Re:Sounds rather disappointing, really
on
Hollow Spy Coins
·
· Score: 1
Seems you missed the word "fraudulently" -- hollowing out a coin is not attempting to defraud anyone. It's only a crime if you're trying to commit fraud by your actions. Since 1965 (1970 for half-dollars), that's been pretty tough to do...
Lots of redundant copies that the family moves from system to system over time will probably give you the best chance of recovery. You can maintain the time capsule effect by password protecting that zip file and putting the password in the time capsule (engraved on something) along with the other standard time-capsule type stuff. She'll have that file kicking around on her computer for years, driving her nuts while she waits to get the password. I like it.
I couldn't agree more. After a long history of sketchy routers that I had to reboot every other day, I bought the WRT54GL just so I could put third-party firmware on it. The rave reviews led me to Tomato. Simple to set up, great interface, lots of cool stats and graphs, and -- most importantly -- my up time is now determined by power outages.
Due to significant gerrymandering, my representatives have never represented me. I would find it to be a significant improvement if I could choose one of the other representatives to represent me, and have his vote count that much more.
If representatives represented actual people rather than the average person in their district, they might start acting right. If your representative doesn't vote the way you want, you have 434 others to choose from. Of course, Ron Paul's vote would end up being 20 times more powerful than most others, but it's a start.
Only the government can violate the 4th amendment, if the RIAA was doing it directly, it would be called theft.
The RIAA accuses many innocent people of copyright infringement, and then because of civil forfeiture laws, the government confiscates their computers.
- The RIAA attempts to stop file sharing.
- Innocent people have their rights violated.
There is a cause and effect relationship.
The implication is that if the RIAA gave up the fight (maybe because of private file sharing!) then these rights violations would cease.
I'm not disingenuous. Increased privacy is important to keep government out of private life. If they don't know what I'm doing, it can't be mistaken for something illegal, with my person or property locked up until it's all sorted out. Read up on civil forfeiture; it happens all the time.
I didn't say the RIAA was violating the 4th amendment, but it is because of their influence ($) that the government agencies act on supposed probable cause that couldn't exist if privacy were guaranteed. Call it enforcement of civil forfeiture laws or whatever you want--innocent people have their computers seized and have to fight in court to get them back. That's not my idea of freedom.
I fully support the rights of the RIAA and despise criminal copyright violation, but if the only way they can find to fight it is to trample the rights of everyone else, then I personally don't find that to be acceptable. Your right to swing your fist--even at the guy who offended you--ends when you start punching the innocent.
You won't believe me, or care, but I own a publishing company with a couple young adult fiction titles in print.
Perhaps I am malicious, incompetent, lying, or a disgruntled criminal. It doesn't really matter. In any case I'm a relatively private person, and would generally like it to remain that way.
What you see as an "attempt to make it safer to violate other people's rights," I see as an attempt to keep other people from violating my rights.
Hundreds--maybe thousands--of innocent people have had their 4th amendment rights violated in the RIAA's attempts to stop file sharing. Many (who are innocent) settled out of court to avoid the costs of trial. If all file sharing is completely anonymous and private, these rights violations end.
Do some guilty people share files in a way that infringes copyrights? Sure. Should the rest of the country accept violations of their rights or privacy because of this? No way.
FWIW, I have never used torrents and I own the rights to several copyrighted works--freedom is more important and no one should ever give up any of it.
I would argue that the ability to share data in a hidden manner IS vital to freedom.
If I want any communicated private data to remain private--if for no other reason than I value my privacy and I don't want you looking at it--then the ability to share files (lots of data) anonymously is simply a byproduct of freedom.
There are plenty of valid reasons to hide the source of information or the information itself. Maybe it's embarrassing, proprietary, easily misinterpreted, or scandalous. Maybe it's boring. It doesn't really matter. The fact remains that I (and most people) value privacy and freedom.
I close the blinds at night not because what I'm doing in my house is wrong or shameful (or even private), it because it isn't anybody's business but mine. Making it illegal to close my blinds because law enforcement agencies might want to see what's going on is NOT OK with me.
There are plenty of reasons to hide what you're doing even if you know it isn't wrong. When you close the door to the bathroom, we call it privacy. When you plan a surprise party, we call it a secret. In both cases, you're hiding something that isn't wrong--and frankly, I appreciate you closing the door.
Maybe you did something stupid and want to warn others not to do it without having to let the whole world know you did such a dumb thing.
More importantly to a free society, exposing corruption in law enforcement agencies strikes me as a valid reason to want wide distribution and anonymity in a way that can't be monitored by those same agencies.
