I don't like any gun laws or regulations. I believe people who are peaceful will learn to use guns properly, take proper care of them, and know how to use them in defense only. I believe when peaceful people have the opportunity to be armed, the criminals will have a much bigger risk ahead of them.
Crime, right now, is very unprofitable in towns without gun regulations. But in cities like Chicago, we see the same guy (in the news today) who robbed something like 9 stores in the past week and no one did anything. My retail stores that I owned until recently were always armed, and I've displayed a gun twice to defend myself. Just displaying a gun is usually enough to send the criminal running, or even better, puts them into a shower of tears and pleadings.
If crime goes up, I'll start planting criminals who attempt to harm me or my property. If more people had this attitude, I think crime would go down.
This guy in Chicago robbing random stores really peeved me. The news media said that the police said to just give up the cash and let him go, and to try to get his license plate number. Sorry, if he came to my store or home and asked for money, he'd get his cash in lead.
Hey, I agree with you that I don't care much for booth babes. I don't go to conventions so that I can get a sneak peak of something along with 100,000 other people. The market already provides for guys like us -- it is called alpha testing, private screening and buyer tours.
When it comes to the industries that I am in, I expect my sales people to give me a preview of items before the masses get to see them. I don't go to industry conventions, and I buy first from the sales people who give me dibs on seeing a new product. Girlies in bikinis do nothing for me (if you want nudity, just go to European beaches).
Yet my problem with Campbell is his desire to enforce morality by LAW. If a private convention center said "we don't allow bikinis in our center" I have no problem with it. I have a problem with giving someone the right to use force against another. Voluntary cooperation is fine, force by mandate of the law is not.
I've been dealing with convention centers for a long time -- I used to perform IT work for some of the largest convention fixture companies (they build the displays you see). I was always amazed at the mess of union guidelines and government mandates that came with setting up at convention centers. I knew it would only be time before they started jumping on morality, too. Government loves to try to control morality.
I don't have a problem with scantily clad women at conventions and at shows (car shows). They're part of the reason some people go to these events, and then they stay to actually look at the products being sold or promoted. It is a marketing tool.
If women have great bodies, why shouldn't they make money with them? I could care less if they're clothed, naked, whoring themselves out -- it is their body to use as they please as long as it is voluntary trade with another consenting adult.
It blows my mind that this Colin Campbell guy would prefer to see regulation over clothing. Clothing is expression. Expression can not be controlled per the 1st amendment. Of course, our governments can also control expression on private property, which is a bigger atrocity than the regulation on public property.
If a private convention center wants to regulate clothing, they can. A government-run convention center (subsidized by taxpayers usually) should stick with the law that controls their powers. The 1st amendment tells government they have no right to control expression, it is a freedom every human has, and no one should worry about a law abridging this freedom.
For the rest of his article, I'll give you a secret about E3: the real industry insiders don't care anymore. E3 is a consumer show now, no matter how much they try to say it isn't. The industry wants schmucks to go there, gawk at the hot scantily-clad babes, and crow about the next big game. E3 years ago was a blast when it was real insider scoops and communications with industry heavyweights. Now it is just another festival to get drunk, get laid, and then go home and tell everyone about the great new gadgets and games that you saw. The girlies are just a great way to get the geeks to come and take part in the festivities of consumer marketing.
(Disclosure: I am currently working on a convention center so my opinion might be skewed by the lack of steady payments by the customer)
Absolutely. Professor John Lott discovered that when more guns are sold to peaceful citizens, crime drops.
To use an overused example, imagine that you are a criminal and you have two towns to choose to rob a house from. One town lets anyone have a gun for any reason. The other town bans guns entirely. Which town will you go to?
Gun regulations give criminals the equivalent of a sign that says "Rob Me!" in your yard.
Actually, I blogged about smoking yesterday. The town my church is in is thinking of banning the SALE of cigarettes at all stores. They'll watch their convenience stores go bankrupt as many of them make a decent profit on cigarettes.
Yet I'd rather see cigarettes banned by stupid towns (people will drive a town over) than banned at the state or federal level. The same is true of cocaine, alcohol, porn, whatever -- if you want to ban it, just do it at the local level and I'll avoid your town if it is a product I support.
