A lot of people don't get it. The Constitution most certainly doesn't have a loophole which permits child porn. This is plainly obvious given the laws against child porn which have not been struck down. People misunderstand the free speech bit. Free speech doesn't, as the classic example goes, allow you to yell fire in a crowded theater or slander your neighbor. Free does not mean absolutely free and unrestricted.
Now, as far as laws go, anything which conflicts with the Constitution *is* illegal. It's not about good and bad, it's about law. People may be saying, in the examples you notice, not "Hey, that's Bad because it conflicts with the Constitution", but "Hey, that's illegal because it conflicts with the Constitution." If Congress passes a law taking the right to vote from people with blue eyes, it will be struck down as unconstitutional, which is short for illegal because the Constitution says so.
I have this crazy idea that an apportionment tax might be fun. My fellow Amuricans, our budget this year is $2,100,000,000,000. There are 200,000,000 of you over the age of 18. Each of you cough up $10,500 by April 15th or we're sending the Infernal Revenue Service after you.
The biggest problem is the reason I like it so much. I couldn't do it. Nobody wants to caugh up that much money all at once. In reality, it just makes you realize how much you're already paying. I don't want clever systems to tax me without apparent pain or the current so-called progressive tax system where people of moderate to low incomes pay next to nothing. Unless the tax burden hits us all, we're not motivated to rein it in.
There's a common thread in these ideas, and that idea is the subject of this post. "Trust us. We want to do something which would in normal circumstances be condemned as unequivocally bad, but it's ok, because we're the good guys."
RIAA: We want to hack back because we're the victims of piracy. DARPA: We want to track all the minutiae of your life because we want to find terrorists. Mullen: We want to exercise a(n admittedly limited) degree over your systems because they're harming us.
These notions aren't necessarily wrong, but any proposal to allow people to be exempt from laws or standards of conduct because they think they have a good reason to be bears careful scrutiny. IMO, this isn't much better than those users who just can't possibly get their job done without having the root password, in spite of the fact that everyone else does. We do not need the ability to manipulate others' systems to suit our security needs. I'd suggest a much better solution is responsive ISPs at all levels. If you're hosting a DDoS client, cut their feed and we mean now, or we (the guys above you) cut yours. Likewise, if we don't cut you off, we get cut off by the guys above us. Perfect? Nope, but I'm more comfortable with this than letting any yahoo who happens to think they're under attack by my systems have the right to cause my server to start or stop doing things without regard for the outcome.
Mr. Mullen's idea isn't stupid and it might not be "bad", but it is definitely not the right solution.
You'd be correct if your assumption that I sit on my college education and don't continually expand my skills was correct. It isn't. New grads don't know what I know because I have the same degree they do plus n years of education since I graduated. If the problem can be handled by a new grad, give it to them. I know, as does anyone who isn't a new grad, that there is the way they tell you it works in college, and there's the way it actually happens.
In short, I tune my skills to what appears to be tomorrow's "hot topic". It is not the case that skills in demand come without warning.
There's speaking English and there's speaking english with enough proficiency to be productive.
I'm working with a number of non-English speakers. Some speak excellent English, some speak deplorably bad English, to the point where I've considered learning *their* language, because they sure as hell haven't made any strides learning mine in the 2+ years we've been working together. The ones who speak both languages well act as glue. The problem is, they're not always around and in general, it's harder to communicate with someone when you have to have it translated back and forth. It's not bigotry at all. It's a simple fact. We have difficult problems to overcome, and it's a PITA that those problems are compounded by language barriers that my cow orkers aren't overcoming.
If it makes you feel better, I vow to learn the language if I ever go to work in their country.
This is just so fundamentally untrue. People *do* go to college to enhance their employability, not to become "a better person". Let's be honest, quite a few go to college because they don't want to have to get a job yet. I believe liberal education to be a largely bankrupt concept. I didn't go to college to learn a little bit about a lot of things, I went to college to become really good at one specific thing. Universities and colleges are becoming what you call trade schools because they have to serve the needs of those who pay their bills. Neither I nor almost anyone else is going to sacrifice 4 years of income and pay handsomely for the priviledge for so idealistic a goal as pure learning. That's a luxury few of us will ever have. If and when I'm financially independent, maybe. Until then, it's just not an option.
