Isn't that basically what this whole thing is about, anyway? We sniff your shoes because we had a shoe-bomber. We check liquids because we heard someone might try that. We put cops on planes and tighten security on the cockpit doors because someone took advantage of that hole. We check a very few cargo containers coming into ports because we heard that was an idea thrown around. We suddenly learn to block physical access to the parking lots of FBI buildings because oddly enough, someone made use of that gap too.
Do we have security guards on every train? Have terrorists not yet though "oh, the planes are protected, but not the trains?" Do we run all passengers of buses through metal detectors? Do we check papers on the way in and out of major cities?
We do nothing until there's been a threat or an attack, and then we do too much assuming either a) people will hate the government for doing nothing when nothing can really be done, or b) terrorists are so dumb they'll keep trying the same thing over and over again, and patching the known hole is sufficient to stop them
And then people get in trouble for pointing out to the government where other holes might be, because that's helping the terrorists, giving them ideas? (Don't talk about dirty bombs, we wouldn't want them to figure that out!) It's exactly like the problems we have in the IT security industry, except in the industry, you're hopefully dealing with some logical, geeky people who have a clue -- with our national security, we're dealing with emotional politicians and apathetic voters. The debate's going surprisingly well, considering.
To be clear: it is possible to desire a freedom and not desire the use of it. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I use no drugs, and I have no use for hookers. It is improper to attribute my position simply to carnal desires, and is no real counter-argument in the first place. I may be in a better position than some in arguing for these freedoms, but your argument would strip the condemned man from his right to appeal on the basis of his personal involvement. It would be equally improper to reject my position on the assumption that those "not involved" have no say. The two are simply unrelated. You suggested that it could be beneficial to create a game in which players are encouraged to beat/kill prostitutes (among others), as it could push players to do this in real life, which in turn would make the job less desirable, thus changing society. I'm merely questioning your belief that this would, in turn, be "beneficial for society" in some absolute sense (reasserted outside the 'joke') -- this is where you aggregate and I do not. I'm confused by your assertion that alcohol has no deleterious effects (loss of control? addiction? liver damage? death?), while prostitution and drugs do (though upon whom is unspecified), with the exception at least of pot. You seem to still fail to draw a distinction between the drug trade, as it is today, and drug trade itself, or in general between an item and its environment, between the abuser and the abused. If a prostitute is hooked on drugs and can't get out of the trade, is the problem prostitution, or drug addiction? Is the problem the availability of drugs, or their use, their abuse? If drug dealers feel the need to thieve and murder, is the problem the drug trade, or the underground (illegal) nature of their dealings and their lack of recourse to legal means such as the court system? (This is where prohibition comes back in: the mafia became a power in the US principally because of prohibition, and the end of prohibition brought back onto the market alcohol that was not stained by a history of bribes, murder, etc. It's entirely possible the same would happen with a legal drug trade.) If prostitutes could more easily make use of the police and the courts in their own defense, would we still see the same rate of kidnapping and rape? Is there not a difference between a sex worker (by choice) and a sex slave (by force)? I point out these subtleties not to insult you or the mock you, nor trivially, but to engage you in a more precise discussion of harm and cause/effect. Even if this is, to your mind, "just video games", unworthy of deep discussion, the problems are the same, the arguments are the same, as they are for drugs, prostitution, child pornography, or the trade of vegetables. Do we prohibit the ends because we want to prevent the means? Do we prohibit the cause, because of a possible outcome? Do we treat citizens as predictable machines, or with the assumption of free will? (Not a discussion of free will itself, mind you.) Do we know what's best for our citizens, do we protect them from themselves? It's all the same, if you step back just a bit.
1. When the crowd doesn't laugh, do you blame the crowd or the comedian? 2. True; your aggregation with "low lifes", however, indicated not a legal definition of "criminal", but a moral one -- which I find myself disagreeing with. 3. Are farmers not exploited too, on some level? Should we ban the sale of vegetables because someone, somewhere, was the victim of violence? Or only if most farmers are? Or all? I draw a rather trenchant line between drugs and prostitution themselves and the background of murder, theft, kidnapping, rape, etc. that you describe. I'm not saying those are not present, and I'm not saying they're acceptable; I simply mean what I say. You should consider your argument in light of the prohibition period: your argument would have been tantamount to saying that because the alcohol trade went "underground" as a result of the prohibition, and became intimately associated with gang violence, the trade of alcohol itself was morally reprehensible thus justifying the prohibition. Yet lifting the ban, rather than making things worse, actually improved the situation -- though there's no denying it left an indelible mark on us. I propose that the two aspects are in fact quite separate, and should be treated as such.
