"You should ask yourself why the EU is the main driving force behind Kyoto. Maybe because they found out Kyoto would actually be a boon to their economy?"
I'm confused as to how you track people with a GPS device. GPS is _passive_. All GPS satellites do is emit a signal. They can't track anyone - the Pentagon has zero idea of how many people are using GPS at any particular time, let alone who they are.
The state could conceivably rig the _device_ to remember where you were, which is a problem, but properly designed, the state could simply have it remember mileage. GPS is very good at determing velocity (and acceleration).
Additionally, if this was a self-reporting tax (ie, show the number on the LCD to the tax man), potential for abuse would also be minimized.
This is not to say CA's idea is a good one, but I get annoyed when people see "GPS" and assume that means they are being tracked.
"I never could come to grips with creating a Department of Homeland Security when we already had a National Security Agency."
The National Security Agency's mandate is nothing at all like DHS's. Not even similar. If you thought about this for three seconds more, you would have also realized that NSA cannot, by law, conduct surveillance on US citizens or on US territory. This would prevent them from doing criminal investigations of any sort, wouldn't it?
This is basically akin to asking why we need the FBI when we have the CIA. The organizations have the same general goal (protect the citizens of the United States), but are supposed to be doing two entirely different things.
Ulrich Windl already released a version of his PPSKit for 2.6, but has refused to add hardpps() until someone else gets a real nanosecond clock into the kernel.
No, it's not. I used to think Linux would be all that and a bag of chips for embedded systems, but working with it dissuaded me of that fantasy.
It doesn't have a nanosecond clock, and there aren't any patches available for the 2.6 kernel.
There's no real-time support without patching the living hell out of your kernel, and then possibly running a mini-kernel underneath.
And, while not strictly relevant, it also doesn't have PPS API support built-in, which means you're also in for a wonderful round of patching to get something even remotely workable for synchronized systems. There's still no hardpps() support, so even that's just a maybe.
If you want something suitable for critical, real-time embedded systems, you'd have to patch the kernel so much that it'd barely look like Linux at the end.
"Ultimately it'll actually be pretty good service."
This time machine of yours - can I borrow it?
The fact is, you have absolutely no proof whatsoever of the veracity of your claim. Let me throw another unsubstantiated claim out: it'll suck, and badly.
"Look at the stranglehold Cable TV has on communities. (oh, sure you can go satellite, but it's still not price competitive because they're pricing to compete with near monopolies)"
What is your definition of price competitive? Your value of some service may lead you to believe it is overpriced, but someone who values said service differently may feel it is a fair price. These companies are competing, and they sometimes do it on price.
If muncipalities insisted on those conditions, cable companies wouldn't bother laying the cable to begin with. Why compete in a city that's hostile to you, when there's a hundred more that will give you whatever terms you want?
First off, there aren't banned books in the USA. So, this entire line of thought has no applicability whatsoever to the case.
But, let's say there were. You are knowingly and willingly providing help for breaking the law. This is called being an accessory to a crime, and you can most certainly be prosecuted for it.
"- A library that contains books on how to pick locks"
I am unaware of any laws against books which tell you how to commit an illegal act, either. Even that infamous "how to hire a hitman" book never got any legal action, AFAIK.
I think the problem is that you're confusing censorship and copyright.
"I thought the courts were supposed to be object and ensure the rights of the little guy weren't trampled on??"
I know this is unpopular to say on Slashdot, but the little guy is sometimes in the wrong. Courts should be protecting the rights of everyone, poor and wealthy, equally. The fact that you have less money than someone else doesn't make what you're saying right.
Objectively, LokiTorrent was aiding massive copyright violations knowingly and willingly. I have trouble understanding how people can get so upset at the MPAA about this. If you don't want to take the punishment, DON'T DO THE CRIME!
"Hold on, the MPAA can tell me what to do when I'm not even American?"
The way I heard it, there might be laws in places OTHER (GASP!!!!) than the US that forbid this sort of activity. The material is, after all, copyrighted worldwide, not just in the US.
So, no, you can't be charged under American law. But you sure as hell could be charged with a crime under your own country's law.
