Most kidnapping are not performed by anonymous random kidnappers. Most kidnappings occur by family members or people known and trusted by the family.
My kid wouldn't be in the public school system, first of all. Second of all, I would never leave my child with someone I didn't trust implicitly. There are many many things parents could do to reduce the risk of kidnapping. It is sad that most parents don't do them.
As for hiring a PI, you'd be surprised at how often this works. PIs can use skip tracers and account tracking tools to find almost anyone at any time. The 3 times I had to skip trace someone in my life (one was a loan gone bad, one was a business partner who disappeared and one was a friend I lost track of and wanted to find) the PI was able to find them in 2 days or less for very little money.
I was wondering why Romero has been relatively silent on the MMOG gaming spectrum. The MMOG world is a little too crowded, but there is so much room for more growth outside of what we consider the standard MMOG platform.
I have an intense high speed connection on my cell phone (the Samsung t809 -- 150kbps EDGE download speeds, Java capability, great screen. MMOG occupy a lot of home-office time of my friends who are addicted, to the point that they might blow off good live concerts or events to play. If someone finds a way to get the MMOG world onto the high speed cell phones out there, I think Allstate will have higher premiums for drivers after paying out all the accidents caused by using the cell phone for more than talking.
And what about developing more cross platform mini-MMOGs? I'm not just talking about getting it working between the X-Box, the PS3 and the PC, I also mean older platforms and even PDAs, laptops, cell phones, who knows what else? Java is pretty standardized, and I think it should be able to handle the performance if the server-side does a good job of filtering out more update information than the bandwidth can handle. I don't see why these games need to be tied to a high speed high power computer at home.
Other things I'd like to see are MMOGs that set some time limits to equalize the time allotments for older players. I know I can't compete as well as the 15 year old can, so I don't play. I don't have that kind of time. A 1 hour a day time limit might be interesting, though, especially if the game works on any of my many platforms I use daily.
While MMOGs seem to have hit a plateau of sorts, there is still room to grow once they find the new markets. I know MMOGs will be mainstream when we have a reality TV show dedicated entirely to the lives on digital people. Can you imagine the market of geeks who would watch it? Yeesh.
I understand kids have a tendency to get away. I also understand that the market has provisions for tracking when kids do get away.
One of my best friends has 3 kids. She's a single mom, too. When her kids were young, she had this device that was a plastic chain that strapped to her kid's wrist. If the kid took off, she pulled him back in.
They updated the device years later to be wireless -- if a kid walks away from a certain distance, your pocket alarm goes off and warns you to drop everything and find your child.
Most kidnapping are performed by people known by the family, aren't they? I don't see why we need a US$5 billion a year organization to do what the market has already provided for, and that seems to be predictable in who the criminals are.
One more thing: you're a good parent. Do you know how many bad parents I see every day? I'm supposed to pay for bad parenting?
This one, however, kind of irks me; so I'm calling you out on it.
I appreciate your honesty. The sentence wasn't flamebait, but it does open the door for resolving what I meant.
Is it that you don't support our troops, the dirt pounders in the field, or is it that you don't support our government and command structure sending the dirt pounders into the field. The disitinction is real and I am quite interested in your response. The statement sounds like you think the individual GI Joe's are to blame, but your post history would indicate that maybe you did not mean that to be the case.
I have friends in the military. I now have family too (my nephew just went to the Middle East). I condemn them for their actions and their commitment, because I disagree completely with performing any job that I know is immoral. I will never cheat, lie, steal or defraud a customer. I believe the soldiers are the front line not in protecting our rights abroad, but in making the decision to disregard immoral commands. They are the front line in keeping the government from violating the Constitution.
I'm a Christ follower, so there are some caveats here. I believe that God's commandment that we shouldn't murder is extremely important. I don't see any defensive killing being justified unless it is truly defensive -- protecting your land from the enemy entering at that very moment.
No soldier can tell me they're protecting freedom. They're not. My family and friends who have enlisted have come back indoctrinated and fully believing they are saving us from terrorists and communists and criminals and dictators. They're lost when it comes to morals and freedom. I can't support that.
100+ countries that we're in. 100! I believe our Constitution prevents our government from restricting freedom of everyone on this planet -- citizens and aliens in the US and all people abroad. I believe a soldier is an arm of the government, and they must also honor the Constitution.
When was the last time we declared war? We're not to have a standing army, we're to have an army organized from state militias once we declare war. WW2 has been long over, its time to disband the army of tyrants, send them back into the market to work hard and earn a moral and proper living for their families and communities. We don't need to do anything but trade freely and entangle with no one else and their problems.
I only vote for one person on every ballot. I vote for the one person who can make a decision the way I believe it should be made. I vote for the one person who understands my life, knows what my needs are, and can adjust the law to be realistic, moral and promote freedom not restrict it.
That person is me. I recommend voting for yourself on every ballot, straight ticket, every position. Vote NO to all referenda and judge retentions. Write yourself in and you'll be voting for the only person able to enforce the law the way you want it enforced.
