I think it's more a matter of degree. While many of us here on slashdot might joke that we are "addicted" to gaming, we probably aren't.
Ask yourself:
Would I be willing to forego work to play, even if I might get fired?
Do you regularly skip sleeping to play?
Do you regularyly skip meals to play?
Do you avoid other activities, because they would keep you from playing for an extended time?
Most of us might think we could say yes to a few of these, but consider the word "regularly" carefully. Do you play every night so late that you don't get 4 to 6 hours of sleep, eventually reaching the point of exhaustion? Sure, skipping meals or eating them at a computer may occur during binges, but do you miss dinner every night or take it every night in front of the game?
Addiction isn't a matter of doing something on a semi-frequent basis, which is where most slashdotters fall with gaming. Addiction is doing something to the point where your entire life revolves around an activity.
All entertainment is escapism. We turn to games, movies, TV, books, etc. as a way to escape the drudgery of real life. Like all forms of recreation it can be taken to an extreme and become destructive. Fact is, just about any activity can be taken to an extreme. Even working can occur at a level which causes disruptions to sleep and health. Does this make an activity "bad"? No, it just means that we need some level of self control to prevent problems. Is a 12 step program the answer? Well, as long as you are willing to forego free-will, then yes it's a great idea. Of course, if you have a problem with becomming addicted to stuff, you don't have much free-will anyway, so you might as well.
Managers are not always good at communicating what this strategy is to their engineers... please forgive management for not including you in their long term strategic planning and goal setting discussions.
And here in lies part of the problem with current employee/management relationships, in tech areas. Generally speaking, in order for the tech people to make a system plan, they need to know where the business wants them to go. For example, if the business is expecting to start a business portal, the system plan will probably need to include a large webserver/webfarm with a good database backend, depending on expected traffic. If all the business is intending for a web presence is an advertsing web site, with some basic promotional information/contests, the traffic may not be as much and the webserver could be pared down, and the DB server/farm not quite the monster it would be for a large business portal.
Communication with all parts of the business are needed. Yes, you probably don't need your tech staff sitting in on planning meetings, but having someone who is familiar with technology, and your current system, in on planning meetings would be a good idea. If nothing else, they can provide a reality check to some of the near and mid term goals, and provide some valuable input on long term goals.
On the other side of the coin, computer people need to start learning a bit of the business side of things. It's great that you can configure a 1000 user LAN, on an OpenLDAP server, using Domino authenticating against the LDAP database for email and information mangement. But if, when a manager asks you about it, you can't put it in terms they will understand, you are not as useful as you think. That "business-speak" that is often bemoaned is simply a set of accepted terms that is understood by business people. In much the same way as programmers speak to each other in a specific set of terms, business people do the same. And, like the programming terms, it is not meant to obfuscate things, no matter how it sounds to an outsider, it is simply specific terms with defined meanings, which make communications eaiser between those who understand them.
IT/engineering and management must work together to create a successful business. If the two sides are fighting each other, and are unable to communicate, the business is doomed. This has to come from both sides. Management needs to keep the tech people in the loop, or the tech people will often go the wrong direction. And the tech people need to learn to communicate thier ideas and problems to management in an effective way.
There seems to be one glaring problem with the idea of ransomware:
Eventually you're gonna piss off the wrong person.
Imagine the DoD or the CIA getting hit with this. They lookup the registar of the sites you are supposed to buy the drugs from. They then go visit that registar's main office (borders, what borders? we're the CIA, we've never paid attention to soviernty in the past.). They politely ask the registar to hand over all information on the person paying for the domain name (for the definition of polite which involves pointing guns at and kicking people in the head). Once they know who is paying for the web sites (credit info/check info), they visit that person and politely ask for the password to unlock the virus (same definition of polite).
If it's the DoD which gets hit, replace CIA with a Navy SEAL team.
I had noticed tha Madlib too. While Jack Thompson may be a nanny state tool, he's not really dumb. He's realized two truths in US lawmaking.
1. If at first you don't succeed try, try, try, try, try and try again. Then try some more. Eventually, something will stick.
2. If you're having trouble getting something passed, just parrot existing, accepted legislation.
The only thing we can hope for is that Jack will die of a massive heart attack or some such, before he gets something to stick.
It's the tool of the devil!
You see, anything which involves a transfer of money, without the government getting a cut must be inspired by Satan. If WA state could figure out a good way to tax this, you can bet it would be legal (just don't place that bet online from Washington:)
Video games are not a sport. If it doesn't involve getting your ass out of a chair and actually moving something other than your wrists, you're gonna have to work pretty hard to call it a sport.
