As far as "permanent internet connection" is concerned, it's just not an inconvenience anymore. Internet connection to a computer is the same as an electricity connection. My computer is completely useless without power, and all but useless without an internet connection. If the power goes down I could whine about the game not saving checkpoints often enough. The same could hold for internet connection. Sure, the electricity requirement is a true requirement while the internet connection is artificial, but it would not annoy me any more when my savegame is lost because of internet outage or a graphics driver failure than when it is lost because of a power blackout.
Woah hold on. So you never travel with a laptop? You don't live in a region with unreliable internet service? You don't have a monthly cap on your internet usage?
I think you'll find a lot of us do. Everyone's situation is different and it's completely false to equate 'power' with 'internet'.
I remember feeling particularly sorry for Paul McCartney when Linda died because I think I would have been looking for any and all treatments regardless of cost... and yet she died!
I'd find it much more tragic if there was treatment available and I wasn't able to afford it. At least in his case there really was nothing he could do about it.
That's the idea behind wet and drying the bottom of a boat. It's not a smooth finish, so it's supposed to provide a layer of trapped water between the boat and the flowing water.
No, laws should be followed. Bad laws should be enforced because it quickly shows how stupid they are. The only reason bad laws stick around is precisely because people ignore them.
To illustrate the poing: jaywalking is a crime in my country. Nobody follows it, so nobody cares that it's against the law. If today everyone who jaywalked got arrested, tomorrow the law would be revised by the current government.
I mean, would you prefer all the... laws still on the books in US to also be enforced, just because they happen to be there?
Why would you have a law if it wasn't meant to be enforced?
I'd go so far as to say that discretion has no place in law enforcement. It certainly has its place in sentencing, and someone needs to be able to pass judgement on what the law actually means (judges). However, law enforcement shouldn't have the ability to look the other way when a law is being broken. You broke the law, you get charged, the end.
I agree with you, it seems as if the rewritten bill is a much more balanced approach.
It seems to me as if the three strikes clause is included in there simply to appease our american overlords. It's so convoluted that it will probably never be used in practice, and as everyone points out, you can just sign up with another isp.
No, it's just there so we can say 'yes we have a three strikes policy, now gib FTA please!'.
One step ahead of you! I sent this to the MP responsible for the bill. I didn't get a reply.
Dear Honourable Simon Powers
I notice that our country has joined the latest international fad and is implementing our own version of the three strikes policy to deter potential file-sharers (Section 92a).
However, as I'm sure you're aware, no one in New Zealand plays baseball. So, I propose the following changes:
The word "strike" is replaced with the word "wicket". You only have one "wicket". So if you are accused of file-sharing once, you are 'out'. You don't actually go to jail until 9 of your good friends have also been accused of file sharing. There is a neutral party which can review any decisions. (I think this may have been called a 'judge' at some point, but I would rename it to 'third umpire').
Hopefully you agree that these changes satisfy the intention of writing laws based on popular sports rules, but they add a nice "kiwi" touch.
There's 7 'major' providers. 6 of which are available anywhere in the country. There are additionally about 20 smaller providers, but I have no idea how widely they operate.
Look, just because that's the situation in America doesn't mean that the rest of the world has devolved into an effective monopoly.
You've made a pretty bug flaw in your arguement. You equate reducing global warming with helping other environmental concerns. I'm sure there's many examples, but I'll use one that I'm familiar with: Building coal plants or building hydro stations. People hate coal plants, they make global warming worse. People love hydro stations, they're pollution free! Unfortunately to make a hydro station you need to damn rivers and this impacts all wildlife on the river so they're not perfect. Of course both have their own merits/faults, but the irrational fear of global warming means it's more difficult to make a sensible decision.
We should look after fauna and flora because we value flora and fauna. We should preserve water supplies so we have clean water. Worrying about global warming at the expense of everything else means these other concerns get left behind.
Likewise, various christians seems to forget that the core christian value is 'be nice to people', because they're so busy trying follow the bible and avoid going to hell. Reference gay bashing, abortion doctor killings etc.
I still think there's a reasonable analogy between global warming / hell and thank you for helping me to flesh out my opinion on the subject.
Ultimately, I think it's sad that humanity needs a bogeyman out there, be it global warming or 'hell' to scare us into doing the right thing.
New Zealand recently proposed our own version of the anti file-sharing law. It had a 3-strikes and you're out provision, but it was so convoluted that it would never actually get to disconnecting someone as it is currently written. I figured that it was just included to appease our American overlords, and it seems as if I was right.
I wrote this letter
Dear [New Zealand Prime Minister]
I notice that our country has joined the latest international fad and is implementing our own version of the three strikes policy to deter potential file-sharers.