Picture the next presidential election: Condi Rice 7%, Hillary Clinton 8%, Other 85%. I like that. That's my kind of mandate.
It's nice that you seem to have a lot of money to pay for these sorts of things but what about people who aren't so well off?
Picture how much money you'd have every year if we didn't pay for the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and every other spy organization that isn't allowed by the Constitution. Even if it was merely a US$30 billion a year savings, that's about US$300 per year per taxpayer or so. A good PI can cost you US$5000+, but if you assume that kidnapping might occur 1 in 1000 (if even that much?), you can likely purchase kidnap insurance if the market was free to police kidnappings competitively.
I don't see the point of me paying US$300 per year to an organization that has no competition, has the unique monopoly to force me to follow their rules and disrupts freedom just by their presence. No thanks.
And how about the wing of the FBI that investiages kidnappings? If your child is kidnapped, you won't appreciate that?
I would hire a private investigator and a lawyer. Also, I don't see how someone could kidnap my child if I was a good parent and actually parented the child at all times, as a parent should.
How about the FBI department that handles serial killers? Surely that's an infringement of our freedom?
There are so many serial killers that we need an unconstitutional department costing us US$5 billion a year? Murder is NOT a federal crime, per the Constitution. Let the states handle it.
because I want to live in a world where I know if someone sends me a death threat (or what-have-you), that they will be found and I won't have to fear my safety on their account.
And if I received a death threat, I'd arm myself and make sure I had a good shot and a level head.
After a brief standoff, FBI officials relented and sought a warrant from a judge.
Relented? The government is supposedly here to protect us and never stomp on our freedoms. When is the government ever NOT supposed to relent to the citizen? I believe that's their job -- to relent to our will if they come onto our property without just cause. In fact, I don't even believe they ever have just cause as the federal government has gone beyond their constitutionally mandated limits of power.
The FBI, to me, is a completely unconstitutional arm of government. I usually hear the entire "But the Justice Department needs to do their job and the FBI enforces this" and yet I also find the Justice Department unconstitutional. Neither is compatible with freedom or a republican (not the political party definition) form of limited central government.
The FBI is the greatest violator of racketeering laws. They have all the power to force you to perform actions against your will. They have all the power to take what they please when they please, and all you have is the ability to address your grievance in the courts -- the same courts that are paid by the same people who pay the FBI. And how do you vote the FBI out of office?
I don't like the idea of police that aren't policed. I have enough problems with the power that the local cops have -- it goes straight to their heads the minute they put the badge on for the first time. Federal cops are against everything I believe in -- what exactly is the FBI policing? The Constitution set up the crimes that the Federal arm was to enforce -- piracy, counterfeiting and treason. The FBI is not needed to police any of these crimes.
Sure, you can say that the commerce clause gives Congress unlimited power to regulate interstate commerce and they need the FBI to police that commerce. My view on the regulation of commerce is from a freedom perspective -- the commerce clause was written specifically to give Congress the authority to prevent any individual state from restricting commerce with another state. Congress has no mandate to do the restricting of commerce but to regulate the states from restricting free trade. That's pretty much what the founding fathers intended as well.
You can say that the FBI is needed to prevent terrorism, but they haven't. We foster terrorism by provoking anger -- our troops are in over 100 countries of the world today. If you wonder why people hate us, look at the monsters with guns that wear our flag, within our country and beyond our borders in the hundred or more countries we're policing against the will of those citizens.
You can say that the FBI is needed to police child porn or illegal communications between states, but this is also untrue -- both are protected from federal policing by the Constitution, and should be policed only by the individual states if the people so decide. Nothing prevents states from working deals out to help each other when crimes cross into their neighboring states
I don't see the need for the FBI. All I see is their involvement in crime after crime committed by the authoritarian state -- look at prohibition, the drug war, and the daily mistakes that repeat themselves by an organization with too much power and no overview.
I use so many different keyboards over the year and I wish the industry had a different label for each layout design. Some have large backspace keys with small enter keys, others have tiny backspace keys with mammoth enter keys. I think I've seen 3 or 4 layouts over time, which is crazy considering that typing becomes more efficient if the keys are in the same place. I figure the best way to get manufacturers to conform a little better is to name the layouts, and once you have your preference, you'll tend to buying the ones you're familiar with. That way manufacturers can see what consumers want and don't want. I'm sure there is a market for different layouts, but it frustrates me when I can't recall what keyboard I am used to without actually buying a new one and then finding out a day later that I'm used to a different sized "any" key.
I am one of the least sensitive-to-pain people you'll ever meet. I used to always feel pain, because I was afraid of feeling pain. But I learned years ago how to ignore that fear -- avoid fearing entirely. Since then, my tolerance for pain is huge. I've broken bones, lost teeth (punch to the face in a bar) and had my share of other situations (cat bites, skateboard accidents, car accident, etc) and my tolerance to pain is impressive. I've even done major dental work without pain killers and passed kidney stones the same way.
I don't drink a lot of fluids. I should (considering the kidney stones), but I don't. I love water, just don't drink a lot of it. I love tea, too, but forget to drink it.
