts of this code are BSD, but remaining changes are under the GPL. Hence, unless you know which parts are GPL and which are BSD, its in effect a GPL license. So, same effect. It's a legal technicality.
If this is the *sole* work of ostensible author, Jiri Slaby, there is no further issue.
However, if this software has contributors from the BSD community, then the act, while technically legal, is extremely rude , uncooperative, and I'd argue, morally problematic. People write BSD code so that people can take advantage of the code in any way, including making proprietary forks or whatno -- the code is truly *FREE*. The conversion to GPL like this isn't actually helping to keep it "free", it's a privatization of the code to a different definition of "free", preventing further work from being included in BSD* distributions. This is the net effect of the change; the Linux people are essentially saying: thanks for the fish, now go away. They are building off FREE software, but are unwilling to grant the same freedoms granted to them back to those who helped build it. It's classic GPL and Stallmanist logic. It's now "free", so long as "free" means what Stallman say it means. The proper response to this by BSD people is to continue to develop the *BSD licensed version, and just ignore the Linux fork. Yes, they can take the fish if they want, it's not legally incorrect -- but the action itself speaks loudly of the Linux community, however.
Having a Neutral Network doesn't mean that it can't have different levels of service. The U.S. Postal system is neutral, it doesn't [1] favor big companies over small ones, or some content over others. It has *classes* of mail, and charges by class. A tiered network can work the same way, packets do have a place to mark their priority. There is no reason why we can't develop ways to change content priority. Real-time stuff can mark their packets higher, and bulk-mail can mark the packets for overnight delivery;)
What they mean to do, however, is different. It is to charge differently based on who you are, who your communicating to, and what sort of content your sending. This is nothing more than corporate censorship. It is wrong.
[1] Well, it just now there are proposals to start pricing USPS mail based on the amount of mail you send. This is clearly wrong since it favors larger corporations over smaller ones, and hence serves to limit competition.
After 4 years of brutal usage, I finally retired one/w only minor problems (they replaced the keyboard). I replaced it with another latitude (this time, a D820) and it is quite nice.
I don't think Theo was purposefully trying to divert attention. He admitted to the issue up front. I think it is going a bit too far to assign a deeper motive here. I'd bet Theo felt that his organization was being threatened via a very public accusation. He probably responded without thinking things through clearly, which most of us can be guilty of. As Bruce said, he over-reacted and lost his cool. That's it. You had an inexperienced committer here and a leader who got defensive.
Theo should have just removed the offending code and then responded with an apology. Following a succinct apology, he could have then asked that future notices of this sort be given a chance to be handled via a more private method.
His team were caught red-handed, and had the gall to blame the people who got ripped. He doesn't even seem to get copyright, saying there was no infringement because the driver wasn't yet ready for general use is beyond moronic. This is pure flamebait. Theo completely gets copyright and said: "This is a major problem in our code base." It was wrong, and quite regrettable that GPL'd code was committed to OpenBSD's repository. It could have been fixed quite easily by privately emailing the maintainer, Marcus or, if that failed, Theo directly.
What this thread is about is that the author of the GPL's driver, Michael Buesch, didn't even attempt to handle this civilly, you know like chatting it through on IRC, or sending off a few private emails. That he was pointing out a problem was fine. That he did it in a confrontational manner without first trying other channels, was, not particularly collegial. Theo's characterization of "in human" came after several followups where it became clear that Michael's goal wasn't to solve the problem but to make a firework display.
Your rant here, changing the topic and calling people names is likewise quite unprofessional.
I'm currently not hosting with superb (our company doesn't need alot of boxes in colocation), but when I did, we had great results with them. They were quite tolerant of our idiosyncratic requirements and had very good uptime and response. I'd definitely go with them if I had to rack a few servers. However, I'm not sure if they'd be the best choice for a virtual private server. If you're going dedicated though (not that expensive these days), Superb is an excellent choice.
I'm also a John Companies customer and am very pleased. I've had 2 other VPS experiences, and I think JC did the best job. They offer email support which is prompt and helpful. They have also gone out of their way on a few occasions to help me with system administration stuff that they really didn't have to do. While I'm at it, I should sing praises to rsync.net, a sister company that does remote file backup space. Having reasonably fast remote backup location has been a godsend...
Press Code of Ethics (Associated Press) Associated Press Managing Editors. Code of Ethics. 1995 http://www.asne.org/ideas/codes/apme.htm Associated Press Managing Editors Code of Ethics Revised and Adopted 1995 These principles are a model against which news and editorial staff members can measure their performance.
They have been formulated in the belief that newspapers and the people who produce them should adhere to the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct.