And why are we looking at this sort of thing? Most videogames are terminally boring to watch someone play. If we're going to add somehting to the Adlympics, let's at least pick a sport which has been around for a while and has some real recognition and respect. I still want to know why we don't have Sumo as an event.
So in 3-5 years, when MS "jumps the gun" again what will Sony do? the video game console market runs about a 3-5 year cycle. This is caused by a combination of manufacturers trying to churn the market and consumers desire to have shiny new stuff. To assume that Sony will stick to it's claimed 10+ years is just silly. They will claim that now to get you to sell a kidney for the PS3, and they will claim it again in 3-5 years to get you to sell the other one for the PS4.
Not sure that this will be resonded to, but a couple questions hit me as I read through this (I haven't hit the main site, it sounds like it was slashdotted enough):
The Pirate Party only has three issues on its agenda:
And how do you intend to deal with other issues? While it's nice to say that you only have three items on your agenda, other issues will come up. Do you intend to abstain on any other issue? If nothing else, you should work with your members and community to try and come up with answers to a diverse range of issues, so that you have some sort of answer when a person asks you about something.
We also want a complete ban on DRM technologies
This seems at odds with the idea of the "free flow of information". While DRM technology can and has been used for bad purposes, the technology and area of research can have valid purposes. For example, to protect personal private information. There will always be a need to expose personal information to companies and government to complete certain transactions. By using DRM technologies on such information it would provide an eaiser way to track and control the use of such information. Moreover, this seems like the first step in a slippery slope. Do you really want a government body mandating what areas of technology are valid and which ones are not? Do you want to have to pass any program you wish to distribute by a licensing body, who has the power to accept or reject technology as valid? That body would become the first target of attack by companies wishing to either kill competition, or hold back innovation. While it is distasteful to accept such technology as valid, it is easier to allow any technology to be researched and used; and then just allow anyone to also release a crack for such technology. If everyone is free to take technology in any direction, there is no worry about the direction being controlled in a bad way.
Other than those items, sounds like you're doing stuff that needs doing and I wish you the best of luck. Once the American Wall finally falls around us here in the states, it would be nice to know that somewhere on the other side there is a place that hasn't devolved into a police state.
I'm guessing that this is one of those "lost in traslation" issues. Just at a guess, the first point probably has more to do with patents on ideas and business methods. Along with the software patents the US has been getting. The second point is almost certainly about personally identifiable information. The two are very different.
They've aleady got you beat on this one. Campuses are starting to remove soda mahcines and anything tasty from school menues.
I weep for the US, it had a good run, but we have managed to rise to decadence and are now working our way to imploding. I expect that we'll go the way of Rome in the next 200 years, we have an economic empire and are running out of areas to conquer, implosion can't be too far off.
I wonder if a parent could go after the school administrators for stalking their children online. Once the kid leaves the school, he is no longer under the authority of that school, so any school administrator monitoring that child's online actvities does seem to fall in line with stalking.
I expect that it will be more in line with A Brave New World. There is no need for oppressive covert survielence and authoritarian control. The people will hand the government power on a plate, if it will allow them to be less responsible. Heck, with Prozac, and the like we pretty much have the Soma requirement from ABNW nailed. The schools have been in place for a long enough time, now all we need to do is centralize breeding and we're set.
I'm actually hopeful for Nintendo this time around. Another small part of the problem with the GC was that there were still some of us sore over the N64. I bought the N64 about a week after it came out, I had rented one and Mario 64 at the time and loved it. After Mario 64 wore out, there wasn't a whole lot left that interested me. I ended up with 3 or 4 games for the system, and felt like I had been taken for a ride. When the GC came out I looked at the games and had a "meh" reaction, and went with the PS2 instead.
With the Wii, it at least looks like there might be some good games out for it at launch. And with the PS3 requiring sale of a kidney on the black market, I'm seriously considering that the Wii will be a good choice. If the virtual console stuff works right, I'll be really happy.
The "Wii" name is still stupid.
As with most of life's problems, this one will go away if we just wait long enough.
In 20 years or so, those of us who grew up with video games will be in our 40-50's and in control of most things. The people who grew up in the mists of the dark ages will either be dead or pretty darn close to it. Once that happens we can all agree that video games are not evil and insted work on preventing the corruption of children by whatever new evil has come about by then.