I think feeling pain is often a mind over matter kind of thing. I had a carpenter friend who cut two of his fingers off and didn't feel pain until he noticed it. I had a friend who broke a foot snowboarding and didn't feel pain until he looked at it.
Have there been studies on pain and mind-over-matter situations?
Fiji Water -- get it cheap at Trader Joe's. The stuff tastes amazing, and it energizes me every time I drink it.
Half hour of strenuous working out helps, too, of course.
If you haven't tried Fiji, though, get some today. It is the only bottled water I buy, and it is the tastiest I've ever had. Water + body fat = energy waiting to be taken advantage of.
I'd love to see Google start to aggregate comparisons of articles. I believe they have this power and it would be very nice to see it implemented.
My most basic description (of a very difficult process, I'd gather), is to have the Toolbar offer an "Originality" rating. If the article is not like any other article, it is rated 100%. If the article is available elsewhere, it is 0%. You should be able to click the rating and be taken to a Google site that lists the similar articles in date format -- who posted first?
This might also work to aggregate comparisons of items, or reviews, or something of the sort.
Your post, at its face, looks very "correct" but it is the same defense given by the copyright cartels.
Very very very few artists ever make a living with their art -- because the distribution system was locked down by those with a lot of power. What was this power? Copyright -- the use of force of government for a private individual or corporation. Copyright quickly created a locked system of radio, TV, and print media, almost impossible to breach.
Why should an artist write a song (a 1-2 week process) and then make money for 70 years on it? Imagine if an engineer drafted up a plumbing drawing, sold it to a contractor and expected to make money on the building for the next 70 years. That is how I view music or writing copyrights -- hey, you're using the toilet system that was designed by the engineer 70 years ago, right?
I believe 100% in the power of the free market -- supply and demand are the only factors in price.
If so, then I suppose you won't mind if the major labels come along and take anything that your artists create that they (the labels) like without permission or compensation and just go ahead and call it their own...right?
Right. 100% correct. In fact, I already openly allow anyone to take any of my creations (songs, articles, and even books), put their name on it, and sell it as their own. Of course the few people who have done this with my online works have been chewed out by their readers (how people found out that I wrote it first is beyond me). I don't care anyway.
If copyright was turned off completely, you know Google or some search company would offer real-time comparisons anyway. Can you imagine going to a blog, reading it, and Google's toolbar saying "This article may not be the original" and then you could track down where Google believes the original is. Let the end reader decide.
Information has no value without packaging, promoting, marketing, support and often times Q&A. I sell everything but the information. Take the e-book, read it, and if you want me to write more, send me $20 for the official copy. Guess what? People do it. Will I never make US$1 million? No, but a good book takes me only 6 weeks to write. If I made US$20,000 on my most successful book, I did pretty well (US$20,000 / 120hrs = US$170 / hour, not bad!).
Perhaps you should rethink things a bit and keep the Inellectual Property idea, but be more lenient with it a la Creative Commons licensing.
No, thanks. Licensing such as this requires the force of government to back it up. There is no such thing as protecting Intellectual Property by force, not in my vocabulary. Everything I have ever created that I want to protect I keep secret and show to a rare few. I use everything else to bolster my hourly rate.
It is AWESOME!
I have great respect for the people (the guy?) behind it, but I don't like using force to make people change their actions. I don't see information as property (the physical book is property, the physical CD is property, but if you want to spend your labor copying it, I believe you can 100%). Creative Commons does not address fixing the problems with copyright -- the Internet now allows the market to access the true value of information -- nearly zero.
I'm starting a studio in Chicago, Illinois this spring: No Copyright Studios. We've started to take in donations and investments, and are hoping to open our doors in very late spring if not sooner (considering the equipment we're getting, it should be sooner). I hope to be a future medium-sized label exec by repudiating copyright and focusing on bands that have a real value in live shows versus CD sales.
I believe that music has some interesting profit incentives when it is played live. We've looked into all sorts of value-added options for those live venues, including the following:
* Buy the official CD, get a free ticket to a private show. * Buy the official CD, get a login to view the band in the studio for a set period of time * After the live show, purchase a real-time edited sound-board fed DVD of the show * Buy practice time with the band * Let anyone else play the song live if you like, but we'll make sure we find out who performed what and when, and advertise that we're the co-op that created the music.
I don't believe in any intellectual property. In the last 6 months, I have attended almost 50 live shows in the Chicago Indie, Punk and alternative scene. I've met over 75 bands who have admitted that copyright has done jack for their income, and they were always better off giving away the recorded music in exchange for getting people into the shows. If you're a musician and you want to earn an income, is it better for the top 10 in the country to make $10,000,000 because they're the main earners for those who control the distribution networks? Or would you rather see 1,000 bands locally who can generate $100,000 each?
There is a lot of money out there to be made when you take out the copyright cartel companies from the market. I firmly believe that bands can make money if they realize the supply and demand forces at work can not be manipulated. Taking advantage of supply and demand is the best way to go about it. MP3 = near infinite supply = $0. Live music = limited supply = income. QED.