It's common sense that when someone else wants to give away what you sell, you're going to be financially hurt. "Free" software people want to look the other way and pretend it isn't so, but clearly it is, and I have a hard time understanding why it *shouldn't* be so.
Still, the ultimate solution is elusive. Is free (gratis) software a bad idea, or is it just establishing the true value of the code at $0? IMO, there's a bit of naivete going around where paid programmer A produces a free version of the software programmer B is paid to make, and B likewise frees A's work, and both are somehow surprised when they end up unemployed.
I like the idea that a big story can be told in a reasonable time. The matrix from 1999 to 2003 is...longish. LOTR in 3 years is...longish. In each case I see the film and think "I can't wait to see the next one." I have to, and to be blunt, that bites. If the sequel came out a month later, I'd be *highly* likely to see it. If it comes out years later, I might well be interested in other things by then.
Then there's Star Wars, which is pushing 30 years to finish a story which can be summed up as "Faction takes over galaxy, nefarious faction leader subverts powerful good guy, child of subverted good guy reconverts dad, who kills nefarious faction leader, presumably freeing galaxy."
Seriously, I've had friends (well, one, but one's enough) born around or after Episode IV who didn't live long enough to see Episode II. I don't want a movie to cover a major span of my life. It's entertainment. Give it to me over a shorter span, or don't expect me to get too invested in it. These guys get major credit from me for shooting the movies simultaneously and not making me wait 5 years for the conclusion.
I've seen many people holding guns. No one has ever shot at me. Only one person has ever pointed one at me, and that I attribute to the fact that 1) this person was an idiot and 2) the quantity of Colombia's finest non-caffeinated export flowing through his veins.
Use context. If you're in a gun shop or target range, it's almost certainly nothing. If it's preceded by "Hey, lemme show you the new 9mm I just bought!" it's nothing. If you see some guy out on the street standing there holding one in his hand which I've *never* seen, that might be unusual enough to call 911. Either he's a bad guy, a good guy who perceived a threat significant enough that he feels a need to have the gun in his hand, or he's painfully stupid to the point he doesn't realize he probably doesn't want to do that and a visit from local law will wise him up a bit.
It doesn't help when phantom arguments are used. It's just not the case that people are wandering around with guns in their hands and now and again one just starts shooting. More like someone breaks into your house, robs the bank, mugs you, etc. Their actions brand them criminals. I just can't believe you're really going to find yourself trying to figure out which armed guy is the bad one. Personally, I'd take some consolation knowing that when the bad one starts shooting the good ones are going to pin him to the floor 100 grains of lead at a time. About the only thing that would give me any hope if I were being shot at would be the ability to shoot back. Of course it doesn't hurt being good at it.:)
I'd like to add to that. If you listen to the military planning regarding taking Baghdad (if it comes to that), you'll often hear things like how hard it is to take and occupy a city. It's not like shooting tanks in the desert. It's house to house, *people* going inside. The armed US public is a match for the military in that context, especially when you consider the amount of desertion and collaboration which will happen because Joe Soldier in the military doesn't like the idea of occupying grandma's house.
I'm not so blind to history that I can't see that it can happen. It can, and has elsewhere. It is harder when the population you're trying to subdue is armed. Sometimes harder is enough. I suspect harder is almost always better.
Sure there is, and a strong correlation at that. Having the freedom to own a gun IS a type of freedom. People who can, all other things being equal, are freer than those who can't.
Your paranoid fear of guns is quite evident. Millions of people are recreational shooters. Virtually none of them engage in gunfights. Of the gunfights I hear about on TV, I'll promise you none of the participants engage in target practice given the God awful aim they seem to have. Both parties empty their guns and no one is hit? From close range?
