for a green card you must have land line to your home, period. The area code must match the land location. If not it is invalid.
That's good, I suppose. But it ignores the idea that green cards aren't a necessity, either. If you can't maintain a landline in good faith, you probably shouldn't be here anyway. Not to sound hostile, but we have enough domestic poor leeching debtors without importing more.
to prove resistance, a phone bill is required many parts of the country. It shows that you are reachable at that location.
Actually, any utility bill will do. The power bill is a bit more ubiquitous; I haven't had a landline of my own, well, ever.
Why would a professional musician or a crew making a movie want to do so for nothing? How would they pay their expenses?
Concerts, theaters, live performances in general. You know, the way they used to do it before TVs and CD players.
Why do you think you have some kind of right to take it for nothing?
Nope, no right - just the ability. Although if it weren't free to me, I wouldn't bother with it anyway, or if I just had to have it, I'd buy it used (for which the artist gets nothing). If anything I'm just giving the artists free proliferation.
Should you not expect any income for your labor and investment in resources and materials?
Do you think that if there were a way for me to copy my labor endlessly for free, that I'd bother to go to work in the first place? I'd create entire organizations that ran on my free labor. It's an apples and oranges comparison here, since I'm blue-collar. My labor is exactly that.
If it weren't, if I actually produced something that could be copyrighted or patented, then I'd take a bit from it (like everyone else) and then release it to the public in short order (unlike most). I am not a greedy person: my needs are modest.
Unless of course, I managed to come up with something that was so beneficial to the public that it demanded to be released freely. Some times you just have to give for no compensation other than gratitude.
What does "when it's free, it won't matter" mean? Who will be making it for free and what will be their motivation?
I really thought this was self-explanatory. Once people finally give up on preventing public dissemination of their works, this issue will be moot.
Are you pointing out some attractive and scalable new paradigm for labor and its compensation, or are you just making pointless noise?
Not new; old. There's simply no need for the huge profit machines that run on artificial scarcity. Artists shouldn't be in their field for fame or fortune. I don't really care if they are or not, but I certainly can't respect that position.
As society gets larger and dehumanized, soon that'll be all we have.
The good thing about that is it can't get much larger. We can go through one more doubling, which at our current rate will be roughly around 2060, and after that starvation will simply keep our numbers from growing any greater.
Even better, going by the general decline in worldwide oil production vs. increasing demand, in all likelihood we'll lose the ability to support even our current numbers by 2030 or so.
Eh. Mostly, we don't care. With any luck, enough people will join in on the infringement bandwagon, and consolidated entertainment as we know it will crash and burn (not likely, but it's always good to have hope).
In other words, until it's free, we'll take it anyway. When it's free, it won't matter.
I fill up my car with gas about every two weeks for about $30 after about 5 hours worth of driving. At those rates, 2 hour movies ought to cost $12, and a 1.5 hour movie ought to cost $9. A flight from Seattle to New York (about 6 hours) ought to cost $35, but more if it's non-stop. Since all forms of entertainment are the same, a 3 minute song on iTunes should now cost $0.30.
I know you were being sarcastic, but except for the airline ticket, all the prices you quoted seem to be right on, IMO. I'd pay $150 for a 6 hour flight.
Huh. I didn't even know most you were looking at a sans-serif font. I only see Times New Roman for these posts (Arial and New Courier are also used, but not for general purposes).
I didn't have to tell Firefox to force anything; your comment made me look at my font settings for the first time since moving up to Firefox 3. Apparently, I have to specifically allow pages to use their fonts rather than mine.
I'll agree that EVs are a little impractical at this point - good for the odd guy out, but not for everyone. And they do just shift the pollution to the power company (although it is probably a net decrease).
.
Biodiesel hybrids, on the other hand, are carbon-neutral (OK, almost) and long range. Very practical. We should all have been in those 20 years ago. Even better, switching to an ultralight construction for these would bring the mileage to something like 150-200 mi./gal.
Have you ever read The Economist ? These guys are economic conservative, and social liberals.
Yes, most (good) economists (and by induction, economic journalists) tend to have that viewpoint. It comes from taking Capitalism as a personal philosophy.
Please. Finding that usage has declined means either the kids are lying about it more, or doing a better job of covering it up. Or both.
Frankly, I learned to be interested in drugs in grade school because of D.A.R.E. I didn't believe what I was told for a second (I was always a very skeptical child), and the program just made me more interested in what I wasn't supposed to do.
