Bravo sir. There was a time in our Republic's history that the State Department and War Department were required to explain their actions and budget to the people and the several states. The people elected the Representatives and the states, jealous of their right to govern, elected Senators.
But today we have a Department of Defense and direct election of Senators. No one serves the interests of the local governments, but instead all elected officials have exclusively the short term interests of their constituents in mind. There is no concern for preserving the long term interests of the Republic, but rather voting the people demand bread and circuses. (Long term unemployment benefits?)
The impotent fury, bordering on paroxysm, of the United States' response to the released cables is astounding and concerning. It has become evident that in the 21st century, the people serve the government.
You make an interesting point about the voting of bread and circuses by our government.
Here is what de Toqueville said would be the end of our republic:
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
. It's a fitting description of what is going on with increasing frequency and scope in our government for a long time. The Romans also fell into the same trap.
I think you should apply that to yourself as well. Time to give back the car and the house, though, since you didn't have the cash on hand to buy it outright...
Ohhh.... So clever. Let's see just how clever you really are.
My wife and I have a total debt of less than 25% of our yearly income(ability to create wealth).
Now let's look at the US debt load.
The published debt of the US is 89%($13 trillion) of its GDP($14+ trillion). However, that is only a drop in the bucket compared to our real debt. The US government has unfunded liabilities, according to the Dallas Federal Reserve, of more than $104 trillion. Other experts put that number at approximately $120 trillion. So, what's our real debt? Somewhere between $118 and $133 trillion. That is a debt that is 8-9 times larger, depending on whose numbers you use, than all the wealth produced in the US in one year.
To put these numbers in perspective, the Federal Reserve says that the total net worth of all US citizens is $50 trillion. That means if we sold all private property in the US we couldn't even pay off half of our debt. We would still owe in the range of $68-$83 trillion.
I see this argument all over the place. It sounds really good too. The problem is it's basically impossible to guarantee no innocent person ever gets punished and just as impossible to guarantee that no guilty person goes unpunished. Like most things in life this is a trade off between the ideal and reality, a process that works in a timely fashion and a process that is so drawn out that no one gets justice.
Until we have a world full of perfect people and perfect processes this problem will exist. As perfect people and processes have never existed before in human history, and I see no evidence of the human race moving towards perfection, then this is just the way life is, and always will be. It's sad but true.
I think both the Senate and the House each need one that's tied to a balanced budget. Once they start to borrow money, or pass unfunded legislation, it will take 102 Senators, or 500 Representatives, depending on which body of Congress is wanting to spend more money than we have.
No. . Being reasonable is doing the right thing the first time because it's the right thing to do. Assange didn't do that.
Let's say I beat my wife and only stop beating her because I got thrown in jail for beating her. Am I now a good guy because I stopped beating my wife to avoid further punishment and because everyone is now scrutinizing my behavior? Have I changed my stripes, or have I modified my behavior because of all the negative feedback? That's what Assange has done.
Really??? Go read Dilbert as he is the one that defined a PHB.
Once you've done that tell me how often you reverse the decisions your boss makes. You know, walk up to him and tell him how he's wrong and how nobody is going to follow his directions. If you tell me you actually do that, and not get fired, I'll know you're a liar.
So, you admit it's a PHB making the decision based on a sales pitch from an outside vendor, but insist it's the fault of the IT team. I find your logic less than persuasive. Since when did a PHB ever listen to the employees under him? Isn't that impossible by the definition of a PHB?
This assumes that everyone agrees as to what the "right thing" is.
I'm for free speech and take my rights under the constitution very seriously, but I also think WikiLeaks has stepped over the line that divides responsible and irresponsible behavior. This latest leak has reduced the ability of nations to communicate freely, and reduced communications between nations is not a good thing. The less likely nations are to communicate, the more likely they are to go to war among themselves. That's the unintended consequences of Wikileaks behavior, and it's a very serious side effect. It shows quite clearly that Wikileaks and Assange are reckless and dangerous.
I'd say your thinking is pretty much bass ackwards.
It's company policy, not IT policy, that keeps most organizations dependent on IE6. This stems from the company not wanting to spend the money to rewrite the apps, not IT insisting that they continue using IE6. What geek/IT guy do you know that insists on using IE6 at home, or anywhere else? Every IT guy I know likes using modern software.
The highly visible parts of net neutrality such as those discussed ad nauseam here on/. daily I have a no problem with at all. Why I oppose it is because the FCC wants to include a revival of the Fairness Doctrine as part and parcel of their net neutrality policy. Why do I oppose something that has such a positive sounding name? Because of what it actually results in when put into practice. It results in the suppression of free speech, which is nothing other than another attack on our constitutional rights as citizens.
I won't write out all my reasoning, but will give you a link to a page that spells out my reasons much more clearly than I could.
