Take a moment, and step back from the whole "God, no God" issue -- think about the pledge just as an activity.
Put in that context, the whole
thing has a kind of Stalinist creepiness about it.
Think about an equivalent activity taking place
in, say, China, with every child standing up and
pledging allegiance to the Communist state, etc.
Even if the question isn't "primed"/"framed" with positive/negative spin, there are other ways. One of the more insidious examples of this I found was during the 1994 debate over health care. A surveyor called me and one of the questions asked was the following:
Do you think that people who run non-profit organizations should be paid more, less, or about the same as those who run equivalent for-profit organizations?
You will note that there is no option for, "I think they are all overpaid."
Most contracts between credit card companies &
merchants state that the merchant cannot charge
more for credit card purchases. However, they
can give a discount for cash. To-may-to, to-mah-to....
You won't be charged more for something you want to buy, but there will be a handy "discount" for using Passport. To-may-to, to-mah-to....
I found myself thinking about some similar the other day. I was turning right on a red, where there is a very prominently posted "No Right on Red" sign. The reason? There was an ambulance coming up behind me. Tell me how their spiffy, little cameras are going to accomodate that.
More and more, we're seeing the same problem: People/institutions trying to use technology to enforce laws (c.f. Copyright & the DMCA). Law is a far, far subtler thing than any technology (short of full-blown AI) is ever going to be.
One thing I think this would be *really* useful for would be if we could wedge privacy policies into it.
I don't know about you, but I am damned sick and tired of having to search for the bloody thing on every site I visit, and then read through pages and pages of fine-point type, trying to figure out just what the heck they're saying. Image if instead, you could bring up a dialog on your browser saying that, by default, I'm willing to let a website know my IP address and browser type. If a website wants more than that when I try to load a page, they send back instead a page that lists (in some standard format) exactly what they want. I can then accept it (setting exceptions in my browser for those particular bits of info at that particular website), or I can surf elsewhere.
I cannot count the number of hours I have spend slogging through these things. Standardizing and automating these things would be a much greater service to the web than trying to decide of Slashdot should be PG or NC-17:-)
I think you underestimate the ability of lawyers to fudge ownership. What would stop a corporation from getting a contract that is, in effect, an exclusive lease of the IP for the duration? The author might, technically, still own the copyright, but all the profits would still go to the corp.
To take an example from another field, consider corporate tax law, and all the available tax shelters. Undermining the intent of this law will be so easy it will be like going back to kindergarten for them.
Exactly! No one wants to give their opponents during the next election cycle (or for many election cycles to come) any pretext for labeling him or her as "pro-terrorist". Think of our elected officials fear of being labelled "pro-drug" and up a few orders of magnitude.
~k
Re:Black Tuesday and the Passive American
on
Blaming Encryption
·
· Score: 1
"In fact, Daniel Pipes of the Wall Street Journal was quick to point out how the government's reliance on mass eavesdropping and tracking actually diverted resources from more effective anti-terrorism methods, such as actually studying and infiltrating genuine terrorist groups.
"Yet now the government proposes a giant national effort to do more of the same -- to impose more ineffective, wasteful, and oppressive mass surveillance and restrictions."
This reminds me of one definition of insanity I've heard: Someone who keeps doing the same thing, expecting the result will be different.
Our local sysadmin & I discussed this when the "fixing" worm first hove into view: it was
a rather "on one hand/on the other hand" kind of conversation.
On the one hand, you really don't want other people, however benignly, messing with the state of the software on you boxen (you should always know what the state of your software is). On the other hand, it had been 3 months since the patch for the lion worm came out -- at that point, you kinda feel that the responsible people should be up-to-date, and maybe the irresponsible ones could use some help.
I guess, in the end, that the possibility that the "fixing" worm could contain bugs that might just make things worse is about the best argument for not doing this.
You know, the one phrase I find absolutely jaw-dropping (literally) is "unauthorized reading". Top-secret, classified documents aside, what the heck is that?!!
Has anyone ever proposed some law that would not
only obligate spammers to honor opt-out requests themselves, but also honor requests that one's name/email/etc. not be passed on to any other individual? (exceptions for court orders, etc.)
Perhaps this could help the current situation in which people don't send opt-out requests, knowing that the last thing you want is to end up on some list of "verified email addresses".
The First Amendment doesn't exist to protect the speech we like by the people we like. It exists to protect the speech we detest by the people we loathe.
This actually raises a point I've been thinking about recently. Large corporations are busy tearing down environmental laws, labor regulations, etc. (most often using NAFTA and the WTO as wedges) in the name of unrestricted trade.
