Elderly people, and others with visual deficits, often cannot use the screen at a resolution higher than 800x600, regardless of the size of their monitor. Unfortunately most websites are built by people with young eyes, who think 1600x1200 is perfectly usable, and who think Arial at -3 is a great font size, because then you can put the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica on a single webpage!
But even if that were not the case -- when lines get too long, text gets harder for most people to read. A window width of about 800 pixels is the max that's easily readable, and then only with default-sized text. The smaller your font, the narrower the text needs to be, otherwise it fatigues the eye.
I second that. Almost any site that does money manipulation (banking, bill pay, stocks, taxes, etc.) is so heavy that if you're constrained to dialup, they're unusable. And a great deal more of the U.S. is stuck on dialup than the geek community would like to believe. And not just rural hinterlands either -- there are still chunks of *Los Angeles* where all you can get is dialup.
A few sites, like TaxActOnline.com, have recently ditched all the useless marketing graphics, which helps... but they're the exception, not the rule.
I'm less than 50 miles from L.A., and I was FINALLY able to get broadband (and I have a choice of ONE provider) less than two years ago. And even in that brief span, I've noticed that thanks to site bloat, for most "modern" websites my 1.5Mbit connection is *functionally* no faster than was my sorry old 26k dialup. Pages are still taking up to a minute or so to finish loading everything, much of which is the site calling remote servers (not just for ads, either) and running scripts.
Another problem is that sites aren't "cleaned up" when they're revamped. Some just comment out all the retired code, rather than removing it. Aside from the bloat, isn't that a potential security problem??
Txiasaeia says, "I've got a penny laying around here someplace. Given that most credit card companies charge merchants money for each credit card transaction (~$0.50 or so), Metallica would be paying for me to download their CD. That sounds about right."
The above post got modded troll, but that's actually an interesting idea, as a method of financially punishing an artist who attempts to sell kark.
Presumably shopping carts can be set up to reject offers that result in a deficit, but it would sure inform the artist that "Hey dude, an awful lot of your fans think this album sucks, AND care enough to tell you so in unmistakable financial terms. Better rethink the direction your music is headed!"
I never cared for 'em so haven't really paid attention, but... I'm wondering how a timeline of "Metallica considered good" would line up with "Metallica being assholes about filesharing". That is, did their poor attitude coincide with a drop in the quality of their music??
Only thing Bowie (a smart guy all around) got wrong was that you WOULD still be able to sell music -- you just have to package it right, and pick your price points correctly. The recent NIN experiment proved that beyond all doubt.
It's 15% NOW -- but until a few years ago, the CG tax was 38%. And certain parties in favour of "taxing the rich" want to put it back at 38%. Trouble is, CG tax (which is applied as a flat tax) assumes anyone who can afford an investment is rich and can therefore afford to lose a goodly chunk of it -- but the truth is there are a LOT of non-rich small investors like myself, who will bear a disproportionate brunt of a CG tax increase.
You don't think high capital gains taxes hurt middle class folks, just because they're not part of the top 10% or 1% or whatever?? Well, how about a personal example:
I'm in the lowest 10% of income, but thanks to some wise (and then very small) investments 35 years ago, I own $200k worth of stocks. Maybe enough to retire on IF I got to keep most or all of that. But at 38% capital gains tax, when I go to use my retirement fund, it is instantly reduced to $124k, which is definitely NOT enough to retire on.
I am VERY typical of the average *middle class* investor (which are a bigger chunk of the investment market than you'd expect), and this is VERY typical of how high capital gains taxes most hurt people who can least afford it.
I don't know *exactly* what the stats are; the stats I've seen over the years have run to about half. However, the figure doubtless can be stretched either direction, depending on what percentage of "the wealthiest people" you include -- 1%? 2%? 5%? For tax-impact purposes, it probably makes sense to consider around $100k/year income as the point below which a high capital gains tax becomes disproportionately painful.
The parent post said (paraphrased) "1/3rd is in the hands of the wealthiest 1%" which left 2/3rds in the hands of the rest of us. The actual number doesn't matter as much as the point I'm trying to make, tho, which is that a high flat tax on capital gains MOST hurts those who can LEAST afford it, and who are least likely to have any other significant retirement cushion.
The inverse is this: One of the problems with the historically-high capital gains tax, is that 2/3rds of the investment shares are held by middle-class folks, NOT by the very rich. But capital gains taxes have been historically been a "flat tax", meaning that the middle class pay a disproportionately high tax, compared to their total income and assets.
38% of a million bucks worth of shares is not nearly as painful as 38% of $100k worth (a typical middle-class investment, for those who will *need* it as a retirement fund), which after that level of capital gains taxes, is no longer sufficient to retire on.
