The packet switched network has been, and in my opinion works best as, "Best Effort" routing. If a line gets congested, packets get dropped regardless of source, destination, or content. Lost packets are spread out over all users of the link so that no one service is unduely impacted.
This means maximum effort can be placed on line utilization, while remaining completely content neutral. It's also good for sales, because if you want to gurantee your throughput, you have to pay for a bigger pipe.
On a LAN, QoS is far more practical and avoids crushing critical services during a broadcast storm (for instance). But if your WAN link is saturated to the point that you have to worry about QoS, you have a utilization management problem, for which QoS will act merely as a mask to hide the underlying problems that never get solved.
There is also the question of what you mean by "Meaningful". Meaningful to whom? To you? To me?
Do you really want to grant the power to determine content to every service provider in your data path, so as to make sure someone elses voice traffic gets priority over your Napster downloads? And if they "monitor" for quality assurance? Can't complain, they're just providing the service you asked for.
I like to use the comparison of "dumb network smart hosts" and "smart network dumb hosts". QoS invests smarts into the network equipment to make up for deficiencies in the hosts, and I consider this a very BadThing(tm) indeed. It ties your network equipment to single vendors or single protocols, as the recent example of Cisco routers crashing because of the CodeRed virus showed there are very real dangers in adding "services" to the network infrastructure. It forces your network to be adapted to changes in particular host technology, also.
When the network is dumb and the hosts smart, the hosts deal with retransmission of lost packets, which at human interaction speeds like voice is very easy, the hosts deal with interoperability of protocols and styles, and best of all the hosts can be added/dropped/changed at will without the network equipment requiring any reconfiguration at all.
Yeah, "Meaningful" QoS would be nice, but for me "Meaningful" would be not to spend the money that a dozen single-source super-routers with QoS would cost, instead spending it on fast and simple network hardware and much faster inter-router circuits.
You go ahead and juggle QoS on your 90% utilized T1, and I'll do best effort on my 10Gigabit fiber link.
The radical conservatives who cannot "allow" a species to die off are the abarations. A species ceasing to exist is a perfectly natural act. The strong survive, the weak perish, and this is just as true for species as it is for individuals.
If the Condor cannot adapt to its environment, cloning or captive breeding are not going to improve the situation. Released birds will still fail to breed.
This story is of a healthy birth. Woopie, get over it.
Go back 500 years (if you can) and follow the population of the Condor. I would not be surprised if their populations were decreasing long before industrial humans were in the area.
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
Gee, exclusive ownership through "legal privilege", command of supply, or cercerted action.
Microsoft does not own Linux, only Windows. Microsoft has a monopoly on *Windows*. That is an exclusive ownership they have every right to exercise, since they wrote it.
The fact that it is perfectly legal and easily doable for you to buy a computer without MSWin is why Microsoft does not have a monopoly.
A predatory monopoly only continues if it has government backing, such as a "national oil company" or what AT&T was in the US, or if it produces a better product than anyone else.
Whether you like it or not, Microsoft produced a better consumer operating system than anyone else for a few years. That is how they became big.
By abusing that market position, and alienating people, they are now losing mind share. Not market share, not yet.
The turning point was the Microsoft rebate drive.
Microsoft's further alienation of their potential markets, with their BSA hired thugs, has led to such marvelous developments as Red Flag Linux! Good bye, possible 1 Billion users!
The writer was not making a distinction between the services being purchased from RedHat, and the price of the software itself.
She wondered about "large scale licensing issues" and "patent infringement", neither of which are issues at all.
"Free" software, like air, does not eliminate the costs involved with its use. You still have to pump up your own tires, or pay the cost of a compressor, but the air is still "free".
The real bonus is that there is no catch, no hidden costs, and no BSA. I made sure to point this out in my letter to the editor of Forbes. I hope they read it.
So let me get this straight, you're interviewing for a Computer Science faculty position, and you're surprised that they don't use a Microsoft product?
No wonder I found "school" to be such a complete waste of time.
Bob-
"Tabilize".... Or just use plain text.
on
Linux Tuning Tricks?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I agree that wide tables are annoying, but HTML viewers (and printers) nicely re-wrap plain text to fit.