Both parties are to blame for the rise in power of the central government. These politicians are mandated by the Constitution to take an oath to uphold the Constitution and they've failed that. I have a solution for those that violate the law they promise to abide by or create.
The definition of authoritarian is, at its most basic, one who ignores the facts. History repeatedly shows that the more government tries to get involved, the worse things get. Even in US history we see how politicians have led to death, poverty and addictions. When alcohol was illegal, the mob became the new provider. When cocaine was made illegal, the gangs created crack and cocaine blends for what used to be a positive medicinal product (ask any european dentist).
I have to call shens on this article though. I see a few problems:
A new study monitored brain activity of partisans
Since when do supporters of either party have brains?
they shun logic and use emotional processing centers to justify their candidate's contradictory statements.
Emotions? Taking hard earned wealth from people you don't know with the threat of a gun or jail is not what I consider emotionally-stable or even emotionally-available. Supporting either party offers just that -- free money by forcing others to part with it against their will.
Be Democrat locally. Be Republican locally. Join communities that accept your views and were you can truly vote with your feet if you disagree -- maybe moving a few miles. When you bring your authoritarian mandates to the federal government, you force your will on people who don't accept your authority. Even though I am an anarcho-capitalist, I do see value in the Constitution. Uphold it, stop worrying about the rest of the country or the rest of the world or even the rest of your state. Focus on your community and not only will these studies not matter, but there won't be any facts to ignore as long as you're living with those you agree with.
Security-testing software creator pleads guilty to helping thousands of Internet users see the security issues they're unwilling and too irresponsible to fix, opening the door for other security experts to blog about easy fixes to prevent attacks in the future.
I picked up an Ethernet-to-WiFi adapter for my X-Box and it works great. It also works on any laptop that has Ethernet (so far at least). Would these be a reasonable purchase for Linux boxes?
I'm building a Linux based laptop now (my first try at it) and I'm concerned about the wireless difficulties. I have a few more of these adapters lying around, though.
This looks to be a step for the telcom providers to give themselves some direction to move into, now that their ability to extract profits from providing a dying service is coming to a close.
I've seen so many great products that will come to the market in the next 6-18 months that can replace your cell phone (which replaced my landline). Most utilize WiFi to communicate with others inside and outside of the network. PocketSkype sorta deal.
Will this replace anyone soon? Probably not. I do believe the fight to regulate the Internet will come directly out of two things: "lost" sales tax revenue, and lost POTS business. If the 'net can get past both of these, we'll see some amazing communications devices released, and we can only hope to see the wasted spectrum of cell phones (and TV and radio) gives up for a more unregulated WiFi-style spectrum to utilize more efficiently.
In my "investigations" I believe T-Mobile will be the first to release a product that could be considered a knife in their own back: the multi-band GSM/WiFi cell phone that actually transitions cell calls to VoIP automatically. They've been investigating it for years and were ahead of most other providers in offering large companies with no T-Mobile signal a chance to set up an IP-based repeater.
Open source is a must-have for the telcos. If they can feel their death is imminent (say, 10-20 years), the best thing they can do to all their 100 years of proprietary architecture is to dump it, transition to open source APIs and software, and be ahead of the pack in making the transition to communications-via-IP. This will kill off the possibility of anyone trying to resurrect the old way.
I don't think the open source push is being performed for the user's interests, but I do think it will bring unintended consequences for the communications cartels. I can't wait to see how we're communicating in 10 years -- just 10 years ago I remember paying up to 20-40 cents a minute for an in-state (out of area) call.
In the long run, the company that can give the browser what they want in 3 clicks or less from any information platform will lead.
HTML should be put on the back burner. WAP, interactive video and audio-on-demand will be the big channels.
AI-driven interfaces predicting user desires based on billions of aggregated and sorted decisions will reduce clutter and confusion. Users who ever notice the interface will be unhappy.
If I'm in transit and need a Widget, I should have near instant access to not just price comparisons but real delivery times. Maybe a local retailer I never heard of has a Widget in stock 5 minutes away from my current location.
I'd love to see Google (or someone) provide free and simple to install search tools for business inventories, libraries and even garage sales.