The public's right to know about matters of importance is paramount. The newspaper has a special responsibility as surrogate of its readers to be a vigilant watchdog of their legitimate public interests.
No statement of principles can prescribe decisions governing every situation. Common sense and good judgment are required in applying ethical principles to newspaper realities. As new technologies evolve, these principles can help guide editors to insure the credibility of the news and information they provide. Individual newspapers are encouraged to augment these APME guidelines more specifically to their own situations.
RESPONSIBILITY
The good newspaper is fair, accurate, honest, responsible, independent and decent.
Truth is its guiding principle.
It avoids practices that would conflict with the ability to report and present news in a fair, accurate and unbiased manner.
The newspaper should serve as a constructive critic of all segments of society. It should reasonably reflect, in staffing and coverage, its diverse constituencies.
It should vigorously expose wrongdoing, duplicity or misuse of power, public or private. Editorially, it should advocate needed reform and innovation in the public interest. News sources should be disclosed unless there is a clear reason not to do so. When it is necessary to protect the confidentiality of a source, the reason should be explained.
The newspaper should uphold the right of free speech and freedom of the press and should respect the individual's right to privacy. The newspaper should fight vigorously for public access to news of government through open meetings and records.
ACCURACY
The newspaper should guard against inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortion through emphasis, omission or technological manipulation. It should acknowledge substantive errors and correct them promptly and prominently.
INTEGRITY
The newspaper should strive for impartial treatment of issues and dispassionate handling of controversial subjects. It should provide a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism, especially when such comment is opposed to its editorial positions. Editorials and expressions of personal opinion by reporters and editors should be clearly labeled. Advertising should be differentiated from news.
The newspaper should report the news laws without regard for its own interests, mindful of the need to disclose potential conflicts. It should not give favored news treatment to advertisers or special-interest groups.
It should report matters regarding itself or its personnel with the same vigor and candor as it would other institutions or individuals. Concern for community, business or personal interests should not cause the newspaper to distort or misrepresent the facts.
The newspaper should deal honestly with readers and newsmakers. It should keep its promises. The newspaper should not plagiarize words or images.
INDEPENDENCE
The newspaper and its staff should be free of obligations to news sources and newsmakers. Even the appearance of obligation or conflict of interest should be avoided.
Newspapers should accept nothing of value from news sources or others outside the profession. Gifts and free or reduced-rate travel, entertainment, products and lodging should not be accepted. Expenses in connection with news reporting should be paid by the newspaper. Special favors and special tr
Well, this bill was to support the idea that "no external entity should suffer discrimination when trying to get their packets to me".
What's going on is that packets from/to Vonage, and other voice over IP companies are being marked by Comcast, and Verison as 3rd class mail: if they are even permitted. This law was to prevent this pratice.
This law had nothing to do with providers charging more for a T3 over a T1 for a web-service company. That would be brain dead to argue against. This was about network neutrality: that *infrastructure* companies can pick-and-choose what content you can get to and what content you cant (and what content is so damn slow you won't ever use it).
What's being debated here is if a company like Verizon or Comcast can give a higher priority to content of one provider, probably based on price, or as a way to enforce monopolies. For example, Verizon might slow delivery of packets from Vonage to make the service pretty much unusable; while making sure that their internet phone calls make it through "crystal clear".
This also might prioritize, say delivering movie content from BlockBuster over your SSH connection to your server.... etc.
It is really not a good development. I was hoping that something could be worked out in committee. But, perhaps we'll have to wait for a few red state business people to start complaining before something will get done.
This technique has been used by e-mail servers for a great many years. You scan an incoming email to a given individual to see if it is already stored (ie, sent to another customer); if so, you don't save the whole email, only the different 'To' and 'Date' lines. It's simple, trivial, and very effective. It also isn't new.
My age old dell latitude (maintenance nightmare) is at the end of its life... I've run out of spare parts from 2-3 of its brothers I picked up from a previous employer. It's time I got a new Laptop. Any recommendations?
My only requirement is that it has a 15" screen, a full-sized keyboard, and is compatible/w FreeBSD.
These days I listen almost exclusively to specific programs by independent public radio stations.
- WAMU's Diane Rehm is simply excellent - KCRW's To The Point, Minding the Media, etc. - CSPAN's Daily Coverage of House/Senate - WNYC's Leonard Lopate is good occasionally, etc. - Democracy Now (can be a bit... left for me, but
is an interesting alternative)
I also have on-line subscriptions to newspapers which have serious investigative journalism; the Independent, for example. There are a few others, but I only read particular authors that tend to provide me raw data and summaries rather than spin-doctored pre-digested sound bytes. The American Prospect, Economist, and Weekly Standard are also pretty good reads.