Sooooo much easier than tables is just to use preformatted text.
Just a side comment from someone who has always written his web page in vi.
Governments plant mines. Why isn't anyone prosecuting the ones who gave the orders? They are known individuals, politicians and generals.
But no, we're stuck cleaning up their messes, and getting blamed ("technology caused this") by some for their decisions. "This technology is too dangerous!" Bogus.
There just isn't enough personal responsibility in the world, these thugs get away with murder daily.
I think the efforts to prosecute moron spammers are great things. I loath spam, and I look forward to its passing the same way I wait for trucks with loudspeakers blaring to pass.
I know Washington state chose to pass another split-hair law defining "spam" as illegal, rather than just use the same laws that keep Jehovas Witnesses, door to door salesmen, and other such things out of your way. I consider my email server to be exactly like my front porch: If you are there when I have explicitly stated you are not welcome, you are guilty of trespassing.
People I don't know can still come to my door and get my attention, but if I say "go away" and they don't, or if they then come back, such actions have been prosecutable for a thousand years.
Anyway, Gambatte! To make money, spammers have to provide some form of actual contact information. The sender or the one being advertized, or both, deserve to be slapped back.
Never appologise for your age. You'll find that peoples aparent "written" age has nothing to do with their years since being born.
Photons are sometimes released when an electron drops from a more excited state to a lower state or "shell".
It could be that the lead atoms "absorb" the laser pulse energy by having some electrons energy level raised. The "pulse" of the laser is echoed by the time it takes for the electrons to rise, then fall and release their energy.
This would not require ionization, or a sonic echo as someone else suggested, but there is no reason to believe that any hypothisis is wrong until it is demonstrated to be false or the "real" answer proven. Or it may be an interaction of all those effects at once.
So relax, Nyphur, and voice your ideas. It's the only way anyone really learns.
Since it's clear we mostly agree, I still wish to point out a difference between how we aproach the problem: The traditions of the common law which are the root of both copyright and fair use need to be extended to include the new tech.
There is nothing about the new technology that changes the rights of private property. Copyright was never about "limited resources", since ideas have always been able to be copied without loss of detail. The "Pirates of Penzance" that Gilbert and Sullivan were raging about were software pirates who were copying and reselling their music.
The underlying technology only changes how easy or hard it is to copy, it doesn't change the principles of property.
Keep up the good fight, I'll see you around the campfire some time.
I believe it's Washington state, but anywhere recently a very popular term limit statute was thrown out. It had passed by voter ballot, and let sit for a couple of years before the politicians (who were about to be rotated out) brought a suit to have the law overturned.
The court where it was brought said "Yep. You win."
Like magic: No more term limits. Maybe a google search will bring up articles on the event.
It's too bad that tar and feathers have gone out of style, those politicians deserve such treatment in spades!
It's clear you really don't know why laws are passed. They are passed in order for politicians to get re-elected. Since the bigest single factor in being re-elected is getting the most MONEY, most new laws are passed in order to pay off or inspire more contributions from wealthy businesses or labor unions.
Since I explicitly point out "fair use" as a good thing, and "fair use" is expressly beneficial for the little guy, I do not see how you can consider me somehow favoring the big guys.
I think copyright is a sham, as it is enforced now. It was designed to be a limited thing, not an eternal thing. Again, the abuse is seen in the new laws, which have extended copyright to absurd lengths which stifle competition and crush new ideas. If it were all thrown out tomorrow I'd be thrilled.
The only book burning party I'd joyfully attend is a lawbook burning party.
I suggest you examine closer the arguments you're engaging in, so you don't argue against phantoms of your own creation. I have done this myself, sad to say, so I know how hard it is.
And yes indeed I've gleefully partisipated in the "underground" economy in various ways, and will do so again at any opportunity. Fan subtitled Anime is an old and noble tradition, to name one.
Attack the real root of the problem: Politicians and bureaucrats are IN DEMAND for the power they wield.
The corruption of power is not just the addiction to personal gratification that individuals get from being powerful, it's also the astonishing amounts of money that flow into the hands of those same individuals.
Here are two very serious hints: Paid corporate lobyists, and millionare representitives.