I'm one of the few people who believe that the book in its current form is a dead medium in the long run. The books I am currently working on will be completely free in e-book format in exchange for creating a market for my services. There is no margin in this case, pure promotional and marketing value.
In the long haul, even if books continue to have staying power, the Internet is all you need to fact check. Book publishing costs are way down but distribution and marketing costs are way up. If an author prints false material, the market will verify it quick enough, and the author will be finished. This is a much better process than relying on expensive fact checkers, as there are millions of people online willing to find people guilty of lying and manipulating.
Part of my drive in my "no copyright" movement is to find replacements to the various distribution cartels, which include the beloved RIAA, MPAA and the author's unions. These groups are fully responsible for the high cost to enter the market because of their power over copyright. The power of writing or creating is either one of ego-payment (gaining notoriety or fame) or one of creating a value for one's face time. I don't believe that writing a book should offer any more (just as I don't see value in making a CD anymore either).
If you're an author who writes non-fiction, you already know there are profitable ways to promote your ideas without having to kowtow to the publishers. There are already numerous profitable authors who have found ways to make a decent living without the need for Amazon or Borders.
In the end, fact checking is completely a wasted task. The free market has restrictions on how much a consumer is willing to accept in shoddy service, and a book full of lies is no different. We can thank the millions of decisions that anonymous consumers make in realizing this new change in the structure of selling creation -- putting value on truth.
...Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey finalize their divorce, proving that even the biggest stars eventually become single as science has proven time and again.
I'm not sure if it will truly be possible to alleviate legal concerns regarding ICANN and management of the domain name system. ICANN is one of those pseudo-government entities that is fairly impervious to legal mandates it seems. Sure, we hear that changes will be made, but who is reaping the benefit of these changes?
In most situations where there is true competitive (closer to a free market than a regulated one), the end user AND the service/product provider both profit from the competition. Any changes that are made are done so to favor the user -- you don't see price increases in a truly competitive market unless there is a real supply or demand curve change. You also don't see products getting shoddier for no reason. Most things that occur in a free market of competition occur because the customer demands it, and the provider much make the changes or they'll lose out to the providers who will accept the future.
ICANN doesn't have to embrace any changes based on their monopoly status. Just as we had a telephone monopoly in the US for decades (to the disadvantage of the consumer), we're seeing the same things happening with ICANN -- a lot of political wrangling, promises to do better, and guarantees that the bad days are long gone.
Guess what? Nothing will change. The biggest way to change a bad company is to scare them out of their mind that someone will come and provide the same product or service in a cheaper way, faster, or at a higher quality.
e government does have the right to regulate interstate commerce to require ID checking by the airlines.
The commerce clause was intended to allow the federal government the right to stop states from interfering with free trade between states -- it was not meant to create burdens or laws that slow down or halt trade. See the Federalist Papers for that.
Isn't the world "satellite" really a bad word in this situation?
A satellite is anything that has a stable or fairly stable orbit, isn't it? For some reason I can't get to dictionary.com from my PDA, so I have to try to recall the definition.
What is the word used for a functional artificial satellite that actually does something other than orbit?
Theoretically an astronaut can flush and expel the toilet sucker and the orbiting matter would be a satellite, right?
Would something like this work better as a wiki? Sort of open-ended peer-reviewed?
Maybe it might get cluttered with junk, too, though, hmm.
I wonder if a pseudo-moderated wiki capacity for a truly open editable document might work. Weighted by the user's real time previous moderations (+5 Neutral, -5 Troll, etc).
That leads me to the point, actually -- are there specifications for an open editable moderated document that falls towards neutrality in facts?
Google will never compete with iTunes as a pay-for-service for any product that they can't give away in some form. I believe Google sees the problems with copyright and how hard it will be to enforce it as the time goes on (in fact, I believe Google will be one of the guys helping me in my quest to break down IP in some ways).
Google loves to aggregate data, sort it, maybe turn it into some other form (picture, map, etc) and spew it back to the user in a way that is useful to them. They'll throw some AdWords advertising on it as well.
Google's long term goal is certainly making advertising easier on the end user -- we'll each get the ads we want, and we'll end up with ads that actually lead us to clicking and buying. Google doesn't need music as music is finding its own resources for distribution. The iTunes format is great, and I think it will have some explosive growth for a while, but I believe that in the long run digital-music-for-sale is not going to be viable. Apple needs the iPod, Google doesn't have it. Wait until the average user who has an iPod now finds other means to get music in an anonymous and impossible-to-track format.
The next step is for Google to push the boundaries of legality. I'm not sure what that means, exactly, but Google has the power and the computers and the braintank to figure out a way to overturn almost every cartel distributors control over their current information.
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Straw man argument.
Most kidnapping are not performed by anonymous random kidnappers. Most kidnappings occur by family members or people known and trusted by the family.
My kid wouldn't be in the public school system, first of all. Second of all, I would never leave my child with someone I didn't trust implicitly. There are many many things parents could do to reduce the risk of kidnapping. It is sad that most parents don't do them.