Occasionally NPR, PBS, the Washington Post or NY Times have good content, but they are very conservative (for the last 6 years they've collectively been, by and large, a Bush cheer leader). Shame that people refer to them as liberal... it permits severe right-wing wackos to be "conservative" when in-fact, they are anything but.
I certainly agree that current monopoly laws should be in place, and enforced. Allowing monopolies to exist, including government-created ones, undermines the free market.
Certain marketplaces (for example telephone, railways, roadways) have greatest value when their is a monopoly; these should always be publicly owned so that there can be fierce competition for providing maintenance and growth of the services. The goal should be to maximize competition, recognizing natural monopolies - and minimizing their impact on "related" marketplaces.
Just because the government helped to create something doesn't mean they should be able to control it into perpetuity.
Certainly true; however, I'm not certain if the Internet itself is not a natural monopoly. If it is, then we should find the *minimum* necessary structure that should be publicly owned: sub-contracting out what ever is possible to create mini-markets.
Your comment on hydrogen is confusing. Of course hydrogen explodes, and the likelyhood of any device which uses it in its gaseous form exploding is higher than that of current engines.
From my reading of the current hydrogen storage technologies they are not any more likely to go "boom" than gasoline. The Zepplin exploded not due to the hydrogen, but due to the flammable jacket. Overall, I find your attacks on renewable energy technologies not terribly informed. Certainly politicians will have "grandiose" goals; but that does not invalidate the path they suggest.
The current subsidy of "gasoline" (via public highways and other spending programs) certainly deters exploration into alternative energy options.
I'd love to see a clean energy source, but it has to be inexpensive enough to avoid adversely impacting our economic growth.
That is an unfair test; unless you want to factor in the huge environmental costs of our current growth. A modest increase in alternative energy research funded by severe taxes on environmentally damaging behaviors would do the trick. It would create a *market* for alternative energy. If people were made to pay for the roads they use and the pollution they generate (and burden future generations with) we'd see vigorous competition for alternative energy sources.
You're partially right [regarding insurance]. The problem is that insurance companies don't have to compete as much as they would have to if individuals could buy a single policy rather than having to rely on their employer's insurance offerings.
You will find no disagreement here that attaching insurance to employment is a *horrible* idea: it reduces competition in the market for labor. That said, I think you over-estimate the ability of your average consumer to evaluate health-insurance: most barely have a high-school degree.
The biggest problem with health-care we have today is that preventative visits (to a nurse practitioner, not necessarily a doctor) are just not done. As a result, people who had very treatable problems a few months or years earlier end up in the hospital emergency rooms. Insurance companies don't help; there is a recent work into Diabetes where even simple tests done would have prevented full-blown disorders: instead, the companies wait for people to require exotic treatments and drugs before paying attention. I'm not even remotely convinced that a competitive marketplace can solve these issues since the buyer (the company, nor the patient) is not in a position to evaluate the goods.
You don't always need medical insurance just when "you're at death's door". In its current incarnation, you need it just about any time you visit a doctor; therefore, you absolutely could shop around 99.9% of the time.
Unfortunately, most people do _not_ do routine doctor visits: they go to the emergency room after something is so serious that they are on death's door. Havin
| 1. No tax subsidies to companies which outsource overseas. | IMO, we ought to do away with all subsidies, period.
I'll agree with this as long as you can include "environmental" and other hidden costs in the development of a product; a very high gas tax should be supporting our wars in the middle east and the damage done to the environment due to carbon emissions.
| It is not the governments responsibility to manipulate the free | market when it behaves is ways which do not equal votes.
A "free market" requires a dozen or so competitors who are not colluding or doing other forms of price-fixing. By and large, there are very few free markets in the United States (unless you're talking about ones run by small businesses, such as restraunts). If you look at the competitors and there arn't a bunch of small business people in it... it probably is not a competitive marketplace and the government _should_ be getting involved to break it up so that it is competitive.
| 2. Protect "the right of americans to organize", and the "Employee | Free Choice Act" -- In other words, they support legalized blackmail | as long as you're paying union dues.
The problem is, you're assuming a free market for labor. In "corporate towns" where there are only a hand-full of behemoth employers, there is not a free market for labor: if you quit your job you often have to pick up your bags and move. This cost to switch jobs is very huge burden on middle-class employees; so much so that large companies have an unfair barganing position. Labor Unions are one way to approach this; another way is to limit the size of companies so that they form mini-competitve marketplaces rahter than "stove pipes" under one one management.
| 3. "universal broadband" -- and when did it become the responsibility | of the governement to make sure we all had broadband? I'd rather the | government keep from touching the internet any more than it already has.
