It sure is better than "Thank A-Vague-and-Heretofore-Unproven-Omniscient-Being". I'm an atheist but I still say "God bless you". It's part of the vernacular. Perhaps my "God" is reason and I'm asking it to bless you. Who cares...
Could you name a few? I'm just curious, because I hear this an awful lot, but nobody really ever points to any examples of how corporations are trampling on our rights.
How about companies that withhold information about their products, harming consumers (whether steering columns or tires on cars, the addictiveness of nicotine, the harmful effects of a drug brought to market despite severe negative health effects)? How about companies that lobby government to either roll over and give them public lands to exploit, or provide the public water system as free disposal for flouride waste, or let publicly opposed commercial development go through? Not to mention the effects of rampant "free trade" on third world countries - exploitation of their natural resources and human labor.
Take some time to get people pissed off, politicians still have to listen.
They don't have to listen if the average citizen is uninformed (either willfully or not). Certainly it is every citizen's duty to be informed, but it is just as underhanded for politicians to dodge, and bury the important issues, and blow smoke. Democrats and Republicans *haven't* been listening. That's why there are third parties.
When things change slowly, they're a whole lot more likely to change in a reasonable fashion.
I don't think that necessarily follows. Even if it were so, the political system is far too polluted by large amounts of money, which usually come - you guessed it - from large corporations pushing an agenda. Corporations are not people. They shouldn't get a vote, and they shouldn't be able to influence government (other than individual employees/stockholders voting independently).
From my perspective, third parties don't get high poll numbers, or a lot of press, because most people quite simply don't agree with their policies.
OR...because people are not even *aware* of them, and the issues they are bringing up. Perot (not that I supported him) got a huge jump in the polls after he was on the debates. I'm absolutely sure Nader, or any other third party would poll much much higher if they got the same exposure as the Democrat and Republican party. Hell, all I hear about the New York senate race is Lazio this and Hillary that. Not ONE mention of Mark Dunau, the Green candidate. Nada, nothing. How could somebody *possibly* make an informed decision if they are not even made aware of all the candidates? Of course this awareness is not something the Democrat/Republican duopoly really wants to push. They're happy with their monopoly on "free" network exposure.
It just so happens that Republicans and Democrats tend to reflect the majority of the nation's views. If you disagree with them, that's great, and it's a good reason to vote for someone else, but it seems it's still important to accept the fact that most of America probably disagrees with you, and there's no conspiracy that goes along with that disagreement.
I challenge you to go up to somebody on the street (first of all, find a voter), who is voting Republican and Democrat and ask them *why* they are voting that way. Ask them about their opinions of the alternative views of third party candidates. The fact is, most Americans pick their candidates like soda beverages from 30 second commercials, or the "debates" (which is really just a set of prescripted answers to prefiltered questions). I can guarantee you that if third party candidates were ever to get as much exposure as the other two parties, you would find that a much higher percentage of people agree with them. It's a vicious cycle that those in power have (at least indirect) control over the media, and over the voices of those not in power (*cough* Commission on Presidential Debates *cough*).
Sun wants everyone to use Java on every platform - without putting forth the effort to port it to every platform themselves. But more importantly, they want everyone to use their compiler/runtime/etc
Huh?? The VM and Language specs are freely available. So is the source to the runtime libraries. Re-implement them all you want, nobody is stopping you or forcing you to use their runtime. There are several platforms for which there is no up to date Sun runtime, but there is a third party runtime. There are also several current VMs which "compete" with Sun's. I'm sure they couldn't care less. They don't sell VMs, they don't even sell Java products!
I think Java is still in an immature phase. It still needs to be centrally controlled. Just look at the number of "community" proposals: there are tons of them, many of them which would have very broad impact on Java. The problem is not that implementations will fork - who cares. The problem is that these nascent specs will splinter and leave the entity known as "Java" in many various flavors which may or may not be reconcilable (e.g., everybody comes up with their own RPC apis and libraries? etc.).
I think we should lay off Sun a bit. Kirninghan faced this very same problem when everybody was jumping on him to add their favorite new whizbang feature and he resisted (yeah, yeah, C is an ANSI standard...Java is not there yet, there is still stuff to clean up).