No anti-drug message will work, because anything that brings up drugs at all is more likely than not going to create curiosity and interest (unless the kid is just gullible). Really, the only solution I see is to legalize drugs and ban the selling to minors. Then only kids with older siblings can get drugs.
Should there be laws against minors climbing tall things, because they might fall, break their spine, and become paralyzed? They'd surely regret that when they can no longer walk. Such laws fall under the standard complaint of a "nanny state" and precludes people from making educated decisions for themselves.
It's called "reckless endangerment of self" - I found that out when a cop caught me walking on top of a truss bridge.
The only real problem here is that our wonderfully freedom-loving government has made nudity illegal. All public nudity is illegal. All private nudity of anyone under 18 is illegal. Pretty soon it will be all private nudity of anyone who might possibly pass for under 18. And after that, just all nudity everywhere.
Personally, I support these girls, and the ACLU, for their act of civil disobedience, and I hope they can actually effect some change by it. But I won't hold my breath.
But I recognize that, in our society,people who are treated like children are not emotionally mature.
Fixed that for you
I've come across teenage girls, younger than these (the youngest was 14), who have quit school, got a job (don't ask me how), and shacked up with adult men. They were planning on starting a family soon, or already had started.
I didn't agree with their choices, and actually urged them to quit work and go back to school, but they wouldn't hear any of it. I'm only still in contact with one such couple, they have two kids now (she's like 21 now, I think), and are getting by OK - it's what they wanted.
The moral to this story is that every one of these girls was at least as emotionally mature as a woman twice her age. Emotional maturity has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with upbringing. The more you shelter your kids, the more immature they'll stay.
Yes! Probably the best reason for the government to legalize drugs (from their point of view) is that they could tax them 300% and still have them available to consumers at a fraction of the black-market price.
Drug prohibition is a particularly good example; it's hard to get rid of because now enforcing it is a multi-billion dollar industry, but it wasn't at first, and it seems unlikely that that was the primary motivation of the people who originally pushed it through decades ago.
You are correct:
Marijuana - the hemp industry was becoming serious competition to the cotton and logging industries.
Cocaine - Poor freed Blacks in the south were getting high. They were already forbidden alcohol, but encouraged to use cocaine on the job - it was when they started using cocaine recreationally (who would have figured?) that news stories about the "Coke Crazed Negro" that rapes white women and can withstand a direct shot to the heart began circulating, leading to the banning of cocaine (up until that time, it had been considered a miracle cure-all).
Morphine - Soldiers were becoming addicted and not doing their jobs well.
Heroin (the replacement for morphine) - Soldiers were becoming addicted and not doing their jobs well.
There are a few more, but the bulk of illegal drugs today are illegal simply because it was easy to continue what had already been begun.
As for child pornography, that's easy. It began as a law meant to ban actual child pornography (minors actually having coitus or obviously masturbating), and after a continued push from our beloved religious right it now includes any nude image, real or imaginary, of a minor. The next step is "could possibly pass as a minor". We're not there yet, but it's been argued for in Congress, and it's just a matter of time, really.
After all, the idea of minors having sex is thoughtcrime, and must be stopped at all costs.
Your handle suits you well (maybe just not in the way you think it does).
Nothing should be done about this, because nothing wrong was done (at least by the defendants).
The issue against child pornography is that it damages the minor (psychologically or physically, or both). People in their later teens posting nude pictures voluntary isn't and shouldn't be any sort of issue.
The government response to this, as usual, is totally whacked.
it's a way too complex and nuanced story with far too many characters to translate into a satisfying movie to anyone who hadn't already read the comic books.
I didn't read the comic books. I didn't even know it was based on a comic book until I watched it (comic book movies all have the same feel to them). I found it interesting, and more satisfying in a sort of sad, visceral way than most superhero movies. The ending was also unique in the genre, which I appreciated.
does this mean that the USA is finally getting it's head out if it's ass and will turn down the violence and stop demonizing nudity and sex?
No, because the Christian right is the most vocal minority in this country, and they won't be satisfied until all references to human sexuality have been abolished.
We're making progress. We've even managed to legalize homosexuality in the south (that was 3 years ago). In actuality, our media is far, far ahead of the culture in many parts of the U.S. There are some places here where you can get yourself a 10 year prison sentence for displaying tasteless costumes in your shop window.
