Offtopic, but I was hoping to ask a few questions to an intelligent, rational member of the Tea Party. I'm assuming you qualify, since you are a member of this tribe -- and of course our tribe is very intelligent and rational.:)
A big chunk of the Tea Party platform is adherence to The Constitution and Bill of Rights. I am a studious and zealous fan of those documents. I think their underlying principles, particularly in The Bill of Rights, are surprisingly prescient and noble.
I have heard varying views from high ranking Tea Party members regarding some portions of The Bill of Rights, and while I know that it is a young party and subject to various interpretations, I am interested to hear your take.
What is your take on "Congress shall make no law" when it is in conflict with sections of The Constitution like the responsibility of The President to provide for the national defense? Does the prohibition in The Bill of Rights take precedence, or the obligation in The Constitution?
I am a strong supporter of The Second Amendment. Yet I am tempted to agree that private citizens should not be allowed to own nuclear weapons. The Supreme Court once ruled (in not protecting sawed off shotguns) that the second only applied to weapons of war, though clearly nuclear weapons are weapons of war (or mortars or tanks, for example). Many have argued the "well regulated militia angle", of course. Where do you stand on limitations to The Second Amendment?
What is your take on The Establishment Clause? The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, yet many (including many high ranking members of The Tea Party) have expressed a belief that religious morals rightly should inform legislation. There are certainly laws which satisfy religious morals while not being an establishment of religion, like the prohibition against murder. Other issues, such as the distinction between civil union and marriage, seem difficult to divide from their religious origins. How should The Establishment Clause be interpreted, and do you feel that The Tea Party as an organization has internalized that interpretation?
Though the bent of my questions may seem hard, I am not trying to be hostile. I genuinely would like to see a party that truly put The Bill of Rights and The Constitution first -- but there are some deep conflicts between those documents and our modern interpretation of civilization. I am interested to hear your views, and your thoughts on whether The Tea Party can find a closer reality to the principles behind those documents.
You'd have a point if 99% of people used R4s to infringe copyright and 1% used them lawfully.
Fact is, nothing remotely close to 99% of DS customers use R4s to infringe copyright (let alone 99% of people). And the correlation between infringement and displaced sales is unknown. And the cost of outlawing distribution of tools that can be used for infringement is not seriously considered.
Demonstrating that GP was incorrect is a fine thing, but your correction would have more reach if you were careful to avoid being interpreted as an equally flawed opponent. (unless your goal was argument rather than debate, in which case I retract my comment)
It's a bell curve, not a set score based on set criteria.
From the site: "...performance on an absolute scale of 0 to 100 in these categories.... For comparison to other countries, the distribution of all scores is reperesented by the darker gray background of each category."
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not a hater. I'm still here because I think this is the best foundation to work from. However, I think we do have some issues that need to be addressed. While this site has an excellent objective and at first glance is doing fantastic work toward their goal, it is important that we who would take this nation to even greater levels not blind ourselves to our challenges.
We have a practical accountability problem, despite our official on-paper accountability. Not an insurmountable one, and perhaps our competitor nations are not doing better. Still, claiming we score over 80/100 on legislative, and over 90/100 on executive and budget -- on an absolute scale -- runs the risk of fostering continued lack of attention.
I became skeptical when I saw the U.S. ratings for executive and legislative accountability. On the surface, I think the numbers are fair. However, our adversarial two-party system, driven by sound-byte-reactionism, leaves the effective accountability far below the on-paper accountability. With congressional approval ratings running below 25%, we have an incumbency rate above 90%. That cannot jibe with a high accountability level.
Overall, I think the site is excellent. Its objective is outstanding. However, I think that the accountability metrics demonstrate a significant lack of consideration of (or at least inability to accurately reflect) pseudo-integrity.
So, tell me -- are they going to do the same for Federal Express?
If someone sends counterfeit Gucci handbags through Federal Express, will they fine the transport company?
Transport companies are not supposed to, nor should they bear the cost of, poking through every package that transits their network. That is true whether the packages are boxes or packets.
It is a world operating completely as expected when a multinational corporation cares more about satisfying the requests of large customers than it does small ones.
Well said. Thanks for truthing my post.:)
We would do well to remember that they are American In Name Only the next time they whine about taxes or H1Bs.
Given the very next story on Slashdot is about the federal government using college funding to twist colleges' arms into acting as copyright cops, and the federal government's long history of using federal highway funds as golden handcuffs, I wonder how long until the ISPs who take this money will be told to bow and scrape before the MAFIAA.