As a daily Java middleware developer (CORBA/Servlets/MOM, etc.; yeah, I'll admit it), I think Sun has done a pretty damn good job at giving everybody a pretty solid language which is lovely to develop in, tomes of *well designed*, refined APIs and libraries, and liberation from platform dependence -- all for free (if not Free).
Funny, I was watching a speech by Bush where he was criticizing Al Gore's "targeted" tax cut. For instance, he cited "photovoltaic roof apparatus" (or something) stumbling in his eloquent way through "photovoltaic". This got a big chuckle out of him and the audience. How foolish! What the heck is a new fangled "photovaltaic roof apparatus". Yuk Yuk Yuk. Everybody laugh at how stupid this is.
Dolt. It's solar power. Why *shouldn't* we subsidize it?
Apply this to the physical world: crowbars, screwdrivers, wrenches, microscopes, medical/electronic/mechanical/ANY! texts, voltometers, syringes, hammers...virtually any tool can be used as a "circumvention" device for SOMETHING.
In Real Life, when you do something like pry open the covering of something or otherwise fsck with it, the worst that happens is you void your warranty. You don't become a criminal!
Just think about the logistics (and legalistics) of making all car drivers install some kind of filter or post-processor compared to doing the same for a few power plant owners.
I thought this was called a "catalytic converter". Cars do have to have filters. But, yeah, that hardly makes them "clean" machines, and efficiency and cleanliness is better achieved in central, large-scale places.
For example, I personally believe that voter apathy results not from a "broken system" but from the fact that our kids aren't being taught about the civic duty of being involved in politics. We don't teach it in schools and it certainly isn't being taught by most parents. We have come to think of politics as dirty, and as fodder for late night comedians.
Incidentally, Nader is big on civic duty being taught in public schools (*plug* *plug*).
But even so, if the system is not "broken", then why do we have things like the winner-takes all electoral college (I believe in every state but one...perhaps it's California). That seems directly against citizen representation. Why do we have two major candidates that are telling us that voting for a third party is "wasting our vote"? If they were such public servants shouldn't they be glad to have people participating in a vibrant democracy? If the system is not broken why are people made to feel that their voice doesn't count? If the system really isn't broken, then why would we have a CPD controlled by the Democrat/Republican duopoly, barring third party candidates from the debates, limiting exposure to the public?
You're right - people should become active in politics. This includes allowing people hold heterogenous opinions without being marginalized.
*Yawn* And? This was news to who? Yup, our government was set up to effect change like a glacier. So? Are you saying this is an absolutely good thing? The problem is, the factions are not balancing each other anymore. There are several very large, very powerful factions, representing only very few of the population, that have a gigantic influence over the government, over the media, etc, while there are many other smaller factions which don't have a chance of effecting any change. The glacial responsiveness of our government is partly why we haven't had another revolution or civil war, but it is also why our country is in the shape it is (socially at least; and might as well chuck all the tomes of ridiculous copyright/patent/ip law that was instigated by our favorite RIAA/MPAA).
Remind me...*what* are we trying to protect against these days? Hell, Republicans and Democrats *already* can't get anything done. It's not like having a third party president would change that. You're right, the U.S. system of government is not broken. It was specifically set up to resist the will of the populace for the sake of "stability". I don't see this as a good thing anymore.
I however, don't really feel like putting my neck on my line for someting I do not think I can change. So why bother?
Fine. Stay "0wned". Sometimes, though, there is something more important than saving your own ass. I wonder what would have happened if Ghandi or Dr. King didn't feel like putting their necks on the line.
"opting-out" sounds like "doing nothing" to me. "doing nothing" seems very much the opposite of "being active".
To topple the government, first make the population apathetic. Next, expose the criminal nature of the government. The people will treat it like any common criminal, a criminal they don't care about in the slightest, and would like to get rid of. They will kill it.
No...if you make the population apathetic, they won't *care* if the government is criminal. That's what apathy is about. The more odious agencies of our government chronically engage in criminal behavior and nobody has "killed" them.
