Yes, this is true, but if you ask Congress (or any political body) to do spending cuts, they won't do anything sensible. They'll cut something that hurts the poor people (Medicare, student aid, etc.) - a drop in the bucket, but something that the poor depend on and therefore would get a *lot* of people angry. Angry enough to vote the other way, riot, etc. if it really came down to that.
They'll never cut the programs that an intelligent person would view as superfluous - basically any Congressman or Representative's bullshit pork project like the famed "Bridge to Nowhere". While the BtN is a famous example, shit like that happens daily but we'll never see it disappear.
Therefore, the only real sensible action we can get (since cutting spending in our current government is a pipe dream) is a simple, straightforward goal that will either reduce spending and/or bring in more money. Repealing the Bush Tax Cuts is the simplest, least socially and politically difficult choice to make and that's why it always comes up during discussion.
I don't have quite a full grasp on what you're saying, so please help me understand it.
If we only get up to LEO, we'd need a smaller rocket (basically). We'd have, what, some sort of low orbit gas station or the like up there for refueling? So we'd end up doing lots of small trips instead of one big trip, and the major advantage would be that we'd have no need to develop heavy lift capability as a result.
You sort of left out *how* we'd refuel once the ship is in LEO. That's the part I'm trying to figure out in my head.
I suppose busker might be more accurate, although traditionally it's only really been street musicians and performers that are buskers. You'd have a hard time gathering a large crowd by painting a landscape.
Regarding buskers, here's a hilarious law from my home city (tl;dr after the quote box):
CHAPTER 6 STREET MUSICIANS
5:6-1. HAND ORGAN PLAYER LICENSE; FEE; TERM OF LICENSE.
a. No person shall play upon or use for the purpose of making music any instrument called or commonly known as a "hand organ" on the streets in this City without having first procured a license from the Director of the Department of Finance and/or his designee. All such licensees shall be called "organ grinders" and licensed as such.
b. The annual fee for such license shall be ten dollars and fifty ($10.50) cents. The fee shall be payable upon the presentation of the application and shall be returned, less the sum of two ($2.00) dollars in the event such license is not granted. All licenses issued, and renewals thereof, under this chapter shall be for a period of one (1) year from the date of issuance. The Division of Tax Abatements/Special Taxes shall establish administrative rules and/or regulations pertaining to scheduling for the issuance of an organ grinder's license.
(R.O. 1966; R.O. 1966 C.S. 5:6-1)
5:6-2. USE OF CHILDREN TO COLLECT MONEY PROHIBITED.
No person playing a hand organ or any other musical instrument shall employ or use for the purpose of collecting or soliciting money for such playing, any female child under the age of eighteen (18) years, or any male child under the age of fourteen (14) years. (R.O. 1966 5:6-2)
5:6-3. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES.
No person or any member of a band of musicians, using either string or wind instruments, shall go in or on any street or public place or from house to house to play the instruments and solicit or receive any contribution of money or anything whatsoever from any person for so playing; provided, that nothing in this section shall apply to any licensed organ grinder licensed under Section 5:6-1. (R.O. 1966 5:6-3)
CROSS REFERENCE: For ordinance prohibiting certain annoyances by musical instruments, see Chapter 3 of Title XX, Offenses, of these Revised General Ordinances.
5:6-4. PENALTY.
Any person who violates any provision of this chapter shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding ninety (90) days, or both. A separate offense shall be deemed committed on each day during or on which a violation occurs or continues. (R.O. 1966 5:6-4)
Organ grinder? Legal in the biggest city in NJ if you get a license. Street guitarist? 100% illegal and no way to get a license. No wonder we're broke.(You can view the law here.)
I understand what you're saying, but I also want to expand on what I said a bit and make sure that you (and others) will have a clear understanding of it.
The original patronage system basically broke down to "a rich dude or organization pays you because they want this art or they have an appreciation for it." The "art" could have been music, poetry, pictures, etc.
I'm saying that nowadays we are essentially in a similar system. (Ironically, it's probably an even more capitalistic system than what we currently have with the MAFIAA.) The difference is that thanks to the Internet, you don't need a papal sugar daddy to pay the bills. You can (easily) distribute your stuff to nearly anyone in the world and they can pay you for it. That is a very, very significant market change, and it's only really in the last 10 years that this has become a feasible living.
