I was unable to find the source for the 10-MPH restriction, but that is what they taught our class in Driver's Ed. It may have been only a recommendation; they didn't go to very much trouble to separate their suggestions from legal requirements. However, there is no explicit exception to the speed limit while passing, and it would be rather foolish in most cases to try to pass someone at a speed differential of less than 10 MPH, unless you were on a very flat road, with other no traffic around for miles. You can look over the Indiana driving laws here
In the U.S. (or at least in Indiana; I assume it's similar elsewhere), it's illegal to pass anyone not going at least ten miles per hour under the speed limit, and there is no exception to the speed limit, even while passing.
Support free speech. Don't post anonymously. If you are anonymous, don't bother replying to my comments, I won't see it.
If free speach is hurt in any way by anonymonity, then why do the most repressive, anti-free-speach regimes always try to stamp out anonymous speach? Anonymonity ensures that personal prejudice, association, and political or economic influence play no part in how the message is received, and allow people living under a repressive regime to speak out without putting themselves or others in even more danger than they are already in. Anonymous speach is an essential part of freedom of speach, and should be accepted or rejected solely on the basis of what is said, not rejected out of hand.
Well, it is rather hypocritical to tell other nations how they should behave, when our own govenment is violating fundamental rights on a massive scale. The best way to influence other countries is to set an example for them to follow, and we're not doing that very well right now. Even if we could force our ideology on other countries (and we can't), we have no right to do so. "Relevance" is far less important than integrity, whether on a personal level or as a nation.
I agree that both models are necessary. You wouldn't want to lay out text with a box model, but you wouldn't typically want to lay out a form or list with a freeform layout, either. The element was a decent compromise, for a while, but its limitations are many, and it confuses programs that expect tables be used for data rather than layout. CSS is the recommended replacement, but omits the most useful part of the
element, arranging rows and columns of arbitrary elements, while failing to add the metainformation that would allow screen-readers and the like to quickly find the content of the page.
You say that we're "trying to force documents to be applications", and I agree. However, with HTML we're also trying to force applications to become documents. We need access to both layout models, because the Web contains both documents and applications. XUL provides this. For example, the XUL menus in the FireFox "chrome" are freeform, and the main part of the box layout is a container for freeform HTML, while the rest of the chrome follows a box model.
Even "document" pages usually contain some "application" elements; navigation buttons, or a search box, for example. The page should be treated as an application containing content, and not forced to hold both the framework and the content in one file, with the same layout model.
I agree in re: HTML. Notice that one of the major advantages of XUL is that it supports a box-layout design, like Gtk+ and Qt. How many ways have people tried to emulate that design in CSS, tables, or frames? Why couldn't they just design it into the format? Nearly all of the major web sites use some kind of box layout. Also, while iframes have their issues, there needs to be some way of including HTML-formatted text from external pages. I know you can do that with AJAX, but why couldn't they design an element, or
, into the spec? In fact, why isn't src a standard attribute for all non-empty elements?
XUL should be adopted as the standard format for web page layout, with (X)HTML reserved strictly for the content. That would go even farther than CSS in separating the content from the layout, and should make web pages even more accessible than they are at present, since browsers that can't display XUL could just display a list of all the src links.
More specifically, the 128-bit IP address is split into two parts: a 64-bit network address and a 64-bit local address. When you change providers, the local address remains the same, but the network address is update to reflect the new provider. Thus, routers outside of the provider should only need to take into consideration the network address of the provider, which follows a heirarchical allocation pattern. The local part can be allocated however the owner wishes, although most will probably choose an automatic IP address allocation system like DHCP.
For routine purposes, the routine only needs to know about three groups: addresses within its own space, addresses within its peers' spaces, and everything else. The first group is the largest in terms of routing entries, since the packets need to be sorted into their downstream ports. However, each port should only be associated with a single prefix, so there should be a few dozen of these at most. Packets matching the prefix of one of the router's peers can be routed directly to the peer, with one entry per peer router. Packets not matching one of the other rules are routed to the primary upstream connection, which follows the same rules to determine where the packet should be sent. No router should require more than {(number of ports) + (number of peers) + 1} routing entries if the netword addresses are completely heirarchical.
The real question is, did the teacher say that the margins should be 1" in the assignment? Or was there a general rule at this school that governed the standard formatting conventions for all the classes? If so, then the student is at fault for not adjusting the margins according to the assignment. Otherwise, the teacher is at fault for failing to provide unambiguous instructions regarding the formatting of the paper. The GP's post did not say whether 1" margins were a known requirement; perhaps the teacher simply expected that the students would use Word, which (presumably) uses that margin setting by default.
The laws do not define the norms and social behavior of "our" society. They define the social behaviors acceptable to the majority, or perhaps to the most powerful and/or vocal special-interest groups. Any laws claiming to define the norms and social behaviors of an entire society must be unanimously accepted by all the members of that society, not just the majority. Otherwise, the law covers two societies: the majority, who chose the law and would abide by it regardless, and the dissenters, who did not choose the law, but are enslaved to it anyway, under threat of force, by the majority. This is a classic example of the "might makes right" principle, which I find quite ironic given that the law in question was drafted to oppose video games predicated on just that principle.
