actually yes, Britain does issue licenses for having a TV, but it's more like a fee really.
The reason they do it is that the fees pay (at least in part) for the BBC, that way, if you don't watch TV, you don't pay. It beats taking it out of tax revenue, but frankly I think that technology has pretty much made this a stupid idea.
The CBC may not be as obviously partisan as a TV station in North Korea, but don't try to tell me that it doesn't show a bias in its reporting. The worst example was two elections ago, when the CBC made a big deal out of the Reform party's plans to cut funding to the CBC if elected.. This is just a guess, but I think they devoted three times as much time to that issue as any other station.
Of course the CBC is the least of Canada's problems. All through school I was taught told about the evils of the US two party system that stiffled independent parties, while Canada was blest with a multi-party system. Then I grew up and realised that Canada is virtually a single party state.
There's no such thing as non-bias. Everyone has a bias of some sort, because we haven't grown up in a vacuum.
The point is to try and recognise your biases. And in trying, you must remember that you will NEVER be perfectly succesful.
Note that having a bias doesn't necessarily mean that you are wrong. I'm biased against neo-Nazi's, the KKK, and the campus fascist's at my university who insist that only they have the right to express an opinion because their's are politically correct and everyone else is just biased.
Recognise that the line between bias and opinion is very slim indeed.
Now is it just me or does that suggestion make too much sense ever be implemented?
The problem is that people don't just want part of the pie, they want it all. Whether it's corporations who want to register their name on every tld and make the entire internet corporate or it's twits like Paul Garrin running Name.Space who apparently wants to have a piece of every tld. (I don't see much of a difference)...
Of course the real problem is that we screwed up the use of cc tld's. (Witness the developing screw up that is.ca...
violating copyright is actually against the law in most western countries. This means that if you have mp3's of songs that you have not purchased, you are a criminal. (A relatively minor one, but you still are). In some countries, you are still breaking the law even if you have purchased the song if the mp3 was not made from your specific CD.
Not that I see anything terribly wrong with pirating music, but let's be honest about what we're doing here.
Actually he's exagerating, but Canadians do tend to back down even when they're right.
Just look at the growing softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the USA. Canada has proven its case 3 TIMES with the WTO and NAFTA, but the coporate special interests in the US want to make yet another unfounded complaint. And what are Canadians doing? Well, the ones in BC are whining and bitching that we should cave.
Of course in this case we're not going to because the federal government doesn't give a damn about the west coast and so *they* don't actually have anything to lose.
Fair warning, my family is actually involved in the lumber industry in British Columbia, but I STRONGLY disagree with the position of many BC mills that we should cave.
The truth matters and you shouldn't hide it. That means Canada should not apologize for subsidizing and industry when it doesn't and the US should not apologize for violating international law when they have done no such thing.
Internation Airspace!
Chinese had most maneuverable craft!
END OF STORY!
The problem with that logic is that pedophiles will always want more. (That's the nature of addiction).
What you're talking about is akin to saying to a crack addict, "you can have a small amount", and then expecting that no one will exceed that amount.
The fact is that despite the unpopularity of the word "immoral", society as a whole decides that certain things just can't be allowed. Child porn and incest are among the most universally agreed upon.
Things become less agreed upon as you move into things like keeping narcotics illegal, and saying that it's wrong to sleep with someone unless you married to them.
The things aren't black and white, they're judgement calls. And there is nothing wrong with making a judgement call.
So what's wrong with the idea of approaching one of the larger ISP's resolve ORSC addresses. If for instance AOL got on board, I think ORSC would become a lot more popular.
You always hear the phrase "AOL keyword" on CNN. What if AOL was to make their own TLD.AOL? I may not use AOL, but you can be darn sure I'd want my ISP to let me access that TLD.
Have any of these proponents of alternate root servers made any serious proposals to the larger ISPs?
There is no cure for HIV/AIDS (Slightly off topic)
on
Philanthropy Redefined
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· Score: 1
Point of fact, there is no cure for AIDS.
There are some treatments for AIDS that are remarkably effective in some patients. Those treatements are still very expensive even w/o considering the patent markup. (Difficult to produce and all).
Posting false information about AIDS will lead people to take uninformed and stupid risks, so be careful what you post.