So-called "campaign finance reform" will only ever favor the incumbant. Under the new rules, while their opponents and anyone who disagrees with the incumbants is muzzled, the politician in power gets to publish continually from their "office" about their daily successes in bringing home the pork.
Imagine that, for a moment. Can you?
Money flows into politics because there is something to be bought. Remove that power, and the money will go elsewhere. Jefferson walked from his inauguration party back to his rented room. Why? Because he as President didn't have any power anyone wanted to buy.
How do new laws help? There are already a dozen different ways to murder someone, with a dozen times that of "circumstances", each representing different statutes. And that is just one single type of crime among thousands. The fact that the "law" requires entire libraries to house it is obscene in the extreme. Ignorance of the law may not be a defense, but you demonstrate that it is the common condition.
Intellectual Property in "America" was settled over a hundred years ago, with a combination of copyright and fair use. My profitable use of your ideas is limited by copyright, your ability to restrict my non-profitable use (such as education, archive or critique) is also limited.
How does this NOT apply to "new technology"? Was public showing for profit somehow "legal" when using a VCR instead of a film projector? Is copying by hand illegal, but machine copying legal? As long as I use the latest and greatest technology and the laws haven't specifically covered it yet, may I reprint your books with my name on them and be safe from prosecution?
The call for new laws is a cry for someone else to solve your problems for you. Every way for a person to injure or trespass on someone else has been "illegal" for thousands of years. It is a sorry mind indeed who cannot see past having everything outlined in perfect detail for them by their master.
The only valid negative moderation is "offtopic". Everthing else is a matter of opinion.
The parent here makes a very valid and sane argument, far more realistic than most legal briefs that depend on the minutia of statutes for rationalizations.
The so-called "moderator" who rated the parent as a "troll" should be publicly rebuked. Too bad we'll never know who it was.
Actually, I do insist that licensing car drivers is wrong, because it's another moral decision. It assumes that people will cause harm first.
In America, 40,000+ people die because of tested and licensed drivers every year. The argument for licensure of driving is specious, demonstrably false, and continues only because people are too stupid to imagine a world different from what they are already accustomed to.
BTW, if the owner of a road wishes to verify that each driver has liability insurance before they may use their road, I couldn't agree more. It's their road, they own it, they get to choose. If I don't like it, I can choose not to use their road. Taxes give me no such choice.
Laws of prohibition are morality force on everyone at gun point. Just because you happen to agree with the prohibition does not change that fact.
Strange, every one of your arguments is a religious one. Each and every one depends on some kind of implied damage, without actual damage being done. This is normal for someone who believes in censorship.
What? You say you're not a censor? But you just pointed out how there is information you don't want other people to have. Seems remarkably egotistical to believe that you are better able to decide what is or is not "worthy" information. To prohibit, you must already know the information. What kept the keepers of the Index from being corrupted by information too dangerous for anyone to know? Nothing at all. That is why powerful central government is so evil. Power corrupts.
And those awful twisted creature created in your imagination and in the movies? Again you fail to consider individual responsibility. If I create such a creature, by genetic manipulation or by hitting someone with a baseball bat, it remains my responsibility to deal with the reprocussions of that action. Simple liability, another field of "law" that has been thoroughly fleshed out for centuries.
But on the one single valid point you have: The abuse of someone elses DNA. That's so simple I'm surprised it hasn't already occurred to you: Defend your personal "copyright". Prosecute someone who copies your pattern without your consent.
Not only don't you need a new law, all the previous precidents for plagiaism, invasion of privacy, and the like apply.
Thank you for reminding me of this particular argument, it's been a while since I saw anyone post it.
Unlike the people stupid enough to vote for Democans and Republocrats, in whos piss I have to wade through every day with their taxes, and their regulations of my private life.
The trick is to notice that it doesn't matter which of the two parties is in power, they both grow the power and intrusiveness of government. They both lie about respecting your "freedom" while stabbing you in the back.
I would much rather piss away my "vote" and not give them the satisfaction of throwing it away for me.
I'm sorry I never took a picture of the Cray 2 that was upstairs. There was a very pretty fountain designed to give a visual indication that the coolent was in fact circulating.