I think that the time has come for the members of our community (individual and organizational) to stop holding ourselves to a higher standard of decency. The simple, ugly fact is that these kinds of battles are won by those who are willing to fight according to the rules of the game -- ie: dirty.
These fascists are bent on corrupting our legislative process to put more power into the pockets of copyright lawyers and labels with no regard for the artists they manipulate beyond their own corporate self-interest, let alone the interests of other artists or society as a whole. That is, perhaps, as it should be. Corporations are supposed to be purely rationally self-interested. But do not let them pretend the moral high ground.
Let us put this argument on the ground it should be on. Do not merely defend our position that copyright should be designed to maximize artistic productivity and reach within our society as a whole -- expose their rationally self-interested fascism and corruption for what it is. They do not have the interest of the advance of science and the useful arts at heart. They want the progress of the useful arts strictly controlled in a manner that maximizes their corporations' acquisition of wealth.
I do not begrudge them this desire. They are what our economic system designs them to be. But it is entirely necessary that we, in our public discourse of such matters, consider them as they truly are. In short, they have made this a matter of public opinion. Tell the public what these vicious animals are, in the harshest and most unflattering light possible.
In both cases, you're still skimming (though one a bit deeper than the other, it's still surface).
Not to disagree with your overall point, but to reiterate: Ultimately this led to studying the 1987 S&L collapse and to compare and contrast the two situations.
I have since vetted my findings with a retired investment banker and a couple economists. They helped me polish the position, and were intrigued and agreed with my work.
It also led to spending some quality time with Piketty/Saez 2007 and to some rather deep contemplation and analysis of the correlated decline in smaller enterprises. My current hypothesis is that Piketty/Saez 07 and what I have learned about the shift in corporation size are both mere canaries in the coal mine of a deeper and dangerous trend that is a significant cause of both '87 and '08.
All that said, I think the main subject of your post has merit.
I can't speak for anyone else, but while I do skim the news on Google and Slashdot, I also often delve.
When I saw an article, for example, on CDOs and their role in the 2008 collapse, I spent a couple hours diving into the depths of credit derivatives. Ultimately this led to studying the 1987 S&L collapse and to compare and contrast the two situations. It was very enlightening and all the research was carried out via the Internet.
Is the Internet the cause of facile perusal as he implies?
Is it the the motivating force behind my deeper study?
I would suggest it is neither, or both. It is a means for both skimming and deep traversal. While one might argue that Twitter or Facebook facilitates and hence encourages interruption, one could as easily argue that Wikipedia or The Bureau of Economic Analysis do as much to encourage deep consideration.
I might suggest that there is another cause for his observation: Perhaps he is looking at popular media and its place on the Internet. I think it is reasonable to claim that The New York Times has become more oriented toward trite sound bites during the explosion of the Internet. To this, however, I would ask; correlation or causation? Has the Internet made the New York Times shift, or has mass media been shifting toward bland wire stories and hot-talk editorials independently?
Oh come on. How can a free market economist complain about how a private company decides to run their own store?
Much as Free Software is different from free software, free market is different from laissez-faire. A free market presupposes, among other things, perfect competition. Neither perfect competition nor a free market evolve naturally from laissez-faire. Adam Smith documented the core concepts in The Wealth of Nations, including many cases of necessary government intervention.
One quick example: Do you believe in any amount of patent or copyright? Those are cases of government intervention.
A GDP-maximizing free market economy is not as simple as laissez-faire.
When a sailboat or iceboat is sailing across the wind (beam reach), the apparent wind (the velocity of wind relative to the sail) diminishes more slowly than the velocity of the vessel increases. This is why it is possible for a vessel on a reach to exceed the surface-relative wind velocity.
When a sailboat, iceboat, or hoax travels directly downwind, the apparent wind is equal to the velocity of the wind minus the velocity of the vessel. The force imparted on the vessel by the wind is related to the sail area times that apparent velocity. When the vessel is traveling at the same surface-relative velocity as the wind, the apparent wind drops to zero and the force imparted on the vessel drops to zero. No amount of gearing can multiply a force of zero to make it greater than zero.
To come at this from a slightly different direction, consider that propellers are not terribly efficient thrust producing devices. Ground cars do not use propellers (except for novelty purposes) because it is more efficient to use tires, which have higher efficiency (or metal wheels in the case of trains, which are better still on a very smooth surface). Suppose that instead of confusing things by adding a propeller, they claimed that they had one set of wheels being turned by the wind-powered forward motion of the vehicle. They then had a gear train running from those "power" wheels and connected to a set of "drive" wheels. They claimed that the wind power pushing the vehicle forward caused the "power" wheels to spin, to turn the gear train, and hence to spin the "drive" wheels faster than the power wheels -- propelling the vehicle forward.
