>>>In any case, when Microsoft saw how this was about to go all Streisand on them, they decided correctly that it wasn't worth the fight.
I had clicked "reply" and was going to say the same thing but you beat me to it. - MS is not acting honorably, so much as seeing it blow up in their face with bad publicity and they decided they'd better retreat.
Yes well that sounds good, but such a system could also be abused if, for example, you're a medical marijuana user trying to relieve your arthritis, and the Feds are after you. The last thing you want it Microsoft saying, "Our records show he logged in at L.A. and then San Francisco and then Sacramento in hotel X room Y."
Please note I consider the outlawing of marijuana (or any other plant) to be a violation of the Tenth Amendment in our Bill of Rights. Therefore I don't consider users to be criminals because I consider the U.S. Prohibition Law to be null.
>>>Most all other occupations face the same challenges and pitfalls.
No. The U.S. Congress passed a law that specifically targets programmers. Quoting a previous slashdot article: "Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Under the law, certain classes of workers, including anyone who engages as a "computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work," are considered de facto employees for tax purposes, regardless of whether they claim to operate their own businesses as independent contractors. The IRS can impose significant tax penalties on companies who hire such workers as contractors rather than full employees, a fact that can make it extremely difficult for self-employed programmers to find work."
An engineer can be independent designer, and yet still find work with someone like Lockheed. A programmer who is an independent will not be hired, due to Lockheed being afraid of the IRS punishment.
The corporations use bribes to buy politicians. The politicians write the laws the corporations wants. And the laws the corporations want are protective laws which discourage indepdent businesses (programmers or otherwise).
It doesn't matter whether we're talling about RIAA, Hollywood, Comcast, or Microsoft. It's all the same operating procedure.
Corporations should have their free speech rights taken away (lobbyists/bribes). They have no more rights than a Tree or a rock. They are not THINGS not people.
>>>I have several scanners that haven't worked on Windows since version 95 since they were abandoned by their manufacturer (thanks HP). With Linux, I use them everyday. >>>
That's only half the story.
I installed Ubuntu Linux with the Xfce desktop on an old Compaq Presario 700 laptop, and the sound stopped working. I asked for help at the ubuntu.com forums but none was forthcoming, so after a week of wasted effort I gave up and used my XP restore disc (which will still run any program).
When Ubuntu 10.x LTS is released I'm going to try again, but I'm not expecting any better results. Microsoft, as evil as they are, simply provide better longterm support. They have to - business demands it.
When I'm on dialup with my laptop, I use image compression (to squash the GIFs/JPGs the developers failed to do right the first time). Also flash compression and ad blocker. And even then, if I go to a site like IMDb.com, I can expect a 5 minute download. I can't imagine trying to do straight dialup without Netscape's or Opera's web acceleration.
Developers should be trying to make their pages smaller, if not for dialup, then for people using Wireless or Cellular connections. There's simply no acceptable reason to create a page bigger than 1/4 megabyte (one minute download on dialup) (30 seconds on cellular). .
>>> considering it is 2010, no one in the USA should still be subjected to dial-up
I agree. The Congress could fix that VERY easily by simply passing a law that the Phone Monopoly (which ever one serves you) must provide DSL to any customer that demands it, within six months time. Simple as that. Everyone would have high speed internet and it would be very cheap to implement:
- Run a fiber out to a neighborhood - Attach a DSLAM to it - Attach the customer(s) phone lines to the DSLAM - Done
Yeah but researchers think even a small snippet of paper that says "I played with my dollie today" and buried under a log cabin is useful. They are a little bit...... strange.
I don't think we should be allowing researchers to decide what to preserve, otherwise we'd all drown under a mountain of preserved junk. I know if I saved everything I ever made, including every homework or every art class creation, I'd need at least three houses just to store it.
So? Nobody's going to care about Obama's election campaign 50 years from now, just like nobody cares about FDR's election campaign - other than the fact "he won" and he promised "change" from the Hoover's failed policies.