While I whole-heartedly agree that Europe needs to get over their fear of GM crops, I'd argue that farm subsidies do make some sense, and that "sentimality" has very little to do with them.
Two reaons: 1. Stability. You do not want to depend on food coming in from places that are infamous for civil disorder. To a certain extent, this also influences food prices as well. 2. Security. The last thing in the world you want is to have _someone else_ control your country's food supply, at least if you can help it. A naval blockade can't prevent you from eating food grown on your own shores (assuming, of course, you have the gas to distribute it with, I guess).
"because of the unfair subsidies"
The real world isn't a game. There's no such thing as fair or unfair - there's winning or losing, but that's about it.
AFAIK, the Israelis never signed the non-proliferation treaty. Neither did India or Pakistan. You can argue whether this was good or not, but at least those countries are being up front about their intentions.
There's a quote that comes to mind when I read about this stuff: "The American republic will endure until the politicians find they can bribe the people with their own money." -Alexis de Toqueville
Use your imagination as to how you could apply this statement to modern Europe.
"It's all good, in my opinion. Google is, as far as I know, not a monopoly, not going to be a monopoly or even thinking about it. They're putting a product on the market, and fairly competing with it. If they can keep up the fantastic customer experience, I won't stop them personally."
Microsoft didn't start as a monopoly, you know. They were competing fairly with everyone. The problem was when they got into a position to leverage that, they did.
Google is a publicly-owned company. Their current business strategies last as long as their current board of directors does. Do not fool yourself into thinking that "oh, they're different".
You are making the fundamental assumption that encryption is legal over there. I am not certain I would bet my freedom on that assumption, not in China. Even in the West, crypto regimes can range from non-existent to very strict (France used to be very strict, believe it or not).
Not really. Apple's already done their dirty work for them, by helping consumers accept the idea of DRM (aka FairPlay), and thus Apple has got no need to help its competitors. If Marlin DRM ever takes off, it will be trivial for Apple to support it, since it'll be a "real" standard.
If you want to wage war against DRM, I suggest you start with Apple, who's actively pushing and gaining acceptance for it, rather than some new vaporware industry group.
People make stupid financial decisions! Story at 11!
There's really no excuse for this kind of thing except sheer stupidity. I know that Sprint allows unlimited incoming/outgoing SMS messages for $10 a month. This is really no different than a kid running up their parent's credit card a buck a shot to $400, when you get down to it.
As for me, I can't really even imagine sending and receiving 300 SMS messages a month, let alone the 3000 that these kids seem to handle with ease. Maybe I could do it with a Sidekick, but damn, not with a regular cell phone.
Stupid semi-OT question: does anyone have any experience with buying a T608 on eBay and getting Sprint to set it up to work with the network? Any experiences on how good a phone it is in general?
We already do. There's an AP test geared towards Java (and previously, C). Most schools already have some sort of computer class - even my poor and dinky parochial school taught us how to use a word processor, so I would assume most public schools have at least that much. If your kid gets sent to a half-decent school, they will at least have some sort of option for learning how to use a computer.
I think the rest of your question is extremely hard to answer. What are "computer skills"? How do you make a standardized test that can cover all major operating systems yet actually check to see if "skills" were learned"?
Given our school systems' other deficiencies, I would prefer the schools stick with math and English until they understand how to teach those well. There are only so many hours in a day, and most students will be far better served by playing with their computers at home than being taught how to use them at school.
"How many government officials here in America could you actually convince to launch a campaign promoting free software? Not many, if any."
The government has no place doing this sort of promotion. Their job is to use whatever works the best. We have enough problems with ideology in this country - no sense adding more to the fire.
While I know I should never respond to anonymous trolls, the United States of America _cannot and will not_ be going bankrupt within the next decade. Indeed, this is the most idiotic idea I've seen on Slashdot within the past week or so. That's saying quite a lot.
You know how you go bankrupt when you're in lots of debt? That's because you can't find the money to pay it off. You know what the difference between you and a state is? Taxes.