(Just look at the recent rise in hiv infection among San Fransisco's gay male population). It is a DIRECT result of increased risk-taking on the part of young gay men who are convinced a cure is immiment.
Your understanding is flawed. Laws serve purposes other than preventing actual physical harm.
Libel laws are an example of this. Basically these make it illegal (sometimes) to injure someone's reputation. My reputation is not a physical entity, yet it is protected by law.
Furthermore, there are copyright laws that prevent the potential loss of revenue for the copyright holder, not actual physical harm.
You're describing how you think laws SHOULD be. Do not confuse this with how they really are.
To say that governments have no right to do this is absurd. In nations like Canada, the US and France, governments have the legal right to do anything that the VOTING citizens of that country permit them to do.
The whole reason for a recount is simple. Hand recounts produce more accepted ballots than machine counts. If an area is divided perfectly 50/50 between two candidates, a hand recount will raise the number of votes evenly. (Assuming no fraud, and given a large enough number of ballots since this is based on stats).
However, if you do recounts in areas that are (for the sake of arguments) 80% in favour of one candidate, you will increase the number of votes for that candidate by 80 votes for every 20 you raise for the opponent.
Now the hand recounts are in areas that are heavily democrat because the dems asked for recounts before the deadline to ask for them, and the Bush camp DIDN'T do that for Republican areas.
Recounting only some of the county's WILL produce a skewed result. Now, that's not to say that it's not a LEGAL result, or the "true will of the people". It's just like surveys. Ask the question a certain way and you guarantee your answer.
Enough already.
btw- I'm a Canadian who didn't really care about the US election until it was "over". From reading/. and CNN, I've come to the conclusion that Gore is a whiner, regardless of who the next President is.
Actually we do have something similar. A tax on CD-R media. Of course we also have the untaxed variety. The only difference between the two types is that one is sold in the computer department for $1/CD and the other is sold in the audio department for $7/CD. (Oh, and sometimes it says "For Music" on the label).
Of course this relies on the honour system, so it probably doesn't achieve much, but an interesting thing to note is that it is now 100% legal for me to burn a song (that I have not paid for) to one of these expensive CD's.
so what was the problem with registering a.bc.ca or.ab.ca. I know that's possible, and frankly what's wrong with that?
The problem with.com is that it assumes that your organisation is the only one with that name in the entire world.
Now how stupid is that? It's basically only true for Pepsi and such. A software developer in Canada that has a presence in only one province is unlikely to meet that criteria. At least the (unfortunately replaced).ca system wouldn't run into the problem of cybersquatters as quickly.
Now that is a GOOD idea. I'd like to see porn stamped out personally, (Well at least stamped out of my inbox), but seriously there is no way that is EVER going to happen. So let's find a way to deal with it.
Now it's already been said that this will make it easier to filter, but that filtering might not always be voluntary, but frankly I think that's a stupid argument.
Obviously not every porn site is going to rush to.porn, but the existence of such a tld would do much (if explained properly) to satisfy concerned parents. (Not every one, but some at least).
People with 8 yr olds who cruise the net have a legitimate complaint. If current filtering solutions suck, and open source is so great, let's make an open source (including the blacklist obviously) piece of censorware.
If you want to look at it another way, isn't browsing at +1 a filtering/censoring system? Of course it's voluntary and it's open source in the sense that I know how comments are moderated.
Until recently, Canada had the solution for what ail's the.com. Unlike registering a.com name, registering a.ca name took more than cash.
The first rule was that a single entity could only have one domain name. Furthermore, that domain name had to be clearly related to your business/organisation, and as specific as possible to avoid confusion without being too hard to remember. In other words if I owned The Happy Burger Shop, I couldn't register Pepsi.ca. That obviously has nothing to do with my organisation, and I probably would be able to register Burger.ca. I'd probably have to go with HappyBurger.ca.
Furthermore, in order to register a.ca I'd have to represent a national organisation. (In other words, my business would have to be incorporated federally). If I was incorporated provincially, I could have HappyBurger.bc.ca if I was located in British Columbia. That was in the event that my domain name was also the name of another organisation in another province, (unlikely, but possible), they could have the domain name for that area.
