Does your conclusion that "They're killing themselves, just to enrich our few and their few - no one has to emit that level of pollution to manufacture goods." still apply in this case?
If they want to insist that only people with purple hair can fly, that's their perogative. If they want to insist that no-one more than eighteen inches tall can fly, they're allowed to do so.
And if they want to insist that only white people can fly, they're allowed to do so? The world of public transport isn't quite as straightforward as you think. Public operators are subject to the law of the land, and if the law says that discrimination is illegal, then they will be breaking the law if they refuse to allow a person to travel on that basis.
And here we are, in year 2009, reading "research" telling us things we all already know.
To be fair, Rutkowska does acknowledge this "Q: Is this Evil Maid Attack some l33t new h4ck? Nope, the concept behind the Evil Maid Attack is neither new, nor l33t in any way."
Any true libertarian recognizes that copyright is an artificial regulation produced by the government
Copyright and patents have always been one of the weak areas of a coherent libertarian philosophy. Some libertarians (the majority?) take the position that you own your code, music, whatever, and if someone copies it, it is a violation of your property rights - "Property Rights" being one of the few reasons that a government should exist. Other libertarians maintain that copyright infringes on an individual's right to copy stuff, and can only be enforced by government agencies funded through taxation (taxes=almost theft), and so that is bad.
The question is which concept is more in line with the libertarian philosophy? Is the freedom to prevent others copying your work more important than your own freedom to copy things? You can't have both. What about recreating patented works, rather than directly copying? Is the freedom of a CPU manufacturer to lock out competition by patenting design features more important than the freedom of an individual to make their own CPU?
especially if it involves forcing the participants, both dancers and patrons
Both positions are voluntary, and neither are forced. Your argument is one against sexual slavery, not against consenting adults voluntarily engaging in social interaction where money is exchanged.
It's a well-known conspiracy theory: that Mossad has created Telco front companies throughout the world to spy on other nations. See The Israeli Spy Ring, which talks about the Fox News articles, and another typical story. Of course, a conspiracy theory doesn't make it true...
The market niche I see is ARM based smartphones. Within the next couple of years I expect the smartphone market will unify around Android, Google will figure out how to do a secure(ish) app store with OpenGL native code games, and the hardware manufacturers will start competing based on 3D graphics power. At this point you'll have mobile phone manufacturers wanting ARM Linux drivers and embedded low power 3D video chipsets, but they will all be shipping slightly different versions of the kernel, so they'll need source code. People will figure out how to port the existing open source ATI drivers to some low power ATI chipsets, and there will be some unified acceleration. The Ubuntu guys will ship their "Android on xorg" layer, bringing the possibility of open source xorg drivers being only a compile away from running on phones. Probably the larger manufacturers won't be brave enough to ship an Ubuntu phone with Android/xorg architecture, but somebody will.
The pain-in-the-ass ATI drivers were closed source and used the binary only kernel module fglrx. They did a poor job of keeping it aligned with the kernel releases of different distributions. The closed source xorg driver fared slightly better, but was still lagging behind the xorg mainline sources. Since xorg integrated the open source Radeon 9600 driver I haven't had to bother installing any closed source drivers, and my system has been more stable. It just works.
That is really quite an appalling display of ignorance and lack of compassion. Quite frightening that someone who works as patient support can dismiss an individual's rights with the glib explanation "you are in an anti-gay city and state".
There have been tribal societies where man and wife were considered equals and economically independent. There have also been societies where wife swapping was normal. And societies where one man would have either many wives, or a wife and many girlfriends (remember the old Chinese proverb "A teapot can serve five teacups, but who has ever seen one teacup serving five teapots?"). Many still exist today. The idea of one man and his property (which includes his wife) is not the way things always were for all people.
Well, if incestuous pregnancies are the problem, then that is what should be illegal. Otherwise, what you're suggesting is that marriage between brothers and sisters should be illegal, but the fact remains that it is possible to have children outside of marriage. From the perspective of allowing or disallowing reproduction, what difference does outlawing marriage make?
