What part of the government taking nearly half your paycheck to basically buy votes from a particular part of the electorate do you consider NOT to be serfdom? The government has full control of your life, in nearly every aspect of what you do. They take your money, they tell you want you can eat, what medicines you can take, what you can drive, where you can drive, what you can say, what you can do... No surf was ever under such restrictions.
Agree'd Our local theater has started serving bagged popcorn that they heat up under a lamp. It's still $15 for a large popcorn and a flat soda. Instead of butter they now have a "butter flavoring" dispenser that shoots out some cold, yellow tinted oil substance all over your popcorn. Then they have about 5 different shakers filled with different flavors of salt. None of which really contain salt... I'm not sure what exactly it is... but it's definitely not salt. But hey, they have Imax!
Not true. Asthma inhalers are a great example. The old school CFC inhalers cost about $2 without a prescription. The FDA's ban forced everyone to use the non-CFC inhalers which were $30, and most peoples co-pay, because it was non-generic was $20. But add to that a $20-$50 co-pay for seeing the doctor to get the script and it's actually a lot cheaper to just pay for it yourself if you can.
Then you get into the big-dog medications like Advair and the co-pays can be in excess of $100. (Mine is) but to get this locally it's several hundred dollars. If I can get it without prescription, then I can order it from somewhere cheaper. There's generic advair outside the US that's $35... I'm not sure what affect this policy change would have on that sort of thing but I bet those Canadian websites would stop asking for prescriptions pretty quick.
The entire medical system is an organized price gouging machine operated by the pharmaceutical companies who bride the doctors, congress and put their own staff in the FDA to sway policy.
Good point... but having had asthma for 20yrs now, I would gladly trade a disease that's made my entire life miserable for one that will simply kill me 10 years early.
Nukes are cheaper and what WILL be used if we go to war with China. So to pretend like some expensive fighter jet is going to somehow help us win is just ridiculous. The second either a Chinese soldier sets foot on US soil or a US soldier sets foot on Chinese soil the nukes are flying. The most damaging thing we could do to any potential future enemy is to cut our defense spending in half now, cut taxes dramatically and let our GDP sky rocket as a result. If there's one thing the republicans have right (and there isn't much) it's that profit is king, and the more trade we have with a country the less likely we are to have a war with them. It's a lot harder to bitch about the color of your neighbors house when they just bought you a swimming pool.
Something just dawned on me... They have made a standard for this connection... and you're going to be trapped at the charging station for 20min... How long do you think it will take them to include a data connection along with the plug and the car companies allow them to flood your car with ads for 20min as part of the payment for the charge?
There is no expectation of privacy on the internet, irrelevant of the browser you use or the site you visit. I would LOVE for the government to pass a law specifically stating there were such an expectation... but to do so would mean they would have to obey the law as well. For the government to fine a business for privacy violations when the government itself is collecting far more sensitive information about us, for much more nefarious purposes than profits, is just silly.
Government restrictions are never effective. There is no natural reason for legislative action to have a major impact on behavior. The financial system on the other hand has very simple motivations. Profit, greed, loss... But then you have the government stepping in, mitigating loss, saving banks, stockholders, destroying the very heart of what makes finance work. We, as human beings, desire for the world to be fair and just. We wish no one would starve, or get sick. We want no choice a person makes to be so wrong that it ruins the rest of their life. Unfortunately none of that is true and we will likely not have solutions for those problems for a very long time. We can not legislate our way to utopia. People will always make poor choices, and the best way for them to learn to make measured intelligent decisions is to let them feel the pain of their own mistakes directly.
Anarchy is the unrestricted liberty for the individual. Libertarians like Mr. Paul and his father support Liberty for ALL. As in, you are free to do as you will as long as it doesn't impinge on the liberty of others. You are not at liberty to rob, steal and murder. I've never heard either of them suggest that a different set of rules based on race. Quite the opposite actually. There is a long and heated debate we could have about Race based legislation and equal rights... but if you simplify your argument to: all people should have the same rights... it gets really easy. Unfortunately that includes the right to be a racist.
Or, when you stand for principle, and not some abstract premise like "helping the middle class" like most politicians do, even people that are opposed to you will eventually find things to agree with you on.
In your case you want Liberty in certain instances. Where you think liberty should be doled out and that liberty doesn't offend your sensibilities. Rand Paul stands for liberty for all. Even if that liberty hurts. So you'll agree with Rand when the rights gained are your own, but when someone else gains liberty at the your financial, social, or ideological expense, you call him a fool. True Liberty is painful and ugly. But it is the only way. If you let the government impinge on the rights of others, no matter how despicable their beliefs are to you... eventually the government will use that power to restrict your own rights. The truth has been born out in history in nearly every society that's ever existed. Now it's happening here.
