An individual may not donate more than $1000 to each candidate, but may donate as much as he or she damn well pleases to section 530 organizations including political parties. Interestingly (but stupidly), 530 organizations which are not politicial parties are not required even to disclose the names of their donors and may do anything except specficically use language like "Vote for xxxx." The "Republicans for Clean Air" BS we had in New York before the primary is an example of such a group. It's been predicted that they'll be the "next big thing" in the buying of elections. Vamos a ver.
if you start a new political party which has, as a platform, curing society via yogic bouncing
This is not as unlikely as you think. There was some party a few years ago that promoted some kind of meditation (I think it was called trancendental meditation, or something like that) as a solution to society's ills. I'm not sure if they still exist or not.
No, I'm not joking. You can use TiK, the TCL/TK AIM client (or actually any other TOC client, like (I think) gAIM) with stunnel or some other form of SSL and encrypt your connection with the server. Of course this has some problems:
Your data is stil decrypted on the server, which means that you have to trust AOL. This may be a bad idea.
All participants have to set it up -- if one doesn't, whoever you distrust could be intercepting his packets.
But, it seriously does work. I encrypt all my AIM sessions, just because I can, even though I know the people I'm talking to haven't done the same. --
This is not an unusual opportunity for community. I'm part of many "communities" online. (Hey,/. almost certainly qualifies.) I'm on a lot of mailing lists -- this sort of thing is not novel. However, I don't want to be a part of this ICANN "community." I signed up to vote on the issues, not to get spammed. Leave me to my USAS mailing list, thank you very much.
OK, you're probably a troll, but I'll bite. I submitted this in response to a question that was asked of me: someone was running a big feminist conference and wanted to provide 'net access to participants. She wanted to do this without exploiting women in El Salvador. So, she posted a question to the email list of an anti-sweatshop group I'm a member of. Shocked at my own ignorance, I decided to see if anyone on/. had any info. I've never taken an Ethics class, and, even if I were, I posted the question long enough ago that the assignment would already be due if that were indeed my purpose.
Of course Apple says they're environmentally concious. Any company with a semi-competent PR department says that. Hell, McDonalds came up with a flyer explaining why styrofoam packaging is good for the environment. (No credible environmental group would agree.) The question (and I honestly don't know the answer) is whether or not independent watchdogs think Apple is environmentally concious.
Of course I wouldn't expect the CEO of a company to interview all his factory managers. But, at some point, a human being at Intel or whatever has to negotiate and sign a contract with a human being in Taiwan or wherever. As part of the contractor bidding process, it'd be entirely reasonably for whoever's reviewing the bids to ask, "So, how much do you pay your workers? What do you do with waste chemicals?" or whatever.
Yes, there are often armed guards outside the free trade zones in "third-world" countries. Further, during peak production periods, workers are frequently locked in their factories for shifts of up to 18 hours. (The managers go home, of course).
If the only jobs availible (because a US-friendly government has taken over farmland) are in sweatshops, people are going to work in sweatshops, whether they like it or not. I don't advocate for an end to manufacturing in the "Global South;" this'd leave the workers utterly jobless and worse off than before. Similarly, I don't even call for a boycott. I merely argue that those working in the factories should be treated like human beings. Workers in a the Carribean Apparel factory in Santa Ana, El Salvador are paid 15 cents for every pair of $16.96 Kathie Lee pants that they sew. If their wages were doubled, and the increased cost were passed directly on to consumers, the pants would cost $17.11. The transnational megacorps are making insane profits, and it's only reasonable for me, given a choice, to pay the extra 15 cents so that someone else can feed her family.
Welcome to the real world. Minimum wage here in the US is $5.25/hr, and, yes, real, full-time employees do make that much; even with experience and seniority, $9/hr is a fairly high wage for many positions. Do you really think the grocery clerk you deal with makes $20/hr? Really! And let's not even talk about El Salvador, where legal minimum (read: maiximum) wage in the factories is about $0.30/hr.
As Eugene Debs said, "It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it."
I don't support Nader merely because he's third-party; I'd rather find a "mainstream" politician with views that I agree with. However, seeing that the Republocrats have all sold out to big business et. al., I'm forced to support a "fringe" candidate. Furthermore, a vote for Nader is not a waste: if he gets 5% of the vote, (his stated goal, which is achievable) the Green Party gets federal funds in future elections, which will help de-fringe them or whatever. It's expensive to run a campaign, especially if you aren't getting money from Big Tobacco, Big Business, or the NRA.
