Not weighing on death penalty but the narrow scope of your statement.
The government still carries out the whole thing. If you claim to want small government but support the death penalty, you're nothing but a liar.
Your statement seems to lead that there is only one govt. That's the fallacy. There are municipalities (cities, townships, maybe even county) govt, then there's state govt., and finally the federal govt.
When people complain about Big Government, they are talking about the federal level. Why would someone want the size of government to be small at the top (federal level)? Because we have the least amount of say at that level, and it has the most reaching effects. The lower you go, the more influence you have. Therefor the thinking is the more power over your lives they should have. Of course conversely, the lower levels of government also effects less and less people.
You might have heard a saying at one point in time, "The states are experiments in democracy." That was supposed to because the people had a fairly good say in what the state did and didn't do (it's a lot easier to petition a government when you need a lot less number of signatures on a petition) and other states can look at it and say "Hey that went pretty well. Maybe I can implement something like that for my people." or "Well that didn't work out very well, guess we won't be going down that road." You have more control (notice I said more, not total control) over what effects you and what works for you (after all the different areas of the country have different needs) and if someone in a different area of the country wants something that ends up being a bad idea, you're not effected.
Death penalty is handled as a state level. The the federal government shouldn't come into play unless they want to take it away from the states to decide for themselves and make it a federal penalty. So yes, you can still believe in a small government at the federal level and still support the death penalty at the state level.
The article reads... The functionality of the default behavior of the middle mouse button will be for context menus. That reads to me that it'll still be customized to be what ever you want it to be.
After all isn't that what drew us to Unix environments in the first place? You don't like something, change it yourself. Shells that first allowed you to embed commands right into the prompt itself, window managers that allowed you to update the look and feel of your windows, including animated fire in the title bars. With a text editor and a config file you could do anything.
And in the end. If it doesn't give you the ability to change the behavior, it's not like there isn't 500 bazillion other window managers out there.
And if you openly pirate, say, Steamboat Willie, on the grounds that it should have passed into the public domain, I think that's a reasonable and arguably justifiable protest. But if you openly pirate, say, Wreck-it Ralph, or Brave, or (shortly) Monsters University - movies that have been out for less than a year - then your alleged argument that copyright should have a shorter, 20-30 year term is unsupported by your actions.
And therein lies the problem... How many people are pirating Steamboat Willie, the Seven Year Itch, To Catch a Thief, etc., as opposed to recent movies, music, games, and software? The Top 10 most pirated movies chart for this week lists Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, Django Unchained, Argo, The Hobbit, Here Comes the Boom, Flight, Zero Dark Thirty, and Robot and Frank, every one of which is less than a year old. Similarly, the top pirated games (for 2011, I can't find 2012 numbers) were all released that year.
...
Your suggestion isn't bad, except that people shouldn't be pirating just anything, but specifically things that would have fallen into the public domain but-for the last extension. Things that are currently 60 years past the life of the author, say. That would be a meaningful, and credible, protest.
I agree with you that there's a difference, but...
I'm reminded of a story I heard somewhere (book, movie, sorry can't remember) were some people were on their way to work and they where discussing the fact that if they were late the punishment was death. Somewhere along the way they were delayed and were going to be late for their work and one guy asks another one what is the punishment for revolting, and the answer was death. So faced with the same punishment if they revolted or late for work and they were already late for work, they decided to revolt instead.
While the current punishment for piracy isn't death, it's the same if you pirate a movie that would of been in the public domain vs. something that is current and wouldn't be in the public domain; then to the pirate, what is the difference?
Of course to the pirate, nothing, but if the purpose of the piracy is civil disobedience (which the OP was talking about and you responding to) then it does matter because it would be to express the idea that Copyright is broken.
CS courses are things like: Finite State Automata, Algorithms and Data Structures, Relatational-Database Engine design, Compiler design and optimization, Operating systems design, Discrete Math, Graphics Architecture and Mathematical Transformations, OOD/OOP, Structured Programming, Software Engineering. (Notice there is no "language" course listed).
For me, the reason there wasn't a language course was because each one of those classes used a different language. By the end of the degree program the people will have forgotten more languages than most others will ever know.
But the upside is that I can, with a straight face, say I am a programmer and not a coder. The language is no longer important, it's just an implementation of the program. I can move (and have moved) from projects that use Ada to C to C++, Assembly, Snowball, COBAL, etc... with little trouble other than keeping the projects themselves straight in my head. Picking up the language of the day ends up being trivial.
Some can say that it also leads to someone that is a jack of all trades with being a master of none, but isn't necessarily true, as you will find that you do tend to lean towards 1 or 2 languages that you like and you really learn the ins and outs of them.
The OP was stating that just because the federal govt. passed a law means the States had to accept it, because of the Supremacy clause. I was saying it's a grey area because of the perceived abuse of the Commerce clause, that any law is allowed to be passed because it relates to Commerce.
Article 1, section 4 explicitly says Congress can override state regulations regarding elections.
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators.
I succeed to your point, that Congress can in fact impose Law on the manner of States holding Congressional elections, which would in turn trump any state law. The Presidential election is described in Article Two, in which he's elected by Electors and it explicitly states that it's entirely under the jurisdiction of the states;
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
I still succeed your point though, since the Congressional election and the elector/presidential elections happens at the same place and time, Congress can pass a law the state will have to uphold.
1. The Supremacy Clause clearly states that federal law trumps state law wherever they conflict. 2. Treaties trump federal law wherever they conflict.
So if you have a state law that says you can't do X, and a treaty that says you must allow X, then X is allowed.