While agree with the Judge, it's not nearly going far enough. I used to work in a department that handled copyright infringement complaints for a large ISP. When the copyright owner makes a complaint, by law the ISP is required to take action. But there are multiple problems with the entire premise.
1. The complaint comes in via an unverifiable email. The ISP has no idea who really sent it. As any ISP knows, spoofing an email is about the simplest thing for a teenage hacker to perform. 2. Even if the ISP could verify the sender, they have no idea if the sender is really the content owner. In fact, the ISP has absolutely no way to find out who the content owner is. This is something, that by its very definition would need to be decided in a court of law. 3. The ISP has no idea if the person sending the email is telling the truth in the least. Even if they are telling the truth they have no idea how competent their methods are. All they have is an email that says they "saw" the user download some content they own. They could have made it up, they could have terrible methods for detection. I believe there was one case where a university student managed to get DMCA notices sent to several campus printers IP addresses. 4. And most importantly, the ISP KNOWS most of the complaints are total BS. I personally saw at least 25% of the complaints that came in were against IP addresses that didn't have customers on them... or belonged to network devices we owned.
The entire premise that someone can connect to a torrent and then say that every IP address that their software tells them is connecting to that torrent is a pirate is asinine. There's a simple solution to your problem media industry... stop price gouging. Work WITH and not against netflix, pandora, and the like. Make it easier to pay you than it is to pirate... and the pirate community will die. Humans follow the path of least resistance. It's illegal to run red lights, but people still do it all the time, because it's easier than stopping. How do they really stop people from red lights? Take them out and put in a round-a-bout.
I didn't say "Dumb" I said Mentally handicapped. Retarded. The guy they arrested for trying to buy a fake stinger missile claimed to be friends with the president and hang out with Arab kings. He was an old man, barely in control of his own faculties, and a pathological liar. He was basically arrested for introducing 2 FBI agents to each other. One pretending to be the buyer and the other pretending to be the seller.
The nonsensical arguments the new york times refers to I've rarely heard. When I did it was usually from the uneducated and foolish. It seems the NYT has it's own view on the subject and are trying to spin the story in such a way that if anyone disagrees with them they are stupid.
Very few people disagree with the premise that the climate is warming. Where the disagreement is, is if that warming is a natural part of earths long term weather patterns and how much effect CO2 is having on speeding up the process. Also, they question the results of the warming... predicted increased hurricane strength and frequency have not come about as we'd expected.
Before anyone attributes those views to me, my position is this: We will never stop using fossil fuels. Human nature will win, and we will burn them all. It's too late. Whatever global warming is going to do, we'd better prepare for it. The only optimism I have is in that the one thing scientists have a proven track record of if being absolutely lousy at predicting the weather.
Not true. So far, all the people the FBI has arrested in these entrapment schemes have been borderline mentally handicapped. They're taking people off the street that NEVER would have had the actual means to commit the crimes they're accused of without the FBI's help, and usually don't even have the desire to. They are usually lonely men, with very low IQs that desperately want to fit in. The FBI offers them a fantasy, and they buy into it.
There are several, unfortunately none of them belong either of the 2 parties that the media have deemed worthy of the office. So you'll never hear about them.
Can we genetically modify human women to not have any fat? I have one in particular that I'm pretty sure I have power over attorney over that I'd be willing to volunteer.
We have 2 types of coders. The over 40 types, that decide how it's going to be written, what it's going to be written in, and who's going to write what.
Then we have the under 30 staff... they're right out of college... are hired as interns... work all day and night till the project is done and then move on. If they know anything BESIDES coding, they get hired. We get people in here that are fluent in 5+ languages but can't figure out how to use Outlook. I'm not kidding.
Knowing a few programming languages is easy. Knowing how to do things like tell the most powerful executives in the company that their idea is stupid without insulting them is a skill that gets you hired. If all you know how to do is code, quit while you're ahead.
Computer Science is an expensive department to maintain. If the school wasn't doing well in it, there's no reason to keep it around. I'm sure there are dozens of other colleges in the area that still have program you could get into. When I went to college there wasn't such a thing as a computer science department outside of major, very expensive universities that I couldn't get into. So I majored in English and took whatever computer classes they had. Here I am, all these years later, a DB admin. I don't even really remember what I learned in English classes... I'm pretty fluent in English... so maybe that.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, they are going to ship them a couple thousand of their new product: iBullwhip
What part of the government taking nearly half your paycheck to basically buy votes from a particular part of the electorate do you consider NOT to be serfdom? The government has full control of your life, in nearly every aspect of what you do. They take your money, they tell you want you can eat, what medicines you can take, what you can drive, where you can drive, what you can say, what you can do... No surf was ever under such restrictions.