I will say this. I'm not willing to sacrifice my constitutional rights for monetary advantage. The current administration has already taken away our right to life--the President can have any one of us assassinated with no due process and all he needs to do is make an unsupported accusation. No evidence is needed. The current administration has also taken away much of our pursuit of happiness because the FTC can shut down any business, at any time, for any reason, with no explanation and never be held accountable in any way as it can do this without having to release any information at all. All FOIA requests are denied as a matter of law, and the business owner/s is/are placed under gag orders. They cannot speak publicly about what happened. This allows the government to take away your means of supporting yourself at any time, for any reason, without you being able to say boo about it. Now comes this attack on free speech by the same administration. This administration has shown itself willing to destroy all of the inalienable rights in our Declaration of Independence(DoI). This administration is attacking the very foundations of our country.
Obama ran on a platform of change. Well, what we are changing into is something much less than what we have been. What principles, what ideas could be greater than those expressed in our DoI and the specifics of those ideas spelled out in our Constitution? Read the following and tell me what can be a greater foundation for liberty than what we already have? I would encourage you to read the DoI in its entirety, which includes the reasons we, as a people, revolted, for I am only quoting the first couple of paragraphs. Look at what we revolted against, and look at what we are changing into. Look for similarities between then and now. We need to take our country back for what we were given by our founding fathers is not what we have now.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn
Why should he mention the patent? The context of the entire article and interview was in the context of his already having been granted a patent. The interviewer obviously knew about it, so why would the kid think of showing off the patent itself to the interviewer unless the interviewer asked to see it? They did show the interviewer the product as there was a picture of it with the article.
Also, what's with your reading your thoughts into his statement. And, his statement was actually, wow, I'm going to make a lot of money, not I"m going to be rich. What's a "lot of money" to an 8 year old? Is it anything like what you consider to be a "lot of money"? I doubt it.
With the kid being very aware of what his dad does for a living, and the school class on inventors he's taken, it's not an unexpected logical leap for him to think he will make money too. He most likely hears how inventors make money on their inventions on a daily basis. Unless he's completely stupid he's going to associate that same reward with his invention.
I can't think of a single adult I've ever known who wouldn't have been excited about making a lot of money. That includes some very spiritual people whose goals and life weren't wrapped up in materialism. I'd be pretty excited about a windfall too, and I've never made money my #1 priority.
In fact, I've been mocked, and my parents and siblings have always thought there was something wrong with me, because I have quite a few priorities above making money or becoming rich. Doesn't mean I wouldn't get excited over a windfall if it came my way, but it's not anywhere near my first priority in life. I've given the last $20 I had to my name to someone I thought needed it more than I did, and I've done it more than once. I've also come close to getting fired a few times because I knew the cost of the repair for the retired person's furnace/AC/appliance I was working on couldn't afford me or the parts I installed. Instead of coming back from what should have been a $300 service call I came back with $50 or so out of my own pocket and the owner wasn't pleased.
So, because I would get excited about a windfall and think about what I could get with it, does that cause you to assume I'm a materialistic money grubber too, as that's your assumption about this kid?
Last but not least, just how introspective are most kids? Do they think deeply about their own motives? Do most of them even understand their own motives? Do kids often answer in a way that they think someone wants to hear? Have they thought out their own value system by age 8?
You may be correct, but he does have a dad that knows how to create wealth from ideas. It's his profession, he's good enough at it to have his own business, and that raises the odds for his son to make money from his idea by a significant amount. An 8 year old without a father who understands how to monetize patents has a far greater chance of failing to make money. I'd say this kid has odds in his favor that he'll make money that are many times greater than the average kid.
I've known a few people who invented things and they didn't create the invention with money in mind. However, when it became clear that the invention would have a substantial monetary reward they didn't ignore that fact nor fail to plan how they would/could spend the money. Every one of them had plans to spend a part of that windfall on something they wanted, not needed. That a kid would think of fulfilling his dreams of getting sporting goods so he could play his favorite sport/s is just as proper for his age as is an adult looking to use some of the money to fulfill their dreams.
It looks to me as if the kid hasn't been given everything he wants, you know, spoiled. If he was, he would already have that gear as his parents aren't poor.
Your assumption that this kid created his invention with only money in mind is quite a stretch. I'd say it's a pretty arrogant assumption too, as neither the kid, nor anyone else, has said what his motivation was other than his dad complaining about the mess of wiring on the counter. Maybe his whole motivation was to fulfill a need his dad had talked about. I don't know what it was, and neither do you. I'm just willing to give the kid a break and you're willing to attack his character with no evidence to support your position.
The kid talking about what he wants to do the money is not the same thing as his motivation for the idea itself. Liking the monetary fruits of an idea, and the motivation for the idea are not the same thing. Saying they must be the same is a logical fallacy.
Very good. You just want to use the fruits of everyone else's monetary filth. Wow. What a strong level of integrity and strict adherence to your philosophy of life. You're a paragon of virtue, without a doubt. I'm really impressed....
But, I should think that when you start using the irony of me using a Red Skelton character-inspired username you should look first at the yellow stripe running down your back starting at your forehead and ending at your butt, as clearly exists from your choice of the username coward, and not only that, but an anonymous coward on top of that....;)
Oh, for Pete's sake. Think about this for a minute.