Exactly. Had he said this anywhere else it may have been credible. Instead, he's in Florida and while the message the rest of the country may be hearing is "a bold new plan for space and the moon", the locals are hearing "I'll pay out loads of government contracts around Cape Canaveral and pump money into the local economy". It's pork and nothing more.
And amazingly, we seem to be returning to the patronage model.
Unless you were an artisan (potter, blacksmith, etc.) the masses couldn't really afford things like paintings or sculptures. The royalty, wealthy, and churches ended up paying these men and women for their services.
Nowadays, we have a similar situation where people are acting as artists and performers and leaving out a digital chip jar. Now the whole world are the patrons. The model has been very successful if you have a quality enough product - just look at all the webcomics where people live 100% off of the donations they receive, or the ones who segue into merchandising.
As for speed limits, well, couldn't OCR be used to read the signs? Speed limit signs are pretty much standard nationwide.
The design would also help a whole lot, too. White box, black border, number - that's the speed limit.
Moreover, a lot of this data is already compiled by GPS companies. For instance, my friend's (newer) GPS by Garmin shows you the speed limit of the road you're driving on. It changes over to the new one (when you pass a sign with a different limit) in anywhere from 1 to 6 seconds, and alerts you if you're going over.
Pre-coffee stupid question of the morning: couldn't you have a few fans pointing in such a way that they pull the balloon downward? You know, like retro-rockets. Or you could just weigh the thing down enough to balance it out.
I bet if you had a sort of sandbag or water tank and a nice, simple, and cheap circuit board in a helium balloon, you could continually rebalance the weight as the helium dissipates. (So for example, when some helium is lost and the balloon starts descending, a bit of water or sand is automatically dumped until the balloon becomes level.)
You regurgitate all the worn-out memes about the Slashdot community
The sad thing is he isn't even trying. I mean, even Natalie Portman covered in tobasco ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H hot grits while (wooshing over Ethanol-fueled) would have the decency to post an obligatory xkcd.
Contrary to the movies, you have very few open meetings where a bunch of guys sit around and openly plot evil deeds. Most of that stuff is done in much smaller settings, and even then they use euphemisms and obfuscation.
That sounds an awful lot like how organized crime does business.
"Hey Vito, did you take care of that thing with that guy in that place? No, the other place. And the other guy. With the thing that he owes us?"
No, because then we'd have to vote, and it would take months to count up them all up.
But actually, Nancy Grace is one of those people that just makes me mad thinking about it. She symbolizes what's completely broken with CNN Headline News by being a loud obnoxious talking head that prattles on endlessly about unimportant stuff. She also symbolizes what's completely broken about prosecutors: everyone is assumed guilty by default and it's more important to keep the public outraged or frightened than to get at the truth. The only good thing about Nancy Grace is that she's no longer a practicing prosecutor.
It's CNN damn it, I want to see NEWS when I switch the channel to HEADLINE NEWS not some hysteria about Caylee.
It's worse than that. I would wager a hefty sum that every single one of those sensationalistic "journalists" knows that they're being specious and disingenuous all the time and taking everything way over the top. They realized it was way, way more profitable than being a responsible journalist, and they willingly decided to go through with it and continue doing it.
Isn't there any way to request a warrant or search of limited scope? Like, sure you can look but you can only admit evidence relevant to the case and approved by the judge.
I should rephrase. "I won't pay the kind of money I'd pay for a college course". I actually do enjoy giving money to content creators when I can afford to. (I honestly have so much stuff - a couple hundred games on Steam, for instance - that I haven't been buying much lately.)
There is also the issue of abandonware. There are a lot of games that frankly are ridiculously expensive to find nowadays, often in the hundreds of dollars.
The companies that own the IP could have easily set up a useful digital service but they instead decide to sit on old games and do nothing with them. If they don't want my money, they obviously won't get it. But I'll still get the game.
Call your CC company and explain the situation to them. They'll help you resolve it. This is essentially outright fraud and something they have to handle.