The war on terror may be over, but the war on the constitution will never end.
Agree'd
Our local theater has started serving bagged popcorn that they heat up under a lamp. It's still $15 for a large popcorn and a flat soda. Instead of butter they now have a "butter flavoring" dispenser that shoots out some cold, yellow tinted oil substance all over your popcorn. Then they have about 5 different shakers filled with different flavors of salt. None of which really contain salt... I'm not sure what exactly it is... but it's definitely not salt. But hey, they have Imax!
Not true. Asthma inhalers are a great example. The old school CFC inhalers cost about $2 without a prescription. The FDA's ban forced everyone to use the non-CFC inhalers which were $30, and most peoples co-pay, because it was non-generic was $20. But add to that a $20-$50 co-pay for seeing the doctor to get the script and it's actually a lot cheaper to just pay for it yourself if you can.
Then you get into the big-dog medications like Advair and the co-pays can be in excess of $100. (Mine is) but to get this locally it's several hundred dollars. If I can get it without prescription, then I can order it from somewhere cheaper. There's generic advair outside the US that's $35... I'm not sure what affect this policy change would have on that sort of thing but I bet those Canadian websites would stop asking for prescriptions pretty quick.
The entire medical system is an organized price gouging machine operated by the pharmaceutical companies who bride the doctors, congress and put their own staff in the FDA to sway policy.
Good point... but having had asthma for 20yrs now, I would gladly trade a disease that's made my entire life miserable for one that will simply kill me 10 years early.
Nukes are cheaper and what WILL be used if we go to war with China. So to pretend like some expensive fighter jet is going to somehow help us win is just ridiculous. The second either a Chinese soldier sets foot on US soil or a US soldier sets foot on Chinese soil the nukes are flying. The most damaging thing we could do to any potential future enemy is to cut our defense spending in half now, cut taxes dramatically and let our GDP sky rocket as a result. If there's one thing the republicans have right (and there isn't much) it's that profit is king, and the more trade we have with a country the less likely we are to have a war with them. It's a lot harder to bitch about the color of your neighbors house when they just bought you a swimming pool.
Finally they are safe from earthquakes and tsunamis! Oh wait...
Something just dawned on me... They have made a standard for this connection... and you're going to be trapped at the charging station for 20min... How long do you think it will take them to include a data connection along with the plug and the car companies allow them to flood your car with ads for 20min as part of the payment for the charge?
There is no expectation of privacy on the internet, irrelevant of the browser you use or the site you visit. I would LOVE for the government to pass a law specifically stating there were such an expectation... but to do so would mean they would have to obey the law as well. For the government to fine a business for privacy violations when the government itself is collecting far more sensitive information about us, for much more nefarious purposes than profits, is just silly.
See my reply above on anarchy.
Government restrictions are never effective. There is no natural reason for legislative action to have a major impact on behavior. The financial system on the other hand has very simple motivations. Profit, greed, loss... But then you have the government stepping in, mitigating loss, saving banks, stockholders, destroying the very heart of what makes finance work. We, as human beings, desire for the world to be fair and just. We wish no one would starve, or get sick. We want no choice a person makes to be so wrong that it ruins the rest of their life. Unfortunately none of that is true and we will likely not have solutions for those problems for a very long time. We can not legislate our way to utopia. People will always make poor choices, and the best way for them to learn to make measured intelligent decisions is to let them feel the pain of their own mistakes directly.
Anarchy is the unrestricted liberty for the individual. Libertarians like Mr. Paul and his father support Liberty for ALL. As in, you are free to do as you will as long as it doesn't impinge on the liberty of others. You are not at liberty to rob, steal and murder. I've never heard either of them suggest that a different set of rules based on race. Quite the opposite actually. There is a long and heated debate we could have about Race based legislation and equal rights... but if you simplify your argument to: all people should have the same rights... it gets really easy. Unfortunately that includes the right to be a racist.
Or, when you stand for principle, and not some abstract premise like "helping the middle class" like most politicians do, even people that are opposed to you will eventually find things to agree with you on.
In your case you want Liberty in certain instances. Where you think liberty should be doled out and that liberty doesn't offend your sensibilities. Rand Paul stands for liberty for all. Even if that liberty hurts. So you'll agree with Rand when the rights gained are your own, but when someone else gains liberty at the your financial, social, or ideological expense, you call him a fool. True Liberty is painful and ugly. But it is the only way. If you let the government impinge on the rights of others, no matter how despicable their beliefs are to you... eventually the government will use that power to restrict your own rights. The truth has been born out in history in nearly every society that's ever existed. Now it's happening here.