Microsoft and Google and Symantec are not the warriors on the spam battle front. They can do nothing to properly reduce the costs of fighting spam (the costs that the end user doesn't see but definitely pays for). The warriors are us, geeks and techies who know the real solution.
Spam continues to be produced because it is generating income. I like to don my black hat and look at the spam forums and see that there still are people making boatloads of money for little investment. Investing US$10,000 in a spam campaign has net some people US$50,000 in a few months!
Why does spam generate income? Users continue to click. I have e-mail relationships with people all over the world on a daily basis, and it really blows my mind how some very bright people seem to be Internet morons. I honestly believe that the great majority of the world's Internet users have no idea how to properly browse or read e-mail.
Turning off images is a huge step in the right direction (I had already told many people to turn them off if the e-mail programmed allowed it). What other things have you told your friends or family to do to prevent the dreaded "my computer is so slow" phone call? How many times have you EVER clicked spam? The ratio is the answer to the question: teach others proper Internet usage techniques.
Amper -- I appreciate your responses, I only just got back to the web after a very long 24 hours of work:) Since this thread is basically "over" I'm going to ponder your responses and make note of them on my No Copyright blog shortly.
To the gent (lady?) who asked how an author makes money selling books, the response is not so wonderful until one things of the long term effect of copyright: sell it yourself.
Artists have always found better sales through art fairs, direct-to-customer sales, exhibits and even through private galleries. Book writers should be no different. Our largest book stores (Amazon, Borders, B&N) likely because this big due to copyright's power of putting the publishing in the hands of the very powerful cartels. Even if your book is good, the chance of publication is zero, and if it does get published, your chance of profit is zero.
Selling direct, via local book stores and art fairs, seems like the right way to sell art.
You don't see painters complaining about distribution as they've found the secret to selling -- go direct to your customer. I don't think music or writing or poetry should be any different.
Copyright puts such power in the hands of the cartels to control those who are not part of the gang that it seems near impossible to me to even try to get into the market without a great deal of luck.
The slippery slope of government's renting of their monopoly on the use of force is being proven right here.
Copyright can't work anymore. I'd say up until 1995 or so, you had copyright laws that were degrading but still were enforceable. It can't be done. It is time for everyone who creates content to find new ways to market it.
My typical reply to "how?" is to move to live performances and tours -- with a push to sell official merchandise on top of it. Some other people in support of my No Copyright opinions have even thought up other great ways to promote art without copyright:
1. You can charge your fans for access to your studio creation time via the web. 2. You can record your live art performance real time, dump it to DVD and sell it to the fans that were at the performance. 3. You can get a job with a larger company and be a salaried artist. 4. You can contract out with local pubs to be a regular live performance artist. 5. You can tour, often, using your cheap/free CDs or free MP3s to promote your music syle. 6. You can play cheaply in order to promote your real job: teaching others to play an instrument.
Copyright has one intent: to enable the cartels to retain control of the distribution. There is no other use for copyright enforcement longer than 3 years. I even think that 24 months sounds too long for me.
I've been debating copyright in real life for 2 years now, and I'm working on opening No Copyright Studios in Chicago, IL this spring. If you have interest in beating down the RIAA, move away from the law that supports their cartel -- copyright. If you're a band, a painter, a web designer, a sculptor or any other artist, there are ways to sell your art face-to-face for a profit and skip turning over your rights to a cartel middleman.
I'm familiar with ABET and fully support their (competitive and free market) accreditation.
I don't believe that education at most ABET-accredited colleges is better than in the past. I interview graduates constantly and I'm not sure what kids are learning.
I see money freely given to people who have no right to be in college. It seems standards fell in acceptance policy in 20 years. The money spent on imbeciles is taken, by force, from taxpayers and competes with private money for the high demand schools.
How else can you explain college costs going up, but graduate aptitude going down?
To the ACs who replied, I don't reply to ACs anymore.
However, how does a student getting money, which he can spend in whatever university he chooses to go to, including private ones, going to make that student a worse student than the one paying his way through?