Similarly, the debate on violent videogames should be split at least into two debates: on whether or not, factually, they have an effect on actual physical violence, and secondly whether or not it is the government's place to restrict them even if they do have some role to play in our non-virtual world. One does not flow from the other.
Note: not all of us aggregate hookers into the same class of people as "low lifes, thugs,..., criminals, and other such things". For that matter, we may not even put drug dealers and murderers in the same category. I just don't want to hear whining about how slashdotters are only concerned with their own little fights over games and movies, yet unconcerned with the larger political fight over freedoms for all people and whatever supposedly benign vice they may have.
To be fair, he did say "unjust law" -- there's a lot more debate out there on the justifiability of child porn than there is over adult porn. (And I wish it were a better debate -- it's so stigmatized that people have trouble even uttering so much as a whisper of dissent.) But then for every law, there's probably still someone somewhere who thinks it unjust in some way. You're welcome to consider child-porn laws unjust.
The big thing for me was ACID -- the damn thing has great transactional support. I still miss it now that I'm forced to work on Oracle ("serializable" mode in Oracle is nothing like real transactional support if you've been using Firebird for a while.) From everything I've read, Postgres caught up with Firebird mainly by, uh, borrowing their generational data architecture, but then somewhat surpassed it in terms of user-defined types/functions. It is still really stinkin' easy to install though, whereas my last experience installing Postgres was nothing but a nightmare. (I don't really mean that as a knock on Postgres -- I'm terrible at sysadmin-like tasks, so it's no surprise that I had trouble; rather it's amazing that Firebird was as easy as it was to install.) As far as I know, PHP always comes precompiled only with MySQL support, so both DB's require equal extra work. I used FB/C++ at my previous job (500 some-odd tables, mostly normalized), and I still use FB/PHP for personal projects (far smaller.) It's pleased me in both settings. Keywords: solid, predictable, tunable, extensible, expressive, safe, and not a freakin' fan-club hack job.
I do hear someone's been working on an oracle-compatibiliy feature for Firebird (support some of oracle's more interesting expressions), so that's a possible bonus, but I'm not clued in on the current project status. If you're in the market for better OSS databases, you might also consider SAP-DB (rebranded as MySQL's MaxDB.) Just seems like another oft-forgotten contender in that same general weight class.
To reinforce the parent's point -- consider the concept of "social contract", particularly with the clause that a lack of effective resistance is tantamount to consent: the people of China silently agree to let themselves be governed this way, in exchange for the (possibly unequal in value) "benefit" of knowing that most of their fellow citizens are mostly equally deprived of those rights, forming a more homogenous, calm society -- and it's worth it to them not to revolt en masse. You can sign away some of your rights in contracts, you can also imply away your supposed basic human rights to your government. So long a nobody's willing to fight for it, it's not really a basic right -- just the empty declarations of a piece of paper.
Have you found any good sources for something between news and punditry, something more than dry facts yet less than partisan propaganda? I know most people don't feel they have time to read it, but I for one would willingly pay for a service that gave me the summary of arguments on all (not just two) sides of an issue, and an analysis of those same arguments (facts and logic both), tracked news stories to their conclusion, picked up some topics not related to late-breaking events, etc. More in-depth than an encyclopedia, less so than a history book, and definitely more current. That's my wish list. I've enjoyed some NPR programs, because their staff attempt a devil's advocate approach to interviews in order to get a bit more out of their guests than just proclamations, but each segment is still too short to really get into topics, and they rarely seem to dredge up anything but the arguments put forth by the most prominent of speakers on any given topic. Thoughts?
... shove it somewhere I think you ought to find uncomfortable, because I wish you harm. But I come in peace and desire universal good.
*whining*
Life is unfair! Some other dude got stuff I don't think he deserves!
1. Continuation of life is predicated on the availability of infinite energy; the universe is bound to run out of steam eventually, thus life is either evil or impossible. Maybe even both. 2. People are stupid and greedy, thus creating harm; therefore,... something. 3. People are lazier than expected, thus creating harm; therefore,... something. 4. People are lazy; things are more difficult than we would like, thus they are impossible, but we think they are necessary, therefore... something. 5. People are self-centered, therefore they sometimes do things I don't like; thus creating harm, therefore,... something.
