I'm not knocking the legislation itself, but this bill's political viability is next to zero.
First, there is perhaps.01% of the population who even know what these RFID devices are, never mind the alleged societal dangers that lurk within them. Very few politicians are going to fight very hard to pass a piece of legislation that has so little public spotlight. Most politicians, especially the powerful ones who can sway votes, are media whores. No one is going to get on a network Sunday morning political program talking about RFID tags.
Second, the political winds are blowing gale force in the anti-regulation direction. Any piece of legislation that isn't privatizing workers or loosening government oversight is pretty much dead in the water without some kind of immediate crisis (like the recent corporate scandals). The best that could be hoped for is that congressional folks would say, "let's see what the free market does with these devices first and then regulate them if need be."
Third, Wal-Mart & Co., if there was a miraculous surge in support for this legislation, would easily lobby to defeat the bill or get it placed into committee for further study which would effectively kill the bill. A grassroots campaign would be too disorganized, too broke, and too unsophisticated to ever hope to win such a battle.
I'm not recommending whoever is sponsoring this bill to give up. I'm a firm believer that even losing battles are important to fight because they do raise awareness and keep alive the chance for change sometime in the future.
Well, whenever you place anything on the web, it should always be with the full expectation that the whole world can read it. You wouldn't buy an outdoor advertisement---even one placed on a lightly traveled road---to communicate to a small circle of friend, would you?
We have a constitutional amendment to own and use tools which can be used to kill people. So why not have one to protect a "Right to Bear Digital Technology"?
Oh, yeah, I forgot, because that right tramples on the rights of corporations to "own America."
Can't teach a Perl dog PHP tricks
on
PHP Cookbook
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· Score: 1
I'm in the middle of giving PHP a try after a couple of years with Perl. Frankly, I don't see what all the hype about PHP is. There is nothing superior about it compared to Perl. And I've recently cracked my monitor's screen beating my head into it as I try to figure out why the fu*#$^(*# code doesn't work. Every array has an iterator??? Arrays that can be either hashes OR arrays??? I still haven't figure out when the hell PHP interpolates variables and when it doesn't.
Perl to Java was a snap---the languages are so different. But moving from Perl to PHP is driving me insane. I'm guessing I'm not the only one, am I?
Each of us must make a moral choice. Are we going to succumb to our petty, base instincts and contribute to the ugly side of human nature? Or are we going to strive to contribute something to overcome and erase some of that ugliness and make the world a bit more hospitable.
If you believe this "economic darwinism" is as immutable as the law of physics, than you have conciously limited yourself to living and operating with that limited mindset. Frankly, I think that's rather small-minded of you.
Until your theory of of how humans MUST act in this world is scientifically proven, I'm going to act under the assumption that we, as intelligent and sentient beings, can create a better world by acting cooperatively and intelligently and not from crass and petty instincts. As long as we maintain the attitude that "economic darwinism" is a fact of our society, than it will remain so.
And what you fail to mention is the tremendous amount of cooperation that occurs between species to create a more hospitable and survivable ecosystem. To pick out "Darwinism" as the overriding force behind survival is gross oversimplification. Cooperation is a powerful instinct as well, my friend.
$100 = cheap Nikes??? Anyway, I don't care how cheap goods become, they're all expensive when you make crap pay. Also, if prices drop too fast for goods, you run risk of deflation which is beginning to rear it's ugly head.
The bottom line is that all this job shifting leads to instability. Instability, of course, is not good for capitalism. It's good for the handful of high-powered investors who make a short-term killing, but for you and me, it's ruining our lives.
Gee, and all this time I though humankind was a step above a pack of wild dogs.
"Kill or be killed" is not an enlightened guiding philosophy. It is not the principle upon which the United States or any other modern democracy was founded. It's unfortunate so much cynicism exists that this philosophy can become so widespread. It only leads to economic uncertainty, fear, and a life little better than living in a cave wondering how you are going to catch your next saber-toothed tiger.
Aspiring to be a human is not a right, it's a responsibility.
I can use condoms to protect myself from STD's and to prevent pregnancy. So the choice of word doesn't matter much to me. But if you're my girlfriend, well, then you're just getting screwed.
Personal recording technology to become ubiquitous
on
DVRs for Cop Cars
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· Score: 1
I predict that we're not too far off from the day when we'll equip our kids with tiny cameras to wear on their lapels, wire them for sound, wirelessly connect it all to a 40GB IBM microdrive in their pocket which contains all needed circuitry to capture and compress the incoming stream. Then we send them off to school with it. When they get home, we can review the footage indexed by spoken keywords and time, and get a complete and accurate view of their day.