Don't confuse thugs with guns with responsible people with guns. Thugs are just plain dangerous, whether they have guns, knives, chains, or just their fists. Responsible people don't engage in gunfights, unless you want to count shooting thugs who break into their homes.
They say that youth is wasted on the young. I'm growing to believe that management authority is, by and large, wasted on people who do stupid things with it.
This is a good example of the principle that you really can do worse things than nothing at all in terms of employee morale. What sort of arrogant oaf would actually believe their employees want his (her?) image as a GIFT?!? It might make a nice gag gift after a bad year if printed on the business side of a dartboard, but otherwise it's just tacky beyond reason.
Personally, I think a modern art treatment would be appropriate. Submerge it in a jar of urine and call it "Piss(ed) CEO".
I suppose you can call it prejudice if you like, but that's not the correct term. I have judged him, based on things he has had to say in the past in interviews and the like, I have not prejudged him. Nor is my expressing that opinion of him an ad hominem attack. I'm not trying to discredit his views or change your opinion. I'm using him as an example. Alienate your audience and they won't listen to you.
It's really as simple as this. There are a lot of things to do, and not enough hours to do them. There are a lot of voices clamoring for attention, and each one only gets to say so many things that, having heard, I judge not to have been worth listening to, before I cross them off the list of people worth listening to. If every post I wrote made you want to slap it with a -1 Flamebait, you'd probably stop reading them in spite of the fact that someday I might say something worthy of your attention. There would be other voices more worthy, and only so much attention to go around.
As for the movie, I may well go see it, but it's taken time and hearing from a number of people that the movie is worth the time to overcome Mr. Moore's prior comments which led me to write him off years ago.
IMO that's not even the point. Patents should, I believe promote the R&D that advances our collective well being where that R&D would not be worth the bother if anyone could take your innovation and run with it once you've done the heavy lifting. Take light bulbs, for example. People worked *years* trying to get this to work. Significant investment produces an easy to duplicate invention. Patent protection is necessary to make those years of hard work pay off.
My deep annoyance with the current patent system is that you can get a patent on something which takes negligible work to "invent". 1-click is a perfect example. It isn't innovative, it wasn't hard to do, and just about anyone who happened to get the idea including Joe or Jane Coder could sit down and do it themselves in short order. It has become a race to the patent office for the first person to happen upon a solution. Often that translates into the first person to notice a problem.
Imagine someone creates a GOOD non-keyboard interface to a computer. I'd argue that hasn't been done yet, in spite of lots of people trying and spending quite a bit of money in the process. Patentable, or I should say *ethically* patentable. What Bozos, er Bezos would come along and do is patent *using* such a device to place an order at an online store, an obvious application devoid of innovation. Anyone with an online store and an awareness of the technology would see that solution and implement it. Most of them would implement that trivial solution without thinking of patenting it. Those who do so to extort money from the rest of us are nothing more than parasites.
By the way, anyone else think Gordon Moore gets a little too much by having a "law" named after him? I mean, sheesh...all he did was draw a freakin' best-fit curve on a plot of easily-found data. And on top of that, Moore's Law isn't a law at all...it's a statistic.
If it makes you feel better, you're in good company. Gordon Moore has said pretty much the same thing himself.
There's a wonderful irony here (especially if you're the same Anonymous Coward each time) that I'm saying don't just call Americans names, but rather challenge them, talk to them, tell them how YOU see the world, and that's what you're doing. Wonderful. Thank you. Keep it up. Find some of my countymen who are on the net for entertainment and haven't heard your views. Talk to them.
I suggest you examine your goals. Are you content to just sit back and hate the U.S., or do you want to influence its behavior by influencing the opinions of its voters? You posted a reasoned opinion on the Israel/Palestinian issue. Had it been prefaced by "Hey jackass", I probably wouldn't have bothered reading it. I can't say you changed my mind, but that's because I already oppose the huge sum of money we send Israel every year and I've already come to believe there's no good guy in that conflict and a lot of people caught in the middle who would rather not be. Killing innocent civilians is indefensible--on both sides.