Every time somebody opts out, the system says "Ha, sucker, just one less to interfere with us". It's a gigantic positive feedback loop: people opt-out, bastards get elected, people get disgusted, people opt-out... Hey - opt-in! Opt-in BIG TIME. Or, as Nader says: "If you don't turn on to politics, politics will turn on you."
Hey, don't vote, it's your choice. If you really think it means something, then by all means stay home and make yourself happy.
Sure, you don't have to believe in the system. You don't have to participate in the system. Perhaps you are fighting the system from outside.
But short of an external military coup (which ain't gonna happen), there *is no* effective way to change the system than by participating in it. You might hate it, but you will have to participate in it if you want it changed. And if you think that the government is fictional (at least the US one), your friendly IRS audit agent, or cop will quickly remind you otherwise. As stated in a recent article by a libertarian:
So - to boil this all down to the bare, ugly, stark-naked bottom line. These politicians are running for office so that they can get to be the ones who get to use the guns to force people to do the things they want them to do.
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so SICK AT HEART, that you can't take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop." --Mario Savio
It could be said that voting for a person who doesn't have a chance to win is futile (disregarding the power to build up support for a third party and gain federal matching funds/funding), because of the electoral college. If only we could implement a Borda count as described in a previous Slashdot article. But of course, who decides these things? You guessed it - people you elect! So you *MUST* vote differently to change the system (well, if you want to change the system). There is no chance in hell that a status quo candidate is going to reform the election process (perhaps maybe a decent soul like McCain, but of course he didn't win the primary -- see how things fall in place?).
If you want to change the system, you have not only a moral obligation, but a practical obligation to vote your conscience. Right now the two party system has a duopoly on your mind and on your vote. Don't let them take your power, or take you for granted.
Every article portrays AIMazing as some haxxor ad-blocking software. What is really is, is a plugin which sticks your winamp visualization thingy in AIM, so you can see it while you play mp3s. And yes, as a *consequence* it replaces the ads, "blocking" them. The main point though was to put the visualization thing in your IM, not specifically to block ads (AFAIK).
However, ALL orgs print retractions and corrections (something/. rarely does, unless their noses are rubbed in it, despite what Cliff says).
"The Inquirer would like to apologize for some articles in the last edition. After closer investigation we found that there are not, in fact, aliens living amongst us in the form of movie stars. Also, the werewolf baby was a hoax, and Elvis did not kill JFK."
I got Nader as first, followed by Bill Bradley, which was actually my preference in the Democratic primary (before I became a Green, because he lost the primary).
And at the very opposite end of my ranking is George Bush, Pat Buchanan, and Dick Cheney. Sort of scary that Buchanan's between the two;)
Harry Browne actually scores higher with me than all others as far as the Personal category (but not the other two). I was actually very impressed by him when he was interviewed on CSPAN.
I don't think "symmetry" has anything to do with "crackability". Asymmetry, AFAIK, just means that a different key is used to decrypt than to encrypt. That in itself doesn't say anything about the strength of the encryption. And also AFAIK, DeCSS wasn't broken by a brute force crack, but because the geniuses left the key in plaintext on the DVD (and plus the fact that the key must be distributed in some manner, so the hardware can decrypt).
I believe smartcards do hold a private key, but hey, what're ya going to do? You don't let people steal your *real* id card do you? Well, you don't let them steal your smartcard either (which should probably have a photo on it anyway, just to keep safe). Whether symmetric or not, the secret has to be kept somewhere physical eventually, whether it's in the gray matter in your head, on a smartcard, or in the form of a physical key.
I never considered this before, but it would really be cool to walk up to one of these guys and pop in $0.50 and be able to play Team Fortress or something.
Along with the vast majority of mainstream economists, I agree that open trade is the fastest way to prosperity for what we used to call the "third world," and is as such the right thing to do.
You surely aren't saying that whatever is the "fastest way to prosperity" is the right thing to do? So therefore indenturing third world countries because it allows rich western countries to modernize them is "the right thing to do?". Letting large corporations exploit the natural resources, pollute the environment and displace the native people of third world countries is "the right thing to do"?