Yay Nader! If you're interested in getting involved, go to a meeting of your local Green Party. It's fun, it's productive, it'll help make a difference. Or just click the link and learn more -- knowledge never killed anyone. (This being/., I just know someone is going to come up with a counterexample. Grr.)
2.Money. This is needed to fund a political movement. There is no way around this. This is one of the weakest links.
I don't think this would be such a big issue if the other two were resolved. Geeks often have money, and they certainly have opinions. Anyone who can afford an AIBO can afford a membership to the EFF, and us relatively poor students can show up and wave signs if there's ever anything for us to show up to.
Ah, but I think there are better was to spend money than sending humans to mars, and I'm not sure that exemptions on sales tax for net-made purchases are actually sound policy. So, even in your list of "everyone will agree issues," I agree only 67%. If we wanted a real political party, as you suggest, we'd need to come up with some kind of shared opinion on all issues. This is why I believe that we should join the EFF, possibly the ACLU, and other groups that do what you want (as pointed out, many geeks have enough money. You can afford a couple $50 memberships a year, and even poor students like myself can pay for a few $20 student memberships.) Support the causes you support.
I also own a case from Spire and love it. Since I already own a backpack, I got the Boot, which is just a little cover thingy that goes inside my backpack. When my current backpack wears out, I'll probably get a new one from Spire, but that's still a while yet. (For me, worn out == holes in it so big that things fall out). FWIW, my laptop is a Sony PCG-F270, which is not one of the ultratiny ones, and it fits quite nicely in the case.
I think BIgTed is comparing to the US. For a variety of reasons which are beyond the scope of this discussion, the US crime figures are currently much higher than practically anywhere in the so-called 'industrialized' world. Probably higher than a lot of places in the not-so-industrialized world, too, but I don't know off the top of my head.
On a side note - the formula allows you to have up to 20K and still be in the positive, if it's a *REALLY* good page - but personally i won't be going over 5K.
Just because the formula would return a valid result doesn't mean it's allowed. If one wished to be precise, you could state the formula as: score(size,rating) } = ((1/1024)(5120-size)) + (rating) if 0<=size<=5120 } = 0 otherwise The rules fairly clearly state that pages must be under 5k to be considered.
There's a site barrapunto.com which appears to be a spanish slashdot-esque thingy and uses the Slash code and has lots of people posting using the name "Pendejo Sin Nombre"... you get the idea.
wouldn't the world be a better place if three-letter TLDs were reserved for sites international in nature, with more regional companies instead being in the.us domain
What if I start a store -- call it Mike's Widgets -- here in New York City. So my website is www.mikeswidgets.co.nyc.ny.us/ But then, my widgets are so popular and cool that I decide to open a new store in Westchester. I'd then move my website to www.mikeswidgets.co.ny.us/
After a while selling widgets, I start to expand into Connecticut, New Jersey, and then open up a store or two in California,.... by this time, my website ought to be www.mikeswidgets.co.us/ But then a couple of Canadian tourists come to one of my stores and observe that they just can't find anything like my widgets back home. So, I think it'd be a good idea to open some a stores in Toronto, Montréal,... By this point, I'm the McDonald's of the widget world, so I need some stores in Europe, and maybe a few in Asia, and... you get the point, my website is now, by your standards, truly deserving of being called www.mikeswidgets.com/
But, back when I was starting to open stores in California, someone saw the potential for worldwide widget sales before I did and snapped up the mikeswidgets.com domain. So, when my British friends try to buy a widget from me online, they see instead this person's website which says "Mike's Widgets Violates My Patents. Don't buy from them" or some other crap.
I think there is a point hidden somewhere in this message. Free prize to the first person to find it!
The same way any other law is, by armed agents of the state. (Duh.) You might recall how, near the start of.com mania, they busted people who tried to register things like mcdonalds.com; I see no problem in busting McDonalds is they try to register mcdonalds.sucks. OTOH, there's already mcspotlight.org.
Yeah, but McDonalds can afford expensive lawyers to do the suing. Who'd bring the case against McDonalds? Or, in an easy loophole, mcdonalds.sucks could easily be registered to the CEO of McDonalds, or his wife or brother-in-law or however far away you'd legally need to get while still being effectively under the control of the company. I generally support most of what Nader says, but this idea is just plain stupid. Why not just have one website www.evil-cos.org and offer free space to advocacy groups, so you could have www.evil-cos.org/mcdonalds/ and www.evil-cos.org/kathielee/ and whatever else.