Money has never been my first priority in life. My brother? It's always been his first priority in life and I despise the guy as he's an insufferable prick and as cruel a human being as I know of because of money being his first priority. He's so tight he squeaks when he walks, and doing something for someone else is always at the very bottom of his list of priorities. My old man was a prick too, but at least he helped other people when he had the money, and my brother hated him for helping others.
That being said, if I had received a patent on an invention of mine, my first response wouldn't have been another invention, but how I could put the proceeds coming from this invention to work for me. You know, pay off bills, investments I could make so the money would work for me, buy some land, etc.... If the rewards were big enough to do more than that I'd think about what I could do for others with it but I have needs too and if I don't consider my own needs first I'll never really help anyone else because I'm not being responsible.. But, condemning an 8 year old kid for having dreams of things that 8 year old's like is just stupid and mean-spirited, as you're condemning a child for not being mature.
Also, the question asked, and the answer given, could very well not be what the kid does with his money. All he did was answer the question posed to him, and he already may have changed his mind. He isn't going to get an immediate return on his money, and it sounds as if his parents are responsible people. He will have a chance to rethink his priorities before he gets any money back on his invention, and the experience of having to deal with delayed gratification may well teach him something. Even if he does buy a few hundred dollars worth of sports equipment what's that to the possible income from his invention? Probably only a very small part, and I'll bet you that you've spent more on entertainment in your lifetime than this kid has stated would be his first purchases. Plus, you're much older than he is, so what's your excuse for blowing money on entertainment?
A lot of the defense of large scale DDoS attacks is done at the router level. You want to drop as many malicious packets as you can before they hit anything to do with your site or your network, and your border router is the first line of defense. Even if you're using a hosted server you can ask your provider to help stop the attack at the border of their network, as it's as much in their interest to stop the attack as it is in yours.
It's a legal principle. You can't complain about someone else doing the same thing you're doing. It's called unclean hands and is a legitimate defense.
I've been around/. for a few years. I read for a long time before I registered. I've never seen anyone crying jingoism before, from either side of the pond, over a company getting fined. Yeah, there were people saying the EU was "out to get" MS, but that still isn't jingoism. Look up the definition of jingoism.
Myself, I thought MS was getting its just desserts, that someone outside their sphere of control/influence was slapping their hands a little bit and so did most people. The only ones crying foul were the MS paid trolls and completely dedicated fanboys.
This is a raft of crap written by someone who wants things their own way 100% of the time. I seem to remember the EU fining American companies several billion dollars.
Should American's complain that all those EU fines were just EU jingoism?
To tell the truth I don't see any jingoism going on at all, in either case, as this doesn't fit the description of jingoism. Jingoism is feverish excitement for a nation, not a company, unless you're trying to say that SAP == Germany, and that Oracle == US. I can't see how that is even close to being logical thinking, nor have I ever met anyone dumb enough to think that way. In fact, I don't know of anyone who is familiar with how Oracle and SAP do business who really likes either one of them. People may invest in either company in hopes of getting a return on their investment, but actually like either company? That's a horse of another color.
What's the color of my skin have to do with anything? Do you have gray eyes? Do you have black or brown hair? Those things are as relevant to this discussion as the color of my skin.
It seems to me I hear charges of racism over anything and everything now. And we see government making decisions over who they will prosecute based on race alone. Hmmm.... Isn't making decisions like that both illegal and morally wrong? Looks to me like there are bigots in both law enforcement and government now too. We even have people advocating the killing of babies based on nothing more than the color of their skin. That calls to mind Germany of the 1930's and 40's where babies could be legally killed based on their race alone. And you're saying things are better today?
I guess it must be a real shocker to some people that human nature hasn't changed. That bigots have always existed, and always will, seems to be a little-known, or greatly-ignored, fact. Add to that the greater intrusiveness of government, and laws protecting government employees from being held accountable by society, and today's bigot working for the government has more power than ever. The situation is worse, not better.
Laws will never shape human nature. Look around you. Society, as a whole, has far worse morals today than it did 50-60 years ago. At the turn of the 20th century men still did business on a handshake, and anyone who violated that trust became an outcast in their community. Compare that to today when you have to be very suspicious of contracts and the more corrupt a businessman is, Bill Gates for example, the more he is admired by society-at-large. The love of money seems to rule almost our entire society, and anytime that happens to a society you can be sure it will decline sharply....
No, it isn't just a study. It's one more manifestation of how intrusive society is any more and how little you do that isn't mined for information about you and used against you whether it be government or big business using the data to manipulate you.
These types of "studies" weren't even considered 40 or 50 years ago even though they could have been done then too. Your phone calls couldn't be monitored by anyone back then without a warrant. Your president couldn't order your assassination, or that you, a US citizen, could be held without due process, on nothing more than an unsubstantiated accusation of terrorism back then either. The government couldn't come in and take over your business on any pretense and order you not to talk about it while refusing to release any information about the situation and denying you the right to your day in court. Today that is all possible under current law.
