Not a good idea to bring up the economic crisis since it was CAUSED by lack of regulation of the banking sector, and is being bailed out by governments. Unfettered capitalism is as unworkable as any other system.
And you mention the US military. It is run along socialist lines. Free healthcare, education, centralised planning,restricted rights.
You also have to consider the impact of this on the people in the tanks and behind the machine guns. You can only force people so far before they turn their guns in the other direction.
How far this is depends on how well you have dehumanised the opposition. It makes it so much easier if they are different religions or ethnic groups or both.
We live in a society that specialises. Sure we can fix our cars / build our houses, grow our own food etc, but economies of scale and specialised knowledge make it beneficial to do outsource. Same goes for education.
The mistake many parents make is that once outsourced they take no further interest. I see formal education as a starting point.There are a whole raft of things not covered by the education system, or not in sufficient detail. Little things like how to use basic household tools, practical gardening and cooking. And bigger things like how to navigate safely around a foreign country.
Maybe the problem is parents not taking enough interest in their children's education. Do your own research. Take a look at the university entrance requirements. Join the P&C (or whatever the school parent body is in your area).
I am on the exec of my childs P&C and get a chance to talk to the principal at every meeting. Makes a hell of a difference. Speaking to another parent on that same exec who had a troubled son, she said the only thing that prevented him getting expelled for poor behaviour was the fact that she was on speaking terms with the people that matter.
The MPAA want to make me and my ISP responsible for what goes across my Internet connection. How is this different from the FedEx example exactly?
And just for the record, I think both are absurb.
However, if I were a customer of megaupload who had copyright material on their servers, I would like to be putting a case for copyright infringement of my work by the FBI in NZ, since they have no legal authority in that jurisdication. And if they have returned to the US after breaking the law, well, NZ will just have to put in a extradition request.
Hang on, I never said nationalise everything. Only public infrastructure. Railways, roads, telco infrastructure, sewers, water, electricity distribution. It just does not make sense to duplicate these things, which in most sensible countries is exactly why they are not duplicated.
I don't think comparing 1st and 3rd world is helpful. Maybe better to look at say, Sweden and the US.
Until the millions of people like you realise that there are some things it makes sense to only have one of, you will continue to suffer poor services in this regard.
As far as I know there was never a Austrian presence in either Rome or Greece. Well, okay, the Holy Roman Empire, but that was German right? Anyway, take a trip around Vienna and you will see wall to wall neo-classical architecture.
It's called culture. When people see something somewhere else that they like, they either steal it (if it isn't nailed down) or go home and copy it.
It is feasible to create a distributed version of Facebook without the need for central servers accept to connect users together initially, in the way that Skype or a torrent file does. If you made connections invite via email, you could do away with the central site completely.
You would need always-on devices to make it work well, but the chief benefit would be that there was no need for your information to reside anywhere other than on your own machine (and in the cache of your friends if network speeds are an issue).
You would need one client per platform, and would need to allow a user to synch if they use multiple devices but that wouldn't be a big ask. The upside would be a much richer experience than a browser can give - you could seamlessly incorporate messaging and video into it.
This is the same model that cable uses. Very high bandwidth spread across multiple users. Guess what, at peak times the speed drops markedly and you have no control over this. Which is exactly why I opted for DSL. Maybe a much lower bandwidth but at least I know it is all mine, at least to the exchange.
Presumably the condo would have a contact person for the ISP. When they are not contactable and the Internet goes down you are stuffed. Unless your contact person has the same hours or better than the ISP call centre, this is not a good idea.
Agreed you should not put them in jail. But if society didn't ban things that didn't kill you, you would have a fair idea that getting something illegally would. After all, just because we have overpasses doesn't mean that people will jump off them.
As it stands I need to go to the same person to get a hit of grass, as I do a hit of H. And they probably get better margins on the H.
I was brought up to believe that "all drugs are evil" which IMHO is a very dangerous mantra. Luckily for me our student union provided a great booklet on the drugs available and the risks. So was really able to enjoy my uni days with minimal risks. One thing I have noticed though, is that dope has become way more potent over the years and no longer gives you a mellow luvving feeling - it is borderline hallucinogenic, at least for me.
Maybe not, but the idea that people could grow a drug rather than have to buy it would be counter to a lot of peoples interests. The AC was just pointing that out...
Nah, not forgotten about the hostage crisis, or the botched attempt to get them back. Quite apart from that not being a war, it was also very complex from a political point of view. After the revolution they took over the US embassy. Why? Because the CIA had previously used it as a base for a military coup. You would think that this idea of embassies being off limits would bring responsibilities with the freedoms.
What I don't get is that the US seems to need a bogey man, and Iran is currently unfortunately it. The crazy thing is that they are, and never will be, a serious threat to the US. Hell, neither was Bin Laden. If the best an organisation can do is kill 4000 odd civilians after massive planning they are piss weak. Bombing raids in the second world war managed upwards of twenty times that much and it just made people stronger.