But the real point was -- if there are no actual children involved (as with written fiction, hentai, etc.) WHY is that a crime? Written or cartoon kiddie porn is FICTION. Yet possessing it is a crime, prosecuted just as zealously as that involving photographs of real kids.
So -- explain to me how possession of FICTION is NOT a thoughtcrime?? What makes it a crime, other than a law which fails to distinguish fantasy from reality??
One might dismiss it as just part of the general decline in violent crimes (per other gov't stats) except that both of the two significant drops correlate exactly with the rise of easy access via first BBS and later Internet.
I made that very point (tho not in such fine detail:) in another post. And yep, it won't matter one bit that it's just a silly fantasy.
There's a video game where you get to play the JFK assassin. One has to wonder if merely *possessing* a copy of this game could be construed as a crime.
I had not heard of that concept before today, but I'd like to see it tested. Would we get a more thoughtful police force, or would it suffer from the same problem that juries do? As someone once put it, a jury is "12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty".
And what about the concept of Jury Nullification? Could these "jury-style police" likewise refuse to enforce stupid laws?
Very interesting to consider, anyway.
Hmm. Maybe we should do the same for politicians -- at the very least, it would get rid of the problem of career politicians and campaign bri^H^H^H contributions!
If you look at the FBI's crime stats, there are two timepoints where the rate of rape and sexual assault drops significantly:
The first is in the late 1980s -- concurrent with the rise of BBSs, which for the first time let anyone with a phoneline and a modem download porn, with somewhat better anonymity than you got from your plain-brown-wrapper subscription magazines.
The second, much larger drop is in the mid/late-1990s -- concurrent with the internet becoming ubiquitous. Now anyone with a modem and a phone line could get all the porn they wanted, with complete anonymity.
One can conclude that thanks to the internet, now anyone who has issues with getting his rocks off can do it in the privacy of his own bedroom, thus feels less psychological pressure to go HUNT for whatever turns him on. In short, if you can rape a fantasy woman at home, it reduces the "need" to go rape a real woman out on the street (and better yet, fantasy rape at home is free of risks like being maced or arrested).
I suggest you test this theory by writing down a fantasy involving sex with a child, then next time you see a cop, casually mention that you wrote it.
Consider that CARTOON kiddie porn (involving no real children whatever) is illegal as well. So be sure to tell your cop friend about the drawings you made of little girls in just their underwear, too.
Certain it is. Wanting to see kiddie porn is a crime. Wanting to kill the President of the U.S. is a crime. Don't think so? trot down to your local cop shop and express a desire to see their confiscated kiddie porn. Walk past the White House and yell "I'm gonna kill Bush". See what happens. Doesn't matter if you'd ever ACTUALLY do it; you need only CLAIM that you want to do it.
I'm wondering how a member of the KKK got into the police force in the first place. Aren't they supposed to do better background checks on trainee candidates than that??
But considering some of the crap I've personally seen cops do (lie on a deposition, threaten to arrest someone if they don't shut up, actually arrest someone for sitting on a public curb after dark) I've little reason to trust whatever screening processes are in place. It may well be that (despite a few good apples) cops are just like politicians: anyone who WANTS to be one is automatically suspect.
The law also covers cartoons. It doesn't matter if any real children are involved or not.
Explain to me how this is not thought-crime??
And as a poster above points out, once it's acceptable (or worse, desireable) to prosecute one type of thought-crime -- ANY concept someone disapproves of can become thought-crime, despite NO actual harm being done to any person or property.
Remember that in some countries, merely *discussing* or *reading about* foreign forms of government is a capital offense.
As an 1800s newspaperman once said, "Some of them have but one redeeming feature, and that is a colossal gall."
Consider how different things would be if whenever the gov't wanted money, they had to come begging, hat in hand, rather than simply demanding and taking it as they presently do. Any highwayman can do that much -- and would probably spend it more rationally as well.:/
How'd I put it last week? Something like "Taking from one: theft. Taking from many: taxes."
I think you're right... for anything below a Fortune 100 contract, they run the numbers re whether there's a likelihood that the purchaser will argue about it, vs. the probable lifespan of the product, conclude "sucks to be you" and do as they please, whether that's legal or not:(
However, isn't there something in law that prohibits the seller *intentionally* breaking faith with the customer? Occurs to me that's an avenue to pursue, and through the criminal courts, not the lawyer-profiting civil courts.
My brain hurts... would this also apply to software that requires online activation?? that is, would the vendor be required to maintain the activation servers for 35 years?
Interesting to me, because you know damn well they DON'T intend to do any such thing.
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Elderly people, and others with visual deficits, often cannot use the screen at a resolution higher than 800x600, regardless of the size of their monitor. Unfortunately most websites are built by people with young eyes, who think 1600x1200 is perfectly usable, and who think Arial at -3 is a great font size, because then you can put the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica on a single webpage!