Back then a kid could fly the US flag on his bike and not be told to either stop flying the US flag on Veterans's Day or he'd get suspended from school. If you had a piece of candy at school it wasn't taken away from you and you weren't punished. What you ate was your own business. Government couldn't have cared less. If you thanked God for your food before you ate in the school lunch room you weren't punished by the public school authorities. It was considered to be your own business what you believed, not the government's business. You know, that little clause in the Constitution that says, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof... , was actually understood and followed by all three branches of government.
The Constitution and Declaration of Independence were taught, and admired by the vast majority of us back then. We understood that they are the foundation of our libery. We even said the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Most of us loved our country back then. We didn't do it ignorantly either. We recognized even then that our country has been less-than-perfect and did not like our country's failures, but we also knew we could never find a better place to live than right here in the US.
After watching government become more and more intrusive, give big business more power by not enforcing the law, and violate our Constitution again and again as it increased its size and scope it's easy to see the big picture and understand what these seemingly unrelated events are doing to our freedoms and our liberty.
Business has no more right to invade our privacy than government. Business has no more right to track all our activities than government does. Both are engaging in behavior that the founding fathers would not have allowed to happen, and that we, as American citizens should hot have allowed to happen either.
We the people need to take our country back, and stop the madness.
"I've been let walk after burning rubber for half a city block and reaching close to 80mp in a 25mph zone right in front of sheriff's deputy I didn't see. He asked me what happened and I explained it to him: I was showing for a couple of very good looking young women and that it was a first for me to do that in town as my hotrodding and racing was done out of town. My honesty got me a warning instead of a ticket and some time in jail."
So you're whining that you can't drive wrecklessly down a street and possibly kill people. You're the reason why we can't have nice things.
Sorry, but that's the dumbest response I've seen in a while. How you managed to take that from my post is beyond me.
Government wasn't out to punish every infraction. They were out to teach if they thought you were capable of learning. They were human and recognized that they themselves made mistakes. They wouldn't let you get by with making the same mistakes multiple times, but a one-time infraction wasn't enough to always severely punish you.
Funny how back then it was much easier to get ahead, in spite of how you claim I'm the reason you can't have nice things. Where you drew that logical fallacy from is beyond me. It's some of the worst logic I've ever seen. Funny how you think humanity in a less intrusive government led to a bad economy. The reality is just the opposite. Big brother watching you and wanting to control every aspect of your life is the reason our country is going broke.
You are now so used to being spied on that you can't even comprehend what the world was like without it.
It was a much friendlier and relaxed place to live. Nobody had the right to sift through your life just to see what they could sell you and the government wasn't into monitoring every move you made and jailing you for the least offense. That was a society that had much more freedom.
I can remember when getting caught lighting up your tires wasn't an automatic reckless driving ticket and a several hundred dollar fine as well as a large increase in your insurance rates. Cops were much more human and forgiving for they remembered what it was like to be young and dumb and weren't out to disrupt your life for your first mistake. Most of them, as long as you didn't try to lie to them, would let you go with a warning even if they caught you making a pretty serious mistake. I've been let walk after burning rubber for half a city block and reaching close to 80mp in a 25mph zone right in front of sheriff's deputy I didn't see. He asked me what happened and I explained it to him: I was showing for a couple of very good looking young women and that it was a first for me to do that in town as my hotrodding and racing was done out of town. My honesty got me a warning instead of a ticket and some time in jail. Try that today and see what happens to you.
You had the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them without being severely punished. If you didn't learn, well, that was your problem and you could expect to have the book thrown at you the second time. During high school most of us used to carry pocket knives and a lot of us had guns in the trunks of our cars because we liked to go plinking after school. I remember pranks such as wiring the urinal drain in the faculty men's bathroom to a Model T coil not getting anyone kicked out of school, and intentional small explosions in chemistry class going unpunished. I also knew a guy who blew a foot deep hole in the football field with a home made pipe bomb who got nothing more than a 2 day suspension. He wasn't hauled off to jail and prosecuted for terrorism. In fact the issue never was reported to the police and this was done inside city limits.
Today's young people don't know what liberty is as we live in a society in which we are watched 24/7 and our liberties are fast disappearing. Not much individual freedom is left even when compared to eras such as the 60's and 70's, let alone the 1800's, but those of you who didn't live in those decades, and aren't students of American history, will never understand what has been lost. It's a paradigm you can't grasp because you've never experienced it.
What if everyone did exactly what I did? How long would you stay in business?
What if I sell ice and somebody invents the fridge?
What if I sell steam machines and somebody invents internal combustion engine?
What if I sell books and somebody invents the e-book (that is so easy to copy)?
What if I sell ham and somebody invents a machine that produces ham at no cost?
Can I ask to imprison someone?
So, you are now trying to make investing in competing technologies the moral equivalent of taking possession of a product someone sells, without their permission and without paying them for it.
The arguments keep on getting weaker and weaker for a reason. You're trying to defend something that isn't morally defensible.
The original copyright law was a good idea, and the right amount of time. Today's copyright laws have been corrupted with the extension of time copyright covers content, but copyright itself is necessary if content creation is to continue.
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Bravo sir. There was a time in our Republic's history that the State Department and War Department were required to explain their actions and budget to the people and the several states. The people elected the Representatives and the states, jealous of their right to govern, elected Senators.
