Ah, I used to live in Waltham. (before moving to the Left Coast)
In the Boston area, Waltham, Watertown and with some luck West Newton are all pretty good, affordable places to live. Easy to get into the city, though parking is always an issue in Boston. Even when cars are obselete and everyone teleports to work, parking will _still_ be an issue in Boston, for some reason;)
Quincy is also pretty good, and somewhat easier to get onto the T at (Red line instead of Green line)
What's wrong with underground cables? They're a bit more pricey, and harder to fix, but they tend not to get pulled down so much. They were very popular in my part of Florida. (Granted, there are idiots with backhoes, but that doesn't happen all that much)
No. That would imply that there's some US federal government other than that created by the constitution which could agree to it.
The constitution *is* the government, in that it creates the thing out of thin air. Originally it didn't include any rights in it at all, because many of the framers felt that 1) no democratic republic would attempt to infringe on human rights 2) if human rights were ennumerated anything that got left out would be fair game, so it was better to not list any at all.
Fortunately there were enough cynical folks to argue against the first. As for the latter, not only are human rights being attacked all the time (including by corporations, but also by governments and individuals) but indeed, rights that aren't specifically ennumerated tend to get ignored. And the rights we do have, which Congress is prohibited from interfering in in big bold letters also tend to get ignored.
(something similar happened with income taxes - they could have maxed out at 10% of income, but it was feared that if a number were given it would actually get that high. now i pay significantly more than that.)
So what? If someone buys a computer which comes with Windows preloaded, and never agrees to the license they are NOT bound by it. At this point, only standard copyright rules apply.
They can resell it legally. Heck, they can even use it if they can manage to do so without being bound by the license. (a third-party program to finish the installation would work well here)
The license only revokes rights that you automatically have. But buying the machine does not make you accept it. UCITA will change things (for the worse) which is why we have to fight it but no judge nowhere is going to rule that you're bound by a license by opening the box. It's offensive.
The voting system is slightly broken. If I vote, at present, I have to vote for SOMEONE. And depending on your local voting laws, you may only be allowed to vote for some small set of people (e.g. candidates who have a sufficient number of backers already, no write-ins allowed)
This means that the only way to not vote for anyone on the ballot is to not vote at all.
I would be happier if I could make a vote of No Confidence in any candidate on the ballot. The fact that I voted would be on record - the fact that I didn't want to vote for any of them would be as well.
As it stands, I really don't plan to vote for Gore or Bush this year. Maybe Nader, I dunno (I don't like the greens, I do like Nader). But I'm up shit creek with this year's Senate race here. I'll probably skip that one rather than support any of them. What else can I do?
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor at about 1pm EDT 7 Dec '41. The Japanese embassy in Washington delivers a declaration of war to Sec. of State Hull around 2:30pm EDT 7 Dec '41. It was _supposed_ to be there just immediately before the attack, but they had problems.
Of course, we decrypted the communique to the embassy telling them to do this, realized that it would be dawn at Pearl then and tried to warn them in advance, but we had lost radio communications with Pearl and the message didn't get there until noon their time, which was way too late.
The US declared war on Japan on 8 Dec '41.
Germany and Italy declared war on the US on 11 Dec '41.
AFTER that, the US declared war on Germany and Italy.
So as far as who declared war on America first, that's Japan. They lost. And we didn't declare war on the other Axis powers until they had on us, first. They also lost.
Well smuggling has a proud tradition in America. John Hancock was a notorious smuggler before the Revolutionary War. IIRC the Roosevelt family made their fortune smuggling opium into China in the 19th century (letting the British do the fighting, no less). The Kennedys, as you said were bootleggers during prohibition.
I almost can't wait until we start getting narcotic smugglers running for President. It's practically a given.
And if I have a good idea, mention it to someone and they implement it, have they stolen food from me? I put work into it - I thought about it. There's as much production as another copyrightable work, if I wrote it down. It's not my precise work, but if it's based on mine, couldn't it be derivative?
Thank god, the courts don't yet agree.
Neither do I. People do not have an inherent right to produce things AND PREVENT OTHER PEOPLE FROM COPYING THEM. There are zero, count 'em, zero natural rights for that. In fact, it's clearly opposed to the freedom of speech/press, which lets people say or write any damn fool thing they want.
