And the fact that it is hard copy seems quite tedious. I wonder if electronic submissions are even allowed - seems like something the gov't might do: require paper documents.
Also, is that 4000 sheets of A4 double sided? Think they were shrinking the margins and using bigger font just so they got to the mandatory minimum number of pages?
I shouldn't have tried to defend that 15:1 ratio - as I have never seen the source study. The data you reference is interesting, though I'm not sure I trust it either. They say they calculate 1.8 cm for each key off of the homerow[1]. By my ruler 'd' to 'e' (qwerty) is ~2cm (middle to middle one way) while 'f' to 't' is ~2.5cm one way. So lets look at the case for the most commonly written word "the": the data you cite would calculate 5.4cm of travel (qwerty), by my ruler it is 13cm of travel (round trip) - on either method it is 0 cm of travel on a qwerty.
The whole "distance traveled" debate sort of belies the point in my opinion anyway. I think the true benefit of Dvorak is that you rarely have to use the same hand/finger twice in a row and even more rare are awkward stretches and row jumps. I used to cringe when words like "cringe" or "very" came along. On qwerty "cringe" requires two awkward finger splits of the sort that really hurt my hands after a few hours of typing - Dvorak almost eliminates the weird stretches and hence the pain in my hands has been drastically reduced since switching.
[1] assuming 'horizontal distance' means 'movement on the plane of the key tops'
Agree that 15:1 sounds crazy - but the more you look into it the more reasonable it seems. Consider the most frequent digraphs: th he an in er on re ed nd ha at en es of nt ea ti to io le is ou ar as de rt ve. On a qwerty you can type only 1 of 27 on the homerow (as). On Dvorak you can type 13 of 27.
You may want to look into mouse gestures (there are a few different flavors). With this extension you can right click + drag up to open a new tab from anywhere in your FF screen. That way you can ctrl+t or mouse a new tab open (depending on where your hands are) in a fraction of the time it takes to move your mouse all the way to the top of the screen. I can hardly stand to internet without this gem.
I think the GP is onto something a little different than what the parent interpreted. Language may be an unnecessary step in this experiment.
If someone is thinking "gee - I would love a hamburger" in English - would their brain scan be the same as a French guy thinking the same? If you started at some basic level (hunger, thirst, anger, love, pain) is there a common denominator in all brain activity? If there is commonality, can we hope to someday eliminate language and have comms come straight from the source?
GP is referring to a free version of Windows that would only be available to the ultra-portable market. I can't find the link right now - but the stipulation would be that the MS OS would be free (or very very cheap) to put on machines with 800x600 screens and sub GHz processors IIRC.
MS would then be able to remain a dominant OS by being available/viable in the pending cheap market, and not lose customers to Linux.
Thanks professor. Can you provide literature on any 1000+ year old failed "straight democracies"? Preferably I'd like to read about attempted "straight democracies" in societies where there is a 75%+ reading rate and the capability for everyone to easily participate with an equal voice. I tried to do a search, but you can imagine the results I got when I looked for "straight democracy".
Seriously though - I didn't mean to imply that we should get rid of our representative democracy (I think I said as much in my post). I was trying to point out that with today's technology we could have more input from citizens. A comment system for proposed bills could prove useful. As could allowing people the opportunity to earmark a small (1-2%) of their tax dollars. Giving people decisions and insight (however small) could do a lot to cure voter apathy, and shining light on the law making process couldn't be a bad thing.
Yes I will pay that much more in taxes for the manned space program.
Wouldn't that be a neat option on your tax forms? It would be cool if you could designate x% of your tax dollars to go to some government program (education, military, NASA, CDC, etc). Whatever you are most concerned with would get a boost come tax time. The dollars would go to where we as a nation really want them to go.
I know that there are a lot of problems with distributed government plans, but the reason we have elected representatives as we do is because 200 years ago it was the only feasible way for everyone to have a semblance of a voice. With tech growing as it has (wikis, dBs), the possibility of getting everyone who cares to chime in is no longer an impossibility.
Wikilaws.gov? Congressional budgets via W-4s? I know it would be a disaster, but maybe some hybrid of our current system with a distributed system could work.
Check out WikiBooks. They aren't quite there yet, but some of their stuff is quite good - and being a wiki, your inputs are encouraged.
With cheap laptops/ebook readers on the horizon, and projects like WikiBooks / Project Gutenberg I am hopeful that we are only a few years from prolific material availability.