Also, please read a book by a person with letters after their name, because people with letters after their name are always right. In fact, I'm sure you couldn't possibly find an academic with similar letters after his or her name who agrees with your obviously flawed point of view. All academics agree with me.... remind me what your point was again?
It should be pointed out that whether or not the ESRB can be trusted (which should be up to each of us to decide, and there's nothing wrong with providing facts which could help individuals decide precisely this) is unrelated to what we should do about it. In particular, showing that the ESRB is not trustworthy in the eyes of some should not lead anyone to declare that the only solution is government regulation. If you don't trust their opinion of games, find someone you do trust. If you can't find someone, be that someone and find a way to make money at it (or do it out of charity, if that's your thing.) ESRB is effectively a rating/review organization, a lot like game-review magazines. They get their logo, and their opinion, printed on most games... but other similar organizations could do the same if they tried. If ESRB falls out of favor, game companies will no longer seek their opinion, and will no longer print it on their boxes. ESRB will no longer have funding, will go out of business, and will get replaced with someone people trust and whose logo and rating game companies will seek out -- just as with any other marketplace service provider. This all makes sense, it's all fine. If we want regulation, fine, but it should be a decision unrelated to the trust we, on average, place in the current most-obvious service provider.
Re:Microsofties say "sequel"
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Yet I find it works against them in this day of search engines. If I search for a concept or problem relating to one of their products by the product's name, say, "word", "publisher", "sql server", "windows", etc. Google is in no way required to assume I'm referring to MS products; it also should not have to guess that the one random forum post I'm looking for was intended to refer to a Microsoft product, even though the author forgot to put 'Microsoft' in front of each reference to the product. I hate cutesy product names as much as the next guy, but as long as they're easy to spell and remember and actually make my googling easier, I'll be at least mildly satisfied. It's easier to find solutions to problems with Konqueror than with Explorer, on that basis alone.
Re:Microsofties say "sequel"
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For example, if you want to change data you use a different command to changing database structure.
Nitpick: If an RDBMS has properly implemented updatable views for the catalogue, you should be able to run insert/update/delete statements against the catalogue tables and have DDL happen automatically. SQL itself doesn't prohibit this that I know of, though probably very few RDBMS's actually allow updatable system tables. In practice, you can sometimes get away with this for simple datatype changes (that don't require any work against the data proper), maybe some default-column-order changes ('set position'-equivalent), field name changes, etc. You probably won't get away with creating and dropping tables though.
I don't know if anyone truly does (most likely, yes, someone somewhere does) but it makes for a really convenient argument. Instead of being restricted to going after producers, you can now use basic economics to prove you should be able to go after consumers. You can equate the situation to buying stolen goods -- go after those who buy it rather than just those who steal it in the first place. As with drugs, you arrest consumers and get them to testify against dealers; you arrest dealers and get them to testify against producers. And all the while, you get to arrest a lot of people, as opposed to just a very tiny minority at the top, which helps prove you're doing something about the problem. On the downside, this line of reasoning implies that child molesters producing the videos in the first place are rational individuals, businessmen, who simply want to make a buck and will stop when they can't. I think that's a really dangerous thought to introduce into the discussion.
We're probably (my own opinion) dealing with people who would molest/rape/kill regardless, but happen to also make a buck off the videos, sometimes. But I would also expect them to give them away, out of hubris, showing off their accomplishments. Unlike stolen goods and drugs, the market doesn't require unique items to be shipped, bought and sold. There's not necessarily a chain of evidence to follow. There isn't necessarily money flowing. Consumers may have no clue where the stuff came from. Producers may not be making any money off of it. It's different, and it should be recognized as such.
Isn't this subject to a sort of reverse-Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, by which the only way to get an accurate market value is to actually put the item on the market and play the game? (Which in turn would make the whole "taxing you for having it" thing moot -- as you would lose it as part of getting taxed?)
Someone else can follow up with details, but as I recall, a lot of countries have the IP (copyright and patent) laws that they do only because they wanted to join an international organization like the WTO, and were required to "match" laws in order to join. We export our laws overseas by requiring other countries to match them in order to trade with us, something they're not willing to do without. The same goes with countries fighting drugs at home -- those were profitable businesses that local governments probably didn't care about, until we told them they needed to care if they wanted funding from us. Yes, it's their choice every time, but let's not pretend it's always about us having bright ideas nobody can resist. We have the market, deep pockets, and military power they can't resist, which is different.
