... a censor is a person who is tasked with reviewing material in order to decide "officially" whether or not it is appropriate./. moderators fill _precisely_ that purpose. The whole point of having moderators is to mark up the most worthy comments and mark down the most unworthy.
Studios keep raising their streaming prices _because_ Netflix is in the DVD business. Disc rentals are kryptonite to the big studios. What they want is to earn money per view. They earn a small, one-time fee when Netflix buys a physical disc. That one disc is then eventually viewed by hundreds if not thousands of viewers over the life of the disc. They'd much rather earn a nominal fee each time a show is viewed. This is one reason Netflix wanted to divest itself of its DVD business, to facilitate negotiations with the content studios.
The other problem they have with Netflix is that it's independent of the physical distribution arms owned by the studios. Time Warner, for example, wants people chained to Time Warner cable. They have an incentive not to license their content to a service which can be used by cable companies that compete with Time Warner.
You've got several layers of business here: (1) the studio, (2) the production company that funds the studio (the studio might be independent and the production company purchases content from the studio or the studio might be in-house for the production company), (3) the first level of distribution (think "network" like NBC or Comedy Central), (4) the physical distributors (cable companies, satellite companies, streaming companies, wholesalers, retailers, etc.).
It is increasingly the case that all four of these are owned by a single company. For example, TimeWarner owns the studios that make much of the content for the CW network, they fund those studios, they own CW, and they own Time Warner cable and some CW stations that brings the content to your door. And, herein, lies the problem. If you decide to stream a CW show, it does increase the profit at the third level (or at the second level depending on how the contract works) but at the fourth level they are losing revenue _and_ incurring greater costs.
For TimeWarner to "realize there is a ton of money to be made" they have to figure out a way that they make more money _across the board_ and that is a harder problem than first appears. I'm not saying that it can't be done, mind you. But it isn't as simple as saying that _x number of people will pay to stream title y and therefore they will make metric truckloads of money_. For example, say they start streaming all the CW original shows and charging for it. They now have an additional income stream. But this disinclines terrestrial stations from airing that same content so the CW network may lose affiliates that decide other content is more profitable because they won't have to compete with streaming. It also disinclines cable and satellite providers from paying Time Warner to broadcast CW stations. So here are two places where Time Warner as a whole is losing revenue from the decision to stream CW content. Moreover, they lose ratings because they lose marketshare so CW looks less like the young and hip network that it is supposed to look like. And Time Warner cable now has to build out additional capacity because streaming video is taking off.
If this problem could be solved, most content providers would move to streaming in a heartbeat. Why? Because streaming enables what they really want: charging per viewing per device. They really do not like DVD sales at all because they allow for rentals. Their ideal paradigm is that each viewer pay a nominal fee every time that a show is watched. Right now, cable (and satellite) offers the best way to do that with the encrypted digital signals that most cable companies are moving to. Streaming will eventually catch up with the delivery mechanisms of digital cable. Once it does, that will probably be disruptive.
To keep up with captioning for a live show, a typist has to track the pace of the show over a substantial period of time. The typist who is putting down her own thoughts gets to work at her own pace.
Natural, casual speech is usually around 150 or 160 words per minute. At first glance, this looks well beyond the abilities of a well skilled typist. A _very skilled_ typist might be expected to type around 50 or 60 words per minute on a sustained basis. But, the thing is, for most applications, content creation is not a linear process. Even people who dictate their writing seldom just let go with 3000 or 10000 words flowing out of their mouth. They might say one sentence, then say, `no. that is not right. what I mean is...' Or they might delete an entire paragraph. Or decide to move a paragraph around. Or just move a singe sentence.
So, in the end, it really depends on the situation. I would go so far to say that, for most people, typing is probably quicker on balance than dictation. But it really depends on a given person's typing skills, how well that person can order his thoughts, and a whole host of other factors. And there are certainly situations (e.g. transcribing a live television event) where typists are at a disadvantage.
Desk jobs make it harder to stay active but not impossible. There are the little things such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator and getting up to walk to a cow-orker instead of using IM or ringing her extension.
But when it comes down to it, we need to make time to stay active outside of work. Six days a week, I either run for 5+ miles or visit the gym to use the weight machines and go for a shorter run to cool off. It amazes me that a subculture that spends hours configuring, tweaking, and improving their technical kit largely doesn't take the same time to keep their bodies in shape.