Frankly, if it's normal to the locals, then it probably isn't very newsworthy. American journalists are trained to make every story as sensational as possible. When has a TV news story ever lived up to the hype that made you sit and wait for it?
I would love to get news from my perspective, but that would involve a lot of de-sensationalizing. I can only imagine the time they must put in to make the most mundane statistics seem scandalous.
If people think the government is looking out for them, they tend to not look out for themselves. The government should put in place sound money and a solid body of contract law that enables people to look out for themselves, but should otherwise let people work out whatever banking deal suits them.
Deposit insurance is a fine option for those who want to pay the premiums, but even insurance companies can't guarantee full payment in the case of disaster.
The FDIC can only fully guarantee deposits because the gov't can print more money if necessary, but every time they print more fiat currency, the value of my money--and yours--decreases. Foisting this on the taxpayer means that the prudent and careful end up subsidizing those who seek rewards without risk.
The "regulation" you seek is the Fed's reserve requirement, and the over-leveraging was made possible due to the Fed's fractional-reserve banking policies. You can't over-leverage something that can't be leveraged at all.
A contract is exactly the point. Libertarians are all about making and enforcing contracts. If you contract with a bank to hold your money for you payable on demand, it should be available for you on demand. If you agree to leave it with them for a some period of time so they can lend it out at interest, no problem.
If you want to agree to an account where your deposits are payable on demand, but the bank says it might not be there, because they might lend it out--and you're willing to take that risk--no problem (and no one to complain to when you can't get your money). It's all about the contract.
Today, the Fed decides what those terms are going to be, and people just have to accept that the terms are ok. Fact is, they aren't ok.
Fractional reserve banking creates money that doesn't exist. If the whole banking system involved $100 that you deposited, then I borrowed $90 to pay you for some work, then you deposited that $90--you'd have $190 in the bank. If I default on my loan, how can you get your $190 out of the bank?
Multiply this situation by the money in our economy and it's obvious that the Fed and their attempts to manipulate the money supply have (at the very least) enabled our current banking crisis to happen.
I don't believe fractional-reserve banking should be outlawed, I simply don't believe that it should be the government-mandated way to do banking. Whatever agreement you make with your banker is ok with me.
FWIW, since Libertarians tend to want to return to sound money and abolish the Fed and the legalized counterfeiting that is the fractional-reserve banking system, claiming that they want to deregulate banks isn't exactly accurate.
It's probably closer to the truth to say that they want to do away with the legislation that allowed the current fiscal crisis to occur. I think the current economic situation reflects the "negative externalities" and "systemic risks to economies" that a Libertarian approach would have completely prevented.
I think the Libertarian position is more closely aligned with the average American's ideals than any other party. Just because you disagree with some of the most extreme ideas, doesn't mean they don't deserve your vote. I would guess you disagree with the most extreme ideas of the Republicans and Democrats, too.
The Libertarian party is marginalized because most of America won't get off the couch and do their own research. They rely on the TV to tell them what to think, and the media doesn't want things to change.
Ever since the end of the cold war, the news has had to work very hard to maintain a fearful society that would need them. In times of war or scandal, the populace is glued to the television. A Libertarian government is a scandal-free (scandal-reduced, anyway), war-free government. They have no interest in that.
Those skeptical of the media blackout on freedom loving candidates should frankly do some research. The most undeniably obvious one in recent memory was in CNNs reporting of the PA republican primary, where they reported voting percentages for Huckabee, who had dropped out of the race several days earlier, but not Ron Paul, who was still in the race and had way more votes than Huckabee.
Until people get angry enough to look for alternatives, we are stuck with whatever the media is willing to feed us.
Well, I'm glad you agree with me, and you're probably right that the particular quote isn't tremendously meaningful for all kinds of reasons. Statistics can be manipulated to say whatever you want them to say. The point is that an armed populace deters crime, and the effects of the crime that does happen is greatly reduced.
Google "mandatory gun ownership" for some very interesting information on what happens when towns enact mandatory gun ownership laws. The short answer is that crime rates plummet.
As a reminder it was box cutters and the threat of bombs.;-)
Tomato can do it. It will give you several nice charts and graphs, including a list of GB/day and realtime bandwidth usage. I've been using it for about a month. I'm hooked.
Is this because 4 out of 5 people live in the 25 states where you do need a permit?
Even if the answer to that question is yes, that would indicate no correlation between ease of obtaining guns and the murder rate, not the positive correlation some would like to believe, or the negative correlation that is more likely true.
As far as permits go, I found this page to have some interesting facts on the topic.
