I think Wikipedia is a site that really needs to somehow integrate the reputation of it's contributors into the articles. I haven't kept up with the structural changes they've made in the past couple years, but a lot of the editing work seems to be undoing trolling and vandalism, and also participating in edit and revision wars. I could be wrong at this point.
But if wikipedia had a reputation system ( other than just being banned or allowed ), they might automate contributions from reputable authors ( and check on the actual contributions later), while authors who are less reputable may have their contributions queued for review before they are published.
Furthermore, a casual user would be able to have a more savvy understanding of the reputability of any article or section of an article if it is tagged with the reputation of its' author.
Reputable authors might be able to also tag the contributions of others, such that the text or information itself gets a reputation. That would help users make a judgement about the validity of information on Wikipedia.
Instead of pushing the mechanics of the actual editing of articles behind the scenes, and just presenting a 'final' article to the end-user, let's formalize the process and enfranchise users into the process of judging the validity of articles. As usual, we should still have the political and religious bias problems to deal with in such a system.
My husband is a mathematician, and he uses the whole alphabet, the whole greek alphabet, and then has to improvise in some of his papers, and it's full of actual equations with all kinds of superscripts and subscripts and various integration symbols and whatnot.
You can do all that in MS Word too. So why does your husband use LaTeX?
I'm in grad school in a social science field, and I rarely to never would even put an equation of any sort in a paper. I'd run all my ANOVAs and regressions and whatever other stats on SPSS and then put in some graphs and tables that show numbers, not variables. I might use N or F or p.
LaTeX won't stop you from writing papers that way. If you don't need things like \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-\frac{a}{b}}}, then don't use those macros.
I could use LaTeX like he does, but I don't really have a need for it.
Neither does he. You don't need LaTeX to write mathematics. The field got along quite well for a rather long time before LaTeX came to be. SHHHHHHhhhh!!! She's a girl! And she's on slashdot! That means, by default, she's right!
The "intelligence" failure was in the White House and it's coterie of civilian hit men sent to the Pentagon and the CIA. They simply chose crap, dismissed data they were told was garbage and ignored contrary facts presented to them. Analysts were quitting on principle; I remember them being interviewed in 1992. The PNACers used a hack, Tenet, to put a stamp on their fabricated package of dog poo. Then, after the lies hit the fan, they BLAMED THE INTEL THEY WERE TOLD WAS CRAP. Retch and repeat. And since the Niger documents were a known forgery even then, when do we ask the question: who commissioned the forgeries? I've gotta say that's really just flamebait. People who think this should try getting their information from more than one media source at once-- or from non-media sources. Talk to some of the guys who've been over there. The Iraqis knew we were coming. They had plenty of time to remove their weapons. When our soldiers got there (this is a second-hand story), they found a) a massive underground grid of tunnels connecting every single palace to all the others, and b) completely empty barracks that the guy described as NOT being what you would have people in, but weapons. The exact situation-- the guys in the squad looked around at each other and laughed because they all knew the barracks had been used for weapons that weren't there anymore.
Presumably a soldier would know more about this, considering he's seen it firsthand, than you would. As I see it, I listen to what they tell me about what's going on over there; and not any of the media. Then I look at the major broadcasters and see what lines up-- CNN is doom and gloom, nothing good is happening. Fox News is more in line with what I'm hearing from the soldiers over there, that yes they had WMDs, they don't now, we're doing pretty well in our reconstruction efforts, etc.
That's not even getting into the fact that the Indian newspapers and media were telling us the same thing we presumed when we went in, but for 15 years; that they had tons and tons and tons of weapons.
I'm sorry, but you Bush bashers had me for a time, but there's simply too much greed in the world to believe CNN is really interested in reporting the truth. Face it-- What sells more? Good news? No, all you hear about is murders and death and the latest mega-virus scare. That's what sells.
But hey, it's so much easier to spit out a 1-paragraph bash of the current political happenings. Honestly, I haven't heard any sources or proof that comport with your line of thinking; only the same vague references to failure and bad intel that I heard from the start years ago.
The problem is that these games are marketed to the parents, who play the game little, if at all. A sale's a sale! I just feel bad for the kids whose parents get them a Gamecube for...Finding Nemo, among other retarded games...and not Zelda, Super Smash Brothers, Super Mario Sunshine, F-Zero GX, or pretty much any of the reasons for owning a Gamecube. They think "video game = fun, he won't know the difference" and buy whatever kiddy game they see the commercials for.
