I realise it's not a good idea to expect everybody to read all the bills. We don't even expect congresspeople to read all the bills.
"Either we pick people to decide all the issues, or we decide all the issues diretcly" is a false dichotomy. It's possible to imagine a solution in between.
For instance, it could be a rule that the signatures of some percentage of voters forces a referendum on any issue. Once decided, the issue is out of the hands of politicians. I'm not necessarily recommending precisely that, but you get the idea.
We choose candidates largely based on where they stand on issues, so we're already making up our minds about some of the big issues: Do you want us all to pay for healthcare for everyone? Do you support capital punishment? Do the people have the right to ban areas of scientific research? Should art be publicly funded through grants? I imagine you already know the answer to these questions.
The tyranny of the masses is really orthogonal to this. Representative democracy produced the sodomy laws that make criminals of homosexuals.
How do we make sure our political system does good? That's begging the question.
Current political systems are flawed. So is any alternative, but they might still be better, so it's worth dreaming them up and evaluating them.
They should run elections just by listing all issues candidates mention, but don't list the candidates.
Good idea, but why not go all the way and just allow voting on the issues directly?
The thing I really hate about current democratic systems is that you're always voting for a person (or worse, a group of people). You have to pick the person whose stand is closest to yours on a range of issues. Unless you're using one of the candidates as the source of your opinions, you're unlikely to find a candidate that wants the all the same things as you do.
So let's say you're anti-X and anti-Y, and all the candidates are pro-X, anti-Y or anti-X, pro-Y. You're forced to either support something you don't believe in, or not vote. And even after you vote for the pro-X candidate (because you don't want to suffer these assholes who think you've no right to complain if you don't vote), you have no guarantee they'll actually deliver on what they promised.
The system we have today for discovering and enforcing the will of the people is...suboptimal.
Are there any better methods available? I know we won't get a perfect solution to a problem this complex, but surely we can do better.
EULAs are sometimes displayed in an editable text box. Once, I made some alterations before agreeing (actually I think those were terms and conditions on a web site, rather than an EULA on software).
I guess you can alter your GUI toolkit to make all text boxes editable. Then you can do this all the time.
...if you have permission to mess with your GUI toolkit, that is:-)
I signed up in order to donate a few bucks to Wikipedia when they solicited donations for a backup server.
When you first sign up with a credit card, they don't know if you're using a stolen card so they invented this clever scheme of determining whether you're the real card holder. They charge the card two bucks, and you check your statement and see a charge from "PAYPAL XXXX", where XXXX is a 4 digit code. You tell them the code to prove you received the statement. Neat huh? Yeah, well, I only got three digits.
I tried using the three digits alone or suffixing or prefixing a 0, no dice. Support didn't (or pretended not to) understand the problem. I spent two bucks and got nothing in return. Instead of sponsoring Wikipedia, I effectively sponsored PayPal.
Another possibly frustrating issue is that since Nautilus imposes the condition that only one window will represent any given folder, when digging into deep directories, your desktop is quickly cluttered with multiple windows. This is alleviated by
double-clicking the middle mouse button or holding down the Shift key while clicking on the folder.
Is this a fucking joke? A shiny new Nautilus comes out, and its most original user interaction "advancement" is the introduction of the DOUBLE-MIDDLE-CLICK?!
Wait a minute. Isn't this what the judge said last time?
Why, yes it is:
SCO has not complied with the court's first order issued on Dec. 12, 2003, to "provide and identify specific lines of code that IBM has alleged to have contributed to Linux or Dynix." SCO had been ordered to provide these lines of code within 30 days (by Jan. 12, 2004) but did not do so. In a separate hearing on the matter held Feb. 6, SCO was able to convince the court that it is proceeding in good faith, and the court lifted its 30-day discovery stay.
As a result of this newest court order, SCO now has another 45 days, or until April 17, to produce the disputed lines of code and explain them clearly to the court.
I wonder which will come first, the end of SCO vs. IBM or the release of Half-Life 2.
Computer/car analogies are often misleading. What you're saying sounds convincing, but ignores the fact that when software has to be patched for security, it's not because the software broke, but because the software was broken from the start. If you buy a defective product, the standard in other industries is that you're entitled to a remedy -- or at least you're entitled to be upset.
I still don't remember reading a good explanation of why Firebird-the-database was any reason not to have a Firebird-the-browser. Browser. Database. Database. Browser. I'm not the least bit confused myself.
Microsoft has asserted that the patent was invalid due to preexisting inventions, but the court refused to let the jury consider the "prior art," or comparable previous technology.
I'm hoping this is just bad reporting, but if the patent office is granting dubious patents and letting the courts sort them out, perhaps somebody should tell the courts to actually do that.
The problem with having clients read warped, fuzzy, splotchy characters to prove they're human and not a script is that being human ain't all that special.
What you do is you have your script take the splotchy image and show it to some freaking moron who signed up to make $$$$ with their computer and they tell you what it says and your script relays the information back to the service you're requesting from. In fact, why not do the whole thing from the moron's computer? Sure, the moron doesn't get payed a lot for this, but that's OK, because they know the real money comes from building their downline!
You should be aware that some of us say "Legos" even though we're fully aware of the arguments against doing so. We just don't buy the argument.
When a word is imported from another language, it's perfectly OK to modify its forms to fit the target language's conventions.
There are benefits to this. It keeps your language more consistent. It means you don't have to learn the inflection rules of as many languages. You don't have to learn the etymology of the words you're using to decide if it's even appropriate to apply those rules.
To me, "a lego" is a Lego piece (they're not all bricks) . The plural is "legos". Nevermind that "a lego" doesn't exist in Danish and can't be pluralized on those grounds. This is English.