There will always be ways for bad people to do bad things. I seem to remember back in 2001 a handful of folks caused a lot of trouble using only boxcutters. You can't keep bad people from being bad, but you can make it so the good people can control the damage.
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy. However, 4 out of 5 U.S. murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?" - Andrew Ford
there are only two obvious points in time at which one could cite the recognition of rights, being conception and delivery. If we want to grant that a fetus at any particular point in development does not yet have rights as a person, (which I do, personally) then the line must necessarily occur at delivery.
Conversely, if we want to grant that a fetus at any particular point in development does have rights as a person, (which I do personally) then the line must necessarily occur at conception.
I do. I appreciate a play-by-play by a/.er. Beats the filtered stuff you get on TV. It's nice to have a nerdy perspective. I'd throw him some +1 informatives if I had them.
I have great kids. Amazing kids. Even so, as a parent, I know that (sometimes) my kids' behavior changes when they hear me coming up the stairs. They also know that I can monitor their internet use at any time. I rarely do.
Occasional use of VNC is great for two things:
1. Making sure when they say they're doing their homework, they are.
2. Getting insight into my kids.
I want to know what my kids are thinking about and how they are feeling. Even the most loved, appreciated, and well-adjusted kid won't always be forthcoming with questions and concerns that are outside what they perceive to be normal.
There have been a few occasions where the insight I've gained from monitoring my kids' use (VNC) has really helped me to help them.
Actually, the only times I use VNC are when I suspect my son isn't doing his homework, or when something is just not right with one of my kids--when they are really hurting, or struggling with something, and just don't want to talk about it.
The statistic I would like to see is "Profit $" per "song the consumer actually wants." I think you could make a pretty good case that while their profits may be down on a songs-we-used-to-be-able-to-force-you-to-take basis, their profits are way up on a song-I-actually-want basis.
Now that they can't force you to buy a bunch of songs you don't want to get the songs you do, consumers can now afford to buy more music that they do want. Today, your $10 buys you 10 songs you want, not 2 you want and 8 you don't.
It could have been great for both the industry and consumers, except that instead of embracing the future, the industry responded with DRM, lawsuits, and calling their consumers thieves. If their profitability took a hit they have only themselves to blame.
Now if someone could convince the cable company to sell me only the channels I want...
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Seems you missed the word "fraudulently" -- hollowing out a coin is not attempting to defraud anyone. It's only a crime if you're trying to commit fraud by your actions. Since 1965 (1970 for half-dollars), that's been pretty tough to do...
Problem is that you cannot teach inquisitive...
You're right, you can't teach it, but you can kill it.
Lots of redundant copies that the family moves from system to system over time will probably give you the best chance of recovery. You can maintain the time capsule effect by password protecting that zip file and putting the password in the time capsule (engraved on something) along with the other standard time-capsule type stuff. She'll have that file kicking around on her computer for years, driving her nuts while she waits to get the password. I like it.
I couldn't agree more. After a long history of sketchy routers that I had to reboot every other day, I bought the WRT54GL just so I could put third-party firmware on it. The rave reviews led me to Tomato. Simple to set up, great interface, lots of cool stats and graphs, and -- most importantly -- my up time is now determined by power outages.
Due to significant gerrymandering, my representatives have never represented me. I would find it to be a significant improvement if I could choose one of the other representatives to represent me, and have his vote count that much more. If representatives represented actual people rather than the average person in their district, they might start acting right. If your representative doesn't vote the way you want, you have 434 others to choose from. Of course, Ron Paul's vote would end up being 20 times more powerful than most others, but it's a start.
Only the government can violate the 4th amendment, if the RIAA was doing it directly, it would be called theft.
The RIAA accuses many innocent people of copyright infringement, and then because of civil forfeiture laws, the government confiscates their computers.
- The RIAA attempts to stop file sharing.
- Innocent people have their rights violated.
There is a cause and effect relationship.
The implication is that if the RIAA gave up the fight (maybe because of private file sharing!) then these rights violations would cease.
I'm not disingenuous. Increased privacy is important to keep government out of private life. If they don't know what I'm doing, it can't be mistaken for something illegal, with my person or property locked up until it's all sorted out. Read up on civil forfeiture; it happens all the time.
I didn't say the RIAA was violating the 4th amendment, but it is because of their influence ($) that the government agencies act on supposed probable cause that couldn't exist if privacy were guaranteed. Call it enforcement of civil forfeiture laws or whatever you want--innocent people have their computers seized and have to fight in court to get them back. That's not my idea of freedom.
