For instance if a program was started and copyrighted by an individual and put up on a web site under GPL for interested parties to contribute code with the understanding that any code contributed becomes property of the copyright holder.
Then this license wouldn't be the GPL. And it would still mean that the snaphot of code initially released (ok, minus any improvements submitted by users) is still freely distributable.
Additionally, it is doubtful that such a license would stand up in court. In existing copyright law the nearest comparable example is the relationship between writers and editors. This case law has shown that there is a very fine line between providing editorial support (small changes to improve readibility or clarity or spelling and grammar) to becoming a co-author. So if you were to incorporate a function submitted by someone else they may in effect become co-authors and have equal rights to the intellectual property.
I won't comment on wether I consider SAS useful anymore, but there is a lot of dormant user experience out in the job market. Within our company SAS is quickly dying. Even two years ago almost all of our inhouse homgrown mission critical apps were programmed in SAS. There are many experienced SAS programmers within our company but a scant few are willing to admit it. With the more recent trends toward integrated applications with dumbed down GUI frontends the trend is clear. SAS is dying. Long live SAP.
Note that I slao added that there are at least five other cities where you can get RedHat training. even better though, they should send one person (the best RedHat guy they currently have) to get certified and Examiner certified and then hold inhouse training and certification.
It seems pretty obvious that all holders of the copyright have to sign off on any changes. But, if plan on closing an open source project you will have problems keeping people from using the old code issued under the open source license. After all, during the development of software each release is a snapshot with a license. They retain the rights to that particuar snapshot. The license is a contract between two parties and the courts frown on one party alterning the terms of an agreement without consent or notification to all parties. The GPL has a specific recommendation for users of the license to put the words,"This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version." but it should be noted that this is optional on the part of the user" in the licensing terms.
I'm sure the airfare adds to the cost buy this is directly from Red Hat Training info
Price: The special introductory bundle price for this five-day course is $2,498 ($2099 for the training + $399 for the Certification Lab Exam, £1,599 in the UK). Duration: 5 days Training Start Time: 9:00 a.m. Training End Time: 4:30-5:00PM (depending on class progress)
Sure they have the best video quality, but they screw their customers. They don't even try to be competitive. I remember buying a Matrox Millenium way back when. The big selling point was the ability to upgrade. The only problem was that they charged more for the upgrade than for a new card. Their other big problem is they build all their own cards so when new products come out you have to wait six months to get ahold of one or you wind up backordered because they don't do a good job of supplying the market.
To be completely fair if you have a business workstation Matrox is the only card to use. Dollar for dollar the video quality and clarity is the best. Even old Millenium cards with 4/8 meg of WRAM are better than most of the newer 16 meg video cards.
Clinton and Blair can make any statments that wish about releasing public research. Writing an executive order changing patent law would undoubtedly become cannon fodder in Congress and the Supreme Court since patent law is codified in the Code of Federal Regulations 37 CFR.
One way public institutions could fight back would be by refusing to collaborate with private companies. Sounds crude but it would force the company to risk spending extra research dollars on somthing that may not be patentable. As it stands I think they are trying to get somthing for nothing by being the first to produce the entire database and calling it a unique piece of art.
This doesn't really solve much. A big part of the controversy is the research that is privately funded. Referencing this Wired Article (noted in this earlier/. article), "Celera Genomics president and CEO Craig Venter said Tuesday that his company is willing to continue discussing a collaboration with its longstanding competitor, the international Human Genome Project."
Sure this helps with some of the information it doesn't really address the underlying problem of private companies patenting gene sequences.
The constant bombardment of media, especially big budget sci-fi movies, as made a lot of people very cynical. I wouldn't rate it as one of the greatest movies of all time but I didn't feel ripped off. It was either go see a movie or sit in traffic for three hours listening to my kid try to convince me that he is slowly dying by starvation and boredom.
$8.50 sounds like too much. I see from your bio that you are from Annandale, Virginia. I live down in Newport News. The most expensive movie I have gone to here was $7.50. I can assume from your e-mail address that you are attending Virginia Tech (need to update your Bio page and say hello to my cousin Kim Orrell who is a Biology Grad student). Maybe when you are done with college you may want to consider moving into the Hampton Roads area.
Where I live now I'm 30 min from Virginia Beach (babes), 30 Min from Bush Gardens (vicarious thrills sitting outside the log ride on a cold day waiting for chicks who weren't expecting to get wet walk by), 3 hours from DC and four hours of so to Nags Head. The cost of living is excellent, lots of jobs especially slack government positions. There are pleanty of hi-tech jobs in the area including good starter positions at the company I work for Newport News Shipbuilding. And last, but not least the AMC Hampton 24 Townecenter Cineplex. 24 screens with stadium seating, awesome sound and big screens (tihs place has ruined me to watching movies anywhere else).
I wound up going to the movie with my four year old son because of a traffic jam. I chose the movie because of the PG rating. You surely can slam on this movie for technical reasons but it has to be the first Sci-Fi in a long time that doesn't revolve around gratuitous violence or focus on the negative aspects of human nature.