I won't pay anything for a class that won't lead to a degree or college credits.
Employers tend to actually care about the sheepskin in general. You could be the next Kevin Mitnick, but a lot of places will immediately dismiss you because you don't have degrees or certifications of any sort.
While these are great for general learning and expanding your knowledge base, I won't take them seriously until they're accredited in some fashion.
A few policies would severely curtail this stuff from happening.
1) Term limits are firm and uncompromising. One term of x years, that's it. My logic on this is while some presidents have done good with 2 terms (Clinton, FDR (3!), etc.) it's way more likely that they will do a lot more damage during their second term. Imagine how different the world would be if Bush were defeated in 2004.
2) Holding another job (especially another political office, such as being both a state senator and a county sheriff - some guys in NJ hold three or four of these jobs at the same time!) while serving your term in office is illegal.
3) All politicians will receive a reasonable pension (adjusted for the cost of living) that is equivalent to their salary for the rest of their life. (While there is such a thing as a "low paying government job", it is very, very rarely an elected position.) In exchange, politicians (once elected) may never be employed in any fashion whatsoever ever again. (Volunteering and things of the sort are fine.) This (relatively) small cost will immediately kill any chances of a politician landing a cushy job in an industry that they currently have oversight over. This can never be revoked - even if the politician commits a felony - so as to prevent politicians from doing the cost/benefit analysis and serving a year in jail so they can then work 30 years as a board member for a company.
4) You know how in contests they say that immediate family of the company running the contest are forbidden from entering it? Same thing, but with politics. No first ladies backdooring into a Presidency. No senate wives ending up as a Representative. This will help reduce the modern nobility (such as the Kennedys) as the only option available would be to skip a generation. Moreover, their immediate families would be banned for working for any company or subsidiary of a company that has any current or future government contracts and/or receives any government subsidies.
5) All politicians finances - past, present, and future - are a matter of public record (sans information that could be used to steal an identity. This rule stays in effect for the duration of their term as well as the rest of their lives. Any mysterious $100,000 deposits will be investigated by a special branch of the IRS intended to watch the politician's pocketbooks like a hawk. The same goes for their immediate family per the previous nepotism rule.
6) There will be absolutely zero "Closed Door" meetings in any respect, including sessions of Congress, with the exception of meetings involving "State Secrets". "State Secrets" will be determined by an independent civilian commission that has authority over Congress and the military in this respect, so no more of the "Everything is classified/state secrets" strategy. That same civilian commission sits in on all closed sessions and answers to no one - if they feel it is heinous enough they have every right to disclose information to the public.
7) All Congressional sessions are videotaped and publicly available on the Internet in realtime. The entire archive is viewable at any time for anyone anywhere around the world. In a similar note, those "regular" television channels will be adjusted slightly. Every television station is required to carry the equivalent of C-SPAN with a 24 hour feed into the respective chambers of Congress, the House of Representatives, and the local state legislature and transmit it both digitally and over-the-air.
8) All bills that are to be submitted for law have to follow set standards for font size, spacing, margins, etc. Once a bill is completely put together, it is "locked in" and unamendable. The bill cannot be voted on for 3 + n days, where n is the number of pages of the bill. This is to give the politicians time to actually *read* the bills and keep any last minute "ram the vote through" sessions like the second round of the bank bailouts. If the vote in either house fails, the bills must be re-written completely fresh. Only one
I've said it before and I'll say it every time. A year from the first day of sale is more than enough. Damn near every medium you hear of (books, movies, games, etc.) makes it money in the first few weeks. A saying in the game and movie industries is that if you don't turn a profit by the end of the sixth week then it's a flop.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, this is true, but if you ask Congress (or any political body) to do spending cuts, they won't do anything sensible. They'll cut something that hurts the poor people (Medicare, student aid, etc.) - a drop in the bucket, but something that the poor depend on and therefore would get a *lot* of people angry. Angry enough to vote the other way, riot, etc. if it really came down to that.
They'll never cut the programs that an intelligent person would view as superfluous - basically any Congressman or Representative's bullshit pork project like the famed "Bridge to Nowhere". While the BtN is a famous example, shit like that happens daily but we'll never see it disappear.