Precisely. We have not preserved the random scrawling of a housewife's love letter in Venice circa December 38 A.D. Nobody cares about that junk.
We preserve the things that matter - that if we forgot them, they could degrade our society. Shopping lists and other garbage don't fit that criteria. The accumulated works of Geocities do not fit that criteria (and if it did, it would have been moved to a better place like a book, or a stone tablet for preservation).
>>>Netscape was king, an animated.gif was exciting, and Vivo Video was used for streaming
Also it was still possible to be online with a dialup modem. Have Web developers completely-and-totally forgotten the lessons of the 90s? (Compress images using GIFwizard, don't buffer audio unless the user first clicks "load" or "play", and don't use megabyte-sized movies when a 100K animated GIF will do.)
You just reminded me why I don't want to buy a Mac. The software has a short lifespan, such that you don't know if your old copy of Microsoft Office 97 will work or not. (Most likely not.)
It works just fine on 98, XP, Vista, and Win7. Windows backwards-compatibility helps save me money.
But seriously I agree with you. If you're in a fixed place like your home, it makes more sense to just plug into a nearby jack (in my case - a phone jack). It will provide a faster connection, and doesn't broadcast your data all over the neighborhood for people to see (like those black BBC vans with the antennas).
The laptop I just bought off Eba has a Bluetooth modem built-in. Is that the same as "wiifi"? If I carry this laptop to the mountains while hunting, how likely am I to find internet access?
If you don't believe in private property (i.e. this is MY toothbrush and this is MY radio), then there's no such thing as theft. The guy taking the brush or radio has not committed a crime because those items never belonged to anybody in the first place.
>>>Youre overlooking the simple fact that the 1 central legislature is actually the 50 acting in unison.
That was true when State Legislatures had their own representatives (the Senate). It's no longer true since the Senate was given to the people. The State Legislatures now have no power/voice at the national level, which is why our system is so screwed up. Congress acts as if it has NO limits on its power whatsoever.
We need to create a CHECK on Congress' power - and that natural check is the 50 Legislatures that created the Congress in the first place. Let the 50 have power to nullify the unconstitutional acts of the 1 via a simple majority (25 or more). It will restore balance.
Of course I also think the Supreme Court has made some really stupid decisions, like Wikard v. Filburn which gave Congress the power to tell a farmer he can only grow 10 acres of wheat. Nowhere in the Constitution was the U.S. Congress ever given that power, and the Court should have declared it unconstitutional. Now Congress uses this decision to regulate all kinds of food, not just in farms but also in our own backyards.
This is yet another reason I think the State Legislatures need the power to nullify bad laws. The various farmers and citizens would tell their home Legislature to declare the law "unconstitutional" and once 25 State Legislatures agree, then that ridiculous U.S. Law would be nullified.
I'm blaming the system and saying it needs one additional amendment to fix it, so that bad laws can be declared "unconstitutional" without having to wait for the Supreme Court, and thereby minimize the damage caused to our citizens.
>>>all of the representatives are supposed to represent the people of the state anyway, it seems fairly trivial as far as differences go.
Actually there is a major difference. State Legislatures consist of ~300 people, each representing a neighborhood, whereas a Senator represents an entire state. The Legislature is more democratic and your representative probably lives just down the street, and you can talk to him person-to-person. ----- In contrast the last time I talked to my Senator, he acted like he never even heard me. I emailed him, and I got back a response that was the completely opposite of what I said. (I said I was in favor of cutting PBS funding - he wrote back he agrees with me that PBS should get more funds!) Therefore the Legislature is more democratic and more in-tune with the people, due to more direct/closer representation with its citizens.
Another difference is location. The State Legislature is only a few miles away. The U.S. Senate is hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Again this makes the State Legislature more democratic.
So for these reasons and other mentioned previously, I think the State Legislatures should have the power to CHECK the U.S. Congress' power and restore BALANCE to our system via declaring laws unconstitutional/nullified.
>>>No, but the states have representatives in congress
No they don't. The people have representatives in the House and Senate, but the State legislatures do not have anyone. They are powerless at the national level. My amendment would give them the power to CHECK the national government and restore BALANCE to our system.