Surely I'm not the only one to notice, but, isn't it odd that even though we usually see a lot of links to Reuters stories on news.yahoo.com, this link leads to excite?
just a replay of linuxworld expo tapes
on
Linus Interview
·
· Score: 1
Yup, nothing more, nothing less. No new, or rehashed, words from Linux himself. Just a nutty host muttering about drugs, capital punishment, open source, and Billy Joel's "Captain Jack." I was gonna record the show for people not in the area, but, sorry, folks, it ain't worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
An individual may not donate more than $1000 to each candidate, but may donate as much as he or she damn well pleases to section 530 organizations including political parties. Interestingly (but stupidly), 530 organizations which are not politicial parties are not required even to disclose the names of their donors and may do anything except specficically use language like "Vote for xxxx." The "Republicans for Clean Air" BS we had in New York before the primary is an example of such a group. It's been predicted that they'll be the "next big thing" in the buying of elections. Vamos a ver.
This is not as unlikely as you think. There was some party a few years ago that promoted some kind of meditation (I think it was called trancendental meditation, or something like that) as a solution to society's ills. I'm not sure if they still exist or not.
- Your data is stil decrypted on the server, which means that you have to trust AOL. This may be a bad idea.
- All participants have to set it up -- if one doesn't, whoever you distrust could be intercepting his packets.
But, it seriously does work. I encrypt all my AIM sessions, just because I can, even though I know the people I'm talking to haven't done the same.--
This is not an unusual opportunity for community. I'm part of many "communities" online. (Hey, /. almost certainly qualifies.) I'm on a lot of mailing lists -- this sort of thing is not novel. However, I don't want to be a part of this ICANN "community." I signed up to vote on the issues, not to get spammed. Leave me to my USAS mailing list, thank you very much.
Of course one can ever be perfect. But that is, IMO, no opinion for not even trying.
OK, you're probably a troll, but I'll bite. I submitted this in response to a question that was asked of me: someone was running a big feminist conference and wanted to provide 'net access to participants. She wanted to do this without exploiting women in El Salvador. So, she posted a question to the email list of an anti-sweatshop group I'm a member of. Shocked at my own ignorance, I decided to see if anyone on /. had any info. I've never taken an Ethics class, and, even if I were, I posted the question long enough ago that the assignment would already be due if that were indeed my purpose.
Of course Apple says they're environmentally concious. Any company with a semi-competent PR department says that. Hell, McDonalds came up with a flyer explaining why styrofoam packaging is good for the environment. (No credible environmental group would agree.) The question (and I honestly don't know the answer) is whether or not independent watchdogs think Apple is environmentally concious.
Of course I wouldn't expect the CEO of a company to interview all his factory managers. But, at some point, a human being at Intel or whatever has to negotiate and sign a contract with a human being in Taiwan or wherever. As part of the contractor bidding process, it'd be entirely reasonably for whoever's reviewing the bids to ask, "So, how much do you pay your workers? What do you do with waste chemicals?" or whatever.
If the only jobs availible (because a US-friendly government has taken over farmland) are in sweatshops, people are going to work in sweatshops, whether they like it or not. I don't advocate for an end to manufacturing in the "Global South;" this'd leave the workers utterly jobless and worse off than before. Similarly, I don't even call for a boycott. I merely argue that those working in the factories should be treated like human beings. Workers in a the Carribean Apparel factory in Santa Ana, El Salvador are paid 15 cents for every pair of $16.96 Kathie Lee pants that they sew. If their wages were doubled, and the increased cost were passed directly on to consumers, the pants would cost $17.11. The transnational megacorps are making insane profits, and it's only reasonable for me, given a choice, to pay the extra 15 cents so that someone else can feed her family.
Welcome to the real world. Minimum wage here in the US is $5.25/hr, and, yes, real, full-time employees do make that much; even with experience and seniority, $9/hr is a fairly high wage for many positions. Do you really think the grocery clerk you deal with makes $20/hr? Really! And let's not even talk about El Salvador, where legal minimum (read: maiximum) wage in the factories is about $0.30/hr.
For the truly lazy, a clickable link to the site mentioned above.
Please tell me that this pun was not intended.
I don't support Nader merely because he's third-party; I'd rather find a "mainstream" politician with views that I agree with. However, seeing that the Republocrats have all sold out to big business et. al., I'm forced to support a "fringe" candidate. Furthermore, a vote for Nader is not a waste: if he gets 5% of the vote, (his stated goal, which is achievable) the Green Party gets federal funds in future elections, which will help de-fringe them or whatever. It's expensive to run a campaign, especially if you aren't getting money from Big Tobacco, Big Business, or the NRA.