There were only two scenes where I had to cover his eyes. The scene in the beginning where one guy gets a rock in the face and another gets ripped apart and the freeze dried guy near the middle.
If aliens watched this move they would garner that humans are decent, courageous people who care about each other and strive for greatness. The whole movie is a message of hope and a reflection of our own wishes to find we are not alone in the universe. The cinematography it reminded me a little of " Robinson Crusoe on Mars".
But it didn't have a cryptic meaning or a French tragic ending or a "to be continued" so the critics don't feel satisfied. The techie nitpickers didn't get to see all of the true boredom of day to day life on a spaceship or on Mars so they aren't happy. Meanwhile I walked away from two hours of enjoyment with my son that hopefully showed him a little of the wonderment I feel about space travel and exploration. I guess with $40 in ticket sales the first weekend a few others maybe agreed.
My friend and I have actually had several debates about the impact of these types of changes to the election process. Despite what many Americans believe the type of government that we have is not a Democracy it is a Representative Democracy. And given that fewer than 25% of potential voters vote in any given election or referendum then we really have a Representative Democracy controlled by a small minority of the population. Of the people that vote some vote because they enjoy participating in the process. Others, perhaps the majority tend to be people who has a specific interest is how a vote turns out. The level of participation is directly influenced by how a given vote will directly impact their lives, beliefs or livelihood.
The recent Presidential Primaries are a prime example. The level of turnout has been extraordinary. For the left there is the fear of a House, Senate and President all being controlled by Republicans. From the right there is the fear both of electing a candidate incapable of defeating Gore and of another four years of immoral Presidential antics
It all really started with the Motor Voter push. A process where someone can register to vote by simply filling in a little extra on the Driver's license renewal to be registered to vote. Before this the task or registering to vote was inconvenient. Often requiring the person to take time off from work to go register.
Republicans were afraid of the Motor Voter because it threatened to dramatically change the demographic of voters. Republicans tend to be Middle to upper income people with two ore more years of college. Democrats ten to be hourly workers with lower income and less education. The fear was that making the process more convenient would push the demographic further to the left. Fortunately for Republicans the actual act of voting was still inconvenient.
Online voting is the next obvious improvement to increasing voter participation. People could either go to the local library of log on from home to vote. The implications are obvious. Thus making the process even more convenient, will the demographic be pushed to the left as predicted? Even more importantly, do we want something more akin to a true Democracy where a majority of the population can conveniently participate?
The first question is really interesting. Though the results from Arizona won't be known for a few more days I'll go ahead and make some predictions. Despite the increased convenience, computers are still a relative luxury. Computers require a certain amount of education to understand and use. Despite the number of computers in use the number of users computer savvy enough to make it through the voting process is much smaller. Many users simply use their net connection to send and receive e-mail. AOL users will have to jump through several hoops and know what too look for to find the browser. It seems to boil down that any vote conducted on the web may actually skew to the right. Polls during the Clinton Impeachment seem to back this up. MSNBC polls often skewed so far to the right you would have thought Clinton would be standing on the corner with a little tin cup asking for donations. A further prediction is that Republican States will be the first to implement Online voting. Its a win-win scenario. They get a better Republican turnout and little fight from Democrats since they would look extremely hypocritical in light of how they beat Republicans over the head with Motor Voter.
The second question is a real head scratcher. On one hand you have the normal curve tendency. Online voters may have little impact on how votes turn out since simply scaling up the same general voting turnout may not change to actual vote results. On the other hand voting may tend to skew more and more to the right because the haves (wealthy, educated Republicans) will be more likely to vote than the have-nots. This imbalance in the power distribution will likely create interesting results.
Assuming the first scenario is true, and in the long run as computers become as inexpensive and accessible as toasters its is likely to become so, the next question is how votes change due to increased access to knowledge. This online format allows for more at-hand information about possible candidates as well as voting referendums. Since the wording of proposals will become more high profile, the mishmash of convoluted wording that passes for a proposal today will have to change. Having to vote yes to say no to a ballot will become an embarrassment for the people who write them. Voters will have access to actual voting statistics on candidates and much of the obfuscation and outright deceit in today's politics may not survive the bright light.
Last, what does this mean for the future of politics? It's not unforeseeable that sometime in the future the representative democracy may disappear. The hidden assumption is that we need this form of government because the sheer numbers of decisions involved and the amount of information needed to make these decisions are too time consuming for each individual voter. Representatives are elected to act as surrogates to make these decisions for us. In the future though this may not remain true. First, we all understand that many of the decisions currently made especially in the State and Federal government are made at the party level. Second, if even a steady 10% of voters can keep up with voting on these decisions online it may become feasible to get rid of most Representative functions. There will be the fear of knee-jerk politics, but that wouldn't really be much of a change anyhow.
