You're making the assumption that the Halloween VII memo is an authentic, unaltered memo from Microsoft. How do you know it's not a forgery? Where's the proof?
Yeah, that's a very good question... after all, we can't count on Microsoft to sue a company for publishing libelous information about them regularly for years. They are just above that sort of thing.
Meanwhile the crooks have all the guns they want - stolen from citizens, from armories, bought from crooked cops, smuggled in disguised as harmless bales of marijuana or cocaine, or cranked out in a metal shop more rudimentary than that needed for a good brake job.
Has it not yet occurred to you that, if it were not standard practice to have guns, then (a) there would be a lot fewer guns and (b) the police would know that people with guns are criminals?
Heck, we don't need gun control laws, just gun responsibility laws. Everyone can have a gun, if they register it. Then, any property damage, injury, or death caused by the gun for the entire term of their ownership or for three years following the theft of the gun is their legal and financial responsibility. (If you legitimately and traceably sell the gun, you're off the hook.)
Then maybe people would start noticing how it is that criminals end up with guns...
Me, I lived in the second largest city in England for half a year, and thought nothing of stopping at the ATM on my way home (on foot) at 9 p.m. In Los Angeles, I think twice about going home alone at that time of night, much less stopping at an ATM. After all, you can run from someone with a knife, but not from someone with a gun.
And, finally, I really think that if you're going to cause someone a mortal wound, you should end up with some blood on your clothes. It's just poetic justice.;-)
I gave up the ability to have privacy when I started using the internet in 1994. From that point on I have assumed that I am a public figure and anyone can know anything about me.
Please wake up and realize that choices have consequences.
I think that's exactly what he was pointing out... choose the convenience of doing everything online, and know that you're an open book to the right people (or, worst case scenario, the wrong people). Choose to keep everything a secret, and you'll be running around getting money orders half your life. But there is a choice.
The reason it didnt happen in Iraq was that they werent sure others would go along. revolting with 70% of the population would work; revolting by yourself is just suicide.
Economists call it the Prisoner's Dilemma. And Americans are just as, if not more, suceptible to it as those of other nationalities. Take a look around: why do people drive SUVs? They might as well; everyone else is, and it won't do any good for *them* to stop guzzling gas when no one else is going to. Why support public education? It won't do any good, since there isn't enough of a tax base to provide a decent education in pretty much any state anymore (this is where voucher initiatives come from). It's an essential attitude of mistrust, and Americans practically wrote the book on it. (Come to think of it, John Nash was an American, and he did quite literally write at least a dissertation on it...)
Did you mean it's just simple work on large files (such as importing tab/comma delimited text files to a database)? You have users do this? AND run MS Office? That seems like an odd combination.
Actually, not so odd. In my last job I was doing a newsletter for one of the departments (we were a very full-service tech support department;-). There was no actual page layout software on my computer, so I was creating this 8-page, image-heavy document in Word 2000 under Windows 2000. At first I was working off of our Windows 2000 Server, but the computer kept crashing, and took ages to save... so I finally gave up and copied it to the C: drive. (This was on a 10 GB network... it might not have been so bad on a 100 GB connection.)
We did generally have a company-wide policy of saving everything to the server, and we did have someone who lost a bunch of data when a virus ate her hard drive and she hadn't been saving to the server... which we didn't go to extensive trouble to recover. But there are definitely cases, particularly with MS Office, where working directly off of the server is not feasible. This means copying back and forth a lot, and at some points, your timestamp will be off, as will any revision history.
Actually, its friendlier interface, better support (now declining rapidly) and the fact that there was a lot of compatible software make Windows the naturally dominant OS.
That's exactly my point... better support from the industry and more compatible software made Windows dominant. However, there was nothing natural about how those things came about. Microsoft engaged in many, many actions which broke contracts with other companies and antitrust law to ensure that Windows had the most support from the industry. MS undermined the adoption of OS/2 by telling developers to develop for Windows instead (and the developers listened, since after all, MS should know... they jointly developed OS/2 with IBM); they also embedded fake error messages into early versions of Windows that told people that non-MS DOS programs were incompatible with Windows. They continuously leveraged their market share to gain more dominance, and hence more leverage. Maybe your argument is that that's the "natural" way for business to run, but I would disagree.
I find it somewhat hard to believe that, before the indistrial revolution, humans cared so little for each other that they would freely allow an injured person to die. Apes and other creatures have a natural instinct to care for their own, and humans most certainly do.