I have to say you're not wrong, in my opinion, on the educational state of the average American. Back to my original point, you just have to decide if you're going to do nothing more than be pissed off about it, or are you going to do something. If enough people decide to do something, it will change. If enough sit back and do nothing, it will not.
As a general principle I believe people should be allowed to choose their own leaders and their own form of government. General principles have a way of giving in specific situations. Pick a specific democratic elected leader we "backed" and I'll bet there was a decision process somewhere in D.C. which went rather beyond "That guy won't do whatever we want. Oust him!" Is it right? I don't know. I don't know the rationale for the decision, but I'll grant that the answer might be no.
The point of my post, which you ignored in favor of saying, in essence "Yes you are!", is that a discussion is productive. Name calling is not. When Joe Sixpack in Anytown, USA hears you say "The US is a bully!" he farts in your general direction and goes back to watching Jerry Springer. When you say, "Hey, did you know you guys backed $DICTATOR to overthrow $ELECTED_OFFICIAL in $COUNTRY?" you at least have a chance of getting the thought process going. That person is going to probably at least think to themselves "I wonder if we did that. If we did, why, and was it the right thing to do?"
I'm telling you that basic presentation strategy applies. Ask 100 Americans to name their President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and the President's National Security Advisor and I'll bet you fewer than 25 can do it. These are the people you need to persuade. If you want to do the in thing and bash the US, knock yourself out. If you want to actually get your point across, doing so in a manner not likely to make your audience dismiss you out of hand would be a good idea.
Incidentally, I haven't seen Bowling for Columbine for exactly that reason. Michael Moore has done too many things to make me think he's nothing more than an extremist liberal slinging mud at the evil capitalists. Maybe he has something deserving of a fair hearing in this movie. If he hadn't so effectively turned me off he might have gotten one by now.
Iraq and Afghanistan didn't incur the wrath of the US because they wouldn't enforce the DMCA. Iraq invaded another sovereign nation, threatened our interests in the region AND gave their neighbors enough cause for concern that we were welcomed in to kick 'em back out. "We", being a community of nations who didn't think a dictator like Hussein should annex Kuwait just because he didn't have enough space for palaces in HIS corner of the desert. Afghanistan was run by a repressive regime intent on harboring al Qaeda. Nuff said.
I'm not yet persuaded the US is a bully. I was listening to NPR this morning when I heard some guy from a think tank in Qatar explaining that they favored letting the US use their land for military action against Iraq because they thought it was in their interest to have powerful allies. Fair enough. We get something, they get something, we're both happy. Nobody's getting beaten up on the playground. I'm kinda tired, though, of being the rich uncle (Sam) who gets hit up for money any time anyone needs it, who sends sons and daughters to die thousands of miles from home saving other people's ass...ets, and is treated like a tyrant for asking something in return. I'm thinking of cases like Bosnia where I don't believe there was any political, economic, or military reason for us to bother. In fairness, I'm also thinking of cases like Rwanda, where there wasn't any political, economic, or military reason for us to bother, and to our everlasting shame, we didn't. While you have your nose up in the air ask yourself why you didn't do anything either.
I've got news for all the non-US citizens out there. There are more of you than there are of us. You have more economic power than we do. You have more political power than we do. Military is iffy since it's not a winner take all game. Both sides lose something. Still, we're not going to invade if you don't enforce the DMCA. Ya see, first, the rest of you (and remember, there are a lot more of you than us) would be pretty pissed off, and we don't want that. Second, like the citizens of just about everywhere else, all things being equal, we'd rather not have a war even on YOUR soil. Even those who favor war in Iraq don't favor having a war per se, but rather see the war bit as inevitable and are just choosing a time that's to our advantage (before he has nukes rather than after).