If you would not believe the two-sets-of-wheels design, you should not believe this one.
In short, this did not happen. The vehicle did not reach steady state direct downwind travel above the ground-relative velocity of the wind.
One that I find moderately frustrating as a developer; the Netflix app. Fire it up and within the first one or two screens you see a pile of UI issues that would get any mere mortal rejected. I understand that the lax approval for Netflix is all about the benjamins, but it is still a little irritating to the free market economist in me. Perfect competition is tarnished when some are a little more equal than others.
If they use no public funds or public land, let them do what they will.
I have to disagree. While your argument may be a potent weapon, it is not the principle issue. This is fundamentally about liability and authority.
If they have the authority to discriminate against traffic, they should be liable for what they carry (ie: RIAA feeding frenzy).
If they want to be immune from that liability, they should not be allowed to choose what traffic to carry.
Simple common carrier. In or out. Either you are blind to the content of packets, or you are liable for them. Let them choose. But don't give them immunity from prosecution and the authority to discriminate against content.
Correcting the original post more than your response. Just to clarify; this is the largest inflatable, not the largest airship. The old and new zeppelins use a rigid frame.
Translucent is better than opaque. Transparent is something different.
Claiming they are being transparent when they are not putting all the information on the table is, simply, a lie. Whether they are the least bad actor, the best actor, or even if the net outcome to society is positive is not the question. They are not being transparent, but they are claiming they are for political purposes.
I don't like it when politicians lie. I don't like it when lobbyists lie. I don't like it when corporations lie. When it comes to contemplating public policy, We The People deserve and should demand honesty. We cannot have a meaningful discussion about these things if we don't talk plain.
They could say, "We are more transparent than most, though we have not yet chosen to publish everything for cost efficiency reasons." That would be true and, frankly, I would accept it. In fact I personally feel that their level of diligence is sufficient. That does not make it OK to lie in a discussion about public policy.
I have, and believe we all should have, a zero tolerance policy for liars in the public forum.
'We are committed to being transparent with our users about the information that we collect when they use our products and services, why we collect it, and how we use it to improve their experience.'
Sooooo, the little tracking bugs from Double Click and Google Analytics? You're being transparent about all that data, eh? You have a nice place where I can see everything you have recorded on your hard drives about my browsing history? How about a page telling me all the sites your tracking bugs are on, and the number of unique pages and users they track? A clear, concise description of the algorithms you use to personalize ads, including the row and column definitions for the matrix(ces)?
Tell me again how serious you are about transparency. Really, I'm fascinated -- do go on.
So, Obama, you don't like the informedness level of the public dialog? Hmmm, let's see -- is there anything that the most powerful person in the world could do about that? What say you fix the problem, instead of just whining?
See, the thing is I agree with the problem. The public dialog is shallow and vitriolic. But guess what? That is because of the way your party and the other big party approach winning elections. You are the ones who are encouraging shallow, vitriolic discourse.
The solution is not to tell us to change. The solution is for you to change. Here's a few suggestions:
1. Stop talking about your policies as if they are pure wins. Every bit of public policy has a pro and a con. Talk about the costs of copyright enforcement, or the anguish of collateral damage once in a while. 2. Stop talking about the enemy's policies as if they were pure evil. Every bit of public policy that is credibly advocated has some upside. And I'm not talking about damning with faint praise here -- show me you are really cognizant of the benefits your enemies are seeking. 3. Stop talking about just the effects. Every politician loves to tell me about the outcome of some proposed new law. Try encouraging a public dialog about the forces with which a law will interact. Encourage us to discuss and contemplate the causes for law, and various potential solutions. 4. Open the government, so we don't have to feed on punditry and news angertainment. Set up forums and participate in them. Take our views seriously. Remember you are our servant, you're supposed to be listening to us even if you think you are smarter than us (something I can completely understand -- I think I'm smarter than us too). 5. Use your spin powers for good. Washington DC is awash in flacks whose job is to make people think and act in certain ways. Take five people from your socio-manipulation staff and task them with whipping the public into a maelstrom of civic participation. 6. Find the common ground. Don't just pander to the base with the above. Right-wing people are just as pissed off with their party as lefties are with yours. Most of us on both sides are actually deeply patriotic people who would love to be united on a few things. Work with that. 7. Stop using the simple stuff for unification. Yes, yes, we all hate terr'rists and we all think health care is too expensive and we all wish the deficit were lower and we all (except about 20% of us that you seem to enjoy pissing off) love jesus or similar mystical being. Yawn. Meaningless. How about some of the principles that we cleave to? A little fire and brimstone passion for liberty(*)? Maybe some of the best bits of the free market like "an informed consumer"? How about getting us excited about the more subtle (and more bedrock) things that make America work?
