That is based on user feedback, not objective reliability data. It's also biased towards those machines people actually have at home, not server machines.
(I've owned a lot of Macs and non-Mac machines, and Mac reliability and service have been about average for me, with some "epic fails", like two top-of-the-line Mac laptops failing completely within a month after purchase.)
Which property rights exactly? You've not cited any. I guarentee any you do cite will be bills (or ammendments) that were voted into law.
Your rights to your property are not created by law, you have them. The framers were clear about this, but the 5th and 14th Amendment explicitly clarify this point. If the government takes your property, it needs to compensate you. And if the government makes laws that affect your and someone else's property or life, it needs to be fair and equitable.
You are simply ignoring the entire process by which US law is created.
Look, you can vote on a referendum and you can get laws passed. But you can do that only for laws that are actually compatible with the Constitution, otherwise SCOTUS will just strike down the law. In addition, the Constitution itself can be amended, but that can't be accomplished simply by a majority vote. And if the Constitution is changed in the wrong way, the US would simply cease to be a democracy; yes, democracies can self-destruct through voting, and they do occasionally.
Heck, the US isn't even a democracy, it's a republic. Why? Because we don't directly vote on issues, we have representitives. (technically, it's something of a hybrid as we vote on some issues).
Oh, please, don't start that tired argument again. I mean, seriously, how do you think government in Japan, France, Britain, or Germany actually works? All democracies in the world have representatives these days. US representatives actually have less power than in most other democracies, making the US one of the least "republic" democracies in the world.
Or complete sentences. If this is plagiarized it is at least seriously rewritten.
Yes. People actually rewrote things while copying back then; no cut-and-paste.
Shakespeare being famous is not necessarily the one being plagiarised. Maybe he is the one plagiarising.
There was no plagiarism in the modern sense back then. Authors, artists, and scientists copied each others works; that's why we got such a rich cultural heritage. Today, you can get in trouble for a single sentence.
Imagine how backwards computers would be if you had to write a new kernel, window system, and libraries every time you wanted to write an application.
How is what is in the constitution determined if not by voting?
You seem to have slept through civics: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." These rights are unalienable and self-evident; they don't derive from voting.
How do we know what the rights of other are if not by law, and how are those laws determined if not by voting?
In the US, your rights aren't given to you by law, you are born with them. You have a right to your property and life, and your neighbor has a right to their property and their life. As long as you aren't in conflict, there is no law that can tell either of you what to do. Any law that tried to restrict your or their rights arbitrarily would likely be unconstitutional.
Can I build a wall on my land that blocks my neighbor's view? Can I burn trash on my land that fills my neighbor's air with soot? Where are the cutoffs?
The possible choices that laws and voters can make here are pretty tightly constrained by your property rights and the property rights of your neighbor.
(Maybe what's confusing you about these examples is that any of the choices is a possible choice under some circumstances; however, the choices are not arbitrary.)
It is definitional to democracy that they are created by the vote of the people.
No, it is not. Democracy means that the power of government derives from the consent of the people. It does not mean that the majority can vote on everything.
Please look at the gay marriage initiative (Prop 8 I think it was?) in California and re-write that sentence. Gay groups intimidated & assaulted numerous people who had signed a petition against gay marriage in that state.
You're comparing some graffiti and egg throwing at a demonstration to two millennia of organized persecution, discrimination, and murder of homosexuals and other minorities by Christian churches? In 2007, in Federal hate crime statistics, there were five murders and 242 aggravated assaults against homosexuals and none--zero--against Catholics, and I doubt it was much different in 2008. In many communities, gay men and women have to fear for their life every time they step out on the street.
There's a hell of a lot more intimidation and violence from the left in the country than from the right.
You really have no idea what's going on. You're really embarrassing yourself. And you're demonstrating how important it is to get equal rights and hate crime legislation through, so that people are protected from your kind of ignorance and indifference.
I agree completely. But that has nothing to do with my response to the poster above me. He said he didn't want anyone voting on what rights anyone else would have or any restrictions on the marriage of others.
But it does have something to do with it: in a free and just society, a majority cannot simply vote away other people's rights.
I was speaking out against gay marriage. I was not.
Neither am I. I'm pointing out that there are many rights in a democracy that a majority of voters simply cannot take away, no matter what.
