My comment is made considering the IT market today -- if jobs are so scarce, why do we need more H1 Visas?. I know that 5 years, we just might be in a recession, and the market might soak up. Or in my case, the market for chem eng is sufficiently tight that job jumping isn't as feasible in IT at my particular education level. But for most that read slashdot, the employee's market is still very very strong.
As I commented on in the Linux in the workplace article, the email servers and network connection are there because the companied is paying for the equipment and upkeep of that, therefore they make the rules. Not all companies are draconian on email/internet activity restrictions, so if you don't like that company's rules, get a job elsewhere.
I personally avoid using work email for anything beyond work correspondence, and while certainly not draconian, I feel that it's a responsibility to my place of employment to minimize the use of email for personal business.
Now, if the rules extended to any email/activity from any account even outside of the company's control, then it becomes a free speech issue.
(i.e. use hotmail or other web-based emails if you really want personal email at work).
Not just Slashdot, but in general, for these new-media news reporting sites:
Most of the stories 'published' on these sites are from contributions by readers, and even then, they tend to be links to other major old-media news sites. In this regard, the site doesn't have to have responsibility on these stories, though the selection of which stories to go with is a matter of bias and the like.
However, Slashdot or other sites will have a scoop, a story which either they wrote or that a submitter informed them of but with no strong evidence. On the former, these sites need to have a strong responsibility ot make sure their facts are straight, they take an impartial look
to both sides when appropriate, and similar concepts from print media. In some regards, Slashdot gets this (many of the interviews of late have been very good), while other times, they could do some more in-depth reporting to show a more responsible position.
On the latter, stories that are basically rumors or accounts experiences by one or two people, there's even more resposibility on Slashdot to make sure to check the story out as fully as possible before posting the story. A good example was the early hoopla on the Cuecat stuff. People were reporting that a couple C&D letters got out and in the articles that were posted, there was a definite bent against DC for their arrogence. (Sure, I think that DC is completely in the wrong for what they are trying to do). But no one at Slashdot tried to get comment from DC on this case, taking the text of the C&D letter as DC's statement of opinion. A more responsible journalist would have attempted to at least make contact, and most likely they would have gotten the same speil as the C&D letter stated. However, that would have strengthed the story -- both confirming the C&D letters were not hype, and also showing the attitude that DC has. Even if Slashdot couldn't make contact, at least including a statement to that regrade at least shows some more intrigity in reporting. I certianly don't think that scenario was a blight on Slashdot, but it was a recent example of what needs to be improved to move it from hype-gathers to responsible reporting.
Suddenly, I'm reminded of a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode (Citizen Kang) when Clinton and Dole were abducted by aliens, and Kudos and Kang ran against each other, but for the same goal, complete domination of the human race. At the end, after every human was shackled and building the death weapons, Homer complains to Marge "Don't look at me, I voted for the other guy.".
Scary that compared that election, the candidates in this one are much closer in political views. But there's still more than enough of a difference to require a well-thought out vote between the various candidates.
IMO, if the company has provided you with the computer, it's *their* property to do with as they please, just as the courts have ruled on the monitoring of company email. If you install Linux without checking with the IT departments first, then you deserve whatever punishment the company deems as a penalty for abusing company equipment.
That said, there's no reason to actually take steps to see if Linux can be installed on a box.
Write your IT department or supervisior, explain what benefits you *and* the company will get from installing Linux on that one machine. Make sure you explain you'll be completely responsible for that box from technical support to making sure it works with any priopritary protocols on the current network to making sure that it's secure. The latter point is probably most important; your job will be riding on the security of that box, so *you* need to be willing to take the risk and responsibilty to lock it down to the best of your ability. (This brings up the point how much more secure a well-maintained linux box is even compared to a expert NT person -- but you need to define how secure is secure.)
If they don't agree, then there's probably no reason to stay at that company, if they don't understand why different people need different tools to work. Particually if they are in the IT business.
