So what I'm hearing from you is, you would only want poor people to have to pay for the public health insurance, and people who can afford it should be able to opt out of supporting the public health care system and go entirely with a third party source.
Yes, since I believe it is moraly wrong to force one, against their will, to help others, just because those others are less fortunate. I believe that charity should be voluntary, and if the majority of people are not sufficiently charitable, the democtratic thing is to let the poor die. I have noticed, however, that, where it is permitted to flourish, private charity does a better job of helping the truely destitite than does government. It has also been my personal experience that I am far more charitable (when was the last time you gave away perfectly good runnng autombiles?) when my tax burden is less. However, that is not the source of my particular objection:
Even if I pay taxes to fund the provincial health care system, and not subscribe to it's services (which I may do, to reduce a tax tie), I can not legally purchase replacement insurance. Legally, I must subscribe to the plan in order to have any health insurance, which make it difficult to leave the country (and particularly more so than it was five years ago), because of the resulting tax tie.
Being forced into such a system is tantamount to slavery.
Of course you realize that the system would go broke if that were the case.
No. While morally opposed to it, I would fund both the public system as well as my own insurance -- just not use the public one.
Though, a system that impoverishes me to the point where I can not purchase adequate insurance for myself, where I may die as a result because it is not there "for me" when I need it most (say, only an experimental lifesaving treatment exists -- Canadian provincial health insurance does not cover experimental treatment, even if it may save a live and has shown promice), is clearly one that trades one life for another. I prefer such cruelties to be left in the hand of fate, and not man.
You do realize that even if you don't use the health care system, that you personally benefit from everyone being covered, right?
This is a debatable point, but I will grant it to you. Let me be clear: I am willing to fund the public system as well as personal insurance, and not use the public one, to avoid a tax tie if I leave Canada. Surely, you would find this reasonable, given your arguments to date.
The counter argument is that it is "unfair" for some to be able to afford "better" health care than others, and perhaps you intend to raise this objection. I reject this: if it is accepted that I earned my money via legal means, I should be able to spend it as I wish.
In conclusion, Canada works like this: "You must pay for X... If you pay for X you can use X... If you can use X, you agree to be a tax slave because X costs money." Such is the reasoning of a corrupt criminal mind and, I find, pervasive among Canadians, or at least promulgated by the representatives they elect.
Canada could do better, but still does better than the U.S. in almost every area, except perhaps purchasing power (which is obviously your primary focus).
Hell, fucking YES! Purchasing power IS my primary focus.
Without adequate purchasing power, I can not purchase even the basic necessities of life, like adequate health insurance.
Are you aware that if you have any Canadian provincial health insurance plan, and you leave Canada, having had it counts as a "tax tie" that can continue to make you a Canadian tax resident for up to five years? (It used to be two years.) This makes it very difficult to leave, as places with lower tax rates generally require greater personal expenditure for what would be, in Canada, "social services": You can't afford to live in the U.S., for example, and be taxed at Canadian rates (and wouldn't be eligible for Canadian "socoal services" despite paying taxes for them).
Are you aware that it is ILLEGAL to purchase health insurance (at least in Ontario), without ALSO subscribing to the provincial health plan? Your tax dollars fund it, but you can still "opt out" from using it, to relieve a tax tie. But, if you do this, you may not legally purchase replacement insurance. (Most such insurance from Canadian insurers is "supplementary", designed to fill what provincial plans don't. However, foreign insurers, most underwritten by Lloyds of London, will offer complete cover at reasonable prices: US$2600-US$3200 for family coverage per year, typically, for up to L250,000 a year in expenses. Yes, the US$/British Pound references are odd, but that's how the policies are quoted).
In effect, Canada makes you very much a tax slave.
I do not doubt that you like it that way. But, I object strenuously to your support for a system that impoverishes and enslaves me, even at the risk of my death, for the lifestyle you prefer. That, sir, makes you a petty thief at best, and a would-be murderer at worst. I, for one, support the notion of treating murderers in kind, and killing them.
"Trading MP3s is a good way to "preview" an album/artist. I ROUTINELY buy CDs after having listened to a few MP3s."
I see this argument occassionally, yet I've never actually met anyone who's done it
Well, you most likely haven't met me, but I occasionally come across an MP3 of music I like (free for download), and PayPal $10 or $20 to the artist, if I like it. No CD, no high-quality version, no cover art... just because I liked the music so much and wanted to support the artist.