The local county community college here charges $112 per credit hour for part students. Two classes per term and three terms per year put you at $2,016 per year which is right about where the benefit maxes out. Coursework at that rate is probably on track for a student to get an associate's degree in four years with not much out of pocket other than books, and miscellaneous fees.
I think that's a fairly good deal for what is effectively a non-skilled manual labor position with limited room for growth.
In 1994, I stopped using BBS systems with Internet gateways and switched to a dedicated ISP. The ISP I switched to had been offering service to homes and individuals for a few years by the time that I switched.
The September that Never Ended was in, what, 1993? That was when AOL put in an Internet gateway. But even as far back as then, you could find local ISPs offering dial-up Internet connections.
But, here's the thing, we're talking about when the Internet was ``commercialized'' rather than when it was offered as a commercial service. For that you want to look at things such as the invention of web based advertising, online ordering, the invention of USENET spam, and so on.
They won't be duped into buying a book, but they may be misled into thinking that the book originated from the Jack Daniels company.
As a parallel example, no one would would confuse a poster inviting people to "Enjoy Cocaine" for an ice cold bottle of Coke. Yet the "Enjoy Cocaine" poster was found by the courts to infringe upon Coca-Cola's trademark.
It isn't obvious that this is a parody. It's a commercial enterprise targeted towards whiskey fans that adapts one of the most recognizable trademarks in the US whisky business. This is a bit different than a tee shirt manufacturer satirizing a Coca-cola trademark to promote an entirely different addictive substance.
But, really, the merits of the case are a secondary question. Many firms send out very nasty cease and desist letters making very strong claims even if they _know_ that they don't have a leg to stand on. This letter really stands out in that rather than taking an adversarial approach from the start, it seeks to cooperate in good faith from the outset. That is commendable.
The distinction between a truck and a light truck (at least with regards to federal regulations) has to do with payload capacity, curb weight, and the number of passengers that can be held. The type of axle is irrelevant.
SUVs existed well before the term was invented in the 80s. The Chevy Suburban is a great example. It was basically designed as a station wagon built on a commercial truck frame, precisely the attribute that you're saying it lacks.
8th generation Suburbans (offered from the early seventies through the eighties and into the nineties) came in half ton, three quarter ton, and one ton models depending on the type of truck chassis that they were built on. With a two ton curb weight and two axles, the half ton and three quarter ton models fit the federal definition of a light truck.
Jeep Wagons (and Wagoneers and Cherokees), the Suburban, Toyota's Land Cruiser, multiple Land Rover models, International Harvester's Scout, the Dodge Powerwagon, and others date back to before most folks on/. were born. Usually these vehicles were categorized by the label "4x4" or "Station Wagon" but they match pretty much every aspect of what people today in the US look for when they hear the term "SUV."
What was invented in the 80s was the term "Sport Utility Vehicle" and nothing more. It wasn't invented as a class of a new type of vehicle but a new label under which it was convenient to group existing vehicles.
From the iWork home page, ``iWork for Mac works with any Mac running OS X v10.6.6 or later.'' The most recent version of OS X is 10.8. On the one hand, this is more or less comparable to what Microsoft is doing which was your main point. On the other hand, it's certainly not the case that ``Apple's iWork already limits you to the latest OS.'' The most recent version of iWork runs on the latest release (Mountain Lion, 10.8) and the last two major releases (Lion and Snow Leopard which are 10.7 and 10.6 respectively).
Aside from try to protect their internal supply chain processes as trade secrets, there isn't much Walmart can do to counter this. I suppose that they could try contracts with suppliers to forbid them from doing business with Amazon. I imagine that would result in multiple lawsuits.
I think the added costs are mostly negligible, at least with regards to the marginal costs compared to marginal profits. Amazon (as well as Walmart) have been extremely innovative in supply chain and other logistics. Costs will increase, but largely in ways understood by Amazon. These increases will not be exceptional regards to the warehouse infrastructure that they already run.
The interesting thing about Amazon's model, though, is that they aren't interested in putting other online retailers out of business. Say you have a specialty shop such as a book store that specializes in rare volumes. Amazon is just fine collaborating with such a business by making them an associated and taking a cut of every sale. Amazon basically gets a niche warehouse for free. And the specialty shop now has a nationwide (or worldwide) market rather than being restricted to the local market.
Not to mention that it is doubtful that Amazon will be vacating existing markets. They are adding the same-day sales, not replacing their old model with a new model.