However, as I'm sure you're aware, no one in New Zealand plays baseball. So, I propose the following changes:
The word "strike" is replaced with the word "wicket". You only have one "wicket". So if you are accused of file-sharing once, you are 'out'. You don't actually go to jail until 9 of your good friends have also been accused of file sharing. There is a neutral party which can review any decisions. (I think this may have been called a 'judge' at some point, but I would rename it to 'third umpire').
These changes satisfy the intention of writing laws based on popular sports rules, but they add a nice "kiwi" touch.
Eh that probably came off a bit trollish. Especially considering your points about it coinciding with "more power-efficient, less polluting source of energy".
I'm just trying to point out the irrationality of saying we must inconvenience ourselves now because there's a chance something bad might happen in the future. Without taking into account the probability of it happening, and the cost of taking those actions it's meaningless scaremongering.
Do you believe in heaven and live a good christian life? After all, better to be on the safe side.
What about all the other religions in the world? You'd have quite a busy life keeping up all the necessary rituals, but at least you'd avoid going to hell. Nevermind the cost, it's all about minimizing the risk of some possible 'really bad outcome'.
You alude to it, but no one has expressed it explicitly. When you purchase one of these things you're essentially making an investment. Pay more money now, and hope to earn it back later. To properly decide whether it's a good choice, you have to compare it to other uses of the money. At the very least you could put the 80,000 in the bank and earn 5% interest on it. Using that 5% rate the time to earn a profit is about 9 years assuming 12 resurfaces a day, 365 days a year.
I'm no economist so hopefully someone can come in and use phrases like 'time value of money' and explain things a bit better.
Slashdot Mirror
Your final sentance is completely at odds with the rest of your post.
As far as "permanent internet connection" is concerned, it's just not an inconvenience anymore. Internet connection to a computer is the same as an electricity connection. My computer is completely useless without power, and all but useless without an internet connection. If the power goes down I could whine about the game not saving checkpoints often enough. The same could hold for internet connection. Sure, the electricity requirement is a true requirement while the internet connection is artificial, but it would not annoy me any more when my savegame is lost because of internet outage or a graphics driver failure than when it is lost because of a power blackout.
Woah hold on. So you never travel with a laptop? You don't live in a region with unreliable internet service? You don't have a monthly cap on your internet usage?
I think you'll find a lot of us do. Everyone's situation is different and it's completely false to equate 'power' with 'internet'.
I remember feeling particularly sorry for Paul McCartney when Linda died because I think I would have been looking for any and all treatments regardless of cost ... and yet she died!
I'd find it much more tragic if there was treatment available and I wasn't able to afford it. At least in his case there really was nothing he could do about it.
That's the idea behind wet and drying the bottom of a boat. It's not a smooth finish, so it's supposed to provide a layer of trapped water between the boat and the flowing water.
How many grunts can you make in the 100ms round trip anyway?
No, laws should be followed. Bad laws should be enforced because it quickly shows how stupid they are. The only reason bad laws stick around is precisely because people ignore them.
To illustrate the poing: jaywalking is a crime in my country. Nobody follows it, so nobody cares that it's against the law. If today everyone who jaywalked got arrested, tomorrow the law would be revised by the current government.
I mean, would you prefer all the ... laws still on the books in US to also be enforced, just because they happen to be there?
Why would you have a law if it wasn't meant to be enforced?
I'd go so far as to say that discretion has no place in law enforcement. It certainly has its place in sentencing, and someone needs to be able to pass judgement on what the law actually means (judges). However, law enforcement shouldn't have the ability to look the other way when a law is being broken. You broke the law, you get charged, the end.
Ah, I can only dream.
autohotkey.com
Open source programme that allows you do do anything with your keys. Careful though, once you start you won't stop.
Once I was asked if I thought they were stupid. The answer (al lie) was that _I_ was stupid and wanted to be sure I did not make a mistake.
Once? :D
I agree with you, it seems as if the rewritten bill is a much more balanced approach.
It seems to me as if the three strikes clause is included in there simply to appease our american overlords. It's so convoluted that it will probably never be used in practice, and as everyone points out, you can just sign up with another isp.
No, it's just there so we can say 'yes we have a three strikes policy, now gib FTA please!'.
One step ahead of you! I sent this to the MP responsible for the bill. I didn't get a reply.
Dear Honourable Simon Powers
I notice that our country has joined the latest international fad and is implementing our own version of the three strikes policy to deter potential file-sharers (Section 92a).
However, as I'm sure you're aware, no one in New Zealand plays baseball. So, I propose the following changes:
The word "strike" is replaced with the word "wicket".
You only have one "wicket". So if you are accused of file-sharing once, you are 'out'.
You don't actually go to jail until 9 of your good friends have also been accused of file sharing.