We have copyrights NOT to give artists a revenue source, but INSTEAD to encourage them to create more stuff, with the POINT being for those works to enter the public domain as quickly as possible while still encouraging the creation of new works, because only when p.d. can they be enjoyed by all, and can everyone fully exercise the rights which God has seen fit to bestow upon us as human beings.
Now I am perfectly happy with copyrights *IN GENERAL*. But modern copyright law is unconstitutional. And there's no other basis. Works of art are not property so far as the information is concerned - only the medium through which it is transmitted. You might own a statue, but you cannot own the shape. You can own a CD but not the music. The definitions of property and of ownership don't permit it.
At best you can prevent other people from copying it if they're going to let other people have the copies while still keeping their own copy, and then only in certain circumstances.
I am an artist. I routinely create art. It's what I do. And I would like nothing more than to see copyrights be shortened to about 10 years, with only the most minimal of extensions possible, with no foolishness like 'access control.' Building in some money from copyright registration (it wouldn't be automatic - it would require the work be published and trivially accessable) to go to supporting public domain art would be good too.
But there's nothing *moral* about copyright. Don't fool yourself.
We could protect property much more easily if there were no anonymity and if everyone's movements and monetary transactions were carefully monitored.
We could stamp out nearly all crime by removing any tool that could possibly be used in any way as either a tool to commit some crime or otherwise communicate how to commit a crime.
We could prevent hate speech, terrorism and even more general crime by having the government monitor telecommunications and making it difficult for individuals to communicate over any significant distance without being monitored.
If every person watched every other person and reported their activities to the government we would live in a society with virtually no crime, and not even the opportunity for it to take place.
We would also be living in a nightmarish police state of the highest order, and wishing that we were in a more reasonable place, like the pits of hell.
I would much rather the risk be taken that some small infringements on copyright (it's not even property, for god's sake, it's a monopoly on the distribution of copies of information when there's a significant monetary impact, SOMETIMES) and have much more freedom.
The cornerstone of our government WAS the idea that men can live harmoniously with only the smallest set of right-infringing laws needed to preserve as many other rights as possible. (thus do I lose my freedom to kill people indiscriminately, thus do I gain the security of not being killed, letting me exercise many other rights)
There are always those who have a hatred for freedom; this man hates freedom because it prevents him from fully satisfying his greed. How long are we all going to let him and his ilk reduce freedom to a luxury for the rich and powerful? We are in serious need of political action to take back our rights - eliminating 'access protection' (blatantly unconstitutional anyway), turning back copyrights to about 10 years or so, and correcting the mistake of permitting corporations of having rights which are reserved for PEOPLE.
Ah yes - Cowboy Bebop is just wonderful. Next disc comes out in a couple weeks...
Since there are 26 episodes and 6 discs they'll probably be broken up like so: 5,4,4,4,4,5. Don't expect 5 episodes on every disc. Though the extras from the Japanese Session 0 will get split onto the various 4 episode discs to make up for it, I hear.
Best news on the net for this kind of thing: www.animeondvd.com.
Now if only Otaku no Video would come out. Or Wings of Honneamise. Or Patlabor 2.
Seamless branching is really neat. On the Abyss SE, there's the theatrical version and the director's cut (which is full of crappy looking 'tv' clips the characters are watching and extra water;)
Since it's already a jumungous movie, the method used to get it all on the disc was more or less this: If the theatrical release has (say) tracks 1,2 and 3, but the director's cut has an extra scene between 2 and 3 it can either play 1,2,3 or 1,2,2.5,3 depending on what version of the movie you want to watch.
Additionally, if there are two versions of 3, it could play 1,2,3 or 1,2,2.5,3a.
Of course, the infamous Apex player tends to choke on the seamless branching. While it's probably fixable, it's just about certain that getting that fixed would result in the secret menu going away. So I can live without seamless branching for now, I hope.
I've heard talk about them, I highly doubt they'd be anything like regular VHS tapes in size, nor would they be particularly compatable.
But the movie companies won't let them go on the market for about the same reason that most DVD recording schemes are incompatable with nearly everything.
IIRC, Apple, TI and maybe one or two other companies _did_ develop firewire. Yours is the first claim I've heard otherwise. Do you have some kind of proof?
Imagine if the director, when making the movie, had shot every scene twice: once in widescreen format and once in 4:3 format.
You should still have a choice of what you want to see, but rather than cutting out parts of the movie to make it fit, the movie has been shot especially _to_ fit.
Bug's Life is good that way, but don't expect this to happen with non-cgi movies.