People absolutely have the right to be made aware of who proposes legislation/referenda. This is not the same as having access to all the people that support that support the referenda
Nobody has access to all the people that "support" the referendum. We do have a legal right to have access to the list of people who want to put the referendum on the ballot. And that's an important right, for no other reason because getting a referendum on the ballot is a one-sided proposition. Without making those names public, some political group could simply pick a hundred thousand names out of the phone book. Elections don't have that problem.
The Gay rights community has long been oppressed and not offered this protection. However the way to correct this cannot be to quash the very same rights of those that hold opposing beliefs.
Whether we make those names public or not is not a question of rights, but of policy and laws. We have, in the past, made those names public and I see no reason to change that policy or law. It has worked out fine for civil rights in the end, and I see no reason to change it now.
And given the kind of people who are behind such referenda, people who spread lies and fear to gain a political advantage and power, it would be particularly dangerous to give them anonymity.
I'll give you a list of all the people [...] that oppose [...] that support
Who is saying anything about making public the names of all people who oppose or support a position? This is about making public the names of those people who are dedicated enough to the cause to get a referendum on the ballot. Your vote for or against the referendum is still secret.
People do not have the right the be provided a list of people that oppose their opinions. That is silly and dangerous.
People do, however, have the right to see who proposes legislation and referenda, and that is not silly and dangerous. Quite the opposite: it would be silly and dangerous to allow people to propose legislation and referenda anonymously.
Perhaps that is because the people that signed this petition witnessed the persecution of those gay rights activists, and simply want to ensure that they will not be similarly persecuted.
Well, they should just get over that. Gay rights activists do not have a history of widespread violence against minorities or opponents; people opposing gay rights do.
No, what the people who signed this petition are afraid of is that their friends, colleagues, and customers will shun them for it. They are right to fear that, but the law does not, and should not, protect them from that.
So if I don't want to give a man the right to take a standard tax deduction as a married couple because he decided to marry a sheep
The only difference between a gay and a straight couple is the gender of the individuals involved. The law prohibits discrimination based on gender, hence gay and straight couples should be treated legally the same.
Sheep are not persons and not protected by non-discrimination laws, hence the law can discriminate against them.
Certainly, restricting adults from marrying 9-year-olds is something I agree with.
That's not analogous either. People who are not adults, by default, do not have the legal capacity to enter into marriages at all; they can only marry under specially created exceptions from the usual rules. Therefore, nobody needs to be "restricted" and no special law is needed to keep 9-year-old from marrying.
This is an appalling attempt at intimidation and coercion of those who would vote a given way. The public has a right to vote any damn way they want
You have a right to a secret vote in an election, and you have a right to anonymous speech.
You do not have a right to put a referendum on the ballot anonymously, and I see no reason why you should have that right.
A vocal minority should never be allowed to control the population, regardless of cause or locality.
So, if the majority votes to enslave blacks or exterminate the Jews, that's OK with you? Can the majority vote Mormons or Catholics out of their community? Maybe those things are OK with you, but they are not OK with me or the US Constitution.
that their signature remained secret, however no one should have to put up with an organized intimidation process which is the new method of choice
There is nothing "new" about it: so-called "Christians" and "conservatives"--probably many of the same kind of people who have signed this petition--have been using organized intimidation of minorities for two centuries. And they haven't stopped at intimidation: they have killed, injured, and discriminated.
Seeing the pubic exercise their opinion has so offended certain elements out there. As such these same elements intend to use intimidation while expertly avoiding stepping over the line or just not getting caught to get any big names on their to back down or pay up.
That is outrageous. For decades, gay rights activists have put their lives on the line to fight for safety, security, acceptance, and civil rights. Many have been murdered, more beaten up merely for speaking out, and many have lost their jobs. They have been vilified and persecuted. But finally, they have been making some headway.
Now a minority of bigots wants turn back the clock and they don't even have the decency and honesty to stand up and identify themselves when putting a referendum on the ballot?
This is similar to why Unions want Card Check, to intimidate their way into power. Freedom of expression is freedom from fear
This has nothing to do with "freedom of expression". These people can spew their bigotry in complete anonymity if they like; our laws and our Constitution guarantee that.
But once they want to put a referendum before the voters, they do not have a right to do so anonymously. The public has a right to know where these kinds of referenda come from.
The people putting this referendum on the ballot are not "the public", they are a bigoted minority. And their attempts to shield their names is like the robes of the Ku Klux Klan. Any legal issues aside, it is despicable, and it is despicable that you would defend them.