Even if 99% of the members in any given society think a given behavior is unacceptable, they have no authority to coerce the remaining 1%. If you want a store to stop selling violent video games to your kids, then convince the operator of the store to stop voluntarily. Offer incentives; start a boycott. Convince the store owner that the community won't accept his behavior. But don't send in your protection racket ("government") to steal his property through fines, or send him to jail for refusing to comply.
Just because we can explain their motions with gravity and predict their future positions through mathematical models does not necessarily mean that they can't also follow the same patterns as everyday events on Earth. I'm not an astrologer, and and I don't really see any evidence that there is a causal relationship between the motions of the planets and world events (either way), but it is possible that world events tend to happen in syncronization with the motions of the planets, if only for the reason that world events may be precipitated by the predictions made by astrologers.
Just pointing out that astrology and astronomy are not fundamentally at odds with each other, just like the Theory of Evolution is not necessarily at odds with the idea that the world was "created" by "God", whoever He might be, and whatever the word "created" might mean outside of a linear, temporal frame of reference. One should also note that it is impossible to tell the difference between an *apparent* past and a real one; one can keep extrapolating back in time until they reach the apparent beginning of the universe, but there is no test that could show whether the past so extrapolated actually occurred. It's like a perfect holographic image: there is no way to tell that the image isn't real without an outside frame of reference.
Everyone would probably be better off if Evolution had been "marketed" as a way of expressing the relationships between the various species, and not as the actual *origins* of the species. While it's true that any self-reproducing bit of matter undergoing random mutations can eventually develop into just about anything given enough time, that hardly rules out intentional design. You could randomize the atoms in a junkyard and end up with a computer, too, but that doesn't mean that computers weren't designed. We don't know enough about the purpose of the universe, or the design constraints that were involved, to judge the intentions of the Designer, or even to say whether such a Designer even exists.
But the other extreme is just as guilty of ignoring human nature. In your system, once people are rich enough to pay for their *own* services, won't opt to support the rest of the village.
Which system of government were you advocating? No system that I know of, except perhaps pure communism or an extreme form of socialism, would eliminate that advantage--and only if it is somehow universally enforced, which it never is. Wealth is always a form of protection, under any form of government. However, the wealthy do not hurt the rest of the community by paying for their own services. They would do that anyway, since the services shared by the community at large would probably be insufficient to adequately protect all of their property. Under a voluntaryist system, they are free to choose their own services. Under most other forms of government, they are forced to pay for both their own services and those of the community. While this reduces the burden on the community, it is hardly fair to the ones forced to pay for services they don't use themselves.
Arguing "wealthy people vs. the community" is a bit impersonal, so I'll try to put this in more direct terms. Let's say you're a successful entrepreneur with a large estate and significant investments in various growing industries. Your next-door neighbor is not so lucky, having been unfortunate enough to find himself significantly in debt and unable to pay his bills. While you might be generous enough to help your neighbor willingly, would it be justifiable for him to employ coercion to force you to pay off his debts? Perhaps by threatening to steal some of your hard-earned wealth or place you in jail until you agree to pay? That is what taxation amounts to, except that it happens indirectly. People rarely realize what they're really asking for when they vote for more expensive public services.
I am also a bit short on time at this point, so I'll finish by saying that while my posts may have given the appearance of oversimplification, the voluntaryist philosophy is far from simplistic. People have been studying this situation for quite some time, and have developed some rather innovative ways to do without the concentrated monopoly on the use of force that government represents. I recommend the voluntaryist website for more information, if you're interested.
For any of these examples -- if a fee is collected from the entire community, um.. isn't that involuntary taxes?
The fee is voluntary, because no one is forced by a central authority to pay it. They can choose freely. If the consequences of not contributing toward shared services include earning the ill will of one's neighbors, that does not make the fee involuntary. For example, one does not forfeit rights to one's property by refusing to join the community fire insurance program, while a refusal to pay property taxes can result in jail time or outright confiscation of one's property.
And would the leading fire department *really* agree to special interactive agreements with their up-and-coming competition if the other alternative was their monopoly? After all, who's going to prosecute them for abusing their monopoly powers?
They would agree if it was in their own best interest. If they were assured (through a contract) that they would be payed for their efforts in stopping the fire, then why would they refuse? Ignoring the fire would earn the anger of their own customers, who might be friends of the injured property owner, or whose own property may have been put in danger by their greed.
And frankly, there's a pretty big difference between communities I've seen in, say, India where low-income people subsist off of private charity (this is called "begging"; surviving on welfare while looking for a job is not an option) and any community I'd like to live in.
I am not an expert on the economic conditions in India, but a some quick research brought up this site, with the following quote: "The main causes of poverty are illiteracy, a population growth rate by far exceeding the economic growth rate for the better part of the past 50 years, protectionist policies pursued since 1947 to 1991 which prevented large amounts of foreign investment in the country." Laying aside the educational and population-growth issues, which would be present under nearly all government systems, the only distinguishing cause of poverty in India appears to be the protectionist policies created by the Indian government to protect local businesses by cutting off trade with other countries. Since most wealth is created through trade and specialization, this policy seems to ignore basic economics.