In order to qualify for federal funds, colleges must meet federal mandates for levels of education. These mandates also include very hefty bureaucratic red tape messes. A few colleges nationally (VERY FEW, can count them on your fingers) don't accept any federal funding of any kind (including grants and loans) -- leaving them able to accomodate what the market wants in education, not what government may have decided is correct 10 years ago. See J.H. Huebert's view on college regulation by Congress and how it has become affected by federal financing.
Also, colleges accepting federal funding do seem to be more "liberal" than the colleges that don't. Neal Zupancic offers some good pointers as to why public college funding is creating a bigger problem than had ever existed before federal mandates.
As to federal dollars increasing the cost, this is completely true. As the money supply in any market goes up (more money available), prices rise. This happens when Greenspan runs the money printing machine (ends up in inflation in everything), as well as in healthcare (medicare, medicaid and social security causing medical prices to go up), and even in education.
Take the money (and the mandates) out and let colleges be competitive in every way.
Look at how a republican controlled congress and white has drasitacly cut the size of the govt, slashed budgets and debt, and is running a surplus with a strong dollar.
The Republicans are as socialist (if not more so) than the Democrats. Statists are Statists.
Don't fool yourself by thinking that the government is funding our entire education (or even a significant portion) when it's giving out more in your damn tax refund.
The tax refund was just an excuse for Greenspan and his peers to just print more money. There is no "refund" when our dollars are being depreciated by the Fed, week by week.
On top of that, education is funded more by government than by private institutions. Government grants and allotments account for more than direct-to-college funds -- they subsidize the students with lower-than-market loans (which never seem to get repaid) and guarantees on top of those loans.
Tracy Saboe seems to realize this -- the State has done more damage than what they were hoping to repair.
If you think that eliminating federal education subsidies is likely to produce a better society, I'm interested in what factor you think is more overriding than an educated society.
Putting federal funds into anything and you get higher prices and lower service. Health care went downhill after federal funds were involved. Education is no different. More taxpayer funded programs means lower quality, lower choice and higher prices.
Education was just fine before all the federal funding and mandates -- in fact it seems that study after study shows US graduates are dumber than they were in previous generations.
I've hired teenagers who were considered gifted or advanced, and the've always seemed mentally deficient. Even my own sister is 14 and her education is subpar to what I had when I as younger -- most of which I learned on my own. My experience with public education was also subpar.
The term Christian has taken on a very disgusting meaning. When one thinks of a Christian, it seems one thinks of a right wing pro-war pro-Bush fascist who wants to control what you think, how you browse the web, what you watch on TV and how you spend your money -- all with the force of law.
I believe that followers of Christ should seperate themselves from what I consider the false body and keep each other accountable while leaving the rest of society alone. We can testify our faith if they want to listen, otherwise we can't mandate that they live by God's law.
When colleges were paid for primarily by the student or private funds, you KNEW what type of college you were attending. The best schools even had professors who still worked in the industry "Those who can't do, teach" was not really an accurate cliche.
Now we have primarily public funding in college. What do you expect but State-loving socialists instead of true masters of academia? Is college even necessary if you're to go on to a non-science profession?
One of the few professors I still admire is Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who had something to say about the system and the garbage bin it has fallen into. I'm not sure we'll see any real changes until we remove the federal funding of education from all education, especially the college grants and loans that the government seems to happy to dole out.
If you'd call it that. I believe "Hell" has more of the artistic fire and brimstone connotation to it -- which is why I don't like using the word. The Bible has had additional addenda added to it over the years by secular writings -- Dante's Inferno, for example, as well as what artists have rendered. We confuse the word of man with the Word of God sometimes, maybe even often times.
See, that's odd to me. I'm a Christ follower and the basic "uglies" of sex are not anything I see as wrong between consenting adults. When it boils down to me, I do believe that >I should be married to have sex, and when I did before marriage I would now consider it a sin (when it comes to me). I do believe that I can hold other Christ followers in my congregation accountable, though, but not people outside of my congregation or faith.
To me, in marriage, anything goes when it comes to sex (as long as both husband and wife as consenting). I'm surprised at how puritanical some people can be.
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I don't like any gun laws or regulations. I believe people who are peaceful will learn to use guns properly, take proper care of them, and know how to use them in defense only. I believe when peaceful people have the opportunity to be armed, the criminals will have a much bigger risk ahead of them.
