I should patent "Method for creating a repository of methods to create goods and services reserved for use by their original designers for a predetermined period ". Then I'd sue the USPTO. Imagine the irony.
I think the USPTO wouldn't have a whole lot of trouble proving prior art.
The Mozilla developers realized that the slow and gradual climb toward Mozilla 1.0 was the most magical and exciting time of their lives. Every time they released a new 0.x version, they created a buzz of excitement as people speculated about how much longer it would take to get to 1.0, and even more people complained about how long it was taking them to develop Mozilla, how bloated and slow it was, and so on.
And then Mozilla 1.0 was released and the Open Source world rejoiced. No doubt this must have been an exciting time for the Mozilla developers.
Imagine the let-down after such a climax.
1.1? Who cares. 1.2? Yeah yeah, blah whatever. Yeah we all know it's good now, yeah we're all using it (or other browsers which use its rendering engine), except for those whacko Konqueror lovers. It's not news anymore, it's just the next version to upgrade to.
Needless to say, the Mozilla developers must have sunk into a deep depression. Finally, at a meeting of the devs, one of them must have come up with a bright idea....
Dev 1: "Hey, I know how we can recapture the magic of those pre-1.0 days!"
Dev 2: "Really?? How? Something has to be done, because I've been drinking non-stop and my wife's about to leave me!"
Dev 1: "We can dump 'Mozilla'--it's just too boring now that we're past 1.0--and instead split it into separate mail and browser components. And we might as well dump the Composer, no one uses that anyway."
Dev 2: "But why? We've been ignoring the 'Mozilla is too bloated' crowd for years, why bother to change now?"
Dev 1: "Don't you see? Even though we're using the post-1.0 code we already have, we can consider the separate browser and mail components to be _new programs_...."
Dev 2: "You mean... we can start them at version 0.1!"
Dev 1: "Exactly! And we can recapture the magic of working toward 1.0 with not one program, but two!"
It was easy to configure, unfortunately it still reeks of "I-look-like-netscape"ocity (a problem plauging mozilla).
Assuming you're referring to the default theme looking like Netscape 4... you do realize you can easily change the theme, right?
Or, if you're referring to Mozilla looking like more recent versions of Netscape (which has been killed now anyway..), well, uh, they're based on Mozilla, so... do you want Mozilla to try to avoid looking like itself?
Linux-related news dominates Slashdot, and SCO (and SCO's tactics, which could conceivably be used by other companies that want to hurt Linux) is the current Big Bad Threat to Linux.
So you're going to see the play-by-play posted here, whether you like it or not and no matter how much you bitch. If you don't want to see it, ignore it.
With no data kept locally, and no possibility of OS corruption, your only support requirements are to tell people to reboot.
(Emphasis mine)
That's nothing impressive--Microsoft accomplished that years ago with Windows 95, without having to leave out the hard disk and certainly without having to bother with silly things like preventing OS corruption.
I had a lot of the same procrastination problems... fortunately I was a good enough test-taker and writer that I still escaped with a high GPA, but my procrastination made college much more stressful than it should have been for me.
One thing I found that helped is to set mini-deadlines for myself. Rather than taking all of your work and saying "I have to finish all of this by tomorrow", break it down into smaller chunks and tell yourself "I have to finish this part by noon, this part by 2pm, this part by 4:30pm" etc. Try to plan the deadlines out so they're realistic, but try to challenge yourself at the same time.
Instead of letting yourself think, "I have 'til tomorrow, I can put it off just a few minutes longer...." over and over again until it's 1am, you want yourself thinking, "I have to finish this part I'm working on by 2pm!"
Also, it really helps to set goals and treat the achievement of your goals as sort of a game. Seriously. If you're playing a competitive video game against your best friend, you'll put some serious work into kicking his ass and you'll feel good about it. Put that same attitude into achieving your goals in education and life in general, and you'll find yourself with a lot more energy and motivation.
I think the reason you hear "ADHD" more than "ADD" now is because, in the most recent version of the DSM-IV (the official criteria for diagnosing mental disorders), ADD is no longer an official diagnosis. Instead, there are three subcategories of ADHD:
1. Mostly hyperactive and not really inattentive. 2. Mostly inattentive and not really hyperactive. 3. Both inattentive and hyperactive.