A capitalist economy tends to unfairly make the rich richer and the poor poorer (I say unfairly because wealth does not correlate well with a person's actual intelligence and work -- is Gates 1000 times smarter than his basic engineers?). It's also true that as a person gains more and more wealth, it's less and less valuable to them. If Gates misplaced 100K it wouldn't affect him in any way, while it could change the life completely of that entry-level engineer (or heck, someone actually poor and unemployed).
But the fact remains that the rich feel entitled even to inherited wealth that hasn't cost them a drop of sweat.
True, wealth does not always correlate to intelligence or "hard work". Sometimes it is a product of random change (e.g. inheritance). Sometimes it is a product of taking risks that happened to pay off well (e.g. Bill Gates, for the most part). In any event, those who accumulate wealth by honest means, as opposed to fraud or theft, do so to the benefit of society as a whole, because they can only gain wealth by meeting the needs of others at a price suitable to both parties. Economics is not a zero-sum game; in a voluntary trade, both sides benefit, or they would not trade. This is a basic principle of free-market economics. The rule of "robbing the rich to feed the poor" removes the incentive to meet other's needs and replaces it with involuntary transfer of property, with an overall negative effect on the productivity of the entire society.
Theory makes no provision for unrestrained people forming monopolies and cartels and gangs and other non-individual groupings. Soon as you have those, you no longer have a free market. Duh!
It's not as if our current goverment has done much to prevent monopolies, cartels, or gangs. These systems exist with or without government intervention, and efforts by the state to prevent or curtail them are often more costly, in the long run, than the monopolies, cartels, and gangs were to begin with. The only effective way to fight a monopoly or cartel is to boycott it. No commercial organization can continue to exist without the support of its customers. Attempts by (democratic) goverments to control such organizations are, in any event, driven by the desires of their citizens, who themselves hold more power over the organization than the government itself, in the form of choice. If people choose freely to support the monopoly, then the organization, while not driven by competition, is still part of a free market.
Do you really want to live in a place where if your house is burning, you can't call the fire department unless you've got the $2K to pay for the service? Suppose your neighbor's house is burning, and he can't pay the fee. Is the whole block going to go because of that?
This is the reason that nearly all privately-operated fire departments (which have existed in the U.S.) collect a monthly fee rather than charging $2K per incident. Even if the department itself did not do so, people could band together to form an insurance group on the same principle. The only trouble experienced with private fire departments in the past was that competing departments were not permitted to stop and assist when the properly was covered by another department, which could easily be solved by either inter-departmental cooperation or an insurance group possessing contracts with each of the local fire departments.
Next suppose the average low-income family can't afford the busing fees (or road charges) and high school prices to send their kid to school.
Under the current system, these fees are already collected, even from low-income families, in the form of property taxes (included in rents), along with the fees for police, fire protection, and other local services. Even if this were not the case, low-income families (poverty level or lower) have always relied on assistance from their communities, either in the form of private charity or subsidies based on government tax money, the former tending to work better than the latter. If this charity is justified, then it would continue even in a private system without taxation. If it is not, then why is the government giving them handouts to start with, further compounding the inefficiency of the system and driving up prices for everyone?
Suppose you can't call the police (sorry, private security service) when your house is robbed and your daughter raped because, golly, they took all your money, and the cost of arresting the guy and housing him in prison is *way* out of your price range even before the robbery. Actually, your best bet is to just try to hire a hitman to kill the guy, because he probably can't afford to jail you, either.
Again, this is why police services, like fire-department services, are paid on a periodic basis under a contract or through insurance, rather than all-at-once. Furthermore, if the cost of enforcing the law is too high for the average person to pay, how is the current system supported? And why should he be housed in a prison, which is in many ways a way of avoiding punishment for his crime? Prison may not be the best place to live, but it's often better than many poverty-level communities. Even if it wasn't, being an outcast in society would be far worse: unable to buy, unable to sell, the offender would be forced to live the life of a hermit, reviled by all.
Actually, a true Libertarian would "throw out the clunker" and not start over from scratch. Instead, he/she would question the need for society to have a car in the first place. In this case, the "car" is the use of force, and Libertarians believe that no government can be trusted to wield force, because such force is always a negative influence, no matter how well intended. The essence of the argument is that the use of force proves that the services the government offers are not sufficiently desired by those they rule over to justify their existance in a free market. If they were, no force would be required.
No centrally-planned system has ever been more efficient than the free market in practice, because no centrally planned system can have sufficient information on the needs of the market. The influence of the planning authority (government) influences the market, distorting its normal operation and reducing the ability of the planners to accomodate the market's needs.
That may work, although sooner or later your nice society will be taken over by the country next door which taxed its people and made an army. Or do you believe people would voluntarily pay for something like an army which to the average person provides no short term benefit?
