There can be multiple universes under my definition (which I suspect is also Hawkings). To try to put it simply: Anything that can even possibly affect me in any way is in the same universe as I am. When Hawking talks of multiple universes, he is talking of multiple, entirely seperate systems that do not interact.
You seem to be saying that in a perfect world, I could put a price on making my phone ring without my consent, and successfully sue the telemarketer. So far, I agree entirely.
But then you use this to support your opposition of this law. Well, news flash, we do not live in a perfect world. Here in the real world, this law strikes me as a simple pragmatic way to address this particular imperfection in our world, with minimal impact on you, the taxpayer.
I'm fairly libertarian myself, but any set of ideals untempered by pragmatism is idiocy.
Because it is currently perfectly legal for telemarketers to make my phone ring. This law would give me the power to change that. And despite your moaning about having to pay for it, after the initial start up, it is the telemarketers who pay for it. Which seems perfectly reasonable in exchange for having the default be that they can make my phone ring.
I too wish to take responsibility. As it happens, I do not want anyone I don't know to cause my telephone to ring. How do you suggest I bring about this desire? I'm not asking anyone to ban telemarketing outright. I see no problem with the government making it possible for me to take responsibility.
Nor, frankly, do I see any problem with a sufficient number of people taking responsibility collectively via government.
"If telemarketers are forced to 'purchase' this list, I think that will be quickly unconstitutional"
Haven't read the constitution, have you? It's actually pretty short and sweet.
"It favors businesses with money, and disfavors those trying to startup."
As do any number of laws and regulations. Requiring expensive safety equiptment for example. None of them are unconstitutional, because the constitution doesn't say anything about laws having to create a perfectly even playing field.
"That is BAD." Trying to start up a company based on interupting my life and taking up my time without compensating me is bad. Discouraging such activity is good, and I don't particularly care if the discouragement handed out to these vampires is entirely evenhanded or not.
"So far in human learning we have found that for every action there is a reaction, for every particle an anti-particle, every good an evil, every yin a yang."
With one notable exception: gravity. Which is what we're talking about here.
"...but the width of the solid rocket boosters which are built somewhere outside of south florida for political reasons is limited by the width of railroad tunnels, which are based on the width of train tracks, which are based on the width of a team of mules rears."
This is an urban legend. The theory goes that trains were designed based on wagon hardware, and hence the size of a mule team. But there were several competing guages in the early days of rail, so it doesn't fly.
None the less, being able to transport your parts by rail makes sense (they aren't shipped in one peice in any case, they're too long) and there is certainly no evidence that making the boosters wider would reduce launch costs. It may cost 10X as much to lift cargo by shuttle as by the estimates of the contractors who want to build the "next generation replacement", but that still doesn't make space tourism realistic. By your numbers, just to break even, each launch needs 4 tourists paying 10 million a peice. How many launches do you expect to fund this way?
"Programmers are smart enough to be able to spell, spellcheck, or check a dictionary"
And smart enough to appropriately prioritize carefully spell checking their slashdot posts.
Seriously, if you're counting spelling errors in slashdot posts, you're doing it because you like to.
And by the way:
Spell check is two words, "vs" should have a period, and you misspelled "recognize".
Pot, meet Kettle.
"Auto workers This is why we drive Japanese cars and not American."
Japanese auto workers are largely unionized, try again.
"Communication workers (CWA) - This is why our phone systems are still rooted in 1940's technology and is still the biggiest expense for any real business." Phone systems are the biggest expense for any real business??? Am I misunderstanding you, or are you just crazy?
"Airlines (pilots, mechanics, and stewardices) - This is why United is about to go belly up." It has nothing to do with competition forcing all airlines to price flights well below sustainable levels I'm sure...
"Textiles This is why all of our clothes say 'Made in China' or 'Made in Taiwan'" Labor in China and Taiwan costs a tiny fraction of the US minimum wage, so eliminating the union wouldn't change things.
"Teachers - This is a big reason of why Johnny can't read" Right. Because Teachers are so over-paid. Funny that we have a drastic teacher shortage at the insane salary/benefit levels the unions have forced.
"Construction industry - This is why it costs 10 times more to build in the US than it does overseas." See Textiles.
"Teamsters - enough said" Unions corrupted by organized crime are indeed bad. Anything corrupted by organized crime is bad.
"Unions are a big scam. They don't stand for making the employee a better employee" Of course not. They stand for the employees acting as a group to get a better deal than they would acting as individuals.
"In the teachers union, it takes 5 years to fire a teacher who has been found sexually abusing children" You may well have some single, particular agregious case to point to, but for the most part, a teacher even accused of a sexual or drug offense, or convicted of any offense, is out on their ass, pronto. In the case of convistion for sexual abuse of children, the teachers unions support this heartily.