Thanks, but I'm also saying that drugs shouldn't be illegal. At least not using drugs. But for other reasons I don't nor will I encouage my children or anyone I know to do drugs. But the reality is that drugs are illegal and their are consequences for breaking the law that no-one should be concieted enough to believe they are the only ones effected.
You don'y deny the child anything. You simply throttle it and sumplement the data with understanding when the child has reached the level of maturity and experience to fully comprehend the information. You crawl before you walk and you walk before you run.
My point is that this is reality. This is unlikely to change. 70% of the people when caught breaking the law chant the mantra they the reason they broke the law is that they thought they wouldn't get caught. It isn't really a different morality as much as a lack of morality. The important distinction is that most people are busy only really understanding how decisions effect themselves and very few go the next step to thinking what will happen to other people.
It is this exact lack of morality and incapacity for morality that leads people to think that everything is ok. Good and bad are always subjective. "Subjective" is overused. Subjective meaning that two people can disagree and both be correct is one thing. We each come from different paradigms. We can disagree and both be just. On the other hand, and getting back to the real situation, it is never the right thing to do when you shoot an innocent to make a point. Terrorizing a software company because you don't agree that another person should use it is wrong. It is also important to note that putting a gun into a childs hand when they can't comprehend the consequesnces of their actions if they were to shoot someone is wrong. Bang, bang you are dead. Taken to this extreme it becomes somewhat more clear. Letting a four year old view pictures of a naked woman with a fist up her ass is also inappropriate. God forbid they decide to try that with their buddies.
It is essentially a large book of rules that our society at large has decided that we will all abide by.
Not really, it is a large book or rules that a select few in out society has written for others to abide by. Law is written to hopefully help those who have no capacity to understand how their actions can impact others and to provide the immediate consequence so that an orderly society can exist.
Either you haven't seen or been associated with drug users or you haven't been around to take the long view of things. It is not an exageration when I say that nearly all of the people I knew in highschool who did drugs has ruined their lives and often the lives of others. At least five are dead, two are in jail, several including my brother are so far in the shitter they couldn't get out if they wanted to, at least 16 fucked up kids including two of my nephews, countless times of hurting innocent people....
Whatever. Laws are laws are laws are laws. For the most part laws exist for the moral retards. If you really understand right and wrong and have the ability to feel empathy then they are irrelevent.
Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.
Allen Ginsberg, Jim Morrison, Steve Jobs, Jack Kerouac, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Andy Warhol?
Morrison killed himself and ruined a lot of lives. Steve jobs fucked over his girfriend and their child for years. Kerouac- a street bum alcoholic who could write who was also a nasty asshole who hurt many people. Hendrix you havea point. Corbain, what a fucking loser. At least we know who the real talent was (Foo Fighters). Warhol-Uh whatever. A shallow man.
More to the point how about my brother and his ex-wife. He went from making >$100K back in 90 to losing his house, fucking up his kids, his kids now do drugs, he has nearly killed several people driving while under the influence of drugs. I coould go on.
Please find where I posted my explaination about moral retards, religious moralists, and self moralizers. If you really think doing drugs is a personal decision and doesn't effect others then you obviously cant feel empathy. Guess what category that falls into. Get a little Zen, its not " what's the path matter if the final destination is the same?" its all about how you get there not just getting there.
You are preaching to the choir. What I don't get is what all the big fuss is about since with all that I have read about this beyond a potential abstruction of justice charge against a former WihteHouse employee. The actual content of any withheld e-mails has yet to be released. If none of them are relevent then what is all the fuss about. Even worse, just as I hated to see Ollie Notrh go down because of the orders of the Commander in Chief, I don't like to see a Whithouse employee get burned for the sins of the President. If I were working for Reagan and he said, "Make sure noone hears about these new e-mails" I wouldn't whistleblow. Not that I could ever feel loayaly to a scumbag like Clinton.
But if you think Bush will be any better take a look at this website: GeorgeBush2000.com. I'm sure a bunch of it is fudging statistics and judging his record based on the current conditions in Texas versus Texas before he became governor. But the insider trading stuff is a little scary and has a ring of thuth to it.
I assume when we say drugs we are talking about illegal drugs or illegal use of drugs. Tell what you say to the millions of other citizens rotting away in jail and prison as we speak. Tell it to your kid when he visits on the weekend. Yes I think drug addicts sould be treated if they want treatment. No I don't think they should be in jail for that alone. If they get stoned and harm someone else then they certainly need punishment. But the reality is that if you get caught you will definetly pay a lot of money, you may lose your job and you may go straight to jail. I can hear that wonderful conversation,," Daddy, how come we have to move? Why doesn't mommy quit crying? My friend at schood says you are a drug dealer. Can I have just one hit before dinner?" or beter yet, "Bubba, you're really not sticking that up my ass, this is all just subjective."
If you read my post about Moral Retards, religious moralists and self moralizing people it explains it all. Most people are moral retards so we write lots of laws to try to keep them in check. The spirit of Laws are based on Torts(wrongs) and property rights not "The spirit of the law is to do the greatest good while doing the least harm." The most fundament aspect of human nature is greed and laws exist to deal with greed to create an orderly society full of moral retards.