The advantages of this system are clear. Cybersquating becomes difficult if not impossible, and the system didn't favour those with cash. Like when mailbank.com decided to register thousands of last names and resell them. They aren't creating wealth there, they're just trying to create another middleman. Something the consumer doesn't need, and the internet should do away with.
Unfortunately, someone at the.ca organisation decided to try and make money by copying the.com system. The result is going to be what has happened to the.com. Favoritism to large corporations and lawsuits where the the group with the most cash wins. There are enough "open" tld's. Why trash all of them?
Certainly individual rights are important in Canada, but I think the point is that fundamentally, collective rights are more important in Canada than they are in the states.
(The scale is tipped a little further in the collective direction up here)
As for SoF, perhaps the the film classification board doesn't really have the right to classify a game, but doesn't convergence blur the line a bit? (And shouldn't/.'s accept that, and not get nit-picky). Let's face it, the difference between a 17 rating from the game association and and 'Adult' classification from the film board is only 1 year. (It's just that the film board rating is actually enforced). Now surely the game manufacturer wouldn't be hoping a lot of sales would come as a result of people ignoring the industry rating would they? surely not.
-issachar in BC.
warning: pushing the bounds of the topic...
on
Battlefield Earth
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· Score: 1
okay, point taken. I knew Travolta was in it, but I didn't know any other big name scientologists were. I definately don't want to help them at all. I'll have to give the whole thing some more thought.
maybe wait 'till it heads towards the $2 theatre.
anyway, I'm going to bed, I'll read the whole discussion thread in the morning.
btw- does anyone know where I can get my hands on some copyrighted scientology material to mirror? (the stuff that they're afraid to show anyone who hasn't been under their influence for years) (I heard they go nuts trying to keep that off the web)
I'll probably get my butt sued blue by the CoS, but hey I don't have any money anyway...
Are we supposed to start a flame-war over the merits of scientology? Why bother. The movie makes sense really, Scientology is more of a business with some pop psychology mixed in, than a religion. I mean compare it to Islam, Buddism, Christianity or Sikism, in each and everyone of those material wealth is a detriment. Not so in Scientology.
I personally am going to see the movie and take it for what it is. A science fiction flick designed to make $$$, not a religious experience.
and before some lame-brained moderator decides to ding me, i'm posting with my name because what i've said is a legitimate point, not ranting in the darkness.
Is publicly available cryptography strong enough for me to start buying stuff with a credit card on the 'net?
Or is it what I assume... that the cryptography's fine, but the weak link is in the software the OS or somesuch. (sort of like a padlock on a screen door)...
I forget where I heard this, (and it's a Canuck stat), but apparently income taxes, property taxes etc. take 20cents out of the economy for every $ collected whereas sales taxes only take somewhere around 6cents out of the economy. (because economic activity is required before they are paid) this means that if you tax the net and lower income taxes, the economy improves. you're going to be taxed anyway, wouldn't you like it to be in the least destructive way? and it's not that hard to figure out how to do: tax businesses where they are physically located based on their sales (if you want business taxes) and tax consumers where they are physically located (if you want sales taxes)
I should have been more descriptive of the Young Offenders Act. With the YOA, it is forbiden to disclose the identity of convicted offenders. That's my beef.
however if I'm accused of a crime I should always be allowed to say, "I'm accused of doing this, and I didn't do it"
of course there's cultural differences between the US and Canada. (There's never a perfect comparison). The point is that Canada is a closer comparison that Switzerland is.
those are certainly good reasons to dislike jail but why (I assume) don't you commit crimes?
are you telling me that if you thought you could get away with it, (and you probably could if you were smart, i.e. rifle from a distance) you'd kill your boss if he pissed you off, and you thought you might get promoted into his job if he were "unavailable"?
Does it make a difference that the person in question was presumably under age 21?
Up here in Canada we have something called the Young Offenders Act which basically means that in kiddie court the public never knows the identity of the accused and convictions only result in minor or suspended sentences.
One effect of the anonymity of the accused is that we've lost the corrective power of shame. In our efforts to "avoid further damaging" a criminal, we sacrifice a major corrective tool.
The biggest reason people don't commit crimes is that they believe that it's wrong. The second biggest reason is that they fear their peer group will look down on them. Anonymity destroys this.