But today we have a Department of Defense and direct election of Senators. No one serves the interests of the local governments, but instead all elected officials have exclusively the short term interests of their constituents in mind. There is no concern for preserving the long term interests of the Republic, but rather voting the people demand bread and circuses. (Long term unemployment benefits?)
The impotent fury, bordering on paroxysm, of the United States' response to the released cables is astounding and concerning. It has become evident that in the 21st century, the people serve the government.
You make an interesting point about the voting of bread and circuses by our government.
Here is what de Toqueville said would be the end of our republic:
. It's a fitting description of what is going on with increasing frequency and scope in our government for a long time. The Romans also fell into the same trap.
Here's a very interesting read on what the Romans did: http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cjv14n2-7.html
I think you should apply that to yourself as well. Time to give back the car and the house, though, since you didn't have the cash on hand to buy it outright...
Ohhh.... So clever. Let's see just how clever you really are.
My wife and I have a total debt of less than 25% of our yearly income(ability to create wealth).
Now let's look at the US debt load.
The published debt of the US is 89%($13 trillion) of its GDP($14+ trillion). However, that is only a drop in the bucket compared to our real debt. The US government has unfunded liabilities, according to the Dallas Federal Reserve, of more than $104 trillion. Other experts put that number at approximately $120 trillion. So, what's our real debt? Somewhere between $118 and $133 trillion. That is a debt that is 8-9 times larger, depending on whose numbers you use, than all the wealth produced in the US in one year.
To put these numbers in perspective, the Federal Reserve says that the total net worth of all US citizens is $50 trillion. That means if we sold all private property in the US we couldn't even pay off half of our debt. We would still owe in the range of $68-$83 trillion.
Your logic is a total fail....
I see this argument all over the place. It sounds really good too. The problem is it's basically impossible to guarantee no innocent person ever gets punished and just as impossible to guarantee that no guilty person goes unpunished. Like most things in life this is a trade off between the ideal and reality, a process that works in a timely fashion and a process that is so drawn out that no one gets justice.
Until we have a world full of perfect people and perfect processes this problem will exist. As perfect people and processes have never existed before in human history, and I see no evidence of the human race moving towards perfection, then this is just the way life is, and always will be. It's sad but true.
I think both the Senate and the House each need one that's tied to a balanced budget. Once they start to borrow money, or pass unfunded legislation, it will take 102 Senators, or 500 Representatives, depending on which body of Congress is wanting to spend more money than we have.
No. . Being reasonable is doing the right thing the first time because it's the right thing to do. Assange didn't do that.
Let's say I beat my wife and only stop beating her because I got thrown in jail for beating her. Am I now a good guy because I stopped beating my wife to avoid further punishment and because everyone is now scrutinizing my behavior? Have I changed my stripes, or have I modified my behavior because of all the negative feedback? That's what Assange has done.
Really??? Go read Dilbert as he is the one that defined a PHB.
Once you've done that tell me how often you reverse the decisions your boss makes. You know, walk up to him and tell him how he's wrong and how nobody is going to follow his directions. If you tell me you actually do that, and not get fired, I'll know you're a liar.
I take it you commented on what I had to say without actually reading my post.
So, you admit it's a PHB making the decision based on a sales pitch from an outside vendor, but insist it's the fault of the IT team. I find your logic less than persuasive. Since when did a PHB ever listen to the employees under him? Isn't that impossible by the definition of a PHB?
This assumes that everyone agrees as to what the "right thing" is.
I'm for free speech and take my rights under the constitution very seriously, but I also think WikiLeaks has stepped over the line that divides responsible and irresponsible behavior. This latest leak has reduced the ability of nations to communicate freely, and reduced communications between nations is not a good thing. The less likely nations are to communicate, the more likely they are to go to war among themselves. That's the unintended consequences of Wikileaks behavior, and it's a very serious side effect. It shows quite clearly that Wikileaks and Assange are reckless and dangerous.
I'd say your thinking is pretty much bass ackwards.
It's company policy, not IT policy, that keeps most organizations dependent on IE6. This stems from the company not wanting to spend the money to rewrite the apps, not IT insisting that they continue using IE6. What geek/IT guy do you know that insists on using IE6 at home, or anywhere else? Every IT guy I know likes using modern software.
The highly visible parts of net neutrality such as those discussed ad nauseam here on /. daily I have a no problem with at all. Why I oppose it is because the FCC wants to include a revival of the Fairness Doctrine as part and parcel of their net neutrality policy. Why do I oppose something that has such a positive sounding name? Because of what it actually results in when put into practice. It results in the suppression of free speech, which is nothing other than another attack on our constitutional rights as citizens.