But even if that were not the case -- when lines get too long, text gets harder for most people to read. A window width of about 800 pixels is the max that's easily readable, and then only with default-sized text. The smaller your font, the narrower the text needs to be, otherwise it fatigues the eye.
I second that. Almost any site that does money manipulation (banking, bill pay, stocks, taxes, etc.) is so heavy that if you're constrained to dialup, they're unusable. And a great deal more of the U.S. is stuck on dialup than the geek community would like to believe. And not just rural hinterlands either -- there are still chunks of *Los Angeles* where all you can get is dialup.
A few sites, like TaxActOnline.com, have recently ditched all the useless marketing graphics, which helps... but they're the exception, not the rule.
I'm less than 50 miles from L.A., and I was FINALLY able to get broadband (and I have a choice of ONE provider) less than two years ago. And even in that brief span, I've noticed that thanks to site bloat, for most "modern" websites my 1.5Mbit connection is *functionally* no faster than was my sorry old 26k dialup. Pages are still taking up to a minute or so to finish loading everything, much of which is the site calling remote servers (not just for ads, either) and running scripts.
Another problem is that sites aren't "cleaned up" when they're revamped. Some just comment out all the retired code, rather than removing it. Aside from the bloat, isn't that a potential security problem??
Txiasaeia says, "I've got a penny laying around here someplace. Given that most credit card companies charge merchants money for each credit card transaction (~$0.50 or so), Metallica would be paying for me to download their CD. That sounds about right."
The above post got modded troll, but that's actually an interesting idea, as a method of financially punishing an artist who attempts to sell kark.
Presumably shopping carts can be set up to reject offers that result in a deficit, but it would sure inform the artist that "Hey dude, an awful lot of your fans think this album sucks, AND care enough to tell you so in unmistakable financial terms. Better rethink the direction your music is headed!"
I never cared for 'em so haven't really paid attention, but... I'm wondering how a timeline of "Metallica considered good" would line up with "Metallica being assholes about filesharing". That is, did their poor attitude coincide with a drop in the quality of their music??
Only thing Bowie (a smart guy all around) got wrong was that you WOULD still be able to sell music -- you just have to package it right, and pick your price points correctly. The recent NIN experiment proved that beyond all doubt.
It's 15% NOW -- but until a few years ago, the CG tax was 38%. And certain parties in favour of "taxing the rich" want to put it back at 38%. Trouble is, CG tax (which is applied as a flat tax) assumes anyone who can afford an investment is rich and can therefore afford to lose a goodly chunk of it -- but the truth is there are a LOT of non-rich small investors like myself, who will bear a disproportionate brunt of a CG tax increase.
You don't think high capital gains taxes hurt middle class folks, just because they're not part of the top 10% or 1% or whatever?? Well, how about a personal example:
I'm in the lowest 10% of income, but thanks to some wise (and then very small) investments 35 years ago, I own $200k worth of stocks. Maybe enough to retire on IF I got to keep most or all of that. But at 38% capital gains tax, when I go to use my retirement fund, it is instantly reduced to $124k, which is definitely NOT enough to retire on.
I am VERY typical of the average *middle class* investor (which are a bigger chunk of the investment market than you'd expect), and this is VERY typical of how high capital gains taxes most hurt people who can least afford it.
I don't know *exactly* what the stats are; the stats I've seen over the years have run to about half. However, the figure doubtless can be stretched either direction, depending on what percentage of "the wealthiest people" you include -- 1%? 2%? 5%? For tax-impact purposes, it probably makes sense to consider around $100k/year income as the point below which a high capital gains tax becomes disproportionately painful.
The parent post said (paraphrased) "1/3rd is in the hands of the wealthiest 1%" which left 2/3rds in the hands of the rest of us. The actual number doesn't matter as much as the point I'm trying to make, tho, which is that a high flat tax on capital gains MOST hurts those who can LEAST afford it, and who are least likely to have any other significant retirement cushion.
The inverse is this: One of the problems with the historically-high capital gains tax, is that 2/3rds of the investment shares are held by middle-class folks, NOT by the very rich. But capital gains taxes have been historically been a "flat tax", meaning that the middle class pay a disproportionately high tax, compared to their total income and assets.
38% of a million bucks worth of shares is not nearly as painful as 38% of $100k worth (a typical middle-class investment, for those who will *need* it as a retirement fund), which after that level of capital gains taxes, is no longer sufficient to retire on.
But the real point was -- if there are no actual children involved (as with written fiction, hentai, etc.) WHY is that a crime? Written or cartoon kiddie porn is FICTION. Yet possessing it is a crime, prosecuted just as zealously as that involving photographs of real kids.
So -- explain to me how possession of FICTION is NOT a thoughtcrime?? What makes it a crime, other than a law which fails to distinguish fantasy from reality??