Now, I don't do this often, but neither do I ever keep copyright music that I haven't payed to have a copy of.
Next... RIAA orders bombing of Canada, because its acutally legal to download music here!
Actually, and I say this from the perpective of someone unfortunate enough to have been born north of the Canada/U.S. border, that would not be a bad thing. Having lived and worked, legally, in the U.S. for five years, it is hell coming back to a country that is effectively run by petty (and not so petty) criminals. "All your tax dollars belong to US!".
For all the shit that's flowing in the U.S. these days, at least one doesn't get sent up the river on an "illegal weapons charge" after killing the criminal who broke into their home and proceeded to rape their wife.
Yes, that was an example. Yes, it was exaggerated for effect. It's still horrible here.
By definition, it is not. Searing means cooking by putting meat (or whatever) in contact with metal.
All right, oh pedantic one. The question should be, can a Maillard reaction take place at the surface of meat by radiative heating alone? I think the answer is yes.
If it involves radiant heat, it's not searing. A different set of physical (not chemical; physical) reactions is going to take place on the surface of the meat, because infrared radiation penetrates meat differently from the way actual conductive heat does.
Well, that's an interesting point. I've assumed that if the radiation source is intense enough, penetration isn't going to be an issue. You're probably right that there will be differences -- the question is will they be significant in the face of intense radiation?
Re:Decline and fall of the general purpose compute
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Microsoft's Athens PC
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· Score: 1
Who aside from mass copyright actually needs a 120GB+ hard drive?
I presume you meant "... mass copyright infringers..."
I do.
I exercise fair use rights (questionably in the U.S.A. because of the DMCA, but clearly now that I live in Canada) and move ALL my CD and DVD content to a home server. Even with.shn lossless compression (for the audio), this still requires quite a bit of space.
I, however, have not, do not, and will not, violate legitimate copyright laws (i.e. redistribution to others of copyright material I have with permission).
Did you not read my post? An 1,800 oven would MELT THE PAN THAT YOU PUT IN IT in a matter of SECONDS.
Ceramics exist which can stand that heat. Stop thinking about wimpy metal.
Though, it is quite possible, that I *was* misinformed.
There are two issues here: 1) whether it is theoretically possible to sear a steak rare by broiling, and 2) whether this was done.
I believe that (1) is possible, and was claimed to have been done. The latter may, upon reflection, been an exaggeration (pan searing having most likely been used as well as broiling).
Perhaps one day when I have access to a kiln again, I can try an experiment.:-)
I have seen 1800F ovens, though not *personally* in a restaurant kitchen. I can only presume that the description I received ("How did you DO that?") was accurate. But an oven that hot would have the desired effect.
In any case, the steak I received was (a) seared, (b) quite rare, (c) claimed to be cooked by broiling only in an 1800F oven. It was very good.
Supposedly, traditional methods of searing result in side reactions (besides the desired Maillard sugar/protein reaction) that produce, among other things, acrylamide (unpleasant, toxic, and reputedly carciongenic). Still, searing in a *hot* pan is how I cook my steak at home.
You can't sear without meat-to-metal contact. It's physically impossible. Radiant heat transfer simply isn't efficient enough to put the right amount of energy into the meat in a sufficiently short amount of time.
You've never seen an 1800F oven, have you?
Believe me, it was seared.
And yes, at home I sear my steaks rare (well, "blue", actually, if we're talking about a filet mignon) with a skillet.
My mother in law once had me cook a filet mignon well done for here. I cried.
Good advice, though if you'd rather spend money than cook, Ruth's Chris has these insane ovens that will broil a steak rare, with that nice seared exterior, and no need for a skillet.
Re:Now OT: Re:Is this really that supprising?
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Harry Potter with Guns
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You make me laugh. Linux turing whole economies upside-down? Get a hold of yourself man. Come back to the real world.
Dude, we're past the "laugh at us" part... we're on to the "attack us" part.
Speilberg didn;'t change the guns because of Polical Correctness(TM) - he did it because, in hindsight, he realised that real-life frederal agents don't draw guns on a bunch of little kids. (Unless threatened)
they still shouldnt be censored out totally out, and pretend they never existed.
Indeed, the ugly needs to be remembered so that it can be recognized for what it is. This goes for language as well as art.
I get really irritated when someone tries to expunge the word "nigger", for example. It is certainly a hateful, and therefore disgusting, moniker, but pretending it doesn't exist doesn't erase past or present racial inequity.