Yes, income taxes are rather immoral. We are now a commerce-based society, I'm in favor of a national sales tax, with waviers for those that can't afford such taxes. (I loved Perot's idea of a.50/gallon tax that he proposed -- but everyone saw that as being a nutcase, and the summer gas price situation only solidified my opinion that the american public has no idea of how to plan for the future).
I'm not sure how well the roommate situation analogy compared to paying taxes, however. Thing is, you later support flat taxes, which is what I think will work as well. The roommate situation ends up being the same here too, with the more wealthy paying the bulk of the costs of living.
There's something lacking, I can't place my finger on it, however.
Even though it's been diluted,.org is a non-profit *organization*, implying more than one person. And again, as others have pointed out,.org's been a trademark warzone too. I didn't mention, but should be included, is that.web or.alt should be able to ignore trademarks problems -- first come first served.
I run a webserver at home. It's not for commercial use, I'm not a private organization, nor am I running a backbone system. I'm definitely not.edu, nor.gov at home. I don't earn money, run banner ads, sell anything, etc... on my site; I run it out of the 'love' of running my site and the enjoyment of others.
I need a TLD for domains that are "part of the world wide web that haven't already been specified by other TLDs". ".web"'s not the best,
and I like the idea of ".alt", but in most of the TLD offerings, the concept of sites like mine have been lost. I've had to grab a.com and.org (and thanks to a register.com offer, I've also got a.com/.net/.org thing as well), but it's not the ideal solution. But offering.web is better than nothing.
(Yes, the original post was humorous, but I think there really is something missing in the offered TLDs. Thank goodness for Opennic:D)
In a completely 'fair' system, if the top 1% bring in 62% of the income, and pay 62% of the taxes, with similar breakdowns in all other income catagories, then the tax system is fair to all. If they then, under Bush, pay 64%, then the plan is unfair to the rich. If they pay 60%, the plan is unfair to the poor.
The problem is, the top 1% have an income larger than 62% (income != wealth, so it's not as high as 90%), yet they only collectively pay 62% or less. The percent that they earn as income *ought* to equal the percent they pay as taxes (percents based on the total society) in a flat tax system. Even worse, in a progressive tax system, as we claim to have in the states, they should be paying a larger percent in taxes than what they collect in income.
There was a story at the NYTimes today that research showed about 200+ companies, many on the Fortune 500 list, do not pay any taxes in all. Some even got refunds back from the gov't. This is all because corporations, as well as the very wealthy individual, have tax shelters (and the knowledge of those shelters) that everyone else doesn't have, and that's where the tax system breaks down. I'm all for a fair tax system, one that neither penaltizes nor rewards the wealthy, and where the same tricks (if they exist) are accessable at all income levels. I'm happy people have made vast fortunes in life, and I'm against complete wealth redistribution. But I do feel that as fewer and fewer control the money, fewer and fewer will have control of the gov't, and *then* we go from a democratic nation to a implistic one. And like our freedoms of speech and other Bill of Rights rights that are trying to be taken away from us now, we need to fight this possible transistion now as well, and fixing the tax code is a big start.
However, at least here, they are treated as secondary by the local media that I've yet to see them mentioned in the paper which I read daily. I know from NPR that there's a congressional seat up, but that's in a different county than I'm in.
It could be that there aren't that many issues up vote here, and since I recently moved, I can't say much on the local politic scene beyond the strong republican bent. So hopefully, the papers will have local issue sections or I'll get something in the mail so that I'm better informed.
Bush will probably win because he's a more perfect zero. What kind of Republican proposes the first-ever legislation to restrict CO2 emissions? What kind of Republican has no position on affirmative action? What kind of Republican says he "supports a culture of life" (opposes abortion) but admits that "we're going to have to change a lot of minds before we can get there?"
The kind of Republican that this is the one that rears it's head only every 4 years, and tends to disappear within 6 months. Just the same as the rarity of the more-centralized Democrat.