Surely you could've bought a SIM-free Android phone? Personally, I'm curious to see if anyone in China starts selling the Shanzhai Tiger G3 direct to the West on ebay... for $140 it looks interesting. Mr Bunnie of Xbox hacking fame had favourable things to say recently about the Shanzhai industry, it seems that is where the real cost cutting and innovation is coming from, kind of like the way Silicon Valley used to be.
To me, this is why a PC computer will never take the #1 sales slot. PC, as a platform may quickly rise in dominance, but the competition, just amongst PC computers, will prevent an individual computer from taking a dominant position. When there's 51 possible choices for someone who's interested in an PC computer, it will result in diluted sales for all 51 computers. That's not to say that some of the better computers won't enjoy strong sales - I'm sure several will - but it is to say that I don't believe they'll compete, on an individual basis, with Commodore's best sellers nor the Atari ST. This, of course, is regardless of the quality of the computers - it's purely an opinion about market forces and the resulting outcome...
I never thought I'd see a Linux advocate use the Vista Defense! It's the drivers, it's the software, it's something, but it's not my code!
Not quite. He actually wrote:
It's not my intention to shift the blame around though. PA and the other layers of our stack should not be viewed as independent parts. If PA uses a new or previously unused feature of the drivers then we need to fix the drivers at the same time.
I decided to work 40 hours a week at night and put myself through school. I graduated without any loans, but it took 6 years
Well done. I'm not sure that would work for the majority of people though. Students who fund themselves by working usually take longer to complete their degrees, are more likely to drop out, are more likely to be sleeping or paying less attention in class, and are less likely to achieve higher grades. There is a cost associated with working in the evening, rather than studying. Speaking as someone who has had to work a full-time job whilst in education, I would not recommend it. In the extra years it takes to complete an education, you could've been earning the full wage of a qualified person, rather than minimum salary in a temporary position. Unfortunately the situation is complicated when you don't have access to any loan system, and still have to pay to live.
Because proper education systems increase your wealth as well, the same as proper health systems benefit your health as well. Let me ask you this, would you rather have a nation full of highly educated white collar workers or a nation full of barely educated blue collar slobs barely able to swing a hammer?
Would you rather have a nation of workers or of parasites?
I think you just made the OP's point. "Highly educated white collar workers" are less likely to be claiming social security benefits. "Barely educated blue collar slobs" are more likely to claim benefits. Given that you live in a country where the rules are created through ordinary people voting, and the fact that the majority of people will want a social security net including free education, you won't be able to eliminate the social security system without abandoning democracy.
Universal free education is widely recognised as being ultimately beneficial for a nation, that's why all developed countries provide, in fact insist, that children attend schools. If it is so obvious to everyone that free education for children benefits society, then why should educating a young adult be a different situation?
The university attendance rate in the U.S. is way, way too high
By what metric? How does it compare to other nations, and what level is defined as "way too high"? Is the university attendance rate "way too high" in other nations as well? What levels of development do the countries with your ideal attendance level tend to represent - are we talking closer to Sweden or Somalia?
Interesting post, yes, it would be useful to get those old photos declassified.
Also, some of the higher resolution images found on places like Google Maps are made from commercial imaging satellites, which is protected by copyright.
That's what I meant, Landsat is quite low resolution (I don't find it particularly difficult to use, with JOSM and other OSM editors map data can be easily laid over landsat images). The Google Maps type images are nice, high resolution, and make mapping areas very easy, it would be good if there were a way to use cheap balloons to gather these type of images for large areas and then release them as part of a larger project with open license.
The New Scientist article on potential cooling that you referred to is here. The question is, after having attempted to discredit these scientists time and again, if it now turns out that the effect of North Atlantic Oscillation is greater than previously thought, would the climateaudit/wattsupwiththat etc. community believe them, and suddenly start championing what they say?