When my 9 year old daughter encountered the word in a book borrowed from the school library and asked for an explanation, it was a perfect opportunity to provide a bit of a history lesson, and an introduction to bigotry as an unfortunate negative aspect of human nature. No doubt many parents would have instead complained to the school that such books were "inappropriate".
Some things in the world are cruel, mean, ugly, and downright disgusting. Pretending they don't exist does not erase them.
We were actually running NOS by this point (1.3 or 1.4, IIRC).
I remember once needing a cross-assembler for a 6809. So, with some COMPASS macro-hackery, I got the mainframe assembler to assemble 6809 menmonics to a pseudo-machine code: the ops were O.K., but the address fields were aligned as 6600 instructions would be...
The practical upshot was that I could use the rather sophisticated (for the time) mainframe linker to link separate 6809 object files: TSC/FLEX didn't have the concept of separately linkable object files, and as some of my source code took up more than one floppy... anyway, I could link 6809 "mainframe" format object files, and run the result throught a post-processor to spit out a real executable file (well, as 6/12 ASCII rendition thereof).
How about you get 15 years protection for free, you must renew every 15 years, and the renewal fee is $1000 * 2 ** n, where n is the number of renewals you've already had.
Well, it can be structured in any of a number of ways. I wouldn't have the scale rise quite as fast as O(2^n), but there's room for discussing the details.
But, the problem I have with this, even though it is my own idea, is that it essentially looks like a tax. As a libertarian, I am opposed to the moral basis for taxation. Furthermore, it just looks good to us Slashdotters because we tend to think intellectual property isn't (property that is). Still, a tax is a tax, and just because it benefits us, doesn't mean we should like it, lest we fall into the liberal socialist trap of encouraging more and greater taxation to fund "our" favorate causes "too".
So, thanks for the compliment, but the notion needs work.
The CDC6600 we used accepted card jobs separated by an "end of job" card, with a 6/7/8/9 punch in column 1. Each job started with authentication information (basically a USER,name,password. or ACCOUNT(name, password)) as the second card of the deck. For ease, the "job control" cards were orange, program and data cards white, and the end of job card (with the 6/7/8/9 punch) blue. This made it easy for the operator to rebundle decks after they were read, and return them to the programmer. Naturally, there was an abundance of pre-punched blue 6/7/8/9 cards in the keypunch rooms.
It is left as an exercize to the gentle reader to figure out why unpunched, or partially punched (i.e. with a 7/8/9 end of record indicator instead of end of job), blue cards were so highly prized by the, er, more mischivous of us.
And to AWJM (who I know reads this board): "We were about to say GOODBYE/When the size of the DAYFILE caught our eye/For it was very plain to see/That our password was stolen/Through RJE"
The main objection with this idea is that it generalizes to that most hated of things: income tax (which is particularly odeous to a libertarian).
Basically, one has to pay the state in order to exploit something for gain, thus drawing into question the notion of ownership of the thing exploited. If I have to pay a tax, to exploit something, how can the thing be mine to exploit? It isn't.
Now, counterarguments generally take the form, "Ah but it is your's to exploit because you have denied the rest of us the capability to exploit it ourselves, and so we seek compensation." This, in fact, is the root argument for many forms of taxation.
The question then becomes, is the thing exploited rightly considered property? And, if so, who's? Does an idea belong to the person who thought of it, or to everyone? If it belongs to "everyone" (i.e. no one), then it is reasonable to pay a "tax" to "everyone" for an exclusive exploitive right. If it belongs to the individual, then it isn't -- my work output is the result of my effort alone, so why should it be taxed? (The socialist will, of course argue, "Yes, this is true, but 'you' only exist by consuming resources that are this denied to the rest of us, and so, we have a right to your work output as well." My personal response, is that "Fine, I'll pay a tax to the sun, ultimate source of the energy that keeps me alive... how about the C02 I exhale, and the shit I excrete that may very well fertilize the land that produces the food you eat").
However, in the same way that one learns that it may be cheaper to throw food at the starving instead of trying to kill them off, lest they steal one's crops, a having a right does not mean that expressing it to the fullest is necessarily economically optimal. The notion, therefore, of a "social contract" that establishes the extent of property rights is not one that should be dismissed out of hand: keeping 99.9% of the people from stealing "my" water has value, after all (liberal perversion of the notion of a "social contract" duely noted).