Are you from the UK, by any chance? If you are, I have a bone to pick with you. Why the hell did you send the Puritans here? Why didn't you just kill them all? Do you realize what a mess they made of this country, are still making? We would have been perfectly happy consisting of rogues, scoundrels, and capitalists, without adding some militant cultists into the mix. </pointless rant>
I suspect this has a lot to do with brain-dead parenting over the last 25 years changing society's view of children into mini-adults.
I'm not about to argue that most parents are idiots: most people are idiots and all parents are people, so it only follows logically that there is at least more than a few parents that are idiots.
My issue is with the idea that it's somehow wrong to treat children as mini-adults. They are mini-adults, at least once they get to the school-age point. I've always treated kids old enough to talk coherently the exact same way as I'd treat adults, unless they acted silly, in which case I'd call them on it and they'd get a little more serious. I've had great results with this method. (No, I don't have any kids of my own, but plenty of my friends do).
Hell, age of majority used to be puberty; 300 years ago there was no such thing as a teenager, at least not one that was considered a minor.
The real problem with this society is that we keep treating people like kids long after they cease to be. No wonder our youth is so fucked up.
UH, which societies would those be? The ones that allow marriage as young as 12 or the ones that allow it even younger?
I just want to point out that the minimum marriageable age in New Hampshire is 13; several states have no minimum marriageable age at all (California has no minimum and only requires one parent or guardian from either the bride's or the groom's side to OK a marriage).
There is no competition in broadband in the US due to lack of regulation.
Actually, you have it backwards. There's no competition in broadband in the U.S. because of regulation. You see, our government does not control nor own our public infrastructure, and only one power line, one phone line, and one cable line is permitted in any particular area because, well, that's the law (and it kind of makes sense, I give it that).
Since the infrastructure is owned by private companies, and only one set of infrastructure is permitted in any locale, utility companies are given government-granted monopolies.
No, this is worse. If the RIAA wants to make a bad name for themselves passing around a reverse lottery to their customers, that's something I'm willing to live with, especially since they will eventually piss off the courts enough to get this method shut down (the fact that this is already happening is probably the main reason for a change in tactics).
This is the ISPs regulating their traffic/customers based on content. This is terrible. The ISPs should not be held accountable for the content that passes through their pipes - isn't that the whole idea behind net neutrality?
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for a green card you must have land line to your home, period. The area code must match the land location. If not it is invalid.
That's good, I suppose. But it ignores the idea that green cards aren't a necessity, either. If you can't maintain a landline in good faith, you probably shouldn't be here anyway. Not to sound hostile, but we have enough domestic poor leeching debtors without importing more.
to prove resistance, a phone bill is required many parts of the country. It shows that you are reachable at that location.
Actually, any utility bill will do. The power bill is a bit more ubiquitous; I haven't had a landline of my own, well, ever.
Why would a professional musician or a crew making a movie want to do so for nothing? How would they pay their expenses?
Concerts, theaters, live performances in general. You know, the way they used to do it before TVs and CD players.
Why do you think you have some kind of right to take it for nothing?
Nope, no right - just the ability. Although if it weren't free to me, I wouldn't bother with it anyway, or if I just had to have it, I'd buy it used (for which the artist gets nothing). If anything I'm just giving the artists free proliferation.
Should you not expect any income for your labor and investment in resources and materials?
Do you think that if there were a way for me to copy my labor endlessly for free, that I'd bother to go to work in the first place? I'd create entire organizations that ran on my free labor. It's an apples and oranges comparison here, since I'm blue-collar. My labor is exactly that.
If it weren't, if I actually produced something that could be copyrighted or patented, then I'd take a bit from it (like everyone else) and then release it to the public in short order (unlike most). I am not a greedy person: my needs are modest.
Unless of course, I managed to come up with something that was so beneficial to the public that it demanded to be released freely. Some times you just have to give for no compensation other than gratitude.
What does "when it's free, it won't matter" mean? Who will be making it for free and what will be their motivation?
I really thought this was self-explanatory. Once people finally give up on preventing public dissemination of their works, this issue will be moot.
Are you pointing out some attractive and scalable new paradigm for labor and its compensation, or are you just making pointless noise?
Not new; old. There's simply no need for the huge profit machines that run on artificial scarcity. Artists shouldn't be in their field for fame or fortune. I don't really care if they are or not, but I certainly can't respect that position.