1. Absolutely, but if the Constitution explicitly states that the manner in which elections are held are controlled by the States themselves, then how can the Supremacy Clause come into play? 2. I've have never read that a Treaty trumps federal law. I'm not saying it doesn't, but it doesn't make sense and the Supremacy Clause states who wins out between a conflict in the local state and elsewhere. But it does go back to point number one in that a court case states that a treaty can not convey powers to the federal govt. that the Constitution doesn't already give it. So if the Constitution says that the federal govt. can't tell the state how to handle it's election, a treaty signed by the federal govt. can't either.
For the federal govt. to enter in an agreement that defines any procured or policy not dictated by the Constitution is effectively void and cannot be enforced.
Well, you know, except for that obscure, little Supremacy clause, right?
And now, that's a grey area. The Constitution states that the federal govt. is not able to pass any law that is not enumerated to them via the Constitution. That is why the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (a.k.a. Obamacare) could not be legal in any circumstances unless it was declared a tax (which the justice dept. lawyers did argue). So if the Constitution states that the state has control over their own election, then not even the federal govt. can interfere with it.
I call it a grey area because it seems that, lately, everything is related to the Commerce clause. Initially the legality of the individual mandate of the PPACA (forcing every citizen to purchase health insurance) was argued to fall under the Commerce clause, but the Supreme Court threw that out and draw a line stating that the federal govt. can not force a citizen into Commerce in order to regulate it.
A treaty allowing for non-authorized observers to be near a polling station, can not be argued to fall under the Commerce clause.
Technically, the state law is in disagreement with international agreements: "Access of election observers is regulated by state law. This frequently does not provide for international observers as required by paragraph 8 of the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document. Domestic observation is expected to be widespread." (http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/96574 - page 2)
"(8) The participating States consider that the presence of observers, both foreign and domestic, can enhance the electoral process for States in which elections are taking place. They therefore invite observers from any other CSCE participating States and any appropriate private institutions and organizations who may wish to do so to observe the course of their national election proceedings, to the extent permitted by law. They will also endeavour to facilitate similar access for election proceedings held below the national level. Such observers will undertake not to interfere in the electoral proceedings." (page 7)
IANAConstitutionalL, but I'll play one on slashdot.
With having said that I'll say, then the agreement is illegal
The Constitution states that the states, that make up the country, have control on how elections are handled, except for a few details such as dictating when the elections can happen, but for the most part every state has control over how they handle elections. For the federal govt. to enter in an agreement that defines any procured or policy not dictated by the Constitution is effectively void and cannot be enforced.
Now one might argue that the U.S. Attorney General is going after states that pass voter ID law, and if the states can pass whatever election law they want it and trump the federal govt., how can he do that? He is able to have that right because of the 24th Amendment which states; that no one, not even the state, can deny a person's right to vote because of failure to pay a tax. If the Justice dept. is able to argue that obtaining a photo ID is looked at as having to pay a tax, then it violates the Constitution. Which explains the reason, so many states are pushing for a free photo ID program.
In short, it doesn't matter that the state law is in disagreement with the agreement, the state law trumps the agreement.
Energy use is heavily subsdized, and the same people who hate bans, hate taxes even more. People aren't willing to pay taxes, so the next rung down has to be used.
The intent of the posting was to convey that a person pays more using an incandescent bulb than a more efficient bulb, based on the extra energy usage. It doesn't matter if energy is subsidized or not, the rate will be the same with both bulbs. Therefore the effect should the same effect as a tax on the behavior (if you were to tax behavior). Adding an actual tax, ends up doubling the tax.
In my observation, people are willing to pay taxes. It's the perceived amount of taxes and what it gets spent on is the issue. When people pay taxes to fund national defense at the federal level, and first responders at a local level, it's a perceived good. When people pay taxes and find their funding studies on shrimp running on treadmills, or for "pancakes for yuppies", it's a perceived WTF. People aren't willing to pay MORE in taxes when there is so much waste with the money they have now.
The problem with your argument is that fair use is not a right. Instead, it's a defense against infringement. Even if something is within the boundaries of fair use, no one is required to respect that...it only protects you from being liable for infringement. So when someone (or some machine) denies that fair use, there's nothing legally wrong with doing so.
The problem isn't (yet) with the definition of fair use, it's with the lack of protection of fair use as a right. For the purpose it serves, fair use is defined well enough...it describes enough to explain the intent and purposefully leaves the interpretation to judges and juries. To protect against cases like the one in the story, we need to first make it against the law to deny fair use...then we can worry about more explicitly defining what is and isn't fair use.
Disclaimer, I am not an expert on law nor do I even play someone on TV that is an expert on law. This is nothing more than my opinion, how ever misguided and wrong they might be.
On the surface what you're saying sounds right but there's something nagging me that says it's wrong. Copyright is suppose to be a right, but with limitations. Fair use is one of those limitations. The protection is already there and inherently so because it's a limitation. So to say that there's nothing legally wrong in not respecting fair use doesn't sound right (not that there isn't precedence where something that is taken to an extreme nature that it's lost it's meaning).
The protection of fair use is in that the entity is projecting a copyright where they don't have a copyright (i.e. past the limits of copyright). It's no different than if someone off the street tried to sue Disney for copyright infringement on the use of Mickey Mouse. They don't have the copyright and therefor have no right to sue.
It's not perjury, and they're not criminals. Perjury is making a false or misleading statement while under oath, and there is no oath here.
17 U.S.C. (512(c)(3)(A)(vi)):
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
But IANAL. So why isn't this perjury?
Because the under penalty of perjury statement corresponds to being authorized to act on behalf of the person claiming infringement. Nothing about what they were submitting was true, only that they have the authorization to submit complaints.
So under the DMCA, if I see that you uploaded someplace a Disney video, I can't say "I represent Disney and you need to take it down". Someone authorized by Disney has to submit the claim.
That and according to this Wikipedia article: "Design patents cover the ornamental nonfunctional design of an item. Design patents can be invalidated if the design has practical utility (e.g. the shape of a gear)." So let's figure out how to show "practical utility" for a wedge shape.