The pressure to have social contracts increases when the cost of non-exclusive use, or exploitation is an opportunity cost, rather than a tangible one: letting someone my notebook does not deprive me of my notes, though it deprives me of the ability to charge for them. If others can freely copy a work I have written, my opportunity cost to provide reproductions has gone up, for I have to compete against the "knock offs". Yes, this is rather an odd way to look at opportunity cost, but it serves the purpose: I do
The founding fathers and early occupants of the U.S. recognized the pressures at play when it came to intangables such as intellectual property and sought, via the constitutional basis for copyright, trademark, and patent law, to sought to strike a balance as far as property rights in these areas were concerened. The balance today, is very much out of whack, of that there is no doubt. However, the solutionm does not lie in letting the pendulum swing completely the other was, obliterating any notion of intellectual property save that which can be kept secret.
The libertarian in me turns to the free market, and not state fiat to determine what this balance should be: it should be possible to exchange extended copyright terms for some other consideration in order to fund protection of these same terms. IOW, I share my "secrets" which are my exclusive property, secure in the knowledge that they will be used as I dictate. However, in order to obtain the policing necessary, I must pay for the service. How much I pay would, of course, depend, on how "popular" the works are. Fortunately, how much I would profit is also related to this popularity. Various providers of this "policing" (including, perhaps. the state) could thus quote me "copyright enforcement insurance" policies.
In your mind I assume that the works of Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Dickens, Milton, etc. should all still be copyright protected because they still hold value? I am not sure how you can justify that one.
I agree with your objection that copyright intervals should not be tied to some perceived (and, no doubt subjectively determined) intrinsic "value" to a work.
However, if a work does have high value, as measured by the degree to which it can be exploited in the market place for profit, there will be a desire on the part of the copyright holder to retain the copyright as long as possible. Hence, high-priced lobbying for effectively infinite copyright terms and extentions.
Understanding this, I wonder if it would be unreasonable to permit copyright extentions, at increasing cost, beyond the initial term (granted at no cost because of no need to formally file to get protection). The revenues collected could be redirected back to promote the development of new works.
Yes, this smells like a tax, and, as a libertarian, there are few things I detest more than taxes, particularly new ones. However, the only protection one has for a monopoly to reproduce and distribute an original work, is consent of the consumer, presumably obtained (if not by direct contract), by laws relating to issues of what could be called "intellectual property" (encompassing copyright, patent, and trademarks, in different ways). Enforcing such protection requires funding, and this "extended copyright tax" could also be a source of that funding.
These are partially baked ideas, and I reiterate that my initial reaction to such a "tax" revolts me, but I would not dismiss the notion of financial consideration in exchange for granted copyright extention out of hand.
They have a "chat 'n watch" site (essentially a reflector) which coordinates and rebroadcasts feeds frem webcams and chat clients -- including, I think voice chat. It's all free for the 6 frame a minute update, and something like US$10/month for 60 frame/minute (one frame a second) update.
Bewarned that they have a "family" and "uncensored" section -- the latter generally being exhibitionist porn and voyeurism (and probably subsidizing the former).
I'm sure you could roll your own along those lines, and use what they've done as a guide.
Sure, it'll be a "baling wire and bubble gum" hack, but you want something cheap, right? Presumably for inter-remote-office communication, this might be good enough.
I don't know if they'd license their existing software, but the nice thing about it is that, client side, it runs in a browser.
From the article you reference: The material witness statute was enacted in 1984. It provides that "prosecutors may seek an arrest warrant if a potential witness's testimony is "material" to a criminal proceeding and the individual is likely to flee. A judge must approve the warrant, and the witness is entitled to a bond hearing and a court-appointed attorney."
Harumph.
1. Still sounds unconstitutional to me (unconstitutional laws, once found unconstitutional, act as if they never existed).
2. Looks like right to counsel is also being usurped here.
Of course, IANAL either, but I would prefer an accusation of being mistaken in the face of potential ignorance of the law, rather than one of being deliberately deceitful (which I am not).
...quit using the slippery slope logical fallicy to claim the govt's actions in these case will lead us to such a totalitarian state.
When this totalitarian state is reached, and I'd have nothing to lose, I expect I would be sorely tempted to seek the likes of you out, and cleave your head open with an ax, just to satisfy a desire to "tell you so!". For it is the inaction of people like you (i.e. generally "good" people doing nothing) that, more than anything else, leads to such totalitarian states precisely because of the mistaken belief that it won't.