>>>your modification would allow the state to convene and decide on a laws constitutionality independently of the other states
So? Each State legislature has the right to an opinion, just the same as each of us has a right to an opinion. And of course the U.S. law would still remain in full effect, until 25 States agreed. If half the state legislatures agree a law is unconstitutional, than it *should* be nullified because the U.S. Congress exceeded the power the States gave to it.
This is no different than if the EU Parliament passed a law mandating everyone buy & drive a hybrid car, and then one-half of the Member States declare that law "unconstitutional" and nullify it, because the EU was never given that power.
Well when I had my PowerMac (200 megahertz and just sold a month ago), it wouldn't run anything more advanced than OS 10.2. Unfortunately 10.2 is compatible with nothing but IE6 and Opera 7... rather old browsers but better than nothing.
>>>You can install Mac OS X on a cheap PC for less than $400 or a Dell Mini 10v Netbook for about $250
Illegally you mean. And only if you have the skills which many web users don't have.
>>>People (especially on Slashdot) have been talking about how the MPAA, BSA, and so forth are "in their death throes" for a few decades now.
Not really. In fact the invention of the CD and DVD was a major economic boom for the music and movie industries, because it stopped the old practice of copying a friend's tape. The late 80s and throughout the 90s they made tons of money.
But then with the rise of high-speed internet during the 2000s, suddenly that old "just copy your friend's copy" came to prominence again, and the companies are sad because their 90s boom has come to an end.
So really we're only talking about the last half-decade that RIAA/MPAA/et cetera have been hanging near bankruptcy. (Ditto newspapers and magazines.)
Slashdot Mirror
>>>In any case, when Microsoft saw how this was about to go all Streisand on them, they decided correctly that it wasn't worth the fight.
I had clicked "reply" and was going to say the same thing but you beat me to it. - MS is not acting honorably, so much as seeing it blow up in their face with bad publicity and they decided they'd better retreat.
Yes well that sounds good, but such a system could also be abused if, for example, you're a medical marijuana user trying to relieve your arthritis, and the Feds are after you. The last thing you want it Microsoft saying, "Our records show he logged in at L.A. and then San Francisco and then Sacramento in hotel X room Y."
Please note I consider the outlawing of marijuana (or any other plant) to be a violation of the Tenth Amendment in our Bill of Rights. Therefore I don't consider users to be criminals because I consider the U.S. Prohibition Law to be null.
>>>Most all other occupations face the same challenges and pitfalls.
No. The U.S. Congress passed a law that specifically targets programmers. Quoting a previous slashdot article: "Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Under the law, certain classes of workers, including anyone who engages as a "computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work," are considered de facto employees for tax purposes, regardless of whether they claim to operate their own businesses as independent contractors. The IRS can impose significant tax penalties on companies who hire such workers as contractors rather than full employees, a fact that can make it extremely difficult for self-employed programmers to find work."
An engineer can be independent designer, and yet still find work with someone like Lockheed.
A programmer who is an independent will not be hired, due to Lockheed being afraid of the IRS punishment.
[correction]
They are THINGS not people. The Bill of Rights is for the People, not trees, rocks, or things.
The corporations use bribes to buy politicians. The politicians write the laws the corporations wants. And the laws the corporations want are protective laws which discourage indepdent businesses (programmers or otherwise).
It doesn't matter whether we're talling about RIAA, Hollywood, Comcast, or Microsoft. It's all the same operating procedure.
Corporations should have their free speech rights taken away (lobbyists/bribes).
They have no more rights than a Tree or a rock.
They are not THINGS not people.
>>>I have several scanners that haven't worked on Windows since version 95 since they were abandoned by their manufacturer (thanks HP). With Linux, I use them everyday.
>>>
That's only half the story.
I installed Ubuntu Linux with the Xfce desktop on an old Compaq Presario 700 laptop, and the sound stopped working. I asked for help at the ubuntu.com forums but none was forthcoming, so after a week of wasted effort I gave up and used my XP restore disc (which will still run any program).