As history has shown, people will fight when their freedom and property are in danger. If this means volunteering to join a militia, or simply investing in the public defense, then yes, I believe that if the situation calls for it most people will pay their share for public defense. They do now, under duress, in the form of taxes, and yet have no say in how "their" army is employed. How often has our (U.S.) army been used in defense of our country against a foreign aggressor? How many times has it been used in retaliation or unprovoked attack against a nation that was not a threat?
For the case of individuals who may be inclined to "freeload" off their friends and neighbors: human beings are social creatures. Even without the threat of force, and disregarding their own reputations in their communities, most individuals cannot live for long without trade, and most individuals would not trade with anyone who showed such low esteem for the safety of their community. Social pressure is sufficient, IMHO, to induce most individuals to support the public defense. Those who can provide for themselves without relying on their neighbors are usually more than capable of defending themselves as well. There is no need to impose a "defensive army" through force.
For an idea of how a private justice system could work, which is a similar topic, see Protection By Voluntary Means.
Actually, the taxes do exist just to take your money. If, as you say, the taxes exist to pay for things the taxpayer in question uses, then why is one required to pay the tax when one does not take advantage of the benefit? If the government limited taxation to only cover the things one used, then it would be no different than any other private-sector service. Instead, they apply threat of force to aquire from everyone, even those few who do not benefit, the property to pay for services used by (in most cases) the majority of residents. There is a phrase for that: legalized theft.
A government which rested solely on the authority of those governed -- which truly ruled by the consent of those governed -- would have no need for forced taxation, and might as well be replaced by private enterprise. There is no reason why there cannot be private-sector police, arbitrators, roads, etc. The use of force proves that the government has already failed to demonstrate that its taxation is justified.
The point is not that the provision is on "flimsy" legal ground -- it is in the Constitution, which is the highest law in this country and the (apparent) source of the government's authority. However, contrast the wording to other provisions, such as those found in the Bill of Rights or even other parts of the Constitution itself, and you can see just how limited the declaration is.
For example, the Constitution does not declare that authors and/or inventors have an inherent right to copyrights and/or patents. It does not say that "Congress shall make no law infringing" the ability of authors and/or inventors to enjoy exclusive control over their works. It simply states that Congress shall have the power (not the responsibility) to secure for authors and inventors, for limited times, the "exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries", for the express purpose of promoting "the progress of science and useful arts".
Thus, the authors of the Constitution saw copyrights and patents as a useful tool, not an inherent right.
Now if only they'd extend this paradigm to installing software.
They can't fix that until they fix the way that file locking works. Reboots are required because Windows locks not only the contents of in-use executable files, but their directory entries as well, which means that they cannot be replaced, deleted, or moved while the program or DLL is in use. New files that replace existing executables and DLLs can only be installed after a reboot, when the files are no longer in use; there is a script that runs on startup which performs this function every time new software is installed.
And what damages are going to be claimed in this civil suit? Is there some sort of way you've come up with of calculating the monetary value of damage to our cultural heritage?
Clearly, if the seller is using false advertising to pass off a version of a book that doesn't match its label (for example, who the author was), then they are liable for at least the cost of the book and possibly punitive damages as well. The possible damage to our "cultural heritage" is outside the jurisdiction of the court system, and is something that society must decide and correct on its own.
What would constitute "not original" anyway? Can the original author make revisions? Or only fix spelling errors? For works in the public domain there's nothing anyone can say about a version of something with (say) all the slaves turned into faeries, and the plantation owners cast as leprechauns. It's public domain! You're free to make derivative works however you like.
One is indeed free to take a public domain work and create any kind of derived work from it, subject to applicable law. However, trademarks do not (usually) expire along with the copyright of the book, and false advertising is subject to neither trademark or copyright law. Thus, even if the original work is public domain, the seller is required to note that the work is not the sole work of the original author to avoid charges of false advertising and/or trademark infringement, unless the one editing the work is the original author, of course. Nearly all existing public-domain books edited by a third party possess such a notice.
The reason for explicit mounting and unmounting of things like USB memory sticks, CD-ROMs, and other removable media is threefold:
(1) You can remove the media at any time.
(2) Programs expect the files that they are working on to remain available.
(3) The operating system cannot always detect the filesystem automatically.
Because of (1), the operating system cannot assume that the device will be available in the future. As a result, it can either force writes to occur synchronously, which kills performance with large removable devices, or require confirmation from the user that the device will remain available, which is what mounting the device accomplishes. If the device is auto-mounted, then the operating system is making the assumption that the user will not remove the device without allowing the OS to finish recording the changes that were made or verifying that no programs are currently using the device. This is why Windows XP requires the user to "eject" the USB device before physically removing it, which is similar to unmounting the device under UNIX.
Due to (3), which is a result of the filesystem structure and not the quality of the operating system, the system cannot automatically mount a device (removable or otherwise) without making assumptions about the type of filesystem it contains. Windows makes the assumption that the device contains a FAT32 or NTFS filesystem, because it lacks support for any other forms. Linux supports a much wider range of filesystems, and cannot make such assumptions. Automounting systems typically try each of the available filesystems in turn, settling on the one that accepts the data on the device, but this process may not choose correctly for all devices. The penalties for choosing incorrectly are severe: choosing an incorrect filesystem driver may result in data corruption.