It's a Mac... It's only functional use is as a door stop. The wedge shape has been standard for door stops for eons!!!!
The only way you can write bug-free software is to reduce it to a mathematical proof, all the way down to the OS. Yes down to the OS level, after all it's not like APIs don't have undocumented side effects. Unfortunately I haven't seen many Comp Sci classes being taught lately in algorithm analysis.
You can always test for what you know, but you can't properly test for what you don't know.
The only reason that's true is because of our veneration of the Most Holy Lord, Our God, The Dollar.
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So you're left with a populace that is poor, anti-intellectual, and so desperate for employment that they'll abandon all the workers' rights that their parents and grandparents won for them.
Your close but then you go off into the wrong direction. There's no reason why a company needs to do R&D when they can just come up with that one thing and patient it, or just buy a few patients and sit on them. Then rake in the royalties for years to come. Why divert all that money from the stock holders when the nest egg will be pumping out golden eggs.
I think that if a govt. wanted to really push businesses to start really developing, they need to revamp the patient system to limit the amount of time a company has exclusive access (which granted will start driving companies away) and then add economic incentive's for developing new tech.
I noticed that a lot of people seem to submit recommendations about your interaction with customers, but you could be also servicing the servers and network. If that's the case then add in there the number of outages that had no impact to the users. A power supply in a server went down, but the server had dual power supplies and no one noticed. Someone had a good idea at convening management to spring for that extra money. You connect your access switches with dual links and one of them went down?
If your going to collect metrics, let them know how much downtime the company avoided because you guys did your job. I've seen too many bad metrics around how much a person caused the company, only to find that 80/20 rule ended up biting them. 80% of the work was done by 20% of the workforce so all the murphy law scenarios only hit a limited number of people because they are the ones that did all the work. While all the people that sit back and did nothing reap'd all the metric glory.
However you are also missing the value of being taught by a researcher. Sure you could take some of your courses from someone who hasn't acquired any new knowledge on the topic in the past decade, but you'll finish those courses with that level of knowledge yourself. It is important to have educators who are well versed in the topic and aware of where that topic is going..
I think you missed the point of the poster. His complaint was that with some of his instructors there was no discussion happening at all. I can only assume he was alluding to people that felt that their research was their primary purpose and the teaching was a necessary evil, never putting any effort into it.
I can stand on the same ground as him. I've had some instructors that couldn't seem to get done with class fast enough. I think that the only reason they even held the class for a full period was because of the amount of information they had to convey by the end of the semester. While quite of few others, were exactly has you described. They knew their stuff, would frequently describe new methods being used. If someone asks for more information about a topic, they could speak volumes. I just wish all my instructors were like that. Maybe I wouldn't of had to spend so much time trying learn thermodynamics on my own from the text book. Oh wait, that was the semester I discovered DikuMUD, never mind that last statement.
Well, taxes on the wealthy are at pre-Depression era lows and...
And with the same truthfulness you could say we have the highest corporate in the world (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world it's 38% federal with an additional 12% state and doesn't count local taxes). It's not until you take part in all the nice tax loopholes that you get an equivilent tax rate that's at the record lows. Unfortunately since many businesses are small, they can't afford the tax lawyers to take advantage of all the nifty loopholes.
If you actually listen to Tea Party whole stance and what many speak about at the rallies, it's to lower the tax rate overall (lowering the 38% to something reasonable) AND to get rid of the loopholes. Allow the local computer store up the street to pay the same tax rate as Best Buy down the street.
I know it's hard to actually hear words through the shrieking, but I'm sure that even you equate someone stealing from you, with your liberty. It's a question of do you equate getting charged left and right for something as stealing. I pay my sewer bill every month, I expect that that money to go to the upkeep of the sewer system. To have the sewer company turn around and tell me that they are going to charge me an extra fee depending on how much non-grass area I have in my yard (thus assuming rain run off into storm system), after I'm already paying for my use of the sewer system. Me... I find thing close to stealing from me.
If you check that image, his tree model was able to pack an increase of 80% cells in 50% of the surface area he placed in the normal flat panel model. The tree model has the advantage that it doesn't have to rotate in order to achieve direct sunlight during the day/year. So it's inventive in his being able to achieve cell density that other people haven't seemly taken advantage of as of yet.
Well obviously you didn't go to an American college. "losing" vs. "loosing" is in the Grammar 301 course, not Spelling 101. I decided to minor in mathematics, rather than continue on with the English curriculum ("then" vs. "than" is only 201).
I don't think that the person isn't interested in learning, he just doesn't see the value in learning outside what he feels he needs. The grandparent post is more spot on, he doesn't see the value in the other courses. Of course when he has a job in the profession and he's told that he needs to write a document on requirements or a system design, he'll sit there and tell himself "Well if only I had an example to work off of." If only he had those courses in Writing and was forced to write the papers and thesis' all the different types of writing assignments that college level courses make you grind through, he'd have the experience. He wonders why he'll need a class in Speech, when he just wants to be shut in a dark room, downing Mountain Dew like it is going out of style. Then when trying to do a presentation to a group or a conference, he'll wonder why people are loosing interest in what he's saying, or he'll wonder maybe there was a better way of arranging the material.
I never saw the value of many of the classes I took in college, while I was taking them. But between then and now, I've had projects and requests in which the experience and the things I learned in those classes came in handy. It's not to say I could live without them, but it sure made things easier that I already knew them at the time and didn't have to learn it at the drop of the hat, or that what I learned previously gave me a different perspective that allowed me to build a better system.
My 2cents, time learning something is time spent well.
I suspect this is a preemptive strike by MS to stop Facebook snagging Skype,...