In short, stop telling us what to think and start leading us to think.
The President whining that the public dialog is too shallow and divisive? Un-fucking-believable. It is significantly your fault, and there is not one single person on the planet with more power to fix it.
And ferfucksake don't give me that "I'm too busy being President" crap. Fuck that. Put everything else on hold until we fix the public discourse. It is the number one most dangerous thing we face. Like the Taliban times ten. If we don't fix how we make decisions, then making one or two correct decisions because you work real hard on them won't make a damned bit of difference.
* including liberty from government, not just liberty through government
Love it. I would tend toward allowing optional renewal on an exponential scale.
First two years: $1000 (prototyping) Next three years: $10,000 (initial market exploration) Next five years: $100,000 (expansion to adjacent markets) Next five years: $1,000,000 (you should be making real money by now if it is worthy of patent)
Then an additional x10 for each additional five years up to whatever limit we find reasonable.
That way the indie doesn't have to sell his soul to the vulture capitalists to get the front cash; he can bootstrap it.
This ensures that society is getting increasing compensation for the continued lock-down of the technology, brings significantly more revenue into the PTO so they can hire more and better examiners, tends to limit extensions to products which are being actively produced, enables inventors of truly ground-breaking technology to get the long protection they now enjoy, and naturally end-of-life's patents so they don't wind up lurking in dark corners to strike unrelated future technology.
As an aside; I think the same concept is fundamentally sound for copyright as well. It is a more rational economic approach, which embraces the notion that the cost to society of fiat monopoly increases over time. To do anything less is, simply, to harm the GDP for the benefit of special interests.
Here are a few simple rules for living a happy life:
1. Never make fun of a woman's age, or tell her she looks fat. 2. Never make fun of a fashionable gay man's clothes. 3. Never make fun of a straight man's package.
I'm not saying that what this guy did was right, but seriously: If you break one of the above rules and you get hit, that's just nature's way of telling you you're an asshole.
The original article was from Fox News - I'm just amazed they realised it was a damn, and not a giant vacuum cleaner given the quality of their fact checking.
It is, IMO, even more damning than that -- it's a wire feed article that originated with The Sun, England's answer to The New York Post. The closest they get to journalism is printing slightly fewer Bigfoot sightings than The Weekly World News.
Having no actual investigative reporters and blindly publishing things from credible news feeds is one thing (the death-knell of traditional media's role in journalism, for example). Doing the same with a tabloid as your source is even worse.
"...not voting to apply Title II regulation to Internet carriers is tantamount to giving up on net neutrality -- which has been a centerpiece of the Obama administration's tech policy."
As one who bought the hype and strongly advocated for Obama, let me say I think this sentence is under-broad. From Gitmo to torture to open government to bringing everyone to the table on health care, the story has been the same.
The author mentions giving up on netneut, a centerpiece of tech policy. I think giving up on things has been a centerpiece all Obama policy.
Mr. Williams said... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.'
OK, well;
1: Explain to me why "printing isn't a sort of environmental negative." Start by explaining how using energy and materials in cases where it is not worthwhile to do so is environmentally (or even economically) neutral or positive. 2: If step 1 proves to be impossible or tortured at best, tell me why you think your customers should be misinformed. 3: Re-read the section on free market economics about the importance of informed consumers. 4: Apologize for being an enemy of the benevolent ideals of the free market.
This is why people have problems with the free market. Not because an efficient free market is bad, but because oligopolist assholes like this guy work so hard to harm the free market. Even aside from whether he succeeds in damaging the free market, he is creating harmful imagery of what the free market is, which harms us all.
Of course, it is easy to throw stones. The harder question for me is: How do you fix it?
Slashdot Mirror
Offtopic, but I was hoping to ask a few questions to an intelligent, rational member of the Tea Party. I'm assuming you qualify, since you are a member of this tribe -- and of course our tribe is very intelligent and rational. :)
A big chunk of the Tea Party platform is adherence to The Constitution and Bill of Rights. I am a studious and zealous fan of those documents. I think their underlying principles, particularly in The Bill of Rights, are surprisingly prescient and noble.