It is also useful to consider other statistics such as how much income the wealthiest one percent actually makes. When it comes to actually living life, 50% of hundreds of thousands of dollars to billions of dollars is much different than 50% of ten to twenty grand. It's the difference between "Am I going to be able to buy a boat upon which to stand around and drink alcoholic beverages?" and "Can I afford a place to live and food to eat?". Well said.
The way I see it, the more you benefit from an organized, stable economy, the more you owe to it. People making $30k/year are not benefiting the same way that people receiving $200m retirement packages are. Besides, nobody needs $200m.
We need to tax wealth. When you no longer have to work to make money, but your money works for you, then something is wrong and you need to have some of it taken away until you have to return to working.
100% certainty that 10 people sample-set is too little for a Yes-No experiement. Did they let them play with the equalizer any? Or just leave it at the normal "flat/off"? Shure headphones are known to be lacking in bass response (I've got some E3c's). Bet you most of the people simply heard more bass in the Apples and thought "must be better". Nevermind that the Shures are 23234235235x better, block out other noise (they're earplugs + headphones combined), and when you _do_ turn up the base, you forget any other problems you had with them.
This is more a rant on general stupidity about sound quality than anything else though. Most people probably can't hear the difference.
You have the ability to choose precisely to whom you pay rent. You can avoid really bad landlords, as well as landlords who would use, or you find out are using, your rent moneys in ways abhorrent to you. You have no such choice with the government. Additionally, when you pay rent, you receive in return a service you desire and are actively attempting to obtain (a place to stay.) When you pay property taxes, you receive what the government decides to give you; you have little (or no) control over your end. For instance, it is one thing for a taxpayer to receive the "service" of schooling if there are children in the house; it is entirely another when there aren't. It is one thing to pay a tax for television transponders if you watch broadcast television. It is entirely another if you don't. It is one thing to see religions exempted from property tax, thus increasing what you must pay, if you support religion. But if you don't... And so on.
So there are differences. The ability to do much about it, however, is questionable. The larger the area you live in, the less effective your vote is; likewise, the more you differ from the average citizen, the less powerful your vote is. Representative democracy as practiced in the US doesn't serve the minority except as an afterthought, or when cornered.
Oh you're not receiving a service? How about the stable economy, thanks to being the number one military power, that enables you to take out a loan to pay for the property and house you're living on? You're welcome to go live in Africa and get invaded any time the neighbors feel like it.
Maybe you are right... Maybe I just think I like Comcast on Demand. I watch it and I am entertained and I smile. I guess if I wanted to work harder at it, I could put my glasses on and squint. I own Bluray equipment and disks if I must assure myself how small hd pixels are, and an upconverting dvd player for watching legacy dvds.
Not all On Demand shows I watch are HD, but I enjoy the ability to choose from a large menu of available selections any hour of the day or night.
Interesting. But what about the extra $$$ they charge you for each "ON DEMAND!" show?
I don't see what you are talking about. I have Comcast high speed internet and HD. The on demand quality is great and in fact works well with my Sling Box Pro. "On Demand" is a fantastic service. What is more fun than a DVR? Video on demand.:-) Then your eyes deceive you. I've seen both the BBC source 720p Planet Earth and the on demand PE that Comcast calls, mistakenly, "HD". The difference is night and day.
Here in the US, most of the services I've seen that offer unlimited bandwidth don't have a lower-cost option that offers limited bandwidth. If the market for un-throttled P2P bandwidth grows, perhaps the ISPs should offer tiered service. Personally, I don't mind the pay-as-you-go model. In short, I want a service that combines TV, radio, phone service, and internet access, and I want to only pay a $100/month fee. If this isn't enough to get the on-demand video I want, perhaps I'd consider that as a premium option, but frankly, $100/month seems like it should cover me for the kinds of realistic use that would be done in my house. Also, I sure-as-hell don't want to be locked into AT&T for all those services, and net neutrality in the form of non-discrimination against packets based on origin needs to be enforced. I've seen my friend's On Demand videos; don't go there the compression is even worse than the standard HD video; presumably since they have to stream it individually. The Planet Earth episode he had bought looked horrible; much worse than DVD.