Also, slightly off topic - but since you mentioned schools I'd like to refer you to Lockhart's Lament. Do we even really need text books?
Depends on the cop I suppose. In general, yes, I would prefer a cop to a camera (if cost isn't a consideration). These cameras have a stated goal of lowering crime and catching criminals, but they seem to fail at both goals and piss off regular Joes in the process. A cop being present prevents crimes from occurring, and they come with a means of capturing criminals when crime is actually committed.
Cops come with the added benefit (in general) of not indiscriminately recording stuff that can be used later against ordinary citizens.
So yes - I would prefer a cop to a camera (again, assuming cost isn't a factor and that s/he isn't a prick).
This is a bad analogy. Stealing a tangible good and stealing an arrangement of electrons are two different things. How about:
You like McMuffins, but McDonalds only sells them in 12 packs and they won't let you split the cost among friends. Anyone who is caught splitting the cost of a McTwelvePack will be prosecuted. "This is ridiculous" you squeal, "MickeyDees can't tell me how to enjoy my McMackins!" You and your friends decide that buying one McTwelvePack each is ridiculous and is not going to happen - so you either resolve to not buy McMuffins at all or you set up an illegal breakfast sharing ring which will fleece McDonalds out of many potential dollars.
I know this seems like a truly outlandish analogy, but is it really? The GP says he enjoys a product and is willing to pay money for the product, but it is mostly sold in a format that he can't tolerate. Hence, he is left with the option to not buy the product or steal it. I am no psychologist, but it seems like human nature to me.
I like this idea. How about instead of the words "kitten piglet puppy toaster" you have images? A kitten can be drawn 1000s of ways so that the attacking computer would have to get a lot right to be successful: they have to correctly identify the thing in the picture and THEN answer a question about it. I think my grandma would have an easier time with simple questions about simple images than the current CAPTCHAs.
The Freshman English teacher was wrong. I'm 28 and I just learned to use "its" and "it's" correctly within the past year or so.
I had learned the rule many times, but for some reason it never stuck. Then in 2007 I was reading a/. post like this one where someone said something along the lines of "the apostrophe replaces something" and it just clicked. I spell it correctly every time now because someone wasted their time to correct it. Its amazing, huh?
I don't know if this was a serious comment or not, but I have recently taken this tactic. Griping on/. is important so that your views get spread around amongst your peers, but after you have an informed decision - start griping to your elected officials.
Don't like net neutrality? Don't like IP/Copyright law? Don't like the fact that stevia can't be sold as a food additive? Write your govenor/senator/congressman/whomever and let them know. The reason we get these BS systems in place is because the a**hats are in the ears of our representatives. It takes five minutes to write an email - it doesn't have to be eloquent or anything. Just a quick "hey I'm a regular dude and I think that such and such is no good". If the/. crowd in general would take that tactic we could start fighting about xhtml 5 or something.
If I ever find myself on dial-up I use a text only browser: Lynx. Takes some getting used to - but who needs those smelly old images anyway.
They called out some major industries
on
Spam Is 30 Years Old
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It's kind of neat to read TFA - they mentioned many things which ARPAnet wasn't intended for but would eventually become profit centers on the internet: dating services, job finding services, advertising, and general announcements (births in this instance). In this one discussion of what the network should and shouldn't be for they called out some of the major industries to come.
I've only used an e-voting system a couple of times, but in every instance I was always visible to the voting officials. They couldn't see who I was voting for but they would have certainly noticed if I did anything other than tap the touch screen.
Physical security isn't really the problem. There are always election workers and volunteers in the proximity of the voting machines. What is a problem is that smoke and mirrors are used instead of openness. I want to understand exactly how the votes will be tallied and what protections there are from tampering (and hiding the source code isn't a protection IMHO).
I know this article deals specifically with airport police where you want their actions to be truly unpredictable. What about regular beat cops though? Do we want them to be in random places daily?
I often see cops hiding in random places trying to catch speeders, and I wonder if that is the best use of their time. On one street near me there is a speed trap weekly. I suspect this is because the speed limit is 30 mph going down a moderately steep hill so it is easy to catch speeders. As a citizen I would rather these cops be doing nearly ANYTHING else (to include volunteering at a school or working out). I am not at all concerned about someone going 36 in a 30 - I am concerned that my tax dollars are paying to enforce a rule that helps nothing (in my opinion).