I agree that the "politically correct" justification is getting way out of hand. However, that shouldn't prevent anyone from publishing an edited version of e.g. "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Any confusion between the original work and the edited version is an issue of either ignorance/sloth on the part of the buyer, or false advertising on the part of the seller, or possibly both. If the former is true, then the buyer is at fault; caveat emptor. If the latter is true, then the seller is committing fraud, and should be vulnerable to a civil suit by the buyer for trying to pass his edited version as the original. In addition, the author of the work would have a case for trademark infringement if the seller was using the title of the original work to represent something other than the original text.
There is no reason that white/blacklisting couldn't be combined with the.kids TLD. The domain would essentially be a universal whitelist of sites that underwent review and were determined to be "safe" by a standard agreed upon by a high percentage of interested persons (80-90%, preferably). If any given parent wanted to add or subtract domains from the list, or ignore the list entirely, they could easily configure their filtering software to do so. The point of the system is simply to provide the whitelist as a tool for parents.
Of course, you don't need a special TLD to implement a whitelist, which is probably the biggest reason not to support the.kids TLD. It would be far more scalable to allow private organizations to provide managed whitelists to their constituents, to be used with generic and readily available filtering software. Existing as a TLD does force the use of a single, centrally-controlled list, which would be easier on those wishing to register names, but disputes on which "community standards" to adopt could hold the project up indefinately.
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I was unable to find the source for the 10-MPH restriction, but that is what they taught our class in Driver's Ed. It may have been only a recommendation; they didn't go to very much trouble to separate their suggestions from legal requirements. However, there is no explicit exception to the speed limit while passing, and it would be rather foolish in most cases to try to pass someone at a speed differential of less than 10 MPH, unless you were on a very flat road, with other no traffic around for miles. You can look over the Indiana driving laws here
In the U.S. (or at least in Indiana; I assume it's similar elsewhere), it's illegal to pass anyone not going at least ten miles per hour under the speed limit, and there is no exception to the speed limit, even while passing.
Well, it is rather hypocritical to tell other nations how they should behave, when our own govenment is violating fundamental rights on a massive scale. The best way to influence other countries is to set an example for them to follow, and we're not doing that very well right now. Even if we could force our ideology on other countries (and we can't), we have no right to do so. "Relevance" is far less important than integrity, whether on a personal level or as a nation.
I agree that both models are necessary. You wouldn't want to lay out text with a box model, but you wouldn't typically want to lay out a form or list with a freeform layout, either. The element was a decent compromise, for a while, but its limitations are many, and it confuses programs that expect tables be used for data rather than layout. CSS is the recommended replacement, but omits the most useful part of the element, arranging rows and columns of arbitrary elements, while failing to add the metainformation that would allow screen-readers and the like to quickly find the content of the page.
You say that we're "trying to force documents to be applications", and I agree. However, with HTML we're also trying to force applications to become documents. We need access to both layout models, because the Web contains both documents and applications. XUL provides this. For example, the XUL menus in the FireFox "chrome" are freeform, and the main part of the box layout is a container for freeform HTML, while the rest of the chrome follows a box model.
Even "document" pages usually contain some "application" elements; navigation buttons, or a search box, for example. The page should be treated as an application containing content, and not forced to hold both the framework and the content in one file, with the same layout model.
I agree in re: HTML. Notice that one of the major advantages of XUL is that it supports a box-layout design, like Gtk+ and Qt. How many ways have people tried to emulate that design in CSS, tables, or frames? Why couldn't they just design it into the format? Nearly all of the major web sites use some kind of box layout. Also, while iframes have their issues, there needs to be some way of including HTML-formatted text from external pages. I know you can do that with AJAX, but why couldn't they design an element, or , into the spec? In fact, why isn't src a standard attribute for all non-empty elements?
XUL should be adopted as the standard format for web page layout, with (X)HTML reserved strictly for the content. That would go even farther than CSS in separating the content from the layout, and should make web pages even more accessible than they are at present, since browsers that can't display XUL could just display a list of all the src links.
More specifically, the 128-bit IP address is split into two parts: a 64-bit network address and a 64-bit local address. When you change providers, the local address remains the same, but the network address is update to reflect the new provider. Thus, routers outside of the provider should only need to take into consideration the network address of the provider, which follows a heirarchical allocation pattern. The local part can be allocated however the owner wishes, although most will probably choose an automatic IP address allocation system like DHCP.
For routine purposes, the routine only needs to know about three groups: addresses within its own space, addresses within its peers' spaces, and everything else. The first group is the largest in terms of routing entries, since the packets need to be sorted into their downstream ports. However, each port should only be associated with a single prefix, so there should be a few dozen of these at most. Packets matching the prefix of one of the router's peers can be routed directly to the peer, with one entry per peer router. Packets not matching one of the other rules are routed to the primary upstream connection, which follows the same rules to determine where the packet should be sent. No router should require more than {(number of ports) + (number of peers) + 1} routing entries if the netword addresses are completely heirarchical.