Wow... your logic seems to be: This finding about sodium benzoate disagrees with the previous FDA position. Therefore it must be wrong.
You seem to have completely missed the point of the article, which that this is a new finding about the dangers of this substance. Naturally the previous FDA numbers would be out of date if the new finding is true. And your example of a factor of ten is completely spurious - where did you get the ten figure from?
More thought, less posts. Thank you. Do you seriously have to ask that question? It was given as an example. In case you missed it, 300/10 = 30.
He made us capable of making moral choices, but we're not punished for being able to sin--we're punished for sin.
What sin? She ate a fruit when it was offered to her, by a being that God _allowed_ into the Garden. Yes, she was told not to eat the fruit, but was never told why or what the consequences were, despite God being omniscient enough to know he had created man with curiosity.
Leaving completely ignorant and unsophisticated children alone with the greatest predator in the universe does not seem like a wise parenting decision. I bet if he hadn't let Satan into the garden there would be plenty of people complaining that he didn't give us free will. People just don't like thinking that they are going to be accountable for their actions; that's the only problem.
Lecture attendance registers (and alerting a student if they are about to miss a lecture) Kickass, now all you need to do is get a friend to bring your tag. Purely accidentally too, of course, if anyone were to ask. Then you get the fun of people not getting detected correctly and students having to spend 2 months arguing that they didn't miss all the classes (and so didn't fail the class). The prof is of course on a sabbatical (and didn't really pay attention to who attended anyways) and the TAs slept through the lectures. And since the system can never lie or be wrong the student must be lying.
Student security Such as? Oh no, I'm in a building that isn't my department so I can use the bathroom, better call the cops.
efficient computers/lighting (i.e. computers/lights turn on/off when someone enters/exits room) So the school has never heard of motion detectors I take it? Joy, now I'll need to bring a flashlight with me for all the times this more complex thus error prone detection system fails.
computer account security and log-on convenience. ...unless the tag is embedded in your arm you gain no security benefit unless there is a password as well. Then you gain no convenience benefit. Not to mention that you'd need a detector next to each computer as a tracking system (that is error prone likely) would be far from "Secure." Couldn't have said it better myself. Fuck that shit. No really. I'm paying $30k/year I'm going to go to lecture if I want and skip if I want. If your class is worth going to then you shouldn't need attendance grades. Besides, the point is that they learn the material. If I can learn the material fine without your help, why do I have to waste time in class for a stupid check off in your gradebook? The serious teachers here don't bother with that-- they trust us to make the right decision. For the most part we do. The ones that don't fail out.
Obama said something I loved when he spoke to us at Georgia Tech: "...and I will to respect the constitution, which is a lot more than we can say for the current administration..."
That right there sold me on him (the context of the quote was discussion about our civil liberties).
He also mentioned he wants to make it possible for first-generation college students to get student loans at non-predatory interest rates, preferably straight from the government if I recall correctly (when I signed up with Fanny Mae to get a quote for what kind of loans they'd give me without a cosigner [mom is in college now herself and doesn't have the $18k/year wage to be eligable to cosign my loan; rest of family can't or won't for various reasons] they wanted to give me a 13.42% loan. For the kind of money tech costs, that's financial suicide.).
I haven't looked into how he's voted on these issues so far, so all this could have just been a wishy washy speech formulated to garner approval from the target crowd (students at a school that costs $30k/year out of state to attend). For now I'm planning on registering democratic so I can vote for him in the primaries. He and that Ron Paul guy both seem to be very in touch with the _important_ issues our country is facing-- erosion of our liberties that our founding fathers left Europe over and paid for with blood, and the failing school system (both public school and how to go about paying for the skyrocketing university costs).
And let's face it, there are a lot of reports of Muslims in the UK becoming increasingly radicalized, because they are learning hatred and distorted history in the mosques. The Brits are cutting their own throats
Or at least thay would be if it were true.
Here's a hint for you left-ponders -- the Daily Mail is the UK equivalent of Fox: a racist rag which will print anything which puts muslims, women, gays, trades-unionists or the working class in a bad light. Check snopes before posting a story from them. No, wrapping your post to 80 characters per line as if you were posting from links2 in a terminal will not get you free mod points.