[See any of the non-corporate coverage of Quebec for details.]
Oh, yes, they're all in favor of globalization, until it comes to the globalization of their own product. Then they stick those damned region codes on their DVDs. Hypocrits!
Try to consider every book/article/magazine/etc you have ever read which has contributed to your knowlege of coding. Now imagine them without code examples. {shudder!} How many, many times have I been reading a spec going, "huh?" Then I'll skip ahead a paragraph or page to a code example, and all will be made clear.
10 lines of code are worth 100 lines of text. The value of code as an expressive medium is irreplaceable to programmers.
1. Many living groups (dorms, fraternities & sororities) have shelves of "bibles" -- that is, compendiums of quizzes, problems sets, etc. -- often going back years. Having the info on the web will more likely have an equalizing effect that a further polarizing one.
2. MIT practices "needblind" admissions -- although (of course) their idea and your idea of what one "needs" may differ.
Speaking of "When I Was a Kid" stories, we had
some good ones, growing up in Alaska. The best:
Moose Days. Moose are skittish creatures. So,
if there was one in your front yard in the
morning, you didn't have to go to school that
day.
Some days, I still pray for moose, even here in
Boston,
I'm a rower -- something that almost never gets any air time. And it frustrates the h*ll out of me. And I know that there are millions of other people in the world who also follow obscure sports who are just as frustrated as I am.
People are always complaining about how no one will pay for content on the internet. To the contrary, if I could actually watch the rowing sprints, in their totality, without yammering play-by-play from clueless desk jockeys, I'd cough up some $$. And I believe that many others would, too. An opportunity going begging here.
See the Salon letters section, the last letter for an excellent explanation of how dimpled chad occur.
As for why they might occur only in the presidential part of the ballot, I think it eminently reasonable that people might cast ballots only in the presidential part of the race, so that part of the catch tray might be more full.
Slashdot Mirror
Take a moment, and step back from the whole "God, no God" issue -- think about the pledge just as an activity. Put in that context, the whole thing has a kind of Stalinist creepiness about it. Think about an equivalent activity taking place in, say, China, with every child standing up and pledging allegiance to the Communist state, etc.
Ewwwww!
I say, drop the whole, damn thing.
~kEven if the question isn't "primed"/"framed" with positive/negative spin, there are other ways. One of the more insidious examples of this I found was during the 1994 debate over health care. A surveyor called me and one of the questions asked was the following:
Do you think that people who run non-profit organizations should be paid more, less, or about the same as those who run equivalent for-profit organizations?
You will note that there is no option for, "I think they are all overpaid."
~k
Hey, why not go pack to this?
~k
Most contracts between credit card companies & merchants state that the merchant cannot charge more for credit card purchases. However, they can give a discount for cash. To-may-to, to-mah-to....
You won't be charged more for something you want to buy, but there will be a handy "discount" for using Passport. To-may-to, to-mah-to....
~kSomehow, people in SUVs seem to develop this brain disease where they come to think that they are immune from the laws of physics.
~kI found myself thinking about some similar the other day. I was turning right on a red, where there is a very prominently posted "No Right on Red" sign. The reason? There was an ambulance coming up behind me. Tell me how their spiffy, little cameras are going to accomodate that.
More and more, we're seeing the same problem: People/institutions trying to use technology to enforce laws (c.f. Copyright & the DMCA). Law is a far, far subtler thing than any technology (short of full-blown AI) is ever going to be.
~k
One thing to watch in these snow-jobs is the use of the word "authenticate", rather than "authorize".
My driver's license may autheticate me as "Joe Smith", but that doesn't authorize me to go rifle through the M$ code base.
M$ will fight tooth & nail to keep authorization to themselves.
~kOne thing I think this would be *really* useful for would be if we could wedge privacy policies into it.
I don't know about you, but I am damned sick and tired of having to search for the bloody thing on every site I visit, and then read through pages and pages of fine-point type, trying to figure out just what the heck they're saying. Image if instead, you could bring up a dialog on your browser saying that, by default, I'm willing to let a website know my IP address and browser type. If a website wants more than that when I try to load a page, they send back instead a page that lists (in some standard format) exactly what they want. I can then accept it (setting exceptions in my browser for those particular bits of info at that particular website), or I can surf elsewhere.