There is a neutral party which can review any decisions. (I think this may have been called a 'judge' at some point, but I would rename it to 'third umpire').
Hopefully you agree that these changes satisfy the intention of writing laws based on popular sports rules, but they add a nice "kiwi" touch.
Yours Sincerely....
How the fuck did this get +5 insightful?
I googled 'new zealand isps', clicked on the second link, ended up at this page: http://www.newzealandisp.orconhosting.net.nz/new_zealand_ISP_directory.htm
There's 7 'major' providers. 6 of which are available anywhere in the country. There are additionally about 20 smaller providers, but I have no idea how widely they operate.
Look, just because that's the situation in America doesn't mean that the rest of the world has devolved into an effective monopoly.
Every time I see a news article on something I have first hand knowledge of it's a distorted if not outright false depiction of events.
Every time I see a news article on something I don't know about it must be true, since it's in the newspaper.
John McClane didn't have a daughter in the last Die Hard Movie!
http://xkcd.com/566/
Yes it's the matrix but POINT STILL STANDS!
Don't say I don't have a life either, because I got drunk twice last weekend.
I fucking love western society.
It still is, for sugar.
Or so the simpsons told me.
So you're saying that because he didn't make any grammatical mistakes he must be a professional editor?
Yeah, you're probably right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympiad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympian
Yes, this time every 2 years is very stressful for me.
Right, and yet he had to meet with lawyers to tell him this.
Seems like I summed up the whitehouse spokesman's thought process pretty well.
Therefore we need news laws.
A corollary:
It's on the internet. Therefore old laws don't apply.
You've made a pretty bug flaw in your arguement. You equate reducing global warming with helping other environmental concerns. I'm sure there's many examples, but I'll use one that I'm familiar with: Building coal plants or building hydro stations. People hate coal plants, they make global warming worse. People love hydro stations, they're pollution free! Unfortunately to make a hydro station you need to damn rivers and this impacts all wildlife on the river so they're not perfect. Of course both have their own merits/faults, but the irrational fear of global warming means it's more difficult to make a sensible decision.
We should look after fauna and flora because we value flora and fauna. We should preserve water supplies so we have clean water. Worrying about global warming at the expense of everything else means these other concerns get left behind.
Likewise, various christians seems to forget that the core christian value is 'be nice to people', because they're so busy trying follow the bible and avoid going to hell. Reference gay bashing, abortion doctor killings etc.
I still think there's a reasonable analogy between global warming / hell and thank you for helping me to flesh out my opinion on the subject.
Ultimately, I think it's sad that humanity needs a bogeyman out there, be it global warming or 'hell' to scare us into doing the right thing.
New Zealand recently proposed our own version of the anti file-sharing law. It had a 3-strikes and you're out provision, but it was so convoluted that it would never actually get to disconnecting someone as it is currently written. I figured that it was just included to appease our American overlords, and it seems as if I was right.
I wrote this letter
Dear [New Zealand Prime Minister]
I notice that our country has joined the latest international fad and is implementing our own version of the three strikes policy to deter potential file-sharers.
However, as I'm sure you're aware, no one in New Zealand plays baseball. So, I propose the following changes:
The word "strike" is replaced with the word "wicket".
You only have one "wicket". So if you are accused of file-sharing once, you are 'out'.
You don't actually go to jail until 9 of your good friends have also been accused of file sharing.
There is a neutral party which can review any decisions. (I think this may have been called a 'judge' at some point, but I would rename it to 'third umpire').
These changes satisfy the intention of writing laws based on popular sports rules, but they add a nice "kiwi" touch.
Yours Sincerely, ...
I never got a reply :(
Eh that probably came off a bit trollish. Especially considering your points about it coinciding with "more power-efficient, less polluting source of energy".
I'm just trying to point out the irrationality of saying we must inconvenience ourselves now because there's a chance something bad might happen in the future. Without taking into account the probability of it happening, and the cost of taking those actions it's meaningless scaremongering.
Do you believe in heaven and live a good christian life? After all, better to be on the safe side.
What about all the other religions in the world? You'd have quite a busy life keeping up all the necessary rituals, but at least you'd avoid going to hell. Nevermind the cost, it's all about minimizing the risk of some possible 'really bad outcome'.
You alude to it, but no one has expressed it explicitly. When you purchase one of these things you're essentially making an investment. Pay more money now, and hope to earn it back later. To properly decide whether it's a good choice, you have to compare it to other uses of the money. At the very least you could put the 80,000 in the bank and earn 5% interest on it. Using that 5% rate the time to earn a profit is about 9 years assuming 12 resurfaces a day, 365 days a year.
I'm no economist so hopefully someone can come in and use phrases like 'time value of money' and explain things a bit better.