I view this as the real investment. It's not to get any synergy from Skype but to prevent what could happen to the Windows Live platform if FaceBook were to assimilate Skype. Once they have Skype, they are going to let it burn, in my opinion.
Actually I'm stating the opposite. I'm saying that there's a good chance that people will find it easier to duck the coverage (and many people do now) and pay the added taxes rather then go through the pain of getting health insurance.
Nice effort to duck my point. I was not talking about now. My point was in response to your assertion that pre-existing conditions is a strawman. That is why I linked to sources from during the healthcare debate, not after it.
Sorry, I misunderstood when you where talking about getting insurance being quick and easy and the number of people that have insurance declining, with my statements about people dropping in and out of the insurance risk pools based on if they need it. Rather then if an insurance company will honor a pre-existing condition. You'll need to be more direct and explain to me what the number of people with policies have to do with if there's currently criteria on when insurance companies have to honor pre-existing conditions.
It'll all come down to the payout of medical costs. If initially only the sick people sign up for the mandatory health care, you can kiss affordable health insurance out the window and you'll see insurance companies going broke left and right.
But they will also be getting more inflow from government subsidies for people who cannot afford insurance.
That's what I said it'll depend on how much the medical payout is. The subsidies from the govt. doesn't equal the same amount of money thought, remember all this is assuming the fine is less then the policy would be though. That means that the company will not be re-cooping the same amount as if the person bought the policy. Not to mention that there's no way the govt is going to pass through the entire amount of the fine to the insurance company. So the insurance company will be given a token of that amount and told be happy with it and keep paying out the medical claims on everyone else.
It does depress me, though, how my fellow Americans are so unwilling to sacrifice anything to make this country better.
That has got to be one of the most ignorant statements you've made.
The institute added that in spite of the economic recession, remittances increased 9% to an estimated $305 billion in 2008.
http://www.zenit.org/article-26474?l=english
Your fellow Americans have been sacrificing time and time again. Is it everyone? No. But it still stands that donations to private charities in America far exceeds every other country.
I knew from the beginning that changing healthcare in a worthwhile way would require some time while the system adjusted. Things may even get uncomfortable. Which gives us people like you who argue to put off solving a problem that will only get worse so that you can have a few more years of comfort at the expense of the next generation. I say fix it now, and not leave it in the hands of my descendants.
A problem seems to be that it also gives us people like you that seem to confuse the issue. If cable prices jump past to the point where people can afford it, does that mean that govt has to step in and subsidize everyone's cable bill? Or do you start asking the question why the cable prices jump and address the issue of high cable prices? By allowing the discussion to shift from health care costs to who's going to pay for it, doesn't fix the problem in any worthwhile way. The issue is not people can't afford insurance, it's that people can't afford health care without insurance.
Moreover, you for some reason think that getting health insurance is a cheap and easy thing to do.
Actually I'm stating the opposite. I'm saying that there's a good chance that people will find it easier to duck the coverage (and many people do now) and pay the added taxes rather then go through the pain of getting health insurance.
It won't happen during the phasing in period, but I am sure it will happen eventually.
And that's where I highly doubt it. If it doesn't happen initially, then it'll never happen. I don't see how an insurance company is going to start off paying more in medical costs then it takes in for premiums and turn around lower those premiums. In fact, I see the exact opposite happening, those premiums will have to go up to cover the added medical payout
It'll all come down to the payout of medical costs. If initially only the sick people sign up for the mandatory health care, you can kiss affordable health insurance out the window and you'll see insurance companies going broke left and right.
Problem is, nobody operates this way. I've asked people "So, last time when you were offered a raise, did you go check to see what tax bracket that would put you in before you decided whether to accept it?" or "When a customer calls you up with a job, do you ever say 'Nope. Not this year. Taxes are too high. Maybe I'll do it next year if the taxes are lower'?".... Tax. Rates. Have. Miniscule. Effect. Upon. How. Much. People. Will. Work.
Not to deflect but have you thought that maybe you are asking the wrong question? Work isn't an after effect of tax changes, spending is. Wage taxes aren't the only source of govt income, but sales taxes as well.
Next person that you talk about it with, instead of asking them if they worked more ask them if they spent more.
How can a condition be "pre-existing" if everyone has to have healthcare.
What doesn't seem to be really discussed much passed finger pointing stage, is how everyone is to have insurance. The bill states that either you purchase an insurance policy with the minimum coverage, such as OB/GYN visits for a male single policy holder, or you pay a fine/added tax.
What has people concerned is if the fine is less then the insurance policy, then why not just cancel my insurance policy (or not buy it at all) and pay the fine. Then when I need it, such as you contract a disease or some other issue that you have no way of paying for the care, the insurance company can't make you pay more or deny any of your claims.
So we end up with; you pocketing the difference between the fine and the policy until you needed it, Uncle Sam getting your money while you pay the fine, and the insurance company has a bunch of sick people they're paying millions of dollars in claims for while only recouping a few hundred thousand in premiums.
I can't see what the problems with that is
On a side note, be warned. There is a straw man in people's arguments today about pre-existing conditions. The rhetoric that's spewed makes it sound like insurance companies don't support pre-existing conditions, and if you switched jobs, and thus switch policies, the insurance companies will deny your claims. Too lazy to lookup the law but at some point of time it was actually made illegal for an insurance company to deny a claim on a pre-existing condition, if that person had insurance that covered the condition before. There's some added leway with switching jobs and Cobra that makes it even more difficult for them to deny.
So basically the only way a pre-existing condition will be denied is if you don't have insurance, get digosed with something, THEN go get insurance and have them eat the costs. That and the children that are born with conditions that the insurance companies will see as being a drain (as in, I'll forever be paying more in medical costs then I'll ever see them paying back in premiums).
Slashdot Mirror
Not weighing on death penalty but the narrow scope of your statement.