The value of New Scientist is that it is a respected publication that writes about science in a way that can be understood by non-specialists in the field. I do not claim to be "certain of the facts", and science is, of course, always open to new hypotheses, but at the same time, we should not pay heed to the people who claim again and again that "global warming on Mars proves that human activity can't be the cause!" or that "it's all a conspiracy by Al Gore!".
What we *never* see is a detailed description of exactly why it's bad... it seems to be that warmer weather would increase crop yield, right? Am I crazy? What makes that such a bad thing?
How did that Kyoto protocol go? It didn't work, and it didn't have the desired affect
The EU15 are on target to meet the Kyoto limits. The countries of the EU15 (those that formed the EU when Kyoto was agreed) consist of some of the most industrialised nations in the Western world. If you meant that some other large nations didn't sign up to Kyoto, then that is true, but you can't blame the ones that did for the ones that didn't.
The conclusion that we are making the world warmer certainly does not depend on reconstructions of temperature prior to direct records.
Most researchers would agree that while the original hockey stick can - and has - been improved in a number of ways, it was not far off the mark. Most later temperature reconstructions fall within the error bars of the original hockey stick. Some show far more variability leading up to the 20th century than the hockey stick, but none suggest that it has been warmer at any time in the past 1000 years than in the last part of the 20th century.
The "Hockey Stick" was investigated by the 2006 report of the US National Academy of Science, which found:
the key conclusion is the same: it's hotter now than it has been for at least 1000 years.
So, either you are wrong, or the US National Academy of Science is wrong. I wonder which is more likely?
That opinion piece by the Sydney Herald reporter makes repeated use of already discredited Climate Change Myths, in this case it appears to be some combination of:
Slashdot Mirror
I will match your imagine of Chinese pollution with pollution of East Coast USA.
Does your conclusion that "They're killing themselves, just to enrich our few and their few - no one has to emit that level of pollution to manufacture goods." still apply in this case?
If they want to insist that only people with purple hair can fly, that's their perogative. If they want to insist that no-one more than eighteen inches tall can fly, they're allowed to do so.
And if they want to insist that only white people can fly, they're allowed to do so? The world of public transport isn't quite as straightforward as you think. Public operators are subject to the law of the land, and if the law says that discrimination is illegal, then they will be breaking the law if they refuse to allow a person to travel on that basis.
And here we are, in year 2009, reading "research" telling us things we all already know.
To be fair, Rutkowska does acknowledge this "Q: Is this Evil Maid Attack some l33t new h4ck?
Nope, the concept behind the Evil Maid Attack is neither new, nor l33t in any way."
Any true libertarian recognizes that copyright is an artificial regulation produced by the government
Copyright and patents have always been one of the weak areas of a coherent libertarian philosophy. Some libertarians (the majority?) take the position that you own your code, music, whatever, and if someone copies it, it is a violation of your property rights - "Property Rights" being one of the few reasons that a government should exist. Other libertarians maintain that copyright infringes on an individual's right to copy stuff, and can only be enforced by government agencies funded through taxation (taxes=almost theft), and so that is bad.
The question is which concept is more in line with the libertarian philosophy? Is the freedom to prevent others copying your work more important than your own freedom to copy things? You can't have both. What about recreating patented works, rather than directly copying? Is the freedom of a CPU manufacturer to lock out competition by patenting design features more important than the freedom of an individual to make their own CPU?
especially if it involves forcing the participants, both dancers and patrons
Both positions are voluntary, and neither are forced. Your argument is one against sexual slavery, not against consenting adults voluntarily engaging in social interaction where money is exchanged.
It's a well-known conspiracy theory: that Mossad has created Telco front companies throughout the world to spy on other nations. See The Israeli Spy Ring, which talks about the Fox News articles, and another typical story. Of course, a conspiracy theory doesn't make it true...