Well, considering that it was the goverment (through DARPA) that boostrapped the internet and nurtured it into existence, I'm open to ideas here. At this time large international Companies are actively lobbying to setup tool booths along the internet highway: and varied pay structures could greatly hurt productivity, growth -- and your access to slashdot.
Finally, Nancy is talking about "universal service", not "free service"; should people living in small farming communities not have the opportunity to participate in the political process (since they can't read blogs?)
| 4. "energy independence" in 5 years -- How? Government regulation?
Research and Development: something that has been soley lacking under "corporate leadership" in this field.
| Hydrogen--unproven tech(BOOM!)
It is quite proven, and doesn't go BOOM. The problem with hydrogen is that it is an energy storage and transport technology: not a generation technology. As such, it is quite effective for distances over 50 miles and for times when generated energy can't be used immediately.
| 5. Socialized health care -- I can't wait to get in line for 6 months | for an MRI.
Frankly, most health-care programs today do _not_ support MRIs (for example, to screen for colon cancer: a big killer). The problem with insurance programs is that they arn't driven to reduce their cost structures nor provide better service: they are not in a competive marketplace since one doesn't usually "shop around" when you're on death's door. Further, insurance companies have *zero* motive to work on preventative care.
Socialized health care will make things alot cheaper for 90% of the preventitive care and routine procedures (Canada is a good example, as well as most of Europe). It works. I think you're confused since you wrongly assume that a universal health care system would imply that you would be *forbidden* to get your own botique insu
The recent releases of Firefox (1.5 and up) crash all the time for myself and my clients. I've got a custom XUL app running on Firefox and I'm seriously beginning to regret this decision. I would have been better off using plain-old DHTML and supporting Safari (for OS/X people), and perhaps Opera (for the Windows people).
The 'pro-business' lobby here forgets that the cable and phone companies are usually monopolies in the area -- either by mandate or by de-facto policies.
Both phone and cable companies need to get a 'leeway' to lay cable or overhead lines across everyone's property. This isn't taken lightly, and isn't done for every company that comes-along claiming they want to do it. Furthermore, both cable and phone are essential for emergencies, and thus must have universal coverage. The idea that this is (or should be) in any form a competitive marketplace is... well, misinformed. The bottom line is, it is most efficient to have a _single_ set of cables and wires, not N sets for various hodge-podge company policies.
The problem here is that a for-profit company owns these wires. It's a farce. Really, the local governments should own the wires and contract out the work and the companies that want to 'run' the services over the wires. To do this correctly, we need a completely different legal environment that recognizes natural monopolies and makes them not-profit and as _small_ as possible to enable the _greatest_ amount of competition for auxiliary services.
But, given the current setup, strict regulation is the only answer. Regulation is, BTW, what allowed the whole open-source movement to take-off; in the 70's Ma-Bell (AT&T) wasn't allowed to sell its software, so it gave away enormous IP to the public. This is how Unix came about. The regulation was proper back then, the government realized that the phone was a monopoly, and prevented the phone company from entering other markets (using its monopoly money to distort other market places). Unfortunately, that sensibility started to disappear with the so-called "pro-business" agenda in the 80's and 90's.
and rightly so -- the world he writes about is very alarming -- and we are flirting with such a world. By calling him "not an alarmist" you're degrading those people who rightfully raise red flags. People who were right about bad trends that happened to take a bit longer than they predicted. Stallman was smart, he made his predictions far far off into the future (yet, a bit less than the term of a copyright...)
Wow, everyone here bashes the lawsuit. Perhaps the attorney has a point -- perhaps it's your frame of reference that is wrong. One poster said: "should we sue Law&Order"? This is a red herring and I'm surprised it was swallowed hook, line, and sinker. The difference is clear: Law&Order is promoting justice by showing the outcomes of illegal acts; grand theft auto is really promoting illegal acts. The intent makes all of the difference.
Imagine, if instead of shooting cops, the video game simulated picking up hookers, explicit details of having one's way with them, perhaps with a bit of "no, no" added in as a voice over implying (to some people anyway) that the target is a rape victim? Imagine the uproar and how quickly the game makers and distributors would be sued.
We ban "sexual" related content on TV because of the influence it might have on teenagers; why do we allow for such extreme violence? Perhaps our country has one of the highest crime rates in the world as a direct result of violent programming and games.
