Actually, fascism is a combination of corporatism, totalitarianism, nationalism, and anti-Communism.
The term you're looking for is "corporatism", not fascism. It's quite possible to have a globalist non-totalitarian, non-nationalistic, and Communist-neutral corporate government... in fact, that's largely where the US is headed.
I think I will get little argument with this crowd that stupid people vote for Bush.
Let's suppose that electronic voting reduces errors caused by stupid voters not being able to do something as simple as make sure a chad is punched out.
Naturally this results in Bush getting more votes in counties with electronic voting.
Don't get me started on all the flaws in this "study".
The easiest and fastest way to reduce our CO2 emissions would be to switch all power plants from coal to oil (or natural gas, but it's less available around here because it's harder to transport).
So... there's every chance that following Kyoto would initially increase our foreign energy dependence. It might even be inevitable, hard to say.
The provisional application for this patent was filed on December 30, 1996.
You'll need to come up with *publicly known* prior art before then that does every single thing this patent claims in order to invalidate it.
If you're interested in taking on a *much* harder task, find 2 systems that do part of it, and argue that it's "obvious" to combine them. Given the level of prior art cited in the patent and therefore presumed to have been reviewed by the patent office, this is an *extremely* hard argument to make, but it's possible.
Seriously, though, most great writers I know of consider grammer to be little more than a set of suggestions they vaguely remember learning in grade school.
Speaking of grammar, Neal: you're The Master of Similes. I bow down before your awfulness.
Hmmm. If I got modded flamebait I must have given the impression that I was just being flip.
No, I really do think it's nearly the perfect example of the dangers of righteousness.
The Grand Experiment in this case was apparently perceived as vastly more "important" than the individual privacy and even *lives* of actual living people. This is quite typical of people who are out to "save the world". It's a form of "the ends justify the means" thinking. I call bullshit.
BTW, in case it wasn't obvious: this isn't a liberal vs. conservative thing. Anti-abortionists have the same damn problem.
This is all assuming, of course, that the parent of my original comment wasn't itself flamebait:-).
Theft isn't a "crime" as such. It's a category of crimes that include burglary, larceny, etc., etc. "Grand theft" is, in some juridictions, its own named crime.
So you're not going to get dragged off and charged with theft even if you do take my twinkies.
Well, err, because they have *exactly the same problems as touchscreen machines*???
There's no paper trail; in spite of what you say there's no easy way to determine whether multiple votes have been cast by the same person or by a poll worker; and there's no really easy way to verify that the mechanical system hasn't been hacked either (in case you're wondering, the insides of these things are incredibly arcanely complex).
Also, they aren't nearly as flexible, accessible to people with disabilities or who speak other languages (who otherwise have to give up the privacy of their vote or struggle significantly), or extensible to larger elections with many ballot initiatives (perhaps not a problem in NY).
Most common definitions (in actual laws, as opposed to dictionaries), include "or use of the property" in that statement.
Depriving someone of the use of their property is also considered theft in almost all jurisdictions.
There's also a concept of theft of services, which one could call fraud in theory (not sure what that would buy you), but is legally usally called theft.
Theft does not consist solely of taking a physical thing from someone so they don't have it any more. Never has, never will.
As much as all us geeks here on/. would like it (not), the law is not something that is or should be executed with computer precision.
The courts (and juries) are perfectly capable of distinguishing between WWW/FTP/Windows/VCRs and Kazaa, in spite of the fact that they serve logically equivilent purposes.
The difference is intent, and the difference is how the software is used, both as perceived by a reasonable person.
The web isn't, by and large, almost entirely composed of attempts to infringe copyrights. Neither is Windows, nor is FTP.
90% of existing P2P is. And I bet you'd have a really hard time convincing a jury that it wasn't designed with that in mind (first of all, all of Slashdot would be subpoena'd as evidence to the contrary).
And, frankly, neither were VCRs. The vastly overwhelming usage of VCRs was and is not to infringe copyright, but to make (at least reasonably) fair use of copyrighted materials. You really don't see (and never have seen) people using VCRs to make 1000s of copies of the 6 O'Clock News and give it to 1000s of people they don't know.
If you think that any Libertarians think they have a chance in hell of getting elected, you're not giving them enough credit for intelligence.
Personally, I consider Libertarianism to be more of a direction than a stance. A force more than position.
Privatized sidewalks would, indeed, be an abomination. Privately contracted fire departments might work out pretty well, but they should still be universal. Etc.
But that's not really the point. The point is that heading in that direction is vastly preferable to heading in the direction we're heading now. There's an old saying that if you keep on going the way you are, you'll get to where you're headed.
This country is headed towards the doom of democracy: the realization by the majority that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury.
Libertarianism is a force trying to oppose that direction.
People may claim that third parties have no function in American democracy, but in fact their purpose is to do things exactly like what is reported here. Their point is to embarrass the major parties. Their point is to have their positions coopted by the major parties. Their point is to present a point.
Of course the major parties don't like this, but that's not the point:-).
To see the kind of effect 3rd parties actually have, compare the Socialist Party platform of the 20s and 30s to the modern day Democratic Party platform.
All of the common legal definitions of theft run thusly: "theft is usually defined as the unauthorised taking or use of someone else's property with the intent to deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use."
Note the inclusion "of its use" here. It's extremely important. If you have the legal right to use something in a particular way, and someone misappropriates that use, that's theft, whether they actually take something (physical or otherwise) or not.
Copyright is one such legal grant of a right of use.
The ability to use your identity how you wish. Someone else doing so has deprived you of that legal right.
Also, with this weird restricted meaning you've used here, how do you interpret "theft of service"? If I go and break into a hotel room and sleep there without paying, even if I leave it exactly as I found it, it's still theft (legally and morally). Yes... even if the hotel wasn't full (and thus even if I wasn't technically depriving them of a night's revenue due to the unavailable room). I'm using something belonging to someone else without paying for such use. That's theft in almost any jurisdiction.
Those damn dot coms are the cause of all of this then:-).
All the stupid idiots that never should have been allowed to program in the first place, but which flocked to the easy money in droves and are now out of work have lowered the level of the "person of ordinary skill in the art" of software to that of a rhesus monkey.
Of course no new software inventions are regarded as "obvious".
Well, actually, Synaptics pitched the idea to Apple first. It took Apple a year or so to come back and "narrowly specify" the design they ended up with.
Ummm, exactly what would it mean to "patent an idea" except for patenting all methods of executing that idea? If the idea is essentially a method (e.g. "One click shopping"), this is a distinction without a difference.
Surely no one is under the impression that you can prevent someone from thinking something... just from doing it.
There are numerous claims that can be (accurately) judged to be undecidable, untestable, or otherwise not amenable to scientific inquiry.
The main characteristic of these types of claims is that there is no possible evidence that cannot be explained by the theory.
God, as typically described, can do anything He wants, and is inscrutable (and often is described as wanting to avoid presenting proof in favor of faith). As a result, there is no evidence that can be gathered that can disprove the existance of such a being. As a result, there's no way to apply science to the hypothesis of his existance (as typically defined).
Also off-topic... so I guess I'm burning some karma.
I estimate approximately 2 points of karma +/-2:-).
Slashdot Mirror
Because of the second amendment, we could never end up with such a thing here in America!
The term you're looking for is "corporatism", not fascism. It's quite possible to have a globalist non-totalitarian, non-nationalistic, and Communist-neutral corporate government... in fact, that's largely where the US is headed.
But that isn't fascism.
And if people continue getting richer with time, it's not even all that unlikely...
Kind of depends on what he means by "90%", doesn't it? Not to mention "up"...
It could be something as simple as women making less than men on average, right? If that's what he means, it could even approach 100%!
Let's suppose that electronic voting reduces errors caused by stupid voters not being able to do something as simple as make sure a chad is punched out.
Naturally this results in Bush getting more votes in counties with electronic voting.
Don't get me started on all the flaws in this "study".
So... there's every chance that following Kyoto would initially increase our foreign energy dependence. It might even be inevitable, hard to say.
You'll need to come up with *publicly known* prior art before then that does every single thing this patent claims in order to invalidate it.
If you're interested in taking on a *much* harder task, find 2 systems that do part of it, and argue that it's "obvious" to combine them. Given the level of prior art cited in the patent and therefore presumed to have been reviewed by the patent office, this is an *extremely* hard argument to make, but it's possible.
If the researchers are old enough to remember cars coming out, their brains are fossilized.
Seriously, though, most great writers I know of consider grammer to be little more than a set of suggestions they vaguely remember learning in grade school.
Speaking of grammar, Neal: you're The Master of Similes. I bow down before your awfulness.
No, I really do think it's nearly the perfect example of the dangers of righteousness.
The Grand Experiment in this case was apparently perceived as vastly more "important" than the individual privacy and even *lives* of actual living people. This is quite typical of people who are out to "save the world". It's a form of "the ends justify the means" thinking. I call bullshit.
BTW, in case it wasn't obvious: this isn't a liberal vs. conservative thing. Anti-abortionists have the same damn problem.
This is all assuming, of course, that the parent of my original comment wasn't itself flamebait :-).
So you're not going to get dragged off and charged with theft even if you do take my twinkies.
This is a perfect example of why people who are out to save the world are dangerous.
There's no paper trail; in spite of what you say there's no easy way to determine whether multiple votes have been cast by the same person or by a poll worker; and there's no really easy way to verify that the mechanical system hasn't been hacked either (in case you're wondering, the insides of these things are incredibly arcanely complex).
Also, they aren't nearly as flexible, accessible to people with disabilities or who speak other languages (who otherwise have to give up the privacy of their vote or struggle significantly), or extensible to larger elections with many ballot initiatives (perhaps not a problem in NY).
Depriving someone of the use of their property is also considered theft in almost all jurisdictions.
There's also a concept of theft of services, which one could call fraud in theory (not sure what that would buy you), but is legally usally called theft.
Theft does not consist solely of taking a physical thing from someone so they don't have it any more. Never has, never will.
The courts (and juries) are perfectly capable of distinguishing between WWW/FTP/Windows/VCRs and Kazaa, in spite of the fact that they serve logically equivilent purposes.
The difference is intent, and the difference is how the software is used, both as perceived by a reasonable person.
The web isn't, by and large, almost entirely composed of attempts to infringe copyrights. Neither is Windows, nor is FTP.
90% of existing P2P is. And I bet you'd have a really hard time convincing a jury that it wasn't designed with that in mind (first of all, all of Slashdot would be subpoena'd as evidence to the contrary).
And, frankly, neither were VCRs. The vastly overwhelming usage of VCRs was and is not to infringe copyright, but to make (at least reasonably) fair use of copyrighted materials. You really don't see (and never have seen) people using VCRs to make 1000s of copies of the 6 O'Clock News and give it to 1000s of people they don't know.
Don't get complacent.
Personally, I consider Libertarianism to be more of a direction than a stance. A force more than position.
Privatized sidewalks would, indeed, be an abomination. Privately contracted fire departments might work out pretty well, but they should still be universal. Etc.
But that's not really the point. The point is that heading in that direction is vastly preferable to heading in the direction we're heading now. There's an old saying that if you keep on going the way you are, you'll get to where you're headed.
This country is headed towards the doom of democracy: the realization by the majority that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury.
Libertarianism is a force trying to oppose that direction.
People may claim that third parties have no function in American democracy, but in fact their purpose is to do things exactly like what is reported here. Their point is to embarrass the major parties. Their point is to have their positions coopted by the major parties. Their point is to present a point.
Of course the major parties don't like this, but that's not the point :-).
To see the kind of effect 3rd parties actually have, compare the Socialist Party platform of the 20s and 30s to the modern day Democratic Party platform.
Note the inclusion "of its use" here. It's extremely important. If you have the legal right to use something in a particular way, and someone misappropriates that use, that's theft, whether they actually take something (physical or otherwise) or not.
Copyright is one such legal grant of a right of use.
The ability to use your identity how you wish. Someone else doing so has deprived you of that legal right.
Also, with this weird restricted meaning you've used here, how do you interpret "theft of service"? If I go and break into a hotel room and sleep there without paying, even if I leave it exactly as I found it, it's still theft (legally and morally). Yes... even if the hotel wasn't full (and thus even if I wasn't technically depriving them of a night's revenue due to the unavailable room). I'm using something belonging to someone else without paying for such use. That's theft in almost any jurisdiction.
All the stupid idiots that never should have been allowed to program in the first place, but which flocked to the easy money in droves and are now out of work have lowered the level of the "person of ordinary skill in the art" of software to that of a rhesus monkey.
Of course no new software inventions are regarded as "obvious".
Technology is great stuff, and all, but...
Isn't the whole point of the
Sure, such a patent would (maybe) be invalidated, after a lengthy and expensive process, but they'd still be screwed.
I wonder whether they have a license from the Roddenberry estate...
Well, actually, Synaptics pitched the idea to Apple first. It took Apple a year or so to come back and "narrowly specify" the design they ended up with.
There's one factual error in the article. Synaptics didn't design or manufacture the mechanical scroll wheel on the gen1 iPods.
Wow... we've slashdotted Mozilla.org... I'm not sure how to feel about that :-)...
Surely no one is under the impression that you can prevent someone from thinking something... just from doing it.
The main characteristic of these types of claims is that there is no possible evidence that cannot be explained by the theory.
God, as typically described, can do anything He wants, and is inscrutable (and often is described as wanting to avoid presenting proof in favor of faith). As a result, there is no evidence that can be gathered that can disprove the existance of such a being. As a result, there's no way to apply science to the hypothesis of his existance (as typically defined).
Also off-topic... so I guess I'm burning some karma.
I estimate approximately 2 points of karma +/-2 :-).