Similarly, to me, "a virus" is an entity that uses a host to do its replication for it. The plural is "viruses". Nevermind that in the source language (Greek? Latin? Why should I have to know? This is English), "virus" (like "air") is not a count noun and can't be pluralized on those grounds.
Both "viruses" and "Legos" are perfectly OK. Curiously, the/. nitpickers, as a group, seem to like one and not the other.
Slashdot Mirror
I realise it's not a good idea to expect everybody to read all the bills. We don't even expect congresspeople to read all the bills.
"Either we pick people to decide all the issues, or we decide all the issues diretcly" is a false dichotomy. It's possible to imagine a solution in between.
For instance, it could be a rule that the signatures of some percentage of voters forces a referendum on any issue. Once decided, the issue is out of the hands of politicians. I'm not necessarily recommending precisely that, but you get the idea.
We choose candidates largely based on where they stand on issues, so we're already making up our minds about some of the big issues: Do you want us all to pay for healthcare for everyone? Do you support capital punishment? Do the people have the right to ban areas of scientific research? Should art be publicly funded through grants? I imagine you already know the answer to these questions.
The tyranny of the masses is really orthogonal to this. Representative democracy produced the sodomy laws that make criminals of homosexuals.
How do we make sure our political system does good? That's begging the question.
Current political systems are flawed. So is any alternative, but they might still be better, so it's worth dreaming them up and evaluating them.
Good idea, but why not go all the way and just allow voting on the issues directly?
The thing I really hate about current democratic systems is that you're always voting for a person (or worse, a group of people). You have to pick the person whose stand is closest to yours on a range of issues. Unless you're using one of the candidates as the source of your opinions, you're unlikely to find a candidate that wants the all the same things as you do.
So let's say you're anti-X and anti-Y, and all the candidates are pro-X, anti-Y or anti-X, pro-Y. You're forced to either support something you don't believe in, or not vote. And even after you vote for the pro-X candidate (because you don't want to suffer these assholes who think you've no right to complain if you don't vote), you have no guarantee they'll actually deliver on what they promised.
The system we have today for discovering and enforcing the will of the people is ...suboptimal.
Are there any better methods available? I know we won't get a perfect solution to a problem this complex, but surely we can do better.
As someone who just watched Enterprise s01e22, "Vox Sola", I have to say: YES!
Actually, it's my second :-)
So, no need to read the article, then?
I guess you can alter your GUI toolkit to make all text boxes editable. Then you can do this all the time.
...as people start waving their phones without having a firm hold on them, and end up just hurling them at walls, roads, lakes, ...people's heads.
I'll stick to Bill the belching gourmet, thank you.
Moreso than the regular cannibalism, you mean?
I signed up in order to donate a few bucks to Wikipedia when they solicited donations for a backup server.
When you first sign up with a credit card, they don't know if you're using a stolen card so they invented this clever scheme of determining whether you're the real card holder. They charge the card two bucks, and you check your statement and see a charge from "PAYPAL XXXX", where XXXX is a 4 digit code. You tell them the code to prove you received the statement. Neat huh? Yeah, well, I only got three digits.
I tried using the three digits alone or suffixing or prefixing a 0, no dice. Support didn't (or pretended not to) understand the problem. I spent two bucks and got nothing in return. Instead of sponsoring Wikipedia, I effectively sponsored PayPal.
Has this happened to anybody else?
Uhh, how?
Is this a fucking joke? A shiny new Nautilus comes out, and its most original user interaction "advancement" is the introduction of the DOUBLE-MIDDLE-CLICK?!
Alright, I'll ask. What is on the top-ten-diseases-to-have list?
Why, yes it is:
I wonder which will come first, the end of SCO vs. IBM or the release of Half-Life 2.
You can optimize "cat /dev/null > foo" down to ">foo".
Computer/car analogies are often misleading. What you're saying sounds convincing, but ignores the fact that when software has to be patched for security, it's not because the software broke, but because the software was broken from the start. If you buy a defective product, the standard in other industries is that you're entitled to a remedy -- or at least you're entitled to be upset.
if you view the source on a Windows box and run Windows Update.
I still don't remember reading a good explanation of why Firebird-the-database was any reason not to have a Firebird-the-browser. Browser. Database. Database. Browser. I'm not the least bit confused myself.
I'm hoping this is just bad reporting, but if the patent office is granting dubious patents and letting the courts sort them out, perhaps somebody should tell the courts to actually do that.
Or just use real server authentication. You know, like we already have with ssl.
Damn, I missed the porn angle.
What you do is you have your script take the splotchy image and show it to some freaking moron who signed up to make $$$$ with their computer and they tell you what it says and your script relays the information back to the service you're requesting from. In fact, why not do the whole thing from the moron's computer? Sure, the moron doesn't get payed a lot for this, but that's OK, because they know the real money comes from building their downline!
It's serial parking that's hard.
When a word is imported from another language, it's perfectly OK to modify its forms to fit the target language's conventions.
There are benefits to this. It keeps your language more consistent. It means you don't have to learn the inflection rules of as many languages. You don't have to learn the etymology of the words you're using to decide if it's even appropriate to apply those rules.
To me, "a lego" is a Lego piece (they're not all bricks) . The plural is "legos". Nevermind that "a lego" doesn't exist in Danish and can't be pluralized on those grounds. This is English.
Similarly, to me, "a virus" is an entity that uses a host to do its replication for it. The plural is "viruses". Nevermind that in the source language (Greek? Latin? Why should I have to know? This is English), "virus" (like "air") is not a count noun and can't be pluralized on those grounds.
Both "viruses" and "Legos" are perfectly OK. Curiously, the /. nitpickers, as a group, seem to like one and not the other.
Uh, yeah. That's why Eclipse itself is such a snappy, responsive product.