I have to agree on the slash thing. It would be nice for people to know this one, especially if you are doing any sort of phone support. I've just started saying "blah blah - backslash, the one without the question mark on the key... blah blah" Most of my users seem to get this and it has cut down on the number of errors where I tell people to use "domain backlash username" when accessing OWA.
You are unlikely to have dual-7800 Ultra cards running SLI with an AMD X2 with Cool-N-Quiet, and Raid 0 in a laptop.
And if you are using that to beta test an OS, you are just as stupid as the author for using a newer laptop. A beta OS usually won't have a lot of specialized driver support, often because the hardware manufacturers haven't gotten around to it yet. Instead of complaining about driver support in a beta OS, you should try to make sure that your testing rig has hardware that is supported by the current beta OS set of drivers, or that the hardware manufacturer has drivers out for the beta OS.
Also, on the question of desktop vs. laptop for testing. At least when testing with a desktop, if one piece of hardware isn't working right, it is trivial to change it out for a similar product from a different manufacturer. with a laptop it's usually an all or nothing proposition.
I often get it at sites that get pissy about not being able to set a cookie. They will go into an infinite redirect loop and eventually hit the redirection limit. Usuaully I can just allow the cookie for the session and it will work fine.
an energy storage medium instead of an energy source
No shit. Repeat after me: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed only changed.
Congratulations, you have just learned the First Law of Thermodynamics in its most basic form. In any transportation system there is going to be a need to have energy at the location of transport, usually this means that the transport vehicle must carry it's energy source with it. As a result you need some sort of storage medium. Currently we use gasoline or diesel, which has the advantage of having been created by long dead plants soaking up solar energy. We also expend quite a bit of energy finding, collecting, refining and transporting the stuff to the point of distribution (the gas/petrol station). The downside of petrolium based fules is the wastes they generate. When you burn a hydrocarbon you end up with 2 things, ideally: Cabon Dioxide and Water. In practice you also get lots of other fun stuff Nitrogen Oxides and unburned Hydrocarbons.
Hydrogen is not a paneca to our enegry consumption, it is; however, a pretty good and fairly clean storage medium. When hydrogen burns it generates water. We will probably get some trace stuff as well, but nothing on the order of the crap that a gasoline engine dumps out. It may also not be as economical as gasoline, at first, but this may change over time as we adjust to it.
The point about disposal of the storage balls is a very good question and one that will need to be answered before this goes too far. Now, at a scale of 1-200 microns (from the patent) this is around the same size as some of the smaller quartz sand grains, which our bodies are designed to deal with. Given that the balls in the article are glass, it is likely that they will be similar in compisition to quartz, so I'm not too worried about toxicity, but with the balls being smooth, our bodies may react differently to them.
The article also comes off as insincere fearmongering about the explosive danger of hydrogen. 35 of 97 people died on the Hindenburg -- mostly from jumping.
Also, the hydrogen in the Hindenburg had little to do with it's demise. Hydrogen burns quickly, the bladder and (flammible) paint on the other hand produces the nice, long lasting flames seen in the images of the Hindenburg. On top of that Hydrogen dissipates very quickly in the atmosphere, getting it to explode is fairly difficult, usually requiring keeping it under preassure until ignition. Fact is transporting gasoline, as we do, is far more likely to cause a problem. With gasoline, if it becomes dispersed in the atmosphere, it becomes very explosive. Ever hear of a fuel-air explosion? The military has weapons that do just this for a reason, it's very effective.
It actually works quite well, as long as the people are paying attention. This assumption has failed miserably. On the other hand, that was to be expected. Evenatully, the people will get tired of watching their government, they will become rich and decadent and no longer understand the dangers of government run amok. They will loosen their grip on power, and slowly hand it over to the government. There will always be those that oppose such, but they can be religated to the fringe and safely ignored. In the end the government will be able to establish a de facto oligarcy, which pays lip service to the will of the people. Welcome to Rome circa right before Cesar took over.
What I would love to see is, how does this sort of thing line up with their Oath of Office. Assumably it follows the whole "uphold the constitution" line from the US Constitution's oaths. Now, if I swear to uphold and defend the Constitution and then vote for a measure that I believe directly contravenes that Constitution am I not breaking my Oath?
Slashdot Mirror
Ask yourself:
- Would I be willing to forego work to play, even if I might get fired?
- Do you regularly skip sleeping to play?
- Do you regularyly skip meals to play?
- Do you avoid other activities, because they would keep you from playing for an extended time?
Most of us might think we could say yes to a few of these, but consider the word "regularly" carefully. Do you play every night so late that you don't get 4 to 6 hours of sleep, eventually reaching the point of exhaustion? Sure, skipping meals or eating them at a computer may occur during binges, but do you miss dinner every night or take it every night in front of the game?Addiction isn't a matter of doing something on a semi-frequent basis, which is where most slashdotters fall with gaming. Addiction is doing something to the point where your entire life revolves around an activity.
All entertainment is escapism. We turn to games, movies, TV, books, etc. as a way to escape the drudgery of real life. Like all forms of recreation it can be taken to an extreme and become destructive. Fact is, just about any activity can be taken to an extreme. Even working can occur at a level which causes disruptions to sleep and health. Does this make an activity "bad"? No, it just means that we need some level of self control to prevent problems. Is a 12 step program the answer? Well, as long as you are willing to forego free-will, then yes it's a great idea. Of course, if you have a problem with becomming addicted to stuff, you don't have much free-will anyway, so you might as well.
Ok, granted there is always the euphamisms and BS that get used in any field. There are still useful terms inside each lexicon.
Managers are not always good at communicating what this strategy is to their engineers ... please forgive management for not including you in their long term strategic planning and goal setting discussions.
And here in lies part of the problem with current employee/management relationships, in tech areas. Generally speaking, in order for the tech people to make a system plan, they need to know where the business wants them to go. For example, if the business is expecting to start a business portal, the system plan will probably need to include a large webserver/webfarm with a good database backend, depending on expected traffic. If all the business is intending for a web presence is an advertsing web site, with some basic promotional information/contests, the traffic may not be as much and the webserver could be pared down, and the DB server/farm not quite the monster it would be for a large business portal.
Communication with all parts of the business are needed. Yes, you probably don't need your tech staff sitting in on planning meetings, but having someone who is familiar with technology, and your current system, in on planning meetings would be a good idea. If nothing else, they can provide a reality check to some of the near and mid term goals, and provide some valuable input on long term goals.
On the other side of the coin, computer people need to start learning a bit of the business side of things. It's great that you can configure a 1000 user LAN, on an OpenLDAP server, using Domino authenticating against the LDAP database for email and information mangement. But if, when a manager asks you about it, you can't put it in terms they will understand, you are not as useful as you think. That "business-speak" that is often bemoaned is simply a set of accepted terms that is understood by business people. In much the same way as programmers speak to each other in a specific set of terms, business people do the same. And, like the programming terms, it is not meant to obfuscate things, no matter how it sounds to an outsider, it is simply specific terms with defined meanings, which make communications eaiser between those who understand them.
IT/engineering and management must work together to create a successful business. If the two sides are fighting each other, and are unable to communicate, the business is doomed. This has to come from both sides. Management needs to keep the tech people in the loop, or the tech people will often go the wrong direction. And the tech people need to learn to communicate thier ideas and problems to management in an effective way.
There seems to be one glaring problem with the idea of ransomware:
Eventually you're gonna piss off the wrong person.
Imagine the DoD or the CIA getting hit with this. They lookup the registar of the sites you are supposed to buy the drugs from. They then go visit that registar's main office (borders, what borders? we're the CIA, we've never paid attention to soviernty in the past.). They politely ask the registar to hand over all information on the person paying for the domain name (for the definition of polite which involves pointing guns at and kicking people in the head). Once they know who is paying for the web sites (credit info/check info), they visit that person and politely ask for the password to unlock the virus (same definition of polite).
If it's the DoD which gets hit, replace CIA with a Navy SEAL team.
I had noticed tha Madlib too. While Jack Thompson may be a nanny state tool, he's not really dumb. He's realized two truths in US lawmaking.
1. If at first you don't succeed try, try, try, try, try and try again. Then try some more. Eventually, something will stick.
2. If you're having trouble getting something passed, just parrot existing, accepted legislation.
The only thing we can hope for is that Jack will die of a massive heart attack or some such, before he gets something to stick.
It's the tool of the devil! :)
You see, anything which involves a transfer of money, without the government getting a cut must be inspired by Satan. If WA state could figure out a good way to tax this, you can bet it would be legal (just don't place that bet online from Washington
Video games are not a sport. If it doesn't involve getting your ass out of a chair and actually moving something other than your wrists, you're gonna have to work pretty hard to call it a sport.
And why are we looking at this sort of thing? Most videogames are terminally boring to watch someone play. If we're going to add somehting to the Adlympics, let's at least pick a sport which has been around for a while and has some real recognition and respect. I still want to know why we don't have Sumo as an event.
So in 3-5 years, when MS "jumps the gun" again what will Sony do? the video game console market runs about a 3-5 year cycle. This is caused by a combination of manufacturers trying to churn the market and consumers desire to have shiny new stuff. To assume that Sony will stick to it's claimed 10+ years is just silly. They will claim that now to get you to sell a kidney for the PS3, and they will claim it again in 3-5 years to get you to sell the other one for the PS4.
Not sure that this will be resonded to, but a couple questions hit me as I read through this (I haven't hit the main site, it sounds like it was slashdotted enough):
The Pirate Party only has three issues on its agenda:
And how do you intend to deal with other issues? While it's nice to say that you only have three items on your agenda, other issues will come up. Do you intend to abstain on any other issue? If nothing else, you should work with your members and community to try and come up with answers to a diverse range of issues, so that you have some sort of answer when a person asks you about something.
We also want a complete ban on DRM technologies
This seems at odds with the idea of the "free flow of information". While DRM technology can and has been used for bad purposes, the technology and area of research can have valid purposes. For example, to protect personal private information. There will always be a need to expose personal information to companies and government to complete certain transactions. By using DRM technologies on such information it would provide an eaiser way to track and control the use of such information. Moreover, this seems like the first step in a slippery slope. Do you really want a government body mandating what areas of technology are valid and which ones are not? Do you want to have to pass any program you wish to distribute by a licensing body, who has the power to accept or reject technology as valid? That body would become the first target of attack by companies wishing to either kill competition, or hold back innovation. While it is distasteful to accept such technology as valid, it is easier to allow any technology to be researched and used; and then just allow anyone to also release a crack for such technology. If everyone is free to take technology in any direction, there is no worry about the direction being controlled in a bad way.
Other than those items, sounds like you're doing stuff that needs doing and I wish you the best of luck. Once the American Wall finally falls around us here in the states, it would be nice to know that somewhere on the other side there is a place that hasn't devolved into a police state.
I'm guessing that this is one of those "lost in traslation" issues. Just at a guess, the first point probably has more to do with patents on ideas and business methods. Along with the software patents the US has been getting. The second point is almost certainly about personally identifiable information. The two are very different.
Na, 1.6% of readers were just dicking with the poll.
NO "junk food"
They've aleady got you beat on this one. Campuses are starting to remove soda mahcines and anything tasty from school menues.
I weep for the US, it had a good run, but we have managed to rise to decadence and are now working our way to imploding. I expect that we'll go the way of Rome in the next 200 years, we have an economic empire and are running out of areas to conquer, implosion can't be too far off.
I wonder if a parent could go after the school administrators for stalking their children online. Once the kid leaves the school, he is no longer under the authority of that school, so any school administrator monitoring that child's online actvities does seem to fall in line with stalking.
I expect that it will be more in line with A Brave New World. There is no need for oppressive covert survielence and authoritarian control. The people will hand the government power on a plate, if it will allow them to be less responsible. Heck, with Prozac, and the like we pretty much have the Soma requirement from ABNW nailed. The schools have been in place for a long enough time, now all we need to do is centralize breeding and we're set.
I'm actually hopeful for Nintendo this time around. Another small part of the problem with the GC was that there were still some of us sore over the N64. I bought the N64 about a week after it came out, I had rented one and Mario 64 at the time and loved it. After Mario 64 wore out, there wasn't a whole lot left that interested me. I ended up with 3 or 4 games for the system, and felt like I had been taken for a ride. When the GC came out I looked at the games and had a "meh" reaction, and went with the PS2 instead.
With the Wii, it at least looks like there might be some good games out for it at launch. And with the PS3 requiring sale of a kidney on the black market, I'm seriously considering that the Wii will be a good choice. If the virtual console stuff works right, I'll be really happy.
The "Wii" name is still stupid.
Yeah, like Apple. And Apple sure is hurting these days....
Na, I'm sure they have gotten used to the pain of only having a 3% market share.
As with most of life's problems, this one will go away if we just wait long enough.
In 20 years or so, those of us who grew up with video games will be in our 40-50's and in control of most things. The people who grew up in the mists of the dark ages will either be dead or pretty darn close to it. Once that happens we can all agree that video games are not evil and insted work on preventing the corruption of children by whatever new evil has come about by then.