As society gets larger and dehumanized, soon that'll be all we have.
The good thing about that is it can't get much larger. We can go through one more doubling, which at our current rate will be roughly around 2060, and after that starvation will simply keep our numbers from growing any greater.
Even better, going by the general decline in worldwide oil production vs. increasing demand, in all likelihood we'll lose the ability to support even our current numbers by 2030 or so.
Eh. Mostly, we don't care. With any luck, enough people will join in on the infringement bandwagon, and consolidated entertainment as we know it will crash and burn (not likely, but it's always good to have hope).
In other words, until it's free, we'll take it anyway. When it's free, it won't matter.
I fill up my car with gas about every two weeks for about $30 after about 5 hours worth of driving. At those rates, 2 hour movies ought to cost $12, and a 1.5 hour movie ought to cost $9. A flight from Seattle to New York (about 6 hours) ought to cost $35, but more if it's non-stop. Since all forms of entertainment are the same, a 3 minute song on iTunes should now cost $0.30.
I know you were being sarcastic, but except for the airline ticket, all the prices you quoted seem to be right on, IMO. I'd pay $150 for a 6 hour flight.
Huh. I didn't even know most you were looking at a sans-serif font. I only see Times New Roman for these posts (Arial and New Courier are also used, but not for general purposes).
I didn't have to tell Firefox to force anything; your comment made me look at my font settings for the first time since moving up to Firefox 3. Apparently, I have to specifically allow pages to use their fonts rather than mine.
I'll agree that EVs are a little impractical at this point - good for the odd guy out, but not for everyone. And they do just shift the pollution to the power company (although it is probably a net decrease).
.
Biodiesel hybrids, on the other hand, are carbon-neutral (OK, almost) and long range. Very practical. We should all have been in those 20 years ago. Even better, switching to an ultralight construction for these would bring the mileage to something like 150-200 mi./gal.
Have you ever read The Economist ? These guys are economic conservative, and social liberals.
Yes, most (good) economists (and by induction, economic journalists) tend to have that viewpoint. It comes from taking Capitalism as a personal philosophy.
Please. Finding that usage has declined means either the kids are lying about it more, or doing a better job of covering it up. Or both.
Frankly, I learned to be interested in drugs in grade school because of D.A.R.E. I didn't believe what I was told for a second (I was always a very skeptical child), and the program just made me more interested in what I wasn't supposed to do.
No anti-drug message will work, because anything that brings up drugs at all is more likely than not going to create curiosity and interest (unless the kid is just gullible). Really, the only solution I see is to legalize drugs and ban the selling to minors. Then only kids with older siblings can get drugs.
Should there be laws against minors climbing tall things, because they might fall, break their spine, and become paralyzed? They'd surely regret that when they can no longer walk. Such laws fall under the standard complaint of a "nanny state" and precludes people from making educated decisions for themselves.
It's called "reckless endangerment of self" - I found that out when a cop caught me walking on top of a truss bridge.
Actually, I kind of hope the DA goes the full way on this, and loses spectacularly. And sets some precedents.
Life? I hear it does make a good teacher.
The only real problem here is that our wonderfully freedom-loving government has made nudity illegal. All public nudity is illegal. All private nudity of anyone under 18 is illegal. Pretty soon it will be all private nudity of anyone who might possibly pass for under 18. And after that, just all nudity everywhere.
Personally, I support these girls, and the ACLU, for their act of civil disobedience, and I hope they can actually effect some change by it. But I won't hold my breath.
Should the government really just be completely hands free in this?
Yes. Nudity should never be a crime.
But I recognize that, in our society,people who are treated like children are not emotionally mature.
Fixed that for you
I've come across teenage girls, younger than these (the youngest was 14), who have quit school, got a job (don't ask me how), and shacked up with adult men. They were planning on starting a family soon, or already had started.
I didn't agree with their choices, and actually urged them to quit work and go back to school, but they wouldn't hear any of it. I'm only still in contact with one such couple, they have two kids now (she's like 21 now, I think), and are getting by OK - it's what they wanted.
The moral to this story is that every one of these girls was at least as emotionally mature as a woman twice her age. Emotional maturity has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with upbringing. The more you shelter your kids, the more immature they'll stay.
Did you somehow think this wasn't the point?
As would taxing drugs.
Yes! Probably the best reason for the government to legalize drugs (from their point of view) is that they could tax them 300% and still have them available to consumers at a fraction of the black-market price.