I cannot count the number of hours I have spend slogging through these things. Standardizing and automating these things would be a much greater service to the web than trying to decide of Slashdot should be PG or NC-17 :-)
~kI think you underestimate the ability of lawyers to fudge ownership. What would stop a corporation from getting a contract that is, in effect, an exclusive lease of the IP for the duration? The author might, technically, still own the copyright, but all the profits would still go to the corp.
To take an example from another field, consider corporate tax law, and all the available tax shelters. Undermining the intent of this law will be so easy it will be like going back to kindergarten for them.
~kExactly! No one wants to give their opponents during the next election cycle (or for many election cycles to come) any pretext for labeling him or her as "pro-terrorist". Think of our elected officials fear of being labelled "pro-drug" and up a few orders of magnitude.
~k"In fact, Daniel Pipes of the Wall Street Journal was quick to point out how the government's reliance on mass eavesdropping and tracking actually diverted resources from more effective anti-terrorism methods, such as actually studying and infiltrating genuine terrorist groups.
"Yet now the government proposes a giant national effort to do more of the same -- to impose more ineffective, wasteful, and oppressive mass surveillance and restrictions."
This reminds me of one definition of insanity I've heard: Someone who keeps doing the same thing, expecting the result will be different.
~k
Our local sysadmin & I discussed this when the "fixing" worm first hove into view: it was a rather "on one hand/on the other hand" kind of conversation.
On the one hand, you really don't want other people, however benignly, messing with the state of the software on you boxen (you should always know what the state of your software is). On the other hand, it had been 3 months since the patch for the lion worm came out -- at that point, you kinda feel that the responsible people should be up-to-date, and maybe the irresponsible ones could use some help.
I guess, in the end, that the possibility that the "fixing" worm could contain bugs that might just make things worse is about the best argument for not doing this.
~kYou know, the one phrase I find absolutely jaw-dropping (literally) is "unauthorized reading". Top-secret, classified documents aside, what the heck is that?!!
~kHas anyone ever proposed some law that would not only obligate spammers to honor opt-out requests themselves, but also honor requests that one's name/email/etc. not be passed on to any other individual? (exceptions for court orders, etc.)
Perhaps this could help the current situation in which people don't send opt-out requests, knowing that the last thing you want is to end up on some list of "verified email addresses".
~k
As the saying goes...
The First Amendment doesn't exist to protect the speech we like by the people we like. It exists to protect the speech we detest by the people we loathe.
~kThis actually raises a point I've been thinking about recently. Large corporations are busy tearing down environmental laws, labor regulations, etc. (most often using NAFTA and the WTO as wedges) in the name of unrestricted trade. [See any of the non-corporate coverage of Quebec for details.]
Oh, yes, they're all in favor of globalization, until it comes to the globalization of their own product. Then they stick those damned region codes on their DVDs. Hypocrits!
~k
Try this little exercise:
Try to consider every book/article/magazine/etc you have ever read which has contributed to your knowlege of coding. Now imagine them without code examples. {shudder!} How many, many times have I been reading a spec going, "huh?" Then I'll skip ahead a paragraph or page to a code example, and all will be made clear.
10 lines of code are worth 100 lines of text. The value of code as an expressive medium is irreplaceable to programmers.
~kI went to MIT (a while ago now, but still...)
1. Many living groups (dorms, fraternities & sororities) have shelves of "bibles" -- that is, compendiums of quizzes, problems sets, etc. -- often going back years. Having the info on the web will more likely have an equalizing effect that a further polarizing one.
2. MIT practices "needblind" admissions -- although (of course) their idea and your idea of what one "needs" may differ.
Speaking of "When I Was a Kid" stories, we had some good ones, growing up in Alaska. The best: Moose Days. Moose are skittish creatures. So, if there was one in your front yard in the morning, you didn't have to go to school that day.
Some days, I still pray for moose, even here in Boston,
~kI'm a rower -- something that almost never gets any air time. And it frustrates the h*ll out of me. And I know that there are millions of other people in the world who also follow obscure sports who are just as frustrated as I am.
People are always complaining about how no one will pay for content on the internet. To the contrary, if I could actually watch the rowing sprints, in their totality, without yammering play-by-play from clueless desk jockeys, I'd cough up some $$. And I believe that many others would, too. An opportunity going begging here.
~OutOfMindSee the Salon letters section, the last letter for an excellent explanation of how dimpled chad occur.
As for why they might occur only in the presidential part of the ballot, I think it eminently reasonable that people might cast ballots only in the presidential part of the race, so that part of the catch tray might be more full.
~OutOfMindI suggest Mark Twain's "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg".
Could be a good way to get that next round of financing.