Crime, right now, is very unprofitable in towns without gun regulations. But in cities like Chicago, we see the same guy (in the news today) who robbed something like 9 stores in the past week and no one did anything. My retail stores that I owned until recently were always armed, and I've displayed a gun twice to defend myself. Just displaying a gun is usually enough to send the criminal running, or even better, puts them into a shower of tears and pleadings.
If crime goes up, I'll start planting criminals who attempt to harm me or my property. If more people had this attitude, I think crime would go down.
This guy in Chicago robbing random stores really peeved me. The news media said that the police said to just give up the cash and let him go, and to try to get his license plate number. Sorry, if he came to my store or home and asked for money, he'd get his cash in lead.
Hey, I agree with you that I don't care much for booth babes. I don't go to conventions so that I can get a sneak peak of something along with 100,000 other people. The market already provides for guys like us -- it is called alpha testing, private screening and buyer tours.
When it comes to the industries that I am in, I expect my sales people to give me a preview of items before the masses get to see them. I don't go to industry conventions, and I buy first from the sales people who give me dibs on seeing a new product. Girlies in bikinis do nothing for me (if you want nudity, just go to European beaches).
Yet my problem with Campbell is his desire to enforce morality by LAW. If a private convention center said "we don't allow bikinis in our center" I have no problem with it. I have a problem with giving someone the right to use force against another. Voluntary cooperation is fine, force by mandate of the law is not.
I've been dealing with convention centers for a long time -- I used to perform IT work for some of the largest convention fixture companies (they build the displays you see). I was always amazed at the mess of union guidelines and government mandates that came with setting up at convention centers. I knew it would only be time before they started jumping on morality, too. Government loves to try to control morality.
I don't have a problem with scantily clad women at conventions and at shows (car shows). They're part of the reason some people go to these events, and then they stay to actually look at the products being sold or promoted. It is a marketing tool.
If women have great bodies, why shouldn't they make money with them? I could care less if they're clothed, naked, whoring themselves out -- it is their body to use as they please as long as it is voluntary trade with another consenting adult.
It blows my mind that this Colin Campbell guy would prefer to see regulation over clothing. Clothing is expression. Expression can not be controlled per the 1st amendment. Of course, our governments can also control expression on private property, which is a bigger atrocity than the regulation on public property.
If a private convention center wants to regulate clothing, they can. A government-run convention center (subsidized by taxpayers usually) should stick with the law that controls their powers. The 1st amendment tells government they have no right to control expression, it is a freedom every human has, and no one should worry about a law abridging this freedom.
For the rest of his article, I'll give you a secret about E3: the real industry insiders don't care anymore. E3 is a consumer show now, no matter how much they try to say it isn't. The industry wants schmucks to go there, gawk at the hot scantily-clad babes, and crow about the next big game. E3 years ago was a blast when it was real insider scoops and communications with industry heavyweights. Now it is just another festival to get drunk, get laid, and then go home and tell everyone about the great new gadgets and games that you saw. The girlies are just a great way to get the geeks to come and take part in the festivities of consumer marketing.
(Disclosure: I am currently working on a convention center so my opinion might be skewed by the lack of steady payments by the customer)
Absolutely. Professor John Lott discovered that when more guns are sold to peaceful citizens, crime drops.
To use an overused example, imagine that you are a criminal and you have two towns to choose to rob a house from. One town lets anyone have a gun for any reason. The other town bans guns entirely. Which town will you go to?
Gun regulations give criminals the equivalent of a sign that says "Rob Me!" in your yard.
That was sort of the point -- to be funny :) Unfortunately the emotions of anger come first, I guess.
I think slashdot needs a "post a photo of your face right now" feature, hah.
Take the Jihad on Smoking, for example.
Actually, I blogged about smoking yesterday. The town my church is in is thinking of banning the SALE of cigarettes at all stores. They'll watch their convenience stores go bankrupt as many of them make a decent profit on cigarettes.
Yet I'd rather see cigarettes banned by stupid towns (people will drive a town over) than banned at the state or federal level. The same is true of cocaine, alcohol, porn, whatever -- if you want to ban it, just do it at the local level and I'll avoid your town if it is a product I support.
