Our space program was essentially dead long before Obama was elected. That's one thing you can't fairly blame him for. You could blame many different people, back as far as President Johnson, who ensured it's death by not turning it into something more useful than a race. And each of his successors made things worse. Obama just finally killed something that was already long moribund (i.e., death bound).
If I go back 20 years, I can find a lot of Republicans who weren't bigots and also weren't racists. Today, I don't know anyone who is both a Republican, and isn't either bigoted or racist. If you have a Republican candidate in mind who isn't either bigoted, or racist, perhaps you would tell me who this is, so I could examine him. (Yesterday, or perhaps the day before, someone claimed that Ron Paul was a racist, and gave things that I could check to determine whether or not it was correct. I haven't yet done so, as I've been busy, and it hasn't seemed important. If you have a candidate in mind, perhaps you could be equally specific.)
OTOH, I will agree that there are some people I know who aren't *both* bigoted and racist. (There can be rational reasons for being racist. And one can be a bigot in some areas without being racist.) So I'd also be interested if you favor a candidate that is only one of the two.
If you must be a member of the union to get a job as, say, a plumber, and the union is allowed to reject you as a member, they many people who want to be plumbers can't get a job even if there's someone willing to hire them. This is a *major* difference, and tends to lead to an inherited caste system.
You don't need anything that fancy. In the book they operated on the temperature differential between the inside of a cave and the daytime desert. Should work. The problem is to hold onto the water after you've collected it. (I have trouble believing in still-suits. I think they would result in rapid overheating.)
To make a still-suit that works you need to have REALLY GOOD BATTERIES and use solar cells to collect the electricity to charge them, then build a refridgerator into the suit, which makes some part of the suit REALLY HOT. Possibly the boots? But then you'ld BETTER never stop walking, or stand on a large sheet of metal. The back has a larger area for release, so it wouldn't need to get as hot. Or if you want to get *really* fancy, and have the right materials, you could use the output of the refridgerator (heat pumt) to boil sand, and disperse the heat as a gas. But you don't want to chance breathing that vapor! So you need a mask on the inhale as well as on the exhale.
That's not a forbidden class of perpetual motion machine. It ultimately gets it's energy from the sun. And you are quite limited in the amount of energy that you can extract that way. I've never designed one, but there are a few analogous systems that are (or were, before solar power got cheaper) operating on remote islands. They were all test systems and none of them was cost effective, but that's more a design and materials problem than anything basic.
IIRC there was one system that cost several thousand (not million!) dollars to build, and which could produce over 50 watts (don't remember how much). And it also had maintenance expenses. (Things immersed in salt water tend to.)
I think the concept has been abandoned, but (some of) the pilot projects actually did work.
First time I've heard those comments made about him. I don't think I'll believe them without creditable sources.
OTOH, it doesn't really matter, as I'm *NOT* going to have a chance to vote for him. So I'm not going to bother to check.
That said, I really doubt that he's actually the state's rights libertarian that he likes to present himself as. But again, I'm not going to research this because he's not going to be the candidate.
I don't know about the Economist, but NPR isn't that reliable on anything controversial. I've never caught them actually lying, only being one-sided about their reporting. But then I don't listen to them very much. (My wife, OTOH, believes that they are the one and only voice of truth...if she's selective enough about which programs she listens to.)
Actually, while I tend to think of myself as conservative in the privacy of my mind, I'm really in favor of rolling back many of the laws that have been passed since I was, say, twelve. Because of the particular laws I'm in favor of rolling back, many people think of me as a liberal, but that's not where I'm coming from.
Actually, Washington might well have supported them. Alexander Hamilton certainly would have. Thomas Jefferson or many of the others wouldn't have, but...
You should really consider that one of the early laws passed was the "Alien and Sedition" act.
This depends on what you mean by conservative. As usually used in the US these days it means authoritarian. That's not what I mean when I call myself a conservative, but that's the way it would always be understood if I didn't give a long explanation of what it means to conserve. So I now rarely describe myself that way.
As to Ron Paul... He's probably the least bad of the candidates I know anything about. This is not to be interpreted as praise. He would be a lousy president, but probably not a terrible one. I doubt, however, that I'll have a chance to vote for him, as I'm *NOT* going to reregister as a Republican just to do it. I'm wondering, since the Libertarians have sold out to loonies, if there's a socialist party on the ballot. I don't like them, but they seem to be better than any of the parties I've investigated. (I haven't looked at the Green party this cycle. Last time I checked them out and couldn't stomach them. But I'm sure not going to vote for any likely Republican *OR* for Obama. When he had a chance to do good, he avoided it, so I don't give ANY credence to his promises to do good. OTOH, he appears to support both PIPA and SOPA, judging by his state of the union message.)
Neither. I don't support working without a basis that is reliable and adhered to. The Constitution could be such a document, but it would need to be amended. Just how I'm not completely certain, I have ideas, but having no chance of putting them into practice, I haven't bothered to figure out which would really work.
And I certainly don't support figuring out what you want to do and then twisting the basis to support it. The Constitution provides ways for amending it, so that it can adapt to changing circumstances. That's what should be done rather than twisting the meanings of the existing words.
That's silly. You can point to more actions by Democratic executives and legislators that break the Constitution than by Republicans. (I'll admit that it's a close call.) Neither pays much attention to what the Constitution says, and the Supreme Court seems to only pay enough attention to figure out how to mangle the meaning.
You can find people who support the Constitution (as they understand it) on both sides. And they are scarce and remote from power on both sides.
And you can find "Christians" on both sides. Here I'm accepting that if a person calls himself a Christian, then he is one. I don't consider this something that one should be proud of, but it's not always something that one should be embarassed of. Usually though. Because if you accept the label Christian, then you are accepting that you are, to an extent, supporting the acts of others who call themselves Christian. The trademark expired years ago, so you don't have any grounds for claiming that someone who believes something disgusting isn't a Christian, just not what *you* mean by Christian. Personally, I'd be ashamed, but de gustibus non disputandum est.
My personal belief is that the Constitution, interpreted reasonably, will not work in the modern condext. But that it should have been ammended rather than twisted through seven knotholes.
Sorry, but I don't allow the Supreme Court to tell me that black is white, and believe them.
Many of the Supreme Court decisions about what is constitutional or not fly directly in the face of the words on the paper. When I investigate how previous generations interpreted the matter I frequently find that it was closer to what the words of the Constitution say.
Mind you, I happen to believe that the Constitution as it exists is an unworkable document for a country this large with fast travel, and faster communication. But the proper approach is to ammend it, not do lie about what it says. And, *NO*, corporations are not people. I don't care if the Supreme Court lies itself blue in the face, they are not people.
P.S.: If a corporation is a person, why isn't it put in jail when it accidentally kills someone, or killed when it does so on purpose?
What you should be hearing NOW is that much invention has already left the country.
If people don't study STEM because the rewards are too low (which they are) and the costs are too high (which they are) then they aren't being stupid, they're being smart. Those who study STEM anyway are just those compulsively drawn to it, like I am. This doesn't make me think it was a smart choice, just the only one I could take, because that's where my interests lay. Fortunately, I was able to get through college without taking out student loans. That would be a lot more difficult this year, or last.
Then they're the question of public universities giving preference to foreign students. They do, and they do it not because of qualifications, but because they pay a much higher tuition. The proportion of the age quartile of the population that the universities can serve has also declined, as the population has grown faster than the universities. (This could be local, but it's true locally.)
So there are LOTS of reasons why the US share of R&D is declining. Secrecy and patent law are other reasons. There are more.
Very few of the reasons have to do with "Orientals are more willing to work harder for less money". That's true, and it *is* a factor, but it's not a major factor when compared with the other ones. Lead researchers everywhere tend to work harder than is optimal for best results, because they are driven by internal prodding. But you won't get those "lead researchers" without training a large population to be qualified researchers, because you can't spot them ahead of time. And if most of the people you train as researchers can't get a job that repays them for the time and effort that they put into becoming so trained, then they won't pay to get trained. (Note here that the coin under consideration is not entirely monetary. Time and effort are also costs.)
The US has long been profoundly anti-intellectual. So much so that nearly half the populace would have preferred supporting the axis prior to WWII. That changed when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but if they hadn't Rooseveldt might not have been able to get the country to support Britain. (And he could have been impeached for breaking the law [specifically the "lend-lease law"], which he did by covertly supplying arms to Britain against the express wish of Congress.) This only changed briefly for a few years after Sputnik. But people en-mass today don't seem to be as alert to the danger signals. This may have to do with the presidential response. Kennedy immediately proclaimed that we needed to do better, and was seconded it this by Johnson, who pushed just as hard for "The Great Society". Currently the presidents have ignored the threat. I doubt that they don't see it, but they'd rather ignore it than try to inspire people, and propose bold plans of action. There may be other reasons, having to do with the aging of the population. But what it comes down to is "downplay the problem, or ignore it if possible". And it doesn't appear to matter whether one is talking about a Democrat or a Republican. Neither is willing to even admit that there's a serious problem.
If society doesn't reward study and hard work, then intelligent people who aren't obsessive will do something else that will receive a better reward. I happen to be one of the obsessive ones, but this is a minority. (For that matter, look at all the physicists that became quants. Even after you've put in the time and effort in a STEM field, you may find that it pays better to do something else.)
I'm not even certain this counts as a won battle. The House just fell back to regroup, and the Senate hasn't budged. Believe the president that signed NDAA will veto this one if you want to. Then remember that he voted for FISA *while* he was running for president.
You are making assumptions that are probably invalid. The D + D = He reaction has too high a thermal barrier, so that can't be the reaction. But this doesn't mean that there isn't one that hasn't been investigated. (Not quite.) It just means it won't be that simple. And it might not release neutrons. Clearly, if it's going to fuse two atoms they've got be be lighter than iron. (Didn't I hear somewhere that his reaction produces copper? Or consumes copper?)
It's probably not true, but if it is it's quite unlikely to be one of the standard fusion reactions contemplated.
As this model becomes more common, *I* expect that the laws will be slanted even more to suppress it. They already allow anyone who can hire a lawyer to get your files removed from your ISP with no repercussions for fraudulent takedown. This next step allows your entire site to be taken down without even notice to you. And again, no repercussions for fraudulent complaints.
I'm not really sure just how far they'll go. Two years ago I would have guessed they couldn't get this thing even up to a vote, much less just about guaranteed passage.
If you definedthe central issue as "preventing copyright", then you are already accepting the arguement that they should be allowed to suppress works that they claim as copyrighted without any repercussions for fraudulent claims. This is something that I cannot accept as just.
P.S.: The current law allows anyone to request any file to be removed if they have a "good faith belief" that it violates the copyright. And it allow them to get that belief by trusting someone else. And the someone else is under no penalties if they make a false claim. (Caution: IANAL, but that's the way I've heard it explained.)
Interesting. I'm not at all sure that 20 year copyrights are justified, while 1 year copyrights almost certainly are. When I look at things, the number that appropriate seems to vary with the work in a way that I haven't been able to determine. But 20 years is the MAXIMUM that I would consider reasonable. And that only if a complete unprotected copy (with all tools necessary to use it) was filed at a library of deposit, which would release it into the public domain (and publish it!) at the expiration of the copyright.
Otherwise I don't think ANY copyright is justifiable. If they aren't going to ensure that the work becomes publicly available at the end of the period of copyright, then they don't deserve ANY copyright protection. And I'm not at all sure that an digital format should be allowed a copyright of more than 10 years. Those things keep becoming unreadable, and the only justification of copyright is that it is a way of ensuring that the work becomes available to the public. The *ONLY* justification.
Last presidential election I looked into the minor parties. I couldn't stomach ANY of the candidates. Sometimes the general thrust of the party was something I could support, but they all had platforms that were abominable and candidates that were worse.
Well after evaluating everything, including McCain and Palin, I voted for Obama. I won't be doing that again. He may have been a better president than McCain would have been, but clearly not by much. I'm fed up with their game of "we can find a candidate who's so disgusting, that he's just barely better than the other guys, but because he's a bit better you've got to vote for him". Voting for the lesser of two evils is a proven failure (well, could it have been anything else, but I mean even worse that it appears to be) so I'll vote for someone that doesn't have a chance. Because if they did get in, they wouldn't be able to push anything through Congress.
Even Teddy Rooseveldt couldn't make that work. And judging by the candidates that they third parties offer (probably because they know they have no chance) it's just as well.
Winning an election should require a majority. Either that, or Concorcet of Instant Runoff (which are just sneaky ways of doing iterated elections until someone DOES get a majority).
There is no perfect voting system, but the US system is one of the worse.
That said, I'll still probably end up voting 3rd party this time, because I *CAN'T* vote for Obama after he signed that indefinite detention act. And none of the Republican candidates seem reasonable. (If Ron Paul won the Republican choice, I'd swallow my disgust at him and vote for him. He would be a lousy president, but he claims to be for things that are better than the alternatives. And many people say he's got a record for being honest.
I really think the entire idea of elections in groups too large for you to know the candidate is flawed. In such cases you should use a lottery, and ensure that no one individual has too much power. (But then one should ensure that no one individual has too much power anyway.)
Needing that much bandwidth indicates that they would be quite suseptible to jamming, Even a spark-gap should do.
Clearly they need more on-board intelligence so that not so much info needs to go back and forth. (This doesn't strictly apply if it's purely reconaisance info that's being transmitted, but if it includes control signals, then yes. Even if it's purely reconaisance it would be better to record anything not urgent, so you aren't as revealing of your location.
I'll grant that this is the early days, but one SHOULD start expecting countermeasures, and design to render them ineffective. This kind of thing is much harder to retrofit, if you even CAN do it.
My brother agrees with you, and I don't have any direct evidence for my distrust. It's based purely on the rhetorical tricks he was using in his argument.
Of course, even if he *is* honest he would be a worse disaster than Nixon, but that still makes him better than any likely choice I'll have.
The problem is that with the current system a third party has essentially no chance. Even Teddy Rooseveldt couldn't make it work. There are already plenty of third parties, but the way the voting system is rigged they aren't significant. It's the reason that plurality rather than majority is a very bad idea.
Personally, my feeling is that either one should adopt an iterated election method, like Instant Runoff or Condorcet, or if nobody wins a majority it election should go to "None of the above".
Slashdot Mirror
Our space program was essentially dead long before Obama was elected. That's one thing you can't fairly blame him for. You could blame many different people, back as far as President Johnson, who ensured it's death by not turning it into something more useful than a race. And each of his successors made things worse. Obama just finally killed something that was already long moribund (i.e., death bound).
If I go back 20 years, I can find a lot of Republicans who weren't bigots and also weren't racists. Today, I don't know anyone who is both a Republican, and isn't either bigoted or racist. If you have a Republican candidate in mind who isn't either bigoted, or racist, perhaps you would tell me who this is, so I could examine him. (Yesterday, or perhaps the day before, someone claimed that Ron Paul was a racist, and gave things that I could check to determine whether or not it was correct. I haven't yet done so, as I've been busy, and it hasn't seemed important. If you have a candidate in mind, perhaps you could be equally specific.)
OTOH, I will agree that there are some people I know who aren't *both* bigoted and racist. (There can be rational reasons for being racist. And one can be a bigot in some areas without being racist.) So I'd also be interested if you favor a candidate that is only one of the two.
Sorry, but you are wrong.
If you must be a member of the union to get a job as, say, a plumber, and the union is allowed to reject you as a member, they many people who want to be plumbers can't get a job even if there's someone willing to hire them. This is a *major* difference, and tends to lead to an inherited caste system.
You don't need anything that fancy. In the book they operated on the temperature differential between the inside of a cave and the daytime desert. Should work. The problem is to hold onto the water after you've collected it. (I have trouble believing in still-suits. I think they would result in rapid overheating.)
To make a still-suit that works you need to have REALLY GOOD BATTERIES and use solar cells to collect the electricity to charge them, then build a refridgerator into the suit, which makes some part of the suit REALLY HOT. Possibly the boots? But then you'ld BETTER never stop walking, or stand on a large sheet of metal. The back has a larger area for release, so it wouldn't need to get as hot. Or if you want to get *really* fancy, and have the right materials, you could use the output of the refridgerator (heat pumt) to boil sand, and disperse the heat as a gas. But you don't want to chance breathing that vapor! So you need a mask on the inhale as well as on the exhale.
That's not a forbidden class of perpetual motion machine. It ultimately gets it's energy from the sun. And you are quite limited in the amount of energy that you can extract that way. I've never designed one, but there are a few analogous systems that are (or were, before solar power got cheaper) operating on remote islands. They were all test systems and none of them was cost effective, but that's more a design and materials problem than anything basic.
IIRC there was one system that cost several thousand (not million!) dollars to build, and which could produce over 50 watts (don't remember how much). And it also had maintenance expenses. (Things immersed in salt water tend to.)
I think the concept has been abandoned, but (some of) the pilot projects actually did work.
First time I've heard those comments made about him. I don't think I'll believe them without creditable sources.
OTOH, it doesn't really matter, as I'm *NOT* going to have a chance to vote for him. So I'm not going to bother to check.
That said, I really doubt that he's actually the state's rights libertarian that he likes to present himself as. But again, I'm not going to research this because he's not going to be the candidate.
I don't know about the Economist, but NPR isn't that reliable on anything controversial. I've never caught them actually lying, only being one-sided about their reporting. But then I don't listen to them very much. (My wife, OTOH, believes that they are the one and only voice of truth...if she's selective enough about which programs she listens to.)
Actually, while I tend to think of myself as conservative in the privacy of my mind, I'm really in favor of rolling back many of the laws that have been passed since I was, say, twelve. Because of the particular laws I'm in favor of rolling back, many people think of me as a liberal, but that's not where I'm coming from.
Actually, Washington might well have supported them. Alexander Hamilton certainly would have. Thomas Jefferson or many of the others wouldn't have, but...
You should really consider that one of the early laws passed was the "Alien and Sedition" act.
This depends on what you mean by conservative. As usually used in the US these days it means authoritarian. That's not what I mean when I call myself a conservative, but that's the way it would always be understood if I didn't give a long explanation of what it means to conserve. So I now rarely describe myself that way.
As to Ron Paul ... He's probably the least bad of the candidates I know anything about. This is not to be interpreted as praise. He would be a lousy president, but probably not a terrible one. I doubt, however, that I'll have a chance to vote for him, as I'm *NOT* going to reregister as a Republican just to do it. I'm wondering, since the Libertarians have sold out to loonies, if there's a socialist party on the ballot. I don't like them, but they seem to be better than any of the parties I've investigated. (I haven't looked at the Green party this cycle. Last time I checked them out and couldn't stomach them. But I'm sure not going to vote for any likely Republican *OR* for Obama. When he had a chance to do good, he avoided it, so I don't give ANY credence to his promises to do good. OTOH, he appears to support both PIPA and SOPA, judging by his state of the union message.)
> So which demographic do you belong to?
Neither. I don't support working without a basis that is reliable and adhered to. The Constitution could be such a document, but it would need to be amended. Just how I'm not completely certain, I have ideas, but having no chance of putting them into practice, I haven't bothered to figure out which would really work.
And I certainly don't support figuring out what you want to do and then twisting the basis to support it. The Constitution provides ways for amending it, so that it can adapt to changing circumstances. That's what should be done rather than twisting the meanings of the existing words.
That's silly. You can point to more actions by Democratic executives and legislators that break the Constitution than by Republicans. (I'll admit that it's a close call.) Neither pays much attention to what the Constitution says, and the Supreme Court seems to only pay enough attention to figure out how to mangle the meaning.
You can find people who support the Constitution (as they understand it) on both sides. And they are scarce and remote from power on both sides.
And you can find "Christians" on both sides. Here I'm accepting that if a person calls himself a Christian, then he is one. I don't consider this something that one should be proud of, but it's not always something that one should be embarassed of. Usually though. Because if you accept the label Christian, then you are accepting that you are, to an extent, supporting the acts of others who call themselves Christian. The trademark expired years ago, so you don't have any grounds for claiming that someone who believes something disgusting isn't a Christian, just not what *you* mean by Christian. Personally, I'd be ashamed, but de gustibus non disputandum est.
My personal belief is that the Constitution, interpreted reasonably, will not work in the modern condext. But that it should have been ammended rather than twisted through seven knotholes.
Sorry, but I don't allow the Supreme Court to tell me that black is white, and believe them.
Many of the Supreme Court decisions about what is constitutional or not fly directly in the face of the words on the paper. When I investigate how previous generations interpreted the matter I frequently find that it was closer to what the words of the Constitution say.
Mind you, I happen to believe that the Constitution as it exists is an unworkable document for a country this large with fast travel, and faster communication. But the proper approach is to ammend it, not do lie about what it says. And, *NO*, corporations are not people. I don't care if the Supreme Court lies itself blue in the face, they are not people.
P.S.: If a corporation is a person, why isn't it put in jail when it accidentally kills someone, or killed when it does so on purpose?
What you should be hearing NOW is that much invention has already left the country.
If people don't study STEM because the rewards are too low (which they are) and the costs are too high (which they are) then they aren't being stupid, they're being smart. Those who study STEM anyway are just those compulsively drawn to it, like I am. This doesn't make me think it was a smart choice, just the only one I could take, because that's where my interests lay. Fortunately, I was able to get through college without taking out student loans. That would be a lot more difficult this year, or last.
Then they're the question of public universities giving preference to foreign students. They do, and they do it not because of qualifications, but because they pay a much higher tuition. The proportion of the age quartile of the population that the universities can serve has also declined, as the population has grown faster than the universities. (This could be local, but it's true locally.)
So there are LOTS of reasons why the US share of R&D is declining. Secrecy and patent law are other reasons. There are more.
Very few of the reasons have to do with "Orientals are more willing to work harder for less money". That's true, and it *is* a factor, but it's not a major factor when compared with the other ones. Lead researchers everywhere tend to work harder than is optimal for best results, because they are driven by internal prodding. But you won't get those "lead researchers" without training a large population to be qualified researchers, because you can't spot them ahead of time. And if most of the people you train as researchers can't get a job that repays them for the time and effort that they put into becoming so trained, then they won't pay to get trained. (Note here that the coin under consideration is not entirely monetary. Time and effort are also costs.)
The US has long been profoundly anti-intellectual. So much so that nearly half the populace would have preferred supporting the axis prior to WWII. That changed when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but if they hadn't Rooseveldt might not have been able to get the country to support Britain. (And he could have been impeached for breaking the law [specifically the "lend-lease law"], which he did by covertly supplying arms to Britain against the express wish of Congress.) This only changed briefly for a few years after Sputnik. But people en-mass today don't seem to be as alert to the danger signals. This may have to do with the presidential response. Kennedy immediately proclaimed that we needed to do better, and was seconded it this by Johnson, who pushed just as hard for "The Great Society". Currently the presidents have ignored the threat. I doubt that they don't see it, but they'd rather ignore it than try to inspire people, and propose bold plans of action. There may be other reasons, having to do with the aging of the population. But what it comes down to is "downplay the problem, or ignore it if possible". And it doesn't appear to matter whether one is talking about a Democrat or a Republican. Neither is willing to even admit that there's a serious problem.
If society doesn't reward study and hard work, then intelligent people who aren't obsessive will do something else that will receive a better reward. I happen to be one of the obsessive ones, but this is a minority. (For that matter, look at all the physicists that became quants. Even after you've put in the time and effort in a STEM field, you may find that it pays better to do something else.)
I'm not even certain this counts as a won battle. The House just fell back to regroup, and the Senate hasn't budged. Believe the president that signed NDAA will veto this one if you want to. Then remember that he voted for FISA *while* he was running for president.
You are making assumptions that are probably invalid. The D + D = He reaction has too high a thermal barrier, so that can't be the reaction. But this doesn't mean that there isn't one that hasn't been investigated. (Not quite.) It just means it won't be that simple. And it might not release neutrons. Clearly, if it's going to fuse two atoms they've got be be lighter than iron. (Didn't I hear somewhere that his reaction produces copper? Or consumes copper?)
It's probably not true, but if it is it's quite unlikely to be one of the standard fusion reactions contemplated.
As this model becomes more common, *I* expect that the laws will be slanted even more to suppress it. They already allow anyone who can hire a lawyer to get your files removed from your ISP with no repercussions for fraudulent takedown. This next step allows your entire site to be taken down without even notice to you. And again, no repercussions for fraudulent complaints.
I'm not really sure just how far they'll go. Two years ago I would have guessed they couldn't get this thing even up to a vote, much less just about guaranteed passage.
If you definedthe central issue as "preventing copyright", then you are already accepting the arguement that they should be allowed to suppress works that they claim as copyrighted without any repercussions for fraudulent claims. This is something that I cannot accept as just.
P.S.: The current law allows anyone to request any file to be removed if they have a "good faith belief" that it violates the copyright. And it allow them to get that belief by trusting someone else. And the someone else is under no penalties if they make a false claim. (Caution: IANAL, but that's the way I've heard it explained.)
Interesting. I'm not at all sure that 20 year copyrights are justified, while 1 year copyrights almost certainly are. When I look at things, the number that appropriate seems to vary with the work in a way that I haven't been able to determine. But 20 years is the MAXIMUM that I would consider reasonable. And that only if a complete unprotected copy (with all tools necessary to use it) was filed at a library of deposit, which would release it into the public domain (and publish it!) at the expiration of the copyright.
Otherwise I don't think ANY copyright is justifiable. If they aren't going to ensure that the work becomes publicly available at the end of the period of copyright, then they don't deserve ANY copyright protection. And I'm not at all sure that an digital format should be allowed a copyright of more than 10 years. Those things keep becoming unreadable, and the only justification of copyright is that it is a way of ensuring that the work becomes available to the public. The *ONLY* justification.
Last presidential election I looked into the minor parties. I couldn't stomach ANY of the candidates. Sometimes the general thrust of the party was something I could support, but they all had platforms that were abominable and candidates that were worse.
Well after evaluating everything, including McCain and Palin, I voted for Obama. I won't be doing that again. He may have been a better president than McCain would have been, but clearly not by much. I'm fed up with their game of "we can find a candidate who's so disgusting, that he's just barely better than the other guys, but because he's a bit better you've got to vote for him". Voting for the lesser of two evils is a proven failure (well, could it have been anything else, but I mean even worse that it appears to be) so I'll vote for someone that doesn't have a chance. Because if they did get in, they wouldn't be able to push anything through Congress.
Even Teddy Rooseveldt couldn't make that work. And judging by the candidates that they third parties offer (probably because they know they have no chance) it's just as well.
Winning an election should require a majority. Either that, or Concorcet of Instant Runoff (which are just sneaky ways of doing iterated elections until someone DOES get a majority).
There is no perfect voting system, but the US system is one of the worse.
That said, I'll still probably end up voting 3rd party this time, because I *CAN'T* vote for Obama after he signed that indefinite detention act. And none of the Republican candidates seem reasonable. (If Ron Paul won the Republican choice, I'd swallow my disgust at him and vote for him. He would be a lousy president, but he claims to be for things that are better than the alternatives. And many people say he's got a record for being honest.
I really think the entire idea of elections in groups too large for you to know the candidate is flawed. In such cases you should use a lottery, and ensure that no one individual has too much power. (But then one should ensure that no one individual has too much power anyway.)
Needing that much bandwidth indicates that they would be quite suseptible to jamming, Even a spark-gap should do.
Clearly they need more on-board intelligence so that not so much info needs to go back and forth. (This doesn't strictly apply if it's purely reconaisance info that's being transmitted, but if it includes control signals, then yes. Even if it's purely reconaisance it would be better to record anything not urgent, so you aren't as revealing of your location.
I'll grant that this is the early days, but one SHOULD start expecting countermeasures, and design to render them ineffective. This kind of thing is much harder to retrofit, if you even CAN do it.
My brother agrees with you, and I don't have any direct evidence for my distrust. It's based purely on the rhetorical tricks he was using in his argument.
Of course, even if he *is* honest he would be a worse disaster than Nixon, but that still makes him better than any likely choice I'll have.
Look into the AGPL version 3. Of course, for many programs it doesn't make much difference.
Ron Paul would be a truly lousy president. But can you really claim that he'd be as bad any of our last five?
The problem is that with the current system a third party has essentially no chance. Even Teddy Rooseveldt couldn't make it work. There are already plenty of third parties, but the way the voting system is rigged they aren't significant. It's the reason that plurality rather than majority is a very bad idea.
Personally, my feeling is that either one should adopt an iterated election method, like Instant Runoff or Condorcet, or if nobody wins a majority it election should go to "None of the above".