If you were lucky, you could see a little bubble rise off the circuit boards.
Of course, the Connection Machine over next to the Cyber was more flashy, with 64K little red LED's flashing all the time...
Like this: Social animals like Humans constantly compromise on physical matters in order to get along with others. We stop at stop signs, make room on the side walk, lift our feet out of the way of running children.
When someone violates the social standard, deliberately or ignorantly annoying people around them, they are shunned by that society.
If someone goes further and deliberately or neglegently causes harm, they are prosecuted for that harm according to the standards of the society. This is codified in the "common law" countries as "trial by jury."
The "common law" requires that in order for someone to be punished, there must be a demonstration of harm caused, of damage done.
However, "regulation" and laws of morality require no such thing. One is guilty for the "crime" for simple posession of an object or substance. One is guilty of a "crime" for investigation or disemination of certain kinds of information, the definition of which is based solely on the whim of the political masters.
History is riddled by attempts to get Eve to put the apple back by prosecuting consensual acts. Replace by the apropriate myth for your cultural background.
It would please me very much to be completely un-careful in this matter and completely remove all morality based criminal statutes. All of them.
Yes, anarchy. The same anarchy that shows when people are polite to each other and share the sidewalk.
I could understand restrictions on labs based on liability, isolation, decontamination and the like, because of the remote possibility of loosing on the world a "mutant killer virus", but to say "You May Not Persue That Knowledge" is a religeous argument, and nothing else.
I'm sorry to see the politicians again using force to impose one view of "morality" on everyone. Too bad. Maybe if they impose enough one size fits all regulations, it will finally wake everyone up to the evil of a strong central government.
Slashdot Mirror
The packet switched network has been, and in my opinion works best as, "Best Effort" routing. If a line gets congested, packets get dropped regardless of source, destination, or content. Lost packets are spread out over all users of the link so that no one service is unduely impacted.
This means maximum effort can be placed on line utilization, while remaining completely content neutral. It's also good for sales, because if you want to gurantee your throughput, you have to pay for a bigger pipe.
On a LAN, QoS is far more practical and avoids crushing critical services during a broadcast storm (for instance). But if your WAN link is saturated to the point that you have to worry about QoS, you have a utilization management problem, for which QoS will act merely as a mask to hide the underlying problems that never get solved.
There is also the question of what you mean by "Meaningful". Meaningful to whom? To you? To me?
Do you really want to grant the power to determine content to every service provider in your data path, so as to make sure someone elses voice traffic gets priority over your Napster downloads? And if they "monitor" for quality assurance? Can't complain, they're just providing the service you asked for.
I like to use the comparison of "dumb network smart hosts" and "smart network dumb hosts". QoS invests smarts into the network equipment to make up for deficiencies in the hosts, and I consider this a very BadThing(tm) indeed. It ties your network equipment to single vendors or single protocols, as the recent example of Cisco routers crashing because of the CodeRed virus showed there are very real dangers in adding "services" to the network infrastructure. It forces your network to be adapted to changes in particular host technology, also.
When the network is dumb and the hosts smart, the hosts deal with retransmission of lost packets, which at human interaction speeds like voice is very easy, the hosts deal with interoperability of protocols and styles, and best of all the hosts can be added/dropped/changed at will without the network equipment requiring any reconfiguration at all.
Yeah, "Meaningful" QoS would be nice, but for me "Meaningful" would be not to spend the money that a dozen single-source super-routers with QoS would cost, instead spending it on fast and simple network hardware and much faster inter-router circuits.
You go ahead and juggle QoS on your 90% utilized T1, and I'll do best effort on my 10Gigabit fiber link.
Bob-
The radical conservatives who cannot "allow" a species to die off are the abarations. A species ceasing to exist is a perfectly natural act. The strong survive, the weak perish, and this is just as true for species as it is for individuals.
If the Condor cannot adapt to its environment, cloning or captive breeding are not going to improve the situation. Released birds will still fail to breed.
This story is of a healthy birth. Woopie, get over it.
Go back 500 years (if you can) and follow the population of the Condor. I would not be surprised if their populations were decreasing long before industrial humans were in the area.