During *any* campaign, you need to take what the candidates say with a grain of salt; Bush Sr.'s snafu with the "No New Taxes" bit plays heavily here, and the fact that Clinton, when first elected, promised health care coverage, fought with the Rep. congress for a while, then let it drop after a year is also telling. Obviously, you as the average voter can only check the validity of some facts so far; an unbiased media can help determine the truthfulness of various statements (NPR, for example, has had post-debate reports that discuss how truthful every 'promise' the candidates make is).
Past elections have had a definite media bias bent, which makes telling truth from fiction harder. Bush Sr. and Clinton were both press favorites at the time of their initial runs. This year, we're lucky that the media is trying to remain unbias (particularly after screwing up the primaries with McCain). However, because they are trying so hard to be unbiased towards Reps and Democrates, it's showing the weakness in covering anything 3rd party. The only two 3rd-party candidates that get named are Nader and Buccahan, and only maybe 1% of the time Gore and Bush get. What about the Natural Law candidate
(so infrequently mentioned that I can't recall his name at the moment?) The press may try to be unbiased towards Rep and Dem, but they fall into the same boat in that they try to protect the 2-party system.
And in such a case, it's makes it hard to get more truth from those campaign promises. For example, on the respective tax plans, Gore attacks Bush, Bush attacks Gore. Gore, for example, says that Bush's plan helps only 1% of the population (the wealthiest), Bush says they get the most benefit since they pay the most taxes. Both are right, as we recently covered here at/. But I know that Nader and other third party candidates are shouting that there's still flaws in these numbers; they should be looking at the benefits as a percentage of income, and in this regard, the rich are making out like bandits, upwards of 10-15% numbers (IIRC), with the middle class and poor only getting 2-3%. Gore's plan is no different, since it still helps the wealthy. A fair tax plan would have similar benefits per income across all income levels, but neither of the two main parties want to approach it that way, lest they lose their soft money.
So for myself, I listen to the debates, and I'm not listening for what they plan to put into place when President, partially because they still need to get Congress to approve of those plans and partially because of the above. I watch the debates to see just what their general attitude and stance is on various issues, including the consistency of their overall system. (neither have much, IMO FYI) Since I'm not a swing state, I know I'm voting 3rd party, but I want to be aware of what attitude will be prevelent after the election, so I pay attention now.
I know that there is a large body of people that study chemistry/chemical engineering, then persue a law degree, as usually to become patent attornies. This is a common route for a patent attorny to follow, but chemisty-based patents have exists for decades; computer-based patents are mostly limited to within the last 2 decades. Because of the difference in age of the fields, there hasn't been any sort of common route for computer/law experts. I would see if you can find any school that does take in scientists and engineers, and makes them patent lawyers out of them and discuss with them your ideas for what you want to become. I would still urge you to study patent law, as that's one of the biggest areas out there right now that needs to be fixed from a computer standpoint.
This *won't* be a competitor until there are Windows builds of everything. Yes, this is an alpha project, so it's a bit early, but if they want to provide the competition, this should be high priority.
To some extent, the corporation involvement is there to help make sure that the debate is well covered, for example, USAir was helping to fly in reporters, while A-B had free food and drink at a nearby bar for the second debate for the media. (Needless to say, the costs for the candidates to be there is out of their campaign funds). Most likely, performing this service helps them with tax breaks on the money they spend for it. Some of those companies do also see it as a necessary public service, as without debates, the election process is skewed.
Is this bad? I don't think so -- the amount of effort and money needed to run the debates is large in order for them to be effective. Yes, they are probably looking for some favors down the road, but none of these companies screams out as one that needs legislation to be passed for them. And I doubt you'll be able to find a private citizen's group or NPO that will be able to handle the size and cost of these debates that is unbiased as possible.
Right now, the electoral college is broken because, except in 2 or so states, the person that gets the majority in the state gets ALL of the votes from that state. For small states like RI, where the voting population will tend to be constant across the board, this is reasonable, but in states like TX and CA, I would expect various districts to have different voting pattenrs, and therefore, would be problematic.