India has the second largest population in the world and I believe the highest population density. Cuba still faces harsh and juvenile sanctions from the United States dating from the sixties, North Korea is responsible for its own mess, and Mexico and much of central America has been embrioled in bloody revolutionary/terrorist wars and corrupt governments. I'd say "lack of Western exploitation" is just one of *many* other problems in these countries.
Sorry, sometimes the Right Thing isn't the thing that puts the most money in somebody's pocket (especially ours).
Think about it for a second -- I manifestly exist, and the odds that I would exist (in a purely random universe) are infinitesimal.
First of you need to define "exist" (I assume you mean "am conscious") and second of all, since we cannot repeat the creation of universes, we have absolutely no data on the odds that you would exist in a purely random universe. Perhaps the odds would be pretty high. Who knows. Perhaps the glass I dropped will piece itself back together and it and the water it contained will jump back into my hand. This has never been observed, but quantum mechanics says it's possible (as possible as anything else).
All those who have died, died so that I might exist, and be consuming this soup for lunch today.
Yeah, but isn't the term "universe" in that case an abstract concept that we are pulling out of our rears to reconcile the wackiness of quantum behavior? These are of *our* fabrication. Doesn't mean they really *exist* seperate from a convenient way of explaining things. We might as well say that there is some "magic" that interacts with the photon.
Washington newspapers also reported that Al Gore wasn't even sure his mother-in-law was taking any medication and wasn't even sure she had arthritis. And, he doesn't know anything about his dog's "arthritis".
Perhaps true, but...
FACT: The same chemical is prescribed for arthritis in both humans, and some other animals (including dogs), and IS way more expensive for humans.
Slashdot Mirror
It sure is better than "Thank A-Vague-and-Heretofore-Unproven-Omniscient-Being". I'm an atheist but I still say "God bless you". It's part of the vernacular. Perhaps my "God" is reason and I'm asking it to bless you. Who cares...
They don't have to listen if the average citizen is uninformed (either willfully or not). Certainly it is every citizen's duty to be informed, but it is just as underhanded for politicians to dodge, and bury the important issues, and blow smoke. Democrats and Republicans *haven't* been listening. That's why there are third parties.
I don't think that necessarily follows. Even if it were so, the political system is far too polluted by large amounts of money, which usually come - you guessed it - from large corporations pushing an agenda. Corporations are not people. They shouldn't get a vote, and they shouldn't be able to influence government (other than individual employees/stockholders voting independently).
OR...because people are not even *aware* of them, and the issues they are bringing up. Perot (not that I supported him) got a huge jump in the polls after he was on the debates. I'm absolutely sure Nader, or any other third party would poll much much higher if they got the same exposure as the Democrat and Republican party. Hell, all I hear about the New York senate race is Lazio this and Hillary that. Not ONE mention of Mark Dunau, the Green candidate. Nada, nothing. How could somebody *possibly* make an informed decision if they are not even made aware of all the candidates? Of course this awareness is not something the Democrat/Republican duopoly really wants to push. They're happy with their monopoly on "free" network exposure.
I challenge you to go up to somebody on the street (first of all, find a voter), who is voting Republican and Democrat and ask them *why* they are voting that way. Ask them about their opinions of the alternative views of third party candidates. The fact is, most Americans pick their candidates like soda beverages from 30 second commercials, or the "debates" (which is really just a set of prescripted answers to prefiltered questions). I can guarantee you that if third party candidates were ever to get as much exposure as the other two parties, you would find that a much higher percentage of people agree with them. It's a vicious cycle that those in power have (at least indirect) control over the media, and over the voices of those not in power (*cough* Commission on Presidential Debates *cough*).
Huh?? The VM and Language specs are freely available. So is the source to the runtime libraries. Re-implement them all you want, nobody is stopping you or forcing you to use their runtime. There are several platforms for which there is no up to date Sun runtime, but there is a third party runtime. There are also several current VMs which "compete" with Sun's. I'm sure they couldn't care less. They don't sell VMs, they don't even sell Java products!
I think Java is still in an immature phase. It still needs to be centrally controlled. Just look at the number of "community" proposals: there are tons of them, many of them which would have very broad impact on Java. The problem is not that implementations will fork - who cares. The problem is that these nascent specs will splinter and leave the entity known as "Java" in many various flavors which may or may not be reconcilable (e.g., everybody comes up with their own RPC apis and libraries? etc.).