Insofar as it is beneficial to the main purpose: continuation of the species. Many species of birds, for example, have two chicks per year; if there is not enough food, they feed only the stronger one and let the other starve. Humans will irrationally split the food among all the children, even if it means everyone gets sick and dies. We call this "humane" behavior for a reason; it's not what animals do.
Nowadays, we engage in "heroic measures" to save lives. This is because we have a sense that every individual person contributes something unique and vital to our society. This was not always the case. It's not so much a matter of "let him die" as "don't use up resources saving him" because, essentially, the individual was valueless. Family and friends would be sad to see someone die, but there was not the same sense that a person had to be saved if at all possible, especially if they were no longer physically able to take care of themselves or contribute to the society. There weren't any intellectual jobs; people labored, and people who couldn't labor were dead weight.
It's so drastically different from our current situation that it is hard to imagine. The Lonely Crowd by David Riesman is a good book on the subject of societal maturity.
The OS monopoly is a natural one, because it's easier to develop all software for one platform, and has very little to do with a herd-like mentality.
The idea that one OS would dominate is a natural one, but there is nothing natural about Windows being dominant, especially in network server environments. Linux, Unix, and even Novell are perfectly viable alternatives, even if the desktop environment is Windows. (If the network is set up properly, the server OS is transparent to the desktop user.)
O'Connor Kelly sounds like a good choice for this position.... [She] came in after DoubleClick was shown to be, well, evil when it came to privacy, to clean things up.
Your statement is correct... she is a "good" choice for the job. She has experience in negotiating the delicate line of privacy invasion, and she can get people on her side. She did a good job for DoubleClick, by finding out exactly where they had to draw the line... so they could keep toeing it.
Her job there, and probably here, is NOT to protect privacy. It's to protect her employer. Trouble is, this time, her employer is the government... and their job is to protect us. Not to hire people who can protect them *from* us. When that happens, we know someone's trying to get away with something we might not feel is in our best interests.
From the Human Resources resumé review perspective, she's an excellent choice. From the perspective of those who want a watchdog protecting our privacy rights, not a troubleshooter who figures out exactly how much the agency can get away with, she's a horrific choice.
Are you aware that nothing they are doing is against any laws? And IMO it should stay that way. There is no constitutional right to surf the net anonymously.
Just as there is no constitutional right to go to a shopping mall anonymously. If I go to the local Westfield Shoppingtown and buy items at Victoria's Secret, Robinson's May, and Pets-R-Us, and then browse at Bath and Body Works and Bebe, it's perfectly legal for the mall to keep records of my transactions, and also report where I went but didn't buy. Then they can sell that information to The Body Shop and Casual Corner, who know that I'm interested in similar products to theirs but haven't bought anything. They can now target me with advertising mailed to my home address (which is easy to get if I used a store credit card anywhere).
That is all perfectly legal, right? It is infeasible, but there's no *law* against using information that way. On the other hand, there doesn't need to be. No matter how bad an idea it is, or how violated people would feel if companies used their information this way, it doesn't need to be made illegal because it isn't worth the investment to do it.
But this is what Doubleclick does. They don't just set cookies; they examine all the cookies they can on your computer to find out where you've been and what you did there. Then they sell ads to companies on the premise that, since they know so much about you, they can advertise to you more effectively.
Does it still seem like something that should be legal? Especially in a country where people raise holy heck if the government dares to use the information they broadcast voluntarily from their cars for their own convenience for a purpose like measuring traffic speeds? We're so incredibly paranoid about how much information people can get about where we go and what we do, it seems that we would naturally find Doubleclick's practices revolting. Especially since now the Federal government is going to use them "to find terrorists" (or anyone else they don't like... McCarthyism anyone?).
If humans were really meant to always act as a group and never consider the rights of the individual, wouldn't we have evolved with a Borg-like hive mind? No, we can think for ourselves. So why try and curb our abilities to the whim of the leadership of some group??
Little-known fact: Individualism as a sociological concept didn't exist until Hobbes and Rousseau (independently) began writing about it at the beginning of the industrial revolution. That's because before the IR, human beings were more or less interchangeable. You worked, lived, and played with the same people for your whole life. If John was maimed, there wasn't any particular reason to save him... because Harry could take over the plowing without any interruption.
Which isn't to say we're not "supposed" to be individuals; I'm simply pointing out that it's not basic human nature. It's a relatively recent cultural change. To say that we're "meant" to consider the rights of the individual (which isn't what you said, but it's a logical extension of your statement) is parallel to saying that we're "meant" to build complex machinery and burn fossil fuels.