Therefore, the only real sensible action we can get (since cutting spending in our current government is a pipe dream) is a simple, straightforward goal that will either reduce spending and/or bring in more money. Repealing the Bush Tax Cuts is the simplest, least socially and politically difficult choice to make and that's why it always comes up during discussion.
I don't have quite a full grasp on what you're saying, so please help me understand it.
If we only get up to LEO, we'd need a smaller rocket (basically). We'd have, what, some sort of low orbit gas station or the like up there for refueling? So we'd end up doing lots of small trips instead of one big trip, and the major advantage would be that we'd have no need to develop heavy lift capability as a result.
You sort of left out *how* we'd refuel once the ship is in LEO. That's the part I'm trying to figure out in my head.
Is that correct, or am I missing something?
I suppose busker might be more accurate, although traditionally it's only really been street musicians and performers that are buskers. You'd have a hard time gathering a large crowd by painting a landscape.
Regarding buskers, here's a hilarious law from my home city (tl;dr after the quote box):
CHAPTER 6 STREET MUSICIANS
5:6-1. HAND ORGAN PLAYER LICENSE; FEE; TERM OF LICENSE.
a. No person shall play upon or use for the purpose of making music any instrument called or commonly known as a "hand organ" on the streets in this City without having first procured a license from the Director of the Department of Finance and/or his designee. All such licensees shall be called "organ grinders" and licensed as such.
b. The annual fee for such license shall be ten dollars and fifty ($10.50) cents. The fee shall be payable upon the presentation of the application and shall be returned, less the sum of two ($2.00) dollars in the event such license is not granted. All licenses issued, and renewals thereof, under this chapter shall be for a period of one (1) year from the date of issuance. The Division of Tax Abatements/Special Taxes shall establish administrative rules and/or regulations pertaining to scheduling for the issuance of an organ grinder's license.
(R.O. 1966; R.O. 1966 C.S. 5:6-1)
5:6-2. USE OF CHILDREN TO COLLECT MONEY PROHIBITED.
No person playing a hand organ or any other musical instrument shall employ or use for the purpose of collecting or soliciting money for such playing, any female child under the age of eighteen (18) years, or any male child under the age of fourteen (14) years. (R.O. 1966 5:6-2)
5:6-3. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES.
No person or any member of a band of musicians, using either string or wind instruments, shall go in or on any street or public place or from house to house to play the instruments and solicit or receive any contribution of money or anything whatsoever from any person for so playing; provided, that nothing in this section shall apply to any licensed organ grinder licensed under Section 5:6-1. (R.O. 1966 5:6-3)
CROSS REFERENCE: For ordinance prohibiting certain annoyances by musical instruments, see Chapter 3 of Title XX, Offenses, of these Revised General Ordinances.
5:6-4. PENALTY.
Any person who violates any provision of this chapter shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding ninety (90) days, or both. A separate offense shall be deemed committed on each day during or on which a violation occurs or continues. (R.O. 1966 5:6-4)
Organ grinder? Legal in the biggest city in NJ if you get a license. Street guitarist? 100% illegal and no way to get a license. No wonder we're broke.(You can view the law here.)
I understand what you're saying, but I also want to expand on what I said a bit and make sure that you (and others) will have a clear understanding of it.
The original patronage system basically broke down to "a rich dude or organization pays you because they want this art or they have an appreciation for it." The "art" could have been music, poetry, pictures, etc.
I'm saying that nowadays we are essentially in a similar system. (Ironically, it's probably an even more capitalistic system than what we currently have with the MAFIAA.) The difference is that thanks to the Internet, you don't need a papal sugar daddy to pay the bills. You can (easily) distribute your stuff to nearly anyone in the world and they can pay you for it. That is a very, very significant market change, and it's only really in the last 10 years that this has become a feasible living.
Exactly. Had he said this anywhere else it may have been credible. Instead, he's in Florida and while the message the rest of the country may be hearing is "a bold new plan for space and the moon", the locals are hearing "I'll pay out loads of government contracts around Cape Canaveral and pump money into the local economy". It's pork and nothing more.
And amazingly, we seem to be returning to the patronage model.