And no, the law seldom fails. People fail. Either in upholding or following it. You, I and everyone else fail in some aspects. For the most part though, in my case I don't normally consciously fail the law or teach my children to either. Unless taking a stand against a bad law is more important. The laws against non-violent drug offenders definitelt fits the bill but not to the point that I would risk my family over it.
The UCITA is still a work in progress. In the short term it may be a pain in the butt. It doesn't become effective for another year here in Virginia and already several amendments have been made. I have no doubts that it will eventually go down in flames. It probably won't be until big businesses realize they are slitting their own wrists. Either way the DCMA isn't likely to survive a challenge in the Supreme Court (First Amendment) and both the DCMA and UCITA will likely be found to conflict with existing commercial contract laws.
This has been on the Drudge Report for days. I'm still having a hard time deciphering what the point is. I have yet to see a calculation of the number of E-Mails discovered vs the number turned over to the special prosecutor. Not to mention the number with relevent content.
Without knowing if any of the e-mails had relevent content I'd say this is just a case of drudging up more dirt to use against Gore. As far as this being relevent to a discussion of anonymity it will never be allowed for official government correspondence. There are requirements for retaining documents and security regulations. On the other hand, the use of internet e-mail services would have to be curtailed.
I'm sure there is some guy that managed to play Russian Roulette with a fully loaded pistol and live to talk about it. Heck, one guy even survived a tumble over Niagra Falls in a barrel. Then there is that guy that guy who fell 10,000 feet with a failed parachute and survived. these are exceptions. Heck, maybe you are an exception.
My point is that you try to control what your child has access to until they have the maturity and understanding to really comprehend what they are seeing.
And another fact is that most people with problems tend not to be too objective on evaluating their own problems. Yet another fact is that supposing you are doing drugs, if you have a responsible position or other responsibilities like kids then you obviously have a serious problem. I would think that someone with a Masters from Ivy U. would be capable of the reasoning to understand that the cost-benefit analysis of doing drugs makes no sense or the empathy to understand the damage that could be done in both monetary and emotional terms to loved ones if you get caught is too great. Unless you live in Amsterdam.
and this
This is true on everything in life. The facts are that the bad guy often gets away with it.
There is an underlying factor that affects the ability to teach anyone anything about right and wrong. Within the population there are three groups of people. There are those that only do the right thing if there are direct and immediate consequences for doing the wrong thing, call them moral retards. Then there are the people who do the right thing because they obey what they are told or fear furute negative repurcussions for doing the wrong thing- call them the religious moralists. Lastly, there are the people who do the right thing becase they understand why some things are right some are wrong and can empathize with others that can be hurt by doing the wrong thing- call them the self-moralizing. In the general population about 70% are morally retarded, 20% are religious moralists and less than 10% are self moralizing (the extra missing percent accounts for people like Jeffery Dalhmer). Think about this fact. Soak it in. Look around and at yourself.
That being the case, as a parent you have to either dope your kid up with religion or teach them to be self-moralizing. When you say, ""If the law (or censorship program) is made stupid and I can flout it without any trouble, and I will never get caught, then what exactally is the purpose of the law? " I say your point is irrelevent since the law is an artificial construct meant to deal with the 70% moral retards because I'm trying to make my son become self moralizing like me. Unfortunately the path to self moralization usually isn't overnight. It is a process and requires life experience and gradual development.
I see what you are saying and I agree. But as my son is 4 years old I'd rather not have that discussion right now. He doesn't have the maturity to even comprehend what the discussion is about. Maybe when he is * or 12 or whatever but some sort of attempt at filtering is better than none. The other choice would be to just deny him access totally and that would definitely be wrong.
This is true on everything in life. The facts are that the bad guy often gets away with it.
There is an underlying factor that affects the ability to teach anyone anything about right and wrong. Within the population there are three groups of people. There are those that only do the right thing if there are direct and immediate consequences for doing the wrong thing, call them moral retards. Then there are the people who do the right thing because they obey what they are told or fear furute negative repurcussions for doing the wrong thing- call them the religious moralists. Lastly, there are the people who do the right thing becase they understand why some things are right some are wrong and can empathize with others that can be hurt by doing the wrong thing- call them the self-moralizing. In the general population about 70% are morally retarded, 20% are religious moralists and less than 10% are self moralizing (the extra missing percent accounts for people like Jeffery Dalhmer). Think about this fact. Soak it in. Look around and at yourself.
That being the case, as a parent you have to either dope your kid up with religion or teach them to be self-moralizing. When you say, ""If the law (or censorship program) is made stupid and I can flout it without any trouble, and I will never get caught, then what exactally is the purpose of the law? " I say your point is irrelevent since the law is an artificial construct meant to deal with the 70% moral retards because I'm trying to make my son become self moralizing like me. Unfortunately the path to self moralization usually isn't overnight. It is a process and requires life experience and gradual development.