Yay Nader! If you're interested in getting involved, go to a meeting of your local Green Party. It's fun, it's productive, it'll help make a difference. Or just click the link and learn more -- knowledge never killed anyone. (This being /., I just know someone is going to come up with a counterexample. Grr.)
I don't think this would be such a big issue if the other two were resolved. Geeks often have money, and they certainly have opinions. Anyone who can afford an AIBO can afford a membership to the EFF, and us relatively poor students can show up and wave signs if there's ever anything for us to show up to.
Ah, but I think there are better was to spend money than sending humans to mars, and I'm not sure that exemptions on sales tax for net-made purchases are actually sound policy. So, even in your list of "everyone will agree issues," I agree only 67%. If we wanted a real political party, as you suggest, we'd need to come up with some kind of shared opinion on all issues. This is why I believe that we should join the EFF, possibly the ACLU, and other groups that do what you want (as pointed out, many geeks have enough money. You can afford a couple $50 memberships a year, and even poor students like myself can pay for a few $20 student memberships.) Support the causes you support.
I also own a case from Spire and love it. Since I already own a backpack, I got the Boot, which is just a little cover thingy that goes inside my backpack. When my current backpack wears out, I'll probably get a new one from Spire, but that's still a while yet. (For me, worn out == holes in it so big that things fall out). FWIW, my laptop is a Sony PCG-F270, which is not one of the ultratiny ones, and it fits quite nicely in the case.
I think BIgTed is comparing to the US. For a variety of reasons which are beyond the scope of this discussion, the US crime figures are currently much higher than practically anywhere in the so-called 'industrialized' world. Probably higher than a lot of places in the not-so-industrialized world, too, but I don't know off the top of my head.
Just because the formula would return a valid result doesn't mean it's allowed. If one wished to be precise, you could state the formula as:
score(size,rating) } = ((1/1024)(5120-size)) + (rating) if 0<=size<=5120
} = 0 otherwise
The rules fairly clearly state that pages must be under 5k to be considered.
There's a site barrapunto.com which appears to be a spanish slashdot-esque thingy and uses the Slash code and has lots of people posting using the name "Pendejo Sin Nombre"... you get the idea.
What if I start a store -- call it Mike's Widgets -- here in New York City. So my website is www.mikeswidgets.co.nyc.ny.us/ But then, my widgets are so popular and cool that I decide to open a new store in Westchester. I'd then move my website to www.mikeswidgets.co.ny.us/
After a while selling widgets, I start to expand into Connecticut, New Jersey, and then open up a store or two in California, .... by this time, my website ought to be www.mikeswidgets.co.us/ But then a couple of Canadian tourists come to one of my stores and observe that they just can't find anything like my widgets back home. So, I think it'd be a good idea to open some a stores in Toronto, Montréal, ... By this point, I'm the McDonald's of the widget world, so I need some stores in Europe, and maybe a few in Asia, and ... you get the point, my website is now, by your standards, truly deserving of being called www.mikeswidgets.com/
But, back when I was starting to open stores in California, someone saw the potential for worldwide widget sales before I did and snapped up the mikeswidgets.com domain. So, when my British friends try to buy a widget from me online, they see instead this person's website which says "Mike's Widgets Violates My Patents. Don't buy from them" or some other crap.
I think there is a point hidden somewhere in this message. Free prize to the first person to find it!
Yeah, but McDonalds can afford expensive lawyers to do the suing. Who'd bring the case against McDonalds? Or, in an easy loophole, mcdonalds.sucks could easily be registered to the CEO of McDonalds, or his wife or brother-in-law or however far away you'd legally need to get while still being effectively under the control of the company. I generally support most of what Nader says, but this idea is just plain stupid. Why not just have one website www.evil-cos.org and offer free space to advocacy groups, so you could have www.evil-cos.org/mcdonalds/ and www.evil-cos.org/kathielee/ and whatever else.
Surely I'm not the only one to notice, but, isn't it odd that even though we usually see a lot of links to Reuters stories on news.yahoo.com, this link leads to excite?
Yup, nothing more, nothing less. No new, or rehashed, words from Linux himself. Just a nutty host muttering about drugs, capital punishment, open source, and Billy Joel's "Captain Jack." I was gonna record the show for people not in the area, but, sorry, folks, it ain't worth it.