Unless you were an artisan (potter, blacksmith, etc.) the masses couldn't really afford things like paintings or sculptures. The royalty, wealthy, and churches ended up paying these men and women for their services.
Nowadays, we have a similar situation where people are acting as artists and performers and leaving out a digital chip jar. Now the whole world are the patrons. The model has been very successful if you have a quality enough product - just look at all the webcomics where people live 100% off of the donations they receive, or the ones who segue into merchandising.
As for speed limits, well, couldn't OCR be used to read the signs? Speed limit signs are pretty much standard nationwide.
The design would also help a whole lot, too. White box, black border, number - that's the speed limit.
Moreover, a lot of this data is already compiled by GPS companies. For instance, my friend's (newer) GPS by Garmin shows you the speed limit of the road you're driving on. It changes over to the new one (when you pass a sign with a different limit) in anywhere from 1 to 6 seconds, and alerts you if you're going over.
Pre-coffee stupid question of the morning: couldn't you have a few fans pointing in such a way that they pull the balloon downward? You know, like retro-rockets. Or you could just weigh the thing down enough to balance it out.
I bet if you had a sort of sandbag or water tank and a nice, simple, and cheap circuit board in a helium balloon, you could continually rebalance the weight as the helium dissipates. (So for example, when some helium is lost and the balloon starts descending, a bit of water or sand is automatically dumped until the balloon becomes level.)
You regurgitate all the worn-out memes about the Slashdot community
The sad thing is he isn't even trying. I mean, even Natalie Portman covered in tobasco ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H hot grits while (wooshing over Ethanol-fueled) would have the decency to post an obligatory xkcd.
F-F-F-FIVE MEME COMBO!
Yeah he sounds like someone who should be silenced. Fucking political sellout.
When people say stuff like this, I often hear others say "this is going too far", "you're overreacting", etc.
I then remind them that the Boston Tea Party happened due to a 2% increase in the tax in tea. 2%!
Man, we've become such a bunch of wimps.
Yes, but not necessarily well.
Here in Essex County, NJ, the pay is equivalent to about $5/day.
I know, at times it borders on anti-social
Fuck you, you dick-sucking commie-nazi-hippie!
Contrary to the movies, you have very few open meetings where a bunch of guys sit around and openly plot evil deeds. Most of that stuff is done in much smaller settings, and even then they use euphemisms and obfuscation.
That sounds an awful lot like how organized crime does business.
"Hey Vito, did you take care of that thing with that guy in that place? No, the other place. And the other guy. With the thing that he owes us?"
No, because then we'd have to vote, and it would take months to count up them all up.
But actually, Nancy Grace is one of those people that just makes me mad thinking about it. She symbolizes what's completely broken with CNN Headline News by being a loud obnoxious talking head that prattles on endlessly about unimportant stuff. She also symbolizes what's completely broken about prosecutors: everyone is assumed guilty by default and it's more important to keep the public outraged or frightened than to get at the truth. The only good thing about Nancy Grace is that she's no longer a practicing prosecutor.
It's CNN damn it, I want to see NEWS when I switch the channel to HEADLINE NEWS not some hysteria about Caylee.
It's worse than that. I would wager a hefty sum that every single one of those sensationalistic "journalists" knows that they're being specious and disingenuous all the time and taking everything way over the top. They realized it was way, way more profitable than being a responsible journalist, and they willingly decided to go through with it and continue doing it.
The giant pig-blood-and-hormone fueled pike probably scared them all away.
Armok help us, Dwarf Fortress is becoming real.
Isn't there any way to request a warrant or search of limited scope? Like, sure you can look but you can only admit evidence relevant to the case and approved by the judge.
I should rephrase. "I won't pay the kind of money I'd pay for a college course". I actually do enjoy giving money to content creators when I can afford to. (I honestly have so much stuff - a couple hundred games on Steam, for instance - that I haven't been buying much lately.)
If the studio did that, the artist could publish it themselves after a year. It'd be public domain.
Also, studios do that now anyway. There's been more than few instances of a band/artist saying "I know my name's on this, but don't buy it. It'd bad."
There is also the issue of abandonware. There are a lot of games that frankly are ridiculously expensive to find nowadays, often in the hundreds of dollars.