In the end, the most successful form of government will probably win out, and less adapted governments will fail and disappear. Governments that foster technological development, increased lifespans, and a universal basic standard of living will be able to support larger populations and win struggles against governments that cannot offer these things. There are different opinions on who has the right idea in this regard, though. In the US, we are "free" to be completely indigent and starve to death on the sidewalk, while we jeer at the "welfare states" in Europe that don't know homelessness at all. On the other hand, it is possible (if not as easy as some make it out to be) to become ridiculously wealthy to the point that you can have huge say in who gets elected and what laws get passed in the US, while it is extremely uncommon in Europe. Which form of government is promoting the welfare of their people more effectively? Are you prepared to definitively give an answer on that? I'm not.
And, as for a Borg-like hive mind, what's still the leading OS in our business community? And why?
So you're saying it's OK to blast Beijing for saying "economic prosperity first, civil liberties a distant second," but it's not OK to say anything bad about the Chinese people (both within and without the PRC) for blithely going along with it? That sounds like hypocrisy.
Having your cake: criticizing the Chinese government for totalitarian rule which stomps on civil rights.
Eating it too: criticizing the Chinese people for not defying totalitarian rule which has few compunctions about disappearing those who interfere with "political harmony."
I have not been to China and am not prepared to support or dispute statements about the actions of the Chinese government, or the overall political climate. But please, if you're going to have an opinion on the matter, stick to just one. It's less confusing for the rest of us.
You're more than welcome to leave though. That's one more job for people who value being compensated for their work.
Compensated for their work... so, while we make less per hour worked on average than many people in Europe (since we tend to work a lot of unpaid overtime, and get fewer holidays and less vacation), we're here because we don't have to pay more taxes?
Believe me, I have thought about leaving. I may end up in Finland if we don't kick the Fundamentalist Christian Church out of the White House soon; I'm really not fond of the thought of being told to read the Bible to cure PMS (which is the advice of Bush's new appointee to head the FDA Commission on Reproductive Health). And any day now, they're going to start hunting the atheists down... that's when I have a case for seeking asylum.
In the meantime, most European countries have effective immigration laws, since they don't rely on an imported underclass to keep their economy going... so I'll need a really good reason to get a work visa, like seeking political asylum. If you know of a better way, let's hear it; there's lots of us who might like to leave if we had the option.
If France and Germany had to provide 100% for their own defense I think their welfare state would shrink as well.
Yeah, because after all, we don't have terrorists killing thousands of people here, because we have this great army, and they're helpless against that...
Oh, wait, bad example.
French and German citizens are not threatened by terrorists because the US Army protects them from them...
No, still bad example; we don't do anything about that at all.
Hm, now, how is it exactly that we are protecting France, Germany, and the rest of Europe? And, er, does it count if we're doing it against their will (see EU opposition to military action against Iraq)? And can we parse out what attacks are *based on* their alliance with us and our bullying tactics, vs. what they'd incur of their own accord if we weren't helping?
My work experience [in Germany] has been much less kind then I expected. The company is great, and the people are nice, but the conditions are definitely not 'pro-worker.' My contract has a minimum 40 hour work week, I pay my own insurance, and my salary is less than half what it was in the States. My co-workers are literallly awed by the pay and benefits that I got in the US.
That's odd. In England, the maximum work week (after which you start getting overtime) is 39 hours per week... leaving an hour early on Fridays is a matter of labor law. The standard vacation is three weeks (starting at; you get more time as you gain seniority) instead of the two we get here, and there are 13 national holidays instead of our 11 here in the States. Plus, more companies actually close for those holidays... in the US, even though we have 11, many offices only observe six (Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, and usually two floating holidays around January-February).
It may not be better in Germany, but it definitely is in the UK. Oh, and, no, they don't give you insurance... that's because you have National Health just by being there on a work visa. Heck, it's better than MediCal, and *everyone* gets it. It's almost as good as the Kaiser coverage I'm paying $189/month for on COBRA.
As mentioned above, Denver is behind the curve on this type of system.
Heck, in Los Angeles, we even have such a system for city streets.
But the idea that it will really help with congestion is pretty much a pipe dream. Congestion happens because of something called latent demand -- there's always more people who *want* to be driving than there are actually out on the road. Therefore, for everyone who leaves the road because it's "too congested," someone else joins because now, it's at an acceptable level for them. This is also why increasing road capacity has no long-term effect on congestion. It's simply not feasible to provide enough road to meet demand, because when you think you have, you find out there's more demand.