On the other hand, until those events come to pass, you are free to nay say all you want, and I shall peacefully tolerate your right to do so.
This guy didn't disappear and was being held legally (based on court rulings going back decades)
Citations please?
Or, has due process gone the way of the dodo bird for longer than I thought?
This certainly ranks as an injustice worth making a stink over.
Even Timothy McVeigh was better served by justice when certain irregularities in his prosecution were discovered -- and he certainly qualified as a terrorist, though I'm sure many were disappointed that he wasn't Muslim.
You are doing a disservice to those who live with real memories of what being "disappeared" really meant.
This kind of complaint really sickens me.
"How dare you complain he was murdered... at least he wasn't tortured first!"
"How dare you complain you were raped... at least you weren't murdered."
"How dare you complain you were financially cheated... at least you weren't physically hurt."
In other words, "How dare you complain about your lot... it could be worse." To me that sounds like either an excuse for what should be inexcusable behavour, or a threat.
More importantly, if we tolerate the little injustices, we just embolden those who would have us suffer bigger ones. While it it wise to pick one's battles, and not fight every little harm, this does not mean that we find them acceptable because of the possibility of worse ones.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, since I believe it is moraly wrong to force one, against their will, to help others, just because those others are less fortunate. I believe that charity should be voluntary, and if the majority of people are not sufficiently charitable, the democtratic thing is to let the poor die. I have noticed, however, that, where it is permitted to flourish, private charity does a better job of helping the truely destitite than does government. It has also been my personal experience that I am far more charitable (when was the last time you gave away perfectly good runnng autombiles?) when my tax burden is less. However, that is not the source of my particular objection:
Even if I pay taxes to fund the provincial health care system, and not subscribe to it's services (which I may do, to reduce a tax tie), I can not legally purchase replacement insurance. Legally, I must subscribe to the plan in order to have any health insurance, which make it difficult to leave the country (and particularly more so than it was five years ago), because of the resulting tax tie.
Being forced into such a system is tantamount to slavery.
Of course you realize that the system would go broke if that were the case.
No. While morally opposed to it, I would fund both the public system as well as my own insurance -- just not use the public one.
Though, a system that impoverishes me to the point where I can not purchase adequate insurance for myself, where I may die as a result because it is not there "for me" when I need it most (say, only an experimental lifesaving treatment exists -- Canadian provincial health insurance does not cover experimental treatment, even if it may save a live and has shown promice), is clearly one that trades one life for another. I prefer such cruelties to be left in the hand of fate, and not man.
You do realize that even if you don't use the health care system, that you personally benefit from everyone being covered, right?
This is a debatable point, but I will grant it to you. Let me be clear: I am willing to fund the public system as well as personal insurance, and not use the public one, to avoid a tax tie if I leave Canada. Surely, you would find this reasonable, given your arguments to date.
The counter argument is that it is "unfair" for some to be able to afford "better" health care than others, and perhaps you intend to raise this objection. I reject this: if it is accepted that I earned my money via legal means, I should be able to spend it as I wish.
In conclusion, Canada works like this: "You must pay for X... If you pay for X you can use X... If you can use X, you agree to be a tax slave because X costs money." Such is the reasoning of a corrupt criminal mind and, I find, pervasive among Canadians, or at least promulgated by the representatives they elect.
Hell, fucking YES! Purchasing power IS my primary focus.
Without adequate purchasing power, I can not purchase even the basic necessities of life, like adequate health insurance.
Are you aware that if you have any Canadian provincial health insurance plan, and you leave Canada, having had it counts as a "tax tie" that can continue to make you a Canadian tax resident for up to five years? (It used to be two years.) This makes it very difficult to leave, as places with lower tax rates generally require greater personal expenditure for what would be, in Canada, "social services": You can't afford to live in the U.S., for example, and be taxed at Canadian rates (and wouldn't be eligible for Canadian "socoal services" despite paying taxes for them).
Are you aware that it is ILLEGAL to purchase health insurance (at least in Ontario), without ALSO subscribing to the provincial health plan? Your tax dollars fund it, but you can still "opt out" from using it, to relieve a tax tie. But, if you do this, you may not legally purchase replacement insurance. (Most such insurance from Canadian insurers is "supplementary", designed to fill what provincial plans don't. However, foreign insurers, most underwritten by Lloyds of London, will offer complete cover at reasonable prices: US$2600-US$3200 for family coverage per year, typically, for up to L250,000 a year in expenses. Yes, the US$/British Pound references are odd, but that's how the policies are quoted).