If there is only one maga-store that gains a monopoly people are concerned that there will be all sorts of negatives:
Is there any evidence that price controls change any of that development? Where?
- have to go a long distance to get ANY book since the mega-store only has a few big boxes
That doesn't make sense. If people want to buy physical books locally, either the mega-store fills that niche or an independent bookstore does, regardless of price controls.
- many small concerns go out of business eliminating many decent paying jobs and careers and replacing them with fewer lower paying and less fulfilling careers.
Career? Bookstore employee??? And even if it were, why should we make something so essential as reading more expensive so that someone who can't cut it in another industry has fun at work?
decreased numbers of local stores can be seen as a negative in and of itself changing the character of neighbourhoods
Neighborhoods always change and people always whine about it.
somhow signal less importance of literacy
People should be more worried about the effect that artificially inflated prices have on literacy: if books are more expensive than they would be in efficient market, fewer people can afford them.
If there is only one bookstore, you CANNOT get anything you want,
There have monopoly regulations in Europe and the US. If this was really a problem, they could be sharpened, as we do for media ownership. Price controls, however, are ineffective. In fact, a monopoly accomplishes perfect price control, since it ensures that the prices are set by only one company.
Perhaps the old-bespectacled antiquarians lobby is going to finally see its iron-fisted influence over political discourse loosened and we will all better off for it?
Antiquarians don't benefit from price controls, the publishers do. And publishers have a lot of political influence, in particular in Germany.
Perhaps.
"Perhaps" isn't good enough for a massive market intervention whose obvious primary effect is to make literacy and access to knowledge more expensive.
generally speaking you should be able to configure just about everything you need to in pavucontrol.
Yes, and that is the problem. I don't want to configure anything, I just want sound to come out of my speakers. I don't want to have to try out 2^40 different combinations of buttons and switches scattered over a dozen different tabs in order to make that happen.
For example, if a video is running in one application the system should automatically reduce the volume of everything else and increase it when the video is finished.
I'd be grateful if PulseAudio figured out that when Rhythmbox plays something, I might actually want to hear it, instead of routing it into some bitbucket. Heck, I'd be grateful if I could even figure out myself which of the dozens of screens and configuration options I need to press to make sound come out somewhere. As far as I'm concerned, PulseAudio is by far the worst component of the Gnome desktop.
All the big Linux distributions have adopted PulseAudio and it is an integral part of both the Palm Pre and the Nokia N900 devices, as well as Intel's Moblin.
Those devices are preconfigured for known hardware, so that's not so much of a problem. But on normal desktops, which often have multiple sources and sinks, trying to get sound out can be extremely frustrating.
So, where do they come from? Usually from users who are encountering problems when running PA in conjunction with particular hardware drivers, or higher-level software.
Exactly. And PulseAudio makes it a hair-raising experience to try and fix those problems.
Taken together, all the small (and of course, not all independent bookstores are small...)
Oh, come on, what kind of bogus argument is that? When we're talking about the supposed importance of independent physical bookstores, what matters is not the selection of all bookstores "taken together", but the selection of my local bookstore, and, in my experience, that's even smaller at non-chain stores than in "generic" chain stores.
Online, I can get anything I want anywhere, and I really don't care whether it's from a big or a small seller, I just want the lowest price.
And, of course, those arguments fall completely apart for e-books anyway.
The only effect of price controls on books seems to be to make more money for a lobby group that holds on to old business models. I don't see how it benefits me as a reader, and I think it's harmful to literacy by keeping prices up.
I guess you're just trolling a bit,
No, I'm not, but you're being rude.
but like many people, I like bookstores, and am willing to pay more when buying a book in a nice environment. Amazon's nice too, in its own way, but... not the same.
So you're saying that everybody should pay artificially high prices for books so that you get to hang out in a nice cafe with tasteful bookshelves. Sorry, I think that's bad public policy. I'd much rather see books be as affordable as possible and cut out inefficient middlemen and businesses as much as possible. That way, maybe you get deprived of our coffee house experience, but poorer people can actually afford more books.
There is an argument that the continued existence of a healthy ecosystem
What's "healthy" about a large number of small book stores with limited selection? And why do you need bookstores and publishers at all if there are electronic reading devices?