However, if we get a really coherent system that can predict your travel time on a route, and at the same time have dedicated bus lanes and report the bus travel time for the same trip... maybe we actually can do a little something;-).
Meanwhile, respect for the law has plummeted, and road rage increased, due to speed traps and speed limits that are perceived as pointless.
Ah, yes, but... if a bad law isn't enforced, it will remain as-is. But when you start enforcing a bad law, people understand that it needs to be changed.
That's why automated speed citations will lead to better speed laws. So, get out there and tell your politicians;-)
Imagine if we didn't have firewalls. We'd have to keep our passwords good, our services minimal, and make sure we were running the latest, most secure daemons.
Locks promote softer security.
"Oh, I'm OK because I have locked doors and windows..."
I think door locks make people lazy. Imagine if we didn't have deadbolts, or doors for that matter. We'd have to sit in front of the front door, with a shotgun, never sleeping for more than a few moments.
Our cars are parked in a gated garage beneath the building. I have a convertible with a detachable-faceplate stereo. Once upon a time, I sometimes left my roof off and my faceplate on when at home, because the garage was locked... you couldn't get in without a key or a remote.
Or however the guys got in and stole my stereo...
It's true that one security measure, especially one that is poorly understood, may make us more inclined to relax on other security measures. And that's not a good idea. A huge percentage of theft is opportunistic; you eliminate 90% of the folks who might steal your stereo just by locking your car door. Same with hacking... the security measures you can take block out a large percentage of the would-be hackers out there, and the remaining few are probably going to get in no matter what you do (short of severing ties with the outside world completely). You just have to hope that you don't get the attention of those guys.
Of course, one really big step you can take to eliminate opportunistic worms, viruses, and hacks is to delete the Windows partition... funny that script kiddies don't seem to know much about Linux.
that reminds me of a time when one of our old biddies who really, *really* missed her typewriter (you know, the kind that never quite understood the difference between turning off the computer and turning off the monitor) called up and asked "Which one is the Windows key?"
I never did find out why she needed the Windows key... which is probably a good thing.
People still don't get it. My old boss wondered why I was "wasting my time" doing stuff like writing all zeros to drives of computers we were giving to charity. "I only told you to format them!"
I tried to explain the concept to her, but for an IT manager, she was woefully bad at technology.
Actually, come to think of it, she was about average...
I detect a distinct note of desperate defensiveness in your replies to me.
No shit? You are an idiot. Of course I dislike you.
You can't attack the post, so you attack the poster.
I did attack the post, dipshit. Go learn to read.
First of all, no, desperate defensiveness has nothing to do with how you personally feel towards me. It has to to with how threatened you feel about your favorite subject of the day.
Second of all, here you do it again: idiot, dipshit, go learn to read... all blatant personal attacks. Since your very first response to me, that's been your tactic. Very articulate and mature.
Your summary of how patent law is designed to work jibes quite well with what I was taught in 12th grade Government class. I'm sure that's generally what was intended by it, too. But, let's look at it a little more:
"So, the little guy patents his idea and now some big companies want to crush him. But it's ok! He can work out royalty based uses with the company,"
Can you throw out a few examples of this sort of thing that "happens all the time?" On Findlaw I see nothing but a bunch of companies suing a bunch of other companies, such as:
Amazon.com v. Barnes & Noble (the two biggest names in bookselling... Amazon is slightly smaller, but no little guy)
And that's all from the first page stories that come up on a search of "patent" (and actually have to do with patent enforcement, rather than just mentioning patents in passing). Not really seeing patent law working the way you're talking about, by and large. Maybe you can point me to some better examples.
Note that this isn't a Google search or something... Findlaw tends to be a little more esoteric in what it lists. So it seems likely that if any little guys had sued any big guys and won lately, it would show up here.
How does it really work, then? How does it protect the little guy from being squashed? Explain it to me like I'm five. (Come on, give in; you know you want to anyway.)
I detect a distinct note of desperate defensiveness in your replies to me. You can't attack the post, so you attack the poster. Obviously, you know *so* much more about the subject, that you can't even articulate it.
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You're making the assumption that the Halloween VII memo is an authentic, unaltered memo from Microsoft. How do you know it's not a forgery? Where's the proof?
Yeah, that's a very good question... after all, we can't count on Microsoft to sue a company for publishing libelous information about them regularly for years. They are just above that sort of thing.