... and when ConHugeCo changes its name, you're screwed? TLD's get passed around, but at least they don't change each time.
(The same is technically true of street addresses, on those few occasions when cities change names. Except there are zip codes, and the USPS knows about such changes and can continue to route mail correctly, but I don't see them being required to do so forever. We're still talking about a PK changing, and there's no built-in mechanism to fix the FK's everywhere else. You don't know who has your address, just as you don't know who links to your URL.)
Errr... respectfully, you misread me. I'm not talking about company A needing to buy A.net, A.com, A.org, etc...
I'm talking about company A being able to buy (and not just by proxy) any or all of those domain names through any registrar. Currently, each TLD has different costs, based on who has exclusive control over it -- if you buy a.com, it costs more than a.net because whoever controls.com charges more. You might buy both from the same place, but they're just passing on the purchase to whoever runs the TLD in which you're buying.
I'm talking about making it such that there -is- no exclusive control -- the registrars are all just required to talk to each other so that no two people attempt to buy the same domain name at the same time, and wind up in a fight about who owns it. Giving each TLD to only one company at a time was a "simple" solution, with problems. But it's a simple solution to a technological problem: guaranteed uniqueness in a distributed environment. There are other technological (but less simple) solutions to the same problem that don't result in one company having a monopoly over the database and the price.
You know, now that you mention it... why -do- we give exclusive control of TLD's to anyone? It's a technology problem: namespace registrations need to be unique, we need to prevent two people from buying the same item at the same time. Isn't there a technological solution? We've been doing two-phase-commit for a long time, and that's all this really is -- updating several databases at once, making sure the new domain name is unique in each one. It'd require cooperation between registrars, as they'd all have to be checking/hitting each others' databases... but it's not impossible. It would open the whole process up to new competitors on an ad-hoc basis, even, which could be expected to drive down prices.
Just a note: seems Amazon's "REAL NAME (tm)" feature depends on the submitter having agreed to use the name on his/her credit card. It's not precisely the same as valid ID (in that you could be using a stolen CC) but at least it doesn't require sending your DL or passport to the forum admin. It does, however, involve giving out your CC info, at least enough to have it validated. I somehow doubt you can run a CC for $0.00 for validation, considering per-transaction fees, so getting yourself validated would mean handing out your CC info to -someone-, though it could be a trusted third party, and having it billed for a minimum amount to cover the cost of the transaction. Pay-to-play?
This isn't about proving you wrong, but it could come in handy. From what I can tell it has fairly detailed city maps at least to Austria... Vienna looked detailed, but Budapest didn't, and Moscow even less so. But for France and the surrounding countries, it seems useful. At the city-street level, I actually find these maps slightly easier to read than Google's, though it's mostly a question of color choice, darker borders around areas, etc.
Yeah, but if you don't live in Utah, are you going to tell the people of Utah that they're not allowed nor entitled to censor themselves if they want to? You would oppress them? You tyrant!
[/tongue-in-cheek]
Admittedly, we know democracy doesn't actually work that way (in that it's not "all the people of Utah" but just representatives elected by a relative majority, and not necessarily acting according to the will of the people)... but in theory, the lawmakers are representatives of the people, and the people have the right to places limits on themselves if they want to. (Although I'd very much prefer it be by consensus, and if consensus can't be reached, that there be automatic secession of those who disagree, so they can continue to live free, if separate.)
The "let's be honest" rhetorical technique is, I believe, a form of "poisoning the well" -- attempt to discredit your opponent by implying an evil motive, rather than by showing that their actions are in any way evil themselves. In this case, even if they were (and I'm not saying they are) partisan, would that change the facts? I would say that this should prompt you to start your own investigation, just to make sure they don't get away with misrepresenting the facts by omission, but you should probably do that anyway -- just because someone does or does not look partisan should have no bearing on whether or not you decide to offer your own investigative services. Scientists generally don't mind someone else coming in and independently validating their results, this is similar.
So you have two problems: - you're only implying that they're partisan, with no actual proof - even if they were partisan, that doesn't prove that they're lying
I would add that even if they weren't partisan, that wouldn't imply that their results were true -- that's the nice thing about journalism, you should be able to go out and do your own. So there you have it -- trust them or don't, counter them or don't, but just sitting there whining about their partisanship... doesn't help anyone at all. (And yes, I know I'm free not to listen to you. But if you're going to spout...)
Slashdot Mirror
Do you mean Ouray, Colorado?