In this particular case I do not know the details of how well that ecosystem has been protected and how much of a benefit it is
I haven't been able to find any numbers on it either, and the people arguing for price controls don't cite any figures either. If they did, it would probably show that they aren't working.
I can't find any figures on it. How much do Germans read on average compared to Americans? To other nations? How much do they pay on average? Do price controls on books in Germany actually do anything other than make books more expensive and reduce the number of books Germans actually read?
Not only is it obvious, it has already existed for years: you can hang any camera with an interval function around your neck. People have done this to document their day, although it gets boring pretty fast (and has serious privacy implications).
Furthermore, there are more and more tiny video cameras you can attach to your helmet and clothes and that last for many hours.
I don't see how being forced to live on a perpetiual energy diet, while your elected officials tout your states efficiency as the primary reason TO NOT BUILD MORE INFRASTRUCTURE is a win in any way whatsoever.
Right now, much of this infrastructure is paid for by taxes and energy generation companies can externalize a lot of costs. This completely distorts the market. If everybody actually had to bear the cost of their energy usage, they'd conserve a lot more automatically.
Unfortunately, it's politically impossible to turn the energy market into a free market. That's why we have to balance massive subsidies with at least some common-sense regulations.
All "efficiency" does is let you live with less, when your goal should be to FORCE an energy solution by accelerating the usage of non-renewable resources,
The trouble is that we need those non-renewable resouces for a lot of other purposes, but the long-term value of those resources is beyond the time horizon of markets.
Currently, energy generation is heavily subsidized by tax payers. If you have unrestricted consumption and subsidized energy generation, it ends up being the furthest from a free market because people don't have to bear the costs of what they use. The best would be not to subsidize energy generation at all, but that's politically impossible. That leaves only one choice, unfortunately.
Slashdot Mirror
That is based on user feedback, not objective reliability data. It's also biased towards those machines people actually have at home, not server machines.
(I've owned a lot of Macs and non-Mac machines, and Mac reliability and service have been about average for me, with some "epic fails", like two top-of-the-line Mac laptops failing completely within a month after purchase.)
Which property rights exactly? You've not cited any. I guarentee any you do cite will be bills (or ammendments) that were voted into law.
Your rights to your property are not created by law, you have them. The framers were clear about this, but the 5th and 14th Amendment explicitly clarify this point. If the government takes your property, it needs to compensate you. And if the government makes laws that affect your and someone else's property or life, it needs to be fair and equitable.
You are simply ignoring the entire process by which US law is created.
Look, you can vote on a referendum and you can get laws passed. But you can do that only for laws that are actually compatible with the Constitution, otherwise SCOTUS will just strike down the law. In addition, the Constitution itself can be amended, but that can't be accomplished simply by a majority vote. And if the Constitution is changed in the wrong way, the US would simply cease to be a democracy; yes, democracies can self-destruct through voting, and they do occasionally.
Heck, the US isn't even a democracy, it's a republic. Why? Because we don't directly vote on issues, we have representitives. (technically, it's something of a hybrid as we vote on some issues).
Oh, please, don't start that tired argument again. I mean, seriously, how do you think government in Japan, France, Britain, or Germany actually works? All democracies in the world have representatives these days. US representatives actually have less power than in most other democracies, making the US one of the least "republic" democracies in the world.
Or complete sentences. If this is plagiarized it is at least seriously rewritten.
Yes. People actually rewrote things while copying back then; no cut-and-paste.
Shakespeare being famous is not necessarily the one being plagiarised. Maybe he is the one plagiarising.
There was no plagiarism in the modern sense back then. Authors, artists, and scientists copied each others works; that's why we got such a rich cultural heritage. Today, you can get in trouble for a single sentence.
Imagine how backwards computers would be if you had to write a new kernel, window system, and libraries every time you wanted to write an application.
How is what is in the constitution determined if not by voting?
You seem to have slept through civics: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." These rights are unalienable and self-evident; they don't derive from voting.
How do we know what the rights of other are if not by law, and how are those laws determined if not by voting?
In the US, your rights aren't given to you by law, you are born with them. You have a right to your property and life, and your neighbor has a right to their property and their life. As long as you aren't in conflict, there is no law that can tell either of you what to do. Any law that tried to restrict your or their rights arbitrarily would likely be unconstitutional.
Can I build a wall on my land that blocks my neighbor's view? Can I burn trash on my land that fills my neighbor's air with soot? Where are the cutoffs?
