If digital cash is based on the principle of an exchange of promises, the currency is worthless without a robust trust network, which destroys the possibility of anonymity.
But I'm not making any promises when I spend digital cash. The issuer is.
Digital cash is basically a tradable I.O.U. from some issuer. When I give you five dollars in digital cash issued by Fred's Good Bits, Inc., all you have to be able to do it very that the digital signature matches Fred's public key, then decide if you trust Fred. You don't have to know jack about me.
because you either have to meet face-to-face to exchange goods
True. A lot of the more way-out Libertarian fantasies about digital cash bringing about an end to taxation and governments assume that the only important things that will be traded are information. I think some cypherpunks don't eat, or something...:-)
But a digital cash that is as anonymous as physical cash is now would still be useful.
Digital money, that is a digital equivalent of cash, is impossible. It would have about the same value that real money would have if
anyone could duplicate it at will -- that is, none at all.
A whole bunch of very smart people have figured out ways to make it work. Maybe you should go read their ideas before you form such an opinion? Pick up Applied Cryptography or search Google
Digital cash can be copied, yes. These very smart people were (gasp!) smart enough to realize it, and designed systems where that's not a problem. The trick is that it can only be spent once.
MIDI guitar (controllers). None of them felt or played all that much like a real axe, IMHO.
Um, Roland's little GK-A2 dohickey installs on your own steel-string guitar. How can it not feel or play like a real axe? I put one on a cheap stat copy and it didn't change the feel at all - it's just a new pickup.
we shouldn't put something as fragile as our democracy in the hands of open source, either.
We shouldn't be putting our democracy into the hands of software, period. Electronic voting systems are a bad idea. Check out the pastfew isues of the RISKS digest for discussion.
Building a compost heap is an annoying piece of work; and you have to tend the thing, stirring it up.
Folks, it's just not that hard. "Building" it was surroudning a couple square feet of my backyard with fence to keep the dogs and suburban wildlife out. Maybe an hour's work.
Yard waste, I throw on top. I collect the kitchen scraps in a small bucket; when it fills (about once a week) I scoop out a hole with my cultivator, dump in the scraps, and cover over. That seems to provide enough stirring. Takes maybe three minutes a week.
If you're got a really small yard and need to save space, go ahead and get once of the fancy plastic bins; but if you've got some yard space, an old-style pile is really simple.
Spending $10/year for topsoil is much better than having an eye-soar in the back yard.
There's nothing "eyesore" about a compost heap.
Hell, if you're shy about it you can buy one of those plastic bin contraptions ; me, I just put some fencing around a couple of sqaure feet of backyard. Pile lawn clipping and leaves and such on top; bury kitchen scraps in the mass. It's simple. No bins required
The organic waste still gets composted, just somewhere else.
Your lawn waste, perhaps, but I doubt your kitchen scraps get composted.
Don't be so serious. People joke about the Irish, for example.
Except of course that no one is (these days) directing violence at people for being of Irish ancestry. Or deporting Canadian citizens born in Ireland to the nation of their birth (even if they haven't been there since childhood.)
I'm no fan of PCness, but give that there are plenty of ignorant yahoos out there (many of them in the U.S. Government) looking for excuses for violence against people of Middle Eastern ancestry, it would be good to 1) not give them ideas, and 2) not sound like them.
I get 85 channels and broadband internet for less than the a quarter of the cost
of my car's insurance and upkeep, and I sure get a lot more utility out of it.
You get more from TV than you do from your car? Dude, you need to get the fsck out of the house more often.
My car lets me get to work. My car lets me get to bars and clubs where I can see great live music. My car lets me get to bookstores and libraries. My car lets me get around town to meet up with friends. My car even occasionally lets me get to the homes of pretty women who might go to bed with me.
(Yes, ideally mass transit would allow all this. Baltimore's mass transit system is useless.)
Unlimited data is unlimited data... Data is just the non PR term for "Vision". They're one and the same.