Drug prohibition is a particularly good example; it's hard to get rid of because now enforcing it is a multi-billion dollar industry, but it wasn't at first, and it seems unlikely that that was the primary motivation of the people who originally pushed it through decades ago.
You are correct:
There are a few more, but the bulk of illegal drugs today are illegal simply because it was easy to continue what had already been begun.
As for child pornography, that's easy. It began as a law meant to ban actual child pornography (minors actually having coitus or obviously masturbating), and after a continued push from our beloved religious right it now includes any nude image, real or imaginary, of a minor. The next step is "could possibly pass as a minor". We're not there yet, but it's been argued for in Congress, and it's just a matter of time, really.
After all, the idea of minors having sex is thoughtcrime, and must be stopped at all costs.
Your handle suits you well (maybe just not in the way you think it does).
Nothing should be done about this, because nothing wrong was done (at least by the defendants).
The issue against child pornography is that it damages the minor (psychologically or physically, or both). People in their later teens posting nude pictures voluntary isn't and shouldn't be any sort of issue.
The government response to this, as usual, is totally whacked.
No, no, we find shelter when sex isn't available, you see. As for the rest of what's involved in keeping warm, sex pretty much handles that by itself.
it's a way too complex and nuanced story with far too many characters to translate into a satisfying movie to anyone who hadn't already read the comic books.
I didn't read the comic books. I didn't even know it was based on a comic book until I watched it (comic book movies all have the same feel to them). I found it interesting, and more satisfying in a sort of sad, visceral way than most superhero movies. The ending was also unique in the genre, which I appreciated.
does this mean that the USA is finally getting it's head out if it's ass and will turn down the violence and stop demonizing nudity and sex?
No, because the Christian right is the most vocal minority in this country, and they won't be satisfied until all references to human sexuality have been abolished.
We're making progress. We've even managed to legalize homosexuality in the south (that was 3 years ago). In actuality, our media is far, far ahead of the culture in many parts of the U.S. There are some places here where you can get yourself a 10 year prison sentence for displaying tasteless costumes in your shop window.
Are you from the UK, by any chance? If you are, I have a bone to pick with you. Why the hell did you send the Puritans here? Why didn't you just kill them all? Do you realize what a mess they made of this country, are still making? We would have been perfectly happy consisting of rogues, scoundrels, and capitalists, without adding some militant cultists into the mix. </pointless rant>
I suspect this has a lot to do with brain-dead parenting over the last 25 years changing society's view of children into mini-adults.
I'm not about to argue that most parents are idiots: most people are idiots and all parents are people, so it only follows logically that there is at least more than a few parents that are idiots.
My issue is with the idea that it's somehow wrong to treat children as mini-adults. They are mini-adults, at least once they get to the school-age point. I've always treated kids old enough to talk coherently the exact same way as I'd treat adults, unless they acted silly, in which case I'd call them on it and they'd get a little more serious. I've had great results with this method. (No, I don't have any kids of my own, but plenty of my friends do).
Hell, age of majority used to be puberty; 300 years ago there was no such thing as a teenager, at least not one that was considered a minor.
The real problem with this society is that we keep treating people like kids long after they cease to be. No wonder our youth is so fucked up.
UH, which societies would those be? The ones that allow marriage as young as 12 or the ones that allow it even younger?
I just want to point out that the minimum marriageable age in New Hampshire is 13; several states have no minimum marriageable age at all (California has no minimum and only requires one parent or guardian from either the bride's or the groom's side to OK a marriage).
There is no competition in broadband in the US due to lack of regulation.
Actually, you have it backwards. There's no competition in broadband in the U.S. because of regulation. You see, our government does not control nor own our public infrastructure, and only one power line, one phone line, and one cable line is permitted in any particular area because, well, that's the law (and it kind of makes sense, I give it that).
Since the infrastructure is owned by private companies, and only one set of infrastructure is permitted in any locale, utility companies are given government-granted monopolies.
No, this is worse. If the RIAA wants to make a bad name for themselves passing around a reverse lottery to their customers, that's something I'm willing to live with, especially since they will eventually piss off the courts enough to get this method shut down (the fact that this is already happening is probably the main reason for a change in tactics).
This is the ISPs regulating their traffic/customers based on content. This is terrible. The ISPs should not be held accountable for the content that passes through their pipes - isn't that the whole idea behind net neutrality?