I think we should lay off Sun a bit. Kirninghan faced this very same problem when everybody was jumping on him to add their favorite new whizbang feature and he resisted (yeah, yeah, C is an ANSI standard...Java is not there yet, there is still stuff to clean up).
As a daily Java middleware developer (CORBA/Servlets/MOM, etc.; yeah, I'll admit it), I think Sun has done a pretty damn good job at giving everybody a pretty solid language which is lovely to develop in, tomes of *well designed*, refined APIs and libraries, and liberation from platform dependence -- all for free (if not Free).
Funny, I was watching a speech by Bush where he was criticizing Al Gore's "targeted" tax cut. For instance, he cited "photovoltaic roof apparatus" (or something) stumbling in his eloquent way through "photovoltaic". This got a big chuckle out of him and the audience. How foolish! What the heck is a new fangled "photovaltaic roof apparatus". Yuk Yuk Yuk. Everybody laugh at how stupid this is.
Dolt. It's solar power. Why *shouldn't* we subsidize it?
Apply this to the physical world: crowbars, screwdrivers, wrenches, microscopes, medical/electronic/mechanical/ANY! texts, voltometers, syringes, hammers...virtually any tool can be used as a "circumvention" device for SOMETHING.
In Real Life, when you do something like pry open the covering of something or otherwise fsck with it, the worst that happens is you void your warranty. You don't become a criminal!
But even so, if the system is not "broken", then why do we have things like the winner-takes all electoral college (I believe in every state but one...perhaps it's California). That seems directly against citizen representation. Why do we have two major candidates that are telling us that voting for a third party is "wasting our vote"? If they were such public servants shouldn't they be glad to have people participating in a vibrant democracy? If the system is not broken why are people made to feel that their voice doesn't count? If the system really isn't broken, then why would we have a CPD controlled by the Democrat/Republican duopoly, barring third party candidates from the debates, limiting exposure to the public?
You're right - people should become active in politics. This includes allowing people hold heterogenous opinions without being marginalized.
*Yawn* And? This was news to who? Yup, our government was set up to effect change like a glacier. So? Are you saying this is an absolutely good thing? The problem is, the factions are not balancing each other anymore. There are several very large, very powerful factions, representing only very few of the population, that have a gigantic influence over the government, over the media, etc, while there are many other smaller factions which don't have a chance of effecting any change. The glacial responsiveness of our government is partly why we haven't had another revolution or civil war, but it is also why our country is in the shape it is (socially at least; and might as well chuck all the tomes of ridiculous copyright/patent/ip law that was instigated by our favorite RIAA/MPAA).
Remind me...*what* are we trying to protect against these days? Hell, Republicans and Democrats *already* can't get anything done. It's not like having a third party president would change that. You're right, the U.S. system of government is not broken. It was specifically set up to resist the will of the populace for the sake of "stability". I don't see this as a good thing anymore.
No...if you make the population apathetic, they won't *care* if the government is criminal. That's what apathy is about. The more odious agencies of our government chronically engage in criminal behavior and nobody has "killed" them.
Every time somebody opts out, the system says "Ha, sucker, just one less to interfere with us". It's a gigantic positive feedback loop: people opt-out, bastards get elected, people get disgusted, people opt-out... Hey - opt-in! Opt-in BIG TIME. Or, as Nader says: "If you don't turn on to politics, politics will turn on you."
Sure, you don't have to believe in the system. You don't have to participate in the system. Perhaps you are fighting the system from outside.
But short of an external military coup (which ain't gonna happen), there *is no* effective way to change the system than by participating in it. You might hate it, but you will have to participate in it if you want it changed. And if you think that the government is fictional (at least the US one), your friendly IRS audit agent, or cop will quickly remind you otherwise. As stated in a recent article by a libertarian:
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so SICK AT HEART, that you can't take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop." --Mario Savio
It could be said that voting for a person who doesn't have a chance to win is futile (disregarding the power to build up support for a third party and gain federal matching funds/funding), because of the electoral college. If only we could implement a Borda count as described in a previous Slashdot article. But of course, who decides these things? You guessed it - people you elect! So you *MUST* vote differently to change the system (well, if you want to change the system). There is no chance in hell that a status quo candidate is going to reform the election process (perhaps maybe a decent soul like McCain, but of course he didn't win the primary -- see how things fall in place?).