The government still carries out the whole thing. If you claim to want small government but support the death penalty, you're nothing but a liar.
Your statement seems to lead that there is only one govt. That's the fallacy. There are municipalities (cities, townships, maybe even county) govt, then there's state govt., and finally the federal govt.
When people complain about Big Government, they are talking about the federal level. Why would someone want the size of government to be small at the top (federal level)? Because we have the least amount of say at that level, and it has the most reaching effects. The lower you go, the more influence you have. Therefor the thinking is the more power over your lives they should have. Of course conversely, the lower levels of government also effects less and less people.
You might have heard a saying at one point in time, "The states are experiments in democracy." That was supposed to because the people had a fairly good say in what the state did and didn't do (it's a lot easier to petition a government when you need a lot less number of signatures on a petition) and other states can look at it and say "Hey that went pretty well. Maybe I can implement something like that for my people." or "Well that didn't work out very well, guess we won't be going down that road." You have more control (notice I said more, not total control) over what effects you and what works for you (after all the different areas of the country have different needs) and if someone in a different area of the country wants something that ends up being a bad idea, you're not effected.
Death penalty is handled as a state level. The the federal government shouldn't come into play unless they want to take it away from the states to decide for themselves and make it a federal penalty. So yes, you can still believe in a small government at the federal level and still support the death penalty at the state level.
The article reads... The functionality of the default behavior of the middle mouse button will be for context menus. That reads to me that it'll still be customized to be what ever you want it to be.
After all isn't that what drew us to Unix environments in the first place? You don't like something, change it yourself. Shells that first allowed you to embed commands right into the prompt itself, window managers that allowed you to update the look and feel of your windows, including animated fire in the title bars. With a text editor and a config file you could do anything.
And in the end. If it doesn't give you the ability to change the behavior, it's not like there isn't 500 bazillion other window managers out there.
And if you openly pirate, say, Steamboat Willie, on the grounds that it should have passed into the public domain, I think that's a reasonable and arguably justifiable protest. But if you openly pirate, say, Wreck-it Ralph, or Brave, or (shortly) Monsters University - movies that have been out for less than a year - then your alleged argument that copyright should have a shorter, 20-30 year term is unsupported by your actions.
And therein lies the problem... How many people are pirating Steamboat Willie, the Seven Year Itch, To Catch a Thief, etc., as opposed to recent movies, music, games, and software? The Top 10 most pirated movies chart for this week lists Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, Django Unchained, Argo, The Hobbit, Here Comes the Boom, Flight, Zero Dark Thirty, and Robot and Frank, every one of which is less than a year old. Similarly, the top pirated games (for 2011, I can't find 2012 numbers) were all released that year.
Your suggestion isn't bad, except that people shouldn't be pirating just anything, but specifically things that would have fallen into the public domain but-for the last extension. Things that are currently 60 years past the life of the author, say. That would be a meaningful, and credible, protest.
I agree with you that there's a difference, but...
I'm reminded of a story I heard somewhere (book, movie, sorry can't remember) were some people were on their way to work and they where discussing the fact that if they were late the punishment was death. Somewhere along the way they were delayed and were going to be late for their work and one guy asks another one what is the punishment for revolting, and the answer was death. So faced with the same punishment if they revolted or late for work and they were already late for work, they decided to revolt instead.
While the current punishment for piracy isn't death, it's the same if you pirate a movie that would of been in the public domain vs. something that is current and wouldn't be in the public domain; then to the pirate, what is the difference?
Of course to the pirate, nothing, but if the purpose of the piracy is civil disobedience (which the OP was talking about and you responding to) then it does matter because it would be to express the idea that Copyright is broken.
CS courses are things like: Finite State Automata, Algorithms and Data Structures, Relatational-Database Engine design, Compiler design and optimization, Operating systems design, Discrete Math, Graphics Architecture and Mathematical Transformations, OOD/OOP, Structured Programming, Software Engineering. (Notice there is no "language" course listed).
For me, the reason there wasn't a language course was because each one of those classes used a different language. By the end of the degree program the people will have forgotten more languages than most others will ever know.
But the upside is that I can, with a straight face, say I am a programmer and not a coder. The language is no longer important, it's just an implementation of the program. I can move (and have moved) from projects that use Ada to C to C++, Assembly, Snowball, COBAL, etc... with little trouble other than keeping the projects themselves straight in my head. Picking up the language of the day ends up being trivial.
Some can say that it also leads to someone that is a jack of all trades with being a master of none, but isn't necessarily true, as you will find that you do tend to lean towards 1 or 2 languages that you like and you really learn the ins and outs of them.
"Grey area" nothing.
The OP was stating that just because the federal govt. passed a law means the States had to accept it, because of the Supremacy clause. I was saying it's a grey area because of the perceived abuse of the Commerce clause, that any law is allowed to be passed because it relates to Commerce.
Article 1, section 4 explicitly says Congress can override state regulations regarding elections.
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators.
I succeed to your point, that Congress can in fact impose Law on the manner of States holding Congressional elections, which would in turn trump any state law. The Presidential election is described in Article Two, in which he's elected by Electors and it explicitly states that it's entirely under the jurisdiction of the states;
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
I still succeed your point though, since the Congressional election and the elector/presidential elections happens at the same place and time, Congress can pass a law the state will have to uphold.
I'm glad you're not a lawyer.
You and me both!
1. The Supremacy Clause clearly states that federal law trumps state law wherever they conflict.
2. Treaties trump federal law wherever they conflict.
So if you have a state law that says you can't do X, and a treaty that says you must allow X, then X is allowed.
1. Absolutely, but if the Constitution explicitly states that the manner in which elections are held are controlled by the States themselves, then how can the Supremacy Clause come into play?