But, if I read the TOS correctly, it's only "unlimited" if you don't actually do anything with it...you can't connect a laptop or PDA to your phone, you can only use the stupid and worthless "vision" features of the phone. Feh.
with text antialiasing being a huge factor in eye strain.
Yes, those blurry anti-aliased fonts certainly hurts my eyes!
Fortunately those of us who work in an X environment can choose from a variety of fonts that were designed for computer screens, that fit a pixel grid rather then trying to emulate fonts meant for dead-trees printing. Mmm, the joy of Lucidia-typewriter bold.
Unfortunatly Texas jails have quite a few ammenities that I wish my tax dollars weren't paying for.
Since you're ignorant or mislead about such an important issue as privately control of your state's prisions, might I suggest that you take a more careful look at your beliefs about the "ammenities" being provided in prisons?
Even in the 2000 tie, where a party stole power from the other by bribing a senator to switch parties
Bullshit. Jeffers didn't switch parties, he went independent; not because of some "bribe", but because his former party was and is becoming more and more irrational.
it is pretty scary that Senators can switch parties for the best offer
Senators represent states, not parties. Parties have no constitutional standing.
I don't think many people will consider it a viable alternative to straight combustion engines.
Except, of course, that people are considering it an alternative and buy the Prius now. If my Tercel dies tomorrow, I'm Prius shopping. Whereas the GM fuel cell project is vaporware.
I think once the new EPA rules on cleaner diesel fuel comes into effect in a few years we may see diesel-electric hybrids
Volkswagon had a prototype of one some years ago; it was the first hybrid I ever read about.
Mmmm, a biodiesel hybrid...
It would also be cool to make a hybrid that runs on methanol or ethanol (or better yet, a flexible fuel hybrid) - the lower energy density of methanol (thus fewer MPG) would be compensated for by the efficency of the hybrid design.
The hybrid approach could make renewable fuels practical.
Why would I ever want to be bored when I could be excited, and the only necessary change is what car I'm in?
Because the source of your excitement leads to dependence on foreign oil, and thus to brutal foreign policy and war? Because the source of your excitement fucks up the ecosystem?
In an free market, wages and working conditions are set by supply and demand.
The main objective of Unions is to force through salaries higher than the market rate.
More properly, it's to change that market rate.
This is no different than a bunch of small companies pooling their purchasing power to negotiate a good deal with a supplier - a well-respected practice.
For example, people want to become port workers instead of IT nerds because the former pays better (which of course would not be the case if wages were set by the market)
If you think that it's a cushy well-paying job, why the heck don't you go and get a job as a longshoreman?
My skills are my own soverign property-- no union, guido, flim-flam man, or other parasite will ever profit from them...
So, how do you work it so that the parasitic investors and stockholders of the companies that employ you don't profit? I'd love to learn that trick...
As a FREE MAN, I know my value, and will never submit to the tyranny of others.
So...unions are tyranny, and wage slavery is freedom? Man, your corporate masters must love you. (After all, all workers and employers are equal players in the market...but some are more equal than others.)
I will never allow myself to be in a position where someone can extort money from me under penalty of losing my job if I don't pay it.
Union dues are a pitance compared to how much value is skimmed from your labor to fatten the pockets of the capitalists who own your job.
True, at best unions are a stop-gap against this exploition...the real solution is a major restructring that takes control of economic resources out of the hands of a government-backed minority.
Yes, I realize that many of these laws are the result of union lobbying, but once we have them, there really is no need for unions anymore.
Uh, right, Because we all know that the laws we have now are near-perfect, and can never be repealed or changed, and are always enforced fairly.
At this time, most skilled tech professionals don't need a union, because we hold enough market power by dint of rare skills.
But as programming becomes a less-skilled profession, and as jobs migrate to cheaper overseas developers, the time will come when we'll want to pool our selling power to negotiate the best deal - just as buyers often pool their purchasing power to negotiate a good deal.
Animal Rights is a form of anthropomorphising, attributing (wrongly) human traits to animals.