As for hiring a PI, you'd be surprised at how often this works. PIs can use skip tracers and account tracking tools to find almost anyone at any time. The 3 times I had to skip trace someone in my life (one was a loan gone bad, one was a business partner who disappeared and one was a friend I lost track of and wanted to find) the PI was able to find them in 2 days or less for very little money.
I was wondering why Romero has been relatively silent on the MMOG gaming spectrum. The MMOG world is a little too crowded, but there is so much room for more growth outside of what we consider the standard MMOG platform.
I have an intense high speed connection on my cell phone (the Samsung t809 -- 150kbps EDGE download speeds, Java capability, great screen. MMOG occupy a lot of home-office time of my friends who are addicted, to the point that they might blow off good live concerts or events to play. If someone finds a way to get the MMOG world onto the high speed cell phones out there, I think Allstate will have higher premiums for drivers after paying out all the accidents caused by using the cell phone for more than talking.
And what about developing more cross platform mini-MMOGs? I'm not just talking about getting it working between the X-Box, the PS3 and the PC, I also mean older platforms and even PDAs, laptops, cell phones, who knows what else? Java is pretty standardized, and I think it should be able to handle the performance if the server-side does a good job of filtering out more update information than the bandwidth can handle. I don't see why these games need to be tied to a high speed high power computer at home.
Other things I'd like to see are MMOGs that set some time limits to equalize the time allotments for older players. I know I can't compete as well as the 15 year old can, so I don't play. I don't have that kind of time. A 1 hour a day time limit might be interesting, though, especially if the game works on any of my many platforms I use daily.
While MMOGs seem to have hit a plateau of sorts, there is still room to grow once they find the new markets. I know MMOGs will be mainstream when we have a reality TV show dedicated entirely to the lives on digital people. Can you imagine the market of geeks who would watch it? Yeesh.
I understand kids have a tendency to get away. I also understand that the market has provisions for tracking when kids do get away.
One of my best friends has 3 kids. She's a single mom, too. When her kids were young, she had this device that was a plastic chain that strapped to her kid's wrist. If the kid took off, she pulled him back in.
They updated the device years later to be wireless -- if a kid walks away from a certain distance, your pocket alarm goes off and warns you to drop everything and find your child.
Most kidnapping are performed by people known by the family, aren't they? I don't see why we need a US$5 billion a year organization to do what the market has already provided for, and that seems to be predictable in who the criminals are.
One more thing: you're a good parent. Do you know how many bad parents I see every day? I'm supposed to pay for bad parenting?
This one, however, kind of irks me; so I'm calling you out on it.
I appreciate your honesty. The sentence wasn't flamebait, but it does open the door for resolving what I meant.
Is it that you don't support our troops, the dirt pounders in the field, or is it that you don't support our government and command structure sending the dirt pounders into the field. The disitinction is real and I am quite interested in your response. The statement sounds like you think the individual GI Joe's are to blame, but your post history would indicate that maybe you did not mean that to be the case.
I have friends in the military. I now have family too (my nephew just went to the Middle East). I condemn them for their actions and their commitment, because I disagree completely with performing any job that I know is immoral. I will never cheat, lie, steal or defraud a customer. I believe the soldiers are the front line not in protecting our rights abroad, but in making the decision to disregard immoral commands. They are the front line in keeping the government from violating the Constitution.
I'm a Christ follower, so there are some caveats here. I believe that God's commandment that we shouldn't murder is extremely important. I don't see any defensive killing being justified unless it is truly defensive -- protecting your land from the enemy entering at that very moment.
No soldier can tell me they're protecting freedom. They're not. My family and friends who have enlisted have come back indoctrinated and fully believing they are saving us from terrorists and communists and criminals and dictators. They're lost when it comes to morals and freedom. I can't support that.
100+ countries that we're in. 100! I believe our Constitution prevents our government from restricting freedom of everyone on this planet -- citizens and aliens in the US and all people abroad. I believe a soldier is an arm of the government, and they must also honor the Constitution.
When was the last time we declared war? We're not to have a standing army, we're to have an army organized from state militias once we declare war. WW2 has been long over, its time to disband the army of tyrants, send them back into the market to work hard and earn a moral and proper living for their families and communities. We don't need to do anything but trade freely and entangle with no one else and their problems.
Freedom first.
I only vote for one person on every ballot. I vote for the one person who can make a decision the way I believe it should be made. I vote for the one person who understands my life, knows what my needs are, and can adjust the law to be realistic, moral and promote freedom not restrict it.
That person is me. I recommend voting for yourself on every ballot, straight ticket, every position. Vote NO to all referenda and judge retentions. Write yourself in and you'll be voting for the only person able to enforce the law the way you want it enforced.
Picture the next presidential election: Condi Rice 7%, Hillary Clinton 8%, Other 85%. I like that. That's my kind of mandate.
It's nice that you seem to have a lot of money to pay for these sorts of things but what about people who aren't so well off?