Slashdot Mirror
actually yes, Britain does issue licenses for having a TV, but it's more like a fee really.
The reason they do it is that the fees pay (at least in part) for the BBC, that way, if you don't watch TV, you don't pay. It beats taking it out of tax revenue, but frankly I think that technology has pretty much made this a stupid idea.
Think user-fee.
The CBC may not be as obviously partisan as a TV station in North Korea, but don't try to tell me that it doesn't show a bias in its reporting. The worst example was two elections ago, when the CBC made a big deal out of the Reform party's plans to cut funding to the CBC if elected.. This is just a guess, but I think they devoted three times as much time to that issue as any other station.
Of course the CBC is the least of Canada's problems. All through school I was taught told about the evils of the US two party system that stiffled independent parties, while Canada was blest with a multi-party system. Then I grew up and realised that Canada is virtually a single party state.
Sad...
There's no such thing as non-bias. Everyone has a bias of some sort, because we haven't grown up in a vacuum.
The point is to try and recognise your biases. And in trying, you must remember that you will NEVER be perfectly succesful.
Note that having a bias doesn't necessarily mean that you are wrong. I'm biased against neo-Nazi's, the KKK, and the campus fascist's at my university who insist that only they have the right to express an opinion because their's are politically correct and everyone else is just biased.
Recognise that the line between bias and opinion is very slim indeed.
Now is it just me or does that suggestion make too much sense ever be implemented?
.ca...
The problem is that people don't just want part of the pie, they want it all. Whether it's corporations who want to register their name on every tld and make the entire internet corporate or it's twits like Paul Garrin running Name.Space who apparently wants to have a piece of every tld. (I don't see much of a difference)...
Of course the real problem is that we screwed up the use of cc tld's. (Witness the developing screw up that is
uh, dude...
violating copyright is actually against the law in most western countries. This means that if you have mp3's of songs that you have not purchased, you are a criminal. (A relatively minor one, but you still are). In some countries, you are still breaking the law even if you have purchased the song if the mp3 was not made from your specific CD.
Not that I see anything terribly wrong with pirating music, but let's be honest about what we're doing here.
I am Canadian too and this guy is right!
Actually he's exagerating, but Canadians do tend to back down even when they're right.
Just look at the growing softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the USA. Canada has proven its case 3 TIMES with the WTO and NAFTA, but the coporate special interests in the US want to make yet another unfounded complaint. And what are Canadians doing? Well, the ones in BC are whining and bitching that we should cave.
Of course in this case we're not going to because the federal government doesn't give a damn about the west coast and so *they* don't actually have anything to lose.
Fair warning, my family is actually involved in the lumber industry in British Columbia, but I STRONGLY disagree with the position of many BC mills that we should cave.
The truth matters and you shouldn't hide it. That means Canada should not apologize for subsidizing and industry when it doesn't and the US should not apologize for violating international law when they have done no such thing.
Internation Airspace!
Chinese had most maneuverable craft!
END OF STORY!
The problem with that logic is that pedophiles will always want more. (That's the nature of addiction).
What you're talking about is akin to saying to a crack addict, "you can have a small amount", and then expecting that no one will exceed that amount.
The fact is that despite the unpopularity of the word "immoral", society as a whole decides that certain things just can't be allowed. Child porn and incest are among the most universally agreed upon.
Things become less agreed upon as you move into things like keeping narcotics illegal, and saying that it's wrong to sleep with someone unless you married to them.
The things aren't black and white, they're judgement calls. And there is nothing wrong with making a judgement call.
So what's wrong with the idea of approaching one of the larger ISP's resolve ORSC addresses. If for instance AOL got on board, I think ORSC would become a lot more popular.
.AOL? I may not use AOL, but you can be darn sure I'd want my ISP to let me access that TLD.
You always hear the phrase "AOL keyword" on CNN. What if AOL was to make their own TLD
Have any of these proponents of alternate root servers made any serious proposals to the larger ISPs?
Point of fact, there is no cure for AIDS.
There are some treatments for AIDS that are remarkably effective in some patients. Those treatements are still very expensive even w/o considering the patent markup. (Difficult to produce and all).