Now, the standard answer is "well if they stop speed trapping then everyone will speed". I totally agree: the rules are good in general. How about a nation wide database that records all accidents, crimes, and public complaints. That way the police could focus all of their attention in the spots where there is trouble or complaints. If the local teen punk is speeding through your neighborhood post a complaint - then cops can respond in the best way they can. As it is there is very little police interaction with the public - they have no resort but to randomly hide in bushes and try to surprise us. A database that tells them trouble spots to focus on would make their jobs more justified. And in a town/area that goes without crime, accident, or complaint for a certain period could allow the cops to volunteer at a high school or coach youth soccer or pick up trash or something that the citizens actually appreciate.
Unpredictable cops are fine in the airport - but if I am acting reasonably responsible in a trouble free area I'd like to keep my interactions with the police to a minimum.
While I agree with your post in general, I am rankled by everyone calling Docs a "barely usable hack". Every user has differing needs, and your needs simply aren't met by Docs. That's fine: don't use it.
Google Docs does provide a simple free office suite with good collaboration, sharing, and version control. There are a lot of things it cannot do well or at all (graphs, embedded objects, work quickly, etc) but that is not to say it is worthless. Some people cannot be sure that they will have access to MS Office on every machine they encounter daily, some people may want to seamlessly collaborate with people who don't own office, some people may just choose not to use MS products but still want an easy online Office Suite. There are many scenarios that I can think of where something can go wrong with the MS solution, this is where Google shines. There are many features that Office has that GDocs doesn't. Every user has to choose what it is they are really after. No reason to get upset or fling insults.
We call it something different, but there is a lot of money spent on "cloud seeding" in the USA every year. There is some debate over whether or not it is effective, but apparently the Chinese aren't the only "bludgeoning buffoons" around here.
I apologize kcurtis. There were quite a few people who were way off base on this point and I accidentally grouped you in with them. Specifically, I read "...then only the President has the ability to direct spending" as meaning "...then only the President has the ability to control spending" (or something along those lines). I thought that you meant the President spends however much he wants on whatever he wants. So once more: apologies. Hopefully you can at least see how someone might make the mistake.
Back to an on-topic discussion...
1) Do you really think that congressmen need to be able to accept contributions from lobbyists for the citizens to get their voices heard
2) I seem to remember that the system wasn't necessarily "designed" with earmarks in mind. Who knows what the founders of the nation had in mind, but you would think that if the they had earmarks in mind the first earmark would have been used before the early 1800s and they would have come into popular use before the 1970s. I agree that Earmarks can be used for good, but I do believe that pork shouldn't be a primary goal of our Legislative branch. Rather than being judged on how a legislator represents his or her constituents, Congressman are being judged on how much money they can direct to their district. Having no direct say on how money is spent is a potentially bad thing, but having too much say is arguably worse. Do you think it is a good thing that Earmarks have ballooned (in number and amount) in the past decade (I couldn't find a chart that went back to the 70s, but in the 70s and prior the number per year was in the tens IIRC). Don't you think that this is an alarming trend that should be controlled somehow?
3)
4) You believe that you, Bill Gates, and random single mother of 2 have appropriate and proportional control over elections?
No! NO! NO! I only read through your second bullet. Your first was off base, but your second is unforgivable.
An earmark is a process by which congress can "go around" the normal process of funding things. Please read a book or Wikipedia or something. This is the third post I've responded to where the parent has been way off base in their understanding of what an Earmark is. Congress, in general, funnels money into one of 13 general. These "pots" (Appropriations Subcommittees) have stated and precise ways for people who know to make decisions on what to fund. When Congress funds the Health/Human Services Subcommittee, and that board decides to put $XM into new hospital initiatives, and that board decides to put a new hospital in BFE - that is the designated process, NOT AN EARMARK. When a politician with a lot of clout decides that his district needs a new hospital and makes it happen, THAT IS AN EARMARK. There is a precise definition of earmark. You can argue whether earmarks are good or bad - but not whether individual legislation is or isn't an earmark.
Apologies for being rude. But seriously... +4 Insightful? Larry Lessig is a very smart man who has clearly thought through what is plaguing our government. You don't even seem to know how our government works at a very basic level and you are going to critique the plan? And that gets marked "insightful"?
On a completely different topic. Has anyone seen that movie "Idiocracy"?
Slashdot Mirror
And the fact that it is hard copy seems quite tedious. I wonder if electronic submissions are even allowed - seems like something the gov't might do: require paper documents.