That's about right. The AARP is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Of course, a lot of this is stupid misdesign of the social programs they like to keep. If they were being responsible, they would lobby for changes that provide for a better system in the long run.
But I don't think that the AARP members are interested in anything in the long run;)
Maybe immortality programs....
Re:Political thought and intellectual philosophy
on
At The Crossroads
·
· Score: 1
God only knows why, but the labels ended up backwards. Probably because the various camps kept their names but changed their attitudes. IIRC left-wing and right-wing are backwards in the US as well.
Liberalism (in general) is permissive. Conservatism (in general) is restrictive; typically trying to maintain the status quo.
Like I said, the labels have gotten reversed. And besides which, in the US we have a Conservative party that's liberal economically and conservative politically and morally, and a Liberal party that's conservative economically and politically (different goals, but they attempt to achieve these goals the same way) and liberal morally.
You'll notice how both have a liberal:conservative ratio of 1:2, which is why I (with a ratio of maybe 2.5:0.5) don't see a big difference.
(in case you're wondering I'm liberal morally, mostly liberal economically save those restrictions needed to preserve an economic system that works for non-jillionares/monopolies, and mostly liberal politically save for those restrictions needed to preserve as many freedoms as possible; anarchy sucks)
At any rate, I think you're being too black-and-white. People can be nice to kids and dogs, and still crush thousands of people to get to the top. I like to trust people to do what's right, but I don't think that it's responsible to not have SOME safety net in place if people grossly abuse this trust. Think of it as a failsafe mechanism, even though emphasis is placed on not needing to use it at all. (which prevents it from being more powerful than it needs to be)
Thus, I walk on the street feeling safe from being killed, but I also like to know that if I am killed the killer is likely to be caught and punished. Relying on my kinfolk to settle scores and maintain feuds has not worked out well, historically.
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Ah, I used to live in Waltham. (before moving to the Left Coast)
;)
In the Boston area, Waltham, Watertown and with some luck West Newton are all pretty good, affordable places to live. Easy to get into the city, though parking is always an issue in Boston. Even when cars are obselete and everyone teleports to work, parking will _still_ be an issue in Boston, for some reason
Quincy is also pretty good, and somewhat easier to get onto the T at (Red line instead of Green line)
To the kid, sure. Maybe even worse. ;)
nice handle.
What's wrong with underground cables? They're a bit more pricey, and harder to fix, but they tend not to get pulled down so much. They were very popular in my part of Florida. (Granted, there are idiots with backhoes, but that doesn't happen all that much)
No. That would imply that there's some US federal government other than that created by the constitution which could agree to it.
The constitution *is* the government, in that it creates the thing out of thin air. Originally it didn't include any rights in it at all, because many of the framers felt that 1) no democratic republic would attempt to infringe on human rights 2) if human rights were ennumerated anything that got left out would be fair game, so it was better to not list any at all.
Fortunately there were enough cynical folks to argue against the first. As for the latter, not only are human rights being attacked all the time (including by corporations, but also by governments and individuals) but indeed, rights that aren't specifically ennumerated tend to get ignored. And the rights we do have, which Congress is prohibited from interfering in in big bold letters also tend to get ignored.
(something similar happened with income taxes - they could have maxed out at 10% of income, but it was feared that if a number were given it would actually get that high. now i pay significantly more than that.)
you must have gone to eBay by mistake - you wanted evilBay.
So what? If someone buys a computer which comes with Windows preloaded, and never agrees to the license they are NOT bound by it. At this point, only standard copyright rules apply.
They can resell it legally. Heck, they can even use it if they can manage to do so without being bound by the license. (a third-party program to finish the installation would work well here)
The license only revokes rights that you automatically have. But buying the machine does not make you accept it. UCITA will change things (for the worse) which is why we have to fight it but no judge nowhere is going to rule that you're bound by a license by opening the box. It's offensive.
The voting system is slightly broken. If I vote, at present, I have to vote for SOMEONE. And depending on your local voting laws, you may only be allowed to vote for some small set of people (e.g. candidates who have a sufficient number of backers already, no write-ins allowed)
This means that the only way to not vote for anyone on the ballot is to not vote at all.
I would be happier if I could make a vote of No Confidence in any candidate on the ballot. The fact that I voted would be on record - the fact that I didn't want to vote for any of them would be as well.