The possible choices that laws and voters can make here are pretty tightly constrained by your property rights and the property rights of your neighbor.
(Maybe what's confusing you about these examples is that any of the choices is a possible choice under some circumstances; however, the choices are not arbitrary.)
It is definitional to democracy that they are created by the vote of the people.
No, it is not. Democracy means that the power of government derives from the consent of the people. It does not mean that the majority can vote on everything.
Please look at the gay marriage initiative (Prop 8 I think it was?) in California and re-write that sentence. Gay groups intimidated & assaulted numerous people who had signed a petition against gay marriage in that state.
You're comparing some graffiti and egg throwing at a demonstration to two millennia of organized persecution, discrimination, and murder of homosexuals and other minorities by Christian churches? In 2007, in Federal hate crime statistics, there were five murders and 242 aggravated assaults against homosexuals and none--zero--against Catholics, and I doubt it was much different in 2008. In many communities, gay men and women have to fear for their life every time they step out on the street.
There's a hell of a lot more intimidation and violence from the left in the country than from the right.
You really have no idea what's going on. You're really embarrassing yourself. And you're demonstrating how important it is to get equal rights and hate crime legislation through, so that people are protected from your kind of ignorance and indifference.
Then, in a free and just society, how are individual rights determined?
By the Constitution and the courts, but not by voting.
Do I have the right to set my land on fire?
The basic principle is that you can do with your property whatever you like, unless you infringe on the rights of others in doing so.
How do I determine if I do or do not?
If you really can't figure it out, ask a lawyer.
I agree completely. But that has nothing to do with my response to the poster above me. He said he didn't want anyone voting on what rights anyone else would have or any restrictions on the marriage of others.
But it does have something to do with it: in a free and just society, a majority cannot simply vote away other people's rights.
I was speaking out against gay marriage. I was not.
Neither am I. I'm pointing out that there are many rights in a democracy that a majority of voters simply cannot take away, no matter what.
People absolutely have the right to be made aware of who proposes legislation/referenda. This is not the same as having access to all the people that support that support the referenda
Nobody has access to all the people that "support" the referendum. We do have a legal right to have access to the list of people who want to put the referendum on the ballot. And that's an important right, for no other reason because getting a referendum on the ballot is a one-sided proposition. Without making those names public, some political group could simply pick a hundred thousand names out of the phone book. Elections don't have that problem.
The Gay rights community has long been oppressed and not offered this protection. However the way to correct this cannot be to quash the very same rights of those that hold opposing beliefs.
Whether we make those names public or not is not a question of rights, but of policy and laws. We have, in the past, made those names public and I see no reason to change that policy or law. It has worked out fine for civil rights in the end, and I see no reason to change it now.
And given the kind of people who are behind such referenda, people who spread lies and fear to gain a political advantage and power, it would be particularly dangerous to give them anonymity.
I'll give you a list of all the people [...] that oppose [...] that support
Who is saying anything about making public the names of all people who oppose or support a position? This is about making public the names of those people who are dedicated enough to the cause to get a referendum on the ballot. Your vote for or against the referendum is still secret.
People do not have the right the be provided a list of people that oppose their opinions. That is silly and dangerous.
People do, however, have the right to see who proposes legislation and referenda, and that is not silly and dangerous. Quite the opposite: it would be silly and dangerous to allow people to propose legislation and referenda anonymously.
Perhaps that is because the people that signed this petition witnessed the persecution of those gay rights activists, and simply want to ensure that they will not be similarly persecuted.
Well, they should just get over that. Gay rights activists do not have a history of widespread violence against minorities or opponents; people opposing gay rights do.
No, what the people who signed this petition are afraid of is that their friends, colleagues, and customers will shun them for it. They are right to fear that, but the law does not, and should not, protect them from that.
So if I don't want to give a man the right to take a standard tax deduction as a married couple because he decided to marry a sheep
The only difference between a gay and a straight couple is the gender of the individuals involved. The law prohibits discrimination based on gender, hence gay and straight couples should be treated legally the same.
Sheep are not persons and not protected by non-discrimination laws, hence the law can discriminate against them.
Certainly, restricting adults from marrying 9-year-olds is something I agree with.
That's not analogous either. People who are not adults, by default, do not have the legal capacity to enter into marriages at all; they can only marry under specially created exceptions from the usual rules. Therefore, nobody needs to be "restricted" and no special law is needed to keep 9-year-old from marrying.