Oh, and just for the record I think the current leadership of Iran is a bunch of religious nut jobs that I have no time for. But I am also of the belief that it is up to a countries own population to sort that sort of thing out. Just like Afghanistan. Leave 'em to it - eventually they will evolve or not, but either way it is their call. Just don't sell the buggers weapons (US - Saudi, Russia - Syria etc etc) to help with the oppression.
After all, the country I came from (UK) arrived in Australia and proceeded to steal the land and massacre the natives, and it was only given Aboriginals the vote and land rights (in a limited way) in my lifetime. Who are we to be moralising to others?
"The provision of chemical precursors from United States companies to Iraq was enabled by a Ronald Reagan administration policy that removed Iraq from the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Leaked portions of Iraq's "Full, Final and Complete" disclosure of the sources for its weapons programs shows that thiodiglycol, a substance needed to manufacture mustard gas, was among the chemical precursors provided to Iraq from US companies such as Alcolac International and Phillips."
They knew what was going on. They chose to ignore it because of the embarrassment that Iran had caused the US after the overthrow of the Shah.
Having attended a number of security conferences recently where cyber attacks on infrastructure (which is what Stuxnet was) were discussed in detail, I can't share you 'unconcerned'. You start putting viruses in industrial processing equipment and you could end up with a Fukishima or Bhopal. One attack I have seen demonstrated involved a virus being injected via the wireless connections on control vales in a oil refinery, and then hopping across 16 bit processors and RS232 connections. I didn't follow the whole thing, but the PHD guys that demonstrated it were pretty convincing. Hey presto, hacker just got control of your oil refinery.
Thing is, the "bad guys" have PHD propeller heads too. In fact, depending on which countries you regard as bad guys, they may well have more than you. A world where this sort of thing (and extra judicial murders via drone strikes come to that) is normal is not a world that I am comfortable with.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice strawman there.
Not a good idea to bring up the economic crisis since it was CAUSED by lack of regulation of the banking sector, and is being bailed out by governments. Unfettered capitalism is as unworkable as any other system.
And you mention the US military. It is run along socialist lines. Free healthcare, education, centralised planning,restricted rights.
The US doesn't want them to be part of the ISS due to perceived risk of technology stealing.
You also have to consider the impact of this on the people in the tanks and behind the machine guns. You can only force people so far before they turn their guns in the other direction.
How far this is depends on how well you have dehumanised the opposition. It makes it so much easier if they are different religions or ethnic groups or both.
We live in a society that specialises. Sure we can fix our cars / build our houses, grow our own food etc, but economies of scale and specialised knowledge make it beneficial to do outsource. Same goes for education.
The mistake many parents make is that once outsourced they take no further interest. I see formal education as a starting point.There are a whole raft of things not covered by the education system, or not in sufficient detail. Little things like how to use basic household tools, practical gardening and cooking. And bigger things like how to navigate safely around a foreign country.
Maybe the problem is parents not taking enough interest in their children's education. Do your own research. Take a look at the university entrance requirements. Join the P&C (or whatever the school parent body is in your area).
I am on the exec of my childs P&C and get a chance to talk to the principal at every meeting. Makes a hell of a difference. Speaking to another parent on that same exec who had a troubled son, she said the only thing that prevented him getting expelled for poor behaviour was the fact that she was on speaking terms with the people that matter.
The MPAA want to make me and my ISP responsible for what goes across my Internet connection. How is this different from the FedEx example exactly?
And just for the record, I think both are absurb.
However, if I were a customer of megaupload who had copyright material on their servers, I would like to be putting a case for copyright infringement of my work by the FBI in NZ, since they have no legal authority in that jurisdication. And if they have returned to the US after breaking the law, well, NZ will just have to put in a extradition request.
Hang on, I never said nationalise everything. Only public infrastructure. Railways, roads, telco infrastructure, sewers, water, electricity distribution. It just does not make sense to duplicate these things, which in most sensible countries is exactly why they are not duplicated.
I don't think comparing 1st and 3rd world is helpful. Maybe better to look at say, Sweden and the US.
Until the millions of people like you realise that there are some things it makes sense to only have one of, you will continue to suffer poor services in this regard.
It is a failure to realise that public infrastructure should be public, that's what it is.
You don't have two roads servicing your house, or two sewers or water pipes. Why two cable runs or mobile towers?
Actually I am in Sydney. In my area cable is not fibre, it's copper, and shared.
But not a poster that has Mikey Mouse on it, or a MacDonalds restaurant, or an Apple store.
See where I am going with this?
As far as I know there was never a Austrian presence in either Rome or Greece. Well, okay, the Holy Roman Empire, but that was German right? Anyway, take a trip around Vienna and you will see wall to wall neo-classical architecture.
It's called culture. When people see something somewhere else that they like, they either steal it (if it isn't nailed down) or go home and copy it.
The English adopted the word bungalow (not bangalow) from India, so it is quite appropriate really.
The pyramids are not the original pyramids either. Well, one of them might be...
What, the residents have had cosmetic surgery? And eat sauerkraut and schnitzel for dinner every day? That sure is dedication...
It might make you feel better to know that the USA was built on the back of counterfeiting and intellectual property theft of designs from Europe.
It is feasible to create a distributed version of Facebook without the need for central servers accept to connect users together initially, in the way that Skype or a torrent file does. If you made connections invite via email, you could do away with the central site completely.
You would need always-on devices to make it work well, but the chief benefit would be that there was no need for your information to reside anywhere other than on your own machine (and in the cache of your friends if network speeds are an issue).
You would need one client per platform, and would need to allow a user to synch if they use multiple devices but that wouldn't be a big ask. The upside would be a much richer experience than a browser can give - you could seamlessly incorporate messaging and video into it.
This is the same model that cable uses. Very high bandwidth spread across multiple users. Guess what, at peak times the speed drops markedly and you have no control over this. Which is exactly why I opted for DSL. Maybe a much lower bandwidth but at least I know it is all mine, at least to the exchange.
Presumably the condo would have a contact person for the ISP. When they are not contactable and the Internet goes down you are stuffed. Unless your contact person has the same hours or better than the ISP call centre, this is not a good idea.
Agreed you should not put them in jail. But if society didn't ban things that didn't kill you, you would have a fair idea that getting something illegally would. After all, just because we have overpasses doesn't mean that people will jump off them.
As it stands I need to go to the same person to get a hit of grass, as I do a hit of H. And they probably get better margins on the H.
If only I had mod points and you weren't an AC...
I was brought up to believe that "all drugs are evil" which IMHO is a very dangerous mantra. Luckily for me our student union provided a great booklet on the drugs available and the risks. So was really able to enjoy my uni days with minimal risks. One thing I have noticed though, is that dope has become way more potent over the years and no longer gives you a mellow luvving feeling - it is borderline hallucinogenic, at least for me.
Maybe not, but the idea that people could grow a drug rather than have to buy it would be counter to a lot of peoples interests. The AC was just pointing that out...
And this is different to alcohol exactly?
Good point. Maybe I need to try another brand.
Nah, not forgotten about the hostage crisis, or the botched attempt to get them back. Quite apart from that not being a war, it was also very complex from a political point of view. After the revolution they took over the US embassy. Why? Because the CIA had previously used it as a base for a military coup. You would think that this idea of embassies being off limits would bring responsibilities with the freedoms.
What I don't get is that the US seems to need a bogey man, and Iran is currently unfortunately it. The crazy thing is that they are, and never will be, a serious threat to the US. Hell, neither was Bin Laden. If the best an organisation can do is kill 4000 odd civilians after massive planning they are piss weak. Bombing raids in the second world war managed upwards of twenty times that much and it just made people stronger.
Oh, and just for the record I think the current leadership of Iran is a bunch of religious nut jobs that I have no time for. But I am also of the belief that it is up to a countries own population to sort that sort of thing out. Just like Afghanistan. Leave 'em to it - eventually they will evolve or not, but either way it is their call. Just don't sell the buggers weapons (US - Saudi, Russia - Syria etc etc) to help with the oppression.
After all, the country I came from (UK) arrived in Australia and proceeded to steal the land and massacre the natives, and it was only given Aboriginals the vote and land rights (in a limited way) in my lifetime. Who are we to be moralising to others?
From Wikipedia:
"The provision of chemical precursors from United States companies to Iraq was enabled by a Ronald Reagan administration policy that removed Iraq from the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Leaked portions of Iraq's "Full, Final and Complete" disclosure of the sources for its weapons programs shows that thiodiglycol, a substance needed to manufacture mustard gas, was among the chemical precursors provided to Iraq from US companies such as Alcolac International and Phillips."
They knew what was going on. They chose to ignore it because of the embarrassment that Iran had caused the US after the overthrow of the Shah.
Having attended a number of security conferences recently where cyber attacks on infrastructure (which is what Stuxnet was) were discussed in detail, I can't share you 'unconcerned'. You start putting viruses in industrial processing equipment and you could end up with a Fukishima or Bhopal. One attack I have seen demonstrated involved a virus being injected via the wireless connections on control vales in a oil refinery, and then hopping across 16 bit processors and RS232 connections. I didn't follow the whole thing, but the PHD guys that demonstrated it were pretty convincing. Hey presto, hacker just got control of your oil refinery.
Thing is, the "bad guys" have PHD propeller heads too. In fact, depending on which countries you regard as bad guys, they may well have more than you. A world where this sort of thing (and extra judicial murders via drone strikes come to that) is normal is not a world that I am comfortable with.