Picture how much money you'd have every year if we didn't pay for the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and every other spy organization that isn't allowed by the Constitution. Even if it was merely a US$30 billion a year savings, that's about US$300 per year per taxpayer or so. A good PI can cost you US$5000+, but if you assume that kidnapping might occur 1 in 1000 (if even that much?), you can likely purchase kidnap insurance if the market was free to police kidnappings competitively.
I don't see the point of me paying US$300 per year to an organization that has no competition, has the unique monopoly to force me to follow their rules and disrupts freedom just by their presence. No thanks.
And how about the wing of the FBI that investiages kidnappings? If your child is kidnapped, you won't appreciate that?
I would hire a private investigator and a lawyer. Also, I don't see how someone could kidnap my child if I was a good parent and actually parented the child at all times, as a parent should.
How about the FBI department that handles serial killers? Surely that's an infringement of our freedom?
There are so many serial killers that we need an unconstitutional department costing us US$5 billion a year? Murder is NOT a federal crime, per the Constitution. Let the states handle it.
because I want to live in a world where I know if someone sends me a death threat (or what-have-you), that they will be found and I won't have to fear my safety on their account.
And if I received a death threat, I'd arm myself and make sure I had a good shot and a level head.
After a brief standoff, FBI officials relented and sought a warrant from a judge.
Relented? The government is supposedly here to protect us and never stomp on our freedoms. When is the government ever NOT supposed to relent to the citizen? I believe that's their job -- to relent to our will if they come onto our property without just cause. In fact, I don't even believe they ever have just cause as the federal government has gone beyond their constitutionally mandated limits of power.
The FBI, to me, is a completely unconstitutional arm of government. I usually hear the entire "But the Justice Department needs to do their job and the FBI enforces this" and yet I also find the Justice Department unconstitutional. Neither is compatible with freedom or a republican (not the political party definition) form of limited central government.
The FBI is the greatest violator of racketeering laws. They have all the power to force you to perform actions against your will. They have all the power to take what they please when they please, and all you have is the ability to address your grievance in the courts -- the same courts that are paid by the same people who pay the FBI. And how do you vote the FBI out of office?
I don't like the idea of police that aren't policed. I have enough problems with the power that the local cops have -- it goes straight to their heads the minute they put the badge on for the first time. Federal cops are against everything I believe in -- what exactly is the FBI policing? The Constitution set up the crimes that the Federal arm was to enforce -- piracy, counterfeiting and treason. The FBI is not needed to police any of these crimes.
Sure, you can say that the commerce clause gives Congress unlimited power to regulate interstate commerce and they need the FBI to police that commerce. My view on the regulation of commerce is from a freedom perspective -- the commerce clause was written specifically to give Congress the authority to prevent any individual state from restricting commerce with another state. Congress has no mandate to do the restricting of commerce but to regulate the states from restricting free trade. That's pretty much what the founding fathers intended as well.
You can say that the FBI is needed to prevent terrorism, but they haven't. We foster terrorism by provoking anger -- our troops are in over 100 countries of the world today. If you wonder why people hate us, look at the monsters with guns that wear our flag, within our country and beyond our borders in the hundred or more countries we're policing against the will of those citizens.
You can say that the FBI is needed to police child porn or illegal communications between states, but this is also untrue -- both are protected from federal policing by the Constitution, and should be policed only by the individual states if the people so decide. Nothing prevents states from working deals out to help each other when crimes cross into their neighboring states
I don't see the need for the FBI. All I see is their involvement in crime after crime committed by the authoritarian state -- look at prohibition, the drug war, and the daily mistakes that repeat themselves by an organization with too much power and no overview.
Sort of reminds me of Congress, actually.
I use so many different keyboards over the year and I wish the industry had a different label for each layout design. Some have large backspace keys with small enter keys, others have tiny backspace keys with mammoth enter keys. I think I've seen 3 or 4 layouts over time, which is crazy considering that typing becomes more efficient if the keys are in the same place. I figure the best way to get manufacturers to conform a little better is to name the layouts, and once you have your preference, you'll tend to buying the ones you're familiar with. That way manufacturers can see what consumers want and don't want. I'm sure there is a market for different layouts, but it frustrates me when I can't recall what keyboard I am used to without actually buying a new one and then finding out a day later that I'm used to a different sized "any" key.
Not a sociopath, I was punched because I talked to a girl. The boyfriend was jealous and cold-cocked me. End of story :)
I am one of the least sensitive-to-pain people you'll ever meet. I used to always feel pain, because I was afraid of feeling pain. But I learned years ago how to ignore that fear -- avoid fearing entirely. Since then, my tolerance for pain is huge. I've broken bones, lost teeth (punch to the face in a bar) and had my share of other situations (cat bites, skateboard accidents, car accident, etc) and my tolerance to pain is impressive. I've even done major dental work without pain killers and passed kidney stones the same way.
I don't drink a lot of fluids. I should (considering the kidney stones), but I don't. I love water, just don't drink a lot of it. I love tea, too, but forget to drink it.
I think feeling pain is often a mind over matter kind of thing. I had a carpenter friend who cut two of his fingers off and didn't feel pain until he noticed it. I had a friend who broke a foot snowboarding and didn't feel pain until he looked at it.