Isn't that basically what this whole thing is about, anyway? We sniff your shoes because we had a shoe-bomber. We check liquids because we heard someone might try that. We put cops on planes and tighten security on the cockpit doors because someone took advantage of that hole. We check a very few cargo containers coming into ports because we heard that was an idea thrown around. We suddenly learn to block physical access to the parking lots of FBI buildings because oddly enough, someone made use of that gap too.
Do we have security guards on every train? Have terrorists not yet though "oh, the planes are protected, but not the trains?" Do we run all passengers of buses through metal detectors? Do we check papers on the way in and out of major cities?
We do nothing until there's been a threat or an attack, and then we do too much assuming either
a) people will hate the government for doing nothing when nothing can really be done, or
b) terrorists are so dumb they'll keep trying the same thing over and over again, and patching the known hole is sufficient to stop them
And then people get in trouble for pointing out to the government where other holes might be, because that's helping the terrorists, giving them ideas? (Don't talk about dirty bombs, we wouldn't want them to figure that out!) It's exactly like the problems we have in the IT security industry, except in the industry, you're hopefully dealing with some logical, geeky people who have a clue -- with our national security, we're dealing with emotional politicians and apathetic voters. The debate's going surprisingly well, considering.
To be clear: it is possible to desire a freedom and not desire the use of it. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I use no drugs, and I have no use for hookers. It is improper to attribute my position simply to carnal desires, and is no real counter-argument in the first place. I may be in a better position than some in arguing for these freedoms, but your argument would strip the condemned man from his right to appeal on the basis of his personal involvement. It would be equally improper to reject my position on the assumption that those "not involved" have no say. The two are simply unrelated.
You suggested that it could be beneficial to create a game in which players are encouraged to beat/kill prostitutes (among others), as it could push players to do this in real life, which in turn would make the job less desirable, thus changing society. I'm merely questioning your belief that this would, in turn, be "beneficial for society" in some absolute sense (reasserted outside the 'joke') -- this is where you aggregate and I do not.
I'm confused by your assertion that alcohol has no deleterious effects (loss of control? addiction? liver damage? death?), while prostitution and drugs do (though upon whom is unspecified), with the exception at least of pot. You seem to still fail to draw a distinction between the drug trade, as it is today, and drug trade itself, or in general between an item and its environment, between the abuser and the abused.
If a prostitute is hooked on drugs and can't get out of the trade, is the problem prostitution, or drug addiction? Is the problem the availability of drugs, or their use, their abuse? If drug dealers feel the need to thieve and murder, is the problem the drug trade, or the underground (illegal) nature of their dealings and their lack of recourse to legal means such as the court system? (This is where prohibition comes back in: the mafia became a power in the US principally because of prohibition, and the end of prohibition brought back onto the market alcohol that was not stained by a history of bribes, murder, etc. It's entirely possible the same would happen with a legal drug trade.) If prostitutes could more easily make use of the police and the courts in their own defense, would we still see the same rate of kidnapping and rape? Is there not a difference between a sex worker (by choice) and a sex slave (by force)?
I point out these subtleties not to insult you or the mock you, nor trivially, but to engage you in a more precise discussion of harm and cause/effect. Even if this is, to your mind, "just video games", unworthy of deep discussion, the problems are the same, the arguments are the same, as they are for drugs, prostitution, child pornography, or the trade of vegetables. Do we prohibit the ends because we want to prevent the means? Do we prohibit the cause, because of a possible outcome? Do we treat citizens as predictable machines, or with the assumption of free will? (Not a discussion of free will itself, mind you.) Do we know what's best for our citizens, do we protect them from themselves? It's all the same, if you step back just a bit.
1. When the crowd doesn't laugh, do you blame the crowd or the comedian?
2. True; your aggregation with "low lifes", however, indicated not a legal definition of "criminal", but a moral one -- which I find myself disagreeing with.
3. Are farmers not exploited too, on some level? Should we ban the sale of vegetables because someone, somewhere, was the victim of violence? Or only if most farmers are? Or all? I draw a rather trenchant line between drugs and prostitution themselves and the background of murder, theft, kidnapping, rape, etc. that you describe. I'm not saying those are not present, and I'm not saying they're acceptable; I simply mean what I say. You should consider your argument in light of the prohibition period: your argument would have been tantamount to saying that because the alcohol trade went "underground" as a result of the prohibition, and became intimately associated with gang violence, the trade of alcohol itself was morally reprehensible thus justifying the prohibition. Yet lifting the ban, rather than making things worse, actually improved the situation -- though there's no denying it left an indelible mark on us. I propose that the two aspects are in fact quite separate, and should be treated as such.
Similarly, the debate on violent videogames should be split at least into two debates: on whether or not, factually, they have an effect on actual physical violence, and secondly whether or not it is the government's place to restrict them even if they do have some role to play in our non-virtual world. One does not flow from the other.
Note: not all of us aggregate hookers into the same class of people as "low lifes, thugs, ..., criminals, and other such things". For that matter, we may not even put drug dealers and murderers in the same category. I just don't want to hear whining about how slashdotters are only concerned with their own little fights over games and movies, yet unconcerned with the larger political fight over freedoms for all people and whatever supposedly benign vice they may have.
To be fair, he did say "unjust law" -- there's a lot more debate out there on the justifiability of child porn than there is over adult porn. (And I wish it were a better debate -- it's so stigmatized that people have trouble even uttering so much as a whisper of dissent.) But then for every law, there's probably still someone somewhere who thinks it unjust in some way. You're welcome to consider child-porn laws unjust.
The big thing for me was ACID -- the damn thing has great transactional support. I still miss it now that I'm forced to work on Oracle ("serializable" mode in Oracle is nothing like real transactional support if you've been using Firebird for a while.) From everything I've read, Postgres caught up with Firebird mainly by, uh, borrowing their generational data architecture, but then somewhat surpassed it in terms of user-defined types/functions. It is still really stinkin' easy to install though, whereas my last experience installing Postgres was nothing but a nightmare. (I don't really mean that as a knock on Postgres -- I'm terrible at sysadmin-like tasks, so it's no surprise that I had trouble; rather it's amazing that Firebird was as easy as it was to install.) As far as I know, PHP always comes precompiled only with MySQL support, so both DB's require equal extra work. I used FB/C++ at my previous job (500 some-odd tables, mostly normalized), and I still use FB/PHP for personal projects (far smaller.) It's pleased me in both settings. Keywords: solid, predictable, tunable, extensible, expressive, safe, and not a freakin' fan-club hack job.
I do hear someone's been working on an oracle-compatibiliy feature for Firebird (support some of oracle's more interesting expressions), so that's a possible bonus, but I'm not clued in on the current project status. If you're in the market for better OSS databases, you might also consider SAP-DB (rebranded as MySQL's MaxDB.) Just seems like another oft-forgotten contender in that same general weight class.
To reinforce the parent's point -- consider the concept of "social contract", particularly with the clause that a lack of effective resistance is tantamount to consent: the people of China silently agree to let themselves be governed this way, in exchange for the (possibly unequal in value) "benefit" of knowing that most of their fellow citizens are mostly equally deprived of those rights, forming a more homogenous, calm society -- and it's worth it to them not to revolt en masse. You can sign away some of your rights in contracts, you can also imply away your supposed basic human rights to your government. So long a nobody's willing to fight for it, it's not really a basic right -- just the empty declarations of a piece of paper.
Have you found any good sources for something between news and punditry, something more than dry facts yet less than partisan propaganda? I know most people don't feel they have time to read it, but I for one would willingly pay for a service that gave me the summary of arguments on all (not just two) sides of an issue, and an analysis of those same arguments (facts and logic both), tracked news stories to their conclusion, picked up some topics not related to late-breaking events, etc. More in-depth than an encyclopedia, less so than a history book, and definitely more current. That's my wish list. I've enjoyed some NPR programs, because their staff attempt a devil's advocate approach to interviews in order to get a bit more out of their guests than just proclamations, but each segment is still too short to really get into topics, and they rarely seem to dredge up anything but the arguments put forth by the most prominent of speakers on any given topic. Thoughts?
... shove it somewhere I think you ought to find uncomfortable, because I wish you harm. But I come in peace and desire universal good.
... something. ... something. ... something. ... something.
... remind me what your point was again?
*whining*
Life is unfair! Some other dude got stuff I don't think he deserves!
1. Continuation of life is predicated on the availability of infinite energy; the universe is bound to run out of steam eventually, thus life is either evil or impossible. Maybe even both.
2. People are stupid and greedy, thus creating harm; therefore,
3. People are lazier than expected, thus creating harm; therefore,
4. People are lazy; things are more difficult than we would like, thus they are impossible, but we think they are necessary, therefore
5. People are self-centered, therefore they sometimes do things I don't like; thus creating harm, therefore,
Also, please read a book by a person with letters after their name, because people with letters after their name are always right. In fact, I'm sure you couldn't possibly find an academic with similar letters after his or her name who agrees with your obviously flawed point of view. All academics agree with me.
