I'm a Linux sysadmin/architect, and recently, within the span of one week, I turned down two different lucrative contract jobs with a big bank because they insisted I'd have to return to the commuter lifestyle and work on-site. The work environment would have been an open floor plan with what I call "dog bone" tables -- like this: http://tinyurl.com/bld6axu
My home office is a 25 x 20 foot room over my garage. I have a private bathroom, my own fridge, and my wife cooks my lunch. I don't pay for parking, dry cleaning, coffee at Starbucks, lunches in restaurants, etc. I don't burn all that fossil fuel driving back and forth 15 miles each way to work -- and that saves me money and helps the environment.
On top of all the other advantages, I'm also WAY more productive working from home. I can close my door and completely concentrate on what I'm doing. When you work with your mind, the last thing you want is to sit in a big open room with people walking around all day, chit-chatting, and asking "How about them Panthers?" while you're trying to focus.
My question was why you chose to use "they all depend on those at the top not being douches" as a specific argument against Libertarianism. It applies to every form of government.
Libertarianism is not about having no rules, and we have not "ALREADY TRIED IT". How can you look at the US history of the two-party system, in which either Democrats or Republicans -- but never Libertarians -- have run the country, and somehow blame that on the Libertarians?
You confuse Libertarianism with oligarchy and anarchy, and you're wrong.
Do you seriously think that the nasty air in China can be blamed on their Libertarian government? Was it Nixon's Libertarian Party who was running the show when the Cuyahoga River caught fire? Was it Grover Cleveland's Libertarian party that ran things during the rise of Big Steel?
Speaking of Big Steel, and as to your argument about joining "that little 1% club", do you realize that Andrew Carnegie pulled himself up from being a common factory worker to become one of the richest men who ever lived? So I guess even in the 1800's -- although, much like your specious arguments this has nothing to do with Libertarianism --there were opportunities for hard work and ingenuity to pay off.
"they all depend on those at the top not being douches"
As you said, this is so with every "ism". So why use it as an argument against Libertarianism particularly? At least in a Libertarian system, you're not required to have very much interaction with the douches in charge.
This is a very good point. One dumbass user who doesn't keep a passphrase on his private key, doesn't encrypt his hard drive, etc. and bam, you get hosed.
If you're on a current OpenSSH (as available in Red Hat 6.3 at least, or its rebuilds like Scientific Linux or CentOS), you can require both key and password auth. From the release notes at https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/6.3_Release_Notes/index.html#id3199604: "SSH can now be set up to require multiple ways of authentication (whereas previously SSH allowed multiple ways of authentication of which only one was required for a successful login); for example, logging in to an SSH-enabled machine requires both a passphrase and a public key to be entered. The RequiredAuthentications1 and RequiredAuthentications2 options can be configured in the/etc/ssh/sshd_config file to specify authentications that are required for a successful log in."
To implement on an SSH server where only SSH protocol 2 is allowed, drop this in your/etc/ssh/sshd_config:
RequiredAuthentications2 publickey,password
You need to specify PasswordAuthentication yes as well, or you'll be told: "Invalid required authentication list"
Once you set it up, restart your sshd daemon, and you will be good to go.
Nothing's foolproof however, and I mean that in the literal sense of the word "foolproof". Some fool can store his password in plain text on the same system as his key, write his password on his computer in Magic Marker or whatever, and you're screwed again. Allowing SSH access to morons is a major security hole.
I have children. That was a personal choice I made. I take care of them. I don't expect you to tolerate being inconvenienced by them. I don't expect you to "protect" them with idiotic limitations on your personal freedoms. I don't expect you to watch what you say, or how you dress, etc. I don't expect you to pay more for a TV so that all TV's will have v-chips and I can abdicate my responsibility to a machine.
Unfortunately, I have come to expect that the government will push this kind of shit on you and blame it on me.
Small town South Carolina. Voted in a Catholic church. Was asked for ID. I am not bothered by needing to show ID to vote, so I did not make a fuss, and don't know what would have happened had I done so. There was no line at all. I went straight in, showed my ID, verbally verified my current address, and was taken to a voting booth. Voting was done electronically on a touch screen. The instructions were clear and easy to follow.
Straight-party options (which I don't believe should be allowed) and options for individual candidates were offered.
I was offered an "I Voted" sticker, which I declined.
Everyone was polite and friendly, but serious. There was no police or military presence at all (which probably won't surprise > 90% of American voters, but might be hard for some to believe.) I never felt even slightly annoyed, pressured, or intimidated by anyone during the process of arriving, entering, voting, or leaving.