I could go on forever on this topic, so I'll try to draw it to a close by pointing the finger right back at 'cha. For every one of you who sticks up your nose at the stupid Americans while we sit on our fat backsides drinking bad beer and eating hormone filled fast food burgers, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. As I've gotten out into the wider world, I've come to accept that here in the good 'ol US of A, we don't always hear what the rest of you are saying. Our ears are open, but unlike a lot of you, it's a long way to the border, the border's water on east and west anyway, and the guys down south speak a language most of us don't understand. We don't share your perspective because we don't live in your shoes, but that doesn't mean we're incapable of understanding your perspective. You don't understand our perspective for exactly the same reason. As long as we are both content to walk around with disdain for the others' ignorance, that's how things will remain. This is changing somewhat due to the advent of satellite TV and the Internet. Those voices are starting to come through more clearly, but ironically not because the speakers have done anything to make themselves heard more clearly. Speak up, mmmmkay?
Let's be fair here. The US citizenry didn't pass the DMCA. A bunch of old congresscritters did (didja hear Strom Thurmond just hit 100?)
It's an assinine and stupid law, but if it's enforced in your country it's because your government rolled over, which is to say that both my government and yours are doing a poor job. You *can* say no.
It may not be such a crazy idea, but in fairness, one of the selling points for cable originally was...no commercials! I'd say there would be a credible service if cable was $foo and cable without commercials was offered for $foo+small fee equivalent to 1 cent/commercial but for that fact. Paying to skip commercials also presupposes some obligation to watch them. I don't pay a fee now when I hit the remote control, fridge, or the restroom.
This is just another of the continuing business model problems in the commercial world today. If your business model relies on forcing consumers to do something they don't want to do and aren't compelled to do, you're going to have problems. You may succeed in ramming it down their throats (credit card arbitration agreements, for example), but to be blunt, persuading your customers that you're a collection of greedy, controlling asses is not a good business plan in the long term. It leaves a big opening for someone to come along, fill the need, NOT be a greedy, controlling ass, and eat your lunch.
Now if you're being honest and you genuinely believe you offer a superior service, fine. Speeches about it are not necessary. Let the best product win in the marketplace.
I'd be interested in a comparison between the perceived value of their database vs. the actual value of their database when the amount of fabricated data in it is taken into account. I know a few people who always decline to provide information, and a lot more who find it easier to make something up.
That's one of the reason I'm not entirely opposed to pushing porn sites into their own TLD. Unless your goal is to pretend to be something you're not, or lie in wait until my brain goes on autopilot for those last three keystrokes and gov becomes com, what's the difference between whitehouse.com and whitehouse.xxx?
Then again, that *was* during the Clinton administration, so maybe whitehouse.gov would have gotten the whitehouse.xxx domain.:)
Truth, maybe? I don't like it, but it seems useful to know the old line "Spamming doesn't work" isn't true. It provides motivation to find a true solution to the problem. Spamming *does* pay, but as a phenominal pain in the tail, we should look for ways to make it uneconomical.
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Now, as far as laws go, anything which conflicts with the Constitution *is* illegal. It's not about good and bad, it's about law. People may be saying, in the examples you notice, not "Hey, that's Bad because it conflicts with the Constitution", but "Hey, that's illegal because it conflicts with the Constitution." If Congress passes a law taking the right to vote from people with blue eyes, it will be struck down as unconstitutional, which is short for illegal because the Constitution says so.
Hope that helps.
The biggest problem is the reason I like it so much. I couldn't do it. Nobody wants to caugh up that much money all at once. In reality, it just makes you realize how much you're already paying. I don't want clever systems to tax me without apparent pain or the current so-called progressive tax system where people of moderate to low incomes pay next to nothing. Unless the tax burden hits us all, we're not motivated to rein it in.
I can't understand why you let it bother you. It's only natural for them to make such a claim.
You might look into getting a bigger camel.
RIAA: We want to hack back because we're the victims of piracy.
DARPA: We want to track all the minutiae of your life because we want to find terrorists.
Mullen: We want to exercise a(n admittedly limited) degree over your systems because they're harming us.