As it stands, I really don't plan to vote for Gore or Bush this year. Maybe Nader, I dunno (I don't like the greens, I do like Nader). But I'm up shit creek with this year's Senate race here. I'll probably skip that one rather than support any of them. What else can I do?
No mistake.
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor at about 1pm EDT 7 Dec '41. The Japanese embassy in Washington delivers a declaration of war to Sec. of State Hull around 2:30pm EDT 7 Dec '41. It was _supposed_ to be there just immediately before the attack, but they had problems.
Of course, we decrypted the communique to the embassy telling them to do this, realized that it would be dawn at Pearl then and tried to warn them in advance, but we had lost radio communications with Pearl and the message didn't get there until noon their time, which was way too late.
The US declared war on Japan on 8 Dec '41.
Germany and Italy declared war on the US on 11 Dec '41.
AFTER that, the US declared war on Germany and Italy.
So as far as who declared war on America first, that's Japan. They lost. And we didn't declare war on the other Axis powers until they had on us, first. They also lost.
So what's the glaring error?
Well smuggling has a proud tradition in America. John Hancock was a notorious smuggler before the Revolutionary War. IIRC the Roosevelt family made their fortune smuggling opium into China in the 19th century (letting the British do the fighting, no less). The Kennedys, as you said were bootleggers during prohibition.
I almost can't wait until we start getting narcotic smugglers running for President. It's practically a given.
And if I have a good idea, mention it to someone and they implement it, have they stolen food from me? I put work into it - I thought about it. There's as much production as another copyrightable work, if I wrote it down. It's not my precise work, but if it's based on mine, couldn't it be derivative?
Thank god, the courts don't yet agree.
Neither do I. People do not have an inherent right to produce things AND PREVENT OTHER PEOPLE FROM COPYING THEM. There are zero, count 'em, zero natural rights for that. In fact, it's clearly opposed to the freedom of speech/press, which lets people say or write any damn fool thing they want.
We have copyrights NOT to give artists a revenue source, but INSTEAD to encourage them to create more stuff, with the POINT being for those works to enter the public domain as quickly as possible while still encouraging the creation of new works, because only when p.d. can they be enjoyed by all, and can everyone fully exercise the rights which God has seen fit to bestow upon us as human beings.
Now I am perfectly happy with copyrights *IN GENERAL*. But modern copyright law is unconstitutional. And there's no other basis. Works of art are not property so far as the information is concerned - only the medium through which it is transmitted. You might own a statue, but you cannot own the shape. You can own a CD but not the music. The definitions of property and of ownership don't permit it.
At best you can prevent other people from copying it if they're going to let other people have the copies while still keeping their own copy, and then only in certain circumstances.
I am an artist. I routinely create art. It's what I do. And I would like nothing more than to see copyrights be shortened to about 10 years, with only the most minimal of extensions possible, with no foolishness like 'access control.' Building in some money from copyright registration (it wouldn't be automatic - it would require the work be published and trivially accessable) to go to supporting public domain art would be good too.
But there's nothing *moral* about copyright. Don't fool yourself.
Fine with me. I'm an American. I seem to recall that the side that declared war first lost. Now then, we'll need some B-25 bombers....
We could protect property much more easily if there were no anonymity and if everyone's movements and monetary transactions were carefully monitored.
We could stamp out nearly all crime by removing any tool that could possibly be used in any way as either a tool to commit some crime or otherwise communicate how to commit a crime.
We could prevent hate speech, terrorism and even more general crime by having the government monitor telecommunications and making it difficult for individuals to communicate over any significant distance without being monitored.
If every person watched every other person and reported their activities to the government we would live in a society with virtually no crime, and not even the opportunity for it to take place.
We would also be living in a nightmarish police state of the highest order, and wishing that we were in a more reasonable place, like the pits of hell.
I would much rather the risk be taken that some small infringements on copyright (it's not even property, for god's sake, it's a monopoly on the distribution of copies of information when there's a significant monetary impact, SOMETIMES) and have much more freedom.
The cornerstone of our government WAS the idea that men can live harmoniously with only the smallest set of right-infringing laws needed to preserve as many other rights as possible. (thus do I lose my freedom to kill people indiscriminately, thus do I gain the security of not being killed, letting me exercise many other rights)
There are always those who have a hatred for freedom; this man hates freedom because it prevents him from fully satisfying his greed. How long are we all going to let him and his ilk reduce freedom to a luxury for the rich and powerful? We are in serious need of political action to take back our rights - eliminating 'access protection' (blatantly unconstitutional anyway), turning back copyrights to about 10 years or so, and correcting the mistake of permitting corporations of having rights which are reserved for PEOPLE.