That's not quite true invisibility, but I think it might qualify as a SEP field generator.
The real question is, did the teacher say that the margins should be 1" in the assignment? Or was there a general rule at this school that governed the standard formatting conventions for all the classes? If so, then the student is at fault for not adjusting the margins according to the assignment. Otherwise, the teacher is at fault for failing to provide unambiguous instructions regarding the formatting of the paper. The GP's post did not say whether 1" margins were a known requirement; perhaps the teacher simply expected that the students would use Word, which (presumably) uses that margin setting by default.
The laws do not define the norms and social behavior of "our" society. They define the social behaviors acceptable to the majority, or perhaps to the most powerful and/or vocal special-interest groups. Any laws claiming to define the norms and social behaviors of an entire society must be unanimously accepted by all the members of that society, not just the majority. Otherwise, the law covers two societies: the majority, who chose the law and would abide by it regardless, and the dissenters, who did not choose the law, but are enslaved to it anyway, under threat of force, by the majority. This is a classic example of the "might makes right" principle, which I find quite ironic given that the law in question was drafted to oppose video games predicated on just that principle.
Even if 99% of the members in any given society think a given behavior is unacceptable, they have no authority to coerce the remaining 1%. If you want a store to stop selling violent video games to your kids, then convince the operator of the store to stop voluntarily. Offer incentives; start a boycott. Convince the store owner that the community won't accept his behavior. But don't send in your protection racket ("government") to steal his property through fines, or send him to jail for refusing to comply.
Just because we can explain their motions with gravity and predict their future positions through mathematical models does not necessarily mean that they can't also follow the same patterns as everyday events on Earth. I'm not an astrologer, and and I don't really see any evidence that there is a causal relationship between the motions of the planets and world events (either way), but it is possible that world events tend to happen in syncronization with the motions of the planets, if only for the reason that world events may be precipitated by the predictions made by astrologers.
Just pointing out that astrology and astronomy are not fundamentally at odds with each other, just like the Theory of Evolution is not necessarily at odds with the idea that the world was "created" by "God", whoever He might be, and whatever the word "created" might mean outside of a linear, temporal frame of reference. One should also note that it is impossible to tell the difference between an *apparent* past and a real one; one can keep extrapolating back in time until they reach the apparent beginning of the universe, but there is no test that could show whether the past so extrapolated actually occurred. It's like a perfect holographic image: there is no way to tell that the image isn't real without an outside frame of reference.
Everyone would probably be better off if Evolution had been "marketed" as a way of expressing the relationships between the various species, and not as the actual *origins* of the species. While it's true that any self-reproducing bit of matter undergoing random mutations can eventually develop into just about anything given enough time, that hardly rules out intentional design. You could randomize the atoms in a junkyard and end up with a computer, too, but that doesn't mean that computers weren't designed. We don't know enough about the purpose of the universe, or the design constraints that were involved, to judge the intentions of the Designer, or even to say whether such a Designer even exists.
Which system of government were you advocating? No system that I know of, except perhaps pure communism or an extreme form of socialism, would eliminate that advantage--and only if it is somehow universally enforced, which it never is. Wealth is always a form of protection, under any form of government. However, the wealthy do not hurt the rest of the community by paying for their own services. They would do that anyway, since the services shared by the community at large would probably be insufficient to adequately protect all of their property. Under a voluntaryist system, they are free to choose their own services. Under most other forms of government, they are forced to pay for both their own services and those of the community. While this reduces the burden on the community, it is hardly fair to the ones forced to pay for services they don't use themselves.
Arguing "wealthy people vs. the community" is a bit impersonal, so I'll try to put this in more direct terms. Let's say you're a successful entrepreneur with a large estate and significant investments in various growing industries. Your next-door neighbor is not so lucky, having been unfortunate enough to find himself significantly in debt and unable to pay his bills. While you might be generous enough to help your neighbor willingly, would it be justifiable for him to employ coercion to force you to pay off his debts? Perhaps by threatening to steal some of your hard-earned wealth or place you in jail until you agree to pay? That is what taxation amounts to, except that it happens indirectly. People rarely realize what they're really asking for when they vote for more expensive public services.
I am also a bit short on time at this point, so I'll finish by saying that while my posts may have given the appearance of oversimplification, the voluntaryist philosophy is far from simplistic. People have been studying this situation for quite some time, and have developed some rather innovative ways to do without the concentrated monopoly on the use of force that government represents. I recommend the voluntaryist website for more information, if you're interested.
The fee is voluntary, because no one is forced by a central authority to pay it. They can choose freely. If the consequences of not contributing toward shared services include earning the ill will of one's neighbors, that does not make the fee involuntary. For example, one does not forfeit rights to one's property by refusing to join the community fire insurance program, while a refusal to pay property taxes can result in jail time or outright confiscation of one's property.
They would agree if it was in their own best interest. If they were assured (through a contract) that they would be payed for their efforts in stopping the fire, then why would they refuse? Ignoring the fire would earn the anger of their own customers, who might be friends of the injured property owner, or whose own property may have been put in danger by their greed.