If you want to change the system, you have not only a moral obligation, but a practical obligation to vote your conscience. Right now the two party system has a duopoly on your mind and on your vote. Don't let them take your power, or take you for granted.
Every article portrays AIMazing as some haxxor ad-blocking software. What is really is, is a plugin which sticks your winamp visualization thingy in AIM, so you can see it while you play mp3s. And yes, as a *consequence* it replaces the ads, "blocking" them. The main point though was to put the visualization thing in your IM, not specifically to block ads (AFAIK).
"The Inquirer would like to apologize for some articles in the last edition. After closer investigation we found that there are not, in fact, aliens living amongst us in the form of movie stars. Also, the werewolf baby was a hoax, and Elvis did not kill JFK."
VoteMatch is pretty accurate.
;)
I got Nader as first, followed by Bill Bradley, which was actually my preference in the Democratic primary (before I became a Green, because he lost the primary).
And at the very opposite end of my ranking is George Bush, Pat Buchanan, and Dick Cheney. Sort of scary that Buchanan's between the two
Harry Browne actually scores higher with me than all others as far as the Personal category (but not the other two). I was actually very impressed by him when he was interviewed on CSPAN.
IANACryptographer, but...
I don't think "symmetry" has anything to do with "crackability". Asymmetry, AFAIK, just means that a different key is used to decrypt than to encrypt. That in itself doesn't say anything about the strength of the encryption. And also AFAIK, DeCSS wasn't broken by a brute force crack, but because the geniuses left the key in plaintext on the DVD (and plus the fact that the key must be distributed in some manner, so the hardware can decrypt).
I believe smartcards do hold a private key, but hey, what're ya going to do? You don't let people steal your *real* id card do you? Well, you don't let them steal your smartcard either (which should probably have a photo on it anyway, just to keep safe). Whether symmetric or not, the secret has to be kept somewhere physical eventually, whether it's in the gray matter in your head, on a smartcard, or in the form of a physical key.
I never considered this before, but it would really be cool to walk up to one of these guys and pop in $0.50 and be able to play Team Fortress or something.
You surely aren't saying that whatever is the "fastest way to prosperity" is the right thing to do? So therefore indenturing third world countries because it allows rich western countries to modernize them is "the right thing to do?". Letting large corporations exploit the natural resources, pollute the environment and displace the native people of third world countries is "the right thing to do"?
India has the second largest population in the world and I believe the highest population density. Cuba still faces harsh and juvenile sanctions from the United States dating from the sixties, North Korea is responsible for its own mess, and Mexico and much of central America has been embrioled in bloody revolutionary/terrorist wars and corrupt governments. I'd say "lack of Western exploitation" is just one of *many* other problems in these countries.
Sorry, sometimes the Right Thing isn't the thing that puts the most money in somebody's pocket (especially ours).
Maybe God's constructor sets up a cyclical reference and thus cannot be garbage collected?
First of you need to define "exist" (I assume you mean "am conscious") and second of all, since we cannot repeat the creation of universes, we have absolutely no data on the odds that you would exist in a purely random universe. Perhaps the odds would be pretty high. Who knows. Perhaps the glass I dropped will piece itself back together and it and the water it contained will jump back into my hand. This has never been observed, but quantum mechanics says it's possible (as possible as anything else).
You better clean your bowl.
Or in other words: absence of proof is not proof of absence.
Yeah, but isn't the term "universe" in that case an abstract concept that we are pulling out of our rears to reconcile the wackiness of quantum behavior? These are of *our* fabrication. Doesn't mean they really *exist* seperate from a convenient way of explaining things. We might as well say that there is some "magic" that interacts with the photon.
Perhaps true, but...
FACT: The same chemical is prescribed for arthritis in both humans, and some other animals (including dogs), and IS way more expensive for humans.
(I know a vet)