No. You're clearly unfamiliar with philosophical thought in the area.
"Animals have feelings too..."
The only being I am sure has feelings (is possessed of the capability to suffer, is sentient, is the "subject-of-a-life") is me.
Based on structural and behavioral similarities, I conclude that other humans probably have the same property. Those same structural and behavioral similarities inexorably lead to the conclusion that, to some degree, non human animals also share that property.
Indeed, it's a non-sequitor of the highest order to claim that "Animals are like humans, so we can get good research data from doing cruel things to them, and it's ok to do so because they're nothing like humans."
Eradicating the rather silly belief that humans are somehow 'special' would have the result of allowing Gov't funded research, here in the US, of embryonic stemcells.
Um...and this relates to animal rights how? Stemcells have no subjectivity. I don't have an problem with research involving them.
Now, if you want to do these tests on non-consenting humans or other animals, then there's an issue, but it's orthoganal to the use of stem cells.
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But I'm not making any promises when I spend digital cash. The issuer is.
Digital cash is basically a tradable I.O.U. from some issuer. When I give you five dollars in digital cash issued by Fred's Good Bits, Inc., all you have to be able to do it very that the digital signature matches Fred's public key, then decide if you trust Fred. You don't have to know jack about me.
True. A lot of the more way-out Libertarian fantasies about digital cash bringing about an end to taxation and governments assume that the only important things that will be traded are information. I think some cypherpunks don't eat, or something... :-)
But a digital cash that is as anonymous as physical cash is now would still be useful.
A whole bunch of very smart people have figured out ways to make it work. Maybe you should go read their ideas before you form such an opinion? Pick up Applied Cryptography or search Google
Digital cash can be copied, yes. These very smart people were (gasp!) smart enough to realize it, and designed systems where that's not a problem. The trick is that it can only be spent once.
Um, Roland's little GK-A2 dohickey installs on your own steel-string guitar. How can it not feel or play like a real axe? I put one on a cheap stat copy and it didn't change the feel at all - it's just a new pickup.
We shouldn't be putting our democracy into the hands of software, period. Electronic voting systems are a bad idea. Check out the past few isues of the RISKS digest for discussion.
Hmm. My plumber helps prevent me from getting buried in shit. Lawyers, on the other hand...
Folks, it's just not that hard. "Building" it was surroudning a couple square feet of my backyard with fence to keep the dogs and suburban wildlife out. Maybe an hour's work.
Yard waste, I throw on top. I collect the kitchen scraps in a small bucket; when it fills (about once a week) I scoop out a hole with my cultivator, dump in the scraps, and cover over. That seems to provide enough stirring. Takes maybe three minutes a week.
If you're got a really small yard and need to save space, go ahead and get once of the fancy plastic bins; but if you've got some yard space, an old-style pile is really simple.
There's nothing "eyesore" about a compost heap.
Hell, if you're shy about it you can buy one of those plastic bin contraptions ; me, I just put some fencing around a couple of sqaure feet of backyard. Pile lawn clipping and leaves and such on top; bury kitchen scraps in the mass. It's simple. No bins required
Your lawn waste, perhaps, but I doubt your kitchen scraps get composted.
Except of course that no one is (these days) directing violence at people for being of Irish ancestry. Or deporting Canadian citizens born in Ireland to the nation of their birth (even if they haven't been there since childhood.)
I'm no fan of PCness, but give that there are plenty of ignorant yahoos out there (many of them in the U.S. Government) looking for excuses for violence against people of Middle Eastern ancestry, it would be good to 1) not give them ideas, and 2) not sound like them.
You get more from TV than you do from your car? Dude, you need to get the fsck out of the house more often.
My car lets me get to work. My car lets me get to bars and clubs where I can see great live music. My car lets me get to bookstores and libraries. My car lets me get around town to meet up with friends. My car even occasionally lets me get to the homes of pretty women who might go to bed with me.