I have heard varying views from high ranking Tea Party members regarding some portions of The Bill of Rights, and while I know that it is a young party and subject to various interpretations, I am interested to hear your take.
What is your take on "Congress shall make no law" when it is in conflict with sections of The Constitution like the responsibility of The President to provide for the national defense? Does the prohibition in The Bill of Rights take precedence, or the obligation in The Constitution?
I am a strong supporter of The Second Amendment. Yet I am tempted to agree that private citizens should not be allowed to own nuclear weapons. The Supreme Court once ruled (in not protecting sawed off shotguns) that the second only applied to weapons of war, though clearly nuclear weapons are weapons of war (or mortars or tanks, for example). Many have argued the "well regulated militia angle", of course. Where do you stand on limitations to The Second Amendment?
What is your take on The Establishment Clause? The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, yet many (including many high ranking members of The Tea Party) have expressed a belief that religious morals rightly should inform legislation. There are certainly laws which satisfy religious morals while not being an establishment of religion, like the prohibition against murder. Other issues, such as the distinction between civil union and marriage, seem difficult to divide from their religious origins. How should The Establishment Clause be interpreted, and do you feel that The Tea Party as an organization has internalized that interpretation?
Though the bent of my questions may seem hard, I am not trying to be hostile. I genuinely would like to see a party that truly put The Bill of Rights and The Constitution first -- but there are some deep conflicts between those documents and our modern interpretation of civilization. I am interested to hear your views, and your thoughts on whether The Tea Party can find a closer reality to the principles behind those documents.
You'd have a point if 99% of people used R4s to infringe copyright and 1% used them lawfully.
Fact is, nothing remotely close to 99% of DS customers use R4s to infringe copyright (let alone 99% of people). And the correlation between infringement and displaced sales is unknown. And the cost of outlawing distribution of tools that can be used for infringement is not seriously considered.
Demonstrating that GP was incorrect is a fine thing, but your correction would have more reach if you were careful to avoid being interpreted as an equally flawed opponent. (unless your goal was argument rather than debate, in which case I retract my comment)
It's a bell curve, not a set score based on set criteria.
From the site: ... For comparison to other countries, the distribution of all scores is reperesented by the darker gray background of each category."
"...performance on an absolute scale of 0 to 100 in these categories.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not a hater. I'm still here because I think this is the best foundation to work from. However, I think we do have some issues that need to be addressed. While this site has an excellent objective and at first glance is doing fantastic work toward their goal, it is important that we who would take this nation to even greater levels not blind ourselves to our challenges.
We have a practical accountability problem, despite our official on-paper accountability. Not an insurmountable one, and perhaps our competitor nations are not doing better. Still, claiming we score over 80/100 on legislative, and over 90/100 on executive and budget -- on an absolute scale -- runs the risk of fostering continued lack of attention.
Hey look, data!
http://report.globalintegrity.org/China/2009
http://report.globalintegrity.org/United%20States/2009
Interesting site. Very cool.
I became skeptical when I saw the U.S. ratings for executive and legislative accountability. On the surface, I think the numbers are fair. However, our adversarial two-party system, driven by sound-byte-reactionism, leaves the effective accountability far below the on-paper accountability. With congressional approval ratings running below 25%, we have an incumbency rate above 90%. That cannot jibe with a high accountability level.
Overall, I think the site is excellent. Its objective is outstanding. However, I think that the accountability metrics demonstrate a significant lack of consideration of (or at least inability to accurately reflect) pseudo-integrity.
So, tell me -- are they going to do the same for Federal Express?
If someone sends counterfeit Gucci handbags through Federal Express, will they fine the transport company?
Transport companies are not supposed to, nor should they bear the cost of, poking through every package that transits their network. That is true whether the packages are boxes or packets.
It is a world operating completely as expected when a multinational corporation cares more about satisfying the requests of large customers than it does small ones.
Well said. Thanks for truthing my post. :)
We would do well to remember that they are American In Name Only the next time they whine about taxes or H1Bs.
It is an interesting world in which a United States company trusts Russian spies more than it trusts United States citizens.
There is probably no more evil company on the planet.
I was recently discussing Monsanto with a friend of mine. It went a little like this:
Me: They actually sued farmers whose crops got pollinated by Monsanto crops.
Him: And they modify their corn to not reproduce.
Me: Well, yeah, but suing farmers for getting pollinated is really evil. It's virtually a protection racket -- buy our corn, pay us. Don't buy our corn, get hauled into court.
Him: Yes. But making our food not capable of reproducing could end the human race.
Me: Hmmm, I see your point.
Given the very next story on Slashdot is about the federal government using college funding to twist colleges' arms into acting as copyright cops, and the federal government's long history of using federal highway funds as golden handcuffs, I wonder how long until the ISPs who take this money will be told to bow and scrape before the MAFIAA.
I think that the time has come for the members of our community (individual and organizational) to stop holding ourselves to a higher standard of decency. The simple, ugly fact is that these kinds of battles are won by those who are willing to fight according to the rules of the game -- ie: dirty.
These fascists are bent on corrupting our legislative process to put more power into the pockets of copyright lawyers and labels with no regard for the artists they manipulate beyond their own corporate self-interest, let alone the interests of other artists or society as a whole. That is, perhaps, as it should be. Corporations are supposed to be purely rationally self-interested. But do not let them pretend the moral high ground.
Let us put this argument on the ground it should be on. Do not merely defend our position that copyright should be designed to maximize artistic productivity and reach within our society as a whole -- expose their rationally self-interested fascism and corruption for what it is. They do not have the interest of the advance of science and the useful arts at heart. They want the progress of the useful arts strictly controlled in a manner that maximizes their corporations' acquisition of wealth.
I do not begrudge them this desire. They are what our economic system designs them to be. But it is entirely necessary that we, in our public discourse of such matters, consider them as they truly are. In short, they have made this a matter of public opinion. Tell the public what these vicious animals are, in the harshest and most unflattering light possible.
In both cases, you're still skimming (though one a bit deeper than the other, it's still surface).
Not to disagree with your overall point, but to reiterate: Ultimately this led to studying the 1987 S&L collapse and to compare and contrast the two situations.
I have since vetted my findings with a retired investment banker and a couple economists. They helped me polish the position, and were intrigued and agreed with my work.
It also led to spending some quality time with Piketty/Saez 2007 and to some rather deep contemplation and analysis of the correlated decline in smaller enterprises. My current hypothesis is that Piketty/Saez 07 and what I have learned about the shift in corporation size are both mere canaries in the coal mine of a deeper and dangerous trend that is a significant cause of both '87 and '08.
All that said, I think the main subject of your post has merit.
I can't speak for anyone else, but while I do skim the news on Google and Slashdot, I also often delve.
When I saw an article, for example, on CDOs and their role in the 2008 collapse, I spent a couple hours diving into the depths of credit derivatives. Ultimately this led to studying the 1987 S&L collapse and to compare and contrast the two situations. It was very enlightening and all the research was carried out via the Internet.
Is the Internet the cause of facile perusal as he implies?
Is it the the motivating force behind my deeper study?
I would suggest it is neither, or both. It is a means for both skimming and deep traversal. While one might argue that Twitter or Facebook facilitates and hence encourages interruption, one could as easily argue that Wikipedia or The Bureau of Economic Analysis do as much to encourage deep consideration.
I might suggest that there is another cause for his observation: Perhaps he is looking at popular media and its place on the Internet. I think it is reasonable to claim that The New York Times has become more oriented toward trite sound bites during the explosion of the Internet. To this, however, I would ask; correlation or causation? Has the Internet made the New York Times shift, or has mass media been shifting toward bland wire stories and hot-talk editorials independently?
Oh come on. How can a free market economist complain about how a private company decides to run their own store?
Much as Free Software is different from free software, free market is different from laissez-faire. A free market presupposes, among other things, perfect competition. Neither perfect competition nor a free market evolve naturally from laissez-faire. Adam Smith documented the core concepts in The Wealth of Nations, including many cases of necessary government intervention.
One quick example: Do you believe in any amount of patent or copyright? Those are cases of government intervention.
A GDP-maximizing free market economy is not as simple as laissez-faire.
Consider the apparent wind, not the actual wind.
When a sailboat or iceboat is sailing across the wind (beam reach), the apparent wind (the velocity of wind relative to the sail) diminishes more slowly than the velocity of the vessel increases. This is why it is possible for a vessel on a reach to exceed the surface-relative wind velocity.
When a sailboat, iceboat, or hoax travels directly downwind, the apparent wind is equal to the velocity of the wind minus the velocity of the vessel. The force imparted on the vessel by the wind is related to the sail area times that apparent velocity. When the vessel is traveling at the same surface-relative velocity as the wind, the apparent wind drops to zero and the force imparted on the vessel drops to zero. No amount of gearing can multiply a force of zero to make it greater than zero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_wind
To come at this from a slightly different direction, consider that propellers are not terribly efficient thrust producing devices. Ground cars do not use propellers (except for novelty purposes) because it is more efficient to use tires, which have higher efficiency (or metal wheels in the case of trains, which are better still on a very smooth surface). Suppose that instead of confusing things by adding a propeller, they claimed that they had one set of wheels being turned by the wind-powered forward motion of the vehicle. They then had a gear train running from those "power" wheels and connected to a set of "drive" wheels. They claimed that the wind power pushing the vehicle forward caused the "power" wheels to spin, to turn the gear train, and hence to spin the "drive" wheels faster than the power wheels -- propelling the vehicle forward.
If you would not believe the two-sets-of-wheels design, you should not believe this one.
In short, this did not happen. The vehicle did not reach steady state direct downwind travel above the ground-relative velocity of the wind.
One that I find moderately frustrating as a developer; the Netflix app. Fire it up and within the first one or two screens you see a pile of UI issues that would get any mere mortal rejected. I understand that the lax approval for Netflix is all about the benjamins, but it is still a little irritating to the free market economist in me. Perfect competition is tarnished when some are a little more equal than others.
If they use no public funds or public land, let them do what they will.
I have to disagree. While your argument may be a potent weapon, it is not the principle issue. This is fundamentally about liability and authority.
If they have the authority to discriminate against traffic, they should be liable for what they carry (ie: RIAA feeding frenzy).
If they want to be immune from that liability, they should not be allowed to choose what traffic to carry.
Simple common carrier. In or out. Either you are blind to the content of packets, or you are liable for them. Let them choose. But don't give them immunity from prosecution and the authority to discriminate against content.
This may be the largest current airship
Correcting the original post more than your response. Just to clarify; this is the largest inflatable, not the largest airship. The old and new zeppelins use a rigid frame.
Translucent is better than opaque. Transparent is something different.
Claiming they are being transparent when they are not putting all the information on the table is, simply, a lie. Whether they are the least bad actor, the best actor, or even if the net outcome to society is positive is not the question. They are not being transparent, but they are claiming they are for political purposes.
I don't like it when politicians lie. I don't like it when lobbyists lie. I don't like it when corporations lie. When it comes to contemplating public policy, We The People deserve and should demand honesty. We cannot have a meaningful discussion about these things if we don't talk plain.
They could say, "We are more transparent than most, though we have not yet chosen to publish everything for cost efficiency reasons." That would be true and, frankly, I would accept it. In fact I personally feel that their level of diligence is sufficient. That does not make it OK to lie in a discussion about public policy.
I have, and believe we all should have, a zero tolerance policy for liars in the public forum.
'We are committed to being transparent with our users about the information that we collect when they use our products and services, why we collect it, and how we use it to improve their experience.'
Sooooo, the little tracking bugs from Double Click and Google Analytics? You're being transparent about all that data, eh? You have a nice place where I can see everything you have recorded on your hard drives about my browsing history? How about a page telling me all the sites your tracking bugs are on, and the number of unique pages and users they track? A clear, concise description of the algorithms you use to personalize ads, including the row and column definitions for the matrix(ces)?
Tell me again how serious you are about transparency. Really, I'm fascinated -- do go on.
So, Obama, you don't like the informedness level of the public dialog? Hmmm, let's see -- is there anything that the most powerful person in the world could do about that? What say you fix the problem, instead of just whining?
See, the thing is I agree with the problem. The public dialog is shallow and vitriolic. But guess what? That is because of the way your party and the other big party approach winning elections. You are the ones who are encouraging shallow, vitriolic discourse.
The solution is not to tell us to change. The solution is for you to change. Here's a few suggestions:
1. Stop talking about your policies as if they are pure wins. Every bit of public policy has a pro and a con. Talk about the costs of copyright enforcement, or the anguish of collateral damage once in a while.
2. Stop talking about the enemy's policies as if they were pure evil. Every bit of public policy that is credibly advocated has some upside. And I'm not talking about damning with faint praise here -- show me you are really cognizant of the benefits your enemies are seeking.
3. Stop talking about just the effects. Every politician loves to tell me about the outcome of some proposed new law. Try encouraging a public dialog about the forces with which a law will interact. Encourage us to discuss and contemplate the causes for law, and various potential solutions.
4. Open the government, so we don't have to feed on punditry and news angertainment. Set up forums and participate in them. Take our views seriously. Remember you are our servant, you're supposed to be listening to us even if you think you are smarter than us (something I can completely understand -- I think I'm smarter than us too).
5. Use your spin powers for good. Washington DC is awash in flacks whose job is to make people think and act in certain ways. Take five people from your socio-manipulation staff and task them with whipping the public into a maelstrom of civic participation.
6. Find the common ground. Don't just pander to the base with the above. Right-wing people are just as pissed off with their party as lefties are with yours. Most of us on both sides are actually deeply patriotic people who would love to be united on a few things. Work with that.
7. Stop using the simple stuff for unification. Yes, yes, we all hate terr'rists and we all think health care is too expensive and we all wish the deficit were lower and we all (except about 20% of us that you seem to enjoy pissing off) love jesus or similar mystical being. Yawn. Meaningless. How about some of the principles that we cleave to? A little fire and brimstone passion for liberty(*)? Maybe some of the best bits of the free market like "an informed consumer"? How about getting us excited about the more subtle (and more bedrock) things that make America work?
In short, stop telling us what to think and start leading us to think.
The President whining that the public dialog is too shallow and divisive? Un-fucking-believable. It is significantly your fault, and there is not one single person on the planet with more power to fix it.
And ferfucksake don't give me that "I'm too busy being President" crap. Fuck that. Put everything else on hold until we fix the public discourse. It is the number one most dangerous thing we face. Like the Taliban times ten. If we don't fix how we make decisions, then making one or two correct decisions because you work real hard on them won't make a damned bit of difference.
* including liberty from government, not just liberty through government
Love it. I would tend toward allowing optional renewal on an exponential scale.
First two years: $1000 (prototyping)
Next three years: $10,000 (initial market exploration)
Next five years: $100,000 (expansion to adjacent markets)
Next five years: $1,000,000 (you should be making real money by now if it is worthy of patent)
Then an additional x10 for each additional five years up to whatever limit we find reasonable.
That way the indie doesn't have to sell his soul to the vulture capitalists to get the front cash; he can bootstrap it.
This ensures that society is getting increasing compensation for the continued lock-down of the technology, brings significantly more revenue into the PTO so they can hire more and better examiners, tends to limit extensions to products which are being actively produced, enables inventors of truly ground-breaking technology to get the long protection they now enjoy, and naturally end-of-life's patents so they don't wind up lurking in dark corners to strike unrelated future technology.
As an aside; I think the same concept is fundamentally sound for copyright as well. It is a more rational economic approach, which embraces the notion that the cost to society of fiat monopoly increases over time. To do anything less is, simply, to harm the GDP for the benefit of special interests.
Here are a few simple rules for living a happy life:
1. Never make fun of a woman's age, or tell her she looks fat.
2. Never make fun of a fashionable gay man's clothes.
3. Never make fun of a straight man's package.
I'm not saying that what this guy did was right, but seriously: If you break one of the above rules and you get hit, that's just nature's way of telling you you're an asshole.
The original article was from Fox News - I'm just amazed they realised it was a damn, and not a giant vacuum cleaner given the quality of their fact checking.
It is, IMO, even more damning than that -- it's a wire feed article that originated with The Sun, England's answer to The New York Post. The closest they get to journalism is printing slightly fewer Bigfoot sightings than The Weekly World News.
Having no actual investigative reporters and blindly publishing things from credible news feeds is one thing (the death-knell of traditional media's role in journalism, for example). Doing the same with a tabloid as your source is even worse.
"...not voting to apply Title II regulation to Internet carriers is tantamount to giving up on net neutrality -- which has been a centerpiece of the Obama administration's tech policy."
As one who bought the hype and strongly advocated for Obama, let me say I think this sentence is under-broad. From Gitmo to torture to open government to bringing everyone to the table on health care, the story has been the same.
The author mentions giving up on netneut, a centerpiece of tech policy. I think giving up on things has been a centerpiece all Obama policy.
Mr. Williams said ... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.'
OK, well;
1: Explain to me why "printing isn't a sort of environmental negative." Start by explaining how using energy and materials in cases where it is not worthwhile to do so is environmentally (or even economically) neutral or positive.
2: If step 1 proves to be impossible or tortured at best, tell me why you think your customers should be misinformed.
3: Re-read the section on free market economics about the importance of informed consumers.
4: Apologize for being an enemy of the benevolent ideals of the free market.
This is why people have problems with the free market. Not because an efficient free market is bad, but because oligopolist assholes like this guy work so hard to harm the free market. Even aside from whether he succeeds in damaging the free market, he is creating harmful imagery of what the free market is, which harms us all.
Of course, it is easy to throw stones. The harder question for me is: How do you fix it?