Sometimes I wonder about getting rid of ballots entirely and requiring every vote to be a write in. We probably can't do that because ballots are somewhat necessary to resolve name ambiguities, but it would be nice otherwise. No more arguments about who gets on a ballot. If you can't spell your candidate's name, well then you can't vote. Nobody gets any special treatment. Nobody can vote party line any longer without at least putting in enough effort to find out who the party candidates are.
Maybe some intermediate solution like "register a unique name with the elections office", similar to a trademark, would be enough. Damn it would fix a lot of problems quickly.
It could be something like "license plates cost $500 and require a renewal every year, but if you allow for our *cough* *cough* state approved supporters to put *cough* *cough* community messages on your license plate, then it's only $10 a year. You do support the community don't you?"
Too bad the people with the resources to fight it are so cowardly and greedy.
Yeah, and not only are they cowardly and greedy, the voters expect individual companies to risk jailtime fighting for the rights of the voters on their behalf so that they can continue living in a stupor.
I'm more interested in this software that detects bugs in code. Does it also solve the halting problem? Can it satisfy finite combinational logic in polynomial time?
That's why they put phrases in such as "promote the general Welfare"
"General welfare" only exists 2 places in the US Constitution: In the preamble and in the enumeration of congresses power to tax:
We the People of the United States, in Order to... promote the general Welfare... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
In both cases the "general welfare" is not an enumerated power, but a justification. In order to promote general welfare, the constitution is established. In order to promote general welfare and provide for a military, the US may establish taxes. At no point does the constitution just say "as long as you are promoting the general welfare, do whatever you want and to hell with the idea of federalism".
and left out phrases such as "and such is an exhaustive list of the only things this governmental entity can do".
No they didn't.
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Amendment X : The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Or as Madison put it: "It has been objected also against a Bill of Rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution."
So there was never any kind of set of "original mandates" that government has grown past, other than a handful of don'ts, such as don't trample of free speech, don't establish a state religion, don't inflict cruel or unusual punishment, etc.
Public schools pretty much cover the 10 amendments to the US constitution and completely ignore the entire rest of the text. That doesn't excuse any intelligent person from doing the same.
There are 3 rights that were listed as innate: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. They are innate due to the fact that everyone (mostly) is born with alive, everyone is born with the ability to make choices, and is born with the ability to choose to what end their choices are made. That is why they were called "endowed by God".
Rights such as "congress may make no law abridging the freedom of speech" are not innate. It requires reason to understand why you don't want congress to be free to determine what people can and cannot communicate.
Referring to rights as "innate" does more to harm than good to the goal of freedom. Consider someone who thinks that neglecting rights at borders acceptable. You want to change their mind. You have 2 choices: 1) Tell them that rights are innate 2) Reason with them about pros and cons of neglecting rights at borders
One of these approaches is going to further alienate opponents, one of them might actually be capable of persuading them. Please stop referring to rights that demand reasoning as simply "innate". It is an incorrect understanding of what the Declaration of Independence meant by innate and it is an obnoxious argument that "begs the question".
Actually, the reasoning that leads to fear, which the FBI would like the general public to accept, is probably:
1) FBI prosecutes person for teaching how to beat a lie detector 2) Therefore the technique to beat the lie detector must work 3) Therefore the lie detector must work
Sure most people on Slashdot wouldn't fall for that. But spend 6 hours at your local supermarket and try to find 1 person who wouldn't be swallowed by this.
In one year the United States contributed $598,292,101 to a UN budget of $2,498,618,698 which comes to 22% of the entire budget.
On the other hand, some sources like here explain that the funding is actually pretty complicated, as various departments of the federal government all contribute individually to various departments of the UN, up to as much as "$5.327 billion in 2005".
I'm not sure what the actual true percentage of UN funding is that comes from the US, but the fact remains that they aren't going to do anything substantial regardless of anything the US does.
What if the UN kicks the US out of the UN? UN loses military and funding. US regains some national sovereignty.
It unfortunately is not going to happen. Then US could send to hide under all the tables of the UN conference rooms, and nothing would come of it. The US could hide in the ceiling rafters and start sending all of the members each other's secret communications and nothing would come of it.
People should not represent themselves in court. Doctors should not operate on their own family. Juries may not have personal knowledge of the plaintiff or defendant.
First hand involvement compromises judgement. It's a sad fact of humans. Being emotionally involved in a crime does not make a person more qualified to offer opinion on the appropriate punishment for a crime. Unfortunately, it does make them more likely to be involved, which usually results in a distorted and poorly considered legal system. Our DUI laws are one example.
Direct experience in a subject does not make a person more reliable. Empathy and a general systematic consideration do.