Change your dictionary.
Both parties are to blame for the rise in power of the central government. These politicians are mandated by the Constitution to take an oath to uphold the Constitution and they've failed that. I have a solution for those that violate the law they promise to abide by or create.
The definition of authoritarian is, at its most basic, one who ignores the facts. History repeatedly shows that the more government tries to get involved, the worse things get. Even in US history we see how politicians have led to death, poverty and addictions. When alcohol was illegal, the mob became the new provider. When cocaine was made illegal, the gangs created crack and cocaine blends for what used to be a positive medicinal product (ask any european dentist).
I have to call shens on this article though. I see a few problems:
A new study monitored brain activity of partisans
Since when do supporters of either party have brains?
they shun logic and use emotional processing centers to justify their candidate's contradictory statements.
Emotions? Taking hard earned wealth from people you don't know with the threat of a gun or jail is not what I consider emotionally-stable or even emotionally-available. Supporting either party offers just that -- free money by forcing others to part with it against their will.
Be Democrat locally. Be Republican locally. Join communities that accept your views and were you can truly vote with your feet if you disagree -- maybe moving a few miles. When you bring your authoritarian mandates to the federal government, you force your will on people who don't accept your authority. Even though I am an anarcho-capitalist, I do see value in the Constitution. Uphold it, stop worrying about the rest of the country or the rest of the world or even the rest of your state. Focus on your community and not only will these studies not matter, but there won't be any facts to ignore as long as you're living with those you agree with.
If I can't punch a monkey, shoot a duck or try to slash the ninja, I'm not clicking!
How far we've come in 12 years!
Security-testing software creator pleads guilty to helping thousands of Internet users see the security issues they're unwilling and too irresponsible to fix, opening the door for other security experts to blog about easy fixes to prevent attacks in the future.
I picked up an Ethernet-to-WiFi adapter for my X-Box and it works great. It also works on any laptop that has Ethernet (so far at least). Would these be a reasonable purchase for Linux boxes?
I'm building a Linux based laptop now (my first try at it) and I'm concerned about the wireless difficulties. I have a few more of these adapters lying around, though.
This looks to be a step for the telcom providers to give themselves some direction to move into, now that their ability to extract profits from providing a dying service is coming to a close.
I've seen so many great products that will come to the market in the next 6-18 months that can replace your cell phone (which replaced my landline). Most utilize WiFi to communicate with others inside and outside of the network. PocketSkype sorta deal.
Will this replace anyone soon? Probably not. I do believe the fight to regulate the Internet will come directly out of two things: "lost" sales tax revenue, and lost POTS business. If the 'net can get past both of these, we'll see some amazing communications devices released, and we can only hope to see the wasted spectrum of cell phones (and TV and radio) gives up for a more unregulated WiFi-style spectrum to utilize more efficiently.
In my "investigations" I believe T-Mobile will be the first to release a product that could be considered a knife in their own back: the multi-band GSM/WiFi cell phone that actually transitions cell calls to VoIP automatically. They've been investigating it for years and were ahead of most other providers in offering large companies with no T-Mobile signal a chance to set up an IP-based repeater.
Open source is a must-have for the telcos. If they can feel their death is imminent (say, 10-20 years), the best thing they can do to all their 100 years of proprietary architecture is to dump it, transition to open source APIs and software, and be ahead of the pack in making the transition to communications-via-IP. This will kill off the possibility of anyone trying to resurrect the old way.
I don't think the open source push is being performed for the user's interests, but I do think it will bring unintended consequences for the communications cartels. I can't wait to see how we're communicating in 10 years -- just 10 years ago I remember paying up to 20-40 cents a minute for an in-state (out of area) call.
In the long run, the company that can give the browser what they want in 3 clicks or less from any information platform will lead.
HTML should be put on the back burner. WAP, interactive video and audio-on-demand will be the big channels.
AI-driven interfaces predicting user desires based on billions of aggregated and sorted decisions will reduce clutter and confusion. Users who ever notice the interface will be unhappy.
If I'm in transit and need a Widget, I should have near instant access to not just price comparisons but real delivery times. Maybe a local retailer I never heard of has a Widget in stock 5
minutes away from my current location.