These notions aren't necessarily wrong, but any proposal to allow people to be exempt from laws or standards of conduct because they think they have a good reason to be bears careful scrutiny. IMO, this isn't much better than those users who just can't possibly get their job done without having the root password, in spite of the fact that everyone else does. We do not need the ability to manipulate others' systems to suit our security needs. I'd suggest a much better solution is responsive ISPs at all levels. If you're hosting a DDoS client, cut their feed and we mean now, or we (the guys above you) cut yours. Likewise, if we don't cut you off, we get cut off by the guys above us. Perfect? Nope, but I'm more comfortable with this than letting any yahoo who happens to think they're under attack by my systems have the right to cause my server to start or stop doing things without regard for the outcome.
Mr. Mullen's idea isn't stupid and it might not be "bad", but it is definitely not the right solution.
In short, I tune my skills to what appears to be tomorrow's "hot topic". It is not the case that skills in demand come without warning.
I'm working with a number of non-English speakers. Some speak excellent English, some speak deplorably bad English, to the point where I've considered learning *their* language, because they sure as hell haven't made any strides learning mine in the 2+ years we've been working together. The ones who speak both languages well act as glue. The problem is, they're not always around and in general, it's harder to communicate with someone when you have to have it translated back and forth. It's not bigotry at all. It's a simple fact. We have difficult problems to overcome, and it's a PITA that those problems are compounded by language barriers that my cow orkers aren't overcoming.
If it makes you feel better, I vow to learn the language if I ever go to work in their country.
This is just so fundamentally untrue. People *do* go to college to enhance their employability, not to become "a better person". Let's be honest, quite a few go to college because they don't want to have to get a job yet. I believe liberal education to be a largely bankrupt concept. I didn't go to college to learn a little bit about a lot of things, I went to college to become really good at one specific thing. Universities and colleges are becoming what you call trade schools because they have to serve the needs of those who pay their bills. Neither I nor almost anyone else is going to sacrifice 4 years of income and pay handsomely for the priviledge for so idealistic a goal as pure learning. That's a luxury few of us will ever have. If and when I'm financially independent, maybe. Until then, it's just not an option.
Still, the ultimate solution is elusive. Is free (gratis) software a bad idea, or is it just establishing the true value of the code at $0? IMO, there's a bit of naivete going around where paid programmer A produces a free version of the software programmer B is paid to make, and B likewise frees A's work, and both are somehow surprised when they end up unemployed.
You're one of those Aussie Jedi, aint'cha?
Then there's Star Wars, which is pushing 30 years to finish a story which can be summed up as "Faction takes over galaxy, nefarious faction leader subverts powerful good guy, child of subverted good guy reconverts dad, who kills nefarious faction leader, presumably freeing galaxy."
Seriously, I've had friends (well, one, but one's enough) born around or after Episode IV who didn't live long enough to see Episode II. I don't want a movie to cover a major span of my life. It's entertainment. Give it to me over a shorter span, or don't expect me to get too invested in it. These guys get major credit from me for shooting the movies simultaneously and not making me wait 5 years for the conclusion.
Use context. If you're in a gun shop or target range, it's almost certainly nothing. If it's preceded by "Hey, lemme show you the new 9mm I just bought!" it's nothing. If you see some guy out on the street standing there holding one in his hand which I've *never* seen, that might be unusual enough to call 911. Either he's a bad guy, a good guy who perceived a threat significant enough that he feels a need to have the gun in his hand, or he's painfully stupid to the point he doesn't realize he probably doesn't want to do that and a visit from local law will wise him up a bit.
It doesn't help when phantom arguments are used. It's just not the case that people are wandering around with guns in their hands and now and again one just starts shooting. More like someone breaks into your house, robs the bank, mugs you, etc. Their actions brand them criminals. I just can't believe you're really going to find yourself trying to figure out which armed guy is the bad one. Personally, I'd take some consolation knowing that when the bad one starts shooting the good ones are going to pin him to the floor 100 grains of lead at a time. About the only thing that would give me any hope if I were being shot at would be the ability to shoot back. Of course it doesn't hurt being good at it.
I'm not so blind to history that I can't see that it can happen. It can, and has elsewhere. It is harder when the population you're trying to subdue is armed. Sometimes harder is enough. I suspect harder is almost always better.