I fully support the rights of the RIAA and despise criminal copyright violation, but if the only way they can find to fight it is to trample the rights of everyone else, then I personally don't find that to be acceptable. Your right to swing your fist--even at the guy who offended you--ends when you start punching the innocent.
You won't believe me, or care, but I own a publishing company with a couple young adult fiction titles in print.
Perhaps I am malicious, incompetent, lying, or a disgruntled criminal. It doesn't really matter. In any case I'm a relatively private person, and would generally like it to remain that way.
What you see as an "attempt to make it safer to violate other people's rights," I see as an attempt to keep other people from violating my rights.
Hundreds--maybe thousands--of innocent people have had their 4th amendment rights violated in the RIAA's attempts to stop file sharing. Many (who are innocent) settled out of court to avoid the costs of trial. If all file sharing is completely anonymous and private, these rights violations end.
Do some guilty people share files in a way that infringes copyrights? Sure. Should the rest of the country accept violations of their rights or privacy because of this? No way.
FWIW, I have never used torrents and I own the rights to several copyrighted works--freedom is more important and no one should ever give up any of it.
I would argue that the ability to share data in a hidden manner IS vital to freedom.
If I want any communicated private data to remain private--if for no other reason than I value my privacy and I don't want you looking at it--then the ability to share files (lots of data) anonymously is simply a byproduct of freedom.
There are plenty of valid reasons to hide the source of information or the information itself. Maybe it's embarrassing, proprietary, easily misinterpreted, or scandalous. Maybe it's boring. It doesn't really matter. The fact remains that I (and most people) value privacy and freedom.
I close the blinds at night not because what I'm doing in my house is wrong or shameful (or even private), it because it isn't anybody's business but mine. Making it illegal to close my blinds because law enforcement agencies might want to see what's going on is NOT OK with me.
There are plenty of reasons to hide what you're doing even if you know it isn't wrong. When you close the door to the bathroom, we call it privacy. When you plan a surprise party, we call it a secret. In both cases, you're hiding something that isn't wrong--and frankly, I appreciate you closing the door.
Maybe you did something stupid and want to warn others not to do it without having to let the whole world know you did such a dumb thing.
More importantly to a free society, exposing corruption in law enforcement agencies strikes me as a valid reason to want wide distribution and anonymity in a way that can't be monitored by those same agencies.
Frankly, if it's normal to the locals, then it probably isn't very newsworthy. American journalists are trained to make every story as sensational as possible. When has a TV news story ever lived up to the hype that made you sit and wait for it?
I would love to get news from my perspective, but that would involve a lot of de-sensationalizing. I can only imagine the time they must put in to make the most mundane statistics seem scandalous.
50% of children are below average! Details at 11.
If people think the government is looking out for them, they tend to not look out for themselves. The government should put in place sound money and a solid body of contract law that enables people to look out for themselves, but should otherwise let people work out whatever banking deal suits them.
Deposit insurance is a fine option for those who want to pay the premiums, but even insurance companies can't guarantee full payment in the case of disaster.
The FDIC can only fully guarantee deposits because the gov't can print more money if necessary, but every time they print more fiat currency, the value of my money--and yours--decreases. Foisting this on the taxpayer means that the prudent and careful end up subsidizing those who seek rewards without risk.
The "regulation" you seek is the Fed's reserve requirement, and the over-leveraging was made possible due to the Fed's fractional-reserve banking policies. You can't over-leverage something that can't be leveraged at all.
A contract is exactly the point. Libertarians are all about making and enforcing contracts. If you contract with a bank to hold your money for you payable on demand, it should be available for you on demand. If you agree to leave it with them for a some period of time so they can lend it out at interest, no problem.
If you want to agree to an account where your deposits are payable on demand, but the bank says it might not be there, because they might lend it out--and you're willing to take that risk--no problem (and no one to complain to when you can't get your money). It's all about the contract.
Today, the Fed decides what those terms are going to be, and people just have to accept that the terms are ok. Fact is, they aren't ok.
Fractional reserve banking creates money that doesn't exist. If the whole banking system involved $100 that you deposited, then I borrowed $90 to pay you for some work, then you deposited that $90--you'd have $190 in the bank. If I default on my loan, how can you get your $190 out of the bank?
Multiply this situation by the money in our economy and it's obvious that the Fed and their attempts to manipulate the money supply have (at the very least) enabled our current banking crisis to happen.
I don't believe fractional-reserve banking should be outlawed, I simply don't believe that it should be the government-mandated way to do banking. Whatever agreement you make with your banker is ok with me.