You can argue all day long about how much supervision children should have, but I think its pretty clear that the company that makes and sells these magnets should NOT be held responsible when adults allow children to use them.
"it would make more sense to let it blow down and rebuild it.''
This does not take into account at all the major life disruption that happens when a family loses their home, nor the potential lives saved by "fortress" construction.
If my kids do not get killed in a hurricane and we don't have to live like refugees for several months while struggling to find or build a new home, what's that worth?
Sometimes, smaller markets (less demand) actually result in higher prices per unit sold, because the fixed costs associated with creating and distributing ANY amount of supply have to be spread across fewer units sold.
Except once its released, open source software has thousands of people looking at it. You may not implicitly trust the people who manage the repos to make sure you don't get any bugged up code, but you can pretty much count on the global community to find and fix problems much more quickly than something evil buried in a black box that nobody can see inside.
Well, I was going to let you have the last word, but not if you're going to intentionally misquote me.
You quoted me as saying: " I quite honestly don't give a fuck about fair elections, regardless of your vehement urgings", when what I actually wrote was: "I quite honestly don't give a fuck about fair elections in Romania, regardless of your vehement urgings."
Other than clearing that up, your opinion means nothing to me, and I have nothing to prove to you, so I won't comment any further.
Yes, I willfully ignored your request to consider how to ensure fair elections in Romania, because I quite honestly don't give a fuck about fair elections in Romania, regardless of your vehement urgings.
Let me be completely direct since you think I'm being obtuse: We don't need any international observers at all. They can just stay home and let us handle our own elections. We don't have to answer to the UN or the OSCE or anyone else for how our system works. As a US voter, I am happy with how things work, and if our system needs to change, we'll change it ourselves. No foreign influence is necessary, and no, we do not have any treaty which says we have to allow any of this.
If you'd like the last word, knock yourself out -- I'm done.
I don't know where you studied logic, but drawing a "logical conclusion" that I have not given this enough thought is not logical at all.
Our own press and party pollsters have to maintain their distance. This is all to protect the privacy of the voters. Even from 30 meters away it would be fairly obvious if a tank and bunch of National Guard soldiers was parked outside of a voting place, or if people were being harassed on their way to the booths. Speaking to people on their way to and from the booths would also give any observer a good idea of what was going on. Any attempt to intimidate voters into not speaking with the observers would be obvious.
There's nothing to stop observers from asking people for whom they voted and recording the answers. Nobody is required to answer, but there is nothing preventing them from answering.
Also, I have not seen anything to indicate that observers will be restricted from observing the process of counting the votes. As far as I can tell, the distance restriction only applies to the actual casting of ballots.
If our participation in the OSCE is at odds with our own laws, then maybe its time to reconsider whether we wish to be a part of the OSCE. For what its worth, neither the Helsinki Accords nor the Charter of Paris for a New Europe are actually binding treaties; they are simply declarations agreed by the member states. In American terms, they are analogous to a resolution vs. an act of Congress. Absent a treaty and enabling legislation, these declarations have no binding impact whatsoever on individual U.S. states.
Did anyone actually say that the process could not be observed? What they're saying is that it can be observed -- from 100' away. The international observers can observe just like our own press and our own pollsters can observe. They can ask questions, they can count the number of voters, they can record the answers in their computers, whatever. They just can't compel anyone to talk to them, nor can they get involved in a way that might influence the result.
Nobody's saying they can't monitor the election. They're saying that they can't violate the right to a secret ballot by coming within 100' of the polling station.
For those of you who haven't bothered to learn, the conversion of feet to meters is 3.3 feet per meter. So we're talking about approximately 30 meters distance. Outside of that distance, the observers will be free to engage any willing voter in conversation. Of course, no voter will be compelled to talk to the observers.
You're all making a big deal out of what amounts to nothing, unless you really think that the observers should be allowed in the voting booths to watch over the voters' shoulders as they cast their ballots -- in which case, fuck you, we're not going to do that.
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Agree 100%!
I'm a Linux sysadmin/architect, and recently, within the span of one week, I turned down two different lucrative contract jobs with a big bank because they insisted I'd have to return to the commuter lifestyle and work on-site. The work environment would have been an open floor plan with what I call "dog bone" tables -- like this: http://tinyurl.com/bld6axu
My home office is a 25 x 20 foot room over my garage. I have a private bathroom, my own fridge, and my wife cooks my lunch. I don't pay for parking, dry cleaning, coffee at Starbucks, lunches in restaurants, etc. I don't burn all that fossil fuel driving back and forth 15 miles each way to work -- and that saves me money and helps the environment.