This is a sneaky marketing tactic they're using. Everybody feels good about being able to make copies of their disc, but they still maintain control with the DMCA over how we can use those discs. They maintain control by telling us we're buying a license to use the movie we buy in certain ways-- "in the blu-ray player for this disc, but if you want to copy it to your computer, you have to pay extra". Not because there's any extra cost in producing the disc that allows you to copy the data to your harddrive, but simply because they can get away with charging more.
This DMCA crap is copyright abuse. There's a reason copyright wasn't allowed this power-- it was supposed to control who could distribute the product, not how you could use it.
All kids involved in the video taping the teacher are morons. I remember when it was common sense not to do something so blatantly stupid and self-incriminating while in school. What ever happened to being able to sit for 45 minutes without acting like a jackass? Schools stopped giving me things that challenged me?
The way it's looking so far, it basically checks if that social security number is valid or if that person's visa/green card/whatever is still valid.
By requiring the employers to use it for all their employees it becomes impossible for the government to not know exactly who is illegally being employed and where they are. Then all they have to do is send the employer a notice that xxyy employee is no longer a Legal US citizen.
Look at it from the other side-- think of all the businessmen who will be afraid of lawsuits and legal repercussions for their business if the gov't looked their direction (this would be an easy way for the gov't to get some extra cash on the side-- fine employers of illegal immigrants). If somebody applies for a job and is turned down while the employer is currently paying illegals you could sue them.
I see this as nothing but a good thing for all of us-- keep in mind government is government and sucks at doing just about everything (you should talk to the people my mother worked with in the county gov't...complete idiots...). Them building a database that checks for valid green card/social security number info of employees, and shoots out an email to employers employing illegals? Easy hat. This system, if I understand it correctly, is for the gov't to make sure employers are employing legal citizens. I don't see employers being able to view your work history through this tool (and it's not like you don't already have to tell them when you apply). Believing the gov't is capable of building such a database (when they can't even build a national database of state criminals) takes a much higher level of faith in conspiracy theories than I find rational (or even close to rational). Besides, at 10% (30 million illegal Mexicans in the US right now) and counting, such a population would be a (poor, unwealthy) political force our politicians would want to keep tabs on and under control. I see this as a concern to them that is much larger than us legal folk.
As for the "being good for us" part-- when the government fines employers for employing illegals, this gives the employers less incentive to employ them, which increases our market power in our ability to command a fair salary. There's no reason our children shouldn't be able to work for more than minimum wage; except that they can't do that now because of the competing illegals. When I worked at McD 2 years ago I was paid $5.50/h. Worked there for a year, never showed up late, always did what was asked, and the store manager wouldn't give me a raise (some of you may say "you have to earn your raise"--> no, if you're doing what's asked of you then you need to get the 5% inflation raise regardless, more because you've been dedicated to that company for a year. Not getting that is your employer _taking_ money from you. More than 5%+delta, yes, you need to earn that). But why should he give me the raise? I quit, and he just hired the next person (for $5.50) that applied, because that person knew they couldn't ask for more. If half the people McD (and the rest of the fast food industry) employed weren't illegals, all us legal workers could ask for what we're really worth. Let me tell you, this $16/hour Co-op I have is 1234134x easier than working at McD was. But it pays 3x more. It pays 2x what my construction job paid.
So what now? I'm not even done with my second year of schooling and I've already accumulated more than $35,000 in student loan debt. Working 25h/week (40 during summer) @$5.50/h starting when you turn 16 in high school gets you to ~$15000 for schooling in those two years you work. That's assuming you save all of it, that you're not paying for a car or gas or insurance to get you to your job. Guess how much one year expected out-of-state tuition + food + housing costs at Georgia Tech? $29,532. Yes, you can get scholarships, but not unless you have a 3+ GPA (you gotta be pretty smart here to have that from the get go); the freshman
I'd like to point out that corn produces 400 gallons of ethanol per acre, while switch grass produces 2300 gallons per acre (and that yield will increase as cellulose production methods are improved.) It's time we stop subsidizing specific crop farming, and look at farming as a whole. Why don't we just forgo the whole farming deal and get on the nuclear power track. Throw a few billion ITER's way to expedite production and then use the rest to build a fusion power plant. Then spend a few hundred million in bringing MIT's new capacitors (carbon nanotubes to increase surface area--> charge held) that can hold up to 13x what a Lithium Ion battery can (in the same volume) to the auto market and kill off the ICE and fossil fuels and pollution.
But in reality if someone got on that track our gas companies would just lower prices until gas is cheap enough that people stop funding those projects.