Also, is that 4000 sheets of A4 double sided? Think they were shrinking the margins and using bigger font just so they got to the mandatory minimum number of pages?
If there are victims then the activity should be illegal:
ivory: victim = animals & ecosystem => illegal.
drugs: victim = user => legal
kpron: victim = kids => illegal (think of the children)
nukes: victim = many many => illegal
I agree with your overall point though. This would be a very small step in stopping the illegal ivory trade, but a step nonetheless.
I shouldn't have tried to defend that 15:1 ratio - as I have never seen the source study. The data you reference is interesting, though I'm not sure I trust it either. They say they calculate 1.8 cm for each key off of the homerow[1]. By my ruler 'd' to 'e' (qwerty) is ~2cm (middle to middle one way) while 'f' to 't' is ~2.5cm one way. So lets look at the case for the most commonly written word "the": the data you cite would calculate 5.4cm of travel (qwerty), by my ruler it is 13cm of travel (round trip) - on either method it is 0 cm of travel on a qwerty.
The whole "distance traveled" debate sort of belies the point in my opinion anyway. I think the true benefit of Dvorak is that you rarely have to use the same hand/finger twice in a row and even more rare are awkward stretches and row jumps. I used to cringe when words like "cringe" or "very" came along. On qwerty "cringe" requires two awkward finger splits of the sort that really hurt my hands after a few hours of typing - Dvorak almost eliminates the weird stretches and hence the pain in my hands has been drastically reduced since switching.
[1] assuming 'horizontal distance' means 'movement on the plane of the key tops'
Agree that 15:1 sounds crazy - but the more you look into it the more reasonable it seems. Consider the most frequent digraphs: th he an in er on re ed nd ha at en es of nt ea ti to io le is ou ar as de rt ve. On a qwerty you can type only 1 of 27 on the homerow (as). On Dvorak you can type 13 of 27.
You may want to look into mouse gestures (there are a few different flavors). With this extension you can right click + drag up to open a new tab from anywhere in your FF screen. That way you can ctrl+t or mouse a new tab open (depending on where your hands are) in a fraction of the time it takes to move your mouse all the way to the top of the screen. I can hardly stand to internet without this gem.
Really? They had a system of voting where everyone had an equal voice? Really? Women and the poor had the same voting rights as property owners?
You may want to slap your 7th grade teacher.
I think the GP is onto something a little different than what the parent interpreted. Language may be an unnecessary step in this experiment.
If someone is thinking "gee - I would love a hamburger" in English - would their brain scan be the same as a French guy thinking the same? If you started at some basic level (hunger, thirst, anger, love, pain) is there a common denominator in all brain activity? If there is commonality, can we hope to someday eliminate language and have comms come straight from the source?
GP is referring to a free version of Windows that would only be available to the ultra-portable market. I can't find the link right now - but the stipulation would be that the MS OS would be free (or very very cheap) to put on machines with 800x600 screens and sub GHz processors IIRC.
MS would then be able to remain a dominant OS by being available/viable in the pending cheap market, and not lose customers to Linux.
Thanks professor. Can you provide literature on any 1000+ year old failed "straight democracies"? Preferably I'd like to read about attempted "straight democracies" in societies where there is a 75%+ reading rate and the capability for everyone to easily participate with an equal voice. I tried to do a search, but you can imagine the results I got when I looked for "straight democracy".
Seriously though - I didn't mean to imply that we should get rid of our representative democracy (I think I said as much in my post). I was trying to point out that with today's technology we could have more input from citizens. A comment system for proposed bills could prove useful. As could allowing people the opportunity to earmark a small (1-2%) of their tax dollars. Giving people decisions and insight (however small) could do a lot to cure voter apathy, and shining light on the law making process couldn't be a bad thing.
Wouldn't that be a neat option on your tax forms? It would be cool if you could designate x% of your tax dollars to go to some government program (education, military, NASA, CDC, etc). Whatever you are most concerned with would get a boost come tax time. The dollars would go to where we as a nation really want them to go.
I know that there are a lot of problems with distributed government plans, but the reason we have elected representatives as we do is because 200 years ago it was the only feasible way for everyone to have a semblance of a voice. With tech growing as it has (wikis, dBs), the possibility of getting everyone who cares to chime in is no longer an impossibility.
Wikilaws.gov? Congressional budgets via W-4s? I know it would be a disaster, but maybe some hybrid of our current system with a distributed system could work.