You can write object oriented code in assembler if you want.
It's easier to write object oriented code if the compiler supports syntactic sugar around the pillars of object oriented code (inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation, message passing, etc.) but such syntactic sugar is not strictly needed.
``If you find yourself disliking Thomas Jefferson you need to rethink your life.''
Really? He paid hack journalists to make up lies out of whole cloth about his political opponents. His behavior was so atrocious that he managed to make an enemy of Martha Washington. He was so bad at finance that when he died his estate was bankrupt. The more I read about him, the more I come to the conclusion that he was a really nasty human being.
That he was an asshat doesn't diminish whatever genius he may have held in the fields of political theory, architecture, and agriculture. But neither do his triumphs in other areas mean that everyone should like him and adulate him as a hero.
First, even if you don't consider the license fee a true tax, the BBC World Service is directly funded by the Foreign Office.
Second, the BBC Trust which governs the BBC is run by appointees of the crown and confirmed by British government. The trust has ultimate oversight and appoints the Director General of the corporation who acts as both editor-in-chief and chairman of the board of executives. I fail to see how this is somehow `independent' of the British government.
So it seems to me that calling the BBC independent in a way that al-Jazeera or RT is not independent is special pleading. Especially al-Jazeera which has a goal of eventually becoming self-funding through advertising and licensing deals. After initial funding, its only continued government subsidies have taken the form of loans.
That said, there are meaningful differences. RT is more tabloid. They cover many (if not most issues) in a sensational way, especially if doing so can poke "The West" in the eye. A fair argument can also be made that RT is more tightly controlled by the Kremlin. But that is more a function of the nature of the Russian regime compared to the British government than a difference in kind in how the organization relates to the government.
As Descartes observed, common sense is the one virtue that is not in short supply. No matter who you talk to that person will be convinced that he or she has no need of more common sense.
I think you misunderstand how a ballot box works at the community level. Initially, everyone agrees to abide by the outcome of the election. There is no coercion at work. In the case of new comers, for the most part, they have ample opportunity to look at the local laws before deciding to settle down in a given municipality. By doing so, they implicitly agree to live by the rules that everyone has agreed upon. Kind of like if you come into my living room, if you don't respect the rules of my house, I can ask you to leave.
Compare this to use of force at work, for example, tarring and feathering dissidents, running people off of their farms if they disagree, and so on.
It was settled predominantly by Seventh Day Adventists as a safe spot for Seventh Day Adventists. So the laws in place tend to reflect the morals of that faith. For a long time, the city was dry. (Although the liquor laws are being liberalized of late.) There is an emphasis on sustainability. In the sixties and seventies, this sort of policy attracted quite a few hippies, utopians and other individuals with pretty left wing ideas. Since the city is a democratic experiment in progress, over time, city policy came to also reflect these values in some ways. As the demographics continue to change, the city's laws and government will also continue to change.
So it's not really a matter of pushing beliefs. It's a matter of people voting their conscience at the ballot box.
Plenty of Democrats are pro-nuke. So you're lacking a middle term for your syllogism. Even if it is true that most illegal immigrants that vote do so for Democrats, that doesn't explain why it's no surprise that the city council (and the voters at large in the city) are both anti-nuke and supportive of suffrage for non-citizens in local elections.
Moreover, this is not about voter fraud. This is about a city that lawfully has broader criteria for who gets to vote in local elections. It's not about state or federal elections which have their criteria set by the state and federal government. So there is no fraud at hand.
The legal system in the US is set up with all sorts of controls over runaway judges going right up to Supreme Court justices who can be impeached and removed from office by congress. In some states judges are elected. In other states judges are appointed. I am not aware of any state that does not have some mechanism to remove judges that turn out to be whack-jobs. So the system has checks and balances on the individuals serving as judges.
Moreover, while it is true that any given judge has unlimited power to decide a case any which way, in practice that power is very limited because any given ruling can be overruled by the next level of the court system. Even the Supreme Court can be overruled by future courts, by legislation (e.g. the Lilly Ledbetter Act), or by amending the US Constitution. So there are checks and balances on the rulings themselves aside.
Posner himself has treated this topic at length. A hypothetical `judge gone mad' is a frequently recurring theme in the field of legal philosophy. I highly recommend his Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy.
Slashdot Mirror
The censors of the Catholic Church do not _suppress_ books, they simply put them on a list of books that Catholics can decide not to read.