The software patent issue needs to be driven to the front of 2008 election politics. Good luck with that. The average voter thinks that the Internet is the little blue 'e' icon on their desktop, and that Windows is a type of computer (the other type of computer is a Mac). They don't even know about FOSS or could scarcely give a hoot how it's affected by Microsoft, or how software patents affect innovation in general.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I think this is a great evil and I want it to get lots of attention, but even I think there are more pressing issues in the world right now. As a side not, I think it's interesting that this is the very reason our country was set to run as a Democratic Republic-- the founding fathers knew that the average populace wouldn't know enough about the issues that mattered to realize the impact their resolution (for better or worse) would have. It's just too bad that the system isn't. Since they have to be elected, they cater to what will get them elected, which is NOT the issues that matter. But if we remove their concern with getting re-elected, we have ourselves a dictatorship.
What form of government is there that will solve these problems?
Slashdot Mirror
We need some system to keep the discussion fair to both sides.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death to defend your right to say it" --Thomas Jefferson.
But if wikipedia had a reputation system ( other than just being banned or allowed ), they might automate contributions from reputable authors ( and check on the actual contributions later), while authors who are less reputable may have their contributions queued for review before they are published.
Furthermore, a casual user would be able to have a more savvy understanding of the reputability of any article or section of an article if it is tagged with the reputation of its' author.
Reputable authors might be able to also tag the contributions of others, such that the text or information itself gets a reputation. That would help users make a judgement about the validity of information on Wikipedia.
Instead of pushing the mechanics of the actual editing of articles behind the scenes, and just presenting a 'final' article to the end-user, let's formalize the process and enfranchise users into the process of judging the validity of articles. As usual, we should still have the political and religious bias problems to deal with in such a system.
No they do not.
You can do all that in MS Word too. So why does your husband use LaTeX?
LaTeX won't stop you from writing papers that way. If you don't need things like \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-\frac{a}{b}}}, then don't use those macros.
Neither does he. You don't need LaTeX to write mathematics. The field got along quite well for a rather long time before LaTeX came to be. SHHHHHHhhhh!!! She's a girl! And she's on slashdot! That means, by default, she's right!
a) a massive underground grid of tunnels connecting every single palace to all the others, and
b) completely empty barracks that the guy described as NOT being what you would have people in, but weapons. The exact situation-- the guys in the squad looked around at each other and laughed because they all knew the barracks had been used for weapons that weren't there anymore.
Presumably a soldier would know more about this, considering he's seen it firsthand, than you would. As I see it, I listen to what they tell me about what's going on over there; and not any of the media. Then I look at the major broadcasters and see what lines up-- CNN is doom and gloom, nothing good is happening. Fox News is more in line with what I'm hearing from the soldiers over there, that yes they had WMDs, they don't now, we're doing pretty well in our reconstruction efforts, etc.
That's not even getting into the fact that the Indian newspapers and media were telling us the same thing we presumed when we went in, but for 15 years; that they had tons and tons and tons of weapons.
I'm sorry, but you Bush bashers had me for a time, but there's simply too much greed in the world to believe CNN is really interested in reporting the truth. Face it-- What sells more? Good news? No, all you hear about is murders and death and the latest mega-virus scare. That's what sells.
But hey, it's so much easier to spit out a 1-paragraph bash of the current political happenings. Honestly, I haven't heard any sources or proof that comport with your line of thinking; only the same vague references to failure and bad intel that I heard from the start years ago.
It is also useful to consider other statistics such as how much income the wealthiest one percent actually makes. When it comes to actually living life, 50% of hundreds of thousands of dollars to billions of dollars is much different than 50% of ten to twenty grand. It's the difference between "Am I going to be able to buy a boat upon which to stand around and drink alcoholic beverages?" and "Can I afford a place to live and food to eat?". Well said.
The way I see it, the more you benefit from an organized, stable economy, the more you owe to it. People making $30k/year are not benefiting the same way that people receiving $200m retirement packages are. Besides, nobody needs $200m.
We need to tax wealth. When you no longer have to work to make money, but your money works for you, then something is wrong and you need to have some of it taken away until you have to return to working.
Not a big deal in my opinion...
What is a big deal? They want my address, my phone number, my name, etc...