Check out WikiBooks. They aren't quite there yet, but some of their stuff is quite good - and being a wiki, your inputs are encouraged.
With cheap laptops/ebook readers on the horizon, and projects like WikiBooks / Project Gutenberg I am hopeful that we are only a few years from prolific material availability.
Also, slightly off topic - but since you mentioned schools I'd like to refer you to Lockhart's Lament. Do we even really need text books?
Depends on the cop I suppose. In general, yes, I would prefer a cop to a camera (if cost isn't a consideration). These cameras have a stated goal of lowering crime and catching criminals, but they seem to fail at both goals and piss off regular Joes in the process. A cop being present prevents crimes from occurring, and they come with a means of capturing criminals when crime is actually committed.
Cops come with the added benefit (in general) of not indiscriminately recording stuff that can be used later against ordinary citizens.
So yes - I would prefer a cop to a camera (again, assuming cost isn't a factor and that s/he isn't a prick).
This is a bad analogy. Stealing a tangible good and stealing an arrangement of electrons are two different things. How about:
You like McMuffins, but McDonalds only sells them in 12 packs and they won't let you split the cost among friends. Anyone who is caught splitting the cost of a McTwelvePack will be prosecuted. "This is ridiculous" you squeal, "MickeyDees can't tell me how to enjoy my McMackins!" You and your friends decide that buying one McTwelvePack each is ridiculous and is not going to happen - so you either resolve to not buy McMuffins at all or you set up an illegal breakfast sharing ring which will fleece McDonalds out of many potential dollars.
I know this seems like a truly outlandish analogy, but is it really? The GP says he enjoys a product and is willing to pay money for the product, but it is mostly sold in a format that he can't tolerate. Hence, he is left with the option to not buy the product or steal it. I am no psychologist, but it seems like human nature to me.
I like this idea. How about instead of the words "kitten piglet puppy toaster" you have images? A kitten can be drawn 1000s of ways so that the attacking computer would have to get a lot right to be successful: they have to correctly identify the thing in the picture and THEN answer a question about it. I think my grandma would have an easier time with simple questions about simple images than the current CAPTCHAs.
The Freshman English teacher was wrong. I'm 28 and I just learned to use "its" and "it's" correctly within the past year or so.
I had learned the rule many times, but for some reason it never stuck. Then in 2007 I was reading a /. post like this one where someone said something along the lines of "the apostrophe replaces something" and it just clicked. I spell it correctly every time now because someone wasted their time to correct it. Its amazing, huh?
*kidding on that 'its'.
I don't know if this was a serious comment or not, but I have recently taken this tactic. Griping on /. is important so that your views get spread around amongst your peers, but after you have an informed decision - start griping to your elected officials.
Don't like net neutrality? Don't like IP/Copyright law? Don't like the fact that stevia can't be sold as a food additive? Write your govenor/senator/congressman/whomever and let them know. The reason we get these BS systems in place is because the a**hats are in the ears of our representatives. It takes five minutes to write an email - it doesn't have to be eloquent or anything. Just a quick "hey I'm a regular dude and I think that such and such is no good". If the /. crowd in general would take that tactic we could start fighting about xhtml 5 or something.
If I ever find myself on dial-up I use a text only browser: Lynx. Takes some getting used to - but who needs those smelly old images anyway.
It's kind of neat to read TFA - they mentioned many things which ARPAnet wasn't intended for but would eventually become profit centers on the internet: dating services, job finding services, advertising, and general announcements (births in this instance). In this one discussion of what the network should and shouldn't be for they called out some of the major industries to come.
I've only used an e-voting system a couple of times, but in every instance I was always visible to the voting officials. They couldn't see who I was voting for but they would have certainly noticed if I did anything other than tap the touch screen.
Physical security isn't really the problem. There are always election workers and volunteers in the proximity of the voting machines. What is a problem is that smoke and mirrors are used instead of openness. I want to understand exactly how the votes will be tallied and what protections there are from tampering (and hiding the source code isn't a protection IMHO).
I know this article deals specifically with airport police where you want their actions to be truly unpredictable. What about regular beat cops though? Do we want them to be in random places daily?
I often see cops hiding in random places trying to catch speeders, and I wonder if that is the best use of their time. On one street near me there is a speed trap weekly. I suspect this is because the speed limit is 30 mph going down a moderately steep hill so it is easy to catch speeders. As a citizen I would rather these cops be doing nearly ANYTHING else (to include volunteering at a school or working out). I am not at all concerned about someone going 36 in a 30 - I am concerned that my tax dollars are paying to enforce a rule that helps nothing (in my opinion).