Have there been studies on pain and mind-over-matter situations?
That's what I thought, too, but a bunch of forums have people complaining, I just wanted some verification.
2 925&highlight=ie7
One link here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=5
Some AdSense advertisers are complaining that IE7 has a built in adblocker specifically targetting Google's ads. Can anyone confirm this?
Fiji Water -- get it cheap at Trader Joe's. The stuff tastes amazing, and it energizes me every time I drink it.
Half hour of strenuous working out helps, too, of course.
If you haven't tried Fiji, though, get some today. It is the only bottled water I buy, and it is the tastiest I've ever had. Water + body fat = energy waiting to be taken advantage of.
I'd love to see Google start to aggregate comparisons of articles. I believe they have this power and it would be very nice to see it implemented.
My most basic description (of a very difficult process, I'd gather), is to have the Toolbar offer an "Originality" rating. If the article is not like any other article, it is rated 100%. If the article is available elsewhere, it is 0%. You should be able to click the rating and be taken to a Google site that lists the similar articles in date format -- who posted first?
This might also work to aggregate comparisons of items, or reviews, or something of the sort.
Your post, at its face, looks very "correct" but it is the same defense given by the copyright cartels.
Very very very few artists ever make a living with their art -- because the distribution system was locked down by those with a lot of power. What was this power? Copyright -- the use of force of government for a private individual or corporation. Copyright quickly created a locked system of radio, TV, and print media, almost impossible to breach.
Why should an artist write a song (a 1-2 week process) and then make money for 70 years on it? Imagine if an engineer drafted up a plumbing drawing, sold it to a contractor and expected to make money on the building for the next 70 years. That is how I view music or writing copyrights -- hey, you're using the toilet system that was designed by the engineer 70 years ago, right?
I believe 100% in the power of the free market -- supply and demand are the only factors in price.
Higher supply = Lower price
Higher demand = Higher price
Lower supply = Higher price
Lower demand = Lower price
Internet = digital information = copyable billions of times for cheap = near infinite supply = $0.00.
If so, then I suppose you won't mind if the major labels come along and take anything that your artists create that they (the labels) like without permission or compensation and just go ahead and call it their own...right?
Right. 100% correct. In fact, I already openly allow anyone to take any of my creations (songs, articles, and even books), put their name on it, and sell it as their own. Of course the few people who have done this with my online works have been chewed out by their readers (how people found out that I wrote it first is beyond me). I don't care anyway.
If copyright was turned off completely, you know Google or some search company would offer real-time comparisons anyway. Can you imagine going to a blog, reading it, and Google's toolbar saying "This article may not be the original" and then you could track down where Google believes the original is. Let the end reader decide.
Information has no value without packaging, promoting, marketing, support and often times Q&A. I sell everything but the information. Take the e-book, read it, and if you want me to write more, send me $20 for the official copy. Guess what? People do it. Will I never make US$1 million? No, but a good book takes me only 6 weeks to write. If I made US$20,000 on my most successful book, I did pretty well (US$20,000 / 120hrs = US$170 / hour, not bad!).
Perhaps you should rethink things a bit and keep the Inellectual Property idea, but be more lenient with it a la Creative Commons licensing.
No, thanks. Licensing such as this requires the force of government to back it up. There is no such thing as protecting Intellectual Property by force, not in my vocabulary. Everything I have ever created that I want to protect I keep secret and show to a rare few. I use everything else to bolster my hourly rate.
It is AWESOME!
I have great respect for the people (the guy?) behind it, but I don't like using force to make people change their actions. I don't see information as property (the physical book is property, the physical CD is property, but if you want to spend your labor copying it, I believe you can 100%). Creative Commons does not address fixing the problems with copyright -- the Internet now allows the market to access the true value of information -- nearly zero.
I'm starting a studio in Chicago, Illinois this spring: No Copyright Studios. We've started to take in donations and investments, and are hoping to open our doors in very late spring if not sooner (considering the equipment we're getting, it should be sooner). I hope to be a future medium-sized label exec by repudiating copyright and focusing on bands that have a real value in live shows versus CD sales.
I believe that music has some interesting profit incentives when it is played live. We've looked into all sorts of value-added options for those live venues, including the following:
* Buy the official CD, get a free ticket to a private show.
* Buy the official CD, get a login to view the band in the studio for a set period of time
* After the live show, purchase a real-time edited sound-board fed DVD of the show
* Buy practice time with the band
* Let anyone else play the song live if you like, but we'll make sure we find out who performed what and when, and advertise that we're the co-op that created the music.
I don't believe in any intellectual property. In the last 6 months, I have attended almost 50 live shows in the Chicago Indie, Punk and alternative scene. I've met over 75 bands who have admitted that copyright has done jack for their income, and they were always better off giving away the recorded music in exchange for getting people into the shows. If you're a musician and you want to earn an income, is it better for the top 10 in the country to make $10,000,000 because they're the main earners for those who control the distribution networks? Or would you rather see 1,000 bands locally who can generate $100,000 each?