Slashdot Mirror
and Clinton did not vote.
and Clinton was silent on the issue
No. A huge amount of the federal government, including just about all of the NIH, CIA are in MD. The parent poster is absolutely correct. There is also the "use tax" to be contemplated, the headline discussed hiring from other states (or countries) -- you can't get around sales tax that way. Frankly, it's a brilliant move by MD. They could even turn 5-15% of the revenue around into IT grants... bringing IT companies *into* MD. Sales tax is done on the purchaser, not on the seller.
http://metamath.org/ has been around for 15 years or so; it has a very nice text-based proof expression, a huge library of existing proofs and a graphical visualization tool
If Slaby is the *sole* copyright owner, he's welcome to release it under another license. It appears however that his work was probably done in concert with other contributors and those contributors may not have transferred their copyright to him. Hence, he may not be able to just change the license like he did. That said, the modification that he's agreed seems correct -- ie, parts of this code are BSD, but remaining changes are under the GPL. Hence, unless you know which parts are GPL and which are BSD, its in effect a GPL license. So, same effect. It's a legal technicality.
If this is the *sole* work of ostensible author, Jiri Slaby, there is no further issue.
However, if this software has contributors from the BSD community, then the act, while technically legal, is extremely rude , uncooperative, and I'd argue, morally problematic. People write BSD code so that people can take advantage of the code in any way, including making proprietary forks or whatno -- the code is truly *FREE*. The conversion to GPL like this isn't actually helping to keep it "free", it's a privatization of the code to a different definition of "free", preventing further work from being included in BSD* distributions. This is the net effect of the change; the Linux people are essentially saying: thanks for the fish, now go away. They are building off FREE software, but are unwilling to grant the same freedoms granted to them back to those who helped build it. It's classic GPL and Stallmanist logic. It's now "free", so long as "free" means what Stallman say it means. The proper response to this by BSD people is to continue to develop the *BSD licensed version, and just ignore the Linux fork. Yes, they can take the fish if they want, it's not legally incorrect -- but the action itself speaks loudly of the Linux community, however.
Having a Neutral Network doesn't mean that it can't have different levels of service. The U.S. Postal system is neutral, it doesn't [1] favor big companies over small ones, or some content over others. It has *classes* of mail, and charges by class. A tiered network can work the same way, packets do have a place to mark their priority. There is no reason why we can't develop ways to change content priority. Real-time stuff can mark their packets higher, and bulk-mail can mark the packets for overnight delivery ;)
What they mean to do, however, is different. It is to charge differently based on who you are, who your communicating to, and what sort of content your sending. This is nothing more than corporate censorship. It is wrong.
[1] Well, it just now there are proposals to start pricing USPS mail based on the amount of mail you send. This is clearly wrong since it favors larger corporations over smaller ones, and hence serves to limit competition.
I've had solid luck with http://qooxdoo.org/
After 4 years of brutal usage, I finally retired one /w only minor problems (they replaced the keyboard). I replaced it with another latitude (this time, a D820) and it is quite nice.
I don't think Theo was purposefully trying to divert attention. He admitted to the issue up front. I think it is going a bit too far to assign a deeper motive here. I'd bet Theo felt that his organization was being threatened via a very public accusation. He probably responded without thinking things through clearly, which most of us can be guilty of. As Bruce said, he over-reacted and lost his cool. That's it. You had an inexperienced committer here and a leader who got defensive.
Theo should have just removed the offending code and then responded with an apology. Following a succinct apology, he could have then asked that future notices of this sort be given a chance to be handled via a more private method.
What this thread is about is that the author of the GPL's driver, Michael Buesch, didn't even attempt to handle this civilly, you know like chatting it through on IRC, or sending off a few private emails. That he was pointing out a problem was fine. That he did it in a confrontational manner without first trying other channels, was, not particularly collegial. Theo's characterization of "in human" came after several followups where it became clear that Michael's goal wasn't to solve the problem but to make a firework display.
Your rant here, changing the topic and calling people names is likewise quite unprofessional.
that's nice to know; my experience with them is dated about 4 years ago
I'm currently not hosting with superb (our company doesn't need alot of boxes in colocation), but when I did, we had great results with them. They were quite tolerant of our idiosyncratic requirements and had very good uptime and response. I'd definitely go with them if I had to rack a few servers. However, I'm not sure if they'd be the best choice for a virtual private server. If you're going dedicated though (not that expensive these days), Superb is an excellent choice.
I'm also a John Companies customer and am very pleased. I've had 2 other VPS experiences, and I think JC did the best job. They offer email support which is prompt and helpful. They have also gone out of their way on a few occasions to help me with system administration stuff that they really didn't have to do. While I'm at it, I should sing praises to rsync.net, a sister company that does remote file backup space. Having reasonably fast remote backup location has been a godsend...
Press Code of Ethics (Associated Press)
Associated Press Managing Editors. Code of Ethics. 1995
http://www.asne.org/ideas/codes/apme.htm
Associated Press Managing Editors
Code of Ethics
Revised and Adopted 1995
These principles are a model against which news and editorial staff members can measure their performance.