Posting false information about AIDS will lead people to take uninformed and stupid risks, so be careful what you post.
(Just look at the recent rise in hiv infection among San Fransisco's gay male population). It is a DIRECT result of increased risk-taking on the part of young gay men who are convinced a cure is immiment.
...
Your understanding is flawed. Laws serve purposes other than preventing actual physical harm.
Libel laws are an example of this. Basically these make it illegal (sometimes) to injure someone's reputation. My reputation is not a physical entity, yet it is protected by law.
Furthermore, there are copyright laws that prevent the potential loss of revenue for the copyright holder, not actual physical harm.
You're describing how you think laws SHOULD be. Do not confuse this with how they really are.
To say that governments have no right to do this is absurd. In nations like Canada, the US and France, governments have the legal right to do anything that the VOTING citizens of that country permit them to do.
Oh can the rhetoric!
/. and CNN, I've come to the conclusion that Gore is a whiner, regardless of who the next President is.
The whole reason for a recount is simple. Hand recounts produce more accepted ballots than machine counts. If an area is divided perfectly 50/50 between two candidates, a hand recount will raise the number of votes evenly. (Assuming no fraud, and given a large enough number of ballots since this is based on stats).
However, if you do recounts in areas that are (for the sake of arguments) 80% in favour of one candidate, you will increase the number of votes for that candidate by 80 votes for every 20 you raise for the opponent.
Now the hand recounts are in areas that are heavily democrat because the dems asked for recounts before the deadline to ask for them, and the Bush camp DIDN'T do that for Republican areas.
Recounting only some of the county's WILL produce a skewed result. Now, that's not to say that it's not a LEGAL result, or the "true will of the people". It's just like surveys. Ask the question a certain way and you guarantee your answer.
Enough already.
btw- I'm a Canadian who didn't really care about the US election until it was "over". From reading
Actually we do have something similar. A tax on CD-R media. Of course we also have the untaxed variety. The only difference between the two types is that one is sold in the computer department for $1/CD and the other is sold in the audio department for $7/CD. (Oh, and sometimes it says "For Music" on the label).
Of course this relies on the honour system, so it probably doesn't achieve much, but an interesting thing to note is that it is now 100% legal for me to burn a song (that I have not paid for) to one of these expensive CD's.
so what was the problem with registering a .bc.ca or .ab.ca. I know that's possible, and frankly what's wrong with that?
.com is that it assumes that your organisation is the only one with that name in the entire world.
.ca system wouldn't run into the problem of cybersquatters as quickly.
The problem with
Now how stupid is that? It's basically only true for Pepsi and such. A software developer in Canada that has a presence in only one province is unlikely to meet that criteria. At least the (unfortunately replaced)
Now that is a GOOD idea. I'd like to see porn stamped out personally, (Well at least stamped out of my inbox), but seriously there is no way that is EVER going to happen. So let's find a way to deal with it.
.porn, but the existence of such a tld would do much (if explained properly) to satisfy concerned parents. (Not every one, but some at least).
Now it's already been said that this will make it easier to filter, but that filtering might not always be voluntary, but frankly I think that's a stupid argument.
Obviously not every porn site is going to rush to
People with 8 yr olds who cruise the net have a legitimate complaint. If current filtering solutions suck, and open source is so great, let's make an open source (including the blacklist obviously) piece of censorware.
If you want to look at it another way, isn't browsing at +1 a filtering/censoring system? Of course it's voluntary and it's open source in the sense that I know how comments are moderated.
So let's stop bitching and do something!
Until recently, Canada had the solution for what ail's the .com. Unlike registering a .com name, registering a .ca name took more than cash.
.ca I'd have to represent a national organisation. (In other words, my business would have to be incorporated federally). If I was incorporated provincially, I could have HappyBurger.bc.ca if I was located in British Columbia. That was in the event that my domain name was also the name of another organisation in another province, (unlikely, but possible), they could have the domain name for that area.
.ca organisation decided to try and make money by copying the .com system. The result is going to be what has happened to the .com. Favoritism to large corporations and lawsuits where the the group with the most cash wins. There are enough "open" tld's. Why trash all of them?
The first rule was that a single entity could only have one domain name. Furthermore, that domain name had to be clearly related to your business/organisation, and as specific as possible to avoid confusion without being too hard to remember. In other words if I owned The Happy Burger Shop, I couldn't register Pepsi.ca. That obviously has nothing to do with my organisation, and I probably would be able to register Burger.ca. I'd probably have to go with HappyBurger.ca.
Furthermore, in order to register a
The advantages of this system are clear. Cybersquating becomes difficult if not impossible, and the system didn't favour those with cash. Like when mailbank.com decided to register thousands of last names and resell them. They aren't creating wealth there, they're just trying to create another middleman. Something the consumer doesn't need, and the internet should do away with.
Unfortunately, someone at the
Certainly individual rights are important in Canada, but I think the point is that fundamentally, collective rights are more important in Canada than they are in the states.
(The scale is tipped a little further in the collective direction up here)
As for SoF, perhaps the the film classification board doesn't really have the right to classify a game, but doesn't convergence blur the line a bit? (And shouldn't
-issachar in BC.
okay, point taken. I knew Travolta was in it, but I didn't know any other big name scientologists were. I definately don't want to help them at all. I'll have to give the whole thing some more thought.
maybe wait 'till it heads towards the $2 theatre.
anyway, I'm going to bed, I'll read the whole discussion thread in the morning.
btw- does anyone know where I can get my hands on some copyrighted scientology material to mirror? (the stuff that they're afraid to show anyone who hasn't been under their influence for years) (I heard they go nuts trying to keep that off the web)
I'll probably get my butt sued blue by the CoS, but hey I don't have any money anyway...
Are we supposed to start a flame-war over the merits of scientology? Why bother. The movie makes sense really, Scientology is more of a business with some pop psychology mixed in, than a religion. I mean compare it to Islam, Buddism, Christianity or Sikism, in each and everyone of those material wealth is a detriment. Not so in Scientology.
I personally am going to see the movie and take it for what it is. A science fiction flick designed to make $$$, not a religious experience.
and before some lame-brained moderator decides to ding me, i'm posting with my name because what i've said is a legitimate point, not ranting in the darkness.
thanks for all the help, I'll check out the counterpane thing (and yes I'm running 128bit)
so here's my probably foolish question...
Is publicly available cryptography strong enough for me to start buying stuff with a credit card on the 'net?
Or is it what I assume... that the cryptography's fine, but the weak link is in the software the OS or somesuch. (sort of like a padlock on a screen door)...
ps - i'm new at this, moderators be merciful...
I forget where I heard this, (and it's a Canuck stat), but apparently income taxes, property taxes etc. take 20cents out of the economy for every $ collected whereas sales taxes only take somewhere around 6cents out of the economy. (because economic activity is required before they are paid) this means that if you tax the net and lower income taxes, the economy improves. you're going to be taxed anyway, wouldn't you like it to be in the least destructive way? and it's not that hard to figure out how to do: tax businesses where they are physically located based on their sales (if you want business taxes) and tax consumers where they are physically located (if you want sales taxes)
point taken.
I should have been more descriptive of the Young Offenders Act. With the YOA, it is forbiden to disclose the identity of convicted offenders. That's my beef.
however if I'm accused of a crime I should always be allowed to say, "I'm accused of doing this, and I didn't do it"
of course there's cultural differences between the US and Canada. (There's never a perfect comparison). The point is that Canada is a closer comparison that Switzerland is.
-btw, Canada didn't win, the British army did...
those are certainly good reasons to dislike jail but why (I assume) don't you commit crimes?
are you telling me that if you thought you could get away with it, (and you probably could if you were smart, i.e. rifle from a distance) you'd kill your boss if he pissed you off, and you thought you might get promoted into his job if he were "unavailable"?
Does it make a difference that the person in question was presumably under age 21?
Up here in Canada we have something called the Young Offenders Act which basically means that in kiddie court the public never knows the identity of the accused and convictions only result in minor or suspended sentences.
One effect of the anonymity of the accused is that we've lost the corrective power of shame. In our efforts to "avoid further damaging" a criminal, we sacrifice a major corrective tool.
The biggest reason people don't commit crimes is that they believe that it's wrong. The second biggest reason is that they fear their peer group will look down on them. Anonymity destroys this.