I won't write out all my reasoning, but will give you a link to a page that spells out my reasons much more clearly than I could.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1993/10/em368-why-the-fairness-doctrine-is-anything-but-fair
I will say this. I'm not willing to sacrifice my constitutional rights for monetary advantage. The current administration has already taken away our right to life--the President can have any one of us assassinated with no due process and all he needs to do is make an unsupported accusation. No evidence is needed. The current administration has also taken away much of our pursuit of happiness because the FTC can shut down any business, at any time, for any reason, with no explanation and never be held accountable in any way as it can do this without having to release any information at all. All FOIA requests are denied as a matter of law, and the business owner/s is/are placed under gag orders. They cannot speak publicly about what happened. This allows the government to take away your means of supporting yourself at any time, for any reason, without you being able to say boo about it. Now comes this attack on free speech by the same administration. This administration has shown itself willing to destroy all of the inalienable rights in our Declaration of Independence(DoI). This administration is attacking the very foundations of our country.
Obama ran on a platform of change. Well, what we are changing into is something much less than what we have been. What principles, what ideas could be greater than those expressed in our DoI and the specifics of those ideas spelled out in our Constitution? Read the following and tell me what can be a greater foundation for liberty than what we already have? I would encourage you to read the DoI in its entirety, which includes the reasons we, as a people, revolted, for I am only quoting the first couple of paragraphs. Look at what we revolted against, and look at what we are changing into. Look for similarities between then and now. We need to take our country back for what we were given by our founding fathers is not what we have now.
Why should he mention the patent? The context of the entire article and interview was in the context of his already having been granted a patent. The interviewer obviously knew about it, so why would the kid think of showing off the patent itself to the interviewer unless the interviewer asked to see it? They did show the interviewer the product as there was a picture of it with the article.
Also, what's with your reading your thoughts into his statement. And, his statement was actually, wow, I'm going to make a lot of money, not I"m going to be rich. What's a "lot of money" to an 8 year old? Is it anything like what you consider to be a "lot of money"? I doubt it.
With the kid being very aware of what his dad does for a living, and the school class on inventors he's taken, it's not an unexpected logical leap for him to think he will make money too. He most likely hears how inventors make money on their inventions on a daily basis. Unless he's completely stupid he's going to associate that same reward with his invention.
I can't think of a single adult I've ever known who wouldn't have been excited about making a lot of money. That includes some very spiritual people whose goals and life weren't wrapped up in materialism. I'd be pretty excited about a windfall too, and I've never made money my #1 priority.
In fact, I've been mocked, and my parents and siblings have always thought there was something wrong with me, because I have quite a few priorities above making money or becoming rich. Doesn't mean I wouldn't get excited over a windfall if it came my way, but it's not anywhere near my first priority in life. I've given the last $20 I had to my name to someone I thought needed it more than I did, and I've done it more than once. I've also come close to getting fired a few times because I knew the cost of the repair for the retired person's furnace/AC/appliance I was working on couldn't afford me or the parts I installed. Instead of coming back from what should have been a $300 service call I came back with $50 or so out of my own pocket and the owner wasn't pleased.
So, because I would get excited about a windfall and think about what I could get with it, does that cause you to assume I'm a materialistic money grubber too, as that's your assumption about this kid?
Last but not least, just how introspective are most kids? Do they think deeply about their own motives? Do most of them even understand their own motives? Do kids often answer in a way that they think someone wants to hear? Have they thought out their own value system by age 8?
I bet he doesn't make any money.
You may be correct, but he does have a dad that knows how to create wealth from ideas. It's his profession, he's good enough at it to have his own business, and that raises the odds for his son to make money from his idea by a significant amount. An 8 year old without a father who understands how to monetize patents has a far greater chance of failing to make money. I'd say this kid has odds in his favor that he'll make money that are many times greater than the average kid.
I've known a few people who invented things and they didn't create the invention with money in mind. However, when it became clear that the invention would have a substantial monetary reward they didn't ignore that fact nor fail to plan how they would/could spend the money. Every one of them had plans to spend a part of that windfall on something they wanted, not needed. That a kid would think of fulfilling his dreams of getting sporting goods so he could play his favorite sport/s is just as proper for his age as is an adult looking to use some of the money to fulfill their dreams.
It looks to me as if the kid hasn't been given everything he wants, you know, spoiled. If he was, he would already have that gear as his parents aren't poor.
Your assumption that this kid created his invention with only money in mind is quite a stretch. I'd say it's a pretty arrogant assumption too, as neither the kid, nor anyone else, has said what his motivation was other than his dad complaining about the mess of wiring on the counter. Maybe his whole motivation was to fulfill a need his dad had talked about. I don't know what it was, and neither do you. I'm just willing to give the kid a break and you're willing to attack his character with no evidence to support your position.
The kid talking about what he wants to do the money is not the same thing as his motivation for the idea itself. Liking the monetary fruits of an idea, and the motivation for the idea are not the same thing. Saying they must be the same is a logical fallacy.
Very good. You just want to use the fruits of everyone else's monetary filth. Wow. What a strong level of integrity and strict adherence to your philosophy of life. You're a paragon of virtue, without a doubt. I'm really impressed....
LOL. You're a funny guy, and I appreciate humor.
But, I should think that when you start using the irony of me using a Red Skelton character-inspired username you should look first at the yellow stripe running down your back starting at your forehead and ending at your butt, as clearly exists from your choice of the username coward, and not only that, but an anonymous coward on top of that.... ;)
Oh, for Pete's sake. Think about this for a minute.