Actually I do get your point, you don't seem to entirely get mine. And as far as public access services using censorware, attacking the company providing the software is pointless. Getting legislation passed or having the courts clarify existing legislation so that publicly funded institutions and servies can't use the software should be the focus. Looking at my previous analogy, what they are doing is comparable to bombing the security company because the mall decided to have them patrol your neighborhood.
I'm sure there is some guy that managed to play Russian Roulette with a fully loaded pistol and live to talk about it. Heck, one guy even survived a tumble over Niagra Falls in a barrel. Then there is that guy that guy who fell 10,000 feet with a failed parachute and survived. these are exceptions. Heck, maybe you are an exception. My point is that you try to control what your child has access to until they have the maturity and understanding to really comprehend what they are seeing.
And another fact is that most people with problems tend not to be too objective on evaluating their own problems. Another fact is that supposing you are doing drugs, if you have a responsible position or other responsibilities like kids then you obviously have a serious problem. I would think that someone with a Masters from Ivy U. would be capable of the reasoning to understand that the cost-benefit analysis of doing drugs makes no sense or the empathy to understand the damage that could be done in both monetary and emotional terms to loved ones if you get caught is too great. Unless you live in Amsterdam.
Slashdot Mirror
For instance if a program was started and copyrighted by an individual and put up on a web site under GPL for interested parties to contribute code with the understanding that any code contributed becomes property of the copyright holder.
Then this license wouldn't be the GPL. And it would still mean that the snaphot of code initially released (ok, minus any improvements submitted by users) is still freely distributable.
Additionally, it is doubtful that such a license would stand up in court. In existing copyright law the nearest comparable example is the relationship between writers and editors. This case law has shown that there is a very fine line between providing editorial support (small changes to improve readibility or clarity or spelling and grammar) to becoming a co-author. So if you were to incorporate a function submitted by someone else they may in effect become co-authors and have equal rights to the intellectual property.
I won't comment on wether I consider SAS useful anymore, but there is a lot of dormant user experience out in the job market. Within our company SAS is quickly dying. Even two years ago almost all of our inhouse homgrown mission critical apps were programmed in SAS. There are many experienced SAS programmers within our company but a scant few are willing to admit it. With the more recent trends toward integrated applications with dumbed down GUI frontends the trend is clear. SAS is dying. Long live SAP.
Maybe this will breathe some new life into SAS.
Note that I slao added that there are at least five other cities where you can get RedHat training. even better though, they should send one person (the best RedHat guy they currently have) to get certified and Examiner certified and then hold inhouse training and certification.
San Francisco -CA, Santa Clara -CA, Portland -OR and Stockley Park Uxbridge- England
I'm sure the airfare adds to the cost buy this is directly from Red Hat Training info
Price:
The special introductory bundle price for this five-day course is $2,498 ($2099 for the training + $399 for the Certification Lab Exam, £1,599 in the UK).
Duration:
5 days
Training Start Time: 9:00 a.m.
Training End Time: 4:30-5:00PM (depending on class progress)
Training is also available through Global Knowledge.
Sure they have the best video quality, but they screw their customers. They don't even try to be competitive. I remember buying a Matrox Millenium way back when. The big selling point was the ability to upgrade. The only problem was that they charged more for the upgrade than for a new card. Their other big problem is they build all their own cards so when new products come out you have to wait six months to get ahold of one or you wind up backordered because they don't do a good job of supplying the market.
To be completely fair if you have a business workstation Matrox is the only card to use. Dollar for dollar the video quality and clarity is the best. Even old Millenium cards with 4/8 meg of WRAM are better than most of the newer 16 meg video cards.
Clinton and Blair can make any statments that wish about releasing public research. Writing an executive order changing patent law would undoubtedly become cannon fodder in Congress and the Supreme Court since patent law is codified in the Code of Federal Regulations 37 CFR.
One way public institutions could fight back would be by refusing to collaborate with private companies. Sounds crude but it would force the company to risk spending extra research dollars on somthing that may not be patentable. As it stands I think they are trying to get somthing for nothing by being the first to produce the entire database and calling it a unique piece of art.
This doesn't really solve much. A big part of the controversy is the research that is privately funded. Referencing this Wired Article (noted in this earlier /. article), "Celera Genomics president and CEO Craig Venter said Tuesday that his company is willing to continue discussing a collaboration with its longstanding competitor, the international Human Genome Project."
Sure this helps with some of the information it doesn't really address the underlying problem of private companies patenting gene sequences.
The constant bombardment of media, especially big budget sci-fi movies, as made a lot of people very cynical. I wouldn't rate it as one of the greatest movies of all time but I didn't feel ripped off. It was either go see a movie or sit in traffic for three hours listening to my kid try to convince me that he is slowly dying by starvation and boredom.
$8.50 sounds like too much. I see from your bio that you are from Annandale, Virginia. I live down in Newport News. The most expensive movie I have gone to here was $7.50. I can assume from your e-mail address that you are attending Virginia Tech (need to update your Bio page and say hello to my cousin Kim Orrell who is a Biology Grad student). Maybe when you are done with college you may want to consider moving into the Hampton Roads area.