I am not an expert on the economic conditions in India, but a some quick research brought up this site, with the following quote: "The main causes of poverty are illiteracy, a population growth rate by far exceeding the economic growth rate for the better part of the past 50 years, protectionist policies pursued since 1947 to 1991 which prevented large amounts of foreign investment in the country." Laying aside the educational and population-growth issues, which would be present under nearly all government systems, the only distinguishing cause of poverty in India appears to be the protectionist policies created by the Indian government to protect local businesses by cutting off trade with other countries. Since most wealth is created through trade and specialization, this policy seems to ignore basic economics.
True, wealth does not always correlate to intelligence or "hard work". Sometimes it is a product of random change (e.g. inheritance). Sometimes it is a product of taking risks that happened to pay off well (e.g. Bill Gates, for the most part). In any event, those who accumulate wealth by honest means, as opposed to fraud or theft, do so to the benefit of society as a whole, because they can only gain wealth by meeting the needs of others at a price suitable to both parties. Economics is not a zero-sum game; in a voluntary trade, both sides benefit, or they would not trade. This is a basic principle of free-market economics. The rule of "robbing the rich to feed the poor" removes the incentive to meet other's needs and replaces it with involuntary transfer of property, with an overall negative effect on the productivity of the entire society.
It's not as if our current goverment has done much to prevent monopolies, cartels, or gangs. These systems exist with or without government intervention, and efforts by the state to prevent or curtail them are often more costly, in the long run, than the monopolies, cartels, and gangs were to begin with. The only effective way to fight a monopoly or cartel is to boycott it. No commercial organization can continue to exist without the support of its customers. Attempts by (democratic) goverments to control such organizations are, in any event, driven by the desires of their citizens, who themselves hold more power over the organization than the government itself, in the form of choice. If people choose freely to support the monopoly, then the organization, while not driven by competition, is still part of a free market.
This is the reason that nearly all privately-operated fire departments (which have existed in the U.S.) collect a monthly fee rather than charging $2K per incident. Even if the department itself did not do so, people could band together to form an insurance group on the same principle. The only trouble experienced with private fire departments in the past was that competing departments were not permitted to stop and assist when the properly was covered by another department, which could easily be solved by either inter-departmental cooperation or an insurance group possessing contracts with each of the local fire departments.
Under the current system, these fees are already collected, even from low-income families, in the form of property taxes (included in rents), along with the fees for police, fire protection, and other local services. Even if this were not the case, low-income families (poverty level or lower) have always relied on assistance from their communities, either in the form of private charity or subsidies based on government tax money, the former tending to work better than the latter. If this charity is justified, then it would continue even in a private system without taxation. If it is not, then why is the government giving them handouts to start with, further compounding the inefficiency of the system and driving up prices for everyone?
Again, this is why police services, like fire-department services, are paid on a periodic basis under a contract or through insurance, rather than all-at-once. Furthermore, if the cost of enforcing the law is too high for the average person to pay, how is the current system supported? And why should he be housed in a prison, which is in many ways a way of avoiding punishment for his crime? Prison may not be the best place to live, but it's often better than many poverty-level communities. Even if it wasn't, being an outcast in society would be far worse: unable to buy, unable to sell, the offender would be forced to live the life of a hermit, reviled by all.
Actually, a true Libertarian would "throw out the clunker" and not start over from scratch. Instead, he/she would question the need for society to have a car in the first place. In this case, the "car" is the use of force, and Libertarians believe that no government can be trusted to wield force, because such force is always a negative influence, no matter how well intended. The essence of the argument is that the use of force proves that the services the government offers are not sufficiently desired by those they rule over to justify their existance in a free market. If they were, no force would be required.
No centrally-planned system has ever been more efficient than the free market in practice, because no centrally planned system can have sufficient information on the needs of the market. The influence of the planning authority (government) influences the market, distorting its normal operation and reducing the ability of the planners to accomodate the market's needs.
As history has shown, people will fight when their freedom and property are in danger. If this means volunteering to join a militia, or simply investing in the public defense, then yes, I believe that if the situation calls for it most people will pay their share for public defense. They do now, under duress, in the form of taxes, and yet have no say in how "their" army is employed. How often has our (U.S.) army been used in defense of our country against a foreign aggressor? How many times has it been used in retaliation or unprovoked attack against a nation that was not a threat?
For the case of individuals who may be inclined to "freeload" off their friends and neighbors: human beings are social creatures. Even without the threat of force, and disregarding their own reputations in their communities, most individuals cannot live for long without trade, and most individuals would not trade with anyone who showed such low esteem for the safety of their community. Social pressure is sufficient, IMHO, to induce most individuals to support the public defense. Those who can provide for themselves without relying on their neighbors are usually more than capable of defending themselves as well. There is no need to impose a "defensive army" through force.
For an idea of how a private justice system could work, which is a similar topic, see Protection By Voluntary Means.
Actually, the taxes do exist just to take your money. If, as you say, the taxes exist to pay for things the taxpayer in question uses, then why is one required to pay the tax when one does not take advantage of the benefit? If the government limited taxation to only cover the things one used, then it would be no different than any other private-sector service. Instead, they apply threat of force to aquire from everyone, even those few who do not benefit, the property to pay for services used by (in most cases) the majority of residents. There is a phrase for that: legalized theft.