Money has never been my first priority in life. My brother? It's always been his first priority in life and I despise the guy as he's an insufferable prick and as cruel a human being as I know of because of money being his first priority. He's so tight he squeaks when he walks, and doing something for someone else is always at the very bottom of his list of priorities. My old man was a prick too, but at least he helped other people when he had the money, and my brother hated him for helping others.
That being said, if I had received a patent on an invention of mine, my first response wouldn't have been another invention, but how I could put the proceeds coming from this invention to work for me. You know, pay off bills, investments I could make so the money would work for me, buy some land, etc.... If the rewards were big enough to do more than that I'd think about what I could do for others with it but I have needs too and if I don't consider my own needs first I'll never really help anyone else because I'm not being responsible.. But, condemning an 8 year old kid for having dreams of things that 8 year old's like is just stupid and mean-spirited, as you're condemning a child for not being mature.
Also, the question asked, and the answer given, could very well not be what the kid does with his money. All he did was answer the question posed to him, and he already may have changed his mind. He isn't going to get an immediate return on his money, and it sounds as if his parents are responsible people. He will have a chance to rethink his priorities before he gets any money back on his invention, and the experience of having to deal with delayed gratification may well teach him something. Even if he does buy a few hundred dollars worth of sports equipment what's that to the possible income from his invention? Probably only a very small part, and I'll bet you that you've spent more on entertainment in your lifetime than this kid has stated would be his first purchases. Plus, you're much older than he is, so what's your excuse for blowing money on entertainment?
A lot of the defense of large scale DDoS attacks is done at the router level. You want to drop as many malicious packets as you can before they hit anything to do with your site or your network, and your border router is the first line of defense. Even if you're using a hosted server you can ask your provider to help stop the attack at the border of their network, as it's as much in their interest to stop the attack as it is in yours.
It's a legal principle. You can't complain about someone else doing the same thing you're doing. It's called unclean hands and is a legitimate defense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_hands
I've been around /. for a few years. I read for a long time before I registered. I've never seen anyone crying jingoism before, from either side of the pond, over a company getting fined. Yeah, there were people saying the EU was "out to get" MS, but that still isn't jingoism. Look up the definition of jingoism.
Myself, I thought MS was getting its just desserts, that someone outside their sphere of control/influence was slapping their hands a little bit and so did most people. The only ones crying foul were the MS paid trolls and completely dedicated fanboys.
This is a raft of crap written by someone who wants things their own way 100% of the time. I seem to remember the EU fining American companies several billion dollars.
Should American's complain that all those EU fines were just EU jingoism?
To tell the truth I don't see any jingoism going on at all, in either case, as this doesn't fit the description of jingoism. Jingoism is feverish excitement for a nation, not a company, unless you're trying to say that SAP == Germany, and that Oracle == US. I can't see how that is even close to being logical thinking, nor have I ever met anyone dumb enough to think that way. In fact, I don't know of anyone who is familiar with how Oracle and SAP do business who really likes either one of them. People may invest in either company in hopes of getting a return on their investment, but actually like either company? That's a horse of another color.
What's the color of my skin have to do with anything? Do you have gray eyes? Do you have black or brown hair? Those things are as relevant to this discussion as the color of my skin.
It seems to me I hear charges of racism over anything and everything now. And we see government making decisions over who they will prosecute based on race alone. Hmmm.... Isn't making decisions like that both illegal and morally wrong? Looks to me like there are bigots in both law enforcement and government now too. We even have people advocating the killing of babies based on nothing more than the color of their skin. That calls to mind Germany of the 1930's and 40's where babies could be legally killed based on their race alone. And you're saying things are better today?
I guess it must be a real shocker to some people that human nature hasn't changed. That bigots have always existed, and always will, seems to be a little-known, or greatly-ignored, fact. Add to that the greater intrusiveness of government, and laws protecting government employees from being held accountable by society, and today's bigot working for the government has more power than ever. The situation is worse, not better.
Laws will never shape human nature. Look around you. Society, as a whole, has far worse morals today than it did 50-60 years ago. At the turn of the 20th century men still did business on a handshake, and anyone who violated that trust became an outcast in their community. Compare that to today when you have to be very suspicious of contracts and the more corrupt a businessman is, Bill Gates for example, the more he is admired by society-at-large. The love of money seems to rule almost our entire society, and anytime that happens to a society you can be sure it will decline sharply....
No, it isn't just a study. It's one more manifestation of how intrusive society is any more and how little you do that isn't mined for information about you and used against you whether it be government or big business using the data to manipulate you.
These types of "studies" weren't even considered 40 or 50 years ago even though they could have been done then too. Your phone calls couldn't be monitored by anyone back then without a warrant. Your president couldn't order your assassination, or that you, a US citizen, could be held without due process, on nothing more than an unsubstantiated accusation of terrorism back then either. The government couldn't come in and take over your business on any pretense and order you not to talk about it while refusing to release any information about the situation and denying you the right to your day in court. Today that is all possible under current law.