Where I live now I'm 30 min from Virginia Beach (babes), 30 Min from Bush Gardens (vicarious thrills sitting outside the log ride on a cold day waiting for chicks who weren't expecting to get wet walk by), 3 hours from DC and four hours of so to Nags Head. The cost of living is excellent, lots of jobs especially slack government positions. There are pleanty of hi-tech jobs in the area including good starter positions at the company I work for Newport News Shipbuilding. And last, but not least the AMC Hampton 24 Townecenter Cineplex. 24 screens with stadium seating, awesome sound and big screens (tihs place has ruined me to watching movies anywhere else).
I wound up going to the movie with my four year old son because of a traffic jam. I chose the movie because of the PG rating. You surely can slam on this movie for technical reasons but it has to be the first Sci-Fi in a long time that doesn't revolve around gratuitous violence or focus on the negative aspects of human nature.
There were only two scenes where I had to cover his eyes. The scene in the beginning where one guy gets a rock in the face and another gets ripped apart and the freeze dried guy near the middle.
If aliens watched this move they would garner that humans are decent, courageous people who care about each other and strive for greatness. The whole movie is a message of hope and a reflection of our own wishes to find we are not alone in the universe. The cinematography it reminded me a little of " Robinson Crusoe on Mars".
But it didn't have a cryptic meaning or a French tragic ending or a "to be continued" so the critics don't feel satisfied. The techie nitpickers didn't get to see all of the true boredom of day to day life on a spaceship or on Mars so they aren't happy. Meanwhile I walked away from two hours of enjoyment with my son that hopefully showed him a little of the wonderment I feel about space travel and exploration. I guess with $40 in ticket sales the first weekend a few others maybe agreed.
My friend and I have actually had several debates about the impact of these types of changes to the election process. Despite what many Americans believe the type of government that we have is not a Democracy it is a Representative Democracy. And given that fewer than 25% of potential voters vote in any given election or referendum then we really have a Representative Democracy controlled by a small minority of the population. Of the people that vote some vote because they enjoy participating in the process. Others, perhaps the majority tend to be people who has a specific interest is how a vote turns out. The level of participation is directly influenced by how a given vote will directly impact their lives, beliefs or livelihood.
The recent Presidential Primaries are a prime example. The level of turnout has been extraordinary. For the left there is the fear of a House, Senate and President all being controlled by Republicans. From the right there is the fear both of electing a candidate incapable of defeating Gore and of another four years of immoral Presidential antics
It all really started with the Motor Voter push. A process where someone can register to vote by simply filling in a little extra on the Driver's license renewal to be registered to vote. Before this the task or registering to vote was inconvenient. Often requiring the person to take time off from work to go register.
Republicans were afraid of the Motor Voter because it threatened to dramatically change the demographic of voters. Republicans tend to be Middle to upper income people with two ore more years of college. Democrats ten to be hourly workers with lower income and less education. The fear was that making the process more convenient would push the demographic further to the left. Fortunately for Republicans the actual act of voting was still inconvenient.
Online voting is the next obvious improvement to increasing voter participation. People could either go to the local library of log on from home to vote. The implications are obvious. Thus making the process even more convenient, will the demographic be pushed to the left as predicted? Even more importantly, do we want something more akin to a true Democracy where a majority of the population can conveniently participate?
The first question is really interesting. Though the results from Arizona won't be known for a few more days I'll go ahead and make some predictions. Despite the increased convenience, computers are still a relative luxury. Computers require a certain amount of education to understand and use. Despite the number of computers in use the number of users computer savvy enough to make it through the voting process is much smaller. Many users simply use their net connection to send and receive e-mail. AOL users will have to jump through several hoops and know what too look for to find the browser. It seems to boil down that any vote conducted on the web may actually skew to the right. Polls during the Clinton Impeachment seem to back this up. MSNBC polls often skewed so far to the right you would have thought Clinton would be standing on the corner with a little tin cup asking for donations. A further prediction is that Republican States will be the first to implement Online voting. Its a win-win scenario. They get a better Republican turnout and little fight from Democrats since they would look extremely hypocritical in light of how they beat Republicans over the head with Motor Voter.
The second question is a real head scratcher. On one hand you have the normal curve tendency. Online voters may have little impact on how votes turn out since simply scaling up the same general voting turnout may not change to actual vote results. On the other hand voting may tend to skew more and more to the right because the haves (wealthy, educated Republicans) will be more likely to vote than the have-nots. This imbalance in the power distribution will likely create interesting results.
Assuming the first scenario is true, and in the long run as computers become as inexpensive and accessible as toasters its is likely to become so, the next question is how votes change due to increased access to knowledge. This online format allows for more at-hand information about possible candidates as well as voting referendums. Since the wording of proposals will become more high profile, the mishmash of convoluted wording that passes for a proposal today will have to change. Having to vote yes to say no to a ballot will become an embarrassment for the people who write them. Voters will have access to actual voting statistics on candidates and much of the obfuscation and outright deceit in today's politics may not survive the bright light.