2. I've have never read that a Treaty trumps federal law. I'm not saying it doesn't, but it doesn't make sense and the Supremacy Clause states who wins out between a conflict in the local state and elsewhere. But it does go back to point number one in that a court case states that a treaty can not convey powers to the federal govt. that the Constitution doesn't already give it. So if the Constitution says that the federal govt. can't tell the state how to handle it's election, a treaty signed by the federal govt. can't either.
For the federal govt. to enter in an agreement that defines any procured or policy not dictated by the Constitution is effectively void and cannot be enforced.
Well, you know, except for that obscure, little Supremacy clause, right?
And now, that's a grey area. The Constitution states that the federal govt. is not able to pass any law that is not enumerated to them via the Constitution. That is why the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (a.k.a. Obamacare) could not be legal in any circumstances unless it was declared a tax (which the justice dept. lawyers did argue). So if the Constitution states that the state has control over their own election, then not even the federal govt. can interfere with it.
I call it a grey area because it seems that, lately, everything is related to the Commerce clause. Initially the legality of the individual mandate of the PPACA (forcing every citizen to purchase health insurance) was argued to fall under the Commerce clause, but the Supreme Court threw that out and draw a line stating that the federal govt. can not force a citizen into Commerce in order to regulate it.
A treaty allowing for non-authorized observers to be near a polling station, can not be argued to fall under the Commerce clause.
Technically, the state law is in disagreement with international agreements:
"Access of election observers is regulated by state law. This frequently does not provide for international observers as required by paragraph 8 of the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document. Domestic observation is expected to be widespread." (http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/96574 - page 2)
The document: http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/14304
See page 1 for the US being part of it and page 3 and further for what was agreed upon.
"(8) The participating States consider that the presence of observers, both foreign and domestic, can enhance the electoral process for States in which elections are taking place. They therefore invite observers from any other CSCE participating States and any appropriate private institutions and organizations who may wish to do so to observe the course of their national election proceedings, to the extent permitted by law. They will also endeavour to facilitate similar access for election proceedings held below the national level. Such observers will undertake not to interfere in the electoral proceedings." (page 7)
IANAConstitutionalL, but I'll play one on slashdot.
With having said that I'll say, then the agreement is illegal
The Constitution states that the states, that make up the country, have control on how elections are handled, except for a few details such as dictating when the elections can happen, but for the most part every state has control over how they handle elections. For the federal govt. to enter in an agreement that defines any procured or policy not dictated by the Constitution is effectively void and cannot be enforced.
Now one might argue that the U.S. Attorney General is going after states that pass voter ID law, and if the states can pass whatever election law they want it and trump the federal govt., how can he do that? He is able to have that right because of the 24th Amendment which states; that no one, not even the state, can deny a person's right to vote because of failure to pay a tax. If the Justice dept. is able to argue that obtaining a photo ID is looked at as having to pay a tax, then it violates the Constitution. Which explains the reason, so many states are pushing for a free photo ID program.
In short, it doesn't matter that the state law is in disagreement with the agreement, the state law trumps the agreement.
Energy use is heavily subsdized, and the same people who hate bans, hate taxes even more. People aren't willing to pay taxes, so the next rung down has to be used.
The intent of the posting was to convey that a person pays more using an incandescent bulb than a more efficient bulb, based on the extra energy usage. It doesn't matter if energy is subsidized or not, the rate will be the same with both bulbs. Therefore the effect should the same effect as a tax on the behavior (if you were to tax behavior). Adding an actual tax, ends up doubling the tax.
In my observation, people are willing to pay taxes. It's the perceived amount of taxes and what it gets spent on is the issue. When people pay taxes to fund national defense at the federal level, and first responders at a local level, it's a perceived good. When people pay taxes and find their funding studies on shrimp running on treadmills, or for "pancakes for yuppies", it's a perceived WTF. People aren't willing to pay MORE in taxes when there is so much waste with the money they have now.
The problem with your argument is that fair use is not a right. Instead, it's a defense against infringement. Even if something is within the boundaries of fair use, no one is required to respect that...it only protects you from being liable for infringement. So when someone (or some machine) denies that fair use, there's nothing legally wrong with doing so.
The problem isn't (yet) with the definition of fair use, it's with the lack of protection of fair use as a right. For the purpose it serves, fair use is defined well enough...it describes enough to explain the intent and purposefully leaves the interpretation to judges and juries. To protect against cases like the one in the story, we need to first make it against the law to deny fair use...then we can worry about more explicitly defining what is and isn't fair use.
Disclaimer, I am not an expert on law nor do I even play someone on TV that is an expert on law. This is nothing more than my opinion, how ever misguided and wrong they might be.
On the surface what you're saying sounds right but there's something nagging me that says it's wrong. Copyright is suppose to be a right, but with limitations. Fair use is one of those limitations. The protection is already there and inherently so because it's a limitation. So to say that there's nothing legally wrong in not respecting fair use doesn't sound right (not that there isn't precedence where something that is taken to an extreme nature that it's lost it's meaning).
The protection of fair use is in that the entity is projecting a copyright where they don't have a copyright (i.e. past the limits of copyright). It's no different than if someone off the street tried to sue Disney for copyright infringement on the use of Mickey Mouse. They don't have the copyright and therefor have no right to sue.
It's not perjury, and they're not criminals. Perjury is making a false or misleading statement while under oath, and there is no oath here.
17 U.S.C. (512(c)(3)(A)(vi)):
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
But IANAL. So why isn't this perjury?
Because the under penalty of perjury statement corresponds to being authorized to act on behalf of the person claiming infringement. Nothing about what they were submitting was true, only that they have the authorization to submit complaints.
So under the DMCA, if I see that you uploaded someplace a Disney video, I can't say "I represent Disney and you need to take it down". Someone authorized by Disney has to submit the claim.