The market niche I see is ARM based smartphones. Within the next couple of years I expect the smartphone market will unify around Android, Google will figure out how to do a secure(ish) app store with OpenGL native code games, and the hardware manufacturers will start competing based on 3D graphics power. At this point you'll have mobile phone manufacturers wanting ARM Linux drivers and embedded low power 3D video chipsets, but they will all be shipping slightly different versions of the kernel, so they'll need source code. People will figure out how to port the existing open source ATI drivers to some low power ATI chipsets, and there will be some unified acceleration. The Ubuntu guys will ship their "Android on xorg" layer, bringing the possibility of open source xorg drivers being only a compile away from running on phones. Probably the larger manufacturers won't be brave enough to ship an Ubuntu phone with Android/xorg architecture, but somebody will.
The pain-in-the-ass ATI drivers were closed source and used the binary only kernel module fglrx. They did a poor job of keeping it aligned with the kernel releases of different distributions. The closed source xorg driver fared slightly better, but was still lagging behind the xorg mainline sources. Since xorg integrated the open source Radeon 9600 driver I haven't had to bother installing any closed source drivers, and my system has been more stable. It just works.
That is really quite an appalling display of ignorance and lack of compassion. Quite frightening that someone who works as patient support can dismiss an individual's rights with the glib explanation "you are in an anti-gay city and state".
There have been tribal societies where man and wife were considered equals and economically independent. There have also been societies where wife swapping was normal. And societies where one man would have either many wives, or a wife and many girlfriends (remember the old Chinese proverb "A teapot can serve five teacups, but who has ever seen one teacup serving five teapots?"). Many still exist today. The idea of one man and his property (which includes his wife) is not the way things always were for all people.
Well, if incestuous pregnancies are the problem, then that is what should be illegal. Otherwise, what you're suggesting is that marriage between brothers and sisters should be illegal, but the fact remains that it is possible to have children outside of marriage. From the perspective of allowing or disallowing reproduction, what difference does outlawing marriage make?
Surely you could've bought a SIM-free Android phone? Personally, I'm curious to see if anyone in China starts selling the Shanzhai Tiger G3 direct to the West on ebay... for $140 it looks interesting. Mr Bunnie of Xbox hacking fame had favourable things to say recently about the Shanzhai industry, it seems that is where the real cost cutting and innovation is coming from, kind of like the way Silicon Valley used to be.
To me, this is why a PC computer will never take the #1 sales slot. PC, as a platform may quickly rise in dominance, but the competition, just amongst PC computers, will prevent an individual computer from taking a dominant position. When there's 51 possible choices for someone who's interested in an PC computer, it will result in diluted sales for all 51 computers. That's not to say that some of the better computers won't enjoy strong sales - I'm sure several will - but it is to say that I don't believe they'll compete, on an individual basis, with Commodore's best sellers nor the Atari ST. This, of course, is regardless of the quality of the computers - it's purely an opinion about market forces and the resulting outcome...
I never thought I'd see a Linux advocate use the Vista Defense! It's the drivers, it's the software, it's something, but it's not my code!
Not quite. He actually wrote:
It's not my intention to shift the blame around though. PA and the other layers of our stack should not be viewed as independent parts. If PA uses a new or previously unused feature of the drivers then we need to fix the drivers at the same time.
I decided to work 40 hours a week at night and put myself through school. I graduated without any loans, but it took 6 years
Well done. I'm not sure that would work for the majority of people though. Students who fund themselves by working usually take longer to complete their degrees, are more likely to drop out, are more likely to be sleeping or paying less attention in class, and are less likely to achieve higher grades. There is a cost associated with working in the evening, rather than studying. Speaking as someone who has had to work a full-time job whilst in education, I would not recommend it. In the extra years it takes to complete an education, you could've been earning the full wage of a qualified person, rather than minimum salary in a temporary position. Unfortunately the situation is complicated when you don't have access to any loan system, and still have to pay to live.