There is a lot of money out there to be made when you take out the copyright cartel companies from the market. I firmly believe that bands can make money if they realize the supply and demand forces at work can not be manipulated. Taking advantage of supply and demand is the best way to go about it. MP3 = near infinite supply = $0. Live music = limited supply = income. QED.
I'm one of the few people who believe that the book in its current form is a dead medium in the long run. The books I am currently working on will be completely free in e-book format in exchange for creating a market for my services. There is no margin in this case, pure promotional and marketing value.
In the long haul, even if books continue to have staying power, the Internet is all you need to fact check. Book publishing costs are way down but distribution and marketing costs are way up. If an author prints false material, the market will verify it quick enough, and the author will be finished. This is a much better process than relying on expensive fact checkers, as there are millions of people online willing to find people guilty of lying and manipulating.
Part of my drive in my "no copyright" movement is to find replacements to the various distribution cartels, which include the beloved RIAA, MPAA and the author's unions. These groups are fully responsible for the high cost to enter the market because of their power over copyright. The power of writing or creating is either one of ego-payment (gaining notoriety or fame) or one of creating a value for one's face time. I don't believe that writing a book should offer any more (just as I don't see value in making a CD anymore either).
If you're an author who writes non-fiction, you already know there are profitable ways to promote your ideas without having to kowtow to the publishers. There are already numerous profitable authors who have found ways to make a decent living without the need for Amazon or Borders.
In the end, fact checking is completely a wasted task. The free market has restrictions on how much a consumer is willing to accept in shoddy service, and a book full of lies is no different. We can thank the millions of decisions that anonymous consumers make in realizing this new change in the structure of selling creation -- putting value on truth.
...Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey finalize their divorce, proving that even the biggest stars eventually become single as science has proven time and again.
(And CmdrTaco is still happily married)
I'm not sure if it will truly be possible to alleviate legal concerns regarding ICANN and management of the domain name system. ICANN is one of those pseudo-government entities that is fairly impervious to legal mandates it seems. Sure, we hear that changes will be made, but who is reaping the benefit of these changes?
In most situations where there is true competitive (closer to a free market than a regulated one), the end user AND the service/product provider both profit from the competition. Any changes that are made are done so to favor the user -- you don't see price increases in a truly competitive market unless there is a real supply or demand curve change. You also don't see products getting shoddier for no reason. Most things that occur in a free market of competition occur because the customer demands it, and the provider much make the changes or they'll lose out to the providers who will accept the future.
ICANN doesn't have to embrace any changes based on their monopoly status. Just as we had a telephone monopoly in the US for decades (to the disadvantage of the consumer), we're seeing the same things happening with ICANN -- a lot of political wrangling, promises to do better, and guarantees that the bad days are long gone.
Guess what? Nothing will change. The biggest way to change a bad company is to scare them out of their mind that someone will come and provide the same product or service in a cheaper way, faster, or at a higher quality.
e government does have the right to regulate interstate commerce to require ID checking by the airlines.
The commerce clause was intended to allow the federal government the right to stop states from interfering with free trade between states -- it was not meant to create burdens or laws that slow down or halt trade. See the Federalist Papers for that.
Isn't the world "satellite" really a bad word in this situation?
A satellite is anything that has a stable or fairly stable orbit, isn't it? For some reason I can't get to dictionary.com from my PDA, so I have to try to recall the definition.
What is the word used for a functional artificial satellite that actually does something other than orbit?
Theoretically an astronaut can flush and expel the toilet sucker and the orbiting matter would be a satellite, right?
Would something like this work better as a wiki? Sort of open-ended peer-reviewed?
Maybe it might get cluttered with junk, too, though, hmm.
I wonder if a pseudo-moderated wiki capacity for a truly open editable document might work. Weighted by the user's real time previous moderations (+5 Neutral, -5 Troll, etc).
That leads me to the point, actually -- are there specifications for an open editable moderated document that falls towards neutrality in facts?
Google will never compete with iTunes as a pay-for-service for any product that they can't give away in some form. I believe Google sees the problems with copyright and how hard it will be to enforce it as the time goes on (in fact, I believe Google will be one of the guys helping me in my quest to break down IP in some ways).
Google loves to aggregate data, sort it, maybe turn it into some other form (picture, map, etc) and spew it back to the user in a way that is useful to them. They'll throw some AdWords advertising on it as well.
Google's long term goal is certainly making advertising easier on the end user -- we'll each get the ads we want, and we'll end up with ads that actually lead us to clicking and buying. Google doesn't need music as music is finding its own resources for distribution. The iTunes format is great, and I think it will have some explosive growth for a while, but I believe that in the long run digital-music-for-sale is not going to be viable. Apple needs the iPod, Google doesn't have it. Wait until the average user who has an iPod now finds other means to get music in an anonymous and impossible-to-track format.
The next step is for Google to push the boundaries of legality. I'm not sure what that means, exactly, but Google has the power and the computers and the braintank to figure out a way to overturn almost every cartel distributors control over their current information.