That... is... awesome...
Mod parent up please.
Seriously... who thought this was a good article? The "I have an $800 video card, I'm awesome!" fad died at least 5 years ago...
While agree with the Judge, it's not nearly going far enough. I used to work in a department that handled copyright infringement complaints for a large ISP. When the copyright owner makes a complaint, by law the ISP is required to take action. But there are multiple problems with the entire premise.
1. The complaint comes in via an unverifiable email. The ISP has no idea who really sent it. As any ISP knows, spoofing an email is about the simplest thing for a teenage hacker to perform.
2. Even if the ISP could verify the sender, they have no idea if the sender is really the content owner. In fact, the ISP has absolutely no way to find out who the content owner is. This is something, that by its very definition would need to be decided in a court of law.
3. The ISP has no idea if the person sending the email is telling the truth in the least. Even if they are telling the truth they have no idea how competent their methods are. All they have is an email that says they "saw" the user download some content they own. They could have made it up, they could have terrible methods for detection. I believe there was one case where a university student managed to get DMCA notices sent to several campus printers IP addresses.
4. And most importantly, the ISP KNOWS most of the complaints are total BS. I personally saw at least 25% of the complaints that came in were against IP addresses that didn't have customers on them... or belonged to network devices we owned.
The entire premise that someone can connect to a torrent and then say that every IP address that their software tells them is connecting to that torrent is a pirate is asinine. There's a simple solution to your problem media industry... stop price gouging. Work WITH and not against netflix, pandora, and the like. Make it easier to pay you than it is to pirate... and the pirate community will die. Humans follow the path of least resistance. It's illegal to run red lights, but people still do it all the time, because it's easier than stopping. How do they really stop people from red lights? Take them out and put in a round-a-bout.
I didn't say "Dumb" I said Mentally handicapped. Retarded. The guy they arrested for trying to buy a fake stinger missile claimed to be friends with the president and hang out with Arab kings. He was an old man, barely in control of his own faculties, and a pathological liar. He was basically arrested for introducing 2 FBI agents to each other. One pretending to be the buyer and the other pretending to be the seller.
The nonsensical arguments the new york times refers to I've rarely heard. When I did it was usually from the uneducated and foolish. It seems the NYT has it's own view on the subject and are trying to spin the story in such a way that if anyone disagrees with them they are stupid.
Very few people disagree with the premise that the climate is warming. Where the disagreement is, is if that warming is a natural part of earths long term weather patterns and how much effect CO2 is having on speeding up the process. Also, they question the results of the warming... predicted increased hurricane strength and frequency have not come about as we'd expected.
Before anyone attributes those views to me, my position is this: We will never stop using fossil fuels. Human nature will win, and we will burn them all. It's too late. Whatever global warming is going to do, we'd better prepare for it. The only optimism I have is in that the one thing scientists have a proven track record of if being absolutely lousy at predicting the weather.
Not true. So far, all the people the FBI has arrested in these entrapment schemes have been borderline mentally handicapped. They're taking people off the street that NEVER would have had the actual means to commit the crimes they're accused of without the FBI's help, and usually don't even have the desire to. They are usually lonely men, with very low IQs that desperately want to fit in. The FBI offers them a fantasy, and they buy into it.
Political Science
There are several, unfortunately none of them belong either of the 2 parties that the media have deemed worthy of the office. So you'll never hear about them.
Is windows live login as "optional" as Internet Explorer?
Can we genetically modify human women to not have any fat? I have one in particular that I'm pretty sure I have power over attorney over that I'd be willing to volunteer.
We have 2 types of coders. The over 40 types, that decide how it's going to be written, what it's going to be written in, and who's going to write what.
Then we have the under 30 staff... they're right out of college... are hired as interns... work all day and night till the project is done and then move on. If they know anything BESIDES coding, they get hired. We get people in here that are fluent in 5+ languages but can't figure out how to use Outlook. I'm not kidding.
Knowing a few programming languages is easy. Knowing how to do things like tell the most powerful executives in the company that their idea is stupid without insulting them is a skill that gets you hired. If all you know how to do is code, quit while you're ahead.
Computer Science is an expensive department to maintain. If the school wasn't doing well in it, there's no reason to keep it around. I'm sure there are dozens of other colleges in the area that still have program you could get into. When I went to college there wasn't such a thing as a computer science department outside of major, very expensive universities that I couldn't get into. So I majored in English and took whatever computer classes they had. Here I am, all these years later, a DB admin. I don't even really remember what I learned in English classes... I'm pretty fluent in English... so maybe that.