In effect, Canada makes you very much a tax slave.
I do not doubt that you like it that way. But, I object strenuously to your support for a system that impoverishes and enslaves me, even at the risk of my death, for the lifestyle you prefer. That, sir, makes you a petty thief at best, and a would-be murderer at worst. I, for one, support the notion of treating murderers in kind, and killing them.
This post is provided free of charge, and with no warranty of fitness or merchantability.
I see this argument occassionally, yet I've never actually met anyone who's done it
Well, you most likely haven't met me, but I occasionally come across an MP3 of music I like (free for download), and PayPal $10 or $20 to the artist, if I like it. No CD, no high-quality version, no cover art... just because I liked the music so much and wanted to support the artist.
Now, I don't do this often, but neither do I ever keep copyright music that I haven't payed to have a copy of.
Actually, and I say this from the perpective of someone unfortunate enough to have been born north of the Canada/U.S. border, that would not be a bad thing. Having lived and worked, legally, in the U.S. for five years, it is hell coming back to a country that is effectively run by petty (and not so petty) criminals. "All your tax dollars belong to US!".
For all the shit that's flowing in the U.S. these days, at least one doesn't get sent up the river on an "illegal weapons charge" after killing the criminal who broke into their home and proceeded to rape their wife.
Yes, that was an example. Yes, it was exaggerated for effect. It's still horrible here.
All right, oh pedantic one. The question should be, can a Maillard reaction take place at the surface of meat by radiative heating alone? I think the answer is yes.
If it involves radiant heat, it's not searing. A different set of physical (not chemical; physical) reactions is going to take place on the surface of the meat, because infrared radiation penetrates meat differently from the way actual conductive heat does.
Well, that's an interesting point. I've assumed that if the radiation source is intense enough, penetration isn't going to be an issue. You're probably right that there will be differences -- the question is will they be significant in the face of intense radiation?
I presume you meant "... mass copyright infringers..."
I do.
I exercise fair use rights (questionably in the U.S.A. because of the DMCA, but clearly now that I live in Canada) and move ALL my CD and DVD content to a home server. Even with .shn lossless compression (for the audio), this still requires quite a bit of space.
I, however, have not, do not, and will not, violate legitimate copyright laws (i.e. redistribution to others of copyright material I have with permission).
Ceramics exist which can stand that heat. Stop thinking about wimpy metal.
Though, it is quite possible, that I *was* misinformed.
There are two issues here: 1) whether it is theoretically possible to sear a steak rare by broiling, and 2) whether this was done.
I believe that (1) is possible, and was claimed to have been done. The latter may, upon reflection, been an exaggeration (pan searing having most likely been used as well as broiling).
Perhaps one day when I have access to a kiln again, I can try an experiment. :-)
In any case, the steak I received was (a) seared, (b) quite rare, (c) claimed to be cooked by broiling only in an 1800F oven. It was very good.
Supposedly, traditional methods of searing result in side reactions (besides the desired Maillard sugar/protein reaction) that produce, among other things, acrylamide (unpleasant, toxic, and reputedly carciongenic). Still, searing in a *hot* pan is how I cook my steak at home.
You've never seen an 1800F oven, have you?
Believe me, it was seared.
And yes, at home I sear my steaks rare (well, "blue", actually, if we're talking about a filet mignon) with a skillet.
My mother in law once had me cook a filet mignon well done for here. I cried.
Good advice, though if you'd rather spend money than cook, Ruth's Chris has these insane ovens that will broil a steak rare, with that nice seared exterior, and no need for a skillet.
Dude, we're past the "laugh at us" part... we're on to the "attack us" part.
Next, of course, we, win.
Ruby Ridge.
Indeed, the ugly needs to be remembered so that it can be recognized for what it is. This goes for language as well as art.
I get really irritated when someone tries to expunge the word "nigger", for example. It is certainly a hateful, and therefore disgusting, moniker, but pretending it doesn't exist doesn't erase past or present racial inequity.
When my 9 year old daughter encountered the word in a book borrowed from the school library and asked for an explanation, it was a perfect opportunity to provide a bit of a history lesson, and an introduction to bigotry as an unfortunate negative aspect of human nature. No doubt many parents would have instead complained to the school that such books were "inappropriate".