... a censor is a person who is tasked with reviewing material in order to decide "officially" whether or not it is appropriate. /. moderators fill _precisely_ that purpose. The whole point of having moderators is to mark up the most worthy comments and mark down the most unworthy.
Studios keep raising their streaming prices _because_ Netflix is in the DVD business. Disc rentals are kryptonite to the big studios. What they want is to earn money per view. They earn a small, one-time fee when Netflix buys a physical disc. That one disc is then eventually viewed by hundreds if not thousands of viewers over the life of the disc. They'd much rather earn a nominal fee each time a show is viewed. This is one reason Netflix wanted to divest itself of its DVD business, to facilitate negotiations with the content studios.
The other problem they have with Netflix is that it's independent of the physical distribution arms owned by the studios. Time Warner, for example, wants people chained to Time Warner cable. They have an incentive not to license their content to a service which can be used by cable companies that compete with Time Warner.
And buying them all over again when an HD disc format finally takes off.
You've got several layers of business here: (1) the studio, (2) the production company that funds the studio (the studio might be independent and the production company purchases content from the studio or the studio might be in-house for the production company), (3) the first level of distribution (think "network" like NBC or Comedy Central), (4) the physical distributors (cable companies, satellite companies, streaming companies, wholesalers, retailers, etc.).
It is increasingly the case that all four of these are owned by a single company. For example, TimeWarner owns the studios that make much of the content for the CW network, they fund those studios, they own CW, and they own Time Warner cable and some CW stations that brings the content to your door. And, herein, lies the problem. If you decide to stream a CW show, it does increase the profit at the third level (or at the second level depending on how the contract works) but at the fourth level they are losing revenue _and_ incurring greater costs.
For TimeWarner to "realize there is a ton of money to be made" they have to figure out a way that they make more money _across the board_ and that is a harder problem than first appears. I'm not saying that it can't be done, mind you. But it isn't as simple as saying that _x number of people will pay to stream title y and therefore they will make metric truckloads of money_. For example, say they start streaming all the CW original shows and charging for it. They now have an additional income stream. But this disinclines terrestrial stations from airing that same content so the CW network may lose affiliates that decide other content is more profitable because they won't have to compete with streaming. It also disinclines cable and satellite providers from paying Time Warner to broadcast CW stations. So here are two places where Time Warner as a whole is losing revenue from the decision to stream CW content. Moreover, they lose ratings because they lose marketshare so CW looks less like the young and hip network that it is supposed to look like. And Time Warner cable now has to build out additional capacity because streaming video is taking off.
If this problem could be solved, most content providers would move to streaming in a heartbeat. Why? Because streaming enables what they really want: charging per viewing per device. They really do not like DVD sales at all because they allow for rentals. Their ideal paradigm is that each viewer pay a nominal fee every time that a show is watched. Right now, cable (and satellite) offers the best way to do that with the encrypted digital signals that most cable companies are moving to. Streaming will eventually catch up with the delivery mechanisms of digital cable. Once it does, that will probably be disruptive.
To keep up with captioning for a live show, a typist has to track the pace of the show over a substantial period of time. The typist who is putting down her own thoughts gets to work at her own pace.
Natural, casual speech is usually around 150 or 160 words per minute. At first glance, this looks well beyond the abilities of a well skilled typist. A _very skilled_ typist might be expected to type around 50 or 60 words per minute on a sustained basis. But, the thing is, for most applications, content creation is not a linear process. Even people who dictate their writing seldom just let go with 3000 or 10000 words flowing out of their mouth. They might say one sentence, then say, `no. that is not right. what I mean is ...' Or they might delete an entire paragraph. Or decide to move a paragraph around. Or just move a singe sentence.
So, in the end, it really depends on the situation. I would go so far to say that, for most people, typing is probably quicker on balance than dictation. But it really depends on a given person's typing skills, how well that person can order his thoughts, and a whole host of other factors. And there are certainly situations (e.g. transcribing a live television event) where typists are at a disadvantage.
Desk jobs make it harder to stay active but not impossible. There are the little things such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator and getting up to walk to a cow-orker instead of using IM or ringing her extension.
But when it comes down to it, we need to make time to stay active outside of work. Six days a week, I either run for 5+ miles or visit the gym to use the weight machines and go for a shorter run to cool off. It amazes me that a subculture that spends hours configuring, tweaking, and improving their technical kit largely doesn't take the same time to keep their bodies in shape.