I'd love to see Google (or someone) provide free and simple to install search tools for business inventories, libraries and even garage sales.
Microsoft and Google and Symantec are not the warriors on the spam battle front. They can do nothing to properly reduce the costs of fighting spam (the costs that the end user doesn't see but definitely pays for). The warriors are us, geeks and techies who know the real solution.
Spam continues to be produced because it is generating income. I like to don my black hat and look at the spam forums and see that there still are people making boatloads of money for little investment. Investing US$10,000 in a spam campaign has net some people US$50,000 in a few months!
Why does spam generate income? Users continue to click. I have e-mail relationships with people all over the world on a daily basis, and it really blows my mind how some very bright people seem to be Internet morons. I honestly believe that the great majority of the world's Internet users have no idea how to properly browse or read e-mail.
Turning off images is a huge step in the right direction (I had already told many people to turn them off if the e-mail programmed allowed it). What other things have you told your friends or family to do to prevent the dreaded "my computer is so slow" phone call? How many times have you EVER clicked spam? The ratio is the answer to the question: teach others proper Internet usage techniques.
Amper -- I appreciate your responses, I only just got back to the web after a very long 24 hours of work :) Since this thread is basically "over" I'm going to ponder your responses and make note of them on my No Copyright blog shortly.
To the gent (lady?) who asked how an author makes money selling books, the response is not so wonderful until one things of the long term effect of copyright: sell it yourself.
Artists have always found better sales through art fairs, direct-to-customer sales, exhibits and even through private galleries. Book writers should be no different. Our largest book stores (Amazon, Borders, B&N) likely because this big due to copyright's power of putting the publishing in the hands of the very powerful cartels. Even if your book is good, the chance of publication is zero, and if it does get published, your chance of profit is zero.
Selling direct, via local book stores and art fairs, seems like the right way to sell art.
You don't see painters complaining about distribution as they've found the secret to selling -- go direct to your customer. I don't think music or writing or poetry should be any different.
Copyright puts such power in the hands of the cartels to control those who are not part of the gang that it seems near impossible to me to even try to get into the market without a great deal of luck.
The slippery slope of government's renting of their monopoly on the use of force is being proven right here.
Copyright can't work anymore. I'd say up until 1995 or so, you had copyright laws that were degrading but still were enforceable. It can't be done. It is time for everyone who creates content to find new ways to market it.
My typical reply to "how?" is to move to live performances and tours -- with a push to sell official merchandise on top of it. Some other people in support of my No Copyright opinions have even thought up other great ways to promote art without copyright:
1. You can charge your fans for access to your studio creation time via the web.
2. You can record your live art performance real time, dump it to DVD and sell it to the fans that were at the performance.
3. You can get a job with a larger company and be a salaried artist.
4. You can contract out with local pubs to be a regular live performance artist.
5. You can tour, often, using your cheap/free CDs or free MP3s to promote your music syle.
6. You can play cheaply in order to promote your real job: teaching others to play an instrument.
Copyright has one intent: to enable the cartels to retain control of the distribution. There is no other use for copyright enforcement longer than 3 years. I even think that 24 months sounds too long for me.
I've been debating copyright in real life for 2 years now, and I'm working on opening No Copyright Studios in Chicago, IL this spring. If you have interest in beating down the RIAA, move away from the law that supports their cartel -- copyright. If you're a band, a painter, a web designer, a sculptor or any other artist, there are ways to sell your art face-to-face for a profit and skip turning over your rights to a cartel middleman.
I'm familiar with ABET and fully support their (competitive and free market) accreditation.
I don't believe that education at most ABET-accredited colleges is better than in the past. I interview graduates constantly and I'm not sure what kids are learning.
I see money freely given to people who have no right to be in college. It seems standards fell in acceptance policy in 20 years. The money spent on imbeciles is taken, by force, from taxpayers and competes with private money for the high demand schools.
How else can you explain college costs going up, but graduate aptitude going down?
To the ACs who replied, I don't reply to ACs anymore.
However, how does a student getting money, which he can spend in whatever university he chooses to go to, including private ones, going to make that student a worse student than the one paying his way through?