When Ubuntu 10.x LTS is released I'm going to try again, but I'm not expecting any better results. Microsoft, as evil as they are, simply provide better longterm support. They have to - business demands it.
When I'm on dialup with my laptop, I use image compression (to squash the GIFs/JPGs the developers failed to do right the first time). Also flash compression and ad blocker. And even then, if I go to a site like IMDb.com, I can expect a 5 minute download. I can't imagine trying to do straight dialup without Netscape's or Opera's web acceleration.
Developers should be trying to make their pages smaller, if not for dialup, then for people using Wireless or Cellular connections. There's simply no acceptable reason to create a page bigger than 1/4 megabyte (one minute download on dialup) (30 seconds on cellular).
.
>>> considering it is 2010, no one in the USA should still be subjected to dial-up
I agree. The Congress could fix that VERY easily by simply passing a law that the Phone Monopoly (which ever one serves you) must provide DSL to any customer that demands it, within six months time. Simple as that. Everyone would have high speed internet and it would be very cheap to implement:
- Run a fiber out to a neighborhood
- Attach a DSLAM to it
- Attach the customer(s) phone lines to the DSLAM
- Done
Yeah but researchers think even a small snippet of paper that says "I played with my dollie today" and buried under a log cabin is useful. They are a little bit...... strange.
I don't think we should be allowing researchers to decide what to preserve, otherwise we'd all drown under a mountain of preserved junk. I know if I saved everything I ever made, including every homework or every art class creation, I'd need at least three houses just to store it.
Should have dumped the information to paper. Paper has permanence, and can be stored away, and even when damaged is still readable.
*
* Or even better a stone tablet (one of those new laser printers that carve stone).
So? Nobody's going to care about Obama's election campaign 50 years from now, just like nobody cares about FDR's election campaign - other than the fact "he won" and he promised "change" from the Hoover's failed policies.
Precisely. We have not preserved the random scrawling of a housewife's love letter in Venice circa December 38 A.D. Nobody cares about that junk.
We preserve the things that matter - that if we forgot them, they could degrade our society. Shopping lists and other garbage don't fit that criteria. The accumulated works of Geocities do not fit that criteria (and if it did, it would have been moved to a better place like a book, or a stone tablet for preservation).
>>>Netscape was king, an animated .gif was exciting, and Vivo Video was used for streaming
Also it was still possible to be online with a dialup modem. Have Web developers completely-and-totally forgotten the lessons of the 90s? (Compress images using GIFwizard, don't buffer audio unless the user first clicks "load" or "play", and don't use megabyte-sized movies when a 100K animated GIF will do.)
If I caught my neighbors using my internet, I'd probably copy Netzero onto a floppy, hand it to them, and say "Yes this; it's free. My Wifi is not."
You just reminded me why I don't want to buy a Mac. The software has a short lifespan, such that you don't know if your old copy of Microsoft Office 97 will work or not. (Most likely not.)
It works just fine on 98, XP, Vista, and Win7. Windows backwards-compatibility helps save me money.
How about some cheap Propecia? I'm tired of paying 3 dollars per pill (per day).
I'm dong that even as we speak.
But seriously I agree with you. If you're in a fixed place like your home, it makes more sense to just plug into a nearby jack (in my case - a phone jack). It will provide a faster connection, and doesn't broadcast your data all over the neighborhood for people to see (like those black BBC vans with the antennas).
YourComputerNowHasAVirus
Question:
The laptop I just bought off Eba has a Bluetooth modem built-in. Is that the same as "wiifi"? If I carry this laptop to the mountains while hunting, how likely am I to find internet access?
If you don't believe in private property (i.e. this is MY toothbrush and this is MY radio), then there's no such thing as theft. The guy taking the brush or radio has not committed a crime because those items never belonged to anybody in the first place.
>>>Youre overlooking the simple fact that the 1 central legislature is actually the 50 acting in unison.