I do agree that some of the ideas in the discover article are good. However, I don't see that changing. The only thing that can probably be changed reasonable without causing too much problem would be to allow each district in each state to cast the majority vote based on that district's popular winner, and not aggregate to the state level. It can still lead to situations where the majority winner may not be the electoral college winner, but it's certainly makes it easier for third party candidates to get electoral college votes and gives the individual voter a better feel for how much his or her vote counts.
Salt that is mined from the earth is generally dissolved into brine, filtered, etc etc, and then recrystallized before it goes out for public consumption.
The filtering process generally has filters small enough to remove most commonday bacteria, so I would suspect that these would have never gotten to the table as well if they did exist in the original rock salt.
Reading on what the 'success' is of the test, it seems to me that SDMI's got a nice way to ignore
successful results with their test criteria. Testing the removal of the watermark, sure. But using 'golden ears', of which some members may be RIAA, to see if the music sounds unchanged? Very iffy there... sure, I'm sure the golden ears are sound engineers and those that know what to listen for, but their employment is questionable.
I'm not an audiophile, but I do know enough on wave theory that I would suspect that a better test would be to take both files, and look at the FFT of both samples at various times, using small time step units, and calculating some 'error' that the stripped file is off by. This should penaltize more for adding noise that wasn't there in the original sample than just for lower signal. Set some threshold that can be determined by doing the same comparison between a 196kbit-encoded file and a 128kbit-encoded. If the stripped sample performs worse than this, then the stripping fails, as it also took too much of the non-watermark stuff away. (Or some variation on this method -- again, I'm not an audiophile, just a scientist). This would make concrete winning conditions and take ambiguity out of it.
Obviously, this bill is being rushed through as a way to get extra votes for those reps that have seats up for grabs this year. Go back to their district shouting "I supported filters on public schools and libraries", and they'll have every parent on their side. Some bill of "won't someone think of the children" nature at this point in time usually happens every 2 years, and this is no different.
Now, as this is a big huge 1st Amendment issue, I fully expect someone to contest the case, whether the ACLU, EFF, or the various schools/libraries organizations around the country. And I really don't think that this case , as it stands, will hold up in the Supreme Court. Filtering technology as it is right now is a violation of free speech, and either the SC will nix the law, or force the development of better filtering software that actually *does* the job that is should do. If filters had a 99.999+% hit rate, and less than 0.001% failure rate using sites that, as deemed by the community, are either appropriate or inappropriate, then I would not have many qualms about using them at public terminals. But as with any first amendment challenge, one has to be careful to make sure this goes no farther than public terminals.
However, I would still think that the top 10% are bringing in y% income, where y is less than 90%, but much higher than 33% (the percentage of national taxes they pay), which *is* unfair to everyone else.
IMO, a flat tax with no tax shelters outside of US bonds and such, save at near and above the poverty level where there's a sliding scale, would be better than the huge mess of tax codes we have now.
Create a 'router' box. The box would come in 56k modem variety, or ethernet variety. Basically, on the 'input' side would be either a phone cord or cat5 input, output side would be a special cord, maybe USB or some special port design that needs a new card. Inside the router box would be a small HD (a gig or so) and necessary software. Note that both input and output would not be ports, but cords that come from inside the box so they can'd be disconnected or bypassed.
The box basically acts as a firewall/router. Software on the computer can activate the modem if necessary. All network requests would go through this box, and can be logged. The router would respond to local address calls, and would require password protection to access. As the way the cords are set up, and assuming you remove the modem from the computer, you can't bypass this system easily by just physically connecting the wires any differently. Otherwise, the kid would have to go into the computer, install the modem or netcard, and then go from there, but that would have a much larger chance of detection by the parents than just hacking around filtering software. I'd say that these would run no more than $100, and probably could be down to $50 if done right.
The only major way to break this is to find the password to the box, but that's the problem with any secure system.