6/10 Picked High Bit Rate with Shure Headphones
100% certainty that 10 people sample-set is too little for a Yes-No experiement. Did they let them play with the equalizer any? Or just leave it at the normal "flat/off"? Shure headphones are known to be lacking in bass response (I've got some E3c's). Bet you most of the people simply heard more bass in the Apples and thought "must be better". Nevermind that the Shures are 23234235235x better, block out other noise (they're earplugs + headphones combined), and when you _do_ turn up the base, you forget any other problems you had with them.
This is more a rant on general stupidity about sound quality than anything else though. Most people probably can't hear the difference.
You have the ability to choose precisely to whom you pay rent. You can avoid really bad landlords, as well as landlords who would use, or you find out are using, your rent moneys in ways abhorrent to you. You have no such choice with the government. Additionally, when you pay rent, you receive in return a service you desire and are actively attempting to obtain (a place to stay.) When you pay property taxes, you receive what the government decides to give you; you have little (or no) control over your end. For instance, it is one thing for a taxpayer to receive the "service" of schooling if there are children in the house; it is entirely another when there aren't. It is one thing to pay a tax for television transponders if you watch broadcast television. It is entirely another if you don't. It is one thing to see religions exempted from property tax, thus increasing what you must pay, if you support religion. But if you don't... And so on.
Oh you're not receiving a service? How about the stable economy, thanks to being the number one military power, that enables you to take out a loan to pay for the property and house you're living on? You're welcome to go live in Africa and get invaded any time the neighbors feel like it.So there are differences. The ability to do much about it, however, is questionable. The larger the area you live in, the less effective your vote is; likewise, the more you differ from the average citizen, the less powerful your vote is. Representative democracy as practiced in the US doesn't serve the minority except as an afterthought, or when cornered.
Not all On Demand shows I watch are HD, but I enjoy the ability to choose from a large menu of available selections any hour of the day or night.
Interesting. But what about the extra $$$ they charge you for each "ON DEMAND!" show?You seem to have completely missed the point of the article, which that this is a new finding about the dangers of this substance. Naturally the previous FDA numbers would be out of date if the new finding is true. And your example of a factor of ten is completely spurious - where did you get the ten figure from?
More thought, less posts. Thank you. Do you seriously have to ask that question? It was given as an example. In case you missed it, 300/10 = 30.
Your other point was fine though.
What sin? She ate a fruit when it was offered to her, by a being that God _allowed_ into the Garden. Yes, she was told not to eat the fruit, but was never told why or what the consequences were, despite God being omniscient enough to know he had created man with curiosity.
Leaving completely ignorant and unsophisticated children alone with the greatest predator in the universe does not seem like a wise parenting decision. I bet if he hadn't let Satan into the garden there would be plenty of people complaining that he didn't give us free will. People just don't like thinking that they are going to be accountable for their actions; that's the only problem.
No need for any of that.
Obama said something I loved when he spoke to us at Georgia Tech: "...and I will to respect the constitution, which is a lot more than we can say for the current administration..."
That right there sold me on him (the context of the quote was discussion about our civil liberties).
He also mentioned he wants to make it possible for first-generation college students to get student loans at non-predatory interest rates, preferably straight from the government if I recall correctly (when I signed up with Fanny Mae to get a quote for what kind of loans they'd give me without a cosigner [mom is in college now herself and doesn't have the $18k/year wage to be eligable to cosign my loan; rest of family can't or won't for various reasons] they wanted to give me a 13.42% loan. For the kind of money tech costs, that's financial suicide.).
I haven't looked into how he's voted on these issues so far, so all this could have just been a wishy washy speech formulated to garner approval from the target crowd (students at a school that costs $30k/year out of state to attend). For now I'm planning on registering democratic so I can vote for him in the primaries. He and that Ron Paul guy both seem to be very in touch with the _important_ issues our country is facing-- erosion of our liberties that our founding fathers left Europe over and paid for with blood, and the failing school system (both public school and how to go about paying for the skyrocketing university costs).
Or at least thay would be if it were true.
Here's a hint for you left-ponders -- the Daily Mail is the UK
equivalent of Fox: a racist rag which will print anything which puts
muslims, women, gays, trades-unionists or the working class in a
bad light. Check snopes before posting a story from them. No, wrapping your post to 80 characters per line as if you were posting from links2 in a terminal will not get you free mod points.