On top of all the other advantages, I'm also WAY more productive working from home. I can close my door and completely concentrate on what I'm doing. When you work with your mind, the last thing you want is to sit in a big open room with people walking around all day, chit-chatting, and asking "How about them Panthers?" while you're trying to focus.
Rant much?
My question was why you chose to use "they all depend on those at the top not being douches" as a specific argument against Libertarianism. It applies to every form of government.
Libertarianism is not about having no rules, and we have not "ALREADY TRIED IT". How can you look at the US history of the two-party system, in which either Democrats or Republicans -- but never Libertarians -- have run the country, and somehow blame that on the Libertarians?
You confuse Libertarianism with oligarchy and anarchy, and you're wrong.
Do you seriously think that the nasty air in China can be blamed on their Libertarian government? Was it Nixon's Libertarian Party who was running the show when the Cuyahoga River caught fire? Was it Grover Cleveland's Libertarian party that ran things during the rise of Big Steel?
Speaking of Big Steel, and as to your argument about joining "that little 1% club", do you realize that Andrew Carnegie pulled himself up from being a common factory worker to become one of the richest men who ever lived? So I guess even in the 1800's -- although, much like your specious arguments this has nothing to do with Libertarianism --there were opportunities for hard work and ingenuity to pay off.
"they all depend on those at the top not being douches"
As you said, this is so with every "ism". So why use it as an argument against Libertarianism particularly? At least in a Libertarian system, you're not required to have very much interaction with the douches in charge.
... and call it Netflix. Sure to be a big hit!
"Once someone has your private key they ARE you"
Only if you're such an idiot that you don't passphrase protect your private key.
This is a very good point. One dumbass user who doesn't keep a passphrase on his private key, doesn't encrypt his hard drive, etc. and bam, you get hosed.
If you're on a current OpenSSH (as available in Red Hat 6.3 at least, or its rebuilds like Scientific Linux or CentOS), you can require both key and password auth. From the release notes at https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/6.3_Release_Notes/index.html#id3199604: /etc/ssh/sshd_config file to specify authentications that are required for a successful log in."
"SSH can now be set up to require multiple ways of authentication (whereas previously SSH allowed multiple ways of authentication of which only one was required for a successful login); for example, logging in to an SSH-enabled machine requires both a passphrase and a public key to be entered. The RequiredAuthentications1 and RequiredAuthentications2 options can be configured in the
To implement on an SSH server where only SSH protocol 2 is allowed, drop this in your /etc/ssh/sshd_config:
RequiredAuthentications2 publickey,password
You need to specify PasswordAuthentication yes as well, or you'll be told: "Invalid required authentication list"
Once you set it up, restart your sshd daemon, and you will be good to go.
Nothing's foolproof however, and I mean that in the literal sense of the word "foolproof". Some fool can store his password in plain text on the same system as his key, write his password on his computer in Magic Marker or whatever, and you're screwed again. Allowing SSH access to morons is a major security hole.
I have children. That was a personal choice I made. I take care of them. I don't expect you to tolerate being inconvenienced by them. I don't expect you to "protect" them with idiotic limitations on your personal freedoms. I don't expect you to watch what you say, or how you dress, etc. I don't expect you to pay more for a TV so that all TV's will have v-chips and I can abdicate my responsibility to a machine.
Unfortunately, I have come to expect that the government will push this kind of shit on you and blame it on me.
... go ahead and price yourselves out of yet another industry. Then bitch when six months from now your kids are eating Chinese-made Twinkies.
Wait... you're saying Facebook is a business??
... fighting when Hitler wanted to invade?
Small town South Carolina. Voted in a Catholic church. Was asked for ID. I am not bothered by needing to show ID to vote, so I did not make a fuss, and don't know what would have happened had I done so. There was no line at all. I went straight in, showed my ID, verbally verified my current address, and was taken to a voting booth. Voting was done electronically on a touch screen. The instructions were clear and easy to follow.
Straight-party options (which I don't believe should be allowed) and options for individual candidates were offered.
I was offered an "I Voted" sticker, which I declined.
Everyone was polite and friendly, but serious. There was no police or military presence at all (which probably won't surprise > 90% of American voters, but might be hard for some to believe.) I never felt even slightly annoyed, pressured, or intimidated by anyone during the process of arriving, entering, voting, or leaving.