Bob-
Main Entry: monopoly
Pronunciation: m&-'nä-p(&-)lE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -lies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
Gee, exclusive ownership through "legal privilege", command of supply, or cercerted action.
Microsoft does not own Linux, only Windows. Microsoft has a monopoly on *Windows*. That is an exclusive ownership they have every right to exercise, since they wrote it.
Have a nice day.
Bob-
The fact that it is perfectly legal and easily doable for you to buy a computer without MSWin is why Microsoft does not have a monopoly.
A predatory monopoly only continues if it has government backing, such as a "national oil company" or what AT&T was in the US, or if it produces a better product than anyone else.
Whether you like it or not, Microsoft produced a better consumer operating system than anyone else for a few years. That is how they became big.
By abusing that market position, and alienating people, they are now losing mind share. Not market share, not yet.
The turning point was the Microsoft rebate drive.
Microsoft's further alienation of their potential markets, with their BSA hired thugs, has led to such marvelous developments as Red Flag Linux! Good bye, possible 1 Billion users!
Bob-
Personally, in 6 continuous years of running Linux with ext2fs, I've never had a dataloss problem.
Maybe this is one of those "then you don't use it right" things. So what am I doing wrong?
Bob-
The writer was not making a distinction between the services being purchased from RedHat, and the price of the software itself.
She wondered about "large scale licensing issues" and "patent infringement", neither of which are issues at all.
"Free" software, like air, does not eliminate the costs involved with its use. You still have to pump up your own tires, or pay the cost of a compressor, but the air is still "free".
The real bonus is that there is no catch, no hidden costs, and no BSA. I made sure to point this out in my letter to the editor of Forbes. I hope they read it.
Bob-
So let me get this straight, you're interviewing for a Computer Science faculty position, and you're surprised that they don't use a Microsoft product?
No wonder I found "school" to be such a complete waste of time.
Bob-
I agree that wide tables are annoying, but HTML viewers (and printers) nicely re-wrap plain text to fit.
Sooooo much easier than tables is just to use preformatted text.
Just a side comment from someone who has always written his web page in vi.
Bob-
Governments plant mines. Why isn't anyone prosecuting the ones who gave the orders? They are known individuals, politicians and generals.
But no, we're stuck cleaning up their messes, and getting blamed ("technology caused this") by some for their decisions. "This technology is too dangerous!" Bogus.
There just isn't enough personal responsibility in the world, these thugs get away with murder daily.
Bob-
Warsaw Ghetto uprising
Mount Carmel burned to the ground
The battle on Lexington Green
And now, a programming competition. Celebrate!
Bob-
I think the efforts to prosecute moron spammers are great things. I loath spam, and I look forward to its passing the same way I wait for trucks with loudspeakers blaring to pass.
I know Washington state chose to pass another split-hair law defining "spam" as illegal, rather than just use the same laws that keep Jehovas Witnesses, door to door salesmen, and other such things out of your way. I consider my email server to be exactly like my front porch: If you are there when I have explicitly stated you are not welcome, you are guilty of trespassing.
People I don't know can still come to my door and get my attention, but if I say "go away" and they don't, or if they then come back, such actions have been prosecutable for a thousand years.
Anyway, Gambatte! To make money, spammers have to provide some form of actual contact information. The sender or the one being advertized, or both, deserve to be slapped back.
Bob-
Never appologise for your age. You'll find that peoples aparent "written" age has nothing to do with their years since being born.
Photons are sometimes released when an electron drops from a more excited state to a lower state or "shell".
It could be that the lead atoms "absorb" the laser pulse energy by having some electrons energy level raised. The "pulse" of the laser is echoed by the time it takes for the electrons to rise, then fall and release their energy.
This would not require ionization, or a sonic echo as someone else suggested, but there is no reason to believe that any hypothisis is wrong until it is demonstrated to be false or the "real" answer proven. Or it may be an interaction of all those effects at once.
So relax, Nyphur, and voice your ideas. It's the only way anyone really learns.
Bob-
You're very right, I have not read them all.
Since it's clear we mostly agree, I still wish to point out a difference between how we aproach the problem: The traditions of the common law which are the root of both copyright and fair use need to be extended to include the new tech.