I can't remember exactly my feelings last night when both candidates discussed the filtering. (I know that the question that it was answered to was really one-sided, as in "can we get rid of all smut to all people" even though it came off kid-friendly). Bush's filter idea, as stated here, won't work, and I dunno what to think of Gore's plan.
But later (or before, I forget) Gore's idea on parental responsibility came up again specically on a question about how to make sure that parents are responsible when it comes to education needs.
Both candidates quickly skimmed away from how to deal with lax parents and went into their blurbs about their various education plans. But this is really an important point - if the parents are not going to spend the time and investiment in the education of their students, are they going to spend the time and investiment in makign sure their kid is only visiting good sites? Probably not.
The problem with patents is that something that is filed way back when may seem mundane at filing time, but suddenly years later, is a big thing. The BT patent on linking is a great example, since they filed it before the WWW was invented, as innocent as it was then, but now is threatening tons of royalities.
To this end, any questional patent needs to be researched effectively. In a project like bountyquest, this means that any bountied prior art should be given equal priority, even if one is as important as the Amazon One-Click and another is the use of an animated gif to submit a form (which may or may not be patented, just the first example of something that might seem utter useless now). Placing more money on one patent than other would lead to people activity grabbing the bigger patent rewards and ignoring the small ones that 5 years from now, could bite back.
Ten thousand is certainly NOT an unreasonable number for the average trouble-making patent, and given the breadth of the site and general ecommerce field, is probably about as much as they can afford to give away without being a loss-leader. It's also enough incentive for anyone to get involved ($1000 may be low to some folks).
As was bought up before (weeks ago), you can get prior art on a patent even if that came from publicly distributed literature. One company could not get a patent for a waterbed because (I believe) Heinlien already envisioned it in one of his books. I would suspect that comics would be usable too since they are dated and copyrighted, and therefore a claim of prior art can be validated.
Which ought to mean that if the top 10% have 90% of the wealth, then they should be paying MORE than 90% of the taxes.
However, what the rich have over those that don't are numerous tax shelters that they can squirrel away money in and avoid taxes until the so-called
death tax.
Slashdot Mirror
I personally avoid using work email for anything beyond work correspondence, and while certainly not draconian, I feel that it's a responsibility to my place of employment to minimize the use of email for personal business.
Now, if the rules extended to any email/activity from any account even outside of the company's control, then it becomes a free speech issue. (i.e. use hotmail or other web-based emails if you really want personal email at work).
Most of the stories 'published' on these sites are from contributions by readers, and even then, they tend to be links to other major old-media news sites. In this regard, the site doesn't have to have responsibility on these stories, though the selection of which stories to go with is a matter of bias and the like.
However, Slashdot or other sites will have a scoop, a story which either they wrote or that a submitter informed them of but with no strong evidence. On the former, these sites need to have a strong responsibility ot make sure their facts are straight, they take an impartial look to both sides when appropriate, and similar concepts from print media. In some regards, Slashdot gets this (many of the interviews of late have been very good), while other times, they could do some more in-depth reporting to show a more responsible position.
On the latter, stories that are basically rumors or accounts experiences by one or two people, there's even more resposibility on Slashdot to make sure to check the story out as fully as possible before posting the story. A good example was the early hoopla on the Cuecat stuff. People were reporting that a couple C&D letters got out and in the articles that were posted, there was a definite bent against DC for their arrogence. (Sure, I think that DC is completely in the wrong for what they are trying to do). But no one at Slashdot tried to get comment from DC on this case, taking the text of the C&D letter as DC's statement of opinion. A more responsible journalist would have attempted to at least make contact, and most likely they would have gotten the same speil as the C&D letter stated. However, that would have strengthed the story -- both confirming the C&D letters were not hype, and also showing the attitude that DC has. Even if Slashdot couldn't make contact, at least including a statement to that regrade at least shows some more intrigity in reporting. I certianly don't think that scenario was a blight on Slashdot, but it was a recent example of what needs to be improved to move it from hype-gathers to responsible reporting.