Some things in the world are cruel, mean, ugly, and downright disgusting. Pretending they don't exist does not erase them.
We were actually running NOS by this point (1.3 or 1.4, IIRC).
I remember once needing a cross-assembler for a 6809. So, with some COMPASS macro-hackery, I got the mainframe assembler to assemble 6809 menmonics to a pseudo-machine code: the ops were O.K., but the address fields were aligned as 6600 instructions would be...
The practical upshot was that I could use the rather sophisticated (for the time) mainframe linker to link separate 6809 object files: TSC/FLEX didn't have the concept of separately linkable object files, and as some of my source code took up more than one floppy... anyway, I could link 6809 "mainframe" format object files, and run the result throught a post-processor to spit out a real executable file (well, as 6/12 ASCII rendition thereof).
Those were the days....
Thanks. One of my better ideas, I think.
How about you get 15 years protection for free, you must renew every 15 years, and the renewal fee is $1000 * 2 ** n, where n is the number of renewals you've already had.
Well, it can be structured in any of a number of ways. I wouldn't have the scale rise quite as fast as O(2^n), but there's room for discussing the details.
But, the problem I have with this, even though it is my own idea, is that it essentially looks like a tax. As a libertarian, I am opposed to the moral basis for taxation. Furthermore, it just looks good to us Slashdotters because we tend to think intellectual property isn't (property that is). Still, a tax is a tax, and just because it benefits us, doesn't mean we should like it, lest we fall into the liberal socialist trap of encouraging more and greater taxation to fund "our" favorate causes "too".
So, thanks for the compliment, but the notion needs work.
The CDC6600 we used accepted card jobs separated by an "end of job" card, with a 6/7/8/9 punch in column 1. Each job started with authentication information (basically a USER,name,password. or ACCOUNT(name, password)) as the second card of the deck. For ease, the "job control" cards were orange, program and data cards white, and the end of job card (with the 6/7/8/9 punch) blue. This made it easy for the operator to rebundle decks after they were read, and return them to the programmer. Naturally, there was an abundance of pre-punched blue 6/7/8/9 cards in the keypunch rooms.
It is left as an exercize to the gentle reader to figure out why unpunched, or partially punched (i.e. with a 7/8/9 end of record indicator instead of end of job), blue cards were so highly prized by the, er, more mischivous of us.
And to AWJM (who I know reads this board): "We were about to say GOODBYE/When the size of the DAYFILE caught our eye/For it was very plain to see/That our password was stolen/Through RJE"
DO 10 I=1,10
Basically, one has to pay the state in order to exploit something for gain, thus drawing into question the notion of ownership of the thing exploited. If I have to pay a tax, to exploit something, how can the thing be mine to exploit? It isn't.
Now, counterarguments generally take the form, "Ah but it is your's to exploit because you have denied the rest of us the capability to exploit it ourselves, and so we seek compensation." This, in fact, is the root argument for many forms of taxation.
The question then becomes, is the thing exploited rightly considered property? And, if so, who's? Does an idea belong to the person who thought of it, or to everyone? If it belongs to "everyone" (i.e. no one), then it is reasonable to pay a "tax" to "everyone" for an exclusive exploitive right. If it belongs to the individual, then it isn't -- my work output is the result of my effort alone, so why should it be taxed? (The socialist will, of course argue, "Yes, this is true, but 'you' only exist by consuming resources that are this denied to the rest of us, and so, we have a right to your work output as well." My personal response, is that "Fine, I'll pay a tax to the sun, ultimate source of the energy that keeps me alive... how about the C02 I exhale, and the shit I excrete that may very well fertilize the land that produces the food you eat").
However, in the same way that one learns that it may be cheaper to throw food at the starving instead of trying to kill them off, lest they steal one's crops, a having a right does not mean that expressing it to the fullest is necessarily economically optimal. The notion, therefore, of a "social contract" that establishes the extent of property rights is not one that should be dismissed out of hand: keeping 99.9% of the people from stealing "my" water has value, after all (liberal perversion of the notion of a "social contract" duely noted).