Now, the standard answer is "well if they stop speed trapping then everyone will speed". I totally agree: the rules are good in general. How about a nation wide database that records all accidents, crimes, and public complaints. That way the police could focus all of their attention in the spots where there is trouble or complaints. If the local teen punk is speeding through your neighborhood post a complaint - then cops can respond in the best way they can. As it is there is very little police interaction with the public - they have no resort but to randomly hide in bushes and try to surprise us. A database that tells them trouble spots to focus on would make their jobs more justified. And in a town/area that goes without crime, accident, or complaint for a certain period could allow the cops to volunteer at a high school or coach youth soccer or pick up trash or something that the citizens actually appreciate.
Unpredictable cops are fine in the airport - but if I am acting reasonably responsible in a trouble free area I'd like to keep my interactions with the police to a minimum.
Your idea sounds a lot like the Netflix challenge.
While I agree with your post in general, I am rankled by everyone calling Docs a "barely usable hack". Every user has differing needs, and your needs simply aren't met by Docs. That's fine: don't use it.
Google Docs does provide a simple free office suite with good collaboration, sharing, and version control. There are a lot of things it cannot do well or at all (graphs, embedded objects, work quickly, etc) but that is not to say it is worthless. Some people cannot be sure that they will have access to MS Office on every machine they encounter daily, some people may want to seamlessly collaborate with people who don't own office, some people may just choose not to use MS products but still want an easy online Office Suite. There are many scenarios that I can think of where something can go wrong with the MS solution, this is where Google shines. There are many features that Office has that GDocs doesn't. Every user has to choose what it is they are really after. No reason to get upset or fling insults.
We call it something different, but there is a lot of money spent on "cloud seeding" in the USA every year. There is some debate over whether or not it is effective, but apparently the Chinese aren't the only "bludgeoning buffoons" around here.
I apologize kcurtis. There were quite a few people who were way off base on this point and I accidentally grouped you in with them. Specifically, I read "...then only the President has the ability to direct spending" as meaning "...then only the President has the ability to control spending" (or something along those lines). I thought that you meant the President spends however much he wants on whatever he wants. So once more: apologies. Hopefully you can at least see how someone might make the mistake.
Back to an on-topic discussion...
1) Do you really think that congressmen need to be able to accept contributions from lobbyists for the citizens to get their voices heard
2) I seem to remember that the system wasn't necessarily "designed" with earmarks in mind. Who knows what the founders of the nation had in mind, but you would think that if the they had earmarks in mind the first earmark would have been used before the early 1800s and they would have come into popular use before the 1970s. I agree that Earmarks can be used for good, but I do believe that pork shouldn't be a primary goal of our Legislative branch. Rather than being judged on how a legislator represents his or her constituents, Congressman are being judged on how much money they can direct to their district. Having no direct say on how money is spent is a potentially bad thing, but having too much say is arguably worse. Do you think it is a good thing that Earmarks have ballooned (in number and amount) in the past decade (I couldn't find a chart that went back to the 70s, but in the 70s and prior the number per year was in the tens IIRC). Don't you think that this is an alarming trend that should be controlled somehow?
3)
4) You believe that you, Bill Gates, and random single mother of 2 have appropriate and proportional control over elections?
An earmark is a process by which congress can "go around" the normal process of funding things. Please read a book or Wikipedia or something. This is the third post I've responded to where the parent has been way off base in their understanding of what an Earmark is. Congress, in general, funnels money into one of 13 general. These "pots" (Appropriations Subcommittees) have stated and precise ways for people who know to make decisions on what to fund. When Congress funds the Health/Human Services Subcommittee, and that board decides to put $XM into new hospital initiatives, and that board decides to put a new hospital in BFE - that is the designated process, NOT AN EARMARK. When a politician with a lot of clout decides that his district needs a new hospital and makes it happen, THAT IS AN EARMARK. There is a precise definition of earmark. You can argue whether earmarks are good or bad - but not whether individual legislation is or isn't an earmark. Apologies for being rude. But seriously... +4 Insightful? Larry Lessig is a very smart man who has clearly thought through what is plaguing our government. You don't even seem to know how our government works at a very basic level and you are going to critique the plan? And that gets marked "insightful"? On a completely different topic. Has anyone seen that movie "Idiocracy"?