That's what pisses me off about this Global Warming crap. The Earth has been going through hot and cold cycles since it's beginning, and I'd find it odd if this wasn't part of that cycle.
That's what pisses me off about apologists for the industrial spewing of greenhouse gasses. First, it was "There is no global warming. It's all a liberal conspiracy." Now, it's "Sure there's global warming, so what, it's all part of Nature's plan, human activities have nothing to do with with it."
Ice ages and warm spells don't just happen for no reason. They happen due to variations in Earth's orbit, or Solar output, or catastrophies like volcanic eruptions, geological upheavals, or comet/asteroid impacts. Nothing massive along those lines has happened lately.
There's only one culprit left to explain such a huge reduction in the ice caps over a short time. Us.
Our military is composed of fine young men and women who volunteered to serve their country...
Actually, they volunteered to serve their government. Many learned the hard way that the two can be quite different.
That's the whole point of war--to get rid of a threat to our nation
In order to be a real threat to our nation, you need to either
Be adjacent to us. Canada and Mexico aren't scaring me much.
Have a huge air force and/or navy capable of transporting an invasion force. Even at the height of the Cold War, I don't think anyone was seriously expecting a massive amphibious assult on the shores of the USA. (Outside of a handful of movie scriptwriters playing on Cold War paranoia.)
Have a metric shitload of nuclear weapons - which makes it unwise for us to go to war with you.
So where's the threat? Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, and Korea were not about to invade the USA. Even in WWII, the direct threat to the US was minimal. (Remembering that Hawaii was at the time recently-stolen land, not a state.)
(All of which, BTW, doesn't mean that kicking Nazi ass and stopping Japanese agression wasn't morally the right thing to do; but then, the Nazis would never have come to power if it wasn't for WWI, where we got involved without any threat at all to the US.)
Where's the threat? It's to "our overseas interests". Which, these days, means the ability of American corporations to rake in the dough.
Yeh right, sourcecode can be made absolutely perfect. It's just that most programmers don't bother. Computer code can be mathematically proven...
Only in very limited cases. There is no general way to prove the behavior of code - that's the halting problem.
It's more accurate to say that code can be created from formal mathematical specification and shown to match it. The problem is that creating a mathematical specification is fundamentally no less complex or error-prone than writing code!
Thus Knuth wrote: "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
Too many people pass the buck and say "Well, parents should do this on their own. We don't need the government to do it for us." Excuse me, but can we expect every parent to do the job we hope they will do?
It's not a question of the job "we hope they will do" - I, after all, hope all parents will raise their children to be leftist pagan vegan treehuggers. It's a question of doing the job they signed up for - responsbily raising their children. And yes, we can expect - nay, demand - that they do it. If they can't, then there is due process of law to intervene and possibly even take the kids away; but up to that point, the state should keep its grubby hands off.
It's not up to the legislature to decide what ANYONE, child or adult, gets to see or read. That is 100% out of the rightful provence of government; and I weep for any nation that doesn't understand that.
It is of course inevitable that the day I get linked to from Slashdot, my DNS gets completely FUBARed. Something went wacky during a registrar switch. Hail Eris! We should be back up just as soon as all parties involved do their database updates.
As an individual I might want to get a message out, something like "I Love You, Carolyn. Bob.", but I'm not sure that advertising is the right vehicle for that...Democracy is for governments, advertising is for corporations.
Hmmm...for messages like "I love you Carolyn", I'd say you're right. But what about messages like "Nike exploits child labor"? Or "Joe's Tiny Corner Pharmacy has the service WalMart lacks"? Or "If you keep voting for the lesser of two evils, you'll always have two evils to choose from"?
We've come to accept advertising as strictly a means for big business to inspire consumption. (Apart from the occasional federally-mandated PSA.) The reason other messages aren't heard isn't just from lack of funds, but corporate control of the means of advertising. (For example, the three major networks declined to air Adbuster's uncommercials.)
That's why to many of us, "advertisement" has become a dirty word; why we install Junkbuster, and hit the mute button on the TV remote when they break for commerical. We're not being informed about products we might find useful, we're being manipulated. Does it have to be that way? Or can we have advertising-supported media with more messages than "Buy this, buy that, it's cool to buy stuff"? I dunno. But I think it might be worthwhile to give it a shot.
P.S. Although I do admit that the line between governments and corporations is blurring!
I sent you a mail, but it's still sitting in my mqueue waiting for an MX record for infamous.net.;)
Yes, it's just further proof of the fundamental tenets of Discordianism - Hail Eris! The domain registry's floating somewhere between NSI and Gandi, probably hanging somewhere above the Atlantic now I suppose. As soon as NSI stops claiming to be the registar, it should all be good. (Gee, NSI making life difficult? Unheard of.)
Sorry for the inconvenience. Meanwhile, I can be reached at tms@charm.net.
BTW: do you need a hostname pointing to your machine or anything else to help you out until the NIC or granitecanyon fixes your DNS?
Thanks, but I think I've got a handle on it, just have to wait for everyone to propagate their changes.
While this project sounds pretty neat, I'm not too sure how different it is than just a banner ad service that caters to "the little guy".
That's not a bad summary. (Except that the focus is on text sponsored links, not graphical banner ads.) I want to take sponsorship away from huge corporate sponsors and return it to "the little guy." (I even think that this would help make sponsorship messages - i.e., ads - more informative and useful, actually letting you know about products and services rather than sticking another fucking Nike swoosh on something. Is there anyone in North America or Europe who doesn't know that Nike makes shoes? Do we need that fact repeated ten times a day, or would it be good to make space for other messages?)
My number one concern is that as the web gets more and more commerical, "the little guy" may get marginalized, and we could end up with something as bland, biased, and uninformative as (ugh) network television. (Possibly with some pay-per-view premium sites providing quality to those who can afford it, further dividing the haves from the have-nots.)
Anyone - not just those with something to sell - can become a sponsor of your site in minutes.
I think that's true for regular banner ads, too, isn't it?
Most sites have a "contact us for advertizing rates" message. Where, for example, on Slashdot could I go if I had five minutes and a hundred bucks? (I doubt I could get anything for $100.)
(it's probably
easier to find ten people willing to contribute $5 each that one person willing to contribute $50).
This may be true. I'm curious as hell to see.
Me too. B-)
Can easily be used to allow donors to sponsor non-internet activities via your website. (For example, a high
school marching band might set up a sponsorpool on a website to let the community fund their new uniforms.)
Just like banner ads, right?
I'm not sure I follow you there...Mr. Smith might have twenty bucks for the band and a message (maybe something as simple as "Go J. Random High Fighting Slugs!"), but it's unlikely he has a banner ad sitting on his hard drive ready to go.
Much less annoying than banner ads.
In what way? seriously, I'm not too sure that this wouldn't just be a bunch of banner ads.
The original plan uses text links (though as mnetioned, it's possible to expand the scheme to use graphic banners), so that's automatically less annoying. (I don't mind a brief "This site brought to you by message" at all, while banner ads inspired me to install Junkbuster. YMMV.)
The other aspect is the hope that the democratization of advertizing
will lead to more ads which are actually informative, rather than just serve to imprint some corporate logo on your retina.
My thanks to those who have taken a look.
(Murphy's law is in full force: my infamous.net DNS service seems to have gotten screwed up by a registrar transfer just as this went up on Slashdot, and my ISP's server (where I have the mirror) appears to have hiccuped. Arrgh!)
They might blindly hate the idea of using Microsoft software. This *is*/.
I don't blindly hate the idea of using Microsoft software.
I hate the idea of using Microsoft software based on a combination of their disregard for quality, security, and reliability; concern about questionable business practices; and concern about the dangers of software monoculture. Nothing blind about it.
Then I had a story posted, and my
karma dropped to the previously indicated 50.
Yep, I was at 160-something (not whoring), got something into the "Ask Slashdot" queue and got dropped down to 50. I thought it was a bug so I asked CmdrTaco, and he sayeth: "Karma cap. Kills whores dead." I've had a post modded up since then, but karma didn't increase.
A bit nasty (I liked being in the 100+ club, dammit, and with no karma whoring!) but probably necessary.
Most spammers fake headers, frauduantly implicating innocent parties. That may or may not be criminal, but it is at least cause for civil action. Spammers often engage in unauthorized access to computer services, which is a crime.
Has anyone ever noted that growing treas, making paper, and burying it rather than recylcing is about the only way there is to remove carbon from the atmosphere to forestall alleged global warming?
You are either confused or trolling. The objective is to lower carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Loose carbon in the air is called soot, that's a different problem.
Photosynthesis is the best way we have to do that. Trees that have been cut down and turned into paper (or houses, as discussed below) no longer photosynthesize (duh). Recycling paper leaves more trees around to continue photosynthesizing. It also creates less pollution and uses less energy than making paper from trees.
Trees are also useful for harboring wildlife, preventing soil erosion, providing shade, blocking wind, and being generally pleasant all around. Hug a tree today.
"Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does." -- George Bernard Shaw
Whatever the situation, the police thought Vergil looked suspicious, and stopped to talk to him.
That someone "looked suspicious" because of the way he dressed (we're talking about a surplus cargo vest, for Ghu's sake, something very utilitarian) is not the probable cause required for a search, no way no how. Nor is it the sort of specific and articulable fact required for an arrest. So the cop had no business to say anything besides "Hi, howya doing."
The fact that Vergil was less than polite when the cop pressed beyond that is also not grounds for a search, questioning, or arrest. The legal standards are clear; there was no legitimate cause for police action. Period.
Why do you think drug dealers work so well if it weren't for the addictive properties of the drugs they sell?
Nicotine addicts more of its users than any other drug, and alcohol addiction is so strong that withdrawl can kill. So what? The fact that something is harmful and dangerous doesn't mean that the state should take people mature, competent people who choose to do it and lock them in cages. Not only is it an illegitimate use of government force, it tends to make the problems of addiction worse, not better. Medical problems are best left to the surgeon general, not the attorney general.
Your sig is ironic:
Freedom can be assured but it must be given a nudge.
Freedom is never assured so long as the government can make our choices about our bodies for us.
Verbal abuse (such as getting in somebody's face and telling them to "fuck off")...
He didn't get in anyone's face, the cop got in his. (At least as the story is told here.)
...is not free speech, it is confrontational behavior and a disturbance of the peace.
The cop confronted him. The cop is guilty of confrontational behavior, not Vergil.
It is also a violation of the cop's rights.
Nonsense. No one has a right not to be told to fuck off. Especially not a cop who's harassing someone.
Dicks like this are diminishing the social impact of real police violations, such as the fellow who was recently shot in NYC when he went for his wallet.
It's because people like you fail to protest smaller violations like this, that larger violations can occur. There must be zero tolerance for police violation of civil liberties. Federal intrusions like Carnivore, harassment of dissidents at protests, shooting of unarmed suspects - it's all of a piece. See also eternal vigilance, liberty, price of.
When a cop confronts a protester wearing gear designed for carrying grenades and gas masks, that is what is known
as "probably cause",
Bullshit. Wearing a military surlpus vest is no cause at all. Carrying a gas mask anywhere near a protest zone is only common sense, given the cop's fondness for indiscriminate gassing.
When a person spews profanities and a police officer and behaves in a hostile manner, especially among a crowd, the
correct thing to do is apprehend him before the situation escalates.
Spews profanities? Let me introduce you to the concept of free speech. Hostile manner? When a cop tries to violate your rights, a "Fuck no" isn't hostile, it's extremely restrained. Hell, anything short of violent resistance is extremely restrained.
The police are there to keep the peace, and this twerp was disturbing it.
and mouth off to the cops, who then treat me pretty fairly all things considered, am I supposed to be outraged?
Free speech is a right. He didn't "mouth off" until he was harrassed. He was arrested - even if not booked - without specific and articulable facts suggesting that he had commited a crime.
He was deprived of liberty without due process of law. The cops who did so are criminals. But in our police state, it's business as usual, the masses don't even question it. Carnivore, Echelon, COINTELPRO, digital wiretap laws, crypto export restrictions, stop-and-frisk, no-knock searches, mandatory drug tests, harassment of dissidents, whatever, just so long as I get home in time to see "Big Brother" on the tube.
once they are satisfied he isn't
peddling acid.
what are we supposed to take a stand against here? Saftey in our streets?
And just how would anyone on the street have been threatened if he had been in possession of some blotter? Drug prohibtion laws are just another convenient excuse to expand police power. (If the state was really interested in our safety, they'd offer free handgun marksmanship classes and a tax deduction on ammo...)
It's really interesting that you say people are going hungry in this country because there is ample opportunity to get a
job. It may not be glamorous and interesting with fringe benefits but you still get one.
It's quite possible to work full-time and not have enough to feed a family. Many of those who are going hungry or malnourished are children.
It's possible to live in depressed urban or rural areas where there are no jobs available. Someone living in an Appalachain shack isn't helped by a job opening in a McDonalds a hundred miles away.
It's possible to have a physical or mental disability, temporary or permanant, that prevents you from holding a job.
Teach them skills that allow them to get food on their own and they will fair quite well.
More than that, you have to create a legal and socioeconomic system where they can apply those skills. "Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime," but it does no good to teach a man to fish when all the waterfront is deeded to private property protected by government guns.
(Which shouldn't be taken to mean that I think massive government programs are the answer. Libertarian socialist that I am, I think the state should do less to promote social injustice by concentrating wealth, and should issue direct tax credits (not just deductions) for charitable donations, and pretty much reduce its role to guidance, advocacy, and oversight, rather than incompetently try to promote social justice by force (the only tool the state really has).)