Yes, it's silly. #2, of course, is what most people still think of as "ADD".
This article has funny timing for me, since I had just dealt with MCI's fraud protection (I think that's what it was called) department a little under a month ago.
I moved into an apartment after graduation, and tried to get phone service from another phone company, but MCI still had their service on the phone line from the previous tenant. They denied responsibility for the phone line, saying they had cancelled it.
A few long distance phone calls with no one to bill finally got their attention. Idiots....
For some reason, "PC" seems to be used only to refer to Wintel. It's kind of silly. I keep wondering why a Mac can't be considered a "personal computer".
Yeah, it's kind of disappointing. I like to support Linux games, but I like to play games by myself. Computer games are my way of having fun _without_ relying on other people.
I bought Terminus, most of Loki's ports, and NWN (along with the SoU expansion), but it looks like I'm going to have to leave this one alone. As much as I'd like to support them for developing for Linux, paying $50+ USD for a game I can't play on my own isn't something I can justify to myself.
I like Konqueror, but never manage to keep using it. Every time I try it, within a day or two I stumble upon a page that renders poorly or doesn't work at all in Konqueror--so I switch back to Mozilla, Firebird, Galeon, or whatever gecko-based browser I prefer at the time (currently Galeon) and it views the page fine.
Why do you assume women are sharing less music than men? Even if you assume the girls to be less geeky on average, Kazaa makes it easy for the non-geeky user to download every song that catches his or her eye, and those songs are in turn being shared by default.
I've only used Kazaa very sparingly myself, and so far the biggest Kazaa user I have seen in person is my ex-girlfriend's younger sister (age 16 at the time, I think). She wasn't at all geeky or technologically knowledgeable, she had no idea that Kazaa had spyware on her computer (and was unaware of Kazaa Lite), and she was confused as to why her overly bloated "I let every program I install load up in the system tray on boot" computer ran so slowly. But she downloaded songs left and right in Kazaa and left them there to be shared.
Foods high in fiber tend to make you feel more satiated (the fiber content is really the big difference between natural complex carbs and refined complex carbs). Nuts are high in fiber, complex carbs, and unsaturated fat. The chips and crackers are high in complex carbs (and the chips are high in fat too if they're fried), but have no fiber.
I eat a bowl of oatmeal (low fat, high complex carbs, and high fiber) every morning and it always makes me feel stuffed. And that's with exactly one serving. With refined cereals, I'd have to eat more than the recommended amount for a single serving, and even then I'd be hungry again very quickly.
While you're making the distinction between good and bad carbohydrates, it seems worthwhile to also make the distinction between good (unsaturated) and bad (saturated) fats.
Saturated fats are the kind that drastically increase your risk for heart attacks and many other problems by clogging your arteries with bad cholesterol. Unsaturated fats are fine, though. Saturated fats are more common in animal products (whole milk, eggs, and meat), and unsaturated fats are more common in vegetable products.
Butter is mostly saturated fat, while vegetable oils are mostly unsaturated. Note that margarine uses "hydrogenated fat" (also sometimes referred to as "transfatty acids" I think), which is basically unsaturated fat artificially turned into saturated fat (but not advertised as such), and it may actually be _even worse_ than saturated fat. Stay away from margarine.
For those of you who actually care about your health as much as your appearance, keep that in mind. A healthy diet is one made up of healthy, unrefined carbohydrates (brown rice instead of white rice, wheat bread instead of white bread, potatoes, etc.), legumes (beans, peas, and related foods), fruits, vegetables, and only modest amounts of meat (preferably white meat).
I suspect that in the next few decades we are going to start seeing a drastic increase in thin, healthy looking people dropping dead of heart attacks in their 50's and 60's, thanks to the Atkins diet and our shallow society.
Heh, it would take all of about 5 seconds before stores started abusing the hell out of that--instead of everything costing $x.99 ("oooh look it's _under_ x+1 dollars!"), everything would start costing $n.01, or more likely be priced in such a way that it comes out to $n.01 with sales tax.
Even if businesses did get more money from this (which assumes that consumers currently send all their change to/dev/null instead of finding a use for it), it's overly optimistic to assume that the extra profits would be used on low-wage employees. Businesses will (in general, with rare exceptions) always pay their employees as much as they have to, not as much as they can.
Yeah, I understand that AP isn't your idea--I followed the link posted earlier and read up on it. I was posting to argue against the value of AP, knowing that you don't necessarily fully support it. My argument was also sort of aimed at all the people in this thread who seemed to think just killing off politicians would be a good way to solve problems. They all forget that they're outnumbered by the whackos who'd be killing (relatively) good politicians.
I also agree that it's an interesting idea and a fun little thought exercise. But every time I think about it, I think of more problems with it, and more reasons why it's even worse than what we already have. Like when I thought of the financial inequity between corporations and "the general public", I hadn't even yet considered the economic differences _within_ the general public. Let's say a politician votes to raise taxes for everyone making over $100,000/year and put more money into social programs aimed at cleaning up areas filled with crime and poverty, while providing jobs for poor people. Now there are a lot of wealthy people offering up money to have said politician whacked. Hey, if tax issues is one of the biggest issues that gets politicians elected, then it would certainly be one of the biggest issues that gets them killed. Don't underestimate the greed of the average person. Anyway, later another politician leads the charge to cut taxes for the wealthy and axe the aforementioned social programs. The poor whose lives are potentially being ruined want to react, but can't--even banding together, they just don't have the money to get him killed.
Thus you have the government pandering first to the corporations, and secondly to the wealthy and upper middle class, sort of like it does now, except with AP it's even worse. At least the way it is now, the poor and wealthy may differ in how much they can brib--errr contribute to political campaigns, but their votes at least still count the same. In the current system, a greater number of people could potentially beat a greater amount of money by banding together and deciding together to make a change in the next election. It doesn't happen because the masses are sheep who buy into the Republican or Democrat rhetoric (note: I personally think one of the major problems with our government is the two-party system), but at least, if people were smart enough, the system does theoretically allow for it to happen. In AP, though, it's _all_ about the money.
There'd be one for every kind of person. I think of this as a strength rather than a weakness.
In that case, what I imagine happening is a bunch of situations like this: The anti-abortion crowd starts their AP to kill off all pro-abortion politicians, and the pro-abortion crowd starts their AP to kill off all anti-abortion politicians. Same thing for every issue that gets people riled up on both sides (well, people who have money anyway--the rich will easily win issues that pit rich against poor). So the end result is that all politicians are getting killed and (for some strange reason...) no one wants to run for office anymore and the country is plunged into violent anarchy, possibly splitting up into several weaker countries which may or may not end up in constant war with each other.
That's all still making the (incorrent, IMO) assumption that the AP system wouldn't be thwarted by the government shutting it down and/or succeeding in providing adequate protection for all potentially-targetted politicians. The latter would probably involve a _greatly_ expanded role for the Secret Service and would require huge tax increases and/or cuts in funding for education and other government programs.
Every way I look at it, the AP system is nothing but destructive. It's nice to imagine that it would be ethically run and all abuses somehow prevented, but really... the US government was actually relatively well designed, with voting, term limits, checks and balances, the three branches, etc. all designed to
Ah, I wasn't sure if you were worried about the site being cease-and-desisted, or being Slashdotted.
For the latter, I would point out that a Slashdotting is only going to last a couple days at most, and the long-term effect would be positive--now you've got more people to potentially upload torrents and more people to help download speeds by downloading and helping to seed already existing torrents.
Uh, considering how quickly I stumbled onto that site myself (before this thread), I suspect any company bent on shutting down torrent Warez sites will find that site just as easily elsewhere as they would here in a Slashdot thread.
Such a system could exist on an encrypted, anonymous network such as Freenet. It probably stands to reason, though, that the technology required for an AP system are not yet proven and in place. The general idea is sound, though.
Oh, I'm sure such a system can exist in the sense that it can be created; what I question is whether or not it can be both:
Accessible to the general public (which is the whole point, right?), and
Safe from being destroyed (or controlled...) by the government.
#1 requires it to be fairly out in the open, and #2 requires it to be well-hidden.
In the end, though, the people running the AP can decide who is a valid target and who is not.
Ahh, so who can be whacked is up to the discretion of the AP people, eh? Then you've just shifted the power from the government to the people running the AP--woo hoo! What makes you believe the AP people will be any more ethical than the politicians? So, are the people running the AP Democrats, or Republicans? How do they feel about abortion? Taxes? Gun control? IP laws? What religion do they belong to?
And what happens when Microsoft hands over a ton of under-the-table money to the people running the AP? Don't tell me they'll be any harder to buy than the politicians. Sure, maybe a system will be set up that makes it hard to find out just who the AP people are, but it's only a matter of time. I don't suppose people can use the AP system to offer money to kill the people running the AP system?:P
So, there's no improvement over the current situation if you let the AP bosses decide who can and can't be whacked. And if you don't let them filter anything, then the multi-billion dollar corporations rule just like they do now. Even if you tried to make it so that only "normal" people--and not companies--could offer money, that should be fairly trivial to circumvent. (For example, the corporations could make several smaller offers that look like they're coming from many different sources.) Also, you mention that the nice thing about the system is that it allows _anyone_ to pay for assassinations. Well, likewise, currently _anyone_ can give brib--err donations to politicians.
Ultimately, the system is no less abuseable and corruptible than the system we already have. It might sound nice when you're thinking about offing people who are doing things you think are bad, but it's easy to forget just how many people whose ideas of good and bad are quite different from yours! Think about all of the rabid anti-science, anti-religious-freedom, anti-abortion religious zealots we have out there. The politicians trying to make the most radically _good_ reforms will probably have the _highest_ pricest on their heads. It's nice to think the system would be used to counter poor ethics in politicians, but IMO the reality is that it would primarily be used for ideological reasons.
Of course, this is all futile if there are more evil people than good people, if you believe in such things.:)
The evil people don't even have to outnumber the good people--they just have to have more money and be more willing to spend it on having people murdered. Thinking about the politician's wife (or husband) and children, and the fact that he or she may have had a good reason for what he or she did, will stop a "good" person from chipping in money to have said politician murdered quicker than it'll stop an "evil" person.
And even if you don't want to think of things in terms of "good" and "evil", I would suggest that there are more stupid people than smart people, and more greedy people than selfless people.
If such a system is ever put in place and survives its growing pains, you can expect the political landscape to change dramatically within a matter of a decade.
I agree, though I think the "change" would be that our government would resemble organized crime even more than it already does.
Okay, I'll assume for a moment that such a system could actually exist _and_ be accessible to the general public (as opposed to existing in some underground sort of way). Sure, it might technically be legal, but for it to be useful its real purpose has to be known, and the government can always change the laws to allow getting rid of it, just as they're trying to change the laws to get rid of filesharing now.
Now, with the assumption that the "assassination politics" system could exist, what good could it do? It's all about money, just like the current system. The same anonymity that would protect the average citizen when he goes to chip in his $20 to assassinate The Evil Senator, also protects the RIAA/MPAA/Microsoft/Whoever when they go to chip in their $20,000,000 to assassinate The Not-So-Evil Senator.
And then there's the government officials themselves--the richest ones (who can pay for protection) will be the safest from this system.
You just get the same Whoever Has The Most Money Controls the Government system that we already have, but with more violence and a higher turnover rate for any jobs/positions subjected to the assassinations. And I won't even get into the issue of just what kind of people would be running for public office in an environment where one unpopular decision might get all the whackos of the country funding your untimely demise....
Hmm, I've only been using Gentoo a little under a couple months now, and it didn't take me long to figure out that editing the./configure in ebuilds is fairly trivial (and putting your edited ebuild in/usr/local/portage/category/app will keep it from being overwritten by updates).
That said, though, I don't see what the advantage of using portage in BSD would be. I used FreeBSD for a little while before coming back to Linux, and at least from an end-user perspective, I haven't really felt much of a difference between Portage and FreeBSD's ports system.
Slashdot Mirror
I should patent "Method for creating a repository of methods to create goods and services reserved for use by their original designers for a predetermined period ". Then I'd sue the USPTO. Imagine the irony.
I think the USPTO wouldn't have a whole lot of trouble proving prior art.
Here's my theory:
The Mozilla developers realized that the slow and gradual climb toward Mozilla 1.0 was the most magical and exciting time of their lives. Every time they released a new 0.x version, they created a buzz of excitement as people speculated about how much longer it would take to get to 1.0, and even more people complained about how long it was taking them to develop Mozilla, how bloated and slow it was, and so on.
And then Mozilla 1.0 was released and the Open Source world rejoiced. No doubt this must have been an exciting time for the Mozilla developers.
Imagine the let-down after such a climax.
1.1? Who cares. 1.2? Yeah yeah, blah whatever. Yeah we all know it's good now, yeah we're all using it (or other browsers which use its rendering engine), except for those whacko Konqueror lovers. It's not news anymore, it's just the next version to upgrade to.
Needless to say, the Mozilla developers must have sunk into a deep depression. Finally, at a meeting of the devs, one of them must have come up with a bright idea....
Dev 1: "Hey, I know how we can recapture the magic of those pre-1.0 days!"
Dev 2: "Really?? How? Something has to be done, because I've been drinking non-stop and my wife's about to leave me!"
Dev 1: "We can dump 'Mozilla'--it's just too boring now that we're past 1.0--and instead split it into separate mail and browser components. And we might as well dump the Composer, no one uses that anyway."
Dev 2: "But why? We've been ignoring the 'Mozilla is too bloated' crowd for years, why bother to change now?"
Dev 1: "Don't you see? Even though we're using the post-1.0 code we already have, we can consider the separate browser and mail components to be _new programs_...."
Dev 2: "You mean... we can start them at version 0.1!"
Dev 1: "Exactly! And we can recapture the magic of working toward 1.0 with not one program, but two!"
Dev 2: "Genius! Fscking genius!"
Well... that's my theory anyway.
It was easy to configure, unfortunately it still reeks of "I-look-like-netscape"ocity (a problem plauging mozilla).
Assuming you're referring to the default theme looking like Netscape 4... you do realize you can easily change the theme, right?
Or, if you're referring to Mozilla looking like more recent versions of Netscape (which has been killed now anyway..), well, uh, they're based on Mozilla, so... do you want Mozilla to try to avoid looking like itself?
Don't forgot "Here we go again with another SCO story". That's a popular one too.
Linux-related news dominates Slashdot, and SCO (and SCO's tactics, which could conceivably be used by other companies that want to hurt Linux) is the current Big Bad Threat to Linux.
So you're going to see the play-by-play posted here, whether you like it or not and no matter how much you bitch. If you don't want to see it, ignore it.
With no data kept locally, and no possibility of OS corruption, your only support requirements are to tell people to reboot.
(Emphasis mine)
That's nothing impressive--Microsoft accomplished that years ago with Windows 95, without having to leave out the hard disk and certainly without having to bother with silly things like preventing OS corruption.
I had a lot of the same procrastination problems... fortunately I was a good enough test-taker and writer that I still escaped with a high GPA, but my procrastination made college much more stressful than it should have been for me.
One thing I found that helped is to set mini-deadlines for myself. Rather than taking all of your work and saying "I have to finish all of this by tomorrow", break it down into smaller chunks and tell yourself "I have to finish this part by noon, this part by 2pm, this part by 4:30pm" etc. Try to plan the deadlines out so they're realistic, but try to challenge yourself at the same time.
Instead of letting yourself think, "I have 'til tomorrow, I can put it off just a few minutes longer...." over and over again until it's 1am, you want yourself thinking, "I have to finish this part I'm working on by 2pm!"
Also, it really helps to set goals and treat the achievement of your goals as sort of a game. Seriously. If you're playing a competitive video game against your best friend, you'll put some serious work into kicking his ass and you'll feel good about it. Put that same attitude into achieving your goals in education and life in general, and you'll find yourself with a lot more energy and motivation.
I think the reason you hear "ADHD" more than "ADD" now is because, in the most recent version of the DSM-IV (the official criteria for diagnosing mental disorders), ADD is no longer an official diagnosis. Instead, there are three subcategories of ADHD:
1. Mostly hyperactive and not really inattentive.
2. Mostly inattentive and not really hyperactive.
3. Both inattentive and hyperactive.
Yes, it's silly. #2, of course, is what most people still think of as "ADD".
This article has funny timing for me, since I had just dealt with MCI's fraud protection (I think that's what it was called) department a little under a month ago.
I moved into an apartment after graduation, and tried to get phone service from another phone company, but MCI still had their service on the phone line from the previous tenant. They denied responsibility for the phone line, saying they had cancelled it.
A few long distance phone calls with no one to bill finally got their attention. Idiots....
For some reason, "PC" seems to be used only to refer to Wintel. It's kind of silly. I keep wondering why a Mac can't be considered a "personal computer".
Yeah, it's kind of disappointing. I like to support Linux games, but I like to play games by myself. Computer games are my way of having fun _without_ relying on other people.
I bought Terminus, most of Loki's ports, and NWN (along with the SoU expansion), but it looks like I'm going to have to leave this one alone. As much as I'd like to support them for developing for Linux, paying $50+ USD for a game I can't play on my own isn't something I can justify to myself.
Yeah, I'm sure the time Bioware spent on finally getting the Linux client finished was just part of their deceptive "marketing strategy".
I like Konqueror, but never manage to keep using it. Every time I try it, within a day or two I stumble upon a page that renders poorly or doesn't work at all in Konqueror--so I switch back to Mozilla, Firebird, Galeon, or whatever gecko-based browser I prefer at the time (currently Galeon) and it views the page fine.
Take a look at the video of this thing whipping around before you make assumptions.
note (for the humour-impaired) : this is irony
Oh crap, you just invoked the irony nazis....
Why do you assume women are sharing less music than men? Even if you assume the girls to be less geeky on average, Kazaa makes it easy for the non-geeky user to download every song that catches his or her eye, and those songs are in turn being shared by default.
I've only used Kazaa very sparingly myself, and so far the biggest Kazaa user I have seen in person is my ex-girlfriend's younger sister (age 16 at the time, I think). She wasn't at all geeky or technologically knowledgeable, she had no idea that Kazaa had spyware on her computer (and was unaware of Kazaa Lite), and she was confused as to why her overly bloated "I let every program I install load up in the system tray on boot" computer ran so slowly. But she downloaded songs left and right in Kazaa and left them there to be shared.
Foods high in fiber tend to make you feel more satiated (the fiber content is really the big difference between natural complex carbs and refined complex carbs). Nuts are high in fiber, complex carbs, and unsaturated fat. The chips and crackers are high in complex carbs (and the chips are high in fat too if they're fried), but have no fiber.
I eat a bowl of oatmeal (low fat, high complex carbs, and high fiber) every morning and it always makes me feel stuffed. And that's with exactly one serving. With refined cereals, I'd have to eat more than the recommended amount for a single serving, and even then I'd be hungry again very quickly.
While you're making the distinction between good and bad carbohydrates, it seems worthwhile to also make the distinction between good (unsaturated) and bad (saturated) fats.
Saturated fats are the kind that drastically increase your risk for heart attacks and many other problems by clogging your arteries with bad cholesterol. Unsaturated fats are fine, though. Saturated fats are more common in animal products (whole milk, eggs, and meat), and unsaturated fats are more common in vegetable products.
Butter is mostly saturated fat, while vegetable oils are mostly unsaturated. Note that margarine uses "hydrogenated fat" (also sometimes referred to as "transfatty acids" I think), which is basically unsaturated fat artificially turned into saturated fat (but not advertised as such), and it may actually be _even worse_ than saturated fat. Stay away from margarine.
For those of you who actually care about your health as much as your appearance, keep that in mind. A healthy diet is one made up of healthy, unrefined carbohydrates (brown rice instead of white rice, wheat bread instead of white bread, potatoes, etc.), legumes (beans, peas, and related foods), fruits, vegetables, and only modest amounts of meat (preferably white meat).
I suspect that in the next few decades we are going to start seeing a drastic increase in thin, healthy looking people dropping dead of heart attacks in their 50's and 60's, thanks to the Atkins diet and our shallow society.
Heh, it would take all of about 5 seconds before stores started abusing the hell out of that--instead of everything costing $x.99 ("oooh look it's _under_ x+1 dollars!"), everything would start costing $n.01, or more likely be priced in such a way that it comes out to $n.01 with sales tax.
/dev/null instead of finding a use for it), it's overly optimistic to assume that the extra profits would be used on low-wage employees. Businesses will (in general, with rare exceptions) always pay their employees as much as they have to, not as much as they can.
Even if businesses did get more money from this (which assumes that consumers currently send all their change to
Yeah, I understand that AP isn't your idea--I followed the link posted earlier and read up on it. I was posting to argue against the value of AP, knowing that you don't necessarily fully support it. My argument was also sort of aimed at all the people in this thread who seemed to think just killing off politicians would be a good way to solve problems. They all forget that they're outnumbered by the whackos who'd be killing (relatively) good politicians.
I also agree that it's an interesting idea and a fun little thought exercise. But every time I think about it, I think of more problems with it, and more reasons why it's even worse than what we already have. Like when I thought of the financial inequity between corporations and "the general public", I hadn't even yet considered the economic differences _within_ the general public. Let's say a politician votes to raise taxes for everyone making over $100,000/year and put more money into social programs aimed at cleaning up areas filled with crime and poverty, while providing jobs for poor people. Now there are a lot of wealthy people offering up money to have said politician whacked. Hey, if tax issues is one of the biggest issues that gets politicians elected, then it would certainly be one of the biggest issues that gets them killed. Don't underestimate the greed of the average person. Anyway, later another politician leads the charge to cut taxes for the wealthy and axe the aforementioned social programs. The poor whose lives are potentially being ruined want to react, but can't--even banding together, they just don't have the money to get him killed.
Thus you have the government pandering first to the corporations, and secondly to the wealthy and upper middle class, sort of like it does now, except with AP it's even worse. At least the way it is now, the poor and wealthy may differ in how much they can brib--errr contribute to political campaigns, but their votes at least still count the same. In the current system, a greater number of people could potentially beat a greater amount of money by banding together and deciding together to make a change in the next election. It doesn't happen because the masses are sheep who buy into the Republican or Democrat rhetoric (note: I personally think one of the major problems with our government is the two-party system), but at least, if people were smart enough, the system does theoretically allow for it to happen. In AP, though, it's _all_ about the money.
There'd be one for every kind of person. I think of this as a strength rather than a weakness.
In that case, what I imagine happening is a bunch of situations like this: The anti-abortion crowd starts their AP to kill off all pro-abortion politicians, and the pro-abortion crowd starts their AP to kill off all anti-abortion politicians. Same thing for every issue that gets people riled up on both sides (well, people who have money anyway--the rich will easily win issues that pit rich against poor). So the end result is that all politicians are getting killed and (for some strange reason...) no one wants to run for office anymore and the country is plunged into violent anarchy, possibly splitting up into several weaker countries which may or may not end up in constant war with each other.
That's all still making the (incorrent, IMO) assumption that the AP system wouldn't be thwarted by the government shutting it down and/or succeeding in providing adequate protection for all potentially-targetted politicians. The latter would probably involve a _greatly_ expanded role for the Secret Service and would require huge tax increases and/or cuts in funding for education and other government programs.
Every way I look at it, the AP system is nothing but destructive. It's nice to imagine that it would be ethically run and all abuses somehow prevented, but really... the US government was actually relatively well designed, with voting, term limits, checks and balances, the three branches, etc. all designed to
Ah, I wasn't sure if you were worried about the site being cease-and-desisted, or being Slashdotted.
For the latter, I would point out that a Slashdotting is only going to last a couple days at most, and the long-term effect would be positive--now you've got more people to potentially upload torrents and more people to help download speeds by downloading and helping to seed already existing torrents.
Doesn't seem like such a bad deal to me.
Uh, considering how quickly I stumbled onto that site myself (before this thread), I suspect any company bent on shutting down torrent Warez sites will find that site just as easily elsewhere as they would here in a Slashdot thread.
Such a system could exist on an encrypted, anonymous network such as Freenet. It probably stands to reason, though, that the technology required for an AP system are not yet proven and in place. The general idea is sound, though.
Oh, I'm sure such a system can exist in the sense that it can be created; what I question is whether or not it can be both:
#1 requires it to be fairly out in the open, and #2 requires it to be well-hidden.
In the end, though, the people running the AP can decide who is a valid target and who is not.
Ahh, so who can be whacked is up to the discretion of the AP people, eh? Then you've just shifted the power from the government to the people running the AP--woo hoo! What makes you believe the AP people will be any more ethical than the politicians? So, are the people running the AP Democrats, or Republicans? How do they feel about abortion? Taxes? Gun control? IP laws? What religion do they belong to?
And what happens when Microsoft hands over a ton of under-the-table money to the people running the AP? Don't tell me they'll be any harder to buy than the politicians. Sure, maybe a system will be set up that makes it hard to find out just who the AP people are, but it's only a matter of time. I don't suppose people can use the AP system to offer money to kill the people running the AP system? :P
So, there's no improvement over the current situation if you let the AP bosses decide who can and can't be whacked. And if you don't let them filter anything, then the multi-billion dollar corporations rule just like they do now. Even if you tried to make it so that only "normal" people--and not companies--could offer money, that should be fairly trivial to circumvent. (For example, the corporations could make several smaller offers that look like they're coming from many different sources.) Also, you mention that the nice thing about the system is that it allows _anyone_ to pay for assassinations. Well, likewise, currently _anyone_ can give brib--err donations to politicians.
Ultimately, the system is no less abuseable and corruptible than the system we already have. It might sound nice when you're thinking about offing people who are doing things you think are bad, but it's easy to forget just how many people whose ideas of good and bad are quite different from yours! Think about all of the rabid anti-science, anti-religious-freedom, anti-abortion religious zealots we have out there. The politicians trying to make the most radically _good_ reforms will probably have the _highest_ pricest on their heads. It's nice to think the system would be used to counter poor ethics in politicians, but IMO the reality is that it would primarily be used for ideological reasons.
Of course, this is all futile if there are more evil people than good people, if you believe in such things. :)
The evil people don't even have to outnumber the good people--they just have to have more money and be more willing to spend it on having people murdered. Thinking about the politician's wife (or husband) and children, and the fact that he or she may have had a good reason for what he or she did, will stop a "good" person from chipping in money to have said politician murdered quicker than it'll stop an "evil" person.
And even if you don't want to think of things in terms of "good" and "evil", I would suggest that there are more stupid people than smart people, and more greedy people than selfless people.
If such a system is ever put in place and survives its growing pains, you can expect the political landscape to change dramatically within a matter of a decade.
I agree, though I think the "change" would be that our government would resemble organized crime even more than it already does.
Okay, I'll assume for a moment that such a system could actually exist _and_ be accessible to the general public (as opposed to existing in some underground sort of way). Sure, it might technically be legal, but for it to be useful its real purpose has to be known, and the government can always change the laws to allow getting rid of it, just as they're trying to change the laws to get rid of filesharing now.
Now, with the assumption that the "assassination politics" system could exist, what good could it do? It's all about money, just like the current system. The same anonymity that would protect the average citizen when he goes to chip in his $20 to assassinate The Evil Senator, also protects the RIAA/MPAA/Microsoft/Whoever when they go to chip in their $20,000,000 to assassinate The Not-So-Evil Senator.
And then there's the government officials themselves--the richest ones (who can pay for protection) will be the safest from this system.
You just get the same Whoever Has The Most Money Controls the Government system that we already have, but with more violence and a higher turnover rate for any jobs/positions subjected to the assassinations. And I won't even get into the issue of just what kind of people would be running for public office in an environment where one unpopular decision might get all the whackos of the country funding your untimely demise....
Hmm, I've only been using Gentoo a little under a couple months now, and it didn't take me long to figure out that editing the ./configure in ebuilds is fairly trivial (and putting your edited ebuild in /usr/local/portage/category/app will keep it from being overwritten by updates).
That said, though, I don't see what the advantage of using portage in BSD would be. I used FreeBSD for a little while before coming back to Linux, and at least from an end-user perspective, I haven't really felt much of a difference between Portage and FreeBSD's ports system.