A government which rested solely on the authority of those governed -- which truly ruled by the consent of those governed -- would have no need for forced taxation, and might as well be replaced by private enterprise. There is no reason why there cannot be private-sector police, arbitrators, roads, etc. The use of force proves that the government has already failed to demonstrate that its taxation is justified.
More InformationThe point is not that the provision is on "flimsy" legal ground -- it is in the Constitution, which is the highest law in this country and the (apparent) source of the government's authority. However, contrast the wording to other provisions, such as those found in the Bill of Rights or even other parts of the Constitution itself, and you can see just how limited the declaration is.
For example, the Constitution does not declare that authors and/or inventors have an inherent right to copyrights and/or patents. It does not say that "Congress shall make no law infringing" the ability of authors and/or inventors to enjoy exclusive control over their works. It simply states that Congress shall have the power (not the responsibility) to secure for authors and inventors, for limited times, the "exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries", for the express purpose of promoting "the progress of science and useful arts".
Thus, the authors of the Constitution saw copyrights and patents as a useful tool, not an inherent right.
They can't fix that until they fix the way that file locking works. Reboots are required because Windows locks not only the contents of in-use executable files, but their directory entries as well, which means that they cannot be replaced, deleted, or moved while the program or DLL is in use. New files that replace existing executables and DLLs can only be installed after a reboot, when the files are no longer in use; there is a script that runs on startup which performs this function every time new software is installed.
Clearly, if the seller is using false advertising to pass off a version of a book that doesn't match its label (for example, who the author was), then they are liable for at least the cost of the book and possibly punitive damages as well. The possible damage to our "cultural heritage" is outside the jurisdiction of the court system, and is something that society must decide and correct on its own.
One is indeed free to take a public domain work and create any kind of derived work from it, subject to applicable law. However, trademarks do not (usually) expire along with the copyright of the book, and false advertising is subject to neither trademark or copyright law. Thus, even if the original work is public domain, the seller is required to note that the work is not the sole work of the original author to avoid charges of false advertising and/or trademark infringement, unless the one editing the work is the original author, of course. Nearly all existing public-domain books edited by a third party possess such a notice.
However, IANAL.
The reason for explicit mounting and unmounting of things like USB memory sticks, CD-ROMs, and other removable media is threefold: (1) You can remove the media at any time. (2) Programs expect the files that they are working on to remain available. (3) The operating system cannot always detect the filesystem automatically. Because of (1), the operating system cannot assume that the device will be available in the future. As a result, it can either force writes to occur synchronously, which kills performance with large removable devices, or require confirmation from the user that the device will remain available, which is what mounting the device accomplishes. If the device is auto-mounted, then the operating system is making the assumption that the user will not remove the device without allowing the OS to finish recording the changes that were made or verifying that no programs are currently using the device. This is why Windows XP requires the user to "eject" the USB device before physically removing it, which is similar to unmounting the device under UNIX. Due to (3), which is a result of the filesystem structure and not the quality of the operating system, the system cannot automatically mount a device (removable or otherwise) without making assumptions about the type of filesystem it contains. Windows makes the assumption that the device contains a FAT32 or NTFS filesystem, because it lacks support for any other forms. Linux supports a much wider range of filesystems, and cannot make such assumptions. Automounting systems typically try each of the available filesystems in turn, settling on the one that accepts the data on the device, but this process may not choose correctly for all devices. The penalties for choosing incorrectly are severe: choosing an incorrect filesystem driver may result in data corruption.
I agree that the "politically correct" justification is getting way out of hand. However, that shouldn't prevent anyone from publishing an edited version of e.g. "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Any confusion between the original work and the edited version is an issue of either ignorance/sloth on the part of the buyer, or false advertising on the part of the seller, or possibly both. If the former is true, then the buyer is at fault; caveat emptor. If the latter is true, then the seller is committing fraud, and should be vulnerable to a civil suit by the buyer for trying to pass his edited version as the original. In addition, the author of the work would have a case for trademark infringement if the seller was using the title of the original work to represent something other than the original text.
If the thrift stores go empty, people will buy new clothes.
There is no reason that white/blacklisting couldn't be combined with the .kids TLD. The domain would essentially be a universal whitelist of sites that underwent review and were determined to be "safe" by a standard agreed upon by a high percentage of interested persons (80-90%, preferably). If any given parent wanted to add or subtract domains from the list, or ignore the list entirely, they could easily configure their filtering software to do so. The point of the system is simply to provide the whitelist as a tool for parents.
.kids TLD. It would be far more scalable to allow private organizations to provide managed whitelists to their constituents, to be used with generic and readily available filtering software. Existing as a TLD does force the use of a single, centrally-controlled list, which would be easier on those wishing to register names, but disputes on which "community standards" to adopt could hold the project up indefinately.
Of course, you don't need a special TLD to implement a whitelist, which is probably the biggest reason not to support the