The local county community college here charges $112 per credit hour for part students. Two classes per term and three terms per year put you at $2,016 per year which is right about where the benefit maxes out. Coursework at that rate is probably on track for a student to get an associate's degree in four years with not much out of pocket other than books, and miscellaneous fees.
I think that's a fairly good deal for what is effectively a non-skilled manual labor position with limited room for growth.
In 1994, I stopped using BBS systems with Internet gateways and switched to a dedicated ISP. The ISP I switched to had been offering service to homes and individuals for a few years by the time that I switched.
The September that Never Ended was in, what, 1993? That was when AOL put in an Internet gateway. But even as far back as then, you could find local ISPs offering dial-up Internet connections.
But, here's the thing, we're talking about when the Internet was ``commercialized'' rather than when it was offered as a commercial service. For that you want to look at things such as the invention of web based advertising, online ordering, the invention of USENET spam, and so on.
They won't be duped into buying a book, but they may be misled into thinking that the book originated from the Jack Daniels company.
As a parallel example, no one would would confuse a poster inviting people to "Enjoy Cocaine" for an ice cold bottle of Coke. Yet the "Enjoy Cocaine" poster was found by the courts to infringe upon Coca-Cola's trademark.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tmcases/coca.htm
It isn't obvious that this is a parody. It's a commercial enterprise targeted towards whiskey fans that adapts one of the most recognizable trademarks in the US whisky business. This is a bit different than a tee shirt manufacturer satirizing a Coca-cola trademark to promote an entirely different addictive substance.
But, really, the merits of the case are a secondary question. Many firms send out very nasty cease and desist letters making very strong claims even if they _know_ that they don't have a leg to stand on. This letter really stands out in that rather than taking an adversarial approach from the start, it seeks to cooperate in good faith from the outset. That is commendable.
The distinction between a truck and a light truck (at least with regards to federal regulations) has to do with payload capacity, curb weight, and the number of passengers that can be held. The type of axle is irrelevant.
SUVs existed well before the term was invented in the 80s. The Chevy Suburban is a great example. It was basically designed as a station wagon built on a commercial truck frame, precisely the attribute that you're saying it lacks.
8th generation Suburbans (offered from the early seventies through the eighties and into the nineties) came in half ton, three quarter ton, and one ton models depending on the type of truck chassis that they were built on. With a two ton curb weight and two axles, the half ton and three quarter ton models fit the federal definition of a light truck.
Jeep Wagons (and Wagoneers and Cherokees), the Suburban, Toyota's Land Cruiser, multiple Land Rover models, International Harvester's Scout, the Dodge Powerwagon, and others date back to before most folks on /. were born. Usually these vehicles were categorized by the label "4x4" or "Station Wagon" but they match pretty much every aspect of what people today in the US look for when they hear the term "SUV."
What was invented in the 80s was the term "Sport Utility Vehicle" and nothing more. It wasn't invented as a class of a new type of vehicle but a new label under which it was convenient to group existing vehicles.
From the iWork home page, ``iWork for Mac works with any Mac running OS X v10.6.6 or later.'' The most recent version of OS X is 10.8. On the one hand, this is more or less comparable to what Microsoft is doing which was your main point. On the other hand, it's certainly not the case that ``Apple's iWork already limits you to the latest OS.'' The most recent version of iWork runs on the latest release (Mountain Lion, 10.8) and the last two major releases (Lion and Snow Leopard which are 10.7 and 10.6 respectively).
Aside from try to protect their internal supply chain processes as trade secrets, there isn't much Walmart can do to counter this. I suppose that they could try contracts with suppliers to forbid them from doing business with Amazon. I imagine that would result in multiple lawsuits.
I think the added costs are mostly negligible, at least with regards to the marginal costs compared to marginal profits. Amazon (as well as Walmart) have been extremely innovative in supply chain and other logistics. Costs will increase, but largely in ways understood by Amazon. These increases will not be exceptional regards to the warehouse infrastructure that they already run.
The interesting thing about Amazon's model, though, is that they aren't interested in putting other online retailers out of business. Say you have a specialty shop such as a book store that specializes in rare volumes. Amazon is just fine collaborating with such a business by making them an associated and taking a cut of every sale. Amazon basically gets a niche warehouse for free. And the specialty shop now has a nationwide (or worldwide) market rather than being restricted to the local market.