Do you have any sources to back up your statements?
It should be pointed out that whether or not the ESRB can be trusted (which should be up to each of us to decide, and there's nothing wrong with providing facts which could help individuals decide precisely this) is unrelated to what we should do about it. In particular, showing that the ESRB is not trustworthy in the eyes of some should not lead anyone to declare that the only solution is government regulation. If you don't trust their opinion of games, find someone you do trust. If you can't find someone, be that someone and find a way to make money at it (or do it out of charity, if that's your thing.) ESRB is effectively a rating/review organization, a lot like game-review magazines. They get their logo, and their opinion, printed on most games ... but other similar organizations could do the same if they tried. If ESRB falls out of favor, game companies will no longer seek their opinion, and will no longer print it on their boxes. ESRB will no longer have funding, will go out of business, and will get replaced with someone people trust and whose logo and rating game companies will seek out -- just as with any other marketplace service provider. This all makes sense, it's all fine. If we want regulation, fine, but it should be a decision unrelated to the trust we, on average, place in the current most-obvious service provider.
Yet I find it works against them in this day of search engines. If I search for a concept or problem relating to one of their products by the product's name, say, "word", "publisher", "sql server", "windows", etc. Google is in no way required to assume I'm referring to MS products; it also should not have to guess that the one random forum post I'm looking for was intended to refer to a Microsoft product, even though the author forgot to put 'Microsoft' in front of each reference to the product. I hate cutesy product names as much as the next guy, but as long as they're easy to spell and remember and actually make my googling easier, I'll be at least mildly satisfied. It's easier to find solutions to problems with Konqueror than with Explorer, on that basis alone.
For example, if you want to change data you use a different command to changing database structure.
Nitpick: If an RDBMS has properly implemented updatable views for the catalogue, you should be able to run insert/update/delete statements against the catalogue tables and have DDL happen automatically. SQL itself doesn't prohibit this that I know of, though probably very few RDBMS's actually allow updatable system tables. In practice, you can sometimes get away with this for simple datatype changes (that don't require any work against the data proper), maybe some default-column-order changes ('set position'-equivalent), field name changes, etc. You probably won't get away with creating and dropping tables though.
I don't know if anyone truly does (most likely, yes, someone somewhere does) but it makes for a really convenient argument. Instead of being restricted to going after producers, you can now use basic economics to prove you should be able to go after consumers. You can equate the situation to buying stolen goods -- go after those who buy it rather than just those who steal it in the first place. As with drugs, you arrest consumers and get them to testify against dealers; you arrest dealers and get them to testify against producers. And all the while, you get to arrest a lot of people, as opposed to just a very tiny minority at the top, which helps prove you're doing something about the problem. On the downside, this line of reasoning implies that child molesters producing the videos in the first place are rational individuals, businessmen, who simply want to make a buck and will stop when they can't. I think that's a really dangerous thought to introduce into the discussion.
We're probably (my own opinion) dealing with people who would molest/rape/kill regardless, but happen to also make a buck off the videos, sometimes. But I would also expect them to give them away, out of hubris, showing off their accomplishments. Unlike stolen goods and drugs, the market doesn't require unique items to be shipped, bought and sold. There's not necessarily a chain of evidence to follow. There isn't necessarily money flowing. Consumers may have no clue where the stuff came from. Producers may not be making any money off of it. It's different, and it should be recognized as such.
Isn't this subject to a sort of reverse-Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, by which the only way to get an accurate market value is to actually put the item on the market and play the game? (Which in turn would make the whole "taxing you for having it" thing moot -- as you would lose it as part of getting taxed?)
Someone else can follow up with details, but as I recall, a lot of countries have the IP (copyright and patent) laws that they do only because they wanted to join an international organization like the WTO, and were required to "match" laws in order to join. We export our laws overseas by requiring other countries to match them in order to trade with us, something they're not willing to do without.
The same goes with countries fighting drugs at home -- those were profitable businesses that local governments probably didn't care about, until we told them they needed to care if they wanted funding from us.
Yes, it's their choice every time, but let's not pretend it's always about us having bright ideas nobody can resist. We have the market, deep pockets, and military power they can't resist, which is different.
... and when ConHugeCo changes its name, you're screwed? TLD's get passed around, but at least they don't change each time.