FWIW, since Libertarians tend to want to return to sound money and abolish the Fed and the legalized counterfeiting that is the fractional-reserve banking system, claiming that they want to deregulate banks isn't exactly accurate.
It's probably closer to the truth to say that they want to do away with the legislation that allowed the current fiscal crisis to occur. I think the current economic situation reflects the "negative externalities" and "systemic risks to economies" that a Libertarian approach would have completely prevented.
I think the Libertarian position is more closely aligned with the average American's ideals than any other party. Just because you disagree with some of the most extreme ideas, doesn't mean they don't deserve your vote. I would guess you disagree with the most extreme ideas of the Republicans and Democrats, too.
The Libertarian party is marginalized because most of America won't get off the couch and do their own research. They rely on the TV to tell them what to think, and the media doesn't want things to change.
Ever since the end of the cold war, the news has had to work very hard to maintain a fearful society that would need them. In times of war or scandal, the populace is glued to the television. A Libertarian government is a scandal-free (scandal-reduced, anyway), war-free government. They have no interest in that.
Those skeptical of the media blackout on freedom loving candidates should frankly do some research. The most undeniably obvious one in recent memory was in CNNs reporting of the PA republican primary, where they reported voting percentages for Huckabee, who had dropped out of the race several days earlier, but not Ron Paul, who was still in the race and had way more votes than Huckabee.
Until people get angry enough to look for alternatives, we are stuck with whatever the media is willing to feed us.
Well, I'm glad you agree with me, and you're probably right that the particular quote isn't tremendously meaningful for all kinds of reasons. Statistics can be manipulated to say whatever you want them to say. The point is that an armed populace deters crime, and the effects of the crime that does happen is greatly reduced.
;-)
Google "mandatory gun ownership" for some very interesting information on what happens when towns enact mandatory gun ownership laws. The short answer is that crime rates plummet.
As a reminder it was box cutters and the threat of bombs.
Tomato can do it. It will give you several nice charts and graphs, including a list of GB/day and realtime bandwidth usage. I've been using it for about a month. I'm hooked.
Is this because 4 out of 5 people live in the 25 states where you do need a permit?
Even if the answer to that question is yes, that would indicate no correlation between ease of obtaining guns and the murder rate, not the positive correlation some would like to believe, or the negative correlation that is more likely true.
As far as permits go, I found this page to have some interesting facts on the topic.
There will always be ways for bad people to do bad things. I seem to remember back in 2001 a handful of folks caused a lot of trouble using only boxcutters. You can't keep bad people from being bad, but you can make it so the good people can control the damage.
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy. However, 4 out of 5 U.S. murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?" - Andrew Ford
there are only two obvious points in time at which one could cite the recognition of rights, being conception and delivery. If we want to grant that a fetus at any particular point in development does not yet have rights as a person, (which I do, personally) then the line must necessarily occur at delivery.
Conversely, if we want to grant that a fetus at any particular point in development does have rights as a person, (which I do personally) then the line must necessarily occur at conception.
nzbmatrix.com
I do. I appreciate a play-by-play by a /.er. Beats the filtered stuff you get on TV. It's nice to have a nerdy perspective. I'd throw him some +1 informatives if I had them.
I have great kids. Amazing kids. Even so, as a parent, I know that (sometimes) my kids' behavior changes when they hear me coming up the stairs. They also know that I can monitor their internet use at any time. I rarely do.
Occasional use of VNC is great for two things:
1. Making sure when they say they're doing their homework, they are.
2. Getting insight into my kids.
I want to know what my kids are thinking about and how they are feeling. Even the most loved, appreciated, and well-adjusted kid won't always be forthcoming with questions and concerns that are outside what they perceive to be normal.
There have been a few occasions where the insight I've gained from monitoring my kids' use (VNC) has really helped me to help them.
Actually, the only times I use VNC are when I suspect my son isn't doing his homework, or when something is just not right with one of my kids--when they are really hurting, or struggling with something, and just don't want to talk about it.
The statistic I would like to see is "Profit $" per "song the consumer actually wants." I think you could make a pretty good case that while their profits may be down on a songs-we-used-to-be-able-to-force-you-to-take basis, their profits are way up on a song-I-actually-want basis.
Now that they can't force you to buy a bunch of songs you don't want to get the songs you do, consumers can now afford to buy more music that they do want. Today, your $10 buys you 10 songs you want, not 2 you want and 8 you don't.
It could have been great for both the industry and consumers, except that instead of embracing the future, the industry responded with DRM, lawsuits, and calling their consumers thieves. If their profitability took a hit they have only themselves to blame.
Now if someone could convince the cable company to sell me only the channels I want...