They have been formulated in the belief that newspapers and the people who produce them should adhere to the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct.
The public's right to know about matters of importance is paramount. The newspaper has a special responsibility as surrogate of its readers to be a vigilant watchdog of their legitimate public interests.
No statement of principles can prescribe decisions governing every situation. Common sense and good judgment are required in applying ethical principles to newspaper realities. As new technologies evolve, these principles can help guide editors to insure the credibility of the news and information they provide. Individual newspapers are encouraged to augment these APME guidelines more specifically to their own situations.
RESPONSIBILITY
The good newspaper is fair, accurate, honest, responsible, independent and decent.
Truth is its guiding principle.
It avoids practices that would conflict with the ability to report and present news in a fair, accurate and unbiased manner.
The newspaper should serve as a constructive critic of all segments of society. It should reasonably reflect, in staffing and coverage, its diverse constituencies.
It should vigorously expose wrongdoing, duplicity or misuse of power, public or private. Editorially, it should advocate needed reform and innovation in the public interest. News sources should be disclosed unless there is a clear reason not to do so. When it is necessary to protect the confidentiality of a source, the reason should be explained.
The newspaper should uphold the right of free speech and freedom of the press and should respect the individual's right to privacy. The newspaper should fight vigorously for public access to news of government through open meetings and records.
ACCURACY
The newspaper should guard against inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortion through emphasis, omission or technological manipulation.
It should acknowledge substantive errors and correct them promptly and prominently.
INTEGRITY
The newspaper should strive for impartial treatment of issues and dispassionate handling of controversial subjects. It should provide a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism, especially when such comment is opposed to its editorial positions. Editorials and expressions of personal opinion by reporters and editors should be clearly labeled. Advertising should be differentiated from news.
The newspaper should report the news laws without regard for its own interests, mindful of the need to disclose potential conflicts. It should not give favored news treatment to advertisers or special-interest groups.
It should report matters regarding itself or its personnel with the same vigor and candor as it would other institutions or individuals. Concern for community, business or personal interests should not cause the newspaper to distort or misrepresent the facts.
The newspaper should deal honestly with readers and newsmakers. It should keep its promises.
The newspaper should not plagiarize words or images.
INDEPENDENCE
The newspaper and its staff should be free of obligations to news sources and newsmakers. Even the appearance of obligation or conflict of interest should be avoided.
Newspapers should accept nothing of value from news sources or others outside the profession. Gifts and free or reduced-rate travel, entertainment, products and lodging should not be accepted. Expenses in connection with news reporting should be paid by the newspaper. Special favors and special tr
Well, this bill was to support the idea that "no external entity should suffer discrimination when trying to get their packets to me".
What's going on is that packets from/to Vonage, and other voice over IP companies are being marked by Comcast, and Verison as 3rd class mail: if they are even permitted. This law was to prevent this pratice.
This law had nothing to do with providers charging more for a T3 over a T1 for a web-service company. That would be brain dead to argue against. This was about network neutrality: that *infrastructure* companies can pick-and-choose what content you can get to and what content you cant (and what content is so damn slow you won't ever use it).
What's being debated here is if a company like Verizon or Comcast can give a higher priority to content of one provider, probably based on price, or as a way to enforce monopolies. For example, Verizon might slow delivery of packets from Vonage to make the service pretty much unusable; while making sure that their internet phone calls make it through "crystal clear".
This also might prioritize, say delivering movie content from BlockBuster over your SSH connection to your server.... etc.
It is really not a good development. I was hoping that something could be worked out in committee. But, perhaps we'll have to wait for a few red state business people to start complaining before something will get done.
This technique has been used by e-mail servers for a great many years. You scan an incoming email to a given individual to see if it is already stored (ie, sent to another customer); if so, you don't save the whole email, only the different 'To' and 'Date' lines. It's simple, trivial, and very effective. It also isn't new.
My age old dell latitude (maintenance nightmare) is at the end of its life... I've run out of spare parts from 2-3 of its brothers I picked up from a previous employer. It's time I got a new Laptop. Any recommendations?
/w FreeBSD.
My only requirement is that it has a 15" screen, a full-sized keyboard, and is compatible
These days I listen almost exclusively to specific programs by independent public radio stations.
- WAMU's Diane Rehm is simply excellent
- KCRW's To The Point, Minding the Media, etc.
- CSPAN's Daily Coverage of House/Senate
- WNYC's Leonard Lopate is good occasionally, etc.
- Democracy Now (can be a bit... left for me, but
is an interesting alternative)
I also have on-line subscriptions to newspapers which have serious investigative journalism; the Independent, for example. There are a few others, but I only read particular authors that tend to provide me raw data and summaries rather than spin-doctored pre-digested sound bytes. The American Prospect, Economist, and Weekly Standard are also pretty good reads.