(The same is technically true of street addresses, on those few occasions when cities change names. Except there are zip codes, and the USPS knows about such changes and can continue to route mail correctly, but I don't see them being required to do so forever. We're still talking about a PK changing, and there's no built-in mechanism to fix the FK's everywhere else. You don't know who has your address, just as you don't know who links to your URL.)
Errr ... respectfully, you misread me. I'm not talking about company A needing to buy A.net, A.com, A.org, etc ...
.com, it costs more than a .net because whoever controls .com charges more. You might buy both from the same place, but they're just passing on the purchase to whoever runs the TLD in which you're buying.
I'm talking about company A being able to buy (and not just by proxy) any or all of those domain names through any registrar. Currently, each TLD has different costs, based on who has exclusive control over it -- if you buy a
I'm talking about making it such that there -is- no exclusive control -- the registrars are all just required to talk to each other so that no two people attempt to buy the same domain name at the same time, and wind up in a fight about who owns it. Giving each TLD to only one company at a time was a "simple" solution, with problems. But it's a simple solution to a technological problem: guaranteed uniqueness in a distributed environment. There are other technological (but less simple) solutions to the same problem that don't result in one company having a monopoly over the database and the price.
You know, now that you mention it ... why -do- we give exclusive control of TLD's to anyone? It's a technology problem: namespace registrations need to be unique, we need to prevent two people from buying the same item at the same time. Isn't there a technological solution? We've been doing two-phase-commit for a long time, and that's all this really is -- updating several databases at once, making sure the new domain name is unique in each one. It'd require cooperation between registrars, as they'd all have to be checking/hitting each others' databases ... but it's not impossible. It would open the whole process up to new competitors on an ad-hoc basis, even, which could be expected to drive down prices.
Sadly, most of us remember [and quote] the patches more than the core code.
Just a note: seems Amazon's "REAL NAME (tm)" feature depends on the submitter having agreed to use the name on his/her credit card. It's not precisely the same as valid ID (in that you could be using a stolen CC) but at least it doesn't require sending your DL or passport to the forum admin. It does, however, involve giving out your CC info, at least enough to have it validated. I somehow doubt you can run a CC for $0.00 for validation, considering per-transaction fees, so getting yourself validated would mean handing out your CC info to -someone-, though it could be a trusted third party, and having it billed for a minimum amount to cover the cost of the transaction. Pay-to-play?
http://fr.cars.yahoo.com/cartes/
... Vienna looked detailed, but Budapest didn't, and Moscow even less so. But for France and the surrounding countries, it seems useful. At the city-street level, I actually find these maps slightly easier to read than Google's, though it's mostly a question of color choice, darker borders around areas, etc.
This isn't about proving you wrong, but it could come in handy. From what I can tell it has fairly detailed city maps at least to Austria
Yeah, but if you don't live in Utah, are you going to tell the people of Utah that they're not allowed nor entitled to censor themselves if they want to? You would oppress them? You tyrant!
... but in theory, the lawmakers are representatives of the people, and the people have the right to places limits on themselves if they want to. (Although I'd very much prefer it be by consensus, and if consensus can't be reached, that there be automatic secession of those who disagree, so they can continue to live free, if separate.)
[/tongue-in-cheek]
Admittedly, we know democracy doesn't actually work that way (in that it's not "all the people of Utah" but just representatives elected by a relative majority, and not necessarily acting according to the will of the people)
The "let's be honest" rhetorical technique is, I believe, a form of "poisoning the well" -- attempt to discredit your opponent by implying an evil motive, rather than by showing that their actions are in any way evil themselves. In this case, even if they were (and I'm not saying they are) partisan, would that change the facts? I would say that this should prompt you to start your own investigation, just to make sure they don't get away with misrepresenting the facts by omission, but you should probably do that anyway -- just because someone does or does not look partisan should have no bearing on whether or not you decide to offer your own investigative services. Scientists generally don't mind someone else coming in and independently validating their results, this is similar.
... doesn't help anyone at all. (And yes, I know I'm free not to listen to you. But if you're going to spout...)
So you have two problems:
- you're only implying that they're partisan, with no actual proof
- even if they were partisan, that doesn't prove that they're lying
I would add that even if they weren't partisan, that wouldn't imply that their results were true -- that's the nice thing about journalism, you should be able to go out and do your own. So there you have it -- trust them or don't, counter them or don't, but just sitting there whining about their partisanship