There is nothing about the new technology that changes the rights of private property. Copyright was never about "limited resources", since ideas have always been able to be copied without loss of detail. The "Pirates of Penzance" that Gilbert and Sullivan were raging about were software pirates who were copying and reselling their music.
The underlying technology only changes how easy or hard it is to copy, it doesn't change the principles of property.
Keep up the good fight, I'll see you around the campfire some time.
Bob-
I believe it's Washington state, but anywhere recently a very popular term limit statute was thrown out. It had passed by voter ballot, and let sit for a couple of years before the politicians (who were about to be rotated out) brought a suit to have the law overturned.
The court where it was brought said "Yep. You win."
Like magic: No more term limits. Maybe a google search will bring up articles on the event.
It's too bad that tar and feathers have gone out of style, those politicians deserve such treatment in spades!
Bob-
It's clear you really don't know why laws are passed. They are passed in order for politicians to get re-elected. Since the bigest single factor in being re-elected is getting the most MONEY, most new laws are passed in order to pay off or inspire more contributions from wealthy businesses or labor unions.
Since I explicitly point out "fair use" as a good thing, and "fair use" is expressly beneficial for the little guy, I do not see how you can consider me somehow favoring the big guys.
I think copyright is a sham, as it is enforced now. It was designed to be a limited thing, not an eternal thing. Again, the abuse is seen in the new laws, which have extended copyright to absurd lengths which stifle competition and crush new ideas. If it were all thrown out tomorrow I'd be thrilled.
The only book burning party I'd joyfully attend is a lawbook burning party.
I suggest you examine closer the arguments you're engaging in, so you don't argue against phantoms of your own creation. I have done this myself, sad to say, so I know how hard it is.
And yes indeed I've gleefully partisipated in the "underground" economy in various ways, and will do so again at any opportunity. Fan subtitled Anime is an old and noble tradition, to name one.
Bob-
Attack the real root of the problem: Politicians and bureaucrats are IN DEMAND for the power they wield.
The corruption of power is not just the addiction to personal gratification that individuals get from being powerful, it's also the astonishing amounts of money that flow into the hands of those same individuals.
Here are two very serious hints: Paid corporate lobyists, and millionare representitives.
So-called "campaign finance reform" will only ever favor the incumbant. Under the new rules, while their opponents and anyone who disagrees with the incumbants is muzzled, the politician in power gets to publish continually from their "office" about their daily successes in bringing home the pork.
Imagine that, for a moment. Can you?
Money flows into politics because there is something to be bought. Remove that power, and the money will go elsewhere. Jefferson walked from his inauguration party back to his rented room. Why? Because he as President didn't have any power anyone wanted to buy.
That's my kind of president!
Bob-
How do new laws help? There are already a dozen different ways to murder someone, with a dozen times that of "circumstances", each representing different statutes. And that is just one single type of crime among thousands. The fact that the "law" requires entire libraries to house it is obscene in the extreme. Ignorance of the law may not be a defense, but you demonstrate that it is the common condition.
Intellectual Property in "America" was settled over a hundred years ago, with a combination of copyright and fair use. My profitable use of your ideas is limited by copyright, your ability to restrict my non-profitable use (such as education, archive or critique) is also limited.
How does this NOT apply to "new technology"? Was public showing for profit somehow "legal" when using a VCR instead of a film projector? Is copying by hand illegal, but machine copying legal? As long as I use the latest and greatest technology and the laws haven't specifically covered it yet, may I reprint your books with my name on them and be safe from prosecution?
The call for new laws is a cry for someone else to solve your problems for you. Every way for a person to injure or trespass on someone else has been "illegal" for thousands of years. It is a sorry mind indeed who cannot see past having everything outlined in perfect detail for them by their master.
Bob-
The only valid negative moderation is "offtopic". Everthing else is a matter of opinion.
The parent here makes a very valid and sane argument, far more realistic than most legal briefs that depend on the minutia of statutes for rationalizations.
The so-called "moderator" who rated the parent as a "troll" should be publicly rebuked. Too bad we'll never know who it was.
Bob-
Actually, I do insist that licensing car drivers is wrong, because it's another moral decision. It assumes that people will cause harm first.