The pressure to have social contracts increases when the cost of non-exclusive use, or exploitation is an opportunity cost, rather than a tangible one: letting someone my notebook does not deprive me of my notes, though it deprives me of the ability to charge for them. If others can freely copy a work I have written, my opportunity cost to provide reproductions has gone up, for I have to compete against the "knock offs". Yes, this is rather an odd way to look at opportunity cost, but it serves the purpose: I do The founding fathers and early occupants of the U.S. recognized the pressures at play when it came to intangables such as intellectual property and sought, via the constitutional basis for copyright, trademark, and patent law, to sought to strike a balance as far as property rights in these areas were concerened. The balance today, is very much out of whack, of that there is no doubt. However, the solutionm does not lie in letting the pendulum swing completely the other was, obliterating any notion of intellectual property save that which can be kept secret.
The libertarian in me turns to the free market, and not state fiat to determine what this balance should be: it should be possible to exchange extended copyright terms for some other consideration in order to fund protection of these same terms. IOW, I share my "secrets" which are my exclusive property, secure in the knowledge that they will be used as I dictate. However, in order to obtain the policing necessary, I must pay for the service. How much I pay would, of course, depend, on how "popular" the works are. Fortunately, how much I would profit is also related to this popularity. Various providers of this "policing" (including, perhaps. the state) could thus quote me "copyright enforcement insurance" policies.
I agree with your objection that copyright intervals should not be tied to some perceived (and, no doubt subjectively determined) intrinsic "value" to a work.
However, if a work does have high value, as measured by the degree to which it can be exploited in the market place for profit, there will be a desire on the part of the copyright holder to retain the copyright as long as possible. Hence, high-priced lobbying for effectively infinite copyright terms and extentions.
Understanding this, I wonder if it would be unreasonable to permit copyright extentions, at increasing cost, beyond the initial term (granted at no cost because of no need to formally file to get protection). The revenues collected could be redirected back to promote the development of new works.
Yes, this smells like a tax, and, as a libertarian, there are few things I detest more than taxes, particularly new ones. However, the only protection one has for a monopoly to reproduce and distribute an original work, is consent of the consumer, presumably obtained (if not by direct contract), by laws relating to issues of what could be called "intellectual property" (encompassing copyright, patent, and trademarks, in different ways). Enforcing such protection requires funding, and this "extended copyright tax" could also be a source of that funding.
These are partially baked ideas, and I reiterate that my initial reaction to such a "tax" revolts me, but I would not dismiss the notion of financial consideration in exchange for granted copyright extention out of hand.
Bewarned that they have a "family" and "uncensored" section -- the latter generally being exhibitionist porn and voyeurism (and probably subsidizing the former).
I'm sure you could roll your own along those lines, and use what they've done as a guide.
Sure, it'll be a "baling wire and bubble gum" hack, but you want something cheap, right? Presumably for inter-remote-office communication, this might be good enough.
I don't know if they'd license their existing software, but the nice thing about it is that, client side, it runs in a browser.
Harumph.
1. Still sounds unconstitutional to me (unconstitutional laws, once found unconstitutional, act as if they never existed).
2. Looks like right to counsel is also being usurped here.
Of course, IANAL either, but I would prefer an accusation of being mistaken in the face of potential ignorance of the law, rather than one of being deliberately deceitful (which I am not).
When this totalitarian state is reached, and I'd have nothing to lose, I expect I would be sorely tempted to seek the likes of you out, and cleave your head open with an ax, just to satisfy a desire to "tell you so!". For it is the inaction of people like you (i.e. generally "good" people doing nothing) that, more than anything else, leads to such totalitarian states precisely because of the mistaken belief that it won't.
On the other hand, until those events come to pass, you are free to nay say all you want, and I shall peacefully tolerate your right to do so.
Citations please?
Or, has due process gone the way of the dodo bird for longer than I thought?
This certainly ranks as an injustice worth making a stink over.
Even Timothy McVeigh was better served by justice when certain irregularities in his prosecution were discovered -- and he certainly qualified as a terrorist, though I'm sure many were disappointed that he wasn't Muslim.
This kind of complaint really sickens me.
"How dare you complain he was murdered... at least he wasn't tortured first!"
"How dare you complain you were raped... at least you weren't murdered."
"How dare you complain you were financially cheated... at least you weren't physically hurt."
In other words, "How dare you complain about your lot... it could be worse." To me that sounds like either an excuse for what should be inexcusable behavour, or a threat.
More importantly, if we tolerate the little injustices, we just embolden those who would have us suffer bigger ones. While it it wise to pick one's battles, and not fight every little harm, this does not mean that we find them acceptable because of the possibility of worse ones.