Large changes are made by small, vocal minorities. How many "several election cycles" does it take to fix things when you vote for a major party?
It's really obnoxious how the only people contributing to fixing recurring problems are being called "uninformed daydreamers" by someone who's policy does nothing but contribute to major party problems.
Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. -- George Washington
You should really question the morality of people who aren't generally competent.
A person who doesn't exercise can't be moral enough to save another in a physical emergency. A person who doesn't work can't be moral enough to save another in a financial emergency.
For a person who never engages in any kind of challenging intellectual encounter, any claim of morality is worthless. They can't make difficult decisions, and will probably just go with whatever popular opinion is.
Negation, which grammatically isn't the same thing as subtraction, is left somewhat ambiguous in academic mathematical grammar. Similarly to how parenthesis on sin and cos functions are in the "interpret it whatever way makes sense" category.
That's a good point, an instance of an encryption could conceivably be broken with enough computing power, but the algorithm itself cannot.
As far as fixed length keys, I'm not familiar with DES, but with AES they also use "fixed lengths". The length isn't really fundamental to the algorithm though. It's like how Go is defined for a fixed 19x19 board size, which leads to certain strategies, but you could increase the board size without changing the computational nature of the game.
Most of the encryption debates seem a bit ridiculous to me anyway though. A man in the middle can defeat any encryption technique, you have to assume a safe no-write channel. If an attacker can't write to a channel, usually they can't read from it either, at which point you don't need encryption anyway.
Advances in computation power alone will never break encryption. Ever. There is no boundary. An encryption can always just create larger keys.
The article is discussing advances in mathematics. Mathematics is more powerful than any computer. Unfortunately, results are also much less predictable. Encryption could be broken with mathematics in 5 minutes, or even never.
Slashdot Mirror
Sometimes I wonder about getting rid of ballots entirely and requiring every vote to be a write in. We probably can't do that because ballots are somewhat necessary to resolve name ambiguities, but it would be nice otherwise.
No more arguments about who gets on a ballot.
If you can't spell your candidate's name, well then you can't vote.
Nobody gets any special treatment.
Nobody can vote party line any longer without at least putting in enough effort to find out who the party candidates are.
Maybe some intermediate solution like "register a unique name with the elections office", similar to a trademark, would be enough. Damn it would fix a lot of problems quickly.
It could be something like "license plates cost $500 and require a renewal every year, but if you allow for our *cough* *cough* state approved supporters to put *cough* *cough* community messages on your license plate, then it's only $10 a year. You do support the community don't you?"
Too bad the people with the resources to fight it are so cowardly and greedy.
Yeah, and not only are they cowardly and greedy, the voters expect individual companies to risk jailtime fighting for the rights of the voters on their behalf so that they can continue living in a stupor.
I wish I could mod you informative for your response.
Does it analyze source code or is it like a fuzz tester?
I'm more interested in this software that detects bugs in code. Does it also solve the halting problem? Can it satisfy finite combinational logic in polynomial time?
That's why they put phrases in such as "promote the general Welfare"
"General welfare" only exists 2 places in the US Constitution: In the preamble and in the enumeration of congresses power to tax:
We the People of the United States, in Order to ... promote the general Welfare ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
In both cases the "general welfare" is not an enumerated power, but a justification. In order to promote general welfare, the constitution is established. In order to promote general welfare and provide for a military, the US may establish taxes. At no point does the constitution just say "as long as you are promoting the general welfare, do whatever you want and to hell with the idea of federalism".
If anything, the "general welfare" clause is a restriction on congress. They may not collect taxes for personal or private concerns, such as taxing blank discs and sending that money to MPAA like organizations.
and left out phrases such as "and such is an exhaustive list of the only things this governmental entity can do".
No they didn't.
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X : The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Or as Madison put it:
"It has been objected also against a Bill of Rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution."
So there was never any kind of set of "original mandates" that government has grown past, other than a handful of don'ts, such as don't trample of free speech, don't establish a state religion, don't inflict cruel or unusual punishment, etc.
Public schools pretty much cover the 10 amendments to the US constitution and completely ignore the entire rest of the text. That doesn't excuse any intelligent person from doing the same.
Btw I realize the declaration says "unalienable" rather than "innate"; I'm just using the terms that were presented in the parent.
There are 3 rights that were listed as innate: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. They are innate due to the fact that everyone (mostly) is born with alive, everyone is born with the ability to make choices, and is born with the ability to choose to what end their choices are made. That is why they were called "endowed by God".
Rights such as "congress may make no law abridging the freedom of speech" are not innate. It requires reason to understand why you don't want congress to be free to determine what people can and cannot communicate.
Referring to rights as "innate" does more to harm than good to the goal of freedom. Consider someone who thinks that neglecting rights at borders acceptable. You want to change their mind. You have 2 choices:
1) Tell them that rights are innate
2) Reason with them about pros and cons of neglecting rights at borders
One of these approaches is going to further alienate opponents, one of them might actually be capable of persuading them. Please stop referring to rights that demand reasoning as simply "innate". It is an incorrect understanding of what the Declaration of Independence meant by innate and it is an obnoxious argument that "begs the question".
Were you actually able to compile this? Doesn't the unfinished use of the ternary "?" operator cause an error?
taking coding to the streets
Most of us call that "getting fired".
Actually, the reasoning that leads to fear, which the FBI would like the general public to accept, is probably:
1) FBI prosecutes person for teaching how to beat a lie detector
2) Therefore the technique to beat the lie detector must work
3) Therefore the lie detector must work
Sure most people on Slashdot wouldn't fall for that. But spend 6 hours at your local supermarket and try to find 1 person who wouldn't be swallowed by this.
Well after some searching I found this for the year 2009:
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=ST/ADM/SER.B/755
In one year the United States contributed $598,292,101 to a UN budget of $2,498,618,698 which comes to 22% of the entire budget.
On the other hand, some sources like here explain that the funding is actually pretty complicated, as various departments of the federal government all contribute individually to various departments of the UN, up to as much as "$5.327 billion in 2005".
I'm not sure what the actual true percentage of UN funding is that comes from the US, but the fact remains that they aren't going to do anything substantial regardless of anything the US does.
What if the UN kicks the US out of the UN?
UN loses military and funding.
US regains some national sovereignty.
It unfortunately is not going to happen. Then US could send to hide under all the tables of the UN conference rooms, and nothing would come of it. The US could hide in the ceiling rafters and start sending all of the members each other's secret communications and nothing would come of it.
People should not represent themselves in court.
Doctors should not operate on their own family.
Juries may not have personal knowledge of the plaintiff or defendant.
First hand involvement compromises judgement. It's a sad fact of humans. Being emotionally involved in a crime does not make a person more qualified to offer opinion on the appropriate punishment for a crime. Unfortunately, it does make them more likely to be involved, which usually results in a distorted and poorly considered legal system. Our DUI laws are one example.
Direct experience in a subject does not make a person more reliable. Empathy and a general systematic consideration do.
H* w** b**** fucking s********, y** fucking i****.
Large changes are made by small, vocal minorities. How many "several election cycles" does it take to fix things when you vote for a major party?
It's really obnoxious how the only people contributing to fixing recurring problems are being called "uninformed daydreamers" by someone who's policy does nothing but contribute to major party problems.
How can Joe Public know whether they're breaking a law if they can't understand it?
That's easy. You are always breaking some law. They are written that way on purpose.
The Magna Carta's been revised continually since it was written - to the extent that almost none of it is currently in law.
Man I know how that feels. The US Constitution has no relevance to law anymore either.
Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
-- George Washington
Maybe it's a trick so see who would try to collect information if they thought they might get fired.
You should really question the morality of people who aren't generally competent.
A person who doesn't exercise can't be moral enough to save another in a physical emergency.
A person who doesn't work can't be moral enough to save another in a financial emergency.
For a person who never engages in any kind of challenging intellectual encounter, any claim of morality is worthless. They can't make difficult decisions, and will probably just go with whatever popular opinion is.
Incompetent effectively is immoral.
Maybe GP is just a frustrated Haskell programmer?
Online Haskell Interpreter: try typing in -2^4
Negation, which grammatically isn't the same thing as subtraction, is left somewhat ambiguous in academic mathematical grammar. Similarly to how parenthesis on sin and cos functions are in the "interpret it whatever way makes sense" category.
That's a good point, an instance of an encryption could conceivably be broken with enough computing power, but the algorithm itself cannot.
As far as fixed length keys, I'm not familiar with DES, but with AES they also use "fixed lengths". The length isn't really fundamental to the algorithm though. It's like how Go is defined for a fixed 19x19 board size, which leads to certain strategies, but you could increase the board size without changing the computational nature of the game.
Most of the encryption debates seem a bit ridiculous to me anyway though. A man in the middle can defeat any encryption technique, you have to assume a safe no-write channel. If an attacker can't write to a channel, usually they can't read from it either, at which point you don't need encryption anyway.
Advances in computation power alone will never break encryption. Ever. There is no boundary. An encryption can always just create larger keys.
The article is discussing advances in mathematics. Mathematics is more powerful than any computer. Unfortunately, results are also much less predictable. Encryption could be broken with mathematics in 5 minutes, or even never.