"Ask yourself, would you trust your future to such an organization?" If I worked in an job where workers were fairly interchangeable and easily replaceable (e.g. on an assembly line), I sure would. In that environment, if I demand more money, they'll just fire me. If every worker in the plant demands more money, they might get it.
Since I work in a job (programming) where the best workers are actually worth a lot more than the average ones, and since I think I'm one of the better ones, I'll go it alone.
"unionized (communist)" There's a fair bit of difference between liking unions and liking total communism, but: If you're on the bottom half of the income ladder, and expect to stay there (as most lifetime assembly line workers might) why wouldn't you like communism? Aside from the perjorative associations of the word that you are trying to exploit, of course.
"The point is that the original list of attributes (practices a religion, cooks food, speaks English), by which we were determining that Boston and LA are culturally indistinguishable, is sufficiently imprecise as to make Boston and Delhi appear culturally indistinguishable, as well."
WHICH religions are practiced; WHAT KIND of food is cooked; etc. Any reasonable metric of cultural similarity should make Boston, Los Angeles, and yes, southern Louisiana, not indistinguishable, but much, much closer together than any of them are to Delhi. I have been to all four places. In Boston and Los Angeles, I felt right at home. In Lousiana, I felt somewhat like an outsider. In Delhi, I felt like a martian.
The crack about Indian food in Boston vs. Delhi was mostly a joke, but: If I gave someone a taste of Boston Indian food, and he liked it, and then I had to guess whether he'd prefer Boston American food or Delhian Indian food, it would be American all the way.
If by "we" you mean your fellow country bumpkins, fine, but elsewhere in your post you seemed to be talking of "Coloradans". In that case note that 81% of us live in the metropolitan areas along the front range, and have a lot more in common with those damn Easterners than with you.
"Try listening to Hank Williams, Jr's 'A Country Boy Can Survive.'" I did listen to most of it once. Couldn't find the stero remote.
"That song describes life in some very large parts of the country, and utterly foreign in others."
Large, but not populous; and your use of "utterly foreign" suggest you have not left this country.
So if I use well documented file formats, you won't care if I don't give you the source?
"Other than that, the methods and algorithms used by commercial software companies are widely available in books and training manuals."
Some of them. But not the ones people want to protect by keeping their source closed. I certainly don't recall writing a book about the algorithms that set my software apart from the competition...
Assuming your real question is "when": the 1700s. People who complain that "copyright infringement" is a totaly new meaning for "piracy" are just wrong.
Re:so why can't the democrats kill the bill?
on
HomeSec In the News
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· Score: 1
They can. They have more than enough votes for a fillibuster, so in fact the Democrats, acting as a block, can kill any bill they want to.
They don't because while they disagree with a few of it's provisions, they mostly support the bill.
"Couldn't the Dems filibuster?" The Dems could filibuster, but won't because they largely support the bill. Their main objection currently is the exemption of the new department from civil-service rules, which among other things try to ensure that government hires and fires people based on merit and not based on being active members of the party in or out of power.
"What exactly is a filibuster?" Historically, a filibuster is a trick based on the fact that parlimentary rules try to give everyone the chance to say what they want about a bill before it gets voted on. So if you want to stop a bill that is going to pass, you get up and talk about it. And talk about it. And keep talking about it until everyone goes home. Some time ago (I don't remember the exact details), a Senator filibustered a bill, and kept on talking for something like 30 hours, at which point he collapsed from exaustion and nearly died. So the Senate created what is called the "pro-forma fillibuster" whereby a Senetor just says "I fillibuster this", and then the bill is dead unless 60 senators vote to block the fillibuster.
"Is it a bad tactic for them to use?" The fillibuster means you can block a bill with only 40% of the Senate, but it's considered a bit of a dirty trick, (i.e. the majority will feel quite comfortable getting back at you later). So it's typically used only when an issue splits straight down party lines. The Dems know the Reps will make life difficult for them in the future in any case, so there is no disincentive, but a bipartsan coalition won't filibuster because the leadership will make it politically costly for them.
Re:The solution to problems like this...
on
HomeSec In the News
·
· Score: 1
Sure, but the bill presumably wouldn't have passed congress without the ketchup spending. Different factions in Congress make compromises all the time to get things done, sometimes for pork, sometimes for perfectly good reasons. The line item veto would let the president undo those compromises, and create a budget congress never passed.
Slashdot Mirror
Is Not! My unsubstantiated hearsay clearly says my invisible superhero is better! At least when it's interpretted correctly.
There can be multiple universes under my definition (which I suspect is also Hawkings). To try to put it simply: Anything that can even possibly affect me in any way is in the same universe as I am. When Hawking talks of multiple universes, he is talking of multiple, entirely seperate systems that do not interact.