Back then a kid could fly the US flag on his bike and not be told to either stop flying the US flag on Veterans's Day or he'd get suspended from school. If you had a piece of candy at school it wasn't taken away from you and you weren't punished. What you ate was your own business. Government couldn't have cared less. If you thanked God for your food before you ate in the school lunch room you weren't punished by the public school authorities. It was considered to be your own business what you believed, not the government's business. You know, that little clause in the Constitution that says, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof... , was actually understood and followed by all three branches of government.
The Constitution and Declaration of Independence were taught, and admired by the vast majority of us back then. We understood that they are the foundation of our libery. We even said the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Most of us loved our country back then. We didn't do it ignorantly either. We recognized even then that our country has been less-than-perfect and did not like our country's failures, but we also knew we could never find a better place to live than right here in the US.
After watching government become more and more intrusive, give big business more power by not enforcing the law, and violate our Constitution again and again as it increased its size and scope it's easy to see the big picture and understand what these seemingly unrelated events are doing to our freedoms and our liberty.
Business has no more right to invade our privacy than government. Business has no more right to track all our activities than government does. Both are engaging in behavior that the founding fathers would not have allowed to happen, and that we, as American citizens should hot have allowed to happen either.
We the people need to take our country back, and stop the madness.
"I've been let walk after burning rubber for half a city block and reaching close to 80mp in a 25mph zone right in front of sheriff's deputy I didn't see. He asked me what happened and I explained it to him: I was showing for a couple of very good looking young women and that it was a first for me to do that in town as my hotrodding and racing was done out of town. My honesty got me a warning instead of a ticket and some time in jail."
So you're whining that you can't drive wrecklessly down a street and possibly kill people. You're the reason why we can't have nice things.
Sorry, but that's the dumbest response I've seen in a while. How you managed to take that from my post is beyond me.
Government wasn't out to punish every infraction. They were out to teach if they thought you were capable of learning. They were human and recognized that they themselves made mistakes. They wouldn't let you get by with making the same mistakes multiple times, but a one-time infraction wasn't enough to always severely punish you.
Funny how back then it was much easier to get ahead, in spite of how you claim I'm the reason you can't have nice things. Where you drew that logical fallacy from is beyond me. It's some of the worst logic I've ever seen. Funny how you think humanity in a less intrusive government led to a bad economy. The reality is just the opposite. Big brother watching you and wanting to control every aspect of your life is the reason our country is going broke.
You are now so used to being spied on that you can't even comprehend what the world was like without it.
It was a much friendlier and relaxed place to live. Nobody had the right to sift through your life just to see what they could sell you and the government wasn't into monitoring every move you made and jailing you for the least offense. That was a society that had much more freedom.
I can remember when getting caught lighting up your tires wasn't an automatic reckless driving ticket and a several hundred dollar fine as well as a large increase in your insurance rates. Cops were much more human and forgiving for they remembered what it was like to be young and dumb and weren't out to disrupt your life for your first mistake. Most of them, as long as you didn't try to lie to them, would let you go with a warning even if they caught you making a pretty serious mistake. I've been let walk after burning rubber for half a city block and reaching close to 80mp in a 25mph zone right in front of sheriff's deputy I didn't see. He asked me what happened and I explained it to him: I was showing for a couple of very good looking young women and that it was a first for me to do that in town as my hotrodding and racing was done out of town. My honesty got me a warning instead of a ticket and some time in jail. Try that today and see what happens to you.
You had the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them without being severely punished. If you didn't learn, well, that was your problem and you could expect to have the book thrown at you the second time. During high school most of us used to carry pocket knives and a lot of us had guns in the trunks of our cars because we liked to go plinking after school. I remember pranks such as wiring the urinal drain in the faculty men's bathroom to a Model T coil not getting anyone kicked out of school, and intentional small explosions in chemistry class going unpunished. I also knew a guy who blew a foot deep hole in the football field with a home made pipe bomb who got nothing more than a 2 day suspension. He wasn't hauled off to jail and prosecuted for terrorism. In fact the issue never was reported to the police and this was done inside city limits.
Today's young people don't know what liberty is as we live in a society in which we are watched 24/7 and our liberties are fast disappearing. Not much individual freedom is left even when compared to eras such as the 60's and 70's, let alone the 1800's, but those of you who didn't live in those decades, and aren't students of American history, will never understand what has been lost. It's a paradigm you can't grasp because you've never experienced it.
What if everyone did exactly what I did? How long would you stay in business?
What if I sell ice and somebody invents the fridge?
What if I sell steam machines and somebody invents internal combustion engine?
What if I sell books and somebody invents the e-book (that is so easy to copy)?
What if I sell ham and somebody invents a machine that produces ham at no cost?
Can I ask to imprison someone?
So, you are now trying to make investing in competing technologies the moral equivalent of taking possession of a product someone sells, without their permission and without paying them for it.
The arguments keep on getting weaker and weaker for a reason. You're trying to defend something that isn't morally defensible.
The original copyright law was a good idea, and the right amount of time. Today's copyright laws have been corrupted with the extension of time copyright covers content, but copyright itself is necessary if content creation is to continue.