(Yes, ideally mass transit would allow all this. Baltimore's mass transit system is useless.)
When I signed up with DISH network, I got a plan where for $15 a month you could pick 10 channels from their basic lineup.
Unfortunately they don't offer it to new subscribers anymore. Maybe this will prompt them to re-offer it?
But, if I read the TOS correctly, it's only "unlimited" if you don't actually do anything with it...you can't connect a laptop or PDA to your phone, you can only use the stupid and worthless "vision" features of the phone. Feh.
Yes, those blurry anti-aliased fonts certainly hurts my eyes!
Fortunately those of us who work in an X environment can choose from a variety of fonts that were designed for computer screens, that fit a pixel grid rather then trying to emulate fonts meant for dead-trees printing. Mmm, the joy of Lucidia-typewriter bold.
Thirty seconds with Google:
Ten percent of Texas prisons are privately run.
In 1999, 15,000 of the state's 151,000 inmates were in privately run prisons.
Since you're ignorant or mislead about such an important issue as privately control of your state's prisions, might I suggest that you take a more careful look at your beliefs about the "ammenities" being provided in prisons?
Bullshit. Jeffers didn't switch parties, he went independent; not because of some "bribe", but because his former party was and is becoming more and more irrational.
Senators represent states, not parties. Parties have no constitutional standing.
States with smaller populations are over-represented in our system.
Except, of course, that people are considering it an alternative and buy the Prius now. If my Tercel dies tomorrow, I'm Prius shopping. Whereas the GM fuel cell project is vaporware.
Um, this is a Toyota. They're just getting broken in at 100k.
Volkswagon had a prototype of one some years ago; it was the first hybrid I ever read about.
Mmmm, a biodiesel hybrid...
It would also be cool to make a hybrid that runs on methanol or ethanol (or better yet, a flexible fuel hybrid) - the lower energy density of methanol (thus fewer MPG) would be compensated for by the efficency of the hybrid design.
The hybrid approach could make renewable fuels practical.
Because the source of your excitement leads to dependence on foreign oil, and thus to brutal foreign policy and war? Because the source of your excitement fucks up the ecosystem?
Just a thought.
More properly, it's to change that market rate.
This is no different than a bunch of small companies pooling their purchasing power to negotiate a good deal with a supplier - a well-respected practice.
If you think that it's a cushy well-paying job, why the heck don't you go and get a job as a longshoreman?
So...unions are tyranny, and wage slavery is freedom? Man, your corporate masters must love you. (After all, all workers and employers are equal players in the market...but some are more equal than others.)
Union dues are a pitance compared to how much value is skimmed from your labor to fatten the pockets of the capitalists who own your job.
True, at best unions are a stop-gap against this exploition...the real solution is a major restructring that takes control of economic resources out of the hands of a government-backed minority.
Uh, right, Because we all know that the laws we have now are near-perfect, and can never be repealed or changed, and are always enforced fairly.
At this time, most skilled tech professionals don't need a union, because we hold enough market power by dint of rare skills.
But as programming becomes a less-skilled profession, and as jobs migrate to cheaper overseas developers, the time will come when we'll want to pool our selling power to negotiate the best deal - just as buyers often pool their purchasing power to negotiate a good deal.
No. You're clearly unfamiliar with philosophical thought in the area.
The only being I am sure has feelings (is possessed of the capability to suffer, is sentient, is the "subject-of-a-life") is me.
Based on structural and behavioral similarities, I conclude that other humans probably have the same property. Those same structural and behavioral similarities inexorably lead to the conclusion that, to some degree, non human animals also share that property.
Indeed, it's a non-sequitor of the highest order to claim that "Animals are like humans, so we can get good research data from doing cruel things to them, and it's ok to do so because they're nothing like humans."
Um...and this relates to animal rights how? Stemcells have no subjectivity. I don't have an problem with research involving them.
Now, if you want to do these tests on non-consenting humans or other animals, then there's an issue, but it's orthoganal to the use of stem cells.