Occasionally NPR, PBS, the Washington Post or NY Times have good content, but they are very conservative (for the last 6 years they've collectively been, by and large, a Bush cheer leader). Shame that people refer to them as liberal... it permits severe right-wing wackos to be "conservative" when in-fact, they are anything but.
I certainly agree that current monopoly laws should be in place, and enforced. Allowing monopolies to exist, including government-created ones, undermines the free market.
Certain marketplaces (for example telephone, railways, roadways) have greatest value when their is a monopoly; these should always be publicly owned so that there can be fierce competition for providing maintenance and growth of the services. The goal should be to maximize competition, recognizing natural monopolies - and minimizing their impact on "related" marketplaces.
Just because the government helped to create something doesn't mean they should be able to control it into perpetuity.
Certainly true; however, I'm not certain if the Internet itself is not a natural monopoly. If it is, then we should find the *minimum* necessary structure that should be publicly owned: sub-contracting out what ever is possible to create mini-markets.
Your comment on hydrogen is confusing. Of course hydrogen explodes, and the likelyhood of any device which uses it in its gaseous form exploding is higher than that of current engines.
From my reading of the current hydrogen storage
technologies they are not any more likely to go
"boom" than gasoline. The Zepplin exploded not
due to the hydrogen, but due to the flammable
jacket. Overall, I find your attacks on renewable
energy technologies not terribly informed. Certainly
politicians will have "grandiose" goals; but that
does not invalidate the path they suggest.
The current subsidy of "gasoline" (via public
highways and other spending programs) certainly
deters exploration into alternative energy options.
I'd love to see a clean energy source, but it has
to be inexpensive enough to avoid adversely impacting
our economic growth.
That is an unfair test; unless you want to factor in
the huge environmental costs of our current growth.
A modest increase in alternative energy research
funded by severe taxes on environmentally damaging
behaviors would do the trick. It would create a
*market* for alternative energy. If people were
made to pay for the roads they use and the pollution
they generate (and burden future generations with)
we'd see vigorous competition for alternative
energy sources.
You're partially right [regarding insurance]. The problem is that insurance companies don't have to compete as much as they would have to if individuals could buy a single policy rather than having to rely on their employer's insurance offerings.
You will find no disagreement here that attaching
insurance to employment is a *horrible* idea: it
reduces competition in the market for labor. That
said, I think you over-estimate the ability of your
average consumer to evaluate health-insurance: most
barely have a high-school degree.
The biggest problem with health-care we have today
is that preventative visits (to a nurse practitioner,
not necessarily a doctor) are just not done. As a
result, people who had very treatable problems a few
months or years earlier end up in the hospital
emergency rooms. Insurance companies don't help;
there is a recent work into Diabetes where even
simple tests done would have prevented full-blown
disorders: instead, the companies wait for people
to require exotic treatments and drugs before
paying attention. I'm not even remotely convinced
that a competitive marketplace can solve these issues
since the buyer (the company, nor the patient) is
not in a position to evaluate the goods.
You don't always need medical insurance just when "you're at death's door". In its current incarnation, you need it just about any time you visit a doctor; therefore, you absolutely could shop around 99.9% of the time.
Unfortunately, most people do _not_ do routine doctor
visits: they go to the emergency room after something
is so serious that they are on death's door. Havin
| 1. No tax subsidies to companies which outsource overseas.
| IMO, we ought to do away with all subsidies, period.
I'll agree with this as long as you can include "environmental" and
other hidden costs in the development of a product; a very high gas
tax should be supporting our wars in the middle east and the
damage done to the environment due to carbon emissions.
| It is not the governments responsibility to manipulate the free
| market when it behaves is ways which do not equal votes.
A "free market" requires a dozen or so competitors who are not colluding
or doing other forms of price-fixing. By and large, there are very few
free markets in the United States (unless you're talking about ones run
by small businesses, such as restraunts). If you look at the competitors
and there arn't a bunch of small business people in it... it probably is
not a competitive marketplace and the government _should_ be getting
involved to break it up so that it is competitive.
| 2. Protect "the right of americans to organize", and the "Employee
| Free Choice Act" -- In other words, they support legalized blackmail
| as long as you're paying union dues.
The problem is, you're assuming a free market for labor. In "corporate
towns" where there are only a hand-full of behemoth employers, there is
not a free market for labor: if you quit your job you often have to pick
up your bags and move. This cost to switch jobs is very huge burden on
middle-class employees; so much so that large companies have an unfair
barganing position. Labor Unions are one way to approach this; another
way is to limit the size of companies so that they form mini-competitve
marketplaces rahter than "stove pipes" under one one management.
| 3. "universal broadband" -- and when did it become the responsibility
| of the governement to make sure we all had broadband? I'd rather the
| government keep from touching the internet any more than it already has.