Last, what does this mean for the future of politics? It's not unforeseeable that sometime in the future the representative democracy may disappear. The hidden assumption is that we need this form of government because the sheer numbers of decisions involved and the amount of information needed to make these decisions are too time consuming for each individual voter. Representatives are elected to act as surrogates to make these decisions for us. In the future though this may not remain true. First, we all understand that many of the decisions currently made especially in the State and Federal government are made at the party level. Second, if even a steady 10% of voters can keep up with voting on these decisions online it may become feasible to get rid of most Representative functions. There will be the fear of knee-jerk politics, but that wouldn't really be much of a change anyhow.
Thanks, but I'm also saying that drugs shouldn't be illegal. At least not using drugs. But for other reasons I don't nor will I encouage my children or anyone I know to do drugs. But the reality is that drugs are illegal and their are consequences for breaking the law that no-one should be concieted enough to believe they are the only ones effected.
You don'y deny the child anything. You simply throttle it and sumplement the data with understanding when the child has reached the level of maturity and experience to fully comprehend the information. You crawl before you walk and you walk before you run.
My point is that this is reality. This is unlikely to change. 70% of the people when caught breaking the law chant the mantra they the reason they broke the law is that they thought they wouldn't get caught. It isn't really a different morality as much as a lack of morality. The important distinction is that most people are busy only really understanding how decisions effect themselves and very few go the next step to thinking what will happen to other people.
It is this exact lack of morality and incapacity for morality that leads people to think that everything is ok. Good and bad are always subjective. "Subjective" is overused. Subjective meaning that two people can disagree and both be correct is one thing. We each come from different paradigms. We can disagree and both be just. On the other hand, and getting back to the real situation, it is never the right thing to do when you shoot an innocent to make a point. Terrorizing a software company because you don't agree that another person should use it is wrong. It is also important to note that putting a gun into a childs hand when they can't comprehend the consequesnces of their actions if they were to shoot someone is wrong. Bang, bang you are dead. Taken to this extreme it becomes somewhat more clear. Letting a four year old view pictures of a naked woman with a fist up her ass is also inappropriate. God forbid they decide to try that with their buddies.
It is essentially a large book of rules that our society at large has decided that we will all abide by.
Not really, it is a large book or rules that a select few in out society has written for others to abide by. Law is written to hopefully help those who have no capacity to understand how their actions can impact others and to provide the immediate consequence so that an orderly society can exist.
Whatever. Laws are laws are laws are laws. For the most part laws exist for the moral retards. If you really understand right and wrong and have the ability to feel empathy then they are irrelevent.
Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.
Allen Ginsberg, Jim Morrison, Steve Jobs, Jack Kerouac, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Andy Warhol?
Morrison killed himself and ruined a lot of lives. Steve jobs fucked over his girfriend and their child for years. Kerouac- a street bum alcoholic who could write who was also a nasty asshole who hurt many people. Hendrix you havea point. Corbain, what a fucking loser. At least we know who the real talent was (Foo Fighters). Warhol-Uh whatever. A shallow man.
More to the point how about my brother and his ex-wife. He went from making >$100K back in 90 to losing his house, fucking up his kids, his kids now do drugs, he has nearly killed several people driving while under the influence of drugs. I coould go on.
Please find where I posted my explaination about moral retards, religious moralists, and self moralizers. If you really think doing drugs is a personal decision and doesn't effect others then you obviously cant feel empathy. Guess what category that falls into. Get a little Zen, its not " what's the path matter if the final destination is the same?" its all about how you get there not just getting there.
But if you think Bush will be any better take a look at this website: GeorgeBush2000.com. I'm sure a bunch of it is fudging statistics and judging his record based on the current conditions in Texas versus Texas before he became governor. But the insider trading stuff is a little scary and has a ring of thuth to it.
If you read my post about Moral Retards, religious moralists and self moralizing people it explains it all. Most people are moral retards so we write lots of laws to try to keep them in check. The spirit of Laws are based on Torts(wrongs) and property rights not "The spirit of the law is to do the greatest good while doing the least harm." The most fundament aspect of human nature is greed and laws exist to deal with greed to create an orderly society full of moral retards.
And no, the law seldom fails. People fail. Either in upholding or following it. You, I and everyone else fail in some aspects. For the most part though, in my case I don't normally consciously fail the law or teach my children to either. Unless taking a stand against a bad law is more important. The laws against non-violent drug offenders definitelt fits the bill but not to the point that I would risk my family over it.
The UCITA is still a work in progress. In the short term it may be a pain in the butt. It doesn't become effective for another year here in Virginia and already several amendments have been made. I have no doubts that it will eventually go down in flames. It probably won't be until big businesses realize they are slitting their own wrists. Either way the DCMA isn't likely to survive a challenge in the Supreme Court (First Amendment) and both the DCMA and UCITA will likely be found to conflict with existing commercial contract laws.