Your paranoid fear of guns is quite evident. Millions of people are recreational shooters. Virtually none of them engage in gunfights. Of the gunfights I hear about on TV, I'll promise you none of the participants engage in target practice given the God awful aim they seem to have. Both parties empty their guns and no one is hit? From close range?
Don't confuse thugs with guns with responsible people with guns. Thugs are just plain dangerous, whether they have guns, knives, chains, or just their fists. Responsible people don't engage in gunfights, unless you want to count shooting thugs who break into their homes.
This is a good example of the principle that you really can do worse things than nothing at all in terms of employee morale. What sort of arrogant oaf would actually believe their employees want his (her?) image as a GIFT?!? It might make a nice gag gift after a bad year if printed on the business side of a dartboard, but otherwise it's just tacky beyond reason.
Personally, I think a modern art treatment would be appropriate. Submerge it in a jar of urine and call it "Piss(ed) CEO".
It's really as simple as this. There are a lot of things to do, and not enough hours to do them. There are a lot of voices clamoring for attention, and each one only gets to say so many things that, having heard, I judge not to have been worth listening to, before I cross them off the list of people worth listening to. If every post I wrote made you want to slap it with a -1 Flamebait, you'd probably stop reading them in spite of the fact that someday I might say something worthy of your attention. There would be other voices more worthy, and only so much attention to go around.
As for the movie, I may well go see it, but it's taken time and hearing from a number of people that the movie is worth the time to overcome Mr. Moore's prior comments which led me to write him off years ago.
My deep annoyance with the current patent system is that you can get a patent on something which takes negligible work to "invent". 1-click is a perfect example. It isn't innovative, it wasn't hard to do, and just about anyone who happened to get the idea including Joe or Jane Coder could sit down and do it themselves in short order. It has become a race to the patent office for the first person to happen upon a solution. Often that translates into the first person to notice a problem.
Imagine someone creates a GOOD non-keyboard interface to a computer. I'd argue that hasn't been done yet, in spite of lots of people trying and spending quite a bit of money in the process. Patentable, or I should say *ethically* patentable. What Bozos, er Bezos would come along and do is patent *using* such a device to place an order at an online store, an obvious application devoid of innovation. Anyone with an online store and an awareness of the technology would see that solution and implement it. Most of them would implement that trivial solution without thinking of patenting it. Those who do so to extort money from the rest of us are nothing more than parasites.
If it makes you feel better, you're in good company. Gordon Moore has said pretty much the same thing himself.
I suggest you examine your goals. Are you content to just sit back and hate the U.S., or do you want to influence its behavior by influencing the opinions of its voters? You posted a reasoned opinion on the Israel/Palestinian issue. Had it been prefaced by "Hey jackass", I probably wouldn't have bothered reading it. I can't say you changed my mind, but that's because I already oppose the huge sum of money we send Israel every year and I've already come to believe there's no good guy in that conflict and a lot of people caught in the middle who would rather not be. Killing innocent civilians is indefensible--on both sides.
I have to say you're not wrong, in my opinion, on the educational state of the average American. Back to my original point, you just have to decide if you're going to do nothing more than be pissed off about it, or are you going to do something. If enough people decide to do something, it will change. If enough sit back and do nothing, it will not.
The point of my post, which you ignored in favor of saying, in essence "Yes you are!", is that a discussion is productive. Name calling is not. When Joe Sixpack in Anytown, USA hears you say "The US is a bully!" he farts in your general direction and goes back to watching Jerry Springer. When you say, "Hey, did you know you guys backed $DICTATOR to overthrow $ELECTED_OFFICIAL in $COUNTRY?" you at least have a chance of getting the thought process going. That person is going to probably at least think to themselves "I wonder if we did that. If we did, why, and was it the right thing to do?"
I'm telling you that basic presentation strategy applies. Ask 100 Americans to name their President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and the President's National Security Advisor and I'll bet you fewer than 25 can do it. These are the people you need to persuade. If you want to do the in thing and bash the US, knock yourself out. If you want to actually get your point across, doing so in a manner not likely to make your audience dismiss you out of hand would be a good idea.
Incidentally, I haven't seen Bowling for Columbine for exactly that reason. Michael Moore has done too many things to make me think he's nothing more than an extremist liberal slinging mud at the evil capitalists. Maybe he has something deserving of a fair hearing in this movie. If he hadn't so effectively turned me off he might have gotten one by now.
You can be effective or not. It's up to you.
I'm not yet persuaded the US is a bully. I was listening to NPR this morning when I heard some guy from a think tank in Qatar explaining that they favored letting the US use their land for military action against Iraq because they thought it was in their interest to have powerful allies. Fair enough. We get something, they get something, we're both happy. Nobody's getting beaten up on the playground. I'm kinda tired, though, of being the rich uncle (Sam) who gets hit up for money any time anyone needs it, who sends sons and daughters to die thousands of miles from home saving other people's ass...ets, and is treated like a tyrant for asking something in return. I'm thinking of cases like Bosnia where I don't believe there was any political, economic, or military reason for us to bother. In fairness, I'm also thinking of cases like Rwanda, where there wasn't any political, economic, or military reason for us to bother, and to our everlasting shame, we didn't. While you have your nose up in the air ask yourself why you didn't do anything either.
I've got news for all the non-US citizens out there. There are more of you than there are of us. You have more economic power than we do. You have more political power than we do. Military is iffy since it's not a winner take all game. Both sides lose something. Still, we're not going to invade if you don't enforce the DMCA. Ya see, first, the rest of you (and remember, there are a lot more of you than us) would be pretty pissed off, and we don't want that. Second, like the citizens of just about everywhere else, all things being equal, we'd rather not have a war even on YOUR soil. Even those who favor war in Iraq don't favor having a war per se, but rather see the war bit as inevitable and are just choosing a time that's to our advantage (before he has nukes rather than after).
I could go on forever on this topic, so I'll try to draw it to a close by pointing the finger right back at 'cha. For every one of you who sticks up your nose at the stupid Americans while we sit on our fat backsides drinking bad beer and eating hormone filled fast food burgers, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. As I've gotten out into the wider world, I've come to accept that here in the good 'ol US of A, we don't always hear what the rest of you are saying. Our ears are open, but unlike a lot of you, it's a long way to the border, the border's water on east and west anyway, and the guys down south speak a language most of us don't understand. We don't share your perspective because we don't live in your shoes, but that doesn't mean we're incapable of understanding your perspective. You don't understand our perspective for exactly the same reason. As long as we are both content to walk around with disdain for the others' ignorance, that's how things will remain. This is changing somewhat due to the advent of satellite TV and the Internet. Those voices are starting to come through more clearly, but ironically not because the speakers have done anything to make themselves heard more clearly. Speak up, mmmmkay?
It's an assinine and stupid law, but if it's enforced in your country it's because your government rolled over, which is to say that both my government and yours are doing a poor job. You *can* say no.
This is just another of the continuing business model problems in the commercial world today. If your business model relies on forcing consumers to do something they don't want to do and aren't compelled to do, you're going to have problems. You may succeed in ramming it down their throats (credit card arbitration agreements, for example), but to be blunt, persuading your customers that you're a collection of greedy, controlling asses is not a good business plan in the long term. It leaves a big opening for someone to come along, fill the need, NOT be a greedy, controlling ass, and eat your lunch.
Now if you're being honest and you genuinely believe you offer a superior service, fine. Speeches about it are not necessary. Let the best product win in the marketplace.
I'd be interested in a comparison between the perceived value of their database vs. the actual value of their database when the amount of fabricated data in it is taken into account. I know a few people who always decline to provide information, and a lot more who find it easier to make something up.
Then again, that *was* during the Clinton administration, so maybe whitehouse.gov would have gotten the whitehouse.xxx domain.
Truth, maybe? I don't like it, but it seems useful to know the old line "Spamming doesn't work" isn't true. It provides motivation to find a true solution to the problem. Spamming *does* pay, but as a phenominal pain in the tail, we should look for ways to make it uneconomical.