The companies that own the IP could have easily set up a useful digital service but they instead decide to sit on old games and do nothing with them. If they don't want my money, they obviously won't get it. But I'll still get the game.
Call your CC company and explain the situation to them. They'll help you resolve it. This is essentially outright fraud and something they have to handle.
Thanks. It's been a long time since grade school. I forgot about the Sedition Act.
Probably the best thing would be some sort of titanium umbrella (sent in pieces) to sit over the base (or at least the core components) to protect it.
I won't pay anything for a class that won't lead to a degree or college credits.
Employers tend to actually care about the sheepskin in general. You could be the next Kevin Mitnick, but a lot of places will immediately dismiss you because you don't have degrees or certifications of any sort.
While these are great for general learning and expanding your knowledge base, I won't take them seriously until they're accredited in some fashion.
A few policies would severely curtail this stuff from happening.
1) Term limits are firm and uncompromising. One term of x years, that's it. My logic on this is while some presidents have done good with 2 terms (Clinton, FDR (3!), etc.) it's way more likely that they will do a lot more damage during their second term. Imagine how different the world would be if Bush were defeated in 2004.
2) Holding another job (especially another political office, such as being both a state senator and a county sheriff - some guys in NJ hold three or four of these jobs at the same time!) while serving your term in office is illegal.
3) All politicians will receive a reasonable pension (adjusted for the cost of living) that is equivalent to their salary for the rest of their life. (While there is such a thing as a "low paying government job", it is very, very rarely an elected position.) In exchange, politicians (once elected) may never be employed in any fashion whatsoever ever again. (Volunteering and things of the sort are fine.) This (relatively) small cost will immediately kill any chances of a politician landing a cushy job in an industry that they currently have oversight over. This can never be revoked - even if the politician commits a felony - so as to prevent politicians from doing the cost/benefit analysis and serving a year in jail so they can then work 30 years as a board member for a company.
4) You know how in contests they say that immediate family of the company running the contest are forbidden from entering it? Same thing, but with politics. No first ladies backdooring into a Presidency. No senate wives ending up as a Representative. This will help reduce the modern nobility (such as the Kennedys) as the only option available would be to skip a generation. Moreover, their immediate families would be banned for working for any company or subsidiary of a company that has any current or future government contracts and/or receives any government subsidies.
5) All politicians finances - past, present, and future - are a matter of public record (sans information that could be used to steal an identity. This rule stays in effect for the duration of their term as well as the rest of their lives. Any mysterious $100,000 deposits will be investigated by a special branch of the IRS intended to watch the politician's pocketbooks like a hawk. The same goes for their immediate family per the previous nepotism rule.
6) There will be absolutely zero "Closed Door" meetings in any respect, including sessions of Congress, with the exception of meetings involving "State Secrets". "State Secrets" will be determined by an independent civilian commission that has authority over Congress and the military in this respect, so no more of the "Everything is classified/state secrets" strategy. That same civilian commission sits in on all closed sessions and answers to no one - if they feel it is heinous enough they have every right to disclose information to the public.
7) All Congressional sessions are videotaped and publicly available on the Internet in realtime. The entire archive is viewable at any time for anyone anywhere around the world. In a similar note, those "regular" television channels will be adjusted slightly. Every television station is required to carry the equivalent of C-SPAN with a 24 hour feed into the respective chambers of Congress, the House of Representatives, and the local state legislature and transmit it both digitally and over-the-air.
8) All bills that are to be submitted for law have to follow set standards for font size, spacing, margins, etc. Once a bill is completely put together, it is "locked in" and unamendable. The bill cannot be voted on for 3 + n days, where n is the number of pages of the bill. This is to give the politicians time to actually *read* the bills and keep any last minute "ram the vote through" sessions like the second round of the bank bailouts. If the vote in either house fails, the bills must be re-written completely fresh. Only one
I've said it before and I'll say it every time. A year from the first day of sale is more than enough. Damn near every medium you hear of (books, movies, games, etc.) makes it money in the first few weeks. A saying in the game and movie industries is that if you don't turn a profit by the end of the sixth week then it's a flop.