If the US is finding itself having difficulty paying off its debts, it can raise taxes. Seeing as the US government can raises taxes as high as it wants, the chances of going bankrupt are just nil. US treasury bonds are the benchmark for risk-free returns on investment. That's saying a lot, and as far as I know, it hasn't changed in the past year.
If the US government ever goes bankrupt, I'd recommend you go find your old Y2K shelter, because the global economy would collapse instantly. It's obvious that you have no idea whatsoever how much the rest of the world relies on US Treasuries to hedge risk. This is not to mention the _catastrophic_ consquences on the US economy.
Even Congress is not so stupid. I guess Anonymous Cowards are.
Just make PvP opt-in. For 90% of games, this makes a lot of sense, since the _focus_ is not on player vs player combat as compared to simple player interaction. Why force people to participate in a system that they don't particularly care for?
Variant: PvP "zones", which, IMHO, are worse, since you can lure people into them. Better to have opt-in PvP and then have PvP-Free zones.
For that 10% where player killing action is the point of the whole game, if the game is properly balanced so that players at equal level are equally good at combat, level limits would seem to work best.
An alternative system for mandatory PvP games where combat is _not_ balanced level for level: The more a player is killed, the less experience s/he is worth. The more a player kills, the _more_ s/he is worth. This discourages people from getting killed, and encourages people to kill "griefers" (aka, jerks). This works very well in conjunction with no-looting.
IMHO, the griefer syndrome stems from the fact that modern commercial MMORPGs are not RP-enforced. On the best MUDs, this problem is solved to a large extent by administrator judgement ("no assholes on my MUD!" *deletes and sitebans player!*).
Slashdot Mirror
"You should ask yourself why the EU is the main driving force behind Kyoto. Maybe because they found out Kyoto would actually be a boon to their economy?"
Just like software patents, right?
-Erwos
I'm confused as to how you track people with a GPS device. GPS is _passive_. All GPS satellites do is emit a signal. They can't track anyone - the Pentagon has zero idea of how many people are using GPS at any particular time, let alone who they are.
The state could conceivably rig the _device_ to remember where you were, which is a problem, but properly designed, the state could simply have it remember mileage. GPS is very good at determing velocity (and acceleration).
Additionally, if this was a self-reporting tax (ie, show the number on the LCD to the tax man), potential for abuse would also be minimized.
This is not to say CA's idea is a good one, but I get annoyed when people see "GPS" and assume that means they are being tracked.
-Erwos
"I never could come to grips with creating a Department of Homeland Security when we already had a National Security Agency."
The National Security Agency's mandate is nothing at all like DHS's. Not even similar. If you thought about this for three seconds more, you would have also realized that NSA cannot, by law, conduct surveillance on US citizens or on US territory. This would prevent them from doing criminal investigations of any sort, wouldn't it?
This is basically akin to asking why we need the FBI when we have the CIA. The organizations have the same general goal (protect the citizens of the United States), but are supposed to be doing two entirely different things.
-Erwos
Ulrich Windl already released a version of his PPSKit for 2.6, but has refused to add hardpps() until someone else gets a real nanosecond clock into the kernel.
-Erwos
No, it's not. I used to think Linux would be all that and a bag of chips for embedded systems, but working with it dissuaded me of that fantasy.
It doesn't have a nanosecond clock, and there aren't any patches available for the 2.6 kernel.
There's no real-time support without patching the living hell out of your kernel, and then possibly running a mini-kernel underneath.
And, while not strictly relevant, it also doesn't have PPS API support built-in, which means you're also in for a wonderful round of patching to get something even remotely workable for synchronized systems. There's still no hardpps() support, so even that's just a maybe.
If you want something suitable for critical, real-time embedded systems, you'd have to patch the kernel so much that it'd barely look like Linux at the end.
-Erwos
"Ultimately it'll actually be pretty good service."
This time machine of yours - can I borrow it?
The fact is, you have absolutely no proof whatsoever of the veracity of your claim. Let me throw another unsubstantiated claim out: it'll suck, and badly.
"Look at the stranglehold Cable TV has on communities. (oh, sure you can go satellite, but it's still not price competitive because they're pricing to compete with near monopolies)"
What is your definition of price competitive? Your value of some service may lead you to believe it is overpriced, but someone who values said service differently may feel it is a fair price. These companies are competing, and they sometimes do it on price.