In order to qualify for federal funds, colleges must meet federal mandates for levels of education. These mandates also include very hefty bureaucratic red tape messes. A few colleges nationally (VERY FEW, can count them on your fingers) don't accept any federal funding of any kind (including grants and loans) -- leaving them able to accomodate what the market wants in education, not what government may have decided is correct 10 years ago. See J.H. Huebert's view on college regulation by Congress and how it has become affected by federal financing.
Also, colleges accepting federal funding do seem to be more "liberal" than the colleges that don't. Neal Zupancic offers some good pointers as to why public college funding is creating a bigger problem than had ever existed before federal mandates.
As to federal dollars increasing the cost, this is completely true. As the money supply in any market goes up (more money available), prices rise. This happens when Greenspan runs the money printing machine (ends up in inflation in everything), as well as in healthcare (medicare, medicaid and social security causing medical prices to go up), and even in education.
Take the money (and the mandates) out and let colleges be competitive in every way.
Look at how a republican controlled congress and white has drasitacly cut the size of the govt, slashed budgets and debt, and is running a surplus with a strong dollar.
The Republicans are as socialist (if not more so) than the Democrats. Statists are Statists.
Don't fool yourself by thinking that the government is funding our entire education (or even a significant portion) when it's giving out more in your damn tax refund.
The tax refund was just an excuse for Greenspan and his peers to just print more money. There is no "refund" when our dollars are being depreciated by the Fed, week by week.
On top of that, education is funded more by government than by private institutions. Government grants and allotments account for more than direct-to-college funds -- they subsidize the students with lower-than-market loans (which never seem to get repaid) and guarantees on top of those loans.
Tracy Saboe seems to realize this -- the State has done more damage than what they were hoping to repair.
If you think that eliminating federal education subsidies is likely to produce a better society, I'm interested in what factor you think is more overriding than an educated society.
Putting federal funds into anything and you get higher prices and lower service. Health care went downhill after federal funds were involved. Education is no different. More taxpayer funded programs means lower quality, lower choice and higher prices.
Education was just fine before all the federal funding and mandates -- in fact it seems that study after study shows US graduates are dumber than they were in previous generations.
I've hired teenagers who were considered gifted or advanced, and the've always seemed mentally deficient. Even my own sister is 14 and her education is subpar to what I had when I as younger -- most of which I learned on my own. My experience with public education was also subpar.
The term Christian has taken on a very disgusting meaning. When one thinks of a Christian, it seems one thinks of a right wing pro-war pro-Bush fascist who wants to control what you think, how you browse the web, what you watch on TV and how you spend your money -- all with the force of law.
I believe that followers of Christ should seperate themselves from what I consider the false body and keep each other accountable while leaving the rest of society alone. We can testify our faith if they want to listen, otherwise we can't mandate that they live by God's law.
When colleges were paid for primarily by the student or private funds, you KNEW what type of college you were attending. The best schools even had professors who still worked in the industry "Those who can't do, teach" was not really an accurate cliche.
Now we have primarily public funding in college. What do you expect but State-loving socialists instead of true masters of academia? Is college even necessary if you're to go on to a non-science profession?
One of the few professors I still admire is Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who had something to say about the system and the garbage bin it has fallen into. I'm not sure we'll see any real changes until we remove the federal funding of education from all education, especially the college grants and loans that the government seems to happy to dole out.
Surely, that is hell?
If you'd call it that. I believe "Hell" has more of the artistic fire and brimstone connotation to it -- which is why I don't like using the word. The Bible has had additional addenda added to it over the years by secular writings -- Dante's Inferno, for example, as well as what artists have rendered. We confuse the word of man with the Word of God sometimes, maybe even often times.
See, that's odd to me. I'm a Christ follower and the basic "uglies" of sex are not anything I see as wrong between consenting adults. When it boils down to me, I do believe that >I should be married to have sex, and when I did before marriage I would now consider it a sin (when it comes to me). I do believe that I can hold other Christ followers in my congregation accountable, though, but not people outside of my congregation or faith.
To me, in marriage, anything goes when it comes to sex (as long as both husband and wife as consenting). I'm surprised at how puritanical some people can be.