Scary that compared that election, the candidates in this one are much closer in political views. But there's still more than enough of a difference to require a well-thought out vote between the various candidates.
That said, there's no reason to actually take steps to see if Linux can be installed on a box. Write your IT department or supervisior, explain what benefits you *and* the company will get from installing Linux on that one machine. Make sure you explain you'll be completely responsible for that box from technical support to making sure it works with any priopritary protocols on the current network to making sure that it's secure. The latter point is probably most important; your job will be riding on the security of that box, so *you* need to be willing to take the risk and responsibilty to lock it down to the best of your ability. (This brings up the point how much more secure a well-maintained linux box is even compared to a expert NT person -- but you need to define how secure is secure.)
If they don't agree, then there's probably no reason to stay at that company, if they don't understand why different people need different tools to work. Particually if they are in the IT business.
I'm not sure how well the roommate situation analogy compared to paying taxes, however. Thing is, you later support flat taxes, which is what I think will work as well. The roommate situation ends up being the same here too, with the more wealthy paying the bulk of the costs of living. There's something lacking, I can't place my finger on it, however.
Even though it's been diluted, .org is a non-profit *organization*, implying more than one person. And again, as others have pointed out, .org's been a trademark warzone too. I didn't mention, but should be included, is that .web or .alt should be able to ignore trademarks problems -- first come first served.
I need a TLD for domains that are "part of the world wide web that haven't already been specified by other TLDs". ".web"'s not the best, and I like the idea of ".alt", but in most of the TLD offerings, the concept of sites like mine have been lost. I've had to grab a .com and .org (and thanks to a register.com offer, I've also got a .com/.net/.org thing as well), but it's not the ideal solution. But offering .web is better than nothing.
(Yes, the original post was humorous, but I think there really is something missing in the offered TLDs. Thank goodness for Opennic :D)
In a completely 'fair' system, if the top 1% bring in 62% of the income, and pay 62% of the taxes, with similar breakdowns in all other income catagories, then the tax system is fair to all. If they then, under Bush, pay 64%, then the plan is unfair to the rich. If they pay 60%, the plan is unfair to the poor.
The problem is, the top 1% have an income larger than 62% (income != wealth, so it's not as high as 90%), yet they only collectively pay 62% or less. The percent that they earn as income *ought* to equal the percent they pay as taxes (percents based on the total society) in a flat tax system. Even worse, in a progressive tax system, as we claim to have in the states, they should be paying a larger percent in taxes than what they collect in income.
There was a story at the NYTimes today that research showed about 200+ companies, many on the Fortune 500 list, do not pay any taxes in all. Some even got refunds back from the gov't. This is all because corporations, as well as the very wealthy individual, have tax shelters (and the knowledge of those shelters) that everyone else doesn't have, and that's where the tax system breaks down. I'm all for a fair tax system, one that neither penaltizes nor rewards the wealthy, and where the same tricks (if they exist) are accessable at all income levels. I'm happy people have made vast fortunes in life, and I'm against complete wealth redistribution. But I do feel that as fewer and fewer control the money, fewer and fewer will have control of the gov't, and *then* we go from a democratic nation to a implistic one. And like our freedoms of speech and other Bill of Rights rights that are trying to be taken away from us now, we need to fight this possible transistion now as well, and fixing the tax code is a big start.
However, at least here, they are treated as secondary by the local media that I've yet to see them mentioned in the paper which I read daily. I know from NPR that there's a congressional seat up, but that's in a different county than I'm in.
It could be that there aren't that many issues up vote here, and since I recently moved, I can't say much on the local politic scene beyond the strong republican bent. So hopefully, the papers will have local issue sections or I'll get something in the mail so that I'm better informed.
Bush will probably win because he's a more perfect zero. What kind of Republican proposes the first-ever legislation to restrict CO2 emissions? What kind of Republican has no position on affirmative action? What kind of Republican says he "supports a culture of life" (opposes abortion) but admits that "we're going to have to change a lot of minds before we can get there?"