If muncipalities insisted on those conditions, cable companies wouldn't bother laying the cable to begin with. Why compete in a city that's hostile to you, when there's a hundred more that will give you whatever terms you want?
-Erwos
I mis-spoke myself here:
"You are knowingly and willingly providing help for breaking the law."
Read that in the context of:
If you provide links to where said books may be found or bought in violation of the law.
-Erwos
"- Hosting a list of banned books"
First off, there aren't banned books in the USA. So, this entire line of thought has no applicability whatsoever to the case.
But, let's say there were. You are knowingly and willingly providing help for breaking the law. This is called being an accessory to a crime, and you can most certainly be prosecuted for it.
"- A library that contains books on how to pick locks"
I am unaware of any laws against books which tell you how to commit an illegal act, either. Even that infamous "how to hire a hitman" book never got any legal action, AFAIK.
I think the problem is that you're confusing censorship and copyright.
"I thought the courts were supposed to be object and ensure the rights of the little guy weren't trampled on??"
I know this is unpopular to say on Slashdot, but the little guy is sometimes in the wrong. Courts should be protecting the rights of everyone, poor and wealthy, equally. The fact that you have less money than someone else doesn't make what you're saying right.
Objectively, LokiTorrent was aiding massive copyright violations knowingly and willingly. I have trouble understanding how people can get so upset at the MPAA about this. If you don't want to take the punishment, DON'T DO THE CRIME!
-Erwos
"Hold on, the MPAA can tell me what to do when I'm not even American?"
The way I heard it, there might be laws in places OTHER (GASP!!!!) than the US that forbid this sort of activity. The material is, after all, copyrighted worldwide, not just in the US.
So, no, you can't be charged under American law. But you sure as hell could be charged with a crime under your own country's law.
-Erwos
While I whole-heartedly agree that Europe needs to get over their fear of GM crops, I'd argue that farm subsidies do make some sense, and that "sentimality" has very little to do with them.
Two reaons:
1. Stability. You do not want to depend on food coming in from places that are infamous for civil disorder. To a certain extent, this also influences food prices as well.
2. Security. The last thing in the world you want is to have _someone else_ control your country's food supply, at least if you can help it. A naval blockade can't prevent you from eating food grown on your own shores (assuming, of course, you have the gas to distribute it with, I guess).
"because of the unfair subsidies"
The real world isn't a game. There's no such thing as fair or unfair - there's winning or losing, but that's about it.
-Erwos
AFAIK, the Israelis never signed the non-proliferation treaty. Neither did India or Pakistan. You can argue whether this was good or not, but at least those countries are being up front about their intentions.
-Erwos
There's a quote that comes to mind when I read about this stuff:
"The American republic will endure until the politicians find they can bribe the people with their own money."
-Alexis de Toqueville
Use your imagination as to how you could apply this statement to modern Europe.
-Erwos
Mind control implants, eh? I'm sure it'd appeal to people who already are mind controlled by their environment and associates.
-Erwos
"It's all good, in my opinion. Google is, as far as I know, not a monopoly, not going to be a monopoly or even thinking about it. They're putting a product on the market, and fairly competing with it. If they can keep up the fantastic customer experience, I won't stop them personally."
Microsoft didn't start as a monopoly, you know. They were competing fairly with everyone. The problem was when they got into a position to leverage that, they did.
Google is a publicly-owned company. Their current business strategies last as long as their current board of directors does. Do not fool yourself into thinking that "oh, they're different".
-Erwos
You are making the fundamental assumption that encryption is legal over there. I am not certain I would bet my freedom on that assumption, not in China. Even in the West, crypto regimes can range from non-existent to very strict (France used to be very strict, believe it or not).
-Erwos
Not really. Apple's already done their dirty work for them, by helping consumers accept the idea of DRM (aka FairPlay), and thus Apple has got no need to help its competitors. If Marlin DRM ever takes off, it will be trivial for Apple to support it, since it'll be a "real" standard.