According to the government's own stats, yes.
One might dismiss it as just part of the general decline in violent crimes (per other gov't stats) except that both of the two significant drops correlate exactly with the rise of easy access via first BBS and later Internet.
I made that very point (tho not in such fine detail :) in another post. And yep, it won't matter one bit that it's just a silly fantasy.
There's a video game where you get to play the JFK assassin. One has to wonder if merely *possessing* a copy of this game could be construed as a crime.
True, but if you were a highwayman, would you make more money by robbing the rich or by robbing the poor?
I had not heard of that concept before today, but I'd like to see it tested. Would we get a more thoughtful police force, or would it suffer from the same problem that juries do? As someone once put it, a jury is "12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty".
And what about the concept of Jury Nullification? Could these "jury-style police" likewise refuse to enforce stupid laws?
Very interesting to consider, anyway.
Hmm. Maybe we should do the same for politicians -- at the very least, it would get rid of the problem of career politicians and campaign bri^H^H^H contributions!
Also fails to note that 90% of the ice is already below sea level; ie. it is already PART of the ocean, merely in solid rather than liquid form.
If you look at the FBI's crime stats, there are two timepoints where the rate of rape and sexual assault drops significantly:
The first is in the late 1980s -- concurrent with the rise of BBSs, which for the first time let anyone with a phoneline and a modem download porn, with somewhat better anonymity than you got from your plain-brown-wrapper subscription magazines.
The second, much larger drop is in the mid/late-1990s -- concurrent with the internet becoming ubiquitous. Now anyone with a modem and a phone line could get all the porn they wanted, with complete anonymity.
One can conclude that thanks to the internet, now anyone who has issues with getting his rocks off can do it in the privacy of his own bedroom, thus feels less psychological pressure to go HUNT for whatever turns him on. In short, if you can rape a fantasy woman at home, it reduces the "need" to go rape a real woman out on the street (and better yet, fantasy rape at home is free of risks like being maced or arrested).
I suggest you test this theory by writing down a fantasy involving sex with a child, then next time you see a cop, casually mention that you wrote it.
Consider that CARTOON kiddie porn (involving no real children whatever) is illegal as well. So be sure to tell your cop friend about the drawings you made of little girls in just their underwear, too.
Certain it is. Wanting to see kiddie porn is a crime. Wanting to kill the President of the U.S. is a crime. Don't think so? trot down to your local cop shop and express a desire to see their confiscated kiddie porn. Walk past the White House and yell "I'm gonna kill Bush". See what happens. Doesn't matter if you'd ever ACTUALLY do it; you need only CLAIM that you want to do it.
I'm wondering how a member of the KKK got into the police force in the first place. Aren't they supposed to do better background checks on trainee candidates than that??
But considering some of the crap I've personally seen cops do (lie on a deposition, threaten to arrest someone if they don't shut up, actually arrest someone for sitting on a public curb after dark) I've little reason to trust whatever screening processes are in place. It may well be that (despite a few good apples) cops are just like politicians: anyone who WANTS to be one is automatically suspect.
And since when does a budding tyrant want you to have the knowledge to prevent his rise to power?
Tyranny isn't just lining dissidents up against the wall and shooting them, ya know.
The law also covers cartoons. It doesn't matter if any real children are involved or not.
Explain to me how this is not thought-crime??
And as a poster above points out, once it's acceptable (or worse, desireable) to prosecute one type of thought-crime -- ANY concept someone disapproves of can become thought-crime, despite NO actual harm being done to any person or property.
Remember that in some countries, merely *discussing* or *reading about* foreign forms of government is a capital offense.
As an 1800s newspaperman once said, "Some of them have but one redeeming feature, and that is a colossal gall."
:/
Consider how different things would be if whenever the gov't wanted money, they had to come begging, hat in hand, rather than simply demanding and taking it as they presently do. Any highwayman can do that much -- and would probably spend it more rationally as well.
How'd I put it last week? Something like "Taking from one: theft. Taking from many: taxes."
I believe you are confusing animal rights with animal welfare.
http://www.animalwelfarecouncil.com/html/aw/rights.php
I think you're right... for anything below a Fortune 100 contract, they run the numbers re whether there's a likelihood that the purchaser will argue about it, vs. the probable lifespan of the product, conclude "sucks to be you" and do as they please, whether that's legal or not :(
However, isn't there something in law that prohibits the seller *intentionally* breaking faith with the customer? Occurs to me that's an avenue to pursue, and through the criminal courts, not the lawyer-profiting civil courts.
My brain hurts ... would this also apply to software that requires online activation?? that is, would the vendor be required to maintain the activation servers for 35 years?
Interesting to me, because you know damn well they DON'T intend to do any such thing.