Well ever heard of a guy called Ronald Reagan...
Uh, yeah. Did you notice the massive debt and large recession that followed his presidency? Regan did for the USA what anabolic steroids do for the human body - yeah, it looks more muscular, but the testicles are shrinking...
Oh, and maybe you recall Iran-Contra? Regan was either a criminal or completely incompetent. Probably both.
We lost Vietnam because of
democratic incompetence.
We lost in Vietnam because we had no fucking business being there in the first place. The only thing worse than losing when you're wrong is winning when your wrong. because then you go and fuck up even more. (This, BTW, is why I'm just waiting for Gulf War II.)
The solution to this problem may be to reward donors with special perks when the media is released...The perks may be more difficult to award for other media types, such as music, games, or movies, where there may
not be any significant advantage to having a physical copy.
Blatant self-promotion: I'm working on a system that would allow donors the perk of placing a sponsored link on a website. The more they donate, the more often that link would be shown. I've just about got an initial version coded up, and could use some folks to help test it. Check it out: sponsorpool.infamous.net.
Slashdot Mirror
Ice ages and warm spells don't just happen for no reason. They happen due to variations in Earth's orbit, or Solar output, or catastrophies like volcanic eruptions, geological upheavals, or comet/asteroid impacts. Nothing massive along those lines has happened lately.
There's only one culprit left to explain such a huge reduction in the ice caps over a short time. Us.
- Be adjacent to us. Canada and Mexico aren't scaring me much.
- Have a huge air force and/or navy capable of transporting an invasion force. Even at the height of the Cold War, I don't think anyone was seriously expecting a massive amphibious assult on the shores of the USA. (Outside of a handful of movie scriptwriters playing on Cold War paranoia.)
- Have a metric shitload of nuclear weapons - which makes it unwise for us to go to war with you.
So where's the threat? Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, and Korea were not about to invade the USA. Even in WWII, the direct threat to the US was minimal. (Remembering that Hawaii was at the time recently-stolen land, not a state.)(All of which, BTW, doesn't mean that kicking Nazi ass and stopping Japanese agression wasn't morally the right thing to do; but then, the Nazis would never have come to power if it wasn't for WWI, where we got involved without any threat at all to the US.)
Where's the threat? It's to "our overseas interests". Which, these days, means the ability of American corporations to rake in the dough.
It's more accurate to say that code can be created from formal mathematical specification and shown to match it. The problem is that creating a mathematical specification is fundamentally no less complex or error-prone than writing code!
Thus Knuth wrote: "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
It's not up to the legislature to decide what ANYONE, child or adult, gets to see or read. That is 100% out of the rightful provence of government; and I weep for any nation that doesn't understand that.
It is of course inevitable that the day I get linked to from Slashdot, my DNS gets completely FUBARed. Something went wacky during a registrar switch. Hail Eris! We should be back up just as soon as all parties involved do their database updates.
But you can still see the mirror at http://www.charm.net/~tms/intro.html, and reach me via email at tms at charm.net.
Thanks again to everyone who took a look and gave feedback.
We've come to accept advertising as strictly a means for big business to inspire consumption. (Apart from the occasional federally-mandated PSA.) The reason other messages aren't heard isn't just from lack of funds, but corporate control of the means of advertising. (For example, the three major networks declined to air Adbuster's uncommercials.)
That's why to many of us, "advertisement" has become a dirty word; why we install Junkbuster, and hit the mute button on the TV remote when they break for commerical. We're not being informed about products we might find useful, we're being manipulated. Does it have to be that way? Or can we have advertising-supported media with more messages than "Buy this, buy that, it's cool to buy stuff"? I dunno. But I think it might be worthwhile to give it a shot.
Agreed. B-(Sorry for the inconvenience. Meanwhile, I can be reached at tms@charm.net.
Thanks, but I think I've got a handle on it, just have to wait for everyone to propagate their changes.Thanks for the feedback.
That's not a bad summary. (Except that the focus is on text sponsored links, not graphical banner ads.) I want to take sponsorship away from huge corporate sponsors and return it to "the little guy." (I even think that this would help make sponsorship messages - i.e., ads - more informative and useful, actually letting you know about products and services rather than sticking another fucking Nike swoosh on something. Is there anyone in North America or Europe who doesn't know that Nike makes shoes? Do we need that fact repeated ten times a day, or would it be good to make space for other messages?)My number one concern is that as the web gets more and more commerical, "the little guy" may get marginalized, and we could end up with something as bland, biased, and uninformative as (ugh) network television. (Possibly with some pay-per-view premium sites providing quality to those who can afford it, further dividing the haves from the have-nots.)
Most sites have a "contact us for advertizing rates" message. Where, for example, on Slashdot could I go if I had five minutes and a hundred bucks? (I doubt I could get anything for $100.) Me too. B-) I'm not sure I follow you there...Mr. Smith might have twenty bucks for the band and a message (maybe something as simple as "Go J. Random High Fighting Slugs!"), but it's unlikely he has a banner ad sitting on his hard drive ready to go. The original plan uses text links (though as mnetioned, it's possible to expand the scheme to use graphic banners), so that's automatically less annoying. (I don't mind a brief "This site brought to you by message" at all, while banner ads inspired me to install Junkbuster. YMMV.)The other aspect is the hope that the democratization of advertizing will lead to more ads which are actually informative, rather than just serve to imprint some corporate logo on your retina.
My thanks to those who have taken a look.
(Murphy's law is in full force: my infamous.net DNS service seems to have gotten screwed up by a registrar transfer just as this went up on Slashdot, and my ISP's server (where I have the mirror) appears to have hiccuped. Arrgh!)
I hate the idea of using Microsoft software based on a combination of their disregard for quality, security, and reliability; concern about questionable business practices; and concern about the dangers of software monoculture. Nothing blind about it.
A bit nasty (I liked being in the 100+ club, dammit, and with no karma whoring!) but probably necessary.
Ah, well. It's only karma.
You don't want the soap I rubbed all over your windshield? Hey, a wet rag and its gone.
You don't want the hot grits I poured on your pants? It's not that hard, just throw them in the washing machine and they're gone.
You are either confused or trolling. The objective is to lower carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Loose carbon in the air is called soot, that's a different problem.
Photosynthesis is the best way we have to do that. Trees that have been cut down and turned into paper (or houses, as discussed below) no longer photosynthesize (duh). Recycling paper leaves more trees around to continue photosynthesizing. It also creates less pollution and uses less energy than making paper from trees.
Trees are also useful for harboring wildlife, preventing soil erosion, providing shade, blocking wind, and being generally pleasant all around. Hug a tree today.
"Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does." -- George Bernard Shaw
The fact that Vergil was less than polite when the cop pressed beyond that is also not grounds for a search, questioning, or arrest. The legal standards are clear; there was no legitimate cause for police action. Period.
Your sig is ironic:
Freedom is never assured so long as the government can make our choices about our bodies for us.Capitalist - in general, one who believes in an economic system based on property.
Socialist vs. Capitalist is not the same axis as command economy vs. free market.
BTW, "Libertarian" originally was used by those on the left. It was co-opted by liberatarian capitalist within the last few decades.
Further reading on the topic can be found here.
He was deprived of liberty without due process of law. The cops who did so are criminals. But in our police state, it's business as usual, the masses don't even question it. Carnivore, Echelon, COINTELPRO, digital wiretap laws, crypto export restrictions, stop-and-frisk, no-knock searches, mandatory drug tests, harassment of dissidents, whatever, just so long as I get home in time to see "Big Brother" on the tube.
And just how would anyone on the street have been threatened if he had been in possession of some blotter? Drug prohibtion laws are just another convenient excuse to expand police power. (If the state was really interested in our safety, they'd offer free handgun marksmanship classes and a tax deduction on ammo...)It's possible to live in depressed urban or rural areas where there are no jobs available. Someone living in an Appalachain shack isn't helped by a job opening in a McDonalds a hundred miles away.
It's possible to have a physical or mental disability, temporary or permanant, that prevents you from holding a job.
More than that, you have to create a legal and socioeconomic system where they can apply those skills. "Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime," but it does no good to teach a man to fish when all the waterfront is deeded to private property protected by government guns.(Which shouldn't be taken to mean that I think massive government programs are the answer. Libertarian socialist that I am, I think the state should do less to promote social injustice by concentrating wealth, and should issue direct tax credits (not just deductions) for charitable donations, and pretty much reduce its role to guidance, advocacy, and oversight, rather than incompetently try to promote social justice by force (the only tool the state really has).)
Uh, yeah. Did you notice the massive debt and large recession that followed his presidency? Regan did for the USA what anabolic steroids do for the human body - yeah, it looks more muscular, but the testicles are shrinking...
Oh, and maybe you recall Iran-Contra? Regan was either a criminal or completely incompetent. Probably both.
We lost in Vietnam because we had no fucking business being there in the first place. The only thing worse than losing when you're wrong is winning when your wrong. because then you go and fuck up even more. (This, BTW, is why I'm just waiting for Gulf War II.)