Not to mention that it is doubtful that Amazon will be vacating existing markets. They are adding the same-day sales, not replacing their old model with a new model.
You can write object oriented code in assembler if you want.
It's easier to write object oriented code if the compiler supports syntactic sugar around the pillars of object oriented code (inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation, message passing, etc.) but such syntactic sugar is not strictly needed.
``If you find yourself disliking Thomas Jefferson you need to rethink your life.''
Really? He paid hack journalists to make up lies out of whole cloth about his political opponents. His behavior was so atrocious that he managed to make an enemy of Martha Washington. He was so bad at finance that when he died his estate was bankrupt. The more I read about him, the more I come to the conclusion that he was a really nasty human being.
That he was an asshat doesn't diminish whatever genius he may have held in the fields of political theory, architecture, and agriculture. But neither do his triumphs in other areas mean that everyone should like him and adulate him as a hero.
First, even if you don't consider the license fee a true tax, the BBC World Service is directly funded by the Foreign Office.
Second, the BBC Trust which governs the BBC is run by appointees of the crown and confirmed by British government. The trust has ultimate oversight and appoints the Director General of the corporation who acts as both editor-in-chief and chairman of the board of executives. I fail to see how this is somehow `independent' of the British government.
So it seems to me that calling the BBC independent in a way that al-Jazeera or RT is not independent is special pleading. Especially al-Jazeera which has a goal of eventually becoming self-funding through advertising and licensing deals. After initial funding, its only continued government subsidies have taken the form of loans.
That said, there are meaningful differences. RT is more tabloid. They cover many (if not most issues) in a sensational way, especially if doing so can poke "The West" in the eye. A fair argument can also be made that RT is more tightly controlled by the Kremlin. But that is more a function of the nature of the Russian regime compared to the British government than a difference in kind in how the organization relates to the government.
As Descartes observed, common sense is the one virtue that is not in short supply. No matter who you talk to that person will be convinced that he or she has no need of more common sense.
I think you misunderstand how a ballot box works at the community level. Initially, everyone agrees to abide by the outcome of the election. There is no coercion at work. In the case of new comers, for the most part, they have ample opportunity to look at the local laws before deciding to settle down in a given municipality. By doing so, they implicitly agree to live by the rules that everyone has agreed upon. Kind of like if you come into my living room, if you don't respect the rules of my house, I can ask you to leave.
Compare this to use of force at work, for example, tarring and feathering dissidents, running people off of their farms if they disagree, and so on.
It was settled predominantly by Seventh Day Adventists as a safe spot for Seventh Day Adventists. So the laws in place tend to reflect the morals of that faith. For a long time, the city was dry. (Although the liquor laws are being liberalized of late.) There is an emphasis on sustainability. In the sixties and seventies, this sort of policy attracted quite a few hippies, utopians and other individuals with pretty left wing ideas. Since the city is a democratic experiment in progress, over time, city policy came to also reflect these values in some ways. As the demographics continue to change, the city's laws and government will also continue to change.
So it's not really a matter of pushing beliefs. It's a matter of people voting their conscience at the ballot box.
Plenty of Democrats are pro-nuke. So you're lacking a middle term for your syllogism. Even if it is true that most illegal immigrants that vote do so for Democrats, that doesn't explain why it's no surprise that the city council (and the voters at large in the city) are both anti-nuke and supportive of suffrage for non-citizens in local elections.
Moreover, this is not about voter fraud. This is about a city that lawfully has broader criteria for who gets to vote in local elections. It's not about state or federal elections which have their criteria set by the state and federal government. So there is no fraud at hand.
The legal system in the US is set up with all sorts of controls over runaway judges going right up to Supreme Court justices who can be impeached and removed from office by congress. In some states judges are elected. In other states judges are appointed. I am not aware of any state that does not have some mechanism to remove judges that turn out to be whack-jobs. So the system has checks and balances on the individuals serving as judges.
Moreover, while it is true that any given judge has unlimited power to decide a case any which way, in practice that power is very limited because any given ruling can be overruled by the next level of the court system. Even the Supreme Court can be overruled by future courts, by legislation (e.g. the Lilly Ledbetter Act), or by amending the US Constitution. So there are checks and balances on the rulings themselves aside.
Posner himself has treated this topic at length. A hypothetical `judge gone mad' is a frequently recurring theme in the field of legal philosophy. I highly recommend his Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy.