Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the iPhone purification directives! We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure Appleology! Where each consumer may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths!
Give your uncle Steve a hug. You know you want to.
"after a long string of failed designs (X-30, X-33, X-34, National Launch System, Space Launch Initiative, Orbital Space Plane)."
The conspiracy-theory / Popular-Mechanics / Aviatian Week reader part of me says "yeah right those were 'failed' designs, I bet the USAF is very happy with their new Aurora which they are using to fight the Jupiter moon Martians in their grand alliance against the Zeta Reticulans, or to enforce parking violations in downtown Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Either would be cool".
But then the realist-pessimist part of me says "if it would be cool, it's probably not happening, and the US military-industrial complex probably really has just been building $1000 paperclips for forty years."
"This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space."
I wonder how much space we have to control to "conquer" it? Because there's a lot of it out there.
A million cubic km's? A billion? A cubic parsec? Ten? Fifty should get us most of the local star systems of interest. Probably no Earthlike planets, but a bit of hot gas and a heck of a lot of vacuum.
Mmm... vacuum. What's the going rate for that on the stock market again?
It'll take us quadrillions of dollars and a couple thousand years to even bring back some sterile dust samples from the nearest star but boy will the investment be worth it! Our environment and economy can tick over on the back burner until then, for sure.
Space: Not guaranteed to actually contain Klingons or laser swords.
"The Bill of Rights only guarantees the rights of the People against the Government. There are seperate laws covering what companies may and may not do"
And that's why Outsourcing and Public/Private Partnerships are such wonderful, wonderful things.
"It wasn't me - my Global Executive Human Data Resources Acquisition Outcomes Scalable Solution Deliverance Provider did it! That naughty, naughty private company! O how I shall fire them when my office learns of their scallywag exploits, see if I don't! O what a shame that commercial secrecy forbids the democratic process from ever learning the truth!"
"Or you could do as I do; wait until it's off the air, then buy the series on DVD."
Pretty much what I do, except I rent from the video store rather than buy. There's very few TV serieses I'd want to watch enough times to justify paying several hundreds of dollars for the full DVD set.
"I'm sorry that people making money from non-tangible goods doesn't meet with your approval, but that's the way we've gone as a global society."
People clear-cutting forests and polluting rivers and killing the biosphere to make industrial goods doesn't meet with my approval either, but that's also the way we've gone as a global society.
However, just because it's the way we've gone doesn't mean it's sustainable or moral or leading to a world we want to live in.
"That you would literally attack somebody "
Literally? Like, with a baseball bat? Or brass knuckles?
Ad-hocracies like Wikipedia, extended into the offline world, perhaps? Some kind of collaborative economy? A voluntary economic contract roughly like the GPL which assures some kind of collective property-use freedoms for its members?
Wait until you come home to find your computer has neatly ironed and folded your linen, vacuumed the floor, fed the dog, bathed the cat, baked lasagna, set the table, poured champagne, and has slipped into some sexy lingerie.
"But that is a right to enjoy, not a right to control. For tangible products, which are intrinsically scarce, a right to enjoy demands a right to control, and thus includes a right to control. But the right to control is not fundamental."
Yes! Thank you. This is the clearest articulation of the issue I've read yet.
"Legally, if granted copyright by the government, they are for a given period of time."
Legally yes, but not necessarily morally. It's quite possible that copyright - beign an attempt to control something which by nature is not controllable without doing harm to normal human freedom - is an immoral law.
Which is where things get tricky. Do we follow the law or one's moral instinct to freedom? Especially if our moral instinct also tells us that it's also important to take care of our neighbours and help those who produce artwork and ideas, even if it means restricting our freedom somewhat?
I differ from libertarians in thinking freedom is not THE most important thing in the world - that love is, and freedom is just one of many, sometimes competing, attributes of love. Sometimes what calls itself 'freedom' is just 'the desire to take mine and screw my neighbour', and I don't want to build a political philosophy on that.
Slashdot Mirror
"The movie Brazil would have been better named "UK" because as they say, nobody does bureaucracy like the English "
Well, it wasn't *about* Brazil... so yes. Duh.
"This is pretzel logic at its worst."
Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the iPhone purification directives! We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure Appleology! Where each consumer may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths!
Give your uncle Steve a hug. You know you want to.
YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.
'Vishing', eh? Vot are we going to call 'video phishing'?
Pishing?
Just whatever you do, don't click on brain://vr.fishse.facebook.gov.
"after a long string of failed designs (X-30, X-33, X-34, National Launch System, Space Launch Initiative, Orbital Space Plane)."
The conspiracy-theory / Popular-Mechanics / Aviatian Week reader part of me says "yeah right those were 'failed' designs, I bet the USAF is very happy with their new Aurora which they are using to fight the Jupiter moon Martians in their grand alliance against the Zeta Reticulans, or to enforce parking violations in downtown Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Either would be cool".
But then the realist-pessimist part of me says "if it would be cool, it's probably not happening, and the US military-industrial complex probably really has just been building $1000 paperclips for forty years."
""Space is a frontier for our great-grandchildren to consider"
We will always have the poor."
And that's why we have to fling the poor into a hyperbolic escape trajectory.
It's for science!
"This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space."
I wonder how much space we have to control to "conquer" it? Because there's a lot of it out there.
A million cubic km's? A billion? A cubic parsec? Ten? Fifty should get us most of the local star systems of interest. Probably no Earthlike planets, but a bit of hot gas and a heck of a lot of vacuum.
Mmm... vacuum. What's the going rate for that on the stock market again?
It'll take us quadrillions of dollars and a couple thousand years to even bring back some sterile dust samples from the nearest star but boy will the investment be worth it! Our environment and economy can tick over on the back burner until then, for sure.
Space: Not guaranteed to actually contain Klingons or laser swords.
You say that now, but you haven't met her yet...
"I can see James Bond trying to thwart assassination by a twitter-controlled mass launching of individual cells' home-made GPS-guided RPGs."
Coffee, dinner, movie, chocolates... and BOOM! Twitter-controlled fem-rocket-bot!
@blofeld: wtf u camper she was my date
"Helicopter-Soccer Mom"
That's sorta like polo, but with helicopters? Rock!
"What does he carry with Li-Ion batteries?"
A Lisp machine, of course. Because the Li-Ion shall lay down with the lambda.
"The sheeple..."
(Why is it always sheeple? Not horsple, or cowple, or chickple or llample? Echidnple? Chinchipple? Meerkatple? Rhinocerple? Hippopotaple?)
"The Bill of Rights only guarantees the rights of the People against the Government. There are seperate laws covering what companies may and may not do"
And that's why Outsourcing and Public/Private Partnerships are such wonderful, wonderful things.
"It wasn't me - my Global Executive Human Data Resources Acquisition Outcomes Scalable Solution Deliverance Provider did it! That naughty, naughty private company! O how I shall fire them when my office learns of their scallywag exploits, see if I don't! O what a shame that commercial secrecy forbids the democratic process from ever learning the truth!"
"an inability to provide feedback is a good way to kill moral in an organization."
It's probably a better way to kill *morale*.
The best way to kill morals (while raising morale) is 150 proof Everclear.
Exactly. Halloween shouldn't be a scary thing. It's been *made* that.
More of an American Start Menu, the number of books he's launched.
"and Sarkozy has his own personal guru, who sends him positive waves every day"
Guru, Google, they both send waves...
"Or you could do as I do; wait until it's off the air, then buy the series on DVD."
Pretty much what I do, except I rent from the video store rather than buy. There's very few TV serieses I'd want to watch enough times to justify paying several hundreds of dollars for the full DVD set.
"I'm sorry that people making money from non-tangible goods doesn't meet with your approval, but that's the way we've gone as a global society."
People clear-cutting forests and polluting rivers and killing the biosphere to make industrial goods doesn't meet with my approval either, but that's also the way we've gone as a global society.
However, just because it's the way we've gone doesn't mean it's sustainable or moral or leading to a world we want to live in.
"That you would literally attack somebody "
Literally? Like, with a baseball bat? Or brass knuckles?
Words have meanings, you know.
"Before the Fed there were no "large" boom and bust cycles, there were much smaller "corrections" of the market."
Mmm, tulips.
Ad-hocracies like Wikipedia, extended into the offline world, perhaps? Some kind of collaborative economy? A voluntary economic contract roughly like the GPL which assures some kind of collective property-use freedoms for its members?
I'd start looking in that bottom-up direction.
It almost seems like we could use LLVM for that nowadays. Hmm.
"See... that's just creepy to me."
Wait until you come home to find your computer has neatly ironed and folded your linen, vacuumed the floor, fed the dog, bathed the cat, baked lasagna, set the table, poured champagne, and has slipped into some sexy lingerie.
Sometimes an interface can be TOO user-friendly.
"But that is a right to enjoy, not a right to control. For tangible products, which are intrinsically scarce, a right to enjoy demands a right to control, and thus includes a right to control. But the right to control is not fundamental."
Yes! Thank you. This is the clearest articulation of the issue I've read yet.
"Legally, if granted copyright by the government, they are for a given period of time."
Legally yes, but not necessarily morally. It's quite possible that copyright - beign an attempt to control something which by nature is not controllable without doing harm to normal human freedom - is an immoral law.
Which is where things get tricky. Do we follow the law or one's moral instinct to freedom? Especially if our moral instinct also tells us that it's also important to take care of our neighbours and help those who produce artwork and ideas, even if it means restricting our freedom somewhat?
I differ from libertarians in thinking freedom is not THE most important thing in the world - that love is, and freedom is just one of many, sometimes competing, attributes of love. Sometimes what calls itself 'freedom' is just 'the desire to take mine and screw my neighbour', and I don't want to build a political philosophy on that.