Meanwhile the crooks have all the guns they want - stolen from citizens, from armories, bought from crooked cops, smuggled in disguised as harmless bales of marijuana or cocaine, or cranked out in a metal shop more rudimentary than that needed for a good brake job.
;-)
Has it not yet occurred to you that, if it were not standard practice to have guns, then (a) there would be a lot fewer guns and (b) the police would know that people with guns are criminals?
Heck, we don't need gun control laws, just gun responsibility laws. Everyone can have a gun, if they register it. Then, any property damage, injury, or death caused by the gun for the entire term of their ownership or for three years following the theft of the gun is their legal and financial responsibility. (If you legitimately and traceably sell the gun, you're off the hook.)
Then maybe people would start noticing how it is that criminals end up with guns...
Me, I lived in the second largest city in England for half a year, and thought nothing of stopping at the ATM on my way home (on foot) at 9 p.m. In Los Angeles, I think twice about going home alone at that time of night, much less stopping at an ATM. After all, you can run from someone with a knife, but not from someone with a gun.
And, finally, I really think that if you're going to cause someone a mortal wound, you should end up with some blood on your clothes. It's just poetic justice.
I think that's exactly what he was pointing out... choose the convenience of doing everything online, and know that you're an open book to the right people (or, worst case scenario, the wrong people). Choose to keep everything a secret, and you'll be running around getting money orders half your life. But there is a choice.
The reason it didnt happen in Iraq was that they werent sure others would go along. revolting with 70% of the population would work; revolting by yourself is just suicide.
Economists call it the Prisoner's Dilemma. And Americans are just as, if not more, suceptible to it as those of other nationalities. Take a look around: why do people drive SUVs? They might as well; everyone else is, and it won't do any good for *them* to stop guzzling gas when no one else is going to. Why support public education? It won't do any good, since there isn't enough of a tax base to provide a decent education in pretty much any state anymore (this is where voucher initiatives come from). It's an essential attitude of mistrust, and Americans practically wrote the book on it. (Come to think of it, John Nash was an American, and he did quite literally write at least a dissertation on it...)
Did you mean it's just simple work on large files (such as importing tab/comma delimited text files to a database)?
;-). There was no actual page layout software on my computer, so I was creating this 8-page, image-heavy document in Word 2000 under Windows 2000. At first I was working off of our Windows 2000 Server, but the computer kept crashing, and took ages to save... so I finally gave up and copied it to the C: drive. (This was on a 10 GB network... it might not have been so bad on a 100 GB connection.)
You have users do this? AND run MS Office? That seems like an odd combination.
Actually, not so odd. In my last job I was doing a newsletter for one of the departments (we were a very full-service tech support department
We did generally have a company-wide policy of saving everything to the server, and we did have someone who lost a bunch of data when a virus ate her hard drive and she hadn't been saving to the server... which we didn't go to extensive trouble to recover. But there are definitely cases, particularly with MS Office, where working directly off of the server is not feasible. This means copying back and forth a lot, and at some points, your timestamp will be off, as will any revision history.
Actually, its friendlier interface, better support (now declining rapidly) and the fact that there was a lot of compatible software make Windows the naturally dominant OS.
That's exactly my point... better support from the industry and more compatible software made Windows dominant. However, there was nothing natural about how those things came about. Microsoft engaged in many, many actions which broke contracts with other companies and antitrust law to ensure that Windows had the most support from the industry. MS undermined the adoption of OS/2 by telling developers to develop for Windows instead (and the developers listened, since after all, MS should know... they jointly developed OS/2 with IBM); they also embedded fake error messages into early versions of Windows that told people that non-MS DOS programs were incompatible with Windows. They continuously leveraged their market share to gain more dominance, and hence more leverage. Maybe your argument is that that's the "natural" way for business to run, but I would disagree.
I find it somewhat hard to believe that, before the indistrial revolution, humans cared so little for each other that they would freely allow an injured person to die. Apes and other creatures have a natural instinct to care for their own, and humans most certainly do.
Insofar as it is beneficial to the main purpose: continuation of the species. Many species of birds, for example, have two chicks per year; if there is not enough food, they feed only the stronger one and let the other starve. Humans will irrationally split the food among all the children, even if it means everyone gets sick and dies. We call this "humane" behavior for a reason; it's not what animals do.