This is an appalling attempt at intimidation and coercion of those who would vote a given way. The public has a right to vote any damn way they want
You have a right to a secret vote in an election, and you have a right to anonymous speech.
You do not have a right to put a referendum on the ballot anonymously, and I see no reason why you should have that right.
A vocal minority should never be allowed to control the population, regardless of cause or locality.
So, if the majority votes to enslave blacks or exterminate the Jews, that's OK with you? Can the majority vote Mormons or Catholics out of their community? Maybe those things are OK with you, but they are not OK with me or the US Constitution.
that their signature remained secret, however no one should have to put up with an organized intimidation process which is the new method of choice
There is nothing "new" about it: so-called "Christians" and "conservatives"--probably many of the same kind of people who have signed this petition--have been using organized intimidation of minorities for two centuries. And they haven't stopped at intimidation: they have killed, injured, and discriminated.
Seeing the pubic exercise their opinion has so offended certain elements out there. As such these same elements intend to use intimidation while expertly avoiding stepping over the line or just not getting caught to get any big names on their to back down or pay up.
That is outrageous. For decades, gay rights activists have put their lives on the line to fight for safety, security, acceptance, and civil rights. Many have been murdered, more beaten up merely for speaking out, and many have lost their jobs. They have been vilified and persecuted. But finally, they have been making some headway.
Now a minority of bigots wants turn back the clock and they don't even have the decency and honesty to stand up and identify themselves when putting a referendum on the ballot?
This is similar to why Unions want Card Check, to intimidate their way into power. Freedom of expression is freedom from fear
This has nothing to do with "freedom of expression". These people can spew their bigotry in complete anonymity if they like; our laws and our Constitution guarantee that.
But once they want to put a referendum before the voters, they do not have a right to do so anonymously. The public has a right to know where these kinds of referenda come from.
The people putting this referendum on the ballot are not "the public", they are a bigoted minority. And their attempts to shield their names is like the robes of the Ku Klux Klan. Any legal issues aside, it is despicable, and it is despicable that you would defend them.
What good is a higher number of bookstores if people don't actually read?
http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_printcontent/0,,4792024,00.html
http://money.cnn.com/2004/07/09/news/bookreading/index.htm
From having traveled to Germany, my impression is that German society is not particularly literary or intellectual.
If there is only one maga-store that gains a monopoly people are concerned that there will be all sorts of negatives:
Is there any evidence that price controls change any of that development? Where?
- have to go a long distance to get ANY book since the mega-store only has a few big boxes
That doesn't make sense. If people want to buy physical books locally, either the mega-store fills that niche or an independent bookstore does, regardless of price controls.
- many small concerns go out of business eliminating many decent paying jobs and careers and replacing them with fewer lower paying and less fulfilling careers.
Career? Bookstore employee??? And even if it were, why should we make something so essential as reading more expensive so that someone who can't cut it in another industry has fun at work?
decreased numbers of local stores can be seen as a negative in and of itself changing the character of neighbourhoods
Neighborhoods always change and people always whine about it.
somhow signal less importance of literacy
People should be more worried about the effect that artificially inflated prices have on literacy: if books are more expensive than they would be in efficient market, fewer people can afford them.
If there is only one bookstore, you CANNOT get anything you want,
There have monopoly regulations in Europe and the US. If this was really a problem, they could be sharpened, as we do for media ownership. Price controls, however, are ineffective. In fact, a monopoly accomplishes perfect price control, since it ensures that the prices are set by only one company.
Perhaps the old-bespectacled antiquarians lobby is going to finally see its iron-fisted influence over political discourse loosened and we will all better off for it?
Antiquarians don't benefit from price controls, the publishers do. And publishers have a lot of political influence, in particular in Germany.
Perhaps.
"Perhaps" isn't good enough for a massive market intervention whose obvious primary effect is to make literacy and access to knowledge more expensive.
generally speaking you should be able to configure just about everything you need to in pavucontrol.
Yes, and that is the problem. I don't want to configure anything, I just want sound to come out of my speakers. I don't want to have to try out 2^40 different combinations of buttons and switches scattered over a dozen different tabs in order to make that happen.
<sarcasm>It patents the idea of putting a memory buffer on the network card. Who would have thought of that?</sarcasm>
For example, if a video is running in one application the system should automatically reduce the volume of everything else and increase it when the video is finished.