In America, 40,000+ people die because of tested and licensed drivers every year. The argument for licensure of driving is specious, demonstrably false, and continues only because people are too stupid to imagine a world different from what they are already accustomed to.
BTW, if the owner of a road wishes to verify that each driver has liability insurance before they may use their road, I couldn't agree more. It's their road, they own it, they get to choose. If I don't like it, I can choose not to use their road. Taxes give me no such choice.
Laws of prohibition are morality force on everyone at gun point. Just because you happen to agree with the prohibition does not change that fact.
Bob-
Strange, every one of your arguments is a religious one. Each and every one depends on some kind of implied damage, without actual damage being done. This is normal for someone who believes in censorship.
What? You say you're not a censor? But you just pointed out how there is information you don't want other people to have. Seems remarkably egotistical to believe that you are better able to decide what is or is not "worthy" information. To prohibit, you must already know the information. What kept the keepers of the Index from being corrupted by information too dangerous for anyone to know? Nothing at all. That is why powerful central government is so evil. Power corrupts.
And those awful twisted creature created in your imagination and in the movies? Again you fail to consider individual responsibility. If I create such a creature, by genetic manipulation or by hitting someone with a baseball bat, it remains my responsibility to deal with the reprocussions of that action. Simple liability, another field of "law" that has been thoroughly fleshed out for centuries.
But on the one single valid point you have: The abuse of someone elses DNA. That's so simple I'm surprised it hasn't already occurred to you: Defend your personal "copyright". Prosecute someone who copies your pattern without your consent.
Not only don't you need a new law, all the previous precidents for plagiaism, invasion of privacy, and the like apply.
Thank you for reminding me of this particular argument, it's been a while since I saw anyone post it.
Unlike the people stupid enough to vote for Democans and Republocrats, in whos piss I have to wade through every day with their taxes, and their regulations of my private life.
The trick is to notice that it doesn't matter which of the two parties is in power, they both grow the power and intrusiveness of government. They both lie about respecting your "freedom" while stabbing you in the back.
I would much rather piss away my "vote" and not give them the satisfaction of throwing it away for me.
Bob-
I'm sorry I never took a picture of the Cray 2 that was upstairs. There was a very pretty fountain designed to give a visual indication that the coolent was in fact circulating.
If you were lucky, you could see a little bubble rise off the circuit boards.
Of course, the Connection Machine over next to the Cyber was more flashy, with 64K little red LED's flashing all the time...
Why, yes. I am a rocket scientist.
Bob-
To answer the real jist of your comment, no of course it wouldn't "cure all of our problems."
It would, however, solve those problems caused by government, and remove government from its role as an impediment to peaceful progress.
Bob-
I gladly take this to the logical extremes.
Like this: Social animals like Humans constantly compromise on physical matters in order to get along with others. We stop at stop signs, make room on the side walk, lift our feet out of the way of running children.
When someone violates the social standard, deliberately or ignorantly annoying people around them, they are shunned by that society.
If someone goes further and deliberately or neglegently causes harm, they are prosecuted for that harm according to the standards of the society. This is codified in the "common law" countries as "trial by jury."
The "common law" requires that in order for someone to be punished, there must be a demonstration of harm caused, of damage done.
However, "regulation" and laws of morality require no such thing. One is guilty for the "crime" for simple posession of an object or substance. One is guilty of a "crime" for investigation or disemination of certain kinds of information, the definition of which is based solely on the whim of the political masters.
History is riddled by attempts to get Eve to put the apple back by prosecuting consensual acts. Replace by the apropriate myth for your cultural background.
It would please me very much to be completely un-careful in this matter and completely remove all morality based criminal statutes. All of them.
Yes, anarchy. The same anarchy that shows when people are polite to each other and share the sidewalk.
Bob-
I could understand restrictions on labs based on liability, isolation, decontamination and the like, because of the remote possibility of loosing on the world a "mutant killer virus", but to say "You May Not Persue That Knowledge" is a religeous argument, and nothing else.
I'm sorry to see the politicians again using force to impose one view of "morality" on everyone. Too bad. Maybe if they impose enough one size fits all regulations, it will finally wake everyone up to the evil of a strong central government.
Bob-