Nowadays, we engage in "heroic measures" to save lives. This is because we have a sense that every individual person contributes something unique and vital to our society. This was not always the case. It's not so much a matter of "let him die" as "don't use up resources saving him" because, essentially, the individual was valueless. Family and friends would be sad to see someone die, but there was not the same sense that a person had to be saved if at all possible, especially if they were no longer physically able to take care of themselves or contribute to the society. There weren't any intellectual jobs; people labored, and people who couldn't labor were dead weight.
It's so drastically different from our current situation that it is hard to imagine. The Lonely Crowd by David Riesman is a good book on the subject of societal maturity.
The OS monopoly is a natural one, because it's easier to develop all software for one platform, and has very little to do with a herd-like mentality.
The idea that one OS would dominate is a natural one, but there is nothing natural about Windows being dominant, especially in network server environments. Linux, Unix, and even Novell are perfectly viable alternatives, even if the desktop environment is Windows. (If the network is set up properly, the server OS is transparent to the desktop user.)
O'Connor Kelly sounds like a good choice for this position.... [She] came in after DoubleClick was shown to be, well, evil when it came to privacy, to clean things up.
Your statement is correct... she is a "good" choice for the job. She has experience in negotiating the delicate line of privacy invasion, and she can get people on her side. She did a good job for DoubleClick, by finding out exactly where they had to draw the line... so they could keep toeing it.
Her job there, and probably here, is NOT to protect privacy. It's to protect her employer. Trouble is, this time, her employer is the government... and their job is to protect us. Not to hire people who can protect them *from* us. When that happens, we know someone's trying to get away with something we might not feel is in our best interests.
From the Human Resources resumé review perspective, she's an excellent choice. From the perspective of those who want a watchdog protecting our privacy rights, not a troubleshooter who figures out exactly how much the agency can get away with, she's a horrific choice.
Are you aware that nothing they are doing is against any laws? And IMO it should stay that way. There is no constitutional right to surf the net anonymously.
Just as there is no constitutional right to go to a shopping mall anonymously. If I go to the local Westfield Shoppingtown and buy items at Victoria's Secret, Robinson's May, and Pets-R-Us, and then browse at Bath and Body Works and Bebe, it's perfectly legal for the mall to keep records of my transactions, and also report where I went but didn't buy. Then they can sell that information to The Body Shop and Casual Corner, who know that I'm interested in similar products to theirs but haven't bought anything. They can now target me with advertising mailed to my home address (which is easy to get if I used a store credit card anywhere).
That is all perfectly legal, right? It is infeasible, but there's no *law* against using information that way. On the other hand, there doesn't need to be. No matter how bad an idea it is, or how violated people would feel if companies used their information this way, it doesn't need to be made illegal because it isn't worth the investment to do it.
But this is what Doubleclick does. They don't just set cookies; they examine all the cookies they can on your computer to find out where you've been and what you did there. Then they sell ads to companies on the premise that, since they know so much about you, they can advertise to you more effectively.
Does it still seem like something that should be legal? Especially in a country where people raise holy heck if the government dares to use the information they broadcast voluntarily from their cars for their own convenience for a purpose like measuring traffic speeds? We're so incredibly paranoid about how much information people can get about where we go and what we do, it seems that we would naturally find Doubleclick's practices revolting. Especially since now the Federal government is going to use them "to find terrorists" (or anyone else they don't like... McCarthyism anyone?).
If humans were really meant to always act as a group and never consider the rights of the individual, wouldn't we have evolved with a Borg-like hive mind? No, we can think for ourselves. So why try and curb our abilities to the whim of the leadership of some group??
Little-known fact: Individualism as a sociological concept didn't exist until Hobbes and Rousseau (independently) began writing about it at the beginning of the industrial revolution. That's because before the IR, human beings were more or less interchangeable. You worked, lived, and played with the same people for your whole life. If John was maimed, there wasn't any particular reason to save him... because Harry could take over the plowing without any interruption.
Which isn't to say we're not "supposed" to be individuals; I'm simply pointing out that it's not basic human nature. It's a relatively recent cultural change. To say that we're "meant" to consider the rights of the individual (which isn't what you said, but it's a logical extension of your statement) is parallel to saying that we're "meant" to build complex machinery and burn fossil fuels.
In the end, the most successful form of government will probably win out, and less adapted governments will fail and disappear. Governments that foster technological development, increased lifespans, and a universal basic standard of living will be able to support larger populations and win struggles against governments that cannot offer these things. There are different opinions on who has the right idea in this regard, though. In the US, we are "free" to be completely indigent and starve to death on the sidewalk, while we jeer at the "welfare states" in Europe that don't know homelessness at all. On the other hand, it is possible (if not as easy as some make it out to be) to become ridiculously wealthy to the point that you can have huge say in who gets elected and what laws get passed in the US, while it is extremely uncommon in Europe. Which form of government is promoting the welfare of their people more effectively? Are you prepared to definitively give an answer on that? I'm not.
And, as for a Borg-like hive mind, what's still the leading OS in our business community? And why?
So you're saying it's OK to blast Beijing for saying "economic prosperity first, civil liberties a distant second," but it's not OK to say anything bad about the Chinese people (both within and without the PRC) for blithely going along with it? That sounds like hypocrisy.
Having your cake: criticizing the Chinese government for totalitarian rule which stomps on civil rights.
Eating it too: criticizing the Chinese people for not defying totalitarian rule which has few compunctions about disappearing those who interfere with "political harmony."
I have not been to China and am not prepared to support or dispute statements about the actions of the Chinese government, or the overall political climate. But please, if you're going to have an opinion on the matter, stick to just one. It's less confusing for the rest of us.
Actually, that's pretty much how it works for date or acquaintence rape. Random Chance help you if you were wearing a short skirt...
You're more than welcome to leave though. That's one more job for people who value being compensated for their work.
Compensated for their work... so, while we make less per hour worked on average than many people in Europe (since we tend to work a lot of unpaid overtime, and get fewer holidays and less vacation), we're here because we don't have to pay more taxes?
Believe me, I have thought about leaving. I may end up in Finland if we don't kick the Fundamentalist Christian Church out of the White House soon; I'm really not fond of the thought of being told to read the Bible to cure PMS (which is the advice of Bush's new appointee to head the FDA Commission on Reproductive Health). And any day now, they're going to start hunting the atheists down... that's when I have a case for seeking asylum.
In the meantime, most European countries have effective immigration laws, since they don't rely on an imported underclass to keep their economy going... so I'll need a really good reason to get a work visa, like seeking political asylum. If you know of a better way, let's hear it; there's lots of us who might like to leave if we had the option.
If France and Germany had to provide 100% for their own defense I think their welfare state would shrink as well.
Yeah, because after all, we don't have terrorists killing thousands of people here, because we have this great army, and they're helpless against that...
Oh, wait, bad example.
French and German citizens are not threatened by terrorists because the US Army protects them from them...
No, still bad example; we don't do anything about that at all.
Hm, now, how is it exactly that we are protecting France, Germany, and the rest of Europe? And, er, does it count if we're doing it against their will (see EU opposition to military action against Iraq)? And can we parse out what attacks are *based on* their alliance with us and our bullying tactics, vs. what they'd incur of their own accord if we weren't helping?
My work experience [in Germany] has been much less kind then I expected. The company is great, and the people are nice, but the conditions are definitely not 'pro-worker.' My contract has a minimum 40 hour work week, I pay my own insurance, and my salary is less than half what it was in the States. My co-workers are literallly awed by the pay and benefits that I got in the US.
That's odd. In England, the maximum work week (after which you start getting overtime) is 39 hours per week... leaving an hour early on Fridays is a matter of labor law. The standard vacation is three weeks (starting at; you get more time as you gain seniority) instead of the two we get here, and there are 13 national holidays instead of our 11 here in the States. Plus, more companies actually close for those holidays... in the US, even though we have 11, many offices only observe six (Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, and usually two floating holidays around January-February).
It may not be better in Germany, but it definitely is in the UK. Oh, and, no, they don't give you insurance... that's because you have National Health just by being there on a work visa. Heck, it's better than MediCal, and *everyone* gets it. It's almost as good as the Kaiser coverage I'm paying $189/month for on COBRA.
So not all European countries are equal...
As mentioned above, Denver is behind the curve on this type of system.
;-).
Heck, in Los Angeles, we even have such a system for city streets.
But the idea that it will really help with congestion is pretty much a pipe dream. Congestion happens because of something called latent demand -- there's always more people who *want* to be driving than there are actually out on the road. Therefore, for everyone who leaves the road because it's "too congested," someone else joins because now, it's at an acceptable level for them. This is also why increasing road capacity has no long-term effect on congestion. It's simply not feasible to provide enough road to meet demand, because when you think you have, you find out there's more demand.
However, if we get a really coherent system that can predict your travel time on a route, and at the same time have dedicated bus lanes and report the bus travel time for the same trip... maybe we actually can do a little something
Avg driver breaks speed limit?
"Light or No congestion has been reported for this location with an average speed of 65 mph."
Given that the speed limit here in California is 65 mph on most highways, and 70 out in the boonies... I'd say no.
It's 75 in Nevada, and even higher in some less-populated states.
Meanwhile, respect for the law has plummeted, and road rage increased, due to speed traps and speed limits that are perceived as pointless.
;-)
Ah, yes, but... if a bad law isn't enforced, it will remain as-is. But when you start enforcing a bad law, people understand that it needs to be changed.
That's why automated speed citations will lead to better speed laws. So, get out there and tell your politicians
Our cars are parked in a gated garage beneath the building. I have a convertible with a detachable-faceplate stereo. Once upon a time, I sometimes left my roof off and my faceplate on when at home, because the garage was locked... you couldn't get in without a key or a remote.
Or however the guys got in and stole my stereo...
It's true that one security measure, especially one that is poorly understood, may make us more inclined to relax on other security measures. And that's not a good idea. A huge percentage of theft is opportunistic; you eliminate 90% of the folks who might steal your stereo just by locking your car door. Same with hacking... the security measures you can take block out a large percentage of the would-be hackers out there, and the remaining few are probably going to get in no matter what you do (short of severing ties with the outside world completely). You just have to hope that you don't get the attention of those guys.
Of course, one really big step you can take to eliminate opportunistic worms, viruses, and hacks is to delete the Windows partition... funny that script kiddies don't seem to know much about Linux.
My husband says no, she most certainly is not. Me, I'm not usually qualified to judge...
that reminds me of a time when one of our old biddies who really, *really* missed her typewriter (you know, the kind that never quite understood the difference between turning off the computer and turning off the monitor) called up and asked "Which one is the Windows key?"
I never did find out why she needed the Windows key... which is probably a good thing.
Yeah, well, turns out I'm female too... so, what was your point again?
People still don't get it. My old boss wondered why I was "wasting my time" doing stuff like writing all zeros to drives of computers we were giving to charity. "I only told you to format them!"
I tried to explain the concept to her, but for an IT manager, she was woefully bad at technology.
Actually, come to think of it, she was about average...
First of all, no, desperate defensiveness has nothing to do with how you personally feel towards me. It has to to with how threatened you feel about your favorite subject of the day.
Second of all, here you do it again: idiot, dipshit, go learn to read... all blatant personal attacks. Since your very first response to me, that's been your tactic. Very articulate and mature.
Your summary of how patent law is designed to work jibes quite well with what I was taught in 12th grade Government class. I'm sure that's generally what was intended by it, too. But, let's look at it a little more:
"So, the little guy patents his idea and now some big companies want to crush him. But it's ok! He can work out royalty based uses with the company,"
Can you throw out a few examples of this sort of thing that "happens all the time?" On Findlaw I see nothing but a bunch of companies suing a bunch of other companies, such as:
Overture Services (formerly GoTo.com) v. Google, Inc. (both decent-sized guys)
Amgen vs. Transkaryotic Therapies Inc. (TTI is, the article claims, "a tiny biotech company")
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories vs. Pfizer (Dr. Reddy's is India's leading pharmaceuticals company)
Bristol-Meyers pays $670M in violations for abusing patents (Sued by 29 states and Puerto Rico... not a little guy)
British Telecom v. Prodigy Internet (a behemoth company sues a large company on patent infringement and wins)
FTC May Block Unocal on Patents (The biggest guy of them all threatens to prevent a big guy from squishing smaller guys)
EntreMed Licenses Thalidomide Programs to Celgene (Two medium-sized companies decide to license to each other and drop patent lawsuits... this comes close to what you described above)
Amazon.com v. Barnes & Noble (the two biggest names in bookselling... Amazon is slightly smaller, but no little guy)
And that's all from the first page stories that come up on a search of "patent" (and actually have to do with patent enforcement, rather than just mentioning patents in passing). Not really seeing patent law working the way you're talking about, by and large. Maybe you can point me to some better examples.
Note that this isn't a Google search or something... Findlaw tends to be a little more esoteric in what it lists. So it seems likely that if any little guys had sued any big guys and won lately, it would show up here.
How does it really work, then? How does it protect the little guy from being squashed? Explain it to me like I'm five. (Come on, give in; you know you want to anyway.)
I detect a distinct note of desperate defensiveness in your replies to me. You can't attack the post, so you attack the poster. Obviously, you know *so* much more about the subject, that you can't even articulate it.