You seem to be saying that in a perfect world, I could put a price on making my phone ring without my consent, and successfully sue the telemarketer. So far, I agree entirely.
But then you use this to support your opposition of this law. Well, news flash, we do not live in a perfect world. Here in the real world, this law strikes me as a simple pragmatic way to address this particular imperfection in our world, with minimal impact on you, the taxpayer.
I'm fairly libertarian myself, but any set of ideals untempered by pragmatism is idiocy.
"why can't you take them to court?"
Because it is currently perfectly legal for telemarketers to make my phone ring. This law would give me the power to change that. And despite your moaning about having to pay for it, after the initial start up, it is the telemarketers who pay for it. Which seems perfectly reasonable in exchange for having the default be that they can make my phone ring.
"Not everyone wants it, yet they are forced to help pay for it" can probably be said of every law, program, regulation...
Well, tough. Democracy is not anarchy.
I too wish to take responsibility. As it happens, I do not want anyone I don't know to cause my telephone to ring. How do you suggest I bring about this desire?
I'm not asking anyone to ban telemarketing outright. I see no problem with the government making it possible for me to take responsibility.
Nor, frankly, do I see any problem with a sufficient number of people taking responsibility collectively via government.
"If telemarketers are forced to 'purchase' this list, I think that will be quickly unconstitutional"
Haven't read the constitution, have you? It's actually pretty short and sweet.
"It favors businesses with money, and disfavors those trying to startup."
As do any number of laws and regulations. Requiring expensive safety equiptment for example. None of them are unconstitutional, because the constitution doesn't say anything about laws having to create a perfectly even playing field.
"That is BAD."
Trying to start up a company based on interupting my life and taking up my time without compensating me is bad. Discouraging such activity is good, and I don't particularly care if the discouragement handed out to these vampires is entirely evenhanded or not.
Vauge ramblings do not a theory make.
"So far in human learning we have found that for every action there is a reaction, for every particle an anti-particle, every good an evil, every yin a yang."
With one notable exception: gravity. Which is what we're talking about here.
If there is something ouside a system that affects that system, that system is not the "universe".
I remember that they issued a tracking stock representing 10% of Palm. As far as I can tell 3Com still owns the other 90%.
I found it particularly amusing during the dot-com days that Palms market cap was several times 3-Coms.
"...but the width of the solid rocket boosters which are built somewhere outside of south florida for political reasons is limited by the width of railroad tunnels, which are based on the width of train tracks, which are based on the width of a team of mules rears."
This is an urban legend. The theory goes that trains were designed based on wagon hardware, and hence the size of a mule team. But there were several competing guages in the early days of rail, so it doesn't fly.
None the less, being able to transport your parts by rail makes sense (they aren't shipped in one peice in any case, they're too long) and there is certainly no evidence that making the boosters wider would reduce launch costs. It may cost 10X as much to lift cargo by shuttle as by the estimates of the contractors who want to build the "next generation replacement", but that still doesn't make space tourism realistic. By your numbers, just to break even, each launch needs 4 tourists paying 10 million a peice. How many launches do you expect to fund this way?
And smart enough to appropriately prioritize carefully spell checking their slashdot posts.
Seriously, if you're counting spelling errors in slashdot posts, you're doing it because you like to.
And by the way:
Spell check is two words, "vs" should have a period, and you misspelled "recognize".
Pot, meet Kettle.
"Auto workers
This is why we drive Japanese cars and not American."
Japanese auto workers are largely unionized, try again.
"Communication workers (CWA) - This is why our phone systems are still rooted in 1940's technology and is still the biggiest expense for any real business."
Phone systems are the biggest expense for any real business??? Am I misunderstanding you, or are you just crazy?
"Airlines (pilots, mechanics, and stewardices) - This is why United is about to go belly up."
It has nothing to do with competition forcing all airlines to price flights well below sustainable levels I'm sure...
"Textiles
This is why all of our clothes say 'Made in China' or 'Made in Taiwan'"
Labor in China and Taiwan costs a tiny fraction of the US minimum wage, so eliminating the union wouldn't change things.
"Teachers - This is a big reason of why Johnny can't read"
Right. Because Teachers are so over-paid. Funny that we have a drastic teacher shortage at the insane salary/benefit levels the unions have forced.
"Construction industry - This is why it costs 10 times more to build in the US than it does overseas."
See Textiles.
"Teamsters - enough said"
Unions corrupted by organized crime are indeed bad. Anything corrupted by organized crime is bad.
"Unions are a big scam. They don't stand for making the employee a better employee"
Of course not. They stand for the employees acting as a group to get a better deal than they would acting as individuals.
"In the teachers union, it takes 5 years to fire a teacher who has been found sexually abusing children"
You may well have some single, particular agregious case to point to, but for the most part, a teacher even accused of a sexual or drug offense, or convicted of any offense, is out on their ass, pronto. In the case of convistion for sexual abuse of children, the teachers unions support this heartily.