This is a sneaky marketing tactic they're using. Everybody feels good about being able to make copies of their disc, but they still maintain control with the DMCA over how we can use those discs. They maintain control by telling us we're buying a license to use the movie we buy in certain ways-- "in the blu-ray player for this disc, but if you want to copy it to your computer, you have to pay extra". Not because there's any extra cost in producing the disc that allows you to copy the data to your harddrive, but simply because they can get away with charging more.
This DMCA crap is copyright abuse. There's a reason copyright wasn't allowed this power-- it was supposed to control who could distribute the product, not how you could use it.
Not if we send in Master Chief to take care of him.
Funny, I thought pirates were the ones that raided. So the RIAA should go after themselves?/0
The way it's looking so far, it basically checks if that social security number is valid or if that person's visa/green card/whatever is still valid.
By requiring the employers to use it for all their employees it becomes impossible for the government to not know exactly who is illegally being employed and where they are. Then all they have to do is send the employer a notice that xxyy employee is no longer a Legal US citizen.
Look at it from the other side-- think of all the businessmen who will be afraid of lawsuits and legal repercussions for their business if the gov't looked their direction (this would be an easy way for the gov't to get some extra cash on the side-- fine employers of illegal immigrants). If somebody applies for a job and is turned down while the employer is currently paying illegals you could sue them.
I see this as nothing but a good thing for all of us-- keep in mind government is government and sucks at doing just about everything (you should talk to the people my mother worked with in the county gov't...complete idiots...). Them building a database that checks for valid green card/social security number info of employees, and shoots out an email to employers employing illegals? Easy hat. This system, if I understand it correctly, is for the gov't to make sure employers are employing legal citizens. I don't see employers being able to view your work history through this tool (and it's not like you don't already have to tell them when you apply). Believing the gov't is capable of building such a database (when they can't even build a national database of state criminals) takes a much higher level of faith in conspiracy theories than I find rational (or even close to rational). Besides, at 10% (30 million illegal Mexicans in the US right now) and counting, such a population would be a (poor, unwealthy) political force our politicians would want to keep tabs on and under control. I see this as a concern to them that is much larger than us legal folk.
As for the "being good for us" part-- when the government fines employers for employing illegals, this gives the employers less incentive to employ them, which increases our market power in our ability to command a fair salary. There's no reason our children shouldn't be able to work for more than minimum wage; except that they can't do that now because of the competing illegals. When I worked at McD 2 years ago I was paid $5.50/h. Worked there for a year, never showed up late, always did what was asked, and the store manager wouldn't give me a raise (some of you may say "you have to earn your raise"--> no, if you're doing what's asked of you then you need to get the 5% inflation raise regardless, more because you've been dedicated to that company for a year. Not getting that is your employer _taking_ money from you. More than 5%+delta, yes, you need to earn that). But why should he give me the raise? I quit, and he just hired the next person (for $5.50) that applied, because that person knew they couldn't ask for more. If half the people McD (and the rest of the fast food industry) employed weren't illegals, all us legal workers could ask for what we're really worth. Let me tell you, this $16/hour Co-op I have is 1234134x easier than working at McD was. But it pays 3x more. It pays 2x what my construction job paid.
So what now? I'm not even done with my second year of schooling and I've already accumulated more than $35,000 in student loan debt. Working 25h/week (40 during summer) @$5.50/h starting when you turn 16 in high school gets you to ~$15000 for schooling in those two years you work. That's assuming you save all of it, that you're not paying for a car or gas or insurance to get you to your job. Guess how much one year expected out-of-state tuition + food + housing costs at Georgia Tech? $29,532. Yes, you can get scholarships, but not unless you have a 3+ GPA (you gotta be pretty smart here to have that from the get go); the freshman
But in reality if someone got on that track our gas companies would just lower prices until gas is cheap enough that people stop funding those projects.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I think this is a great evil and I want it to get lots of attention, but even I think there are more pressing issues in the world right now. As a side not, I think it's interesting that this is the very reason our country was set to run as a Democratic Republic-- the founding fathers knew that the average populace wouldn't know enough about the issues that mattered to realize the impact their resolution (for better or worse) would have. It's just too bad that the system isn't. Since they have to be elected, they cater to what will get them elected, which is NOT the issues that matter. But if we remove their concern with getting re-elected, we have ourselves a dictatorship.
What form of government is there that will solve these problems?