I'd be grateful if PulseAudio figured out that when Rhythmbox plays something, I might actually want to hear it, instead of routing it into some bitbucket. Heck, I'd be grateful if I could even figure out myself which of the dozens of screens and configuration options I need to press to make sound come out somewhere. As far as I'm concerned, PulseAudio is by far the worst component of the Gnome desktop.
All the big Linux distributions have adopted PulseAudio and it is an integral part of both the Palm Pre and the Nokia N900 devices, as well as Intel's Moblin.
Those devices are preconfigured for known hardware, so that's not so much of a problem. But on normal desktops, which often have multiple sources and sinks, trying to get sound out can be extremely frustrating.
So, where do they come from? Usually from users who are encountering problems when running PA in conjunction with particular hardware drivers, or higher-level software.
Exactly. And PulseAudio makes it a hair-raising experience to try and fix those problems.
Taken together, all the small (and of course, not all independent bookstores are small...)
Oh, come on, what kind of bogus argument is that? When we're talking about the supposed importance of independent physical bookstores, what matters is not the selection of all bookstores "taken together", but the selection of my local bookstore, and, in my experience, that's even smaller at non-chain stores than in "generic" chain stores.
Online, I can get anything I want anywhere, and I really don't care whether it's from a big or a small seller, I just want the lowest price.
And, of course, those arguments fall completely apart for e-books anyway.
The only effect of price controls on books seems to be to make more money for a lobby group that holds on to old business models. I don't see how it benefits me as a reader, and I think it's harmful to literacy by keeping prices up.
I guess you're just trolling a bit,
No, I'm not, but you're being rude.
but like many people, I like bookstores, and am willing to pay more when buying a book in a nice environment. Amazon's nice too, in its own way, but ... not the same.
So you're saying that everybody should pay artificially high prices for books so that you get to hang out in a nice cafe with tasteful bookshelves. Sorry, I think that's bad public policy. I'd much rather see books be as affordable as possible and cut out inefficient middlemen and businesses as much as possible. That way, maybe you get deprived of our coffee house experience, but poorer people can actually afford more books.
There is an argument that the continued existence of a healthy ecosystem
What's "healthy" about a large number of small book stores with limited selection? And why do you need bookstores and publishers at all if there are electronic reading devices?
In this particular case I do not know the details of how well that ecosystem has been protected and how much of a benefit it is
I haven't been able to find any numbers on it either, and the people arguing for price controls don't cite any figures either. If they did, it would probably show that they aren't working.
I can't find any figures on it. How much do Germans read on average compared to Americans? To other nations? How much do they pay on average? Do price controls on books in Germany actually do anything other than make books more expensive and reduce the number of books Germans actually read?
Not only is it obvious, it has already existed for years: you can hang any camera with an interval function around your neck. People have done this to document their day, although it gets boring pretty fast (and has serious privacy implications).
Furthermore, there are more and more tiny video cameras you can attach to your helmet and clothes and that last for many hours.
What's there to license? Standard digital cameras can be worn around your neck and have an interval function. There is absolutely nothing new here.
I don't see how being forced to live on a perpetiual energy diet, while your elected officials tout your states efficiency as the primary reason TO NOT BUILD MORE INFRASTRUCTURE is a win in any way whatsoever.
Right now, much of this infrastructure is paid for by taxes and energy generation companies can externalize a lot of costs. This completely distorts the market. If everybody actually had to bear the cost of their energy usage, they'd conserve a lot more automatically.
Unfortunately, it's politically impossible to turn the energy market into a free market. That's why we have to balance massive subsidies with at least some common-sense regulations.
All "efficiency" does is let you live with less, when your goal should be to FORCE an energy solution by accelerating the usage of non-renewable resources,
The trouble is that we need those non-renewable resouces for a lot of other purposes, but the long-term value of those resources is beyond the time horizon of markets.
Currently, energy generation is heavily subsidized by tax payers. If you have unrestricted consumption and subsidized energy generation, it ends up being the furthest from a free market because people don't have to bear the costs of what they use. The best would be not to subsidize energy generation at all, but that's politically impossible. That leaves only one choice, unfortunately.
Next they'll pass legislation mandating Pi to equal 3 so their stupid kids
That kind of lunacy is usually associated with conservatives and Republicans.