If you want to wage war against DRM, I suggest you start with Apple, who's actively pushing and gaining acceptance for it, rather than some new vaporware industry group.
-Erwos
What with all this talk of meeting makers and such...
-Erwos
Hack into their unsecured routers and disable the WiFi.
-Erwos
People make stupid financial decisions! Story at 11!
There's really no excuse for this kind of thing except sheer stupidity. I know that Sprint allows unlimited incoming/outgoing SMS messages for $10 a month. This is really no different than a kid running up their parent's credit card a buck a shot to $400, when you get down to it.
As for me, I can't really even imagine sending and receiving 300 SMS messages a month, let alone the 3000 that these kids seem to handle with ease. Maybe I could do it with a Sidekick, but damn, not with a regular cell phone.
Stupid semi-OT question: does anyone have any experience with buying a T608 on eBay and getting Sprint to set it up to work with the network? Any experiences on how good a phone it is in general?
-Erwos
We already do. There's an AP test geared towards Java (and previously, C). Most schools already have some sort of computer class - even my poor and dinky parochial school taught us how to use a word processor, so I would assume most public schools have at least that much. If your kid gets sent to a half-decent school, they will at least have some sort of option for learning how to use a computer.
I think the rest of your question is extremely hard to answer. What are "computer skills"? How do you make a standardized test that can cover all major operating systems yet actually check to see if "skills" were learned"?
Given our school systems' other deficiencies, I would prefer the schools stick with math and English until they understand how to teach those well. There are only so many hours in a day, and most students will be far better served by playing with their computers at home than being taught how to use them at school.
-Erwos
You do realize that dselect and what you are proposing do with apt-get are not the same thing, right?
-Erwos
"How many government officials here in America could you actually convince to launch a campaign promoting free software? Not many, if any."
The government has no place doing this sort of promotion. Their job is to use whatever works the best. We have enough problems with ideology in this country - no sense adding more to the fire.
-Erwos
Oh, no, it's definitely not so easy. But compared to the problems that bankruptcy would cause, higher taxes are A-OK in comparison.
-Erwos
While I know I should never respond to anonymous trolls, the United States of America _cannot and will not_ be going bankrupt within the next decade. Indeed, this is the most idiotic idea I've seen on Slashdot within the past week or so. That's saying quite a lot.
You know how you go bankrupt when you're in lots of debt? That's because you can't find the money to pay it off. You know what the difference between you and a state is? Taxes.
If the US is finding itself having difficulty paying off its debts, it can raise taxes. Seeing as the US government can raises taxes as high as it wants, the chances of going bankrupt are just nil. US treasury bonds are the benchmark for risk-free returns on investment. That's saying a lot, and as far as I know, it hasn't changed in the past year.
If the US government ever goes bankrupt, I'd recommend you go find your old Y2K shelter, because the global economy would collapse instantly. It's obvious that you have no idea whatsoever how much the rest of the world relies on US Treasuries to hedge risk. This is not to mention the _catastrophic_ consquences on the US economy.
Even Congress is not so stupid. I guess Anonymous Cowards are.
-Erwos
Just make PvP opt-in. For 90% of games, this makes a lot of sense, since the _focus_ is not on player vs player combat as compared to simple player interaction. Why force people to participate in a system that they don't particularly care for?
Variant: PvP "zones", which, IMHO, are worse, since you can lure people into them. Better to have opt-in PvP and then have PvP-Free zones.
For that 10% where player killing action is the point of the whole game, if the game is properly balanced so that players at equal level are equally good at combat, level limits would seem to work best.
An alternative system for mandatory PvP games where combat is _not_ balanced level for level:
The more a player is killed, the less experience s/he is worth. The more a player kills, the _more_ s/he is worth. This discourages people from getting killed, and encourages people to kill "griefers" (aka, jerks). This works very well in conjunction with no-looting.
IMHO, the griefer syndrome stems from the fact that modern commercial MMORPGs are not RP-enforced. On the best MUDs, this problem is solved to a large extent by administrator judgement ("no assholes on my MUD!" *deletes and sitebans player!*).
-Erwos