Having five minutes notice would indeed be good. I can just imagine calling all my friends and telling them to "change the TV to QueenSPAN" ;)
Ah yes - Cowboy Bebop is just wonderful. Next disc comes out in a couple weeks...
Since there are 26 episodes and 6 discs they'll probably be broken up like so: 5,4,4,4,4,5. Don't expect 5 episodes on every disc. Though the extras from the Japanese Session 0 will get split onto the various 4 episode discs to make up for it, I hear.
Best news on the net for this kind of thing: www.animeondvd.com.
Now if only Otaku no Video would come out. Or Wings of Honneamise. Or Patlabor 2.
No, if you give a man the tools to make a buck, he eats for 15 to 30 with time off for good behavior ;)
Heh. The original name of the language is 'Basic' but so many languages are acronyms that it eventually became one too.
Would _you_ want to use a holodeck? People get trapped in them and die on a regular basis. I'll live without them, thanks.
Although the Cocaine Auction Protocol still wins as far as names go ;)
Seriously, I liked the SPP quite a bit, and I'd like to see someone use it.
Seamless branching is really neat. On the Abyss SE, there's the theatrical version and the director's cut (which is full of crappy looking 'tv' clips the characters are watching and extra water ;)
Since it's already a jumungous movie, the method used to get it all on the disc was more or less this: If the theatrical release has (say) tracks 1,2 and 3, but the director's cut has an extra scene between 2 and 3 it can either play 1,2,3 or 1,2,2.5,3 depending on what version of the movie you want to watch.
Additionally, if there are two versions of 3, it could play 1,2,3 or 1,2,2.5,3a.
Of course, the infamous Apex player tends to choke on the seamless branching. While it's probably fixable, it's just about certain that getting that fixed would result in the secret menu going away. So I can live without seamless branching for now, I hope.
I've heard talk about them, I highly doubt they'd be anything like regular VHS tapes in size, nor would they be particularly compatable.
But the movie companies won't let them go on the market for about the same reason that most DVD recording schemes are incompatable with nearly everything.
IIRC, Apple, TI and maybe one or two other companies _did_ develop firewire. Yours is the first claim I've heard otherwise. Do you have some kind of proof?
It's the same idea, BUT it's not nearly as bad.
Imagine if the director, when making the movie, had shot every scene twice: once in widescreen format and once in 4:3 format.
You should still have a choice of what you want to see, but rather than cutting out parts of the movie to make it fit, the movie has been shot especially _to_ fit.
Bug's Life is good that way, but don't expect this to happen with non-cgi movies.
That's about right. The AARP is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Of course, a lot of this is stupid misdesign of the social programs they like to keep. If they were being responsible, they would lobby for changes that provide for a better system in the long run.
;)
But I don't think that the AARP members are interested in anything in the long run
Maybe immortality programs....
God only knows why, but the labels ended up backwards. Probably because the various camps kept their names but changed their attitudes. IIRC left-wing and right-wing are backwards in the US as well.
Liberalism (in general) is permissive. Conservatism (in general) is restrictive; typically trying to maintain the status quo.
Like I said, the labels have gotten reversed. And besides which, in the US we have a Conservative party that's liberal economically and conservative politically and morally, and a Liberal party that's conservative economically and politically (different goals, but they attempt to achieve these goals the same way) and liberal morally.
You'll notice how both have a liberal:conservative ratio of 1:2, which is why I (with a ratio of maybe 2.5:0.5) don't see a big difference.
(in case you're wondering I'm liberal morally, mostly liberal economically save those restrictions needed to preserve an economic system that works for non-jillionares/monopolies, and mostly liberal politically save for those restrictions needed to preserve as many freedoms as possible; anarchy sucks)
At any rate, I think you're being too black-and-white. People can be nice to kids and dogs, and still crush thousands of people to get to the top. I like to trust people to do what's right, but I don't think that it's responsible to not have SOME safety net in place if people grossly abuse this trust. Think of it as a failsafe mechanism, even though emphasis is placed on not needing to use it at all. (which prevents it from being more powerful than it needs to be)
Thus, I walk on the street feeling safe from being killed, but I also like to know that if I am killed the killer is likely to be caught and punished. Relying on my kinfolk to settle scores and maintain feuds has not worked out well, historically.