That and according to this Wikipedia article: "Design patents cover the ornamental nonfunctional design of an item. Design patents can be invalidated if the design has practical utility (e.g. the shape of a gear)." So let's figure out how to show "practical utility" for a wedge shape.
It's a Mac... It's only functional use is as a door stop. The wedge shape has been standard for door stops for eons!!!!
The only way you can write bug-free software is to reduce it to a mathematical proof, all the way down to the OS. Yes down to the OS level, after all it's not like APIs don't have undocumented side effects. Unfortunately I haven't seen many Comp Sci classes being taught lately in algorithm analysis.
You can always test for what you know, but you can't properly test for what you don't know.
The only reason that's true is because of our veneration of the Most Holy Lord, Our God, The Dollar.
...
So you're left with a populace that is poor, anti-intellectual, and so desperate for employment that they'll abandon all the workers' rights that their parents and grandparents won for them.
Your close but then you go off into the wrong direction. There's no reason why a company needs to do R&D when they can just come up with that one thing and patient it, or just buy a few patients and sit on them. Then rake in the royalties for years to come. Why divert all that money from the stock holders when the nest egg will be pumping out golden eggs.
I think that if a govt. wanted to really push businesses to start really developing, they need to revamp the patient system to limit the amount of time a company has exclusive access (which granted will start driving companies away) and then add economic incentive's for developing new tech.
I noticed that a lot of people seem to submit recommendations about your interaction with customers, but you could be also servicing the servers and network. If that's the case then add in there the number of outages that had no impact to the users. A power supply in a server went down, but the server had dual power supplies and no one noticed. Someone had a good idea at convening management to spring for that extra money. You connect your access switches with dual links and one of them went down?
If your going to collect metrics, let them know how much downtime the company avoided because you guys did your job. I've seen too many bad metrics around how much a person caused the company, only to find that 80/20 rule ended up biting them. 80% of the work was done by 20% of the workforce so all the murphy law scenarios only hit a limited number of people because they are the ones that did all the work. While all the people that sit back and did nothing reap'd all the metric glory.
However you are also missing the value of being taught by a researcher. Sure you could take some of your courses from someone who hasn't acquired any new knowledge on the topic in the past decade, but you'll finish those courses with that level of knowledge yourself. It is important to have educators who are well versed in the topic and aware of where that topic is going..
I think you missed the point of the poster. His complaint was that with some of his instructors there was no discussion happening at all. I can only assume he was alluding to people that felt that their research was their primary purpose and the teaching was a necessary evil, never putting any effort into it.
I can stand on the same ground as him. I've had some instructors that couldn't seem to get done with class fast enough. I think that the only reason they even held the class for a full period was because of the amount of information they had to convey by the end of the semester. While quite of few others, were exactly has you described. They knew their stuff, would frequently describe new methods being used. If someone asks for more information about a topic, they could speak volumes. I just wish all my instructors were like that. Maybe I wouldn't of had to spend so much time trying learn thermodynamics on my own from the text book. Oh wait, that was the semester I discovered DikuMUD, never mind that last statement.
Well, taxes on the wealthy are at pre-Depression era lows and ...
And with the same truthfulness you could say we have the highest corporate in the world (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world it's 38% federal with an additional 12% state and doesn't count local taxes). It's not until you take part in all the nice tax loopholes that you get an equivilent tax rate that's at the record lows. Unfortunately since many businesses are small, they can't afford the tax lawyers to take advantage of all the nifty loopholes.
If you actually listen to Tea Party whole stance and what many speak about at the rallies, it's to lower the tax rate overall (lowering the 38% to something reasonable) AND to get rid of the loopholes. Allow the local computer store up the street to pay the same tax rate as Best Buy down the street.
I know it's hard to actually hear words through the shrieking, but I'm sure that even you equate someone stealing from you, with your liberty. It's a question of do you equate getting charged left and right for something as stealing. I pay my sewer bill every month, I expect that that money to go to the upkeep of the sewer system. To have the sewer company turn around and tell me that they are going to charge me an extra fee depending on how much non-grass area I have in my yard (thus assuming rain run off into storm system), after I'm already paying for my use of the sewer system. Me... I find thing close to stealing from me.
If you check that image, his tree model was able to pack an increase of 80% cells in 50% of the surface area he placed in the normal flat panel model. The tree model has the advantage that it doesn't have to rotate in order to achieve direct sunlight during the day/year. So it's inventive in his being able to achieve cell density that other people haven't seemly taken advantage of as of yet.
Well obviously you didn't go to an American college. "losing" vs. "loosing" is in the Grammar 301 course, not Spelling 101. I decided to minor in mathematics, rather than continue on with the English curriculum ("then" vs. "than" is only 201).
I don't think that the person isn't interested in learning, he just doesn't see the value in learning outside what he feels he needs. The grandparent post is more spot on, he doesn't see the value in the other courses. Of course when he has a job in the profession and he's told that he needs to write a document on requirements or a system design, he'll sit there and tell himself "Well if only I had an example to work off of." If only he had those courses in Writing and was forced to write the papers and thesis' all the different types of writing assignments that college level courses make you grind through, he'd have the experience. He wonders why he'll need a class in Speech, when he just wants to be shut in a dark room, downing Mountain Dew like it is going out of style. Then when trying to do a presentation to a group or a conference, he'll wonder why people are loosing interest in what he's saying, or he'll wonder maybe there was a better way of arranging the material.
I never saw the value of many of the classes I took in college, while I was taking them. But between then and now, I've had projects and requests in which the experience and the things I learned in those classes came in handy. It's not to say I could live without them, but it sure made things easier that I already knew them at the time and didn't have to learn it at the drop of the hat, or that what I learned previously gave me a different perspective that allowed me to build a better system.
My 2cents, time learning something is time spent well.
I suspect this is a preemptive strike by MS to stop Facebook snagging Skype, ...
I view this as the real investment. It's not to get any synergy from Skype but to prevent what could happen to the Windows Live platform if FaceBook were to assimilate Skype. Once they have Skype, they are going to let it burn, in my opinion.
Actually I'm stating the opposite. I'm saying that there's a good chance that people will find it easier to duck the coverage (and many people do now) and pay the added taxes rather then go through the pain of getting health insurance.
Nice effort to duck my point. I was not talking about now. My point was in response to your assertion that pre-existing conditions is a strawman. That is why I linked to sources from during the healthcare debate, not after it.
Sorry, I misunderstood when you where talking about getting insurance being quick and easy and the number of people that have insurance declining, with my statements about people dropping in and out of the insurance risk pools based on if they need it. Rather then if an insurance company will honor a pre-existing condition. You'll need to be more direct and explain to me what the number of people with policies have to do with if there's currently criteria on when insurance companies have to honor pre-existing conditions.
It'll all come down to the payout of medical costs. If initially only the sick people sign up for the mandatory health care, you can kiss affordable health insurance out the window and you'll see insurance companies going broke left and right.
But they will also be getting more inflow from government subsidies for people who cannot afford insurance.
That's what I said it'll depend on how much the medical payout is. The subsidies from the govt. doesn't equal the same amount of money thought, remember all this is assuming the fine is less then the policy would be though. That means that the company will not be re-cooping the same amount as if the person bought the policy. Not to mention that there's no way the govt is going to pass through the entire amount of the fine to the insurance company. So the insurance company will be given a token of that amount and told be happy with it and keep paying out the medical claims on everyone else.
It does depress me, though, how my fellow Americans are so unwilling to sacrifice anything to make this country better.
That has got to be one of the most ignorant statements you've made.
The institute added that in spite of the economic recession, remittances increased 9% to an estimated $305 billion in 2008.
http://www.zenit.org/article-26474?l=english
Your fellow Americans have been sacrificing time and time again. Is it everyone? No. But it still stands that donations to private charities in America far exceeds every other country.
I knew from the beginning that changing healthcare in a worthwhile way would require some time while the system adjusted. Things may even get uncomfortable. Which gives us people like you who argue to put off solving a problem that will only get worse so that you can have a few more years of comfort at the expense of the next generation. I say fix it now, and not leave it in the hands of my descendants.
A problem seems to be that it also gives us people like you that seem to confuse the issue. If cable prices jump past to the point where people can afford it, does that mean that govt has to step in and subsidize everyone's cable bill? Or do you start asking the question why the cable prices jump and address the issue of high cable prices? By allowing the discussion to shift from health care costs to who's going to pay for it, doesn't fix the problem in any worthwhile way. The issue is not people can't afford insurance, it's that people can't afford health care without insurance.
Moreover, you for some reason think that getting health insurance is a cheap and easy thing to do.
Actually I'm stating the opposite. I'm saying that there's a good chance that people will find it easier to duck the coverage (and many people do now) and pay the added taxes rather then go through the pain of getting health insurance.
It won't happen during the phasing in period, but I am sure it will happen eventually.
And that's where I highly doubt it. If it doesn't happen initially, then it'll never happen. I don't see how an insurance company is going to start off paying more in medical costs then it takes in for premiums and turn around lower those premiums. In fact, I see the exact opposite happening, those premiums will have to go up to cover the added medical payout
It'll all come down to the payout of medical costs. If initially only the sick people sign up for the mandatory health care, you can kiss affordable health insurance out the window and you'll see insurance companies going broke left and right.
Problem is, nobody operates this way. I've asked people "So, last time when you were offered a raise, did you go check to see what tax bracket that would put you in before you decided whether to accept it?" or "When a customer calls you up with a job, do you ever say 'Nope. Not this year. Taxes are too high. Maybe I'll do it next year if the taxes are lower'?". ...
Tax. Rates. Have. Miniscule. Effect. Upon. How. Much. People. Will. Work.
Not to deflect but have you thought that maybe you are asking the wrong question? Work isn't an after effect of tax changes, spending is. Wage taxes aren't the only source of govt income, but sales taxes as well.
Next person that you talk about it with, instead of asking them if they worked more ask them if they spent more.
How can a condition be "pre-existing" if everyone has to have healthcare.
What doesn't seem to be really discussed much passed finger pointing stage, is how everyone is to have insurance. The bill states that either you purchase an insurance policy with the minimum coverage, such as OB/GYN visits for a male single policy holder, or you pay a fine/added tax.
What has people concerned is if the fine is less then the insurance policy, then why not just cancel my insurance policy (or not buy it at all) and pay the fine. Then when I need it, such as you contract a disease or some other issue that you have no way of paying for the care, the insurance company can't make you pay more or deny any of your claims.
So we end up with; you pocketing the difference between the fine and the policy until you needed it, Uncle Sam getting your money while you pay the fine, and the insurance company has a bunch of sick people they're paying millions of dollars in claims for while only recouping a few hundred thousand in premiums.
I can't see what the problems with that is
On a side note, be warned. There is a straw man in people's arguments today about pre-existing conditions. The rhetoric that's spewed makes it sound like insurance companies don't support pre-existing conditions, and if you switched jobs, and thus switch policies, the insurance companies will deny your claims. Too lazy to lookup the law but at some point of time it was actually made illegal for an insurance company to deny a claim on a pre-existing condition, if that person had insurance that covered the condition before. There's some added leway with switching jobs and Cobra that makes it even more difficult for them to deny.
So basically the only way a pre-existing condition will be denied is if you don't have insurance, get digosed with something, THEN go get insurance and have them eat the costs. That and the children that are born with conditions that the insurance companies will see as being a drain (as in, I'll forever be paying more in medical costs then I'll ever see them paying back in premiums).