That was true when State Legislatures had their own representatives (the Senate). It's no longer true since the Senate was given to the people. The State Legislatures now have no power/voice at the national level, which is why our system is so screwed up. Congress acts as if it has NO limits on its power whatsoever.
We need to create a CHECK on Congress' power - and that natural check is the 50 Legislatures that created the Congress in the first place. Let the 50 have power to nullify the unconstitutional acts of the 1 via a simple majority (25 or more). It will restore balance.
P.S.
Of course I also think the Supreme Court has made some really stupid decisions, like Wikard v. Filburn which gave Congress the power to tell a farmer he can only grow 10 acres of wheat. Nowhere in the Constitution was the U.S. Congress ever given that power, and the Court should have declared it unconstitutional. Now Congress uses this decision to regulate all kinds of food, not just in farms but also in our own backyards.
This is yet another reason I think the State Legislatures need the power to nullify bad laws. The various farmers and citizens would tell their home Legislature to declare the law "unconstitutional" and once 25 State Legislatures agree, then that ridiculous U.S. Law would be nullified.
Good point. I'm not blaming the Supreme Court.
I'm blaming the system and saying it needs one additional amendment to fix it, so that bad laws can be declared "unconstitutional" without having to wait for the Supreme Court, and thereby minimize the damage caused to our citizens.
P.S.
>>>all of the representatives are supposed to represent the people of the state anyway, it seems fairly trivial as far as differences go.
Actually there is a major difference. State Legislatures consist of ~300 people, each representing a neighborhood, whereas a Senator represents an entire state. The Legislature is more democratic and your representative probably lives just down the street, and you can talk to him person-to-person. ----- In contrast the last time I talked to my Senator, he acted like he never even heard me. I emailed him, and I got back a response that was the completely opposite of what I said. (I said I was in favor of cutting PBS funding - he wrote back he agrees with me that PBS should get more funds!) Therefore the Legislature is more democratic and more in-tune with the people, due to more direct/closer representation with its citizens.
Another difference is location. The State Legislature is only a few miles away. The U.S. Senate is hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Again this makes the State Legislature more democratic.
So for these reasons and other mentioned previously, I think the State Legislatures should have the power to CHECK the U.S. Congress' power and restore BALANCE to our system via declaring laws unconstitutional/nullified.
>>>No, but the states have representatives in congress
No they don't. The people have representatives in the House and Senate, but the State legislatures do not have anyone. They are powerless at the national level. My amendment would give them the power to CHECK the national government and restore BALANCE to our system.
>>>your modification would allow the state to convene and decide on a laws constitutionality independently of the other states
So? Each State legislature has the right to an opinion, just the same as each of us has a right to an opinion. And of course the U.S. law would still remain in full effect, until 25 States agreed. If half the state legislatures agree a law is unconstitutional, than it *should* be nullified because the U.S. Congress exceeded the power the States gave to it.
This is no different than if the EU Parliament passed a law mandating everyone buy & drive a hybrid car, and then one-half of the Member States declare that law "unconstitutional" and nullify it, because the EU was never given that power.
Well when I had my PowerMac (200 megahertz and just sold a month ago), it wouldn't run anything more advanced than OS 10.2. Unfortunately 10.2 is compatible with nothing but IE6 and Opera 7... rather old browsers but better than nothing.
>>>You can install Mac OS X on a cheap PC for less than $400 or a Dell Mini 10v Netbook for about $250
Illegally you mean. And only if you have the skills which many web users don't have.
>>>People (especially on Slashdot) have been talking about how the MPAA, BSA, and so forth are "in their death throes" for a few decades now.
Not really. In fact the invention of the CD and DVD was a major economic boom for the music and movie industries, because it stopped the old practice of copying a friend's tape. The late 80s and throughout the 90s they made tons of money.
But then with the rise of high-speed internet during the 2000s, suddenly that old "just copy your friend's copy" came to prominence again, and the companies are sad because their 90s boom has come to an end.
So really we're only talking about the last half-decade that RIAA/MPAA/et cetera have been hanging near bankruptcy. (Ditto newspapers and magazines.)