The kind of Republican that this is the one that rears it's head only every 4 years, and tends to disappear within 6 months. Just the same as the rarity of the more-centralized Democrat.
During *any* campaign, you need to take what the candidates say with a grain of salt; Bush Sr.'s snafu with the "No New Taxes" bit plays heavily here, and the fact that Clinton, when first elected, promised health care coverage, fought with the Rep. congress for a while, then let it drop after a year is also telling. Obviously, you as the average voter can only check the validity of some facts so far; an unbiased media can help determine the truthfulness of various statements (NPR, for example, has had post-debate reports that discuss how truthful every 'promise' the candidates make is).
Past elections have had a definite media bias bent, which makes telling truth from fiction harder. Bush Sr. and Clinton were both press favorites at the time of their initial runs. This year, we're lucky that the media is trying to remain unbias (particularly after screwing up the primaries with McCain). However, because they are trying so hard to be unbiased towards Reps and Democrates, it's showing the weakness in covering anything 3rd party. The only two 3rd-party candidates that get named are Nader and Buccahan, and only maybe 1% of the time Gore and Bush get. What about the Natural Law candidate (so infrequently mentioned that I can't recall his name at the moment?) The press may try to be unbiased towards Rep and Dem, but they fall into the same boat in that they try to protect the 2-party system.
And in such a case, it's makes it hard to get more truth from those campaign promises. For example, on the respective tax plans, Gore attacks Bush, Bush attacks Gore. Gore, for example, says that Bush's plan helps only 1% of the population (the wealthiest), Bush says they get the most benefit since they pay the most taxes. Both are right, as we recently covered here at /. But I know that Nader and other third party candidates are shouting that there's still flaws in these numbers; they should be looking at the benefits as a percentage of income, and in this regard, the rich are making out like bandits, upwards of 10-15% numbers (IIRC), with the middle class and poor only getting 2-3%. Gore's plan is no different, since it still helps the wealthy. A fair tax plan would have similar benefits per income across all income levels, but neither of the two main parties want to approach it that way, lest they lose their soft money.
So for myself, I listen to the debates, and I'm not listening for what they plan to put into place when President, partially because they still need to get Congress to approve of those plans and partially because of the above. I watch the debates to see just what their general attitude and stance is on various issues, including the consistency of their overall system. (neither have much, IMO FYI) Since I'm not a swing state, I know I'm voting 3rd party, but I want to be aware of what attitude will be prevelent after the election, so I pay attention now.
To some extent, the corporation involvement is there to help make sure that the debate is well covered, for example, USAir was helping to fly in reporters, while A-B had free food and drink at a nearby bar for the second debate for the media. (Needless to say, the costs for the candidates to be there is out of their campaign funds). Most likely, performing this service helps them with tax breaks on the money they spend for it. Some of those companies do also see it as a necessary public service, as without debates, the election process is skewed.
Is this bad? I don't think so -- the amount of effort and money needed to run the debates is large in order for them to be effective. Yes, they are probably looking for some favors down the road, but none of these companies screams out as one that needs legislation to be passed for them. And I doubt you'll be able to find a private citizen's group or NPO that will be able to handle the size and cost of these debates that is unbiased as possible.
Right now, the electoral college is broken because, except in 2 or so states, the person that gets the majority in the state gets ALL of the votes from that state. For small states like RI, where the voting population will tend to be constant across the board, this is reasonable, but in states like TX and CA, I would expect various districts to have different voting pattenrs, and therefore, would be problematic.
I do agree that some of the ideas in the discover article are good. However, I don't see that changing. The only thing that can probably be changed reasonable without causing too much problem would be to allow each district in each state to cast the majority vote based on that district's popular winner, and not aggregate to the state level. It can still lead to situations where the majority winner may not be the electoral college winner, but it's certainly makes it easier for third party candidates to get electoral college votes and gives the individual voter a better feel for how much his or her vote counts.