Well, considering that it was the goverment (through DARPA) that boostrapped
the internet and nurtured it into existence, I'm open to ideas here. At this
time large international Companies are actively lobbying to setup tool booths
along the internet highway: and varied pay structures could greatly hurt
productivity, growth -- and your access to slashdot.
Finally, Nancy is talking about "universal service", not "free service"; should people living in small farming communities not have the opportunity
to participate in the political process (since they can't read blogs?)
| 4. "energy independence" in 5 years -- How? Government regulation?
Research and Development: something that has been soley lacking under
"corporate leadership" in this field.
| Hydrogen--unproven tech(BOOM!)
It is quite proven, and doesn't go BOOM. The problem with hydrogen is that
it is an energy storage and transport technology: not a generation
technology. As such, it is quite effective for distances over 50 miles
and for times when generated energy can't be used immediately.
| 5. Socialized health care -- I can't wait to get in line for 6 months
| for an MRI.
Frankly, most health-care programs today do _not_ support MRIs (for example,
to screen for colon cancer: a big killer). The problem with insurance
programs is that they arn't driven to reduce their cost structures nor
provide better service: they are not in a competive marketplace since
one doesn't usually "shop around" when you're on death's door. Further,
insurance companies have *zero* motive to work on preventative care.
Socialized health care will make things alot cheaper for 90% of the
preventitive care and routine procedures (Canada is a good example,
as well as most of Europe). It works. I think you're confused since
you wrongly assume that a universal health care system would imply that
you would be *forbidden* to get your own botique insu
The recent releases of Firefox (1.5 and up) crash all the time for myself and my clients. I've got a custom XUL app running on Firefox and I'm seriously beginning to regret this decision. I would have been better off using plain-old DHTML and supporting Safari (for OS/X people), and perhaps Opera (for the Windows people).
The crashes are simply out-of-control.
The 'pro-business' lobby here forgets that the cable and phone companies are usually monopolies in the area -- either by mandate or by de-facto policies.
Both phone and cable companies need to get a 'leeway' to lay cable or overhead lines across everyone's property. This isn't taken lightly, and isn't done for every company that comes-along claiming they want to do it. Furthermore, both cable and phone are essential for emergencies, and thus must have universal coverage. The idea that this is (or should be) in any form a competitive marketplace is... well, misinformed. The bottom line is, it is most efficient to have a _single_ set of cables and wires, not N sets for various hodge-podge company policies.
The problem here is that a for-profit company owns these wires. It's a farce. Really, the local governments should own the wires and contract out the work and the companies that want to 'run' the services over the wires. To do this correctly, we need a completely different legal environment that recognizes natural monopolies and makes them not-profit and as _small_ as possible to enable the _greatest_ amount of competition for auxiliary services.
But, given the current setup, strict regulation is the only answer. Regulation is, BTW, what allowed the whole open-source movement to take-off; in the 70's Ma-Bell (AT&T) wasn't allowed to sell its software, so it gave away enormous IP to the public. This is how Unix came about. The regulation was proper back then, the government realized that the phone was a monopoly, and prevented the phone company from entering other markets (using its monopoly money to distort other market places). Unfortunately, that sensibility started to disappear with the so-called "pro-business" agenda in the 80's and 90's.
and rightly so -- the world he writes about is very alarming -- and we are flirting with such a world. By calling him "not an alarmist" you're degrading those people who rightfully raise red flags. People who were right about bad trends that happened to take a bit longer than they predicted. Stallman was smart, he made his predictions far far off into the future (yet, a bit less than the term of a copyright...)
Wow, everyone here bashes the lawsuit. Perhaps the attorney has a point -- perhaps it's your frame of reference that is wrong. One poster said: "should we sue Law&Order"? This is a red herring and I'm surprised it was swallowed hook, line, and sinker. The difference is clear: Law&Order is promoting justice by showing the outcomes of illegal acts; grand theft auto is really promoting illegal acts. The intent makes all of the difference.
Imagine, if instead of shooting cops, the video game simulated picking up hookers, explicit details of having one's way with them, perhaps with a bit of "no, no" added in as a voice over implying (to some people anyway) that the target is a rape victim? Imagine the uproar and how quickly the game makers and distributors would be sued.
We ban "sexual" related content on TV because of the influence it might have on teenagers; why do we allow for such extreme violence? Perhaps our country has one of the highest crime rates in the world as a direct result of violent programming and games.