You can argue all day long about how much supervision children should have, but I think its pretty clear that the company that makes and sells these magnets should NOT be held responsible when adults allow children to use them.
"Should we in North America make sure that public pay phones will always be widely available?"
We the taxpayers? No.
Unions are for people who can't really negotiate individually, because the skills they have to offer are commodity-level services.
Few software devs or other tech heads would classify themselves that way.
"it would make more sense to let it blow down and rebuild it.''
This does not take into account at all the major life disruption that happens when a family loses their home, nor the potential lives saved by "fortress" construction.
If my kids do not get killed in a hurricane and we don't have to live like refugees for several months while struggling to find or build a new home, what's that worth?
Sometimes, smaller markets (less demand) actually result in higher prices per unit sold, because the fixed costs associated with creating and distributing ANY amount of supply have to be spread across fewer units sold.
AFAIK, Congress has not by law altered the election process prescribed by the Texas legislature. Do you have information to the contrary?
"At the end of the day I had to trust someone."
Except once its released, open source software has thousands of people looking at it. You may not implicitly trust the people who manage the repos to make sure you don't get any bugged up code, but you can pretty much count on the global community to find and fix problems much more quickly than something evil buried in a black box that nobody can see inside.
Well, I was going to let you have the last word, but not if you're going to intentionally misquote me.
You quoted me as saying: " I quite honestly don't give a fuck about fair elections, regardless of your vehement urgings", when what I actually wrote was: "I quite honestly don't give a fuck about fair elections in Romania, regardless of your vehement urgings."
Other than clearing that up, your opinion means nothing to me, and I have nothing to prove to you, so I won't comment any further.
I'm very interested to know what specific skills you're looking for and how to get in touch with you.
Yes, I willfully ignored your request to consider how to ensure fair elections in Romania, because I quite honestly don't give a fuck about fair elections in Romania, regardless of your vehement urgings.
Let me be completely direct since you think I'm being obtuse: We don't need any international observers at all. They can just stay home and let us handle our own elections. We don't have to answer to the UN or the OSCE or anyone else for how our system works. As a US voter, I am happy with how things work, and if our system needs to change, we'll change it ourselves. No foreign influence is necessary, and no, we do not have any treaty which says we have to allow any of this.
If you'd like the last word, knock yourself out -- I'm done.
I don't know where you studied logic, but drawing a "logical conclusion" that I have not given this enough thought is not logical at all.
Our own press and party pollsters have to maintain their distance. This is all to protect the privacy of the voters. Even from 30 meters away it would be fairly obvious if a tank and bunch of National Guard soldiers was parked outside of a voting place, or if people were being harassed on their way to the booths. Speaking to people on their way to and from the booths would also give any observer a good idea of what was going on. Any attempt to intimidate voters into not speaking with the observers would be obvious.
There's nothing to stop observers from asking people for whom they voted and recording the answers. Nobody is required to answer, but there is nothing preventing them from answering.
Also, I have not seen anything to indicate that observers will be restricted from observing the process of counting the votes. As far as I can tell, the distance restriction only applies to the actual casting of ballots.
If our participation in the OSCE is at odds with our own laws, then maybe its time to reconsider whether we wish to be a part of the OSCE. For what its worth, neither the Helsinki Accords nor the Charter of Paris for a New Europe are actually binding treaties; they are simply declarations agreed by the member states. In American terms, they are analogous to a resolution vs. an act of Congress. Absent a treaty and enabling legislation, these declarations have no binding impact whatsoever on individual U.S. states.
Did anyone actually say that the process could not be observed? What they're saying is that it can be observed -- from 100' away. The international observers can observe just like our own press and our own pollsters can observe. They can ask questions, they can count the number of voters, they can record the answers in their computers, whatever. They just can't compel anyone to talk to them, nor can they get involved in a way that might influence the result.
Nobody's saying they can't monitor the election. They're saying that they can't violate the right to a secret ballot by coming within 100' of the polling station.
For those of you who haven't bothered to learn, the conversion of feet to meters is 3.3 feet per meter. So we're talking about approximately 30 meters distance. Outside of that distance, the observers will be free to engage any willing voter in conversation. Of course, no voter will be compelled to talk to the observers.
You're all making a big deal out of what amounts to nothing, unless you really think that the observers should be allowed in the voting booths to watch over the voters' shoulders as they cast their ballots -- in which case, fuck you, we're not going to do that.
Actually not. You can ask 51 death row Mexicans about that. (Medellín v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491)