The link, from page source, is http://www.discover.com/nov_00/gthere.html?article =featbestman.html
The filtering process generally has filters small enough to remove most commonday bacteria, so I would suspect that these would have never gotten to the table as well if they did exist in the original rock salt.
I'm not an audiophile, but I do know enough on wave theory that I would suspect that a better test would be to take both files, and look at the FFT of both samples at various times, using small time step units, and calculating some 'error' that the stripped file is off by. This should penaltize more for adding noise that wasn't there in the original sample than just for lower signal. Set some threshold that can be determined by doing the same comparison between a 196kbit-encoded file and a 128kbit-encoded. If the stripped sample performs worse than this, then the stripping fails, as it also took too much of the non-watermark stuff away. (Or some variation on this method -- again, I'm not an audiophile, just a scientist). This would make concrete winning conditions and take ambiguity out of it.
Now, as this is a big huge 1st Amendment issue, I fully expect someone to contest the case, whether the ACLU, EFF, or the various schools/libraries organizations around the country. And I really don't think that this case , as it stands, will hold up in the Supreme Court. Filtering technology as it is right now is a violation of free speech, and either the SC will nix the law, or force the development of better filtering software that actually *does* the job that is should do. If filters had a 99.999+% hit rate, and less than 0.001% failure rate using sites that, as deemed by the community, are either appropriate or inappropriate, then I would not have many qualms about using them at public terminals. But as with any first amendment challenge, one has to be careful to make sure this goes no farther than public terminals.
However, I would still think that the top 10% are bringing in y% income, where y is less than 90%, but much higher than 33% (the percentage of national taxes they pay), which *is* unfair to everyone else.
IMO, a flat tax with no tax shelters outside of US bonds and such, save at near and above the poverty level where there's a sliding scale, would be better than the huge mess of tax codes we have now.
Create a 'router' box. The box would come in 56k modem variety, or ethernet variety. Basically, on the 'input' side would be either a phone cord or cat5 input, output side would be a special cord, maybe USB or some special port design that needs a new card. Inside the router box would be a small HD (a gig or so) and necessary software. Note that both input and output would not be ports, but cords that come from inside the box so they can'd be disconnected or bypassed.
The box basically acts as a firewall/router. Software on the computer can activate the modem if necessary. All network requests would go through this box, and can be logged. The router would respond to local address calls, and would require password protection to access. As the way the cords are set up, and assuming you remove the modem from the computer, you can't bypass this system easily by just physically connecting the wires any differently. Otherwise, the kid would have to go into the computer, install the modem or netcard, and then go from there, but that would have a much larger chance of detection by the parents than just hacking around filtering software. I'd say that these would run no more than $100, and probably could be down to $50 if done right.
The only major way to break this is to find the password to the box, but that's the problem with any secure system.
But later (or before, I forget) Gore's idea on parental responsibility came up again specically on a question about how to make sure that parents are responsible when it comes to education needs. Both candidates quickly skimmed away from how to deal with lax parents and went into their blurbs about their various education plans. But this is really an important point - if the parents are not going to spend the time and investiment in the education of their students, are they going to spend the time and investiment in makign sure their kid is only visiting good sites? Probably not.
To this end, any questional patent needs to be researched effectively. In a project like bountyquest, this means that any bountied prior art should be given equal priority, even if one is as important as the Amazon One-Click and another is the use of an animated gif to submit a form (which may or may not be patented, just the first example of something that might seem utter useless now). Placing more money on one patent than other would lead to people activity grabbing the bigger patent rewards and ignoring the small ones that 5 years from now, could bite back.
Ten thousand is certainly NOT an unreasonable number for the average trouble-making patent, and given the breadth of the site and general ecommerce field, is probably about as much as they can afford to give away without being a loss-leader. It's also enough incentive for anyone to get involved ($1000 may be low to some folks).
However, what the rich have over those that don't are numerous tax shelters that they can squirrel away money in and avoid taxes until the so-called death tax.