"Ask yourself, would you trust your future to such an organization?"
If I worked in an job where workers were fairly interchangeable and easily replaceable (e.g. on an assembly line), I sure would. In that environment, if I demand more money, they'll just fire me. If every worker in the plant demands more money, they might get it.
Since I work in a job (programming) where the best workers are actually worth a lot more than the average ones, and since I think I'm one of the better ones, I'll go it alone.
"unionized (communist)"
There's a fair bit of difference between liking unions and liking total communism, but: If you're on the bottom half of the income ladder, and expect to stay there (as most lifetime assembly line workers might) why wouldn't you like communism? Aside from the perjorative associations of the word that you are trying to exploit, of course.
"The point is that the original list of attributes (practices a religion, cooks food, speaks English), by which we were determining that Boston and LA are culturally indistinguishable, is sufficiently imprecise as to make Boston and Delhi appear culturally indistinguishable, as well."
WHICH religions are practiced; WHAT KIND of food is cooked; etc. Any reasonable metric of cultural similarity should make Boston, Los Angeles, and yes, southern Louisiana, not indistinguishable, but much, much closer together than any of them are to Delhi. I have been to all four places. In Boston and Los Angeles, I felt right at home. In Lousiana, I felt somewhat like an outsider. In Delhi, I felt like a martian.
The crack about Indian food in Boston vs. Delhi was mostly a joke, but: If I gave someone a taste of Boston Indian food, and he liked it, and then I had to guess whether he'd prefer Boston American food or Delhian Indian food, it would be American all the way.
"We are NOT the same as Easterners"
If by "we" you mean your fellow country bumpkins, fine, but elsewhere in your post you seemed to be talking of "Coloradans". In that case note that 81% of us live in the metropolitan areas along the front range, and have a lot more in common with those damn Easterners than with you.
"Try listening to Hank Williams, Jr's 'A Country Boy Can Survive.'"
I did listen to most of it once. Couldn't find the stero remote.
"That song describes life in some very large parts of the country, and utterly foreign in others."
Large, but not populous; and your use of "utterly foreign" suggest you have not left this country.
Sincerely,
A Self-Righteous Ass in Boulder
So you think the differences between Boston and LA are comparable to the differences between Boston and Delhi?
For that matter, you think Indian food consumed in Boston has more in common with Indian food in Delhi than American food in Boston?
You have never been to Delhi.
Please show me any program produced in 100 hours that anyone will pay $2000 for.
So if I use well documented file formats, you won't care if I don't give you the source?
"Other than that, the methods and algorithms used by commercial software companies are widely available in books and training manuals."
Some of them. But not the ones people want to protect by keeping their source closed. I certainly don't recall writing a book about the algorithms that set my software apart from the competition...
Assuming your real question is "when": the 1700s. People who complain that "copyright infringement" is a totaly new meaning for "piracy" are just wrong.
Speaking of deliberate lies...
They can. They have more than enough votes for a fillibuster, so in fact the Democrats, acting as a block, can kill any bill they want to.
They don't because while they disagree with a few of it's provisions, they mostly support the bill.
"Couldn't the Dems filibuster?"
The Dems could filibuster, but won't because they largely support the bill. Their main objection currently is the exemption of the new department from civil-service rules, which among other things try to ensure that government hires and fires people based on merit and not based on being active members of the party in or out of power.
"What exactly is a filibuster?"
Historically, a filibuster is a trick based on the fact that parlimentary rules try to give everyone the chance to say what they want about a bill before it gets voted on. So if you want to stop a bill that is going to pass, you get up and talk about it. And talk about it. And keep talking about it until everyone goes home. Some time ago (I don't remember the exact details), a Senator filibustered a bill, and kept on talking for something like 30 hours, at which point he collapsed from exaustion and nearly died. So the Senate created what is called the "pro-forma fillibuster" whereby a Senetor just says "I fillibuster this", and then the bill is dead unless 60 senators vote to block the fillibuster.
"Is it a bad tactic for them to use?"
The fillibuster means you can block a bill with only 40% of the Senate, but it's considered a bit of a dirty trick, (i.e. the majority will feel quite comfortable getting back at you later). So it's typically used only when an issue splits straight down party lines. The Dems know the Reps will make life difficult for them in the future in any case, so there is no disincentive, but a bipartsan coalition won't filibuster because the leadership will make it politically costly for them.
Sure, but the bill presumably wouldn't have passed congress without the ketchup spending. Different factions in Congress make compromises all the time to get things done, sometimes for pork, sometimes for perfectly good reasons. The line item veto would let the president undo those compromises, and create a budget congress never passed.
Got to disagree. You could know that you can't achieve a particular thing.