This kind of technology will also be extended to the factory floor and to any other situation where there is a supervisor/subordinate type relationship in society.
You could probably write a good sci-fi novel about this and my guess is that one probably already has been written.
I'm not going to pretend to know what the laws are in this case. It seems that the only law these days is "He who can afford the best, most impressive lawyer wins." Here's some other cynical words of wisdom I've come to believe:
If powerful people get screwed, it's illegal.
If it forces large corporations have to work harder to earn a profit, it's illegal.
If it give the little guy a leg up or levels the playing field in any way, it's illegal.
If it's illegal and you're big and powerful, don't worry about it, you can probably get away with it with little damage to your business or career and keep almost all of you cash minus legal fees.
I think intelligence is the measure of creativity, not reason. Even science is a form of creation because the act of engaging in the practice creates new knowledge and new thoughts.
The act of creation remains squarely in the realm of the metaphysical pheneomena at this point. Even with all of our knowledge of cosmology and particle physics, we still cannot find a cause for the creation of the universe, nevermind the intricacies of how the human mind creates new thoughts.
Not everyone had a car but we still built the highway and road system because it did benefit everyone. If you had things your way, you'd still be pushing your automobile through endless miles of muddy ruts. Your anti-tax, anti-government stance is just plain stubborn, unrealistic and out of date in a complex society.
In the US, the Internet is considered to be a consumer product. So if there's not way to make immediate cash, there's not going to be any technological progress. In other more forward looking countries, the Internet is a collective investment, that everyone benefits from, not just corporations. It's this mindset that has allowed Canada and Korea to pull far ahead.
Particularly discouraging is that the US doesn't even have a policy to get broadband into every home on the horizon while practically all other modern, democratized nations do. We're still waiting for the Free Market Fairy to come along and wave her magic wand.
I thought I remember reading in one of my dusty history books that people who lived in the former Soviet Union had shitty consumer goods and infrastructure because the spent all their money on military endeavors. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I think more scary than the movie industry thwarting technological and artistic advance for their own financial gain, is the fact that powerful interests can literally sneak bills into law with absolutely zero debate. Not good.
I bought a pizza from this new pizza place in town. They use a chemical in the pizza that causes the cheese to evaporate once it gets below 90F in temperature. No more leftovers the next day and so you have to order from them again if you want more pizza.
When I get really frustrated when a program is not behaving just like I designed it to, I often sprinkle my printf/System.out.print/print statements with very foul language. Witness:
printf("What the f***!");
printf("SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII* %d", variable);
Giving a model of a vehicle designed to inflict death and mayhem on people isn't my idea of a great toy for a kid.
Why not give them a mock up of a chemical warfare agent? "Hey, kids, it looks and smells like real sarin gas! Instantly say goodbye to all your friends and enemies in those worthless mock tanks. And because it's colorless and odorless, Mom will never know!"
Perhaps there is a tradeoff to unionized auto workers getting paid 20$ an hour for working basic assembly lines? Or mandatory health benefits for full time workers?
Let's see, the unionization rate is around 12% in the private sector, the lowest rate it's been in 80 years, down from 35% in the 1950s. And over 40 million Americans go without healthcare, an all time high. I think you have it ass backwards, my friend. It's precisely because workers don't have enough power and clout to protect their own interests that we find ourselves in the straits we're in.
Slashdot Mirror
First, there is perhaps .01% of the population who even know what these RFID devices are, never mind the alleged societal dangers that lurk within them. Very few politicians are going to fight very hard to pass a piece of legislation that has so little public spotlight. Most politicians, especially the powerful ones who can sway votes, are media whores. No one is going to get on a network Sunday morning political program talking about RFID tags.
Second, the political winds are blowing gale force in the anti-regulation direction. Any piece of legislation that isn't privatizing workers or loosening government oversight is pretty much dead in the water without some kind of immediate crisis (like the recent corporate scandals). The best that could be hoped for is that congressional folks would say, "let's see what the free market does with these devices first and then regulate them if need be."
Third, Wal-Mart & Co., if there was a miraculous surge in support for this legislation, would easily lobby to defeat the bill or get it placed into committee for further study which would effectively kill the bill. A grassroots campaign would be too disorganized, too broke, and too unsophisticated to ever hope to win such a battle.
I'm not recommending whoever is sponsoring this bill to give up. I'm a firm believer that even losing battles are important to fight because they do raise awareness and keep alive the chance for change sometime in the future.
Well, whenever you place anything on the web, it should always be with the full expectation that the whole world can read it. You wouldn't buy an outdoor advertisement---even one placed on a lightly traveled road---to communicate to a small circle of friend, would you?
A lot of people escape reality by becoming completely engrossed in their day jobs. Except they're not filing bankruptcy like this guy did.
Oh, yeah, I forgot, because that right tramples on the rights of corporations to "own America."
Perl to Java was a snap---the languages are so different. But moving from Perl to PHP is driving me insane. I'm guessing I'm not the only one, am I?
If you believe this "economic darwinism" is as immutable as the law of physics, than you have conciously limited yourself to living and operating with that limited mindset. Frankly, I think that's rather small-minded of you.
Until your theory of of how humans MUST act in this world is scientifically proven, I'm going to act under the assumption that we, as intelligent and sentient beings, can create a better world by acting cooperatively and intelligently and not from crass and petty instincts. As long as we maintain the attitude that "economic darwinism" is a fact of our society, than it will remain so.
And what you fail to mention is the tremendous amount of cooperation that occurs between species to create a more hospitable and survivable ecosystem. To pick out "Darwinism" as the overriding force behind survival is gross oversimplification. Cooperation is a powerful instinct as well, my friend.
If you are going to place cucumber plants on the same plane as human beings, there is no arguing with you.
The bottom line is that all this job shifting leads to instability. Instability, of course, is not good for capitalism. It's good for the handful of high-powered investors who make a short-term killing, but for you and me, it's ruining our lives.
"Kill or be killed" is not an enlightened guiding philosophy. It is not the principle upon which the United States or any other modern democracy was founded. It's unfortunate so much cynicism exists that this philosophy can become so widespread. It only leads to economic uncertainty, fear, and a life little better than living in a cave wondering how you are going to catch your next saber-toothed tiger.
Aspiring to be a human is not a right, it's a responsibility.
I can use condoms to protect myself from STD's and to prevent pregnancy. So the choice of word doesn't matter much to me. But if you're my girlfriend, well, then you're just getting screwed.
This kind of technology will also be extended to the factory floor and to any other situation where there is a supervisor/subordinate type relationship in society.
You could probably write a good sci-fi novel about this and my guess is that one probably already has been written.
If powerful people get screwed, it's illegal.
If it forces large corporations have to work harder to earn a profit, it's illegal.
If it give the little guy a leg up or levels the playing field in any way, it's illegal.
If it's illegal and you're big and powerful, don't worry about it, you can probably get away with it with little damage to your business or career and keep almost all of you cash minus legal fees.
The act of creation remains squarely in the realm of the metaphysical pheneomena at this point. Even with all of our knowledge of cosmology and particle physics, we still cannot find a cause for the creation of the universe, nevermind the intricacies of how the human mind creates new thoughts.
Not everyone had a car but we still built the highway and road system because it did benefit everyone. If you had things your way, you'd still be pushing your automobile through endless miles of muddy ruts. Your anti-tax, anti-government stance is just plain stubborn, unrealistic and out of date in a complex society.
Particularly discouraging is that the US doesn't even have a policy to get broadband into every home on the horizon while practically all other modern, democratized nations do. We're still waiting for the Free Market Fairy to come along and wave her magic wand.
I thought I remember reading in one of my dusty history books that people who lived in the former Soviet Union had shitty consumer goods and infrastructure because the spent all their money on military endeavors. Correct me if I'm wrong.
...the Free Market Fairy is coming very soon and will bestow upon our great nation unbridled weath and abundance. But first, you must believe!
I think more scary than the movie industry thwarting technological and artistic advance for their own financial gain, is the fact that powerful interests can literally sneak bills into law with absolutely zero debate. Not good.
I bought a pizza from this new pizza place in town. They use a chemical in the pizza that causes the cheese to evaporate once it gets below 90F in temperature. No more leftovers the next day and so you have to order from them again if you want more pizza.
Uh, you might want to reconsider believing the story attributed to the Register. The domain name for the Register story is an IP address.
I guess getting sucked into a black hole would be about the coolest way I could think of.
How to be a witless, annoying fuck. 1) See above post.
When I get really frustrated when a program is not behaving just like I designed it to, I often sprinkle my printf/System.out.print/print statements with very foul language. Witness:
printf("What the f***!"); printf("SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII* %d", variable);
OK, fess up, who else does this?
Why not give them a mock up of a chemical warfare agent? "Hey, kids, it looks and smells like real sarin gas! Instantly say goodbye to all your friends and enemies in those worthless mock tanks. And because it's colorless and odorless, Mom will never know!"
Let's see, the unionization rate is around 12% in the private sector, the lowest rate it's been in 80 years, down from 35% in the 1950s. And over 40 million Americans go without healthcare, an all time high. I think you have it ass backwards, my friend. It's precisely because workers don't have enough power and clout to protect their own interests that we find ourselves in the straits we're in.