Because proper education systems increase your wealth as well, the same as proper health systems benefit your health as well. Let me ask you this, would you rather have a nation full of highly educated white collar workers or a nation full of barely educated blue collar slobs barely able to swing a hammer?
Would you rather have a nation of workers or of parasites?
I think you just made the OP's point. "Highly educated white collar workers" are less likely to be claiming social security benefits. "Barely educated blue collar slobs" are more likely to claim benefits. Given that you live in a country where the rules are created through ordinary people voting, and the fact that the majority of people will want a social security net including free education, you won't be able to eliminate the social security system without abandoning democracy.
Universal free education is widely recognised as being ultimately beneficial for a nation, that's why all developed countries provide, in fact insist, that children attend schools. If it is so obvious to everyone that free education for children benefits society, then why should educating a young adult be a different situation?
The university attendance rate in the U.S. is way, way too high
By what metric? How does it compare to other nations, and what level is defined as "way too high"? Is the university attendance rate "way too high" in other nations as well? What levels of development do the countries with your ideal attendance level tend to represent - are we talking closer to Sweden or Somalia?
Interesting post, yes, it would be useful to get those old photos declassified.
Also, some of the higher resolution images found on places like Google Maps are made from commercial imaging satellites, which is protected by copyright.
That's what I meant, Landsat is quite low resolution (I don't find it particularly difficult to use, with JOSM and other OSM editors map data can be easily laid over landsat images). The Google Maps type images are nice, high resolution, and make mapping areas very easy, it would be good if there were a way to use cheap balloons to gather these type of images for large areas and then release them as part of a larger project with open license.
The New Scientist article on potential cooling that you referred to is here. The question is, after having attempted to discredit these scientists time and again, if it now turns out that the effect of North Atlantic Oscillation is greater than previously thought, would the climateaudit/wattsupwiththat etc. community believe them, and suddenly start championing what they say?
Isn't that a little weird, to rage against the Met Office again and again when it predicts warming, but then to rally around it when one of their scientists comes up with a possible alternative?
The value of New Scientist is that it is a respected publication that writes about science in a way that can be understood by non-specialists in the field. I do not claim to be "certain of the facts", and science is, of course, always open to new hypotheses, but at the same time, we should not pay heed to the people who claim again and again that "global warming on Mars proves that human activity can't be the cause!" or that "it's all a conspiracy by Al Gore!".
What we *never* see is a detailed description of exactly why it's bad... it seems to be that warmer weather would increase crop yield, right? Am I crazy? What makes that such a bad thing?
Climate myths: Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production should answer your question.
How did that Kyoto protocol go? It didn't work, and it didn't have the desired affect
The EU15 are on target to meet the Kyoto limits. The countries of the EU15 (those that formed the EU when Kyoto was agreed) consist of some of the most industrialised nations in the Western world. If you meant that some other large nations didn't sign up to Kyoto, then that is true, but you can't blame the ones that did for the ones that didn't.
The original, discredited Mann hockey stick
Climate Myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong, quote:
The conclusion that we are making the world warmer certainly does not depend on reconstructions of temperature prior to direct records.
Most researchers would agree that while the original hockey stick can - and has - been improved in a number of ways, it was not far off the mark. Most later temperature reconstructions fall within the error bars of the original hockey stick. Some show far more variability leading up to the 20th century than the hockey stick, but none suggest that it has been warmer at any time in the past 1000 years than in the last part of the 20th century.
The "Hockey Stick" was investigated by the 2006 report of the US National Academy of Science, which found:
the key conclusion is the same: it's hotter now than it has been for at least 1000 years.
So, either you are wrong, or the US National Academy of Science is wrong. I wonder which is more likely?
The CO2 level and temperature aren't supposed to match up perfectly. Climate Change Myths: Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming and Ice cores show CO2 rising as temperatures fell.
That opinion piece by the Sydney Herald reporter makes repeated use of already discredited Climate Change Myths, in this case it appears to be some combination of: