I'm just going to cast my votes to maximize gridlock. I want the good old days, when the Republican-controlled legislature didn't have enough votes to override a veto and Bill Clinton was President. Neither side could get much done, so we ended up with huge economic growth, low interest rates, and very low unemployment.
Mark Twain said that no one's life, liberty or property are safe when Congress is in session. I think a gridlocked Congress is almost as good as a Congress on vacation.
That's exactly what everyone was saying when the gamecube came out before the PS2 if I recall correctly. Didn't quite work out that way judging from the market share numbers I'm looking at.
So, is it possible, maybe even a little, that Allen and Gates are doing these things to perhaps make the world a better place? Maybe reduce the suffering from AIDS a little? Keep kids in Africa from getting the stupid diseases that we all got immunized for when we were infants?
Nope, in your world, the only reason that Gates and Allen are doing these things is to get NPR to quit reporting the news (not bloody likely) and get Black groups to support Microsoft.
There is some question as to whether or not it was actually the PATRIOT act that was partially declared unconstitutional. The ACLU says it was, many (the Justice department and several other independent attorneys) say it was another law that was struck down.
The problem is that ending the other bullshit is hard, because the other bullshit is typically either "political speech" or possibly "religious speech", which have a much higher standard of protection than "commercial speech".
There is a legal precedent (several of them, actually) for limiting "commercial speech". Specifically, it's been upheld that limits on advertising for certain types of products to minors are constitutional.
There are very few legal precedents in favor of limiting political speech (the SC upholding McCain-Feingold is the only recent example I can come up with).
So, a law that limits commercial speech is unlikely to get shot down, because there are a set of legal precedents for limiting commercial speech (which is pretty much what the SC said today, that this law doesn't violate the Constitution because it's a strict limit on commercial speech). However, a law limiting political speech (phone calls, in your case) is a much more sticky issue, and is more likely to get thrown out by the SC as unconstitutional.
I think the reason the FTC put the restrictions on the Do-Not-Call that they did (specifically that the list only applies to commercial telemarketing calls) was to prevent being smacked down by the SC. It was more likely if they put the list into effect for all calls that the entire policy would be killed, but by only doing commercial speech they could get that passed. Of course, the other reason the FTC, the federal TRADE commission, only established the policy to restrict commercial calls is that political and nonprofit calls aren't really trade, and are outside the jurisdiction of the FTC.
It's a good policy, and it was well implemented by the FTC to maximize effectiveness and minimize the chance of getting shot down by the SC. It hit the middle ground perfectly.
As far as banning companies from asking for your phone number, I've never been refused service or sales for not providing my phone number. Radio Shack discontinued the practice years ago (2 or 3 years ago, I think). I have one vendor I do regular business with (MicroCenter) who uses my phone number to keep track of my purchases so that I can do returns if I lose my receipt. That's a fair value to me, so I'll provide them with the information in exchange for the value provided. They've never misused the data I've given them, and I continue to patronize their store because of it.
You can always try to work with your congresscritter to put pressure on the executive branch to create a policy similar to the Do-Not-Call for political advertisements. I doubt you'll find your congresscritter particularly responsive, and I don't think the SC would uphold the policy even if it was enacted, but I was surprised they upheld McCain-Feingold, so what do I know.
"Microsoft Money," as you put it, has done some veryinteresting and beneficial things. The X-Prize isn't the exception to the rule, it's pretty much the standardpractice.
Because, you know, there's no way that a private consumer organization could ever replace government, or provide more value.
Thanks for demonstrating the benefits of public education there. While the government may keep people from "dieing", it has a very bad track record in education.
One could even present the argument that a group of competing private testing companies would provide more value and safety than one centralized body that isn't accountable for the costs when they screw up.
Before that, I told people for years, "No, you can't get a virus from just opening an email". Then the first "outlook virus that spams everyone in your address book" happened.
Is anything safe? Should I start telling people, "No, actually nothing is safe, and you should just not use the computer if you don't want it infected with something nasty".
What part of the US Criminal or Civil code contains this law? When was it passed by Congress and when was it signed by the President? That's how laws happen in this country.
Oh wait. It wasn't passed by Congress.
It's a federal regulation then. Regulations happen when a federal agency is granted specific rights to create little mini-laws by Congress. So it's published in the Federal Register, as required for all federal regulations, from the EPA to HUD. Even the FAA has to publish all of their regulations on everything in the Federal Register.
Oh wait, it wasn't published in the Federal Register.
Perhaps it's an Executive Order then? The President has limited authority to do things like that within the Executive branch, which can be overturned by either Congress (by passing a law striking down the EO) or by the courts. Of course, executive orders are generally published unless there is a very good "national security" reason not to. Given that all of the terrorists on 9/11 had valid (not even faked, truly valid) ID's, this argument isn't carrying much water.
It comes down to this: Ignorance of a law is no excuse for violating the law. The only way that postulate of the legal system works is because all laws have to be published in specific ways, like the Federal Register. If there are "secret laws" that can't be read, then you could be violating it.
They don't tell you what the law is that requires ID checks. They tell you that the law requires it, but they don't tell you exactly what law requires it, the penalties for noncompliance, or even the agency responsible for enforcement of the law (is it DHS, FAA, NTSB, TSA?).
If I don't agree with the law, if I think the law isn't just, which agency do I get my congressman to go after to fix it?
There could be a secret law against eating M&M's on the day after Labor Day. Oops. Since ignorance is no excuse, the vending machine cops should be by shortly to deal with me. What if I accidentally get on a plane without and ID check? How many years can I go to jail for? What's the limits on the fine I may be forced to pay? Is it a felony, a misdeameanor, or a criminal act?
Is checking ID just required for commercial airlines, or do General Aviation pilots need to check their friend's ID before they go on a little sightseeing trip? Since the law isn't written down, nobody outside the agency responsible knows.
OK, here's my little mini-rant on the topic of legal protection and public health care.
Nowhere in the Constitution of the United States or the amendments thereto is there a guarantee for health insurance. Or a guarantee that the government will take care of your doctor and drug bills when you get old. Nowhere. Go, read it, I'll wait.
Done? OK, but you'll notice in several places a reference to "equal protection under the law".
Don't socialize medicine. Socialize the legal profession. There's a constitutional basis for it, or at least more of a constitutional basis for it than socializing medicine. Give everyone equal protection in a court of law, something these people (and people accused of drug offenses) don't have.
Let's have lawyers like the Canadians have doctors. Let's have Johnnie Chochran representing some rich white kid who downloaded music from whatever kids are downloading with these days, and let's have it cost him absolutely nothing.
Where do you get a PC running Windows XP for Tablets in the $375-750 region? Please tell me? Reply with a link. I'll buy one. Don't send me a link to a 10 year old GRID machine either, or a Fujitsu running Windows 3.1 for Pen. Pricewatch has a couple of Wacom USB Graphics tablets for sketching into a real PC on in that price range, but not a Tablet PC.
I just checked Pricewatch, and the cheapest they've got is for $918, a refurbished P3/1Ghz with 256 MB of RAM. Here's a link to Pricewatch where I looked. A decent one with enough RAM to run XP for Tablets without constantly swapping would probably be another $100 at least. The cheapest I've ever seen one (a Viewsonic unit at my local MicroCenter, which was returned unit) was well over $800, add another $125 for a dock.
Actually, they are still here. There are three in the downtown area, two on I-70 just a bit west of downtown, and one more at the east end of the downtown loop. They're mostly to let trucks know about the sharp, reverse-banked turn coming up (really bright civil engineers here tend to get the banking on turns totally messed up, I think they're MU grads) or an "exit" from the freeway that takes a really sharp left turn. Every car and light truck I've ever driven through there is fine doing about 60 in decent weather, but I imagine a tractor-trailer might have...issues going that fast around that turn. Especially if the wind's a blowin'.
Wow. Then it'd be just like the new sign system in Kansas City. The one with the always blank signs.
We paid how many millions of dollars (10, by the way) to get these signs put up, and I have yet to see one with a message. Even when I'm sitting still because of a wreck a mile up the road, typically when I pass the last exit before the backup.
How many times do we have to have fundamental truths reiterated?
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil"
I'd submit that nearly every bit of non-intuitive code is written because it "should be faster" than the intuitive of equivalent function. Just stop. Write the code the way it needs to be written. Decide if it's fast enough (Not "as fast as it could be" but "Fast enough") and then optimize if necessary.
One of the biggest arguments of the folks who promote biodiversity is that we may find organisms that produce pharmaceuticals that we can use to do important things. That way biodiversity seems more commercially appealing (I'm not saying it is or isn't true, I'm just restating the argument.)
So now we've got folks complaining because we're trying to exploit some of the organisms to produce pharmaceuticals. The priniciples of biodiversity are playing out as the advocates expected, and now a faction of those advocates are crying foul because somebody's actually exploiting the organisms for commercial gain.
If you're going to use the biodiversity for exploitation argument, you can't complain when someone actually starts exploiting.
A long time ago, I used to screen resumes for a consulting company. I tossed resumes that didn't have cover letters. That's it, just tossed them without a second glance. I tossed generic cover letters. It's a letter, it's not spam. If it's not worth 10 minutes for you to write it, why is it worth 2 minutes for me to read and consider it?
I was a consultant many years ago at a nuclear power plant. After 3 weeks of crap to get a security clearance (the administrative offices are all in the secure area, for no apparent reason), I finally get to the job site and I'm in a small conference room with 5 other programmers. All of whom were good practicing Catholics. It's that time of year, so they all 5 decide to give up something for Lent. They could give up chocolate, or peanuts, or sunflower seeds, or chewing tobacco, all of which were present in the little tiny conference room and annoying the piss out of me. But, no. They all decide to give up caffeine. So I was stuck in a small room with 5 people going through caffeine withdrawls: Headaches, grouchy, temper on edge, and prone to make stupid mistakes and get ludicrously defensive about them.
Plus all you could eat in the cafeteria on Fridays was fish sticks. Gah.
They seem to do a good job with non-computer bits. Look for a set of 6L6 or EL84 tubes, or a Traxxas Nitro Rustler, or an inflatable christmas tree on Techbargains or Pricewatch and you're very likely to be disappointed.
Which of those companies do you expect to have a higher quality audio codec? Dolby...where have I heard that name before...Oh yeah, just around nearly every single stereo system sold for the last umpteen years. Oh, and "She Blinded Me With Science"....
Lowest common denominator. A serial port I can plug a laptop into (with a serial USB thingy, anyway), a dumb terminal, a printer, and it doesn't take any brains at all to slam a modem onto it and get some decent out-of-band management.
Oh, and I'd like to add to the list of devices just about every piece of storage-area-network equipment, from Network Appliance to EMC. Yup, my EMC box has a four fibre channel ports, two network ports and a serial port. My NetApp has serial, network and fibre-over-copper.
Seconded. I was about this -->| |-- close to buying a Korg PXR4 Pandora over the holidays for $300. Even with the addon and some cables, this is going to cost about half as much. I can add a MIDI keyboard on the cheap and still come out ahead.
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I'm just going to cast my votes to maximize gridlock. I want the good old days, when the Republican-controlled legislature didn't have enough votes to override a veto and Bill Clinton was President. Neither side could get much done, so we ended up with huge economic growth, low interest rates, and very low unemployment.
Mark Twain said that no one's life, liberty or property are safe when Congress is in session. I think a gridlocked Congress is almost as good as a Congress on vacation.
That's exactly what everyone was saying when the gamecube came out before the PS2 if I recall correctly. Didn't quite work out that way judging from the market share numbers I'm looking at.
Thanks.
Perhaps the most cynical thing I've read all day.
So, is it possible, maybe even a little, that Allen and Gates are doing these things to perhaps make the world a better place? Maybe reduce the suffering from AIDS a little? Keep kids in Africa from getting the stupid diseases that we all got immunized for when we were infants?
Nope, in your world, the only reason that Gates and Allen are doing these things is to get NPR to quit reporting the news (not bloody likely) and get Black groups to support Microsoft.
It must be very uncaring and cold in your world.
I have a drive-by-wire. At least, throttle-by-wire. And electrically-assisted power steering.
Link here.
There is some question as to whether or not it was actually the PATRIOT act that was partially declared unconstitutional. The ACLU says it was, many (the Justice department and several other independent attorneys) say it was another law that was struck down.
The problem is that ending the other bullshit is hard, because the other bullshit is typically either "political speech" or possibly "religious speech", which have a much higher standard of protection than "commercial speech".
There is a legal precedent (several of them, actually) for limiting "commercial speech". Specifically, it's been upheld that limits on advertising for certain types of products to minors are constitutional.
There are very few legal precedents in favor of limiting political speech (the SC upholding McCain-Feingold is the only recent example I can come up with).
So, a law that limits commercial speech is unlikely to get shot down, because there are a set of legal precedents for limiting commercial speech (which is pretty much what the SC said today, that this law doesn't violate the Constitution because it's a strict limit on commercial speech). However, a law limiting political speech (phone calls, in your case) is a much more sticky issue, and is more likely to get thrown out by the SC as unconstitutional.
I think the reason the FTC put the restrictions on the Do-Not-Call that they did (specifically that the list only applies to commercial telemarketing calls) was to prevent being smacked down by the SC. It was more likely if they put the list into effect for all calls that the entire policy would be killed, but by only doing commercial speech they could get that passed. Of course, the other reason the FTC, the federal TRADE commission, only established the policy to restrict commercial calls is that political and nonprofit calls aren't really trade, and are outside the jurisdiction of the FTC.
It's a good policy, and it was well implemented by the FTC to maximize effectiveness and minimize the chance of getting shot down by the SC. It hit the middle ground perfectly.
As far as banning companies from asking for your phone number, I've never been refused service or sales for not providing my phone number. Radio Shack discontinued the practice years ago (2 or 3 years ago, I think). I have one vendor I do regular business with (MicroCenter) who uses my phone number to keep track of my purchases so that I can do returns if I lose my receipt. That's a fair value to me, so I'll provide them with the information in exchange for the value provided. They've never misused the data I've given them, and I continue to patronize their store because of it.
You can always try to work with your congresscritter to put pressure on the executive branch to create a policy similar to the Do-Not-Call for political advertisements. I doubt you'll find your congresscritter particularly responsive, and I don't think the SC would uphold the policy even if it was enacted, but I was surprised they upheld McCain-Feingold, so what do I know.
"Microsoft Money," as you put it, has done some very interesting and beneficial things. The X-Prize isn't the exception to the rule, it's pretty much the standard practice.
Because, you know, there's no way that a private consumer organization could ever replace government, or provide more value.
Thanks for demonstrating the benefits of public education there. While the government may keep people from "dieing", it has a very bad track record in education.
One could even present the argument that a group of competing private testing companies would provide more value and safety than one centralized body that isn't accountable for the costs when they screw up.
As far as the FDA's real track record, look up the histories of things like Saccharin, Cyclamates...
Look at some of the new science being done about DDT
Before that, I told people for years, "No, you can't get a virus from just opening an email". Then the first "outlook virus that spams everyone in your address book" happened.
Is anything safe? Should I start telling people, "No, actually nothing is safe, and you should just not use the computer if you don't want it infected with something nasty".
Or just get them Macs.
Where is the law written down?
What part of the US Criminal or Civil code contains this law? When was it passed by Congress and when was it signed by the President? That's how laws happen in this country.
Oh wait. It wasn't passed by Congress.
It's a federal regulation then. Regulations happen when a federal agency is granted specific rights to create little mini-laws by Congress. So it's published in the Federal Register, as required for all federal regulations, from the EPA to HUD. Even the FAA has to publish all of their regulations on everything in the Federal Register.
Oh wait, it wasn't published in the Federal Register.
Perhaps it's an Executive Order then? The President has limited authority to do things like that within the Executive branch, which can be overturned by either Congress (by passing a law striking down the EO) or by the courts. Of course, executive orders are generally published unless there is a very good "national security" reason not to. Given that all of the terrorists on 9/11 had valid (not even faked, truly valid) ID's, this argument isn't carrying much water.
It comes down to this: Ignorance of a law is no excuse for violating the law. The only way that postulate of the legal system works is because all laws have to be published in specific ways, like the Federal Register. If there are "secret laws" that can't be read, then you could be violating it.
They don't tell you what the law is that requires ID checks. They tell you that the law requires it, but they don't tell you exactly what law requires it, the penalties for noncompliance, or even the agency responsible for enforcement of the law (is it DHS, FAA, NTSB, TSA?).
If I don't agree with the law, if I think the law isn't just, which agency do I get my congressman to go after to fix it?
There could be a secret law against eating M&M's on the day after Labor Day. Oops. Since ignorance is no excuse, the vending machine cops should be by shortly to deal with me. What if I accidentally get on a plane without and ID check? How many years can I go to jail for? What's the limits on the fine I may be forced to pay? Is it a felony, a misdeameanor, or a criminal act?
Is checking ID just required for commercial airlines, or do General Aviation pilots need to check their friend's ID before they go on a little sightseeing trip? Since the law isn't written down, nobody outside the agency responsible knows.
OK, here's my little mini-rant on the topic of legal protection and public health care.
Nowhere in the Constitution of the United States or the amendments thereto is there a guarantee for health insurance. Or a guarantee that the government will take care of your doctor and drug bills when you get old. Nowhere. Go, read it, I'll wait.
Done? OK, but you'll notice in several places a reference to "equal protection under the law".
Don't socialize medicine. Socialize the legal profession. There's a constitutional basis for it, or at least more of a constitutional basis for it than socializing medicine. Give everyone equal protection in a court of law, something these people (and people accused of drug offenses) don't have.
Let's have lawyers like the Canadians have doctors. Let's have Johnnie Chochran representing some rich white kid who downloaded music from whatever kids are downloading with these days, and let's have it cost him absolutely nothing.
Where do you get a PC running Windows XP for Tablets in the $375-750 region? Please tell me? Reply with a link. I'll buy one. Don't send me a link to a 10 year old GRID machine either, or a Fujitsu running Windows 3.1 for Pen. Pricewatch has a couple of Wacom USB Graphics tablets for sketching into a real PC on in that price range, but not a Tablet PC.
I just checked Pricewatch, and the cheapest they've got is for $918, a refurbished P3/1Ghz with 256 MB of RAM. Here's a link to Pricewatch where I looked. A decent one with enough RAM to run XP for Tablets without constantly swapping would probably be another $100 at least. The cheapest I've ever seen one (a Viewsonic unit at my local MicroCenter, which was returned unit) was well over $800, add another $125 for a dock.
I just gotta ask.
If Scary Movie was the worst movie you'd ever seen, why on earth did you go see Scary Movie 2?
Oh, no, that was the project before last.
Now it's all about aiding and abetting the genocide and organized rape in Darfur.
Actually, they are still here. There are three in the downtown area, two on I-70 just a bit west of downtown, and one more at the east end of the downtown loop. They're mostly to let trucks know about the sharp, reverse-banked turn coming up (really bright civil engineers here tend to get the banking on turns totally messed up, I think they're MU grads) or an "exit" from the freeway that takes a really sharp left turn. Every car and light truck I've ever driven through there is fine doing about 60 in decent weather, but I imagine a tractor-trailer might have...issues going that fast around that turn. Especially if the wind's a blowin'.
Wow. Then it'd be just like the new sign system in Kansas City. The one with the always blank signs.
We paid how many millions of dollars (10, by the way) to get these signs put up, and I have yet to see one with a message. Even when I'm sitting still because of a wreck a mile up the road, typically when I pass the last exit before the backup.
A new build of AbiWord popped last week. I thought it was pretty decent.
Man I hate this.
How many times do we have to have fundamental truths reiterated?
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil"
I'd submit that nearly every bit of non-intuitive code is written because it "should be faster" than the intuitive of equivalent function. Just stop. Write the code the way it needs to be written. Decide if it's fast enough (Not "as fast as it could be" but "Fast enough") and then optimize if necessary.
One of the biggest arguments of the folks who promote biodiversity is that we may find organisms that produce pharmaceuticals that we can use to do important things. That way biodiversity seems more commercially appealing (I'm not saying it is or isn't true, I'm just restating the argument.)
So now we've got folks complaining because we're trying to exploit some of the organisms to produce pharmaceuticals. The priniciples of biodiversity are playing out as the advocates expected, and now a faction of those advocates are crying foul because somebody's actually exploiting the organisms for commercial gain.
If you're going to use the biodiversity for exploitation argument, you can't complain when someone actually starts exploiting.
A long time ago, I used to screen resumes for a consulting company. I tossed resumes that didn't have cover letters. That's it, just tossed them without a second glance. I tossed generic cover letters. It's a letter, it's not spam. If it's not worth 10 minutes for you to write it, why is it worth 2 minutes for me to read and consider it?
I was a consultant many years ago at a nuclear power plant. After 3 weeks of crap to get a security clearance (the administrative offices are all in the secure area, for no apparent reason),
I finally get to the job site and I'm in a small conference room with 5 other programmers. All of whom were good practicing Catholics. It's that time of year, so they all 5 decide to give up something for Lent. They could give up chocolate, or peanuts, or sunflower seeds, or chewing tobacco, all of which were present in the little tiny conference room and annoying the piss out of me. But, no. They all decide to give up caffeine. So I was stuck in a small room with 5 people going through caffeine withdrawls: Headaches, grouchy, temper on edge, and prone to make stupid mistakes and get ludicrously defensive about them.
Plus all you could eat in the cafeteria on Fridays was fish sticks. Gah.
They seem to do a good job with non-computer bits. Look for a set of 6L6 or EL84 tubes, or a Traxxas Nitro Rustler, or an inflatable christmas tree on Techbargains or Pricewatch and you're very likely to be disappointed.
I liked this bit:
"Microsoft's WMA"
"Dolby's AAC"
Which of those companies do you expect to have a higher quality audio codec? Dolby...where have I heard that name before...Oh yeah, just around nearly every single stereo system sold for the last umpteen years. Oh, and "She Blinded Me With Science"....
Rewrite that statement as:
"Microsoft's Car"
"Ford's Car"
See what I mean?
Lowest common denominator. A serial port I can plug a laptop into (with a serial USB thingy, anyway), a dumb terminal, a printer, and it doesn't take any brains at all to slam a modem onto it and get some decent out-of-band management.
Oh, and I'd like to add to the list of devices just about every piece of storage-area-network equipment, from Network Appliance to EMC. Yup, my EMC box has a four fibre channel ports, two network ports and a serial port. My NetApp has serial, network and fibre-over-copper.
Seconded. I was about this -->| |-- close to buying a Korg PXR4 Pandora over the holidays for $300. Even with the addon and some cables, this is going to cost about half as much. I can add a MIDI keyboard on the cheap and still come out ahead.