This has been on the Drudge Report for days. I'm still having a hard time deciphering what the point is. I have yet to see a calculation of the number of E-Mails discovered vs the number turned over to the special prosecutor. Not to mention the number with relevent content.
Without knowing if any of the e-mails had relevent content I'd say this is just a case of drudging up more dirt to use against Gore. As far as this being relevent to a discussion of anonymity it will never be allowed for official government correspondence. There are requirements for retaining documents and security regulations. On the other hand, the use of internet e-mail services would have to be curtailed.
I'm sure there is some guy that managed to play Russian Roulette with a fully loaded pistol and live to talk about it. Heck, one guy even survived a tumble over Niagra Falls in a barrel. Then there is that guy that guy who fell 10,000 feet with a failed parachute and survived. these are exceptions. Heck, maybe you are an exception.
My point is that you try to control what your child has access to until they have the maturity and understanding to really comprehend what they are seeing.
And another fact is that most people with problems tend not to be too objective on evaluating their own problems. Yet another fact is that supposing you are doing drugs, if you have a responsible position or other responsibilities like kids then you obviously have a serious problem. I would think that someone with a Masters from Ivy U. would be capable of the reasoning to understand that the cost-benefit analysis of doing drugs makes no sense or the empathy to understand the damage that could be done in both monetary and emotional terms to loved ones if you get caught is too great. Unless you live in Amsterdam.
and this
This is true on everything in life. The facts are that the bad guy often gets away with it.
There is an underlying factor that affects the ability to teach anyone anything about right and wrong. Within the population there are three groups of people. There are those that only do the right thing if there are direct and immediate consequences for doing the wrong thing, call them moral retards. Then there are the people who do the right thing because they obey what they are told or fear furute negative repurcussions for doing the wrong thing- call them the religious moralists. Lastly, there are the people who do the right thing becase they understand why some things are right some are wrong and can empathize with others that can be hurt by doing the wrong thing- call them the self-moralizing. In the general population about 70% are morally retarded, 20% are religious moralists and less than 10% are self moralizing (the extra missing percent accounts for people like Jeffery Dalhmer). Think about this fact. Soak it in. Look around and at yourself.
That being the case, as a parent you have to either dope your kid up with religion or teach them to be self-moralizing. When you say, ""If the law (or censorship program) is made stupid and I can flout it without any trouble, and I will never get caught, then what exactally is the purpose of the law? " I say your point is irrelevent since the law is an artificial construct meant to deal with the 70% moral retards because I'm trying to make my son become self moralizing like me. Unfortunately the path to self moralization usually isn't overnight. It is a process and requires life experience and gradual development.
I see what you are saying and I agree. But as my son is 4 years old I'd rather not have that discussion right now. He doesn't have the maturity to even comprehend what the discussion is about. Maybe when he is * or 12 or whatever but some sort of attempt at filtering is better than none. The other choice would be to just deny him access totally and that would definitely be wrong.
This is true on everything in life. The facts are that the bad guy often gets away with it.
There is an underlying factor that affects the ability to teach anyone anything about right and wrong. Within the population there are three groups of people. There are those that only do the right thing if there are direct and immediate consequences for doing the wrong thing, call them moral retards. Then there are the people who do the right thing because they obey what they are told or fear furute negative repurcussions for doing the wrong thing- call them the religious moralists. Lastly, there are the people who do the right thing becase they understand why some things are right some are wrong and can empathize with others that can be hurt by doing the wrong thing- call them the self-moralizing. In the general population about 70% are morally retarded, 20% are religious moralists and less than 10% are self moralizing (the extra missing percent accounts for people like Jeffery Dalhmer). Think about this fact. Soak it in. Look around and at yourself.
That being the case, as a parent you have to either dope your kid up with religion or teach them to be self-moralizing. When you say, ""If the law (or censorship program) is made stupid and I can flout it without any trouble, and I will never get caught, then what exactally is the purpose of the law? " I say your point is irrelevent since the law is an artificial construct meant to deal with the 70% moral retards because I'm trying to make my son become self moralizing like me. Unfortunately the path to self moralization usually isn't overnight. It is a process and requires life experience and gradual development.
Actually I do get your point, you don't seem to entirely get mine. And as far as public access services using censorware, attacking the company providing the software is pointless. Getting legislation passed or having the courts clarify existing legislation so that publicly funded institutions and servies can't use the software should be the focus. Looking at my previous analogy, what they are doing is comparable to bombing the security company because the mall decided to have them patrol your neighborhood.
And another fact is that most people with problems tend not to be too objective on evaluating their own problems. Another fact is that supposing you are doing drugs, if you have a responsible position or other responsibilities like kids then you obviously have a serious problem. I would think that someone with a Masters from Ivy U. would be capable of the reasoning to understand that the cost-benefit analysis of doing drugs makes no sense or the empathy to understand the damage that could be done in both monetary and emotional terms to loved ones if you get caught is too great. Unless you live in Amsterdam.