I have to agree on the slash thing. It would be nice for people to know this one, especially if you are doing any sort of phone support. I've just started saying "blah blah - backslash, the one without the question mark on the key ... blah blah" Most of my users seem to get this and it has cut down on the number of errors where I tell people to use "domain backlash username" when accessing OWA.
how to implement the largest-scale failure in the history of Betamax^W ... Mini-Disc^W ... video games.
As they say "practice makes perfect". Sony really seems to have their own foot squarly in their sights.
You are unlikely to have dual-7800 Ultra cards running SLI with an AMD X2 with Cool-N-Quiet, and Raid 0 in a laptop.
And if you are using that to beta test an OS, you are just as stupid as the author for using a newer laptop. A beta OS usually won't have a lot of specialized driver support, often because the hardware manufacturers haven't gotten around to it yet. Instead of complaining about driver support in a beta OS, you should try to make sure that your testing rig has hardware that is supported by the current beta OS set of drivers, or that the hardware manufacturer has drivers out for the beta OS.
Also, on the question of desktop vs. laptop for testing. At least when testing with a desktop, if one piece of hardware isn't working right, it is trivial to change it out for a similar product from a different manufacturer. with a laptop it's usually an all or nothing proposition.
I often get it at sites that get pissy about not being able to set a cookie. They will go into an infinite redirect loop and eventually hit the redirection limit. Usuaully I can just allow the cookie for the session and it will work fine.
an energy storage medium instead of an energy source
No shit. Repeat after me: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed only changed.
Congratulations, you have just learned the First Law of Thermodynamics in its most basic form. In any transportation system there is going to be a need to have energy at the location of transport, usually this means that the transport vehicle must carry it's energy source with it. As a result you need some sort of storage medium. Currently we use gasoline or diesel, which has the advantage of having been created by long dead plants soaking up solar energy. We also expend quite a bit of energy finding, collecting, refining and transporting the stuff to the point of distribution (the gas/petrol station). The downside of petrolium based fules is the wastes they generate. When you burn a hydrocarbon you end up with 2 things, ideally: Cabon Dioxide and Water. In practice you also get lots of other fun stuff Nitrogen Oxides and unburned Hydrocarbons.
Hydrogen is not a paneca to our enegry consumption, it is; however, a pretty good and fairly clean storage medium. When hydrogen burns it generates water. We will probably get some trace stuff as well, but nothing on the order of the crap that a gasoline engine dumps out. It may also not be as economical as gasoline, at first, but this may change over time as we adjust to it.
The point about disposal of the storage balls is a very good question and one that will need to be answered before this goes too far. Now, at a scale of 1-200 microns (from the patent) this is around the same size as some of the smaller quartz sand grains, which our bodies are designed to deal with. Given that the balls in the article are glass, it is likely that they will be similar in compisition to quartz, so I'm not too worried about toxicity, but with the balls being smooth, our bodies may react differently to them.
The article also comes off as insincere fearmongering about the explosive danger of hydrogen. 35 of 97 people died on the Hindenburg -- mostly from jumping.
Also, the hydrogen in the Hindenburg had little to do with it's demise. Hydrogen burns quickly, the bladder and (flammible) paint on the other hand produces the nice, long lasting flames seen in the images of the Hindenburg. On top of that Hydrogen dissipates very quickly in the atmosphere, getting it to explode is fairly difficult, usually requiring keeping it under preassure until ignition. Fact is transporting gasoline, as we do, is far more likely to cause a problem. With gasoline, if it becomes dispersed in the atmosphere, it becomes very explosive. Ever hear of a fuel-air explosion? The military has weapons that do just this for a reason, it's very effective.
It actually works quite well, as long as the people are paying attention. This assumption has failed miserably. On the other hand, that was to be expected. Evenatully, the people will get tired of watching their government, they will become rich and decadent and no longer understand the dangers of government run amok. They will loosen their grip on power, and slowly hand it over to the government. There will always be those that oppose such, but they can be religated to the fringe and safely ignored. In the end the government will be able to establish a de facto oligarcy, which pays lip service to the will of the people. Welcome to Rome circa right before Cesar took over.
What I would love to see is, how does this sort of thing line up with their Oath of Office. Assumably it follows the whole "uphold the constitution" line from the US Constitution's oaths. Now, if I swear to uphold and defend the Constitution and then vote for a measure that I believe directly contravenes that Constitution am I not breaking my Oath?