As surprising as it can be for our friendly southern neighbours, this consultation isn't simply a formality for an already decided soon-to-become law. They put out this document as a point of departure for discussion on modernising Canada's laws with regard to the recent advances in telecommunications. This isn't the official stance of the government, it's a "well, we'd like to achieve such-and-such, and here's a possible way we could do it, waddayathink?" And here comes the really shocking part, they *really* do care about what we think.
Admittedly, I've never participated in a Department of Justice consultation before, but I've been quite active in the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) public proceedings regarding the telecommunication industry (phone companies) and boy, did that restore my faith in the democratic institutions of Canada. What struck me as the most insane (in a good way) was that our voice as simple citizens was treated with the same importance as was BCE's (Bell Canada Enterprises) President! Several of my comments were even highlighted by the commission in it's final regulation proposal documents.
So don't panic, don't wine on/. that everything is going to hell in a hand basket, open your favourite mail reader and write to la-al@justice.gc.ca telling them why this proposal is a bad idea *and* what we should be doing instead.
You make a lot of good points, but you seem to have forgotten just one little thing...
Apple controls both the hardware and the OS on their machines. No dealing with uncooperative hardware manufacturers, no built-in incompatibilities, no thousands of pieces to test in kazillions of combinations, no undocumented random "features" from companies that long ago stopped existing...
Of course I'd love it if RedHat (or Linux in general for that matter) achived all the things you mentioned (and it's certainly not because they aren't trying). But we should keep in mind that Apple as a huge field advantage on that one.
The UN is a group of appointed officials accountable to no one but each other. Democracy implies that the people make the decision who is in charge, not a committee.
1) U.S. citizens vote to elect the President, Senators and Congressmen.
2) POTUS appoints members of his administration.
3) Senate committee confirm the nominations.
4) New administration officials, while not elected into office, are nevertheless accountable to the citizens of the United States.
Now lets look at the following:
1) U.S. citizens vote to elect the President, Senators and Congressmen.
2) POTUS appoints ambassadors, one of whom will be to the United Nations.
3) Senate committee confirm the nominations.
4) The new U.S. ambassador to the UN gets one (1) vote to cast, in a democratic process, on all matters brought forth before the General Assembly. This include the election of the Secretary General to represent the United Nations.
Care to explain to us the differences between the two?
And just in case you didn't notice, no nation on Earth, with the possible exception, to some extend, of Switzerland, is a participatory democracy.
Yes, how could Americans not see the value in a bloated bureaucracy that is not elected and is accountable to no one? I thought there was a revolution fought over those same principles...
Does this comment spawns from the fact that you are just as ignorant about the United Nations as an anti-globalisation protestor is about the World Trade Organisation, or are you simply trolling and noticed that mentioning the American Revolution on/. is good for karma?
The UN is an international, democratic and very open organisation that is accountable to each of its member states, the government of those member states and ultimately the people who elect those governments. The US representative to the UN is an ambassador, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, just like any other official in the administration. In fact, you can read all about it on the section of the UN website maintained by the Department of State. Of course, reality is not as interesting as conspiracy theories about how the UN is hell-bent on conquering the world and taking away your right to bear arms.
Speaking of which, be sure to check out the new Civilization III site that opened two days ago! It is being developed by Sid Meier (but no Brian Reynolds this time around) and his team at Firaxis.
Freeciv is great, don't get me wrong (it's much better than CivII IMHO), but I'm drooling just by thinking of a new version of the classic we all know and love.
There I was, sitting in front of my computer, minding my own business, wondering why kuro5hin was giving me a "Connection Timed Out" all of a sudden.
-Fade from black- random geek basement
AC #1:so kuro5hin wants to have a subscription fee to pay for bandwich uh?
AC #2:yup, what the fuck is rusty thinking? paying for stuff that we like? on the internet? mwhahaha... idiots! but i have a plan, a plan so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel. let's put a link to them on slashdot! That will show those suckers just how much bandwich really cost!
I don't watch TV alot, but B5 was one of the best TV series (scifi or not) I ever saw. JMS truly created a little gem there, and he's definitively not a one-shot poney (just look at what he did to the comic world with Rising Stars).
If he takes the same care with Legends of the Rangers than he did with B5, and since TNT doesn't have anything to do with the new serie and thus can't mess it us (Crusade anyone?), I really don't see how you can condemn it before even seeing it (or knowing anything about it for that matter).
Maybe it will suck. Maybe it will be just as good as B5. Knowing JMS, I think (and hope) for the latter. In any case, I'll wait 'till it out before making any judgements.
You're absolutly right. And even ignoring the ethical aspect for a moment, it only shows that corporations and money is running the show. Why should JumpTV have to put regional barriers to respect the laws of another country? I mean, really, if it was, say, Afganistan instead of the MPAA screaming bloody murder, would anyone gives a damn?
They have already started broadcasting several stations, which you can find here, but you need to have javascript on. And don't bother unless you're running windows, because everything is in Windows Media format.
Speaking of which, can someone please explain to me the reasons for the popularity of that format? I mean, not that I particularly like Real Media, but at least it's running on more than one freaking platform.
While its easy to dismiss the whole site based on the front page, you'd really be missing something: the films. "Rear Entry: An Unauthorized Expedition into Amazon.com" was produced and realised by John Tynes (the famed game designer and author of the recent Salon article on Wizards of the Coast linked Monday on/.) is well worth seeing and received quite considerable media attention. The soon-to-be released "Barely Legal: Amazon.com Employees On the Record & Off the Leash" seems off to a good start too. You can grab the trailers for both here. (.mov only, sorry).
The procecusion put forth the testimony of a police detective, which, more often than not, is considered pretty canon in a court of law. And what did Shapeshifter presented as a defence? A whole bunch of nothing.
He was talking on his cellphone no? Why didn't he present his phone record to prove he wasn't calling to direct the protest?
The police had videotapes of the event, right? If they didn't present them, why didn't he? The procecusion is required to give the defence all potentially exculpatory evidence.
Could it be that maybe, just maybe, he actually commited the acts he was convicted for?
The best coverage for the canadian elections can be found on canoe.ca, although they do a pretty poor job of hidding their partisanship for Day.
The elections are going to last five weeks. That's plenty enough. Do you really wants elections à la United States where they drag on forever? People act all surprised when an election is called, as if they just discovered that politics existed!
And no, Day isn't for legalization of marijuana.
-Earthling
It's alot more effective than you would think
on
Million E-mail March
·
· Score: 3
Sorry, but that idea won't accomplish a thing. Congressional staffers don't have much regard for e-mail
While not as effective as a good-old hand written letter, email is alot more effective than you seem to believe. Email has become the method of choice, replacing telegrams (I'm not kidding) for telling politicians what people think. It would be foolish to believe that your representative actually reads the emails he receive (or the letters for that matter), but his or her staffers will read, count and catalog them, and them report what's going on to their boss. And they pay heed to that.
Remember those old hack & slash games you used to have on Friday nights?
Remember the scare caused by role-playing games in general, and DnD in particular?
It's a fact, Yahoo URLs come up more and more often in Google. Weither it's from malicious code from the Google folks or simply Yahoo adapting their pages to get better results in it, I don't know and so I'll leave the speculation to the experts. =)
However, I do know that if I'm making a search in Google, I don't care to find a list of links on Yahoo as a result (else I would have used Yahoo, don't you think?).
So, to get rid of Yahoo results, simply make your search at Google Advanced Search page (http://www.google.com/advanced_search.ht ml) and put "yahoo.com in the "exclude" field.
Et voilà! No more Yahoo pages showing up in google.
Emmett, what were you thinking? Look at what you've done!;)
(from the current running personae on the Forum)
[ simulated persona = "Corey Kosak", node #28, max search depth 63%, neural variance 14.571 ] Jesus fucking Christ we're getting Slashdotted again
[ simulated persona = "Corey Kosak", node #54, max search depth 50%, neural variance 27.972 ] This is NOT how I wanted to spend my final few minutes before death
The "from mud to mud and nothing else really matters" mentality that seems to be prevalent amongst my generation and in those who are following means that while they still know, for the most part, what is right and what is wrong, they don't care all that much. There is no eternal reward, no eternal punishment, no great purpose, and within a few hundred years your actions, good or bad, are usually completely forgotten. So who cares?
As I was writting a ratter long rebutal of those statements, it stroke me than Einstein had resumed the issue quite well in Cosmic Religion with other opinions and aphorisms:
The ethical behavior of man is better based on sympathy, education, and social relationships, and requires no support from religion. [It] would, indeed, be sad if he had to be kept in order through fear of punishment and hope of rewards after death.
Binary code is a reproduction of source code, not a translation. A translation will not have exactly the same meaning as the original (Babelfish is a good example), but a reproduction will.
Slashdot Mirror
As surprising as it can be for our friendly southern neighbours, this consultation isn't simply a formality for an already decided soon-to-become law. They put out this document as a point of departure for discussion on modernising Canada's laws with regard to the recent advances in telecommunications. This isn't the official stance of the government, it's a "well, we'd like to achieve such-and-such, and here's a possible way we could do it, waddayathink?" And here comes the really shocking part, they *really* do care about what we think.
/. that everything is going to hell in a hand basket, open your favourite mail reader and write to la-al@justice.gc.ca telling them why this proposal is a bad idea *and* what we should be doing instead.
Admittedly, I've never participated in a Department of Justice consultation before, but I've been quite active in the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) public proceedings regarding the telecommunication industry (phone companies) and boy, did that restore my faith in the democratic institutions of Canada. What struck me as the most insane (in a good way) was that our voice as simple citizens was treated with the same importance as was BCE's (Bell Canada Enterprises) President! Several of my comments were even highlighted by the commission in it's final regulation proposal documents.
So don't panic, don't wine on
That's what I'm gonna do. Will you?
Apple controls both the hardware and the OS on their machines. No dealing with uncooperative hardware manufacturers, no built-in incompatibilities, no thousands of pieces to test in kazillions of combinations, no undocumented random "features" from companies that long ago stopped existing...
Of course I'd love it if RedHat (or Linux in general for that matter) achived all the things you mentioned (and it's certainly not because they aren't trying). But we should keep in mind that Apple as a huge field advantage on that one.
2) POTUS appoints members of his administration.
3) Senate committee confirm the nominations.
4) New administration officials, while not elected into office, are nevertheless accountable to the citizens of the United States.
Now lets look at the following:
1) U.S. citizens vote to elect the President, Senators and Congressmen.
2) POTUS appoints ambassadors, one of whom will be to the United Nations.
3) Senate committee confirm the nominations.
4) The new U.S. ambassador to the UN gets one (1) vote to cast, in a democratic process, on all matters brought forth before the General Assembly. This include the election of the Secretary General to represent the United Nations.
Care to explain to us the differences between the two?
And just in case you didn't notice, no nation on Earth, with the possible exception, to some extend, of Switzerland, is a participatory democracy.
The UN is an international, democratic and very open organisation that is accountable to each of its member states, the government of those member states and ultimately the people who elect those governments. The US representative to the UN is an ambassador, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, just like any other official in the administration. In fact, you can read all about it on the section of the UN website maintained by the Department of State. Of course, reality is not as interesting as conspiracy theories about how the UN is hell-bent on conquering the world and taking away your right to bear arms.
www.civ3.com
Freeciv is great, don't get me wrong (it's much better than CivII IMHO), but I'm drooling just by thinking of a new version of the classic we all know and love.
A good scapegoat is nearly as welcome as a solution to the problem.
-Earthling
-Fade from black- random geek basement
AC #1: so kuro5hin wants to have a subscription fee to pay for bandwich uh?
AC #2: yup, what the fuck is rusty thinking? paying for stuff that we like? on the internet? mwhahaha... idiots! but i have a plan, a plan so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel. let's put a link to them on slashdot! That will show those suckers just how much bandwich really cost!
-Earthling
I don't watch TV alot, but B5 was one of the best TV series (scifi or not) I ever saw. JMS truly created a little gem there, and he's definitively not a one-shot poney (just look at what he did to the comic world with Rising Stars).
If he takes the same care with Legends of the Rangers than he did with B5, and since TNT doesn't have anything to do with the new serie and thus can't mess it us (Crusade anyone?), I really don't see how you can condemn it before even seeing it (or knowing anything about it for that matter).
Maybe it will suck. Maybe it will be just as good as B5. Knowing JMS, I think (and hope) for the latter. In any case, I'll wait 'till it out before making any judgements.
-Earthling
You're absolutly right. And even ignoring the ethical aspect for a moment, it only shows that corporations and money is running the show. Why should JumpTV have to put regional barriers to respect the laws of another country? I mean, really, if it was, say, Afganistan instead of the MPAA screaming bloody murder, would anyone gives a damn?
-Earthling
Speaking of which, can someone please explain to me the reasons for the popularity of that format? I mean, not that I particularly like Real Media, but at least it's running on more than one freaking platform.
-Earthling
While its easy to dismiss the whole site based on the front page, you'd really be missing something: the films. "Rear Entry: An Unauthorized Expedition into Amazon.com" was produced and realised by John Tynes (the famed game designer and author of the recent Salon article on Wizards of the Coast linked Monday on /.) is well worth seeing and received quite considerable media attention. The soon-to-be released "Barely Legal: Amazon.com Employees On the Record & Off the Leash" seems off to a good start too. You can grab the trailers for both here. (.mov only, sorry).
-Earthling
He was talking on his cellphone no? Why didn't he present his phone record to prove he wasn't calling to direct the protest?
The police had videotapes of the event, right? If they didn't present them, why didn't he? The procecusion is required to give the defence all potentially exculpatory evidence.
Could it be that maybe, just maybe, he actually commited the acts he was convicted for?
-Earthling
Who cares about accurate reporting?
It just makes for better ratings...
-Earthling
The elections are going to last five weeks. That's plenty enough. Do you really wants elections à la United States where they drag on forever? People act all surprised when an election is called, as if they just discovered that politics existed!
And no, Day isn't for legalization of marijuana.
-Earthling
-Earthling
Remember the scare caused by role-playing games in general, and DnD in particular?
Then you have to listen to this: http://www.nfds.net/~byron/mp3/DnD.mp3
Warning: Please do not eat or drink while listening to this. Don't say I didn't warn you! =)
-Earthling
Talking of which... my keyboard is way pass due for a good cleaning. Anyone can suggest a good way to do so without running it?
-Earthling
However, I do know that if I'm making a search in Google, I don't care to find a list of links on Yahoo as a result (else I would have used Yahoo, don't you think?).
So, to get rid of Yahoo results, simply make your search at Google Advanced Search page (http://www.google.com/advanced_search.ht ml) and put "yahoo.com in the "exclude" field.
Et voilà! No more Yahoo pages showing up in google.
-Earthling
The site is already slashdotted... anyone got a copy?
-Earthling
(from the current running personae on the Forum)
[ simulated persona = "Corey Kosak", node #28, max search depth 63%, neural variance 14.571 ]
Jesus fucking Christ we're getting Slashdotted again
[ simulated persona = "Corey Kosak", node #54, max search depth 50%, neural variance 27.972 ]
This is NOT how I wanted to spend my final few minutes before death
-Earthling
And you thought the slashdot effect was bad already!
-Earthling
I am Canadian (Quicktime movie)
What behind canadian is all about. =)
-Earthling
The ethical behavior of man is better based on sympathy, education, and social relationships, and requires no support from religion. [It] would, indeed, be sad if he had to be kept in order through fear of punishment and hope of rewards after death.
-Earthling
Try spamcop.net instead... it works very well and you're not selling your soul to one telemarketer to get rid of another.
-Earthling
Small, but extremely important legal difference.
-Earthling